what a beautiful mess

And relaxing time.  We put the kids to bed with the instructions that we don't want to hear a word at all from anyone. This is mom's time to sit and relax; reading apartment therapy comments (they're so snarky..),  eating some chocolate and peanut butter and slowly sipping my soda.  I did not attempt another chocolate cake today.  I needed time to accept defeat and I figure tomorrow will be long enough  that I can handle another possible failure.  Plus if my cake does work out, it'll be a perfect snack to eat  while we lounge by the lake in the afternoon.... I love the weekend.

While out shopping today, I took this picture of Annabelle.  It's one that makes me happy just by looking at it.  And I need happiness cause I can no longer bake cakes and that makes me really sad.  I love cake. Especially chocolate cake. The last few I've made haven't worked out and burned all over the oven.  I'm frustrated.  Doesn't it seem like I always have baking drama?  It's a good thing I have Trevor because he see's the humor in everything and always makes me laugh over these silly problems.   I made one this evening that didn't work out (at all) but I'm not going to let it get me down for long.  Tomorrow I'll be baking another one.  And I really need it to work out...if for no other reason than that my confidence needs a boost....

You know you have an inherently good child when she comes to you after already having gone to bed just to let you know that if you want to use her new nail polish that she just bought with her own money, to go ahead, it's in the bathroom on the counter. For FHE tonight, we learned about cooperation. So that we could learn to cooperate, we played a game where you have to drop a bean in a can as many times as your age and whoever gets to their age first is the winner. Our kids loved this game; there was a lot of laughing, a lot of cheering on and no fighting. I hope that what they learned really cements into their brain tonight while they sleep so that we have a more cooperative day tomorrow. As I was doing the dishes tonight after the kids went to bed and Trevor was showering, I realized something that I already knew but had never really thought about. I am very fortunate to be living the life I live. Although it seems like recently, by the end of the day, there's more thin...

The biggest grapefruit I've ever seen: The best Dad my kids could ever have: And the best dad that I could ever have: Happy Fathers Day!

Didn't I mention almost a week ago in my last post how crazy life has been?  It's still true.  Maybe even a little crazier... But that's alright because I can tell that it's starting to slow down a little.  Last nacho movie night, Emily sat on Joshua's nachos.  It was super hilarious.  We all heard a loud crunch and knew exactly what happened. Everyone looked at me to see my reaction so I decided to laugh and everyone else did also.  Isn't it funny how a mom's attitude affects the whole household?  It was a great lesson for me of learning to just laugh more and allow my family to laugh more as well.  It's not as if we couldn't go get more chips and spicy ranch from the kitchen... On Sunday, the girls helped me make tortillas for dinner.  They are really great helpers in the kitchen although flour was everywhere by the time we were done.  Today we had the neighbor kids over for lunch (we really love th...

Ever since summer started, life seems to have gotten crazier. I don't have time to do a lot of things I use to do. I don't exercise until almost 10 o'clock and my to do list of house chores is never done by the time I get to bed. I'm not complaining because so far summer has been great. I think though that's it's up to me to do the things I want to do instead of always doing what's next on my list. For instance, I would love to sit down with a book during the day (something I always made time for before). I would love to sew something and make something pretty with my girls and something messy with my boys. I should get the camera out more often and take photos of the fun things we do. Like hula hooping as a family and coloring on the sidewalk with chalk. And more pictures of our play dates... Since summer started we have had to come up with a few new rules. 1. NO interrupting mom when she is on the treadmill. (unless you are bleeding, I don't wa...

Before we were to eat the delicious dinner that my parents made us, Joshua fell asleep on my arm.  Poor thing.  Poor me actually, cause I look pretty crazy in this photo.  Pay no attention to me, only to Joshy sleeping and Stephen in the background yawning. They made us Tuna Cakes on cabbage with steamed squash.  That's my kind of dinner, especially when it's delicious. And it was.  It was so, so good .  We've all had leftovers of it today... And don't let these ho-hum faces below fool you,  we were really enjoying ourselves,  talking with each other and watching Trevor eat squash.  This picture is just a good example of how to concentrate when eating really, really yummy food: I am so grateful my parents decided to come up and visit us.  We had such a good time.  We did a lot of watering the garden and watching the chickens.  Those are sources of endless enjoyment for us and...

This is everyone that came from my family...there's a lot of us missing from this family picture.  But we'll see each other all again soon... And this is everyone that came from Trevor's side of the family...again, a lot of people missing.  Thank you to all our family that was able to make it to Rexburg for such an important day.  We love you all!

This is what happens when you have long hair, and are sick and lay around all day: After some tears and some brushing: Beautiful. 

This has been such an uplifting, sad but happy, good day. My parents surprised me and showed up Friday night around 1:30 in the morning. It was awesome . I had made the comment earlier to both Trevor and Candice how sad I was that they weren't able to make it. It was so wonderful to have so many of our family come to the baptism. We only wish we could have visited with them all longer... There was a lot mentioned today in both my dad's testimony and during the confirmation about Stephens Uncle Stephen who he was named after. We could feel the Spirit testifying to us that he was there to witness this special day. We miss Uncle Stephen so much. One day I will write about him. It's amazing that even though 19 years have gone by since we've seen him, we still miss him just as much and love him possibly even more. We are super pleased and proud of our Stephen. He made the most important step today that he will ever take in being able to return to our Heavenly Father. He...