Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Spooky Halloween Night

Halloween is here in full blast! This year we started our day off with our neighbor friend's birthday. Shelby had her 8th birthday party on Halloween. The kids dressed up in costume and we had some party fun! THen as the night wore on we went on a hayride to trick or treat! Every year here in our neighborhood the tricker-treaters come out in full blown costumes! I wish I could have taken pictures of some of the people we ran into! Sometimes it was literally running into them! Some streets we went down were packed full of kids and adults hanging off of trailers being pulled by trucks with more people packed in on the bed of the trucks too! We had an awesome time! We went with some friends from church; The Coleman's, The Love's, and our neighobrs The Killough's. Matt pulled us around the neighborhood on a trailer with hay (our own hayride) Thank you to the Meinen's for loaning it to us! We had an absolute blast. The one house I thought was creative thinking was the one in the pictures of the "alien" hanging from the tree and the camo man sitting in the tree with a chain saw! Sophia and little Taylor LOVED IT! Here are some pics from our trick or treating!

School Daze!

So it has been a crazy busy summer! We have enjoyed swim team, pool days, waterslides and a wonderful vacation! So much to do in a short summer! The girls are back in school, and doing great! Sophia came home SUPER excited because she made a 100 on her six weeks math test. Way to start second grade! And believe me she was super proud ~ as her mom was. She went on to tell me that she was the ONLY one in the class who made 100. I seriously could not stop her gloating because I was too.! Sorry guys yes I encouraged it in the car. I was extremely happy and a bit surprised! Sophia is doing good in the rest of the class. The way the district does it out here is that you can actually write a letter and some teachers name and they try to put you with that teacher. Well, we did that and so did our good friend and neighbor Brandi. SO needless to say Sophia and Shelby are in the same class this year. They have Mrs. Romero and she is the best! Michaela is doing great! I got a phone call about a week into school from the principal. They had a spot open in the GT class and wanted to put Michaela in it. So we did! Come to find out that she had great scores and was place #4 on the waiting list! MOST awesome! Her first progress report of the school year and she has high A's throughout! This week we are celebrating Matt's birthday. His birthday was Tuesday and turned 39! His favorite cake is German Chocolate I put 39 candals on the cake and it was flaming! So that is about all for us right now. Halloween craziness is starting up soon so I will post more soon! ~:-)

Our Fab Summer Vacation and happenings!

Okay so it seems like ages since I have posted on the blog! Thanks to Crazy Cam she helped out with the posting while on vacation by dedicating a song to our family! That was very sweet and cute! (See below in the last posting for the song)! Well June and July was a rocking busy summer time for us! We have absolutely had a blast this summer! My brother came down to visit before he headed to South Korea for work( military assignment) and brought my two beautiful neices with him! We went to the Woodlands aquatic center and for $10 had a day full of watersliding and mini lazy river! We had a family BBQ and THEN was suprised because my cousin Karl came from South Korea (stationed with ARMY) and he actually got leave to come down to Texas so we had a grand time!

Then my family (minus Matt due to work) and my brother, nieces, mom and dad all headed for a day at the beach! LOVE THE BEACH! (see second slide show).

WE had about 2 weeks to recoup and then pack up to go on VACATION!! Every 2 years we head up to Utah/Wyoming to visit Matt's family during pioneer week. We first went to visit some long time friends (Sophia's second mama!!!) the Ericksons - they used to be in our Church ward before moving back to St. George, UTah (Totally under protest from me) We hung out with Amy and Renvic with their kids/Ryke,Rakelle,GJ,Ridge. We got to see a championship little league baseball game and they smoked their competition (BIG rivals with Cedar City) went swimming some more(that seems to be the theme with our family every summer!) Then we headed to Kaysville, UTah to stay with Matt's brother and our sister in law Nathan and LIz! The best ever! We had a house full of girls! They have 4 we have 2~ Then to Matt's parents in Freedom,Wyoming (Star Valley)I used to always tease Matt because accross the street is Idaho they live on State LIne Road! So I would always call him Wydaho! Every year Matt's family gets together during this time in Wyoming to go to the ball park in their ward and have a dutch oven cook/potluck dinner then they do a candy drop with a small airplane for the kids where they load it up and zoom by and drop candy out of the airplane the kids run around and grab it all up..Later that night they do fireworks. This is all done in celebration of the Mormon pioneers coming into the valley (Utah) and settling in and making it possible for us to be there~! Well everyyear some familys can not attend but this year we did however, we are missing Matt's younger brother and wife and 3 kids (his wife just had a baby!!), then Matt's sister Christine and her 4 kids where not able to be there. SOO lets count the numbers shall we!! In Matt's parents house (some of us in cabins up the road)Matt is the oldest of 8 children so in attendance that weekend (minus the ones above we had: 14 adults, 19 children running around at one time!! AND that is not all the family in attendance!! YIKES. What a legacy! That was going on Saturday 25th, On Monday me and Matt went on a white water rafting trip on Snake River! We had a blast! Of course that was AFTER I got slightly nervous and puked my guts up in the bathroom from sheer nerves! But we did have a blast after I saw that we were going to have another family athat had 7 and 9 year boys I knew I would be okay! After spending time in Star Valley we head back to Kaysville and by that time we had the original 6 girls plus Matt's sister kids 2 boys and 1 extra girl.. We had the GRAND opportuniity to take the girls to the temple!! They had an open house and the girls got to walk and tour the whole temple !! AWESOME experience for the children!! Need less to say we all had a great time and we hardly EVER saw our own 2 kids even though we were all in the same house! THANK GOODNESS FOR BASEMENTS!!! AWESOME! Thank YOU SOO much to Nathan and Liz and girls for housing us on our vacation and eating all your food! AND too all the other familys Ericksons and Reane and Melvin for letting us hang out and get to catch up on old times!

Tribute to the Texas Clingers

Okay so this was done by my cutie pie niece Crazy Cam! I love ya girl and maybe someday we can make it happen! As some people know we are on a job hunt after our vacation and have until January to make it happen. This was Camberra's song dedicated to us to get us up to Utah! The state of happen dreams! Texas Clingers song to come to Utah Why HELLO HELLO I am now going to sing you the song I Camberra Clinger wrote to bring the Texas Clingers Home to Utah. " ECCCCK HMM" tap tap tap " Texas Clingers came to town riding in there ca-ar stuck some Bee Hives in there bags and called them Sego Lilly" "DUN D DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN!!!" (TUNE OF YANKEE DOODLE) Wasn't that great yes thank you so much!!! Crazy Cam (new 12 year old)

Splish Splash!

Oh what fun we have been having this summer! Last week us and our neighbors decided to take a trip to conroe and visit the aquatic center. We had a great time. Anywhere were there is a pool and some waterslides = fun for all! This aquatic center is run by the city of Conroe it cost $5 to get in for the day. You can not take food in, but we had a hearty MCDonalds breakfast and spent half a day out. Here are some pics that I managed to nab while sliding down myself. This is the picture of the little toddler waterslides and spray area w/ a good size dump bucket! These are the other waterslides for bigger kids and the adults who want be kids! Sophia having a good time in the sun! Our little fish outa water! And in the water! ***A few reminders that if you venture out and visit the aquatic center and you have girls with long hair. They require you to tie your hair back while in the water. You can't have outside food brought in..(we put little snacks and some water in our swim bag and that was fine)..But we did have a great time and took us less than an hour to get there! Out next destination is the aqautic center in the Woodlands with a full on lazy river/waterslides! I will let ya know how that turns out next!

Cooking Party!

Yes, I know it has been awhile since I last blogged! We have been really busy of late. Who isn't? About a month ago, a friend of the girls had a birthday party. It was at a cooking school! They had a blast making homemade pizza and cupcakes! Here are a few pics of the girls in action. Michaela having a blast in the kitchen. Sophia waiting for the other girls to dig in to the pizza she made!

Blowing Bubbles!

This year, as we have done every year since we have been married; we went to my grandparents for Easter Sunday. The Easter Bunny was very kind to the children; even to my non believer.(Michaela)..Everytime my girls are around my grandpa they are content to follow in his shadow! (Especially Michaela!) These are some to the good times we had on Easter Sunday Sophia and Michaela blowing bubbles! Michaela puffing out a bubble In this picture Papa is actually running around the yard with a bubble wand with bubbles floating in the air! We love Papa he will do anything to make his girls happy! Papa and Michaela getting a refill for more bubble action Sophia showing off with her bubbles! All in all we had a bubbly of a time with Nana and Papa - Easter 2009

Sparks went Flying

Well, gee whiz what a interesting end to a nonproductive day we have had! Matt decided to finally take a vacation day. However, to anyone who has heard this STILL involves at least half a day of working on the computer. Michaela stayed home from school "not" feeling well! (yeah good one!). So I snuck out for a few hours with a neighbor to research out a science project that is not going to work after all. My other neighbor down the way was cutting some trees down and I decided that it was time to cut down one of ours from Hurricane Ike. It was a smaller hardwood, but turned out to be VERY hardy one. We had the chainsaw and a four wheeler that we hooked chains and rope to to help pull the tree in the RIGHT DIRECTION..(Notice that I said the RIGHT direction!) So after what seemed like almost 30 minutes of chain sawing it started to drop in the WRONG direction!..I thought at first that it was going to land on our neighbor but he jumped out of the way at the last moment. Then I thought it was going to land on the back fence. IT missed the fence and I breathed a sigh of relief a little TOO soon.! The tree fell to the ground but before that , it hit the POWER LINE! I said a few choice words as we heard the loud boom and saw sparks FLYING through the area and a power line snap and fling into the neighbors yard. OH CRAP is what I was thinking we are in serious trouble. Come to find out that about 70 homes were without power and we finally have power back on after about 5 hours. We had a cool time hanging out with our neighbors and socializing. They said it was like back in the Ike days! ( I wouldn't know about that as I was living the good life in Dallas! So NOW I have to call our home insurance to see if they cover these kinda things and call the electricity company claim line and see what they are going to bill us for the down power line. I have thought SEVERAL times that I never have anything to blog about. And while I think this is blog worthy, I surely wished it did not happen and I can report on another endless boring day! Not so! I will have to post pics of the down tree and new power line (wishing I had a camera or something on when this happened) Stay tuned to our continuation!

Spring Break 2009 Fun

This spring break we were invited by our friends and neighbors to go to Lake Sam Rayburn. Me and the girls rented a condo and stayed a couple of days there. Our friends (The Laird's) have a boat so we did a few days on the lake (swimming and tubin). We had a blast (as the pictures show!) Unfortunately Matt was out of town and did not make it. For those that did not know Lake Sam Rayburn is up by Jasper, Texas. It is a huge resevoir. We did have a blast and hope that we can return, MAYBE with Matt in tow! Enjoy our slide show.

Myspace 2.0 layouts

Our Mad Scientists

This past Saturday, we celebrated Michaela and Sophia birthdays. We had a big group show up at the community center (friends and family). I had the company Mad Science come out a put on a super duper show. We experimented with acetone and styrofoam, with different metals to make a "sparkler show", and what dry ice does to soap and other liquids. How it makes metal really cold. 'Radical Ross' showed us how to put a quarter on dry ice and it actually flaps back and forth - like chattering teeth! The kids got to make slime cups and take home. After the show we ate pizza and had mini flower cakes to decorate, followed with lots of presents. Overall is was a blast..But I sure am glad I only have to go through that ONCE a year for 2 kids. NOW that is a bargain deal!!

YIKES!!!!

OKAY UPDATE! I think I recovered my links - somewhat..If you don't see yours on here please let me know. Want all my friends to be listed. Thanks HELP ME I lost everything when I "cleverly" decided to change my backgrounds using PYZAM..Now I do not have my page links to my favorite peeps or anything..Total mind boggling. If you cherish me as a friend please send my your blog link at april_cling2u@yahoo.com! lol.. Thanks

I am going stir crazy!

MySpace Graphics Yes, I am absolutely going insane! I had a few phone calls from friends asking if we are alright (thank you for caring!!). I am alive and well. Michaela is back at school this past Monday. (She was out for little over a week with pnuemonia). She was at home last week and not only that but for the whole week before that one she went 4 days with NO sleep. (does that sentence make sense?) I am not too sure I think I am delirious at this point. THis week after making my 2nd trip downtown to the doctor Sophia is running fever and only has a virus! I say only because in some deranged thinking I wish is was bacteria or flu so I could actually have medicine to give her to make her better faster! Unlike just letting a virus run its course! Well after fighting 103 fevers for the past 2 weeks I am READY for a break! Sophia is fever free today and I kept her home one more day to rest. She is on my LAST nerve and ready to go to school tomorrow! ( I am doing flips for that one). I am SOOO counting on my night out tomorrow night with girl friends and having fun at bunco. So sad that we have been couped up in the house on such a beautiful week. Bright blue sky with no clouds in sight. Please hold up for this weekend. I am carting around 5 girl scout girls (THANK YOU CHRIS (coleader) for the help and driving! So I am hoping all goes well and I can keep my strength up. It will be lots of fun they are doing a dance clinic with the green starlettes. I think the leaders get to kick their feet up and chill out! Can't wait. So thanks for being concerned about us but we are on a mend and hope to return to normal schedule Friday!

Slippery When Wet!

Well, during our down time this past Christmas we went ice skating. Yes, very slippery when wet! Sad thing is after we got laced up and walked on CARPET I could not even do that! Now I have been ice skating before (as a teenager- not SOO long ago)and it was a piece of cake. Not so now. I think my foot must have been laced up a little of balance as that is the ONLY reason I can think of that it kept turning in when I was walking on carpet. So as I see my 6 year old Sophia hop up and take off at a fast walk I thought Oh how wonderful to be that care free.. Her thought is if she falls she will get up and try again. Well , for me I did fall (no there are no pictures of that thank goodness)! It took one time for me to bust my knee and I was off the ice for good! Here are the pictures of the girls. Michaela did okay hugging the wall all the way around. She did with the help of Crystal and a very helpful Clay get off the walk and skate around in the middle..But the picture is of Michaela huging the wall. Next is Sophia (I think she could be an ice skater in her next life!) We had a great time and sending out a thank you to our neighbor and friend for inviting us to hang out for the day!