Happy 30th Birthday Allan!

Here is a little bit about the most wonderful man in my life! I thought I would save this one for his birthday.

How well do you know your Husband?

Here's a chance to see how well you really know your husband. Cut, paste and fill in the answers, then forward . . . shoot, you know what to do. The real challenge is to send it to your husband to see how right you really are.

1. He's sitting in front of the TV, what is on the screen? Sports, preferably BYU, but if not any sport will do
2. You're out to eat; what kind of dressing does he get on his salad? ranch and tomato based dressing like catalina
3. What's one food he doesn't like? Tofu
4. You go out to eat and have a drink. What does he order? Water unless there is a choice of flavored lemonades with refills so he can try them all
5. Where did he go to high school? Bonneville High School...GO BEES!
6. What size shoe does he wear? 10
7. If he was to collect anything, what would it be? BYU T-shirts and other BYU stuff
8. What is his favorite type of sandwich? Ham and Cheddar
10. What is his favorite cereal? Honey Bunches of Oats? He doesn't eat much cereal
11. What would he never wear? Any thing having to do with the U of U
12. What is his favorite sports team? BYU Any sport
13. Who did he vote for? McCain, but he would have rather voted for Romney!
14. Who is his best friend? Me!
15. What is something you do that he wishes you wouldn't do? Tickle him! (hehehe)
16. What is his heritage? Idahoan! lol, beyond that I have no idea!
17. You bake him a cake for his birthday; what kind of cake? Allan would rather have brownies, or cookies, or cheesecake, or a molten lava cake from Chili's, or about a hundred other desserts before birthday cake.
18. Did he play sports in high school? Soccer
19. What could he spend hours doing? Watching, playing, and talking about sports
20. What is one unique talent he has? He is the most amazing game player alive, he rarely ever loses at anything.

The Cat in The Basement and Random Thoughts from a person who hasn't had a husband to talk to in 3 days!

So I am not sure why, I have a suspicion that it has to do with two sneaky older sisters, but Natalie is convinced that there is a cat living in our basement. There is no convincing her otherwise. She says that she heard it (once again probably those sisters) and she doesn't like to go down there now. At night she wants to make sure the basement door is shut so the cat cannot come up stairs while she is sleeping.

This morning Hailey, Ally, and Ila were down in the basement playing and Natalie was looking for them, When I told her they were downstairs she brought up the cat and I continued to insist that there is no cat in the basement. So then she says, "It's a baby cat, and I like baby cats," and went down to play with her sisters. I think it is hilarious that she psyched herself into going down there by telling herself it is just a baby cat.

I cannot wait to get our basement finished! Right now on the bright side, the kids will usually go down there and play, and I don't worry about if they are making a mess or drawing on the floors or whatever. It is also nice in the winter because we can bring the bikes down and they have 1700 sq.ft. of cement to ride around on. BUT, when it is finished we will have another family room, 4 more bedrooms, a bathroom, and a lot more storage. It will basically be like adding a-whole-nother house to what we have! Right now we have 3 girls and all 4 of their clothes in one bedroom, and Lilly sleeps in the "Toy Room." Closet space is a joke! I dream of the day when we have a permanent guest room and a craft room for me and the kids. Maybe then I can actually get all of those things out of my Living Room and Dining Room! I don't think the kids will each take their own bedroom for awhile (concidering they all sleep in the same bed most nights I don't think they are ready to separate yet) but it will be so nice to have the rooms there if they want to have their own.

I really shouldn't be complaining, we have a nice 3 bedroom home with a lot of closets and a lot of living space (in fact, I can't even afford furniture for the space we have) I know that we have time to grow into our home, but we are planning on growing our family very soon and it is nice to dream. Really, if I just went down there and organized all of the boxes and stuff I could at least make it more liveable and probably move all of the toys down there and then have 2 bedrooms for the kids. They would probably still want to sleep in the same room but at least then I could have the extra closet for their clothes. Maybe that will be my goal, but I'll have to move fast because, in the words of my wise friend Trudy, "We have to get all of these inside projects done so we can move outside and start on our gardens as soon as it gets warm."

Wow, this is just turning into random thoughts of Kristy. I was just thinking about how I really like living here, I never had seasons growing up in California and I am finally learning to take full advantage of them. Besides the beautiful changing outdoors, there is a lot more too it. We have the long winter, but it is a great time to do projects inside the house. I have been making bows lately and redecorating some rooms, but I know so many people who love to make blankets, or scrapbooking, or whatever else and you get a chance to work on those things a lot in the winter when you can't really go outside much. Then we (hopefully) have Spring with everything coming back to life and blossoming and we can start our gardens and clean out our garages (mine is in desperate need) and do things outside while it is nice and cool. In the nice nice warm Summer we can have floods at the Johnson's house and go play on the waterslide at Grandma Staker's and play T-ball and just be outside all of the time. Then we have Fall with canning and football games and holidays and so many excuses for parties! Plus we totally change the way we eat in each season. In the fall/winter we eat a lot of hearty meals and soups and all of the food we canned then in the spring/summer we eat a lot more fresh food from our garden and BBQ.

Now I am all excited and I am going to go to Home Depot and buy paint to redecorate the kids bathroom! Yea!!! By the way, I have posted 3 or 4 things in the last few days so make sure you keep reading!

Quick, Limited Time Offer!

My friend Shaunna had this on her blog and I thought it would be fun to do it myself. So here goes...

The first five people who respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

1. I make no guarantees that you will like what I make! (Though I hope you will!)
2. What I create will be just for you.
3. It'll be done this year. {might be a little while}
4. You have no clue what it's going to be. I don't even have a clue what it's going to be.
5. I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must repost this on your blog and offer the same thing to the first 5 people who do the same on your blog. The first 5 people to leave a comment will win a homemade gift! It may not be great, but it will be fun!!

***Oh, and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it***

A $46 Dollar Check

The kids had an assembly this week at school all about NED and yo-yo's. NED stands for Never Give Up, Encourage Others, Do Your Best. Anyway, they are selling yo-yo's at the school for a week and Hailey comes home and this was our conversation:

Hailey: Mom can I have a $46 dollar check?

Me: What do you need a $46 dollar check for?

Hailey: I need to buy some yo-yo's. Maddie wasn't there, so I need to get one for her, and Kate can't buy one so I need to get one for her and one each for Me and Ally and Natalie.

Me: We don't have $46 dollars for yo-yo's.

Hailey: Well you can just write a check for it.

Me: That's not the way it works, when I write a check they take money from our bank account.

Wouldn't it be nice if it was just that simple: Hmm, I think I need a million dollars, I will just write a check for it!

January Birthdays

Ally and Natalie both had birthdays in January right before we went on our big vacation so of course I never posted anything about them. I just thought I would catch up on some things since my hubby is down at the Mountain West Conference Tournament (GO COUGARS) and I had a little extra time.

For Ally's 5th birthday we went to Leo's for pizza and games with some family and we let Ally choose one friend to bring. She of course chose Dawson because they are best friends. (not to mention engaged, haha) Although Dawson does not look sure he wants his picture taken, I think they had a great time. Dawson is our next door neighbor and I hope that they stay such good friends as they get older. (that means you can't move Breanna) I am even going to brave morning kindergarten because all Ally cares is that Dawson is in her class.

Ally is such a fun child. She loves her sisters and is such a big helpper for me. She is SO smart, she knows all of her letters and sounds and is starting to read. She just wants to do everything that Hailey is doing. Ally is so friendly and everyone loves her. Right when we got back from Disney World she got to start going to a new preschool at Hailey's school. She gets to ride the Kindergarten bus to school and ride home with Hailey. Her bus driver says everyone fights over who gets to sit by Ally each day.

Natalie's 3rd birthday was the day before we left on our vacation. We kept it simple and went to Mc Donalds with a few cousins. Obviously my gift to Natalie was that I didn't do her hair that day. (*snicker*) I was a little pre-occupied with getting 6 people ready to go on vacation for 12 days!

Natalie is our little independent child; for example if she is hungry she goes in the kitchen and gets herself a yogurt or a cheese stick or goldfish or whatever it is she is wanting (including candy, the girl has crazy candy radar) She can be such a stinker but she gets away with it because she is too darn cute. She has been pulling these tricks since she was a tiny baby. She just gives us her sneaky little smile and laughs and we can't stay mad at her.

I am so lucky to be the mom of four beautiful and fun girls. They make me so happy and challenge me all at the same time. It is funny how different they each are, the other day Hailey did something and asked, "does that make me your favorite?" I thought that was so funny and I told her they were all my favorite, each in their own different ways. People ask me all the time if I want a boy, and I have probably said this before but, I love having all girls and I would be just fine if that was all we ever had. Allan on the other hand loves his girls more than anything in the world but he hopes someday we get a boy too. DISCLAIMER-We are not done having children but that is not because we are TRYING for a boy.