it's a no.

back to the drawing board. ;0(

i will post our next idea. 

i am already working on some others. ;0)

water colors.

we decided to do a little decorating for the month of "LOVE"!

plus i was getting a little stir crazy and so were the kids. so i got some white paper, cut out a bunch of hearts and brought out the water colors!! 

the kids had a blast and Garran and i also had fun painting some of the hearts. i did not get any pictures of the actual process. only because it was all i could do to keep all three of the older ones from mixing all the colors, spilling water, and Breia from licking the paint brushes. i think she thought it was some new form of make up!

i made the one that i got most of them smiling as our new header, but this is our fun one. we always have to take a fun one. anyways, you can see our creations behind the kids. they are really proud of them and i have to admit the look pretty cute in the window. so hope everyone is getting ready to feel a little extra love this month!!

taking a vote.

this summer we are having a family reunion with Garran's family. we all decided it would be fun to do t-shirts. since Garran is familiar with how to make them, we took on the task. I say we only because I am taking the orders, he is doing the rest. So we were coming up with ideas for the t-shirt. this is what happened. i saw a design idea that we kind of copied a little. then Garran found this picture of his dad.

so he took this picture and combined it with the idea we saw.

now this is a really rough sketch. he did this in about ten minutes but I am hoping that everyone likes it because i think it would be a really fun t-shirt!

(sorry about the big black square. no last names on here since we are a public blog!)

obviously the text will be different and it will be a little more fine tuned.

like i said, rough sketch. however, i think it is great!

i think it is fun and everyone one will really enjoy it. we will see how the vote goes, if it does not pass, back to the drawing board for us. we will come up with something else fun!

screams!

Garran just ran upstairs because he heard Cullan screaming/crying. When Garran gets up there, he says "Cullan, What is the matter, are you ok?" Cullan responds very calmly..."Yeah, I am just practicing my screams."

v-day memories.

ok. i was in the garage today, looking for something for the kids and i to do. (no worries, I found some watercolors!) anyway,  as i was going through things, i found this.

garran gave this to me a long time ago. now we can't remember if it was the Valentine's we were engaged, right before we got married or if it was our first valentine's as a married couple, but i love it.

i love that i still have it. i am going to find some where safe to put it. 

i remember laughing when he gave it to me. it was so funny that he had ripped it out of a magazine and filled it out. i just thought it was sweet.

i also love that it is filled out to "curvy cutie". garran used to call me that all the time and i thought it was a cute nickname. i also like that the expiration date says "Never". 

I love my hubby. He can be so sweet sometimes ;0)

loves.

yep. that's right.

I LOVE THEM.

a yummy post.

ok. so, while we were visiting family in iowa, garran's mom made some home made noodles. yummy.

they were so good. so much better than the store bought ones and not very hard to make at all.

so the other day we were at the store and decided to buy a turkey. i wanted to cook it and then take all the meet off for a couple different meals. one of them being turkey soup. (kind of a similar version to chicken noodle, but with turkey!) Garran had some free time today and so during quiet time at our house, we decided to give it a go.

here is Garran mixing up some eggs.

really getting in to it ;0)

then i started the kneading. you had to kneed for 10 minutes so we split it. as we were trading off, i jokingly said, "Hey, it's kind of like the movie ghost, except we are making noodles!" I got a small smile. not one of my better jokes. moving on....

after the kneading, we divided the dough and started rolling out small portions.

Garran likes the thin noodles, so that is what he cut.

i like the kind of blocky, square one.

Aren't they looking YUMMY!

Here is the broth from cooking the turkey all night in the crock pot. It will be tasty to add to the soup.

Ta-Da the turkey. There is a lot so I think we are going to do soup and then Garran requested we try some sort of loose meat turkey sandwich. We will see how it works. I am looking forward to trying out the noodles and seeing if they are any good!

It was fun to have Garran home for a little while and to be able to do something together while the kids were sleeping and playing!

ps. i should add. we originally cooked the turkey in the oven. we had a little for dinner the other night and then just put it back in the crock pot with water, salt and pepper until the meat was just falling off the bone.

everyone loves a baby....

but her daddy is head over heals!

bubbles.

babies always do cute things. 

at every stage they come up with something to make us love them that much more or think they are just that much cuter!

 well guess what ayla has done now to melt my heart.....

 yep bubbles! wonderful baby babble bubbles!

who could not love those cute little bubbles or the sweet baby they are drooling out of.

DJ turn it up!

This kids is so funny. He has an imagination like no other. I don't know exactly how his little brain comes up with all of these wonderful characters.....

but they make me smile and help bring laughter to my day.

playgroup!

today was our first official play group since we have moved here!!!

woo hoo!!!

it was super fun and it was so nice to chat with other friends. 

here is the proof of how much fun the kids had.

both the girls are completely knocked out..

 and while the boys are still up, they have not stopped talking about it since their friends have left!

thanks friends for coming to play! we can not wait for next week ;0)

Lilly-Pops

that is what kael calls this. instead of a lollipop, it's a lilly-pop!

just one of those things i want to remember. 

blue ray glasses

tonight Cullan was talking to us about these "blue ray glasses". We could not figure out what he was talking about. Finally he said, "you know the blue and red glasses." He was talking about the old 3-D glasses. That kid is so funny.

Warm Fuzzies Update!

So before I start my story, our family has been trying to fill our warm fuzzy jar by doing service. To read all about it you can click on the link HERE, it will take you to the original post about our goal. 

****************************************

tonight we were all sitting on the couch together. ( I love that about Sundays) Anyways, we were all sitting together watching "The Other Side of Heaven".  It was at the point of the movie when a hurricane had just destroyed their island and they were all starving, waiting for a boat to come with food. During this part of the movie, the local minister on the island gives "Kolipoki" (one of the characters) his last bit of food. He explains that he is an old man and has lived his life, but that "Kolipoki" is young and still has a lot of good to do. Then he hands "Kolipoki" the jar of food and walks off. 

Cullan then says out of no where.."Um, He should really get a warm fuzzy for that!"

Garran and I kind of laughed but were happy that, Woo Hoo they are understanding what we are doing.

We are getting there. Here is an update on our jar so far.

it is so fun to see how excited the kids are about this goal we are working towards. they LOVE it. they really do look for things to do service wise to be able to put warm fuzzies in the jar. i know the over all goal is to teach them to enjoy serving others, but i think you start small and expand on it. we always talk about why we did whatever service it was and how it makes us feel happy when we do it. 

3

Happy 3 Months to my sweet Ayla Joan!

highlights of three months:

-cooing

-laughing

-wonderful toothless smiles

-insane sweetness

-over all kiss-ability 

creative.

well no one can say this girl is not creative. sometimes she is just to smart for her own good.

fingers crossed.

(new sketch added to Garran's blog)

ok everyone. please keep your finger's crossed, say a prayer, or whatever you do. garran just left a few minutes ago to turn in his packet for a teaching position for next year. he would be teaching a fundamentals drawing class. it would be so great if he could get it and would look amazing on his resume. however, here is the down side. there are only four slots and i think 14 or 15 grad students applying. YIKES!! so we will see what happens. hopefully he gets one of the spots. i always have confidence in him, but I also know that there are a lot of talented people out there. so....say a little prayer!! I am hoping it all works out. 

if you would like to see his work, you can go to his blog.

www.garrancgillespie.blogspot.com

I love christmas socks

I love Christmas socks!!!

Every year I get so excited at the prospect of new Christmas socks. This year I got quiet a few. 

However, these ranked right up at the top. Garran and his Mom got these for me while they were out shopping together. I mean these are pretty sweet. I think the fur on the top really completes them. I had to pull them down a bit because they go half way up my leg. 

garran knows that i love Christmas socks so much that he even got me these.....

i guess he wanted to make sure that i covered all my bases!!

financial aid.

here i am, forgive me because I am going to rant for a minute. 

i hate financial aid. I mean i am grateful that we get it, but i hate dealing with the schools every time. the way that they do things makes no sense to me at all. really. ok here is my grip. every semester school starts but financial aid is not disbursed until 2-3 weeks after the start of school. REALLY PEOPLE! i know not everyone is in our situation, but how is Garran supposed to get stuff for school when the money we use to get it does not come for 2-3 weeks after school starts. I am sure there is a reason that they do this, however it is really infuriating!!!

i hate snow.

for this reason!

Garran and the boys got into an accident. Garran was trying to go and when he finally got traction he could not stop and slid into a pole.

ARRRGG. i hate snow, but am so happy that they are ok. count my blessings right?

missing treasure.

that is how i felt today, while organizing things on a new shelf that we got, i found an old memory card for my camera. there were all sorts of pictures on it, but this was one of my favorites. 

look at all that sweet chubby baby. i just loved squeezing her then...and i still do. she may not be that little anymore but she is still just as sweet. 

"who does this remind you of?"

i got this picture in the mail today with a post it on the back that said,

"Who does this remind you of?"

I decided I would post it and let all of you be the judge.

This was me around, I am going to guess 6 years old.

i have my own theories of who looks more like me, or i guess i should say who has bits and pieces of me. thanks for sending me this picture mom. it was a fun surprise in the mail and the kids thought it was funny to see me as a little girl.

warm fuzzies

so it's late and this might sound like i am rambling. so forgive me if it comes across that way. 

lately i have really been thinking about what I want to teach my kids and what I want to be important to them. After talking to a friend of mine and hearing an idea that she had got from conference i decided to do the same thing at our house. The original idea came from President Monson's talk. 

(click here to read it!)

The talk was entitled, "What have I done for some one today?"

I love that idea. I really enjoy doing service for other people and I really want my kids to enjoy it as well.     There is such happiness in knowing that you have done something to make some one else's day a little brighter, easier, or just to let them know you are thinking of them. It does not always have to be a huge act of kindness for it to be important. So this is my plan. We are know going to have this on top of our entertainment center. 

I bought the jar, bought the little pom pom things and this will be our goal. Every time some one in our house does some form of service for anyone else (without being prompted), we will put a fuzzy in the jar. This applies to everyone, even Garran and myself. However the kids can not add fuzzies, only the parents. Once our jar is full, we will do something really special as a family. What that is has yet to be decided. But it will be something big. Bigger than just having a special dessert or ordering pizza. We will do something really fun and special as a family to show our children how much we appreciate their kindness towards others. I decided to do a post about this to kind of  hold myself responsible as well. I want to try and work on being nicer this year also. ;0) Periodically i will post how we are doing as a family and then hopefully, what we have done as our big surprise. I have an idea, but we will just have to see if we can fill our jar in time!!! Wish us luck!

3 months.

I know it is supposed to be 2 months, but we were traveling during Christmas and were gone for almost a month. So this was the earliest i could get her in and so we did three months instead of two. so drum roll please....here are ayla's stats!!

weight: 13lbs

height: 23 1/4 inches

HC: 40

the bathroom.

the bathroom at our house has long been a source of play time at our house. we don't really encourage that, but it seems to just work out that way. something about water and kids=lots of fun for them.

anyways, for Christmas, Cullan and Kael got spider man shaving kits for Christmas. they think they are great and love to pretend like they are shaving. the other day i heard a lot of laughter coming out of the bathroom upstairs. i yelled upstairs to ask what was going on. Cullan opened the door and this is what i saw. 

his response to what he was doing..."I'm shaving MOM!"

GNO.

I had a great time visiting family while we were in Iowa, but I also had a great time with all of my friends on an amazing girls night out!!

I have not really had one since we moved and I had such a good time. Last time I counted there were almost 25 ladies there!

 I had to stand on a chair to get this picture and I still could not fit everyone in the picture. Like I said, there were a lot of ladies and so much fun. I did not even get to really talk with everyone that was there. 

 Here are Tonya and Becky. I could not get them  in the big table shot.

 I was kind of in the middle of the table. So here are the ladies to the left of me.

 Here are the ladies to the right. That is my friend Jamie holding Ayla. She came with me for her first ever Girls Night Out also!

 Here are Susie, Stacy and Lindsey. Lindsey does not look so happy but she really was. At one point she was in tears she was laughing so hard.

and of course Amy and Meghan, spelled just like me ;0) these ladies are so much fun. I always laugh and have a good time when I am with them. I am hoping that next time I am in town that we can all get together again soon.