My Great Workout

So yesterday my good friend Noelle called me at 9 a.m. and asked me if I was ready to go to the gym where we are both members. Yea, I forgot that I had told her that I was going to go with her. So I told her that I would meet her there. We planned on running on the treadmill and then doing some weights. Well, I'm not going to lie-- (Are you ready for this?) I'm really afraid of treadmills. Laugh all you want, but they really frighten me. So I decided that I would run to the gym instead. K, let me tell you that the weather guy said that Saturday was going to be nice. Sunny even. Now let me tell you another thing: the weather guy meant later in the afternoon. Not at 9:30 in the morning. Yea, I definitely froze my poor fingers off. They actually got far beyond the numb stage. I could feel them throbbing, like they thought that the blood that was sloooowly running through them was never coming back. I think that they were sad. Mourning the loss of their good friend, blood. Sounds pathetic? Well, I'm not exaggerating here. So when I got to the gym (almost 4 miles away with a pretty stiff head wind) I had spots! My body was red and I had white SPOTS! Weird. So I think that if I ever decide to run to the gym again, I will be wearing some gloves. Oh, so when I got there, Noelle was just finishing up her run and then we worked our legs. She was so good. She made up a track sheet and everything for me. K, let me tell you that this workout is not for sissies. I worked my legs so hard that they were in complete protest when I was finished. I had to take a soak when I got home. I do feel good, though and I am definitely doing the whole thing again next Saturday! Yay!

Typing Test vs. Geography Test

Okay, so I just read my dear friend Kaitlin Farmer's blog and she has a link posted for a site where you can see how fast you can type. That's really great, but I went on there and it turns out that I can type a little less than half the speed as sweet Kaitlin (I hope that her fingers fall off.) So for any of you who want to take a real test, here is the 3rd grade geography test that I can finish in half the time allotted. You just try to beat me at that one, smartie boots fast typer girl! :o) haha.
Here's the link: http://www.pibmug.com/files/map_test.swf

New Olympic Event: Extreme Easter Egg Hunting

Well, the Easter egg hunt was a success. I'm exhausted. For all of you who don't know the precise madness that is the Annual Jangula Family Easter Egg Hunt, I will explain. All of the Jangula’s extended family (there has got to be close to 200 people) come to Nick’s parents’ house and first we have a potluck lunch. Everybody who comes brings a dozen eggs for each person in their family. Inside each egg is marked somehow so that everybody knows to which family that egg originated (I draw flowers on mine.) Inside the egg is a slip of paper that says what prize you get from the person who set that egg out. (Some of the prizes include: full size candy bars, cans of soda, juice boxes, cookies, dipped strawberries- yum- games, notebooks, journals, trinkets, bags of chips, the list goes on and on. I set out some boxes of cereal. Everyone thought that I was the coolest. Last year Peter even got a halloween costume!) Everybody gathers on the lawn (huge lawn) and divides their eggs into the separate boxes. Each box is labeled with the age group for the separate hunts. The age groups are: 1-5, 6-12, 13-25, men, and women. Yes, the adults have their own egg hunts, too. You should see it. It's incredible. After each age group has their hunt, they open up the eggs, go to the appropriate families, and collect their prizes. Yes, we go all out. It is the most extreme and involved Easter Egg Hunt that I have ever heard of, or been involved in. AND IT’S OVER! (Until next year…)

Easter Egg Hunt

Whitney had her Preschool Easter egg Hunt yesterday. At 9:30 am, we went and picked up her best friend, Dillon, and took him to the store with us. I had my own shopping list and made a shopping list for each of the three kids. Peter was in charge of finding and putting into the cart: Easter eggs, milk, vitamins, bologna and lettuce. Whitney was in charge of candy to fill the eggs, baby formula, apples and bread. Since Dillon came with us as a last minute decision, he had 1/2 of Whitney's list- one bag of candy, 4 apples and a loaf of bread. It worked out so spectacularly! The kids stayed right beside me and didn't get grumpy the whole time. I definitely recommend this method of shopping! It was awesome. So when we got home, the kids filled all of the eggs while I packed us a lunch and made guacamole (of course- delicious!). I learned how to make this guacamole from Joslin Farmer. It is amazing. I'll put the recipe at the bottom of my post. So we went to the park, ate our lunches and the kids had their egg hunt. After the hunt, there were games to play and of course the jungle gym and slides. When we were all ready to leave, I went to the car and realized that I didn't have my keys (story of my life). So I called Laurie Farmer because I was sitting on her blanket and that was the last place I remember having them. She, luckily, was not yet out of town, so I stayed on the phone with her while she emptied her van looking for the keys. Too bad, not there. So then I talked to one of the preschool teachers and she said that I could use her car to go home (5 blocks away) and get my spare set. When I got home, I called Holly Raab (another mom) because Laurie's blanket was right beside hers. She said that it was nowhere in her things, but she remembered Lisa Tessnohlidek's little girl carrying around her Easter basket with some keys inside. So I called Lisa. OI! Yes. That is where the keys were: victim to grand theft by a little girl with an Easter basket. So Lisa brought them over later, and I have my keys back! YAY!
Tomorrow is the big- did I say big, because what I meant was COLOSSAL- Easter egg hunt and potluck lunch at Nick’s mom’s house. I am sooooo not ready, so today I have to make my salad and get all my eggs and prizes organized. OH! So I went to Albertson’s the other day and I am happy to report that I am the proud new owner of 96 boxes of Kellogg’s cereal! (My total was $33.) I know that we have a year to eat this cereal before it expires, but 96 boxes? Get real! Cereal is definitely going to be the bulk of our family’s Easter egg hunt prizes. Well, I’d better get busy. Time for Easter madness again!

Here is the guacamole recipe:
Mash 2 ripe avocadoes on a plate with the back of a fork. Add ¼ c. mayonnaise, 1 tsp. lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste. If you want to, add a little dash of onion powder and/or Tabasco sauce. Eat with corn chips. YUM!

p.s. If anybody needs cereal, I've got some. Seriously.

My life, as of late...

At this moment, Lucas is 10 months old, sitting on the floor by my chair, sucking on a lincoln log, and quietly singing to himself. I imagine that within three and one half minutes he will be standing up beside me, grasping at my leg, throwing his head back and wailing for me to pick him up. That gives me very little time to tell you all about our life, but I'm going to give it a good shot.

Nick

Behold, the mighty hunter! Nick drew a big horn sheep tag and went on his hunt in October. He got his sheep on the first day of hunting! How incredible is that? I think he's amazing! Nick has just turned the big 3-0 and is plugging away at work. He is an electrician by day, general contractor by night, and SUPER DAD all of the time! Nick will be starting on a league softball team soon. That is one of his favorite pastimes. Oh, let’s face it: he loves to play any sport. Whatever sport he is doing is his favorite pastime (as he is so good at them all!) YAY! GO NICK!

Peter

Peter is in Kindergarten and loving it. When I asked him what his favorite part about school was, he said it was recess and writing. That's my boy! He did also mention that there was a girl at recess that always sends kids from her class to chase Peter and beat him up. Not so good. I told him to tell her not to do that anymore. We'll see how that one works... Peter has just started soccer. He has four (yes, I did say four) practices in addition to one game a week. That's enough to just about drive me cra~z! But I guess that it's totally worth it because Peter's first game was on Saturday, and when he was dribbling the ball down the field, words just cannot describe the jubilance I saw in him. I was in fact surprised that a smile that big could fit on his little face! He has another game today. I hope that he always stays that happy playing sports.

Whitney

Whitney is in preschool and is totally in her element there. She is now a reader and loves to read the Dick and Jane books (which makes me laugh because they are the same stories that I remember reading when I was little). Two weeks ago, our darling little girl took a pair of scissors to her ponytails. And the kicker? She did it in the MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT! So I took her in and got it fixed in the morning. She now has a new shorter doo. Although it is really very cute, it broke her daddy's heart that she doesn't have long beautiful hair anymore. No more scissors for that girl... Whiney is also in soccer. She isn't on a team, but has a clinic every Saturday where she and 11 other kids work on learning the fundamentals from 2 teenage coaches. Whitney had so much fun at her first clinic on Saturday. She was oh, so cute. Since her hair is short, it will only stay up in two ponytails, which is just adorable! So she was standing there face to face with her coach and Whitney kicked the ball to her. When it came to her, her coach put her hands on her hips and stopped the ball by putting her foot on top of it. Then she kicked it back to Whitney. When the ball came to Whitney, she did the same thing and put her hands on her hips and stopped the ball by putting her foot on top of it. Oh! CUTE! Then for the rest of the practice if there was a time that the coaches had the kids stop to listen for directions, Whitney put her hands on her hips and stood with her foot on top of the ball. She is something else.

Lucas

Lucas is getting so big and is right on the verge of standing on his own. He has been using the coffee table a lot, but is just starting to let go for longer and longer. He just cut his SIXTH tooth and unfortunately for me, is starting to bite. He bit me on the inside of my arm this morning and a few minutes later it was a bruise! Those are some fierce chompers!

Melissa

I have turned over a new leaf, and have decided that it was time to get fit. I go to a pilates class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and on Mondays and Wednesdays, I go to a kick boxing class, which I love, love, LOVE! It is sooooo much fun! I am ridiculously close to losing my love handles (don't even worry- I'm ecstatic!) and I have noticed such a difference in my energy level. And trust me I need energy. People have also started asking me what I am doing to make me get skinny because they have noticed that my face is thinner! YAY!

Yesterday I had my Visiting Teaching companion and the ladies that we visit over for lunch. It was soooo much fun. Plus it was so cute because I saw this really adorable thing in a magazine, which I totally copied. I went and got some little pansies and planted them in teacups and put them on saucers. Then I tied a tag with each name on it to each of the handles of the teacups and put them on each of the places for place cards. It was amazing. And lunch was so tasty! I made margarita pizzas (delicious) and Sarah made a scrumptious salad, heavenly virgin pina coladas, and a really rich and incredible layered chocolate dessert. She is so talented! I love doing things with my friends. It makes me feel so happy to spend time with people that I love.

Speaking of people that I love: Last weekend Joslin Farmer invited me over to their house for a game night (my favorite thing to do ever in the whole wide world). So it was me, Jos, Jami, Lauren, Karli and their friend Anne and we played games for like 3 hours. And we had so much fun that we decided that we would do it again the next night, and it was definitely not as much fun because the game that we loved, we made it longer and it was waaaaaaaaaaay too long and nobody wanted a game to be over more than that game on that night. We stuck it out, though, and I don't even remember who won (nobody probably does because everybody was so happy for it to finally be over). But it was a fun couple of nights. I just do not recommend playing the same games two nights in a row. It doesn't matter how fun the game is, you've godda take a rest from it sometimes.

Nick and I went to the temple last Thursday. It was so wonderful. I know that there was a special spirit with me that day, and I am soooo happy that I was able to do the work for her that she wasn't able to do for herself.

In a nutshell

Okay, so that’s our life in a nutshell (Look! It’s me! In a nutshell!) And for all of you who are worrying about the baby, he actually didn’t ever get sad or even mad, but simply crawled away and is now happily taking part in his favorite pastime: emptying out all of the bottom drawers in the kitchen. Lucky me!