Easter Sunday

We hope everyone had a wonderful Easter Sabbath being fed both Spiritually and Physically. We enjoyed a great Church service that fed our Spirits and then spent a great day at Aunt Val's and Uncle Kenny's being physically fed a wonderful meal. The best part of course was watching all the cousins play and enjoy spending the day together. I'm so thankful for the sacrifice of my Savior. As the children have asked questions this Easter season, I've been able to focus on the simple truths of His Atonement and Resurrection. It makes me feel very humble to know that He chose to sacrifice His life for me! It's wonderful to be able to take some special time to reflect on His great love.

Thanks Nana for the precious Easter dresses and bonnets that you so lovingly sewed for the girls.

New Arrival

Technically, Sophie isn't too new of an arrival. She's been a member of the family for two months but as with all new "babies", we've been busy with potty-training, baby-proofing and sleepless nights. She's a Cocker Spaniel and a very good girl. She tries hard to be obedient and is very good with the kids. I wasn't too excited about a new puppy in an apartment but Steve convinced me it would be much less stressful training her here than in our brand new house. I had to agree.

Mama Bear

I promised to list the 25 things I hate about apartment living, but instead I'm going to focus on just one... Parents who don't parent their children. Living in the apartment, there are a lot of children who live in a relatively small radius. I'm not one to let my kids out of my sight, but I'm trying to get better at not being to obsessive about this. This weekend, I decided to branch out and let the kids play outside without me. I did however, keep a seat right by the window. The first thing that happened that made me question my decision was that a neighbor child decided to start throwing hard things at people just to see if he could hit any of them. Unfortunately, McKay was the target. I heard her crying before I saw her. All Moms know that particular sound in their child's cry that tells you, it's going to be bad. I saw McKay and her mouth was covered in blood. She had busted her top and bottom lip and scratched her gum. I could feel my blood boiling but kept my cool as I explained to the neighborhood kids the dangers of throwing hard and heavy things with so many people around. Next, I was looking out the window and saw a 10 year old child pick up a 4 year old and throw him into the scratchy bushes. Without thinking, I called to the 10 year old and told him I couldn't believe I just saw him do that. He told me "Well, he hit me first" which then prompted a 5 minute lecture from me on how the other child was smaller than him and if he had a problem he should use his words, etc. Moments later I heard profanity fly from several children and I decided I better go outside for the rest of the afternoon. As I was sitting outside, a parent came out and was leaving to go somewhere. She told her kids to come and get in the car and they told her "no". After a few minutes of this back and forth she finally said "ok, but don't you be @#% bad cause if you are I'll beat your @#$. I thought are you kdding me? It's no wonder we have the societal problems we have in our country. I'm so grateful to have tools that teach me how to teach my children. I'm so thankful for my knowledge of the divinity of my children. I'm so proud of them and for their desire to truly choose the right and be good kids. I know that I have things to improve on in my own parenting, but it's a great eye opener to see what can happen to kids who don't understand where they've come from, who they are and where they are going in this life and the next.

UPDATE

Our Property (the stakes are the closest thing we have to a house, hee hee)

I can't believe it's been two months since I've blogged! We've been so busy the last two months getting the house sold, finalizing the plans on our new house, shopping around for mortgages... and life in general.

So many people have been inquiring as to when we will be moving in. The above pictures show the current state of our new home :)

We are waiting for the final appraisal, then we can set the closing date... THEN they will start building. The builders guarantee that they will be finished in 5 months but we were told that his average is three months. Here's hoping for small miracles.

Stay tuned for my next entry... 25 things I hate about living in an apartment...

I'm so excited... we got a contract on the house. Our house was listed for 14 days and we got an offer for $900 less than our asking price. Due to the state of the housing market we are so surprised, thrilled and feel incredibly blessed. The only thing that has us a little bit nervous is we are supposed to close on Feb. 26. We have soo much to do before this date, but feel confident that we'll accomplish all that this great opportunity requires.



There have been several times in my life when I have felt the Lord guiding me in a specific direction. I know that He is in charge always, but during those times I feel myself making decisions with Him gently watching over my shoulder allowing me to run with it. When I've felt Him guiding me, it can feel almost overwhelming. It's like I'm watching my life from the outside. I can see a chain of events happening and know I have little control over them, which is a good thing. The ultimate control is in His hands and what better Captain can I have? I guess this is where the overwhelming feelings come from. I'm overwhelmed by His love for me. He is so intimately a part of my life and cares enough about me, His daughter that He takes my hand and leads me down the road I need to be on. I have felt this guidance all through the process of choosing to sell our house that we assumed we'd grow old and gray in. When I've thought I was making the right choice, He has changed my course and then shown me why it was wrong (we don't always get such a blessing). I have no fear about our journey because I feel His watchful eye and His knowledge OF me and His love FOR me. I am so full of gratitude that I just needed to express it.

I'm back...

It's so nice to know you're missed when you're gone. I haven't actually been GONE, just GOING, GOING, GOING.

We are in the process of building a house. The process began months ago, but each month has brought us closer to this goal. We knew we would need a place to live while we built and so Steve started inquiring at Apartment complexes to see if they had a need for a Courtesy Officer. A Courtesy Officer is given a free apartment in exchange for services to the complex. Much to our surprise, we were offered an apartment right away. We saw several advantages to moving now even though our house hasn't sold. Right after Christmas we prepared for the move. The first week of January we moved into our Apartment. We live in the same complex that we lived in right after we got married. Steve served as the Courtesy Officer then as well. It was fun to come back to our Honeymoon neighborhood. We then got the house spic and span and it's on the market. We've had three showings this first week, so we're hopeful. There are several random things I've been noticing about Apartment living that I'd thought I'd mention:

1. I love the way you can smell what each of your neighbors are cooking for supper.

2. I don't like the way the stairwell smells like it's 30 years old. ( it is)

3. I don't like how the stairwell carpet is always dirty.

4. I love that I can plug my vacuum cleaner in once and vacuum the whole house.

5. I love that the kids each have a bigger closet than they had in our house.

6. I hate having to lug groceries up a flight of stairs.

7. I hate having to make sure I've locked my car and all valuables have been removed.

8. I love that it only took me two hours to clean the whole apt. instead of the normal 4 hours for the house.

9. I love that I don't worry about everything being "just so", it's an apt. after all.

10. I love/hate that I can hear my neighbors conversations just below.

11. I hate having to remind the kids not to run in the apt.

12. I love that the apt. has two sliding doors that let in a ton of natural light.

13. I love that we have new carpet so I don't mind when the kids lay on the floor.

14. I love that we get free cable.

15. I hate that we have to take our trash to a dumpster and the people before us never manage to get their trash inside of it.

16. I love that there is a playground right out the door.

17. I'm going to love having a complex swimming pool.

18. I love that the complex has a work out room.

19. I hate having to lug the bicycles down the stairs.

20. I love the blessings that Heavenly Father provides my family. I know He's in charge of this adventure we're on and I feel incredibly loved and protected by Him.

Oh yeah, I am shocked that I allowed my husband to talk me in to getting pets (two geckos and two hermit crabs).

December already??

Is it December already? I didn't even post about Thanksgiving so... it was great.

The latest with our crew is as follows:

We finally have our beautiful boy back! We had been encouraging Griffin to get his hair cut for awhile only to be met with "no way". One day he came home from school and said "Mom, if you buy me a hooded sweatshirt I'll get my haircut short". I'm not above being black-mailed by my nine year old and so I immediately called Steve and told him to get home quick. We loaded up the family and were at the store in about an hour. Griff found a hoodie that he liked and we were off to the salon. We all about had a panic attack when the gal used clippers to cut the back of Griff's hair. It looks so good! He didn't like it at first, but we can tell he's getting used to it. He says he's growing it back out...

I'm thankful to all of the wise people in my life who gave me the advice to carefully pick and choose my battles. In the large scheme of things, it's just hair and in the end HE made the choice to get it cut. Whew.

So, if you look past the bulging bicepts you'll see Owen's injury. He was playing at a friend's house this weekend and got "hung up" on a barbed wire fence, ugh! It looked so gruesome. His friend told him "it will probably leave a scar, but that will be cool so when you show your muscles you'll have a scar on them" hence the picture.

This picture is to shock everyone who knows my McKay! McKay actually found a pair of LACE-UP Tennis shoes that tie and a pair of JEANS that button and zip. I can't believe she wears these. For her whole life, she's only wanted to wear slip on shoes and elastic pants (two sizes too big mind you). Yeah for McKay!!

We had the best time at our friend's house this week. We were invited to Family Home Evening and made white chocolate snowflakes! The kids were very creative and had fun running around and playing. We especially enjoyed the message about how each of us is different and unique, just like snowflakes. It really put me in a festive mood. Thanks guys!

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My sister found a website that had the cutest dresses! They were an updated version of the 80's T-shirt dresses (remember those?) but the people were charging $60 and $70 dollars a dress. Between Sis, Mom and me... we figured out how to put one together and the girls love them. I think the bows were a little too much for Steve to handle. When I pulled out the camera, the girls started posing like crazy. It was hilarious, they're naturals!