Oh boy!!!

On Wednesday morning I woke up and started making breakfast. I heard what sounded like water running downstairs. When I walked into the basement my feet got soaked. Our basement had flooded ahhhh. My first thought was "one of the kids left the water running in the sink" But I found that it was coming from the washer. After further investigation we found that the culprit was the hose, it had a hole in it. We moved everything (thankfully it only hit one room) so we moved everything into the other. Kevin sucked up as much water as he could with his shop vac but we had to call someone. ARS came and took the padding underneath, sucked up as much water as they could and put fans down. Now normally in this situation I would be upset and cranky about it, but after watching what my children did in this situation I figure I once again need to become as a child. They:
1. Laughed when their feet would squeak on the floor after being wet
2. Made a puppet show behind the mattresses that we put in the living room.
3. Watched enthusiastically as the carpet move up and down from the fans.
Hopefully our basement will be back to normal by Saturday. As for now I'm off to do my puppet show!

My Little Mommy

BriLynn had her two month checkup today. These two months have gone by fast. She got some immunizations and I was thankful I didn't have Luke and Jacob there to witness her screaming (I'm sure Jacob would freak out every time we went back to the doctor) Thanks Tina for watching them. This is Danika holding BriLynn. I am so grateful that she is such a "little mommy." She loves to help me and hold her sister while I'm busy with dinner or other things. I'm in shock that she will be eight soon, she used to be my baby (sigh). Since she's so close to baptism, last night I did a lesson on repentance. The kids had a great time with our activity, I boiled some eggs beforehand and gave everyone one. We talked about how when we get baptized we are clean and white like the egg. Then I gave each of them markers and we talked about sins. We marked up our eggs talking about what kinds of things would be sins (not obeying mom and dad, stealing etc.) after the eggs were all marked up with sin we broke the shell off to represent repentance and how we can become white again. I was telling Kevin that I'm nervous for Danika, she will be held accountable soon and I don't want her to sin. How grateful I am to know that we can become clean again through repentance.

Thanks and Food Frenzy Friday

WOO HOO it's Friday!!! I love Friday's. Thanks for all your input on the tax programs. We searched it out online and found TaxAct. It has great reviews and was only 16.95 to do both Federal and State. I have a trial CD for Turbotax(they charge you when you file). I think I will do both and see which I like better and if they come up with the same figures. I told Kevin I would probably do it by hand too, I think it's fun (call me crazy). Anyway I figured it has been a long time since I have posted a recipe. I actually just made this last night and we all enjoyed it. They are really snacky. It was really easy to make too. I found the recipe in the newspaper.

Potato Skin Poppers

Ingredients:
3 cups frozen diced potatoes (hash browns)
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
16 oz. Sour cream (divided)
3/4 cup cooked bacon pieces
1/3 cup chopped green onions
1 dash salt and pepper to taste
14 flour tortillas
2 Tbs melted butter

Preheat oven to 350. Cook potatoes according to pkg directions. In a bowl, stir together cooked potatoes, cheese, 1 cup sour cream, bacon, onions salt and pepper. Warm the tortillas, then spoon equal amounts of the mixture down the center of each. Roll tortillas burrito-style, brush with melted butter and place seam side down on baking pan. Bake for 12-15 min., or until golden brown. Let cool for 5 minutes, serve with remaining sour cream.

Have a great weekend!!!

Tax Time

Kevin brought home his W2's today and so now I need to get to work filing our taxes. The faster I get them in the faster we get our refund WOO HOO. Ya gotta love tax refunds! I have always done it by hand on the forms and then mailed them in. This year I think I will try Turbo Tax. Have any of you worked with this? How do you file yours?

Another Stratagy

Kevin and I always talk about what we can do to improve our parenting skills. We have done a behavior jar and other things but we wanted something that would reward the individual child for their accomplishments. I turned on the TV one morning last week and watched about the Childrens Miricle Music on Studio 5. If your interested, watch the video. Excuse the little ad at the beginning. Oh don't forget to turn the music off at the bottom.

We thought we would try it, we made up our own chart and picked music. They get really excited to finish before the music is done which is great. We are only a few days into it and working out the kinks but hopefully it works. It's not that we ever had a hard time with the kids before, but we would have to ask them three or four times before they changed. Now we just say it's time and turn on the music and watch them scatter. Are their certain things your family does to make getting ready in the morning or night easier? Or getting them to do chores?

Overwhelming

So I took a brake from scrap booking....a long brake. The last thing I did was my birthday last April. Oops, now I have lots to do. I have decided I will just scrapbook special occasions (ex:birthdays, big family vacations) and holiday pictures. I'm sure I'll throw in a few that are just too cute not to. If I were to do all the pictures we take it would take me forever! I have six books to keep up on. Plus Danikas is almost onto her third three inch, three ring binder. She is only seven, if I keep it up she will have 10 books by the time she is 18. To many eh? We do put the pictures on disk but I think it's nice to have them printed and in a book to look at. How do you do yours?

Tell me you have done this too!

Last night three of the five kids woke up. So Luke was the first complaining that his leg hurt. Those darn growing pains. So that was around 2:30 and I just laid there and laid there. So tired...sleepy, warm.... in my mind I think, if I just lay here long enough Kevin will get up with him. I think he was thinking the same thing. It's a matter of who feels bad enough for the child. Of course Jacob woke up (probably because he was cold, he can't keep his blankets on him) We noticed it was cold when Luke had woke up. The furnace was shut off. Jacob was kind enough to flip the switch when he saw Mom go in to get an item needed for dinner (thats two times now he has done that) We always find out in the middle of the night when its been off so long it's freezing. Anyway, I just wanted to know if you ever stay in your bed and act asleep (although your not) and just wait for you spouse to take care of the crying child at your bedside?

AWW... Cute

I just thought I'd post a photo. The kids love their baby sister, it's cute how excited they get when they can hold her. (As you can see from Luke's face) BriLynns face looks as if she is thinking, "What family did I bring myself into." Hope your all having a wonderful Monday!

Duck Duck DUCK!

We went to my parents this last weekend for my nieces baptism. While we were there we played games, who knew that playing duck duck goose would be so fun. The kids took advantage of the slowness of the adults. It was really cute, Jacob didn't say goose he would just say duck louder when he hit you on the head. Some of you have asked about my twin sister Susan, she is the one that Andrew is by in the picture, in the green shirt.
I think of all the kids Luke sleeps in the weirdest positions or places. Plus since I'm sure I won't get to it tomorrow for Food Frenzy Friday, I thought I would share a recipe for Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza. I found it on my friends blog and tried it last night, pretty tasty. If your interested it's at: http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Bacon-Cheeseburger-Pizza

Wow 2009

So much has happened in the last few weeks so I'll just give a little summary. Andrew and Jacob celebrated their birthdays on the 30th of December. Andrew wanted a sword cake. I think the kids had a good time I'm mad, I didn't get any pictures of them hitting the power ranger pinata. This is a picture of Jacob with some of the loot from it though. On New Years Eve we took the kids to the rec center where they had a magician. He was really good and also did balloon creations. This picture makes me laugh because as I took it Jacobs sword balloon popped.