I was headed to the store the other day, when Malia told me to get a stapler. When I asked her why she wanted a stapler she informed me that she is writing some books. She told me she was going to have a book stand on the front sidewalk. (like a lemonade stand, only selling books) She said " I'm going to sell them for $1, $5, $10, $15 and $25." So if anyone wants to buy a book.....:)

So I've decided to try and get up early to exercise every day. Normally I would wait for Claire to nap, sit the boys down at the computer and exercise then. The problem is that sometimes Claire would nap at 9am and sometimes at 11am. That leaves me hanging around the house like a frumpalump, waiting for her to go down. Then by the time I would shower and get ready for the day it would be time for lunch. So i've been having Brent wake me up in the morning before he goes to work. And i'm quite proud to say that I've gotten up every morning, granted it's only been a week, but I could have easily gone back to sleep! What's amazing to me is how productive i've been this week. I'm showered and ready before I take Malia to school and we're on time. This week i've also organized my craft room closet, organized the linen closet and labeled shelves (with the vinyl of course :) I've straightened out my closet, cleaned the whole house and just felt good. I'm amazed at what a difference it has made. I just need to remember that every morning when I contemplate whether I should get up or go back to sleep. The hardest part is getting to bed at a decent time, i'm such a night owl.
On another note: We had a great weekend. We had the annual Iris festival here. So Saturday we went to the parade. The kids love the parade and talk about it all year. Mostly they love the bag of candy that they come home with. I don't love the bag of advertisements and flyers I come home with , but we had a good time. It was very hot...headed to the 90's and I felt bad for those marching bands with their black, polyester, long sleeve uniforms on. I can't believe they make them were those when it's 90 degrees out!
After the parade we let the kids ride some really lame carnival rides. Luckily they don't know they are really lame and had a great time. After the rides, Jacob headed to t-ball, while I went home with the kids to cool down. That evening we headed over to edgyk's house for a barbeque. It was a fabulous day and we all came home exhausted...and in need of showers!
We finally bought a new barbeque this weekend. We bought our first barbeque right after we were married for about $30 at a garage sale. It can only be described as nasty! The lighting mechanism on it didn't work, so I would have to stick a lighter under the barbeque and turn on the gas and wait for the "POOF", sometimes there was a bit too much "POOF". So I'm pretty excited, i'm sure i'll use it a lot more than the old one.
The weather is back in the 60's this week. Weird. But our little heat spell made us so excited for this summer. We have some fun things planned and i'm looking forward to being outside and enjoying the weather.

Maybe this is why I love to bake so much??

We finally got our chocolate

So every year for Mother's day, all of the women at our church get a little gift. This gift has become quite the topic amongst the men lately. One year we received a lovely pamphlet on Motherhood, i'm sure it was lovely, but mine ended up in the trash, unread. Usually we get a flower...a petunia or pansy. Now I love flowers, but with four kids, by the time I get around to planting my ONE flower....it's usually too late. Side note: (This year the men asked the young women to wrap the flowers so they wouldn't be so messy. We politely declined and told them for Mother's day the MEN were in charge. ) So every year we hint to the menfolk that we would just like some chocolate. A hershey bar, a cookie....anything chocolate and we'll be happy. And every year we come home with a flower. (I'm not trying to complain, I do appreciate the effort) But this year they finally got it right. We got our chocolate! There were a lot of happy women at church on Sunday. It's pretty easy guys...just a little chocolate and we're happy!

Mother's day

Saturday, my mom and I headed over to the Oregon gardens in Silverton. We were a little bummed that the weather wasn't nicer, oh well. It was nice to just walk around and enjoy the quiet! The gardens were beautiful. I think it made us both want to head straight for a nursery to buy all sorts of exotic plants, luckily we restrained ourselves. After the gardens we went to the local farmers market. Which consisted of about 6 booths. All selling tomato plants. So that was a quick stop. We then stopped at the mall to find a dress for my mom. Later that evening we met up with my sister and had dinner at a place called Rudy's . It's a golf course restaurant in an old manor. I would give it 3 1/2 out of 5 stars. There were beautiful views of the golf course, but we ended up at a table where we couldn't quite see out the windows...so that affected the atmosphere a bit. All in all it was a great day. Yesterday I had a fabulous Mother's day. I woke up to breakfast in bed. French toast, sausage and fruit. Brent worked hard to make sure my day was perfect. He took Claire for all three hours of church, let me take a little nap after church, and cooked me dinner. We went for a family bike ride to the elementary school and the kids played for a bit. Then we came home and had scrumptious brownie sundaes. We played a game of "Swap" our new favorite card game (very easy for the kids to play) and just had a wonderful, relaxing day. It's so nice to have a day "off". I only wish that Mother's day came after Father's day, because he's set the bar high for me!

The Curse of the Library

So I mustered up the courage to head to the library again today. I watch the neighbor boy on Fridays and he had never been to the library, so I thought it would be a fun activity. I ran around the house frantically trying to find all of our books to return. I even remembered diapers and wipes this time! We made it to the library in time to play in the fun interactive room. We were there about 3 minutes and 34 seconds when I look over and the boy I babysit was standing in a puddle of potty. My only thought was "Are you kidding me?" So I told the boys to put there toys away and we headed home without a single book and without any play time. The boys were REALLY good about having to head home right after we got there, but I was so annoyed, mostly because of the wasted drive time. I think I'm going to have to start bringing a suitcase of emergency supplies everytime I go to that darn library.

Claire finally had her 12 mo. checkup, only 6 weeks late. She weighed in at 20.8lbs and i'm such a lame mom that I don't know how tall she was. I do know that she's in the 75th percentile for height and 25th percentile for weight. She just gets more and more fun every day (except when she's having a tantrum) But her personality is really starting to shine. She loves her Paci, and I dread the day we have to take it away. Although, as i'm finding with the boys, much easier to take a paci away than a finger (or two).

I've been busy making signs for an upcoming fair we are doing in July. I'm trying to do a few signs each week so I don't end up feeling rushed in the end. These are a few I did this week. The bottom one is an order someone placed. The most common orders I get are for signs with family names. The pictures isn't the best because of the flash, but you get the idea. (And I just realized there's a mess up on the big one...oops. I'll have to fix that) But it's been fun playing with fonts and colors! I'm open to suggestions for sayings, quotes, ideas?

I'm also happy to announce that I got out of Jury duty. I wasn't going to call the jury duty office because I had already deferred a year, and that was supposed to be the limit you could defer. So I just accepted my fate. But I was getting stressed thinking about how I was going to arrange everything. This summons was for a grand jury as opposed to a regular jury duty. I guess a grand jury is supposed to last 2 weeks. So I figured it was worth a try to call. The lady on the phone said since this was a grand jury summons it is different than a regular summons and my last deferrment doesn't apply to "grand jury" summons. I hope this is making some sense??? Anyway, I was able to defer for another year. So, one less thing to worry about....until next year.

I'm really looking forward to Mother's day this weekend. My Mom and I are spending the whole day together on Saturday and are going to do whatever we want! We are going to hit the farmer's market and then go to the Oregon gardens (80 acres of beautiful gardens). Then we are going out to eat in the evening with my sisters. I told Brent not to worry about a gift, because having the whole day to myself on Saturday will be a gift! I'll post pics later. Happy Mother's day everyone.

I love the SUN!

We had a great weekend. It was just one of those weekends where you get a lot accomplished, but also get to relax and enjoy it. Yesterday we spent the day doing work around the house. We must have done 6 loads of laundry, mopped and waxed the floors, mowed the lawn, washed the cars...etc. It felt good to get so much done.
For awhile now my parents have been thinking about getting a Wii, but every store has been out of them since Christmas. Well, Brent came home the other day and said that Target finally had some in stock. So I called my mom and she gave me the OK to get one for her. Of course we had to test it out, so we spent the evening playing and having fun. The kids LOVE it. And today Malia said, "I'm really cold....and one of the ways I can get warm is by playing the Wii, it makes me really warm!" I told her to go outside and soak in the sun.
We enjoyed a beautiful day here. We took all of the kids on a bike ride and I felt a little June Cleaver-ish with the birds chirping, the sun shining and the kids getting along. We went to a neighborhood park and played, then came home for popsicles.
I was given a new calling this week. I was released as the Young women secretary and called as the new sunbeam teacher. I'm sure this has something to do with all of the times i've dropped Cole off at sunbeams, only to have him cry..so I sit with him and try to sneak out, and he cries....so I am now his new teacher. I've been in YW so long (almost ten years...with a few short breaks in there) that today was "culture shock". Let me tell you, being a sunbeam teacher is harder than it looks! But they are so cute. I'm really looking forward to it. I will miss the Young women though and it seemed weird to not be with them today. Does anyone have any great suggestions for fun activities for this age? I know there are tons of ideas online, but I thought I would ask.
Claire is starting to say a few words. Mostly, hi, bye, mommy, doggy. She'll bark like a dog if you ask her too. It's pretty cute! I love that I can put all of her cute dresses on her, now that she's walking. Crawling in a dress is no fun. She has her 12 mo appt tuesday, (I know, only 6 weeks late) so it will be interesting to see what she weighs. Everyone keeps saying how petite she is...but she's got some leg chub going on. She's growing up so fast. Some days I think my kids are going to drive me insane, and some days (like today) I just can't stop looking at them and thinking how blessed I am. I like these days!

The recipe...

Thai Chicken Pasta
Cook chicken pieces with a little oil, pepper and garlic salt.
Saute carrots (matchstick), cabbage, peppers, broccoli, green onions, pea pods and any other veggies you have.
Cook spaghetti noodles.
Combine sauce:
1/4 c. peanut butter
1/4 c. sugar
3 T soy sauce
2 T oil
1 tsp. minced garlic
1/4 c. chicken broth (I use bullion with water)add any hot sauce you have or some pepper flakes
Wisk over medium heat till bubbly.
Mix all together and juice a lime over the top and add cilantro if you have it.

* I also found that if you use chunky peanut butter, that it gets really runny. So stick with creamy.

And the winner is.....

Thanks for all of you who submitted recipes! I had so much fun trying them all. I now have many new recipes in my "favorites" cookbook. Several of them I have made multiple times. A few of my favorites were the stroganoff sandwiches and zucchini feta chicken. But our overall Favorite meal ended up being......................

Thai Chicken Pasta...submitted by Emily A.!

This has become a family favorite, and I love that the kids are getting their veggies and loving it. So Emily...I don't know how often you check this blog, maybe I can get your address from Sara? But I will be sending a package your way! Thanks for the recipes!