Eating spaghetti

Becca loves spaghetti. I used to give her the noodles without sauce, but once she found out about sauce she refuses to eat it without the sauce. I don't understand why kids have to smear it everywhere (eyes, forehead, etc) but at least she didn't get it in her hair this time.

Smelling flowers

I love the face Becca makes when she smells something. These flowers are on the dining room table - Becca's favorite place to be. She is always climbing up on the table and I don't even bother to get her down because she just climbs right back up. She'll spend 20 or 30 minutes on the table, and not even for the flowers, I only put them there yesterday and she's been table climbing for weeks now. The flowers are my valentine gift from Jeremy. They are tulips that just bloomed last week. They've come to the end of life and I need to throw them away, but Becca still enjoys smelling them.

The Power of Parenthood

Someday I hope to own a large Giclee version of each of these piece by Simon Dewey - they speak to my soul and I would love to stand in front of them and look at them every day. I think they are a beautiful and powerful reminder of the role of a parent in the life of the child. He might have been the Son of God, but even Christ needed parents who were kind and loving and who taught Him the ways of God.

Peter and the Wolf soundtrack

Peter and the Wolf is a classical music story. The characters in the story are represented by a different instrument in the orchestra.

I remember listening to this as a child and loving it. One nostalgic day as I was thinking about it I thought - I wonder if I can find that anywhere. My parents had it on a record and I didn't know if it would be available on CD. There were many to choose from and the problem became finding the right one - I wanted the version I grew up with. I couldn't find the same recording, but the one on the right, with Patrick Stewart as the narrator was the one I ended up getting, and it is good.
The first time I played it for my boys (mind you they are 5 and 3 years old) they complained and wanted me to turn it off. We were in the car driving back from Cedar City (45 min drive) and they had no choice but to listen. Since that first time of reluctant listening they are now avid fans. We have left it in the car and when we go places, even just on errands, the boys request to listen to it. This has been a great way to introduce them to classical music, they love it and I enjoy listening to it. Even though we've listened to it many times I never tire of hearing it.
I have my father to thank for my love of classical music. He had many records and in the evening time he would play them. Sometimes he would put his headphones on - probably so he could hear and enjoy it over the noise of 6 kids, but I'm glad he didn't always use the headphones. Exposure to great music and time are the equation for a lifetime love of wonderful music.

Aunt Sue Visits

Susan came to visit this weekend. I think she mostly used us a motel, but it was wonderful to have her here. Since she used to live here she has lots of friends and she went to the singles ward instead of church with us. Each night she was busy doing something. I'm glad she's busy enjoying being single.
Becca enjoyed having Susan around. When Susan would hold her, often she didn't want to be put down. The boys miss having Susan around and were very happy to have her come visit. Charlie told her that she had to stay for "lots more days".

Airplane Teeter totter

Jeremy saw this airplane teeter totter at Costco and knew that it was a must have for the kids. Besides bikes we don't have any outside play toys for the kids. When Jeremy called me and told me that he found a teeter totter that he wanted to get my first thought was "how boring". Teeter totters are so limited in what they can do that kids seem to bore of them quite quickly. Then he took me to Costco to show it to me and I was sold right away. This toy looked like lots of fun, it is way more than just a teeter totter. The steering wheel turns the propeller on the front and if you sit in the drivers seat you can sway the plane back and forth. The kids have lots of fun on it when neighbor kids come over - up to 7 kids can play on it at a time.

The other day I came home and the kids were running around outside and Jeremy was sitting in the drivers seat playing on it. Truly, from the moment he saw it I think Jeremy wishes he was the kid so he could play on it. The kids have enjoyed it, but I think Jeremy is the only one that loves it.

Homemade Bread

It's taken me a long time but I've finally found the perfect recipe for whole wheat bread. 100% whole wheat bread has alluded me for a long time, and after many failed loaves I am so happy I finally have a recipe that turns out perfect bread every time. - The secret is adding dough enhancer and high gluten flour. It's amazing that only a tablespoon of each of those mixed in with 10 cups of flour makes such a difference. The bread is light and soft and 100% yummy. I've tried for so long to get a good bread recipe because:

1 - store bought bread isn't very good - even the expensive kinds - they just aren't fresh
2 - store bought bread is so expensive - even the cheap white loaves (which have absolutely no nutritional value) are getting to be expensive
3 - The nutritional value of store bought bread isn't very good - even in the supposed "wheat" breads it's iffy as to how much whole wheat they use
4 - Usually the only "soft" breads are the white breads - and again nutrition is called into question
5 - There is just nothing better than fresh out of the oven bread with butter and honey - sink your teeth into that - and the smells - fresh homemade bread - permeating the house

I'm going to post my recipe on my other blog Healthy and Happy. It's my new blog that I've started to keep track of wonderful things that I find about health and well being.

My First Garden

Peas - started in a window box, which I will transfer to my garden outside very soon. The picture on the right are my tomato plants that I started. I hope they will thrive - nothing is better than fresh tomatoes - yum!









We are prepping our garden boxes with the "perfect soil". We used equal parts of compost, vermiculite and peat moss. We built the box (basically just railings to keep the dirt in) on top of existing soil instead of digging the dirt out. Doing a garden this way because it doesn't matter what existing soil is like, because you don't use it. Another nice thing is there is no rotertilling. With this soil you just add new compost to it and mix it in. This soil is very light and airy and is full of nutrients to encourage the plants to grow very nicely. I've never tried this method before - I've never tried any gardening method before - so I'm excited to see how it works out

Because I'm not using existing soil I can do this garden where ever I want. We have a place in the backyard we want to do out garden, but it isn't ready yet. Living in St. George has definite advantages to growing vegetables - I plant now (or within the next few weeks) and I start enjoying my harvest sooner. So we are starting our garden in the front yard. In the picture, the side of the lumber that Becca and Charlie are on will be filled in with soil and we will plant corn and peas and tomatoes. I haven't decided what else I would like to grow, but those for sure.

Cute Becca

Becca found this shovel and wanted to help with the digging. I thought maybe she would do it for a minute or two and then move on to something else, but I think she was there for a good ten minutes or so just digging in the dirt. What a great helper!
Becca loves being outside. When she brings me her jacket I know that she wants to go outside. Yesterday was a beautiful day and we were working in the yard. Becca had fun climbing on the plane teeter totter and digging in the dirt.

Becca put this hat on and was walking around knowing that she was cute. I pulled out the camera and she put on her best smile.

New Beginnings 2008

These pictures do not do justice to how good the room looked all decorated for our New Beginnings program we held on Tuesday night.
The theme for the evening was "Becoming a STAR" (STAR = standing for truth and righteousness). The rest of this post is from my journal entry the other night.

The New Beginnings program went very well. First, the room looked great. We used the Primary room and I wanted it to be more than “just” the primary room. Luckily my sister in law Cammy had her New Beginnings a few weeks ago and they had decorated extensively and their stuff coordinated very nicely with my theme. She let me borrow their stuff and it spruced up the room so much. We covered the tables in dark navy blue table cloths and two tables, in each corner, were just accent tables that we put center pieces on. The main table up front displayed the small star boxes that I had made for each of the girls. The theme for the night was “Becoming a STAR”, based on this year’s mutual theme, “Be steadfast and immovable always abounding in good works”. The desert table was very lovely. I borrowed some nice serving trays and a beautiful punch bowl from Aunt Joan, she has a lot of fun serving stuff, she loves to serve with flair. Each of the deserts were star shaped - 3 different cookies, I made sugar cookies, Amanda made peanut butter cookies with chocolate kisses on top, and Rebecca made cake cookies.
The best part of the night was the skit. I was nervous about it. It wasn’t a true skit, each of the girls had a part - but it wasn’t interactive with each other. They each had a part, 7 of them had one of the values to share a thought about and the others had a line from the Young Women theme to share a thought about. They each had to come up with their own words. I gave them a sentence, “share an experience about....” and they had to come up with it on their own. I was nervous as to how it would come out because we hadn’t rehearsed anything and I didn’t even really explain when or how they would share their part until the time of the skit. However, it couldn’t have been more beautiful. Each of the girls did an excellent job and I felt the spirit so strongly. The format of the skit was the older girls sharing about personal progress to the new Beehives. We had the new Beehives sit on the front row and as each girl came to do their part they stood in front of the Beehives and directed their comments to them. I was just in awe how wonderful it turned out. It was definately an inspired idea. The idea came together piece by piece - I knew I wanted to do a skit and have it set up the way we did it, but I had no idea what exactly to have the girls say, and I sat down a couple of times to try and “write” the skit, but nothing came. Finally Saturday night I knew I was out of time and needed to get something together so I could give it to the girls at church. I pulled out my Personal Progress book to get some ideas and inspiration, and I received some. I just typed out the scripture and quote from each of the first pages of each value, and then based my “share and experience” based on one of the value experiences of each value. It was very simple, not complicated, nothing fancy and left the majority of it up to the girls. They came through very nicely and it was a lovely program.
The program was exactly what I hoped for when I set my goals of what the night should be - Meaningful and Memorable and for me it hit on both of those. I think I will always remember this night and how well everything turned out and the beautiful spirit I felt - the love and peace and warmth that I felt was very refreshing and truly made it worth all the effort I put into planning and preparing this event.

Happy Valentines Day

Happy Valentines Day to everyone.

I think my kids have had a great day if the amount of sugar consumed equals happiness in proportion to sugar intake. The morning started off with a goody bag from Grandma Honeypots and they quickly ate all the treats - they didn't however eat all the cupcakes, so I had one of those. Then they each went to preschool and came home with lots of treats and sweets. I'm thankful to all those moms who put stickers and pencils with the valentine cards, instead of the candy and suckers. As soon as the boys got home they dumped out their loot on the floor and began eating. With is scattered all over Becca quickly found much to stuff in her mouth and got sticky from head to toe. She had her mouth full of heart shaped candy and would repeatedly pull one out to inspect it and then put it back in, which just added to the stickiness of her hands and face.

This picture is the valentine card that Charlie made for Grandma Taysom.

Valentine Tag

My friend Brittany Daw "tagged" me to answer questions about Jeremy and me. I cut and pasted her questions and then answered them.

How long have you been together? We met in November of 1999.
How long did you date? We dated for 3 months, broke up for a week, dated for another few weeks, got engaged and then married April 2000.
How old is he? Jeremy is 31, I am 31, his birthday is 6 weeks after mine.
Who eats more? Jeremy
Who said "I love you" first? I don't know - probably Jeremy, I'm not always verbal with my feelings.
Who is taller? Jeremy, by an inch or so. If I wear heels we are the same.
Who sings better? I do
Who is smarter? Jeremy is. I like to read, and he thinks I'm smarter, but he can always figure things out and knows so much about everything.
Who does the laundry? I do, however, when the clean laundry sits folded in the basket for days on end he takes pity on me and puts it away ( mostly because he ran out of things to wear).
Who does the dishes? Mostly me, but he does from time to time.
Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? We both have, currently he does, but we are not particular to any side - I usually like the side closer to the bathroom so I don't have to stumble as far in the night.
Who pays the bills? I do.
Who mows the lawn? Jeremy does most of the time. In comparison to what I had to mow when I was growing up, our lawn is a breeze - even if it is a push mower.
Who cooks dinner? Mostly me, but Jeremy fills in the cracks (I don't know when the last time was that I cooked every single night of the week, so to save himself from cereal or sandwiches he cooks something - usually a rice dinner).
Who is more stubborn? I don't think either of us are more stubborn than the other.
Who kissed who first? Jeremy kissed me.
Who asked who out? We met on an online dating site and met in person soon after and our whole relationship was in person, the computer was just the original meeting place.
Who proposed? Jeremy did.
Who is more sensitive? We are both sensitive, but to different things.
Who has more friends? Jeremy - he is a very friendly soul and invites people to do things. I meet people and am friendly with them, but don't have many true friends that I do things with.
Who has more siblings? I do, 3 brothers and 2 sisters. He has 4 brothers
Who wears the pants in the relationship? We both do, but I am willing to wear a dress and he is not!

Laundry room makeover

It seems like we always have to have a project in the works - sometimes we finish them sometimes we don't. Today it was the laundry room. We want to use one of the walls for food storage shelves, which required us to rearrange everything in the room. We have a front loading washer so we were able to stack the washer and dryer and free up the corner of the room to now accommodate coats and shoes and bags - (the stuff that used to talk up the whole other half of the laundry room, but now only takes up a corner) the laundry room is also our mud room (ie the catch all room).
It was quite the job because we had to remove the cabinet that was above the washer and dryer, since it would no longer fit with them stacked. Then I decided to go ahead a get rid of the build in shelves because they weren't going to work for the food storage. I think Jeremy had fun demolishing them. Now that everything was torn out it seemed like a good time to paint, seeing how the walls now revealed the old paint color (behind where the shelves and the dryer used to be) and the newer paint color. Besides I had never really liked the shade of green that I had picked - it was too dark for a small, windowless room. I choose a nice bright, light shade of yellow called "banana cream" - sounds yummy.
Now, I've painted many rooms in our house (some more than one time, I am not very good at picking paint colors) and you would think I would have a good idea as to time estimation on how long a paint job should take. Well I thought the laundry room would take about and hour - I was only off by about 2 or 3 hours. I'm glad to report that we only had one paint mishap with the children (there always has to be at least one of them that gets paint on themself or something else that didn't need paint. I was able to divert Tom's attempt at a mishap, but Becca was too quick. I saw her coming and reached out to grab her before her hand got in the paint bucket, but that girl is quick and her hand dipped in before I got her. We got her quickly cleaned up and there was no real trauma.
We still have the job of getting the new shelving installed, for which I am very excited - and then start filling it with all our food storage - but other than that it is a done job. I got all the painting done and the walls are beautiful. I got the new mudroom corner all set up with the coat hooks on the wall. It feels like such a different room - like a new room.

Official announcement

Most people know, but for those that don't know yet I am pregnant with number four. I am 10 weeks pregnant and due at the end of August. We are very excited.
Charlie thinks it's a boy because we had a girl last, so now it's time for a boy. Tom thinks we should 4 more babies (not all at the same time). When I told Becca I was patting my tummy telling her there was a baby in there she leaned over and kissed my tummy.

Wasting Time

I am so good at wasting time. Two hours ago I sat down to my computer to look up a "couple of things" and then I was going to sit down and prepare my Young Women lesson for Sunday. Well, here I still sit at my computer looking at this and that and I just looked at the clock and realized I wasted all my time because now it is past time for going to bed. It's so easy to get caught up in something and get sidetracked.
My lesson for Sunday is "Creating a Spiritual Environment in the Home". There are two aspects the lesson focuses on 1-physical environment, 2-attitudes. To me the physical environment is obvious - that we want our home to be neat and orderly so the spirit can dwell in our home. Some other outward things we can do is have uplifting and inspiring pictures, particularly of gospel centered things - Temple, prophets, scenes from scriptures. What we surround ourself with is a silent sermon and helps direct our thoughts whether we think about it or not.
The second aspect - attitudes - was a little less obvious to me. There's a quote that says something like "if mama aint happy nobody's happy". I think this goes to the heart of the matter - as the mother I set the tone of the home - that's a big responsibility for me. As of late I have been striving to be extra happy and positive in the mornings, trying to wake up before the kids, so that I can be the first one to set the tone for the day. If I'm slow to get out of bed and drag myself to get ready the day tends to have a slow dragginess to it. We really can decide our attitude and how we will respond to things. There is a story in the New Era (June 2007, Doing Dishes) that talks about a young woman who wasn't too keen on doing dishes, but was challenged by her Sunday School teacher to learn to love doing dishes. So every day for weeks she would tell herself that she loved doing dishes while she was doing them. After a while she realized that she did enjoy doing dishes ( I don't think it went as far to say that she "loved" doing them, but like is better than hate). I think I need to try this with some of my household chores. I don't have any that I feel strongly opposed to, but there are some that get greatly neglected and always pushed to the bottom of the to-do list.
Listed under the additional resources for this lesson was the conference talk by Elder M. Russell Ballard, "Creating a Gospel-Sharing Home". "Gospel-sharing homes are very ordinary. They may not always be spotlessly clan nor the children perfectly behaved. But they are a place in which family members clearly love each other, and the Spirit of the lord is felt by those who visit." He also talks about praying for missionary opportunities, and for us to "care, share, testify and invite".
One thing that I've been doing with my kids is helping the attitude and feeling in our home. I have been doing "morning devotional" with the kids each morning. We sing a song, pray, recite the Primary scripture of the month and then either read out of the Friend or read a scripture story or do an activity. Most mornings it goes okay, some mornings the kids complain and don't want to do it, most mornings they fight over who gets to lead the music and who gets to pray (I really need to make a chart so it's already pre-assigned).
Charlie really surprised me the other morning, because he's the strongest voice of opposition. He was up before Tom and I was on the couch in the living room, just starting my scripture study and he said, "mom, can we do morning devotional right now". I have to admit that my first thought was "after I finish my scripture study", because I never get it done, I always get interrupted. But I quickly said, "Ok" and we sang a song and he said the prayer and I don't remember what else - but I do remember that he was in a much better mood that day then he is on most days (he is a moody child).
I can see how establishing habits early on is such a good thing. I think that if we set the habits early on while they are young, and usually excited about such things, the habits will stick and will be easier to follow later on when life gets more hectic and less predictable. Charlie is usually the one that reminds us to do scriptures at night. We got in the habit of reading to the boys at night, right before turning out the light. If there is a night that we are late getting the boys to bed they won't go to bed until we've read scriptures - it's nice because it holds us accountable and we usually do it.

My little monkey

Who would have thought that my sweet little girl would be more of a monkey than my boys. When my boys were little I used to have to tip the kitchen chairs over so they laid on their sides so the boys couldn't crawl up on the kitchen table, or drag the chairs to the kitchen to climb on the counters.
Well Becca has one-uppped them. Today I could hear Becca playing around in the back rooms somewhere and as long as I can hear her I don't worry too much about her. She usually wanders around and just keeps herself busy. Well, then I heard water running and immediately knew that she was in the bathroom. When I got there I saw Becca sitting up on the counter, feet in the sink, water running. Becca is only 14 months old. How she has already figured out how to climb things already is amazing to me. Since I haven't seen how she does it I can only guess that she must climb up on the toilet and then use the toilet paper holder as a foothold to get up on the counter.
She is such a determined little girl. Earlier today the boys were painting at the table and apparently Becca didn't want to get left out. She would climb up on the chair and then up on the table. I would get her down, tell her no, try to get her involved in something else, only to have to get her down within less than a minute later. She did this three times in a row - determined to get up in the middle of the action. She is so quick.

How to show thanks

These were not my own ideas, but I thought they were good and worth passing on.

I have been thinking about what I can do to show my love for President
Hinckley and here are my ideas:

*Instead of sending flowers I will donate money to the Perpetual
Education Fund.

*Instead of sending a card to the church, I will take time to send a
card to someone that is not active and share my testimony with them.

*To honor the temple growth under his direction I will go more often
to the temple.

*I will read the Book of Mormon again by the end of the year.

I have felt so strongly that I wanted to honor him in some way and I
hope by posting it here it will help others think of what they can do
to honor him also.

I think I will follow this persons example and honor President Hinckley in these ways.

President Hinckley

Although he wasn't prophet until I was in college, President Hinckley I really feel connected to. I read his biography when it came out years ago - but I need to read it again. His life is one of such faith and devotion. He has worked tirelessly for the church basically his whole life - he gave his all for the church. He had a great vision for the growth of the church, and particularly with the great Temple expansion showed the reality of praying and then going to work to get things done. I think one of the main things I will remember about him is his great optimism. I'm sure there is a great weight to be felt being the prophet, but he never showed discouragement or despair, he was always full of positive words and encouragement and a "can do" attitude. I need to adopt a better "can do" attitude in my life - I get discouraged too easily - I need to remember to just move forward with faith and leave things in the Lord's hands.
The news last night showed footage of President Hinckley's travels around the world and showed saints from around the world. It made vivid how we truly are a worldwide church and I pondered on how truly wonderful that is. - The church is rolling forth to all corners of the world. I can see why President Hinckley says that it is an exciting time to be alive - to see the works of the Lord being fulfilled.

I wish I would have, I'm glad I did...

I just found out about Tuesday tell all, a blog that gives suggestions for a topic to write on. Today is not Tuesday, but I like last weeks topic and thought I would write on it.

I wish I would have...
...learned the habit of keeping my space clean - ie - my room - when I was growing up. I had the bad habit of waiting a couple weeks and then doing a big Saturday cleanup. Now that I have my own house and family I've had to try to establish better habits of cleaning daily. I'm getting better, but I think if I would have developed that habit earlier on it wouldn't be so difficult now. I'm trying to help my kids develop this habit while young and we do a clean up (most nights) before bedtime to put everything back in its place.

...

I'm glad I did...
... have wonderful parents who brought me up in the gospel with strong values and standards and have always been an excellent example to me.

....marry my wonderful husband Jeremy in the Temple and now we have 3 (almost 4) wonderful children - who knew life could be so wonderful.

...have the opportunity to serve a mission. I loved my mission to St. Petersburg Russia - it was a beautiful and interesting country and I love the people I served and the companions I served with. It definitely was faith promoting and testimony growing experience. I feel like I really learned how to lean on the guidance of the Holy Ghost - something I need to learn to apply on a more regular basis in my current life.

...get to be me. I've always loved my life and the experiences that I've have and the people that I've met and the friends that I've had. The first part of this topic - I wish I.. was hard for me because I don't live my life with regrets. I'm sure if I think hard enough maybe I could come up with more things that at the time I wish could have been different, but looking back things in my life have always worked out for the best, so I never regret what was, or what wasn't. I like to think that I (at least usually) learn from my past mistakes or missed opportunities and if I don't take the opportunity to grab onto them or recreate them then that is my problem. I am in charge of my life and I can make it whatever I want it to be.

...go to the Best of EFY this morning. I am a counselor in the Young Women over the Beehives and I really didn't want to have to meet at the church at 8 am and be gone all morning to EFY. But I'm glad I did. It gave me a real boost to be there - sometimes I get bogged down in the daily to-dos and kid things that I need reminders about the big picture and I need spiritual boosts - Sundays, with kids at church, just leaves a little lacking sometimes (walking the halls with Becca because she doesn't like to be in class - Sunday school is her least favorite).

Scared

The other night I had put Tom and Charlie in bed and was in the next room with Becca getting her settled into bed. I could hear Tom and Charlie talking to each other, but couldn't understand what they were saying. After a minute of them talking I then heard them start singing "I am a Child of God". I thought - how cute is that. Then I heard Tom start praying - my heart was touched that my boys were doing such precious things all by themselves - they didn't know I could overhear them. Then I found out why they were doing this because at that point Tom came into Becca's room and said "Mom, we sang and we prayed, but we are still scared, will you come in with us?" so cute, they tried to solve their problem first and then they came to me for help.
Moments like that are what parents live for - it touched my heart and made me feel like I was doing something right as a parent. Some days I wonder because I'm just so happy to get them in bed and have the day finally be over (days are very long with little ones). Other days we have really good days, but they seem all too rare. Most days are okay days, but I really want to make more days fall into the category of great days.

St. George Temple

This is a picture of the St. George Temple I took a few years ago when it was snowing. It doesn't snow often in St. George, maybe once every other year or so. I took the picture the morning the snow started, because it is such a rare thing, and then it proceeded to snow for two more days, unheard of in St. George. I have a 16x20 of it hanging above my fireplace. I have gotten many compliments on it and today a friend got a copy of it to get a print of to give to her husband for their anniversary. It's a favorite of mine, so I can understand that others like it too. All temples are beautiful, but I have a particular connection to this one because it is where I was married - almost 8 years ago, in April.

Toothless

At 13 months old (almost 14) Becca is finally getting her first two teeth on the bottom.










This week has been a rough week for me. I'm still sick. Yesterday I thought I was on the upward bound, but I must have eaten some bad food, and the middle of the night last night I was so sick and throwing up. Today I've been weak and tired. Thankfully I have wonderful in-laws who took my boys for the night and for tomorrow. And my sister Debbie lives with me and has been taking care of Becca. I rested all day today and I'm feeling a little improved tonight.

Piles

Books are good, but piles of books everywhere is not good. This is a typical scene of the table in my living room. (Actually, since I've been sick for the past four days this is the scene all over my house, luckily not the dishes, my dear husband has been wonderful to keep up with the dishes). I've been trying to do better about putting things away where they belong, and for a while I did great -but when I get sick everything goes to pot, my kids have yet to come close to buying into the theory of "everything has a place and everything in its place". Tom drops things at whim, where ever he is, that's where it goes. Charlie isn't quite as bad, at least he doesn't drop things all over the floor, he even put away the bingo game he was playing, put all the pieces back in the box and put the box back in the closet - brownie points for Charlie.

Kids and hair

I don't know if I'm not a very good girl mom or what, but I never do Becca's hair, not even for church. I've tried bows once or twice, but she hates them and pulls them right out. I've thought maybe I should try little pig tails or something, but I don't have any small elastic bands. I'm not for pain for beauty and when I think about doing her hair I envision her turning and twisting and crying and it doesn't even make me want to try. I've never given her a haircut yet and it's amazing how cute her hair is when I just comb it. I did try putting soft sponge curlers in it once, but it just gave her pouffy hair, not curly hair.




Charlie has really thick hair and this picture shows what his hair typically looks like, because I only do it when we go someplace. I tried to cut his hair shorter last haircut, but it is impossible to get him to cooperate for more that 1.4 minutes - no exaggeration. He hates hair cuts so much, the hair itches him and drives him nuts. I have become a fast hair cutter, but still not fast enough for him. After last hair cut he informed me that he is going to grow his hair long. He said that even though he will have long hair he will still be a boy - that having long hair wouldn't make him a girl.




Tom took a pair of scissors to his hair the other night. Jeremy said he was right behind Tom following him into the bathroom to brush teeth, but when he walked in the room Tom was holding scissors with a patch of hair missing. They (kids) always cut front and center. I can't remember for sure, but I think Charlie did the same to his hair a year or two ago. I'm sure it's a rite of passage for children - on their list of things to do while yet a child: #13 - give self haircut, in efforts to help mom out. I haven't decided yet if I should give him a haircut to try to "hide" his haircut, or just leave it. I think if I cut all his hair short it will look worse than it looks right now. Tom has a big head and doesn't look very good with his hair really short.

Slow Start

So I'm not starting off the new year with a bang like I had hoped to. It's been almost a month since I've written. I didn't even get any Christmas stuff posted. We went to Pine Valley (45 minutes north) for Christmas and I forgot to bring my camera, so Christmas wasn't documented with pictures.
The kids and I have been sick all weekend - fevers, coughs, throwing up - all kinds of fun stuff, luckily I have a wonderful husband who is so good to us and took good care of us, he even made a wonderful meatloaf dinner last night that was fantastic.

Charlie

Becca

I'm not doing anything


Happy waking up.













Sad you took so long to get me out of my crib.
Happy or sad, she's still cute.

Kids and errands

I can't get the post picture function to function. I have a bunch of new pictures I wanted to post, but I can't get them to load. Computers are wonderful when they work, but are terribly frustrating when they don't.
Today is a cloudy day, a bit of a rarity here in St. George. My mood always feels a bit more somber when it's cloudy. I tried to get some errands done this morning, but only got half of them done. Taking three kids along presents quite a challenge - and today I wasn't up for the challenge. Tom and Charlie have a hard time staying still and an even harder time not touching things.
I was at Target and got one of those big shopping carts with the extra two seats attached to the front of a regular shopping cart (I feel like a bus driver when I get one of those carts). Tom and Charlie were sitting in the seats and Becca was in the back of the cart (I can't sit her in the regular baby seat section because even with seatbelt on she still climbs out). The boys could not sit still and were climbing from the back to the front of the cart and back again. Needless to say this drove me nuts. To top it off the boys had to each use the bathroom - when we were at the back of the store and had to walk all the way to the front of the store. When I took Tom I asked Charlie if he needed to use the bathroom while we were there. No. So we continued shopping. Not ten minutes later Charlie informed me that he needed to use the bathroom.
After Target I needed to go grocery shopping, but there was no way that I was going to attempt that feat - not after my nerves were already rattled enough by a twenty minute stop to Target.
Usually I do my errands while one of the boys is at preschool (they rotate days, Tom on Mon & Wed, Char on Tue & Thur). When I only have two kids they behave like a charm and it's not a big deal. Christmas break is going to be a long three weeks - I'll survive, but we might run out of food (because I am NOT taking the three of them to the grocery store).

love my camera

Tom and Charlie playing in their room. I was playing with my camera trying to capture good light without using my flash. I think these pictures turned out good. The boys don't play with their toys very often (at least not for the intended use, ie. everything doubles for a hammer), let alone play in their room, so this was a rare moment.

Tom's Preschool

This is a picture of Tom's preschool class. The kids are three years old. They are all wearing brown shirts because they learn a new color every two weeks and on the last day of that color we take a picture. This past week the color was pink and the little boys were not happy to wear pink - even though they only had to put the shirt on long enough to have the picture taken. It is a neighborhood group and each of the mom's take turns teaching.
I taught this past week - we had a Christmas party. We played a couple of fun games. One game was "guess what's in Santa's sack and each child takes a wrapped gift out of a sack and feels it and shakes it and describes if it is hard or soft, big or little, noisy or quiet. I just used a bunch of Tom and Charlie's toys for this game and explained to the kids that they didn't get to keep the gifts they just got to unwrap them. It was fun to see how well they did at describing the wrapped object. We also made Christmas tree ornaments and dipped pretzels in chocolate. The only reason that I was so brave to do those last two projects with three years old is because their moms were there to help them.

Sweet Becca

What a sweet face! Could there really be anything cuter? Even at 11 months old (the picture was taken in October) Becca is aware of the camera and knows how to cheese it up. This day of the picture Becca was climbing down off of the couch and I wanted to take a picture of her getting off. Well, as soon as she saw that I had a camera she reversed her progress and got settled back on the couch and began smiling for the camera. Notice the drool down the side of her cheek. She is teething, but even as of today has no teeth yet. My kids teethe for months and months before teeth ever show up.
Becca turned one years old on Novemeber 27, 2007. She's really taken a liking to walking and practices as much as possible. I was impressed at how rapidly she progressed from a faltering step or two to walking small distances, from tottering from side-to-side to even, little steps. Sometimes when she knows she is about to fall down she picks up speed and almost starts running and then gravity takes over and she falls face down. She never gets frustrated or whines about falling, she just gets right back up and keeps going.

Becca Loves the Tub

This picture was taken at the end of November. Becca had already had a bath and I had just gotten her dressed in her pajamas. Then I got Tom and Charlie in the tub and had Becca out in the living room with me. Becca could hear the boys in the tub and crawled down the hall to the bathroom. The door was shut, I was sure to close it after getting the boys in the tub because I know how much Becca loves the tub. I could hear her banging on the door with her little fists and I yelled out for the boys to not let her in. The next thing I heard was "splash" as Becca basically jumped into the tub. Tom was being helpful and undoing her jammies to get the wet clothes off. Becca has always been a tub lover, since she was very young. Neither Tom nor Charlie enjoyed the tub until they were able to sit up, but even as an infant laying in the water Becca has enjoyed being in the water.
This past summer, when she was 8 months old I did a mommy and me swim class, and she couldn't do much more than splash and kick, but she loved every minute of it. She is probably going to be a fish like her daddy. He loves the water and especially loves swimming under water. He has been very good to work with the kids in helping them to be comfortable with the water and they love jumping into the water and diving to get golf balls (grandma taysom's house is on the golf course and her pool gets lots of golf balls).

Merry Christmas

I love the Christmas season. Even in St. George the weather cools down and it feels nice to bundle up and to have a fire and drink hot chocolate (however, in St. George the days still get fairly nice, and often we don't even need a jacket).
My house is nicely decorated. I love night time when the house lights are off and the Christmas tree lights are on. I already made my neighbor gifts and took most of them around- now we just need to figure out what to get for the kids.
The one thing I need to get around to doing is our Christmas letter to friends and family, so just in case Christmas comes and goes and I never get it done this will count.
We've had a wonderful year! Becca turned one (she is walking), Tom is three (he can count to 50) and Charlie is the big 5 (loves to draw), but he didn't start kindergarten because his birthday isn't until October. Jeremy started back to school and tomorrow he has his last final for this semester. He isn't enjoying school, but he is doing very well. I'm very proud of him for all the hours he has put into studying. He is going back for his bachelors degree in nursing and is contemplating where to go from there.
I'm busy being a mom of three kids. I also do some photography on the side (I convince neighbors to let me take their family photos for them - this past month I've done four family photos - for Christmas cards of course, and they've all sent out their cards) The problem with me being the photographer is that I can never get a good family photo of my family.
We went on a family vacation in April to Sea World San Diego and the boys loved it - they still ask when we are going back to see Shamu. In June we went to the Manti pageant and also went to the BYU campus (to see where mommy went to school) and all got BYU shirts.