Summer happenings...

These are just a few things we have been up to:

 Mormon night at Dodger's Stadium.  The kids had so much fun and I'm so glad we took them.  Then Dodger's were embarrassing, but the kids didn't care.  They loved all the things that were going on: the calliope playing, the crowd cheering and doing the wave, the beach balls being hit around and the fire works afterwards.  We had a great time.  And Alex Boye even sang during the 7th inning stretch!

 Jeremy at his "Avenger's" 36th birthday party! I can't believe he is 36!  We played volleyball ate BBQed taquitos and nachos and then played some almost full contact Ulitmate Frisbee.  It was a great evening!

                                               Cozette helping decorate the awning.

                                                Our homemade root beer...

 Jeremy has a "mad crush" on Thor.  Something about the hair and all the muscles.  I like Cpt. America. :)

 Heating up the charcoal for the taquitos.  This worked really well!

Wyatt doing a very thorough job of vacuuming under his bed.  I was very impressed!

Apparently Scotty was really tired after the dodger game that he fell asleep on the couch the next day watching TV.

Mother's Day

This years Mother's Day was great.  It helps when you try not to have expectations.  Jeremy made me a yummy breakfast in the morning, complete with fresh squeezed orange juice!  He then made two chocolate cakes that were delicious that we took over to my parents for dinner. He is a great chef!  It was nice to have my kids be happy and to be happy myself.  I'm so thankful for Jeremy for taking good care of me and my sweet kids.  They are so great, most of the time... :) I love being a mom and I hope that I will continue to get better at it everyday!  I've always wanted to be a mom! I just hope and pray that I don't ruin my kids.  I want to build them up, love them, and show them that love!

A new addition

I've been meaning to post these pictures awhile ago with our new trampoline.  After the boys kept taking the cushions off our couch and jumping on them, stacking them up the stairs to bounce down the stairs and hopefully not bash their heads into the banister or the now bare couch (our living room is small), I thought, hmmm, I better look around for some kind of trampoline for these boys.  After doing a little research and having limited space and funds, I found this 6.5 foot trampoline on craigslist here in town!  It was great!  Only a foot and a half off the ground, too.  We measured it out, made the phone call and went over on a Tuesday night to get it.  It was from a family with five, going on six kids, not LDS, can you believe it?  They had a little boy with some sensory issues and I have to say I felt pretty bad buying his trampoline from them.  They were about to move into a bigger house, but smaller yard and didn't have room for it.  So now we have this great trampoline in our little backyard!  The kids love it.  If they have time before school, they jump, after school, they jump, in their PJs, they jump.  It's great!

Almost summer!!

A friend of ours gave us this surfboard awhile back, and since Memorial Day was coming up, we decided to finally fix it and use it on Memorial Day!  It was a fun project for Jerm and I to do together.  I love working on things with him and learning new things together.  Unfortunately, we didn't get to use it on Memorial Day since the beach we ended up going to didn't allow surfing.  Ah well.  Now it's ready to go for when school gets out!

 Scotty helping sand down some of the extra resin.  He was very helpful!

 Our little chickens, Chloe and Daisy, are about one month old now.  It's amazing how quickly they loose all of their soft downy feather for their adult ones.

 The end of the board had a big split in it, so we filled it with resin, clamped it down and when that dried, put fiber glass around it and more resin.  Boy, did our garage stink!

 Beautiful Atalie before her dance recital.  She did wonderful and even got to do a back bend in it!

 Beautiful Cozette! She loves to dance as well.  I love that they have been able to do this together.

Such good girls! I love them both so much and don't know what I would do without them! They are such great helpers to me.  They help with their brothers, too and love playing with younger kids.  Thank you girls, for being so terrific!
Wyatt danced Hip hop last night, too, but in the rush of getting him there on time, I didn't get a picture of him! He did awesome and loves to dance!

George the Caterpillar

A couple of weeks ago, we were helping weed at my parents house and Hans and Wyatt found this cool looking black caterpillar, with yellow and white stripes on it.  Wyatt and I decided we wanted to bring it home for a pet and watch it metomorphosize.    We have not been disappointed.  George had a really yummy diet of milkweed and some other plant that he was eating when we found him.  He started to hang upside down for a day and then the next thing we knew, literally within an hour, he was in his cocoon!  It was May 9 in the afternoon.  In the first picture, his cocoon is bright green and his skin is all bunched up at the top.  We've had caterpillars before, but this one was different.  He was bright green for about one and a half weeks, then this morning, it turned black.  When Wyatt, Scotty and I were leaving for swimming lessons, we looked in there, and there was George! Out in his full beautiful glory!!  We don't have a butterfly pavilion and the bug catcher he was in was not tall enough or wide enough to let him stretch his wings.  After looking around the kitchen for something, we decided my Pampered Chef juice mixer/pitcher thing would have to do.  I opened up the bug catcher and let him walk on my hand, to put him gently in his new home!! This is such a cool thing to do as a family! I highly recommend it to anyone.    We'll keep him in there for a couple of days and then let him go outside.  WE LOVE BUTTERFLYS!!!!

Our Ward Spotlighted us!

Our ward is taking turns every week to spotlight two families.  Ours hasn't "run" in the program yet, but will soon.  This is what I wrote in response to some questions they asked us.   Enjoy!

Jeremy’s : favorite outdoor activity would be to ride his dirt bike on some beautiful, mountainous trail, dodging bushes, creeks and big rocks.  His favorite dessert is ice cream, most flavors.  When he grows up, he wants to be a professional dirt bike racer!

Ditte: loves to garden, read, exercise in most forms, especially swimming, surfing, running or dancing.  Her favorite sound is that of her children laughing and giggling with their daddy.  If she had half an hour to herself, she would read a good book in a sunny spot.

Cozette (11): would rather ride her bike then walk, she loves any songs she can dance to.  She often gets mistaken for her cousin at school and she wants to be a doctor when she grows up.  Her favorite meal is macaroni and cheese (yes, the box kind…)

Atalie (9): loves to jump on our trampoline and doing back bends.  Her favorite meal is her mom’s homemade pizza.  She loves animals, but was a little afraid of our chickens at first.  She can’t stand vacuuming her room.  She loves to read late into the night.

Wyatt(6 ½ ):  loves riding his dirt bike and he wants to be a professional racer like his daddy His favorite meal is spaghetti and he loves ice cream.  He loves to do head stands in our living room and break dancing, and jumping on his bed.  His favorite heroes are Ulimate Spiderman and Captain Moroni.

Scotty (3 ½):  loves helping his mommy in the kitchen with anything, especially eating cookie dough.  He loves to read books and jump on our trampoline.  When he gets bigger, he wants to go on a roller coaster at Disneyland.  His favorite food is pizza and chicken!

An almost 100 year old man...

Tuesday, May 8, was my grandfather, or Bedstefar's birthday.  He turned 98!  Wyatt and the other kids are excited for him to be so old and hope that he lives to be 100!  He is an amazing man.  Our family has the privilege of feeding both my grandparents, my Bedstemor is 94, every Saturday night.  We are a noisy bunch, I know they love to have the kids over and give them treats and stuff.  We all went up there on Tuesday night to wish him a happy birthday.  It was so nice to be with them despite the fact that their little house is about 98 degrees all the time, they forget a lot of things, you have to repeat yourself several times per conversation because they either didn't hear what you said or they forgot you already said it.  I usually have to ask them a number of times to "say that one more time.  You said it in Danish.."  And then my Bedstemor will tell me I need to learn Danish!  They truly are wonderful examples of living a righteous life.  Just last year, my Bedstefar was driving and would drive them to church every Sunday!  Thankfully neither of them have licenses anymore, so the roads are a little safer....
  Some other interesting facts about my grandparents are: when they were a young married couple with I think two small girls, they hid guns and other things for the underground during World War two.  They immigrated to the United States in 1951 after joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints so that they could be sealed together as a family in one of God's temples.  There were no temples in Europe at the time.  They packed up their four kids, two steamer trunks and fifty dollars and away they came.  My grandfather, who has been on the seas since he was 14, got sea sick, that's how rough the water was.  He even held my dad for most of the trip across the Atlantic since he could barely walk on land by himself.
  I could go on and on about them, but I'll have to do it in segments.  A couple of weeks ago, my Bedstemor fell and broke her hip.  My aunt Gayle called my sister and I up to help her pick her up off the ground after she fell.  As soon as we moved her, I knew her hip was broken by the way she was moaning and grabbing at her hip.  As I left, I cried, thinking that that was it for my Bedstemor.  Statistics are not good for old people who have broken hips.  They usually don't recover well and are bed ridden.  Well, I'm happy to say that she is trying her best to get better and is even at home with her sweetheart.  He missed her so much while she was in the hospital and would forget so many more things without her being there.  It is so sweet to her him tell her how beautiful she is looking when I would take her to get her hair done every other week.  Another wonderful privilege I've had.  I'm so grateful I get the chance to see them on a regular basis and learn how to better myself through their giving example.