mexico

We went on a Pirate show dinner cruise, more about that laer
first day on the beach don't you just love the blue water?
SLC airport

We were very fortunate to be able to spend 2 weeks in Mexico this month. We left on December 13th and returned on Christmas Day. Please be patient with me as it will be a few posts :-)

My in-laws have a time share in Cancun on the Isle De Majerus and they invited us to spend a week with them there this year. Since James and I are very independent we decided to add a few days to the trip and go early to see Cancun before we were to meet his parents to go to the island. We had a fabulous time! It was warm and beautiful and really who's going to complain about spending an extra week on the beach? We stayed right on the beach in the Hotel zone in Cancun Major.

Hair

Jade's hair is so dark it's kind of hard to see but Gemma's is done the same way.

Turned out way cuter than I thought it would.

The kidlet's 4!!

I cannot believe my baby is 4! I guess it's a good thing that 4 is still pretty little! Gemma was born on Nov 21st, 2006 at 6:57 a.m. She was born on her due date and I was not induced. She was 8.5 lbs It was kind of funny but she looked like I had expected Jade to look... so I was surprised because after Jade was so different than what I expected and so surprising, that then I figured Gemma would look like Jade did. Silly I know.
A little bit about Gemma at 4:
Her favorite food is spaghetti so we took her to "The Old Spaghetti Factory" for dinner, (and yes I was buggy to the hostess because Gemma wanted to sit in the trolley, so I insisted, it was her birthday after all.)
It is really fun to spend the day with her every day and she has her own schedule that she adheres to every day. On day's that she doesn't want to go anywhere she won't change out of her pj's. She can work the TV, DVD player and DVR without any help. The kidlet cannot read but somehow she can find the list of recordings on the DVR and find Go, Diego, Go and then knows which ones she has watched and the new ones! She will change the TV without any trouble at all and feels that it is her choice on what we are watching at any given time. Silly kid. She loves to play with her princesses she has a bag of the little 3-4" ones that are like polly pockets, they keep her entertained for quite a while. She loves puzzles and ART!!! She loves to draw and cut and tape and glue and color! I keep a stack of computer paper on hand just for her if her's is gone she steals it out of the printer.
She loves to help me bake and cook, her current favorite is making frosting and getting to choose the color's.
For her birthday she really, really, really wanted a "Singing Weasel" AKA sing-a-ma-jigs. So she was excited to get two of them.
She likes old fashioned candy, like candy corn and cola bottles. She wears some form of frilly skirt every day, and not because she thinks she's a princess or is dressing up like one, but because she knows she is beautiful and she thinks the skirts are beautiful.
A few of her cute Gemma words:
Houses are "Castles"
her fingernails are "Shells"

Hairdo

Having fun with Gemma's hair

Creativity award...

James had to dress up for work this year and I had mentioned that he should dress up as a crazy cat lady... Well Jade thought that was hilarious! A few days later she was still talking about it so I took her down to D.I to see if there was any suitable costume ingredients.... She found enough cats to fill a bag and a gold purse and a lovely blue shawl and head wrap. She came home and cut out a ton of cat pictures to glue into a "photo" album and attached some cats to the shawl, found some jewelery and even came up with a name for the character "Jolene"
I don't know if James was as amused as Jade was but he was a good sport and he wore the costume to work, complete with a baggie of cat treats and a camera for taking pictures of cats.... it really was funny, he didn't want me to take pictures though but I did convince him to let me take a few, "Jolene" is showing Jade all of her cats...

Halloween

This year Jade was a Gypsy and Gemma was a Ballerina Witch. It was cold and raining but the rain did stop just in time and we went trick-or-treating. Jade would have gone all night, but Gemma filled her bucket and announced (5 blocks from home) that she had enough candy, she was done and that I needed to carry her...
It started raining again just as we were coming up our street, yes I was carrying Gemma, so it was good timing.
They had a fun time!

Pumpkin Patch

We went to the pumpkin patch for my birthday this year. there is a fun pick your own pumpkin patch by Grandma Rory's, we have gone there the last few years.
Jade spent her time looking for the perfect biggest pumpkin. The ones in the picture aren't it, you can kind of see it in the wheelbarrow. Gemma loved them all, and was very quick to find hers.

Geode Hunting

one of Gemma's finds

These are a few of my favorite ones that I won't let James open.

We went Geode Hunting about 2 weekends ago. Ever since I saw that there was a place to do that pretty close by (by close i mean 2.5 hours on totally dirt trail ) I really wanted to take the kids and go check it out.

It was so much fun! The pictures don't really do it justice because I was too busy looking for them too.
Opened one
Down in the pit digging out the geodes...
At first when we finally fot out to the sign that is quite mis leading by the way, it seemed like a bust, there were holes everywhere where people had previously dug, and after digging for a while, and finding nothing we figured it was all played out. So James decided to do a bit of 4-wheeling since we were already out in the hills... boy stuff you know ;-). Gemma was worried and said "we can never find our house cause it's too far now"
So we were just out riding and we crested a hill and saw an old excavator, we decided to go see why there would be one just sitting there because people don't usually ditch heavy equipment like they do with cars.... anyway we came upon the actual geode beds it was so Awesome!!! We spent a few hours looking and came back with a huge bucket full and I cannot wait to go back! Thank you James for a great and memorable day!
So the reason for the digger is that man that owns the property goes out 2 times a year and digs up some of the beds and then he allows people to go look for the geodes.

Student of the month!!

Jade was chosen to be 4th grade student of the month by her teacher Mrs.Harper because she is very helpful, obedient and on task and so sweet! Way to go Jade!

Peaches

My dad gave me two bushels of peaches Jade thought it was great and helped me put them up, Jade thought it was so fun to pack the jars. She was a great helper and we got a ton of peaches!

Camping

Jade has been asking to go camping for quite a while so we finally got everything together and went for Labor Day weekend. we went up into the High Uinta Mountains. It was very nice weather not too hot and not too cold, (although it did get a bit nippy in the middle of the night). Normally our camping is going up to Grandpa Rays Property in Duchesne but that includes running water and electricty. This was Jade's first experience with camping in a tent. She Loved it!
We also took Sampson, He had a good time( I think)but ever since we have gotten back he doesn't race me to the car anymore, I guess he's afraid we will go camping .... Sheesh take the dog camping one time....
James and Jade made a hammock out of a tarp and they thought that was quite funny. We did the usual things roasted marshmallows, played in the river, and had tinfoil dinners over the campfire.

The Lake

We decided to go for a drive and find a lake last Sunday, we ended up kind of by Delta and found a fun reservoir that we let the kids play in for the day. It was really quite a nice day, minimal wind and no bugs! Apparently we missed the microburst that roared through Salt Lake and Eagle Mountain that day.
Jade had a blast swimming around Gemma was more happy closer to the edge. I had realized that Gemma hadn't been to a lake and been old enough to remember it. We also took a scenic drive and saw Topaz mountain, and the spot that you can go hunt for geodes. So that is on my list of things to do. I have to say it is nice that Jade and Gemma are getting old enough to start doing some of these things. We are even going camping this weekend (Jade is so excited she has never camped in a tent)
I am not a hot weather person, so when it starts cooling off a bit that's when I like to get out and enjoy outdoor recreation.

4th grade

Yesterday was the first day of school for Jade she's in 4th grade this year! Her teacher is Mrs. Harper. We had a small situation where we had to have her switched from the first class she was placed in, due to a personality conflict between her and another child. i won't go into deeper specifics here, but we have had to do that before. Anyway at first Jade was a little upset because she wanted to be in the same class as her best friend Alaina but I told her we didn't have any control over that. So she went to Mrs. Harpers class and Loved it, made a new friend saw some of her other friends and ran into Alaina during recess. Also the teacher she was supposed to have was sad that she didn't get Jade in her class (Jade previously had said teacher in 2nd grade)
Well it turned out to be a good first day for Jade. Gemma however was another story LOL

sad day

So a couple of weeks ago James was coming home from work when some idiot who was texting hit him on the freeway in a construction zone. took out the whole passenger side of our/my pathfinder.
Plus side no injuries save for the car :-(
negative side the insurance opted not to fix it because my car is older (99)
So James will fix it for me to drive, until early next year then I will get a new car :-) I kind of want a sports car haha that's what the rental agency gave us to drive and I really like it (pic to come)

So it has been forever!!!!

I know it has been a very long time since I have up dated my blog. Sorry about that.

The above picture Cisco made a hut/fortress in the front room for Jade and Gemma one day.

James has had a huge project this year in rebuilding his trucks engine, for those of you who understand/know he took the engine down to the crank shaft, basically you can't go any deeper than that. Jade really enjoyed herself helping him she was out every time he was and got just as dirty as he did :-) good job guys!
Jade and Gemma wanted a purse so I found a pattern that I then modified to what I wanted, this is what we came up with :-)

My cast

So this is my pretty purple cast. I didn't break my foot... I had surgery on 4-23-2010 for those of you who didn't know I had a tendo-Achilles lengthening done on my left leg. I have been trying to fix my leg for pretty close to 2 years. Basically i had a "charly horse" all the time in my left calf, (it was constantly in spasm mode) stretching, exercise, supplements ( I was deficient in iron,calcium and vitamin D), muscle relaxers, foot doctor, regular doctor, second opinions and on and on. Nothing really was working. So the last time I went in to the Foot Dr. He suggested that this was were we were at. I could have tried orthopedics but he didn't think that would solve the problem.
So long story short I got to have surgery. Apparently it is a semi-common procedure in children and adolescents but not very common in adults, (and it's a painful recovery) mostly because it shows up earlier. It is probably something I have always had, when I was little I would get the worst cramps in my legs and that never really went away. My doctor said that he was going to go in and give the tendon a little bit of length so that it could release the muscle spasms, after surgery he said that he couldn't believe how tight my tendon was, he had to lengthen it about 2" and that was conservative. The nice thing is that I haven't had any spasms in my leg!!! yay!!
So now I am sporting the cast until June 1st.

Pretty Parlor

Gemma got to have her first experience going to the saloon right before Easter. She thought it was very fun. She got a short hair cut and we both love it. Jade was so jealous that Gemma got to have short hair that I took her the next day to get hers cut. Jade's hair was long enough to donate to locks of love again. (I need to get a better picture of Jade's to put on here.)