Grandpa

My dad is a pretty great man. He's simple in so many ways. He's not a man of the world, and has never sought for worldly riches. He worked hard to provide for his very large family and has served faithfully in the church all of his life. One of my greatest memories is the time he took to make us a hot breakfast every morning before school growing up. He'd wake us up at 5:45 to read from the scriptures, pray as a family, then we'd eat together before all of us went our separate ways for the day. I look back on that time and think of the safety he provided for us kids by doing this each day. I felt so safe at home and knew that my parents loved and trusted in God.

My dad is also just fun. Like, crazy fun. He used to call my mom on his way home from work on a Friday and say "I'm on my way home, why don't we pack up and take the kids camping!" He would do this all the time and I can say now that my love of camping and being in the mountains is because my dad made it a big part of my childhood. He used to whip up the yummiest dutch oven dinners, tell us crazy/hilarious bedtime stories, and could roast smores' better than anyone I know; even still to this day.

There's a few things in life that dad enjoys. Working, whether it be projects around the house, making his famous denim quilts, yard work, gardening, or building something, he's always doing something. He also always looks forward to having us all together. As crazy as it is when we are all together, and the volume can be deafening sometimes, I know he loves it.

The last thing I know that dad loves, almost goes without saying. Dad loves his BYU cougars! I think it's fair to say that he's a die hard! Mom is a good sport and goes to most of the games with him, but Nathan had the special treat of going to his first cougars basketball game with Grandpa. He was given pretty much everything he wanted. Hotdog, drinks, popcorn, candy. You name it, he got it.

Thanks dad, for being such a great man and for loving us all so much! We sure do love you.

We Love FLA

Monday's are kinda a big deal around here. It's probably the only thing we can actually get to on time because we can't WAIT to get there. One of the greatest parts of homeschooling is creating something you want for your family. The Family Leadership Academy is the best kept secret in all of homeschooling.

10:00 am class for Hannah and Nathan
Heroes in the Book of Mormon. It is just as cool as it sounds! Yesterday's hero was Lehi and his dream about the Tree of Life!
The kids did a faith walk which had plenty of bumps along the way. I was a deceiver and tried to get them to let go of the rope. Their only instruction was to hold to the rope and do not let go. Follow it to the end. It was pretty neat to see the kids huddle together on the rope and encourage each other to hold on and not let go. Those who did let go, were quickly encouraged to come back from their friends. When they were all done and gathered in their classroom, I was excited to realize that only a few drew the parallel of this exercise to Lehi's dream and the iron rod...until one little boy shouted out while one of the mom's was talking about this experience, "hey, it's like the iron rod!" Then all the light bulbs went on and the children understood the meaning of what they just experienced. Then, when we talked about how some moms were trying to tempt them off the rope, that's what Satan does. He tempts us to fall away from that iron rod so we can't make it to the tree of life. We pointed out how some walked the rope with friends who helped them to stay on course and still others who had finished the course came running around to help the rest make it to the end. Isn't that so how life is? We aren't alone are we? We have friends who are good examples to help keep us on the straight and narrow, and then we have others that we can't see, who've been here before and they too act as support and encouragement. It was awesome! Loved it!!

 Here's Hannah coloring a tree in her copy of the Book of Mormon to remind her of this story and of Lehi; a true scripture hero!

12:00 Nathan and Abigail have Geography. This day they flew to Fiji and now I really want to go to Fiji with my whole family.

12:00 Hannah has a jump rope class and it kicks bootie! No picture
1:00 Hannah has Polkadots. It's a singing and dancing group of adorable girls. Here they are practicing the song "Sisters". They'll perform it for some elderly at a nursing home soon.

Nathan has a exercise class. He doesn't love it.

Abby's class is called Nibble and Scribble. And that's exactly what she does. Good fun!

2:00 Hannah has a craft/sewing class. They just finished a cross stitch of a little dog and their newest project is a pillowcase that they will donate to a hospital for children with cancer. Love that she's learning these things.
Nathan has Legos during this time and he's in heaven! He loves everything about this class.
Abby goes to Five in a Row. A fun class where she's read a book to while eating a snack and then they do a fun activity that goes with the book.

Our last hour Hannah is taking a Great Women in Literature class. Yesterday's class was on "A Little Princess". Taught by a mom and daughter on the attributes of a princess and specifically Sara in this book. So good. So good. So good. Then the girls were given a craft to make; mirrors that they could glue jewels on to make into crowns so they could see themselves as princesses all the time.

Nathan stays in Lego's and Abby hangs out with me or Nathan, depending on her mood. Then we pile back in the car, Joe crashes before we even make it out of the parking lot and I sigh another huge sigh that we made it through another Monday and my heart is full to the brim of the bounty of goodness that comes to us from these wonderful families. The other moms have become some of my greatest friends and biggest support to me. And each time I'm with them, I try really hard not to be sad that my time with this group is coming to an end at the end of this school year. Wish they could all move to Idaho with me!

Chubby Hands

Don't you love chubby hands? I do. Like, I really love them a lot. I love when those chubby hands take hold of my finger and walk with me. Or when those chubby hands grab for something, anything. It's the first thing I miss when my babies start thinning out.

Joe still has plenty of chub on him and I don't see him growing out of it anytime soon. He's handled his baby sister much better than I thought he would. In fact, he's down right sweet to her. I'm so glad he's still my baby too.

Holland is 2 months

"The Spirit beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God." Romans 8:16

This cutie patootie is growing, but fortunately not too fast. 

weight: 10# 14.5oz 26%

length: 21.7" 9%

head circ: 38.5 cm 44%

She's cooing, rolling over from tummy to back, smiling, and sleeping enough for me to not be a grouch. I love her to pieces!

A New Year

I'm a fan of new starts. New goals. New adventures. Starting over. Yes! 2013 was a pretty great year overall for us. Highlight of course was giving birth to Holland and having her apart of our family. She is the perfect medicine for me. The calm I needed in my life.

Aaron and I both are goal oriented people. We write them down and look at them often to keep ourselves in check. We've been able to check quite a few of our personal goals off the list. For FHE this week we talked to the kids about goals and asked if they wanted to set a goal to work on this year. We encouraged their goal to be something that was in line with our family motto: Live to Serve, Learn to Achieve, Listen to Love. This is what they decided.

Hannah - "To serve Nathan so my relationship with him will be stronger".
Nathan - "Exercise and run in a race with dad".
Abigail - "Learn to ride my bike without training wheels".

I was pretty pleased with their choices. And they were their choices.

I have a slew of goals for myself. Most of them have to do with homeschooling and reading and becoming a better mentor for my children. I'm taking a reading and writing class this semester at our Family Leadership Academy. Our first assignment is Cymbeline by Shakespeare. I read a plot summary and was totally lost, soooo it should be a good challenge for me.

Here's to a great 2014!

My Favorite Part of the Christmas Season

(FYI: this is going to be the longest post in America!)

I've been thinking all day what I loved most about today? Then I realized there's been a whole bunch of things that have been my favorite things this month.

We made Christmas gifts for the kids friends out of their old, crushed crayons. Perfect way to recycle and 100% free!

Aaron read books to the kids and he's about 1000x's better than I am with voices. Even I can't help but to be totally pulled in.

Celebrating cousins birthdays. In this case it was Eliza's. And this is pretty much how pictures look when we try to get 18 month olds in them.

Our beloved fairies returned this year as usual. Hannah was practicing her close up shots of them. And also of our wall of Christmas cards at the beginning of the month.

I caught some first smiles of this cutie!

And I tried really hard not to be too sad when Abby got her first "real" haircut to even out some lovely bangs that Nathan didn't quite get right.

Insert the word "wee" in this next picture by an adorable 19 month old little stinker!

And go ahead and stare all day and imagine kissing this little angel, because I sure can't get enough of her!

The fist day of Winter break from school, Susan, Me, and Mom took the kids to see "Frozen". Um, it's pretty much adorable, but not nearly as darling as when Hannah started singing right along to the theme song in full voice! She kills me!

December wouldn't be December without Grandma's cookie party. I LOVE to see the kids creativity as they decorate those cookies.

I'm more thankful all the time for my parents gentle way of instilling in my kids what really matters at Christmas time. Here's my dad reading a story about President Monson when he was a young boy and the lesson he learned about giving.

I relish in my kids art and their love of expressing themselves in this way.

And today was just about as perfect a day as a day could be. The kids woke up, were totally and completely amazed by the Santa picture we captured last night and bouncing off the wall with excitement at all of their presents. Even though we got little to no sleep last night, we were bright eyed because of their excitement.

And even though Aaron spoils me every year and always goes WAY OVER BUDGET on gifts for me (which of course I secretly love), my favorite gift was given to me from Hannah because it was truly made from her heart. Do I really deserve her love? She asked me many times during the day if I really do like it. If she only really knew how much I do! (I had to crop this picture of me because well, it was just a bad picture). 

We had a relaxing morning. The kids played with their knew toys while I made our traditional Christmas breakfast of Egg-ala- golden-rod. Yum!

Aaron's favorite gift were these HOT jammies from his grandma. The kids were truly confused! I LOVE them!

I don't think any of us changed out of our pajama's until the late afternoon. Aaron was busy putting on puppet plays and target shooting.

And Joe spent most of his day on his tractor saying "bye" to me and blowing me kisses. Seriously? Melt.My.Heart.

At one point during the day I got emotional as I realize how blessed I am. I have this man who I love fiercely and he loves me equally in return. My children are beautiful and thankful. We have been given much and I'm humbled by our blessings. We aren't without trials, that's for sure, but we are buoyed up by our Savior. I've been touched this month as I listened to beautiful renditions of Christmas music and watched Christmas movies that had a purpose to draw me closer to God.
So I don't have a favorite part of Christmas this year. I loved it all.