For Granted

Some times in life you are reminded of the things that you have and the things that you take for granted. I was reminded of quite a lot of things I take fore granted this last week. 3 of the most important things in my life....MY KIDS!!! Matt and I were very lucky to have been able to be blessed with 3 healthy, beautiful children. And not just the fact that were we blessed with them, but the fast that we were able to easily get pregnant with each of them and that my pregnancies were relatively easy and no major complications occurred. I truly have taken this for granted and I feel very humbled and very grateful to a loving Father in Heaven that has allowed this to happen for us. I feel blessed and honored to be able to be a mother. I hope that I can raise good children, that they will feel loved in our home and that they in turn will love others and be good people.

Sometimes I get all caught up in the hustle and bustle of life and the routine of the every day and I do forget how lucky I am and how fast time does go. I am so glad that I have the time with my kids to capture and create memories and that I have the knowledge of Eternity that we can be together always. I am so glad that I have captured memories through scrapbooking and blogging so that I can remember all these precious times with my kids. I am sure there will be one day, 20 years from now, when I look back and it will seem like yesterday these kids were so little. They keep me busy and sometimes I get mad, frustrated, and overwhelmed, but this is just a moment in my life right now and I wouldn't have it any other way!!!

Same Outfit

Did you notice that Paxten has on the same outfit in the next three posts?? Well the pictures all happened to be taken on the same day. I do change my kids clothes, and no they don't always wear mismatch clothing and look like this. It was a Sunday and we were all in our lazy clothes. We can all have days like that right?!

Adjusting

Matt is officially back to work. Can I just say that 5 weeks went by so fast!! I for sure thought I would be so ready for him to go back after 2 weeks, and before I knew it it had been 5 weeks. I didn't realize how much I had become dependant on him to have around the house. He would get the older kids to bed and let me sleep whenever Paxten fell asleep, sometimes long before the other kids were ready for bed. He would also get up with them in the middle of the night (why they can't sleep through the night is beyond me!) and he would let me sleep in until 9:30 or 10:00 and entertain the other kids. It was really nice. Now that he is back to work and needs his sleep as much as the rest of us, the mornings around here are a little more hectic. I now have to get up when the other kids are up to get them dressed and fed breakfast. Which makes my nights seem extremely short. I can't even count the times I am up during the night feeding and holding the little guy. Mornings for sure come way to quickly. Last night we had 5 people in our bed!??? What?? Why the **** can't my kids sleep in their own bed?? They weren't in there all night, Parker came in about 3 because he was scared and Paige came in about 5, but still, our bed isn't that big!! Today Matt is working a double shift, that means the kids will not see him until tomorrow. So I am trying to keep all the kids entertained and trying to keep the house from becoming a disaster zone. It is quite the challenge, but I did get a shower in today, which is more than I got yesterday. The biggest challenge will be tonight when I will have to get all three kids to bed...by myself!! It is going to be a difficult. I have a feeling someone will be crying....it might be me.

I Can't Believe He Said That!

Last week I had visiting teachers over and Parker was watching a cartoon. He kept turning up the volume and I would keep turning it down. He kept saying "but I can't hear it!" One of my visiting teachers said we are almost done and we will get out of your hair. Well a few minutes later, we kept on visiting with each other. Parker turns to them and says, "Are you going to get out of my hair yet?" I was so embarrassed that he had said that!! They both just laughed and the one said, "well I gave him the words!" It was pretty funny. Then as they were getting up to leave Parker said, "are you finally getting out of my hair?" I can't believe this boy!!! I was embarrassed, but at the same time it was pretty funny. Sometimes he says things that I just look at him and think, "where did you get that from?" He keeps me thinking!

On another day he had been watching a church video about Jesus Christ and the resurrection and had been constantly asking me questions about Jesus. So throughout the day he would be asking me stuff like, "who is the mayor?" and "is he the president?" and "is he the leader of our world?" So I would have to answer him and try to explain how things worked. Later in the evening as I was unloading the dishwasher he came to me and asked, "mom will I be a Prophet when I am older?" It kinda took me a second to process what he had asked me. I looked at him and said, "very few people become prophets, you have to be a super good boy all the time to become a prophet." That seemed a good enough answer for him and he turned around and left. WHAT DO YOU SAY TO THAT??? I love it when he watches something and it gets him thinking and asking questions. That in turn keeps me and my brain functioning. So from day to day I wonder what will he come up with next!

My Cravings Lately

So I have once again been craving these lately.....



especially RAW! I craved these with my last pregnancy and would just eat them like an apple. But this pregnancy is a little different and I typically like them sliced thin, with the skins on, and the dirtier the better. Some nights I wake up in the middle if the night and I have to force myself not to go to the storage room to get a potato. Why do I love these so much?? I must truly be and Idahoan! In fact I went to the store yesterday to get some groceries and I was running low on my potato stash and was going to add a bag to my cart. When I caught myself looking for the bag that had the dirtiest potatoes in it! (they were all pretty clean and looked like they had been rinsed well) What am I doing?! I must be lacking iron, but they checked my blood the last appt. I had and nothing came up, so I guess it just goes back to my childhood eating dirt cakes and now I am suddenly craving it again. In fact I told Matt what happened at the store and he just rolled his eyes. Later that night I asked if he would grab me a potato while he was up. He asked if I wanted him to go outside and roll it in dirt first! He thinks it is funny, and gross. I asked if he wanted a bite...he said no! At least it is more healthy than a big bowl of ice cream!

Blog Overload

I just published 5 new posts and am happy to say I think I am caught up for a while. Happy reading!

Sad Sad Day

(This is what the ornament looked like except it was green and had my kids picture on it!)


I had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day last Saturday. Parker was really being a little stinker last week and Saturday was the last straw. Early in the week he had written on my dresser with a pen, leaving deep engravings in it. I was pretty upset about this because this is my last piece of nice furniture that Matt and I have. The kids have ruined all the rest, so I was mad at him for doing that, but I was able to look past it because after all it is just a piece of furniture. We had the talk of choosing the right and how it makes you feel and also how to know if something is wrong and the feeling you get right before you make a choice. I don't think he understood any of that conversation!! Then on Saturday morning the worst thing (remember I am pregnant and very emotional) for a mother that can happen. Let's rewind a few years back to 2008 at Christmas time when as a gift from Parker (and a little help from grandma Yancey) he gave us an ornament with a recording of him saying "I love you daddy, I love you Mommy, Merry Christmas, Love Popper" (how he said his name at the time) It was one of the best gifts I have received, I even cried when I listened to it. It was precious and invaluable. We have enjoyed putting it on the tree each year and listening to it on and off throughout the holiday. Well back to the present, we of course put the ornament on the tree this year and Parker has loved hearing his sweet little voice on it. I have told him not to play with it and that if he wanted to listen to it that I needed to help him. On the bottom there is a button for "off", "Play," and "record" and I didn't want him to hit the record button and erase the message so I told him over and over again not to touch the ornament. Well on Saturday guess what he did!! He was trying to listen to it and I grabbed it from his hands only it was too late! I pushed the play button and heard NOTHING. NOT A SOUND!!! He had erased the sweet little message from when he was 3 years old!! Immediately I burst into tears, sobs really, and was hysterical. I ran over to my parents house to cry on my mom's shoulder. I was so hysterical that she thought something had happened to the baby. I am overly emotional right now, and that just was my breaking point. I cried and cried for over an hour and couldn't even look at Parker after that because I would start crying. I couldn't talk about it to tell Matt what had happened and it pretty much ruined the rest of my day. I know, it is a stupid thing to get so worked up about, but it was so priceless, and now it is gone. I am really sad about it and still a little upset, but I don't think he really realizes what he did and how much that meant to me. So I had to write about the incident so I can remember just how much that ornament meant to me and maybe I will still be able to hear that sweet, little, innocent voice in the years to come. Kids!!! Good thing I love him!

Blog Overload

I finally had a minute to update the blog. Beware, it is an overload of information and pictures. Hope everyone has a wonderful Halloween. More to come in the next week. Parker turns 5 on Monday!!

Couldn't Put It Down

My sister loaned me this book, which she borrowed from a friend, and I couldn't put it down. I read it in two days, but could have read it in one day if my family would have let me hibernate in my room for a day. Anyone that enjoyed the Twilight series will for sure love this book as well. If you are in need of a good read, I suggest this book. Wings by Aprilynne Pike

Yay!! I Figured it out!

Yay!! We got a new computer last night, one that won't randomly freeze up on me so I was finally able to mess around on the computer and figure out how to fix my blog. It does look better than the precious combination of backgrounds and I am glad that mess is over with. Now on the some fun posts!!

Problems

I have been having problem with blogger, I tried to change my background and I can't figure out how to now with the new stuff they have. Any one know what to do??? I can't STAND THIS UGLINESS ON HERE!!! Plus the computer has been having issues again and randomly freezes up on me, hence the lack of good posts!!

Playing Catch Up

I have had good intentions to get on the computer and update the blog, but what I didn't plan on was our computer crashing. It has been super slow the last few weeks and hard to get onto the Internet. But this last weekend it froze up and we couldn't even turn it on. So we took it to a computer guy and he cleaned it all up and now it is as good as new. Luckily we didn't have to buy a new one. Along with the computer falling apart I had to get new brakes on the van last week. $400 later the van is running great and I can now drive it without being afraid that the brakes will give out on me. A few days after the brake repair my phone quit working. All the screen would show was a white screen. I couldn't do anything on it, I took it in and it is defective and just my luck they don't have a replacement phone in their store so I had to go about 5 days without a cell phone. I hope that this is the end of things falling apart and breaking for a while. We can't afford to replace anything else!! Oh and on top of all that, we have all been sick! So 2 co-pays and 11 prescriptions later we are on the mend. Hopefully this will be the last of the illness in our house for a while too!

On a good note, I was gone last weekend with my mom and sister for our semi annual scrapbook retreat! We had a great time and got a ton accomplished. I worked really hard to mentally prepare myself for the weekend so I was in a "scrapping" mood. I really wanted to get a lot done. This is one of the only times I am able to scrapbook without interruptions and to get caught up on all the pictures I have been taking. Luckily I was in the right mood and didn't have any major brain blocks and was able to get 50 pages done!! That is the most I have done at one time. I think that was the most that any one there did too. I had put my pictures together with paper that I wanted to use and things went together fairly smooth and I worked really hard to get that much done. I stayed up late and woke up early and kept getting page after page done. At the start of the weekend my goal was 30 pages. I had done about 25 in the past and was trying to out do myself. Well after the 2nd day I had reached that goal and exceeded it by 10 pages, so I changed my goal to 50 and I worked right until we had to pack up and leave. I felt really good about accomplishing so much and getting some what caught up on past events in our family. When I came home on Sunday and was showing the pages to Matt and the kids, Matt said to Big Brother "Aren't you glad mommy does this so we can remember all these good memories" I thought what a great husband!! Not only did he take time off work to watch the kids so I could go, but he fully supports what I do to capture the memories if our family. I love to scrapbook and I love love love to look back on the books I have done and reminisce over the great memories! I am so glad that my mom and sister and I all love to scrapbook so that we can spend time together and enjoy one another's company. It was just what I needed, to get away from the everyday routine and have to time to myself!! I look forward to the next retreat in about 6 months!

A Little About Nothing

Painting Together

CHEESE!! Silly Smile

Ready for Church

Playing Together

Well it is the end of January and I can say that there hasn't been much going on this month worth blogging about. I am tired of the cold, yucky winter with hardly any snow and so I am anxiously waiting for Spring to get here. I think the kids and I are especially tired of being inside all day every day! I have still been faithful at going to the gym each morning. Although I am not really seeing the results I was hoping for. I have got the working out part down and I feel good about that, but I guess I just can't get the diet thing together. I have been trying really hard to eat smaller portions, but it isn't working and I just am getting frustrated with the whole weight thing. At least I feel a little healthier!

Church has been SOOOOOO Chaotic the last month, so much so that I really have to force myself to go each week. We have about 5 new sunbeams that are so young and out of control!! 2 little girls that are in that class are like perfect little angels and sit and listen and try and sing and if all the kids were like that Primary would be so great!! But it isn't, we have a couple of kids that just want to run around and be noisy and get into things, so we are all like referees trying to get them and all the other kids under control. It makes is very hard to feel the spirit and to teach a sharing time. I hope it gets better soon, I don't know if I can handle it much longer!

Paige is beginning to talk a lot more. Her most favorite word to say it "No" and she says it with this nasally voice like "Nnnnooooo" and she says it to almost anyone that talks to her with this furrowed brow too. She has developed an attitude and I think I am in trouble!! Other words that she says are:
Mommy
Daddy
Bapa = Grandpa
Mama = Grandma
ink = Drink
dank u = Thank You
peees = Please
Kaka = Parker
I yu you = I love you
Bye Bye
Hi
Those are pretty much the majority of what she is saying. Everyday she surprises me and does something or says something and I think "Where did you learn that?" She is purely girl and I love it!!!

July Update

I can't believe how quickly the summer is going by. It is already the middle of July and it seems like summer just got here. Well I guess the summer weather just got here and that is why I am feeling this way. We started out the month with a family reunion in Utah with my mom's side of the family (her siblings and their kids). We had a great time getting together and visiting, swimming, laughing, and of course eating some great food. We even had a fireworks show, which Parker had a blast watching. We spent some of the 4th with Matt's family hanging out and visiting and the rest of the night inside!! The weather on the 4th was horrible and not warm at all for July!
Last week I took the kids to Ross park with a friend to the swimming complex. They both had a great time and enjoyed playing in the water. We are making plans to go again soon. That pool is so great for little kids and makes it so easy for parents to keep an eye on the kids and have a good time as well.
Matt finally put in an air conditioner in our bedroom last night and it was great. I have not been sleeping very good because it has been hot and muggy the last week. I finally told him he had to put it in soon. I don't think he minded either, because he enjoys being really cool while he sleeps too. It was a good nights sleep. Now we just have to get Parker to stay in his own bed the entire night and we will be all set.
Paige had her last bottle on Sunday night. So we are on day 2 of weening her off the bottle. They say it only takes 3 days, so I think we will make it. She was getting to the point where she would carry it around all the time and be sucking on it, but nothing was getting in her mouth. She was getting too comfortable with it and so I decided that it was time to ween her. So far she has done really well. She threw 1 tantrum yesterday when it was naptime, but I got her calmed down and she fell asleep without milk at all. Then when it was time for bed, she didn't have a problem at all. So I think she will make it and learn that if she wants a drink she will have to learn how to drink from a sippy cup better. (not that there is much difference between a sippy and a bottle except the name and the nipple maybe) I just don't want to be cleaning up spills all day long!! So that is what has gone on at our house lately. Nothing too exciting, every day life!!

This is what I'm watching!

This is what I will be watching on Sunday nights for the next few months! I am really excited about this season and something good to watch on TV. All of my other shows have ended for the season so I am excited to have something to follow throughout the summer. If you haven't watched it before you should check it out it is really good!! I am hoping this week I can get a decent picture of our garden and flower bed to post and show you all what we have accomplished, that is if the rain ever stops and the sun comes out!!!

Busy Busy Busy

So I haven't disappeared, just been really busy. We have been working in our yard trying to repair damages done from cutting down 2 humungous trees last fall, and trying to get our garden spot ready. On top of all that I have been working on a project that I will post about later and we are going camping this weekend so we have been really busy. Hopefully I will have a spare minute sometime this week before we leave to post some pictures.

Arggggggg!

No I am not a pirate, but very frustrated! Matt started mowing lawns again a few weeks ago (He has a side job of mowing residential and some business lawns) and I am excited that he has something to keep him busy and make a little extra money. But today wasn't one of those days!! While he was trimming a lawn here in town an elderly lady in a mini van drove by just as a rock flipped up from the trimmer and shattered her sliding door window!! What horrible luck! He told her he would do what he could to help out with the costs, well it ends up being $340!! What the *@*#!!! Don't people have insurance for things like that! I was pretty upset, because when a semi flips a rock on you and breaks your windshield you don't go chasing them down to get them to pay for it. Your insurance pays for it. Well whatever, Matt talked to a guy that sells insurance and said that if they turn it into their insurance more than likely the insurance company will come back after us to pay for the cost of processing the claim and the cost of the repair. So it looks like we are going to have to pull the money from off of our money tree and pay the bill. I am sure that the older couple has more money than we do, for sure now they do. I can say that we (Matt) is looking into contractors liability so that if something else like that happens, or worse, we will be covered. What a crappy day, and to top it off I have horrible allergies and can hardly breathe thru my stuffed up nose. Why do bad things happen to good people!!

Wal Mart

It never fails that every time I enter this store I spend too much money. I can not seem to leave the store without spending at least $50! Why is that?? I hate that this is the only big store in town with prices that aren't outrageous, why can't we have another store that is comparable. I hate supporting Sam Walton and all his heirs, like they need anymore money!!! I guess I am just venting a little bit, I was just there with my kiddos, who where pretty well behaved today, and spent too much money again. I hate this store!!!

one a side note this is my 100th post!! yay!! I am going to try and hit 200 by the end of the year, do you think this is possible? With summer on the way and lots of things going on it just might happen!!

She's finally ours!

I just made the last payment from Paige's birth!! Yay!! It's offical, she is finally ours. We don't owe any more on her, so we can keep her! I'm glad because I really have grown attached to her and want to keep her around for a while. It sure is a nice feeling when you can pay off something and know you are working to pay off debts. I hate being in debt, but it seems like it is almost unavoidable. Now if we can just work on getting our vehicles paid for we will be in good shape!

Christmas Update

I guess I am posting this to brag a little. I am totally done getting ready for Christmas!!! All of the gifts are bought and wrapped and ready to go. I even have all of my stocking stuffers ready to go. I still have a few to deliver to friends but the rest are waiting for "Santa". I am so glad to be finished with over a week to spare. So you won't see me out the night before frantically trying to find a gift! Good luck to all of you out there, I hope you find the things you are looking for so you can get some holiday relief soon. Only 8 more shopping days left!!!