Family Pictures

Okay funny story. I always have funny stories----hello! :) Everytime I go to Heidi's house I see this hill of cool looking weeds. And everytime I think I need to get my family up there to take some pictures. Well on Thanksgiving we went to Heidi's for an early Thanksgiving feast. As we were getting ready I starting telling everyone what to wear. McKenna was not very appreciative of it (she didn't want to wear levi's because she wanted to be comfortable) and Brett dressed himself :)

We get to Heidi's and my brother wasn't there yet so we rushed to the hill and got some shots in. Perfect, they looked great. Heidi was looking at them on the camera, handed it to me, I went to show my brother and I see "MEMORY CARD ERROR". What??? I put it in another camera, same thing----ugggh! Jas tried to fix it and had to reprogram my card, which in turn lost all my pictures :( We moved on, ate a fantastic dinner, then I had to drag my family back to the hill to start over. We used a different memory card and at least got some shots. The lighting was way better on the other ones but beggars can't be choosy!

I think this one with Ethan in the background is funny...Brett didn't think it was too funny :)

Miss Maecee Mac- 2 years old and full of it!

Big E-He was actually gagging on those weeds, he was on one that day

All grown up McKenna Mac

Not professional by any means, but we are all at least in the shot. Hope everyone had a GREAT Thanksgiving.....we sure did! More later.....

Sweet Story

I went to a wedding shower last night and saw Ethan's substitute teacher that he had in Primary last week. She wanted to share a story with me about my tender hearted boy.

Their lesson was on the Resurrection. She said that she showed them a bunch of pictures of Jesus Christ when he lived on earth. She said he was so captured by all of the stories and pictures. Well when she came to the picture of Jesus being crucified, Ethan's whole countenance changed. She said he started to get teary-eyed. This REALLY upsets him. {This same thing happened when we watched a movie the church put out about Jesus Christs time on Earth. Ethan couldn't even watch that part. He was so upset that people were mean to him}. So she told him that it was okay and that it was the Plan for him to come to earth, be an example, be crucified, and then resurrected. She said that after she finished telling the whole story he was fine, but she was amazed at the love he had for Our Savior Jesus Christ! Wow, he is only 6 years old and HE KNOWS! I was so glad she took the time to tell me that. When I asked him about it today he said "ya mom that made me cry". What a sweet, sweet boy. A great example of child like love and example.

If anyone wants anymore information about our amazing church please go to http://www.mormon.org/ or http://www.lds.org/ or ask me, or the missionaries (we know some really good ones in Russia)! That is where we find true happiness. Love to all!

Deep Thoughts

Okay maybe this is why I like kid movies (see prior post). I was laying on my bed trying to get little Miss Maecee to drift into dreamland as we watched Kung Fu Panda. She is in love with Pandas for some strange reason. As she slowly drifted away, while sucking on her piece of gum like a binki, I indulged myself and watched some more of the movie. I'm glad I did because a quote the old wise turtle said to the Panda (Po) was:

Yesterday is History

Tomorrow is a Mystery

But today is a gift

That is why it's called the "PRESENT"

I love that! You never know what will come tomorrow. You "hope" it will be filled with good things, happy things...but you never know! That's why you have to make the most of TODAY! I hope to be able to do this. Especially during the coming Holidays where so much of hub bub is made about what gift you want or how many presents you have, or how much money you have to spend or not to spend, etc. The things I care about are right in front of me. My amazing husband, my kids that I could just eat up with a spoon, all our extended family and friends, and of course The Gospel. I don't know where I would be without that! Okay that deep thought has wasted all brain power for the day :) Enjoy your day, your gift, TODAY!

Kid at heart

Well I took the plunge and decided to get the kids and I flu shots yesterday. This will be a trial run to see if getting them helps or not. We'll see how it goes. I asked Brett if he wanted to come with us to get one and he gave me a frightened look and said no. The kids and I were teasing him asking him if he was scared....he didn't answer.... :) He told us that he's had more shots in his life than all of us put together (when he lived in Africa they had to get the "peanut butter" shot, that hurts like a bugger and obviously he still has distinct memories of it) so no shot for Daddy! The kids and I had a great time teasing him about being afraid...and like I said, he didn't deny it. Hopefully he doesn't get sick. Our luck will probably be that all of us get sick and Brett doesn't get anything. Then he'll tease US about getting shots!

Anyway...we went to the crowded doctors office and Ethan told them he would not be receiving a shot that day. I told the kids that if we all got one we could hurry and catch High School Musical 3. We'd be late but I wanted to put something else in their heads, besides being scared. So we go back to the room and Mom tried to set the example by going first and being brave. It stung a little but I sure wasn't going to tell them that (actually it was NOTHING compared to giving myself a migraine injection). Then the nurse decided to go from oldest to youngest. We all had on long sleeve shirts and were trying to figure the best way to get to our arms. McKenna went and didn't even flinch, Ethan pretty much didn't get a chance to argue his case and got poked. He said OWIE very loudly and got a little teary eyed but knew he had to be brave for his little sis. Maecee declared that it was "my turn" and pulled her own sleeve down. She sat on McKenna's lap, mom held her hand, and Eth pulled funny faces at her. She got poked and didn't even flinch! I could not believe it! Then she proudly looked over at the nurse and says "thank you, see ya". We all laughed so hard.

So we ran out of there and headed to the theatre. We walked in about 15 minutes late so I have no idea what we missed. We loved it! I'm still trying to figure out why I like kids movies so much. I mean REALLY like them. As in have to buy them right when they come out, and then watch them over and over with the kids. I think I really am still a kid at heart. One funny thing that happened during the movie was during one of the songs that Sharpay and Ryan sing Ethan turns to me and goes "this is getting really annoying!" I think he was sick of all the singing and dancing and wanted to see more "boy" things. He loved the part when Troy and Chad were singing in the junkyard and turn into versions of them as little kids. Maecee danced her heart away the whole movie. McKenna liked it too, but she couldn't wait to get out of the theatre so she could text her friend Hunter from gym. So all in all the day was a success, oh that is after stopping at the store to purchase Kung Fu Panda :)

Practice Gym Meets

The last two weekends we have had Gymnastics meets for McKenna. She competed in Level 6. It was just for practice because she wasn't able to compete in 3 meets before State. It was good for her to be able to see where she is at and what she needs to work on. She loves being in front of people and performing (sooooo opposite of me!). She works so hard and puts so much into gymnastics. Oh and she loves every minute of it! WE ARE SO PROUD OF YOU MCKENNA MAC! We'll be back with more updates in the Spring.

Arete Gymnastics Nov 2008

Science Project Time

Do you ever wonder what happens in your stomach when you combine certain food items...like let's say you drink a Coke and then down a big bag of SALTY chips. Well we found out. McKenna had to make a Volcano for school and her teacher gave them the recipe to make the clay and told them to be creative. They were going to explode the volcano's at school the week of Halloween. He told them that he would supply the "lava". Well we did a google search to try to visualize what volcanos look like and then we searched science projects-volcanos. We found a bunch of Youtube videos of kids making things explode. The one thing we saw was someone adding salt to a bottle of Coke. We decided to have McKenna bring her own lava to school. So mom went to buy some pop and the rest of "the team" collected rocks, grass, sticks, cars, etc. to assemble the project. When I arrived home with our loot we had to try out the Coke explosion in the sink first and then figure out how we would disguise the bottle, etc. It turned out to be a fun family project, and it worked great at school. Then when McKenna brought it home that night we held some more explosions out on the front porch. The kids thought it was great. Here's to many more projects to come.....

Halloween Time.....growing up time :(

We had a great Halloween this year...but it was also an eye opener for us.

BIG NEWS.....our kids (0ne in particular) are growing up!!!

Okay that's not really big news but seriously they really do grow up and not want to hang out with you on Halloween.

Story: McKenna asks me "mom how come I can't go with my friends on Halloween, you always tell me how you went with your friends everywhere" {note to self-quite telling stories of when I grew up because they only come back to bite me.} I try to make up some pathetic excuse..she doesn't fall for it. So her cute friend Hunter calls and asks if she can go trick or treating with her and her family up by her grandma's house (up by where I used to go trick or treating). She's so excited that I let her go.....

When we joined our lovely cavewoman later that night, she declared that "no offense mom, but I HAD THE BEST TIME...THAT WAS SO MUCH FUN....THANKS SO MUCH FUN FOR LETTING ME GO, WE RODE THE GOLF CART AND DID THIS AND THIS....and I reminded myself to treasure all the moments I have with my kids because pretty soon, we won't be cool enough for them to hang out with. Their friends will trump us everytime. So did I enjoy her enough last Halloween? I'm not sure I don't remember, but I'm sure it might have been the last :(

Maecee loves her pa pa horsey

Who's missing from this picture?

The cutest darn costume and girl---Cory's Tawnee

Cavewoman, Indiana Jones, Our busy Bee

Ethan bugging his sister-pretty normal

She told everyone that her Nenna did her makeup

Kenna the Cavewoman-gotta love the ratted hair :)

Indiana Jones obviously taking his role very seriously. Notice his "dirty" face. Just to note..guess what Eth told me he wanted for Christmas...A baby brother..oh stab to the heart. Sorry buddy, not gunna happen, but I really might have to get a dog! Dang it!!