What are you giving up for Lent?

The kids and I spend a bit of time in the car together each day. One morning we left for school and I forgot my coffee. I was a bit concerned. Tynli asked me if I drink coffee everyday. After I said yes she suggested I give it up for Lent. My response was I might not be a very good mom without coffee! After a thought I offered to give up coffee is she would be willing to give up sucking her thumb. Yes my 7 year old still sucks her thumb. We don't want it to be negative or demeaning or ugly in anyway so we do our best to encourage her to stop-maybe this could be the way! She thought for a second and said that it would be really, really hard to stop sucking her thumb. I said I understand, it would be difficult to not drink coffee. Right then in his most encouraging manner Porter said "Come on Tynli, is you stop sucking your thumb I'll stop eating my boogers!"

Not new, but cute!

My kids had a fun experience this Christmas. We made an appointment. with a local photographer in her studio with Santa. No mall, no line, just 15 uninterrupted minutes with Santa's full attention. It was such a great time, something I'm sure they won't forget too soon.

Two of my favorite people

This was Christmas Eve. Love, Love, Love them!

Tynli's Prayer

Tynli's class had to write their favorite prayer or compose their own for a class prayer book for a fundraising project. Here is hers:

Tynli's Prayer

God help the homeless. Please, please, please and please. Help my dog from dieing. Please God keep all of us alive and help my family. Help me save the world from danger. God I love you with all my heart. God help all people in the world. Help my class be quiet and get ready for 3rd grade. God almighty help me so I will live. Amen

That's My Girl!

(Tynli with her soccer trophy from Fall season)

At the beginning of the month Tynli tells me after school that she has won an award. As my mommy pride begins to set in I asked what kind of award. "Hmmm," she says, "Something that rhymes with ridiclioush." Hmmmm, now I think, what could that possibly be? So I tuck it in the back of my mind and figure I'll find out once we reach home and I look through her school folder.

Now let me back up a bit. My kids attend a Catholic school. The school's theme for the year is something about being a TEAM. Of course there is a scripture to go with it and if I weren't so lazy I'd look it up and post it here. The school also has a virtue that they focus on for each month. A few students from each class are chosen for exemplifying the virtue. They have an MVP (Most Virtuous Player) form they fill out and they are all displayed on a bulletin board. They are also recognized at the last school Mass of the month. So here I am thinking hard, what could the virtue of November be, what rhymes with ridiclioush?

A few days later I ask her if she found out what the virtue of the month. "Um grenarious?" "Um, No." Of course I laugh and conclude that the principal will surely mention it in her weekly newsletter. Nope, no such luck.

A few more days go by and Tynli comes home so excited, they have a new girl in her class and she got to teach her all about the virtue of the month. "Great, what is it?" "Hmm, grayious?" So if she can't remember the virtue, does she really exemplify it?

A few days later an entire school newsletter comes in the mail, the virtues for the school year are listed. I quickly glance to November. My sweet, precious, needs help with vocabulary, daughter is GENEROUS! I couldn't be prouder.

Halloween

Hope you had a great one! Love from Scooby, Shaggy, Velma and Daphne (who loved having long hair by the way).

Back to Blogging

Have you ever checked your New Year's Resolutions in November? Well I thought I should, just so I won't feel like a total failure on December 31. One of them was to blog more often. No I haven't done such a great job, doesn't mean I can't start right? So here I am giving it a go, if not for anything other than for my kids to have a few of my thoughts recorded somewhere that are more current than their scrapbooks. This post may not have anything informative, except a statement that there will be more to come!

First Day of School (3 weeks ago)

Tynli started 2nd grade and this is Porter's last year of preschool.

I can dress myself Mommy!

My Little Man

A few things have happened in my life recently that have helped give me a new outlook. So I am just trying to enjoy each day and embrace each moment. One little person helps me with this and doesn't even know it. Porter has got to be the sweetest little man ever. He calls me sweetie pie and tells me how wonderful I am! How can you not love that? He is always so grateful, saying thank you for everything and never forgets to say I wuv you Mommy. He is so precious and I am so blessed to be his Mommy or Mayday as he likes to call me.

Job, not Job like employment, but JOB, the man. . .

I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. Job 19:25

And if only this, but all of this, I know is true. My heart may ache or be filled with joy. Some days I experience both, but my Redeemer lives and on the last day I will see.

So the ecomomy has affected everyone in one way or another. So I say I am grateful that my husband has a job, like employment. But my heart is full because I can read JOB, the book in the bible and know that my Redeemer lives.

I am repetitive I know, not for your sake, but for mine. In a time of a lot of uncertainty all I need to be certain of is this.

ups and DOWNS . . .

Has life ever thrown so much at you that you don't know how much more you can handle? There are all these little things and some are big things affecting my life right now. It's one of those times where it's hard to keep my head up, my spirits high, a smile on my face. And then I read blogs. Odd? Not to me. I started reading the NieNie dialogues when she was on Oprah or else KSL news, not sure which. But she was in a plane crash and has burns over 80% of her body. Yet she gets up every day, she is a mom everyday. She is still recoverying and has surgeries and treatments ahead of her and she still gets up. While reading that blog I have stumbled upon others. One is by a woman named Molly. Her 2 year old daughter died after choking on an apple, at church! She too gets up, she too is still a mother, she still chooses to live. So in my dark time, when my heart is hurting, when my burdens feel extra heavy, I too will get out of bed. I too will be a mother, I too will live each day.

A Tale of Three Houses

This is my house in Arizona. A strange picture I know, because it only snows maybe if your really lucky like once a year. Which is why I took the picture in the first place. Alas this is my house, a house I love, a house I brought my infant son home to, a house made of dreams and of dreams come true. But now it is time to move on. We have been in Utah almost 9 months and this house is just that a house. No longer our home.
House #2


This is our house in Orem. Oh what a beautiful house it is, only remember we only lived in the basement. I loved driving down the private driveway and parking behind the garage. (The upstairs tenants got the garage along with an amazing professioal gas stove with double ovens and a pantry the size of a Master bedroom-it is Utah afterall). Although it was a basement, it was very nice. The cabinets were gorgeous, the granite was granite and the bathtub had jets. We also had a gas log fireplace that we turned on even in June (it was a rainy month and we are from Arizona). It also had this great fluffy carpet that felt so nice between my toes and never showed one ounce of dirt. Loved that carpet. Living with folks above us didn't turn out to be so fun though and alas we had to move on again.


House #3


Now, where we sleep is here. This house is not my dream home. I am not fond of the carpet in the dining room and master bath. Nor do I like the vinyl flooring in the kitchen. I have learned that big bedrooms are over rated and square footage is lost in stairs. But I do like having our own space, not sharing a home with strangers. I love that my family is reunited and we are living each day together. I love that we have grass and a lot of it and I love the view of the mountains:



It is beautiful! I recently found a sticker in a scrapbook store: "It's not the HOME I love, but it's the LIFE that's LIVED there."--Elise de Wolf. No this home doesn't have all the beautiful details I added to the house in Arizona, but it is HOME and I will treasure the life that we live here together.

Another week

So now that I've decided to blog again, I keep waiting for inspiration about something cute, funny or even amazing to share. And I guess I must keep waiting because it was just another week, just as usual, just as simple. Maybe for all of this I should be extra grateful. So I will post a picture of my darling daughter Tynli. She is 6 and three quarters and yes that three quarters is very important. She is good a math, and loves to create things. She is a sweet big sister, a helpful daughter and a loving pet owner. She's a good friend as long as you do what she says. (not really, well at least not all the time). She is not perfect, but I am blessed to be her mother, and for this I am truly grateful.

New Year's Resolutions

Okay, so it's been a while. Not sure if anyone even noticed. But I used to enjoy blogging, so I thought I would add it to my list of New Year's Resolutions. Maybe a funny thing on that list of typicals: Lose weight, be a better mom and wife, organize, etc. Blogging is a way for me to document our lives, which become our memories. So I guess even if no one else reads, we still have here to enjoy.

10 Years and going strong!

Brian and I celebrated our 10th anniversary last weekend with a trip to Jackson Hole and Yellowstone. My sister was so generous to keep my children for 4 days. Living far away from family for so long Brian and I never get to do this, so it was so great! We didn't do anything extravagant, but just enjoyed being able to spend time together. I loved Yellowstone. It was so beautiful and we enjoyed animal spotting. Yet when I got home I realized I didn't shoot one picture of any animals-oh well. We also got upgraded to a condo, don't know how or why, but it was fabulous. Besides the green granite in the kitchen it was as if I had designed and decorated it myself. It was so rustic and warm. Anyway I love you B and am so happy to spend my life with you!

Living in Utah

I guess it's been a while again. I'd really like to blog at least once a week and just haven't got to it. Adjusting to a new place can be hard on one's spirit. There are some things about UT that I love and then there are things that are just strange-or different and then there are things that I hate.
When I first got here I loved all the tulips! They were just blooming everywhere and so beautiful. I vowed that once I have my own house I will definately be planting tulip bulbs. I also love the mountains, they are so amazing and gorgeous and I use to think the Hualapais were sufficient and know now that I was just tricking myself.
There are things that just catch my eye or strike me as strange or maybe just different than where I've lived before. This is not intended to offend anyone so please just look at my thoughts as another perspective. The first thing I noticed was a whole other section in Wal-Mart. It took me a minute to put it all together but it's for food storage. There was even a man giving samples of milk, I thought it was an odd place until he showed me that it was powdered milk. Oh, I guess I thought you only used it in baking, I didn't know you actually drink it. (And maybe now you just think I'm dumb). Even more so Food Storage is a huge topic of conversation here. Yes I know I am in UT, but I bet every person I've met has brought it up in one way or another-well excluding the folks at my gym. Most interesting to me was the infomercial on freeze dried foods that will last up to 100 years and you never have to rotate your food storage. I guess if you're like me and not a Mormon you might feel as if some of this is all a foreign language too.
Another observation, no coffee shops. Sometimes a girl just really needs a good cup of jo-I finally found a Starbucks in Barnes and Noble. Yeah. I went with a friend to a Women's Conference at BYU. Did you know there is no caffeine on the entire campus? I would have paid $5 for Pepsi that day! Ha! Ha! Know that I am not critizing in anyway, just observing.
I remember when I first moved to AZ all the changes, the rock yards, the snowmen next to cactus at Christmas, or even the "snowman" made out of tumble weeds. I had to write them all down before they became my "norm". So I know that eventually "Food Storage" infomercials and mall being closed on Sunday will all be normal too.
Finally for the "I Hates". I hate that no one is concerened with time. If they say it starts at 6:30 it could be 6:45 or 7:00. The bus is supposed to come at Noon, sometimes it doesn't show up until 12:40. But then you get into traffic and everyone is in the biggest hurry to get where? I'm not sure because it doesn't matter if you're on time. And the biggest thing I hate is so many kids without carseats or booster seats or even wearing a seatbelt. Now I know I am making judgements about this, but it's safety and kids don't know better. Come on people!

Spring = Snow?

Things really weren't going my way. We had this crazy snow storm and one of the rooms in our basement apartment had flooded. The worst part about it is that it's the room that I was storing all of the boxes in. On top of that I had come down with a crummy cold and wasn't feeling well. I had to hustle though and get all my boxes moved or unpacked to avoid the water. So if that wasn't enough I wake up the next morning with a tree branch on top of my car. I didn't really want to cry so I just shrugged my shoulders and was grateful it didn't break the sunroof. At first all I could vision was melted snow flooding the inside of my car. So here's a few pictures of my "welcome" to Utah.

Easter

Easter is probably my favorite holiday. I just love knowing that Christ died so that I could be saved, so that I can have eternal life. What could be a better celebration than the resurection of our Lord? But honestly Easter was a little more challenging to me this year. I didn't really have a plan past unpacking, we hadn't even been here a week. I wasn't really into the other "stuff" either. But for my kids I went out and got dye and dropped 3 dozen eggs in Wal-Mart. Funny thing is that morning I had commented to B about how nice people are in Utah. Everyone is just really kind and considerate. Then I dropped 3 dozen eggs in line at Wal-Mart. I asked for paper towels and cleaned it all up, still my checker despised me. It was such a bummer, but I guess there's always an exception. So we went back the next day and got new eggs and had fun coloring them. We also went to the Orem City Easter Egg Hunt. Someone forgot to mention to me that you wear Winter Parkas to Easter Egg Hunts here. I know I grew up in Wyoming, but I've been raising children in Arizona for over 5 years. I have a few lessons to learn. Both Tynli and I froze because we were wearing sandals, it was 42 degrees and it was pouring rain. Not so much fun! Easter Sunday wasn't much warmer, but it was a great day to attend our new church. It is St. Francis of Assisi and so far we like it. Hope everyone else had a fantastic Easter too!

Tynli turns 6!

I can't hardly believe it, where has the time gone, but here she is a big six years old now! Wow! She decided on a carnival themed party and my friend Jacqui made the cake for us. It was so cool-it it had a spin to it! We had fun games, prizes, popcorn, cotton candy and Jacqui the master face painter. As stressed as I was trying to move and host a party I think it was sucessful. The wind made it chilly and we didn't get to decorate much, but other than that no complaints.