First Card Swap

We had our first official card swap this evening and it was quite fun. Love was the theme and got some really cute cards. I will post a couple of them when I take the pictures and download them. We had a really good snack it was I think one of Marcy's favorites and it is very addictive to eat. It is cream cheese with tiger sauce on top and you eat it with either a bran cracker or a wheat cracker. MMMMMMMMM Love it. It was very WINDY here today but not to cold. We are so excited this weekend is quite a special day, our niece Michele is getting baptized. We are probably going down Saturday morning and coming back that night. The day also has a sad tone to it too. The prophet passed away and on Saturday is his funeral at noon. General conference is going to be very interesting in April. My 5K progress is going well into the 3 week. It is unbelievable to think I can run a 5K in 6 more weeks???? So off to watch Danny do his thing and put him to bed. :)!

Things that we have done but I didn't post

Looking back at some of the pictures in the camera I realized I hadn't added some stories. From December was the gingerbread houses that I did for the kids teachers. Erin's teacher Mrs. Dobrinski, got a colorful skittles one, Erik's teacher Ms. Dalrymple got a red and white candycane one, and Michael's teacher Mrs. Ridley got a Snow white and silver themed one. They were a lot of fun to make and the teachers really enjoyed them. I am currently finishing up some others I made for my sister-in-laws but my little boys decided to "HELP" and so I have to redo all of one and fix the other.
But it will all work out.








I am so grateful Olivia taught me how to make these. They are sooooo adictive!! Can't wait to see what next years creations bring. I found a few more house I would like to try.

The next funny thing that I forgot to post was the fence walk. My kids have found that they can climb the fence and talk to their friends that live behind us and not let Gabbie our dog out. She has also found a friend next door, so she likes to bolt and go visit for about 2 seconds and then she is off and running to see what else she can find. She is getting better about coming back when called but she still shouldn't bolt. Trying to retrain over and over again. This is a picture of her.





Well for the here and now keeping pretty busy with things. Erin and Erik are really enjoying the piano lessons and Erik is lovin' gymnastics. Mike and Dan are having a field day in the back yard with all of the dirt patches now. I just hope we have grass when spring comes, because that will be a mess and 1/2 if we don't. Defiantly planting lots of seed and no one will be allowed in the back yard except for Gabbie for 2 weeks. I will have to take them to the parks and the Y to play. And by the way Danny is potty trained!!!! Yipee. Still have accidents here and there but not too bad. He is still into his geo tracks and he misses his Grandma Poole. He keeps asking when we are going to Grandmas (mind you he asked this also when we had just got back from Grandmas on Sunday) He is such a cutie. Mike is still asking for his John Deere boots. We might get them for his birthday. He love to copy his dad.





Matt got released from the doctor, and said to only do light walking and don't strain the foot. I am soooo glad that he didn't have to cast it. That would have been awful (but he said he would have taken the cast off any how) But we were glad to have a walking boot. Matt has a new calling at church and is the employment specialist. It was funny because he is probably the perfect one for the job, he has great connections!





I am doing a few things here and there, I joined a book club and currently reading Lucy Mack bio. I also signed up for a scrapbooking class at the library for this Saturday, we'll see how that goes. Heather would be proud I have my first card swap on Tuesday (theme is love). I just have to get the rest of the stuff going. I have a few new callings too, activities chair, Sunday school teacher for the 12-14 year olds, and assistant ward organist. I absolutely love my class! There are 2 yw and 1 ym. It is going to be fun with them. My dad called last night and we maybe heading out to Cali for a week in Feb. The kiddos will absolutely love it. Matt can't go because of work it looks like. But it we'll see. I almost forgot to mention, my dad sent Erik a weather tracker for his birthday. It is the coolest thing and Erik checks it every morning and when he gets home from school. He loves it.





Well enough for today, I am off to get Mike from school. Love to all.

Brithday's

We just got back from Texas this weekend for a whirlwind trip. Matt was down in Houstan for training on Friday so the kids and I rented a car for the day and went and visited some of our friends. We had an absolute blast seeing everyone. We went to King first so I could visit with Mica, Mary, Amie, Julia, Mrs. Dorothy, Kyoko, Torro, Marisa, Dolores, Evette, said hi to Tammy, Tamra, and Lisa. Missed a few. We are going back down in two weeks to see my niece Michele get baptized. She turned 8! Erik and her share the same birthday's a year apart. He got a basketball goal and basketball so we are going to have lots of fun. Dallin had his birthday on the 11th and he turned 6. They are growing up so fast. Our next family birthday is Bryon. It is funny but kinda sad his birthday is usually put on the back burner after the 3 January birthday's. But we got him a cool present for this year and we hope he likes it a lot.

A very sad thing happened this past week. The Cowboy's lost to the Giants. My husband has not been the same since. Poor guy, but NASCAR is coming up and they are doing trial runs so hopefully that will lift his spirits. We will watch the SuperBowl but I am sure it will be quite melancholy.

On another topic, my side of the family has a Sunday chat and this last one we finally got the web cam to work and had a great time. The kids really showed off to the family. It was really fun "seeing" everyone. Grandma also let me know she found my blog page which is really cool, so hopefully I will see some posts from her too. I have really got to figure out how to find other peoples blogs. Well off to exercise. Talk to everyone soon.

FRIDAY!

Well this week went well. I worked out everyday I was suppose to plus some here and there. I stayed in my caloric intake range and I have lost 6 pounds!!!! Kids did really good in school. Erik will start playing the recorder this semester, and continue with his piano. He already is really excited about it because he knows all of the notes. Erin is home sick today with a stomach ache, but she is better now. I think it might have been something she ate at school. She has a science fair project coming up which she is stoked about. She has be online trying to figure out what she is going to do. She wants to do something with plants. Mike is so happy to be back in school. He now has 12 kids in his class. Mind you when he left for Christmas vacation there was only 6. His teacher is really happy now too, because she has an assistant now. Danny is trying to potty train himself!!!! Last one out of diapers...can't tell you how nice that is going to be. The funny thing is as most of you know my kids don't like wearing clothes much in the first place and well he doesn't like underwear to much so most of the time after he has gone potty I find him running around with a shirt on only. Exasperation doesn't even cover it. But I am glad that we have come to this crossroad.

We also got our Christmas presents this week from my parents and the kids got some neat pj's and some other fun stuff. Matt got a hoop football thing to play with the boys, it can be thrown up to 600ft. It is pretty cool. But I must admit I received the coolest gift, my mom signed up for an idea book from Keepsake Memories, for me. So now I have three books full of ideas for scraping, picture taking and all that jazz. It is so cool. So now I have to load up on supplies to do some of these cool ideas. I am really excited.

Back to School

Well the kids have been back two days and it is so nice. I always wondered what that Christmas song meant when it says "Mom and Dad wish school to start again" Now I really know. LOL . I had a friend over for the afternoon and it was so nice just to hang out while her kids played with mine. We finished up the invites for a baby shower and got my new vacuum put together. My other one quite while Matt was vacuuming for the company party. You know you might not want to ever be a piece of equipment and quit working on him. Thankfully his shop vacuum (which is very reliable) came in handy.

Just to give everyone an update of my weight loss I am down 3 pounds. Also one of the challenges that was put out was to run/walk a 5K by April or May. So I have committed myself to it and have to look up when there might be a 5K in our area. They gave us a website that is called Couch -to- 5K Running plan and is a plan for 9 weeks with a workout 3 days a week to get you prepared. So today is my first day. I am quite excited about it. To even think of running in any event... The cool thing is I really haven't done this much exercises since I was in college. Scary.

Here's to a new Year

I am so glad to start this year. We have so many new exciting things to look forward to this year. One huge thing is that I have set a goal to lose my excess weight this year! I have been trying to do this since Erik was born. I have finally got to the point of this has to be done. So I got on to a new web site called Spark People. It is quite awsome and I am really glad to be able to work on my goals with so much support. A friend of mine here in OK got me started on it. Michael will be starting Kindergarden and Danny will be in Pre-K. I am so excited but also I don't know what I am going to do with out them at home...yeah right! This year I hope to finish my book and take some college classes. I am thinking Interior Home Decor, and cake decorating! Just to get me going then on to the more challanging stuff. Well got to go. Talk later.