Cousins + Ice Cream = Fun!!

We headed up to St. George today to spend Thanksgiving with Josh's family. When we got there we all decided to go visit grandma Goddard while she was working at Tai-Pan. When we were leaving the store all the girls wanted to come with Josh and I and our boys wanted to go with their grandpa Goddard. Since we only had the girls with us, we decided to take them to Nielsen's Frozen Custard to get some yummy ice cream...they were really excited!

 All three of them had vanilla ice cream, but the best part for them was just being together. Jaedyn was having so much fun with her cousins (Addison and Raeley)...

               They were all being so giggly and cute, it really was fun to watch. Jaedyn doesn't have any sisters, so she really enjoys getting together with her girl cousins.

"Color Me Rad"...2012

My friends talked me into signing up for the "Color Me Rad 5k" this year. I'm not a big runner because I have a bad knee, but I thought it might be fun, so I did it. I tried to get my boys to do it with me, but they were being chickens. Some of us girls got together on Thursday night to make our tutu's that we were going to wear while we ran...Natalie is the goofball in the bunch...

   I was able to score a free slot for a child, but I still couldn't convince either one of my boys to join me, so I invited my super cute niece Sadie. She was so excited to run with us. Yesterday morning we got up bright and early (we had a 9:30am start time) and got dressed in our tutu's and headed over to the speedway.    We got some group pictures of us girls and the kids before we headed to the starting line...          Then, we met up with the rest of the group for an over sized group picture. That's a lot of white tutu's!      We got our "RAD" tattoo's put on...      ...took our potty breaks, then headed to the starting line to wait for our signal to start running.    There were a few people throwing around some color packets before the run started, so Sadie and I got a little dirty before we began. It was all good though, she was loving it.      Our signal went off and so did we! My knee was actually doing better than I thought it would and the running wasn't too bad.    I mostly stayed with my friends that had their kids with them. My friend Mary ended up giving her son a "piggy back ride" for most of the run and I gave Jessica's son (pictured below on the far right) one for a big chunk of the run since she's pregnant. Luckily I had some friends ahead of us that Sadie stayed with because I couldn't really run with a kid on my back. It was a good workout though.      Along the way I noticed my arm had an awesome color design going on...      I made it to the finish line without my knee giving me too many problems...yay!!      So, I did a little celebrating...      Then, we all did some celebrating...          Sadie loved the end because she got very colorful...       What a colorful bunch we are!       I didn't get a lot of color on my face, but my hands looked like I was part smurf...      This is how we rode home...we didn't want to ruin any one's car interior with our colorfulness. It was a fun, bumpy, windy ride home!      I had a lot more fun doing this 5K than I thought I would. When I got home, Sadie and I told Josh and the kids all about it and then Jaron and Jantzen said they wished they would've gone with us. Josh said next time we'll do it as a family...that will be fun, I can't wait!

"Breaking Dawn" Girls Night

Last night I went to an advanced screening of "Breaking Dawn Part 2" with my girls. 

   We were all so excited to see the final installment of the Twilight movies and to have a night away from our "mommy/wife" duties. We had dinner at Olive Garden before the movie and it was yummy.  Josh isn't a fan of that place, so that's where I go when I'm with my friends.  When we got there, the theater was packed, so we had to sit in the seats up front...they weren't too bad though.       I have mixed emotions about this movie, so here's my review of it:     I liked it, but I didn't. I thought there were a few too many cheesy parts in it that they could have made not so cheesy. There were funny parts and then there were some parts that could have been left out of the movie altogether. Let's just say that they were a little too much for younger audience members to be watching and they lasted a little too long. It's been about 4 years since I read all of the Twilight books, but there were some things that happened towards the end of the movie that I don't remember happening in the book and they upset me and some of my friends, but then it was all better.   I am a big fan of the Twilight books, so even though it wasn't my favorite movie out of them all, I'll still buy it when it comes out on DVD.  Sometimes a girl needs "cheesy" stuff in her life!   Overall, it was a fun night out with my friends. These girls really are a lot of fun to hang out with. I really look forward to getting out and not having to listen to kids yelling and screaming. I'm lucky to have a hubby that's totally cool with me having lots of girls nights.

"Donuts with Dad"

This morning was the annual "Donuts with Dad" at Jantzen's school. It's a PTO sponsored activity for the students, so that meant that I had to be there to help set up and run things, plus Josh works early in the morning so I'm the one that takes my kids. This year school starts at 7:25am, so I had to drag my kids out of bed earlier than normal and get them to the school by 6:30am. Being at the school early didn't seem to bother my kids because they got to have donuts and chocolate milk for breakfast...they don't get that at home.

Here's my Jantzen enjoying a yummy chocolate donut with his friend Jansen... 

   ...and with his big brother Jaron who no longer attends this school, but still gets to enjoy all the fun activities there...       And, here's the little princess, still in her jammies, enjoying a donut with her friend Emmy. I had to wake her up to get to the school, so I didn't have time to get her dressed or do her hair, hence the hat. She still looks cute though.       As always, the kids really enjoyed their donuts. I just hope they don't think they get to have a breakfast like this more often. I think once a year is enough.

Petting Zoo Assembly

This morning Jaedyn and I went to Jantzen's school for a fun assembly that the PTO was doing for the kids. The assembly was called "Petting Zoo 2 U" and it was with a bunch of different animals from South America. The lady doing the assembly talked about all the different kinds of animals she brought and she even let the kids ask questions about them. Here are some of the animals she brought (there were a lot more)... 

   I don't remember what types of animals they all are, but the Macaw was my favorite one. It did a lot of cute tricks like playing dead when the lady pretended to shoot him, he whistled, he sneezed, etc. It was all cute.    Jantzen, and all the other kids were loving it. There was one animal she brought that gave the kids a little scare and that was a big lizard. It jumped out of the lady's arms on the stage and the kids thought he was going to get them, it was kind of funny!       One of the last animals that was brought out was this little guy...       I'm being sarcastic here because this little guy wasn't so little. He is a 16 foot Yellow Burmese Python.    Not all of the kids liked him, especially Jantzen and Jaedyn. He was on the table for the kids to touch him, but they wanted nothing to do with that part of the assembly. This is as close as Jantzen got to him...      The very last animal that was brought out was this llama. The kids also had an opportunity to pet it, but again, Jantzen wanted nothing to do with it. Jaedyn, on the other hand, was very eager to pet the llama.      She even gave it a hug...      Yes, I did sanitize my kids' hands after the assembly.     I thought this was a fun assembly and so did my kids. We all got to see some animals that we've never heard of before and this is the first, and LAST time I'm getting that close to a huge python ever again!

Fun Girls!

Last night us girls all got together at a baby shower for Rikki...

   As you can see, when we all get together we have a lot of fun. BTW, she's having a boy, that's why we're wearing mustaches. We're really not that weird!           I always have a good time when I get together with these lovely ladies, I love them!

Mysterious Creatures are Lurking Around...

Today as I was making dinner in my kitchen, I heard some strange noises and then I noticed some mysterious creatures in my back yard. They were growling and snarling, and making a mess on my sliding glass door... 

           They kind of freaked me out!          I don't know how to get rid of them! Please help me before they take over my house, oh wait, they already have! I guess I'm stuck with them now.

A Day of Service...

This morning we had the opportunity to participate in our stakes "Day of Service". The last couple service days we haven't done as a family because of other obligations, and this time we were only missing Jaron. Maybe next time we'll all be able to help together.

This time we ended up cleaning up trash and graffiti in an older part of town that really needed it. Josh was our fearless group leader... 

   Jantzen got right into helping clean up with a couple of his friends...      We stuck Jaedyn in the back of the Woolstenhulme's truck to play with Canon. That way neither one of them could get hurt and we could keep track of them easier.  We were cleaning up some busy streets with lots of traffic.      I did a lot of graffiti clean up off of street signs. This one was the hardest because someone had used nail polish...really!?!? I had to use a scraper to get most of it off. I still don't understand why people do things like this.      We spent about three hours cleaning and we filled up a ton of garbage bags with weeds and trash, then Josh helped unload all of them in the dumpster when we were done.      Somehow Jaedyn always manages to get dirty, no matter what she's doing. I'm trying to figure out how she got so dirty this time, she didn't help with any cleaning...      Doing service days like this is very tiring, but also very rewarding at the same time. It's good for my kids to work and help others and know that they're making a difference in someones life, even if not all the people we were helping appreciated it.