Luke's heart

The other day I was telling the kids things I love about them and Daddy. I said that Daddy's smile "still makes my heart skip a beat". Then just after I explained what that meant, my cute little Luke says to me, "Mom, my haowt (heart) goes fastoh (faster) when Ewika smi-ohs (smiles)." And he said it all sweet and solemnlike.... awwwwww- just makes me wanna kiss him! He loves his baby sister so much. Who woulda thought.

Happy Valentine's Day

Nate and I trade off with the planning of Valentine's Day and our Anniversary. This year was my year to plan V-day. As usual I had HUGE plans, really extravagant ideas, and way more things to do than can really be done by a couple with 6 kids. But as usual, I slacked off and didn't do any of the preparation for most of the ideas and ended up with basically nothing. In my defense most of it was ruined with the fact that we didn't have a sitter, but still.... I really needed to plan ahead more. I was really consumed with Charity's class party up until Friday and then I think my body was still coming out of the shock from it after that. Either way we had a nice Valentine's day. Very relaxed. We ended up taking the kids out with us on Saturday night for some pizza at our new favorite pizza place Fire House Pizza here in Centerville. I was amazed to watch my five little kids put away a whole large pizza in less than ten minutes!!! We thought for some reason we would have a lot leftover from the 3 pizzas we got, but no, we went home with only 2 measely slices. Kinda funny. (Steve was with us too, I should mention, so it wasn't like Nate and I ate 2 pizzas ourselves. They were mediums and the kids ate some of those too..... anwyay) We had to have some of their yummy FH'zookies afterward as well. If you haven't had one of those, they are TO DIE FOR!!! SO delicious! We gobbled those up pretty quick too. Pigs. Then we watched a movie together after getting the kids all in bed. That's as good as a date if you ask me. Nate surprised me with flowers and a gift on my pillow that night. SO sweet! Then Sunday morning Nate made breakfast AND dinner before church. (I realized tonight at the store that I haven't really cooked dinner in a while..... too long in fact) He makes an amazing roast, and topped it off with mashed potatoes. We headed out to Nate's parents' house for the family meeting after church. When we got home and Nate was putting kids in bed, I realized that my idea to do 12 days of Valentine's for him didn't need to be ruined, and instead I STARTED the 12 days ON Valentine's day.... kind of weird, but who cares. I think Nate will like it regardless :) So far it's just been treats, but I have big plans for some of the other days :) It was a nice Valentine's. I don't think Nate will have to do much to out do me this year for our Anniversary though :) Should be pretty easy :)....

I hope you all had a very nice Valentine's. I love that day, and love thinking about those I love. I finally remembered to stick everyone in front of the camera in our nice Sunday clothes this time. I was glad about that. Here are 2 of the three we took using the timer on my camera and propping my camera on the back of my Dad's couch..... I think they turned out pretty good considering-

You can see all the hearts from the girls' "heart attack" on Grandpa and Steve.

this one's my favorite. If only we had turned Erika around :(

Friday's Fabulous Five

1. Friday night Nate's Mom invited all the grandkids over for a little dinner at their house. THey did this last year and had the boys all prepare the meal and serve the girls. So this time it was the girls' turn to prepare the food and serve the boys. They had a lot of fun. Nate and I took Noah and Erika to Tsunami. It was a pretty good restaurant. I tried sushi for the first time after my big long break from when I was pregnant. It still didn't seem to go down right. It's so weird!! Maybe I shouldn't eat it anyway since I'm nursing. I just about puked the last time I had it while I was pregnant.... not good.

2. Saturday was an interesting day. It started out with a lot of naughty kids, several threats to not go but after letting the kids earn the chance back, we went to the Kids Show at the Expo center. I had bought some discounted tickets online, so I really didn't want to waste them and I really wanted the kids to be able to go. We had a total blast though so I'm glad we went! The kids got to go on the bounce houses and slides. Had their faces painted, lots of free prizes and coupons, a reptile show with a 150 lb, 11 foot long snake! karaoke, lots of sports to practice on. It was just a really fun outing. I finally got a new Scentsy warmer too (ours broke a while ago and I couldn't justify spending the money, but I got a killer deal on a warmer and 3 bars, so I justified it :)) Noah stayed in the stroller 95% of the time, but jumped out when he saw this cute little dog. It was so cute to see him get all excited about the dog. One of these days I will convince him that the bouncy slides are fun.... someday. Good times though. If only I'd known that the camera had been in the diaper back the whole time!!!! Could have had more than just the few pictures I took with my phone.

3. We had a pretty different kind of Sunday but it was still really nice. Charity had a sore throat so we kept her home while Nate and I traded off to go to church and teach our lessons. I did Sharing time and I wasn't AS nervous as I've been. I felt really good about it this time anyway. It was funny because I had read through the outline for the thing a while ago and thought it sounded really boring, just reading a lot of scriptures, and so I was racking my brain trying to think of something to do with it, but then Sunday morning when I finally sat down and read through the scriptures it had listed, I was SO touched by the Spirit I felt! It really made me feel like this one needed to be the way it was. I liked how it turned out too, I feel like the kids listened and were able to feel the spirit. That makes me happy. And another fabulous thing that happened at church, Brother Petersen from the Bishopric came into the Primary and gave a little lesson, and something that stood out to me in his lesson was how he related Christ being our redeemer to us redeeming a coupon. Sounds funny like that, but I had just never realized how that could be related. In one sense, sometimes when you use a coupon, it's because you don't have the amount that something costs and you want a discount. Well, we will never be perfect, we do not have all it takes. So with the coupon of the Atonement, we can get a discount and be able to be saved for what we CAN pay. I also thought that with Christ as our Redeemer, we just give him the coupon, and he will give us what we need to be saved.... he redeems us! Anyway, maybe this sounds lame the way I put it, but it was cool then :) I enjoyed it and felt the Spirit so strongly. It always surprises me how much I can feel the spirit in Primary with such basic principles being taught. Just shows that the Gospel really is about the simple truths. I love that. It was Fabulous!

4. Monday was Nana's birthday. Nate, Steve, the kids and I, went to her grave to say Happy Birthday. It was a little awkward because the ground was still lumpy, the grass hasn't grown back at all (obviously, winter), and there was no headstone- it should be there in a month. It was still nice though. It's weird because I feel like I've stopped feeling her around. There were a few months there where I could feel her presence a lot. Like when I was rocking Noah or Erika in her chair, and when I would sing to them..... I don't know why, but I felt like she was there a lot. I haven't felt that as much lately. Kinda makes me think she's done with helping me mourn and she's moved on to the next station. I don't know if that's how it works or anything, but that's just how I feel. I miss her. I hope she's doing well though, and I hope she had a nice birthday.

5. On Tuesday I got an amazing deal on some clothes for Erika. I wasn't even really trying, just checking out the clearance rack at Kohls. But I ended up with $51 worth of clothing for only $11! I had a little help from an accident the clerk made using a $10 off coupon too soon, but she decided to let me have it anyway! I lucked out, and Erika has some more cute clothes now :)

6.We had a "freakin' blasty blast" (steve's words) at Steve's 22nd birthday. I made my Oreo Cake again. He loved it :) I think he had a nice day. Glad everyone could spoil him and give him the attention he wanted :)

7. Thursday Nate got the go ahead to start looking for a new facility to work at. We will soon be moving out of state. Kinda crazy, but feels fabulous just because we know now. And it will be an adventure just like everything else we've had to do with this career :).... any guesses as to where we will end up?

Just Keep Swimming

So I finally did it. I caved. For the last 10 years I have dreaded the day when I would finally give in and let someone else teach my child to swim. I remember so vividly those warm summer mornings when I was teaching swimming myself. I remember the anxiousness the first day of the session when you weren't sure who you were going to get. The cute kids, the not so cute kids, the kids with boogers, the kids that didn't let up with the obnoxious splashing and the disobedient kids that never missed a lesson. I remember the parents too. The ones that humored their children every. single. time. they wanted to show them the "trick" that they weren't learning at the moment, adding a pause to the lesson. The parents that parked themselves 1.5 feet away from the section of the pool that their kid was in. Making sure they heard every word you said and noticed everything word you said wrong, correcting you when you mixed up their names.... There were good parents too. The compliments were nice. The thank yous were nice. The requests for you every single session..... sometimes nice (depending on the kid). Anyway. I remember it. It was fun. Good job. Good money. Good tan. But even back then I knew that it would drive me nuts to watch another teenager teach my children to swim when I knew full well how to do it myself. I think I mostly didn't want to sit there critiquing their techniques wishing they would do something differently or giving them advice in my head. Or heaven forbid them having one of those teachers that really was in it just for the tan. One who didn't care or was not the friendliest..... I had my concerns. I kept thinking, "nah... they don't need lessons..... we'll just go swimming a bunch and I will teach them..." yeah right. That is SO not happening. Especially not now. Not with all these kids. So anyway. We took the plunge and signed Brad and Luke up. When we sat down (not too close, but close enough that we could give the boys "the look" when they disobeyed their teacher too much), we noticed a teacher talking to the mother of a boy in the class before theirs. She was going on and on about how this boy had not listened, had not followed instructions, and simply didn't want to even try anything that she told him to do the entire lesson and therefore missed out on the free playtime at the end of the class. My very first thought was, "please don't be their teacher". But I did have to hand it to her when the mom got up and began arguing with her about how she was surprised he had even gotten in the water, he really wasn't all that comfortable with it yet and that the teacher needed to give him more of a chance, the teacher totally stood her ground and didn't back down from what she had said. I thought she sounded a bit harsh.... in fact at first sight I wondered if she had some kind of connection with the kid, relative or something, with how blunt she was about his performance (and this kid is like 3 or 4). But when the mom suggested that he might need a different teacher I realized that wasn't the case. So anyway!!!! (long story shorter than long) I was VERY relieved when I learned that this teacher was NOT the teacher my boys would have for the next 5 weeks. Thank goodness. And I'm sure she's a very good teacher, that whole conversation just left a really bad taste in my mouth. I was very pleased with their first day. I thought it went well. There was an even amount of goofing around, playing games, and listening at the wall. I like their teacher and I think that with Nate's help, I can just sit back and relax and watch them learn. And since this whole them going to swim lessons is all about me and all.... I wouldn't need to point out how cute the boys were, getting ready and when we got there. Bradley came to me that morning and said that he was not wanting to do it anymore because he already knows how to "swim regular" and he assumed that that was the ONLY way of swimming. Little does he know :) I was really surprised though at how much bigger he really is compared to the kids his age. He looked like a giant next to them all. Luke was adorable as well, kept putting his face in the water and then jumping up so fast that his suit would fall down a little. He had to keep pulling it up.... I laughed. They were good boys. I think they had fun. I was a little jealous of how shallow the pool area was that they were using. Minus the back ache and the easiness for the kids to roam around more than you want, that would have been nice for swimming instruction with little kids. Less stress about them going under. Fun stuff. This is a huge step for me..... I'm proud of myself. And now my boys will know how to swim.

I made this post last week, just after their first lesson, but finally got the pictures I wanted. Bradley has already improved enough that he could move up a class if he wanted to. He decided he wanted to stay with Luke though, so his teacher offered to just try and challenge Brad a little bit more than the other kids in the class. I'm proud of him. And Luke has become a pro at floating on his back, it's hilarious how much he does it. Although he can't hear his teacher when he's doing it, so he misses out on a lot of instruction.... oh well. It's fun.

a quarter of a year

I just love this little girl. As much as I feel like she is more work than some of my other kids have been at this age, she is a doll!! She has a very cute little personality already. I love her smile. It is one of the things that helps me make it through my day. She has the cutest little dimples. I'm surprised at how little hair she still has, but I'm sure it will come in someday. She's getting really close to being able to roll over from tummy to back, which amazes me. She hates being on her tummy though, so not a lot of time to practice. She's definitely a mommy's girl, she loves to be held, and fed 24/7. She is a sweet little baby though, still puts up with all that her siblings are dishing out. They love her SO much! I don't think I've ever seen such a loved little baby. Kelly's already planning her first birthday party and looking forward to when she can play with her. Bradley always talks about how much he loves her. Charity is learning how to change her diapers on her own, like Kelly. Luke loves to squeeze her cheeks and demonstrate what faces she's making. Noah makes sure that she is always comfortable and always happy, thinking of her before himself. I just love it. I enjoy being with her. She has a very sweet, special little Spirit. It's nice to not hate my life everytime I have to get up with her in the night. It's almost a good thing when she looks up at me with that sweet little smile of hers.