Payton's birthday

Here is Payton on her 7th birthday. Instead of having a cake though she opted for brownie cupcakes, and I am glad that she did, YUMMY!!! It is alway fun to have the family over and to see the cousins with eachother. I hope that is something that my kids always want to do, is be with family. Todd's family all lives very close to us except for one sister in Oklahoma, and half of my family is here in Utah and the others are in Arizona and Texas. The reason why I mention this is that last night we were watching the Super Bowl (way to go Saints!!) and Riley was on her phone texting the entire time to her cousins, both here in state and out! I am happy to see that she is developing her relationship with her cousins even if it is via text!

Lainie's birthday

So we successfully had Lainie's birthday party on the 4th. I am happy to say that even though we had Christmas 2 weeks earlier, we were able to get her 4-5 things that she genuinely loved- and the gifts from family were perfect! It goes to show that all they really need is the attention and a cake!
So now we have Payton's birthday on Sunday and I hope that we can have another success even though Payton is much harder to please! Wish us luck!
Baylor was invited to go to St. George with a kid from his class this weekend that I have never met or talked to before yesterday. We are letting him go and surprisingly enough, I am not worried about the family he is going with, just the drive down there and back! I will admit that I have become much more anxious about driving lately (not me driving, just the idiot's driving with me) and I don't know why. So if he makes it down and back safely, it will be a success!

New Years Tradition

So for the last 3 years we have gone to our neighborhood park and pulled the kids on a sled behind one of the 4-wheelers! We have been lucky and there has been snow, so we will keep up this tradition as long as we can, but I think that we might need to find a new place to do it!

I was pulled on the sled with Payton and of course Todd dumped us off on purpose, so I was home changing when they all came in telling me that a policeman stopped them and told them that "a fun-hater" had called us in! I can't believe it! I thought we lived in such a cool neighborhood!

Oh my goodness!!

I cannot believe that it has been over a year since I have done anything on this! I swear in my mind it has only been a couple of months! Anywho... since it is a new year, it will be way too hard to play catch up on here, so I will just have to start from today and move forward!!

Christmas was great! Here is Riley, Lainie, Baylor and Payton showing us their favorite gift this year! Riley is now 11 and we caved and bought her a phone (well Santa did) and I have to say it is kindof a good thing. Now she doesn't want mine, I can reach her when she is out, and now I have something to hold over her head to keep all of her A's in school! Baylor got an iPod, and Payton and Lainie both got Baby Alive dolls which I thought was a great gift until Lainie informed me that she didn't want a baby that peed!

I really don't enjoy New Years, and actully I think this was the first time in 5-6 years that I was awake at Midnight!

Having Lainie's birhday one week after Christmas (January 1st) makes it really hard to find her any gifts! It just seems like overkill! And then Payton's is two weeks (January 16th) after Lainie's! I have screwed myself on this until they are married! CRAP!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! I hope that everyone had a great Christmas Season, and that you are ready for 2009! Christmas was great this year. The kids are at the age that they actually play with what they get, either because they are old enough to play with the toy and not just the box or paper it was wrapped in, or they get what they want and so they are happy! We did one big joint present for the kids (we caved and bought a Wii) and then they also got a few little things. It has been great! I think the only time the Wii is turned off is when they are sleeping!
Now the fun begins for our house, you see we have 2 birhtdays in 2 weeks! The fun part is now, trying to figure out what to get them for gifts! We cannot possibly out do Santa!

This is our families 3rd year of getting together to make lunches for the homeless in downtown Salt Lake City. It started out as a Young Womens project for my niece and has kept going from there! The kids love doing it. It is a great way for them to realize all of the blessings that they have. Even though when we are putting the Ding Dong's into the lunches, Baylor says "No fair! The homeless are so lucky to get Ding Dong's!" I hope that is stays a tradition for many many years to come!

Backing Up

So I need to back up to June, to Riley's birthday, so that you have the whole story with my next little adventure in life! Riley got a dog for her birthday! It was all she asked for and so it was all she got! Riley is 10 and so we figured old enough to have a pet! She has been great with the new responsibility and totally loves her dog! The dogs name is "Cookie" (we adopted her at a year old and so the name came with the dog) and she has been great! Until two weeks ago when she discovered my neighbors garden!
We didn't know where she was one afternoon, and so the kids and I went searching all over the neighborhood, just to find her next door! Now, that's not the problem, the problem is that she eats all the rotten veggies in the garden and comes out completelycovered in burrs!!! I have had to cut almost all of her hair off with kid scissors! Cookie is a ShihTzu, so she has longer hair (or did, until I had to cut off her little beard, part of her tail, all the hair on her paws and under her chin!) I feel so bad for her, she is a total of 9lbs. and needs all the insulation she can get now that it is in the 30's, but the stupid dog won't stay out of my neighbors garden!
The picture included is when we first got her, so now just picture her with longer, patchy hair!