My new OBSESSION!!!

For Christmas Jared got a PS3 player so he could have blue ray. When we got married we vowed we would NEVER own a gaming system and it only took a few short years to break that. :) I told Jared he would have to buy Rock Band when he got his PS3 to justify the purchase. So, what do I do every night when the kids go to bed, PLAY ROCK BAND AND GUITAR HERO!!!

This is a picture of our hard core band and our high score of over a million. Yup, you read that right. We got over 1,113,000 points on one song.

My new BEST friend!!!!!!

Two days ago I was on the computer while Brooke asked if she could color. As any mother would reply I said "sure!" I told her to go get her coloring book and crayons in my bag as she always does. As I'm plugging away on the computer I hear her happily coloring away. A few minutes later my proud daughter approaches me and says "Look mom, I drew you a pretty picture." I reach for the paper and as I begin saying "What a beautiful picture...." my smile immediately drops and I begin to see instant RED!!! All I see is a paper full of BLACK PERMANENT MARKER!!! I jump out of the chair and run to my table to examine the damage. This is what I saw....

BEFORE MAGIC ERASER....

I was pretty upset when I saw HOW MUCH marker ended up on the table. Let's just say Brooke was in the corner for quite a long time. I'm thankful for my friend Britten who came over during the ordeal or Brooke would have been sentenced to some pretty harsh punishment. After several text messages to some friends and family members to find out if there is any removal for PERMANENT MARKER, my friend Niki came to the rescue with my new best friend "THE MAGIC ERASER." I am now a firm believe that this thing can do anything and I will always keep them on hand!!! Thank you Niki for saving Brooke's life. :)

AFTER MAGIC ERASER....

The best vacation EVER!!!!!

Last week Jared and I took off to Mexico with a group of friends and went on our very first cruise. We sailed on Carnival Cruise Lines for 6 days/5 nights to the Western Caribbean KID FREE. :) Thanks to our wonderful friends who made this happen!!!Our ship the Carnival Inspiration.
The boat had 4 hot tubs, a swimming pool and 2 different water slides.
This was the first night. They had a game show kinda like Jeopardy and both Jared and I were contestants. We made COMPLETE fools of ourselves!!! I have to brag and say I did take first place and won a trophy.
This is picture of when they made me try to dance like Michael Jackson. I had NO clue what I was doing. Everyone thought I was totally drunk and waisted but no, that was all natural baby!!! I have to say the highlight was me singing the "Fresh Prince Of Bel air" theme song. They were all in shock I actually knew it and EVERY word!!!
Jared's turn.... He did SO awesome that they started taking away his points and turning off his buzzer to try to make it a fair game. He won second place and got a metal because they made him loose. After winning they felt bad for making him loose and game him a trophy too.
Our winnings. Man we are nerds!!!
Our second day at sea at the back of the ship.
Karaoke night. I love hearing Jared sing. He has a great voice and never uses it.
Here is Jared caring me through on our duet. I was so nervous. I HATE singing in public!!!
Here is the champagne that we won for the Salsa contest. We won second place even though we were told we should have one first place by several audience members. Once again Jared was caring us along. My honey can shake it!!! We ended up trading our champagne in for 6 cans of soda instead since we don't drink. The people at the bar thought we were crazy.
Formal night. As you can tell I'm a little burned from laying out on the ship and being in the sun all day at Cozumel.

The gang playing games on the ship. We all got together and met in our friends room. Imagine 8 people in one tiny room on the ship. Got to love Brad's robe. It's open a little too much for comfort.

Formal night again. This is our whole group. We had a BLAST together!!! Let me tell you, there was NEVER a dull moment. :)Yee Haw!
Our silly husbands or should I say the three stooges.
Snorkeling in Cozumel. I'm sad I didn't get more pictures while snorkeling and totally regret not buying an underwater camera.
Riding the mopeds. This was Jared's first time OFFICIALLY driving one. I was scared to death since I hate riding bikes but I have to admit I had a blast and Jared was actually a good driver.
Some of the ruins on the islands. It's amazing to think that the Nephites and Lamanites actually built these.

Last but not least the beautiful sunset. I'm sad to say that I never actually got to see the sunset the whole time on the cruise. Thanks Abby for this beautiful shot! Jared and I will be going again in 2 years and every 2 years thereafter if anyone wants to join us. :)

Pumpkin carving and Halloween

This year for Halloween we went trick or treating in the rich neighborhood of Fishhawk. The kids walked away with a lot more candy. I have to say this will be our new place to go because there seems to be more people home and the houses are decorated a lot better. Caleb was Captain planet (a super hero if you asked him) this year. He wanted a cape so we pinned a pillow case to his back. :) Brooke was a flower fairie and Hannah was also a fairie.

I decided to dress up for our ward Halloween party. Can you say hottie?
The kids were carving a pumpkin with dad. Caleb was upset that it had a scary face this year. He wanted a happy one instead. I'm a bad camera person. I forgot to take a picture of the finished product. :)

The kids!

I have to say I'm thankful for technology and digital cameras. I swear it is SO hard to take a good picture of the kids because they don't smile at the same time, they look away as you snap a shot or make funny faces. Luckily I can take about 40 pictures and find 1 good one. How did we ever survive in the day of polaroid cameras? :)

Tuesday game days

So I have to say my favorite day of the week is Tuesday's because of our traditional game day. I know it sounds silly but I LOVE having people over. My husband is not too fond of playing games so instead of bugging him I decided to have a weekly game day at my house where all the girls come over and we have a play group/game day. Here are some pics of the kids, the girls, and my driveway that looks like a parking lot. There were more people and cars but I forget to get a picture before everyone left. Plus, these are not all of the regulars. We were missing some people this week.

Look what I did!

So I have to say that I'm not very creative where all the other girls in my family are (including my mom). This is definitely something I lack. Now if you have an eating, burping, farting contest or something with sports I'll kick your trash! Well I have a good friend who makes hair bows and showed me how. I'm so happy to learn this new thing as my girls might actually have their hair done for once now. Probably not, but it doesn't hurt to be optimistic. :)

Here some of the bows I just made. Thanks mom for supplying the ribbons.