Things that made me happy tonight

Sharing a frostie with Ollie after the kids were all snuggled and sleeping in their beds:

When I walked by the doorway from the kitchen to the living room and saw this:

Listening to Christmas on Pandora:

I love it when all is calm and bright and right and peaceful in the evenings.  Especially at Christmas time.

Just a few pictures

I was pretty sad that most of my pictures from Thanksgiving were accidentally deleted!  Sadness.  So, here are a few cute ones from our Holiday Party at Ollie's mom's house:

Hammer and Lulu had a good time playing with the Tinker Toys while we were waiting for their cousins.  They made barbells and were lifting weights:

After a delicious dinner, the kids helped Grammie decorate her kid's tree that is in the basement.  They loved that.  Well, Hammer loved sweeping the floor even more.  You can see him holding the broom in this picture:

And here is my oldest niece, Ky.  She recently turned 12.  She enjoyed some quality baby time with her littlest cousin, aka my Little Giant.

So, there were some other great pictures to add, but alas, they are lost forever.  We had a great dinner and really enjoyed our loooong weekend with Daddy home.  It was awesome.

Gratitude Actions

My friend Whitney recently did a post on gratitude.  It was a wonderful post because she took a different spin on the whole idea of giving thanks.  She did the usual: ponder and write a list of blessings.  But then she took it one step further.
She decided this year that she wanted to also SHOW gratitude for the things she is thankful for.  Included in her list of blessings were her own ways that she had brainstormed to show her gratitude, specific to each blessing.

I have thought a lot about that post, and have decided to copy her idea by pondering not just how many blessings I have, but also how I can show my thanks for them. Some of my blessings and ways of showing thanks are similar to hers, but that's a given.  Who isn't thankful for their kids?  But I have sincerely pondered my blessings this year, and have decided to focus on 10 things. Then I decided to concentrate on 2 ways that I feel will help me show my gratitude for each blessing. 

1. God
I am grateful to a loving Father and a Savior who have given me everything.  I mean EVERYTHING.  I think I can show my thanks by putting God first, not just if I have time after everything else.  To do that I want to
   1. Read my scriptures in the morning before I read anything else.  and
   2. Keep serving others around me.  The past few weeks I have been trying to follow through when I have a thought to do something nice for someone, instead of blowing it off because I don't have time or because I'm worried what that person will think.

2. Ollie
Ollie is such a wonderful father and husband.  He pitches in where he sees a need and never complains.  For example, last Sunday he helped get the kids, and the church bag, ready for church.  He took the kids out to the bathroom during the meeting.  He bounced the baby to sleep in Sunday School.  Then he watched them for me while I did my church callings.  No, that's not all.  He also washed 4 loads of laundry, made the dinner, AND did the dishes. And then helped get the kids ready for bed and into bed.  So how can I show him that I am grateful for all he does for our little family?
   1. I will do better at keeping our home clean and organized, so he doesn't have to pick up my slack as much.  I'm not talking about a spotless house, because we all know with 3 kids that's just impossible. But I can do better.  If I just clean/organize one area each day, it will feel so "homey" and relaxing in here.  and
   2. I think we need some date nights.  I would love some one-on-one time with him, to really have some conversations without being interrupted.  Maybe we could do a date-night every few weeks and actually get a babysitter.  There's a novel idea.

3. Kids
Every day I marvel at just how dang cute my little ones are.  And at how fast they are growing up!  It's all so exciting, but I want to make sure I'm doing my best right now with them.  I am so grateful for the chance I have to be their mother.  I remember at a funeral for a grandma how everyone said that they always thought they were Grandma's favorite.  What an amazing quality that woman must have had, to be able to make each person feel that special.  So that's my goal.  I want each of my kids to think that they are my favorite.  That will show my gratitude for having them in my life.  To do that I want to
    1. Make sure every day I give each kid not just my attention, but some physical affection.  I want to hold one in my lap, and ask her/him silly questions, and eat his/her chin, and squeeze them into a great big giant bear hug.  Every day.
    2. I want to start mommy/daddy-daughter/son dates.  Maybe Hammer is a little young still.  Maybe not.  Lulu would just love having us all to herself and getting to go somewhere exciting.  Even ice cream at McDonalds is exciting when you are 4.

4. My health
I want to show God I am grateful for my health by doing my part to stay healthy.  These two idea are just common sense, but something I have let slip for a little while.  I am so grateful that even though I've been lazy I have still been healthy!  So I want to
    1. Eat more vegetables.
    2. Exercise more.  I need to start running on the treadmill again, and I think the only time to do it will be when Ollie is home to watch the kids.  I don't trust them with that big machine.  So I will try to do it right when he gets home.  I will be in my clothes with my running shoes on when he gets home.  I think I'll try for Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings.

5. House
I am so grateful, especially when winter comes around each year, to have a safe and warm house.  To show I'm grateful I will
    1. Keep it clean (see Ollie section.  It's ok to use that one for two blessings right?)
    2. Each Saturday organize one area that has started getting the dreaded piles.  I don't know about you, but we get piles of stuff everywhere.  It bugs me but then I never get around to sorting through it and putting it away.

6.Clean water
I've been grateful for this every day since living in foreign countries where this is not so.  This year I feel even more grateful after reading in the National Geographic about women in Africa who walk for hours, HOURS!, every day to get water.  Then they walk hours back to their home with the heavy water on their heads.  I did not know that people lived that way.  Plus that water may not even be clean, but it's all they have.  Then there's my house, where I just turn a handle and out comes water.  Not just any water, but water clean enough to drink.  And hot water comes out almost instantly.  That is a real blessing.
    1. I will do what I can to conserve my share of the clean water.  I will not let it run when I am sudsing up my hands for the 20 seconds I've been trying to do.
    2. I will teach my kids to be careful and what a blessing it is to have water in our home.

7. Extended family
I have of course been blessed with a wonderful family.  I am grateful for the support they give us and the love and concern.  To show my gratitude I can
    1. Send birthday cards or thank you cards more often to let them know I am thinking of them
    2. Ponder ways to serve them.  This may not be very easy since nobody lives too close to me, but I'll try to get creative and give it a go

8. Our beautiful world
I want to
    1. Photograph the things I find beautiful
    2. Find places around me that I have never visited.  I don't have to go on extravagant trips around the world to find beauty, although I like that too.  But Utah has so much wonderful scenery that I have never seen.  My kids will hopefully appreciate the beauty too as we visit new places.  And I'll take photos along the way (see number 1)

9. Living in this Modern age
I am grateful to live today where we have clean water, and sewer systems, and hospitals with advanced medicines and machines, and supermarkets with a huge variety of food that I didn't even have to grow, and the internet to find any information within seconds, and airplanes to bring my parents home within hours, and... I know that not everyone in the world has access to these amazing blessings, so I am really grateful.
    1. I will use the internet to find good information, not to waste my time.  I love that I can learn anything so easily with just a few clicks of the mouse.  I want to keep learning.
    2. I will keep donating to my church who uses my funds to bring these blessings of modern technology to those who haven't had it before.

10. Forgiveness
I am not perfect.  I am so glad that my kids forgive me.  And my friends.  And my parents.  And my husband.  And mostly God, so that I can keep progressing and learning to be a better person.  To show my gratitude I can
    1. I really don't get offended very easily, but when I do, I tend to think about it a lot and dwell on it before I finally let it go.  I feel like I deserve some pity time.  I don't want to do that any more. I want to just move on if I get my feelings hurt.  Forgiving others quickly is more for my benefit than anything else. 
    2. Do my best to not judge someone's actions.  I hope that by doing so I can be kinder.  Then people won't have to forgive me too often. Wouldn't that be great?

Thanks Whitney for the great idea.  It has made Thanksgiving more meaningful this year.  Plus I basically already have my New Year's Resolutions made around the things that matter most!

3 blessings represented in this photo: technology to use my cell phone to take the pic, our beautiful world at the park, and one of my little love bugs.

a video for grandpa

I tried to load this video on the previous post, but it would only let me post one.  Weird?  Weird.  Anyway, Dad, this one's for you.  Baby's first rice cereal.  Well the very end of the first time he had rice cereal.  Mmmm.  Wanna come home and feed him some?

Mmmm

This little man seems to always be hungry. If you take into consideration that he only drinks milk and his body weight, it makes sense. So, we started him on rice cereal. He did pretty well for his first time! He actually got most of it down.

He is wearing Hammer's big monkey bib because I thought he would make a monster of a mess. It wasn't too bad though. 

Cute little toes sticking out of the bumbo

The rice-cereal-spit bubble

And here he is on his second day of eating cereal. Lulu could hardly let him eat, she just loves to make him giggle. Finally he finished and I gave her the go-ahead to make him laugh. Here's what happened:

 

I love how he screams when he thinks something is really funny. It is really quite loud. That may make some people crazy. Or it may make me crazy some day. But for now, it's pretty awesome.
Also now that he knows that I put things in my mouth because it tastes good, he gets really jealous when I eat or drink.  That's why I decided to feed him at dinner time while the rest of us are eating too.
He's had cereal 3 or 4 nights now, and so far so good.  Let's hope it helps him sleep all night.

Life Lately - October edition

I like this series of posts a blogger whom I stalk does every so often called Life Lately.  She posts pics from her phone.  I figured out how to get my phone pics from my phone to my computer, so I'm pretty excited about that.  There are some classics on there because the phone is always with me, and not necessarily the other cameras.  You know?
So....
Life according to my phone:

So content when he's done nursing

Lulu practicing her piano

This sign by my Grandma's house said "Hide yo kids" followed by "Hide you wife" over and over.  It was pretty hilarious

Baby enjoying the warm October sunshine

Hammer snuggling his Elmo and sleeping off the stomach flu

My leg.  A yellow jacket decided to crawl up my pant-leg unbeknownst to me, and then sting me.  In my house. We had a professional come get rid of them within the next 2 days.

Lulu's beautiful curls for school are left-over from Sunday's Primary Sacrament Meeting Program.

Enjoying the park on one of the last nice days 

I love his smiles

Lulu drew this for me 

 

Carving pumpkins

Today

Today was not my best mom-day.
I mean it wasn't horrible.  We were all healthy and safe and laughed and danced and even played outside in the leaves.
But it wasn't my best.

I raised my voice way more than I gave compliments and praise.  All day.  I should have more patience.

Baby was crying, sort of rare.  He was tired. He didn't want to eat.  He didn't want to be held.  So I put him on the floor in his room to cry it out for a few minutes while Hammer came with me into the kitchen.  He colored while I proof-read my brother-in-law's paper.  I didn't notice when Hammer snuck out into the Baby's room to throw a toy at Baby's head.  Hammer hates it when Baby cries.  I should have put Baby in his crib to cry it out.

I got mad at Lulu when she tried to seat-belt her Barbie into her booster seat so that she wouldn't die on the way home.  It was taking her forever and I didn't want her to be late for preschool.  I should have said "it's just preschool" and climbed into the backseat of the van and buckled the Barbie myself.

I put lotion on Baby's dry cheeks, then gave him a bath a little while later.  I managed to get the lotion into his eyes when I cleaned his face with the washcloth.  I should have carefully washed his eyes first.

I fed the kids hot dogs for lunch.  At least I included carrots and apple slices.

I didn't notice Lulu's hands were all dry and red.  That means we have been washing often and well, but I should have put lotion on them a few times during the day.

I hate it when I have these days where Hammer makes me crazy.  He is so mischievous and ornery some times. But I need to remember that he's only 2.

The beauty of life is that my kids still love me.  They still need me.  And there's always tomorrow for me to start over and try again.  I can be a little better every day.

Not So Spooky

Halloween is fun, if it isn't too spooky. I don't like the gruesome decorations or costumes.  I hate haunted houses.  I don't even like scary movies!  Luckily with kids, they don't like any of that either, so it works out for us.  There are still plenty of cute and fun things to do for the holiday.

We had a great time celebrating this year, even after Baby got the flu Halloween morning.  That's right, I must have jinxed myself with the last post.  But it was ok, he was feeling much better by noon, and we still had a good day.  Check out what we did this year!

Our Halloween Parties:

1  Party at Great Grandma's with cousin Allie
2 Decorating Cupcakes at home
3 Ward Halloween Carnival
4 Trick-or-Treating at Dad's work
5 Playing with Grandma at Great Grandma's house

Our Halloween Decorations:

6 Little Jar Lanterns
7 The Halloween Ladder
8 Fabric Pumpkins
9 Halloween Blocks
10 Door decorations: The Witch, and Freaken-stein
11 We grew these pumpkins, and then carved them!

Our Halloween Evening:

12 Tinkerbell, Tigger, and a Cow
13 Baby's First Halloween!
14 Here they go, off to Trick or Treat