It's exactly the way I pictured it!!!

Today is wonderful! I feel fantastic! The kids are having tons of fun! They played in the mud with friends. I mean PLAYED in the mud, mud from head to toe. It rained today, whatchya gonna do?! They rode their bikes. Our back "yard" is just dirt and weeds. I think it is ugly but I also think it's a really cool "boy" backyard. There is a big dirt circle drive kind of a thing that the kids like to dig in and ride bikes on and stuff. There is a big area that is like an acre that they can ride bikes on. They catch lizards. They get super dirty every day. They have a couple of adorable little neighbor friends to play with. I have a friend who comes over sometimes to play  and our kids like to play together. They have the 2 little kids to play with that I babysit. I'm so glad because I had to FORCE them to play outside last summer! They hated it and I felt so bad for them. So now they are happy and I am just so glad!
As I was hosing them down and we were laughing and they were having so much fun being hosed down, it occurred to me that THIS was exactly how I always pictured motherhood being. Everything about today just feels...GREAT!! It's great to feel good and to feel like I'm able to keep up today. I have felt really rotten for like almost 3 weeks now. So-much-pain. Yesterday pretty much sucked!!! No other way to put it! It was painful and I had to take 6 kids with me to the vet to see what is wrong with my poor, sweet, dog. More about my dog later. He's a mini schnauzer. I LOVE HIM!!! He ADORES me! He's been with us since January and has been my little pal through all the good days and bad. They say he's bleeding internally and they think he got into poison. He's on vitamin K and an antibiotic. After that I had to take Gracie to the doctor because she has an ear infection. Thankfully I only had to take Gracie and Tessa, they are both 2. They are adorable! But every time I turned around it was something. It just kept getting worse and worse all day. So it's amazing to feel so much better today! It's great to feel like I'm more "together" today. I really just love being a mom today!!!

Tomorrow is a new day.

Hopefully it's a pain free day.

 Hopefully it's another day where things just flow and everyone is happy.

Hopefully it's another day that is exactly like I always pictured it being.

I just always pictured the house being a LOT cleaner so hopefully tomorrow it WILL be!!

     ;)    

I'm hoping you are having a really great day too!!!

Hooray for great days!

My hair before...

My hair after...

I'm loving this deal I made with a lady in our church. I watch her sweet as pie little kids for a few hours a week and she does my hair and my kid's and Brian's too. Our kids all love each other so it's almost like she's doing me this big favor by letting her kids come play with my kids so my kids don't fight with each other all day and complain about how bored they are. I love it!

Pageant, Rockets, Summertime, S'mores, Scripture Marking Class

~I went to The Mormon Miracle Pageant in Manti last night with the Y.W. It has been so many years since I last went that I can't remember how long ago. Before we had kids anyway. We ate BBQ Turkey dinners at a ward building...the only way to go! Then we ate yummy custard and Italian Ice treats. SO YUMMY!!! Then we watched the pageant. There were parts in it that I didn't remember from years past. I'm sure they were there before but now that I'm old (they are having our 20 year high school reunion this year...that's OLD!!!) and have kids and have a stronger testimony and such, it just was so emotional for me to watch. I got teary quite often. When they portrayed the part in The Book of Mormon when Jesus visited the Nephites and blessed them and healed the sick and taught them and blessed their children, I really cried. It was so spiritually moving and just wonderful! Of course it's one of my favorite parts to read so being able to see it acted out was really neat. I am just so grateful for the opportunity I had to go this year. I was worried about going. The umbilical cord doesn't stretch all the way to Manti ya know. :)  But I went and I am so glad I did! It was even worth getting home at 1:30 a.m. and not sleeping until 2:30a.m.! Our Y.W. are such amazing girls and I just love spending time with them! I want to go next year with my little family.

~This morning the kids woke us up at 7:30 and we got ourselves ready and went to the home of some of our church members to watch an awesome rocket show! They set off tons of rockets. All different sizes. From super tiny to about 5 feet tall. I figured I could put this in the category of "things we do for our children". I was super surprised when I actually had a lot of fun watching! The time flew by! It was fun for everyone there, especially the kids! They all wanted to be the one who found the rocket after it landed. The people live out in the boonies so the kids had plenty of room to be free and run wild! Who can ask for anything more than that when you are a boy? Gracie hated the experience. It scared her to death each time one went off. But there were some adorable little baby bunnies nestled together by their house that a wild bunny had and oh they were the cutest little things! Gracie really liked them so at least it wasn't all bad for her. The ward member's who invited everyone out do this show every year. They invite people from the college out since he used to teach at the college, they invite ward members and friends. Their kids plan their summer vacations for the rocket show weekend. It's so much fun! One of their daughters said to me that she was surprised by how many people came out for the show. I said, well, there isn't a lot of entertainment in this town so when someone invites people for a fun time we're all there!!!

~Don't you love summertime. Some days I just absolutely love summer?! Some days not so much! When the kids get along pretty well...and they make the most of the opportunity to ride bikes and dig in the dirt all day long in our back yard...we eat some kind of yummy summer food like a BLT, juicy watermelon, corn on the cob, BBQ ANYTHING, yummy potato salad and Aunt Marilyn's fabulous baked beans...we walk through the store and smell the sweet scent of ripe nectarines and peaches throughout the produce area and my mouth starts to water...Strawberry Shortcake...spending lots of time outside...the smell of freshly cut grass, lilacs, and roses...THEN, all is right with the world and I LOVE summer! 

but...

when the kids can't stop fighting with each other, hurting each other, and hurting each other's feelings...having to take 4 kids along when I go to the grocery store...having to pull pokey stickers out of my kids feet constantly because they refuse to wear shoes outside...the whining...complaining...fighting over which wii game to play or movie to watch...the constant messes...not being able to afford to go on nice little mountain drives because the price of gas is OUT...OF...CONTROL!!!, THEN I'm not such a big fan of summer!

~There is a fire pit in our back yard. Tonight we're going to roast marshmallows over it and have s'mores. I can't wait!!! Brian is cooking some delicious chicken and rice in the dutch oven. I sure do love to eat! :)

~Thursday night there was a scripture marking class for a Relief Society activity. Oh, it was awesome! The lady brought us fun little sticker things to put in our scriptures. She suggested some fun things like, mark words in your scriptures that are about Jesus, Heavenly Father, good, happy things with yellow soft color pencil. Mark scripture mastery scriptures in kind of a rainbow pattern. Mark things that are about Satan or evil with red pencil. Use other colors you like for other things. She just really got us all excited about the scriptures and taught us things that will help us be able to understand the scriptures better. It was a really great experience! I can't wait for her to come again!

Randomness...

~There is a chick in our ward named Nicki who has the cutest hair! I asked her who she goes to, since I'm still trying to find someone to do my hair. She said she does it herself and that she works at a salon here in town. I figured if she can do her own hair that well, she must be GOOD!  Well, you can imagine how thrilled I was when she called me a couple of weeks ago and asked me if I would like to do a trade. I would watch her kids 1 or 2 days a week and she would do my family's hair.

Ummm, yeah!!!!

 To  be honest, I was a bit worried. I mean, you never know what you're gonna get when you watch other people's kids. But they are so well behaved. Ty is 8 years old and Max and Matthew LOVE playing with him. Tessa is going to turn 2 in July and she and Gracie get along really well too. I do have to save poor Tessa from my bully daughter, who has a hard time with this whole sharing thing, from time to time. But other than that they are getting along really well. Ty has great manners too. So far it's going great and everyone is happy!  It's been fun getting to know Nicki as well. I finally found a picture of what I want my hair to look like and I can't wait to have it done!

~Between having Zack on a Cal Ripkin Majors team, Matthew on a Cal Ripkin Pee Wee team, and Max starting T-ball this week on a city league team, we go to a LOT of baseball games! We have 9 this week alone. Tonight will be #7. It's been a lot of fun watching the kids having such a great time! It's been really fun to see the different ability levels too. T-ball and Pee Wee are just so remedial compared to Majors. Everyone cheers for both teams and are just so positive and nice. There are a few overzealous (crazy) parents who expect super great things out of their poor kids at this level and are continuously disappointed when it just doesn't work out the way they want it to. It cracks me up to listen to them! Then you go to the Majors and h-o-l-y  c-o-w! The parents REALLY get into it! Last year was really fun to watch but this year is AWESOME!!! All of the players finally really get how to play and they make some incredibly awesome plays! It's exciting to watch and I don't dread the games like I used to. I think a lot of why I dreaded them so much in the past was the way I felt physically. It has been so incredible, the contrast between how I feel this year as compared to how I felt last year. It was bad! It just makes me so grateful each and every day that I feel better. I still have some sporadic pain here and there most days but most of the time I feel great! It's truly a blessing!!! An answer to prayer for sure!!! 

~I have finally started trying to lose some weight. I have gained 20 lbs since November and I can't fit my fat butt into any of my jeans except my maternity ones and ones that have that stretchiness to them. Definite low point!!! And I saw some very cute, thin, girls I went to high school with and I looked like the stay puffed marshmallow man. So humiliating!!! So, I decided I have to do something about it! I've been trying to exercise and I have made some minor changes with my eating habits. I lost 10 lbs!!! Which inspired me to keep at it! Brian has lost some weight too. We both need to be healthier for sure!

~My kids have finally figured out that it's so much more fun to play outside than it is to stay in the house, which is a huge plus! Last year I had to force them to play outside.

~We were able to find Matthew's backpack that he left at school on the last day of school. It had his inhaler in it and some other medicine equaling about $70. I was totally freaking out. We looked in the lost and found 2 different times before we found it.

~I feel like we live at the dentist office. Matty and Zack both have retainers. Both of them have broken them twice. They have only had them since like April or something. Matthew even threw his away at school and the super nice janitor spotted it on his tray in the garbage can and took it out. Thankfully! Course, about 3 hours later he broke it. I tell ya, this could drive a mom to drink!

~So we all know it's not good for us to eat fried foods. I rarely fry. Maybe a few times a year. I found another reason not to do it a few weeks when I was frying some chicken for my family to have between baseball games while I was at a Young Women's barbecue and homework burn. I placed a wing in the front of the pan and reached over it to put another one on the other side of it at the back of the pan and right when my hand was about an inch above the first wing, it popped. Oil splattered on my wrist. It burned it bad! It blistered up and has gone through some interesting changes over the past 2 weeks. Not fun! There is one part that I can't get to heal and it was the most blistered. So frying is not my friend! I feel so bad for people who are burned in accidents.I can only imagine what they must go through!

~Oh, and for those of you wondering, the Essure thing has been wonderful!Just make sure you get everything worked out with your insurance company and your drs office before having it done.