Wordless Wednesdays : My theme for the day. O.K week. O.K month

This picture is on the top of Julie's website and today it seemed particularly fitting. I think I will blow it up and put it on my front door as an explanation for my house;)

My talented sister in law

My sister in law has finally made a website to share her gift with the world. She has been helping friends and family for a while now and has made a little business out of it. She graduated early from BYU in some art related field ( I can't remember exactly what it was, sorry margs) and we had her reception in the museum where she worked. It was awesome. She has done some illustration work and has been designing announcements and invitations for a while now. I love all of them. If you are in need of such a thing, check it out. I will keep the link on my page.



http://www.tinytaledesign.com/




My kids in front of the sculpture after Clark and Margaret's wedding.

I love to see the temple

Last week I went to take a bath and grabbed an Ensign to read while I was in there. I noticed that the one I grabbed was the Nov. 2006 conference edition. At first I was surprised that I had kept one so old, but I have a hard time tossing the conference edition. Any conference edition. I know I can access them online anytime I want to, but somehow I feel like I am throwing away scripture. It is a mental thing.

I started just thumbing through it searching for a talk that caught my eye. I saw one entitled," The Temple is about Families." At first it wasn't tempting. I have to admit that I have issues about geneology. My grandmother is fabulous about it, and I know there is a purpose to it. "Hearts of the Fathers," and all of that business. I know. But the more I read my family history, and Wendell's family history, the less I like these people. That might sound evil, but it is the cold hard truth. There is something about 50 year olds marrying 13 year olds or 17 year olds that just seems wrong. One day when I am more christlike, I will get over it. In the meanwhile, I avoid geneology. I don't really want to know, O.K?

So I was about to skip it when I read this quote: "When you come to the temple you will love your family with a deeper love then you have ever felt before."

That caught my attention. Some of you know I have been having hormonal issues since my surgery in November. They removed my left ovary. Most people function just fine on one ovary, because the other one compensates. WEll, my other one has issues too, and it is not compensating very well. Let's just say I have a hard time liking people right now, and my poor little family is not excluded. They are the closest to me and they are getting the brunt of it. It is really not fair to them. I am trying my hardest, but I just seem colder. I am in a lot of pain, my IC has come back, and I am having a hard time liking people.

I am trying to get things medically sorted out, but if the temple will help the Lord give me a deeper love for my family, then I am all for it. I have been trying to get Wendell to go with me for the past two weeks, and it has been hard. Our schedules are off, or someone is sick, and it never happens. Let's face it, Satan has both Wendell and myself to work on to keep us out. So I told myself that if Wendell doesn't get me to the temple by Saturday ( yesterday) I would go by myself next week. And probably every week. This way Satan only has MY schedule to mess with, and I will be more likely to get there. If Wendell is able to tag along one day, fine. That would be fabulous.

So I am going to try it out. I will let you know how it works out.

Mitchell- Football stud or major wussy ?

This was Mitchell's first year of football. And it may just be his last.

Mitchell may not look that athletic,but the kid was born with a ball in his hand. Almost literally. When he was a toddler he would run around with a little Nerf football in his arm at all times . It was like a little security blanket. I have pictures of him at the fair in the little petting zoo part petting the animals and he still had his little football in the crook of his arm. He wouldn't put it down. He could catch pretty well as a toddler also.

We tried soccer first. He wasn't really trying in the beginning so we bribed him with $5.00 per goal scored. This worked well with our girls because they each scored about two goals per season. Well, his first game he scored 5 goals. We decided to tone it down to $1.00 per goal to keep us out of the poor house.

When I signed him up for football I wasn't really expecting much. Those of you that know Mitch know that he is a shortish, scrawneyish fellow. He's not the shortest or smallest in his class, but he is definitely not the biggest. It is flag football so I thought it would be pretty harmless.

Mitchell took to it and loved it right away. He can be pretty quick, and it is easy for him to run the plays. Unfortunately, the kid can be a whiner. He loved the practices and hated the games. It was kind of funny, because some of the (tougher) kids were complaining that they didn't get enough play time in the games, and Mitchell was complaining that he had to play the whole game and couldn't get a break! He tends to fall to the ground whenever he gets hit ( he does this at home too folks, it is lots of fun) and cries whenever he perceives something as unfair.

Some of his qualms are legitimate. Like this one,"Mom, it's FLAG FOOTBALL! That whole team tackled me! Did you see me at the bottom of that pile?" Yes I did. He had a point. Some of those kids are pretty competitive. Some of them are pretty huge for "5 and 6 year olds". They haven't been checking birth certificates previously, and I heard that they will start next year. That is a good idea.

His coach watches him at practice and just can't believe he won't keep playing. "You gotta get that kid into Pop Warner. He would be awesome!" Nope. He won't do it.

Maybe he will grow out of this,"Drama Queen" phase and toughen up a little. Maybe by next year he will be ready. But he just turned 7 in January, and I just can't get myself to expect that much from a 7 year old.

I didn't get any pictures of the poor kid all season. I tried once, and the battery was dead. Wendell meant to take some video of the tournament and forgot the video camera. Luckily my good friend Tiffany got some shots of him at the Cardinal football camp. (Yes she is 6 months pregnant, took her three boys including a toddler and my son because I was sick. And she still managed to get pictures of him. Amazing)

wordless Wednesday

Ahh...the aftermath of Valentines Day. I heart tulips!

Adventures with the dog

Brenley has been starting to talk in complete sentences lately. it's actually pretty funny. It was like one day she just decided to speak in sentences, and that was that. This is the sentence I heard yesterday from my bedroom:

"Moooommmy...I 'tuck in here...."

Just nice and calm. She had climbed in the dog cage and locked herself in. Ooops. Of course afterI pulled out the camera she became a lot more comfortable.

Sometimes I forget why we even have a dog. For some reason, in my head, a chidhood is not complete without a dog. I don't like dogs. They stink. And they are needy. And they have to be house trained. Why bother? For some reason, in my head again, I feel like kids need unconditional love. Of course, we as parents are supposed to provide that. But dogs are just different. Dogs don't ground you. They don't get mad when you sass back at them. They just love you. For no good reason really. And my Kindyl LOVES animals. They flock to her. They adore her. Kindyl needs a pet. Rachael and Mitchell enjoy her too. But I think Brenley is the one who really benefits.

I had my last two kids 5 years apart. That means my older three children are at school all day, and I have a two year old at home by herself. Maisy is her only playmate. It always cracks me up to see Brenley running down the hall giggling as Maisy chases her. Or giggling as they wrestle on the couch. Or hearing Brenley say, "Saisy, BACK OFF" (I don't know where she gets this last one.) Bren and "Saisy" are good friends.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Since our Anniversary and Valentine's Day are only a few days apart, they usually kind of get blended together. So for Valentine's Day I thought I would post a couple of wedding pictures. Since our wedding was 12 years ago, before digital cameras, that would mean scanning, and the scanner with our new printer is only black and white. So I decided to just turn my blog pink and list five nice things Wendell has done for me lately that he didn't have to do:

1. He filled my car up with gas. He almost always does this. I can't tell you how nice it is to know that I will not run out of gas unexpectedly when I am driving carpool

2. He went out of his way to get me the soda I like. (try finding vanilla diet Pepsi these days). This too happens most of the time. Wendell does a lot of our grocery shopping and is often just picking up something he knows I would particularly like but will not necessarily buy for myself.

3. He has been making sure that my Jane Austen movies get taped. PBS is airing a new Jane Austen movie every Sunday right now. Most of them are new, and all but Pride and Prejudice are versions that I do not currently own. He actually went out especially to buy VHS tapes so that we could tape them. My good friend Crystal is getting them on her DVR and puting them on a dvd for me, but Wendell is taking no chances.

4. He put all of the Christmas decorations up inthe attic without me even asking him to.

5. He has been taking care of dinner for our family for the last....well three months. I've been a little crazy since my surgery in November and meal prep is always the first casualty. He hasn't even complained.

It's true, I'm a very lucky girl;)

Valentine's Family Home Evening

Kindyl is a great FHE leader

Kindyl was in charge of our Valentine Family Home Evening lesson and she had some great ideas. The kids all wrote each other Valentines beforehand, telling what each of them liked about the others. This is always a good idea, because sometimes our kids forget that they like each other at all! It is nice to remind each other and themselves how lovable they all are. We shared scriptures about the Saviors love, and then passed a card to each family member. On it we listed our favorite things about each other in one or two words. Here are our results:



Brenley: cute,loving; sweet;the other most awesome person on Earth(cheater); chunky monkey;)



Mitchell: cool, strong voice;cool, smarty pants;speaking up (can you tell Mitchell was kind of loud on this particular night?); Pays attention; cool (I think we can all agree that Mitchell is "cool")



Kindyl:kind, friendly;funny, thoughtful; thoughtful; pretty;funny,thoughtful; good with art(are you sensing a theme here?)


Rachael: Nice; stands out;passionate, clever; responsible sitter; The most awesome person on Earth.



Mom: beautiful;kind;beautiful, caring; gentle, caring





Dad: wise; nice, helpful;cool, nice; good provider




I must say the personal cards written by the kids were much better,but some of those kids read this, and said they would be embarrassed. So this will have to do:)

11 year old girls

(these are random 11 year olds. I don't even know who they are;) )

You know how girls this age always seem to be giggling or laughing? Well, I've figured out why. They say hilarious things! I was able to listen in on a conversation this morning. In the interest of privacy, which I have found is very important to 11 year old girls, I won't tell you which girls I am talking about. Excerpts:

Girl 1: "I only had $30.00 on my dresser this morning and there used to be 40."

Girl2: "I know what you mean, I am missing like $8.00"

G1 "That's wierd."

G2, looking at Brenley, sitting innocently eating her breakfast:"I think the babies are behind it." She is referring to 2 yr old Brenley and her own 18 month old sister. "I think they sneak in and steal our money and play games with it(pretending to be the babies) 'Do you have any tens?' 'no, go fish'"

G1, giggling, "yeah, when we get together for dinner they all meet in the corner (we have about 5 babies around this age in our family right now. This is who they are referring to)with their loot and play their games. "

G2"my mom is like, probably missing about a million dollars" G1 "Yeah, and my mom is missing like, thousands, never suspecting Brenley. he he he.."

Then later, talking about friends and their mothers:

G2- talking about when friends at school see her mom" I know, last week, K---- said,'is that your mom? she is so pretty, I love her hair color"

G1- "I know, my friend B----said,'your mom looks like she's like, 12' (I was 20 when I had her. No wait, I mean 13;) I said ,'is that a compliment?' she said it was. It was so funny."

"-----'s mom is like, old,and has really big curly hair and she has to be careful not to hit her hair on the ceiling, I think. She's like, a Simpson. "(She's never been allowed to watch that show, ever, but apparently knows what the characters look like.) In a high voice," Oops, I need to duck, I'm going to mess up my hair, oh no"

I know I need to reprimand her for not being nice, but I am laughing too hard at the moment. And she is not usually one to make fun of people behind their backs. Parents, however, must be fair game. By the time I regain my composure she is talking about how she needs to keep some of her cash for school. She is anonomously buying a Valentine gram for a kid in her class that everybody makes fun of. G2 is sworn to secrecy. By this time I have forgotten about the reprimand. Oh well. What can you do.

Kids and politics: Qubo vs. CNN

It's Tuesday. Just one week after "Super Tuesday" and sadly so much has changed. Because this election seems so much more important than any other we have been through, apparently we have discussed it enough for the kids to notice. They tend to respond in different ways.

Mitchell: Mitch probably pays more attention to the convversations Wendell and I have than the other children. At least when it concerns politics. Last Tuesday we had the T.V tuned into CNN (obviously) late into the night. Before we came to bed, Wendell made sure the T.V was tuned into Qubo or Disney channel before he turned it off so that when our children wander into the family room at 5:00 a.m and turn on the T.V they are not greeted with the news. Well, when Wendell got up for work and heard the T.V he went in to find Mitchell glued to CNN. He isn't watching the story, (about tornados killing many people) he is reading the little ticker. He says, "Hey Dad, hold on, I think it just said Mitt Romney won the delegates in Massachusettes!"Forget cartoons, this 7 yr old knows his priorities;)

Rachael: They had student voting on Tuesday. I'm curious to know who Rachael voted for. She says, "Well I wasn't sure who to vote for , but I know we are Republicans, so I voted for that guy with the funny name that I heard you talking to yourself about the other day." Let me translate that for you. 'Mom talking to herself" means ,"Mom talking to me about something I don't really care about." "that guy with the funny name" Means Mike Huckabee. Can you believe that? Mike flippin Huckabee! When she wasn't paying attention to me "Talking to myself about the guy with the funny name" I was railing against that darn Mike Huckabee who can't truly still believe he has a shot at the presidency, he just doesn't like Mitt Romney (or Mormons in general, for that matter) and wants to derail him. This is who my first born voted for. Apparently politics are not so important to 10 year old girls;)

Kindyl and Brenley are still keeping their political opinions to themselves.

Why am I blogging?

As you can see, I tend to be a list maker. I thought I would kind of start this brand new baby blog by stating my reasons for blogging. O.K- that scene from Pride and Prejudice just snuck into my head. The one where Mr. Collins is proposing to Elizabeth and he feels he must first state his"reasons for marrying". And yes, I do feel almost as silly;)

1. Religion. We have been told we are a peculiar people. (some of us are more peculiar then others, it's true) As L.D.S women, we are supposed to be in and not of the world. As I have read other L.D.S blogs I have been comforted by the fact that there are so many other women out there that are so similar to me. We are raising our families, and living our lives and struggling to keep ourselves and our families safe and happy and strong. Along these same lines:




2. Accountability. For example-at the moment I am trying to do the President Hinkley challenge and read the Book of Mormon in 97 days. Daily scripture study is not my strong point. I have never been consistant enough to actually read my Book of Mormon every day. This is something I need to work on, among other things. I am going to try to find some kind of tracker to post on this blog to keep track of my progress. That way, the shame of my inconsistency and faithlessness will be open for anyone who happens to stumble accross this blog to see. I think it will help with my motivation.


3. More pictures. As I mentioned before, I am a scrapper. I am currently 3 years behind in my scrapbooking. Because of this, I don't pull out the camera as often as I ought to. And I almost never pull out the camera unless kids are involved. Example: Last month Wendell and I spent 4 days in Vail, Colorado. We went with Greg and Rebecca, and it was a fabulous ski trip. Vail and all of the little villiages around it were beautiful and the skiing was spectacular. Wendell's mother flew down from Utah to take care of the munchkins (Thank you Ellen. You are the queen of selflessness and we love you:)and we didn't have a care in the world. And we didn't take one picture. Not one. It is almost like the trip never happened. We have nothing to prove it. That has got to stop.

My mom is in Germany. And I am notoriously bad at e mailing her. She has less than 6 months left to go on her mission, but it will be nice to let her know what is going on in our little family during that time.


4. All of Wendell's family live out of town. Some in Gilbert, some in Payson, Some in Utah. This way they can keep up with our family should they feel the urge.


5. We have been told to keep a journal and I have never been able to do it. I went through a couple of short phases when I was younger, but nothing significant. And, of course, most of the little that I wrote as a teenager had to be burned when I started having kids so that there would never be a chance of them finding out I have ever been less then perfect;)


6. The social aspect. I have really enjoyed reading the blogs that some of my friends have sent me. I am sorry I never left any comments. I didn't even have a google account until yesterday. That will all change now. Probably.


7. And lastly, which perhaps I should have mentioned first, it is the particular recomendation of my noble patroness Lady Catherine De Burg....wait a minute. Back on Pride and Prejudice. Of course I mean the BBC version with Colin Firth. By far the best version. Yes, I do watch it and read it too often. It is a kind of therapy for me. Cheaper then a psychologist;)

Confessions of a scrapbooker

Those of you that know me know that I am a scrapper. As a scrapper, I have scoffed at the idea of blogging. Not because people who create scrapbooks are too good for blogging, that is not it at all. It is really because the idea that all of those hours and hours and years and years of cutting and taping and gluing and cropping have now become obsolete. This younger generation and their new fangled ideas about blogging have made all of my albums useless. It is a sad,sad day.

Now, let me clear up a couple of misconceptions you may have:

1. Because I like to scrapbook, I must be creative. Now, this is surely the case for most scrappers. The ladies that let me sit around and scrapbook with them are real artists. They have a vision and can truly create masterpieces. I can only copy. If I don't copy someone else's layout, the result is not pretty. This is meant as an expanation for those of you who may expect a nice fancy blog. I am computer illiterate, and anything you find here will be very basic until I can learn a thing or two.



2. Scrappers are perfectionists. Again, many are, but not me. Let me tell you I have been called many things in my life, but "perfectionist" has never been one of them. Consider me the queen of,"good enough"



3. Those who scrap alot tend to get very fancy. They add a lot of fancy do dads and what nots to a page with only one picture. Not me. I am capable of this type of scrapping. And I will do it for some important pages, and can do it for certain projects. But in most cases I am a fan of function. If I can fit 4 or 5 pictures on a page to get an idea accross, I will do it. That same concept is sure to show itself in my blog.

Now, the point of this explanation is basically to warn you all not to expect anything fancy. I will try. That's it;)