Apple Blossom Carnival 2010!

Its that time of year again! That time of year to spend way too much money and way NOT worth it carnival rides. BUT the boys love it. Ahh what we do for our children. haha

I took my long lens to the carnival this time to get some upclose shots of them way up high. I loved how the pictures turned out this year!

Before I get to the pictures, some quick updates: there's not much else to report...we've been so busy lately. Pretty much busy from sun up to sun down and beyond! There is always something to do, someplace to go, and somewhere to be. We're in the middle of Spring soccer for Owen, two boys in Scouts now, Billy's ever busy church calling, homeschool stuff, and Billy's classes to finish up his Associates degree. Aaack!
We haven't finished painting YET but we're close. Its on the back burner for now while we catch things up. We did get some thermal blinds for our living room, the school room, and the boys room. It looks sooo much better. Next I want to replace our old sliding glass doors with either some new sliding glass doors with the blinds built inside them or french patio doors with the blinds built inside the glass pane. :)
We have quite a "to do" and "to buy" list for this house...but we're slowly cutting down the list! Walls - check. Blinds - check. Floors - check.
I promise to try to update my blog more often...now to the pictures!!

Brayden's Baptism, Owen's Soccer, and more

A busy busy week indeed!

Besides painting the walls, and more painting of the walls...we had Owen's first soccer game and Brayden's baptism!

On the walls: Almost done, but I guess we didn't realize how much time and work really went into painting. Perhaps we should have taken everyone up on their offers who wanted to help. I guess we thought we could handle it ourselves though?
 It's  been a week since we started and we have finished the living room, most of the dining room, and most of the school room. What's left includes a small wall in the dining room, the small laundry room, a tiny patch in the top part of the closet in the school room, and all of the master bedroom (which is the boys' room - blah!).
 We bought posters, table and chairs, and cool school room stuff for the school room that I had hoped to be ready by Monday...but its just so much work! We'll get there.

Here are some more sneak peak photos - nothing exciting yet, but you get the idea:

The living room - you can see the green better in this photo, and the trim we changed to pale yellow, the same yellow of the school room:

 In this photo you can see a portion of the school room - but its also our painting supply central, so it's pretty torn apart right now. We did a yellow on the walls and the same green as the living room is the trim in this room:

On Owen's first soccer game:
It was a rainy, drizzly day but Owen had so much fun! He was quite the ham on the field and was having more fun then caring about winning I think. So that's good! It was tricky to get get photos because I couldn't seem to catch him fast enough, or it was blurry, or Gabriel was just so fussy and didn't like competing with the camera. haha But here's what I do have:

 

GOAL!

On Brayden's baptism:
The day really snuck up on us, and the time too! We were almost late for his baptism. Typical for us though, drives Billy crazy. However, what can you do with five little kids and only two adults? haha
Grandma was in town and came to see Brayden's baptism, thanks Grandma Beki! He was first to get baptized and did really well, despite his nerves. There were two other children being baptized that day also. The little girl to go last was petrified of the water, the poor thing. :( Finally after about half-an-hour of coaxing, she was able to get baptized too!

As I can't take photos during the baptism, the only photos I have are of after:

Also, I forgot to post last month but Brayden also started cub scouts when he turned 8 yrs old. He's been happy about that and having a fun time. He looks forward to scout nights! Here he is in his little uniform the first night of scouts:

That's all I have for now! Check back later for finished house photos!!

A Busy Easter Weekend

 Happy Easter!

We had a busy and fun Easter this year. Billy took his vacation this week following Easter and so we decided to paint the interior walls of our house during Easter weekend and the first few days of his vacation. Since everyone else was busy for Easter, it was just going to be our family anyway. Billy ended up inviting four sets of missionaries (so six total) for Easter lunch/dinner. It was interesting trying to clean up the house and our paint mess while cooking a big Easter dinner. Thankfully we pulled it off though!

Gabriel very "eggcited" about his Easter eggs...hehe

 

Alex didn't want to pose for this picture...can you tell?

Brayden finding an egg...

 

Goofy Owen!

    After several late nights we have succeeded with finishing the living room now...almost. There is just some trim work to be done as of right now. We're still on track to finish painting the whole house by hopefully mid-week. YAY!
Its such a HUGE difference going from the dark brown walls to a light green paint. I originally had picked out a brighter green, however I wasn't brave enough to go that bold. So I chose a lighter green, that on the paint chip was more of a lighter grayish-green. However on the walls its a bit more of a pastel celery green. In low light conditions you almost can't see the green color. Oh well, I still love it and I can't wait to see the house finished!
I'm really excited to finish the school room as well and get that all set up. I love organization...I just don't have the time/energy to do it myself. Painting the house is forcing us to clean up all those little unorganized nooks and crannies of the house however.

Its been interesting trying to paint with the kids underfoot. I'm quite tired of cleaning up dog prints, kitty prints and kid prints of paint on the floors! aack! (Thankfully it wipes up pretty easily pheww)

As we were painting, I started to do the trimming with the new green paint. Billy Jr walked in and saw me painting the new white walls with green paint and he was shocked. He said "uh oh daddy!" then he pointed at me at said "mommy a bad girl!". He thought I was ruining the white walls!

Okay - on to pictures....

Old wall next to the white primer wall:

Progress! A white primer-ed living room:

 A first glimpse at our new living room!

Happy 6th Birthday Owen!!!

(copied mostly from Facebook) 

Happy 6th Birthday to my little April Fools Day baby! And boy did God play a trick on us when he was born. A normal pregnancy, and normal and easy delivery with him - ON his due date, 4-01-04 (to be fair, I was sort of induced though!). He was the most beautiful baby I had and he even started nursing right away without any struggle.
But then everything went wrong and soon after they took him to the nursery, Billy came to tell me that something was wrong with him (I won't post WHAT it was here, it would embarrass him lol but many of you know already). He said that he would need to be flown to Children's Hospital and probably have a colostomy bag for a few months or more (a bag that collects the stool because the intestine is re-routed to a spot in your abdomen-area..I think that best describes it).  I thought it was a big April Fools Joke. I told him that was very nice to pull on a mom recovering from just having her new baby. But then he said he was serious and the doctor came in too. 

Owen was to have surgery maybe later that day or the next day. Billy went with him to Children's (they ended up taking an ambulance). I went home, 4 hrs after giving birth, and packed Billy's and my bags. My parents drove me to Seattle to be with them. As I've said before, it was a weird feeling to be running into a McDonalds just 5hrs after I had given birth and not knowing how my baby as doing or exactly where he was. 
To make a long story short, he had the surgery at 2 days old and it went very well and amazingly all tests showed no other problems and only the surgery was going to be needed. No colostomy bag either! We went home a couple days later like nothing happened.
It was a scary first couple days but all was fine in the end. Of course no one believed  us when we told them what was going on when he was born. Most people thought it was a bad April Fool's joke! haha

Now Owen is my little jokester and the family clown! I'll post a video of him in the hospital that Billy wanted me to post.

Owen at Children's - after the tubes on his face had been removed. Papa holding him.

Owen just a few days old...I love this photo!

 Owen three months old

Owen's first birthday

Owen's 2nd birthday

Owen's 3rd birthday

Owen's fourth birthday

Owen's 5th birthday

Owen is six!

A WAY awesome giveaway contest...

I haven't seen many giveaways as cool and BIG as this!

This giveaway is for an OfficeBox from The Original ScrapBox. Take a look...its so cool. I love organization, and it looks handy for homeschooling too!

The second part is an autographed copy of The Wrong Number by Rachelle Christensen.  I'm a big fan of books and love to read. I've never owned an autographed book before!

 Here's is a trailer about the book: YouTube Trailer

Wish me luck!!

Why must everything be a competition?

Its comical to watch the boys compete over everything, and sometimes its annoying.

I have learned to always make sure that everything is equal, that they all get the same things at the same time or else major drama ensues.

Sometimes though I slip up. Yes, I'm not perfect. haha

At Target they had these fabulous dollar bargain kids plates. The plates came in a variety of characters - the Hulk, Iron Man, and sharks. I got five plates and for some reason only got ONE of the shark plate - the other four plates were two Hulk and two Iron Man.

You guessed it....the shark plate has become the major prize that each boy fights for at each meal time. They literally  have contests to see who gets the "shark plate" that night. Sometimes, usually, it ends with one boy in tears. Oh dear.

I think I need to just make a trip to Target and hopefully they'll have more of those dollar bargain plates. Then I'll buy a whole stack of shark plates and there will never be any more fighting again....

Yeah right! haha

Happy 8th Birthday Brayden (yesterday)!

I'm a little late on this...too many birthdays in one week! haha
But yesterday, Feb 25th, Brayden celebrated his 8th birthday! wohoo!

He's very excited to start cub scouts on Tuesday, also we're planning his baptism to happen sometime soon...probably another month. We want to be sure he's ready and understands.

I have little time to write much more...too many things to do! But here are some photos of the last 8 years.. *sniff* They grow up so fast!

Brayden - born Feb 25th, some wee hours of the morning. My smallest baby at 7 lbs 12 oz. Also my only baby with HAIR! More even then Alex had.

Here he is about 1.5 yrs old...see his hair! I even had to give him a few hair cuts before this point. Compare Owen, Billy jr and Gabriel at this age...zero hair. LOL

Brayden's 2nd birthday - and a new hair cut. :)

Brayden's kindergarten picture:

Soccer: Brayden's favorite sport

Brayden this summer, started piano lessons. He's a natural!

This year's second grade school picture: