Stupid Snow

This is the view from my front window right now. I can't even see the next street over! I am so very tired of snow. It's been wonderful here the past few days! It's been close to 50 and the sun has been shining and it's made everything so happy! I am very ready for spring. I hope that the snow storms we get from now all will be followed by nice warm weather that melts it all! It can still pile up in the mountains, it needs to pile up there, but down here, it can start to melt! Just let me see my daffodils and tulips start popping up, and my grass turning green, and all that wonderful spring stuff!

Bravery

I was brave today. I really was. I needed to go grocery shopping soo bad. Well the kids are off track and I had to go before I could even make dinner. So I went with all 4 kids. To the grocery store. To do something that takes longer than 10 minutes. And I survived! Better yet, the kids survived! They were sooo good. To be honest, I was shocked. I thought it would be just awful. Especially Bree, she can be such a handful. She just wanders so much and it makes me so frustrated. I've lost her more than the other 3 combined! She has no fear of being lost or being taken. She doesn't think there is anything wrong with going off on her own if the mood takes her. It's very annoying. But they did great and I think I'm going to get them a little something for being so good. I don't know what, a special FHE treat or something. We'll find something I'm sure. But they were awesome and I had to just brag for a bit!

I just had to add some pics of the kids playing in the snow that we got on Martin Luther King day. We thought this was a lot, but the snow we got this past Sunday topped it. Crazy how wet this winter has been. We got more snow today, but just an inch or so. I can handle that I guess. Well enjoy!

Training

So Tracy and I decided to try and run the Salt Lake City 5k this spring. I've been trying to run since the beginning of January and I'm really not doing too well. I was feeling really frustrated yesterday and went online and found a training program that I can do. It takes 9 weeks and it's supposed to get you running 3 miles in about 30 minutes. I am glad that I found something that will help me focus and reach my goal. It's very gradual and by the time I'm done with the 9 weeks, I'll still have 2 weeks before the marathon to keep working on it. So now my goal is back in sight and that makes me happy. My sister and sister-in-law ran it last year and I really wanted to do it this year with them and I'm glad I'll be able to, if I can keep this up. Hopefully I didn't just jinx myself or something and now I'll get sick and won't be able to do it! Goals are great and I really think having an attainable goal helps with so many things in life. It's a great feeling.

We got our state taxes back already. So many things to pay off, where to start?? Hehe. We are going to start with going to dinner tonight and not feeling guilty about it! We will probably just go to Denneys or something like that, but that's ok, I don't have to cook and we have the money to do it so I'm going to enjoy it. Then we will come home and figure out where to put the first chunk of taxes. Dentist? Lowes? Car repairs? Hmmm. It'll be fun seeing this money just disappear! Hopefully we can go on a vacation with it too. We usually go to St. George over Presidents Day so we'll have to see if we can work that in. My in-laws just had my father-in-laws dad move in with them. Did that make sense? His wife died this past year and he is getting older so they moved him down to warmer St. George to take care of him. The bummer thing about that is.... no more place to stay. We were going to get a hotel but it's the St. George Parade of Homes and all the hotels are booked. So we are thinking of going to Mesquite and doing the spa/golf thing there with Tracy's sister and her family. I don't know if we'll be able to work it out, but it would be fun. I guess we need to hurry and decide, since that's 2 weeks away!

Well Keighlee just woke up so I need to go get her. Poor girl is finally getting her last molar in and has a pretty nasty cold. I hate seeing my babies sick. It's so sad. And they get so clingy and that can get annoying pretty fast. Have a good day all!

Snow, snow go away

I am so tired of the snow. I know we are being so blessed with all the moisture that we've had but when you can't even open your front door, and you can't heave the snow over the humongous mound stacked on the side of your driveway, you have enough!! At least it's February now and we can see the end in sight!

13 years ago today I met Tracy. I can't believe that I've known him for 13 years! It's crazy! It's funny how I still remember the date too. And I remember exactly what he was doing the first time I saw him. He was scrubbing a grill in the cafeteria. It was the first day of my job at the Church Office Building. I had just walked in and met my boss and I looked up and he had been scrubbing, he kind of stopped when he saw me! hehe! It's nice to know that I had that power at one time!! Well that started it all, 5 months later he was on his mission and then 2 years and 6 months later we were engaged! And now here we are with 4 munchkins and a dog. So fun. It really is though and it's so fun to look back on how things happened.

Well enough reminiscing, I'm going to go to bed. I have to get my week organized tomorrow and clean the house. Preschool is going really well and since I started using the program I do, my life is much less complicated! But it does still take some organization! Have a wonderful week! I'll try to get some pictures and stuff up this week. That's something I haven't done on here yet.

Frustrations

So I just read a blog I did on myspace, and I was talking all about Tiaree and how wonderfully she was doing at school last year. It was last April and I'd just had a parent teacher conference and was told that she was reading at a 3rd grade level and would probably be reading at a 5th grade level by the end of the year. She was a leader and a well rounded 1st grader, excelling at every subject. Well she did get better and she was reading at 5th grade level when she left 1st grade. This year is a different story. I don't like her teacher. She seems nice enough but she is just not getting the results out of Tiaree like I saw last year. I've told her that spelling is too easy and asked if there was a way to make them harder and she sent home a harder list but it's still cake for her. Also this teacher will punish the whole class when a few children misbehave. I do not believe in that. Especially since it keeps happening. Those few kids are obviously not getting the picture. They need to be punished separately. Tiaree comes home so sad cause they missed library, or computers, or something else cause "the boys" were being bad again. It's so frustrating to me. I'd take her out but I have no where to put her. I guess I could try to get her into another school, but it's halfway through the year and I don't know that she could go now. Maybe I'll look into it. But then Jarik would be alone. He is doing really, really well. I absolutely love his teacher! She is new and young and has so much energy. Jarik is just speeding along as well. I had to send a note to his teacher today telling her that the weekly book he was sent home with was too easy for him. He is just as smart as Tiaree and it makes me so happy! Anyway, back to the Tiaree dilemma, I guess I'll just have to have a talk with her teacher. I am kind of afraid to do that, not because I'm scared of her teacher, but because I'm shy and that is something totally hard for me to do. As for her academics, I've been trying to supplement at home. She is just devouring books I give her, and books she gets at the library at school and she is working on math facts at home with flashcards and stuff. I might have to make up spelling lists for her too, just to challenge her at home. I don't want her to fall or stagnate. She was so happy last year and her mind was just growing so much and this year she doesn't like school as much and I'm afraid she will loose that love she found last year. Anyway, these are my frustrations, as well as my proud mommy moments with Jarik. I'm off to exercise! Have a wonderful day!

Busy

Well it's been 2 months since my last post. I thought I'd write more on this but I guess not. Anyway, in October Tracy and I went to San Francisco. What a fun trip! I'd never been to California and I hadn't flown since I was a senior in high school. The flying was a blast and California was so much fun. We just spent time at Fishermans Warf, The Golden Gate Bridge, Crissy Fields, Coit Tower, and Alcatraz. We also went to a 49ers game, but the 9ers forgot to show up! It was so much fun and it was soo nice to get away just him and I. We did it to celebrate our 10 year anniversary, which was November 7th. I loved being away but I was ready to get back home to the kids. We came back and things were crazy from then on. We had Halloween and I had preschool and then we had Thanksgiving and then we went on a nice long family vacation. 10 days! It was fun. We just went down to St. George. We went on Thanksgiving and had dinner with my family in the condo. That was so much fun! We hung out and ate and talked and it was a blast. My brothers and sister were there until Sunday and my parents till Tuesday. On Friday we went to Snow Canyon and hiked to the lava caves. Dad and Tracy and Erik and Jared and Emily and Caitlin went down inside. Ali tried but got really claustrophobic. Mom and I ended up taking the kids all back to the car. There was a nasty North wind and they were all freezing. We went back with Jared and Ems and hiked down the dark. That was so cool! It was fun hanging out with them without the kids. On Saturday we went to Red Cliffs and hiked with everyone and then Jared and Ems, Erik and Ali and Tracy and I went to Skyline Drive and "looked for ghosts". It was fun. We just went up around midnight and walked around in the dark. That place is kind of eerie in the dark!
On Monday we went to Vegas with mom and dad for the day. Tiaree and Keighlee got their ears pierced. They are so cute! We just walked around the factory stores there and said hi to Santa really fast. Mom and Dad headed back to St. George and we went to the Mirage. We were able to see dolphins there. They have a 5 month old baby dolphin. It was really cool. They have underwater viewing and everything. Then we were able to see lions and tigers and jaguars and bobcats and llamas. It was cool. The big white tiger was grumpy and kept roaring. Very loud. After that, we went to our friends' Kollen and Adams house for dinner. They used to live here and we got to be really good friends. Then they moved to St. George and we'd go visit them when we'd visit Diane and Bob. Now they've moved to Vegas so it's going to be even harder to see them! But it was such a nice visit and we had a lot of fun. The kids had a blast playing and they all crashed on the way back. Tuesday we just hung around the condo, did a little shopping and mom and dad left. On Wednesday we went to Zions for the day. That was fun. We did a lot of geocaching on the way back. Thursday we went to a movie with Diane. We saw Enchanted, very cute! On Friday we did some more geocaching. We went to the new Sand Hallow State Park. That place is definitely someplace we will have to go in the warmer weather. It started to rain on us but that was fun too. We went swimming that night and then on Saturday we swam some more and did more geocaching. Tracy got to 100 caches while we were down there! Yay for him! Sunday we got up early and got home. We were very ready by then. This week has just been playing catch up with laundry and house and all that fun stuff.
It's raining right now. We missed the first big snow storm of the year so that was a bummer. And now it's all melted. I'm hoping the rain turns to snow today. That would be fun. I think tonight we are going to go look for a real Christmas tree for the front room. We haven't had a real tree for years. They are fun to have. We have most of our Christmas stuff up and I'm so excited, but also so stressed. I figured out that there are only like 17 more days left until Christmas Eve. I don't have anything done. No shopping lists or anything. I need to get going on it, but I also have to do preschool stuff. That seems to take a lot of my time. I think I might buy a program that I don't have to make up lessons for. But we'll see. We are having Tracy's side over here for Christmas and we are doing it early because Diane and Bob can't come up for Christmas. So that's another thing we are working on, getting the house ready for company. So this month is going to fly by and I'm afraid if I don't get organized and on the ball, I won't enjoy it. I guess I better get going then and stop writing on here!