Oh, the laundry...

I opened up my bills for the month and thought my power and water bill were fantastically low. I gave myself a mental pat on the back for being so wise with our water and power use. . . and then I walked down into the laundry room and realized that those machines hadn't been used for a VERY long time. No wonder the water and heating bills were so low.

Food from the Clouds

Last night Naki taught our Family Home Evening. The Lesson was about having Gratitude in your life. I realized that I needed to vocalize my gratitude for recent blessings from Heavenly Father. Several months ago Naki and I analyzed our budget needs and knew that we would have to have more income to meet our needs. He searched and searched and searched for a second job and nothing seemed to work. We decided that there was a job available, but for me instead. As we worked towards that goal, neither one of us felt peaceful about that decision. We prayed and fasted one Sunday to find the right solution for our family. That same evening Naki received an email from a friend of his asking him if he was in need for a part time job, and that the facility where he worked was looking for some part timers. Not only did he get the job that we needed but they brought him in at the Supervisor pay. What timing! It's interesting to me how Heavenly Father works, because we've been in this same position before, except that the 2nd job never came when we could have really used it. I've learned that He gives and he takes, and that my timing isn't always His timing.

With this tight budget of ours, we are watching our grocery bill very closely. We were a bit frustrated yesterday when Naki's car, (which we just spent a hefty amount of $ to get running smoothly to pass safety and emissions), decided not to start. After a jump he was on his way to work, only to have it not start again later on. With our tight budget, we knew this repair would have to come from the grocery budget. Imagine our shock and gratitude when later that afternoon we discovered 5 HUGE boxes on our front porch, just filled with canned goods, cereal, light bulbs, granola bars, etc. etc. As we were standing there, just overwhelmed, Eli said, "Heavenly Father sent us Food from the Clouds!" We are indeed blessed, Eli.

Oh, My Back!

(Jerry Lewis, anyone? I just love Scared Stiff.) Anyway, I've been struggling with some back pain for what seems like, let's just say, longer than I want to be. It's the worst right when I wake up in the morning. Seriously, I'm like the Hunchback of Notre Dame walking around. And I'm starting to wonder if this might have anything to do with it.

You know you're tired when you don't even realize in the middle of the night that someone extra has crawled into your bed with you.

Did it really look THAT bad before, Line?

So, I have a new do, thanks to mah-vehlous Auntie Candy. I really researched this one. Looked all over the internet for a hairstyle that I thought my hair, my style-challenged hands, and my bottom-line refusal to spend more than 20 minutes max on my hair every day, could do. Candy worked wonders. Bless Naki. He would love love love for me to have long hair some day. So to make him happy we went dark. He loves my hair dark. Well, today is only day two of said new hair, and these are the comments so far that I've heard from Line. It seems she's in shock mode and can't quite figure out a way to express herself.

"Wow, Mom. Your hair, it's like you could even wear your pajamas all day and it wouldn't even matter because your hair is just so .. so ... "

"Mom, it's just like, like, like your hair is so alive now."

I gave the girlies some ice cream cones as a treat tonight after my Primary Presidency meeting. They cleaned up after all the kids that were here without complaint so they were rightly rewarded with some yummy ice cream. While the kids were finishing up, Eva, who finished first, asked me to hold her. I'm pooped out at this point, so I joined her on her stool which was the middle of the three. Line turned to find me sitting there and said, "Wow, Mom. I didn't even notice you sitting there. You just look so young with your new hair."

Apparently, the hair is a hit, Candy. Every where we go the girls tell everyone, and I mean everyone including people we don't know, "My mom has dark hair now". At least Line doesn't keep doing what Lose did the first night after you left. She came up to me and gave my hair a nice hard tug, to which I loudly exclaimed, "What are you doing?!" only to hear her turn around to her sisters and say confidently, "Nope, I told you I was right. It isn't a wig."

Thanks for giving me an in with my kiddos, Candy.

Easter in the Summer

So, I'm a bit late with this post. I'm trying to get caught up. I've just been so enjoying our busy summer schedule that I haven't had any desire to sit at a computer when we can be outside playing! I'm going to split Easter Sunday into a couple of posts. We'll start off with Easter morning with the girls and their Easter Baskets. We started off our day with way more sugar than any child should have in one sitting. Why do I do that to myself? I completely sabotage my entire day and then some because they start it off with major sugar overload. But seriously, could you have Easter without it? I was in charge of Sharing Time that Sunday and I can tell you that those kids were still bouncing around from all that candy. Maybe if we have church earlier in the day next year we'll have them dig into their candy when we get home instead of before church, but I couldn't make them wait until 4:00!

Eva was instantly attracted to the lollipops. At first I couldn't figure out why, and then realized that we really haven't had any of those for some time. And if it's been some time for me, it must have been never for her. She's only 2! Follow this series of pics with me. Here she is unwrapping her first victim.


Somehow, one turned into three. I know you have a big mouth Eva, but I don't think they're going to fit!


She's successfully devoured one, although she doesn't look too thrilled about it. I think she's bummed that it's gone.

Here she is, completely thrilled with herself and her lollipop massacre.


Sadly, the big hit and main event of our morning I had no one to blame for it but myself. Trust me when I tell you that I am working my hardest to raise girls with good manners and a polite demeanor. But we love a good gag around here, thus my inability to resist the purchase of several whoopie cushions.


I knew they would have a blast with them, but it made for an extremely irreverent Sabbath morning atmosphere, that's for sure. Lesson learned. But they loved these things!

Now, we already knew that Malia wins the Blue Ribbon for most powerful Booty in this house. I could break out some baby pictures to prove my point, but I don't want to embarrass Malia. I'll save that for her teenage years. But if there had ever been any doubt about her owning that title, doubt no more. She blew it up for the first time,

set it on her chair, jumped up and then gave it her best landing, which I rated a 10. However, it was just too too much for this little whoopie cushion to handle.

It never knew what hit it. You go, Malia.

Here's a sample of what we got to hear for the rest of the morning. (Don't worry. I eventually reached a point when I made them all put them away for a bit of Easter morning reverence.)




More to come...

Happy 9th Birthday, Emeline

How can it be that our new little baby that we JUST brought home from the hospital yesterday turned 9 this year! We just love birthdays around here. They are such fun days filled with quite common and simple, but for the girls, some rare and exciting activities. We woke her up with our angelic birthday song voices and while she was eating her birthday breakfast her sisters took care of her chores for her. She took her favorite cookies to school to share with her class. This was quite the highlight for her because since Kindergarten her birthday has always fallen on a day when everyone is on Spring Break. This was the first year that she was able to celebrate her birthday in class on her actual birthday. I canceled piano lessons for the day and took all the girls to their favorite park when Line and Malia got home from school. I tried to not be devastated when as I was trying to take a picture of one of the girlies, Ane, who I was holding at the same time, reached out to try and grab the camera and with my super quick reflexes removed it from her reach. In the process, I'm sure because of my super-human/mom speed reflexes and not because I'm a clutz , I dropped the camera and it just busted into pieces. uuugh. Not a great moment. I couldn't not get her birthday on camera, so we headed to shop for a new camera. After finding a steal of a deal, we headed over to McDonalds for dinner. We never eat there, not always because it doesn't fit into our budget, but because it's just not that good for ya. But birthdays are definitely the exception to the rule. We finished our dinner and headed home. That evening we had designated as the evening for piecing together the swingset.

(Ignore the date on those pictures. They're a year off. I hadn't quite figured out the new camera yet.) Thank you all you helpers for assembling the swingset with us. We couldn't have done it without you!

After all the babes were later settled into bed, Line and I headed over to Maceys for her favorite ice cream sandwich. So yummy! After bringing one home for Dad, she showered and then came up and enjoyed some Biggest Loser with Mom, also a big deal. The show airs later than I let the girls stay up, so Naki and I DVR it and then the girls watch it during my piano lessons later on in the week. Line felt so lucky to get the first sneak peek out of all the girls. See what I mean by common yet exciting? Exciting for the birthday girls. They're so easy to please, I hope their birthdays are always like that. It was a busy day, but a terrific one. I loved the one on one time I was able to sneak in with that adorable girl. She's such a good hearted person who genuinely tries her hardest at whatever she's doing. We had her actual birthday party about a week later. Here are some pics of the kids enjoying the swingset and just playing together while we waited for everyone to arrive.




This picture to me is hilarious. Eva loves to climb up in here but is for some strange reason terrified of the slide and can't do the monkey bars yet. So instead she just stands there and cries until someone comes and gets her down, only to immediately climb back up in there.


I love this picture too. See Eli reaching out her hand to Jackson to help him up? At least that's what I told myself she was doing instead of telling him to give her a turn. She has some sweetness hidden in there, I'm sure of it!

We gathered round for the present opening. I know that we teach our kids that presents are not a sign of whether or not someone loves you. It's how you treat a person that matters the most. And had she not received a single present, Line knew that she was loved completely by her family near and far. How lucky we are to have such great family. She was thrilled to receive some fantastic presents, just what she wanted. Thank you one and all for your gifts.

I know in that last picture it looks like she's, well, I don't know exactly what it looks like she's doing. But she's actually facing East on purpose, to holler Thank You to her Aunt Ginny. What a goober. (She did this more than once, I just thought you didn't need to see every single picture of her doing it!)

Apparently when you're not the one opening all these presents, it can get a little boring.


Naki caught some pictures of Boo doing her favorite thing...crawl/walking up you while you hold her. Really Ane, I didn't need that skin on my body anyway. Just keep diggin' those little toe/claws into my side over and over again. This girl just doesn't EVER stay still! A little ball of wiggles.


We all enjoyed some yummy cupcakes, only these two seemed to enjoy them a little bit more than the others.


Line was quick to get inside and register her new Webkinz. She just could NOT wait. Here she is with another Webkinz pro, Kyra.

The evening was winding down, and family started to go home. I was getting ready to get bath time going and get the babies all in bed, but these two beat me to the punch. I guess a party can really wear you out. Eva had tucked her cousin Aria into bed with a comfy blanket and was reading her a bedtime story, one of our girls' favorite nighttime rituals.

Happy Birthday Line. Hope it was as much fun for you to turn 9 as it was for us! We love you.

One down, 2 to go

So we got there just in time to take a quick trip to the portapotty, lose Grayson briefly and then find him, get all the kiddos set up, and get our bibs pinned on. Yes, it's true. Somehow Candy convinced me that there was no need to wait for the 2 5Ks that I had been planning on running in, one in June and the other in July with Naki, and that we should just run in the one for Memorial Day, which happened to be, oh, just in 2 days! Good thing I've been working out a little bit so that I could do it without completely dying. Katie was a trooper and agreed to do it with us even though, Hello!, she just had a baby 4 weeks ago. It was a great experience. I always feel such a sense of triumph knowing that I completed something that is so very hard for me to do. There were many pics taken. However, I didn't see the folly in the pant color I chose until after I saw all the pictures and realized that white pants seem to accentuate all the areas I don't want accentuated at this time! So, I'm only posting a few. Here are all of my munchkins waiting for slowpoke Mom to come around to the finish.



I can't wait for the day when I can run and not feel all the extra weight on my body in different places moving in that uncomfortable rhythm with my slow steps. I kept telling myself as I kept putting one foot in front of the other that this was a life choice, a life habit in the making. After we ran they had short races for the kids. I was so proud of every one of those kids, getting out there and having fun exercising. They did such a great job! It was hard to get good pictures of them while they were running so fast by me, but this one of Lose turned out pretty well.



Being healthy is so important to me, for me and for my family. I challenge all of you to get out there and do something healthy today. You feel so much better for it.