Siblings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.