What do these two pictures have in common?

Let's see last Sunday to be exact. I was in the kitchen with Blair and we heard the car stereo up way loud with the bass booming. Curious we went out to the garage to see what was going on.

We saw little roo dancing her little heart out. We watched for awhile until she caught a glimpse of us.

We had to ask her what she was doing and this was her response. "Well I'm waiting for the cars to drive by and throw money at me."

We weren't sure what to think...where do kids get this stuff? It just makes me wonder!

What do little buzz now big buzz and cars have in common?

Can you believe that this cute little boy is now old enough for drivers ed? Oh my heck! I can't hardly stand the thought of it.

I've become one of those parents who say, " I can't believe where the time has gone!" Seriously, I do not feel any older but yet am keenly aware that I am living with a teenager everyday. He is a great kid and a typical teenager. With that being said- that is why I am absolutely TERRIFIED at the thought of him driving.

Not to mention the insurance premium that will double! YIKES...this is scary scary stuff.

On the flip side it will be nice to have someone that can drive and take the girls places. However, I remember my older brother wasn't the nicest or the best driver when he HAD to take his little sister places. It's amazing how we ever survived childhood with siblings isn't it? Anyway...it will be a new and exciting adventure for the Hill house!

Buses and Children

So this is how my morning routine rolls...I get out of bed get dressed get lunches made then go to each child's room and rudely ruin their blissful sleep.

My goal is to get everyone up and running by 7:00 a.m. Most mornings I am met with moans and groans and then slow moving turtles with snappy little mouths. Most mornings are stressful, but one thing remains the same.

My constant race with the bus. The bus stops by 2 houses down from ours to pick up a kindergartner. It is when I hear the bus stop my heart starts to race and I go instantly into military drill. Get in the car, hurry, hurry hurry. We live in a U shape neighborhood the bus goes up the U on the left and I go on the right. I am usually able to beat it and have my kids dropped off at the stop before the bus gets there with just seconds to spare.

Today was a bit of a challenge she didn't stop at the kindergarteners home I panicked. My groove was thrown off. I almost ran the stop sign...she was already at the bus stop and picking up kids. Ugh I was waiting for cars and watching her pull away. As I turned to go to the bus stop a miracle happened. She stopped the bus (just special for my kids),..I was so so happy. Thank you kind bus driver lady! You made my day!

A moment of Heaven

Blair and got a moment to escape reality. I went on a business trip to Las Vegas and got to take my bestest friend. It was nice to have someone as amazing as him to lay by each night. We decided since we were so close to California we would take our rental car and head for the beach.

It took 6 fun hours of driving and much anticipation...finally we made it to San Diego. We checked into our hotel then off to find the beach. We headed to Mission Bay it was packed. We kept driving to La Jolla. We took a road that headed to beach front and ran into a surfer. Blair asked where the best place to enjoy the beach was and he said "Big Rock". It was only a mile up the road.

To our surprise we had the beach mostly to ourselves. We spent the rest of the day there. Watched the sunset there. It was heaven! I am so lucky I got to spend a week with my love of my life and enjoy two days of beach fun and sun. So so lucky!

I'm back

Let's see I think I'm going to try to do better at this blog thing. Not that I have a great following or anything. Just want to document my life as it happens. So this post is short and sweet...more to come

SERIOUSLY

When do you stop taking life seriously. Lately my stream of never ending bad luck has caught up with me and I don't know how much more I can take.

With that being said seriously sick of taking life so responsible, so serious so I don't know...so I want to know how you all take life when it gets to be a little too SERIOUS!

17 years and counting

On March 17 it will be 17 years since my dear sweet hubby asked me to marry him. 17 years sounds like a long time and I know that I can't possibly be that OLD!

Anyway...what has 17 years brought us...we'll I'd like to say that since he asked me to marry him on St. Patrick's Day that the Luck of the Irish has blessed us for all of those years....well it hasn't. Don't get me wrong we've been lucky---I just think that our 17 years have seen more bad luck then good...

For instance- who books a trip to Mexico and then gets told the wrong directions and misses their flight to paradise---the Hill's

Who books a vacation to Disneyland the day after Christmas and has to wait outside the gates of Disneyland because they reached capacity and will only let a person in when one person leaves....the Hill's

Who buys a house at the hight of the market in Utah and then has to sell ( hopefully someone will buy it )it at a BIG loss due to the economy--the Hill's

Who go moves out of their beautiful house - rents it and moves into a small rental house only to have to move again into an even smaller space like Blair's grandma's basement---The Hill's

Anyway...enough with the bad stuff- even though they were bad and miserable they have been some of the most memorable and defining moments in our marriage.

I am Lucky to have someone who loves me so completely through all of these years!

The Hills Warmly Welcome 2010 with....

A fun family adventure at a cabin near Jackson Hole. It was so fun to get away from it all. We had different snacks each hour to count down to mid-night as well as fun filled game a of monopoly- Mojo was the winner. Not surprising she is our entrepreneur.

Ran in the new year with a little bubbly and went to bed.

Next day we spent a big share of the day in Jackson Hole. First stop the Aquatic center, then enjoyed the town with out all the tourist, Jackson Hole is a whole other town in the off season. Loved the snow and the shopping. Topped the evening by eating at Merry Piglets- fantastic mexican restaurant!

With all the play comes the pain?

1. Cheeto cat surgery repaired a fractured femur and removed bullets

2. Husband had surgery - tonsils out -pallet rebuilt- tongue clipped and nose bone scrapped.

3. One week after surgery husband struck with kidney stones that will need to be surgically removed

4. Two kids with ear infections.

5. One lil roo trying to express her independence by kungfu fighting with the older two!

Add this all together and you get one very tired, very ornery, worn out MOM! So the lesson I've learned is to never resolve to say this year will be better than the last when it comes to New Year Resolutions!

David Archuleta

oh my did we have a fun girls night our last night. We Mojo her friend and lil roo and I were 14 rows away from David.

I was curious how they would act because this was their first ever real live concert. It was fun to watch them cover their ears because of the noise and then slowly get into dancing, screaming, and having fun!

Lil roo called it quits about 9:30 and feel asleep exhausted from all the excitement. The other two did not want to stop! So Cute.

We bought a poster of the boy and this morning it was already up on the wall, lil roo walked up to it started singing "crush" and then kissed him on the lips- lol

Warning Long Post..it's been awhile

So I thought I'd just highlight a few Hill family happenings: August

- Back to school-

Buzzy boy started 7th grade, Mojo is in 4th grade ( and has my mom for a teacher) and Lil Roo is loved so much that her mom didn't want to send her to school until next year.

September

Jenn survived BYU-Idaho back to school rush- Blair made several trips in the truck hauling fuel up and down the 15 corridor. The kids settled into school and our desktop and laptop computers quit working on the same day! The desktop was returned and fixed after 5 days but the laptop was doa -fried motherboard talk about luck!

We were able to have some family pictures in there - here are just a few of my favorites:

/> October:

Seems like everyone has managed to dodge the swine flu. We've had touches of tummy troubles but for the most part have remained healthy. Lil Roo has finally been able to go to daycare with out getting so upset that she make herself throw up.. and I have been able to go to work without make-up smeared all over my face from crying because of Lil Roo's upsets...to me that is progress.

Another fun October happening was potato harvest the kids got a whole week out of school great for them...stress for me. However, I was lucky to have help from my sister, mom and a fun teenage babysitter so they could all stay home and sleep in! Buzzy boy had fun gleening potatoes for his ym activity- and we've enjoyed potatoes straight from the field- YUMMY!

The kids had a fun "parent-less" Halloween - Buzzy boy was a moto crosser Mojo was a twister game and lil roo will be Hannah Montana glam-a-fied! She is so excited. I missed out on the fun however, I was is in Las Vegas for training. Blair flew down and spent a couple days checking out the Vegas scene together. It's been a busy couple of months and I hope to do better at keeping this blog up!

Summer Fun

Our lives have not been the same since I've gone back to work. Summer fun moments have been few and far between. However, we did find some time over the 4th of July to create some family fun. We went to the Riot Zone and to our surprise there wasn't a lot of people there. In fact I think we had the place to ourselves. We had a great time!

I loved chasing the kids with the tubes, and we all laughed on the bouncy toys and to top the day off we enjoyed a Lime Rickey, french fries, and an ice cream cone from Arctic Circle. Gotta love creating memories

Can it get any CRAZIER?

Okay so Blair's old job called him back....Never guess that the good ole Bookstore would call ME back! Seriously....strange turn of events - but what a blessing at the same time.

Now we have two houses in two different states. I have a rental house in Rexburg and an amazing weekend house (still for sell) in Utah. I really don't know how all of this will work out. All I can pray is that we will be able to live all together as a family soon. I don't really want to do the single working mom thing. I hate the challenge of finding good child care for the kids and only being able to see Blair on the weekends.

Seriously, having a great job with benefits is so appreciated and such a blessing- and how it all came about really strengthened my testimony that the Lord does know us each individually now.....I just want it to all work out- the house to sell, Blair to find a great job in Idaho and for us to be a family. Is that asking too much?

Can Bad KARMA stick twice?

Well really our life is just a yo-yo of events. Our most recent turn of events started with a telephone call from Woodside- Blair's previous employer. They need an "Assistant" for three housing developments. Blair will start work soon which is good and bad. The good is Blair has work - YEA! The bad is they are paying him 1/2 what he made working as a Superintendent and the job is temporary - maybe 6 months to a year- and NO benefits.

It's simply crazy to me! However, I am grateful for him get back to work doing what he loves, even if it's a "demotion" in some respects. Woodside is so lucky to get such a hard worker for such a steal of a deal. It's hard not to be too cynical at this point - Anyway.... Enough said- We'll have to see where this ride leads us!

A Few of my Favorite Things

This is my mother's day gift! I love it! It makes me so happy- I am so lucky to be a mom and have such wonderful children who make me smile everyday! LOVE them LOTS! I don't know what it is about dandelion bouquets that make my life as a mom a little sweeter. There is nothing more precious then seeing the darling brown and sparkling blue eyes of my two daughters gleem with pride as they hand over all the beautiful yellow flowers they could find! Ah it's moments like these that melt my heart and make me so proud to be a mom!

What do these 3 things have in common?

A. Blaze wants to be a dirtbike cop when he grows up.

B Blaze out ran the cop on his dirt bike

. C. Blaze had his first run in with the law because of the dirtbike.

If you guessed C you are right. Tonight Blaze called us to the front door tearfully- at first I thought he wrecked his dirt bike and had gotten hurt - but then saw the Clinton City police car and officer coming up to the front door behind Blaze.

My first impression was of shock not sure what is going to happen. The officer explained that he could fine us up to $3,000.00 and make it so Blaze could not get his drivers license until he was 18!

I was stunned! I wasn't aware of the law. As parents we told Blaze it was okay to ride his dirt bike in an open field by our house. Well the field is being developed for homes so it's private property...anyway. We told him it was okay to ride there. Well after tonight we know the law. First, no dirt bike can be rode on the road. Second, can't ride a dirt bike that is not licensed. Third, can't ride a dirt bike on public land unless Blaze has taken a riding course. So for each offense it's a $1, 000.00! Lastly, the officer said that we could be charged as parents for contributing to a minor - I thought that was only alcohol but its for driving without a license too! CRAZY!

So tonight, I am grateful for a cop who wasn't on a power trip to make and example out of Blaze---I know the whole experience made a lasting impression on us all. Needless to say no more dirt bike riding for us! Unless, it's on private property!

Our Spring Break Vacation

Drive -In Movie style..enjoy

New Plan

Well in my previous blog we were hoping to go to the Happiest Place on Earth---due to budget restraints this may not be a possibility.

So do any of you have some great budget friendly get-aways for spring break?

We are using the "Secret" and I am putting my order out to the universe and know that Blair will be enjoying a new job around the first of April. For those of you who don't know what the secret is -google it. I really believe it works - so here's to a new job and a fun family vacation!

Happiest Place on Eath

Okay- I am enlisting help from you all who read my blog. I am trying to plan a budget friendly family vacation to Disneyland and San Deigo. We will be leaving over spring break and I would love any tips or websites or must see ideas. This is what I need to know- Have any of you heard or used the Southern California City Pass? It sounds like a great thing. You get admission to the following six attractions:

3-day Disneyland® Resort Park Hopper® Bonus Ticket* valid for admission to both Disneyland® Park and Disney’s California Adventure® Park

1-day admission ticket to SeaWorld Adventure Park® San Diego

1-day admission ticket to the San Diego Zoo® or San Diego Zoo® Wild Animal Park

1-day admission ticket to Universal Studios Hollywood™©

The best way to purchase this is through Costco and it averages out to be around $200.00 a person.

My next question is we will be spending 4 nights in Anaheim and then driving to San Deigo to hopefully rent a beach house for 2 days. Do any of you have any ideas on great beaches to try? Or any suggestions on websites to find beach houses?

Time is limited so if you have suggestions please comment!

Krispy Kreme.

My kids have trained me to STOP and go to krispy kreme donuts whenever the light is on for a FREE hot delicious donut, but tonight to our dismay learned they have a new policy. You now have to purchase something to get a "free" donut. I was so unimpressed.

However being the good mom that I am, couldn't look at Candace's sad face and empty hands-so I bought a dozen fresh donuts! Lesson learned Nothing is Ever FREE.

Lucky

I don't know if it's the month of March or the reflective mood I am in, I just can't help but feel Lucky. I am lucky to have such wonderful family and friends. I am lucky to have the gospel in my life. I am lucky to be a mom. I am lucky to be blessed with all that I have.

Although, at times I have been bitter about the trials our family is going through I still find it amazing how lucky I am to have witnessed tender mercies of the Lord in my life. At times I have really wondered what kind sense of humor my Heavenly Father has. Doesn't he know me....doesn't he realize I have been pushed to what I think are my very limits? ( which never tell the Lord you can't take anymore because he will show you that you can )...thus

More trials come

I have learned that he knows me better then I know myself. I have learned that I am not the one driving this car I call my life- someone else is and he is trying to teach me to ENJOY the journey.

I don't want pity- I just want to let those of you who have been there through it all to know how much you mean to me. I really am Lucky!