Mommyhood

Luke: Mom do you wish you were me? 
Me: All the time
Luke: I wish I was Ewika.
Me: How come?
Luke: Because she's so cute!!!
Me: You're cute too though!!
Luke: I know that MOM!!

Brad on the first day of Kindergarten I wrote the kids notes and when I offered to read his to him he insisted that I not, and that he was going to put it in his backpack and read it on the way home "after I learn how to read".
On the way home:
Brad: I still have that letter in my backpack, Mom.
Me: Oh really?  Did you read it?
Brad: No, not yet.  We didn't learn how to read yet.
Me: Well, anytime you want me to read it to you I will :)
Brad: I can proably read it on Monday.

Erika found Noah's ee-oh (satiny piece of material) in the car the other day when it was just she and I at the store, and made it hers.  When I got her out of the car I took it away and she immediately started FREAKING OUT.  She was hitting me, screaming, kicking her legs!!  I could not believe it.  It actually made me laugh so hard that I almost peed myself, but really, she's nine months old!!!  What kind of tantrums will we see when she's two???

Brad: I'm Noah's sick dog.  I have to be boxed up because I'm wild and sick.
Then I see Noah come marching down the hall like someone who just saw his sick dog out of it's box and needs to go take care of that......

Luke: "Mom can I play I mean do you want to play Tetris with me?"

Noah: Mom, Wooky huht me.
Me: Uh-OH!!  Should we beat him up?
Noah: No, just talk to him.
Such a peacemaker :)

First Day of School!

Charity's in Third, Kelly's in Second!!!!

We walked the girls to school.  Kind of an ordeal, but made it special :) We stayed for the flag ceremony, and watched the girls scurry around looking for their teachers.  They barely remembered to come give me a hug, but they were such good hugs, it made me feel like they were really glad they remembered :)  I'm going to miss them so much again!  I always do.  I hate that they have to be gone all day.  They love school SO MUCH though.  I couldn't imagine taking that away from them.  That whole night before and the morning of really could have been mistaken for Christmas Eve and morning in our house.  The giddiness was comparable.  They were all just SO EXCITED!  Charity kept saying, "I can't believe it's finally here!  I can't beleive it's finally here!!!"  Ya gotta love that.  (and record it for them to read when they're older :) I'm sure they'll ALWAYS love school and look SO forward to the first day of school :).... HA! jk.) 

The stroller got a flat on the way home so we called Grandpa to come get us from Rocket Park (we took the long way home :)).  By the time we got home it was time to get Brad ready to go to his first day of Kindergarten!!! 

Here's my big Kindergartener!!!

We got to have a little orientation thing with Brad's teacher.  I thought he and I were going to be there spending some good quality time together, but they whisked him away just as soon as we got there!!  I couldn't believe how big he looked in line with all the other kids.  There were SO MANY forms and stuff and Erika made it next to impossible to fill them out, but it was really fun to hear his teacher and get a feel for what his experience in it will be like.  I know Brad will love it!  He was cute, I wrote the kids all a little letter and gave it to them in the morning, and he didn't want help with his, he just wanted to put it in his backpack so that he could "read it on the way home, after he learns how to read" :)  How cute is that.  I think he was a little bummed that that wasn't the first thing he did, but hopefully he still has fun :)  I love Bradley so much.  I look up to him so much.  He's a sweetheart.  He really does just LOVE information.  He likes figuring things out, and being the first to point something out.  He gave me the sweetest hug and kiss before he walked off to go get in line.  And then waved as he left the room.  What a cute kid.  Makes me wanna cry just thinking about it!!!  I'm going to miss his great ideas and his motivating personality.  He really did help me to get going everyday, reminding me what I told him we would do that day :)  And actually he's the reason I stuck to my schedules most days.  He's a stickler for schedules.  He's gonna love school though!

Some Random Pictures from our last week of Summer Break

We tried to keep ourselves busy the last week of Summer Break so that we could make sure we enjoyed it to the end, but for some reason I didn't take a whole lot of pictures of any of it :*(  Oh well.  These are the few that I did get. 

Tuesday we took advantage of Two Buck Tuesday at Thanksgiving Point.  Yes, it was VERY crowded, but we had a lot of fun anyway.  If I've said it once I've said it a million times, my kids would be fine with just the water/sand thing and the digging for dinosaur bones.  I don't think they care much about anything else there.  At least that's what the constant "when are we going to dig for bones?" and "how much longer till the water and sand thing?" lead me to believe.

I only lost track of Lukey ONCE the whole time and that was only for a few minutes. This was nice.

Kelly was Noah's buddy for the trip, she took full advantage of that and buddied up with him the whole time.  I was really grateful that she wanted to stick by him so much even in the sand pit.  Big sisters are priceless in these kinds of places.

Charity had a bit of a hard time.  She's in that stage where you're getting a little old to be playing with the baby stuff, but it's still fun.  She got really frustrated with the fact that nobody thought she should have a brush.  She was sweet to a lot of the little kids there though.  Makes me proud of her.  And just for the record, I am okay with her staying little and playing with the baby stuff.... it's everyone else that makes it seem otherwise.

Brad had a lot of fun.  I don't think he was really into it this time though.  I remember the last few times we were there him just being really fascinated with all the dinosaurs and asking lots of questions about them.  He seemed disinterested this time.  Actually for the last little while I've wondered if he wasn't just getting anxious for school to start.  He's seemed preoccupied.  But he's still so handsome :) look at him!

Erika did really well, just sat in the stroller thankfully.  She got a little restless at the end and screamed on the way out which had to take a little longer since everyone needed drinks and potty breaks, but hey, I'll take the screaming just at the end any day.

Wednesday we went to Taffy Town and then played in the rain a little.  Definitely turned out to be not as cool as I had wanted.  The place is completely different.   But they all loved picking out their favorite taffy flavors.

Thursday night Steve found these kittens at Walmart and Erika got to play with them a little.  She squealed with excitement and wanted to touch them a lot.  I thought it was adorable.  We were letting the older kids sleep through this part because we thought they would be able to play with them in the morning, but no such luck.  They were completely disappointed.

On Friday, we went with Sarah and Charlie to the Zoo.  We had a good time, but something about the trip seemed not as enjoyable for some reason.  I'm not sure what it was, could just be me.  HOpefully everyone had a LITTLE fun.  Could be that Noah was screaming for the last half of it, and it seemed like we did a lot more walking than we needed to in a lot hotter temps than we have been there in.  But I always love chatting it up with Sarah.  So that at least was right :)  This picture is funny :)  Cute Charlie is more interested in the Giraffe, Brad's ready to go home, Noah's crying some more.  Fun stuff :)

So Friday night was our last minute camping trip!  Boy did we ever have an adventure.  (yeah that was sarcastic)  It was kind of funny how much went "wrong" that night.  Nate and I had originally thought of just going up Big or Little Cottonwood canyons, but then at the last minute Nate called Hobblecreek Canyon and found out that their campground was almost completely empty (this was Friday when he called) so we thought rather than take our chances with the Cottonwoods, we'd go down there.  Well, after about 45 minutes of Salt Lake City rush hour traffic, we saw the sign that said there was a 3 hour delay going to Provo!!!!  HOLY MOLY!!!  Yeah, there's no chance that we wanted to sit in traffic for 3 hours, and that's assuming it ddidn't get any worse.  We quickly decided to just get off the freeway and go up to Big Cottonwood canyon.  Well, of course it was full and so was Little Cottonwood, and by the time we had scoured both of them it was almost 8:00.  Nate and I were totally bummed.  And not wanting to tell the kids the sad news.  Charity had been getting nervous about whether we would find one too and had expressed some disappointment as well.  So it was hard to tell the kids that we were just going to have to have our campout at home.  Much to my surprise though, Kelly piped up with "REALLY?!!!!!  WE GET TO CAMP AT HOME???!!!!  That will be SO COOL!!!!"  I couldn't believe it!  Kelly had totally saved the day because they all jumped on her bandwagon and got excited as well.  She even had several reasons why this would be "funner!"  I seriously wanted to cry because I had been so sad about not going and then here is Kelly making the most of it.  So awesome!  I was so proud of my kids the whole time.  Well, then there was a series of mini plans that kept falling through.  Very discouraging.  We thought we would find a picnic place where they let you do campfires and at least cook our food at one of those, but they were full and closed, then our idea to stop and get icees turned into going to a few different gas stations since the ones we tried were out! then when we got home to roast our marshmellows on the grill, the propane we had only lasted long enough to grill the hot dogs.  It was funny almost by the end of it all.  We were tired, but set up the tent in the kids' room, made some s'mores in the microwave, and let the kids goof around for an hour with the lantern on before making them go to sleep.  That was our END OF THE SUMMER CAMPOUT!  And just like Charity kept pointint out, all the surprises just made it that much more memorable.  I'm so glad my kids have learned how to deal with disappointment.  They're amazing.  If only we could teach Nate and I how to deal with it so well cuz I'm still feeling a little bit jipped :). 

We did see this cool moose in Alta. Took us back to our fun times in Alaska. Meese are just cool.

Check out this drool!!!

Noah liked watching his shoes light up in the dark :)  Cute boy.

And now it's time for school to start!

Future Memories

- 8-17-10 We had a big Sunday dinner here with Heidi, Brent, Sarah and Charlie, and Grandpa and Steve.  It was a last minute idea starting with Heidi being here and wanting to spend some time with her and grew into a really fun evening.  I was so anxious to eat the yummy food and eat it when it was warm, but when we sat down to eat everyone couldn't stop talking for the prayer!  It was so funny.  I really loved it.  It's fun when everyone gets together and enjoys it.  We watched home videos afterwards.  Loved that too.  Minus the part where I realized Brent really was kinda picked on.  At least in this one we watched.  He was totally trying to teach me something and really couldn't get a word in edgewise because of everyone cutting him off and teasing and talking.  It is actually really funny to watch now, but I felt bad too.  Funny, the emotions that can come watching home videos.  Good times though, wish they could happen more often!

- A while ago I had one of those days where it felt like everything was just going to smother me.  I really can't describe how hopeless I was feeling and I wasn't sure how I was going to get out of the darkness.  Nate gave me a minute to myself so I drove up to the temple to think and pray.  I wish I had felt like going in.  I really felt a lot of different emotions that just didn't involve feeling worthy for some reason.  I wasn't sure what it all was but now I know it was just Satan.  I had a really neat experience though.  For some reason I had thought to take my scriptures and a notebook with me on my time out, and while I was sitting there I had a few ideas of things to write down.  Questions to ask myself and then questions that would help resolve some of the answers.  And then I was prompted to look up a few scriptures.  Actually I started in the Topical Guide looking up "Happiness".  I couldn't believe how much the Spirit was teaching me from just a few little scriptures.  I loved it.  I wrote down everything that I could.  It was really incredible how much better I felt when I was done.  Not even a whole hour later.  Looking back I realize that it was the Spirit prompting me to bring the notebook, the scriptures, and then giving me the lesson that I received.  It almost felt like some kind of therapy or something.  It fascinates me now to think about it and makes me happy that I was able to receive the prompting and then follow it.  Since this experience I have been following this same model for all of my personal scripture studies, and it's been really incredible.  It's completely changed the way I deal with my problems and how I control my mood.  I really do just love it.  It's been the perfect way for me to study right now.  And I'm sure bouncing around from scripture to scripture might not work for most people, but it's been just what my racing around brain needs.  I feel like I'm able to focus better.  And the last few times I've just opened my scriptures up to a topic, and gone with it.  It's kind of funny the ones that have come up- Humble, Meek, Strong (which happens to refer mostly to first being humble)- kinda makes me laugh how obvious it is that I need to be more Humble and all the things that go with it.  I love it when I feel like I am getting exactly what the Lord wants me to get.  Maybe that's why I like Priesthood Blessings so much (while it may be the "lazy" way to receive inspiration), it's straight from the Lord and in such a simple form for me.  It's been a long time coming, and while I don't feel like I'm 100% yet, I do feel like I'm starting to come out of this cloud.  It's very encouraging.  I feel like Heavenly Father is leading me out of it.

- Wednesday, 8-17-10 we went to Taffy Town.  It's completely changed.  The kids had a blast picking out their favorite flavors, but it's just store now, nothing to call a field trip about it.  I was disappointed, and annoyed with how much they charge now too.  Just recording it so that I don't forget how lame it is to go there now.  Miss the good ol' days when it was a fun place.

Obama's Wedding

Actually it's "Grandma's Wedding" but Noah used to call her "O-bahma" so I thought that would be funny and draw your attention :)

Saturday night my Mom got married to Simon Wong.  It's all very new and different for me and I'm not sure how I feel about it all yet.  Except that I am happy for my Mom to be happy and to have found someone like Simon who takes really good care of her.  He is really nice.  Funny too.  So it's nice that we like him.  I guess it's been tricky explaining things to the kids.  They always have so many questions and need to know all the details.  Hopefully we've been able to teach them the right things.  The wedding was really nice.  Alicia and Heidi did a great job. 

A picture of the amazing photographer (aka: my brother!).  Brent and Sarah did an awesome job, it was fun to watch them work.

This was when Heidi threw the bouquet after catching it when my Mom threw it.  The girls wanted a chance to catch it :)

Erika was grumpy through a LOT of the wedding and especially during the ceremony.  Thanks to Debbie for taking her during it!!

Dancing with her Uncle.... one of our favorite pasttimes....

Charlie cleaned up all the candy :)

Love the pictures, Brent!!  Thank you so much!!!

This belongs on the wall!  FRAMED!  I love it!

CoNgRaTuLaTiOnS MoM and SiMoN!!!! 

(not that they read this blog)