Precious Memories

When I started this blog I was confused by people who said they wrote their blog as a Journal. I always thought that a journal would hold my deepest thoughts. But as a grow as a family and listen to the many talks and lessons in church about keeping a journal, I have to look at things in a new light. I need to keep a journal to help preserve my family’s precious memories that we create daily. I want a way for my children and posterity to look back on our lives and see how much we love and appreciate them. I get it now. I am already doing that in the blog, and I will just now print out all my posts on photo paper and put it in out family’s journal I plan on making. I want a journal that all of us can write in when our children get older and share their special family and personal experiences. I now just need to work on my own personal journal, baby steps…baby steps.

So here our some of our precious memories we’ve made lately:

Birthday Celebrations
We had our Great Indoor Camping Adventure. We built a tent in our living room, and slept in it all night. Well, Isabelle and I did, Abinadi joined us after his midnight bottle. Uriah was still in quarantine up in our bedroom. It was a lot of fun! I also learned that Isabelle did inherit some of my genes and talks in her sleep! She freaked me out halfway through the night crying in her sleep crying about her not wanting her puppy/shopping cart (I still don’t know what she was saying) taken away. We had a whole conversation with her still asleep and I finally calmed her down by telling her we will talk it over in the morning and she immediately laid back down dead asleep.

Since we didn’t get to do our original birthday camping plans we played up the few things we did have. We made Hobo dinners and Isabelle got to be very excited to keep a secret from me about the trick candles they bought for me. She went around all evening saying she couldn’t tell me, Daddy said she can’t tell me, it’s a secret! It was adorable to see how much she wanted to tell me, and I just had to keep encouraging her to keep the secret.
That’s why I look so dorky in the picture, we were playing up the fact that I couldn’t blow the candles out and needed her help. She loved every minute of it. I’ve learned that as you grow as a parent you don’t make your birthday and other event plans to just please yourself, but more often so that your children can see how important it is to make other’s feel loved and special and have the opportunity to show their love.

Abinadi, our Climber and Musician
I am certain that I have mentioned before that I was afraid that Abinadi would become a climber. Well, my fears have officially come true. Anything that looks like steps, he climbs. We found him one morning climbing on his sister’s stuff to get onto the fire place. All this done so that he could crawl over to the CD player. He loves music! He will stop everything when he hears music and start dancing. Once he realized that we wouldn’t allow him to play with the CD player, he was content to dance and clap to the music. He also loves cheering for himself, so he will clap and then sign yeah whenever he is happy with himself. And let me tell you, he was very happy with himself for climbing up on the fireplace!

Isabelle is sometimes too smart!
I had to include this picture of Isabelle. She found this outfit of Abinadi’s and wanted to wear his shirt. I told her it wouldn’t fit and she had to prove me wrong. So she put it on. She was a little shocked to find it wasn’t a shirt but was excited that it was like a onesie. Now you all can see that my 3 year old can fit into a small 24month outfit!

The Best Present Ever!!!

It’s times like these that make my life perfectly wonderful! …and helps me to realize and enjoy the little things in life.

After waking up in the family room, (Uriah is sick with the flu…but that is another post entirely!) I went up to wake up Isabelle so that we can keep our schedule for school. I opened up her curtains. The first thing she asked was, “Mommy, is today your birthday?” I answered that it was and she got so excited and said, “Happy Birthday Mommy!” I was so touched I almost cried. I sat down and gave her a BIG hug. She then jumped up and said, “Mommy I have something for you.” She grapped something imaginary from her book shelf and handed it to me. I said thank you and she told me it is a pretty necklace for me. A pretty pink one. I almost cried all over again! It was soooo SWEET! She helped me put it on and told me that I could wear it Sunday to church.

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Isn’t it Beautiful!? You don’t have to use too much imagination to see the beauty in it. Let me tell you it made my day and I began to look at the day on a much brighter side. Instead of having to make my own Birthday cake…I get to have fun baking with Isabelle. Instead of missing out on our camping trip…we’re camping inside, an in home adventure! And instead of having to take care of my sick husband on my birthday…I get the wonderful chance to show him how much I love and appreciate him!

So after all, today is turning out to be a wonderful day. All thanks to the insight given to me from my wonderful 3 year old daughter and her beautiful present.

My Kids Are Cuter Than Your Kids!

Hee Hee, Kust Kidding, but I thought it was a cute title for this post. Here are a few cute stories of my little devils…oops, I meant Angels. No matter what, I love them! Especially when they ACT cute.





I wish I had said that….

Isabelle was watching T.V. the other day and Uriah and I were up and about getting stuff done. When Isabelle turned off the T.V.. I asked her why she turned it off and she said, “I can’t watch T.V. all day! I have to exercise!” She then started singing and jumping around and asked if different activities were exercising. My first response was: HOW CUTE! I then tried to figure out were she had heard that because sad to say, it wasn’t from me. Now I have said, “We can’t watch T.V. all day,” and, “we need to exercise,” but never in the way she just had. I asked Uriah and her recent babysitter but both admitted it wasn’t them either. So my cute little 3 year old put two and two together all on her own! Aren’t they adorable when they want to be?


Creativity!

This is Isabelle’s Fort! Made all by herself, idea and all. The only thing I helped with was finding things heavy enough to hold up the pillows




My Little Handsome Man

Isabelle attends speech at our local elementary school for 40 minutes twice a week. It was her first day back this last Thursday. Abinadi and I sit in a small storage/parent room while we wait for her. Emphasis on the storage! Needless to say he tried to escape the room the entire time we were there. It doesn’t help that every person we walked past, talked to, or was within hearing/seeing distance had to stop everything and come and look at Abinadi. Everyone loved him, they called him the little Gerber Baby. And let me just tell you that Abinadi was loving every second of it. He started acting shy and adorable by placing his head down on my shoulder whenever anyone talked to him. And then if they talked long enough he would give the biggest grin. Let me just tell you he was working the room for all the attention he could get! What can I say…he is adorable! It is just going to be a long school year with trying to keep him in the tiny room and not be a distraction

“Terrible Twos”….A Breeze Compared to the “Too Smart for Their Own Good Threes”

So I was recently sick with a cold that my children had passed onto me. Uriah was being the wonderful husband that he is and was taking care of the kids for me. When I had had my fill of Isabelle’s misbehavior, I sent her off to her father for a lecture. Here is the footnote of the situation:

She sweetly walked up to her father saying, “Daddy, I sorry for not behaving very well.” Uriah then went into a lecture about the need to listen and behave. Isabelle being herself was in her own little world singing and talking to herself. Uriah asked her if she was listening and she sweetly answered, “No.” Uriah responded with how she needs to listen and asked her what he was talking about. She sweetly repeated in her own words a simple synopsis of what he had said. Obviously having no care of what the meaning of the words were.

Realizing that he was not getting through to her, Uriah asked what we should do to help her listen and behave. He asked if we should give her a spanking when she misbehaved. First she answered yes, then changed her mind and said, “No, cuz when you give me a spanking I get mad at you.” Uriah asked again, “So what should we do when you are misbehaving and not listening?”
Isabelle’s response: “Daddy I sorry for not listening very well.” All this said while she walks off playing and starting to misbehave again.


…Ahh the joys of parenting.
It made me smile and laugh that at least she didn't have the "Too Smart for Her Own Good" behavior just for me!

RSS feed test#1

Woohoo! I Won!

As with our children’s afore mentioned food allergies, we cannot buy any bakery cakes. Therefore I have been improving my skills in the cake decorating category so that my children can have special birthday cakes. So when our ward was having a dessert contest, I figured it would be a good reason to practice some more. This is the cake that I entered. I thought it was a cute idea. I’ve wanted to make this cake for a while. For all of you perfectionists out there, (like me…in some cases) ignore all the imperfections. I am using the excuse that my materials weren’t the best for decorating cakes (I know…I also need more practice!). Someone told me Royal Icing (that's just water, powedered sugar, and meringue powder) would work and I thought I would give it a try. It was a little too heavy, but it worked well enough. Except for the parts that started falling off the cake!

So what do you think? I know nothing too original, but it was fun! Just about everything went wrong, like the handle breaking and collapsing on the cake. Needless to say most of the flowers were placed to hide imperfections. (Cake decorating tip 101)

And guess what! I won!....Well...sort of...

I won first place in "Best Presentation" and "Originality". I got a 20 out of 20 in the presentation category. But as for taste and texture I didn't even place. I am not surprised though. I tend to not make my cakes too sweet so that you can enjoy an entire slice with all the icing, and when a cake is made from scratch with no preservatives or soy it never tastes as rich. But it is truthfully healthier for you and I am good with that.

This is what the inside of the cake looked like...

I call it the Checkerboard cake and it is surprisingly simpler than you would think.

Oh...and I got second place in the overall category! Now while I am tooting my own horn, don't think that I beat out all these amazing deserts. I was the only one who came with a decorated desert and some of them were store bought.

I wasn't going to post anything about winning but then I thought, "Hey, why not? What's the use of a personal blog if you can't brag every now and then." Hee Hee, I know... I'm a dork."

We love and miss you all! Thanks Mom for all the decorating lessons!

Trip to the Zoo

So there isn’t much to say about our trip to the zoo. It was fun family time. But the zoo itself was quit disappointing. I am not a zoo person myself! I never liked the smell or that you couldn't always see the animals...but you kind of get excited for your children when you talk about different animals and tell them about actually seeing the animals. It was difficult explaining to Isabelle why there were no zoo animals like elephants, monkeys, zebras, lions, hippos, giraffes, etc.
And the animals we did see either weren’t that spectacular or you can see them around here. Needless to say, we won’t be buying year passes like I had hoped. I never thought I would say that I miss the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo with all it’s hills, but I do. At least we got a few cute pictures and spent some good family time together. We have to look at the positives!

We love and miss you all.

Fun with CURLS!

So I have learned with curls that it is not so much as you training the curls what to do but that they train you how to do the hair with however they curl. For those of you who have never dealt with curly hair you probably think I am crazy for thinking that your hair can train you. Let me tell you it is TRUE!

With Isabelle we put a little product in her hair and then style it with however the curls react. Today was fun because her curls just fell into a Faux Hawk! The pictures don’t do the 3-dimensionality of it justice.

Sometimes curly hair drives me nuts! Then when you least expect it... it's a BLAST!

Canoeing we will go...

So I got back from my week-long adventure canoeing with the young men in the Alaskan wilderness. It was a great trip that made my back ache. We left Tuesday ahead of schedule. The weather was rainy and we all hoped it would break, but to no avail, it rained...a little.
Tuesday we hit the water and canoed across a short lake to our intended first campsite. Although the site was nice, we were diapppointed that it was so close...so we kept going. We portaged through a water portage--which means if you were light enough you could float. But two adults were too heavy so I got out and pulled us through. The $80 breathable waders I bought was money well spent!
We portaged twice more across two more lakes before we called it a night and set up camp. It rained a lot Tuesday night into the morning, but from then on the weather was great. A little overcast and few showers, but otherwise, sunny and great temperatures--about 65 degrees. All in all, there were 11 portages ranging from 50 yards to 3/4 miles. But we put our camps at all the right spots so the long trips were either at the end or beginning of camp. For example, Thursday night we camped at the beginning of a 1/2 mile portage and took our time to carry our canoes to the other end that night. In the morning we packed up camp and carried our gear to our waiting rides.
The highlight of the trip came while canoeing down the Moose River. We were the lead canoe and came around a sharp right turn and about 20 yards in front of us stood a female moose snacking on river grass. We promptly started to back stroke, as not to hit her, and scared her away. But it was cool to see a moose in the Moose River!