Loveliness...

So I have a friend on Facebook that I went to elementary school with named Holly and she is so awesome! Every day she posts the best little inspirational thoughts and encouraging words. It is so great reading them everyday. I look forward to them and find that reading her posts helps boost my spirits often.

Some of my favorites...

A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future and accepts you today the way you are.

Life is a string of memories.Make sure your today is worth remembering tomorrow and make it good :)

We start in Diapers we end in Diapers... Try not to get too hung up on the crap in the middle...

Don't expect others to make you happy, happiness starts with you.

Sing your heart out, Dance in the rain, Cherish the memories, Ignore the pain, Love and learn, Forget and forgive because remember you only have 1 life to live.

I could go on and on! Today's thought is especially meaningful to me and it was EXACTLY what I needed to hear. There is a person in my life that I feel sucks the joy from me and basically sucks the ME out of me. My wonderful husband tries to encourage the ME in me and I am grateful for that. Sometimes I forget this and let the bad sink in too much and feel really crappy about myself. Holly's cute little thoughts and quotes are a super great pick me up!! So anyhoo, here is today's thought....

It's better to be hated for being yourself than to be loved for being someone else.

Amen, Holly! And thanks so much for being wonderful...YOU!!!!

Now this I gotta try!

I posted a couple months ago about how yeast hates me. It really, really does! I can never get it to work. I hate the feelings of disappointment when after all the work I put into bread or rolls they don't even rise at all! Unleavened bread every time!!! I finally decided to stop fighting it. It hates me so I'll just not make my own bread. After all some nice person or machine worked very hard to make bread for me to buy at the store so who am I to let them down by making my own bread. I mean, really!  Well, yesterday at church the Relief Society bulletin thing had a recipe for pinto bean bread. Yes, that's right, PINTO BEAN BREAD! I HAVE to try this recipe! I'm definitely curious! It should definitely make it dense which I love about homemade bread. I'm going to pretend yeast loves me and I'm going to give it another try! I am always quoting, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!" to my kids. It's time to practice what I preach! I'll let you know how it goes!

Spring has sprung in my book!

As I was walking out of Brian's office this morning I was so surprised!!! Right there surrounded by brown grass were the most beautiful purple flowers. I was so excited I got a little teary! Spring has sprung!!!
       Before you know it we'll be spending tons of time outside again and I just can't wait. The kids already have been spending lots of time outside but it's been a bit too windy for baby Gracie.
       I LOVE spring! I love watching flowers, trees, and grass come alive again painting the world with splashes of beautiful colors everywhere you look. I love going for walks and bike rides.
       My eldest son, Zackary, was born in April.Our sweet little Gracie was born in May.  I could not imagine a more perfect time to welcome a new precious little life to our family than in the Spring.
       Winters are so hard in this state. Dreary skys. Brown and gray everywhere you look. Freezing cold weather. Wind. Snow. It's makes spring all the more lovely and welcome by all of us!!!! Happy Spring everyone!!!

I can't wait for Spring Break!

We aren't doing anything too exciting, just planning a trip to the zoo and to Boondocks. I hope Boondocks is a fun place! It looks like it would be fun! Hopefully the kids have fun, anyway. I'm looking forward to the break from the usual routine. A break from 6:30 a.m.  A break from our callings. A break from our town. A break from the monotony that often comes with motherhood....

Chew, People, Chew!!!!!

Matthew tried to give us all a heart attack last night! We were eating chicken enchiladas for dinner and all of a sudden he ran to the hallway and started jumping up and down and making a weird noise. I ran to him and took him to the bathroom and he managed to tell me that he had a piece of chicken stuck in his throat. He acted like he was vomiting, at least dry heaving, but nothing came out so I did the heimlich maneuver on him and he was able to finally get out a huge piece of chicken. Then he started back up again with having problems and heaving again so I did the heimlich maneuver on him again and he got another big piece out. SCARED ME TO DEATH!!!! I've had to do that with 2 other kids in my life. Once when I was a teenager babysitting a 1 year old and he choked on a hot dog. Another time when I worked for a LARGE daycare when Brian and I were newlyweds and there was a little 2 year old eating hotdogs and got choked. All I have to say is thank goodness for the Young Women's organization in our church!!! At one activity they had someone who was CPR certified come and teach us how to do the heimlich maneuver on adults and babies (I've had to do that on Gracie a couple of times when she has had pennies lodged) and they taught us some other basic safety things. Things like, what do you throw on a fire in the kitchen, how do you stop a person's bleeding, etc. The things I learned at that activity have stayed with me for all these years and have helped me many times! I also remember an activity where they had someone come and tell us how to present ourselves in a job interview. How to fill out a job application. What to wear. Some helpful things to say. I still remember some of the things from that activity as well. So grateful for the Y.W. program! So grateful for great leaders!!! So grateful I was able to save my son last night! We had a discussion about how if you're choking you should stay by people and get them to understand that you need help! He could have gone in the bathroom and choked to death and we would just have thought he was going to the bathroom. SCARY!!! I think he thought he needed to puke and he KNOWS he has to get to the bathroom if that's the case. But I just never realized I needed to have that discussion with my kids about choking. Anyhoo, it was scary but thank goodness he's fine!!!!!!!!

Such a fun weekend!

My wonderful sister-in-law, Becky, invited me to go scrapbooking with her this past weekend. Overnight. In her families gorgeous log cabin. That they built with their own hands. In the middle of the mountains. In the middle of nowhere. Without my kids. With 6 other fun ladies. With tons of junk food and talking. Of course I excitedly went!! I am so glad I have a husband that loves me and is such a wonderful father that he was not intimidated in the least by having a 10 month old, a 4 year old, a 6 year old, and a 9 year old to take care of and happily said YES, you should go!!! It was so much fun and so nice to have a much needed break! We stayed up til 3:30 in the morning. I got lots of pages done to put in Max's scrapbook. He's been anxiously waiting for me to make him a scrapbook. He has been begging me, often, for like 2 years now but I haven't scrapbooked a single thing since I made Brian a scrapbook for Father's Day a couple years back full of pictures of him and the boys over the years. So I PROMISED him that I would scrapbook pages just for him! He was so happy! Looking at the pictures of my sweet little boys when they were tinier brought tears to my eyes. I can't believe how time flies! They are growing up WAY too fast! I have GOT to stop blinking!!! Every time I do they grow leaps and bounds! Can you believe Gracie turned 10 months old yesterday?! Crazy! I have decided I need to make more time for scrapbooking!
These are some of the reasons I love to scrapbook:
*It is therapeutic
*It helps me have a fun creative outlet.
*Cutting, glueing, playing with markers and with stickers is SO much fun!
*Looking at the pictures of fun times we've had and of my precious tiny babies is the best!
*I simplify my scrapbook pages so much so they are way cute without taking lots of time to do and they actually focus on the pictures instead of all the other crap on the page so it feels like more of a doable thing for me. I once had a S-I-L that would spend 5 to 6 hours per page. NO THANKS!!!
*My kids absolutely LOVE looking at their scrapbooks. Even poor Max and Matty that don't have very many pages have just as much fun looking  at their books as Zack (who has 3 whole books done) does.
*It is something I enjoy doing. It is something that gets completed and actually stays that way. Unlike house work and laundry and crap like that that is NEVERENDING and ETERNALLY INCOMPLETE!!!
*It's just plain FUN!!!

I can't help myself!

I just have to write this post! This morning I read the news of Jesse James cheating on Sandra Bullock and then went on facebook where a friend of mine had posted about it and then just now I read another friend's blog post about the subject. I have wanted to write a post for some time now about infidelity but I was afraid that some of the people I would be referring to would read what I had written and that stopped me from doing it. Well, I am so fired up today about it I just can't stand it! I have to get my feelings out about the subject! My brother and 3 of Brian's brothers have had wives that have cheated on them destroying their marriages. The basic theme was there with each of them. They cheated and their husbands wanted to stay with them because the thought of breaking apart their little families was too much for them to bare. One of Brian's brothers even stayed in his marriage for 3 years after his wife's second affair (with a member of the bishopric by the way) and then after her 3rd affair that had lasted about a year he decided it was just too much for him to take and he left. What is wrong with women?! Seriously! One of these women even met a guy one weekend on a business trip to Seattle and did the deed that very weekend! WHAT!?! Can you even imagine?!  2 of these women became completely obsessed with her body and losing weight and running and one even had a boob job and then I suppose decided to take the girls for a new ride! Each time it has happened it has broken all of our hearts! We have been heart sick for the husbands and for their children and for the end of yet another marriage and family unit. It makes us sad to think that these women would do such things. What happened to the women that we knew and loved? I always think that Satan is rejoicing each time this happens. It is really sad too that these women are the ones who make the decisions to sin and end families and such, yet they suffer very few consequenses for their actions. The husbands are the ones that suffer so much emotional pain and often are left with nothing. They belittle the husbands to the children trying to turn the children against their dads. They take away the most basic desire and right of the fathers to spend time with their children and to participate in their lives in basic father/child situations. It just makes me so sad for all of them. When Brad Pitt cheated on Jennifer Aniston I was sick and furious! How dare he hurt someone that we all loved from watching her for 10 years on Friends. Not only did he do this with a woman that is known for doing the same exact thing over and over again but the whole thng was glamourized and treated like a wonderful thing and noone seemed to give a crap about it happening. They are the "it" couple still being glamourized, still no BAD consequences for what they did. It still angers me to see their faces on the covers of magazines. I think that the more this happens the more it is accepted. The more desensitized people become to the whole thing. There are so many tv shows and movies where this happens and people just get upset for a short time and then move on with their lives and get over it and patch things up. I guess that's just supposed to be SUPER and all that they are so forgiving and stuff but I think it makes people think that if they do this it's ok it doesn't matter anyway. Just watched a movie tonight about this very subject. Made me so mad to think that it ended with them getting back together. Am I wrong and judgemental for thinking like that? I just don't think they ever show the true emotions involved with such infidelity. I posted a while back about going to my nephew's baptism. All 4 families were there. The cheater's family, her new husband's family, Brian's brother's family, his AWESOME wife's family. It started as one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my entire life. You could cut the tension with a knife! But it ended well and everyone made it work for that sweet little boy. I had the thought come to mind that if everyone could imagine how that moment felt they might not be so quick to cheat and end marriages. It just makes me so sad! Hearing about Jesse James cheating on Sandra Bullock was so disturbing for me. For many reasons. Of course the obvious thoughts come to mind but I also couldn't help but picture poor Sandra Bullock finding out this horrible news. We all love her! She's one of my favorite actresses. We've seen her movies. We've seen her be so upset and hurt in movies. It isn't a difficult stretch of the imagination to picture what she is going through. She is like the girl next door, someone that everyone can picture hanging out with. You know! I'm just so sad for her! Also, I kept thinking how he let everyone down. He came across as someone that would do something like this or worse. Sandra believed in him and looked past the exterior and loved him for who he was on the inside and convinced all of us that he was good and that we should trust him too. You know. Finding out he did this made me so mad at him. I feel like he let us all down! He hurt such a great woman who trusted him and let herself feel things in a relationship that she hadn't allowed herself to feel before and then he tore her heart out and stomped all over it. And as if that all wasn't bad enough she found this out on the heels of winning the Oscar. For an actress that is so great and such a goal and honor and means a great deal to them. She should have still been riding the high from that experience but instead she is feeling as low as a person can feel I would think. Just makes me so mad at him!!!! It breaks my heart to think that this happens so much in this world today. I can only hope and pray that I never have to deal with this in my marriage.....

Too cute!

My 4 year old, Max, asked my 9 year old, Zack, to raise his basketball goal for him. He said, "Please, Zack! I think you're VERY handsome!"  :)

Sometimes I feel like...

I'm sloppin' hogs!!!!

I put a bunch of pictures on my Word From The Zoo blog if you want to check it out! If you need an invite just give me a holler!! www.wordfromthezoo.blogspot.com

Like sands through the hour glass....

~My sister Stephanie and her husband J.J. welcomed a beautiful baby girl into the world Tuesday. What a precious little angel!!! Can't wait to hold her!!!

Emily

7 lbs. 7 oz.

20 inches

~Max had strep throat and ear infections 2 weeks ago. Matthew had strep throat and a horrible hivey rash last week. This week Gracie has ear infections. The Dr. wondered if she might have RSV. He said the cough might just be from the ear infections but if it didn't improve by yesterday we needed to have her checked out for RSV at the hospital. She sounds tons better so we are thinking it was just from the ear infections thankfully! I am proud of myself for remembering all their doses of medicine so far. Usually I forget once in a while. I am tired of having to stay at home so much to keep from infecting people. I want to hold little Emily!!!! :(  
~Isn't it unreal the amount of mucus a person can produce. I can wipe a nose non-stop, suck it out a zillion times and I still end up with snot all over my shirt when I have a sick baby.  Human Kleenex...GROSSE!!!
~When I walked into WalMart the other day I was so happy! NEW CARTS!!! I even said YESSSS!!!!  It's official...I need more excitement in my life!!!
~My whole life I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher. Then I actually went on a field trip with a kindergarten class to the zoo and a museum at BYU and I decided I could never be a kindergarten teacher. I just didn't have enough energy for it! I was 19 YEARS OLD! The older I get the more I realize there is absolutely no way I could do that for many, many reasons! Here are just a few reasons why...
*being confined to the same room for hours on end with 20+ kids day after day, week after week, for 9 months a year would drive me insane!!!
*not a fan of wiping other people's kids' noses.
*some kids are really obnoxious!
*not a fan of bodily functions. One day Zack brought his back pack home from kindergarten covered in another kids' vomit because he lost his lunch all over the coats and backpacks as they were getting them to leave for the day. Bye, bye backpack! Not enough soap and hot water in the WORLD!!!
*I could go on and on but you get the idea.

I went back to school when Zack was 3 and Matty was 3 months old. I was just taking generals and trying to figure out what I wanted to do as a career. I fell in love with writing when I took my first English class. I used to love to write stories and poetry when I was younger but I had forgotten about that over the years. I absolutely hated English classes in high school and college the first go around! I also HATED history classes back then but thoroughly enjoyed my history class the second go around too. Well, I decided on Journalism as my major. My dream became to write articles for magazines and newspapers and to eventually write childen's books. I stopped going to school when I got pregnant with Max. I've wanted to write since then but I used my blog as my creative outlet. Well, I finally wrote an article for a magazine this week and I am going to submit it and hope it gets published. I am excited and nervous! Wish me luck on this little endeavor! 
~Zack got 2nd over all in the Pinewood Derby Thursday night. He designed his car, painted and decorated his car, and was so excited for the big day! Last year was his first year and while his car was very cool looking it also was very, very slow. We didn't know anything about weights and graphite and all that jazz. Well, Brian and Zack observed others and studied up on it on the internet a bit and this year his car was AWESOME!!! He won 3 heats and was 2nd in one heat so he was 2nd over all out of 15 cars. He was so excited! So were Brian, Max, and Matty! I stayed home with our sick little Gracie so I missed all the excitement but I got a full and very energetic report from my guys when they got home from the derby that night. If anyone ever needs any tips about the cars Brian would be glad to share what he's learned!  :)  I was so happy for my Zacky!
~Baseball tryouts were last night. I'm trying to get myself geared up for the season. It requires MUCH energy on my part! :0  Lots of running to practices and games and chasing after kids and lots of pizza, hot dogs, and sandwiches for dinner since the games are right at dinner time and you have to make something quick for everyone when we get home at like 6:30 or 7. YUCK!!! It's a whirlwind of sunscreen and stain stick. Man...who came up with white pants for baseball players. I.mean.really! It must have been a man!!! No woman in her right mind would have come up with that! They would have been brown, black, or maybe red-ish brown like Utah dirt! I guess at least they can be bleached! Anyhoo, he LOVES it and that's all that matters...right?! It IS fun to get into the games and cheer the team on and watch the progress of the players and visit with the other parents and be out of the house in the fresh, albeit, often COLD air after a long cooped up winter! It's fun for the whole family to spend the time together. It's nice to know there are still some forms of entertainment that don't involve any sort of electronic devices or tv or movie screens. Matty and Max want to play t-ball, too so that will surely add to the craziness but that just adds to the fun, huh!
P.S. I love getting comments!!!  :)

Count Your Many Blessings...

I'm feeling discouraged and like I'm in a major FUNK so I thought I'd listen to one of my favorite church songs and count my many blessings so here goes...
1. BRIAN: I love him and am so grateful for the hard work he has put into making a better life for our family. I know he is as frustrated right now as I am about not being able to move out of his mom's house. There is NOTHING to rent here!!! I take that back. There are 2 places to rent that are WAY TOO expensive for us to rent but otherwise would be perfect. Perfect location. Perfect size. We would just have to starve to be able to live there. I'm concidering it!!! The other places to rent right now are on either side of a canal that runs fast and full and has railroad tracks running at the end of the back yard. Other than that they are superfantabulous!!! They really are though. That's the hard thing. Tons of property. Nice house. Just don't think I could handle the stress of worrying about one of my children drowning or getting run over by a train every time they go out the door to play.  Anyway I am so happy that Brian has a good job with great benefits and that his job is close by and he doesn't have to wake up so EARLY anymore and I can snuggle him a little if I feel like it before he goes to work. He also gets to come home for lunch everyday so I get to talk to an adult for a whole hour in the middle of the day.  And I like that it only takes him 5-10 minutes to get home every night instead of at least an hour like before.
2. MY WONDERFUL CHILDREN: I am so grateful to have a beautiful daughter and 3 amazing sons to care for each day. Thank goodness for them. They bring so much joy and purpose to our lives. I always think...what did we do without them. Then I remember...we just wished for them..that's what we did without them. Don't you just KNOW that your kids were meant to be yours. My soul rejoices with each new spirit we are blessed with and I just know that my spirit knew them before this life and missed them like crazy and feels more whole once they are here with me.
3. SUNBEAMS (the 3 year old church class I teach): They are so cute! One little girl sang out a great song about Jesus on Sunday so beautifully and with such conviction. She brought tears to my eyes. Sweet little angel. Then there was a boy that came up to me and said,''My dad wipes my bum with toilet paper."   Well, gee, thanks for sharing!!! Cracked me up!
4. 50 DEGREES: Yesterday it was 50 degrees!! LOVED it! The kids rode their bikes and played outside. They are so sick of the snow they can't stand it so they have loved having grass to play on again.
5. FOOD: I LOVE food!!! I love the textures, the colors, the smells, the flavors. I LOVE FOOD!!! I am not a big baker. Yeast hates me! My main food joy comes in creating meals. I enjoy the whole process. I enjoy making a menu. I learned this from my sister in law, Stephanie. She is AWESOME!!! I try my best to make a 2 week menu so that I don't have to worry about not having enough money at the end of the pay period for food. I hate going to the store. I don't mind it if I go on Saturday morning alone before everyone else wakes up and I can just browse and enjoy the experience. When I have to take the kids, which I do 99% of the time, I want to pull my hair out the entire time and feel like a crazy person!!! I really enjoy cooking delicious meals. Most of the recipes I have are so delicious I'd rather eat at home than out most days. The only reason for eating out in my opinion is so that someone else has to clean up the mess that night instead of me! I used to be the worst cook ever but have improved enough that I really enjoy the process and the end result. I am also ADDICTED to the Food Network!!!!! LOVE IT!!
6. EXTENDED FAMILIES: I am so grateful for our extended families. I love them and enjoy them so much! I hope that they all know that! I am grateful that Ruth lets us live here even though we are all driving each other crazy and want our own space we appreciate that she allows us to stay with her. Please pray for us to find a place to live before you catch us on an episode of SNAPPED!!!!
7. HEAVENLY FATHER: I love Him so much! I know He loves me! I know that I can not find any joy in this life as fulfilling and comforting as knowing that He loves me! There was a time I wondered if He did love me at all. I had experienced about 5 years of infertility at that point and wanted nothing more than to be a mother. I had had 2 miscarriages. At that point I was sad to lose those babies but so happy to know that I could actually GET pregnant! Well, I had been trying really hard to improve myself spiritually and was stronger than I've ever been spiritually I would say. Well, I got pregnant. I thought it was THE answer to my prayer. It was a reward for doing right. In our mortal life that's how it works so it's hard not to think like that. We do what we are supposed to do and then we are rewarded for it whether through a degree earned, recognition, a job, a promotion. We don't get punished unless we do something bad. That isn't how it works with Heavenly Father. We are ALL on this earth to be tried and tested. We ALL have to go through this process! Being more valiant doesn't make it so we don't have trials. Being valiant helps us to handle our trials better. To find strength when we need it most because we are inviting that strength to our lives. Well, I was THRILLED as you might imagine when I found out I was pregnant. I just KNEW it was going to work this time because Heavenly Father was rewarding me. You also might imagine how DEVASTATED I was when I lost that baby, too, at 10 weeks. I felt like Heavenly Father was mean. That He knew that I trusted Him and had faith that He could have made it work if He had wanted to...if He LOVED me. It was the most testimony shaking experience I had ever had! I was ANGRY, HURT, DISAPPOINTED, SAD, truly DEVASTATED and ALONE!!!! I think Brian thought I was going to be struck by lightning for feeling the way I did. I finally humbled myself to ask for a blessing from Brian and things were said in it that answered questions and thoughts I had not expressed to anyone. I knew from things that were said that Heavenly Father loves me. He wants me to be happy. He wasn't punishing me. It was as if His loving arms were wrapped around me and He said it's ok, I love you, I'm here for you, you have to go through this and I will help you through it. I will not leave you alone. I often think of Him now more as a parent than I did before. I can't imagine the pain He experienced during our Saviour's atonement. I think of a loving parent watching their child go through the pain of stitches, or a shot, or a broken arm, or much, much worse, and knowing that you would take it away from them if you could. That it kills you to know they are suffering. That you hold them and say it's ok, I'm here for you, I won't leave you alone, I'll help you through it. I think also about those times when it's too much to handle and you have to leave the room. You can't watch. You can't hear their crys. I wonder how Heavenly Father endured the atonement of His Beloved Son?! I am thankful for their love for us and their willingness to provide the way for us to return to live with them again! I am thankful for the testimony I gained through that difficult experience and I am thankful for His forgiveness of my questioning His love for me! I cherish this experience and gained a strength and testimony and love for my Heavenly Father that I never knew before and, knowing me, I would never have gained in another way. I am grateful for His love!!!!
8. JESUS CHRIST: I am thankful to know that Jesus Christ is a real person. That he loved you and me and everyone enough to suffer for our sins. Not only our sins but our pain. Our depression. Our disappointment. He suffered that experience I talked about in #7 so that He could be there to help me through it. So that He could help me not to feel alone. So that He could explain my heart to Heavenly Father so I could be forgiven and helped and loved. I am so thankful to know someone loves me THAT much! HE loves me THAT much! To suffer, to die, to be resurrected. To live again. Forever. So that I can live again. Forever. With Him and with my Father in Heaven, and with my family who I love so very much.
9. THE HOLY GHOST: During the years of infertility and miscarriage and monthly disappointment and sadness I learned a very important lesson that helped me so much. The Holy Ghost is there to comfort us. I asked often to feel the comfort of the Holy Ghost to help me get past the disappointment, frustration,  and sadness. He was always there for me. I am so grateful for Him as well. The Godhead. What a blessing! I know that we can receive NO greater blessing in this life!!!