I'm This Many!

This weekend we got to celebrate Caitlyn's 3rd birthday. Everytime someone would call to wish her a happy birthday she would tell them on the phone, "I'm this many" and then hold up three fingers. She's been looking forward to this day for a while now, and was finally old enough to realize it was HER special day.

We decided to let the kids decorate their own birthday cupcake and went with the simple goldfish cupcakes from the book What's New Cupcake.

Here she is getting ready to blow out her candles and then dad getting a little silly.

Hhmmmm.. nothing like cherry chip cake according to Beau and the kids.

Opening the presents. Obviously the only wrapping paper we could find was Spiderman from Isaac's birthday. It's a good thing she didn't seem to care.

We enjoyed the evening, playing, tickling each other, and having having birthday blower wars.

Happy Birthday sweetie! It seems like just yesterday that you born. Instead your a little girl now, full of life, happiness, giggles, and spunk!

Carnival Night

Every year our stake (large church organization of 6 smaller congregations) have a summer picnic. I would call it more of a carnival. It's one of the highlights of the summer for the kids. They have a huge BBQ with hamburgers, hotdogs, watermelon, salads and chips. Then the night is spent enjoying the activities. (The best part is they are all free instead of carnival prices!)

Snow cones and cotton candy for anyone that wants them.... There's something so good about cotton candy.

Then there is the face painting, which my girls had been looking forward to all day.

Then there were the handmade rockets. Isaac lives for this activity. They have a table where you make your own rocket out of paper, and then they have these pvc pipe rocket lauchers that are hooked up to air compressors. The kids push the rocket down on them, release the valve switch and watch their rockets shoot 100 ft. in the sky. Of course you have to try catching it on the way down.

A girl had brought her two ferrets which my kids immediately had to go check out.

There was also volleyball, a 10 foot beach ball to kick around, playgroud equipment, caricature drawing, and entertainment going on. My kids were in heaven. It was also great being able to socialize with the amazing people we have in our stake. I have come to love them so much.

Unfortunately Beau either had some serious reaction to the smoke created from the burgers he was helping cook, or something got in his eye. He was in serious pain, and couldn't open it or move it without it killing him.... which led me to the 24 hour grocery store at 3 am in the morning to find any and all remedies that could possible help the guy out. It seemed to help and he could at least keep it open most of the next day. Today it's almost looking normal again.

We spent Saturday at a family reunion and spending quite some time afterwards visiting with one of Beau's cousins. It's always fun to see family, and I love getting together with Beau's side of the family. It was a packed weekend but one we really enjoyed!

It's a Beach Day

After months of rain it finally has felt like summer, the sun is out, the weather beautiful and my kids have been dying to go to the pool. After working on another project, I just needed a break and needed to draw. So I decided to celebrate the fact that summer was here.

After drawing up the digital stickers, it was only fitting that I needed a small collection to go with it. It just wouldn't be right to talk about summer without sand.

I also decided to try out a value pack. Buy buying the three of them together you save quite a bit of money rather than purchasing them separately. So now you just need to go make those beach memories to scrap.

Here's a little bit of inspiration from this house of beach babes.

(All the supplies for these layouts can be found on the product pages. Just click on the product images above.)

Pure Thrills

What I love about this boy is that he is soooo easy to please. He can get a kick over just the smallest things. Today he wanted to spend his dollar that is burning a hole in his pocket, and ended up getting this plane at the dollar store. He is in love with paper airplanes. His uncle Jared had a wind up one that he thought was the coolest thing in the world. Today he had to settle for just a styrofoam one, that has gotten stuck on the roof twice, in the tree 3 times, and according to him does amazing tricks and loop de loops. Boy this kid makes me smile.

Our Roots

I am always trying to come up with some Sunday activity that is appropriate for the kids to do. A couple of weeks ago, I started thinking about Family History and how to get my kids to learn about their heritage and where they came from. I came up with the idea to make their own Family History Book. I printed out some blank pages with the ancestor's name on it, and then either printed from digital pictures or copied from some history books that I have about them.

We then sat down at the table and they cut out and glued the pictures I had printed. They then colored pictures about that ancestor as I read them stories and a brief life story about them. They were to draw what they wanted to remember about the person. They loved the activity and they actually sat and did it for about an hour and half. Both Bessie Louise and Bertha Marie are the name sakes for Savannah and Mirian's middle names.

It's been three or four weeks since we did this activity, but when I pulled out their pictures and asked them to tell me about their ancestors, they all remembered quite a bit. Even Isaac who seems to not be paying attention, remembered the Floyd had a horse named Firestarter when he was a boy, and married Bertha. Him and Mirian both remembered the story about how his mother was at the point a death right before he was going to go on his mission. Everyone was telling him that he should stay home, but his mother told him "No you go, and I will be alive and well when you return." He left for the mission and his mother was there when he returned.

Savannah could tell me all about Bertha his wife, and I was pleased that they remembered so well. The only problem I ran into was that I have no histories for Father in Law or Mother in Law's sides of the family. I guess they if they don't want my kids to be one sided on who they remember they better get going on their family history. :) (I guess that applies just as much to me and Beau too.)

I'm spotlighted

Currently I'm being hightlighted on the Shutterfly Blog for my digital scrapbooking designs. It's part of a small series they'll post over time. Watch it long enough and you'll get some free goodies from me! :) (Ignore the fact that they didn't edit well, or spell my name right. It was a great opportunity and I've loved reading about my fellow designers.)

Weekend Goodness

I hope you were able to enjoy your father's day weekend. We had a really good one! We enjoyed celebrating Father's day with this amazing father. I honestly had no idea when I decided to marry him what an amazing dad he would be. I have been too blessed to end up with him.

We were trying to decide what to do as a surprise for Father's Day. Friday after a whole day of feeling behind in cleaning and getting anything done in the house, and trying to get kids motivated to clean, I came up with an idea. I got the kids together and told them I thought of something that dad would really, really love for Father's Day. There are (a minimum) of three things that drive him absolutely crazy to have dirty. His Bedroom, the car, and yard. (Like I said these are just a few I'm sure... :)) But all three of those have needed some major care lately. Being 32 weeks pregnant and trying to get other things done, it has just kept getting pushed to the side. There's nothing like a good reason like a surprise to motivate all in the house. We had about 3 hours to tackle all three. We barely made it (except for getting the car actually vaccumed). The kids actually did really well helping on all three projects rather than moaning and groaning about it the whole time.

When we finished we sent him on a treasure hunt with clues to the three spots. You've never seen the kids so excited to show him what they had done and to see how happy he was. They felt like they were giving him the world. On Father's Day they picked up the front room really fast to surprise him before his special dinner, and during the pick up Savannah and Mirian were trying to explain to me why dad loved his present so much. Not only was he happy because they were all clean but "Because he knows when we have a clean house, we are happy too! He loves having a happy family" as the other chimed in "because we can feel the spirit when the house is clean and it makes us all happy!" (They might have learned something yet.)

So we were able to enjoy some time together as a family that evening, and then we were able to have a date together on Saturday. We decided to hit a movie at the dollar theater and chose to see Soul Surfer.

What a great movie. We loved it. Lately I've gotten really tired of all the crap that's in movies lately. I hear a review about a movie and I go look it up on Kids in Mind to find out what exactly is in it to give it the rating, and think... why do I want to see or hear this stuff? So I've really enjoyed it when I get to watch a good uplifting movie. Ones that are usually based on true stories. But really.... I want to hear more of these stories. We have tons of people that have lived amazing lives, gone through incredible and very difficult things. Stories of real people that are more inspiring and can teach us more than some high tech movie from Hollywood. Why aren't we sharing more of these stories out there? If any of you have any suggestions for movies like this I'd LOVE to hear them.

Do anything fun or memorable for your Father's Day? I hope all you fathers out there had an amazing one.

Letting the to do list go

Recently I have tried REALLY hard to not say the phrases "in a minute" or "I can't right now," to my kids if i am pushing them off for my "to do list". I realize that too often I push them off for later and am missing the "nows." Today was one of those moments. I'm behind on laundry, my bedroom still needs cleaning up, fix it projects and designs projects were calling. I even invited friends to come over to play with the kids so I could get something done.

Savannah came up to me after lunch and asked if we could do something together. I opened my mouth to give her excuses, or ask her to wait till later till I had finished this, this and this.... and luckily stopped myself. I asked her what she was thinking and she gave me a few ideas. I've known that I have really needed to give Savannah more personal time lately to see how it affected behavior, general happiness, etc. I knew this moment was her asking for that personal time.

A few weeks ago I asked my kids to pick one thing they wanted to learn how to do this summer and we would spend some time each week learning how to do it. Savannah picked sewing, Mirian cooking and Isaac picked learning how to ride his bike without training wheels.

Savannah asked if we could learn how to sew today. In my mind I thought... "oh not now, that takes lots of time to learn how to do that, and we have friends showing up in 10 minutes." But I held my tongue, agreed, and we set out our plan. She has wanted to learn how to sew on the sewing machine. I figured a easy quilt would be the easiest. Squares and straight lines. So I let her pick some fabric from some of my sheets I've cut up.

I taught her how to use the rotary cutter and cutting board and how to measure her squares so they were the same size. She decided she wanted to throw some strips in there as well instead of just squares. I helped her with fabric that was a bit too long for her to reach all by herself, and let her cut out all her squares. She did a great job.

I then had her take all her pieces and lay them all on the floor in a pattern she would like. I tried to encourage her to make both a pattern vertically and horizontally, and she went to work. It was fun watching her change colors, rearrange them, and finally declared that this is how she wanted her quilt to look. I have to keep the obsessive compulsive part of me under control when it comes to visual colors, patterns etc, and let her be herself. She did really good for her age. It was unique but had some pattern still to it.

I then had her find matching markers and draw her quilt on the paper and color in the different squares so she would know the order to sew them in. She drew it all in, got it all planned, put all her squares together and then went and started pulling out the sewing machine without me realizing it. :)

(see her pattern there on top?)

So I showed her how to thread the machine, set it up, and sew a straight line. She was a little nervous at first, but did really good about sewing straight. I then showed her how to follow her pattern, how to put the right sides together and start sewing her squares into strips. She was nervous at first, but ended up becoming a pro. She has some advantages to having Beau's analytical and systematic mind when it comes to organizing things. She easily could understand following the pattern, and figured out how to mark squares off when she finished them. She figured out how to sew her thin strips together, and ended up finishing up all her strips by the end of the night. Tomorrow she gets to iron them out and sew the strips to finish her top.

The best part was seeing how proud she was of herself. She was so excited to show Beau that she was using the sewing machine all by herself, and that she was making a quilt all by herself. It was worth everything I didn't get done to see the confidence she had in herself, how excited she was, and what a great job she was actually doing. She was sewing really really well (skill wise). I had some young women ages 12- 14 that I was trying to teach how to sew that did not do near as well as she did. She was bummed when she messed up one time during the whole thing and we had to unpick two squares. The only other thing she was bummed about was that she couldn't get the whole thing done tonight so she could sleep with it. I had to try and explain to her that this was a long p project, that we still had to put the batting in, quilt or tie it, put the binding on etc. But I can't wait to see how excited she is when she finishes it completely.

I was also excited to see how well she did. She also mentioned how a couple of months she sewed some headbands by hand and embroidered her friends names on top to give to them. She explained that one girls was really excited and happy about it and wore it all day. The other one didn't really like it, shoved it in her backpack and never looked at it again, while commenting to someone else that she wanted something different instead. Savannah mentioned how that made her feel really bad. She had spent all night sewing it by hand, and had given up all her free time to make it for her friend, and then to have her not want it. It was a great chance to discuss how the two different girls made her feel, and how we need to be careful how we react to people when they do nice things for us like that. Do we show that we are appreciate of it, and help them feel good, or do we make them feel sad about all the time and effort they put into creating it. What a great time for life lessons not only in physical homemaking skills, but people and life skills too.

Now I just need to give her some more training and I can start getting her to sew all these projects I never have time to do!

Enjoy these Little Things

One thing I've been trying to do this summer is just relax and enjoy my kids. I've been looking forward to the time when they would be home from school and we could just spend time together. So despite the fact that MY bedroom STILL has not gotten clean, I can say I've enjoyed my kids. Here's a few of the things that I've been enjoying lately.

• The summer reading program - going to the library for books and some of their summer activities. I actually finished one of my 5 summer reading books for the adult summer reading program... let's see if I can get another 4 done. :)

• Mormon Channel - (www.mormonchannel.org) Lately the kids and I have found ourselves listening to it on a regular almost daily basis. There is enough variety that I can usually find something I'm in the mood to listen to, it's always uplifting, and I've learned some really great stuff. Savannah lately has been turning it on to the Friend Preview (a preview of the children's magazine put out by the church.) It's a mixture of stories from the friend, quotes and talks by the apostles, and music. It's short for their attention span, is about 20 minutes, and we have been listening to it while eating lunch, sitting around, Sunday mornings, etc. My kids love it. I personally have enjoyed these specific interviews recently.

• Personal Revelation with Julie B. Beck
• Creating and Sustaining Wellness a look at overall health
• Music with a Message
• Friend Magazine Preview

• Watching my kids be kids.
• Sew Liberated A new book I got for my birthday. (Thanks Heather) I've been getting excited about doing a few projects for it for the new baby.
• Your Child's Weight; Helping without harming. A book that I've been reading and trying to implement after it's high recommendation from a workshop I attended years ago at the BYU Women's conference. It's about developing healthy family eating habits without being extreme on both sides with food. I needed something to help my kids be healthy and develop healthy eating habits. In it I learned a lot about the way I eat, which has actually helped me realize those issues, and in being 7 months pregnant, I have not put on any extra weight so far, (being that I was already over-weight to begin with.) But I have stayed at a low healthy weight gain for my current weight, and hope to maintain that so when the baby goes, the lbs go with it.
• Grilled Chicken Salad with feta, fresh corn and blueberries. Tried this yummy recipe last night and enjoyed it. Even Beau didn't think it was too bad. I'm anxious to try out some of the Marlboro Man approved recipes as I think some would definitely appeal to my husband.

So there is a taste of some of my favorites lately... and finally the sunshine that has decided to appear. It's finally feeling like summer.

Finally Summer

May was a really rough month for me. Unexpected family things happened that has had me only focusing on things that really matter and dropping a lot of things for a while. I have learned a lot though. Isn't that what all the hard things are about sometimes, making us really stretch and grow?

After months and months of rain, snow and cold, it's finally starting to feel like summer here this last week. It's been beautiful sunny days, beautiful temperatures and we are officially out on summer vacation. I have been looking forward to this for months. I have lots of things planned for the kiddos and hope to really enjoy this summer. The baby is growing, moving lots and it's hard to believe that she will be the culminating event of the summer. Time has flown.

Our camera also broke which has left me with no visual way of documenting our life for the last few months or so. It's been driving me crazy and I realized I just can't seem to blog unless there are photos. I'm a visual blogger by far. I loved my old camera. It was just a point and shoot but took great photos. We finally got a new one the other day, same camera just the newer version and I am pumped to play around with it, and start documenting the little things going on, and the fun I'm having with my kids.

Allergy season has suddenly attacked in full fury for me. Savannah and I have been so miserable. I forgot how miserable it is. Seeing cotton blowing from the trees right now is almost horrifying. The things you have to deal with when the sun begins to shine.

Despite the itchy eyes, congestion and constant sneezing, we are going to enjoy our summer days and I hope to have this blog filled with the daily happenings of our life. Life is too good right now not to enjoy every moment of it.

Where We've Been

• 3 days, 2 nights camping in the desert at Dead Horse Point Utah State Park. Slightly chilly and jacket weather but definitely better than the snow, rain and dreary clouds that we left in Provo. We survived a miserable first night of constant strong winds and freezing. The next couple of days were beautiful. We all came home sporting sunburns.

• Spent time with our close friends the Lilywhites. Reminscing about that first time we met. They sat next to us in church. Beau introduced me to Kirt, telling me that they were in the same major. Little did we know that 9 years laters and 8 kids between both families, they'd both be getting their doctorates together in Robotic Vision - Engineering and looking at starting a business together after graduation. These are the best kinds of friends.

• Getting messy. Nothing is greater than watching your kids get dirty, kick off their shoes, throw rocks, make mud pies from the red dirt, run hard, climb rocks, hike, and fall asleep exhausted for the nights.

• Family hikes and bike rides in another one of God's amazing creations. Red dirt, sand, cliffs, the Colorado River, cactus, lizards, bluffs and the desert sun.

• Dutch Ovens... yummy breakfasts, chili and cornbread, Honey BBQ Chicken and rice, and our new favorite - popcorn.

• Car rides listening to Ramona and Beezus. We've decided that although we loved these books as children. They were not fun to listen to now as parents. The lady reading the audio book did too good of job and it felt like we were listening to our own whiny, arguing kids, non stop for 3 hours. Too close to home. We'll take Lemony Snicket instead!

• Sick little girl. Poor Mirian didn't feel good the second day. She had a tummy ache, was tired and we wore her good spirits right out on the hike. Luckily the next day she was back to normal running, climbing, digging and playing.

Just ones of those great family memories. Small mini vacations are just perfect, especially when it involves sleeping in a tent, and no showers.

Little Lambs

About a month ago we had the chance to go to Idaho and spend a weekend with both sides of our family. It was an awesome weekend! At the end of our trip we were able to spend about a day and a half with my sister and her family. Our kids are always so excited to get together to play with each other. This year they have been on the adventure of raising sheep and goats. We got there in time to help feed about 70 bum lambs and boy did my kids think it was the best thing EVER. They were squealing with delight when they'd have about 10 lambs come up to them at a time sucking on fingers, the bottle or nibbling on their pants.
This little girl was besides herself. She was the highlight of my weekend. She would pack these babies around that were just slightly smaller than herself, laughing and squealing with delight. "It's sucking my fingers!" she would laugh with her whole face lit up. She was always the last one out of the barn. The next morning when we woke up the first thing she said when she walked in the room rubbing her eyes was "feed the cows?" "the lambs you mean?" I replied. "Yeah the lambs. Feed the lambs?"

At the last feeding before we left, we were getting ready to leave the barn when she picked one up and started carrying it to the door. "Take it home?" she'd ask. Jeremy would have let us, if we thought we could have raised a sheep in our tiny backyard in the city. We told her we had to leave it here. "It sad," she declared with this sad hopefully expression. "No Mommy, or Daddy." Boy could she melt your heart right then and there. We tried to explain that it would be even sadder if it came with us because it wouldn't get to be and play with all the other lambs. She felt like that was a good enough answer, and didn't break down dad enough to load a lamb into our car for the 4 hour drive home.
It's times like this, that I am sure I don't want to stay in the city forever. I want to be able to have some animals, and have my kids learn to take care of them and learn how to work, even though it would loose all it's excitement and fun after the 2nd or 3rd day. But how can you look at these pictures, and faces lit up and not want some land to run around on get dirty in, with a few cowboy hats to wear, animals to feed, and live a bit slower paced life than in the city.

Since we couldn't convince dad to bring any lambs home... maybe we can still convince him that we need a few of these since we are allowed a few with our city ordinances. :)

Raise the Praise Printable

After my Life Lesson post on April 4, 2011, I decided to make me a little reminder to frame and hang within my constant view. It's a saying that was on my sister's wall, that I've always loved. I thought I would share it with you as well, if you need a little reminding.

Life Lesson

My little girl is turning 6 soon. How time does fly. She is so excited about her birthday and has been asking for a birthday party for weeks. She wanted to know if she could invite Jenny, a girl from her school class. Her face lit up and was so happy when I said yes. Every day since, she has asked about the party and exclaimed how excited she was to invite Jenny. She has reminded me over and over to make sure that we make invitations today so she could take it to Jenny during school and to make sure that I put on there directions on how to get to our house because her mom wouldn't know.

I smiled at her pure delight and enthusiasm for that special day and the excitement of inviting her friend to the party. I kept thinking how glad I was that she had a really good friend at school that she wanted to invite and that she felt like was her friend.

Today after making the invitation and while eating lunch though, she opened my eyes to the real picture. "Jenny is always mean to me," she commented, having that look of introspection. It took me back. Why was she so excited to invite a girl that was mean to her? "Do you know why she is mean to you?" I asked. "No" was her answer.

"Do you play with her at recess?"

"No I play with Aslan."

"Would you feel bad if she didn't end up coming to the party?"

I wanted to know, not sure how this Jenny would feel about the party if she was constantly mean to her. She thought about it for a minute, smiled and shook her head no.

She jumped in the car clutching the invitation because she didn't want to forget it, rode all the way to school and declared, "There's Jenny!" when we pulled up to the school. She bounced out of the car and skipped over to the kids heading into the classroom, and I watched as she timidly approached her, and followed her into the school.

I left with my mind full of questions. Would she give it to her? Would Jenny be rude and brush the whole idea aside? Would she be happy and excited that Mirian invited her? Would she come? but the question most of all... "What makes this daughter of mine be so excited to invite someone that is mean to her all of the time to her special birthday party.

I left with my heart breaking that yes my children aren't exempt from being hurt in the world. They will be teased, they will have others be mean to them, and life will not always be easy. It about kills a mother to think that her kid she loves so much, is experiencing these hard things, but in the moment I saw a huge part my husband and I must play. A part of being a builder. Of making sure that there is no meanness, hurtfulness, or criticism coming forth from my lips and mouth out of frustration and impatience.

Every day they hear how they are not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough or popular enough. They are told where they are lacking. They are told to do better, they are asked why they keep making this same mistake over and over. They are being torn apart but other heartless comments, remarks and things that kids say. They may not have much self worth left when they are finished for the day.

Do the need to come home and get the same thing? Irritated voices, frustrations at their weaknesses, impatience and reprimands?

No.

They need to be able to come in the door of our home and be able to breathe a huge sigh of relief. They need to know they are loved by everyone in that home. They need to hear how much they are loved and how great they are doing. They need to hear appreciation for helping out and how well they treat their siblings. They need to be complimented on everything and develop a sense of worth and ability. They are not perfect because they are children, they are just learning, and they need that room to make mistakes and not be torn down. They need to feel like they can make mistakes and will be built up and become better from them. They need our love. They need to know they are amazing.

Because they are.

It's not always easy after a long tiring day, and they are doing the same annoying thing for the hundredth time after being asked not to do it... I just need to stop, take a breath, and remember I can either add my comments to the rest of the world or I can help erase the rest of the worlds comments.

I'm a little anxious to see how it went at school with Mirian... she is far better than me to reach out in love to someone who has not shown it to her. And when she comes home I can make sure I let her know how much I love her and how amazing she is.