Welcome to being 30...the age of Wisdom...blah...blah...blah

You know, I've always thought 30 was the age of maturity! The teens were full of just plain rebellion, 20's were full of learning from our mistakes of the teens and 30's were when we can finally live life because we understand it.....boy was I wrong! I feel the same....no smarter, or wiser or more mature....LOL I have had a fun birthday, thanks to my family and my wonderful husband. Saturday we woke up to go hiking. We hiked the first small part of "White Pine" in Big Cottonwood Canyon. Usually there is some snow midway up, maybe 2 or 3 miles in but there was snow from the trail head. It had just snowed some the night before, so there was a little dusting of snow everywhere and it was chilly but not frigid and it was so beautiful! My mom, brothers Brent and Matt and their families came. The kids had fun throwing snow balls and sliding in the snow. I had so much fun!

Later on Saturday, my family came over for a BBQ and jumped on my new trampoline, yes you read it right MY new trampoline :D I have wanted one for a long time and that's what I asked for and Shawn, my koolzorz brother helped me put it together, just he and I on Friday. So the kids jumped and we ate and I jumped to my hearts content, heaven knows what the neighbors thought of my ridiculousness, if thats a word. It was a fun day!

Today, I woke to my two beautiful daughters, Hailey and Abby singing "Happy Birthday". I loved it. I grew up having my mom and dad sing Happy Birthday to me on my Birthday about 50 times! I sort of miss that :D Dan isn't a big singer, so it brought a few little tears to my eyes to hear my sweet kids sing to me and they sang a few times to me during the day. When Dan came home from work, he brought my two fav pizza's, vegetarian and garlic chicken from Papa Murphy's. I rented a few movies earlier today and we watched them tonight and now I'm just blogging, my favorite past time and something I don't do nearly as much as I'd like. It's been a good year, lets hope I'm a little wiser as I approach 40 and that "maturity" I seek will finally settle on me then :D

Baseball Bug

Joe and Dan lately have been playing a little ball in the backyard and Joe is getting pretty good! I took a couple of video's of him hitting the ball. Don't mind my crazy screaming in the background. I, of course, am the silly mom that sounds like a dork in all the home video's...LOL

Pre-School Graduation

Miss Shelley's preschool ended for Rachel this past week. Rachel has loved her teacher and friends and learned so much from Shelley. Her graduation was so cute! She signed her name, sang songs and we watched a cute video presentation of all the field trips and activities the kids participated in this year. I was so proud of Rachel! She is so excited for Kindergarten and Shelley helped her prepare for it and I am so grateful to her for that! Rachel started pre-school very shy and hesitant to go. She was very clingy and though she'll always be a little apprehensive about change, she is much more confident and excited to try new things. Congratulations Rachel on graduating preschool! We love you!

Mavala Stop

Okay, I know this may sound weird, but if you have thumb or finger suckers, like 3 of my 4 kids, then this is the stuff for you! Within one week my kids stopped sucking fingers and thumbs. My Abby who is 7 was the worst of all. It was constant and nothing I've tried worked. I tried socks on hands and rewards with money and nothing seemed to work. This stuff worked miracles! Thanks to Lynette, my SIL for telling me about it, I am forever indebted to you and your awseome dentist!

My Special Day

I woke up this morning to french toast, apple juice and 3 beautiful girls smiling at me, ready with hugs and kisses. It was a wonderful surprise! Dan always makes my birthday, our anniversary and Mothers Day the best days of the year for me. He goes ALL out! Yesterday Dan took Hailey with him for a couple of hours and brought home a beautiful display of spring flowers. I had been resting with Abby who had not been feeling well and came out to see him putting away a massive amount of yummy food and a big gift on the counter and those beautiful flowers. I'm a huge sucker for flowers :) I had such a wonderful day, with all the beautiful pictures and cards the kids and Dan gave me and my gift was classic...a big tub of Red Vines, Jujy Fruits, 2 brushes and weight lifting gloves. Dan told me Hailey picked them all out for me. Red vines and Jujy Fruits are obviously my favorite candy! The brushes made me laugh because every morning I yell through the house for the girls to bring me my brush! The weight lifting gloves are for the fast that I'm a weight lifting monster these days. The poor kids ask me every morning "do we really have to go to the gym?" I feel bad that they don't like it, but it's an hour each day for me to somehow maintain good health, you know with the red vines and jujy's on the side...LOL.

Church was wonderful as well. Great talks and a beautiful musical number the youth sang, and I had the privilege of being able to accompany them. Our lesson in Young Women's was on Temple Marriage and we had some great discussion, how I love my calling and these girls who are 14 and 15! How I pray for them to be morally strong in a world that is morally disintegrating!

Dan ordered me to go lay down while he made a beautiful dinner! He made the best Jello ( I love Jello, yes I know that's weird), and a beautiful roast, with mashed potatoes and asparagus and rolls. Dan is a great cook. He bakes a yummy peach pie for later and then he and I took a nice long nap after dinner. It was such a nice relaxing day.

We just got back from visiting my parents and wishing my mom "Happy Mother's Day" She really is the best Mother! I hope someday I can grow up to be just like her. You know as you grow into adulthood you find that most adults are pretty human, but my mom still is as sweet and patient and kind as ever. I never hear a cross word from her about anyone! She is empathetic and understanding and I don't know what I ever did to deserve her.

I hope all of you had a very special day! I can't wait to hear about yours :)
It was such a beautiful day, I made the kids take this picture with me.
These flowers smell so dang good!


Dan and Hailey making dinner. I love how he always involves the kids.

Spring Trip to the Zoo!

I love the Zoo! We've been trying to go for a couple of weeks now, but it was soo busy, we couldn't even park the first time, and the second time, Hailey had been throwing up the night before we were going to go. We finally made it! My SIL Traci lives close by and we both got memberships for the year and went. It was soooo much fun! It wasn't too warm, just right, in my opinion. We took a trip on the train and then the kids wanted to see the elephants. I haven't been to this Zoo since we moved here a year ago, and hadn't seen the updates they had made and it was really neat! Most all of the animals we had wanted to see were out. The kids did great and had lots of fun together. I can't wait to go again.

The Donation

One of my biggest tasks each day is to brush Rachel's hair. It is beautiful, so straight and silky smooth but hearing her cry everyday is more than I can bear and I'm sure more than she can lol. So she wanted a haircut and I've been putting it off hoping we can work out the 'kinks' with her long hair, but it was finally time. So we took her in to Great Clips and found out she had enough to donate! She was excited to help other little girls have beautiful hair, like her. I love her new haircut...it's so fun and soooo easy!!! Yes!