Gobble Gobble

And just in time for Easter!!

We are surprised to be the owners of two little turkeys! We did purchase these turkeys.  My mom is turning 60 in a few weeks and while at IFA I saw these little guys and thought....perfect! The perfect present my mom will love! Wade and I talked it over in the store. 

"Will she be happy about it?"

"I don't know.....she loved the last two turkeys she had. They were her favorite pets!"

"She will be surprised--that's no question. But will she be happy?"

We took a gamble and lost.  We went out to her house on the prairie and she wasn't happy at all.  In fact she began to cry.  I thought it was the perfect ending to my crappy day.  She said that her last turkeys got eaten by wild animals and that she couldn't keep these turkeys safe.  So off we went home.  But she gave us all the stuff we needed to take care of them. Isn't that sweet? Wade and I are totally stunned.  We can't believe that we have turkeys in our house! IFA wouldn't take them back and so here we are--With little turkeys in our house named Fresca and Cindy.---The kids love our new pets! Every time someone walks by the turkeys they stop to look at them. 

"Look, it peed!"

"Look it jumped!"

"Look it stepped on Cindy!"

"Hey look, it stepped in its own poop!"

They are very entertaining!

Our first pets....are turkeys of all creatures!

Survival

I am a daughter loved by God. He is my Heavenly Father.

I am loved by my Heavenly Mother and I have inherited some of her divine traits. 

He wants me to be happy and watches me very closely.
He knows what is best for me and I try to follow Him in all I do.
It is okay to make mistakes.  I try every hour to be better then the hour before. Sometimes I have to take life moment by moment, and that's okay.

I ran today after a week off.  My mornings this week will be drastically different then last week.  Last week I had a hard time getting out of bed.  Today I ran at 5 and was ready for the day by the time the kids got up.  I was more cheerful and happy to attend to my children's needs.  I had a few moments to reflect and feel Gods love. I hope that everyone can feel that love; because we are His children. I'll never forget the little boy in my ward who said, "I know Heavenly Father loves us because he created us. And how can you not love your own creations?" That really touched my heart.

I think running has become my new therapy, its becoming more than a choice. Its part of my survival. Thanks to Amber and April for inviting me to run again!

Real Life, Real Emotions

This is one of my Sunshines!! I could gobble her up!!!

March 23rd

The red/white pasta dish I make is so yummy. It is basically a red spaghetti sauce with a home made Alfredo sauce to die for (butter, cream, cream cheese, fresh Parmesan) and a tube pasta with mozzarella cheese layered in a baking pan.  You all need to get that Food Nanny cookbook. This one will be a regular at my house.  I am addicted to the Italian bread I make it at least every other week.  I made that today too.  By 1:30 I had most of dinner prepared ahead of time.  It makes it so much easier when the kids get home from school to have most of dinner prepared.  4:00 on is my hardest time of day until kids bedtime.  I'm happy for early out to spend more time with Andrea and she has her piano lesson today.

March 25th

This week has been really nice as a mother and wife.  I have been feeling a lot of fulfillment and joy during my days with the kids. Yesterday we had left-over pasta for dinner and the girls had gymnastics.  The evenings are my toughest time of day.  My joy and fulfillment goes right out the window.  I'm emotionally exhausted and stressed and physically tired.  I manage a business from home and some days are really slow and some days are really busy.  I had sort of a busy day yesterday with it and Wade and I got into a disagreement while the girls were at gymnastics.  I hate it when that happens! I unfortunately took a little of my frustrations out on the girls on the way home.  Andrea got a treat after her class and Lydia didn't and Lydia was whining and complaining that Andrea wouldn't share and it triggered me and I sort of....exploded?

"You girls need to be nicer to each other and share!"
"Sisters are your greatest friends you'll ever have and I'm tired of you fighting!"

"All you two worry about is how much fun your having and how much candy you get every day!"

"Your both complaining too much lately about helping around the house and not doing your chores."

"When we get home I want that room clean enough to vacuum!"

There is silence in the car.

Lydia in a timid voice says, "Mommy I'm sorry your upset."

I don't say anything.  Even when I was talking I felt bad.  I'm feeling inadequate and like a bad mother.

I walk in the house anticipating Wade being upset with me when he comes over and gives me a hug.  I start crying and he says some nice things to me............and that's all I'm sharing about that.

Life is so stressful.  Raising kids and being in this economy is hard.  Wade and I are a good team but life is still has its difficulties. Its hard to roll with the ups and downs and when some down moments happen its easier said then done to let things be what they are and not get upset about it. I think what I have a hard time with is feeling like I can control my life and what will or will not happen.  I don't have control.  Its the Lord's plan I'm trying to follow, not my own.

Music

This is my beautiful spunky Andrea at the piano!
Piano Lessons have begun! Andrea has had her first lesson and so far she loves it. I know she might get to where she hates it and wants to quite but I can be happy that the first lesson went so well.  The neat thing for me is that I have a great desire to learn. I only had a couple of years of lessons and never learned to read music...especially the left hand.  I was looking at the Friend magazine and saw a song in there and went right to the piano and started picking away at it.  It has an interesting tone to the song...a little somber sounding.  I studied the left hand and figured out how to play it very slowly but still, I figured it out and had never heard the song before.  If there is a desire there is a way! I used to think that I could never learn the piano since I didn't while I was growing up.  But its never too late to learn and cultivate new talents.  I hope to be able to play so that people could sing along.  That would be a great accomplishment. I want my home filled with good music! My niece Makenze was over last Wednesday and I looked at her sheet music she was learning on the clarinet and thought, "hey I could play this!" So together we played through her songs, me on the piano and she on her clarinet.  We laughed and had a good time!

I have a strange thing about music.  Many times certain music annoys me.  Rattles my nerves!--as my mom always said! When I'm in the car I don't like music on. While I'm home I like to listen to.....mostly...uplifting church music.  I'm quiet the dork really!  It helps to calm me and keep my sanity.  It helps me keep a good perspective. But when Wade comes home we often put on fun music to dance to.  He loves the 80's rock music. But my kids favorite song of all is "The Ring of Fire" by Johnny Cash.  Its awesome. 

Today I was updating the kids journals.  Well I got half of them done. It takes me awhile. I have a little journal for each of my kids and I try to write in them once a month.  Sometimes it doesn't always get done but I have found looking back on my past entries that it is a real treasure.  I write to each of my children like a letter and tell them about what they are doing and learning.  It is so easy to forget each child's unique stages and funny things that they do.  I was looking at Lydia's and exactly a year ago today she was very sick and a couple of days later was admitted into the hospital with pneumonia.  What a scary thing that was.  How delicate this life is.  I am so grateful that this winter we have all been extremely healthy with little to no sicknesses.  I think that the journals for my kids is one of the greatest things I do.  So simple but, I'm very sentimental!
Love and Light

Food

This Girl is a great Eater! She is my artichoke buddy! We had a lot of fun eating these! Reminded me a lot of my friend Carolyn and I growing up. I like to have artichokes once a year!

Aren't these Italian Bread loafs beautiful? I made four smaller ones this time instead of two large ones for my Italian Meatball Sandwiches. I had this terrible mishap last week with my bread.  I had made Italian Bread. It was beautiful and in the oven when disaster happened.  I was spraying the oven with water to make a crisper crust when the light bulb in the oven exploded.  Shards of glass embedded in the dough of my bread completely ruining it.  I felt defeated and sad.  All that work.....ruined! 

Tonight I made a curry chicken dish over rice with Cesar salad.  It was pretty good but I need a new curry recipe. I want it to have coconut milk in it.  Anyways, I also made cupcakes with Lydia today.  It was very blustery out today and never left the house.  I also felt a little suffocated by the end of the day.  Lydia is getting more restless at home with me.  She is wanting to do something "fun" with me every second.  I remember this happening a lot with Andrea the year before Kindergarten as well.  Its getting harder to "entertain."  I try to have fun snacks and activities to do. We got out the paints today and Damon and Lydia spent a lot of time painting pictures.  Mostly I have to just involve her in whatever I am doing.  I mopped the floor and she was the water bucket girl wheeling the bucket over to me when I needed a rinse.  She was also playing on the kitchen table chairs moved onto the living room carpet hoping from chair to chair to couch....

She started singing and talking and make believing.  That is always fun to watch!

Wade came home and we had a nice FHE making signs to memorize the words to the primary song we are working on this month for church.  Then we decorated the cupcakes.  I put too much lemon extract in the icing thinking how tasty it would be and ruined it. Another cooking mishap but what do ya do? Kids still like it! I didn't have any boxed cake mixes so I made this white cake batter from scratch out of my Better Homes and Garden's cookbook.  You know, the book with the red plaid cover? Well I finally found out the difference between the white cake and the yellow cake. The white cake is used with only the egg whites! I thought it had something to do with butter.  This recipe also called for buttermilk.  I think the cake part turned out wonderfully but I should have made some kind of chocolate frosting so my hubby would love it.  Problem was I was thinking mostly of Lydia making the cake and she doesn't care for chocolate....I didn't want to disappoint her but also didn't want to make two frosting's.  But seriously...your thinking who cares!! Well these are the simple things that consume my life. White frosting or chocolate frosting?? 1/2 tsp of lemon extract like the recipe says or maybe I should try 1 1/2 tsp??? decisions decisions! Well there are other things on my mind. Like the few people who called on the business phone and why aren't our taxes done yet????

My baby Bella is not feeling very good. I am hopeing she is just teething.  She is getting to be a handful! Church is getting harder and harder and it will be until she is 18 months when she goes into the nursery class. I feel exhausted by the end of church! She is busy at home and is completely board of her toys! Any day now she will be crawling to pull on a cord somewhere or trying to get into all the cupboards! She is so much fun!!

Love & Light

Cloth is Cool!

My first day of Cloth Diapers!

Sunday was the first day that Bella was in all cloth. It went surprisingly well.  I was amazed at how nicely they worked. They work as good as disposables. It is different not to just toss the messy diaper in the garbage. But there is something satisfying about it.  We went to church and everything went fine. I have this cool sprayer that connects to the toilet to spray the poop off easily into the toilet, then I toss it into this wet bag.  I have basically two types of diapers. Ones with covers and seperate inserts and all-in-one diapers where the insert is sewed into the cover.  They are soft and comfortable and some have velcro and some have snaps.  I heard that the snaps last longer.  Most of them are also one size. Which means they adjust to your baby from infant to toddler.  How cool is that? The diaper grows with your baby! The ones with the cover and inserts are bulkier on the baby, but I think those are the most economical. I only have enough diapers for about 1 1/2 days. So I may cloth diaper a few days a week and use disposable the rest.  It takes a lot of money to get started with cloth. Cloth diapers are not cheap! My mom said, "Why couldn't they have invented these in the 50's??"  These cloth diapers are not what your grandmother used.  They really are amazing, totally modernised. So if the world ends, I'll be able to wash a few diapers to get by!

Love & Light

Lydia-A Delight!

 I would say that if you have passed out asleep on the floor amongst your birthday presents--its been a good day! She hit the jack pot this year! Thanks everyone~

My 'favorite people' turned 5!

We are so happy to have her in our life.

She brings sunshine in the home and is a joy!

Some of the fun!

We started the day off fun by going swimming and having a pizza party afterwards. She was very excited and happy to play with her cousins and swim for her birthday!

The Ranch

A great afternoon!

Special Day

 The happy grandparents! Unfortunately my mom was unable to attend because of work.

 The missionaries-who taught her. When a child grows up in the church they the soonest they can get baptised is 8 years old. That is the age of accountability. Anyone older than 8 years old must be taught by the missionaries before baptism. It was a lot of fun to go to the discussions (lessons) with her sometimes. It was my first time too to be involved in a discussion.  Something I always imagined with my siblings going on missions and my husband but hadn't experienced. It was neat to watch my niece learn and feel the spirit.

My niece Makenze was baptised by her dad on Saturday. It was a huge highlight in my life. I am so excited and proud of her! I wanted to get more pics of everyone who came but after the baptism I was too busy with my kids and especially the baby to get any more.  It was a great day! I had a lot of fun helping her get dressed after the baptism~ 

I love that picture of Christ in the back round.  He is the foundation of our church. I believe in Him and want to follow Him!

Love and Light~

Old Idea Realized

My legs ache. Its almost midnight. If I stay up too late too much I get a cold. But I'm not running in the morning and I'm a little wired. I'm sure if I just lay my head down I will clunker out. I went to a new friends house today and got the run down on cloth diapering. WoW! I didn't know there was this amazing movement going on. The 7 years I have had kids I haven't met one person who is cloth diapering until her. Its like this secret. But once you know the secret you think, "Why has this taken me so long to find out about this?!" This amazing woman has four kids like me and is a pro at this cloth diapering.  She let me come in her house in her bedroom and closet and bathroom showing me her hundreds of styles and kinds and ways of doing all of this cloth diaper business stuff.  I was really inspired. Its another way of taking complete care of my babies. I asked her, "Why do you like it so much?"

She said, "I don't know, its just really fulfilling."

I said, "Do you nurse your babies too?"

She said, "yes."
And it all started coming together for me. She feels fulfillment nursing her babies like I do and its something that you can't really explain but have to experience and for her cloth diapers is part of that experience too.  Plus she says its fun, and the diapers are so cute, diaper laundry is her favorite!
Well this all hit me at a core level. I delivered my baby sitting on my hubbies lap completely natural and nurse my babies and stay home with them...duh...of course naturally I should be cloth diapering! Before you know it I'll be going granola or something! J/K!

So this cloth diaper business has been like a little whisper in my ear. Before I found out anything about it.  I hate spending the money on diapers since I have two in diapers and one in pull-ups.  A couple of years ago I had a terrifying experience when I needed diapers but didn't have the money for them for a few days.  I felt panicked. I felt scared and powerless.  What if we can't get a hold of diapers for some reason? I would be in big trouble. I would be making some ridiculous makeshift diapers to get by. YIKES! These economic and world events are unpredictable and unstable. Cloth diapers to me is something I want to get into so that it also becomes part of my preparedness storage. Its just a no brainer for me as a mom with young children. When I googled cloth diapers I was amazed that they weren't these white square rags that you fold and pin and fasten a piece of plastic over. Cloth diapers have been re-created from when my mom used them. They are modern, practical and stylish. One problem with getting into it is that its hard to spend the money upfront to get started. I figured I could at least get a little to start. I just bought my first cloth diapering stuff tonight and it was very overwhelming but since I got the run down from my friend today I was able make a decision on my first order. I can't wait for it to get here and try it all out. Plus I'm saving the planet and my wallet!

Love and Light and Goodnight!~

I want spring to come! My tree has quadrupled in size but my flowers are amazing!

Go To Bed!

I added a new feature to my blog. Video clips from u-tube. My favortie one is on the top about motherhood.  I was so excited to come across it because I quoted a lot of what Elder Holland said in a RS lesson. It is one of those talks that uplifts the weary soul of a mother!~Its awesome!

I had a cool experience while running on Friday. The first two miles were misery. I had to force my body to keep going. But then I got a second wind. I started to feel more strength and it became easier. The next two miles I felt like I could run forever.  But the cool part was that since I was running bymyself this time I started praying and felt an overwhelming feeling of love. It was really special and I know everyone can feel that same love if we seek after it. 

I don't want to go to bed knowing when I wake up it is the start of another long week. I don't want to feel the Monday misery again. Mondays make me shiver! Will I be happy? Will I be tired and lethargic like last week? I think if I am careful about my morning thinks and doings that it will be a great day.

I keep finding myself thinking about William Shakespear when he said something to the effect: All the world is a stage and we are all merely players.
I think that this life on the earth is actually a very short one and a proving ground for the eternities. That our difficulties seem very difficult in the moment but they pass.  Things are only as dramatic as we make them. Its not a big deal-like you thought. We decide the roles we play. We take things too seriously. We should just realize that it is what it is and its wonderful with all its ups and downs. 
Goodnight Love~