When Scott's away, Amy will decorate...

The painting Scott did for me a long time ago.

Boring before

working it out...

ta-da!

So I was getting in the mood to paint our main living area. There were also some other things I wanted to do, like a tile backsplash in the kitchen(it's all one big room so I wanted to coordinate at the same time). The beige was getting old. However, some things came up and I decided against painting right now. Anyways, I have had all these frames and older pictures, plus newer pictures I just printed out a few weeks ago and I just decided to hang them. if I do end up painiting, I'll just figure out the nail hole situation. Scott is in Reno for the week and somehow I usually end up doing some sort of project when he's gone. One time I did paint my whole house when he was in Germany, another time I painted out bathroom here and added reall cool vinyl wall art.

So, I also was able to finally figure out what to do with a beautiful painting Scott did for me waaaay back. I love it, but the paper was an odd shape and small. I wanted to scan it and print it out, but it ended up being easiest to just take a picture of the painting and I then printed it big on canvas. It turned out really nicely, although the wrap took off more of the edge than I was expecting. Now we can enjoy the picture always. I love it.

I also painted a shadowbox that was pink. I got it a while ago on clearance and thought I would put it in one of the girl's rooms, but I thought it would work. The last major thing was the saying, it says "it doesn't matter where you go in life, it's who you have beside you." I had gotten the vinyl last year for my birthday with an Amazon gift card, but I kept waiting and wondering if I was going to paint, obvioulsy I would put it up afterwards. But i visited a friend and she was nice enough to give me the idea and the frame to put it on glass.

So there it is, Whitney wants to be picked up and look at the pictures all day long, and it will be a surprise for Scott when he gets back. We'll get this house in shape, one thing at a time.

Mini Cheer Camp

Last week the girls did a cheer camp the high school cheerleaders were doing. They spent two hours a day for three days practicing a dance and some cheers and tumbling. It was a crazy week. On Thursday they performed at the halftime of the girls' and boys' basketball games.

Abby and Isabel both had a great time and learned the cheer quite well. Sara, not so much. She spent most of the time laying on the floor, crying or heading to the bathrom and them leaving her pants there. ( she had on a dress, with pants under for warmth) She said she missed me and i tried to stay and help but she just wasn't into it. Still, i kept trying. Finally at the game, she seemed excited and she went for it. I was expecting her to be the kid on the floor, but she did really well and obviously had absorbed something. The dance was to the song "I whip my hair back and forth" by Willow Smith. If you haven't heard it, look it up. It has to be one of the most ...ummm.... obnoxius songs in the world and you can't get it out of your head! Isabel had a sore neck from whipping her hair, seriously. Anyways, they were all excited and it was cute, the ask daily to watch the video we took of the event. If i get it figured out I will post it on here.

It was a crazy but fun week, and I was able to get out a bit more than usual. I took the girls to the first game, and then we all went to the boys' game as a family. The girls love the social scene there, and it is fun to be involved in the community. It's definitely different from where I grew up and didn't even have stands, and where Scott grew up, he was in the band and the school had thousands of kids. Oh, and we won both games. Go Buckaroos!

Sara's Pirate Girl party

the cake, if you couldn't guess...

Opening presents with her friends.

Sara had a three day birthday extravaganza! We went to Orem for the weekend to attend our niece Trinity's baptism. We drove up Friday after school. Scott and I were able to sneak away for a little date and had delicious Rodizio's. It is a Brazillian steakhouse that is not for the vegetarian. They bring the meat around constantly and you take a small chunk of each. Then we went to a new LDS film called Midway to Heaven. it is based on a book and has one of the girls off the Bachelor acting in it. It was ok, not great but it was squeaky clean and that is good. Then we went for a drive out to Eagle Mountain and headed back. Anyways, Saturday morning we went to the baptism and then did some shopping. All the cousins were together so we had a little party for Sara and her cousin Ashley who turned 2. We then took the girls bowling. it was not as easy as all the Wii bowling we have been doing, but it was pretty fun.

Sunday morning we packed up and headed for home. We made it in time to change and go to church at 1pm. So that night Sara got a few more presents from us. She got a unicorn pillow pet. I have been avoiding those things, but they had one at grandma's house and she loved it. She has been having slight problems with sneaking out of her room during the night and being afraid of the dark, so I thought it might help.

The next morning we were up and getting ready for the friend party. She invited all her little friends from church. As always, i forgot how much fun 3\4 yr olds can be and things did not go exactly as I planned, but I think they all had fun. Here's some advice: don't try musical chairs with girls this age. sheesh. anyways, we had the cake and Sara got cute presents and everyone went home pretty happy so it was a success.

Sara is a sweet girl with a big imagination and an even bigger vocabulary. Yesterday she said "mom, last night I had the stwangest dweam..." she still cannot say her "Rs" but it is pretty cute and i am not worried about it. She is still loving all things princess, rapunzel from Tangled is the big one lately, but she loves them all. She still does not color much, nor is she interested in sitting down to learn her letters, but she can spell and recognize her name. We know she's smart, she's just a little more stubborn than the first two. She is sweet to Whitney and is a great big sister. i love how she treats her and talks to her like she's a real little person. Sara gives great hugs and lots of kisses, including fishy kisses where she makes fish lips (if she can while laughing) and then plants one on ya. Sara also loves getting into things she knows she's not supposed to, especially things in the bathroom. Usually it's my makeup, she applies long-lasting lipstick to her eyes, squirts entire new tubes of toothpaste into the sink, or yesterday, when she put deodorant on her stomach. She is definitely momma's girl, she loves to be a mermaid and run around in her underwear all day. We love our Sara and are so happy we've had 4 years to spend with her.

Isabel turns Six

The mummy game with toilet paper. Thank goodness for the internet and all its fun and easy ideas.

This is "Lion, lion, hyena" where one person has a lion's tail that other is supposed to catch. They all loved wearing the tail.

Isabel was able to have her party right on her birthday. It was a monday and Martin Luther King day, so she had school off. She was so excited about that. She invited a bunch of friends, but we had a few problems with the invites getting to the kids to their parents, so next year we might not send them to school. Oh well. The theme was loosely jungle\wild things and I think all the kids had fun. Isabel had a Dairy Queen cake and that was a big hit. Made things a little easier for me, too :) We all got to just hang out the rest of the day. We went to Blanding to the Patio Drive in for dinner, the girls love going there because you get a baby cone for dessert. it was a good day.

WNBA here we come!

Abby is back in her little Junior Jazz instructional league. She is loving it, and does well. They don't realize how left handed she is, so we will work on that. They spend an hour each saturday practicing dribbling, passing and shooting and then they play a few short games. It is pretty funny to watch. I am happy she has these opportunities, though.

Abby finally got her second front tooth, it was super wiggly for weeks and was hanging on by one little spot and finally I just twisted it out of there. She is pretty excited about it. The girls also got their ears pierced over New Years and she is loving the earrings. We were at the mall and I wanted Abby to see the "gun" they use. Well, one thing lead to another and Isabel wanted hers pierced, although the rule was she had to be seven. But we were there. We went through the whole process and Abby held Isabel's hands. She wanted to see if it hurt or not. Isabel did great and was done. While I was paying, Abby was talking to Grandma CC and saying she might do it tomorrow. Well, we told her it was now or in a long time, since we can't get it done in town. She decided, picked her earrings and we did it all over again. Abby got yellow gold with pink stones and Isabel got white gold with sapphires. They have taken good care of them and everything seems to be healing just fine. My girls are getting big so fast! Unfortunately, I didn't plan on the ear piercing trip, so i didn't have a camera. i took cell phone pictures but i have to figure out how to get them on the computer.

Christmas, Part Deux

Scott went a cut down our tree, the girls had a lot of fun decorating it. It was the prickliest tree we've ever had. The plus side of that, is the kids pretty much left it alone...the down side was when i stepped on a needle and it drew blood. We probably won't get that kind again! Thanks to all those who spoiled our kids, we are very blessed.

Grandma CC was so happy to be here and see her family. The girls loved having her. Every morning they tool a book and woke up grandma and read for as long as she would read. They got all kinds of attention. We appreciated having someone to entertain the kids, and help with dishes. Whitney took the entire two weeks to let Grandma hold her.

Sara helped us shovel. She didn't want to play in the deep snow in the back. This year is still nothing compared to last winter, we've had snow but the weather has been pretty good.

Joys of small town living.

Having fun with Grandma CC

Mom was able to come for two weeks over Christmas. This is the first time we have spent Christmas together since the year Scott drove up to Canada, a few weeks before we got engaged. So it was nice to have her. She enjoyed spoiling the girls, seeing a bit of the area that we could from a warm car, and taking a quick trip to Orem to see Scott's family. We all wish we lived closer together, but hopefully in a few years mom will be able to spend more time in Utah.

Christmas was good. We stayed home and just let the kiddos play with their toys. The big present this year was a new Wii system. Everybody has been enjoying it. We love Sports Resort which has a bunch of different games like swordfighting, basketball, bowling, waterskiing and many more. We can play it as a family, and it is easy enough for the big girls to play alone. The other favorite game is I Spy Spooky mansion. You go through rooms in a mansion and find things, just like in the I spy boks. We played it as a family every monday night and took until this week to finish it.
The girls were happy with everything and we had a fun day, complete with a nice turkey dinner.

Christmas Catch-Up

Whitney's first haircut, she does not like things in her hair and the bangs were getting long.

Enjoying Christmas cookies, we did gingerbread and sugar. Mmmmmmm.

Uncle Dan and Melissa were able to come visit for a few days before Christmas. The girls loved having them here! After they went home, dan proposed! Wedding in May, we are so happy for them both.

We took a nice drive down to Newspaper rock. Except for the time Whitney got carsick and threw up on Melissa, the time we tried to go over the mountain and got stuck in the snow, and the time we tried to go down the mountain on a shortcut and got stuck....it was really fun!

The happy couple