It's Linda's Birthday!

Today is my sister Linda's Birthday. I've always had a hard time remembering if Linda's birthday is on the 30th or the 31st. A few years ago, she was in Montana on her birthday. If she was up at out property, I would not have been able to get a hold of her because there is no electricity and no cell phones will work. The only way to get a hold of her was to call while she was in town and I had no idea when she would be in town. So on the 31st, I called Linda to wish her a happy birthday. I was really expecting to just leave a voice mail, but she was in town, so she answered. I was so pleased that I was able to get a hold of her and tell her happy birthday. I told her " I'm so happy that I was able to get a hold of you and talk to you on your birthday!" Linda started to laugh and said "Well, that would be true..........if you would have called yesterday." We both had a good laugh about that. On my birthday, in October, all of my sisters called me except for Linda. I wasn't upset, I just figured she'd forgotten and she would call when she remembered. The day after my birthday, Linda called and said in a mocking voice "Jenny, I'm so happy that I got to talk to you and tell you 'happy birthday' on your birthday!" We laughed so hard. Linda just cracks me up sometimes! So now that is what we do. We call each other the day after our birthdays just for laughs.

Yesterday We went to play at the park by the library. It is a really fun park. There is dirt at the feet of one of the benches and they had watered the lawn. So the dirt under the bench was mud. Brinley played in it. She had mud on her feet, legs and hands. I didn't have anything to clean her off with. On the walk home she had dry mud on her hands until we got to a house with sprinklers on. Brinley was so excited! She yelled "Sprinkles!" and ran through the sprinklers. When she got out of the water, the dry mud on her hands was wet and she had hair in her face. Before I could stop her, she started to brush the hair out of her face with her muddy hands. She had mud all over her face. I should have taken a picture right after it happened, but I didn't. We were almost home and the mud was coming off when I finally took her picture.

Here's Parker. He likes to ride in the stroller. Brinley always insists on walking and Alissa likes to ride a bike or run.

After we ate lunch, we went to softball practice for the Young Women. I'm the assistant sports director for the young women. After practice, Alissa went to play at her friend Danielle's house. Danielle is a year older than Alissa. So Alissa gets hand-me-downs from her. This is a dress and shoes that Alissa got from Danielle. Alissa was really excited and wanted me to take her picture.

Not Much is Happening

I've been decluttering our house. It is a lot of work. I started over a week ago and today I finished all the rooms upstairs. Tomorrow I will work on the basement. When I finally finish that, I will declutter the living room and kitchen on the main floor. It is just taking a long time. While I'm busy claening upstairs, the kids are busy making messes in all the other rooms. So at the end of the day it is hard to feel good about all the hard work I've done, because I have one really clean room and a ton of really messy rooms. I'm just getting really tired of cleaning. That is good and bad. Bad because it is no fun being sick and tired of something. Good because I am so frustrated and I just want to get all the decluttering and organizing done as quickly as possible and that (the anger) makes it easier for me to throw things away. I would like to save and keep everything so it is really hard for me to throw things away.
I've been so busy cleaning and the kids and I have not done much. Except for on Saturday. We went to Tremonton City Days and had a lot of fun. But I forgot my camera. So I can't show you any of the fun. We woke up early and jog/walked in a 5K. We came in last place but we still had fun. Brinley refused to ride in the stroller. She wanted to run the race. She jogged for a good part of it. She was so cute! She also insisted on carrying her baby doll while she ran. It was a lot of fun. Alissa ran a head of us. She ran with a neighbor and they did really good. They finished a lot sooner than we did. Parker just enjoyed the ride in the stroller. Since I don't have any recent pictures to share, I thought I would look back and see what we were doing 2 years ago on this day. Here is what I found.......

Alissa is 2 years old in this. She is 16 days away from being 3 years old. I remember that I got her all situated at the table to paint, then I had to go take care of Parker. When I came back to check on her, she was painting on herself. So I grabbed the camera. I have such a hard time getting upset at the kids when they are so cute.

I didn't have any pictures of Parker on that day. So I posted some pictures that were taken just a few days later. Parker loves his sleep. He is the best sleeper of all the kids. It doesn't take him long to fall asleep after he gets in bed. If I try to keep him up past his bed time, he will fall asleep next to his toys or where ever he is playing. He is such a handsome little boy! I love seeing his baby pictures. He is too cute!

Pioneer Day

Here are our pictures from the 24th. Tremonton doesn't celebrate the 24th until Saturday the 26th. That's a little annoying! When we first moved here, they celebrated on the 24th and we could see the fireworks really well from our house. But last year they had a bright idea to celebrate on the weekend after the 24th and they decided to move the firework show to a different park. I don't know how long they will keep it that way. A lot of Tremonton folk are pretty upste about the change. I've heard a few people complaining about it. Last night one of our neighbors was so upset about it that she is planning on making a complaint to the city. So we'll see. We decided to get together with a few of our neighbors and light some fireworks in front of our house. These are pictures of the kids while they are waiting for everyone to get here and for the fireworks to start.

Alissa and Brinley were pretending to be babies while they were waiting. They decided to change the game a little. Now Alissa is the baby and Parker and Brinley are her Mommy and Daddy.This is Parker waiting patiently while a bag of poppers is being opened for him.Roger is talking to his mom before everyone arrives. He insists on making funny faces whenever I take his picture. I try and catch him off gaurd, but it never works.
Parker and Brinley with there poppers (I don't know the real name). When we gave Brinley her poppers, she said "O yea! Candy!" We had to quickly explain that they weren't candy and why she should not put them in her mouth.

Alissa with her poppers.

I always wanted to know what my hair would look like in little braids. So on the 23rd, before bed, I started braiding. I only had time to braid the front before I went to bed. It turns out that I don't look that great with my hair in braids. But now I know, so I won't spend the rest of my life wondering. Roger thought I looked dorky. Sometimes, I wish he wasn't so honest. When he realized that I felt bad when he said I looked dorky, he tried to make it better by saying "But that's what I love about you! I love your dorkiness!" Anyways, enough of that. Here are the pictures. I was on the phone when I remembered to take a picture.When everybody came to do fireworks, we dicided to go over to the school, where some other neighbors were lighting theirs. We thought it would be a better show if we put all of our fireworks together. The fireworks were fun, but Brinley was scared. I had to hold her the whole time. I eventually got tired so Brinley and I came home early. When we walked in the house, Brinley said "I like the fireworks, Mom!" So I asked her if she wanted to go back the school and see some more. She quickly replied "No!"

My new Blog

I started a new blog! It is soooooo... fun! My new blog is called 'The Good Old Days'. I'm going to post memories, pictures and videos from my past. I love to reminisce. I really want others to read it and share some of their memories in the comments. Please look at my new blog! It will be so fun if other people read it. Here is a link to my new blog. http://thegoodolddayswithjenny.blogspot.com/

Memories!!

Here is a fun little game... leave a comment on my blog of a memory that you and I have had together. It doesn't matter if you've known me for a short time or a long time, anything that you remember! Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It is pretty funny to read the responses. On your mark... get set... blog those memories!

I have so many memories to share. It is hard to pick just one. I'm going to tell you about a memory that I have with my sister, Missy. I got rear ended at the grocery store. Missy and I had just finished shopping and went to wait in a line at the cash register. We were talking while we waited for our turn. Missy was standing backward in the line so she was facing me. I was telling Missy something, when she started to make a face. I ignored the face she was making and continued talking. I was in the middle of a sentence when SLAM!! A shopping cart ran right into my backside and sent me flying into Missy. I turned around to see an old guy recovering his shopping cart. His face was bright red and he apologized a few times. I told him I was ok and not to worry about it. When we got in the car Missy told me, "I'm so sorry Jenny. I saw him coming at you and I thought he was going way too fast, and I didn't think he was going to be able to stop in time. I just didn't know what to do. It just seemed so weird. I didn't think he would really run into you. It was like watching a car accident." Those aren't the exact words that Missy used, that's just what my brain remembers her telling me. I thought it was really funny.

Montana Trip

We had a really fun trip to Montana this year. We arrived 2 days after everybody else. When we got there they had flown a remote controlled airplane into a tree. We spent our first morning airplane fishing. We had some nails tied onto the end of a rope. The goal was to wrap the rope around the branch the airplane was stuck on or the airplane itself and shake or pull the airplane out. Grandpa had really good aim, but the plane was really stuck.Roger waiting for his turn to go airplane fishing. Parker running over to watch the action. The kids had fun playing in the creek. It rained a few times while we were there, so the kids didn't play in the creek as much as usual. Grandpa decided to climb up the tree and get the airplane out. That plane was really high up in the tree. I was relieved when he got the plane and made it out of the tree safely. The plane was fixed so they decided to fly it again. As you can see, the flight didn't go very well. It was a lot easier to get the plane out of this tree. Watching them fly the plane was very entertaining. It didn't turn very sharp and it crashed a lot. Roger rode the 4-wheeler a lot. It was really fun. Brinley was too scared to go on a 4-wheeler ride. We kept trying. We got her to sit on it, but she started to cry and was really scared when she realized that it was going to move.I don't know why, but all of the pictures I took on this night turned out this way, with the white looking bright pink. Brinley had a lot of fun playing on the swing set.
I really liked this picture. This is the first house that my great great grandparents built when they homesteaded here. Parker and Brinley really loved playing on this swing. I was trying to be creative and get some nice pictures with this lone flower and the kids.
We went to Glacier and tried to ride the bus up Going-to-the-Sun Highway. These are pictures I took while we were waiting for the bus. The bus ride ended up not being a very great thing. We got motion sickness from the ride. So we got off at the first stop. Every bus going back down was really crowded, which made it harder to see out the windows and really made us feel yucky. We ended up spliting up on the ride back. Half of us took the first bus down and the rest of us had to wait a half an hour for the next bus.

Roger, Brinley, Parker, and I woke up and took a walk. Alissa was still asleep. She always sleeps late. Brinley and Parker had a lot of fun jumping in the puddles in the road.

These are pictures from the Polebridge Parade. I went to the parade one time when I was younger. I remember thinking it was really weird and asking "Was that really a parade?" So we thought it would be fun to see what it was like. It was fun, short, and different. They threw lots of candy, so the kids were happy. I didn't get a picture of two entries that were funny. Santa Claus was in the parade and they had an entry from the BCJ club. BCJ stands for bears chasing joggers. I thought that was funny. They had a jogger and some one dressed up as a bear chasing after him. They also had cheerleaders holding up signs rooting for the bear. After the parade, Roger and I went on a 4-wheeler ride to Whale Creek Falls. It took about 35 minutes to get there. I had been wanting to show Roger the falls, but I have not been able to find them. This year Roger looked on his GPS so we could find it. Everybody else in the family knows how to get there. I think I was the only one who couldn't figure it out. The reason I had a hard time finding it was because I hadn't realized that it was such a long drive on that road. I thought it was closer than it was. It is a little hard to see from the side of the road. It is a really steep hike down hill to get close and take a picture. Watching the fireworks!
Brinley and Parker didn't stay outside very long. They both got scared, so I took them inside and we watched from the window. Actually, I watched from the window while they ate cereal at the table.I love our Montana trips! I can't wait for next year!