Squishy Puffy Cheeks

Is it wrong for me to not want my kiddos to grow up? I really think that someday I am going to miss them falling asleep in the car, and me having to carry them into the house and being able to kiss their squishy puffy cheeks as they lay there sound asleep!!

Do teenagers have squishy puffy cheeks??

Hips

I just figured out why Heavenly Father blessed me with such Big Hips. I just finished mowing my entire back lawn with one hand, while balancing Luke on one of my hips. I then used the other hip to engage the clutch on our self propelled mower.

You may ask why on earth I didn't just leave Luke in the house . . . well it started out that way until I looked over at the back door to see him watching me through tear filled eyes and a red, sweaty face that had been crying for some time. :(

He apparently crawled past the door and saw that mom was outside without him, and just felt extremely neglected.

Now if only I could figure out why I have been endowed with these flabby arms. ;)

Slim?? Pickin's

It feels like I haven't updated this thing since Valentines Day!!! I have about 5 other posts started, but I run out of time before I finish them . . . . blah, blah, blah. So now that I am so behind, I will just try to keep up with what we are doing now and then go back and play catch up one post at a time.

Bart has been working like a mad dog trying to get this job done so that we can go on our trip next month and there have been days that the kids only get to see him for about 15 - 30 minutes(maybe). Anyway, it has started to show in everyone's demeanor. WE MISS HIM!!!!

Anyway, last Saturday Bart was going to go to work and we were going to go up the canyon and have a picnic with him just to spend time with him. Then as we were going to bed Friday night he said he wasn't going to go to work and that he wanted to stay home with us(and sleep in of course). So we got up, ate breakfast, then went to work. We weeded and cultivated the garden, picked raspberries, gave Aspen a bath and just hung out with each other working all day long. It was great!!!! Even though we were working all day, it was nice to do it with Dad home!! :)

While we were picking raspberries, I was in this "life is wonderful" mindset as I was sweating like a pig in the heat, and I had to run in and grab my camera. Here are some pictures of our yummy raspberies - - - and our cute raspberry pickers. :)

I went out yesterday with the kids again and picked even more than we got on Saturday, Grant was a BIG helper and stuck with me the whole time. Jackie just filled her bowl and went and sat on the sidewalk and polished them off. McKinley just wanted to ride her bike and run around. So THANK YOU Grant for your help!!!

"MMMMMMMM"

Jackie is the "raspberry thief" because she sneaks out the garage door to go eat all she can pick before she gets caught.

After we were done, we made fresh raspberry milk shakes - even more YUM!!!!! I was going to take a picture of the actual shake, but apparently I was to hungry to do that so you only get the picture of the bucket of raspberries by the blender. :)

Happy Father's Day

So this year I WAY procrastinated what to get Bart for Fathers Day. Plus I had to order it online so he won’t actually get his present for another 7 – 14 business days. (Sorry Bart!!)

I feel really bad because Bart usually puts a lot of thought in the presents he gives and he always plans ahead and never just runs out at the last minute to get a machete or something weird like that.

Wait a minute – who we talkin about????

Okay – on a more serious side, I am very thankful that I have Bart in my life. He is such a wonderful example to me and our kids. He is always giving and serving others. He works extremely hard every day to provide for us and is always there to support us in anything that he can. He helps me strive to be a better person by helping me to keep a positive attitude. I am so thankful that he is such a wonderful Dad to our kids – even though he works his guts out, he is still able to come home and meet the chaos in our house with a smile, eat dinner and then go back outside to jump on the trampoline with the kiddos.

As we were driving home last night I remembered that I wanted to steal this idea from my sister last year and “interview” each of our kids.

So here you go – We love you Dad – Happy Fathers Day!

1. What is your dad’s name?
Grant – Bart
McKinley – Bart
Jackie – Bart

2. How old is your dad?
Grant – 40
McKinley – 4
Jackie – 1

3. How tall is your dad?
Grant – 50 miles
McKinley – 4 miles
Jackie – 2

4. What is your dad’s favorite thing to do?
Grant – play egg crack (crack the egg)
McKinley – work and come home
Jackie – go a work

5. What is your favorite thing to do with dad?
Grant – play dragons
McKinley – Jump on the trampoline and ride my bike and do a bike ride
Jackie – umm go to work

6. What does dad do for his job?
Grant – work – umm build stuff
McKinley – work – umm building work
Jackie – go to work

7. Where is dad’s favorite place to go?
Grant – home
McKinley – to SLC where Jackson and Carson lives and where Jeana and Wayne live and baby Kaelyn too. And his favorite place of all is to come home.
Jackie – to Grandpa Wally’s house.

8. How do you know dad loves you?
Grant – because he loves me jumping on the trampoline
McKinley – because he never sawed me before and he named me McKinley and I want to be Sophie instead – it’s a beautiful name.
Jackie – because he jump on the trampoline this year and he swing on the swing-set and play in the sandbox and make a sand castle

9. How do you show dad you love him?
Grant – Giving him a hug
McKinley – by hugging him and giving him a kiss and a love – I mean a zerbert
Jackie – bcuz ---- go to work

10. What is dad really good at?
Grant – reading scriptures
McKinley – doing jumping jacks and asking a question
Jackie – pushing the button

11. What is dad not very good at?
Grant – fixing cars
McKinley – not very good at climbing the house without a ladder
Jackie – Grandpa Wally’s house

12. How do you know dad loves mom?
Grant – cuz he gives her a kiss
McKinley – because Dad never sawed me and you were dad’s friend
Jackie – because he love mom

13. What is dad’s favorite food?
Grant – spinach
McKinley – spinach and carrots and salt and pepper
Jackie – ice cream – and I’m getting ice cream too but the strawberry is all gone

14. What makes dad sad?
Grant – his dog getting lost
McKinley - by doing the stuff that a bad guy tells him to do and being mean
Jackie – sad for you – because he climb up the shelf and he get down the floor

15. What makes dad happy?
Grant – playing dress up with a spy
McKinley – by telling him a secret that we are keeping
Jackie – with a smile on his face

16. What do you want to tell dad?
Grant – I want to tell him to work with the cows with Grandpa Paul and me too
McKinley – Happy Fathers Day
Jackie – get my flip flops on and go to church

Milkaholic

Jackie has a serious addiction to MILK!!! I didn't think it was a problem, but looking back now I have to admit I was just in denial. I mean, who wants to admit your two year old is a milkaholic?? (tear - sniff)

I guess what brought it to my attention was the incident that happened last week. I was in playing with Luke and Jackie asked me for her milk. I told her it was in the fridge so she went and got her cup and came and sat next to me on the living room floor. She took a few sips, then dropped the cup from her mouth and said, "AAAAAAH - thats better!"

Bart tried to tell me to get rid of those blasted sippy cups months ago, but I just didn't want to do it. I can only blame myself.

Needless to say, Jackie will be going to milkaholics anonymous in the coming months where she will undergo a serious demilkification.

Confidence

The past few weeks I have been having an internal struggle about how I am doing as a mother when it comes to my kids self-esteem and confidence. I have had a HUGE decision placed in front of me and after weeks and weeks - I still don't know which is the right choice for them. The reason it is so hard to decide is because it is a choice between two very good things. Plus, I can't seem to make a decision to save my life these days. AAAHHH!!!

With that in mind - what do I do to make sure they gain a sense of self and have the confidence in themselves to face this scary world? This has been a constant worry on my mind and probably will be until the day I die!

I think one way is to always talk positively about them. Which I feel sad to say is sometimes hard - not because they don't do things that are positive, but because the world these days thrives on the negative aspects of life and we all get caught up in it.

There have been times when talking to a friend or family member or even a stranger at the grocery store, when I don't stand up for what I believe and stand up for my kids. For instance, if someone at the store says, "WOW - you sure have your hands full" (which if I had a dollar for every time someone has said that to me we could have a round trip to Disneyland paid for.), I have a tendancy to respond by saying, "You have no idea" or "I sure do". Instead of saying, "Yes I do and we have a blast together!" or "Aren't I lucky to have each of these beautiful faces?"

Growing up I had an aunt that would always say, "Little pigs have big ears", which was code for there-are-children-present-so-watch-what-you-say. When these comments are made to me, my kids are right there listening to them and to my reaction. I want them to know how much I love them and to see the love I have for them by my actions and how I talk about them to others. Rather than hearing me at that weak moment after I have spent 30 minutes chasing around the store just to get some milk and eggs and I have to hear the SAME comment again from the checker who told me the SAME thing when I was there a week ago. I need to do better at showing that I love them no matter how worn out I am at that moment.

I believe that this is one of the most important factors in helping them gain a sense of confidence in themselves - to let them see how much they are loved. I also want them to know not only know how much I love them, but how much their Father in Heaven loves them. Am I showing them how much he loves them by how much I love them? I would like to say that I am, but I know I have a lot of work ahead of me.

I ran across this quote the other day, and I keep thinking about it, "Ask yourself: What is the most important thing in my life? And if the answer is your children, then live like that. Make them your center. There is nowhere higher to go. This is the Consummate Job." Iris Krasnow

Do I live like my kids are the center of my life???? Because they are my life and I love that, I love waking up each morning knowing that I get to be with them. Their innocence and imagination bring such joy to my life and help me remember Heavenly Fathers plan for all of us. They help me to see the bigger picture.

There are some days when I want to pull my hair out, but others that make it soooooo worth it. I know that I am supposed to be doing what I am right now in my life and that raising a family is the most important thing I could be doing with my time. One of these days I will wake up and all of my kids will be grown up and gone and I know in my heart I will wish that I could have one more day just to be with them. But for now - while they are still here I want to spend as much time with them that I possibly can.

I want to be the best mom I can be and I don't want to look back some day and feel bad that I chose one thing over the other for them and think, "That would have made all the difference". Despite my parents attempts to teach me to work hard, I have a natural tendency to be lazy and I don't want to take the lazy way out with my kids. They are so much better than that - they deserve so much better than that.

Perspective

Starting late Sunday night and early Monday morning a head cold snuck into our house and by Tuesday morning ALL of us had it. We have consumed approximately 6 - 8 large cans of Campbells Chunky Chicken Noodle Soup and about 16 - 20 quarts of Orange Juice. Needless to say it has been a LLLLLOOOOONNNNNGGGGG week.

I kind of feel guilty saying this, but it needs to be said. One of the good things that I liked this week was that the kids were sick and wanted to snuggle more than they wanted to make messes and get into things. It was kind of nice to see them just lay there. Sorry I am a horrible person, but it was a little nice. Mainly it was nice because for a couple of days all I could do was just lay there most of the day too.

But after wiping noses 976 times, being showered by 5, 381 sneezes and hearing 26,782 coughs, it got a little tiresome (not to mention the numerous "reminders" to COVER YOUR MOUTH). I am sorry to say that I did not have very much patience left by yesterday morning. We were actually supposed to go to Provo today to support Tyler (Bart's cousin) going through the temple, but we ended up just sending Bart as our representative. Last night I announced to Bart that we were all going no matter if we were sick or not, we needed to get out of this house so I didn't strangle one of the children. Then this morning I think Bart was having second thoughts about going because he was afraid to leave me alone with the kids again because he might come home to one or two less than what he left me with.

Well seeing Bart struggle with his decision this morning made me think a little and realize that even though I am a little sleep deprived (understatement of the year), the kids are probably feeling the same way I am. In fact they are probably silently pleading their dad, "please don't leave us with this psychotic woman again". Anyway, I was just thinking that when I am up with the kids I need to remember that they are awake and missing out on sleep too. I also need to remember that when one doesn't let me go to bed until 1:30 in the morning and another one makes me get up at 4:00 for the day, it doesn't mean that they are ganging up on me and trying to make me get more gray hairs.

After I had this epiphany I decided that I needed to change ME in order to set the mood for the rest of them. I have to say I am still trying to be patient (even when McKinley washes her hair in the bathroom sink with 1/2 the bottle of shampoo - spilling 1/3 of it on the counter). But this made me think about the kids and their feelings a little. I know this week I have been a little testy when any of them asked me for anything like when Grant asked for the 14th time to type on the computer and when Jackie asked for her 8th cup of milk. Anyway, I decided to take time to play with them. So I gathered up Luke and we went into McKinley and Jackie's room, sat crossed legged on the floor, and had brunch. We ate eggs, hotdogs, hot chocolate, milk (which Luke kept spilling on me - I now know why sippy cups were invented - even though we were just pretending), turkey, grapes, secret ingredient soup and 3 different kinds of pie. It really helped me to remember that they are just kids and that I need to chill myself out and stop adding my temper tantrums to the mix.



I know that having herbal tea isn't going magically make me have more patience, but it helped me to have a better perspective on the things that are important to me - my kiddos and their feelings. Sorry guys!

Cheesy or Brilliant??

We have had a little trouble around our house lately when we say our prayers. Someone is usually yelling that they want to say the prayer ("but I want to , but I want to"), another is saying the prayer but twisting on their stool with their eyes open and arms flying all over the place, and the other is trying to sneak bites of dinner. I have to say that even mom and dad aren't too reverent because usually one of us is playing referee with all the kids.


Well the other day I saw an idea for a family home evening on reverence that I thought would help us with reverence during our prayers. And since our kids are suckers for playing dress up I just knew it would work (at least I hoped it would). Anyway, I made a reverence crown and wrote "King of Me" on one side and "Queen of Me" on the other. This is to show that they have control over themselves and are the only ones who can make themselves be reverent. Then whoever is the most reverent during the prayer gets to wear the crown during that meal.

When I was cutting the crown out of the posterboard, I asked Bart what he thought about it and he said it was kind of cheesy. UUHH!!! What support! :) Well the next morning at breakfast it was decided that I was BRILLIANT!!!! In fact it has helped us so much that sometimes I "forget" to give the crown and they forget too so they are reverent just for being reverent. AAAAHHHHH Nice!!!! Jackie usually only gets it when she is saying the prayer because she is the "but I want to, but I want to" girl. But one day she will get there. This morning we even let Luke wear it. He sure looked Kingly!! :)


I also have to point out that you can be stripped of your title as king or queen by not being reverent while you are wearing the crown, hereby renouncing the thrown to the next reverent subject.


Brilliant - I know!

Happy Valentines Day!!

For Valentines Day last year I got all the kids a helium balloon on the spur of the moment trip to the store the night before and last November McKinley still remembered her balloon (with kisses on it) so I decided to make it a tradition to get them a balloon every year. However this time I got the balloons in the afternoon and left them in the car so the kids wouldn't find them until morning. Well it was a little cold in the car. Bart brought them in the house around 10:30 or so and they were fine, but by the morning they were laying on the ground. :( So I guess they get deflated helium balloons this year. I also made them candy leis which were a pretty big hit - Grant wouldn't eat his until that night, Jackie had hers half gone by the time I got the camera out to take a picture and McKinley of course was more interested in the balloon. :)

Bart got me these beautiful flowers. I took the picture a couple days after so they weren't sagging like this when he gave them to me. I would show you what I got Bart, but we ate it too fast. (When I say we I mean me - sorry Bart!) I guess we are meant to be together - Bart can usually eat a WHOLE bag of chips in one sitting. Me - it is chocolate. Oops!!

2010 Snapshot

When I first started this blog, I did it with the intention of keeping a journal for my kids. I consider myself to have a pretty good memory, but there are still a lot of things about my own childhood that I wish I knew. My mom never kept a journal and she passed away when I was 18. There have been more days than I can count since I have become a mom that I wish I could have her here to tell me what it was like when we were little. I would love to know what she did when this or that happened. Most of all I would just love to know her thoughts on many different things.


I started keeping little journals on the computer for my kids a few years ago, with little stories about each of them. Then our computer crashed and I lost it, now I just put it all here and we can all enjoy it and we won't lose it. I am also going to print it off so we can have a hard copy of it too.


While I was at the store the other day I ran into an old family friend and she couldn't believe I had four kids already. Then we were talking about how fun it is to have kids and how it will be gone before I know it. She then said something that I thought was pretty profound. She said, "The days are long, but the years sure fly by". How true that is!!! I hope that some day when I blink that it won't be completely gone. I am hoping that I can look back at this and remember what things were like.


Anyway, I saw this on a blog a few weeks ago and I am totally going to copy their idea. There are a lot of things and events that we remember such as vacations, holidays, etc. But it is the day-to-day things that we seem to forget eaiser so I am going to do a "snapshot" into our day for us to remember the little things. So when my kids turn into teenagers and we are all caught up in all the random activities I can remember what life was like when they still thought I was cool and wanted my attention. So here goes:

When Jackie takes a bath, we usually have to remove all the towels and clothes from the room otherwise they get sucked into the tub with her.


McKinley is 4 years old but she still climbs EVERYTHING! She has started to climb the door frames and hang from the center of the door. We are putting her in a ballet class this week so hopefully we can channel her energy elsewhere.

Grant is learning how to spell things. He can spell McKinley, Foxy, and Grant and he is working on other words as well. He loves to spell things on the computer, type them up, and print them out.


Grant and McKinley are learning how to make their beds and they are doing a great job at it too.


When we eat ice cream cones we have to use a spoon (I know - it's weird!).


This one has been going on for a couple of years, but whenever someone leaves our house, all the kids have to say (in this exact order) "Bye, See ya later, Have Fun, Be Careful", followed with blowing you a kiss.


When Jackie goes to the bathroom she has to strip down to nothing to do it. A week ago Sunday I forced her onto the the toilet at church WITH her dress ON. I won!! :)


Bart looses the remote to the TV about every 30 minutes or so.


When the kids see Bart going toward the TV they start yelling, "I don't want to watch football". He thinks I put them up to it, but he is WRONG! :) The fun thing is that when they want his attention, they tell him they want to watch football just so they can snuggle with him.


Bart is gone three nights a week (Young Mens, Young Mens Basketball, and His Basketball).


I am gone three nights a month (Enrichment, and Groceries twice a month).


We are finally at the point of not knowing how long we have gone WITHOUT having Family Home Evening instead of the other way around.


Our Family Home Evenings are between 5 and 15 minutes long.


I yell way more than I ever wanted to yell at my kids.


I teach Relief Society and I enjoy it more than I ever thought I would.


Bart is the 1st Counselor in the Young Mens Presidency.


We have about a million unfinished projects around the house.


We are outgrowing our house - our bedroom is our storage unit.


Luke just started to play with toys and the kids think it is fun to see him doing something other than just sitting there. He always gets a smile on his face when anyone talks to him.


Aspen sleeps in the garage at night and freezes in the back yard during the day - luckily it has been a relatively warm winter.


McKinley attends pre-school twice a week and is learning how to spell her own name.


Grant is attending Pre-Kindergarten class Monday - Thursday. He loves learning.

Grant loves to draw and is getting pretty good at it too.


We drink 6 gallons of milk in a week - Jackie is probably responsible for 1 1/2 - 2 gallons by herself.


The last few days the bus driver has to sit at our house for a few extra minutes because Grant stands there and yaks with them.


We wake up around 6:30 and 7:00 most days, but there have been 5:00 and 5:30 days lately.


We read stories every night on Grants bed - Scripture stories and another book of choice.


We rarely see the corner of the the bar, sometimes the bar itself.


Jackie has about three different laughs that I adore.



Luke loves to watch the kids play and loves it even more when they talk to him.


We are working on being reverent during our prayers.


McKinley won't give Bart a hug or a kiss in the morning because she thinks he is dirty when he is in his work clothes.


Grant, McKinley and Jackie are very good at saying please and thank you.


Luke likes to wake up in the middle of the night and talk and sing to us.


So there we go, us in 2010. :)

"Frosty the Snowman Kid"

Grant has been after me for about a month to build a snowman, so when it snowed so much last week, we went out and built one. I didn't get a picture of the finished product, but he was pretty cute. I say was because after it snowed, we hit a little warm spell which melted Frosty's face off. Grant cried on the way to church because we didn't have time to fix his face.

Here our some pictures of our venture in the snow:

Sledding

Grandpa Wally came down a couple of weeks ago and went sledding with us. Jackie fell asleep on the way so she slept in the truck and I fed Luke, so it was just Grant, McKinley and Grandpa Wally. After about 30-45 minutes, Grandpa got cold so they all came down and ate ding-dongs in the truck. It was a lot of fun to see my kiddos playing with Grandpa Wally - that doesn't happen very often so it was nice to see them having some kind of relationship with him. (I will write more about this later and I will hopefully be able to explain.) Here are a few pictures, I was in the truck with Luke for most of the time so there aren't very many.

Grant did about two and a half 360's the first trip down the hill.

McKinley giggled the entire time. When she would get to the bottom of the hill, she would just up and run back up the hill leaving her sled behind for Grant to bring back up for her. I was in the truck and couldn't tell if Grant was objecting to the whole thing, so I am just going to say how nice he was to carry her sled up the hill for her. After this happened a few times, I saw Grandpa giving McKinley a talking to, from then on she carried her own sled. :)

When Jackie woke up, Grant and I went down three or four times with her. Jackie had fun, but she wanted to walk up the hill by herself, after about half way, I couldn't take it anymore and I picked her up and ran to the top against her protesting.

Christmas 2009

So I am a little slow at getting Christmas posted, but better late than never right?! For Christmas this year, we spent the night at Grandma LaJean and Grandpa Paul's house. It was quite fun to have everyone together for Christmas. We started with a dinner on Christmas Eve, after which Grandma had the kids sing/listen to some songs, like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Grandma also made everyone dress like Rudolph - and I mean EVERYONE (even Luke - Kaelyn somehow got away without dressing up though).

Honk - Honk! :) (I love Jackie's tongue!)

Grandpa, the Red Nosed Reindeer!

Some of us had more fun with it than others.

After dinner and playing the kids all opened their Christmas Eve present (JAMMIES). Then Santa came and since we were all still awake, he decided just to make sure he had all the correct gifts, so he came in and visited with us.

McKinley got a little giddy and said she wanted a new bike, but luckily Santa knew that she had been wanting a Jessie doll for 2-3 months and remembered that was what she really wanted.

Grant kept adding things everytime we talked about what he was asking Santa for. Mostly he stuck with a castle and a yo-yo.

Luke was a trooper and was okay with sitting on Santa's lap.

Jackie was not okay but decided that she could sit next to Santa on Dad's lap.

Christmas Morning

Grant got his castle and the kids also got some walkie talkies. McKinley did get Jessie after all.

Nurse Jackie

It was a fun Christmas and we were very lucky to have everyone together to celebrate the birth of the Savior. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for a fun weekend.