6th grade Science Project

Vance did a great job on his sixth grade science project. We picked a pretty simple project because he sort of forgot to tell me about it during spring break!! :)  We still had two weeks though, so we did fine. Vance is such a smart kid. I was very proud watching him, and talking with them about all the aspects of why the planes flew or didn't fly as well, and how we should arrange things. I love my little man! 

Our Visit to Grandma Zola

It was so nice to see Grandma Zola during spring break this month. We went down with Kjell on some jobs in Portland. We visited some of our old homes we lived in, and even dropped by Vance's elementary school and got to see his teacher that he had for kindergarten and first grade. He loved that!! 
It was really hard seeing Grandma this way, she is very tired. Kjari and her really hit if off, it was so cute, they were dancing together!  It was really special to see. The boys were a little nervous, but I think it was good for them. I stayed for an extra hour alone and Kjell took the kids back to Aunt Linda's house. It was bitter sweet. It is hard seeing someone you love in front of you, but not sure if they really know you are there. Kjell gave her a blessing before we left. She did not want us to go, adn that was heart breaking. I love my Grandma. She is an amazing women who has lived a wonderful, honorable life.

St. Patricks Day

I didn't catch any photo's of the mischief the leprachans left this year, but we did have a fun "beautiful" dinner as Kjari would say!!  I love the fun simple holidays!!! 

Great Job Gjori and Kjellsen!!!

This last friday, Gjori and Kjellsen participated in there school Talent show!! It was SOOO fun, and they both did so well. Kjellsen has a love and a talent for drawing. He ended up being the only one to submit art, so they actually had him do a reviel type thing as the first act. He was so cute after he revieled it he ask if anyone had any questions, but the lady didn't here him ask, so they moved on, and so his anxiety started up and he ran off the stage  and we found him in the corner of the gym crying. I felt so bad for him because he really was so excited about it and did such a good job. We finally got him to come sit down and watch the rest of the show, and with in a few minutes he was having a good time again. Gjori chose to do a magic show!! It was really awesome! He did three tricks including one where he had his principal come up. He did such a good job!! My only worry for Gjori was that he would giggle thu it and he ended up having everyone in the croud laughing and it was just really fun!!  I was so proud of both of them. After the show, Kjellsen was overwhelmed by how many people came and looked at his drawings and loved them. So many people talked to him and it really made him feel so much better. The best part is his principal ask him if it would be ok if they displayed them in the new school display cabinet for a few months. That made his day.  I think he is going to love seeing that at school today.
They also had a bake sale silent auction, so I made up 5 plates of truffles!! It was fun and I really like how they did it, I think they raised a lot of money for the school.

Monty's 40th Birthday Party

I thought I would post the awesome party that our friend Carrie threw for her husband Monty's bithday.  Kjell and some of there friends went and played air soft to keep him busy while we set up everything at the church building. Carrie worked for months on this party and it turned out so cute. It was a hunting/red neck theme. She had all sorts of decorations, a slide show, and tons of games, including a gunny sack type race that she used deer bags for.  Everyone came in camo or hunting clothes. It was really fun. Carrie actually cut and shaped the deer cake made from Red Velvet cake!! It turned out really cute!!

Kjari......

Before.....(This was in October)


After.......

From the Salon fix up....

Ok, now that I have dried my tears, and can talk about it...(sort of teasing..) I had to post about Kjari's self hair cut!!Another thing we do for Valentines day is, for the month of February, we each have little mail boxes, and I have supplies for Valentines to be made in hopes that everyone will leave little notes to each other. So hence scissors were out.......Gjori was home sick that day and I was upstairs cleaning. Gjori came running up telling me, "mom you are going to be so mad at Kjari..." Then around the corner comes the little princess herself!!

I was so impressed with what the stylist was able to do!! Her hair actually looks really cute now, but not exactly what I would have chosen for her!! The funny thing is the last few days she has gotten upset with ME because I wont put braids in her hair!! :)

Classroom Valentines

I had fun making the kids Class Valentines this year!! With Kjellsens allergy to red dye, I decided no candy this year on the cards. (He got plenty at the party to give away!) So I found this adorible idea on the Insanity blog, (you can find link on my list of blogs, she always has fun party etc.. ideas) Anyway. I made up 5 batches of play dough and made it as red as possible, and we cut out 55 3/4 inch hearts and put them in celephane bags, and attatched little cards the kids signed!! The picture only shows the first half!! It took forever but was worth it! I was at the parties and the kids loved that they got something they could take home and play with!! It was sad that Vance, now a big middle schooler, didn't need Valentines this year!! He didn't seem to mind, but sad for me!! :) For the teachers this year, I found the cutes little fuzzy Valentines Socks!! I couldn't resist and got a pair for me too!! :)

Valentines Day!!

I had lost a cord to get pictures on my computer, so I am way behind on our blog. Since I plan on printing this off someday as my make shift journal, I will be posting over the next few days some photos from our adventures over the last 6 months, out of date but at least they are here, for today though, I am going to post our fun annual Valentines Dinner, as Kjari has now named them our beautiful dinners. Everynight since that night she asks if we can have a "beautiful dinner"again, meaning I think that she wants candles and our fancy glasses. Here are some pictures from our dinner!

Happy Valentines Day!!

Kjell and I both LOVE Valentines day!! We make it all about our family!! Probably because we celebrate our anniversary just a few weeks before!! But I still wanted to post a picture of my Valentine and me!! I won't get too gushy since I did just post about him, but to be honest he is pretty great and it is hard not too!! I love being married!! Married love it so awesome, I never have to wonder if I have a Valentine or not!! I am glad to know that forever and all Eternity, I will always have not just any Valentine but I will always have him!!

Last night at Family Home Evening, we were talking about standards, and why it is important to protect our standards that we are given, because Satan is always trying to get us to break them even in little ways. We talked about how the next 10 to 15 years for them will be so important and that Satan knows that, and he will try to get them to break the standards our Heavenly Father has given us to protect us. Now is the time more then ever that Satan wants them to break those standards because some of the most important decisions they will ever make such as going on a mission and who and where they marry will be effected. Making little choices that break there standards can make it very difficult to achieve these goals. So we talked about how, it was important for both Kjell and I to find someone who honored those standards in the same way....So Gjori piped in right away and said, "wow, you guys are really lucky, no more challenges for you." Well... that gave us a pretty good laugh, and made us both think hard. By no means has Satan left us alone... and he never will. We have seen his influence in our lives many times and had to really hold to those same standards to fight him off. But it did make me so grateful for my temple marriage and for a man who knows what is right and knows what he needs to do to protect himself and our family from challenges that we don't need so that we can have the strength to fight the ones that come anyway!! I love you Valentine!!

Carissa

Photo Credit: Martie @ http://martieshouse.blogspot.com/

Many hearts are broken today. And many tears are being shed. A wonderful family has been temporarily seperated from one of their own. My awesome, friend from Montana and her family, lost her little girl yesterday. I have been in tears all morning, and feel so helpless being here so far away from a this family. I was so lucky to watch Carissa once a week for the begining parts of her life. I remember seriously waking her up, so I could snuggy with her!! Knowing that if I didn't she would be perfectly content to just sweetly sleep in her car seat for the few hours her mom was at the school. Kjari would be off playing with the older two girls so it was just me and Rissa!! She really filled a much needed baby fix!! Like ALL the little girls and the one little man, in this amazing family, her smile would melt you. The spirit felt from this family alone was always one of love and sweetness. Carissa will be sooo missed. It really never makes sense to me when things like this happen, but I do have a testimonly of our Loveing Heavenly Father's plan for us, and that includes his sweet daughter Rissa. So my heart mostly breaks for the family and for the friends who will miss out on her sweet smile and wonderful spirit!!
Our family continues to pray for you Amy and Blair, and we love and miss you too!!

Happy Anniversary

Yesterday Kjell and I celebrated our 13th anniversary. It was a pretty normal day, the kids had off for MLK day, so we did have a nice sleeping in, and despite new year diets I made Kjell's favorite sweedish pancakes with whip cream and blueberries, Kjell made fried potatoes and bacon and Kjellsen made scrambled eggs. It was fun for all of us, and we all enjoyed it. Kjell took the kids to the park for a few hours and let me just relax and get ready for our date. We went to Outback, and had an awesome meal. Then we had to go to Cold Stone!! Kjell was so sad to find out... no more black cherry topping! But he enjoyed a huge blueberry sweet cream. My good friend watched Kjari for us, so we swung by and picked her up and came home. It was a fun night. I can't believe we have been married 13 years. Time has really flown. We will both be 35 this year!! It really hit me the other day when I realized we only have 3 years until our 20 year reunions!! So wierd.

Well one thing that Kjell has always done is make me feel young! So I am grateful for that. I love you honey!! Thanks for putting up with me for all these years! He is amazing, really, those who have ever lived with me are nodding there heads!! :)

Hello again!!

Ok, I am going to try with the new year to get back to my blog. I have a ton of pictures I would like to update on here, so there may be a few old posts, but I will try to keep up to date too!! My newest adventure is training for a 5 k run in March, so I am hopeing to journal a bit each week on that too. I am feeling pretty good about it, it really isn't a big deal, 5k is only a little over 3 miles.
So, as soon as I get my pictures up and loaded I will start posting again!! I love getting on here, because it reminds me to check all my friends and families blogs too and it makes me feel closer to everyone! So... enjoy!

Our new home!

I know I have taken forever on this, but I have finally gotten the photos in the computer. As some may know, I loved decorateing. I always decorate on a dime. Meaning I love to see what I can do without spending crazy amounds of money. My new favorite obsession is re doing furniture. Painting, covering whatever it takes. So fun.

The challenge in this house is, (not to mention the loss of about 900 square feet) I have brought all my decorateing with me from my house, and the colors don't go so well with this home we are renting. I don't want to go out and change everything I have since of course we don't plan on renting here forever, so I have had to really change alot of things, as simply as I could. So, here are the pics of our temporary home here in Washington!!

I finally decided to cut her hair!! She has such beautiful hair but unfortunately it is like mine, takes constant up keep to keep from not looking stringy. She was so excited and loved the thought of getting her hair done. I put a before picture so you could see how long it had gotten. I love it now the way it is!!

Update!!!

Ok, there is no way I can really do justice to a real update, but I will make the very long story short. We pulled the house from the market and our now renting to a really nice couple and there two little girls. All in all it has really been a blessing finding them. So... finally I packed up the last of our things, and we left to head to be with Daddy!! YEAH!! We just got here two nights ago, we are going to look at a few homes today. It really hasn't hit me until just recently how tired I am. This last year has really draned me but we made it!!! Kjell is so happy to have us here, and even more happy that it worked out that we didn't have to sell our home, he is hopeing that means he can continue to hunt in Montana over the years!!! I am just happy we don't have to sell in this really low market.

I will try to update again soon, we already miss our wonderful friends in Montana. Kjari has already started asking to go home. It may be a while, but I dream that we may be able to do that someday. Thank you to everyone who helped us get going!! We will miss you all!!

Our Home!

It is official! It is on the market! Sad and exciting at the same time! Here is a link to some photo's of our home. I wish we had taken some before, we pretty much re did almost all rooms!! Enjoy!

http://crazymomwife.smugmug.com/photos/swfpopup.mg?AlbumID=8508793&AlbumKey=kemE3

I Heart Faces - week 17

http://www.iheartfaces.com/
Kids catagory:
I have never done this before and by no means consider myself a proffesional, but I love photography!!! This week's contest is asking for faces with hats! I remembered this photo I had taken of Kjari, it has always been one of my favorites.

If you want to see more of the photo's entered check it out at http://iheartfaces.blogspot.com/

Misc Easter

We bought and boiled 5 dozen eggs this year and simply never got around to coloring them. When I saw a bowl of these white eggs, it reminded me of this picture of the savior and how much I love it. I think I like the white eggs better?? What do you think?

I made these yummy treats that I found the recip for on the blog that is listed on my list of blogs it is the My insanity one! They turned out so cute and so yummy!

I didn't get many great pictures on Easter Sunday, but I did catch a few, she looked so cute!! She LOVED it, it was really longs so of course she felt like a princess!!

Easter Egg Hunt

WE went to the biggest Easter egg hunt I have ever heard of. A local family holds this on there ranch every year, typically with 5000 eggs. Alot already, but this year in honor of her husbands 50th birthday, they had 50,000 eggs, no joke, they were spread out for miles on all these rolling hills it was truly amazing to see!! It was a little crazy, as you can see from the cars, so many people came from all over. They had tons of prizes and an airplane that dropped 50 stuffed animals thru out the hunt. This family does this all on there own with a few donations from local businesses. It was really fun!!

It took a bit to get her to look at the bunny, but once she did her eyes were locked!!! I love this age!!

A tradition...changed a bit...

Ok, so if you look back in my archives I believe I have posted the last few years of our passover dinners. We have been doing that too, since the kids were really young. We usually do costumes etc.. and eat tradition foods. This year, we changed it a bit. It is sort of funny, but Kjell and I went to the store to pick up some flat bread, and some where along the way our whole menu changed and we got really excited about making Felafel's!! Way off, wrong part of the world, but as we started it just started sounding so good, we ended up making hummus and an yummy yogurt cucumber sauce!! We had asperigus and a yummy fruit salad. Everything was soooo yummy! We talked about he passover, but not quite like we have in the passed. But it was a really fun night! We were so glad that Kjell was home for Easter, this was his first home with us in two years!!!

My favorite days....

My APSOLUTE favorite way to spend a day!! I say it all the time, but seriously, NOTHING brings me more just pure happiness then a day alone with my family at some form or water. I don't care if it the ocean beach, the bank of a river, whatever. Cold, warm, windy, whatever I don't care. These are the the images I always want in my mind, always!

We took advantage of the first day that daddy came home, right before spring break, and we packed a pic nic and spent the whole afternoon into the evening there. (missing Vance's swimming party for scouts, sorry again Vance!)

It was so fun watching Kjari join the big boys in there exploring under the bridge, throwing rocks, laughing and smileing! Pure Joy!!! I can't wait until we are together again, and we can do this more often! I guess it will be the Ocean beaches again in Washington, I can't wait, but we will miss these beautiful holes we find to play in here in Montana!!