Fallstrom Family

The Big News

2012-02-12T11:14:00.000-08:00

I had my ultrasound back in early December to find out whether we were having a boy or a girl. I had told Sareny that we would be holding balloons at the bus stop so she could know what we were going to have--pink balloons for a girl, and blue balloons for a boy. Unfortunately, the gender of the baby was inconclusive due to the baby being breach and crossing its legs, so there was no big news to announce at the bus stop. However, I had promised we would be holding balloons and I didn't want her to think we had forgotten, so we got yellow balloons. She was a little confused since she had expecting either pink or blue and asked, "What does yellow mean?"

It was a bit disappointing for everyone to still be in suspense. Although honestly, I think it bothered other people more than it bothered me. After my miscarriages and years of trying to get a baby, I actually was just so thrilled that the ultrasound showed a healthy, growing baby that I didn't have room inside for disappointment. We made plans to have a 3-D ultrasound at a place that does them for free once I reached 26 weeks. We just had that appointment two days ago, and all I can say is that modern science is pretty amazing. I kind of expected to see smashed alien-baby pictures, and was surprised when I got this instead:

That looks so much like my other babies, it is amazing! So the big news around here is that we will be having another girl! Everyone was pretty excited except for poor Isaac, who has been praying for a boy. I felt pretty sad for him. Again, I personally would have been happy either way, but I know he really wanted a brother so I was kind of hoping for his sake...At least this way he gets to hold on to his title as my favorite boy. :) And a parting shot of the kids, because I thought both pictures were cute.

Sareny's Class Field Trip

2012-02-11T09:12:00.000-08:00

Sareny's class had a field trip to a dairy at the beginning of December, and I got selected as one of the chaperones. She was excited to have me along, and I was glad that the smell of cows didn't make me sick, since I was (and still am, of course) pregnant. Above is a picture of her class, with her teacher Ms. Lizarraga. Then the kids enjoyed playing around in the hay and jumping off.

The kids sampled some flavored milk, which Sareny of course did not like. Then they went on a hayride tour of the dairy. Here she is sitting by Aimee and KcKenna.

Looking at the cows eating.

Then they petted and fed some of the animals.

The sheep licked her hand, and she wasn't sure about that.

A donkey nibbling a carrot off of Sareny's hand.

You can kind of tell from these pictures, but it was a cold day at the farm!

After some sack lunches, everybody got some ice cream. This was the group of kids I was in charge of--there was supposed to be one little girl in our group, but she was absent that day. Really, other than lunchtime, the kids just hung out with whoever they wanted.

Sareny with her friend Renee from church.

Back on the bus with her friend McKenna.

I thought we were headed back to the school an hour early, and that was fine by me. But nope! The bus made a surprise stop at a park for the kids to run around. It was actually a pretty big park and was able to accomodate the whole second grade pretty well. I felt kind of bad for the few kids who were there playing when we got there.

I took a long turn on tire swing duty, timing the kids' turns and pushing them.

Sareny climbed up this structure.

And then we finally really did head back to the school. I was glad I got to go along on her class trip!

Thanksgiving at Grammy's

2012-01-23T17:33:00.000-08:00

We went to Grammy Jo's house for Thanksgiving this year, and had a great time. The kids had their own table, which Lexi and Megan and Ashley Noto also had to sit at.

We used the pomoegranite plates and had some delicious fried turkey and ham. (though the ham was not fried.) Apparently a large percentage of people (I'm thinking it was 80%) photograph their Thanksgiving feast, and we were not among them. Afterwards, the girls took the kids outside to play on scooters and bikes. Lexi and Sareny had to pose, of course.

Cute cousins! Fin and Chuckles look so cute together.

And I love this one too.

They had lots of fun.

The boys.

Lexi and Ashley. Megan was the photographer, so she isn't in any of the pictures.

While we were there, Sareny asked Grammy Jo if she could do lite-brite.

She had fun desiging her own picture.

Soon the other kids caught wind of a fun project, and gathered around for their turn.

The kids also had lots of fun playing Lincoln Logs.

Charlie threw a fit over something, I think it may have had to do with Finley. Maybe because it wasn't my own kid throwing the fit, I thought it was pretty cute.

It was pretty dramatic.

Friday evening, Bampa set up an outside movie on a big screen and we watched Elf. We bundled up as much as we could, but I was still freezing! Very strangely, my mom was apparently not cold. The next morning, we did gingerbread houses before Jake and Liz headed back up to Utah. Everybody had some pretty cute and creative little houses.

The Keel family with their creations. I especially liked Liz and Josh's ladder with Santa on it.

The rest of us, sans me the photographer.

The kids with the houses.

At some point on Saturday, I looked in the front room and saw all three kids clambering and playing on their Bampa. Pretty typical. I was glad I got this candid shot before everyone looked up at me.

He even puts up with Isaac pinching his nose and will still smile for the camera.

Saturday evening we helped Grammy Jo get her Christmas tree decorated. Finley clustered a lot of hers in this spot with the ladder.

Lexi hanging up her favorites.

The little ladder was pretty handy.

Finley gets pretty excited about Christmas ornaments and liked this Canadian Mounty.

And this is the only picture I got of Isaac hanging ornaments, because lets face it, he loses interest in non-electronics pretty quickly and moves on.

And to conclude our holiday festivities, me, Lexi, and my mom went to a late show. Yes, we saw Breaking Dawn in the Pioneer Theater in downtown Overton. And they were both quite embarrassed that I asked a random stranger to take our picture. But hey, things like this have to be documented.

I realized about halfway through the movie based on the giggles and comments from Lexi and my mom and that none of us are die hard Twilight fans. I wanted to go because I like going to movies and will see most anything, but afterwards I was like, "so why did we go see that if none of us are even remotely into Twilight?" Apparently, my sis-in-law Liz is, and she was the one who had come up with the idea of the girls seeing it, but we weren't able to squeeze it in before she left. So instead, the non-fans went. Interesting. All in all, we had a great time at Grammy and Bampa's.

Soccer

2012-01-10T13:28:00.000-08:00

Sareny and Isaac played soccer this year, and they both loved it and had a great time. Sareny's team was the Dragons and she wore number 3. She had an awesome coach and was lucky enough to be friends with most of the kids on her team before the season even started. She was one of five girls on the team, which I think made it fun for her. She did great and can't wait to play again next year. Unfortunately, the camera never made it to one of her games. Sad. But I did take some at one of Isaac's games.

Isaac's team was the Coyotes, and he wore number 9. He had the best, most patient coach ever, and we hope to get him again next year. For most of the season, Isaac didn't love soccer quite as much as Sareny did, but by the end, he had gotten more in to it and did great.

He got to do a kickoff.

A picture of the whole team. Isaac is sitting by his friendCharlie from church, and Revan that we met at the park is on the other side of Charlie. Revan's dad is Coach Pete, and I can't remember the other coach's name.

At Isaac's last game, there weren't any subs and I was pretty worried how he would do, since he was always the first kid asking for a sub, and if he was tired, he would just kind of stand there and do nothing. We had talked it up pretty big, and I was shocked that he stepped up and never once said he was tired. He even scored two goals! It gave me some hope for next year.

After the game where I had my camera, I tried to get some pictures of Isaac and Sareny, but they were being pretty silly.

But still pretty cute.

At least they had a lot of fun...

We can't wait for next year, where Finley and Isaac will be on the same team. That should be fun!

Halloween, which happened over two months ago...

2012-01-09T15:59:00.000-08:00

This year Grandma was visiting and she offered to help make the girls' Halloween costumes, and it was so nice to have her expertise! My little flapper girls were the cutest ones I've ever seen. Isaac's costume was actually store bought this year, but I thought that was fine. :) Sadly, grandma had to leave the morning of our ward trunk or treat, but the kids looked so cute.

Sareny and Isaac had soccer practice right before this, so I had to do her hair before soccer and hope that it held up okay. We also were changing into our costumes in the church parking lot.

My favorite feature of Isaac's costume--the little violin case. I thought it was a little less risque than having him run around with a tommy gun. We also had him wear his tio Johnny's hat that I believe was originally part of a Bonnie and Clyde costume. Which was a little big on him, but I thought it worked fine.

Keith and I resurrected the Raggedy Ann and Andy costumes. Finley wasn't being the most cooperative for pictures, so here is one of Keith holding her.

On Halloween night, our neighbors have a fun party with chili before all the kids head out to go trick or treating together.

The kids in our group.

We had a really fun Halloween this year, and were especially glad that Grandma was here to celebrate a little bit of it with us!

Getting in the Holiday Mood a Bit Early

2012-01-01T09:33:00.000-08:00

We got a little crazy this year and put up our tree, decorations, and house lights before we left to go out of town for Thanksgiving. Maybe that makes us as bad as all the stores, but I just couldn't help it! I love seeing all the Christmas decorations and wanted to enjoy them as long as possible. Anyway, the kids had a great time putting up their ornaments. Here they are holding the new ornaments they picked out this year at Disneyland as their souveniers.

Finley was especially cute, because she got so excited by each ornament. Each time she would pull one out, she would exclaim about it, "Look! I got Winnie the Pooh!" and want to show everyone. Isaac, in typical fashion, put up a few of his ornaments, and then told me, "You can do the rest of mine." Not so into it, apparently. Sareny loved finding all of her old favorite ornaments and finding a special spot for them on the tree.

We also got a lovely new garland from Costco this year, that looked really gorgeous draped on our banister.

It's kind of fun having a railing for garland, and fireplace to hang stockings by. Sadly, December was really warm and we didn't get to use our fireplace too much, but it looked really pretty.

Spooky Dinner

2011-12-06T09:42:00.000-08:00

We had our annual spooky dinner the week before Halloween while grandma was still here. (I miss when Isaac used to call it "pooky pooky dinner.") On the menu--cobwebs and batwings (pasta), monster toes (wrapped lil smokies), bones and blood (breadsticks and marinara), monster eyes (deviled eggs.)

And of course, we had witches brew.

The kids look forward to our spooky dinner all year long, and lets face it, I do too. It is a lot of fun planning! This year for dessert, we had eyeballs on forks. These were donut holes dipped in white chocolate with red frosting and a chocolate chip.

I love the crazy poses these kids are making!

State Fair

2011-11-14T10:35:00.000-08:00

Sareny and I made gingerbread houses to enter in the State Fair, and we had so much fun! I was totally impressed with how good Sareny's house turned out--she worked really hard on it and came up with all of the design elements herself.

Her completed house from the front.

Her house from the back.

My favorites were the little snowmen she made out of marshmallow fondant, and I thougth the shovel turned out pretty cute as well.

I made a farmhouse for my entry.

I've never completely covered the gingerbread with icing before; I thought it turned out pretty cool.

This view shows the chimney on the side of the house.

The storefront. I particularly love how the little apple baskets turned out. I had to snip the ends off of hot tamales to make them. I made the pumpkins with marshmallow fondant. We named the farm Green Bluff Farm after the farm Keith's dad owns. Their family farm is named Strawberry Hills Farm, but since this was more of an apple orchard than strawberry farm, I named it after the region of Mead, Washington that they live in, which is the Green Bluff area.

I thought the little porch light turned out really cute too. It is a lemon drop outlined with black royal icing.

I cut the flagstone patio out of gumpaste that I colored gray. You can also see the light's bracket better in this picture.

Sideview featuring the pumpkin cart and apple trees, complete with ladder.

We went to the fair as a family the first day it was opened to see how our projects did. We picked Grandma Nancy up at the airport that day, had lunch with Keith, and then later met him at the fair. I must admit, it was a lot more exciting going to the fair when you are looking for your projects that you worked so hard on and wondering how they did. I was particularly hoping that Sareny's house would win a ribbon--I knew it would mean a lot to her. Here she is by her house, and we were shocked and thrilled that she won not only a 1st place ribbon, but also a purple Best of Show Rosette ribbon. How exciting!

I was so proud of her, and I know she is excited to get a check in the mail for $5, the amount they give first place entries. My friend Tia is the superintendent over the baked goods area, and she told me that the judges were super impressed with Sareny's entry. When I went to pick our houses up after the fair was over, she said she had lots of people very impressed with Sareny's house and asking if Tia knew how old the little girl was. They all couldn't believe it that she is only 7! So way to go Sareny!

I have to admit, I was probably just as thrilled as Sareny was when I saw that my house won first place and Best of Show also! How cool is that? It was kind of fun to see people at the fair crowding around my house and taking pictures of it.

I thought it was pretty awesome that we both took home top honors. We were even contacted by someone who wanted to feature us, the mother/daughter fair winners, on a local TV show, but sadly, we were in Disneyland the day they could film us. You can imagine Sareny's disapointment!

I am really glad the Young Women (I'm the secretary) decided to enter the fair, because that is what prompted us both to enter. It was a great experience, and Sareny can't wait to enter again!

Angry Mommy

2011-11-03T13:21:00.000-07:00

I took the two younger kids to Ross on Monday with my friend Monica and her son, and it was such a horrible experience, I have no desire to take them out shopping any time soon. The children ran amok throughout the store, threw kicking and screaming temper tantrums when I tried to reel them in, (at least Finley did) and it was one of those trips where I was pretty sure everybody in the store was just happy to see the backside of us as we left. That evening, Finley drew a picture and told me, "That's you in the store. You are mad!" What I can't believe is how she managed to make such a good angry face. But that very well may have been just how I looked.

Farewell to Disneyland

2011-11-02T08:01:00.000-07:00

Despite the massive crowds on Saturday, we had a great last day at Disneyland. We revisited some of our favorite attractions and also checked out some of the off the beaten path things we rarely take the time to do. Keith is always up for Jungle Cruise.

This how Finley spent a lot of her time--snuggled on her Daddy.

I was surprised today--she told me she liked the monster ride when she said, "Don't get me, monster!" She was referring to Matterhorn.

I was the only one in our group who had ever seen Captain EO, and although I did warn them that as far as I could remember, it was pretty bizarre and cheesy, we decided to go see it.

It was every bit as bizarre and cheesy as I remembered it, and the plot still didn't really make sense to me. But it was still kind of fun, and I enjoyed the nostalgia of seeing it again.

We used one of our readmission passes to jump the always huge line for Storybookland Canal Boats. I do really like this ride, but the line is always so bad! The kids had been looking forward to being swallowed by a whale.

The other side of the boat.

Keith and the girls during the ride.

We stopped to have our picture taken on our way to Tom Sawyer's Island.

We spent a bit of time on Tom Sawyer's Island, which I haven't been to in years. Possibly it is now called Pirate's Lair, and not Tom Sawyer Island, but it seemed odd that they just nailed up a board saying "Pirates Lair," that only partially covered the Tom Sawyer Island sign. Kind of weird for Disneyland. The kids really had a lot of fun running around.

The kids all climbed up the wall of bones. This one kid climbed on the outside of the bones (you can see him in the picture,) which I'm sure was not allowed since he was hanging right over the water, which then prompted other kids to follow suit. Was it bad that part of me really wanted him to fall in?

There were a few interactive things for the kids to do, as well as caves, treehouses, and bridges to explore.

We found the pirate's treasure.

The rest of the day featured several other rarely done things, like Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, Turtle Talk with Crush (which I highly reccomend), Disney Junior Stage Show, and a Dance Off show. The shows were all really good and a welcome relief from standing in huge lines all day. We did squeeze in a few rides as well. Right before the fireworks, we rode the Carousel again, because Finley had been asking to do that one all day. Earlier when I had gotten her out of the stroller, she said, "You are taking me to ride the merry go round?" How could you resist taking her? At the end of the day, we watched the fireworks and then hurried over to New Orleans Square where Fantasmic was underway. As soon as it cleared out, we joined the throngs pushing and shoving to get good seats for the next show. Keith was off riding Indiana Jones with Sareny as her last ride of the trip, and I managed to score us some front row seats for Fantasmic.

I asked Keith if he knew how I managed to get such good seats, and he said, "Pushing and a shoving?" And I said, "yep." Once we secured the seats, I rushed off with Isaac to do Splash Mountain, which he had been asking to do all day long. He was so excited, and I think this may be my favorite memory of the trip. So each kid got to do one of their favorite rides as the last one of the trip. Finley fell asleep right after the Carousel. I tried to rouse her for Fantasmic, but she was out.

Then, she woke up on her own right when the villains take over Mickey's dream and Fantasmic gets a little scary. She seemed fine though, and got to see the big ending. Once the show was over, everyone headed back to the hotel except for me and Sareny. She wanted to pick out a christmas ornament from a store on Main Street for her souveneir, so we did a little shopping together. It was kind of nice to have some time together, even if we were both pretty wiped out.

I polled the kids about their favorites from the trip, and this is what I got:

Sareny--Big Thunder, Indiana Jones, Ariel, Peter Pan, and Goofy's Flight School

Isaac--Splash Mountain was his total favorite, but he also liked Grizzly River Run and Big Thunder

Finley--the Carousel, and the Soundsational Parade. Later she added Matterhorn.

The next morning we walked over to the Grand Californian for a character breakfast at Storyteller's Cafe. It was surprisingly affordable and relaxing, possibly because we went after the parks were open so the rush was gone. The kid's meals were only $6.99, which I still have sticker shock over but in a good way. Character meals usually run over $30 per person, including children. Here are some of the characters that came to our table.

Koda

Finally, at the tail end of our trip, Finley had relaxed about the characters.

This guy from Pocohantas

This guy from Tarzan.

They also led the kids in some parade thing through the restaurant.

And then we headed home.

Disneyland Day 2

2011-10-31T15:12:00.000-07:00

We started our second day at Disneyland off bright and early on Main Street, ready to dash off to Peter Pan. Because of the age of our kids, the fact that we had already ridden most of the other rides that we wanted to, and that there was no magic morning on Friday, we decided to go for Peter Pan first off, and we were able to walk right on. And may I just say that our group seemed to appreciate the bright yellow shirt I was wearing--it made it easy to spot me in a crowd. Keith rode with Finley.

Grandma rode with Isaac.

Which means that I rode with Sareny, but there was nobody to take our picture. :) After Peter Pan Keith, Sareny, Isaac, and I rode Big Thunder Mountain.

This was a huge favorite of both Sareny and Isaac, so we decided to ride it again while the lines were non existent. I stayed off with Finley. Then we found out the ride broke down while they were on it, so I took a few pictures of Finley while we waited. It was perfect, because the Mark Twain Riverboat was just coming around the bend.

Then it blew it's horn right as I took a picture.

And one more cute/silly little smile. The background is so perfect, it almost looks fake.

Then I took a picture of both of us.

And then they got off the ride, and we headed over to ride Haunted Mansion and Splash Mountain. On the way there, we stopped for a family picture in front of the Rivers of America.

Then we did Haunted Mansion, which the kids found much less scary in the daytime. I love how they have the house all decked out for Halloween, but we all liked the regular attraction better than the Nightmare Before Christmas Holiday version.

For Splash Mountain, we pack everybody a pair of flipflops and a cheap dollar store poncho. Because I like this ride quite a bit, but there is very little that is worse than walking around soaking wet and in squishy socks and shoes. We may look a little silly, but I heard more than one person ask a ride attendent where we got the ponchos at. Isaac totally loved Splash Mountain and wanted to ride again, while Sareny didn't so much and Finley was asking to ride the "merry go round." So I took the girls to the Carousel while Keith, Nancy, and Isaac rode again. This time Finley got to ride Jingles.

This picture is from inside Fantasyland showing the back of Sleeping Beauty Castle. Although if you know your Disneyland trivia, you'll know that this was originally designed to be the front of the castle, but someone had placed it backwards on the model, and Walt liked it better that way.

We went to ToonTown and did some things we had missed the day before. The kids all quite liked Gadget's Go Coaster. I remember being supremely unimpressed with this ride the first time I rode it, but I was a teenager, so it was pretty lame. For small children, it is perfect. Exciting, but not too scary, and the whole ride is visible. We took some pictures just playing around.

On Donald's boat.

Then we toured Mickey's House.

We haven't waited in line to see Mickey in years, but the line was almost nonexistant, so we stopped by to see him in his movie barn. I wanted a picture of the kids, but once again, Finley wasn't having any of it.

So we did a family picture instead.

We went back to the hotel to nap for a few hours, and it was an extremely dissatisfying and frustrating experience. Isaac quietly watched shows, Sareny watched shows for a while, and then went to sleep, and Finley walked around the room talking, getting into stuff, and being a bit of a nuisance, making it so Keith and I weren't really able to sleep either. She finally fell asleep about 20 minutes before we were heading back to the park. She didn't really even stay alseep for long in the stroller. The rest of the group headed off to ride something she wasn't tall enough for, and I took her to Snow White's Grotto to make a wish and to do the Castle walk-through diarama. I noticed that while at the hotel, she had taken out her cute little piggies and Minnie ears, but oh well.

Disneyland closed early because of a separate admission Halloween party, but California Adventures was open late. We spent the rest of the evening over there.We rode the new Little Mermaid ride, which was pretty cute. You can sort of see Mickey's SunWheel in the background between Keith and Nancy.

We rode the SunWheel as well. I guess I was so busy focusing on the two cute little munchkins, I forgot about the adults and chopped their heads off.

We rode in the seats that swing and slide on a track. It made it rather exciting.

Sareny and Isaac wanted to do the Silly Symphony Swings. Which I found interesting, since we coudn't convince Sareny to go on them last time we went. At any rate, I thought the swings at the AZ State Fair were better--they went quite a bit higher.

We had tickets to see World of Color, which was a pretty good show. But I don't particularly want to see it again any time soon because you had to stand in one place for an hour before the show started, and stand for the whole show. The kids were able to stand on the stroller to see, thank goodness, because there is no way I could have held a child up for that long so they could see the show. I also had an extremely tall man standing directly in front of me, so I had to contort my body around to try to see. So anyway, the show was reasonably good, but my legs were just too tired to enjoy it much.

After the show, we rode Goofy's Sky School, which is really just Mousetrap re-themed. Sareny really liked it though, and I did actually think the re-theming helped the ride a bit. Then Grandma took Finley back to the hotel, who fell asleep on the way. She woke up just enough to say, "Boo" to Grandma when she changed her diaper. The rest of us rode Grizzly River Run, again utilizing ponchos and flipflops. The kids loved this one, and we rode it twice in a row. I did not love this one--the continual spinning was making me feel rather sick, so I was pretty happy to get off of it or we probably would have ridden it three times. Anway, we had a really fun second day at the park.

Disneyland Trip Day 1

2011-10-28T15:54:00.000-07:00

We went to Disneyland October 20, 21, and 22. Grandma Nancy flew down from Spokane to spend a few days with us before we all loaded up in the van and drove to California. Our first day there was a Thursday. Anyone who has gone to Disneyland with me before knows there are a few ground rules for the trip, the most important being: We will be in line at the gates waiting for Disneyland to open at least 20 minutes before the park opens. All three mornings they let us onto Main Street to wait at the end before taking off to our rides. Here we are waiting for Disneyland to officially open.

We had kind of a rough start to our first morning. Our original plan was to ride Dumbo first so we went right past Peter Pan, which we could have walked on, and got to Dumbo. Where we saw that it was closed. Bummer. By the time we got back to Peter Pan, there was already a huge line, so we headed to Alice in Wonderland instead. Not anyone's idea of "The First Ride" of the trip, but it was still fun. This was our magic morning, so only Fantasyland and Tomorrowland were open. After Alice we rode Matterhorn, which all of the kids seemed to enjoy, although I don't think it was Grandma's favorite. Then we did the carousel, which turned out to be Finley's favorite ride.

Sareny got to ride Jingles.

Isaac showing "no hands." Poor Isaac got totally scraped up when he dismounted his horse. It was kind of bad, but he was pretty brave.

Then we headed over to ride Dumbo, which had finally opened.

The kids all posed in Dumbo.

Then we headed over to the other side of the park where we had big plans that included Big Thunder, Splash Mountain, and Haunted Mansion. Unfortunately, those plans were dashed to pieces when we got over there and found out that every one of those rides and Indiana Jones to boot were all shut down. Pirates was also shut down for maintance, but we knew about that one beforehand. This basically meant that half the park was broken. We tried to make the best of things, but it was pretty annoying. We rode Winnie the Pooh and Jungle Cruise.

Jungle Cruise is actually Keith's favorite ride, and I thought they had a few fresh new jokes I hadn't heard before.

After Jungle Cruise and the fiasco occuring in the rest of the park, I was ready to get the heck out of Dodge. We headed over to California Adventures, where they had attractions that were actually operating. I took Finley to ride the Monster's ride while the rest of the group did Soarin' over California. When we got off, she said, "I don't want to ride scary ones." I asked her if Monster's was scary, and she said, "Yes." Then we saw Sully, so we got in line to have our picture taken with him. She does not like to get too close to the characters and tried to run away from him, so I grabbed her and a worker took our picture. Later she was telling me that Sully can't close his mouth.

Isaac had been talking about riding Tower of Terror for months leading up to the trip, and even wanted it to be our first ride. Okay, so my Dr. may or may not have sort of suggested that I not ride this one, but this was the first time Isaac was tall enough to ride it, and I just didn't want to miss it. Keith and I took him, and I was a little concerned about how he would do. Especially when I looked around in the line and he was by far the youngest child I could see. He ended up loving it though! He was totally grinning in the picture they took, and all the people crowded around the pictures pointed at our picture and were like, "Look at that little guy! He loves it!" It was pretty funny. Even though he loved it, he didn't actually want to ride it again. Keith took Sareny on it, and she did not love it.

While we rode Tower of Terror, Grandma took Sareny and Finley to ride Heimlich's Chew Chew Train and Francis' Ladybug Boogie. Then they took a few pictures. Finley used her fingers to make her smile bigger.

While Keith drug Sareny on Tower of Terror, I took Isaac on the rides the girls had done earlier. For reasons unknown, Finley opted to wait with Grandma at the Tower.

We rode Toy Story Midway Mania, which everyone in the group really enjoyed.

Finley saw the Merry Go Round, and there was no way we were walking by without taking her on it.

While Nancy and I used the switchoff pass to ride Soarin', Keith took the kids to the Redwood Creek Challenge area. They had a blast running around.

They saw this dog whom I can never remember his name, but he is from the movie Up. I like how Finley is looking at him so suspiciously and making sure her hand is far from him.

Then we headed back over to Disneyland to ride some of the things we missed earlier, including Star Tours which we had fast passes to, and Haunted Mansion which we did not, and sure wished we did. I have always loved It's a Small World, and the kids were singing along and loving it too.

Since the park closed at 9:00, we decided to tough it out and not go to the hotel for naps. (Not that Finley would have napped if we had gone there.) But in the Tiki room she leaned her head on my arm, and a few minutes later I looked over and saw her head bobbing. I grabbed her just in time, and she spent the next couple of hours like this.

And just in case you are thinking this sounds like the perfect time to visit Disneyland, let me put those silly notions to rest. It was packed. The lines were so long just to get a Dole Whip, we didn't manage to get one. I think people were waiting over an hour for that line. Basically, Utah had fall break and the entire state decided to plan their family reunions for that weekend at Disneyland. I am only slightly exaggerating. Despite the crowds though, we had a great trip. Okay, interjection done. We also went to Toon Town and rode Roger Rabbit.

Isaac busted out of the Toon Town jail.

The kids got a little crazy in this car.

Finley did not appreciate their craziness.

Then we hurried back to Fantasyland where we got perfect seats to watch Mickey's Soundsational Parade. We actually got to sit on a ledge with a back, so it was surprisingly relaxing and comfortable. The parade was awesome and we all really enjoyed it.

We had a great first day and stayed until the park closed. At this point, I told Keith to take the kids back to the hotel and I would meet them there, because I wanted to talk to someone at City Hall about our morning. He really didn't want me to. I think he is embarrassed that I speak up if I am not happy about something, but at any rate, I did it anyway, and we were all glad that I did. The guy at City Hall was really nice and gave me several readmission passes which would allow our whole group to ride any attraction we wanted, including those that don't have fast pass lines. These were a huge help for avoiding the gigantic lines for the rest of our trip. Which once again validates my theory--if you're not happy about something, say something to the right people, and they will almost always do something to make it right. Much better than just fuming amoungst yourselves.

School Days

2011-10-17T09:15:00.000-07:00

Here is a group photo of our preschool kids, except for Finley, who only gets to particpate when it is at our house. Rachel, Halle, Finley, David, Isaac, Andrew, and Matt. We had preschool at our house for the letter 'C,' and one of the things we focused on was colors. I helped the kids make their own "tie-dyed" shirt, and they all turned out so cute! This is a really fun craft idea that is pretty cinchy to make. First, tie your shirt off with rubber bands. Then let the kids color each shirt segment a different color using Sharpie markers in a variety of colors. This is what Rachel's shirt looked like before I took off the rubber bands.

Once each segment has been colored, take a spray bottle filled with rubbing alcohol and squirt all of the colored sections. Let them dry, then remove the bands. We made this project on Tuesday, and the kids had a lot of fun and were pretty excited to see what their shirts looked like when they came back on Thursday. I like how Finley is copying David giving a thumbs up in this picture.

As a side note, Tuesday was another poor, poor Finley day. I had warned my kids that the spray bottle was not filled with water and not to touch it. I even emphasized--Do not spray this in your face or it will burn your eyes. I later realized that Finley was actually sleeping when I made those dire warnings, because right after preschool and before I had dumped the alcohol out of the spray bottle, I heard screams coming from the kitchen. She had climbed on the counter, gotten the spray bottle down, and sprayed it directly into her eyes. I felt terrible. We rinsed her eyes out and I even called poison control, who told me to have her take a shower. Fortunately, she had already stopped crying by the time I called poison control, and she ended up okay. Whew. I cleaned that spray bottle out immediately.

Sareny's school had a ribbon cutting ceremony, and her grade got to sing a couple of songs at the celebration. The first one was in spanish, and it was really cute. This part they were saying, "Oh no, something something..."

Then they rubbed their tummies when the whale ate a sardine.

She was so excited to be able to go and she did a great job.

Despite our continued daily drama and trauma with the uniform, I think she is liking school and learning a lot.

Poor, Poor Finley

2011-10-16T08:02:00.000-07:00

The other night, Finley fell out of bed. I was pretty quick getting to her, since I was already laying in bed unable to sleep (hate that.) I comforted her a little bit and let her sleep the rest of the night in my bed, but I never turned on the light or I would have seen her poor little cheek! Keith noticed it the next morning when he went to give her a kiss goodbye while she was still sleeping. Upon further examination of the evidence, I decided that she fell off the foot of the bed and landed face first on a Bugs Bunny bookend that features a scratchy tree. Her little cheek was so abrased and looked pretty bad for about a week, but it is finally starting to look normal again.
Then, a week ago we had preschool at our house, and Finley got bumped on something and was crying. I again comforted her as best I could. I thought she was showing me she got bumped on her forhead, but later that day evidence showed up that it was, in fact, her eye. These photos were taken a full week after they happened, but you can still see the bruising on her little shiner.

Fortunately, you can also see that her cheek looks much better, and she is still smiling!

This poor girl has looked so beat up lately!

Crackle!

2011-10-15T11:55:00.000-07:00

I bought some silver crackle/shatter nail polish, and as soon as we got home with it, we gave it a try. I thought it turned out so cute! Finley had hers over hot pink and Sareny had hers over black. I had black on my hands and pink on my toes. We thought it was a lot of fun, and would love to try some other colors. Sareny's and my hands.

Fin's cute little hand.

We Went to the Temple

2011-10-14T09:26:00.000-07:00

On 9-10-11, we went to the Mesa temple to see our good friends get sealed there. Unfortunately, we didn't have a babysitter, so I went to the ceremony while Keith waited in the visitor's center with the kids. I gave him the camera with instructions to take some pictures of the kids. Afterwards, I saw him snapping a few as they walked towards me. Those were the only ones he took. Oh well, they are still cute! And the kids are such posers.

Love this one.

First Day of School

2011-10-13T09:52:00.000-07:00

Sareny started second grade on August 22nd, and we documented the day with pictures. This is the first year she has had to wear a uniform, and she is still not happy about it, but we are making do.

In front of her school, which was still under construction when school started.

This year her teacher's name is Ms. Lizarraga. She is learning spanish and seems to be having a great year.

The day after labor day, Isaac started preschool. We are doing a co-op preschool with 5 other moms, and so far it is going great.

Four of the students are already five and the other two will be by December, and they will all be attending kindergarten next year, so it is a perfect group. When preschool is at our house, I try to teach them as much as possible to help them get ready for school next year. Isaac loves going to school with his friends and looks forward to it each week. In fact, when I woke him up on Sareny's first day of school to go get in the van to take her, he ran down the stairs and put on his backpack and went to the pantry to grab himself a snack. It was so cute.

The Sollenberger Classic

2011-10-12T09:44:00.000-07:00

The Moapa Valley Pirates football team got invited to play the AZ state champions from last year, so my parents and Lexi got to come down for a visit. They put all teams up in the Biltmore, which is a totally fancy, swanky hotel that was built in the 20's. The architecture is pretty cool, and we were thrilled to be able to go and swim in the fun pool.
The kids had a blast going down the slide, although it took some convincing to get Finley to go down. She was afraid water would get in her eyes. Unlike the pool in our community, they were fine with an adult holding a child, so we finally got her to try out the slide, and she was hooked. You can see how she is covering her eyes though.

Isaac and Sareny both loved it, and kept begging an adult to go down with them, so usually they took turns going down by themself and going down with either me or Lexi.

And here is another of Finley trying to keep the water out of her eyes.

Three cuties.

Four cuties. With two others in the background.

The whole group, minus dad who took the picture. This was on a Thursday, and Keith met us at the hotel to swim on Friday when we came back. Also on Thursday, Lexi came to our house and spent the night. We stayed up way too late playing the piano and being silly. The next morning, we got up and did a Jillian workout before we went back to the Biltmore.

We all loved the pool! When we left Friday, the Keels and team were headed over to the Cardinal's football stadium for a tour and dinner. In front of the hotel they have bushes shaped out to spell Arizona Biltmore.

The game was played on Saturday, and we picked Lexi and my mom up at the stadium to go get some lunch before the game started. We went to a little pizza place across the street. I tried to get a cute picture of them with the kids, and I think I got it with this one, don't you think?

You might think that Finley is screaming or throwing a fit, but you would be wrong. She is smiling. Here is a pretty cute one.

Then we headed back to the stadium to watch the game. We had special VIP tickets that provided access to the field, but since children weren't allowed on the field for safety reasons, Keith and I just stayed in our seats. We gave one of our tickets to John's dad John, who came to watch the game with us. He got to go down on the field afterwards. It was really nice to have him there supporting us--he is so nice and thoughtful. He bought the kids a popcorn bucket, and after the game bought my dad a souvenier T-shirt. I had to include two shots of the group, because Sareny and Isaac just make me smile.

The coach.

The coach laying into somebody.

The final score:

I had been very nervous that the game would be a blowout, and not in our favor because the other team, Showlow, was ranked in the top 500 high school teams in the country. The Pirates ranking was somewhere in the 2000's. And the first quarter started off ugly--Showlow scored twice pretty easily. But the Pirates pulled through. It was an exciting game, and an unforgettable experience for these players to get to play in a professional stadium. I was mad this picture turned out so blurry, but since it was the only one I got, I am using it anyway.

Then the team sang the requisite fight song.

And they were awarded the trophy.

It was pretty exciting. After the game, the team celebrated by going to McDonalds...we went to Cracker Barrell. Then we dropped the Keels back off at the stadium and said goodbye. It really was one of those super fun weekends that could never be duplicated...but we are really pulling for the Pirates to win state this year so they get invited to come back again next year.

Camping at Knoll Lake

2011-10-03T09:23:00.000-07:00

Based on a friend's reccomendation, we went camping at Knoll Lake just before school started back up. It was a pretty far drive, but really beautiful. I think we got the best campsite at the whole place--it felt really isolated but in a good way.

We spent two nights there and had a great time hanging out as a family. We played some Go Fish, read books out loud, and the kids just got good and dirty exploring. The first night we were there, Sareny had a bit of a fever, and I was super worried since I had forgotten to pack any medicine, and the nearest store would be a four hour round trip drive. Fortunately, she felt much better the next morning when she woke up, so all was well.

I of course took some pics of the kids.

They just all looked so cute!

Then I took some individual pictures of each kid. I was kind of annoyed that Isaac jumped into the background on this one, but Finley looks so cute I am posting it anyway.

My handsome buki.

I'm thinking Isaac looks kind of like my brother in these pictures. Strange, since I always thought he looked exactly like Keith.

Sareny Agnes

When I was taking Sareny's picture, Finley ran up to hug her and be in the picture too. So I took a couple sissy pictures.

Then we hiked down to the lake.

It wasn't long before they discovered the joy of throwing rocks into the water. Fortunately there weren't any nearby fishermen. (fisherpeople?)

Then Isaac found the letter "T." He asked me what was a name that started with T, but had an I in it. I came up with Tim, and he insisted that we call him that for the rest of the day. He still occassionally wants to be called Tim.

Then we walked back to our camp.

Along the way we saw a lot of butterflies.

And Sareny picked some wildflowers.

Later that day the kids got to cook their own hotdog for dinner. They seriously thought that was the best thing ever and talked about it for days afterwards. I would love to put a firepit in the backyard so we could do this at home.

They took the task very seriously, and as you can see from the above picture, kept their hotdogs pretty far from the coals, thereby extending the experience.

Finley had fallen asleep earlier, and we woke her up to eat a hotdog. Waking a kid up is always a risky venture, and she was super grouchy. But she eventually came around and enjoyed her hotdog as well.

We had a fun trip and can't wait to go back.

The gig's up

2011-09-28T07:41:00.000-07:00

Sareny drew this sweet little picture almost two years ago when she was in kindergarten, right before my first miscarriage (which explains why she drew Finley bald.) I have been saving it all this time to make the big news public, so here we go.

After 2 years, 2 miscarriages, lots of clomid, and 1 surgery we are expecting again. Despite the fact that I am only 8 1/2 weeks along, I am feeling pretty good about things this go round. I've already had 3 dr. appointments, 2 blood draws, and 3 ultrasounds. That's a lot of numbers for one paragraph! The most recent ultrasound showed the baby's heartbeat, which almost always indicates a strong, viable pregnancy. (I never saw a heartbeat with the two that I lost.) I remember when I was pregnant with Sareny my mom asked me if I got teary when we saw the heartbeat for the first time, and I totally didn't. I never felt emotional at that point with any of my three kids. But I gotta tell you, I did this time, my friends.

So the chance is still there that things won't go as planned, but for now, I wanted to share our happy news with you. I would rather my friends be there with me on the journey.

Summer Vacation part 2

2011-09-17T16:24:00.000-07:00

No trip to Grammy's house is complete without a bubble bath in the jetted tub. The kids enjoyed their Sunday morning bath, but with so many bubbles, once they are done playing they have to get in the shower to rinse off and actually wash their hair.

On Monday, we loaded up into the ranger for a trip to the Muddy River. Bampa stopped right on the edge of the river, and before we knew it, we had sunk deep into the sand. This picture is after we had worked quite a bit and raised the ranger up considerably.

We spent quite a while digging out, and Isaac in particular was very worried, but thanks to his prayers and a lot of work, we got out. Then we were able to get set up in the river, which is really pretty shallow and slow moving.

While we had a good time, in August this river is anything but cool and refreshing. It felt kind of like stepping into a bathtub. A really muddy bathtub. The kids had fun playing with the sand toys and we had a little water fight.

The one sentence every mother is dying to hear from her son: Mom, look at the mud angel I made!

The cutest little muddy face in the world.

On Tuesday, Grammy Jo and I took the kids to Mesquite to see the new Winnie the Pooh movie. It was actually really cute, and we had the entire theater to ourselves. Afterwards, I tried to get a cute picture of the kids with Grammy. Finley occasionally makes these crazy goofball faces.

Everyone looks cute in this one.

And Bampa took the kids for another long ranger ride.

On Wednesday after Grammy got home from work, we took the kids to the Logandale pool where they had fun jumping off the diving board. I was worried the lifeguards wouldn't let Finley jump, but they were fine with it. She was able to swim mostly to the edge and I helped her the rest of the way.

Isaac and Sareny wanted to actually dive, but I don't think either of them succeeded.

These kids love diving boards!

The next morning, we got up kind of early and drove down to the school to say goodbye to Grammy and Bampa. It was kind of sad, but we were all looking forward to seeing Daddy, and we had a fun camping trip planned for the next day to look forward to as well.

Summer Vacation, part 1

2011-09-15T13:30:00.000-07:00

This summer, we had planned an extensive road trip up to visit my parents in Nevada and Keith's parents in Spokane. When Keith got a new job in July, our plans had to change. I considered making the 48 hour round trip drive by myself, but got too stressed out and shortened our plans to just a trip to Nevada. We were sad to miss seeing everybody in Spokane, but managed to have a fun trip anyway.

We got to Overton on Friday, July 19th in the early afternoon. Grammy Jo and Bampa had been invited to a pool party and BBQ that evening, and fortunately that invite extended to us as well. The kids had the best time ever jumping off the diving board. That pool alone convinced me that if we ever did put in a pool, it would have a diving board. By the end of the evening, Finley was jumping in and swimming to the edge without having anyone catch her at all.

The next morning, we headed to Circus Circus to the Adventuredome, which basically has a bunch of rides. We bought all day wrist bands and spent several hours there. The morning especially wasn't crowded, so the kids road their favorite rides repeatedly.

The first ride we did was kind of like a ferris wheel made of hot air ballons. I rode with Finley.

The other group.

Then we rode the carousel.

Then, while Grammy Jo and Bampa took Sareny and Isaac to a Happy Feet ride that she wasn't tall enough to ride, Finley had lots of fun on this little plane ride.

Her first time around, she didn't figure out how to move the plane up and down, but she still had fun.

Once her ride was over, we raced back around to the line and she got to ride it again. This time I put her in a helicopter with a stick that was a little easier to pull back on for a beginner, and she had fun going up and down.

Although partway through the ride, she leaned over quite hysterical and crying and said that it wouldn't go down. I shouted at her to let go of the stick, which she did, and then she calmed right down when it started going back down.

And then she rode the ride yet again while we waited some more.

By the time Isaac and Sareny came over to ride, she was an old pro. If you are feeling sorry for Finley that she had to ride this one 4 times in a row, rest assured that she loved it. Later when we let each kid pick one final ride, this is the one she requested. Isaac wanted to sit in his own plane.

Sareny and Finley shared, although I don't think Fin was too happy to relinquish the controls to Sareny.

Then the kids did the train ride. I love how Isaac is just sitting all chill.

One part of the track kind of bumped the kids up in the air, but I think they enjoyed it. We came back and rode this one a second time later in the afternoon.

The Frog Hopper. This was a great favorite of two of the children...Finley was not one of them.

I love this little picture--so cute! This was taken before the terror of the ride had set in for poor Finley. This was one of those rides kind of like Tower of Terror, but on a much smaller and gentler scale. It takes you up, it drops you a little, and takes you back up again. Finley was trying not to cry the whole time, and when it finally stopped, she immediately started full out crying when she had to wait for the worker to come and get her out. We didn't make her ride it again.

But Isaac and Sareny rode it 3 more times in a row.

Seriously, they thought it was the best thing ever, and Isaac is now convinced that he wants to ride Tower of Terror next month when we go to Disneyland.

When they had momentarally had enough of The Frog Hopper (we came back later and they rode it several more times, and yes, I think their friends are green with envy. That was part of the ride spiel, which I believe we all had memorized by the end of the day.) Grammy and Bampa went to ride the upside down roller coaster with Sareny. She had been looking forward to this ride, because one of her friends had visited the Adventuredome over the summer and told her all about the rollercoaster.

Getting buckled in.

She loved it and wanted to ride it again, which is why I can't fathom why she doesn't want to ride California Screamin' next month at Disneyland...perhaps if her friend goes first and then tells her how fun it is. Then we rode the bumper cars, which Finley wasn't tall enough for.

And somehow, I got the lucky draw to take the kids on the big pirate ship that goes back and forth, back and forth. I think every one of us on that ship was wishing it would just stop about half-way through the ride.

We rode a bus thing a couple of times.

Bampa, Sareny, and I also rode their water flume ride, which was pretty fun but wasn't working very well. Then we got some lunch at The Cheesecake Factory and headed over to the McCarron airport to watch the planes landing and taking off. I don't know if other airports have a setup like this, I know Phoenix doesn't, but they have parking spaces right by the landing strips just so people can come and watch the planes. After that, we went to the Belagio to see their indoor gardens. They change the theme quite frequently, and this time it was a country fair theme, which seemed appropriate considering where we had spent the morning.

They had a pretty cool butterfly house.

Then we went outside to watch their water show. It is a pretty cool show--the water is coordinated to music and shoots giant flumes up into the air. I think we were all pretty exhausted by the time the night was over!

Another thing about this trip--the kids absolutely love being told stories, especially when they are trapped in the car for any length of time. On the way in, I told them a couple of stories. But then they discovered that Grammy Jo is a pretty good story teller, and that was it for her. She was finangled into telling stories every time we got in the car to go anywhere. They loved her stories so much, and Sareny even listed that as one of her favorite things about the whole weekend. I will admit that I was pretty entertained by her stories as well. I think she should write them down so we can always remember them.

You've had a birthday, shout hurray!

2011-09-12T08:24:00.000-07:00

Finley turned 3, and we celebrated with a Minnie Mouse birthday party. I made her a little polka-dot skirt with a Minnie shirt and ears. She looked so adorable and wanted to wear her outfit the whole day.

Almost as important as what to wear to the party is the cake.

This cake should have been really easy, but started to turn into a cake wreck. The ears were originally made out of sugar cookies baked onto lollipop sticks, but the weight of the cookies dragged them down. So I had to cheat and re-do the ears out of cardboard.

The invitation. The party info was listed on the other side.

The lineup of kids: Alora, Finley, Sareny, Isaac, Emily, Elise, Andrew, Allie, Will. I made ears for each kid to wear.

We had a Minnie pinata.

We also played hot potato with a little beanbag made out of the same fabric as Finley's skirt, pin the flower on Minnie, and decorated Mickey/Minnie sugar cookies. Then it was time to blow out the candles.

We had one disaster occur--as birthday girl, Finley got to pick out what kind of ice cream she wanted for her party. When Keith went to get it out of our garage freezer, he discovered that the breaker had popped and our freezer had been shut off for a long time, and everything in it was ruined. Sad, and no ice cream. The kids hardly seemed to notice though, so that was good. Then Finley opened her presents.

I think she had a great birthday!

We dressed like cows

2011-09-09T10:51:00.000-07:00

Chick fil-a has cow appreciation day every year at the beginning of July, wherein if you dress like a cow, you get free food. Last year, cow appreciation day was on July 9th, the day we got the keys to our house. This year it was July 8th, which meant Keith got to enjoy his birthday dinner dressed as a cow. I'm glad he's such a good sport. It was nice to have the shirts already made from last year. Next year I'm gong to have to make at least one new one, since Sareny complained about hers being too tight. But overall, it was a fun evening, and really, you can't beat free!

July Visitors

2011-09-07T08:48:00.000-07:00

We were so glad when Grammy Jo, Bampa, and Cassidy and Truman were able to visit us in July. I think they actually got here on Isaac's birthday and left on Fin's. Grammy and Cass had made the kids these super cute fourth of July outfits, and I wanted a picture of the kids with their grandparents.
I wasn't very good at taking pictures while they were here, and that's how I remember what we did, so I'll just have to do my best. I know we went shopping at Kohl's one morning after we dropped Sareny off at reading bootcamp, and we all found some bargains. On Thursday morning, my mom and dad went down to Starpointe to exercise, then me and Cassidy switched off with them. I have realized that I would much rather run outside than use a treadmill--treadmills are just so boring, and the temptation to just step off and be done is too great. When I'm running outside I can't just decide to stop whenever I feel like it, or I would find myself a mile from home. Anyway, later that afternoon we all went to the swimming pool and had a great time.
On Saturday, the day they were leaving, I finally pulled my camera out of hiding and started taking some pictures. It was Finley's birthday, so she opened some presents.

She got some cute toys including a marble run, which Bampa helped the kids set up.

I wanted a picture with me and my little birthday girl.

Then we lined the kids up for a picture. It was pretty tricky to get one where they were all looking approximately the right direction and with pleasant expressions. In fact, nobody is actually looking at the camera in this one, but it was the best one I got.

Cassidy was visiting my mom and dad for a month from Hawaii while James was in Officer Training, so it was really nice to have her visit. How big is Truman going to be the next time we get to see them?? Way too big.

The kids all loved Truman so much, even though Finley called him Rhysie the whole weekend.

Cass played "ring around the rosies" with the kids.

One of our longstanding family traditions is the birthday spanking machine. Everyone lines up and the birthday kid has to crawl through the tunnel, getting spankings all the way.

We had to help her just a little to get under Isaac.

And I noticed that some spankers ran to the end of the line for another go.

We took a mother and daughters photo in front of our house.

And then we went to the movie theater to see Cars 2. Truman does okay at the movies as long as he stays in his stroller.

We had such a nice time with them, and it was so sad when they had to leave. I always hate for fun times to come to an end. The good news was, however, that I would be taking the kids up to visit them in just two weeks, so we tried not to be too sad.

Isaac Turned Five!

2011-09-06T10:44:00.000-07:00

Isaac turned five this summer, and he wanted a Harry Potter birthday party. (Well, really he wanted a wii birthday party where all of his friends would just sit around waiting for their turn to play wii, but I vetoed that for obvious reasons, and planted the Harry Potter party idea in his head.) I think his party was tons of fun! Here was the invitation:

The invitation was pretty cute. It had the official Hogwarts seal at the top, and said in fancy writing:

HOGWART'S SCHOOL

of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock

Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards

Dear Mr. (child’s name,)

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. A special pre-term birthday celebration will be held on June 25 from 1:00-3:00 in honor of our newest Head Boy, Isaac Fallstrom , International Confed. of Prefects, Honorary Junior Mugwump.

Please RSVP by owl or, if you prefer, by muggle fellytone at (phone number.)
Transportation to Hogwarts will depart from King's Cross Station, located (address,) Gate 9 3/4.
Please come dressed in either proper wizarding attire or your muggle playclothes.

Yours sincerely,

Hillari Fallstrom
Deputy Headmistress

His cake was the Monster Book of Monsters from the third book and movie. I made the cake the night before the party, and thought it turned out pretty good without being too much work. It was pretty simple as far as cakes go. I made the eyes out of marshmallow fondant tinted yellow, and used a grass tip to get the fur.

While the kids were arriving, we held History of Magic Class in the living room. (Harry Potter #1 was playing.)

Once our guests were all here, our first item of business was getting each kid a wand. The kids took a wooden dowel, dipped the end in glue, and then sprinkled it with glitter. Next, the kids were sorted into their houses. I had made badges for the different houses, and when their house was called out, I put the badge on them.

Then we held Transfiguration class. The kids had to transform their magic clay into an animal. We had a few snakes and snowmen.

The next class was Herbology, and I think was everyone's favorite class overall. The kids had to give their mandrakes a haircut.

I planted some grass in plastic cups a few weeks before the party. They all loved cutting the "hair!"

The next class was Defense Against the Dark Arts. I told the kids not to be scared, but I had spotted a rogue dragon in our backyard. They would have to use our special magic wand to vanquish the dragon.

The mad scramble for candy.

Then we headed back inside for some pumpkin juice and miniature witches' broomsticks. This was orange soda served in cauldron with dry ice, and pretzel sticks.

The next class was my favorite--Charms. The kids had to approach a hankerchief one at a time and say "Wingardium Leviosa!" while making the appropriate motions with their wand. Then the hankerchief would magically raise in the air. The line is pretty obvious in the pictures, but not quite as obvious in person. And even people who fully knew what was going on still thought it was pretty fun.

Next class was Care of Magical Creatures. The kids each selected a Pigmy Puff, and then had to give it eyes, ears, and a mouth.

Our final class of the day was Potions. I had collected all these jars and bottles from Goodwill, filled them with various colored beverages and labeled them as ingredients found in the books. The the kids had to concoct a potion.

Sareny braved her potion...

And then it was on to the cake. Isaac made a wish and was careful not to tell anyone what it was. (I wish he would have, though!)

The inside of this cake was kind of a rainbow swirl. Looks kind of creepy with that staring eye...

I also made chocolate frogs complete with wizard cards and Honeydukes labels for the kids to take home with them. I think this party turned out pretty awesome.

My Silly Boy

2011-09-03T18:34:00.000-07:00

Isaac has made me laugh a couple of times today, so I wanted to write them down so I can always remember and get a chuckle over him.

Earlier today, I was lecturing him about not putting our good cups in the sand at the park.

Me: So, in the future, please leave the cups on the table.

Isaac: Plus, in the future they have hover-boards.

Despite having about 5 pairs of flip-flops and a nice cubby in the laundry room to store them, he can never seem to find matching shoes when it is time to go anywhere.

Keith: So who do you think has been wearing your shoes and then losing them?

Isaac: Apparently Finley.

This is especially cute said in his little 5 year old voice that still can't pronounce things, ie. "Finwee," and with a tone like he has just solved a big mystery.

I love that boy!

In which our friends came to visit

2011-09-01T13:06:00.000-07:00

Back in June sometime, our friends the Chilton's visited us from the East side of town. We had a great time--we went swimming at Starpointe, then came back to our house for dinner. The kids watched a movie, while we played a game. We all forgot to take any pictures until the evening was nearly over, but I snapped a few of the kids watching a movie. I thought it was cute how Isaac was all buddied up to Claire.

Then a couple of days later, I just thought the girls looked cute and they were wearing their new hairbows that I had made them.

Gymnastics

2011-08-07T21:30:00.000-07:00

The kids started gymnastics back in May, and they are loving it! Isaac is in a kick and tumble class that combines tumbling and karate. For his first session, it was just him and one other little boy. First they have to warm up and stretch.

Practicing somersaults.

Working on punches. Since the class was so little, the teacher didn't mind if Finley wanted to join in.

Poor Finley has to do a lot of waiting. She is an attentive audience.

Sareny has really enjoyed her gymnastics class, and is pretty good. She can do the splits now, and recently tested into level 2. She is wearing the gray pants and navy shirt in the photos.

Grandpa's visit, part 2

2011-08-07T10:32:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure why I love this picture. I think just because it shows how little the kids still are, and how they still need their daddy to do things for them. It seems like they are just growing up way too fast, and before I know it, they'll be all grown.

Can you spot the hidden wildlife in this picture?

How about now?

What is so ironic about the fact that we just happened to see a rattlesnake, was how terrified Isaac was about snakes before any mention of one. On the way up the path, he heard the wind blowing a metal chain into a pole. He stopped, screamed hysterically and ran back to me, asking me if that was a snake he heard. And then when we were ready to leave the Star Tower, we were warned about a rattlesnake at the side of the path. I am certain we would have missed it if we hadn't known it was there. It was kind of cool to see a snake in the wild, but we kept our distance. After we left the tower, we went to north lake to walk around it. I was really mad that we forgot to bring a stroller, but both Finley and Isaac were really good about walking by themselves the mile around the lake. Sareny had her scooter, so she was able to go way faster than us. Then when we got back to our house, we celebrated Grandpa's birthday.

On Monday, which was Memorial Day, we went swimming.

Finley was getting pretty brave.

Sareny had a lot of fun swimming with her grandpa.

Isaac is getting to be a really good swimmer.

We had a really nice visit, and then we had to drop Grandpa Verne off at the eye clinic. The last time grandpa was able to come visit us was for Isaac's baby blessing--hopefully it won't be that long before he is able to visit us again!

Grandpa's visit part 1

2011-08-07T09:41:00.000-07:00

When grandpa Verne came to visit, we took a little walk up to the Star Tower. The kids were all in their jammies, but still super cute, so we took some pictures.
Isaac accidentally dropped his shoe in the water, and Finley was very concerned.

Fortunately, grandpa saved the shoe.

Daddy sat the kids on the top ledge. A little bit scary!

I think Finley looks so much like her aunts Heather, Holly, and Marla in this picture, it kind of looks like Verne is holding one of his own children.

Grandpa with all of the kids.

The last time we had gone to Star Tower was when Lexi had visited, and we that time we had lots of fun doing silly "teen model poses." Sareny apparently remembered...

Blogger apparently has a problem with posts with lots of pictures, so I will have to end this post here. More on this trip later.

A visit with Grandpa Verne

2011-07-19T20:48:00.000-07:00

I have tried to do this post three times now, and I am really frustrated with blogger deleting all my hard work! So here is a teaser photo from our visit with Grandpa Verne. If blogger feels like allowing me to post tomorrow, I will try to re-do the post. Again.

Last Day of School

2011-07-14T11:03:00.000-07:00

The last day of school actually occured back in mid May. Schools are on such a strange schedule in Arizona. Anyway, they had a moveup ceremony in the cafeteria for all the kids, with a special part for next year's kindergartners.
Sareny waiting with her class for the other grades to get there.

One last picture with Sareny's 1st grade teacher, Mrs. Randall.

Then the students stood up by grade and the principal led them in a pledge about being the best 2nd grader they could be. I thought it was a good idea.

Then they led in the little preschool age children, who had been waiting in the library. You can just see part of Isaac in this picture--he is wearing tan shorts and a light blue polo shirt.

It was pretty loud, and a several of the kids covered their ears.

When the principal had the little kids say their pledge, he held the microphone up to a different kid for each part and they got to say that part just themself. Isaac was absolutely adorable. Possibly because he doesn't say all of his letters yet, or possibly because he got kind of embarrassed when he heard his voice on the loudspeaker and danced around in a circle, or possibly because he is just so darn cute, all the adults kind of chuckled at him when he said his part. He did a great job. I think he had to say, "to work hard."

Then they played some music for all the kids to dance around to.

I think it was actually bittersweet for Sareny. She had been looking forward to the last day of school for so long and had told me that she wouldn't be at all sad to see it go. But then when it was finally here, she realized she wouldn't get to see her teacher every day anymore, and that is what made her feel a little sad.

On another note, I don't think Isaac is actually going to be a kindergartner next year after all. He has a summer birthday and doesn't seem ready to me, so we are going to let him have a year of preschool before we send him to kindergarten. It has been a long, difficult decision for us, but ultimately, I think it is in his best interest to grow and mature a little bit more before starting school.

This Girl

2011-06-14T21:16:00.000-07:00

This girl drives me crazy, makes me smile, gives fabulous kisses and hugs, can (and seems to on an almost daily basis) throw a doozy of a temper tantrum, loves to dance and swim, would sleep in my bed every night if I let her, plays well by herself, is as stubborn as her mom, is absolutely adorable, can more than hold her own against her siblings ( Sareny says she likes to kick), is usually good at sharing, and we love her more than anything in the world.

What would we do without our sweet Finley Lynn? She looks so tiny in this picture.

I know it's hard to believe, but this girl does try my patience. We had a bit of a difficult day today, but when I see her sweet little smile and dimple, my heart sure melts. I love my little girl so.

Letter Blocks

2011-06-08T20:09:00.000-07:00

The week before school got out, I got together with a few friends for a couple of craft days before all the kids got out of school. The first day we were at my house and we made tons of cute hair things. My friend Monica brought all the supplies and taught us how to make burnt flower bows. And by tons, I mean that I made about 25 of them. Then a couple days later, we all met at Monica's house and made letter blocks that spell our last names. She has a vinyl machine and was really nice to share all of her supplies. I thought my letters turned out really cute.

If you were wondering what a burnt flower is, this picture shows a closeup of one. I made a purple and green one to match my living room and used it instead of an "a." I realize it looks more like an "o," but I wanted it positioned here so I didn't care. :)

Fun at the Desert Botanical Garden

2011-05-18T08:04:00.000-07:00

We went to the Desert Botanical Garden on May 6th. Because this was National Public Garden Day, we got free tickets online to go on this day. It was pretty hot, but we brought a lot of water and had fun looking at the different kinds of cacti and succulents. We picked Sareny up after lunch at school to have an educational time with us. The first time Keith and I visited here was, I think, in 2003 when Keith's grandma Carter came to stay with us for a couple of weeks. The second time I went was with my grandma and parents on Sareny's first birthday weekend. So it had been a while since we have visited, and I felt a little nostalgic looking at things I remembered seeing all those years before.
In the picture below, there were all these cacti that grew perpendicular to the ground. They looked kind of like snakes. Poor Sareny had sunscreen in her eye. Kind of hurts me just looking at her squinting.

I don't really know what this plant was, but it looked pretty cool. It was really tall with all these short little branches going up the sides.

Then we went to the butterfly exhibit. I think this was everyone's favorite part. There were butterflies everywhere.

You had to be careful where you walked, because the butterflies landed on the ground, too.

You weren't allowed to try to touch the butterflies, but that didn't stop Isaac from getting his face right up close to them.

Finley wanted to get a better look, too.

Then the kids could pretend to be butterflies and caterpillars.

Sareny took this picture of me and Keith.

Some cute kids.

Finley likes to help push the shopping carts, or the stroller. She is kind of in the way when she does, but it is pretty cute and sweet.

Sareny likes to take pictures, and kept asking if she could take another one of us. Behind me is a weird cactus that lookes kind of like intestines.

Isaac being silly. I love Finley in this picture. Right after I took it, she started copying Isaac's pose.

In addition to taking pictures, Sareny likes to run up to things, strike an odd pose, and tell me to take her picture.

Best friends.

We had to break out some snacks for the kids.

I love this picture of Daddy and his kids. And that is one bizarre cactus/tree thing they are standing in front of.

Mommy and her kids. Which I thought was an especially fitting picture, since this was two days before Mother's Day.

I loved this one too, so I had to put both of them up here. I think you can just feel the love in these pictures! Plus, most unusually, I look pretty okay in them.

Anther one of Sareny and Isaac. I think you can tell how hot it was that day from how red their faces are in this photo. It was over 100 degrees, which is not uncommon for this time of year. Today it is in the 60's/70's, which is uncommon.

A metallic sculpture that Sareny wanted to pose in front of.

And another picture of me and Keith that she wanted to take.

We had a lot of fun, despite the heat. Although we apparently took massive amounts of pictures, we were only there for less than two hours. Hopefully it won't be another six years before we venture back!

Fancy Nancy Spectacular Spectales

2011-05-09T13:44:00.000-07:00

Last month, Sareny's grade was assigned to do a character book report. They had to come in character and present their book to the class as that character. We tried to think up something Sareny could dress up as that we would already have on hand, and came up with Fancy Nancy.

We got up early that morning so I could curl her hair.

The night before, we worked on these glasses for her. We popped the lenses out of some old sunglasses, then painted them with clear nail polish and sprinkled them with glitter. I thought they turned out really fancy!

And here she is on the way to school. Her teacher said this picture looked like Nicole Kidman on her way to the Oscars. Recently I've had several people tell me she resembles Nicole Kidman...I don't really see it, but since Nicole is beautiful, it can't be bad to be compared to her!

Sareny's teacher, Mrs. Randall, sent me this picture of Sareny with her book. In addition to their book report, the kids also did a parade through part of the school in their costumes. What a clever way to make book reports fun!

Star Tower

2011-05-08T17:10:00.000-07:00

After Pat's Run, one of the very few things we did that day was drive out to the Star Tower and walk to the top. It's a pretty cool structure that is less than ten minutes from our house. Lexi and Amanda.

Lexi and Amanda with all the kids. Seriously, the kids were in heaven with Lexi and Amanda around. The girls read to them, played jump rope with them, and just hung out with them. We were all sad when they left. :)

Our family.

Despite the fact that we were still all sweaty and gross and none of us had taken off our racing attire, we decided to take some "Teen Model" pictures.

Trackwear is the new look.

We make this look good.

Sareny loves having her picture taken, a thing which Keith cannot comprehend, since he has always avoided it like the plague.

Me and my boy.

Finley really took to Amanda. She talked about her for days after they left and asked when Amanda was coming back to our house.

Lexi showing Finley the ropes about how to be a teen mod. Somehow this ridiculousness all references back to The Brady Bunch episode where Marsha Brady gets hit in the face with a football and cries, "My nose! Now I'll never be a teen model."

All posed.

She's a cutie!

My cuties! I don't know why Fin squinched her face up like that, but it sure is cute!

Pat's Run 2011

2011-05-08T09:45:00.000-07:00

On April 16th, we headed over to ASU stadium bright and early for Pat's Run. That is, if you can call 4:50 am bright and early...My sister Lexi and her roommate Amanda drove down from Provo the day before for the event. Keith and I had started training about six weeks before the race, but unfortunately, Keith was injured and unable to run the race, even though we had signed him up. (He would have struggled to even walk it at that point.) We also signed up Sareny and Isaac for the .42 mile kids race, which they were excited about. Pat's run is 4.2 miles, starts in the parking lot for the stadium, and ends on the 42 yard line where you are greeted by current ASU football players. I felt kind of nervous as we were waiting for the race to begin!

There were a lot of people here--over 20,000 people completed the race.

We are in that crowd somewhere, waiting for our heat to go. And when I say waiting, I do mean waiting. We didn't get to start the race until 40 minutes after the first runners...lots of people had already finished the race when we were starting! To start the runners off, a trumpet soloist played the national anthem, and it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard. I couldn't help thinking about what an amazing guy Pat Tillman was, and how that was what he gave his life for. By the end of the song I had tears streaming down my cheeks.

You can see a long row of porta-potties in the above picture. We were so glad we used them early, and before we crossed the street to the runners side. We had no waiting on the spectator side, but on the runners side the lines were huge and slow, and even when we were finally started to move towards the start line, there were still lots of people waiting for them.

The race itself was so awesome and inpiring, I can't even begin to describe how exhilirating it is to be a part of something like this. I had suffered setbacks in my training (shin splints, surgery) so I wasn't able to run the entire race, so I ran 5 minutes, walked 1 minute, and repeated. I had to modify it a couple of times, but this strategy actually worked pretty well. I made it to the finish line under my goal time, and I was shocked when I realized I had enough left to sprint for the finish. Here we are after the race.

The kids with Lexi.

While it was disapointing for Keith not to be able to run, it was convenient that he could watch the kids while we ran. He took them over to the bounce houses and the other kids things they had set up. They got free cotton candy, treats, jamba juices, and tattooes. Here is Isaac showing his Tillman pride.

And Sareny and Lexi being silly.

Then the kids ran their race. I was so proud of them--they did great! I was especially surprised to see Isaac running so fast, dodging around people and passing them right and left. He was so quick I didn't get his picture as he ran in, but here is Sareny with Lexi (you can barely make our her head,) who ran the race with her. (Amanda ran with Isaac.)

Afterwards, the ASU football players stuck around for pictures and signing kids shirts. I thought that was really nice of them.

We went home and relaxed for most of the day, but we couldn't stop talking about the race and how awesome it was. How glad I am that Holli and Johnny first got us interested in this race years ago, and that Lexi pushed me to do it this year! We are already making our plans for next year. You should join us!!

One Fine Spring Day

2011-05-07T08:57:00.000-07:00

I love spring weather and seeing the beautiful flowers and colors blooming. These palo verde trees are gorgeous and everywhere around here, and I delight in seeing them.

We pulled out the bikes and scooters and the kids had fun riding around our little cul-de-sac. Sareny is sporting her new boots from her Grandma Nancy. She loves boots!

Isaac likes riding his bike.

He likes riding his yellow plasma car more, and I feel kind of bad always making him share it with Finley. But it's the only thing she can ride, so they have to take turns.

I just love this kind of fierce expression Fin does sometimes.

I thought she looked cute in this one too.

I love when they play well together!

Love them!

And then big sissy came and gave them a big push.

This made me feel a little sad, although it was certainly understandable. Sareny decided she was too big for the Disney princess stickers that adorned her bike and so she decided to take them off.

The end of an era. Although I really don't blame her.

Daddy came out to do some yard work, and Isaac pitched in to help.

It was a really nice afternoon together!

Celebrating Dr. Seuss

2011-05-03T13:24:00.000-07:00

On March 2, Sareny's teacher had the kids dress in all black. Then while at school, they all got dressed like the cat in the hat! It was adorable.

Here is Sareny hard at work at her desk.

She is like 3 rows back all the way to the right.

When I was verifying Dr. Seuss's birthday for this post, I came across an interesting tidbit of information that someone put into a poem about him:

You’re wrong as the deuce

And you shouldn’t rejoice

If you’re calling him Seuss.

He pronounces it Soice.

Apparently, he later changed his mind and went with the Americanized pronounciation of his name, which is German, because it "evoked a figure advantageous for an author of children’s books to be associated with—Mother Goose" and because most people used this pronunciation. I was also interested to note that he went by Theo LeSieg when he had written the book, but someone else illustrated it. I always wondered why some of his books had a pen name. LeSieg was his last name, Geisel, spelled backwards, and Seuss was his middle name, and also his mother's maiden name. So there is some interesting, though totally useless, trivia for you.