How did I get so old!

I have a child going into Kindergarten. Registration is tomorrow! Where did the time go.

Tyler had to get his kindergarten shots. He said ouch and ouch. That was it. He is a gem.

What needs to pointed out on the below paper is that he has good vision. Darren and I were both blind as bats, that is until we both got lasik (the best spent money ever!)

I held my breath as they tested his vision--relieved and happy to see that for now he is safe from glasses.
Last night I was exhausted. Darren is working long hours again, and we are only at the beginning of this long two month audit season. Darren had 5 minutes with us before he had to go to some meetings. He asked the kids to be good helpers and get into bed easy tonight. I was just so tired.

1 minute later Tyler runs back down the stairs with his jammies on, teeth brushed and proceeded to empty the whole dishwasher himself.

As I slipped into bed I said a very sincere prayer to thank Heavenly Father for a son who is so sweet, caring and takes care of his mom every day!

Tyler wrote down these words to one of his favorite songs the other day in church.

Families Can Be Together Forever

Ella is above the line!

Ella just had her 3 year old wellness check. Almost her whole life she has been below the line in weight, meaning she was in the 0% for weight. I am so happy she hit the 10th %. So all though she may be ...petite, we aren't below the line anymore. She is a whopping 27 pounds!

Life is good

My life has been action packed lately.

For the most part, things are smooth and good.

But there are those occasionally rough days/hours.

I have been noticing other people this last week.

Looking into their eyes, trying to put myself in their shoes.

My gratitude is overflowing for a husband who works hard to provide

- the chance for me to stay home with my kids every day

- the comforts and necessities of life

- good food for us to eat

- a good balance of fun, excitement, outdoors

- but then still quiet family time and walks around the neighborhood

We just celebrated our 10 year anniversary.

I wish the same happiness I feel to those I love.

No one can make you happy or unhappy-

We all determine what our attitude on life will be.

Birthday month

We celebrated Toby's 10th Birthday this month. He is getting old and doesn't run quite as fast. Tyler made him a birthday cake... that we ate up! Tyler felt like we should share it but I suggest (as I ate up the last bite) that we just give him an extra bone.

Ella loves Toby so much. She is always giving him loves and hugs. She herds him around with her. She is becoming quite attached.
Darren and I celebrated our 10th anniversary. I cant believe all the things we have done in 10 years. Darren joking said it has been a long 10 years... but really I know we are both very happy together.

My brother had a birthday. I am grateful he is at home with his family and not in Iraq anymore.

Yesterday we celebrated someone else's birthday. Sweet sixteen!

We love you mom. Thanks for all you do.

...and thanks Mom. The kids gobbled up their Happy Meals today... then promptly took nice long naps. I hope they are feeling better soon. They haven't been sick all winter ...until now!

Disney on Ice

My Dad took us on a special date night treat to Disney on Ice. We had to get ready for it by doing a few things:

We had to learn our characters. So we watched many movies:

1. Disney Villans

2. Alice in Wonderland

3. 101 Dalmatians

4. Beauty and the Beast

5. Little Mermaid

6. Lilo and Stitch

7. The Princess and the Frog

etc... etc...

We also went ice skating with Darren's work. I know Tyler appreciated how hard it was for the Disney skaters to do all those flips and turns!

The night finally arrived. We were as ready as we ever were going to be. Ella had her nails and toes painted pink! She picked out her favorite princess dress. And her mean mom made her wear pants under the dress. She let me know (several times) princesses don't wear pants under their dresses!
There were plenty of princesses to go around!
Thankfully they had some Cars characters too... too bad they were dancing so fast I couldn't get one single photo of their faces!
Thanks Dad- we had a wonderful time!

Provo Peak 11,000 feet

The next event with the Utah Climbing Club was hiking Provo Peak.

We met at Rock Canyon trailhead in Provo at 11 am. We hiked about a mile past the Rock Canyon campground. We set up camp, ate some good food, then found a good spot to practice self-arresting and belay techniques.

Here is my friend Ang sliding down a not very steep hill. We had to practice sliding down lots of different ways to see if we could use our ice axes and stop ourselves.

See how nicely she has "self arrested" herself.

We had a nice place to camp. The camp was quite by 9:00 pm since everyone knew we were waking up at 1:00 am.

We hiked up the north-west ridge. There was less avalanche danger on this side. We woke early and had a nice oatmeal breakfast. Then started hiking up the road to the south until we got to the West Ridge. Then we just went up.

We used snowshoes to break through the feet and feet of wonderful soft powder. I never broke trail, but my friend Ang sure did. I cant even imagine trying to make steps up a mnt in powder that sometimes went up to you thighs!

It was so nice to have the sun finally come up. I may not love waking up at 1:00 am but it is so nice to not be able to see where we were going. If I had to stand at the bottom of the mnt and look at the summit, I may never have started. Instead when the sun starts to come, you realize how close you are... just a couple more hours.

We had hiked in 4 miles the first day. Which left only 3.5 miles up the mnt, 3.5 mile down the mnt, then back to base camp, pack up and hike out 4 miles.

Well- the 3.5 miles up the mnt took us from 2:00 am to 7:45 am.

I got to the bottom of those trees at about 6:30. I refueled. and prepared myself for the last .25 of a mile. It would take an hour to do it.

There were heavy huge cornices all over. They are dangerous if you go out on them, since they could just collapse under you. But they look very grand.

This was so close to the summit ... but I had to stop and take a picture. The sun coming up was so spectacular.
We were so tired, but we were going as fast as we could....which wasn't very fast at all!



I didn't ask anyone to take a picture of me at the summit. I was to tired for that. Instead my friend Ang is in the blue. She was second to summit. She would have been first but she broke trail so much she was a bit on the tired side!

We put on crampons and got out our ice axes for the way down. It only took us 3 hours to get down what had taken us 6 hours to get up.

We made it back to camp. Laid down on sleeping bags and ate a wonderful squished peanut butter and jelly sandwich. We packed up and started down the trail.

I was low on energy but my legs just kept going one step in front of the other. We stopped at the most wonderful place to get some food. Magleby's. WOW. I ate so fast. Then came home and slept 12.5 hours. Then ate more and more and more. I was surprised how hungry I was.

It was a great adventure- But I am looking forward to going to St. George in two weeks to learn to do some great rock climbing. Thankfully this year wont be all snow and mnt, but also some sun and rocks!

I think I must mention that no was was injured on this trip. To my great relatives... who worry about my safety on these mountains... This one was exhausting but not dangerous :)