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Danny ordered me a new (refurbished) lens. He surprised me with it… I DO have the best husband. So today I had to get out and play, play, play. I thought all was lost at lunch time when a freak of a storm blew through. Ohio puts on a good weather show. Thunder, lightening, and heavy rain. By the time Danny arrived home from work, it was dry and ready for a walk. We live right by the Marina and we love to walk down there and play on the beach, fish and swim. I took my camera with the hopes of finding something interesting to photograph. Usually it’s my kids, but I spotted a Great Blue Heron. I looked over my shoulder and took stock of the kids. Emma and Tanner were riding their scooters around the marina buildings talking about the books they are writing, bouncing ideas off of each other. I remember trying to write a book as a kid, hope they are more successful then I was.  Aubrey, Alyssa and Hallie were deeply engrossed in some sort of a sand creation, so I took off on a hike to get closer to the bird.

Sandy Alyssa Toes

Hallie and Aubrey

Carefully placing the shells

My three trouble makers

Off to find my bird. At first he was a little hesitant with me there, but I sat still and waited. It was worth the wait. The bird suddenly went into a pose that reminded me of a cat ready to strike. He stuck out his neck and froze.

In the blink of an eye he struck

I started snapping pictures as fast as I could

He came up with his prize. Pretty cool, I kept snapping. If you look close he actually pierces the fish with his open beak.

He frees it off of his beak and then picks the dead fish back up.

Then down it goes. I LOVE having my camera back!

Off he flies, after some research it’s nesting season, so maybe to his nest to feed a baby.

We walked back home. (rode various scooters/bikes/stroller)

A few flowers in the front yard.

We made some pizza and the kids are all building Lego’s together before bed. It has been the perfect day. I love a good storm and a fun walk. Now I need to find a class on Photo Shop. How I have missed my camera.

Oh and just for fun a really zoomed in picture of the stabbed fish on the Blue Herons beak, just too cool not to see even if it is a bit fuzzy.

The neighborhood put on an egg hunt for the kids on Saturday 3/31. Emma and Tanner were too old this year. If you look at the picture with Aubrey and her good friend Marlee you can see Tanner in the background looking all grumpy that he couldn’t play too. I guess I should cut him some slack today he is pretty sick and he was probable not feeling well yesterday either, but I still made him come with us.

Our neighborhood has two big green spaces, perfect for flying kites, launching rockets and getting a neighborhood ball game going. And yes, the lawn is really this green, I’ve already mowed my lawn twice this spring, and it’s ready for another mowing already 2X a week at least, and no we don’t have sprinklers or water our lawn, splendid I tell ya! Too many years of forcing a lawn to grown in the desert.

A little bit about our new friends. They moved in down the street one week before we did. They came from New Mexico and have 7 year old twins and a 5 year old and are members of the church. It was a perfect fit. As you can see from the 1 group picture I was able to snap, our 5 year olds have similar personalities, look how impressed they weren’t that we were having a photo op moment when egg finding was the main event. Marlee is in Aubrey’s class and her twin brother Sam is in another class. Both Alyssa and Lizzie will be going to kindergarten this year.

This is the room that sold the house ( the riding lawn mower and snow blower didn’t hurt). Having 3 girls pretty close in age comes with its challenges. How do you split rooms when the next sibling is a boy (the ONLY boy) and is 11 years old. I have tried so many different ways of splitting them all up but someone is always left out. When we first moved here the only thing Aubrey wanted was her own bedroom. I let her have it and she decided she HATED it and was so lonely and the other girls had no desire to be alone. I didn’t think I’d find a house that would house three girls in one room so my goal was to find a house with a big basement that could maybe house them together. When I walked in and saw this room I knew it was the house for us, plus it had a finished basement with a perfect toy room so it had everything I was looking for. I’m eventually going to get to painting this room but for now here is a little peek at the perfect room.

No matter what I did I couldn’t get the whole room in one picture. Gives you an idea though. What I will do when they are all older and really do want their own rooms? I’m not sure, guess there is always the basement.

 

is worth a thousands words…right? Well it’s gonna have to be–Smile!

See a tragedy has happened, my beautiful camera has suffered an injury, and all things have to be taken from a far distance to get a decent picture. It will cost me half of what a new camera would cost to fix it, but the camera is 5 years old… see my dilemma. But I still have a few to share, and I did buy a new (not as nice) camera until I decide what to do with my baby.

Cousins come to visit and we went to the zoo!

More cousins–we love living closer to family.

Working on the new house interior. Someone here really liked their honey oak (not me).

All white now and so is the trim in the room. Next the walls to give it some contrast.

Tanner gives wrestling a try–he loved it!

February 2012–Hallie is growing and changing so fast.

After having a hard time finding a modest dress for Emma, Grandma O’Barr volunteered to sew Emma a new dress. As you can see it turned out perfect! A little update on Emma (brag-fest–sorry) Emma won her school spelling bee and moved on to regionals, she then moved on to state, where she was one of 69 other competitors from the state. She took 20th! She was disappointed, but she has no reason to be. She woke herself up daily at 5am to study and Danny and I are very proud of her. As you can see she is growing into a beautiful young lady. She enters high school this next year, a bunch of new first for us as parents, and we can’t wait.

Wow, and I’m current! Spring Break was this past week. Last year we had freezing temperatures, so I planned a trip to a nearby indoor water park, thinking we’d enjoy the warmth and appreciate the swimming while it was freezing outside. It ended up being in the high 80’s all week. Oh well, we had a blast. We would do this again, the room was nice, the water park was perfect with attractions for all ages.

OK a fuzzy picture=new camera–frown. Give you an idea of the fun room. Our room was upstairs and the kids were all downstairs. Everyday it was wake up and go to the water park. We did a few side trips to IKEA and to Jungle Jim’s. If you haven’t ever heard of Jungle Jim’s it’s an international food market that is 6 acres large. Danny likes to get his Norwegian Goat Cheese there–blech and a jar of gooseberries to put on toast. They have huge isle of hot sauce with some of the funniest labels. Fresh produce and lots of things I have never seen before. We bought some oranges from Japan that were super sweet, large like a regular orange, but peeled like a Cutie. You can buy fresh fish, as in still swimming. We bought some candy from different counties and then ate some lunch.

A few interesting fruits at Jungle Jim’s.

Just to wrap things up, we are still enjoying Ohio, loving the schools, people, and this winter the weather too.

 

Princess Alyssa knew exactly how she wanted her birthday to go down. For those who know Alyssa she knows just what she wants and is hard to convince otherwise. She is stubborn, opinionated and good as gold. Her birthday plans started a month ago with the choosing of the perfect dress. I took Alyssa to the mall where I brought a big dose of patience and let her try on any dress she wanted. She picked half a dozen and we went to the dressing room. This was a first for her and she loved the whole process. She twirled in all of the mirrors and when she had tried on all of the dresses she asked if she could try them on again. She finally decided on a bright pink, sparkly dress. We found some bright pink shoes to match, picked out tights and then brought it home to wrap. This morning she opened her dress before church, of course I didn’t get a picture. Church is at 9am and Emma and Danny had to be there at 8:20 meaning they had to leave at 7:55 to get there on time and Hallie decided to have a fit at breakfast because Tanner took her cup away… Bringing myself back on topic… I didn’t get a picture, but she looked like a birthday girl. After church we had pizza and hot wings and cake, the cake had to be chocolate with bright pink frosting with her name in purple. I decided to just buy one, it tasted as interesting as it looked and no one ate much… hey I might be on to something. We opened presents and had a tea party.

It isn’t easy having a birthday close to Christmas, but Alyssa seems to enjoy her Christmas birthday and even insists that I wrap her gifts in Christmas paper.

Alyssa is a bright child who can talk faster than anyone I know, she loves to tell stories in an animated fashion. She cares about what she wears and carefully plans out her outfits and hair. She is a kind and loving child who just wants to grow up faster than I wish she would. I love you My little Lyss!

 

 

I just love Christmas. This year has been fairly crazy, but enjoyable. Emma had a flute recital and a school band concert and Aubrey’s 2nd grade musical is this week. We cut down our tree with some friends on the 3rd of December and my shopping is pretty much done. Just a few pictures…

One year ago today I got off a plane in Ohio with my 5 children. We were greeted with grey skies and snow. It was so cold and windy and we were very overwhelmed. In contrast today it is bright and sunny and a delightful day. I can’t even begin to put words to the feelings that are in my heart, and I’m not even going to try. I will keep it simple, we miss our friends and family terribly, but at the same time we are overjoyed for the wonderful blessings that we have experienced this year. My heart is full, my life if blessed, and we are Happy and really what more can we ask for? Our Heavenly Father has guided us and led us to where we need to be. The journey has been difficult at times, but I can honestly say in the end we can look back and see His hand in all things. Now I will dry my eyes and pull myself together.

(above) This picture cracks me up, look at those faces.

(below) Ohio in the Fall.

As most of you know we bought a new house last month, it is almost 4000 square feet of pure 1990 dated bliss, and I love every square foot and every brass fixture and laminate counter top. It is a home made just for us. The basement is finished and I could lose a child or 5 down there, and I often do. We can see ourselves here for a very long time. If you want our new mailing address send me an email and I’d be happy to give it to you. The house is within walking distance of a large lake where the above picture was taken. We walk down there to fish, swim, watch the boats come in and out, walk on the docks, throw rocks, pick up shells, walk in the forest and just enjoy nature at it’s very best. If anyone wants to visit Church History sites we’d love to have visitors and now have the room to put you up, come see us.

Lynda, a good friend of ours took our family pictures every year. This year I wasn’t sure what we were going to do. I tried a few people on CraigsList but some of their work was…well, not what I was looking for. I got the courage up and decided to try my hand at taking pictures. Here are a few of my favorites. They didn’t turn out too badly, I wish I was better with editing software, they might look even better. There’s a good goal for me this next year, learn Photoshop.

 

 

 

Life doesn’t stop, since I’m behind on my blog already I’m going to lump these two together in one birthday post. Seems like they have been twins since they were 2 years old and inseparable, I’m sure they wont mind sharing a birthday post.

Emma turned 13 this year. We have a teenager, for those of you who haven’t hit this great milestone, let me tell you… Nothing really has changed. She may have lost her sense of humor toward some things, but overall, it’s been a smooth transition. Emma is growing up so beautifully. I can’t wait to see what she does next.

Emma is a great big sister, I will catch a few beautiful moments of her interacting with her sisters, and she is so sweet and kind with them. They like to come into her room and look at her jewlery and “make up” and she will often put it on them and so kindly tell them they are beautiful. It brings tears to my eyes, to see her so strong in the gospel, she loves her Heavenly Father and is always striving to follow His teachings. We call her our little DilEmma because she strives to hard to follow every rule to the extreme and it often causes her dilemmas.

She’s been invited to take the ACT test this year as part of a college talent program, she will get the chance to take it and the SAT test every year now until she graduates. She’s excelling in her flute, and started private lessons recently to take it up a notch. Marching band is in her future next year in high school–ACK.

Tanner is singing Happy Birthday to Emma in the top picture. She requested lemon meringue pie, which I drove out to Amish Country to find. She just finished up a great season running Cross Country and took almost 3 minutes off of her time from the beginning to the last race. We love you Miss Emma!

 

Tanner brings so much joy and screaming into our family. If I was supposed to have only one son, I couldn’t have asked for a better fit for this family. His sisters adore him and take good care of him, and he is really good at being a big brother. He’s loving, sweet, yet tough enough to make them all scream at once if he feels like it.

Tanner has also been invited to start taking the ACT tests and SAT tests, he will take his first one in February. He seems so young, but has some lofty goals. Although he is wearing a BYU sweatshirt, he really wants to go to MIT and go into robotics. I know things can change but right now this is his goal. He’s pulled all A’s so far in middle school. He ran with the Cross Country team this year as well, but couldn’t actually race because of his age. He’s doing well with his piano lessons, and playing everything less like a funeral march (that is his piano style we have decided). Music is not his natural talent, but I refuse to let him out of it.

This year Tanner wanted a game for the Wii, Smash Brothers. He wanted pumpkin pie…obviously my kids aren’t much for cake. Last year we spent his birthday with our good friends the Hamblins. It was our last day in Dayton, and instead of a celebration it was a bawl fest, so this year we pretty much partied the whole day for him. We picked him up from school and took him to lunch and then returned him to school. We were supposed to close on our new house on his birthday, but I moved up the date by a couple of weeks so that his birthday wouldn’t be part of a move again.

We love you Tanner!

I’m sitting here with my Alyssa, we normally do preschool but today we had Kindermusic and so she is coloring by me on the floor.  I hear her chatter about the beautiful colors of the crayons, the immodest dress of the princess she is coloring. Times have changed and it makes me sad that my 4 year old knows that something is immodest. I know someday I’ll miss her constant chatter.  She sure sees the world differently and the things she says make me giggle. 

A few weeks ago we had a preschool lesson on slavery.  Today while making lunch I looked around the house and said, “Man, I sure could use a maid today”.  Alyssa looked at me so stunned, and then asked me if I’d let my maid go when I was done with him.  I can’t wait until she is in Kindergarten, I’ll make a deal with the teacher that I wont believe half of what Alyssa says happens at school if she wont believe half of what Alyssa says happens at home.

So much has happened recently, and there is so much to tell, I just don’t know where to begin.  For starters Danny and I bought another home. We close on it in a month, and I am so relieved. The new house is the biggest of all the homes we have owned, but half the cost. I love the mid west! What a relief to me to own another home.  Now we can belong, and I am never moving again, someone remind me of this statement if I ever get a bright idea to buy another home or move again. I really love this home, it sits on half an acre, and it is perfect for our family.

A little catch up on everyone since I have been such a slacker:

First Day of School=cold and miserable

I’m a little sentimental lately.  When I went to take a bath the other day this is what greeted me.  I’m sure that someday I’m going to miss stuff like this, so I post this picture to remind myself to enjoy the little annoyances of life.

Aubrey had her 7th birthday. What a delightful child she is. She wanted donuts brought into the school, and she wanted her teacher to throw her up the to the ceiling and that is exactly what happened, but not before he made her stand on a stool and do a dance while the class sung to her.  Then he picked her up and threw her up to the ceiling.  She was as delighted as can be.  That evening she wanted to go to build a bear.  We brought her home and had homemade mushroom and Canadian bacon pizza,cake and ice cream.  Aubrey is my little mama, my helper, my smiler, my overall easy to be with happy child.

Apple Picking

The opportunity to pick apples is abundant in Ohio.  We went out to an orchard not far from our home and a farmer who reminds me of my grandfather in his overalls gave us the run down on all the types of apples available.  The kids went a little nuts and we are still eating apples. Good thing they like them!

Still mowing my giant back yard.  Never saw anything like this in Nevada (mushrooms), and no we didn’t eat them.

Two year old mascara trouble– I knew something like this would eventually happen. So far so good with girls cutting their own hair, now that I’ve said it… any ideas what my next blog post will be about?

Picture below was taken with the a cell phone, I put a V over Emma’s head.  The 8th grade band played with the high school band. Ohio takes their sports seriously and the band is pretty impressive. This gave us a small glimpse of what our weekends are going to look like for the next 4 years.

That about catches me up for the last month I’ve missed.  Things will be crazy for the next month, but once we get moved in and settled, I’ll post some pictures of the new house.

I wanted the to send the summer off with a bang.  I said to Danny “throw caution to the wind”.  “Take us to a Hawaiian Island.”  Either he failed Geography or he needs help in the hearing department… oh wait…  I guess he has a valid excuse, really I think he was following his wallet.

Who knew landlocked, middle of America Ohio had islands.  Lucky for us we get to discover these things, what joy it has been to have a renewed sense of discovery and adventure.  The boat ride was probably the highlight of the day.  No one puked, so I was happy too.

I have decided that life on an island would be very laid back, and the houses are so stinking cute.  If I ever come into a sum of money, I’m going to buy a summer house on an island, and just let the kids swim, hike and be kids and I’m going to plant my butt in a hammock, retrieve and bathe the children at night.

When we first got there we thought we would just hike to the other side of the island where the sandy beaches were and have a swim.  It was a bit of a hike and we made it, but the thought of dragging them all back was a little overwhelming, so Dad saved the day.

While Dad was hooking us up with our ride the rest of us did what all people who live on an island should do.

We took off to tour the island, now I have to come home and buy a golf cart, it was such a great way to get around.  One more reason I should move to an island.

A few sites:

Grooves carved by a glacier, the girls wanted to fill it with water and use it as a water slide.

Cute little house.

And then back to reality, but it was fun while it lasted.  There are a few more islands to visit, you can bet we will.

School starts up this week, along with that comes a buzz of nervous excitement in the house. I look forward to setting some new goals and getting into a nice routine.