April Fools

I honestly didn't feel as inspired this year as I have the past few years with making mischief for April Fools Day.  I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I am kind of stressed and burning out on school.  I have two classes this semester, one class to take in the summer, and three to take in the fall...and I can GRADUATE with my Associates in Business Administration.

At this point, I'm not sure if I am going to continue on working towards my bachelor's degree or if I am going to take a break.  I am leaning towards the break, but I don't have a plan for what I will do if I do take a break.  I don't think I want (or need) to work at a "real" job, but I can't just "sit at home" either.  I do have a sum of student loans I will have to start paying back if I do stop attending school, and that might require extra income.  It is all up in the air right now...

I took my questions to the temple last weekend and Heavenly Father pretty much told me that I don't have to know yet and that he loved me...a lot.  So, I am just doing school for now and I'm going to try not to make any big decisions until later.  He has a plan for me...and I don't have to know what it is right now...kind of like presents at Christmas.  You have to wait until the right time to open them.  You are anxious to know what is in them, but you have to wait until Christmas Day (or Eve in our case...lol) to see what they are.

So anyway...haha....back to April Fools Day!

I decided to pull out the some of the Christmas decorations and pretend it was Christmas for April Fools.  I decorated a tree, hung stockings, and wrapped gifts.

When the two little kids got home, they squealed with delight.  It was pretty fun.  They opened their presents and ate a candy cane.  The two older kids didn't get home until late (Caleb at 5:30pm and Brooklin at nearly 9:30pm) because Caleb had track practice and Brooklin had a track meet.

For dinner, I made a "cake".  It was a meatloaf recipe cooked in two round cake pans.  I turned them out onto a plate and put "frosting" (mashed potatoes) in between them and then "frosted" the entire thing.  I took some of the potatoes and colored them with food coloring and piped them onto the cake for decoration.  The kids all knew it wasn't really cake...but they played along.  It was fun!  I'm glad I got out of my "funk" long enough to make this happen.  I have so much fun watching them react to the mischief. =)

Sunday stroll through the gardens

Today, we took the family to the Wahiawa Botanical Gardens.  It is so beautiful and peaceful there...a perfect Sunday afternoon place. (click on the pictures to see them better).

Mischief going on.... right here!  =)

Vacation

Well...I never really caught up with our vacation stuff, so I'll just do the really short version.  We had lots of fun in Blackfoot with Darwin's family.  We went tubing/water skiing at Jensen Grove, played a fun version of Minute To Win It, spent a day at Lava Hot Springs, went and watched Eclipse, the kids rode the 4-wheelers, and Caleb got to go to the temple and do baptisms for the first time in Idaho Falls Temple.

On Friday the 9th of July, we drove over to Wyoming to visit three of my six brothers and my sister.  We hiked up Mansface, went to International Days, played Quelf and Scum, watched a movie in Cody's giant theater room, had a picnic in the park, and the kids jumped on the trampoline as much as they could.  My brother Cody became the "favorite" uncle when he let my kids have a bowl of 12 different kinds of cold cereal topped with butterscotch and chocolate chips covered in chocolate milk for lunch on Sunday afternoon...they were in heaven!  =)

On Monday the 12th, we drove down to Salt Lake City to visit our friends the Daltons.  Wendy and three of her kids met us at the Hogle Zoo.  Darwin and I were going to go to the temple, but it was closed, so we all ate a fabulous picnic lunch and walked around the zoo for a few hours.  That evening, we drove to Logan, UT to visit the Cabatus.  We had fun staying up talking all night, and then Elena and I decided to go and make some mischief at 1 am.  We drove out to Wal-Mart and bought all the necessary materials for decorating a car to look like someone had just been married.  We snuck out to her friend's husband's work (he works an overnight job) and made their car really pretty. =)  Tami may not remember, but back when I did Elena's car in post-it notes, we told her she was next...we just let her think we had forgotten. =)  The next day we went to a really cool used bookstore, ate a picnic lunch on the lawn at the Logan Temple, and went to a really neat pioneer exhibit.

On Tuesday night, we drove back up to Blackfoot and Darwin went scuba diving with his dad on Thursday in Ririe.  On Friday morning we drove four hours to Meridian, ID and are now visiting with my parents.  Darwin's 20th high school reunion was this weekend, so my parents and my brother have been entertaining our kids for the last two nights.  Last night they all went to the Meridian Speedway to watch the car races.  Darwin and I had a good time at his reunion.  He was really sure he wouldn't know anyone there...but since they had made everyone name tags with their old high school pictures on them, he was able to remember many more people than he thought he would.

We are having a great vacation!  It has been so nice to see so many of our family and friends these past few weeks.  We leave to go back to Oahu on Friday, so we still have some time left to enjoy our time here.  When we get home on Friday, the pace of life is going to go from casual to harried.  Darwin is leaving the very next morning for a school in Virginia for three weeks, and the kids all start school a week later.  I don't start school until Sept. 2nd...so I will have time to unpack the whole house by myself...yippie!  =/

If we missed seeing you this trip, you are all more than welcome to come and visit us in Hawaii.  We will be there for three years.  The weather is perfect year-round, so give us a call and set up your reservations!

Fun with 6 rolls of TP!

I love April Fool's Day.

I get to make mischief...

...the fun kind. =)

Last night, I did a little cupboard/drawer switch-a-roo in the kitchen.  I switched the hand towels and the utensils...the cups and the bowls...the pots and pans with the cereal and stuff...the lunch bag drawer with the measuring cups.  I also used yellow food coloring to tint the milk to look like orange juice.  Then I went downstairs and drew eyes and flowers and smiley faces on the girls' glasses with a dry erase marker.

They all loved it!

They all get their own breakfast in the morning (while I am making their lunches) and they usually have oatmeal (the flavored kind in packets).  Normally, we keep a container on the table full of  utensils...but I made sure to empty that back into the (wrong) drawer and I emptied the dishwasher so they would have to look in the drawer to find a spoon...and when they opened the drawer, there were towels.  =)  I switched the cereal with the pots and pans...and when they went to find a bowl, they only found cups.  We bought the Costco milk last time we needed some (i really hate the new square containers they have) so we keep the milk in a pitcher...which made great cover for the "orange juice" milk.  Isaiah started opening every drawer and cupboard trying to see if I had done the whole kitchen. =)

This afternoon I decided to toilet paper the kids' bedrooms.

I only used three rolls in each room, but it was fun.  No one tp's around here, because it rains too much...and wet toilet paper is really not very fun to clean up..  I'm waiting for them to get home right now so I can watch them open their bedroom doors. =)

Here are the photos of my beautiful mess!

...and I do not claim responsibility for the mess that was there before I started my mischief...

...I'm not their maid...

...and between me being constantly angry about it or them just living with stuff piled on their floors, beds, and dressers (which doesn't seem to bother them in the least)...

...I'll take vacuumed once a week and just let them live in it.

It isn't worth the angry nagging and yelling that could go on.

(and has at some point).

Surprise (x 7)!!

so...

our black gerbil (Toto) had SEVEN babies on Saturday morning!!! It's that story where you think you have two girls, and you really don't because the teenager at the pet store just really doesn't know...and now you have a little gerbil factory going on in your house. =/

Happy 35th

I turned 35 last week. I had a fabulous day...I really did. I got presents, went out to lunch with Darwin (at La Salsa), went out to dinner with the whole family (to Bullwinkle's Pizza), and had birthday pie with whipped creme. Life is good.

Melissa-age 35!



Jon Schmidt CD's and music from Brooklin and Toy Story toys from Caleb

More Toy Story toys from London and a book and new scriptures from Isaiah.

What the heck! Why?!
Darwin's present was wrapped really well. He covered the entire box with black duct tape and then wrapped it in wrapping paper. He got me two books and a black sweater.

Birthday Pecan Pie

April Fool's Fun

We love April Fool's Day around here. I had class until late last night, so the only fun thing I did this morning was I wore all my clothes inside out (which Brooklin thought was a fabulous idea...and wore hers like that for the entire day) and I wrote all their names backwards on their lunch sacks, and gave them peanut butter and nutella sandwiches for lunch. They knew that the nutella sandwiches were for fun, because I normally do not share my nutella.

After the kids went to school, I went to work setting up pranks! First, I printed off these two signs (from FamilyFun.com) and posted them on the kids' doors.

Next, I blew up four balloons and didn't tie them shut. I carefully twisted the ends of two together, and then shut the ends in the door of their rooms, so that when the door was opened, they would fly around the room and make noise and startle the door opener. After that, I tore off a lenght of 4 squares of toilet paper and used a sharpie to write "Who goes there?!" on it. Then I floated it in the kids toilet, so the first person to use it would get a little suprise! Funny enough, London was the first one in there, and it did startle her, and she had to go bad, so she ended up having to change her clothes! oops! Caleb read the rat sign, and then opened his door and jumped in the air when the balloons started flying around the room. He blew them up again and set them up in the garage door, so when Brooklin got home and went to put her shoes away, she would get a suprise...and she did! She almost broke out her mad ninja skills on the door! So funny!

For dinner this evening, they were all expecting something fishy with their food...but we just had regular old sloppy joes. They were kind of disappointed, until I announced that for dessert we would be having fish sticks and peas. The "fish sticks" were really authentic looking, but the "peas" were not very fooling. I even pulled the "fish sticks" out of the oven to make it look more real. They are also from the FamilyFun.com website. They are made out of those sugar wafer cookies (the pink, tan, and brown waffle cookies) covered in peanut butter and then covered with crushed corn flakes. It was messy, but really fun. We had some of Caleb's friends over...and they were really leary of our dessert fish sticks. We had to convince them that it was really good.

April Fool's Day meals

This year for April Fool's Day, I made the kids eat hamburgers and french fries for breakfast, and a chocolate and berry pie for dinner. Of course, they were kind of expecting it...since I like to play tricks on them on April first. I got all of my meal ideas on familyfun.com...I can be creative, but the internet is very helpful for this kind of stuff

These are the hamburgers we had for breakfast. They were made using vanilla wafers, red and yellow frosting, green tinted coconut, a york peppermint patty, and the sesame seeds are stuck on with a bit of carmel ice cream topping.

Isaiah with his breakfast. The french fries were made using plain pillsbury breadstick dough (the exploding can type), and then you cut each breadstick in half lengthwise, and then in half the other way, roll them in sugar and bake them. You should also grease the pan....I didn't and I had a really hard time trying to peel the "fries" off of the foil.

Brooklin making her very best disappointed face, over having to eat hamburgers for breakfast. It was completely fake though...she knew it was a trick.

London eating her little hamburger.

Caleb enjoying his hamburger.

This was called "Fauxberry pie". It was really a shepherds pie, with the potatoes being dyed with a small can of pureed beets.

Supposed to look like chocolate pie with berry cool whip topping. It was pretty good, but I had a good case of heartburn later in the evening.

Another posed face. I did not taste bad, and they all ate it without complaining.