I hate Valentine's Day!

Normally I do. It's so grey outside and if you try to go out for a date, so is everyone else in the world. Not this year, a few of us made dinner for our hubby's. It turned out great, and no kids were involved! I must say Greg and the boys were really sweet to me. I felt like it was mother's day. They made me breakfast and did a cute little scavenger hunt to find my gift (which was an ipod, I broke Greg's running in the rain). Since the boys are getting bigger they can actually write fun things in the cards they gave me. Greg even spent the day downloading music to the ipod (he for sure gets to borrow it :)

Here are a few pictures of our night, and some not of our night. You know I always need to throw in a few of the babies being crazy.
Melinda and Greg

Randy and Katie

Robyn & Kent

David and Cindy

Greg, Kent & Randy

Katie and Robyn

Our new batman, Peyton, crying because he wants to see himself in the camera!

Ryder's new thing, sneaking in the bathroom and eating the toothpaste.

He's happy he got caught!

The babies are wanting to be just like their older brothers. Check out Peyton with his arms behind his head!

Reminiscing

I was going through some pictures and came across these. It is of our Halloween Bunco, while living in Phiily, at Holly Sanders. I am not sure where Deb, Allison, Annie, Alyssa, Callie and Traci are (maybe it's my last year and that's why your not at Bunco. I am losing it), but I loved remembering back. I truly miss my Philly friends.

Little Helps

I have found a few things that have made life so much easier for me. If you have something, please put it in a comment. I am always looking for ways to simplify my life!

1. Plastic bowls with straws in them for .99 cents! Now the twins don't dump as much milk all over the place. Dried milk is a pain to clean up.

2. Rubberbands on my cupboards! Life saver. Even if it is loose and they can get in it, they won't even try. Plus rubberbands are great for days when my pants feel a little too tight! Bonus!!

3. It's called "Present" from Philosophy, it's a face product. It temporarily takes away wrinkles. You put it on, let it dry for over 2 minutes and wa-la! Magic in a bottle is what I call it.

4. Hair putty styling paste. No matter what kind of hair day I am having, this stuff makes my hair do anything.

5. Thanks to Jessi for this one: SmartMouth Mouthwash. It's amazing. My breath doesn't reek near as bad as it used to!

6. Bag-a-bon: It's so great! I put it on the babies everyday because their skin doesn't quite agree with any weather. It's amazing stuff, I think it's for cow's utters, but the babies are so smooth a little later in the day.

7. Cold water, an apple and a cheesestick. I like to eat when I am in the car. If I carry these things in my car with me then I WILL eat them.

8. I have this brush made out of cactus. You rub it all over your skin before you shower and it's supposed to help with your circulation and cellulite. Even though it probably doesn't work, my brain doesn't know any better and it feels good to brush the crap out of your skin!

9. I love to get a pedicure, who doesn't? But I can't always afford to go everytime my nails chip. So I found these awesome strips, and a french manicure set at Walmart and now I can do it myself. It's not as relaxing, but definetly affordable.

10. I love the internet! I know there is a lot of scary stuff on it, but there is also so much great stuff. I don't ever have to leave my house to shop. It's all categorized. You can find anything on the internet. Can't live without it!

If you have anything to share, please do!

Heaven!

So we are in heaven here in Alaska! The kids have been off school for two days now because it has been 45 degrees! Do you wonder why the kids have school off? Well, we had tons of snow last month, then last week we were in the -20's, this week our degrees climbed up to 45 which makes it a 65 degree difference! Awesome, huh? The only thing not awesome about it is now the roads are ice, I can't even get into my garage because it's so slick. I did venture out today and picked up some friends for the boys. It's kinda funny, most kids get off school for too much snow. Not in Alaska! You get off school if the snow melts too fast! Gotta love it!


This is how the kids celebrate no school. Austin, Carter Russell, Hunter, Hunter Russell. Thank goodness for X-box...even the babies think they can play. We let them have a remote with no battery.


This picture was taken about two weeks ago. It's on my deck and we had tons of snow.


This is the same table on my deck today. The snow is melting fast.


This is my beautiful picture of Jesus that Greg got me for Christmas.

Happy 60th Birthday, Mom!

My mom turned 60 yesturday. My sister put together this slideshow of my mom in her prime. She has the brown, flipp-out hair. She also has the black swimsuit on. I forget that my mom was young once, not always mom. It's funny that our kids are going to think of us as only "mom" and not someone who had another life before them. My mom won a beauty contest in Spartenburg, South Carolina. She danced the Charleston for her talent. It was fun to see these pictures of my mom. Happy Birthday, mom, love you!

Christmas Break

I finally got my camera to down load some pictures to share of Christmas Break. I finally took a ski lesson with Robyn. That was fun, but then my bubble burst when we (Greg & two older boys) went to Aleyeska ski resort and I about killed myself. I will go back to the bunny hills at Hilltop from now on. Sadly we have no pictures of that. We spent Christmas Eve & New Years Eve at the Newell's. We had a lot of fun and love having them in Alaska. Although, everyone needs to tell Greg we need a bigger house so we can entertain at our house, we are running out of room!

Christmas post

I was going to post a few pictures of the kids on Christmas morning, but Greg has the camera at work, I'll do it later. But I will say Christmas was very simple and probably one of the funnest so far. Austin is 6 and at that age where Christmas is still very magical to him. He swore he saw Santa and his sleigh on the ride home from our friends on Christmas Eve. We got home and he went to bed and then as soon as santa had left he was in our room at 11:30 pm to inform us that Santa had been to our house! I think that santa had JUST left. He ended up sleeping in our bed for the rest of the night, and if you know anything about Greg you know that kids in our bed is a huge NO-NO. I guess Christmas is the exception. Christmas Day is the only day of the year that I feel justified in taking a really long, and well worth it nap. That's the best gift of all! We had a great Christmas and I did end up getting a beautiful picture of Jesus. Now when my kids are asked to think of a picture of Jesus in their house, they have one to think of!

My "helpers"

I always wonder why I can't keep up with my housework...well the babies seem to want to help all the time! Unfortunately, none of these pictures I staged, it's what happens EVERY single day. Someone's got to keep me on my toes!

Christmas Tag

Anyone can play--just copy and paste!

1.CANDY CANES--PEPPERMINT OR CHERRY?
Cherry

2.GINGERBREAD HOUSES--KIT OR HOMEMADE?
We always did homemade growing up. I usually get a kit. It's not the same. I think I will try homemade this year. By homemade I mean already made grahm crackers with lot's of icing and candy. Then you can actually eat it...if you want.

3.MOST ANNOYING CHRISTMAS SONG
Feliz Navidad. I agree with Holly!

4.FAVORITE CHRISTMAS SONG
Anything by Nat King Cole or any of those oldy singers...they make Christmas seem so much simpler than it is today.

5.MOST MEMORABLE CHRISTMAS PRESENT YOU RECEIVED AS A CHILD
How funny is this...I got twin cabbage patch dolls when I was about 7 or 8, but they were girls.

6. MOST MATERIALISTIC THING YOU'RE ASKING SANTA FOR THIS YEAR
A kitchen table (not likely), a nice, big framed picture of Jesus (already here, Greg picked it out and so I don't know what picture it is)

7. FAVORITE CHRISTMAS MOVIE
Christmas Story and It's a Wonderful Life.

8. CHRISTMAS MUSIC--DAY AFTER HALLOWEEN OR DAY AFTER THANKSGIVING?
Day after Thanksgiving

9. DO YOU BELIEVE?
Of Course!

10. GET DRESSED BEFORE OPENING YOUR PRESENTS, OR STAY IN PJ'S?
PJ's--who gets dressed? Agreed!

11. BLACK FRIDAY?
I've only gone twice and I hated it both times. I like to shop on-line, where there is peach and quiet, most of the time.

12. WHITE LIGHTS OR COLORED?
White

13. EVER BEEN TO THE NUTCRACKER?
No

14. DOES SANTA LEAVE AN ORANGE IN THE TOE OF YOUR STOCKING?
Yes, he always has. Just the smell of them reminds me of Christmas when I was younger.

Late Post

This post is so late, but I had to say how much fun I had at Twilight. We were in UT for a short time and so I got to go see it with my sisters & Mom :)! My sister put together shirts and we went to dinner and then hit the midnight show the first night out. Alot of people haven't really loved the movie, but I think I enjoyed it so much because I was having so much fun with my sisters & mom (we missed you Tami, Michele, Susan and Tiff).