The Arbon Family

Happy Birthday Chloe!

2012-01-23T06:37:00.000-08:00

3 years ago today, this little bundle of energy came into our family!

Look at how little Eden was back then! Look at Chloe!!!

Chloe my tiny little baby....

Fast forward 3 years....

Whoa, how does this happen? Seriously? Look how beautiful that girl is!

Eden still trying to hold her "baby sister"

Look at the adorable little 3 year old she has become!

And boy does she like to have fun!

She likes to goof off with her daddy and big sister

And in the process has become a big sister herself!

Happy Birthday sister, we LOVE YOU!!!!

Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas

2012-01-02T06:58:00.000-08:00

Baby Luci! Almost 4 months old, can you believe it? Look at that cute little Munkin face!

Eden giving her talk she gave in Primary at Church, dressed as "Samuel the Lamanite" Chloe playing the part as "Mary"

Here I am, a "Believer" because that's how I roll. I believe. Here I am blessed by the presence of Mary, aka Chloe.

Eden in the dim light of the Christmas tree, acting the part of Samuel. Narration by Muzzy.

Myself and baby Jesus, aka Luci. Rexquando sitting next to me? No just my handsome bearded husband Kent.

Uncle Rob holding the Baby Jesus...we love Uncle Rob!

Hi all!

We are finally getting back into our normal swing of things around here after the Christmas break. for some miraculous reason, Kent was given Christmas Eve and Christmas day off from work! So why not take 12 days off then?! And that is exactly what he did. I loved every minute of it!

We had some family emergency stuff to take care of, but don't worry, everybody is fine! We were able to go back to see family during this time seeing as we don't know when Kent will get Christmas off again so soon.

The posted pictures are of us during the break, mostly during Christmas Eve night when we set aside some special time to really remember what Christmas is all about. It is a fun family tradition to act out Samuel the Lamanite, who was a prophet in the Book of Mormon. He prophesied the birth of Jesus Christ 5 years before Christ's actual birth. Many of the people back during that time didn't believe him and tried to kill him, although there we some that did believe him too. Because of his diligence in doing the will of Heavenly Father he was protected and kept safe! And guess what? Sure enough 5 years later in a little stable in Bethlehem, Christ was born!

This year Eden wanted to be Samuel. And a great Samuel she was! Us others were mainly non believers who got to throw rocks and arrows at her (don't worry, these rocks were crumpled up paper and arrows were weighted straws!) However yours truly was a believer and I played a mighty fine believer at that! Chloe wanted to play Mary and she played the part with her entire soul! She kept her "costume" on the entire evening and I think truly felt the Mary part. Guess what Luci played??? Any takers? You got it...Baby Jesus. I think she captured the part well.

The following morning we went to Church for an hour of Christmas hymns and then returned back to the fort for some fun! Poor Chloe was not feeling well so she went and took a few hour nap. By the time she woke up we were all done opening gifts and she had herself a nice pile of presents to open all to herself!

We had a great time also visiting my mom and dad and Linda and my grandparents. What initially planned to be a quite Christmas turned out to be a wonderful Christmas shared with family on both sides. Not that our quite Christmas wouldn't have been wonderful, it just turned out to be doubly so!!

We hope you all had a great Christmas holiday and that you could truly reflect on this Christmas season and know what it REALLY is all about. Merry Christmas!

Um...

2011-11-25T21:56:00.000-08:00

Look what I found...hehhehe.

Luci's Blessing Day and fun family times!

2011-11-18T07:17:00.000-08:00

The girls just love their baby sister Luci

More sisterly love

Quick cousin picture before we headed off to Church

Cute pajamas from Muzzy and Gran Crad from Alaska! Every Christmas the girls get new Christmas jammies and this year was no exception! Plus matching hats...look at Luci's face, haha!

New flashlights from the Muzz and Gran Crad. Flashlights make great toys!

Look at our new flashlights!!!

Eden holding little Luci. Luci getting the hang of hanging out with the big girls, I think she likes it!

Dog pile on Muzzy and Gran Crad! Total fun. I think Luci was very comfortable even through all the commotion!

Family picture after Luci's Blessing. 1.) I love Amber's head in the back ground (no she was not Photoshopped in) and 2.) Luci has had ENOUGH!

Look at our family of 5! Whoa, we're getting bigger! Picture of us before heading off to Church.

Last Sunday was a special day for our family. Little Luci was blessed at Church by her daddy. We had a fun filled weekend of family in town to celebrate her blessing and to celebrate Thanksgiving early, since we'll be spending the actual Thanksgiving day with some of my family over here.
We had fun staying inside and spending time together. The girls loved having cousin time too. The boys were able to go out shooting in the woods and then for some reason their car didn't want to start, so I was able to go rescue them in the forest. It was very eventful.

The girls minus the small girls, were then able to go on another visit to the "Potter's Quarter" and see all the fun Christmas trees decorated for the holiday season. All in all it was a fun time! Plus, who doesn't like having Thanksgiving twice???

La Vita Vera-The True Life!

2011-11-16T20:53:00.000-08:00

Have you ever seen this lady before???

She's the Food Nanny! I found her on the BYU channel and let me tell you, her show is now one of my top favorites to watch!

If you've never heard of her, she goes to "rescue" dinner at people's homes. People send in videos showing how they are struggling to get their family to sit down to dinner. She will go to the person's home, find out why they are having a certain problem and then show them how to sit as a family for dinner time. She also will pick a dinner to make and shows how to make it, along with how to plan for a 2 week dinner menu.

I LOVE THE FOOD NANNY!!! We don't have a problem sitting down for dinner as a family, but I would still love for her to come to my home. You must watch a show and see for yourself. Her personality is contagious and she shares great tips, tips that make me want to be a better mother and provide even better meals for my family. I love her.

She has this saying, "La Vita Vera" or "The True Life", which is when you have your family all seated around the dinner table, eating good food, talking with each other and spending quality time together. I try to incorporate that every day when we sit down for dinner. I want my children to have good memories of our family sitting down for meals together and hopefully they can carry that with them into their future families one day.

So go turn your t.v to the BYU channel and record on Wednesday mornings, The Food Nanny. You'll be glad you did!

The new sleeping arrangements

2011-11-01T10:12:00.000-07:00

My poor children. We've had to move their room to down stairs and they now sleep here, on one of the shelves. Sort of like that Seinfeld episode where Cramer is tucking those Japanese men into his drawers in his room, sort of.

Little sleeping baby downstairs next to the wood stove. She likes it down there where it's nice and cozy. Look at those cute little round cheeks.

Yes, this is my family

2011-11-01T10:08:00.000-07:00

I came across these pictures in my email account that was sent to me by Kent's mom (Muzzy). Sometime during a visit they took these pictures, but luckily Luci and I were able to escape! Although I do wonder what we would have looked like...

Can you guess who these people are???

Tea party fun!

2011-11-01T10:03:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I was able to go visit family back in The Dalles and Hood River with the girls. Kent had to stay home and work, so it was a fun girls trip. One of the highlights was going to a tea party with the cousins and moms and muzzy. Here are a few pictures from the grand event. This is a local business in The Dalles that has tea parties and one of the fun things is that you can dress up and then pick a hat to wear during the party.

Eden almost wore a flashy unicorn costume to the event but decided last minute to wear a lovely dress instead-darn! She still looked cute though, but I think it would have been hilarious to see a Vegas unicorn at a tea party, next time maybe?

Halloween 2011~So Fun!

2011-11-01T09:30:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from our Halloween festivities this year. My mom was in town to help with the night and took these pictures. A few are sideways since I couldn't figure out how to turn them. So just turn your head, okay? (above Eden has her finished hair and make up complete, she loves to wear make up when I let her, which is only during times like this)

Eden and Chloe decided to be princesses again this year. Maybe next year too...there's a good chance of that! Luci was a baby bumble bee. Luci went along fine with the whole dress up thing, so I would say her first Halloween was a success! She sometimes had a look on her face while we were getting her dressed like what in the world are you doing to me?! But she didn't complain!

Again at the last minute I decided to dress up. Some family in Utah sent the girls matching tutus and tops with matching hair bows. I tried (even tried bribing) both older girls to wear these cute bumble bee tutus to match baby Luci but they had their hearts set on being princesses. So Luci and I both matched each other. I was able to wear Eden's tutu and hair bow and I think it went well. Last year I dressed up as a princess to match the older girls, wearing an old high school formal that I wore to prom. Thank goodness for keeping those old dresses!

So what was Kent? He dressed up as a Portland Occupier. You know, "We are the 99%" people. The ones that are taking over downtown Portland...you know the ones. He dressed up in totally random clothing and then wore a sign that said, "We are the 99%". He looked great!

Below are some more pictures of the girls from the night. We went to the Church for a chili and corn bread dinner and then headed out to the parking lot for some trunk or treating. We then got word that the Bishop's wife was at their house handing out full size candy bars, so we booked it over there and made a stop. We finished up the night by visiting some other friends and the headed home. The girls were tired, and so were we!

The girls left their candy out for the "candy fairy" so that she would come while they were sleeping and take their candy and leave them a few dollars to go buy a little toy in exchange. Kids don't need all that candy, especially little kids like mine, and so this is great set up. Kent really likes it too, ha!

Hope your Halloween was great!

Chloe, Luci and Eden sitting on the couch before we headed out.

Another picture I was unable to turn. Still cute though. Little Luci as a bumble bee. I think she likes it.

Outside on our steps before we headed out. Poor Luci is not having a fun time right now. Chloe is posing as a princess, doesn't she look lovely?
We got Luci to smile AND laugh!

And Luci makes 3!

2011-10-30T21:38:00.000-07:00

Look at that cute little face...I think she might be hungry...

A welcome home sign made by the big sisters to welcome little Luci!

Big sisters Eden and Chloe getting to hold their new little sister Luci!

Big sister Eden loves her newest little sister, she was so excited!

A little late, but better than never! Luci and I meeting face to face for the first time.

Here are a few pictures from when Luci was just minutes and days old. I have some more updated pictures some place on the computer that Kent downloaded and I haven't been able to find yet, but I will! She is of course much bigger now, but stay tuned for more pictures and promise it won't take months!

We are all doing great! Luci is sleeping through the night like a champ and we are all happy about that. All three girls were early to sleep through the night babies, so Luci falls right in line along with the others, go girl!

We are getting ready for Halloween, probably the greatest holiday known to children or a close runner up to Christmas. What will my girls be this year? It's a toss up. Either princesses (again) or Laura and Mary from little house on the prairie. We'll just have to see what the mood strikes tomorrow night. Pictures of that to follow.

Happy Halloween everyone!

She's here! She's here!!

2011-09-09T08:53:00.000-07:00

Announcing Luci Jean Arbon!

Luci was born on September 1st, only 4 days after her August 28th due date. She weighed 8lbs and was 20 inches tall, which was a surprise since I wasn't nearly as big with Luci as I was with Chloe, she was just somehow tucked far inside me and didn't poke out as much as Chloe did! She is such a good baby, just like how her sisters were and just goes with the flow. I hate to brag, but she only wakes up once at night to feed and then sleeps the rest of the night away, I can't complain. I always wanted to have a baby during the day time, since the other girls were born at night and Luci delivered! She was born at 12:36pm on Thursday afternoon, so fun! The hospital was great, the nurses were very nice except for the awkward one we got the afternoon we were getting ready to be discharged. Oh well. This was the easiest labor and delivery I have experienced so I was very grateful.

I'm also very happy I did not have to be induced. I was scheduled to be induced that Friday, the 2nd. I did everything in my power to avoid that! My mom came out about a week before, hoping that Luci would come early. We walked all over La Grande! I made a visit to our Chiropractor to get a special "pregnancy pop", and drank more jars of raspberry leaf tea than I can count. I also ate spice food and tried other measures, anything to encourage Luci to come. Wednesday night I started having regular contractions (which was new to me, even though this was my third pregnancy) and so Kent and I drove the 2 minutes to the hospital up the street, was admitted and things just went from there.

They broke my water in the middle of the night and I started pushing around 12:15pm the next day. Within 15 minutes Luci was born, so easy!!! With both Eden and Chloe, I pushed over an hour, so I was thrilled. Between contractions and pushing we all joked and laughed and had a fun time. I love my doctor. I love the lady that gave me my epidural. She had that thing in there withing a few minutes and it was working soon after. I really can't complain. I'm not the person to enjoy experiencing pain, and I am grateful for modern medicine and how we can receive pain alleviating medicine. It made for a wonderful birthing experience which really is what we all want in the end, along with a healthy baby. I would do it all over again, we will someday.

This recovery has been the easiest also. Everything has been going great.

Her sisters love her so much and every morning run into our room to see if "baby Luci" is awake so that they can cuddle her. Luci knows her sisters already, besides she had 9+ months to hear them scream, fight, laugh and cry at each other. Those sounds are comforting to her, ha! At least I don't have to worry if they do this when she's sleeping, Luci just keeps on sleeping. She also has a love for the vacuum, probably because I did that so much also when I was pregnant with her.

We are all doing great and adjusting well. Kent has 4-5 weeks off, so he's been a great help to have and it's been fun having him around. We both agree that somehow we need to inherit lots of money so that he doesn't have to go to work and we can all be together all the time. If you have any ideas, let us know.

Well I'm off to feed a cute baby. More pictures to come!

Any day now...however....

2011-08-20T10:35:00.001-07:00

I am about 39 weeks along now and I am so done with being pregnant. Let's move on now already!!! Although, I'd rather wait to have her come next Saturday...Kent has the opportunity to get some great overtime at work and I mean GREAT, so if she could just delay her entrance into the world until next Saturday or after that, then that would be great for us, hehe.

My official due date is the 28th, but I've been feeling like this could happen anytime. I actually went out yesterday to this hill by our house and went up and and down it a bunch of times. I ran up the hill half way but then was wiped. I realized that if I want this baby to stay put for a few more days I probably shouldn't do that. Yes I had contractions for a while after that little event. I have been swimming a bunch also, but as the time grows nearer, I fear that maybe I shouldn't be swimming anymore until after the baby comes. I don't want to go into labor in the pool or leak anything fun, I know the people at the pool would really love that and really appreciate me...not. So, I'm taking it easy, although I have the urge to workout, I want that overtime haha!!

I've been cleaning our home like there is no tomorrow. I think I'm driving my family crazy. Cooking is the total opposite. If you know me, you know I love to cook. But not lately. It's like my brain has drawn a complete blank and I can not for the life of me think of things to make and so I don't. My poor family. We've been eating some pretty simple meals. Simple as in cereal. Or eggs. Or smoothies.... Okay, maybe more than just that, but sometimes that is all I have the energy to pull together. I can't wait to get my creativity back. I'm sure my family feels the same way.

I feel very large, but not as large as when I was pregnant with Chloe, so that is a good thing I think. I probably feel as large as any woman who is almost 10 months pregnant. What's with the whole 9 months pregnant thing??? I don't even want to talk about that.

I miss Tony Horton. For those of you non p90X-ers, he was my full time trainer before baby Luci and I hope to hire him again after she arrives. He's great and I miss all of the silly things he would say to me while we would work out together everyday. Okay, not personally, but on dvd. Although I felt like he was right there. I also want a rowing machine. I'll look into that....and I'm not planning to train for a marathon this time, but who knows how my crazy mind will go after I shed this suit. I'm ready though, but not until after next Saturday. Luci stay put, mama wants that overtime check!

Okay well that's about it for now, the girls are doing good and ready to meet their "so called sister". I say that because we've been talking about this baby who will be coming, but has yet to prove to her sisters that she is really coming. I keep telling them that my tummy wouldn't be this big if they weren't getting a sister soon, but I think they're starting think their mama is crazy. Yes I am. I've accepted that. I think I get crazier with each child. Oh well, I own it.

Will post soon about Luci's grand entrance, lets just hope it's non-eventful and quick. Yes QUICK, PLEASE! The last two were so long, please let this be quick. We live 2 minutes from the hospital, so it's okay if it's quick. Funny thing, this hospital presents the new parents with a steak dinner after the birth, I thought that was funny. How formal. All I wanted after Chloe was born was a milkshake!

Okay, stay tuned!

Happy Anniversary to us!

2011-07-26T06:41:00.000-07:00

Last week Kent and I were able to get away for a few days and travel up to Seattle, WA to spend some time together for our 5 year anniversary. This is us on our anniversary at the Space Needle restaurant for a fun dinner. We were so high up! The view was great and it was fun because the entire restaurant rotates around, so that in about an hour you get an entire 360 view of the city. We had such a fun time, and I will post more pictures of our adventures in Seattle soon!

Update

2011-07-10T14:24:00.001-07:00

Hi everybody!!!

I believe it has been about 3 whole months since I've last updated, so I figured now would be a good time as any!

As many of you are aware, Kent and I decided to get rid of our facebook accounts. For many reasons, but mainly to focus on our family blog and we feel really good about that. So I hope that if those of you that read this want to stay connected, you'll be able to follow us here...plus I'll post pictures on here if you do! And of course we always have our family email: Klearbon@live.com, so you can get a hold of us that way also.

Where do I begin? Well we have about 7 weeks left until the newest member of our family will be joining us. Very exciting. Although I'm starting to get nervous. I haven't really given it much thought about how our lives are about to change and for the most part it is exciting, however there is that tiny bit of fear that strikes me every time I think about it, ha! I'm sure though that we'll figure out a schedule and fall right into it very soon after, or at least I like to think that way! I remember how hard it was going from one to two after Chloe was born, but I have been told repeatedly that from 2 to 3 is not very bad. The first two have each other to play with, right? Right??? We'll see I guess, ready or not!

The girls are getting ready to go to the first annual "Camp Muzzy" in about a week and a half back in The Dalles. I think this is a great idea, although I keep asking Muzzy if she is SURE she is ready for this. Three little girls (my two and cousin Charlotte) 4 years and younger for 4 days. Muzzy has assured me that she is well prepared. Sure looks like it too! We received our camp newsletter telling the girls what to expect. Swimming, crafts, campfires, horse back riding (I wanna go to camp muzzy!) and much more! This will be a yearly summer tradition for kids in the family 2 and half years and up. So fun!! They even have t-shirts! AND...on the last day when the parents return, they will be putting on a camp program for us, cute! Theme of Camp Muzzy this year is: Little House on the Prairie.

So what will Kent and I be doing while we get 4 days away? Well we've never had 4 days away from our children, so I"m trying to think about what that will be like! I know I will miss them, but they'll be having a blast! Kent and I will be celebrating our 5 year wedding anniversary by going on a trip to Seattle!!! We are so excited! We don't have much planned out except that we will be having our anniversary dinner at the top of the Space Needle! Other than that we'll just see what we want to do each day.

We are getting settled into our new home slowly, but that seems to be working out just fine for us. We still have boxes in our garage that need to be unpacked, but we'll get to those one day. Kent asked me, and made a good point. If we haven't needed anything from those boxes yet, why do we still have them? That is a good point, so maybe we'll be making some trips to the dump or second hand stores. When we first moved in our garage looked like we were hoarders, it was sad! You don't realize how much you have until you have to move and that is the truth!

The remodel has been amazing. Many of you have seen before pictures of what this home looked like when we first found it. Stuck in the 70's is how I like to paint the picture for people. However Kent has been awesome in taking this scary before home and changing it into an updated home for us and it is beautiful! We've also had so much help in the projects we've undertook so thanks to those that came to help, especially Kent's parents!

We have wonderful neighbors who love the girls. One is a retired elementary teacher who also taught education classes at Western Oregon University, which is neat since she was teaching there when I was going to school there. The other neighbor is a fun lady mine and Kent's mom's age who works at the high school but has the summer off so she likes to take the girls for walks with her little dog and sometimes her daughter will go along also. She also has fun treats at her house and the girls are always asking to go over there and visit. We couldn't have asked for better neighbors really.

The girls are doing well and adjusting to their new home quite well. Every now and then the girls will say how they miss their old house, but I think that's normal and has been happening not as frequently as it used to.

Eden just finished her first session of swim lessons. She's becoming very comfortable in the water, although I'm going to have her take another session in August to go over what she learned earlier. She also finished a week of science camp and had a blast making fun messy science experiments.

Chloe is doing great and likes to do everything and say everything that Eden does/says. It's pretty funny to watch. Chloe will be a funny person when she gets to be older, she has a very funny personality. She loves to sing and is always going around the house singing. Some are songs we know and some are songs that she makes up. She's pretty good at singing too! She would really like to take swimming lessons like her sister and has a hard time sitting on the bleachers watching Eden, but soon enough she'll be right there with her.

They are both excited to have a little sister coming soon and often talk to Luci. Chloe is certain that Luci has toys in my tummy and that she plays with them. Funny hu? Eden is constantly telling me that when baby Luci comes I will need a lot of help and that she is just the person for the job. I tell her that I will need her to help me so much and she has promised to take on the job of changing diapers. We'll see how long that lasts!

I will post pictures soon and as soon as I can find the camera. You'll be amazed at the transformation this house has undergone!

I'll try to post often so keep checking back to see what we're up to!

And now there were 3!

2011-04-04T11:56:00.001-07:00

We went to the doctor's office this morning and had the ultrasound to find out what we are having. Are you ready for this??? We're having a...Girl!!!! We were very excited about the news. A bit shocked at first, since this pregnancy has been so different than the other two, but we are happy. We do girls good I guess! She looks happy and healthy and was kicking up a storm during the ultrasound. Now for names!

One week to go!

2011-03-29T14:07:00.000-07:00

In less then a week (next Monday) we get to find out what we are having, besides just a baby! We are very excited and I'm almost certain this time it is a boy. If you haven't been keeping up with me on facebook, you might have missed out on all my posts about puking! Well it is true. I have never been so sick with any of my last pregnancies, which is why this has me thinking this might be a boy??? Or I could just be one of those ladies that gets sicker with each pregnancy. If that is the case, this might be it. Probably not though, and I'll probably do it all over again. Oh the joys.

Kent has officially become a, "trooper", meaning that his probationary stage of becoming a state police officer has been completed. He is doing great and looks really strong. No really he does. He's been lifting with one of his buddies several times a week at the gym and taking loads and loads of protein. All you bad guys out there, you'd better watch out!

The girls are doing well. Chloe likes to repeat everything that Eden says. She's pretty agreeable for the most part, but if Eden has tested her one time to many, then Chloe is pretty good at standing up for herself. I've even heard Eden say, "Chloe is mad at me...". Well, duh! She is one lady that doesn't like to be pushed around. But who does really?

It is still winter out here in lovely La Grande. I have almost forgotten what sunshine is. Can you remind me? Anyone??

We found out that Kent did not get his transfer request. We were bummed at first, but are starting to realize how much fun we can have out here! We are looking at homes. Homes to purchase. This will be our first. I'm a little stressed out. Between the puking and looking at homes, I'm a little spent. But I'm hanging in there. We think we might have found one. Oh dear.

I am very anxious to plant a garden. I would also like to have chickens. Although, since being pregnant, I can't do eggs. Everybody else in the family has no aversions however. I'm sure once I'm done being pregnant I'll go back to liking them. Until then, nobody scrambles an egg in this house-or else! Poor Kent, he's had to make them outside on the bbq grill! The smell is what I can't stand and the texture and taste. This wasn't a problem before. How strange! Oh that and red meat..but that's for another post.

We just got back from a fun time visiting family. It was one busy week! But we did it all. We even were able to go to Portland for a few days with my mom and she took me shopping. I love when my mom takes me shopping! This is a once a year type of thing, and so it was so much fun! Kent came along and took Eden on a movie date to go see, "Rango". Eden loved it. I'm pretty sure Kent did just as much! Chloe got to hang out back with me and my mom. She had a good time riding around in a fire truck stroller (you know the ones you rent from malls. I had forgotten to pack a stroller. Forgetfulness is another thing that has been also giving me trouble this time around too!)

I wish that we had more time back with family when we were there. We enjoyed it, but its nice to be back in our own home now.

Well I'm going to go and sneak a piece of chocolate before the girls wake up from their naps! And I would post a picture of myself, but I am fearful that my tummy is not the only thing that is expanding and quite frankly, its not a pretty sight!

Potty training and cloth diapers

2011-02-22T05:36:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning to Eden shouting for me. It was 3:33am. I went in and she had wet the bed. I've been working really hard with Eden on finishing up potty training and she has been doing great. Usually she only has to wear a pull up at night and during the day and nap time she is fine and hasn't had a problem. I then got the idea that maybe pull ups were hindering her since she could sleep entirely though the night and not have to worry about getting up to use the bathroom since she knew she had a pull up on. So, I decided to try putting her in her undies at night with plastic pants on over them...sorta like pull ups right? My thinking with this was that then she would be forced to get up and use the potty. Wrong. She just keeps sleeping! Every now and then I hear her getting up and that makes me happy and she wakes up dry. So I think we are on to something here. I read someplace that if you want to potty train, that you need to ditch the diapers/pull ups because they only provide a crutch and don't allow the little person to feel themselves wet. So I guess I'll have to endure through washing loads of wet laundry. I feel like we are almost there.

Chloe...she doesn't want to use the potty. Well, she likes to sit on the potty and pretend to push something out, but then stands up and says all done. I've been trying to bribe her with princess stickers. Telling her that if she goes in the potty, she'll get a princess sticker. She likes that idea. She likes to talk about going potty in the potty and how she will get a sticker, but I have yet to see potty in the potty. Maybe we're onto something? I've also switched her back to cloth diapers. For two reasons. First reason, it's cheaper than buying disposable diapers. A few years back I got a pattern for cloth diapers that fit newborn to toddler size. So I made a bunch. I went on a cloth diaper making marathon. However, Chloe is a heavy wetter. I even made extra soaker pads to put inside the cloth diaper and she still wets through those babies. Which I know, cloth diapers aren't as absorbent as disposables because they don't have any chemicals that usually absorb like a disposable has. Which is another thing I like, no chemicals. Another problem though, she smells like pee all the time and I feel bad. I wash diapers every other day and I wash the diaper covers in between washings and hang dry them. Why is she smelling like pee? I don't want my daughter to smell like pee, but I don't want to give up on cloth. Soooo many people use them for their kids, and I want to make it work. Especially since we will be having another baby in August, think of the money we'd be spending on diapers! Do I need better cloth diapers? I'm thinking I do. Do any of you have experience with cloth diapers?

So after I got Eden cleaned up, I went back to bed. Only to toss and turn and repeatedly look at the clock and think to myself, I'm hungry. So I stayed in bed until 5am and then got up to eat. Today will be a long day, perhaps I will take a nap, I think I'll need it!

Chloe's 2nd birthday and a fun surprise!

2011-01-24T20:20:00.000-08:00

Well we just returned from a fun family weekend where we were able to celebrate Chloe's 2nd birthday! We had a great time with family and had yummy home made pizzas, fresh fruit and salad-yum! Chloe's birthday cake was the traditional 2nd year care bear cake, that I had when I turned 2 and when Eden turned 2 as well. I still can't believe that I have that care bear cake mold that my mom used when I turned 2! It has remained intact and all together through out the years and its fun to use for my kids now!

We also did the traditional birthday DVD. I have come face to face with the truth about scrap booking for myself and as much as I love it, it takes way to much time for me! So, I came up with this birthday DVD idea a few birthdays back ( I think Chloe's first birthday was the first time) and it includes pictures of the birthday person throughout the year with fun music. This is my way of scrap booking! It's quick and fun for everybody to watch at the birthday person's party, so now I don't feel as bad for my girls that they won't have a scrap book of their lives and one day they can get copies of all their birthday DVD's throughout the years and have fun watching them and maybe showing their kids? I think it's a great idea!

We also had fun announcing to the families that we are going to be having our 3rd baby in August, possibly September, since I'm due at the very end of August. Although maybe it will decide to make its appearance a week early like Eden did, and I'm sure I won't mind :)

We told Kent's family the night we got to town over dinner. We were all sitting around the table having dinner talking and as soon as the conversation went quiet, Kent pulled out the ultrasound pictures we had done earlier in the day, and said, "Hey look what we got today when Lindsay went to the doctor". Everybody was very excited.

I told my mom right before we were going to decorate Chloe's birthday cake and she asked if I was joking. In a nice way though. I told her no, why would I joke about something like this? It was pretty funny. I think she was in shock. It's okay though, she's doing better :)

I told my dad and Linda (my dad's wife) and my grandparents outside of Kent's parents house before they came into Chloe's party. I told Linda that I had to tell my dad and her something. She looked at me and started jumping up and down in excitement. That was fun, I guess she just knew! My dad shook my hand??? I gave him a hug. I thought that was funny! We never shake hands! My grandparents were excited and my grandpa told me he likes odd numbers. So if we decide to have more after 3 he likes 5 or 7....and this is what he told me! I have a funny family and I love them.

The party went well. I have decided that I don't like to lead things! I don't like everybody looking at me or me telling everybody what we are doing next. But somehow I did it. Chloe got way to many presents and was spoiled. But really, what 2 year old isn't spoiled by their family? And by that I mean grandparents and great grandparents. Yikes, well maybe next year I will have people donate gift money for her to take a dance class or something like that? Who knows!

So how am I feeling? Well I feel nauseated all day long. But, I'm not as sick as I was with the other two girls, so that gets me to thinking that maybe, just maybe, this baby could be a boy? Kent says not to talk about it, that it might jinx the thing ( he would really, REALLY, love to have a boy!) But I told him that its already decided. So I talk about anyway, ha! Popsicles have been my best friends since the tangy fruity cold taste is soothing. I have a secret...I drove myself through McDonalds this morning by myself and got an egg mcmuffin! I never get those. Unless I'm pregnant. That is the only similarity between this pregnancy and the others. Something about those McDees McMuffins. But without the bacon. I don't do the bacon. And I only get one. So there. Then I went grocery shopping and enjoyed a quiet trip through the store by myself. Some guy from Safeway asked me if I needed help finding anything and I told him no, and that I was enjoying my time alone and that usually I have two little girls with me and that they were at home with their dad and that this was like a vacation....I probably told him way to much. Oh well. I'm probably telling you way to much. Oh well.

Anyway...

For those of you that remember my last pregnancy and how I longed for eating something that tasted like dirt....well I don't long for that this time! Funny how those things happen, hu?! Being pregnant is just weird. But in a good way, I mean in a good way! It's so scifi! Like growing an alien inside yourself! It was fun to see the little person on the ultra sound and to see their little heart beating away! It was going a mile a minute I tell ya! It's hard to imagine another child coming into your family, but we are very excited and both girls are just as excited. This evening, Eden asked me if my tummy was going to get "puffy". I told her yes. Funny how little kids interpret things like that. She wants to see the baby, and so when we go to find out if we are having another girl or a new boy, I think I'll have all of us there. It's a fun family moment and we all need to be a part of it! By the way, Eden refers to the baby as a "she"...does she know something we don't???

Snow man Snow man...

2010-12-16T14:57:00.000-08:00

I had to post this really quickly, since I just put the girls down for a late nap (we were out Christmas shopping and I lost track of time, whoops!)

Anyway, before we went shopping, I took the girls to the local story time at our library. Its a really cute thing that the library does and the lady who does story time sings songs and then reads a few books. So its fun for my girls to get out and see friends and listen to someone else read them books.

One of the books was, well actually all the books, were about Christmas. One book in particular was about a snow man. Well, Chloe has a hard time sitting still on the ground the whole time and likes to wander around the room telling friends hi and sitting on other people's laps. I was shocked about this at first, but mostly everyone in the room is a mother and they don't care, so I stopped caring too.

Well Chloe got up and walked to the front of the room to the lady reading the book. Chloe said,"I see snow man". The lady said, "Yes, what does the snow man look like?" And what was Chloe's response??? She said, "Tall, tall, tall".

For those of you that are familiar with the primary song, "Once there was a snow man" you will all find this very cute. For those of you that don't know the song, I can have Chloe sing it for you!

I was proud of Chloe and found it very funny and witty and she proved to me that she does listen when we sing songs to her, yea for Chloe!

I love my blog

2010-12-05T20:09:00.001-08:00

So I've decided that I'm really not a good blogger. Blogging takes time, and for me to sit down and type something at the computer means that my children are taking advantage of me not watching them, and are probably getting into something. Then, I have to decide, do I get up really early in the morning to post, or do I use my time at night after they've gone to bed to blog?? Both of those times I like to be doing other things, and thus, this is why every few months I might make a post.

Do you care?! Probably not, but I felt like I needed to justify my reason for being a blogging slacker. Oh well.

We'll we had a nice Thanksgiving. My dad and his wife came over and had a yummy dinner with the four of us. That morning Kent went out and bought a deep fryer. I think its a man thing, you know...to deep fry a turkey, or to say you've done it. Either way, it was delicious! Wow, if you've never done that or had it, I highly suggest it! We also had way to much food, but isn't that what Thanksgiving is really all about? Besides all the grateful stuff. Just kidding!

The girls are doing great. Getting bigger every day. Chloe is one sassy sister! Eden is a great helper to me (when she wants to be). No really, when it comes down to it, she is a great help. Chloe is learning so much from her sister, some good and some bad. She has learned to go to time out when she does something she knows she shouldn't be doing. She has gotten to the point where she tells me that she is going on time out before I even tell her. (I think she thinks its a game, but she looks really cute and I have to try and hold a serious face when I see her standing in the corner).

Kent is loving his job. Although, we miss family, so we're not sure how long we'd like to stay out here. The weather is COLD! Holy COW! But thankfully we have a nice warm house, although this is the time you wish you had a wood burning stove! I know I do!

Well that is a quick update on whats been going down over here. Here are some recent pics too, enjoy!

We're back, we're back!!!!

2010-09-30T22:21:00.000-07:00

Hi everybody! I just saw from another friend's blog that I haven't posted anything for 3 months! That's crazy! We'll we have been slightly busy around here...

I will have to post pictures of our summer adventures at a later date. But they will be posted!

The last post I believe I wrote was for Father's Day. A lot has happened since then. We've been able to keep many of our friends and family up to date with stuff going on for us, but for those of you (since I have SOO many followers) that I haven't been as good at keeping up with here is a little of what we've been up to:

Kent had his shoulder surgery in July. He was off for 7 weeks! We loved every minute of it, whoo! To bad he had to go back to work...why did he have to go back to work?! I loved all the extra help and learned that he is quite the wood worker!

During that time we had a blast hanging together as a family. It was a perfect time for him to be home, right smack during summer. After the first few weeks of post surgery we took a trip back home to visit our families and got to stay for 2 weeks! We took advantage of the time off. Who gets to go back and spend 2 weeks of paid time off? It was so fun!

After that we returned home and got to spend some more fun weeks around the house. We were able to visit Wallowa Lake for the day, since Kent's doctor is up in Enterprise. Enterprise is a very pretty place. And I loved all the little shops up in Joseph, I want to go back!

Eden and Chloe took part in a community art camp for a few weeks and had a blast. They created all sorts of art projects. They looked so cute in their little art aprons painting and they took it very serious. Well, maybe not Chloe, but Eden did and she loved it.

I've been able to do a bit of canning this season, although I would like to do more. See, its sorta hard to do with two little kids. Luckily I only do this once per year, so during that time the girls watch quite a few movies. Sounds bad, but its the only thing that keeps them out of the kitchen when I have to get those jars filled! Believe it or not, Kent did help me can peaches and did a mighty fine job!

Eden has started preschool! We are doing "Joy School", which is a home based preschool program. Usually you do it with other mothers of preschool aged children and then take turns teaching the lessons at each other's homes. I decided to do it on my own and we are having such a good time! Its fun to be Eden's teacher and learn with her. I've heard of so many other parents who say they couldn't do it or just wouldn't want to. This isn't for everybody, but I'm sure glad that I'm enjoying it! I couldn't see myself sending Eden away for someone else to teach her. I'd miss her to much and this way I know exactly what she's learning and we can make it Christ centered, which is important. Especially in today's world and where education is going....don't get me started. Really.

Anyway,

Kent is currently back to work on "light duty". He's struggling to find excitement in his job right now, since he mainly works on such duties as-filing. At least he has a job, and I am very happy and encouraging to remind him of that each day! He won't be doing this much longer and is counting down the days until he can return to working on the road and all the exciting things he'll get to deal with. I personally like him in the office. Away from crazies and danger. But that's just me...

He is doing physical therapy a few times a week and is quickly getting stronger. He'll be back to his old self in no time!

As for myself, I have decided to pull out of the Portland Marathon. Why??? Truthfully, I am so tired of training! I've been training since I ran the last marathon in May and haven't given myself a break. I am tired of running. Since Chloe was born I have run 1 full marathon and 2 half marathons and I'm tired. I was missing my family too. If any of you are familiar with marathon training, it takes a LOT of time. So one day I will run another one. I am sure of it. But for now, I am now enjoying shorter runs and P90X. I'm actually feeling much stronger believe it or not, and that is thanks to the P90X workouts. I love them.

Kent,his dad and brother just left this morning on a motorcycle trip to Utah to visit some family/friends and go to General Conference. Many of you know, but some don't, that General Conference is a twice a year conference for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. This is a weekend full of great talks by our Prophet and other General Authorities and I really wish I could have gone. So the girls and I are hanging out and doing fun girl things while he's away, PARTAY!!!

We've been able to harvest so much from our garden this year and we're still bringing in the crops! We've been blessed by the zucchini gods and have had this stuff in so many different ways! I've been trying to give it away, but as you can guess, everybody else has been blessed by this same god, so no takers. Maybe I'll have to make some zucchini bread and freeze it? It would fill my entire freezer and the freezer we have out in the garage!

We've had great carrots, spinach, lettuce, potatoes, corn, summer squash, green beans, peas, cucumbers, beets, turnips, broccoli and a few tomatoes. I still have high hopes for those green tomatoes out there! Please turn red, I would really like to can you, please. I might have to resort to ripening them in our garage-sad. Bad, really bad, bad season for growing tomatoes out here. I don 't know what its been like for other parts of the state, but over here its been bad. We are a month behind (or so I've been told) in our growing season, and the weather is supposed to drop soon, yikes! As you can see, I hold my dear garden very close to my heart. I love having a garden. I love going out and picking fresh things to eat and having fresh things to give to my family. AND, I think its so cool how everything grows from a tiny seed.

We'll that pretty much sums it up for you on what we've been up to this past summer. We've had great thunder/lightening storms over here too! I'm excited that its fall time. My favorite time of the year! I'm excited to make fresh apple sauce (and can it. I have a problem of wanting to can everything), I'm excited for pumpkins and pumpkin patches, for Halloween (still working on what the girls will be this year), and for coziness in our home and lots of hot chocolate (I need to stock up).

I will work on posting some pictures soon!

Mud is Fun & Father's Day

2010-06-21T12:43:00.000-07:00

Chloe and Eden painting the house with mud. They're great helpers.

Who is this??! Wait...it's Chloe. Poor Chloe, she was covered in mud by her sister. Eden loves Chloe, really she does.

Chloe looks almost annoyed to have to look up for this shot. Almost to say, "c'mon, I'm busy here, can I help you?"

Chloe sitting in the mud in her dress, tights, and leather shoes. Mud is so fun to sit in.

The leading culprit in the mud painting activity. Can you trust a face like this? Hmm...

Dada with his girls. Happy Father's Day!!!

The wonder pets frame the girls made for their dada. Next to it is a soda can with a cute #1 Pop sign on front, thanks to Church. My gift...still sitting out side in the back of the car. It was to heavy to lift-waaa

The coolest chocolate/peanut butter cake with chocolate covered strawberries you will ever find.

Kent posing next to his tasty treat!

Eden was such a good helper (really she was). Here she is making a salad for dada for his dinner. She did a great job tearing up the lettuce and putting all the chopped veggies into the bowl, good job Ed!

I think her favorite part was licking the bowl after we put he chocolate cake batter into the oven. Don't worry, this was a dairy/egg free recipe. And not for any reason really. I just wanted to save my eggs and use them for something else. Great recipe by the way, AND it uses whole wheat flour...just say'n.

The Eden & Chloe Winter Photo Shoot 2010:

Model Eden in an up close shot of this years winter fashion. Giving her "serious" look.

Here she is again. This time really "feeling" the winter fashion with this intended pose. Doesn't this make you want to wear this???

Here is her side kick- model Chloe. Chloe is going more for a "laid back" pose this year, showing the viewer what they are capable of when wearing this outfit. Going for the serious look, but delivering more of a "painful" look instead. It's okay, she's young, we've got time to work on this.

The models captured in a candid shot. Like if you were hanging out with your girl friend just talking and wearing this outfit, this is what you'd look like. Well, maybe.

Saturday was a nice day outside, it was sunny for the first time in a while, so I thought I'd work out in the garden. Earlier that morning the girls and I made a trip to the farmers market, our weekly stop, where the girls get to pick up a cookie from a local bakery and I get to buy yummy local produce. For some reason this year my heirloom tomato seeds decided not to come up, and I was getting worried we'd have no tomatoes in our garden this year, so I stopped off at one of the vendors and bought some heirloom tomato plants.

For those of you that don't know what "heirloom" plants are, they are plants that when you collect the seeds from the produced fruit/vegetable etc, you are able to plant those seeds again the following year. I bought about 100 packs of heirloom seeds online from an Oregon company. Many that I planted are coming up, but for some reason the tomatoes decided it was a no go. I decided to buy heirloom seeds because I looked at it from a food storage point of view. What if our world got so bad that we could no longer buy fresh produce?? I would have my seeds to take care of that!

While I was busily planting the new starts in the garden area, the girls were uncomfortably quiet. This is when I know something is up. I went around the house, still in the backyard (and luckily we have a full fenced backyard, so there was no way they could get out and run into the street or something like that) and saw them over by where the hose was. The hose was turned on. I had done this and they weren't playing with it...okay didn't have that to worry about. However, when the hose is turned on, it leeks. What hose doesn't? They had decided to play in the mud that was created from the leaking water, what fun!

There is playing in the mud and then there is wearing the mud. Pretty much they were doing both, but more so the latter. Eden had decided to "paint" Chloe, so Chloe, with her shoes, tights, dress and all (don't ask me why I put her in that outfit, we were inside when I did and I thought she looked cute) and Chloe didn't seem bothered by it at all. In fact, she thought it was pretty cool, until I told them I wasn't letting them inside until I hosed them down. Bwahahahaha. I'm really a nice mom, I promise.

I stripped down both girls, and literally hosed them down. Chloe did not like this one bit. Her hair was caked in mud and sand. Oh did I forget to mention that most of the sand from the sandbox also made its way into the mud painting...of course it would. Eden didn't seemed to mind as much and thought it was fun to run around the backyard naked and screaming. I said I would be one of those moms who would never let their kids run around naked outside...well, there comes a time in every mom's life when you just sometimes have to let those things happen. For the sake of the inside of the house!!!

As soon as most of the mud paint was gone, I picked them up and off to the tub they went. Eden asked if I was mad that they did that. I said no. I said, when you decide to get muddy again, just know I WILL hose you off again. So if you enjoyed that hosing off in the backyard, go ahead, get muddy, its your choice. The end.

On Sunday we celebrated Father's Day. Kent had to work that day, so I was lucky enough to get to take both girls to Church by myself that day. I prepared myself pretty well, with plenty of coloring pages and things to keep the girls busy during Sacrament. It went well. What I have a problem with is when my girls are doing well at being reverent and other people's children are trying to get my children to act naughty with them during the most sacred part of Church. Come on parents! I don't want to get down on them, sure I'm sure my kids have done it too. But when you literally ignore what your children are doing because you don't want to "deal" with it or because your tired of "dealing" with it, don't push if off on another parent to take responsibility for!!!! This happened to me last Sunday and It was so annoying!!! Can we design Church with individual family pods that are sound proof so that we don't have to be distracted and only distract ourselves and not other people? Is that so much to ask for??? Okay maybe it is.

When Kent got home later that day, we had a fun dinner and dessert planned. The girls made their dada a wonder pets frame with their pictures in it for him and then the girls and I got Kent a backyard fire pit! You know, the ones that sit on your back porch?? It is so cool looking and we can't wait to sit out back by the fire and roast things. Most particularly, marshmallows.

Some of the other pictures are of the girls "posing" in their winter wear. This consists of hat and matching scarf...what every 17 month and 3 year old need to look fashionable for the season. And since it still feels like winter here more often that not, yes we do need these things. Summer please come, I feel weird wearing a hat and scarf when its almost July, please.

That is pretty much up to date with what is going on around here. The girls are napping and I'm about to go for a run on my beloved treadmill. I am grateful for a treadmill, especially since its been raining so much here. Treadmill, I love you.

Our Camping Adventure!

2010-06-15T12:14:00.000-07:00

Here's Chloe waiting in the car the next morning. It was sooo cold, but she stayed cozy warm under all those blankets and was happy enough to say "cheese" for the camera.

Here is our beautiful campsite. We are getting ready to go back home.

Kent packing up the stuff to pack back into our car, wow we brought a lot for one night!

Our big fun tent! The girls thought it was so cool to actually sleep in a tent!

Kenty packing up the last bit of our stuff

Ed playing with blocks in the tent

Eden was the pro at roasting hot dogs!

We'll we went on our official first camping trip for the summer. We were so excited to go! I prepared a ton of food for our two day adventure and we pretty much packed up the entire house, well enough to fill our entire van! We had been talking about this trip to the girls for a few weeks before and we could tell they were so excited, even Chloe. The girls were so excited that the day before and the day of, their naps were terrible! They knew something was up, that we were getting ready to head out and so could not even sleep out of excitement.

We drove out to a really pretty place, called "Catherine Creek". Now I'm just learning this and think its pretty funny, but when you live out here, a "Creek" is not called a "Creek". What might it be called you ask yourself?? "Creek" = "Crick". I have no idea why this is. You just try calling it a "Creek" and you'll get yourself corrected and given a funny look. This actually hasn't happened to me yet, but that's what I've heard will happen and I'm too scared to try it.

We planned on staying for two nights. That is until the first night happened. Have you ever camped with small children before? If yes, then let me rephrase the question: Have you ever camped in a tent with small children before? Successfully? Well, this was an adventure. We kept good spirits the entire time. We are exhausted. Even though we got 8 hours of sleep, I feel like we were awake the entire night!

The girls went to bed fairly easy even though it was still light outside. Usually the girls go to bed around 7pm, but when you're outside camping, its still bright out at 7pm! Tents need shades. However we beat that challenge pretty easily. It went something like this: Eden if you get out of your sleeping bag and come out of the tent, we won't be able to roast marshmallows tomorrow night. She stayed in her bed, ha! Chloe was easy. I nursed her and she fell into a daze and then was confined to her porta crib, so she couldn't escape. Done.

Kent and I enjoyed some quite time by the fire and then were wiped out and went to bed. Around, lets just say midnight, we hear Chloe start to cry. I go to her bed to give her bink back to her and she settles back down. I climb back into the double sleeping bag that Kent and I share and then Eden wakes up crying. Kent climbs out and goes to check on her. Then climbs back into bed. Then Chloe starts crying. By this point, I just grab Chloe and bring her back into the bed with Kent and I (let me just say, if it were at home, she would have stayed in her bed and cried herself back to sleep, ohh mean mom hu?!) But out of consideration to anybody else that might of heard her, I didn't even want to deal with it. Once cozy inside the covers with us, she was quickly out!

We slept well for the rest of the night. Funny how when the sun comes out, its time to get up right?? WRONG! But that's how it went down for us! Pretty much all four of us were cozied up in the double sleeping bag. We needed a picture, where was the photographer??? We soon got up, and luckily Kent brought the laptop. Not because we hoped we could get internet connection, but just in case we needed to distract the girls with a movie, we'd be prepared. And we were.

Breakfast went well, with the usual camp breakfast of burnt pancakes, eggs and bacon. Yum! We ended up buckling Chloe into the carseat of the van while we cooked, and were happy about not having to worry about following her around and making sure she stayed out of the mud (our campsite was underwater a week before thanks to all the flooding, so the ground was still damp).

We decided that one night was good enough and after breakfast, packed up camp and headed home! We did have a great time! We expected much of how everything turned out and I'm glad that our expectations weren't that high! Most of all, we wanted to give the girls a great camping experience and we think they had a blast!!!

Hog Wild Days & Motorcycle babes

2010-06-13T18:20:00.000-07:00

Kent being the "frog bird" for the girls during bath time

"Frog bird" comes to greet these bathing beauties and they are happy to see him.

"Frog bird" preparing to fly away after bath time is over...sorta like a bath fairy, except Eden named him Frog bird (because of the towel). She's very imaginative.

Us girls after the parade was over and watching dada make doughnuts-yum! And if you must know, they were maple, so good!!!

Look! Here comes the parade!!!

Eden & Chloe cheesing it up for the camera! They were so excited for the parade to start but...

Not as excited as Kent! See the 1 & 0? Yea Hog Wild Days 2010!!

Kent getting the girls pumped up for the event! Ed is ready with her bag for the candy, we've trained her well.

See all these bikes?!?! Hells Canyon Motorcycle Rally, 2010

And the picture I know you've all been waiting for, as I know I have, biker babes 2010. Question...where can I get an outfit like that? Just kidding. Really. At first glance, that guy with the red bandanna right behind them, looks like he's trying to cop a feel, but then you notice he has a camera...I don't know what's more scary?!

Hog Wild Days.

This was a sign we saw a few weeks back hanging on a school fence line. What on earth is "Hog Wild Days" we asked each other. Then we received the Island City News Letter, yes our town sends out a news letter, cute. Each year, Island City hosts this festival with vendors, fire house breakfast and parade. Lucky for us, the parade went right in front of our house! Who is lucky enough to have a parade go right in front of their house? We were. The girls thought it was pretty cool too since so much candy was thrown from each float. Now, we don't live on a busy street. Not even close to being called a busy street. We live on a quite side street behind an elementary school. I kept asking Kent, " are you sure the parade goes down our street?" But it did and it was fun! We set up camping chairs right in our front lawn and we had home made doughnuts also, which were yummy! After the parade we loaded the girls up into the stroller and walked over to the vendor area. Nothing new, pretty much looked like anything you would find at your local summer fair, so we walked through that pretty quickly. It was also the first day of a full day of sunshine! We've had a lot of rain over here and many flood warnings! We spent the entire day outside including preparing our garden area, which is now planted!! Yea for gardens!

Kent was also lucky enough to go with his dad and family friend to the Hells Canyon Motorcycle rally. As you can see by the pictures, it was huge success, and I particularly like the picture of the motorcycle babes. Kent says he took that picture for me, how sweet of him! So I told him I was going to post it on the blog!

We are now getting ready to go camping tomorrow! We first took the girls camping last May when Chloe was only about 5 months and Eden had just turned 2. That was a busy experience. We are now preparing for an even busier experience tomorrow, wish us luck! We'll have a great time, I'm sure!

Marathon update: I'm still training for the Portland,OR marathon. Tomorrow I will enjoy a long run of 17 miles. Now doesn't that sound exciting?! I usually feel that way, AFTER my run has come to a completion. Not so much when I've hit mile 15. Oh well.

Until next time, hope you all are doing great and think of us 4 tomorrow night when we are out in the wilderness of the Grande Ronde.

Feeling the burn

2010-06-02T13:49:00.000-07:00

Eden is feeling the burn right here

What I'm about to tell you might make you think I'm going crazy, and maybe I am but...I've signed up for the 2010 Portland,OR Marathon! Whooo! Its sounding pretty cool, not to mention that its on 10/10/2010, which makes it even COOLER! This marathon is one of Runners World's top 10 marathons in the nation. I'm just excited to be a part of it and to challenge myself even more! So yes, I'm feeling the burn like the title of this blog entry says! The nice thing about this time around is that I have a little better idea as to what to expect, except that its a totally different course. I also am still in shape, so training won't be as beastly, but will still be challenging. After my run this morning I was sitting stretching (something that I'm going to try and do more of this time around also), I looked over and saw Eden playing with the thera-bands. You know, those stretchy bands that are good for when you have shin splints or want to do leg stretches...you know the ones. Anyway, she decked herself from head to toe in a new thera-band outfit and she looked like she was feeling the burn-see for yourself!

We also had some family pictures taken on Sunday at a park here in town. I really wanted a barn picture, and if you know La Grande, everywhere you turn there is a giant red barn, so I thought how hard would it be to get one done? Kent then informed me that it would be trespassing to go on someone else's land and pose in front of their barn. That's a cop husband for you! I just wanted to run really quickly and get a few shots in front of a barn and then run away,but Kent wasn't for that idea, darn.

We found some nice places though and I think they turned out fun. We went with the patriotic red, white and blue theme and I think it worked well for us.

Well we are off to the grocery store and other fun things. Until next time, go out and feel the burn!

Nap Time

2010-05-27T15:30:00.000-07:00

One more quick thing. For all you mothers out there, here is a question. Why is it that after my children have had a busy morning with playing with friends that when nap time comes, they take TERRIBLE naps? But, when they have stayed home and its a normal day and nap time comes, they take great naps? This drives me crazy!

A little catching up to do!

2010-05-27T14:44:00.000-07:00

This picture above actually has nothing to do with this blog post. This is my dad. I found this and thought it was funny...he might not think this is funny when he sees this. I think it was when we were having Eden's birthday party. He can be a little crazy sometimes, but we love him.

I told Chloe to "smile" and this was her attempt. Good job Chloe!

Sad that her sister is standing on the chair and she isn't. Life can be hard.

Eden was given a minnie mouse bake shop treat by her muzzy. Here she is creating her yummy treats! She was so proud!

An "after" picture of Eden with her stitches. She thinks they are pretty cool and can't wait to show her friends at church-cute.

"Dada" helping Ed to feel better.

Eden showing where she hit her head. She's one brave girl!

Here I am with my marathon finisher medal! I had just finished, don't I look wonderful :) Or do I look like I'm in pain?

Here I am holding baby Bristol Kelly. She was born May 8th, 2010 in Salem,OR. The same hospital that Eden was born at and almost the same day! So tiny!!

Me and my good friend Becki. We've been friends since Middle School.

Lightening McQueen or McEd???

We're singing "Happy Birthday" and she is so excited to blow out the candle! Hurry, I think the #3 candle is falling! Thanks to my mom and Kent's mom for helping with the cake! Because Eden loves PB&J, I found a great PB&J cake recipe and it was yummy!

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We are going on 3 weeks of having Kent back at home and it is GREAT! The time has flown by so fast, which is always what happens when we are having fun. I hope that when I'm old one day I don't feel like my life has flown by, but I'm sure that's how it will be, Kent and I just always have so much fun together.

I have posted some pictures that are sort of old, but that needed get blogged about! Eden's birthday party, my friends cute baby, my marathon and Eden's stitches. Yes, we've had a lot going on around here.

Pretty sure I blogged about Eden's birthday...car themed, it was fun. Also pretty sure I blogged about my friend's baby, she's cute, lots of hair! Not sure if I blogged about the marathon or if I just posted about it on Facebook, either way, I'll blog about it some more, ha! I ran in the Boise, Idaho famous potato marathon on May 15th. I had been training officially since last November. I finished the marathon in 5 hours! I was pleased with my time. Actually I had two goals, being this was my very first marathon I've ever run, I didn't really make specific time goal to finish in, however I did make it a goal to 1.) finish and 2.) not be the last one, hehe. So I did finish, yea! And, I wasn't the last one, hurray! Asked if I would ever do this again, yes, yes I would. I really enjoyed it. I didn't hit my "wall" until mile 21-22. Up to that point I felt great. During my training my longest runs were about 20 miles, between 18-20miles, so I was well trained for up till that point. Once I got to the 21-22 mile stage, it was weird, my body started to shut down. I had some pretty intense stomach cramping. I think I might have been slightly dehydrated. I noticed the other runners around me sweating and I also noticed that I wasn't really. That is bad. I was continually drinking and eating throughout the race, and that helped, but I probably should have hydrated better, starting days and weeks before. Oh well, I've learned what to do and what not to do for next time. The first 13 miles were great! I didn't know how far I had run until I asked some lady at one of the aid stations what mile this was and she said, 10 1/4! That was great! I love running and I hope to continue doing it.

Next on the list of blogging topics...Eden's stitches! This is also something I posted on Facebook, so if you keep up with me on there, sorry to repeat! Two Sundays ago, I was in the kitchen cleaning up after dinner when I hear a crash and Eden screaming. I run out of the kitchen and see Eden walking out of our bedroom with blood streaming down her forehead. I had always wondered how I would be when I had a child who was hurt, and come to find out, I was fine. I looked at it and had Kent run to get me a towel. Since Kent is trained in first responder, he took her and gave it a good once over and decided that we needed to make a visit to the ER. After a total of about 3 hours at the Emergency Room, Eden came home with 5 stitches above her right eye! Asked how she got into this predicament, she says, "I crashed off mama and dada's bed and hit the floor"...so she was jumping, ahhh. We've pretty much had a daily conversation about how we don't jump on beds, couches, or other things that would be dangerous. I guess we just have to learn the hard way sometimes, well I hope she's learned!

Eden did a great job while we were at the ER. Sometimes I guess little kids have to be held down when they are given stitches, but Eden just laid there and handled it well. She cried a little, but the doctor was so good with her, that he pretty much just talked her through the entire process. And really all that mattered to Eden was the fact that she got two cool stickers after everything was done!

Kent Graduates and more fun shtuff!

2010-05-12T14:29:00.000-07:00

We finally made it back to our own home after being away for a long time! It feels nice to be home all together after so long and nice to know that we aren't leaving...at least for a long time that is! So much has happened and if you've been keeping up with the blog, you'll know what I'm talking about!!

First off, Kent graduated from the Oregon State Police Academy! He entered the academy mid September of '09 and graduated on May 7th, 2010. During that time, he only was home on the weekends and then sometimes couldn't come home for two weeks at a time. May 7th was a very happy day and we were able to celebrate by going to the coast for a few days as a family. The graduation was so neat. They did some pretty cool marching formations and we were able to see some good friends, the Jonas's and Rosalie and Miriam. Thanks guys for coming up and supporting Kent!!!

Kent gets about 11 days off before he has to go to work so we are having fun! We have a huge garden area in our back yard, so we are whipping that into shape and getting ready to plant, I'm so excited!

On Friday, May 14th, we will be driving to Boise, Idaho to get ready for my first marathon the next morning. I've been training (officially, even though I was running before then)since November of '09, and so I'm ready to get this done! Can I say that training for a marathon takes up all your time?! If any of you have run one before, you know what I'm talking about!! Its all you think about during the week, since you need to make sure you get in all the runs you need to. I enjoy running and I'll continue to run,but once this is out of the way, I'll be able to relax maybe a little more.

On Mother's day were able to go and visit our good friends Becki and Sam at the Salem Hospital Family Birthing Center. They just had their first baby, a girl named, Bristol. She is very cute and so tiny! I forgot how tiny they come! I'm excited, they are coming to visit in a few weeks!!!

Last night we ate part of the turkey that Kent shot and it was good. We cooked it on the bbq and it turned out perfect. I was a little nervous taking that first bite. I wasn't sure if it would be good or whatever, but I was nervous for no reason! I told Kent he needs to go get us some more turkey it was that good!!

We are now just settling into our new schedule of being home and together and we are loving it!!

The great turkey hunt & Random pictures!!

2010-04-27T14:31:00.001-07:00

During a 4 week stint working with the OSP office in Hood River,(he looks good hu?!)

September 20th,2009 Kent was sworn into the OSP academy(3rd from the left)

Some random picture of Kent & I before we were married, don't remember when or why?? Thought it was funny though. I know you love my dress with the shoulder pads...and Kent's hair

Chloe and Eden April 2010

Kent and his 25lb turkey!

Early this morning I woke to the sound of a shotgun noise right outside the house. The girls and I are staying at Kent's parents home until next Friday when Kent graduates from the OSP academy, whooo!! Kent's parents have a billion wild turkeys running around everywhere, one that even Eden has named "Lidda" comes to the backyard almost daily. Kent was able to get a turkey tag and went out yesterday morning to scope things out and see where the best place would be to shoot one. Early this morning at about 5:30am, Kent went out to the place he scoped out and used his turkey caller to "call" out some of the wild turkeys. Well it worked! The turkey was HUGE! I was so proud of Kent, he learned all about how to catch these guys and then harvest the meat and was done around 7am! We now have some good looking turkey meat in our freezer, yum...thanks turkey!

Eden really wanted to be with her dada when he shot the turkey, but we didn't know if she could be quiet for that long, so as soon as the bird was shot, I ran upstairs and woke her up. She was so excited, she ran downstairs, got her camera and ran outside to see the turkey. I was so amazed, she is such a brave little person! I would have been freaked out at the thought of a cute little turkey being killed, but she was all over it! She took pictures of the turkey and then Kent with the turkey, it was pretty funny. She'll be a little hunter buddy with her dada one day.

Last night we also celebrated Eden's third birthday since Kent was home. Her actual birthday is tomorrow, and I can't believe it!!! How has three years passed??? We had a "Cars" themed party because she thinks the movie is so cool and that lightening McQueen is rad. So I, with the help of my mom and Kent's mom, made her a Lightening McQueen cake, it turned out really cute. I also made the table look like a highway...it was like we were back on route 66 in the movie Cars.

Some of the presents that were given to Eden were a trampoline(one of the mini ones), a kids digital camera, a lightening mcqueen remote control car, some legos, a bouquet of red tulips,a barbie, and the cars movie. She scored some nice shtuff.

Tomorrow we are going to a place that does tea parties and I know Eden will love that since she loves to have her own tea parties at home.

We are also getting ready for Kent's graduation next Friday!!!!! The day is finally coming and we so excited for him to be done!!! Over 8 months is a long time to not be together all the time, and we are ready to be a family all the time again!!!!

Our new home!

2010-03-14T19:56:00.000-07:00

Hi everybody!

We are now settled into our new home out here in the Blue Mountains and we love it! Kent is still in the police academy, but we are now seeing a light at the end of a very very very very...long tunnel! In two weeks he will graduate from the basic police academy! However, he's not done :(

After the first graduation, Kent will start post academy for the Oregon State Police! That runs about 6 weeks, and then he'll be done and we'll be a family again, horray!!!!

Let me tell you a little bit about our new home! It is a three bedroom, two bath home with a garage. I'm just excited about this because we've not had a home to ourselves for a little over 6 months. The girls share a room, and are doing a great job with that. Then we have our room and then the extra room we have turned into an office/workout room. If anybody wants to visit however, it can be turned into a "guest" room also!!

Our little home also has a fenced backyard, WITH an already fenced off area for a large garden, wahooo! We'll have to wait to start getting the garden ready though, since we still have snow out here!

We are next to an elementary school, so during the day when us girls hear kids playing outside we say "recess time" and run and look out the back door window and see all the little elementary kids playing outside.

We have a nice ward. I found out that La Grande has 5 wards! 4 family wards and 1 singles ward, since Eastern Oregon University is here. So lots of church members here, it's great. What's also nice is that we are now only about a mile away from our church building, instead of having to drive about 18 minutes from where we were living before.

I'm still training for the Boise Idaho Potato marathon which will be May 15th. Kent went and got me a treadmill to run on, since I do no like running with a jogger! And now, I can train when the girls are napping, so it works out perfectly! The treadmill we have is a Nordic Track and it is so nice because it has one of those cushy running tracks so its nice to my knees!

Well that is about it for now. I'll try and keep better updates and add pictures when I can!

We're back!

2010-01-03T20:10:00.000-08:00

Hellloo everyone!!! We now have internet at Kent's parents home, and so I can now update you all on whats going over here!

We had a very fun Christmas, with lots of family and way to many new toys (yeah for the girls, but where do we put it all??!!) We spent Christmas eve afternoon with my mom, then traveled down to Hood River to spend the traditional Christmas Eve evening at my grandparents home. After that, we then traveled back to The Dalles and spent Christmas Eve night and morning at Kent's parents house, where we are currently living.

I'm excited to say that I got my Cricut machine!!! For the longest time I was calling it "Cry-Cut", but was then informed by a fellow Cricut owner that its actually pronounced like the bug. Oh well, I think Cry-Cut has stuck, and so Kent and I refer to as that! I love it! Although I've only tested it once, but I loved it when I did that, so I know I'll love it more when I have a minute to play around with it! I have many project ideas in store for that little machine, I can't wait!!!!

I have been very hesitant to say this out loud, knowing that once I do, I have to stick with my goal that I've been working on. But now that I'm pretty sure that I'm sticking to it, I'll let you guys in on a little secret I've been working on. I have decided to run a marathon. Crazy hu? Yes, I know. Many of you are aware that I was having knee problems and had to stop running for a while during the summer, right after my half marathon. Well I'm over all the pain and started running a few months ago. I then told Kent that I was "thinking" I'd like to maybe train for a marathon and what does he do? Tells his parents! No big deal, but then it was like, okay now I have to do it, because Kent has told other people that I'm doing it! That's not the only reason I'm going through with this, and really it was no big deal that he said this and really I like to give him a hard time about this. So I found a marathon training guide with weekly workouts. So far I've been sticking to the plan and yesterday I ran 11 miles! Holy cow that is a long time! Thank goodness for MP3 players! I did my workout entirely on Kent's parents treadmill, which is nice since we have snow and ice and its cold outside, wah wah wah...I sound like a baby, buts it true.

So what marathon am I training for? Well. I heard that the New Port Marathon is a good one for first time marathon runners. We also had friends tell us that the Eugene one is a fun one to do. So really, I don't know, but I'll figure it out soon! I'm really excited about this actually. Its a huge goal, one that I said I would never do! I said that only crazy people would do something like this, and well, I guess I'm crazy. I really believe that the mind is so powerful and I'm coming to see how true this is! You mind does control your body, and during those times I've wanted to stop and walk, I remember this, and I also turn my music up way louder then it should be so that I don't have to think about how long I've run! So in the end, I'll be deaf from listening to my music way to loud and have the title of a marathon runner, hmm.

This also is a good thing to do while Kent is away at academy. It takes a lot of time to train and well...I've got lots of time. Actually I make it sound like I have all this time, but really with 2 little girls, I really don't, but I seem to find the time needed to run and I love it! And I also love the fact that all through the holidays I could eat yummy things like fudge and all sorts of chocolate and I didn't gain anything. And maybe I didn't lose anything either, but that is besides the point.

So I am busy training for a marathon. If you have any good ones let me know, I'll put them all into a hat and draw!

We have a new pet! Santa brought Eden a beta fish for Christmas. Well, I should actually say, for one of her presents. Eden and Chloe got way to many presents, and again Kent and I are asking ourselves, where will we put all these new things? Anyway, Eden told me that if she were to have a fish she would name it "Goldie". I was unable to go to the pet store before Christmas Eve since I was out of town and Parkdale doesn't have a pet store (for all of you Hood River people, you'll understand) so I had Kent's mother stop by PetCo to get a gold fish. They informed her that gold fish can't survive in gold fish bowls -you know, the ones we've all had growing up, and so they weren't excited to sell her one if she was going to put it into a regular fish bowl without a filter and oxygen and all that sort of stuff. So pretty much they wanted to sell her a $40 fish tank for a little old gold fish. Um..no. So we went with the Beta and beta tank for $10 that Eden happily named Goldie, even if it is purple.

Goldie now lives in the bathroom and every morning Eden goes in and says "Good morning Goldie, I sleep good, how you sleep?" heheh, its cute. And it looks like Goldie waves at Eden with the little fins, and so Eden waves back. I was holding Chloe and showing her the fish and she was pointing and making squeeking noises at it, so I think she likes Goldie too!

We had a close call for Goldie the other day. And this could have been very tragic. I'd like to call myself a beta life saver and so I will share this story with you. On Christmas night we had some friends over to Kent's parents home. The husband and wife have one daughter. Eden and the little girl were having a blast playing and running all over the place and suddenly it was quite. Kent's mom found the girls with their hands in the fish tank, doing who knows what, and I'm sure terrifying poor Goldie. We got the situation under control, the girls hands washed and the container lid put back. However we noticed that the water in the tank was a little cloudy. I thought nothing much of it, and went on with my life. Oh poor Goldie. The girls and I left for a few days to go spend some time with my mom. On our return I noticed that Goldie wasn't moving much and sort of laying lifeless on top of the water, but then I would move the tank and she would start to swim, but then would start to look lifeless again. This wasn't good. I started to panic! Poor Goldie! Poor Eden if she had to deal with a dead fish so soon! I then remembered when the girls had put their hands into the fish water, and noticed that the water looked oily on top and then remembered the cloudy water a few nights back. Something, maybe some lotion or who knows what, that was on their hands, had contaminated the water and now Goldie had only minutes to live if that! She had been swimming in contaminated water for 4 days and I felt so bad! (I know, its just a fish, but I felt so responsible for it!). I quickly scooped her out and put her in clean water while I cleaned out the tank, rinsed the rocks, cleaned the plastic plant and made sure that it would be better for Goldie. I then put Goldie back into the newly cleaned tank and said a little prayer that she would get better. Every now and then I would go to the tank and move it a little to make sure she was moving, and she would, but she still seemed sick. The next day I went to check on her and she was swimming around like she was a brand new fish!! I was so excited!!! She was moving her little fins and eating her food, and looked like she had recovered from her sickness. So now, I am the Beta life saver!

For New Years Eve, Kent and I went on a fun date. We went to dinner at this really nice Italian restaurant where I had this really good salmon with huckleberry sauce, butternut squash and orzo. Kent had this pasta that he seems to get wherever there is an Italian restaurant. It was so good! Then we went and saw Avatar! haha, I was totally against seeing this movie, but Kent really wanted to see it, so I thought, what the heck, I'll probably fall asleep half way through anyway, okay lets go. It was actually a fun movie to watch and I only fell asleep for the last 15 minutes of it. Give me a break, when you're a mom, and you have the chance to sit down in a quite, dark spot, you will fall alseep, I guarantee it, unless you are one super mom and then maybe you wont.

Kent was able to be home for the night before New Years Eve, New Years Eve, New Years Day, the day after and then he had to go back to academy. Tear. But this only means one more week closer to being done and we are very excited! I'm getting anxious to go visit La Grande and see some housing options for us out there. I've been to the Quiznos there and visited the university once a long time ago, but other then that, I can't really picture the area very well. We'll have to wait for the weather to get better though before we make our trek out that way to check things out, and so that will probably have to wait until February or March.

This was another thing I didn't really want to tell people, but somehow has gotten out (hmm, Kent?!) Yes, I am reading the Twilight Books. And, I just finished the 3rd one! And, I love them. There. I said it. And, I won an 18 month Edward Calendar at a white elephant gift exchange. Okay its out. And, I'm going to town tomorrow to purchase the 4th and final book. And, I'm sad there are only 4 books. What will I do when I have no more Twilight to read?!!?!?!?!?!? TWILIGHT, TWILIGHT!!!TWILIGHTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!

I sould like a 13 year old girl who has just been to a backstreet boys concert. Wait...I did go to a backstreet boys concert. Okay, thats out now also. And since I'm confessing, it was actually 3 backstreet boys concerts and 1 N'Sync Concert.

Back to Twilight.

I really have enjoyed these books and I have talked 2 other family members (of which will remain nameless unless they give me the okay to say their names Kent's mom and sister, oopss.)

I just want to know, (but really, please don't tell me until I have finished the 4th book) does Bella become a vampire and does she marry Edward? Apparently there are team Edward and team Jacob groups. I would have to say that if I had to pick a team to be a part of , I'd probably pick team Edward. I don't like Jacob to be honest. But I really was starting to become bothered with Bella in the middle to end part of the 3rd book. Seriously, she is leading Jacob on while she is in love with Edward. Excuse me, but its not okay to be holding hands and telling each other you love each other when she loves Edward and is supposedly engaged to be married to him! So I was getting a little annoyed with that. I just hope she sticks to the plan and marries Edward and becomes a vampire before its to late.

I'm also reading Jillian Michaels (one of the trainers from the Biggest Loser) "Master You Metabolism" which is so awesome!!! Processed foods are so scary and the more I'm learning about them, the more concerned I am for myself and my family! And I learned a scary thing about canned foods. You've heard of things being "BPA" free and things like that right? Well, I learned from her book that a lot of cans contain the BPA, which is like a certain plastic that lines the insides of some cans (she did say that Eden organics, has their cans that are BPA free, so look for those when you go to the store next). I'm also looking into switching from drinking soy milk to organic milk, after learning about excess soy in a diet. And since pretty much everything has soy in it now, I'm afraid I'm getting and my children are getting way more soy then we need. The book talks about how different things in your diet can mess up your body's hormones and how that can impact your health. I would really recommend reading this book! I've already known about whole grains and things like that, and I am a firm believer of staying away from Hydrogenized fats! Did you know that even if a label says "trans fat free" doesn't mean it is telling the truth?! Look at the ingredients. If it says hydrogenated oil or palm oil or whatever, it has trans fats in it! I guess the FDA or whoever that decides these things has a certain limit or level that is allowed to be in something that says trans fat free. So if it goes above that level then it has to say how many grams of trans fats, but if its below the allowed level then it can say trans fat free, which is a giant LIE! High Fructose Corn Syrup, don't even get me started on that! Look at labels, and you will see that everything has it in it! So we just need to be more aware and better shoppers! Our poor babies, I don't want to give them anything that would harm or potentially harm their little bodies!

I also learned about BHT. I think thats right. But if you go to your cupboard and look at a box of crackers or cereal or pretty much anything else you'll see at the bottom of the ingredients list , that it says BHT added to preserve freshness or something like that. Not good. Not good at all. I learned that Vitamin E is just as good at doing the same job, but for some reason we are using this harmful chemical instead. Probably because its cheaper. Why do good whole foods have to be more expensive? You'd think it would cost less? Doesn't make any sense to me. Buy organic when you can. Buy whole foods. None of this processed crap. And Jillian made a good point, you might be spending a bit more on food, but I like how she said that really in the end you won't be spending co-pays for chemotherapy or other treatments because you have some scary case of nastyness in your body. I want to live a long life, and diet and exercise are very important to me and I want to pass that on to my kids. I know some people who eat top raman for every meal of the day and get no excercise and I wonder the condition of their body. We only get one body people, why on earth would we not want to know what it is that we are putting into it? And we expect our bodies to do so many things, you'd think our diet and exercise would be top on our priorities list.

Rant, rant rant, but I feel very passionate about this. And I hope that if anybody reads this, that they might want to look into this too.

And its not just what we eat that affects us. Its how we live. The way we clean our homes, the things we put on our lawns outside, what we use in the shower, our makeup, pretty much everything. Its easy to get carried away and become scared, but its good to be informed. And that is what I'm doing.

If I could pass one thing on from this it would be to pick foods that have the least amount of ingredients. And get as much exercise as you can. Done.

Well I think thats it for now. Until next time, eat good food!

My little family

2009-11-13T21:30:00.000-08:00

These past 4 weeks have been a lot of fun, having Kent at home with us girls. We've been able to do some really fun things as a family and with just the two of us. Kent has to go back to academy on Sunday, and I'm a little sad :(

The next phase of OSP training is the 16 week basic academy training. This is where everybody who has to be trained in law enforcement will meet and train. Luckily he'll be able to come home every weekend, which will be nice.

It was such a blessing to be able to have Kent here for 4 weeks! I know that Kent sure got close to the guys at this office, and they have all been so great! Even though it would have been awesome to stay with this office, we are looking forward to the adventure that awaits us in La Grande! I've been busy looking at places online that we could live in over there, and its exciting! Although we wont be moving until the end of April of next year its fun to start looking and getting some ideas.

On a side note, Chloe now can pull herself up and stand while holding onto something. It really doesn't matter what it is, if it can hold her, then she's hanging off it! Add some background music while she's standing and you get a Chloe girl who likes to dance, its pretty cute! Its also fun to watch Eden and Chloe play together! We are having a bit of struggle with learning how to share, but I'm sure we'll get the hang of it soon!

Eden loves, and I mean LOVES, to play with blocks! These are her favorite toys right now and she likes to build towers non stop! She's also pretty into Lincoln Logs and we have fun playing these and building fun forts for Indians to live in.

As Thanksgiving approaches, I'm thinking about all the fun things I will get to make and bake! I just discovered this amazing roll recipe, that makes the best rolls ever, so I will be making these for a couple of dinners that we will be going to. This morning, Eden and I did a little Thanksgiving project. I tried to explain the Thanksgiving history to her as well as a 2 1/2 year old would understand, basic basic basic! For our project we made Indian Teepees. I used some small dessert paper plates and made them into cones, stapled them together, cut out a "door" for the Indians of course and then Eden used her color crayons to decorate the outside. We made 3 and they are now on the kitchen table next to some pumpkins. It looks very festive.

Last year Eden and I made a Thanksgiving headband for her to wear at Thanksgiving dinner. It was really cute, so we'll probably do that again and have Chloe wearing one too! For this I just took an old paper bag and cut out a strip that fit around Eden's head. Then I used different fall colored paper and cut out "leaves". Then I stapled the leaves to the headband (but only along the back part). Very easy and very cute!

I think we'll also do something with turkey hands, I'll post later on this!

If any of you have fun projects to do with little kids, pass them on, I always like to hear about more!

Well I'm off to finish my bread baking (yeah Bread Buddy!).

An "Exciting" Saturday

2009-10-28T15:06:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday was a very exciting day. Exciting as in almost scary, not really a "happy exciting" or "fun exciting", and in the end it turned into a "grateful" exciting. As many of you heard, two Oregon State troopers were hit in their car while parked along highway 84. Who were those troopers?? One of them was mine! Kent was on day 4 of his 4 weeks of on the job training here at home. Saturday afternoon while parked in the middle strip of highway 84, Kent and his trainer were working with the laser gun and trying to tag speeders. They were facing west and trying to get cars who were driving away from them. Because they were turned toward the west, they were unable to see a mini van heading straight for them, which ended up hitting them, luckily in the rear. The driver of the mini van fell asleep and hit Kent and the other trooper going highway speed. As soon as Kent and his trainer were hit and then realized they were okay, they both jumped out of the totaled car and ran over to help the people of the mini van. I know Heavenly Father was watching out for them big time, and there were just a few instances that really proved that was true!

Kent told me that a few minutes before they were hit, both his trainer and himself agreed that they should pull the car forward just a little bit so that they could be at a better angle to try and get speeders. Because they did this, Kent wasn't hit straight on by the other car!

Once they were hit, and they had just got out of their car to go and check on the other car, a lady who is a nurse who had just gotten off her shift, pulled over to help. Along with a man who was an EMT.

We all know the importance and power of prayer and I am so grateful to know that Heavenly Father does listen to our prayers and wants to help keep us safe!

Kent is doing great! He has a little bit of physical therapy he is doing and a few bumps and bruises, but other then that, he and his trainer were blessed. Thank goodness!

Yea for October!

2009-10-15T15:02:00.000-07:00

There are so many things that I am thankful for, like Fall time (whooo), my family, the pumpkin patch (we went last weekend)....and that Kent gets to come home for 4 weeks! Kent is still in the OSP academy, and will now be transitioning into his 4 weeks where he will be "shadowing" another OSP trooper. Usually I guess, they have recruits "working" those 4 weeks in the area where they will be working, however because we don't live in La Grande yet, and because he would have had no place to stay during that time, he gets to work here and we get to see him every day, yeahhhh!

We are also looking forward to his 3 days off, since he will be working 4 days a week. We are planning some fun family things to do during those days off, and we will also be going to check out La Grande and see what is in store for us out there.

Also, for those of you that haven't checked it out yet...www.binkyfairy911.com

A fun little business idea we've cooked up, so go and look when you have a free minute and then let me know what you all think!!!!!

Binkyfairy911.com

2009-10-03T12:20:00.000-07:00

Hi everybody!!

Kent is doing well at academy and is almost into his 3rd week there! This past week was defensive tactics and first responder training. Kent is sure learning some pretty neat things at the academy and its fun to get to talk to him each night and hear what happened for him during the day.

We are also excited to announce: Binkyfairy911.com

Kent and I have been working on this business venture for a while now and we are finally done with the website. Go and check out Binkyfairy911.com . We think it will be a great business and are just now working on getting the word out! Let me know what you think!!!!

Kent goes to academy!

2009-09-21T22:57:00.000-07:00

Hi everybody!!!

Looks as if more than a month has gone by with no new blog posts, so I figured the time was right! A whole lot of new changes have gone down around here, many of you I'm sure know, but for those of you who do not, here is whats happening:

We have moved from our cute little house back into Kenty's parents home ("Muzzy" & "Gwan-Cwad")

Kent is now an official recruit at the Oregon State Police Academy! He entered on Sunday the 20th of September and will graduate next May and then we are headed to La Grande.

Kent gets to call home (or so far he has) in the evenings for about 5-10 minutes. He shares how his time is going down there in Salem and he sounds really up beat and happy (well, at least he did tonight anyway, hehe) Its a pretty intense training program, just like a boot camp. I was very surprised to hear of how many former marines enter the Oregon State Police. Does anybody know how the training for the Marines adds up to the OSP? OSP academy sounds very intense, definitely something not just anybody can sign up for, ask Kent someday, he'll fill you in, ha!

We all went down to the Swearing in Ceremony, which was on Sunday. The guys had to be at the academy at 10am. Boy were they changed men when we saw them at 4pm that same day! They were marching and every turn and step had to be just right. There was a whole lot of "sir" this and "sir" that, and they sat so still during the entire program! One of the older troopers who was talking at the ceremony was cracking jokes and everybody in the audience was laughing and then you would look up at the guys sitting at attention on the stage and they didn't crack a smile once. Kent would occasionally move his eyes over to us and then quickly look back to looking forward, it was intense! They all had their hair buzzed very short and were wearing these black suits, which I'm sure were very hot, considering all the push ups they had to do in them!

They had each recruit come forward and their families could come up and the wives pinned their badge on them. That was pretty neat. I was surprised at how heavy the badge was! After that, they were official. Then they were able to visit for about 15 minutes. I felt bad for them knowing that as soon as the ceremony was over, they would be back to being yelled at and to other "fun" activities! They all looked exhausted when we saw them at the ceremony, and I'm sure it was a shock to them all! It would be for anybody really! It was for me just sitting there and seeing them like that! But I know Kent is loving every single minute of it! He's always said that he would love to do something like this, and now hes getting his chance!

Kent will be allowed to come home this weekend, and then will have to return again on Sunday evening. Then he will be gone for about 2 weeks, before he can have another weekend home. I'm happy to know that we can talk everyday and that helps. The girls and I have been busy here with things. I'm doing a little work for my dad, and I get to bring the girls with me. He just moved his office to his home, so while I'm working, the girls are napping. Its a great set up! I usually just do a few hours, and that is great, then we have the afternoon and on to do other things.

I have been running again! I'm running about 3 miles now, which is nothing to what I used to be able to do, but I'll get there again. I just have to take it slow. My knee is doing better, and I've actually been running on a treadmill here at the house, so that provides a little more cushion compared to the street (although, I prefer the street).

I'm going to be starting Eden in Toddler School. Actually I should say, I'm going to be teaching Eden toddler school. Sounds very official, but really, I've just created some lesson plans and we'll have fun learning a bunch of fun things! I'll post pictures of some of the things we do later on!

And lastly, I got my new phone! My poor old phone decided to stop working and so I went for a few weeks without a cell phone, and as crazy as this sounds, it was sort of nice! I was un able to be contacted! Sort of. Cell phones are great, but I sometimes feel like its attached to me all the time, and without out, I felt like I was on vacation. But it is nice to have back and I had a million messages waiting for me too! I still have my old phone number, so that hasn't changed and now you all can call me!

I will write more later on how Kent is doing and I hope to post some pictures of his ceremony in the next few days!

Goodbye Facebook

2009-08-17T09:37:00.001-07:00

Hi everybody! If you're a facebook user, you might have or might not have noticed that I'm no longer on anymore. I decided to quit facebook because I felt like I was spending too much time on there! I don't have good self control over things like that, so I decided to quit all together. I tried to limit my use, but I found myself checking it all the time. I've noticed that a lot of people are on facebook changing their profile "status" almost every hour! That is crazy! And I found this out because I was getting on multiple times during the day when I could be spending those times doing more productive things around here. So goodbye facebook. You all can keep in touch by our family blog, which I'm going to make private. And our email: Klearbon@live.com . This is our family email address, so we can all be reached there. Plus I'll be honest...I was tired of talking to people on facebook that I really didn't want to be in touch with anyway, haha! This is a very liberating feeling and I'm glad I did it. Facebook is not what life is all about, and I was starting to see how that could be the truth for a lot of people! Scary and sad. And I didn't like how facebook can "own" the pictures you post on your page, I didn't like that at all! Anyway, hope everybody can keep in touch!

State Trooper Arbon!!!

2009-08-04T11:05:00.000-07:00

Some exciting things are going down over here at our house, can you guess what they might be?? Well many of you know that Kent has applied to the Oregon State Police. This has been a lonnngggggg process, seriously, like a year or longer. Last Thursday we all drove down to Salem and visited our good friends, Sam and Becki Kelly while Kent was off to the biggest interview yet for the OSP. There were 80 applicants and they were only going to accept 20 for the first academy start date, which is at the end of September and then 19 more for January. Kent felt like the interview went well, and so we drove home and waited for "the call".

Kent took "the call" yesterday morning and was offered a spot in the 20 for the September start date, whooo!!!! We are very excited! He will do 6 months of academy down in Salem, and during that time, the girls and I will be bunking it with Kent's parents. It will be full on Muzzy time 24/7, get ready Eden and Chloe!!!

I guess during the first 4 weeks or so, Kent will gone 2 weeks, then allowed to come home a weekend, then gone another 2 weeks and then come home for another weekend. We won't see much of him, but it won't be forever and this has been a dream of his for a long long long time!

After academy, we will be moving to La Grande. We put eastern Oregon down as a choice, although no choices could be guaranteed. It was just where they had an opening, and so they want him out there.

Things are moving so fast and we will be moving in 3 weeks! Yikes! We are having a moving sale on Saturday to try and get rid of all the "extras" we don't need. We have so much stuff, I don 't know how we've obtained all that we have, but its time for it to GOOOOO! Its been hard, but I did go through the girls clothes and I'm parting with a ton, keeping a few items that were my favorites, but I figure that we're not planning on another baby for a while and I put Chloe in all of Eden's clothes, that if we have another girl, it might be time to get a few new things. But who knows, maybe we'll have a boy and then we'll have to get new things anyways?? But these are things we will not have to think about for a long time!

I'm sad that I will have to leave my garden :(

I have put so much time in to my garden and started everything from seed, I hope that I will be able to harvest a little more by the time we have to go, but whoever moves in will get a nice garden with a bunch of yummy organic vegetables, boooooo!!!!!!

We will be moving back to Hood River for only a short while, because Kent's parents are having a house built here in The Dalles and it will be ready to move into in a few months, so then we'll move back up to The Dalles, stay there until Kent completes his academy and then move again. We have moved so much, I'm pretty used to it by now, hopefully when we make our final move, we'll be there for a while before we have to move again!

Well thats about it for now, as far as news on my knee goes, I have started physical therapy and I got to run on the treadmil yesterday and it was great! It made me miss running but I soon felt the pain that I was having before I went to the doctor and physical therapy and it reminded me of why I was there, sad! But, the physical therapist doesn't think I have a torn miniscus! That is great news! So hopefully I'll get back to running very soon!

Our voyage to Utah

2009-08-02T13:30:00.000-07:00

About a week ago, our family and Kent's parents drove to Utah for a family reunion on Kent's side of the family. We left Wednesday night, drove to Ontario and spent the night. The next morning we got up and drove the rest of the way to our destination. We stayed at Kent's "Granny-nannies" house and it was fun. We had so much food! And the best part was the bag of M&M's on the counter...a very big bag of M&M's. I could never do that at my house, because I would eat them all. I'm glad we only stayed a few days because I was on my way to gaining 20pounds, hahaa, not really,but everytime I walked into the kitchen I would grab a handful of M&M's!

We were able to walk around Temple Square on Thursday evening, since Kent's grandparents live right up the street from it. It was beautiful and the weather was perfect, so we were able to take a few pictures. Eden saw a few brides and said, "Hello Princess" to one of them. The bride was nice and told Eden hi back, Eden thought that was pretty cool.

Friday was a busy day. It started off with Kent's mom and I taking a long walk through a neighborhood where all the homes looked the same. Then later in the day we all went to a park where we had the family reunion and dinner. And we all had pictures taken. We were supposed to wear denim and white, and I think those are good colors for everybody to wear. I think the pictures turned out great.

The dinner ended in a giant water fight, and It was hilarious to see Kent's mom getting down and dirty and pouring water (seriously pouring, not like a squirt gun or glass of water, but a big plastic tub of water) on one of Kent's uncles. I was on the side holding babies and trying to tell Eden that it was okay that one of Kent's uncles was chasing Kent's mom with a giant tub of water. Poor Eden didn't understand and started screaming, "MUZZZZYYYY" (what the grandkids call Kent's mom) and she started crying, thinking that her muzzy was being chased. Eden didn't like the water fight, but I think it was because she was tired and it was late. I thought it was the funniest thing ever.

Then later that night we all went over to one of Kent's aunt and uncles house and watched fireworks. It was Pioneer day (Utah is the only State to celebrate this and I thought it was awesome...Oregon needs a Pioneer Day). And since we were in Utah, we were able to set off some pretty intense fireworks! Kent loved it. So did his dad. You should have seen it. They placed a fire cracker under a plastic tub (lit) and then Kent's dad sat on top of the tub. It was funny!

Eden and Chloe were so tired that they slept through the ruckus. I was hoping for homemade ice cream since that was the rumor, sadly...there wasn't any..which is probably a good thing considering all the M&M's I had earlier! -Sorry Muzzy.

The next day was Saturday and we woke up and had a big Granny Nannie breakfast, complete with eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, this really good homemade strawberry jam that I could have just ate from the jar (and practically did). Granny Nannie is great, you just sit down and she drops pancakes after pancakes down in front of you...you do not go hungry at her house!!! Thanks Granny Nannie!!!!

After breakfast I just wanted to lay down, but nope, we were off to meet up with Kent's good friend Matt and his woman Courtney. They're getting married and its great. We met up with them at Thanksgiving Point, for any of you that know where that is, its so pretty! We walked around the gardens and I walked around this home decor store there and fell in love. As I was walking around, I thought, if I had a billion dollars, I would decorate my house with this stuff. So pretty much it was super expensive and I loved every piece and left feeling like I wanted everything in that store. I will never forget that store and someday when we are super rich and billions of dollars, I will go back.

We spent a few hours visiting with Matt and Courtney. They are getting married in January and they are super cute. Courtney is my height and I appreciated that..because of that,we are friends!

Later that day we were able to tour the newest Temple in Utah. Don't laugh, but when Kent told me the name I thought he said, "Okra" Temple. So all day I wondered why they would name a Temple after a vegetable. Maybe Okra grew around where they built I thought. Later I came to find out that it wasn't Okra. Oh well. When we went to the open house, we were first led into a tent that was air conditioned, thank goodness! We watched a short film on Temples and it was so wonderful. I wished that they would have sold or given copies of this so that I could give them to some people. It showed inside the Temple and explained about everything.

Next we were shuffled into the new Temple. Wow, whoever decorated the inside, can you please come to my house and do the same?! Seriously, I loved all the colors, the wood, the fabrics of the chairs and everything. I loved the artwork. It had a very modern, soft, contemporary look to it. I loved all the windows and the tiny stars in the glass. Good job!!!!

It was fun taking Eden through, since the next time she will be able to do this (unless we go to another Temple Open House) will be when she is much older. Chloe slept the entire time in the sling.

For those of you that have never been inside a Temple, you've gotta go to an Open House. A Temple Open House is when a newly built Temple has just been finished and it is open to ANYBODY! You don't have to be a Church member, you don't need a Temple Recommend, you just get to go through and see EVERY ROOM, you get to walk through and you get to sit inside a sealing room(where couples are married). I wished that my parents would have been with since they didn't get to come inside when Kent and I were married. They would have been able to see where we were. They even had a married couple talk about the ceremony and how important it is. So next time there is an Open House around here (and I hope there is) I want to take my family to see!!!

After the Temple, we all went to the "Golden Coral". All you Utah living peps know what I'm talking about. Its an all you can eat buffet. Wow, I don't think I had ever seen so much food in my life! I only had a salad and a slice of carrot cake and this other chocolate thing, but you could have had anything you wanted. I'm glad I only ate what I did, since family members of ours got sick later from the food.

After dinner we drove to Garland, Utah to stay the night with another aunt of Kent's. This aunt is cool because she has horses. And even though it was 10 at night, she was able to turn on the lights and we went horseback riding. It was sooo much fun! I have not riden a horse in forever, but remembered quickly what to do! My bum was so sore though afterwards, ouchie!!!!

We went to bed around midnight and woke up the next morning around 3:45am! Not much sleep but we were on the road again at 4am. I drove first since I was awake the most and let Kent sleep so that he'd be ready to take over in a few hours. I liked leaving at this time because it allowed the girls to keep sleeping and we were on our way home! We only stopped a few times on our way back,for feeding Chloe and letting Eden get some wiggles out. The girls did such a good job and we made sure we had plenty of "fun" snacks for Eden to munch on while we were on the road. Oh, she was also able to watch plenty of movies, thanks to the portable DVD player we borrowed from Muzzy and GranCrad.

We returned home around 4pm on Sunday and it was just as hot here as it was in Utah. I was glad to be home. Oh and I almost forgot...since we were caravanning with Kent's parents we both had a walkie-talkie so that we could talk back and forth to each other. To pass the time we played, "Would you rather". For those of you that don't know this game, you say, "Would you rather..." and give two options that a person has to pick from. These options should be things that you wouldn't want to do, but you have to pick one from the other. Like..

Would you rather be stuck on a desserted island with Michaeal Jackson or Celine Dion? Would you rather have Michael Jackson's nose or chin? Would you rather have Michael Jackson's face or voice? hehehe, see the theme here people? Poor Michael Jackson,but he was made fun of for miles upon miles of this road trip and we were histarically laughing at our answers. Because not only would you have to say which choice you picked, but you had to give an answer also. This game can be played anyway and doesn't have to be about Michael Jackson, but we thought it was funny.

If you have any good "Would you rathers" type them in the comments page of this blog, I need some good ones!!

Enjoy this pictures I posted, most are from when we walked around Temple Square and a few are from the family reunion.

Happy 3 Year Anniversary!!!!

2009-07-22T09:44:00.000-07:00

Today is an exciting day because it is our 3 year wedding anniversary! A lot has happened in the past 3 years and sometimes it feels like we've been married longer(in a good way, not a bad way). We have moved a bajillion times and now have 2 cute little girls. Could we pack anything more into those 3 years? Probably...but I think we've done great so far!

We decided to celebrate our anniversary last night, the 21st, because we are headed out of town this afternoon. So what did we do?? We decided for our anniversary gifts this year to each other, that we wanted them to be things we could go and do with each other. My gift to Kenty was tickets to the OmniMax theater at OMSI, where we will be going to watch an awesome movie about cliff jumpers and cool things like that-fun!

Kents gift to me was going to see "The Proposal", which we saw last night after a great dinner out. And the best part was that he was the only guy in a theater full of women, what a guy!

Then we went to Mikes. For those of you that don't know about Mikes, its a cute little ice cream shack place in Hood River. They have really good ice cream and its super popular, so during the summer time its always packed. I have decided that my favorite ice cream is peanut butter. Like vanilla ice cream mixed with peanut butter. Can you find that anywhere? If so, please let me know. The only other place I've had it is home, when Kent makes it. So I wanted some peanut butter ice cream at Mikes, and sure enough, they didn't have any.

But that's when I saw it...out of the corner of my eye...a tub of peanut butter sitting on their back counter. Then I got the idea. The girl asked me what I would like and I said, " you wouldn't be able to make a peanut butter shake/ice cream concoction for me, would you???" And she said, "of course". Then I saw tub number 2...looked like crushed pieces of chocolate. So then I said to the girl, "and I see you have some pieces of crushed up chocolate back there too...you wouldn't be able to add that as well would you?" And she said, "sure"

So in mid mix as she was making my special peanut butter and chocolate treat, I said, "and could you make it less liquidy and more thick, like a blizzard or something" and her response, "sure".

So I had a fabulous treat but I would have to say, I would get it without the chocolate next time. I think I might have enjoyed it a bit more without the chocolate (and come to find out, it was brownie pieces-lame. If you're going to showcase chocolate pieces, make them actual chocolate pieces, not brownie pieces, they got stuck in my straw as I was trying to drink my peanut butter ice cream, and that just got annoying, so no brownie pieces next time)

And after that, I was full! But I was also sad, because it was gone. And then I wished I had another one, but knew that would not be a good idea and I didn't even want to to think about the calories I just put down, which is why I will probably not have another one of those for another year. Good thing we live in The Dalles and are far enough way from Mikes that I just cant get into the car and get myself a peanut butter treat!

I also have news about my knee. I went to see an orthopedic lady here in The Dalles. They looked at my xrays and she thinks I have a medial meniscal tear-yikes! I am now signed up for 6 weeks of physical therapy and she thinks I could possibly heal on my own. But if not then they will have to do an MRI and possibly surgery! All from just running, can you believe this? And then once I'm healed, I'll resume my running because I love it. I know its hard on a body, but oh well, I love it. I have been swimming and that is great too. If you want a full body workout and you can't run, swim. Seriously, swimming is a full body workout. I get out of the pool after a workout and I'm tired! I've biked a bit, need to do more of it, but swimming has been my main workout as of now. But...Kent's parents brought me back a special Hawaiian workout DVD from Hawaii called, "Island Girl's Abs and Buns workout" heheh, so I might give that a try, and who knows, I might just learn a few Hula steps too.

We are off this week to a family reunion, and I will post pictures of this event when I return.

Yea to 3 years of marriage and yea to being married to my BFF!

Kent runs the race of his life!

2009-07-06T08:26:00.000-07:00

In the last post I had made mention of Kent running his race and how I'd write about that, but I forgot! So now I am!

Kent participated in a half iron man relay. For those of you that don't know what a half iron man relay is, well its half of an Iron Man! Kent, his dad and brother all had the different parts of the relay. It started off with Kent's dad doing the swimming part, followed by Kent's brother taking off on the 58 mile road bike race, then finished with Kent running the 13.1 mile half marathon race!

They did so great, and poor Kent, he had to run during the hottest part of the day, but he did great-like always!!! Good job KENTY!!!!!

After the race, Eden ran up to Kent and said-"I'm so proud of you!" heheh, it was cute.

Kent finished in 2 hrs 22 min (if you remember, I was 2 hr 28 min, we were almost the same!)

Kent is now training for the Aluminum Man triathlon here in The Dalles, which will be held in September. If any of you want to do it, come up!! You won't be sorry! You'll just be sorry you didn't do it, if you don't!!!

On a side note, we will be house sitting for Kent's parents this week since Kent's dad surprised Kent's mom with a trip to Hawaii! They will be celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary on July 7th (my birthday). I will post later on our adventures in Hood River for a week, and the fun things that we did. On another side note: Blueberries are ready to be picked-whooooo!!! So I think I might take the girls one day to pick some. We picked Strawberries the other day and made lots of freezer jam (with honey, not sugar-yea yea yea!) and I also dried some and made some yummy granola and added the dried strawberries and it was great. So I might dry some blueberries...well thats the plan anyway.

We might also visit the pool since its been so hot.

And another side note: Eden can count to 10 in spanish. I had no idea she could do this until one afternoon she started counting and I realized it was in spanish. I think this resulted in watching Dora the Explorer. Not that we sit and watch hours on end, but every now and then we'll pop it in and apparently Eden is learning something! This just proves that little kid's minds can pick up anything! So if you want your child to count in spanish, pop in Dora!

One more side note: I believe Chloe is close to 20 pounds! haha, its awesome. And...she slept in her crib last night, not her basket! Whoo! I think we're making progress here! Chloe has loved sleeping in her moses basket ever since we brought her home from the hospital. I had tried other times putting her in her crib at night and she would just cry cry cry. But not last night! And right now too (she's taking her morning nap in her crib as I write!) She was just getting too big for her basket, I was starting to believe that we might have to find a bigger basket, but this is a good sign that she will make the transfer more smoothly than I thought! Yea for Chloe and Yea for cribs and Yea for Chloe in her crib!

Well I'm charging the camera right now and will then transfer over pictures so that you all can see what we've been up to lately!

Done

Oh by the way, my birthday is coming up (July 7th) can you guess how old I will be???

I did it!! I ran my half Marathon!!!

2009-07-05T20:27:00.000-07:00

Whoooaaa, I knew it had been a while since I made my last post, but MAY?! Time for some updates!

I ran my first half marathon!!! My family and I went down to Sun River for the Pacific Crest Sports Festival Weekend. We rented a house with Kent's parents and we were one house over from our good friends the Taturas.

I had been training for this event ever since I could start working out after having Chloe. I've been running everyday or almost everyday and I love it. I actually love listening to my IPod and then that gives me the motivation to run, but usually I just want to start dancing, but I don't think that would look good, so I just run

The race was on a Saturday so Friday night we all had a big carbo loading dinner and it was great. The race was at 8am and I was glad about that since I'm used to running in the mornings and its not hot. (poor Kent, he had to run his in the hot weather, but more on him later)

There were about a million people in the race (not really, but it seriously seemed like it) and it was fun to see so many people doing the half!

For those of you that don't know, I think I might be suffering from (and I'm probably saying this wrong) IT Band problems. For all you runners out there and athletes I'm sure you know what I"m talking about. Not fun and pain in the knee, ouch. So this condition started about a week and a half before my race. Wasn't very excited about it since Kent just got over his IT Band problems and it took him 2, yes, 2 months!!! I was not ready to take it easy since I had a big race ahead and don't you start loosing your running abilities after about a week? (again I could be wrong about this too). So I just kept running. Well on race day after about mile 2, I started feeling a bit of pain in my right knee. But I kept running :) By mile 7 I was hurting but I kept running :) By mile 10 yes I was hurting, but...I kept running :) And I was over joyed with the fact that I have NEVER run a double digit!!! And I was doing it!!! This just proves that anybody can run...if I can run that far, ANYBODY can! And I also had these really good electrolyte chewy things I would pop every so often and they gave me super human powers and I jetted past everybody with super human speed...I wish, but they did keep me from cramping up.

So then I decided that couldn't just run. I wanted to make good time, and I was sooooo mad at myself because my stupid knee was acting up! This was the event I had been training for and I was not doing it like I had planned. Anyway, I began running and then would walk for 15 seconds. It actually hurt more to walk then run, and so I just kept pushing myself to run longer, and then when the pain was so unbarable (sp?) I would do the 15 second walk which hurt even more!!! My motivation at this point, finish and finish fast!!! Thanks be to IPods!!! IF I had no music I would have been stranded out by the horse stables and ewww...who wants to smell horses after running for so long?! not me!!! So I jetted past the horses and onto the finish and it was grand!!! As I ran past mile 11 then mile 12 and then mile13 it was so exciting and I think that really helped me too! I couldn't believe I was running that far! I love to run. I HATE getting into running shape. I feel like a beached whale running and that every inch of myself is jiggling, but once I get there, to the point where I can just go out and run for miles on end, I love it.

So I finished in 2 hrs 28min. I was hoping for better time, but I guess thats how it goes with a bum knee. So what am I doing now?? Paying for my hard work at the race. I have a hurt knee and a doctors appointment on the 9th of this month! I can get on a bike and that is what I plan on doing since you can still get a great workout and it transfers over to running...so I won't get out of running shape and I can still workout-phewww! And I also plan to pick up swimming, since....

I will be participating in a triathon in Setember. Actually...there is one in August so maybe I'll be better by then??? All I have to say for my fellow readers is that I love doing this. I wish that I had this passion back when I ran cross country in High School, but I guess thats how it goes. I love to be athletic so that I can eat lots of good things, ha! But actually I love knowing that I can do anything I set my mind to. I wanted to run a half marathon, trained for it and did it! I want to do a triathlon, training for it, will do it! Marathon next year?? Maybe. Actually I would like to do one, I just want to be over this IT Band junk.

So my advice to all of you. If you want to do something, just do it. Sign up for an event, and then you have to do it! Training is so much fun! I like to train by myself. Never thought that would be the case, but found out I do. I like to put my running shoes on, plug myself into my IPod and go run. And yes..I do have a few michael Jackson songs on there, but thats okay right? And the theme song to "Rocky" (you know the one..the one when he's running up the stairs..that one) and one or two fergy songs (hahah, I know you are probably laughing at me, but you know they have good beats) and that "boom boom pow" song...yep thats a good one too. Pretty much anything that doesn't have a bunch of bad words but that is super motivating is on my IPod.

So I love running and I'll let you all know whats going on with my knee. If any of you have had what I was talking about, please let me know how you got over it. And I am getting new shoes, that should help.

Okay I'm done.

A new car + One crazy dog man = one interesting night

2009-05-25T21:43:00.000-07:00

I know how I promised more pictures a while back, but you're going to have to wait even longer seeing how I can't find the camera charger-Yikes!! Anyway, I'll fill everyone in on what has been going on around here lately-

Well first off, as of tonight, we are no longer owners of our wonderful honda accord. We now have red 2002 Ford Windstar, if I'm saying it correctly. Yep...its a mini van. Ha haha. The only reason I'm laughing is because of all my friends who are totally against mini vans and have told me to not even go there. But really, what is so wrong with a mini van? We had one growing up and so did Kent and I thought it was great. We have so much more room now and I love the color-isn't that what is the most important really?

Besides our new but not new car, we have been busy getting our raised beds ready for planting! WHOOO! I get a little excited about gardening, but I am so happy that I get to have one! I started all my plants (except for the four tomato plants from Kent's mother) from seeds, and they have all come up and are ready to be transplanted to the bigger beds! We will have so many veggies, I am very happy about this!

So Kent's state police interview has been postponed until Aug-September time. This is okay. To make a long story short, instead of him possibly starting accademy in the fall, new class start time will be in January.

Chloe is now 4 months! She is the cutest big little baby I have ever seen! She is so happy all the time, unless she is hungry-heheehe! She actually has the new growl going on when she wants to eat and it starts out pretty cute and quite, but if you don't offer her food at that moment, the growl becomes serious business! I think she may be teething possibly. AND (are you ready for this...) she is a thumb sucker!!! I'm actually a bit proud of her for doing this! Although she still loves the bink, i've caught her sucking her thumb and it is so cute! She does the whole thumb in the mouth and pointer finger bent over her nose thing, and its cute! Yea for Chloe and her thumb!

Eden is Eden. She is a funny girl who likes to call us by our first name! So pretty much Kent and I have to call each other "mama" and "dada", its a bit funny, but it works. She is doing great in dance and I'm proud of her for learning to take her turn and sit on her little star sticker on the ground when she isn't taking her turn. I'm looking forward to her dance recital coming up in June and I know she'll look so cute in her dance costume! Apparently they are dancing to "I'm a little teapot" which I've seen (and I even know the moves too!) in class. She'll do great!

I know that I must be missing something, as I feel like I'm missing something as I'm writing this...hmm...

Oh well, tomorrow is another day!

Oh! Just remembered one thing-So there is this guy that lives here that rides a bike with his four dogs and a cat on it! No I"m not kidding, really, all of the five animals somehow balance on his bike and the cat is right there next to the dogs. One of the dogs even wears those easter bunny ears that kids can get from the dollar store. Well I was outside the car dealership today, just coming back from our car after changing Eden and he stops me on the sidewalk to talk. I try to be friendly at first and Eden wanted to see what was up with all the dogs on the bike plus one cat. But you know how some people can be really just weird and tricky when you talk to them? Like they are trying to confuse you and they almost talk in a riddle? I could not understand the guy and I was getting tired of doing the courtasy laughing, and really I just wanted to get back inside to Kent, but the guy kept on talking! Finally I looked at him and said "you're confusing me" and I started walking away!

I didn't want to be mean to the guy, but really I wasn't interested in what he was saying, I couldn't understand him! It was exhausting trying to understand him and he obviously thought he was funny, I didn't.

One example from the conversation: So he rides by me the first time asking me if I've seen a cat. At first I thought maybe he had lost a cat or was looking for someone els's cat. Then he rode by me the second time asking me the same question. However this time I saw the cat he was talking about...it was on his bike. See! Weird!

Okay that is it!

Finally some pictures already!

2009-05-14T15:18:00.000-07:00

Here is a family picture with Tinker the horse!

Here is Eden opening up one of her birthday presents from us. Can you guess what it is??? (Clifford the Big Red Dog Movie-whooo! "Clipperd" as Eden calls it

Here are some pictures from Eden's birthday party and with "Tinker" the horse! I also posted some pictures of the birthday cake that my mom and I made for Eden. I will post more later on what has been going on around here. One more quick thing- I am currently making a food blog and it will be up and running soon, so check back to see when its ready!

Happy Birthday to Eden!

2009-04-28T15:28:00.000-07:00

Eden turned 2 today!!! Happy Birthday to her, yea!!! Her whole birthday extravaganza started last Saturday with a friends/cousin birthday party. We had 5 little friends and a cousin over for fun on Saturday. The theme of the party was "gardening" so what did we do you might be asking yourself??? Well we painted little flower pots, we had a dirt cake with gummy worms (pictures soon to come, I still need to upload onto the computer), opened presents and played with toys! 2 year olds are funny, they don't really play together, but around each other. Or they take each other's toys and then cry! Ha ha! It was a fun time though and we decorated with balloons and flowers and it looked like a little garden party, so cute! The cake or shall I say pudding, was quite tasty, and if you want to know how to make it, look up "dirt cake" on google and you'll get a million and one recipes for this easy dessert!

Saturday was very busy. Besides having the birthday party we all went down to the parade here. Actually there were 2 parades! The first was the motorcycle parade where there were like 300-400 motorcycles! It was fun to watch because each rider had a stuffed animal strapped onto their bike to donate to the hospital. You want to know what was cool? Or what I thought was cool? Well as I watching the bikers go by I noticed that there were a TON of older women riding, and some on their own bikes, yea go biker women! And not only that, they were also decked out in some nice leather, oh yea for that!

The second parade I would like to name "the never ending parade" because it never ended. Actually it did, but it felt like it never would at the time! Okay not to be a parade downer, but it was COLD out and really, how many horses and cars do I need to see?! Eden loved it and I guess that was good, but yowzers it was cold! Its one thing when its just cold, but cold + wind = not a good thing. Luckily we had blankets and coats, but sometimes that is not enough! Luckily we live so close to downtown that we just walked. I love that part of living where we live. We live so close to everything. Like the other day I had a dentist appointment. I walked there and it was great. It was also 87 degrees out and I was sweating by the time I got to the office, but other than that It was great.

Monday evening we had Eden's family birthday party/dinner. And we had a special guest or shall I say, two special guests attend Eden's party. The first being "chop". Who is Chop? Chop is a lamb puppet that Kent's dad, "Gran-Crad" plays with Eden. Eden LOVES and I mean, LOVES Chop! Gran-Crad had Chop peer into the window when they arrived and I was upstairs and all I heard was Eden shriek, "CHOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPPPPP...." heheh, it was cute. The second special guest was Tinker. Tinker is a miniature horse. Yes a real horse came to our house. I should probably call it a pony. He was very cute! Muzzy set up the whole thing to have Tinker come over and give Eden a ride. Tinker pulled this fun little cart around the block a few times with Eden and Muzzy and Me and it was fun to ride down the street on a horse drawn cart! Secretly I was hoping that I would see someone I knew and that they would wish they were on the horse cart, but sadly...I saw no one! Oh well, maybe I'll get lucky enough to have a pony at my birthday, since I've never had one! Eden is so lucky!!! The rest of the night was fun. We had a yummy dinner AND finished it off with a care bear cake that my mom and I made and decorated together. There is a special meaning behind the care bear cake. See, when I turned 2 back in the day, my mom made me this care bear cake. Well she saved the cake mold and it somehow remained in the box with the cake mold and mold holder clips and directions and I had it. So I wanted to make it for Eden for her 2 year birthday. My mom has pictures of her making and decorating the cake when she was making it for me, and so she took pictures of me decorating it for Eden, it was actually pretty cool! I'll have to post pictures later. Sad thing though...I noticed that when I took the cake out of the mold that the head was a little shaky. I didn't think much about it. Well when it came time to cut the cake, we took a piece of the head off and there was a big air bubble inside! And right under the bubble some of the batter hadn't been cooked-ewwww! But that was okay, because then from the neck down it was solid cake, so we had that! And are you wondering what type of cake it was? FunFetti! You know, the white cake with the little candy pieces. My best friend Becki's favorite, and Eden picked it out also! I probably wouldn't suggest it for next year, although it was Eden's party and so she got to pick what she wanted, but I'm more of a chocolate person myself....(hint, hint)

I also made Eden a fun DVD slide show with fun music and pictures from over the past 2 years. We played it for everyone to watch and it had Elmo music and "Move it Move it "music from Madagascar, she loved it.

Well today is her official birthday and I really don't have anything planned! I'll probably make a fun dinner. This poor girl is going to think after today that we celebrate her birthday everyday! I wish that was the case for me, just kidding!

She got some fun presents. Here is what she got:

3 new baby ponies (Beth and Douglas's newest additions)
A fun xylophone (not sure if that is how you'd spell it, but I think its a good try)
2 Clifford movies ("Clipperd" as Eden would say it)
Some awesome wooden blocks (made by the famous Gran-Crad himself)
A cute barn lunch box (this is what the baby ponies arrived in)
A family zoo membership (thanks nama!)
A fun outdoor half sandbox/half water station stand with umbrella (thanks to popeye for that one!)

Pretty much Eden left the party with a ton of stuff. She's one lucky 2 year old! I'm really excited for the zoo membership! I can't wait to go and to go to zoo lights and the other fun zoo things that go on throughout the year. If anybody wants to go, let me know!!!!

So that was our past few days, and they went by so fast! Probably because of all that was going on, but parties are fun and I always have fun putting them together! So whats next for us???

Well my dad's birthday is coming up, so maybe we'll have a party for him? Maybe he'll get the care bear cake??? hahah, just kidding.

I will post pictures as soon as I can, right now they are on my camera. Maybe I'll even post some video if I can? I'll look into that. Until next time, hope everyone is having a fun day!

PS: I found out I get to have a real garden, yea for me!

Eden is almost TWO and Chloe just turned 3 months!

2009-04-24T09:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday on the 23rd, Chloe turned 3 months! Wow that went by fast! I hope that this isn't the case our entire lives and 30 years go by and I wonder where it all went! Chloe is doing great! I'm not sure how much she weighs, except for when we were at her 2 month well baby check up and she was 13 lb 15 oz! I'm so sure she weighs over 14 lbs now! She is so soft and cuddly and warm and fun to hold! She laughs and talks all the time and I think our biggest challenge right now is when I'm feeding her she wants to talk to me while she's eating! Chloe is now sleeping in her crib and sharing a room with Eden! I think they are enjoying both being in the room together, however there are many times I go in to get Eden up from the morning or a nap and she is standing right next to the crib and Chloe is wide awake and smiling...hmmm, do you think Chloe is waking up on her own or is she having help???

This weekend will be busy. It is the official "Cherry Festival" weekend here in The Dalles. There will be many festivities this weekend, and on Saturday Kent and his dad are going to be riding in the motorcycle parade. I think this is an event for the Hospital because each motorcycle will have a stuffed animal attached to their bike and then when they get to the end of the parade, they donate the stuffed animals to the hospital so that the hospital can then give them out to kids when they come in for different procedures. A while ago Eden had to go have an x-ray done for her hip (she has a "clicky" hip, but is fine) and she was pretty scared to lay on the bed without mama or dada next to her, so they gave her a scary red devil cow thingy, umm...we don't have it anymore, wonder where that thing went??? heheh.

There is also a parade after that parade and I think we are planning on staying around for that too. Kent has to work at a booth for work down where everything is going, but he won't be there for long. We are having a kid/friend birthday party for Eden later in the day. Theme: gardening. First it was going to be bear themed since she is having a care bear cake (from the same cake mold I had when I turned 2!), but gardening I thought would be more fun. We will painting flower pots to take home and each kid will get a packet of seeds to plant in their new pot. Then instead of a "cake" we will be having a "dirt cake", you know, the pudding and oreo cookie dessert with gummy worms? Thought that would go great with the theme! Wish us all luck with a bunch of little toddlers and paint, that could get really scary!

On Monday evening we will be having our family birthday party for Eden. Muzzy and Gran-Crad are suprising Eden with a miniture horse and cart (not to keep!), but it will come to our house and take her on a short ride, man, I never got a pony and cart at any of my birthdays, just a freaky clown I still think about!

We will be having the care bear cake Monday night along with a dinner that I'm still trying to decide on. And speaking of dinner, last night I made "Quinoa burgers". They turned out great! Well I should say, we had the burger but not the bun. I was too tired to make buns, because I had made bread that day. I guess we could have used the bread for the buns, but I was too tired to do that also. Why was I so tired? Besides running around taking care of small children all day, I went on a run and took a cardio kick boxing class. My friend and I were the only ones in the class that evening and so there were no excuses to not work our hardest. Actually it was pretty cool. We got one on one attention from the trainer, well worth the money spent. I felt like I was on the biggest loser or something and we worked with the kick boxing bags a ton, I was waisted afterwards!

Today we are going to story time at the library and then I'm taking the girls with me to the grocery store for birthday supplies. I'm still thinking about what to get Eden. I wanted to get her a sand box she could play in while I'm outside, but Kent thinks sand and stuff isn't a good idea. So I brought up the idea of a wagon. I had one when I was small and I think kids think its cool to ride in them, so we'll see. I still want the sand box.

Here are some pictures from over the past few weeks, some from Easter, some from last weekend when we went to Eugene to visit friends, and a few from just around here!

A visit from the Easter Bunny!

2009-04-13T12:03:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was Easter and we went to Hood River to spend the holiday weekend with family. We had so much fun, like always and again I am sad that it is over. I made the comment that the weekend should be week long and the week should be weekend long, but I don't think that will ever happen. Too bad.

We arrived Friday night and I made pizza for everybody and we watched this past weeks episode of 24! Whoo that is a good show! Then we went on to watch the final episode of Life and what did I do part way through? Fall asleep! Thats okay, Kent's parents have DVR and I was able to catch what I missed the next day-fewww!

On Saturday we went to a giant egg hunt at one of the parks in Hood River. It started at 11am and ended at 11:05! haha, it was so quick! There were a ton of kids there and they had the entire park sectioned off in different areas for different age groups and then in those areas they had a million plastic eggs scattered everywhere! Eden did great and filled up her basket really quick which is good because some older kids snuck into our area and started taking some of the eggs that were for the little kids when they should have just stayed in their own area ( i know, I'm taking this very seriously!)

Then after the egg hunt the girls took naps and Kent and I went to the store for easter bunny stuff! We were a little slow getting things this year, but all week long I kept thinking, what does Eden need? NOTHING! but I couldn't just not get her nothing, so we got her a Wonder Pets DVD with one of the wonder pet stuffed animals and then a few other small things. Have you seen Wonder Pets? Very cute show! Baby animals saving other baby animals pretty much! You should watch it.

Saturday evening we went to an Easter Cantata where they were singing a bunch of beautiful songs and showing a slide show of Christ during different parts of his life. A few different people read some lines that went along with the slide show and it was very good. I had a neat experience while sitting there listening and watching the pictures. At one point this little girl got up and was reading her lines about a little girl in one of the slides who was sitting at the feet of Jesus. As she was talking I thought, you know, Christ loves everybody but I think he has a special place in his heart for children. I kept thinking about this and thinking about when He comes again and how amazing it will be for everybody but what It will be like for all the little kids that actually see him! I know they swarm all around him and He won't mind and it will be a sweet thing to see. I thought about Eden and Chloe and what it would be like for them to hug Jesus. I'm so happy to know that Heavenly Father and Jesus know each and every one of us and that we did live with them before we came here and that we can live with them again. Its very comforting for me to know that, especially with everything that is going on in this world!

On Easter Sunday Eden and Chloe got up and found pieces of carrots and lettuce leading from their room all the way down the stairs and to their easter baskets! Eden thought it was pretty funny that the Easter Bunny had actually come! They had fun opening up all their treats and you're probably wondering what Chloe got from the bunny? Some new jammies! And a few toy things that make noise and can hang down from her car seat. What a nice bunny!

We went to church and that was nice and then went to visit Nama up at her farm to see her new baby chics and baby pigs. Then we drove back to Kent's parents and got ready for a yummy Easter dinner. And it was pretty darn yummy.

Then all the fun had to come to an end and we had to drive back home. Our home is fun, but we just had so much fun being together this past weekend!

Next weekend will be great. I am (with the girls) driving to Salem to see a good friend, actually two good friends and then Saturday morning I'm driving down to see some more good friends in Eugene. I'm excited to see them and spend the night and go to church with them at my old ward, how exciting! In between there I'll probably visit Target and I'm thinking of stopping at the Portland Temple on our way down to Salem on Friday to show Eden and Chloe and we can walk around for a little bit and stretch our legs, or maybe we'll do that Sunday when we are coming back home. Yep, I think we will do that Sunday, that is a nice Sunday sort of thing to do!

Eden had dance this morning and she, along with every other 2 year old in the class had a hard time listening this morning. I think its because of all the easter candy they had the day before, but what do I know?

A new change and Navy Seals

2009-04-09T10:01:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I decided that our home needed a change, so with some help, our downstairs is now totally redone! I like things to be open and I hate clutter, so with this new design I think things will feel less stressful for me! Really I want new furniture, but that isn't going to happen anytime soon, so must make due with what I have-sad. Oh well. I also decided to put Eden's book case in the down stairs closet so that I can close the door and lock the books away! May sound cruel, but sometimes she would just go over to her books, knock them all off the shelf and then walk away, leaving ME to pick them up! She wouldn't even sit down to read them, just knock them off! This new construction allows me to select a few books, bring them out, actually read them to her and then put them away while keeping the others still on the shelf! I am so proud of myself, hehehe.

The rocker/glider has now joined the downstairs living room sitting area again. For a while it was upstairs in our room, with the intention of being used to rock Chloe while I would feed her. Well, she pretty much spends most of her time downstairs with us, which totally defeats the purpose of having it up stairs to begin with, again I am so proud of myself.

Another change, the t.v. No we didn't change our t.v and heaven forbid we ever have to, unless its for a bigger one-ha! But the location has migrated across our living room and I like the set up compared to last time. Our dining room table has now left the kitchen and made its new home in the other end of the living room under the "dining room table light". Maybe we can lower it again now that a table is actually under it? We'll see.

I put Eden's little red wooden table in the kitchen with the thought that if she ever wants to color or paint it would be a good idea to have a hard cleanable floor underneath! I think she likes having her table in there and has been very neatly placing her cup on it while she is not using it, along with her daily morning bowl of kicks.

So that has been what has been going on around here and it is a big job! I hadn't planned on rearranging our entire downstairs, actually I wanted to bake cookies, but I am glad I did this instead.

On a side note, Kent and I rented this documentary from the library on Navy Seals. Holy Cow! That is one intense 5 or so months of doing nothing but hard work all day long! I think it's the second or third week they call, "hell week" where they are up from Sunday until the following Saturday, with like maybe an hour or two of sleep, if they are lucky! These guys can do anything, or are trained to do anything and it makes me thankful that there are guys in this country that want to do this to protect us! I know I couldn't do it, I don't want to do it! And I'm okay with that! I'm glad Kent doesn't either! It started out with 83 guys and now is down to like 18 guys so far I think! I think there is only room for 16 guys in this group to become Navy Seals and I'm sure its such a high held position, but what it takes to get there! Some guys were having to do 500 push-ups and sit-ups in one day! Ouch! They have to know everything about diving and they have to be okay about swimming in freezing cold water, and covering themselves totally in sand (well thats if they they make their commanders mad) but still, its crazy and I'm having fun watching it!

Prophet not Profit!

2009-04-07T15:35:00.001-07:00

I realized that when I was talking about the Prophet I wrote "Profit"! Oopps! I apologize for making that mistake and wanted to make it clear that I know the difference! hehe!

Weekend of Good Times & State Trooper Update!

2009-04-06T12:47:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we went to Hood River to see family. We stayed at Kent's parent's house which is always fun. We arrived Friday evening, had dinner then put the kids down for bed. When Ed and Chloe were sound asleep we busted out 24! We had been waiting all week to watch this latest episode and if you didn't know, both us and Kent's parents are HUGE fans of this show so we always have fun talking about what is going on and we will be in forever amazement of Jack Bauer and his amazing scare tactics-shots in the knee...we love it!!!

What would a weekend of staying at Kent's parent's home be without yummy food? It wouldn't be a weekend of staying at Kent's parents! We had lots and lots and lots of good things to eat like always and the famous brownies were there. Luckily the next day I worked out hard so eating a brownie or a small blizzard was okay. And yes I did eat a small blizzard. Kent and I went out on a date Saturday night, well sort of. I guess us being out alone without kids could be considered a date, right? We had planned on going to see Monsters vs. Aliens, the new animated movie which looks hilarious! However, feeding Chloe took longer than expected, so we missed it. But we decided to drive down to the movie theater and see if anything else was playing at 9:30 at night, which there wasn't, so we drove through Dairy Queen. Which brings me to my next exciting story...

Kent and I won the title of "last customers of the day" at Dairy Queen that night! We went through the drive through at 9:59pm and they actually thanked us for being the last customers! Because we got all excited about it, Kent asked if we won a special prize and we did! 2 chocolate dilly bars, ha! So we left with two small blizzards and two chocolate dilly bars (no we did not eat the dilly bars and actually we drove back really quick before heading out again to put them in Kent's parents freezer, where they still remain, however, they might not still be there next weekend when we go back). So we were pretty happy about our winning title. So then we drove to the movie store and ate our blizzards while walking around trying to find a movie. Finding a movie is one of the hardest things you can do. Unless you go in with a plan, you can easily spend a good hour walking around looking at all the movies that are mostly rated R! I can't believe how many movies are rated R! And since we don't watch R movies (unless its a war movie that really happened sometime in history, then Kent can justify that) but for the most part, there is a lack of good PG13 and below movies (if you know of some good ones let us know!)

So we ended up watching an old movie called "Evolution", some silly movie about aliens or something like that, actually I don't know a whole lot about it since I fell asleep, but I heard it was pretty silly!

Last weekend while Kent was busy doing some guy things, I took the girls up to my moms to see the two new little baby pigs that they bought to raise! Eden LOVED the pigs! and I'm pretty sure the pigs loved her! She tried to feed them some of their food, but they were just interested in walking around her and sniffing the ground. I think they noticed that Eden was taking too much of their food and spreading it on the ground, so they scurried over to see why she was taking all their food away. It was cute and of course I didn't have my camera, but my mom did, so she will forward on some pictures and I will post later.

On Sunday we watched General Conference and it was great. It is always nice to hear council from the General Authorities on how we can live our lives better. I think a lot of people were looking forward to this General Conference and hearing what the Profit had to say on what is going on in the world right now and how we can better prepare. I noticed however that there were not direct comments made on how we can deal with what is going on all around us, but that we just need to be prepared. If we are prepared then we shouldn't have to worry. Things like working to become debt free, food storage, reading our scriptures, things that seem simple are what we need to be doing. I know that the Profit would tell us things that we needed to hear, and he said that even though there are crazy things happening in the world and all around us, we shouldn't be afraid, but we should just be prepared. So I'm happy and I know that the Profit will lead and guide us in the direction that we need to go to be safe and happy and as long as we are doing what we are supposed to be doing, we'll be okay!

So it was a fun weekend and they are always sad when they come to an end. Just like vacations! We are going back next weekend though for Easter and another fun three days full of silliness! This will be a fun Easter for Eden especially since last year she really didn't understand the whole hunt for eggs thing. This year I'm sure she'll be ready especially when she finds out what is in those plastic eggs-candy! On Saturday night before Easter Sunday, we will be going to the Hood River Ward to listen to an Easter Cantata and watch a slide show of pictures of Christ. This will be a neat thing to go and listen and watch before Easter and help us to really put our thoughts to Christ and everything he went through during this time. I'm happy we'll be taking Eden and Chloe so that they will be able to feel the spirit of the event and know that Easter is a special day to celebrate Jesus and not just about a giant bunny and eating lots of chocolate!

And one more thing before I sign off. Update of Kent's state trooper job application: For those of you that didn't hear, we were both interviewed last week by a state trooper. The trooper came to our house and pretty much interviewed Kent and I about becoming a state trooper. It was pretty exciting to know that Kent has made it this far. So how do I feel about my husband becoming a possible trooper? I've been thinking about this a lot lately and at times I have mixed feelings about this possible job change. I'm excited for Kent because I know how badly he wants to work in law enforcement. I know he would do a fantastic job, he'd pretty much be the best trooper out there! However, the fear of him being hurt on the job or worse scares me. I know over time as he becomes more trained and I learn more about this position, I'm sure my fears will subside. I'm excited for him in this whole process of interviews and background checks and everything else that goes along with being selected to become a trooper! I will post more later on how this process is going, but as of right now, all of his references are being interviewed and I guess an email was sent out at the High School of where we graduated asking all faculty if they know anything about Kent Arbon and to respond with all information regarding him! Becoming a state trooper is serious business and they want to make sure they know EVERYTHING about the person good and bad (and not that Kent has any bad history), but this is a good thing, so that they don't just pull random guys off of the streets! Good Luck Kent!

French Bread, Chocolate Chip Cookies and Splenda

2009-04-03T09:53:00.000-07:00

Last night I taught a class at Church on how to make French Bread. This was the world famous "Muzzy French Bread" recipe, and it is so good! All day yesterday I was practicing making french bread at home, so that I would be ready for that night. I made french bread with rosemary and Parmesan, regular french bread and french bread rolls, pretty much our entire kitchen was taken over by french bread. I also learned that this recipe only calls for one rise in the bowl and if you let it rise twice you end up with a french bread Frisbee (oops). At least I know now that you can't do that! The rolls turned out great and they are so easy to make! It beats buying them from the store, since I think they taste way better than any store bought bread or roll anyway. And it costs way less also, which is great!

My friend Rosalie taught how to make whole wheat bread and it turned out fantastic also! So I can now say that there are two great whole wheat bread recipes I know of...1.)Bread Buddies Whole Wheat Recipe from the Jonas's and 2.) Whole Wheat recipe from the Ryan's. So excited to try the new recipe out, it looked pretty simple, although I've thought that about other things and they've turned out not so great afterward! I guess I'll just have to practice practice practice! I love making my own bread though for my family. It makes our house smell really good and there is something about making your own bread that makes you feel great!

I also learned that I want something from last night, and that is a wheat mill. Not one of those hand grinders, I'm talking about the nice, electrical wheat grinders that make awesome flour you can turn into awesome bread! Rosalie brought hers and it was soooo cool! Plus it makes making your own bread dirt cheap! She just buys the wheat berries from this natural foods store and then she turns around and grinds it up and it turns into the most beautiful flour I have ever seen! Flour in the stores is so expensive, like 4 or 5 something per 5 pounds, which then is it worth making your own bread in the end? She pointed out that if you do it that way, you are pretty much spending $3 something per loaf! Why not buy it then?? So I need to go and check out Cash and Carry, which I hear you can buy a 50 pound bag of whole wheat flour for cheap and then it makes your loafs about .90 some cents a piece, which is so much better!

So as you can see, I really love to make bread and I am always looking for new recipes. I have this binder I started years ago with recipes that I have collected for just about anything. I love to cook, but I think I love to bake even more! I have been searching for forever for a perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe. So I know of the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe, and that is again from the famous Muzzy. However, I just can't bring myself to use crisco with they hydrogenated fats it contains. Not that I'm planning on eatting cookies 24/7, but I do like to avoid those fats. So I was left to making apple sauce chocolate chip cookies and they are good, but lets face it, I want the soft, gooie, buttery tasting chocolate chip cookie...just without the fat! haha, I know that isn't possible, but I will keep searching!

I did find online at this natural food store, a vegetable shortning that doesn't contain hydrogenated fats! I almost jumped for joy...almost. So I think I will order that since I haven't seen it in the natural food section at Fred Meyer, and since The Dalles is lacking in natural food stores, this might be my only option. I know I could use butter for cookies and for some recipes that is good, but I try to avoid that also! I know I'm sounding crazy about how I like to bake my cookies, but I try to avoid animal fats also. I like to use natural fats as much as possible, but lets face it, the best chocolate chip cookie I have had was made from crisco, so going back to apple sauce cookies is sometimes not the greatest! But I do it anyway! I will order this new shortning and let you all know how it turns out. Which brings me to another thought...Splenda. Okay, so I got all excited to use Splenda in recipes that called for sugar. (I like to try and substitute healthier options for some of the ingredients...not always the best idea) anyway, so I tried using Splenda in a few different recipes and I don't know if I'm doing it wrong or what, but Splenda had ruined everyone of those recipes I was trying to make! I go and spend $8 something on a bag of Splenda that says you can use it in replacement for just about any recipe and then I do and it ruins my recipe! So I'm no longer using Splenda. I'm not a sugar hater, in fact I love sugar and that is why I wanted to try to use Splenda so that I could eat more things that taste like they have sugar but dont. There is just no getting around this, and it makes me sad. I guess I'll have to have regular sugar filled fat filled things in moderation....I hate moderation. Not really, but sometimes I want to have a million chocolate chip cookies but I can't, since this little voice pops into my head and reminds me of all the bad things in one single cookie! Then I think about all the exercise I'll have to do to burn just one cookie off, and sometimes then I don't even have one! Not that I hate exercise, I love it and try to do it every day, but sometimes I can't eat the cookie, which brings me back to one of my original thoughts, which is trying to find that perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe that is healthy! So if you know of any good ones please pass them on, and I'd be very happy!

My Husband and his addiction to WoW (world of War Craft)

2009-03-31T20:54:00.000-07:00

My husband has many loves, but his top two are 1.) Me and 2.) WoW and Rob. So I guess that would be 2.5 loves. Anyway, Kent and Rob like to play Wow with each other almost every night, sometimes they go a few days in between, but that is pushing it. Kent tells me that it is his way of relaxing after a busy day at work, but do I believe that??? Amber says that Rob says thats his way of relaxing also. So what is WoW for those of you that haven't been introduced to this way of life? WoW stands for World of Warcraft, this crazy weird online computer game that is worldwide. You create this warrior type person and then you roam far off lands and fight other warrior type people and make things and learn things and whoever came up with this concept is probably bringing in the big bucks right about now!

I guess there are different levels that you work up to, and depending on the level you are at, you can do things you couldn't do when you were in lower levels. So that is what WoW is. I am glad that Kent has Rob and that Rob has Kent. What would they do without each other? Probably roam the WoW world all alone, how sad :(

During this male bonding time, Amber and I call each other WoW widows since once our husbands start, they will keep playing until the wee hours (well in Rob's case anyway) of the morning, in Kent's case, just until around midnight. On these nights, I usually go to bed alone and sometimes that is okay, because then I have the bed all to myself and can lay diagonally accross the bed - ah the simple pleasures.

My love for roasted Vegetables!

2009-03-31T20:42:00.000-07:00

I have a new love and that is of roasted vegetables. I was first introduced to this method a few weeks ago when we had dinner over at our friends-"The Ryans" aka Westenskows. Anyway, Rosalie made roasted carrots and broccoli and it was fabulous! I loved it at first bite. And so now all I do is roast vegetables and eat them all to myself, sometimes I share with Kent, if he's lucky! This is how you do it and some of my favorites that I roast-

Take a bunch and I mean BUNCH of veggies that you like (because when they roast, they shrink a bit and so what you thought would be a bunch really isn't all that much!) some vegetables that I like to do this to are-

Broccoli, Carrots, Peppers, Mushrooms (ohh these are one of the best actually), edemame (soy beans), squash, cauliflower, asperigus (sp?) and those are just a few, but you can pretty much roast anything

Then you take some fat free cooking spray and you coat a roasting pan or baking pan (anything that can go into the oven) and you then place the chopped vegetables into the pan and spray them over with the cooking spray and toss them around until they are well coated. Then you take some garlic salt and sprinkle over vegetables. Place the pan in a 375 degree oven for around 30 min, but check often because they can cook pretty quickly. Then you pull them out of the oven and enjoy the yummy roasted vegetables all to yourself or share if you feel like it! And if you want, let me know how you liked them, funny as this may sound, but its almost a treat to me to have this! I love them!!!!

Eden starts Dance!

2009-03-31T08:45:00.000-07:00

I will post pictures later of Eden and her tutu, but for now I just wanted to tell everybody that Eden has started dance class! Yesterday was her first day of dance and I wasn't sure how it would go. Either she would love it or hate it and she LOVED it! I guess I could have guessed she would, since she is always dancing at home! I had to go out and sit with her on the mat for a little while since she just didn't want to sit when the other girls and teacher were. She wanted to be up and dancing in front of the huge studio mirrors, so I was in charge of helping her with warm up and stretching! They had so much fun in class and did some fun tumbling exercises and then the tap shoes were pulled out! They all marched around the dance studio to "the ants go marching..." and she loved it, since she's never tried tap shoes before! At the end of class they got to put fairy wings on and dance around the room with scarves, and she loved that too! Eden was measured for her costume for the dance recital! I am SOOO excited for this! The costumes are so cute and I know it will be so much fun to watch her and her class! She just goes to dance once a week on Monday mornings and I know we'll have fun doing this together. As for Chloe, she just sleeps the time away, and I can't wait until she is old enough to dance too!

Weekend of FUN: 8K Run-Biggest loser-Blessing!

2009-03-30T14:06:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was so much fun! On Saturday morning, I participated in my first "real" race since before being pregnant and having Chloe! It was called the "Harvest Run" and was put on by The Dalles Cross Country team, probably as a fundraiser of sorts. I ran in the 8K, so pretty much 5 miles. I should actually say, I ran/walked in the 8K! I'm getting better though, I've been trying to run now everyday along with doing some p90X dvds! I'm motivated to get back to my prepregnancy state, I'm on my way, and after I do my half marathon at the end of June, my mom is taking me shopping in Portland for new clothes to celebrate my getting back to normal size!

Yes, you read right, I am signed up for a HALF MARATHON! I believe that is 13.2 miles of fun! (thats what I keep telling myself!). Last year we went with some friends down to Sun River for this fun athletic weekend, (I'm forgetting the name of the event) but there were triathlons, and marathons and half marathons and 5ks and all sorts of events you could sign up for. I did the 5K last year pushing Eden in the stroller and since I was pregnant and feeling sick lots that is all I wanted to do. But now I'm ready to go back and win the half marathon, just kidding. But I am ready to start training and it is great motivation along with watching Biggest Loser every week, to get back to my normal size!

I love Biggest Loser! I think it might be one of my favorite shows, funny hu? It is so motivating to me and I love the trainer tips they give during the commercials! And if you've been watching, they talked about "fiber one" granola bars, and they are so good! Go buy a box now! I actually went to Costco and did, ha! They offer 35% of your daily fiber needs and fiber is great, because your body needs it and because it fills you up and keeps you fuller longer! Another tip, chew sugar free gum between meals, then you are busy chewing and might forget you are hungry and if you want something sweet, that could calm your sugar craving! Plus, who wants to put something into their mouth when it tastes like winter fresh flavor??? Not me! And DRINK WATER! That fills you up, and is great for you! So this biggest loser is helping me, ha ha, well we'll see about that actually, but I do love watching it, and I think Kent and I are having a biggest loser finale party! We have some friends who are into it so we will celebrate together!

Enough Biggest Loser for now. On Sunday we also celebrated the blessing of Chloe! She is now 9 weeks old! Time is flying by and she is such a good baby! Kent had a few of his buddies from Hood River and his dad and a buddy from The Dalles stand in the blessing circle. After Sacrament meeting we all came back and had a brunch at our house, and that is when I realized that it was fast Sunday-oops! Hopefully everybody can find time to fast another day and I'm grateful for the sacrafice they made so that they could come and celebrate with us!

Tribute to Tony Horton

2009-03-24T21:41:00.000-07:00

If you couldn't guess what this post was about from the title, then you must have never heard of P90X before! For those of you that could, then you will all agree that Tony does deserve a tribute (we love you Tony)

Anyway,

P90X is this crazy 90 day workout program, where you have a bunch of DVD's you do at home in your free time. Each DVD lasts on average about an hour and ranges from crazy plyometrics (jump training) to doing workouts that involve pull ups to a million push ups. There is this yoga x dvd that lasts an hour and a half, yep, I don't do that one. But I do like the cardio x work out and the ab ripper and core synergystics. You want to know more? Then order the program!

So, I have been doing the workouts now for a little over 4 weeks. They are great! I get sore each time and I love it! It is the reason I can now run the distances I can run! It will get you into great shape, however I have a long time until that happens for me, but I'm hopefull!

So why does my family and Kent's family love Tony? Not because of his bulging biceps, his perfect smile or because he can do a million and one push ups in 30 seconds, but because of his famous words of encouragement. "Fifer is Fighting fer" "Call out your soup" "Drink your water people!" or "do your best and forget the rest" and "Bobbys doggin it"...to really appreciate these, you need to buy the program!

We love to work out to this program but we really love to quote Tony (sounds a little weird, I know,but it makes working out enjoyable). So here's to Tony!

Here WE Are!

2009-03-24T21:22:00.001-07:00

Well, we finally decided that we needed to have a family blog! Seems like EVERYBODY else and their families have one, so we needed one also. We're new to this blogging world, but are excited to post things about us for you all to read!

So what's new with us? Well, we just got back from a week long vacation to Eagle Crest. For those of you that don't know what or where Eagle Crest is, I will explain...Eagle Crest is down in Redmond, here in Oregon. It is mainly a golfers paradise resort, but since we don't golf, we found other fun things to occupy our time.

Besides staying in an awesome condo, all to ourselves, we had an awesome hot tub, all to ourselves, right outside our back door! This house was three bedroom, two bath, complete with pretty much everything else you would need...just like home (sigh). When we weren't hot tubbing it up, we visited the famous "Smith Rock". Since we had kids with us, and our friends had kids (total of 3 two-year olds + a five-year old) we stayed in the look out area and admired the rock climbers and beautiful scenery!

We also visited Bend and went to an outlet mall (which might I add, was a little disappointing, seeing how when I think of outlet malls, I think of Lincoln City or Woodburn, and this was NOTHING like those!) Anyway, we had fun walking around for a short while.

We also visited a fun park, where Eden was able to watch some ducks and swans, and thought it was pretty funny when the ducks quacked!

Eagle Crest also has some great athletic centers, so we took Eden and our friend's kids to the children's pool, and then my friend and I were able to go to the gym. I know this might come accross as bragging, however I am quite proud to say that while at the gym, I ran for a total of 30 min on the tredmill and ran 2.2 miles! Now, for some of you this might be a no big deal sort of thing, but for me it is big! Since being pregnant and having Chloe, this was the first time I did this and I was very proud! (Thanks p90X!)

Kent's parents were also able to come down Friday night and we had fun eating chocolate cake, chocolate cookies, dinner and playing spite and mallace! When the kids went down, the four of us enjoyed the hot tub-so fun!

Leaving vacations are always sad! Sometimes you are ready to get back to your normal life, but other times its just not that way! I wasn't ready to leave the cute little house we had for a week and have Kent go back to work...but I guess we need money, so Kent had to go back to work :( But after a week of screaming kids (screaming in a good way) and staying up really late and getting up really early, I guess I was ready to get back to normal life! Go to Eagle Crest, it's way fun!