Sunday Sickness

Aiden was feeling warm during church today and sure enough when we got home he said he wasn't feeling well. He said his head was hot all over.

And if your head is hot all over what better way to fix it than an ice pack.

While he was laying there he said, "Mom, do you know why my head hurts so bad? Because church was so long." Trent and I couldn't agree more. Sacrament is almost the death of us every week.

It's in the Genes

It's a well known fact that Trent doesn't eat vegetables. And it is also well known that Aiden is his Mini Me. So of course Aiden will not eat veggies, not even corn, which is the best tasting one out there. The other night we forced him to eat a small spoonful, which took an hour to eat, and we even had to move him to the table and set up a barricade to keep him focused on the task.

Andrew on the other hand takes after me. He will eat veggies and really most anything else we put in front of him. But one of his favorite things to do is lick the bowl of any treats we make. Now those that know me know that I sometimes make home made chocolate cake batter and I never put any of it in the oven. It just sits in the fridge and I snack on it for a week...okay 2 days.

Looks like Trent and I both have our Mini Me's.

As you can tell we have really good eating habits here at The Hoard.

The SnowShoeing Experience

We went snowshoeing over the weekend and it was awesome. If you haven't been snowshoeing before you need to try it and if you have, well, you need to try it Trent style. We hiked up to his cabin Friday night, in the dark. 2.6 miles later we arrived. Of course, Kim and I did a self portrait.

We settled in, built a fire, drank hot chocolate, and cuddled in lots of blankets for the night. The next morning we ventured out to find some extreme sledding hills. Trent and I were very excited. Actually, we were just impersonating Aiden's new pose.

Here is Luke and Kim at our sledding spot. It was so awesome to be up there all by ourselves.

Trent and I blazing the trail. Well, Trent was blazing the trail and I followed in his footsteps.

And of course we had to take another self portrait when we conquered another mountain.

And this was the usual scene snowshoeing. It was fun to listen to Luke groan as he made his way up the mountain. ;)

And now the fun part. Seriously the best part of snowshoeing is the sledding. We, or should I say Trent and Luke, packed up our sleds so we could slide all the way down the mountain instead of hiking out. Once again, something everyone should try at least once.

And here is the crew right before our departure. I think it is safe to say that a good time was had by all.

And what is playing in the snow without making a snow angel?

And since I am lazy I am not going to download the sledding videos, but if you are interested just go to youtube and do a search for cecilyerby. Don't ask me why that name, it's all Trent's doing. Oh and just for the record, those drop offs look a lot scarier in real life.

The Assembly Line

A lot of things we do in our house is assembly line style. Lunch is no exception. We went out to lunch yesterday and instead of buying my kids a meal that would end up not being eaten I deciding to pack them all lunches.
When we arrived at Yanni's (a Jensen Fave) we got the kids settled, unpacked the glorious lunches, and the chowdown began.

Here is a pic of the whole group. Brooke is taking the picture. There were 7 adults and 10 kids. Lets just say it was kind of crazy and loud.

Always a treat to go out to lunch with the Jensen girls. However, with kids involved I think my limit is once every couple of months. Without kids, well, I could probably handle that more often.

The Easy One

Oakley has always been the easy one. I don't know if it is just her personality or that there is just one of her,but whatever it is it definitely makes things nice. She very rarely gets in trouble, but when she does she is quick to go to time out and serve her time. I have to drag my other minions the whole way there and keep sending them back until their sentence is up.

The other day Oakley wasn't nice to Paige so she had to go to time out. I went in a while later and there she was sitting on her bed practicing her letter writing.

And she hasn't stopped since. This morning she woke up, went to the bathroom, and went right back in her room to practice some more. I had to force her to come eat some breakfast. I am glad I have at least one easy child.

(side note-I love all my kids and would never want them all to be the same. The craziness is awesome.)

Another Milestone

No more Nursery.

Ever.

Paige and Morgan are officially not babies anymore. They have entered big kid primary. They are loving Sunbeams and love their new teacher Suzie. We couldn't be happier here at The Hoard Household.

And I could not get these two to do real smiles. However, they still look cute.

Bones Birthday Bash

We had the boys birthday party yesterday. I am pretty sure the boys and kids all loved it. It was pretty crazy in our house for the 2 1/2 hours. We had 16 kids total (+ 1 cute Jackson who didn't participate in the festivities, but is worth a mention because of his extreme cuteness).

My boys love anything and everything spooky, so I always ask the boys what kind of party they want around Halloween, that way I can find oodles of spooky treats, party favors, and decorations.

This year the boys wanted a Skeleton Party. I opted not to do a cake, but just cupcakes with skull and cross bone toothpicks. Much easier choice.
I have this skeleton as part of my Halloween decor. Unfortunately, I never put it away this year. Like I said I am busy and maybe a little lazy. Anyways, I had to go and dig it out of the snow so I could use it as my center piece. Some of the bones are still missing...

The kids arrived one by one and with each new kid the craziness level went up a notch. Our first activity was making spooky skull bracelets. Luckily Heidi was there with me. She helped tie off some bracelets. She was a life saver all. night. long.

Trent was supposed to pick up pizza on his way home from work, but got stuck fixing a problem. Once again Heidi to the rescue. She held down the fort while I made the pizza run. And she helped me serve the crazies.

After dinner we did presents. Lets just say the boys were spoiled rotten. They got more from their friends than they did for Christmas. I am not exaggerating.

It was pure chaos. I tried and tried to get the kids to sit back, but it did not work.

After presents we did the Treasure Hunt. I was actually cursing Heidi when I was putting this together. You see, she did a treasure hunt with clues for one of her parties once and Aiden and Andrew said that was what they wanted. It was hard to come up with 10 different rhyming clues for things hiding around the house. However, she did make up for it when she entertained all the kids in a room while I hid everything. ;)

See what I mean, utter chaos. I think Heidi's face sums it up. Oh, and I guess Jackson did participate in the treasure hunt.


I had to add this picture. The kids were checking out their loot and Josh was posing for the camera. Love it.

Last, but not least, cupcake time. Once again very simple, but I don't think the boys cared one bit.

Aiden blowing his out:

And Andrew:

Overall I think the Bones Birthday Bash was a success. Aiden and Andrew kept saying over and over that it was the best day/birthday ever. Granted they say that about a lot of things, but it is still nice to see your kids having the time of their lives. Thanks to all the friends that came, brought gifts, and had fun with us. And a BIG thanks to Aunt Heidi for being her awesome self. I would have died by myself with all those kids.

And since Aiden is VIP this week he wanted to bring his center piece to school for show and tell.

There is a Reason for my Absence

Actually lots of them. My life has gone completely crazy. Seriously. I am going to let you all have a glimpse of my life. I am mostly doing this for my own journal, so feel free to stop reading at any time.

• Work.The main reason I am not on top of things. I work Mondays and Fridays during the day. I am on call every night and every weekend. And it was probably one of the worst weekends I have ever had on call. To some it up I did 9 visits, had 3 deaths, and did one admit. Oh and I just got back from another death tonight. I left for work at 8:15 this morning and got back at 7:15. Like I said, so busy.
• Boys. It was their birthday over the holidays, so I had to go to their school and do the treat thing. It was also Andrews VIP last week and Aiden's this week. So, of course I had to make a (or should I say 2) posters, plan something to do with the class, go in and do that something with the class, and do treats again X 2. Oh, and we are having their first friend birthday party on Wednesday. We will see how that goes.
• We went to a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese's. It was very fun and the kids had a blast, but it is hard to keep track of five kids, their tickets, tokens, and all that jazz.
• After the fun and crazy party I went straight to mutual, which I was late for. I missed two meetings and church because of work. I was even supposed to teach the lesson. I think I may be fired from my calling. Thank goodness the other leaders are good.
• I had book club. We had our big yearly dinner, which I made a delicious soup for. I got the recipe from Jamie/Jill. I may or may not be doing a whole post on my favorite recipes soon and you can bet that this recipe will be on it. Needless to say the soup took most the day to make, but so worth it in the end.
• I went to park city to purchase some snow pants for an upcoming snow shoe trip. You see, my old pants are no where near fitting me since I had them before my married child bearing years. I found the cutest pants and a screaming deal. Now I am set for snow.

I did squeeze in a few things between all my visits this weekend. Brooke planned a Jensen lunch on Saturday. Luckily it was near my patients house, so I attended-scrubs and all.

Brooke also offered to watch kids so we could have a date night. Our date was set for 5:00, but I didn't get home until 7:00. We still made it to dinner at one of our faves-Chili's. Which was also courtesy of Brooke. She had our name for Christmas and spoiled us more than Santa Claus.

And last, but not least, we started the 5th season of Dexter. Can't wait to watch more.

So, that about sums up my past week. I would say it should get better, but each day just seems to get busier than the next. So, until next time....even if next time is a week away. Sorry Maga.

New Years in St. George

Like I said in my previous post we went down to good old St. George for New Years. And a good time was had by all. We were all looking forward to going down to snowless, warmer weather but Mother Nature had a different idea. Did that stop us from enjoying a dip in the pool? I think not.

While Aiden did this:

and Andrew did that:

The rest of us hung out here: (And no Jenny was not skinny dipping.)

The snow did eventually melt and we enjoyed some "warmer" swimming.

And this trip was one to remember for Oakley. She swam in the deep end all by herself. She has been terrified of the water in the past, so this was a big step for her.

Of course one of the favorite things for some of us to do in St. George is run. I don't know if it is the flat terrain, the lower altitude, or being able to run whenever you want, but we LOVE running in St. George.

Kimmy, me, and my dad. We would all leave the house at the same time, but we all got home at different times. My dad can run forever, seriously.


We decided to try and do a little hike to get the kids out of the house. Luke and Kim took us to a bouldering place. We didn't do much bouldering, but the kids enjoyed hiking around. Except for Oliver that is.

And these 3 boys had the time of their lives together. Cousins are always so fun.

And thanks to Jenny, she got me hooked on Glee. I had never seen it before and she had bought the first season. I started watching and did not stop. I would stay up late (until 2:0o am) watching episode after episode. Ya, I am kind of pathetic. When Jenny left I had to go by the season so I could finish it and finish it I did. I have now passed it on to Kimmy. I decided to keep spreading the addiction.
I have been somewhat lacking in the picture taking department. I just don't have it in me right now. So here are some things that were not in pictures but are most definitely worth mentioning.

• Going to Vegas. We hit up Raising Canes, which is the best chicken place ever created. We did a little shopping at H & M and the outlets, hung out with Jake and Candice, and hit Broadway Pizza on the way home.


• We did some shopping in St. George, which the only money I spent was on Glee. Yes, I have learned a lot of self control lately.


• We ate at some delicious places, my favorite, as always, was In & Out.


• We had a fabulous smorgasbord at both houses. You see, my parents and Trent's parents bought houses that are only a couple houses away from each other and both family's were down. It makes it nice for use to be able to vacation with both sides.


• We played a lot of Wii-rockband, mario, raving rabbids, lego everything, and carnival games.


• Basically having fun hanging with both families and enjoying a break from real life.

Well, that's our trip in a nutshell. A special thanks goes out to both of our parents who gave us a fantastic vacation, to our siblings that were to make everything so fun (we did miss those that didn't make it), and to Jenny for being the Best Aunt Ever on the trip. Like I said, a good time was had by all.

There is Nothing Worse Than...

...vomit in a car.

Seriously, look at the puddle of it between her legs. It was horrid. However, she was in a booster and not her normal gigantic car seat, which is hard to clean, so it could have been worse. Still gross though.

And I was going to work on my New Years Post, but cleaning this took up that slot of time. So, you all get to enjoy the vomit instead of the fun times we had in St. George. Maybe tomorrow...