The Voice

I am so excited to watch the voice on Monday night! I am even more excited to watch my super talented niece preform on The Voice on Monday night.  Noelle Bybee is the one to watch for, she is just as sweet and nice as she is cute and talented. This is just the beginning for her and I can't wait to see what the future holds for her!

It has been really fun to talk to my sister every week and hear all about Noelle's adventure on The Voice, now all the waiting is finally over. Good luck Noelle!

Handsome Devil

Today was a big day, it was the last morning that Jayden would be wearing braces. He was the last of the 3 teenagers to get his braces off, yet the youngest. All the other kids had their braces until they were older.  He went to the dentist and no cavities, yay for Jay!

 Last picture before heading out to the orthodontist, and yes he is actually holding the baby on his own free will. She looks a little nervous.

 Jayden right after coming out of the orthodontist, that is one great smile. Now if I can just finish paying for the braces. These two are next in line.

Valentine's Day

Valentine's is one of my favorite holidays. I started early and bought all the stuff for the kids to make their Valentine's. I even planned out Valentine's for the ladies at our church. I had all my Valentine's done and Avrie's done several days a head of time. Avrie is pretty persistent, Destina is a procrastinator, so hers did not get finished until the night before the school party. The kids came home with a supply of candy and that is what Avrie had for breakfast today as we rushed out the door for an early morning soccer game. After the soccer game we stopped at the local doughnut shop for breakfast, and then on home. I had bought Avrie a puzzle for Valentine's and it might be a tad to difficult for both of us, but we put in a little bit of time working on it today.
Scott was camping with the boy scouts and when he came home we went out foraging for food, the cupboards were bare and the fridge empty and the kids were going to start a revolt if something was not done to remedy the situation. We made the trek to Costco, and the grocery store. While at the store Scott asked if he needed to get me flowers, such a romantic. I told him no I would be ok without flowers, Scott cleaned out and vacuumed my car, had one of my rings resized so that I can actually wear it again, took me out to lunch, and suffered through the grocery store with me, I will take that over flowers any day! 
When we came home there was a girl in Ryan's room decorating his bed to ask him out to the MORP dance.

 Ryan came home later and we realized that puzzle solving was not his strength either. It took him a few minutes but he finally put he pieces together.  Walking into Ryan's room is like walking into a ski shop, too bad there has been no snow and he has not been skiing since Christmas.  But he has been out riding his bike almost every day.

Later that night we took the girls out to dinner, Avrie said I was her Valentine, and we had fun with the girls, we came home and made Strawberry soda pop floats.  Jayden went to the movies with a buddy.

Sunday Dinner

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Ryan came home from church on Sunday and wanted to make homemade pasta, he had seen a demonstration at Scouts the week before and wanted to try his hand at it. He enlisted Destina and Avrie, they wanted to make some too. It was a good time to put our pasta maker to the test. 

 I was happy to not have to make dinner, and the kids were less than satisfied with what I was offering to make, Spaghetti.  I kept reminding Ryan that it was much easier to just open a jar of Prego and cook up the noodles from the pantry. He insisted on making homemade pasta sauce and our friend Chloie went to work finding a recipe, and making the sauce, I was on baby duty!   

The kitchen was soon a big mess; but the kids were all getting along and having so much fun making pasta. 

Destina pulled together a salad and we had some bread left over from earlier in the week and I have to say dinner turned out really good. The kids did a great job on the noodles, the sauce was so yummy, and Scott and Jayden cleaned up the dinner dishes. There was only one small kitchen fire and a burned dish towel, but other than that  It was a fun way to end a long day.