Swimming Again...

Here are the pictures Andy's sister, Torrie, took for me of the kids yesterday when we went swimming at her house. I was trying to keep up with Olivia and Elizabeth to make sure they stayed mostly above the water. Vincent came in too, but he fell asleep pretty quick and then we laid him out on his floatie. Olivia did a lot better this time and actually went in the water by herself (aka-not clinging to someone else). She was kicking all over the pool this time. She just had to believe that the noodles and arm floaties would hold her little body up. I got sunburned as usual and we were only out for an hour or so. I forgot my sunscreen. I brought it and Torrie put it on the girls. I even put it on Vincent, but then I went to put my suit on and forgot all about it. Oops.
Today we are off to Andy's Ransom Reunion and then to my cousin's reception in Hermiston on Friday, then back to the reunion (luckily it's close-by, like an hour or less from each other. I just can't miss a wedding reception, especially a cousin). We are staying for four nights in a cabin, so the car is packed and only needing our toothbrushes and stuff and milk and cold things out of the fridge. I like to get it all done before Andy gets home. It's fun to get the car packed and nice when everything fits just right. (I know, I'm a little anal.) I'll post again on Saturday or Sunday to show some good reunion pictures.

Baseball Game

We went to the Dust Devil game tonight with two of my brothers, Brant and Joe. Joe brought his son Colby and Tina and Christopher came with Brant. I went with my three kids and Andy stayed home to pay bills, take them to the post office and run a few errands. I guess he didn't really stay home much. He just doesn't like to be hot and he gets hot easy and he's not into sports much either. He has been going to work early and getting home late for the last few months and needed a break. He did have some time to just hang out too. The kids had a great time together, like always, and didn't want to leave.
Here are some pictures from the game.

Olivia-Elizabeth-Colby


Vincent


Olivia-Elizabeth-Vincent-NaDell


Tina-Brant-Christopher


Colby-Joe


Olivia-Colby-Elizabeth with Dusty the mascot.

Cute Matching Dresses

So, last night, we went to dinner at Eatza Pizza (yummy!) with my siblings who were in town and my mom had to have a picture. She found cute shirts for the boys and matching dresses for my girls and Lydia had a cute jumper too. There are 12 grandkids and 11 were there. We were just missing my brother's son in Ohio with his mommy (my brother's in Cuba with the Army until September or so). Here's the picture of all the kids:



Andy "helped" Elizabeth and Olivia ride the motorcycle game at the restaurant. They loved it!



My brother from Idaho Falls came and spent the night Wednesday night with his wife and son, Christopher. They came for our game night and had breakfast with me before going to the Temple and I watched Christopher. He took his morning nap and then we went to the playground with our ward group playdate. He liked the swing. Then we got home just before his Brant and Tina did. We had lunch and they played Guitar Hero on our Wii. Tina ROCKED! Brant did good enough to not get Tina kicked off the stage, which is better than I can say for how I do. I think I should practice or something....

Today, the girls wanted to wear their new dresses again because they only got to wear them until we got home, so they did. After lunch, the girls were off to a sisters birthday party. My friend had a gift exchange last year and decided to do it again this year. Every kid brings a present and then they play a game to decide who gets which present and they all leave with one. I guess it's so their two girls don't end up with a second Christmas since they are 2 years and 2 days apart from each other. Christmas in July!!

While they were at the party and Vincent was sleeping, I made a yummy cheese manacotti with spaghetti sauce to cook it and chicken dipped in Cream of Chicken and then bread crumbs and baked. It was yummy.

Andy went to help our youth do Baptisms at the Temple tonight, so the kids and I went to Elizabeth's Elementary School to play on the toys and practice walking there (it's about 1/2 mile away, so we're walking her to school in the fall). Really, I just had to get them out of the house and get the energy out of them (probably the cake and ice cream kicking in). They were driving me crazy and it was only 6:00!
We got to the playground and Vincent was asleep in the stroller, so I took some pictures of the girls in their matching dresses. I promise, I did do their hair today. Here they are:

Bean Soup Recipes??

I am helping to plan an enrichment for food storage and need a recipe for bean soup. I want to use the three kinds of beans (black, pinto, and white) from the cannery and the dry onions and carrots. Maybe taco seasoning and hamburger, but I want it to be mostly from the cannery? Any ideas?
Also, how do I soak the beans without the colors mixing and looking gross? I don't know how to use my food storage and need to learn how.
Thanks.

Camping Trip

We went camping with our ward at Teancum Timbers on Friday night. After we got there and Andy was working on setting up our tent, Olivia went with Elizabeth and a couple of other girls her age on a walk and they came back without her, so we had to take a break and look for her with everybody else there and Andy found her at our campsite a few minutes later with cookies. I don't know where the cookies came from, because everyone we asked who was close to our campsite said that they didn't have any. But, she came back fine. We were relieved and now we know that you can't trust 5,6, and 7 year olds to keep track of an almost 3 year old. Also, that Olivia can't keep up with them and wanders. Andy says that for the family reunion, he thinks we'll tye her to a tree with a long rope so she can still get around a little.



After camp was set up, and we had dinner, we went to the overhang and Olivia helped some other kids make homemade ice cream, we all chatted, and Elizabeth played with her friends and her McDonald's Pet Shop toys that she brought.




Then, there was a dance. Olivia was our family representative. She can boogie. She is quite the dancer.



During the dancing, Andy made a fire to roast marshmellows in for smores. The girls didn't like smores!! Crazy!



There was a full moon that night and Andy and I were able to watch the moon come up. It was cool. It was bright enough to leave shadows. Andy was most excited that the tent was set up so easy and that it even fit back in the bag it came in from the store, which he says never happens. He plans on sending a thank you note to the company for their awesome tent.



Elizabeth was complaining as soon as the tent was set up that she was tired(she really just wanted to be in the new tent in her new sleeping bag) although, once she was in there, she had to go to the bathroom three times. They went to bed at like 9 and came out over and over until 10:30 or so. Then, Elizabeth wanted to get up at like 7am to go and play with her friends. She left in her footie pajamas and shoes and didn't come back to change until after breakfast.

The kids in our ward, I guess, like to build a dam across the creek each year, so Elizabeth went down to help them out after breakfast and a hike. We went and watched. They were busy kids.



Vincent is starting to babble. He says "daddaddaaadda" and other things too. Andy said that he sounded like he was yelling at us on Friday night in the tent. He was a little. He's teething and was hungry.



Olivia stayed dry the whole camping trip. She is doing awesome with potty training. We're so excited to not have to clean that up too much.

BATMAN-dodododododododododododoo-BATMAN!
Andy and I went with our game night buddies to see The Dark Knight on Saturday night. It was a great show. A little creepy, but a good, exciting show. I like Maggie Gyllenhaal better than Katie Holmes as the love interest. She doesn't talk out of the side of her mouth the whole time. Andy didn't even notice that it was someone different. He just thought that Katie Holmes got fatter. =)

Sunday, I woke up with a super bad sore throat and runny nose, so Vincent and I stayed home from church. I'm feeling a little better today and will hopefully be all the way better tomorrow. We are just hanging out today watching movies and the girls are playing with their jewelry that has been put away for a while. That's kept them mostly busy today.

Good Buys at Kohl's!

I went to Kohl's yesterday while Elizabeth was on a playdate and found some great deals! I was looking for some school clothes for Elizabeth to wear during her first week of school and I found some! Also while there, Olivia went potty three times. They have a great family bathroom with two potties. One is a normal adult one, one is a tiny kid one that doesn't have the auto-flush. Most kids don't like that. Very kid-friendly, so if you have to go to the bathroom in a store, I recommend Kohl's. For Elizabeth I found three shirts and two pairs of capri pants. One shirt was $2, the other two were $2.40 and the capri's were $3.60. Here are her great deals:



I also found a couple of things for me. I found Dockers tan corduroy pants with a belt for $4 (normally $40=90%off) and another pair of stretchy exercise pants that were $3.40 (normally $34=90% off) and a shirt that was $4 (normally $20=80% off). And bonus, they all fit! I don't know who pays the actual price. I never do.



I also signed up the other day for their emails and got a $5 off coupon in the store, so I used that and if you use a Kohl's card, you get an extra percentage off (I got 15%, could have got 30%), so my grand total for all of that was: $18.78.

While I was taking those pictures, I came out and caught Elizabeth "reading" to Olivia. Cute. Especially since two minutes later they ran to me crying saying that one hit the other.....and last night they wouldn't go to sleep without me having to yell at them a bunch. They had a couple extra chores to do this morning for me for that and no special blankies to sleep with last night. I don't know what else to take away from them sometimes. Any ideas on bedtime?

Cousin's Birthday!

Tonight for FHE we went over to Andy's sister's house in Pasco for her son's 4th birthday. He is a super cute and busy boy. He had an awesome cake that we done up like a race track. It was two circle cakes with frosting and then it had a tic tac edge around the track and crushed up Oreos on the inside with cute little cars on top. Andy's sister is so creative!



Vincent fell asleep on their carpet during the party. I laid him down so he could play, and he fell right asleep. They must have the carpet from the commercials with the crying baby who immediately falls asleep when put on the carpet. Just kidding.



Three of Andy's four sisters were there and also his Mom and Dad and his Grandma Ellen with her fiance. They just got engaged a little while ago and are getting married the middle of August. I knew him from where I grew up. He is nice and has very nice children. One of his sons was my Bishop growing up and the youngest son is in our ward now with his family. They are all very nice. We are so excited for her.



We love living close to so much of our family and being able to see them often. We are even able to swap babysitting with the ones who have kids (even the one couple who doesn't have kids will come and BBsit ours.) That's nice!

We are getting ready for our Ward Campout this weekend and are getting the kids excited for that. We bought a tent a month ago and will use it there for the first time. Elizabeth said that we need someone else to come with us though because she saw when we bought it that it's a 6-8 person tent, so she thinks that we have to have 6 people. I told her that Vincent's bed will take up a lot of room and so will our air mattress. She still thinks we need to invite someone else. Hmm. I don't think so.

Update on potty-training. Olivia wore panties on Sunday, but had two accidents, so today she wore a pull-up and was only wet after an afternoon ride in the car when I forgot to make her go before we left. She was out of panties today though and I had to do laundry.

TEETHING-Vincent must be getting some teeth because he woke up a bunch on Sunday night wanting food. I gave him a bottle filled with water and held it for him, but left him in his crib, since I had just fed him. He must have just wanted something to chew on. He's been slobbery lately too and eats his whole fists. He's still happy most of the time, but really likes me to be in the room with him or holding him.

End of Swimming Lessons and Potty-Training?...

This was the last day of swimming lessons for this session (two weeks). Elizabeth will do her level 1 class again in three weeks. She can do half of the things on the list to move up. She just needs more practice and confidence. She has decided that "bobs" are fun to do. "Bobs" mean putting her head under the water. That is a big step up. Here's what she did at swimming lessons today:

Will she do it? Will she jump? Nope, just dropped in. That's alright.

Keeping up with swimming lessons has made us extra busy. We went there every day at 11am and so we couldn't do much before the class (ie: buy milk or frozen things or go to playdates at that time or the library storytime.)

Enough with the swimming lessons, Olivia is wearing panties this week!!! She decided on Tuesday afternoon that she wanted to wear them and put them on (after she emptied her drawer to find some) and didn't even tell me. I know what you're thinking, "oops, accidents", but no, I walked past the girls' room and saw the mess and figured it out. Kids are always surprised that moms know what they're doing or did....I don't know why? Olivia is doing awesome and has mostly kept herself dry. She has been telling me when she needed to go at swimming lessons too, but that might just be so that she could have a sucker or peice of gum. She loves gum and suckers. I've even caught her in time to do #2 on the toilet a couple of times. I keep trying to tell her how much easier it is without poop on her bum. I think she's getting it. I told Olivia that she has to be potty-trained to have a birthday party with friends and to do ballet. She wanted to start planning the birthday party and keeps asking me when it is. She wants to paint (watercolor, I'm not that brave) and dress up and dance and make necklaces. I don't know if there will be time for everything, but she wants to do it all. Plus, I told her that one of her little friends is all done and doesn't need diapers anymore. Yea!!
She got to pick out a potty-training toy on Wednesday (jumping the gun, I know, but I was excited!) and she picked out a cool coloring tray that goes over her legs when she sits on the ground to color on. It came with markers, crayons, stickers, Barbie coloring pages, and more. She likes it, although the stickers and Barbie pages are all gone already. (Elizabeth likes it too.)
The only problem with her being potty-trained is that now all her pants fall off. Only the 18 month ones stay on. She's too little. She has so many cute outfits that won't fit yet. At least they will at some point.

Andy went to Montana this week. He left Tuesday mid-morning and came back on Thursday afternoon. He flew this time. We all missed him a bunch. The kids did pretty good and didn't bother me much more than normal, but it is nice to have him home. The girls jumped all over him as soon as he got home. He said after like five minutes that they were already bugging him. I think someone needs to hang out with them more.....

Vincent is doing good too. I think he's teething though and that means he's eating more too. He gets up every three hours or so at night again most nights. He eats fast though, so it's not too bad. He is really rolling from his tummy better now and can spin himself in a circle while on his back on the floor. He is grabbing things pretty good now too. I'm thinking my hair might be getting too long again. :)
No more necklaces for a while, I guess.

Oh, update on me, I did most of the things on my list from a couple blogs ago. I obviously took care of the kids. I weeded half of the garden that's all the garbage can could hold and there was no more light in the sky). I made dinner. I went to Elizabeth's Swimming lessons. I also finished the baby cross-stitch and I finished the bear wedding one yesterday. (I started a new one today. Too many baby's and weddings in the summertime. Just kidding. I love doing them.) Things are great here. What's going on at your houses?

Tagged again...I asked for it, I guess

Another Tagging.....

Three Joys:
1. Having a family of my own.
2. Being born into a family who loves each other.
3. Seeing kids do things they should without promptings.


Three Fears:
1. Child dies before me. (They asked for a fear and that's at the top.)
2. That Spouse leaves or dies (It really is a fear. I try not to think of these things....)
3. That children stray away from church and do bad things.

Three Goals:
1. To be a good wife and mommy to my family.
2. To make good friends and be a positive influence for good.
3. To go to the Temple monthly.


Three Current obsessions/collections:
1. Finishing cross-stitch projects
2. Blogging
3. Reading books

Three Random surprising facts about myself:
1. Um...I wet my bed until I was like 9 (not every night, but a lot.)
2. I sucked my thumb until age 9 too.
3. I have a pet peeve with people who try to dye their hair red and then ask for compliments when it's really not red or even close to looking natural. (This stemmed from a girl in HS who would come in with a new hair color every week and one week came in with disgusting maroon hair and asked someone sitting close to me, "How do you like my red hair?" And then followed it up with, "And it doesn't look fried or anything." It totally did and looked awful. Good thing she didn't ask me, since this was like 10 years ago and I'm still going.....) I'm not usually that mean though.

TAG: Kim W., Shanell, Kori

I've finally been tagged!

TAGGED

My husband's cousin, Michelle, "tagged" me today and I'm kind of excited since I haven't done one of these on here yet. I don't know that my answers will be interesting or exciting, but here they are.

1. What did I do 10 years ago?

1998-I was just barely 16 and almost a junior in High School. (I know, I'm young.) I went to girl's camp and got my license to drive and I'm sure I had a boyfriend I don't want to talk about. I had two big brothers on missions, so I was the oldest at home.

2. Five items on my list today?

- Swimming lessons for Elizabeth
- Weed garden when it's cool outside in the evening
- Make dinner (I think steak and potatoes)
- Same old, feed baby, change diaper, work on potty-training Olivia, keep chaos to a minimum
- Work on a bear cross-stitch for a wedding coming up and finish one for a baby

3. Snacks I enjoy.

Everything. Granola bars, cereal, frozen hohos, trail mix with M&M's, cashews, and crasins, dried pineapple, toast with peanut butter and cinnamon and sugar, cookies, and banana bread. There's some. I like every kind of snack.

4. What would I do if I were a billionaire?

- I'd go to Japan and see my friend Satoko and meet her parents and husband. (She was an exchange student at my school when I was a senior. She came back to visit a few Thanksgivings ago.)
- Go to Washington DC and see historic things with Andy. Probably go to all 50 states. That would be fun.
- Pay off house, car, and any other bills.
- Fix up this house (actually, if we were billionaires, we might just tear it down and build a new house or sell it and buy a better and bigger house.
- Finish collecting our year's supply of food storage and get a place to organize and put it.
- I'm sure that we would give a chunk away to people too. That would be determined if that ever happened, which it probably won't. We'll just have to try to do a few of these things slowly and anticipate them.

5. Places I would like to live.

I really like the area I live in now. It's normally pretty mild weather and there are a lot of LDS people here to associate with and a lot of just nice people around. I especially like being close to most of our family and letting our kids get to know Grandpas and Grandmas on both sides and Great-Grandpa and Great-Grandmas. I love that the kids remember them and get to see them often. Families are great!

Tag:
Christy, Kelsey, Laurie, and anyone else who wants to have fun with this.

Happy 4th of July!

I love America! I read a series of books a few years ago about the Revolutionary War and it was so interesting. I also read a book Andy got for a birthday years ago about the Founding Fathers. They did so much so that we can enjoy all the things we do now. I so appreciate them and all the sense that they made and how much sense they still do with the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights.

We started out with our ward breakfast though at the park. It is always so yummy! I look forward to it all year. I love breakfast. They make pancakes, eggs, sausage, juice, and normally hash browns. This year they replaced the hash browns with watermelon, cantaloupe, and grapes. I guess it's good to have something healthy too...

WARNING: Andy edited some of this...(It's not bad, just a warning.)
We spent the Fourth of July mostly at Timber Crest, Andy's parent's compound up by Goldendale, Washington. We took our friend Nathan up with us. He and Andy have been friends ever since Nathan moved here 9 years ago. I met Nathan 8 years ago at the branch through Andy. Nathan comes to our weekly game nights and has since before Andy and I met. He's seen our kids almost every week of their whole lives. We've only skipped a handful of game nights, usually only because we are out of town. Anyway, back to the 4th, we went up there and it was raining, hard. So, we waited out the rain in the camp trailer (didn't take too long, heavy rain usually only lasts five or ten minutes in Eastern Washington) and then ate lunch. The girls went on a bunch of rides behind the 4-wheeler in the trailer. I mostly cross stitched and took care of Vincent. Andy was trying to shoot squirrels. It took all day, but he finally got one, the little buggers are fast. There are a lot of them there and some are huge. They eat wooden siding from sheds, outhouse, and even ate wires from under the brand new cars of Andy's parents. They had to repair them, which cost a ton, so now they take Scooter (a Jack Russell terrier) up there to keep the squirrels away from the parked rigs. He's perfectly capable of destroying every squirrel in the place, but we can't untie him because he's a naughty little dog and would never come back.



Olivia is here playing with cousin Sami's toy. She calls her "baby Sami". She loves her.



Elizabeth is playing with Grandma's cool dress-up princesses. They have vinyl clothes that stick on and come off easy. Elizabeth and Olivia colored a few pictures up there too.



Today, Andy had to go to Salem, Oregon again for work. It takes five hours to get there and then he has to do his work. He went there on Monday and didn't get home until 12:30am. He left about 6am and took Nathan with him this time. We were all going to go with him until I remembered that it was my nephew's baptism today and Andy's cousin who lives there is busy with a daughter's birthday, so we're hanging out here today. My nephew is my brother's oldest son. He will be the first grandchild on my side baptized. Andy's sister's oldest son was just made a deacon last week in Utah.

Here's a picture of Vincent with his cousin, Lydia. She is two and a half months and he is five months. She's getting pretty long already. She has good bicep "muscles" too.



It's so weird that the kids are that big already, but I guess mine are growing too. Elizabeth is 5 1/2 and Olivia is almost 3. Vincent is 5 months and will be doing stuff before we know it. He does stuff now, I guess, but soon he'll be rolling, scooting, crawling, walking, talking, and making a mess. He rolls a little now, but not much.

We spent Thursday doing swimming lessons, ate lunch, and then went over to my friend Laurie's house to help her get ready for her yard sale. The kids played with her little girl. That night we went to the pool with their family. Andy stayed home to rest. Here's pictures of that:

Olivia was afraid to get in the water this time. She discovered the baby pool though and played in there. She liked to kick her feet in the water too.



Elizabeth still thinks that she is invincible if she has floaties on and was all over the pool kicking. At least she can do that.



Vincent went in with me too. Laurie took a picture for me. I'll add that in maybe later. He was without his floaty for a while and I held his neck so that he could float on his back and try to make him kick. He was so relaxed that he started to suck his thumb and turned his head towards the water and didn't even care that his eye was getting wet. What a good kid.

More swimming....

We went swimming at Aunt Torrie's house (really her in law's house) on Tuesday after swimming lessons for Elizabeth. It was a little overcast when we got there and then started raining, of course! It has rained for like the last two months (or more) of Tuesdays, minus maybe one or two. I remember Tuesdays because that was ballet day and one week we went with other ballet friends for a picnic in the park and it rained. That was the start. It was usually bad in the winter for snow on Tuesdays too....what's up with that? Does anyone else notice this around the Tri-Cities? Maybe it's just my imagination? Anyway, we swam. That morning at swimming lessons was super hot too! Olivia was clinging to whoever held her. Vincent just chilled out in his floaty until Grandma Shirley cuddled him. Elizabeth decided that if she had enough floaties on her, she can swim all by herself.... I finally got Olivia to relax a tiny bit and when it started to get a little cold, we went in the hot tub. She liked it in there. I think she normally likes the water, but mostly just likes to splash. She loved it last year and the year before. Hmm. I guess we need to go swimming more.

Elizabeth's new swimming suit.



Olivia's new swimming suit.



Vincent chilling out in the pool.



Elizabeth "swimming" in the pool.






This is what Vincent does during swimming lessons. My friend, Laurie, is holding him. She has two kids in swimming lessons at the same time. She helps me out a bunch. I can leave Vincent with her to take pictures, take Olivia to the bathroom, she takes Olivia to the bathroom if I am feeding Vincent.... She's awesome!

Swimming Lessons and more

On Sunday, we went to church in Basin City to hear one of my cousin's talk about his mission to Brazil. He was talking about one of the investigators and said that she had her own used clothing store. Then he clarified and said that it was really in her front yard, like a yard sale. I know things are different other places. I'm sure a couple of my brothers saw a lot in Mexico and Guatemala on their missions. Here is a picture of Elizabeth and Olivia with their cousin Colby. He lives in Pasco. I just took one picture so that if my mom asked, I could tell her I took one. They're cute too!



Elizabeth started swimming lessons again today. She will go for two weeks. She did the beginner class (minnows) last year twice, but the pool is too shallow and she wouldn't try to swim enough. I decided that she should bump up to level one. She is a little extra clingy, but seems to do okay. It is still like 3 1/2 feet in the level one class. She isn't the really photogenic one in the first picture. She is the one behind that girl with her tongue out. She liked the instructor, I think. He even got her to put her face in the water. Yeah!! Then, when she was done with her turn, he'd give her high fives. She loves that! I'll add more pictures that show her cute swimsuit another day.





One of Elizabeth's friends is moving away from Washington, the State to Washington, the capital (DC). He just had his birthday, so he had a party at Chuck E. Cheese's. They plan on only being gone a year, but you never know....
Here's a picture of Olivia with Chuck E. Cheese and Elizabeth with her friend, Rodney.