Spring Break

Yeah! Spring break is finally here! We didn't have any great big plans or anything but we did decide to take off to a hotel overnight and spend some time OUT with the kids. At the hotel, the kids swam all day and evening. Then back at the hotel, they watched Disney channel until they fell asleep. Now, I know how unexciting that sounds...watching Disney. But my kids loved it because we don't watch much T.V. at all at home. Nor do we have cable.

This first picture is Jaden and Maddie at the movie, "Monsters vs. Aliens". It was in 3D and the kids thought that was awesome.

This picture is of me and Maddie right after we got finished doing "Dance Revolution".

Jaden bowling...

Maddie bowling... She won all of us!

So recently I took some family photo's of my neice, Havelah and her family...and they turned out great! So that gave Maddie and Jaden the idea to go out and do a photo shoot of each other. These are a couple of shots that they came out with. Impressive!!!!

Nose Surgery :(

Well as many of you know, Maddie got hit in the nose with a big rock while she was out four wheeling and it broke her nose! This is a shot of her after we got back from night time instacare. They cleaned her up very well! Before this picture was taken, she was covered in blood. Yucky. Anyway, the rock hit her so hard it actually took out a chunk of skin. It was so deep! They ended up gluing her together....
Not that you can actually see the x-ray but you can pick out her braces that showed up!!! And then the culprit.....the rock! This was the rock found on the four wheeler still. It even has blood on it!

And here she is all smiles getting ready to go in for surgery! Notice the smile on the face now...it won't be there in a few more pictures....

Still smiling but that's just because the I.V. didn't hurt as much as she thought it might.

NO SMILE. This is post-surgery and Maddie is just coming out of her delirious/groggy state. Poor thing!!!! Anyway, she gets to wear her nice nose brace for a week but we get to take the gauze off in a while, thank goodness...

And finally, here she is being wheeled out to where I had the car waiting. All she wanted was a milkshake and a pillow afterwards!

Girls night...and Twilight!

Each month we have a friend get together and this time it was at Heather's house. A few of us were heading out to the release party of the DVD Twilight afterwards while some were staying longer at Heather's to chat. Kim, who is NOT a Twilight fan...showed up with this life-size Edward poster. We about died of laughter!!!!
Here is a picture of the whole group: Karen, Amanda, Shelby, Heather, Edward, Deb, Ginger,
Kim, Christy, and Michelle.



Well lo and behold look who showed up to Walmart at midnight?! It's Victoria herself. We were quite happy about that. This picture should be switched with the last one but I'm not starting over! Anyway, this picture was taken right after she signed my shirt (I also got a signed DVD) and the security people were whisking me away because it was the next person's turn. They were RUSHING people through! But it was worth it to see Victoria....

Here she is signing my shirt. She was SO BEAUTIFUL in person it was amazing. Oh...and lucky for me I was wearing a shirt with "The bad vamps" on it....so she must have liked that!

Catchin' up a bit...

Below is a picture of two foreign exchange students, Danny and Noo, that are living with my sister, Guppy (Koriann) and her husband, Tony. They came to Utah for a short visit and we had a blast with them!

Ok I'm finally getting around to blogging Maddie's birthday party. I'm really bummed because apparently I had the video camera rolling the whole time and only managed to get a few still photo's. Dang! We had a blast anyway, and I'm happy that Maddie isn't "too cool" to have me involved with her parties yet. We had a lot of fun making dance and music videos to some Shania Twain and Taylor Swift songs and the girls didn't want to go home.

Maddie and her new digital camera!

Proud Mama

I'm so dang proud of my kid! He's such a smarty pants...which is one of the reasons I've enrolled him and Maddie in the new Charter School coming to Tooele County. Woo hoo!
So Jaden nonchalantly says to me this morning, "Oh yeah, mom, I received this certificate at school on Friday." He says one other person in his class got one, too. Not sure how well it will shows on the computer but basically he scored in the top ten percent nationally on his Iowa tests.

New Years in St. George

We headed down to St. George again this year for New Years. As you can see from these photo's, the weather was fantastic! We went to this new innovative park that had all sorts of futuristic toys to play on. There wasn't one thing there that you'd see at a regular playground. Below is Jaden with his cousins, Brielle, Karissa and Emily.

Brooklyn and Maddie are playing around on this flying thing that pivoted with how much weight you put on it. It was lot's of fun but very difficult to maneuver...

We had Val's church building reserved for some of the time since there was quite a few of us down for New Years. Tracy's family, Guppy's family and mine all went down. Combine that with the Southern locals (Joel, Val and the parents)...we had a large crew. Below is Jaden.....some of his girly cousins got a hold of him and went wild with a new straightener someone got for Christmas.

 

The siblings...... Joel, Valerie, Guppy and Deb. Tracy's family left a day early and didn't get to see this cool park. Bummer!

More church games. Here is Val and Guppy going up against in other in "GUTS".

More guts. Yes, they got me to play...even in heels!

Maddie, Allie Beckett, Kenna Ruud and Brooklyn Ruud.

This was one of my favorite things while we were down there! Papa made his famous french fries. He would make these while we were growing up and they were the absolute BEST!!! I can still taste them now....

This is me and Kally.....probably being all giddy and excited to go and see the movie Twilight! (Yes, again).

Well folks, here is it. My baldness. My friend pointed out to me that I hadn't really chopped off my hair since the 6th grade. Holy cow, has it really been that long?! Here's a short story as to why I haven't chopped it since then: When I was in 6th grade, one of my friends gave me their head lice! (I know, gag me omedeus.) My mom had a VERY hard time trying to get all the eggs out of my hair (go ahead, dry heave here....I am) because my hair was so thick. So she cut it off. And I mean she WHACKED it! I was my brother Ben's twin....exactly. I promise, I was Ben's clone. Not that that is bad, it's just that I was at a critical important time in my life when everything mattered and I had crushes on every boy in the 6th grade....but I was suddenly one of them. Tumultuous, I know.

 

Holiday Schtuff...........

Here is Maddie and Jaden with their new PJ's Christmas Eve.

 

Maddie had her Winter dance recital and did such a great job! There to support her were Grandma and Grandpa Brown, Grandma North, Me (manning the camera) and of course, Jaden! We had to record it for Dad to watch later because he had to work that night.

Me on my 31st birthday. It's absolutely disgusting that time marches on and aging is inevitable. In this picture I'm celebrating because my sister, Tracy and her family came over and sang me the coolest rendition of "Happy Birthday" you ever heard. It was totally rockin'!