Welcome Home!

They're back!  They came home last night.  The flight came in at 8:22 pm, and we met them by baggage claim around 8:30ish.  We had the kids make posters and decorate their house at 5:00 yesterday before we headed up to the airport.

Since there are 18 grand kids trying to make posters, we found them throughout the house coloring.  Including outside.

Amy brought over a 15 foot roll of butcher paper to hang on the outside of the garage.  It was really windy, so we ended up hanging it inside.  We had all the grand kids and adults put their handprints on the poster.

After getting the house all ready with balloons and streamers, we all headed up to the airport.  We got there about 1/2 hour early, so the kids were starting to run around.  They were all very excited to have their posters and balloons.

I guess we were making enough commotion at the airport - a man came up to us asking if we were there for a missionary homecoming.  I used this conversation as an opportunity to have him talk the entire group picture.

We told the kids to wait by us for Grandpa and Nana.  Once they saw them coming down, all of the grand kids ran screaming for them holding their posters.  It was so great to see so many little kids running to their grandparents.  Jennifer would not let go of Dad. 

Eric is at the age where he was more interested in playing with his cousins than seeing Grandpa.

Today we went to their house to have a BBQ in between the sessions.  It has been so nice to see them.  They brought all of us some Mongolian presents.  The big hit with the kids was a Mongolian puzzle.  Eric has been trying to solve it most of the night.  Diane got all the girls a necklace with our names in Mongolian.  We also got a wood carving of Captain Moroni - with a Mongolian face.  They also gave everyone some sheep ankle bones to play a game with.  The Mongolians used every part of the sheep.  Dad told Aubrey that if she rolled 4 goats, then she had to go to bed.  When we came home Aubrey was rolling the bones.  She reminded me what Dad told her about the 4 goats.  I told her that I should roll 4 goats because I was so tired.  She said, "That's what I'm trying to do!  I am SO TIRED."  She was so sweet during conference.  She wanted to play conference bingo so bad.  Dad's t.v. isn't working upstairs yet, so I turned on the radio for her.  She had her ear right next to the radio listening for the words.  She ran up to Dad one time asking what a 'wife' was - hoping it was on her sheet.

This morning Dad took me, Justin, Nathan and Devin on a drive to see where they are going to build their house.  When we got to the lot Dad goes, "I just love the view."  Across the street from their backyard is a garden nursery store.  He could walk to get his plants for the garden/yard.

Friday night Justin spent the night at our house.  In the morning when Jennifer woke up she came downstairs and told Justin, "I wake up!  A monster eat my hair!"  Apparently it was pretty traumatic.  I have heard her tell other people that a monster was eating her hair.  Saturday afternoon, I was making some treats for Sunday's BBQ, and I hear some clopping on the floor.  Jennifer had taken off all her clothes and put on my high heels.  That stinker.  I had to bribe her to get dressed the 1st time.  I guess she wanted more candy.  Not doing that again.

Date night

I have a confession.  I absolutely LOVE the Food Network.  I love almost every show.  I love how the chef's have a reason to put every item on the plate.  I love how the judges try to get every flavor that is on the plate into each bite.  (In Iron Chef or Chopped.)  Zac and I don't go to nice restaurants. Ever.  It's pretty much a money issue.  It's hard to justify spending that much money on food.  With our tax returns, we decided to do something for ourselves (after paying BORING bills) and go on a date at the Tree Room at Sundance. 

We had Eric take our picture before we left.  When we were standing, the picture made our legs look huge and our heads look small.  Eric is at the wrong angle for taking our picture.  So we had to kneel down for the picture.  We dropped the kids off and headed up to Sundance.  Neither of us had ever been to the Tree Room, but I have heard great things about their steak. I started writing down on this blog everything we ordered, then realized it was probably only interesting to me and Zac.  It was amazing food though.  Everything that I hoped for with all the flavors and we branched out and got several items that I would have never ordered and they were delicious.  Our table was right by the tree in the restaurant and the fire was right next to it.  The wood was crackling as it was burning.  Wonderful atmosphere.  After our almost 2 1/2 hour dinner we headed outside.  I wanted the dining experience to be our date.  I was pleasantly surprised that we were there for so long.  It felt like we were only there for a short while.  We never felt like we were waiting forever on food. In fact, we ordered SO MUCH food, that the second we were finished with our plates, the waiter was bringing us another one.  When we were finished and made it outside, we saw that it was beginning to snow.  I love the smell of the mountains mixed with the smell of the fire and food. 

Aubrey really wanted to get in our picture.  Zac told us all to make funny faces.  Looks like I creamed everyone in that category.  Jennifer is a close second.  We had a great time socializing last night too after our date.  Thanks again Cliff and Amy for watching the kids!  In other news...I won my work's Biggest Loser competition.  We had an 8 week competition.  It was close.  Overall I lost 8.54% of body weight, and my closest competitor lost 7.96%.  I am super glad I won. 

Jennifer recently loves to sit on the wipes box.  She will find it and sit on it to watch t.v. or draw.  (Don't mind the mess on the ground.)

 

Since Zac and I were getting our picture taken by Eric, Aubrey and Eric wanted their picture taken as well.  As soon as I snapped their picture, Jennifer comes running from the family room saying, "Me too!"

 Jennifer then wanted a picture taken with just me.  After I snapped the picture, I turned the camera around to see how it turned out and saw that Eric had slithered his way into the picture.

Zac has been working at my co-workers house painting this weekend.  He wasn't able to finish up yesterday in time because of our date, so he had to go back today to finish up.  So I had all 4 kids by myself at church today.  I had my primary class to teach, Aubrey was giving the talk in Sharing Time, and Zac needed to take the van.  Good times today.  Good times.  If Aubrey didn't have her talk - this definitely would have been one of those Sunday's that we just didn't show up.

Lily is getting bigger every day.  She normally cruises backwards in the walker.  I was doing dishes in the kitchen and she was chasing me around running into the dishwasher, or the back of my heels.  She is now becoming a pro at moving forward.  She loves sticking out her tongue.  She has also started doing a fake laugh.  It's pretty funny.  She kept on running into me fake laughing.  She is growing up so fast. :(

Happy birthday Aubrey!

Aubrey is turning 6 years old tomorrow!  We celebrated it tonight because it was easier than tomorrow.  Devin was able to come up for Aubrey's birthday dinner and cake, so we ended up opening her presents and singing her happy birthday.  Yes, the candles are in bread.  If I haven't mentioned before, I like them blowing out their candles on bread vs. the cake.  This way none of their SPIT get on the cake from them blowing.  We had to try this in 2 takes.  As soon as we lit the candles, Jennifer came running over and blew 1/2 of them out before Aubrey got a chance.

Aubrey requested cheeseburgers, homemade fries and strawberry shortcake for dinner.  It was delicious!

She got a bicycle helmet to go along with her new bike for her birthday.  She also got a new barbie doll, pez, Nintendo dsi game (she really wanted a "donkey kong saves the princess game") and gum.

Eric had his last basketball game yesterday.  He has really improved since even last week with his new basketball hoop.  He has been outside shooting hoops almost every night practicing.  Last night I amazingly got Zac to watch the BYU game on t.v.!  Lily fell asleep on me while I was laying on the couch watching the game.

Not much else has happened this week.  Here is our "Sunday" picture this week.  I also took pictures of all the kids right before bed.  All were cooperative except for Eric.  He did not want his picture taken.

Disney on Ice

For Aubrey's birthday next week she wanted to go see "Disney on Ice."  So we celebrated early and I had a Mom/Daughter date with her this past Thursday night.  She really wanted to dress up like Cinderella.  We stopped at McDonald's for her happy meal dinner (her favorite meal) and we headed up to Salt Lake.  

 She REALLY wanted to ride trax, so I parked at my worked and we walked 1 block to the trax station and rode it to the Energy Solutions Arena.

She wanted me to take pictures of the entire date.  When we were on trax she turns to me and says, "This is the BEST NIGHT EVER!"

She spent some of her birthday money from my Dad on this wand.  She just HAD to have it.  It spins and lights up.

She was so cute during the entire performance.  She gave me bios on all the characters.  For example, Jafar (sp?) came out and she says, "Mom!  That is Jafar.  He is in LOVE with Princess Jasmine and wants to kill Alladin.  Mom!  That is Captain Hook.  He lives in Never Never Land and wants to kill Peter Pan.  Mom!  That is a troll doll off of Toy Story.  He didn't have a very big part though."  Her eyes were lit up the entire night.  She participated with the entire show.

On a different note - Zac was on the phone yesterday and he heard Jennifer upstairs.  Seriously?!  I didn't even know we OWNED orange nail polish.  Does anyone know how to get nail polish off the walls and dressers?  That girl!

Doing Better

Lily is doing a lot better since my last post.  The next day her fever finally broke.  Her ears don't seem to be bothering her at all.  We still need to do the breathing treatments 3 times a day for another week.  She still hates them.  Lily is still wheezing a lot, but it hasn't gotten any worse.  She has now lost her voice, so it's cute/sad whenever she is cooing or screaming.  She loves this giraffe that she is sucking on in the picture.  Particularly the giraffe's ear.  I know she's feeling better if she is chomping away at that ear.  We had a big round of sickness in our house though.  Zac, Eric and myself all got the stomach flu or something like it.  All at the same time.  Horrible week.  I took off 2 days of work trying to get better.  We have been painting our front room and kitchen.  We were trying to get it finished before the weekend.  So while we were sick, Zac and I would take turns painting until we felt like we were too dizzy and needed to lay down.  I think it is safe to say we are all finally on the mend.  We have been washing and disinfecting like crazy hoping we get this sick bug out of our house.

Zac gets bored easily at our house.  We finally finished painting on Friday.  Today he decided he needed to shave the cat.  There was so much cat hair!  I am allergic to cats, but luckily he never comes upstairs to our room.  We let him outside at night, but he has gotten so hairy that he leaves little clumps of hair wherever he walks.

We have been wanting to paint the interior of our house since we moved in.  Our entire house is one color - beige.  Last weekend, before we knew how sick Lily was, we went and got some paint to start this project.  We painted the front room and kitchen a pale yellow with 2 accent walls kind of a mustard yellow.  Zac even took down our cabinets in the kitchen and painted behind them.  We did the base boards a bright white.  As we started putting all the tools/paint brushes/ladders I noticed something on 3 walls.

Yes.  My little artist JENNIFER has already marked up the walls.  When I saw it, I called out to Zac to stop putting the paint away.  I told him to come look, and we hear Jennifer yell, "NO DAD!  No look!"  Then she ran up to her room, slammed the door, locked the door, and hid under her bed.  I think she knew she was in trouble.

I tried bikram yoga yesterday.  It is yoga in 115 degree room.  Right when you walk in the room the heat hits you hard.  I had a hard time breathing.  As soon as I got used to the heat, I loved it!  After about 10 minutes of doing yoga, the instructor had us grab our ankles.  I didn't think I was that hot yet, but when I bent over to grab my ankles, I literally had sweat coming out of every pour.  It was insane!  Each session is 90 minutes.  By the time we were done, my clothes were SOAKED.  I signed up to do it for a month. :)  So the other kids wouldn't feel left out, here is a picture of them.

Sick Lily

We found out yesterday that Lily has RSV.  She is borderline for them to admit her to the hospital, and Zac talked them into letting him bring her home and having her breathing equipment dropped off.  She is absolutley miserable and HATES the treatments.  She also has an ear infection on top of it, which has been causing her to have a fever.  The doctor sounds pretty confident that we are going to have to admit her.  The hospital called me last night to do the pre-admit paperwork, and the doctor gave Zac the paperwork for the hospital so we don't have to go to the E.R.  Zac thought the doctor was being a little overly dramatic, but she told him that babies her age 'tank' really fast and we need to be able to act quickly.

We had a LONG night last night.  Since she can't breathe well, she was up almost the entire night.  I'm hoping she will do better today.  Her fever finally broke this morning - so it looks like the antibiotics for her ear infection have started to work.

I had her 6 month picture taken last week when she was feeling good.  She is such a sweet little girl.  We are all sad that she feels so horrible and pray she gets better fast and that we don't have to admit her in the hospital.