My Celebrity Look-alikes

I did the celebrity look alike for our family...I think it is funny that Sam looks like only girls...I also like the resemblace between John Kerry and Cyrus. Heee Heeee...that was fun!!!

My cool celebrity look-alike collage from MyHeritage.com. Get one for yourself.

My Celebrity Look-alikes

My cool celebrity look-alike collage from MyHeritage.com. Get one for yourself.

My Celebrity Look-alikes

My cool celebrity look-alike collage from MyHeritage.com. Get one for yourself.

My Celebrity Look-alikes

My cool celebrity look-alike collage from MyHeritage.com. Get one for yourself.

My Celebrity Look-alikes

My cool celebrity look-alike collage from MyHeritage.com. Get one for yourself.

My Celebrity Look-alikes

I have been seeing this on people's blogs and gave it a try...funny! I think I will do the rest of the clan now!

My cool celebrity look-alike collage from MyHeritage.com. Get one for yourself.

Love/Hate Relationship

California and I have a love/hate relationship. So I thought I would write some of my loves and my hates...feel free to comment about what you love and/or hate about this place.

Hates:
Traffic
Traffic (I hate it so bad I had to write it twice)
Living in a crappy house and paying out the wazoo for it.
Rats in the church--YUCK
Spiders (ok those are everywhere but i think my house has more than its fair share)
Water bills
Tiny trash cans
Lines for everything (even camping)
Safeway
No "untouched" places
Gas prices (I filled up here before going to Utah at 3.15/gallon and put gas in the rental car there at $2.25/gallon)
Very small parking spaces
Narrow roads
Walmart is far

Loves:

The weather
Trader Joes
The people I have met
The smell of outside
Having a creek right across the street
My great neighbors and neighborhood
Biking
Hiking just around the corner
Beautiful beaches
The golden gate bridge
Having the city so close
Sailboats on the ocean
The YMCA
Our wonderful ward
BUNCO
Recycling
IKEA
World Market

Funny thing about California:

*My neighbors all leave beers (some leave a whole 12-pack) out for the trash man on the week before Christmas. You'd think he'd be drunk as a skunk by the end of the day.
*When it rains too much, its global warming, when it doesn't rain enough, its global warming...too hot, too cold, too foggy--all a result of global warming.
*It is bad to have a green wooden tree craft (not even decorated like a Christmas tree) for the holiday party but eating Latkes and playing dredle is A-OK, oh and a tablecloth with menorahs and stars of David is ok too.

This place is crazy and funny. I miss home but I love it here!!!

Junior Botany

Its kind of embarrassing when your kids are smarter than you. Yesterday a bird flew into our car and I let it out and said to Cyrus, "What kind of bird was that." He says, "It was blue." Then we decided it wasn't a bluebird, for the very scientific reason that it didn't have that thing on its head. Then Hannah looks at us like we are idiots and says, "It's a WESTERN bluebird."

Now we might have shrugged this off as a wild guess except, the other day we were hiking and Hannah says, "What kind of fern is that daddy?" and Cyrus responds with, "Uh, what fern?" So Hannah walks over and picks a piece of the fern that Cyrus couldn't see and checks out the roots and the leaves, even breaking off the root and examining the leaves closely. She then informs us, "That is a sword fern. You can see the hilts." What the heck are hilts? She then proceeded to inform us of the names of several things we would have called "pretty flowers" and "grass" and "ferns." She is smarter than us. Please don't laugh.


this is a funny picture the girls took with our new computer. I wonder how long till I'm one of those people who has to ask my kids how to turn on the computer. I am very afraid.

Boy do I Miss the Gym

Last week I went to Idaho and this week Sammy is sick and can't go to daycare so I haven't been to the gym. Boy do I miss it. I love the gym, it keeps me sane and happy, oh yeah and it helps me with those extra baby pounds that have been hangin on. Of course, talking with Lainie on the treadmill about chocolate and cake and ice cream does very little to put me in the mood for dieting...but that is part of the "keeps me sane" part, I guess.
would you look at that butt--how did that happen in only two weeks??!!!!

Swim Team

The girls are having so much fun at swim team and are coming home absolutely exhausted and hungry every night. They are turning into amazing swimmers. Last year, Hannah was afraid of the water and wouldn't let go of the side for fear that she would sink...now she is swimming like a little fish. Today she was working on breaststroke which is pretty hard for her, but she is improving and really likes swim team. Carolyn looks like an old pro. She is so comfortable in the pool and so happy trying new things.

The thing I like best about our swim team is the coaches. They are great. They realize that this is a SUMMER REC LEAGUE and honestly, the fun and the comfort in the water is more important than racing. I am so impressed with how in touch they are with what being a kid is like (they rub pretend bumble bees off their ears with their shoulder to work on form on the back stroke and try to avoid spilling an imaginary bowl of boogers off their heads to practice smooth breathing in free style). My greatest fear with starting swim team was that they would be so intense that my kids wouldn't enjoy it, but they laugh and play and relax and I am glad we did it!!!



I had a hard time getting Hannah to take her head out of the water to get her picture. She swims all the way across the pool when she is doing free style and when she is doing back stroke now!!!




These are of Carolyn swimming freestyle...kind of hard to see. She swims with such big arms and such a straight body. She is getting faster every week!

Brand new computer

I got a new computer. Cyrus went to the store alone and now I have a computer that is HUGE. Like the sceen is bigger than our TV (which isn't saying much since we have a tiny TV I can put away on a shelf), but still. Cyrus loves big stuff. He's nuts!!!

The computer does this cool thing. You just push a button and look at the screen and it takes your pic. This is a picture we took. Aren't we cute.

Fijian sisters

There is a place that I have never been but that I love because of some dear sisters from my church...FIJI. We have a lot of Fijian women in our ward and they are some of the most wonderful women you will ever meet. I love them so much. Today, I was still in a bit of a funk worrying about my family in Idaho, Sam was VERY VERY sick (similar to how sick Hannah got around age one when she spent a week in the hospital), and I was exhausted from being up all night with Mr Pukes~a~lot. So I went to church, dreading the meeting that I had after church and wishing that I could be home with Sam. One of our dear Fijian sisters bore one of the most powerful testimonies I have heard in a long time, quoting some of my favorite verses from the Bible. I felt overwhelmed and my the Spirit and was reminded that there is so much good, so many things that are right in my life. I also felt that despite the current bout of hardship my family is going through, my parents are doing what God would have them do, and that makes all the difference. At times life is hard but it is also good. God loves all of us and I know that. All this I learned from the Spirit that I felt from a sister who truly knows and loves God. I was so greatful for that sweet faith that is so common among these Fijian sisters and grateful for their truly gentle and powerful way. I thank Heavenly Father for Fiji.

Michael Chiarello

One of the funniest moments from my trip was when I was telling my brother about Katie playing Rachel Ray and he said that his boy plays Michael Chiarello (from Easy entertaining). I think that quirkiness must run in our family.

Trouble...

Cousin Derek

Cousin Tanner

I have been thinking a lot about trouble and the way people deal with it...Cyrus mom and my mom and dad have seen a bit of trouble lately in their lives and I have been thinking and praying and wondering. I have come to no conclusions. Mainly, I have just wished that Cyrus was a dentist already so we could help them out so money worries werent part of the trouble.

Here are some pics from my trip to Idaho. Just Sam and I went. We saw my mission companion Becky, Grandma Javadi (we call her Grandma White because of the white hair), Great Aunt Zahra, Aunt Petra and Uncle Michael and Kaylee, and Danna (Cyrus cousin) and her little man whose name is slipping my mind this moment. In Idaho we saw Uncle Dave and Aunt Jessie and their boys Tanner and Derek, Grandma and Grandpa Fitzgerald, Aunt Dona and Becky.
Utah Cousins

Idaho cousins with Grandma and Grandpa Fitzgerald except Becky (she was at school)

Sam loving Grandma White

Sam and Aunt Zahra

Hannah

Grandma Berger wanted to know how Hannah did this term at school...she had a great report card. She is in an advanced reading class and is doing great wih her mad minutes, she struggles with 8+8 (she keeps putting 15) and 9+5 (she puts various random answers). She catches on to things quickly and is very bright. However, her teacher says she needs to do her homework. Funny thing is that she DOES her homework and even takes it back to school. She just never takes it out of her backpack. She has the messiest backpack in the world. I guess she cant have it all. Beauty, intelligence and organization~that would be too much.

Our little Toad

By popular demand, here is a few pictures of Sam Bam showing off his walking skills and his incredible good looks.

What Matters...

Today my girls got their report cards. I had worried and worried about Carolyns mad minutes. She has been struggling with them the whole term and we had been practicing and practicing but still, she was stuck on the subtract...so today she got the card and I opened it with some trepidation. First thing I looked at when she handed me the card was the teacher comments. They said, `Carolyn is a conscientious citizen: always choosing to help her peers, especially those who are most in need.` The rest talked about how she had reached all her benchmarks, etc etc. but I realized that in all my worry about math and learning math facts, I had forgotten what really matters in this life~becoming like our Savior. Carolyn may have been struggling with doing math fast, she may have needed to use her fingers for subtraction a little more than was desirable, but when someone needed help, Carolyn helped them. She chose the better part in the most important part and for that I am happy.

Nose Pickers

Katie and Alyse all dolled up in their ballet costumes. They will be dancing like little ladies as soon as they get that booger.

Sideways Sammy

Katie loves the picture of Sam that is sideways. Every day she laughs and says `HA, Sideways Sammy.` Little does she know that the pic is sideways because her mama is too lazy to figure out how to fix it!!! So I thought I would add a few more funny sideways, just for Kates entertainment.

Crazy hair day

The girls had crazy hair day at school. Hannah wanted 15 ponies and Carolyn wanted the best bed head I could give her. Katie comes by her incredible bed head naturally


Nice.


My girls have this friend Haley who is always so funny on dress up days. On decade day she dressed up as Elvis. I love Haley

Activities

I thought it would be fun to post the activities that the girls are doing. They are having so much fun!!

Monday: Carolyn and Hannah do piano lessons
Tuesday: Katie has Joy School, Carolyn and Hannah have swim team
Wednesday: Katie has ballet, Carolyn and Hannah have swim team
Thursday: Katie has Joy school, Carolyn and Hannah once again have swim team
Friday: Carolyn and Hannah have swim team

Swim team just started last week. Before that all three girls were taking swim lessons. Piano will end when school ends because Candace is moving. We are on the hunt for a new piano teacher...for fall. Swim team goes until July. It is really fun for them. Many of their friends do it and the coaches are really funny. Hannah has a really encouraging fellow who has helped her a lot with her confidence. She has gone from being afraid of the water last summer to swimming a full lap in an olympic sized pool with only one stop!!! SHe has great form and puts her head right in the water. She is good a both freestyle and backstroke. Carolyn was already a fair to good swimmer so she is in a different group. Her coach is funny and very much like a kid. Last week he told them they had a big bowl of boogers of the back of their heads and if they didnt breath smoothly, the boogers would fall in their mouths. She laughed and laughed but you should see how carefully she was breathing. She is certainly a better swimmer than me already. I cant wait to see what the end of summer brings!!!

Piano lessons has been so great for the girls. I cant believe how good they are getting on the piano. Candace has been the best teacher in the world. I dont know how we are ever going to replace her....

Joy school is a rotating pre school that is taught by the moms. We buy a curriculum and rotate around our homes teaching about the joy of different things...like the joy of setting goals and the joy of obedience, the joy of work, the joy of spontaneous delight (silliness). It has so many fund ideas to keep kids engaged and has really been fun for my Katie. The other kids at school are so sweet so she just loves it!! And what little girl doesnt like ballet? Katie would go there every day if she could. I love the teacher and since I dont care much if she grows up to be some kind of professional, I dont care that they dont use any traditional ballet terms...she is happy and having fun and that is what it is all about!

Our Little Ballerina

Katie has been taking ballet at the YMCA on Wednesday morning while mom exercises. It is so cute!!! They boogy woogy and gallop and fly like butterflies. Katie loves it!!! She also does Joy School on Tues and Thurs...she is such a sweet little lady!!!

WORK WORK WORK

Back when I was at BYU, I took a class about family work (only in the family science department!) for my minor. We spent the whole semester talking about how important work is within a family but not in the way that we see it so often in our society. We talked about work as a means to an end...namely that when we work with our children, relationships are built. We learned that It is the doing of the work that is important, because it breeds close bonds...the getting done of the work is incidental and sometimes wont happen was the jist of the class. In the class we discussed how we had lost something when we quit shelling our own peas because we had lost the time spent sitting with our families doing that work. We talked about how pioneer families worked together all day and had strong families to show for it. We planned for our futures of washing dishes by hand and scrubbing our floors on our hand and knees all the while building strong and perfect relationships with our children. I imagined in my head a perfect home with no mother/expert as we had called her in class (with some derision) who did most of the work instead, mine would be a home where father and mother and children all worked together in perfect cohesion and with perfect results...not a perfectly clean house but a place of order and a place with wonderful, relationships and never a cross word.

Then reality struck. I had kids. My kids hate to clean their room. I know, I know, I tried. I sang songs and worked with them and tried to have those wonderful and fulfilling conversations but...Hannah is so easily distracted that if she starts talking, she forgets what she is doing and just moves stuff around. Carolyn is sometimes a bit on the bossy side and spends all her time telling everyone what to do and informing me of exactly what others arent doing. Katie just puts all the clean clothes in the hamper and the dirty clothes in the drawers and quite honestly, no one in that stupid housework class said that I would have to wash, 12 to 15 loads of wash a week and that washing CLEAN FOLDED CLOTHES was part of the bargain...and Sam...well he pulls books off shelves and clothes out of drawers and toys out of boxes, faster than the speed of light. Every day it is a hassle, every day it is hard and I think, am I doing this right? Im certainly not doing it the way the class said...

But then there is dinner. I love dinner. I love cooking it with tons of little helper hands and I love eating and hearing the kids talk about school. I love seeing Sam cover his face with food and I ESPECIALLY love what happens after...After dinner every night one big girl washes the dishes with dad and one sweeps and cleans the table with mom. Katie helps with misc assignments and Sam bangs pots but a beautiful thing happens...the dishes get put in the dishwasher and the floor gets mostly swept and we all talk and have fun. It is one of my favorite times of the day.

So I look with some fondness at my family work class. It certainly made me think a little differently about what a home is and what work is about. I realize now that ideas are great and good but sometimes they are most successful when applied on a limited scale. I think I will always have frozen peas in my freezer and certainly a dishwasher in my house. Shoot, there may even come a day when I have a cleaning lady (I can only hope)! But I also hope I will always be found sitting on the floor chatting with kids while I sort laundry (clean clothes and all), discussing memories or blessing while I help a child load a dish washer, and laughing as I once again almost lose an eye to a broom navigated by one of my greatest blessings!!!

Blogging

I love blogs. I was just reading all of my friends blogs and laughing and getting great ideas and getting excited about everything from activities with my kids to watching my kids play and pretend. Blogs are the BEST!!!!

A day in our life...

So my friend wrote a blog about what she did all day one day so I decided to give it a try. Ill add the pictures tomorrow.

5:00 am...Sam wakes up to nurse and snuggle Mom and Dad
6:00 am...Alarm rings, Mom kicks Dad and tells him to get up before the alarm wakes Sam
6:05 am...Dad gets things rolling while Mom catches another few winks
6:25 am...Mom gets up and starts breakfast, packing lunches and snacks
6:40 am...Everyone gathers for prayers and Daddys out the door. Kids eat, brush teeth, comb hair.
7:00 am...Mom tries to convince Katie not to dress like a clown. She fails.
7:10 am...Girls finished getting ready. Mom and Carolyn and Hannah go through homework papers from yesterday (Friday really) and talk about anything they didnt understand or missed.
7:30 am...The girls with Moms help, pack up backpacks, find shoes, coats, homework, lunches, snacks, library books, jump ropes and any other gear necessary for an effective elementary school day.
7:35 am...Sam wakes up, pees on Mom. Mom changes herself and Sam, gives him a fruit leather to keep him busy.
7:45 am...All five of us are out the door to the bus stop
7:50 am...Carolyn and Hannah on the bus, headed for school
8:00 am...Mom gives Sam some breakfast, sorts and starts a load of laundry, makes her bed
8:25 am...Mom and kids leave for the gym
8:35 am...Everyones back from gym, forgot stuff
8:40 am...Now everyone leaves for gym again9:10 am...Mom Exercises, yacks with Lainie, takes a shower. Sam and Katie play with other kids and have fun.
10:45 am..Mom and kids run errands (Target, Costco, Bank), eat snacks at Target.
12:45 pm..Finally home. Mom gives the kids some lunch
1:00 pm...Sam down for a nap. Mom and Katie put the dinner in the crock pot (Katie enlightens Mom on how the crock pot is an oval and oval are like eggs). Katie is sad that dinner is easy today. She loves to cook!!
1:30 pm...Katie and I set up the train tracks and she plays trains for a long time. Mom checks email and sweeps the floor. Forgets to switch the laundry.
2:00 pm...Mom packs up swim suits, piano books and snacks for the girls but realizes she had forgotten to switch the laundry so there are no dry beach towels for swim team. The girls have to use too small bath towels.
2:30 pm...Mom and Kate wake up Sam run to get the girls at school.
2:45 pm...Carolyn and Hannah have piano lessons with the best piano teacher in the land (Candace Drew)
4:30 pm...Swim team (today is the first day, normally we wont go on Mondays, two activities is too much in one day for this mom). The girls have fun. Hannah is soooooooooooooo nervous. She cries when it is her turn to swim because she jumped in (tentatively because of the nerves) and some boys laughed at her. It was all this mom could do not to go over and spank their bottoms. Their parents certainly werent doing anything about it. Carolyn jumps in like an old pro. Hannahs second turn is much better. The coach is great and kind and gentle with sweet Hannah. Sam spends all of swim team trying to jump in the pool and Katie spends the entire time taking off shoes and tights and her jacket and leaving them in various places around the pool.
5:15 pm...We all head home, baths for the girls. Grandma Berger calls and tells me that this is the time of years the Jewish people celebrate Queen Esther saving their ancestors!!! Quite fitting that Hannah was loving Esther at this time!!!
5:35 pm...Put dinner on the table. Daddy finally shows up(hes actually early...we usually see him no earlier than 6:15). Quick family scripture study then dinner. We had Thai Thighs and rice...yum yum. Even Sammy, the spaghetti only man ate it.
6:15 pm...Dinner clean up. Today was Carolyns turn to wash the dishes and Hannahs turn to clean the table. Tomorrow they switch. Katie just kind of floats and Sam walks around pulling stuff out of cupboards.
6:30 pm...Family Home Evening. Tonight the girls are exhausted with a new activity and daddy has a test tomorrow so we shorten the night and postpone moms lesson til next week. Daddy does a Friend story and we talk for a bit about how to recognize the Holy Ghost.
7:00 pm...Personal Scripture time.
7:20 pm...Daddy reads James and the Giant Peach to the girls and sends them off to bed.
8:25 pm...Mommy finishes typing the blog and heads off to Safeway to get the milk she forgot earlier, then she needs to fold the laundry and mop the kitchen and clean the bathroom and...but I think instead she ll just go to bed.

30!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So this is the rest of the cake and of course our birthday dinner of champions, spaghetti. I tell you after today, it is a miracle there isnt a picture of me holding that big old bowl, shoving the rest of that cake in my face.

Happy birthday daddy

So today was Cyrus birthday. And what a day...Katie woke up with a horrendous cough so Cyrus stayed home with her and Sam since I had Relief Society meetings (a presidency meeting and stake training). My meetings were long and tiring and by the time I got home Cyrus looked like he had been rung out. He had dinner made but Sam was feeling yucky and had cried most of the time refusing to nap at all, Katie was coughing and coughing, and Sam had banged my BRAND NEW YESTERDAY coffee table with a something hard he had found and made little dents. Poor daddy. So I took Sam, hugged Katie and decided that the coffee table actually looked cooler with the dents and hoped he would make a few for the other side too. We had lunch and Cyrus sat down to have minute to regain sanity while I tried to make his cake. I mixed it up and set it to bake then put Sam down to rest. That little goober laid in his bed for an half an hour and talked to himself and cried and laid there and cried then he stood up and screamed for ten minutes till I got him out. Then he set to crying and complaining and grouching and not sleeping for the whole afternoon. He threw fits and whined and cried...add that to all the girls coming in and out with some matter to discuss or problem to solve. Then there are snacks and neighbor kids and neighbor dogs and then Patience from church showed up to record the kids for a thing she was doing (I had of course forgotten she was coming so there were toys and coats and Hannahs one million papers all over the house). Now it is nearly six oclock and I still havent finished Cyrus cake or paid any attention to the poor man and Sam hasnt had a nap ALL DAY. So I feed everyone spaghetti, hurry up and finish the cake and finally sing happy birthday to daddy, brush teeth, clean up rooms and kitchen, read the scriptures and stories and send the kids to bed. So on daddys special day, he got about five minutes of attention and the rest of the time he was hard at work...at what age did birthdays become so lame? Cyrus just told me he had a great weekend that felt like one big birthday. Boy are his expectations low.

Queen Easter

The other week we had Stake conference and one of the talks was about setting specific spiritual goals for our family. Now, our family has a mission statement that we have had for a long time and each week at family council we would set goals in one of four areas. The four areas are, 1) Love Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ 2) Love the scriptures 3) Love our family and 4) Develop our talents. So, each month we would set goals for area one the first week area two the second week, etc. etc. So this all sounds really good in principal but alas, we stunk at it. We discovered that a week isnt enough time to really put anything of value into place, so we decided, after stake conference, and much discussion, that we were going to pick one thing and work to implement it for longer and then add another thing and another. So, we have some things that we are good at...Family Home Evening, family scripture study, family prayer, family council...are you seeing a trend here?. We thought that we needed to improve on morning personal prayers and personal scripture study for all of us. So we reminded everyone to pray in the morning and we set aside 15 minutes after dinner when the whole family pulls out the scriptures and studies (Hannah and Carolyn read the real Book of Mormon but they read a Bible story book). It has been really fun for our family and a great addition to our routine. We are hoping it establishes a good habit that the kids will continue into their teenage years and beyond.

That brings me to my very funny story...we were all sitting down for scriptures and Katie was kind of bored with looking at the friend or some little Bible stories that we had so she was whining and Hannah says to her, *Katie, come here. I will read you the story of Queen Easter. I like Queen Easter.* Of course she was talking about Esther. After my little giggle about the Easter thing, I was just thrilled and thankful that we had started this in our family. What better woman is there to show my children our to be courageous than Queen Easter? What better example of faith than Ruth? Who better than Enos to talk about prayer? I love the sciptures and am so excited for my children to discover them FOR THEMSELVES. They have grown up hearing stories and being taught about the things in the scriptures and reading daily with their mom and dad but to have them discover for themselves the richness that our Heavenly Father has given us is beyond compare. I am so thankful for stake conference.