Happy Birthday Casey!

January is inventory at Casey's work....it's kept him super busy! The kids & I decided to throw a "surprise party" for him last Saturday with just our little family. Can you guess who took charge of decorations and activities? Yep! Shay! She got the kids to help her make a shooting range out of the cardboard from pizza boxes....Casey could shoot the animals with his new marshmellow gun or Sawyer's elastic gun from Cabellas. So funny! He had a blast! We are so lucky to have Casey-he's an awesome husband and amazing dad. He works hard for us and loves us. I am glad my kids can sense that and that they are willing to go the extra mile to make his day special. We think he's awesome! ;)

Clint stopped by and wanted to play....don't they look cool? ;) Not sure if they liked shooting the elk, deer & bear complete with REAL grass on the counters or the ducks hanging from the ceiling more!? :)

Merry Christmas 2010!

We had a fabulous Christmas!!! This is always my favorite picture-after all the hard work of finding just the perfect gift for each one of our kids it's fun to have a picture of the complete Christmas before it's all unwrapped...especially since I am not a huge fan of wrapping presents. ;) Please notice our white trashness....makes me laugh....see our "mantel"?? We had some awesome friends trade a fireplace for a deer mount (thanks ShaLae) but haven't had time to get it all hooked up and finished. I couldn't figure out where to hang our stockings-I thought I was hilarious to put them on the fireplace. We've never had a fireplace-someday it will work-until then might as well use what we've got, right?

Christmas Eve.....getting ready to open our Christmas Eve Jammies!
Christmas morning.....

Santa only brings 1 gift to our house. I hate the things come easy image Santa brings-and I sorta want credit for what I buy! ;) Since almost all of our gifts are under the tree and we want our kids to leave gifts alone we never put their names on their gifts. Last year we labeled each gift with a candy bar name that was code for their name....on Christmas morning whichever candy bar they opened told them which gifts were theirs. Make sense? So this year we did soda pop. We didn't wrap the 2 litre bottles-Casey had them each grab a 2 liter bottle and had an evil plan of saying "2 of you have the right 1...2 of you don't. Switch. K-1 of you has the right 1, 3 of you don't. Switch. K-none of you have the right 1. Switch." He loves to tease. Funniest thing ever-every kid grabbed a 2 litre bottle and they were all holding the one that was their "code"....Casey was super disappointed and I got a really good laugh! I love the fun traditions and memories of Christmas!!! So grateful for these awesome kids that make it so darn fun.

Finally Legal!!!

My kids are teeny tiny people. Their mom used to be teeny tiny but that's another story for another day. Oh well. Skinny is over rated. And exercise? One day I will love it. Whatever.

You all know I am a tiny bit overprotective. Paranoid even. I think I stress people out when they have my kids! Sorry about that. Carseats and booster seats are a MUST. Not optional. The law to be able to just wear a seatbelt and not be in a booster is that you have to weigh 80 pounds. When Alyssa turned 12 she was only 60 pounds. At 13 she was 65 pounds. I wondered if I was making the wrong decision by letting her just wear a seatbelt-how humiliating to ride in a booster to young women activities! It has really given me anxiety. I never want to face a situation that could have been prevented by simply being a little more careful. That stresses me out. We've always joked about how funny it would be to send Alyssa to prom with her booster! We laughed really hard-she didn't.

On Christmas day Alyssa stood on her grandma's scale and guess what!!??? Drumroll please....SHE WEIGHS 80 POUNDS!!! We thought this day would never ever ever come. So nice to know she's legal now and that we aren't taking unneccessary risks!

So this is Uncle Corey showing how amazingly strong he is. He can lift Alyssa with only 2 fingers holding each elbow. Not sure if this shows his super power muscles OR if Alyssa was a good choice to demonstrate with. Next time we see him I will have to see if he can do the same thing with me! ;)

What "off track" looks like at our house.....

My kids are creative. Not sure where that came from-must have been Casey. I am the furthest thing from creative. Shaylee loves nothing more than a fun project with the little kids-building huts, making some random craft, anything to have a little fun. I am trying really hard to relax and enjoy the little moments-when these projects are going on things get quite messy. I naturally see the mess but am trying so hard to see the beauty.

A few days ago she took Sawyer & Jaycee in her room with a pile of paper plates, a roll of paper towels, glue, yarn, markers & construction paper. A few hours later we have this under our little Christmas trees upstairs:

They are baby Jesus! They look like a taco but they aren't! He (times 3!) is even in a manger complete with straw.

SO...yesterday was the best. Our living room became an airplane. So funny. The steering wheel really turns (not really sure an airplane has a steering wheel but nobody tell my kids!) and they have an "earpiece" to communicate with the tower.
These are the seats to the airplane-complete with a few passengers. Sawyer is the pilot-Shaylee, Jaycee & my cute nephew Easton are the passengers.
They were super disappointed when I wouldn't serve them lunch on the airplane-it was ramen-not gonna happen! I did laugh and actually left the living room an airplane until today. Good times.

Feeling Appreciated

Does anyone out there know about my diet coke addiction??? Not only do I love diet coke-I love diet coke from The Coke Store aka The Holiday in South Jordan with crushed ice. Being a regular customer is sometimes embarassing-running into everyone there is hilarious-it's just a part of my day. A diet coke from the fridge just isn't the same.

SO....today I went in thinking it would be just like every other day. I was so wrong. You hear about customer appreciation days-I think they went a little far this time. But it made my day. And kept me laughing. I'm still laughing. Hope you find your name on a coke machine somewhere. Makes the "problem" all worth it! ;)

(FYI-they DO NOT KNOW MY NAME!!!! It really was a coiincidence. Let's not make it worse than it is! My friend who is a dental hygienist leaves me messages with the employees to floss my teeth thinking she's funny-and she is-but they really don't know me THAT WELL! I tried to explain to the employees that my name is Joy and how funny it was to me-they didn't even laugh. Oh well.)

Spelling Tests

Way to go Sawyer! 100% on your spelling test is ALWAYS a good thing. The only problem....he spelled his name wrong! ;) Still laughing about it.

What's For Dinner At Your House???

It's been one of those weeks. I hope you moms know what I am talking about. Not gonna bore you with all the excuses HOWEVER let me just say Jaycee has been sick-NOPE-it's not strep-ask my pediatrician-we went there twice this week. It's a virus. I hate that answer. Whatever.

For some reason when a kid is sick I lose focus. The house gets crazy. I hang out in sweats more. Dinner loses it's priority. I know I made enchiladas on Sunday. Can't remember what we had on Monday. On Tuesday we had lemon chicken & rice. Lastnight I made a loaf of banana bread-my sister in law mentioned she made us some-I can't make banana bread. (We were excited to get the real thing from my sister in law today! Love you, Heather!) Sadly-yep-that was our dinner. Casey needs a support group-poor dude. It's 6:15 and I haven't even thought about dinner. But Sawyer has. Here is his request...he handed it to me while I was on the phone:

Translation: Grilled cheese/those puffy cheeto thingys (Chester's Puffcorn-cheese flavored)/diet coke/fry sauce-doesn't everyone eat grilled cheese dipped in fry sauce like Casey & my psycho kids??? SICK! NASTY! WRONG!

Time to get it together. Why do we have to eat dinner every single day? EVERY SINGLE FLIPPIN DAY??? All I can say is that from the looks of things I should be getting a tip. Sawyer thinks I am his waitress.