Stop & Smell the Roses Once In A While, Already :)

Today, I am thankful for the beauties of the earth.  Hasn't Heavenly Father blessed us with the most amazing planet to enjoy.  I've always LOVED late fall/winter time until I had kids and then it was really hard to not be able to let 3 little, wild, and crazy boys outside to play.  Now they are ALL old enough to play outside in the snow and be just fine.  We just bundle them up like the little boy on A Christmas Story and they're good to go.  The best part, I get to still love late fall/winter!  I think I like it so much because this time of year just seems so magical, what with Thanksgiving and celebrating Christmas from the day after Thanksgiving all through til January 1st.  I love Christmas trees and decorations.  Going for rides to look at Christmas lights.  Hot cocoa.  Warm, snugly sweaters, and blankets.  Cute boots.  Nativity sets.  Christmas programs.  The Nutcracker.  Christmas dresses for my daughter and nice sweaters or sweater vests for my sons.  The music.  Who doesn't love Christmas music?!  The feeling of looking out the window and seeing a blanket of snow on everything.  There is something so peaceful about that. (As long as you don't have to drive in it.)  Icicles.  Making snowmen and snow angels.  Snow covered trees.  Seeing the lights on Temple Square.  Christmas movies.  And just think about a lot of the best movies ever, that are set at Christmas time because...hello, it's magical and so romantic.  For example...Serendipity, While You Were Sleeping, The Holiday... I could go on and on. 

Springtime is so incredibly beautiful!  I absolutely love seeing all of the pretty tulips, daffodils, and lilac trees in bloom.  The grass begins to turn green.  The trees begin to grow leaves again.  The world begins to have color and life again.  Isn't it fun to see all of the cute little lambs, colts, and calfs.  The air starts to warm up again a little bit so that we can pull out our light jackets, capri's and flip flops.

Summertime is so much fun!  I never was very thrilled about it before I had those 3 little boys I talked about earlier.  It is wonderful to be able to just let them be free and play outside without coats, boots, gloves.  I loved seeing my babies chubby little legs and arms when they started wearing shorts and short sleeves.  It's such a beautiful time of year, too.  We love to see waterfalls, rivers running, The Garden's at Thanksgiving Point.  Everything is colorful and lovely. 

And living in Utah is really fun when Fall comes along.  I had never seen such spectacularly colored leaves of trees as when we moved to Utah from Kansas.  I still remember how awe inspiring it was the first time we drove through Price/Spanish Fork Canyon in the Fall.  The mountains in Utah are just beautiful no matter what time of year it is, but I especially love it when they are full of beautiful fall leaves.  I just can't get enough of it!  And, seeing Temple Square this time of year is my new favorite!

There are so many gorgeous places in our state, our country, and all over the world that I would just LOVE to see some day.  This earth was not made by accident.  There was so much thought and science to it.  Heavenly Father and Jesus are so amazing!  The beauty of it is such an amazing gift to all of us!  Sometimes I think we just get so wrapped up and caught up in the stress and duties of daily life that we forget to look around us and savour the beautiful world we live in.

It's official...I'm old!!!

So, yesterday I saw an email from Facebook that was from someone I went to high school with announcing that we are going to be having a 20 year reunion next year. THAT'S OLD!!!

Later, I planted some tulip bulbs and dug out the dead tree stump that has been in our yard for who knows how long, then decided to rake the yard. We were planning to take care of it Saturday, now that Zack's football season is over and we could actually plan something like that for a Saturday. Well, the weather forecast is iffy for Saturday so I figured why not just do it and get it over with. Raking is hard work when you are OLD!!! My shoulders and biceps are feeling it big time! It sure is nice to have a cleaned up yard though. It was totally worth all the pain! It looks nice and I can cross it off my list now instead of dreading it. I posted some cute pics on Word From The Zoo of the kids again. Check those out if you get a sec. Did I mention that...

I LOVE FALL!!!



Oh, and now that we have a frig lock on our garbage can so Gracie can't throw random things away anymore she has started throwing random things in our kitchen sink. Off and on, all day, every day I find silly things in there. This is what I found this morning....

That is a wad of playdough under the dolls hand. I have no idea where she found the playdough but I am so glad she threw it in the sink instead of smearing it all over the house. Since my mom might see this I feel I should apologize for the pot marks in the sink.  :)

It's beginning to look a lot like...

Halloween!!!!

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Fall!! I love the food, the smells, the holidays, the slight chill in the air (usually but so far not so much this year but I'm sure it will happen eventually), and the super fun decorations!!! Halloween has always been a favorite holiday of mine to decorate for. We used to have an entertainment center to use for surfaces to decorate and we usually have fun, wide window sills or counters or drop cabinets to decorate. Here we don't have ANY surfaces! I was so sad when I got out the decorations and couldn't decorate because we don't have anywhere to put our cute things. There are 6 plant hook things in our living room ceiling. I decided to Google homemade Halloween decorations. I found a couple of fun things to make and saw this adorable idea where you paint B-O-O on 3 white pumpkins. We broke out the egg cartons, black craft paint, googly eyes, and pipe cleaners and I let the kids go to town. Then we hung their creations from the plant hooks (at least their good for something).They LOVE making craft projects so they loved making these. I think it's cute and helps the house feel a bit more festive. Some day I hope to have another entertainment center and some more fun places to decorate but at least for now this does the trick!

My mom gave me this black table cloth a few years ago

 and it really makes the white pumpkins stand out on my kitchen table!
Kind of fun!

Kind of hard to take pictures of these bats since the window is right there making it so bright.

I made this next one out of some old decorations I had. I saw my friend, Jenn make some similar decorations before so I decided to turn the old decorations into a new fun one.

I'm in love...

with this time of year!!!

I never thought I would be one of "those" mom's. You know the ones that just couldn't wait to have her kids go back to school after the summer. I always thought I would be super sad when they went to school. I am always a bit nostalgic, especially when my kids go to kindergarten, of course, but this year I felt PURE JOY when they went to school and it just gets better every day.  The kids were so restless by the end of the summer. I had started a schedule with them because they really thrive on knowing what to expect and having stuff to do. They made lots of science projects, played outside lots, played in our little swimming pool, had very little t.v. time, read books, made crafts, I taught them to sew pillow cases, they drew lots of fun pictures. They loved it! They were very excited for school to start. Matthew is our sleeping-in child and he is usually a bear every morning when he's getting ready for school.  He cries and begs not to go to school many mornings.  So I was getting nervous about the first day of school with him.

Usually I take them to school the first day. Take a picture of them in their new classroom. Sometimes I take a picture of them with their new teacher. Zack's getting older and this ritual embarrasses him. Matthew and I met his new teacher the week before school started in his classroom. He was very nice. Matthew found where his backpack would hang. Took a little tour of the classroom. It was great. So when they wanted to ride the bus (which picks them up in front of our house  HOORAY!!!) instead of having me take them to school that first day I went with it. I felt sad I wouldn't be taking their picture at school and stuff but I figured it would be better for Matthew to not have me there.  They LoVeD their first day of school!!! It was only half a day for the first 2 days. Matthew started begging to stay home the 3rd day of school.  He's such a little home body. He loves being home!! But he loves school while he's there. He just doesn't like the going part I guess. Probably hates the waking up early part most. Max started preschool last Tuesday.  He is a bit timid about it this year because he only knows one of the kids in his class. She was on his t-ball team this summer. It's a pretty big class too.  Once he makes some more friends I'm sure he'll love it even more. I am really enjoying the 2 hours, 3 days a week thing. Who knew that 6 hours a week with only one very quiet child could be so rejuvenating.  I all but did a happy dance the other day in the kitchen when I was telling Brian how great it had been having the kids in school again. It's wonderful!!!  I thrive on having my own schedule back again. It helps me be a better mom to have a bit of a break once in a while. They love interacting with friends and learning new things and the whole school thing.   

And don't you just love everything about this time of year.  The weather is PERFECT!!! It's not too hot, not too cold.  It smells like fall. The food gets so super yummy and comforting.  I love it when I can start making soups, stews, and casseroles again.  And...apple pie!! So delicious!!!  No air conditioner. No heater.  I get to wear my light jackets or long sleeves.  I just thoroughly enjoy each of the seasons.  I love that we live somewhere that has all of the seasons.  There are places that don't really have much of a fall.  Who doesn't love the beautiful colors as the leaves change?!  I so enjoy the decorations and holidays of fall.  And the smell in the air and in the house.  It's just a wonderful time of year!!!  I feel so happy and so grateful for all of our blessings and to be living on such an amazing planet that our Savior created for us.  What marvelous gifts he gives to us.  How blessed we are to have fall.  To have seasons.  To have apples.  And pumpkins.  And the smell of cinnamon.  And such a gorgeous state to live in.  To have such great family.  To have the gospel in our lives.  To live in a free country.  To have shelter and transportation and food and clothing and shoes.  We are truly blessed!!!!!  I just LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this time of year!!!!