A Family Thanksgiving

We decided at the last minute to go to St. George for Thanksgiving. We had to drive on Thanksgiving day because my children's choir had a performance at an Interfaith meeting in the city.  Therefore, we woke up super early and hit the road by 5:20am. It actually worked out really well. The kids were fairly docile for most of the trip, so we didn't have to stop very much. 

On Friday, Jamie, Leah, Catye, and Mike drove down together from the Salt Lake area to spend the weekend with us. It was a lot of fun. We ate at Frostop, played games, did a little bit of shopping, and then they all went bowling before our big Thanksgiving feast on Saturday at Grandma Wilma's house. I stayed home with the babies for a couple of reasons. First, the babies were taking a nap and second, because I can't stand bowling. I also started cooking dinner while they were bowling. It worked out really well.

But the kids has a ton of fun. Especially Eli...take a look at his delivery...

 I think it is called the upside down delivery special.  Nordel and Tru also joined them for an afternoon of fun. Eli was able to spend some time with Tru on his own on Friday while Rinar played some golf and he had a lot of fun over there. Tru and Eli are buddies.

It was a lot of fun. All of the kids really enjoyed my siblings and their spouses.  

Maybe we will be able to do it again next year!

The New Mrs. Stops By

Remember how my brother got married back in March?  Well, they ended up staying in Oregon through the summer. They have now emerged from marriage hibernation and headed back to Utah to get on with life this past weekend.  Yep, the irony...they have no kids, but no time.  I have no time because I have kids. You know what I am saying here?

Anyways, I digress. 

Reno is actually on the way to Utah from Oregon.  So they stopped by for the weekend.  They put on their Uncle and Aunt hats and really did a bang up job being cool Uncle Jamie and charming Aunt Leah.  The kids had a lot of fun with them.

I actually got a babysitter for Friday night and we went out to a nice dinner together at the Lodge and then followed it up with a mean game of miniature golf.  On the first hole, Leah got a hole-in-one.  I am sorry to say that it kind of fell apart after that, but she did have moments of brilliance. I suck at miniature golf, but I did my best.  Of course, Rinar won {yawn!}.

On Saturday, after some fun girl shopping in the morning, we took everyone to King's Beach on Lake Tahoe.

The kids really had a fun time. It was a bit crowded, but not horribly so.  Leah took this picture of Julia chill-axing on a raft.  We stayed for a few hours and then headed home. It was quite a lot of fun.

Stop by again sometime, you two lovebirds.

Crazy Summer Luau

Summers in Las Vegas are like winters anywhere else. If you live north of here, you have snow in the winter, power outages, ice storms and such that drive you indoors. We have this little ole thing called the sun. And it goes into overtime from about June to October. The best thing to do is stay home because it is so flippin' hot, and especially in July. It can be brutal. In other words, I haven't left my house for weeks, except for things of absolute necessity. We especially do not go to the park.

Now, there are a lot of water parks here in town, but it is not practical with infants, so I just stay home and the kids can go swimming in our backyard. On Tuesday, I went with a friend to the free movie they show at the cinema. Wouldn't you know it? There were about 10 other ladies there with their kids, that I know really well. We were talking after the movie as it became apparent that no one was in a big hurry to go back home or go outside and evaporate in the sun.

Then I blurted out that we should have a party. An I-am-stuck-with-my-kids-all-day-and-I-am-going-crazy!!!! kind of party. I suggested a luau theme and everyone loved the idea. The party was set for Friday at my house. What better way to give me a reason to clean my house than to invite about 50 people over for some fun?

The kids and I made decorations from construction paper I have had lying around my house for the last 7 years. I bought some balloons and made Kahlua pig and rice for lunch. This was accompanied with a salad and watermelon. It was delicious and the party was a big hit. They did a lot of swimming while us women hung out. I blasted some Pilioha Hawaiian music and we had lots of fun and ate very well.


It is funny how everything seems to happen at once. In preparation for the party on Thursday, I was able to get a lot done. But I also got a visit from my brother, who is now living in the Provo area. He came with his best friend Dane and a gal friend Jess. They did some stuff Thursday night...you know...silly Vegas stuff. And since they stayed out so late, they ended up sleeping over and leaving at lunchtime. Yeah, Jamie stuck around for the pig. Shocking, huh?

It was fun to see him.



When all of party guests started clearing out, I had another friend, Ann, come over and teach me how to make fondant and some general cake decorating techniques. It was awesome and I can't wait to try out what I have learned and make a real cake. When I do, I am sure I will be putting it on my blog. Thanks, Ann!

Random Thoughts

**Rinar and I went to the thrift store on Saturday and look at the fun hat I found. The kids love it, especially Eli.**

We had a fun weekend because we had special visitors. Jamie came to town for the weekend with his girlfriend. I would be hesitant to call her the girlfriend, but if they are going to hold hands in front of me, then I will go ahead and slap a big label on that one, for sure.

Sorry, no pictures.

Since he was here, he volunteered to babysit for us and so I got my hair done and then Rinar and I went to lunch together and did our thrift store shopping. I decided to darken my hair a bit and cut it short and sassy. I didn't take a picture today when I was all cute, so the pictures will come later when I am cute again.

Did you notice my baby countdown? Can you say 18 days??? We are rolling along. Thursday is the magic day. I will be 36 weeks, so if anything happens after that it is just fine and the doctors will let it happen. I might have said this before, but I am practically senile so I don't remember, nor do I care.

As for being pregnant, it is getting tougher these days. Last night was especially rough. I tried to go to sleep at about 1:30 am. Well, I was up at 2:30 am with a horrible acid attack. But this time, it coated my entire esophagus. It would not go away. Therefore, after fretting about what to do, I finally opted for a recliner and slept several hours there. Then at about 7am, I switched back to my bed. I was therefore able to get a whopping five hours of very interrupted sleep. Awesome, huh? I had not had any food for 7 hours, so it could not have been a diet issue. I have come to the conclusion that the babies schedule a nightly boxing match at about 2:45am and they warm up the hooks and jabs on my stomach. Well, it is either boxing or ballroom dancing. I am not sure which one, but either way, my stomach pays the price.

The Relief Society president has decided that they are going to help me the next few weeks. She gave me an offer I just couldn't (or wouldn't dare) refuse. Hence, I will be having lots of people at my house this week to help with whatever. I am not sure how I feel about this because I get very self-conscious about people in my house, especially if I sit around doing nothing and my house is a wreck. It is hard but I will try to endure.

Wish me luck.

My Little Brother

We brought Jamie home with us when we drove home from Tucson. He stayed a little over a week and spoke in Sacrament meeting. Everyone was very impressed with his strong testimony and wonderful talk about the Plan of Salvation. It is wonderful to see a young man return from a two-year mission. He did a lot of growing while he was gone.

The boys just had a ball spending time with him. Jamie likes to call Zach a silly-billy and this has been going on since before he left for his mission. The conversation continued when he got back.

"Your a silly-billy."

"No, your a silly-billy."

etc. etc. etc.

They did a lot of wrestling and monkeying around. I am very blessed to have such a wonderful little brother.