Pictures - finally!

Taking a ride on the train at the Albuquerque zoo.

Back row (left to right): me, Shad, Emily

Front row (l to r): my sister Julie, her daughter April, Laura and Peter

My brother's birthday was the day before Erik and his family arrived in Albuquerque, so we celebrated with him when he got here.

My brother is a chocoholic, so I offered him a few choices of different chocolate cakes for his birthday. This is the one he chose. It has a layer of chocolate cake, brownie, cheesecake, and another layer of chocolate cake. It was delicious!!!

Peter said he knew now which cake he wanted for his birthday (it's just two months away). I told him I'd only make it if my sister came out to help me with it again. I wouldn't have tried something so complex if she hadn't been there to help me. Also, we'd need more people here to help eat it, or I'd gain 30 pounds!

Our ward held a pancake breakfast Saturday July 3rd, and everyone is happy because there was plenty of food! (Kyle is the cousin on the left.)

We usually have a Fourth of July potluck and fireworks show with our good friends who live across the street. Since Independence Day was on a Sunday this year, we decided to have the party on Saturday.

There were water balloons for the kids to have a massive water balloon fight.

(Julie's husband Chris is standing on the left.)

A pool (inside our garage! because our backyard isn't level enough to set the pool up there).

Sparklers

And more sparklers.

And FIREWORKS!

Oh, how the men love their fireworks.

Here they are, gathering all of their explosives before the show!

The kids (at one point there 24, I think) of them lined up on the curb for the fireworks show.

This photo is for my sister, who loves tank fireworks.

Sadly, the ones we got didn't move all over the street the way the ones in Texas do.

On Monday, we went for a hike in the Sandias, but I forgot to download those pictures off of my sister's camera. (My replacement camera should be getting here soon!)

Before Erik, Kyle, and Xin left for the airport, we had to take some pictures.

April enjoyed being up high (my brother is 6'3").

The Machnicki cousins altogether.

Everyone adored April, especially the boys.

Who knew that Laura could be such a good horse?

She had so much fun being the "older" one, instead of the baby.

Chris had already left and Shad was at work, so Emily took this group shot before Julie left the next day (at 4:45 am - crazy!!!)

Laura was really sad about April leaving (Julie and April were with us for two weeks) and so as a way to cheer her up, she got a haircut!

The Post I Can't Post

My sister and niece stayed with us for two weeks. It was great! Her husband came out to join us for the Fourth of July weekend. My brother, his wife, and son also joined us for the holiday weekend. We had a full house. It was a little crazy but also a lot of fun.

Before the rest of the gang arrived, Shad, Julie and I took the 4 kids to the zoo. With the entire group, we celebrated Erik's birthday a day late with a divine chocolate cake. We attended our ward's Fourth of July pancake breakfast. We had an Independence Day potluck dinner, complete with a water balloon fight for the kids (all 15 of them, plus 4 neighbor kids who joined in) and an impressive fireworks display. We went for a hike on the back side of the Sandias and ate a yummy picnic lunch - why do things always taste better after you've hiked for an hour and a half?

We had a ton of fun, and I have a ton of pictures to share, but iPhoto doesn't want to cooperate. So, I can't post photos yet. Maybe tomorrow.

Anyone want to play Ghostbusters?

Shad asked for the Ghostbusters Wii game for Christmas.

Several family members were happy to oblige.

Gingerbread Houses

The kids' piano teacher invited us over for a Gingerbread House party. Peter and Laura had been begging me to make gingerbread houses, and this gave them what they wanted, without my having to put forth a lot of effort. The kids had a blast making houses out of graham crackers and then covering them with candy.

Of course, we all know that the best thing about making gingerbread houses is eating all of the candy off of them!

It warms my heart

The other day Laura said to me, "You know what my favorite kind of Christmas music is? The kind that talks about Jesus being born." (By the way, we start listening to Christmas music the first of November, a tradition we adopted from one of Shad's college roommates.)

Yesterday, Laura asked Peter and I to write down things we are thankful for at Christmas time. I wrote down delicious food, hot chocolate, and beautiful decorations. Peter said, "I don't have to write anything down. The thing I'm the most grateful for at Christmas is Jesus."

Halloween...

also known as Windy's least favorite holiday EVER!

Due to my dislike of Halloween (and to the fact that I'm working), my kids had to scavenge for Halloween costumes around the house. Emily went as an LA Kings hockey player (thanks to a hockey jersey my mom and I gave Shad for Christmas when we were engaged). Laura went as a ballerina (thanks to Emily's ballet recital costume from when she was in Kindergarten). Peter was a Sir Laughs-a-Lot (thanks to a craft he made at a friend's birthday party at least 2 years ago).

I was also a Halloween Scrooge this year, by saying "NO WAY" to outrageous candy prices. I refuse to buy anything but chocolate to pass out to trick-or-treaters. Usually Wal-mart has a bag of KitKats or Reese's Peanut Butter Cups for $2 or less. This year all of the chocolate was $2.50, and so I only bought 4 bags, instead of the usual 8.

Now my kids have tons of candy, and it calls to me and begs me to come eat it. Which is just another reason why I hate Halloween!

Shad's Birthday

Shad turned 39 last Sunday. The night before we went to Texas Land and Cattle Company for a birthday dinner. (Poor Shad had been craving steak and I don't think I've made steak in about 2 years.) We had originally planned to go Texas Roadhouse, but when we arrived at 5:00 p.m. the wait for our party was an hour and a half to two hours. We could NOT wait that long to eat! So we scooted across the freeway and quickly got seated at TXLC. It took a while to get our dinner, but we were fine with that as they kept giving us the most delicious bread and butter! 

Can anyone explain why Shad was the only one whose eyes I did NOT have to edit to remove that demon-looking red-eye glare?!

And I was a bad wife because I didn't take any pictures on Shad's actual birthday either. And, I didn't make a birthday cake for him because I was still sick from the heavenly brownie sundae from the night before. We'll be having birthday cake on Sunday to celebrate Shad turning 39 years and 1 week instead.

Emily's 11th Birthday --- FINALLY!

Yesterday, after giving myself a pat on the back, I looked at my daughter Emily's blog. I then had to take back that pat on the back. Apparently, I don't do anything right as a mom.

Well, today I am going to try and rectify things by FINALLY posting pictures from Emily's 11th birthday last November.

Emily likes to wear socks while she sleeps. She complained once that all I ever bought her were boring socks. After that, I have tried to find more interesting socks for her. 

These look like mittens, but they are actually socks. 

Emily loves to read (just in case you're one of the 3 people out there who were not already aware of this fact). She was very happy to receive "If You're Reading This, It's Already Too Late." (Sorry - I still don't know the html code to underline book titles.)

Laura knows a picture is being taken.

Someone - I think it was my brother - made Laura's day by getting Emily a stuffed cat for her American Girl doll. (From Laura's expression, you'd think the present was for her.)

Birthday cake was a few days late, so that 

Omi and Grandma Gloria could both join us.

Emily was very considerate of Omi's chocolate allergy 

and asked for a strawberry cake.

Emily may think I'm a bad mom, but here's another piece of evidence that I'm not all that awful: I went to THREE grocery stores before I finally found strawberry frosting and strawberry cake mix.

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Tonight was our church Christmas party. Santa and his elves came in from the North Pole to remind us that Jesus Christ is the reason for this holiday season.

One of the elves looked surprisingly like our home teacher, Russ Kappellman. (I'll have to ask him if he has a brother.) Emily found him rather entertaining.

Peter assured Santa that he's been good this year, but I'm not convinced. Someone keeps eating chocolates out of the parents' advent calendar, and it's not Shad or me. Maybe Santa will bring Peter some chocolate so he'll stop eating mine!

Grateful Sunday - 4th of July edition

I'm grateful for this great country we live in. 

I love being an American!

To celebrate our country's birthday,

we had a barbecue at Ba and Nana Gail's house. 

Sorry - no pictures - I was too busy stuffing my face with delicious food to stop and use my camera!

After dinner, we went to the Johnson's for some water balloons.

Then it was time for the Mike and Shad Fireworks Extravaganza!

(Laura's showing off her handful of Pop-Its - those little firecrackers you throw on the ground and they make a popping noise.)

Our Easter

Easter Sunday, the kids woke to find these Easter goodies.  Thankfully the Easter bunny realized that our dog cannot be trusted, so he left a big basket full of Easter eggs for us to use in an Easter egg hunt after Church, when we could lock the dog in someone's room - 

away from temptation.

After reading several Easter posts, I think I'll ask the Easter bunny to bring our goodies on Saturday so that we can completely devote Sunday to a Christ-centered Easter celebration.

Why did I never think of that before?!

Our Easter celebration consisted of attending Church, where I sang in the choir. (Easter and Christmas are my favorite Sundays - I love singing in the choir and NOT having to sit with my kids during sacrament meeting. It's so much more peaceful when you're sitting with adults than with a 4 year-old and 6 year-old who still haven't learned how to sit reverently!)

I "got" to teach Peter's primary class because his teacher never showed up (Laura was without a teacher also, and Emily had a substitute). Thankfully the lesson I had prepared for the Young Women was perfect for a bunch of almost-8-year-old boys.  I had brought along our Resurrection Eggs to help teach about Christ's Atonement, Crucifixion, and Resurrection. Happily, my lesson went over well both times that I taught it!

I'm posting the two pictures Shad took of the kids before Church started. (I'm so happy to see the blossoms popping up on trees all over the city.) I have to post both pictures because you need both of them if you want to actually see all of my children's eyes opened.

After church, the kids enjoyed an Easter egg hunt. Emily begged me to hide some of the eggs in "hard places" and so I did. It took quite a while for the kids to find all of the eggs, and some of them were only found after I started giving hints.

We watched the Church movie "The Testaments" together. It is a great movie! It shows portions of Christ's life and ministry among the Jews, as well as simultaneous events that were happening among the Nephites in the Americas. The movie culminates with the resurrected Christ appearing to the Nephites. Very powerful!

We had a great Easter dinner, of which I have no pictures! I love cooking big meals, but only do it for Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. We had ham with cherry sauce (warm up a can of cherry pie filling - it's fabulous, I promise!), funeral potatoes, honey-glazed carrots, Jeni's rolls, with Pistachio Striped Delight for dessert. Yum, yum!

Hope you had a great Easter, too!

Happy Valentine's Day!

The kids were so excited for Valentine's Day! They gave us lots of hugs and kisses this morning before school.

How can you look at something as beautiful as this flower without knowing that God loves us! Why else would He have created so many beautiful things for us to enjoy?

Hope you felt loved today!