What a week!

The kids had spring break for the week of April 14-18 and I am still recovering. We didn't go anywhere exciting or anything, so I had to think of some fun things for everyone to do. I am so lucky to have my friend Audrey or I swear I would spend my life in my house doing nothing. Not that I am opposed to going out and doing things, but I am not good at coming up with stuff and getting it all set up. So here is the break down of the week, pictures included.
Actually our week started with celebrating Clara's Birthday. It is hard to know what to do for something like that. It is a hard day, but it also is something that brings some peace. So we took flowers, pinwheels, and cake to the cemetery. I have the absolutely sweetest friends. One friend wrote me a sweet note, one friend sent flowers, a couple of friends just gave me a hug and told me they were thinking about me. It is strange to think that other people care enough about me to think about Clara's Birthday. My Mom did something really neat and gave us a couple of children's books that teach good morals and values and tied it into Clara's birthday by saying if we try to do these things and live our lives more Christlike every day we will be able to live with Clara again. I thought that is a neat tradition to do. I also am going to take a little dress and blanket to the hospital for them to give to someone else who is in the same type of situation we were.
This is Jake and Emma looking at the books at the cemetery for Clara's Birthday.

Monday: THE ZOO!!!
What a great day. It was hot, but so much fun. A bunch of us and our kids went to the school. If my friends weren't all so fun 17 wild kids would make me crazy. It was great because my friend Rachel who I don't get to see nearly enough met us there with her kids. Emma and her daughter Katelyn were great friends, so it was fun to see that when they got together it was like not a day had passed. It made for a long, tiring, hot day but well worth our time.
Here is a picture of a bunch of the kids taking a break on the rock ledge.

Tuesday/Wednesday: Grandma and Grandpa McGuires
We spent a couple of days at my parents. My kids had a ball. My Dad has a Playstation 3, I know he is hilarious, so needless to say Jake was in video game heaven. Also, my sister Nat and her husband Jeff have moved in with my parents so we got to see them. We played, watched movies and saw Ju and Brack, and Bob, Erica, and Brody. It was great. We went to a little farm and saw some sheep, ducklings and chicks. It was a fun trip.
Jake petting one of the baby chicks.

Thursday: Jumpin' Jacks!
Did my kids love this place or what. No, I didn't take pictures. There was no way to keep up with them long enough to catch them on film. They ran and played so hard that they were absolutely sweating by the time I said it was time to go.

Friday: We went to the park and had lunch with some friends. I love doing things like this for the fact that the kids are entertained and I can actually sit and talk with my friends. We have to periodically stop talking and chase down a child who has snuck a cell phone or snacks or whatever, but overall it is such a great thing. I am so glad that our weather is getting good enough to go to the park more often.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did...

I just got some pictures that my sister Nat took on the cruise. I just had to laugh when I saw this picture. Some of you may think that there is some editing done, but I say to you 'nay'. This is my husband at his finest. THAT'S A KEEPER!!!

11 Years!

Being the worst blogger on earth I of course neglected blogging about my Anniversary. Its true, I have in fact been married 11 years. It is really strange because in some ways it doesn't seem like 11 years could have possibly passed since I married my sweetheart. At the same time I can hardly remember my world without him in it. I truly am married to such a wonderful man. We have been through a lot together, and I am so grateful for every day I have had with him. He helps me to strive to be a better person. He is such a great father and husband. He is so smart and kind. He is always looking for ways to help others. I am just so lucky to have such a wonderful man.
Now that I have blathered on about how wonderful Nate is I have to tell about our incredibly romantic anniversary. During family home evening on Monday nights we always review the calendar to see what we have going on in the coming week. At family home evening on March 31 we went over the calendar as usual. On Tuesday I called Nate at work and our conversation went something like this:

Me: "Nate when we went over the calendar did you realize we completely forgot to mention that it is our Anniversary on Thursday?"
Nate: "No, I hadn't noticed, but you are right it is our Anniversary on Thursday."
Me: "Well do you want to do something to celebrate?"
Nate: "We are going to dinner for Craig's (a friend of ours) Birthday on Friday, so I don't really want to go to dinner on Thursday too." (Nate would much rather eat dinner at home that I cook, I am not that great a cook, but he is homebody)
Me: "Yeah, I don't care if we go out either. Should we do the gifts thing?"
Nate: "I don't have anything I really need right now. Do you?"
Me: "I was going to get a magazine rack. We could pick out a magazine rack this weekend and say it was for our Anniversary."
Nate: "That sounds good."
Me: "This is kind of sad for an Anniversary. We aren't going out and we aren't really doing gifts. Have we been married so long that we've become boring?"
Nate: "No, I would like to call it comfortable. We are comfortable."
So, although we did nothing exciting Nate bought me some beautiful roses and we picked out a real humdinger of a magazine rack.
Regardless of how exciting, or not exciting, as the case may be our Anniversary gave me a chance to think about how happy I am I married Nate.

Snapshot

My friend Kari, aka "Disco Mom" does these entries she has titled snapshot. I think it is a really great idea, so here goes my first snapshot. Now, keep in mind I was a statistics major, not an English major so clever, interesting writing is not my forte. (and I don't know how to put a little accent over the e in forte).

The other day in the car...

Jake: When did you have Peter?

Me: I had him on May 14th.

Jake: No, I mean when was he BORN?

Me: Well, he was born on May 14th really.

Jake: Wow, thats awesome that you had him on his birthday.

Me: Yeah, I am pretty amazing.

And for everyone wondering if I explained to him how birthdays work, the answer is no. I just left him thinking his Mom was, in his own words, awesome.
Here is one of my favorite pictures of Jake from the cruise.

Vote for Emma!

You may have seen the link to Haylee Bean Photography on my blog. Well, Haylee is looking for a child between the ages of 5 and 10 to photograph for her new website. I entered Emma in the contest she is having and Emma is one of the 7 finalists. The way the winner will be chosen is by votes. The picture I have posted here is the picture that I submitted. So I am asking everyone to go to Haylee's website by clicking here and vote for Emma. She is number 7. Thanks for all your help! We are really excited about this.

4 Birthdays and a Cruise...

It just doesn't have the same ring to it as 4 Weddings and A Funeral, but that is basically what has taken up the last month of my life. Oh yeah, that and Christmas. So basically we have just had one big party at the Swenson household. We also squished a trip to Boise in there, so needless to say we are just going non stop in the Swenson home.
First was my birthday. Birthdays just don't have the same excitement they used to. I'm sure its not because I am getting old, right. If it weren't for the kids I would probably just get an extra Diet Coke that day and call it good. Then we had Christmas which was absolutely GREAT! I just love Christmas with kids. I am not going to post all the pictures, but here is a link to some more if you are interested. Then we headed to Boise. We went the same time as Nate's sister Natalie, which of course made it a blast for me. Nate gets babysitting duty too often when Nat and I get together because we just have so many things we want to do. We really should live closer to each other because we would always be playing. It helps that our kids are basically the exact same ages too. So, I really enjoyed our trip to Boise too. We celebrated Nate's Birthday in Boise, I guess. He isn't really a birthday guy either so we did as much celebrating as he lets us. It is on New Year's Eve, so I imagine it has always been hard to feel like it was "your special day". As you can clearly see from the picture I was a little slow on taking the shot, so I made him re-inact blowing out the candles. Yeah, he thinks he's hilarious.

Next was Jake's Birthday. We weren't planning on a party, but for some reason he thought we were, so at the very last minute we threw together a Star Wars party. He loved it. It really was fun. We made lightsabers for all the kids and played games with them. It really was fun, I just would like to have planned better.

Then, Emma's Birthday! Emma had a family/friends birthday. She got to choose where to go for dinner and she chose "the divers' place" which translated means the Mayan. So, we thought we would get an early dinner and then get home and have everyone over for cake and ice cream. We did not plan the Jazz game into our schedule. So we had to postpone cake and ice cream until the next day. She didn't seem to mind though. We had a great time at both the Mayan and home for cake. Kid's birthdays are so much fun. Kids just love having a day dedicated to them, and I love spoiling them that day.

Last, but definately not least we went on our first cruise! It was a Mexican Riviera Cruise and it was great, for the most part. Here is just a taste of some of the fun we had. I will cover the cruise in detail in my next post because it was as Emma says "a doosy". Overall we had a great time though. We stopped in Acapulco, Zihuatanejo, Puerto Vallarta, and Cabo San Lucas. The weather was beautiful and we saw some pretty amazing places. More to come though on that cruise.
Since he is the only one without a birthday in the 3 weeks that surround Christmas and New Years I am just going to post a pic of Peter because he is getting so big and he is so darn cute! I love this boy.

Halloween

I absolutely love Halloween with kids! They are so excited to get all dressed up and go trick-or-treating. I love thinking about what each of my kids will dress up as. It is all so fun! I start thinking about it sometime in August usually. So, for the unveiling, albeit a little after the fact, of my kids' Halloween costumes, in no particular order.... I give you
SPONGEBOB!

MY LITTLE "SCARY" WITCH!

OUR RED HOT CHILE PEPPER!

They were all so cute that day. I just loved it. It was one of those times I wish I could have stopped time and just enjoyed the day forever. Jake perfected his Spongebob laugh and kept running around saying, "I'm ready, I'm ready." I know only a select few will actually understand that, but it was pretty funny. Emma was very insistent that she was not a "cute" witch, but a very "scary" witch. She came up with all the make-up on her own. That was what made her so "scary." Pete, well he just sat on my lap in his pepper costume and smiled at everyone that came by to see us.
Our neighborhood does this great thing where we all trick-or-treat on one street. The city closes the street for us (yes, I live in small town, USA) and we all set up chairs, tables, some very ambitious people bring decorations and games and we just do all the trick-or-treating together there. There is always cider and hot cocoa and everyone has a ball. It was especially fun this year because the weather was so great. I know there are a lot of people who do the trunk-or-treat thing, but I think this everyone out walking around together is just, well, better. So, there. Anyway I hope you enjoy the pictures of my adorable Halloween kidos and I hope everyone had as great a holiday as we did. There is also a follow-up post coming soon about my obsession with Emma's costumes. It is a must read if I do say so myself. Mainly because I have some great pictures.