Middle of March Update

Many a sunrise has came and went since I last blogged.




Here's a little of what we've been up to...

Basketball
Jameson played on the Twin Rivers league and really had a great time

Connor is now one of the taller boys on his team

Snow

yes- that is up to the top of our grill

and more snow


puzzles





a puppy who has lived on the top step most of the winter b/c it was too cold for him to be in the garage


Connor's 12th birthday


(It's pretty cool to see both of my boys passing the sacrament each week.)

A fun date night to the play Little House on the Prairie where Melissa Gilbert played Ma. Bad picture taken from a moving vehicle while it was raining


Jr. High 80's dance


Valentine's Day
chairing Genna's class party at school

stack the sweethearts game

dinner at the Outback and then to the Stake dance with my sweetie

Our family dinner~
The table was set despite all of our cloth napkins and tableclothes being in storage


Fondue after our family dinner

I sure love these kids!!

Card Genna made

Connor's note

Jameson's made these



Put an offer in on this house- sniff, sniff, they wouldn't accept it with the contigency of selling our house


February Decorations

Couponing~

my system

after a shopping trip where I spent about $14


getting a stockpile

We watched Troy's sisters kids a few times and had a ball with Seth- he is such a cutie!

Currently reading: The Mitford series and the Percy Jackson series- on the last book of each of them


March "decorations" I think I am going to paint this table black

I can't tell you how happy these 2 little flowers made me when I discovered them today


that and some blue skies are doing wonders after a long gray winter


Thanks for reading this whole post- and sorry about the lack of big pictures

Still Alive

I'm not sure why it's so hard to get back into blogging, but I am obviously not figuring out how to fit it into my life these days. I have been subbing full time for a special ed teacher whose husband has cancer. It has been a longer than expected assignment and while I am enjoying it, it is definitely more of a challenge for me to get things accomplished.

Thank you for the encouragement to come back. I hope maybe I am getting a little better at balancing- but I'm not going to promise that I am ready to commit to regular updates.

Anyway, here are some belated Valentine's Day pictures. We had a special family dinner Friday night and then the next night we chaperoned the youth dance.



And while I am at it, I might as well post the Easter pictures as well. The kids decorated eggs on Saturday and then we had Stake Conference on Easter Sunday. Yes, our kids opened their baskets on the way to church. After church we went to Troy's sister's house for dinner and an egg hunt.

Catching Up

Alright- I am going to apologize ahead of time for this monster post. It's been a busy, but fun couple of days.

Here's how we finished off our Valentine's Day~

Genna loved being able to read all the names this year on her Valentine cards


I got a surprised with flowers from my secret sister. Genna loved it b/c the frog sings.


a candlelit dinner in the basement



I covered the top of an ugly chocolate box for Troy- we also opened our homemade Valentine's and read them


The next day I subbed and that night Troy and I were able to go up to the temple, while Grandma & Grandpa Koski watched the kids. It was a great night and our goal is to get there more often this year.

Saturday Jameson had an intense basketball game against Louisville. Then afterwards my brother Dave and his family came down for lunch. It was so nice to spend some time together!


After their visit, my Mom and I drove down to Kansas to visit my sister Lorilee. We had the best weekend. We had broccoli cheese soup, my Mom made banana bread and Lorilee and I made ourselves super hungry looking at tons and tons of cupcake pictures. Lor- you need to send me some of the links we found, ok?


Her baby Ashlyn is just the sweetest thing ever and I love being able to go and love on her. Here are some pictures I took of her in my Grandma's Christening gown.



Our kids have a lot of fun playing together. This weekend they decorated cookies, played the Wii and made a cousins grocery shop and had an official ribbon cutting ceremony to celebrate the grand opening.


Lorilee helped me make this little bag for Genna that I've been wanting to do since last fall. We used an old pair of jeans, some clearance fabric from Joann's and a belt I got at a garage sale. It turned out really cute, although jeans and thick belts are not really fun to sew through!


Anyway, thanks for staying with me to the end of this mega post. We really had a great weekend, the only downside, is that Jameson now seems to have what Genna had last week.

Random Ramblings

Just thought I'd share a few things from the past couple of days...

Monday's Dinner~Curried Chicken Salad


Sunset on the snow



Moonrise- too bad I don't know how to use the different settings on my camera, because it was a gorgeous moonrise.



There now my beside table is much happier than it was before! I just have to say the Home for the Holiday's book by Hallmark is pure eye candy! I actually got another Christmas idea book too. At my little library, you can never tell if you'll be able to find them next fall when I'd want them.


And even though I've got Christmas on my brain, Valentine's Day is just around the corner! I just bagged up some storebought cookies in a cello bag with ribbon for a quick gift.