We're Alive!!!!!!!

Santa brought the kids a tent for Christmas so this is the tent set up and a little campfire we had.

In all my spare time I had made a bag for Haley and Brianna for thier birthdays...late of course ;)

Maddi very impatiently waiting for her valentines day party!

Kenni's VERY ORANGE birthday cake and him getting his tool box!

James and all his glory with his 4 medals for the Science Olympiad Competition.

The past few months in the Ozbirn Household have been very busy to say the least. The day care I work at has been super slow so they decided to close down permanently coming up in March. Since that decision was made the day care has been booming with business. The decision to still close has stayed the same but the kids just keep coming. The extra kids has granted me extra hours. Many extra hours. On top of working pretty much full time I have been taking a course in Early Childhood Education. I signed up for the course (for work purposes) before the decision was made to close. Since I had already signed up I decided to go ahead and take the course.Laura has had an ongoing science project she is doing for school. That has taken up a lot of our weekend time. James Jr has been in the Science Olympiad Program at school so we have been busy with his practices for the competition. He competed this past saturday and did an outstanding job! He was in 4 different categories of the competition, Pentathalon, Cool It, Reflection Relay, and Compounds Mixtures and Solids. In the Pentathalon there were 4 boys that had to go through a series of obstacles. They could only move forward after they answered a science question and got it right. The boys did not place in this category but they all did a great job. The next category he competed in was Cool It. James and his partner had to come up with a container that would insulate an ice cube for an hour and 45 minutes. The winner was the group that had the ice cube that melted the least. James and his partner were not eligible to place in this category becuase his coach was the judge. Their ice cube gave off 4.7 mm of water and the coach said the least she had seen before theirs was 5 mm so they did really well! Next was Reflection Relay. James and two other boys had to make the light from a flashlight bounce off of 3 mirrors in the least amount of time. They earned 2nd place in this category. Compunds, Mixtures, and Solids was a test that James and a partner had to take. They had to tell if the answer to each question was a compund, mixture, or solid. James was actually an alternate for this category. He wasn't going to go but a good 'ol Greg Huffman speech gave him the courage to go....even though he wasn't happy about it. James and his partner won 1st place!!!!!!!! Over all the whole Legacy Team won 1st place in the whole competition too! We often call James the World of Knowledge because he is always correcting us and just stating random facts. We do tease him alot but really we are so proud of him!!!!!!!!Kenni started Drama club in January. He originally wanted to be in it because the teacher of Drama club is his teacher from last year whom he absolutely adores. I'm not sure when the play is yet but he did get his script a couple of weeks ago. Kenni's role is one of the leading roles in the play! Kenni's 8th birthday was in February. He wanted a white cake dyed what else but ORANGE, white frosting dyed ORANGE, and oreo pudding in the middle. He wanted shrimp for dinner and thanks to Laurel he and the rest of us got his fill of shrimp. James Sr and Grandad thought it was time that Kenni got his very own tool box so that is what he got for his birthday. Kenni is James' little mechanic's assistant. James had a set of screw drivers he bought when he was 18 and he had been saving them to give to one of his children. Since Kenni is always right there whenever James is working on something James thought they would be put to best use with Kenni. Maddi has been busy working with me at the day care. She loves being there and playing with her friends. She has even been taking naps there with the other kids which for those who know Maddi that is huge for her! She had her very 1st Valentine's party and she just had to wear a dress that day. She was up at the crack of dawn and rearing to get to that party!In the last couple of weeks we have had a lot doctor and hospital visits. James Sr has messed up his back quite bad and it turns out it's his sciatic nerve. He's VERY SLOWING getting somewhat better. He can now actually sit up for a short amount of time. James Jr pushed Kenni off an old dog house in our backyard they play on so that got us a visit to the ER. Everything was fine but he had us pretty scared. Maddi and I have had a terrible cold/cough for a while now so we've been to the dr a couple of times with that. We now have some antibiotics and will hopefully be over it soon! My last day of work is March 9th so things should slow down a little bit here. Maybe then I will be able to do a better job at keeping my blog updated!

Christmas 2011

Christmas eve we went over to Greg and Laurel's as usual. We had a delicious dinner and our annual christmas eve fire. A few weeks before we had aranged to get the kids a turtle and to pick it up on christmas eve. We had forgotten all about it but thakfully we were reminded! So after presents, which was nerf guns for all 4 of the kids, and dessert, we went and picked up Franklin. The kids had been wanting this turtle for some time and the person we got it from has been wanting to get rid of it!

Christmas morning was an early one! We had planned on getting up about 5 am so that we could do presents and have enough time to get ready for chruch on time. The kids had other plans though. Thye were up at 4am! It made for a sleepy day but it actualyl worked our really well. We had pleantly of time to open presents without being rushed and have everyone get ready. I even had time to make pancakes on my new griddle pan I got for christmas!

After church it was on to Aunt Lisha's where we had another delicious dinner and opened presents again!

It was a sleepy day for Mom and Dad but thanks to the long ride home the kids were re-energized with a nap. They were ready and rearing to go! We opened up a few of the kids' toys that they got and played for a few more hours. We also gave Franklin a little ride on the boy's new rc cars!

The next morning was a total day of putting things together. The boys put together their lego sets and we also had the girls' barbie house to put together! That was a challange but got it done!

Elk Anyone?

I know I have told you all about the wonderful elk burgers that our friends Mike and Becky have made for us. Well.... now we will be able to make our very own and won't have to beg Mike and Becky for elk meat anymore! James was able to go with Mike on a hunt and get an elk of his very own. While the guys were out hunting, the kids and I stayed with Becky at the house. The kids made christmas ornaments, gingerbread houses, and cookies. They even had a neighborhood pine cone war. My kids had a blast just playing out in the neighborhood with all the kids. They didn't even care that it was only 34 degrees outside. Kenni had the most fun searching for snails. Last time we were there Mike showed them how the snail would "dissolve" if you put salt on it. When it was time for school monday morning my kids saw how the neighborhood kids jumped the wall in the backyard to get to school instead of taking the long walk around. Once all the kids were in shcool my kids decided that they wanted to jump the wall too. Becky and I were entertained watching my kids try to get over the wall. Finally they got it mastered. Not too much longer I looked out to check on them and noticed they were not alone! The wonderful and diligent police of St. George pulled up to see just what my children were doing. They informed the officer that it was our friends' house and we were visiting from Arizona. He seemed satisfied enough with that answer and went on his way. Once James and Mike got home with the elk it was 2 straight days of cutting and packing red meat...non- stop! Thankfully before they came home they were able to do all the really grose stuff.
Laura and Sami making their ornaments.

Kenni hard at play!

All the little kids working hard on making a mess...I mean creating their houses.

Kenni's finished product.

All the kids and their masterpieces.

Santa's village!

James' boot in the snow where he was hunting.

James and his elk. He shot her at 177 yards.

All the boys hard at work!

Our freezer packed full of elk meat!

Full Auto

James had me bring the kids out to the shooting range. His buddy was there with some sort of big fast gun and he wanted the kids to shoot it. The 3 older kids have all shot it before but Maddi never had. Maddi hadn't even shot any gun at all. When we got there she didn't want to shoot it but after she saw all the other kids doing it she decided she'd try. She wanted Sissy to help her so her and Laura shot it together. Maddi then told Daddy that she wanted to do it all by her own self. James loaded her up some more ammo and she let it rip! She had a blast! Of course all the other kids did too.

Busy Hands

Since October I've been very busy sewing my little heart out. I had made the kids' halloween costumes and then I made Ally a bag for her birthday. After those two projects were done I had a huge project of making a quilt. My friends son tore a huge rip into his favorite blanket that he had since he was a baby. She wanted me to fix the rip but there was just no way. Instead I cut up the old blanket and made it into a quilt. I've made a baby quilt in the past but never a full size one. It took me a long time to do and the material was so thin so it was extremely hard to work with. I am so glad that I was able to save the blanket but I'm even more happier that I'm done with it.

November

It seems like November came and went like a flash. James Jr had his class Field trip to the Museum of Natural History. I was able to go with him. It was a super crowded place and I had 6 crazy 3rd graders to keep track of so I didn't get many pictures. It was a neat place with a ton of stuff, too much really. There was a lot to read as you looked at the displays and of course the kids wanted nothing to do with that! They did get to dig up dinosaur skeleton, pan for gold, be in jail and look at all different rocks and minerals found here in AZ.

The kids have been palying a lot of baseball in the backyard lately. These two videos are what Laura and Kenni took of the two of them trying to teach Maddi to play. She hit the ball once but once they got the camera out she wanted nothing to do with it. I just thought these videos were funny.

We had Thanksgiving at Greg and Laurels as we do every year. Instead of having everything out side as usual we had most of it inside. It was a windy, cold, overcast day and we even got a few rain drops. There were some of us who enjoy the dreary weather that did spend the day outdoors.

My 9 year old Little Man

October 17th was Little Man's 9th birthday. While Grandad was here we celebrated so on the actual day of his birthday we didn't really do much. I made him the dinner and cake that he wanted and he got to open his presents from us.