J+E

new pics

2012-01-27T14:09:00.000-08:00

Mace the face

Ana

heart breaker

Nesser

I love these kiddos so much!!!!!

Princess Superpower

2011-12-01T13:00:00.001-08:00

I have been trying to find a way to help my little girl look for the good in others something that most people need help with from time to time, and well as I prayed for guidance on how to teach this principle here is what I was inspired to tell her.
"You know your middle name "Belle" do you know any princess with that name?"
"Yes, Belle from Beauty and the Beast"
"Why do you think she is called Belle (french for Beauty)"
"Because she is Pretty."
"Well all the princesses are Pretty, But Belle has a power to see other peoples beauty, She sees the beauty in the Beast, and as she treats him nice because she sees his beauty, he starts to be nicer and nicer, and finally everyone can see his beauty.
Sister, This name is kind of like a super power, for you to be able to see Beauty in others, just like Heavenly Father sees out beauty you can have he power to see peoples inside beauty, and EVERYONE has inside beauty, even the beast."
I think she liked the idea of having a special power to look for beauty, I am hopeful that this analogy and idea will help her see the good in others.
I know this was the Lords idea.
I probably did not need to post about this, but felt a need to write this down. I hope we all can try to use this power, we may not all have the name Belle, but we are all children of God and can see people as he sees, if we try. So go on and see the Beauty in others.

Tis the season

2011-11-17T13:38:00.001-08:00

So my Hubby and brother are entered in a commercial contest check it out, and for one of the commercials they needed a Christmas tree up and it was being filmed at our house so I was put in charge of getting the house Christmassy this was like 3 weeks ago. Well after the shoot was done I asked if we should put the decorations in the garage or what, because it is not even Thanksgiving yet, my hubby was excited to have Christmas up and said he would like it if we kept it up, at first I was agents it saying we don't want to slight Thanksgiving, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that starting to celebrate Christmas right after Halloween it a great idea, I have found that waiting till after Thanksgiving puts me in such a crunch, but 2 months makes the season feel so nice, I have loved thinking about Christmas listening to music, thinking of how much we have, and how I can bless the lives of others to help show love and gratitude to others and my Heavenly father. I have felt more joy for both holidays this year then ever before, and neither one has even happened yet. So I am converted to Christmas starting after Halloween and thinking of all I am thankful for the whole 2 months and more. Happy Thanksgiving, and Merry Christmas.

ENJOY to the end

2011-10-09T15:46:00.000-07:00

This is our new family motto I do not just want to get through life, I want to enjoy all life has to offer.
Enjoy to the end, people, enjoy to the end!

Where did summer go?

2011-10-09T15:30:00.000-07:00

I had a great summer, it seemed to go by too fast though.
September was a fun month, where we took our 3rd and final trip to Powell, and our 3 older kids all tried wakeboarding, making me a very proud momma:).
Aside from our last trip, it was mostly a month of getting back into school, Dad and 2 older children started school again and that has given me more time with the younger 2 (no more half day pickups from kindergarten:) we are having fun learning things like words for nesser and the starts of reading for Duku. As well as buttoning shirts, and keeping bed dry all night :)!!!! nesser is about to start potty training we will see how that goes.
With the summer gone and the holidays creeping up I have been tempted to feel like this year has gone too fast, and that I do not want to put all the effort into holidays this year, but as I catch myself with these thoughts I am reminded that it is my own attitude that will make the holidays good or bad, so I am choosing good. I am now looking forward to the next few months and all the joy that comes from the holidays.
Did I mention my brother just younger them me just became a daddy, double time, Tanner is the proud daddy of 2 little angle girls and I am loving that he just lives down stairs so I can see and help out when ever :).
That is all for now.

2 trips to lake Powell

2011-08-04T13:06:00.000-07:00

This has been a great summer, I went to Lake Powell for the second time last week and it was great. Our first trip was with my hubby's brother's family, it was fun lots of good food and the kids got to spend a week with cousins they do not see a lot, fun.
This last week was a real treat because we got to go with out our kids. We took a hand full of kids in our ward to LP for a week. This meant lots of help putting camp up, cooking, cleaning, I did not have to sunscreen anyone but me, I did not have to help anyone eat, get dressed go to the bathroom...I was mom free for a week, and really just got to be a teen again. There was lots of wakeboarding, hotdogging, water polo (hardcore fun) camp fire games and a nice night away with my hubby one of the nights.
There was our fair share of craziness, tents almost flying away one night, we slept on our tent not in it. our boat prop hit a rock, we put a new one on and hit another rock, hit a major wind storm in the middle of the lake, and came home to a ez up braking...but even with all the craziness it was a blast. I really liked hanging out with the youth and the break from being a mom. I look forward to when my kids are that age, teens are so fun. My kids are great now and I love life now, I just also know I will love when they are teens.
Yeah for Lake Powell!
sorry no pics...too busy playing in the water.

9 years ago today

2011-08-02T11:32:00.000-07:00

I made the best choice in my life! I married my love "Booth" . A lot has happened in 9 years, we have 4 kids a photography/video company a house... and many other blessings, but the best thing that has come from 9 years of marriage to this wonderful man is LOVE, I love him so much deeper then I did 9 years ago and his love for me is felt every day. I thank my heavenly father for blessing me so richly with the perfect man for me. I loved you 9 years ago and I love you even more today, thanks for being my hubby, and best friend.

oh and thanks for 9 years of fun and laughter:).

Family reunion #1

2011-07-17T08:05:00.000-07:00

I have a busy summer, 3 trips to lake Powell, 2 family reunions, 1 relay race, and lots of other social events in between.
So I have/will have a lot to write about.
My whole family came in to town in June, it was fun getting to see them all, there was my baby brothers baby's blessing, cousin camp, a big pot luck dinner that ended in a water fight for the grand kids (I stayed dry). The biggest highlight of this reunion for me was the temple night. My parents and all my siblings (and almost all the in laws) where there at the temple with me to do temple sealings. It was such a joy to see my family in the temple. Then we migrated back to one of our houses and my dad led a discussion on parenting, quoting conference talks and reminding us that we do not have to be perfect, just keep trying, and do our best to follow the ideas and principles set out by our church and hope for the best. My parents live in Germany so it is extra nice when they come to have the head of the family there supporting us all. I love my family and know that I am very blessed to have them. I could not ask for a better family yeah for reunion#1 bring on #2.

ragnar relay Wasatch back

2011-07-14T08:56:00.000-07:00

The middle of June I ran in the ragnar relay Wasatch back , it is a run from Logan to Park City and there are 12 members of the relay team. All together I ran about 18 mi. It was fun and surprisingly hard, braking it up into 3 runs in the space of 2 days gives your body time to get tired and ready to recover but does not recover, it may not sound that hard (it did not sound hard to me) but wow was my body sore. I most enjoyed applying the experience to life. We are blessed with a group of people to help us through life, family friends...being around them is usually encouraging, but everyone has to take their own turn with trials (has to run alone) we can get encouragement along the way but we can not take the trials away, this life is for us to grow and no one can take our place if we want to grow. I also like how your run would end and you would have time to rest and help encourage the other runners on there turn, then you get back out for another run. So symbolic to me of life, how blessed I am to have a great support team cheering me on through my trials and life. All in all a great experience.

72 hours

2011-05-19T12:04:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning was a nice sunny day. The morning went as usual with booth gone to church meetings while we at home get ready for church, I was kind of excited because my 2 girls where going to be wearing the cute matching dresses I made for them:) they looked so cute. Some days booth comes home before church starts and we all get to walk to church together (the church is just a street up from our house) other days booth is in meetings till church starts so we go and meet him there, I usually just plan to go with out him and get a nice surprise if he gets home before we leave.
Well, this morning I was really on the ball and we where headed out the door right as booth opened the door. We where running early so we still had time to talk before we left and so booth called a family council.
"We get to go a week living off our food storage starting today. The stake is having an emergency preparedness fair next month and the ward wanted a family to volunteer to do this, so we have, but we just went shopping yesterday so that will be too easy so I volunteered us to go 72 hours full emergency mode as well as a week of no store. So no power, electricity, or water :) this will be fun:)."
I love camping, I love doing new things and we had already talked about doing this weeks ago but we did not know when. Sunday, Sunday was when, and much to my own surprise I was NOT excited in fact I was a little bugged and scared. I have 2 extra kids to watch during the week so that means they will have to do this too, will we have enough water for them and us, the toy room is pretty dark without lights...can't we just do the week with out shopping? These where the thoughts running through my head, but, no I knew we needed to do this, so we did. But my attitude was not great, I was nerves, we had a 55 gallon drum of water but how do we use it, and we have not changed the water in over a year. Well we went to church as normal then came home had pbj's and then the kids and I took a long nap (if I am asleep I do not have to deal with this emergency) when I woke up I heard booth, he was home from meetings and busily setting up camp, getting the grill hooked up, seeing how the water worked, boiling water to drink and telling the kids how to use the toilet for the next few days, flushing the water came from our only water supply so we came up with creative ways to flush less (I will not go into the details on that) well his confidence and happy attitude was contagious and I started to feel better, we even got to have a yummy dinner of stake and artichokes (one our favorites) then dished got done, with only a little stress of not using too much water then brush teeth and off to bed before the sun goes down for the little kids, they where a bit nerves and less then excited but they where fine.
With kids in bed it gave bones and I a chance to reflect on our first day, I found a few very important things out on this day.
1. attitude is EVERYTHING! As the mom it is my job to keep the family feeling good and safe, and on this first day I failed at that, my bad attitude gave the kids a bad attitude. I then remembered a time when I was a kid when our power went out, and thinking how fun it was, my biggest memory was getting to eat a bout 5 ice cream bars because they where melting because of no electricity in the freezer to keep them cool. I do not remember ever feeling worried or scared, and that is do to my mom making it a fun experience and not freaking out.
I will do better tomorrow at having a good and fun attitude about this for my kids!
2. "IF YE ARE PREPARED YE SHALL NOT FEAR" I have heard this many times yet I was still scared, why? because being prepared does not just mean having what you need it also means knowing how to use those things, I knew we had the water drum, but had no idea if it was enough or how to even get it out (it has a pump I just never took the time to figure out how to use it) once I knew we had enough and how to use it (thanks to booth) my fear was gone.
3. "The more normal things can stay the better the family does/any treats and extra things are well received". I have heard that with food storage it is important to store things your family is used to because when you are in an emergency the last thing you want is to have to eat some gross strange food after all the trauma of the day. I did not believe/understand this, I figured if you are in an emergency you will just be glad to have any food you will not care what it is. What I found was that normal yummy food was not just refueling it was calming it gave a great comforting feeling that things would be okay. So though you will be able to survive on what ever you have if it can be familiar it will ad a needed extra measure of comfort to the situation.

With these 3 things learned I was ready to face the next 2 days. And they went fine.

Monday was great, no problems, good attitudes all around the weather was nice and we went to our cousins house for family home evening and really enjoyed the spirit that was in their home.

Tuesday the last day. Something changed in me, the weather was cold and rainy, this made our nice bright house dark and grim not too cold but still a little chilly we had more winter cloths on then you should in May, and all I wanted to do was sleep and get this day over...I was.............. depressed. Why? On the 3rd day when all was going well, we had what we needed, it was almost over, why was I now depressed? Why when I love doing new and exciting things would this adventure make me depressed?
Because as I was going along my life all of a sudden I had my life as I knew it taken away from me, the first 2 days I was in survival mode no time to let it all sink in, just make the best of what we have, but on day 3 I started to think, I had no control over the emergency happening. Even with all I could do to make the best of the situation I had not control of what happened with all my smiles I still had no running water. This feeling depressed me, feeling so safe and in control in my life on Sunday only to have it all taken away. This feeling loomed over me the whole day.

Wednesday the day our power came back on. It was a day of mixed emotions, the power came back on at 11 am till then I just waited and waited. Then when the power came on and our heat turned on and I started to feel warmer, I was glad to have it back, yet weary of its temporary comfort. As I drank out of the fresh tap water I enjoyed the fresh clean taste, but was not wholly at peace. Having everything wholly restored in just seconds was nice but it took me the whole day to start to feel normal again, to want to be productive again,to be happy again. This also was a surprise to me, I really thought once the 72 hours was up I would go right back to feeling great, how I felt Sunday before this all started, but it was different somehow. I have been humbled to feel that I do not have control over my life, I thought I was already humbled in that way but the sadness and depression let me know that I did not fully feel that the lord was in all control. HE IS. My control go as far as my attitude and my actions, I am in control of how I act, but not what happens in my life. Realizing this is humbling, and makes me wonder why I am so blessed in the first place when so many go without, why do I get a nice house, with food, water and nice things? I do not know why the lord has blessed me with so much, but I know that it is all his and he has final say is all things. When we wants to give he does and when he sees fit to take away he does. So I need to be grateful for all that he has given me, and share what I have with others for it is not mine to keep.
I pray that through this experience I can be a more humble and service giving person then I was before Sunday, I want this 72 hours to change me, to make me better, to help me see as God sees, and love as he loves, with all I have.
I am glad to have had this experience, for the great things I have learned about being in an emergency and also in being humbled at all the lord has given me, which I must not think of as my own, but enjoy and share.

my kiddlets

2011-04-15T15:36:00.000-07:00

I love my kids, Little sister today was bopping her head to some music, and booth commented that we need to enjoy the time we get to spend with these little ones, because the free love, time and excitement they give to us goes away when they get older.

Mace will be 8 this year and he has grown up so much in 1st grade, he is such a good kid, but it is hard to see him go through the struggles he does. He cares so much what others think, every now and again he tells me no one likes him, how can I tell him enough that he is amazing to get him to believe it? How can I help him find a group of friends that will see how cool he is? Well I guess if I made it he can too.
Sister has allergies, she is allergic to chocolate, and perhaps something else, we have not pin pointed what yet, what a painful proses to find out what someone is allergic to when they have not had any new food, just a sudden new allergy. That girl will be able to handle any trial she is handed for how much pain her body gives her and for how WELL she deals with the pain. 2 WEEKS of hives and no complaints. She is doing well in school and just loves to be mothering to the other kids. We have learned that her love language is physical touch, just like daddy, knowing this has helped me be more patient with all the touching she does.

Duku has told me a few times he wants to play football for BYU, and who knows maybe one day he will. I wish my kids could sleep through the night without needing to be night time trained, It drives me crazy we are going on 2 months now with duku and we will just keep trudging along. He is doing well with his letters and numbers though, he knows all the letters and their sounds, and can count to 20, so he is moving right along.

little sister is a joy and a trial she is so cute, so loving, and so emotional, I have a theory that girls start out young with all the emotions they do so that by the time they are adults they have had a lot of time to learn how to control their emotions to even use them to there advantage, well here's hoping. She has so much to say and only a few words she uses I love when she tells me a big story in her own words you know she knows what she is saying and it is so important to her, you just have no idea what she just said. I am going to keep a record journal with my next baby for all the mile stones they make because it is driving me crazy not remembering how long these phases last ie night time training, learning to talk... but back to the point, they are so cute and I will never get this time back and I do love it.

birthdays are over for a while

2011-03-18T13:42:00.000-07:00

So 2 of my kids and I have birthdays all within a 2 week piried and it is fun but also a lot of work and I am happy to be looking back at that part of this year. First was Duku's 3rd birthday we went swimming with some good friends who have a little boy who shares his birthday it was fun and Duku swam for the first time, and he was like a little fish he loved it.
I got a surprise family party, and a photo shoot it was nice.
Sister had a dance party for her 6th birthday and got to go on a date with her dad.
Fun fun fun.
Booth is doing good in school, and is planning on getting his BA in December :) then on to the masters program and starting a practic :)
I am getting excited for summer and heat.
thats all for now.

Valentines Day weekend for my Journal

2011-02-15T11:25:00.000-08:00

It would be unfair to only tell about Monday's happenings so I will tell all the great things that happened all weekend.
Our ward had a Valentines Dance for the Adults, and though it was just a casual dance, I felt like getting all dolled up and so I did. The dance was a blast, but because Booth was the DJ and had to be to the dance early there really was no time to take pics, sorry:( Booth was an amazing DJ and even found plenty of time to dance with me. It was a great night. Saturday was kids day we had 9 kids at the house, 4 mine and 5 cousins, it was crazy and fun. Sunday was totally my day of rest, I am so glad for Stouffer's frozen lasagna, it is much easier to rest when you do not have to prepare dinner:). By Sunday night I had the energy I needed to get ready for the big day, so I made some sugar cookies, frosting, home made valentines for each of my Valentines, and a treasure hunt for each of the kids to find their Valentine. They had a lot of fun:). Then as a family we went to a funeral of a ward friend who was such a good example to me of enduring to the end and being someone that the lord could count on for anything he asked "the lord can depend on me" is how she lived her life. She is missed.
For dinner I made Stromboli yummy yummy. For family night we had a talk about V day and how it relates to the Gospel how it is not just a holiday to get and give Valentines, but that it is a day to show love to all those we love, this is the first year I realized that valentines day was much much more then a romantic holiday. Valentines day is a day to show love, because Jesus did say love everyone. To illustrate the lesson Booth gave me my Valentines day gift, flowers, sees chocolate, some cute pants and ... a love song, he sang me a love song that he wrote for me, and oh it is so sweet, I wish I had an mp3 of it so I could listen to it all day long:).
Then we had a dance party with all of daddies newly acquired DJ equipment we rocked out with the kids till bed time. Then when the kids went to bed I got to eat my Chocolate, hear my song again and spend a lovely evening with the one person I love MOST. Oh what a blessed life, what a nice Valentines weekend.

Every women should have a favorite flower

2011-01-17T12:51:00.000-08:00

So, While in the car the other day Booth asked almost 6 year old sister what her favorite flower was. He said every women has a favorite flower so she should make sure to have an answer. Well it got me thinking... What is MY favorite Flower?
Now I have for many years said that the Pansy is my favorite, but the fact is you don't really see those in a bouquet. So have have made my own criteria for what qualifies as a favorite flower.
must:
be a long stem flower so it can be in a bouquet

must be able to stand alone (so no tiny ground cover flowers)

it is the flower you will always be happy to see

So with all that taken into consideration I have made a decision as to what my Favorite flower is........

A Rose

This flower always makes me happy to see and smell, I would love just one or a full bouquet of them, or a mix of them and other flowers, Now this does not mean I don't like other flowers or that this is the only flower I would want to get, this is just well my favorite. What is yours?

my man's new name: Booth

2011-01-13T12:16:00.000-08:00

So this last year my hubby was told by many people he looked like David Boreanaz, who is on the TV show Bones, and his name on the show is Booth. Well often people say you look like someone and you can maybe see what they mean but both my hubby and I looked at a picture of Booth and wow they are dead on. My hubby even changed his facebook pic to Booths and people thought it was my hubby. So here is the question: do you think they look alike?

Well I do, so now my hubby's name on my blog will be Booth.

A funny story about this lookalikeness is that when I was a teen I LOVED the show Buffy the Vamipire slayer, why oh because of a guy in the show named Angle (David Boreanaz) Well my mom reminded me that when I would watch this show I told her that I was going to marry a guy that looked like Angle ...guess I did :)

My boy is 7

2010-12-21T20:46:00.000-08:00

I want to say it feels weird that he is so old, but it just is not true. It is crazy to think that I have a 7 year old, but it is not a strange thing for him to be 7. He acts 7. Being in school for the second year now has made him so old and independent, yet at the same time maturity and Independence has been part of his personality for a long time, loves and cuddles and needing mommy like the rest of my kids do ended at 2 1/2 as soon as he was potty trained. From that point on he wanted to dress himself and well just do things himself, I now feel like his age is catching up to his abilities. I love my Mace so much and truly appreciate all the help he is to the family. Did I mention that in October our dishwasher broke? Well it did and so out of necessity we put Mace and sister to work doing dishes, they did great. Well for Christmas Santa felt like giving them a brake and gave our family a dishwasher :) Tell you what you have NEVER seen 2 kids so happy for a dishwasher as our 2 oldest where.
Back to Mace, he is growing and learning. School is going well for him he is doing fine, and right now the most valuable thing he is learning in school I feel is social skills, he is learning that friends do not always want to do what he does but that they can still be friends... and many other things that as hard as we try he just can not learn at home.
Well, Mace thanks for choosing me to be your mom it is such a joy.

I needed a new post

2010-12-10T14:28:00.000-08:00

I am getting tired of seeing Halloween pics as my latest post, not much to say at the moment, but here is my attempt to change the post. I watched the Muppet Christmas Carol with the kids yesterday and was really touched with the Deep Christmas it has in it. Without Christ NONE of us could have a chance to change our ways, we would all be as condemned as Scrooge without Jesus Christ. So the beautiful message that Scrooge changes his life and becomes a better person is so appropriate to do on the day we celebrate our saviors birth. That may not be news to anyone else (I can often be REALLY slow to get things) but it was a new experience to me and now I can see why President Monson reads the story every year to help get him into the spirit of Christmas.
I hope you all have a great Christmas.

My brother Anikin and Padme his wife

2010-11-12T14:53:00.000-08:00

They won the best couple costume award at our ward Halloween party and we got most creative. They ROCK!

Ken and Barbie and the fam!

2010-11-12T10:21:00.001-08:00

I must add a shout out to the man that took these great pics Joe Newman from creativ productions isn't he amazing? Check out his link.

Yeah here are the pics

2010-11-12T10:08:00.000-08:00

true beauty comes from Gods love

2010-11-03T14:24:00.000-07:00

I read my sis in laws blog today and it is all about how women as hard as they try do not feel pretty enough. That makes me so sad. The reason that we never feel pretty enough, is not because of how we look at all, but where we are looking. We are trying so hard to get other people to tell us how pretty we are, when in the end it does not matter if anyone thinks you are pretty. That is why even after we get dressed up and do look pretty we still do not feel that fulfilling good feeling we want, a complement feels good for a moment and then we forget it. We will never get the feeling we are looking for from looking good, it comes from a testimony in a loving Heavenly Father who loves us. We where made by God and God does not make mistakes.
The hard part is to keep remembering that love when temptation comes and tries to tell you that you are not enough. In those times I am thankful for these words I was taught as a young women:

We are daughters of our Heavenly Father, who loves us, and we love Him.
We will "stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things,
and in all places" (Mosiah 18:9) as we strive to live
the Young Women values, which are:
Faith
Divine Nature
Individual Worth
Knowledge
Choice and Accountability
Good Works
Integrity and
Virtue.
We believe as we come to accept and act upon these values,
we will be prepared to strengthen home and family, make and keep sacred covenants,
receive the ordinances of the temple, and enjoy the blessings of exaltation.

When I am focused on these words and doing my part then the temptations melt away and I feel Pretty inside and out and that feeling last so much longer then any complement I have ever had.
I do know God loves me for who I am now and for the great person I will grow to be. He loves you too. I know he does, He made you!

One of the many things my parents did right

2010-10-06T21:51:00.000-07:00

All of my 6 siblings and I are adults, married, and all but one have or are with child (come on T-bone just jump in parenting if fun.) we all get along, like really well.
To let you know how well we get along, My patents live overseas and all but one of their children live in a 30 minute radius of each other, and we get together all the time, we find excuses to hang out. This is still the case when my patents come to town, we love them too.
Recently I was wondering why, why do we get along so well? Why are we all such good friends? (oh yes and all the in laws get along too, if they did not then we would not be able to get together so often) But back to why we get along so well, I have to add to that not only do we get along, we help each other, there are always prayers going up to the Lord for this brother to have help with this and that brother to over come that (did I mention I have 6 brothers, yeah some day I will have to blog about that too) when we need help we ask and are flooded with helping hands.
So why do I have such an amazing family, I am not writing this to brag, I am trying to analyze in order to recreate the same love and friendship in my own little family, and I fill that I have been inspired as to one of the many things my parents did right.
My mom always felt out of place, never felt quite like everyone else and did not like the feelings that came with it, so what did she do, with her kids she made sure to except us each as individuals, I did not fill compared to my siblings growing up, I did not feel that I was not good enough, even when I had such a hard time in school, or when I felt like no one at school liked me I felt loved for who I was by my mom and dad. I was encouraged to set goals for myself, because it is good to be better, but the only person we can and should try to be better then is us, striving for perfection (with the help of Christ and the Atonement).
My parents encouraged us to be unique, and be proud of the things that made us individuals, and this sunk in well, if you come around to a family gathering you will for sure feel the individuality all over the house.
*The acceptance is not just within our family, but anyone who meets our family is welcomed with open arms, and because of this we have a great group of family friends that have kept in touch and who are still loved and welcomed.
Now as kids we did not always get along as siblings, each one of us trying to find out who we where sometimes found us mean, rude and even sometimes cruel, but I believe that is an experience that comes with siblings around the board, just as it comes sometimes with being with people around the board, we sometimes do "not nice" things. But as we grew so did our love as siblings, and because we where not trying to compete with each other, only with ourselves, as adults we have come to appreciate and count on each others differences and try to utilize them as a whole family. And because we respect each others differences, we are forgiving and understanding of shortcomings that sometimes slip up. We all slip up, but if we feel disdain and reticule instead of support to do better, and unfailing love we will pull away from those who we feel should love us, and that is not what family was created for. Family must pull together not apart. To fall alone is hard, but to fall then have a crowed cheering you on makes it much easier to get back up and keep trying.
I love my family for cheering me on, for loving me for the individual that I am and for, their forgiveness when I make bad choices, or hurt feelings.
Now I pray that I can help my children love one another for who they are now and for who they can be. Life can be so much easier when you have a crowed of loved ones cheering you on.
Thanks mom and dad, and Thank you my dear family for cheering me on and for helping me when I fall.

I'm in love

2010-10-04T19:46:00.000-07:00

Yes I am in love, with a sweet, funny, handsome, romantic, hard working, talented, sensitive, wonderful man.
This man tells me I am beautiful thick or thin
This man goes to work for his own company (creativproductions, go look he is amazing)
is a full time student, is hard at work at his calling (he cares so much for the youth)
is a amazingly in tune parent, he really listens to the spirit in guiding our family.
Then to top it all off he is a loving, caring, fun loving husband/best friend.
I think it is so amazing that the lord blessed me with a man who is perfect for me, together we make a good team.
This sweet man made my day on Friday. When he came home on Friday he rang the doorbell, now I must say I guessed he had flowers (he has done that before) and was so happy to find when I answered the door he did have flowers for me, but not just flowers, after he gave me the flowers he said to go get dressed up we are going out, and the babysitter will be here in 5 minutes. We went to dinner and then swing dancing, it was so fun and a great surprise.
Now this is not the kind of thing I expect him to do but oh was it nice to be surprised and reminded how much my hubby loves me.
Thanks my love for working so hard to be the great man you are and for loving me.

balance

2010-09-28T13:22:00.000-07:00

I have had quite a self discovery and hope you do not mind if I share it with you.

I have been trying to lose weight... most recently since having my baby girl, but really I have been trying to lose weight since I had kids, not just lose some but get back to pre mace weight, the weight I was when I got married.
Why have I been trying to lose weight?
there are as always a list of reasons:
to be healthy
to fit back into my cloths
to see if my body shape is even able to fit into pre pregnancy cloths
to feel good about myself/ to feel pretty

These are all normal reasons to lose weight but the last one is the one that bothers me.
for most of my life I would say I have had really good self esteem not perfect but happy with who I was and happy to look in the mirror. I was not the most beautiful girl in the room, did not put a whole lot of effort into how I looked at all, but I liked who I was.
I distinctly remember after having my first baby and right before getting pregnant again telling some one the I like how I look.
So why now after always liking my self and how I looked do I need to lose weight to feel good about myself/ feel pretty?

This question did not even cross my mind till today.
Why today?
Today I am 12 lbs from my goal weight, today I tried on ALL of my old cloths that did not fit and THEY FIT, THEY ALL FIT Wohoooo!!!!!! This is great RIGHT?
Then why is it that I do NOT magically feel better? I was only excited about it for like 10 minuets then the high was gone.
There is a saying in the dieting world " this will not taste as good as thin feels" but now as I have started to feel thin I have to say it is a miss conception, something tastes good for about a minute and feeling thin only really feels good for a minute, when someone complements you it fills good but that feeling does not last all day all week and it sure does not last while you are alone.
Don't get me wrong, I was over weight and did need to lose some weight for the above reasons and I will keep going to reach my weight goal and to maintain it.

I am NOT saying people should not try to be a healthy weight, what I am trying to share it that I am realising that there must be moderation in all things.
for so long I have been focusing on my looks and neglecting other parts of my life and not being happy because I thought this one thing would bring me joy. The reality is that having a balanced life is what creates joy. balancing eating well, exercise, being a good mom, being a good wife, keeping a clean and orderly house, reading my Scriptures, saying prayers, going to the temple, fulfilling my calling at church...and the list goes on and on. I will never be perfect at all of these thing in this life, but I do need to keep working on all of these things to be happy. No one thing will make me forever happy, but trying hard at the many things that are important (and letting go of the things that are not important) will bring me joy and peace.

This realization reminds me of a scripture
Alma 7:23
And now I would that ye should be humble, and be submissive and gentle; easy to be entreated; full of patience and long-suffering; being temperate in all things; being diligent in keeping the commandments of God at all times; asking for whatsoever things ye stand in need, both spiritual and temporal; always returning thanks unto God for whatsoever tings ye do receive.

This is my goal in life to be this scripture and being temperate in all things, means balance in all things not obsessed with dieting or in eating. God knows that when our lives are in balance then we can take on what ever comes our way, it is when we are not in balances then life's challenges become more then we can handle.
I hope that getting my weight in balance will allow me to now take the focus off of that and onto other areas that need my attention, like right now my kids woke up and are calling me for attention here I go working on that GOOD MOM part of my life... Good luck.

random pics

2010-09-26T20:06:00.000-07:00

here are a few random pics
this is from Christmas but I thought it was cute mace got some tools so he could be like his dad

my girls first day of school

they get to enjoy school together.

my baby girl eating some apples from our tree.

So my baby is not a baby any more, she is a walking girl,
Well with 2 kids in school, I am trying to get a new schedule down so we can get all the home work done each day, wow I had no idea a first grader could have so much home work.
kind of random but still cute.
enjoy.

5K

2010-09-13T09:24:00.000-07:00

I think we have stumbled upon a new family hobby.
This Saturday our whole family ran a 5k for our sweet little friend Danial. We had so much fun, our older 2 ran with mom and dad and the 2 little ones had fun in the stroller. It was so fun and unifying that I want to it more often. I was so proud of my 5, 6 year old what little troopers. Baby girl is 1 year old pictures may come some day I am not so good at getting pics on here. Well as she had her first birthday she now thinks she should start walking, which is what she did last night taking 4 steps at a time. That's all for now.

My cute boy in a video

2010-08-26T12:27:00.000-07:00

go here to see a fun video my bro made with Mace in it.

Summer is ending, life is not

2010-08-21T16:05:00.000-07:00

Great summer. Last summer was a bummer, I kept wishing it away so that my baby would be here. But like a week after she came summer left and so I vowed to enjoy this summer double and I have.
We have had a lot of fun we went to:
lake Powell for a week
Arizona twice once for a great wedding and visit with good friends then for a reunion for family I had not seen in 15 years, and a short visit with a mission companion for my hubby, (thanks guys for feeding us and for the great visit our girls really played well together, we will have to get together again soon.)
said good buy to my hubbies gram gram (she passed away)
got over loaded with cousin and family 2 or 3 weeks of non stop cousin fun.
my parents came to visit (always a joy)
we celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary by floating down the Provo river, going to red lobster for the first time (yummy) and going to the drive in :) I am so glad to have been blessed to marry such a great man I sure do love him.

there may even be more that we did but you get the idea it was a blast.

Now on to fall, school and the Holiday season.
I have already started making our Halloween costumes lets just say they will be fun.
3 people will be going to school this year my oldest 2 kiddlets and my hubby
I am excited of all 3 and for the wonders they will be learning and bringing home to tell me about.
My baby is going to be 1 on the 6th and wow it has been so great having her in our home she is a joy to our home.
My love turned 30 yesterday and though he had to work ALL DAY on his big day we have plans for fun his favorite meal on Sunday and then surfing for fhe so though summer is ending life is not, it is staying fun and exciting.

2010-07-08T12:40:00.000-07:00

Mace: so creative I think some day he may invent something we never knew we could live with out
(like the iphone) he is always coming up to me and telling me a great idea for something new. Yesterday he told me how he wanted to create roller skates for dogs, you know so you can take your dog on a walk when you are roller skating. The fun thing is he did not just say this and move on in topics, but he continued to brain storm how to do this, "maybe we could use those little things you use for sowing....." (the bobbin) and on and on and on.
He is growing up so much he is just a kid now not a little kid at all I would say.
the other day he said the neatest thing I was talking to him about being a good boy and he said "yeah that is because of my middle name. I want to be good and nice and make good choices." Mckay is his middle name after the prophet David O. Mckay and a few weeks ago we told him how he was named after that great man and how we named him that because we knew he would live up to the honer of that name, being honest, kind full of integrity... well looks like it sunk in and that he really is applying the things we told him. What a perfect oldest child, he is just right for the job. Oh I can not end about him with out telling that he went knee boarding while we went to lake Powell last week and he popped right up and held on for like 5 minutes and did not fall till he was done then gave the cut it sign with his hand and let go of the rope. Rock on Mace rock on. oh some day I will have to tell you how he and his siblings are also little rock stars, really rocking out here is the first line of the song they wrote think of a rock band screaming this into the mic as they come on stage "we are the NEWMANS and WE !ARE! GOOOOOOOOD!!!!!"

Sister: so so smart, so pretty, so nurturing to her younger siblings, so eager to learn how to be a mom, so tough, she also tried knee boarding and rocked! watch out boys she is the perfect combination of beauty, sweet and adventurous, boys will not stand a chance! She wrote her first "story yesterday : one day I said I wanted to marry Westley in primary. love Sister"
so cute:)
Duku: did I tell yet that he is potty trained? well at 2 he was bagging to get potty trained and well I was not excited I do not love that part of being a mom, but the end result is nice, well I put it off and off and finally at about March I buckled down and trained him, feeling like I should but doubting that he would really be ready, I did the worst teaching job of all 3 kids and had run 10 miles the same morning so I was not really giving it 100% and yet he got it he is totally trained now I will say though I do not love potty training I do love the method I use it is 3 for 3 with my kids it is a book called Toilet train in less then a day and it has worked great for me. Still I have to say that for this little man though I uses a great resource it was all him he wanted to learn and mastered the skill. Go Duku!
As I sit here he is asking to do ABC's he loves learning, he is so smart and loves being big like his siblings. And boy is he cute I am loving all the cute things he says the way he talks is just so cute. here is one of his latest cute things he refers to himself in 3rd person and though lots of kids do that at this age it just seems to be extra cute when he does it.

Duku- "Noah sleep with Duke?"
Me- "No, no one sleep with Duke, Angles sleep with Duke. Say good night to angles, keep me safe."
Duku-"Night night Anules keep Duku safe."

Little sister: needs a new name she is not just the little sister she holds her own in our house of fun she adds to the mix just like the others.
she is 10 months and so cute one cute thing she does is she bats her eyes. When she is looking at someone her blinks seem to slow down and maker pretty blue eyes sparkle with sweetness.
She is still the sweetness but fun and curious too not at all reserved. I am excited to see her personality bloom as she keeps growing.
Sweetness that is her new name for now.
hope you enjoyed the cuteness update I know I am enjoying the cuteness play by play.

I did it/life is good

2010-05-05T19:47:00.000-07:00

sorry no pics, but I did it I ran the half marathon in just under 3 hours, and for me I feel really good with that time. I must say I thought it would feel amazing and final, but instead it felt great and left me wanting more, I want to run more. I am now helping my sis in law train for a relay and she is really scared because her first leg of the relay is 7 mi up hill the whole way, so now we are trying to find all the hills we can and man is it tuff, but it feels good.
In other news, duku is doing great I guess I could say he is potty trained, he almost never has an accident and does the whole thing himself so yeah he is potty trained, it is just so weird because he is only 2 and it has only been like 2 months. yeah duku! I owe my method to this book and a thank you to Jamie for letting me use your copy. I have used this with all my kids and it works great.
little sister who for so long would not take a formula bottle is now taking one, and with this comes a great sense of freedom, it is weird because I never really felt unfree by nursing, yet knowing I can go to girls weekend with out her or on my 3 day trip to AZ makes life just a little nicer, yeah for little sister.
sister is just a great help around the house, and getting more lovely every day as you can see from her post pics. oh and she starts k garden in the fall wow!!!
Mace is almost done with school for the year wow where did that year go? I can only guess that it will only get faster from here on out. funny how as kids the days weeks months and years seemed to drag on but now as a mom they just fly by. In fact I did not even get my VT done this month and the only reason I can give is the month just flew by it was over before I realized i needed to make appointments. I will do better this month.
So to sum it up life is going good, busyish more then I like sometimes, but life is good, and I am enjoying the ride.

This is it...Happily Ever After or Bust!

2010-04-16T21:06:00.000-07:00

I will be running tomorrow morning my 1/2 marathon! I am so excited I have had this as a goal for 3 years, and now I get to finish my goal.
My hubby is running with me and that is going to make this run even better, it will be fun to have him all to myself for a few hours :).
I know I have trained well for this, but I am still nervous, I have run 11.5 miles but not 13.1 I know I can do it but I am still nervous.
I am running this race in honer of my nephew James who passed away 4 years ago almost to the day, that is why I am running the slc marathon, each year it is so close to his "graduation" day. Along with him I am running this for his family, I know that the atonement is real and that you/we can be with James again some day, but like this race we have to endure to the end and so my motto for this race and his family is "Happily Ever after or Bust!" though there is much good that comes in this life I believe that we do not get to "Happily Ever After" in this life, that is what the next life is for, life with God, and our family... is "Happily Ever After" we must keep trying in this life so we can get to "Happily Ever After" in the next, and I so want this little family to be together forever so for them I run, for "Happily Ever After" I run.
Love, Emily

Best friends

2010-04-10T21:10:00.000-07:00

I have been analyzing my friendships lately, and have found that I have a tendency to move on kind of fast from friendships, still loving and valuing the friendships, but once they are out of my usual life (they move away, or I move) then life goes on and they are just a fond memory. I have felt that a lot of this stems from growing up as an "army brat" moving about once a year for most of my life and then as a teen living in one place for a whopping 4 years (that was my record for longest time lived anywhere till this last year my little family has now lived in our house for 5 years new record!) So moving around a lot has made it easier (not always easy though) to move on and say good buy.
So with this life style I must say I do not really have a lot of long term best friends, I usually contrast this with my hubby who grew up 4 miles from where we are now, and who is still best friends with his school best friends.
I still cherish the all the friendships I have made but I think I have defined for me what I would call a best friend:
when you can pick up right where you left off the last time you saw/talked with each other.
when you can quickly get past how is life going for you and into real conversations about, ideas on marriage, parenting tips, conference talks, testimonies... the real things in life and not just "so what is new for you?"
I would have to say first that I feel these feelings for my family they are my best friends, both sides. But of all the places I have lived and friends I have made the friends that no matter how much time has gone by there is still that deep love and friendship for each other these are my Heidelberg friends they are my long time best friends. I gained a solid testimony with the help of these friends, and though I was a awkward young teen with these friends, they saw the real me, and encouraged me to grow. thank you, and know that I consider you to be my best friends still, I miss you guys, and am so glad that you have blogs to help me feel like we are not to far away. ( I may not comment a lot, but I read regularly.)
And thanks to all my friends I am a very blessed person to have so many friends.

*this post is mostly to validate my recently discovered need to feel like I have long time best friends like my hubby does and those are my Heidelberg friends this is not to say I have no other friends these are just my long time best friends.

I love my girl

2010-04-08T12:26:00.000-07:00

This is for my Ballerina Girl she is 5 now and growing into such an amazing person. She is self motivated, she does not need approval from others just herself, she does things because she wants to or will not do things she does not want to, and though as a parent this can be frustrating some times to work with I see greatness in her and if this sweet girls keeps growing in her sweetness then I know she will be a rock of faith that others will rely on in times of hardship. I am honored that the lord has trusted me with such a noble spirit. I wish I could share with you the examples of her great faith with you but as I start to write them the holy ghost tells me this is an entry for my journal not for the Internet. But let me just I look forward to seeing the amazing women she is growing up to be.
Along with that she is such a good little mom, loves to help me with the other kids, she is so smart and not just book smart she knows how to work people, get exactly what she wants that will be a great asset as an adult. And she has a crush on her daddy, so cute. Her daddy took her on a lunch date for her birthday and she was in heaven.
I love this strong little girl and thank the lord for sending her to me.
recent slide show her daddy took of his little ballerina girl.

Duku is 2 what a gift

2010-02-25T13:53:00.000-08:00

I have been getting teary eyed today as I have looked back 2 years. What an amazing thing happened this day. I got my little Duku. When Duku was born I was given 2 gifts one (which would have been enough) was that beautiful little boy. Words can not express the love I have for my little boy, he is so stinking cute, so smart, he loves to play with his family even baby sister. He wants to be big just like his older siblings (soon to be potty training) good at communicating, "vuve vu mommy" melts my heart. I love the stage he is in right now.

The other gift that came on his birthday was how I got to bring him into the world. I was able to feel the amazing feeling of the perfect birth. I got to prove again to myself that I was strong enough to have him unmedicated, I got to have him at home and everything went so smooth, quite a difference from an emergency c-section that I had with my first little one. It is hard to describe the amazing inner power that comes from giving birth unmedicated, it really is an amazing thing, I feel sad for those who are not able to have this feeling. What a joy it is to be a women/mommy.

I must today thank my father in heaven for giving me the gift of motherhood, I would not trade it for the world.
Thank you Duku for picking me to be your mommy. I love you so much
xoxoxoxo

sin=pain repentince=peace

2010-02-22T12:30:00.000-08:00

As children in the LDS faith we are taught not to sin, that we should avoid making bad choices. We learn that if we do sin then we must repent. and there are a few steps to repent
feel bad for what you did
say sorry/ ask for forgiveness to those you have wronged and to the lord
try to fix the problem as best as you can
try not to do it again

It is stressed that everyone does sin, and that we all need to repent and keep trying to be better. As a child this was understood.

Now I am an adult and even a mother teaching my children this same principle of sin and repentance.
So why is it so hard now to think that I sinned?
I do sin!
We all do, still not just as kids adults sin too.
Some big sins and some small.

I think the problem for me is that I replace the word for sin with less bad words to make the sin less urgent to repent of, like "oh I should not say mean things/gossip about others, that is not nice."
Well is that not nice or is it a sin, Gossip is wrong so I am going to say it is a sin.
Now I am not saying that it is a sin to ever say anything negative about another person, no sometimes negative things must be said, but I am talking about when we say something/gossip about someone and then we feel bad. when we fell bad about something we did, That filling bad is the holy ghost telling us we sinned and we need to repent. The feeling is not just guilt it is the starting proses of repentance, and we need to finish the proses to be free from that sin.
why am I talking about this, well because I have noticed for a while that the Devil has been trying to hide my sins by making them only feel a little bad so as not to fully repent of them. And I have finally started to see that perhaps the reason I am unhappy is because I have done a few or a lot of things that where sins, but that I have not yet fully repented of.

Do you know/remember the seminary video of the girl who was getting married and talking to her bishop, and the bishop found that she had had sex with someone, but had not talked to her bishop about it, well in that video there is a song called Godly sorrow, and I have this song on CD that I was listening to a few weeks ago and it hit me I need to repent of my sins if I want to feel free of the pain that comes with sin. Big sins small sins they all create pain and to be free of the sin and pain we must repent. I am thankful to my savior who made it possible for us to repent, now it is up to me to take advantage of repentance so my pain can be taken away.
Little kids, teens, adult alike, we all sin let us not be prideful and pretend the sin away let us just repent and have the pain taken away.
Emily

Baby blessing pics (better late then never)

2010-02-19T13:21:00.000-08:00

So we blessed her in December, but did not take her pics till just a few weeks ago, but I am kind of glad we did because she can express so much more personality now then she could a few months ago.
Oh and by the way she just up and popped out 2 teeth this week, yeah I did not even know she was teething and then her aunt said she had 2 teeth, and sure enough she has 2 teeth. That just goes to show how sweet she is that even while getting her first 2 teeth she was not fussy.
Anyway back to her cute pics:

these fabulous pics by creativproductions.com

1/2 marathon

2010-02-17T15:22:00.000-08:00

I am training to run a 1/2 Marathon! I will be running the slc Marathon on April 17. This is something I have wanted to do for about 3 years, but have been prego for about 18 months of it. But now I am ready to achieve my goal. This morning I ran 4 miles in just under 1 hour, yeah me. Friday I will run 5 mi. I am so excited to achieve this goal it really is a great part of my day. I have a friend who ran a whole marathon a few years ago and she told me she did it with out any music. My first thoughts where that is something I would not want to do, having music with me is how I make myself run. But as I train little by little running has actually become fun for me, and a few weeks ago I forgot to charge my ipod and half way into my run, my ipod died. I was not going to quit running just because I had no music so I pressed on, and guess what it was nice, so I did it again the next run, and it was so nice and empowering to know that I could do something I never thought I even wanted/could do. I now love how I can run and have that time all to myself and my thoughts, it gives me the think time that I never make time to have. before running was so hard that the music distracted me from the chore, but now that my body is used to it I really enjoy running, what a perk to my goal.

update on my kids

2010-01-14T19:31:00.000-08:00

Mace- is loving school and we are adjusting to the change, having my boy in school. He is getting much better at reading as well as all the other things that come from school. He is 6 now and loves being older. He lost his first tooth over Christmas break.
Sister- She has lost 2 teeth, at first I was worried, but she already has 2 new teeth growing in. She is such a great help around the house practicing her mommy skills, and growing in her friendship with duku.
Duku- is just so so cute, his brain is such a sponge he is growing in his vocab, and his understanding so fast. fun words he is saying
aunt shesha (aunt alisa)
vuve vu mommy (love you mommy)
funny daddy
He is also going to be potty training some time this year, and already showing interest in what goes on in the bathroom.

little sister- is growing every day she is still such a sweet girl. She is rolling over both ways, laughing, smiling, and just being such a joy in our home.
that is all for now.

here he is

2010-01-07T20:51:00.000-08:00

see my hubby on tv.

My Hubby on TV

2010-01-05T13:01:00.000-08:00

We are so excited, Thursday at 10:00am on Chanel 4 my talented hubby will be on Good things Utah, (Utah's version of good morning America) He will be talking about his company creativ productions because as you have seen he is amazing. He does wedding videos as well as photography and I believe that is what they are featuring his company for. So put it on the calender to watch good things Utah on Thursday and look for Creativ productions to see my hubby. Woohooo :)

My christmas Gift from Christ this year

2009-12-23T14:45:00.001-08:00

This is a Holiday post, but in a strange way so bare with me.
Lately I have found myself frustrated and angry much more then I would like to be that is for sure, but I am fighting these bad feelings and I am winning. At the beginning of this month in testimony meeting at my church, I said I wanted to make this Christmas more spiritual and not so stressed. And in so many ways it has been such a nice Christmas, but it has not just happened, it had been a battle, a battle with who you may ask? the battle is not with myself it is with that sly fellow we call the devil. How do I know the fight is with him? Because of the fruit. The fruit of the Devil is contention, The fruit of the lord is peace. The devil is such a sneaky little guy, he sneaks into my head and puts thoughts there just to see if he can make me fall on my face. Thoughts like "I don't like giving gifts", "why do we have to get together with so and so and do this instead of that?" These are the small things I have to Battle, but he does not stop at little things he also pulls out his big guns. Trying the surest way to get me down which is to get me mad/upset/unhappy with my hubby. Now my hubby and I do on occasion have need to talk about things that need improvement, and when those times come the lord is a part of those talks, things are said in kind ways and offence is not taken...the fruit positive improvement and good feelings. That is not what the devil wants. No he wants me to be mad at my hubby because that gets me mad at the world, so what does he do...puts thoughts into my head like "oh gosh why doesn't hubby ever help me make dinner?", or" he never cleans up after himself", "he never gets the babysitter, I always have to do it." If left unchecked these kind of thoughts get me upset and put me in a bad mood all day even sometimes to the point where my hubby will come home to an upset wife and he has not idea why. And when that happens then the devil is winning.
But when I stop and think about these things making me angry they are not at all true. "why doesn't he ever help me with dinner?" is the angry thought put into my head-reality- he does help me make dinner, if I look like I could use the help, if he has some extra time or if he just wants to put a smile on my face he does in deed help with dinner (thought he really does not even need to, because he is at work all day, then comes home to church callings, and often times more work) he would not just come home watch kids screaming, me trying to take care of them and make dinner, and him just sit there and not help. The same thing goes for all the angry thoughts I have, like I wrote earlier if there is something that I really do need to talk to my hubby about it comes in a loving way. so if I want to win agents the devil I need to see what thoughts are from the lord and what thoughts are from the devil.
So I look at the fruits of the thoughts. Are these thoughts productive? Do I feel peaceful? And do I have a good constructive conversation with my hubby when I share my thoughts? Or, do my thoughts make me angry? Do they make me withdraw? Do they make me use angry words with my hubby? If it feels peaceful it is of the lord/ if it creates contention it is of the devil.

This is the fight that I have been fighting this season (and off and on my whole life really). And I am glad to say that though there are days that the devil seems to have won, through the help of the holy ghost and the wonderful power and inspiration of the priesthood, I have the power to win, to be happy, to have peace in my life.
The reason this is a Christmas post is because without Jesus Christ, I would have no chance to win, I would not have a happy life. I would not be able to have the holy ghost or a worthy priesthood holder to help me fight the devil. With out Jesus Christ the devil will win, I can only win with Jesus Christ. And on those days that I feel like I have lost I use The atonement, ask for forgiveness and try again to be happy. It is hard, it is a fight, a fight to be happy some times and it is these times I must not give in I will chose peace not contention. I will say after a unhappy thought about my hubby "That is not true but this and this and this is true about my great hubby." I will be happy this season and on.
I hope that we can all recognise when our thoughts are really just temptations and push them aside to leave room for the lords inspiration, and love for others.
Merry Christmas and thank The Lord Jesus Christ for all he has done to make this season so bright.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-16T13:23:00.000-08:00

From my family to yours
lovely pic by creativ productions they are amazing.

trick or treat!

2009-11-08T21:42:00.001-08:00

For your viewing pleasure here are our cute little treats

Thanks Creativ for the great pics!

last few weeks

2009-11-02T20:53:00.000-08:00

so i have had a lot happen in the last few weeks so we will just tell a little about each and in no great order.

my grandma passed away, and i with little sister carpooled with my siblings down to AZ it was a good service, nice to visit with family and great only taking care of a new born.
right after this i got sick not sure what i got but it seemed to be a mix of allergies and a fever which seemed like the flu, but when 3 of my kiddos (not the baby thank goodness) got the same fever but no other symptoms i concluded it was not the flu just allergies and a contagious fever. this kept our house a sick house for a week and a half (this sadly kept us from saying good buy to one of my brothers and his family who moved that week, i did not think a fever was a good farewell gift)
after this came our most recent holiday, with cute pics soon to come. pictures taken from my hubbies new studio that is a great location and a great office, we are so excited to see how Creativ goes in this new location.

well i am sure i missed something but there it is my life this past few weeks hope all is well for those reading.

boating with friends

2009-10-13T11:46:00.000-07:00

Here is a link to pictures of a boating trip we took a few weeks ago, our latest actually. and what a blast. Thanks Linds for coming it was fun.

little sister

2009-10-02T13:41:00.000-07:00

This is just a few days after she was born, she is already grown out of this onsie. at about 3 weeks old my fabulous photographer hubby took some so cute pics of her that you can see here. (by the way if you are ever in need of a fabulous photographer he is not just my personal photographer, he owns a photography company called creativ productions and can take any kind of pictures you need, and i can get you a discount for being a friend/or family go here (creativproductions.com to see his work))

oh man i sure do love this little girl.

firstish day of school

2009-09-23T13:44:00.000-07:00

Mace's dad was not here for the first day of school and our camera was not working so i used a friends camera to get the real first day of school pics, but these are like the 3rd day of school at the school and my hubby did them (which means they are way better then what i did) so i will post the other part of the first day when i get the pics from my friend(no rush) but for now enjoy my little big boy who is now in school.

wow what a cute kid i have!

june-fathers and sons

2009-09-22T13:06:00.001-07:00

In June the boys got to go to their very first fathers and sons camp- out. they were so excited to go. Daddy treated them to some pizza and a trip to the $ store as part of the guys night treat. They all had fun, but I think mace had the most fun.
daddy let each of the boys pick a toy duku picked the dolphin and loves to sleep with it at night.

duku having fun doing boy stuff, playing in the dirt.

mace having deep thoughts about nature, and no i did not match the boys cloths on purpose.

just such a cute pic.

just a dad and his boys headed to the lake for some male bonding time.

june- fathers and sons

2009-09-22T13:00:00.000-07:00

mace got an iron man car

this is the place to give gifts!

more pics from the day

2009-09-15T13:20:00.000-07:00

what a fun and cute family they are thanks again guys for boating with us it was a blast.

this blog will not let me post a lot of pics at once i don't know why but till i fix that i will just post the rest of the pics as a new post. it sure was a fun day

boating with cousins

2009-09-15T12:59:00.000-07:00

this was a trip we took with in July with hubby's cousin and family we had a lot of fun, and it sure is convenient to have my very own fabulous photographer to take such great pics to help capture the memories of the day.

she looks like she is crying, but she was actually just laughing so hard, she was on the hot dog the whole day she loved it so much.

Lindy's story

2009-09-07T11:30:00.000-07:00

well Friday morning i woke up having some very mild contractions but they seemed to stay so i thought that may be the start of labor, they came and went till evening but then went away- it must have just been prelabor contractions. then Saturday came and nothing we even went to a fun birthday party for the kids where my hubby dressed up as prince Edward and we all had a lot of fun. well around 4 am Saturday night i started having strong real contractions they started out about 2 minutes apart but soon leveled off to about 10 minutes apart for the rest of the night. it was a rather sleepless night as we tried timing the contractions and sleeping at the same time. at around 9 :40 i finally felt as though i had gotten enough sleep and wanted to go on a walk to get things going faster. well i took my sis in law with me to time the contractions and in the 20 minute walk the contractions came about every 3 minutes. so i got home told my hubby it was time to get started, meaning send the kids to grandmas, call midwife and get ready to concentrate on having this baby. about 1 hour later the midwife was here and the first thing i had her do was see how dilated i was (i did not want to cry wolf or labor if i was only like at a 2) well she laughed because when she measured me i was at a 9, yes that number that comes right before the baby does, so i was definitely in labor and after a few more contractions i got into the pool to help with the contractions, oh laboring in nice warm water is the best. i was so relaxed that i did not even realize i was in transition and that i could start pushing any time. well after a while the contractions started getting stronger so that i did want to push and get done. i am not sure how many pushed it took, but it was not many and then bam at 12:30 we got our little girl. oh what a beauty she is, with such a sweet calm trusting nature i look forward to getting to know her and see how she will bless the lives of those around her.

here are pics from the birth it starts with me dilated to a 9 and ends in her daddies arms.

She is here

2009-09-06T17:31:00.000-07:00

Its a girl!!!!!!
Lindy Nicole Newman was born this afternoon at about 12:30 noon. after starting contractions around 4 am things started picking up around 9:40 and then she came. all went smooth here at home, she was born in the water and is s great healthy little girl.
she weighs 8lb 8 oz and is 20 in long with dark brown hair. pictures soon to come. we are so excited and glad that all is healthy and well.

Still here

2009-09-03T12:30:00.000-07:00

I am still here, and so is baby, i usually go about a week over my due date so i am expecting to have this baby some time next week, we will see how that goes.
Mace started school today, he is not back yet so i do not know how it is going, but i am so excited to find out.
sister is excited to be the oldest at home and be Mommy's little helper. she just moved into her own room which she will be sharing with baby and she is so excited.
duku is learning so much. he started nursery at church this last week and thinks snacks and stories are much better then sitting in a lap for 2 hours. he is getting a nice vocabulary with words like: (i am not good at spelling the way he says it so this is just what his words mean)
no
more
food
mom
dad
duku
help
up
down
please
dog
cat
cow
elephant
monkey
owl
i love watching kids learn it is so amazing to see them go from not understanding to totally getting a new idea, it is a highlight of being a mom for me. also i have been prepping duku for new baby by telling him that the round thing in my tummy is duku's baby so all the time i will ask him "where is duku's baby?" and he will come running and touch my tummy, then i will say "Give baby kisses" and he will kiss my tummy, oh it is so sweet.

well that is all for now i hope my next post will be telling you we have a baby and if it is a boy or a girl but for now, life is still going on and we are all happy.

mother

2009-08-27T21:45:00.000-07:00

i am trying to find a perfect quote about mothers, to help tell my mom how much she means to me. i have found a few that come close but nothing had quite perfect. does anyone have some good mom quotes? here are a couple i found but am looking for something a little more.
"A mother is she who can take the place of all others but
whose place no one else can take."
-- Cardinal Mermillod
"All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother."
-- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

"God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers."
-- Jewish proverb
please share if you know any good quotes.

i need a pedicure

2009-08-12T12:08:00.000-07:00

I like to have my toes nice and painted for birth, just something i like to do, but i am having a hard time reaching my toes this time and i really could use a good pedicure. i actually could use a good girls night away from my house too. take a brake before i am needed full time for my milk supply. ah well enough about my wants life is good and is about to get even better with 4 kids and a kindergartner.

cravings

2009-08-04T14:05:00.000-07:00

I have always heard about pregnant women having strange cravings and wondered if i would ever be one of those women. well i am going on my 4th pregnancy and as far as cravings have gone it is usually more of what i do not want to eat then anything else. with mace i could not do Mexican in my first trimester. this was very sad as i love love love Mexican food. with sister i do not really remember any food feelings out of the norm. duku i don't remember much change either. but this little one sure has sent me spinning in the area of food, first i cant bring myself to eat a ham and cheese sandwich on wheat bread (one of my favorite lunches) for a while i could not eat salad (which i also love) and here is the kicker for the last few weeks i have wanted to eat sand dirt and chalk. well last week as i was loading my kiddos into the car i looked at the dust that was all over the car from my hubbies recent camping trip and it looked tasty. i just had to try it's not like it was a rock i was trying to eat. well i did and oh it was good, so i had about 5 or 6 good licks off of my finger of this camping dirt dust. i then hurried home calling my sis in law on the way asking what my body must be needing to want to eat dirt, she said iron and when i got home i took an iron pill and have had a few more in the days that followed. so their i guess i am one of those crazy pregnant ladies who have strange cravings, but i promised my hubby that i would not eat any more dirt dust, so i hope i can keep my cravings under control:).

7 years

2009-08-01T20:31:00.000-07:00

7 years on august second i made the best choice i could have ever made, i married my hubby i can not believe it has been seven years already and yet it fills like we have always been together. what a great man i have who loves me so much and is such a good father. i really could not choose a better life then the one i have. this is not because of any of the stuff i have, but because of who i have in my life, my husband. thanks so much for being the perfect man for me my love. love Emily.

okay, okay,

2009-07-27T12:18:00.000-07:00

okay, fine i will write something, but what? i have like 100 random part thoughts that don't really Marat a post, but such is the working of my brain right now so lets be real.
I turned the AC on for the first time like a week ago it was the morning that we hit 100 degrees out side and i felt that though i could life in the heat my standard of living would be pretty low. so we have AC and it is nice.
for 2 months i have not used our dryer to dry the cloths, instead i have used our trampoline, funny thing is it actually drys the cloths faster setting them out mid day then the time in the dryer. it has cut down on heat in the house and on $ in the bills.
duku is getting over his separation anxiety, one my love and i realised that i was encouraging the problem by over informing him of when i would leave he started to think my informing was asking his permission to witch he would cry NO (aka throw a fit) not i let him know i am leaving and then quickly go he has stopped his objections. yeah!
this pregnancy has left me more worn out then my others and i have come to realise that this is most likely because it is my first summer baby, and there is a lot i want and need to do in the summer that i just don't do in winter. ex wakeboarding for the past month we have gone boating every Saturday and i will wakeboard, ride the hot dog and do all the fun boating stuff i normally do, then Sunday comes and i am so wiped out. i don't know why it took me so long to realise the pattern, but i have now decided to give my body a brake and limit my fun/activities. i only have like 6 more weeks so it should not be too hard.
well i am sure there is more to be said but my mind is blank and well it is nap time so i will now go sneak my nap in before the kids end theirs. oh how i love nap time.

Hansel

2009-07-12T10:15:00.002-07:00

And here he is our new little one.
we have been playing with the idea of a puppy for a while now and hubby has been on ksl looking at pups to get an idea of price and cuteness. well on Monday he saw this little one and fell in love then showed it to me and i fell in love, we went to meet him that night and felt like he was meant to be part of our family. "Hansel he's so hot right now."
it is work to train a puppy, but worth the work because we love him.
*I am really sorry for fooling everyone, in my mind it seemed like a fun way to tell everyone we got a puppy when we are so close to having our baby, but as the joke has played out people where really acting like i had a baby and offering to bring me meals and watch my kids...sorry, i did not think that would happen. I PROMISE that i will not joke like that again and will only post about our new baby when it really has come. please forgive my half thought through joke it was only meant to be funny not worry or to get free dinners. thanks though for all the love and well wishes, i hope you will be excited again when our baby does come.

its a BOY

2009-07-10T12:58:00.000-07:00

so we got a little bundle of joy 1 1/2 months earlier then planed, but he sure is a cutie, and we did not even have to go to the hospital to get him. His name is Hansel, he is blond, weighs about 5 lbs so pretty small but oh so sweet. pics soon to come we are so excited.

Pride

2009-06-30T13:22:00.000-07:00

"Pride, lets just say that if pride was a sickness then some one in this audience is contagious!" (i may be miss quoting.) 10 points if you know what movie this is from.

Pride, we all have it and it seems like the one's who are not as loud about it have a harder time working on fixing it, because it does not feel like a problem.
when i the one's i am referring to myself. i have pride and i mean the kind you don't want. the kind that says it does not matter what the argument is "i just want to be right". "everyone else is always right, i want to be right i want to be smart."
lies, lies, lies, these are the lies that my pride feeds me to get me upset at others and make me unhappy. truly these thoughts make me depressed, and have of late been on my mind a lot.
but in my prayers to help me overcome this trial last night i had was given an answer to my prayer. "it does not matter who is right, but what is right."
if during a time that i feel like fighting for being right i think of this statement then it should help me shift gears from pride to valiant servant. because i really do want to stand up for what is right and if i feel like i am standing up for right then i will have a hard time listening to the lies that say "i am never right, i want to be right."
i don't know if this makes much sense to others but as revelation usually works, this is exactly what i needed to hear NOW and am so grateful to my heavenly father for not giving up on his oh so stubborn daughter, and answering my prayer.

After vacation

2009-06-30T12:46:00.000-07:00

so we are now back from lake Powell, it was fun and we got no sunburns. pictures to come.

i have really good kids they are really good at adjusting to new situations, they where great at Powell, in fact i hardly saw the older 2 and spent my week playing with duku. now that we are back it is re-adjust time, this is where my kids have a hard time. going from full freedom to rules and adults and nap-time is hard for them. this is not new or unexpected, we have learned that a few days of extra reminders on normal rules is in order after vacation. and i must say that knowing what to expect makes it a bit easier to deal with, non the less it is a work out having to be on double duty for reminding kids of the rules, and double duty on enforcing those rules. so this is what we are doing this week, the week after a vacation.

some of the highlights of the trip:

mace went kneeboarding, impressing all of his older cousins
sister made a best friend out of her older cousin cass, sister just wanted to do everything she did and i am pretty sure cass loved the attention.
duku learned to fall asleep any where including in the water, there is a pic to come, but as he and i where out in the water with life jackets he had a baby one on that had a little pillow in the back to help babies get their heads up, well this made for a comfy sleep position apparently because he just fell asleep floating their in lake Powell.
hubby landed 2 tantrums in a row a first for him

and i went wakeboarding and climbed to the top of a sand hill and "washing my hair with the girls"

there was a lot of good food, and good family. it was a fun trip.

Happy Fathers day

2009-06-21T09:59:00.000-07:00

2 of my most favorite people are celebrated today my wonderful daddy and my hubby (my children's wonderful daddy). i am so blessed to have had such a wonderful example of what a father should be in my great dad, it had not been very hard to know how to raise a family in the gospel because of my fathers great example, of honoring his priesthood, presiding over the home in love and righteousness, and in his sweet thoughtful nature. having such a good father has made it so easy for me to understand the love of my heavenly father. i love you daddy.
my hubby is such a good father he is all the things my father is and is doing such a good job of being my kids favorite dad. for this day we took on some of his jobs and mowed the lawn/groomed the yard a bit so he would not have to. we love you daddy/hubby.
i could not have such a great hubby if it where not for his great father, his example of how to be a good and fun dad. one of the reasons i married my hubby was because i saw what a good father he had that (and how well he interacted with my nieces and nephews) i know he would make a great dad, and i was right. i love you, my love.
i hope every one can have a great fathers day and

can't hardly wait

2009-06-13T10:16:00.000-07:00

no not the 90's teen flick...VACATION!
in one week from tomorrow after church we are headed down to...LAKE POWELL and i can't hardly wait i am so excited, wakeboarding all week, food all over the place, family out the ears and sun sun sun. this is our family reunion vacation so i guess we should get our talents ready, i have so much food to buy that i am holding off on so i don't have a kitchen full of food for a week just because. this reminds me of what a nerd i am at heart. when it comes to fun i do not like to miss out, for girls camp my first year i had my everything packed and ready to go for a week before( this was a bit hard when most of my cloths where in the bags) for many a school dance i have showed up like 5 minutes early only to find that dances really do not get going (cool kids come) until like an hour after the dance starts, so there i am at the dance alone and so glad i am not missing anything. over time i have learned to tame my urges to get ready way to early, and channel all that energy into getting Christmas presents done in like august (this just makes for much less stress and is the one time early really has worked out well, oh yeah that and Halloween too.)
well now i think i am just rambling, but you get the idea that i am VERY excited for our vacation.

summer dinner

2009-06-03T16:02:00.001-07:00

i have no motivation to use my oven, it is too hot, and we are trying another summer without AC because we could use the extra $100+ AC would cost in much better ways. so we are using the drier sparingly, and the oven sparingly. only problem is i only have a few summer recipes, i have a taco salad, pasta salad, and i guess any tortilla Mexican dishes, but our family can only do about i Mexican meal a week(i could do it every day but i am out to feed more then just me) so i am on the look out for tasty yet economical summer dishes. do you have a favorite summer dishes, or good crock pot dinners or a good website, really i need ideas fast. please help me if you can:)

count your many blessings, name them one by one

2009-05-27T19:43:00.000-07:00

"count your many blessings name them one by one and it will surprise you what the lord had done."

my youngest brother just got engaged.

we just went camping for memorial day.

mace has learned how to knee board, sister likes to wakeboard with others, and duku likes to go on the hot dog.

the weather is wonderful, i can be inside or out side and it is my choice.

my garden is planted and growing.

my love for my husband is growing, he is so sweet to me.

i pay my tithing and the lord has never let me go hungry or home less.

i have a wonderful extended family, i love my parents my siblings their spouses, i love my parents in law and my hubbies siblings and their spouses.

"count your many blessings name them one by one and it will surprise you what the lord had done."
their is much much more i have to be thankful for to my loving heavenly father, these are just a hand full, it is harder to be unhappy when you count your many blessings.

old- pics from our feb vacation

2009-05-19T12:04:00.000-07:00

vegas strip

hollywood wax museum i am the 4th charlies angle

Arnold Schwarzenegger

me with Jimmy Stewart oh baby

monday fun

2009-05-14T21:40:00.000-07:00

This monday felt like a saturday, my hubby had work off and so we went boating, yet another chance for me to improve on the wakeboard, and this time i have some pics. the kids love boating, and this time they got on the wakeboard with their daddy and had a lot of fun, duku loves the boat and waited patiently till it was jumbo dog time, he loves to ride the jumbo dog.

i have finally learned how to stay up now i need to work out my arms to have the endurance to stay up.

loves to boat wants to get in the water

the "i did it, and it was fun" face after wakeboarding with daddy.

this girl is so cool she will try anything.
thanks to some great weather we had a great satu...i mean monday out on the lake.

Mothers day

2009-05-10T10:31:00.000-07:00

I just want to take a moment on this mothers day to express my great love for my mothers. I feel so blessed to have the best mother in the world, i could not ask for a better mom and i am trying to pattern my role as mother after her, because of what a wonderful job she did as a mother it made me want to be a mother, knowing that there could be no greater call then to be a mother.
I also want to express my love for my mother in law, i am so blessed to have a warm loving relationship with my mother in law, i love her and am so grateful for the wonderful son she raised along with the 6 other kids in that family.
Thank you to you 2 great women, and to all mothers i have heard it said that all women are mothers, whether or not they have children of their own, they mother and nurture others in so many ways, that is how God made women to be nurturers and so on this mothers day thank you to all you wonderful women who use your divine nature to nurture and mother all that stand in need. Have a wonderful Mothers day

#3

2009-05-07T21:49:00.000-07:00

3
this is my favorite pic, the one that as soon as i saw it i wished i had one like it i love the idea of putting beautiful things in unnaturally settings eg i wanted to go to prom in dump truck. i sure do love the other pics too and they represent me very well the smiley one is me all the way and the ballet is my love for dance, and i always thought ballerinas where the idea of beauty. so good job Abby, you guessed it, but really they are all pics i love. thanks also for letting me know the ones you like the best that is fun to see a new part of each of you in knowing what pose you like best.

what kind of bride am I

2009-05-04T13:38:00.000-07:00

here is a fun game
looking at these 3 pics (taken by my talented man) which one do you think is my favorite poes?
they all represent a part of my personality but their is one i love the most and wish i had one of me looking like that, but which one is it?

now for even more fun go here to my hubby's website look at all the bridals and pick which one is totally you and then tell me so i can see.

i will tell you the winning pic on thursday

HAVE FUN!

cute kids

2009-04-29T19:13:00.000-07:00

my kids are growing so fast it is so fun to watch. duku has learned a lot in just the last few weeks, he is for sure a walker, but now can also run, and spin in a circle, this i love to watch. he loves books and can now find the doggy on the page of well any books with a dog in it. he loves animals, we went to the park tonight and he loved all the dogs. he loves to brush his teeth. he LOVES shoes so if you come over and see random shoes in hiding spots that is why. he is also learning to communicate more, before now his world was about food and that is all we needed to communicate, now there is out side, toys, BOOKS, and many other wonders that he wants to see. there is more i am sure but i will end on him for now, boy he sure is fun to watch grow up.

sister, loves to play with duku and is such a good little mother. there is not much big going on with her. she is smart, cute and a joy to be around, oh one big thing her and mace both totally keep their beds dry and i do not even wake them up to go to the bathroom, and they both now take their own showers with out mom or dad or sibling to help. mace is starting kindergarten so i thought it was time for him to shower alone.
the other night was one of those this is why i love my life moments, when i was making dinner trying to get everything clean and dinner on the table and then i started feeling contractions so i had to sit down(they turned out to be braxtion Hicks contractions not anything to worry about), well in the mean time my kiddos asked if they could do the dishes, like really wash the pots and all. (one day i will remind them they are the ones who asked to do the dishes) well i could use some help so i watched near by and gave tips when needed, but they did the dishes and it sure was nice, it really does not seem overwhelming to have a large family when everyone pitches in. that night the kids ended up washing dishes emptying the dishwasher, and setting the table, what great kids.
mace is such a help as before mentioned and he is really excited for school to start. he said the cutest thing the other day. on the way back from our ultrasound everyone was in the car but daddy and when he got in i gave him a kiss, to witch mace sighed "i can't wait till i can kiss." to which we both laughed and i said i know what you mean i felt that way for a very long time till i got to kiss daddy(my first kiss as you would have it).
well enough rambling i guess i will go now, life is great if you are looking at all the blessings you have.

Wedding season

2009-04-28T12:58:00.000-07:00

wedding season is upon us and that reminded me that i should let all my blog friends know that my hubby has a wedding photography and video business called creativ productions. He has told me that i am aloud to offer a 20% discount to family and friends and well if you read my blog then you are a friend. so if you or anyone you know are in need of his services check out his web sight here and remember the 20% discount.
*oh i thought i should mention that they do travel they have done weddings in California, Colorado, and Idaho. They do a lot of California weddings because it is WAY cheeper to have them come from Utah then to hire from California.

Michelle

2009-04-20T12:04:00.000-07:00

My sister in law Michelle Rocks! She just ran a Marathon this last weekend, and she did so good, by the end she looked great, she is an inspiration to me and one day (when i am not pregnant) i will run the marathon with her. She runs it in memory of her dear little James who passed away 4 years ago today, she tries to run or have someone run for her (last year she had just had a baby so she had a good friend run) every year to help remind her to keep going and one day she will be with her little one again. talk about a strong women she has battled with a lot of pain with this loss (as you would expect) but had not shriveled up and given up, instead she has shared her experiences good and bad with others including the blog world and has been an example to so many that their can be joy again after loss, she gives so many so much hope just by shearing her story. a lot of you may already know her and know what i am talking about, and if any are interested or know of anyone who could use some inspiration on life after loss you are welcome to read her blog here she is a wonderful person and i am so proud of her, I love you Michelle.

Baby :)

2009-04-16T13:34:00.000-07:00

i got see my baby today, and it sure looked cute in a ultrasound kind of way. sorry no pics but i cant seem to get the info off the disc they gave me. we decided not to find out what the sex of this little one so no big news there but, they did say my due date is the same sept 1, and all looks well in the world of baby so we are happy.

why didn't we find out boy or girl? good question. i have for every other pregnancy felt such an urgency to find out the gender asap, so i could quickly name the little one and start to bond with it so that when they came out i would feel a connection. with the first 2 i felt much love but no real immediate connection to them when they where born, i felt bad for this till i realised it did not mean i did not love them, just that i did not know them yet. But with duku i felt a connection while he was still inside me and the connection was there when he came out. the connection was not big and loud but a spiritual feeling of knowing his spirit. after duku i felt like i could wait to see if it was a boy or a girl till they where born. from very early in this pregnancy i have felt a very strong connection to this little one, i do not feel any need or desire to find out what it is, i already love it and am familiar with it. perhaps it comes from being my 4th and with the first 2 i was new to this whole mom thing and did not know what to expect. so though for the first 3 babies i felt a need to know what i was having, things have changed and i no longer feel a need to know what i am having i am just glad to be having a baby. it is also fun not knowing, it stirs things up. people keep asking how we will do this pregnancy different, well there you go we are not going to know boy or girl till it comes out.

i am a redboxer

2009-04-14T12:49:00.000-07:00

I am a redboxer. when we want to see a movie from red box we do not just drive to our closest one and have fun picking a movie to watch, no we have a system.

first we look on line to see if their is a movie we want to see, just because they are a dollar does not mean we have to watch.
then is there is a movie we want to see we type in our zip to find what locations have our movie.

then the fun begins. one of us will go to the closest location in hopes of finding our movie, but if it is a new release or a weekend it is not always at our first stop, so then we call home to find the most recent next closest place. and this will go on till the desired movie is obtained.

last Friday i went to 3 locations before i was able to get bedtime stories (really good movie by the way) and i had to just laugh at myself as i drove from location to location for this movie. i am a die hard a redboxer i do it and i do it right.

another thing we do is get free codes, they are pretty easy to get and we try to only use them part of the time Friday happened to be a free night so i drove all over for my free movie, i love it.

ultrasound now $300 or later $150

2009-04-11T13:39:00.000-07:00

i was really excited to write a post yesterday because i was going to have come back from my ultrasound and know more about this little one inside of me. i did not write a post yesterday, because i did not get an ultrasound.
why? MONEY money is the answer to the question. because my hubby is self-employed we do not have a big company paying a great part of our insurance to give us great maternity (we did have that with mace, thankfully) in fact our maternity deductible is $6500, and guess how much it costs just to use the bed at the hospitals with my insurance you guessed it $6500. that is just to go natural, not to mention cost of doctor. this was one of the reasons i started thinking about home birth (we this and finding out it was an option). well last time i had my ultrasound done while i was still seeing a doctor, and have never really looked into how much a ultrasound costs. come to find out that if i go to a hospital or clinic covered by my insurance i only have to pay $300 for a ultrasound. $300 yeah that is sounding to high to me so i look around and at the mall i can get what i want for around $175 much nicer price. as i discussed this with my midwife she said she had a guy who came to her office to do ultrasounds for $150 strait up.
well getting back to yesterday i had thought i told my midwife i wanted the $150 guy to do my ultrasound, but she miss understood and thought that because i have insurance they would cover my ultrasound and to have me go to a clinic. so yesterday morning i got up early drank 32oz of water and headed out to get an ultrasound. when i got there i asked how much it was just to be sure and found out it was much more then the $150 i had planed on paying, made some calls and decided to wait and make an appointment with the cheap guy.
so no ultrasound yet but we still have $ in our pocket and plus my hubby was not able to be their yesterday and he will be able to come next time and i did want him their, the pregnancy is never really real for him till he sees the ultrasound. so keep an eye out for my ultrasound post, it will be soon.

be happy with what you have

2009-04-07T20:30:00.000-07:00

sometimes we get antsy for summer weather, so much that we try to escape to a warmer place. this is not a crazy idea i know a lot of people who do this on occasion, but for us i think the lord wants to teach us something about being happy with what you have.
to understand what i mean let me tell you about 3 attempted get aways. The first was about 4 years ago at the beginning of May it was starting to get warm and we wanted some time off in a warmer place so my hubby picked the location and i did the planning. The Grand Canyon. We set of on our trip in shorts with our kids in tow, only when we got their and the whole time we where their (we camped over 1 night) it was not very warm, it was very rainy and a little snow at moments if i remember right. To top this off i did not pack the best food and forgot the eggs to our egg and sausage breakfast. and for most of the time the grand canyon's view was covered in mist and fog from the rain. we did have fun and i laugh at it all the time as i remember it as the WORST vacation ever, mainly because i was the one to plan it. we did get to visit with my grand parents and stay at their house a few nights and even go to church with them, that was fun. but we were looking for hot Grand Canyon fun and did not get it.

next just this February we went to CA and Vegas for like 5 days for V day and a business trip with out the kids. I was so excited to be warm. It was a great trip but warm it was not. The whole time we were in CA people where saying how sorry they where that is was so cold in CA for us. It was a little warmer then home but not really and not the CA weather i was hoping for, Vegas was okay weather but still nothing exciting super warm.

then finally this last weekend we went down to Lake Powell with out the kids to get our house boat ready for the season. Now i knew it would not be hot yet but was hoping for warm, but no, it was still jacket weather and as we left it started to snow.

so the moral of these stories is to be happy with what you have then you will not go looking for greener grass in some other state, and you will not care what the weather is like when you get to your destination.

* disclaimer: we have actually been able to go to other states and enjoy the warmth on many occasions. but we where not trying to get to nicer weather on those trips.

april fools tradition

2009-04-02T14:42:00.000-07:00

growing up in my family my mom tried to make all the little holidays of the year fun and free, for something to look forward to for us kids. on st. Patrick's day our milk would be green along with most of the other food, and on our way to school we would get kissed by a leprechaun who as you know wears green lipstick. this has been fun to adapt and do for my family as well, we usually go for corned beef and cabbage instead of green everything (my hubby does not like green milk, i cant understand why:) but most years we have all managed to get kissed by a leprechaun, and our kids love this tradition too.
as far as the little holidays go i must say April fools is one of my favorites. and not for all the pranking but because of a fabulous family tradition that many of you have heard of or experienced first had at our house. for dinner every year on April first we have spaghetti, with bread a salad and a veggie. what is so great about that you ask (you who do not already know) well it is not what we eat but how we eat it. some years the food is put on the table without any plate or utensils and you are to eat with your hands, or better yet just your mouth. and other years you have utensils but not the run of the mill kind this year my plate was a deep dish Tupperware container, and my fork was a tea strainer. last year my fork was a pizza cutter (i was a little worried about that one but it worked out pretty well) other years my plate has been a gravy boat, a muffin tin and a cup. i think you are starting to get the picture. you really must experience it your self though to really appreciate what i am saying.
so yeah that sound a little crazy but why is it make April fools my favorite? the memories, the memories of seeing friends and family old and young trying to figure out how to eat spaghetti, oh they are priceless memories to me. it is just to much fun.
this year i have been hosted out, I'm pooped, i had thanksgiving then Christmas eve both at my house, and then 2 birthday parties within 2 weeks one where i made a Cinderella cake (i do not think we got pictures, just video) and being pregnant i am done hosting for a little. (don't worry i will be ready again soon) so this year we did not have anyone over for our special dinner just us, and it was so fun. the kids loved it and so did my hubby and i. it is so fun watching my little family grow, and enjoy the things that i did as a kid. i find that doing things as just our family is getting more and more fun, like it was when i was a kid(just role reversal). i love getting to have big parties and love getting together as extended family, but i also enjoy doing these fun things with just my little family, don't worry though we will have someone over next year, and it may even be friends of our kids next time.

random

2009-03-28T19:14:00.001-07:00

duku is officially walking, he is even able to stand up from the middle of the room, that is real walking in my book. he is also starting to talk mama and dada have been around for a few months but now he also is parroting words he hears me say a lot like don't touch and touch, man it sure is fun watching people learn, i so love watching my little ones grasp something new.

i am so excited i have for the first time started some plants from seed, they are inside now and i do not know if they will end up giving fruit, but the have sprouted, and can i just say when i am having a bad moment in my day i just walk over to my little garden and feel gratitude and joy for my little garden. i am praying for this garden i don't know if others do that but i really really want these plants to be successful so i am enlisting the lords help with much prayer for help and thanks.

favorite shirt color, do you have a favorite color that looks good on you or that you love to wear ? mine for a long time was blue to go with my blue eyes, i do not think i have a favorite right now but as i was putting my hubbies t shirts away i counted 4 shirts that are the same color. not white or gray those don't count with t shirts because they are usually white or gray, but to have a color t shirt is less common and to have 4 of the same color is more uncommon(i think correct me if i am wrong) but the greatest part is what color it is and it is his favorite t shirt color....mustard yellow. yup i would never have picked it as a favorite but the great part is he looks great in it so i love that he has 4 mustard yellow t shirts.

starting school

2009-03-27T21:58:00.000-07:00

we went to mace's school today to get him registered and meet his teacher, must say i was as excited as he was, but was bummed when he got to go with his teacher to see has class and have fun while i had to stay back and fill out paper work. every so often i reach a new level of being a real mom and lately i am finding that being a real mom means planing things and doing things for your children be cause they are fun/good for them, and not because you get to do it to or even have fun chatting with other adults while your kids do their thing. no i get to give my kids good opportunities but as far as for me i need to find something fun to do on my own.
i am excited for mace to start school it will be great for him to make new friends and explore this new world of life without mom. i am a little worried about when school starts though. it starts sept 3 and my due date is sept 1, i just want to make sure i can be their for school to start and not having a baby, but that is a silly thing to worry about, and due dates are not accurate anyway so no worries. new baby and a kindergartner in the same few weeks this will be a fun fall.

boating

2009-03-21T17:12:00.000-07:00

today was a great family day. i started it by going to the temple, then we went boating came home and had bbq burgers. does life get any better then this oh yes it does because then tonight we will be camping out in our back yard, not it is the best day ever.

so today was great but i need to give a little more detail on the boating. first of all i love boating but have come to find that when it comes to being the responsible adult and help out with things like driving, and putting the boat on the trailer i get well... a little nervous and stressed. pulling a my hubby to do wake boarding tricks is an exact thing i have to maintain the right speed, and go in a strait line as long as possible. okay that may not sound to hard for you but i want to do it right so it makes me nervous. the other thing is loading the boat on the trailer, my arm strength is not a fraction of any man's let alone my hubby's so it is much harder for me to hold the boat in the right place so that it is even on both sides, and it usually takes at least 4 tries to get it even for me. any other guy that does it, it only takes one time. so there again stress and nervousness. well i have found just as with driving a car the more i drive the boat the easier it gets, i still get nervous but not to bad. and as for loading the boat today was a brake through. i realized that i am not as strong as guys in my arms and that that must be why it is much harder for me and such a breeze for them. well realizing this does not take my responsibility away, it was only my hubby and me so i had to load the boat even if i was not as strong. so what did i do ladies i used a strong muscle ...my brain the boat needs about 3 inches on each side to be even so i looked around the boat and thought there must be something in here that i can stick inside he trailer and the boat and then i would only have to hold the trailer in place instead of holding it in place and pushing it out far enough at the same time. so i found a life jacket that was just the right size and it did the trick the first time, and it was easy, i did it the first time, i did it. i did it. i did it. i did it. i did a little dance when it worked i was so happy. so though driving is a work in progress and i am getting better every time, i do not have to stress out about boating anymore it can just be fun, even if our family goes alone. yeah for me i am so so so so happy. this alone made my day great but add all the other elements together and yes it was one of the best day ever.

dry beds

2009-03-13T09:20:00.000-07:00

i do not want to jinks it but my 2 oldest, who have both been potty trained more then 2 years, have finally started night time potty training. i have been very lazy and just used pull ups for way too long, but mace starts school this fall and it is time for my kids to be out of diapers ! so starting in december we let our pull ups run out and started sleeping like big kids. with no drinks after dinner and waking the kids up 2 hours after they have gone to sleep and 3 months of getting their bodies into the new normal i can say that they have less then 1 accident a week, we still wake them up and dont know when that will stop but they are doing it my kids keep their beds dry and it is a joy in our family for both children and parents. way to go kiddos.

on another note i am rethink my little princesses code name onkia, it is true that we have called her this, but honestly it is not a pretty name and her real name is pretty, so her new nickname on here will be sister which is something she is called every day. so hello sister and good bye onkia.

my little princess

2009-03-11T19:22:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday my little princess, you have been in our family for 4 years now. I was so surprised that my second child could be a girl after having 6 brothers and no sisters and the 5th child i did not think a girl was in my near future, but you where, and i was so excited to have a girl.
once you came you where such a beautiful easy baby. I could not believe how easy having 2 kids was with you as a baby. with a brother only 15 months himself your baby days are hard to remember because you where so good and he was learning so much. You did not stay a baby for long, you where walking before you where 1 and talking right after. you have liked to stay close behind your brother not wanting to let a year get in the way of him knowing more then you. i like to think that if you had your way up in heaven that you would have come down as your brothers twin, but lucky for me you waited a little while for my sake. the two of you are such good friends it is amazing how well you get along.
while you where an easy baby, you have made me stretch as a patent in ways i never thought i would need to. I grew up in a house of boys and have never have been a super emotional girl, but you are a girl who has emotion like us all and it has been my job to help you learn how to control your emotions we are not done learning but you are such a smart girl you are learning a lot.
you are such a sweet girl and are so good at mothering. the older you get the more i enjoy having you around. we get to explore our girly side together, you love anything girly, nail polish, doing hair, dresses, princess...you are all girl. but you can take your brother down in a wrestling match if time calls for a take down.
i love you so much. thank you for picking me to me your mom, it has been a fun ride so far and i look forward all that is to come.
love, your mommy

duku is 1

2009-03-06T10:51:00.000-08:00

it is about a week late but here are pics of duku's big day.

turtle cake staying in theme with his halloween costume

before the mess
during the mess

this is what it looked like right before i took it from him. with my other kids i took the cake away because they where done eating and had lost interest, with duku i took it away because it was no longer food, but a fun texture to play with. he stopped eating long before he was done playing with it. he has also started walking and we got some good video of him walking after the party. he is now 1 and soon will not be our baby. i sure do love that little guy.

reunion time

2009-02-25T20:09:00.000-08:00

week off

2009-02-19T13:25:00.000-08:00

i got a week off being a mom last week from wednesday though sunday i went on a business trip with my hubby that started in LA and ended on the vegas strip. i have a lot of pics but they are on my hubby's camera so i do not know when they will make it on here, but they are coming. it was nice and relaxing and just great to spend so much time with my love, it was the best v day week ever.

duku

2009-02-04T12:57:00.000-08:00

2 new things my duku is doing, first he rides in a forward facing seat now, and he is really starting to see why the rest of us like it so much. he has also now officially crawling up the stairs himself. he has known how for a few months now, but with a couple of falls it has made him quite nervous to try again, but now he is not worried, he is up those stairs in a flash. now if he would just start walking. hubby even made cookies the other night to motivate duku, we have our kids walk for cookies, we have one of us hold the cookie and the other hold the kid and help them get to each other by walking. it wont be long now.

fireproof

2009-02-03T09:27:00.000-08:00

there is a movie called fireproof at redbox, that anyone who is married or in a relationship should watch. i highly recommend that you rent this movie and watch it with your spouse. we watched it last night and felt a strong desire to share this movie with all we can, REALLY it is a very good movie rent it. watch it. oh i hope you do.

not much going on

2009-02-02T11:46:00.000-08:00

i have been reading all of your blogs, but not much has been going on worth writing about. we did have a staycation about 2 weeks ago, instead of going somewhere we stayed home slept in, played with the kids, went on dates and just took a break from the norm, and it was nice. the kids are all learning growing and getting better by the day. onkia is now a sunbeam and loves being in primary. mace loves having her in their, and so do i. in march i get to register mace for kindergarten, i am so excited to enter the greater world of learning with him he is so ready. duku could be walking if he wanted to be, but like his brother before is waiting till it is a greater need.
oh something great did happen, yesterday i got to visit with an old family friend from kwaj. it was wonderful to talk about the old days and see that she and her family are doing well. i find great joy in seeing my lds friends still strong in their faith, and she is for sure. it was also fun to get to show off my cute kids.
it is such a treat for an army brat who did not live in any one place for more then a few years, to reconnect with old friends because it does not happen a lot. usually i rely on my family for remembering old times. i have so many friends that live all over the world. i love reconnecting with them. i love facebook for that reason.
so enough rambling i will write again later when i have more to say 3 birthdays are coming with in the month so their will probably be some by then.

2009-01-21T13:13:00.000-08:00

great website for helping kids learn how to read. starfall.com
my kids love it.

you find out who your friends are

2009-01-05T18:05:00.000-08:00

as i was just cleaning up dinner while listening to the radio a song came on called "you find out who your friends are" yes it is country and i am not ashamed to say i like country. it talks about when you are down, out of luck, stuck some where the ones who come help,who do not think about what is in it for them...they are real friends and you find out who your friends are. well though we have really great friends all of them and know that if we and when we need them i started to cry remembering some friends that showed they where real friends just over 2 years ago.
2 years ago we were headed away for a short new years vacation to see some friends about 4 hours away. on the way to these friends live my grandparents. so we thought we would stop by to say hi one day with my grandparents and then head down to visit our friends. well when we got to my grandparents house i stated feeling sick to my stomach (i was just 6 weeks pregnant) and ended up laying in my grandparents bed for at least 3 hours, then i started to bleed, this left two ideas for us, i was either having a miscarriage( i don't know what that feels like) or i had a tubule pregnancy and my tube had ruptured, after some prayer and pain that made me want to die (really i wanted to die) we went to the nearest hospital, and found out that my tube had ruptured and that if i had not gotten to the hospital i would have died. well i had to go into surgery. thankfully my grandparents watched the kids, but there was no one their for my love. i did not know how the surgery would go and told my hubby that just in case i did not make it i loved him and good bye. not very nice of me to say that then leave him alone, but i did not want him to wonder if i did not come out. well as i was unconscious in surgery my love was all alone to worry for my safety. while he waited he made calls to family and friends asking for prayers my way and to let everyone know the situation. well when he called the one friend that was 1 our a way that we would have been visiting he broke down and cried, about 1 hour later and a little while before i was done they came our friends came an hour drive just so my love would not have to be alone. they stayed till all was well and i came out safe and sound then drove back an hour in the late late hours of the night (sorry i do not remember how late it was). they did not have to come my hubby did not ask them to come, but they knew he needed them, and they came. thanks you two you know who you are and will always have a special place in our hearts to the selfless love you gave that horrible night. that night we found out who some of our friends are.

i get dressed for my little girl

2009-01-05T11:58:00.000-08:00

being a stay at home mom, sometimes it is hard to motivate myself to get dressed at a normal time. i am not going to be going anywhere and only kids will see me till dinner, and sometimes my hubby is not home for dinner so i don't mind being in my pj's for a while. i do usually get dressed after lunch while my kids nap. well my little girl has been picking out what to wear and dressing herself since she was 2 but recently she has gotten more picky and only wants to wear pretty cloths, therefore sometimes wishing to wear the same pretty shirt day after day (i have vetoed that it must be at least one day between wearings.) this is how much she likes to dress pretty. well she has started to notice mommy and when i look pretty and when i am still in my pj's so it it has gotten to 9 am and daddy has left and i am still not dressed she will ask "mom when are you going to get dressed?" and then "will you dress pretty?"
well the kids have at be dressed to get breakfast so i should be a good example and get dressed too, but it is my little girl that has now motivated me to get dressed at a decent hour, i now get dressed much more regularly and usually what i wear is approved by my girl.

after Christmas blues

2008-12-29T08:41:00.000-08:00

does any one else get the after Christmas blues? i do. i get so excited for Christmas, do so much planning, trying to get so many perfect gifts... that once the day has ended i have no plans, nothing to do and no one to see, i get the after Christmas blues. i also get the baby blues, i think that my mind just gets so wrapped around a certain event ie Christmas or having a baby, the whole month of January, that once the event has come and gone i don't know what to do next i feel empty for a day or so. i tried to explain this to my sweet hubby and he was worried that it was because i did not like the gifts i got. that definitely was not the case he got me exactly what i wanted and more and he even loved his gift from me. it was a wonderful Christmas eve and day. i am now over the blues i was by Saturday around 4pm. but i am glad to make the realization that i get the blues so that next year i can do something to prevent it. plan ahead to do something simple yet fun, and just knowing that it will come, will make it much better. i already do much better with the baby blues then i did with mace, it is knowing what to expect that helps me get though the blues, so knowing really is "half the battle"

beets and eggplant?

2008-12-16T12:18:00.000-08:00

what is happenning to me? i went to the store last night to get a couple of things, and it was kind of late and i was a little hungry, so what did I buy, what was me don't shop while hungry indulgence? yes you guessed it beets and eggplant. who would have ever thought?
beets? eggplant? who buys those and for sure who EVER craves those? Well what can i say, i guess now i do. and i am excited to make some soups out of these, and have soup for lunch or dinner all to myself. my hubby is not a big soup fan, it just does not fill him up or something, so i try not to make soup too much for him, but for the past week i have not been eating what my family has anyway (mainly a salad with chicken each night) so why not make soup (which freezes well) and enjoy my yummy beets and eggplant all by myself while they eat casserole, and spaghetti.
i must say i think the recent change in cravings has to do with my diet now. hubby and i realized the other day that i am practically on the Atkins diet, because i am not eating hardly anything but a little meat and a LOT of veggies. the best part is how much i am enjoying this diet, i do not feel hungry in between meals, and if i do start to feel a little huger start to get me then i have like 2 slices of apple, or orange and i am good till the next meal. in fact sometimes when i have something that tastes really good i start to get worried and count my calories again because i am getting full on such a good food, i think i must be having too much, but i recount and find i am well within my allotted amount. yeah for me with the lords help i am loving this diet.

2008-12-10T21:24:00.000-08:00

new favorite web sight. calorieking.com
any food i want to eat i can find out the calories for it, i love the internet.

end of a stage

2008-12-10T13:49:00.000-08:00

so this i guess has come as a surprise to some and may to you but i have ended nursing duku, i usually like to wait till 1 year, and would have with him, but i got thrush and the pain was too great to let my 7 teeth little guy keep nursing. with this said i now have can now start dieting. if i want to have ten kids then i want to have a healthy body to take care of my kiddos. so i took advantage of fast Sunday, and instead of eating like a pig after i brake my fast (what i usually do) i only eat a small amount, allowing my stomach to start shrinking. and i have been doing good so far, and the great thing is i am not even hungry, and fasting comes one a month so if i start to slack off i can start fresh each month. i am hopping to get back to pre-pregnancy asap so i can be ready to get pregnant when our family is ready. i do not know when we will start trying again, but i don't want weight to be the reason for waiting. thanks to Michelle for the motivation, if she can lose weight and we had a baby at the same time then it is my turn too.

book of mormon accelerated reading program

2008-12-05T14:31:00.000-08:00

we have our children on the book of Mormon accelerated reading program. have you heard of it? Well, what you do is take a few minutes out of your day as a family and together read your scriptures.
what! that is it you say, well that is it. we have been reading the book of Mormon as a family for a long time not for learning but for spirituality and family unity, but this week i have seen that it does even more then help our spirits and our unity it helps us learn.

so like i said we have been reading in the book of Mormon for a long time now as a family and usually we just have our kids repeat a verse a few words at a time. but now that our kids have learned their letters and sounds they are starting to read phonetically. so during the day the kids and i have had learning time learning some sight words and reading phonetically but the proses has been slow. They do good and i have been impressed with how much they have learned yet it has taken a while to see much progress. a few weeks ago my hubby suggested that during scripture time we could have the kids follow along with us on the verse they are reading and then let them read the words they could like: the it can ... well it has been about a month and i have not been doing any other learning time with them (lazy mommy) and they are getting really good, just by reading the book of Mormon. They are sounding things out faster, recognizing words with out sounding them out, and just getting so good at reading.

i attribute the speed of their learning to what they are reading. it seems like when ever we are doing what the lord wants things go better, our minds are more clear, things run more smooth and our learning ability is enhanced. of course the kids are going to be faster at learning to read when they are reading what the lord has asked us to read instead of just reading some kids books. Hence the book of Mormon accelerated reading program. I recommend it 100% . I cannot guarantee the same results but I can guarantee(testify) that good things will come from reading scriptures with your family. By the way our 10 month old joins us too, there is not age too young to begin.

random thoughts and feelings

2008-12-05T14:17:00.000-08:00

so much to say so little time left for the kiddos to nap...i just went to see it's a wonderful life play/ballet. and it was so good, it really helped remind me of how blessed i am. things may not always feel like they are going as they should to me, but if i look closer i will see how blessed i am. i also was re reminded of how much i love my hubby the other night when we were talking about what i could do to help me have more mommy time to help me from getting burned out, i was touched and reminded how much my hubby loves me and really wants me to be happy. i love you hubby.

side note about onkia, she made a cute comment while we were driving in the car today that i have to share. as we drove by some houses she said "mom their is my house that i will live in when i get married too (friend of hers) and you can drive this way to come and see me when i live here."
i told her i would visit her and thought that was just so cute.
oh then i have to say what mace said in his prayer on Sunday among other wonderful things he said "thank you that mommy and daddy are in love with each other" i thank heavenly father for that too.

J+E