Haiti: Returning to Church

I got the coolest email about the LDS church members in Haiti today. Despite being homeless and surrounded by devestation, these people have gathered each week in their best Sunday clothes (washed in water not good enough to drink) and find peace in knowing that they are children of a loving Heavenly Father. What a blessing it is to have a knowledge Jesus Christ and His gospel! To know that God created us and has a plan of happiness for us. To know that, as we endure to the end, we will be able to live eternally with Him and our family members again - it takes away the sting of death and tragedy. It gives us reason to smile, even when the world around us comes crumbling down. I love these pictures - I love seeing these Haitian people SMILING!

The Port-au-prince ward members
The Port-au-prince ward primary children

The Queen of Hearts has lost a tooth!

Ashley lost her first tooth today on Valentine's Day! It seems Luke always pulls his teeth out on holidays so Ashley wanted to follow suit and wait until today to try as well. And it worked - surprisingly fast! Luke caught the exciting event on video but Tyler unfortunately missed it while putting Jake down for a nap. We'll let him pull the next one! A little known fact about our Ashley is that she was BORN WITH HER TWO BOTTOM TEETH!! So this little tooth that I now hold in my hand has been a part of her sweet smile since the first day we laid eyes on her! And now six and a half years later, I can't believe how fast she's growing up and changing. Anyway, here she is - her first ever picture without a bottom front tooth!

Co-ops and Playgroups Work (for us anyway)

I've been meaning to post about something for a while now - for my friends in other places who have kids like I do (most of you). It's about all the "kid trading" we do in this ward/neighborhood, which I find just delightful.

First, I am involved in two playgroups for Jake, one on Tuesday and one on Friday. Each group has four or five three year old boys and goes for three hours (9-12 and 9:30-12:30). We rotate houses, so every fourth or fifth week I have the boys here and the rest of the month I have those mornings free. Jacob loves the boys and getting to go play with them and I love being able to do whatever I need to do child-free (shopping, going into the school, temple...) When it is my week to have them, I don't dread it, rather I commit my morning to the boys and we go to the park, play and have lunch - and I do it all with them. It's not bad at all.

Secondly, we are part of a Friday night co-op. This one took some time to appreciate, but we are now believers. We and three of our friends schedule every month so that each couple gets all the kids (12 in all) one Friday night from 5:30-10 and the rest of the Fridays we have free babysitting 5:30-10! It really is a pretty sweet deal because it's cut down big-time on $$ spent on sitters (we like to go out every weekend) and the kids enjoy it a lot. It feels like a party every Friday night for them. Tonight we have co-op here, we have 11 kids currently in our house, and look - things are going so smoothly that I've found time to blog! Imagine that. In all honesty, the success of this program depends entirely upon the kids in the group and these guys are just great.

Lastly, I am on the waiting list for a neighborhood co-op that I've heard wonderful things about. I am hoping that my name will come up before I get pregnant again and start to feel sick because it will be awesome to wake up feeling yucky and know I have this option. Basically there are about 30 women in the co-op. They meet monthly to sign-up on the calendar for M-F slots 9-12 and 12-3. They have to sign up for one slot, but can take more if they want, so every M-F is taken by someone willing to babysit during those times. Each lady joins the co-op with 30 popsicle sticks, and each popsicle stick represents one hour of babysitting. When a day comes up that she needs sitting, she simply looks on the calendar for who has signed up to babysit that day and calls her to see if there is room to take another child. If so, she can take her child/ren and pay the corresponding number of popsicle sticks which the sitter will use as future payment for her own chidren. So the sticks just keep rotating around! The only requirement is that everyone participates at least once a month so as to keep the group flowing.

Anyway, I consider it a blessing to have so many families living so close who think and work like we do. Friendly trades like these are not for the faint of heart but they work well for us and our kids.

The Queen of Hearts

Ashley is such a girl! Yesterday she came home from school bursting with excitement about today being the class Valentine's Day party! She wanted to lay out a cute Valentine's outfit - and then decided that she wanted to go get a special Valentine's shirt! I had her work all afternoon cleaning the basement with me and then she and I took off to Target for a Valentine's candy and shirt run.

Low and behold I woke up with the sun and my daughter who was in underpants at my bedside, anxious to get dressed and ready to go!! Oh, the simple pleasures of life for a six year old little girl (I was/am just like her!).

So we primped her all up and she called herself the "queen of hearts" in the mirror. I loved it.



The boys of course are boys. Hadn't thought but a minute about Valentine's day when they filled out their cards. But they sure are cute. XO XO XO. We love Valentine's Day!

Cutest Little Soccer Player on Earth

Ashley had her first soccer game yesterday. We were so happy with her desire to play and want to support her whole-heartedly! Her team is the "purple spagetti" and she is one of two girls on the team. She hung in there yesterday after missing the first practice, just trying to figure out exactly how the game is played. But she finished with a smile on her face and we were happy for her. GO ASHLEY!!

The Bed Fairy?!

There have been several posts on this blog about sleeping issues related to the kids coming into our bed. As I recall, I once posted a picture that looks very similar to this, which I took a few mornings ago (yes, I had been in that extra white space by Jake's feet!)...

Jake and Ashley continue to come into our bed in the middle of the night. Although I don't hate it, it is bothering me because I can't exactly sleep on 12 inches of mattress space very well.
So I talked to my sister Ali and asked what she would do to curb the problem and she said, "do you want a nice way or a mean way?" I said, "both". She said the mean way would be to lock them into their rooms or lock them out of my room. I'd thought of that, but know that it will create a lot of mid-night drama - and I have tried it.
She offered, the nice way would be to "call" the "bed fairy" and have her start visiting the kids with surprises under the pillows of children who stay in their beds all night. Normally I'm not all for going this all out, but I knew it would work, especially for Ash.
So I told Ashley the good news when she got home from school Friday - that the bed fairy would be coming that night and she was excited! She stayed in her bed the whole night!, and Jake stayed in his until 6am!, at which point I let him climb into our bed while I snuck out to put treats under Luke and Ashley's pillow (jake didn't get it because he climbed in with me before the sun was up). That morning Ashley was thrilled but a little concerned that the fairy left the same kind of fruit snacks that we already had at our house. Luke just looked at me like I was crazy, but he knew better than to blow the secret (this may be the kind of thing that starts to kill the toothfairy deal too).
Last night, our second night doing this, THEY ALL STAYED IN THEIR OWN BEDS ALL NIGHT! What a thrill. Tyler and I woke up next to one another, in peace! And when I heard the kids coming in, with candy hearts in hand (I had snuck out to their pillows about 7am just before they woke up), Jake asked "mom, are you the fairy-tale?!" It was funny. So I think all three of them are catching on to the idea that I may be the "fairy-tale", but I don't think they care. They'll stay in their beds for a surprise under their pillows in the morning! Thanks for the suggestion Ali!!

Puzzles!

Luke and Ash stayed home from school two days this week because they had yucky coughs. It is nice to have them home because we don't have to rush around in the morning and can have leisurely days. One day we decided to do puzzles - as many as we could before daddy got home - and ended up making a new puzzle "table cloth". I love doing stuff like that with them.

Hair-raising experiences!

The kids are getting a kick out of static electricity this month. Maybe it's all the storms we've been having. We tried to get a shot of Jake too, but it's not the same with a buzz cut. :)

Happy Birthday, Jilly.

My wonderful friend Jill turned, I'll say it, 38 on Sunday! She is the closest thing to a sister that I have here in this sunny state of Arizona - and a real blessing in my life. Seeing as she is, I'll say it, 8 years older than me, she has taught me so much in the 6ish years we've been friends! Here's a list of the top 10 things I've learned from her - off the top of my head:

1- How make window treatments and decorate the house - the no-stress way
2- How to bake bread and make cinnamon rolls
3 - How to alter pants so that they stay up on little waists
4- How to gather food storage and use it
5- How to use a pressure cooker to cook chicken from frozen to shredable in 12 minutes
6- How to dress so that I feel good about myself everyday (see the book, "Dressing Your Truth)
7- How to shop consignment - with Pride.
8- How to eat right and exercise more (I gave her the idea to jump rope and stuck with it for two months, she has been doing it for two years now).
9- How to love your man and take good care of him
10- How to be a wonderful friend!

We had her family over for FHE last night and enjoyed playing games and sharing dessert. It was fun.

My rockstar.

Busy around the house

Last week we were so busy around the house! Something got into us Friday night on our date and we decided to go to Home Depot and get some stuff to do home improvements! We picked out a new light for the kitchen, I got some decorating magazines - and we were just motivated. So here are some pictures of what we accomplished:

I started by taking the last of the Christmas Decorations down off the dusty entry table. What, it was only Jan. 25th.

This was the light that we had hanging above the kitchen table. It didn't bother us much until we really looked at it.
So we picked out a bigger, better light! I was hoping to ask for this for my b-day in March, but Ty said, "let's just do it now." I love those kinds of moods.
In my mom's house in Mesa she had a medallion like this on the ceiling above the light. I liked it a lot and wanted to get one too. We decided to paint it the same green that we used in the guest bathroom in our last house. Convenient.
After some serious exercises in arm strength and teamwork we got everything up and hung and working! I love it. I don't have a before picture, but I'm sure you all can imagine. A big improvement in the overall look of the room!

On the master bedroom front, I finally hung the large clock that Heidi and Brett gave us for Christmas! It is exactly what I wanted for that spot! (thanks again, guys).
I hung pictures in our bedroom and took everything else out - completely decluttered. Kids' stuff - out. Suitcases in the closet - out. Surround sound speakers stacked in the corner - out. It feels much more fresh now.
And I continued the purging in the closet. Now I am down to all things I fit, feel cute in, and wear! Ahhh. And look at all those empty hangers... what to do...
It only took us 15 months to have a family picture taken, choose which one we liked best, have it enlarged on canvas and get it framed. Thank heavens we didn't add another family member in that time, or that would have been depressing! But we love how it turned out - and I hung it right above the piano where I've invisioned it all this time!

Once I hung the picture in the living room it prompted me to do a clean-out of that room too. I pulled everything off the shelves, dusted and replaced only the nice stuff (not everything that accumulates on shelves over time) which feels much better. Then I went to move the couch and when I separated the parts I saw THIS on the carpet beneath and about - uh - how do I say this - ran for my life?! Even though I got my distance and it appeared to be a fake, I watched it for several minutes. I have never purchased a toy snake for my kids, nor seen one in our house so I was skeptical. Ugh! It took ALL THE GUMPTION I had in me to finally touch it - and I jumped! Finally I picked it up and set it on the window sil. Minutes later I saw this out of the corner of my eye and jumped out of my skin again!! Doesn't it look so real?! So I'd had so much fun with this little guy that I thought I'd share the fun with my kids and set him up like this on the driveway for when they walked home from school. Hehe. My plan flopped though.. they walked right past it and when I asked about it, Luke read right through me.
Don't worry though, I have him safely stowed and waiting for April Fool's Day. That day he may just find himself a new home in somebody's bed or cereal box! :)

I love days at home working and thinking up crazy antics.