I've been tagged

So I was tagged before we went to Tahoe and I just didn't get around to it until now. I took the pictures right after we got home and then never got to downloading and writing about it all so here it is.... A self portrait of me. Serious anyone have any tips on eyebrows? I cannot control mine. I have them professionally waxed every once in a while then I think I can do this myself and just follow their lines but after a while they get like this. Pictures of the outside and inside of my fridge. You never know what your going to find in there. I thought you all would enjoy a close up of Abby's cultures she was growing in our fridge!! Is that safe to mix dinner with science projects? the kitchen sink. My favorite room in the house? This one stumped me for days. I compromised and found the 2 I dislike the least. The family room because it is the most likely to be clean and my food storage room because I love having a place to store all the food and looking in there makes me happy (even though it's unorganized.) The bathroom (s). Funny thing the person we bought the house from considered this a selling point that the bathrooms were connected and we shared on bathtub/shower combo. Yeah real great. No Lizza is not going to the bathroom I have no idea what she is doing. My favorite shoes. If you've haven't caught onto me yet I am a white-meaning indecisive. I don't' know of very many things I have a definite favorite of. Laundry Room. Okay so this is a place no one ever goes into but me so it get no attention in way of cleaning. My mom has taught me to never show or admit this type of stuff in public and I am sure if she looks at this I will get a phone call. My closet. What are my kids up to? Who knows!! Actually Abby and Lizza are getting ready for bed which means being extremely loud, laughing, teasing, and running around the house until one of them cries. Meg is obviously helping me and Max is already sleeping. My dream vacation.. (remember the white) I think it would be a service trip to an orphanage with my family. Or to a tropical beach with Daren. 6 quirks about me 1. I just cannot let my kids unbuckle their seat belts. Even ride without a booster. Abby is 8 and I try every once in a while when I am taking Daren's car and only some of them, thinking we're just going around the corner less than a mile. Then I always stop in the drive way and switch the seats. I just can't do it. I would never be able to live with the guilt if something happened to them. 2. I cannot feed my children white bread. I don't know why again I've bought it before because they asked for it and I just can't make sandwiches with it. I think of the waste in eating something that has no value. It's does and it's fortified but I can't willing do it. 3. I pretty much drink hot cocoa every morning-even in the summer. I love chocolate and it's my quick and easy fix in the morning I suppose. 4. My pinkie toes basically have no toenail because they are such small toes. My sister has made fun of me my whole life because of it. She still just has to look at it when we see each other. 5. I love to read but once I am done with the book I rarely can tell you the author or even the complete title. 6. I take food with me where ever I go. I cannot leave the house with out a package of Ritz, pretzels, grapes, cheese sticks, craisins, etc. I am so afraid of being stranded somewhere and my kids being hungry. Finally this is off my back! I tag anyone who wants to play but you have to leave me a comment so I can go look at yours and not feel so exposed myself.

On our way up to the gondola Meg loved the bear waving at us.

Climbing aboard our ride. Some how Aaron and Stephanie with no kids ended up in one with 4 kids!

Ty-Ty loved the hike can't you tell.

After it was all said and done they could still smile. Doesn't that mean it was successful?

Tahoe take 2

Josh the baby of the fam was the music man. He did fantastic and was right on que.

Meg sitting with Jason and Tif. She had her ups and downs thru-out but she made it. But I love this picture of her little chubby face. She was so excited to see Stephanie and her beautiful dress.

The girls got to be flower girls. The weren't expecting it and they have told everyone since we got home about it. There were some petals left after they made it down the aisle. They kept them and brought them home. They thought it was fantastic.

Beautiful Abby. She loved these flowers behind her and specifically asked me to take a picture of here by them. Where is a solo picture of Lizza you may ask? She was busy following Stephanie around the entire day. If she couldn't be by her for some reason she was following her cousins Fisher and Tyler and round. She loved "taking care of them". They were good sports about it too. At the wedding they had put disposable cameras on the tables. So the kids all picked one up and started snapping pictures. On the one hand it was a life saver. We were having Hors d'oeuvres while Aaron and Stephanie were getting pictures taken and they were growing restless. On the other hand all I can say is sorry Aaron and Stephanie. I gave everyone the talk about these are to take pictures of the people at the wedding and they don't want to find pictures of the rocks, the chairs, your feet, the clouds, etc. They all nodded and agreed that it would be funner to see faces but then forgot apparently as soon as I released them.

Lake Tahoe!!!!

We had such a fun trip to Tahoe City, CA this past week. My brother Aaron got married there. He and Stephanie did a great job planning this all out and making it memorable for everyone. My parents rented a house for everyone to stay it. It was so great it even came stocked with polly pockets and books to read. What more could I ask for? The house was just a 100 yards from some trails that we managed to run on and hike on with Abby, Lizza, and Cousin McKenna to gather pine cones. It was great. We went on 2 other little hikes as well. Emerald Bay you'll see down below the other one we rode a gondola up the ski hill and hiked to a lake and back to the gondola to get back down the mountain. It was so fun to be out all together talking, singing, and joking around. My kids had a great time. Aaron and Stephanie joined us for that hike, which was above and beyond. They had to leave as soon as we were done to drive back to Hanford, CA. Elizabeth stuck to Stephanie like glue. she had to ride up with her and walk with her. They went ahead of us to get back to their car and she was pushing the whole way down to hurry up so she didn't miss Stephanie. I can't figure out how this post is going to work so things will be jumbled up. Below are random pictures I will explain under each but this post may end up being a few post long so good luck. We got out and walked around Donner's Pass memorial. You can't really tell how tall this is but up to where the people are (not counting them) is how deep the snow was! The place was about to close so we didn't do much more than walk to this monument and get a few pictures.

On the dock at Emerald Bay. We hiked down a mile to get to this bay area. All the kids did very well. The bummer was we had to hike up a mile to be done with the hike but everyone made it and I don't remember any crying either. Don't quote me on that one I am pretty good at blocking it out now a days.

Mandy, my sister, and I looking down on Emerald Bay.

Daren had a great hike! I don't think he had to do this for very long but still I wouldn't have even offered.

Birthdays!

We celebrated Daren and Abby's birthdays a few weeks ago and I just haven't had time to get anything posted about it. Now it's old news and all of you have heard about it so I will make this short. Abby tuned 8 and will be getting baptized October 25th. She missed the September baptism because we were in Lake Tahoe at my brothers wedding. It took a little bit of time to work through the angst of that but now she is good. She had a friend party this year which was actually very manageable. I haven't had to do a friend party for several years and I was a little worried about this. Every year I give them the option of doing a special family day where they are in charge or having a friend party. They have chosen the family thing in the past. But she has been talking about this friend birthday party for months. She invited 8 friends plus her sisters and She knew exactly what she wanted to do and it went really well. By this age they are still really sweet to each other and pliable i.e. happy to do what they are told because THERE AT A PARTY!!! We had pizza, played high school musical on the wii, played the candy bar game, painted magnets, decorated cupcakes, and opened presents. It was great. There was a point during it that I was sitting down thinking I have nothing to do right now...weird. It's Daren's day to so the girls all sang to him as well and I got him cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory. I planned ahead on their birthdays, at least better than Megs. So I am counting it as a success.

Weekend?

First off WHOOO for BYU. Daren went down to the game with his brothers and Parents. I do enjoy watching some of BYU football but I cannot just sit and do nothing else for the entire game. Maybe it's because I know I will be watching highlights all week so I will catch all the good stuff anyway and Daren can give me a descriptive play by play if I need it. I love it about him. Anyway for his sake mostly, I was hoping they would win so he wouldn't come home all mad and feel like he wasted a perfectly good weekend. But I wasn't asking for a blow-out. It was 52-0 I believe. I did turn it on and watched a little of it. Daren isn't home yet so I could have the score wrong. If so I am sure he will correct me. Mean while while he was gone we have basically been doing soccer. Abby had practice last night (straight through dinner-definatly planned by a man i.e. the coach) 5:45-6:45 Friday night, lovely. So we all went and had a picnic. After wards I needed some ice cream to recover from the wet grass, grouchy Max, and crazy girls. So we headed to Dairy Queen for a little. Today we had 3 games. Abby had one at 12:00, which ment we started getting ready around 11:00 which is right when we finished our chores for the day. Then Both she and Lizza had a game a 2:00. So Meg, Max, and I just ran back and forth between the two games. All the games are played on a soccer field complex is the good news. The girls were so much better this week. After last week Daren was like I don't know if I can do this. This meaning watch his girls dink around on the field and shy away from any ball that may come close to them. After a week of pep talks from both of us, and some reverse pschology they did much better. We told them all week how fast both of them were and they could get to the ball first and kick it. Lizza is convinced she is the fastest runner alive and she ran and ran today! She runs and flicks her hair and adds a little jump in there every couple of steps but she is fast. By the end of the game she was drenched in sweat. It was dripping down her face and she was estatic. she made 4 goals. ( I dont' care about the goals but the girls tell me Dad says they matter.) Abby did so much better too. After the first game where she would get to the ball and then kind of stick her leg out to kick but cringe her body (if you can picture that-basically just mad kicking) I talked to her about following the ball after she kicks it to make sure it gets to a teammate or to the goal. She did it! We also told her about guarding someone on the other team and she was on that girl like glue. At one point the other coach (which was the referee for the half) walked his player around Abby because she wouldn't let her have an inch. We still have things to work on but it was fun. I find myself yelling things like get the ball , find the ball, Follow it Abby or Liz. Then I think what am I doing? She can't hear me and now I sound like one of those psycho parents yelling at their kids on the sidelines. It sucks you in I tell you. Tonight Abby was telling me about her friend Bret who has a stepmom. She said "I just feel so bad for him I don't know when his parents got divorced but he's had this step mom for a while now how awful." I suggested maybe his mom died. "Yeah maybe...hopefully because if they got divorced that would be wrose for Bret. Atleast if she is dead he would know he could see her again and she is happy and in heaven-but divorced that would be the worst." I personally think there would nothing worse than your mom dying she disagrees-intersting. Mental note never, never divorce Daren because it would destroy Abby-just die.

September

Holy Cow summer ended so quickly for us and now we are into the thick of school and fall life. We had a great summer to end it, we went to Twin Falls and went through the temple open house. Its was really fun for our girls to see the inside. They were fascinated.

Then the week before school started I went to education week at BYU with some friends and Daren was left all alone to hold down the fort. He did well. There were a few mishaps but everyone is still alive and happy. We (meaning he really) had a lot going on that week that he had to handle and he worked Monday and Wednesday so others had to watch our kids those days. The girls started soccer practice that week and they had meet your teacher night which he had to attend. Since I missed both of those I feel so out of it. I have introduced myself to both teachers but haven't really gotten to talk to either of them and I can't recognize Abby's soccer team because I haven't been to any practices. Daren is the assistant coach so I haven't been to any. Lizza's, I just went to for the first time this week so now I know what they look like sort of.

We went to our first soccer games yesterday-no tears which is an improvement. I think they both had fun and now I know what we can practice at home this week.

I think Lizza likes school. She is one you can never be to sure about. She also is changing her mind constantly. But she is adjusting to all day school and the melt downs have gotten smaller and fewer. It really is a long day.

Abby of course loves her teacher and knows the name of everyone in her class. She starts the challenge program (which is like the gifted and talented program they just don't call it that anymore here) tomorrow. She is nervous because it is something new but a little excited too. She keeps asking me to tell her how it is all going to happen. She needs the whole picture painted for her always to know what to expect.

Meg enjoys the time with out her sisters. She tells me "it is so nice because then she doesn't have to fight with them about this is hers or let me play." I enjoy the time with her but she wants me to play all day. When I try to do something else she just lays on the floor by me and keeps asking are you done yet mom? Can we play now mom? I feel bad for her so then I get roped into playing again. I don't know how much more of pony's and Polly pocket princesses I can play. Luckily I am starting her preschool this week and she starts dance too. So she will have things to do.

Max is Max. Wild and crazy. He is becoming a talker more and more. He repeats anything you say to him. He is officially 18 months today! Which means nursery here we come!