It's about that time

I have siblings that live in the neither regions of the land and they send emails to tell us about their weeks. I love these emails. I love to hear the funny things their kids say and hear how their life is going. My sisters that do these emails tell me that they hate doing them because sometimes there's nothing to write about. Sometimes they just live life and their kids just talk like little humans with nothing funny to say. Even on those weeks I tell them they should send the emails. Then I am reminded that me telling them to do that is a little hypocritical because me myself and I hate updating this blog. Obviously, it's been since April. I just feel like we've just been living life. Doing the whole work and school routine. When I think of funny things that kids say, nothing comes to mind. Although the other week I was working out. I try to do it in the wee hours of the morning to get it out of the way however, there are some mornings that the alarm is an abomination so when it goes off, I turn it off and turn away from it. Not wanting to be sucked into it's wicked plan of stealing sleep from me. This happened to be one of those mornings. I was working out while K was eating breakfast. He looked over at the screen and asked,"Were all tv's black and white when you were little?" Insert an image of me shaking my head, rolling my eyes and wheezing out "Nooooo! (pant, pant, pant), "They were all color." His response was one of shock and awe. That's not funny, that's just well, there are no words. He also asked me one time if semi's were invented when I was younger. Hello! it's not like I'm Henry Ford's mother. He must think I had neighbors that had pet dinosaurs and we all lived in caves with a club as our security systems.Good thing we like that kid.

I know the picture is random but he was so happy to see Cosmo. He was shocked that when he saw Cosmo somersault out of his van, no one seemed to notice. He and his friend,"ran over to him so fast so we could get a picture with him. It was so amazing!!" He loves BYU football. Heaven alone knows why. They were bad before and this year has just been total humiliation. K doesn't seem to care. He loves them so much and was over the moon to see Cosmo in real life.

This summer was full of boating. B loves boating. Actually, to say that he loves it is a gross understatement. I wish there was a better word. He loves everything about it. He loves to ski, surf, tube with the kids and be the driver. Here he is showing off that he can be pulled on a tube and not hold on. However, sometimes the laws of Physics prove they are still intact and....

He lands in the water. We all died laughing with this one. If you look close you can see him in the water. Another highlight of this picture? K's face. 

The three older kids learned to water ski this summer. The boys love it and M is learning to. She doesn't want to learn how to do something, she just wants to know how and be good at it. She can get up, she just lets go of the rope really fast. She'll get better and better and love it, B's sure of it! 

This one loves the tube. She gets in the middle seat, will lay down on her back and stick her thumb in the air, the signal to go faster. She loves to,"go super fast" on the tube. She takes a good turn and then will tell you when she's done. If you take her off before she feels like she's had a long enough turn, you'll hear about it. 

When she gets too tired, she'll sit down and go to sleep. She doesn't love the cold water so she either wants to be on the tube or on the boat and if you put her in the water, she screams. Like, SCREAMS!!! It's not great. 

Look how happy this fella is! You guys, I'm telling you, nothing in the world makes him as happy as boating.

I looked through the pictures and I don't have anything else to say. No surprise pregnancy, no funny kid stories, no nothing. We're truly just living life. Which, if I'm being honest, is pretty great. We're healthy and happy and blessed every day. We got family pictures a couple weeks ago but I don't want to put them on here yet because I have a friend working on switching some heads. Meaning, A was smiling in one and not the other. So this amazing friend is trying to take smiling head off of one picture and put it on the other. Anyway, all I'm saying is that I don't have anything to say. Summer was hot and fun and way too short and now we're back to the grind. 

Sometimes family is just another F word

Do you see the people in this picture? These people are my entire world. I would do anything for them. If they needed two new kidney's, I would let them take both of  mine. If they needed a bone marrow transplant, they could have all of mine. They could have the heart from my chest. I'm not trying to be dramatic. I really mean it. My little family deserves way better than me. I'm moody and emotional and am full of OCD and anxiety. When I make them redo the silverware in the dishwasher because my brain tells me the spoons can ONLY go with the other spoons, the forks can ONLY go with the other forks and the knives can ONLY go with the other knives, I try to own my crazy. I say something like, I know I'm crazy, but I really need the silverware to be loaded right or I start to twitch and my brain goes nuts. That's only one of my crazy things. We won't talk about towels or sheets or odd numbers or hangers and how they have to not only be hung in the right direction but they also have to be used in the right order. I know, I'm crazy. There is no denying that. I love the people in this here picture more than life itself. They are my everything and I have told them that when they grow up we will all live on a hill and our houses will go down the hill but be connected by a slide so that we can get to each other's houses as fast as possible. There will be a moving sidewalk at the bottom of our hill to get us back to the top. K has told us his whole life that he is going to build houses for a living. Little B will be his vice president and they are still trying to convince M that she wants to be the interior decorator for them. It all sounds marvelous to me and K is totally excited to build our houses with slides for us.

Read on at your own risk. There will be some people that read this that don't like what I have to say. I'm going to say it anyway. The people in these two pictures are at a close second for my heart space. There are people in both of these groups that I want to scribble out or draw horns on. I am certain that there are people in both of these groups that want to scribble me out or draw horns on me too.  I find it so interesting that I could tell the people in both these groups that they could  have a kidney, as long as my kids don't have both of mine, or they could have a lobe of my liver or any number of body parts; but in the same breath I can say that some of these people make me totally crazy. I have been trying for a year and a half to find forgiveness and move on from something terrible that happened. It didn't even happen to me directly, but it has had a huge impact on my life personally. I have tried to be like the Savior. I have tried to give myself the time it takes to accept that things will never, ever be the same in this life. B and I were talking about things on our date last night and I told him some specific progress I have made and we both agreed that those things were huge steps from where I was even a couple months ago. We were talking about how the progress was made and it was clearly the Savior. I have realized a few things over the last year and a half. The first thing I realized is that everyone needs the Savior. I was thinking of the sin scale, is that even a thing? Probably not, but in my mind, embezzlement is way worse than me sneaking a piece of chocolate, or three, before dinner after telling my kids they have to wait until after we eat. However, in both of those situations, repentance is required and the only person who can do that is the Savior. The repentance process for embezzlement(honestly, I don't even know what that is, I just know it's not a good choice), might be more intense but the Savior would forgive both of us. The quote by then, President Uchtdorf, that says, "don't judge me because I sin differently than you." has been rolling around in my head a lot. We all need the Savior. None of us can make it into heaven without Him. There are things I do everyday that I know I shouldn't. I feel like Christ has every right to tell me enough is enough and that I don't get it. The amazing thing is, that He doesn't. He forgives me every day, so what right do I have to deny someone else forgiveness? Now, don't misunderstand, forgiveness and trust are not the same thing. I can say that I have forgiven, but that does not mean that there is trust again and I don't know if there ever will be total trust. I feel hopeful that I will be able to be around this person again, but I can't say when that time will be and I don't know when I will let our kids be around him. Something else that I have learned is the Christ wasn't always nice. I have been trying to go through this situation and be nice because I wanted to be like Christ. But Christ wasn't always nice. He threw over the table in the temple. He called people hypocrites to their faces. He told his disciples, more than once that they were people of little faith. Fast forward in time to Joseph Smith. It seems like that poor guy was chastised more than he wasn't. Christ was always direct and said what needed to be said. He didn't stand by and silently hope that everything worked out. He didn't beat around the bush. He didn't wait for someone else to say the things that needed to be said. Being silent and complacent is not being Christ like. Of course the biggest difference is that Christ was perfect and so he said things perfectly. Usually I blunder my way through things and I swear when I get really mad. I'm not perfect and in no way am I trying to say that I am. I know that everyone goes through their own process and to expect others to be where I am at or for others to expect me to be where they are at isn't fair. All I'm saying is that the atonement is real. That the Savior can change people and hearts. That family is the only thing that we get to take with us and although there might be people that I want to scribble out and draw horns on today and remind them that right now they're making me feel like they're just another F word, I would still offer them a kidney if I had an extra one lying  around.    

Happy Happy birthday times 2

The beginning of the year is full of birthday's around our house. We love birthday's and try to make them different than any other day. M had her birthday first. Her birthday fell on a Sunday, which in and of itself is disappointing however, it was made even more disappointing because it was also fast Sunday. What rotten luck right? But, she's a champ and didn't seem to mind at all. The Saturday before her birthday, B took her and two of her friends and K skiing for the day.

Clearly her friends are twins. They have been coming over to our house for almost four years and I still can't tell them apart. M thinks they look nothing alike and I feel like the only thing different about them is, um, nothing. Oh wait! Their names are different. That's it. They all had a great time and I am so happy they got to go skiing. 

The next day was M's birthday. I love that she still smells every present she gets. It makes this old lady's heart so happy! She loves smells and has her whole life. If there's a book on the counter, she'll pick it up and fan the pages as she gets really close to it so she can smell the ink. She says she loves the smell of Home Depot and has wished on occasion that her room could smell like that. 

Here are some of her birthday pictures.

I try so hard to be brave and keep a stiff upper lip, which is such a weird saying by the way, but when I think about how fast time goes and that I only get her for a few more years, I fall apart. M is such a sweet mild mannered person. She loves taking care of A and is so willing and happy to do it. It takes a lot to ruffle M's feathers and she's so content no matter what we're doing. She still loves to do back hand springs and is working on a back tuck. She loves to hang out with her friends and loves saving her money so she can buy clothes and shoes. She loves for her room to smell good and has plug in's and a scensty. But, sometimes those two things aren't enough and she sprays the air with her body sprays. She loves for A to smell good too and will spray her with smelly stuff and lather her in lotion any time A will let her. She has one of the best laughs in the world and we love when she laughs really hard.

This little thing turned 2 a few days after M had her birthday. I still have moments, a lot of them, when I think how crazy it is that she's here and part of our family. We are all totally enamored with her and are so so thankful that she came. She is feisty and isn't afraid to tell people when they are doing something she doesn't like or sitting somewhere she wants to sit. She likes to give hugs, sometimes and likes to make people laugh. She is learning to pray and loves when the older kids will help her. Usually once she's done praying she will run get her baby and say "baby prayer too?" She loves her babies, bear and stuffed dog. She loves her blanket and her hooded towel. Here is a picture of something else she loves, but only on Saturday mornings.

When I get her out of the bath, she insists on wearing her hat and once I give it to her, she puts it on and she takes off running around the house. I don't know what it is about Saturday's that make her want to be totally free but she's tiny enough that it's still cute. Until she pees on the floor right?! I don't let her run free for very long and once I catch her I have to wrestle her to get a diaper on her all the while she's screaming telling me that she doesn't want a diaper, she wants to run. Yeah, she's feisty. 

Don't mind the head in the shot. Sheesh! She loved her new babies.

And her little kitchen. Although a few days after her birthday I heard her saying, "mommy! not working. Not working, mommy." I asked her what wasn't working and she said, "a mere" (come here). She took me downstairs where we put her kitchen and she went running over to it. There's a little button on the burner that when you put the pot on it, it will push on the button and make it sound like boiling water. I thought she was going to tell me that the sound had stopped working. Nope, she was trying to turn on the faucet and as she turned the little handle she would say "not working mommy." She likes it anyway and I'm eternally thankful that there's no running water in her little kitchen.

I don't know if she was more excited about the cookie or the candles.

Also, she loved the new babies she got, but she REALLY loves the binkies that came with the babies. 

We have her birthday pictures but this computer is so annoying and I have no idea where the pictures are at. I labeled the file, A's birthday pictures, so I should be able to find them. No such luck. I'm sure this has nothing to do with operational error. Stupid computer. A is still tiny. She weighs 20 ponds as long as you weigh her after she's eaten. She doesn't like meat and won't eat it. She doesn't like leftovers, even if it's something she likes. The only exception is Mac and Cheese. She calls it pasta and will tell you almost every day that she wants pasta. She'll eat the leftovers of mac and cheese until the entire box is gone. She loves cereal, pancakes and fruit snacks. She loves potatoes and gravy but not baked potatoes. She LOVES chocolate but because of her peanut and tree nut allergies, she can't have a lot of it. However, she can have Dove plain chocolate and Cadbury eggs and will come running if you offer them to her. She loves suckers and applesauce. She likes yogurt as long as you let her feed herself which is fine unless she has a gogurt and squeezes it out every where and paints with it. Then it's just really annoying.

We truly love these two ladies that are ours and are thankful every day that they are stuck with us for eternity!

Once upon a Halloween, then there was Thanksgiving

I am racking my brain trying to come up with something to say. I'm not coming up with a whole lot. Life around these here parts is uneventful. Full of orthodontist appointments aaannddd, nothing. We are done with football and waiting for basketball to start. Here's a funny picture for you,

The giant in the background says he's 11. My eyebrows raise in suspicion at that statement. I understand that K is small for his age but not that small right? Needless to say, K's team did not come out victorious on this game.

October brought with it our annual pumpkin painting night. I thought that my eyeball pumpkin was so cool and I was so proud of it until I saw B's M&M and M's prisoner with the name B. Headed. I thought the B. Headed was the best idea I had ever had. I felt like the funniest person alive when I came up with that stroke of genius! How M came up with that idea, I'll never know 😉.

Halloween was a raging success. We had bat girl, two army guys and a little fairy. It didn't take long for A to understand the idea of trick-or-treating. Pretty soon she was wanting to run with the other  kids. The best part was hearing her little "tank you!" as she ran away. She lasted one street before she was ready to go home. Little B was done at about the same time. I love that we were able to go out and still be home by 6:45. I had them changed and in bed on time. It. was. Amazing! M and K went longer with some friends. I was so happy to stay home where I was warmish. We keep it a balmy 67 in here which is a lot warmer than the 37 outside! 

This wasn't on Halloween. In fact, it has nothing to do with anything, it was just in the October pictures. This wasn't staged. One night we were reading scriptures. She grabbed her "scipers" and climbed up on the couch to follow along. Seeing it made my heart so happy! October rolled out along with Halloween and all the costumes. In marched November and a game of dodge ball. We were invited to play with a bunch of families from another ward. I love dodge ball! I'm so so bad at it so what happens is I cower in the back as everyone else, our offspring included, grab balls and throw them at each other. Well, B was standing in front of me and we were talking face to face. He moved just the exact micro-scoot needed for a ball to come flying and hit me right in my right eyeball. Holy crap it hurt! It was thrown by Thor. Got that image in your mind. The kid's name really is Thor and he can throw a ball like no one's business. I really thought that my eyeball had been pushed back into my head. It went all black and fuzzy. Thankfully B was right in front of me and he pulled me into a classroom at the church and looked at my eye. 

This was taken right after it happened. My eye was crying. I had no control of the tears that were coming out of this one eye. My head hurt more than my eye did so I took that as a good sign.

Day two looked worse but it didn't hurt anymore really. I felt a lot of pressure in my eyeball and when I looked down I could see a shadow at the top of my vision.

Day three it looked better but at church B was talking to an eye Dr in our ward telling him what happened. He told B that I should have it looked at to make sure there was no retinal tear. He said that would be worse case scenario but we need to rule it out. B asked him if I would be in pain if there was a tear. Dr. Martin Harris,( yes that's his real name, Martin Harris. We're surrounded by famous people! Thor and Martin Harris,) I digress, told him no. There wouldn't be any pain. He said that he wasn't working the next day but if we called any eye dr and told them that I got hit in the eye with a ball, they would rearrange their schedule to get me in. Of course I freak out. I freak out over everything. I don't know how many times a week B hears me say, "I really think it's cancer this time." Any bump, sore, scratch, weird spot, you name it, is cancer. So, I start planning my life as a blind person. Wondering how I'm going to get kids where they need to be and how I'm going to cook and clean. I didn't sleep much that night. 

Day four was the visit to the eye dr. I have so much anxiety about eye dr's. I would rather go to the dentist than the eye dr. However, it needed to be done so put on my big girl panties and into the office I marched. He looked at my eye and did dilation drops and pressure tests and a test of blinking lights. He told me that my eyeball was fine and that there was no sign of a tear.  No blindness or cancer! What a relief!

We went to Utah for Thanksgiving. The kids loved seeing their cousins, from both sides and B and I loved hanging out with our siblings and seeing nieces and nephews.

The guy in the back with no hair is my older brother. He flew in from Virginia. He brought his two boys with him. His girlfriend came too and she's adorable. I told her to aim higher as far as boyfriends go but I loved seeing them along with everyone else. We moved houses every couple nights switching between sides of the family. It was probably annoying for the families we switched between but we loved staying at both sides and playing games, going on group dates, girls nights and a BYU basketball game. My sister's and I may have skipped church on account of small children needing naps of course, so we could talk. I love my sister's. I need them so much! There's just something about sister's. We laugh, we cry, we tease, we talk and we just get it. I truly feel so blessed to have such amazing sister's; the two that were there and the other one's that live far away and couldn't come. We're all so different but that's what makes us great. We truly had a great time with both sides, don't misunderstand. My sisters-in-law are also wonderful and amazing. I was going to be so brave this time and not cry when we left, yeah that didn't happen. I was holding it in until my sister hugged me and then I cried. Then I did fine until the next morning when I had to say goodbye to BJ and S, B's younger brother and his wife. B and I have talked about moving back to Utah and we both agree that's not what we want. We love being our own people. We love that we don't live among the masses that call Utah home. That state is bursting with humanity. We feel like the swarms of people increase every time we go back. We love going and being able to love people. We just hate the crying when we leave because our hearts are breaking a little.

Before we went home, we went to see the lights at temple sq. When we lived there we would go watch them turn them on the day after Thanksgiving. I love going up there. B hates crowds so he doesn't love it but he lets me have my way. What a guy!

We made our way to a spot to take a family picture when the camera was met with an unfortunate accident and broke. Meaning, it got dropped. Not great. Oh well, our heart took a picture and we had a great time. We are so thankful for all the time people took to see us and hang out. We loved every second of it. Well, minus A getting almonds and having an allergic reaction. That was terrible but could have been worse. We loved our time there and until next time, adieu.

Boise or bust

You all remember the sad tail of the boat. That we had it, it didn't work, so we needed to return it. B's younger brother, BJ and his ever charming wife, S, said they would meet us half way to get said boat. What rock stars right? Well, the half way mark is Boise. So, to Boise we went. It was a short trip but we loved being able to hang out with them and their two littles.

We went to the old state penitentiary. It was pretty cool. B and I have been to Alcatraz so this seemed a little less exciting but it was still pretty cool. 

The offspring liked it. I do feel like once you saw one buildings of cells, you'd seen them all. However, in the different buildings, there were different signs of inmates that had been there. There was an 11 year old that was in jail for a few years. I don't remember why but he was there and they had his picture. I thought some of the stuff was really interesting.

I just really like this picture. I wish I had something funny to say that goes along with B sitting there, but I don't. I think that if I were a guard at a prison, I don't know if I would sit outside with the inmates. I think I would be too nervous that there would be a surprise attack on me.

This is a replica of what the inmates called the cage. It was 4x4x4. Inmates would sometimes spend days in this in the basement of a building. They would be put in here for ghastly offenses like, swearing. Crazy right?!

We went swimming and then we got pizza. I know pizza sounds like a normal activity. However, this pizza was the biggest pizza we had ever seen in our lives!

That bottom box in the large. Maybe they called it the giant, I don't remember. All I know is that it was huge!

Look at that! That's crazy. We had to go home the next day, so it was really short, but we loved seeing BJ and S and their kiddos. We are so thankful that they would meet us half was and that they had time to hang out with us.