My birthday day

I had a GREAT birthday today! When I woke up this morning, I had this email from Chris, I mean Ryan Reynolds, wishing me happy birthday: 

Then I found out that I got an A- on my Geography midterm, which I thought I completely flunked since I didn't even know we were having the test on that day & didn't study (big sigh of relief there).

Then I picked up my $10 refund from a stupid SLCC parking ticket. I appealed it & it got approved!

I got a lot of birthday wishes via text, picture message, voicemail, email & facebook. Chris held a bunch of donuts from his work for me & the kids & even my boss!

When I got to work, Davi made homemade cupcakes with homemade icing (the best!) and everyone sang to me. After work, I picked up Chris and headed to Margie's to pick up the kids and there was a happy birthday message and an Urban Outfitters gift card waiting for me from Amber & Matich. I went to Urban on Saturday and was able to get a sweater that I have literally been wanting for months! and it made me so happy. Chris & the kids, Margie, Wade, Ma, my mom, Rob, Casey and their baby Keagan all joined me for my bday dinner at Tepanyaki. Then we went to Albertson's and picked out a pint of ice cream for myself and 2 pints of sorbet for Chris and the kids to share. It was a late night for the kids, but it was a lot of fun to do that.

The next day was our 5-year wedding anniversary, that will be a seperate post later! But after celebrating our anniversary over the weekend, Margie made me a birthday dinner on Sunday night that consisted of steak, shrimp, baked potatoes and veggies, and then a HUGE cake from Costco that not only fed all of us, but all of my work too, and there were still leftovers!

Thanks to everyone for such a fun birthday!

4th of July weekend

Happy 4th!! We had a busy weekend but it was a lot of fun. Chris had Friday off but I had to work, so he stayed home with the kids. Before that, though, I didn't have school so we went to IHOP for breakfast with the kids. That night I took the kids to the movie in the park but had a hard time finding a place to park, so we only caught about the last half hour of the movie! We had fun though, and there was a really cool lightning storm in the distance behind the movie screen.

Saturday was the busiest day. I didn't have school again, so we walked down the street to watch the parade. We got a ton of candy and Bostyn got a bead necklace. It was way too hot and the parade was way too long, so we left early and when we got home, Chris made 4th of July pancakes. He tried to dye the batter red but it came out pink (red is hard!) and some had blueberries, some had bananas, some had both. We wanted to go swimming but the pools weren't open, so we packed up our stuff and went to The Gateway to run in the fountains. Bostyn didn't go in much but Noah ran right in and we had to pry him away when it came time to leave.

We came home after that to eat lunch and take naps while Chris went on his bike ride. When we woke up, we headed to Rob's for a bbq and fireworks. There were a ton of kids there, including Bostyn's new favorite friend and Noah actually had a good time watching the fireworks. He usually gets a little freaked out by them but he told me they were the coolest fireworks ever! It was getting dark and we had a TON of fireworks to light at Margie's, so we headed over there. We started lighting them before it was fully dark and we didn't leave until almost midnight. The kids were so worn out but I was determined to use up all of the fireworks! I wasn't going to have a bag of leftovers sitting in my car for a year, like what happened from last year! So of course, the next day I found a small bag of fireworks that we had forgotten about, sitting in the back of the car. Grrr We will pop them!

Yesterday, we all slept in and then stayed in for the morning to be lazy and spent the rest of day running errands and going grocery shopping. Noah wanted more smoke bombs so we bought some of those. Just adding to the pile! We will get rid of them on the 24th.

Speaking of, Bostyn's birthday is coming up and we are planning on just doing a small get-together in a park somewhere. Once we finalize everything, I will let you know!

Summer 09 update

Now that the weather has cleared up, we can finally do some fun summer activities!!! Here's our last couple of weeks in review:

I had last Friday off of work (the 19th, see how long it takes me to update this blog?!) thanks to my boss's anniversary, so after school I took the kids to Liberty Park with Aunt Arn to run in the fountain & playground. Later that evening Chris had a work soccer game that went into major overtime but it was a lot of fun to watch. Then afterwards we took off to see Kung Fu Panda for movie in the park night. There are a few different parks that participate in this & if the nights are nice, I hope to go to quite a few of these.

Saturday was our FREE Dominos pizza party thanks to houseparty.com. That day was rainy but we stayed in.

For Fathers Day Sunday we had a fun dinner at Margie's. It was nice so a few of us ate outside & played in the backyard.

Monday started free kids lunches at the park for us. Its been going on since the beginning of June but I misunderstood where these free lunches were being passed out at, so once I got the correct info, we started going to the right park for lunch for the kids. Its a government program where they just pass out free lunches to any children under the age of 18. Pretty cool. Only catch is that the meals must be eaten on site, which is a good excuse to get outside & go play anyway! This is an ongoing thing until the beginning weeks of August.

Last Tuesday Aunt Arn took both of the kids to Oma & Opa's where they got to play with cousin Connor & go swimming! Wednesday I had the day off as well so I took the kids swimming at Kearns pool. Aunt Arn met us over there and we had a lot of fun! I got a sweet little sunburn on my back, which didn't feel very good while Chris & I were in the theater later that day for our free special screening of Away We Go. Noah stayed the night at Oma's with cousin Teagan, who was visiting from St. George. Away We Go was a great movie, I highly recommend everyone go see it!

Thursday after work, we went to Dr. Boyack's house for a work bbq because he will only be working at our office on Fridays from now on :( we ate charred hamburgers (if only he read this blog, he would be laughing!) and played volleyball. My wrist is still recovering to this day.

Friday we missed Taylorsville Dayz fireworks thanks to the rain, grr!

Saturday was the busiest day yet! I had my first test of the semester in my Psychology class. I was up until almost 3 studying and I feel really good about it (I haven't gotten the results back yet). As soon as Chris got home from work, we went to Luca's 2nd year bday party. They had a small pool, a slip and slide & waterguns! Both kids had a fun time & didn't want to leave, but we had a movie to catch! We dropped Bostyn off with Oma and took Noah for his special surprise: TRANSFORMERS!!! We stopped at the store on the way and let Noah pick out special treats to take with us. Noah loved the movie, but by the end of it, he was worn out from his busy day. After the movie, we dropped Noah off at Oma's and we took off to Rob's for Casey's surprise birthday party. We had a lot of fun, got to spend time with our friend David and ate hamburgers again for the third time in one week! We left that birthday party to go to our friend Ben's bday party at Classic Fun Center (yes, the 3rd party that day). We jumped on the huge blow-up toys you see at parties & carnivals & played laser tag. The kids were OUT by the time we got home & we CRASHED too!

Sunday was a nice hot day & the day before, Noah told us he wanted to go to the park. We went to the park but it was so hot that we couldn't stay for long. We did get to throw rocks in the almost-flooded Jordan River and the kids thought that was cool. Bostyn has a good arm! We stayed home & relaxed the rest of the day and were able to finally get our air conditioners put in! Woo hoo! Its amazing how hot & humid it can get in our basement condo.

Its looking like a pretty slow/average week, although Noah already got to go swimming today with Aunt Arn & Unci Matti. We promised Noah that we would go buy fireworks tomorrow & then get "chinese panda" (panda express) for dinner, and I'm sure that this weekend will be pretty busy too with the Fourth of July weekend. We do have a bbq to go to on Saturday at Rob & Casey's. I plan on going to see fireworks at least on Saturday, but I haven't decided if we will try to find fireworks again for Friday or do movie in the park.

I will try to post pictures later, I really don't have many but even a few can't hurt!

Fabulous Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all of the wonderful dads in our lives! The kids and I didn't get any gifts for Chris, which was decided on previously so we can pay off our Volvo, but he was able to get 2 seasons of Family Guy on dvd thanks to our Costco check we got in the mail (it's from our membership, you get a percentage back from the purchases you make throughout the year). In the morning, noah overheard me tell Chris happy Father's day and he just ran up to Chris and gave him a huge hug and said happy father's day. It was cute. I think that is present enough, to have your kid love you so much and I know that Chris would agree.

Chris was able to go on a nice long bike ride, and then we went to Margie's for dinner. It was a full house yesterday and lots of fun. We had steak, shrimp, corn on the cob (which is ALL Bostyn ate for dinner, by the way. She just walked around with her corn, chomping and chewing....) veggies with Margie's fabulous dip, chicken, salmon, salad, and pie. I think that's it. Chris ignored his diet so he could enjoy the food and we both ate so much by the time we left that we were literally sick to our stomachs! I think we might need a few days to recover, ha ha! When we got home, the kids signed their card to dad and gave him big hugs and kisses.

Chris: you are a wonderful father, and I have always felt so lucky to have such a great man in my life who is willing to do whatever it takes to support his family and be there for his kids. We love you so much!

Domino's pizza party!

A while back, I signed up at HouseParty.com, which is a web site where you can apply to be a host of parties for new products, events or even season premieres of TV shows. I don't know much about it but when I saw that you could apply to host a Domino's pizza party, I jumped on it quick! I was one of the first to be chosen and reply back and here is what I got in my Domino's pizza party pack:

$75 Domino's gift card
a free card game called Would You Rather? or something like that (we did not end up playing this because the cards got dumped out and scattered all over my living room)
a bunch of coupons good toward the card game & 2 others
a bunch of coupons to AMC theatres for a free large popcorn when you buy a drink Unfortunately the closest AMC movie theatre is in Layton, but Chris is willing to drive all the way out there to get free popcorn! When we picked up our pizza order, they had a bunch of these coupons there too, so you can pick some up if you want some.

It ended up being Chris, me and the kids, Margie & Wade, Aunt Liz and cousin Solano and my mom. We tried 3 of the new Domino's American Legends pizzas, which was part of the deal for the free food but also got a bunch of other good stuff from them, like free Cinnastix thanks to an online code we found. I think we foud a new favorite pizza from them and we plan to order it the next time we order pizza:

Memphis BBQ Chicken (amazingly good!)

Margie was a great sport and let us have the party at her house since our place isn't very big, and she even hung up party banners- thanks Margie!!! It was a lot of fun!

Sorry it's been so long!

Things have been a little crazy around here the last few months. It seems like since Noah started soccer, I haven't been able to catch up very well, even though his soccer is over! We didn't get soccer pics due to that day being rained out, but we got a lot of great memories and a really nice trophy to boot. 

A few things that we've been up to:

We finally managed to make it to a Bees game this year. We didn't win, but we had a lot of fun and they did a really good fireworks show afterwards. My friend Judith from my work and her mom sat on the field with us while we watched the fireworks. Bostyn just had to sit in Jude's lap for a while, but then she sat in mine while Noah sat in Chris's, holding his hands over his ears because "the fireworks were too loud". He still loved them, however, as he yelled at me at the top of his lungs, "We should get some of these mom! These are cool fireworks, we should buy some!" and Bostyn had her hand on his head, petting him. It was a lot of fun. And really cute.

I started school last week. I won't be able to take as many classes as I wanted to, but I'm really grateful that I am able to go. This semester I will fulfill my last requirement for my Associates Degree and I am finishing my pre-requisites for Dental Hygiene this and next semester, and hopefully that's the last semester before I start the Dental Hygiene program. I haven't applied to the program yet for 2010, but I will, and hopefully I'll be able to begin the program Fall 2010. It is a 22 month Bachelor Degree program. I will be ecstatic if I can graduate before I am 30!!! Chris also hopes to start school at SLCC fall semester. It will be much harder for him because he works 50+ hours a week and doesn't want to lose any income while he is going to school, which he wants to do full time.

Chris & I are working really hard on paying off bills so we can buy a house before the end of the year and not stress if the economy gets worse and affects our jobs. We are so excited that we sold the Volvo and will no longer have that car payment! 

And lastly, Bostyn's birthday is coming up. It falls on a Saturday, so we will probably have it then. Hers will just be a family get together, probably at a park or water park. Somewhere fun! We will keep you posted.

BUT don't be surprised if I don't keep updating too often. We have a lot of fun stuff planned over the next few weeks with summer and the holidays and birthdays and with school.....

The newest addition to our family:

Here is our new kitten right after his first bath: Zuko! Maybe his energy will help lazy old Frenchie lose some weight, ha ha!

Noah's final soccer game is Tuesday May 19

Noah's final soccer game is tomorrow! Anyone that wants to see him play should come out and join us at 6:30 pm at:

Hillview Elementary School

4405 South 1025 East

Hiking Mount Olympus

One of the reasons I love Utah is the mountains, and even though I don't take advantage of the outdoor activities Utah has to offer, they sure are beautiful to look at! Over the last few months Chris has been riding his bike to & from work, along trails near the Jordan River, to Oma Margie's house and just all over. This past weekend he was invited on a really super long bike ride but he decided to climb Mount Olympus instead! After basically being told he couldn't climb to the top, of course he had to prove them wrong by climbing all the way to the top and along the way he took a lot of great pictures. If you click on the picture below, I think another window will pop up and I put some of the pictures into a scrapbook.

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Update

Number of sick kids: 2
Days of school missed: 3
Soccer games missed: 2
Number of hours Noah slept Tuesday night: 17
Days of work missed: 1
Trips to the doctor: 2
Rx for both: 1-2 eyedrops in each eye for 5 days
Trips to Primary Childrens Hospital: 1
Hours spent at hospital: 4-5
Tubes shoved up their noses: 2 for each of my babies
Diagnosis: the flu

So yes, my babies have the flu & its been a little over a week now. I was finally able to stay home with them today so they could stay home & sleep in their own beds & lay on the couch. Aunt Arn is being the wonderful aunt that she is & will be coming over so the kids can stay home again tomorrow and also won't risk getting Oma's mom sick too.

We'll see how Noah feels on Saturday but there won't be much of a soccer team because a lot of the kids will be going to a church-related event. It has been announced there will be a final game on Tuesday May 19 to make up for being rained out on the 2nd. He will definitely be attending the final game, so everyone is invited to come out!

finally I am blogging again!

This has been a long time coming, but it's time for me to stop putting it off and post some news on here!!!! The last month has been crazy for all of us in our family, right down to Bostyn's teething. I tried to post the more important things but I still have Easter to write about. I am working on putting together a slideshow of Easter pics and since there are so many (thanks Mo!) I haven't finished it. I hope to complete it by Sunday, so stay posted and check back!

GO GIRAFFES!!!!

We have anxiously been waiting to get Noah on a sports team and when Olivia's mom invited Noah to play on the soccer team she was coaching, we were SO excited! Noah did not have any experience playing soccer, but to me that doesn't matter because it is so stinking cute to see a group of 3 and 4 year olds not knowing what they're doing, running the wrong way, scoring for the other team, running off to the nearby playground in the middle of a game, or just standing in the middle of the field in la la land. Noah does good most of the time, he just kind of spaces out a little bit and gets distracted but he has only had 3 games so far and with each game, he is learning more and more and I think getting better and better. In the end, I think this will be a great experience for him and I love that he is getting to have fun and play with his friends and we can support him and cheer him on for something. 

I also have to say that he is such a stud in his soccer uniform and that he is such a caring little boy. If another player gets hurt, he is the one of the first ones to stop and see if they are okay, or stops to let us know if he thinks something is wrong, even if he should be trying to score a goal! He is just such a wonderful little boy with the biggest heart and I can't be more proud to have him as my son!

*bonus: at Noah's first game, all of the parents got a voucher for 2 tickets to a Real Salt Lake soccer game! There were only 3 dates to choose from: April 25 but Chris and I took a trip to Wendover for a night away, May 6 but that is the All That Remains show, and May 16 against the Kansas City Wizards. Sadly, no David Beckham, but we will manage and take Noah to the game with us to celebrate his season!

April birthdays

Because I haven't been blogging, I failed to do my birthday posts for Margie and Amber. We had a great time celebrating at Margie's birthday Italian-themed dinner that yes, she cooked herself, with the whole family, including Uncle John and his family. We hope that Amber enjoyed her special dinner out on her birthday!

They both do so much for the kids and we are extremely grateful to them for being such fun and wonderful family to Noah and Bostyn. They both love Oma and Aunt Arn lots and so do Chris and I. I'm sorry this post is late, but these birthdays are definitely worth mentioning! Thanks for everything, you two and we hope you had great birthdays this year!

Noah's field trips

Unfortunately, I don't have pictures and I won't get pictures of Noah's school field trip tomorrow, but it's nearing the end of Noah's first school year and with the warmer weather, they are getting to take class trips. Last Monday it was to the fire station. They walked there and back and Noah said he was so tired afterward and needed to take a nap. It was cute. 

Tomorrow, they are going to Wheeler Farm. I need to pack a sack lunch for him (my first ever!) and because I keep forgetting about it, I will probably end up picking up a lunchable since we have no bread to make a sandwich anyway. He will be painting a rock while there too, so I will post a picture of that later in the day. *sigh* my baby is growing up...

Easter & such

Forgive me, I've been a late blogger lately! Why, you might ask?

* my work schedule has changed so I work only afternoons. You would think this gave me more time at home to do blogging during the day, but its the exact opposite. Instead of running most of my errands on Friday, (my day off) they are just split throughout the week. Working Mon-Fri sucks! I will never understand how Chris manages to work Mon-Sat every single week. He is such a trooper.

Noah O'Keeffe

Noah's school had an art exhibit on Monday. We got to walk through her house & see all of the student's art hanging up on the walls. It was really cute, and my favorite work of art is the last picture on here, just because of what he said he sees out of the window.

Next week: Noah's on Spring Break!!! I would love to take him to Monsters vs. Aliens.

And here, my son looks like a model with his snowman in a cup:

I Love You, Man

This morning Aunt Arn & Uncle Matti took Noah & Bostyn to Ogden with them to visit Oma Els & Opa Gos. They had a great time playing & eating fruit and Chris & I had a great time at the movies! We saw I Love You, Man and no joke, we were laughing the entire time. Laughs big & small. And it was cute! We highly recommend everyone go see it, it was really good.

Due to the strong winds & rain, we weren't able to go kite flying like Chris wanted to, but maybe next week.

Discovery Gateway

Yesterday we went to Discovery Gateway for FREE to enjoy the museum and a special Chocolate & Chemistry event they were having. I felt the event was better for older kids but Noah liked the idea of drinking chocolate milk if his stomach is upset or instead of Gatorade when he's been playing out in the sun for too long. We couldn't stay for too long because we had some errands to run, and the kids and I had to be to Margie's at 5 for her dad's bday bbq. Chris went to a reception in Layton, where he & his friends crashed the wedding dressed in Hawaiian print shirts, shorts, flip flops and 80s sunglasses. I wish I had gone just to see that!

We had fun at the bbq, but one of Margie's dogs got too excited and got in Bostyn's face and scared her, then took a bite or something at Noah's neck. It didn't puncture skin or anything, Noah just got dog slobber in his hair but was really scared. Missing a nap earlier in the day didn't help the situation one bit either. Bostyn passed out on the way home but Noah wanted to have a "camp out" in the living room while watching Bambi. He did not fall asleep, like I knew he wouldn't, but at 10:00 he told me "you can watch Bambi mom, because I am going to sleep. You can tell me when it's over." OK, time to go into actual bed now! I thought it was really funny that he finally decided that it was time for him to go to bed. Now I think it's about time for me to go to bed. So peace out!

Happy St. Patricks Day!

A special "gift" as Noah called it, was dropped off on our doorstep this afternoon. Noah's favorite cereal is Lucky Charms, which he already had for breakfast this morning, but as soon as he saw the box he asked if he could have some right then. I dressed the kids up really cute in green outfits, and I will take pictures and post them tonight. *UPDATED*

Bostyn picked out her own outfit, and she loves her new "pretty shoes" as she calls them:

And here is a picture of our green dinner! We had chicken marinated in green colored caeser vineagrette dressing, mashed potatoes, peas, green milk and (not pictured) lime tart.

Disney On Ice

Thanks to a special treat from my mom, the kids & I got to go with her to Disney On Ice tonight! Chris had a bachelor party dinner to go to at Iggy's (jealous!) and it was a girls-only-trip from my work plus our children last time, so I am making Chris go the next time, and we are going to try to get some seats closer to the ice to make it even more fun. And thanks to my new-found frugalness, I will do what I can to get those close seats for a good deal! Tonight wasn't too bad. I wasn't able to find anyone on craigslist selling their tickets for cheap, but I did get a phone number of ticketexchangeutah.com and the guy was really nice and gave me a code to use at the box office for $4 off per ticket! Bostyn was free since she is under 2. 

While I was at the concession stand to get a drink & popcorn, an Energy Solutions Arena worker came by and gave me a voucher for free food, so I didn't have to pay! It was so nice & I hope to find the opportunity to repeat the kindness & pay it forward.

My mom was able to find a really cute Tinkerbell toy at Family Dollar earlier in the day but she didn't find anything for Noah there. So when we saw that the toys at Disney On Ice were over her budget, she was reluctant to spend the money. I offered to pay the difference of what she wanted to pay but she caved in and bought him the toy he wanted anyway. Of course, it made him really happy and Bostyn jealous, until my mom pulled the Tinkerbell toy out of her purse and gave it to Miss B. Smooth move! and great idea, because it really is ridiculous what they charge for those toys.

So, with the discount code, Bostyn being free, eating dinner before the show, saving $ on one toy but not so much on the other, and my parking voucher for 3 hours of parking for $1 at The Gateway (*phew*) my mom came under budget, and we all had a REALLY great time. Of course I forgot my camera (which it ended up dying after I turned it on when we got home) so I did the best I could with my camera phone. It looks like we are much much farther away than we really were, so don't be deceived, ha ha!

Can't wait to go again!