Eight is Enough

Just a note to all of my faithful readers.......I am going to be pretty pre-occupied the next 10 days while caring for 2 extra kids. Our friends are going on a cruise and Caleb 3, and Ella 1 are going to be staying with our family.I will get to see what it would be like to have two 3 yr olds and a 1 year old. Caleb and Ella are coming this morning . We are really excited. I know I will be busy and might not have time to get on the computer.
All 10 of us can't all fit in one car so I doubt I will be going anywhere exciting.(: We will be home playing and hanging out.
:) I really should buy a 15 passenger van. It is time to break down and ditch the suburban and go for the "church van" look.
Rita

Mr. McGregor's Garden

My kids love the story of Peter Rabbit getting into Mr. Mc Gregor's garden. Kathryn set up a "garden" for the boys to try and eat from before she "got" them like Mr McGregor tries to get Peter. They loved it.

I love kids imaginations.

p.s. I don't think the banana and the lime were part of the story , but it's o.k. (:

Cooking with John

Does anyone recognize what this is exactly? It is our preffered method of cooking with John around. The KNOBS must be removed after setting it to the correct temperature. We have had many things put on LOW(150 degrees) or BROIL(500+). I am usually doing my other prep for dinner when I smell something smoking or the timer goes off and everyone is on their way to the table when I realize the dinner has been set at 150 degrees for the past 25 min and is still raw!!!
Anyone need any help in the kitchen? He is free for hire.......out of the goodness of my heart.(:

Oh yeah...this is what a loaf of garlic bread looks like BEFORE it even gets to the oven with my 6 kids around. This one is not JUST John's doing.

Joy School at the Treehouse

Johhny Jumper is in Joy School. There are 5 little 3 yr old boys in the group. The five of us Moms take turns teaching each week. Last week I took the kids to the Treehouse Museum. Here are a few pictures. We dropped our camera and now it is fuzzy. Sorry.


John was eyeballing the glass cabinet with the German display.I saw his mind working on how he might break into it.

Pictures from the Aspen Grove avalanche and others...

We ended up getting a few snap shots from the marriage retreat at the beginning of February where we ended up snowed in. At about 6pm on Sunday night, we were allowed to file in behind a UDOT snow plow and follow that truck down the canyon. Here are a few of the photos from a cell phone camera showing the snow and the plow truck leaving Provo Canyon:









Here are some pictures from the day before of Aspen Grove in the winter. It's a fun treat to go there when it's quiet...





This last photo is the SWIMMING POOL at Aspen Grove! They have a cover over the pool and this is the snow that's been built up around the pool and pool house this year!

We are glad that we were able to make it back home that day.

80's Rock Songs Are the New Oldies

CNN Headline News today proclaims that 80's rock hits are now making it to the "Classic Rock" stations.

So in order to commemorate this feat in age, I offer the following video link:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1duac_everybody-wants-some-better-off-dea_creation

Kids, you don't know what you missed out on.

:-)

What would we do ?

What would we do without our daughter? On Valentine's Day she was so sweet and decorated our bedroom with rose petals, candy, and a card. By the way...our camera got dropped and now the pictures are all fuzzy. So who knows how long you all will have to wait for some more STUNNING photographs of our children. Try not to cry. (: kidding.
Rita

She left the movie Jane Eyre on the bed with the remotes for us to watch. She is so sweet.

My baby is growing up

I know I have not posted in a while. This time I was NOT reading Joy of Cooking in the rocking chair. I have been busy with Valentine's Day and a long weekend. Our kids had their first "teenage" party. It was really fun..... but, I don't know if I am ready for this. Alex woke up last week and decided he likes girls..... He is 14, but he is my little Alley Cat.): He came home after school on Monday and asked if he could talk to me alone. I was so thankful to be "home" when he needed to talk to me.Thanks to my wonderful husband I have always been able to stay home with our kids, which we believe is EXTREMELY important in this day and age.(By the way I do know there are circumstances that do not allow that to happen for everyone. Please don't anyone take offense)

He started taking a shower and brushing his teeth 2X daily without reminder and asked me to take him to the store to get some acne wash, acne cleansing pads, and body spray. He DOES NOT have bad acne at all and has been blessed with my skin.( NOT that I am bragging, but I really had very few problems with acne.) He was so sweet asking me to take him to the store. I am so thankful he felt like he could ask me to do that for him. I really love being with him.

He got together with a group of friends on Saturday that was a mix of boys and girls at a friends house. As Chris was driving them around to and from home he told Alex we could have his friends over on Monday for a party at our house. SOOOOOO, I have never seen Alex care if the house was ready for a party. He was begging to deep clean the basement on Sunday night. He moved all of the couches, sorted and put away 8 loads of laundry by himself, and had tables set up etc etc. It was so cute. He and Katie did a combine party with a lot of their mutual friends. Chris made awesome homemade pizza ( Joy of Cooking recipe) for lunch. They had about 10-12 kids show up and had fun playing games, listening to music, and watching movies. The funniest part was that they never came upstairs to talk to "Mommy". Alex would usually have been nervous and asked me to help entertain them. It was a turning point for all of us. I am thankful for all of the great families that live near us and have children to be friends with our kids. They go to school and church with some wonderful kids.

Alex is excited about the dance coming up in a couple of weeks. He had fun at the Valentine's dance and is looking foward to dancing with GIRLS again. I did tell him NO KISSING until he is 22yrs old!! (:

p.s. I guess Katie is growing up, too. On Valentine's Day an older boy (14), and also a friend of Alex's brought down a mini cherry cheesecake he had made for her. He was ssssooo nervous when I answered the door. He was so cute. She was not home at the time. He is an awesome young man that I wish I could "freeze" for her to marry on 10 yrs.

Family Home Evening

For those of you who may not be familiar with the Latter Day Saint religion... we are asked by our leaders to set aside Monday nights for a "Family Home Evening". That means no other committments, phone calls, etc. Just a night all home together. Here is our chart that helps us rotate responsibilities. Of course everyone likes having "activity" and "treat" the most. Steven made brownies (from scratch) this Monday. What a stud! He served them with peppermint stick ice cream. Here is a picture of Johnny helping make dinner (lasagna).

Ryan did a cool activity with paper sacks with different items in each one. You had to reach your hand in without looking and guess what you thought it was. We had some funny guesses. In the bags he had 1. YEAST 2. SHREDDED CHEESE 3. AN ARMY GUY 4. KATIES SOCK. It was so cute. Our kids are so creative. We love them so much. They make us smile daily.

Daddy( CHRIS) gave a lesson on "CHOICES" We had a good discussion with the kids....even though the little guys got a little hyper at times.We had to sing a few fun songs in the middle to get their wiggles out.

Hot Tubbin'

Yesterday I heard John in the hall bathroom and had an instant panic attack. I knocked on the LOCKED door and he opened it smiling. He said, "Mommy, I am playing hot tub." Here is his version of "hot tub". I was just so relieved it didn't include t.p., shampoo,or any of Katie's personal items. Luckily my camera was in my pocket and not floating in the sink like last year!

Ry Pie

Ryan is such a funny little guy. This is him making toast on a typical morning. Hey Mom ( Gramma Betsy) notice his sleeper p.j.'s UNDER his shirt. He has not taken those off since you sent them.(only to wash them every 5-6th day. YUCK)

We are sick of snow

Here is looking out our garage. Backing out of the driveway can be a challenge when you can't see either way because of "snow walls". Luckily I had" Desmond Rd. driving school" to help me back out of slim spaces. The opening of the driveway is JUST big enough to get the suburban out.

Got mail??? Well you won't get any from our mail man unless you "dig out" your mailbox. See that roof? ???Chris has had 2 sessions (in his spare time) trying to shovel it off and has only gotten a small fraction of the roof cleared.It is over 2500 sq ft of roof with a couple feet of PACKED snow.


Good thing we don't have dogs in the dog run!

I've been busy!

A sincere apology to both of my TWO faithful readers of our blog. I have been too busy to write this week. Just kidding...I am not sure how many people read my blog....I will ONLY know if you make comments. (hint hint)

Seriously, I have been busy reading my Joy of Cooking cookbook. My bother-in-law, Tony gave it to me for Christmas probably 10 yrs ago and I have LOVED that thing ever since. I never get time to sit down and browse through it. So this week my house was a little crazy and I had major cabin fever....I said to myself,"What the heck! I am doing something I like for once."I was sick of picking up the same crap over and over and over and over and over.I had had it!!! I sat down in that rocker and read through that book from braising meat to frying catfish to glazing donuts.

As I was reading I was getting bummed out realizing that 98.4% of the recipes I read were NOT going to give me a body like Jennifer Garner, but one more like Edna Turnblad ( in Hairspray,John Travolta dressed up like a 350 lb woman). Then I started thinking that I am HOPING in Heaven we will get to eat Sourdough bread with a ton of REAL butter and it will be the same caloric content of fat free sugar free tofu stir fry surprise!

By the way....my spell check is not working!

This one's for Betsy

Hey Mom, Here is our driveway. (and Chris) He is SICK of snow!!!! I'll post more later. Love ya.

Well, We Are STILL At the Marriage Retreat!

It's almost noon on Sunday and we should have left Aspen Grove right now, but due to an AVALANCHE at Sundance, we cannot get out yet. Yes, you read this right...an avalanche has covered the road in the canyon and we're waiting on UDOT to plow the snow out.

So the staff that works on this hill full-time drove up to our cabin and told us all of this and said that we should move our stuff over to the main lodge that has the generator. Luckily, Rita and I had brought food and drink with us for Sunday morning and we are now in the main lodge watching KBYU TV, the weather, and I'm catching up on the blog. Luckily we have not lost power yet and the heat is working.

Another good thing is that we have a wonderful woman watching our children and house-sitting. She's the best and the kids seem like they are doing well. Unfortunately, it sounds as if they are also stuck on the hill since the snow plows have not cleared the road back home either.

We have a full kitchen here at Aspen Grove, and the guy that runs the lodge on the weekends says that he'll feed us if this goes much longer. He's the main cook that lives up here with his family, and the FOOD IS GREAT. So I guess if I were to be stranded anywhere on a mountain, it would be here.

We'll keep you posted.

Pictures coming!