what a beautiful mess

We spent Saturday with our little people... And Saturday night with just us.  It was a great day. It was a wonderful weekend.  It's been an awesomely fantastic twelve years. 

The most important timeline if you ask me. August 1997: I start working at Little Caesars and first meet Trevor. November 22 1997: Our very first "official" date. We ate Taco Bell and went to my high schools play of "Annie Get Your Gun". Highlights of the evening? Enchurrito burp, opening a big bag of skittles during the play and spilling them all over the concrete floors and Trevor (trying) to teach me how to drive his Bronco. March 1998: We went to my high schools Prom. And ignored everyone else around us~ by accident, of course. All I remember about that night is Trevor. June 1998 to April 1999: I attend and graduate cosmetology school; Trevor picked me up everyday and we would go get a soda and drive through Zions and anywhere else we wanted to go. One time we drove to Mesquite and I was sure I would get in trouble if my parents found out (which they didn't...till now); Trevor worked in Jackson for about 2 months or so, driving home every weekend so ...

When I sit down to blog, I generally have no idea what I'm going to write about. So...... WARNING: If you are looking for a sequence of events or maybe some semblance of order in this post, you won't find it. It's a little odd and a little haphazard. Let's proceed: ************************ My sweet Emily has been sick for the last 2 days.  So far, she's watched Nancy Drew twice and Santa Claus 2 once. She's also done her math and read a little.  She's had a sprite and a Gatorade and lots of chicken noodle soup and saltines.  That's what my mom gave me when I was a sick little girl.  ( By the way....thanks for taking such good care of me mom!) I hope I'm doing the same for my own girlie..... Josh found a pair of his newborn pajamas in his drawer today.  So he thought he'd try them on and see if they still fit.  He thinks they fit just fine and plans on wearing them when he plays baseball....

The kids can't watch their movies in the afternoon without taping a blanket to the window.  And it's really hard to get on the computer in the afternoon with the sun glaring in your face. But more importantly, I can't walk around naked anymore.... I'm not complaining but some curtains would be really nice. And if I could get them soon, that would be great....

Yesterday as I was rolling out the noddle dough,  I noticed I rolled it into the shape of a heart..... What a fitting way to start our week, right?  I had to take a picture.  I think it's akin to people finding a potato chip in the shape of the Virgin Mary.  It's a sign, I tell ya.  True love in the shape of  noodle dough.  It doesn't get much better than this.

It's now the time of night where I sit down at the computer and think and reflect on my day. Here's what going on in my head right now. At one point today, my hair was styled and not frizzy or flighty. Earlier today I didn't have mascara smeared under my eyes and my imperfections were perfectly covered up. When I got dressed this morning it wasn't with a stained shirt and baggy pants. I had a to do list that included painting the laundry room and making a pie. This morning I didn't know that I had a flat tire. Now it's 10 o'clock and everything that was... is no longer. My hair is crazy, my make up is everywhere but where it's suppose to be, my shirt has pumpkin on it, my pants have stretched out, the laundry room still needs to be painted and the car has a flat tire. Whew....I'm exhausted. Besides all that I accomplished a lot today. I made homemade graham crackers. I will never buy store bought ones again. They w...

In the Haslem household, we've been slightly off-kilter. Things are normal but not normal.  "Uhhh...what? That doesn't make sense, Sarah." What I mean is that we do the same things but our attitude just isn't as good as it usually is.  I have the opinion that we make our own choice for how we feel and what kind of attitude we have and so as of right now I am demanding that we stop, enjoy life and have a little more chocolate milk.  And that's just what Stephen decided to do for breakfast this morning.  And do you know what one week from tomorrow is? Yes, it's our twelve year anniversary.  And as you can tell, we are super excited.... Last year I was super depressed. We had just made another move and I hadn't quite adjusted yet.  I think it took until about 3 months ago for me to fully adjust.  But I am not going to be depressed this year.  It's been twelve amazing years.  ...

I have been a bad blogger. I've been sitting around doing absolutely nothing, thinking about all the "somethings" I should be doing. Okay, not really. I've been busy. Not really busy, not too busy to blog, but busy. I have no excuses except that I haven't taken any pictures. But my kids have. Like this one of Joshua that Emily took. I don't remember exactly who he was dressed up as but it was someone with a mustache and a flashlight. I have a lot of things I should be doing right now. Here's an example from a photo I just took so that I could blog today: There are a few things I need to do in the kitchen; some that are very obvious and some not so obvious. Obvious: dishes clean off table organize fridge Not so obvious: finish painting sweep mop make kids snack I  love being in the kitchen. I'm always cold and its the one place in my house where I have the most chance of being warm. Except bedtime where I get to sle...

Stephen lost another tooth. You'd think that his mouth could at least let the other teeth finish growing in  before it decides to push out another one.   The tooth fairy is coming to our house way too often.

Picking apples as a family last night.  Luke Bryans new song. LOVE. Making a pear crisp that all the kids liked.  Doing FHE at the care center here in Rexburg. Psych is back! And we just watched the first episode.... Painting the laundry room and redoing the kitchen (tomorrow). Treadmill...as always.  Reading a good book.  Friday!!!!!!!

Joshua (of course) fell asleep during FHE.  I guess the lesson I taught on the Word of Wisdom just didn't interest him enough. Instead of the usual talk on avoiding alcohol and tobacco and tea and drugs...etc we talked more about how to take care of our bodies.  We talked about the foods that are good and bad. We talked about appropriate words to use (fat and skinny are no longer allowed in our house. Unless, as  Stephen pointed out, you're talking about a fat cookie or something like that) We also discussed how every body is different and no one is supposed to look or be the same. It was a really good lesson.  And then we all had two cookies and the kids went to bed. Trevor and I then proceeded to have a very good evening (our favorite time of the day). Fast forward to 12:00 a.m. I woke up to Joshua crying and coughing. I went into his room and he was barely breathing. He's done this before and we to...

The kids actually got out of school for 10 days because of the spud harvest! Although it snowed and was cold a lot of the time. Still, we had fun. They played with their friends, baked and cooked and watched a lot of movies.... Yesterday since it was their last day, we decided to go to Porter Park where they could ride their bikes around while I ran. It was going great until..... We had two different crashes. Joshy was fine after just a minute but Emily crashed pretty hard and got really scrapped up. But I'm happy to say that both are fine now. We even came home and invited friends over for cake and had a stupendous time! And to officially welcome Fall and being back to school, we have a cold, wet, windy day ahead of us. And it doesn't even make me sad. Shocking, right? Either I'm getting used to the weather or my treadmill is doing just what we hoped for; banishing the blues!

Ba Ba Bummmm..... We had a great time; watching General Conference, hiking, playing at the park, eating yummy food (nachos) and loving the babies! Candice sent me some of the pictures that we took. I realized after she sent them that we need to be much better at taking out our cameras and USING them! We only took pictures of our hike... (Candice carrying her sweet baby Kyran, me with Asa~you can only see the back of his head.  It's a cute head, believe me!) (My head looks as if it's unattached to my neck in this pic...weird, huh?) I can't wait till we can see each other again! And by the way Quinn, we blame you for the huge amount of time we waste.  We wouldn't have ever known about  Sporcle  if it wasn't for you.... Every day, I tell you.....

My favorite thing to do on a cold day, cold day... is to spend lots of time in the kitchen.  And I have a lot to do!

An abandoned art project  (that later, very later, got finished) The girls picked their own paint color for their room. Do you allow your kids to pick their colors? This time around is much better than their last room.... (think pepto bismal) Since Josh got a haircut on Monday, he seems to have matured right into an almost kindergartner.  Give me a minute while I grab some tissues.... While we had yummy potatoes and queso for dinner,  Josh decided to have cereal and I gave in.  Can you blame me? Anna paints her nails every other day.  She says it's cause she doesn't like her nails without it.  And she'll do it at any time of the day.  Here she is at 8:00 tonight: It looks like a pretty good day, right?  I even made them a delicious dessert to eat  while we stayed up late watching Santa Claus 2.  I love that movie but I think Molly Shannon was the very best in it.  She makes me ...

I know it's been a good day when I can sit down at the computer, think about my day and feel satisfied. My day wasn't perfect, it wasn't even great but I feel good about it. Sometimes just trying my hardest is good enough. I didn't do my hair. I didn't do my make-up. I had a stomach ache. I went until 6:30 without a Diet Dr. Pepper. I had to take a nap at 5:00. My bread didn't work out. I ate too much bacon fat cause it just tasted so good (but it's so, so bad). BUT I worked up a really good sweat on the treadmill. I was patient. I was kind. I loved my family. I kept getting things done even when I didn't want to. Well, at least I did until 5:00 (my nap) and even then I still helped Stephen make dinner and give Joshy a (much needed) bath. And I still have a couple of hours left with Trevor tonight so.....I guess my day is going to end up being pretty darn great. (this picture makes me pretty darn happy too... Kyra...