TwiMANIA- Part 1

I've been bitten. Oh, I know you know what I'm talkin' about.
Ever since a neighbor mom friend of mine let me borrow the triple combination of Stephanie Meyer's heartwrenching novels I was hooked. Then Breaking Dawn came out. I love the movies as well. Justin took me to both Twilight and New Moon soon after they came out. He is so sweet.

A few weeks ago one my awesome friends who is also sort of a Trekkie rented a 22 electronic recliner theater room and we watched New Moon. Then she made this whole Twilight Trivia game and it was all very cool. She even made Werewolf Cupcakes and Flesh Bite Cookies. It was all very posh. I took the oppurtunity to dress like Rosalee, and my sister in law was Alice. I always liked Rosalee.

Creative Spiritual Motivation

I recently made a new goal to re-read the Book of Mormon and I found these unique reading charts to help with progress. It's sort of elementary to sit and color after every chapter but having the chart has helped me a ton. I would definitly recommend one of these charts to any age, or you can design your own. I have been using the one with all the bubbles and think I'll try the flower next.

Glee Music

I LOVE love love the musical numbers by the cast of Glee.  I made a Pandora radio station inspired by Glee cast music and I LOVE it. But sadly the show falls a little short. I kind of like it but I kind of don't like it due to some highly inappropriate content. Hollywood thinks that stuff is keeping the ratings up but they are wrong. It's the rad musical fun. Leah Michele has some incredible chops!

tINY Talmage

I had the marvelous oppurtunity to witness my new nephews miraculous entrance into this world. Talmage is a beautiful healthy baby boy and we are all overjoyed at his arrival. Parker is especially grateful to now have his very own brother.

Passion for Plantin'

Here is a typical day at our house during the spring. We've planted a plethora of perennials and annuals and it's so much fun to watch as they sprout, then bud, then bloom, then a new type of flower startes growing. I finally found some of my favorite flower, the peony. I hope the three plants I got do well to multiply and replenish in the years to come. I've also planted petunias, english daisies, snapdragons, begonias, asters, and a few others I can't remember the names of. Those are in addition to the flowers that were planted here by the previous owner of our home: clematis, miniature rose bushes, and columbine.

 We have also been planting our garden out back; we've planted peas, beans, zuchinni, summer squash, mini pumpkin, tomatoes, peppers, red onions, lettuce, argula, baby spinach, raspberries, strawberries, and blackberries.

Michelangelo and Wesley love to help and attempt to help out with the garden in every way. It's fun to teach them which plants are flowers and which are weeds and when to plant and when to harvest. They also love to help me water. Michael especially likes the harvest part. He devoured our first pea pod just yesterday.

Vegas, baby! Part 8

I actually found a store called Francesca's! And I went in and the store was totally "Francesca". All flowery and chic and darling little knick knacks and clothing. I wasn't able to bring Francesca into the store because she was asleep in the van with Justin.
All in all, Las Vegas was really fun. Lots of people told me I might see nudity and prostitutes and other offensive things, but I guess in a way I had prepared myself and so I knew what to avoid. So we really didn't see very many bad things. We mostly just went out in the daytime, then came back to our hotel at night. It pays to have a good attitude and optimistic outlook of Vegas. We were able to have a really neat trip by leaving the bad and looking for the good. I highly recommend it.
(End of Vegas blog posts.)

Vegas, baby! Part 7

I even got to meet the "King!"

And eat like a king.

Vegas, baby! Part 6

So, as mentioned beforehand, the Hotel/Casinos are HUGE! Seriously! We walked a TON! We took an average of 15-20 elevator rides per day, no joke. We had no choice with the kids and the double stroller and all the places we wanted to go. For example, we ate at the MGM Grand Buffet, to get there we had to take an elevator from our hotel room to our van, then drive to the MGM parking, then take the parking garage elevator, then walk a ways to take another elevator, then walk out and around of yet another elevator, then walk a ways to the buffet. Then we went shopping to a ton of cool places. I realized though that if you just look at the shops in the hotel/casinos you are going to hit a lot of the same shops in a different location, so that was kind of lame. The best shopping was at this mall a few miles from the main part of the strip.

The boys LOVED M & M World. They wanted to go back again and again, which was nice because it was free.I went shopping and saw some of the cutest clothing! But a ton of it was way out of our price range, like this little dress was $87! And a purse I was looking at was $3500 for real! And a dress that I just loved was $350.

Here is Michael and Francy in the back seat of the double stroller. It's not really supposed to fit three in there but it worked for us.

Vegas, baby! Part 5

I know 5 is a lot of chain posts but I really wanted to document our trip, there will be more. We went to the Ethel M Chocolate Factory and Botanical Cactus Garden on Day 3 and had a grand old time.

Then on the drive back to the hotel we pulled into a place across the street from the airport and watched as the airplanes flew overhead. Justin and the boys were in heaven, they just loved it despite it being a tad bit cold and windy. As a child Justin always dreamed of being an aiplane pilot so he loved to tell the boys all the exact name of each plane as it flew over us. It was all very exciting.

Vegas, baby! Part 4

The Las Vegas LDS Temple was gorgeous. Maybe next time we can find a babysitter for the kids so we can actually do a session.

Vegas, baby! Part 3

We did a TON of walking. Those hotel/casinos are HUGE! We saw Bumblebee in the parking garage. The boys loved it.They got real tired, real fast.Then we went to the Shark Aquarium and that was pretty awesome. Our favorite were the saw fish.

Then we got back to the hotel room and I had never seen the kids play and tickle and laugh with each other like they did that night. This picture captures that memory, which means a lot to me. To me that's what family vacations should be about, spending quality time together, bonding, getting to know each other, building relationships.

Vegas, baby! Part 2

This was my favorite moment of our trip. As I walked through this hallway I felt like I was in the Celestial Kingdom. I could go in more detail but I'll leave it at that.

Vegas, baby! Part 1

So, as some of may already know, we took a family trip to Las Vegas, Nevada. We booked a room at the Circus Circus for four nights, packed up our van, the kiddos and were off.The kids didn't really like having to stay in the van for the five hour trip, but we found ways to amuse them. Our van's DVD player was a life saver, same with the cinnamon bagels I packed.Once we arrived it was all very exciting, Justin pointed out all the hotels we could see from our hotel room window.If you ask Michael what his favorite part was about the entire vacation, he would say "Living in the hotel." with a huge grin on his face. The kids laughed a lot, jumped on the beds, and love to tickle each other. The kids actually slept pretty well considering all five of us slept in the same room.