One Of Those Moments

I love those rare moments when all my kids are bathed, smelling so clean and sweet, and nicely reading to each other on the couch.  These moments don't happen very often, usually Quinten is doing EVERYTHING in his power to irritate the girls, Izzy is all tears and drama, and Olivia is bossing the entire crew...But every now and again, they are all so precious, just looking at them makes me tear up...I love my little brood of hoodlums!

Washing The Car

Shayne was up in Vegas visiting family for the weekend, so we decided for FHE that we would do service for him. We discussed what we wanted to do, and came up with making chocolate chip cookies (his absolute favorite food), and washing his extremely dirty car.

I have a picture of me washing my Dad's truck with him when I was 2 or so and have always cherished that picture. I'm pretty covered in suds and sure that I am not doing much to help, but I think you don't fully appreciate situations like that until you are in them with your own children. A 10 minute wash job took us over 45 minutes because we ended up washing it 3 TIMES (even then they still didn't think it was clean). Everyone was wet, dirty, fought over who got which cloth, who had charge of the hose, who should get to dry the car, etc. and I was worn out from refereeing everything happening.

I could have washed Shayne's car by myself in 10 minutes and been done, but instead spent 45 minutes, plus baths for all the kids...however, I now have pictures that THEY will probably one day cherish as much as I do, and a new appreciation for how much my parents loved me because they let me wash their cars...

Following In Daddy's Footsteps

Here's Bubba reverencing the music. His favorite choices are: I Like to Move It Move It, Give Said The Little Stream, and Happy Birthday.

Girl Scout Cookies

Olivia is in Girl Scouts this year, and so we joined the thousands selling Girl Scout Cookies. I had NO IDEA how serious people are about their girl scout cookies. Just amongst our friends, Olivia sold 133 boxes!! Whoo Hoo!

Who Couldn't Love A Face Like This?

Not Ready Yet

I needed to just run down the street to take a head of lettuce to a neighbor. 5 mins tops, seriously not a trip at all. I asked Olivia if she would like to be in charge (she's almost 8) and babysit until I got back. She was so excited to be granted this HUGE rite of passage and be "in charge" of her siblings. Bubba freaked out...so now Bubba is coming with me, and Olivia and Izzy are going to stay home and "take care of themselves". Izzy freaked out... cannot handle an adult NOT being at the house in charge of everyone. Tears, gnashing of teeth, the whole works. I asked Olivia if she would like to come with us, or would she like to stay home and take care of herself (remember, this whole conversation has taken longer than it would to actually run down the street). Olivia wants to stay home and take care of herself. I run down the street and come back in probably 3 minutes. I find Olivia hiding under the barstool because it was SO SCARY to be here all by herself.

Note to self...We're not ready yet...

Izzy's Primary Talk

Izzy gave a talk in Primary about missionary work. Here's the talk that she came up with:

I want to serve a mission when I get older. My mom and Dad served their missions in Japan. I want to serve my mission in California because I would be near my Nana and Papa. I can be a missionary now by bringing friends to church activities.

The Good Leper

While cooking a gourmet dinner of mac-n-cheese for the kiddos tonight, they each begged a small bowl of un-cooked noodles off me and ran off to eat their spoils. A few minutes later, Olivia returned and said: Thanks mom, that was great! I said: Wow! Thanks for being so grateful. To which she replied: Yeah, I'm kinda like the one good leper. You know, the story where Jesus healed the ten lepers and only one came back to thank him? I'm the only one who thanked you, I'm the good leper. Then she ran through the house yelling: You guys are the BAD lepers! I'm the only good leper! So the other two, who didn't want to be outdone came back with thank you's and hugs and kisses to prove that they are a BETTER leper than Olivia. I love gospel learning!!

Happy Valentine's Day

Gotta Love Trains!

Super Bowl Tradition

We always love eating little smokies, spinach dip, and 7 layer dip while watching the Super Bowl...

Boob-ilicious

There must be something in the water making my girls mature into such boob-ilicious girlies at such young ages!!

Homemade Lemonade

Our neighbor Naunnie has two huge lemon trees that my kids LOVE to go and pick. We are NEVER at a loss of fresh squeezed lemonade at our house!!

Locked Doors

Quinten has a really bad habit of locking every door he comes across, and then closing it. It is driving us NUTS because no one can get into any of the rooms of our house! We couldn't get through to him to STOP LOCKING ALL THE DOORS and drastic measures had to be taken. Shayne told him that if he locks doors in the house, he loses trains. They go on top of the fridge until the next day. Quinten has lost quite a few trains this way, but he is finally catching on and NOT LOCKING DOORS!

I had an important phone call that I needed to not have kids around me during, so I locked myself in my room. When I came out, Quinten walked up to me with a Hot Wheels dump truck and said: "How many times have I told you that if you lock doors you lose trains? THIS is going to have to go on top of the fridge.  When you poop in the toilet, then you can have it back."

We now have 2 trains and a Hot Wheels dump truck on top of our fridge...

Olivia's Testimony

 Recently, Olivia attended a baptism with Shayne. Afterwards, the missionaries had a table set up with different things that you could take to give to a friend. Olivia told Shayne that she had a friend, Naomi, that she really wanted to share the gospel with and wanted to give her a Book of Mormon. So they talked to the missionaries, and Olivia brought home a Book of Mormon. The next morning, Olivia asked me if I could take her over to Naomi's to give her the book, and I told her that it might be a good idea if she wrote a note in it telling Naomi why she wanted to give her the Book of Mormon. Olivia told me, "Well, I already wrote my testimony in it, isn't that enough?" Her testimony was so sweet and precious and all her own, that I had to get it down on paper before I forgot this moment.

 "I have a testimony that I know that these words are true and I know Jesus came to earth. And I know that if you read the book of mormon you will be closer to your heavenly father. I hope you get baptized. In the name of Jesus."

There is nothing more precious that watching your children grow in the Gospel.

Lots of Love

 Our family tradition each year at the beginning of February is to make valentine mailboxes, which we fill with love notes, valentines, and goodies for the next two weeks leading up to Valentine's Day. We all LOVE getting our mail!!

 Some of us got a little bit INTO the decorating portion of the project.

Peter Piper Pizza Field Trip

 We had a fabulous preschool field trip to Peter Piper Pizza. The kids all got a tour of the facility, got to make their own pizza, and then of course eat and play with their friends! They had a BLAST and are dying to go back again!

 Izzy and Bubba are big Cheese fans!

Everyone loved eating their "own" pizza and of course playing games and winning tickets!!

Magic Words

Bubba: Mom, can I have some ice water?
Mom: Do you want to try asking me that and using a magic word?
Bubba: Abracadabra, can I have some ice water?

I gave him the ice water...