April Adventures

April! April! I have no idea what weather we had, but according to all of my pictures it was a beautiful spring in Pennsylvania! We went to parks and played ...

We went to parks and rode bikes ...

 

Some of us decided that tripods were really cameras, and that undies were suitable outfits for budding photographers ...

We enjoyed the fruits of Kindergarten ... (he used a pseudonym, of COURSE) ...

And we had a fabulous Easter. Happy Easter (a few months late) ...

March Magic

March! We're to March! In March Erik and Dad went with an Uncle and Cousin to New York - fun! First they did baptisms in the Manhattan temple, then they did the normal touristy things.

In March we also had great art on our eraser board, courtesy of my Man. 

Hopefully something soaks in, right?

We also had a visit from some of our favorite people in the world! Hansens, WE LOVE YOU!

And finally, GRANNA came! We love Granna! She took everyone out for fabulous times, played, had fun, made fudge (yum), and Diva, after waiting for years and years and years, finally got her ears pierced. She was brave and barely flinched. 

 (Peanut stealing Granna's drink. It's a good thing he's so cute.)

February Flings

February! I know, you have all been breathlessly anticipating this blog. You have all been wondering ... WHAT did we do in February? Well, wonder no longer!!

 Diva and her Dad went out on a date to Chickfila.
She is our feisty jewel in a household of boys.

 Jace turned 11!! Which is crazy to write about, because right now he's about to turn 12. 

Ack! Time to keep blogging!

We took a President's Day weekend trip to Maine! We had a blast. We love Maine. If you have never been to Maine, go! It is beautiful! Even in the winter. Especially in the winter. Even to this California-bred-warmth-craving girl. We watched a beloved friend get baptized, snow mobiled, hot tubbed in the snow, tapped some maple trees, and visited fabulous friends.  Thank you friends! It was a great trip.

 And lastly, Diva showed off one of her methods of dealing with all of the many boys in her life.

 

See you in March! ;)

January Jaunts

Here I sit, a repentant blogger. Alas, this year I have blogged twice - the first time was a recap of LAST year, the second was focused on my hair. Hmm. This blog has many purposes, one of which was to share with extended family and friends pictures and goings on. In that respect I have failed. Miserably. But, here I sit, a repentant blogger. So, should we start with January?


Okay, wow. In reviewing pictures of January, it seems like quite a lot happened. Shall we get to it, then?

First, we had a few deaths in the family. Our surprisingly cute Chinese Water Dragon died. (And he actually was pretty cute - I would let him perch on my shoulder fairly often, and I'm not what you would consider a pet lover.) Erik's African dwarf frog died too. At least he was memorialized well ...

 

>

 

It snowed a lot during January, and as a family with four busy boys, it felt like we were out in it. A lot. I hate hanging out in the cold, but if I don't, who will take the pictures? And thankfully my hubby is happy to dive into the snow with the kids, so my duties are ONLY as camera woman. And at least it justifies a huge mug of cocoa. Not that I necessarily NEED justification for a huge mug of cocoa ...

 

 In January I ran away, by myself, TWICE. I'm sorry, couldn't you understand that? I'll repeat myself, just in case you missed it. I flew on a plane BY MYSELF. For several DAYS. TWICE. And it was glorious. My first trip was to see my baby brother get married to an amazing woman. They were adorable! He sang to her! I got to play with my brothers and marvelous sister in law! I got to play Aunt instead of Mom and it was FUN!

My second trip was to visit my very favorite fabulous friend. Did I mention I was BY MYSELF? Yep, I thought I did. We spent the weekend eating yummy things and generally having fun, and again I got to play Aunt to her kids instead of Mom to my own. (I love being a Mom, but I'm of the strong opinion that occasionally missing your kids is healthy.) Not to be remiss in our duties, my f.f.f. (favorite fabulous friend) and I even taste tested chocolate from different countries around the world. Unfortunately, I can't remember which country won, which means ... well ... I guess we'll just have to do it again. Only in the name of science, of course.

 And lastly, in January we had some fun friends come visit us, and they brought us the biggest Whoopie Pie I've ever seen. And we ate it. All.

 So there you go, January. Bored yet? Well, just you wait. I have 10 more months to get through before I'm caught up ...

Loving the Curls

 I have had a love/hate relationship with my hair for most of my adult life. (And yes, this is a hair post. Feel free to stop reading now.) I have naturally wavy hair, which didn't bother me through most of high school and college. I even remember LIKING my hair, which is a foreign concept to me now. And then I moved, had babies, etc. etc. etc. And my hair, spoiled in the CA (high school) and UT (college) dryness, possibly tampered with by several pregnancies, decided to become a monster when confronted by that thing called humidity. It was either frizzed curls (I would occasionally bring out my defuser to let it "go natural"), or easily frizzed and still slightly waved "straight". Ugh. The words "straight" and "sleek" were like a siren call on any product I bought. The results? Occasionally straight hair. But rarely, ok never, sleek. My hair just didn't do sleek, unless I had just came from a hair stylist, which happened maybe once a year or so. And then, if I did manage to get it somewhat straight, any drop of moisture in the air quickly destroyed it. So I either spent forever blowing/ironing my hair straight, or kept it in a messy ponytail so I didn't have to think about it. And even when I DID spend forever blowing/ironing my hair straight (usually only for Sundays or special occasions, unless I was really cold or needed a good excuse to read), then it was usually back in its messy ponytail the next day, frizz once more slightly waving it. I knew I could go the expensive-to-maintain-and-hugely-damaging-to-my-hair route of a Brazilian blowout, or something like that. Or maybe I could get an in-house stylist and have HER worry about my hair. But I'm generally a low maintenance kind of person and really, really wanted low-maintenance hair that looked better than a messy ponytail.

Then, six weeks ago, I saw the light. I've been reading several online articles about "Curly Girls" and their fight with their hair. My dear readers, there is a Curly Revolution going on right now! And so I decided to take the plunge and free my hair - to let it be curly, to finally learn how to reduce the frizz. The result? I think I like my hair. I know! I don't love it yet. But I like it. I've been Straight-Free for 7 weeks now.

Wait, is this blog post only about my hair? Yes. Yes it is.

You see, this is a huge deal to me. Monumental. It doesn't seem huge to most people, but I feel it's a declaration of sorts! I will no longer force my hair straight! I will learn to like my hair! I may even learn to LOVE my hair! At the beginning of this liberation I mentioned my new-found determination to a few very select people. One of my friends, not noticing the OBVIOUS curly state of my hair, said she hadn't noticed - I looked like me with straight hair and I looked like me with curly hair. Okay, so that was a bit of a letdown. And then I remembered I'm doing this for me! Yes, validation is a wonderful thing. But if I stopped slaving over my hair and NOBODY NOTICED, doesn't that just scream that it's ABOUT TIME I STOPPED SLAVING OVER MY HAIR?

Yes.

So, for the last 7 weeks I've had curly hair. My hair is not super curly, but definitely more curly than what you would consider "waves". And better yet? It's easy! It's really easy! For seven weeks I've had easily maintained curls. And I have two confessions - for seven weeks I have not used a brush on my hair. I know! Strange! So strange! But I really haven't! Combing through my hair with water on my hands is all I need to do - brushes just frizz it out. And second - no, I won't admit it. Never mind. My darling husband warned me to not to admit it to random people. (And, by the way, he LOVES the curls.) Okay, maybe I will. For seven weeks I have not used a speck of shampoo. I know, sorry! TMI!  But it's so liberating! And I know it sounds icky! But it's not, I promise! My hair is clean! Shampoo just frizzed it out - I still clean it, for goodness sake. And I use a LOT of conditioner. No more brushes! Shampoo! Hairspray! Mouse! Serums! Flat Irons! Curling irons! Curlers! And now, sometimes, I even feel like I have magic hair - my hair is MAGIC!! It can be in a messy bun all day, and just by finger combing through some water it's ready to go. Which is awesome.

I'm sorry, I know I'm waxing a bit long on this. But it's a big deal for me. But now I have this awareness of how prevalent straight hair is in the media - where are all of the curly girls? We have a few representatives, but mostly it's that sleek, straight look that yes, I still covet a bit. But it's just NOT ME. And NEVER WILL BE ME and I can finally come to terms with it. Straight hair has even overrun animated cartoons! Thank goodness for the new Brave cartoon coming out. Yay for Curls! Seriously, if at the end of the movie she shows up in triumph with straight hair, I will scream.

So there it is. My hair is curly. And I've finally accepted it.

And yes, I'm ignoring that this is the first blog post in over 6 months. Perhaps I'll be back with news of family doings. :)

Random Snippets

We had a busy but fabulous Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years!  I feel like I've been running around with my head cut off for months.  I assigned myself a huge project that made me a little insane as Christmas grew ever closer.  I have been a huge slacker when it comes to transferring family videos off of whatever medium they were originally recorded on, to a medium that is easily viewable.  So I decided to reform my ways, get up to date, and present my dearest hubby with a stack of freshly minted Family DVD's for Christmas.  I was five and a half years behind.  Fourteen hours of video and 8 DVD's later, I accomplished my mammoth task.  It took a LOT of time.  I even included slideshows of many many pictures - 2,947 to be exact.  And even better?  AFTER Christmas I burned another two hours on the 9th DVD so I am STILL up to date.  Which is awesome.  But it also means I've been slacking on almost every other area in my life, including blogging.  

What did I learn from burning sixteen hours of family fun?  

Our lives can be summed up as:

Jace's Birthday

Easter

Hubby's Birthday

Summer Fun (usually camping or some kind of water something or other)

Dane's Birthday

Diva's Birthday

Halloween

My Birthday (surprisingly recorded twice during the 5 1/2 year span)

Thanksgiving (only if we had company or went somewhere)

Peanut's Birthday

Erik's Birthday

Christmas

... and repeat.

Throw in some occasional random dancing and recently a soccer game or two (or more ...) and you can guess how our lives have been and will be for many years to come.

So, things I missed telling you while I was sorting through family festivities:

1) We survived four kids in soccer!  Hurrah!  Hurray!  But now we're thinking four kids in soccer was easier than one kid in wrestling ... we'll see if we survive this newest adventure!  A few soccer highlights:

 

 
(You do not need to watch all 1:09 minutes.  Just watch from second :21 (Erik is the second "header") to about second :42, after Erik's throw-in and missed kick. Unless you want to enjoy a Father's Commentary on a Soccer Son, using the wrong name of course ;-)  You can also hear Peanut yelling for his brother.

2) My baby is THREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Ack!  My cute little Peanut is growing up.  I need to snuggle a baby so I don't decide I need my own.  Maybe it's time for a kitten ...

3) I have a teenager now.  Erik is officially 13.  Yikes.

4) Dane's Christmas List:

hamster
snake
Chinese Water Dragon baby
turtle
crab
chameleon
baby gorilla
two headed lizard
dog
cat
lizard with no legs but not a snake
crocodile biting turtle

basilisk
rabbit
toy horns
grabber
pointer
bubblegum
money

(The first six pets have been a constant plea.  When he realized I was writing them down he started getting a little creative.  I love how he ends his exotic list with bubblegum and money.  Unfortunately, no live animals greeted him on Christmas morning.  But he did get some bubblegum!)

 

5) I FINISHED THE STOCKINGS!!  Many eons ago, when I was pregnant with Jace, I made lovely matching stockings for my family.  They were cute.  I even sewed an extra one for the not-yet-on-the-horizon baby #3.  When Diva arrived I simply decorated her stocking in the same manner as the other stockings.  Then Dane arrived.  Poor, poor stockingless Dane.  I finally managed to sew a matching stocking for him, but it remained blank for many years.  Then Peanut was born.  Poor, poor stockingless Peanut.  He didn't even GET a stocking sewn for him, but used whatever we had on hand.  But finally!  Finally!  This year Dane got his stocking decorated, Peanut got a stocking sewn, and then, miracle of miracles, Peanut got his newly sewn stocking decorated.  Yes, I have had more than three children for 5 1/2 years.  And yes, my stockings finally show it.  In other words, it has taken me over five years to accomplish a fraction of what my much-younger-less-child-encumbered self did in a few weeks.  I would show you a picture, but horror of horrors, you would see our REAL NAMES.  Perhaps I'll facebook it.

6) We made gingerbread ... er ... I mean graham cracker houses.  Well, we can't really call them "houses".  Shall we say "Creations With Graham Crackers and Royal Icing and Lots of Candy"?

7) My husband greeted the world on Christmas Eve with our annual Christmas Blog.  If you haven't read it, you need to.  He doesn't let me read it until he's done writing it and I haven't laughed that hard all year.  If you missed the deluge of emails and facebook statuses alerting our friends that it was available for viewing, let me know and I'll send you the web address.  It's uses our REAL NAMES (shocker!) but he justifies it by making it public only two weeks every year, so you have a few more days to enjoy it ... and READER BEWARE!  He is already planning a music video for next year.  Oh me oh my.