Sunday Thoughts

I haven't done very well this month blogging.
I noticed that I usually post about 7 times a month - poor April only has 3. Maybe 4.
I wonder if I'd ever be able to blog daily.
Speaking of blogging though, have you ever checked out your stats, under design?
Am I the only one that thinks that those numbers are totally inflated?
Well, I think they are.
I'm pretty sure I don't have that many people reading this.

Moving on.
I've been sick this week. Boo.
Mothers should not be able/allowed to get sick.
Sore throat, chest congestion, stuffy nose and just plain exhaustion.
I rarely get sick, so when I do, it's very annoying. 
Poor Henry though, he had pink eye AND strep this week.
I would have had no clue about the strep had I not taken him in for his massively red eyes.
He's a champ though and keeps plugging away.

We're inheriting a play structure next week.
We're very excited.
That means this week is a total overhaul on the backyard.
It wouldn't be a big deal except our yard is insane.
Insanely overgrown and daunting.
We're talking tearing bushes out; a complete overhaul.
It will be worth it and definitely about time.
Wish us luck.

We paid for Clay's orthodontics (orthodontia?) this week.
Glad it's out of the way.
Glad we didn't have to file for bankruptcy either.
It was close though. ;)


I just looked at the calendar.
We have 3 weeks of school left.
THREE.
In the meantime, swim team will start up before then and before we know it, we'll be full blown into Summer.
Where does the time go?

Lately, when I lay down with littles to go to bed, instead of only singing them to sleep I've been listening to conference talks.
My favorites: this one, this one and this one - which has a post coming soon all it's own.
I've listened to them several times now.
They're wonderful.
Not only do they knock Olivia and Henry out ;) but I love the fulness I feel after listening to them.

Have a great week!
We'll see if I can get another post up tomorrow, so poor April isn't so bare.

Changing that Frown Upside Down

Yesterday was a gorgeous day; the perfect day to BBQ. It wasn't until about 430 though that I whizzed off to Costco for the goods. Ryan texted a friend to see if they could join us.  After the goods were stuffed around a sleeping Henry in the Costco cart, Ryan texted me to let me know that our friends couldn't make it. ( Insert complete mood shift.)

Now grumpy, I still continue onto the next store. Making it home around 5:30 I started thinking of others I could invite. (Who invites people to dinner at 530?) Now, I'm a complete grump, angry that I hadn't taken action sooner in the day. Meanwhile, I'm praying as I unload the groceries that I can work myself out of this bad, bad mood.

Putting groceries away, I shrugged and shrugged the ideas of people I could invite. It was getting so late.

6:09 I get a text from a friend about Wednesday. I shoot back,

Getting ready to bbq - have you guys eaten?

N0--we're freaking starving. What can we bring?


Everyone (me) is happy again. I rush to get things ready and in no time we have friends in our house and a person for (almost) each kid to play with. It isn't long before my friend gets a call from her oldest daughter. She's coming with her boyfriend. Sweet, the more the merrier (and now I get to meet the boyfriend.)

We start eating. We eat with our friend and another teenage daughter inside while all the kids are eating on the deck - probably to spy on the oldest daughter. ;) They eventually come in a join us. Ryan mentions family home evening and the oldest daughter explains they have to go. Ryan teases and says they can't go before the lesson.

We tease back and forth but then gather the children inside for the lesson. Sweet oldest daughter is now shifting a little in her chair not ecstatic about doing this with her boyfriend who doesn't really know much about Mormons. Oldest daughter herself isn't too sure about the church right now.

Ryan and my friend move to the living room with all the littles. I stay back at the table with the two teenage daughters and the boyfriend. Ryan starts the lesson about prayer and moves on to the Joseph Smith story. Not long after, I watch the boyfriend move with his girlfriend to the couch to hear more.

Impressed, I'm still sitting with the younger teenage daughter trading scripture references, But just as we promised, short lesson, big treat.

We finish and give the kids their ice cream. They go running off outside. Now we've all moved to the living room. The boyfriend, still on the couch, says he wants more lesson. (Big smile.) Ryan asks what he wants to know. Ryan shares about the Restoration of the Gospel. Being a fairly religious person himself, Boyfriend still wants to know more. Ryan asks if he knows why we're called Mormons. Ryan then introduces and explains the Book of Mormon and gives him a copy.

Best night ever.

That's the to-the-point-version of the evening, but God hears our prayers. My prayers and your prayers. He cares about me and my bad moods. He cares about you, too. If you've forgotten that, fix it. :)

Ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto to you.

Wedded Bliss

You know when you're part of an occasion that is just so wonderful you don't know how you'll return to daily life again?

That may be a little dramatic, but this past weekend was one of those;
watching my sister get married.

Ashley, Reece & Travis, Blake

Ultimate joy

I couldn't be more thrilled
Such a sweet, sweet family.

Travis & Blake
I think this picture is one of my favorites.

A Beautiful Bride

The reception was absolutely gorgeous - my mother is amazing.
I snapped some pictures (with my phone. lame.) before we had finished setting up and moving things around, but it was absolutely stunning. I tried to convince my mother and sisters that we need to go into business together. It looked beautiful and we had a ball working together.


Congratulations, Beckett Family!

Making it to the Zoo

We went to the zoo last week...
On the last day of Spring Break - for the entire city.
It was a mad house.
It took me 30 minutes just to park.
Even then it was a made-up space.

Luckily, we were with great company or else I would have turned around and driven the 30 minutes back home.
Ah, the difference wonderful family and great friends make. Seriously.

I didn't lose anyone and although people would stare when Henry would scream leaving EVERY animal, we made it.
(Dragging him or stuffing him in the stroller against his will.)

And we'll go back (certainly not with the rest of Denver) because the kids loved it.
And I can suck it up. ;)

The only picture I snapped
Henry and cousin Ethan

Busted

I could hear them in their room.
Most likely undoing everything I'd just tidied up.

Surprisingly, they were not making a mess.
Until Henry decided to chuck everything OFF the dresser.

I still wonder how he got up there.
Olivia claims he climbs up the laundry hamper, off the right.
I'm not convinced.
However, no drawers are open and with her tiny self there is NO WAY she can heft him up there.
An unsolved mystery for now...


Until they're BUSTED again.

Ready for Summer

Last week we had such lovely weather. Warm and sunny with temperatures in the 70's. Perfection. I think one day we even hit 80. I know!

This week started out pretty chilly. Our predicted snow (or rain) never came, but the temp certainly took a dive. Unphased by the change, look what these hooligans did yesterday. I thought about stopping them, but I didn't. Somethings they just need to learn on their own, right?

Yeah, it was 45 degrees - with a chilly, chilly wind.

I think we're ready for summer.

For the First Time

Bonus: I even hit the target a few times.

Speaking of Teeth

Miss Kaycee finally lost her first top tooth.

And guess who is visiting the orthodontist on a regular basis . . .
Palette expander scheduled for next month.
Let the REAL FUN begin.

Oh Henry!

This little guy fell and hit his mouth on our bamboo step. His hands were preoccupied with a sippy cup that slid over the step, leaving his mouth to take the blow. I scooped him up and waited for the blood to come. Surprisingly, it didn’t come as soon as I thought, nor with the amount I imagined in my head.

I laid him back on our bed when I saw a bit of blood in his mouth. I assumed it was his attacher-thing (he’s torn that before). I lifted his lip and to my horror, his tooth was gone! I ran back over to the step to see if it had been knocked out there, but I couldn’t find anything nor realized that he had hit the step so hard. I was right behind him and saw it all happen. I looked again and could see a bit of his tooth. The root?

I called Ryan, controlling tears and he called our pediatric dentist. She was out having just had surgery, and the other dentist was out of town. They gave us a referral to another pediatric dentist. I thought about calling our dentist but I knew he was with his family in Disneyland. (How dare all these dentist leave at the same time.)

I went ahead and made the call to California and our dentist said to make an appointment with that ped dentist. It wasn’t necessarily and emergency situation, but if they had to extract any part of the tooth, they’d want to do it before it abscessed. Barf. I asked about the possibility that it was shoved back up into his gums, but was told that that was pretty rare and again, I didn’t think he’d hit that hard. And, he hadn’t cut his mouth at all, either. Weird.

Here he is getting an x-ray (which we had to do twice since after the first one, they’d lost it by the time we got back to the exam chair).

Henry was a champ and let the dentist check everything out in his mouth. Again, I asked if the tooth had gone back up. ‘Unlikely’ was the response.

Well as it turned out, Henry does still have his tooth. He hit it just right to knock it back up- and without hitting any other teeth. I’m pretty relieved he still has it and all we can do now is wait for it to come back down. We won’t know if it did any damage to adult teeth until they come in. So, we have a good 7-8 years to see. I’m good with that.

Right after his appointment we hit Cold Stone. It was right there.

He didn’t start swelling until he woke up the next day. It wasn’t too bad either, but so sad to see his face puffy for a couple of days. (Up his left side, up to his eye.)

His missing tooth – 2nd on the left.

Hopefully we won’t see this happen again - this kid is everywhere and falling all the time. But, he's still the happiest 19 month old around.

Oh Henry!

A Must Read

Have you heard of this? Dressing Your Truth - Discover Your Personal Beauty Profile

My sweet visiting teaching companion, Gwen, introduced this to me. She was very excited about it and was loving the results. I was pretty skeptical at first, (I think it was the beauty profile part, but have now learned it's really the energy profiling), but found that I couldn't stop thinking about it. Being bit of a cheapskate, after another friend bought the book, I kept asking to look at it. (I now own my own copy.)

In the book, the author and developer, Carol Tuttle, suggests 4 different beauty or energy types:

Type 1 - The bright, animated woman who says, " I have an idea.."

Type 2 - The soft, subtle woman who says, "What do we need to know and do to make the idea possible."

Type 3 - The rich, dynamic woman who says, "Let's go to work and get it done!"

Type 4 - The bold, striking woman who says, "Here is how we can make it better and here is how we can duplicate it."

Any idea which one you may be?

I've learned that we are all 4 types, but we lead with a dominant type, or expression. I've learned everything from personality traits, thought and feeling processes, communication, behavior tendencies, body language, and even physical features! A-mazing. Every woman should own this book.

Not to sound too overly dramatic, (like I haven't already..;) but this book has opened a new world to me; understanding my husband, each one of my children, my siblings and my friends, but mostly myself. I thought that I was 2 other types before I finally figured out what type I dominantly expressed.

YOU NEED TO READ THIS BOOK.

I've learned that I can not only really FEEL like myself and EXPRESS myself, but I can DRESS myself and bring out that true nature.

For Valentine's Day, Ryan bought me the course.

Read the book.
Then let me know so we can talk. More info here.