Jesse's first time roller skating

At school they had a night of roller skating. I decided this was as good as a time as any to let Jesse learn to skate. He spent more time on the floor than he did on his feet, but he was a good sport and by the end of the night he was doing well. He even learned to jump and turn as long as he was next to the wall or holding onto me.

John and Marti Wiser

Here is a picture of Theron, Katherine Marti and John Wiser. My boys Jesse and Hunter are with Marti and John. That was a crazy night. My boys were just starting to get sick. Jesse caught it first but that day while my boys were at Grandma Wiser's Hunter got a temperature and got sick. Two days later I took both boys to the Dr.s to discover they both had Strep Throat. Neither one of them were complaining of sore throats or pain of any kind, but I decided that I better just make sure it wasn't Strep. Glad I did because it was and not just Tonsilitis.

Keeping House

I was looking at someone else's blog and she threw out the question how do you keep a clean house and raise children at the same time?

I have spent a few days thinking about that, because for me I have been able to do both. Not perfectly by any means but for the most part, my house is picked up and clean. I have a gathering spot on my kitchen counter that I gather all of the papers and loose things that needs to be dealt with frequently but that is part of not keeping a perfect house. So today I want to blog and share a few of my tricks to keeping house and children all in the same day.

Elder Dallen H. Oaks in his conference address Good, Better, Best. said it the best. "Remember, don't magnify the work to be done--Simplify it." That has been my philosophy as well. I keep big rolling bins under my kids’ beds for all of their toys. I keep a laundry basket in their closet and a simple bedspread on their bed. This allows for a quick clean up of their room every day. I also use a laundry basket for cleaning the whole house. Anything that doesn't belong in the room I am cleaning goes into it and when I leave that room I proceed to put the stuff in the basket away.

Another thing I do is Laundry and de-cluttering from the weekend on Monday's, Bathrooms and straightening on Tuesday's. I vacuum the whole house Wed's. Laundry on Thursday and anything that needs to be cleaned on Friday's to get ready for friends coming over that night. I have a daily routine. Straighten my bathroom, bedroom, the kids bathroom, kids bedroom and toy room before I even come down stairs in the morning. Then at least I know upstairs is clean. My kitchen is the hardest place to keep clean I guess because I use it all day long. If I don't clean up every single time I use it then it is a mess. Kids take a lot of time, but when they don't need my immediate attention then I can take time to clean. I have friends that read, but I wouldn't have time to clean and read. So I choose to clean. Now I have said it so maybe now I can let it go that yes it is possible to keep house and take care of kids in the same day. P.S. I have a 5 and 6 year old and now that they are older it is much easier to do this than when they were 2 and 3, so keep trying and soon they will be older like my boys.

Building snow men

We had some great snow storms this winter. One weekend morning in February we woke up and there was this much snow on the ground. The boys got so excited that they took Daddy Phil outside to make snow men. They built the first one as you see them standing by it before they added the face and arms, then the snow was still in abundance that they built an even larger one, but it fell over so they built a snow fort instead, but it started to snow so they didnt get to have a snow ball fight. But they had fun out side and I had hot chocolate and cinimmon rolls ready for them when they came in.

Around the fire

On Feb 16th 2008 I decided we should have a fire in the fire pit, even though it was very cold and still winter, this would be a great day to do it so Hunter and I went to the store bought hotdogs and smores. Daddy Phil stoked up a fire and we had a fun time roasting hotdogs and marshmellows.

So here we are all bundled up having fun by the fire.

My Birthday Lunch

Phil Katie and Hunter after eating at Applebee's for lunch. Phil got off work long enough to join us.







We went to lunch for my birthday. It was a fun time. We went to Applebee's. The kids were well behaved. Hunter is sitting with Grandma Wiser. Jesse took this picture.








This is Grandpa Wiser. He was caught off gaurd for the picture. It was fun to have a lunch together.

Visit with Santa's

Woops I forgot to flip this photo before I uploaded it, but Jesse and Hunter were able to see Santa or his helper 2 times this year. They had simple lists but they wanted to have a puppy, ben ten action figures and video games.