Maddie Faith Walker

Maddie's 6 years old!


Always a comedian!


Our Sweet Maddie Faith!


The Over Filled Pinata


A race for the candy!


Her Littlest Pet Shop Butterfly Cake

I can't believe my Maddie is 6 years old! She is super funny and such a great helper to me. She watches out for her younger siblings, but she also is quick to remind them that she is the oldest.......therefore she knows everything there is to know. She is a great athlete and can keep up with the boys. She is the only girl on her baseball team, and she loves soccer. But she is also our little princess and loves to get glam-ed up (In Mom's Make-up) and loves to have her nails painted every Sunday before Church. I am constantly amazed with her intelligence and her kindness for others. We are so blessed to have Maddie in our family!

Easter Celebrations

Oh, this is just too sweet!


Ever wonder what happens when you forget the eggs are still cooking......


Coloring eggs


The Preschool eggs hunt


The Easter Bunny came for a visit!


Cute Girls!

We Had such a busy Easter. Lots of Celebrating to do, and all the while trying to teach our Children the true meaning of Easter and the Blessings of the Savior.

Long Time No Blog

Maddie's Birthday Cake


Grandpa's (My Dad's) Birthday Triffle


Grandma's Birthday Hummingbird Cake

It has been a season for birthdays lately. And I LOVE baking! It is so fun to create new cakes and treats. Mmmmmmm Mmmmm good!

Walker Family Rainy Day Activities

How Girls Play With Dinosaurs


If you color the grout, you get to clean it up!


I really don't understand the fun in this, but hey,
it is better than coloring in the grout!



Learning to crawl.



Good old fashioned fort making.


So it has been raining quite a bit lately. We have had to come up with creative ideas to keep the kids out of trouble. Logan has been imagining that he is sun bathing on a nude beach just south of France.....but we won't show any pictures of that. He has been quite a handful, coloring my grout beautiful shades of the rainbow. So I showed him how to clean it up. Don't worry, that is an old toothbrush used solely for cleaning. His favorite activity has been lining up grapes on the cupboard doors. I don't quite understand the appeal, but it keeps him busy. The girls have been building good old fashioned forts out of the living room furniture and I bought a bunch of dinosaurs for 1$ at a garage sale to keep them entertained. I love how the girls "dressed them up". Our sweet little Grant has been working on his crawling skills and he has almost got it perfected. Hope your having Happy Rainy Days too!

Neato Sketo

It doesn't look like much, but it is super yummy and pretty healthy too!


Vege left overs? Why not puree them and freeze for baby food or put in Spaghetti Sauce, etc.


Neato:
So I LOVE chocolate and brownies are even better! I found these brownies called "No Pudge Fudge" You can make a whole pan of them or you can make a single serving in the microwave. And the best part is only one ingredient to add......Yogurt! Single serving is 2 tbs of brownie mix and 1 tbs of yogurt. One minute in the microwave and I have a super yummy warm brownie.......If I am really needing REAL chocolate, I just add one little dark chocolate dove square in the middle and I have a sort of healthy chocolate molten cake. Yum!

Sketo:
This is the first time I have bought a baby food maker. I really like it. I take our left over veges and puree them up and freeze for later. Great for baby food and I have even put the pureed carrots in Spaghetti sauce for added nutrition. I even mixed in some pureed veges in tomato sauce and we made our own english muffin pizzas for lunch. My kids have always loved veges, but for kids who don't, it is a great way to sneak them in.

25 Random Things

I am completely addicted to several things, one being Facebook at the moment. And the rules are, once you have been "tagged" you have to write 25 Random things about yourself and then tag 25 more people. So here we go......25 Random Things about ME!


1. I had to be tagged twice before I was motivated enough to write this.
2. I ran Hood to Coast 2 years ago and averaged an 8 minute mile for 16 miles. However, I haven't found the time to get serious about running again.
3. I am too scared to ride a bike, unless I am in a wide open parking lot all alone. Otherwise, I am afraid I will get hit by a car or fall off a cliff.
4. My Husband is 8 years my senior. I am always saying things like, " I was only in 6th grade when you went on your mission."
5. On that note, I turn the big 3-0 next year, and for the first time in my life, I want a party.
6. I love to cook healthy meals for my family, but some how I always end up in the ice cream at 8pm, stop buying the ice cream!
7. I have 4 kids ages 5 and under!
8. I am an only child.
9. I used to work in the Oncology Unit at Kaiser and I really miss it.
10. My Favorite Shows include but are not limited to the following, Psych, The office, So you think you can dance, American Idol, etc......the list goes on. thank goodness for DVR and the ability to fast forward the boring stuff. Otherwise I would be watching hours of TV.
11. My Husband and I love to remember and sing old commercials and theme songs from sit-coms......"Merry Christmas from Payless, Merry Christmas"........."Together, we're gonna find our way, you and I, together (Silver Spoons)
12. We also can sing "background" music for any situation that comes our way. For example: Today I was telling Maddie to push the bike in the garage so we could close it, and Jared and I both started to sing " Push it, Push it real good" (Salt N Pepa)
13. I really honestly like all kinds of music, except what I like to call "angry music"
14. I love Garage sales; even if I don't find anything to buy.
15. I love taking pictures of every event, however it has been a year since I have developed any of my photos.
16. I was baptized as a baby and at the age of 20. And I still keep in contact with the Missionary who baptized me 8 years ago. We even went to each other's Weddings.
17. I was married in the Salt Lake City Temple, even though I have never lived in Utah.
18. I love to talk on the phone, but some how sending emails has become more popular
19. I love to travel, especially in South America. I have been to Puerto Vallarta and Santiago, Chile (and Argentina for about 2 hrs)
20. I am afraid to travel to Europe for some reason. ( I always imagine being kidnapped, hey I'm cute! But Jared is quick to remind me that I am also annoying and they would probably send me back after an hour or so)
21. I think my husband is a much more interesting person than I am, and I tend to talk more about him than I do about myself.
22. I got straight A's in college (except for a business class) However, I am completely terrified of returning to finish my degree.
23. Ebay is so much fun! I love to buy and sell and buy some more.
24. I always wanted to be a flight attendant......."In Case of an emergency, please follow the illuminated floor lights to your nearest exit."
25. Yippie, I get to go to Seattle in March for a weekend with my sister in law. No kids, No hubby, just ME! I had to use my frequent fly-er miles before they expired.

Put Your Left Hand Out, Put Your Right On Top.....

Okay, we are forced to watch this commercial dozens of times every day. My Kids LOVE it. This is the one time that I regret having DVR and the ability to rewind everything. But I have to admit, I secretly enjoyed it the first 20 times. I'm over it now. (oh, go down to the bottom of the blog and pause my music so you can hear it)
Enjoy!

 

Quote

Talking about YouTube - Pull Ups Potty Dance
 

Super Saturday Steals!

50 cents each!


3$ for everything here! Gymboree, Naartjie, Children's Place, Gap, Old Navy, all my favorites!

Okay, to date, this was my best garage sale day ever! I can't believe all the great finds. The wooden flower pictures are almost exactly like some pictures that Pottery Barn sold last year for over 30$ a piece. Good thing I decided not to buy them. I like these pictures better and they were only 50 cents each. They look so cute in the girls room.

The clothes were a steal too. All great brands and in perfect condition. They will be great for Maddie's fall wardrobe this year. And for only 3$! You just can't beat that.

Garage sales are really getting good these days! I think all these things would have been donated in the past, but now everyone is trying to penny pinch and earn back every last dollar they can. It is great for the wallet (of buyers and sellers)!

Lessons Learned

Sophie is a bit irritated with me for taking this picture!



But she cheered up when I told her I was posting them in the blog.


The aftermath. ouch!

So, I learned a bunch of lessons this week.

Number 1. Never assume that 4 years old is old enough to be trusted with gum. Sophie decided to put gum in her eye lashes, in her hair and all over her hands. Needless to say, she learned some painful lessons too.

Number 2. Don't teach your 2 year old boy how to pee while standing, and not expect to find pee pee puddles everywhere.

Number 2 1/2. Don't teach your 2 year old how to pee while standing, especially if his older sisters are watching, because they will want to try it too, and there will be even more pee pee puddles to clean up.

Number 3. Expect the unexpected! I will just leave it at that.

The Sweet and the Sour of the New Year

I can't believe Grant can already sit up by himself! And he is so proud of himself. He loves it, except when he gets stuck. He hasn't quite figured out how to stop sitting.


This is the only lemon that grew on my lemon tree. I am so proud of her, isn't she a beauty?! This is the first time I have been successful with growing citrus. According to the Nursery, The trick is to not water them very much, who knew!

So we survived the New Year. And I am back to Blogging. Jared's Mom and Brother Nathan, and his family, came for a short visit to celebrate the New Year. But unfortuneatly, Jared and Sophie were super sick for a couple of days. Thankfully no one else got sick. They were real troopers.

Here is some super sweet news! Logan is officially potty trained. He was my easiest and quickest to teach. I wasn't even planning on teaching him until he was older than 3, but a few months ago he started getting naked and going to the bathroom in the garage, for privacy, I guess. I figured, if you can do that then you are potty trained, it is just a matter of location! He is doing great and I can't wait for him to go to preschool in the fall. Gosh these kids grow up fast! 3 down, 1 to go!

Happy Holidays

Christmas Morning Fun. All four of our kids have worn these snowflake pajamas. They are my favorite.


Opening Presents. We were pleasantly surprised by a Secret Santa this year, who left us bunches of presents on our doorstep. We still don't know who it was, So if it was you, thank you!


The Walker Boys in their finest. The sweater Grant is wearing was Jared's when he was a baby. I couldn't find Grant's Christmas sweater for Church, and I remembered Jared just got his baby sweater, and it worked out perfectly.


These girls just get prettier and prettier everyday!


The girls had their first dance recital recently. They are taking Clogging lessons from a friend of ours. And they are doing quite well. We are so proud of them.

Okay, So having 4 kids is a lot tougher than I thought it was going to be, but it is really fun too. (The first year we were married, I was hand-crafting our Christmas cards, then we switched to the photo cards and now, with 4 kids we have moved on to the email card) Even though it is completely against my "old traditional - self", I decided to go "Green" by sending out e-cards this year. Surprisingly, we received a bunch of email cards this year, so we are not alone. With Jared being out of work we really needed to penny pinch this year. But good news, Jared is back working, independently, which really makes me nervous. I am still hoping that he finds something more permanant with benefits. But for now, we are blessed to have any kind of work.

Hope everyone had a super Holiday Season and best wishes for the New Year.

The Christmas Catch Up

Decorating super yummy cookies with Grandma!


Making Pine cone bird feeders with Grandpa. The birds gobbled them up the very next day.



Our modest outdoor decorations.



The stockings all hung with Care in hopes that St. Nick soon would be there!



This is the 3rd year that we have had this tree and I love it a little more each year. It was a little depressing at first, but there are no needles to clean up, no worries about it falling over on a baby and it is up high enough that kids can't reach, well it takes a bit of effort to get to it.


This was a great holiday season for us, I think our best yet. We were so blessed this year and well taken care of. I couldn't ask for more.