The accident on video

I was talking with a girl in my ward today, and she told me she saw the video of our car accident. When she was telling me how bad it looked, we thought it would be interesting to see what really happened. After watching it, we realized-again-how blessed we were to all come out okay. It is the video labeled: inversion fog causes I-15 accidents

http://www.kutv.com/search/videosearch.aspx?search=january+19%2c+2009

Uncle Lane

Well, Lane did a lot of things right over the weekend. First of all, he brought his Wii (is there one or two i's- I am such a loser). Anyway, he and Evan played and played and played. Poor Evan, stuck with the mean wife who won't buy him the fun toys.

Then he brought the four-wheeler for the kids, yes Evan is included in that, to ride on. Sander thinks Uncle Lane's 4-wheeler is about the greatest thing in the world! He cries every time he has to get off it. Luckily our neighbors didn't call the cops for disturbing the peace while Evan cruised around.

But greatest of all was bringing Melanie. The kids couldn't stay away from her. We could always tell where she was, because the kids were always right behind her. She also made a fun shopping partner for me (which made up for the boys going shooting all morning)! I am sure it wasn't the most romantic Valentine's Day for her, but we loved having her with us. I am sure she felt a LOT of LOVE ( probably more than she wanted ) from the kids. It was great to have you guys. Come again soon!

Valentine Spoils

Sander has entered the world of super hero's. He is always talking about saving the world, or at least Gracie, from the bad guys. I thought this cape would be a fun, manly dress up ( pretty much his dad couldn't get mad about it ). Happy V-Day Super Sander!

My friend has the cutest web site called make it and love it. On it, she had the cutest tutu. My friend mentioned how this would be a fun valentine's gift, I couldn't resist. I had to make one for Gracie... and Addie!

I could just watch little Addie in her tutu all day. When we put it on her, she giggles and then does one of her 5 minute twirls ( it takes her about 5 minutes to turn around once ). This is one of the greatest things about being a mother of girls!!

Uncle Lane came to stay with us for the weekend. He made a stop at Cabela's on the way here and found these cute, cute stuffed animals for the kids. We have been looking every where for an elk for Sander. The kids love them. Gracie named her buffalo Buffy! I was pretty impressed with her naming ability. Sander thought his elk should also be called Buffy, but Evan intervened and they finally settled on Bucky. Addie calls her deer - Da, like she calls everything. Way to go Uncle Lane.

Showing off their Valentines Day attire. The girls danced while Super Sander flew around them. What a fun day!

One Day Older

Gracie's great ambition is to be a princess. This picture was taken after the school put on a princess party. She was just about the happiest girl in the world.

Well, Gracie reached a big stepping stone. She lost her first tooth. She bit into something a few weeks ago and said her tooth was going to fall out. Well, she kept on pulling on it until it was hanging on a thread. She came into the bedroom in the morning and said, "Mom, I think I am ready for you to tie a string to my tooth and pull it out." Well, when we tried it, she about had a cow. After much struggling, we finally told her it could fall out on its own. A few minutes later she told me she needed some water since her throat felt weird. After her third drink, I finally looked into her mouth and saw her tooth had fallen out and she could taste the blood. Well, she got really excited about the tooth fairy. Holy Cow, after she put her tooth under the pillow she had to have come into our bedroom at 5:00 am talking about a mile a minute telling us the tooth fairy had come, and she hadn't even known she had come ( had we known she had come), and she was ready to have some more teeth fall out. Pretty much, none of us got any more sleep that morning. She was REALLY excited.

Gracie loves to do hair. It about drives me crazy to have her do it, but every now and then I decide I could try to be a nice mom. Well, there are about 7 different ponytails in my hair. Gracie said I looked " just beautiful." I am lucky to have such a great hair stylist.

Cousin Fun

Well, my sister brought her kids down to have me watch them while she and her husband had a little get-away in Park City. I always feel bad when kids have to stay at our house, because we don't really have a lot of fun things to do. So we had to get creative. The kids were able to make their own personal pizzas for dinner. They were able to shape them any way they wanted and choose their own toppings. They all seemed to love it, until Sam got the flu-or maybe too much food in that little tummy-sweet boy.


The kids were lining up to take pictures. They were all giving me great poses. I love watching kids when they are having their pictures taken. It makes them so happy ( when the parent isn't yelling at them to stop moving, and smile, and look natural, etc. )

Thanks to Eric and Janine, we were able to have fun making cupcakes, with Gracie's little cupcake set. They were really excited about it, but by the time it came to actually decorate them, the kids were just ready to eat them! Yummy cream filled chocolate cupcakes!

My favorite was watching my sister's youngest stuff the whole cupcake in his mouth and grab another one before anyone could stop him. At least he stopped crying while he ate them, he was really sad to be away from his mom.

It was fun to have the cousins over. We sure miss seeing all the family. And having 8 kids at one time wasn't as hard as I thought it would be - thanks to Evan who was REALLY helpful through it all!

A moment of reflection

This last week a lady in our ward passed away unexpectedly. After going to her funeral and seeing how many people's lives she touched, I started thinking about my life and what I have accomplished. It made me realize how important each day is, how precious our time is with the ones we love, and how much there is to accomplish in such a small amount of time. I like to plan out goals but often fail to set time limits which doesn't really matter until I think how much I take time for granted. In a life of so much uncertainty, I don't want to be left with the thoughts of "if only I ...," or "I wish I ..." So today I will try to live in the moment, tell the ones I love how much they mean to me, and to accomplish something of importance to me each day. And maybe by writing this, I will be able to pass along some of the positive influence I felt from her to you.