School pics

I managed to not get professional pictures of my kids last year. I have always hated that there weren't as many pictures of me as my older siblings. Well Mom and Dad- I forgive you. I now understand how life gets in the way with multiple children and I only have half as many as you did. This year I decided to take the girls in to Hayden's school when he had his spring pictures- yes I am that dorky mom. It was nice because I got to be first in line, it took just a few minutes (Hallie was a bit apprehensive), and they sent the pictures home with Hayden- I didn't have to pick them up. I don't think that they turned out as wonderfully as I'd hoped. They used a green screen for the background and the kids look photo-shopped (is that even a word) in to the pictures. At least they are done. Next year Hadley will be in kindergarten so she'll get them done at school and I'll only have to worry about getting Hallie in. I'm hoping that we can get some family pics too.

Coach pitch

Hayden has started his baseball season. He has graduated from t-ball and is now in coach pitch. His dad is again an assistant coach. I think that this might be his last year of baseball. He really doesn't seem to like it. I think that his father has had a bit of an influence on him because he doesn't like it much either. Anyway, the sponsor for his team is Wake Up Call, a local coffee shop. Hayden was appalled that his shirt has the word coffee actually printed on it. We teased him about being a coffee drinker too (probably didn't help) I guess that makes me happy in a way. He has his own belief about it and knows it is something to stay away from. Here are some pictures that I took of his first game- last week. I'm kind of a slacker when it comes to blogging lately. Life is not slowing down either but I'll try to keep up.

I'm in!!

Today I received my acceptance letter into the 2009 summer nursing program. Baby steps... this time next year I'll have completed my LPN and then on to my RN after that. I'm so thankful that I have had the opportunity to finally go back to school, for the support system of wonderful family that I have and that everything has just fallen in to place for me. I guess that timing is everything and I'm in the right place at the right time. Yeah!!!

Egg Decorating 2009

We decorated Easter eggs at Tena & Gerald's on Saturday night. This is a competition and Tena always provides prizes. We had a fun time and there were some pretty eggs that came out of it as well. I would announce the winner, but I don't want to gloat- again.

Madison showing her winning egg

Carter & his egg

Hallie playing peek-a-boo

Hayden and his winning egg

Hadley eating her candy necklace prize & showing her egg

Tena showing her decorated ostrich egg

The work/mess center

The winners (from L to R)

Front row: Hilary, Hilary, Hilary, Linda

Back row: Tena

This is always so much fun and we are so thankful that Grandma hosts it each year. Shane, Nicole, Nash & Sloane are gone for the summer selling again and missed the festivities from a late Easter. We sure missed them when they are gone, especially during fun times like these.

"Making the decision to have a child- it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body." Elizabeth Stone

We attended the City of Blackfoot Easter egg hunt on Saturday. Last year we were late and missed it so we were rushing to get to the area on time. Hayden and Hadley were in the same age group looking for eggs. They are just sectioned off squares with the eggs scattered on the ground. Parents are not allowed to help their children so I sent them to the front of the group and waited for the horn to blow. At 11 the horn blows and the mayhem begins. Kids running in every direction, the lady on the P.A. telling the parents to get out of the hunt area and parents ignoring the P.A. lady and helping their kids anyway. I'm in back of a wall of parents. Here are some pic's of me holding my camera up above the crowd and taking random shots after the horn was blown.

The eggs are gathered and here comes Hadley pulling her friend Abby out of the crowd, right back to me. Where is Hayden? He must be looking for me so I wait, and wait, and wait. Now I'm getting nervous. I have not moved from the place they left me and afraid to move. I'm scanning the crowd and absolutely freaking out on the inside. I cannot show this concern to my two girls because this will not help the situation in any way. The lady on the P.A. is telling everyone to get the items out of their eggs and return the plastic egg shells for next year. I decide to expand my line of sight and move so that I can see both where I was standing and the line to the egg return. Still no Hayden. Internal freak out increasing by the minute. I finally go to the Chamber of Commerce stand and talk to our friends, Curt & Maureen Green who are there. I ask them to help me look for Hayden. They put out the word and start searching for my son. I also talked to one of the officers there, who both Shawn & I work with, and tell him that I can't find Hayden. I'm dragging the girls all over this park looking for Hayden and trying not to let my internal freak out become external. I finally decided to go check my car because Hayden would go back there if he couldn't find me. I leave my cell number with Curt and tell the officer that I am going there & if when they found Hayden to take him to the Chamber of Commerce stand and call me. I take off to the car. Now, I didn't park the car in the Grove, I parked several blocks away, across one busy street and behind a restaraunt. That is why the car wasn't the first place that I checked. Hadley finally got on the stroller because she couldn't keep up with me. I was almost to the busy street when I see Maureen and a posse (including her children and Jon Croxford) walking with Hayden. I almost broke down right there.

When Hayden couln't initially find me, he decided to go and play in the toys on the other side of the park. After a while he got worried that I hadn't found him so decided to go to the car. Maureen saw him crossing the busy street and found him sitting on the grass near the car. Officer Rowland gave Hayden a little lecture (thank you) and we headed back to the car so that I could cry. Hadley was upset because she didn't get a picture with the Easter Bunny or get a balloon because we had been too busy looking for Hayden. We went back to the park and let them get a picture and let Hayden return his egg shells. Unfortunatley, they were out of balloons. Here is a picture of the kids with the Easter bunny. Hallie would not let me get within a 2 foot radius of the him so she is not in the picture.

Well, part of my heart was gone for a bit and I hope that I never have to feel that abscence again. I think that this was the worst feeling that I have ever felt. I am so thankful to the many people who helped look for him. I was amazed at how many people dropped what they were doing and started to look. I keep thinking of the parents who's children are lost or have been taken and I ache for them. I have been looking at ways to get involved in the center for missing and exploited children. There are tons of little things that can be done is registering you phone to received real amber alerts, not just the fake ones that get sent through your area. The site to do this is:

http://www.wirelessamberalerts.org/

I have also posted a link for Idaho missing children. If you google the National Center for Missing and Exploited Chilren there are several links that you can post for yourself as well.

Spring fun

Since Spring keeps teasing us with a few warm days here and there, we took advantage of them and went to the park.

Hayden & Hallie playing on the big toy. Hallie had already ran to her favorite toy- the tire swing. She spends her entire time at the park on it usually. I remember loving the tire swing myself. Now I can barely swing on a normal swing without getting sick.

Hayden joined Hadley and some "new friends", as Hadley likes to call everyone that she meets, on the tire swing. I pushed Hallie on the swing. Hallie loves the swing and could easily be on it for hours if she could find someone to push her that long.

I have to say that Shawn and I have failed as parents in two particular things (I'm sure that there are more). Our kids don't yet know how to ride a bike or swim without life jackets. I have no one to blame but myself (but I think that I will blame Shawn anyway :)). At 5 and 7 years old, our two oldest can both drive a 4-wheeler but are just learning to navigate on a 2-wheeled bike without training wheels. We are in the water all summer, but in a boat with our life jackets on. My goal this summer is to get them through swimming lessons and to have them riding their bikes without the training wheels.

Here is Shawn helping Hayden w/out training wheels. Notice Hadley in the background. She likes speed and still has her training wheels on too. Numerous times we had to call her back. She also wrecked into the bushes about 5 minutes after this picture was taken. All of the sudden she was standing on the bike path with no bike. It was way off the walkway. Did she slow down once Shawn pulled it out of the bushes? No, once she got all of the stickers out of her sock and shirt, she was off again.

Hallie was being pushed in the stroller. She does OK for a while but gets tired of just sitting there. This picture is about 30 seconds before her breaking point.

The concert

For my birthday, Heather bought me tickets to the Blue October concert in SLC. Our friend Kirstin also had her 30th b-day in March so she was also treated to the concert. We left on Tuesday afternoon and met Kirstin there.

The venue was The Depot, which none of us had been to. We were there early enough to have gone right up to the front of the stage, but we are older now and didn't feel the need. We found nice seats at the edge of the room. It was perfect for us. We had a great view of the band and we didn't get smooshed.

I brought my camera but, being the braniac that I am, left it in the car with my coat/purse. We all had our cell phones so we did get some pic's. Also in the attempt to not bring those items in, I wore my cell phone on my belt. This is something that I DO NOT DO but I didn't want to loose it. I made fun of my "bulge" all night. Here it is:

It was a great concert. The opener was not bad, the lead singer was a little dramatic and we laughed a lot at him. That's right- at him. Blue October was great though. They played all of the songs from their new album and several favorites of my favorites from other albums. Here are some pic's of the concert. We had bought the edited version of the CD and so there were a lot of words in the original songs that we didn't realize were there. We looked at each other and giggled every time that he swore in a song. It made me appreciate the edited version though.

Lead singer, Justin Furstenfeld

Now the story of the girl-

After the concert, we went out on the floor to take pictures of ourselves. One of the band members, Ryan Delahoussaye, came out and was signing tickets so I of course went to get mine signed. This girl (totally drunk) came up to the stage and started telling him a sob story of how she had lost her kids (possibly something to do with her being a crazy lush) and that the band was the only thing that helped her get through it and begging him to give her something. He gave her a guitar pick and she thanked him and then asked him if he was part of the band. I bust up laughing and I was right next to her. She said, "you can all laugh at me but I got something that is worth a lot" Again couldn't stop laughing. Here are some pictures of me standing next to "the girl" she is the one on the right.

We laughed and joked and Kirstin did her best to talk the security in to letting us back stage but it just didn't happen. We got t-shirts (thanks again Heather) and were finally told that we had to leave. Here are a couple of pictures of us being groupies. Notice that Heather is not in any of the pictures. She was the photographer. She is the most successful person I know when it comes to staying out of pictures.

As we walked outside it was raining. We looked down the street and low and behold saw the lead singer getting off the tour bus. He decided that he would greet his fans and sign some autographs. Here he is with some of his fans.

drum roll please....

That is really Kirstin and I in the picture with the lead singer of Blue October!! He also signed all of our shirts. He was very nice (and very high).

We then stayed at hotel Bybee again. It was so great. Kirstin & I stayed up half the night talking and laughing. It was absolutely the best birthday present ever. Thank you so much Heather for everything. I had the best time and I really needed it. Thanks Kirstin for coming with us and for letting us stay at your house. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. If I'm going to be away from my kids, I couldn't ask for better people to be with.