A new sand box!

The other day my wonderful sister, Kelli, called me to say that they were giving away a sand box at her work and wanted to know if I wanted it. Of couse I said yes! I'm not dumb it is a free sand box. She said that we were entered into a drawing for the sand box. I didn't think much about it after that. I never win anything, so since Kelli was getting this for me, there was no way we would get it.
Well I got a call from Kelli today that she won the sand box. (She always has the best luck!) Then she tells me that all the sand is on a big tarp at her work, and she's not sure what to do with it. Well being the resourceful women that kelli is she went and found trash bags to put the sand in. Then she called my dad to pick it up for me-she always knows the right thing to do! Well it took Kelli an hour or more to shovel all the sand from the tarp to the trash bags with her HANDS!!!!! (What a women!) Then my dad brought it all the way up to layton for me!!! So now we have an unassembled sand box sitting in our garage. I can't wait for Darin to come home from work today and see this nice suprise for him! Thanks Kelli for thinking of us this week! It really means a lot to us!!

Now for an added bonus I have some fun video of my dad playing around with my kids! Isn't he the best grandpa!!!

Back to school night

Last night was Back to school night for my very cute preschoolers! It was so much fun! I got to meet all of my new students and their parents- and some old students that i had taught before. I'm so excited for this new school year to start! It will be so much fun! I am still teaching two classes. A 4 year old class in the morning and a 3 year old class in the afternoon. I'm really looking forward to this year. It will be my third year teaching and I feel that I finally know what I'm doing!

Wish me luck!

There are Angels among us!

You know the saying "when it rains, it pours" Well I feel like this last month we have had trials "pouring" upon us. I have often felt that I don't know how i'm going to be able to deal with certain things that have been thrown our way. But somehow there has always been an Angel sent our way that knows just what we need to be able to get through the moment! I have had many Angels lately who have saved me, and they may not even know it, so I thought that I would take a moment and thank some of my Angels that have helped me get threw this last month.

* There has been my three sisters who have ALL offered to watch Gage for me while I teach school. (yes natalie and jessica, you are my sisters, not my in-laws!)

*There was my neighbor who dropped by unexpectedly to give me a hug.

*There was a member of the bishopric who set me apart to do my new calling in church who happened to give a blessing that I needed very badly that day-he doesn't even know me or my problems, but he knew exactly what to say!!!

* There are all of you who have left a nice comment on my blog that i read when i'm having a bad day.

*There is my mom who always knows that right thing to say- and the right time to come take my kids away!

*There was my dad who dropped everything he was doing to come try to fix my broken garage door, and when he couldn't do it, called some repair guy to fix it- he also ended up taking the day off work to come wait at my house for two hours for the fix it guy to come and tell me i need a new garage door opener.

I know that there are many more Angels out there that are helping me everyday! So thank you all very much!!! I'm so glad that I'm surrounded by a loving family who I know that they love me and will ALWAYS be there for me! Thank you Angels!

*here are some pictures of my dad teaching my kids how to golf when he came up to wait for the repair guy! Yes my kids are still in their pj's and it was around 11:00 a.m. I told you we are having a tough month! Love me anyway!

Sleepless Nights

This week started out with Gage getting a runny nose on sunday. I thought at first that this was just because of the snickers bar that my mom gave gage and he threw up (he is allergic to peanuts). I just thought that a runny nose was a side effect to throwing up or something. (by the way mom, I love you!) Well then comes Monday night. At about 11:30 Gage starts coughing like he's got croup. I Still did not think that anything was really wrong with him since he does have asthma. So I gave him a asthma treatment and sent him back to bed. Then all day on tuesday, his asthma gets really bad. We are giving him treatments every 3-4 hours. This even went on all through the night. But he also starting throwing up all over, and he got a fever. So i finally sucked it up and called the doctors office AGAIN! I didn't want to go in because i knew he would tell me that gage had a virus that needs to run it's course and just do treatments as needed. Well when we got there the doctor got concerned about what he heard when he listened to his chest, so he ordered a chest x-ray to see if he has pnuemonia (sorry about spelling). Have you ever had your little child get a chest x-ray? Talk about breaking my heart! They sit him in a tourture divice, have them raise their hands above their head and strap them in real tight so they can't move. Then they make them sit there for like 5-10 minutes while they are screaming so the can take the x-rays and get them developed! Well anyway it turned out he does have pneumonia. Can you believe that. And I almost didn't take him to the doctors. We still have to do treatments every 4 hours for a few days, but then we should be able to get some sleep!

Wow sorry that this post is long and boring. You probably don't care. But I've been up late and needed to vent, so thank you!!

New Ward

A few weeks ago my stake decided to redo the ward boundaries.  Well we ended up being put in a new ward where I hardly know anyone.  My new ward is called the pleasant hills ward.  Last week we went to our new ward for the first time and I was so amazed!  There was so many people in this ward.  We came from a ward that had maybe 20 kids in primary to a ward that now has 93 kids in primary!  There were so many people in relief society that every seat was full! (That never happened in the other ward).  So I thought to myself, "well at least I won't get a calling for a while, since no one knows me."  I thought that I would be able to hide out and be shy and no one would learn my name, so no one would be able to give me a calling.  Well boy was I wrong.  This past week I was called in to meet with the bishop.  I was told to bring my husband as well.  This made me really nervous!  Never has Darin had to go with me to get a calling!  In my mind I was thinking that this was going to be a really big calling!  After meeting with the whole bishopric I find that they want me to serve as the Young Women 2nd counselor.  Boy was I relieved!  I almost jumped for joy.  I have always wanted to be put in the Young Women program. so yes, I'm way excited about this calling!  I will be over the cute beehives that are still excited about Young Women's.  So if anyone out there knows of cute, and fun activities that I can do with the youth let me know!  I'm on the lookout for some great ideas!

Cooking Exchange

Some of you have been asking about our cooking exchange that has been mentioned in some comments on my blog. Well here is all the info that you want to know!

When I went to studio 5 with my mom she got a free book while we were there. The book is called "girlfriends on the go". This book is all about making and exchanging meals. (which you can buy at Desert book or other stores like that) Well we decided that this would be fun to try out. So me and my mom and my sisters all got together for a cooking exchange. We cooked 11 meals together:

*Beef and cheese quesadillas

*Cheesy rigatoni bake

*Ham and potato casserole

*Souvlaki marinated chicken skewers

*Stove top chicken casserole

*Pizza braids

*Lemon chicken

*Teriyaki chicken stir-fry

*Chicken cordon blue

*Cheesy crescent roll breakfast casserole

*Sweet and sour meatballs

The cool thing is that we made all of those meals to feed a family of four people (there were 5 families-so basically to feed 20 people) and we spent just under $50.00 for each family! How cool is that!!! 11 meals for 50 bucks! I'm way excited about this! We have decided that this is going to be something that we do every month! This is going to be so much fun! Not only will my family have something good to eat for dinner, but that means a whole day to spend with everyone in my family every month. It was so much fun to cook, hang out, chat and laugh with the girls today!

Here are some pictures from the fun day!

Kelli has been trying to teach MyKelle how to do "peace with lips" for a while now. Yesterday MyKelle finally made the peace sign with her fingers instead of the loser sign. We were way excited about this!
These beautiful ladies are my sisters (and me) This is SOME of the food that we cooked. The rest was in a cooler.
This was what everyone got to take home to shove in their freezer to cook for another day! Wow look at all that food!
This was everyone that participated in our first annual cooking exchange! If this didn't answer the questions that you had about the cooking exchange let me know! I would love to talk about it some more! :)

Our Daily Battle

Every morning MyKelle will wake up crying about the buggers in her nose. She says they hurt her nose, but she doesn't want to pick her nose. Which is really weird since I have seen her finger up her nose a lot!! I go and get toilet paper for her to blow her nose into, but that isn't good enough. She wants ME to Pick her nose for her!!! I know she is my daughter and I will do anything for her, but not that!!! So Gross!!! She cries and throws a fit for a good hour every morning, and sometimes in the evening as well. Does anyone know any other ways to get her nose clear in the morning without me picking her nose? I need help, or I'm going to go crazy!

Studio 5

My favorite morning show is Studio 5 which airs on channel 5 (duh) at 11:00 a.m. I have been watching this show for a few years and have just loved it. I about died when my mom told me last year that Brooke (the STAR of the show) was in her ward. Well my mom took her young women to see them film the show today. When I heard that she was doing that, i invited myself to her party and I was glad that I did! When we got there I was like a kid in a candy store on a major sugar high!!!! I ran around their little studio and took pictures like crazy. My mom even got a free recipe book from the lady that did their cooking segment! Here are some pictures from the fun day!

This is me and Brooke. (yep we are on first name basis now!)
They did a lipgloss segment. This isn't zoomed in or anything! They were standing right in front of us! So COOL!
This is my mom's young women (and me and brooke)
This is Daren he is the other host on the show. I know that the picture sucks, but he possed and everything! It had to go on the blog!
That's us in the chair they sit in! Kinda blurry. I think I need a new camera!


This was the film crew
So much fun.
This is me and the "cooking lady" That chicken was really good!
This is them actually filming!

It was so much fun, and i'm so glad that my mom let me tag along! Thanks mom!

My daughters' wonderful talent!

With the release of Stephenie Meyer's new book "Breaking Dawn" I thought that it would be fitting to let you know about one of MyKelle's talents. She loves to make up stories! She makes up stories from ghosts to stories about princesses. With her having the chicken pox and us stuck in the house we have started putting one of her stories in a book. She thinks that it is the coolest thing. I keep telling Darin that when she gets older she is going to be a Journalist, and write books. Maybe even be the next Stephenie Meyer. He's not so sure about this because "she won't make a lot of money". But anyway the story that we are writing right now is about a princess named Raw-gee. (sounds like froggy, but with out the f). Raw-gee tries to find her prince, but can't find him anywhere. So she goes to lay in her bed because she is so tired. when she wakes up her prince is there! So they go do whatever they want to. They go out and "get cast into a fire" when they escape from the fire they get buried in dirt. Then a "scary creature" comes after them, and then some rocks fall on them, and then finally they all live happily ever after.

She has such a great imagination that she doesn't just think of stories. She also writes her own songs. Lately they are about her chicken pox, but they have also been about "mean mommy" and her little brother that is always taking her toys away.

She even has a wild imagination when it comes to things happening every day. For example we went to McDonalds a while ago with my family for breakfast. As we were leaving Adam stuck his head out the window to tell her bye. And this is what she said, "Mom if Adam or anyone does that they will get their head cut off! Then they won't be able to talk, and they will go to the doctors and say "fix me", but they will not be able to fix them. So they will bleed and bleed and bleed. Then they will die and go and live with Heavenly Father and Jesus. But then everyone else will be lonely because some will stay alive and we will all be sad."

I love that MyKelle loves to tell stories! And even if she doesn't become the next Stephenie Meyer, I hope that this will be a passion that she enjoys doing later on!