Pretzel Crisps

This picture is very dark, I realize. The deliciousness still stands though.

These are our families new obsession.

Pretzel Crisps. They are sold in the deli section of Wal-Mart and they are oh so yummy!

I have Josh Bird to thank for this. He bought some at Sam's Club while we were in Wyoming Logan visiting them. I had never heard of them before this.

Thanks Josh. No, really. They make my tummy happy. :)

Try them!

Native American Baby?

This picture just makes me laugh. Stacee and Riya would put Emma in this snow sled with a pillow and blanket and pull her around the house. Aimee said it looked like an Indian baby being pulled across the river.
Emma would just lay down and enjoy it like it was her favorite thing to do!
When do I get a turn?

Late Nights

We had a lot of late nights and not very many set bedtimes while we were gone - this is how poor Emma fell asleep this night - it was a long but great day!
We all went to church at John's parents' ward, followed by a potluck picnic at the park, followed by a fantastic family fireside by John's dad at their church building. I love to hear him speak/tell stories - he is a great speaker and really knows how to captivate his audience.
This was to serve as the closing of the reunion and there were many tears shed at the end. It even started pouring rain as we were all trying to leave the building. Literally pouring. It was as if buckets were falling from the sky. What great timing that was!

This has definitely been a reunion to remember - thanks to Joseph, Angela and Esther for all of your work in planning it!

LOVED IT!

Sparklers with the Birds!

We always find fun things to do with the Birds!

Aimee had the idea to do sparklers and glow sticks in the dark with the kids and they had a blast! I think this may have been Riya's first experience with sparklers and she wasn't scared at all! Emma kept trying to grab the sparkling part so I got to help her not get burned. :)

Fun idea and even more fun to share it with cousins!

A Sunday Walk

After dinner today, we decided to go for a walk on the shoulder-less road that we live on. We walked down to our new church building and then turned back for home. When we got to the church, this is what the girls looked like. Perfect. John and I got some good talking in on the way back - the kind like when we were engaged/first married. We love it when we get to talk like that - just endless conversations. We almost always learn fun little tidbits of things we didn't know about each other. It's funny how you can think you know someone so well but then you find out there is so much you don't know.
I love it. I love him. I love those cute little sleeping girls.
I love (and miss terribly) my little Jayden. 10 days left (we hope)!

Scary!

We were invited to come watch some fireworks with some friends tonight and they were so great! The girls were not wanting to settle down for bed when we got back so John decided to tell a silly/scary story. We turned off the lights in their room and he got a tiny flashlight and Riya thought it was awesome! She really liked how the light could light up our noses! :)

How's this for a final image before you fall asleep?

Cool Shades

Riya was given some new sunglasses from a girl in John's lab. She wanted to try them out yesterday to see how cute they were....
What do you think?!
You can't tell from the picture but she was lifting them up to look at the camera with her eyes showing. She saw this picture and asked, "Where are my eyes?"

Happy Father's Day!

This is the only picture that I got today but I think it captures the day just perfectly!
First off, notice our very moved-into living room? Not much has been put away yet - as you can see.
Second - Happy Father's Day to my lovely husband and father of my 3 adorable kiddos! We love him so much! We are so blessed to have him as the daddy in our house and we wanted to get him something special this year...
John has been wanting an acoustic guitar for sometime now but we just haven't gotten one for one reason or another. He has an electric but rarely gets it out because it's not really something you can just "mess around" on.
Way back in April, someone in our stake was getting rid of a Fender acoustic/electric guitar for a very reasonable price. I asked John what he thought and he just never said one way or another so I got the brilliant idea to get it and save it for Father's Day. I stored it at a friend's house until today so that he wouldn't see it during our move and he was so completely surprised and happy when he saw it! I loved the reaction! He played until his fingers got sore - and he's determined to get them used to the guitar again. :)
We love you John! Happy Father's Day to my favorite big guy! (Jayden is my little guy)

Ribbit!

After church today, we went by the new house (just down the road from the new building) to put some garage sale leftovers into the garage. This little guy (or girl, I guess) was in there and I almost didn't see him - he blended in so well with the floor!
He was a little cute - kind of.
It's been a long time since we've had frogs around - the kids will love it!

Black-out Curtain

Today was the Stake Priesthood meeting in our area so we didn't have to be at church until 11:00am (instead of 9:00am). I was determined to have the kids sleep in somehow. One of the girls usually wakes up first and proceeds to wake the other one - then Jayden follows shortly after. I wanted to prevent the girls from knowing the sun was up this morning so, last night, I put a quilt on the inside of their curtain to completely cover the window. It worked! They slept in! Not really late but later than usual!
Riya was confused when she woke up and came into our bedroom because it was light outside. :)
Also - today we only had sacrament meeting because of the priesthood meeting and Riya was so sad that she didn't get to go to Primary and see her teachers. Poor girl. First stake conference and then stake priesthood - I think we are okay until October now.
Next Sunday we start going to our new building!

You're the Superstar!

We have recently rediscovered a Wii game that John and I used to play a lot - Mario Party 8. We decided to give Jayden a shot at playing it recently and he loved it... and so we play. :)

Tonight we played a pretty great game but in the end - John was the winner. A.K.A Yoshi. He always plays Yoshi and we really think John has some strange streak of luck with video games sometimes.

We will have our characters be "Superstars" someday! Yoshi can't always win - can he?!

A Dress for Emma

She refused to put that milk down for the pictures. Oh well - she was kind enough to move (on her own!) so that I could see the dress! Smart girl!
I finally made a dress for little Emma. It seems like Riya gets most of the sewing projects - with the exception of skirts - and I'm not exactly sure why.
Anyway - this dress was one of the easiest things to make. Guess what? It was a skirt in a size too small for me. The neckline of her dress was the waist of the skirt. I just sewed a casing and put in elastic to scrunch it up to fit.
I put one of her current dresses on top of the skirt to measure where the armholes should go and just cut from the sides to that spot. Then I cut down where I thought the sides of the dress should go. Sewed the sides together, made a casing and put in elastic, hemmed the sleeves and I was done! How easy and cute! The ribbon tied around her waist came with the skirt - it was a "belt" for it.
I LOVE this dress!

Should I start a blog with tutorials so I can explain these things better? Vote in my poll on the right sidebar of my blog. If you are reading this in reader or email, you'll have to click the link to go directly to the actual blog page. Let me know what you think. Would you read it??

Bonus for today - our new building was dedicated today. It was such a special treat to be able to be there! The Spirit was very strong throughout the whole meeting. Jayden and Riya got to sing with the Primary and they were pretty excited. Those sweet little voices make it nearly impossible to not tear up. I'm grateful we could attend!

A Sundae on Sunday

I put Pride and Prejudice (the newer one) on our queue for Netflix and it came in the mail over a week ago. John and I finally got a chance to watch it tonight. We decided we wanted ice cream - root beer float for John and sundae for me. It was perfect. Great movie, great treat and most of all, great company.
I love that my husband isn't too "manly" to watch these chick flicks with me. :)

Happy Mother's Day!

Today was pretty great. See those 3 goofy kids there? I love them so much and I'm so grateful that I get to be their mommy! I hope to be good for/to them and I hope they look to my example when they have kids of their own.
John doesn't let me lift a finger on Mother's Day and he's really cute about it. He got the kids ready for church, made lunch and dinner, changed diapers and other bathroom duties, did dishes, brushed the kids teeth and put them to bed. He was awesome! He was pretty tired by the end of the day and I think he was reminded of why I am usually so tired by the end of the day. :)
During dinner, each of the kids (and John) took turns telling me things they loved about me.
Jayden: "I love that Mommy gets my clothes for me every morning and makes so much yummy food!"
Riya: "I love that Mommy makes clothes for me to wear..."
Emma: "Ummmm... Ah - so - ma - do - qua - pa"
They kept coming up with things - it was really cute.
They made cute little cards with flowers at church and Jayden surprised me with some flowers he'd planted at school. John got me a game I've been wanting for awhile - and I got myself a new bag. :)
I hope you all had a great Mother's Day as well!

Emma Surprises

Emma is a very busy little girl. She can almost always find some way to entertain herself. Often times, we find little surprises in places we least expect it. This was my surprise tonight - as I was emptying my box of Robin Eggs (Easter whoppers - in case you weren't aware) in to my hand, I got a bobby pin as well! I didn't realize we got bonuses like that in those cute little cartons! ;) Thanks Emma!

By the way - what was the verdict on the crayons? They really do wipe off (and it comes with a wiper in the box of crayons) but the crayons themselves feel kind of waxy and they seem to get on anything they touch. We were getting a bit frustrated with this at church - especially because John was sitting right in between Jayden and Riya - his white shirt kept getting marks on it. I grabbed a wipe from my bag just to try and... it came out! All of us ended up wiping our clothes at some point during the meeting but we were thrilled with the fact that it came out! Emma's dress was white and, for some reason, had a hard time letting go of the marks but I'm hoping that regular stain remover will get it out. John's shirt ended up mark free though. We'll let them stay around - carefully. The kids loved them!!

Easter!

In all of the fun this morning before church, I didn't get a picture of all 3 kids in their Easter clothes. I managed to get this picture of Jayden and Riya after church while Emma was napping. It doesn't show how cute the girls' skirts turned out but it does show Jayden's handsome new tie! :)
The Easter bunny hid our decorated eggs all over the living room and they each got some little goodies by their "baskets". They each got a new stuffed sheep in their favorite color (John cut all of the pieces out and I sewed/stuffed them), candy, a picture frame with a picture of Jesus for their rooms and a little something special to them. Jayden and John got new ties and the girls got new hair clippies (to match their skirts, of course!).
Our sacrament meeting was amazing - with a Music and the Spoken Word feel to it. The Primary kids also sang a song. It was a very spiritual meeting and I found myself tearing up frequently. Gotta love meetings like that!
We had a yummy roast for dinner with carrots and potatoes and just relaxed, enjoying each others company.

Also - Riya was the "Spotlight Child" in Primary today and she was so stinkin' excited! She told me over and over again when John brought them to the nursery room after church. She got a badge and everything! "How did they know my favorite color was purple and my favorite show is Dragon Tales and Hello Kitty?!?!" She just couldn't believe it!


Happy Easter - I hope yours was just as great!

Pretty Little Things

Remember when I used to make hair bows? Remember when I used to get requests to make them and I had buyers? I still love making them but my tastes have changed a bit and I'm more into all of the adorable varieties of flowers to put in the girls' (and my) hair. They are about 75% faster to make and they try my patience about 99% less. :) And, because of my hair bow making days, I have about a bajillion (I counted!) varieties of ribbon to use!
This is one of the beauties I made last night to wear in MY hair for church today. 
Pretty little thing, huh? :)

Game Time

John and I love to play games. That is something I'm soooo glad we have in common! We used to play more games together - just the two of us - but it seems like we very rarely do anymore. Tonight, we decided to play Phase 10 Dice. The kids were in bed and it was just the two of us rolling away and trying to get our phases. What was kind of funny was that we found ourselves helping each other instead of having a heavy competition. I'm not too sure what happened because that is usually not how John plays. ("What?! I can't help it! Grow up in my family and you learn to be competitive in games!" he has said.)
It was nice. We enjoyed ourselves. He won the first game and I won the second.
And for the record, I beat his winning score from the first game when I won the second game! It almost never happens that I beat John so I have to make note of it when I do. :)
Love ya, babe!

General Conference Weekend Continued

Today, we were invited to watch conference with some friends of ours at their house. They had freshly baked cinnamon rolls that were delicious and we ate some yummy burgers for lunch in between sessions. YUM! I think we were a bit spoiled. :) This is what I caught the girls doing during one of the sessions today. I love it when they play together - especially now that Emma is bigger and she can physically take the play that Riya likes to do.
Today was another great day of messages and I look forward to reading and re-listening to them. I think at one point during the last session, after the yummy burgers and fries (with John's special seasonings), all four adults had drifted off to sleep. I heard Riya telling John and I that it wasn't nap time and then another time I heard Jayden and his buddy, Dalton, noticing that "They are all asleep!". Oops. It's a good thing we can review the talks later, right??

"Who wants to play with Daddy's hair?"

Are you ready for the answer to that question? Before I give it, I must give some background information. If you've known John for longer than me, you are probably aware of his love for having his hair played with. It is one of his favorite things - next to having his back/arm/neck "tickled". We have recently discovered that Jayden is great at all of these things and Riya has decided that she wants to participate too.
So, today, we were all together in the living room and John randomly says -
"Who wants to play with Daddy's hair?"
To which the kids responded, "ME!! ME!! ME!!" and they both jumped up and raced over to get behind his head. Riya won and Jayden stomped off with his arms folded and pouted that Riya got to do it first! John and I both looked at each other in shock - he had a huge smile mixed in, of course.
I said, "Jayden, you can play with Mommy's hair." He didn't want to. That isn't as fun.
The pouting didn't last very long but I'm still shocked it even happened!!
I suppose he's trained them well...