Life...one day at a time

Monday, October 27, 2008

Halloween Party

I am just now posting our annual Halloween party that we had on 10/17/08. We have had this party every year for about three years now. This year Shannon hosted the party at her house and we added a pinata. We were missing a few girls this year and they were missed. The kids had a great time and thankfully the snow had melted and the weather was beautiful so we could play outside.

Camrey is Tinkerbell this year

and Brennen is Iron Man.

They had a great time and keep asking when the next party is. Thank you Shannon for being a great host, thank you Destini for the cookie makin's, thank you Sara for the pinata, and thank you Becca and Amber for the snackin's.

Picture of the kids

Picture of the mom's taking pictures. I couldn't resist.

Cookie decorating

Camrey concentrating on her cookie

and her masterpiece

Brennen eating my cookie

Pinata time! Destini had fun playing pinata holder until everyone started worrying about the pregnant lady getting hit. The kids did great!

In the sun he melted

So the snow slowly melted and the stuff we used to decorate the snowman was still outside just not on the snowman. The kids had one last hope for the snowman and this is how he turned out.

It just had to be shared

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Snow!!! are you kidding me?

There has been many blogs about the snow we had on Sunday. As you watched the news you heard of 2 inches here and 6 inches here. There was one place on the map that got 11 to 11 and 1/2 inches of snow and that place was where I live. As we were waking up on Sunday Brennen looked out the window and said, "it's knowing (snowing)". I said, "What? Oh crap! It is snowing" Well I had to teach the lesson in church so I had to get to church. I got Brennen going and woke Camrey up by saying it snowed Camrey. She popped right out of bed looked out the window and asked, "Can I put my snow suit on and play?" I told her we would after church. So we got all ready for church, me being the last person ready and Brennen went outside and stood in the snow for the time I finished getting ready. He came in the house crying because he was cold and he had fallen and got dirty, so then I had to re dress him for church. I get outside to find it had snowed a lot more than I had expected and had to get the car all cleaned off. My feet were soaked. We got through church and as soon as we got home the kids were ready to go play. And play they did. By that time Corey was home and Corey is the type of dad that will throw snowballs at a 3 or 5 year old and not think twice. The kids loved it though and our dog Dr Jones had a good time as well. I, even though I hate having snow already, even went out and enjoyed the snow. There was a point where Corey and I were just chucking arm fulls of snow at each other then Corey tackled me. We were all soaked by the end. I even took some pictures of the effect the snow had on our poor trees. I am glad it is mostly melted. We still have a little bit in our front yard.

First they had to build a snowman. Corey is such a great Dad to go and help them.

My poor Halloween decorations got a little buried

Putting on the final touches

And done... now what?

How about a snow angel

Snow fight

Look closely at the size of snow that is flying out of Corey's hands at poor Brennen

Brennen had a pile of snow on the top of his head after this

Now Camrey.... amazing she did not cry at all and towards the end Brennen was the crier.

Now Jones

Don't worry Corey got his, but there is no documentation since I was the photographer and I couldn't take pictures while I was slamming snow in his face.

Can anyone guess what is happening here?

Tree with snow sitting on branch, kid standing under said branch, Dad with an idea,

This is the side of our house where the trees are usually up against the side of the house. There wasn't much of a walkway with them bent over like this. The kids enjoyed the tunnel it made though.

Our poor curly willow in back was just not strong enough and a bunch of branches broke uner the weight of the snow.

Monday, October 13, 2008

TAGGED!!!

Thanks to Brooke I have been tagged. I have read other people's blogs and when they got tagged I thought it was cool, but then as the tagging has got closer to me I started getting a little nervous. Well now it has happened and I don't want to be the lame one and not comply with the rules. The rules: You have to tell 6 unspectacular Quirks about yourself and then tag 6 other blogger's. This will be easy for me. Read to the end to see who I tag...

1. I am deathly afraid of spiders! I don't know if this is a quirk, but it is worth saying I do not like them one bit. I have dreams about spiders and jump out of my bed and start smacking the bed trying to kill the spider that I dreamed was crawling on me. When I still lived at my mom and dad's house and not married, I was helping them clean up their yard. I decided that day to tackle the grape bushes that were out of control. Once they were all pruned I had to carry the massive load to the trailer to take to the dump. I rolled up the vines, put them in a wheel barrel, and wheeled them to the trailer. I lifted the load into the trailer and thought, "Wow I rock!" Then it happened a huge spider was in the wheel barrel and I said, "It must DIE!" So with gloves on my hands and a brick in my hand I went for the kill. I missed! The spider ran on to my gloved hand. I then in seconds threw the gloves, which were big enough to just fling my hands and the gloves were off, to the ground and I sprinted into the house and dead bolted the door behind me. You know spiders can one follow you and two they can open doors.

2. I too am scared of thunder and lightning. For those of you who read Brooke's post about waking up to barely the dull roll of thunder and just laying there frozen. That is me. When I was little I would crawl into bed with my brother because I was scared to death. Now either I lay there frozen until it is over or I will curl up next to Corey. If I have to go to the bathroom during a thunder storm, I will wait until I know it is long passed before getting out of bed.

3. I have broke into a teachers house just to say hi. One night my good friend Stephanie and I decided we wanted to go to one of our teachers/coaches/friends house and say hi. It was pretty late, but we thought, "what the heck". We walked around the entire house trying to find a way into the house. Why we didn't just ring the door bell or knock on the door, I don't know, but this seemed a lot more exciting. Well we found a way into the house. We saw her little cat door, which was the size of about an 8X10 sheet of paper, and said, "we can enter through there." Stephanie tried first unsuccessfully. She couldn't get her broad shoulders through the hole. Next it was my turn. I got in to my waist, but my hips were too big, but there was no turning back. Steph started pushing my hips to fit them through the cat door. Finally, we were in or I was in and Steph was outside. I couldn't figure out how to get the door unlocked, so Steph ran to my car and grabbed my cell phone and I walked through the house upstairs to the back door and finally Steph was in. While I was going through the house Steph called the unnamed teacher and told her she was in jail and she needed her to come bail her out. Of course the teacher was willing to help Steph out of a jam. I let Steph into the house in the process of the teacher getting ready to bail her out. The teacher came walking out of her room and there we were and scared the crap out of her. She couldn't believe one that we were there and two how we got in the house. She was good humored about it and every now and then when I visit her at the school she will tell her students of how we broke into her house.

4. Most of you already know this, but I am late to just about everything. If you want me to be on time to anything you should tell me that the event starts 30 min to an hour before it really starts. If I know that someone told me an earlier time just to get me there on time, I will be late. I don't know what is wrong with me.

5. I hate shopping. Corey and I will go to just Walmart and he will want to walk the entire store. I drag my feet the whole time. I want to get what we came for and leave. When shopping for clothes I wish the clothes would just pop out and say this is your size and will look good on you and then I could be out of the store, I hate browsing. I am terrible when it comes to looking for deals because I just don't want to take the time. It gets even worse when there is a ton of people. I get a great deal of anxiety when there are people in my way or long lines or I just can't find what I am looking for. I am not a good shopping buddy.

6. I get super cranky when I get hungry. It starts out that I am just hungry, but then without warning I turn in to a complete monster. Corey knows when I am at that point and he knows now not to mess with me. Also, when I get to the monster stage I am no good at making decisions. I just want someone to decide and then get the food so I can eat. I start getting hot then cold then sweaty and mouthy. I haven't got to this point too much since I've been pregnant because I am eating all the time anyway, but when I do watch out.

Now that I have let you in on all the details of me, I tag the following bloggers:
1. Becca Mullen
2. Shannon Dabling
3. Stacie Johnson
4. Destini Madsen
5. Tiffany Andrews
6. Wendy Steenick

Friday, October 10, 2008

Millions of Peaches, Peaches for Me

When we first moved into our house we were able to get a bunch of peaches from our peach tree in back, and we canned peaches and peach jam. The last couple of years with the weather and such we haven't done it again because no peaches. Well we ran out of peach jam and I wanted more. Our peach tree again didn't produce so Wednesday we took a road trip to Brigham City and bought us some peaches. Now we have a plethora of peaches and we are going to have a plethora of peach jam. Corey spent all day yesterday, while I was working, starting the jam. He got 14 bottles done before I got home. That is pretty good considering all that must be done. First you have to blanch the peaches, then you have to basically smash the peaches, and then you have to cook the peaches to a boil with pectin and then once it is boiling while you are still stirring it you add the sugar and then continue stirring it until it boils and do that for 4 minutes. So by yourself it is a lot of work. When I got home we got back to it. Corey did the blanching and the smashing and I did the stirring. We got 19 more bottles done together. I got a couple battle wounds from this project, but at least we will have some peach jam.

We started with four boxes of peaches piled to the top. We are down to two boxes.

What a mess

Final product

I had a long sleeve shirt on and still my wrist got burnt. You can't see very well from this picture but I have a burn blister to prove it.

Brennen is 3!

So it is official Brennen turned 3 on Oct 4th. 10-4 good buddy! Before all the pictures I just want to say what a joy Brennen is. He has these brown eyes that, for me, make it seem like he can do no wrong. Lately if you figure out what he is trying to say to you he will say to you "that's what I'm talkin bout." He also loves to fight. I have stated this before but it is getting worse. The other day Corey and I were smack talking each other then Brennen piped in and said, "I'm gunna mess you up Dad!" He is so funny. One night he wanted to fight but no one would fight him. He went around the room and said, "Jace, you fight me?" Jace said no B my toe hurts. Then B turned to Dane and said, "Dane, you fight me?" Dane said no B I just want to rest. Brennen next asked his Dad, "Dad, you fight me?" and to Brennen's great disappointment Dad said no. Then he asked Lantz, "Lantz, you fight me?" and again another no. Brennen was so upset he just looked at them and said, "nobody fight me not you, not you, not you, not you" and just frowned. Corey felt bad, but thought it was funny too. Brennen gives the biggest, tightest hugs I have ever had. He has a routine to give mom hugs and kisses before he will go to sleep but it is not just one hug and it isn't quick. He just holds on for as long as he can. I don't mind this except for when I am not feeling well. B, Mom and Dad love you so much and we are so blessed to have you in our family.

For Brennen's birthday we got him his first bike. He loves it. He still has a few issues trying to get the pedaling motion, but soon he will be racing down the street.

It was raining this day so he couldn't take his bike outside to ride so he just rode indoors.

After he saw his bike we took him to Chucky Cheese. Which I have to say, I will not be going back. The place is crowded, unorganized, and the pizza was not great. Camrey had a lot of fun playing a few games and from the pictures she even enjoyed folding her tickets. I think Brennen and Camrey had fun and so did the Hansen's but again way too crowded for me. Nothing like I remember from when I was a kid.

Brennen playing the lizard game. This was a favorite since it was right by our tables and we could watch the kids play. Brennen did pretty good.

Camrey was awesome at the lizard game. After she felt she mastered the lizard game then she went to shooting hoops and she would make our friend Stephanie proud. With how small she is it took all she had to throw the basketball up over the plastic and into the net but she did really well.

Gotta love the tounge out while concentrating. She does this while she is playing soccer too.

After Chucky Cheese we went back to our house where Lantz and Angie gave Brennen a Hulk toy. He absolutely loves this toy.

Sunday we celebrated Brennen's birthday with both my family and Corey's family. Talk about a full house. Since Sunday was conference Sunday we invited everyone over after conference. There is a tradition in the Martin family that every conference we have wafflefest. It used to be everyone would go to Corey's Mom and Dad's during conference and we would eat waffles and then listen to conference. Now we just wait until after conference and then go eat waffles. Everyone agreed to waffles and Brennen's birthday so we invited my family to join in the fun.