Is this the same kid?

Less than a year ago!!

How can a little guy change so much in less then a year?

They grow up way too fast!

I have an 8 Year old!

This big guy is 8 years old. When I first laid eyes on him, I knew my life would be forever changed. Weston is such a sweet boy. He gives the best hugs ever! He doesn't like to hold my hand anymore when we are in public, but that's ok. He still likes to climb into bed with me and cuddle. Every time I pull out the camera, he decides to be a stinker and act crazy. So I tell him, "You make that face, I blog that face!" I have no idea where he gets the craziness from! We love this guy. Weston's uncle got an Ipod Touch for Christmas last year so he has been begging me to get one for him for his birthday. I found one on Craigs list for a killer deal. It was my first Craigs list purchase, and now I am hooked! Before you all start having cows because I bought my 8 year old and Ipod Touch, let me say 2 things: 1. I get to use it most of the time (so it is kinda like I have one), 2. We told him no big friend birthday party. So there you have it. That is how I justify getting a ridicuous gift for my kid!

We had birthday cake at Grandma Pam's house. Patrick turned 16 a few days before so we added his name to the cake, too! It's the tiny writing in black after Happy Birthday Weston. It was my moms idea. I am too nice to do something so mean!
Chris got Weston a cool skateboard. His uncle Brad is really good at skateboarding and is teaching him all his tricks. He has had a few falls but nothing too major. He is doing really well! He is going to be baptized on Sept. 5th at 6:00 pm. It is going to be at the Bloomington Hills Stake center. We would love to see ya there!

Weston is all for the PEACE. See above picture and below.

I felt a bit bad for not giving him a party, so I let him have a sleepover with his buddy Justin. When these boys get together, it gets a little crazy. They will be downstairs in the basement and it will sound like they are tearing the downstairs up. Well, I thought hmmm. Lets go see what the downstairs looks like. This is what I found:

Sleepy Boy gets a haircut

My friend Crystal has cut our hair forever. I will load all the kids up, take them to United Hairlines, and they will get their haircuts. Without fail, every single time, Cade falls asleep! Crystal had her camera this day so I had to get some pictures. It makes it a bit difficult for her to cut his hair cuz she has to hold his head up while she cuts. Sometimes I am a nice friend and I will assist in the head holding. He will always wake up after and say, I didn't fall asleep, I was just closing my eyes for awhile.

Good-bye my friend!

Jakelle is leaving me for Happy Valley (isn't that what they call Provo?). She has been itching for a change for awhile now. Everything just fell in place for her. She is going to be teaching 4th grade. Hopefully those little stinkers will know how lucky they are to have such an awesome, loving, teacher. I am going to miss her so much, but I know that this is such a good thing for her. I am so excited to see what happens in the next chapter of her life. She is such a great friend, and if you don't know her, your missing out! I love ya girl!

Melissa, Diana, moi, Jaime, Jakelle
We went out to dinner to Haven. Super yummy.
We ordered the Donut dessert as an appetizer....pure bliss!

After we sat down at the table, Jaime disappeared! Where's Jaime?

So, I did fix everyones red eyes in the bottom picture..except for the Guest of Honors. With the tongue action going on and everything, she looks a little devilish, so I couldn't take the red eyes out and ruin it.

I will always ♥ you Joey Mcintyre!

I always knew he was singing this to me,

♫ Step by step ♫

Ooh baby
Gonna get to you girl
Step by step
Ooh baby
Really want you in my world

Back in the 80's, like many, I was obsessed with New Kids on the Block. My best friend Kim and I were definitely their #1 fans. We had all the t-shirts, mugs, sleeping bags, pillows, necklaces, posters, keychains, you name it. If it had Joey Mcintyre's face on it, I owned it. This was back in the day when we lived in Florida. Kim and I have stayed in touch throughout the years so we are Facebook friends. I almost fell out of my chair when I saw this sweet picture that I have never seen! I have no clue where we are at. All I know is that I am rockin a sweet shirt and a sweet side ponytail.

Here I am in all of my NKOTB cuteness. I am in the middle, Kim is the Giant behind me. I don't remember her being so tall, but we are the same age. Crazy. The cute kiddo's are Kims brother and sister.

I totally had one of these mugs...
I wish I would have kept all of my NKOTB stuff.

Faking it...

Sometimes, a really genius idea pops into my head. A few weeks ago, I was at the store thinking how much I loved banana bread, but I only eat it when someone makes it and brings it over. That is when this idea popped into my head! So I decided, because I am so nice, to share my great idea. I think that there are many people who will like this and use this. Just don't tell my neighbors you got the idea from me :)

1. First you go to Harmons, and buy their "Fresh baked bread" Not the sliced kind, I am talking banana bread and poppyseed. It's next to the sugar cookies and cakes.


2. Bring it home and hide it until you are sure you are alone. Close the blinds and lock the door.

3. Once you are alone the fun begins. Take off the plastic lids and stickers. Throw them in the garbage. Take some paper towels and put them on top of the lids to hide the evidence.

4. Get some tinfoil and place it on the top of the exposed bread.

5. Finish it off with some ribbon. Make sure there is no price tag on the bottom.


6. If you want to really push it, go to etsy.com and get some handmade tags to put on them.

Just for the record, I have never actually put this idea to the real test. So if I have ever given you a plate of cookies or something, I totally made them.

After I took these pictures, I cut into the bread to give some to the kids. Chris came home for lunch awhile later. He starts digging into the bread and says, "Who brought this to us?" OK....I guess sometimes I do flat out lie. I said duh! I made it of course! Sorry Chris. Your wife doesn't like to cook.

Another variation of this trick: When you go grocery shopping at Costco or wherever, buy their premade dinners that all you have to do is cook in the oven. Then what you do is take it home, put it into your own baking dishes, and cook it in the oven. I have gotten Chicken cordon bleu from Harmons. It ended up not being as good as I thought so I fessed up right away and said that I didn't cook it. Costco has chicken enchilada's, chicken parmesan, stuffed steak and salmon with the lobster meat on it. Those are the ones that I have tried. Make sure to dirty some mixing bowls in the sink so it is more beleivable.

Filtering..

Do you filter what you write on your blog based on who you know looks at it? Do I? Unfortunately, sometimes I do. I know it seems like I already give TMI, but trust me, I could give more. I want to give it all on my blog. In person, I definitely do. I admire the blogs where they just let it all out there. It bugs me that I filter a bit because if you know me, I am not like that in real life. Quite often, things happen in my life that I think are funny but may not be totally appropriate to put on my "Family Blog". Not super crazy stuff, just things that I might not want to have down in writing. Example: About a month ago, my washing machine broke. It was on a Friday night so I didn't want to pay 3 times as much for a repair guy to come on the weekend. So what does self proclaimed google queen Christina do? Get on the computer and figure it out! So on Saturday, I popped open the back panel of the washing machine and started pulling tubes apart because that's what some guy named Ed said he had done to his washing machine on fixit.com and it fixed his. So if Ed could do it, Christina can. It was very uncomfortable reaching into this tiny space for 3 hours. My triceps had been resting on a pretty sharp/hard resting spot the whole time. I kept thinking to myself, its gonna leave a bruise. So the next morning, I wake up and look at my arms. O my! It looked like someone grabbed both my arms and squeezed in a not nice way! I had to wear longer sleeves for a few days. Who knows what someone might assume, right? Of course, if they asked, I told them how I am the fix it queen. The funny thing is...I am sometimes horrible at telling the truth. You know how some people are bad liars? At times, I am a bad truth teller. Only when I feel there is a chance the person I am talking to doesn't believe me. So if Chris says "Christina, is that a new shirt?" I say no, I bought it a year ago. But then I get all nervous and figgity and start laughing. So it seems like I am lying! So when someone at church asked me about my bruises hanging out of my not long enough sleeves, I truthfully told them the washing machine story and of course I get all nervous and figgity while telling them because I am thinking, "I know they think I am just making this story up." Oh well, they can think whatever. I thought it was kinda funny. After church I told Chris how I got all weird when answering the question. He didn't think it was as funny as I did!

So I am going to show you the awesomeness of my bruises. They really were even worse than they look in the pictures.



Being president, founder and mascot of the PWSTS club, didn't help with camouflaging the bruises. What is PWSTS? Click here.

Summer, your leaving already?

A few weeks ago, we actually left the house to have some fun. We haven't done anything this summer besides go to friends houses and Mcdonalds. So I figured I should post the one time we did get out and do something summerish. The only way I knew I could manage my kids was to bring help. I called this cute girl "J" and her friend came and followed Tanner around all day long. We were there for 4 hours. I felt bad. I am sure they didn't realize how long, but they said that they were having fun still! Then to top it off, they wouldn't let me pay them at all! What normal preteen doesn't want cash? They said they just love kids and like to do it for free! What???? I may or may not have changed the initial so no one will figure out who she is and try to steal her. I am protective of all my new good babysitters. They are mine! It has taken me 3 years of living in this ward to finally get them to watch my kids! I still made them take 5 bucks each. After I dropped them off, I got back into my car, and what is sitting on my front seat? Two five dollar bills! Wow! They are both keepers!

Cute little Cohlee. The water was the perfect amount for her to crawl around in.

Tanner is such a cool dude!

Here are a few of my friends. Diana, Tara and Kristy. Bethi was there also, but she was sitting right next to me taking pictures.

This is Bethi's little man Malachi. I told him to show me how fast he could run and I would take some cool pictures of him. I didn't have my shutter speed high enough, he was soo soo fast! Bethi and I were laughing cuz as you can see, he got really into it!

Diana's cute girls Talia and Kaitlin

This is the part you may want to skip, cuz its me going on and on.....

I can't believe that the summer is almost coming to an end. Soon we will be back to a routine. Hopefully the transition will go smoothly for me. I am not worried about the kids transitioning, I am worried about me. I was so nervous about having the kids home all day long, everyday during the summer. I thought I might go crazy (well, more crazy). Before school was out, I was expressing my concerns to my mom. I said, "Holy cow, how am I going to survive and not have my kids hate me by the end of the summer?" My mom said, "I always loved summers. It is nice to not have a schedule to stick to, and to just RELAX." As soon as I heard her say that, I looked at summer in a different way. I think I might have taken the RELAX a bit far. Now I am worried. You see, I hate leaving the house now. I have gotten way too used to this laid back life style. I have gotten so bad, that I don't even do my own grocery shopping. My friend Tara is my personal shopper. I thought of this genius idea a few weeks ago. I said, "Tara. I have a plan! How about when you come into town to do your shopping (she lives in Diamond V.), you bring your 4 kids to my house. I will watch them while you do your grocery shopping....and mine!" Is that not the best idea? Its a win win. Who wants to go shopping with 4 kids? Not me. Think of the money that I will save. I am not good at sticking to just my grocery list. I have to walk around the whole store to browse. I will seriously go to the store to just buy a birthday present and $100 later, I have bags full of stuff I am sure I could have lived without. So now, I just send her with a list, and she delivers it to me. I love my idea. She is out of town for the next two weeks, so I think my cupboards might go bare. So if anyone wants to fill in for her, let me know! I just throw the kids in the basement. If you are OK with that, give me a call!

Another thing I have discovered lately that has made my life better, little girls who love to play with my kids! I have pretty much always used my little brothers for babysitting. It has been a great way for my kids to have a close bond with their uncles. Well my main bro Brad has decided that he likes to hang out with friends now. He has finally reached the point were it isn't really that much fun to hang out with your sister and her kids on a Friday night. I know! Who wouldn't want to come hang out with us? Anyways, it was hard for me to come to terms with at first. I might have called him to tell him my feeling were hurt and started bawling to him about it. My poor brothers. They have to put up with their crazy sister. Patrick, who is 17 has a lot of friends in my neighborhood. Its been nice because he has been spending a lot of time here. I'm going to pretend its me and not his friends that has him coming over so often.

So back to the point. I have found more then five different super cute girls in my ward that for some reason love to come over to hang out. The main one, T is 10. She loves Cohlee. Her and her friend L came over a few different times last week. On the first day they came over, they got here at 11:30 and left at 9:30pm.! Awesome don't ya think. They even came over the next morning too! I have a craft room that is full of supplies that never get used. I told them they could help themselves to whatever they want. So while Cohlee napped, they crafted. Works for me! So I was super excited when T texted me this morning wondering if her and her little sis could come over to play! Don't ask me for their number because I am not sharing! Why couldn't they have realized my house is "so cool" at the beginning of the summer? Better late than never.