ROCK ON!

The other day as I finished doing Makenna's hair she was running out of the bathroom and yells "ROCK ON MOMMA!" Crazy little girl!

I did it!

Makenna loves watching Dora the Explorer and has learned the "We did it" dance that they do at the end of each show. I have finally recorded it and hopefully you can see how cute it is! Enjoy... I apologize for the loud noise in the middle of the recording!

Nap Time!

This is Makenna at nap time. Once again she had a hard time staying in her bed for her nap, and I heard her get out of bed so I decided to ignore her to see what would happen. This is what I found. Then I decided to take a pic of Gav as well. Looks like I'll have a peaceful hour or so!

I have a booger in my nose!

Makenna used to go to bed perfect! I mean, we would say prayers read 2-5 books depending on the time, give her a kiss and shut the door. Well that was about three weeks ago and things have not been the same. I'm not sure what happened but that is not the case anymore. The first couple of times it happened it took us 2 hours to get her to finally fall asleep. And she started making up excuses.... my tummy hurts, my bum hurts, my leg hurts, I want the fan on, I want my heater on, I can't find Diego etc. Luckily the time shortened but she still comes out at least once a night and has some excuse. Tonights was my favorite! "I have a booger in my nose!" So I wiped her nose and she went back to bed. I thought it was funny at least!

I tried

Well I tried to do the posts in reverse order so you wouldn't have to stop from the bottom and go up, but it didn't work for some reason so if you are interested in reading about San Diego then start with Family Trip 2008 and go up! It's more interesting that way!

Rancho Cucamonga!

We all piled back up in the "bus" about 1:30 and headed home for good ol' St. George. It was pretty loud on the way back with Mike snoring, the kids screaming and the "road" California roads are kind of crazy and at one point it got pretty dang bumpy. I thought Gavin was going to have shaken baby syndrome because it was so bad. Mike came up from his trip because it was so bad and thats when Aaron decided to pull over and see what was going on. Well, it comes to find out it was the air pressure/brakes that didn't work. It wasn't the road at all, we just didn't have any suspension. The guys went to go figure out what was going on while we all chilled on the bus. They decided we needed to get it towed so they unloaded the Yukon (mind you we are off the side of the CALIFORNIA freeway) and loaded all 8 kids, Bonnie, Jill and I, and Mike who was driving. I believe 6 of the 8 kids were screaming, Bonnie was almost in tears and the rest of us were laughing. Luckily Rancho Cucamonga isn't like Baker. Oh how I wish we could have broken down there!!! haha/ We found a really nice outdoor mall that had a huge grassy area where we let the kids run around like crazy and then ate at the Cheesecake Factory for dinner to kill more time. After we tore the restaurant apart, the guys were done and we headed home! We made it back at 2 AM and went to bed! The trip was great but its nice to be home and get back in a routine! We made it YAY! I do have pictures but I can't find the cord to my camera so I'll post those later...

The rest of the trip

Monday night the guys were nice enough to let us ladies have a "ladies night" It was so eventful let me tell you. We got to go grocery shopping for everyone. We found a Wal-Mart (not a Super Wal-Mart though) and a place called Staters. Between the two we got all of the food that Aaron likes ;) and not the ice cream that Brent likes (sorry babe). The guys claim that it took us 4 hours to shop (I think it only took 3 1/2) and they whined about it the rest of the trip. We aren't sure what took us so long but they think we went out on the town to party. Unfortunately I have to say that we honestly grocery shopped for that long and were going crazy because of it. The guys got their night out the following night and took some of the kids to the Padres game. They all loved it and us girls got to stay home and cook tacos for the rest of the kids that didn't go, put them to bed and then watched American Idol and Biggest Loser. That was about it! It was still fun though. We went to the beach (which was FREEZING but we still got some sun) and went swimming after at our place. We also went to Sea World which was fun and the kids enjoyed and then BBQ'd some delicious chicken. The next morning the guys took the kids swimming and we packed up, ate some lunch and headed home (see next post) Here is a slide show of some pics that were taken (there are quite a few)

SPANKY'S

For lunch/dinner on Monday we ate at a place called Spanky's Pizza. Crazy name, crazy place. They are home of the 28" pizza! It is one large pizza let me tell you. We also ate french fries, onion rings, garlic bread and salad! (I apologize if you've seen these pics on Jills)

Family Trip 2008

The travelers: Aaron and Bonnie Smith: Madison 6, Porter 5, Ryan 2, Brayden 1. Mike and Jill Nielsen: Chloe 5, Mia 2. Brent and me: Makenna 2, Gavin 3 mo. The total headcount: 6 adults, 8 children 6 and under= 14 people

The Transportation: The Smiths 40 foot RV with it towing a trailer with a Yukon on it. Total footage= 70'?

The Destination: Oceanside and San Diego

Let me just say- this trip was CRAZY! It was a lot of fun... but man was it LOUD!

We left on Sunday afternoon and made it to Stateline at the wonderful Whisky Pete's Hotel and Casino. The rooms were a whopping $24.98 a night! There weren't even cockroaches!!! We did a little shopping at the outlets (yes, I know it was Sunday but you should have seen my wardrobe!) We ate at McDonald's and then went to bed. It took Makenna about 2 hours to unwind from the trip. She was jumping on the bed when I wasn't in the room, squealing at random times and wanting me to tell her stories all night. We headed out Monday morning and ate at McDonalds again. Luckily Mike allowed us to leave at 8 AM instead of 5 AM. Thanks Mike!

We made it to Oceanside where the resort was in who knows how long (I don't think we really now how long it took) but all of the kids behaved themselves especially when the retarded construction worker told us to go the wrong way and we ended up in a major jam, but Aarons great driving and Brent and Mikes guiding with the help of a not so retarded construction worker got us out in about 45 minutes or so.

We weren't allowed to check in when we wanted so we went to Spanky's Pizza. (see following post)

12 of the 14 crew members

Brent and Kenna

Gavin sleeping in the shower

Kids, cookies and cupcakes!

So the Martin family has a monthly baby-sitting plan I guess you can call it where every month one of the brothers or sisters takes all of the cousins while the parents get to go out for three hours. It was our turn this month and man it was crazy! We ended up with eleven kids total (including ours). We had all but two of the grandkids: Joshua 9, Meggin 8, Brooklyn 6, Aspyn 6, Jace 6, Tearony 4, Makell 3, Camryn 2, Makenna 2, Maicey 1, and Gavin 3 months! (Keng, we missed the boys!) and then I adopted my little niece/cousin from the other side of the family since we already had 10 so I figured whats one more! It was totally crazy, but it ended up being a fairly fun night! I made pizza for them to eat (which they scarfed down) and then I also had cookies and cupcakes (I love excuses to bake). We played outside before it got to freezing cold, played in the playroom for a minute, and then played the Wii and watched a movie! I gave Makenna, Camryn and Maicey a bath and they loved it. Luckily Gavin slept most of the time so we could focus on the other 8! Remind me not to have 11 children no matter how much I enjoy being pregnant! Here are a few pictures that captured some of the chaos! Don't mind that they don't line up and are kind of a mess on the post... I am still learning! :)

Conference weekend

Wellmp, I must confess- I hardly watched a lick of conference this past weekend. I do have a good excuse though! My uncle had passed away earlier that week from a year long battle of pancreatic cancer, so his funeral was on Friday. With funerals comes family. And with family comes get-togethers after things have settled down. It was so sad that he died so young (58) but it did bring the whole Staheli clan together. I think one cousin was missing out of everyone. I think there are more Staheli's than there are Osmonds! It was great to see everyone and we had a good time at my parents house with everyone on Saturday. Gavin slept for 3 hours straight, Makenna rode a horse for the first time (thanks Bree for taking her) and I don't think she has played that hard in a LONG time! It was too bad that we met under sad circumstances, but we are glad Steve is with his parents and granddaughter and out of pain! Sunday we went to Brent's moms house to watch the morning session and to my Grandma's house for the afternoon session with a birthday party after that! So we had one eventful weekend!

Makenna and her Aunt BreAnne

Makenna and her cousin Alyssa

Husband training

OK... so I know its takes a long time to "train a husband" but one question... isn't that what their mothers are for?! To train them before they get married!? I know my mother in law tried! :) My point being... I think I pick up more after my 28 year old kid more than my 2 year old! Or at least she listens when I tell her to pick up her stuff! Anyway, I hope I raise Gavin to pick up his crap and that he doesn't "forget" how to pick up after himself once he gets hitched. I love you babe, but come on... I know you see that shoe you walk over every time you get out of bed!

Fazoli's breadsticks

So Makenna's new favorite thing to do is feed the ducks at St. George golf course in Bloomington Hills. We've only done it twice. The first time we took Target popcorn and they ate it all up... the second time we were eating at Fazoli's with the Osborns and Bryan had a genius idea of taking the breadsticks to feed them. Let me tell you, ducks, swans, and geese LOVE breadsticks. Makenna threw a whole breadstick in the pond and it was hilarious to watch them fight over it. One duck took it and started to swim away with it and the other ducks tried to steal it. It was pretty dang funny. Here are some pics of the girls over there.

Our little "CUE"

Well, Gavin (aka cueball since he has absolutely no hair, he does have long eyelashes though) is now three months old! I can't believe how fast it went. I think its more crazy that its April than he is three months old! I have FINALLY settled down into having two kids. I didn't think I would have as hard of a time as I did, but now I can finally function most mornings and not stress the rest of the day. I think I must be retarded because everyone said that having two was easier than one but I have to disagree on that one! Thats OK... he is so dang cute so it has been worth the "stress" Makenna finally started leaving him alone about 3 weeks after he was born, but since she has been a little rebellious this past week, she has picked on the little bug! She even bit his thumb! She has never bit anyone before and his poor little finger was the first victim. He only screamed for about 15 minutes and then he was fine. She was put in time out (which she could care less if she was in or not) and then all was well. I need to find a better way to discipline her, but it seems as if nothing will work.

Gavin is smiling all the time now and he is finally content after he is done eating due to me actually feeding him what he needs! He smiles and is starting to laugh out loud now along with cooing. He is so cute! He is sleeping a lot better (not all the way through the night though unfortunately) but soon enough he will. He likes his hands and is absolutely fascinated with his feet (which look like hands since his toes are so freakishly long). I'm afraid he will have size 13 feet like his father. But you know what they say about big feet! :) He is a strong little boy who hates to be burped. He loves his baths though! He is also pretty laid back for being three months old and being mauled by his big sis. He usually isn't too bothered by her trying to "share" her blanket (by share I mean putting the blanket over his head and then giving him a hug and suffocating him). We love our little cue and are glad he is here! Don't mind the red eye in the pics... I couldn't edit them for some reason!


This is of him sneezing but I thought it was still adorable!

Horton the Elephant!

So yesterday my mom and I took Kenna and Gavin to Horton Hears a Who while my dad and Brent were in meetings. She did better than expected and sat through the part when Horton was on and not so interested when the Who's were on... She was stoked to go to say the least. We bought her the little kids meal and she was so excited to eat her popcorn. When we first walked into the show she said "OH, BIG TV!" Gavin didn't do so hot (yes, I was one of those people that brought their little baby, how annoying I know) but once he ate he fell back asleep and we were good! Here are a couple of pics of her enjoying her first movie!

ITS BAAAAACK!

OK.... so over the writers strike break, my brother let us borrow The Office seasons of his. And then bless his little heart he gave Brent a copy of them for Christmas! Anyway, we got addicted and have been counting down the days until it starts up again. So THURSDAY APRIL 10 at 8:00 PM on NBC!

KISS THE GRILL!

Kenna's favorite movie is "MERLAID" aka The Little Mermaid. Everytime we are in the car, we have to watch Merlaid. Usually I don't turn the sound on for her so I can rock out to my own tunes, but recently I have been a little more unselfish and let her listen to the words, especially if I know what part she is watching. She has a pretty good memory and so after a few times of watching it with noise she starting singing "SHA LA LA LA LA KISS THE GRILL! KISS THE GRILL!" SHA LA LA LA LA LA don't be scared, KISS THE GRILL!" Anyway, so dang funny...

BE DICE!

OK, so the past week my sweet little daughter who always listened and was so sweet, has turned into a little demon child! She has been so naughty I can't hardly stand it! She now has been hitting, not listening on purpose and mauling Gavin every time I'm not protecting the poor little guy! On top of that, she has been SO WHINY! My heck... anyway, there is a reason for this fortunately. She has a cold. I hope this is the reason at least and not her new permanent attitude! It is sad she has a cold and has been so congested that she says a couple of words that are funny. Her best little friend Camryn did something to her and Kenna looked at her and said "BE DICE!" instead of be NICE... I thought it was so cute. We all know how it is trying to talk with a nose full of snot. Hopefully it passes soon so I can have my little girl back!