Reagan had a birthday!

The year long wait for her birthday finally came
and now the countdown has started all over again!
However next year it will be doubly exciting, because next year she will get baptized!

Last fall at the Cavemen Kickoff we bought a few raffle tickets. We ended up winning a princess party for 8 to the Capelli Institute of Hair for up do's and fingernail polish. We hung on to that gift certificate for 9 months so that we could use it for Reagan's birthday! I found the cutest invitations at Walmart that said, "Doing it up big!" It had a cute picture of a girl with an up do and tiara on. I thought it couldn't be more perfect for her party!

I was crazy busy the week of Reagan's party with Teacher Appreciation week, a field trip, working, taking Reagan to her birthday dinner, and going to ball games. The day of her party was pure craziness! I ran around leaping from crisis to crisis in full speed in hopes of getting everything done! I had exactly 1 hour to decorate her cake and whipped this bad boy out in around 45 minutes! It matched her party invitation perfectly except I had to use purple instead of black because I was all out of black coloring. Not my best work but it did the trick. Reagan saw it and said, "Mom! You are the best cake decorator EVER!" I have to admit though, those glasses kind of look ridiculous!

ANYWAYS!!! All the girls arrived and we headed out the door to Capelli's. They were all totally excited!

When we arrived there were 8 hair dressers ready and waiting for the princess party guests to arrive! Each girl had her own hair stylist all to herself and the pampering began!

Reagan along with all her friends were in heaven!

I got Reagan her very own "Birthday Girl" tiara to wear. She was beaming with pure joy and excitement that her party day had finally arrived! She could hardly believe how much fun she was having!

After all the girls were done up we took pictures and then headed home for pizza, presents, cake and ice cream!

The girls came up with all sorts of cute games to play in the car on the way home and then while they ate their pizza they each took turns making up a part of a story each building on what the last girl had said. It was very creative and cute!

Reagan loved being the center of attention! She put on her own birthday candles and led everyone in singing happy birthday to her!

She made a wish and blew out her candles!

I can hardly believe that my little girl is 7!
Happy Birthday Reagan!
Your mom and dad love you very much!

Teacher Appreciation Week

Every year I try to do a little something to show my appreciation for each of the kids teachers during teacher appreciation week. This year though was a little different! Because I was Reagan's room mother and one of Reagan's teachers just so happens to be my best friend I had a few more things to do to show my appreciation!

Each of the teachers doors were decorated by either their room mother or mothers from the class. I decorated ours! I went with a popcorn theme! [You know how important themes are to me!] It said, "We are 'popping' with excitement to say... We Love You!"

I then brought in our popcorn machine filled with popcorn and popcorn baggies for the teachers to eat and distribute to GOOD children throughout the week!

I played teacher for an afternoon giving the teachers an extended lunch hour. While the teachers were gone I had the kids in the class write letters of appreciation to their teachers. Then I assembled little books with the kids letters and pictures. The books turned out really cute!

At the end of the week I made candy posters for each of the teachers. I found the cute idea from Pioneer Party's blog. I saw the idea and just had to do it.

So it was a busy, fun filled week to say the least! I hope all those teachers out there know just how much we appreciate all they do for our children.

Easter 2011

Reagan announced to me on Saturday that she knew the Easter Bunny wasn't real! With a shocked look on my face I asked, "Why would you think that?" She told me that she saw all the eggs and candy up in my closet and that she knew that I was really the Easter Bunny. And then she went on to tell me that a few years ago she saw the Easter Bunny and when he stretched out his arm she saw his skin. She said it was really just a person dressed in an Easter Bunny costume. I thought about it for a few seconds and then told her that she was right. I mean what was I to do? If she knows, she knows! And then the begging began! "PLEASE can I help you fill the baskets and hid the eggs... PLEASE!"

Sunday morning everyone went to church except for Reagan and I. [We decided it would be best for her to stay home since she's still recovering from her surgery.] As soon as they were gone we went to work being Easter Bunnies! I kept shaking my head saying, "I can't believe I'm letting you help me! Reagan you are too young not to believe in the Easter Bunny!" All the while she smiled from ear to ear just as happy as could be!

As soon as everyone was home from church the Easter Egg hunt for their baskets was underway! We always start youngest first and so Talan started it off! Carsten was our photographer.

I love how every year Talan understands it more and more. This year we would read him the clue and let him answer it. And then he would run to where he thought it might be!

Run Talan Run!

Reagan loved knowing where all the eggs were! It was almost more than she could handle to contain the secret! YEAH! Talan found the egg!

He found his basket in the coat closet where we keep his toys!

He got a Lightning McQueen that goes on his Geo Trax!
He was so excited about it! We had to find batteries and get it up and running right then before we could go on with the basket hunt.

Even though Reagan helped with all the other kids hunts, she didn't know where her own eggs were hidden!

Reagan and Carsten were hilarious with the pictures.
They staged this one... can you tell?

I tried to make the hunt a little harder this year. I called these "Easter Flowers", nobody knew what Easter Flowers were!

She ended up finding her basket in the basement with all the Halloween costumes.

She already knew what was in her basket so her reaction when finding her basket wasn't anything special. But earlier when we were filling the baskets and I brought her mini pillow pet out of it's hiding place she was all over the place happy!

Carsten had a hard time with his first clue but eventually found it!

I thought I was getting tricky with hiding one in the dog house, but not tricky enough for this smarty pants!

This clue was MY EARS ARE COLD! Carsten didn't even have to think about it. He immediately ran to the basket we keep the beanies in. Man, I've got to step up my game next year!

He found his basket in the basement.

The one thing he has really been wanting is one of these sports necklaces. We looked all over and they aren't cheap! I hope they make a difference on the field, we've got to get our moneys worth!

Bradon just like Carsten was a bit of a smarty pants! I thought I would be real tricky and hid an egg in an empty box in the pantry. It was like one of the first things he picked up in the pantry!

Nothing gets past this kid!

This was the hardest one by far for him. Reagan got a kick out of it!

Bradon ended up finding his basket in the linen closet up stairs. He got a bat bag for baseball.

No matter how old you get, Easter basket hunting is still awesome! As cool as Ethan tries to act I know he still LOVES every minute of it! His hunt by far was the hardest yet he still somehow seemed to find all his eggs in record time. I think a little Reagan bird might have been slipping him some hints!

Carsten was a good little helper too! However I think Ethan enjoys stretching his hunt out as much as he can for maximum fun!

Where could it be?

He found his basket in his newly cleaned bedroom. Ethan got the new Harry Potter Movie.

All the kids got silly string in their baskets. We went out to the backyard and had a little silly string war!

They had an absolute BLAST! This is a shot of Carsten shooting me!

Ethan nailed Reagan right in the face!

Which resulted in tears of sadness and new rules to our little game of WAR! No spraying anyone in the face!

Bradon was relentless on Talan!

Oh and they both loved every second of it! I love this picture!

Post WAR picture!
Man these kids are sure growing up fast!
Only one bunny believer left!

I made a traditional Easter dinner and we all sat around the table eating off our "good" dishes talking about the real meaning of Easter. It's always a wonderful feeling to know that your kids not only know the REAL meaning of Easter but they have a love and respect for their Savior Jesus Christ!

The Deacon's Quorum Rocks!

The Deacon's Quorum built us shelving for our garage!

David is the Scout Master in our ward and several months ago they had a meeting with the boys to get activity ideas. One of the boys in the Quorum wanted to learn how to build something. David thought this was a great idea but got to thinking they ought to learn how to build something useful. Something not too hard and something they might actually need to know how to build at some point in their lifetime. Shelving! Perfect! We buy the materials and they do the labor! What an awesome plan!

A few months later the leadership in the Deacon's Quorum changed and Brother Budge and Brother Gregory were called to serve with David. As this activity approached David started to feel sorta bad about it. You see, Brother Budge is a home builder. He does stuff like this for a living. Brother Budge assured us that it was perfectly fine and that he thought it was a great idea. So thanks to Brother Budge we didn't just get shelving in our garage built by the Deacon's Quorum, we got shelves built with the instruction and perfection of a well known home builder in our area.

The boys had so much fun building these! They liked the power of the nail gun the most! They all chipped in and did their part and they were finished in no time! It took them less than 2 hours! I was impressed with their MAN SKILLS! Way to go young men!

One Brave Girl!

Reagan was born with a ventral hernia. A ventral hernia is when some of the stomach lining pokes through the abdominal wall. Doctors have always told us that if it doesn't repair itself by age 5 then we should have it surgically taken care of. Well Reagan is almost 7 years old now so we finally decided that it was time to take care of it. This year at school she has complained a lot of having stomach aches. We don't know if her stomach aches are being caused by her hernia but we thought it wouldn't hurt to take care of the hernia and find out!

In the first grade, illness, injury, hospitalization, broken bones... THEY ARE ALL AWESOME! I was going to schedule Reagan's surgery for the summer until Reagan's teacher, and my best friend Shari explained that Reagan needed to have this done during the school year so that she could milk all the attention she could out of it! And besides, she's only in the first grade! Missing a few days of school wasn't going to be all that harmful! So we scheduled it so she could miss a few days of school and receive tons of get well cards from her classmates!

Reagan has been quite excited for her surgery day to come. She was excited to go to the hospital, to wear hospital clothes, to be put to sleep, to experience the whole thing! This was pretty exciting stuff! Not to mention to get individualized attention from mom and dad...
HOW SWEET!

This is Reagan just after putting on the cool hospital pajamas! She told me that the hospital clothes were SO COMFORTABLE!

When she woke up she had an IV in her hand [pain free put in after she was put to sleep]. She got to have an orange slushy that was SO YUMMY! She got to watch TV and control the remote herself! It was all super AWESOME! Everything went well!

Once it was time to go home they let her choose to either go in a wagon or a wheelchair. And of course she chose the wheelchair! They let her take her hospital pillow home along with some other cool hospital stuff to show her class at school.

Everything was peachy keen, awesome cool until the numbing medication wore off and the over counter stuff just didn't seem to kick it. We raced to the pharmacy and found a cure for her pain and now being sick is back to being everything she wished it would be once again... TOTALLY AWESOME!

Way to be a trooper Reagan!
You are a very brave girl and we love you!
We hope you get better real soon!

We are poor people!

Growing up my mom and dad always told us that we were poor people.... And I totally believed it! My dad owned his own business and so sometimes we had lots of money but sometimes we were seriously "Poor People." Every year at Christmas time we were always led to believe that we were probably not going to be getting very many presents due to the fact that we were... "Poor People!" Yet somehow we were always pleasantly surprised by all the wonderful things we received! The funny thing about this is that as I got older and much wiser I started to realize that we were not necessarily "Poor People!" Strapped for cash, sometimes, maybe! But poor? No! I started to realize that my parents actually did pretty good financially in comparison to most of my friends. And then one day I was at my Aunt and Uncles house in Tempe. They lived in a really nice house in a really nice neighborhood. [My Uncle is an attorney.] And my cousin began to explain to me about the simple fact that they were "Poor People!" I couldn't help but to laugh! "You guys are NOT POOR!" Oh yes! She insisted they were. And then I realized this was all in the plan! Convince your kids that you're "Poor People" and they wont expect you to buy them stuff. Brilliant! And let me tell you, there is nothing wrong with being poor, or thinking that you're poor! It's kind of like a brilliant savings plan!

Anyways this is just my little way of telling you that WE, IN FACT, ARE POOR PEOPLE! It's not the worse thing in the world. We are able to get the things we NEED, and a lot of the things we WANT. We just don't get to have EVERYTHING we want or EVERYTHING we sometimes think we need! The kids are learning that money doesn't grow on trees and having what you want requires hard work. And... when all the neighbors are on elaborate spring break vacations, we get to have a family staycation. And when I say staycation I don't mean going somewhere local for a little vacation. I literally mean STAY-at-home-cation!

On our staycation the kids got their creative fun caps on and went to work!

They created a tent out of our jungle gym in the backyard. This was hours of long lasting fun! They spent 2 nights sleeping in it, inviting some of the neighbor kids for the second night "slumber party in the backyard!"

The make shift tent was very BLUE and roomy!
And very FUN!
On the first night of the tent sleep all the kids were totally excited to sleep outside! They hauled all their bedding into the tent in preparation for the big night of fun! As the sun went down and the cold wind began to blow Reagan and Talan became not so excited. They ended up sleeping inside the house in their nice warm cozy beds. I totally didn't blame them! I would have done the same thing!
On the second night, the slumber party in the backyard night, David told the kids that he would sleep outside too! So they set up our REAL tent and made preparations so that Ethan, Reagan and Talan could sleep with David, while Bradon and Carsten and their friends could sleep in the make shift tent. Once again everyone was excited! I made no commitment to sleep outside but thought that if everyone in deed really slept outside I would most likely join them. It came time to settle down and actually go to sleep. We told Talan to get in the sleeping bag next to dad. He sat on the pillow and said, "This is not my bed!" We explained to him that it was his bed. It was his bed for the night. He was going to sleep in the tent with dad. He thought about it for a second and said, "NO! This is NOT my bedroom!" We asked him if he would rather sleep in the house in his bedroom and he immediately said, "YES!" I took him upstairs to his bedroom and he was as happy as could be. He fell asleep in no time! Which meant, I had to sleep in the house in my warm cozy bed too! Thanks Talan!

Another benefit to being poor people having a staycation vacation is that we get to be the neighborhood dog sitters! We got the awesome opportunity to watch the Adam's dog, Bailey. Now you might think it sounds like I'm being sarcastic when I say this, but I'm NOT! Bailey was so much fun! He is seriously almost the most perfect indoor dog ever! And I'm not a huge dog person either! This dog is house trained. He doesn't bark... EVER! He doesn't get upset... EVER! Even with a 3 year old pestering him full time! He was a lot of fun for all the kids!

So there you have it!
A spring break to remember!
Or not to remember! ...
That is the question!

Child Enrichment Center

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned that I work for the
Child Enrichment Center.
The Child Enrichment Center treats children with Autism, Asperger's Syndrome and related disorders using the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis [ABA]. My cousin Sarah Haws is a Board Certified Behavior Analysis [BCBA] and owner of the Child Enrichment Center. She contacted me several months back about working for her here in Utah. I accepted the challenge and now I am officially her office manager.
This last weekend Sarah came into town and on Monday we set up a booth at the Autism Conference at UVU. We spoke with lots of people about our 1 on 1 in home therapy. We accept Tri-Care, Aetna, and Microsoft Premera insurance. It was awesome to see some of these mothers cry with joy to find out that our services are covered with their insurance.
I look forward to learning more and more and working my booty off to get this business up off the ground and running! If you know of anyone looking for help with their child who has Autism or Asperger's, please send them my way!

"Little Talan!"

Talan and Reagan had a little photo shoot of their own. I found all sorts of fun pictures on my camera. Talan loves to pose for a picture! But I guess when your as cute as Talan, pictures are just FUN!

Talan is seriously one of the funniest kids!
And the funny thing is that he knows he's funny!

He's also very opinionated and busy! This kid is always into something! I'm taking it as a sign of being gifted in the brain department! Totally only something a mother would do right?

Talan hates when I call him babe and insists he's "Little Talan!" When he doesn't like what I ask him to do or if just doesn't want to do it he says, "I'm too busy!" If he doesn't understand what I've said he says, "What you talking bout?" Right now we are watching my friends dog while her and her family are on a cruise to Mexico. Talan doesn't want the dog to get more attention than himself, he also wants the dog to do anything and everything he says. So he tends to be quite forceful with him. When we tell Talan that he can't treat Bailey like that he responds with a , "I don't love Bailey!" And so I guess that makes it all okay! Talan has learned to use the word stupid and finds joy in letting us all know when he thinks we are stupid! "You're stupid!"

The life of a 3 year old!
It's a beautiful thing!

#42

David and I had season tickets to ASU football when we were first married. We had the opportunity of watching ASU in some of their best years. We went to Pasadena California and watched them play the Rose Bowl game in 1997. We watched Pat Tillman play in all his ASU greatness! We were huge Pat Tillman fans! When Pat was drafted by the Cardinals of course we were happy. And after 9/11 when he turned down a huge contract to enlist in the military we were shocked... sort of! It's not like it was out of character for him just so unlike most professional athletes. I was worried for him! But of course I'm a girl, a wife and a mother and the thought of war and one of my own having to go into battle frightens me to the core! And then to hear the news that Pat Tillman had lost his life in battle was devastating! I felt so bad for his wife and for his mother. For all who would miss him! And then to find out that he died of friendly fire was like putting a little salt in the wound. It was so sad! Pat Tillman was a good man!
Now that we have children playing sports we have encouraged them to get #42 if it's available. They don't know who Pat is but they know that we liked Pat and want to represent his number. It's kind of a funny thing when you think about it. But you know how sports fans are... They are kind of funny that way!

In the 3rd grade the biggest project of the year is the wax museum. The wax museum is where the student picks someone in history who has made a difference and they do a report on them. You know like, Abraham Lincoln or the Wright Brothers. They make a poster about them and then they dress up like their person and do an oral presentation speaking in 1st person as if they were that person telling about their life. And then finally the entire 3rd grade is in the wax museum. At the wax museum their poster is displayed and they stand next to it in costume and act as though they were made of wax standing completely still. All the parents and the student body then tour the wax museum.

Carsten wanted to be Harvey Unga who played football for BYU. He told us that there were other kids being Jimmer Fredette who played basketball for BYU this year. David and I were kind of confused by this because these weren't people who have made a difference in history, they were more like sport heroes. We encouraged Carsten to be Pat Tillman because he was a sports hero yet he was also someone who made a difference in the world. He was an example to us all. Carsten agreed and the project was on it's way!

When I went to the school to see Carsten give his oral report I noticed that his teacher kept referring to their person as their hero. So maybe I just didn't get the "HERO" memo of the assignment. I'm glad Carsten did his report on Pat Tillman though because Pat isn't someone everyone is familiar with here in Utah. Everyone was able to learn something new including Carsten.

David and I both went to the school for the wax museum and Carsten was so NOT into it! He was sitting on the ground next to his poster acting bored! We insisted that he stand and act as wax. He stood up and just stood there. WOW! Quite the actor we've got on our hands!

We used electrical tape to change the ASU uniform number from 12 to 42 and to put Tillman's name on it. It turned out pretty good! Carsten's poster looks a little as if his mom did it! But Carsten did help a little! He helped tape it all together. The funny thing is that one day when I was at the school, Carsten's teacher came up to me holding another students poster and said, "This is your competition! This is what one of the other mothers have done!" And then went on to explain how this assignment was really big and probably too big for the kids to do on their own. He was encouraging the parents to really help out! I got the message loud and clear and so did Carsten! He pretty well insisted that we help. So I hope that somewhere along the way he really did learn something!