Ella's birthday

It is sometimes a bummer to have your birthday on a Sunday, so we tried to make it fun and special for Ella. We even brought both sets of grandparents over!

We started with breakfast in bed. She was pretty excited.

She got this funny headband. I told her she could not wear it to sacrament meeting!

Ella has seen some mini cakes at the grocery store and added it to her list of wishes for her birthday. Grandma got this purple and pink one for her and she helped make the 'Starfy' cake on the right.

There we a couple of presents.

And at the end of the day, a happy seven year old.

Happy birthday Ella! We love you lots and lots!

blogging for the sake of blogging

Things I said this morning that I never thought I would:

"You don't get any cereal until you finish that doughnut!"

Kenna bought doughnuts yesterday and the kids wanted both this morning. In hindsight I'm not sure what my logic was at the time other than to exert authority over my children.

"Sarah, you have to leave your knockers in the van!"

I didn't realize what I had said until Kenna start giggling. Sarah had one of those annoying toys with two balls and a handle that you shake up and down and they clack together, and she wanted to take it into sacrament meeting. I stand by my position but I recognize my poor choice of words.

As a side note, the township where we live has these free movie in a park events every two weeks. They have this big inflatable screen and we all set up chairs in the park and watch a movie. This past week was "Where the Wild Things Are" In short, it was absolutely the worst movie I have ever seen. The plot made no sense, I only wanted bad things to happen to the main characters and didn't care what happened to the others. We asked the kids if they wanted to leave and only Tanner wanted to go. So we suffered through it, but please learn from our mistakes and save yourselves from the agony.

Spring Break in Florida 2010

Here's what we did....



A little baby blessing.A little getting to know our newest cousin, Addy. An unplanned easter egg hunt.

A little pretending to be an astronaut (and we did actually get to see the launch of the final space shuttle...but no pictures of that!) A teeny tiny bit of Disney.
A lot of cousin time.

An awful lot of Mary doing anything but go near the ocean.And a lot of fun in the water.

Tanner would say we also did a lot of driving which is true. As it turns out everyone (or at least the other four moms at my kid's bus stop) goes to Florida for spring break!

Have you ever.....

Have you ever gotten up before the kids to exercise on Monday morning so that you have the rest of the day to be really productive?

Have you ever had a perfect plan of attack for your productive morning that included the post office, the bank, a goodwill drop and a little shopping for your upcoming spring break trip?

Have you ever had such a fun, busy weekend that you had to have a nap on Sunday afternoon and forgot to help your first grader finish (or start really) her timeline project for school?

Have you ever been in the office 10 minutes before the bus comes on your precisely planned Monday morning when said timeline project is due trying to finish it up and had your 2 year old fall off the office chair, hit her head on the leg of the desk and split her head requiring an unexpected trip to the ER?

Have you ever heard how much scalp wounds bleed? It is true.

An episode of Dora, four staples and a popsicle later, all is well.

Mary and Sarah helping out

Many things about this video make me chuckle.

First, how furiously Mary is cleaning!

Second the huge ball of wipes that Sarah is hiding behind her back.

And third how Sarah tries to blame it all on Mary!

I held the camera the wrong way and have no idea how to rotate a video so either tilt your head to the side or pick up your monitor and rotate it 90 degrees clockwise! Sorry!

Bracketology according to Ella

Me: Georgetown or Ohio?

Ella: Of course Ohio, silly!

Me: Butler or UTEP?

Ella: (giggling) Butler has a funny word in it

Me: Vanderbilt or Murray St.?

Ella: Murray St. has my middle name in it!

Me: Temple or Cornell?

Ella: Temple helps us get to heaven

Me: Clemson or Missouri?

Ella: Have I been to Missouri?

Me: No

Ella: Then Clemson

Me: Kansas or Lehigh?

Ella: Well, Lehi was a prophet...

Happy Birthday Mary Berry!!!

'Twas two years ago that into our life

popped this little berry out of my wife

With four other children already present

the housing situation became very unpleasant

But with eyes and a smile so sweet

having her around turned into a treat

She's learned to say bumblepus, Dora, and fries

but love of the latter has resulted in 95th percentile thighs

While all the kids love to smother her in hugs and kisses

a somewhat disappointed Tanner still wishes

that while he and Mary are of the same genus

there are days where he'd rather she had a...

...lego set

bicycle

comic book

cookie, etc.

What were you guys thinking?