Buchanan Family

A year's worth of catch up.

2012-01-13T12:25:00.018-07:00

So obviously it's been a while since I've updated. Now instead of just getting a Halloween update, you get a whole year which includes two Halloween updates. :)

Here's a picture of the kids for Halloween 2010. Notice Cody's AWESOME costume ;) Kenzie was an 80s girl, Brooklyn a cowgirl, thank you Grandma Garr for making the skirt, and Kaden was a vampire.

Kaden played his first year of basketball in November 2010. He had a lot of fun and learned a lot. Hopefully I'll remember to sign him up again this year as I forgot for 2011.

December brought dance demos for Kenzie and Brooklyn. They're both doing really well in their dance classes and it's a lot of fun to see what they're learning in class.

And of course the end of December brought Christmas. This was before presents, obviously since the floor is clean, but I managed to get some half smiles from two kids and real smiles from the other two.

In February 2011 we went sledding with a bunch of the Garr family members. We went to a stake camp in the Morgan area and had a great time.

Unfortunately our sledding trip ended with an ambulance ride to the ER. Brooklyn and Kaden were heading down the hill together on a sled they had never ridden before and it careened right into a tree on the side of the hill. Brooklyn hit her head and lost consciousness for a bit. We called 911 and they took her by ambulance to the ER. She was fine and ended up with just a mild concussion.

Our neighbors invited us to their family's cabin at Bear Lake for the weekend in February too. Everyone had fun sledding again and the kids had a great time together.

Kaden lost his first tooth this month too. He was so excited to finally get a visit from the Tooth Fairy.

March brought yet another Jazz game half-time performance for Kenzie. She did a great job as always.

April brought us mom's birthday. We decided that she needed enough candles to account for her age. We nearly burned down the house. :)

May brought us Brooklyn's 5th birthday. This is her new birthday outfit. She's such a beautiful little girl!

For Christmas the family got Lagoon season passes. We spent many a weekend at Lagoon this year and it was well worth the cost!

Brooklyn graduated preschool in May 2011. She had an amazing teacher and she loved every minute of it.

See the next post for the rest of the year. :)

The year continued...

2012-01-13T11:54:00.004-07:00

In June 2011 Les and I went to Maui to Celebrate our 15th anniversary. We had a great time. Maui is gorgeous! I hope to be able to go back some day.

Late June brought us another dance recital. Kenzie and Brooklyn did a great job!

In July we went to Jason and Amy's for a birthday party and the kids got to ride their horses. They absolutely loved it! Thanks Amy!

In July Kaden and Brooklyn started a new year of school. Kaden went into the 1st grade and Brooklyn went into Kindergarten.

August brought us Kenzie's 12th birthday. She is growing up into a beautiful young woman and I'm so proud of the person she is becoming.

In September Les and I ran participated in the Dirty Dash at Soldier Hollow. We did it with a group of our new friends. We had such a great time. Who knew it could be so fun to run through mud, climb over bails of hay, swim through mud, wade through chest deep, cold water, climb a rope wall, and slide down a huge water slide? We had so much fun and can't wait to do it again. Here is the before and after.

In October we celebrated Kaden's 7th birthday. He had his first friend party. He picked a Sponge Bob theme and we played a lot of fun games. Cody also had a birthday in October, but for some reason I failed to get a picture of him. Bad mom!

In October we also went down to St. George to see Little Mermaid at Tuacahn. It was amazing! My mom's cousin, Heidi, played Ursula and she definitely stole the show.

And here we are at the next Halloween! Notice Cody's AWESOME costume once again. :) Kenzie was a dead ballerina this year, Kaden a shot police officer, Brooklyn a cheetah or leopard I don't really know, and then we also have Shaylee, Amaya, and Jacob. I'm not exactly sure what their costumes are, but they look really cute!

In November I surprised Les with a birthday party with a bunch of our friends. He suspected that something might be going on, but never guessed that I would put together something this big. It was a great success and I'm so glad I was able to surprise him. He surprised me earlier in the month with a bunch of fun stuff too.

And that's it for now. I have more pictures on my camera that have yet to be uploaded to the computer. Maybe next time it won't have to be a year's worth of posts. :) Until next time....

Family Pictures

2011-06-24T09:07:00.004-06:00

As promised, here are the family pictures we had done in October.

Cody's up first. He's turning into quite the handsome young man. He is a great kid and very helpful. He's our official baby-sitter so we can have a night on the town once in a while. He loves playing guitar and Roblox on the computer. He also loves the X-Box.

Next up is Kenzie. She is our little pig pen. She can make a mess anywhere, I swear. Her saving grace is that she is so good with Kaden and Brooklyn. She will entertain them for hours on end, which is a great help to me. She is turning into a beautiful dancer and is also very good at tumbling.

Kaden is our goer. He loves to be doing something all the time. He especially loves to play board games together or play at a friend's house. He likes things to be clean and has no problem helping out around the house.

Brooklyn is our little princess. She's just as sweet as can be and fun to be around. She's a bit of a copycat and wants to be just like Kenzie. She's in dance and tumbling as well and doing great! She's very affectionate and loves to give hugs and kisses.

These guys were great for pictures and it turned out to be such an easy day.

And just so you don't get the wrong idea and think they're perfect all the time, this is how they really are!

Next up....Halloween. A this rate, I might actually get caught up before the next Halloween ;)

Soccer, Guitar, & A Field Trip

2011-03-29T14:56:00.006-06:00

Cody and Kaden are both playing soccer this year. Cody has been playing for many years, this is Kaden's first year. It's a bit more difficult to get two kids to soccer each week, especially when their games are at the same time, but they enjoy playing, so it makes it worth the craziness.

Cody is the one closest to the ball. I know it's hard to tell, but I thought it was a great action shot!

Here's Kaden showing off his awesome soccer skills!

Cody had a guitar concert for his school guitar class. It was a Beatles theme and the classes all did a great job. Cody absolutely loves playing the guitar. He's getting very good and I really like to hear him play. At the concert, he was chosen to play bass guitar for a couple songs.

We couldn't get him to actually smile at us for a picture, so rather than choose the one with him pretty much scowling at us, here he is looking away.

Here he is playing the bass. He's concentrating very hard!

Brooklyn's preschool class went on a field trip to Black Island Farms in Syracuse. They went on a hay ride to learn about some of the vegetables grown on the farm and then all of the kids were able to choose a pumpkin to take home. They also played on the slides and went through a corn maze.
Here is Brooklyn holding one of the carrots they passed around.

Kaden and his pumpkin that he picked.

Next up....Family Pictures!

Really Big Pumpkins & Someone Has A Birthday!

2011-03-28T10:44:00.005-06:00

Our neighbor grew some really huge pumpkins this year and he was kind enough to take a picture of our kids with them since our camera was still broken and we didn't have a new one yet. Yay for really nice neighbors!

I seriously can't believe how big those pumpkins got. I love this picture!

Next up was Kaden's birthday. Les was able to order us a new camera just in time to take pictures for his birthday. He turned 6 this year. He's growing up way too fast!

We surprised him with a bike and by his expression in the picture, I'd say he was pretty excited about it!

And of course, safety first! We got him a bike helmet to go with it. Unfortunately I'm not very good about reminding my kids to wear helmets, so I don't think he even knows where it is now, but it's the thought that counts, right?!

We had a combined birthday party for both Kaden and Cody with the family. Notice Jacob trying to help out with the candles. :)

Jacob was really determined to blow out some candles, but Cody wasn't going to have it!

I'd say the boys both had great birthdays this year. The kids just keep getting older and it makes me sad that it's happening so fast.

Coming up next time, Soccer, Guitar, and a Field Trip!

The first of many updates

2011-03-25T11:53:00.006-06:00

Hey there, so obviously it's been a while since I've updated, but that's all about to change. This will be the first of many updates to come to catch you all up on everything that's happened (at least everything with pictures) since last September.

At the end of September we took our annual trip to Yellowstone! As I've said quite a few times in this blog, Yellowstone is one of my favorite places to go. We went a little later this year than usual, so we were worried about it being a bit too cold to camp, so we decided to stay in a hotel

Check out that crazy luggage of ours! We stayed at the Kelly Inn in West Yellowstone which was very nice. We took advantage of the free breakfast and the pool and hot tub everyday.

One of our all-time favorite restaurants in West Yellowstone is Wild West Pizzeria. We like it so much we ended up there twice in five days. If you ever go, you have to try the macaroni and cheese, you won't be sorry!

There are quite a few of these painted buffalo around town, which of course make awesome photo ops!

Here is one of the many elk that we saw while we were there. We saw many buffalo as well, unfortunately we didn't get many pictures of wildlife this time around, as will be explained below.

Just another cute picture of the kids. They can be so photogenic when they want to be.

We also celebrated Cody's 14th birthday while we were in Yellowstone. He's growing up so fast I can hardly stand it. He's a great kid and a great sport to spend his birthday in Yellowstone with his family!

Shopping in West Yellowstone is always a lot of fun. The kids really liked the hats!

Sadly, this is the last picture we were able to take in Yellowstone. This was taken at Grant's Village at the visitor center overlooking the lake. It was gorgeous there that morning, but very cold! Right after this picture was taken, the camera was dropped and we couldn't get it to work, but at least we were able to save the pictures that we had already taken.

We spent the rest of the week hiking around Yellowstone, seeing many buffalo and elk, one about 6 feet away from us on a hiking trail, and wandering through shops and visitor centers. We also took a drive around Hebgen Lake and ate lunch with Les's brother and his family at a cabin they were staying in right on the lake. It was a great family vacation and I can't wait to do it again!

Coming up next time on the Buchanan Family Blog, (said in your best Jeff Probst voice for all you Survivor fans) some really big pumpkins and someone has a birthday!

So You Think You Can Dance

2010-09-27T15:13:00.003-06:00

We love the show So You Think You Can Dance, so when I saw a flier for a workshop featuring dancers from the show I had to sign Kenzie up. One of my all-time favorite dancers from the show was going to be there, namely Twitch!!! He is such a great dancer and has such a fun personality. If you aren't familiar with him, just go to YouTube and watch some videos, he's awesome!

Anyway, the workshop was on Saturday from 8-5. Kenzie was able to learn choreography from three different dancers from the show, Twitch, Lauren, and Legacy.

Her first class was with Twitch. He taught a really cool hip-hop routine. It was much harder choreography than Kenzie was used to, but she had a lot of fun with it and has some new moves to show her friends. Twitch was a great teacher and really fun to watch.

Her second class was with Lauren. She taught a jazz contemporary routine. Kenzie wasn't all that fond of the dance style, but learned a few moves that she really liked. Lauren is a fantastic dancer and it was really cool to see what she was capable of.

The last class was with Legacy. He also taught a hip-hop routine and actually ended up using the same music as Twitch so they could add the two routines together. Legacy was recently a backup dancer for Justin Bieber, so he spent a large part of the class doing his best Justin Bieber impression. It was very funny! He also showed off some of his moves at the end and it was absolutely amazing!

After the classes, we all gathered together to sing Happy Birthday to Twitch and they brought out cake for everybody. Then we were all able to get pictures with the three of them and then line up for autographs. We were able to get a shirt signed and a poster. It was a very long, but very fun day!

My goal by the end of the day was to get a picture of me with Twitch for my new profile picture on Facebook. I was a little worried it wasn't going to happen, but right before we left there was no one around Twitch, so we were able to talk him into it. I seriously felt like one of those teenage girls that gets all starstruck by their favorite celebrity, but I just couldn't help it.

Hogle Zoo

2010-09-17T09:25:00.000-06:00

Since the weather was gorgeous this week, we decided it was the perfect time to go to the zoo. We brought our niece, Amaya, with us since she hadn't been to the zoo for a while and really wanted to go. We ended up buying a membership because it was only a few more dollars than getting all 7 of us in. Hopefully with the membership we'll actually make it down a few more times this year and experience the animals in different times of the year. I've heard they are much more active in the winter, so we'll see. It was our first time going to the zoo without a stroller and it was heaven! It's such a different experience to be able to get through the crowds without pushing a large stroller everywhere you go. Brooklyn and Kaden did get a little tired, but overall it was so much better. We rode the train and the carousel while we were there, had a picnic lunch, and saw most of the animals. It was a long, but fun day.

Brooklyn had told me that she didn't want to see the gorillas when we were there because she had a nightmare about a gorilla biting her foot. I thought she would get over it by the time we got there, but as soon as we went in the building to see the gorillas she started crying. She was so scared even though they were behind a glass wall.

Here are a few of the highlights:

Where do I begin?

2010-09-10T16:49:00.007-06:00

After 5 months of no updates, it's hard to know where to start, so I guess I'll just go back to May and move forward.

At the end of May my mom underwent heart surgery and my grandma passed away. That put a bit of a damper on the beginning of summer and I don't really feel like it began until the end of June.

Right before my mom went in for surgery, Kaden had one last field trip with his preschool to Discovery Gateway. We rode the train down and enjoyed a couple hours there and then went to lunch with Les. We had a great time together.

Kenzie also had a puppet show at the end of May. Her group did a really good job and it was fun to see all of the kids creativity with their puppets.

Kenzie, Kaden, and Brooklyn were all a part of a dance/tumbling recital at the end of June. It was a hectic two days of dress rehearsals and performances, but it was a lot of fun to see all of their hard work pay off.

At the end of July, Kenzie and Kaden started school. Kenzie is in the 6th grade and Kaden is in Kindergarten. They both have great teachers and are doing really well in school.

We also took our first camping trip of the summer at the end of July to the Uintah's with Les's family. We were able to spend time with his parents, four of his brothers, all of his nieces and nephews, a couple aunts, one uncle, and a few cousins. The kids had a blast floating down the river. It was great to finally get out and have some fun after the rough start to our summer.

In August we celebrated Kenzie's 11th birthday. I surprised her by decorating her room for her while she was at school. It was fun to see her reaction, she even got a bit teary-eyed, which in turn made me teary too. It was well worth the time and effort!

A couple days later, my mom ended up back in the hospital after suffering a hemorrhagic stroke (bleeding in the brain) which wouldn't stop because of the blood thinner she takes for her mechanical valve. It was very scary to go through something like that again and very stressful. She was in the hospital for over two weeks and I tried to make it up there everyday to keep her company. She's doing really well again, thank goodness, and hopefully we won't have anymore scares like that again.

Cody started school in August as well, unfortunately I didn't get a picture of him on his first day. He started the 8th grade this year and he's definitely noticing the difference in homework this year.

We woke up to a surprise one Sunday morning at the end of August. Our very large willow tree in the front yard had blown over in the wind. It was quite the site. Luckily it was too short to hit the house, but it was very close.

Over Labor Day weekend we finally were able to take a camping trip with my parents. We went up to Flaming Gorge. We spent time in the boat, hiking, and just relaxing. It was a much needed break after the craziness of our summer. Cody's friend Nate came with us for the weekend for his very first camping trip ever. It was fun to have him around and Cody definitely enjoyed the company.

Brooklyn started preschool a couple days after getting home. She absolutely loves it! She wishes she could go to school everyday like the other kids. I just can't believe my baby is in school. I'm kind of stuck between emotions on that one. On one hand, having some alone time is pure bliss, on the other, I'm sad that my kids are growing up so fast.

In a nutshell, this has been the past 5 months for our family. It's been quite the roller coaster ride. Hopefully this will be the last marathon post for a very long while!

Has it really been 4 years?

2010-05-06T14:46:00.003-06:00

How did my baby go from this.....

to this.....

I can't believe that Brooklyn is 4. This boggles my mind to think that my baby is getting so big. Of course, I've been around to witness it, but I think I must have been in denial that she's really growing up.

To celebrate her birthday, last Friday we rode the train down to Salt Lake and had dinner at California Pizza Kitchen and then got some candy at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and wandered around Gateway for a little while. On Saturday, we had a birthday party for her and she got lots of fun presents. A few of her favorites were a Barbie and Ken doll, a fairy princess costume, and a Tinkerbell scooter.

A few of Brooklyn's favorites right now are dancing, singing, playing games (she's really good at Memory), watching Dora the Explorer on TV, and the color pink.

Brooklyn is such a sweetheart and we love her very much!!! Happy Birthday Brooklyn!

What we've been up to.

2010-04-22T16:29:00.004-06:00

My new goal for the blog is to be more consistent in updating it, we'll see how it goes. I'm going to attempt to update once a week, which is way more often than I have been, so wish me luck.

Since our trip to Disneyland, our lives have gotten back to normal and we're just as busy as ever. In March, Kenzie had a dance competition at Weber High. Their team did really well and got quite a few trophies. A few days later she danced during half-time at a Utah Jazz game. She's done this quite a few times now and she really enjoys it. We rode the Front Runner train down to Salt Lake and Les met us down there. We had to be there early for dress rehearsal and then we went to dinner before the game. We got back to the Energy Solutions Arena quite early and were able to watch the Jazz players warm up and then watched the cheerleaders and jazz comp team from Kenzie's dance school perform the pre-game show. We just missed the opportunity to get pictures with President Monson because we took too long to follow after the other dancers, but we were able to wave at him as he left. During the game, Kaden and Brooklyn were more interested in trying to find the Jazz Bear than actually watching the game, so as soon as Kenzie was done dancing we left to go get ice cream. She did a great job and we're really proud of her.

In early April, of course we celebrated Easter. We had my brothers and their families come over for dinner and an Easter egg hunt. The kids had a great time trying to find all of their eggs. My mom gave each of them their own color so everybody ended up with the same amount of eggs in the end. We ended up hiding a few of the eggs a bit too hard and the hunt took longer than we thought it would, but it was a lot of fun.

We also celebrated my mom's birthday on Easter and had cake and ice cream for her. She even got to blow out some candles. Hope you had a happy birthday mom!!!

Brooklyn and I were also able to go on a field trip with Kaden to a dairy farm. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera because I had taken the SD card out of it for a lesson I was teaching in Young Women's about temples and had filled it up with temple pictures for my digital frame. The kids had a great time and they even got to pet some calves.

Hopefully I can come up with enough stuff to write about on a weekly basis. I'll keep my camera with me in hopes of capturing some really cute stuff! Until next time......

Disneyland!

2010-03-04T11:09:00.009-07:00

As promised, I am actually blogging about our trip to Disneyland.

For anyone that had talked to me in the planning phase of our trip, you know that Disneyland was not my first choice of a family vacation. My kind of vacation is Yellowstone or Oregon, more nature-like. Of course, I would have felt like a horrible mother if we had never taken our kids there, so the planning began.

We decided to leave for our trip on Friday night, the 19th, at midnight so the kids would sleep the majority of the way there. We planned on stopping in Las Vegas for breakfast. So, Les came home from work early and went straight to bed while I packed the car and got everything ready to go. I kept the kids up until we left by watching Disney movies. Everyone was super excited to get on the road and we headed out the door just after midnight. Unfortunately, a few of the kids and I had picked up colds before we left, so sleeping on the road wasn't working out very well for us. Also, just outside of Filmore we ran into some horrible snow and the plows hadn't made it out yet. We were traveling about 25-30 mph along the freeway and trucks were pulling off left and right to put on chains. We made the decision to pull over in Filmore and get a hotel for a few hours so we could get some much needed rest and let the plows get a chance to clear the roads a bit. We slept for about three hours and were on the road again by about 8AM. We grabbed breakfast at Burger King and were on our way. The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful and the kids tolerated it quite well. Let's just say that the idea to leave at midnight seemed good at the time, but in hindsight was probably a really bad one, but live and learn right?!

We arrived in Anaheim at about 5 and checked into our hotel. We stayed at the Homewood Suites and were very impressed. The rooms were great and the service we received was wonderful. I would highly recommend this hotel to anybody going to Disneyland! There was an L-shaped couch in the room that folded out into a bed and Kaden found that once the bed was pulled out he could stand the cushions up next to it and make kind of a fort out of the rest of the couch. He chose to sleep there the entire trip, it was pretty funny. Cody loved it because he got the whole sofa bed to himself. We tried to research different restaurants before heading to California to get an idea of where to eat. We ended up eating at a local Italian restaurant called Carolina's that was just down the street from our hotel. We were able to walk, which was a nice break after being in the car so long. The food was pretty good, but our service was horrible. I'm not sure that I would really recommend it to anybody, but it was a fun experience.

On Sunday, we spent our day at Huntington Beach. It was kind of chilly and it looked like it was going to rain, but the weather held out for us and we had a great time. We built sandcastles, flew kites, and just ran around and had fun. It was definitely nice to get away from the Utah snow and have a fun day in the sun. We decided that a burger sounded good for dinner, so we researched good burger joints in Anaheim and ended up at a place called Paul's. Well...it was pretty much just Crown Burger with a few extra things on the menu, so nothing really special, but it was good.

Monday was our first day in Disneyland. We decided to drive instead of using a shuttle bus since for our family it was the same price and we liked the idea of having our car to come and go as we pleased. Disney parking is awful!!! They have people directing you to the spot they want you in and we ended up in the furthest spot from the little tram that takes you to the main entrance as possible. We were only able to make it through Tomorrowland and Fantasyland that first day as there ended up being a lot more people there than I thought there would be in February. We had a great time and the kids absolutely loved it. We took a break midday for lunch at the hotel, we had bought the stuff for sandwiches and chips. We ended up staying at Disneyland until almost close and went in search of a place to eat. We had wanted to go to PF Chang's, but the wait time there was about an hour, which just wasn't going to cut it with a bunch of tired and hungry kids. We walked down the street and ended up at Bubba Gump's. Any fan of Forrest Gump should definitely hit up Bubba Gump's sometime, it was a pretty fun atmosphere. The food was pretty good, but nothing spectacular. It was freezing cold in the restaurant though. Our table was the closest one to the door and they kept the doors wide open the entire time with a cold breeze coming through. We headed back to the hotel exhausted and ready for bed, and also looking forward to another fun day ahead.

On Tuesday we decided to take our hotel shuttle bus to Disney. This was a slightly better option than driving, but again we were dropped off at the furthest point from the main entrance and our driver was awful. We spent most of our day in California Adventure. We had watched the news that morning and found out that Captain EO was reopening and there were people that had camped out overnight just to see it. We wanted to avoid that mess as much as possible, so California Adventure it was! There's a lot of construction going on at California Adventure right now and really there aren't a lot of rides over there. We were able to get through all of it in one day with time to spare. Kaden and Brooklyn really enjoyed Playhouse Disney Live and Cody and Kenzie really liked the faster rides they had over there. Kenzie's favorite was Tower of Terror and Cody's favorite was California Screamin'. We made the mistake of taking Kaden on Tower of Terror and the name fit his reaction, he was terrified! I felt so bad. He ended up questioning every ride that Brooklyn wasn't allowed to go on after that just to make sure it wasn't too scary. Brooklyn didn't feel good most of the day and I don't think she remembers much about it at all. For dinner, we ended up at the Rainforest Cafe. I wanted to have one night that we went to a themed restaurant for the kids. This was the perfect place to keep them happy. The food was pretty good, nothing too special, but the atmosphere was a lot of fun.

On Wednesday, we decided to take Anaheim Resort Transit to get to Disneyland. This was such a better way to go. The route is #1 which meant you were dropped at the closest possible stop near the main gate and it also ran every 20 minutes. We finished the rest of Disneyland that day. The crowds were gone and we were able to get on every ride almost immediately. We had been trying to get Brooklyn over to see the Princesses since we got there, but the line was always at least an hour wait, so first thing Les grabbed her and ran over to get in line while I took the other three kids to do the rest of the rides. Brooklyn was able to meet three of the princesses and on their way back to meet up with us they ran into Jesse and Woody too! She was a very happy girl that day. The kids and I went on Big Thunder Mountain, Haunted Mansion, and Pirates of the Caribbean while we waited for them to finish. It was a lot of fun. We ended up back at California Adventure for a little bit catching a few more rides and watching the Pixar parade and then decided to call it a day a little earlier than we had been. For dinner, we ended up driving a bit north to catch a BBQ place we had read about online called Lucille's. We had thought it was a local restaurant, but apparently it is a chain restaurant that we just don't have here in Utah. The food was great!!! Unfortunately our service was awful. I'm glad we tried it out, but it would have been nice if our server remembered we were there!

On Thursday, we rode a few of the favorites at California Adventure and finally road Soarin' Over California. It was pretty busy the other days, so we got in line first thing to be able to do it. Kaden was convinced that it was going to be scary and cried the entire time we were in line. It took a lot of convincing to even get him buckled in, but he finally gave up and ended up enjoying it. We also made it over to catch Captain EO at Disneyland. We were going to avoid it like the plague thinking it would always be really busy and they weren't offering Fast Passes for it, but we tried it out and we actually only had to wait about 15 minutes, not too bad. Once we saw it, I asked the kids if they would have been willing to camp out overnight to see it and they said absolutely not!! I'm sure we must have thought it was the coolest thing back in the 80s, but really it was so dumb! We wrapped up early again and decided to head out to the beach again to catch a sunset. There is a restaurant at the end of the pier at Huntington Beach called Ruby's. It has the coolest views and we were able to catch the sunset right from our booth. The food and service were excellent! We all got shakes to end the meal and they were fantastic. This experience was definitely worth every penny (which was quite a bit). One of the pictures below is Les's cherry Coke, which he said was the absolute best he had ever tasted!

On Friday, we spent time in both parks trying to finish up things we hadn't done and riding on a few favorites. We were able to catch the street party at Disneyland and the Aladdin Musical Spectacular at California Adventure. We were hoping to catch the fireworks that night as it was the only night they were going to show them on our trip, but they were canceled due to weather, what a bummer! We did get to see Nicolas Cage at the exit of Indiana Jones, but we didn't have our camera with us and decided we didn't want to be all weird and go bug him for a picture with our phones.

We had a lot of fun trying to track down the characters while we were there. We ended up having better luck at California Adventure than at Disneyland because of the crowds. Every character had a line just to be able to get a picture, but the lines at California Adventure were much shorter.

Here are a few of the fun photo ops we just had to take advantage of. We are such tourists!

We ended our trip with a night in Vegas. That was such a bad idea. Kids on the strip at night is just not good at all. I had this great idea to take the kids to a bunch of the free stuff to see on the strip and then eat at a buffet. Unfortunately, the atmosphere in Vegas is much different now than what I remember when we visited a few years ago. We did end up seeing the lions at MGM, M&M World, the fountains at Bellagio, and the statues at Caesar's. We ate at the Planet Hollywood buffet. The food was mediocre at best and there were just too many people to feel comfortable with the older kids getting their own food. Of course they loved the dessert bar, so I guess all wasn't lost. We decided to forgo the breakfast buffet we had been looking forward to because we really never want to step foot on the strip again, it was just nasty! We ate breakfast at our hotel on Sunday morning and then we were on our way home. We stopped in Salt Lake for dinner at Roman's Macaroni Grill and had to laugh when we got our bill as it was half of what we spent on dinners in California, and we even got dessert! Crazy!!!

I would say our trip was a great success! We all had a lot of fun. Even I enjoyed it despite all the crowds. I miss the warmer weather and wish spring would hurry up and get here.

Another marathon post

2010-02-10T11:51:00.003-07:00

Once again I have gotten several months behind on my blogging, so here is another very long post to get you up to date. I wanted to do this now because we are leaving for Disneyland next week and I wanted to be able to blog about that as soon as we got home, so here we go!

First up we have Black Island Farms. Kaden's preschool class went there for a field trip again this year. Brooklyn got to tag along and they had a great time. We went on a hay ride where they learned about different vegetables and each got to pick a pumpkin. Then they played in the courtyard where there was a train, bounce house, slides, and animals. It was a lot of fun.

Up next we have Halloween. Les and Kaden dressed up as Mario and Luigi, which was super cool! Les won a prize for his costume at work. Kenzie was a hippie. We tie-dyed her shirt and Grandma Garr made a vest and turned some old jeans into bell-bottoms for her, she was way cute! Cody was a zombie. We didn't ever take the time to really work out his costume, but I think it turned out pretty good for a last minute attempt. Brooklyn was a 50s girl and looked super cute in her poodle skirt that Grandma Garr made for her. I was a gypsy, but most people thought I was a pirate, but that's okay, at least I dressed up! We had a quick party at my parents house and then came home to go trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. The kids got a ton of candy which disappeared very quickly!

It was that time again to get a new family picture taken, but unfortunately we waited too long and didn't get a chance to do outdoor pictures again like I had wanted to, so we decided to have my cousin take our picture in front of my parents fireplace. It didn't turn out too badly, but I think we will give it a go again in the spring.

Next up, pictures with Santa! At our annual Peterson Family Party Santa comes each year and brings a bunch of yummy candy, but you have to sit on his lap in order to get some. Brooklyn and Kenzie went right up and were pretty close to the front of the line. Kaden wanted absolutely nothing to do with Santa and wouldn't go near him. Cody waited patiently until close to the end of the line, but it was worth the wait!

In December, Kenzie, Kaden, and Brooklyn had dance and tumbling demonstrations. This is Brooklyn and Kaden's first year doing dance and tumbling and they have been having a blast. Brooklyn was kind of nervous up on the stage, but she did pretty good once she got going. Kaden had fun showing off for us. Kenzie is doing really well with both dance and tumbling. I wish I would have gotten better pictures, but it's hard when they're constantly moving.

The next pictures were taken at Grandma and Grandpa Peterson's Christmas Eve party. Brooklyn got this cute purse with all kinds of fun stuff in it from Aunt Ruth and she decided to share with Grandpa Garr. He's such a good sport!

And then it was Christmas! Everyone got a lot of really fun presents this year. Cody and Kenzie's favorites were their phones, Kaden's was his robotic dinosaur, and Brooklyn's was her Three Musketeers Barbie. My mom got us all Laser Tag guns. We're looking forward to the warmer weather so we can really try them out, but we've had fun chasing each other around the house and hiding behind furniture. Les got me a Quickutz Silhouette SD, which for those of you who don't know is a really cool digital cutter that I can use for my scrapbooking. I've had a ton of fun with it already and I can't wait to learn more about it so I can make all sorts of fun stuff!

Les took Kenzie, Kaden, and Brooklyn sledding with our neighbors. He said they had a lot of fun, which they must have because they were gone for a really long time! I was able to catch up on my reading and relax on the couch since I wasn't feeling well. I'm bummed that I missed out on the fun, but I'm not a big fan of snow so they probably had more fun without me!

And there you have it...four months worth of fun with the Buchanan family. Of course we have done many other things in the past four months, but these are the things we actually took pictures of. I know I'm not the greatest of bloggers, but I hope those of you who read this enjoy the quick catch-ups every now and then.

Coming soon.....Disneyland!!!!

Are you ready for it?

2009-10-09T08:32:00.001-06:00

All right...so it's been a while since I've updated. I'm really not the best blogger out there, but I'm going to try to be better. Hopefully this is the last marathon post I'll have to do. So, by popular demand....here is what's been happening with us for the last three months.

In July, we went camping at Willard Bay with one of Les's friends from way back and his family. They have four kids as well. The kids had a great time playing Hide-and-Seek in the bushes and trees that were right by our campsites. We played games, went swimming (even though it was freezing), fished, and relaxed. We all had a great time and hopefully we'll set up another camping trip with them in the future.

Brooklyn finally started dance class. She had been begging for months, so once she turned 3 and the new summer session started, we put her in. She does a little tap and a little ballet and she absolutely loves it! At the end of every class they do a dance called Freeze Dance where you dance any way you want, but when the music stops you have to freeze. Of course, this is Brooklyn's favorite thing because she loves to strike a pose!

In August, Kenzie turned 10 and had a birthday party with her friends. They played Twister, roasted hot dogs, played a karaoke game on the Wii, and watched Coraline. They all had a great time. Kenzie has some really great friends.

In September we had another Cousin Party!!! We had a great turnout and lots of food! Everyone enjoyed playing games and catching up. We have another party planned in two weeks which we're really looking forward to.

Cody started junior high this year. This caused a bit of anxiety on my part. I remember junior high and was nervous to have him be there already. He was pretty excited to be done with elementary, but I don't think he likes the extra work that goes with it!

Kenzie is in the 5th grade this year. She has a great teacher and is loving every minute of it. Kaden also started another year of preschool, but for some reason I didn't take a picture of him...bad mom!

My neighbor invited me and the kids to go to the zoo with her and her kids. They had a great time together. We went to see the animals, but this water globe thing was their favorite part, go figure!

At the end of September we took another camping trip to Yellowstone. The weather was gorgeous. We went with Les's parents and his brother and brother's girlfriend. My parents also came up for a couple nights, but stayed in a hotel. We didn't take many pictures this year since we've been there so many times, but a nice lady by the waterfall offered to take this picture of our family. The kids weren't being too cooperative, but I think it turned out pretty good. I love Yellowstone and I don't think I'll ever get bored of going there, it's just too pretty!

For Activity Days, we had a Daddy-Daughter Hoe Down. It was so much fun! We had dinner and line dancing. It was so fun to see the girls dancing with their dads. The dads were all great sports! Les was the chef for the night, staying home most of the activity cooking our dinner and dessert since you can't cook in the church. He was a lifesaver!

It is official, I am now the parent of a teenager! Does this mean I'm getting old? The only thing he wanted for his birthday was money because he's saving up to buy an X-Box 360. Just what we need, another video game system. :)

Kaden also had his birthday and he wanted a new video game. He sure is starting young with his love of video games, but what can you expect with a dad and brother that love to play. He got a lot of other fun presents and had a great birthday!

Of course, we have done a lot of other stuff in the last three months, but these are the only things I have pictures of to remind me. :) Until next time....happy reading!

We've been busy!!!

2009-07-07T16:48:00.010-06:00

Once again it has taken me forever to update our blog. Hopefully after this post, you will see why I've been too busy to do so!!!

Kenzie has been very busy with dance the last couple of months. She had a performance at the Kaysville Sportsplex and also performed during half-time at the Jazz game. She had competitions at Roy High, University of Utah, and Lagoon. She also had her end of year recital at Weber State for two nights in June. She had a great time and they did very well in competition, taking a few first and second place trophies.

Brooklyn had her birthday in May. The only thing she asked for was a Barbie, so of course she got a few. We had a party with all the family and we had a great time.

Kaden had a field trip for preschool at Discovery Gateway in Salt Lake. Kaden, Brooklyn, and I took the train down to Salt Lake and met Les there and then went with Kaden's class to the museum. Me and Les each took turns following a kid and we had a lot of fun.

For Memorial Day weekend, we went camping up to Clark Canyon Reservoir near Dillon, Montana with my parents. My dad brought his boat and Les and the kids enjoyed fishing while my mom and I had a Scrabble tournament. I was having great luck that weekend and won the majority of the games.

Kaden had his Preschool graduation at the end of May. They had a really cute program and sang some songs for the parents. Teacher Britney told everyone a little bit about each kid. One of the questions asked was what they wanted to be when they grew up and Kaden said he wanted to be a pirate, crazy kid!! He really loved Teacher Britney and had a lot of fun in her class this year.

A couple weeks ago Syracuse had their Heritage Days celebration and we went to the parade that runs very near to our house. The kids got a ton of candy and Kenzie even ended up joining the parade with the PTA float to be with her friend. She was supposed to be in the parade anyway with her dance group, but we didn't get up early enough to get her there.

Last week I was able to take my group of Activity Day girls to Temple Square. We had nine girls and three leaders, so it was perfect. We had each of the girls bring a sack dinner so we could stay a while. We went on a tour of the conference center where each of the girls were obsessed with the water, they just couldn't keep their hands out of it. Then we went across the street to eat our dinners right outside the temple grounds. We took a picture of each of the girls in front of the temple to use in a later activity and then went inside the north visiting center to see the Christus and then it was time to head home.

And last, but not least, we took the kids out to Antelope Island last night for a hike. Cody is trying to get caught up on his scouting and one of the requirements was to take a hike with a first aid kit, so that's what we did. We went to the Fielding Garr Ranch first, which unfortunately was closing about 15 minutes after we got there, so we didn't have much time to see anything. We'll have to go out there again so we can spend more time there. We did our hike at Buffalo Point and it was gorgeous. The kids enjoyed climbing all over the rocks and posing for pictures. We had a great time. The extra kid in the picture is my newphew Bill who is staying with us for the week.

So, as you can see, we have been extremely busy and have had a ton of fun. Hopefully it won't take me so long to update next time.

Easter Camping

2009-04-14T15:15:00.003-06:00

For Easter weekend we went camping at Otter Creek with my parents, which for those of you who don't know is down south about an hour north of Bryce Canyon. My thoughts were that since we were heading south, it would be warm. Well....I was wrong!! It was so cold down there, we were freezing! Thank goodness we have a trailer. Even though it was cold, we still had a great time. We spent a lot of time inside my parents trailer playing games, Scrabble being my favorite, but we also got outdoors. Here is a sampling of the things we did.

The kids each got an early present from the Easter Bunny once we got down there on Thursday afternoon. Kenzie, Kaden, and Brooklyn each got fishing poles and Cody got a tackle box since he already had a pole. They immediately had to test them out and had a great time.

On Saturday we ventured down to Bryce Canyon. I had never been there before and it was nothing like what I had pictured. Again, because it's down south, I expected it to be warmer, but I was wrong! They still had snow. It was gorgeous and I'm very glad we went. I would like to go back some day when it's warmer and check out all the hiking trails.

Saturday night we let the kids color Easter eggs. I forgot to check the directions before we went and apparently you're supposed to use vinegar in the coloring, but the eggs turned out fine and the kids had a lot of fun!

Easter morning we told the kids they had to search the trailer for their Easter baskets that the Easter bunny had left for them. Considering the relatively small size of the trailer, there really were not many places they needed to look, but they were still baffled for a while. They each got new outfits and lots of candy.

We had a great time! I hope our next camping trip is a bit warmer, but I'm really glad we went!

"Stay-cation"

2009-03-20T12:16:00.004-06:00

Our kids were off track this month and instead of taking a vacation, we decided to save a few bucks and stick around town and have a "stay-cation." On Thursday our first stop was Kangaroo Zoo. The kids had a great time bouncing and running and jumping to their heart's content. My favorite part was that there were separate activities for the younger kids to do so they didn't get knocked over by the big kids. We ended up having the place to ourselves until after lunch time, it was great!!

Next stop was The Living Planet Aquarium in Sandy. It wasn't as big as I thought it would be, but their exhibits were great. The kids really enjoyed it! They even had a stingray exhibit where you could actually touch them. Les and Cody were the only ones to brave that, but Kenzie tried it with the help/coercion of her dad!!

We went to The Mayan that night for dinner where we enjoyed a great show and yummy food, it was way fun!!

Unfortunately, Thursday night 4/6 of us ended up with a stomach bug and Friday was spent laying around the house getting better. Les made us some wonderful chicken noodle soup and we watched Pirates of the Caribbean (the first one) that night and had about as good of time as we could hope for.

By Saturday morning all was well with the stomachs again, so we headed down to Thanksgiving Point and went to the dinosaur museum. We had never been there before and I was pretty impressed. The kids had a great time. I think the favorite was the sand/water table. We also watched a 3D movie about dinosaurs that was pretty cool. Also, while in Lehi we checked out Cabela's and ran into my mom and dad. The kids thought that was great and they actually wanted to head home with them, but we talked them out of it so we could take them out to dinner. We went to Tucano's at Gateway and had an excellent dinner! That night we watched the second Pirate's movie and called it a day!

Next up was the Hogle Zoo. The weather was perfect and there was hardly anybody there, it was wonderful!! Of course we got the traditional pose with the gorilla photos, gotta love them!! We had a great time. After a very long day there, we went to PF Chang's for dinner and had some excellent food, although one of the dishes suggested by our waiter was a bit spicy for our taste! We ended the day with the final Pirate's movie and that ended our weekend of fun!!

I'm so glad we decided to do this. It's funny how you can completely ignore all of the fun things to do around your house and take expensive vacations elsewhere. I'm sure we could do this kind of "vacation" several more times and still not run out of things to do.

I've been tagged

2009-01-14T11:57:00.003-07:00

5 things I was doing 10 years ago:

Living in Washington Terrace in our third apartment
Raising a 2-year-old
Just found out I was going to have another baby
Loving being a stay-at-home mom
Scrapbooking my little heart out

5 things on my to do list today:

Work
Take Kenzie to dance
Fix dinner
Watch last night's American Idol
Fold laundry

5 snacks I love:

Popcorn
cheese and crackers
Chips and con queso
Gardetto's
Chocolate

5 things I would do if I was a billionaire:

Vacation more
New vehicles
New trailer
Decorate my house
New wardrobes for everybody

I tag:

Linda
Kathleen
Brooke
Christi
Eva

Kenzie's Christmas dance

2008-12-24T09:19:00.003-07:00

Well, it's been a while since I've updated. I guess I enjoy reading other people's blogs more than updating my own.

Kenzie had her Christmas recitals for dance and tumbling this last week which were really fun to watch. She did tumbling on Monday, jazz on Wednesday, and ballet on Saturday. Most of our pictures didn't turn out too well because of the movement, but here's a sampling. She's turning into such a pretty dancer!!

Back to the land of computers

2008-12-06T09:44:00.002-07:00

It's so funny how much I rely on my computer nowadays. It used to be that the computer was something I played Solitaire on once in a while and now it has turned into something that I use on a daily basis for something or other. First of all, I work at home doing medical transcription, so I use it for work, I read the news online rather than watch it, I check the sale ads on Pinching Your Pennies rather than read the actual sale papers, and then of course there's Facebook, blogs, and e-mail to keep up on.

So, for the past week I have been unable to be on a computer at all because of a nasty virus. It hit my computer last Sunday while I was working (I guess that's a sign I shouldn't have been working on a Sunday right:) So, we thought we could use anti-virus software to get rid of it, but not so. Les decided our safest route was to completely reformat the computer. Yikes!!! We had to order an external hard drive to back up all the files we needed and then wait for it to arrive. It came Thursday and we finally got everything set back up yesterday. It's so hard to get everything back to the way you had it before, but so far I think it's pretty good.

So, you may ask, what did I do this week without my computer? Well, I caught up on laundry, cleaned up the house, took the kids to the library, read a book, made new watchbands for my interchangeable watch, played a lot of Scrabble on my cell phone, and tried to start potty training Brooklyn.

Apparently I spend way more time on the computer than I had originally thought because I sure accomplished a lot this week!! Maybe this week will teach me to balance my time better, who knows, but I sure am glad to be back online!!!

Update on the food coloring incident

2008-11-18T10:34:00.002-07:00

A few of you have shown some interest in whether the food coloring has come out, so here's an update. As far as the best cleaning method, just plain water and a lot of towels has worked the best. The couch looks pretty good, but there are a couple spots that still need some work. The floor is slowly coming clean, but because there was so much of it, it's taking a lot of water and a lot of blotting. I will also need to clean the entire floor once I'm done because now I have cleaner spots than the rest of the carpet. As far as the kids, they still have spots, but it's getting lighter. And the dog...well he's still looking very patriotic :) So, if this ever happens to you, just grab a bunch of water and a bunch of towels and have fun!!!

Also, I cannot say enough about microfiber couches!!! I don't think I would have had as good of luck with some other kind of fabric. Microfiber is definitely the way to go with kids around!!!

The food coloring incident

2008-11-14T14:36:00.004-07:00

I've been told by many people that if your kids do something that you're really upset about, then just grab your camera because you'll think it's funny later on. Well, I did just that and I really do hope that I find this funny later on!!! This is what happens when the food coloring that was used the night before doesn't get put back on the highest shelf in the cupboard.

I'm not sure if you can tell exactly how much food coloring they actually got into, but it was all over them, the couch, the carpet, and the dog. Food coloring in that amount is not the easiest thing to clean and unfortunately it is an ongoing process right now. It won't come off the kids, I haven't even tried the dog and the carpet still has a slight shade of pink. The couch doesn't look too bad, but there's still more coloring coming off of it each time I wipe it down. So, if anyone has any ideas about how to get food coloring out, let me know. As of now, I will be doing research on the internet until I find something that works.

Halloween, I know I'm a little late

2008-11-06T12:05:00.003-07:00

We really did celebrate Halloween around here, I'm just really slow about actually posting about it. We went to several parties and got lots of candy and had a great time. Les and I were party poopers this year and didn't dress up, but here are the kids costumes:

Brooklyn was a witch.

Kenzie was Hannah Montana

Kaden was a cowboy.

Cody was a hobo.

Pictures were nearly the death of me!!!

2008-11-04T14:49:00.003-07:00

As you can see, we finally did get pictures of everybody this time around, but not without more drama of course!! I got the kids all dressed up exactly how they were the week before and set out for Layton Park. I decided to start with a picture of all the kids together and then move on to individuals, but unfortunately the kids were not being very cooperative and that was taking forever. As soon as I decided that I had a good group picture and was ready to move on my camera battery died. I was so mad!!! We have an extra battery, but it has been missing for quite some time. Lucky for me we had the battery charger in the car, so I charged the battery while the kids played at the park. I had called Les to vent my frustration and he felt bad and left work early to help me finish the pictures. We were finally able to get the rest of the pictures and I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.

My next project was making a new blog header. I knew what I wanted, but wasn't exactly sure how to get it. I finally got something close, but I'm still not super happy with it. I don't know why I took it upon myself to do the blog header considering my husband designs web pages for a living and could have probably done it in half the time and had it looking fabulous. Actually, I do know why, it's because I'm very inpatient and didn't want to wait around for him to do it. He has promised to clean it up for me and make it look more how I had envisioned it, but until then I'm just going to leave my version for everyone to see. I'm so glad pictures are done!!!

I forgot one of my kids!!!!

2008-10-23T09:24:00.003-06:00

Now, before anybody gets worried that I left one of my kids home alone or at the store or something, rest assured it's not that bad!!! However, we went up to Beus's Pond on Saturday to have some family pictures done and to also take individual pictures of each of the kids. So, kids being kids, they weren't all that cooperative with the picture taking, which of course left us quite stressed out. We left the individual pictures until the end and also took pictures of the girls together and the boys together. Well...as I was going through our pictures yesterday to pick which ones to print, I noticed that we didn't have an individual pictures of Kenzie. We got her picture taken with Brooklyn, but never had her pose by herself. I asked her about it yesterday to see if she realized we hadn't taken her picture and she said she didn't realize we had taken a picture of Cody and thought that we were only taking pictures of Kaden and Brooklyn. How sad is that!!! So, since the kids get out of school early tomorrow and I wasn't overly thrilled with any of the pictures that I got of them anyway, I am taking them all up to Layton Park to try again. Hopefully I will get better pictures of each of them since they won't be posing for family pictures and maybe I won't forget any of them this time :) Wish me luck!!!

Corn maze

2008-10-16T22:16:00.003-06:00

We went to the Black Island Farms corn maze in Syracuse today and had a blast!! Unfortunately I forgot my camera, so no cute pictures to accompany this post, but I figured I could tell about what we did. We went as a ward so that we could get the discounted price, which definitely helps out when you've got four kids you're paying for!!! So the activities included a hay ride where everybody got to pick out a pumpkin, the corn maze, which is huge, the courtyard which had slides, a cow train, see-saws, pumpkin bounce house, animals, etc. There was so much to do, we ended up staying there for 4 hours. Brooklyn really liked the big slides, but of course couldn't go down them alone, so I got to experience them as well, which actually turned out to be pretty fun. We only did one part of the maze since it is pretty big and the kids were having a lot more fun in the courtyard then getting lost in the corn, go figure!! All in all in turned out to be a great day and I'm so glad we decided to go!!

Happy Birthday Cody and Kaden

2008-10-10T10:26:00.012-06:00

Cody turned 12 on Oct. 2 and had a party with his friends on the 3rd. Les took them to Toad's Fun Zone and did go carts, miniature golf, and laser tag and then came back to our house for pizza and cake and ice cream. They all had a lot of fun.

On Oct. 5 Kaden turned 4 and we had our families come over for cake and ice cream to celebrate for both of them.

My kids are growing up so fast!! I really think we should be able to stop them at a certain age. I'm so not ready for the teenage years and yet they'll be here before I know it. Also, I love 4-year-olds. I would love it if Kaden could stay 4 forever!!!

Kenzie

2008-10-07T15:55:00.004-06:00

Kenzie has now been tagged in Kiddo Tag, so here are 5 things you may or may not know about her:

1. She loves animals. It doesn't matter whether it's stuffed or live, she loves animals. She could care less about Barbies or dolls, she would much rather play with an animal.

2. She loves to dance! She has been taking dance for 6 years now. She is on the competition team at Syracuse Dance Academy and goes to dance three times a week. She is also in a tumbling class once a week.

3. She is very creative. She loves to draw pictures, write stories, and make up songs or poems. She enjoys writing in her journal as much as possible.

4. She loves little kids. She is so good about playing with her younger brother and sister. She loves to teach them how to dance and they like to show off for us. She loves it when other little kids come over. She is going to be a great baby-sitter when she gets older!!!

5. She loves to talk. She always has a story to tell about something. Sometimes she gets so excited about something she's telling you she has a hard time getting all the words out.

There are so many things that I admire about Kenzie. She has a very loving personality and is always willing to help out. I love you Kenzie!!!

I'm not sure who else to tag, so anyone who hasn't done this for their kids, you've been tagged!!

The 8s

2008-10-06T23:10:00.005-06:00

8 tv shows I love to watch:

Survivor
Dancing with the Stars
Lost
Fringe
Amazing Race
Bones (I'm a season behind)
Desperate Housewives
Samantha Who

8 favorite restaurants:

La Ferrovia
Mimi's
Macaroni Grill
La Choi (new favorite, I've only been there once)
Gandolfo's
Applebee's
Red Robin
Olive Garden

8 things that happened yesterday:

Fixed waffles for breakfast
Watched conference
Baked 2 cakes
Laid around being lazy
Fixed dinner
Had a birthday party for Cody and Kaden
Visited with family members at the party
Watched Desperate Housewives

8 things I'm looking forward to:

Getting my nails done this week
Halloween
Possibly a weekend trip with Les for our birthdays
Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma's
Kids going off track (I'm not a morning person)
Christmas
Trip to Disneyland
Spring (yeah I know it's not even winter yet, but I hate being cold)

8 things on my wish list

Losing weight
Getting food storage
Being more patient
Going on a cruise someday
Buying new clothes (once I lose weight)
Getting caught up on housework
Getting a new calling in my ward
Getting more sleep

I tag:

Shawna
Linnell
Linda
Allison
Kellie
Cortney
Patrice
Kady

Cody

2008-09-30T09:03:00.006-06:00

Cody got tagged in a game of "Kiddo Tag". How fun!! Now I'm supposed to tell 5 things about him that people may not know, so here it goes.

1. He's going to be a rock star!! He is taking electric guitar lessons right now and doing very well with them. He's got a great ear for music and catches on very easily.

2. He loves to read. Right now he is reading the 5th book in the Harry Potter series. When he reads before bed each night we have to be good about checking on him to make sure he doesn't stay up all night reading. He has a very hard time putting a book down. Hmmm....I wonder where he gets that from? :)

3. He is the incessant gatherer of useless information!! Whenever he gets interested in something he has to find out everything there is to know about it. Past obsessions have included Mario, Weird Al, and now his most recent obsession is Bucket Head. For those of you who don't know, Buckethead is an electric guitar player who once played in Guns N Roses. I'm sure one day he will be very good at Jeopardy with all his useless trivia!!

4. He is very sensitive. He becomes quite emotional when watching something sad on tv. He also hates yelling and fighting. I think this is a very admirable trait for a young man!!

5. He is very creative. He has always enjoyed building things, drawing things, and trying to figure out how things work. He's very artistic, which is something I am definitely not. He definitely gets this from Les!!

Of course, there are many more things that I could write about Cody. He's a great kid!! He's a great big brother and a great helper around the house!! So Cody, if you read this, I love you!!!

So, now I tag:
Shaylee G.
Maggie H.
Madelyn J.
Dax S.
Maximum Powers

A party, a flood, a trip, and peaches!!!

2008-09-24T13:38:00.003-06:00

We have had ourselves a crazy couple of weeks. First of all, the party!!! We had a cousin party at our house with all my Peterson cousins. It was a ton of fun. We had dinner and played games. This was the third party we had together and we are trying to make it a more regular occurrence.

Next, the flood. Last week our basement flooded two days before we were supposed to leave on vacation. We had to rip out the carpet pad in Cody and Kenzie's rooms and part of my office, but we were able to save the carpet, thank goodness!!! We draped the carpet over tables and chairs while we were gone to dry it out. We got the carpet and pad relaid yesterday and can now move the kids back in and try to get our house back to normal!!

And now the trip!!!

We took a camping trip to Yellowstone. It was tons of fun!! This was our first big camping trip on our own. We stayed at Madison Campground inside the park. We took bike rides, long walks around the many geysers, saw an IMAX movie, saw bears and wolves at the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center, and saw lots of elk and buffalo inside the park. We had a great time!

And last, but not least, the peaches. We have three peach trees in our backyard and it was time to pick them as soon as we got home from our trip. We canned them on Monday and ended up with 37 quarts and 9 pints and we still have 2 boxes of peaches left. Next up is the pears!! Yum ,yum!!!

First day of preschool

2008-09-15T15:49:00.003-06:00

Last week Kaden had his first day of preschool. I can't believe he's already going to school. He looked so handsome on his first day. We went to the store and he picked out a new outfit for the first day and a new backpack that had Spongebob on it. He had a great time at school and he wishes he had school more than two days a week. Funny how they go from wanting to go to school all the time to hating it in just a few short years. Oh well, I hope he enjoys it while he can!!!

Copyright infringement

2008-09-10T14:21:00.002-06:00

As I was catching up on the news this morning (I read all the news online because I don't have time to watch the nightly news) I saw a headline about Stephanie Meyer, the author of the Twilight series. Since I love everything Twilight, I had to check it out. It turns out that one of the transcripts of her novel Midnight Sun got leaked on the internet by a trusted friend and she is now so upset by it that she will not finish the book and has instead posted the transcript on her website. I was very upset after reading this, first of all because I was really looking forward to this book. For those of you who don't know, Midnight Sun is the retelling of the story of Twilight, but from Edwards point of view. She has had the first chapter posted on her website for quite some time and I thoroughly enjoyed it and was really looking forward to the whole book.

The other part that upsets me is that it seems we as a society have started to condone stealing. How many of us have downloaded a song for free, copied a friend's DVD or CD, or found something online way before it was supposed to be released and watched, read, or listened to it anyway? I think we forget that these things are copyrighted and we are taking money away from the artists each time we do it. I know the usual argument is how everything is just so expensive and these people are making so much money that it's not really going to hurt them, but that's not really the point. I have to admit that I used to have the same opinion until my husband taught a lesson on honesty at church which really changed his mind and mine. It's not always about the money we spend or the the amount of money the other person is making, it's about being honest with your fellow man.

Anyway, I haven't decided if I'm going to read the transcript that she has posted on her website as it is not the finished product and it's not how she intended it to be released. As much as I want to read the story, I also feel badly for how this turned out for her. My biggest hope is that she will decide to finish it eventually for herself and for her fans.

Frontrunner and Gateway

2008-09-09T12:42:00.011-06:00

Last Friday I took the kids down to Salt Lake on the Frontrunner train. We barely missed the 12:30 train, so we had to wait at the platform for the 1:00 train. The kids were pretty nervous while we waited because they didn't know what to expect. They really enjoyed the train ride and they think that is how we should go to Salt Lake all the time. It was nice not dealing with the traffic, but next time I will definitely not take a big stroller, that was a pain to have to deal with!!

When we got to Salt Lake, we took Trax over to Discovery Gateway where the kids had a ton of fun!! We felt like we had the place to ourselves because it was so empty. It was nice to be able to wander from exhibit to exhibit without worrying about a big crowd. I've decided year-round school is kind of nice that way!!

The kids playing "store".

Cody climbing the rock wall, go Cody go!!

The kids playing house. They fed me all sorts of interesting food, like a bell pepper in a bowl.
Yum, yum!!

"Tonight on KSL 5 news..." Cody had fun pretending to be a news anchor. Brooklyn just wanted to show off for the camera.

This is Brooklyn trying to take a picture of herself. She loves the camera and wanted to take a picture of everything!!

After Discover Gateway, we went to California Pizza Kitchen for dinner, which I had never been to before and I really liked it!! Then we went over the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and got some sweets for the ride home. I love their caramel apples, I got a Snickers apple this time and it was delicious!! We caught the 5:55 train home, which was pretty crowded with all the business people heading home, but we got there in plenty of time to get a great seat!!

Les was supposed to join us for dinner, but he ended up having to go rescue his parents from Bridger Lake because their car broke down and the tow company wouldn't tow their trailer home for them, so he went and picked it up for them. He's such a great guy!!!

Camping in Vernal

2008-09-05T09:40:00.012-06:00

We went to Vernal over Labor Day weekend with my parents, my brother Jarrod and his family and our niece Amaya. We had a lot of fun!! Below are just a sampling of the many pictures we took while we were there. It was so much fun to get in a family camping trip this year.

Here's Kenzie with her fish that she caught.

Kaden loved fishing while we were there!! He even caught a fish, way to go Kaden!!

Cody turned out to be quite the fisherman. He even ate his fish for breakfast!!

We went to the Dinosaur Museum in Vernal while we were there
Here are Cody and Brooklyn with their new friend.
Brooklyn was striking the cutest poses with her little purse.

Watch out Cody, you're going to get eaten!!!
Les likes to be creative with the picture-taking.

The kids all had a lot of fun posing with the dinosaurs.

Brooklyn and Les playing in the water. We stayed right by Steinaker Reservoir.
The kids all had a lot of fun splashing around in the water.

My dad makes the best pancakes ever!!! Especially up camping.

Les and Brooklyn chillin' after a long day.

Kenzie, Shaylee, and Amaya playing Ladder Golf. The kids had a lot of fun with that game while at camp!! Thanks Grandma for bringing it!!

Riding on flat tires is hard :)

2008-08-21T09:06:00.004-06:00

So apparently it's a good idea to check the tire pressure on your tires once in a while. As I posted earlier, I've been trying to ride my bike for exercise. Well, instead of getting easier, it was getting harder and harder to finish my ride every morning. Les was fixing the tires on the kids bikes so I asked him to check my tires as well just to make sure. The tires ended up needing quite a bit of air even though they didn't look flat at all. Well, my next bike ride was a breeze compared to the last one. Hills that were once a chore were so much easier. I got done with my regular route 15 minutes faster!! So, lesson learned, I need to check the pressure more often. Who knew that could make such a difference :)

Kaden wants earrings

2008-08-19T10:18:00.002-06:00

Or at least he thought he did. This morning as he was walking in front of me I noticed something shiny in his ear that just didn't look right. On closer inspection, I saw that he had the back of an earring lodged into his ear. My first thought was how am I going to get that out. I grabbed the tweezers, but after looking at it again I decided there really wasn't anything to grab onto and I didn't want to hurt him or push it in further, so I called the doctor's office to get him in first thing. Thankfully WeeCare just opened a new office in Syracuse and they had a wide open schedule. So we got dressed real quick and headed over. He was really good as the doctor looked at his ear and he sat perfectly still as the doctor scooped it out with his cool little tool. What a relief!!! The doctor said he didn't do any damage and that he would be fine. I guess I'm lucky he found one of the bigger earring backs that are really rounded to stick in his ear instead of one of the sharper and smaller ones. So, there was my excitement for the day. Hopefully he has decided that sticking things in his ears is not a good thing!!

Busy, but fun weekend!!

2008-08-18T18:42:00.003-06:00

Instead of sitting at home this weekend like we usually do, we finally got out and had some fun.

On Friday we took the kids to see Wall-E. The movie was pretty cute and the kids really enjoyed it. We did have to take quite a few bathroom breaks though. We may have to forget the soda next time!! On Friday night I went to play Bunco and our nephew also stayed the night.

On Saturday, Les was in the yard all day and I was doing some housework, not that you can tell now of course. Our niece came over to spend the night with us and that night we went to Burger Stop for some takeout and took it to Layton Park for a picnic. We had a great time together as a family. We really do need to get out more!!

Breaking Dawn

2008-08-11T11:44:00.005-06:00

So I just finished reading Breaking Dawn on Saturday. I have avoided everything Twilight related since the book came out because I didn't want to get spoiled, so I won't spoil anything here just in case you haven't read it yet, but I did want to give my opinion on it.

I really liked the book. Everything that I wanted to happen in the book happened. Sure, there were slow parts, and sure things were a little unrealistic, but hey...it's fiction, what do you expect? I think that as an ending to the series I couldn't have asked for anything better.

I have read some reviews on Amazon that have not been so great. Honestly, I don't see how you cannot like the book if you liked the other three.

So I want to know...Have you read it? Are you reading it now or going to start? Did you like it? Comment away!!!

Brooklyn the makeup artist

2008-08-04T10:14:00.000-06:00

The other day while I was getting some work done, my sweet little Brooklyn decided to give herself a makeover. In the span of about 5 minutes she was able to get into my makeup and put lipstick all over her face, hands, feet, and stomach. Fortunately for me, she didn't get it anywhere else in the house. Right now the charger for our digital camera is lost, so I had to take this picture with my phone, otherwise I would have taken more pictures. The worst part about the lipstick mess is that the lipstick is the kind that only comes off with makeup remover and a bit of scrubbing. She's very ticklish and was laughing like crazy when I was washing her feet and hands, but once I got to the face she wasn't very happy about it. Hopefully that will deter her from doing it again, but I doubt it!!

My feeble attempts at exercise

2008-07-31T11:26:00.000-06:00

Recently I have been trying to get some exercise in as I really want to get in shape now that we're done having kids, because of course being pregnant is the only reason I've gained weight since we've been married :) I've tried so many different things over the years that I feel like I'm becoming somewhat of an exercise genius, or maybe just a sucker that will try the next new and amazing weight loss solution. So my latest thing is riding my bike in the mornings. This has definitely been the most cost effective thing that I've tried as I inherited my mom's old bike, you know, the kind that has the huge seat that looks so comfortable. Well, can i just say that my butt is killing me!!! Who knew that adding several pounds in the butt region could affect the comfort of a bike seat, well, it does. Remember as a kid when you would go out for a bike ride just for fun and you never got tired and it was the easiest thing in the world to do? My how a few years and a few pounds can change that!!! It's so unsettling to see how out of shape I am. So here's to my effort at weight loss this time around and hopefully it's something I can stick to until it starts to snow, then who knows what I will come up, but I'm sure the many infomercials can help me decide :)

TIme to start

2008-07-29T12:43:00.001-06:00

So, I'm new to this blogging thing, but I have really enjoyed reading other people's blogs, so here I go with mine.

I guess I'll start by introducing our family. Les and I met while in high school and got married a couple months after graduation. We were blessed with our first son, Cody, a couple months later. Since then, we have had three more kids, McKenzie, Kaden, and Brooklyn. They are the joy of our lives and keep us quite busy. Les and I will be celebrating our 12th anniversary in a couple weeks.

We live in Syracuse, Utah. We just moved last year and have really enjoyed our new home.

I look forward to sharing the funny stories about our kids and maybe some random thoughts from me.