Ahhhh...Fall Break

Yes, I know. More Ranch pictures. You see the rocking chair on the grass? That is now my favorite spot. Kids playing and squealing with joy and I'm relaxing with a good book. We really don't go any place else, so it's hard to make this exciting. But wait! Justin thought he'd show his dangerous side and bought a bow and arrow set for the kids. What's more exciting than giving your kids weapons that can kill a humongous bear? (well, not the one we bought, but I've seen some that can ;) How about showing how cool you are by trying to shoot a kiddie bow and arrow!



Here's a couple of shots at the top of Greenspeak.




Oh yeah, the kids were all making gagging sounds. Someday they'll think it was great that we were so shmoopy. It's funny. Justin's and my first kiss was AWFUL. He caught me off guard when he came in for the kill and I ended up kind of swiping my lips across his nose. Honestly, I'm surprised that he asked me out again after that. Lucky for me I had a car and a good job. How could he pass that up?
(and it's a cami you're seeing under my shirt. My clothing staple)



We picnicked in the meadow, saw a hundred deer and elk, and just relaxed. I can't wait to go back in the spring.

Bass Pro Shop Adventure

Here I am getting ready to climb the rock wall at the Bass Pro Shop.

Look, I think she's looking at my humongous buttocks and hoping the straps will hold.

Justin got some great pictures, but this was definitely not one of them. Those straps are not the most flattering accessory. I should have worn black pants to camouflage the bum hugging straps.





Here I am ringing the nonexistent bell at the top. (Justin said "Ring the bell!" so I spent 10 seconds hanging on for dear life looking for the stupid bell that wasn't there)
That's right, I actually made it to the top. My goal was to get higher than Victoria. It's pretty sad to just want to beat your 12 year old. I'm so ashamed, yet proud at the same time.





Here's Toria having her turn.



And Justin. I think it was way too easy for him. I'm just glad I went before him so I didn't look like a total wimp.








Here are the kids looking at the big fish tanks and then taking some shots with their Sarah Palin approved hunting rifles.










Gracie got a little freaked out by the fish.







All in all, it was a successful outing for us. We decided to call it FHE since there was some definite family bonding and we were reminded of Heavenly Father's many creations (even though most of them were brutally slaughtered then stuffed)

As a side note: I need a new camera. Mine's old and I don't get very good pictures from it. Any suggestions? I need something small and not too expensive.

HUH?

So Cameron, my 8 year old, comes up to me while I'm looking at my sisinlaw's blog and I explained how we're related to them. He then asked..

"So I'm more related to you than to Dad, right?"

"What do you mean Cam?"

"Well, I came out of your stomach and all Dad did is marry you."

This is why I have a blog. Now I'll remember this forever and never let him forget it.

I Love Halloween!

Maybe I should just say I love Halloween candy. That's probably the main reason I love Halloween. All of those mini Almond Joy bars and Reeses cups. I'm not embarrassed to say that I totally raid the kids cauldrons when they're not looking.


I do love the kids all dressed up that night, but I don't really enjoy trying to figure out what they're going to be. I'm almost afraid to start getting costumes together too soon because you KNOW they're going to change their mind two days before their school party. They'll want to be Hannah Montana instead of the fairy princess you worked for two weeks putting together. ( I guess you could make the dress a mini, add some hoochie mama boots and really heavy make-up and she would be fine. )

Seriously though, did our parents really put this much effort into Halloween? I had a bag-o-costumes in the attic as a kid and you had to try to find something to wear from it or make something up. Then we'd all run around with our pillowcases (that's right, no fancy cauldron. You can fit so much more in a pillowcase) and hit every house in the neighborhood totally unsupervised. Ahhh, the good 'ol days.



Well, last year I tried to be resourceful and frugal. I got an old torn up Belle costume from my mom's MASSIVE costume collection and disassembled the whole thing, bought some matching material and reassembled it. Voila! We already had Snow White, and Victoria was......honestly I have no idea what she was. She does it on her own and I think that's great. Now Cameron's costume was awesome. Ok, that probably sounds boastful. But when he said he wanted to be Jango Fett from Star Wars, I looked online for costumes and they were $40 on Ebay?! So I bought some $5 blue thermal underwear from Walmart and some silver clearance material and got to work. A little glue, an ASU football helmet, some duct tape and a lot of love and he looked perfect. (you know, perfect for a 7 year old who would run around in a Darth Vader cape and his Transformers undies if we'd let him. He's not too picky :)










We'll see how it turns out this year! And if you're getting ready to buy your candy to pass out, I hear the kids really love the full size Almond Joys. I know I'm stocking up. ;)

Mia Hamm.......Watch out!

Yes, I know Mia Hamm's retired. I guess my 5 year old was never a threat to dethroning her royal soccerness. But watching my overemotional, sweet little girl trample other sweet little 5 year old girls while trying to steal the ball away and score a goal (for our team hopefully) just makes me swell with pride.

But here's my favorite part. Emma can't run without having her mouth wide open. Victoria was the same way, so I think it's genetic. (of course not from my side) Also, the team is made up of girls from our ward so I get to socialize with the moms as a bonus. Go Firecrackers! :)

An Uneventful Trip is Soon Forgotten......

Well, Justin and I decided to break old habits and attend a ward function. The Ward Camp out! Hooray! We really like our ward so we were excited to go and the kids were beyond happy. Even Victoria. :) It's so hard to meet people in our ward because it's so huge. We really like the two families that we know, so we thought this would be a good opportunity to get to know the other 700 that we don't. So we pack up Grandma's Van for another road trip. (no, haven't bought the Suburban yet) We get about half way to Payson when I notice the tire pressure light was on. Crap. We get out and notice there's two huge bolts in the tire. Double Crap. So we slowly head back to town with some sad kids in tow. We get out at Discount Tire and Grace says, "Dad, this isn't the mountains!" She's always been my observant one.

So we drop the car off at my favorite tire place and now we've got an hour to waste. We decide to bribe the kids out of moping and go to NYPD pizza.

I love their calzones and we got this buffalo chicken caesar salad

that was so yummy. I don't think it was their healthiest choice, but

I figured we would have been eating "camping food" and it's never good for you, so I was good with it.

Now you might notice something different about this picture. What? I'll give you a hint....I'm in it. I know, shocker. But the only reason Justin insisted on taking the picture is so he had proof that I wore my new favorite shirt. They were so embarrassed of me that Victoria wouldn't be less than 5 feet away from me and Justin didn't even want me going into WalMart. That's right...WalMart. Now what do you have to be wearing that wouldn't be WalMart worthy? Seriously. I've gone in my dirty sweats, no make-up, scroungy kids with no shoes and still felt totally in place there. And what's even better is that when I run into friends there, they sometimes look like that also! Now Costco is a totally different story. Always shower and make-up for Costco. I've run into J's ex-girlfriends too many times there to not look at least clean.

My new favorite shirt.

It says, "More Cowbell" with a picture of Will Ferrell on it. If you haven't seen this SNL skit, you're missing out.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xnfyp_cowbell_fun

So, I don't get many opportunities to wear my cowbell shirt in public. I thought wearing it to the ward camp out would get people to talk to me. Seriously, can you walk by this shirt and not go, "Huh?" I don't care if they remember me as the cowbell lady, or the lady with the ridiculous shirt on. It's a start. I've honestly introduced myself to the same woman in my ward 5 times and neither of us remember each other's name by the next Sunday. Maybe I should wear it to church. Although, they'd probably release me. Hmmmm......wait a second....

Anyways, after the car was done we went home, made some S'mores on the gas stove, pulled

out the sleeping bags and watched the Spiderwick Chronicles. And even though I'm sad we missed out on the camp out, I didn't mind sleeping in my own comfy bed, having running water, no mosquitos, and sneaking some ice cream after the kids went down. Maybe I'll wear my shirt for the next ward function. Trunk or Treat? Absolutely.

It's a Girl!!!!

Yeah!! I'm an auntie again! Jenna Kate Douglas was born Sept 16th at 6:30 pm. And she's actually really cute! Don't get me wrong, they're all "cute" like newborn cute. Squished faces and cone heads that belong on Saturday Night Live "cute". But this one has this LITTLE head with lots of hair and these cute little puckered lips. After Emma was born (my 3rd baby) the nurse laughed and said her head was bigger than an actual bowling ball. (like I didn't know that. I pushed that bowling ball out) When one of my many siblings was born, they had actually switched babies on my mom and brought her the wrong one! She took one look at the beautiful little darling in her arms and said, " This isn't my baby. It's too pretty" She was totally right, and that genetic flaw has been passed down to most of my siblings, including myself. They get pretty a couple of months down the road and then turn out to be pretty good looking kids. But with your first it's kind of scary being handed this...not so pretty baby (I didn't want to say ugly. That's too mean even for me) and wondering how their life will be with this scrunched up face and nose full of little white pimples. Will they be made fun of in the hospital nursery? Will my baby be the one everyone is pointing at and saying, "Yowza! I hope she has a great personality?"

Well, I'm rambling. Fortunately, mine are all BEAUTIFUL (now) and have great personalities. (whew!)

So, Congrats Janelle and Scott! I can't wait to come play!

9/11

What I remember vividly is watching all of the people running away from the disaster and all of the firemen and police running towards it. It was heartbreaking.

I've been tagged?!!

Well, Victoria informed me that I've been tagged. Huh? And she also informed me that this is not the first time. Without sounding like a complete "blodiot" (pretty clever, right? blog-idiot ;) I didn't know what tagging was. I know I've read other peoples, but I guess I wasn't really paying attention. So sorry to those who tagged and I did not respond. It was rude and unforgivable. So Jacque, my Utah cousin whom I adore, here you go.



5 things about me people probably don't know......

1. I am a Supreme Allied Commander on Star Wars Rogue Squadron. That means I kicked the Empire's butt to the next galaxy. We bought this game when Cameron was born and I got totally addicted soon after. Justin would come home from his 24 hr shift to me in front of the tv, dark circles under my eyes because I had played all night long. Thankfully I turned in my controller after conquering Darth Vader and his thugs and haven't picked one up since. (except for a short time after we bought Halo.)

2. I hate scrapbooking. I totally respect and admire people who do it, but I can't understand how anybody can spend hours making one page for 2 pictures. I'm a throw it in a book and hope I remember when and who it was kind of person. I know that's terrible and probably lazy, but that's just how it is for me.

3. I look forward to using my food supply. I don't want the rest of the bad stuff to happen, but I'm not afraid to eat what I store. It's a great feeling and I thank my mom for it. Here's a sample of what I have: Costa Vida Sweet Pork, Cafe Rio Chicken, BBQ Beef, Green Chile Chicken, tortillas, pancakes, etc, etc. Famine? What Famine?!

4. I grabbed another man's "behind" on my honeymoon cruise. I thought Justin was behind me in line for the buffet so I reached around and squeezed away! Then I looked to my right to see Justin with a big ol' grin on his face watching me grab this guy. I turned around and there was this short balding man with an even bigger grin on his face! (I almost always win the "Most Embarassing Story" prize with that one. It's either that one or the one where my dress is tucked into my panties at the prom. Either way I'm a shoo-in ;)

5. I'm a hip-hop dancing in the kitchen, bargain shopping, bake til I drop, mother of four beautiful, wonderful kids, and wife to one extremely loving, hot firefighting husband. Life is pretty sweet.

American Idol - Alexander Style

Well, I'm posting this mainly for the grandma's to see what their genetics have produced. I wish I could say that the willingness to perform for anybody and everybody was from the Alexander side.........but alas, it's not. Justin's brother actually calls my family the "VonCrap Family Singers" (Sound of Music). He's just jealous, though ;)

So Mom, here you go. I'm sure you'll be happy to know that another generation of camera happy, loud, goofy kids are being raised exactly how they should be. With a song in their hearts and a smile (and a camera) on their face. ;) Love ya Mom.

(try to ignore the fighting and messy house in the background. )

R U A DVL FN?

GO S UN DEV I LS !!!!!

Suburban or Minivan?!!

So, a couple of weeks ago I was driving on the US 60 when we were hit by some girl probably texting and putting on her makeup while eating a supersize Big Mac. That is the only way she could not have seen me. Anyways, since "Grandma's Van" (which Justin so lovingly named my van since only a granny would drive something like it) was on it's last legs , we are ready to get something new. We just can't decide what.

(not really her)


On one hand, after our most recent road trip to Utah we realized we'd like something with four wheel drive, more cargo space and leg room. (poor Victoria was so scrunched in the back of the van) So a Suburban sounds great. But honestly getting 15-20 mpg (on a good day) is enough to make me want to.....well anyways.



It's so gorgeous, isn't it?

But the more practical side says a minivan is the way to go. They're affordable, not huge gas guzzlers, very convenient, and I don't care if it screams homemaker with 4 children. How cool are automatic sliding doors?





So I need help deciding and want your opinions, please. If you have one or the other, tell me what you like or dislike. We're not real picky on makes ( no " Calvin peeing on a car "sticker's for us)

(Seriously, what kind of a person puts that on their car?!)

Let them eat cake!

I'm realizing I like to do bday cakes a lot more than weddings. So little stress involved. I just finished this one for my friend's daughter's bday. She's having a "Spa Party" and they're getting facials and nails done at the party.

My poor kids. I only let them have a party every other year and even then I try to bribe them out of having that one. "Hey sweetie, wouldn't you rather have this really cool $20 bill than a stinky old party? Nobody's going to show up anyways. You don't have any REAL friends." Is that crossing the line? :) OK, I don't really say that, but I do offer them $ to save me the hassle of a party. None of them have taken me up on it yet. But I can keep on trying. Maybe I should offer more?

School has Started!!!!!

I'm not even going to try to hide my excitement.

YEAH!!!!!!!!!!

I love school. I love the schedule it puts us on, I love the new clothes and packing lunches. I love that I get to see my friends when I take and pick up the kids from school. It's all so good. All of the kids were excited for school to start also so that makes it absolutely perfect. Emma got Mrs. Galen (whom we love) and Victoria got into Advanced Drama (everybody gasp in surprise) Victoria, Drama?!! I would never put the two together. :) She loves it and that makes me happy. Cameron got Mrs Carpenter and he finally has some friends in his class so he's good. (he's so easy to please)

my photogenic one.

We missed Ashlyn's bday when we were in Utah so we took them for pedicures before school started. Lucky.

I'm surprised they didn't duck behind the bushes when I came over. :)

Of course, Grace was disappointed when I dragged her back to the car with me. Emma loves kindergarten and is thrilled when the weekend is over. We'll see how long that lasts. :)

We went to my sister, Shelly's, house this weekend so the kids could swim. Her pool is great and the kids had a great time. Thanks Shel.

Utah 2008


I love Utah. All of my mother's family lives up there and I love my mom's family. There's more than 150 of us now (living) and still growing. Every time we go up, I want to move there. But, we also always visit in the summer when it's absolutely beautiful. Never in the winter. But it's been a while since I've gone with my kids so we decided to pack up the minivan and head up for a wedding and to visit my 90 year old grandma. We took a detour to Brianhead Ut first to spend some time with Justin's brother and family. This will now be an Alexander family tradition. It was gorgeous and we found a great cheap condo. Stocked with old 80 movies and video games for the kids up in the loft. Could it get any better? We played, had a picnic, rode the chair lift to the top and Justin got some mountain biking in before we left.







stinky boys
Victoria and cousin Bailey










After Brianhead, we took the genealogical route up through Koosharem Ut to see my ancestors hometown. We even ate at the Koosharem Cafe (which wasn't half bad)





Then onto Grandma Gunderson's. She lives in the home that my great great grandfather built. He traded the property for a down mattress he had owned in Denmark and had brought across the plains with them. The store that he owned across the street is still standing which I thought was pretty cool. Wasatch Academy now owns it and is turning it into a coffee shop soon.








I love having a hot husband.





We left Grandma's the next day (before the kids gave her a heart attack) and went to Provo for the next three days. We played, saw movies, and went up to Brighton to see Justin's sister (who actually lives in Buckeye, but was visiting family) The highlight was Salt Lake and Temple Square. It was so hot! We saw the Joseph Smith movie (loved it and cried) and the JS memorial bldng and ate at the Gardens Restaurant. It was beautiful.









Brighton - me riding the zip line :) Justin actually smiling for a picture








The Wedding

OK, here's how this works....... Skye is my cousin. She is marrying Paul Brown, who is my sister in law's ( Courtney) nephew. Courtney is Clint Brown's (SR1 ward) sister. My other sister in law, Alice, is Debbie Brown's (Clint's wife)sister. I think that makes Debbie and I related in three different twisted ways. (Courtney, Alice, and now Paul) I'm so sorry Debbie. :)


My cousin Skye (she was beautiful) Skye and her brothers



My Aunt Jana and Uncle Kent (with grandbaby)

Cousin Tigh and Jacque

It was a great trip. But there's no place like home. :)