Tag, I'm It.

Well, I've been tagged and I've been putting it off...so here goes!

10 Years Ago

I was just married in August of 1997. Dan's parents were visiting from Portland and his brother Dave and wife Lynette, and they're cute little girl Annie who wasn't yet one, if I remember right. We were living in Dan's grandparents home in Rosepark. I was working for Deseret Book as the Buyers Secretary. That was such a fun job! I worked downtown in the Crossroads mall. I remember just finding out I was pregnant with Hailey. Dan and I had decided that even though we had school to finish and were super poor that it was time to have a little baby. We were both a little worried and scared but felt peace and assurance that this was the right thing to do. It took me a month to get pregnant...Hmmmm. Anyway, we were really excited! Almost right away I was pretty sick and very tired! Dan and I were still adjusting to married life, my horrible cooking, his lack of job, etc... I can't believe it's been 10 years!

5 Years Ago

I had just given birth to Rachel on December 11. Of all my babies, she was the best! My pregnancy with her was hard, though. I suffer anxiety when pregnant and it was really bad with her. I basically laid on the couch with Hailey and Abby snuggling in my side watching movies and appreciating the help of my great visiting teacher Carrie who would bring over goodies and bring in meals a few times. Not many people knew of my anxiety and I'm so grateful for those close to me who heloped me through. Her birth, however was wonderful, I think due to the drugs for my craziness! I actually slept after I had her, where with the others I didn't sleep but only a couple of hours for several days, no sleep at all in the hospital! Anyway, Christmas that year was wonderful! It was in our Saguaro home and just our little family. How I loved that home and neighborhood! I grew so much living there, holding 5 callings, learning the organ, my first garden, 2 babies born while living there, loss of job, finishing basement, and many other things. This was a good time in my life!

1 Year Ago

Well, right at this second I was packing up our house in Portland Oregon. Dan and his dad had opened a business, called a PAR for Primavera (basically a dealership). We were leaving behind a wonderful ward, good friends (I miss you Chi-Wen!) and all the green! I was so excited I could hardly stand it, and I was so sad I could hardly stand it! Have you ever felt those two emotions at once? I made such wonderful friends while living there and I miss them immensely :( As with all of our 10 moves, we've had such good friends and family to help us move. It was Christmas and no one was around to help except Dan's Dad, brother Darren and our good friend Mike Davis. We were so grateful for the help, because we only had a few days to pack and move. I was so excited to see my family! Spending New Years with them and staying with my parents for a month while we looked for a home was cramped but wonderful! My parents were so wonderful opening they're home to us! The kids were excited to move as well, all except for Hailey who left her best friend Kiki behind and hasn't quite recovered in finding many new friends. Anyway, this was yet another big change in our lives! I can't believe we've been here a year!

Yesterday

Hailey, Abby, and Dan got the flu over the last few days and yesterday, they were recovering! We've been in the house all day! Fun, fun, fun :) I did get to the gym and shower but makeup and hair looked like crap all day :) Dan and I watched Ocean's 12 and took a nap. We played the game Blokus (way fun game) and I got mad because he always wins!

5 Favorite Snacks

Well, this is going to sound weird but my favorite snack is salad! I grew up on the green stuff and can't part with it, it's so yummy. I love tonz of stuff in my salad like cabbage, cucumber, kale, carrots, green peppers, celery and no iceburg lettuce, please! I'm not big on dressings but love to put a little lemon and oil and tomatoes are super yummy, especially garden grown! My next favorite snack is my protein shakes. I mix strawberries, soy milk, soy protein and this fills me up and is so good! I love those yummy cuties mandarin oranges. I could eat a dozen every day! Hmmmm 2 more fav snacks...okay, I'll give you the junk I love to snack on and shouldn't, Raisinets are so good, especially the dark chocolate covered ones. Lastly, if there are donuts around I will eat them! I love donuts!

5 Things to do with a Million Dollars

1. Pay off all debt!

2. Buy a huge Dodge Ram truck. Has to be black with a lift.

3. Pay all parents debt and set them up for retirement!

4. Buy Dan a few guns :)

5. Put the rest away!

5 Places to Run Away to

1. I love the library! I go there often to escape.

2. The temple.

3. On a date with my hubby.

4. My Moms.

5. The gym (weird, I know).

I'm looking at my list thinking I should put something exotic, but we went to Cancun this year...I hate going through customs...no fun. I missed my kids the whole time! I'm a local girl:)

5 TV Shows

1. 24 ( still need to watch last season!)

2. American Idol

3. Grey's Anatomy

4. Heroes

5. Biggest Loser

5 Things I Hate Doing!

1. LAUNDRY!

2. Having to plan meals and go grocery shopping.

3. Combing the girls hair.

4. Fishing things out of the toilet that Joe throws in!

5. Cleaning up puke...Dan does puke, I do poop!

5 Joys

1. Being with Family.

2. Reading

3. Running

4. Eating :)

5. Learning new things!

6 Interesting Things About Me

1. I love old movies, musicals and music. Give me anything with Doris Day or Bing Crosby in it or singing it and I'm happy!

2. I love music and have arranged a few hymns and composed a few things of my own.

3. I'm a health nut! Doesn't mean I always eat the way I should but I love learning about new, weird ways of eating healthy, alternative healing, etc.

4. I love shoes! I'm obsessed with shoes! I have to buy a new pair often...sad isn't it?!

5. Big shocker, but my feet! They have to be soft, clean, and always with nail polish on them.

Okay, this took me forever but was a little fun reminiscing, thanks Steph for the opportunity. Now, its my turn to tag.... Laura, Marcie & Traci...and Lynette (that means you have to start your own blog:))

Christmas Day

Christmas Day began at 6 a.m. sharp! Well, Hailey and Abby were up and excited at 4 a.m., but there was no way in h*ll that was going to happen! Abby and Hailey woke up Joe and Rae telling them to go and see how much was out there, they had been in there spying since 4:00. Anyway, the tradition in my family growing up was to read the scriptures and story of Christ's birth, sing a song or two, then line up youngest to oldest to go out to the tree. The kids were seriouly chomping at the bit to get in there and start going crazy! They enjoyed taking there time opening gifts from stockings. Joe opened his Tongue McQueen from "Santa" and was so excited he didn't want to open anything else! Slowly the kids opened they're gifts and it was so fun for Dan and I to sit back and enjoy the excitement and I think reflect back to how much fun it was as a kid! The girls were most excited about "High School Musical 2". Hailey got a bunch of craft things (pottery wheel, markers) and a super fun game called "Blokus". Abby wanted a dog and has for the last two years, but instead she got a couple of plush dogs. Rachel got sparkly shoes and princess things as well as a doll. Joe finally got around to opening all of his "Cars" toys. Dan bought me the new Alicia Keys CD and I got for him the "Shooters Bible".

We went to my parents for the traditional breakfast....we eat everything under the sun, but my favorite was the waffles with ice cream and berries...YUM! We played Matt & Steph's new Wii (super fun!) and played games, ate some more and opened gifts, it was a very pleasant day. We had a little snow on Christmas Eve, for which I was happy. I love snow!

Joes' Tongue McQueen :)
Rachel's Little Mermaid
The line-up Hailey's Pottery!

Abby's Dog & Microphone!

Johnson Family Fun!

This past weekend we had Dan's family at our place for some holiday fun! We had a fun party at Dan's aunt Linda's. We ate, exchanged ornaments and generally laughed a lot! It was such a fun night. This morning (Sunday), we had Dan's moms' traditional breadfast pizza! It was sooooo good! Every year, Mom gives the kids cute jammies, so the kids had fun opening those gifts and wearing them! I love Christmas and getting together with family, staying up late and eating junk. Here's a few Pix.

Hailey's Christmas Choir Concert

Hailey joined the school choir in the fall. She's been diligently getting up early every Wednesday morning to be at choir by 7 a.m. She had her first performance last night and it was awesome! I wish I had video to show you, but I just have pictures. They sang a song from Polar Express, among many others, it was soooo good. They were loud and in tune! They played the bells a couple of times. I was so proud of her!

This past week...

Well this has been a crazy week! How can it not be at Christmas. I went grocery shopping last week and swore I would never go back to the grocery store again...well, at least not until Christmas is over! I was shopping for 1 1/2 hours and in line for another whole hour! It was insane! I left the store seriously ba humbugging! I didn't listen to Christmas music for 3 whole days! Anyway, other than the last minute shopping, it's been a great week. We had Dan's brothers in town this last weekend. Darren, his younger brother is moving here, 20 minutes away in fact. I'm so excited about this! I will have another sister-in-law to hang with. It gets a little lonely hanging out with the kiddo's all the time. Dan's older brother, Dave, helped with the move. It was fun to have all the cousins playing together and visit with everyone for a little while before they all had to leave. Darren and Traci were off to Portland this morning and Dave and Lynette headed back home to Wyoming on Sunday, so it was a short but sweet visit, at least for us.

Last night Dan and I took Hailey, Abby and Rachel to see the movie "Enchanted". This is seriously a great movie! I loved it! The girls were laughing through the whole thing and Dan obviously thought it was just too much cheese! Joe hung out with his Grandma Jeanie and watched Toy Story and ate suckers and grapes. The kids always get suckers or some sort of treat when they visit grandma...I've tried to tell her they don't need all the junk but she insists... you know grandma's, they don't take no for an answer. It usually means "yes" to them :) She's a great grandma and the kids love her!

I joined Facebook a year or so ago and didn't know what that was all about, but I'm hooked now! What a cool way to stay in touch, see pix and know how your whole community of friends is doing! So this has been my little passion for the past few days. I hope everyone who's gotten my URL for this blog is reading, and if not, that's okay, it's fun for me to see what I've been up to. Life gets crazy and I forget what I do sometimes week to week. Keep your comments coming. I love hearing from fam and friends! Hope everyone has a great week!

Happy Birthday, Rachel!

Rachel's 5th birthday was a success! She loved her Princess Cake! She got a lot of fun new princess toys. She had a few friends over and it was a fun little party! She is excited, now that she's five that she can go to kindergarten in the fall. We love you Rae!

High School Musical 2 & Harry Potter!

Let me just say I have a whole houseful of excited people! My kids can hardly wait for High School Musical 2, should I give it to them now or wait until Christmas? It's a tough decision because they haven't even seen it yet! We are still back in the dinosaur ages and have no cable, so they missed the big debut! Also, my hubby, Dan can hardly wait for Harry Potter 5. Not only is tomorrow Rachel's birthday, but these two movies will be hitting the shelves, it's just too much excitement!

Also, speaking of movies, you all need to see "Amazing Grace"! What a fantastic movie! I learned a great deal from this movie and it literally ripped my heart out to see the suffering and sacrifice portrayed in this movie! This is a "must see"!

Downtown Library & New Sunday Clothes

Since I'm getting on here weekly, it seems, there is much to say but not much time to put it all in here! I've been fighting the worst sinus infection I've had in years! I was in bed all day Monday and it even though I felt horrible all day, it was so nice to just be in bed! The kids hung out with me and we read stories, watched movies, ate soup and slept, it was soooo nice! The good old remedy of eating garlic was what actually started to help my sinuses drain and I began to feel much better but it's taken a couple of days to get rid of the smell...YUM! Hailey and Abby started back to school Monday after being off-track for 3 weeks. It was nice to have just Rachel & Joe, but I missed the girls as well! Last Friday, we were finally able to go to the downtown library. We had wanted to go a few times but all of the kids were tag-teaming each other with the flu during they're 3 weeks off-track. I am including a picture of the kids on the elevator. We took my mom with us and, of course we had to go up and down in that elevator a few times before finally getting off at the childrens section! I wish I had more pictures, but my camera wasn't cooperating! My mom has taken my kids to this library since it opened and when we were living in Portland, this was what the kids looked forward to most was going downtown with Grandma with fruit snacks, riding the elevator and reading books in the cool reading rooms this library has! Also, every year my mother-in-law buys my kids new Christmas dresses and a suit for Joe. The kids look forward to it every year! She has such good taste and get's them the most beautiful, quality things! I'm so grateful to her for this and had to include this cute picture of the kids posing by the tree before church on Sunday.

Festival of Tree's

This was a fun day out! Dan finished work early and we headed out to the South Towne Expo Center to look at all the tree's decorated and donated to Primary Children's. I remember in Elementary school going to this event and performing with the school choir. It was one of the highlights of the year for me! It's been so long since I've been, I wondered how much it had changed, but it hasn't. If anything, it's bigger and better! The kids flipped out as soon as we walked in and it was hard to keep them all from running in 4 different directions. Hailey loved all the blue trees and the High School Musical Tree!

Abby wanted a picture by every tree! She found a few she liked as well. She loved the ones with animals on them, horses and dogs and all the tree's with candy on them as well!

Rachel loved the Princess Tree! Go figure!

Joe loved the sports tree's! He went crazy over this cute firetruck tree but I didn't take a picture...dang it!

The we saw the gingerbread houses!!! Holy Cow! These were so cool and gave me some great ideas for next year! I had to take a bazillion pictures, but I'll only post a few and spare you.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving this year was held at my parents house. It was so nice to be with my fam. We also had Dan's brother Darren and his wife Traci and they're kids Emmie and Allyson with us for the week as they are planning to move here in December. They found a home and had they're offer accepted Thanksgiving morning, so they were on cloud 9. I'm so excited to have them here! It was such a nice, relaxing day. We ate and ate and ate. I seriously haven't eaten that much food for a long time and I'm sure I gained a good 10 lbs. My dad makes the best potatoes and gravy and my moms stuffing this year....rocked! My mom got this new karoke machine and the kids sang songs for us, it was so cute! That evening we went over to Dan's aunt Linda's and visited for a while. Joe kept asking if he could ride horses (his favorite thing to do when we go see Linda), but I had to keep telling him it was dark and too cold. We came home and stayed up with Darren and Traci and played games for awhile until Hailey woke up throwing up everywhere! I knew at least one of the kids would. I didn't hold back from letting him eat whatever they wanted, so I was sure one of them would yack it up. Poor Hailey felt so bad for getting it everywhere. Poor Dan was down there scrubbing for at least an hour or more (Dan does puke and I do poop). And Traci was cool enough to help us, I mean who helps someone clean up puke when it isn't they're kids puke. Thanks again Traci for helping us! Other than that it was a great day!

Strep!

So I posted a couple of days ago about Joe's swollen lymph nodes and no other signs of sickness. The doc took a quick strep and it was negative. Well, they sent the test to the lab and found that it was strep! Crazy! My only concern is he's had these swollen lymph nodes for a couple of weeks ago and he's been everywhere...isn't he contagious? The other concern is what if I had not found his swollen lymph nodes, then what? This is strange.

Thanksgiving Day Human Race

Early this morning my Mom, Dad, brother Brent and I ran in the Utah Human Race 5K walk/run. It was so much fun! We're crazy to be waking up early, but we did and worked off a few calories to justify our Thanksgiving Day food frenzy! Mom walked and did it in great time! Dad surprised us all by running it instead of walking it and ran it in great time, right behind me and I've been running for forever! Dad just got the bug, maybe it was from his marathon past. For those of you who were going to run it and didn't, you missed out! There were tons of people young and old and lots of kids. I'm for sure doing that again next year! And to my friend Chels, I was thinking of you and our fun Turkey Trot at the zoo last year, I missed ya!

The flu!

I hate the flu! Joe has had these swollen lymph nodes for a couple of weeks now and we took him to the doctor and the doc didn't seem all that concerned. Let me just say, I love alternative medicine. Sometimes doctors seriously don't know what they are talking about! I take probiotics, which are basically good bacteria and in concentrated form. Yogurt has good bacteria but you have to eat a lot to get what you need. Anyway, I gave him some probiotics, echinacea, vitamin C and I'm doing some research on some homeopathics. Just today, there is a noticable difference. They are going down! Swollen lymph nodes is basically just a sign of some infection in his body. Anyway, I was relieved to see a difference. Well, on top of Joe's weird lymph node thing, Abby started in with throwing up and the "other" and I came down with it last night! It was horrible! Again, the healthy stuff is helping us get over it quickly and Abby is doing well and I'm totally feeling great today. Anyway, I'm just waiting for everyone else to come down with it and I'm hoping it ends before Thanksgiving, because what's the point in eating when your feeling like crap. I'm also doing a 5K walk/run Thanksgiving morning with my sister-in-law Steph and brother Brent and my parents. I'm hoping I'm feeling up to it, considering I haven't exercised at all for a few days and I never miss a day.



Another big stress is yet again my lesson this Sunday for my Mia Maids. It's on "Participating in the Cultural Arts". When I think of cultural arts, I immediatly think of music, because that's what I know. I'm not studied on literature or art and need some help! I was thinking of reading a famous poem of some kind to the girls and/or showing a famous piece of art and talking about it with them. Any ideas?

Microwave Popcorn!

This is a cool site! I just found a way to make your own Microwave Popcorn any way you like it. Check it out:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Microwave-Popcorn%3a-Home-made%2c-cheap-and-easy/

Traditional Candy Houses!

Brent's space ships

Cortnie's Christmas Villiage
Dad's Retirement Community
Shawn's Bee House

This is a super fun tradition the Ballard family started years ago. Living in Portland these last two years, we didn't get a chance to participate with everyone in this fun tradition. So, I was super excited to do it this year. We made these houses at my parents house. Brent and Cortnie came along with Steph and the kids (Samm, Parker, Aubrey, & Haven). Shawn came a little later and we were excited to see him too! We had such fun! All of us adults helped one of the kids and then they played while we made our creations. Some of us think about this way in advance, while other just start creating! It's so much fun to see what everyone comes up with. It's also fun to see the in-laws creating each year. Dan's now been doing this for 10 years and his houses are really getting neat! The kids were so much fun to watch! They ate candy like it was going out of style and this is one of those times when I just let them eat as much as they wanted!