Happy Birthday Indiana!!

For those of you who don't know, our son's name has now changed to Indiana Jones and must be addressed as such. Needless to say, we have a huge Indiana Jones fan right now and to top it off, he just turned 6!!! I can't believe we have a 6 year old already. It doesn't seem like it was that long ago that we had him.

We decided that this year would be a good time to let him have a real birthday party with friends and if you hadn't guessed already, the theme of the party was Indiana Jones. Parker was ecstatic to be having the party and it seemed to consume our lives for the few weeks before. Finally the day of the great event came and luckily he had school the morning of the party so at least there was something to keep his mind occupied for a little while. However, they had a little celebration in his kindergarten class and when I picked him up he was determined he was now 6 even thought his actual birthday wasn't until the next day. His teacher gave him a birthday hat and pencil and he seemed shocked that everyone kept telling him "Happy Birthday". It was really cute to see how excited he was.

While he was at school Madi and I decorated his birthday cake and by the time he got home I think Madi was more excited to tell him about than he was to see. However once he did see it he told me he just wanted to stand there and stare at it all day. Unfortunately the cake didn't hold his attention for quite that long and we finally had to set the timer for 3 and a half hours just so he would stop asking how soon his party would be.

Finally the time for the party arrived and the festivities began. To start out with, I had made some Indiana Jones bags for each child and once they arrived, they were all able to color their bags while we waited for everyone to get there.

Madi and Parker's decorated bags.

Next we went on a treasure hunt and the first step of the treasure hunt was to eat Monkey Brains. The kids all laughed and thought this was a treat and then I pulled out the brains. I had them raise their hands if they wanted to try a taste and about 4 of them did, until I actually put them on a plate and gave it to them, then they changed their minds.

I know these are rather large Monkey Brains, but you should have seen the size of the Monkey.

Next we went on a walk through our backyard and trees looking for another clue. This clue showed us that we would be chased by a rolling boulder. So they all took turns running down the hill as the boulder chased them. Joshua, Stockton, Caroline, Jason, Madi and Alex

Parker, Ewan, Madi and Annie running from the boulder.

Caroline

Caleb, Alex, Garrett and Jason

Once they escaped the rolling boulder, their next challenge was to jump over the snake pit. Parker and Madi are demonstrating below.

Luckily the snake pit was cleared by all the kids and the final stop in the treasure hunt was to dig through a pile of sawdust to find the crystal skull and other fun prizes.

Finally it was time to eat pizza and open presents and then we had dirt cups for dessert. The kids seemed to have a lot of fun and it was fun to see how excited all of them were to give their gifts. They all seemed to think that the gift they brought was the most awesome. Very cute and thank you to everyone, Parker has a great bunch of friends.

Caroline, Jason, Caleb, Ewan, Stockton, Parker, Madi, Annie, Garrett, Alex and Joshua

Saturday was Parker's actual burthday and becuase of the weather seemed to be a little uneventful. Lynn took him to breakfast and then Lynn worked on the driveway and I took the kids grocery shopping. We were going to go golfing because that is what Parker wanted to do, but the weather didn't seem to cooperate long enough so we decided to go golfing another day and then Burke and Amie came over that night with their kids to have dinner.

We gave Parker a couple sets of Indiana Jones Legos, some books and he got a Rocket Bubble Gum machine from Madi. He woke up crying at 5:30 AM on the day of his birthday and I went running into his room to see what was wrong. He said "I can't sleep, I try to sleep and then I just keep waking up because I want to play with my Legos and I can't stop thinking about them." Christmas is going to be a lot of fun this year. Sunday was finally the last day of his whole birthday celebration. Karen and Kim and Kevin and Candace all came over and we had dinner, cake and ice cream over at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Here he is with all of the gifts he received for his birthday, including the hat he got from kindergarten. His birthday was a lot of fun and I can't believe how much he has enjoyed building with the Legos. One day he spent about 3 hours straight building and he only quit because we said we were going on a walk.

Gotta Love The Office!!

I absolutely love watching The Office and here is a link to a video of some of my favorite clips. I have been laughing outloud to myself. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7PHL4HXm1o

Inspirational Thought

I recently read the book "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch and as some of you know, I wasn't too impressed or as impressed as I thought I would be with Randy's message in that book. I didn't find it as awe-inspiring as I had hoped it would be. Then I recently received an e-mail from a friend with this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snAjZ8mfoYw and the message struck me like a ton of bricks that this is the so called "inspiration" I was looking for. It is a powerful message and one I should probably listen to every morning. And maybe you won't find it as awe-inspiring as I did, maybe it was just something I needed to hear, but I thought I would share it with all of you anyway and let you be the judge. Enjoy! It is by Elder F. Enzio Busche of the Quorum of the Seventy given at a BYU Devotional on May 14, 1996. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snAjZ8mfoYw

April 2008

April seemed to be a pretty quiet month for us. The LDS General Conference was during the first weekend and Lynn's family was all here for that weekend so the cousins had a lot of fun playing together. Grandma Peggy also had the annual Easter Egg Hunt for the family on Saturday. The kids each had a fun time looking for their color of egg and got spoiled by Grandma and Grandpa. Following the kids egg hunt, Grandpa hid eggs for the adult in the backyard. It is really sad how child-like we all become when searching for Easter eggs. Thanks for the fun Easter Egg hunt Grandma and Grandpa!

Parker and Madi patiently waiting for the egg hunt to begin. And the race is on....

And finally the prizes! Lynn and Madi trying to get her kite to fly.

Madi was still involved with tumbling throughout this whole month and had a lot of fun playing with her buddies, Porter, Lexi and Annie while she was there. We also had our first day with Madi staying dry all day!!! We were so excited and called Grandma Mullen and everything, however it only lasted for 2 days and we are still working on trying to get her potty trained now. Here I thought I could have potty training figured out after one child. hah, hah!! I really think Madi was sent to us just to prove me wrong on everything I thought I had figured out as a parent. We are so glad she is a part of our family.

On the 16th, Madi and I went to lunch with Kris, Audrey and Claire. All of the boys were at school so we went to lunch and did a little shopping. It was a lot of fun to visit with Kris and at one point Madi was trying to get my attention while I was talking with Kris. She finally got so frustrated with me that she grabbed my chin and said "Mom, look at me!" I don't remember what she needed to tell me, but it was just so cute how determined she was to get my attention.

Parker started outdoor soccer for the first time this month. It was a cold and stormy experience, but all-in-all I think he had a lot of fun. He had games every Tuesday and Saturday and was supposed to have practice every Thursday, however it seemed to rain or snow almost every Thursday so they only ended up having 2 or 3 practices. One funny moment that happened at one of the practices was when Parker's team was sitting in a circle trying to decide on a team name. All of the kids were mentioning names like "The Tigers", "Ninjas" and other tough sounding names. Then Lynn said they asked Parker what team name he wanted to have and he said as proud as ever, "The Blueberries!". Surprisingly, the team didn't choose that name, however we all got a good chuckle.

Madi enjoyed her treats while watching from the side line. Watch out for the Blueberries! Thank goodness for those oranges.

During each game, Parker really liked to follow the ball and just circle around it, but didn't really like to get into the middle of the action too much. It was really fun watching and we all had some good laughs at all the little comments made. At one point Parker's coach told him it was his turn to sit out during the quarter and with great enthusiasm, Parker's response was "Awesome!"

Parker and all of the Southwest Street boys - Caleb, Stewart and Sam.

This month was filled with a lot of fun activities. We had a few nice days and we tried to make it to the park as much as possible. We also went to the Cache Valley Fun Park with Keely (Ewan, Jude, and Silvie) and Alyson (Joshua and Paisley), Ikea with Grandma Dahle and Jannis, swimming as a family at Mt. Crest, lots of soccer games, piano lessons, a missionary Primary Activity for Parker (and Lynn got to help with a Paraguayan booth), Baby Animal Days, lunch and playing at the Dinosaur Park in Ogden with Carley and Catherine, first golf game with Val and Lannis for the season, and Kindergarten Club.

I was able to get pictures at a few of these activities as you will see below.

Baby Animal Days:

Every year during the Baby Animal Days we are usually up in Idaho Steelhead Fishing, however this year we didn't make it up fishing, because the weather we never quite good enough to make the fishing worth the drive. So lucky for us we made it to Baby Animal Days for the fist time and even luckier, we got to go with Julie's pre-school class so we didn't have to deal with all of the people and craziness. The kids had a lot of fun. Madi really got into touching the different animals and Parker enjoyed observing from a distance.

Madi holding her first bird. She was anxious to jump right in.

Parker a little unsure of this whole activity. However I think he really enjoyed himself, because he still talks about it whenever we pass the farm.

Madi enjoyed petting all of the animals except she wasn't too interested in the bunnies.

Here are all the kids listening to the instructor about the pony. More proof of Parker feeling more comfortable being one step behind.

Dinosaur Park:

Catherine and Carley are my good friends from high school and we always try to get together a few times a year. It seems to be getting more difficult the older our kids get, but we did find a day to meet in Ogden and let the kids have some fun with the dinosaurs. We walked through the indoor museum first, they had a lot of really neat exhibits, however they didn't seem to keep the kids entertained for too long. Parker's favorite part was the mammoth skeleton. Madi did really well while we were inside the museum, but once we got outside she was very nervous. They had great reproductions of the dinosaurs outside in the trees and bushes and had speakers throughout the trails with noises of dinosaurs. Apparently the noises were too realistic and Madi kept saying she was "too scaredy" and "go home". We finally made our way to the playground equipment and once she got busy playing the noise of the dinosaurs faded out and she was finally happy again.

Parker admiring his favorite display: The Mammoth.

Parker, Carson, Madi, Adam and Alivia (in the bottom corner).

But then again Parker is also a huge fan of the T-Rex - Look out Parker it's going to get ya'!

Thank goodness for the swings. We finally got a smile out of Madi.

Giddy'up!

These mural boards always make me laugh. Madi's fit perfectly.

Kindergarten Club:

Kindergarten Club was an activity put on by the school district for all of the upcoming Kindergarten children and their parents. Lynn had a Young Men's activity so Parker and I headed over to the school while Grandma and Grandpa watched Madi. At the school, they gave us a nice packet of activities to work on with Parker, sang some songs and introduced the kids to the kindergarten teachers and the principal. It was a great first introduction, even though Parker was a little unsure of the songs and loudness of it all. It will be interesting to see how he does once school starts.

Below are some of my favorite pictures taken during the month of April:

My two super-heroes. They even went to the store dressed like this.

Lynn hung up our swing downstairs and the kids absolutely love it. For about 2 weeks after it was put up, all I heard from Madi was "Mom, com'ear a secnd". And of course she needed a push or two.

One of Madi's favorite thing to do is ride the backhoe with her dad. Making pizza with the Johnson kids. Porter, Garrett, Parker, Lexi and Madi. Notice their interesting shapes and amazingly enough, they actually ate them and liked them.

When Madi wants a nap, she really wants one. Give her a blanket and her thumb and she can go to sleep about anywhere.

Little miss independent.

March 2008

Well here I am on May 23rd and I've only caught up on 2 months. Hopefully I can get caught up soon or maybe this whole blogging thing won't work out. Anyway, here is a recap of what happened in our lives in March.

Swimming lessons started for Parker. He is now in level 2 and the first day he acted like he didn't want to get his hair wet so he was really struggling getting comfortable, but by the end of the month he was doing really well and got close to doing both the front and back floats all on his own.

Parker has also been busy this past year taking piano lessons once a week. It has been an interesting adventure for both of us considering it is really hard to remember to have him practice. He has been coming along really well and on the 19th he had a piano recital. He played a duet with his teacher titled "Mickey Mouse March". It was really cute to watch and he did great. Madi has been going to his piano lessons with us and has had fun dancing and singing to the songs. Because of this, our little performer marched right up onto the stage at the end of the recital and sang the closing song with all of the other students. She was very excited and loves to do anything that her brother is doing.

Parker playing his duet with his teacher LuAnn. She is a wonderful piano teacher, thanks LuAnn for all you've done so far.


All the piano students singing the Goodbye Song. Starting from the right, the only ones I know are Madi (2nd one from right), Parker, Caleb and Annie (standing in front of Caleb).


We also made the big step and got Parker registered for kindergarten. It is hard to believe that it is already time for him to start school, but I know he is so ready for it to begin considering he has been 5 since September. He has been attending a new preschool this year and has done really well. In fact he has even started learning how to read. He gets really frustrated when I am trying to help him so we have Lynn help him more, but it is really fun to watch him try to sound out the words. The preschool he has been attending has come up with their own reading program and it is wonderful. They are going to start testing their reading system next year in other preschools, but so far they have had great success. I just hope we can keep it up through the summer.

Madilyn was pretty busy this month as well. She started tumbling with a few of her friends and goes to that every Monday evening. We weren't able to stay and watch because they say it is too distracting for the kids, but she seemed to really enjoy it. Every once in a while I could even get her to tell me a few of the things they learned (i.e. the cat takes nap, superman, bridge, etc.).

One funny thing the kids did this month was "bob for toothbrushes". We were going through the process of getting ready for bed and we had sent the kids to the bathroom to start brushing their teeth. They had been in there for quite a while and were both laughing up a storm. Finally I went back to check on them and they had the sink filled with water and about 5 toothbrushes. I asked what was going on and they just smiled and said "we're bobbing for toothbrushes, mom" like it was the most normal thing to do. They were both completely soaked and we had to change pajamas and clean the bathroom, but it was really cute that they had come up with that activity on their own and were so excited.

Lynn and I had the chance to go to California from the 13th-15th for a Natural Products Expo. It was in Anaheim and we flew into Burbank and rented a car and drove down I-5 to Anaheim. The drive should have only been about 45 minutes, however we hit traffic and it ended up taking us about 2.5 hours instead. Luckily we weren't in a hurry and we didn't have kids to keep happy so it was kind of fun to view the city of L.A. at a slower pace. Once in Anaheim we found our hotel which was right across the street from Disneyland and then we went on a little walk to find a place for dinner.

On Friday we basically spent the whole day at the convention center for the expo. Lynn had a few meetings with some customers and I either hung with him or just wandered the show a little on my own. It was quite the interesting show with a lot of natural and organic products and interesting natural and organic people/hippies to watch. We saw everything from organic diapers, to soy chicken (which was very good), soy ice cream, organic clothes, toothpaste, chap stick, etc. One of the funniest products I think we saw was organic briquettes, thought that seemed a little overboard. That night we just went to dinner with a couple of his customers and then got back to the hotel and crashed. My feet were killing me.

Saturday we went to the show some more, picked up a couple souvenirs for the kids and headed back to Burbank. When we got to Burbank we were a little early for our flight so we drove around Burbank for a while, walked around downtown and found a cute little Italian restaurant to eat at, we sat on the patio by some hilarious elderly ladies and people watched for a while. As we were sitting there we also noticed a movie crew setting things up and we finally asked an older gentleman who seemed involved what was going on and he said him and his wife were acting as extras in some reality show. We had to leave before we could see them actually film, but it was kind of fun to watch.

The kids didn't seem to miss us too much while we were gone. They stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Dahle and then Saturday afternoon and night, they stayed with the Christensen family while the Dahle's went to work at the temple. Lanis even brought the kids to our house Saturday night and put them to bed so that when we got home we didn't have to move them anywhere. It is always a comfort to know they are good hands when we are gone. Thank you so much Grandma, Grandpa, Lanis and Val!!!

One downer about the trip is that the only pictures we took the whole time was from the airplane on the way home because the sunset was beautiful. I need to realize that it is possible to take pictures of other things besides our kids.

The day after we got home, we got a phone call from my mom that my Grandma Mullen had a stroke. She survived, but can't move much of her right side now and has a hard time speaking, but is getting better. It is kind of sad to see that she made it through, but still nice to have her around for our own selfish reasons. She is 91 years old and just ready to be done, however she is such an example to me in my life because of the positive attitude she always seems to have. In fact, my dad was talking to her about some funeral plans and he asked her what song she would like to have and she responded with "Que Sera, Sera (whatever will be, will be)". This is such an appropriate song for her because that has been her attitude throughout all of her life throughout hardships, MS and everything else. It has really made me take a look at my life and strive harder to have more of a Que Sera, Sera attitude as well.

Something I don't think I have shared before is that this whole last school year, my friend Julie and I have been swapping kids once a week with each other so that we can get some work done. She has three kids Garrett, Lexi and Porter. Garrett and Parker are about 5 months apart and Madi and Porter are about 6 months apart and all of them are the best of friends. The kids all play so well together which really makes it nice and easy to have them over. This week we colored Easter eggs with them since Easter is coming up. They all seemed to have a lot of fun and made some beautiful eggs.

It is very difficult to get five kids looking at the same time. This is the best we could do. From left to right: Porter, Lexi, Garrett, Parker and Madi.

Here's another picture of the kids in the snow earlier in March. Parker is the one that refused to look at the camera. From left to right: Madi, Porter and Lexi.


On Friday the 21st, the kids and I decided to go up to Island Park to visit Grandma Helen since things weren't looking to good for her. On the way up we stopped in to visit Jim and Kris, then Grandma Helen and then spent the night at Mom and Dad's. Lynn didn't go because of work and a Court of Honor he needed to be to on Saturday and it was a really quick trip, but I was glad we made it up to see Grandma a couple of times. She seemed to enjoy watching the kids be them crazy selves and we Island Park still had about 4 feet of snow so we even got in some sledding.

This is the snow piled up from my parent's driveway and it had melted some before this was taken.

Parker and Madi getting ready to go down the hill!

These two pictures are to show how deep the snow really is. That is the roof of a house down the street from my parents.

Mom and dad stopped in with us to see Grandma Helen on the way home. Madi was exhausted and did NOT want her picture taken. For those of you who know Madi, you will understand why I am trying to hold her there for 3 seconds while we get the picture. It was the best we could do.


When the kids and I got home from my parents, Lynn and I went to dinner with Val and Lan and then got ready for Easter. The kids actually slept in on Easter and we had to wake them up so they could find their baskets before church. They were really excited to find them. Madi got a bubble bucket, puzzle, books, Hello Kitty Band-Aids and some small candy and toys. Of course the only thing she was really interested in was the candy. Parker got a Hot Wheels track, books, Spiderman Band-Aids and candy. They both looked really cute in their new Easter Church Clothes and seemed to have a fun day. That night we had dinner at the Dahle's and read the story of Christ's death and resurrection to the kids. We really struggle to get Madi to pay attention for even 30 seconds when we read scriptures, but Parker seemed pretty interested. I am always grateful for this time of year and the reminder of what Christ did for us so that we might live again.


I know this wasn't the best picture of the kids, but I love the look of adoration in Madi's face as she looks up at her big brother.


The next weekend was our 2nd Annual Mullen Girls Shopping Trip. We left on that Friday and Amie watched the kids for me until Lynn got home from work. I rode down with Candace and we met up with Mom and Kris in Bountiful. From there we went to Taiwan and a fabric store and then we met Mick at Ikea and had lunch and shopped. After Ikea we went and put our name on the list at the Cheesecake Factory and made good use of our time by going to Taipan. After dinner (which was very delicious and well worth the wait), we got some Cheesecake to go and headed to our hotel. I don't know what time we ended up going to sleep, but we stayed up really late talking and packing on the calories right before bed. :)

The next morning we just ate breakfast at the hotel and then headed up to Park City. We found some really good deals and I think literally shopped 'til we dropped. I didn't get home until about 8:30 or 9:00 and Lynn already had the kids in bed. It was a really fun weekend and as always I bought way too much stuff. Lynn and the kids seemed to have fun, they went to the movie "Horton Hears a Who" and had some great bonding time. He said the kids never even asked where I was; always great to feel appreciated.

From left to right: Mick, Mom, Candace and Kris