Family - It's what's for Dinner

It really is a wonderful life.  I have been really weepy this week (that seems to happen like once a month, hmmm) but when I got this picture of Stephen yesterday, it totally made me cry.  In a good way. He wasn't able to really email, but sent this picture.  He hiked up to Koko Head. I absolutely love it.  

Yesterday started the goodness when I got to have lunch with my Mom, Chelsey and Brynlee.  I love that we can all spend so much time together.

Then last night, we had the missionaries over for dinner, which I  love to do.  Whitley and Nick got an ice cream maker for their wedding and never used it so they decided to come over for dinner and then we'd try it out.  During dinner,  Chelsey called and asked if they could join the party...sure!!  

Not much later, the phone rang again and it was Nick, from jail.  He hasn't called in a long time, so that was a surprise.  And THEN, Boston knocked on the door!  The missionaries eventually had to leave and Rhett headed off to work.  But then Seth and Katie stopped by as well.  Those are some of Stephen's best friends.  In the meantime, we had started the ice cream, but the maker didn't have all the parts, so Spencer and Nick rigged it up to work.  Well, it looked like it worked, but in the end we had milk in a bowl.  And that was a lot of work!  The boys set up a Risk game and the girls chatted in the living room planning out a friend's baby shower.  I talked with Stephen's friends and while all this was happening, I got an email from Stephen!  Yeah!  He didn't miss the party.  So we snapped a quick picture and sent it to him to tell him we all love him.  It was a crazy madhouse for awhile, but in the very best way!  

Then our old home teacher Bro. Klein stopped by with something for my little ones.  Brynlee found a toy she just loved and cracked us all up by singing into the microphone and doing her "wobbly" dance.  I had a hard time getting every one to bed because they were all so happy and loving having family over.  

It's night's like tonight that remind me how blessed I am, in the most important ways! 

It's a Party!

Well, ok... a Pity Party.  I have them every now and again.  I won't bore you with all my "sad life" problems.  Partially because I don't need anyone punching me over the ridiculousness of some of the things I like to be sad about.  It's really a perception thing.  And being sad or disappointed about things isn't wrong, it's what you do with it.  I spent the morning feeling bad and telling myself why I was justified and definitely settled in with a "poor me" conversation with myself.  Telling yourself why all these different things are making you miserable just seems to make it all the worse.  BUT, it happens sometimes.  I was scheduled to go to the temple, its my normal day, but they asked me to come in early.  Normally no big deal, but my kids JUST went back to school and I really needed to get my house in order and honestly I wanted to feel sorry for myself, not go smile and be sweet to people.  I considered and debated off and on all morning about calling someone to sub for me.  I just wanna stay home!  But then I decided it was my responsibility and usually when you really don't want to do something is when you actually need it the most.  So I went.  Begrudgingly. Fighting back tears the whole time.  But I got there, felt the spirit of the  Temple, stopped thinking about myself and got to work.  We were busy, which was a blessing.  Then my friend who works there with me came in, later than I was.  Another gal asked if I had heard how her son was.  She has a boy who left on a mission just after Stephen, so I just assumed they were asking about him being on his mission.  Then she told me what she really meant.  Her 12 yr old son had burned half his face and his eye with hot grease.  She told me the whole story and I immediately felt ashamed for all my "poor me" sentiments I'd spent the morning dwelling on.  She also told me all the little miracles that took place along the way.

God is so mindful of each one of us.  He knows about all those whiny things I was being sad about.  He knows that my heart hurts sometimes.  It's ok to feel sad and be unhappy occasionally, but we must always remember to be grateful.  For so many things!  Trial are trials and sad is sad, but make sure to check your perspective.  It's so easy to see all the hard things or things that aren't exactly as we want them and focus on that.  Don't!  Have your moment, maybe shed a tear or two and then look at all the awesome things in your life!  Like that my son's face is burn free.  Life really is good, not perfect, but pretty stinkin great.

first day of school...again

It's official!  They are ALL back in school again.  As always, they were up  bright and early ready to go!  I, on the other hand, not so much.  Glade worked all night, so what was supposed to be our first day of regular routine was me doing all of it (driving, etc).  In the end, they all got where they needed to be and my first day a lone was beginning.  Sort of.  I had scheduled two visits for this morning, so I went straight from sending them off to driving into town for the visits.  I was done about 10:30, picked up some things I needed, met Jenny for lunch (haven't seen her in two whole weeks!) and got home about 2pm.  I tried unsuccessfully to take a quick nap, but the pressure of having to be up in time kept me from sleeping.  

They all had a great day, except Dalin who hates his English teacher.  She gave homework on the FIRST day!  Unbelievable.  Tonight is just as busy with scouts and mutual, so it certainly wasn't the organized, settled first day I would have hoped for.  Tomorrow is my Temple day so that won't be a stay at home day either.  I guess we'll have to wait for next week to get some order going. Ü

Bo - 4th grade

Katy - 2nd grade

Dalin - 8th grade

(he scraped his face on the bottom of the pool so got to start the year off with a bit of a mess on his face )

Last Day of Summer

 Today was our last day of summer.  Bo and Katy had meet the teacher this morning and then we decided we should go SOMEWHERE on the last day of school.  We finally settled on The dinosaur museum in Mesa.  It was a good choice too because in two days, they are no longer with the pogopass.  Grandma even changed her plans so she could go with us.  So we spent a little over an hour seeing what they had and then off to lunch.  We were in town so I decided we were going to eat somewhere the kids hadn't ever been.  They were all shouting things like Taco Bell, Subway, etc.  We ended up at Pizza Mart!  This is a little dump that's been around since I was in high school.  Glade grew up right around the corner and spent a lot of time here playing video games.  They always had $5 pizza.  The still do, only it doesn't actually fill up the pan like it used to.  Pretty comparable to Little Caesars.  They also had all the old games from the 80's.  It was fun watching my kids try to figure them out.  It was a fun day of things we don't normally do and NOT sitting around the house.

Eating pizza while watching cartoon network.  Very exciting conversation.

The museum had lots of "old time" stuff including a telephone booth

the old Mesa jail

More Random Stuff

We love having the missionaries in our home.  Some we love and some we like.  We loved Elder Mills.♥  We were sad to see him go, but are glad for him at the same time.  He had a tough companion and was a saint through it all.  We are planning to go see his family when we go to conference in October.

Sometimes kids get things in their head and just can't get past it.  These are the shoes Rhett just HAD to have.  We couldn't find them for a decent price anywhere but he really really wanted them.  So after several trips looking, some Kohl's cash along with a discount and him paying for half, he's the owner of the much desired new shoes.  I think he'll hate them, but far be it from the Mother to know anything. 

Sunsplash!  We used our pogopasses to spend a day at Sunsplash for free.  We stayed for 7 hours.  The kids had a great time, they did all the slides multiple times, didn't really have any serious sunburns or accidents.  I call success!  Chelsey and  Brynlee joined us for a few hours as well.  I have no real pics cuz you can't have your phone/camera in the water!  

This is just a little something that touched my heart.  I didn't get a pic the first time they all went up together which was a sweeter picture (they were all in a little bunch), but I just immediately saw all these little future missionaries standing up there singing.  Made me smile. 

We finally have baby chicks!  After 3 tries, we finally had six baby chicks hatch.  Unfortunately the mama had already left the nest when a couple of them hatched so she didn't claim them.  The other chickens weren't bothering them so we hoped they could make it anyway.  Nope.  My stupid dog dug under the fence and got the two that the mama wasn't taking care of.  I yelled at her pretty good, the rooster got a few good pecks on her and I tossed her butt out of the coop in a not very nice manner.  Hopefully that will be the last of that.  Now we have four babies.  

Super Saturday/ Birthday party/First Day

This last month I've been trying to get our Super Saturday Christmas in July activity together.  I'm really a cub scout leader, but was asked to help get this thing going.  Of course, I love Christmas so I was happy to oblige.  It really wasn't even a lot of work other than actually making the crafts we were offering.  I do NOT craft.  I'm sure there were much easier ways to get things done than the way I did them, but they got done and we had a great turn out.  We had a few mini classes, did the crafts, a light lunch and lots of visiting.  We even played Christmas music the whole time and no one even threw a fit!  (that I could hear).

That night we had Brynlee's first Birthday party at Chelsey's pool.  It was so stinkin hot!  This is the time of year I start to get grouchy.  I'm just done sweating.  But anyway, it was fun and she was adorable and she loved our gift.  Chelsey did some super cute things, the kids swam and ate pizza and Popsicles and in the end it was a huge success!

Sunday was the day before school starts for a couple of our kids so we didn't have the family over for dinner and just kept it us.  We had dinner altogether, talked about friends and how to be a good one and why it's important to stay within bounds.  Then Glade gave Brooklyn and Rhett a father's blessing.  It was a really enjoyable evening together.  I'm going to try to get better at having FHEs that are more purposeful.


Today I sent Rhett and Brooklyn out the door.  The other three are still here until Wednesday.  I like having a staggered start, makes it a little less stressful.  So the rest of us went to summer movies, the bread store, Costco and Walmart.  I've designed a new dinner menu kind of thing.  I'm hoping we can stick to it so I can be more organized and make shopping easier.  Both kids had a great first day!

                                     Junior                                                                        Sophomore

I Miss him!

Look at that face!  I can't hardly take it!  It's been about 6 weeks and mostly I do really well.  Then out of the blue, the tears flow.  It's not just about missing him, or wanting to hear his voice say "love you Mama"....it's so much more than that.  I've known LOTS of people who have served missions.  I mean LOTS.  And, yah, it's cool and good job and all that, but NEVER have I had the admiration and respect for a missionary like I now do for my son.  It's so different!  I know this boy...like KNOW him.  And LOVE him.  I know what he was before and what he gave up and what was in his heart.  I know his weaknesses and his strengths and fears and insecurities.  And I know his love for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I remember this wee little one who would talk about "when I go on my mission".  I see pictures of this grown up boy who is out serving the Lord because he WANTS to, because he believes it with everything in him and I'm overwhelmed with love and pride and awe and wonder at MY baby.  My baby who is really far away, doing hard things... with no Mommy to make it better.  Who trusts in his Heavenly Father and Savior Jesus Christ.  That same loving Father in Heaven gave me this special kid, to be such a blessing to me.  Yes, with all the pride and love and admiration also comes the heartbreak of not being able to give him a big hug.  Some days are harder than others.  But I'm truly so happy that he is so GOOD and so HAPPY.   For whatever reason, the last couple days have been hard.  I heard this song twice this week and both times it put me in tears.  It goes like this:

My time to give, my will to learn.
My story as the pages turn,
My time to live by every Word.
My day to love, my call to serve.
My urge to move as my heart stirs,
my work to do, it's my turn!
My day to let the truth be heard.
My time to give, My call to serve.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1b1idn2sRU   (That's the link if you want to hear it.)

Proud doesn't even begin to describe it and it's one of those things that I don't think words will ever do it justice and unless you have FELT it, you just can't know.  I'm glad there are more good days than weepy ones and I definitely need to NOT watch all the sweet "coming home" youtube videos!  Oy.