A Little Help?

Okay, we don't really usually open it up to the world like this, but we're really in a pickle choosing our new baby's name, so we'd like some input, AND some suggestions. We have two names picked out, that we LOVE, but some people don't like these names, soooooooooo please help!!!

The names we have picked out are Obidiah Franklin, and Mikah Franklin. Franklin is the middle name this time, so we're set there, but we do need a cute first name. Our kids names all mean something, they are all named after someone in history that has done great things. Names they can live up too, that's what we want. Names that mean something, names they can look up to. Heroes. Liam (Jefferson), for those of you who don't know, is named after his Daddy (William), Ezra (Adams) is named after two prophets (one LDS, one in the old testament) and Mosiah (Washington) is named after a prophet in the Book of Mormon. Middle names are all after United States Founding Fathers.

Okay, so this is your assignment, now comment, comment, comment.

By the way: Liam's name was suggested by Bill's dad John, and Mosiah's name was suggested by Jacob Skinner! Thanks guys!!!

September 16, our 6th Anniversary

Bill and I got to celebrate our anniversary on two days, we're so lucky. We went out to dinner and a movie on the actual day, and then we went into Vegas for some Olive Garden, movies, shopping, and fun on Saturday. We also had our ultra sound. My mother in law was nice enough to watch our kids both times. Thanks Mom!

Bill bought me Chocolate and flowers and a beautiful card. I made him a card. Inside it says, "I still think your tractor's sexy. I also got two Willow Tree Figures, and Bill got some magic trick secrets... cool.

Bill, thanks for the awesomest 6 years ever, I can't believe how fast it has flown by, and it just seems to go faster every year! Just think, in another 6 years we could have 4 more kids! 8 kids in 12 years.... hmmm...

Ketchup? Catsup? .... No.... just a catch up....

Last week the boys, including Bill, all got a slight fever, and depending on the boy, puking, and achiness. It all started with our family outing to the new 50's Diner here. Ezra was really irritable, and we couldn't figure out why until Bill picked him up and said "Oh, he's hot!" For the next 3 days (although his fever only lasted a couple of hours) Ezra was very tired and didn't move around a lot.

The other 2 boys got it too, it hardly effected Mosiah, and Liam got it the worst out of the kids. Poor Bill got it bad, and on top of it had to teach Seminary every morning at 6:00, and then go strait to work. He usually gets home around 6:30 at night, so the poor guy didn't get very much sleep or recovery time, but he made it. These are my sick boys watching a movie.

Liam and Ezra joined a little pre-school group with other ladies from our church. They are super excited about it, mostly because they get a tiny break from me twice a week, get to hang out with friends, and they get to wear these cool backpacks. Apparently the snacks are better over there too!

They learn letters and colors and about the calender. They also get to make some really cute crafts. I love these little ants... Grandma made cookies the other day and the boys all went outside to eat them on their little slide. I just thought they were cute, so I snapped a couple of shots.

Field Trip

The Home school Group here went on a trip out to the Date Farm. We've been there before, but it's always fun. The table we ate our date shakes at was visited by a humming bird.

There is a trail that you can take that is soooo fun for kids, and secretly fun for adults that we took. It has some wet spots, so about half way through our journey I said "I can't believe one of my kids hasn't fallen in yet." Oops, that's something you should never say. Needless to say, five minutes later Liam fell in. LOL, serves me right!

We got there right before the dates were ready to harvest so the dates were all covered up by brightly colored clothing, it was really cool to see. It was also Horse Fly season. Okay, we've all seen horse flies, and we've all been bit right... yeah, except for these things were HUGE. Veronica said as big as a silver dollar, and I can agree with that! The first thing the owner did when we got there was tell us all about how it hurts so bad when they bite, and... oh ya.... they land on your back and can bite right through your shirt!!!! I was like, okay, now we all get to be completely paranoid for 2 hours.... and we were. Ezra didn't even take 2 bites of his shake because he was so afraid a horse fly would take an enormous bite out of him!!!

Anyways, despite the wetness of Liam's pants and foot, and the horse flies, it was super fun. I bought the boys swords for $3 each and they still won't put them down.

It's a ............. Dragon???

Note: You can click the images to make them bigger for the "full effect".
We went in for an ultrasound yesterday, and this is what we saw (among other things). He is healthy and happy and we are very excited.
We got to see this huge yawn too, and Bills comment was "He looks like a dragon!!!!" We got a dvd and showed the boys (after setting up a fake ultrasound camera so they thought it was live) and they thought it was cool that they could see their baby too. Liam said he didn't like the yawn because he doesn't like "the gummies". Way to funny. The ultrasound lady forgot to put the dvd in when we first started, so we got to do our session over. It was supposed to be 10 minutes, but we got 20 with out new baby. It was so exciting. She also threw in a 4D picture to make up for her "mistake".

Koolaid, it does a body good.

We just re-discovered these pre-packaged Koolaid bottles at Walmart. The boys LOVE them, and I think they'd pick them over candy anytime... not that they're that much better then candy, but at least they're thirst quenching.

Information for you

A couple of people have asked about the Shark Tank. It is in the Golden Nugget on Freemont Street in Las Vegas. It is cheaper to buy a room there and swim for two days then it is to pay for a day of swimming (It costs $20 per adult and $15 per child). It is the coolest pool in Vegas (in my opinion) and it's fun for everyone. Ezra was terrified of the sharks at first, but there are also regular fish and pretty reef sharks in the tank. There is also this window on the ceiling behind the shark tank where a school of fish hang out (probably to stay away from the sharks). Sometimes when you are craning your neck to watch the window you will even see a stingray or two float by. Click here for a virtual tour. Or click here to watch the cheesey, but cool movie.

Now, if you're interested in buying butcher paper... I have a confession. Mine was given to me for free. When I first got it I was like "what will I even do with this?" and then inspiration hit and if I had purchased it it would have been my best investment ever! You can get it a meat supply stores online, as well as educational stores. I have the 18 inch stuff. I don't think you'd want to go any smaller than that if you want to do anything like tracing your kids whole bodies and coloring them. But if you don't plan on doing that smaller is fine. You can just make posters and stuff. Still fun, less expensive. Here is a link for a page full of choices. It has the best prices I've found so far. Alright, I just found this link, and it has better prices, but with two you have choices. You can get the 24 inch stuff at the second link for the price of an 18 at the other place. If you go bigger maybe you can even trace yourself or your hubby to the delight of your kids.

The Shark Tank.... Finally

I know I've been promising this for a long time, and I've finally got a spare minute, so here it is! The sharks in the tank are giagantic, and quite scary to look at. It's quite an experience to be in the water, just on the other side of the glass of these monsters.

The water slide that goes through the tank is definatly one of the coolest parts of this pool. To this day I still have not been brave enough to look around while sliding through this part. I'm afraid I'll see a shark and go into histerics. I think the only one who really takes a look is Liam. That kid is fearless!Here he is on the slide. Look how happy he is!

Here is Cheyanne coming down the slide.

We happened to be there on a day that the scuba divers cleaned parts of the tank, which was really cool to watch. It was also kind of scary to see their outfits. Bill and I watched Shark Week on the Discovery Channel a couple of weeks ago, and watched Dirty Jobs, Jobs that Bite. They were investigating a job that tests out Shark Suits by being bit, on purpose, so we know what the suits look like, and the scuba cleaners were wearing them. They also set up these two huge nets across the area they were working so that the sharks couldn't get in and bother them. Scaaaary! In the background of this picture you can see the slide, a net, and a reef shark swimming around.

Here we are enjoying one of the many strategically placed benches in the pool. The end of the water slide is right behind us.

There is also a very nice hot tub at the Shark Tank. Here is Cheyanne with Mo and Ezra.

Super Hero Birthday Party

This was our first big birthday bash with friends, so I was kind of nervous, but it turned out to be so much fun. I was going to have all the kids dress up as their favorite super hero, but I spaced the invitations and had to invite by word of mouth, so that kind of got left out, and I didn't want to call them the night before and say "Make a costume!!!" Plus, most of the kids were girls, so we just went with it.

Liam with his Super Hero mask. Happy 5th Super Liam!!!! (that's what his cake said)When the kids arrived they decorated their super hero masks, and their treat bags. They all turned out really cute. Everyone we invited showed up (amazingly) except for Liam's little girlfriends Ellie, but we warned him ahead of time that her family was out of town, so he was mostly okay with it. I told him that we would invite her over some time soon so that they could have a play date, and that made him happy. The masks were a genius idea.... not trying to toot my own horn, but I decided to do these instead of birthday hats, and it was cool because they took up a lot of time, and were still way to much fun.

This is the new girl in our ward, Avy, and she is such a cutie! I have her little sister in nursery with me and they are just the sweetest girls! Her name is pronounced with an "a" as in apple, Avy, but we kept calling her Avy with an "a" like in ape, and she didn't even say anything or get upset. She's so sweet!

Ezra's mask was definitely my favorite. He just put spider man sticker on it, so it was really a super hero mask. Unfortunately, after the party he decided he just wanted all the stickers, so he took them all off, and in trying to do so his mask was demolished.

This is one of Liam's best friends McKenna. She is such a doll.

This is McKenna's brother Theron. He was so much fun. I tried to get him to hold his mask up the right way, but he just kept switching eyes with his mask in this position, so I went with it. I think it's the cutest picture.This is Liam's friend from church Lexi. She was really into the stickers. Her bag was completely covered in fuzzy kitty's and birthday stickers.

Here's Liam's cousin Andy. As I mentioned we didn't get a good shot of Mick the whole time he was here. Rudy was in Utah for the weekend, so unfortunately he didn't get to come.After we took pictures of all the kids with their masks (except for Seth who was very shy at first, and Mickey who decided to hide from the camera all day) I got out this cute counting stories about Monsters (because super heroes defeat monsters) and every time I read the word monster the kids were supposed to jump up, stomp their feet and then sit back down. That was probably the cutest and funnest activity I've ever seen. I was laughing so hard I could hardly read, and the kids were so into it. Not only did they stomp their feet but they also screamed or yelled as they stomped, so it was really loud and really funny. After our story I rolled out the butcher paper (seriously Moms, you need to go and get a roll of this for your house, there are SO many things to do with it and a little creativity) and the kids all drew monsters in washable markers. When they finished their master piece we hung their art on the back fence and had they "melt" the monsters with a spray bottle. It was cool watching the monsters wash away in a puddle of color, and the kids were so into it! Next time I do this activity I think I will put some sparkles in the water so all that's left is sparkles after the monsters disappear. (by the way, the boys and I tried spraying chalk monsters a couple days later and it didn't work out so good, but still fun to experiment. Instead of washing away the colors just got brighter on the paper.) After jumping on the trampoline we came in and opened up presents (lots of cool stuff from the friends), and then we had Liam's Super Hero cake, which was actually Power Rangers, but still fun. We did a lot of video taping and I totally forgot to take a still shot of the cake (bummer), so here's the next best thing. . .

All in all, it was a lot of fun, and I can't wait for the next one. Seth's Mom Aime stuck around for the party and it was very nice having her here as an extra hand. Thanks Aime! (I'm sorry if I spelled your name wrong.... there are so many spellings for Amy now....Aimee, Aimie... I'm sure there are more.... anyways...)

A week with Cheyanne - A catchup post

Our week with "Annie" (I just put that because she HATES to be called that, and big sisters are aloud to be mean) was so much fun, and it actually started off with a quick visit with one of my first best friends from grade school, Nikiea hope. My boys totally loved her, and would not leave her alone for one second. Poor girl. She says she came to see me, but I'm pretty sure we had like 4 sentences between us, and the rest was my children struggling to get out of my arms and into hers. Liam has a huge crush. After we finally set her free we went and picked up Cheyanne at the airport. When we got home she had a mega load of maternity clothes from my lovely sister Crystal, which by the way are soooo nice, and they all look brand new (some of them even still have the tags on them). For some reason when I went to open the suitcase up after we got home (just for a peek) Cheyanne whipped out her camera, and when I opened it up I found out why.............

TABER CORN!!!!!!!!!!!! For all of you non Albertans.... Taber is a town that grows corn, and it really is the best corn on the good green(ish) earth.

Here is my dad packing it up. lol, way to funny guys (and yummy). They also send me smokies, harkins cheesies, Macintosh Toffee, and Canadian Corn Pops ( the best cereal ever).

We of course did some Walmart shopping (as it's the only store here for clothing and toys), and Cheyanne snapped some cute pictures. Did I mention that Cheyanne is camera happy. When I was a kid I pretty much hid from the camera.... this girl however has more pictures of herself than Brittany Spears. Seriously! (Although hers are much more tasteful than Brittany's I'm sure). Ezra as the Batman.

Waiting for our Car to get an oil change.

Cheyanne with boys in the car.

As I mention before we were given a night at the Golden Nugget on Freemont street by Nana and Papa, so we could swim at the fish tank. While we were there we caught a movie, for the boys (yes even the big one.... Bill) Star Wars, Clone Wars, and then we had some Mickey D's, in hope to get one of the new Clone Wars toys... but sadly we had the ones they were giving out. Here is a great shot of my prego belly at the theatre.

If anyone know who this dude is with my sister, let me know. Seriously, who is that?

This is Mo staring at Cheyanne through the McDonald's door. I just love his face in this picture.

Cheyanne with her sweet ride in Vegas.

This is my cousin Chelsie being the assistant for a magic show in the outlet mall. This is her right after the magician turned the one ball in her hand into six. It was pretty sweet.

I decided to post the pictures of the Shark Tank in my next post.... look forward to it, they are AWESOME!