We survived

Today marks the end of Colby's first year of residency. To be honest, there were times that I wondered if we were going to make it to this day in one piece. Lots of times I felt like this:

Many times I thought, "I can't do this, it's too hard." But somehow we survived the past year.

With lots of good friends,

a lot of hard work,

lots of prayers,

lots of faith,

a little bit of laughter,

and very little sleep.

I am so proud of Colby for everything he has accomplished this past year. I am married to an amazing person/doctor/comedian/power-point making, toe-nail clipping, surgerizing rockstar. Really, he is amazing.

Now only if we can survive the next two years.....

Gone Country

After a year in Texas, we've officially "gone country." Well, sort of....

The boys haven't quite figured out how to wear a bandana like a cowboy, but at least they are wearing them! Friday night we had our ward hoe-down. We had a great time eating, socializing, line dancing and even did a little slow dancing! I couldn't get Colby to dress up, and he didn't even get to wear his cowboy boots because I was using them for centerpieces. But we were had a great time with or without costumes!

But while the boys kind of fought "going country," Abbi loved the fact that she was a "Texas cowboy girl."

What NOT to feed your pet frog

BEWARE: This story is a mouthful.

We had an exciting Science lesson at our house yesterday. The boys caught a huge (TEXAS size) grasshopper in the backyard and tried to feed it to Sea Monster. It was about as big as he is, so my first instinct was to tell them "No," but my curiosity got the best of me. I wondered if Sea Monster would even try to eat the huge grasshopper and I wondered how he could possibly eat it. So we put the grasshopper in the habitat, I grabbed the camera, and we waited. Lucky for ya'll, we only waited three minutes. It turns out that frogs are just as glutenous as humans...

I was a little concerned about the grasshopper legs hanging out of our frogs mouth, so we kept a close eye on him. After about an hour, he had swallowed most of the grasshopper, but our poor frog looked like he was in some serious distress. His eyes were bugging out of his head, he was salivating and not breathing much. So I did what every logical person would.... I googled "what to do if your pet frog is choking on a grasshopper." I didn't get exactly the result that I was looking for, but I did learn that you are never supposed to feed a frog anything that is bigger than his head... ooops. Next step, I called Colby. Surely a doctor would know how to handle this situation (by this time Carter is yelling, "mom, don't let him die!") As usual, Colby didn't answer (he obviously didn't know this was a life or death situation) so I called my dad. My dad said, "Why don't you just pull the grasshopper out of his mouth?" Well, because I actually had thought of that- but let's be honest, we are talking about grasshopper legs hanging out of a half-dead frogs mouth... not really something I wanted to get my hands on. (but thanks dad for the fatherly advice!) Luckily, my little Ammon is fearless, and a bit of a scientist. He didn't hesitate to pick up Sea Monster and yank the grasshopper right out of his mouth. Immediately, the grasshopper, who miraculously was still alive, hopped out of Ammon's hand and onto my carpet. What ensued was mass chaos- picture me and Abbi screaming and the boys chasing the frog and the grasshopper around their bedroom. We all survived (even the giant grasshopper) and we all learned what NOT to feed our pet frog.

Us went on a cation

If you asked this little twirpy what we did over Memorial Day weekend, she would tell you, "Us went on a CATION!"

And although terribly grammatically incorrect, she is right! Due to Colby's crazy work schedule, we took our family Summer vacation a little early this year. We took advantage of the long holiday weekend and drove down to the Texas coast. It was a GREAT, well needed vacation. Here are the highlights:

Staying in a hotel:

Really, it doesn't matter where we choose to vacation. We could be a block away from home and the kids would have a blast just staying in a hotel.

And what's not to love?? From the continental breakfast with waffles shaped like the State of Texas,

To swimming in the hotel pool,

squishing three kids in a double size pull-out bed (while Mom & Dad have the KING size all to themselves hehehe).

and of course, watching cartoons.

The Beach:

The highlight of the trip was taking the kids to see the ocean for the first time. We drove out to Padre Island and found a great little beach with lots of sand and surf.

The boys (including Colby!) had a blast catching these little sand crabs,

and later, built a sand castle for them.

Abbi and I enjoyed some swimming and sun-tanning.

At the end of the day, it was sooo nice to get showered off and rid ourselves of the sand that we found in every little nook and cranny.

The Texas State Aquarium:

We were also able to spend a day at the Texas State Aquarium. The kids loved seeing the fish, dolphins, turtles, crocodiles, sea otters, sting rays, etc. etc.

It was so nice to take a break from our day to day responsibilities and spend some time together as a family.

I guess it's back to the daily grind for us now. The question is, What to do the rest of the Summer?

Tiny Dancer

Our sweet little Abbi has her first dance recital coming up on Saturday. Because there are no pictures or videos aloud at the performance (this is serious business!), we got to attend a dress rehersal yesterday to get photo documentation of our little munchkin.

If you ask me, I think she is the cutest little two and a half year old on the planet. (I'm not biased or anything).

IF you can believe it, she looked even cuter than usual in her leotard, tutu and ballet slippers with this GIANT bow on her head. I was a little worried that she would either refuse to get on stage, or get on stage and just stand there with a blank look on her face. We were sooo proud of our little girl, she loved performing and even remembered most of the moves.

Colby and the boys were good sports and came to cheer her on. She was so excited to have them in the audience.

And I love having a little girl!

Abbi listening very attentively to her teacher while on stage.

After the performance, we got a picture with all of her dance friends.

Abbi is the youngest one in the group (although definitley not the smallest!)

Here is a video of their performance; all one minute, 26 seconds of it!

Way to go Sis!

Untitled from Shauni Frost on Vimeo.

True Confessions

A couple of months ago, I read on my cousin Elizabeth's blog about her "true confessions." Since then, I've been thinking about some of my own. Here they are;

#1 I love to vacuum. It's almost relaxing for me and the house always looks so much cleaner after it's been vacuumed (you can really fool people into thinking your house is clean, when really the only thing that is clean is the floor). Here's the "true confession" part; I really love to vacuum when my kids are on my nerves. When they just won't stop talking, fighting or asking questions -I turn this bad boy on and they stop (or I just can't hear them). It's fabulous.

#2 Frequently, when I know Colby isn't going to make it home for dinner, I make pancakes. A couple of months ago when Colby was doing a particularly busy rotation, Ammon asked me if I was putting them on a "pancake diet." Ooops.

#3 I own (and use) onion goggles. They are just as awesome as they look. Just for the record, I had them before Phil Dumphey.

What are your true confessions?

Easter & Frogs

Easter:

And Frogs:

I have no logical explanation why this little peanut adores this frog,

but is terrified of this one..

and because she found this scary little plastic frog in an Easter egg at the playgroup hunt, she is now terrified of these:

It made for an interesting Easter this year. I had to give Abbi a BIG pep talk before the Scott & White employee Easter egg hunt telling her, "don't worry, there's just candy in these eggs- NO FROGS," and "there is nothing to be afraid of there are NO FROGS in these Easter eggs." Try as I might, I still couldn't get her to pick up ONE egg. (I picked up a couple for her.) All my begging and pleading was wasted when I opened a plastic egg to show her that there was not a frog inside of it and oops... seriously, what are the chances? There was a blue plastic frog in that Easter egg. Needless to say, she refused to participate in our family Easter egg hunt on Sunday. But, all of the kids were really into their Easter baskets,

Colby not so much.

I always LOVE to do the matchy, matchy thing for holidays, and this year was no exception.

This is what Abbi did during the Easter egg hunt- stood in the doorway and watched. She didn't seem to mind that she missed out on all the "cannys and moneys."

Call me cruel, but I had to provide some video proof of her wierd plastic frog phobia. It's actually pretty entertaining.

Untitled from Shauni Frost on Vimeo.

And just so you don't think that our Easter was all about candy, eggs and frogs; we had a great FHE lesson on the resurection and watched a video online. I am so grateful for the Savior and the sacrifices that he made for us. Here is Abbi telling the Easter story in her own words:

Untitled from Shauni Frost on Vimeo.

Pinewood Derby

Another GREAT thing about being eight, is starting cub scouts. Ammon was lucky enough to start cub scouts right before the pinewood derby. I am going to say that is the reason why Colby and Ammon started working on his derby car on Friday night (the derby was on Saturday!) Ammon drew a design of what he wanted his car to look like, helped paint it and put on the decals. Colby was such a trooper~ even though he was already putting in late nights and early mornings at work, he made time early, early Friday to cut out the car and woke up early on Saturday to finish it. It turned out great! It was just the way Ammon wanted it to look- but was it fast?

We arrived at the church to find out. The cultural hall was decked out with pinewood derby decor,

they had popcorn and cookies for hungry spectators,

and a state of the art, electric track for nearly thirty cars to race on.

(this thing was sweet, it actually could tell what car won by a hundreth of a second)

Ammon's car is the green blur finishing in second place.

The boys waited anxiously to see how their cars would fare,

and Ammon's car ended up in the top four!

(it was number four to be exact- but he was thrilled to make it into the grand finals)

When all was said and done, Ammon ended up in third place, with a great trophy and a big smile on his face.

Way to go DRAGO!

Colby has already warned Ammon that he probably won't do as well next year. I guess he's a little unsure of his ability to duplicate a winning car. Way to go boys!