Anamarie Turns 6 Today!!

Anamarie was so excited this morning because she was finally 6!! Last night her and I cleaned her bedroom because the birthday fairy called me and said it needed to be clean so she wouldn't trip over anything when she came to bring her a surprise. So with a spotless bedroom, Anamarie was so excited about the birthday fairy coming that she didn't fall asleep until after midnight. She awoke to a bedroom full of balloons and a massive birthday banner. She ate Mr. Breakfast Buddy (egg sandwich, banana and bacon)...

...Good Morning Birthday Girl!

She went shopping with me to pick out her cake and twisted candles.

For dinner we had McDonald's and salad.

Everyone singing the birthday song. 

She was so upset that her little brother Brett blew out her candles before she could. So we re-lit them tried again...

This time ending in a successful candle blow-out for Anamarie.

The strangest thing happened tonight! The doorbell rang and Anamarie raced to see who was there. As she looked through the window she saw no one, so she opened the door and saw a wrapped present with Anamarie's name on it...

...The present was from Santa and this is what the letter said... 

"Happy 6th Birthday Anamarie!! I wanted to give you this last gift. I flew it all the way from the North Pole so that you could have it on your Birthday.  I hope you love this one of a kind Genuine gift. Remember, it comes to life when you sleep. I hope you have fun with this Special present. I have been watching you and you have been a great girl. I am so excited to bring you lots of presents on December 25th. Only 12 more days. Keep being a good girl.

Love, Santa

After reading the storybook of the "Elf on the Shelf" Anamarie was the lucky one to choose his name "Dovee"

What a great night for Anamarie! Here's her presents from us and Kim & Janise.

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The Ahh Bra!

About 9 months ago, Madison and I were watching tv together with the younger 3 kids. As she turned the channel to watch something else, I told her to "go back". It was an infomercial for the glorious Ahh Bra. They were showcasing these bras on many different sizes of women. I thought this was quite humorous, so we watched it for about 5 more minutes before changing the channel. The next day Brett says "hey mom, where's your ahh bra?". He then races to my closet to find the prettiest ahh bra (my red one) and tells me to put it on. 9 months later, he still goes and gets my red "ahh bra" from my closet and insists that I wear it for the day.
Here's a picture of the ahh bra, that I stumbled upon while I was at Walgreen s the other day. Too funny, maybe I should get me one :)

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Sarah, through Anamarie's Eyes :0

For the past 6 months, I have debated whether or not I should post this.  Anamarie has been known to never hold back on anything, even with her creative drawings. As she showed me her newest creation, I couldn't help but to laugh out loud in disbelief as I saw the provocative image of me. Pretty funny girl!!

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Halloween Party 2011

Our family attended the Thresher's Halloween party on October 29th. The kids had a blast carving pumpkins, playing games, and winning candy. Anamarie has my luck when it comes to numbers, because she kept on rolling doubles, which won her lots of candy. Taylor, Maddy, Anamarie & Brett all carved cute pumpkins. It was Brett's first year carving, and he had no problem getting his hands dirty. Brady and I dressed up as Cleopatra & Julius Caesar and our love child Caesarion (William). A few people questioned our costumes because of the union of Cleopatra & Julius Caesar, thinking it was Mark Antony.  But, she was in fact Julius Caesars mistress and had a "love child" with him before she married Mark Antony. Taylor was a cool shark (Thanks Janise), Maddy was a red M&M (Thanks Janise), Anamarie was Spider Girl, Brett was Frankenstein (for the second year in a row), and William was Caesarion. Kim & Janise dressed up as Bedford, Wyoming Hippies ;)

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9th Grade Band Bash!!

Taylor has mastered the Bass Clarinet!! For 3 years now, he has rented the same bass clarinet from his school for $70 a year. In 7th grade, His teacher told him about a bass clarinet that the school had for rent, we jumped on this opportunity because the same instrument at Bert Murdock Music was $25 a month to rent. This instrument must be 50 years old, or so it looks. When Taylor brought the instrument home for the first time, the case was so worn that the wood showed through in most places. So with a little time and a lot of black duck tape, we had that case looking like new in no time.

2011 American Fork Band Bash!

Once a year all the band classes from American Fork Junior High  & American Fork High combine for one big band bash. The highlight was watching Taylor's 9th Symphonic Band play and of course the American Fork Marching Band Grand Finale at the end, (Utah State Champs for many years). It was really cool, but my cell phone died during Taylor's performance, but I did manage to get a short video of him playing. In this video, he is right in the middle of the group.

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Brett Andrew Heiner

Brett Andrew Heiner was the 4th child born to Kim D. Heiner & Eldean Jenkins Heiner on March 9, 1978 in Provo, Utah, Utah.  He died only 2 months and 22 days later on May 31, 1978 in Bedford, Lincoln, Wyoming. Little Brett passed away in the home of Grandma Margaret Heiner while the family was visiting for Memorial Day weekend. He died in his sleep from SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome). He is buried in the Bedford, Lincoln, Wyoming Cemetery. In honor of Brett Andrew Heiner, Brady and I named our 4th child after him. If he were alive today, he would be 33 years old, just 1 year younger than me, 3 years older than Kolby, 2 years younger than Heather, 5 years younger than Brady and 7 years younger than Shane. It will be exciting to meet him someday!

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Flash Back to the Past!!

I have always been fascinated with Family History and documenting my immediate family and even my ancestors. However, I fall short in documenting mine and Brady's life growing up, and our parents & siblings life. I have so many great pictures of all our family members that I would love to share with family. I will have a page on my blog dedicated to this, called "Flash Back to the Past". So anytime you click on the "Flash Back to the Past" link on the right side bar you will see our growing up years.

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BYU Blowout Game!!

I attended my first BYU game in 8 years. We got a phone call from Janise on Saturday morning saying she had extra tickets to the game. I wasn't too excited to go and even complained a little, so Brady said he would take Taylor instead of me. When Janise came to pick us up, I told her Taylor was going and she was able to convince me to go and even tracked down a free ticket for me. I must say, I was really needing to get out and enjoy the sun. A beautiful Saturday with perfect weather conditions. At first, we sat on the west side of the stadium, then moved over to the east side where Kolby was sitting with his co-workers and father; Kim. I have to admit, I didn't watch much of the football game, but enjoyed talking to Janise about life and the cute uniforms the cheerleaders & Drill wore. We couldn't figure out if the drill team was barefoot or wearing nude colored shoes. This had us baffled for a while. We also talked about the cool curling iron; the marcel. The game was a huge blowout, 56 BYU to 3 Idaho State in the 3rd quarter, so we left early. It was an adventure and I am very glad I went.

P.S., I am not as short as I look. Everyone else is just huge. Including my 14 year old 6'2" son.

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Young Women in Excellence

We attended our first Young Women in Excellence program for Madison. It was great to hear the talks from the Leaders, but I especially liked hearing the older girls talk about the program, and how it inspired them and increased their testimonies. Maddy was awarded for completing her Knowledge & Faith requirements and projects. She almost completed her Good Works too. She displayed her Conference Journal for one of her projects. To complete this project, she listened, and took notes for 10 hours of conference. Her notes were awesome!!

 

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The "Jelly Castle"

Everyday Brett tells me "mom put jelly (gel) in my hair." Then he says, "make it like a castle" (sticking up). Hence, the Jelly Castle :)

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Look what the kids dragged in!

I was in the basement cleaning up a water mess that Brett had made, when I found myself frozen from disbelief as I noticed a creepy thing on the chair. At first I thought it looked like a giant bug of some sort, but as I got closer, I thought oh no the kids brought a plant inside. Then I realized, it was neither. It was a very (non-stinky) rotten, wrinkled potato that grew 12 inch long roots. Is this really blog worthy? I think so. I need to show all the crazy things my kids do.

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"Carrot On A Stick!!"

Anamarie & Brett love to eat big carrots, but the carrots on a stick is all new. Anamarie and Brett found my stash of wooden skewers in the basement kitchen cupboards and obviously Anamarie put two & two together and created quite a handy eating tool, she told me "mom, look, it's a carrot on a stick". They could probably market these...www.carrotonastick.com?? Isn't William so cute in the background drinking his ba-ba?

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Playing around with my new lens

I just bought the Nikkor AF 50mm f 1.8 lens, and I love it. The difference between the stock lenses that and this new one is that the focus is more distinct and it blurs out the background, giving you a main focus image. In photography terms, it has a very short depth of field. I took a photography boot-camp back in May, and it was amazing how much I learned. I Probably should have cleaned his face and fixed his hair though :)

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Anamarie's New Smile!

Anamarie lost another tooth on Saturday night. She's such a pro now from pulling out her last tooth, that she didn't need any help with this one. She worked on it for two days and the anticipation was killing me. I wanted so badly to just yank it out because it was hanging by a tiny thread of skin. But I held back and she did it all on her own. $3 from the tooth fairy.

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Brett's New Bike

A few months back I took Brett to Walmart to show him how cool the big boy bikes were. I even let him ride around the isles for awhile and cheered him on as he rode on his new spider man bike (he thought). I told him as soon as he goes potty in the toilet he can have that bike, and we can take it home with us. It's 2 months later and no potty in the toilet, and yes, he has a new bike, but not the nice spiderman one that he wanted.

So where did this glamorous new bike come from??
Our two neighbors were throwing out 2 almost identical bikes because both had issues. So Brady, being the handy man he is, decided to go pull these bikes out of the garbage (yes Kim, he learned that from you) and took parts from both bikes to create one perfect working bike. Which he did. The bike is exactly what Brettso needed, even if he didn't earn it the way we thought he would.

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Crazy Hair Day!

Today was Crazy Hair day at Anamarie's school. Maddy came up with the idea of putting a small paper cup on her head and making a tall pony tail to go around it, so it was hidden inside. Kinda like the Who's on the Grinch movie. Bright orange hairspray with about 30 clips; she was definitely crazy.

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