Life is getting away from me!

No excuses. I just need to organize my life better so I can post more. Here is what we have been up to for the month of April. We started off with a big bang and got snow! I really wonder what is happening to Texas. I'm freezing here! But the kids love it.

I have decided that I need to grow an apple tree, maybe even an orchard. However apple trees don't do too well where we live. Our soil is bad. This kid of mine eats easily 5 apples a day. Those 5lb. bags that they sell in the stores, we go through 2 bags in about 5 days. One cashier made a comment one time as he scanned my 3 bags of apples, "Wow, you guys really like apples." I told him it was for my 7 year old. He was flabbergasted and chuckled that he must be very regular. Oh boy, you have no idea how regular and I won't go into that here. But he is my most healthy child. Hence, 'an apple a day keeps the doctor away'. Evan loves this philosophy.

Spring is here and with it a little bit of heat. Now that it is warming up the kids can't understand why the pool is not open. But there's always a sprinkler. I love having a trampoline and a yard. Those are probably my most favorite things about being in a home. And I can grow a garden, which isn't doing as well as it did last year. I didn't get my onions in and now I have pest problems. Lesson learned-always plant onions in my garden to keep bugs away. But here comes the summer and I am so excited for all my kiddos to be home more and for us to be able to play. As long as we stay away from the 100 degree for a little while longer.

Gabe's parents were able to come and visit us for a few days. The kids love seeing their grandparents. Especially when they come to watch them play baseball. Gabe is Evan's coach this season and Evan has absolutely loved it. Natalie can't wait to be able to play soccer next year. Goodness they grow up so fast. I wish I could freeze time for just a little while.

My boys have become quite the baseball fans. They love playing, watching and talking baseball, more specifically Texas Rangers. They are FANS!! This was our first game as a family this season and we had fun, even Natalie (I was surprised). We made it through the whole game.

This actually is part of May, but I figured since I am on a roll why stop. My little preschool group took a field trip to a local zoo and we had so much fun. Their favorite part was feeding the giraffe. His tongue was soooo long. They are such fun kids and I am going to miss them terribly once school is out. Natalie will miss them too. Every day she asks if she is having preschool that day.

My kids. What can I say? They are so very different from each other. I wish they could stay this way for a little while longer. My memory is getting so bad, I can't remember things that they can. I don't feel that old, but I am getting up there. They love walking around our lake in the neighborhood and this is their favorite spot. Sitting on the dock just watching the water. I am so grateful for technology and being able to capture them for my memory sake.

I will try and do better at keeping you updated more often. And I will try to comment on your blogs more often. I don't comment a lot. My life right now is so busy. When I get a chance to look at blogs it isn't for very long. I hope you are all doing wonderful and your families are healthy. Have a wonderful month and enjoy the last few days before summer!

Overlooked

Today I was talking with my sister and she pointed out that I had not posted Evan's cake on here. I feel awful I didn't post about my sons birthday. He turned 7 back in Sept and wanted a Phineas and Ferb cake. But of course there was nothing in the stores at that time to do such a cake, so I had to result to doing my own. It turned out pretty good and Evan was trilled, which is all that matters in the end. Evan is a great kid and keeps us all laughing, just see the side bar. And now this year he will be 8! I can't even believe it. I remember when he was born. Tomorrow it is suppose to snow here, which doesn't happen often, I hope they close school. I want a day with my kids!

The wording didn't turn out great. I didn't have much time to do those and by the time I got to those I just wanted to be done with this thing! But for not being an artist- at all - I was pleased you could just tell what it was suppose to be. (You should some of my artistic skills, Natalie is often questioning what my drawings are suppose to be.)

The elated birthday boy! I think they get cuter every year.

I definitely need to write about this! All Evan wanted for his birthday was a pet. Well, Gabe and I aren't too keen on those yet. So, we decided to start minimal. We got a fish. These 3 kids sat and watched 3 fish swim in a 5 gallon tank for over 1/2 hour! They were completely mezmerized! We let each of the kids pick out a fish, hence the 3. By day 3 Evan's fish died. He was so sad. Luckily the store has a 2 week period where you can bring back your dead one and get a new-how nice. Because our tank is so small and we have 3 inhabitants we needed to find something smaller. We found a cute aqua frog that doesn't need dry land in the tank. He thought that was great. Then, about 3 days later we wake up and the frog is dead. Evan just fell apart, "How come my pets are the only ones dying?" I felt for him. He didn't want to try again, because he felt like they would just keep dying. We finally convinced him to try again and we got another frog and that one is going strong still!!!

I had to remember our experience with our first pets. And after this I don't know if we will get any larger than a small tropical fish or frog! Some people just aren't cut out for pets.

Cartoons can be good

For right now, I love cartoons! I just recieved a back and head massage, plus a foot rub with cream. And it was all from my kids! They saw an episode of Phineas and Ferb, the one when they make their own backyard spa. So, my kids decided to do a spa here and I was the spa attendee, lucky me! They all wanted to take turns doing each one, so really it was like 3 massage rotations. Raising kids can be hard, but today it payed off!

Sorry for the break

I am so sorry that it has taken me a while to get back here. I have actually had my computer back since Christmas, but it just takes me a long time to get back into the swing of things. I wish life would slow down, it is all going by so fast. I have been super busy with Relief Society, we got a new president so we are busy restructuring stuff. Preschool keeps me busy, although I am hoping next year it won't be as busy because I will have the lesson plans pretty much done. And of course family. Evan decided he wanted to enter the science fair this year and it happened to be the same week as our Pinewood Derby and baseball tryouts! It is nice to be busy and not feel lazy, but I love a lazy day every now and then!
Here are a few pics of what we have done as of late.

This is for my sisters, who have waited a long time for Halloween pics- thanks for the costumes Mel! I promise Natalie was a lot happier than she looks.


In November we had Zach's birthday and I was relieved when he asked for something simple for a cake, although I was a little more pleased with how Evan's turned out than this simple one. But they all taste the same and my kids don't care, they think each one looks great! (He wanted what was on his baseball shirt to be on his cake, hence the number 7)


We had our first white Christmas in Texas!!! I think I read somewhere that the last time this happened was in 1929!! It actually snowed 2 times the week of Christmas. We had a blast playing in the snow, even dad came and had a snowball fight! Then we used all the snow we could find to make a snowman.


Last week Evan dressed up for Career day at school and he wanted to be a pilot. He was disappointed when we told them what they wear. Luckily a neighbor had some stuff from ages ago and he thought that was much better! (He was, however, afraid that the kids would think he was Amelia Earhart!) I love my little Evan!


Last week in preschool we talked about Space and this is what they did one day. We made space helmets and jet packs. We even tried astronaut ice cream!! Isn't being a kid so much fun.

COMPUTERS- Can we live without them for more than a week?

Well, we can answer that question and it is a great big NO! How did we become so dependent upon technology? I am finally posting after a very long time. There are many reasons why it has been so long. 1-My new preschool is taking a lot of time, mainly lesson planning; 2-New calling at church; 3-My camera is being funny and I can't get pics onto my computer. So, bottle all these things up and you all have to go without a post for a long time. And now here I am and I bet you're thinking - finally we are going to get some more posts. Well, our computer has finally given up. We have been without a computer for a little more than 2 weeks. It has been extremely hard! I am currently trying to find a talk show that asks if you can live without a computer and then Oprah comes out and gives all the participants a free computer!! I am here and ready, they wouldn't even have to wait to do their show, I have already done the hard part. Unless you don't want to know anything about the world or keep in touch with those that you can't via the phone (this includes mothers with kids at home, we all know what happens with kids when that phone rings!) this is completely impossible.
I am currently at my mothers typing this. Hopefully I can get a few pics up of the last few months, I know I feel so bad that it has been months since I put pics up. I am only here for 2 days, so I will see what I can do. But after that I can't promise when we will be back online. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season. Hopefully we will be back before then, but if we aren't we wish you a very happy holiday.

Listen to this!!!

I don't recall who told me about this, but Thank You! I love this arrangement. It is absolutely beautiful and energizing. I so wish that I still played the viola when I hear songs like this. This is a time when my music teacher and mother were right: I would end up regreting that I didn't put more into my playing.
Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfH2BY5pdLw

Finally- Pictures

I finally got pictures put on CD. So here are a ton of them! Our summer has been filled with so many different things. Here is a little of what we have been up to:


Over the summer Evan has become my little scientist. He want to try experiment with something every day. Here he wanted to mix water, salt and food coloring! When nothing happened he put in more colors and then some sugar. Nothing! Then he put it outside to see what heat would do. The great thing about it was that every time there was no reaction, he didn't get frustrated. I hope he keeps up the experiments(to an extent!).



Evan was a trooper and volunteered to help me snap beans. I wanted to freeze them so that we can have fresh beans in the winter. We love crunchy beans! We also froze broccoli and blueberries. Our garden was good to us, as long as we remembered to water him. We had a strawberry almost every morning waiting for us. I was trying it out to see how well they would do, next spring I will have to plant a lot more of those. Natalie and Evan were always trying to get more. My raspberry plant didn't make it, but I forgot to water it for a little while. But the blackberry bush is taking over. Hopefully in the spring we will have some blackberries!!!! I really want to plant in Sept, but not sure what is good to plant in the fall here. If any of you have let me know, otherwise I will be doing some research in that area.


We spent a lot of time swimming. We probably went to our pool 3-4 times a week, plus throw in a water park here and there. I didn't realize until moving to Texas how much I love swimming and being in the water. Zach and Evan loved the slides, as did Dad! And this water park was great, it has water slides for all ages and all fear levels. I was impressed at some of the ones Zach went on. We spent forever there and then we come home and zonked out!

highlight of our summer- Disneyworld!!! Gabriel and I were talking and realized that we have gone probably 4 times, but always quick trips. This time we went and were able to spend some nice quality time at the parks and with his parents. The kids still managed to have more fun splashing in puddles and goofing around. It rained pretty hard 2 days we were there.

We did a late night swim, which the kids thought was great! To them it was like getting away with something! Zach and Evan's highlight was driving the little boats with Grandpa and Dad.

And Natalie's was seeing the characters. She had to give everyone a hug!

Our summer is almost over and I can't believe the end is near. I loved having my kids home this summer. I am not ready for them to start school. I wish I could home school them. It is very tempting at times. School starts on the 25th and I am so sad, but I will have something to fill Nat's and my time --I am starting a preschool out of my home this year. I am very excited and a little nervous. I have always wanted to do this, it has been a dream of mine for years. I just hope I can recruit enough kids to make it work. Wish me luck!!