Easter {2011}

It was a big Easter for us this year! We had lots of family in town since my brothers just got home from their missions: Grandpa/Grandma Green; Uncle Brian/Aunt Lorie, Caroline & Annie; Chris & Jayda; Jeff, Rivka & Bray; Grandma McCombs; Tabby, Sophie & Isaac; Ryan & Chelsea; and Tara & Kayleigh.

On Saturday we helped the little kids dye Easter eggs.

Well some of us did. :) Others enjoyed Super Mario Bros on the patio!

Later the grown-ups hid candy-filled eggs for the kids & they had the ultimate egg hunt. Seriously ridiculous! Each of their baskets were completely full of eggs. Lorie, Rivka, my sisters & I had all got candy & plastic eggs. It took us quite a bit of time to fill them the night before!

In the afternoon Chelsea & I had snuck away so that I could go get the chicks I'd talked Jeremiah into! :) I kept them in my parents' garage until later that night so that I could surprise the kids with them in the morning. When I took them home I had to stop at the store so I left them with their little feed tray & their water in the truck while I was doing my shopping. When I got home 45 mins later & got the box out of the back seat of the truck I realized it was pretty wet & I knew immediately there was a problem.

I got the box into the garage & opened it up to see 4 basically dead chicks. 1 was pretty wet but moving around a little. The other 3 were soaked with what little down they had matted to their tiny bodies & they were not moving at all. They were barely breathing. I went in the house just about in tears & got Jeremiah. He came & looked at them said they were definitely not going to make it & that he was sorry. He told me to put them in the garbage. I felt terrible that I hadn't thought about their water sloshing around during the ride to the store & home, and it definitely had made matters worse that they'd stayed soaking wet in the cold truck while I went into the store. I was just sick about it! And I felt so guilty. But I wasn't giving up.

I was very anxious & feeling so terrible about what I'd done as I went & got some wash cloths and Jeremiah plugged in their heat lamp (at my request). I very gently tried to dry their bodies, then I'd hold them cupped in my hand 2 at a time up to the lamp. After a while their feathers began to get a little fluff in them and the chicks started to move a tiny bit, but they still took shallow breaths. That gave me encouragement though so I kept rubbing & heating. My sister Tara got my blow dryer for me & I put it on low & took turns blowing the down of each chick. After doing that for several minutes they were getting more fluffy & even started to peep a little bit. I sat on the garage floor tending my little chicks for an hour & a half. When I went to bed at 1:30 I knew I had done all I could do. I said a heartfelt prayer & pleaded with Heavenly Father to let those chicks live. Not because I wanted my kids to have chicks on Easter morning- saving the chicks was not about that. I kept thinking how could I have been so careless with God's creations?




When I got up in the morning the first thing I did was run out to the garage to check on my chicks. They were still alive! All four! It was a miracle! Jeremiah was completely shocked. I'm not exaggerating when I say they were practically dead the night before! He could not believe I'd brought them back to life & that they'd lived! My heart was filled with gratitude that Heavenly Father had spared these little insignificant creatures' lives. I don't even really like animals but I just hadn't wanted my stupid mistake to needlessly kill those chicks.

After the kids looked over their Easter baskets I took them out to the garage for their surprise. They weren't freak-out excited, but they did think the chicks were pretty cool. They each picked out a chick & named it. Jack named his chick Muffin, Callie named hers Buttercup, Ellie named hers Lola (I gave her suggestions but she made the decision :)), and Adelyn's chick is Dot.

Happy Easter!

Easter Party

My friends Cambrea Corbett & Kayla Nichols hosted a fun Easter get-together with lots of friends up in the Hualapais over the weekend. Cambrea & Kayla went up early in the day to reserve our rec area & hide all the eggs for the kids- and there were a ton! Of eggs. And kids.

Once all the families were there, Cambrea & Kayla gathered up the kids for the big hunt. They lined them up & then let the youngest kids go first, with two groups of older kids following.



All the moms were doing this: (this mom is Miyeko Kelsey)


Jeremiah got to do this: (I helped Ellie)


Ellie had a great time looking for eggs!


Callie & Jack both got too many. We made them put some back & give some to younger kids.

After the big hunt we had a great time eating hot dogs & sides & hanging out together. Thanks Cambrea & Kayla for organizing such a fun evening for all of our families!

April Fool's!

It wasn't until after the kids were in bed on the 31st that I was browsing Family Fun and saw some cute lunch ideas for April Fool's. That I hadn't been looking for. But they were really fun so I stayed up way too late working on Callie's trick lunch, and I was so excited for her to open her lunch box at school the next day! I gave her a normal sandwich & some mandarin oranges, but then I swapped the contents of her Gold Fish & fruit snack packages & I stuffed her Juicy Juice into a Yoo-hoo drink box. Which was especially funny since she doesn't really like Yoo-hoo! I also gave her a note that said she'd been pranked by the baby, and a word search with no solutions (both from Family Fun)! I loved it! And so did she! Funny thing is when we were talking about it after school she told me that instead of just sticking her straw into the Yoo-hoo and finding out she was drinking Juicy Juice instead, she noticed the bottom was a little funny (because the flaps didn't stay down all the way. Oops! I didn't glue it b/c I thought there was no way she'd notice it! I should have glued it!). She and her friend Emily worked really really hard to get the Juicy Juice back out of the Yoo-hoo box! LOL! I can't believe they were even able to do it!

It wasn't until I pulled back into my driveway in the morning that I noticed my star missing from it's usual place in our porch entry. I thought it was so awesome that I wasn't the only one who'd realized & taken advantage of April Fool's Day this year! Then I thought about who might have been so funny and plus who might have had an ugly sun with a coyote in the middle (haha!) on their house. I texted my friend Kate and asked, "Do you have my star on your house?" Yes she did! I knew it! PS they're renting and the coyote-sun was already on the house so I can say out loud that it's ugly. Bahahaha! I waited a few days before swapping back. And then I thought I was funny too because I backed up really close to their house so I could stand on my bumper & get my star, and then I put the coyote-sun upside down when I replaced it. :p Let me just mention how else Kate was funny (and Abby since they were partners in crime). They put a wishing well thing from her yard in someone else's yard, and they also put a little pond from her front yard in another person's front yard. With water in it! LOL

They're After Me Lucky Charms!

For the last couple of years a leprechaun has snuck into our home & hidden clues for our kids to find "gold" on St. Patrick's Day. Callie and Jack really wanted to see the leprechaun this year so we decided to make a leprechaun trap. The kids were totally into it & had a great time painting the box green and painting the stripes on our rainbow tube. Jack made the "leprechaun ladder" at preschool, and Callie made the "Come get The Gold" sign that would tempt any leprechaun!

Sadly we were outsmarted by leprechauns again! But he must have just barely gotten away since no clues were hidden this year for a chocolate hunt. Instead he left behind gold coins (he had to in order to escape from our trap!), and a note saying he'd hidden our Lucky Charms. The kids looked all over before finding them in the dryer. Maybe next year!











This was the funniest part of my morning. A day or two before I'd been in a hurry to get something from the pantry & caused a ton of stuff to fall to the floor. I didn't have time then to clean it up and the kids must not have noticed. When they opened the pantry door to check for the Lucky Charms and found the disaster, Callie couldn't believe that the Leprechaun had been so naughty & made a mess of our pantry! Uh yeah, it was totally the leprechaun... LOL

Valentine's Day

I was talking to Wendy a few days before Valentine's Day. I think she said something like, "I think it's so crazy how some mom's go completely overboard with the valentines. What's wrong with going to Walmart & buying a box of valentines & putting a couple pieces of candy in the envelope?"

Hmmmmm. And to think we've been friends for almost 10 years. I thought you knew me!

Anywhooo...

Here's the valentines Callie took to her class this year. Except it wasn't these ones. Because I forgot to take a picture of the finished product! Oops. Our straws weren't as cute - just plain pin-striped red/blue bendy straws from Walmart.



Thank goodness Jer's mom & Ann were over on Sunday afternoon so that I could be the slave driver I am! Really, I'm so lucky to have them here! They helped Callie & me whip those babies out. Otherwise it would have taken forEVER!



I didn't make Jack's valentines until Monday afternoon because he didn't need them until Tuesday (preschool day) for his party. Oh shoot, forgot to set the self timer & photograph myself. So here's the ones I copied. I remember these from when I was a kid. Love them!



Over the weekend the kids had been sick. On Valentine's Day Jeremiah was super sick. IN FACT I went to Smith's at like 2:30 in the morning to get him some Pepto! Talk about LOVE!

So on the day AFTER Valentine's Day we had our Valentine's breakfast (crepes this year). I gave treats to each of my Valentines. The kids each a dollar tootsie roll bank & a book. And a little marshmallow chocolate heart that I'd got from Smith's at 2:30 the previous morning.



Jeremiah got Ghiradelli Squares & I gave myself Lindor Truffles. I LOVE them!



Jeremiah & I don't exchange gifts and I LOVE it! Instead we have a tradition. Every year he makes me fruit dip & he washes & hulls strawberries. And I always make him sugar cookies. It's a fun tradition & something we both really look forward to. It's also great because it takes any pressure off of buying each other gifts. But since he was so sick I didn't make him his sugar cookies until Thursday (the 17th). I barely had them made before he got home from work so he took over helping the kids decorate while I fed Adelyn.



Our friend Warren arrived that afternoon from California to hunt with Jeremiah on Friday, so he was able to enjoy our sugar cookies too. :) He was so sweet with Adelyn! And not afraid of a fussy baby either - I like that!



Hopefully next year we'll all be healthy enough to enjoy our treats on Valentine's Day!

Thanksgiving 2010

Ahhh, Thanksgiving. We started the day with my m/d, Jeremiah's m/d, and my 3 sisters & b-i-l doing breakfast at our house. It wouldn't be a holiday breakfast without my dad making egg sausage casserole. Jeremiah's mom got a recipe from her sisters & made the most delicious ever french toast casserole. It's definitely going to be included in future holiday breakfasts. And breakfasts in between too! We had fruit & oj also & gorged on our delicious breakfast while visiting & watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Later in the afternoon we headed to my m/d's. Jeremiah's mom made a cheeseball, I made a relish tray, my sister made shrimp dip stuff that we always have at the holidays, & I got chips & salsa from Chili's for snacking on between breakfast & dinner.

Callie made this sign for my m/d's front door & she was VERY proud of it!



We had a decent sized crowd at my parents' for dinner & lots of food! My 3 sisters & my b-i-l, my grandparents (mom's side), Jeremiah's parents, friends Kevin & Dawn & Dawn's son, and a couple from my m/d's ward, plus my crew. My mom did a turkey in the oven & Jeremiah smoked one (which was AWESOME!).

We had a billion desserts & I'd been looking forward to a sugar high for days, but ended up not even eating any dessert because I was having stomach pains similar to the ones I'd had when I went to the ER when I was 16 weeks pg. They weren't as intense or as often & thankfully I woke up Black Friday morning after a nap feeling fine. I guess it's better in the long run that I skipped the 5,000 calorie intake I'd planned for the evening.

Jack really wanted a turkey leg so we let him have one. Then my dad told Jack that if he could eat the entire thing in one hour that he'd give him $10. Jack was stoked b/c he wants to save his money to buy a new hunting game for the Wii so he went to work, but after about 20 mins hadn't made much progress. Uncle Ryan had finished his turkey leg so everyone at our table told Jack to give Ryan his leg & take Ryan's eaten leg to Grandpa to get the $10. My dad didn't believe that Jack had eaten the leg but everyone at our table was in on it backing Jack up so my dad gave him the money. Of course we were just messing around but Jack didn't understand & was upset when I said he had to give Grandpa his money back. Since he was upset about it I let it go & mentioned to everyone at my table that I'd sneak it out of his pocket later. My kids don't keep good track of their money so it wouldn't have been a big deal. But then Aunt Kayleigh took it upon herself to regulate & got the money from Jack & he was really undone. It was a big scene & Jack was bawling & when Kayleigh realized what my plan had been she felt really bad. Then the lady from m/d's ward that was there totally let us all (at our table with Jack) have it for doing that to him. She was completely out of line to be talking to us like she did but nobody said anything. It WAS nice of her to be so concerned about Jack, just not cool that she was telling us off - Jack's parents, grandparents (Jeremiah's m/d), aunts & an uncle. That was our dinner excitement.



I wish I had a picture of my 2nd favorite part of Thanksgiving (the 1st of course being the eats): pouring over the Black Friday ads & making lists of stuff to shop for. We do it every year. I think even if I were terribly wealthy I'd still do Black Friday shopping - it's so fun! My sisters & I always sit around for a long time passing the ads back & forth & planning our excursion. Almost every year I consider skipping the shopping since there usually isn't any one thing that we have to have, and every year I end up getting up & shopping.

And that was our Thanksgiving.

Happy Easter!

We had a nice Easter weekend. My sisters Tara & Kayleigh both came down for the weekend. Kayleigh hadn't dyed Easter eggs in years so she was totally excited to do it with the kids. Although Callie had told me a few days before that she didn't want to dye eggs this year. Her reason was that if we dyed eggs then the EB would hide them & she didn't want him to hide real eggs, she wanted him to hide candy-filled eggs. So if we just didn't dye any at all then the only choice he'd have would be to hide candy-filled eggs. She's a smartie! I told her we could leave the dyed eggs in the fridge so the Easter bunny wouldn't even realize that we had any. Problem solved!

Callie was really really hoping they'd get bubble tape in their baskets but Jeremiah wrote the EB a note after last year asking him to please not bring any more bubble tape for the kids. Sorry Callie! Instead they got to hunt for eggs filled with jelly beans, individually wrapped disgusting, plastic-tasting rainbow twizzlers, Reese's pb eggs, and fruit snacks. The EB was kind enough to put stickers on the eggs so each kid could hunt for their own eggs & the older two wouldn't end up with everything. Except for the jelly beans, the other eggs had only one piece of candy (or pkg of fruit snacks) in them. And since half the eggs were fruit snacks, I didn't mind if they ate everything that day. And they did! Starting with their chocolate bunnies.

St. Patrick's Day at the Divis house: creating family traditions one silly holiday at a time!

For most (normal) people St. Patrick's Day is just like any other day of the week. But not in our house! Last year a leprechaun snuck into our house & hid clues leading to chocolate coins & coloring pages for the kids to find. They loved it so much & have talked a lot about it throughout the year. Over a month ago they started occassionally talking about St. Patrick's Day. You woulda thought the night before St. Patrick's Day was Christmas Eve or something! The kids were super wired & couldn't stop talking about the leprechaun. Callie said she was going to stay up all night to catch it. They left a drink of water & some money out for him. We don't know what the leprechaun did with those things, but in the morning it was all gone, cup included. They found their note from the leprechaun when they went to have some (what else) Lucky Charms that Dad got them for breakfast. The leprechaun was so sneaky & skilled - he was able to leave the note w/the first clue in the box before it had even been opened! At the end of the hunt they found their gold coins & coloring pages (which Callie had specifically mentioned several times)! After breakfast the kids helped me make rainbow cupcakes. I saw the idea/directions in the Family Fun magazine (love that btw), and it would have been nice if they would have mentioned that the cupcakes would take like TWO HOURS to prepare! Okay, it might've just been an hour & a half, but seriously people, these cupcakes took a LOT of patience! I had to divide the batter into 7 bowls, color each bowl of batter, and then layer the teensiest amounts of batter on top of each other. Each colored layer took between 10-15 mins! I don't know if I could do these every year - they sucked to make. But SO SO fun to eat!!! And delicious! I just love cupcakes & I've recently discovered that I really like chilled cupcakes! YUM! Anyway, we completed our day of silly holiday fun with a semi St. Patrick's Day dinner. Semi because no, we did not have corned beef. I made it last year & they hated it (and Jeremiah hated it all the other years I'd sometimes made it too)! Instead we had an oven-roasted chicken, french bread, cabbage, a platter of cut fruit laid out like a rainbow (with strawberries, pineapple, oranges, kiwi, blueberries, & red grapes & marshmallows for clouds - also from FF mag), and our rainbow cupcakes for dessert! I know that Jeremiah can't help but roll his eyes at me sometimes, so it was nice when he told me he appreciates that I make an effort to create family traditions, since those are the things you look back on when you're grown that you really enjoyed about your childhood. At least in our cases.

And in case you'd like a leprechaun to hide clues for your children, here's some ideas for the little guy. (I know - they're SUPER cheesy!)



Oh yeah, one thing that I think is crazy funny, and when I say crazy I mean CUH-RAZY, is that last year I was looking online for some St. Patty's Day fun/inspiration and I came across several blogs where people had let leprechauns come into their homes & make SERIOUS messes! Okay, I may be a little too into this, but trashing your house?! What the!! That's just messed up! Why in the WORLD would somebody overturn couches, dump cereal all over, and make their house look like somebody had broken in?! I laugh every time I think of this one picture I saw. I wish I could find it. Please don't tell me you do this!

Meet Sparkle, our friendly Elf on the Shelf

Did you know about Elf on the Shelf during the Christmas season?

At the beginning of the Christmas season we received a special delivery. A
nice little elf & a book just about him & his friends! The kids named our
elf Sparkle, despite my persistent suggestions of Eggnog or Jolly or
Mistletoe. Sparkle came to live with our family through Christmas Eve so
that he could watch & listen to everything the children said or did, whether
naughty or nice, during the weeks leading up to Christmas. Then each night
Sparkle would fly back to Santa to report on their behavior during the day.
The night we first met Sparkle the kids were better than they've ever been
in their lives! It was harder & harder for them to remember Sparkle was
watching during the holidays, so sometimes I'd walk over to Sparkle & tell
him something one of the children had done that was really nice. Or really
naughty! That usually led to pleas to not tell Santa & promises to be good
& apologies when needed! After Sparkle would visit Santa during the night
he'd return to our house in a new location. The kids loved to look for
Sparkle each morning! There were some special rules though - the children
were not to touch Sparkle no matter what or he could lose his magic! Also,
they could talk to Sparkle but he could not talk to them. He was a very
good listener though and would hear all about what they wanted for Christmas
or about things that had happened during their day! He could also talk to
adults. Not when the kids could hear though. On Christmas Eve as the kids
were running to their beds they turned back to tell Sparkle goodbye and
they'd miss him until he returned next year! Next Christmas you definitely
need an Elf on the Shelf of your home! :)

Here are some of the places Sparkle watched & listened from:

Did I feel bad about our visitor? Maybe a little. Will Sparkle come again
next year? Absolutely!

One thing I thought was hilarious was that the night I introduced the elf to
the kids & told them about the magic Callie said, "You're wrong mom. He's
just made out of plastic & fabric sewn together. That's not magic!" Of
course I explained exactly how it was magical, but I wonder if she will stop
believing, and not just in Sparkle. His magic won't be the same if she
doesn't believe.