Valentine's Day 2010

Since I got my fondue pot for Christmas I promised the kids that we would have a chocolate fondue night...sometime. (As I know now, fondue is A LOT of work, especially with little ones running around.) But we figured that Valentine's Day would be the perfect opportunity to have chocolate fondue with the kiddos. (Especially since we were were leaving the next weekend on our cruise.) I forgot to take pictures as we got started, but did snap a quick shot in the beginning. We had yummy fruit like strawberries, apples, pineapple, and banana's. But also some treats like cinnamon bears, animal crackers, marshmallows, angel food cake, and pretzels. We also were able to have Uncle Kelly and Aunt Aimee over, since they were the one's that would mainly be watching the kids while we were gone. (I guess we needed to sweeten them up before we dumped 5 kids on them ;-)

Brady's 5th Grade Basketball

Brady has played Jr Jazz ever since he was 4 years old. (In Saratoga Springs, they start in preschool, Pleasant Grove doesn't start until 2nd/3rd grade.) So he has played A LOT of basketball. In fact, I think he enjoys it almost as much as Nate. His coaches have mentioned to me that he plays a lot like his dad...I wonder if that's a good thing?...wink...wink. (The coaches happen to be in our stake and their ward will play against ours from time to time.) He has been on this same team for the past 3 years with the same coaches, which I think really helps improve all of the players' skills, since they are used to playing with one another. Brady is definately aggressive out on the court, and loves to play point guard. Even though he makes quite a few baskets, there are a lot of missed shots too, but having a court in the back yard will definately help him continue to improve. (Plus trying to get the ball around Nate or defend him, helps in that aspect too.)


I'll title these first 2 photos as..."I believe I can fly!"


He really likes to be able to call out the plays while bringing the ball down.

Yikes... I hope he didn't knock that boy over.

Zack's 3rd Grade Basketball

I think our boys will always love to play basketball. It's in their blood, I guess. Zack was able to be on the same team as two of his best friends this year, and Nate was the assistant coach. He really loves to get in there and be aggressive, but loves it even more when he makes a basket! (He would always look over in the stands to make sure I saw that he had made one.) We weren't able to attend his last 2 games because of our vacation, but he said he finished strong! Here are some pics of Zack in action.

Disclaimer

I've decided that I better get back on the wagon again concerning our blog. So much has happened since my last post, that I don't want to forget anything, (and a lot happened even before, that I need to add.) But in my defense, I blame it on my iPhone...and being pregnant...I can't place all the blame on Nate ;-), (well I could but it wouldn't be fair.) I LOVE...LOVE...LOVE my iPhone, I rarely turn on my computer anymore, since I can quickly check my email, but the blog has suffered greatly because of it, I mean who wants to blog from a 2"x3" screen? And honestly, this pregnancy is really taking it's toll on me. (My favorite saying when people ask me how the pregnancy is going is..."I can tell that I'm 34 and not 23 this time around.") The Sunday that we got home from the cruise, I became nauseous and it has been 24/7 ever since. But it's getting better and hopefully I can start to feel like a 'normal' person again. October 16th, is the due date for this baby, and it couldn't seem farther away. Even though I know it will be here sooner than I am ready for. We are all very excited for this little one to join our family and it is fun to try and guess who is coming to live with us.

If you ask Hannah, what is in my tummy, she says it is a baby brother EVERY time.
Rachel of course wants another sister, and both Brady and Zack say they want a boy, but it would be 'cool' if we had the 'Brady Bunch'...3 boys and 3 girls.

A quick funny that Jace said when we first announced that we were pregnant. He was in primary the next week and our Primary President came up to him and said, "Jace is there something special in your mommy's tummy?" He just gave her a quizzical look and said, "No...just food." What a character. He also says that he wants a little brother, and I don't blame him. Even though Zack and Brady play so well with him, it would be cute to have a little buddy for him to pal around with.

Both Nate and I will be happy with whatever, just as long as he/she is healthy. I have had a few dreams that it is a little boy, but the only child I was correct at guessing was Brady. (So even my motherly premonitions don't account for much.) We'll have to think of a fun guessing game for everyone to place their guess on what we will be having and when.

Priceless

7 Day Cruise to the Southern Carribbean: $3000

10 Day babysitting costs: $500

Tips for everyone we meet: $300

Zipline in the Barbados rainforest: $200

Kayaking out in St. Kitts: $55

Knowing that there are really THREE people in the picture: PRICELESS



Sorry is some of you are getting this for a second time, but for some reason, a couple of the first emails sent out never made it. (So enjoy again...and no you're not looking for a monkey or a snake in the background Ashlee ;-)

Lessons to be Learned

Today was 'Sports' day at the elementary school. Since Brady is older, and has played on more than just 'rec' league teams, he has a number of jerseys. (We have a ton of Jr Jazz jerseys, and soccer jerseys and whatever else they have all played in.) But the 'cool' thing to wear is a 'real jersey'. So of course Zack and Rachel asked Brady if they could borrow one of his jerseys to wear to school. He didn't want to let either of them, but did so grudgingly. To top it off, Rachel asked to wear the matching Yankees hat, and Brady got pretty upset. Of course that made me frustrated and told Brady to just take his stuff, and I'd find something else for Rachel to wear. (See...I knew he had to go to school early for choir this morning, and I'd have to take him, so I was planning on just telling him to 'hoof it' when the time came. Enter evil laugh...hehehe!) A little tough love never hurt, I guess.

But it didn't go as planned, thank goodness. Before too long, Brady had set the jersey and hat on Rachel's bed...without me or Nate saying anything. And this is what I found next: Brady helping Rachel with her hair. I tell ya that kid is one in a million. He can be such a leader at times and just AWESOME, and other times I think "Are you raised by a pack of wolves?" I'm glad he figured it out on his own. Even Nate told me to just let them work it out, so I did and all's well that end's well. Brady and I had a good talk on the way to school, about how good he felt after making the right choice in sharing with his sister and brother. Ahhh...the joys of parenting.


What a sweetie he can be.

Brady, Rachel and Zack ready for sports day.


Also this morning, I walked down the hall towards the library and found Nate and Zack, sitting on the floor, next to the coffee table all set up for a tea party. Just the two of them. I just bust out laughing, because I knew who had set them up...but left them high and dry. They were trying to be nice and keep Hannah occupied, and of course she wanted to play 'pee potty' (her pronunciation for Tea Party). I guess they had sent her to find me and invite me to come and play, but she got distracted with her cereal and didn't say a word to me. So I guess the lesson to be learned here is, Hannah loves to party...but only when it is convenient for her.
It just totally caught me off guard to see these two set up for a tea party with no little girl in tow!


I didn't get a picture of it this morning, but here is a picture of Zack and Hannah having a tea party. All the kids are so good to 'obey her every whim', and keep her occupied for me for a little while. The boys will even say...this is kinda fun!

Ravenous Wolves

I don't claim to be a wonderful cook...but there are some foods that I make that my family will simply devour! Salsa being one of them. (Since we signed up for Dish Network...I know shocking, the Holmes' actually have TV...my favorite channel is the Food Network, and my older 3 love to watch it with me.) In the summer when our garden was producing tons and tons of tomatoes....we always had fresh salsa in our fridge. So it's been a few months since I've been able to make fresh salsa, I did bottle quite a bit, but our favorite of all time is the fresh stuff. They all get their own little bowl and gobble it up. Even Hannah loves it, in fact if I make a batch that might be a little too spicey, she will still eat it. But it just cracked me up when I 'caught' her drinking the salsa from her bowl...she didn't want to miss a morsel. Nate walked in just then and said no boys would be kissin' her tonight with her garlic/onion breath. (I'll have to remember that when she and Rachel turn 16.)

Yummy Chips and Salsa...but it's the best on scrambled eggs!

The Salsa Queen.

I ran and grabbed the camera...but she was more than happy to shoot a retake of her drinking salsa out of the bowl.

Brady's Wax Museum

Today was the wax museum at Brady's school for the entire 5th grade. Since we've never had a 5th grader before, we didn't know what to expect, but now we'll be prepped for the rest of the kids. Every 5th grader is asked to do a report on an American Hero, they need to research and type the report and then come up with a costume for the 'wax museum'. Here they stand in a pose while parents and other students walk around to see everyone and then we are able to push their button on their desk, and the student then gives a 1 minute prepared speech about their hero, and quickly returns back to their pose. Quite entertaining....I even learned a few facts myself like why was Buzz Aldrin called Buzz when his real name was Edwin? Helping Brady with his report about Babe Ruth also gave me a better insight into Babe's life and his accomplishments. I had always heard the "Curse of the Bambino", but never really knew what it meant. (I guess growing up in a family with 7 girls, we didn't talk that much about baseball...although my brother says that if I would have asked him, he could have told me.) It was a great day, and I'm really proud of Brady for all his work that he put into his report. I did help in the finishing/polishing stages, but that was the fun part.

The kids love it when Nate is able to skip out of work to come and see their performances....even though Nate always says to me, "I can't be to everything." He sure makes a great effort to play hookie!

And it's always fun to see our other kids at school...here is Rachel listening to Brady's speech on Babe Ruth. Later that afternoon, when she came home from school, she asked who my favorite wax museum character was, I just smiled and didn't say anything, but she quickly said, "Mine, was Brady." See they do get along sometimes!

Family Fondue for FHE

For Christmas Nate bought me an electric fondue pot, which I have been dying to use. (We went to a fondue dinner party a few months back and it was absolutely delicious and fun, and I've secretly wanted one ever since.) So with trying to teach our kids manners and experiencing different ways people eat, I thought that it would be fun to try out a fondue night on my family first.

And all I can say is, "WHEW! That is a lot of work!"

Now I can see why all the fondue restaurants charge a small fortune to eat there, with all the prep work that goes into fondue.

I tried to keep it simple with chicken, beef, and shrimp for our meats. And then potatoes, carrots, broccoli, and mushrooms for the veges. (I knew I couldn't get anything to 'weird' because the kids probably wouldn't eat it.)

The kids had a ball cooking their own food. But it was a lot of work for Nate and I since we had to cook not only for us, but also for Jace and Hannah. (Who probably ate the most since we were all giving them food to keep them occupied.)

Nate and I got to the point where we would just toss in a whole bunch of meat and let it all cook and then distribute it, that seemed to work better for little impatient tummies!

The kids REALLY want to try a chocolate fondue. I told them, that maybe for Valentine's day, we could have that as our special treat after dinner. We even started making a list of all the things we could dip in chocolate, amazing of what they came up with.

Here are a couple of pics before we got started.

Our Sweet Tabby

This past Monday our sweet Tabby was hit by a car. I went outside for just a moment and a construction worker across the street came up and asked if I owned a cat. I grabbed my shoes and quickly crossed the street to see if it was her. She was actually right in front of our house, and then they noticed her and put her in the bucket of the back-hoe. They didn't see it happen, but offered to bury her for me since they were digging anyhow. I quickly said yes before I lost my composure and went back inside. There I lost it...but without saying anything, my sweet Hannah came up and gave me a huge hug and patted me on the back for a long time. (She sure can brighten my day.) I told Nate, but we decided to wait until he was home from work to tell the kids. So that night, we told them and had a good talk about life in general and some fun memories of our Tabby. Here are some memories that the kids thought up:
-Nate bringing Tabby home in a cardboard box for the 1st time.
-How soft her fur was, everyone would always comment on it.
-The first couple of nights she slept just above Rachel's head on her pillow.
-We tried and tried to get her to eat dry cat food, but she would rather starve herself. She always had to have soft canned cat food. If we ran out of canned food we would use dry cat food as a 'cereal', in a bowl with milk poured over it. She would tolerate that for a day at the most.
-That cat loved every couch in this house, but really enjoyed sleeping by the fire to keep warm.
-We found a mouse in our house Thanksgiving Day (the first one ever), and we captured it and let Tabby play with it outside for a while. She had a great game of 'Cat and Mouse'
-No quail problem this summer in the garden...she was a great bird chaser.
-Tabby loved playing in the plants in the garden, the pea patch was her favorite.
-She would let Jace and Hannah drag her all around the house, without getting mad.
-Jace would always call her Tabbers when she first came here.
-The fun 'Cat House' that Nate and the kids built for her.
-Zack found her tooth under the kitchen table...we didn't know cats could loose teeth.
-Rachel taking her for Show-and-Tell.
-She of course hated baths, but would always bump into the shower curtain when Nate or I were showering. Even peeking her head in a few times. After we would get out, she would immediately enter and splash around in the small puddles.
-Climbing all the trees in our yard, especially if a dog chased her up there.

We will miss you Tabby...you were a Sweet Lovable Cat!

What a Morning!

We've had crazy mornings, but this morning wasn't really crazy...just funny. While I was getting the older kids off to school, Nate relayed this story/conversation to me:
Jace walks in saying, "Hannah, wanna wrestle?"
"No!" she squeals running away in a hopeful glee that he will chase her.
Sure enough he tackles her and starts to wrestle her. All the while she is screaming and enjoying EVERY minute of it.

The older 3 head off to school and Nate and I start to get ready for the day. Before I headed downstairs to quickly hem a shirt for Nate, I notice Hannah has my purse, so I retrieve it and put it on the top shelf in my closet. Five minutes later I enter our bathroom to find Hannah with my entire make-up bag dumped out, every lip-stick, eye liner, and anything else with a lid....off. And foundation all over her face. Yes I swore....but I actually spelled it out, so she really didn't know what I was saying (it's my way of staying calm, but releasing some frustration.)
Nate and I joke all the time that Jace and Hannah pretty much parent themselves, because we've all but given up.

Nate leaves for work and I start to get Hannah and Jace ready to leave to take Jace to preschool. Well luckily this morning Brady and Zack got Jace up with them and had him all showered and dressed when they came up for breakfast. (Yes I did thank them both...that saves me a lot of work.) But today was Pajama Day for preschool. We even chose PJ's for Jace to wear last night and had them on top of his dresser. I told him he needed to go and put those PJ's on. And for the next 15 minutes tried to convince him that he needed to wear PJ's to school. He fought me tooth and nail, until he finally said, "Mom, I don't want to sleep at school." He's a pretty logical thinker I guess. He still didn't believe me after I told him what he would be doing for pajama day. So when we got to school we asked his teacher if he had to go to sleep, only when she mentioned that they would be watching a Chipmunk movie did he do a 360 and decided that pajama day would be fun.


These are just some random pictures I had of Jace and Hannah...I'm sure they'll always keep us hoppin!

Moulton Family Party

Since Granny and Pa passed away, it seems harder to get everyone together for a HUGE Family party. Even the Great-grandkids have started to have their own children, so a party at a church is hard to organize and put together. But my mom and her siblings have come up with a great solution for the past few years. We have a roller-skating party at Classic Skating in Orem, on a Saturday around the holidays. This year it was on January 2, and what a fun day it was. The kids can skate, or ride a scooter, or a rip-stick and everyone has a ball. I am so happy to be able to see some of my cousins, chat about times growing up, and to see how big their kids are getting. Not everyone can make it every year, but most everyone tries to make an effort of attending. We all bring snacks to eat and have a great time hanging out for a couple of hours. And what's even better, it that there really isn't any clean-up...not that we are that messy, but when the party's at a church someone always has to stay behind to clean up. I love my extended family and look forward to seeing them at least once a year. (There's talk of a summer party in the works.) Nate also loves attending and can't get enough of the roller-skating. You may not know this but that boy has some serious skating skills. When Jace and Hannah have been small enough, he'll put them on his shoulders and skate around with ease...they love it! Here are some fun shots from my sister Ashlee again!

Brandon and Nate helping Jace and Zack on roller skates. Zack was determined to conquer the skates, maybe we better take him skating more.

Me and Happy Hannah!

Aunt Aubree with Bella and Hannah...she was a great babysitter since they didn't enjoy skating as much as the rest of us.

Uncle Brandon really got a good arm work-out with Jace. After one lap around the rink...Jace was done for the day and went back to the scooter.

Bella and Hannah playing in a car.

Broadhead Family Party

This year we were finally able to get the whole family together on New Years Day. The Bethea's were up from Blanding, and that evening we had our family party at the Butlers' in Highland. We have so many people that I wonder how long it will be before we have to meet in a church for a family party, (25 grandkids, 2 grandparents, 8 Broadhead 'children', and 7 spouses) Whew...that is a lot of people, but we always have a good time and yummy food. This is where the kids get to exchange cousin gifts and us couples get to exchange gifts, thank goodness we drew names or else we would all be broke! And a big THANK YOU to my sister Ashlee, for snapping pictures that night, since I forgot to bring our camera.

Hannah and Branten using the cats' dishes as hats...good thing they were empty.

Megan, Sara and Emma...this is a one-in-a-million picture with me actually showing my braces.

Uncle Kyle...aka...'The Jungle Gym'...is giving a 'beat down' to Jace and Mitchell...aka...'The Instigators'

I told my sister's that Brady and Zack 'needed' head lamps to read at night...now I can have mine back.

When Jace opened his present Ashlee asked him if she could name his new toy dog and he said yeah. So she said "Ok let's call him Garbonzo!" Jace just looked at her with wide eyes and said, "I know, let's just call him Bob!"

Jace and Hannah playing nicely....for the moment.

Kyle usually ends up falling asleep on the floor...but first he needed his back popped by Nate!

This is how the older grandkids enjoy a family party...reading a book or listening to their Ipods. Love you Jess...please stop growing up...your making me feel old!

Any present for Rachel just needs to have a hint of pink on it, and she'll absolutly love it!

I had to add this picture of Bumpa...this is how he ends up enjoying all our family get-togethers!

The Broadhead Beauties!

Makin' Treats!

For neighbor treats, I've come across a great tradition of Marshmallow Stiring Sticks. But this year, instead of using miniature shish-kabob sticks, I found the small coffee straws, which my kids love to use. We take a large marshmallow, dip it in melted chocolate, and then dip it into something else like crushed candy cane, a peppermint patty, red hots, MnM's, or crushed Ande's mints. My kids love helping me make these, and I love it that they CAN help and it's not a big mess or stress. We put them in a cute bag with Hot Cocoa Packets and Tada...we are done. Seriously, way easy and also fun to eat!

New Years Eve

Our friends the Clark's started a tradition of having a New Years Eve party 2 years ago. Well 2 years ago, I was in the hospital giving birth...and last year I wanted Hannah to have her own special 1st birthday. But this year we were able to attend with about 5 other families from our ward. The highlight has to be the fact that the Clarks set up their trampoline in their living room. It has a very high ceiling and of course fills up the entire room...but what a blast. The kids totally love it... and so do the parents, because it keeps them occupied all night. We had lots of yummy food (my little smokies were a hit!), and played games. After we watched the ball drop 'New York' time...they had a pinata for the kids in the basement. What a fun night it was, and again everyone sang to Hannah, which she loved! I hope we can always attend the Clarks party with our good friends!

Jumping on the tramp...what a blast!

Everyone got a chance to hit the pinata...Brady was the one who finally brought it down!

"All I need is one treat and I'm a happy girl."

Kids' scrambling for the loot!

Look how high Brady got. His cousin Mason was with us and had a competition of who could jump the highest. But Christian Rosenvalle, 14, won by being able to touch the ceiling fan. He also showed those two to jump off the balcony onto the tramp...needless to say they only tried that 1 time!