Look who came to lunch

I had a lunch date with Batman yesterday. He was very pleasant company and only showed signs of annoyance when I wanted to take his picture. He kept taking off his mask and so I saw the boy underneath, but don't worry, his secret is safe with me!

Happy New Year 2009!

For our New Years Eve I wanted to start a new tradition as a family and that was to ring in the new year together. I wanted the kids to have fun and be excited so I planned a fun new years party. For the food I made a bunch of finger foods which were..Boneless buffalo wings, meatballs, teenie wienies wrapped with bacon, 7-layer dip and chips. We spread a blanket out on the floor and let the kids do something that is normally forbidden in our house..eat on the carpet! We put in the movie Crocodile Dundee and ate while we watched it. (for anybody who cares the movie was rated PG but, oh my goodness, was I shocked by the contents. we had to cover eyes and loudly cough out foul language. I am not sure if that is one the kids will be able to see again!) While everyone else got to eat on the carpet Rylee was banished to her highchair in the kitchen. She is not quite old enough to understand the concept of being careful with food.

After the movie we pulled out the candy and the board game Sorry and had fun trying to make the best moves to win. I think Kefford ended up winning...no surprise there, between you and me I think he cheats (: Ryker did not want to play Sorry with us he wanted to play Smash Brothers on the Wii. So that's what Ryker did.
We let the kids stay up until 9:00 and then we put them to bed. Because we are nice we let the older 3 camp out on the floor in Ryker's bedroom where they talked and messed around until about 10:00.
Poor Rylee had to sleep all alone in her room
After we put the kids to bed Kefford and I put in the new Batman movie The Dark Knight. We saw the movie when it came out in IMAX and were excited to watch it again and to see if it was as good as we remembered. It totally was! That movie is amazing and Heath Ledgers performance was brilliant. These new Batman movies totally make up for the disgrace that the other ones were left in. Plus Christian Bale as Batman! Are you kidding me?! Fabulous!!!

Kefford later made the comment about how fun our new years party was and that we needed to make this a tradition so that when the kids are older they will want to stay home and party with us rather then going out with their friends. That is a nice thought!

Happy New Year everyone!

So you wanna be on top...?

Meet America's Next Top Model...

Don't worry I will remember you when I am famous!

Australia Trip Day one: flight and hotel

More for my journaling but because so many of you have asked I am going to be putting in my blog details about our trip to Australia. The first night we were thee I bought a little notebook and then each night I wrote down everything we did that day. I am so glad I did that because I am able to look back and remember things that I would have forgotten. I am going to write down how I put it on my notebook and then will elaborate with pictures if I need to.

December 11, 2008

*Left Boise at 6:40
*Arrived in LAX 20 minutes early.
*Had to collect our luggage and catch a shuttle to the international terminals.
*We were told to get off at terminal 4 but when we got there they said that flights to Sydney were out of a different terminal so we had to backtrack to the other terminal.
*Went to check in our luggage and after checking our passports were informed that we needed to buy our visas.
*Had to wait in another line to pay $25 each for our visas
*Finally got our tickets and went through security to our waiting area.
*Neither of us had gotten dinner that night and by this time we were so hungry. We thought that once we got past security we would be able to find a McDonald's or something to get some food. Wouldn't you know that the only place top get any food at was at a bar, and it wasn't even really serving food! So we had to wait ...:(
*Our flight was supposed to leave at 11:40 LA time but it was delayed an hour and so we spent alot of time waiting, tired and hungry!
*The terminal was very crowded because their was our flight and a flight waiting to leave to Mexico. We couldn't find a seat amidst all of the confusion and so we went to the downstairs waiting area where we were all alone. I laid down and tried to sleep while Kefford played the DS.
*Finally were able to board and after the plane had started taxiing away from the gate it had to come back for whatever reason.
*Waited while the airline people talked about refueling but then they just decided to leave and fly the plane a little slower.
*Waiting on our seats were a pillow, blanket, and a little travel kit filled with a sleeping mask, socks and a Qantas key holder necklace thingie, and a toothbrush and toothpaste.
*I put my sleeping mask on and told Kefford to wake me up when we got something to eat.
*I don't know how long I slept before I got woken up but I was famished and ready to eat..even airline food. It wasn't too bad.
*Fell back asleep and then after we woke up I watched two movies and ate breakfast. Sometime during the night a bag of treats was left on my lap. Filled with cookies, dried fruit, mints, chocolate and a water bottle...too fun!
*After 14+ hours we finally arrived and landed. We were seated in the middle of the plane and try as I might I could not crane my neck far enough to get a glimpse of Sydney..kinda disappointing.
We did not take any pictures of our flight down to Australia and the only ones we took on the flight home were the ones Kefford took of the sky out the window.

These two pictures are of our hotel room. The best thing was to leave the room fairly untidy only to return and find the bed made, pillows plumped, robe and new towels hanging up nicely, and more lotions and soaps for me to stash in my suitcase(:

I love being on vacation!! We were up on the 34th floor and I loved to sit on the little window seat and observe the outside world!

Merry Christmas 2008!

Settling back into the day to day life of a Mom is never easy for me after being on vacation. I seem to take the word vacation very literally and coming back home after a week and a half of no kids has been very difficult! Kefford went into work on Christmas Eve day and I was left with 4 kids and alot of preparations for Christmas that needed to be finished. I was trying to get the house cleaned up and ready for the invasion of more toys. I was also trying my hardest to get the kids to help me. Needless to say it was not a good day with alot of arguments and threats of no gifts. Whenever I asked Kenedy to help me by doing something she would get real upset and inform me that I should do it since I just got a vacation! Oh really Kenedy, and how hard did you have to work while I was gone? Seriously! By the time Kefford came home I was near tears and ready to run a hot bath and escape for the night. But he was able to calm everyone down so that we could have a good time together. We did not have any food in the house and I was too busy in the home to go get some so I asked Kefford to pick up a pizza for dinner. He came home empty handed to inform me that the pizza place was closed. UGH!! But Kefford had me mix up some pancake batter and he cooked pancakes for dinner. After dinner we gave the kids their new pajamas, sat them down, and after a little talk about the true meaning of Christmas showed them "The Nativity". We then showed them "Mr. Kruegers Christmas", said prayers and put them to bed. After the kids were asleep Kefford and I set out the presents and put their filled stockings on the ends of their beds. I went to bed while Kefford stayed up and finished wrapping gifts he had bought.

We woke up the next morning to kids waking up, finding their stockings, and coming into our room to open them. My flat iron got burned up while in Australia (more about that another time) and I was very excited to find a new one in my stocking! After we were done with those Kefford had us all get dressed for the day. In my family part of the fun of christmas is lounging around in our pajamas all day. In Keffords family they have to be dressed before being allowed out of their rooms. We compromise by opening our stockings in pajamas but everyone has to be dressed before going downstairs.

We were finally able to allow the kids downstairs where they oohed and aahed at all the presents under the tree. I really enjoyed watching their excitement and it always reminds me how much more fun it is to give then to receive. Having kids really does make present giving so much more fun. I was pleasantly surprised by the WII Fit that Kefford gave me as well as the promise of finally getting the DSL I have been begging for! Yay for us all! I tried out my WII Fit and then did a little more the next day. I am not an exercising person and after doing a set of lunges have been in pain all weekend long! Hopefully that will ease as time goes on and I do more.

After we were done opening gifts we headed out to Nyssa to see Keffords family. I was excited to get a gift card to Jo-Anns and some candy. I gave Alison a months of the year tile thingie I made at a super Saturday in October and Bob got his Line of Authority that I also made at the super Saturday and had framed. Alison seemed to like her gift and with Bob you never know. He didn't complain so I will take it as a good sign!

Overall we had a great Christmas and really enjoyed being together as a family!

Kefford and Ryker playing a new Wii game Ryker got. Notice the Batman Bathrobe Ryker is wearing. He got that for Christmas and spent the entire day in it! He said it was warm!
Avynlea got this wedding day dress up ensemble and spent the rest of the day telling everyone she was going to marry Ryker today! Ryker would roll his eyes every time he heard her say that.
Kenedy and Avynlea both got new Polly Pockets and Littlest Pet Shop toys. They were kind enough to let Ryker join in the fun! Again, notice the bathrobe!
Here the kids are lined up in front of the tree with their new pajamas on.

We're back!!

At the Circular Quays (pronounced keys) Harbour with the Sydney Opera House in the background.
We walked across the Sydney Bridge and we stopped in the middle to take a picture. It was crazy windy up there but it was really cool being able to look across and see Sydney

So many of you know and some of you may not know that for our 10 year anniversary Kefford surprised me with a trip to Australia! I know, he is just so incredible and that fact that he had this planned for so long and never let on just amazes me. He told me about it back in July (when our anniversary is) and I had to wait 6 long months to go on this trip. But I am now back and although I want to tell you all about it and show all of the pictures on here...I can't. For one thing it would take forever (literally) to post all 400+ pictures and I have too much to do to get ready for Christmas. I just want you all to know that we are back, the trip was amazing, I loved Australia but was ready to leave after a week, we stopped in California for two days to see my family, I was not ready to leave them and cried buckets to the airport and at the airport, I was very excited to see my kids, I missed them a bunch, and now things are getting back to normal. I posted a couple of pictures but the whole story will have to be told at other times.

good friends and good kids

Kenedy came home with this skein of yarn that she has to roll into a ball. According to her they are going to make a blanket to give to someone in need. I think that is a fun idea for the class to do. You might notice that Ryker is looking mighty mischievous. He is plotting. A couple minutes after this picture was taken he took her yarn ball and covered himself with it. What a little stinker!
My visiting teacher came over and I took the opportunity to get some more items crossed off my to do list.. I really wanted to get more things done and did not want to sit around talking instead of doing them. So I took her into our work room and while I filed papers she cleaned out my dollhouse and made it look good. We had a good time talking and she brought over my favorite treat. Her famous caramel and chocolate dipped pretzel rods...mmm yum yummy! Thanks Brooke, you are a super kind of friend!

I also had her cut out the papers so that I could finish this Christmas gift for my sister. I can safely post the picture because she doesn't look at my blog. And to all of you who think you are going to ruin the fun and tell her about it..well too bad for you she already knows. Who do you think picked out the paper. Yeah that's right I really know how to work it!

Another conversation between Me and Avynlea

Avynlea: (playing with the magna-doodle) look Mom I drew a picture of you and Dad on your trip.

Me:Cool, are we having fun?

Avynlea:Oh yeah.

Me: where are we?

Avynlea: At the house..(I think she meant hotel)

Me:Oh, well what are we doing?

Avynlea:Playing a game.

Me: Yeah? What game.

Avynlea:Cottonball game.

Me:(giggling quietly) How do we play that game?

Avynlea:You jump around!

Me: sounds like fun Avy!

So the next time any of you come over we are going to play a fun game of Cottonball!