Welcome Home Trent and Marci!!!!

The girls had been talking about wanting to decorate and make a special welcome home for their parents. So while my parents went to the airport to pick up Trent and Marci, we worked with the girls to get the whole house all set up and perfect for Trent and Marci to come home. :) Katelyn went to the store in the morning with my mom to get balloons to welcome them home. They put these at the top of the stairs so it would be the first thing they saw when they came in the house. The girls all made a welcome home sign for them that morning. So we all went outside to get it all ready to stick the the garage. Even Sadie came out to be a part of the excitement!! Here is the cute sign that they all made all by themselves!

The girls wanted to make some welcome home cupcakes. We made some cupcakes and let them decorate them. Sadie wanted to decorate one, but she ended up eating the frosting and cupcake as she went. It was just way too good to not eat! :) Ha ha!

Courtney and Katelyn decorating and making some beautiful cupcakes for their parents. As you can see Courtney was pretty proud of her cupcake! ha ha!

After decorating all the cupcakes they decided they each wanted one to eat. Big surprise there right? :) The cupcakes were just so tempting to not eat. Besides its fun to smash the cupcake into your face and cover yourself with frosting! :) Its always just so much fun! ha ha!

While we were laughing at the girls for making such a mess of themselves, Sadie started giggling and was throwing her head back laughing at her silly sisters!

Because her sisters were getting frosting all over themselves, Sadie decided she needed to be part of the fun and madness. She was pretty proud of the mess she made. :)

We had so much fun with the girls the last few weekends. Were were really sad to see them go, but we are just looking forward to the next time we get to spend some time with them. We just love them so much!

Trent and Marci came back home and they were so excited too see the girls and they loved the decorations that the girls did. Trent and Marci brought us back some really cute and fun gifts. We also had fun talking to Trent and Marci and hearing all about their trip. It sounds like they had a blast!!!

Fun Times with the 3 girls!

We have had a fun couple of weekends with Courtney, Katelyn and Sadie! The time has just flown by with so many activities and fun things to do! On Sunday morning the girls were begging my parents to let them stay home with us and Sadie - they wanted to skip out of church. But much to their dismay Grandpa made them go, but he let them come home early. They came home and I melted some melting chocolate and let them make chocolate covered pretzels. They thought it was really fun to make these, especially since it is not Christmas time. We usually only make the chocolate covered pretzels at Christmas! Katelyn keep dropping her fork in the chocolate and needing more forks because she couldn't stand to have the chocolate on her hands! Ha ha! Such a baby! I can't say too much because I am the same way. Courtney on the other hand thought it was more fun to have the chocolate on her hands. She is such a silly goose. Sadie was big and she even got to make her own set of pretzels. It was so cute because dad was testing each of the girls pretzels and Sadie kept hollering out..."try mine grandpa."

We also let the girls make there very own magnet boards. You get a piece of metal and cut some cute paper the size of the metal. You then get modge podge and modge podge it to the metal. They are really, really easy to make a super cute. Courtney had more fun modge podgeing her hands. ha ha! She was literally painting her hands with the modge podge and peeling the glue off. So we got to hear all about how cool peeling the modge podge off your hands is and all about Jonah. Jonah is Courtney's Jr. High Crush! We had an eventful evening of hearing all about him.

While the rest of us were working on our magnet boards, Courtney was busy pulling modge podge from her hands. She was pretty proud of herself for all the glue she was able to pull.

We thought it would be fun to make some flowers to glue to the magnet boards, so Katelyn looked through and pondered about her flowers to make her board just perfect!

Sadie was having fun playing too. My parents have central vac and so all the little kids have fun playing with the flap where the cord goes in. I happened to come around the corner and Sadie was playing with the flap and putting the WII controller plug in end in the hole. Ha ha! It was hilarious. She also thought it was fun to put magnets down the hole too. those out! :) Luckily I was able to get those out. :)

They are just so much fun and so cute! I love to spend time with the kids!

Saturday madness with all 6 girls!

Saturday was a day filled with all sorts of crafts and fun for the girls. Taytum and Sadie played hard all morning and so when it came time for nap time they were all tuckered out. It didn't take long for Taytum to crash. Sadie wasn't as tired as Taytum, so Sadie stayed up and watched a movie and then took her nap. I must say it was alot easier working on the crafts with the 2 little ones sleeping. :)

Not only did the little girls get worn out....but so did grandpa. :) While the little ones were downstairs sleeping we were upstairs with the older girls. They wanted to make Mardi Gras masks with the foam pages you can get from any craft store. They started up by designing the shape of the mask on the foam page. After finally getting the right design they cut them out and the decorating began. As you can tell from Holly's face this is some pretty serious stuff. :) It takes LOTS of concentration! Ha ha!

Alli was being a stinker...I was trying to get her picture and she kept putting her hand up. I think this is the first time that Alli has ever been shy of the camera. I didn't get it. :)

While the girls were having a hay day with the crafts so was my mom. She was just getting into the crafts just like the girls. It was funny because when we were trying to clean up I couldn't get my mom to help out. She was too busy working on her crafts and making a bigger mess. What can I say.....she is just a big kid. :)

The masks turned out really cute! I don't know why but the only one that I got a picture of with her mask was Katelyn. Now that they all have masks we need to have a Mardi Gra Party. It was fun to see each of the girls and there very own creativeness. None of the masks that they made looked alike at all.

After making masks the girls wanted to make flower hair bows. So we pulled out all of the flowers and let them go to town making all sorts of flower bows. I think they had a good time making the flowers - they are really easy and fun to make. They didn't stay interested in the bows for too long. It was nice outside so they wanted to go outside and play. The next door neighbors have a really fun big tree to climb. They like to go over and ask if they can play in the tree. They asked us if they could go next door to see if it was ok for them to play in the tree, that was fine by us so they all went outside and went next door to see about playing in the tree. They were gone for quite awhile playing and having fun. They were making us laugh because when they came back they said that when they asked if they could play in the tree the neighbor looked down and saw that they were wearing flip flops. He told the girls that they really shouldn't be climbing the tree in thongs. :) The kids thought that was so funny!!! But when I grew up flip flops were called thongs - but the kids just think that is so funny.

After coming in they decided they wanted to go back outside and set up a table to sell the flowers they had made. So they came in and got all the stuff set up to go out and sell some flowers. They had only been out there for a minute or two when they sold a couple of flowers to a little girl down the street. They also had 1 lady stop and buy some from them. They were pretty excited about selling the flowers. They were out there dancing around and waving signs to get people to stop. The most excitement for them was when some guy drove by and rolled the window down and threw them a $20.00 bill. Holly came running in ecstatic. They only had 2 customers but made $23.00!

After they made their money they asked grandpa to take them to All A Dollar for them to spend there "hard" earned money. Ha ha! They spent over an hour at All A Dollar trying to find the perfect buy. I guess while they were at All A Dollar they got laughing so hard that they all wet there pants. Ha ha!! What a bunch of goofballs.

Later in the day the older girls took the little girls on a walk. They had fun being outside and spending time together. Taytum and Sadie wanted to sit in the stroller together because it was just so much fun.

The girls all had fun playing and spending time together. We had lots of fun working with them on the crafts and just laughing with them. Sadie and Tatyum loved reading stories so while we were playing and entertaining the older girls, dad was reading stories to the little ones and they were just having a great time reading. It was a really fun and hectic day!

Friday night madness!

Trent and Marci went to Hong Kong to visit her parents and so they asked my parents if they would watch the girls on the weekends. We were also asked if we would be willing to help out my parents to watch the girls, so we planned a fun weekend of activities to do with the girls. The Sunday before Trent and Marci went to Hong Kong, Aaron and Angie asked mom and dad if they would be able to watch their girls for the weekend while they went to St. George for a wedding. So we had a fun weekend with all 6 girls! Michael and I planned on sleeping over at my parents house to help out. We brought over a bunch of WII games for the kids to play. We have this really fun game called Raving Rabbits - it is just a silly game where there are Rabbits that are controlling a TV station. They have all sorts of mini games on this Rabbit game. You dress a rabbit, dance, race, exercise and all sorts of silly things. The girls absolutely LOVED this game and played it almost the entire night. It was nice because all 4 of the older girls could play the games together. They played the dancing portion of the game numerous times. They were so funny to watch. :) It was funny because Taytum would go up with them to dance - she wanted to play just like the big girls.

While the big kids were playing the WII the little girls were playing with the toys. We were just trying to keep everyone entertained. I think we did a good job. Sadie played with the blocks and trains for quite awhile. Taytum was back and forth, she would play with the toys and then go up and play the WII. Everyone was laughing and having a great time. :)

Even Cinnamon came over and was part of our WII and toy party. :) Cinnamon likes to be around us all and be in the mix of everything. She just rolled herself up in the huge giant teddy bear that my parents have.

I also brought over my Zumba dance party game. The girls loved dancing to that one too and they had lots of laughs over this game. We got a good picture of Courtney really getting into the dancing. I love how her hair is just flying all around.

All 4 of the girls up and dancing to the Zumba game. Work it girls....work it! I have to admit that I was laughing and happy to see that even the girls have a hard time getting the dance moves down. I try to do the Zumba dance moves and I suck! Michael sits there and laughs at me when I try to do the dancing! It is just rude!! But then I sat and did the same thing to the girls! :)

Of course Alli gets ahold of the camera and starts taking crazy pictures of herself. I mean it isn't fun to play around and not take pictures of yourself being a dork!

Alli going around catching great picture of herself and Courtney. Not sure what Courtney is doing here other than looking like hunh?

The two best friends ever!! Its so much fun to have a cousin to play with and be a dork with!

You know, it was really crazy with all 6 girls but it was alot of fun! We wouldn't want it any other way.

Cute little Mamacitias!

My parents went to Yuma, Arizona to visit my aunt and uncle. My aunt and uncle go to Yuma every year as snowbirds. They have both retired now so they just travel around and play in their motor home. My dad has been wanting to go and visit them for quite a while now and so they made the trip to Yuma over President's day weekend. Since they are so close to Mexico they traveled over into Mexico almost everyday. They said they had a great time and they brought back gifts for all of us. :) The Sunday after they got home, they invited Aaron and his family over for dinner so they could give them their gifts. The bought the cutest little Mexican style pottery tea set for Taytum. It is so cute - it is really cheaply made so you will have to be careful not to drop it or the pieces will shatter. It has little bowls, plates and a tiny little tortilla maker. I think Taytum was pretty excited to play with it. She kept showing us the little pieces to her tea set. While Taytum was playing with her tea set we were visiting and I caught Holly playing with the little tortilla maker. We all thought it was so cute. My parents also got Taytum a really cute little Mexican dress. It is the cutest little dress ever! We had to have Angie put the dress on Taytum because we wanted to see it on her. My parents thought these dresses were so darn cute. They said they had even smaller little dresses for brand-new babies. My dad said they were so cute that he was just tempted to buy one of the smallest little dresses just because of how cute it was.

I kept trying to get Taytum to smile for me so I could get a good shot of her in her new little dress. She would have nothing to do with it so I kept bribing her with candy. Taytum LOVES candy so I found some candy to give her to bribe her to smile for me. Rather than smiling for me she showed me the her candy! ha ha!

My parents also got Alli and Holly a gift too. They bought each of them a really cute shirt. We told the girls to go and try them on so we could see them in the cute shirts. They bought each of us girls a house dress that is so nice and cool especially for the summer. So Alli and Holly said we should have a Mexican Fiesta night with out cool new outfits we all got from Mexico!

Its always fun to get gifts especially when you aren't expecting it. :) Thanks mom and dad for the fun gifts!

Sweet Home Chicago Pizzeria

Michael and I both served our missions in Illinois and one of the first things the mission president did when we got to Chicago was take us out for Chicago style pizza. Chicago style pizza is sooooo good and we both just love it. We have tried numerous different Chicago style pizza's, but none of them compare to the real Chicago Style Pizza you get in Illinois. For our last anniversary we found a website that they will ship you a Chicago style pizza from Chicago. After seeing this website we decided that is what we were going to do for our anniversary dinner. Well when we were getting ready to order it we discovered that it would cost $70.00 plus dollars to ship a pizza to us. We decided that the pizza is good, but not that good. Well a few weeks ago Michael heard an ad on the radio advertising a real Chicago Style pizza restaurant in South Jordan. We decided to try it out and see if it really was like the real thing. Sure enough the pizza was exactly like they have it in Chicago!!! We were so excited and the food was so good that we decided we had to take my family to the Sweet Home Chicago Pizzeria in South Jordan. So on Friday night Michael and I , Tye, my parents and Jeff's family went to the Pizzeria. It was just as good the second time around. I think I have found my new favorite pizza place! :)
Because Chicago Style pizza is so thick it takes about 45 minutes to cook, so you have to plan on waiting. We sat around and visited and had a great time with each other. The boys did pretty good, they started getting a little restless before the pizza came out, but we managed.

As it was getting closer to the pizza coming out Josh was getting bored so I pulled out my calculator and that kept him entertained long enough for the food to come out.

Just hanging out and waiting for the food to come out. We were starving!

We ordered 3 different types of pizza - each family picked a pizza to share. My parents got Cheese, Jeff got a Hawaiian pizza and we ordered a combo. I would have to say that my favorite is the combo. They were all good, but the combo was the most flavorful. I think I will stick with my favorite Combo Chicago style pizza. :)

On Saturday Jeff went hunting with Aaron so Josh stayed down at Grandpa's house on Friday night and had a sleep over. Jeff dropped Sam off in the morning so we could watch them while he went out hunting.

Josh and I were working on his favorite farmyard puzzle and Sam was just walking around playing. I looked up to see Sam pulling out all the things in the bottom kitchen drawer and the next thing I know he is sitting in the drawer playing. He is just so funny and Cute. Who knew that a kitchen drawer could be so much fun!

He was playing in the drawer for about an hour. He was climbing in and out, in and out. It was the ongoing game for him.

Josh was being a pill. I was trying to get a picture of him putting together the puzzle, but he would have nothing to do with smiling for me! He is a stinker!! Every time I would try to take his picture he would close his eyes and make sure that he wasn't smiling.

Finally, I was able to catch a picture of him with his eyes open because he didn't know I was taking the picture. He was just being a stinker. He thought it was so funny. After I would take the picture he would start smiling and laughing!

Jeff ended up having fun hunting with Aaron and we had fun playing with the boys. It was yet another successful and fun weekend. :)