baby proof

I was delighted hearing such cheerful sounds come from the kids' room. Allison and Auburn love playing with the older ones and it was nice to have a minute with free arms to be productive. Well, the babies started pulling all the pajamas out of Ella's bottom drawer...Dallin and Ella found it so funny they joined in by pulling every article out of every drawer and making giant piles, burying the babies. The picture does not do the mess justice! Well, my productive minute turned into an hour of refolding and organizing drawers....with babies unfolding as fast as I could fold. And I wish this were an isolated incidence.

Sunday morning I was making breakfast and Allison and Auburn completely emptied the first two shelves of the pantry. As I was in cleaning everything off the pantry floor, they pulled out each DVD and video we own, and dumped them out of their cases. So I spent the next 30 minutes matching Book of Mormon videos to their correct cases. It didn't help that each time I would find a video-cover match, Dallin would decide that's the movie he wanted to watch and pull it out of the case...over and over. Meanwhile, the unsupervised toddlers have pulled out all the toy bins from their shelf and dumped them. Next, my jewelry from the bathroom counter, breaking yet another beaded necklace. I literally spent the entire morning walking from disaster to disaster. You would think after a few incidences I would lock them up or something.. (the kids or the cabinet doors - take your pick). I was spoiled with Dallin and Ella because they never got into things, so I never had to mess with those silly locks that are so annoying each time you need to open a drawer or cabinet. But I think it's time. We need to baby proof!

mother's day

Dallin & Ella helped me make Roberta a

"Breakfast in Bed"

Mother's Day basket..homemade granola, zucchini bread and freshly squeezed grapefruit juice.

The last few Mother's Days have been quite memorable. Two years ago we had about 20 people from both Troy's and my family over for dinner and Karen was one day away from delivering Sydney. We were all so happy go lucky, we would have never known what the next day would bring.

Last year we had the same large group for dinner and I was days away from having Allison and Auburn. I craved Horchata, so we had a fun Mexican evening with Black Bean Enchiladas and Cinnamon Fried Ice Cream. We even had a small house fire when my darling luminaries on the table went up in flames.

This year our numbers dwindled and out of the 6 mothers we usually have in attendance, we only had one... ME! (Although, true to tradition, Whitney was close to having her baby as well.)

We also had Maryella and the newly engaged Christine & Josh, which was a special treat! We ate Angel Chicken and Rice, Bacon Wrapped Green Beans, a beautiful Strawberry Spinach Salad, and Coconut Creme Cookies with Sorbet...all prepared to honor our absent mothers. Happy Mother's Day.

coco

Today was Cole's big Numero UNO!

Karis & Jace had the dance studio all decked out for the party. I'm sure Cole appreciated all the time and effort it took! :) We even dressed up for the occasion!

The kids had a blast in the little swimming pool... even though their skinny little bodies were convulsing with shivers.

They just love being around all those Stapley cousins! And they are growing (and multiplying) so quickly! (Congrats to Hilary & Preston)

Happy Birthday CoCo!

fathers & sons

Not being there, I can only assume they had a great time. I was just glad they came home safe and actually remembered to take some pictures.

little whitney

Just like their Aunt Whitney!

It's like they can sense from any part of the house when that dishwasher door lowers. They come crawling full speed ahead to climb up and help unload the dirty dishes I am desperately trying to load faster than they can toss out. Such big helpers!

kacy marie

Kacy was visiting from Baltimore for just a couple days so we really tried to make the most of it!

They really are a dangerous threesome.. I'm so glad they have a least one female voice of reason between them.

I looked like I was driving a clown car unloading all the kids at the Tball game. Six children all in car seats..gotta love the minivan!

Ella loved having an older girl cousin to play with... So we made tutus and danced. I love the picture where Ella is just gazing at Kacy.. completely enamored! Kacy looks thrilled. (Tyler and Carter part II) It was even better when Sydney came and got her groove on!

We had a great time with Kacy and sent her home nice and sick throwing up with the stomach flu so she could be taken care of by her own mother. I love being an aunt!

super glue

These are the casualties of just the last three days. And this doesn't include the mountain of magazines, books, boxes, etc. the twins have managed to gnaw through. Decapitated dolls, amputated heroes, assorted broken beads... can we just stop the breaking...please!

Where's the super glue?

sick kids

I loathe having sick kids. The only thing worse than having sick kids is having to get stuff done while you have sick kids. I wish I would have written about this day right when it happened because me memory has blocked out the nightmare. All I remember is being in the middle of presidency meeting with screaming kids who were supposed to be asleep... having to leave everyone there watching my other kids while I took Miss 104.3 and Miss 103.5 to the doctor. I even gave the babies chocolate chip cookies just to quiet them down through the rest of my meeting. I did love that Dallin just wanted to rest all day in his bed. I have the recording of Great Aunt Erma telling the story of "Peasy & Beansy" on my computer so we hooked up the monitors so he could listen to her stories from the other room.

bounce- u

Bryan was the hero of the weekend when he invited the whole family to Bounce U. Because his dad owns the place, we had it all to ourselves. The kids had a blast and the adults ended the night with some rigorous competition in the obstacle course. That's when the claws came out. There is no "brotherly love" (or sisterly, for that matter) in our family competitions. Karen had me hanging upside down over the wall by my ankle just to get ahead.. typical cheating Karen! And Troy and Bryan are still barely on speaking terms as to who won their match. :) We were all laughing so hard despite the scrapes and burns (and hurt egos for some.. not me of course, but some). Sydney always keeps things interesting and decided to throw up all over. Poor Karen looked a mess. But as always, she just went on like this happens all the time (which I guess, to some degree, it does with Sydney) They cleaned up and were back to party the night away. It's always more fun when Karen's there. And rain or shine, she's always there...

Allison loves bonding with Uncle Neil...

it's because they have the same hair cut!

(Maybe I should make him some headbands.)

This Star Wars thing is such an enigma to me. It seems that once you've been exposed there is no turning back. You become completely indoctrinated with the names, creatures, transportation, weapons, and philosophy. And I don't think, as a family, we will ever be the same. Most day to day actions or comments are now compared to or assimilated with Star Wars. All after they'd only seen it once! (Yes, Ella is just as big of fan. We have to tell her every outfit is like Princess Leah or she won't have anything to do with it. Her motivation to brush her teeth is so they won't look like Jabba the Hut's.) It was classic when I went to pick up Dallin and Ella from playing with some friends, and Laura (mom) says "I didn't know your kids were Star Wars nerds too". Ouch. Is that what it has come to? Oh well, I guess we're in good company. All the brilliant minded 5 year olds I know are working out for themselves how "the Force" is related to life and the eternal pursuit of happiness! I love these Lego building sets!
Grandma Deney even made Dallin a Star War's blanket to replace his old one. (It was Troy's on his mission... yeah, time to move on!) Unfortunately, he didn't agree and so instead of eliminating the rag, he now has two blankets to sleep with.

sunday afternoon

I remember being up at BYU and always loving conference weekend because it seemed that was the day the sun finally started to shine. Being an Arizona girl I would immediately ditch all the winter wear and jump right into shorts and t-shirts...a bit prematurely. So it was right on schedule that this conference weekend I was able to enjoy both the beautiful Utah weather and came home to a gorgeous Arizona evening. Dinner at my parents house ended outside on blankets and the hammock watching the kids (and dads) swing and wrestle. The perfect Sunday evening.

This weekend was such a treat. I flew up to Salt Lake with Kris, Renee & Noelle. It was the first time leaving the kids for more than a couple hours... so the anxiety of getting ready about did me in... but after take off I was feeling great. We started chatting on the plane and I don't think our mouths stopped once until we touched back down in Phoenix...absolutely no exaggeration!

I am so lucky to work with such amazing women who teach me, inspire me, and know how to have a good time!

I am also so lucky to have Troy who was so willing to take on the challenge of parenting the kids alone. He refused to accept any help just to prove he could do it (yes, a bit stubborn!) and he did it! (And surprised me by having the house painted too!) He better watch out or this going out of town thing is going to look even more appealing!


It seemed the weekend revolved around food... Hires Big H, the Lion House, Beni Hana's, Krispy Kreme, Spaghetti Factory.. and on and on. The view from the condo was gorgeous. We stayed up until 3:30am talking and eating fresh carmel taffy & chocolate covered cinnamon bears (that we went to Trolley Square three times to get!) ... I felt like I was a teenager again gabbing with the girls!

Gardener's Village.

The entire weekend we were trying to find a movie to go to. Kris was our amazing chauffeur and Noelle our trusty navigator... Renee and I were just along for the ride. Four theaters later we found what we had been looking for..."27 Dresses", and the dollar theater actually cost a dollar! Imagine that.. and our feet didn't even stick to the ground.

And of course we enjoyed the wonderful General Conference where we were able to stand in the presence of our dear prophet and sustain him.

The rest of conference was a bit of a blur! :) It was definately hard to leave "our happy place"!

seconds anyone?

Allison and Auburn love crawling into any random space they can fit... preferably the dirtiest corners our house (which gives them plenty of options). I think their favorite is under the table because after they are done throwing all their food off their high chairs they know they can crawl under the table later for seconds.. nasty!