hapilly ever after

New Shorts

2012-01-26T15:01:00.000-07:00

My friend had a swap at her house last night, I brought three boxes of stuff and was suppose to come home with nothing. Didn't happen, my husband didn't really expect it to happen, I doubt he even dreamed to hope. Instead I came home with 6 pairs of long shorts or capris that actually fit my waist. Now I'm dreaming about summer days so I can wear my new pants.
Ah, dreams....
Literally, I stayed until midnight talking with some of my great friends here. I needed that time. But now I'm super sleepy I'm just blogging, so the bright computer screen keeps me awake.
Because nothing is funnier than "then the cockroach went to the bathroom".
Ha ha, good thing is thursday I'm exhausted.

Another one

2012-01-25T10:33:00.002-07:00

Here's another.

Phyllis Diller, whoever that is, said, "Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing."
Then again, anyone who has been where there is a lot of snow, knows it is easier to shovel the drive while it is snowing the night before, then shovel again in the morning.

Clean

2012-01-24T16:49:00.001-07:00

I have looked a few design blogs over the course of the day. I actually have looked at quite a few which I wonder how I even had time between, getting ready for kindergarten, drop off, grocery shopping, library time, pick up, play dates, lunch, cleaning my house, watching dora (yes I watched 15 minutes of dora, and got in a 5 minute nap), trying to back and ruining mini cheesecakes, I've glanced at a lot of redos. (If I cook dinner and fold the laundry before bed, it will be a successful day.)
As I look at more and more, I think number one problem, I need to get rid of some stuff. My children have fairly cute rooms, but good luck noticing it under all their clutter. My son has a desperate need for stuff pilled everywhere. While my daughter apparently wants her room to look like a baby nursery that a tornado hit.
Plus as anyone who tries to clean with children knows "housekeeping is like stringing beads without a knot in the end". I cleaned my kitchen from top to bottom it was spotless nothing was out of place, two hours later... well that is a different story. Cleaning is overwhelming me right now. I have this desire not to buy my children toys until December. My son's birthday is all bought and paid for, so we could totally wait for December. Normally we get toys on Easter, but I want a swing set. Hmmm.... do I have the self-control not to buy a doll or a box of leogs? The last thing either of my children needs is more. Plus if I didn't waste money on toys, then we could buy more books, every child needs more books!

p.s. I know most of those design blogs of their diy project redos only look like that for the pictures, or they just don't have stuff.

One last thing, ever since we started kindergarten I keep thinking about my poor little new mother self six years ago. How things of changed, I don't think I could have ever fathomed doing so much each day as a stay at home mom, 5 years ago. (I never had time to think about anything of the sort until I graduated from college and became a stay at home mom.)

Found

2012-01-20T15:35:00.001-07:00

Over three years ago we mysteriously lost a beloved stuff animal. Valentine's Bear. It was a tragedy I was sure we would find we when we moved we didn't. For years he asked what happened to his bear, I never did know. But you'll never guess what happened, I was at goodwill in a different town today with a friend when I found valentine's bear. I had to buy it, it was old bunny's best friend for years.
My son actually did finally forget about the bear probably a year and half ago, but he was interested in the whole story and the pictures from when he was a baby with his bear. He loves the fact that he has a Valentine Birthday.

An aside

2012-01-19T09:09:00.000-07:00

I should comment, I see nothing wrong with mommy blogs, I read a fair amount. I just don't have it in me. I'm too wordy or something. My attempts just don't satisfy me so in my realization I am who I am, go with what I got. I just am giving up attempting it, because I don't feel like I fit. But like I said, I'm sure my kids will be on the blog, and our events, it just a travelogue overwhelms me, sometimes I want to post what we did and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I love my blog covered in pictures and sometimes I would rather delete my blog than post a single picture.

Where I am

2012-01-18T21:36:00.001-07:00

I was really annoyed at my blog, and dreading the thought of posting all those christmas pictures, I was already to go on sabbatical. Then I started writing this really long, nonsensical post about how I am not a mommy blogger, I liked it back in 2007 better. Yada Yada and I never posted it, but then I started writing lots of really long nonsensical pieces. I feel like myself again, and so that is where I am currently. Sure I'll post pictures of my kids, but I'm never very happy when I have a mommy blog, this blog was never suppose to be that, and in fact for over a year I barely ever mentioned my child thinking he didn't belong on the blog. Well now I'm a little more middle ground, but still this blog is about me, my journey living hapilly ever after, with my husband and kids not a paparazzi chronicle of my children.
This all being said a few weeks ago, I realized I am more content with myself then I have been in years, since high school really. That sounds odd huh? most people aren't content with themselves in high school. I was, middle school was a bad patch for me, I wasn't very nice, and a lot of other things we don't really need to hash out. Once I started high school, I realized there was no point in being a mean girl, and I did what I did and didn't care what anyone thought. I was full of self confidence, I had plenty of friends, but refused to play the popular games, and had no problem sitting at home on a friday night. I was full of self-confidence in high school, college pretty much killed me off though. I was great in classes, I felt confident with my study habits, my grads, the opinions I shared in my classes, the response my professors gave me but take me out of the classroom, and the social atmosphere at school almost killed me off, the super dark, dreary, LONG winters didn't help. I am prone to seasonal affective disorder.
But over the years I've been trying to get back to who I was. The person Brent fell in love with, he met me as an overconfident 18 year old, it was a gradual process of small town college life killing me slowly from the inside. Finally I realized I am back.
I've been trying to remember for years life is not a zero-sum game. Just because some is talent, beautiful, smart, funny etc doesn't mean I am an ugly stupid loser. Lately I realized I've achieved my knowledge that life is not a zero sum game.
Some women are better at caring for smaller children than me. Who cares! Not me anymore, I am who I am, I try my best, my children love me, my grandma thinks I'm cool, as does my mother, and the Lord gave me my children so he must have some level of trust for me. My children are pretty amazing people/challenging people so the Lord wouldn't have just given them to any mother.
Sure some people sew better than I do. Who cares, I enjoy it. Never did actually care about this.
Sure some people look different then me, apparently my husband thinks I'm hot.
Sure some people are shorter than me. Oh well, I dominate with my height.
Sure some people have amazing careers. But I don't want to miss my kids being little.
Sure some people's household incomes are more than ours, but also there are lots who have less.
Sure some people have bigger houses than ours or nicer. But life isn't about them, its about me being content. Not to mention if I broaden my scope, I have a mansion in comparison to 90% of the world.
List all this stuff, because in the past it would have bothered me, but honestly I can tell you non of it does now. I don't know if I just need more sunlight in my life or what.
I can honestly say, it has never been regularly sunny when I've fallen into depression.
Anyway, this is the reason my blog has returned to me. I've stopped worrying what people think. I stopped worrying who was reading my blog, and so now its back to me. We'll see how long my self confidence will last.
On a side note, I never once worried that someone had a better husband or marriage than me, or even wedding. I've always known my marriage is the best, and I have the best husband. Then again life is not a zero sum game, so I always hope and pray that everyone feel like that with their spouse. Life is too short to not enjoy your marriage, and wait on baited breath for the next moment you get to spend with your spouse. As a teenager I never wanted to grow up and get married, so at 20 when I decided to get married, I knew it was going to be the best thing ever, I wasn't going to settle for sub-par.

One last post

2012-01-17T21:59:00.001-07:00

Thanks to facebook, I learned that my relief society president read, The Truth About Epidurals. Well I had to read it. This lady's youngest is 15, and oldest is not yet married, if she was reading it, I needed to. That's not really true, epidurals and me have a love hate relationship. The stupid natural people always made me feel guilty, but I really need an epidural after multiple hours on pitocin. I stopped judging myself, so now I don't care one lick what big birthing hip women say. After hours of using natural child bearing technics I appreciate what my epidurals bring, like a second child who I could hold sitting the next day. As I waited for the doctors to discharge us the day after my daughter was born, I sat in the visitors chairs in my room, I didn't lay in bed. It was wonderful! Yes, I could sit the next day, and I totally blame that on my epidural, thank you.
I wanted to remember this part of the epidural article.

One study reported that women who request the drugs have smaller pelvises than women who do not, a characteristic that makes labor more of an ordeal and independently increases the chance that a doctor will have to operate. So just because epidurals are associated with C-sections does not mean that they cause them. Taking Excedrin is associated with crankiness, but last night’s open bar is your culprit, not your pain reliever.

One study reported women with smaller pelvises have more of an ordeal. Yes, I think my skinny little self would agree with that. My brother was in an anatomy class in college, when his professor said the idea of birthing hips is ridiculous, you can not tell the size of a woman's pelvis based on the size of her hips. I said, I guaranteed that by looking at the size of my hips no one would ague I could have a large pelvis. He agreed. This all being said, I am thankful so far I have not had to have a Cesarean, but I feel no guilt at having two epidurals, because all that pitocin is brutal. Nor would I feel guilt for a cesarean whatever it takes to have me and a baby healthy. That being said, I hope I never have to deal with a longer recovery.
By the way I should specify I have never been induced, my body started labor both times, and both times it sat at a 2 while having steady contracts for more hours than most of my friends are in labor. Pitocin is necessary, and I think I will say epidurals have been too.

Paint

2012-01-17T21:41:00.000-07:00

For MLK day we painted our Master room, I was so excited when my husband suggested it, I had been waiting months, picking out the most perfect gray I could find. Then dream upon dreams, they are discounting the line so our paint was half off, it only cost $26 to buy two gallons of Martha Stewart Paint. The price was so good, we also bought paint for my daughter's room. Unfortunately her room is still going to be pink, its just will be painted better and won't drive me crazy and won't have hole in the wall. Literally she had a hole the three inches in diameter until I patched it. Back to my Master bedroom, I love it so much now that is painted, every time we paint another room I love my house that much more.
Thanks to pinterest my gratitude has been a little greater lately. You see different crafts that say, "What if you woke up today with only what you thanked God for yesterday" multiple times and it starts to click in your brain, and your prayers get a little longer. Well one of the very frivolous blessings I realized a little while ago was how well my furniture matches. We are quite frugal, and the only furniture we have ever bought new was our mattresses, but not even our crib mattress it was a handme down. We also bought a broken bookcase new. Actually we have bought two computer desks over the years that have both been cheap. The only furniture we have ever bought new and spent more than a $100 on is our mattresses, but I can't even say beds, because we don't have fancy bed frames, we only have metal bed frames, and we have only bought one of those, the other two Brent's parents found for us.
So frugal, or cheap depending on who phrases it, or really smart and independent, since we have never had a furniture loan, or actually any loan other than our mortgage. I'm sure we could have bought furniture new at some point, but instead we sent my husband to college twice he now has two more stinking years of school then me. I jealous all the time, that he has a master's degree and I do not. (Maybe I should get one, online, who cares if its a lowly master's degree, I would have one, that's the point, we would be equal again. I can't have my husband thinking he's smarter than me!) I'm off topic though, I care a great deal about how our house looks. I clean it so it looks nice, I make crafts so it looks nice (at least in Brent and I's opinion.) I'm very superficial and have a nice home is very important to me. I don't need an expensive home or expensive furniture, but I need a nice and comely one. I don't need a trendy home with all the latests fashions, but I need a nice one. So here is where my blessing comes in, we have gone through a multitude of used couches over the years, and before you say we should have saved all that and just bought new one, you are wrong. The combined total of the couches in our current house is $60. Years ago we bought two couches for something like a $130, then sold them two years later because we were downsizing for $75, we have never spend anywhere near the price of a couch, I don't even know if IKEA couches are that cheap, but they definitely wouldn't last 5 years if we would have only spend $100, and it would have only been one couch, not five. So when you walk in my house, you might not like my style, but I'm proud of what it looks like, I've been very blessed all of the furniture in my living room matches quite nicely to my liking, and I feel like it is very neat and comely, even if my couches are super old, they match quite nicely with everything else, and they do have clean (modern maybe) slip covers on.
Not to mention I've had a few complements the first time someone stops by the house on how cute my house is. I like people here, well females here, they tell me how cute everything I do is.

Romance is not Dead

2012-01-17T21:12:00.001-07:00

Brent and I spent a lot of our courtship chatting online. I say courtship to sound really old, no in actuality, we spent the whole school year chatting online for hours each day with each other before we ever started dating. Back in the days of us both telling the other I don't want to date you. I guess when you spend 3+ hours a day talking to a member of the opposite sex who agrees with your political views, and who you discuss future parenting methods with, such as to homeschool or not to homeschool, you need to specify that you are not dating.

But then we did start dating, and we did our homework together, and we chatting online together while we sat next to each other, him on his desktop me on my laptop not talking in person because well who doesn't think chatting online while sitting really close isn't romantic?!

But to get to the point, since he is an IT guy we still chat online usually daily. I want to prove the romance is not dead. Here is an excerpt of our conversation.

Brent: will you do me a favor?

me: what?

Brent: go to ipchicken.com and tell me the ip address?

me: __.___.___.____

Brent: it changed when I unplugged the dsl modem so I can't access it anymore

thanks

me: I thought you were going to ask me to be amazing, and I was going to say done

Sent at 2:46 PM on Tuesday

Brent: I knew that I didn't need to ask you that

I already knew you were amazing

Sent at 2:48 PM on Tuesday

Brent: but you should feel pretty proud, I wouldn't just ask any woman to go to ipchicken.com for me

Ah yes, is that isn't romantic than shoot me now, because I might make the barfing gagging noise you make in middle school if he tries anything more romantic than that.

One last thought, 10 bucks says I get in trouble for this post, but not for the reasons most of you think. Since I already know why I'm getting in trouble, I'll really get in trouble.

Taller

2012-01-15T18:33:00.002-07:00

In church my son attends his sunday school class with a girl that is about four inches taller than the next kid. Apparently my son's 19 year old teacher told them, that one day he would be taller than this girl. He proudly told me this, I guess I could have left it at that. But instead I crashed his dreams, played the realist in me. Its who I am, I have a hard time turning it off. I told him, maybe not, her mom is taller than your dad. This little girl's dad is probably 6'6" while I guess the mom is a good 6'. So yeah, sorry to burst your bubble child of mine, but odds are no, you won't be taller than her, neither of your parents thankfully hit 6 feet. Your parents are taller than average but not in our church. I'm pretty sure the average height of an adult male who is mormon in america is a good four inches taller than the average male in america.

School District

2012-01-12T17:41:00.003-07:00

First off, I think we have a great house so don't think I'm being ungrateful. But we could have bought a better house, somewhere else in the area, or we could have bought a cheaper house, that was just as nice as ours in our metropolitan area. But I wanted to move to this school district. To provide my house price and property taxes are not in vain. Here is what I recently read about our district for 2011.
*Our CSAP (state standardized test) scores for the state were  in the top six!
*Our district is the only one in  Colorado to be honored by the  College Board with placement on the  Advanced Placement (AP)  Achievement List. Only the top 2% of school districts in the country receive this award. This is our second year to be honored.
*Our district has four schools that received the John Irwin Schools of  Excellence Award for high academic achievement and growth.
That being said I only have a kindergarten so none of that effects us right now. But you know me I love where we live, I would be happy if I stayed here for the rest of my life.
If I'm good at budgeting, and willing to vacation to South America there is a good chance my husband will let me stay here for our whole life.
Our school districts are independent, from what I've seen in my short life, large unified school districts are not where I want to be. Small independent is where it is at. There are quite a few good districts in our area, but I like ours the best that is why I picked. Although I don't think people really have to be in the best to succeed, but my son is so precocious I felt it was necessary to pick this district.

Pictures

2012-01-10T20:34:00.000-07:00

Around the time I potty trained my daughter I stopped taking pictures of my children. I didn't mean to, it just happened. We (as a couple) use to take on average about 700 digital pictures a month, lately we are down to 300. The only thing I can come up with is I'm so trilled I don't have a diaper bag anymore I forget the camera since its so nice to be so light. I know the camera weighs practically nothing. I don't know what it is, but something happened. Always forget it. Maybe I'm trying to live in the moment instead of behind a lens, who knows.
I rarely carry snacks either, its wonderful. Unless we are going to the park to meet friends, I figure my children can survive two hours without snacks. Which they can. Although at this altitude it is sure is nice to remember a water bottle, unfortunately I rarely do, so my children and I must hunt for the water fountain. Something about errands that make my children parched.
We also do not eat snacks during church (although their primary teachers are nicer teachers than me and give snacks). Even though we are snackless, we are not waterless, I figure if I keep a water bottle with the notebooks and crayons, then there is no reason to leave other than a potty break. I like that. I like that a lot.

Great Post

2012-01-07T10:49:00.001-07:00

A friend of mine posted this link on Facebook,

2011 Lesson #2 : Don’t Carpe Diem

its from momastery.com

I loved the post and wanted to share it.

I understand why people are nostalgic about when their kids were little, I mean my kids aren't even that old and I get nostalgic about about little baby chicken legs, or oneses, or past halloween costumes, but I really can't stand some of the "well meaning comments" people give. I can't stand being in church, when women who have no small children, and their adult children have not provided grandchildren yet, say things like oh you will miss everything. Really everything, even the sticky hands, vomit, and being woken up at night. Yes, everything, you will miss it all, sticky hands and all. I was in a Church meeting exactly like that, with my mom. Afterward I said seriously mom, these women miss everything, sticky hands and everything? She said no, Lesli they don't miss everything, they don't have grandchildren, no body misses everything.

I appreciated the post. Sometimes its nice to have permission to hate the miserable parties. I honestly don't often the day to day, everyday with very small children, the crumbs, the wet panties, the shopping with small kids but I do love all the memories, because human memory is so perfect in its imperfection of omitting the misery.

Last Post before I download Texas christmas from my camera

2012-01-01T17:30:00.001-07:00

One of my favorite parts of the holidays with kids is how the arrange nativities. Of course I arrange them properly and then wonder who keeps messing it all up. But then I notice its always arranged in the same way. All the Mary's in one pile, all the Joseph's in another pile, then the babies together.

I forgot to the document the last shot I wanted, a few days later my son added another nativity into the mix with everyone forming a circle around the baby. Sure its not how an adult would do it, but I thought it was so sweet, and much more realistic.
At my mom's there was a nativity that my niece could reach, but wasn't actually suppose to play with. It was very cute, because she turned around the wisemen so they were facing the baby.

Castle Part Two or I should have posted this two weeks ago

2012-01-01T17:23:00.001-07:00

Remember my husband's castle. We one day after we visited it again, my son built a castle at our house. Since I teach Joy School I had been saving "good stuff" in a box, ie old boxes and egg cartons, in preschool we built a tower taller than the girls as part of the lesson. The good stuff was still in the house, and J had a blast building for a day or so with it. Here is the castle modeled after his dad's.

Seven

2011-12-30T16:18:00.000-07:00

We have now been married for seven years.
Which is weird when you think about it, that is as long as middle and high school took. Those seemed like they took a painful eternity, while seven years of marriage has gone by in a blink of an eye. I use to wonder how anyone could choose to get married, how would you know you wanted to spend an eternity with anyone?! A few months later I knew I was going to marry Brent, thinking I would regret it forever if I ever lost him. Now I realize an eternity won't be long enough with Brent.

Let me tell you about our grand anniversary plans. Oh wait we don't have any.
Its five days after christmas, and a day before news years, let me assure you we have no grand plans.
Our tradition has been to go out to dinner or a movie with whatever gift certificate we got for christmas, while we have free babysitting. Oh it was a dream really, but seriously I know of no one who has grand anniversary plans if they were married at christmas time. (I actually really appreciate all those gift cards, because there were a few years we literally were too poor to afford a date. Many years where we spent a total of $20 on christmas presents on our child, and after going in on group presents for parents, and me making presents for siblings, we literally had nothing left in the bank account that wasn't going to our tuition in a few weeks.)
Now that we actually have babysitters, go out here, and cash, I thought we need something more this year. Yeah it was pathetic but ok in previous years because it was one of like seriously four dates the whole year, including going to the temple together (we don't always go together). Plus no money. This year was going to be different, so I started brainstorming ideas. Some of my siblings have family anniversary parties, as in a party with their kids of when the family started. I thought that's a good idea maybe we should do that, but then I realized the last thing I was going to do is throw another party five days after christmas.
Then I was back to just Brent and I ideas. A friend who's anniversary was three days ago, said she wants to start celebrating when they got engaged instead because they don't even go out to eat on their anniversary. When I thought about it, that was a no go. We got engaged on my birthday, I love my husband, I love our marriage, but I'm not giving up MY birthday for us.
I don't remember when we actually started dating, so that is a no go.
We never had a DYR talk, so we can't celebrate when we were officially dating.
Although we did have a define your date talk. I was positive Brent and I were just friends, so we were friends hanging out, he assured me dinner and movie is a date. I didn't believe him, but I don't remember the calendar date of that.
But I do remember we finally kissed fourth of july weekend. I thought we could celebrate then. But once again that is a holiday, and clearly my anniversary is the lowest common denominator in holidays.
We don't even do anything special for Valentine's day. Its my husband's birthday, then my son's two days later.
Yes, Happy Anniversary me and hubby.
Congrats to us because we can't find the time in the year to ever go on a special date.
That being said, neither of us are romantics, my husband doesn't like big celebrations, and if you knew the story of how we got engaged you wouldn't expect anything different then what we are doing for our Seventh Wedding anniversary.

Actually, what to know how I'm planning to spend it?
Buying a new handmixer, after 7 years I burned out the motor in one of the wedding presents we use the most.
I'm also shopping for a new iron, so apparently 7 years is when your wedding presents wear out.

Here are my real anniversary plans. Forcing my husband to write me a love letter. I recently read in Martha or somewhere about how a couple exchanges love letters because that is really the only thing you can give that no one else can give. When I told him of my plans he said what? I said we use to write love letters... ok maybe texts. Then I thought about it I remembered a few love notes he had given me that didn't occur on a cell phone. So I know he can do it. This is actually a tradition for holidays, forcing him to made me cards.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T12:53:00.000-07:00

Hope you are enjoying your Christmas, and even getting fitting some religious thoughts into the day.

This was the primary picture in our Christmas card. I wanted a picture of us in front of our house with snow. All the bushes are dormant, and we needed snow to cover up all the twigs poking out of the rocks. It snowed a couple times in October, so I thought no problem. Then it didn't snow a single day in November! I was getting worried, then finally December hit and it snowed, but then I started to chicken out. Luckily my husband kept my dreams alive, he set up his camera with a timer across the street. Not the most amazing pictures, but perfectly great for a family christmas card. I think My kids are absolutely adorable, but I wonder why my husband and I aren't as photogenic. Just so you know I did plan out what we were wearing and I know layers are all fashionable in photos, but we actually don't have any props in the photo other than my daughter's hair clip, we were freezing! The gloves, hats, boots all necessary. I know the kids wished they had snow pants on so they could actually played. I wish I would have had a hat over my ears, but I didn't really want to sport that look in the picture.
Great thing is when we finally paint the outside of our house, we can do this picture all over again!
In case you wanted to know what our house looks like, imagine the picture going to the left with a three car garage. Ah all the painting dreams I have for this house, number one being the door. The door looks all wrong in my opinion.

Lonely Little Christmas Tree

2011-12-24T15:24:00.000-07:00

Neither Brent or I felt like investing in a larger tree this year.

Ahh, my kids before church in their cute christmas outfits. Ok, I bought J nothing new, why would I. He likes black pants, and a white shirt, because that is what he dad likes. No khakis for my men, for whatever reason. J almost wore a red tie, but then he chickened out, who can blame him.

This picture was actually not posed. We know what Christmas is all about in our house.

I have a three year old.

2011-12-20T18:49:00.003-07:00

The night of her birthday we had a family party with dad, and grandmas knew exactly what she wanted Dolls!

Here she is helping big baby walk.

While the other grandma made her a J and N dolls. She loves playing pretend, with her brother and her doll. She was so happy to have her very own grandma special dolls.

She got the doll carrier and backpack from me.

We ate the butterfly cake with dad, and the girls had cupcakes at the party.

But then they wanted the cake so bad, that we shared some more with them at preschool the next day for snack.
I can't believe I have a three year old daughter. She says the funniest things, and is definitely not a baby.
Like last night she said, good night mom, love you, NOW leave, pointing to the door.
She is trying really hard not to suck her thumb during the day after the dentist asked her not to.
She always says, well actually... then follows up with any old thing.
For example, well actually I want chex for breakfast.

Third Year Party

2011-12-20T18:28:00.003-07:00

One of the sad parts of moving this year is we no longer have family around. Last year at my daughter's birthday our apartment was filled to the brim with relatives and it was wonderful, including our immediate family I think we had 18 people over. It seemed so lonely only to have three family members for my daughter's party. So we invited her four preschool friends, and two older siblings, the afternoon of her party. J needed a friend anyway.

We had a butterfly/hello kitty party. Back in October I bought dollar store wings for all the girls. Then I made butterfly wands for them. The party started with a dance party.

Then free play, then we played caterpillar, caterpillar, caterpillar, butterfly.

Then presents.

Then cake.

I originally liked the plan of only having friend parties on even years. But we haven't ever followed that plan, we just love parties too much. I doubt we ever will.

The Nativity

2011-12-19T16:10:00.001-07:00

Nan is JoySchool, and since it is not a government run school, the Christmas party was all about religion. The girls performed the First Christmas, and now Nan completely relates to the story of Jesus's birth, and gets who is who. She is in class with five girls, we decided the play would work well with 6 people instead so an older sister played the role of Joseph.

Here is the Angel talking to Mary.

Here is one of the Inn Keepers telling them no room. We had two more inn keepers who then turned into Shepherd.

Mary and Joseph laying down the baby.

The third inn keeper, turned into the wise man. A hot pink, queen, wiseman, with a camel, saw the start in the east.

Her face goes rashy from sucking her thumb.

Singing Jingle Bells. My three old new favorite song, because they sing it at her school.
Don't mind that this is the only picture with the other two innkeepers or the Shepherds, they weren't too big into acting, and my husband was taking pictures, because I was the audio specialist.

Santa and Dinners

2011-12-19T15:16:00.000-07:00

Our school had pizza with santa. For $15 we got a whole pizza, salad, juice boxes, cake and two crafts for the kids to do. The kids loved it, but Santa was more disappointing than a ward party santa, but my sweet 5 year old didn't mind, or notice. He was trilled to find out that he wasn't on the Naughty List, and reminded me of that for a week. I would have rather spent more money on the night and had a nicer looking santa. I got purposely took the picture so you wouldn't notice, that Santa looked like they picked up a homeless man.

My daughter was terrified of Santa, so she didn't want to join in the fun of Santa, but loved the rest of the night. We could have also seen the Grinch, but he was even more terrifying than Santa, to both kids.

Then the following week went to the church party and saw Santa again. It was great, I accidentally poked J in the face right before his turn, and once again we had a terrified daughter.

I believe that is also our community Santa. Our small town does their own Toy for Tots, where the police department, fire, and local school collect toys, then Santa has commissioned our Chief of Police to deliver the toys. We go to church with the Chief. Every year I want to buy toys for my kids to give to charity, and never do, this year I finally did. J totally got it, Nan was very sad to see the huge box of toys and walk away from it. We talked about sharing, and the importance of giving to those who need help. J told me for a few days how happy he was to share. At one point I thought why don't I just drop the toys in the box for toys for tots and save me the hassle. But I like to start on community level first and go up for there, I wanted to help my community be self sufficient, plus I think it made more sense to the kids to not drop the toys of at the store we bought them.

Book of Mormon

2011-12-19T08:31:00.000-07:00

My husband and I read the Book of Mormon together every night. Sometimes a chapter sometimes less. It seems it always takes us to a year to finish it, I know this because every December we end up in Third Nephi, and it is perfect! Reading about Christmas in the Americas, two thousand years ago, and the Christ visiting the Americas.
Except this year, we spent two months apart, we are two months behind, we are in the middle of Alma not, Third Nephi. I'm sad.

Post Thanksgiving

2011-12-15T16:42:00.001-07:00

Then my sister came after my mom came. It has been a long time since we've actually spent time together instead of in the middle of all the other family events so it was a lot of fun. Except we were really tired, because we had just spent thanksgiving with other family. We didn't do anything other than sit around and talk. My life is so busy it was nice to have three days to sit around.

The best part is my sister's kids are respectively a year and half younger than my kids, except they are the same size as my kids.

The older cousin spent the morning playing with Nan then the afternoon playing with J. It worked out well, and Nan did a fairly good job sharing dolls with the younger cousin.

Yeah, in case that got confusing. My son is about to turn 6, my oldest niece just turned 4, (but the same size almost) my daughter just turned 3, and my younger niece is like 20 months (once again almost the same size). Ha Ha, I have teeny kids. Well my daughter is teeny, but my son is about average. Sure there are kids about 6 inches taller than him, now that he is 6, but there is a good third of the class shorter than him.

Working Hard?

2011-12-15T16:27:00.004-07:00

Back in November Brent got a bunch of propaganda cards from his employer when they changed company names AGAIN. He collected everyone's cards in his office and built this castle. According to him, he got an email from HR or someone with some people creations that put his to shame. He also said his team that he manages in SLC made way cooler stuff. Although he didn't have anyone interested in helping at his office so....

I was surprised at how big it was in real life. I thought those cards were business card size, but they actually two credit cards next to each.

When we went to go see it in person, the kids thought there dad was the coolest person in the world, which of course he is. I wish I took a picture of them by it, so you could get a picture of how big it actually is.

Then a few weeks later, the cleaning person accidentally crushed the front.

Thanksgiving

2011-12-15T16:10:00.002-07:00

My parents came out for the week of thanksgiving. It was real great, and they brought me my childhood, it was my dad's dream come true. Along with a dining room table, 6 chairs and four bookcases. It was great. But I was a lame daughter and didn't take pictures. For the actual dinner we also invited a neighbor family. Maybe after christmas I'll get on their iphones and email myself the pictures they took.

These two kids are funny.

Every day Grandpa shared his grapefruit with his grandchildren. They loved it.

Hike a month ago

2011-12-15T15:47:00.001-07:00

I'm behind on my blog and have a desire to catch up. In the beginning of November we went hiking with a guy Brent met at webelos training and the guy's family. The live on the side of the mountain, we left from their backyard to start the hike. It is great where they live except the sunsets at 11:30 am during the winter. When they said that I thought better you than me. There was quite a bit of snow and ice during our hike.

This was the easy part of the hike.

It was very cold by the lake. In the background is pikes peak but all the snow is making it disappear in the setting sun. It was so windy by our house, trampolines were being blown over, our one piece of lawn furniture blew over, our neighbor had a different neighbors porch swing mattress in their grass, etc so I wore glasses thinking the wind would dry out my contacts so much they would just pop right out. Plus when its high wind advisory there is a lot of dirt in the air to blow onto my contacts. But other than when we were on the lake it wasn't windy a single moment during the hike.

Once we got back on the trail the sun disappeared behind the mountain.

Nan cried pretty much the whole four hours, I think the other couple was glad their kids are older than three. She loves the outdoors, she was just being her.

A view from the mountain the live on, although of course they don't live this high up.

Where is the Meat?

2011-12-14T19:50:00.002-07:00

I know the holidays are suppose to be all about being thankful, sharing what you have, and the joy of giving. But all I can think is where is the meat?!
In past years my husband's employer gave us a coupon for a free turkey.
This year nada.
We were watching TV where the boss was giving up free hams. All I could think of is where is my meat?
I'm truly upset about my lack of free meat!

Hutch

2011-12-12T10:35:00.001-07:00

We have a hutch in our dining room/kitchen. We are trilled. Our friend gave it to us. We need to do a few little improvements to it, but other than that. It really nice cabinetry. (Our dinning room, is technically a dining room, but its not a formal dining room, its completely open next to the kitchen.)

By the way I put my willow tree figurines inside the wine rack which we will not be filling with wine, and Brent thought it was so funny, I kept it. I'll eventually get bored of them in there and move them.

Accepting Foreboding

2011-12-09T22:16:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago my son mentioned something about a mission, or someone did, which then promoted my son to spill his standard response of, "I want to go where the Lord wants me to go". I then turned to Nan and asked/suggested, "when you grow up you can go on a mission too". She exclaimed "yeah!" Then I felt sad, that she wouldn't have a mission plaque of her mom's in her room as an example to her.
You may recall I've already mentioned my great desire to go on a mission, and yet my life directing me onto an equally good but different path.
I've sort of felt forlorn for a few weeks when I thought about missionary service. It didn't help when I saw the man who I recently heard say, "All five of my children served missions, even my daughter." When I first heard that, I was definitely not filled with charity, because I thought, whoppty do, not of of us GET to serve missions.
I've been trying to repent of my pride and move on. Then I realized the Lord understands our lives infinitely more than we ever could, and if he didn't think I needed to go on a mission at 21, then I didn't need to go. I kept thinking to myself, accept the life he gave you a move on. Finally I was able to.
I realized having a mother that served a mission will not be the defining factor in Nan's life. Not to mention I hardly want her to serve if the Lord hasn't told her to serve. The point I want to teach my daughter, is pray and listen to the Lord, and he will direct you for good. Be prepared for the future so you are ready to make covenants with the Lord, no matter what age or reason. Once you have made covenants, live up to your covenants. I can teach my daughter that whether I have a plaque on the wall on not with a picture of me at 21. (Notice how I don't care if she is making those covenants for marriage, a mission, or just because its time.)

P.S. We all can learn a lesson from my being offended up above. Honestly, sure be well pleased in your heart that all your kids went on mission, or in your journal, or in your home. But honestly do you have to get up and tell the whole ward how awesome you are? I love relief society and relief society lessons, but I dread the moment missionary work comes up and the teachers asks the sisters to raise their hand if they served a mission. Don't ask for a raise of hands, no matter if you are teaching sisters or brothers, because I assume men who didn't serve a mission despise the raising of hands even more than me. Sure ask for someone to share a story from the mission if you want, but don't expect me to bow down because someone had a different life experience than me, just like I don't expect special treatment that I gave birth to another human. (Unless its my husband.) When I use to be in classes where they asked for a raise of hands if your were a missionary, I use to look around like I was the dorky kid in school wishing I had friends. Then I started looking at my lap, because I didn't want to be annoyed at the teacher.

P.P.S. I knew a very bizarre girl when I was a freshman. We won't get into her personality, other than to say she was very prideful in her desire to be righteous, even with that she taught me two important lessons. Once when she asked me my major. I told her I was political science. She told me oh cool... I have an aunt on the state legislature. Her children hate her, she is never around. It was quite bizarre, and not at all uplifting, I had no idea what to do with that piece of information. Then I realized I can achieve anything I want, and be great in what I choose, but if I give up my kids I give up my kids, and I never get that time back. (I later learned that state had an amateur legislature which means her aunt was only in session for three months a year, her political office was not the reason her kids hated her, it might have added, but it was not the reason.)
Second thing she taught me was when she took a missionary prep institute class. I asked her why, since I knew she wanted to get married before she was 21, totally assuming she was looking for missionaries to write to on their missions. She said, just because I plan on being married before 21, doesn't mean I can't plan for my mission when I'm a senior couple with my husband. Although I don't agree with her philosophy of planning to get married before 21, I appreciate the idea of preparing for my first mission with Brent one day.

P.P.P.S I know, I know we are also suppose to be member missionaries.

Three

2011-12-09T11:20:00.001-07:00

My wee one is about the turn three, and with this passage of time I feel a twinge of sorrow. To me the third birthday means they are longer babies. Its the first birthday that they have that I'm not longer changing their diapers so they aren't babies. J was clearly not a baby on his third birthday because he had a two month old baby sister. While Nan, she is still our baby, because no one has replaced her but yet she isn't because she isn't diapers. Its all so confusing to my mind. But yet the Lord must know what he is doing. So if she is still the youngest in the family at her third birthday then it must be ok.

Live Nativity

2011-12-03T22:52:00.001-07:00

Tonight we went to a Creche Exhibit, and watched a live Nativity outside. It was freezing, literally, it had snowed all day, so you can imagine how cold it was 2 hours after sunset. There were metal chairs to sit in but we preferred to stand than to freeze in our seats. I held the girl, I figured she would keep me warm, plus she was cold so it was comforting to her. She held her mitten hand on my nose to keep it warm, since my hand were holding her up. The other patrons around us probably weren't so happy but I explained what we were watching to her. In five days she preforms a nativity with her preschool class, so it was a double bonus. When Mary lifted the baby Jesus into the Manager, my almost three year old said, "Baby Jesus going to be cold, he need another banky (blanket).
I wanted to die laughing, but since it was so cold, I barely chuckled. She is a very conscientious mother. She knew you can not have a newborn baby outside with just one blanket on him, with his bare head out in the elements. She knows if mama, has a hat on and mitten, the baby should be wrapped up good! Luckily the baby was a doll.

Speaking of mothering. The other day we were at my friend's house. She has five children the youngest being 6 months old. Since he is baby number 5 she was totally ok with Nan mothering him. He was in his exersaucer and crying. Nan would go over, pull his fist out of him mouth and hold his pacifier there until he calmed down. Then treasure of treasures my friend let Nan hold the baby as long as she wanted. (I helped of course.) I could tell he was number 5, because the mom was not concerned in the slightest.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure next child born into our family will be smothered more by Nan than me.

Wrapping

2011-12-03T14:48:00.001-07:00

Remember how I talked about wrapping paper, and how I hate to buy it? Well I have spent the last month trying to decided where I stand. I didn't want to buy wrapping paper, but is that because I'm lame, cheap and ghetto or because I care about the environment? I decided it was the first and so I went to buy wrapping paper. But I couldn't. I went to multiple stores, and never could do it, all I think about was how messed up and commercialized Christmas in America is. I love Christmas but I don't think it has to be over the top. Everytime I tried to pick up a roll of wrapping paper I thought about it sitting in land fills, sure paper is biodegradability but seriously is anything in a land fill? I thought about all the resources that are used to make paper. Especially all the fossil fuels and chemicals to make white paper on one side, and brightly colored paper on the other. I couldn't buy it, I just couldn't. Sure I do plenty of things that are terrible for the environment, but wrapping presents in bleached and dyed paper, was just one thing I couldn't do. Meat yes, wrapping paper no. It turns out it wasn't money at all, you can get wrapping paper for a $1, but I still couldn't do it. So we wrapped presents is left over craft paper, and construction paper scraps.

But then I felt bad, my kids wouldn't have colorful birthday presents. I kept seeing my daughter's birthday present from Grandma. It made me feel bad that their children's mom was a basket case. So I figured out the line I wanted to walk. Birthday presents can be in colored paper, but I wouldn't buy christmas paper.
I felt good, I made my peace.
Then imagine my surprise when I found craft paper with gold stars on it! I felt that was totally ligit. Even though the stars are made by dye as is the ribbon. I was trying.
I can't give up the Christmas baby theme, so I bought christmas paper with pink in it, for my daughter's birthday, which could double as paper for cousin presents. I felt like this was all legal with my brain. I am currently storing my daughter's birthday presents under the tree. So it looks like I'm not actually following my rules of no wrapping paper.
BUT! I love the look of brown paper packages tied up with... ribbon. Although maybe I should switch to string next year. Look how pretty!

So yes, my tree looks like its not following the rules, but is, those are my daughter's birthday presents.
Speaking of birthday presents, my daughter has WAY too many, because I made them all, so I just couldn't resist, since it didn't cost much.

Now, you are 100% sure that I'm nuts, so lefts continue--
My tree. Brent and I have been adamant that we weren't going to buy a full size tree until we were in a house. Well now we are, and we don't have one, but we only want to buy a clearance one. So I put up our four feet tree. I felt pathetic as a mom. But then it was up and the kids had a blast covering it ornaments. Which is why it looks like it does. Plus its on a table so it doesn't look so short, and the table is covered in christmas. And now part of me never wants a full size tree, because this one is so easy! And simple, I think christmas should be easy-- non stressful. We will eventually get a full size tree, but who knows when. I won't be torn up if its not this year. Right now the only reason I would get a full size tree is because we have enough ornaments for a full size tree.

Siblings

2011-11-23T08:12:00.001-07:00

The other day my five year old told, "Mom there are kids in my kindergarten class that have little brothers that look just like them." I forlornly replied, "yes" not knowing what else to say.
What I thought was, yes, genetics are amazing, aren't they? But yet them seem semi-broken in our family.

Buzz Kill

2011-11-20T20:42:00.001-07:00

I'm apologizing ahead of time for being such a downer.
Even though I love thanksgiving, and never put up Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving, I have to be honest. The food is not really my favorite. After years I've trying to convince myself otherwise I don't like stuffing. I would much rather eat a ham instead of a turkey, and I know people love pie, but I don't.
I don't like pie crust, unless its made with cookie crumbs.
I LOVE desserts that I like but yet pie crust is low on the list.
The worst desserts in my opinion have coconut flakes on them/ in them.
Second worst has nuts.
Third is pie crust I'm sorry. This all being said, I LOVE pie made with cookie crumbs. I need to find some great cookie crumb pie crust recipes.
That all being said, Edward's Chocolate Creme Pie is one of my favorite things in the world. I almost thought about buying one for thanksgiving but then I realized I didn't really want to share it. I'll pick one up on black friday and eat it alone. I love that they are only $4.75. They are the best frozen, no need to thaw.

Clean

2011-11-19T14:00:00.001-07:00

Well my whole house is clean, which is no small feat with two small children. All the bathrooms, all the carpets vacuumed, everything. The kitchen floor swept. Yet company doesn't come until Tuesday. With two small children you can guess what we will be doing Tuesday morning, yes.... cleaning.
That being said, with our new extra added space of 833 sq ft, I've been trying to teach my children how to clean their own toys up. We are really making progress, they can't really finish themselves, they start to wane but they can start on their own and get about 50% there. Which is alright by me! Ok, sure I will they did a 100% without me, but I'm pleased with the progress we've made over the past 6 months, because they use to do about 2% without me.

Lets take a quick detour at the end of this post.
The house we rented when Nan was born was 1,850 sq ft. To pay for Brent's MBA without loans we moved into a 1200 sq ft apartment for 22 months. Now our house is 2,033 sq ft.

My favorite

2011-11-18T16:30:00.001-07:00

Can I tell you one of my favorite memories? I think I already wrote this blog post a few years ago, but I must recall it again, because I love it so much. Although there is a good chance my husband won't be pleased I shared it.
Years ago when parents out numbered children in our family, we were driving down 12th south in Ogden something we did at least monthly and my husband sang along with Morrissey and completely mimicking him. It was awesome. Sometimes I ask him to do it again, and he tries to hid his smile as he denies me.

Activity

2011-11-17T21:24:00.001-07:00

I have recently read the secret to a great looking kitchen is not a expensive renovation but empty counters. What can you take off the counter that is currently being stored. I worked a little organizing magic, and now my spices fit in the cabinets. Not only that I emptied two drawers, which is no small feat since I only have four, and now the big full crock of giant spoons and what not is gone, and they all fit in one of the no longer empty drawers. The best part is they are right, my kitchen is amazing right now. In fact the counters are a mess, because I was at a relief society activity instead of cleaning, and they still look amazing, because I got two bulky clutterly looking items off the counters. Now to fix our microwave so we don't have two microwaves in the kitchen, and get one off the counters.

The relief society activity was watching 17 Miracles. You know that movie about the Willy Martin Handcart Company. I didn't really know what if I wanted to go, I have been in Primary since week two in this ward, I really don't know a lot of people, but I ended up going. Mostly because three months ago my Visiting Teacher mentioned she when she was serving in primary she tried very hard to attend lots of Relief Society activities so she still felt apart of the Relief Society. That gnawed in the back of my head, and I went. Not to mention I knew my mom really wanted me to see the movie.
I took two things out of the movie.
1. The girl next to me said, it makes me want to get more food storage. I thought true true, we have great intentions now that we are settled, but few actions. I need to get with the picture.
2. In the movie, one of the characters said something like, We gave up many things to make it to Zion. If all my children stay faithful all their lives it was worth it. At the end of that sentence, I thought what do I give up for Zion, so my children will be faithful? Then I thought I probably don't need a new toaster oven. Our current toaster works fine, I can wait many more months. Now this may seem very bizarre, but it all makes sense in my mind. The less I buy, the better off my finances are, and the better our finances the more reverent our home will be. Some things are needed for the house and others aren't. New coats of paint are were in my opinion needed because cleanliness is next to Godliness. Our walls were filthy, and with new paint and clean walls I can definitely feel more at ease, and peaceful. But toasters to replace working toasters, well that is probably frivolous.
Our countertops are a different story. We both hate them, they old and stained, and we are constantly wondering when we will change them. I know it will happen one day, but I hardly know when. I want different ones, but yet I know life will go on without new ones, and at this point I don't want to spend the money. As long as I clean them they actually don't bother me too much, because I know how much it will cost to change them. Who knows.... We are now back to full circle. We aren't getting new ones this year, that's for sure, which is why I'm trying to do everything to improve the kitchen. Whats a new countertop if you can't see it? Bizarrely enough I couldn't endure the dirty walls, but yet I have no problem enduring a counter I don't like.

The Parable of the Snowboots

2011-11-17T16:47:00.000-07:00

I forgot to post this a few weeks ago.

Just kidding no parable, its straight out story.
Last winter as you may remember my son got mild frost bite on his feet.
Here is my lesson learned-- its never worth it to buy second hand shoes. I learned this when J was a toddler after a few pairs, one just never fit right. Another velcro didn't work any more. I can find shoes on sale for $7-$13 its just not worth it to save maybe $5 off that price for crappy shoes that don't work. (Last year I got Nan brand spanking new nike tennis shoes for $12 on sale at REI)
Yet some reason I decided to try to save money last winter and buy him second hand boots. Yesterday I bought snow boots at walmart for $17 that have a -5 degrees on the label. $17, I tried to save $10 last year on my son's boots and instead ended up with an expensive visit to the doctor to figure out why my son's feet were covered in a red rash and why he wouldn't walk.

Buy used clothes, buy used toys, buy used couches, but save your money and buy new shoes and boots.

Irons

2011-11-17T16:29:00.001-07:00

First off, where do you think I hid my magic erasers? How can I clean the tub without them? Even though I have four toilets, and five sinks, luckily I only have two tubs, and luckily only one of those is used for baths.
But that is off topic.
I love my oreck vacuum, I would never tell anyone to buy anything else. Unfortunately it came with the dumbest iron in the world. But who wants to buy a iron, so I have been suffering for years. Luckily I rarely iron shirts, never pants, so the only time I suffer is during crafts. My iron seems to have one temp, too cool for iron-able fusing, and too hot for other things which it burns. I called my mom wondering what I was doing wrong with my fusing she told me it sounded like my iron wasn't working right anymore. I said its never worked right, and I guess I should finally buy one that works. She told me to buy a shark.
But this black and decker is on clearance
Then today when my friend asked we wanted to come play I asked if I could bring my latest craft and use her iron. She has a rowenta-- oh my goodness I was in heaven with it. Just thinking about it makes me want to iron my husband's shirts that he doesn't care about being ironed. I quickly fixed my fusible ironing, and wanted to continue because the iron was so nice.
This rowenta is $10 cheaper than hers.
But even $40 is a lot to spend on a iron. I wonder if JoAnns has them for cheaper if I use a 40% coupon. What iron to buy....
Can I get a $50 iron for $15....

Am I the only one that loves typing so much that even once my post is over, I'm sorry to stop? There is something so calming and nice about typing. I have been wondering if my 5 year old is too young for typing games, then I thought I want to play typing games. I love watching my kids being pills while I type away at my computer. I have nothing to say, but yet my fingers want to continue to tap away. I guess I should finally finish. The best part about playing a typing game is I have become slow and sloppy in my typing I'm sure at it, it would nice to get back on the ball. A few years ago my father was in the room while I was blogging and he comment how fast I could type while watching J roll on the floor, but yet I'm pretty sure I'm WAY slower than I was in when I was in computer classes in school.

Santa

2011-11-08T10:15:00.000-07:00

Day 8 of Gratitude, I'm thankful I get to buy my kids christmas presents. Its so much fun. Part of me wants to buy everything! Every lego game my son wants, and a few more sets. I want to buy a dress up trunk for my daughter, baby dolls, and a lalaloopsy too.

But I'm also thankful for balance. Instead, he is getting one game, and two $5 sets. While my daughter is getting one baby, and one dress up dress. Not only can I not afford to spend $100 per child, my children don't need that much. Is it bizarre to be thankful to be struggling through the first year of homeownership, so I can't over do my children's christmas? I think its so important to teach our children self restraint in their wants, so they can learn money management themselves. I always end up buying more than I plan, so I'm grateful this year, I have an extremely tight budget.
I'm not actually thankful to be broke, but I'm thankful for the moderation it teaches me, and self control that I'm hopefully learning. The only reason I'm thankful for that though is because I keep studying my conference talks. If it wasn't for conference I think I would throw a fit and say its no fair. All the Apostles seem to take turns sharing stories of when they were younger and had to do without or when they parents sacrificed for them on their mission, or something to that effect. I hoard those stories up, and put them on repeat in my memory.
Sometimes though I'm secretly jealous, everyone was poor in those days, there was no easy money, no wallets full of credit cards. I've though a lot and I think it probably takes more work today to have self control to be frugal and modest then it did 50 years ago.
You know when we were buying our house, I think people wanted me to be excited. But I had a hard time, I totally wanted to move, I loved the area, the neighborhood, all of the above, and the house showed lots of potential with some paint, but I couldn't get excited, because all I could think of was, we are going to be so broke! I knew before we ever looked at the house, that we would bleed money the first year we owned a house. But I'm still thankful for my house. I'm also thankful for to buy christmas presents.

Charity

2011-11-08T09:43:00.000-07:00

I bought this little decorative vase at the thrift store the other day that said, "Faith Hope Love" I've seen that phrase on a lot of little store bought crafty things a lot. Years ago, I thought oh that's cute, its like Faith Hope and Charity.

...

The other day I looked at the vase, and I realize its exactly the same phrase, except one come from the King James Version of the Bible, and the other comes from the New International Bible. But then it made me sad, for people we are taught the phrase Faith Hope and Love, instead of Faith Hope and Charity. Charity is so much more full than Love. Love is something I think we are naturally inclined to do, children naturally love people in their lives. Charity is a high law, a high love, something we work and strive for.
People hurt other people all the time and claim they love that person. I'm sure they do love that person imperfectly, in their imperfect state that would tempt them to hurt someone. But you would never hurt anyone if you were filled with Charity for someone. It would be impossible. Charity is not easily obtained. As an adult I've always felt the word love was a little flat to me. Charity is anything but flat, its full and all encompassing. Charity is the pure love of Christ.
Honestly I do feel bad that people are not taught the higher of love, of charity, and are instead only taught the simple word of love.

Catch-up Gratitude

2011-11-07T09:26:00.000-07:00

I behind on my month of gratitude. So here it goes...

Day 1: Living with my husband. That is something we take for granted a lot, if in deed our husband is home a lot. But after this year, I haven't. Not to mention, he has a business trip at least every 6 weeks, which reminds me all over again. But I'm not complain about every 6 weeks. Its not everyweek, or gone for months at a time, or a year.
Day 2: Snow days, they are so fun!
Day 3: This sounds ridiculous but its true, our TV, I love watching movies and TV with my family. (I was reminded this from listening to a radio talk show, a lady's 30in flat screen broke, the guy told her it was probably cheaper to buy a new one for $200, then repair. At first I thought we spend way more than $200, but then I remembered how nice our tv is. Not to mention during the snow day we watched cars 2 with our kids. I heard bad reviews, but I loved it! We love Mater in our house. Plus I loved all the throw backs to other spy movies, the car chase in europe reminded me of Borne movies, Finn jumping over all the roofs in Italy-- 007 in Quantum of Solace. I loved Cars 2. Although I guess I'm weird, everyone loved Toy Story 3, and I hated it; I was so disappointed in it.)
Day 4: Chatting online with my husband, its how I know we are still in love, that and a million other reasons, he's the only I still chat with online.
Day 4.5: That I get to love my kids all day
Day 5: Ice Cream
Day 6: The hand of the Lord in my life and His love that is a constant blessing in my life. I'll also say, even though the sunbeams drive me through the roof more than not, I'm grateful for them too. They teach me so much about the Savior and his love for us.
Day 7: A washing machine and dryer that work in my house, while we at I should say a heater, and a dishwasher, a fridge, all of them. What blessings, that we ignore.

Happy Fall Y'all

2011-11-05T16:14:00.000-06:00

Happy Fall Y'all

For some reason I buy my children dollar scarecrows. This is not the first year I've been know to do it.

We got a boy one and a girl one. My girl has been know to hug them, when we are playing outside.

My son refused to take a normal picture.

With that, I'm done blogging about october.

Gardening

2011-11-04T16:34:00.001-06:00

I have some what of a black thumb. But its probably because I'm not so good about remembering to water plants, or I over water them. I just don't get it. But there is a grape vine that is here from before us, that grew wonderfully, and I took care of it all summer. Making sure all the vines stayed growing upward. Then in July, when my husband moved in with us, he cleaned out the garden. So my son and I planted pumpkins. Yes, july is a little late in the season, especially when it snows a month before Halloween. But we got three baby pumpkins growing. Not to mention my intent was accomplished. My son learned a lot by watching the vines grow. Snow broke all the vines, so the three pumpkins were cut off from any nourishment. Out of the three that started growing, one shriveled without a vine attached to anything. One was eaten by something. I know it was eaten, because one day I yelled what happened to it, and my son pointed behind me half was gone, and the part that was left had tooth marks. Two days later it was completely devoured. One lasted, here it is. It wasn't even green anymore!

The kids were jealous they didn't get their picture with the pumpkin, so they jumped in.

Now it sits on our front porch in all its baby pumpkin glory. I keep expecting it to mold, its soft since it didn't get big. I guess, I don't know why but its been soft ever since I touched it after the first snow storm.

Jack o Lanterns

2011-11-04T16:21:00.002-06:00

Let me tell you a story about our pumpkins. I wanted to go to a pumpkin patch to get our pumpkins. I remember going to real pumpkin patches, but of course those probably don't exist in our country in anymore. So instead of paying $8 to go to a "Pumpkin Patch" as in a blank field with pumpkins with baracode stickers on them, surrounded by small hay bales, we picked ours up at walmart for $3.50. That was before I found out my son got one on his field trip. But just for the record they were the exact same pumpkins with the exact same stickers.

So because of the field trip we didn't go as a family, that and $26 is way more than $7.

We were going to carve pumpkins before my husband was on a business trip the week before Halloween, but we just ran out of time with getting home from church at 4:30 in the afternoon. So then I carved them with the kids before Truck or Treat, because my husband got home from his trip an hour before, and we didn't have time to carve with him. So J and I got to carving, and it was joyous, because in the past he has been too scared to touch the guts. Although, I was sad it wasn't a whole family thing like it always has been in the past. Not to mention doing it in the middle of the day looses some halloween fun. This is the picture the 5 year old took.

He was trilled to pull off the top.

Tah dah, finished. He drew the face himself.

Let me tell you the story of my daughters. We finished my son's, then I called my daughter over and stuck in the knife. She started screaming. She did not want her cut open. I asked her if she wanted hers like her brothers, she screamed no. Halloween night came and she wondered why she didn't get to put a candle in hers, especially since I used her scented candle for her brother's pumpkin. Here is the face she directed me to draw, before I tried to cut. She wanted the lips "BIGGG!"

Ahh, children, and halloween, and children at halloween.

Dance Party

2011-11-03T14:47:00.000-06:00

While at the field trip I missed the joyschool halloween party. My husband told me I missed nothing other than our daughter spinning around in circles. He said turn on some music and she'll do it again. So we did.

When did she get so big and cheesy?

Field Trip

2011-11-03T14:32:00.000-06:00

Last year in preschool we went on a field trip to Red Lobster. It was extremely lame as far as field trips go. I was much more excited to go to the farm. We rode the bus.

Saw the goats.

Miss Kindergarten teacher was super excited, she said this was her first time being at a farm. This camel was born in Montana, I had no idea camels were so big.

Tractor wheels

Swimming in corn

Jumping Hay Bales

Picking out a pumpkin.

The farm was fantastic. But also expensive.

Weddings

2011-11-02T09:36:00.004-06:00

Can we talk about weddings for a second? Maybe marriage.
If you were smart you would say no.
I'm sure by the end of this post, my mom will be silently shaking her head at me.

Pinterest is by far the biggest time waster in a long time. Girls seem to love post strangers wedding pictures on pinterest. Although many are beautiful, I don't really care about weddings. (Although I terribly miss watching new episodes of "Say Yes to the Dress", I honestly don't understand that guilty pleasure.) But there is one picture on pinterest that I keep seeing, that intrigues me.
A large part of me doesn't understand why people want to get married.
I wanted to be with my husband forever and forever, but for a long time I saw no purpose in getting married. Even after we were engaged, I wondered why we had to get married.
But being the good mormon girl I was, I decided to act rationally, and follow what I had been taught since I was a wee babe. Not to mention, I think my husband really really wanted to actually be married to me.
So I did what I had been taught my whole life. I studied what my church leaders taught and I prayed, A LOT. Honestly I saw no purpose to be married. But eventually my religion answered me, and I decided I wanted to be married. If I want all my life possibly could offer me I KNEW I wanted to go to the temple with boyfriend. I knew I wanted to be with the right person, but I learned I also wanted to be in the right place-- the temple. If I believed what I proclaimed to believe, then I believed in the priesthood, and I HAD to be married by a priesthood leader. (I capped had, because honestly I had to, if I believed what I said I did, I had to, or I didn't actually believe.) After that my decision was easy. Ok, that's not entirely true, being engaged was one of the hardest things I've endured in this life, but I never backed down from wanting a temple marriage after making my decision. The trial of my faith that came after I decided to on my temple marriage was a testimony that it was the right choice. I have no doubt with some of the experiences I had during those four months that Satan did not want me to marry Brent in the Temple. Moral of the long story, so I know why I wanted to be married.
But its a puzzle me on why other people are so obsessed with weddings.
If it wasn't for the temple, I'm sure my husband and I would have eventually gotten married, I think no matter what I wanted, I think my husband did want to be legally married to me, and so we would have eventually been married, but it would have no been a big affair.
Overall weddings are very puzzling to me.
When we were engaged, people would ask me about my wedding. All I could ever think, is I don't care about the wedding, I just want to be married to be Brent.
(I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm not a romantic.)
I will really never understand the money people drain into weddings.
Although I'm grateful most people seem to want to be married, I really do think society functions at its best when people are married, and children are raised with two parents in the same house. If it wasn't true some of the political experiments dictators tried in the last century would have been more successful. But as far as I've read, any society that tried to destroy the family unit and raise children differently, have all failed. History has proved that strong marriages and families is the best way to propagate a good society, and healthy economy.

Halloween Twenty-Eleven

2011-11-01T19:57:00.002-06:00

Trunk or Treat was on Friday, and we were supper rushed to get there by 5:30 (we were late) and it was cold, and so by the time Monday came I was all Halloweened out. Then evening hit, the kids both ate dinner! We got dressed warmly and it wasn't that cold so we were all pleasant. It was wonderful we had so much fun trick or treating. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm the assistant room mom, so I was at the kindergarten halloween party. Josh's preschool teacher dressed up as Cinderella, it was so great, considering it was kindergarten, and she is "the blonde pretty single kindergarten teacher." The classroom teacher's assistant was the Fairy Godmother. Also awesome.

I pulled out the trusty cat ears and dressed up. J gets excited when I ask him if I should dress up. Also apparently my husband likes me dressed up, because when I ask him if I should dress up again, he always says, I don't see why not. Wearing a black shirt, black pants, an orange cat halloween shirt and cat ears counts as dressing up right? What did I do at the party? Played Don't Eat Frank. (Which is really Don't Eat Pete)

Now back to the evening, like I said, the kids actually ate dinner with out crying. We got all ready to go. Once I again I put on my cat ears. We wandered around a street and half in the neighborhood. The kids filled their buckets and Nan tripped about eight times.

By that point, we came home to pass out candy. The kids had a blast passing out candy. The best part is we gave away all the candy the kids collected that we didn't like. We also listened to some rockin' halloween tunes on Pandora. When the Monster Mash came on my husband was impressed with my mash potato but maybe it was just the cat ears. Once we all had tummy aches from candy we turned off the lights and went to bed.

J's costume was obviously a success, because three different groups of boys instantly knew he was a Rock Monster. Turns out I made his straps too long, its bothered me everytime he put it on, but not enough to fix it. The robot turned out well I think.

Holiday Confusion

2011-10-31T08:34:00.001-06:00

I know its Halloween, but I have Christmas on the brain.
What will produce the most glees on Christmas morning, with the least amount of cash.
What do I want?
What am I going to buy, for everyone? My brain is a buzz.
What will my husband choose?

Body Temp

2011-10-27T22:12:00.001-06:00

I was recently reminded that my daughter always felt hot as an infant even though her temperature was normal. We were constantly stripping her down, because she would be overly warm, red and fussy. Once she was down to a onesie she would calm down.
What reminded me of this you may ask?
The fact that she does not like fleece jammies, she wants just lightweight pjs (long sleeves and pants are required). She is happier when her heating vent is closed. She does not like sleeping with a blanket, she only wants her sheet on. She would rather carry her coat then wear it. She runs hot, and has no desire to be dressed warmly just because it is the conventional norm. She constantly complaining its too hot mommy, in the car or with a coat on. Yet, she can't stand using the bathroom since the season changed. "No, cold potty mommy."

Snow Day

2011-10-26T22:45:00.003-06:00

School was delayed this morning, which means AM kindergarten was canceled. When my wee one woke up I showed her the snow, she said, "Oh Hoshy want to make a snowman." She was right, unfortunately the snow was about as dry as anything.

But look I went outside and played with them! Which was good because Pinky up there, lost her boot, and somehow slipped outside without socks. Photo-documentation I was outside in the snow. Unfortunately if I'm outside, there is no one to take our picture.

Look isn't my child gorgeous? Maybe that isn't a very masculine adjective, but that's just because most men aren't gorgeous, my son on the other hand.... Seriously made bank when he was born, because he is also a super genius.

P.S. He was amazed to find his dad's all out hat in the hat box this morning, he thought it was awesome. The hat not so awesome, but my son looked awesome in it.

Sick Child

2011-10-26T22:34:00.000-06:00

My daughter vomited on Monday. It was awesome, right after three girls showed up for Joyschool. My children love vomiting on me, so luckily its easy to clean up. Thankfully she stopped by 5 pm. Which meant, life could go on by Tuesday evening. But look how cute she was. She looked like a really big baby, although I guess just a long baby, since she is only like 22 lbs, and I know babies that are that big.

Its now late Wednesday and no one else is sick. Yippy!

Butterfly, scratch that, Robot Butterfly?

2011-10-24T21:47:00.001-06:00

Here is my butterfly. She decided she wanted to be a butterfly for Halloween, when her brother and I first started talking about it. I couldn't think of a better costume for her this year. She has stuck with it. Once when she first saw my Trick or Treat pillow, she wanted to be a princess, but I told her she was a butterfly princess and she was cool with that. Last week was her Halloween Party at joyschool. It was changed days and I missed it! because of the Kindergarten field trip. I was so sad I cried, then I made my husband go, with the four other moms. (HA!) Two days ago she declared she wanted to be a pink robot butterfly. What does that mean? How could I not appease this cute girl? So assuming I don't started vomiting, which is very likely considering how many times she vomited on me today, I'm try to figure out how to transform a butterfly to a robot butterfly.

Any ideas?

Great thing about this costume, FREE! Grammy bought the butterfly dress up, last year for her, not for halloween. Then I spent a buck or so on the headband, but the antennaes I made with pipe cleaners we already had, and material that we already had. Oh, wait! not so free, I spent $10 on the sweatshirt. :( sad day.
But back to pink butterfly robot. IDEAS, now! Go!

Cowboys

2011-10-24T21:33:00.004-06:00

Everyone under 4 feet tall has cowboy boots in the house, so I can't figure out why they didn't want to go as a cowboy and cowgirl? We would get a different shirt apparel. We could even go with a jean skirt.

Although I think those are great pink cowgirl jeans. (Sure she lost her diaper butt filling up the pants, but still.) K, so Halloween only comes once a year, can't waste it on ideas that aren't yours, but why doesn't anyone want to play cowboys and Indians?

Its like Woody found out, its all about space, and robots.

There is always next year... even though she has been wearing those boots for a year, she still has at least another year before they fit.

A Great Work

2011-10-23T12:03:00.001-06:00

I've been studying Teaching, No Great Call: A Resource Guide for Gospel Teaching, in an attempt to endure the sunbeams.
My favorite thing in the manual so far was a quote from Elder Faust,

The Lord has a great work for each of us to do. You may wonder

how this can be. You may feel that there is nothing special

or superior about you or your ability….

The Lord can do remarkable miracles with a person of ordinary

ability who is humble, faithful, and diligent in serving the Lord

and seeks to improve himself. This is because God is the

ultimate source of power.

It gives me courage with my sunbeams. I know at different months I have loved my job of teaching three year olds, but now I think it might be the end of me. It wears me like nothing else in life has. Every week I wonder if I can ever return. At this point I think maybe I can endure until the end of the year. Yesterday in a full on panic attack, I decided to count weeks, I only have 8 more lessons. I can survive. Hopefully... You may wonder what happened in the last few months? Two families moved in with three year old girls. Between those two girls, a deaf child, and five other three years old, I am becoming like an old crusty rubber band, ready to crack and break at any second.
(Actually I think all of them have turned four by now.)
But I guess the Lord has a great work for me to do, even though I have no great ability and I have no training as a behavioral specialist. The other thing I try to remember, is the great work might not be apparent to my mortal eyes.

Also in attempt for some deep spiritual mediation to prep myself for today.. I read Jean A Stevens talk from April 2011 Conference, titled Become as a Little Child.
This quote spoke to me.

“… we cannot see our Heavenly Father, but we can listen for His

voice to give us the strength we need to endure the challenges of life.

See if I listen for his voice, I can endure the next 8 weeks, especially if that is the plan the Lord has for me.

Wall-E Part-E

2011-10-21T18:17:00.001-06:00

Its never too early to plan your birthday party right?
Four months in advance and we are discussing how awesome, our Wall-E Part-E is going to be.
Its never too early to plan your 6th birthday party, you only turn 6 once, don't ya know?!
Of course now that he is 5, he wants a Pinata. Which is hard to find a Wall-E Pinata.
http://www.thetoyhunt.com/ag1paa2435.html
As the mom I'm thinking about cake alternatives, because they could be so fun, and he doesn't like cake much, it would be nice to have dessert left overs he likes. In come, Oreo Pops
http://hiphiphoorayblog.com/2011/05/diy-pops/
http://gracessweetlife.com/2010/04/visit-to-the-chocolatier-oreo-chocolate-cookie-pops/
maybe with this in the center of the oreo pops
http://www.birthdaydirect.com/wall-centerpiece-p-15529.html
Because I do love a good presentation. I'll try to be simple, chocolate with yellow sprinkles it is wall-e's colors.
Quote from the boy, "Chocolate is my favorite sugar." At least we are making progress and he didn't say chocolate is my favorite cavity. Although I guess he is being realistic.
Then he wanted to know what games we could play. So of course we googled it, (sorry, Swag bucks, you are lame).
So here our game ideas so far
"Give the party goers some boxes, and aluminum foil, and let them build a bot." http://kidsfunreviewed.com/plan-an-inner-galactic-wall-e-space-party/
That site led us to wall-e coloring pages. My kid has never liked coloring, until his kindergarten teacher told him he had to. http://www.wall-e-coloring-pages.blogspot.com/
We liked the Wall-E trash toss and spaghetti marshmallow building, on this site: http://sunshineandroses.wordpress.com/2009/01/18/our-wall-e-birthday-party/
This girl made wall-e bingo http://lindseyandtheboys.blogspot.com/2008/11/wall-e-birthday-party.html
Which some how in the middle of her paragraphs J said, wall-e bingo I want wall-e bingo.
Why plan more that, that would wear me out, maybe watch the burn-e short in the extras of wall-e dvd.
I love watching a movie for the last 15 minutes of the party.

Nevermind the birthday two months before him. I already bought butterfly wings at the dollar store for all the little girls we'll invite to that one. I just couldn't pass up the ability to have a butterfly party for my butterfly princess. She wanted hello kitty, but she seems to have forgotten, I'm sure ask the following year or so.

Emerging Literacy

2011-10-19T20:40:00.000-06:00

My sister has a PhD in educational psychology, so now I know fancy phrases like emerging literacy that I would never know otherwise.
I'm so proud of my daughter's latest emerging literacy step. She is "reading" her favorite books. Well she has been "reading" since she was a baby. But now she will retell the story to me in her own words, trying to use the phrases of the author. This morning she "read" me The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Tonight she read Monkey and Me along side me.

I re-found Monkey and Me in the bookcase today, and knew it would be perfect for her, she loves to play with her sock puppet. Moral of the story (I mean the blog post) I'm really am proud of her latest step of "reading" the authors' words.

Les

2011-10-19T18:54:00.000-06:00

For years whenever my sister gives me a card with out a stamp or address on the front she writes "Les is More" instead of my name. By the way she usually just calls me Les or L. Les is More, has been floating around in my head lately, ALL THE TIME actually. Its the new motto for my house, I'm like in serious de-junking mode. We have only owned this house for 6 months we should NOT have so much stuff! At the same time, throwing things away is hardly easy for me. Where is Teresa when I need her. Plus I use amazing amount of things. So I'm not at the point, I'm getting rid of things I use because we have so much stuff. I haven't actually yet, I just want to. I want my husband's help, its so easy to throw things away with his encouragement.
I'm feeling guilty though, my son has caught me a few times lately throwing his papers away. BUT GOODNESS SAKES he has a lot of papers! I wish I was one of those people who always had clean fridge doors and clean junk drawers, and key drops. But what do you other moms do with all the fliers from school?! We have so many events all the time, and if I don't keep the papers on the fridge I forget. Unfortunately our clean steel fridge is magnetic, I'm lost with a magnetic fridge, if I only had a fridge that didn't hold magnets.
My husband can't wait for the day we don't have sippy cups anymore, especially the lids. (We are no where near we plan on having more kids.) While I just can't wait for the day people clean up jam the spill on the counter. I'm pretty sure my husband's dream day is coming sooner.

Support Group

2011-10-15T12:33:00.000-06:00

I need a "I don't coupon" support group. Ever few months I let someone convince me I should be couponing, then I end up spending more money at the grocery store. Anyone want to join my support group?

Dental Update

2011-10-13T15:29:00.002-06:00

I appreciate all your loving concern, and you're wiliness to commiserate with me. So here is the rest of the story.
I switched to an electronic tooth brush, just the cheap kind. The dentist said even a $5 spiderman electric tooth brush would be better. So I bought an $8 adult sized electric toothbrush.
I also switched floss. I floss everyday, but for the past few years some hygienists don't seem to believe me. Well this time, instead of looking at me like I was lying, (which I know some people do lie to their dental works, I worked at an orthodontic before, but I'm not!) she asked what type of floss I use. I told her glide. She said oh that is terrible at picking up plaque its too slippery. She said she gave me a sample of the the gray boxed glide and told me to switch to that instead, its better. I said, well I don't care about using glide, its my husband with the tight teeth. I use to use unwaxed before I got too lazy to buy two different types. She said great, unwaxed is the best because it actually grips the plaque instead of sliding off. She recommended Reach, with fluoride gum care. So I got some of that too, I opened the box and realized hey this is what I used as a teenager before I switched to unwaxed. Anyway, its thick but it doesn't bother me.
Lastly my husband and I bought need to buy mouth-guards. We have decided to try to the $20 ones at the store, before having the dentist make them. What do we have to lose? $20 instead of $200. We have a stellar Healthsavings account, where our money rolls over each year, so we never pay out of pocket for medical bills, and never lose money but we try to keep medical bills to a minimum, because our insurance leaves a big bill after we have a baby, and so we are hoping to be able to pay the $4,000 out of the healthsavings account instead of checking. (No I'm not pregnant, but one day.) So yes, we do pay out of pocket, because the healthsavings is our money, but its at least not out of the monthly budget. We switched jobs while I was pregnant with number two, with the HMO, we were expected a few hundred dollars, when we switched to our new companies insurance, it cost over $4000, that was a shock! We definitely didn't have that money ready for a baby.
But back to my dental work, the hygienist said, you are so young, your problems are in the beginning so they are easily fixed before they cause irreversible damage with a few changes in your oral hygiene. So I'm all over that. If twice as much money on a toothbrush, and different floss, and a mouthguard fixes it. I'm so there, plus I don't have to feel all unsexy, like Date Night, because my husband will be sporting his mouthguard too. Plus I get jaw pain from grinding and clenching, and the dentist said, with a mouth-guard the jaw pain should go a way and it would probably prevent some of my headaches. I'm so there!

Oh one last thing. Before my dentist looked at my teeth, by the way first time there. He said, looks like you have some dots on your face, are you monitoring them? I said what? All confused. I was totally lost at first. Then I said, you mean my moles, yes, they have looked the very same since they appeared when I was a teenager. Is this normal for my dentist to give me skin care advice? Why did he call them dots? I was so confused. Is that normal Dermatologist speak? I never seen one, I follow all the advice on watching skin spots/moles but none of my break the rules. But seriously dots? My face is covered in freckles, I have four small moles, and I broke on Sunday because I was mad at my husband for going hunting, I had no idea what my dentist was talking it about. Too much information? Probably, who else would I ask about this other than the whole internet community?

Soundtrack of the Summer

2011-10-13T11:32:00.000-06:00

At least here, One Republic's Good Life song was on the radio a lot this summer. It became the lead song on soundtrack of my life this summer. I seemed like a good song about moving to a different state.
Plus it could have been a really hard summer with my husband not here for half of it, with me not knowing anyone! But instead when things are right they are right, and moving here and buying this house was right so everything worked well while he was gone. I was filled with optimism the whole time he was gone, "this really could be a good life" The melody easily mirrored my feelings of the mountains to the west, the trees and the plains to the east. I love it here, I love that I have wide open spaces one direction and super tall mountains right out my door.

Not to mention he sings, "Paris to China to Colorado". Yes, it was meant to be.
In August we went back to Utah, and I wondered why we moved, my husband could work either place, his family is there, my grandparents, plenty of free kids' activities everywhere. (Everything is expensive here.) Why did pay our own way to move again? Both places have mountains, and I actually know where trails are there. Then we came back, and I had to run to the store to get food for us to eat. I drove out of my development, and I saw the amazing vista I get to see all day long. I remembered why I moved, because I absolutely love it here. I spent 7 years in Utah, and pretended to try to belong all 7 years, always feeling like a fish out of water. I feel like I've always belong here, and this has gotta be the good life, its a feeling I can't fight.

One a side note, I'm not sure vests are ever a good idea. Notice how the come in fashion just as quick as they leave fashion. I think its because its always a bad idea.

Old

2011-10-12T19:18:00.000-06:00

I feel so old. All of sudden Brent and I have dental problems, old people dental problems. We both grind, so we will be a matching pair in our mouth guards. Brent goes in on monday to get two permanent crowns. Apparently I brush too hard and I'm causing my gums to recede. When did I get old enough to have dental problems other than orthodontic work?

Conference Squares

2011-10-10T20:42:00.000-06:00

You know what is super lame? Having family home evening without a husband.
You know what we are so use to in this house it doesn't even make us sad anymore?
Having family home evening without a dad. After many semesters of Monday night classes we are use to only three at family home evening. So even though its no longer the norm, we hardly forget its not when he isn't here. The point of this rambling is sometimes you need something low key.
Tonight was that night, but I still want a emphasize the recent conference, so I went to lds.org hoping for conference highlights for primary kids. No such luck I guess I have to wait for the November Friend. Instead I printed off Conference Squares, something we skipped during conference, and played Bingo, one of my children's favorite game. Before my son could put on his m&m on the square he had to explain why each square was on the board, and what it had to do with church. Sure I filled in some blanks that he left out. Anyway, turned out to be a really great low key, fun, learning family home evening. The perfect kind, although we still wish dad would have been in the fourth chair. Nan she didn't get a bingo, because she ate the m&ms too fast, but everytime I said Family Home evening, she said then ice cream! I guess she is learning.

Weather Update

2011-10-10T20:32:00.001-06:00

Just for an update for all y'all, our snow is long gone, its been beautiful sunny weather, since Saturday afternoon, yes the day it snowed 6 inches in our backyard. Tomorrow, it should be back in the 70s. I love the sunny state I live in, you know we get more sunny days of weather a year than California? Yeah, we are just that awesome.

SNOW

2011-10-08T09:39:00.000-06:00

We had the first snow of the season! When Nan woke up I told her to look out the window. She exclaimed "Mom it snowing!" She wasn't talking last winter so I had never heard her say that before. It was very exciting. She got dress and ran out with daddy.

They made a snowman together, then J woke up and I got him dress fast. He got the picture by the snowman even though he didn't help make it.

He had a snow ball fight with his daddy, then after his dad went inside, he shoved our grass and fence. At one point I looked outside, and fell over, then rolled over to make a snow angel. I think snow might be more exciting when its your own yard. Although pretty soon it won't be exciting, to have to shovel our own sidewalk, etc.

Have no fear its suppose to be warm in 60 degrees by monday.

Halloween Books

2011-10-07T14:45:00.001-06:00

I love finding great Halloween Books at the library in the fall. Here are two of our favorites this year:
The Halloween Kid
I love the underlining messages about political correct Halloween.
Halloween Kid saves us so we can all enjoy a good ol' fashion Halloween.
Not to mention it has great pictures, and I always love a book about a cowboys, that could be read with a Texan twang.

We are also loving,

Three Little ghosties

Just because any book where everything rhymes with ghosties is super fun. Not to mention J got us all obsessed with ghosts from last year.

In case that isn't enough fun for you, here are our favorites from last year.
I need a $100 amazon gift card.

Mansfield Park

2011-10-03T14:01:00.002-06:00

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I really did not enjoy the beginning of this book. I only read it for the love of Jane, but slowly and unsurely I continued. It turns out once the play was over I really started to love the plot. I waited with baited breath to figure out what Fanny would do, and watched excitedly as her relationship with her family members grew. Although many will probably disagree with me, I'm not sure if I liked the ending though, part of me wished that the book was an example that people really can change. But I guess the book was an example of parenting gone awry. I enjoyed this book and shocked to find myself really liking Fanny Price, even if she is a very different main character than Austen's more famous novel heroines.

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A birthday

2011-10-01T22:17:00.000-06:00

I had a birthday earlier in the week. I'm always glad to celebrate a birthday, because I have a 5 year old, no one wants to be 21 anymore when they have a 5 year old. Not to mention I'm not scared to get old, almost everyone (who is not a child) I know is older than me and they seem fine. I love being married to Brent, and slowly but surely we make it farther along in our education, his career, and in affluency.

It was a great birthday because my youngest was old enough to be jealous it wasn't hers. I love when kids hit that magic age. The other fun thing is my oldest is old enough to plan what he wants to buy me for a present, he was planning all month.

We bought cupcakes at Sam's. I had planned on it for a month, but then I wondered? Cheesecake? Or should I just make something and save my 10 bucks. I bought cupcakes, partly because it was the plan and I hate to screw up my plans, and partly because the cheesecake was $15, and partly because I like shinny pumpkins. It was a really good decision because Brent had to work (at home) that night (and every night for two weeks) and I ended up making orange chicken for my birthday because he told me would make it but I was hungry, and my kids up past bedtime would be no birthday present. The point being a mom knows what time dinner has to happened for bed to happen on time, and it was getting late, and I was hungry, and orange chicken comes from a box anyway.
I think I was going to tell you something else about my birthday but I can't remember?
This wasn't it, but I always feel young, because I am! But the other day I found out a friend of mine is comparatively younger, she isn't actually younger, because she has a second grader, but when that second grader was a kindergarten she was younger. I told her awesome and then she laughed at me.
Oh I remembered, I am super excited. With my birthday money, I bought new black boots, because the last time I bought black boots I was a junior in high school. I also bought a purse, and I bought new lamps for my bedroom. I love lighting, absolutely LOVE, like I can't go to a hardware store without going through the lighting aisles. I have been searching for bedroom lamps for a month or so, and I found them the week before my birthday, then bought them the day after. Its so awesome, I got two new lamps, so we now have one on either side of the bed. And now the other lamp that was serving the place next to my side of the bed, is next to my husband's computer desk. I honestly wish we had these lamps three weeks ago, because my husband has been working from home somewhere between 6:30-7 am most mornings for the last two weeks, and he didn't have a lamp to turn on, and he is great and didn't turn on the overhead light, so he had to work in the dark (while staring at a computer screen). Poor man, but not anymore! Although I think his working from home days should be over again. He was filling in for someone. Anyway, we need three lamps in our bedroom, its a big bedroom. I love it. Oh, seriously I'm smitten with my lamps. Now to paint the room, I completely decorated my kids rooms and completely ignored mine. But over the next few months its my turn, and I'm super excited. I have great plans in my head, and great cheap (frugal) plans. Ahh, lamps... they are like a miracle.
I know they are, because one of the things I remember the most that an apostle of the Lord said, was when Elder Nelson said, "I pay tribute to Sister Nelson, who never murmured because she had to make do with very little. I recall an experience one night in downtown Boston. We were walking along Boylston Street. There we passed a furniture store. Sister Nelson pressed her nose against the windowpane and asked, Do you think we will ever be able to afford a lamp?" That has been a guiding principle in my 20s. I often think about something I want for our house, but realize it doesn't matter in life, and think about poor Sister Nelson, before the world was completely globalized, before huge box stores everywhere, you buy a lamp for $15. I think of that principle almost every day, when I try to clean my stupid tiled counter top. And since I hate it so much, I think I should remind myself of this, "Seek not the things of this world but seek ye first to build up the kingdom of God, and to establish his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you (JST, Matthew 6:38)"
But my husband is super awesome, our dryer has been squeaking like a banshee since before we moved, and today he fixed it. Ahh, bliss. He also made homemade bread. Yeah, I knew I was doing 7 years ago.

Daughter

2011-09-30T18:22:00.000-06:00

We aren't quite sure what do to with our daughter. She couldn't careless about punishments and she couldn't care less about rewards. Sure sometimes we send her to time out and she screams bloody murder, but sometimes I try to feed her favorite meal and she screams bloody murder, so that doesn't seem to an accurate judge. Overall she does she wants no matter what the rest of us do.

too soon

2011-09-21T20:42:00.000-06:00

I have been saving paper packaging, from Amazon packages and fragile purchases. Wouldn't my living room look so idyllic this Christmas, if we have no store bought wrapping paper? Brown paper, newspaper, and pretty ribbon. I read last year about how bad christmas was for the enviroment, and it really struck a cord with me. I see no purpose to buy wrapping paper. I haven't bought it since.
Until I bought wrapping paper last week before the birthday party, I felt ghetto going to an expensive birthday party without real wrapping. Which is so lame of me, that is the last place I should give up my ideals.
Think about it, at least I would much rather spend $4 on a spool of ribbon than on wrapping paper. Plus Michaels has ribbon for sale all the time for a dollar. I bought solid color wrapping paper like that makes it any better.
Here are some great examples:
flibbertigibbetblog
whitemousecreations

FHE- Escape from Bagel

2011-09-20T18:41:00.001-06:00

Remember the Tower of Bagel story? Well weeks ago, a month ago, something, I found this picture of the Tower of Babel, which my son was fascinated with for days. I kept the link open on the internet, and he would just stare. Somewhere along the lines I found this idea to make a tower of babel out of cake for the activity/treat of family home evening. So four weeks ago, or more, J gave his first family home evening lesson. I think I mentioned that before. His topic the Brother of Jared and family leaving Babel for the promise land. He watched the scripture movie of it a bunch of times during Monday afternoon so he could learn the story again, we used the book, and I and his dad helped, but the point is he was learning. Before it was his job to tell the story in FHE he told me the story a half a dozen times, I think he froze up when the attention was on him. Then we had a super fun activity, that I found online from an unknown source at this point. Brent thought it was a little weird that we were building the Tower of Babel out of cake.

They all fell over after three bricks.

Best part, never in her life will her mom give her this much cake again.

Daddy thought he could make his higher.

It fell down after three bricks.
A cake mix box at 7,000 ft can sometimes make A LOT of cake. It all depends on the humidity I guess. Last week when I make cupcakes it is suppose to make 36 instead of 24 at this altitude, and I've always had a ton of batter since moving here, until last week, I got 24. Wierd huh? All that cake on the table, came from one box.

FHE- Title of Liberty

2011-09-20T17:25:00.001-06:00

Two weeks ago my son asked to have a family home evening on the Title of Liberty. Two weeks ago we had multiple families over for dinner. I hosted a joyschool bbq, so everyone could know each other and families better, ie so my husband can know who my friends were, and who their husband's were, to prove to him he actually does have something in common with my friend's husbands. Our daughters all being in preschool together just happened to be happy coincident. But I digress, like all other bloggers out there.
Last night we had family home evening on the Title of Liberty. Sure I could have prepared a lesson fit for a five year old myself, but why, we were given the internet for a reason.
But why my son wanted a lesson on the Title of Liberty remains a mystery. We have never had a lesson on it before so how does he know about it? Book of Mormon DVD? Maybe, I like to say it was a result of my fine taste in art. He has had this picture in his room for two years of so. Although he could have asked his dad, I have no memory of telling him what the picture is. That picture is by far my favorite artistic rendition of The Title of Liberty. And being a God fearing Political Scientist how could I not have it in my son's room. Although I'm thinking about moving it after this lesson, I remembered how much I like it, and so maybe the whole family wants to see it more.
So I googled FHE Title of Liberty, and found lots and lots of lessons. But in my fine form, I used the church's scripture stories. They make it so simple and to the point, and truthful! I honestly didn't even read the other lessons. I also used this coloring page, for my daughter, from Mormon Share. Nan and Dad colored while J and discussed the title of Liberty, Captain Moroni and Amalickiah. I always want my husband to take over teaching, I'm convinced he is better at it than I am. For goodness sakes, he stole me away and made me a mom before I got to go on a mission, so since he has a mission under his belt he must be better. But since I am the one that spend the last 4 years in Primary, there is a chance he doesn't think he needs to take over.
After the Book of Mormon reader we talked about the flag being a symbol to remind us of something important. We talked about other symbols in our life. J brought up pictures of the temple in our a house (from our family home evening lesson three weeks), we mentioned, CTR rings, the american flag outside our neighbors house out our front window, wedding rings, etc. (My husband learned something there, apparently he didn't know his ring was suppose to remind him of the covenants he made when we married.)
So that is the secret to our great family home evening. After the lesson, J declared it was time to make the Title of Liberty. So I ran upstairs found a scrap of material, and pulled up a sharpy. J found a stick in the backyard while I heated up the glue gun. Tah Dah

It just happens to be the same color as in Walter Rane's painting. I didn't even realize until this afternoon. We finished up with a bowl of ice cream. Then we cut off my son's hair, his first hair cut since we moved. yes, we moved in May.
Our Title of Liberty is now in a vase with a bunch of fabric flowers, in the living room to remind us
"In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children."
Oh actually I did scan a few lessons, one had a great idea, as a family come up with your own Title of Liberty, but that was a little beyond my children's comprehension, I didn't even try.

Good ol' Days

2011-09-17T21:29:00.000-06:00

Don't you wished I blogged more often like the good ol' days?
I do, I wish I did everything more often. I feel like I do nothing, but yet feel busy all the time.

Last night I went to a 6 year old's birthday party, with one of my new BFFs. Ok, so maybe she isn't a BFF, but I do talk to her almost every day other than Saturday. I'm talking about another mom by the way. Our son's are in the same Kindergarten class, and our daughters are in joyschool together. Anyway, so of course the entire Kindergarten class was invited to the birthday party. We decided to carpool the 35 minute drive to the event center, since we live in a small town there is no Chuck E Cheese's near by. The party wasn't at Chucks, but it could have been. We left our daughters home with their daddies. I had never been to a child's birthday party like that as an adult. It was weird, because of the size of the party place, parent of the kindergarten was required to attend, by birthday boy's mom's request. It was 20 kids, 20 parents, a few babies, and a few other siblings in a party room. Mass Chaos. I had some good chats with other moms. One other mormon mom in the class told me last year at her daughter's party, one of the school friend's mom told her she had never been to a birthday party at a house. Us other mormon mommies laughed. My BFF and I mentioned to another mom our daughters were in co-op preschool together. She didn't know what that was, we explained that we take turns teaching at our houses, she said she had never heard of anything like that before. I though ah yes, us Mormons are weird bunch, so thrifty and industrious. We run our own preschools and throw our children birthday parties at our houses. Another mom asked me if since I was from Utah if I was mormon, I said yes. The conversation proceeded to her asking me if I went to Utah State because I didn't get into BYU, I said no I got in, I just decided not to go there. She said oh, all my study friends as CSU were mormons who didn't get into BYU. Well alright. This same mom's daughter has a crush on my son. She thinks he has the cutest voice and wonders if he was born with it. The mom and daughter are also a fan of his hair. My son is apparently irresistible with his curly brown locks and big brown eyes.
Back to the birthday party, I have never seen a child get so many presents in my life. Nor did I ever see the birthday boy smile. He ripped open each present and waved it in the air and asked do I have this already? Then he would put it down and grab the next one. He didn't seem to light up when he saw his cake with all his friends gathered around. I have a stoic child too, but I wondered what was the point in spending $200+ on a birthday party if your child doesn't even smile. I think I'll stick to my home birthday parties for now, my children laugh and smile the whole time. But maybe that's because they aren't over stimulated with a room full of 50 people. (No, I will not pass out invitations at school, because I have no intention of inviting 25 people to my child's 6th birthday party.) We then spent the next hour barely talking or seeing anyone else from school as we played in the arcade. At 8:30 we traded in our tickets for a large plastic crayon coin bank. It reminded me of the first time I was at arcade thing with tickets. You see all the fancy prizes hanging up for all to see, thinking oh that is what I want. You play for an hour or so, waste at least $20, get barely a handful of tickets, walk past the people with HUGE piles of tickets on the floor under their game, and you trade in your small handful for a crappy plastic toy worth 50 cent. Ahh, fun, now I remember what I'm so unfun. I have no intention of returning to that event center anytime soon.

Help

2011-09-14T20:36:00.001-06:00

I need help. A year ago or so we read a book from the library about a bovine circus I think. Yet, I can't find the title again. Darn it, anyone heard of such a thing? By the way it was a children's book about a little girl.

Labor Day

2011-09-14T16:16:00.001-06:00

Over Labor Day, my father in law and sister in law came to visit us.

Grandpa shares many interests with my children, like rocks.

But I'm a loser and didn't take out my camera, so I have no pictures of the kids with Auntie Kim. She took the pictures of my kids with grandpa.

We hiked to Monument Rock while they were here.

Oh look my husband took a pictures of the Aunt and Niece.

Oh look I took a picture with my husband's camera, is he jumping or falling, the world may never know.

Actually I'll tell you that is the second time he is jumping up to do chin ups, I thought he was so cute, I made him do it again so I could take pictures of him. My son was on a mini one.

They came so my sister in law could run a marathon, but I didn't include those pictures because I figured it was her story not mine. Actually she told me she wanted a cuter race outfit so I didn't include her pictures. Which is exact how I felt when I saw the pictures took of me hiking. Holy smokes, I looked awful, I couldn't find my normal hat, and I'm worried about my scalp getting skin cancer with as much as it burns here. So I look like I'm wearing a trucker hat, except we all know those have been in style since before I was a mom. Plus my shorts with my boots, oh I need to look hotter when I'm hiking.

Exciting Saturdays

2011-09-10T15:23:00.000-06:00

I'm pretty sure everyone has more exciting Saturdays than me, because the internet is so boring today and no one wants to talk to me on the phone. But whats a girl to do when her husband is working until after noon, and then he wants to rest from working all week plus half Saturday.
Turns out I hate shopping. When I go shopping I have a specific thing in mind that I need, and then I have to shop around to a bunch of stores hoping to find it. That's a lie I don't shop around, I go only to Kohl's, Walmart, Ross, Target and Sam's Club, and never all in the same month. Yes, I'm awesome, unless I need jeans then its aeropostale I go. I bring up the shopping because lots of people go shopping on the weekend, or their kid's sports games, but that is apparently against the rules in this family.
But I'm totally off topic. The topic is reading. It seems like I haven't been reading lately, because I haven't. I've been watching a lot of netflix and its getting really not entertaining. I decided to have a personal Jane Austen Seminar this past summer. I read all her books, and watch a ton of film adaptations. I really liked Northanger Abbey as I told you, and went on to Mansfield Park. Well Fanny Price bore me from the second chapter, maybe it wasn't her, maybe it was her relatives, anyway, I can not move on until I finish Mansfield Park, unfortunately I still have 250 pages to go! I'm so bored, and not reading any other books. Blah.
I have the post school started blues. I spent all summer waiting for my kids to be in school so I go shopping in peace, now its the last thing I want to do, it turns out it had nothing to do with them, I just hate shopping. Overall I'm burned out, and its not Fanny Price's fault, its my sunbeams, eight children is a lot, when half are extremely defiant and love to run away. I'm hoping they all run away during Sunday's Primary Program, then I can sit up there by my lonesome and enjoy being alone. I chase them down when we are in class, but there is no way I'm going to chase anyone in front of 300 people. It would be blissful to be alone.
I really want to paint my bedroom, but I'm made a vow to myself that I need to touch up the paint in the rest of the rooms before I buy more paint. You know how your tape pulls off some paint and you have to fix it or you look a week later and figure out your second coat totally didn't cover the texturing on one wall. Yeah I have a lot of that. I'm but putting it off, but I realized my kids are in the swing of school, its time to start. Then I got like majorly sick yesterday. It was a bummer. I have nothing to do being sick, because as I said my book is boring, and netflix is un-entertaining. You can't paint, sew, shop, or garden when you don't feel good. In effort to nip in it the bum I took two Excedrin when I woke up. Like I said I blame it on my sunbeams. When I got called I was told I had three problem children, then a fourth moved in, and we were still chugging and I was enjoy the sweetness of the small children. Although this fourth problem child was by far the hardest of the four. Then the fifth problem child moved in, I wanted to cry. The presidency constantly tells me how the fifth is by far the worst. But it turned out the fourth and fifth were always on vacation at opposite times, so I was able to chug, then school started, vacations ended and my team teacher when to college, and now I'm so burned out I spend half the week laying on the couch pumping headache medicine. When I woke up I tried remind myself only three more months, but that was wrong, three more months until my daughter turns three. Its four more months, I don't know if I'll last.
And you know I need a better weekend life so I don't blog about all my life problems.

Markers

2011-09-09T09:22:00.002-06:00

Anybody out there that knows a lot about child development? Why do people always say crayons are better for little ones than markers?

Big Girl Bed

2011-09-08T21:03:00.000-06:00

Oh I wanted to cry yesterday. My husband set up my daughter's big girl bed. She stayed in it all night long, didn't crawl out once!

I know bedrails are very controversial. But I like a bed on a frame, and I've heard after a night or two kids learn not to fall out, but I like to make the big kid bed appear like a crib with walls. I'm not sure if the green dust ruff I had in my closet matches. She totally loves her big girl bed, and is so proud of it.

Although tonight while I was at back to school night, Brent was putting them to bed. She wouldn't pick up her toys Brent told her if she didn't pick up her toys she had to sleep in the crib, we just moved it to the other side of the room for a few weeks/months. She willing slept in her crib. That little stinker!

Back to School Night

2011-09-08T20:55:00.000-06:00

I went to back to school night as a kindergarten's mom. It was totally weird, but also a lot of fun. My friend picked me up and we sat in mini chairs together, then wandered around the school together. We met most of the Specials teachers. I didn't care a lick about what the kindergarten teacher said, they are learning letters and numbers, been there done that two years ago, but oh their music teacher and art teacher seems so awesome, just the type of teachers you hope to have enriching your child's mind. Yes, I care heck a lot more about music and art than reading, writing and math. I want his creativity expanded. Although their science curriculum sounds fun.

Walking to Kindergarten

2011-09-06T17:06:00.000-06:00

As I think I've mentioned, we walk to school, usually two-three times a week. If Nan has joyschool we don't have time to walk. Although my legs are felling the pain of a .9 of a mile to school, J is liberated. He runs the whole way stopping when he can no longer see me. .6 of the distance is along one road, that leads directly to the school. At that point J could totally walk it by himself, I could turn around after saying good bye and walk back up the hill. But as a mother doesn't that sound terrifying?! He is only 5 and half. Then I read this article.

As recently as 1979, "... a six-year-old, in addition to having a couple of permanent teeth and knowing left from right, the book asks:Can he travel alone in the neighborhood (four to eight blocks) to store, school, playground, or to a friend’s home?"

Hmm, I'm thinking at the last next year he is totally walking the last .6 of a mile himself, he is hardly alone, there is mass hoard of children walking, with a few moms and strollers. Maybe next spring we'll start practicing. Right now we are practicing him getting the mail, by next spring he is totally walking the 10 houses down to the mail box, looking both ways crossing at a cross walk, unlock the mailbox, get the mail, relock the mailbox, cross the street again, and walking home. Oh yes, that is the goal for barely age 6. If that goes well, then we'll start the second half of the walk to school by himself.
By the way I love this checklist, even if it is 30 years old. I plan on trying to accomplish it by next summer. Well more like 10 houses, not 10 blocks. By far the hardest thing will be teaching him to ride a two wheel bike. We so did not accomplish that this summer, but he can pedal without help! Wahoo.

Halloween AHH!

2011-09-06T14:10:00.001-06:00

I try really hard not to jump the gun with holidays, at least not out loud. Unfortunately for you, our friends were over yesterday, the wife told me we were all dressing up, and we were going trick-or-treating together. Now in the last 18 hours I've become obsessed.
Yesterday she said, "we are running out of time",
I said, "its two months",
she said "I know, I got to get ready if I'm making costumes".
Well now I have a partner in crime and so I can't conceal it to myself anymore.
Last year was the first time Brent and I have ever dressed up, it was so fun, even if we looked so lame. So I've actually been thinking of ideas for the whole family.

Alice in Wonderland, for my daughter, I could be the Queen of Hearts, J said he wanted to be a rabbit, so its perfect. Only I don't think I can convince my husband on this, he already said no to the Mad Hatter. But there is always the caterpillar, the King of Hearts, or a whole other list of Characters. Although this would not be Disney's Alice. I would never wear this.
We could be supers. But not superman, or the Incredible, just our super family, because we are super. Remember super J cape, I could design a whole outfit around that cape, then make some for the rest of us. Amazing J, Crazy N, Super Mom, and Big Daddy, it would be awesome! Do you think I can get Brent to wear a cape for Halloween? I'd let him shy away from spandex or underwear as outwear.
Or Ghostbusters as we were talking with our friends, I said one of the best costumes I ever made was Brent's Ghostbuster costume. They said do you still have it do it again, no one here has seen it. Good point. At which point J said I want to be a Ghost again, which is not the first time he has uttered that. My friend's husband/Brent's friend told me I should totally dress up as the lady with the big glasses, I haven't seen Ghostbusters since I was a kid and so I googled it, that was sort of a lame person. So I wouldn't dress up as that, but I saw plenty of girls dressed up as Ghostbusters on google images, so I thought we'll that covers three of us.
Everytime J and I talk about Halloween, Nan says she wants to be a pink butterfly. (We already have that so it would be easy, but would it be lame?! if she already has the dress up.) I really want her to be a blue butterfly since that was some of the first words she said, but we have pink. We need to make antennas.

Nan wants to be a pink princess after our friend's showing her a picture of Princess Bumblegum. I wouldn't dress her up as Princess Bumblegum since that is what they are doing, but I could make her a princess dress since I know she would love it. But I think I've decided against a princess, she has years of begging to be a princess, I don't want to do that, until she is really old enough to really want it. I do actually have a princess dress at my mom's house, but I don't think I'm ready to wear that. Its green and gold and was used for High School choir.

I dream up dressing both my children up a cowboy and cowgirl, they both have boots, but I'm pretty sure I can't convince J on that one, even though he has the boots and Nan's boots are gigantic and will fit at least another year, so that is really low on the list. Although Brent and I could dress up as Indians, that would be super funny to me, like we stole some homesteader's kids. If you knew know his family its even funnier.

J also mentioned a Lego Rock monster, here's hoping he forgets that.

Overall I can't wait to until a future year when I have a baby for halloween, I dream about these baby gnomes, because I've never seen anything cuter. (No I'm not pregnant.)

Frowny Face

2011-09-02T09:43:00.000-06:00

As a parent we are can be strict and very laissez faire all at the same time. We expect our children to be obedient immediately, or consequences follow. Our children are excepted to be well behaved at other people's houses, they are expected to eat all their dinner (age appropriate), etc. But at the same time they are suppose to be masters of themselves, I do not entertain them, they are suppose to clean up after themselves. I keep markers and scissors where they can reach them at all times. We have only had a few incidences with the markers, and since they can always reach kid scissors, nothing seems to go bad, a toddler doesn't have the coordination, and the older child knows the rules and there is no novelty. I never do my children's art projects for, I will help them, but I never finish when they get bored. Whenever we see art J and I discuss what we like or don't like about it. Art is about expression not following the rules. But like I said we do have ground rules, everyone knows we do not color on the table and absolutely do not color anywhere else. We are big believers in cause and effect.

This all being said, I've always been a bit concerned about my son in elementary school. Elementary students do a lot of art projects, but the main purpose seems to be following directions not making self expression. Yesterday was the first day we had to pay the pied piper. (That's not true we had one incidence in preschool, where I thought J was suppose to make a project, but it turned out to be mom making it for him, so we had to redo it. I was surprised we didn't have more incidences in preschool.) So yesterday our first hiccup. Everyday J comes home with a behavioral calendar. The goal is to come home with a sticker. Yesterday he had a frowny face, and it said, "J did not use his center materials nicely. That is why he has a blue hand." I thought what? blue hand? its a frowny face not a hand. Then I looked over his palm was blue, I thought weird? they punish kids by inking their hand? Then I realized oh he made his hand blue. I asked him about it he looked thoroughly confused. They were making finger prints and he put his whole hand in, and got in trouble. I said did you know you weren't suppose to put your whole hand in? He said no, and looked at me confused. J is pretty cautious of breaking the rules, he didn't looked ashamed at all, he just looked confused. We talked about it again, and I could tell he still didn't understand, and I honestly didn't know what to tell him. Yes, this will a new experience for him, he knows how to follow the rules, but not when it comes to art. I personally think creatively will enrich a brain more than following directions, but what do I know.

Yet another reason...

2011-09-01T21:07:00.003-06:00

Speaking of Temples, I wanted to tell you yet another reason I adore my husband. Right before we moved I bought a picture of the Mount Timpanogos Temple, since that is where we got married. Then my loving husband bought me the matching frame Sacred Grove picture.

I figured it was perfect for our living room. Two most important things to me, my family and my religion. A picture of the place religion started, and the place my family began right smack in the center of my house.

(Yes, I know they are off centered from the couch, we moved the couch, and the pictures were actually quite difficult to hang, so I just ignore it.) But then I got a thinking a few months later, that my family really needs to see the temple we live by. It really needs to be front in center in our home. So luckily Lil' Luna came through for me. I downloaded the picture, edited it a bit, printed a 5x7 and hung it up. Unfortunately my wood frames don't quite match. But I love it anyway.

Although I'm not quite sure if my children can see it since they are short. Its the principle right?

When I asked my husband is two pictures of the temple too much for one room? He said Nonsense, you can never have to many pictures of the temple. And right then and there, I fell in love with him all over again.

First Day of Joy School

2011-08-29T21:28:00.000-06:00

Today was the first day of Joy School, Nan had been looking forward to for the last week, actually the entire summer. She was so excited to go to "her school" and have a backpack to wear just like J.

She seems so young to me for school. Probably because she is! She is only two and half, but she has decided she needs it, so luckily we have friends we are obliging, all the rest of the girls are already three. I kind of wish we had one more year of no scheduling for her, but she has convinced me and I know this will be for the best for her. She loves school. I stayed and shadowed the class today, I wasn't sure if I could teach two hours of Joy School, why I was unsure I have no idea, I teach two hours of three year olds every week in church. Anyway, Nan did great if I do say so myself, but she has more experience than most of the girls in class since she did group speech therapy last spring. Eventhough none of the mom's are trained speech therapy I'm hoping the social interaction well help her speech to continue to improve. She is in class two days a week, with five little girls total. I teach one week every five weeks, and then assist another week. So two mornings a week for three weeks at I time I will be childless. I don't know what I'm going to do with myself! I guess go to the dentist and all that stuff.
It makes me sad that my babies are all in school, but I'm glad they have the social interaction, and that I do too. I love seeing the mom's at Joy School, and seeing the mom's at Kindergarten pick up. Its so fun.

P.S. I love living here.

Update on Homeownership

2011-08-27T20:28:00.002-06:00

Update on Homeownership:

There is no grass in the xeriscaping (rocks) in my front yard, and have been wearing a bandaid on my hand for the last three days from a popped blister. But boy is my xeriscaping beautiful, don't believe me, ask my neighbor, Ms. Mary. If we are lucky the xeriscaping on the side of the house, will be beautiful by next time this week.
My garage door is broken, there is a gigantic spring on front top of garage doors, it popped broken. I didn't have a car for two days because it was trapped inside. Finally when the repairman said he was late and couldn't come until 6 pm on Friday, Brent said let's reschedule on monday, and so we manually opened the door to free old subaru-y. After calling around and getting a lot of answering machines, I decided to cut my losses and take the $140 bid, after hearing the $260 bid. No my home warranty does not cover it. Blah.
My two year old now has a big girl bed (twin mattress) but it is hiding in the garage until next weekend.
My dryer is very loud and squeaky and probably needs someone to look at it.

Needless to say, we are house poor and broke.
But in case we aren't having enough fun, we are thinking about reseeding our grass.
Did you know I absolutely love living here? Because I do, I never want to leave. Although one day my husband does want to upgrade to a large than a quarter acre property lines.

Did I mention I have shin splints? The walk to kindergarten and back, twice a day is getting to me. Pushing the stroller up the steep hill twice a day is gets rough. But in good news, I'm walking over three miles a day.

Growing up

2011-08-26T16:14:00.000-06:00

You know how old people always talk about how one day you'll miss the toys everywhere?
I don't know if I believe them, to clean the house and it stays clean seems like a dream... ahh.. dreams...
But I've been feeling a little emotional about my kids growing up. I have a kindergarten, and both children wearing underwear. I have no baby! No body will be wearing a onesies next summer! Few things are as great as a baby in the summer wearing a onesie without pants.
Well today, I've been quite busy, and so there are toys everywhere! I was putting away laundry, and every room upstairs including our master had toys littering the floors. It honestly made me sad, thinking about one day when I'm old, when my children are growing up, and toys are no longer on the floor. Sad day, why do children have to grow up, can't they just stop crying, and stop peeing their pants, but stay little?

Here is another sad thing. My daughter will essentially be in school from the age of 2. She was in speech therapy last year, that we called school, and it piked her interest. She is a social butterfly and loves loves school. So we are doing Joy School this year, and hopefully next year, and then maybe pre-k, something that year, then kindergarten. Speech therapy piked her interest, and she WANTS to be in school so bad. It makes her sad that J goes to school without her. I kind of wish we had more time without school for her, even if is only Joy School, but she needs it.

A month

2011-08-26T15:07:00.005-06:00

Its a month until my birthday!
I really haven't been planning much this year. I don't know if that means I'm growing up, or house poor.
I assume I already got my present from my husband, this computer desk I'm typing at.
But I would also love to paint our bedroom, and finish it up, ie hang the curtains, get lamps, hang some wall art. But that is now getting pricey, and winter is approaching-- we want new winter coats, and I want new boots.
My coat is starting to get cold, its nine years old, and my boots leaks. So other than painting my room, and hanging the curtains I'll put the rest off.
I did tell my husband to take my kids down to Sam's and pick out a cupcake/cake combo for my birthday. Plus he said their orange chicken. When we came out to buy our house we ate at PF Chang's, and I told my husband maybe this should be my yearly birthday date. Well he decided he liked Sam's orange chicken better, and hes right that I would rather spend the other $40 on the house, than dinner out. Anyway, we'll see what my birthday brings me.

Modesty

2011-08-25T20:03:00.000-06:00

Yet another reason to modest, and not wear spaghetti straps. A few weeks ago, Brent and I were at his graduation dinner, as you walked in they gave you name tags. We talked with many people that night, a few were females wearing very thin strapped tank tops. I watched one of put on her sticker name tag, she didn't know what to do with it, eventually she did what the other females with tank tops did, they put it on their skin. I saw another one fidget with the sticker, it looked terribly uncomfortable. I was grateful to have a full coverage shirt on. I wasn't so grateful to have long pants on, it was miserably hot, a skirt would have been preferable.

Talks that Spoke to Me

2011-08-25T08:36:00.000-06:00

This month's Ensign (Aug 2011) there is a talk by L. Tom Perry. He quotes Spencer W. Kimball a few times, and they are great quotes.

In contrast to this secular lifestyle, President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) taught us the importance of seeking knowledge from God:
“In proper sequence, first comes the knowledge of God and his program, which is the way to eternal life, and then comes the knowledge of the secular things, which is also very important. …
“... Mortality is the time to learn first of God and the gospel and to perform the ordinances. After our feet are set firmly on the path to eternal life we can amass more knowledge of the secular things. …
“Secular knowledge, important as it may be, can never save a soul nor open the celestial kingdom nor create a world nor make a man a god, but it can be most helpful to that man who, placing first things first, has found the way to eternal life and who can now bring into play all knowledge to be his tool and servant.”

That quote was good, and I know when I was getting my bachelors degree I always had time for my homework as long as I studied my scriptures first and attended the temple regularly. While Brent was doing his MBA, he decided to read the entire LDS standard works in a year, once he did that he seemed to have the time to meet all his obligations. Work was such a mess, homework was getting done, and the kids and I were finally getting some attention. But the quote I loved was this:

President Kimball reminded us of the importance of consistent scripture reading when he said: “I find that when I get casual in my relationships with divinity and when it seems that … no divine voice is speaking, that I am far, far away. If I immerse myself in the scriptures the distance narrows and the spirituality returns.”

I just love it. A few weeks before that I read that talk I read, Boyd K Packer's May 2011 Conference Talk, and I've been thinking about it ever since. I love the first paragraph.

It has been 400 years since the publication of the King James Bible, with significant contributions from William Tyndale, a great hero in my eyes. The clergy did not want the Bible published in common English. They hounded Tyndale from place to place. He said to them, “If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the Scripture than thou.”

As President Packer said that is has been fulfilled ten fold, by ever child who reads the Book of Mormon and Bible, but I was more thinking of Joseph Smith when I first read it.
The whole talk was good in my opinion, and inspired me I marked it all up in my magazine, but I've also dwell on the last paragraph.

If you are carrying some burden, forget it, let it alone. Do a lot of forgiving and a little repenting, and you will be visited by the Spirit of the Holy Ghost and confirmed by the testimony that you did not know existed.

I think maybe I'm always thinking about forgiveness. My husband is a master at forgetting and forgiving. His ability to forgive is always inspiring to me. I'm the opposite I love to hold grudges, to hold on to them until the fester and grow. But between my husband's righteous example, and my father's wise counsel when I was a teenager I'm learning the blessing of forgiving and forgetting. I remember my dad teaching me, "what does this have to do with your relationship with the Lord?" Inevitably the answer is nothing, and with that knowledge you can move on your spirituality.

Club member

2011-08-24T09:13:00.000-06:00

Years ago we bought our tires at Sam's so we of course bought the membership. Back in January I decided we weren't saving any money going to Sam's, because who ever walks out without spending at least $100. Sometimes I can get out with only giving them $60. Then we bought a house three months later, so it seemed no big deal not to go to Sam's I was trying to use what I had, not stock up. Since our move, there has been a few times in the last few months, I've thought what? where am I going to buy my bulk kleenex or my trash bags. Not to mention the orange chicken, we love Sam's frozen orange chicken. In fact a year or so ago we thought about trying out Cosco, it was closer than Sam's so we borrowed a card, and bought stuff checked out the prices, it was bigger than our Sams, but the orange chicken was terrible, so we said forget it.
But like I said there was only three things I wish I had my Sams card, oh and paper towels, so I figure life would go on. I was working on the orange chicken we hadn't found any frozen orange chicken we liked at Walmart yet, but we still had another four brands to go, and we have two other grocery stores in town I figured eventually we could find something.
Then last week my husband got a nail in his tire, it wasn't flat but it did need to be replaced. So signed back up, we are now proud card carrying Sam's club members. Again. Guess what, we spent more than $100, in our first visit. But at least we had good tasting orange chicken again, its the first time in six months.
I don't know how I feel about myself anymore, I was kind of feeling smug for pushing of the shackles of the club membership. Now I've bought back into the man.

First Day of Kindergarten

2011-08-23T20:45:00.000-06:00

Our first day of Kindergarten started at 5:30 am. J came in our room and told us he couldn't sleep. We all cuddled together for the next hour or so, sleeping on and off. I seem to remember my husband telling him he was not allow to talk if he was in our bed. I honestly have no idea what time my husband wakes up, somewhere between 6:30-6:45ish maybe a few minutes later some mornings. At 7:30 J and I got out of bed, its best to give him a full hour to get ready. School starts at 8:55, but we needed to leave at 8:30 because we walked. I'm glad we walked, it took us 20 minutes with Nan in the stroller. Its about three quarters of a mile. Lots of parents were walking their children, but even more were driving. (They cut bus routes this year, with budget cuts.) I was glad we walked so we wouldn't be in the traffic. As we started to join more people walking their children, I had to try to not get emotional. Kindergarten is way different than preschool!

Everything went well, I didn't want to be late, and we were there early, J ran part of the way out of excitement I think. That is J's teacher on the left. The surreal moment was when the kindergartens went inside, and Nan and I started walking home. There we were in a large group of parents walking home childless. My mom use to walk us to and from school, I never once realized she had to walk to get there. It was weird. It is weird to be a parent of a elementary school kid, his school reminded me so much of my old elementary school.

Kindergarten went great for him. But poor two year old sister was beside herself in grief all morning, mourning the loss of her favorite person. At one point she was about to drive me over the edge with whining, I asked what is wrong, why are you so upset? She looked at me and said "miss Osh!" But he came home and all was well. She can't wait to start Joyschool next week.

I love my church

2011-08-22T16:22:00.001-06:00

Now you are expecting some spiritual reason, this is not the post. I love it because of all the instant friends. We went to meet the teacher this afternoon. We met the kindergarten teacher, and J already knows four kids in his class! We only moved here four months ago, and he knows four kids before the first day of school. That is just so awesome! Not to mention as we walked around the school, we ran into familiar face after familiar face. I love that we only moved here four months ago and we already knew so much of the community. I think I talked to at least five other families I go to church with, that aren't in J's class. I love that we have only lived here four months and I ran into nine different people who were happy to see me. Actually ten, I forgot about the tenth.

My Son

2011-08-21T22:13:00.000-06:00

He starts Kindergarten tomorrow. Well actually Tuesday, Monday is the open house in the afternoon.
He is so excited.
He has been talking about it for the last four months, he can't wait to meet his new friends, and asks me if I know what they will be like.
I'm not quite sure what happened to the last five years.

My daughter

2011-08-21T22:10:00.000-06:00

Would you like to hear about my daughter? I thought you would.

She is very emotional, which we knew from before day one. It is sometimes good and sometimes wearing.
She is enjoying her new found maturity of potty training, but she loved all the attention so much she has become very clingy.
She kicked me in the eye during church, that was pretty awesome. Not!
She was accident free during church, went twice during the almost four hours. (We got there a half an hour early for a soft pew, and left a half an hour late because we had lots to business to talk to everyone about.)
Church was the only successful time concerning her underwear. That's not true at the end of the day, she actually told us she had to go. I'm still telling her when to go, its only been three weeks.
She will be a sunbeam next year. Most of the soon-to-be sunbeams are in the same nursery class, she is not, we have three nursery classes in our ward. I really don't care where she is, but I just didn't know if they knew how old she is since we moved into the ward this spring. (I have sunbeams who I only know their names no birthdays because they are new-ish.) I asked the Nursery leader about it, she said I know she is about to be, but the three year old class already has 12 kids in it, I need to add the last three but I just don't have the space. Plus her class only had 5 in it today... I'm getting there, I'm just not there yet, I promise by October I'll have her switched. I said oh don't worry she'll be fine, I'm honestly not concerned I was just wondering. She said no, I'm aware. She also mentioned some of the kids aren't quite ready for the three year old class. She said they are still learning to stay seated in their chair which I need for the three year old class, the older class plays with toys less. I said is she one that needs to help in those areas? She said no actually she is ready, she is just the youngest. I said ok, that's fine. I'm really not concerned in the slightest, she loves Nursery, so I'm not worried at all. I was just checking, its nice to hear good things about my daughter. Some children you try modestly say thank you when someone complements them, others like my daughter, you are sincerely grateful to hear compliments, it makes life a little less trying.
In case you didn't do the math, that is 15 sunbeams next year. That means two sunbeam classes. I was wondering if I'm still a sunbeam teacher, would I want to teach my daughter? I've always been adamant that I won't teach J in primary, in SLC I was suppose to teach him, and I told the president no. (That would have been toxic, and you have to stop toxic immediately.) I mentioned it to Brent, we discussed it for a minute one whether I would want to teacher her. I thought it might be fun, she has a drastically different personality. In the end I realized she would excel with someone else, but come January I'll let the president make the choice.
Its funny how drastically different my children's personalities are.
My son and daughter have a lot of friends, who are siblings. But the interesting thing is, since they are three years apart, my son is always the oldest of his friends by a few months and my daughter is always the youngest by a few months, if they both have friends from the same family that are siblings.
In close she is an excellent napper and sleeper. Napping was an acquired skill, but she has always been good at sleeping at night, its been a much needed blessing in our life.

More House

2011-08-17T12:56:00.000-06:00

Do you notice something? No?

Exactly the point!

A few Saturdays ago, the kids and I were gone all day, and I came home to this!

It was amazing, while we were gone, Brent put all the TV wires inside the wall!
It was a like a mother's day miracle. Except it wasn't mother's day. (You would have had to be there to understand.)

New Blankets

2011-08-16T14:43:00.000-06:00

I bought the kids new blankets. This is all very exciting to me, because we rarely buy new blankets in the house. Homemade, or no made. I have never even bought a new blanket for my bed, my mom did buy me a duvet cover that I picked out for my birthday year or two ago, but other than that nothing. If you recall, I mentioned I wanted to make a new blanket for my son. Then I got a thinking and, I thought hmm, if I could find a blanket on sale for him, that it would be cheaper than buying the material and it would be a lot faster.

But I got distracted and had to buy this for my daughter even though she doesn't have a big girl bed yet, because it is perfect for her room, with the hot pink which she calls red, and the green accents. Eventhough she doesn't have a bed yet, I decided to buy it now, because it was on sale, but we didn't get a sham.

Luckily right after I bought that for my daughter, we found this on clearance for my son. He wanted an orange comforter, and this is reversible orange on the back side. We bought it and I know he was excited about the orange, but who knows his real feeling because when I asked him he said, *sign* its fine. He is such a boy! I firmly replied do you like or not? He responded all put out, yes. We did get a sham, he was trilled, and I was surprised.

On a last note, since I mentioned duvet covers, I hate the movement towards them. Its such a rip off, they aren't any cheaper that a comforter and then up being twice the price because you have to add the insert. We didn't get the inner blanket thing for our queen duvet, we just used our old handme down comforter. Yeah, we're cool like that.

Here is the question when we get a big girl bed for my daughter what do we do with the crib? There is no logical reason to keep it up, I'm not pregnant, but it does come in handy once in a while. The other day my friend put her baby to nap while we chatted.

Probably the end

2011-08-16T14:36:00.000-06:00

This is probably the end of the potty training posts. Number two was so uneventful in comparison to three years ago. She has made a lot of progress since day one. I'd pretty much say she is potty trained, plus she no longer goes in the kitchen.

Sure we are going to have 10 million accidents between here and her third birthday but she is potty trained. She goes when she wakes up, and I still set the timer, and every hour she sits on the potty and about every other time she pees. She knows how to sit on the potty and pee so that is good, because I don't think she figured it out until Saturday and we started on last Monday. But I know my daughter's personality, and I knew once she figured it out she be done. We can leave the house for about two hours and we stays dry while we are gone. Her diaper is dry after naps, but not during the night. She doesn't need a diaper for naps, but since she is a crib, I decided better safe than sorry. She goes potty at church, she can sit on a big toilet all by herself, but she of course has no desire to leave Nursery to try and go, and so she had a pull up on. I put pull ups on her when we run errands because I hate cleaning up pee in the grocery store, but I do the same thing I did with her brother and that is keep their underwear on under the pull up so its uncomfortable if they do have an accident. She doesn't care about potty treats, which is awesome since my five year old still asks for them! He has been asking for the last 3 years! She stopped caring about potty treats on Friday, and the only thing she ever REALLY cared about was lip gloss not candy. She was furious if I wouldn't let her put it on when she had an accident. Which is why I bought the lip gloss because I knew she would like it better than candy. Now she doesn't even care about that after she goes potty.
Overall its been way less painful, but its been super nice to have a husband home by 5, and almost completely take over parenting her. Its been so helpful, since last time for some reason I potty trained my child while Brent was camping.
Nan only held her breath once during training, causing her to fall off the toilet so its been pretty painless. Mind you I was still beside myself with grief from potty training for the past week, but it could have been worse. She has no need of her little potty, but it scared me to watch her turn herself purple while crying and fall off the big toilet, so the little potty is still around for her to choose. Ever since she passed out crying on vacation she has figured out how to turn herself purple might quick. Its so weird, she has held her breath crying since the day she was born, but it has only been in the past month, she makes herself turn purple when she holds her breath.

Father's Day

2011-08-14T12:47:00.003-06:00

I'm a little behind in my blogging, can't you tell? The weekend following my dad, Brent moved in. Which happened to be father's day weekend. It was kind of funny we were separated between mother's day, and father's day. I also realized I would rather, have the most miserable marriage ever, than live without him. Not that we have a miserable marriage, I think ours is super fantastic great, but I'm just saying, I found out I can't live without him.

Obviously the kids gave his a tie and soccer balls. We now actually have three soccer balls, one sized for every size in our house. J thinks it needed to give Brent a tie for father's day.