The Yardley Soap Box

More Beach Pictures

2009-08-24T01:43:00.003-06:00

More beach pictures to follow.

Summer Fun

2009-08-24T01:33:00.006-06:00

We'll we've been absent from the blog for quite a while as you have noticed I'm sure. The last 6 months have been really busy. Here it is in a nut shell: school, work, vacation, funeral & school again. Here's some photos of our bi-annual trip to Newport Beach with all of Eric's family. It is always a blast and relaxing too.

Tales of a Two-Year-Old

2009-03-01T22:49:00.006-07:00

Brooklyn is right in the middle of the sometimes terrific, sometimes terrible twos. Two-year-olds seem to often have split personalities. Sometimes they are so independent and get into everything so often that you're beside yourself. Other times, they are so cute you just want to squeeze them and freeze time. Here are a few snapshots of our life with our latest two-year-old, Brooklyn. Despite the trail of destruction she leaves behind, we love her to pieces!

My favorite New Blog for Girl's Hair!

2009-02-13T11:11:00.005-07:00

My friend told me about this blog and I'm really excited. It has great ideas, instructions, and more for girls hair. Here are some pictures of Katelyn and Jacie's hair I did for Valentine's Day. The link is: SheDoesHair.blogspot.com. I added it to our favorite links.

Jacie's birthday party

2009-01-30T20:48:00.009-07:00

Jacie turned five yesterday. She decided she wanted to have a "Fancy Nancy" birthday party. (For those of you who haven't heard of Fancy Nancy yet, she is the star in a series of books about a little girl named Nancy who loves to dress up and do everything the fancy way. They are the cutest books for little girls.) Anyway, it turned out to be such a fun party. All of the girls came dressed up in their fanciest clothes. We played games, painted their nails, and did other "fancy" things. Everyone had a great time.
I am loving the fun of having three girls all in a row. At our house, you can never have enough dress-ups, makeup, and barbies. They sort of take over the whole house sometimes. But it's so much fun.

Family Matters

2009-01-15T21:58:00.011-07:00

I know all of you have been anxiously awaiting with bated breath for our next blog update. Checking and rechecking our blog to see what amazing, fun, and exciting things we have been doing. Well, here it is....um um, oh yeah well um...Ok never mind, we're not that exciting. The most exciting thing we've done is celebrate Eric and my birthdays which are a week apart. We went out to dinner and then a movie (with no kids!) That was fun.
As far as any other excitement, we're all back in school, except for Brooklyn that is. I'm teaching again and dealing with everything that comes with that, both good and bad-mostly good. Eric is taking some classes at Dixie again. He's doing his anatomy, etc. and will be applying to the RN program in March and working toward his goal of being a nurse anesthetist. Alex and Katelyn are enjoying 3rd and 1st grades, and we all love doing the homework every night :) Jacie is loving her preschool with the zest for life she brings to everything she does. Oh, and Brooklyn has been in "potty-training school," so actually I guess we've all been getting educated.
So with all the other things that come along with life, we've been busy getting back into the swing of things. I've included a few fun pictures to share with you. More to come....

It's Time to Get in Shape!

2009-01-03T19:51:00.003-07:00

It's the new year and time to get in shape-both physically and spiritually. Often it seems the new year can be a little depressing. The holidays are over and its back to the drudgery of work and normal life. It can also be overwhelming with all the goals and resolutions we make for ourselves.
I'm determined to not get overwhelmed or let the post-holiday blues set in this year. It's too easy to slip back into our bad habits and routines. I hope you'll join me this year and get in shape both physically and spiritually. I'm writing this down and putting it out there in cyberspace to help cement my goals into my mind.
First, I'm going to concentrate more on being healthy. Taking better care of myself and along the way lose a little of that "comfort food" weight. You know the kind that sticks around your waist when you're eating your comfort food. I've also determined to do better with my personal scripture study, especially with the Book of Mormon. I heard about a man that "sprinted" through the BofM and totally immersed himself in the book. People around him were asking what he was doing different in his life, because he seemed so happy and was conducting himself differently. He was more kind etc. He was simply feeling the spirit of the book.
It's great we have an opportunity every 12 months to look at our lives and re-evaluate ourselves and see what we need to change and do differently. We really ought to do it more often than that, but the new year forces us to do that. I hope you'll join me and get in shape and be a little better in 2009!
Eric

Happy Birthday Eric!

2008-12-30T14:29:00.001-07:00

Happy Birthday to the greatest husband in the world! (It is a blog, so I can brag a little right :) )

Christmas Highlights 2008

2008-12-29T22:56:00.006-07:00

Here's a glimpse of some of our Christmas highlights this year. We've had fun with friends and family on both sides. We hope you had a great Christmas as well. My favorite present this year was a surprise that Eric put together for me. Earlier on in the month he took the kids out for the afternoon while I caught up on some work. During that time, he and his sister Lacey got the kids all fixed up and had their pictures taken by a wonderful photographer here in St. George. I had no idea that anything was going on. On Christmas morning I was surprised to see all of the cute pictures. Eric did such a great job putting that all together without me knowing. What a guy! And a special thanks to Lacey for fixing everyone up so cute. The rest of our Christmas was so much fun as well. (Sorry the music didn't work on the slideshow!)

Great Christmas Video!

2008-12-20T11:32:00.004-07:00

Our dear friend Kenneth Cope produced this great video this year and we wanted to share it with all of you. We love his incredible and talented vocal arrangement of the beautiful song O' Holy Night. Christy's sister Marilee was the model for Mary in the artwork by Liz Lemon Swindle in the video. To view or send this as an ecard go to the link we've included. It's powerful. Enjoy & Merry Christmas!

Fun in the...snow!

2008-12-18T02:13:00.004-07:00

We don't get snow too often in St. George, so last night when it layed down a nice wet blanket of white stuff the kids couldn't contain themselves. They also canceled school. Eric put together this video summary of what we've been doing this week. Enjoy.

Great Song & Video

2008-12-15T22:14:00.006-07:00

We heard this playing on the radio tonight while we were delivering neighbor/friend gifts and after a minute the whole car was singing along. We're both fans of Michael Buble. So smooth. We appreciate all the troops keeping us safe! Click the title of this post to see video.

Great quote

2008-12-14T17:53:00.002-07:00

We heard a great quote today. Thought we would share it. "Count your blessings instead of recounting your problems."

"The Fountain of Life

2008-12-14T02:57:00.003-07:00

Eric turned our waterfall into a Nativity scene this year. It turned out great. He used old barn wood from his dad's ranch. Our kids loved it. It was a great spot to build it, after all Christ is the Foutain of Life.

Christmas is Coming

2008-12-14T02:55:00.001-07:00

Our kids can't wait for Santa to come.

Joining the Blogosphere

2008-12-13T23:59:00.000-07:00

soapbox:
	A wooden crate used in shipment of soap. Used by one who wishes to stand above others to give a speech. see also soapboxing "The lunatic on the corner stood on a soapbox to tell us the world is ending."

Thanks for stopping by to listen or read while I'm on my "Yardley Soap" box. As if I don't already have enough to do or worry about, being a wife & mother of four kids as well as a third grade teacher and Sunday School chorister, I thought I'd create a blog to let others know what's going on and to share some of the things our family enjoys, dislikes, or has tried so that you don't have to. (Plus it's not a bad way to keep somewhat of a journal.) We never thought we wanted to do a blog, (since we're late to the game as it is-and that's not very cool), and Eric with his somewhat anti-conformist personality didn't think we needed to add anything else to our plate. After talking about it, we thought that we would both help each other by being co-contributors from time to time. After all, who wouldn't like to see pictures of our cute kids and hear about how much fun we're having? :) Eric thought we'd call our blog The Yardley Soap Box so he could vent about things from time to time. If you know Eric, you know that he doesn't take himself too seriously and has a bit of a sarcastic funny bone, so it might be interesting to see what he comes up with. I'll step down from the soap box now. Thanks for stopping by for our first voyage into the blogosphere. We hope you stop by from time to time.