A Living Snowman

We are finishing our basement. Well, let me rephrase that....Brandon is finishing our basement. We are slowly making progress, and are actually at the painting phase! Brandon has been painting for a few days - but I have never gone downstairs while he was actually in the process. I decided to go down the other day, and this is what I found....




I burst out laughing! I didn't even know they had such painting attire! When he took off all the gear - he only had paint all over his eyes. So, the protection worked. I have to admit that he is an extremely cute snowman!

Too many pictures, so I had to do a slide show!

Easter Weekend

I have been totally slacking in keeping up with my blog lately. It is always on my list of things to do, but seems to get pushed to the bottom by so many other urgent things! So here is a late update.

We were lucky enough to spend Easter weekend in warm and sunny St. George! It was so wonderful to feel the warm sun on my very white skin. I am someone who definitely needs Vitamin D. The sunshine always seems to snap me out of a somber mood.

We soaked up plenty of sun while we were there by going to 7 baseball games in three days! Kason had a baseball tournament, and they made it to the semifinals, which meant lots of baseball games! They ended up taking 4th out of 35 teams....not too bad! We were proud of Kason...he played great. Brandon and I love to watch the games...the girls and Braden on the other hand do well through about the first 4, and then don't want to sit and watch anymore baseball! Jaicee's comment at the end of the 7th game was, "since we have watched Kason play so much baseball, he gets to come and watch Halle and I go shopping!" I had to agree with her!

Kason pitching in one of his games (#22). I don't like when he pitches...it is way too nerve wracking for the mother!

The kids were very worried that the Easter Bunny would not find them so far away from home. But that Easter Bunny is pretty smart and found us all the way in St. George.

We got all ready to go to church...found the church....walked in, and we had missed it! We were told the wrong time. So, I guess it is the thought that counts! It did not feel like a complete Easter Sunday without church....I definitely missed it. But we took some pictures anyway!

No real "Easter dresses" this year...I decided they have plenty of dresses that they never wear! (Obviously they didn't bring them to St. George to wear either!)

Brandon's sister and her family were also in St. George - so we were able to have Easter dinner with them. We also went to the park and had a little egg hunt, flew kites, and played! It was perfect weather and a great weekend! I hope the 70's will last for more than just a week this spring...it always seems to get hot so quickly!

(See slide show above for the rest of the weekend pictures)

Play Time

Don't you remember as a child building forts? I loved doing this, especially at my gradma's house with all her chairs. My girls have also found a love for this. I am not sure that I always love them building forts, for the sole reason that they seem to have to use 10 blankets, and all the hair elastics....and I usually clean most of the blankets up. This particular day, however, Kason joined in the fun and they built an incredible fort. They were so creative with how to get all of the blankets to stay up - and covered the entire room. They had a huge area underneath which they slept in that night. I love when my kids entertain themselves and create something that they have to really think of. Kids at play are the greatest!

Can you see their little heads? This time they really did use every blanket/sheet in the house!

Thoughts on Motherhood

Lately I have been consumed with the worry of how will I provide enough time and attention for 5 kids! I feel like kids these days need more attention than ever. The world is crazy and wicked. They need personal attention and love from a mother like never before! Not to mention that as a mother we are trying to build each of our children to have good self esteem, work ethic, be educated, kind, loving, understanding, respectful, strong spiritually and emotionally.....just to name a few. Does anyone else feel exhausted at the fact that we as mothers seem to be solely in charge of this? And now I am adding a fifth child to the mix, and am starting to feel very overwhelmed!

I mentioned this to a friend the other day and she directed me to a friend's blog that had some great ideas for mothers. I loved them and wanted to share them with you. Here are her seven ideas:

1. Movie Night
Our friends the Farnsworths introduced us to this one. Dave and I try our best to schedule our dates and other social stuff on Saturday so we can be home with the kids on Friday because Friday night is sacred. Friday night is "Movie Night." We pop popcorn, always make chocolate chip cookies, and watch a movie. Sometimes it's an amazing movie we're all spellbound by, sometimes it turns out to be a dumb show we thought we'd try, sometimes it's one Dave picked up in China with annoying subtitles covering part of the screen, but none of that really matters so much. What matters is that we're together. And we all LOVE it. Inevitably there will be a time in the future when our kids won't think it's so cool to stay home with their parents on a Friday night to watch a movie, but for now, we're superstars to them and we're eating it up while we can!

2. Interviews
This is something I'm not good at, but I sure want to be. My Dad started this tradition when we were little. He'd corner us (usually in the bathroom since that was the most quiet place he could find with nine kids running around) and have a little interview with us once a week. He'd ask all kinds of questions. He'd help us figure out our goals. When we were really little he'd write the initial of our best talents on each of our ten fingertips (I was "good" at art so he'd write a little "a" for art with a ballpoint pen on my thumb, then move on to my next "talent" that he'd add to my index finger). He'd make us feel so great about ourselves. He'd ask what he could help with. And the amazing thing was that when we grew up and moved away he'd still call us for our interviews. Since I was the second girl the second Sunday was always mine. He'd call and just give me my traditional "interview" over the phone.This is a tough thing to carry on with my kids because I'm not anywhere near as organized or as amazing as my dad. But I do enjoy writing occasional letters on my kids' fingertips and I have cornered them for an "interview" on occasion. This year I've decided to try to do interviews on our monthly lunch dates, which is the next idea...

3. Lunch Dates
I know there will be a time I'll need to take school time more seriously. Soon they will be in junior high, then filling out college applications before I know it. But this is elementary school for crying out loud. Shhh, this is a secret. I let my kids miss some of it sometimes. I take them out to long lunches one by one once a month. It's the only time I could figure out to have more one on one time together. Yes, Lucy and Claire tag along, and yes, sometimes they're enough to upset the good people who thought Wendy's would be a nice quiet break from their work day and don't want to be hampered by two kids throwing French fries around in the air. But that child I took out of school still knows that it's their special day, and their eyes sparkle with the excitement of getting to order whatever they want and having me just concentrate on them. I love that Max still begs for it to be "his" day.This year I'm trying to have a little "interview" with each child while we're at lunch (amidst the chicken nuggets and fighting over who gets the last bites of the McFlurry...yes, sadly it's usually Wendy's or McDonalds with an occasional Jack in the Box thrown in there, but it's their choice and I have to live with it). I go through what my parents call the "5 Facets" with them. How are they doing 1) spiritually, 2) physically, 3)mentally, 4)emotionally, and 5)socially. We make monthly goals of how they can do better in each of these categories. And then ideally I schedule these things in on my calendar so I can help them (not so good at that yet). But I love connecting with them. I love telling them I love them over our "gourmet" food.

4. Mother's Day Letters
Being the fanatic about record keeping that I am I love to write letters to my kids. I want them to have a record of how much I adore every little thing they do. When Max and Elle were little I was great at it and I'd write to them all the time. But then it got harder and harder to set aside time to do it. So a few years ago I decided I'd ask for a couple hours alone in my room each Mother's Day so I could write a special love note to each of my kids. I love knowing that I have those compiled for them. I want them to forever remember how much I love them at every stage and what I've noticed about them each year.

5. "Happies" & "Sads"
Another one of my parent's great ideas (I'm a little bit biased but I think they are amazing. They do have a great website here). Each night at dinner the kids tell us what their "happies" and "sads" were from the day. Claire's are inevitably that she was happy a friend could come over and she was sad when that said friend had to leave. But most of the time it leads to good discussions and helps the kids tell us what really happened during the day instead of just saying it was "fine" or "good"...or "bad." I like to hear the details and this is a good way to squeeze them out.

6. Late Nights
We were really good at this last year but not so hot at it this year...I think this is something that works better when your kids all go to bed around the same time, and our kids are more staggered at bedtime as they are getting older. But I love it anyway so I'm including it. "Late Nights" are when the kids get to rotate each getting a turn once a week to stay up ten or fifteen minutes later than the others. They eat this up. It's such a short amount of time, but they think it's the luckiest thing ever when it's their turn and we love to give them some undivided one-on-one attention.

7. "Clean Ten"
This really doesn't have much to do with cherishing the moment with kids, but it sure makes things less chaotic when it happens and then you can cherish the good stuff, and "be still" more often. I have no idea where I heard this but I love it. Whenever things get really cluttery...Saturday afternoons, between when the kids get home from school and dinner, Sunday afternoons, etc. (ok, pretty much a few times a day) we just say "clean ten" and the kids have to each pick up and put away ten things. I LOVE it because they just know to do that. Not only does it help to get the house clean quick but it helps the kids know where everything really goes so they can be better at putting things away in the first place.So these are a few things from my motherhood idea "collection" so far. I'd love to hear any other great ideas.

I hope this amazing lady doesn't mind that I posted her ideas....I just thought they were great. Her blog is www.71toes.blogspot.com if you want to take a look. I think I do some of these ideas to a degree - but definitely need to make an initiative to do better! This is the time when are able to shape our children....I love the stage of life I am in with each of them and just pray that I will be able to help them become the best that they can! Any other ideas - I would love to hear!

How I Found Him

Braden disappeared they other day, and I couldn't find him anywhere! It is very rare that he is not right under my feet saying "Hold you me!". I searched and found this...

First of all, he is 2 1/2 years old and still has a binki! Kason was my only other "binki lover" and we had taken it away by the time he was 1! I always had friends that let their kids keep the binki until they were two and three and thought they were crazy! Well, bring on the fourth kid - and all rules go out the window. I love so much that he sleeps well at night, and takes long naps during the day. I haven't yet been able to part with the binki. We have however, limited the binki only to nap and night time. Every morning Braden leaves his binki in his bed. When he gets upset in the day and wants his binki, I remind him that he can't have it until nap time. Well it looks like he solved the problem on his own....he needed a little binki time, so he climbed in his bed and found his binki. I love kids that can solve their own problems!

I keep trying to tell myself that I will take the binki away soon....but for some reason there always seems to be some other pressing crisis happening, and the binki gets put on the back burner. Maybe I can make a goal to have it gone before the baby comes? Can't make any promises though :)

Oh yes, and that is a pink silky blanket you see in his bed. It was originally Halle's, but Braden has now made it his. Good thing he is strong in his manhood!

Jazz Family Fun

We were able to go to the "Family Jazz Night" and meet some of the players. We went last year and were able to get all of their autographs for the kids on their basketballs. This year there were more people and not enough time to do that. We also had to leave early for Kason's basketball game. But the kids did get to shoot with Andrei Kirilenko. Kason missed and was so mad at himself for the rest of the night - it was his time to show that he could make a shot and he missed :). I kept trying to reassure him that Andrei would never remember (or even remember him for that matter), but to a 10 year old it is devastating!

Sorry about the blurry picture

We did get a quick picture with Jerry Sloan before we left! He is much taller than you think.

A couple of weeks later the girls were able to attend the Jazz Girl dance camp. They had 2 fun filled hours of dancing with the Jazz Girls. They loved it - especially Halle, who was most excited that she was finally old enough to attend one of these fun camps!

This is actually one of my sister's friends - so they thought it was "extra cool" that they knew a Jazz Girl!