HELP!

Do any of you know how to get fingernail polish out off of tile, walls, and cabinets, and out of grout?

Seriously...it's not coming off with polish remover. This picture was taken after 2 hours of working on it.

If you have any suggestions, PLEASE leave a comment!

Flooded

It seems like lately our lives are flooded. Flooded with work, flooded with e-mails, flooded with phone calls from telemarketers, flooded with piles of clutter all over my house-despite my best efforts to get rid of them, flooded with bad news on the TV, flooded with guilt over not keeping up with blogs, etc. Well, now our yard is literally flooded too! We have had an insane amount of rain. We have had more rain this past week then in the previous 3 years combined that we have lived here. We needed it badly but I am not sure that we needed it all at once. Here is a picture of our garden. The good news is that I won't have to worry about watering it for awhile!

We put the girls bunk beds together the other day and if I had known how much it would entertain them I would have done it long ago! They spend hours playing up on the top bunk. I will let you know if it was worth it after our first trip to the E.R.

We went to Disneyland last week and had such a great time. We were able to meet up with some of our best friends from Vet School (lifelong friends) the Raymonds and we had a GREAT time. It rained (huge understatement) for about 2 hours and when it stopped, everyone but us had gone back to the hotels. It was the best time I have ever had at a theme park. Some of the rides were closed but it was worth it because we got to ride everything else as much as we wanted. We rode Splash Mountain 4 times without ever getting out of the log. The guy just kept asking us, "wanna go again?". It was the best. The bad thing was that the rain and snow on the Grapevine (they closed the road) kept us from going down Thursday night to watch the WSU Basketball team beat USC. We were really looking forward to going.

Practice Makes Perfect!

I am trying to clear off the memory card on my camera for Christmas and I found this video. It is from back in Sept. when the girls were preparing for their October violin recital. My favorite part is when Madi says, "Get ready Saige!" That is so typical of her.
They have been taking lessons for almost 8 months now and I can't believe how fast they are learning. Even from this video until now I can't believe how much they have improved. It won't be long before they pass me.

Merry Christmas

Well, we are almost ready to load up the minivan and make the trek to Utah for Christmas so I just wanted to wish everyone a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS. We are so excited that we are able to go home this year. Christmas just isn't Christmas without snow and being around family. Here are a few random pictures.

I decided to wash the pads on the girls' carseats before we go. They found them hanging to dry and decided to try them on! The are so GOOFY sometimes!

These pictures are from our Ward party. Seeing Santa here is SO MUCH better than waiting in line at the mall.

This year Saige wants (with the help of her sister telling her what she wants!) a Jewelery Maker.

Madi wants a crayon maker.

This is what happens when you store your Christmas candles in the garage in Bakersfield.
Lesson learned.
(My favorite scent: Christmas Trimmings)

Not going to try

I am not even going to try to play catch-up. It has been too long.
I have had a hard time keeping up with the blog for several reasons. The main two being that we have had bronchitis and pneumonia for the last 6 weeks at our house. It has been miserable but I think (fingers crossed) we are better now. Saige and Brett never got it and we sure hope they don't.
The other reason is that I loved when I opened my blog and saw that video of Chance helping Saige on the monkey bars. He is gone now. He has been in the MTC a month now and we really miss him. It probably won't really hit me until we go home again and he is not there. We are so excited to have him get to Chile so that we can hear all about it. The pictures are random-sorry!
While in Utah, we were able to go to Hansen's baby blessing. We usually miss out on things like that so we were so excited to be there. He is such a cute little guy!

We had an awesome Halloween party in Midway! Thanks everyone for making it so fun.

Then we went to Circleville to say goodbye.

Helping Chance pack.

A visit from Bigfoot!

Whippin' up some yummy cookies with Grandma

Riding Buster & Brownie


This is one of my favorite pictures of my Grandma. She would kill me if she knew I put this on here. She is making carrot cookies (a family favorite) and I made her stick the beater in her mouth for a pic!

A countdown poster that I made because I couldn't find one to buy that I liked. There sure are a lot of empty circles on there (730 to be exact).

We missed Disneyland because of our sickness. But, we did go to Build-A-Bear and made horses and we were told it was the best birthday EVER!
I CAN'T believe they are 5. So Sad :(
Thanksgiving was GREAT. My parents came down and we had so much fun. We had a BIG dinner that took me 3 days to cook. The best part of it was the egg nog that my mom made. It is my favorite drink EVER. Not the stuff from the store-YUCK. Definitely not the same!
We went to see the Christmas Carol. It was such a cute movie (although, beware with young kids-it is scarry!). Dad helped us hang our Christmas lights and put the girls b-ball hoop together-THANKS DAD!
Then we watched The Santa Clause at the Hubble Theater (our awesome neighbors down the street who have an in-home movie theater).

Last night for FHE we went and got a tree (at a lot-not the mountains. It is NOT the same). We had fun decorating it and then we ate leftover Cold Stone ice cream b-day cake.
I LOVE THIS TIME OF YEAR! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

My Little Monkey

Dirty Jobs with Brett Remund

Some of you may be wondering what it is exactly that Brett does as a Vet.
Well, here it is.


Some of you may feel like you get crapped on every day at work.
Brett really does get crapped on every day at work!



It doesn't get much dirtier than that!

Thanks for working so hard for our family!