Hoffman Family Reunion 2012

This year for the Hoffmann family reunion we went up to Eden, Utah. We had such a good time seeing the family and getting away. On the way up there we needed to stop for some food (preggo here was staaaarving) so we pulled off at a truck stop in the middle of nowhere. The truck stop also happened to have a petting zoo! It was random, but so cool!

The poor zebra looked like he could use a good brushing, but the kids didn't seem to care one bit. They just thought it was the tops to be so close to a zebra.

 All of the animals would come up and sniff your hand to see if you had any food. We never did, but that didn't stop them from coming up to the kids to see if they did!

These next two pictures crack me up because my kids are just not so sure about giant birds. They were alright with the ostrich that was on the other side of the fence, but that emu that was just chillin' in the common zone was NOT something they had any desire to go by.

 We have been lucky to have the chance to go out with all the grown up kids in JD's family one night (minus Lynn and Alicia because she was about to pop out a bebe) of the reunions and it is always so fun to get out. It's great to have family who is willing to take all of our crazy kiddos for an evening so we can jump ship for a bit :)

One of the days I went upstairs to check on JD and Ian when JD was putting Ian down for a nap and had been up there a while. This is what I found. Asleep holding hands. Melts my little heart :)

These next pictures are from an evening that we spent down at Grandpa Don and Grandma Judie's house. They had these blow up things that are for adults to put on and be like sumo wrestlers. The kiddies thought they were great.

I was so excited to be able to take Ian to the treehouse museum in Ogden. We had taken Morgan there a few years ago and I was excited to go back and give him the chance to see it. Morgan didn't remember much of it, so it was great fun for her too!

"Mr. President, there's been an emergency. T-rex on the loose. Please come take care of this."

When Ian found the dr/medical part of the museum he was all business! He started listening to the baby in mom's belly and personally, I think he is just about the most adorable little doctor I have ever seen. 

We have some more pictures from the Treehouse trip and a trip to another petting zoo but they are on the tablet and I have yet to figure out how to get them off of it :) I will post them soon though because there are some great videos of the kids on there! 

85* in July? No stinkin' way!

Yesterday it was overcast and I couldn't believe it but the high until about noon was only 85! We have been living in 110 to 115 degree hotness for the last 2 months so when I saw it was only going to be about 85 we loaded up and went out on a nature scavenger hunt.

JD had already been out hiking since 7 that morning for an independent research credit class he is doing this summer (researching lichens....ooooooooh and aaaaaaaaah :) but when I was buckling up the kids he called and said he was headed home so he met us for another 2 hours of hiking. Sometimes, I just really love that man :)

The scavenger hunt consisted of:

   Something fuzzy

   Something smooth

   Something straight

   2 kinds of seeds

   Something rough

   2 kinds of leaves

   Something green

   A chewed on leaf

   A stick

   Something you think is beautiful

   A beautiful rock

   Something you think is a treasure

The kids were pulling some seeds off this bush. It's a good thing that JD is smart about plants because I would have never guessed those things were seeds!

The kids (okay and the grownups too) were so excited to see this guy! There are people who have lived in St George their whole lives and still never seen one of the local desert tortoises. We felt special to be able to see it.

                               And this guy reminded me SO much of my childhood!

The kids had a blast. Ian was cracking me up carrying around his "purse" but the best part was JD's response every time Ian would say purse. "Son, it's a bag. You're a boy. It's a bag." hahaha!

I didn't find anything fuzzy or smooth- I wasn't really looking. But one thing I did find, was something that I think is a treasure. 

They were kind of hard to miss :)

Spring Break Staycation!

My husband is...pretty much amazing.  I was begging for a vacation for spring break. I begged and pleaded. I NEED camping. I NEED Vegas. I NEED, I NEED, I NEED...blah blah blah. Turns out what I needed, was my husband :) JD decided that since our lives were boring, consisting of school and work and kids, kids, kids...he would jazz up our week. A declaration was made: It will be a week filled of fun in St George!

Sunday after church we went for a family walk up to a pond and fed the ducks and fish. Those fish are GI-gan-tic. We are talking 2 foot long gold fish. CRAZY.
When we got home, we played ourselves a rousing game of Build It Sorry. And, may I say, Morgan didn't seem too sorry to keep kicking my sorry butt back to home.
Monday, after working on the Motorcycle, we went to the Wildlife Animal Museum. We had so much fun, and my kids have seriously asked to go back 3 times a week since then.

Gotta love my boys :)

Mom, do you SEE these animal tracks?

Ian never learned how to turn the binoculars the right way :)

So many scary bears. Everywhere. We should scream. Okay! (we didn't actually scream, as that would disrupt the museumish atmosphere)

Ian was obsessed with this fox. He just kept screaming, "Eat! Eat 'im! Eat him! He...EAT... TWEET TWEET!!!!"

I still am not sure if I believe this thing exists. It looks like a fraggle.

Oh my family is perfect...wouldn't you say?

Alright, so then, we came home and spent some time with Morgan on her bike. I am going to put up a post on that all for itself, because, hello, huge accomplishment.

Tuesday, JD had to actually be responsible- poo- and go to work. But before he did, we managed a picnic at the park for lunch.

We had a few other fun little outings throughout the week, and just a lot of family time, which is what I was really wanting anyway.

We finished up the week with the airshow, which the kiddies thought was awesome. Ian still loves, "Jettttt planes"

"He's upside down, Mom! He IS UP-SIDE-DOWN!"

The "copter-plane"

Okay, so maybe we didn't actually go to the airshow. Maybe we went to a church that was like a half mile away and free. But hey, my kids got to ride their bikes when it got boring :) And this is Morgan talking herself through a risky maneuver :)

She was so proud of herself :) And, as you can see, we are not the only church-user air show stalkers.

Ian kept laying his trike down on it's side (which took a lot of effort) so it could be on it's side like Morgan's.

The kiddos watching the planes

I just love him.

My favorite plane of the day :)

All in all, it was a great week. My family is all I really need.

Right now JD is playing his new Zelda video game he got for his birthday and the kids are sitting with him. Ian keeps randomly tackling him, and JD "sits" on him while Ian laughs like a maniac. Morgan is loving the chance she has to sit right by her Daddy and talk about the pointless silly game. They are having fun together and I just get to watch. It's a perfect moment :)

An Epiphany en route to Fast Food

We had a rough day today. One of those really, really, outrageously draining, incredibly and ridiculously rough days.

It didn't have anything to do with the kids- at first. But of course, as my day got worse, and my attitude changed, theirs did too.

I basically ended up ignoring them for most of the day while I sat around thinking about what in the world we are going to do. We took our truck into the mechanic because it was blowing white smoke- and several quotes later- we are looking at a $4500 repair. 4,500 Dollars. Like I said, I spent most of my day just caught in this in between place- the place that I go when I try to not think about something and then I just end up thinking about it entirely in a trance where everything else only half way gets done. Let's be honest, if 50% of the stuff around here that needed done today actually got done, then it's a miracle.

I turned into the mom who pushes her kids away from her legs with a "not now" while they are just begging for a little attention. And then there's the amazing little wonders that children turn into when they go past the begging and turn into terrors who will, under any circumstances, get your attention.

All day long I felt completely out of control and really quite angry. We did the right thing with our truck- we tried to sell it. When it didn't sell, we paid it off 2 years before the loan was up. We did the right thing- and now the truck we paid a ridiculous amount of money for in the first place, the vehicle that is supposed to be reliable- is costing us more than the neon did 5 years ago. We did everything right- this shouldn't happen. When we lost our house and were drowning in credit card debt, we paid them off and we clawed our way out of the gigantic hole of debt to keep that truck. And now it wants another $4500 dollars. I think angry might be a bit of an understatement when I say that's how I have felt all day.

About 20 minutes before Morgan's bedtime I decided to throw reason and responsibility out the window and go get some french fries because I thought (and apparently I have some sort of psychological need for food to make everything better) that I needed them. I loaded the kids up and as I was putting Morgan in the truck she started whining. Why? Because she likes to sit on the side of the car with the gas cap and she was sitting on that side, but she didn't sit on that side LAST TIME and now was a good time to have the breakdown about the injustice in the world since she didn't get to sit on that side before. I just couldn't handle it anymore. I have real problems here and she is crying about THAT? I slammed the door and almost went back into my house to just leave her out there because I couldn't handle any of it anymore.

I didn't do that though, I climbed into the car and apologized. I held her hand to help her stop crying because she was so afraid of me and my anger that she was literally sobbing. I felt horrible, much worse than before I slammed the door, and I just got so much more angry at our truck. At paying it off and then having this huge smothering bill put before us not even 2 weeks later. It isn't right. It isn't controllable. And it isn't fair.

And then I realized, that I was right. The truck isn't controllable. And no, I still don't think it's either right or fair. But I do know something that I have heard a million times and never really applied to my own life- my circumstances do not determine who I am.

I am a good mom. I am a good wife. I try my hardest to make the right decisions and when something like this comes up, I can control myself. I can't control the truck, and I can't control the cost of the stupid injectors or the fact that our truck lost it's value to consumers when everything in the economy went to crap. But that's the economy, and that's the truck....and this is me.

I have 2 beautiful children who deserve my time and affection. I have an amazing husband who works hard to keep me happy, and our children clothed and fed. He deserves to come home to a wife who acknowledges that and supports him as best as she can through times like these. I have the family I was born into, and the one I married into who care about me and who are generous and loving. I love to see my kids laugh. I love to read. I love to go on bike rides with my family. Just because this thing with the truck is happening to me, it doesn't make any of those things any less true.

I really hope this isn't a 4,500 dollar lesson that I had to learn. Hopefully we can figure out some way to make this easier to handle. But I am thankful for that moment of clarity that reminded me of who I really am.

And this girl, she doesn't let stuff like this get her down. :)

Well, thank you for that.

I was just sitting here and Morgan walked over to the piano and started plunking around on it. She noticed that one of the keys is a little scratched up (honestly they are all in pretty bad shape :) And she said, "Hey Mom, how did this happen to this key?"
"What do you mean?"
"How did it get these little scratches?" she asked.
So I said, "I don't really know"

"Oh. I bet I know, Mom. I bet you scratched it with those pokeys you have. Those pokeys in your underarms."

"Uhhhhh, that's one idea, but I'm pretty sure my arm pit hair couldn't scratch the keys on a piano."

"Huh. I bet they could." And away she went, onto her next task to decide what my arm pit hairs may have destroyed.

Just a little thing

A while ago we were just out running errands and we spotted a hot air balloon. We didn't really have anything else to be doing so we pulled over into a parking lot and spent a little bit of time watching it. It was so fun and the kids were enthralled. Morgan was so curious about how it works and what the fire does and Ian would get a little distracted and start trying to climb up the back windshield (since we all just sat on the trunk of the neon) but all you had to say was "Where's the balloon" and he would immediately whip around saying "Boon! Boon!" and find that puppy floating in the sky. Eventually Ian got tired of it and wouldn't quit climbing the car so we gave up on it, but it sure was fun while it lasted :)

Rain is Falling All Around

Since we don't have a tree skirt, I always put some of the fluffy batting under our tree. I kind of like it in my own ghetto way, because it's the only snow we see around here. Anyhow, I will NOT be using it next year because this year it ended up ALL over my house. But this particular use of it made me laugh. Morgan rounded up some pencils and stuck them in the bottom of some poofs of the stuff and her and Ian spent a good hour gallivanting around the house singing about rain clouds and making it rain on me :)

Neeeeeeiiigggh!

Ian loves anything and everything to do with horses. He is such a crack up. He likes to grab the bottom hem of his shirt, or the top of his pants and gallop around the house saying, "Gidup! Neeeeiggggh!" like he is holding onto the reigns of the craziest horse this side of the Mississippi :)

About a month ago I made some brownies and I gave him the spoon and this is what followed. I was laughing so hard, his personality is just so funny and quirky. He makes me laugh with all the silly little things his growing boy mind comes up with!

It's the most wonderful day of the year!

We went down to Prescott Valley to visit with my family this year for Christmas. It was such a great trip, but it was especially good because JD had arranged to have the 25th, 26th, and 27th off this year so we could go down, but one of his coworker friends agreed to take JD's Christmas Eve shift and JD already had the 23rd scheduled off so we got to work in 2 extra days! The trip ended up being the perfect amount of time and we had a really good visit while we were there.

On the night before Christmas Eve, JD and I surprised Morgan and Ian by hiding a golden ticket to take a ride on the Christmas Express under Morgan's pillow. Basically, she got all ready for bed and thought she was getting tucked in for the night, but then she saw 2 tickets in her bed and we all loaded up to go see the Valley of Lights.  We had fun pretending like our truck was a train and Morgan thought it was just about the silliest thing ever to have her Dad as a conductor and her Mom saying things like, "All aboard!" while loading them up. Ian kept randomly saying, "Toot! Toot!" and it is so fun to see how aware he is and how much he is starting to understand pretend play :)

Afterwards, we got to go see some of my friends at Rochelle's house. It was so fun and I had such a good time just chatting and goofing off with Rochelle and Ilene (I guess the husbands were fun too but that is unimportant :)

And so, on Christmas Eve, the kids got to open their Christmas Eve present and they were both thrilled to get the pajamas that they did. Morgan loves just about anything Hello Kitty, and Ian started yelling "Toot Toot!!" before he even got the paper all the way off of his Thomas the Train jammies.

Well, here are the pictures of the kids discovering their loot. Morgan wanted nothing more from Santa then a rainbow bear, and so she got one. She thinks it is pretty cool because "Santa even knowed me good enough to know I love rainbows AND ballerinas because my bear has a rainbow tutu!" Oh, and she got to see the spots where the "elves" stitched on all that rainbow fleece. I would be willing to bet those elves even got a gnarly blister from all that sewing *wink wink*

And Ian loved his train table. He plays with it all the time and it has been so fun to have with him. The kids finally have a reason to play in Ian's room too :) 

Santa brought me and JD a cage for our little monsters:

Hehehe just kidding of course :)

  But I think, that even with all the excitement of Christmas and Santa, the biggest hit of the Christmas presents was definitely this little guy that my Dad got for my Mom:

And, isn't Ian just the cutest ever?