Birthday's, Birthday's and more Birthday's

So I am so far behind in blogging, but here I am making an attempt on getting caught up. The first birthday up was Austin, he turned the big 13! Wow, I still can't believe it! I can't believe that he only has one more year in middle school and then he will be in high school, I can remember when I was in high school and it just seems weird that I will soon have a high schooler. He is turning into such a great young man. He is very thoughtful of everyone he knows and loves, he is considerate of others, he is just an all around good kid. His favorite food is pretty much anything he can eat. His favorite books to read were Percy Jackson series and Fablehaven. He also loves to play with his I-pod and hang out with friends. I couldn't ask for a better oldest child!



The second birthday we celebrated was Paige's. She turned 5, going on 15! She is quite the character, she loves to be all girly and the next moment she can be all tomboy. She is such the little helper and help me with my sisters baby that I watch. In fact she has asked, no told, me that she wants a little sister. Sorry sister, that isn't going to happen. She loves the camera, whether in front of it or behind it taking photos. Her favorite food is crunchy tacos. Her favorite books are anything to do with princess's or Pinkalicious. She loves to play dress up. She is the perfect caboose to our family!



Six days after Paige's birthday, Tanner celebrates his. Needless to say I was a little partied out at the end of that week! Tanner turned 11 this year! Again I sound like a broken record, I don't know where the time went! It seems like just yesterday my kids were little and now they are growing up so fast! He is the funny one in our family, always coming up with jokes and stories. He is creative in writing and loves to read. His favorite food, is bacon and more bacon. His favorite books were the Alex Rider series. One of his favorite past times is playing with legos and creating new things with them. He is such a great example for his brothers and sister.

Easter '11

For Easter we went over the mountain and spent the weekend with James' family. All of his siblings made it over and we had a marvelous weekend. We spent the afternoon rolling eggs in the sand, eating a yummy lunch and visiting with everyone. The kids had fun playing with their cousins, building forts in the trees and all over. It was a GREAT weekend!

Biggest Loser 5k

So one of my goals this year is to run a few 5k's and I started the year off with the Biggest Loser Resort 5k in St. George. I ran it with a few of my friends, which is always fun. We had a fun time during the race and then post race lunch at Olive Garden. The weather was really quite chilly, but it seemed easier for me to breathe and run in. I was able to run more than I walked, which was great. My official time for the race was 37:50, not my best time, but not bad either. I came in 193 out of 572 overall and then 28 out of 80 in my age division. Not bad at all, if I do say so myself! There were former Biggest Loser contestants there running the race with us. They were at the finish line giving everyone hi-fives when they crossed the finished line. Then they signed autographs and took pictures if you wanted to. It was so fun to see "celebrities" and to get some photos taken with them! All-in-all it was a great race and I hope to do it again next year!!!

Adam from season 10 and I

Darius from season 9

Sam, can't remember what season

Sarah from last season

Ada

Feeling Inspired

So I know that I have been missing from the blog-o-sphere lately, but I am feeling inspired to get back at it. This is at much as a journal for me, as it is to share my family with family and friends. So I am going to try to keep up a little better.

Being that it is the New Year, I have been thinking and making my list of things that I want to work on this year. Usually I don't make resolutions, because I never follow through and or quit after a few weeks. But not last year, I did great with the few that I did, so I hope that I will do as well this year.

I have broken my resolutions into two category's, my physical health and my spiritual health. Some of my physical goals are:
1.) To lose another 20-25 pounds. This is totally doable!! I know, I lost 35 last year, I can do another 20 or so.
2.)To stay active. I really believe that staying active most of this year, has helped me keep of the weight. So I will continue to do Zumba three days a week and start running again.
3.)To run at least 3 5k's and 1 10k. This is a little scary for me to think about, but I DID run 2 5k's last year and a 1 miler. If I start training as soon as the weather is a little warmer, I can start running races earlier than last year.
4.)To drink more water. I know, I know, this should be a no brainer, but I haven't been really good at drinking all the water I should be. Last year when I was drinking water, it really helped me stay on track with my eating.

Some of my spiritual goals are:
1.) Be more in tune with the Spirit. I have new calling, it is teaching RS once a month. Trust me I have been more than terrified of this calling, but it has helped me search out the Lord in prayer, more than I had been.
2.)Try to have FHE more often. I am not going to say every week right now, but hopefully it will be every week. This one is such a struggle for us. James is not home on Monday nights, so we are going to be having it on Sunday nights.
3.)Pick my battle with my kids. So this might not sound very spiritual, but I think the less contention there is in my home, the more spiritual it can be. And not arguing over every little thing with my kids will help.
4.)Showing my kids my love. Does that seem weird? I Have no problem loving and cuddling with my two younger kids, but the two older, well never. I want to show them how much I love them, by paying more attention to them. Sometimes Paige and Logan "need" much more of me than Austin and Tanner do. So I will focus some needed attention on the older two.

As a friend of mine stated her new years resolution is Progress not Perfection. I LOVE it! And hope to apply that same mantra into my year and goals. Hopefully everyone will have a wonderful New year! I know that I am looking forward to it!!

Family Photos

We finally got around to getting our family photos taken by my wonderful photographer sister, Jenn. We went to a couple of different places to take the photos, much to the dismay of my family. James was baffled at why we couldn't just stay in one place and take them! Austin was up all night throwing up and didn't really want to go, but it is just too hard to get our families schedule and Jenn's schedule to coincide. So I told him to "act" like he felt well, I think he did a pretty good job. Here are the final results! What do you think?

My 5k's

So I started training this summer for a 5k, I have never liked to run and really wanted to try this. I found a program called couch-2-5k and checked it out. I really like the idea of training in intervals, running and walking and gradually working your way up to running a long period of time, or a 5k distance. It was a 9 week program, not too long, but long enough to get used to running. The first time that I was able to do the first long run, 20 minutes, without any walking, I cried. Never in my life have I been able to run that long, much less I kinda liked it.

So without much ado, I signed up for my first 5k, it was the moon walk/run here in town. The night of the race I showed up with my sister, who was going to walk it while I ran it and my kids, husband and mom there all for support. The excitement in the air was great! I was nervous but excited at the same time. The race went well, except I got a side stitch the first mile and had to breathe through it. I walked only twice and ran the rest! I came in with a time of 39:31, my goal was to finish under 40 minutes and run as much as I could. Well I came in under my time, I was so excited! Unfortunately after the race I kinda fell off the running wagon.


That was until my friend Pauline got me out speed walking and interval running again. She really wanted to do a 5k and asked me to train with her. This got us walking differnet distances everyday, some were 2.25 miles in 30 minutes other days it was 4 miles in 60 minutes and so forth. It was a really fun experience to train with someone this time. We decided to sign up for the Save-A-Sister 5k in St. George. The morning of the race it was raining all the way to St. George and we were hoping that it would stop so we wouldn't have to run in the rain, thankfully it quite when we got there. It was a really fun race, lots of people running in support of breast cancer awareness. Again the excitement I felt in the air was great at getting me going. We ran and walked it (although when I say walk, it really means a speed walk). The route was kinda hilly, we didn't train with any hills, but just walked up them and ran down them. I finished with a time of 37:38, a whopping 2 minutes faster than my first one. I couldn't be happier with that! I ran a 12 minutes mile, came in 98th in the women's 5k out of 194 and took 21st out of 39 in my age division.

It has been really fun training and I kinda like running, so I am going to keep plugging away with it and hopefully next year run a few more 5k's, maybe even a 10k!!

Day four: California Adventure

Who couldn't resist a photo with Lightin' and Mater!?

Since we were going to be at Disneyland, we decided that we might as well buy tickets to head over to California Adventure, since it right across from Disney. Thankfully this park doesn't open quite as early as Disneyland and closers a little earlier, we didn't have to get up as early this day. There are some really fun rides here, not as many as Disneyland, but fun none the less. We headed right to Soarin' Over California, it is so GREAT!! You sit in these chairs and then it lifts you off the ground in a big theater. with a huge screen in front of you. You then get to "soar" over California, the seats move, the screen moves and then there is the smell. You actually smell things, like when you go over the orange groves, you smell orange, or when you soar over the ocean, you smell the ocean. WAY COOL! Another great ride is the Tower of Terror, my kids LOVED it, even if Paige during the ride was saying, "why did we have to go on this ride", she will still tell you it was her favorite! Unfortunately those with bad sunburns were really sore, but they were good sports and hung in there longer than though possible. Playing in the water to cool off.

Paige was the only one who wanted to have her photo taken with Jesse.


Leaving the park, after a long, sore day!
Although some of them were still good as gold.


We had a wonderful getaway. We played, relaxed and spent time with our family. We are already trying to plan on what to do next summer. We are thinking a little closer to home, maybe a water park and museum!

*Keep scrolling down for all the other posts from our trip and some other posts that are new!

Day 3: Newport Beach

We took a break between Disneyland and California Adventure theme park and headed to the beach. Now I thought that since it was the middle of the week that we could easily find a spot and park it for a few hours, boy was I wrong. We couldn't find any parking close to the pier, but ended up parking on the street and was actually close to the beach, but far from the pier, so no pier this trip. The kids didn't care though, they were too busy playing in the ocean, finding shells and playing in the sand! We were there for a few hours, but those couple of hours were just enough for some people in our group to get FRIED!!! Yes, I had sunscreen and lathered all the kids up (although I should have put in on them more than once), but unfortunatly I am not responsible for the adults in our party. That being said I feel really bad that James and both of his parents got REALLY burned. We had a great time at the beach and I kinda wish that I lived closer to go more often, it was a lot of fun!

Our Disney Vacation: Day 1

I think that I am about all caught up with my blogging and this will finish it. Since we did a bunch of stuff on our vacation I am going to post each day separately.

Earlier this year our family participated in Disney's Give a day, Get a day promo. So we volunteered our time and made 5 blankets and received 5 FREE vouchers to use and Disneyland. We invited James' parents to come with us also. We rented a suburban, which I now want, so we could take one vehicle and hit the road Sunday afternoon. We decided that we were going to drive to Primm, NV and stay the night, but since we couldn't check in until 3 we decided to hit Bass Pro Shop, just outside of Vegas, to kill some time. While we were there, we saw the fish and the mermaid in the casino tank. Boy was that cool for you know who! She loved it, but not at first. At one point the mermaid came right up to the glass and was waving to Paige and she ran back to me, being very shy. We hung around for a few more minutes and were able to have the mermaid come right to the glass were Paige was again. This time she was more sociable and interacted with the mermaid and LOVED it!

We really hit traffic leaving Bass Pro, in fact in should have only taken us 20 minutes to hit our hotel, but because of the traffic it took us more than 1 hour! All the California's heading back home after spending there money in Vegas, I guess. The next day we drove rest of the way to Anaheim and started our Disney vacation.

Check out Day 2!

Day 2

We spent the whole day Tuesday in Disneyland, we were there at 7:30 am, when they opened and stayed until 8 that night. Although I could have stayed longer, we had tired, cranky kids and the park was crazy busy and we had enough of standing in lines. Some of our favorite rides were Splash Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, Indiana Jones, Matterhorn, Buzz Lightyear and Thunder Mountain Railroad. Thankfully this trip the kids were all tall enough to ride all the rides. Paige wasn't tall enough for Indiana Jones, so I stayed out with her, since last time I went on it and James stayed out with her and Logan. While they rode that, she and I climbed Tarzan's tree house a couple of times. One of the coolest rides was the Innoventions in Tomorrowland. I don't think that I have ever been on it, or should I say in it. It is the BIG building just to the south of Autopia, the one that the walls rotates. Well once inside they have a house of the future with all kinds of fun and cool stuff that you can interact with. You can spend as long as you want in there playing video games, touch screen puzzles and other cool stuff. That was one of the last things that we did and I am glad that we decided to see what it was.

The walk way between both parks. Our hotel was right across the street from here, so like a 5 minute walk to the gates of Disney! SWEET!!!

Splash Mountain

Waiting at the gates to get in .

Of course now that Paige was older she knew all about the princess's there. So Grandma, her and I waited in a VERY LONG, VERY SLOW moving line to see what three princess's we would get to meet and see. She wasn't disappointed, she got to meet Jasmine, Tiana and Belle. Unfortunately the boys all had to wait and not very comfortably as they were sitting in the stroller, the ground on grandpa's lap, where ever they could park it.