Palmyra and Niagara Falls NY

What can I say. It's only 10 hours away. We've never lived with in driving distance before so we had to go. Right?

Along the way, we couldn't resist a quick trip off the highway to get another glimpse of the Kirtland Temple.

I really had a hard time not stopping to visit these places again



but we had other places we needed to be.

Our first stop in Palmyra was the Smith Family farm.

This is where Joseph Smith lived when he read this scripture:
and decided to do what it said.

Also, in his bedroom in this home,


the Angel Moroni came to visit him as depicted in this picture. This is the original and is hanging in the Hill Cumorah visitors' center.

We were also able to go inside the frame house where the Smiths moved a couple of years later. This is were they lived when Joseph received the plates.

He had several hiding places for the plates to keep them from falling into the wrong hands. One is here, under the brick by the fire place:
and another was in the loft in a tool box such as this:

The Sacred Grove was our next stop. Conal and I have been here before. It looked SO different because it was summer, and it was dusk. As a matter of fact, I saw my first firefly in the Sacred Grove. This time however, the leaves were gone from the trees and it was daylight.

Since we don't know exactly when in the spring of 1820 Joseph Smith had the first vision, I suppose it could have looked similar to this as it is technically spring. I have proof. ha ha!

Had I been there without 5 kids under the age of 9, I would have spent a long time right here:

But I'm glad my kids got to experience this with us.
The view of the Palmyra temple from the grove is amazing, as I'm sure is the view of the grove from the temple. Our next stop was the Book of Mormon print shop. How amazing it was in that day and age that they were able to get 5,000 copies of the Book of Mormon printed here.


The kids were very interested in the printing process and even got to help a little bit.
Here is one of those 5,000.

We drove by the Martin Harris Farm. The original builing no longer exists and the land is not owned by the church but this is what it looks like now.

Off to Hill Cumorah. Glad we went to the Sacred Grove first because it started pooring rain.

Garrison and Hailey were very disappointed that they couldn't snoop around the hill because they were SURE that they could find where the golden plates were hidden. They weren't as disappointed when I told them that their Grandma Burton had the same idea when she visited Hill Cumorah at their age-----and she didn't find anything either.

The visitors center was of course beautiful and a welcome break for the kids.

Stay tuned for Niagara Falls and "just keeping it real", Cause its all fun and games until somebody gets their eye poked out.........or starts projectile vomitting. Which ever comes first. More to come soon.

Hailey's first date

I made an exception to our "no dating until you are 16 rule" because I REALLY like the guy who asked Hailey out on a date. He's a really nice guy and I fully trust him with my daughter. He's pretty darn cute too. Is it bad to say that about your 6 year old daughter's date? I bet you'll excuse me this time.

Conal and Hailey had a blast at the Daddy Daughter Dance at Hailey's school. I had to laugh because when they got home they were both all sweaty from dancing so much. Of course they were. Conal IS a Whetten after all. I should have figured that they'd dance the whole night. I'm glad they got to spend some great father/daughter time together. Hailey had a ball dancing with all of her friends.

Um, yeah, it was kinda dark and that was on a cell phone camera......but you get the idea.

I love this picture of Hailey and Mckenna (her only church friend that goes to her school). Too bad it was so dark and it was taken on a camera phone.

Hailey and I got to spend some great mother/daughter time together as well when we did her nails:

and hair.

I'm so glad they both had such a fun time.

St. Patrick's Day parade

A little bit of rain doesn't stop the Whettens from having a good time.

It wasn't even as bad as when we were waiting in line to get into Shedd Aquarium and we stuck that out. Maybe it is a Chicago thing. I can tell you that El Pasoans would have never stuck it out. First off they'd all be freezing to death (and it wasn't THAT cold) and secondly, people in El Paso are afraid of the rain. Many won't even drive in it. We aren't becoming Chicagoans are we??? I don't think so. You have to be ok with winter here to be a true Chicagoan..........and well.....need I say more? Oh well, it sure isn't going to stop me from enjoying all of the great things about the Chicago area.

We all had our favorites. Conal always loves the bag pipes:

the kids love all of the candy and free stuff (free kids meals to Chili's baby! Wahoo!) :

and that darn "fun bus" always gets our attention:

I don't know quite what to say about the belly dancers

but for some reason they cracked me up as did the hot pink model walking girls...........sorry, I don't get it:

We also got some great Halloween costume ideas for next year:

The "Star Wars" club guys were a crowd favorite. The little boy who yelled "Darth Vader!!!! I LOVE you!" Had all of the adults laughing.

Fun and games people. Fun and games.

From the Mouths of Babes: A blast from the past.

A couple of days ago I was getting rid of some clutter and I found a notebook that just had some random stuff in it. Glad I checked it before I threw it out because I found a couple of pages of quotes from Garrison and Hailey that Conal and I had written down in 2006. It would've been sad to have lost some of these.

****disclaimer**** Probably no one but me will think these are funny so feel free to skip the rest of the post.

Hailey: " Mommy, I really like your foot necklace" (my anklet) April 2006

Garrison had allergies so we gave him an allergy pill. He took it, swallowed it, waited for one second and then said "Well, so much for that. It didn't do anything!" April 2006

Hailey: "Mommy7, I'll let you go outside with me when I'm the mom and you are the kid." May 2006

Hailey said that we should name the baby (I was expecting Jackson at the time) "another GG". May 2006

August 2006 Garrison prayed that Hailey and Alexia would close their eyes during the prayer and that Alexia wouldn't go "WAH WAH" When we put her milk in the microwave.

August 2006 Garrison was dancing and saw his shadow and said "Hey! There is my little brother dancing too!"

August 2006 Haileys words to the "Hokey Pokey". "You put your right foot in, you take the WRONG foot out, you put the right foot in and you shake it all about. You do the OKEY DOKEY and turn yourself around. "

Hailey: "When I get to Heaven I will give Heavenly Father a big hug and then a kiss" October 2006.

Alexia was reading these over my shoulder and said "Hee Hee, Mom......... Garrison and Hailey are FUNNY!"

What are big brothers for????

What are big brothers for besides to show you the ropes. I mean, who else is going to show you how to get into the DVD's and to throw them all over........several times a day.

Who else is going to give you HIS crayon so that you can draw a nice picture on the wall while Mom is making dinner?

Who would go so far as to "take one for the team" by showing you that young kids should NOT have gum (particularly ABC gum)?

And big brothers......they take care of you. They get your milk out of the fridge for you so that you won't be sad.

Or if they can't reach it because it is on the top shelf, they improvise,

by giving you Daddy's Salsa Habanera (which is EXTRA hot) might I add.

Big brothers also have a back up in case you don't like hot sauce,

Looks like this little girl has her mommy's tolerance for spicy food. Not a tear was shed. There was however a lot of spitting and wincing.

Big brothers also hold your hand in the back of the van so you won't be sad.

This unfortunately, is the only one that mommy didn't get a picture of (probably a good thing since I was driving). It also happened to be mommy's favorite of the bunch.

35 and 5

He's happy, because he got to eat steak, shrimp and brownies.

Conal, were you going for the mysteriously handsome look in this pic? Well, you are pretty hot what can I say?

She's happy because she got to go on the carousel (which also made her siblings happy because they got to join her,

and because she got to eat ice cream.

They are both happy because they got to eat some seriously chocolately chocolate cake. Oh and the ice cream for the second day in a row didn't hurt either.

I'm happy because I FINALLY figured out what an omnitrix is and actually found one to buy.

Yes, I know, that looks more like a toy for a boy. That is probably the reason that Garrison and Jackson keep begging Alexia to play with it. Even Hailey (who was the one who informed me that the omnitrix is for BOYS!) has asked to play with it. Don't even ask me what it does---I have no idea. I found it, Daddy can figure out what it does. Not that he would protest too much about that =)

Don't be too concerned about Alexia and her choice of toys though. Her only other request was a mermaid.

Luckily, aunt Mandi figured out that she wanted the Barbie mermaid because I wasn't sure what she was referring to. I guess I can only concentrate on one mystery toy at a time.

Wow, 5 years really came fast.

So did the fact that her hair is almost as long as her sister's.

You'll have to ask Conal if 35 came fast for him. I know that the (almost) 13 years that I've know him have flown by.

Happy Birthday to two of my favorite people! Love you guys!

They had a ball

The game is simple.

1.Jackson haphazardly throws the ball in the air.

2.Macy and Jackson make a run for it.

3. One of the two come up with the ball.
4. Macy hands the ball to Jackson so he can throw it again.

Of course we are talking about a 3 year old and a 1 year old so there are a couple of distractions. A piano break and a doggie break are a must.

But then we are back at it again.

We need to play this game more often. There was no fighting and no tears, everyone was still friends at the end of the game, nothing got broken, and everyone (including Mommy!) was happy at the end.

Sure beats the cleaning that I was considering sneaking off to do.

A clean house isn't everything. It only lasts 5 minutes anyway.