Home Spa

This is Ellie and her friend Maddie. one boring summer afternoon, they asked if I would do a spa for them. During the "facial treatment" they asked me to take a picture and make sure to post it on my blog. ya I will. It makes me look like super mom. drop everything and do a spa? I must be the nicest mom in the world. (im not, they just caught me at a good moment). We did a home made scrub, and mask. and hand and foot massages. It was the kind of fun you have to make for your self on a hot, Arizona, summer afternoon.

UTAH

The Greatest Snow Summer on earth!!

Since summer is hardly bearable here in Arizona, we headed up to Utah for a couple weeks. When we moved, I knew this would happen. We did as much in the two weeks were were there than we did the entire summer while living there.  Each was worthy of its own post, but that's not going to happen. Instead I'll just write a little recap of the activities we did and people we saw.
 We did: Lagoon, boating, dinners in the canyon, hikes, Alta canyon rec center, Lindon rec center, shopping, biking, playing at the park, movies, favorite restaurants, Herriman Reservoir.
 We saw: Grandma Grider, Grandpa Grider, Linda, Jeff, Joe, Steve, Spence, Becca, Jake, Vicki, Papa, Grammy, Danielle, Amy, Mattie, Maverick, Rich, Nat, Makai, Madsen, Lisa, Kate, Jack, Madison, Luke, Camille, Kelsie, Taylor, Hillary, Becca, Mackinley, Gabbi, Andrew, Olivia, Caroline, Kurt, Preston, Jocelyn, Lilly, Hannah, Sophie, Brittany.

I had so many pictures to pic from to put on the blog, this is only a little sample.  But, I also didn't bring my camera along on most of our biggest adventures (Lagoon, boating, etc)

 

oh so chubby Madsen. I love him!

Summer Sewing Lessons

This summer we decided we better use our time to learn some things that we never have time to learn during the school year. First on our list was sewing. The girls did some sewing by hand and some with the sewing machine. some projects were a little harder than we thought ( the owls, as you can see by the picture we didn't do anything else that day including hair) and some were easier ( the yo-yo necklaces). We had a fun time learning together.

Weekend in San Diego

We took a fairly short (6 hour) and impromptu drive down to San Diego a couple weekends ago. Tess has been asking to go to the beach since December. We spent Friday evening and all day Saturday on Del Mar beach. Sunday morning, we all slept in, got some breakfast and then headed home. It was so fun to spend a relaxing weekend hanging out with my cute little family. The weather was a perfect 73 degrees and sunny. It was a welcome change to need a jacket in the evening. Im already trying to schedule our next visit there. Maybe we'll just move there:)

Citrus Heights Stake Pioneer Trek

"We will Rescue, We will Save"

Jordan and I were asked to be a "ma" and "pa" on our stakes youth pioneer trek. We were so excited. I work with the Mia Maids and so I knew a lot of the kids in our ward, but Jordan didn't really know any of them (or many of the grown-ups, for that matter). We went up about 2 hours of of Mesa, just past Payson, into the mountains of AZ. It was so beautiful and cool (temp.) Our ward was divided into families. Jordan and I were ma and pa to 9 amazing kids from our ward. We pulled and pushed handcarts up and down the trails for 3 days. we went a total of about 15 miles. There was one really brutal hill that was our "Rocky Point". In our family we had one girl with a broken foot and one girl who does nothing physical unless forced, but we didn't hear one complaint. They all worked so hard and worked together so well. I think it was just as hard for a couple of the boys to keep a slower pace so our family could all stay together as it was for our injured daughters to feel like they were slowing us down. I loved seeing the older boys in our family look out and take care of everyone. None of our kids are the in the same friends group at school, but they were all so good to each other and became better friends.

Once we arrived at the starting point and had all our gear packed up in our hand cart, it was about noon. We walked until about 5:00 when we arrived at out first camp site. We had dinner, a dance provided by the young single adults in the stake. I wish I had a video of our Young Women's president dancing. It was like NOTHING I have ever seen before. I can't even begin to describe the crazy that was Tera Mason dancing. It was a highlight for me. We made our beds on a tarp on the ground. I don't ever remember seeing so many stars or being so cold. I'm not sure if I ever fell asleep. Jordan sure slept. I know because I watched him... all night. The temperature during the day was in the low 70's, perfect for hiking in long sleeve shirts and long skirts. The temperature at night was in the low 40's, perfect for long sleepless nights.

Day two was more hiking. We had our "Rocky Point" climb this day. It was steep. we had to have to families pull one handcart in order to get it up. Even then it was tough. Since each cart needed two families, that meant we had to do it twice. It was so good for the kids (and me) to do something hard. I think this was most of the kids favorite part. Our stake had an odd number of carts so the boys in our stake volunteered to do the last cart, making it three times they had to climb Rocky Point. then they ran to catch us girls pulling the carts by our selves at the front of the line. Day two ended with a devotional from the Stake Presidency and ward testimony meeting by the fireside. I can't believe what amazing testimonies and faith the kids in our ward have. I left being very inspired to be better.

Day 3 we walked until about 11 o'clock where were greeted by family and stake members welcoming us into "Zion" . We were filthy and tired and ready to go home. The best part for me was getting to know our 9 kids better and the other Ma's and Pa's.

Our family had nick names: We were Ma pudding (Me, I don't know where they came up with that) Pa Slice (again, not sure where they came up with that- crazy kids) Frenchi (Sadie) Cookie (Dylan), Stallion (Josh), Iceman (Scott), Buttescotch (Danille), Twinkle (Amanda), Wildcat (Zachary), Tigger (Nicole), Peanut (Bethany).

The theme of the Trek was "We will Rescue, We will Save". As we started Trek we were given a leather band. we wrote down a person's name who has rescued us and trek for them. It was really neat to share our stories of rescue with each other along the way. As we finished Trek, we turned our band over and wrote down a name of a person who we are going to try to Rescue. Not in an "I'm so good, I'm going to save this person" but in a Christ like serving each other way. It was really great. We started Trek thinking of all the people who have influenced and inspired us and left not thinking about our selves but of helping others and forgetting our selves. I feel so blessed to have been able to go on this Trek with the amazing youth and leaders from our stake.

I will try to add more pictures to this post when I get them.

Ellie's Birthday, June 4th

So as with any big event that should be documented, I was terrible at taking pictures. In my defense I am usually in charge of making big events run smoothly and being the photographer at the event and its pretty impossible to do both. I didn't even get a picture of Ellie at her party. Boo for me.

The party was a success. We did and had a lot of Ellie's favorite things. I'll break it down.

Decorations: Ellie's favorite colors. we did green and blue with pink accents.

Food: ellie picked fruit, pizza, homemade guacamole, bean and corn salsa, diet root beer

treats: Swedish fish, reces pieces, skittle blenders

Crafts: make ice cream sandwiches: we had two paradise bakery cookies, put ice cream in between them and rolled the sides in a choice of toppings (nuts, sprinkles, butterscotch chips)

make a french poof clip: Ellie loves accessories of all kinds. When she saw this one http://www.shopbando.com/french-pouf/prod/383?rc=25 on ban.do she knew she wanted to make it. You can put in in your hair or pin it to a shirt or belt.

make gumball necklaces: again, an accessory. Everyday, Ellie asks me what necklace she can wear with her outfit. These are cute and not too old or too young for these tween girls.

Activities: we played celebrity charades and watched the movie "a Cinderella Story"

Jordan was out of town so I hired two of my cute Mia Maids to come help with the girls and babysit my little un invited kids. I couldn't have done it with out Lexi and Rylie.

I had so much fun with Ellie and 11 of her cute friends. Ellie is a really special girl and I'm so lucky to be her mom. I'll tell you how special when I get around to taking and posting her 10 year pictures;)

Thank Heaven's for Swimming Lessons

and Amy Assante, the best swimming teacher ever! My kids had two weeks of swimming lessons that started May 31st. Ellie and Reagan could swim ok. Their form was terrible but they could survive in our pool. Maddox and Tess couldn't swim at all. they both would put their face in the water, but thats it. By the end of the two weeks, Ellie and Reagan had learned breast stroke, freestyle, back stroke, butterfly and even diving (none are perfected, but they can do them all) Maddox and Tess can totally swim. They both jump off the diving board and swim to the side without help. They can both jump in and get stuff of the bottom of the pool and both LOVE to swim. Its a must here in AZ. We have been swimming almost everyday since school got out. The only problem is now I have to get all the way in the pool with Tess. She still needs help, but isn't satisfied to stay in the shallow part. My hair is suffering.