sad realization

What I want....
What I have...
I have been really trying to learn a lot more abt photography and editing photos. I have recently come to the horrible conclusion that my "new" camera sucks, and doesnt have a high enough mega pixel count to BLOW my photos up. Bummer.

anybody else mad about this??

http://news.aol.com/article/hot-mormon-muffins-calendar-debuts/737136?icid=mainmaindl2link6http%3A%2F%2Fnews.aol.com%2Farticle%2Fhot-mormon-muffins-calendar-debuts%2F737136

Long overdue....

Ugh. I hate it when i reverse the order on all my pics... it drives me crazy! Ok... just wanted to post some pics and tell my faithful 2 readers whats been going on! First and foremost... CLS has been impossible recently. Her bangs come down to her mouth but still arent long enought o tuck behind her ears so I have to do her hair every morning. What a chore! Her new favorite thing to do while I work is suck the water out of the spray bottle, eat the brush, and try to take the rubberbands out of my mouth (I have to put them in my mouth to stretch them and she grabs them adn tries to eat them... turkey)

CLS turned 1 on the 17th! You can check out her blog for more cute pics!

She got a walker for her birthday and the baby (whom I named Kensington since John wouldn't let me name an actual child that...) fit perfectly! hopefully this will give her some MUCH needed motivation to walk (hasn't happened so far though)

I made new friends! They are slightly mental and need very pateint people in their lives and I'm the one! Ok, not really, but we did have a great time making tutus together and then they were brave enough to model their works of art. I learned how to make tutus and have made plenty for CLS... she HATES them!

M turned 7 in early Oct. We had a pokemon party with ALL the leftover from where T turned 5 (4.5 years ago!) It felt great to get all the plates and cups out of my closet! We borrowed a HUGE bounce house from a friend that took up our entire basement and the kids had a blast!!! He is still such an easy going kid and is loving first grade!

The birthday boy!

The oldest three got their green belts in tae know do!

Here they are rocking it out at testing

Van started back to preshcool! He is going 5 mornings a week trying to get him ready for K next year.

Van turned 4 in Sept! He is such a funny guy with plenty of attitude.

In fact, when i got the pic of him holding up 4 fingers developed, he asked me why I didnt print the one of him being grumpy...

We celebrated his bday with a star wars party... The lightsabers were a huge hit and the result of many injuries (pool noodles and aweome duct tape!) th eyoung jedis were super wild, but the weather was great so John put them through jedi training camp in ourbackyard.

I spent my whole summer working on Joseph and the technicolor dreamcoat. before you enlarge the pic to find me in a ridiculous costume, ill just say i wont be found;-) I played in the pit as part of the Paroahs pilharmonic and had a blast! The part was pretty staight forward but not boringly easy. It made this semester of orchestra be so boring bc of how much fun we had working on a play! the show turned out great, and it was really fun for me to do something that required brain power!

We took a summer vacation to Charlotte, NC thissummer and stayed with the bro-in-law and family. We went to Carowinds one day to give the boys their roller coaster fix and downtown Charlotte the next. We went to the Childrens museum and walked around downtown. it was the first time my poor sheltered children had ever riden a metro or been in a big city... They ha a blast! We got back at 10 pm the night before school started for them... not the best idea, but the best time!!

Currently you ask?? All the kids and John have swine flu. its been almost a week and van just got it today so it looks like we have almost a week to go... heres hoping they are to sick to go trick or treating, as we have no costumes and i HATE the candy...

Iknow its been a while since i posted... Sullivan celebrated a birthday and I have taken tons of pictures, but i have been just so busy recently, and eveytime i get on to actually do a blog update, I get distracted. It's worth it, I promise~

and my niece finally came!

Congrats to Heather and Fredy who welcomed baby Bella to their family!

http://perezposts.blogspot.com/

The 1994 yellow mustang, with 77,000 miles... a gift from Grandad to Daddy when he was still a teenager! Many people know him from his car... I see him on the bypass driving and know it's him. We talked about our kids having this as their first car when they are old enough. We planned to garage keep it and restore it.

His drivers seat. No longer attached to the floorboards, this seat is totally falling apart. 2 years ago there was barely a tear at the top.

His dad's old phone.. Do they even make these anymore? The phone is perhaps worth more then the car itself...

The roof. Totally ripping up both sides. We were excited the day we found white duct tape, as it matched much better then the silver he had been using.

the wheels are so pitted he has a tire that is always flat that has to be filled with air at least every other day. the tire shop has worked on it so many times and has finally said the seal is the best it will be at this point. (taken in oct. 2007)

We had to sell the mustang today. It was actually really sad. I have tons of pics of friends and kids in that car, and many memories of driving around with Daddy in the car. One favorite is when we were driving north and we passed his sister driving her 93 yellow mustang coming south. He found a wonderful tradein at a local dealer and was able to negotiate a pretty fair trade in. I never thought I would see the day that he initated the purchase of a more family friendly car. This will get much better gas mileage for rotations next year though and can actually fit most of our family. All 4 boys rode home with him today and actually fit really well. I am so excited that he finally has a car that is "new" and one that he picked out, but we are so grateful for the mustang as it lasted 10 wonderful years for us, and saved us a ton of money from car payments.

the other kids were already buckled into the backseat. they were to excited to wait!

The Summer Museum Tour

While John was (still) busy with boards related things, the kids and i headed to my parents house for a week. During that week, we hit 3 different "play museums" with the kids. They got to touch all sorts of marine life including sharks, ride in manned maneuvering units, and learn about holograms. They played with colorful shadows, built huge structures with PVC pipes, and learned how wind moves objects. They watched butterflies emerge from a chrysalises in a butterfly garden and touched madagascar hissing cockroaches. They experiemented with arch structures, orbits, and mirrors. But most of all, they learned that their Gritty can have a lot of fun playing with the toys too! Thanks for such a great gift mom! We have used the museum membership pass at 4 different museums in the past month, and LOVED every minute of it. Education beyond what the classroom can offer!

I am WOMAN!

This was summer of the boards for us. John took a very time intensive (read expensive) class that ran most of July, including weekends to teach him everything VCOM never bothered to the first go round to (what exactly does the 35,000 a year do then, if they dont teach the students? Glad you asked... you shoudd see the lawn...) It was really hard having him so busy but still around. I think next summer when he goes to texas for most of the summer it will actually be a little bit easier bc he will just not be here, rather then jsut being here but to busy... anyway. so it was hard, but he took the boards on the 13th and so we actually got to see him a little bit and the boys got to spend some time with him before they went back to school on the 19th! Anyways.... during july, when he was so busy, our ward was having a campout, and the kids were so excited to go, so we packed it up and headed out without John. i was so nervous, but it actually went ok. I went out on thrus. with 2 of my friends who were also husband-less adn we had a great time! There were a few rules that I broke in the effort to make it easier.
The first rule- I let my oldest run around like this. For a whole day. With a bandana.

2. CL attacked this poor sweet boy, and i let her, because she wasn't eating dirt in there.

3- i fed her all sorts of things I shouldn't have. fried donuts, watermelon, anything i could reach to keep her happier in her stroller because she wasn't eating dirt there either.

4- I didn't make my kids wash their hands or faces before meals.

5- they played in a creek all day. they even drank a fair amount of it

6- they (again) tended their own fire all day.

We had such an awesome time! it is nice to know that i can take them all out like this and do things with them now. WE headed out thurs. and got to camp right as it starte dto get dark. I pitched my tent way far away from Mels and Stephanies due to location and we went over to their fire to make banana boats. At 10, we headed back to our tent and realized how far we were from them (in the whole camp, us 3 girls and our kids were about the only ones) and it was totally creepy so we dragged our tent all the way across a site so we could be closer. The kids all slept amazingly well and it got really cool! The kdis all played in the creek and in the fire the next day and I barely saw the older boys. Van spent the day eating marshmellows with his friends and that night by the time the rest of the ward had arrived, felt totally sick. At 10 he threw up by our fire so I packed EVERYTHING back up and showed up on our doorstep at 11. We had to throw all the kids int eh tub they were so gross and several of the swim trunks ended up in the trash too... Next time i will prob. be more careful with what they wear...

campfire donuts!!!

I was so proud of myself! I learned how to pitch our tent, light our lantern, start my own fire, and cook over our camp stove. I know that prob. sounds lame, but it was a great experience!