Derek turned 9!

Ah, for crying out loud! I never posted for Derek's 9th birthday and now it's already Kaleb's 12th! So, I'll post about Derek's 9th first.


Derek turned 9 on July 3. He was so excited to be 9, it was fun to be infected with his anticipation and enthusiasm. His day was on Sunday this year, so we attended church and had a small party here at home since all the local family was out of town. Later in the week we got together with Mom and Dad Scott, Brennan and Tracie, and cousins for a celebration for Derek and Emree. Emree is my niece and she turned 4 on July 5th. They both chose to eat at "The Habit" downtown and had a great meal. Then we went to Mom and Dad's for cake, ice cream, and gifts.

The big birthday day was the 9th of July when Derek was able to invite a small number of friends to a pool party at Avila Hot Springs. It was so much fun! The kids all had a blast! They even loved the cake despite the fact that the snack bar smashed the cake on accident. What's a party without one thing just not working out right, right? :)

So, it was a big birthday celebration for Derek!

Here's 9 reasons I love Derek so extraordinarily:

1. His inclusiveness of all around him.
2. His infectious laugh.
3. How much he loves learning about business matters with his dad.
4. How he could sell a plain Popsicle stick to anyone, it's hard to say "no" to a little face like his.
5. His desire to get everything done perfectly.
6. How much he loves everything and everyone with his whole heart.
7. He loves reading, as long as he doesn't have to sit for too long. :)
8. How analytical his mind is, especially in Math.
9. When I think of his smile and handsome little face, it makes me smile!

Sure love you Derek! You are such an amazing person, friend, and child! Thanks for being a part of our family!!!!

Swimming

Ok, a funny story I have to share with you all! Just yesterday (was that seriously just yesterday?) the boys and I went swimming at Sinsheimer Pool. Derek, Logan and I were in the ladies room getting changed (I didn’t have to change), minding our own business, when all of a sudden those sweet innocent boys got a first hand glimpse of a ladies external anatomy. The funny thing is, as they were trying so hard NOT to look at her, they had these looks of, “Holy cow, she’s naked!!!!” on their faces. After we left the changing room they both looked at me and said, “That was gross!” Hahahaha!!! I just looked at them and said, “Well, it’s a natural thing and there’s nothing wrong with her getting changed. And not all ladies look exactly the same.” Derek then proceeded to say, “Ya, mom, you don’t look like that! You look much better, right?” I just said that I didn’t sag quite as much as she did. :) Ahh, so funny.

This experience doesn’t end here, when Kaleb and Tyler found us at the ball park (Derek and Logan had to get to Jr Giants just across the street) they said there was a man that was naked in the shower: in the mens room (which is fine and dandy), so they couldn’t shower…lets just say it was a bit awkward for them. Hahaha. I guess Kaleb couldn’t stop laughing and Tyler kept trying to get him to be quiet…can you imagine? Oh, to live in a world where privacy just doesn’t matter to so many. I thought the woman in the ladies room would have been a bit more considerate, but I guess you learn something new every day!

I have mixed emotions about this experience. I’m glad the younger boys now know what a woman’s body looks like since they aren’t seeing mine naked EVER, they were a little repulsed by said naked body, so that makes me happy, too! I think it’s hilarious how all of this played out. And now Kaleb and Tyler know what to expect in the mens room. I’m not sure which I’d rather have Derek and Logan see…because I can’t control those boys in a room I can’t go in. They need a family changing room in that place!!!

Mother's Day

Seriously...where did April go?? Time is flying by faster than I can keep up with!!

I've had the most wonderful Mother's Day yet! I was able to attend the Temple yesterday with Mom and Dad while Will stayed home with the boys so I could go. I had a fabulous dinner of Dungeness Crab with M&D that was the best I've ever had. When I got home the boys and Will had scrubbed the Van (it was sooooo dirty it took them over 1 1/2 hours), fun gifts were awaiting me, and there were lots of hugs, smiles, and loves. This morning I woke up to waffles, eggs, bacon and hot chocolate, tons more hugs and loves, and lots of "Happy Mother's Day" wishes. This afternoon I got lunch made for me and soon I'll be heading over to Mom and Dad's house for family dinner. I feel so blessed to be the mother of 4 amazing boys. They make me so proud to be their mom! I am so grateful for my amazing husband, who did all those fabulous things all the while feeling pretty lousy and is now sleeping peacefully next to me, at least for a little while.

A little catching up needs to happen, but I think I'll save that for another day...I want to go spend some time with those amazing boys that give me a reason to wake up every morning!

Happy Mother's Day to all my amazing friends, sisters, and moms!! I love you all!! I love that we all can be mothers, because we all make a difference in children's lives, whether they are ours by birth or not.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

We had a yummy naturally green dinner tonight. Salad with only green vegetables, baby bok choy, green pears, kiwi, and broccoli. It was gone in no time and I had to start cutting more fresh food up for those still desiring more. :) We hope everyone has had a fun and safe St. Patrick's Day!

Great FHE tonight

In Matthew 5:48 it states: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." And it's cross reference for "perfect" is Doctrine and Covenants 67:13 it says: "Ye are not able to abide the presence of God now, neither the ministering of angels; wherefore, continue in patience until ye are perfected."

Perfection is not something we are going to reach in our mortal life. The Lord wants us to live our lives so we can return to Him and live with Him in the Celestial Kingdom. That is where we reach our state of perfection. What a great Family Home Evening we had tonight discussing this topic with the boys.

YES!!

Will got a job! Will got a job! Will got a job!! :)

Happy, Happy Birthday!!

Logan, sweet Logan, is now 6 years old! When I woke up and told him happy birthday he said, "I can't believe I'm 6!!" He's been counting down the days and weeks for this day! He was able to go to school today, thank goodness. He's had a fever for the last 4 days. I was so glad he was fever free this morning! It would be so sad to miss school and not be able to see all your friends.

My amazing Logan is such a blessing to have in our family. I am so grateful he was sent to us. His loving charm still catches so many peoples hearts. He's our angel, with a bit of a temper and silliness, sent from above!

Happy Birthday my amazing Logan!

Here are just a few of the reasons why I love you!

1. Your silly disposition, loving to make others laugh
2. Your intelligence and memory
3. How easily you come out of your angry funks, still
4. Your desire to ALWAYS be playing with a friend from school
5. How you know what you want and can voice to anyone exactly what you want
6. Your knowledge of good and bad, Christ, and the gospel!
I love you little man!!

New Insight

2 Corinthians 12:9

"And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me."

Amen!!

CS Lewis

I just finished reading "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe". It's been so long since I read this book, I loved comparing the movie to the book. They did such a great job on the movie in staying true to the story in the book. I found one of my favorite parts, which is representing the Savior's sacrifice:

"The Hags made a dart at him and shrieked with triumph when they found that he made no resistance at all...they rolled the huge Lion over on his back and tied all his four paws together, shouting and cheering as if they had done something brave, though, had the Lion chosen, one of those paws could have been the death of them all. But he made no noise, even when the enemies, straining and tugging, pulled the cords so tight that they cut into his flesh...
"Another roar of mean laughter went up from her followers as an ogre with a pair of shears came forward and squatted down by Aslan's head. Snip-snip-snip went the shears and masses of curling gold began to fall to the ground...And they surged round Aslan, jeering at him...as they worked about his face putting on the muzzle, one bite from his jaws would have cost two or three of them their hands. But he never moved. And this seemed to enrage all that rabble. Everyone was at him now. Those who had been afraid to come near him even after he was bound began to find their courage...
"At last she drew near. She stood by Aslan's head. Her face was working and twitching with passion, but his looked up at the sky, still quiet, neither angry nor afraid, but a little sad."

This passage helps me remember how Christ was so mild and accepting of his fate, his fore-ordination. I also learn from this that I need to bear my struggles with more patience and acceptance, knowing that good things will come eventually. It is part of life to have challenges and things that make us feel like giving up. Christ set the example for us, and I should bear my burdens with more long suffering and solemness. I pray for that ability!

And it has hit!

Tyler came home from school last Thursday with a fever and just wasn't feeling very good. Sunday Kaleb came down with it. Today I was volunteering in Derek's class. When I called him back to do his Math facts test he said he wasn't feeling very good. As I finished up I asked him how he was feeling and he said he still wasn't feeling good. I took him to the office to see what his temperature was, 100.7. Dang it all! That's three of them now, and I'm feeling under the weather, too! I'm just waiting for Logan to say he's not feeling well, and Will keeps saying he needs to get out of this illness ridden home. :) I sprayed everywhere I could with Lysol when I got home to hopefully kill some of these icky germs.

I get a daily inspirational quote sent to me from the Biggest Loser site. It's amazing how many times it coincides with what I am dealing with day to day. Here's one from yesterday:

"Life is not the way it's supposed to be. It's the way it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the difference."

– Virginia Satir

Oooooh these words are so true for our family right now. We're just trying to make the best of our days. I keep looking for the good as the days go by. We are blessed in so many ways. I am so grateful for my amazing family! I am blessed to have the joy of the gospel in my soul. We have a piano in our home to help us strengthen our talents and expand our knowledge. I love having a piano to play whenever I feel like playing! We are keeping it for a friend while she is living in Hawaii for a few years. Yay for pianos!!

Uplifting Sabbath Day

What a wonderful day we had at church today! Tyler, Kaleb and Will stayed home from church since the older boys aren't feeling well. So it was just Derek, Logan and myself. Amazing talks were shared in Sacrament meeting (by Sister deGroot, Sophia May, and Bishop Brundage). Sister deGroot shared the importance of fasting, and really internalizing a fast, rather than going through the motions. She emphasized that we should prepare ourselves for fasting rather than: stuffing ourselves the night before so we aren't hungry as early the next day, forgetting it's fast Sunday at all, sneaking in a little cereal in the morning as we feed our children breakfast, and forcing those children who turn 8 to immediately start fasting because it can be more detrimental than helpful. I have been guilty of all those so often, it is hard to remember when I've actually prepared myself for a fast appropriately. I know I have, it's just been those days that I have full purpose in heart, when things are hard or someone is ill and needs a little extra prayer/thought. I need to help teach my children about why we fast, how we prepare to fast, and how to enjoy a fast; knowing all the blessings that will come to them or to whomever they are fasting for. They understand some of these concepts on a basic level, but I know they could know so much more.

After Sacrament meeting the boys and I headed to Primary. I love my calling...and I haven't always been able to say that about the calling I have. I am the Primary Chorister, and LOVE singing with the kids. I had this calling when I was pregnant with Kaleb, and did not have the same feelings. :) I love looking at those kids' faces, seeing them smile at me (or wiggle around) and hear them sing the songs we are learning for the Primary Program we'll have at the end of the year. Today I introduced our stick picture animals and sounds to sing with the songs. This was a new concept to this Primary and they LOVED singing like a sheep, bee, bird, and cow. It's such a great way to have them recall the words when they have to switch between baaing and singing the words to the music! It was so cute to see them so excited to participate in the music today!! I wish I could have recorded them so you could see how excited they were. "Can I hold the picture?", "Let's do it again!", and "Can we do the bzzz-bzzz to this song, too?" were priceless!!

Today was a much needed day. I'm also handing my worries back over to the Lord. He will guide us the direction we are supposed to go, He always has. Stressing and worrying about our situation is not going to help it get any better. So, I'm trusting in the Lord and doing all I can, and that will be enough!

News

They say that no news is good news...this is not always the case. Well, for as much as I try to stay upbeat in my posts...it's time to be down-beat. Will's been out of work for 3+ weeks now, and the job we thought he had in the bag fell through. We're both sending out resume after resume. I'm ready to hit the streets next week, not at a corner, silly, filling out applications wherever is possible (except fast food). I think I'll hit up Costco and Bed, Bath, and Beyond; whatever will bring in some money. We've made it through this before, but this time it hit really hard as we are still paying to live in Nashville and here in SLO. Oh, the joys of this marvelous economy. Even if you get a job, it's not guaranteed you'll have a job 2 months later. We're all hanging in there, but could use some extra prayers from our super awesome friends and family!!

Tyler's in the double digits now

My amazing Tyler turned 10 on January 13th! He's so much fun to have around! He tries to be as goofy as possible, sometimes in wrong situations, but he's such a card it's hard to get mad at him. Will was in Seattle for Tyler's birthday so he ended up with quite a few nights of celebration to make up for Will being gone. On Tuesday we went out to eat at Franks with Mom and Dad then we came back to the house to hang out for a while. On Thursday Mom and Dad took us out to McDonald's for dinner (totally unexpected) and I had purchased some mini chocolate chip muffins from Costco to give him a little birthday celebration that night. He got a couple small gifts from his brothers that night, too. It was a lot of fun!


I made his birthday cake Saturday night so we could have it for the Sunday whole family celebration. Well, Will and Logan ended up getting sick on Sunday so we postponed the celebration for Monday at lunch time since it was MLK Jr day and there wasn't any school or work for the men. Tyler kept asking for Nintendo DS games for his gifts, well, I had something else in store since he had grown out of his bike he got 3 years ago...I think he was pretty happy with his gift! :) We had a great day and lots of wonderful small days of celebration. He is one special kid!!

10 Reasons I love Ty:
1. His sense of humor
2. His desire to the best he possibly can
3. How he wants to take on more responsibility
4. How he can remember whatever he chooses to remember
5. His sensitivity
6. He follows examples very closely, so it keeps me on my guard to speak with a kind voice always (at least I try)
7. His understanding of the gospel and desire to choose the right
8. He loves having friends and feeling loved by them
9. How much he loves being so close to his Gramma and Grampa
10. His desire to please the Lord

I love you so much Tyler!!!!