Happy Holidays!

I hope everyone is having a good holiday season! We really had a good Thanksgiving weekend and now I can't believe it is already Christmas! I accomplished one of my main goals for the holidays and that was to make Lisa Davis' caramels and fudge. I have struggled in the past to make the fudge recipe work, so she let me watch her make it over Thanksgiving and now I think I can do it! Molly had a choir performance that was great! Sara has a dance performance tomorrow and Kate has a little presentation on Wednesday. We are excited to see Ike and Cooper in their play as well this week. Other good things for the holidays include Josh and Becca making it back to Utah safe! It will be fun to have them around! I am also excited for the kids to have so much time off from school this year!

One final thing - Becca is the one who motivated me to start a blog. I thought it would be a good way to share information and pictures with family. Becca has decided to take her blog private and I think I will follow her lead. At the first of the year I will be sharing my blog with just immediate family. Thanks for anyone who has taken the time to read my posts! I appreciate it!
Amy
p.s. did my xmas card with tinyprints.com this year and would highly recommend the site! Took me 5 minutes to create and order!

A Great Evening!

Well Nutcracker is here! One of my favorite weeks of the year! It was so fun to watch all three of my girls! Kate was a new baby pink mouse. Molly was an Arabian. And Sara was in Snow and a Waltz Soloist. I am so grateful to Clytie for giving them the opportunity to perform in such a great production! Last night literally took my breath away! One of the happiest evenings of my life! Also I am so grateful to have such a good friend like Amy Larsen. She is so talented and does so much for me! These pictures are priceless to me and I could have never taken pictures like these with my little old camera! (She took over 1,000 pictures!) Thanks Amy!

Trek and School

Well now that school is in I may find a moment here or there to post on this blog. Summer flew by and we really didn't accomplish much. Most of my summer was spent stressing about being a Ma on trek and then finally being able to do Trek. We loved it and this picture is of Sara on the second day coming in after 35 total miles! She did a great job and had a really fun family! It really was one of the most amazing experiences! I would do it again in a heart beat!

I do work better with a little structure so I am glad school has started along with ballet and football. Peter has had a great football season (except for a sprained ankle in the first game) and Nutcracker tryouts are this weekend. It is a fun time of the year for us! I love first day of school pictures so here are this years:

Sara started High School!
Molly at the bus stop going to 8th grade!

Kate starting 3rd grade!

Peter looking very happy in 5th grade (a lot of friends are in his class)!

High School Musical, Camps & Cousins

Thanks to my parents the kids got to watch the filming of High School Musical 3. They loved meeting the stars and they especially liked seeing the playback of a lot of the show! It was also good for them to see how tedious it is to make a film! My mom was able to take them to the filming because my dad owns a parking lot they needed to use! Thanks mom and dad!
Last week was CAMP week for the kids. Sara and Molly went to girls camp. Peter went down to a BYU lacrosse camp. And Kate went to an amazing music and art camp put on by Emma's music teacher Amy Leishman.

We had a cousin sleepover at our house because the McNabbs were in town for Seth's baptism. We had a great time! I was impressed because almost all the kids ran over 2 miles at the park. I am glad they were able to get their energy out at the park.

The Bennetts came to town so the cousins on my side gathered at the pool for a good time! My mom brought all the food and it was great!The fourth was fun and we were able to spend it with some members of both sides of the family. Nate & family and Jenny & family joined us for the parade. Sara was on a float with Dance Co. (the picture above is all the Sophomore girls that made it). A boy was ran over by a float right in front of us. Life flight came but the boy ended up just breaking his ankle. It put quite a damper on the day. But we had fun lighting fireworks at our house with Martha and the McNabbs. It was the first time we realized we can see two great set of fireworks from our house.

Anyway we are now just into the hanging out part of summer! Trying to relax and enjoy not having a million things going!

Back to Reality!

Well our trip is almost over. We are now halfway home. We are in St. George tonight. Sam is with the girls at Tuacan seeing Les Miserable. I stayed with Peter and Emma at the hotel. Anyway the beach was great and I don't remember the last time I felt this relaxed. Sam and I want to figure out a way to relax like this once in a while at home.

We went to Disneyland on our trip and we really were expecting the worst - hot weather and long lines. We were pleasantly surprised! I would say it was just full not crowded and the weather was unusually cool. We had a great time and really love the new Toy Story ride that just opened last week in California Adventure.

We will be back to real life in less than 14 hours. Hopefully after a week of fun and rest I can be a better mom, sister, daughter, friend and wife.

A week in heaven!

Well, we are three days into our summer vacation in Newport Beach and things are going great! I just love this place because for our family it is the perfect mix on fun, relaxation, good food and things to do. We spent the entire day on the beach and even though we all used a ton of sun screen all the kids except Emma are burned somewhere on their body. We are heading to Disneyland tomorrow and it may be a good thing to give the kids' skin a break from the sun.

I had to include this picture of Kate. She had been talking about buying a frozen banana for weeks.

We stayed over in Vegas on the way down and it was fun to see Seth, Claire and Katie. I was so surprised to see how much they had changed since we had last seen them.

May Update!

May has been a busy month and a lot of things have been going on. I thought I would post pictures of the fun we have been having. It is hard to believe there is only four days left of school for us and that Sara will be graduating from Jr. High. I am hoping we can have a good summer and find a balance between keeping busy and having down time. One goal is to have a bit more fun around here and we started by playing cards with friends on Saturday night till one in the morning and last night we had Ted and Sara over for a game of "UP". Sara, Molly and Peter also played up and it was fun seeing my own daughter - Sara - beat me in most of the rounds. Anyway, the pictures to follow are from the past couple weeks and seem to sum up what the kids have been working on in school for the past year.

Our Ward Memorial Day Breakfast - I am on the activities committee - we got rained out but still had an amazing turn out. The traditional Gardiner Dog Fest is also rained out so we will be going to Martha and Paul's instead of the canyon. I guess we can cook Smores in the microwave.

We finally got Sara driving. She is finally at the age she should be driving home from church so last night we took her to the parking lot and got her going! She did a great job! She will officially have her learners in August! I would have loved to have driven at 15!

Sam had a huge deal at work "sign" on Thursday so he was going to work from home on Friday. Instead he got to do house repairs. We thought we had a little leak in the foundation in Sara's room but found out our kitchen pipes were leaking. We found out when you pour boiling water down your sink it can crack your pipes. So the poor guy spent the entire day fixing and cleaning.

Molly reached an acting goal she has been working towards for the past three years. She got a call back at Hale Center Theatre for the musical BIG. She tried out last Saturday and spent the most of Wednesday and Thursday evenings doing call backs. She may not make it but it has been a good learning experience for her (and me). She will know the results by this Friday.

Emma keeps us all busy but she is always happy which makes life fun with her. She has discovered princess costumes and loves wearing them. This is her at her little singing class.

This is Peter's 10th Birthday Party! It was so wild! I didn't know if I would survive it but I think the kids had fun! They pretty much ran around screaming for 2 1/2 hours. Why did I think they would want to sit still and watch the Jazz Game?

The donuts on a string was the best part of the party. They loved it!

Peter did a great job on the traditional 4th grade county project!

Sara doesn't have a formal graduation at her school so it was fun for me to go to the honor awards program! She is a great student and I am really proud of her!

Kate's traditional 2nd grade program. They work on this all year long! I love the songs they learn and they all played instruments in an amazing patriotic orchestra.

Kate was baptized with one of her best friends in the ward. I really enjoyed this baptism. We spent a lot of time preparing her for this and it was a special event for our family. Kate asked so many questions that it made all of us examine our own testimonies. It really was a wonderful day!

Romney was baptized on the same day as Kate! Fun! We are excited for Seth's baptism this summer!

I had to include this picture! I have always felt "the more the merrier". This was just a Friday afternoon that all my kids had friends over and were just hanging out! I love it!

May is not complete without a Jr. High choir concert. Molly is in the hot pink on the front row.

Latest Happenings

Sam and I just got back from Minneapolis. My favorite thing about going there is the Sunday breakfast we always have at a place called Ike's. The sweet roll is just the start - it is followed by pancakes, eggs, bacon and sausage. Then after all that you have to love a place that brings you chocolate chip cookies with the check. I think another reason I love the breakfast tradition is by Sunday the business meetings are over and it is just our time.

It is recital time around here. We went to Lily's ballet recital. I love to see other ballet recitals. Lily did a great job being a rabbit. Kate and Peter also had their piano recital. They did well and we appreciated all the grandparents coming to hear them.

Peter had his end of year program. It was all about Utah and I was really impressed. The kids sounded great and it was really well done. I wish I has learned all the songs about Utah in school. They learned so much! We still have several school programs to go.

Sara did make Dance Company at the high school. I am happy for her because it is such a BIG high school so it will be nice for her to have a great group to work and hang out with.

Emma is the busiest kid I have ever met. She is always happy but her feet literally never stop moving. She keeps me busy! I took her to the park this morning after we dropped Kate off at school. While I was there I thought how glad I was that I still have a reason to be at the park!

Gardiner Girl Weekend!

Well I got some fun time away! I don't think I have left Emma that long before! It was a great break! I feel so lucky to have such great sister-in-laws and a great mother-in-law. We really had a fun time together! Sam did a great job holding down the fort and when I got back the kids said they really didn't miss me! We should do this trip a little more often!

Birthday Season!

Well we have made it through the April birthdays! Emma's birthday was fun because it was such a simple celebration. She got a sand & water table for the backyard. I took her to the park for lunch and we just had a cake with the family that evening. Pretty easy! Kate celebrated her birthday at the Lion House with mostly cousins and just a few friends. I love this party! A couple days later Peter got presents and donuts (he doesn't like cake). He is waiting to have a party in the park when the weather gets a bit warmer. It is kind of fun to have three birthdays in one week because it is really all we think about during the first part of April!

p.s. A big thanks to such fun grandparents. The kids got to go birthday shopping with both sets of grandparents!

Lion House Taffy

Kate wanted to make Lion House Taffy last night but I didn't have a candy thermometer or glycerine. So we decided to do it tonight for Family Night. We were all very excited and I even had to go to two stores for the supplies. Anyway as you can see from the picture I somehow undercooked it and it was a sticky mess! My kids tried to make me feel better by saying they still had a really good time.
Also just wanted to mention yesterday was one of my favorite traditions. Scone Sunday. We get together for scones during conference with Sam's family. We ate at our house this time and I wish I had pictures to share - I just got my camera up and running again today. Anyway I married into a great family and really love this tradition.