"Look Mom! No training wheels!"

Here is Abby riding without her training wheels. One day I asked her if she wanted me to take the training wheels off her bike. She said, "No way!" at first, but I told her that I would help her. After many days of asking her to let me take them off she reluctantly let me take them off. It went just as I thought it would. She just took off. The stopping part was a different story. She forgot how to stop, so I reminded her to pedal backwards and then told her to put her feet down. She did Awesome! She had a couple of falls, but like a good cowgirl, she got right back on.

This isn't the first time she rode with out her training wheels. For some reason that video would not upload. So you get this one when she learns to start off by herself, before I had to hold her.

We are Thankful!

For Family night on Monday, we talked about being thankful and why we should be thankful for what we have. I made a "thankful tree" and we put what we're thankful for on each leaf and put them on the tree. This is what our tree looked like.Calvin wasn't there because he felt sick and went bed early.
He felt much better the next day and went to school! We had a very nice, laid back Thanksgiving day. We had a nice quiet day. (well...as quiet as you can with 4 kids). While the turkey baked, the kids played, Clint and some of the kids went to Kmart and took advantage of the sale...well they went in search of candy corn, but didn't find any but got other stuff, so their trip was not in vein. As for me, I just sat around the house and relaxed. It was so nice to take a day and do NO housework. (Except cooking and cleaning up afterward, but that was no big deal.)

The day after, "black friday". Clint had to work, so the kids and I went shopping. Not too much, but got some pretty sweet deals. Then the rest of the day, Clint came home and he went to check out some of the deals and the kids played and I started putting up Christmas decorations. Yeah, finally!

Uncanny Resemblence

Have you ever wondered what you'd look like as a cartoon. Well I cut Abby's bangs the other day and realized that she looks a lot like suzie from Calvin and Hobbes. Don't you think?

Another tooth.....gone......

.....Finally! Elsa lost her fourth tooth. She would NOT let anyone touch it, especially her Dad, who, she thought, would loosen it a little more and have it possibly fall out. (He's a sneaky one.) Well, after many, many days it finally came out. We did manage, however, to get a video of it hanging, before she finally blew it out. (Literally, she blew and it came out.) Just watch the video and you'll understand.


We thought Elsa would be tough when it came time for her to lose teeth. Just because she had a high tolerance for pain when she was little. When she was about 4, she fell back on a chair and split her head open and needed to get 4 staples. As the doctors were numbing the area, she kinda made a sound like, "That kinda hurt." and that was all she did through out the whole process of getting staples in her head. Now, I can't even brush her hair without her screaming that I'm pulling her hair and it hurts. Crazy mixed up kid! We love her though and she makes us laugh atleast once a day.
I just had a parent-teacher conference with her teacher. She told me that Elsa was doing good and was very smart, but she wished that Elsa would talk to her so she could see just how smart she really was. Right now I help with assessments at home, where Elsa will talk and I video her so that her teacher can watch and see Elsa talking. If you want to go to Elsa's blog you can go here. I haven't been able to put anything new on, because it takes a long time to upload a video. I'm working on it though and there will be new stuff soon.

Calvin is 9!

Well, it happened! Calvin turned 9 this week, on Monday to be exact. We just had a simple family celebration and it turned out to be fun. While he was in school, I bought cookies and took them to his school so he could share them with his class. He was surprised about that because I hadn't said anything about it or asked him if he wanted to take cookies or something. After I came home from dropping them off at the office of the school, I asked Dallin if he thought Calvin would be surprised. He said "Yes, because in church yesterday, our teacher asked him if he had any fun plans for his birthday. Calvin said that he wouldn't have fun at school because his Mom wouldn't let him take treats to school." How rude, he never even asked to bring them. Well, he got to bring treats and he was happy. I remember when I was younger, I always wished my birthday fell on a school day so I could bring treats, but it didn't.....ever! Anyway, later that night, he wanted to go to Cici's Pizza so we went and filled up on some pizza. While we were there, B-rad was there. He is a kid's magician/entertainer. He was making balloon things for all the kids there. Abby, Calvin, Elsa, and Dallin all got one. Abby got a butterfly and a ninja sword, Elsa got a cute lil' pony and a flower. Calvin got a ninja sword and a really cool, tall crown because it was his birthday. Dallin asked for a pizza, but B-rad could do that, so Dallin settled for a puppy dog and a ninja sword. There was also a little boy there who was turning 3 that day and he got a crown and a pirate sword. Later through out the night, that little boys sword popped. He was, of course, very sad. So Dallin got up and walked over to him and gave him his puppy dog. Dallin was happy, and Elsa was sad that Dallin gave up his dog, but after I explained what happened, she understood. The little boy was happy again.
After we got our fill of pizza, we went home so Calvin could open his gifts and blow out his trick candles. (We got some footage of that). I think he had a great day!
9 things about Calvin;
1) Where ever he goes there is fun and adventure waiting.
2) He's sweet and sensitive.
3) He loves people and people love him. Everyone he meets is his friend.
4) He loves his sisters, even though he teases them to no end at home. I can always catch him making sure Elsa is where she needs to be at school, and he even holds her hand as they walk places together.
5) He's a good brother to Dallin.
6) He's a good student. He gets his work done even though it's "easy and boring".
7) He's a hard worker and loves to work with his Dad outside.
8) He loves to learn about the scriptures.

9) He's a good example to his friends and siblings. The cake (with trick candles) HeHeHe!He wanted a Snake-eyes (from GIJoe) cake. So this is what I came up with.

I printed it off the internet and taped toothpicks to the back and stuck it in the cake.
He loved it and he wondered how I got Happy Birthday Calvin on it!Clint and I gave him GIJoe the movie and Iron Man Wii game
As you can see, he was very happy!Dallin got him a Nerf gun and extra dartsThe girls got him this Bionicle set and he got many more great gifts from his great relatives.
Thank you all he loved all of them.

I'll put video of him blowing out his candles later.

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

A bit early....but cute!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Preserving my Traditions and Memories

Go to Britta's Boutique to see what's new with me and what I have created lately.
I just put a post on there about Preserving my Traditions and Memories and I talk about Heritage Makers and how they've helped me to do just that very simply and in my spare time. (With 4 kids you can guess how much spare time I really have.) I started with Heritage Makers just to do scrapbooking online and not have to hassle with tradition scrapbooking. You know, taking EVERYTHING out then having to put it ALL away before the kids get to it and ruin the pages that I just created, or get into my markers and mark all over the walls. (Just to name a few examples). With H.M. I can spend anywhere from 1/2 hour to, well, as long as I have time for, to scrapbook online. All I do is go into my own, password protected, studio, work on my project, then when it's time to stop I click "save and quit" and it's saved and archived in H.M.'s database forever. Now you might be thinking "I wouldn't know where or how to begin?" Well, that's where I come in. I will be your consultant and help every step of the way. Also H.M. has wonderful recorded online classes, and outlines to help you created your books.
Heritage Makers is great because there's so much more you can do. Just go to my Heritage Makers site to see all you can do.

Almost forgotten

I almost forgot to post these photos, I was watching our screen saver and these came up. So now I'm posting them before I forget.

This one is Abby and her new outfit she got for her birthday I think I posted pictures of her opening the present, but not this one of her modeling. So cute!

Elsa lookin' cool even in her sleep.

Elsa got a new blog

Elsa has been begging me to help her make her own blog where she can add her own things. After much persuasion on her part I finally caved and helped her. If you would like to visit her sight you can click here and become a follower. That would totally make her day! I'm sure reading her blog will totally make your day!

It's a miracle...He finally posted something new

I just wanted to direct your attention to my bloglist and hope that you'll notice that Dallin has added something new to his blog. So go ahead and hop on over to his blog and take a look. Thank you and that's all I wanted to say.