Momma Mia

Catching Up, part 5: End of School! :)

2012-01-02T13:08:00.000-06:00

****Didn't ever get this post published!!! I was waiting for a video clip to load...it never did...so I just deleted it! *****

After Spring Break was over, we had only 3 weeks left of school!!! :) We were so excited!!! Here is what we did that last few weeks:

We had Mother's Day! :) Edd and the kids treated me to some yummy breakfast food and to a yummy dinner! :) Here are my flowers from church...

Edd also cooked up a yummy shrimp dish...Andrew is showing off the midget and giant shrimp from the bunch!! One of our favorite things about Louisiana is the good, fresh seafood!! YUM YUM!! :)

Bethany had a bunch of finals to study for!! :)

We were blessed with toads again!! :) Thomas was anxiously awaiting the arrival of the toads...every day he would go outside to check for them! He was so happy when he finally found the first toad of the summer!!

Here are some of our flowers in the garden...I finally finished planting in the flower beds. The lilies were here when we moved in, but I've been adding things. This year I planted a bunch of different flowers, but my favorites are the Zinnias! :)

Andrew had is Band Concert! He was in the 6th grade band. They sounded great!! :)

Thomas had his Graduation from Pre-school Day! They sang some songs, each kid had a little speaking part. Thomas said his without any perfectly!! :) Yeah!!! He is growing up so much! Each of the kids got a medal too!!! :) Edd and I are so proud of all the hard work that Thomas did at his school!

Of course the end of school always brings the awards! I went to see Aimee get her awards. I guess I didn't get a picture of Bethany's or Mattie's awards. Bethany, Andrew, Aimee and Mattie all worked really had and did well in school! Edd and I are very proud of them!!

The last 3 weeks of school were a whirlwind of activities...we were all worn out and ready for summer...here are a few pictures of some naps that snuck into the busy schedule!! :)

Sunday Pants

2011-11-07T06:21:00.002-06:00

So I am still trying to get caught up. :) Life in the BIG EASY has been a little busier than I like during the month of OCTOBER...it was over almost before it started....crazy, I know, especially since it is a LONG month!!

Anyway, I'm back on the computer! :)

So you are probably wondering why I'm doing a blog on Sunday pants...well, let me tell you why:

Have you ever wondered what your kids would do if you were not around???

How about a SUNDAY MORNING without Mom, Dad or oldest sister to help the kids get ready to leave by 9am...

Yes, that actually happened at our house one Sunday!

The weekend Bethany and I were in NYC, Andrew was the oldest at home! He was in charge of getting himself ready (he is 12) plus making sure Aimee (who is 10), Mattie (who is 8), and Thomas (who is 5) all get ready too!

I have to say they all did a great job getting ready and out the door! :)

I was very proud of them!! :)

Bethany and I arrived back in NOLA Sunday just before noon. Of course I was excited to see the kids again! :)

I was a little surprised to see that Thomas wasn't in the outfit I'd picked out but didn't think anything of it since he still had one of his Sunday shirts on. I had given Edd a note with instructions on what Thomas should wear. Thomas' clothes were all nicely ironed and hanging in the closet with his Sunday bag.

Easy Peasy!! :)

Sunday morning, Andrew went into my room to get Thomas' clothes. He saw Thomas' blue shirt folded and laying on top of what looked like a normal laundry pile. Next to it were some brown bottoms. So he got Thomas dressed in this:

Success!! :)

All kids were dressed and ready for church on time!! :)

I was a happy Momma for sure! :)

After arriving home and being around the kids for a while, I realized there was something a little strange about the pants Thomas was wearing...the bottom of his pant leg looked like this:

Can you see it?

Here are the two pant legs of the brown pants together...

Pant leg on left is Thomas' pair of Sunday pants and pant leg on right belongs to a pair of capris the girls had grown out of! The capris have a slit in the hem!

After I'd been home for awhile, I was holding Thomas in my lap, I realized that his pant leg had a split in the hem!

We all had a good laugh when we realized the mix-up!! :)

The "laundry pile" Andrew got the clothes from was actually my pile of clothes that were getting too small that were on their way to the garage.

Andrew didn't know about the note I'd left saying that Thomas' Sunday clothes were hanging up in my closet. I was glad that Andrew was able to get Thomas ready!

What a good BIG BROTHER!!

Catching Up, part 3: Little Miracles :)

2011-09-17T21:01:00.004-05:00

One beautiful, Spring morning in April, my services were needed in our family dig. Apparently, our in-house paleontologist, Thomas, could not find 3 dinosaur skulls.

The day before, Thomas had taken his set of dinosaur skulls out to the sandy section, "the dig," in the front lawn and buried ALL 12 of them. I'm sure Thomas had fun digging in the sand trying to uncover the hiding treasures! Unfortunately, 3 of the dinosaur skulls were really good at hiding!!!

Of course, Thomas had forgotten over night exactly where he had hidden the bones...he was able to give me one clue...he pointed to one section and said he thought they were here...

Great!! No Problem!! You may be thinking...Thomas told me right where to look, it shouldn't be that hard!!!

Well, this picture just doesn't do the story justice...so I'm adding a bigger picture...

this section of sand was about 2 feet across and maybe 3 feet long...about 1/3 of the entire sandy area...NOTE THE SMALL SHINEY OBJECT ON THE LEFT...this was a AA battery I placed on the sand to give some perspective!

The missing dinosaur skulls were about as long as the battery. So I got my trusty rake...

and started raking through the sand, hoping that I could find the dinosaur skulls pretty quickly. Well, I didn't realize how much sand there was!!! The sand was about 2-3 inches deep in most parts. After a few minutes of raking and finding nothing, I was starting to realize I was looking for a "needle in a haystack!!"

After raking the little section Thomas had showed me and finding NOTHING, I realized I would have to rake the whole sandy section, which was about 8-9 feet long. After awhile, my rake hit something hard...it was a dino skull!! :)

A little while later, I found another dino skull!! But after raking through ALL the sand quite a few times, I was starting to wonder if there was indeed a 3rd skull hiding. Sure enough, Thomas assured me that it was his Brachiosaurus head that was still missing. So I kept raking and raking and raking and raking....

As I raked, I had a flash back of another "needle in the haystack" I'd been looking for!!

Another day, a few months earlier, during the winter, Thomas came running into the house, in tears!!! He'd lost his brand new, most favorite shark!!!

This time the "needle" and the "haystack" were much bigger! Thomas had taken his shark next door and was playing with it by the neighbor's play set, which is surrounded by a TON of pea gravel!! Think 8ft x 16ft of gravel!!!

Thomas had buried his shark in the gravel, ran off and played for a few minutes, then went to get the shark, but he'd forgotten where he buried it and couldn't find the shark!! So being the nice mom that I am, I got my trusty shovel...

and started digging in the gravel. After digging a while, I was getting pretty discouraged. So I realized that I needed some help finding the shark. I knew that Heavenly Father knew where the shark was so I said a little prayer and asked him to help me find the shark. When I finished my prayer, I kept digging for a few minutes, but stopped and walked around to the other side of the play set. There was the shark!!! Sticking out of a mound of gravel!!! It was almost perfectly camouflaged, but even in the fading sunlight I could see it!! :)

This memory reminded me to pray for help! So I paused and said a quick prayer. Then continued to rake the sand, looking & hoping I'd find the Brachiosaurus head soon!! A couple of minutes later, my rake hit something hard!!! I was so excited!!! I bent over and poked my fingers into the sand and retrieved a ROCK!!!

Boy, was I disappointed!!! I was so ready to be done raking!!! I asked Thomas if we could just paint the rock to look like a Brachiosaurus head...it was about the right shape and size...but Thomas wouldn't go for that. He wanted the real thing so I went back to raking. I'd lost track of the number of times I'd been up and down the whole sandy area, but I knew I had to keep looking.

Finally, my rake hit something else hard!!! This time my fingers pulled out the missing Brachiosaurus skull!!! :)

Here is the Brachiosaurus head and the rock next to the battery...

Needless to say, I was VERY THANKFUL Heavenly Father heard and answered my prayers!! :)

This post is very fitting for today!! In Primary, our lesson was about prayer. I told my class this story about trying to find the Brachiosaurus skull and how I couldn't find it until I prayed for Heavenly Father's help!!

As I was typing this up, I started thinking about that little rock I found!! I'd been through that sand so many times and didn't feel it there at all...was it there the WHOLE time I raked that area and I missed is each time??? It was a test of my faith...which is another thing that was talked about in church today.

What if I'd settled for the rock? I never would have found the Brachiosaurus head!! How often do we short-change ourselves because the going gets rough and we want to quit and just settle for what we have...or achieved thus far???

Another talk today was about the prophet President Gordon B. Hinckley and how he was such a hard worker, even when he was in his 90's!!! If we work hard, we can endure the trials of our faith and obtain our goals. :)

I'm thankful for the little miracles that come along my way to remind me that Heavenly Father loves me and will help me! I'm thankful for trails and hard work too!! :)

Catching Up, part 2: SWEET 16

2011-08-18T11:04:00.073-05:00

Once upon a time... two very special girls were born within a day of each other! Bethany Prince was born, Tuesday, April 18th at 4:59 MST...Annie Howell was born, Wednesday, April 19th at 12:43am MST.

Their paths finally met at the Goodwill parking lot in Covington, Louisiana, of all places!! The Young Women of our ward were meeting there to head off to Girls Camp for the week. We were anxiously awaiting the arrival of two new girls...Lexi and Annie Howell, who had just barely moved into the ward...like days before! Bethany & Annie became instant friends! :)

Angel, BETHANY, Faith, Lexi, ANNIE, Laura, Aubrey, & Tiffany

As their 16th birthdays approached, Annie's mom, Jen, and I tried to think up a fun way to celebrate their birthdays together. One night as we were brainstorming, it hit us...although it was a little cRaZy...we thought it would be a blast to take the girls to...

NEW YORK CITY!!!

We decided to go for it!!! :) We took the girls during our Spring Break...

THURSDAY ~ April 28th

Thursday morning started SUPER EARLY...like before 5am! Edd offered to drive all of us to the airport so we picked up Jen and Annie around 4:40! Our flight left at 7am so we had to be on the road to the airport by 5am!!

After we checked in at the airport, we grabbed a quick breakfast, then boarded the plane and away we went...SO EXCITING!!! :)

We arrived in NEW YORK CITY around 11am. Carlynne, my sweet sister, took off from work so she could be our personal tour guide!! :) We did some people watching while we waited for her to meet us at the airport. Once Carlynne found us, we headed to her apartment.

Carlynne had to show us the proper way to take a suitcase through the subway gate!! :)

After hopping onto our second subway, we walked a few blocks to Carlynne's place!

Carlynne moved to NYC in 2004. She was a student at F.I.T., Fashion Institute of Technoloiges, which is a part of S.U.N.Y., State University of New York. Carlynne's dream is to design wedding gowns! :)

We were treated to a yummy lunch that Carlynne made us! It was fun to see Carlynne's "new apartment!" She's been living in this apartment for 2 1/2 years. The last time Bethany and I visited Carlynne, she was living in her "old apartment."

Once we had our tummies filled, it was time to hit the town!! Our first stop for the afternoon was the MET, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. There was so much to see!! Here are some of my favorites...

We also had to stop at FAO SCHWARZ toy store and look around!! Bethany and Annie had fun playing on the BIG PIANO!!!

We went to eat dinner at CARNEGIE DELI! Bethany's violin teacher highly recommended it!! She was right, the diner and food was amazing!! :)

Then we were off to BROADWAY to see WICKED!!! What an incredible experience!!! WICKED tells the story about Elphaba, who becomes the Wicked Witch of the West and Galinda, who becomes Glinda, the Good Witch of the North before Dorothy drops into Munchkinland. Of course it was an amazing production!!! :)

After WICKED we walked around TIME SQUARE for a little while and did some window shopping! We asked one employee how late they stay open...because it was already really late...about 11:30pm! Our answer: 1am!!! cRaZy!!

FRIDAY ~ April 29th

Our morning started off with festivities for THE ROYAL WEDDING of Prince William and Kate! We went down to TIME SQUARE to watch a DANCE FLASH MOB perform. You can watch the performance here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkJknTNGW-0&feature=player_embedded#at=74

One of the dancers, Amber, is a friend of Carlynne! Carlynne helped her coordinate the Dance Flash Mob, which was part of National Dance Week in NYC! Carlynne and Amber have been friends for years!! They met at Ricks, way back when, they were in the MTC together, and Amber found Carlynne at church right after Carlynne moved to NYC!! :)

We watched a live fashion show for the TV show "SAY YES TO THE DRESS" here are some of our favoritedresses...

Before we left the wedding celebration, we had our picture taken by the carriage and guards!

Then we walked around TIME SQUARE for a little while. We were trying to find the Yankee's Clubhouse store so we could do some souvenir shopping!

After that, we took a boat tour to see some of the famous land marks in NYC. Here we are on our tour boat...it was nice to get a rest from all the walking we'd be doing!! :)

ELLIS ISLAND

STATUE OF LIBERTY

SKYLINE

EMPIRE STATE BLDG AND CHRYSLER BLDG

BROOKLYN BRIDGE

After our boat tour, we walled along WALL STREET!

We stopped at a diner and grabbed some lunch, which we ate outside of the TRINITY CHURCH. This was the 3rd building built for the Trinity Church, the first two were destroyed by fire. When it was finished, in 1846, it was the highest point in NYC!

The grounds of the church were beautiful! We even found a tombstone for William Bradford...I'm trying to figure out if we are related to this William Bradford.

We also saw ST PAUL'S CHAPEL! George Washington worshiped at St Paul's' on his inauguration day, April 30, 1789 and continued to worship there the two years that NYC was our nation's capitol.

We walked past GROUND ZERO, where they are building the 9/11 Memorial. We saw the cross made out of beams from the towers.

We also got to see the 9/11 Memorial Preview Site, where Jen and Annie found a flag with all the names of those who died that day in the attacks. Annie's uncle, BRADY K. HOWELL, lost his life in the Pentagon attack.

EVENING STOP: Yankees vs Blue Jays @ Yankee Stadium
On our way from the subway to the stadium, we ran into some missionaries and talked to them for a few minutes! The tall missionary was from S America somewhere and the other missionary was from Italy!!

Bethany finally made it to YANKEE STADIUM!!!

Before the game started, we were able to walk through Monument Park...at first we didn't think we would get to see it. When we got to the entrance, this is what we found...

We just barely missed getting in. But Jen worked her magic and one of the security guys led us through some halls to the back entrance of Monument Park!

Our view of the field...

Annie & Bethany :)

Bethany & Carlynne :)

Jen & Anne :)

Bethany, intently watching the game!

Bethany loved being in Yankee Stadium!! It was pretty incredible to be there watching the Yankees play!! :)

What a great way to spend FRIDAY NIGHT in NYC!!! :)

SATURDAY
Saturday morning, we went headed over to Central Park with Carlynne to go walking. Carlynne LOVES walking through the park every Saturday morning!! She wanted to share it with us!

A few minutes into our walk, we had to stop. Bethany was already getting blisters from the shoes she'd borrowed from Carlynne. I let her borrow my socks!!

BLACK SOCKS

Black Socks

They never get dirty

The longer you wear them

The stronger they get

Sometimes I think I might wash them

But something inside me says,

"NO, NO, NOT YET!!!"

We could have traded, but after hearing Bethany's poem about black socks, I decided to pass!! For further blister protection, Bethany tucked her leggings into her shoes. :)

The park was so beautiful!! All the trees were in bloom and the leaves were starting to come out!!

Every now and then, we would stop to enjoy the view...

Annie and Bethany tried to get lost while we were in the park!! We were all doing a great job keeping together, but I got busy taking pictures, Jen and Carlynne got busy talking and before we knew it, Bethany and Annie were no where to be seen!! We tried to call them, but they didn't answer their phones. So we stopped and waited...

Finally, they came around the corner!! After that, we did a better job sticking together!!

Along our way, we happened upon this swing set...of course we had to stop and swing for a few minutes!! :)

After walking through the park for a while, we started talking about how crazy it would be if we actually found someone in the park that we knew!! A few minutes later, as we were about to enter the Central Park Zoo, Bethany was doing a double take...

Isn't that guy over there the same one who painted our faces for Mardi Gras???

Hmmm..he sort of looked like the guy...so I went up to ask him.

Sure enough, it WAS the same guy!!!! We chatted with him for a few minutes. Turns out he used to live in New Orleans! After Katr

ina, he had moved to NYC!!! He goes back every year to paint faces for Mardi Gras. The rest of the time, he paints faces right outside of the Central Park Zoo!!!

We loved walking all around the park! There were so many different places to see! One of my favorites was the BELVEDERE CASTLE!

When we got to THE MALL area of the park, we saw a pretzel vendor! Bethany HAD to have another CHEESE PRETZEL!!! They are delicious, especially when the pretzel is still warm...definitely one of Bethany's favorite things in NYC!!!

After our pretzel stop, we kept walking and found this lady playing her violin. We stopped and listend to her play for a minute. She was an amazing violinist!!

We stopped at the ALICE IN WONDERLAND statue...

Annie and Bethany were most excited to see BALTO!!!

After walking through Central Park for 5 HOURS we were starving!!! So we headed to the SHAKE SHACK for some delicious hamburgers!

We ate our lunch outside of the AMERICAN MUSEUM OFNATURAL HISTORY...where the movie "Night At The Museum" takes place!!

For our last night on the town, we were planning on going to the TOP OF THE ROCK to get a bird's eye view of the NYC at night! Before we left, we got some pictures in front of MAGGIE'S GARDEN, next door to Carlynne's apartment building.

Here's a link about MAGGIE'S GARDEN: http://www.nyrp.org/Parks_and_Gardens/Community_Gardens/Manhattan/Maggies_Garden

On our way to the Rockefeller Center, we had these 2 Lamborghinis zoom past us! We were across the street from MACY'S! :)

We had to wait a while for our turn to go to the top ~ so since we were hungry...we went on a hunt looking for a diner! On our journey, we walked past Radio City!

Here is the view from observation deck of the Rockefeller Center!! We are 70 floors up! Pretty spectacular!! :) Great way to end our whirlwind trip!! :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

BETHANY & ANNIE!!! :)

Catching up...Part 1

2011-08-14T14:32:00.015-05:00

Now that school has started again, I'm hoping that I can get caught up on my blog! Andrew just said, "Wow you are way behind. That is from way last year. It's scary how behind you are!!! :)

Spring 2011 :)

Here are some of our highlights...

Spring=yard work. We had a bunch of sand delivered...why do we buy so much work for ourselves???? The sand was to fill in some of our low spots in our lawn, especially our mini swamp!! Of course the kids had a blast playing on the huge sand pile! There was even enough sand to make a little sand pile in the back once the low spots were filled in. If only we could get the grass to grow back!!!

I had some pansies, tulips and daffodils in my pots out front. One day, Thomas decided that they needed a little more color...

On Tuesdays and Thursdays...non school days...Thomas loved helping me in the garden after the kids left for school. Each morning, once we got started with our gardening Thomas' agenda would soon change...he would quickly shift gears to creating a RIVER!!! He would turn the hose on and fill the trench around my flower bed where we were working!!! Of course this was never a very clean activity!! :)

Mattie and the whole 2nd grade did a President's day Program! They did an amazing job!!! Mattie had a speaking part too!

Thomas had a "show off" day at pre-school where they displayed all the skills they had mastered. :) Thomas went to Tiny Tumbler's Pre-school...which was run by Northshore Gymnastics.

Thomas also decided it was time to take the training wheels off his bike! He did it!!! :)

Andrew had a party after his reading class finished studying about Greek Mythology! :)

Aimee supported the Texas Rangers for favorite team t-shirt day! :) Since the kids have to wear uniforms to school everyday, when they get a day off it is pretty exciting!! :)

Spring=more daylight and warmer evenings!! Which lead to fun times!!! Including a fun family five hundred game...of course Missy had to play too!! :)

And of course we had our Spring/April birthdays!!! :) :) :)

April 15th:

April 18th:

April 21st:

SuRpRisE!!!

2011-06-05T21:16:00.004-05:00

One night there was a young girl who was feeling a little depressed. There was nothing to do and no one to hang out with...so she decided to go to her room, turn off the light and do what teenagers do best...

SuRpRisE!!!

A blast from her past entered the room...

"The Girls" were standing right in front of her!!!

WHAT!!!!

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN???

I CAN'T BELIEVE MY EYES!!!

It is Brooke and Raegan!!! :) :) :)

Our old neighbors, Brooke and Raegan and Amy Knight drove down from Houston to hang out with us for a quick weekend! Amy, who is an accountant, had a job in the area, so the girls tagged along so they could surprise Bethany!!! Oh what a surprise it was!!! :) :) :)

We were supposed to be across the lake at the Pinewood Derby & Blue & Gold Banquet...where all of Bethany's Louisiana friends were....that's why Bethany was depressed...but not for long!!!

The girls quickly cheered up Bethany and they spent the night enjoying beignets and catching up on all girl stuff!! :)

We all went to church together on Sunday and hung out for a while, then it was time for the Knights to head back home!

Thanks for such a fun weekend SuRpRisE!!! :) :) :)

Family Time :)

2011-06-05T12:56:00.009-05:00

One of our goals this year is to spend more quality time together as a family. Each month we try to do something fun together as a family. About once a quarter we end up doing some BIG activity. Our first BIG activity, back in February, was to go explore Northlake Nature Center.

We had a great time walking along the trail through the swamp.

Sometimes we would check out the map to figure out where we were.

Sometimes we were a little crazy!!

End of the trail...time to head back.

There was also a burned out building there that was pretty cool to look at.

The kids had a good time and found a few cool things along the way!

Mattie found leaves with holes all over them and Andrew found a thorn that looked like a mini sword!!

We caught a few cool sunset shots too! :)

Of course it wouldn't be a Prince outing without a little challenge!! :)

One last picture...our souvenirs of the day...

Rainboots

2011-05-15T21:00:00.006-05:00

One Sunday night a while back, Aimee wanted me to take her picture with her rainboots on. We had fun taking these. I had fun playing around with my camera too!

Even though I didn't have the settings just right, I think these pictures are cool!

These turned out better:

Aimee loves rainboots! These are the boots we got her when we first moved here, but they are getting too small. She has some new ones picked out and is wondering why it is taking so long for them to arrive!! :)

BROTHERS

2011-05-08T17:50:00.009-05:00

BROTHERS, best friends, buddies = Thomas and Andrew :) :)

One weekend in March ~ March 18th, the weekend after Mardi Gras, Andrew decided that he and Thomas were going to have a campout in the backyard! So Andrew got everything all ready...he got the sleeping bags out, the tent, and even the camping food...marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate!

These two boys had the time of their lives!!!

Especially Thomas!! :)

I don't remember what they had for dinner...but Andrew had it all under control! He even built the fire all by himself!

I had fun watching from inside, but had to come out and get a few pictures of their fun! :)

Once the "S'MORES" were gone...it was time for the LOUP GAROU hunt...is that a loup garou foot print???

There was a full moon that night, and Thomas was a little nervous about sleeping in the tent, but he and Andrew were fast asleep, almost before I knew it!! :)

It is so fun to see Andrew and Thomas have so much fun together!

Andrew had to wait 7 LONG years...enduring 3 sisters...before he was blessed with a baby brother!!

He's been in BOY HEAVEN ever since!!

Andrew is such a great big brother!!! He has helped take care of Thomas since we came home from the hospital!

Andrew has always been willing to do anything for Thomas! Andrew will usually help Thomas get ready for bed each night, and they head upstairs together! Thomas likes to do what ever Andrew will do...even get up early on school mornings! It is so fun to watch them together!

BROTHERS, best friends, buddies = Thomas and Andrew :) :)

Mardi Gras with the COUSINS!!! :)

2011-04-17T18:17:00.013-05:00

Our second weekend of Mardi Gras fun started on Friday, March 4th when Edd's brother Dan and Melissa's family to visit! We had hoped to take them to the ORPHEUS PARADE in Mandeville, but it was pouring rain and it took FOREVER for Dan and Melissa and their boys to arrive. So we just played around at the house Friday night. It was also just POURING rain outside so it wouldn't be any fun to go parading.

Saturday, Bethany went across the lake to help park cars and go parading! The rest of us went to the Maritime Museum in Madisonville. It was really cool!! The kids thought it was a lot of fun! When we first arrived, we had to get a picture of the kids on the HUGE ANCHOR!!

Then the was a contest to see who could pick up the most GIANT LINKS!!

I think Uncle Dan won, but Andrew came pretty close!

We enjoyed looking at all the different light house models...

and learning about life in the early days of Madisonville!!

There was even a cool submarine like boat!!

We lucked out and found a few SWAMP MONSTERS outside!! :)

For lunch we headed to our favorite spot: BEAR'S!! What a treat to have those delicious Po-Boys again!! :

The rain caught up to us again! It was WORSE THAN POURING when we got done with lunch!! So the dads ran as fast as they could to get our cars and pick us up. We all ended up pretty wet.

Our next stop was the bowling alley!! The kids had a blast trying to knock the pins down! Sometimes they even got some STRIKES!!

Our last stop was to get a treat at the POPCORN BISTRO!! Yum!!! :) Sorry no pictures...but just imagine, bucket after bucket of popcorn...flavored any way you can imagine!! Our picks for the day were: Nerds, Mississippi Mud Pie, Rainbow, King Cake, Rainbow, Peanut Butter Chocolate. YUM, YUM, YUM!!! :)

It was so fun to visit with all Dan and Melissa's boys and get to know them better, especially little SAM!

Thomas had so much fun playing with George, Ben and Henry!! He had been waiting FOREVER to play with them!

All the cousins had a blast playing together!! :)

Thanks for coming to visit us!!! :)

MARDI GRAS SEASON

2011-03-31T08:24:00.027-05:00

Once the holiday season is over, most people take all the decorations down and put the tree away...here in NOLA, people just change the decorations!! It is quite common to see Christmas trees with GREEN, PURPLE, AND GOLD ribbons, fleur de lis, jesters, masks and all sorts of Mardi Gras things decorating the trees! I've seen these decorated trees at the grocery store, the bank and even at the dentist office!!

MARDI GRAS TREE:

is a Christmas tree decorated in a Mardi Gras motif. Some Louisianians set up a tree with enough decorations to establish the Mardi Gras theme shortly after Twelfth Night, the beginning of Mardi Gras season. When they return from the parades and parties with bags of throws, they add to the decorations on the tree. By the time Fat Tuesday arrives, the tree has become a beautiful display representing all of their Mardi Gras memories for the season.

And, having a real tree indoors is an excellent reminder that Spring is just around the corner.

~Shady Pond Tree Farm, Pearl River, Louisiana

Our Mardi Gras festivites began with the Eve Parade that rolled through Mandeville on Friday, February 25th. We joined up with some families before the parade and had a picnic dinner. Then we all went to the parade together. I forgot my camera...so no pictures of the parade...but we had a great time!! :)

I did get this cute picture of Edd and Thomas at the Eve Parade with my phone!!

Dan and Melissa came the following weekend. We'd talked about going to the Orpheus Parade that rolled through Mandeville, but it was pouring rain!! Bethany, our die-hard parade attendee, came home pretty loaded!! :) I'll blog about the fun with Dan and his family next! :)

Thomas had a Mardi Gras parade at his pre-school too! Here he is with his friend Annabella! We borrowed our neighbor's wagon, decorated it and I pulled it around while Thomas and Annabella threw out our left over Mardi Gras beads from last year. The kids who didn't bring a wagon were in the parade crowd. The pre-school next door also came to collect beads!! :)

Here is Thomas with Patrick after the pre-school parade. Patrick goes to church with us! :)

March 7th, Monday, was Lundi Gras! We met up with some friends from church ~ The Howells: Jen, Annie, Alec, and Ashton and the Pankaus: Keyth, Tiffany and Annabella. We went together into New Orleans for the festivities and parades!! Our first stop was down by the Mississippi River! We parked on the West Bank and rode the ferry across!

There were a bunch of different bands playing!

There were people who were dressed up too!!

We found some people who were doing face painting. A bunch of us got our faces painted! Here is Thomas!! He wanted to be a dinosaur!!

While we were waiting for everyone to get their faces painted, we got to listen to the pipe organ on the Natchez! :)

Once all the faces were painted, we went walking along and stopped to see these guys perform across the street from Jackson Square. They were pretty amazing!

While they were performing a couple who had just gotten married marched past in their Second Line Parade!

After a morning down in the French Quarter, we headed back across the river and then went over to St Charles Avenue to get ready for the parades!

Waiting...

Alec, Bethany, Annie, Aimee and Mattie :)

Edd and Bro Pankau waiting for the parades! Bro Pankau is a LSU tiger!! :)

The Pankau Family ~

Tiffany, Annabella and Keyth :)

While we waited, Edd and Keyth grilled hamburgers!! :) We hung out and enjoyed each other's company along with all the crazy parade sites!! :)

These parade ladders are all around. The little kids sit up in the box on top of the ladder. The "high-tech" ladders will have shoots that lead to buckets for the kids to drop their THROWS down!!

We also saw some pretty interesting things like the truck with a couch and awning and the Mardi Gras party wagon that parked right next to us fully equipped!! INCLUDING A GENERATOR TO POWER THEIR MUSIC!! :)

FINALLY IT WAS PARADE TIME!!

The first parade was PROTEUS!

KING PROTEUS!

Bethany was pretty excited about the light up hat she got from Sis Pankau!!Here are some of the cool THROWS we got from the PROTEUS PARADE!! :)As it got dark, we were anxiously awaiting the start of our second parade!!
Here it comes!! The ORPHEUS PARADE!!! :)

There's Bethany in the pink hat trying to catch some THROWS!!!

The thing to yell is, "THROW ME SOMETHIN' MISTER!!"

We had a blast!!! It was so much fun everyone woke up super early for the 2nd day in a row and did it all again for the MARDI GRAS PARADES!!

Well most of us all went...Andrew got sick in the middle of the night, so I stayed home with Andrew and Thomas. We watched a few minutes of the MARDI GRAS parades on TV.

Edd said that it was TONS BETTER because so many more people were out and they were all dressed up...like for Halloween!!

Farewell Winter

2011-02-25T22:40:00.018-06:00

WINTER has come and gone...already!!! In some ways I'm sad, we had some fun times! But in other ways, I'm glad...it was WAY TOO COLD!!! I just don't like it when it gets cold! That's why I live in the SOUTH!!! It is much better to be hot than to be cold, in our family's humble opinion!!!

WINTER officially started with a beautiful, total eclipse of the moon! I stayed up to watch the first half. I got the kids up to see the eclipse right before it was completely dark. I had hoped to see the moon when it was at it's darkest and ORANGE, but I had gone into the house and sat down for a few minutes...which turned into more like an hour! When I woke up, I'd missed the orange moon...in fact the eclipse was almost over when I made it back outside!

Here is a picture I took right before the eclipse was full

Winter

by Walter de la Mare

Clouded with snow

The cold winds blow,

And shrill on leafless bough

The robin with its burning breast

Alone sings now.

The rayless sun,

Day's journey done,

Sheds its last ebbing light

On fields in leagues of beauty spread

Unearthly white.

Thick draws the dark,

And spark by spark,

The frost-fires kindle, and soon

Over that sea of frozen foam

Floats the white moon.

Our winter was blessed with a short visit by the robins! I always love seeing them in the winter...they remind me of when I was little and I'd chase them out in the yard during the summertimes in Utah.

We had some mighty cold days too...unfortunately, we lived too far south to have enjoyed actual FREEZING weather, including SNOW. The kids were pretty disappointed...everyone got weather days for the bad weather, EXCEPT US. :(

Needless to say we were all pretty excited to watch the thermometer reach 40 degrees, then 50 degrees, then 60's and 70's!!! Yeah for the warmer days ahead!!! :)

Here are some of our favorite things from the past few months:

Mattie's baptism:

Mattie was baptized on December 28th. While we were trying to decide which day to choose, my mom suggested that we picked the 28th and told me it was my Grandma Cutler's birthday...well that was PERFECT because she is the one I named Mattie after!

Her name was Mattie Taylor Cutler. :)

We had a bunch of visitors come for Mattie's special day:

Grandma & Grandpa Cutler ~ my mom & dad came from Salt Lake City!

Uncle Chris ~ my brother, Aunt Tarina, and Kate came from Salt Lake City too!

Uncle Tim, Aunt Carolee ~ my sister, and Eliza came from Jacksonville, Florida!

Aunt Carlynne ~ my sister came fron New York City!

Mattie's baptism day was a very special day! Mattie was baptized by her daddy! :) We had a very special program too! Aunt Tarina gave a talk on baptism before Mattie was baptized. After Mattie was baptized, I sang a baptism medley with Carolee and Carlynne. Bethany played her violin to accompany us. Grandma Cutler gave a talk about the Holy Ghost. Then Mattie was confirmed! :) We are all so proud of Mattie for making this important choice!

Mattie and her daddy before Mattie was baptized! :)

Uncle Tim, Edd and Mattie checking out the baptismal font before Mattie's baptism

Some of Mattie's church friends were able to come be with Mattie on her special day!! :)

Isabella, Mattie, Annabella and Elisabeth

We did some fun things while we had family in town ~

We took Carlynne, Grandma, Grandpa, Kate, Chris and Tarina to the Aquarium.

Since it was their first time to New Orleans we walked down the Mississippi River...

we saw the "Natchez" and made it down to see Jackson Square!

By the time we got there, we were all pretty cold, so we drove across the lake, back to Mandeville for some beignets at Cafe DuMonde.

Carolee, Tim, and Eliza arrived in town the next day. So we took everyone to Global Wildlife! Everyone had a blast feeding all the wild animals!!! :)

One of the great things about winter in the SOUTH...we are blessed with a few warms days here and there!!! :)

On our warmest day, we all went canoeing in the Tchefuncte River. Even Grandma went canoeing and liked it!! It was a perfect day to just hang out along the riverbank and enjoy each other's company! :)

All the cousins had so much fun playing together!! Here is a picture of most of the Cutler cousins! (Plus a couple of Mama's) We are just missing one!

Aunt Carolee, Eliza, Bethany, Mattie, Kate, Aunt Tarina, Andrew, Aimee and Thomas

JANUARY

Once all our company left and school started up again, life got back to normal...well sort of...January is always a busy month at our house!

One night we were blessed with this beautiful sunset!!! I'd been over at my neighbor's house and walked out just in time!! I ran home, grabbed my camera, and ran outside again to take some pictures...BEAUTIFUL! :)

January 7th

January 12th was Andrew's GOLDEN BIRTHDAY!!

Andrew had a great 12th birthday! He enjoyed all the special attention! All the kids were excited because this was our first GOLDEN BIRTHDAY in our family!!! Andrew was a great big brother and let Thomas "help" open the birthday present.

Andrew was most excited about turning 12 and moving up to the Young Men's program at church! :) Andrew is a sweet brother and we are so glad to have in our family!!!

January 16th was Anne's Birthday!!!

Usually, I don't like Sunday birthdays, but this year was different! This Sunday was special for me because I got to see my sweet Andrew receive the Aaronic Priesthood at church! I am so proud of Andrew! :)

I also got a new calling, I teach Primary to the kids who are 4-6 years old! Thomas and all his buddies are in my class! They are a lot of fun!

Thankfully, Bethany was willing to stay home from church and take care of Aimee who had a fever so I could go. It's days like this that make me so grateful for being blessed with such great kids!!! :)

January 19th was the 100TH DAY OF SCHOOL:

Aimee had a HUGE project that she was working on. She had to display 100 in 5 different ways...

1. 25 pennies = 1 1/2 inches so 100 pennies = 6 inches...the picture of the pennies being measured was placed into the treasure box.

2. Also inside the treasure box was a necklace Aimee made with 100 gold beads with a beautiful seashell in the middle of the beads.

3. Aimee measured out 100 inches of yarn, which was the boarder between the sand and the sea.

4. Aimee counted out 100 beans and made 3 separate "sand castles" with them.

5. Aimee counted out 100 paper clips and glued them on for the sea foam along the edge of the water and just behind the water's edge.

Aimee is so creative! She thought this all up on her own and put it all together with very little help from me!! Great job Aimee!! :)

January 27th was Aimee's Birthday!!! She was so glad to be all better for her birthday! She missed out on all the fun for my b-day because of the tummy bug...yuck.

Poor Aimee didn't think her birthday would ever get here! It finally did and she had a super fun day!

It started with this spectacular sunrise!!! We haven't had a sunrise this spectacular since! I woke Aimee up early so she wouldn't miss it!

Aimee had a special lunch date at school with Mom and Thomas! :)

Aimee was a sweet big sister and let Thomas "help her" open her presents too! She even let him "help" blow out her candles!! Aimee is now in the double digits~she is 10!!! :)

We survived all the birthdays and were so excited to hear that the ground hog didn't see his shadow and that SPRING would be coming EARLY this year!!!

...finally...

2011-01-23T18:12:00.007-06:00

I am so glad that I finally had a chance to sit down and finish my last post!!! :)

Life here at our house has been busy!

We are all enjoying a new year! I'm hoping to get some unfinished things done this year!! I have now checked off 3 things from the list! :)

1. Finish the baby blankets for Kate and Eliza...CHECK!!!

Mattie, Aimee and I had grand plans to make Kate and Eliza these cute blankets for when they were born...well, things happened...mostly like a BIG MOVE...and well, Kate is turning 2 in April...so it took us a little while! Mattie and Aimee helped me pick the fabric out way back when. I had all the pieces pinned together, but the project got put on hold when we had to move to Louisiana.

Aimee helped me with the sewing once we finally got going on the project again!! :)

Here is Aimee watching Eliza open her blanket.
Eliza likes it!!! On the back of the duck blanket is pink silky fabric...picked out by Aimee!

Here is Kate inspecting her heart blanket...with the blue sparkly fabric...picked out by Mattie.

Each of the girls got both the duck and the heart blankets! Kate has a hold of both of hers! :)

2. Finish reading "The Return of the Native" by Thomas Hardy...CHECK!!!

This was a book that I was supposed to read my Senior year in HS for my English class. I couldn't quite finish the book by the deadline, I was really close to being done...so my teacher, Mrs Baskin, made me a deal...IF I PROMISED TO FINISH THE BOOK, SHE'D MARK ME DOWN THAT I HAD DONE IT!

This is a picture of Mrs Baskin from my yearbook and the note she wrote to me! :)

I promised Mrs Baskin that I would finish the book. Over the years, I've tried to complete that promise. I don't remember how many times I started the book, more than a few. For years it has been sitting on the bookshelf as a constant reminder of that promise!!!

Around Thanksgiving, I decided that I was tired of that book "hanging over my head" so I pulled it off the shelf and started reading. As I read the first few pages, yellow with age,I was surpised to see how yellow the pages had become. I was a little surprised to find my old book mark still in the book...an old physics flash card...some formula that I've forgotten! :)

Near the end of the book, I found a long lost fortune slip...

Good advice! :)

I finally read the book from cover to cover!!! And I actually liked it!! Is that a sign that I'm getting old??? (Don't answer that!!!)

I was so glad when I finally finished "The Return of the Native!" I've been done for about a week now and I'm still so excited that I actually finally finished!!! YEAH!!!!!! :)

3. Finish my blog entry "F is for..." that I started months ago...CHECK!!! :)

My Sundays have become a lot busier lately now that Edd is bishop. We end up having people over for dinner a couple Sundays a month. Sometimes with advance notice and sometimes with not so advanced notice. :)

My weekday free time has been spent reading "The Return of the Native!" Now that my book is finished, I can sneak in some computer time!! :)

Each morning, I try to remember that each day is a gift! This year I want to try live each day to the fullest! When we have beautiful mornings like this, it helps me be motivated to get moving even though I'm usually still super tired!

F is for...

2010-11-25T10:40:00.007-06:00

FROGS & TOADS~

Thomas loves playing with his frog and toad friends! They are his little buddies! As the weather cooled off the toads went off to hibernate, but we still have a few frogs sticking around the house! :) Don't they realize it's "cold" outside???

FREE HAND CHALK DRAWINGS~

Every morning while we waited for the school buses to come, our driveway became a HUGE chalk board for Thomas! We had amazing chalk scenes! This is one of my favorite. Thomas had copied our trees and was working on a rainbow with clouds. We also had numerous jungle scenes, the North Pole with the Polar Express, oceans, anything that Thomas could imagine! When it rained, it all got washed away and we started again. After Thomas started pre-school, the chalk was put away...no more lazy mornings to just draw.

FIRE ANTS~

One Saturday morning, in the beginning of September, after my bike ride, I decided to work in the garden before it got too hot. Unfortunately, my time was cut short by me, unknowingly, standing in a fire ant hill!!! I jumped out of the flower bed, onto the driveway, and kicked my shoes and socks off as fast as I could...TOO LATE!!! Those fiesty fire ants got me really bad, at least on one ankle...23 bites on my right ankle and only 3 on my left. NOT FUN!! :(

Too many fire ant bites = trip to doctor! By Monday, my ankles were really swollen and the bites were getting infected...not good...dumb fire ants!!! After some medicine, I was on the mend. :)

FACES~

Bethany was so excited to finally get her braces off!!! :) She got them off near the end of August. Don't those teeth look nice!! :)

Thomas, on the other hand, had this freaked out look! One of the things at the top of his "to-do" list once the kids went back to school was to go to the zoo and see the dinosaurs!!! Well, the last time we went to see the dinosaurs, he was super freaked and wouldn't let go of my hand.

This time, Thomas was still freaked out, but was brave enough to walk without holding my hand, most of the time! He was a little nervous that this baby T-rex would get him though because there wasn't a fence by him. :)

FAMILY ~

We finally were able to meet ELIZA!!!

My sister, Carolee, and her husband, Tim, came with their daughter, Eliza, to visit us for Labor Day!! :) They live in Jacksonville, FL! We all had fun playing with Eliza and getting to know her! We also got to celebrate Eliza's FIRST birthday with her, a few days early!! :)

FOOTBALL ~

Edd was able to take his girls to one of the Saints' pre-season games!!! They were all super excited!!!!

Edd took the girls to Victory Square before the game started! The football game was pretty exciting too! They all had a great time!! :)

As I drove back across the lake, after dropping the girls off, I realized that the clouds looked more like Autumn clouds...they were long and stretched out instead of the big, fluffy clouds I was used to seeing. I was a little sad to see Summer slipping away. I wasn't quite ready for FALL~

THE DOG DAYS OF SUMMER...

2010-09-26T16:27:00.005-05:00

The dog days of summer have come and gone, but they sure were fun!!! Here's some highlights from our summer...

JUNE:

While Bethany was at camp, we went to the Audubon Zoo one night...lots of fun! It was the members only night and they fed the alligators for us...which was the best part of the trip, of course!!!

The trip to the zoo wouldn't be the same without doing our two favorites:

RIDING THE CAROUSEL~

POSING BY THE WILD CREATURES~

Of course when Bethany returned home from GIRLS CAMP, she told us that she'd had a crazy good time! :)

BLUEBERRY PICKING!!!

A couple of weeks later, we joined up with some other families in the ward to do some blueberry picking!

We got there super early so we could beat the heat of the day! Unfortunately, it was already hot and humid when we got started.

At first we had a lot of fun picking!

As the time went by and the buckets filled up it got "DRIPPING HOT!!!" as Thomas called it!!! Even sitting in the shade, it was miserable...

Once everyone had had enough, we turned our buckets in, paid for our blueberries, and headed home.

It's now November...and Summer is LONG GONE. I saw my breath Friday morning while I took the garbage can out to the road and we had frost on the grass Saturday morning...not sure I'm ready for the cold...sometimes I think I'd like to go back to those "DRIPPING HOT" days.

***SORRY FOR THE LACK OF POSTS THE LAST LITTLE WHILE!!!***

Life in our house has been a little busier on Sundays. Tonight, I took advantage of the end of DAY LIGHT SAVINGS!! The kids were so ready for bed before 8!!! I didn't tell them how late it was. Only Aimee figured it out when she looked at her clock and it was only 7:50!! Everyone was sound asleep by 8:45~ a near MIRACLE in our house!! :)

Maybe I can get caught up now! :)

VOLCANO WEEK!!!

2010-09-08T23:20:00.010-05:00

Our summer started off with lots of fun!

Here and Mattie, Thomas and Andrew with our volcano!! It was VOLCANO WEEK!! :) One of Thomas' favorite things right now is volcanos!! So we endulged him by making one! The kids had so much fun!!
Working hard to creat the perfect volcano~

Meanwhile, Bethany was off at GIRLS CAMP! She had a great time and was able to make some new friends.

Here are the girls from our ward who went:

Angel, Bethany, Faith, Lexi, Annie, Laura, Aubrey, and Tiffany :)

Lexi and Annie had just barely met everyone!!! Their family moving into the ward!! They'd arrived from Arkansas hours before they were to head off to camp!

Bethany and Annie really hit it off since they are both April girls...Bethany's b-day is on the 18th and Annie's is the 19th!!! :)

Here's Bethany loading up her stuff. She's pretty excited for her adventure! :)

Bethany's violin recital

2010-09-08T22:32:00.004-05:00

A few months ago, Bethany's violin teacher, Lauren Miller, held a recital for her students. It was actually way back on June 4th.

This was Bethany's first violin recital! She was a little nervous, but did a great job! This is Bethany warming up with her pianist right before the recital.

Bethany played a Vivaldi concerto. It's been so long now that she can't really remember for sure which one, but she thinks it's the A minor!

The recital was held in a little white church and it had this pretty stain glass window!

Thomas wasn't very excited about getting all dressed up when it wasn't really a church day, but he finally gave in. He started freaking out when I tried to put on of his Sunday shirts on...it was just a polo shirt. He tried to tell me he wasn't going to wear that shirt because it wasn't a church day!!!

We compromised and he got to wear shorts. The other kids weren't that excited about getting dressed up either, but they didin't put up a fight like Thomas. Getting him dressed on Sundays, when he HAS to wear his Sunday clothes is ALWAYS A BATTLE!!! So getting dressed up for the recital was especially hard!

Here is Bethany after she warmed up! :)

Bethany playing the actual recital performance of her piece! She did a great job!!! YEAH!!! :)
After the recital, we got to meet some of Ms Lauren's other students! She has both violin and cello students. Most of them are around Bethany's age, but Ms Lauren does have some really young girls who are around 5 years old! It was really fun to watch them perform their pieces.
I used the video camera to film Bethany performing. I've never put any of our videos on the computer, so I need to read up on that! If I figure it out soon, I will post it!

***ok, it's been almost a month since I started this post. I realized there's more than one way to skin a cat!!! i.e...I haven't located the software disc I need to tranfer files from the camcorder to my computer...the joys of moving...it's somewhere...just got tired of trying to find it so I re-recoreded the recital with my camera!!! :)*** TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES...THE VIDEO WON'T POST SO I'LL HAVE TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO SHARE IT A DIFFERENT WAY! :)

Needless to say Bethany did an awesome job and both her teacher and her parents were very proud of her! :)

Christmas in AUGUST

2010-08-28T15:58:00.004-05:00

Christmas in August...Once upon a time, a couple of years ago, a little boy got a remote control airplane for Christmas! He was so excited!!!

Unfortunately, almost before it got off the ground for the first time, it crashed into the pavement, breaking the motor.

Luckily, we were able to locate a new motor...only problem was we didn't have any elves to help us install the motor!

FINALLY, Edd re-located the motor! A huge accomplishment since when we moved and the new motor was packed away by the moves in a totally random box. A couple of Saturdays ago, he and Andrew took the airplane apart and were able to install the new motor!

At last, Andrew was able to fly his airplane!!! Best part is now he can fly it in his own huge backyard!!! Before we moved he and Edd had to go to the school playground to have enough room to fly it around.

Andrew was so excited!!! He said it was his best day ever!!! :) He flew it over and over and over again! Thomas came out to watch too!

They probably would've stayed outside all day long flying the plane, but after about 30 minutes, they were grounded by rain. An afternoon well spent! :)

R U A Louisi-ALIEN?

2010-08-23T13:40:00.007-05:00

Well, all good things must come to an end...and such is true with summer. Our last week of summer was spent getting ready for school. The most exciting part was "Meet and Greet!" Aimee and Mattie were the only ones who got to meet their teachers this year...

Our first stop, MADISONVILLE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL:

Mattie is in 2nd grade now and her teacher is Ms Cyprian!

Ms C yprian seems to be a very fun teacher. Mattie was hoping that she would get Ms Cyprian so she was very happy!

Next we were off to MADISONVILLE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL:

Aimee is in 4th grade now and has 2 teachers!

This is Aimee with Mrs Danenhauer, who teaches Aimee in the morning. Mrs D teaches Language Arts, Social Studies, etc.

This is Aimee with her other teacher, Mrs Arroyo who teaches Math and Science, etc in the afternoon. Aimee was excited because one of her buddies from last, Ainsley, is in her class this year! :)

SCHOOL STARTED ON MONDAY, AUGUST 9TH!

Our first school morning started really early!!! Bethany had to leave for Early Morning Seminary at 5:40am! So here she is a few minutes before she left:

Bethany is a sophomore this year at MANDEVILLE HIGH SCHOOL! Bethany is lucky and doesn't have to wear uniforms to school. :)

Seminary ends at 6:50. Bethany gets a ride to the high school with the kids that go to her high school. I think there are 6 of them that go together to school...5 girls and 1 boy.

High school starts around 7:30 am and gets out at 2:36 pm. Bethany rides the bus home and would get home around 3:12 pm but her bus route just changed. Instead of being one of the first stops, she is one of the last now. She gets home at more like 3:20 pm.

Mattie was next to leave. We went outside around 6:45, just so we wouldn't miss the bus. Mattie's school colors are navy and white. Mattie decided that white was the color for the day! They have to wear khacki on bottom.

One of the nice things about being up so early is we get to see beautiful sunrises! This is what it looked like when Mattie was waiting for her bus to come!

Here is Mattie waiting for her bus to come! We didn't have to wait long. The bus came at about 7:03. The bus usually comes now around 6:53. Mattie's school starts around 7:30 am. She gets back on the bus around 2:10 and doesn't get home until around 3:45 pm!

Poor Thomas wasn't used to getting up this early! So he slept through Mattie leaving. He woke up just in time to say good-bye to Andrew and Aimee!

Here are Andrew and Aimee! All ready to head out the door! Their school colors are Yellow and Black. So they can wear yellow or white polos and khacki on the bottom.

Aimee is starting school over at the junior high this year! They have 4-8 at the junior high. Andrew is starting 6th grade, which is officially Junior High!

We went out to wait for their bus around 7:15. Look how beautiful the sky was by then! :)

To pass the time, Andrew practiced his pogo stick! Aimee decided to borrow my backpack for the day. We ordered her a new one, but it didn't arrive till Aimee was at her first day of school. So she had it for her 2nd day of school. It is a cute backpack with like a Hawaiian print that is pink and navy!

We ended up waiting quite a while for their bus to show up!!!

Bella even came out to wait with the kids! :) She got all cozy with Andrew for a few minutes!!!

Bella curled up next to Andrew's arm! She likes sleeping with Andrew at night sometimes!

After about 20 minutes of waiting, Andrew decided to climb up on his lookout point to check out things...

Finally, Mr Greg ~ the bus driver started around our corner! It was almost 7:50!!! Guess the bus route really changed this year! He used to come around 7:20-7:25. Good thing their school doesn't start until 8:31 am! Andrew and Aimee get out of school at 3:31 pm. They ride the bus home too. Their bus drops them off at around 4:10 pm.

Even though it was only August 9th, as I walked back into the house after Andrew and Aimee got on the bus, I found these two leaves on the grass!!! Wow, guess the trees are getting tired of summer too! Mabye FALL will come early this year?!?

WE SURVIVED OUR FIRST WEEK OF SCHOOL! WE WERE ALL SOOO TIRED ALL WEEK!

Our second week of school had its ups and downs. It was a little easier to get up but we had a lost homework folder and a missed bus...not in the same day either.

Saturday, Andrew and Aimee were in on my bed and we were talking about how school is going. The kids were so glad that they aren't the new kids anymore! Then we got talking about how someone asked Aimee why she doesn't talk like she moved her from Texas. Which lead to what you are called when you live in Louisiana.

If you are from Utah you are a Utahn, if you are from Texas you are a Texan. If you are from Houston you are a Houstonian. So if you are from Louisiana you are a Louisi....Aimee had a hard time saying Louisianan...sounded more like Louisi-ALIEN! SO we decided that we liked Louisi-ALIEN!!!

We live in Louisiana, but we weren't born here. We love living here, we love the food, we love the people, we love everything, pretty much, about Louisiana, but we definitely are not Louisianan. Guess we are definitely Louisi-ALIEN!! :)

Cousins + Mountains = GOOD TIMES! :)

2010-08-08T14:59:00.012-05:00

6/27 ~ Sunday

We made it!!! At last we were finally freed from the van!!!!!! :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

We were greeted by a bunch of yellow ribbons, signs, and lots of hugs and kisses! :) Tarina and Chris were the first to greet us at Grandma and Grandpa Cutler's house. Grandma, Uncle Frank, Aunt Lily, Aunt Carlynne, and Grandpa were eagerly waiting for us inside! Little Kate was taking a nap when we arrived, but woke up soon after. She wasn't sure she so much attentions and was more than willing to stay in the safety of Grandma's arms!

Did we look that scarry after sitting in the van for 2 days straight???

It didn't take long for Kate to warm up to the kids though! Andrew became Kate's special "eye ya" or something sweet like that! :)

Aunt Carlynne, my little sis, flew out from NYC so she could play with us too!!! We celebrated her birhtday, just a few days late. Her b-day was June 23rd. Carlynne let Mattie pick out which present she'd open next! :) Did someone say presents??? We had a few belated birthday presents for Kate as well!!! She turned 1 back in April. Check out all those Mardi Gras beads!!! Kate was in HEAVEN!!!! She loves necklaces...what girl doesn't??? We also gave her a PINK PRINCESS CELL PHONE...which of course was also a hit! :)

6/28 ~ Monday

Edd and I took our kids up to Ogden to see the Dinosaur Park. Aunt Carlynne came along too! Thomas was so excited to see all the dinosaurs again!!! It was so much fun to watch Thomas and his incredible excitement for all things dino!!! :)
Thomas was SUPER EXCITED to see a volcano!!! Every now and then, you could hear it rumble! :)

Thomas had so much fun running around, checking out all the dinosaurs, digging for bones, and hunting for a special treasure! He crashed on our way back to Grandma's house and slept on the couch for a few hours! :)

Mattie and Kate had fun getting to know each other! Kate had fun doing her tricks for the kids! One of her favorites was to fall onto the floor, which would make the kids laugh! :)

Aimee and Kate became good buddies too! :) It didn't take long for Kate and the kids to be nearly inseperable! :)

Monday night, we went to visit my Aunt Joann. She was excited to see us! It was fun to see Aunt Joann in her new condo and get caught up on things! :)

Next stop, we went around the corner, literally, to visit Uncle Harold and Aunt Patsy! We had a good visit with them as well! It was fun to hear what was happening with their family.

As we were leaving, Uncle Harold gave us the keys to the cabin and told us to watch out for bears and such. Ohhhh, that 's just what Thomas would love to hear!!! Before we left on our trip, Thomas would day-dream of seeing bears in the mountains!!!

After visiting everyone, Chris and Tarina took us to the "park" (the school playgrouond) down the street from their house so we could play for awhile! Just as it was getting dark, there was a motorcycle that revved, but Thomas thought it was a T-REX growling...so we had to pack up and head home!!! Which was ok since it was almost 10pm Utah time/11pm Louisiana time! :)

6/29-7/1 ~ Tuesday - Thursday

Tuesday morning we got all packed up again and headed up to Grandpa's cabin! We were all so excited to get there! It was so nice to be back at the cabin again! :)

Edd took the kids fishing while Carlynne and I went back down the canyon to get some worms and a few things that we'd forgotten. While we were gone, Edd and the kids hit the fishing jackpot!!! They were catcing fish almost as fast as they could cast out their line! Even Edd caught a fish!!! :)

Here's a picture of the kids after on of our fishing breaks.... It was refreshing to have a good fishing trip!!! Most the time, in years past, we haven't been blessed with fisherman's luck. This year, the fisherman's luck was shining brightly on us! :)

Tuesday night, as it was getting dark, we heard a knock on the cabin door!!!

WHO WOULD BE KNOCKING ON THE CABIN DOOR SO LATE AT NIGHT????

SURPRISE!!!! It was Kate, Chris and Tarina!!! :) They had decided to take a couple of days off and come join us at the cabin!! :)

Although Aimee had had numerous nibbles on her line, she was getting very frustrated with the fact that all her nibbles were just that...nibbles. All her hungry fish were just a little too quick and got away. Edd tried to help Aimee, but it was not meant to be. :(

What was that????

What is that scarry thing over by the trees??? Could it be...SASQUATCH or a LOUP GAROU???? Thomas was always wondering what would be around the next tree or corner....we found something....LOOK....

Did the LOUP GAROU follow us all the way from Louisiana??? Thomas decided that it was more fun to do monster impersinations than to fish! :)

The girls hanging out together. Kate thought it would be more fun to play in the water in the water than to fish!

Uncle Chris saved the day many times!!! He helped retrieve the hooks that had been swallowed and were stuck really far down. Once the fish was hook-free, we'd let them go!

We all love going up to the Smith and Moorehouse Reserviour! It is so beautiful!!! The kids all have their favorite fishing spots now! It is also fun to just sit on the rocks and watch and listen to nature! :) So peaceful!!! :) We were able to even see Mother Nature send a few rain clouds our way! Beautiful!!! :)

After a hard day fishing, there isn't anything better than some yummy food to fill our tummies!!! :) Bethany was getting a gumbo lesson from Edd. The official roux stirrers!

We had fun watching all the wildlife! Here's the Steller's Jay that was taking peanuts we'd put out on the fence! Edd and I also a young moose just on the other side of the fence we were driving past! :)

The kids had a grand time playing with Kate~she had a blast too! :)

The cabin trip wouldn't be complete without "THE RIVER CHALLENGE!" Andrew had a personal challenge to get this stick to stand up in the river. He finally got it to stay put! Andrew and Aimee challenged each other to walk across the the river to the other side. Thomas wanted to do it too, but I wouldn't let him. The river was too deep and swift! Thomas did walk in the calmer waters and even took an unexpected dip! :)

I love being up at the cabin!! It is so beautiful and peaceful! :) I took this our last afternoon at the cabin as the sun was starting to go down a bit.

Andrew and Thomas loved helping with the gate! Here we are on gate duty...you either love it or not.

BACK AT GRANDMA'S HOUSE~

After dinner, we played outside for awhile! The weather PERFECT! All we wanted to do was play outside! :) A little while later, we headed over to the park to play. While the kids played, Edd and I went up the walking trail and took some sunset pictures.

I grew up in the shadows of this magnificent mountain...Mt Olympus. I just love this mountain!

Here is one of my sunset pictures. The sun is setting next to Antelope Island. Edd had fun getting his sunset pictures! Too bad there weren't many clouds...in fact we hardly saw any clouds the whole time we were in the valley.

Meanwhile, the kids were having a blast down on the playground! Here's Kate trying to grab Aimee's tongue! Kate is a silly girl!! :)

After the park, we went to "cool off" with a treat!

Here's the whole gang! Tarina, Chris,

Kate, Mattie, Carlynne, Andrew, Edd, Aimee, Thomas and Bethany!

7/2 ~ Friday

We drove down to Provo to visit with Edd's side of the family for a few day

s! We stopped at John and Melissa's new house for a little while. Then we were treated to a to

ur of BYU! (Sorry you Ute fans out there!) We split up between 2 carts. This is the one with most of the kids! We all had a fun tour!

I had to stop the tour for a quick picture of Thomas by this statue...I couldn't resist!!! It's a little boy showing a frog to his big sister...just like Thomas!

After our tour, we stopped at the Cougar Eat to get some ice cream!

Well, you can't eat at the Cougar Eat without running into someone you know...

This is Jessica Sandlin Matheson, a Prince family friend, who just happened to see us! So she ate her lunch with us. Then came along to see Uncle John's office and lab.

Here is Uncle John showing off his lab to all the kids! John was just hired as a professor at BYU. After John's tour, we went to the bookstore for a few minutes. Then back to John and Melissa's house for dinner and a fun night at the park!

Here are the big kids playing! :) Dallan, Joe and his wife Brittany came to play with us! When we got back to John & Melissa's, Bethany and Dallan played some music together!

7/3 ~ Saturday

Melissa's dad treated the kids to a raft ride down part of the Provo River! Most of the kids thought it was really cool. Thomas was a little scared at the beginning, but by the time we finished he was having fun! We spent the day playing at Vivian Park, while the big kids went rafting on the river!

Here is Bro Snow giving the safety speech to the kids before their raft rides.

On our way back down Provo Canyon, we stopped for a minute to look at Bridal Veil Falls. Thomas was excited to see a real live waterfall! He loves waterfalls, almost as much as hippos!

Saturday night, Melissa and I went with her family to Stadium of Fire! It was a lot of fun! This was my first time to ever get to go! (Thanks Melissa! :) ) It was fun to see Carrie Underwood perform and the fireworks were awesome!

7/4 ~ Sunday

We tried to go to church with Frank and Lily, but ended up at the wrong church building. We ended up attending the Spanish branch. Bethany was excited because she understood a few things....all those hours in Spanish at school paid off! :)

We did get to spend some time with Frank and Lily after they got home from church. Lily cooked us a scrumptious lunch. We went out and played in their backyard for a little while, then went in and played some more!

After playing with Frank and Lily, we went back to Grandma's house for Sunday dinner! Most of us were still stuffed from Lily's lunch, but dinner was good too!

7/5 ~ Monday

We decided that it would be really fun for all of us to hike up to Timpanogos Cave! After a yummy lunch at Chick-fil-a, along the way, we were all ready for the big climb! Grandma and Grandpa stayed at the base of the mountain just in case someone needed to come back down. The rest of us climbed up the mountain! Unfortunately, all the tickets to go on the cave tour were ALL SOLD OUT. :( But we had fun looking at the beautiful scenery at the top of the trail! :)

7/6 ~ Tuesday

The brave folk left at the crack of dawn, which comes super early up in Salt Lake, so they could venture back down to Mt Timpanogos! This time they were all going to hike up, AGAIN, so they can see Timpanogos cave! They all had a grand time! :)

Thomas and I stayed behind at the house with Grandma and Grandpa! Thomas was sad that he didn't get to go to the cave, but on the other hand was super glad because the cave was going to be DARK and SCARY! :) So we had fun playing around the house. We also walked over to the school and played on the playground for awhile.

Later that night, we all went to watch the AAA baseball team, the BEE'S play! It was a perfect night to be out watching baseball! :) The kids had a blast running around on the hill outside of the ball field.

Mattie, Thomas and Andrew even had a couple moments of fame!!! They were able to get on the BIG SCREEN!!! Here they are with a bunch of other boys . Too bad the big screen view didn't show up very well.

7/7 ~ Wednesday

Edd, Bethany and Aimee dropped Mattie, Thomas, Andrew and me off at the Hogle Zoo. They drove up to Park City to visit with Edd's old boss, Susan and her husband. Susan and her husband go back and forth to Houston...where we met them!

Andrew, Thomas, Mattie and I had fun checking out all the animals! We got to the zoo just in time to see the elephant show! Seeing the wolf was at the top of Thomas' list! So we went on a wolf hunt while we waited for Kate, Tarina, Grandma and Grandpa to join us.

We finally made it to the wolf habitat, but the wolves were hiding. So we went to visit the creatures next door...the building with all the little critters like snakes, frogs, birds, etc. Thomas was keeping a close eye on the wolf habitat through the door because all of the sudden, in his excited voice, he was telling me they were there!!! So we rushed out to see the wolves! About this time Kate and her gang had arrived so we joined up with them. Thomas couldn't wait to take Kate to see the wolves!!! He was just as excited to see them the second time around! :)

Here's a cool elephant! He likes to squirt water at you through his trunk! Better watch out!!! :)

Wednesday night, 0ur last night in town was spent enjoying the beautiful weather with some Cutler cousins!!!

My cousins, Cathy and Heather camewith their kids! It was so fun to see them!!! All the kids had a blast playing together! :)

After a whirlwind of fun, we were finally ready to get back home. We sure loved playing with all our cousins and seeing the mountains again! We sure had some good times!!! :)

After the park, it was time to pack!

The plan was to head out EARLY in the morning...hoping to make good time on the LONG drive back home.

n p

The TREK

2010-07-30T09:55:00.012-05:00

Once again it was time to hit the road again! This time we were making the BIG TREK to Utah!!!! After much preparation and packing, the van was ready to go! Because we didn't get to bed very early, Edd was not in a huge rush to wake up super early and get on the road.

7:30 am (Central Daylight time) we were on the road again! We'd hoped to get an earlier start, but it felt sooo good to "sleep in!!" Everyone was HAPPY too! :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

Our driving goal for the day: to reach AMARILLO, TEXAS! A little lofty considering our "late" start.

HERE IS WHAT EVERYONE WAS LOOKING FORWARD TO:

Bethany ~ going to the cabin

Andrew ~ hanging out with the uncles and everyone

Aimee ~ seeing the river behind the cabin and the family challenges

Mattie ~ looking for BIG FOOT, doing the challenges in the water

Thomas ~ seeing the dead parasaurolophus

Edd ~ seeing good scenery, not being at work, being with family

Anne ~ seeing the mountains and playing with John and Melissa (we hadn't seen them in about 3 years)

7:57am Thomas was hungry and getting a little grumpy...time for breakfast! :) A few minutes later we saw our first radar gun, FIRST OF MANY!!!

8:29am We crossed the Mississippi, our first big landmark! The kids picked out a movie to watch and things were good! :)

9:16am UH OH!!! First wrong turn. We missed the exit for I-49 to OPELOUSAS, LA so we turned around and found it...HEADING NORTH! :) Only about 7 1/2 more hours till Amarillo! (If we don't stop at all! )

This is how teenagers like to travel these days:

We were truely amazed at how much Bethany could sleep!!! Guess she's making up for lost time! :)

11am How far have we traveled so far:

Bethany: 100

Andrew: 150

Mattie : 101
Thomas: 10

Aimee: sleeping :)

ACTUAL MILAGE: 240 miles

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "I see some moutiams! The are BIG AND HUGE!!!" ~ Thomas :)

12:30 pm LUNCH TIME!!! :) We stopped in SHREVEPORT, LA at Querbes Park. We looked at the map and there were 2 parks to choose from. Turns out it was more of a sports park, but we were all glad to get out of the van and stretch our legs!!! :)

Thomas playing with the grasshopper that Edd pulled off the grill of the van...it was still alive!!! Thomas was hoping for a park with a playground. Oh well.

Edd, Andrew and Bethany found enough room to throw the baseball around for a few minutes! :)

1pm Back on the road again. Heading WEST on I-20 toward FORT WORTH, TEXAS! Andrew moved up to co-pilot and I got booted back to sit by Thomas and Aimee for awhile. Bethany was suffering from allergies or something so we gave her some Benedryl, and Mattie took over my ipod.

1:27pm CROSSED INTO TEXAS!!! YIPEE!!!

4pm MILAGE GUESS

Bethany: 720

Andrew: 830

Aimee: 835

Mattie: 121

ACTUAL MILAGE: 551

About this time, Edd and I started talking about how long we should drive. We'd been on the road for 9 hours already and we were only in DALLAS!!

6pm DINNER TIME!!! :) We stopped at a park in WICHITA FALLS, TEXAS. Thomas was so glad that it had a playground! He hardly wanted to eat! The rest of us were glad to get out of the van too! :)

Aimee and Mattie enjoyed doing the monkey bars! Thomas wouldn't stop running around so I didn't get any good pictures of him.

7pm Back on the road again.

Here I am having a good time with Thomas in the front seat of the van! All the kids were so good all day long!!! Even Thomas!!! Aimee had prepared a packet of games and notepaper for everyone, except Edd who woudl be driving. So they played their games...one of the things was keeping track of all the different license plates we saw along the way.

We saw most of them the first day!!

8:45pm ICE CREAM BREAK!!! :) In CHILDRESS, TX, we went through the drive-thru at a McD's for a quick treat! A good break without getting out of the car!

Pressing on to AMARILLO.

10:30 "ish" We made it to AMARILLO! We stopped at one motel and they had no rooms. We moved on to the next motel, same story. Hmmm...after about 10 motels, we gave up. There was Jehovah's Witness convention going on and everything was booked up. Sortof felt like Joseph and Mary...

NO ROOM AT THE INN.

So we just kept driving...what else could we do??? Finally, Edd couldn't drive any longer...too tired. We found a rest stop and stopped for some rest. It was almost 1am.

The kids had curled up in the back of the van. Thomas woke up when we stopped and refused to stay in his car seat. So Thomas slept in my lap. We had quite a peaceful night despite the circumstances.

3am It is QUIET outside...no trucks pulling in and hardly any traffic. Smells like rain. :)

Edd slept great after 3:15. About 3:30 the big trucks are moving again. The kids start stirring around 4:30. I heard Mattie say, "...people working really hard driving all night. Must have a lot of work to do to drive all day and drive all night too!"

4;56am Back on the road again!

SAVED $100 BY SLEEPING IN THE VAN!!! :)

GOT A GOOD START!!! :)

We were 11 miles from NEW MEXICO! :)

COMMENT OF THE MORNING : "WOW, TEXAS IS HUGE!"

PROBLEM: As we were looking for a motel, our tire pressure light came on. One of the tires is loosing air.

Not too long after we got going again, Thomas and I took a little cat nap...which Edd documented for us! :)

What a beautiful morning! :)

7:25/6:25am Thomas was so excited to see some "mountaims!" We told him that we'd see even BIGGER mountains!

7:19am (Mountain Daylight time) We stopped to eat breakfast at a park in Albuquerque. It was good to get out of the van and stretch our legs!!! :) Thomas loved being able to run around and play for a little bit. Here he is eating a few bites of breakfast! :)

Here are all the kids! :) Happy to be one state closer to our destination! :)

When we called Edd's mom to give her an update, she told us that Edd's brother, Eldon, and his family couldn't find a place to stay in AMARILLO either!!! They ended up finding a place to stay at about 2:30am. So they drove past us while we were sleeping on the side of the road at the rest stop!

10:30am We are 2o miles away from COLORADO! :)

2:02pm We were so glad when we finally crossed into UTAH!!! :)

3pm We decided to stop and check out Wilson's Arch, which is along the side of the highway, just outside of MOAB, UT.

Here is the family checking out the view from the drop off! :) Thomas didn't want to get too close to the edge...so Edd held him.

The arch is actually pretty BIG!! Here are the kids sitting under it! :)

3:30pm Back on the road again. Edd and I thought it would be fun to take the kids to Arches for a couple of hours, but after climbing Wilson's arch, we decided that was good enough and hit the road again!!! Just a few more hours left till we were free from the van!!! :)

Edd was ready for a nap, so I drove for awhile.

6:22pm The tire pressure light had come on again, so we stopped at a TESORO gas station in PRICE CANYON. After filling the tire with air, again, we were on our way...getting so close!!!! :)

6:58pm We are finally getting onto I-15! We've traveled 1753 miles so far. SO CLOSE!!! :) Thomas was pretty excited to be driving so close to the mountains!!! :)

7:45pm WE FINALLY MADE IT!!!!!!!!! 1802 MILES!!!!!!!!

FREE AT LAST FROM THE VAN!!!!!!! :)

catching up...AUSTIN

2010-07-14T23:11:00.022-05:00

Now that our summer is almost over, I decided to try and get caught up! :)

Our first trip of the summer was to Austin, TX to visit with Edd's family for Memorial Day weekend! We hadn't been to Texas to visit since Thanksgiving!!! Now that's a long time!!!

Since our last visit, we've had a new cousin arrive! At the time, there were 22 cousins!!! This has since changed to 23 cousins with 2 more on the way!
Out of all these cousins, there are only SEVEN GIRLS!!! That seems like a lot you might think, but a baby girl in the Prince family is hard to come by!!!

Everyone had fun meeting Charolette!

Here is Charolette being held by her big sister, Zoey!

She's a cutie!! Charolette loves to be held, but most of all she loves to be held outside! Her favortie was to be out on Grandma's porch rocking! :) Thomas and I got a turn to rock Charolette! Thomas was amazed at how little her fingers were! Charolette was only 6 weeks old so she still had those tiny newborn fingers~so adorable!! :)

Aunt Patti's beauty salon was in full swing! Sophie, who is 2, even got a turn! She is Eldon and Stephanie's little girl! :)

Who do these belong to???

After all the nails were done, Mattie and Aimee were treated to a hairdo like Allisons! :)

Of course, there were too many more important girly things to do than let me get an after shot of all the cute hairdos!!

Bethany and Zoey had fun sharing a blanket while they watched a movie together!

Bethany and Zoey are both the BIG SISTERS in their families...soon to be joined by Sophie who will be a BIG SISTER too around the end of the year.

All the BIG GIRLS had a campout with Aunt Paula in her room!! Aunt Paula is home for the summer! :) She just finished her 2nd year at BYU! Paula entertained us with her adventures from working at LUBY'S this summer.

Despite all the girl activites going on there was plenty for all the BOYS to do too! One of the favorites was going over to Grandma Goodwin's house, just around the corner, to watch the NBA playoffs!

It was good to see Grandma Goodwin again! :)

The BOYS had some good times of their own! They enjoyed playing all sorts of games together! They played so much that I hardly got any pictures of them except when it was time to eat! That was about the only time they'd slow down enough for me to get some pictures!

Here is Fielding Zogg, Walter Zogg, Tanner Greenwood, Andrew, and Connor Greenwood eating our yummy lunch grilled by Grandpa!

Of course we couldn't have a Prince family gathering without some yummy Bluebell ice cream for dessert!! :)

Hmmm...caught red handed or just guarding the ice cream???

Andrew, Fielding & Walter (Sara's boys)

Thomas had fun playing with Sophie! Here is Thomas trying to teach Sophie how to share the swing! He's telling her that he will push her and give her a turn....

Then it is supposed to be Thomas' turn...

Everyone is happy! :)

It wouldn't be a Prince family get together without a good, competitive game out back with the BIG BOYS!!!

Edd and Eldon played "Hot Pocket" with the kids one day...

and a Frisbee game the next...

WOW!!! Check out that BLING!!!

Sunday morning we went to church with Edd's mom and dad. After lunch, we packed up and drove to Houston for a sleepover with Dan and Melissa's family! Melissa was 9 months pregnant...due any day...so they couldn't come see us in Austin. We thought it would be fun to stop and see them on the way home!

Of course the kids didn't mind making an extra stop!! They were all so excited to see more cousins!!

TOP: Thomas, Aimee and Ben

BOTTOM: George , Mattie and Andrew

MISSING: Henry...sweet little guy had gone to bed, but was still excited to see everyone, Bethany...was excited to see everyone too, but got the opportunity to spend the night with her friends Brooke, Raegan, and Cheney! :)

George, Ben and Thomas loved showing off some of their new gymnastics skills!! :)

Ready, set...

This is Thomas doing a "table!" Ben just finished doing one!

Monday morning, we ate a quick breakfast, then hit the road. It was nice to have the drive home 3 hours shorter, but it was still 5 LONG hours back to our house.

Unfortunately, it seemed like an ETERNITY for Thomas...

Here is Thomas trying to escape his car seat...using the cliff diving method...

Once he was out he said he was going to stay in that little spot FOREVER!!!

Forever didn't last very long. Soon after, Thomas was back in his seat sitting in Andrew's sleeping bag because Thomas was cold. But later tried the HOUDINI METHOD to escape...

Oh what a sad little boy!!!

How are we ever going to make the 30 hour drive to Utah???

ps. Dan and Melissa welcomed their 4th little boy, Sam, to the world just a couple days after we visited!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY! :)

2010-06-20T21:11:00.008-05:00

Happy Father's Day! I hope everyone had a good day! I know we did! It started with some yummy blueberry muffins, made from scratch. Thomas and Mattie helped me make them. We used the blueberries we picked the other day!

At church, Bethany played a violin duet with another girl, Tiffany Badger, who is B's age. They played, "Oh My Father." They did a great job!

The last few minutes of church, the Young Women had set out the fixins for an icecream sundae for all the men 18 years old and older to enjoy!

Yes, that's a frog in Thomas' hand...it wouldn't be a complete family picture without one...a frog! :)

The Young Women's president and I found out Tuesday night at our Relief Society activity that the YW had done the Father's Day goodies in the past. Glad we found out!!! Thus the email I sent out frantically Tues night to the family! Thanks for all of your responses! John suggested that I list all of them so here you go:

cinnamon rolls in gym after church
gum or candy bar with play on words
homemade notebooks
Jelly Belly's
Joe said cookies would make him happy! :)
chocolates made with tool molds to make them more manly
John said one of his wards let them out of priesthood a few minutes served a nice cake and let the dads just eat and talk
little containers of icecream
heart shaped Mrs Field's chocolate chip cookies
Hershey bars covered in paper with just the "HE" showing with a good quote or scripture
100 Grand candy bars or pens
I even got a suggestion for a TIE!!! :)

THANKS AGAIN for all the suggestions!! :)

Edd was able to sneak a quick nap for a few minutes before he left for hometeaching. Then we had his favorite dinner, "Chicken Mexicana," when he got back.

We let Edd open his gifts right before family council. Thomas loved helping Edd open his wrapped present! Edd was excited to get the book he's been salivating over for weeks! He saw it at Barnes and Noble on one of our dates and showed it to me. So a few weeks ago when I was there getting Bethany's required summer reading books, I got it! :)

After he opened his other presents, Edd spent the rest of the night looking at his new book, "My New Orleans The Cookbook," by John Besh. He's already picked out what he's going to make us first!

He did break for some Blue Bell homemade vanilla icecream...with some chilled fresh blueberries! :)

Our unique wakeup call...

2010-06-19T23:16:00.006-05:00

Here in Madisonville, we have a unique wakeup call...

The Red-headed Woodpeckers in our neighborhood like to sit on the chimney and tap...

Our first official full day of SUMMER started early with our wakeup call, which came before 7am! Ususally the woodpecker starts a little after 7...he doesn't come every day either, but Edd got to hear him before he rushed off to a race with Andrew and Bethany!

Edd ran in "The Court Chase," a 5K that his friend had planned. Bethany and Andrew ran the mile race. Andrew came in 2nd place overall and first in his age group. Bethany came in 3rd overall and first in her age group. I think the kids said that Edd came in 38th overall, but we don't know what his place was in his age group.

One of the things I've been doing lately is trying to get my garden going! This is my vegetable garden. So far I've gotten a couple jalapeno peppers and I do have a few green peppers growing.

I've also been working on the front flower beds with Edd's help! They look a lot better!!! Here's a view of the front of the house.

Summer means frogs...tree frogs, toads, bullfrogs, and tadpoles too! Here is Thomas trying to catch a tadpole out of our waterhole! The rain stoppped and the water was drying up. Andrew and Thomas filled the hole back to the top with the water. Unfortunately, it hasn't rained much since and the hole has dried up...it's only about a foot deep.

This is what the woodpecker sounds like inside the house. The first time I heard it, I thought the neighbors were getting some work done. Sortof sounds like a jackhammer! :)

Last day of school = FIRST DAY OF SUMMER! :)

2010-06-09T06:59:00.006-05:00

After much anticipation, we FINALLY made it to the last day of school!!!!!

Andrew, Aimee & Mattie got up and got ready quickly...hmmm...maybe the extra excitement of summer being so close gave them the extra energy to move fast???

They were all ready and out the door super early...like around 6:40-6:45am!!! We try to get out the door by 6:53 because Aimee and Mattie's bus comes around 6:55-7:00. To pass the time, Andrew entertained the girls!

Then we heard the familiar rumble of the bus driving down the road...here she comes!!! As Ms Debi, their bus driver, picked up the girls she yelled out that she was enjoying her present! :)

Andrew was next. His bus usually comes around 7:20-7:25. Thomas kept him busy until Mr Greg pulled up in front of the house!

WE DID IT!!!

WE SURVIVED THE LAST SCHOOL MORNING OF THE 2009-2010 SCHOOL YEAR!!! :)

Bethany was inside still sleeping...it was her first summer morning. She reported to us a few days earlier that the teachers basically told them not to come on the last day!

Bethany finally got up she commented that getting up at 7:30-8am was like sleeping in after getting up for Seminary every morning! :)

After we got some breakfast, Bethany and I took Thomas on a bike ride! We rode over to

Guste Island, which is a neighborhood close by. From the road it looks like a regular neighborhood, but just past the apartments and first neighborhood, you are greeted by the SWAMP!

Of course a Louisiana swamp has alligators, but unfortunately we didn't see any. If you want to see one check out http://www.eddzphotojournal.blogspot.com/ look at "Spot the Alligator." We saw plenty of cool trees! This is one that Bethany liked...

We thought it would be fun to live over here by the swamp! :)

Here's B enjoying her first day of summer!

Once we got home, I spent the rest of the day at the sewing machine finishing up my dress to wear at the temple. I got it done just in time! :)

Meanwhile, the kids got home from school just after lunchtime!

Aimee reported that there were only 9 kids in her class!!! She and her friends helped their teacher, Mrs Dronet. They had fun spending their last day together!

Mattie was sad that school was over. She said she was really going to miss her teacher, Mrs Hanagriff!

When Andrew got home, he was ready to leave school behind and didn't give me many details.

Edd came home early and we all headed out to Baton Rouge. It was ward temple night, so Edd dropped Bethany and me off at the temple. Before we arrived at the temple, Edd drove us through the part of town where he and his family used to live!

The youth were doing baptisms for the dead. I was the only Young Women leader there so I helped hand out towels. This was the first time I got to go as a leader! :)

The rest of the gang headed over to Cabela's and had a grand adventure there! When Bethany and I were all done, Edd came and picked us back up. We went to Chick-fil-a for dinner! :) Our drive home took forever!!! We couldn't go on I-12 because it had been shut down for a day due to an accident they were still trying to clean up. So we ended up taking HWY 190, along with a ton of other cars!

We were so glad when we finally got home! It was a LONG but FUN day! :)

WE LOVE SUMMER!!! :)

End of School Craziness!

2010-06-01T21:46:00.008-05:00

There's nothing like a crazy schedule to make time fly by!!! The month of May was practically over before it started!!!

Here are some highlights of the end of the school year:

Andrew's 5th grade BAND CONCERT!

Andrew started band at the beginning of the school year! He plays the clarinet! Andrew seems to enjoy band! He has also taken private lessons this year.

Andrew liked band so much that he signed up for it again next year!! :) I didn't even have to talk him into it! :)

The 5th grade band is pretty BIG!

He looks like a natural! :)

Andrew's Awards Assembly!

Thomas and I attended Andrew's awards ceremony! It was held Wednesday, May 19th in the morning.

Andrew received the "Academic Achievement Award for 3.5 or higher"!

We are so proud of Andrew and all of his hard work!!! :)

Here's Andrew with his buddies...Tristan is Andrew's classroom buddie and of course Thomas, Andrew's little buddie and shadow! :)

End of the year gifts for the teachers!

Andrew, Aimee & Mattie gave their teachers and bus drivers a movie night treat! (Thanks for the idea Mom!)

Aimee's Awards & Commencement!

Aimee's awards ceremony & commencement was held on Thursday, May 20th at 10:30am!

I dropped Thomas off at a friend's house so he could have fun and so I could enjoy Aimee's program! :)

There were balloons decorating the room...helium...and some very special balloons up by the risers with each of the 3rd graders' self portraits! It was really neat! This is Aimee's balloon! :)

Each of the 4 classrooms presented awards to their kids. When it was Aimee's classroom's turn, I could tell she was getting a little nervous! Only one boy and one girl from each room was getting the "Citizenship Award." Aimee had been talking about it all week and telling me how her friends had nominated her for one of the special awards!

Sure enough, Aimee's name was read! She received the "Citizenship Award!"

Here is Aimee getting her award from her teacher, Mrs Dronet! :)

Aimee also received an award for being a member of the Safety Partol this year!

Once the classroom awards were handed out, the kids performed a special song! They did the sign language to Josh Groban's song, "You Raise Me Up!" It was dedicated to the Principal and to the parents...it was beautiful! :)

After the song, the principal handed out their commencement certificates! :)

Aimee is heading off to 4th grade, which is at the Jr High where we live!

So I tried to upload the video of the sign language song, but it wouldn't work. I'll try and email it out to the family! If you want to see it you can email me at anniebanannie16@gmail.com

I've had technical difficulties all weekend long so the last day of school will be in another post!

Mother's Day

2010-05-29T22:24:00.005-05:00

It's been a long time since I've been able to blog! It's been super busy with all the end of school things going on! I was trying to get caught up while we were in Austin for the weekend (Memorial Day weekend). I got the title of my blog typed then my hand hit something and it posted! Sorry for the teaser!!! I'd planned on finishing right away since the pressure was on, but my family pager went off!!!

Mother's Day was a wonderful, but busy day!!!

Edd and Mattie made me breakfast! I had yummy French toast, my favorite :), sausages and juice! I was treated to breakfast at the table this year for ease in cutting my French toast since it was made out of real French bread! YUM YUM! One of the perks of living in Louisiana! :) A downside was that Thomas decided that he was going to share with me since we always share everything! On the upside though, I could enjoy the aroma of my beautiful flower arrangement that Edd gave me for Mother's Day! :)

Here is the back side! :) BEAUTIFUL! Edd's friend from work, Lisa, made it! Edd told her what kind of flowers he wanted and each of the kids decorated a wooden heart for me!

After breakfast we hurried to get out the door by 9am so we wouldn't be late for church! On my way back through the kitchen, I found this gigantic card from Bethany! Of course I had to stop and read it even though the whole family was in the van waiting for me! :) Momentary mental lapse! :) Ok, so the family wasn't waiting for me. They'd already gone! Except for Bethany!

Bethany and I took the truck to church because we had to leave early! Bethany had her GNOYO Mother's Day concert in the afternoon! So after Sunday School, we headed across the lake. The concert was at Loyola University, where they have all the GNOYO performances. This was my first time driving into New Orleans by myself! I was a little nervous, but Edd gave me great directions! He's usually the one who takes Bethany to the GNOYO performances so he's figured out the tricks.

The concert was wonderful! It was fun to see Bethany perform! It was a great Mother's Day treat! :)

After the concert, we hurried home for delicious dinner Edd had prepared for me. He made fish tacos, with grilled fish, with grilled corn on the cob and yummy green beans! Oh it was soo good! :)

Aimee and Mattie made me some fun Mother's Day gifts in school! Aimee made me a book and Mattie made me a magnet for the fridge! Edd got me a BIG picture of all the kids to put over the fireplace!

What a great day! :)

Ben and George...

2010-05-12T09:26:00.007-05:00

and Henry too! :) The cousins came to visit!!! Thomas could hardly wait for Ben and George to come see us again! Luckily, Thomas has a birthday in the middle of the week to help him wait all the way until Friday (April 23rd) when Ben and George finally made it to our house!!

Once the boys were reunited, it was fun times for all! :) We all hung out on the driveway while Dan and his family stretched their legs after their long drive from Houston. A cloudburst quickly ended the outdoor fun!

We all went inside and the fun times continued! When Edd finally made it home, he and I took Dan & Melissa out to dinner at a fun restaurant in Mandeville. George and Ben spent the evening with their favorite babysitter, Bethany, and the kids...what a fun night!

Saturday, Edd and Dan took everyone to Global Wildlife for some fun animal adventures while Bethany and I were at B's violin lesson.

When we all got back to the house, Edd grilled up some of his yummy hamburgers...as requested by Melissa! Of course they were delicious! :) After dinner, we headed to the park!

Aimee enjoyed walking with Ben and George!

Henry had his own agenda!!! He liked riding Thomas' bike, but decided to take a detour before he got to the park!

Once we got to the park, the BIG BOYS went looking for frogs with Connor, our bishop's son.

Connor had been swimming at the pool with his sisters and a bunch of youth from our ward...along with Bethany! They were having a welcome home party for Connor's big sister, Ashlee, who'd just gotten back from her first year at BYU.

I think Connor was glad to escape from the teenager scene and join the boys in their frog hunt! :) After the boys realized that the 3 frogs they were chasing had hopped off, they went off to play.

Isn't Ben a cutie!!! He is about 6 months younger than Thomas. Before we moved, Melissa and I thought it would be so fun for the boys to play together! Unfortunately, Thomas was a HUGE MOMMA'S BOY.

It is amazing how much Thomas has changed in less than a year!!! Now he loves just running off and leaving me to play with the boys! :)

George had fun watching Andrew play Wizards 101 and they also loved playing against our kids on the wii!!

Thomas and Ben showed off their gymnastics skills by making bridges!

Ben also liked looking at the frogs with Thomas and especially loved holding the frogs! Uncle Dan didn't like it when the frogs would jump away, but Henry thought it was pretty funny!!! :)

Henry liked to try and get Thomas! When Thomas wasn't looking, Henry would reach out and try and grab him!

All the kids had so much fun playing together! It was sad when Dan and his cute family had to go back home!

Thanks for coming to visit! Next time we see you, there will be a new baby Prince, hopefully!!! Can't wait!!! :)

***I'm a little frustrated...can't figure out how to get my text to line up with my pictures...maybe some day I'll figure all this out!!! Maybe that should be my summer project!***

Thomas is 4 now!!! :)

2010-05-09T13:51:00.004-05:00

It FINALLY happened!

Thomas turned 4! He had a fun day! It started off with playing with his frog of the week...

After playing with the frog, Thomas helped me mix up his cake! The best part was getting to lick the beater and bowl! :)

After waiting all day, it was time for the birthday party to begin!!! :)
Thomas opened his presents as fast as he could...he was so excited!!

The kids made this poster in honor of Thomas and his birthday!

Here is Thomas and his African Jungle Waterfall cake! It was a special request!

What a BIG BOY!! Thomas is finally 4!!! :) If you ask him how old he is, he is likely to flash you 5 fingers!!! I think he's in a hurry to grow up!!!

Glad you had a fun day! :)

Birthday Countdown

2010-04-18T15:24:00.010-05:00

About six weeks ago, I was asked a very important question by a very inquisitive little boy, "Momma, how many more days until my birfday?"

After hearing this question numerous times since we had all our January birthdays, I decided it was time to help Thomas see how many days.

So we made a BIG calendar that counted down til Thomas BIG DAY!!! Unfortunately there were 42 more days left...

42 LONG DAYS!!!

After 1 cousin being born, 2 holidays ~ St Patrick's Day & Easter, 3 fun filled days with the Greenwoods, 4 family adventures, 5 days at church, 6 gymnastics classes, 7 days off from school...not including the weekends, 8 days playing with Spring frogs...at least, and a whole bunch of family birthdays...cousins', aunt's, uncle's, Grandma Cutler's, Daddy's and Bethany's...it's almost the BIG DAY!!!!

Today, is Thomas' last day to be 3! :)

Thomas is such a fun little boy! His enthusiasm and excitement for LIFE...including critters and creepy crawlers...is contagious! :)

At times, these past few weeks, Thomas wasn't quite sure he wanted to grow up. Here are a few examples of some of our conversations:

Thomas: Momma, I don't want to get BIG.
Me: Why not?
Thomas: I want to stay this wittle!

another day~

Thomas: Momma, I don't want to get BIG.
Me: Why not?
Thomas: I don't want to be a dad.
Me: Why don't you want to be a dad?
Thomas: I don't want to go to work. It's BORING!!!

another day~

Thomas: Momma, I don't want to get BIG.
Me: Why don't you want to be big?
Thomas: I want to be this size....I want to be as BIG AS ANDREW!!! Can you tell Andrew to stop growing so I can know when I am his size???

Whether I like it or not, Thomas is growing up! He used to be my "VELCRO CHILD" and wouldn't leave my side! Now he has become very independent!! Just today, we were at the park for playgroup, he told me not to follow him...that he didn't need me and I just needed to stay where I was!!!

The day that "the kids" (Bethany, Andrew, Aimee & Mattie) went back to school after Spring Break, Thomas woke up right before Andrew left for school. Once Andrew left, Thomas asked where the rest of the kids were. I told them they were already at school and said, "It's just you and me!" Thomas used to love it when I'd say that and get excited and giggle and say something cute back, but this particular morning, Thomas scrunched his face up and said, "I don't like you. You're BORING!"

He spent the rest of the week playing ALL DAY LONG with the neighbor kids, who go to private school, and were having their Spring Break! One day Thomas played with them from 9:30 till I took him with me to run errands. We were gone just a couple of hours. Once we got back, Thomas was back playing as soon as he could get out of the van! He played until it got dark! I'm glad he is starting to play with the neighbors and make new friends! :)

Yesterday, Thomas impressed the kids by pouring his own breakfast cereal and milk...and did it without even spilling!!! This was the first time he'd done it on his own too!!! The kids thought it was pretty amazing!!! :)

Occasionally, Thomas still likes me. He usually brings me a flower from the garden each day! One day, I just happened to look out the window and saw Thomas looking at different clover flowers, but then he stopped and went over to the rose bush. He picked a rose and brought it in to me...what a sweetheart!

Thomas has been so excited to see frogs again!!! There was one particularly large frog that had eluded everyone Thomas had elisted to capture it. One morning last week, he was bound and determined to catch that frog. Starting right after Andrew got on the bus...about 7:30am...Thomas was checking on the frog and he'd come give me a report. After a couple of hours, Thomas was so anxious to catch that frog!!! He asked me to come help.

After a few failed attempts and waiting for the frog to emerge from his hiding place for hours...literally...I stealthily stuck my hand into the muddy water, which was inside the metal pipe, underneath our neighbor's driveway, and snatched that frog before he could hop away again!!! Thomas was so excited!!! I was his hero for the day!!!! Or at least for the moment! :)

Thomas and I have had so many grand adventures these past few years! It's a little sad to see him grow up, but I'm excited for him to learn and do new things! :)

So here are some pictures of the April birthday bunch. I can't figure out how to drag them where I want them on my laptop. I usually do that on the desktop computer, but it is in a COMA right now...

Thomas loves to help everyone open their presents! Here he is helping Bethany! :)

Here is Bethany after church! Her friends gave her a surprise birthday party during Sunday School! We surprised her on Saturday with a new trampoline! :)

Thomas loves to help blow out birthday candles too! It's good practice for him! :) Big Edd is turning 40 and litte Edd is turning 04!

Here is Thomas and his calendar we made to count down to his birthday!

This Bethany with her violin teacher, Lauren. Lauren's birthday is April 3rd! Bethany and Lauren have quite a bit in common! :) Lauren even likes Bethany's random socks! :)

Happy Birthday Edd! He has had fun letting the kids know that he's old and wise!!! :) Since we have 3 birthdays 3 days apart from each other, we try to pick fun birthday desserts! Edd requestd homemade strawberry shortcake! Bethany requested poppyseed cake! Thomas requested a huge waterfall, jungle cake with a hippo!

The April Birthday Bunch!!! Here is Edd on his actual birthday which was Thursday. He had to pick Bethany up from her GNOYO orchestra practice. They didn't get home till after 8pm. We celebrated his birthday on Friday. Edd made us some yummy crawfish etoufee! :)

Here is Bethany with her birthday cake! Thomas helped me put the candles on and this is how they ended up! :) She looks pretty good for being 51 doesn't she! :)

SPRING BREAK :)

2010-04-11T15:04:00.007-05:00

SPRING BREAK ~ PART 1

We had an early SPRING BREAK this year!!! Edd's sister, Patti and her family came down from Arlington, TX to visit us at the end of their Spring Break! It was so fun to see them again!!! :)

We took them to Honey Island for a swamp tour! The alligators were just starting to come out of hibernation so we were able to see a few of them out sunning themselves. There were also snakes and other swamp life to see...even bees coming from a beehive in one of the trees! Thus the name Honey Island Swamp!

The cousins had such a fun time being with each other again! :)

Thomas, Mattie, Aimee & Allison

Tanner, Andrew, Connor, Quinn & Bethany

Here is a young alligator sunning himself! This one is about 3-4 feet long. The wooden path leads up to one of the houses along the river!!! We saw a few other gators on our tour. The biggest one was only about 4 feet. The BIG alligators wait longer until it is warmer outside so they can warm themselves better!

It's officially "CRAWFISH SEASON!" Therefore, when one comes to Louisiana, one must experience crawfish!!!

Edd picked up about 40lbs of live crawfish! The boys thought it was pretty cool to look at them all swimming in the tub!!! The challenge was, who would touch a live crawfish??? Here's a picture of Connor holding one!

Edd and Scott cooked up the crawfish for us. Of course they had quite the audience. Once the crawfish were boiling, the boys lost interest and moved on...until the food was ready!

Most the kids at least tried the crawfish, a few even really liked it!!!

Edd and Scott ended up peeling crawfish for about an hour after we finished eating because we had so many crawfish!!!

This was Edd's first CRAWFISH BOIL! He was excited!!! It turned out pretty good! Of course there will be a little tweaking the next time to get things just right!

CRAWFISH QUESTION: Do you eat a crawfish with a curled tail or a straight tail?

While Edd and Scott were peeling, I was given the assignment to find instructions on how to preserve our leftovers. While I was hunting, I found a page...ways to tell if you are CAJUN...well I couldn't find the exact one tonight, but the one I did find tonight had this on there:

You know you are in Cajun Country when any carbonated softdrink (soda or pop), is called a COKE, regardless of brand or flavor.

I had always heard about this, but actually saw it in print the other day!!

I was cleaning up some random school papers and came across an announcement paper for Andrew's class Easter party. There was a list of desired items that you could choose to donate for the party. One of the items listed was "canned Cokes!"

Growing up, I don't remember calling the stuff in the can pop or soda. We always called things by their names...Sprite, Coke, etc. After living in the South for nearly 15 years now, I prefer "pop!"

Anyway, we had a great weekend playing with Patti, Scott, Quinn, Connor, Tanner, and Allison! Even Thomas had a good time with all the kids!!! We took them to our favorite park...the scenic way and they even got to see a sunset over Lake Pontchartrain!

Sunday morning, we all sat on one pew at church...what a sight...all those cute kids...nine in all!!! I reminded Edd that's what his family looked like, sort of, when he was a kid since there were 9 in his family...they were a little spaced out more.

Patti and her family left from church to drive back home. So when we got to our house, it was soooo quiet. The kids missed the Greenwoods so much! It was sad...

Luckily, we did have something to look forward to!!! On my phone was a message from our friends, the Jensens!!! The were on their way back from their Spring Break in Florida and wanted to stop by on their way home on Monday!

So Monday afternoon we hung out with the Jensens for a couple of hours!!! It was so fun to meet thier baby, Landon, he's such a cute boy! Andrew and Ashton were practically inseperable!!! Savannah was glad to see Aimee and Mattie too! It was hard for Andrew and Ashton to say good-bye. They met when they were 3, I think, and were best friends from day 1!!! We promised we'd get the boys together soon!!! Not soon enough in Andrew's book though...he was ready to just leave right then with Ashton!!!

SPRING BREAK ~ PART 2

Finally, it was time for our Spring Break! We talked about all the different places we could go; Florida, Texas, Georgia, Alabama, Utah???

How about LOUISIANA???

The first half of the week, we did fun stuff around the area...went to Thomas' gymnastics class, grocery shopping at Wal-Mart, played at the park, played outside...lots of good stuff! :)

Thursday and Friday were a little more fun! Edd took some time off work and we went to Fontainbleau State Park Thursday morning. We went on a nature walk, which was fun! The trees were beautiful with their new green leaves and all the Spanish Moss!

When we got to the wetlands, there were cool birds to see! Aimee and Thomas went snake hunting and found one!!! It was in the water and they didn't touch it, just looked at it in the grasses for a few minutes. Turns out the snake was a Cottonmouth! (poisonous) :)

After our nature walk, it was time for our picnic lunch, then off to the beach! :)

Oh, what a perfect day to sit on the beach and feel the breeze! Or play in the water and sand!! :)

The kids played and played and played!!! It was such a beautiful afternoon!!! Edd even caught a nap!!!

The kids collected clams, made mermaids, and had fun splashing around

After a few hours at the beach we went home! Edd cooked us some yummy hamburgers! What a great day! :)

Good Friday, we drove into New Orleans. We were driving along Canal Street when traffic stopped. After sitting a "parking lot" for a few minutes, not moving an inch, Edd
poked his head out to see the problem.

This was the problem...a PARADE!!! Imagine that! It was different to watch a Good Friday Parade!

Once the parade passed, traffic started flowing again. We were getting excited...almost to the Insectarium!!!

But alas, once again traffic stopped! Can you believe it, there was another parade!!! Luckily, it was a short parade group and the police let us pass it!

FINALLY, we made it to the Insectarium! :) Once inside, there were so many things to look at!!! All sorts of bugs!!! Live ones, dried ones, plastic ones, painted ones...they were everywhere! It was so neat!!! :)

Thomas brought his magnifying glass so he could see things, BIG!!

The last room was the live butterfly room! There were all different kinds of butterflies! Edd had fun trying to get a few shots of the butterflies! He got a few really good ones! One of the butterflies landed on Andrew! :)

After the Insectarium, we went back to our side of the lake and played at the Bogue Falaya Park for a little while, then we went out to dinner at Outback! :)

It was a fun week!

We had a good Easter Weekend listening to Conference and spending time with each other! :)

Farewell Winter! :)

2010-03-11T08:25:00.007-06:00

We had a great time watching the Winter Olympics! Some of our favorite events to watch were snowboarding ~ Shaun White was AMAZING, GIRLS figure skating and ice dancing, ski jumping - aerials!!! We also enjoyed cross-country skiing! What a good time! We spent many nights together as a family on the couch watching, cuddling, and even did some snoozing! :)

Some Olympic thoughts:

~Boys should definitely not by figure skaters!!!

~Curling is a sport???

~Halfpipe is incredible!!!

~What do all the 2nd, 3rd & 4th BOBSLED riders do???

Watching the Olympics inspired Aimee to play ice skater...here she is arriving at her competition...

Here she is ready to perform!!! I guess being born in January helps endure the cold temps outside! It wasn't very warm while Aimee was out! It was only in the 50's but temperature is all relative!!! Once you've endured weeks of 30's, temps in the 50's feel WARM...right?!?

Mattie also skated! Here they are at their medals ceremony!

Another Olympic hopeful??? Thomas started gymnastic this year! He seems to really enjoy it! Here is he is with his teacher Ms Debbie! He's learning how to do a cartwheel! :)

Andrew had a fun scouting month in February! Our ward had their PINEWOOD DERBY! Andrew's car came in 2nd overall! He was pretty excited!!!

Max (L) got 3rd place, Andrew got 2nd, and Hunter (R) got 1st! I was proud of all the scouts!!! They all did a great job! Sometimes I miss being with the boys. I got called to work with the Young Women back in January.

Here is Andrew at the BLUE and GOLD banquet! :)

MARCH 1st was an exciting day!!! It was pretty windy! There's a crack under our front door that makes the wind howl when it's really windy! As I was making dinner, the kids were talking about how windy it was and comparing it to when we had Hurricane Ike! The wind was pretty strong and bending the trees quite a bit! Aimee said the it was because MARCH comes...

It sure did this year!!! All of the sudden, everything went DARK!!!

Luckily, we have a gas cook top and I was almost done cooking dinner! The kids didn't really want to eat in the dark, but we had our camping lanterns. I told them it was like when we had Hurricane Ike or when we go camping.

After dinner, Bethany entertained us with some piano by candle light! :)

The blue glow on her arm is from her cell phone! :)

After Edd got home from work, he started a fire in the fireplace and we roasted marshmallows and made s'mores! :)

We had a great time relaxing in the dark, but were very thankful the power was back on by morning so we could get ready! :)

It finally looks like SPRING!!! The leaves are starting to come out on the trees! We've enjoyed "POPCORN" trees for a couple of weeks now! Edd and Bethany both commented today that there is more color on the trees now than there is in the fall! It is a very beautiful sight! :) We have been enjoying our short visit with the Robins. They will be soon leaving us and heading up north. We've also been enjoying beautiful weather! It finally stopped raining and it has actually been WARM!!! :) It has been so nice to have the windows open! :) It is still pretty windy...which is nice too, but now our whole world is covered in a light yellow dust! :)

We are counting down weeks till summer...8 left!!! Why much SPRING be so short?????