Money Machine

Every year, the kids have a fundraiser at school selling Happenings books. I love it because I am always using my book. It's got some great stuff in there. My favorite are the coupons up front for totally free items at various restaurants. I also love the Smiths coupons to save $5 when you spend $50 (before any coupons are applied). So, I always try to use my highest value coupons along with the $5 off for some great savings.

The school did something new this year for the kids...

THE MONEY MACHINE

Dan took the kids to his office and between the 2 of them, they sold enough books to be able to have them both take a turn in the money machine at school. I think there were like 16 kids from the whole school that got to do it and 2 were mine, lol. They did it during their lunch time so I went to watch. I was the only parent there. They each had their own technique. Hunter made sure he wore a long sleeve shirt that buttoned up the front that he could tuck in. He used the "grab and stash in your shirt" method.

He ended up with $5 and a coupon for free chips and salsa at Chilis

Carly used the "grab and hold method" I think it worked out good for her.

She ended up with $8

Year 13 of cutting down our Christmas tree

With the exception of a single year (before we had kids and still lived at our old house) when I bought a tree at Smiths Marketplace, we have traveled up a canyon somewhere and cut down our Christmas tree every year since we've been married. That's 13 out of 14 years of cutting trees! This was a a particularly busy holiday season and I didn't know how we were going to fit in a tree cutting trip, but somehow we did. I have a love/hate relationship with this tradition. Well, maybe hate is too strong of a word. I don't hate it, but some years, like this last super busy Christmas season, I was really wishing I had a beautiful pre-lit tree that I could put up and decorate at my own convenience without the mess. It's okay to call me a Christmas tree Scrooge, because I totally was. I have even looked for a screamin' after Christmas clearance deal on a tree as recently as 2 days ago. But alas, the only one they had at 90% off at Target was nearly a foot shorter than me... and I'm pretty short.


We usually try to go the weekend after Thanksgiving to cut a tree but it didn't happen this year. Life was just way busy. It wasn't until about a week and a half to two weeks later that Dan called on his way home from work one night and unexpectedly said "Let's go cut our tree!" I had like 5 minutes to help everyone find their winter clothes. Notice in these pictures that Carly has on 2 totally different gloves, Fisher has only 1 glove and Hunter is sporting no gloves at all. Ha! We piled into Dan's truck and zipped up the canyon shortly before before dark.


Dan and I used to make a day of it and take a couple hours searching for the "perfect" tree before making our decision. Maybe we've gotten better at knowing what tree is going to work in our house and what won't, or maybe we are not as picky as we used to be but we found this tree at mock speed! One thing we have learned is that the tree cannot be taller than Dan can reach. Otherwise, the tree will be too tall and we may end up with a sap stain on the celing like we did about 8 or 9 years ago when Dan put the stand on and shoved the tree into an upright position and the tree was too tall. Another thing we have learned is that looking at the size of a tree on the mountain is totally different than actually looking at it in your house. It seems like every year we get the tree home and say "Wow, it didn't look that big on the mountain! It's huge! It didn't seem as wide as it really is!"


Dan pulled out his little saw and lickety split, the tree was cut and loaded into his truck and we were on our way home.
The kids did nearly all the decorating themselves. I just helped throw on some lights and let them have at it.

Although I don't always love going to cut down a Christmas tree,
my kids love it.
And I love that they love it.
And so the tradition lives on :)

4th grade, 1st grade and Preschool

I am a little slow but here are the pictures from the first day of school:

Hunter is now in 4th GRADE! Wow how time flies. He has a class that is split between two teachers. One teaches monday, tuesday, and every other friday. The other teaches wednesday, thursday and every other friday. It seems to be going okay. The only problem we've run into is he turned an assignment in to the teacher on tuesday and the other teacher on wednesday said he did not turn it in and gave him a zero. Obviously, I did not think this was fair so I went in on the following monday to talk to the teacher he actually turned it in to. She could not find it either but said she would not give him a zero, as she had seen him working really hard on it. We'll see how it goes. He said they are both really nice and we had a positive parent teacher conference last week.

Little Miss Carly is now in 1st grade. This was totally weird to me because I kept on thinking I was late picking up a kindergartner since she is now at school all day. I quickly got over that and am enjoying some one on one time with Fisher while the other two are having fun at school. She is loving first grade! Her teacher is new at the school but has been teaching for 10+ years and she is SO nice. She has a Hollywood theme in her classroom and tells the kids they are all "Stars" I love it.

Little Mr. Fisher-man. Love this kid. Such a poser in this picture. Can you read what his shirt says? "What happens in Preschool stays in Preschool" Ha ha. Yep, my BABY is 4 and in preschool this year! He goes to our local high school and I love it because they have 1 high school student teacher to every preschool kid. Since the High School is on a block schedule, he rotates between two teachers. Mr. Braden and Miss Manda. I asked him how Braden was and he told me Braden was "Lots of Nice" When I asked him if Miss Manda was lots of nice too, he replied "Uh uh" I asked why. He said "Because I don't like her." I then asked "Why?" He said, "I don't know. I just don't" Hmmmm. Does not surprise me because he said this because he is in this phase where he does not like ANYTHING you suggest to him. Does not matter what you say, he says the opposite. Hoping he will grow out of it, lol. Sure he will :)

I think my husband is lost-

I think my husband is lost. Have you see him?


His name is Dan... He's about 5'8"


He has facial hair. You know, a mustache and goatee.
He's always had a mustache. And has almost always had a goatee.


Ringing any bells?


This guy here- the one hugging on my daughter??
I don't recognize him at all!!
My kids all think this guy looks like Uncle Justin.

Do you?

Happy Birthday Hunter!

Wow... 10 years ago today, you were placed in my arms.

You instantly had a place in my heart too.

Happy Birthday "Budda Boo", my "Hunter Buddy" my chicken farmer.

I am proud to be your mom!

I have a list of questions I am going to ask him and post here.

Until then, here are a few things about Hunter:

-His favorite toys are Bey Blades and Yugi-Oh Cards

-He loves school

-He is a jokester

-He is so dang smart

-He is a fishing fool

-He loves Pokemon movies

-He is caring and kind

-He gives great hugs

I've asked the questions, now here are the answers to his favorite things:

Favorite color- turquoise

TV show- Yu-gi-oh!

Movie- Pokemon

Food- Mozzarella Sticks

Drink- Powerade, Cream Soda

Ice cream- Orange Sherbet

Primary Song- Scripture Power

Country Song- Country Girl (Shake it for me girl)

Country Singer- Jason Aldean

Sport to play- football

Sport to watch- football

School song (He said his favorite hip hop song)- Clear the air from 3rd grade

Animal- Bull elk

Animal to hunt- Dove, pheasant

Season- Autumn/Fall

Salad Dressing- Cafe Rio dressing

Fast food Restaurant- Mels (In Beaver, UT)

Regular restaurant- Red Lobster, Joe's Crab Shack

Holiday- Easter and Christmas. For the death and birth of Jesus Christ, because we are celebrating something about him on both of those holidays.

Photo Shoot at Grandma Karen's

My mom has got this great looking wall on the side of her corral. It's bumpy, and rusty and dinged up with peely paint. Time to take some pics there, right?


My Hunter Boy.

He's almost a Webelo, almost in need of a new scout shirt. Have you ever bought one? Those things are expensive. When we bought his blue cub scout shirt at the scout store, it cost me $30+ for the shirt, neckerchief (sp?), the slider, the numbers for the shoulder, etc.

Then he lost it. Really, he did.

Heidi replaced it with an extra one she had.

Then he found it. Well, actually HE didn't find it. I didn't find it either.

Aunt Heather did... at her house. Right in the place where he left it weeks before.

He swears he doesn't even remember wearing it there, lol. Kids. Ha, Ha, Guess I'm no better because I didn't remember either!

So, then he had two shirts for a while. It was nice having a backup shirt.

Then we gave the extra to someone who needed one.

And I had to keep track of that once was lost, now is found shirt. I gave up sewing any of the patches he'd earned on it. Pulled out the trusty glue gun and hot glued those suckers on. They even lasted through the wash!

So, now that the patches are finally on the blue shirt, it's nearly time for him to move up and wear a khaki tan colored one.

Maybe I will get lucky and find one at DI. We love that store.



Little Miss Carly.

She just recently lost a tooth up top. She can't stop putting her tongue in the space and has discovered that a straw fits perfectly in there too. Thinks she's pretty tricky. See how long her pigtails are getting? She swears that if I hadn't cut her hair when she was little that they would be down to her bumb by now. That girl loves her long hair.


My Fisher Man.

He turned 4 a few weeks ago. He has said some pretty funny things recently:

F: "I am the boss of you mom!:
M: "No you're not." (While wagging my finger at him)
F: "Yes I am!! Put yo fingoh down!"

"I have a lot of gas. That means I have a lot of poop."

"It hurts my cut from my church tree."

Lonely blogs

I honestly think I'm the only one who reads this thing anymore. After being MIA for a year, people forget about you. Or maybe they already thought you were boring and decided not to drop in and read anymore. Or maybe Facebook has become their favorite way to keep up with other people Or maybe it's because my blog is private and doesn't climb to the top of the list when I update.

Blogger should work on that.

There should be some way I can still appear up there when I post something new, so people know I am still alive.

People don't remember to look at your private blog.

So your name sits there all lonely, somewhere in the bottom of their blog list, just waiting to be clicked.

C'mon friends,

Click on my name, see the photos, maybe even read boring stuff.

Would make me feel better.

Ha ha ha. What is wrong with me, lol. Oh well.

Whatever the case, it's kinda lonely over here. That long list of blogs on the right hand side? I love reading about their families. It makes me feel that even though we don't get to talk a lot, we've kept in touch. And there have been a lot of blogs that have inspired me in the past years that sadly, they have not seen an update in a while.

Maybe the answer is just "life". Life just gets busy and life gets in the way and life goes on, I guess.

Weird email addresses

Today Dan told me he doesn't even know what my email address is.

It's been the same for 13 years.

schwaanky@hotmail.com

I don't think schwaanky is forgettable.

Maybe difficult to spell/remember, but not forgettable

And unique.

Maybe unique like me.

I'd like to think so :)

Zippy -n- Fish

This is Zippy


aka our "big, overgrown golden retriever"
She's 6, the daughter of my horse Chigger and the same age as my daughter Carly.
Born in my backyard on April 24, 2004.
I only remember the exact date because it was my brothers birthday.

Zippy is pretty funny. She loves people so much, that she'd rather you pet and hug her than eat her hay.
Most horses will run away when they see you coming with the halter.
Not Zippy.
She'll run to you, in hopes that you will get her out. She's super friendly. Comes in really handy when the corral is all wet and mucky in the winter time.


She isn't biting him here. Just giving him a little love nibble.

She will lip your arm a bit and it tickles a lot.

Just ask Fisher, it always makes him laugh :)

Doesn't this just make you smile?

Doesn't this just make you smile?
It makes me smile
My little "nunkey" (monkey)

He's really good at giving "nunkey love"
He wraps his little arms around your neck,
and his legs around your waist,
and gives you a big squeeze and kiss on the cheek.



And my good friend, Heather Jo. She makes me smile :) Brought me a Cafe Rio Salad a few nights ago and made my crappy day better.



Our Park City girls getaway.
That made me smile.
That's Heather, her mom Laura aka my second mom, and Laura's sister Mary aka my "other mother."

Have you tried the apple pie carmel apples in Park City? To die for!
The carmel/chocolate/walnut ones were my fav.