Memorial Weekend

So it's been awhile since my last post...I figured I should post some pictures so Dad will remember what the kids look like. :)  Zac's been good at taking pictures, I just have been too busy to post them.  Zac has been taking Eric out shooting more frequently.  He says Eric is getting to be a really good shot.  When they don't have enough time to go out and shoot the "real" guns, Zac sets up soda cans in the backyard and Eric and Aubrey will shoot the BB gun (under Zac's supervision of course).

Zac watches the kids on Friday, since he doesn't have to go to work.  Friday's are when Jennifer gets into things.  She is not allowed on the bunk bed by herself.  She has fallen down the ladder several times.  Zac couldn't hear Jennifer playing, so he went into the kids room and saw her on the top bunk watching t.v.  The next picture is what she looks like when she prays.  Another Friday experience is Jennifer getting into the Desitin aka butt cream.  All over her face and inside her mouth.  Lovely. I think Zac needs to pay a LITTLE more attention to her when he watches her.  She hasn't gotten into any markers/cream/bunk beds/etc while I am home. 

Eric turned 7 on May 23rd.  Wow!  He really wanted a chocolate cake for his birthday, and he wanted Zac to make it for him.  For some reason the cake overflowed in the oven so it's not the prettiest looking cake.  Eric thought he could fix it with the decorations.  He really wanted to go to Chuck E Cheese for his birthday.  Zac HATES that place.  So we went there, spent only $5 on tokens between Eric and Aubrey, and were out of there in 15 minutes.  The kids were just excited they got to go.  Eric is REALLY into Legos right now.  He bought 2 lego sets with the birthday money from Grandpa and Nana Powell, and he got another Lego set from us.  He got a Lego castle from Grandpa Nielson.  Lego's are the best babysitter.  Eric spent over 10 hours at the kitchen table putting together all his sets.  He wouldn't leave, and he was SO QUIET the entire day.  He was really proud of himself for putting together the castle all by himself.  The box said ages 8-12, so he made sure we knew that he was only 7 and did it all by himself.  At Christmas, for some reason, Eric really had his heart set on getting a dolphin pillow pet.  Of course, he doesn't say anything to anybody until Christmas when he didn't get one.  So I ordered one for his birthday back in April.  I got an e-mail 2nd week in May saying they were on backorder.  Really?  Dolphin pillows are in THAT high demand?  Luckily it came right before his birthday.

I went to South Carolina again for work last week.  Unfortunately, it was during the last week of school, so it's busier at home than usual.  Zac really played super Dad well - except for doing the girls hair.  Aubrey had her dance recital.  I tried to tell him over the phone how to put her hair in a bun, and I guess it look ridiculous.  I'm glad he at least pulled it back into a ponytail.  The owners of daycare on the 2nd day asked Zac if I was out of town again.  Zac said yes - and they responded by saying they could tell by the girls hair.  Zac said Aubrey did great during her dance recital.  Jennifer really likes to dance also, so he spent a lot of time calming her down during the show, I'm glad he was able to get some pictures for me.   She did a ballet dance and a jazz dance. 

Eric's class gave out the 1st grade awards.  Zac took a long lunch to watch it.  Eric received the Pony Express Riders Award (he worked on it all year) and the Best Boy Smile Award.  It's funny how they make up awards for kids.  I started thinking back and one year I got the "Loudest Singer" award.  Now I'm not so proud of it.  Nathan said that one year he got the "Smallest Bladder" award.  Eric was excited for the award though.

This weekend we headed down to Spring City for Zac's family reunion.  This house the kids are sitting in front of was built in 1894 and Zac's great-grandparents (?) lived there.  It is now called the "Osbourne Inn" and is a bed and breakfast in Spring City.  Every year during Memorial Weekend the city puts on home tours, and this house is always open for tour.  The kids had fun exploring the house. The night before we headed down, Eric woke up saying that his stomach was going "bakka bakka bakka" so he must have the chicken pox.

Zac always asks me when he cuts Eric's hair if he can give him a mohawk.  Zac convinced me to let him do it for just Sunday and he would cut the rest off, he just wants to see what it looks like.  So here is Eric's mohawk.  Nice and redneck.  Goes great with the guns, and the old car in our garage.  

Since Zac is at work all day today,  I loaded the kids up and went to Mom's grave.  Thank you to whoever already put flowers on her grave.  I wasn't expecting to see anything, and her grave was covered.  We got to the cemetery right when they were putting on the Veteran's Service.  Eric loved watching them and the music.

More updates...

Since my last post was so short I thought I better give more of an explanation of what's been going on with our family.  First off, for those surprised about my announcement, only immediate family knew that we were expecting, and I only told them a couple weeks ago.  Since this is our last, we thought it was kind of fun to have a secret between the two of us.  Plus, we wanted the time to seem like it went by faster this time for our kids.  They also only found out a couple weeks ago.  So I really hope no feelings were hurt, that wasn't our intent. :)

Eric wrapped up his basketball season, and we were sorry excuses for taking pictures.  We only brought the camera for one game, and then we forgot to take pictures until the last quarter.  I have his team picture, but I don't have the scanner hooked up to have it put online.  He really had fun, and so far this was his favorite sport.  Good!  I don't mind watching basketball or baseball but soccer is TORTURE for me!  (Sorry Lisa!)

Aubrey turned five on March 21st.  All she wanted was a swim party.  So we reserved the "pool party room" and invited kids from the neighborhood and daycare.  They had a great time!  I don't think I will do that again though...it was WAY to hard to try and watch all the kids in the pool and make sure they were safe.  I was grateful when the pool had us all get out for 15 minutes to do a "check" on the pool.  Whew!

Jennifer loves markers.  If she finds one, she has either eaten it or drawn all over her face.  Yes, she still does this!  We now have thrown away every marker we can find, and she will still pop up from behind the couch or come downstairs and have new artwork on her face.  The other Saturday Zac and I were looking for Jennifer.  It was time for her nap.  I came down to the family room where the other kids were playing really loud, and saw Jennifer all asleep on the chair.  She even had her blanket on her!

Zac and I got more soil delivered for our yard.  In addition to my regular garden, I am starting my strawberry beds, grapes, and having better "landscape" for our yard.  I also decided to become a site coordinator (on top of everything else!) for Bountiful Baskets.  Zac is helping me find a site for Eagle Mountain with the City.  Last week I got:  1 pineapple, 1 cantaloupe, 5 sweet potatoes, 8 cucumbers, 3 zucchini, 1 lb strawberries, 3 bunches of asparagus, 1 head of cauliflower, 1 head of Romaine Lettuce, 8 Fuji apples, 10 tangelos, and 7 bananas all for $15!  It literally filled up an entire laundry basket.  They do this every week, and if I coordinate the site for the delivery truck and the baskets for Eagle Mountain, I get my produce for free.  Plus when you help, you always get the "extras" too.  They also had cases of mangos for really cheap.  The company has a co-op with farmers and get amazing deals.  They are a non-profit organization and one of the attorney's that I work for, his wife helped organize this thing.  I went for the first time last Saturday and LOVED it!  The kids love all the fruits and vegetables too.  Every week it changes, and you never know what you are getting until Monday when you sign up for a basket.  Anyways, I'm really excited about it obviously. :)

Baby No. 4 is a girl!

We just got back from our ultrasound this morning and found out we are having another girl!  First words out of Eric's mouth are "DANG IT!"  At least he will never have to share a room when he is older!  We are excited though - we already have all the clothes we need for her. :)  She will be arriving the first week in August.

Aubrey's Ski Race

I know I've been horrible at blogging lately. I even made blogging one of my New Year's Resolutions - and have yet to do it. I'm even worse at taking pictures. Zac will grab the camera occasionally, or tell me to grab it, but it's not that often. Plus our internet is sporadic at home, which makes it hard to blog.

Aubrey's been skiing with the daycare since the beginning of January. They go skiing at Park City twice a week for 1/2 days. At the end of their ski lessons they have a ski race. Zac and I were able to take off work to watch Aubrey.  The ski resort wasn't able to put up all the "gates" this year for the race, only weird soft poles in the ground that they had to ski around.  During the "practice run" Aubrey did fabulous!  She went around all of the poles.  Then, when it was her official turn, she just took off straight down the mountain.  She definitely got the fastest time!  She was going so fast, that after she crossed the finish line, she kept on going and finally fell down to stop herself.  I asked her why she didn't go around the poles and she said she got nervous.  It really is fun watching all those kids go down the hill.  Afterwards they had a big pizza party for the parents and kids.  Aubrey grabbed her slice and plopped down in the snow.

 

Eric is in Jr. Jazz basketball this year. He still looks pretty awkward out on the court, but at least he's having fun. During the games, all the kids wear wristbands with a color on them. They are suppose to guard the kid on the other team with the same colored wristband. The first game, Eric was guarding his "match". This boy had the ball and Eric was standing behind him with his arms out. I told him to try to steal the ball, and he decided to give this boy a HUG from behind. Eric had this huge grin while hugging this boy. It was really embarrassing to watch. Then when Eric had the ball, this boy ran over to him and punched him in the face. He still likes to play though.

I have been really busy with my calling - it's calmed down some now that the holidays are over - but there were some weeks when I wasn't home at all. Zac has been great watching the kids. I came home after one of my meetings and saw this:

I went to South Carolina for work a couple weeks at assignment while in line, still excited that I get to sit in 1st class, and it said seat 2A. Yes! Then I handed my tickets and license to the security officer. She looked at my license, held it under a light, looked at my ticket, and let me go through. While I was waiting at the gate, I looked at my tickets again. They didn't add my frequent flyer number. Oh well. Then I glanced up at the name. Completely different name! They gave me somebody elses tickets and I made it through security! I went up to the gate counter and told them what happened, and turns out, the guy had canceled my reservation and now the flight was full. By this point, I pretty much demanded a seat on the flights since I could have lied and sat in 1st class. They were able to get me on the flights (pretty much the LAST row on each flight). The kicker? The person that I had the ticket for didn't even show up. I could have sat in her seat. Dang honesty. I felt bad for her if she couldn't check in, but I got to the airport 3 hours before my flight (it was delayed), so it still gave her 3 hours to check in after we discovered the mishap.

I started taking a gardening class at Thanksgiving Point. It's taught by the KSL newsradio gardening guru. Now that Dad's in Mongolia, I felt a little lost about my garden. The city called up Zac about our building permit stating that it has expired now, and they are ready to do the final inspection. Zac asked them for some more time, and they gave him 2 months. So Zac is frantically trying to finish our ENTIRE basement in two months, because Zac is not about to pay for that permit again.

So Zac and I have been talking about getting a van for years.  I hate it when my kids swing open our car doors and ding the neighboring car.  Not to mention that we've had 3 kids in the back of my Impala for 1 1/2 years now.  So on Tuesday, Zac heard an advertisement from a dealership that they would give us 125% of the trade-in value.  We've been trying to get rid of his truck.  So, he decides to take it in and see what they would give us.  The dealership had their appraiser or something there and wanted to take a closer look at the truck.  Zac had to get back so he handed them his keys and they let him take home one of their cars, and told him to come back that evening.  Apparently during that gap, someone came into the dealership and wanted to buy Zac's truck.  So when Zac came back, they were not about to let him walk out of there without selling him a van.  It was high pressure sales at its finest.  Zac is usually pretty rude and abrasive when we go to dealerships, he doesn't let them really talk.  Of course, I'm always there with him.  I had my gardening class that night, so I just told him to give them their car back, get the truck and come home.  It's Zac's first day looking for vehicles and he just wanted to get an idea of what was out there.  When I got out of my class, Zac was calling me telling me this "deal" they were giving us on the van, but he didn't know what to do.  I told him to COME HOME and sleep on it!  There is always tomorrow, the van's not going anywhere.  He came home that evening and said he ended up buying it.  What?!  I hadn't seen it, it wasn't even the style that I wanted.  So he called the dealer back and said he wanted to cancel.  Nope.  But it was a 1/2 hour ago!  Nope.  But there is a 3 day law!  Nope, not for dealerships (and I had this checked out by 2 attorneys at my work.)  We were stuck with it.  So I asked him, "Well, what are the features on the van?"  He replies, "A steering wheel and four tires."  Zac, being the car guy that he is, was so flustered that night, that he couldn't even tell me if it had cruise control, etc.  Normally, he goes over the cars that we have purchased with a fine tooth comb, and memorizes where every ding and dent is in the car prior to purchasing.  So the next day at work, I had an attorney at work look through the contracts that Zac signed, and he said we are definitely stuck with it.  The bright side?  We have a van, and our payment is considerable less than the truck.  We were able to trade in the truck for more than what we owed, so we did get a credit towards the van as well.  And I like the color.  It's a cross between royal blue and dark blue.

Today, as Aubrey was heading up to Park City with the daycare, the director overheard Aubrey say to one of the kids, "Do I look different today?"  "No, why?"  "Because we got a van last night!"  The kids are excited for the van...except Jennifer.  I put Jennifer in the middle row, and Aubrey in the back row.  The entire way to daycare this morning Jennifer was screaming for Aubrey.  Aubrey kept on telling her to be quiet and that she's glad she's not by her (Jennifer) anymore.
Now enjoy some random pictures from the past few months. :)

San Diego

Zac's birthday was last week. I got an amazing deal on hotel/rental car and I had frequent flyer miles I could use for a free flight. So I decided I wanted to surprise Zac with a weekend get-away in San Diego. I coordinated with Bobby to watch the kids for the weekend and booked the reservations. There was so much drama that went on from the time I booked the flight, to when we went on the trip to keep this a surprise...all mainly the week leading up to this weekend. Number one...Fort Hood. The Utah soldier that died in the Fort Hood massacre was going to be buried at Zac's park...on Saturday...and he's the gravedigger. Problem. Zac told me he was the one burying him, and how it would only take 20 minutes. We got in a "discussion" about this because I couldn't reason with him as to why he couldn't just go into work for 20 minutes. He couldn't believe how "unreasonable" I was doing, and it was the least Zac could do for this fallen soldier. So I crossed the line - and e-mailed his boss, without Zac's knowledge. His boss was very kind and the next day instructed Zac that he has worked too many of the Saturday burials, and he has got this one covered. After-the-fact I did confess to Zac that I e-mailed his boss, and luckily he was alright with it. Number two...the night before we leave, right when we are falling asleep, Zac goes, "Hmmm....my drivers license expired last week. I should get a new one." Oh my. How can we get him on the flight without him knowing what's going on? So I snuck downstairs and got his social security card and birth certificate and put it in the bags I had previously packed. Number three...I had dropped everything off for the kids at Bobby's the morning before, when I dropped Eric off for school, and put our bags in the trunk of the car so Zac wouldn't get suspicious. There were so many other little things, and people I had to coordinate things with to make this happen. I was golden...up until 2 minutes before we were leaving. Zac thought we were going out to breakfast and Bobby was watching them for the day, and if they were good, they could sleep over. We had the kids ready to go, everyone was getting their jackets on, and Zac proceeds upstairs to brush his teeth. Ummmmm....I packed the tooth brush in my purse about ONE minute before that! So he caught on right then that we were going somewhere. After we dropped the kids off, I told him to go back home, I forgot my jacket. He goes, "Ya, Park City is real cold this time of year." So at least the destination was a surprise.

Right when we got to San Diego, we headed over to Coronado Island, where Zac grew up. We ate lunch there, shopped, and went and saw the house he grew up in. As we were driving by his high school, we saw the one teacher that made an impact on him growing up. After we were done with Coronado, we headed to Imperial Beach, then back up to Carlsbad where our hotel was. After we checked in, we headed over to the Carlsbad Outlets.Saturday, we started out driving up to Knotts Berry Farm, then went to several beaches, then headed back over to San Diego to eat dinner at the Gas lamp quarters, and ended the night at Ocean Beach on the fishing pier. We were on the pier for about 20 minutes when people had already caught a sting ray, baby shark and lobster! I couldn't believe it! I wanted to take a picture, but Zac thought I was being ridiculous. We flew back early this morning, just in time for church meetings, and the primary program. Aubrey did a great job. Eric wouldn't even stand up.All in all, it was really nice to have a vacation without the kids. We haven't been on one since we've had the kids. We had a fabulous time! Sidenote....this is what happens when Zac watches the kids....Jennifer in particular. She climbs ladders, and eats markers - and he takes pictures.
The end.

Halloween

What a LONG week! Jennifer has been so sick! I took off work 1 day, and Zac took off 3 days. She has had fever between 101-104 all week. She finally broke it on Thursday, but then got it again on Friday. That is when we discovered she was also breaking in 4 molars! Miserable! The doctor just told us to "treat the symptoms", so that is what we have been doing. I had Zac take her out trick-or-treating with the kids to give her some fresh air. Yes, I tied a ribbon around the nose of the alligator/dinosaur? so people would know she was a girl. Zac kept her in the stroller the entire time anyways. I had the luxury of staying home and passing out the candy. I made some yummy caramel apple cider, popped some popcorn, and attempted to watch some shows that I had recorded. It took me 2 hours to watch a 1/2 show because every time I sat back down on the couch, my doorbell would ring again. I now understand why my Mom would just sit on the front steps on Halloween to pass out the candy. For some reason, I thought I would have a really relaxing night at home.

So our ward got new boundaries a couple weeks ago. 5 minutes before Sacrament starts, the Bishop called me in. He released me from both of my callings, then asked me how busy I am. I told him that I was extremely busy, that I hardly have time to breath some days. He gets quiet then says, "I believe the busier you are, the more blessings you will have." Great. So he called me into the Relief Society Presidency. I felt REALLY overwhelmed when I picked up about 15 boxes from the old counselor of stuff, NONE of it organized. Really. There was stuff in diaper boxes, the binders didn't have the sheets in them because her kids got into it, etc. After we had our first presidency meeting, I left feeling a lot better. I didn't really know the President or the other counselor, they were from the other ward. But I really connected with them in the meeting, and feel good about the calling now. Even as busy as I am, I can make it work.

We were able to see Dad and Diane at my house last Sunday. The MTC allowed them to come up and see all of us while they were getting their family history books. I didn't tell my kids they were coming, so they were really surprised. It was good to see them. Even though it has only been 2 weeks since they started serving, it seems longer when you are "not allowed" to call or visit them anytime you want. Hopefully they will get their visa's soon so they can start serving in Mongolia.