TTA-What makes you laugh out loud?

I am so glad this is the topic for this week. I needed it today.

-Landon's bee bop dance

-Nate impersonating the news guy on channel 7

-staying up until the wee hours of the morning with my girlfriends talking about who knows what :)

-The Office

-Dallin and Parker talking about how kissing girls would be "so gross"

-singing songs around the campfire with Nate's fam

-riding behind the boat on a tube with someone next to me

-Game nights with other couples

-Uncle Yamo

-riding on rides at theme parks

-thinking about the silly "music videos" we made in high school

-Junie B. Jones books

-sleepovers for Young Womens

-Brian Regan comedy

-reminiscing about the days when I used to con my sister out of everything...her toys...money..etc.

-Headlines with Jay Leno

-hanging out with Marcy

-hmmm...that's all for now. I am sure if I think about it for awhile longer I could probably come up with some more.

Boy oh Boy!

My sis had her ultrasound and she found out she is having a BOY! I am so thrilled that I am going to have a new little nephew! I thought for sure it was a little girl. My grandma has been correct with all 3 of my boys. She would start crocheting a blue blanket as soon as I would tell her I was pregnant. When I asked her what she thought Natalie was having she said she thought it was a girl so I was 100% convinced.

One thing is for sure.....this little boy will be getting plenty of hand me downs. I have boy clothes coming out my ears! Landon is excited to have a little buddy to play with...Congrats Nat and Robby!

Tuesday Tell All

For what activity would you want professional lessons?

I would LOVE to learn how to ballroom dance with my husband! I'm not sure how excited he would be about it but I just think it would be SO much fun! I remember walking by the Wilkinson Center ballroom when I was at BYU and I would always see all of the ballroom dance classes going on. I tried to add it as a class a couple of times but it would always fill up really quickly. Whether for personal enrichment or fitness, or as a hobby, dancing is a great form of self-expression and I would love to take some professional lessons if we had some more time...and money! Hopefully one day!

Back in B-town

We had such a WONDERFUL vacation it is hard to believe it is already OVER! I was looking forward to it for such a long time....O well....we still have Lake Powell in just a couple of months. (This time...WITH the husband!)
So here is the very brief overview of our trip:
We headed down to Salt Lake and spent some time with the cousins. We visited Hogle Zoo, the Children's museum and the Dinosaur exhibit at Thanksgiving Point. It is always a little refreshing going to Utah. No one looks at me like I am crazy with 3 kids in tow. Ashley and I have 6 kids between the 2 of us and no one even looks twice at us. (Unless we are spilling drinks EVERYWHERE....never mind) We had so much fun spending time with everyone!

After we played for a couple of days I left the boys with Grandma and Ashley (A big THANK YOU goes out to the both of them) and was able to hop in the car for our long awaited "Girls Trip" to St. George. My sister and I have been best friends with Ash and Lindsay since birth. Our moms our best friends AND our Grandmas are even best friends!We started off the trip finding out that not ONE pregnant lady but TWO pregnant ladies would be along for the ride. Ashley is just a few weeks behind my sister so it was such fun and exciting news! Both of them are first time moms so we had many conversations about babies, maternity clothes, birth stories....etc. It is so funny to think that OUR moms were pregnant at the same time talking about alot of the same things were! We listened to all of these songs that Ash and Linds compiled from years gone by. We laughed SO hard listening to Huey Lewis and the News, Girls just wanna have fun, and the Backstreet Boys. Hilarious.

We ate out..its so NICE not to have to cook!

Did lots of shopping ...We found the UGLIEST shoes in the WORLD! Whoever would pay $35 bucks for them is absolutely crazy! They look like witch shoes and the picture actually makes them look better then they were.

Then we went to a Deana Carter concert. If you knew me in the high school days you know how much I LOVED Deana Carter. The concert was at Tuacahn in the outdoor theatre and it was SO much fun! We sang and danced through the whole concert. She was so funny and had such an amazing voice...especially in person. The concert was over way too fast!

The last day we went over to Zion's and did some hiking. It was an absolutely perfect 75 degrees out. We hiked up to the Emerald pools and walked over to the beginning of the narrows. It is no wonder that so many tourists come from all over the world to see such an amazing place. We had a great time.

I am so blessed to have so many awesome women in my life. I needed this trip to charge my batteries! Thanks for the fun trip girls! Back to the real world again! :)

And we're off!

Tomorrow morning we are hitting the road! People think I am crazy for always going places without my hubby but if I waited until he COULD come with...we'd never get to go anywhere!

We're playing in Salt Lake for a couple of days and then I am leaving the boys and enjoying a little girl time in St. George with my sis and our bestest friends since childhood. (Ash and Linds) First time away from all my boys for longer then one evening....yikes! I am feeling a little nervous about leaving everyone but I am excited at the same time!

Adios blogging world...be back in a week!

Shop till you drop! (Literally)

I freely admit that being a mom of 3 kids can be exhausting and there have been quite a few times where I felt like I could just curl up and fall asleep ANYWHERE. I was one of those high school kids who occasionally fell asleep in class and I did the head bobbing thing through many a BYU Biology and American Heritage class. Well...last night we decided to take a trip over to the mall as a family and here is what we saw:
I kid you not...this couple was out COLD. People were walking by and laughing and I wasn't the only onlooker who pulled out the camera!

The 3 bears....Starnes style

Parker loves the story of Goldilocks and the three bears. Every night he begs and begs to hear the story before he goes to bed. Dallin gets a little bit irritated with the repeated request every night so some nights we change it up a little. For example, we made up the story of the "3 little robots" which is basically the same story except for the fact that Mama, Papa and baby robot all have silly voices and we add some "bleeps" and "blorps" in there. We've also come up with the "3 cowboys" and the "3 monsters."
Anyway, the other day we made some chocolate cake and the boys wanted some as soon as I took it out of the oven. I told them that we had to wait for it to cool off just like the 3 bears did with their oatmeal. Dallin suggested we go for a walk.....great idea! Parker became very concerned and asked, "What if someone comes to eat our cake just like Goldilocks ate the oatmeal?" I told him no little girls would get into our house while we were away. Dallin was like, "What about other people....or bears?" I assured them no one would get into the house and away we went on our walk.
As we finished up our walk I see this little sign in the window by the front door. Here is the note Dallin left in the window:

(No kids in home and no bears and no adults) Dallin was sure that because of his note...our cake was saved. It was so darn cute....love it!

Baby shower invites

My good friend Nikki is having a little girl this June. She has two boys already and so I INSISTED that I get to throw a shower for her. I decided that I would make the invitations so I looked around for a little inspiration. This is what I found:


So yesterday I went to 2 scrapbook stores and over to Michael's (with 3 boys in tow). I worked on the stupid thing all day and (by the way) the circle punch I bought was faulty so I had to hand cut each invite. Here was the final product:
It's only about 500 times cuter then the one that I saw! (Okay...enough bragging) I guess I was just impressed that it turned out so cute. Especially for a girl who fell off the scrapbook bandwagon a good year ago.

Like Father....like son

One of my all time favorite stories from when Nate was little was when his mom caught him coloring all over the kitchen counter with a permanent marker. When she came in and saw the disaster she didn't know whether to cry or choke the kid. She asked him, "Nathan....why did you do that?" His response was, "Jesus made me do it."

So last night I got home from mutual and it was about 8:30pm. Our kids are usually in bed by 7:00 so I was surprised to see Parker still up. I said, "Hey Parks....you need to go to bed right now." His response, "Jesus said I didn't have to...he said I could stay up for 10 more minutes."

Like father like son I guess!

Elder Rock pics

This kid seriously makes me laugh so hard I can hardly stand it. I can't believe he is almost 6 months from being home! Happy 1 1/2 years out little bro!

Happy Easter!

Look at these handsome boys in their new Easter outfits! Pretty darn cute if you ask me!!

Cadbury Eggs try to make me fat every Easter!

Well...it is officially SPRING now and that means it is Cadbury Egg season. I’m not a candy nut. I’m not a huge chocolate person. I don’t really like candy bars. I don’t even care for the other Easter candy. Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs. The big Cadbury Eggs (the ones with the gooey cream center that, quite frankly, freaks me out). Peeps. Jelly Beans. Boxes of chocolates. I don’t need ‘em.

That being said....Cadbury's Mini Eggs are by far the BEST candy ever created. When they show up in stores every Easter, I end up buying too many to mention. The point is that I eat an unhealthy amount of Mini Eggs every year, and I know I probably shouldn't. So, anyway, does this mean I will stop eating them? No. they're too good. Hooray for mini eggs!

A fun and BUSY week!

It is hard to believe that it will already be Friday tomorrow. This week has FLOWN by! We have been having way too much fun having Grandpa Ric and Grandma Lee Lee up for a visit. Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate with the outdoor plans we had made but we still had a good time. We spent the first day at the Discovery Center which is always fun (as long as there is no Jr. High field trips going on). That evening we left Dal and Parks at home with a sitter and showed them Nate's office and enjoyed dinner at the good old Beanery. Nate took the next day off so we decided to go bowling. Unfortunately the Sub was closed so we went over to Gameworld where they had this strange teeny tiny bowling ally which was PERFECT for our boys. The balls were only about as big as a softball and there was NO ONE else there so it was such a blast.

After bowling, everyone went to "Hortin hears a Who" and I took Lando home for a good nap. (Apparently it was really cute!) When everyone came home we took advantage of the nasty weather and went outside to fly kites. What a fun time! Dallin came into my room right after they took off for the airport this morning at 5:00AM just SOBBING because they left. I assured him we would go down and see them soon...poor kid! Thanks for coming to see us Mom and Dad!

One other note.....last night was Em's birthday so all the girls met over at the Cheeeeeeeesecake Factory to surprise her! I love these girls! We have WAY too much fun together! It is so amazing to me that we have all met over the course of the last year or so yet we feel like we have known each other for years. O yeah...and if you have never tried the caramel topping at the C.F. it is to DIE FOR!

St. Patty's Day Party

O my gosh.....last night was such a blast! Nate and I went to a St. Patricks Day party. I haven't laughed so hard in YEARS. We played all of these ridiculous games and we even rocked the limbo! haha! We played these "drinking" games with energy drinks and water and whoever had to use the bathroom first was the loser. (Of course it was me...I have the bladder of a hummingbird)Nothing like a fun night with friends and NO KIDS!

Happy Day!

What a relief! Our prayers have been answered. We found out Dallin was selected to attend a math and science magnet school today! I am so thrilled because this is EXACTLY what he needs! Dallin has always LOVED to learn. The kid has know his ABC's since he was 18 months and could read by the time he was 3. Yesterday I asked him if he wanted to go play over at the park. His response was, "No thanks mom..I want to work on my math homework." He even takes his workbooks to bed with him at night. Honestly...who is this kid?

I have been so incredibly worried about him being bored to tears when he starts kindergarten next year so I am so thankful that he was able to get into this school where they can work with him a little more and where the class sizes are smaller. It is a year round school which I am surprisingly excited about as well. He will start school at the end of July and then he gets 3 weeks off in September, January, and 4 weeks off in May. This will be awesome for traveling and because Dallin loves school so much he will only have a few weeks off and then he's back to work instead of the full 3 month summer break. What GREAT news!!