Sharing = Happiness

Tonight Hannah and I were on baseball duty.  After dropping everyone off where they were supposed to be, we went to catch the end of everyone's games.  We started with Quinn's T-ball game.  After he had his treat bestowed upon him, the three of us walked across the street to watch the end of Luke's game.  Halfway over Quinn asked me to open his treat, which he immediately shared with Hannah. She was only expecting to have one bite and was pleasantly surprised when he gave her the whole cake from the package (there were two in it).  Once we got to Luke's game and set up our blanket, I opened his mini 7-up can for him.  Quinn took the first sip and was "shocked" by the carbonation, he said, "Wow mom, that just electrified my lip."  It made me chuckle.  The two of them then proceeded to take turns having sips from the "soda" (as Hannah kept calling it).  It was like watching a little Chinese tea ceremony because Quinn would hand it to Hannah and she would have to turn it ever so carefully so as not to spill it and get the hole in front of her lips so she could take a drink.  It made my heart happy to watch them share so easily with one another.

(This picture was taken just after Christmas, but it shows their cute little bond.)  

Little moments

Tonight I had to carry Luke, Quinn and Hannah to bed because they had all fallen asleep on the couches.  I picked Luke up and the dead weight of his body about did me in - I think that is the last time I carry him to bed.  (When did he get to be so BIG?).

Then I carried Quinn, who wrapped his arms and legs around me as soon as I picked him up like he was a little monkey.  When I laid him next to Luke he reached out and put his arm around Luke (aaawww - brotherly love).

Then I toted Hannah, feeling the weight of her tiny little body and realizing how big she is getting too makes me a little sad.  I walked a little slower with each of them to make the moment last a little longer (except Luke - I was about to drop him).

I am grateful that I get the opportunity to call these kiddos mine.  I am lucky to be around them each day and I love them with all of my heart!

 (Except when they sneak creamies out of the freezer  -  -  - and don't shut the door all the way  - - - so things start to thaw  - - - and about a half of a gallon of ice cream melts  - - - and runs down the door of the freezer,  - - - oozing over everything in it's path on the way down - - - filling in any crevices on its journey.)

Teenagers to Toddlers

We are past the stage of babies.  It is sad to think about not holding a new baby and snuggling with the newborn baby smells and noises.  But the stage of life that we are in now is amazing too.  From teenagers to toddlers.  Teenagers are fun and funny!  You get to have deep conversations and still act silly at times.  I love that my kids play so well together.  After we are done with school I often watch Jackie, Luke, Quinn and sometimes Hannah playing picnic or dress up or whatever they can imagine. There are also times when all of them go out on the trampoline and are out there playing who knows what.  I sometimes watch them from the window and it melts my heart to see them getting along together.  Maybe it is because they don't always do it, so when they do it is extra special, but I still love it.  I think homeschooling has kept them close.  There are ups and downs, pros and cons, good and bad things about homeschooling, but the good things seem to make the bad things seem like less. This is one of the good things.

Hannah likes to say, "creepy".  Sometimes if she sees something weird on T.V. she says it a weird sing song voice like, "creeeeppppyyy".  It is funny.  She also keeps coming to ask for a drink when she is tired and instead of saying, "I'm thirsty",  says in a tired whiny voice, "I'm drinky".  It is funny.

2016 Snapshot

A couple of weeks ago, we all sat around the couch as I read the entire blog to the kids. We sat there for about 2 hours reading and we had so much fun listening to our memories. The kids are begging me to start up again. So for now I will try to do our family snapshot for 2016.

In General Conference in October 2010 President Uchtdorf gave a talk called, “Of Things That Matter Most”. I need to do better and follow the counsel he gave to us in it. He said, “We would do well to slow down a little, . . . focus on the significant, lift up our eyes, and truly see the things that matter most. . . . Strength comes not from frantic activity but from being settled on a firm foundation of truth and life. It comes from paying attention to the divine things that matter most. . . . Diligently doing things that matter most will lead us to the Savior of the World.”

With 6 kids I sometimes feel like I am running a million miles an hour (but getting nowhere). So I need to sometimes slow down and focus on the things that matter most. A lot of times I get tunnel vision and can only focus on what is right in front of me and what I am trying to get done at the time. These days it is get up, make breakfast, do school, clean up, do dinner, get everyone to bed, clean up, go to sleep and then start all over again tomorrow. I need to slow down and truly see the wonderful things I have been blessed with. One of my blessings is my, healthy, adorable, happy, energetic, crazy, beautiful, fun, weird, loving, goofy, amazing family. 

With that being said, here is us in 2016:

Luke has been learning to read and is doing great at it.

Quinn never stops talking (he only has one setting on his volume – loud).

McKinley is reading better – keep practicing :)

We got chickens last year and they have kept us busy making a chicken coop, frostbite, mice, etc.

Grant loves doing scouts, so far he has earned his 1st and 2nd class.

Jackie HATES math, but she is GOOD at it.

Quinn interrupts school every 98 seconds. Approximately 581 times a day.

Hannah loves to dance whenever she hears music. She has some sweet ballet moves already and dances with her eyes closed when she is really “feeling” it.

Luke won't eat anything if it starts with Dinner.

Jackie likes to cook.

Grant, McKinley, and Jackie are taking piano and are getting better.

McKinley and Jackie have fun at Activity Days.

Luke gets up around 5:30 or 6:00 every day – we try to finish his school before breakfast.

Everyone else gets up around 7:00 or 7:30.

Grant loves chess and he kicks mom's trash every time.

McKinley shares her testimony quite frequently on Fast Sundays.

Bart is the Young Men's President – he is a great example to them.

I am the wolf den leader and I also teach Relief Society once a month.

Bart is still working even though the economy is struggling badly right now – things are slow, but we are thankful for the work.

McKinley and Jackie are working on getting along together.

Hannah steals our hearts with her cute smiles and kisses. Don't take something from her though or you will hear her ear piercing scream.

Hannah calls most everyone “mom”. She calls mom, “mom, mommy and mimi”.  My favorite is "mommy".

Jackie is still and will forever be independent and courageous.

Family scripture study is done at the breakfast table – while everyone's mouths are full and they are somewhat sitting still.

We try to be done with school by lunchtime, but usually go until 1:00 or 2:00 most days (we start around 9:00ish). Sometimes we are lazy and don't finish until 5:00 or 6:00. :(

The kids like to listen to each others read aloud stories even though they have already heard them before. There is nothing like a fun book.

Jackie did my hair while I was doing her school.

Everyone had to get in the picture.

We have cleaning zones, but we need to change them up so we can add Quinn.

The boys room is a challenge to keep clean.

We need to get a bunk bed for the girls so we can kick Hannah out of mom and dad's room.

Hannah falls asleep in weird places.

We take baths/showers once, maybe twice a week (GROSS). One bad habit from homeschooling.

Quinn still likes to rub out ears when he cuddles.

9:00 church is hard when we aren't used to getting everyone up and out the door for school every morning.

We have pajama day at school about 4 out of 5 days a week (at least it starts out that way).

We need to do better at writing.

Hannah is trying to mimic everything we say, it's like having our very own parrot.

Hannah knows most of the animal sounds and loves to be a kitty.

I don't go to bed until 12:00 at the earliest most days and am usually up around 6:00 or 6:30.

Hopefully this shows what we are like in our day-to-day life. President Gordon B. Hinckley said, “It is not so much the major events . . . as the small day-to-day decisions . . . that map the course of our living.” So these are the things that make up our day-to-day in 2016.

For a little bonus, here are some pictures we took last fall:

Quinn was being a pill that night and we only got 1-2 pictures WITHOUT the faces.

Quinn said this was his "fiercest" face.

Meet Hannah

I am so lousy at this.  I haven't updated this thing for TWO years.  I suppose being Young Women's president consumed me for a while.  I was released 6 months ago, but I still miss it.

Anyway, I guess I will catch up on a couple of things - both in the baby department.  First, in July of 2013 we lost a baby boy.  It was a pretty big challenge and something that I NEVER want to wish on anyone.  (I will write about this another time - maybe.)  Second, on August 10, 2014 we had another baby girl - Hannah.  She weighed 8lbs. 14oz., 21 inches.  She was born at 5:35PM.

She is like Quinn in the fact that she is needing to be supplemented with formula.  She just doesn't want to be a chubby baby.

She is skinny like McKinley and looks like both McKinley and Jackie. 

Resolutions

I have been thinking about the things I need to change this year. I have a lot that I should do – to name a few . . . . . I should loose weight, not yell as much, clean better, not procrastinate, get more sleep, improve spiritually, focus on others more, build others up, be creative with school, do my visiting teaching . . . . . I could go on and on. With the new year, there are a lot of resolutions that are made. I don't know if I have ever made a new years resolution. For me that is just setting myself up for failure. You see, I don't have very good follow through. However, this year I kind of want to do something to change myself. I know I have a million areas that I could work on, but there have been a few things weighing on my mind these days. I want to do two things this year, and they kind of go together. I want to work on Family History (I want to write in my journal more – I also want to keep a scripture journal but that is something for another day – soon though), and I want to research a family name to take to the temple.

I read a talk from Richard G. Scott last week about turning the hearts of the children to the hearts of their fathers. In this talk he mentioned a young man who liked to play video games and then started working on genealogy. He said that at first he was disappointed that genealogy was taking up his game playing time, then later he said that he just didn't have time to play games. So with this goal, I want to evaluate the quality of my free time. I need to schedule my free time and include time to work on researching a name.

Like I said before, I don't have very good follow through, but I want to do something and I feel that at least writing this down here will hold me accountable. I am going to try to write in my journal at LEAST once a month and I want to find a name to take to the temple by April. Wish me luck! :)

My little cowboy

Around 4:30 this morning, I was awakened by a blood curdling SCREAM from Luke.  I went into his room and between his sobbing/half screaming he told me, "You left my hat (sob, sob) and my boots."  He is definitely a COWBOY!!!  I love him, even if we can not go anywhere without the hat!!!  It makes it nice when we are in a crowd though because I can ALWAYS find him.  :)  Thankfully he knows that cowboys do NOT wear their hats to church, otherwise Sundays would be torture.