Playing in the back yard

Filling up the Truck Pools Ben surfing on the wagon
Teaching Ehre that getting her head wet isn't a bad thing.

Jeff Working Hard

Its not a great picture, but here he is working in the lab near the SLA machine!

Dunking Heads

The kids love doing this whenever we get a bunch of rain and it fills up the Truck

... go figure!

Update on my Garden

Its looking good!

Jeff's Parents come for a visit.

The Water Globe...Ben loves it! The Elephant fountain
Mambo and The kids looking at the monkeys.

Happy Us!
Ehre petting Nigerian Dwarf Goats
Ehre is much smaller than a Bald Eagle
Grandpa and kids in a goffer hole.

Jeff's Parents come for a visit.

Ehre's Personal Haircut

She did this by herself, and I was quite sad when I found her....all her long curls GONE!!!...eventually they'll grow back right?

4th of July: Wisconsin

Jeff and the girls waiting for the parade to start.
Family Picture
Ehre and Sofia

Getting along...pretty well! :)

Funny Clowns...
They're getting tired allready...
Marcella and Nicho

Getting a little nap after the parade while the kids play in the pool, and Jason grills ribs and brats.

Fireworks, sorry no pics with our kids, but these two are friends of Sofia's.

Almost a whole month with out a post....SORRY!

...its just been a little busy. So here are a bunch of posts to make up for everything and keep you up to date....

This is really cool, we made a "universal remote"...just a piece of plexiglass :) Works great, and we don't loose anything!

Tagged

5 things I was doing 10 years ago
1. Drivers Ed..... oooh I'm still young! :)
2. Mentally preparing myself for my first date in a year
3. Playing Volleyball
4. Traveling to DisneyWorld to Perform in their Christmas Show
5. Working summer setups with Hogi Yogi.

5 things on my to do list:
1. Take a shower...I just finished an 8 mile bike ride
2. Organize office
3. Weed and plant grass in a friends back yard....who is it? Its a surprise!
4. Organize Kitchen
5. Put away Laundry.

5 favorite snacks/food:
1. Rocky Road Ice Cream
2. No Bake Cookies
3. Fresh Baked Bread
4. Red Licorice the real stuff.
5. Pringles

5 things I would do if I was a billionaire:
1. Pay of all student loans
2. Go to Germany for a while with our family
3. Buy a house and pay it off.
4. Set aside money for kids college/weddings (if they're good kids I'll give it to them :)
5. Travel with Jeff and our parents

5 bad habits:
1. Cracking my knuckles
2. Watching CSI type shows/ or ER
3. Junk food esp. when I am trying to loose weight
4. Interrupting in conversations ...sorry!
5. Taking all the hot water, for my own personal shower and leaving only the cold...for everyone else.

5 Places I've lived:
1. Utah (12 different homes)
2. California (2 different homes)
3. Wyoming (2 different homes)
4. Indiana (2 different homes)
5.....well one day I want to live in Germany

5 People I'm Tagging (Yep! You guys gotta do this now)
1. Marren M.
2. Andrea G.
3. Stacie G.
4. Tiffany S.
5. who else checks my blog? I don't know if you're reading this then you've been tagged!

Fathers Day Card/ Fathers Day Cheese Cake

With Jeff spending the weekend in Terre Haute I wanted to make him a special dessert. I found online a recipe for "really good" cheesecake. I made it, and topped it with our fresh strawberry syrup...a few mint leaves and even put it on a cake platter. We sat down to enjoy the dessert and the kids liked it but us "adults" didn't! Bummer....well it looked nice.


We made these cards in primary for all the dads, and then attached a big bag of M&M's....the kids had a great time and they turned out pretty cute!

Fathers Day Pictures

"Ehre give Ben a Hug..."

"Ehre give Ben a kiss..."

"Ben you shouldn't hit Ehre for kissing you!"

Picture Perfect:

Ehre's Swim Lessons

Ehre having a good time with her class:


Ben Wishes that he were in the water!
Ben likes hanging out with mom while Ehre swims!

Strawberry Syrup and Jam

My first experience of canning, WITHOUT my mom! And it went really well!

We picked 20 lbs of strawberries at a local farm, we lucked out this year, we just found out that they will not be reopeningnext spring.

Then I made jam, from 20 lbs I sent 5lbs to a neighbor and 3lbs to a home teacher, and the rest ended up in 24 jars!

We've enjoyed having the fresh jam its SO much better than store bought. We look forward to making peach and blueberry jam later in the summer!

Ehre's new Dress

Grandma and Grandpa Maas picked out this one for her its so cute. She wore it to church two weeks ago and got a lot of compliments on it. Thank You! (PS this picture was taken just after she woke up from her nap...hence the messy hair)

With a name like Jeff, it has to be good!

Ooooh if there were only a few clones of my Hubie, the world would be a perfect place! No one would be unhappy, everyone would feel loved. Jeff I love you so much, if it were Mothers Day this weekend and you had been asked to go work on flooded homes, I would be moping around. Bummed out that you weren't here by my side, yet its Fathers Day, and you are currently on a 2 hour ride home from 48 hours of long manual labor. You're just wonderful. Here are a few more reasons whey I think your the absolute best:
1. When we had Ehre your first comment was "One down, 11 more to go" with an attitude like that you'll be the world's greatest father! And you are!
2. When something goes wrong your first question is "Honey, what can I do?"
3. When I call you and tell you that we're having a Tornado and you're in Utah, you say " Looks like I'm missing all the fun!" Optimism is just what I need and you give it to me!
4. You make personal phone calls during the day to talk with Ehre, she loves these!
5. You love visiting family with me, when ever I want to go you're willing, even if my frequent urges are not quite what you grew up with! :)
6. You went on the "Grass Diet" just because you know I want to lose weight. You're even willing to change the name to the "Word of Wisdom Diet" now that you've read the book, and you're changing your eating style willingly and happily.
7. When you were called to be in the Sunday School presidency, you didn't think about the time it would require you said "Great, this time I'll have more time to do it right!" (Last ward he was only in the SS for a few months before they gave him a different calling...but not because he was doing a bad job!)
8. You love planning things with me, and always giving us something to look forward to.
9. When I'm bummed about not having something immediately, you look on the bright side and let me know that God is always granting miracles!
10. You smile and kiss me every morning before you leave for school, even if I didn't wake up with you, you never miss a morning!

Jeff I love you and so do your kids! Happy Fathers Day!

Happy Fathers Day...Doing what Dads do Best

Well, we were planning on a Family day for Fathers Day but our Stake has been called to provide Emergency Relief and Service in Terre Haute. So Jeff and others in the EQ will be leaving early tomorrow morning to help out. They will work on recovery/safety all day Saturday and stay with members for the night. Then Sunday morning the Stake President has granted permission for them to show up to church in their work clothes have a special sacrament meeting and then continue working till later into the evening.

So what are all these Dads doing on Fathers day? Doing what they do best, serving others. I will help pack snacks and water today and get things ready. Ehre and I will make Cheesecake for Jeff tomorrow for him to enjoy when he returns late Sunday night!

Jeff, I love you so much thanks for helping out, even when its on "your day".

xoxoxo

Image is of the actual conditions in Terre Haute last weekend when they had all the flooding. :(

Happy Fathers Day...Doing what Dads do Best

Well, we were planning on a Family day for Fathers Day but our Stake has been called to provide Emergency Reliefe and Service in Terre Haute. So Jeff and others in the EQ will be leaving early tomorrow morning to help out. They will work on recovery/safety all day Saturday and stay with members for the night. Then Sunday morning the Stake President has granted permission for them to show up to church in their work clothes have a special sacrament meeting and then continue working till later into the evening.

So what are all these Dads doing on Fathers day? Doing what they do best, serving others. I will help pack snacks and water today and get things ready. Ehre and I will make Cheesecake for Jeff tomorrow for him to enjoy when he returns late Sunday night!

Jeff, I love you so much thanks for helping out, even when its on "your day".

xoxoxo

Whats new?

(Happy Hallow Pool)

Well we're now on 3 consistent day of working out daily and eating healthy...doesn't sound like much but it sure feels like it. 40 minutes of exercise/day with kids, including a 5 mile bike ride, allows me to sleep really well at night. :)

Today's workout went well, sweat still dripped, and the kids really though it would be fun to "help" mommy exercise! All goes well till I get on the floor to do that portion of the workout and then they come running! I had a good experience today, Ehre and Ben have amazing pediatricians. They are a husband/wife combo that work with Medicaid. I love them because they are so nice and have kids of their own. Anyways their daughter is in Ehre's swim lesson so I see Mrs. Dr. Livermore at the pool each day. She See's me biking up the hill everyday to lessons, and its motivating her and her family to get more active! And she's the Dr!!! It was great motivation to hear this!

Jeff and I are preparing to get back on the "word of wisdom" diet.... normally known as Eat to Live. We are going to start by just making it our dinner meal. Its actually difficult to eat lots of veggies when your so used to eating carbs all the time (even healthy carbs) so we'll start there and hopefully by Aug we'll be on the track eating healthy all the time. We are really encouraging anyone to do this with us especially both of our parents. So hopefully we won't be the only ones doing this! Eating Healthy never "killed" anyone! :)Well happy work outs to all, and have a great day!

SO that's it nothing really new, we want to "try" camping again this weekend but tomorrow its supposed to rain.... so plans are still "up in the air". Hopefully we can at least go hiking on Saturday.

Miss you all!
Ann