And just like that...

she's off.
No running along side of her while she learns her balance.
No holding onto the seat in the awkward bend over run.
No stopping in the middle of the road watching her ride off into the sunset.

Nope.

Not this girl.
Not the stubborn, independet, free spirit that is Brooklyn.
I wasn't even there for the "first time" without training wheels.
She was at the neighbors and hopped onto the bike and rode it around in circles in the driveway.
Janine asked her...."Brooklyn, do your mom and dad know you can ride a bike without training wheels?"
Brooklyn said...."Nope! I haven't told them yet. I'm just practicing."
Stinker!

The look on her face is enough.

I don't know how to break it to her that...unfortunately,
the deep freeze is coming soon, and she's going to have to
learn all over again in the spring.

So...I'm not going to tell her. I'm just going to get her outside

every second that we can.

Gotta help her learn how to use her brakes!

Brooklyn's Dance Recital

She is getting so BIG!

Is she really old enough to be wearing make-up?

She looked so cute tonight for her dance recital.

She did such a good job too!

Purple is her FAVORITE color, so she was EXTREMLY excited about this outfit!

Her cousin Lauren is in the same class and they were both so excited to go tonight!

She had lots of family there to support her!

Grandma Travis, Allison and Ashley...

Grandpa Travis was there too, but he had to leave.

Uncle Kelly and Aunt Roxanne and Cousin Sheridan came all the way from South Jordan!

(yep, she's SPOILED!)

Daddy and his Princess!

And of course, her BIGGEST fans!

(notice Uncle Kelly is in this one too!)

I am really proud of her and she did such a good job!

I'll get the video up as soon as I can!

Graduation Day

Is she really this old?

I can't believe it.

She is still just a little baby in my eyes.

I can't believe how big she is.

How much she has learned

How much she observes

How much she remembers

and how much she knows!

She can be a handful at times, but she is so funny and cute!

These are her partners in crime.

Kael and cousin Gavin.

They would walk to school together, and

they would play together.

This is Braden...this is the friend that Brooklyn would

talk the most about. It was always, "I got to hold Braden's hand today"

or it was "Gavin got to hold Braden's hand today and I didn't!"

It was fun, and they played so cute together!

This is Bryce. He was always the one that Brooklyn would play with at recess.

They would just take off and play like they had been planning something all day.

Brooklyn and Ms. Margaret.

She was such a good teacher.

She was from England and had an accent and the kids just loved it.

She really did a good job, I know because she taught Brooklyn!

Her diploma! So it's real!

Well, kinda....it does read

Brooklyn Davis.

So, the curse continues.....

it really is hard to spell Davies!

What the Hail???

I love TULIPS.

Absolutely love them!

When we first moved in, I planted over 300 in my yard.

They were AWESOME the first year they came up.

The next year, MOST of them had died?!?

I was so bummed...and then I thought about planting more that fall,

and I didn't, because I had Brooklyn.

Then the next fall, Brian planted a few more.

They were ok, but I knew I wanted more.

We kinda slacked the following year, because I had Brison.

BUT, last fall, Brian planted a bunch more.

(not sure how many)

But I was loving my yard and all the tulips!

I went around on Monday taking pictures of the flowers...

I realize these aren't tulips...sorry.

But they are pretty don't ya think?

The LONE pink tulip in our bag of Red, Yellow and Red/Yellow tulips!

This is my favorite, when they are closed like this!

Brian was so excited about his yard, and the way the flowers were looking

that on sunday, he invited his parents over for Wednesday

for dinner so they could see all his hard work.

I was busily preparing dinner and playing with my nieces

when this happened!

That 3 minute hail storm has single-handedly

DESTROYED

ALL

MY

TULIPS!

His parents still came up for dinner,

and they walked around accessing the damage!

It's a good thing I still have a patch in the back yard

that hasn't begun to bloom yet.

It's so not fair!

HI

Just a little about our month....

Have you ever seen a girl that is 44 inches tall ride a 12 inch bike?

NO....?

Well, you won't see it around here either!

I decided to get Brooklyn a new bike...

ESPECIALLY since she has TOTALLY outgrown her other one.

She is a little intimidated by this new one.

I totally skipped over the 16 inch and got the 18 inch one.

She needed it....

The other one is SO SMALL for her now.

But it will be great for Brison next year...or by the end of this summer....maybe.

We'll just have to spray paint it blue or something...

gotta get rid of the pink!

She was so excited for her helmet too!

It's also that time of year for Brian a.k.a. "green thumb" to get to work

growing his massive flower garden.

We (oh who am I kidding...)

HE decided to buy seeds at $1.00 a package for like 50 seeds

rather than $4.99 for 4 plants....he's so frugal!

Speaking of frugal:

Guess how much all this cost me!

If you guess $2.23 in cash with a $5.00 gift card left over....you are

CORRECT!

I decided at the first of the year that I was going to try and use coupons to my advantage.

Gotta figure out a way to save money and build up our food storage...

besides, in case you haven't noticed...we are in the middle of a recession!

Anyway...with lots of patience and web surfing...I was able to score all this stuff!

Just an example:

The razors were on sale for $7.00 and if you bought 2 you got a $5.00 gift card to Target.

I then had 2/$4.00 coupons that I used towards the razors which made them

$6.00 for 2...and then with the gift cards...they were $.50 cents each!

I had $20.00 in Target gift cards from previous perscription filling incentives...

so it was a great deal!

The site that I love to "stalk" is

www.hip2save.com

She does a great job of updating ALL DAY LONG

(how does she do it?)

and listing all the good deals.

It has taken about 2/3 months for my coupons to stack up enough to get these deals

and I get 5 papers every sunday...but with the amount of money I saved on just this trip...

it paid for the monthly subscription.

Anyway...if you have any other questions about that, you can sure ask!

Oh....and remember the naked bum?....

Well,

It's covered now.

He's done.

He's trained.

He's not had more than 5 accidents.

He's such a cute kid!

and he's SO obsessed with CARS!

What have I created?

What's going on at our house....

Haven't been blogging lately..just seems like there is a lot going on here.
Working on trying to get this guy

potty trained.
It's sure a bummer of a job.
It also seems like the kids have been sick for the last 3 weeks.
Brooklyn still has a cough that just WON'T.GO.AWAY!

And...my brother Derek and his wife Jennie just had another baby.
She is just the cutest thing ever!
Hallie Jane.
I'm excited to be able to hold her and cuddle and ignore my own kids
because they don't let me hold them and cuddle them anymore.
Then...when the baby has had enough of me...
i'll just give her back to mom and dad...
because that's what happens when it's not YOUR baby!

Everything else here is fine.
Just trying to figure out how to
budget money better,
get more organized...as always...
still working on my chore chart for the kids,
and work on building our food storage.
Hope all is well with you guys!

Valentine's Day...family style

It's hard to celebrate Valentine's Day

when you have 2 little kids.

It's even harder when you really don't want to pay a babysitter

to go out and spend even more money on dinner AND a movie...

when you have spent WAYYYYY too much money on flowers.

BESIDES

we don't really worry about doing any of those things in our house.

We have found that we have just as much fun cooking dinner at home

as we would having a night out.

It's usually too busy and crowded at restaurants anyway!

So, this year, Brian was in charge.

He made steak, wrapped in bacon...

garlic mashed potatoes,

asparagus

and garlic cheese rolls.

(yep, that's a lot of garlic!)

The kids got a delicious serving of

MAC AND CHEESE

and for their dessert.....

popsicles.

Our dessert....

creme bruele!

Brian makes the best creme bruele....

and it's my ABSOLUTE favorite EVER!!!

After dinner, the kids went down stairs with us

and were showing off with their jungle gym acrobatics!

Those kids can JUMP!!!

the cutest little 4 eyes around!

I have the opportunity once a month to "assist" in Brooklyn's preschool class.
I guess volunteer is the correct word.
I like to call it "spying"
I just get to play with the kids and watch Brooklyn...
I like to see how she interacts with other kids..it's fun!
Anyhooo...the 2nd time I was there...
The school nurse (I think) came in and did an eye test on all the kids.
Brooklyn didn't pass.
The nurse said, "Let's do it again in a minute..maybe when she's not so distracted."
Yeah right, I thought...that child is the poster child for A.D.D.!
So, when she was done with all the other kids, she took Brooklyn out in the hall and tried again.
She was the nicest lady...trying so hard to get her to tell her what was on the cards.
We were in a seperate class room, one that wasn't occupied at the time.
I felt so bad for her, she just really couldn't see the cards!
I told Brooklyn to walk forward and stop once she could read the cards...
so she did. She stoped and read 2 of the 4 and the asked me if she could move forward again.
I knew I had let her watch too much T.V.!
I felt so bad.
So, at the beginning of the year..once the new insurance kicked in... off to the Dr. we went!

Look at her in this pictures. Her body kinda just looks stiff and scared.
I really wish they had eye clinics that were geared towards little kids,
kinda like a pediatric dentist office or something.
This Dr., you could tell, just hadn't been around kids for a LONG time and
had NO idea how to talk to them.
He stuck this machine in front of her and just said..
"What was is this pointing?"
He didn't really explain the E to her or anything.
I tried to cut in where I thought I could without being an 'annoying' parent.
He dialated her eyes and said he got a pretty good reading of what her prescription should be.
Then we went out and looked for frames.
The girl was SO excited.
We tried some on...and hurried and put them back on the shelf...
WHO THE HECK CHARGES $250.00 FOR KIDS FRAMES!!
We ended up finding some that she liked...and that were in my price range.

This is her in the store...(notice the sticker is still on the plastic lense?)
She put them on and said "Mom, i'm all better now! I can see great!"
Yeah, right!
We waited our week for the "real" glasses to come in...
She put them on and carried her case around ALL afternoon.
She would keep saying..."Oh, they are dirty. I have to clean them."
and she would...about every 5 minutes!
I think Brison bent the frames on day 2!
We will see how long this lasts...so far so good!
I think she's ADORABLE!

Oh, did I mention that while we were at the Dr's office,
I decided to update my prescription.
Now we are twinners!

A new phone & some OLD photos!

So, I got a new phone this week.
Because ... well, you know.
I don't ever want to get to the point where I say
"I can't keep up with all the new technology"
because then I would feel old.
So, anyway...
in getting the new phone, I in turn get to put away the old one.
I don't know about you, but it's sad when you lose all the pictures and videos that you have on your *old* phone.
So, I transfered them to a memory stick and put them on my computer!
There are some DOOZIES!


Brooklyn was so excited about her bike, she couldn't wait to ride it....outside!
A new outfit I got for her...i'm pretty sure I was sending the picture to Allison to make sure it was cute!

When she falls asleep in the car like this, Brian ALWAYS sings...."wo wo wo, she's a lady!"

The princess on her way to grandma and grandpas for halloween...2008

And the goggles....oh for the love!

Apparently, all that I ever take of the Gus-ster is when he is in the car....

that or I have some of him naked on the toilet...man, I should have put those ones on here!

Don't you just feel bad for them when they fall asleep?

I mean, really, how comfortable could it be!

The kids just absolutely LOVE to be in the "way far back!"

You can't tell by the look on his face, but he is EXCITED!

Now, these last 2 are just WAY TOO CUTE! He was such a cute baby!...

I know he's not a BABY in these, but compared to what he is now, he was a baby in these!

Little cute stinker!

Ok....ok!

You know you are a slacker when you have a friend/neighbor that is telling you to update your blog.

I did so good, update all my December activities in January.

And now it's been 2 weeks and nothing.

So much for keeping on track with things.

I just feel so OVERWHELMED right now!

I am a sunday school teacher for the 16-17 year olds...

and this year it is the Old Testiment.

HELLO!

I struggle teaching already, but I just feel like I don't know this stuff anyway...

so it seems like I am studying harder than EVER before.

When I was in Young Womens I only had to teach every OTHER week.

I need a partner...

oh wait, I have Brian.

He loves to teach, and is more than happy to do it for me.

I think i'll have him as a guest teacher once a month.

PHEW!

Glad I blogged about that to get that problem solved.

I think I can handle 3 lessons a month!

OK, next *I'm so overwhelmed* moment...

...my dessert blog!

Some of you may know, and some may not,

but I started a dessert blog.

www.grandmasdesserts.blogspot.com

I have really enjoyed doing this.

It's been fun and challenging at the same time.

I started it to try and make some extra money...

because it is possible to do.

I'm almost there!

HOWEVER, ever since we went to Arizona

I've kinda been in a rutt!

I had 2 weeks worth of posts saved up

and right now...I have NONE!

I don't even have one to post tomorrow.

I'm in the process of having a new design for my blog made specifically to the way I want it!

AND

I feel like i'm running out of dessert recipes!

So, I think I need to take a week off, to relax, calm down, bake, get caught up, get the design up and running, and find some new recipes.

OK, that's been decided!

NOW, onto the NEXT *i'm so overwhelmed* moment

This one is my own fault

(like the other ones haven't been!)

I ordered Becky Higgins new scrapbook,

PROJECT LIFE.

The idea is to take a picture every day for a year and put it in this *predesigned* scrapbook.

It's a FABULOUS idea!

I'm 20 days into it and have 20 days worth of pictures!

I can't help but think to myself....

OH.MY.GOSH!

I still have 11 months and 10 days to go!

Work is crazy, they are offering some *over-authorized* time that I would love to take them up on.

We refinanced our mortgage...with the lower interest rate came the struggle with my 2nd mortgage company approving our subordination....and making us lose our good rate we were locked into.

Dance on monday morning,

Preschool on monday and wednesday afternoon.

Brison's not napping during the day and we just moved him to a toddler bed.

Trying to get the kids to bed earlier....

and getting them UN-addicted to the tv!

dishes to be done...

meals to plan...

shopping to do...

house to clean...

closets to organize....

toys to get rid of....

CALGON!!!

If I don't show up to work or church, or answer the phone...please, don't come looking for me!

I'll be at the FUNNY FARM!

Juice anyone?

What do you do when you have 2 cases of oranges?
Besides make orange bubble loaf bread..which I did,
YOU JUICE THEM!
The kids were struggling with their "black tuesday" blues so..
I decided to put their muscles to work!

We first started with just one juicer

but that just wasn't going to work for us.

So, we went and borrowed my mom's.

Then, things started hopping after that!

Brian was busy on one...

Brooklyn was going to town on the other one!

Brison was there for comedic relief!

Also...he was there to make sure that we were safety conscious!
HELLO!
I've got the camera...Brian was supposed to be watching him!

We did really good...got 7 quarts!
Not too shabby!
When we were done, Brooklyn asked if we could go to Arizona and get more.
Yes, yes we can.
Next year though.
I wish we could go now.....sigh!