Hey wait... It's March?!?!?

Yeah so that's how I feel.

When did it become March?  Mid March for that matter??

Kylie's birthday is less than a week away.  The excitement is building.  She's doing the Talk in Primary also (her birthday is on a Sunday).  HAHA, we are in that Primary room nearly every Sunday... somehow someone in our family always has the talk!  We got asked yesterday if we just have a book of talks ready at home, because somehow it's always us.  Probably because my girls always volunteer; they love it... and we totally love sitting in to watch also.

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So preparing for her birthday and baptism, I'm swarming with ideas.  Thank heavens for my laundry room, I have my continued project mounds all over.

 I did get my St Patricks' Day teacher gifts done a bit ahead of time, knowing it would be here all too soon... the note says: You are my Pot of Gold at the end of the Rainbow.  Super cute :)

 And my Pinterest addiction continues with organized drawers: under shirts and underwear.  I did the same thing with the socks and pajama drawers.

 AND we're gearing up for her big day!!!!

I made a special graphic to be put on her cake.  I'm making decorations, I'm so fortunate to have an amazingly talented friend who's completely taking over the food for me... On that note, FRIENDS.... I need your crockpots! :)

Homemade Cafe Rio, and she makes it sooooo good.  She usually caters our big Stake Relief Society activities with her yummy deliciousness.  I'm so excited, and so lucky that she's my friend! :)

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 And, did I mention we were just in charge of the combined Young Mens/Young Womens last week.  Minute to Win It, it was awesome. 

 We have about 70 active youth... so it was a super crazy fun night!  There were huge preparations involved to get it to come together (thank heavens I have 3 beehive advisors), and at times I felt like I was herding cats with the youth... but it was awesome!   



Fun Fun Fun

 From a few posts ago, I spoke of adorable yellow/grayish skirts and here they are.  The girls wore them to church this past Sunday, sooooooo cute!

I had to post this one, such little personalities with their hips shifted out to the side.  I can only imagine what they'll be like when they are teenagers.

 AND, moving right along to my recent projects and endeavors...

I LOVE pinterest; it's actually great motivation.  I force myself to do a few chores of the day before I get to embark on my new fun thing.

The Fridge!!!

Dollar Store bins and a method of organization, which I'm really proud of!

 Each bin is labelled with the stuff it contains.  Yes, I said labelled... it looks nice that way!  And I don't have to listen to Matthew ask 15 times, "where's the cheese?"  There's "Spreads" which is all the various cream cheeses, laughing cows, guacamole, veggie dip, honey butters, etc etc.  There's "Leftovers" which essentially is meals from the past 3 days prepackaged into small portions to serve as lunches for Kloey over the next few days.  Then there's "Sandwiches" and this one is genius.  When you want a sandwich, take the bin.  Instead of searching the whole fridge for every last sandwich choice, it's all there!  All luncheon meats and many cheeses... and in our house, we all have different preferences.  Then lastly, there's "Lunches" and this is so helpful too.  I keep all the quick snacks I always throw in lunches, Danimal Yogurt Smoothies or Go-Gurt, String Cheese, small packs of Mandrin Oranges (the only fruit Kylie eats), baby carrots in little ziplocks.  It is so funny how this brings me such joy!!! :)  hahaha

 I also have recently attacked our linen closet... well cabinets.  They were chaotic, sheets and towels everywhere.  Again, I got Dollar Store baskets and labelled them!

 A little more up close.  Baskets are labelled: wash cloths, hand towels, (then the bath towels are rolled.  And on the other side is: twin flat sheets, twin fitted sheets, pillow cases, and all things king.  Which makes it super convenient when you are changing munchkin sheets in the middle of the night!

And all this is less than a week!!!  Talk about motivation!  Although my laundry was piling up something awful! lol, but 6 people's oufits a day can mean overflowing laundry bins by day 3 of me not doing laundry.

One more fun and easy task that knocks my socks off........ lunch creativity!

Lunch Creativity

 So I organized my fridge and made it super easy for quick grabbing of stuff.  And this is so key with our lifestyle.  Our house is JUMPING with energy and with stuff going on.  There's a huge difference from last year to this year.  Everyone's got their own schedules and things they need and stuff going on... and we can't waste time searching for things (it also makes people whiny and draws me away from something else maybe more important at that very moment)... and everyone (on various levels) needs to be able to fiend (maybe bad word choice) but work it out for themself... or even be able to properly help a sibling.  Independence is a great thing.  And organization is our KEY, our answer to make our house run smoother... and keep my sanity.

There's one thing I have been dying to do: spice up Kylie's lunches.  I'm even bored by them!  She's such a picky eater; she only eats a few things and she only has 20 minutes to do it.  SO, (have I mentioned I hit the Dollar store??), lunch tupperware with a lid and RUBBER cupcake containers.  This makes me excited to make her lunch, then after I put the lid on it... I tie it with a ribbon and make a bow... like it's a present :)  Now we are talking... some lunchtime excitement!!!

Kylie's lunch: pepperoni, cashews, string cheese, mandrin oranges, yogurt smoothie, and a fruit chewy bar.... and a capri sun drink but it didn't fit in.  Lots of items in there, a few bites of everything and easy peasy to eat and enjoy in her little 20 minute lunch break..... and of course a love note from mom <3

Kadyn has play dates every Tuesday afternoon after Preschool and on the days the playdate is not at my house, she likes a packed lunch.  Who knows why?!?!  I think it comes down to she likes carrying it.  Kadyn likes more food types, I can be more creative with her: cashews, cheddar cheese slices, crackers, carrots, shaved turkey, and sliced strawberries.

NOW that just makes me happy! :)

Matthew laughs at me and my pinterest fun... little does he know, I'm going to be "pinterest-ify-ing" his lunch VERY soon! :)

I just need to find a tupperware big enough!

Yaya's Camaro!

On February 11th (my grandpa's birthday), at 8:15 pm... Yaya won a Camaro at Aliante Station Casino.  Ironically, Matthew and I were there on a date night (our movie theaters are all in casinos... Vegas lifestyle, lol)  and we had no idea until the following morning.  She had a choice of a handful of vehicles and colors or even straight up cash; she chose a RED CAMARO... of which, they added racing stripes.

That same day, they recorded her for a Stations commerical.  There's nothing more crazy than watching The Voice or laying in bed half asleep watching Food Network and SEEING YOUR MOM ON TV!!!  hahaha.. I got phone calls and random texts every day from people... "Did I just see your mom on TV?"... Yes, yes you did! 

What was awesome was one evening my mom was with the girls so I could go to my YW activity (Matthew was in Denver) and they were watching TV, and guess who came on TV?  Kloey gets so excited every time she watches it!!!  :) 

click the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW61g8iiAxI&feature=email

Fun latest things to keep me busy, as if I don't have enough already!

Pinterest is a dangerous thing!

I find all these cute ideas, yummy recipes, DIY projects and I can't think about anything else!

Sadly, we're over Gymboree.  Kylie's too big, well she's almost 8... but she looks so much older (she's to my shoulder).  So I've developed innovative new ways of matching (mainly for church... I've got a reputation I have to live up to now!)  This skirt coupled with a DownEast top is adorable.  I have another skirt, which I'll show soon... a little similar, kinda different... gray and yellow.

 This project I was really excited about.  Kadyn always, always comes into our bedroom in the middle of the night and says she has bad dreams.  I don't think she really has bad dreams, as much as she just wakes up and decides to roam around.  I always say, "go back to bed."  Well 9 out of 10 times, I find her in the morning anywhere but her bed: the floor of my room (I step on her getting out of bed, or in Kylie's little bed, or on Kloey's rocking chair, one time I found her on the floor in the living room cuddled up in the curtain behind the chair!!!) 

So that madness needs to end.  Here is her new spot:

 It's an actually her crib mattress, set on top of little wooden cubbies.  We stored books and toys all under there, and she has a little spot.  So she doesn't go to random places in the house, and so Kylie still gets a good night's rest.  But it doubles for a cool place for Kylie to read or two girls to lay and watch tv.  I was pretty proud of myself! :)  Did I mention that it barely cost me $20??!  just improvising with stuff we had and needing only a few things to make it work.

Morning Muster

Every Friday morning, Kylie's school has a little party called the Morning Muster.  The students line up outside in their classes, while "certain students" get to stand at the flag pole to do announcements and then everyone is invited up to the front to do the Cupid Shuffle.

This particular Friday, Kylie was chosen from her class to speak in front of the school for the Morning Muster. 

Two short 10 second videos of Kylie's speaking part... Matthew recorded it for me!  It's a little quite, I heard it best hooking up my earphones to the computer.  But she says:

"Good morning.  My name is Kylie." And she announces that they are going to have 30 seconds of silence...

In this one she turns the time over to the "spectacular" Principal. :)

She was a little nervous this morning at breakfast.  Matthew worked with her all morning to remember her short little part.  I told her to pretend she was iCarly!  Super cute!!!

Pinterest

Pinterest is my new boredom activity... I find 20 free minutes, maybe when my dryer will be done or time before I need to wake Kloey up from her nap to go pick up the girls from school and I pop on this website.  It's pretty much pictures of cool DIY projects.  You can see what you're friends like, and you can "pin it" to your virtual pinboard as something you want to do.

My problem is I want them NOW.  So this weekend I jumped on 3 projects.  #1 A new door hang.  #2 Leg warmers #3 A massive multipurpose calendar/to do list (not pictured, because it's not printed from Costco yet and I only have 3 matching 16x20 frames and I need 4)

So this is my cute, new every occasion door decoration!

 Cute little felt flowers on a burlap wrapped wreath, I hand made every one of those little flowers.... dang hot glue gun got me everytime! hahaha

 AND project #2, cute little legwarmers in 2 different styles- fluff on the bottom

 Gotta love Kacey as my little model; she's such a diva.

Or crocheted flower on the top... gotta make 2 more of these by Sunday church...

Kacey- love her sweet little soul, she sits with me in my laundry room as I get my craft on.  She feeds me pretzels and holds the soda for me so I can drink and keep my hands busily working.  Such a helpful little thing!

yes...

Happy New Year, and breathe...

As 2011 ends, I say good riddens!  

BRING ON THE HAPPY NEW YEAR! 

I feel like we have had some trials and some struggles that I am quick to say goodbye to.  I've been thinking a lot lately on how we've had these continuous obstacles that we've just been chugging along on what seemed to be an endless road.  Struggles such as schooling for Matthew, a painful work environment for him, health issues with Kloey, selling a house and buying a new one... struggles that we have been praying over, praying for answers and encouragement and praying for strength to just keep going.  But this year has brought them to a happy end, every last one of them have all been resolved.  With the close of 2011, the major burdens and worries we carried on our shoulders are over.  Schooling led to a Bachelors.  New fabulous job came in June.  Kloey is perfect, and all her many many medical bills are paid off.  We signed at title and sold the old house... and we are all moved into the new one.
Dare I say that, but they are over...

Don't get me wrong, I am scared to death to see what may be next.  It seems too nice and too clean for everything this year to magically and precisely end, nicely and smoothly and so perfectly... It may be the pessimist in me that worries something big may be coming, like Matthew being called as Bishop or something crazy like that... but for now, I am so grateful and I'm just going to take it all in and BREATHE.

A quote that I found a few weeks ago and put on the top of our blog, really stands out to me.  I think it's easy to overlook so many blessings that we get, and the more aware we are of our blessings, the more grateful we are to have them, the more we noticed more blessings... it's a circular effect really.  I may put that quote in vinyl to hang in our house somewhere, it's a great reminder to be mindful of all the good that is happening around us.

It's an interesting feeling.  I'm so glad we had these trials and experiences of 2011, because they've helped us grow and placed us in better situations now.  And they brought peace with their outcomes.  They have made us stronger.  However, I'm so glad that they are over, but I'm so glad that we had them too.  Life is better and more appreciated.  Definite growth that wouldn't have come about without them...

Another neat thing to note... Matthew and I will be married a decade this year.  We have gone through so many things together.  Up the rollercoasters of life in anticipation and flying down the rollercoaster- holding hands and screaming.  Good times with a good man, and many more decades... lucky for him, women age well on my side :)  ... (we had a neighbor knock on our door inquiring who built our courtyard, and she asked if my mom was home!!!  I digress.....)



Burdens lifted.
We have been blessed.
Breathing is so much easier and enjoyable now.



Here's to 2012, or how my young women say it Twenty - One - Two!!! 

Walkin' in a Winter Wonderland...

One of the absolute greatest things about living in Vegas is that we are 35 minutes away from a completely different climate--- Mt. Charleston!  We can escape our sun and palm trees and dive into a whole new world... although don't get me wrong, the best part is coming home and leaving all that snow behind us!!! :) 

We decided to take the girls on a fun midday snow adventure.  Kadyn has NEVER seen snow, we haven't been since Kacey was Kloey's age...

The girls had a blast, as you can see!

Daddy liked to get in on the fun too!

 Kylie and Kadyn, somehow ended up going backwards!

 They also learned how to make snowballs, and they all ganged up on Daddy.  He didn't stand a chance.

 My sweet Kloey Belle!

 She was definitely slipping and sliding out there.

 Daddy did make sure that Kloey got to ride the sled a few times too.

 Kadyn was so cute running in the snow.  At one point, she was running after Kacey and Kylie on the sled... she was just running in excitement... but her body was going faster than she could handle.  She face-planted head on right in the snow, she didn't cry or anything... it was too funny!  I wish I got a picture of that!

 Fun times had by all!

 Look at that face :)

So by about 2:30, it looked like 5:30 really... we decided to pack up and head back down the mountain... and we were all starving (got our money's worth at CiCi's Pizza afterwards, although I can only imagine how raggidy we looked... hahaha)... So we were heading down the mountain on this horrible 2 lane, acutally really more like 1.5 lane roads.  And the slush was turning back to ice, it was getting dark and colder.  There was an SUV stuck right in the middle.  Traffic couldn't get thru on either side.  I was nervous because even with our all-wheel drive, our tailend was still swaying from side to side on the ice.  Matthew ended up getting out of our car and helping them move their SUV, he's really a smart bad weather driver.  He had them back up and do a sharp turn into where they were going... anyways, it was genious... totally worked.  If he hadn't of gotten out to help, we'd still be sitting there.  He's such a good driver in stuff like that, I sat in the passenger seat just praying with my eyes closed as he drove us past all the cars. 

As we drove off we both agreed... it's so nice to be able to leave the ice and the snow behind us and return to sun and palm trees.

Christmas!

So we conducted Christmas differently this year... Instead of crazy madness insane presents, we had a theme.  This year the girls got 4 specific gifts (which greatly helped Santa plan and shop... and when that person got the gift in the category, that person was done.  Check mark.  Done.)  The 4 categories (which I totally stole from my friend, thanks TARA!) are: something you want, something you need, something you wear, and something you read.

We added 2 additional gifts also, one gift from Mom and Dad and one gift was a Secret Sister present.

*The Secret Sister gift was brilliant.  Matthew took Kacey and Kloey.  I took Kylie and Kadyn.  And one evening, we hit 2 different Targets.  Kylie had Kacey, and vice versa.  And Kadyn had Kloey and vice versa.  So we shopped, and it was really fun to see what the girls picked out for eachother and to take less focus on the "gimmies" and more focus on giving to someone else.  I think they really enjoyed it, and we'll definitely be doing that again next year.

 On Christmas Eve, we did some major baking... as always.  This year we had brownies, spice cookies (iced and decorated by the munchkins), pumpkin bread, peanut butter cookies with a Hershey's kiss, and...... something else, I can't remember.... So that tuckered us out and it only filled our morning.  We had our mandatory Chinese dinner... although we were so anxious, it was really lunch.  I'm really impressed that the girls have their specific Chinese dishes that they'll eat... it was hot and good, and I have no pictures... but our table was full of food and egg rolls and won tons (love those!)!!!  We finished putting our Christmas gifts to our friends together, and we headed out in the blistering cold nighttime to deliver gifts.  (It's freezing here).  We had worked up quite the appetite, and shamefully I say... that we hit Taco Bell on Christmas Eve in our late night, starvation.  HAHA, not proud... but it was good!

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We open 1 present on Christmas Eve... so we picked the box from Aunt Chiarina...

 It was a singing Justin Bieber Beaver!  So stinking CUTE!  Kloey is in love with it, she's really very good at singing BABY, Baby Baby..... OH.  She's starting dancing to it too.  It's the funniest thing.  We make her do it a few times a day for our entertainment.  She never lets us down!!! :)

Thank you Aunt K!

 The little elves in the laundry room... the tired little elves get moving along on Christmas Eve.  Much to be done while little people try to sleep.

 Our Christmas cookies and milk were ready for Santa...

 Tired little elves, but happy to say Santa came!  Funny how 4 little presents each (that increased to 6 with one from mom and dad and one from a sister) creates so many gifts...

 And comes Christmas morning.  We make the girls sit at the top of the stairs.  Funny, reading facebook, I've seen so many pictures of our friends' families doing the exact same thing.  HAHA, I thought it was just our wacko thing.

 Matthew likes to take pics before the chaos of Christmas.  It's all they can do to refrain themselves.  I'm surprised they all didn't summersault down.

 And chaos. 

But happy chaos.

Everyone yelling, screams with presents, excitement over other people's presents.  And what I finally wanted............ GRATITUDE for the 1 present that they really wanted.  Christmas isn't about the crap... because that becomes my job of decluttering in the Spring and more often than not, all those crappy excess toys get tossed.

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Christmas this year for Matthew and I, brought peace and comfort, in the midst of a tumultuous world.

For the girls, I saw:

Gratitude for the specific thing they truly wanted and anticipated for.

Enjoyment out of watching their sister open the gift they bought.

During Cinnamon Roll Christmas breakfast, we asked the older girls a few questions about Christ and the true meaning of Christmas.  I was pleased with their answers.  Commercialism did not win over the Boyd home this year :) 

 Kylie wanted a specific microphone, that makes fun sound effects with her voice.

Kacey wanted a Justing Bieber doll, he sings "Somebody to Love...." when you push his stomach.

Kadyn wanted a mailbox, that Kloey likes alot too.  Kloey got a singing, pink soccer ball.

 Our trash cans were full to the brim. 

 Appropriately Santa gave "something to wear" items... being Christmas dresses.  Kloey's was full of glitter, meanwhile after 1 hour of church........ Matthew's navy suit was full of glitter also. :)

Merry Christmas!

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Day after Christmas Target shopping, got loads of stuff to decorate outside our house.... half off.  We have alot already, but our neighborhood decks it out big time.  We had to step up our game, so I bought clearanced stuff for next year.  Loads of wrapping paper, bags, brownie mixes, half off red oreos (who cares that they are red!), lots of tape, and this cool new contraption for my wrapping organization....

Awesome.