Soccer

This year soccer for Andrea was AWESOME! Last year you could tell she got bored as the season went on, but this year we saw a whole new girl. This was especially the case when she realized she could run faster then many of the other kids out there! (she gets that from her dad) Anyway, she scored 5 goals this season with three in one game all from breakaways! Really though she is the best on defence (she gets that from me). This video is taken of her chasing a breakaway from the other team down.

Several times she also had the biggest cheering section of anyone. Really who could do poorly with all these people around!

Grandpa and Kyle enjoying the game!

Go Andi! can't wait for next season!

The Flood

The best word to describe the last 4 months would be CRAZY!!! It all started in the end of march when Mike left on a trip to Arkansas. An hour before he left we realized something was wrong with the computer, it would not boot. But he didn't have enough time to work on it so it was left not working for a week and what ended up to be a couple of months (more on this later). Anyway, the night before we had both noticed the cracks in the basement getting more and more damp. We had been watching the cracks get water spots over the previous several weeks, and our sump pump was going off every 7 seconds. Well, Mike had to leave so he told me to keep him posted. He left Sunday at noon.

At 9:00 that night I checked the basement...We were flooding! I called all my family and they showed up within minutes! At that point I just had a few puddles at the edge of the foundation and coming in some of the cracks. It was coming in very slowly so we had a chance to move all our stuff to the middle of the room on boards. We couldn't do anything to stop it though until the next day so I just got to watch it come in. I slept horribly that night! I kept dreaming there was 5 feet of water in the basement. I did go down once in the middle of the night, it was soooo creepy! It sounded like small crickets everywhere in the basement. As the water seaped in it pushed the air out which made a whistle noise. It was aweful, and all while Mike was gone. The next morning I woke up to water almost everywhere in the basement. At its deepest it was 1 and a half inches.

My mom came the next day to help me move things around. This is the water in our cold storage. It was almost to the top of the board. Nick and Andi thought it was AWESOME! They had always wanted a splash pool in the basement!

Tuesday morning we finally got a plumber in to dig a 2 foot deep hole in the basement and drop in a second sump pump. This is the sump pump and you can see all the water under our foundation. There was a TON of water under our house. We were pumping about 60-70 gallons a minute!

Eventually 5 of the 10 homes in our neighborhood flooded but we got it the worst. The Mayor of Hyde Park even came and marveled at the water feature in front of our house! Anyway we eventually found out our storm drains in our neighborhood are not tied to anything else so the wet spring we had artificially elevated our water table level. Once the 2nd pump was in we were able to keep the water out of our house. Mike finally came back the following Saturday and by then all the water had been cleaned up. Perfect timing on his part!!! Glad that was over too! Thank you to everyone who helped us get through it!

What should we do today...Disneyland?

You know how you dream about your parents suprising you one morning and saying "let's go to Disneyland one day." Mike and I had the chance to do it to our kids. He had to go on a last minute trip to southern CA for work, so after some deliberation we decided to go. Especially since he has enough airline miles that we could all fly free. The plan was to leave Kyle with family and take the older two kids, and everything was booked about a week before we left. We also decided we didn't want the kids upset everynight asking if it was time to go to DL so we didn't tell them until the morning we left. Mike and I probably spent more time talking about how to suprise the kids and what there reaction would be then actually planning and booking the trip. We figured this opportunity to suprise them like this probably would not come again so we took input from everywhere on how to suprise them. Well the morning came and we decided to wake them up at 5:00am and have them open a present with balloons inside and bags that say Disneyland, then tell them that was where we were going. Mike and I had a hard time sleeping we were so excited to see the looks on their faces or watch them jump up and down with joy! Anway, the video below is what actually happened.

Note to self...never try to suprise kids at 5:00 in the morning!

By the time we made it to the airport though they were getting excited, especially about the plane ride. Below is the actual plane we rode on.

Andrea, of course, was as cool as a cucumber. She acted as though this was old hat. We had to ask her if she was excited. Totally typical for her.

Nick on the other hand was talking non-stop. As soon as we walked onto the plane he found the first seat he could and tried to sit down. Of course that was first class. After finding our seat he jumped right in a searched frantically for his seat belt. The smile on his face and excitement in his eyes did not leave for about a half an hour. He loved it. While on the plane he had to go potty, which was a little treat. He was especially excited that he was going potty in the sky. In fact that was his favorite part of the entire plane ride! Funny what kids love! Below is the picture of the grin that never left his face.

When we got to DL we of course had to take a picture in the front.

The first ride of the trip was Buzz Lightyear. We rode that ride at least 10 more times thanks to Nick. And yes I got more points then Mike on the first trip through...BooYah! We won't discuss how the other trips on the ride went.

We thought that the last week of Feb would be a great time for DL, but it was not. The first day was a Thurs and it was packed. Nick was very tired, ornery, and worn out from standing in line by about 3:00pm the first day. I asked hime to smile and look at the camera on this picture.

Mike was eventually able to get him to smile a little through extreme means. I spent most of his time on Buzz Lightyear and Autopia. We did make him go on other rides with us, but he did not like it and kept his head buried in my lap the whole time.

Andi on the other hand loved every minute of being there. She didn't mind the lines as much because she knew at the end she would get to go on a ride.

Andrea has absolutely no fear when it comes to rides. She went on everything except for California Screamer which her height was the only thing that stopped her there. Some of her favorites were Thunder Mountain, Tower of Terror, The Matterhorn, and Indiana Jones. Her all time favorite though was Space Mountain. I loved riding with her because she would just giggle the whole way through, and that is saying something for Andrea. This is her in front of space mountain with her horse Bullseye she got there.

Andi is not much for any of the characters at DL, because as she says, "They are just people in costumes, not actual princesses mom!" However, we did see Malificent from Sleeping Beauty and she was tons of fun to see! I loved her scoul!

Our little family with Nick boycotting pictures. The second day it rained on us and there were long lines, but the third day was finally a little different. It was cold there, 50 degrees, which I guess is too cold for the locals, so no one was there. We were finally able to make up for the long lines of the day before. We stayed until almost midnight that night. Nick we brought home asleep everynight, but Andi would have stayed up until the next morning going on rides if she could have.

All in all we had a GREAT time and feel blessed to even be able to go! Thanks to my mom and Sue for watching Kyle so we could go!

Andrea's Birthday(s)

Andrea just turned 6! (Which I can't believe, it seems like just yesterday I was pushing for three hours to get her out not six years ago!) One of the benifits of living around both sides of our families is that we generally get to celebrate things more then once!

We first had our little family party for her on her actual birthday where she opened the guitar we gave her, and she blew out the candle on a cupcake. After that mom ran off to young womens. The second birthday was with Mike's family and Mike's mom made her this beautiful quilt. It is hard to see in the picture but what look like rings are acutally princesses sewn in a circle.






The third birthday was definately the most work for mom. We decided this year Andrea could have her first friend party. She invited six of her little girl friends to come to our house for cake and icecream and then go to the fun park. Everything was great until the girls started arriving. I was not prepared for Nick's response to all the attention Andi was getting. It only took 10 minutes before he was in tears that none of the girls wanted to play trains with him. Fortunately, his friend Cameron was home so we invited him to come over at the last minute.



For the cake I decided to go all out...I made cupcakes so to help make it fancier I decided to try a new frosting. I looked all over the internet for what I thought would be the perfect coolwhip frosting. I mixed it all up and artfully spread it on the cupcakes and even decorated with sprinkles. I was pretty proud of myself (I am not known for adding extras like decorations to an event.) When I asked the girls how they liked the cupcakes they all said, "Great!...except for the
frosting." (that will teach me to go above and beyond).

After the cake and presents we make our way to the fun park. The girls all seemed to have a great time and we only had a few hurt feelings, but what do you expect when you combine 6 little girls. All in all they had a great time and Andi was pretty happy.

The fourth party was with my family at my grandparent's house. The highlight of that party was the "Sonata" (at least according to Nick).





The best part was watching the looks on the kids faces as they focused on hitting the pinata.

We were only able to successfully break the pinata by tearing it apart, but the kids loved it either way. We love our Andrea and she is totally worth four parties!

These are some of our favorite things about Andrea Kay Moser:

1) She is a huge help to her mom around the house. She cleans the bathrooms including the toilets, puts away all the dishes, folds cloths, and vacuums!

2)She is a huge helper with Nick. She and Nick have a very close relationship, there is very little fighting and they really watch out for each other. This may actually be a bi-product of daycare. They first started looking out for each other their. Because of this relationship Andi can get Nick to do about anything including clean his room and pick up his toys. Mike and I are still trying to figure out how to do that.

3) She is great with her baby brother. My favorite is on Saturday morning Kyle may start crying and Andi will come in and ask me if she can get Kyle out of his crib and play with him while I sleep in. She is very good at getting him to stop crying, and he adores her.

4)She has a memory 100X's better then an elephant. I can tell her to help me remember to get something the next time we go to the store and she will remember it the next time at the store. She can be my personal shopping list, calendar, and journal. She remembers things that happened two years earlier, where they happened, who was there, and what we ate. (I am not kidding on the food either.) I don't know how many times she has said things like "mom do you remember the time when we went to the park with the yellow twisty slide and had chicken for lunch.?" Even her school teacher has said Andrea has one of the best memories in a girl her age she has ever seen!

5) She has a great sense of direction which kind of goes along with her memory. She knows which roads go where all over Logan. Several times she has said something like, "mom why are you going down this road, the dentist lives on the street by the temple." Mike and I look at each other in disbelief all the time over her.

6)She really does not talk back, and does most things I ask her to...eventually.

7)She is very nice to all the kids she is around, and especially takes notice of the kids that are picked on.

8)She has an infectious laugh and smile!

9)She is very adventerous and LOVES to go on all kinds of rides at theme parks. Some of her favorites are: Space Mtn, Tunder Mtn, Indiana Jones, Tower of Terror (all at Disneyland), and Colussus and Wicked at Lagoon.

10)She loves to snuggle and read books!

We love Andrea and feel very blessed to have her in our family

Topping off the holidays

Well I have a little catching up to do. Christmas was as fun as I thought it would be. The best part was spending time with all our family members. We spend Christmas Eve with mine and Mike's families and we had a great time. Below is a sample of the Nativity at my parents house. Every year the best part is seeing how my brothers and the kids will act it out. I LOVE IT!

As a side note we did catch Santa on Christmas night. Mike and I heard bells outside and went and woke the kids up. Neither of which really wanted to. We crouched in the hall and watched Santa as he put presents around the tree and talked about how good the kids were that year. Nick was terrified and clinging to my neck, and Andrea would not leave Mike's arms. I guess Santa is fun and all until you actually see him as a stranger in your house! We even heard Santa yell "On Dasher, On Dancer, On Rudolf...HO, HO, HO...Merry Christmas Mosers!" (My brothers are the best, it took all three)

For New Years we had our traditional "Dip Night" which is a long two year standing tradition for us. The best part is the kids have a great time eating a ton of veggies and fruit. I will admit they still don't know that part of a New Years party is staying up late. We had them in bed by 8:00!

Kyle is growing up, I just had to include these pictures of him in the hat Aunt Sue made for him.

Ahhhhhhhhh!

'Twas the season to be Jolly!

The holiday season this year was GREAT! I had no idea how much kids add to the excitement of the season. This year I wanted to get started early with presents, but the problem with buying presents for kids early is they change their minds sometimes every hour! If you asked Nick what was going to ask Santa for he would say everything, and he meant it. Andrea on the other hand couldn't decide on anything. Good thing I kept all the receipts...

Anyway, we started out the holiday season with Thanksgiving at my house with all of Mike's family. It was a blast and crazy at the same time. Since this was my first Thanksgiving I was a little stressed about it, mainly that the Turkey would not turn out. Well, I did an apple juice brine on the turkey and started it the day before, and it turned out awesome. It was so juicy that when we poked in the thermometer to check the temp it squirted juice out at us! The funny thing is that I was so focused on dinner I forgot to take a single picture :( I even did decorations on the table, I know none of you probably believe it but I really did decorate the table.

This is the only picture I have from around that day. Kyle is definately growing fast!

On the Friday after Thanksgiving Andrea and I went with Mike's Mom, Sisters and Nieces to the Rockettes concert. They were really fun to watch, and Andrea was completely enthralled with them the whole time! This was their Toy Soldier dance.

Andrea and Kate got to sit next to each other at the performance. Andrea loves her cousin Kate!

The next day we went to the Cache Nutcracker Ballet. And yes, that is Mike in the picture at the Ballet loving every minute of it. Andrea really liked this ballet especially since her friend Kristen was in it as one of the clowns.

This is Andrea, Kristen, and Kristen's sister Kate along with the Gingerbread "mom" from the Nutcracker. If you have not seen the ballet, the clowns hide under the Gingerbread mom's skirt and come running out when they get onto centerstage. This guy walks on stilts with 8 little kids under his dress across the stage, pretty amazing!

Of course we usually send out Christmas cards, but we had some issues with the pictures this year. (See below)

This is the best one I got, but Nick's face was out of focus. I will try again next year and hopefully they will cooperate a little more.

Halloween...Oops

I was just checking out my blog and realized I was just a little behind. Sorry.
For Halloween Andrea was a Sorceress and Nick was Optimus Prime. Grandpa Essig was kind enough to come down and take the kids around for us! He seemed to love it and we loved it!



Found this AMAZING (because all three kids are looking at the camera at once) of the kids and thought I would post it.