Three Reasons Why I'm In Love

Because of these three sweet children of mine, I am called MOM. And I love them beyond measure!!!

Jocelyn said as I was tucking her into bed tonight: "Mom, you're my BEST friend!" Oh how that melted my heart! xoxo

{The cake John and the kids made for me for Mother's Day!}

5K Walk & Women's Conference

For this years Stake Women's Conference at church, we started with the Family Fun 5K For Food at 7am. This was not only for church members but for the whole community. Our family was going to do this walk/run together until Aubrey came down with a cough and sore throat earlier in the week so John shooed me out of bed at 5:30am to go on without them. So I did and I'm so glad! It was so much fun and we had a great turn out of about 400 participants. The donation truck was completely full which was just awesome! And the best part was that the non-perishable items were going to the local food bank to help those in need. Physically, I was not prepared for this walk whatsoever. Yes, it's only 3 miles but when you aren't doing that on a regular basis, well - it hurts! And I'm feeling the aftermath of the walk with sore muscles. Since having Andrew I have not gotten back into the routine of regular exercise. This walk has pushed me to start now. I figure now is better than never. Walking with my friend and her mom (also my friend), we walked the 5K in 47 minutes. Not bad! That's a little over 15 minutes per mile. We were talking the entire time that we didn't even realize we were only about a quarter of a mile to the finish line. I think I'm going to be scouting the community for more 5-10K's - especially ones I can involve my children in and walk as a family. I not only attended this 5K for myself and for the women's conference program, but I did it for my Grandfather - whose birthday was today and who also passed away from Parkinson's 8 years ago. He was my favorite! So I walked in his honor and felt good exercising at the same time.

{Me after getting home from the 5K & Women's Conference.}

After the 5K ended, we headed over to the Stake Center to have our women's conference which started out with a really good and healthy breakfast: fruit cups, breakfast burritos, organic salsa, and non-fat cookies (which were surprisingly REALLY good and the extra 2 I brought home were gobbled up by the girls).

{After the conference ended, I snagged this cute angel to take home to my girls that was one of the table decorations. Didn't they do a great job? Aubrey and Jocelyn loved it!}

We were then treated with a great talk given by Pam Hansen, who flew here from Utah to talk to us on bettering our journey. She happens to also be the author of the book Running With Angels that we read last month for our book club. I met her at the 5K and she is such a sweet lady with such an inspiring story!

Here are some notes that I jotted down from her talk:

* When things get hectic, read your scriptures.

* D&C 89:19-21

* Dallin H. Oaks talk (Oct. 2003 Ensign):

"Because of things over which we have no control, we cannot plan and bring to pass everything we desire in our lives. Many important things will occur in our lives that we have not planned, and not all of them will be welcome. Even our most righteous desires may elude us or come in different ways or at different times than we have sought to plan."

1. Rearrange priorities and make time to rejuvenate yourself - physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

2. Cultivate respect by respecting yourself in body, mind and spirit.

3. Hold yourself accountable for your actions.

* Sir Edmund Hillary Quote: "It is not the mountains that we conquer, but ourselves."

4. Take care of yourself.

5. Celebrate the small steps in the right direction.

* Alma 26:12

6. Recognize the "times and seasons" of your life.

* Ether 12:6

7. Think positively.

8. You can make a difference.

9. Express gratitude for heavenly and earthly angels.

10. Learn from your marathon journey. Instead of asking, "why me?" ask "what can I learn from this experience?"

I just love women's conference. Every year I go and they are always so uplifting and encouraging. My friend who is the Stake Relief Society President, among many other talented and wonderful women, really pulled off an amazing day! I'm truly thankful for all the time and effort that was put into this event to help recharge our spirits and remind us of the potential we all have to be better women. And now, as always, I'm looking forward to next year's conference!

{These were left on our tables for each of us to take home. GREAT reminder!}

Letter Of The Week

{We drew the letter "A" on the construction paper and then she colored her little heart out. I let her choose what she wanted to do for the letter "A" (ants), cut and glued some onto her picture and then we walked around the house naming things that started with the letter "A."}

{And look who she found! "A"ndrew!! She was so excited to sit by him - she is so good to her little brother.}

This is something new that I started this week that I found here awhile ago. You spend the week teaching your children a certain subject with various activities to go along with it: singing, reading, and crafts. Thought there was no better time than now to get her started learning her ABC's, numbers, shapes, etc. So today was brought to you by the letter "A." :) She has really enjoyed it so far so we may be onto something here.

Big Day For Andrew

This morning I got up and did the usual and walked over to Andrew's crib, scooped him up and took him downstairs to eat. Except he wasn't in the spot I layed him at last night. He had done a complete 180 and his head was down where his feet usually are. This left me completely dumbfounded as he's never done this before! I'm not sure why I was surprised as he's famous for being a wiggle worm but it did leave we scratching my head for some reason. These children of mine are sure growing up quickly!

After taking Aubrey to school, I layed him down in the living room for some tummy time. Oh yeah. He's loves that just as much as he does having a poopy diaper! Not one bit! But he suffers through it beautifully before getting tired and conking out for an hour or so. THIS time though, he was crying instead of whining. I walked over to where he was to find that he was pushing up with left leg and from what I could see: trying to ROLL OVER. Just one tiny problem was keeping him from this achievement. His arm. He had his right arm straight out instead of up by his head so when he was pushing back, he wasn't able to roll with his arm behind him. I helped him do a few practice rolls, which made him giggle at every attempt. I can tell he really wants to master this but just like most things in life, it's going to take a little time to get good at it. Be on the look out. He doesn't seem very patient with this task and may just end up surprising us all with a roll or two in the next few weeks. I'll have the camera ready! (And if nobody believes me, just as my hubby. He makes fun of me all the time for taking a lot of the kids pictures. And I do mean A LOT! Someone's got to, right? I guess I could back off a little though. It's not a promise, but I'll try.)

Last night was a big deal for Andrew. He ate rice cereal for the FIRST time! Seriously. Where has the time gone? He's growing up so fast! To recap on his cereal adventure, he did NOT enjoy this experience whatsoever. His hands were flailing all over the place making it super hard to get the baby spoon into his mouth. Maybe it was a ploy? Nah. Can't give him THAT much credit yet. I could tell he was thinking after I gave him the first bite though. Very serious look on his face like, "Hmm. This is new. It's not good, but it's new!" A few more bites and he started doing the repulsive shakes and gagging noises that I interpreted as him saying, "this is DISGUSTING!" A few more bites and we called it quits. But for this being his first time eating rice cereal, he did really well and ate about half of what I made him. Go Andrew! :)

And then of course, there was clean up.

Just in time for BED.

P.S. Someone please tell me where my newborn went. I swear he was just here a few days ago...

Some Changes

{Just got home from PJ night at the church for a primary activity.}

The great thing about being the author of your own "book" is that you can make corrections, changes, revisions ANYTIME you please. So this is what I am going to do. Change isn't all that bad, right? A little while back, I made the decision to halt my "weekly pictures" because I returned to blogland and was staying caught up and didn't see the need of doing it anymore. I unfortunately didn't have my crystal ball with me at that time to predict the busy times ahead. With three active children and many different needs to be met, things can become hectic pretty quickly and I am now finding that more of my time is away from the computer on most days. I take so many cute pictures of the kids and never seem to find the time to display them so I feel that this change to go back to what I was doing before is needed. For me anyways. I treat our blog as our family journal so I'm trying very hard to stay on top of things and keep things current. I'm sure most of you won't have a problem seeing more pictures of our family adventures, right? :) Love to you all!

So Far Behind

I'm not quite sure what's been going on over here in this little corner of the world of mine. I just haven't been inspired or energized to blog lately. I partly blame Spring for this as we have been out and about a lot lately with various activities: library, play group, soccer, etc. Being behind in writing has been a little frustrating to say the least because I seriously have AT LEAST 20 blog posts sitting in the "pending" status. And that's even after I've deleted a few that I didn't remember why I even started the post to begin with. Sad. I know. But knowing that I'm that far behind doesn't help motivate me either. So here I sit. Tap, tap, tap. Not sure what to do. Catch up on each individual post? (which could seriously take me a month) OR make one long, and I do mean long, blog post? Hmm. Will my OCD even LET me delete each of those 20 posts I've started? Doubtful.

It doesn't help that my mind has been mush these past few months. Having a 4 month old, 2 1/2 year old, and 9 year old will do that to you. Thank goodness I'm not currently taking my college courses. That would be a nightmare. I forget things all the time, drive to the WRONG park for playgroup, mess up recipes I've made before with no problem and get overwhelmed too quickly. Please tell me I'm not the only one here that this happens to!!

Will August just GET here already?!? I'm in desperate need of a vacation. Road trip with three munchkins in the backseat...here we come. Hopefully I won't end up needing a vacation from the road trip itself. :) The count down MUST begin. 97 days until we get to go here and here. Wahoo!! I can not WAIT!

P.S. To defend myself for this said lack of blogging, I have been quite busy. Can't imagine why? Check here for a sneak peak:

{Of course he's a big part of what's been keeping me busy & not blogging. He definitely has me wrapped around his little finger!}

{A portion of the strawberry freezer jam I made this week. As it was my first time doing so, we shall see how it turns out! :) Hopefully it's as good as it smells!}

{I have the church nursery to blame for this. hahaha Totally kidding. But man oh man does she LOVE to paint now. Practically begs to paint almost everyday.}

{Aubrey at play group during Spring break. Between soccer, piano, school & church activities, she stays plenty busy. And these activities sure do keep the WHOLE family busy too! :)}

{And of course I must account for sleeping at some point, right? Don't you just love his recent pose? Sleeping with the hand on the head. How cute is that!}

{So as you can see now, these people (and the person behind the camera) are doing quite well and staying busy! Which equals "out of trouble" in my books! For now anyways. Andrew isn't crawling or walking yet. THEN we're in for trouble!!! :) To be continued... }

Now I need to go make myself some lunch before I end up forgetting something else. Oops. What's my name again? :/

Our Little Artist

i think she's found something she truly loves.

painting!

i let her paint her heart out while i did the dishes.

and of course getting clean water to rinse her brush.

if i got anywhere near her brush and paints though - WATCH OUT! :)