Savoring The "Moments"

A new look

2012-02-18T12:35:00.004-07:00

Our carpet was unravelling once again, but our dedicated carpet store again came to our rescue! We were able to replace our carpet for the second time in two years. This time we got something different. As nice as it is to have new carpet every year....it's also kind of a hassle. We're hoping this different kind will hold up better than the carpet we had before. It was nice, we just had terrible luck with bad batches and finally that carpet company pulled that particular make of carpet off the market.

Lily is giving the old stuff its last vacuum job.

old stuff:

The new stuff is darker and extremely soft!!! So far we love it. So here's to long lasting carpet!! (fingers crossed)

Seasons

2012-02-01T14:06:00.003-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, it snowed during the night. For our extremely mild winter, this felt like the first good snowfall. I had almost forgotten how much I love waking up to a perfectly beautiful snowy morning like this:I love how the snow and frost clings to every last detail...not that you can see with my picture...but the frost will attach to even a string of a spiders web. It is so beautiful!

I love the different seasons of the year. They present something just new and fresh that I love.

I've been thinking lately that our family is in a new "season" of life now too. We are getting older....

we run the dishwasher every day

we very rarely have leftovers

we have 4 children that attend classes at church

if I don't run the laundry daily, I'm in trouble

we are extra busy with callings

the milk to sustain our family for a week and a half doesn't fit in the fridge. I have to use the chilled garage.....but that's not going to work come summer...

more running the kids to and from

Sometimes I wonder how did we get here? I remember as if it were yesterday, just having one child. Having playgroups to add a little spice to my daily routine. Actually wanting to go to Wal-Mart, to get out of the house for an outing!! Things change so quickly. And I love the here and now too. But just so I can remember what the here and now is like:

Lily is so cute right now. She loves to snuggle at times and likes to say "my momma" and give me hugs. She loves to be with me almost all of the time. But I know now that it won't last forever and I'm pretty good about having her with me, most of the time.

Madelyn just soaks up books. The school allowed her to get a library card and be part of the AR program and she eats that all up. She reads so much I have to tell her to stop and finish with her other "to-do's" before she reads for recreation.

Lily has unfortunately not given up her violent ways. She has kept up this biting stage longer than any of my other children, and it sure can give me gray hairs. I have tried multiple disciplinary techniques to try to put this to rest, to no avail. Hannah has probably lost 1/3 of her hair to Lily pulling it out. Sad! She has very fine hair as it is.

Drew and I are reading the Book of Mormon together. I have loved it. We don't read it together, but we are reading in the same general vicinity and are trying to keep each other on top of it. We're just starting Mosiah, and we started at the end of December. I think we're doing pretty good!

Madelyn and Drew have taken turns being little babysitters for short periods of time. They love the responsibility and I love the teeny bits of freedom.

Drew is preparing to be baptized in April and is very excited about it. He can't wait to join cub scouts and has passed off his bobcat already.

Hannah started Sunbeams at the beginning of the year. She seems to really like it. She loves to participate and volunteer. She even was quite disappointed when she was not chosen to come up and say something in the microphone, so the Primary Pres. made a special exception for her, and came up with something for Hannah to say. I think Hannah was quite pleased with herself.

Hannah is starting to not loathe work so much. She has a list of things she needs to do before she can use the computer (which she is adept at) and somedays she even tackles the list of her own accord. Rare-but I cheer her on when she does!

I am already getting ancy for summer. School takes too much time away, and the kids are already asking to do some things that we implement in the summer months. It's not the summer weather I'm ancy for, it's wanting more time with my kids!

Drew has created his second pinewood derby car, and even though he is not quite 8 they are going to allow him to really race this year!

I am not going to be able to go to Girls Camp. I was planning to work around taking a baby, but it is stake camp this year and they will not allow babies! I was disappointed at the news...big time.

We are working on getting our family mission statement all printed up ready to hang up on our wall. I just don't know where....I am crazy. I never can make up my mind about where to put things, so I end up putting up nothing. But I am determined to get this up and somewhere important in our house!!

I've been doing preschool with Hannah and Lily. Hannah and I usually take turns being the teacher (her idea of course). So far it has really been a fun way for me to spend special time with them when the others are away.

We have been busy with callings. We see more and more of a need to get with our children one on one. We're working on that.

When we have gone with the children one on one it has been wonderful. Madelyn still thinks fondly of our mommy date a month ago where I took just her shopping and then we shared a Jamba Juice. It is times like those, nothing out of the ordinary--except the jamba--made special because it is just them.

Lily finally loves books. It has taken her this long to not just push them away when I bring them out. I enjoy that. I love reading to my kids.

I love when I need a rest in the afternoons, Hannah will bring her blanket and snuggle with me. She is not a napper, but every once in awhile she will fall asleep with me.

All of the kids are excited for this new baby. Lily loves babies--I sure hope she is out of this violence by the time she comes.

I am already started to swell up, I still have a ways to go. I feel like it is way too early!!

Jed and I still try hang out and unwind together after a big day, but sometimes it just doesn't happen with all the things that need to be done. We do still try to make a weekly date mandatory.

Young Women is going really smoothly right now. The new class presidency has learned their duties pretty well and they are taking charge and it has relieved a lot of stress from me. We were without a class presidency for months, so this is like heaven!

Drew is very self-motivated and does his homework without my asking and pushes himself academically just because he wants to.

Madelyn is a good friend. She really tries to be a peacemaker with her friends and work things out.

I'm still trying to find the perfect solution for the kids to be more in charge of themselves as far as their daily responsibilities are concerned. I have tried a few different things.....maybe there isn't a perfect solution and I just have to keep re-working.

I have discovered that kindergarten for girls is like mini-high school. The drama begins!!

I love how Hannah and Lily pretend to do their "homework" with Drew.

Lily adores Drew. She loves it when he gets home from school and often calls for him when he is home.

Madelyn loves to be in charge of getting outfits for her younger sisters ready. I appreciate the help!

I'm sure there are lots more things I would like to remember, but that is a start. I'm sure it is mostly of interest to me, and that's ok. :)

Our Christmas

2012-01-11T19:33:00.010-07:00

We didn't do as well as in times past of getting ready for Christmas this year. Drew and Madelyn were not asking for much...and didn't even know what they wanted for a long time. Drew wanted chapter books and Madelyn wanted a piano book. So I guess it was hard to get pumped to do any Christmas shopping at all!! Also, it seems that when I'm pregnant I come down with snippiness, impatience, and irritability. I've been trying to work on this big time, since it is no fun for any of us! Moral of the story: I just wasn't as "in" to the Christmas thing as I really wanted to be. I loved the 1st Pres. Christmas Devotional at the beginning of the season. I loved Pres. Uchtdorf's talk--and his message echoed through my mind throughout the season. We enjoyed Christmas parties, giving neighbor gifts, singing Christmas songs in the car with Hannah--she pretty much got them all down, going to a live nativity, watching the mormon message "The Coat" practically 100 times, singing Christmas carols and reading special Christmas stories by the warm glow of the tree. We made some wonderful memories.

My favorite day of all was Christmas Eve. The service activity our family planned to do kind of fell through, but on Christmas Eve I felt like the true meaning of Christmas really shone through for us. At one point in the day I saw Drew working on something at the table. Next thing I know he has a station set up: sign, cup, and bell. He was collecting money for the poor. I loved that he came up with this idea all of his own accord. He sat and rang the bell and we donated to his cup.

It turned into a great moment as we talked about what he could do with the money he was collecting, and Whom he was really serving. After our conversation, he started to work on another project. He drew the picture above, which shows him giving his money to a man with a cane, I am smiling from our house window, and above the clouds are Heavenly Father and Jesus smiling. This is what brought the Christmas spirit immediately into my heart and there to stay. Drew donated the money along with his tithing to go out into the world and do some real heartfelt good.

The girls and I cooked and cooked and cooked.

It was fun to have so many little helping hands.

We have a tradtion of making appetizers for our Christmas Eve dinner. It sure was tasty and we had plenty to eat!!

Lily cannot live without milk and practically downs a half gallon on a daily basis. We put some egg nogg in with her milk and she sucked that thing dry!!

Our children started buying gifts for each other last year, but this year we added a bit to the tradition. We drew names, the kids kept their names a secret and did lots of chores to earn a significant amount of money to buy them a pretty nice present, chose the presents themselves, and wrapped them in secret. I loved going with them to pick each other's gifts. Especially with Hannah....she immediately found Lily's gift then asked "Now which one should we get for me?" It was pretty cute.

On Christmas Eve night we read a Christmas story about the importance of giving, then we talked together about it. Afterwards, we let the children give their gifts. They were SO excited to give their gifts. Drew kept whispering in my ear "I hope Sissy likes my present. I can't wait to give it to her!"
They absolutely loved this and I loved that we went through with doing the exchange on Christmas Eve. I really wanted them to savor the spirit of giving and knew that on Christmas day those gifts would just get swept away in a heap of gifts and be more easily forgotten.

There were hugs all around as they gave each other their gifts. It was so sweet and definitely one of those things that will become a permanent tradition in our home.

Since we had done the nativity just the night before, we decided to watch the church production of the Nativity that night instead, then we piled into our car and looked at Christmas lights. We came home left out brownies for Santa and went to bed.

Drew wrote a note to Santa, and Sissy decided she finally knew what she wanted for Christmas and told Drew to add that she wanted a doll on the back. Luckily, Santa is a genius and had already placed a doll in his bag!

Drew's note is kind of hard to read since it was dark... it says, "Santa please eat the milk and cookies. have fun at our House. don't braek the tree and don't braek any thing or else my mom will be mad. love Drew look on the back (back) Sissy wants a doll.
See what I mean? Irritable mom! :) I guess everything makes me mad! It made me laugh.

Last year we had Christmas downstairs--which I liked because it kept the disastrous mess downstairs. But this year we had it upstairs--which I liked because I could listen to the children wake up around 5 AM and talk excitedly about everything they were discovering. So even though I can hardly handle the mess in my front room......I would take hearing the cuteness of my kids over a clean room any day.

After about an hour of hearing Drew and Madelyn detail what everyone got from Santa, they came and got us.

We had to wake the younger two and I had to capture some morning shots of Lily.

Lily went right over to her milk!! :) Santa knows her well.

The rest is self-explanatory. Lots of gifts, lots of mess. :)

It was a great Christmas!! I remembered Pres. Uchtdorf's message that Sunday morning (about things not having to be "perfect") as I really wanted to make a nice Christmas breakfast....but with 9 o'clock church we just decided donuts would have to do the trick!!

I played my violin in a couple of musical numbers and did my worst ever....but things don't have to be perfect and it's going to be ok. I really had to internalize that over and over because I have a really hard time when I perform and things don't go as well as I would like. I didn't want it to ruin my Christmas, so I really had to tell myself it was OK!!

I loved that Lily wanted to race Drew on his new wii game.

Pretty serious about her race here....

It was a wonderful Christmas, unfortunately I didn't post any of the pictures of our grandparents Christmas's. We had the opportunity to celebrate Christmas again this week when my parents brought over their gifts. I will have to get to that later.

I hope the Christmas spirit will linger with us throughout this new year!!

Thanksgiving

2012-01-10T10:03:00.004-07:00

For the month of November we really did our best to focus on being grateful. We started a new tradition of crafting a long list of paper--the challenge was to fill the entire paper with things we were grateful for. We did pretty good, but we will have something to beat next year!

We kept our paper all rolled up with a pen handy for whenever anyone wanted to jot anything down. We mostly talked about it and added to it at dinner time, atleast when we remembered--we certainly weren't perfect at it. Lily and Hannah both enjoyed adding their own things. Hannah definitely is grateful for the letter "H!"
The rules were: write small and no repeating. As you can see on the close up...I guess someone didn't notice that food was written already. :) I also loved that when I heard complaining from the older children, I challenged them to come up with a certain amount of things they were grateful for and add them to the list. Gratitude really can change attitudes.
I loved doing this, it really brought the spirit of gratitude daily into our home. I love the creative things they come up with too. :) I hope we will have a whole treasure chest full of these lists from our future years!
On Thanksgiving we had a great day spent with family and very delicious food from the tables of two households. We usually join both families if scheduling permits. Our tummies definitely get full! But we really enjoy it.
My sister Pam and her family were able to stay with us for a couple nights, and it was nice to talk and enjoy each others company. We took them to the musical lightshow from our old neighborhood, the temple visitors center, and to Reed's Dairy. It was great!

It's a

2012-01-07T07:58:00.002-07:00

GIRL!!

And we're really excited! Drew has been trying to talk to the baby and convince it to somehow be a boy the last couple of days. The only care I had one way or another, was just a glimmer of hope of a boy so Drew wouldn't be sad, but we are totally excited and happy with a girl. Drew asked me to post a colored paper on the door of the house so he could see what we were having immediately after school. I watched from the window as he slowly meandered to the house. :)

When he came in he just said, "it's a girl" with a little smirk on his face--a little disappointed, but he is ok. My Dr. is going to do a double check on my next visit as he is just 90% sure. Drew is still clinging to the 10% chance!! But Jed and I also thought it sure looked like a girl. Everything looks normal and healthy which is such a blessing. The hardest weeks of pregnancy for me, worrywise, are weeks 15-until the ultrasound. That is when I get the most worried that something bad will happen. It isn't more likely then, but that is just what our experience has been. So I'm so grateful that I am feeling the baby move and things looked wonderful on the ultrasound.

Can't wait to meet you, little miss Denning!

A Few Things...

2011-12-27T20:46:00.004-07:00

I need to record before they get left behind. This summer Grandpa Jody completed making a children's train that hooks right onto his lawn mower. It is really quite the creative project!! I'm pretty sure no fuel containers, dollys, and pipe insulation has ever brought children more joy! Ingenius--and the kids think so too. They love this thing. And it can pull the parents that need to ride with small ones. He has it conveniently all packed away, ready to go in a trailer for any family gathering we have. And it is a hit with all of the kids!! It really is cute!

Drew and Madelyn had fun rolling down the hill in the inner tube with Grandma's help.

Cute Lily.

These next few pictures could not go without being documented in some way. One day I was enjoying a moment of respite while Hannah and Lily played beautifully together in the other room. When will I ever learn? Moment of respite= TROUBLE.

Hannah and Lily had gotten into the fingernail polish--climbed up the shelves to find it no less. Luckily no carpet or painted walls were harmed or vandalized in their project. Just a couple pieces of clothing and themselves.

Who was the major culprit? Well, my guess is Hannah who painted an "H" on her tummy and totally gave Lily a makeover. She hasn't figured out that that "H" marking is a dead giveaway..... No amount of scrubbing would take this stuff off, we were just left with time to wash everything away.

I also can't forget Hannah's first love. A little caterpillar she lovingly named Shemo. What started as a mom pointing out the joys of nature, soon escalated into a little girl absolutely losing her heart, loving this caterpillar so much!! We of course had to make him a jar home. She insisted he come everywhere with her--even to the grocery store. I consented and let her. I tried to insist that he stay in his jar, but I would find her in different areas of the house with the jar--lid unscrewed, holding her little best friend.

It really was the cutest thing. We tried to make him as comfortable as we could. Giving him plenty of food.

Finally, we could tell this little guy was slowing down. Hannah knew he was getting sick and insisted we give him medicine. Not knowing of any caterpillar medicine and trying to explain that, she took matters into her own hands and thought that a bit of water would nurse him back to health. Unfortunately, his health went down drastically after that.

We tried to release him back into the wild, but he didn't weather well. Even though it was raining, Hannah took her blanket out onto the porch and stayed at his bedside.

After it was apparent that our little friend had passed on, essentially from being loved too much, I tried to coax Hannah back into the house....it did not go over well. This poor little girl had suffered her first heartbreak.

But Shemo still lives on in her heart, we made little green fuzzy caterpillars out of pipe cleaners. She lovingly named one of them, Shemo.

Intruder

2011-12-24T14:25:00.003-07:00

In my somewhat conscious state of sleep, a couple of nights ago, I heard a couple of doors open and close. Finally, one more opening and closing of our garage door did the trick and I was woken up. I looked at the clock and it was shortly after 6:00 A.M. I woke up Jed with a sense of urgency, and told him I heard someone going in and out of our garage!! He took our fire bat and quickly went to check out the scene. I sat nervously in our bed ........ waiting. He came back and let me know that there was no one there. Jed seemed ok with that and headed for the bathroom, but I knew this was for real, so I decided to take matters into my own hands with the fire bat and just make sure our kids were ok. Jed came out as I was approaching the downstairs, a dark figure also came up from downstairs at the same time. A small dark figure. It was Drew-- all dressed for school with backpack, coat, and shoes. I asked him if he knew what time it was and informed him of the time...he just said "oh, I was just really excited for the Christmas party." (The one he was having at school) That made Jed and I smile. He further explained he couldn't find his shoes, so he got his new flashlight...searched the house....and finally went into the garage to check to see if they were in the car. Jed and I just laughed as we imagined what would have happened if we had woken up just a little earlier to see someone going through our house with a flashlight!!! I'm afraid he may have had a very large goose egg on his head! Our little half-size intruder.
Now I'm just a tad worried that Christmas morning will come extra early this year....if he was willing to get up an hour than usual to be ready for school because of a Christmas party!!

Wish us luck!

Pinkalicious Party

2011-12-10T17:16:00.004-07:00

I can't believe this girl is six! Time flies.She wanted a tie dye cake for her birthday cake. We thought it turned out pretty fun. We love these colorful cakes because we just frost them white, looking plain enough. Then when we dig into them they just really pop out some bright colors! And it is always a surprise to see how they turn out.

Onto Madelyn's b-day party which I talked a bit about in the post just before this one...these are the party favors we gave out to friends. pink pink pink.

Lunch. I didn't go too crazy and bake my own pink bread or anything....we just did our best to make it pink-ish. I thought the white chocolate pink marshmallows turned out pretty cute though.

Here are a few of the pink party guests.

Here are our pinkalicious cupcakes, Madelyn loved how they turned out.

And here is one of our games, "pin the cherry on the cupcake." All in all it was a great and fun party and it all came together without much fuss!

Birthdays

2011-12-10T16:51:00.007-07:00

We've had a lot of them the last couple....few months. Oh my, am I ever behind in recording life's events. I celebrated a birthday in September and some of my favorite moments from that were: the kids making breakfast for me all by themselves--Jed was out of town so they made sure to make me feel special, going on a walk and eating Reed's Dairy--we pretty much go on a walk for my birthday every year..it's just one of my favorite things, I love how the kids were so excited to give me presents. Their excitement kind of rubs off!!

We celebrated Jed's birthday not much later. It was fun....and the sad thing is, when I don't write things down fast enough my brain washes away all memories!! It is horrible.

Atleast I have pictures.

Next was Hannah's birthday, which we celebrated right in the heart of my morning sickness nastiness. So I barely was able to make her birthday wish come true of a "strawberry cake." That was her one birthday wish. And I have no pictures because Lily lost the camera for several weeks. No Halloween pictures either. :( So, I guess, so much for pictures!! She is now 3 and growing up so much. She is still just as full of personality as ever!

Then Madelyn's birthday came next. I had never thrown a friend party for Madelyn before--bad mom huh? So I decided this year was the year. Madelyn and I had a really fun time planning and organizing her birthday. She wanted a "Pinkalicious" birthday party (if you have never read that book, you must, it is very cute). We planned a party with little themes from the book. We played pin the cherry on the cupcake, "pink pink green" as in duck duck goose, and musical chairs. We also read the story at the beginning and asked all of the attendees to wear pink. It turned out fun with a cute little luncheon for the friends too. And it was fairly easy to pull together! Gotta love that. And of course we decorated heartily in pink and made pinkalicious party favors for her friends to take home. I'll put pictures up on a separate post for her birthday, because it is not letting me arrange pictures very easily this time....and I don't want to waste my time!!

Life is Crazy

2011-11-30T20:35:00.005-07:00

Things have been hairy around here at times lately. Firstly, like I mentioned earlier we are expecting a little one in the next several months, to come and join the ranks. I definitely haven't felt 100% and would rank this pregnancy #2 on the hardest pregnancy scale. Luckily, things have gotten significantly better. It is so crazy how a little speck can throw off your groove so wildly!! Gratefully now I can cook meat--almost, I'm not quite there with beef yet, I can clean the toilet, I can change a diaper without throwing up, I actually have started planning menus again, I can now make a grocery list and no longer have to buy what "almost" looks good enough to eat, I can handle smells now, I can help my kids with their homework standing up...and not from the couch, I actually planned and carried out a b-day party for Madelyn--poor Hannah just got a cake that I could barely make for her b-day, I'm not always wishing that someone else would come and make me dinner--but it would have to be potatoes because that is pretty much the only thing that constantly sounded good, and I don't have to take a nap every day, but almost! So things are definitely looking up!!
We've been potty training Hannah. It hasn't been pretty. My older two kids pretty much potty trained themselves at this age, and had maybe 3 accidents--if that. This one, however, has been much much much more difficult. We reverted back to diapers for a time, it got that bad. I had had enough constant laundering, cleaning, and scrubbing. It all climaxed as I was at an exercise class one day, and near the end I look over and see Hannah and her friend's bare bottoms. That was not all. They both decided to go potty on the floor! I about died. After that, it was back to diapers. Yesterday was the first day that Hannah stayed clean in her underwear and then today 3 accidents again. I am potty trained out.... One other crazy/funny story: there was one day we were in thick of potty training and we had stomach flu going around too. Needless to say the potty training wasn't happening and I had several messes on account of the flu as well. I was pretty much laundering and scrubbing and disinfecting all day long. Jed got home from work and was on the phone doing church stuff in the other room all night long. So I was finally getting everything wound up around the house and getting our scripture study done with the kids-the last thing on our list. I was laying on the couch reading, when Hannah ran up to me and threw up right on my face, neck, and shoulder. I just started laughing/crying....it was funny but also, I was definitely at the end of my rope. Jed walked out just then from doing his phone calls, and I just said "Where have you been?" I wasn't upset, it was more just a funny scene to walk in on and I just had to say it. I was very grateful that Hannah missed my mouth, only by a couple inches....
Jed is now serving in our bishopric which has brought some change to our family as well. It has been a good experience and I know it will continue to be a good experience. We've definitely had a learning curve, learning what works in sacrament mtg all over again, not setting out breakfast for Jed on fast sunday mornings, remembering to bring him a lunch to have for after church, and making sure his white shirts aren't still in the wash come sunday mornings! We're catching on though. I'm so lucky that I serve in YW still because almost every sunday, one of them will come and help me. I really am so grateful for everyone's help. We have to get babysitters every mutual night, and whenever we have to be at the same meeting, etc. My parents and neighbors have helped so very much. I'm very grateful.
Life is crazy and good at the same time. I hope I don't sound like I am ranting and raving, but I had to record real life. When my girls grow up and have children of their own and ask me, "did you ever have days like this?!" I will say, "YES!!!! Just hang in there and take it one day at a time....one day at a time." :)

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T05:56:00.003-07:00

This month as a family, we've tried harder to focus on being grateful for the entire month of November. I can't say that I have been perfect at it, let's just say a potty training experience gone awry has put my nerves a little more on edge than usual, but I am so grateful for how blessed our family truly is. I truly believe that there is real power in gratitude, and I hope I can better develop a constant spirit of gratitude in my life.
A few things I am grateful for:
*A warm house, food to eat, clothes to wear, and so many comforts that usually I take for granted.
* A loving family. A good husband who works very hard to support our family. Fun, good, and healthy children.
* Wonderful extended family on both Jed and I's side of the family.
* So many "little" things my children do and say that truly bring me joy.
* A new baby coming to our family in May. I'm grateful to see our family grow and see our children excited for a new baby.
*Good friends and wonderful neighbors.
* The gospel in my life, I love it.
* Life in general. I'm so grateful to be able to learn and grow and to become better.
* A loving Heavenly Father and Savior who know me better than I know myself, my weaknesses and my potential. I'm grateful that I can receive guidance and direction in my life from One who knows better than I.
* I'm grateful that Thanksgiving comes just before Christmas. A grateful heart is the perfect start to a season that focuses on the birth of our Savior.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Star of the Week

2011-10-22T16:26:00.003-06:00

So remember when I started the Star of the Week series? Yeah, I hardly do either, but I guess it is time for me to finish up with them!

This is Lily.

Things that Lily loves:

* her blankie

*her dada--she runs to the garage every time she hears the door close. I always feel really bad when I return from taking out the garbage and hear Lily, "DADA!!!" and little feet pattering towards the door.

*She loves milk. Could drink it ALLLL DAAYY LOOONG.

*She loves playing with her siblings.

*She unfortunately loves violence. She pulls hair, bites, and pinches. We're working on it.

*She loves playing in the toilet/bathroom.

*She loves to help me clean. It is very very cute. And I praise it like crazy because I know what is coming around the corner....
*She loves Nutella. She isn't a huge fan of toast, but put some nutella on it and she will have thirds!
*She loves hiding in her daddy's closet in his clothes. Check out that smile in the above picture.... :)
* She loves nursery. And she has started going already. The nursery ladies are really helping me out!

* She loves going outside and it has been a struggle to try to explain that it is just getting too cold to go outside sometimes. :(

Things I love about Lily:

* I love that she knows what she wants and how to help me know what she wants. Like when she gets a sippy out of the cupboard with a mismatching lid and leads me right to the fridge to get her milk.

*I love that she knows exactly what to do before we start eating. She will fold her arms before she digs in sometimes.

* I love that after bedtime family prayers she opens her arms wide and will take a turn giving everyone a great big hug.
* I love that she says "please" and "thank you" sometimes without being reminded! One night she was up and was sick. I was up with her and we were laying on the couch together so I could take care of her. She kept saying "taintoo" over and over. It was the sweetest thing, and really helped me not mind that I was missing so much sleep that night.

*I love that other than having a few issues with violence, she really is a pure sweetie!

We love that little girl!!

Perspective

2011-09-22T21:32:00.003-06:00

This word has been on my mind a lot the last couple of days. And it has meaning on so many different levels. In particular, I've been thinking of what it means to me in the sphere of mothering. I wish I could say that I have perfect perspective. I wish I could say that I think eternally if something really is worth my time and effort, all the time. But I can't. So much of the time I find myself just struggling to stay afloat, and then after a whirlwind of a day I think to myself, "what did I actually do today? What did I do that made a difference?" Sure I mopped the floor, scrubbed the toilet, folded a couple loads of laundry, made meals for everyone in our family and some neighbor kids, paid bills, picked up the kindergarten car pool, went to an appointment, helped the kids with their homework, cleaned up countless messes, and changed several diapers, etc. But what did I really do?
Don't get me wrong, we certainly would notice if I decided not to do any of the above listed things. They are important in their own right. But, I want to make sure that I am actually making a difference in my childrens' lives every day, even if it is in some small way. If I am not careful, I can go about a days business without taking a moment to "be there" with my kids. Things have definitely gone up a notch in busy-ness the last couple of weeks....but still....if I am not carving out time to be with them every day, I fear my perspective is out of whack. I should be more careful to take into account the real purpose of what I am doing. Why am I a mom? What do I want my relationship with my kids to be like when they are teenagers? What are my hopes for my children? I really want the eternal perspective to be at the forefront of my mind every day.
Maybe I could take a break every so often from the chores with my little ones to read a few stories together. To cuddle and tell them why I love them so so so much. Ask them what they want to do for the next 20 minutes, and then do it! Ask them out of the blue if they will play barbies with me ....or something else they really want me do, but know I am making dinner so they don't ask. I want to take the time to be with them. I want them to know that even though life gets crazy, that they take precedence over a sparkling clean toilet or whatever else.
I am certainly not there yet. I have a long way to go, but that is the mom I want to be.

Wrapping up Summer

2011-09-08T20:12:00.005-06:00

Summer was good to us. We very much enjoyed it here. I am already missing the "freedom" of summer and trying to get a handle on the new scheduled mode. I like schedules too, it just requires a transition!

Drew loved every bit of the soccer season. He still steals me whenever he can to go play a soccer match with him outside.

He is already looking forward to next year.

It is sad to say I never wrote anything about our nations birthday. We had a quieter 4th of July this year. We squeezed in several fireworks shows, and a pretty darn good one from our porch late at night that our neighbors put on--can't beat that!

Lily's look of shock, her first memorable fireworks.

Doesn't this picture just look like a fire hazard? ...that lovely pile of dead grass right next to the fireworks.... :)

We had blueberry pancakes with strawberry sauce and whipped cream for breakfast.

Nice and easy traditional breakfast.

Swimming lesson season is over too. And I couldn't resist but breathe a huge sigh of relief. Drew and Madelyn were in different classes back to back this year....and Hannah and Lily were a handful every time--don't let those cuties deceive you.... :)

I don't think the observation deck has been cleaned ever, so every time we went those two little girls were eating the most DEEESGUSTING things ever. I always brought plenty of snacks, but they preferred the old ,stale, moldy, nasty treats from 10 years ago. Don't forget the eating of already been chewed gum. Bleh!! We are still working on that with Hannah and pretty much nothing disgusts me more.

The pictures are horrible, but they are pictures. :) Madelyn had a really fun time in her class. She had some fun little friends to socialize with!

Drew finished his lessons as an entirely different swimmer. Wow. He really pushed himself and did great!

One of the goals my all of my kids wanted to do over the summer was to learn about the world. So we did. My mom took my kids and I to the International Folk Dance Festival--we did that every year growing up.

Since we had been learning about the world, it made the experience even more special. My kids loved looking at all the different flags they had displayed.

We had fun learning dances and observing them. Lily was a pro at making all sorts of international friends. :)

Sorry for the sideways picture. This was our Chilean culture night. We had empanaditas, rice, and beans. I didn't know how to cook the beans...they were non-traditional, but I think the empanaditas were pretty close!! Jed taught/talked about Chile that night after the kids and I had studied up on it.

Our good friends Brett and Leslie hosted a Japan night and it was awesome. The food was delish--I wish I could remember what the dishes were called.... Brett showed pictures, answered the kids' questions, let us use official chopsticks, and shared some Japanese trinkets with us. Thank you so much, it was very fun!!

Our very first one was a USA culture night. Good ole hot dogs, corn on the cob, watermelon, etc. We also decorated heartily for that one with all of the projects we worked on together. It was very fun.

We still have one more culture night to celebrate with their Uncle Gerald on South Africa. It should be fun.

Whew. It was a fun and busy summer. A lot of really fun times to remember!!

Back To School

2011-09-01T11:56:00.008-06:00

The first day of school was anticipated nearly as much as Christmas this year. Madelyn came in my room at 5 AM wondering if it was time. Drew told me he couldn't sleep well at all and woke up several times....

Of course there had to be a little picture taking.

My big girl just starting school.
And my growing Drew.
They both had their clothes laid out and ready the night before. I remember those days. Such fun times. Even though it is hard to say goodbye to summer, I do love this time of year!! Just like spring, the fall has its own feeling of "newness." I love fall.

Waving at the bus stop.

The bus ride!! Very exciting. :)

Hannah and Lily and I enjoyed some quiet time at home together before we had to get Madelyn. It is so nice to give them focused time, they desperately needed it! It is amazing how much different it is at home with just the three of us. Jed asked me over the phone how my "day off" was going. It definitely is simpler with less constant needs!

When Madelyn was home we whipped up a batch of Rice Crispy treats, our special 1st day after school snack.

This had to be one of my very favorite things of the day. All of the girls ran out of the house as soon as I announced Drew was home. There were hugs all around..........I loved that.

Just so sweet!!!

I love those kiddos.

We all got caught up on what happened on the first day over our Rice Crispy treats. Lots of stories were shared and there was a general consensus that school is going great thus far!!

Lily had little crispies stuck everywhere....

Showing each other their cool projects and special things they got.

It was a great day! I was asked by a friend if I was someone who was happy to send their kids out the door or if I am a crier......well, I didn't actually cry...but I definitely favor that side of the spectrum. I love that they go and learn and have a great time. I love that I have some time to spend with my younger ones. But man, I miss those guys!!!

A couple of weeks before school started, Madelyn was starting to feel nervous about school. I told her that Dad would give her a blessing and that would help her feel better. We had planned a time to have the blessings, but something came up...that happened several times until finally we set it in stone that the night before, Jed would give the blessings. It was such a neat experience. I felt the spirit strongly and I know that the children did too. I'm so grateful for the priesthood. I'm so grateful that Heavenly Father is watching them always. I'm so grateful for the peace I felt after the blessings were given. Madelyn's nerves were soothed and after that it was just pure excitement!
So here's to a new school year!!

The next Star of the Week

2011-08-26T15:31:00.002-06:00

Onto the second of my Star of the Week series:

Here we have Drew.

Things Drew loves to do:

* Help his mom

*Work with his Dad

*Swim

*art

*ride his scooter/bike

*play soccer

*play with his sisters

*Learn--especially loves math

*Loves to do a good job with everything he does

*Read

*to play the Wii with his best buddy from school

Things I admire about Drew:

*He is a very hard worker--He worked and earned money for the above razor scooter

*He is so unselfish--he has an amazing ability to understand the feelings of others and always wants to help

* He loves to have fun

*He is determined--this year in his swimming lessons, I was sure on that first day they were going to put him in the class just lower. His classmates were doing stuff he had never done.....on the very first day! But they didn't switch him. Instead, Drew got it in his mind that he was going to pass this class and move on to the next level. And he did!! He did so amazing, seriously.

* He is so kind. One day our family was going for a walk. I asked the kids what the most beautiful thing they could see was. Drew said, "You!" Awhhhh, he will be such a great husband!

Drew you are such a great example to your younger siblings, and such a pleasure to have around! We love you tons and tons!!!

The RUSH

2011-08-23T21:22:00.004-06:00

So this last Saturday some friends and I joined together and did the Rush triathalon in Rexburg. We had a blast and I'm so glad we did it!! My friend Heidi did the swim, she is in the picture below in the sea of yellow heads. She swam so awesomely and got us off to a great start!!

Since my friends and I serve in the Young Women together, we invited the Young Men leaders to go up against us. Well it ended up that only one took the challenge and he did the whole thing himself--he is not new to this sort of thing. This was actually a picture of Heidi running out of the water, but she is the yellow capped girl in the background. Sorry about the random person dressing in the forefront.

Our transitions were pretty quick, since we were doing the different legs separate. This is my friend Tiffany in the pink running with her bike to start her 13 mile leg of the journey. There she goes! It was a tough course, lots of hills!

Here is my transition, we swapped the timer chip and I was off!!

The run was fun, hard-but good. Everyone kept warning me about a killer hill--I didn't really pay too much attention to it. I thought I was doing pretty good on those hills, until I saw what everyone was talking about. It is actually a killer cliff!! I was running up a dirt path up the cliff for the better part of one mile. I ran my hardest-we were all really trying hard to beat the YM leader and he hadn't passed us yet!! I was so paranoid I kept looking over my shoulder every time someone came up to me.
I almost threw up, but I kept going. :) At the top it was so steep that my running steps were just barely one foot in front of another so I decided to use less energy and walk with big steps for a few strides up the steepest little part. Then I kept running. We finished and we came in one minute before our iron man friend! We never thought it possible!!! So yeah, we were pretty excited! Our transitions were definitely easier and we started fresh at each leg...so he did really awesome!!

It was so fun! Heidi is going to do it all by herself next year, she has done it before but had a baby in May so she let us tag along this time. Now Tiffany and I want her to teach us how to swim so we can all do it separately next time! They sure were great teammates! Thanks for a fun time girls!!

Star of the Week

2011-08-19T12:47:00.004-06:00

I thought I would take a week at a time to recognize my children--just for fun. In the midst of summer craziness, it is hard to carve out time for each child, so I thought I would write about each child individually for something fun for them and for me! So I will start with Miss Madelyn.

Things Madelyn loves:

*Barbies

*Cooking

*Doing her own hair

*Playing with her brother Drew

*Taking care of her little sisters

*Reading

*Dancing

*Singing

*Piecing together outfits--she loves clothes

Things I admire about Madelyn:

*She is an amazing reader. She reads accurately and fast. This summer she read her biggest book ever, Charlotte's Web. First thing in the morning-very often she is the first of the children to wake up-she is usually reading a book or reading the friend.

*She tries to do what is right-just the other day she told me that she needed to tell me the truth about something she had been avoiding. I was proud of her for doing something hard and for initiating doing what was right.

*She doesn't like to be pushed into something she doesn't want to do.

*She remembers to pray about things that concern her. She will often be the first with the idea to pray if we have any sort of trouble/problem. I hope she will continue that wonderful practice!

*She loves to pose for pictures! :)
Madelyn is a good girl and is getting way excited to begin school! We love our big girl and we are so happy she is in our family!!!

You get a line, I'll get a pole

2011-08-08T08:06:00.005-06:00

I always get picture order WAY mixed up on here. This should have been more of the last picture...but ya know..

Lately we've been trying our hand out at crawdad fishing up at Ririe Reservoir. It has been a pretty fun family activity. . . especially the time when the boat quit when we were with my brother and his family. We ended up being towed back to the dock. :)

Our last trip though, was less eventful as far as technical difficulties, and way more eventful on the harvest of crawdads. We caught 10! a record for us.

See? They are strange little creatures, but that is part of the fun of it. We catch them with bacon and reel them in very slowly. I think the anticipation is a little greater fishing for these guys than with fish .
Cute little girlies in their life jackets.

Lily can be a wiggly mess on the boat, but she is awfully cute!!

Drew had the best luck and would catch 2 crawdads at a time in his net.

Lily loves to drive with her dad!

First catch of the night.

Anticipation is brimming.

Madelyn striking a pose!

What keeps these little guys entertained is mostly food and watching the crawdads crawl around in the bucket.

I was worried that we had so many crawdads and no one would want to eat them. I tried some with Jed the last time we caught a couple, they taste a lot like shrimp. But I don't like shrimp or anything that lives in the water for that matter..... But Drew and Madelyn surprised me. Madelyn loved them. Drew liked them. Hannah did not like them. :) When they are cooked those little crawdads turn bright red (refer to first picture). They look a lot more appetizing when they are cooked!

Following our crawdad adventure, we all packed up and went outside to sleep on the tramp! The kids have been so excited to sleep on it ever since their dad and I related our stories of sleeping on the tramp growing up. We finally did it.

Setting up. It turned out to be a rather chilly yet clear night. The stars were beautiful, and we enjoyed star gazing together. Drew and Madelyn like to find the Big Dipper. It was pretty fun to all be bunched up together on the trampoline.

Lily was pretty hyper and hit her second wind. Hannah thought it was funny to randomly get out of her sleeping bag and jump. Finally, everyone dozed off--except for me. I discovered I would be the world's worst pioneer. I could not sleep a wink because I kept thinking that Hannah and Lily were freezing. I constantly was checking them and feeling their cold cheeks and pulling up their blankets. I witnessed 8 shooting stars, studied the milky way, and watched as the stars slowly moved across the sky in my solitary waking hours. That night sky really is beautiful. Finally Lily started being a little fussy and Jed told me to take her in. I did. And I saw on the clock when I got in the house it was 3 AM!!!!!!! Oh my goodness.

But with kids as excited as this to sleep on the tramp, of course they are asking to do it again! And I will probably consent, when I am able to catch up on some Zzzzzzzz's. :)

Girls Camp

2011-07-29T09:55:00.008-06:00

My only picture with the girls at camp!! I didn't do so hot on picture taking...
(Skit Night)

Since we were at the Island Park Scout Camp we were able to do lots of the activities they offered there. We were able to rock climb, rappell, shoot guns, do archery, swim, boat, canoe, kayak, etc. I say "we," but really I had nothing to do with the water stuff since you had to do a swimming test. First, I'm not the greatest swimmer.....and second I don't do cold water very well at all.

Some of the best camp memories: skit night--which I participated in since this was my first year of camp, quoting Nacho Libre with the best of them :), being mawled by mosquitoes, laying in my sleeping bag in total fear of the thunder/lightening and the possibility of a bear coming to attack-- thinking I was suffering in silence alone--later found out everyone was suffering in silence "alone." It was so fun to get to know the leaders and girls better and see them grow closer as a group.

This rain/hailstorm put our camping fun to an abrupt halt. Flooded tents and personal items required immediate departure, but did give us fun stories and brought a whole new sense of adventure to the camp. Because of our early departure, we weren't able to hold our testimony meeting or Bishop's Dinner at camp. I was worried it just wouldn't be the same (testimony mtg.) held in the Bishop's backyard for the next mutual, but I was happily wrong. The dinner and testimony meeting turned out very nicely. I love hearing the girls' testimonies and feeling of their strength.

Because of the hailstorm we were unable to do the high C.O.P.E. while we were there, but our Bishop arranged for us to return and have a go at it a couple weeks ago.

Drew took the pictures, I didn't teach him about zoom or anything....so it is a little hard to see me. I'm in a black shirt, the one up in the air on the left.

I'm the one in the air...

I learned something profound about myself while experiencing this aerial obstacle course. I have gone rock climbing/rappelling several times and I don't get all that scared to do it. But throw me up here in a new situation, with similar equipment but trying something entirely new, put me out of my comfort zone. I kept asking the Staff to double check my hook-ups and harness--I was a little reluctant to trust the equipment. :) How interesting. I imagine the same could be said of me and possibly others? when thrown into new and unfamiliar territory/experiences. When change is required it can be scary and sometimes Heavenly Father is questioned in His wisdom. Is this really the right path for me? Why is this happening to me? But He is the same forever, He is still there always, He still knows all and knows what we do not. My harness and equipment was just as safe as it was when I was rock climbing, but trying something new suddenly made me feel vulnerable and unsure. After I finally completed the first bit of the course I was able to see that I was indeed safe. Things were going to be ok. And no matter how scary and difficult this course was going to be, I was going to be fine.

Isn't life just like that?

My Girls Camp experience was great. I'm so glad I went.

While I was away, Jed took the week off work. He was the Dad/Mom the whole week and did a spectacular job, diapers and all. He was able to borrow his parents camper and came up to the girls camp the 2nd day we were there. Jed and the kids pretty much did their own thing. They went swimming at warm river, went to Mesa Falls, went on go-cart/motorcycle rides, learned how to tie knots, did crafts, fed the fish at Big Springs, etc. (Unfortunately I have no pictures to document it all, it was with me being unused!!) Dad is cool! And amazing. And many other wonderful things. Thanks hun for making it all possible!!!

Some of my Favorite Summer Memories..thus far

2011-07-22T08:00:00.003-06:00

Sitting on the front porch and talking with Jed

Swimming in our little pool

Going on Summer adventures with the kids

Having picnics at lots of different parks

Playing cribbage with Jed-and actually winning last night! That feels good. :)

Playing tennis. I love that game.

Playing water soccer with Drew and getting myself completely soaked.

Morning runs. Perfect weather. Quiet and peaceful. So nice.

Playing pretend with Hannah. I loved when it was "bedtime" and she told me "The 3 Little Pigs." So fun to hear it from her point of view--since I tell it to her most every night. "The first piggy built hisself a house of straws..." so fun!

Jed and I watching our neighbors fireworks show on our porch late at night after the kids had gone to bed.

Reading books to my kids. We just read "Because of Winn-Dixie" and watched the movie and had a pizza party together. I loved the book and the movie--so many wonderful things to discuss and teach to the kids as we went along.

Our culture nights--I'll have to write more on that later.

Having the chance to bond with my YW girls and getting to know them on a whole new level at Girls Camp.

After Jed being away for a week with work, he came home with milkshakes for everyone!! Madelyn claims it was one of the best days of her life. You and me both Sis. :)

Now lest it seem like things have been picture perfect.......there have been tough times too.

Jed was gone largely most of this summer with work. He would come back on weekends...but they were always filled to the brim with to-do's. But he is back for good now. I hope!!

I have had to send myself to time-out a time or two.

We've had fighting/arguing

Visited Wit's End a couple times

Etc.

But I can't complain, because I have a much larger list of fun summer memories that makes me so happy and grateful for the time I've had with my kids and family. I love it! And our summer freedom is starting to slip away. So I hope we can jam-pack this last month of summertime with a great big list of more fun summer memories!!!

What do we do in the Summertime?

2011-06-30T18:51:00.007-06:00

We love to get a little wet.
We went to the Splash Park and it took Hannah awhile to warm up.

Such a fun place for the kids!

Hannah finally let go of my leg and started splashing around.

The big kids had a great time and kept so busy I could hardly get a picture of them. This one was totally staged--even though Madelyn isn't looking. I made them stay put for a minute so I could document that they were indeed with us.

We also head to the Greenbelt and feed ducks and take in beautiful views.

I love that Lily points to everything as she explores.

Tossing the bread.

We also have pizza party picnics at the park.

Lily is starting to love playing on toys at the park.

We do a little fishing.....except we don't catch any fish--atleast not this day.

But with chips and swedish fish around, the kids still have a good time.

We also go to the zoo.

Madelyn spoiled me a little and took over stroller duty. Lovely!

We watched a zookeeper fruitlessly try to coax stubborn penguins to go for a swim.

Lily and Hannah are at the perfect age for the zoo. It is so fun to experience the zoo with them!! I love their zest and excitement for every little thing. So much fun.

There is Lily with that cute little pointer finger again!

We also love packing picnics and going to all sorts of parks. I love picnics. I love enjoying a meal outside and keeping my kitchen free of crumbs and spills for one of the meals of the day! Win win.

And of course we love playing and making new friends

We are so glad that it is sunny and warm! We are really having a great summer.

We also took care of our neighbors goats for a weekend. Pretty fun. I wish I would have gotten pictures, especially when we took them out on leashes to go for a walk.

It really has been fun to go on several adventures with these kiddos. I really am loving the summer break! It definitely has its difficult times, but I love being able to go out and do so many fun things with my favorite little ones!

Memorial Day

2011-06-29T11:37:00.003-06:00

Yes, I know it has been awhile since Memorial Day...but wanted to make sure and write some things down. We had fun visiting graves on Memorial Day.

We visited Ellie's grave.When we arrived, we saw that someone had already decorated her grave. Thank you, to whomever that was. That means a lot to us/me!

Jed and I have always enjoyed finding the graves of his ancestors. We would enjoy finding mine too, only most of mine are in Utah. We had tried a couple of times to find these headstones, and this time we were able to find them! Finding headstones of your ancestors gives you such a connection with them. It is so neat to me that we live in the same area as some of these people lived.

I don't know how we ever could have missed this one! It is one of the fanciest and oldest ones at the cemetery.
Jed's grandma, Ruth, joined us for the fun. It was fun to find headstones of some of her ancestors too! Then we all went out and got our favorite burger at Dixie's Diner....Mmmmm. The best hamburger in town.
Jed and I also discovered that we're related. In more ways than one. When we were first married, we took a Family History Class and discovered similar names in our pedigrees. The dates we had for the names were different, so we just thought it was a funny coincidence. Well now that the new Family Search is out, we were able to discover that our previous records for those people had some mistakes. They are in fact, the same people!! We share the same great great great grandparents!! Crazy! I'm sure they were probably just waiting for us to discover this on the other side.
So we're kissin' cousins!!

Balance

2011-06-15T21:55:00.004-06:00

Today I've been pondering to myself about life/motherhood...and I have come to the conclusion that if I could figure out one thing, 99.99% of all of my problems/issues/stress would be solved. The one thing? Balance. Balance encompasses so much, there is so much in life to balance.

*balance mom time vs. everyone else time

*balance time between siblings, or spending the most time where the most attention is needed.

*balance scripture study, exercise, chore time, lesson time, YW prep time, you name it "time"

*finding balance in my expectations of my children--what is too high? what is too low?

*finding the balance between stepping in on a situation, or letting it play itself out

*balance in extra-curricular activities

*balancing out my mood!!

You get the picture. Even though my last balance suggestion (my mood) seems silly, I think that affects most of my stress of all the others!! It is crazy how much influence I have in this little house of mine. Mostly, a little scary. It seems if I don't handle one situation as well as I would hope, boy, does that ever have a domino affect in the rest of everyone's moods!! That old saying is so true: "If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy!!"

I loved a talk that was given at our Stake Conference this weekend, by Elder Cornish-newly called general authority. He spoke about gratitude. When gratitude is present, anger and resentment, frustration, and I would even add stress, cannot be. I think gratitude can rid us, atleast partly, of our stress because it can refocus us on things that are eternally important and significant. I often stress about things that in the long-run, don't have a lot of significance.

In our last General Conference ensign there is a story I absolutely love about the young merchant who sold all his possessions to go be part of the California gold rush. He worked day after day, but couldn't seem to find much gold. He was ready to quit when an old prospector approached him and complimented him on his rock pile! The young merchant, discouraged, said there was no gold and was ready to go home. The prospector told him there was gold and he just needed to know where to find it. He hit two rocks together, and inside there were shining flecks of gold. The young merchant noticed a bulging leather pouch on the prospectors waist and told him he was looking for gold nuggets like the ones in his pouch. The prospector opened the pouch and the young merchant realized it was full of tiny flecks of gold.

I, of course, read this story and it reminded me of being a mother. When I notice those tiny shining flecks of gold, the world is so amazing!! I love being a mom!! It is the greatest treasure in all the world. But I admit there are days, when I see there are more rocks than gold. Those are hard days!! I really want to "balance" my life by focusing on those gold flecks. I know I talk a lot about "moments," because they really are what bring me the most joy. When I focus on the "gold" somehow my worries about balance tend to work themselves out. Mostly because when I think of joyful moments, I'm being grateful. When I'm grateful, the Spirit can talk to my spirit. When I have the Spirit's influence, it can help me with solutions to even the tiniest problems I may have.

And I'm grateful for that.

My baby is ONE..and still my baby

2011-06-13T21:48:00.007-06:00

I can hardly believe it, but Lily has celebrated her first birthday!! It's funny to remember that when Drew turned one, I thought he was so big. I remember running in to one of Jed's acquaintences at Wal-Mart and he asked, "how old is your baby?" I was almost offended and in complete shock! Baby?! He was 13 months!! Now things are different. Lily is one. But she is still my baby. I remember my parents calling me their "baby" when I was a teenager....now I understand.

My children are not afraid to dig into food, make messes, or eat insane amounts of sugar.

Lily had a blast and seemed to know it was her special day.

If you look hard, you can see that grandpa has a crown on his head. I'm not sure he would appreciate this...but Lily thought it was absolutely silly!

We love this little Lil like crazy. Madelyn put it well the other day, "I love Lily in our family." I do too! And I think everyone else would heartily agree.

Things she loves:

cleaning the toilet--you can be sure that if she is in the bathroom, she is going for the toilet brush in the cabinet and you will find her at the toilet bowl with the brush--scrubbing.

she loves her little pink blankie.

she loves hiding in daddy's hanging shirts in our closet.

she likes to dance.

she loves her siblings

she loves to play and wrestle with her daddy.

she loves to say prayers--almost without fail she will fold her arms and say her "prayer" before the person who was called on. Possibly my most favorite thing she does.

Things she does not love:

bananas--what child doesn't love bananas?! I've always relied on bananas for an easy, quick, baby-friendly snack...

she does not like having to go inside from playing outdoors.

mommy leaving the room.

Things she has learned to do:

walk.

say "hi," "mama," "dada," "uh-oh"

wave--mostly with her palm facing towards herself. I love it.

has the most expressive face.

jump on the trampoline.

"feed" herself. Messily of course!

drink from a sippy.

be such a sweetie!!!

On our kids' first birthday, we usually set up a few items on the floor. Things that might "represent" what they will be when they grow up: baby, scriptures, money, calculator, violin, and I can't remember what else we put out. But Lily came out and instantly pointed to the violin. I of course thought it was cute!!!!!

Happy 1st Lil!

Summer Adventures

2011-06-08T13:48:00.006-06:00

It has finally gotten warm enough to go out and play in water!! We've been getting irrigation water to water our "lawn" and the kids had a blast. Hannah's diaper was pushed to its absorbency limit--the camera doesn't even capture it's actual size!

We pretty much had a lake in our yard. I think we're really going to like this!!

Taking a break from the water.

We floated paper boats, played a little water soccer, made mud cakes, made mud waterfalls, and the kids played catch in the water with our neighbors. It entertained them and me for hours.

Drew swimming! It is the perfect depth for kids!

It was awesome. I can't wait until we get our floaties out!

Our neighbors taught a "soccer camp" to raise funds for their scout camp. It was an awesome idea, and so convenient since they live across the street. The final day of the soccer camp they had a game. Drew really likes soccer and is playing on a team in a couple of weeks, so this was a great warmer-upper.

Hannah watching the big game.

Some action shots.

Hannah caught a worm. She is not a very squeamish girl.

Drew and Madelyn made this "Ant City" with rocks and they put Watermelon inside. I was surprised to find the watermelon gone in the morning and ants populating the city in excess.

They thought it was great!

Our summer is off to a great start. We're getting a lot more situated in our summer schedules and that helps things run a little smoother. I love having them home and Madelyn and Drew are pretty much glued at the hip. We've really eaten up any opportunity we've had to go out and enjoy good weather! We're excited for more.

The Stars Aligned

2011-06-04T12:27:00.002-06:00

So this week I was able to meet up with some of my roommates from my college years. These ladies are amazing. I think it was a year and a half since I last saw the two ladies to the right of me, and 2 years since I saw the lady to my left (at her wedding!). It is just wonderful that when we are together it's like time has stood still and we're still the greatest friends. It is amazing that our situations are so different: one is continuing her own education, two are starting families while their husbands finish schooling, one lives in Dallas Texas, one married a man from Sri Lanka and has the most beautiful little baby boy-the bluish eyes and dark skin are just so striking, and two of these ladies are actually sisters-in-law now. I love that our situations and stories are so different, but they are what they are supposed to be! Heavenly Father has led us down different paths and I'm just so glad that our paths cross every now and again! I love these ladies! We had some great adventures together! They have always been such wonderful friends and they really are top-notch.

Grocery Store Angels

2011-06-01T17:10:00.003-06:00

Today was a shopping day. Not my normal shopping day, because I put off going for a couple of days...we've been out of milk since Sunday! By the time we finished with our regular to-do's we arrived at the grocery store about noon. I will never make that mistake again.... The inside of the grocery store looked as if it was an hour before Thanksgiving dinner, and everyone in town forgot to buy the turkey! Now that it is summer, I've got all my little ones with me and at that point, were very tired and hungry. Not good. It was wild--to put it briefly!
We saw a man in the store who was missing a hand and had a hook in its place. So my children noticed, and their imaginations went wild with them. I told them not to speak too loudly about it, and that I was sure he was a very nice man...and not Captain Hook. Well at the craziest point of the shopping trip (Hannah screaming loudly in the cart stepping all over the food and eating marshmallows through the plastic, Lily pushing out of her seat belt and her screams demanding that I take her out and carry her, the other children dragging themselves on the cart and pushing the cart in undesirable places), "Captain Hook" (for lack of a better name) stopped and said, "Are they having fun yet?!" I just said "Oh yeah, it is a little too busy in here for us today, but we're gonna make it, huh guys!" He just smiled at me and said "cute kids." Not but a couple of minutes later, "Captain Hook" returns and asked if there was anything he could do to help me, and distracted my children with a little conversation. Even though there wasn't really anything he could do at that time...it was so nice of him to ask and distract my children's mind off our eternal shopping trip. I have had other grocery store angels, ones who have bagged my groceries when I was in tears from crazy outbursts of a two-year old little boy, ones who have caught my runaway produce in the parking lots, cashiers who have distracted overly tired and cranky little ones while I sign or type in card information, ones who have come to my aid and returned my shopping cart, ones who have donated shopping carts, and those lovely grocery store baggers at certain stores who take my groceries out to the car and load them for me. I am ever so grateful.
Days like today remind me of one of my favorite motherhood stories--I don't have the exact story but this is the basic idea. A mother is grocery shopping with her little daughter. The daughter was struggling and throwing fits throughout the shopping trip. The mother would quietly say encouraging words like "we're almost finished Suzie." "Just one more aisle and then we're through." "We're headed to the checkout, Suzie, and then we will be able to go home." A lady then comes up to the mother and compliments her ability to stay calm through the chaos of the entire trip. The mother then responds, "there is something you should know. I am Suzie."
I love it. And today I felt just like that. I was sure we were leaving before we ever got that much needed milk. Someday when my little ones are grown, I hope I can remember these difficult times and be someone's grocery store angel!!!

Transformation

2011-05-25T11:30:00.003-06:00

Our Lily is changing. She is not the same girl she was 2 1/2 weeks ago. She likes a bit more control. (See the above picture of her driving the go-cart)

She likes to do big kid stuff.

She makes a little mischief--the potty is a favorite site. As is the bathtub, when her siblings are bathing--she likes to get in on the action. (I say a little because she is not as curious and constantly busy as Hannah...but only time will tell.)

She loves to play with her brother.

She is joining the rest of us in chore time.

She loves to talk on the phone.

She can go up and down the stairs.

She gets a wild look in her eye when she is up to something.

And she can have piggy tails!!!

She loves the go-cart and when her daddy starts it up, her eyes widen and she just jumps up and down with excitement.

She actually knows what "prayers" are and will fold her arms and mumble something!

She is no longer easy-going and quiet. She has an opinion that she has been quietly forming for the past eleven months, and now she has decided it is time to let it shine!! She can scream with the best of them (and the best of them is Hannah). And though she may not be as easy going, she is definitely a little sweetie and every single person in our family adores her. When she wakes up, she has to make the rounds and give hugs to everyone because they all have outstretched arms for her. We love you Lil!! And I'm pretty much in denial that she will indeed be turning one in a couple of weeks!

I'm a little giddy...

2011-05-25T11:26:00.004-06:00

...about this project....

I get so excited every time I go outside now. Our house is getting its final exterior touch-up project and I am thrilled about it. We are getting rock on the house! It's like Christmas in May. Love it. And I can't wait to see more of it completed as the days go by!

Making some Changes

2011-05-20T09:34:00.002-06:00

So Jed really thinks that I should make this blog public again. I have had such mixed feelings about blogging, private blogging vs. public blogging.....or blogging at all! Oh goodness. I always have a lot of thoughts I want to write down, but I don't know if anyone cares to read them.. or if anyone does not share my opinions, so sometimes I just want to write for myself.... But I have decided to go public again....for now and just see how it goes. And if I decide to go private again in the future, I'm sorry for any hassle!! I'm just fickle.

The BEST 8 years of my life!!!

2011-05-17T08:24:00.004-06:00

Today is Jed and I's 8th anniversary! I can't believe it has only been 8 years, and I mean that in the best possible way! Jed is my best friend and the perfect husband for me. He tried to sneakily plant roses around the house with little notes, but our little ones interfered a bit with....."are those flowers??" So, the behind the scenes work was exposed, but it was still a wonderful surprise!

These 8 years really have been the best years of my life.

Eight years really doesn't seem that long, but it is so neat to look back on what has happened in this short time:

1- Had 4 beautiful children

2- Lost a child

3-Built a home together that we now live in

4- Experienced wonderful joys and some life tragedies

5- Accomplished goals and learned new skills

Just to name a few... I'm so grateful to have had Jed at my side through it all! I could go on and on about how I love Jed and what an awesome person I think he is, but I think I will spare the public my further mooshy details!! :) Suffice it to say, I am one happy/lucky girl!

Catch-up

2011-05-06T21:36:00.005-06:00

It seems like we have been busy with one thing or another around her for a few months now, and I've recorded our major happenings...but feel like I have so much I haven't recorded. They are things that I just personally want to remember.

Jed was gone for 3 1/2 weeks drilling wells out of town. The best thing about that is when he comes back home! :) I already appreciate him so much, but I am reminded of what a team we really are when he isn't around. I'm grateful for him and all he does for this little family.

Our family went down with the YW in our ward to the YW broadcast. It was awesome. I loved the messages, and the spirit which was there. And I love to be in the presence of the Lord's mouthpiece, incredible! One of the girl's said "Are we really here?" when we came into the conference center. I just love being there with them in a testimony strengthening atmosphere and getting them so excited about the gospel. Our kids were SO amazing on the drive. No movies, but Drew and Madelyn had a couple of old cell phones that still take pictures. I was going to do a post with their pictures from the trip...but I just don't think that is going to happen! They got to go through the children's section of the church history museum with daddy (and the bishop) while I was at the broadcast. Everything went so smoothly the entire trip, there was just perfect timing the entire time. I think we were blessed.

Hannah's sleeping habits have been extremely out of whack. She does not want to go to bed and sometimes stays up later than Jed and I. She will sleep pretty much anywhere in the house except her bed. Seriously. I thought I would take pictures of the places she ends up because they can be funny. I took one of her halfway in the bathroom...but then I gave up on that whole idea because I just don't feel like taking pictures when I have to hunt her down in the middle of the night. She does not take naps. But sometimes she will absolutely collapse right before dinner at any given place in the house. But if she does that, then she will have an extra rough bedtime. She gets so exhausted in the day that she will just get her blankie in tow and loaf around all day long. I don't really know what to do with her. She has got to be so tired. It makes me more tired when I feel like my children are still up until I go to bed. I am just really fond of my two hour mommy recharge time when they go to bed. I'm sure it is just a stage and I just need to hang in there. I'm hoping....

I had to speak in church with the YW presidency a couple weeks ago. I always tease Jed because he speaks in church SO much more than me. In fact when we speak together people will come up to me and say "Your husband did such a good job. He is such a good speaker." And I wholeheartedly agree. He is. I just feel silly when that happens!! So this is the first time I have ever spoken without him since we've been married. I am seeing some growth in myself. I have always feared public anything, even prayers. But this time I really didn't stress about the talk. I prepared and then as I was on the stand, my nerves kicked in. But the fact that they didn't kick in until I got up to the stand is seriously incredible for me.

I've had some neat experiences with the YW that I teach, one in particular. I just had one of those "in the right place at the right time" sort of experiences. It was very neat.

Madelyn is really getting to be a good helper nowadays. She is helping me so much more around the house and with Lily. It is wonderful. She is learning to be a loving leader. And I'm going to lose her to school in the fall! She is so ready for it and will love it so much.

Lily is at such an adorable stage. I love it. I am totally rubbing off on my kids though because I hear them say things like "You are soooo cute. You just can't grow up, you have to be our baby forever!" That sounds really familiar! She loves to tease Hannah. She loves to tackle her and steal her blankie!! It is so funny. We all just love to pepper that little girl with so many kisses. We went to my brother Gerald's daughter's 1st b-day party last weekend. When it was time for my niece to dig into her cake she just wouldn't. My sister-in-law Michelle and her sister were trying to teach her how to get her fingers dirty, and she still just wouldn't get into it. Well my other brother was holding Lily and he was handed a piece of cake, and not but a second later, Lily was all over it. She was eating it just handful after handful and everyone was just laughing. Then Gerald said, "Way to steal the show!" Oops, sorry! I guess it is just in my children's blood--and I'm the one who put it there!

Drew had his school singing program that we went and watched today. It was fun, and even though I couldn't tell he was singing he assured me that he was. I am getting quite ready for Drew to be done with school! I just feel like there just isn't enough time with him. When he gets home from school it is homework, cleanup, dinner, cleanup, a little play time, get ready for bed.... I'm ready to play hard this summer and have some fun with my kids!!

And as always, we've been working on projects on our house when we can spare a minute. Which just doesn't feel that often anymore.

I'm sure I'm missing some more things that I wanted to write down, but atleast I made it this far!

Our Easter Celebration

2011-05-02T13:07:00.008-06:00

After having really cool St. Patrick's Day bread, I decided to try my hand at making Easter bread. It was a fun experiement!! I even tried to tie in a little Easter meaning into it all, the "rising" of the bread...It was a stretch, but I figure the more I try to tie in the real reason we celebrate Easter, the better.

It was fun to see how each loaf turned out. This loaf was yellow and pink in the beginning, then it had blue and green at the end. The other loaf we made had all of the colors at once. The kids thought it was awesome!
We went up to Swan Valley and stayed at Jed's family's cabin. We had a good time with friends and Grandma and Grandpa came by for a visit. We had a good time, the kids ate a ton of swedish fish, and we had a late night. Hannah didn't go to bed until 1:30 A.M., but her bedtime issues are for another post on another day.... :)

Real rabbits.

Getting extra candy from the easter rabbit.

Then time for the big hunt. I took Hannah over to the 0-3 yrs hunt while Jed took Lil and the older kids to the other hunt. Hannah loved the hunt and was enamored with all of the stuffed animals. While the other small children collected candy filled eggs, Hannah picked up 3 stuffed animals! She picked up a few eggs too, and I think if she knew what they contained before the hunt started, I think she would have stocked up a bit more on the eggs! :)

So the above picture is what I saw when I came over to meet Jed and the kids at their hunt. Madelyn in tears because she didn't get any stuffed animals or eggs. Madelyn told me a girl who didn't have any eggs gave all that she did have to her! I was so impressed and I tried to help her understand that what that girl did was extremely nice. I asked Hannah if she would be willing to share a stuffed animal with Madelyn, Hannah quickly picked one out for her sister. Then I asked Madelyn if she would trade some candy with Hannah for the stuffed animal Hannah gave her. She returned the generosity with a single starburst! :) We'll work on generosity later I guess... I do love this picture with Drew's arm around Madelyn though.

Hannah and her stuffed animal loot.

Then it was off to play games. These guys were being such nice siblings that day! Drew waited for Madelyn to catch up when it was time to turn around and go back to the finish line. It just makes me so happy to see them treat each other like that, just makes my day.

More games.

Drew's turn.

Lunch break!!

Hot dogs and cupcakes!

There was a live bunny chase where they took a bunny out to the far end of the park and set it free. Then they let this mob of children chase after it and whomever caught the rabbit got to take it home. Drew really wanted that rabbit, he actually returned from the chase in tears because he wasn't the one who caught it.

"Dad is great! He gives me chocolate cupcakes!"

Hannah won a bike. If that sounds familiar, that is because it is! Last year Hannah also won a bike. Our family is definitely outfitted for bike rides. That lucky girl!!

Drew also won a stuffed easter rabbit. It actually had a mini rabbit on its lap so Drew, of his own accord, decided to let Dad cut the little rabbit off so he could keep it, then he gave the big one to Madelyn!

So here is Drew, totally content with his little rabbit, Madelyn overjoyed with the plush pink rabbit Drew gave her, Hannah on her new bike, and Lily mesmerized with the bike's tassles and completely content because she had chocolate frosting all over her!!

Now Saturday was awesome, the kids had a blast. Then Sunday morning came and for some reason it was one of those stressful mornings. . . I wish I could do that morning over!! But we did have great church meetings, and we all enjoyed flying kites and spending an absolutely gorgeous day outside!!

The kids hunted throughout the house for their baskets. Hannah found hers under the table.

Lily found hers under the computer desk.

Madelyn found hers in a cupboard in the laundry room.

Drew found his in the dryer.

Overall a very fun Easter! I learned it takes a bit more effort for things to run smoothly on Easter morning with early morning church, easter baskets, egg hunts, and getting everyone ready. I'm starting to be a fan of the whole Easter baskets/hunts on Saturday morning idea....maybe we will try that next year. Sometimes its hard to change things up, but that would help remove some clutter from Easter Sunday. We'll see.

I am very grateful that we have such a special day to remember the gift the Savior has given each of us. I am so grateful for His life, His love, His example, and His sacrifice.

Drew's Birthday Bash

2011-04-27T09:00:00.006-06:00

Happy Birthday to my favorite little boy in the world!!!

because I can say that :)

I couldn't help but dig into the past and get some cute pictures of the birthday boy.
He is an awesome big brother.

He is a good friend to his sisters.

He loves fishing and outdoor adventures.

Drew turned 7 years old earlier this month. He got the motherload of K'Nex for his birthday. He is a hard worker and a good builder--something he gets from his dad!--so it was the perfect present.
Jed stayed up late putting this coaster together to show Drew.

It turned out awesome!!

Even though it was late, Jed couldn't resist getting Drew out of bed to show him what his k'nex could do. Drew was in awe, and I think Jed won some "awesome daddy" points for this one! Even though k'nex can be pretty tough to put together, or atleast tough to follow the given instructions, Drew has built some pretty cool dragsters. We had this roller coaster set up on our counter for several days, it was fun for Lily to watch while I made dinner....that is always nice!

Drew really wanted a lemon flavored Go-Kart cake. I'm not all that skilled with cake decorating supplies, but Drew said it was cooler than he imagined! That is all that mattered to me!

We had family over on his birthday, then he invited his best friend from school over on Saturday to have a pizza/wii party.

Lily looking chipper and cute early in the morning as Drew opened presents!

We also got Drew a microscope. I wasn't really sure how much he would get into it, but he was very excited to be a real scientist.

We haven't even scratched the surface on what all this k'nex stuff can do. We're excited for more fun!

Drew has been saving his money for awhile to buy a spy watch, so he was way excited to get further along with his saving when he received b-day money. He also got some spy gear and some great books to read. He finished one of the books and is reading it again, so thanks grandma for a great pick!

I also stole Drew from school on his birthday and took him to lunch. It was SO much fun, I'm tempted to do that way too often now..... I took him to pick out some treats for his class then took him back to school. He got to open a present at school and bring a bag full of his favorite things from home to talk to his class about. I think he had a great birthday!! I love that birthday boy and he is growing up SO much!!!!

Photos with No Particular Theme

2011-04-19T20:43:00.005-06:00

Hannah dumped half a bottle of my bulk bubbles into the bath.

Hannah giving a train ride to her pickle.

This is what happens to Lily when she wants to go outside and can't because it is too windy!

Lily doing her first chore.

Lily's first mischief. Sorry its not the cleanest, we were just getting to that when this happened. Seriously.

Ummm...anything "chick" themed melts my heart.

Hannah in dress up clothes boogying to "I had the time of my life" early 90's or something song we have on a random CD. This is something we see every single day. They love this song.

This pictures is funny. Lily was having a good time dancing with Madelyn, but she looks like she is in hysterics. This is the other girls dancing to our tradional every day song.

This pictures shows you what an attempt at having any sort of family naptime looks like. To put it briefly: it does not happen.

Drew gets "money" at school for good behavior and on some Fridays they can "buy" things. Well, this particular Friday Drew came home and instantly called for Hannah. He bought her a pair of sunglasses!! What an awesome brother.

Drew and Jed built this dinosaur together. And it is motorized!! It walks and everything. Totally cool.

Madelyn loves to cook with me. I try to be mindful of that and include her in my meal making.

Madelyn and I in our aprons cooking together.

Moments, revisited

2011-04-09T14:33:00.003-06:00

You know how I've been thinking about moments lately? Well, I have actually been hoping that these "moments" go both ways. I am not a perfect mom, I definitely have my share of weaknesses. I have those moments that I wish I would have handled differently. I hope my children can see shining moments with me, their mom, and be able to look past my rough spots. As much as I don't like making mistakes, I do. Perfection was never part of The Plan--at this point of the game anyway, but mistakes are. As long as I fix those mistakes and keep looking forward, those mistakes are there to help me! I definitely think that one of satan's most effective tactics with mothers is discouragement--feeling like they don't measure up, not _____ enough, not doing enough for their children, or just to be so hard on themselves that they feel paralyzed. Once he can get us to feel those feelings, we lose so much of our effectiveness. Sister Beck explained, "The responsibility mothers have today has never required more vigilance. . .When mothers know who they are and who God is and have made covenants with Him, they will have great power and influence for good on their children." I love that. It just makes me want to be a mother of action and to not dwell on my weaknesses so much that I become debilitated. I just had to write down some of my thoughts; it definitely helped me. I feel better.

A week in review

2011-03-31T08:28:00.003-06:00

Jed has been gone this week. This week has seemed like an eternity. I will review the happenings of this week:

Drew has had issues at school--has caused us some stress.

Bedtimes have been extremely rough. I think teething may be the culprit?

Tuesday I about had a major breakdown as a result of an extremely hectic day: violin lessons, visiting teaching, issues at school, disobedience, babysitter or no babysitter, mutual, being disrupted in my sleep by a waking baby who wanted to eat all night long, and no dinner until 10:00, etc. Just one of those days that come every once in awhile.

At our Stake Standards night it was announced over the pulpit: "There is a Red Durango with its lights on." It felt like they kept announcing it over and over, like they were waiting for someone to fess up. I just smiled and the girls around me caught on. It would have been fine if I had been sitting in the back of the chapel. But I was in the front. So I waited until the opening song and tried to slip away unnoticed, but there were looks and smiles from just about every person in our ward as I walked out of the chapel! My face was red...

Wednesday, no issues at school! We had a party together, went and picked up a pizza. I got to the car and couldn't find my wallet. Yes, that's me again...I left it on the counter inside. Oh boy.... Atleast I realized it was missing before we left.

You know the spider talks we have been having? Just had one this morning, convincing Drew there isn't a spider as big as a lobster in his bedroom. Just after that I say, "Drew hold still!" There was, in fact, a small spider on his shirt!!!! AHHHH! I cannot have spiderphobia this early in the year, it is not good for me. Or the kids.

Went grocery shopping earlier in the week. Got all the way through everything with the kids and.....check my purse for my debit card. Gone. Check book? Gone. Cash? ...not enough. All of the above left at home!!! Need to remember to put that stuff back in the purse whenever I take them out!! Borrowed a check from my very kind and understanding mother-in-law. Am able to take my hour+ devoted groceries home. ;)

Lily has developed the new cutest little quirk. She sticks her tongue out and moves it from one side of her lips to the other, back and forth, while making a noise. Very funny and cute. And she copies it any time I remind her of it, so fun!!

Had a painting party with Hannah and Madelyn. Madelyn was always very complimentary of Hannah's paintings. Cute.

The kids are keeping their bedrooms in better condition. Hallelujah!! Not without several reminders...but, baby steps.

That is just a taste of what has been happening at our place this week. There have been crazy times, but I'm always going to have those. It's all ok. I'm just grateful the weekend is nearing and it is going to be a GREAT one at that! I will have my best friend at my side, plus, General Conference here we come!! (Just a figure of speech, we are not actually going).

Art/Schoolwork Roundup

2011-03-28T20:36:00.005-06:00

Drew, Madelyn, and Hannah decided we should have a family art party. So, we ripped out the paints and everyone went at it. Little did I know that Jed was such and artist!! I think his apple is pretty impressive. (Sorry its crooked) And now I feel really bad because Hannah's picture is not in here!! But her picture was awesome too.

Madelyn has figured out rainbow order.

I think she is getting really good at name writing.

This one cracks me up. I found this in Drew's take home folder from school. If you cannot read it, it says: "One day me and my dad went for a ride in are gocart. My dad did a cookie. My gocart trnd over and it about kild me. and I was savd. The end." Love it, and it is a true story....a little exaggerated, but true. ;)

Another of Drew's school papers that impressed me with its neatness!

I love an excuse to party

2011-03-28T20:13:00.004-06:00

We had some fun making St. Patrick's Day a day to remember. We had an "Irish Princess Tea Party." I'm pretty sure this was Madelyn and Hannah's favorite part of the day. I bought this awesome bread at our local grocer. With a sudden burst of inspiration and fun, this lunch went from pretty cool, to a lunch to remember. I sent the girls downstairs while I hurriedly put the tea party together. Everything we ate was grean including a green smoothie. It was just a light colored fruit smoothie with a handful of basically tasteless spinach, turning it into a pleasant green.

The girls had to find their seat by checking the labeled place settings. (Not really all that hard for Hannah, the pink booster seat was a fairly big clue). They each got a little shamrock necklace for them to wear. I totally love how there are insta-manners and fancy lingo that just naturally accompany a tea party!

Lily loved the pickles and chewing on celery.

I was going to make corned beef for dinner, but there was no corned beef around. So I made a roast and was tempted to just put corn on top to make me feel authentic....I resisted.

Last year for our SPD party the kids and I each made up one game. Since I didn't record the happenings of last year's party only two of the games remained...they were the only ones we could remember. This game is a clover hunt. The clovers have different amounts of money writte on the back, we have a $1 clover and that is the ultimate one.

Madelyn found it!

Lily searching for a clover.

Our other game is a hunt for the pot of gold filled with candy. Madelyn found it too! I think it is fun to just have an excuse to do something a little out of the ordinary, especially this time of year. The kids love it and I do too!

Out of Hibernation!!!

2011-03-23T14:23:00.005-06:00

Today is a beautiful day!! The girls and I went outside for a heavenly spring adventure. We came across these frozen in time scissors, I thought they were hilarious. We have very little snow/ice left at our house, but this remains as one of the last chunks to melt-complete with scissors of all things.

We had some foot races. And oh boy does it ever feel great to get some life back into our legs through full out sprinting! Makes me feel alive again!

Running.

Just trimming some weeds.

We started a rock collection, not too hard for us since that is what our yard is full of. These were some of our favorites.

We skillfully made beautiful weed bouquets.

Funny thing, another pair of scissors was discovered outside, this pair was not frozen in a block of ice. Hannah was cutting the mud.

We made "cookies" out of dirt/sand that were "healthy" for our bodies. Madelyn wondered what would happen if we infused cookies with vitamins. I think she was trying to get her mother to allow "cookie vitamins" as a staple food item. No such luck, although people in the food industry are trying the same tactics.

It was so fun to play outside!!!! I love that blue sky!!!

Kids say....

2011-03-22T21:28:00.004-06:00

I love the funny things kids say, and I just thought I would quickly jot down a couple things I've heard around our house the last couple of days.
I, in a not so genius mothering moment, was trying to encourage my two older children to keep their rooms clean in the basement by letting them know if their floors are clean, spiders won't have many places to hide. Well now I've scared the pants of my kids. So..... they don't want to go to bed. Every night we have had to have a de-scarifying spider talk. (not too easy for me, since I suffer from extreme spider paranoia) Anyway, in tonights spider discussion we talked about spider eyes. Drew didn't think spiders could see all that well because they walk right onto sticky traps. Then we talked about them having several eyes. Madelyn wondered why Drew didn't think they could see very well if they had so many eyes. I told her "I guess I don't know a whole lot about the eyesight of spiders." She quickly told me I should check out "spiders.com." Thought that was funny.
Yesterday, Drew discovered the three P's. "There's the letter 'P,' the innapropriate 'P,' and the vegetable 'P'"......thought that was funny too.
This morning, there has been beautiful blue sky, and in that sky I noticed the moon. I called Madelyn over to come see it. We talked about how funny it was that the moon was out when the sun was too. Then she kind of laughed and said, "Jesus forgot to change it!!" That was funny too.
I'm having bedtime wars tonight. Gotta go re-put some kids to bed.

Moments

2011-03-15T09:31:00.003-06:00

I have loved the talk Daughters of God, by Elder M. Russel Ballard, ever since I heard it. The word "moments" has been on my mind lately, and something that Elder Ballard said in that talk just fits my thoughts perfectly. ". . .Recognize that the joy of motherhood comes in moments. There will be hard times and frustrating times. But amid the challenges, there will be shining moments of joy and satisfaction."
That just becomes more and more true for me. I love being a mom, but there are certainly times when I feel like I am pushed to my limit, or sometimes, in my mind, I'm thinking over my limit! Some days are hard, tricky, frustrating, or sometimes I get to the end of the day and realize I did not accomplish some of those things that I really thought needed to be done that day. But even in the hardest day there is a "moment" that brings me back to what this is all about.
Moments like when Hannah asks me to "sleep" with her before bed every night. Sometimes I'm anxious for a rest from a busy day of mothering, but those "moments" with Hannah are so much fun and bring me joy. I tell the story of the 3 little pigs most every night, or sing songs with her, or tell her a story about "Hannah" and how she doesn't like her thumb. ;) She thinks that is funny. I love those times.
Moments that randomly bring a smile to my face, like when I gave Madelyn a bowl of peas. I said, "Do you love them?" She responds in all seriousness, "I'll put it in a way you'll understand, I don't like them very much!" Totally took me off guard and made me just laugh! I love those times.
Moments like when we sing the "Wheels on the Bus" song and Hannah asks to sing the verse that says the "diapers" on the bus go swish, swish, swish. That is what she thinks it says, what a funny visual....I love those times.
Moments like when Drew gives me hugs out of the blue and tells me he loves me. I love those times. Or one day I took all 3 girls, and Drew accompanied us, to get their immunizations. Drew was really worried about his sisters. He took care of them out in the hall after it was their turn to get the shots, so I could be in the room with whomever need the next shot. He was an awesome big brother. I love those times.
Moments like when Lily just doesn't want to go to bed, even though I'm beat, I still love to see her happy smiles and her total excitement of being out of bed and sharing some fun time with Jed and I. She loves to play with us at night and it is just sooo cute. I love those times.
I'm just grateful that those moments can outshine the moments of difficulty! I really do want to remember all of these "moments" with my children. Time flies by too fast to caught up in the minutia of life. I hope I can enjoy this time with my children as much as I can, because I sure do love them.

I'm on LDS.org!

2011-03-08T15:25:00.002-07:00

I might be smaller than an ants footprint, but I'm in that blur on the stand in the choir seats!! :)

Hey, this might be my only claim to fame and I'll take it!

Julie B. Beck Regional Conference at the BYU-I Center

Babies just don't keep...

2011-03-07T16:50:00.003-07:00

I just can't believe my little girl is growing up. Time flies faster and faster with each baby and I'm not too fond of it.

I just can't get enough of this cute little sweetie.

I really do love this stage of babyhood, but it definitely is flying by. I'm feeling really nostalgic lately. I know I always talk about how I want my kids to stay little. I just love them this way. But then I get little whiffs of excitement as I think about what they might be like when they get older....and I am excited for that too. I guess the moral of this post is (atleast for myself): just love every minute!! Of course it is hard to see some cute things and fun times pass (and of course there are things that we are ready to have pass....), but I have a hope in a fun future too!

A Million Thanks!

2011-02-27T13:29:00.002-07:00

to my husband who let me practically take a day off of mothering to go to the regional conference with Julie B. Beck. It seriously was remarkable and I'm so grateful that I could go!! Sister Beck has been someone I admire greatly for some time now, so it was just so amazing to be there with her and feel of her strong spirit and faithfulness. I was able to sing in the choir and she came out and talked to us before the meeting began. She is amazing!! Did I mention that already?! And I got to give her a hug!! If I didn't know better I would have snuck in a camera, got her autograph, and told her how much I admire her and how she has influenced who I am and want to become....but bringing a camera was against the rules, as far as the autograph goes...well it isn't exactly necessary, and I really could talk her ear off about how neat I think she is, but other people wanted to talk to her too and never mind about me freezing when it was my turn and actually not being able to say anything but "thank you." (world's largest sentence)
She organized the meeting to be a question answer session where women could go and ask questions when prompted by the spirit. Her knowledge and use of the scriptures was incredible and I love how she doesn't mince words. She tells it like it is and doesn't apologize for it. Which I think the world desperately needs! It was most definitely an inspiring meeting! Jed and I went on a date yesterday evening and I think I wore his ear off talking about the things that I had learned. But I am excited to work on some new goals for myself and put those impressions I had into practice in my life!

Preciousness

2011-02-23T13:13:00.003-07:00

Hannah said something today that just made me smile. I had to record it before it vanishes from my memory! Hannah randomly came up to me and said, "Mom, thank you for my happiness."

So sweet. I don't know where that came from, if she heard it somewhere or not....but regardless....it made this mother's heart melt.

As far as this picture goes, this is Hannah's look of shame.
This is what she does every time she knows she has made a bad choice. I think it is cute too!

Livin On Love!

2011-02-18T14:05:00.003-07:00

We had a great v-day. Madelyn and I heart attacked our family the week before the big day.

We gave everyone several Valentine's and it was a fun surprise for the family.

The kids loved having their Valentine's where they could see them every day.

Our traditional Valentine's breakfast of heart-shaped waffles.

The girls helped me make some Valentine's day cupcakes to share too.

It was a great day. Gotta say that I LOVE my family!!

Carpet

2011-02-10T08:14:00.005-07:00

We have had our carpet for one year now, and unfortunately some of the lighter strands of carpet have unraveled quite a bit. It has left the floor looking a little fuzzy instead of like plush carpet. This really wouldn't be a huge deal to me, but since the carpet is only one year old and it has a warranty, I called the store about it. They sent over a carpet inspector who reinforced the idea that it needed replacement. This they will do *free* of charge. It has been nearly a month since we've heard anything more about it, which has ended up being a HUGE blessing. This last week, our carpet has seen more mishaps than it has in its entire year history. Unfortunately, a stomach flu bug has visited my oldest three children. There have been atleast 6 cases of throw up on our carpet. I have been busy in the middle of several nights this week washing bedding, disinfecting, mopping, scrubbing, etc. To add to this, Hannah for the last few weeks has been into changing her own diaper. This sounds ideal...but not when you see a little dirty bottomed girl running through the house and you are frantically chasing after her so she does not sit down on anything! Well yesterday, it happened. I was finishing up in the shower and came out to see a dirty diaper on the floor and a mess on the carpet......sigh..... I'm just so grateful for whatever is causing the delay at Carpet Mart!! It has saved me some stress. And I think as soon as we get this diaper thing figured out and the flu bug is finally gone, I will making a reminder phone call to Carpet Mart.

As a cute sidenote, Hannah came out to see Drew throwing up in a big bowl. She kept saying "You throw up Drew? You sick?" Then she said the cutest thing, "Drew, sometimes I throw up too." So cute, and since she had just gone through it, she definitely said it with compassion and empathy.

CONGRATS JED!!

2011-02-09T08:15:00.004-07:00

Yesterday I got a phone call from the district scouting office. They were asking if Jed and I were planning to go the the Scouting banquet tonight. I told them we had thought about it, and the lady told me that Jed would be receiving an award so she thought we might want to plan more seriously to attend it. Jed doesn't really like me to do any online bragging on him, but I was just too excited and happy for him to resist! WAY TO GO HUN! I think you're awesome and have dedicated your time to something so worthwhile and meaningful!! Love you!

Life

2011-02-07T14:49:00.010-07:00

Drew participated in his first pinewood derby this year. He is not in scouts quite yet, but they allowed him to come and race as long as he did not win. Drew's is the orange car, Jed's is the rig! :)
He absolutely loved it. He was just running back and forth as fast as he could. Everybody better watch out for when he can race! He'll have his tricks mastered by then!

After much wiggling, Drew finally lost his top front tooth!

I tried to capture the most gorgeous winter morning on my camera, definitely didn't do it justice. Everything was pure white, but the sun was out covering everything with a warm glow.

The girls have been overly obsessed with dress-up clothes as of late.

Hannah did not want her picture taken.

I just noticed as I was looking at this published post, something caught my eye that was embarrassing. Yes, that little green and white wad to the side of Hannah is a stinky diaper. Welcome to real life.

Check out the size of those rings. Madelyn even wore her dress up clothes to town complete with peptobismal pink tights, several necklaces, bracelets galore, clip on earrings that went pretty much to her shoulders, these rings the size of ring pops, and lets not forget the dress up heels!! She loved all the compliments she received from all the strangers, just feeding the flame!!

Girls. I'm sure Lily can't wait to get in on the action.

Lily is quite mobile now. She gets pretty much anywhere she wants to. She is just starting to get the hang of full-out crawling, but has the army crawl mastered. I just love to see what catches her fancy.

Drew thoroughly enjoyed making his car. He designed, sanded, and painted it by himself.

I think working with his dad on a manly project was probably the highlight.

This little Lily is just too cute.

When no one was watching, Lily got her hands on a delicious snack.

My exhausted little girl fell asleep sitting up in her bed.

One of Lily's favorite pasttimes is pulling hair. She especially loves Drew's and her Dad's. She gets the most crazy look in her eyes, it is hilarious!! Check it out:

Lily loves to play peek-a-boo in her car seat. It is too cute.

Just a brief little update:

Lily is doing much better eating real food. She is starting to feed herself and loves that. She adores pickles. It is so fun to see her interact more and more with her brother and sisters. Lily is still as good as gold. When she cries, all of the kids run to her aid because it really is such a rare occasion.

Hannah has decided that naps should be a thing of the past, that is always a hard adjustment to make. Not for her, but for me. Hannah is still hilarious as ever. The other night we were eating breakfast for dinner. I made hashbrowns and she asked for some. She noticed there was pepper on the hashbrowns and told me she did not like pepper. I told her it would be too hard to get it off and I said that it would probably be ok. She thought about it then looked me right in the eyes and said,"Mom, I forgive you." Hannah also taught her 1st FHE. It was very cute and taught us how Jesus loves a boy (she was showing us a picture she colored in nursery) and had us sing the ABC song with her too.

Drew and Madelyn went to the dentist for the first time ever. They were scared to death! Then when we were driving home they both were asking how soon we could return. The dentist is now right up there with Disneyland!

Madelyn is reading like crazy. She loves to do math too. I'm getting kind of worried that she will be bored in kindergarten. But I guess we will jump that hurdle when we get there.

The other night I heard a pretty comical exchange from Drew and Madelyn. We had attended one of Jed's Elders Quorum bball games a couple of nights before, and I heard them talking in the kitchen:

Madelyn: Ya know, when we went to dads soccer game?

Drew: You mean football game?

I guess it is apparent we're not too into the sports thing.

Jed just spruced up our bedroom with surround sound and a new tv. It's pretty fun. He is going to be on staff for a Wood Badge training course this fall, so he attended his first training a couple of weeks ago. He gets to work with some great people and he is excited about that. They have also asked him to speak this Sunday for Scout sunday. Even though they snatched Jed up in the Elder's Quorum, he is still the scout committee chairman and he loves having his foot in the door of scouting. He loves scouting and it has rubbed off on me, as well as Drew.

Our stake invited Sister Julie B. Beck-Relief Society general president-to come and speak at the BYU-I center in Rexburg in a couple of weeks. As soon as I found that out I was SOOO excited!! She is just someone I completely admire. Then to top that off I was asked to be in the choir they are organizing for the meeting. I don't consider myself an amazing vocalist or anything, so I'm grateful that they asked! It's been wonderful and inspiring as we've practiced, to join with women and deliver a united message through song.

A little food for thought

2011-01-23T13:43:00.002-07:00

I came across this poem and really liked it, so just thought I would share:

My life is but a weaving

between my Lord and me;

I cannot choose the colors,

He worketh steadily.

Oft times He weaveth sorrow,

And I, in foolish pride,

Forget he sees the upper,

and I the under side.

Not 'til the loom is silent

and the shuttles cease to fly,

Shall God unroll the canvas

and explain the reason why.

The dark threads are as needful

in the Weaver's skillful hand,

As the threads of gold and silver

in the pattern He has planned.

He knows, He loves, He cares,

nothing this truth can dim.

He gives His very best to those

who leave the choice with Him.

~Author Unknown

Hope you enjoy!

Fun Times

2011-01-17T17:02:00.006-07:00

I love this picture Lily.

Some cute kids.

One morning Drew set his alarm clock way to early. So he was all ready for school and crashed on the living room floor!

Can you tell Drew takes after his dad? Drew loves to fix, work, and build things. I was quite impressed. Especially how he got some of the Jenga blocks to tilt and stay in place.

Just another picture of a Hannah snitch. During our family movie party, Hannah got into some of the leftover pizza.

Hannah is loving the jumper. She gets a lot of help with it from her older sister.....
(oops I meant Lily is loving the jumper....)

I love this picture of Lily!!

Our family went ice fishing in Roberts and Drew caught this perch. It froze after he caught it, so here we were trying to revive it so we could have another fish for our tank...it was kind of gross. It really did look like it was going to come back, the gills moved and it would move its fins but we finally came to grips with the fact that it had passed on.

This fishing trip was in Swan Valley on the Snake River. Drew pulled in two fish: a rainbow, and a cutthroat. He had to throw back the cutthroat, but we kept the rainbow. It was a really beautifully colored fish. It was almost black on top with a bright purple stripe on its middle. We had never seen one like that before. And I just accidentally erased the picture of Drew actually holding up the fish...sorry.

Hannah and Lily and I stayed in the car during the fishing, and this is what kept Hannah content.

After fishing, we went up to Jed's uncles cabin and watched the deer. They were everywhere! (He actually sets out hay bales and those deer go crazy for it!)

These pictures are through our very dirty windshield.

It was so fun to have so many deer so close up. While we were in Swan Valley we also saw probably 25+ swans flying around. I had never really made the correlation "Swan" Valley, perhaps because in the many many times we have gone up there I have never seen one swan!! Maybe I've been blind to them...

This is Drew's good sized rainbow, you can't really tell by the picture how beautiful the coloring was.

We have finished our basement in the last month or so, so there has been a lot of adjustments to make. One of them has been to move Lily out of her bassinett in our room and into the kids room with Hannah. It is hard for me to see change like this. This means my baby is growing up!! So Hannah is introducing the crib to Lily. Hannah is getting used to her big girl bed. Drew and Madelyn both have their own rooms in the basement and they have done pretty well down there. I've been impressed.

Lily is growing like crazy. Bittersweet. Life is flying way too fast for me. Our family has been quite busy the last few months, and it just makes me feel like I need to push pause on everyone. I love them just the way they are and want them to stay little. But of course I have always felt this way. I remember wanting Drew to stay little and Madelyn to stay a baby a little longer, but then I wouldn't have my two other snugglebugs to be with me!! So it is all good and great....I just wish I could slow it down a smidge. :) I love these guys so much. I love being a mom, it is not always easy that is for sure, but I am so happy and blessed to be with these little ones.

Christmas Time in a Nutshell

2011-01-17T16:33:00.006-07:00

I'm behind in blogging...so I'm going to just hit you with a brick wall of pictures! All out of order of course because my goal is to just get them up and be done!
Like our tree? Ha Ha...we received this tree for free from a stranger in Home Depot. We didn't really know how bad of shape it was in, until we tried setting it up. The branch holders were extremely cheap and more and more of them kept breaking!! But we had a Merry Christmas with our dilapidated tree!!! (We did get it to look a little better, and that is our bare walled newly finished basement)

Unfortunately our family all got attacked by a ferocious flu bug at Christmastime. Oddly enough, Lily was the first to catch it, then it went from there. It was horrible and it really makes you feel bad because you really don't know what your little ones are feeling until it hits you! I did enjoy getting to cuddle with Lily a little more though.

Hannah loves to test out Lily's baby gear.

Oh how I love my Lily girl!

Ok, here we are jumping right to the annual traditional New Year's party! Let's just skip the whole Christmas thing for a minute. This was Cindy's first year vying for the Domino Championship, and beginner's luck...ok ok, just pure innate skill, won it for her!! Way to go Cindy!

A family that lives near us kindly gave us this fish tank, so one of our kids' Christmas presents were fishies!! Hannah just pulled up a chair to watch.

Now we're getting to the thick of Christmas! You can see bags of wrapping paper trash to the side... Hannah loves coloring, and coloring on walls, so Santa thought this might help that a bit.

Gift unwrapping....

more unwrapping....

A little bit of shnoozing, after all we did get up at 4:45 AM!!

Gaming.......

A bit more resting.....

Lily enjoying the new stash of toys.....

Here is what the kids and I got that dilapidated tree to look like in the end. It might do for another Christmas.

Santa's loot....

Here is our Christmas Eve party. Lots of delicious appetizers. Mmmmm....

While I was working in the kitchen on Christmas Eve, Jed pulled the kids and the neighbors kids behind the four wheeler.
Ok, so I am grateful for automatic saving!! Here I am at the very end of this and the whole thing disappears before my eyes!! So glad my computer is working with me!
We had a wonderful Christmas season. It went by so very fast, but each year Christmas means more and more to me. I love that. We had such a wonderful time with all of our family, friends, and neighbors. What a wonderful time of year!

Christmas Greetings!!!!

2010-12-24T10:45:00.002-07:00

From our house to yours, we write a special note,
This year has seen change, even owned a goat.
But alas the goat's gone, and so is the year,
its time to reflect on our blessings so dear.

Our newest blessing is our little Lil'
she's so very sweet-definitely no pill.
Her eyes are so big, her feet twirl 'round
Holding her in your arms is the best blessing around.

Hannah's so nice, she can light up a room.
Her smile's contagious, She cleans with a broom.
She brings us much joy and also much laughter,
We're happy to have her forever after.

Sissy is schooling in preschool this year.
She's smart as a whip, she has little to fear.
She's such a blessing and we love her so much
She's quick to console others with her gentle touch

Drew is growing tall, strong, and brave,
He always is helpful and good to behave.
Drew builds and constructs and figures things out,
He's a great worker - of this there's no doubt.

Jeannette is the cutest and loveliest gal,
Whenever I see her I say out loud WOW.
She cleans and cooks and nurtures so well,
She's everything to me, I love her as you can tell.

Jed has some issues
His is definitely no winner,
This morning he made breakfast
From the previous nights dinner.

OK, now it is Jeannette's turn to write,
Jed is too humble
So I must make things right.

Serving and working are things Jed loves to do
He does it quite often, he's a good father too.
He fixes, helps clean, and changes diapers as well.
He's such a trooper, we all think he's swell.

This year has been wonderful, joyful, and great.
So many things for us to appreciate.
We hope all is well with our family and friends,
Finding you happy, healthy, and grateful for the blessings God sends.

Merry Christmas!!!!
Love,
the Denning Family
Jed, Jeannette, Drew, Madelyn, Hannah, and Lily

I

Random Bunch of Pictures

2010-12-09T20:08:00.004-07:00

So there was not much of a transition from fall to winter. This snow hit us after one of the most beautiful fall days we had!

I don't really know why this picture is here. I don't think it was the picture I was wanting to upload....and I tried to delete it, but no....so here ya go. This is Jed and I messing around with the camera.

Lily was giving the cutest biggest smiles, and I could never quite get the timing right to capture them. So it looks like she is not even happy, but she really was!! I still think it is a cute picture of her and my dad.

It took a really long time before I could let Hannah hold Lily independently and feel half-safe about it. She is doing pretty well, but you have to be there constantly because suddenly she will say, "I done." And then she totally lets go.

One day I found Drew running off with my kitchen dishes, and later he asked me to come see what he made. He was quite excited to introduce me to "Woody." I think we watched Toy Story 3 the night before...

I made these cupcakes for Thanksgiving and while the rest of us were entertained, Hannah decided to pull up a chair and have a taste test. I am surprised to say that she exercised self control and ate a single cupcake entirely by herself--practically licking the wrapper clean.

See?

Here Jed was singing some songs and Lily was completely captivated, and just laid there and listened. I thought it was sweet.

Madelyn turns 5!!!

2010-12-09T13:30:00.005-07:00

Madelyn had a birthday November 15th! This was the most anticipated birthday of any in our family I think. Madelyn also started preschool on her birthday, so it was extra special!!

She got to open her presents before Daddy left for work and Drew left for school. She loves getting clothes....help!!!

All ready for the big first day of school.

Just a cute shot of my grown up girl!!

It's party time! We had family come over to celebrate in the evening.

Poof! Surprise!! You cracked that normal looking cake open to find a rainbow!! This picture is really bad, but it was the only one I had with Madelyn and her cake. We love you Madelyn!! So happy that you are in our family!

Sisters

2010-12-09T13:22:00.003-07:00

In the mothering sphere, it's moments like this that just bring a smile to your face!! I walked in my bedroom to find Hannah laying right next to Lily on the floor. Hannah put on a movie, and yes she can do that all by herself without being taught. I just saw them being SO cute together!!!

Our Logan Trip

2010-12-09T13:07:00.005-07:00

The first weekend of November, Jed and I headed down to Logan to see my niece perform in the play "Suessical the Musical." It was a really fun play that our whole family got to go see. The kids are still singing the songs, and it has been a month! I'm a little behind in blogging.... We stayed at my sisters house and had a campout in their basement. Hannah was WAY too excited about camping out and didn't go to bed until 2:30 A.M.!! Luckily we made good use of the wee hours and skyped my sister Julie who now lives in Abu Dhabi. It is 10 hours ahead there. It was so fun to "chat" with my sister and "see" where they live!! I'm sure we will be looking into skype for ourselves soon!
In the picture above, Lily is sucking on my sister Pam's thumb while staring at her pacifier. We just thought that was kind of funny. Here are some pictures of our children playing with family in the leaves on the very last beautiful "fall" weekend!!

And I really thought this picture was cute. Lily was playing with her feet all the way down to Logan...well in her waking hours of driving I suppose. So this is all I could see on our drive. Cute.

Thanksgiving Daily

2010-12-01T10:39:00.004-07:00

We had such a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! We were able to spend Thanksgiving with Jed's side of the family at his uncle Mike's house. It was a really nice dinner and it was a good chance to see some of Jed's cousins we don't see very often....or else I don't since I don't work with them! The next night we had another dinner at Jed's parents house with Jed's immediate family. That was delicious and really fun too! Then Saturday it was off to Rexburg for another delicious Thanksgiving dinner with wonderful company too! It really was so fun to spend so much time with family!! I love all my family and feel so blessed to be able to have so many of them nearby!!

This season has definitely had me considering all of my many many blessings. We had a family home evening where had many of our blessings listed on paper. It was fun to listen to our children's thoughts on what was most important on that list. Here is my list of things I'm most grateful for:

I'm grateful for a Savior and Father in Heaven who love and watch over my family and I. I'm grateful that through the atonement I'm able to repent of my many mistakes and shortcomings. I'm so grateful that through the atonement I have hope! What a wonderful gift and blessing.

I'm grateful for a wonderful and loving husband. I'm grateful that he has work. I'm grateful that through that work he is able to provide for the things that our family needs. I'm grateful that he is supportive of me in my goals and calling. He is there 100% with no complaints. Thank you! I'm grateful that we have eternity together, because it really will take that long for some of his admirable characteristics and traits to rub off on me!! I truly do feel so grateful that he took a leap of faith and married me!

I'm grateful for four beautiful healthy children who teach me so much!! My life is blessed daily for being a mother. I love those little ones so much, I don't know what I would do without them. I'm grateful that they are so forgiving of me and love me despite my several weaknesses. I'm grateful for their warm hugs, smiles, kind words, and help.

I'm so grateful for so many things, but those are the ones dearest to my heart! I hope I can walk with a spirit of Thanksgiving each day for all the blessings which come to me, large and small!

I ain't no Cowgirl!!

2010-11-05T14:38:00.002-06:00

Ok, so I have nothing against cowgirls, in fact I probably appreciate them now more than ever before..... Our neighbors have cows. Large cows. Cows about to meet the end of their lives as they know it in a couple of weeks. Well, I noticed one of those large cows had escaped and was wandering and chowing on our grass. I tried to call the neighbors, no answer. So I called Jed to get their cell phone number. He called it, and no answer. Jed told me not to worry about it, so I didn't for awhile. Then I noticed the cow was getting close to the road. I talked to Jed and he says, "the cow's not going to hurt you, just go get some oats and lead it back to the pen." I called around to get the neighbors other cell number and I got a hold of the wife. She calls her husband, calls back and says he's about 10 minutes away. Whew. Then I asked, its getting pretty close to the road. Do you want to do something? She said if I got the oats, he would probably follow me right back into the pen. Easy enough. Ok. I can do that. I go outside, walk past the cow....no problem. I finally figure out how to open their horse trailer to get the oats out. I fill a bucket with some oats, and head towards the cow. The cow sees me with the bucket and heads the other way! Then he goes into our ditch, so I shake the bucket and hold out a scooper with some oats. I get his attention but he didn't seem convinced to come my way. Then I decided to lay down the scoop of oats on the ground and hopefully ease him toward the pen. So I lay it down, then cow fury breaks loose. I was not prepared. The cow starts jumping and bucking and charging me!! I start running in the opposite direction as fast as I could--keep in mind this is a 1,000 pound cow mass running and bucking at me. I ran up our little hill that goes to the road for some hopeful safety. And just my luck, he stays on our lawn and doesn't follow me!! So that scared me to death. Then I'm just trying to think of what to do next when my neighbor pulls around the corner!! I only tell him "Your cow does not like me." Then I follow him toward the cow and tell him where he broke the fence...yadda yadda. Then he holds up the bucket and the cow goes nuts again--bucking and jumping up...and then running in my direction again. I try to keep my composure and casually walk to my house, since my neighbor was also acting casual and composed apparently not afraid of this GIANT cow going to plow us both over..... Then I turn around and watch for a minute and this cow just doesn't want to go back into the pen and starts acting crazy... my neighbors cowboy friend comes around the corner, where I am, with a rope and I feel like I can safely turn around, they clearly don't need my help anymore. :) I reach my house and Madelyn runs out of the house, totally and clearly scared for my life. She can't keep her composure, she saw the whole thing!! She thought I was going to die. So did I for a minute! I'm just glad I wasn't trodden under hoof of cow and lived to tell the tale!!

Birthday Girl--2 years old!!

2010-11-03T12:30:00.004-06:00

Our Hannah turned two last week. She is such a fun girl, and even though two year olds are notorious for trouble....this stage is so fun because they are so funny!! We love our little Hannah. We all get so many smiles from her.

Thoroughly thrilled with the giant sticky hand she got from Uncle Booner. She loves to give it a toss and see where it lands!

Hannah was too cute when it was cake time. She sang the entire birthday song to herself and blew out the candles without anyone having to coach.

She was quite patient with present opening. She had Drew help her out with the tricky toy packaging.

Hannah liked her spider cake. Since we celebrated her birthday on Halloween, we had to have a Halloween-ish theme. We also made pumpkin ice cream.

This ended up being fun for everyone!! It has been out for several days straight. It entertains them for quite awhile and makes very little mess. If it does make a mess it is only water. I am a fan.

Halloween

2010-11-03T12:12:00.002-06:00

Halloween was great this year. Our ward held a trunk-r-treat on Friday night. It was so clever and cute. They had a faux fast food drive in. Every car pulled up and got to order from a few of their meal options, then we pulled up into the parking lot and the YM/YW delivered our food to the car. What a cute idea! So above is Hannah enjoying her corn dog before the candy laden festivities.

The kids waiting for their meals to be delivered.

Me and the kiddos. Drew--pirate Madelyn--butterfly Hannah--duck Lily--teddy bear

The kids ready for some trick-r-treating action. On Saturday night we headed off to do more trick-r-treating with family. It was fun and just as always, they got spoiled!!

Little Miss Lily

2010-10-20T20:43:00.000-06:00

This picture makes me laugh, it is so classic Lily. Lily is extremely easily startled. She has the biggest eyes that just light up like this whenever she hears anything even semi-loud.

Lily is such a sweet little girl. So extremely patient. She hardly ever cries, even when I know she is starving. She just doesn't want to be a bother. Jed and I will always "talk" for her and say things like, "Mommy, if it's not too much trouble, I'm getting a little bit hungry..." When she does cry it is one that will break your heart, and she has a sad face to match.

Lily also loves the night life. She really comes alive and is so animated at about 8:30-11:00 at night. She talks, laughs, kicks, smiles, and is totally ready for a party at the same time every night!! (love those lovable rolls)

She looks so grown up in those baby jeans!

Hannah is having so much more fun with Lily. She even shares her blanky with her!!! Major improvements! It is getting so fun. I love that Lily has such a cute sibling audience to cheer her on when she rolls over, or when it is bedtime everyone has to give her a hug and kiss.

Now I've got to go cuddle my girl...

Birthday Season!

2010-10-20T20:12:00.000-06:00

September is the beginning of birthday season around our place. I love it. For Jed's birthday I decided to make a cheesecake, not just any kind. . . A REAL cheesecake. I had never made one before...but I love a good cheesecake and had wanted to make a real one for a long time. I got me a springform pan and everything. I stayed up til midnight making it and it turned out great. Happy Birthday to my best friend/favoritest person in the whole wide world! Hope this birthday was marvelous! ;)

I loved that on my birthday the kids came into our room at 5:45 Am "Daddy, daddy, it's mom's b-day!" Then I hear them "secretively" making a b-day breakfast. Then they came and got me when they were done to surprise me with presents. I kind of had a hand in my gifts this year (I accidentally won my gift on Ebay! for an excellent price though) but Jed still managed to surprise me! It was such a great b-day, great weather, great memories, and a great family to share it with!

We had a picnic up at the cemetery to celebrate Ellie's birthday. Can't believe it's been three years. I love this sweet picture of Madelyn.

Hannah.

2010-10-18T21:11:00.001-06:00

I love Hannah. She is hilarious, dramatic, and has such a zest for life. All of this compacted into her tiny little frame. Jed and I always laugh to ourselves as we listen to that little girl, and wonder "Where does she come up with this?" For example: the other night we were driving in the car when the word "treat" was mentioned by her siblings. Well of course she picked up on that and came up with this: "I need treat. . . I so hungry. . . . I need treat--so bad!!" and she says it in the most desperate voice she can muster. She is such a clever and funny girl. Not only that, but she has a knack for mischief. . .

Dispensing of an entire bottle of soap in the bathtub.

She pushed a chair over to climb up to her high chair, to climb up on the counter, to get to my purse, then search through the contents of my purse. As you can see she got what she wanted. If you notice the quality of the pictures on some of these isn't that great, that's because of Hannah. She got a hold of my camera and smudged the lens. :)

She does have a sweet side! Too cute.

I cannot find a safe place for my make up anywhere. I'm certain she can sniff out foundation!

No place is sacred.

I guess she can sniff out mascara too! :)
This is in nowise a full or comprehensive list of the extent of her mischievous adventures.....just a sampling over the last few weeks!

Final Day 4

2010-09-30T16:39:00.001-06:00

We met up with Grandma Donna and Grandma Ruth in Jackson and went to the Bar J Wranglers show. I love that show; the music, the food, the humor, it's really great!

Drew really laughed at some of their jokes. It's fun to have a child old enough that they can actually understand the jokes. The kids did pretty well. It was rather tight quarters and I did have to apologize to the man in front who shot a few glances my way during the show. He got kicked in the lower back a few times by the wiggliest of our bunch. And the fiddler was A-mazing!!

I love just driving, and I love the Tetons! We don't get to view this side of them as much. The drive really was beautiful. And the kids really were wonderful during the drive too. Lily was incredible and never even fussed--the whole trip!

There are buffalo down in the mid-left side of this photo--not bushes. This was when we were in Thermopolis. Remember that my pictures are in backwards order in each post... It is amazing how much the landscape changes not that far from home. The mountains were all red rock which you can't really see in this picture.

We let loose and ran around at a park before hitting the road again.

My kiddos.

Getting a little competitive exercise in. I love Hannah in the back, running her little heart out.

And Daddy took the girls on the slide.

Hannah in her special bed at the hotel. She was wired and crazy because of her schedule being so off. Not very much sleep, no naps.... But all is well now!

Day 3

2010-09-30T16:33:00.000-06:00

On the third day, we hit the road again and drove to the metropolis of Thermopolis Wyoming. Not a booming city, but there were some things we enjoyed there. We swam in the largest mineral pool in Wyoming, it was the perfect temperature so even Lily could get in!

We went to a Dinosaur Museum and took a tour to this actual dig site on the mountain. It was pretty cool. The bumps in the ground are actually dinosaur footprints, and then there are bones you can see stuck in there too.

Here I am holding a dinosaur tooth.

Jed and Lily on the way up to the dig site.

Just outside the museum there was a deer that let us get pretty close to it. By the time I got my camera out, the deer got farther away, but if you squint you can see it in the background on the dirt road.

Madelyn finally decided to let Jed sacrifice her to the T-Rex. A little more drama in this photo would have been a lot more effective! Maybe like a crazed look in Jed's eyes and a petrified Madelyn....

Hannah driving the dinosaur truck.

Cute kids if I do say so myself.

Madelyn was starting to get a little spooked out at this place. I could relate, I remember going to the dinosaur museum in Vernal Utah with my family and they have mechanical moving dinosaurs....really creepy.

The coolest thing about the drive to Thermopolis were these awesome tunnels. You don't get to drive through a mountain every day. The rock mountains we drove through were incredible. They were HUGE!! I had to bend my head down in my seat just so I could see the top of them.

We found this big horn sheep on the side of the road. They can climb vertical rocks with such ease!

We got pretty close to this guy with our car.

About an hour or so into our drive, Madelyn felt a little sick. Luckily we took care of this in time to spare the car.

Vacation 2010: Days 1&2

2010-09-30T16:25:00.000-06:00

So the last week before school started, our family decided to up and go on a road trip. We did a little planning and packed up and headed up to Swan Valley. Blogger is being really frustrating and won't let me put the pictures in order, sooo.....this will be a backwards journey through days 1 and 2!! On the second day Grandma Donna and Grandpa Jody came up to share a beautiful day on the lake. We fished on Palisades from the boat and didn't catch a single fish. But, that was ok, because then the highlight was swimming in the lake! Everyone except Lily and I...

The girls and Grandma chillin on the front of the boat with snacks.

Even though they didn't have much luck on the lake, they had great luck at the creek right by the cabin.

Drew displaying his catch.

Jed's family's cabin is right around the corner from the Palisades hike. So everyone was a good sport to indulge me in a hike. Although, you really can't get far on the rocky trail with a small wheeled stroller. Hannah was not enjoying the ride too much, it was a little too extreme for her.

Jed was amazing and stuck it out with the stroller FAR longer than I would have. But, eventually they decided to turn around and go back to the car. Drew and I pushed forward and kept on hiking. We stopped at the creek and tried to catch minnows. They are too fast for us. We got spooked when we heard something rustling in the bushes beside the trail....and turned around too!

The kids all pumped to go on VACATION!!

Summer Highlights

2010-09-08T20:00:00.001-06:00

Summer went way too fast. We were able to have some fun times, here is a taste of what we did:

We went with some friends and had a BBQ at Rigby Lake. The kids loved playing. They have made some nice improvements there. Hannah had fun throwing mud and running into the water.

Drew and Jed swam out and did the water slide. That is Drew on the slide and Jed right there in the water waiting for him.

Drew and I were working on this sand castle--which was futile. Hannah enjoyed personifying Godzilla and made sure we did not make much progress on the castle....

We drove out in the desert and with some time spent on the bumpiest road ever, we found a lush little campground infested with mosquitos!! We pioneered some herbal mosquito repellant--we will not make that mistake again! But we did have a really fun time. Jed is starting a fire without matches which he did successfully! Very impressive! ;)

Two cute little girls enjoying the campfire.

Just a cute picture of Jed with some of his girlies.

We had a good share of exhausted kids this summer. Lily is having a shnooze while the rest of us played in our pool. I just love her suit!

Hannah exhausted in the car.

For family home evening one night, the kids and I went to the zoo with some of Jed's family. We did this while the men were out of town drilling wells.

Madelyn feeding the goats.

We ventured out with our family to hike Cress Creek and Grandma Donna and Grandpa Jody met us up there. It was a hot day, but we had a lot of fun. The kids were very preoccupied with the treats they packed on the way up...

until we found this...

everyone got their turn holding the lizard.

A lot of fun.

Ready for some hiking!

Jed's been cruising this little puppy around our house with the kids, which of course they all enjoy. If you look hard enough you can see that it put Lily to sleep!

What a maniac! Caught like 3 feet of air that time... :)

Madelyn doing her swimming lesson assessment. She did really well this year.

Drew did really well also. He has gotten so much more brave in the water. They both really liked it and we had a lot more fun in our swimming pool this year too.

Well, that about wraps up the highlights....the computer didn't upload all the pictures I told it too. Oh well, I'm sure it was enough! We had a good summer and made some good memories! Now we've put away the pool, put away the popsicles and traded them in for books!! I love fall too!!!

I always Want to Remember...

2010-08-23T09:55:00.000-06:00

the little things that bring the joy to motherhood.

I always want to remember tiny fingers, tiny toes, tiny pigtails, gummy grins.

I always want to remember how Drew opens his arms wide open and puckers his lips signaling to me its time for a hug and kiss.

I always want to remember Hannah's little prayers "Hen Fodder, faiful foi fammy, pees bess..."

I always want to remember what happens when we put food in front of Hannah before we've said a blessing; she somewhat bows her head and totally shovels food in during the whole prayer.

I always want to remember Madelyn's compassion. When Jed felt sick, he laid down to rest while I finished dinner. I asked her to kindly go bring him to dinner. When she came back in tears, I asked what was wrong, she was just so worried about her daddy being sick.

I always want to remember Lily's big eyes. Whenever she hears Hannah coming or is startled her eyes get so big the whites of her eyes nearly glow.

I always want to remember our Friday night pizza parties.
I always want to remember the time in primary where the sharing time teacher was explaining that the water we drink comes from rivers. "No it doesn't!! It comes from WELLS!!" said Madelyn. Funny.

I always want to remember the snuggles.

I always want to remember laughing together.
I always want to remember Drew and Madelyn brushing and playing with my hair while I read to them.

I always want to remember how sometimes when I lay down at night and have a chance to think, I am overwhelmed with how much I love my husband and kids that it brings me to tears.

I always want to remember Hannah's crazy escapades, such as the birthday suit cleaning the church incident that escalated from there...

I always want to remember our little adventures: lizards, hiking, campfires, getting eaten alive while wearing herbal armor, getting lost on dirt roads perhaps going to be attacked by wild coyotes...

I always want to remember how Hannah was ready to move on in life while we were roasting marshmellows. She randomly said "bybye daddy, bybye mommy, bybye dwooby, bybye sissy..............taint you." Then she wandered off a bit past the car and then turned around.

I want to remember these things and SO much more because before you know it they'll be in 1st grade, and their fingers too big to put olives on, and just because I really do have the greatest job and family that I love so much!!

These guys are the greatest!!

Lily's Blessing

2010-08-09T13:36:00.000-06:00

Lily's Blessing was August 1, 2010. We had so many family members come and support Lily and our family which really made the event wonderful! It was great to spend time with so much family.

I took a few pictures of Lily on her big day. My sister-in-law Julie taught me how to make the fabric flower for her headband and I thought it turned out really cute!! (thanks Julie!)

I caught the tail end of a smile here. I thought Lily looked just beautiful. She is such a sweetheart and we love having her as part of our family. I could snuggle her all day long and really wish that I could because she has already grown so much!!

We got a picture with all of my side of the family and here they are. We took pictures with Jed's side too, but unfortunately not on my camera.

My sister Julie also called from Nova Scotia and she got to talk to most of our family that was here visiting. It was nice that even though she is so far away, she still got to be part of the big day too!!

Some unfortunate things also happened this day. After work the next Monday Jed told me two of his brothers had been throwing up and feeling sick. I contacted all of my side of the family and the reports escalated from there. Pretty much every family that were in attendance reported sickness, except for our little family and my parents. Our family ate leftoevers all week long and never got sick, so I'm pretty sure it wasn't the food. We think it must have been some sort of bug because everyone ate different things and still got sick. A pretty aggressive bug!! I still feel so sorry and embarrassed that it ever happened. Hopefully everyone can regain their trust in me..... :)

Keeping It Cool!

2010-08-09T13:23:00.000-06:00

So far this summer, the kids and I have ventured up to Rexburg to the Splash Park a couple of times. It is so fun to have a little water park like that not too far away, plus they get to visit Grandma and Grandpa Nelson afterwards. The first time we went Hannah just wandered around mooching off everyone's picnic. The second visit she braved some water fountains, of course with the accompaniment of her bag of chips and sippy.

Soggy chips....mmmmm

I am grateful for this flourescent "swimsoup" that helps me keep track of this little girl.

Drew and Madelyn racing down the slides.

Hannah sharing her soggy chips with Lily!

Baby Steps

2010-07-05T14:47:00.000-06:00

Here is a little update on how things are running in our family:

Jed: Jed has been a HUGE help to me since we have had Lily. He has taken over making his lunches (which I hope to start doing again...soon) to help me get a few more minutes of sleep in the mornings. He has more than doubled the number of diapers he has changed in his entire fatherhood experience, he used to be able to count that on one hand!! But he even does it without being asked or without giving me a hard time about it. The kids and I woke up to a perfectly clean house every morning that first week and to a hot breakfast. Jed makes a way better mom than me! He is the greatest and I couldn't do it without him for sure. Thanks hun.

Jeannette: I am trying my best to get adjusted and have been learning a lot in the process. I really am feeling my limitations and know that I could never be the mom I am supposed to be without heavenly help. It is just not possible. I took all four kids to the grocery store for the first time last week--a major accomplishment. It was pretty crazy yet funny. I had Hannah in the back of the cart with the groceries, Lily in her seat in the front, and Madelyn and Drew walking. Lily cried loudly for about 10 minutes in the store and I got a lot of turned heads, looks, and "You've got your hands full"s. But the best was yet to come. Only a few items were opened and nibbled on by Hannah, which was better than I expected. In the check out Hannah refused to be in the cart any more, so she got out. Drew and Madelyn were awesome helpers and bagged all the groceries even being careful of the eggs and bread! I placed some bags and a watermelon on the bottom of the cart and the rest of the cart was packed, no hope for Hannah to get a ride to the car. So I had Drew and Madelyn on either side of Hannah each holding a hand and then Drew held onto the cart. We went out of the store and off rolls my watermelon down the slight decline and into the parking lot. A kind lady catches it for me and it was luckily unharmed. Rather than place the watermelon back underneath the cart--susceptible to the same tragedy--I carried it in one arm and pushed the loaded cart with baby included to the side of the walkway. During the commotion of the rogue watermelon, my little train of children had detached themselves from the cart and Hannah was throwing a full-blown fit in the middle of the pedestrian crossing right outside the store--laying on the asphalt. There were several onlooking cars, since they were all stopped there just to let us through. Here are Drew and Madelyn trying to coax Hannah to get up and hold hands again with little success. With some coaxing from me she finally got up and we were able to let the traffic through. I caught the glance of a straight faced car driver and then just started to smile and laugh to myself. It must have looked rather nuts. Luckily I was able to find the humor IN the moment which was wonderful. And I learned a big lesson: I had gone into the store with very low expectations. I knew catastrophe would come. It wasn't a matter of "if" it was "when" and "how." So when it came, I was able to deal with it with a light heart. So, baby steps....baby steps to learning how to be a mother of 4.

Drew: Drew has just finished his last season of t-ball, he was a real slugger. He is way excited about pitching machine next year. I have to tell another story: the other day the kids and I were driving home from town and on our way there are a lot of 4-way stops. At one stop I was the first to arrive, but the car to my right pulled up and hardly stopped and drove right in front. I said "Hey!" and the kids asked me why I said that. I told them a man didn't follow the rules and didn't take his turn at the right time. I took that moment to ask the kids why we have rules and why it is important to follow the rules. The kids gave me their answers " to keep us safe" etc. And I kept going with it for a bit until Drew said, "But mom, what if he had an emergency and was headed to the hospital." I just said, "That's very nice of you to think that." Then Drew said, "I think we should just forgive him." So that pretty much ended my shpeal. Here I was trying to adjust the happenings to suit my purpose, when Drew really had the better lesson. Baby steps again--listen to my kids, sometimes they are wiser than I.

Madelyn: Madelyn has been learning to be a very good sister. She is learning more patience, as we all are. She is doing a lot better at talking things through with her little sister and she is really good at holding Lily. She is a really good girl with a very compassionate heart.

Hannah: Hannah likes to sing "keen up keen up every....keen up keen up every" when it is time to pick up. She is starting to be a bit softer with Lily, she still tries to hit her every day though too.....baby steps. I think she is starting to adjust and get used to Lily being here, but often is torn between wanting to be a little girl and wanting to be a big girl.

Lily: Is growing fast. She is more than 10 pounds now. She eats frequently and still likes to party at night instead of the day. Sometimes I don't mind being up for hours at night because I don't ever get to spend one on one time with Lily. She just gets held while I try to do everything else that needs done and attended to during the day. She loves to be held and definitely prefers our bed to hers. She is a sweetie and we love her lots.

Our family is doing well and we are learning A LOT. Mostly how much we DON'T know!! Oh boy...

During the last few weeks I have been able to spend a lot of time reading the conference Ensign while I have fed Lily. It has helped me tons with perspective, patience, and really trying hard to have faith and hope and a positive attitude--not that I am perfect in any way shape or form with any of those things. One talk I read came from Pres. Uchtdorf which was directed to the priesthood, but I found a paragraph that I think applies equally to motherhood:

"Let us always remember that one of the reasons God has entrusted [motherhood] to us is to help prepare us for eternal blessings by refining our natures through the patience which [motherhood] service requires."

I'm grateful I have a chance to be refined as I learn to be a mother of more children. I just hope that in the refiner's fire I come out better than I came in and that I don't get burned!!

Worth the Wait

2010-06-16T14:12:00.000-06:00

Here is the newest member of our family: Lily Marie Denning. She came to us on June 11th at 7:08 A.M.--my body still has never figured out how to go into labor in the DAY.... I was ok with that though because I was scheduled to be induced at 7 AM anyway and I really didn't want to be. At 1:30 in the morning my body finally kicked it in gear and went into labor a week after my due date.
It was nice because I told the nurse I was going to have the baby naturally and she didn't put in an IV. They usually do just "in case," but this was so much nicer because Jed and I walked miles around the hospital...okay probably not, since we were walking at a snails pace. I think the walking made me progress a lot quicker. When they had me lay down every hour or so to see how I was doing, the contractions would slow down quite a bit. In the halls walking I would have 2 or 3 in one hallway. At about 6 AM they called the doctor because I was at an 8. He checked me, broke my water, and then said he was going to get dressed. Things took off then. It seemed like it took forever for him to dress because then I was starting to feel the pressure!! When he got back he told me to go ahead and push, so I did and with another half push she was out!!
She took the cake for "biggest baby" in our family. She weighed 8 pounds 12 ounces, she knocked Drew out of his spot at 8 lb 9 0z.
It is such a blessing to have her here and she seems to be healthy and doing well. She is a beautiful little girl with lots of dark hair.

So precious!

Getting her first bath from Dad.

The whole fam. Yes I am way chubby in this picture. I am just now beginning to see my ankle bone definition again!! I swelled up a ton with this pregnancy. It was crazy. Flip flops were tight.

Our family is adjusting pretty well. Of course Hannah is having the toughest time with it. She got sick about this same time and so we weren't sure if she was acting out because she was sick or jealous. But now she says things like "no baby!" when I'm feeding her....I've been down this road before. I know it is just a matter of time before it improves. She does help with throwing diapers away and when she sees the baby she says "cute!" So I know she likes her. Drew and Madelyn love her and love to hold her and kiss her hair.

We are just so happy to have her with us, she really is sweet. We're so grateful things went as well as they did!

Tee Time

2010-06-16T13:58:00.000-06:00

T-ball season is in full swing!! Ha Ha. Madelyn and Drew are playing on the same team which is a lot of fun. This is Drew's last year with t-ball and I think it is a lot of fun for him to be the big kid. He has a great hit and loves getting "outs." Madelyn is enjoying it too, although sometimes I think she is more interested in impressing the boys....(not already!)

Hannah and Daddy chilling together.

Madelyn making it to home!! She keeps getting better and better as the games go on. I still think her favorite part may be the treat afterwards though! :)

Here is the team. T-ball always provides for great entertainment and some good laughs. We love it.

A Fun-Filled Weekend

2010-05-21T21:40:00.000-06:00

Last weekend we decided to take our little family fishing. We gave Drew some fishing supplies for his birthday and he was anxious to use his new box and gear. We headed up to the Rexburg ponds and had no idea the success and fun we were in for!! Each of us caught 3+ fish...well excluding Jed who didn't even get a chance to cast because he was so busy loading hooks and unhooking fish!!

Hannah had a blast and loved watching the wildlife. There were ducks, and of course fish, and an osprey that kept diving into the water to catch fish--that was neat.

Madelyn was pretty funny, since there was so much action she enjoyed the fishing. That is, until she got it onto the sand. She would drop her pole and run away screaming and saying that the fish was "wild and crazy" because it would flop around so much. One of the times I had to go rescue her pole because a fish was flopping back into the water and taking the pole with it!

Drew absolutely loved fishing. Loved it. We had packed a picnic dinner and he would not even think about dropping the fishing for a bite to eat. We ended up eating dinner in the dark off the tailgate of the truck at about 9:30.

My mom tried her hand at fishing too and caught two fish! She hadn't been fishing since she was 8 years old....she had a good time. There is us with our stringer full of fish, notice Drew would not put down his fishing pole for the picture...

This day was also my dad's birthday. I think he had a good time seeing the kids catch so many fish and experience pure delight!

On Sunday we enjoyed the regional conference and the open day it left us afterward. Jed suggested we go hike the Menan Butte. We had a great time. The kids were amazing and kept trudging up the mountain with no complaining!! We learned a lot of good lessons from our hike from the simple "stink bugs like volcanoes" to more complex ideas like the blessings of family and the support they offer and holding to the iron rod, and feeling the accomplishment of doing hard things.

The best part of it all was that a man on top of the butte thought I only looked 5 months pregnant. :0 My look of shock! He was extremely nice, and it must have been a long time since his wife had been pregnant because I am plainly past that!!!!

Me and my tough kids on top of the world!! I guess there was a little complaining--Hannah was upset that I wouldn't let her just run off the side of the mountain...sometimes moms are just no fun.

Jed and I celebrated our anniversary this Monday. It's been a great 7 years and we've had so many adventures together. I'm so grateful to have him, he's my best friend ever!

I had to put this picture in of Drew's artwork. I was amazed at the detail in his butterfly picture. He definitely is a perfectionist. It is perfectly symmetrical and he is so careful about his coloring. I had to document it before it got attacked by his little sister!

On Wednesday I was able to take the girls and go to Drew's kindergarten graduation. They had a program and sang lots of songs, then they were presented with their "diplomas." The graduation caps were really clever and cute. We, I should say "he," made it through kindergarten! I just can't believe we made it through this year of school. He did really well, even with a move in the school year. I'm just excited to have him home. I am really not looking forward to him being gone all day next year. I just like having my kids with me....most of the time! :)

Things are just moving along around here. I'm down to just 2 weeks left in this pregnancy and I am starting to get ancy. I'm ready to stop worrying about what having 4 kids will be like, and I'm just ready to get in the groove and get used to our new family dynamics. But there will be more worries when she is here, that is just how it goes for me....worry worry worry. :)

Savoring The "Moments"

A new look

Seasons

Our Christmas

Thanksgiving

It's a

A Few Things...

Intruder

Pinkalicious Party

Birthdays

Life is Crazy

Happy Thanksgiving

Star of the Week

Perspective

Wrapping up Summer

Back To School

The next *Star of the Week*

The RUSH

*Star of the Week*

You get a line, I'll get a pole

Girls Camp

Some of my Favorite Summer Memories..thus far

What do we do in the Summertime?

Memorial Day

Balance

My baby is ONE..and still my baby

Summer Adventures

The Stars Aligned

Grocery Store Angels

Transformation

I'm a little giddy...

Making some Changes

The BEST 8 years of my life!!!

Catch-up

Our Easter Celebration

Drew's Birthday Bash

Photos with No Particular Theme

Moments, revisited

A week in review

Art/Schoolwork Roundup

I love an excuse to party

Out of Hibernation!!!

Kids say....

Moments

I'm on LDS.org!

Babies just don't keep...

A Million Thanks!

Preciousness

Livin On Love!

Carpet

CONGRATS JED!!

Life

A little food for thought

Fun Times

Christmas Time in a Nutshell

Christmas Greetings!!!!

Random Bunch of Pictures

Madelyn turns 5!!!

Sisters

Our Logan Trip

Thanksgiving Daily

I ain't no Cowgirl!!

Birthday Girl--2 years old!!

Halloween

Little Miss Lily

Birthday Season!

Hannah.

Final Day 4

Day 3

Vacation 2010: Days 1&2

Summer Highlights

I always Want to Remember...

Lily's Blessing

Keeping It Cool!

Baby Steps

Worth the Wait

Tee Time

A Fun-Filled Weekend

The next Star of the Week

Star of the Week