The movies

I am sitting here at my friend Lea's house doing this while the kids play. We went to the movies this morning. It was pretty cute. We went to see Alvin and the Chipmunks the Squeaqual. It was hysterical. Watching the kids laugh hysterically was about as funny as the movie. We had the kids in a row, except Landon and Spencer on one side of me. They all-my 3 and Lea's 3-had a little kids pack with popcorn and a drink. They were so cute. The movie actually was better than I had expected. I haven't seen the first one, so it was a pleasant surprise. Landon also did way better than I expected. It was his first time in the theater since he was a tiny baby when we would go to the free summer movies. He was so happy with his little pack and it kept him happy for a while. All the kids sat in a booster as well. So Landon was good until about the last half hour of the movie. Then he got up and started to wander up and down the aisle and at one point I couldn't see him and he was under the seats. I finally held him for a while and he finished out the movie. Luckily he fell asleep in the car so he has been asleep on Lea's couch for about an hour and a half!! I love fun days like this especially when we get to spend time with Lea and the kids before they go to England. Kids are happy, mommy's happy....what more can you want.

cone fun

I went to two concerts at Rose Hill this week. My friend Carla's little girl Kaalie, as well as the Regan, Patrick's sister (the little boy I watch) are in the chorus and strings. So Landon and I went to the concerts. Now, this is usually his nap time, so I took a risk. He did pretty good for the first few minutes, but then got pretty antsy. We found the cones in the back of the gym. Kept him happy for a while. He told me he was "making a pattern." More to come on that in a future post.

Can I lift this pile?

The concerts were 2 days in a row. The second day he knew what to do. These pics are actually the first day.

Makes a good chair. Well, if you have a tiny bum:)
another pattern.

A brilliant child!!

It's official...I have a brilliant little boy. Spencer has really been into his little workbook I got him for the alphabet and numbers. He really loves it. At one point, he asked me to do it with him I went over to see what he had been doing.

Such concentration.
I just love seeing these little fingers work.
Here's why I think the kid is brilliant. This is the page he had been doing. I was amazed!! He had figured out that he needed to match the colors to the letters in the pictures. He has never done anything like this before. Call me crazy, but I just think that it is so cool that he figured it out completely on his own.
I just love to look at his face when he is working. He really concentrates.
And I love to look at his little fingers while he works.
Ahhhh, the mind is such a wonderful thing. So thankful for my inquisitive, smart little minds I have in my house...the possibilities are endless!!!

Our Saturday

We had a full and busy Saturday. We decided first to go say goodbye to Tai Shan before he makes his long trek back to China. There was a special "goodbye" for memebers of the Zoo today before it opened. I told the kids about it, so they insisted we go. We had such a fun time, despite the cold and getting up early, but I am do glad we went. It will be sooo crowded next week when they have a special thing for the public.

We got so lucky today with the pandas. We had awesome views of all 3 pandas. The baby Tai Shan, well, he's not a baby anymore. He's 4 and a half-just a couple months older than Spencer. Was very busy. He was eating tons of bamboo and walking around. I think they must have liked the cold.

The mom was wandering around, then the dad was taking a nap. I was keeping track of Landon, and apparently missed a huge yawn when daddy woke up. Pretty typical I guess-daddy taking a nap:) We watched him eat and wander back to his house. Don't think you can get much closer to a panda than we were-even with the glass it was really cool. He was eating a fruit popsicle type thing.

The kids loved seeing the pandas. Jordan carried around her stuffed panda the whole time.
Here's the daddy eating.
I thought this was a cool shot, but haven't cropped it yet. Looks cool when I crop on the camera. So you get to see some strange lady:)

After we left the pandas, we went to all the indoor places. We loved the reptile house, great ape house and spent forever in the small mammal house-we stayed by the meerkats forever. The kids loved them-they were so cute. They would run up to the glass and jump up right in front of the kids, which caused them to burst into giggles. Seriously funny and entertaining. We stood there for a good 20 minutes. I was enjoying the sheer pleasure of the kids that I didn't even bother getting my camera out. I was laughing too much.

Cute Iguana. Did you know that and iquana can get bigger than this? 4-5 feet long!! And they are protected in Cuba. Darin told me that they walk around all over the place at Guantanamo Bay and you can't do anything to them. He said they will cross the roads, and if they stop then you have wait until they decided to move.

Here's a face only a mother could love.

After the zoo we came home and got some stuff done. Here's a list:

Kiddos: picnic in living room watching a movie, played on computer, played with toys, ate lots of snacks, etc. Spencer "helped" me with the car and ran around outside a while.

Darin: had a nap (he's been under the weather), put plastic stuff over the windows to keep out the drafts, played with kids.

Wendi: took the crib to a friend to use, cleaned out the car-and I mean really cleaned out the car. Since I had the carseats out I figured I would go vacuum it out. I did 3 cycles of the vacuum! I took all the seats out-well, I took 2 out and flipped the other ones up. When I got home, I wiped down the whole car with lysol wipes and windexed all the windows. I am in the process of washing 2 carseats, so the car will not be a petree dish so much anymore!

Landon: got busy with a marker...washable luckily!!!

Whew!!! We were tired and hungry by the end of our afternoon, so we decided to go to the Olive Garden for dinner since we had a couple gift cards. (In the end a lady gave us coupon as well and we paid only about 8.00 for our whole dinner!) It was quite pleasant!!!! We actually have not been out to eat in almost a month because the last time the kids were less than good, which is an understatement. But after calming Jordan down after her fit due to her unfulfilled demand of going to Silver Diner, we made it to the car and went on our way.

Oh my goodness-the kids were excellent. I dare say it was the best they have done in a restaurant. There was a wait and they sat quietly on a bench and looked at the kids menu. When we were seated, the biggest problem was the chairs on wheels moving too much, and Landon getting up. Jordan and Spencer colored quietly on their papers, we played tic-tac-toe, and ate a yummy dinner!!

Spencer and Landon have spent all day asking questions. Where are we? What are you doing? What is that man doing? Why are they doing that? In the car Spencer was asking non stop questions about Avatar. He is fascinated. I wish they had a kid version because he would love it. His interest was fueled by the McDonalds toys. Darin was exasperated, but it was quite funny to me:) My whole day every day is the boys asking tons of questions, so Darin needed a turn!!

When we got home, the kids actually took a bath together and got along so well!! Besides some water on the floor, bath time went well. The kiddies were playing and were so happy just to be together. Ahhh love it!!

And finally.....I just found an AWESOME photo editing sight and am having a blast with it. Thanks Lynette-I LOVE it!!! picnik.com. Check it out...totally awesome!!

Hope you had a fun Saturday, too!!! Here's to a great Sunday!!

Joy

Last night we had a Relief Society meeting. It was excellent. It was about finding balance in your life. There were 2 classes one about building and maintaining spiritual reserves, and one about finding joy in the stages of life. They were both do wonderful. The it seemed like there was some serious revelation in choosing the speakers. Both sisters seemed so well suited to teach their class. I learned so much and was excited to make some changes.

The class that really touched me was to find joy in the stages of life. I realized that I am sometimes failing to find joy in my current stage. Not that I am not happy about being a stay at home mom, just sometimes I get distracted and worry about non essential things and get caught up in everyday life.

The speaker shared 4 principles to help in this area.
~ ask and ye shall receive ( and I am taking this from my memory, so may not be exactly
as she stated.
~look ahead with the idea that you will be looking back-when you are through a stage, you will look back and can see how you handled it.
~perspective-her example was the book Tuesdays with Morrie. He allowed himself to see the bad for only a few minutes in the morning, then looked ahead with a positive attitude the rest of the day.
~creativity-use your creative side to see the good in life and have joy.


I woke up with resolve to not take for granted any of my interactions with my children. I decided to see what they said and did with new eyes. It was so fun!! They say and do so many funny things, are curious, are excited to learn new things, and are down right adorable.

Here are some things I saw with my new eyes.

When Landon crawled into our bed at 6:00 wide awake, I decided to thank him for being my alarm clock to get up and exercise. He was so funny-he stood beside me and did the moves with me.

Jordan got up without me trying to get her up!!! Wooo Hoooo. When we went up to pick her clothes, I had the resolve to not get impatient as she took quite a long time to decide, but to see through 6 year old eyes. She was so happy to find a Care Bears Tshirt she had forgotten about. I let her pick the rest of the outfit and she was happy in the end.

Jordan was also so interested in the smoke detector and the carbon monoxide detector. We spent a lot of time discussing what the each do. We were all in the boys room getting dressed. She asked me what would happen if they started beeping. I said if we had a fire, the firestation would come. She looked at me in a way to say "duh" and said very emphatically "the firestation can't move, mom. The firemen would come." Well, duh.

I was playing with Handy Manny figurines. I asked the name of the girl who was the friend of Handy Manny. The kids said "Wendy' and I said, that was the name of the friend helper on Bob the Builder. " The informed me that "no mom, she is his wife." Have always wondered about those 2....

Spencer was playing with dinosaurs and was pretending that one of them was holding 2 . He said his hands were too little so he had to hold one in his mouth. My children do have such great imagination. Last night he had one of the mouth pieces from Lanny's neb, a domino, and a couple other things all hooked together and gave me an explanation of how it made a rocket ship. He really will play with anything and pretend it is whatever he wants.

I honestly in that moment felt like I wanted to close the door and stay in that room with them all day and just play. They are such wonderful little beings....oh, my heart is so full today!! I wish I could keep that moment frozen in time it felt so good. It will be a good thing to think of when I am starting to get frustrated. I love these kids so much!!!

On a different note-well somewhat related-Landon went to the potty by himself last night!! I had come upstairs after dinner to finish making beds and he told Darin "I'm pooping." Darin sent him up to me and he hadn't yet gone. So he took his diaper of and tried. He didn't do anything so I went on my merry way. I was busy making our bed, then remembered he was still in the bathroom. I go in to find him dovered from head to foot in TP, but a big poop in the toilet!!!! Yeah...he is beginning to know when he has to go. Soo happy-even cleaning up the poopy mess I was so excited.

So I really love seeing through these new eyes. I know I will ocasionally need wipe the dust off, but I am determined to keep them!!

Do you love your firefighters?

We have a new obsession in our house. I picked up this DVD at a consignment sale in the fall pretty cheap and saved it to put in Landon's stocking. He didn't really show too much interest after Christmas, but the other day it resurfaced in a moment of chaos and now the kids are obsessed with it. They ask to watch it every day and want to watch it again the moment it is over. Landon wakes up asking to watch it.

They were watching it the other night when I left to go to a friend's house to make a wreath. When I got home, Darin said that they all had a tough time going to sleep-especially Jordan. I went up to check on Jordan, and she had been pretty busy in her room all evening.

Here is what kept her up so late:

exhibit A
Exhibit B (the back)
And the front. Love it!
What the kids did while I made dinner last night. But of course-watching "firefighter Elmo" for the hundrethe time!


Here's another little side note. A dear friend got me a cricut for Christmas. I got it out the other day to figure it out, and surprise surprise (wink wink) Jordan loves it as well. It's pretty fun. Here's Jordan's project.
So, just a quick last word-if you have an Elmo lover, or a firefighter lover, this video is pretty cute!

We have been struggling lately with pulling Family Home Evening together lately. Like a roller coaster-goes up and down. So today I sat at the table with Jordan and Spencer to do some work. She was doing her homework and Spencer was doing a little workbook. I decided to dig out a book of FHE lessons I have and get going on one. I had a couple cut out and decided to work on more. I also figured I was missing my weekly dose of cutting and laminating that I do at Spencer's preschool every Monday.

This is the book I have. It had some great lessons. I've had it a couple years, but didn't think the kids could really understand. But now, they are ready for it, so I wiped the dust off and got to cutting!
So I did lots of cutting and laminating. I used contact paper, which is really tricky. If you try to do too large of an area, you would wish you had about 4 hands. It really sticks!! But I think it is cheaper to by a roll of contact paper than to take it somewhere to pay to have lamination done. I guess I should compare sometime.
Had a nice large pile of garbage by the time I was done. The only annoying thing was the amount of contact paper wasted. But now I have the experience so will do better next time!
Part of the finished product. The lesson is about testimonies and and what we need to have a strong foundation. Based on the scripture in Helaman. Each lesson has a scripture it is based on.
So it took us a while to get started, but finally made it through. Whew!!! Now I just hope the kids remember it!!

Make-up & the Melting Pot

On Friday night, I had dinner plans with a big group of friends. We were going to the Melting Pot as a good bye for Lea who is moving to England. It started out pretty funny. I made my family dinner, then went upstairs to finish doing my hair and finalize getting ready. I thought to myself, "make up would be fun." Well, if you know me, you will know that I haven't put make up on....well.....at least since Landon was born, and probably way before that.

So Darin says "you don't do that for me." I told him it was because he never noticed or said anything. He said "it is because you look nice without it." Thanks. But tonight I decide I wanted some. So I go downstairs and am saying my goodbyes. Spencer looks at me and in all seriousness says "you're not my real mom." Soo cute. He asked me what I did to myself. So funny. Guess I looked pretty strange in their eyes:)

Oh, it continues. I went to pick up Jill. She wasn't quite ready so I chatted with Andrew and the girls. When I walked in and Lizzy looked at me, she starred and kind of paced back and forth just looking at me. It was so funny-I love kids! Guess I should wear it more often. When I got home, realizing that I didn't put it away before I left, Darin told me that he found Jordan and Spencer upstairs at bedtime with mascara on. Yesterday Jordan had a little purse with all my stuff in it and had my eyeshadow on. Funny.

So we all made it to the restaurant before Lea. She was only expecting to have dinner with a group of about 5 of us. We had to plan with her so we would know she would be there. Well, we all realized that she would see part of the group, so we all stood on one side of the room. Andrea, the one bringing her texted and said she was almost there....
but we were all so busy chatting that we didn't even notice her coming in. Duh!!! But really, she was truly surprised!
I was impressed that when we got there, they had all the cheeses going. Planning a party in advance is the way to go!! We all sat down and made quick work of the cheeses!

Here's one of the most popular pots of the night. It was the oil. I had never heard of it, but it was on the other table. I was going to go over and try it once, but it was always very full. My friend at my table would stuff her mushrooms and batter them and put them in the oil. I just stuck with the usual broth ones.
Oh man, the food at the melting pot is so yummy. I tried a new cheese and a new broth, oh and the white chocolate. Darin isn't a fan, so we never have it when we go together. We all wanted to know where they got their strawberries because they were so good.

We had so much fun just chatting and hanging out. I didn't know all the ladies there, but knew all the ones at my table. I think the other table was all the ladies from Lea's neighborhood.

Here's Jill, Lea and I. And yes, my hair was doing something weird.
It really was a fun group of ladies. There was lots of laughing, story telling, more laughing, etc. We had so much fun, then stood in the parking lot forever and talked after we left the restaurant. Lea was so surprised and was even more surprised when she found out her husband had kept the secret for over a month.

Here's the whole group.
Such a fun night, but I wish it could have been just for fun and not to be saying goodbye to Lea. I am so excited for her, though. What a fun experience for her awesome family. But I will sure miss her. So glad Ryann introduced her to us a few years ago. It's been so fun to hang out and do things with her family.

So, our little playgroup continues to dwindle. It's me and you, Jill. Please don't leave me:)

CTR 7

Ok, so I seriously have the cutest primary class!! Well, before I go on, I must say that I have had such awesome classes the last 2 years. Each child I have ever taught is so special in their own way. I taught the CTR 5 class the last 2 years-the 4 year olds turning 5 during the year. The first year I had Jordan, so that was fun. I so love teaching the kids. The are so funny and you never know what they are going to say. We have had lots of fun discussions-especially the class I had last year. We had many discussions on the similarity of "the force" and the Holy Ghost. (Hope I don't have to explain that one:)

Well, back to my original thought-I am really so excited about my class this year. The children are all turning 8 this year so they will be getting baptised. Sooo fun that I will be able to attend all the baptisms!! I have 2 coming up already! There are 8 kids in my class-6 girls and 2 boys. I just think they are all just amazing. Here is a little synopsis of each of them-with initials because I don't think all the parents have blogs. Just for a little idea of who I get to hang out with for 2 hours every Sunday.

A. S. A girl's girl. Carries the cutest little purse and always accessorized. Talkative and very expressive when she tells stories. Very protective of her little sister in sunbeams. Also very proud that her dad is the bishop.
A. J. Very similar to AS. She is so excited about everything we talk about. So funny when she tells stories-puts in every little detail. Mom is a hairdresser, so very stylish and loves to do good to others.
J. B. Such a sweet boy-very smiley and happy. Funny and entertaining with his clothing antics-likes to unbutton his shirts, pull them over his head, etc. A boy you would want your daughter to meet when they are about 23 or so.
J. R. Another funny boy. In his own little world sometimes, but happy and willing to do what I ask. He shares his likes and dislikes and takes time to think about his answers.
E.C. Big sister to the Star Wars lover I had last year, and equally as fun and entertaining. She gets so happy about things she shares and loves to tell stories as well. When she was little, I wondered if she talked much, yes, she does:)
E. E. A quiet and reserved little girl, but once you get to know her, she opens up and is smiley and gets excited about what she wants to say. Did family pictures of her family-she was the hard nut to crack, but I got her to smile in the end.
S. P. Her mom is one of my best friends. She is such a funny girl-so innocent. He moms says she is really "blond." She gets so excited about little things that others may find obvious, and just makes me laugh. Jordan absolutely loves her.
V. R. The little smarty of my class. This gal is the youngest in her family and such a smart gal-skipped a grade. She is a thinker and notices things others don't. Always knows the answers and is excited to talk as well. She was quick to remind me that her previous teacher brought
cupcakes for birthdays.

See-very awesome little kiddos. Just love them already and am excited for the year to come. They all come from such great families. I admire all their moms and dads so much and learn so many things about being a good parent and church member from each of them. I guess that's why they are such good kids-the apple doesn't fall far from the tree:)

living life and random thoughts

So I have realized that I haven't done much posting about life lately-I do to many little blurbs on Facebook, but need to get back to documenting the sometimes crazy, sometimes mundane life I lead.

This morning I wanted to scream at traffic. I wanted to be a traffic officer to direct traffic. I have a huge pet peave. It is when people are turning against traffic and get stuck in the intersection then block the traffic for the people going through the intersection. It happens just outside my townhomes, then again at the major intersection I have to go through every morning. It makes me go crazy. For crying out loud, if you aren't going to make it through the light, do not go into the intersection!!! Cannot express my annoyance for this. Well, guess I just did.

Here's a mommy question. Am I a bad mother for not giving my kids a bath everyday? I was a friend's house today and was trying to get my kids ready to go. I said "come on we have to go so we can eat dinner and then it's bath night." She said "what do you mean bath 'night" in a way that she couldn't belive that I didn't bathe my kids every night. I said in the winter if they don't go out and get dirty, they get a bath every other night, unless we do something that gets them really dirty. Sometimes I am do tired by the end of the night that I feel like they are lucky they get one every other night!!

Next thought-New Years Resolutions. Do them? Don't do them? At testimony meeting last week one of the sisters mentioned that she loved new beginnings-even loves Monday Mornings. I felt a little bit of the same. I do like new beginnings. So I have been thinking about myself, what to do to change, become better, grow and develope. I realized I need balance. I am a wife, mother, sister, friend, visiting teacher, primary teacher, aunt, neighbor, volunteer, and sometimes feel like a nurse, chef, maid, and chaffeur. I have a hard time balancing it all. I tend to focus too much on one thing and then something else suffers. More often than not, the state of my house. I was in a huge funk the other morning -feeling sorry for myself, thinking that I won't be "known" for something, that I am mediocre at a lot of things, but not really good at any one thing. I got the impression that I need to focus on being a good mom and good primary teacher. So this year I plan to do my primary lesson during the week instead of waiting until Saturday evening, and to not yell at the kids and to play with them when they ask instead of putting them off.

Speaking of that, this morning was great. I spent time with Spencer doing some workbooks on writing the alphabet and learning colors, shapes etc. He is so cute-he concentrates so hard on writing the letters. I feel bad that I have waited so long to get him writing etc. Anyhow, he was so excited when he would finish and was thrilled to get a star sticker on his page. Then the boys begged me to play "Mario" a new Wii game Darin got for Christmas. The love it. Then we played Donkey Kong-the other game Darin asked for. I actually love the Donkey Kong one more than I expected. What I enjoyed most was spending the time with the boys. They were cute trying to tell me what to do on Mario-they love to watch Darin play it.

Another deep thought:what if I am really not good at something I want so much to do? Realistically, what If I can never figure it out? And yes, I am speaking of photography here. I did a photo shoot last weekend, and am not happy with the pictures. The are boring. Honestly. I thought I could do it inside, but apparently I need tons more practice inside. I do fairly well outside, but I have to figure out inside. So when I pulled them up I was disappointed. And I shot in RAW, so there was a different page that came up on Photoshop elements, so now I am not sure if I can edit them the way I did the last ones I did. Ugh. So my question really is this: When do you decide that you really aren't good at something? Well, I am not completely ready to give up-I am going to take another class-hopefully better than the last one.

Tonight was one of those crazy nights. Spencer fell asleep in the car and went right to the couch when we got home. I made dinner, then when I went over to try to wake him up, he was burning up. He has a temp of 102. It was so weird-like it suddenly came on. So we took him up. He wanted to go right to bed. Landon has been coughing a lot today and was a bit wheezy, so at one point of the night, Darin was out buying motrin, I was giving Landon a breathing treatment, Spencer was asleep and Jordan was still in the tub. I did think to myself when I was holding Landon that "this is my life-the life of a mother. It is what I wanted and it is hard, but deep down, I love it." I had a really nice time reading with Jordan and she has only come out of her bed once.

So, currently I am on the couch with my lap top warm in my snuggie watching the show The Middle. Such a funny show. So I am going to do better keeping up my everyday life on the blog. Can't make a book out of facebook posts! Figure I can at least make the kids laugh in about 20 years:)

Twenty One years later

I felt really great when I woke up today. So happy to have later church. No need to rush or have he usual drama trying to get out of the door for 9:00 church. I got up and got ready before the kids were even awake-getting ready at 8:00 is way better than 7:00 on Sunday morning. Then I got the kids breakfast, put dinner in the crockpot, and checked facebook.

Then I felt really sad. I read a post my sister put up on Facebook and realized that it hadn't yet dawned on me that it is January 3rd. Always a sad day for my family. Even as the years add up, it is still fresh on my mind. I remember the phone call like it was yesterday. I was up in my room and my grandma and grandpa called me downstairs. I knew there was a problem when I saw the bishop and one of my young women's leader sitting in our living room. My mother had died and it was January 3rd 1989.

The following weeks were a whirlwind of changes for my 3 little sisters and myself. I was about a month from turning 16, so didn't get to make many choices-was told where we would live, told we had to change our last name because my grandparents had to adopt us to get military ID cards (which we found out years later wasn't necessary). I was working on getting my drivers license, but my grandparents stopped that process. My sisters gradually decided not to go to church anymore. Eventually I went to college and my sisters left my grandparents and lived with other relatives.

So today I have been thinking of my mom. She was such an amazing lady and everyone loved her. I miss her but am thankful for the 16 wonderful years we did share on this earth. It is really a blink in the eternal span of time. I am so grateful for the gospel and the knowledge I have of the plan of salvation. I know I will be in her presence again. The day after I was able to receive my endowments in the DC temple in 1993, I was able to go through for her. Such a blessing for me, and for her since she was always talking about going to the temple. I look forward to the day when I can introduce her to my family-they will love her!!