FREE!!!

I forgot to post this yesterday, but on Oprah's messy house tour show yesterday she announced that snapfish.com is giving away 1 free photo book per household for 48 hours. So really there are only 24 hours left. This is an awesome deal because they are normally $29.99.

See this website: http://www.oprah.com/slideshow/oprahshow/20081029_tows_messyhouse/7

The great idea they had on the show was to take pictures of your children's artwork and upload it to snapfish and they will make a book out of them. And if you do it in time - it is FREE!

Try this link too:

http://www.snapfish.com/loginsubmit/pns/grantpromotion/p=2001112

You WHAT?!

You made the honor roll?! You get to attend a special honor roll breakfast during 1st period?

I can't believe it! This is so cool because Aidan struggled so much in 6th grade and didn't get very good grades. Before this school year started, I was worried about him being able to keep up academically. But I get to check his progress whenever I want using edline.net as long as the teachers have new information entered. I knew that he had been doing really well in all of his classes except math. He went from a "D" at the beginning of the year to a "C+" which is what I thought he was going to get, but he pulled his grade up to a "B-". And in order to make honor roll, you can't have anything lower than a "B-" and at least 3.0 GPA. I am just so proud of him! Ty is extremely proud too. Ty's birthday was yesterday and when we found out earlier this week that he made honor roll, Ty told him that it was the best present he could ever get! Aidan also gets a special pass for the 2nd quarter that he can use to get out of any class 2 minutes early and/or get in the front of the lunch line. Now me and Ty just have to figure out something special to do for Aidan.

My Boys

I woke up in the middle of the night and walked out into the front room to find this.....

...the boys were watching tv together and had fallen asleep. It doesn't look very comfortable, but they seemed to be okay where they were, so I left them there!

My Birthday

I had a nice, relaxing birthday (9/27). Ty got me a lemon cake and made dinner. I chose yummy tacos since we hadn't had those for a while and it is pretty easy to do. Pop came over and celebrated with us. Ty and the kids gave me Adobe Photoshop and I think I need to take a class on it. I know you can do some cool things...I just have to figure it out (anyone want to give me some lessons...hint hint Josh & Karly?!...or Jen?!). Mom & Pop got me a gift card to DSW for some much needed new shoes. I chose tennies since that is what makes my feet hurt the least! It was a good day.

check it out

some new posts and some new older posts - you have to scroll down a little bit for these.

Journal Jog 2008

Ty, Aidan and Connor ran the Reno Gazette Journal Jog this year. It was an 8k (5 miles). Ty has been running this race for several years now. He even won the stroller division 2 years in a row, though he likes to say that doesn't count. Connor ran it with him last year and did really good. This year Connor and Aidan ran the race. Aidan did pretty good since he has been running on the cross country team, but Connor wasn't too far behind and hasn't trained at all except for an occasional quick run around the neighborhood with Aidan. Ty came in 40th out of 1009 runners and 7th in his age division. He did awesome! Aidan was 705th and 29th in his age division and last but not least Connor was 794th and 34th in his age division. Brogan really wanted to run...maybe next year!

If you want to see the results click here for all divisions (Ty has a picture on there) http://www.changeofpace.com/Results/JJ08/2008_journal_jog_results.html

or click here for the male jog overall results (Ty - 8K Run M 35-39, Aidan & Connor - 8K Run M 10-14) http://www.changeofpace.com/Results/JJ08/JMDIV.TXT

Cross Country

Since Aidan likes to run just like his dad, he decided he would join the 7th grade boys Cross Country team. They have had practice every day after school. Then last Thursday the 11th they had their first meet against 2 other middle schools. It was 1 1/2 miles. Aidan took 6th place overall out of about 35 runners with a time of 11:22. He also was the first 7th grade boy from his school to cross the finish line. Unfortunately while I was waiting and watching for his friend Austin to finish he started to walk towards me with red coming out of his mouth and it was on his jersey. I briefly panicked thinking he was coughing up blood. I told Ty what I thought and he told me that he was just throwing up (like that's supposed to make me feel better that he is vomiting blood instead of coughing up blood!). Then I realized that is was just from the Hot Cheetos he had for lunch! Oh boy...you can't scare a mom like that. He was a little dehydrated. It was kinda hot that day and there was only one drinking fountain with a huge line before and after the races. Anyway, he did really good and we were really proud of him.

Just after the start

About to cross the finish line

With Coach McGregor and friend Victor

Finish time - 6th place!

How do you get your kids to do homework?

With m&m's of course! I actually came up with an idea that worked yesterday! I was eating a handful of m&m's and knew the kids were gonna want some too and since they all needed to work on homework, I told them that for every problem they finish they get 1 m&m. Brogan & Finn jumped right on that! Connor didn't get in on it until he saw that it was actually working with the other kids. Aidan was going along with it too even though he thought that only 1 per problem wasn't enough. But when you have about 40 math problems, that's a lot of m&m's! By the time he got through half of them, he thought it was fun and a really good idea. WOW! I came up with a good idea that they all liked? Unbelieveable! And they all sat at the table being fairly quiet (and when I say that, I mean they weren't fighting and being mean to each other) and they were getting their homework done. They all ended up with a good amount of m&m's and didn't even fight about someone having more than they did. Are these really MY kids? When we were done Finn asked if next time can we do it with something other than candy, like vegetables? I said yeah and started suggesting all kinds of things we could use and they were all suggesting things. It was great! I hope it keeps working in the future.

Project "Modesty"

It was my turn to teach the lesson for Activity Days the first week of September. And true to form, I waited until almost the last minute to plan a lesson. I looked up a bunch of different websites to find ideas and kept coming across an idea for modesty. It was to have the girls design modest outfits out of newspaper. Of course, I didn't have enough newspaper for all the girls that normally show up, so I started looking at craigslist and freecycle. A lady had a post from a couple weeks earlier that she had a lot of newspapers she was hoping someone would take and recycle. By dumb luck, she still had them and she worked at someone from my ward's business. When I picked them up, she was really happy that someone was going to use them again and/or recycle (which I did after we were done, especially because she gave me soooo much more than I needed.
So anyway, I gave the girls a lesson on modesty and then split them up into groups (in each group 2 to design and 1 to model) and they got to choose an outfit to design, i.e. swimsuit, church dress, etc. They had so much fun and when they were done with the outfits the models got to walk down the "runway". They even designed an outfit for Finn! What a poser! Aye Yi Yi! Here is a short video of her walking down the runway.

Pencil Anyone?

As school was about to start, I decided to go through all the pencil boxes, drawers, buckets and any other nook or cranny I could think of to sort through crayons, markers and pencils. Apparently we have enough pencils to provide to a small country! If I hear my kids one more time say that they can't find a pencil, I think I will scream.

Aidan's Last Game of the Season...

...until All-Stars that is. He made the 11 year old All Star team. And since his is the only team in our area playing for that age group, they automatically take State and get to go to Regionals in Kerman, CA. Though this is very exciting, it has been a little stressful on Ty, worrying about taking time off work and the costs of going there. Aidan might have to go without us, and I have to say that will be very heartbreaking for me. We just have to see what we can work out.

Anyway, here are a few pictures of Aidan's last game of this season against the 1st place team on Tuesday. His team really needed this win. They were in 2nd place for most of the season until towards the end. So this game determined whether they would take 2nd or 3rd place. Aidan's team won! Barely! They were several points ahead until the last 2 innings of the game. But they pulled it out for a win and were very excited.
Aidan hit it out to right field for a triple.

Just after he scored.

Had to chase a wild pitch.

Father's Day Hike

For Father's Day, Ty wanted to go hiking. We went up to Thomas Creek and went on about a 3 mile hike. Ty likes to run and mountain bike up there, but this was the first time at this creek for the rest of us. It is really pretty up there, especially by the creek where there's a bigger variety of tree, plants, etc. than mostly the pine trees surrounding us.
At the beginning of the hike, Aidan, Finn and Brogan stayed with me while Ty and Connor ran up the trail ahead of us. We were about halfway to our destination when they met back up with us. Aidan had made walking sticks for himself and the twins. Finn kept offering me hers, but I had to tell her thank you, but it's easier to walk without it (in my opinion). Everyone kept throwing sticks in the creek for Chessie to fetch and she would only find them about half the time, but she loved it. At one point we were up above the creek probably about 4-5 feet and she had gone in the creek to get the huge stick Ty threw for her, but she couldn't get out and was not going to let go of that stick. Ty had to grab her by the collar and help her up. The kids had a lot of fun exploring and finding huge pine cones and places to wander through. People go horseback riding up there too, so there were a ton of piles of horse poop to avoid although Aidan told me Brogan stepped in them a couple of times. Eww! Towards the end of the hike there was a cool place where a bunch of trees had fallen over the creek and I had the kids climb over them for a picture with Ty. We had a good time spending time together.
Afterwards we went to see Crampa and have dessert, but we were a little earlier than planned and had dinner too and just hung out for awhile.
HAPPY FATHER'S DAY TY AND POP!

How Stupid Is This?

During Brogan's tournament game, I went out to the car to get my sweatshirt and as I opened the door, my pants got stuck like this..........

in the hole of the door where it latches! It just swooped by my pants and got caught on the extra batteries I had in my pocket for the camera. I was stuck for a little while and thinking how ridiculous it was I had to take a picture.

Brogan's Rookie Tournament

Brogan played in his first baseball tournament tonight. He was sooo excited because this was the first time all year that they would keep score. His team, the Dodgers, were the visitors against the Rangers. They warmed up for awhile and Brogan was all ready to be first up to bat. Then the teams were announced with all the kids getting their names called out. Look how small Brogan is next to all the other players. He struck out his first up at bat, but on his second up at bat he got a home run! (Due to overthrows that is.) Brogan loves to slide into home plate...even if he's not even close to being tagged out. His third up at bat, he got out at first. He played out in right center field and while I waited and waited to take a picture of him when the ball came out to him, it never did. That is until I finally went and sat down in the bleachers and wouldn't you know it.....the ball was hit right to him! He did really good at getting the ball back in to the infield. The game was pretty long. Almost 2 1/2 hours, because the teams kept tying the game up. The Dodgers ended up losing 20-19, but it was a great, exciting game. After the game, Brogan walked out of the gate by the dugout and simply said, "I'm the only one not crying." He really is a good loser. He just has fun. The kids on his team were not only sad about losing, but as Brogan's friend Trevor said while crying, "I'm really going to miss this team."

Our Taxes Are Done! Our Taxes Are Done!

So, if you know me well...you know that I wait until the very last minute to work on/file taxes. I'm talking like October or later. Just like mom. Except I don't think I wait as long as she does! However, this year I was determined to get them done ASAP! And though it is about 2 weeks later than I had hoped...they're finished!!! YES!!! (huge sigh of relief) I e-filed about 10 minutes ago and I am just pleased as punch with myself. Now I can get this big paperwork mess out of the living room and life can get back to normal...maybe even better! I am also excited at the prospect of keeping up on paperwork at least weekly so next year will be even easier.

3 Reasons I Can't Wait For Warmer Weather

1. My kids can play outside!
2. My kids will play outside!
3. My kids DO play outside!

Stinky Clothes No More

In the past, I have been one to let clothes sit in the washing machine a little too long. Then of course the clothes would come out smelling a little mildewy and I'd have to wash them again which of course didn't always help. I came across an article somewhere that gave me a simple "laundry recipe" for getting the smell out. You put in 1/2 cup of baking soda and 1 cup of vinegar into the wash and add your regular detergent and your clothes. I tried it and it worked like a charm! However, much to my chagrin, I think the smell was pemanently embedded in the washing machine itself since the laundry seemed to come out of there stinking even after taking it out immediately to put it in the dryer even after applying this "recipe" and running the machine with bleach water several times.
Then a couple of years ago, we got a new washing machine from Mercedes (she had barely ever used it and it was sitting in storage for quite some time). After this, I vowed to do my best to not let clothes sit in the washing machine anymore. On a rare occasion, it happens, and I just use the baking soda and vinegar. Voila! Fresh again!
Then this weekend, Ty took Aidan and Brogan on an overnight hunting trip to Lahontan, where they built a campfire. They came home reeking of campfire smoke. As I was about to wash these stinking clothes, I thought I should maybe add something else to them to help rid of the smell. Maybe a Tbsp. of bleach? Just enough to get rid of the smell but not ruin the clothes. No. Didn't want to take a chance. So I reached for the Borax and poured some in hoping it would work. Well it didn't. As I was tossing the clothes into the dryer, the smoke smell was still overpowering. So back in the washing machine they go. Trying to think of what I could do, I remembered the "laundry recipe". Not having enough baking soda, I decided to just try the vinegar. It worked! Hurray!
So if you ever have problematic stinky clothes, just remember the "laundry recipe".

Brogan Says the Pledge of Allegiance

Since Brogan was a student of the month for December, he got to say the Pledge of Allegiance over the intercom at school yesterday morning. He was so excited to do it and he did a great job! Unfortunately the video wouldn't start until half way through the Pledge. He also got to say the School Pledge. However, I think he thought he was done because he backed away and Mrs. Diesner, the principal, had to finish it. She is a great principal! She loves the kids and was really excited to have Brogan say the Pledge.

The Snowblower

Early in January, we got some decent snow storms and some much needed snow. Over the couple of days from the storm, we probably had about a foot of snow at our house. The first day it snowed, Ty got our neighbor's snowblower (her husband died in 2005 and Ty takes care of her sprinkler system, mows, snow removal, etc.). Let me just tell you that he started at about 5:30 and didn't come in until 9:30! Once when he had come in to change into dry clothes, I asked him if he was done, because I knew it was just going to keep snowing and he said, "No, I'm having fun." He did everyone's driveway on our little court of 8 houses (except the nasty people next door!) and then he did the street except in the middle where he was blowing the snow. He went around and around and around and around!!! That weekend after he had to do it again the neighbor told him to keep the snowblower since we've done so much for her and help her out whenever she needs it. Ty said, "OK!" Thanks Joan!