I LOVE THIS GIRL!

Sydney is such a funny, crazy, free spirited, wild, hilarious, cute, beautiful little girl! There's never a dull moment with her around. She always has so much energy and always wants to do everything. It's no wonder she is such an amazing sleeper and doesn't wake up until about 10-11am. She's always been a kid that is all over the place and just does her own thing and doesn't even think about what's going on around her. She's not shy whatsoever which is good but sometimes not so good.

This leads me to a couple of funny stories about Syd. The other week Steve's sister Trish blessed her new little baby Kue. All of her husband Benny's family came up for the blessing so we were all looking forward to the yummy Tongan feast we were going to have. While people were coming in Syd greeted this one family by saying, "and here's the Hawaiian people." She's such a nut. Then while we were in Utah this weekend we were walking into the mall and we were talking about how nice the weather was and she said, "is so beautiful here, and there's Chinese people and beautiful people." Steve and I thought it was hilarious. She truly has no qualms about saying whatever is on her mind, she even asked Grandma Johnson if she was going to die soon because she was old. At least Grandma thought that was funny!

Yesterday I was on the computer and I could hear Sydney coming and she said, "Mom, look what's in my back pack." She then came in the room with Hadley sitting in her back pack looking like she was wondering what on earth was going on.

I really do love this little girl though. She might be goofy sometimes and say funny/crazy things but my life wouldn't be as fun as it is without her. She's so beautiful and has the biggest smile. I used to worry about Syd a lot when she was smaller because she was so all over the place, I thought she would get lost somewhere or get run over because she would just be that all over the place. As she's getting older she's growing into such a lovely little girl and is so kind, well most of the time unless she's getting mad at Spencer. She's so protective of her things and gets so upset if she thinks she did something wrong or if you do something that would hurt her feelings. She collects the craziest things and right now LOVES diamonds. She even asked the guy at the jewelry store if she could have the big display diamond that they had. She likes the big diamonds, I told her she would have to tell her husband that.

Ahh, I love this girl, she's the BEST!!!

Trip to Utah

On Friday the kids only had half a day of school so as soon as they came home we packed up the car and set off on our trip to Utah. We'd been excited about this for a while and I was even more looking forward to having a break from house work etc...

The weather was LOVELY when we got down there, I've been taking FULL advantage of being able to wear my flip flops. Our first stop was build a bear. I don't normally let the kids get bears very much but we hadn't been for a while and I had $25 in coupons so I thought we'd spoil them. It took Sydney FOREVER to pick what she wanted. Before we left she said she wanted a dog but the one she wanted was $22 so I said if she got that she wouldn't be able to get any clothes so after about 30 minutes she decided to get a cute pink monkey. They really love going there, it's such a nice store but you could spend tons of money in there. Before leaving the mall we got the girls a new pair of flip flops each and then we went to Ikea. I LOVE Ikea, every time I go there it reminds me of home. We rushed around there pretty fast but found a few nice storage things for the kids. We then went to Jackie's house (my English friend that lives here) and ate our Wendy's we picked up on the way there.

The next days was lots of fun too. The weather was still nice but a little windy. Our first stop was this craft store called the wood connection. There was tons of nice things there but we settled for some wooden letters that spell Madison and 2 wooden guns. We then made our way to Steve's cousins luncheon. That was the main reason we took the trip to Utah. We got changed and went over to the Luncheon with all Steve's family. His Mom, brother, Uncle Val and Aunt Karen and Grandparents were all there too from Idaho. It's always so nice to see all Steve's family, they're all so nice. Maddie wasn't feeling too good during lunch so she didn't eat anything. I stole a picture off Steve's cousin's blog from the luncheon. You wouldn't think that Maddie was sick from how she looks.

After that we went to Cabelo's! We'd always heard how amazing it was so we thought we would check it out. It was pretty cool, lots of cool stuffed animals all over the place and a cool aquarium with HUGE fish in. Some of them had really ugly mouths, that freaked out Spencer a little bit, I think he thought they could get him. After that we drove to Tai Pan, a store I love but they don't have it in Idaho. Only Syd and I went inside because Spencer had fallen asleep. I didn't end up buying anything but Syd really liked it in there because it had lots of beautiful things. (That reminds me of a funny story about Syd but I'll share that later). After that we went to Chucky Cheese's, the kids LOVE it there. We didn't get any food there but the kids played and played. We did get to see Chucky Cheese though and the girls got to hug him. Spencer started to feel worse at that point and threw up, HOW LOVELY!? Maddie has been sick for a while, she got better and then got worse and Spencer got it too. We were going to go back down to the wedding reception but decided we should probably go back to Jackie's with our sick kids!

The next morning we got ready and thought we would spend some time with Jackie but in the end she had to go to work. She didn't realise she had to work so I felt bad. She's always so nice to let us stay at her house and the kids love her. Just after she left we left to go to Temple Square. It was a bit colder that day but still not too bad. We went all around Temple Square which the kids loved. We also went to the museum but the kids weren't feeling too good so we had lunch which Spencer didn't eat and then we went to the zoo. When we got there the weather was getting bad and it was pretty cold. We can normally get into the zoo for free with our zoo pass but I guess they changed it this year so we only get a discount so that made the decision easy, we left! The kids were a little sad but I was kind of glad because it was sooo cold. We quickly drove up to the this is the place monument and looked there for a minute. We didn't realise that they had so many cool things there so we're planning on going back there when the weather is nicer.

All in all it was a nice trip even though the kids threw up a few times. It's always nice to go down to Utah but always nice to get home too. When we pulled into the driveway Spencer started to cry. He said he wanted to go back to Utah because he didn't get to give Chucky Cheese a hug. It took him a while to finally get out the car, it was pretty funny. Now it's back to the REAL world, laundry, getting ready for Super Saturday and the kids being sick STILL!!! Maddie came home from school today (THANKS Kristy, I had no car so Kristy went to get her for me) and both her and Spencer have thrown up! We're going to the doctors tonight so hopefully they can tell us what to do, poor Maddie has been sick for about 2 1/2 weeks. Life is crazy but I guess it always will be, FUN TIMES!!!

How blessed I am

So as I was taking the garbage out today I saw some broken red glass on the floor by where the garbage goes. Now this either could have been a coincidence that someone had broken their break lights right there or it indeed was me! This takes me back to last week!!!

Last week was pretty nuts but also was a very fun week. Here's s snippet of my week. Tuesday Steve was meant to fly out to Seattle but just after the plane took off they realised something was wrong with the plane so they had to land again. That was the beginning to the fun, I had to load all the kids up and go and get Steve and then take him to work. Then I rushed to get Syd to school followed by rushing to the store to get the food for our wards RS Birthday dinner. It wouldn't have been that bad but when I saw the price of the food we wanted to cook I knew we wouldn't be able to do that so after going to a few stores I went home to try and figure out what we could cook. With help from my mother in law and Trudy we figured out what to make so that night after I picked Steve up from work we went to the store to buy some ham but Sams didn't have any so we quickly went to Winco to get some.

Now here comes the part about the broken red glass. Trudy wanted a musical number for the RS Birthday so I said I would do it because I wanted to pick a song that would go with the theme and we didn't have long to practise. I asked my good friend Natalie to play for me, poor girl, I ask her all the time but it's because I know she's SUPER talented! Anyway we got home from the grocery store, I had some cereal for dinner and I left early so I could deliver a couple of invitations for the dinner before I went to the church to practise singing. I was rushing so I backed out really fast and SMACK!!! I backed right into the garbage, how lovely!? I checked the car and it seemed fine but I was mistaken! I just called Steve to have him confirm and yes, I had smashed the break light glass, joy of joys!!!

Isn't it lovely when things like this happen!? It's a good job I'm the kind of person that just gets on with life even though it's crazy at times. That doesn't mean I don't get stressed and frustrated, you can just ask my husband Steve about that, I'm sure he could tell you what I'm really like behind closed doors, hahaha! Anyway just thinking about all those things and the many other things that happen all the time like Spencer drawing all over the wood in the kitchen or getting bright orange stamps all over the wall in his bedroom. It just makes me realise that there might be crazy nuts things that go in our lives but it's those things that remind us of how unimportant those things really are.

Yeah, our homes might be a mess sometimes, we might smash out break lights or smack our heads on the steering wheel while reaching down for something, (yes that happened last Tuesday too)! But aren't we glad we have the kids that make those messes and sometimes drive us nuts. Aren't we glad we have a car to drive in even though I smashed into the garbage and it has a super glued side mirror from when I smashed that into the garage last year! How blessed we really are. If we just take the time to really think about what matters most and how silly it is sometimes when we get mad or frustrated about such unimportant THINGS! I am not good at doing this at all but I'm trying and trying is what matters most too. I really do love my life, I have amazing friends and family and a lovely house to live in and a nice car to drive, a husband that loves me and has a job that lets us eat nice food and be clothed. HOW BLESSED I AM!!!