Gentle Reminder

I read this last night, printed it and have hung it around my house as a reminder.

"You can only correct your children...in kindness, by love unfeigned, by persuasion, and reason,"

Joseph F. Smith

Did i mention I am dealing with a 2 1/2 yr old with attitude who doesn't listen to me? So I need this reminder big time! BIG TIME.

Gratitude Turkey

(pretend it's not a forced smile)

I have so many things to be grateful for, first off I want to thank you all for your caring words. It's really nice to feel so loved by so many friends and family and for the phone calls too. We are doing great! I love this turkey that Alex is holding, we made it one night and wrote down all the things we are grateful for on his feathers. It adds quite a festive touch to my all ready "homemade" Thanksgiving decor. I am grateful for family and for Proposition 8 and for all the people in CA that have supported it and are now being persecuted, it's so sad and so wrong. True pioneers. Pray for them. We are lucky that the sanctity of marriage is being protected, for now. I am gratful for a hard working and loving husband despite my inability at times to show him. For a beautiful home and warm clothes and other material things we enjoy. Of course I am grateful for good friends, old and new! For my testimony and deep faith in Jesus Christ, without that I think there would have been some times in my life where I really would have faltered. For a healthy body, healthy and beautiful children. For liberty and freedom. For all the people who have gone before me and paved the way for me to enjoy the things I do today.

Thank you.

Life, loss and love

Life is full of blessings, some immediate and others delayed. This last week I miscarried and have really counted my blessings. It's a miracle to get pregnant, have a healthy pregnancy and then give birth to a beautiful and healthy child. A miracle. Really. I have two beautiful blessings in my life, Alexandra and Samantha. I have mixed emotions over this and I am doing okay, truly. It was so exciting to get pregnant - even though unexpected and we started thinking about life being chaotic with babies 14 1/2 months apart and hoping for a baby boy or of course another lovely daughter. I can say though.....that I am grateful I will still have my sanity next year. My organs can continue to move back in place since Samantha and also my waist line! I know we will have more children in the future and that the Lord is looking out for us, my faith runs deep. I never even thought that something like this could happen to me. It just goes to show that what will be, will be. Thank you my dear friends and family for your love and concern, we are doing well.

xoxo

Lazy Scrapbooking

Is it possible to be so busy and feel so lazy at the same time? For the last few weeks we have been busy with fun outings, family in town, crafting, deocrating, cleaning, exercising and napping! By the end of the day, I have no desire or energy to blog. So, without further adieu here is my attmept to cram all our memories into one post.

Cornbelly's Corn Maze at Thanksgiving Point

Chris and his brother Ken re-enacting Napoleon Dynamite, and no joke the same song that plays in the movie during this scene was playing on the loud speakers. Too perfect!

Chris' cousin Ryan, more like a brother, and his wife Britney and baby Aspen stayed with us last weekend for Halloween. They came up from Vegas and loved the fun things we did, they said there really isn't family stuff in Vegas. I think it's going to be a tradition each year.

Chris and mini-me on the cow train. We went with all of Chris' family and had a blast. I had no idea this place existed.

This was too cute. Alex with her girl cousins Abby and Elli playing on the slides. They would all go down together on their bellies and crash into each other at the bottom. They were giggling so hard and having such a fun time together. I needed my video camera to capture it.


Halloween Night

Samantha the strawberry, Alex the spider princess (used to be witch) and Aspen the Easter Bunny on Halloween night.

The three princesses: Alex, Ava and Helen.

Alex and Aunt Jo making silly faces. Alex is such a little ham lately, I was like that when I was little. I was always acting silly to entertain people.

Gardner Village

We went to Gardner Village with Ryan and Britney on Halloween to show them the witches, we got there at 4:00 and it was closed for people to get home to trick-or-treat. Kinda nice when nobody is there!

Wheeler Farm

I love this picture, Alex and Helen running away from Laci and I holding hands. We went to Wheeler Farm to feed the ducks and eat lunch with Laci and her girls and Riann and Tate.

Chillin' being a good baby as always!

She dumped out all her feed and was swarmed! Those ducks are agressive and loud. At one point I thought they were going to nibble on Sam in her stroller.

Doing pony tricks. Too confident.

Family Night

FHE. We carved pumkins that rotted the next day due to warm weather and ate carmel apples. A perfect fall evening!

The scary faces.

I've been ramping up my food storage and grinding rice for gluten-free flour. I have a scone recipe that turns out perfect and now I think I'll make some tomorrow as I'm remembering their yummy goodness!

Gardner Village with friends

Another pony ride. Love this picture with her tutu. She loves animals and is pretty fearless. Sometimes it's NOT a good thing. Have you ever slapped your child to get a message through like 'you almost got hit by a car' that's why you need to listen to me when I am screaming your name and running after you!!!!! Confession. It wasn't out of rage, more like 'what will make her know I'm serious?, plus she had her tutu on and wouldn't feel a spank. Do all 2 yr olds lack listening skills? It's like having a cat for your child. Please help if you have any tips. I pray everyday to be a calm mother and I'll go 2 or 3 days and I think, WOW, I'm cut out for this, I'm so calm and loving. Then the next day I lose it and I wonder if my children are going to resent me when they are older. I've been on a good streak as of late. Crossing my fingers.

Two cute witches.

The gang. Kelly, Charlene, Victoria and I took all our little people to Gardner Village for GNO. After that day we decided a real GNO is in order.

My mom had all the grandkids over for cookie decorating. I had made some for our friends in the neighborhood but then Alex got her finger and poked all of them. Ahh, kids!

We've been busy enjoying the nice weather. I fear November won't be as productive or fun since it's SO cold now. It was snowing this morning and we had to cut our morning walk short and ran home. I might be more inclinded to blog now.

I'm a Super Sleuth

Almost two weeks ago I put 2 and 2 together while I was out for my morning walk with my friend Riann. I told her I was having cramps the last two days and I only get them when I'm pregnant.



I then asked her, "when do you ovulate?" I know, I should know this but I'm usually on the pill. I went off birth control mid August so I could do HCG and lose weight. When I got home from my walk I counted on my calendar and figured out that on day 15 the magic happened.....seriously, are we a couple of teenagers? I then read online about HCG and pregnancy and Dr. Simeons says that when you get pregnant (which isn't uncommon on HCG and I'm wondering why I didn't know that before) you stop losing weight. I had not lost weight for a week and now it's stopped completely. I was convinced I was pregnant. I then stopped losing my hair, have some mean gas, want to take a nap at every opportunity and got a zit! Oh and did I mention I'm a week late?



Oh yes my friends, I am pregnant!!!!!






And yep, Samantha is only 6 months old! We are excited and grateful but were planning on having more of a span between kids. Oh well. :)

Fall Harvest

The other day Chris came home from work and loaded us into the car for a suprise. He drove us to our local pumpkin patch to pick this years front porch decor. Alex walked around looking for the perfect pumkin.

Finally found it. She was cold and just wanted her daddy to hold her.

Sam was warm and apparently interested in something on the ground.

Alex a little unsure about the corn maze and she was cold! (we forgot her jacket)

Yesterday my cousin gave us peaches from an orchard where he and his family picked an entire truck beds worth of FREE peaches. (Thanks Becca!) Last night my family came over and we canned our little hands off.

Yummy freezer jam, my favorite.

I was busy yesterday, I also made these felt bows with my sister Di for our little girls. I know you are probably thinking that I'm pretty domesticated but the truth is we weren't about to pay $14 for something that we could make for less than $1! Some people would call it cheap, I call it being frugal and creative.

This morning Chris picked the rest of our unripened tomatoes due to a minor snow storm.....hmm, gotta find something to do with them now.

The Observer

The last few days Alex has been saying the cutest things. For example, the other night as I was getting her ready for bed she pointed to some homemade butterflies that are on her walls and said, "Look Mom, utterflies, so peetty, you make it? Thanks Mom!". Then yesterday she pointed to some plates I have on a wall in my kitchen and said, "So peetty, you make it?". I told her no and then she pointed to some frames on the counter that say Boo and she said, "you make it?". I said yes and then she continued to point to the mice, the broomsticks and other things I have made and asked"you make it?". I thought what an observant little two year old that she notices all the things I've been making the last few weeks. My favorite part was when she thanked me for the pretty butterflies in her room!


Some of the thrifty halloween things I've done, taken from Pottery Barn and Martha Stewart. Gotta love great ideas!

This was actually from this site, and so easy and cute and could be for a nursery or childs room. They are cuter than this picture leads you to believe, for some reason my camera would not take a clear pic.

Cheap and easy. $1 pumpkins at Wal-Mart and orange glitter and craft glue!

These ideas are from Martha and so easy and inexpensive but have really made my house look festive for Halloween!

Alex pets the mice and talks to them.

Manthy - 6 months

This is my little fashionista, this was a good day because I actually changed her out of her jammies. Ahh, I'm such a good mom.

She is modeling her homemade babylegs. My friend Laci and I cranked out 15 pairs between Conference sessions on Saturday. I found a tutorial here if anyone is interested. We bought the socks at Wal-mart for $1.50 and at Target for $2.50 which beats paying $12 for the real babylegs.

This week Sam has started eating baby food, gumming baby crackers, sleeps thru the night 50% of the time, looks like she wants to crawl and is working on sitting up. She needs to be held more and needs to have more interaction and loves to giggle when I sing 'Old McDonald' or do anything else in her face. She is such a good baby and so much fun. Chris and I can't get enough of her!

And neither can her big sister.

A good day

There is nothing better than a happy child. Yesterday we went to Thanksgiving Point - and will be going back and back and back again since my MIL bought us an annual family pass.

Chris was helping Alex feed the Alpaca and it was tickling her hand, her giggle is so sweet. I asked her what her favorite part of the day was and she said "I feed the cows." She was petting every animal yesterday whether it was real or bronze!

Samantha really wanted to ride the horsies too!

Grandma Julia and the girls, we had a great time spending time with her playing, eating and shopping!

Learning and Lacking

This is me with a big smile on my face tonight for the things I learned and understood better. I'm talking about the Plan of Salvation. I taught Relief Society today on the very subject and was up until 1am reading an essay by Truman G. Madsen and discussing the topic with my hubby. It was so refreshing to feel alive as I studied and really understood the doctrine better - like it started applying to my life. I was fed. And because I was nourished by the word, I was weepy through my entire lesson! Oh well, the sisters are used to it, right? My attitude towards my trials has changed, I realize that I am not yet as Job - duh! And now my "thorns" seem really insignificant! Especially when compared to other people that are really suffering right now. I've been crying as I've been reading this blog and this blog over the last few weeks. I am blessed and I'm grateful for my health and the knowledge of the plan God has for me and for all of us. To learn more about my beliefs or to be enlightened, click here.

Now to complain. This is my crusty overtired face, well, it really looks way worse in person. I got 3 hours of sleep last night and couldn't fall asleep today while napping or atleast trying to nap. Because......

..this little cutie wakes up at the B-crack of dawn!!! Um yeah, 6 am comes in our room asking for milk. And she does that probably 4 times a week! Once she's up, she's ready to go. Not my genes.

And this cute baby has been sleeping through the night (finally!) the last 3 days but I don't feel it because of our early morning visitor! Oh the woes of being a mother to young children. Precious children. I am enjoying it. Really, even if the bags under my eyes would tell you otherwise. I love them and I love being a mother.

Mothergoose

Alex started pre-school yesterday. Well, it's more of a neighborhood babysitting club for two-year olds because let's be honest, at that age it's more about learning to share your toys.

These were taken after school, I think she's going to like it. I know I will.

Alex with her buddies Harrison and Tate. She's always out numbered but doesn't mind it. We gotta work on her smile, can you tell she is always saying cheese?