Happy Birthday Little Angel

Katherine Jane Eliza McGrath
*Kate Eliza*

Has it really been 9 years? We miss you so much. We are so grateful to have you as our daughter and are so proud of you. We love you. We can't wait until the day that we are reunited, when we can pick up where we left off.

“Joseph Smith declared that the mother who laid down her little child,
being deprived of the privilege, the joy, and the satisfaction of bringing it up to manhood or womanhood in this world,
would, after the resurrection,
have all the joy, satisfaction, and pleasure,
and even more
than it would have been possible to have had in mortality,
in seeing her child grow to the full measure of the stature of its spirit”
(Joseph F. Smith, Gospel Doctrine).

Escape to Arizona Mountain

We had a great weekend. We decided to run away from our busy lives and head up to Heber for the long weekend. We were so excited that Heber had SNOW!!! My mom has a cabin there, so we were comfy and cozy (no snow camping for us!) We found a fun snow hill and the kids played for hours. Here is Abby sliding down and everyone else climbing up.

Pretty girls (can I say that?)

Matthew the stick finder. He is expert at locating sticks wherever we go, and the snow hill was no exception.

Olivia was such a trooper! Long after Abby and I had retreated for the warm car, she was still climbing the hill and sledding down. Holes in the jeans, grandpa's gloves (which was a big improvement over the socks on the hands), Chloe's coat, irrigation boots...we were such a rag tag bunch!

Cookies, Coconut, and Carpal Tunnel

We also had time to make sugar cookies. We don't make those very often, but the kids LOVE to make them and they are Kresten's favorite. They had a lot of fun rolling and cutting them. Making sugar cookies is one of those things that I just have to force myself not to hover over and let them do it their own way.

Mmmm...which one shall I eat next?

Coconut--A Girls Best Friend

A dog has to stay warm, right? (Do you recognize that scarf from the last picture?)


So with all that cabin time, I decided to transfer all my recipes to the computer. Kresten found a great free program to store the recipes in, called Evernote. It is online as well as on my home computer. This is an improvement over google notebook which is online only. So Kresten transferred everything I had online, which was about 90 recipes. Then I went through my recipe cards and ENTERED EACH ONE into the program. 170 of them. Hence the carpal tunnel. But I am so excited about this new system. I keep my laptop in the kitchen, so now I have all the recipes in one place. It will be so nice to have the recipes searchable, and I can tag them with several categories if I would like. When I find a recipe online I can just cut and paste and voila! Sharing recipes will be easier, plus when my kids are all grown up and getting hungry I can send them my recipes so they can make their own recipe collection. That is worth a little carpal tunnel, right?

Field Trip to the Phoenix Zoo

Yesterday was the 2nd grade field trip to the beautiful Phoenix Zoo. I love my kids' school...there are so many parents who want to go to the field trips they have to have a DRAWING! I had a statistical advantage with three entries :-) and got chosen from Olivia's class. The teachers were nice and put all three of my kids in my group, plus a couple of friends. It was really nice because we were just free to go and explore the zoo on our own. I have been to zoo trips before with 30 kids all trying to stay together...not fun. This was a great way to go. From left to right....Matthew, Olivia, Mason, Hayley, and Abby.

Olivia making friends with a goat in Harmony Farm. It was so cute! The kids loved brushing the goats. I have memories of going to this very place as a child. I remember when a goat ate Jennifer's shirt. We were so shocked! It was fun to go back there with the kids. It has been a long time since we have been to the zoo.

Handwashing after petting the goats. I loved this handwashing trough! It was so cool! It had foot pedals below to turn the water on. I want one of these for the backyard!

We found a nice picnic area for lunch. It was such a beautiful day. Sunny and cool, and the desert plants smelled wonderful. Paradise found!

Tuesday

Tuesdays are busy days around here. Yesterday was especially so. Both Abby and Chloe were home yesterday. Abby had an earache and Chloe had a half day at school (which I guess in Jr. High is used mainly for completing crossword puzzles) so she stayed home too. Well, stayed home doesn't really describe it. When I got home and collapsed in a heap, I tried to remember everything we had done. Here's my list:

DOCTOR--Abby does have an ear infection. Right ear. She doesn't seem to be in much pain though--nothing a little motrin can't handle. But the doctor said it looked really bad--I'll spare you the details. I think Abby has a high pain tolerance. She was amazing when she had to have stitches on her forehead a couple of years ago.

CELLO LESSON--normally on Tuesday nights (pretty crazy--see below) so we moved it up since she was home. She is really sounding great. I love to listen to her lessons. Very relaxing 1/2 hour.

CARWASH--The poor car really needed it. Inside and out. Whenever Coconut rides in the car, he leaves his nose paintings (as the kids call it) all over the inside of the windows. Add a few old shoes of Matthew's, his leftover snack after basketball, and it was ripe and ready.

JASON'S DELI--YUM. We met Gorgus and my mom there for lunch. My kids are so lucky to have my mom, Kresten's mom, Grandma Betsy, AND Gorgus (my grandma, their great-grandma) all here. Gorgus loves to go out to lunch. She always gets a bowl of soup. Jason's Deli didn't dissapoint with 11 choices of yummy soup.

OLD NAVY--shares a parking lot with Jason's Deli. We walked over there after lunch--my mom was looking for jeans, and Chloe wanted to check out the sale rack. She found a cute charcoal-gray sweater, but it was acrylic. I had to give her a little fiber education. Pass down my distaste for unnatural fibers such as acrylic. On to the next generation. Plus she was feeling quite poor, as her money stash has dipped below the $100 mark. So we left empty handed.

WALMART--went to pick up Abby's prescription. Also found one for Olivia waiting for us too. Looked at the patterns with Chloe--found a dress pattern that looks very easy. She found a really cute trim, then some blue fabric in the dollar section, but when the fabric was rolled out it was all snagged. So we left with just the pattern. We'll definitely have to try again. She had a lot of fun designing her own dress. And with the dollar fabric--you can't go too wrong.

HOME--dropped Chloe and Hannah off at the gate

SCHOOL--picked up Olivia

HOME--dropped Olivia off

TUMBLEWEED PARK--Matt had a running club race today. Luckily he got a ride there with LaDawn. I made it there in time for the race. He finished way later than he did last time. He kind of walked a little, ran a little--I think he needed Kresten there as a pacer. He said he had a runny nose--or maybe it was a stuffy nose--the the whole time too. But he had a great time, as always. Got his ribbon and his popsicle and he was one happy boy.

HOME--dropped Matt off, loaded up little girls

HAYLEY'S HOUSE--dropped girls off for gymnastics carpool.

MADISON'S HOUSE--picked up Hannah, who had Student Council after school. Luckily Madison's mom was subbing, and I found her in the parent pickup line after school--she took Hannah home for me (since I was at the running club race).

BASHA'S--picked up 2 items for dinner.

HOME for dinner--The soup we had put in the crock pot turned out YUCK. It was a frozen soup from a discount restaurant supply place. I think it spent too much of its life in the freezer. So when I tasted it, I could tell it would not do for our main course. I switched plans and decided to make Cowboy Nachos from the Pioneer Woman's website. They were very yummy, and quick and easy to do since we had our canned shredded beef, and pinto beans. Good thing they were quick and easy, we didn't have much time!

BASKETBALL PRACTICE--Kresten left with Matthew for basketball. Kresten is the coach again this year.

HAYLEY'S HOUSE--to pick up Abby and Olivia after gymnastics

HOME--dropped little girls off, picked up Chloe

CHURCH--Chloe had her 6 month interview with Bro. Barrett from the Bishopric.

HOME--WHEW!!!