Congratulations Chelsea!

Last night my cousin Chelsea Heckert got her endowment in the Columbia River Temple. I was fortunate enough to arrange to go and it was amazing!! For those of you who know her, please remember to congratulate her! We love you Chelsea!

And the wedding bells ring!

My sweet lil sister got married & we're so happy for her! For a long time we've hoped & prayed for her that someday she would find the right man for her who would fulfill her life and make her happy. Then Steve came along and the rest is history!! They were married last night at Mom & Dad's house, and today they're headed off on a honeymoon to Vegas! Steve works at a local animal pharmaceutical company here in town & Amber will start her Masters program this year. They've found a nice house and they'll be all moving in a couple weeks. I can tell he really makes her happy & he's such a good daddy to her children, we're so grateful for that! I love you sis & Steve, you too! We're so ecstatic for both of you & wish you a long & happy life together!

Our Little Trip to Seattle

We had so much fun!! First we went to the Seattle Science Center, where the kids went to the Planetorium, played with numerous sciency gadgets and stations, saw lots of little critters, held Madagascar Cockroaches & walked among the butterflies. The next day, we went to the Children's museum where they explored a Northwestern themed playland, played with machines to move balls and water in cog city, splashed in the water, painted and played with clay, and learned lots of new things. The boys highlight was a trip over the monorail to Pikes Place Market (they squealed with excitement at the notion of being on a "real choo choo train"!) At Pikes Place I had lunch, visited, & shopped with my old-time bestest friend Becky, whom I haven't seen in person since the age of 10 or 11 years old. It's funny how we just "clicked" back in place.



















Can you tell the kids had a blast?? My favorite was watching the kids get creative with paints. It was Kalani's first time. Watching Keira pretending to serve me sushi at a "real" Japanese restaurant was lots of fun too!


We celebrated Mom's 56th birthday. Her and I enjoyed Thai food one of the days (coconut curry is SO good) and Vietnamese food another day (we went to a pho house and had soup, noodle salad, plus the yummiest spring rolls & peanut sauce you ever had!). We shopped together, helping Keira pick out her outfit for the 4-H fashion revue. We went to line dancing lessons together and really had an action packed few days! I made her a pumpkin pie cake for her birthday, happy birthday mom!




And finally, Jeff & I met up with ANOTHER friend I haven't seen in 14 years. Her name is Lena and she was one of my bestest friends in Middle School. WOW! It was so fun to shop at Cabellas with her and her family. Keira and her daughter really had fun - it was almost like seeing us again as kids! And Cabellas animal museum was amazing, the guys really liked that!



I love Lena, she was my best friend during a time in my life where I fell off the deep end. She's seen a very very badly behaved Tiffanie, and she's also seen me at my best!! As a result, she knows me in a way that no one else does. Seeing her again after all these years brought back so many great memories! I can almost smell the mix of salty briny air, foresty pine, and maybe a little pot, hahaha!

Yes! We're expecting!

Horray!! There was a lot of testing - I just knew I was expecting, but I wasn't testing positive for the longest time!! I haven't been to the DR yet, but our estimated due date is November 1st (give or take a week). This is SO exciting, because we've been hoping to have one more baby, and we're hoping for another girl (that sure would make Keira happy!). My nephew, Jameson needs a little cousin his own age, so Cory is really thrilled! And my friend Becky & our cousins Rebecca & Jerry are having their babies a month or so before we'll have ours!

Raising responsible kids

Last year Keira and I were in Girlscouts, and we liked it OK because we'd never done anything like that before, but THIS year we were fortunate enough to find this amazing 4-H group in Sunnyside. Keira's become involved in art, photography, drama, cooking, and will soon be doing gardening as well. I've helped by being the drama leader. What's so incredible is that we would never be able to do any of these things if it weren't for this organization! Keira worked on a poster for the poster contest, we've created a lollipop tree for the carnival, I helped her prepare an entire demonstration about painting/art, and I think she learned a lot even though she didn't actually give her presentation. She worked on a commercial for cooking, has been practicing her new cooking skills on occasion. Next month is the fashion revue. She is to use a budget and shop for a complete outfit that she will model in the show, and be questioned about and judged on. I'm helping out by being a commentator for the show and bringing refreshments. Then in May we're preparing for the talent show, and she'll be dancing, in a skit, and in a puppet show as well. I'm helping out by directing the skits/puppet show, and of course paying for her extra lessons/choreography to get ready for the dance. It's a lot of work to start out for me as a parent, but the idea is to teach her how to do these things herself, and then ease off. Eventually she'll learn to do it all herself and be more independent.

What I love about the 4H group is that it's not so much on donations of money, but on donations of time, and the focus is on teaching children to be independent and responsible...

On THAT note, I'm tearing my hair out trying to get Keira to be more responsible. I instituted a token system in our house for her. She earns tokens each day by doing her chores. The better she does her chores, if she does them without being asked, if she does extra chores, the more tokens she recieves. She can trade them in for rewards like treats, extra TV or PSP time, packs of gum, trips to the dollar store, or whatever. I'm hoping against all hope that this will help her and motivate her to be more responsible!

I love Winco

Yesterday I went to tri-cities with my dear friend Kathryn and my boys. We went on a jaunt to the Oriental Market, which was so much fun! We browsed the isles together looking at all the unique things they had, picking out this and that! Seaweed salad here I come! Afterwards we went on a food storage trip to Winco. Kathryn was invaluable with her calculator helping me find the best deals! And the Winco employees were so friendly and helpful, feeding my kids Jo's at the deli counter and giving them lollipops when they pitched a fit in the bulk foods section, joking around with me in checkout! It really made my Winco trip a pleasant adventure! It sure helped that the prices were SO much better than Walmart (I have much of Walmarts prices memorized on the things I buy a lot of) and now it feels so GOOD to have all my canned food shelves stocked to the brim and all my poly buckets full!

We ended our trip by running and climbing and laughing with the boys at Howard Amon Park. Trips like this one with a good friend and my boys bring me so much joy!

Maybe I'm doing something right?

Today at lunchtime I had a giant green salad. The kids had corn beef & salad with pretzels. They all cleaned their plates on the hope that I'd give them some of my salad afterwards!?! And one of them climbed accross the table to pick off my plate repeatedly until it was gone. I ended up cutting them jicama and doling out the cucumber they liked it so well! And lately they'll do almost anything for a piece of "fruit candy" (dried papaya or pineapple) Go figure, maybe I'm doing something right after all??

I hate banks!

Today I'm venting because the bank charged me money to get my own money!! Did you know that by law you can't make more than 6 withdrawls out of your own savings acct and if you do you'll be charged a 15$ fee? Ridiculous! Preposterous! I feel robbed!