Gettin' Our Groove On

Not sure if we can say that we had any kind of "groove" but we did attempt some dancing at our ward conference activity last month. We had a good time and made fools of ourselves more times that youcan probably count. Isn't it great, though, to be old enough that you just don't care anymore? (That is my attempt at convincing myself that I don't care what other people think anymore. Dal will tell you differently, I'm trying really hard not to care though, and I think I have made tremendous progress!)



Last time we went home to IF, we raided the shop's basement for some of the old-school tuxes. We picked up a few for Dal, crammed them into our ridiculously full trunk and hauled them all the way back to Santa Maria. "What for?" you may ask. No clue! Luckily, though, our ward planned this dance and we knew that it was the perfect occasion to bust one of those bad boys out. The hard part was deciding between the baby blue tux, the lime green one or the cream one with brown trim. And don't even get me started on picking what color of shirt to put with each one. Anyhow, we finally decided on the following:

I am sure that you can imagine the reaction when we showed up that night. It was fun! I think this tux is magical too...it gave Dal some extra dancing skills for the night. He was going crazy! For those of you who have been dancing with Dal...he had an endless supply of his signature moves! Now we just need another reason to get out the other colors!

The Second Child

Kelsie wanted her own entry in the blog, so as a loving mother, I felt I had to oblige. I think I am in state of denial that she is getting so big too. What's up with all these kids growing?! Sometimes Dal and I just sit and watch her and are blown away by the things she is saying and doing.

She just got a new bike and wants to ride it everywhere. I love this picture...notice the tongue sticking out in concentration and the beautiful necklace she put on for her bike ride. (A girl's always got to look her best)



Dal and Tyson were at Tee Ball practice the other day and I was in the kitchen making dinner (how domestic of me, huh?) when I realized I hadn't heard anything from Kelsie in a while. This is usually not a good sign. When I went to look for her, this is what I found:

Apparently, she had been so exhausted that she had literally FALLEN asleep. I have no idea how or why she was in this position, but she must have been comfortable. How? I have no idea. I obviously grabbed the camera before I switched her to a position where she would still be able to move her neck when she woke up. What a good mom I am!

I'm Not Sure I Can Handle This...

So, yesterday, we were running some errands when Tyson announced that when he pushed his tongue against his tooth, it wiggled. I have to be honest, I just about cried right then and there! I know...ridiculous, but true! I told him he needs sto stop growing so he can still be my baby. He laughed. I wasn't kidding! I was hoping he was mistaken, but when we got out of the car, he showed me. Sure enough...it wiggled...a lot!

There was one glimmer of happiness from the whole ordeal though. When we got home, he pulled me aside and asked, very quietly (I'm not sure if he didn't want anybody else to hear or what), "When you were a kid and lost a tooth, were you still able to eat?" I quickly assured him that he could still eat and then smiled inside that he still needs his mommy for stuff like this! Hopefully when he is 16 and doesn't want to be seen with me in public, he will still ask me questions like that and I can smile inside and be reassured that he still needs his mommy!



Then, to make matters worse, while he and Kelsie were playing today, he comes running out of his room with a big grin on his face and a tiny tooth in his hand. It's official...he is no longer my baby. He's going to school and losing teeth. I might as well get the car gased up for him!

Yeah for Lindsay!

Yep...Linds and Nate are having a baby and we couldn't be happier! Congrats to them! Let me explain a little...whenever I talk to Lindsay, she points out that I am a slacker and have not updated my blog in a while (she puts it very nicely though). So, when I got done talking to her today, I thought I would make a post just for her!

For those of you unfamiliar (really...can't think of too many people who would be reading this that don't know who she is), Lindsay was one of my roommates at BYU. We met freshman year at Heritage Halls and stuck together from then on, until Dal broke us apart! Luckily for me, she looked past my incredible immaturity and selfishness and stayed friends with me all these years.

Now she is having a baby and I am so excited for her. I wish she were not clear across the country so I could throw her the baby shower she deserves (she has definitely put in her time with planning showers).

Anyway, gotta run now, but Congrats! Congrats! Congrats guys! We love you and miss you and are super excited for you!

Christmas in a NutShell

We had a great Christmas in Ojai this year with Mama and Papa Rigby, Jana, Dave and Zola. We drove down Christmas Eve and had to be back for church on Sunday, so it was a quick one, but we enjoyed every minute.

We got up early Christmas morning to sounds of the kids trying really hard to be good and quiet in their room. There were WAY too many presents this year (I don't know how that happens). Hopefully we can remember this next year, when we are shopping for too many things again.

Christmas dinner was done Santa Maria style with tri-tip and garlic bread, with Salmon and a few other things thrown in for good measure. Yummy!

We continued to eat way, way too much the whole weekend, but it was SO worth every bite. On a healthier note, the tangerines were DELICIOUS this year. I love this time of year when the tangerine tree is overflowing and we get to eat as many as we can handle. (I really need to be better about taking pictures to document stuff...this would be a great place for a picture of the tree...it really was FULL this year)

Here are some pictures of the festivities in no particular order (you know how I stink at this whole posting pictures in the right order thing!):

The next day we headed to Ventura for some serious thrifting. It was great...Grandpa watched Ty and Kelsie so that Dal and I could ride the bikes to Ventura. I have always wanted to do it, but never gotten around to it. It was a little on the cold side at first, but really fun. We, of course, let Jana and Dave ride back home (uphill) and drove back with Mama Rigby.

We love that we got to see the Lunts for a few days...Zola is a cutie! And love that we had Mama and Papa Rigby back this year for Christmas. We realized, more than usual, this year how incredibly blessed we really are. We are grateful for the innumerable blessings we receive every single day of our lives, including all the amazing people in our lives. What a great life we have!

Yep...still here!

Okay...so it has been pointed out to me (by many, many people) that I have neglected my blog for quite some time now. I know. I apologize and promise to do better. The holidays were extremely busy in the Rigby household and it is just barely calming down. To tell you the truth...I don't even have very many great pictures to show.

For Thanksgiving, we visited Shauna (Dal's sister) and Jeff and clan up in the Seattle area. We left with Papa Rigby the Wed. night before Thanksgiving and arrived Thursday night. We had a great Thanksgiving feast the next day! We had a great time seeing the sites and hanging out with the boys. We got to see Nick play basketball, Chase became Kelsie's best friend and Zack and Ty had fun playing. They were great hosts and were cracking us up the whole time.

To keep the peace in our family, I will not write about the ride home. Okay...I will just a little bit and hope Dal doesn't get on here and read for a while. It took us about 17 hours to drive up to the Cardon's house which was fairly enjoyable. We added an additional 10 (yes, that is a 1 and a 0) hours to the drive home so that we could see the Oregon coastline. Yes it was beautiful and it was cool to see the red woods, but we live by the ocean...pretty much the same as what we saw and the big trees weren't any where close to worth TEN additional hours in a cramped car. I will stop there because I don't want to say something I will regret. I was bratty and grumpy the whole second day of our drive home and I am not proud of that. It's a good thing that we had such a great time while we were there. I might think about doing it again (minus the Oregon coast).

Unfortunately, I forgot the pack the camera, so we have nothing. Jeff took some pictures on his phone for us, but I don't have them yet. Which reminds me...Jeff and Shauna, could you send us those pictures, please? Thanks!So this becomes a lame post due to the lack of pictures, which hopefully will be remedied soon. You all might be wishing you hadn't asked for me to post not, huh? To make up for it, I will include some random pictures of my cute kids...

A Little Different Post

Okay...so this post is not about my family. If you know me at all (which I assume you all do), you know that I LOVE to get a good deal. In my quest for free stuff, I read a lot of blogs. One of the things I have come across that I really like is SwagBucks.

Swagbucks is a search engine (just like Google), that randomly awards you points for performing searches. You can redeem your points for lots of different things. What I am planning to do, is use my points for Amazon.com gift certificates that I can use to buy Christmas presents.

I have been using Swagbucks as my search engine for a few months now and already have 175 swagbucks. You need 45 swagbucks for a $5 Amazon gift card. Not a HUGE return, but since I don't have to do anything (besides search the Internet...which I do anyway) in order to get those swagbucks, I like to think of it as free money. Who doesn't want free money?!

So, now, the shameless plug. If you are interested in trying it for yourselves (no pressure of course) you can do it through my referral link and then I get swagbucks when you get them. So not only do I get points for doing nothing extra...I get points for you doing nothing extra too. It is the epitome of laziness! You just have to click on the box on the top right of this blog. Or you can go to: http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/BiffanyRuth

I am not a big fan of multi-level anything, but I figured you all might want some free money. So check it out and try it. I don't even care if you use my link or not. Let me know if you have any questions and I probably won't have the answer, but I'll sure try. Good luck!

Fancy Nancy's got Nothing on Kelsie!

I know...some of you are beyond shocked that I have pictures up the same day as the party. To tell the truth, I am so tired that I don't really want to do anything, so I am using this as an excuse to sit at the computer and not stand on my aching feet any longer!

We had a GREAT time today with Kelsie's Fancy Nancy birthday party. All of her friends came in their fanciest attire and we beautified them even more when they got here. We had boas, beads, bracelets, rings, glitter and nail polish for everyone.

My sister-in-law, Tressa was here and was a life saver. We stayed up last night, after the kids were in bed, and decorated like crazy. I have never seen so much pink in my life.

When all the kids got here, we painted finger nails and added a little more fancy to everyone's outfits. Then we took portraits and had a fashion show. Next was lunch...we had pb&j on pink and purple bread, chocolate dipped strawberries, fruit pics and frappe. Yummy!

After lunch , they each got to decorate a frame that will hold their portraits. The girls were very cute and did a great job. There was a whole lot of glitter, bling and flowers going on. The whole thing was a raging success, thanks to a whole lot of help from Tressa and all the other moms who cane to party with us.

You have GOT to be kidding me!

Okay... so funny story. I do not write this blog to toot my own horn or anything of the sort. I just think it is hilarious, so I want to share with you all.

This year, we had a chili cook-off at the church for part of our Halloween party. Since I sign up for pretty much everything that gets put in front of me, I signed up for the contest. Don't think that I have ever made chili before in my life...'cause I haven't! I called Stan and my Dad to get their recipes and advice (Funny how you get VERY different advice from different people). I figured I would use their recipe, but it was a busy week and I didn't feel like going to all that much trouble. Saturday was crazy busy, so I came up with my own version of "chili" that was quick and easy and headed off to the church.

I am sure you can see where this is going, but it is my blog and I will drag out a story if I want to! I had no idea what my chili tasted like because I didn't feel like tasting it when I was making it. I tried to get Dal to do a taste test, but he didn't feel like it either. Oh well...I was just trying to provide some chili for the millions of people who would be there. Imagine my surprise when they called my name for the third place winner! Seriously...I was completely embarrassed to go up there and wanted to say, "You have GOT to be kidding me, right?!"

Since I figured I would offend somebody with such a comment, I just smiled, turned bright red and accepted my white ribbon and gift certificate to Chilis. Who would of thunk?!

And no...I don't think I could replicate what I did ever again. I have learned that a chili cookoff has nothing to do with skill and 100% to do with luck! I am sure that even the same judges would probably pick entirely different kinds if they were to do it again! Oh well...I will bask in my glory while I still can!

A Haunting Halloween...

Jack Rigby returned this year, looking pretty much the same as last year. (Ty has a very firm belief in how a jack-o-lantern should look.) Ty was the artist, Dal was the carver and Kelsie and I drew with markers on a different pumpkin (sorry...no picture).

I thought, for some strange reason, that a witch would be VERY appropriate for Kelsie's costume this year. Seriously, I just thought she would be a super cute witch...was I right? Luckily, she readily agreed and we practiced her witch laugh for a few weeks before the big day.

Grandma Rigby found a great karate outfit for Ty and he easily became Karate Kid! (No...he has not seen the movie, but he has seen a few clips and he LOVES the final fight scene from Karate Kid I where Daniel-son stands on one foot, crane style, and kicks the mean guy in the head. I'm not sure how I feel about how great he thought that was...such violence!)

I told Ty to show me his best Karate move and this is what he did. Awesome!

Kelsie, of course, wanted to do just what big brother did, so this is her picture: (I love that she tries to be like him. It drives Ty crazy sometimes, but I hope she keeps it up...too cute!)

Another Halloween come and gone...fun times, but I am glad it is over. By the way, we have planty of candy for anyone who wants some. Come on over and we would love to share!

Spooky Eats

I have always wanted to have a special Halloween dinner. Well, I finally did it this year, thanks to one of my new favorite blogs, http://theidearoom.blogspot.com/ I pretty much took all my good ideas from her site, so I can't take credit for anything. It was really fun. We had pumpkin- shaped bread bowls with corn chowder. How cute are these?

I made the most disgusting looking worms from Jello. They were very spooky, but way too much work...don't think I'll be doing these again! (besides, my kids are un-American or something and won't eat Jell-O!)

The chocolate covered pretzels were a family effort (thanks, Dal!). We made a bunch of these on Thursday and took them to a few friends and neighbors.

Since I knew my kids wouldn't eat corn chowder, even in a pumpkin bread bowl, I also made mummy dogs for them. They thought they were pretty cool, but of course insisted on wiping off the eyes first. Eeww...mustard!

I am excited to try new things next year. Halloween food is the best. Any good ideas?

Six?! Is that Possible?!

My baby boy is SIX YEARS OLD! I cannot believe it. I guess that means I really can't be 21 anymore, huh? This year's party was chaos...complete and utter chaos. I think it went well though. Once again, Becky helped me make a spectacular cake. Okay...let's be honest...she made the cake...I assisted. I did actually bake the cake, put a filling layer in and crumb coated it all by myself! Oh yeah...I was master boat shaper (rice crispy treats) and I made the sails for the ship. That is about it, though. I have to give credit to Becky for all the hard frosting stuff. I am getting good at helping her mix frosting colors. Do you think there is a career in that?

This was the first year where we had just kids at the party, instead of their whole families. I thought that would make it easier...less people, you know? Ha! Besides the fact that we invited 12 kids, their were fewer adults to help manage the chaos and help entertain. Luckily, I have some good friends who were able to stay and help. It really was a good time. We walked the plank, found hidden treasures, ate Pirate grub, made our own coins and searched for gold. What more could you want for a pirate party?

Not to mention the fact that I got to burn the edges of a bunch of stuff...invitations, signs, treasure maps, sails. Who knew that could be so much fun!

Oh yeah...this isn't the best picture, but look at the treasure chest behind Ty and Kelsie in this picture. I made that! Can you believe it? It was a really fun party to plan and I think Ty really liked it. (He better have or this may be the last!) Dal is trying to convince him that it would be more fun to just have one friend over next year on his birthday. We'll see how that goes. Now...time to plan Kelsie's party!

Is that really necessary?

Okay...so we like to have fun with Kelsie's hair...especially on Sunday mornings. I came across this website(http://www.princesshairstyles.com/) and have become a bit obsessed. I wish that Kelsie had longer hair so we could try more of the things, or that I had any hair skills whatsoever! We stick to the MOST basic hair styles we can find on the site and do them over and over and over. This one was just so stinkin' cute I had to take some pictures. Cute, huh?!

You can't see this one very well, but it is the EASIEST thing to do ever and looks super cute. You can look on the site to see a better picture. I think it is called a Cinderella style or something like that. How fun are cute little blonde haired blue eyed girls?!

Camping at Big Sur

Back in September we got together with Dal's cousins, Brant and Randy and their daughter, Lakin, and her husband for a little camping up at Big Sur. We have been wanting to go camping there since we moved to California, but hadn't quite made it for no reason at all. It is a beautiful area, right along the coast. Thanks to Brant, we finally made it up there for a couple of days.

The funny part about it was that when we planned the trip, the fact that Tyson would be in school didn't even cross my mind. I wasn't used to this whole have-to-be-somewhere thing that school creates. So, being Parents of the Year, we had him miss a day the second week of the new year. Oops. Oh well...it's kindergarten!

We got a great camp site (thanks again Brant!) that was just across the street from a beautiful beach. We walked down there both of the days and the kids played in the sand and water, Dal jumped off a big rock and I sat in my chair. Everyone was happy!

Our campsite was a little further south of the main part of Big Sur, so we headed up North one day to see what was there. We found this great stream where everyone was just sitting around on chairs in the river, eating ice cream, chatting and cooling off. It was great!

The kids absolutely love camping. They love going to bed in the tent, getting dirty, making fires, throwing rocks and dirt, swimming, eating smores and pretty much everything else that has to do with camping.

At the end of the day, Ty and Kelsie were both so tired that they just wanted to go to bed and we couldn't convince them to stay up and sit around the fire with us. No worries, though, we just had our s'mores after breakfast the next morning. I think I must be getting old, though, cause I just can't take chocolate in the morning like I used to. It is a sad day!

It was a great trip. We will definitely be heading back up that direction again!