Is This For Real?

I wish this was for real but it's not. Madeline is only eleven months so she still has awhile in diapers. However, David is interested in going to the bathroom in the toilet so consequently Madeline is always there because David and Madeline are often together. I thought it would be funny to let her try. I think she was confused!


I am looking forward to the day when we don't have to buy diapers anymore!

I Need A Silent Night

I have discovered a new favorite song this Christmas season. The song is "I Need a Silent Night" by Amy Grant. I have never heard it until this year so I don't know if it is new or if I am just behind on new Christmas music. The song makes me think about all of the experiences and feelings that I love about Christmas. I have so many wonderful memories of Christmastime a few of the things that I remember and love about Christmas are;

1. Looking at lights with my family. As a tradition we picked a night close to Christmas and went around town looking at the lights. We tried to find the best houses for holiday lights. After looking at lights we would go home to hot chocolate and glazed doughnuts. I remember feeling love and joy during these outings with my family.

2. Every year when I was young Kevin and Bruce camped out on my floor on Christmas Eve. We got up at the insane hour of 2:00 or 3:00 am. The rule was that we could go downstairs and look at our stockings but then we had to go back to our room and not wake our parents until 6:00. After we had looked at the stocking loot we ended up in my room playing Holland Memory. Every year it was the same, we did not change games, always Holland Memory.

3. As I got older Christmas brought a few different memories, boys. I had my first kiss at Christmas time and often seemed to have a romantic interest around Christmas. I remember thinking hard about getting the perfect gift for the boy of that year. The gift needed to be appropriate for how I perceived the relationship not to serious, but still personal and thoughtful. Ah the drama!

4. I have a vivid memory of the Christmas of 2001. I had just spent the semester in Nauvoo and met a boy named Ben. We spent many hours together each day in Nauvoo. The semester ended and we went home about a week before Christmas. The day I flew home my family was so excited to see me. As we drove home it was bitter sweet, I loved coming home to the house that was so familiar and decorated with the magic of Christmas. However this year was different. When all my family had gone to bed, I sat in the dark next to the Christmas tree with only the lights of the tree on and sobbed. I had just been with Ben that morning and was used to spending a lot of time with him and he was no longer there. I felt empty and I was devastated. Now we are married.

5. Now that I am a bit older and have children of my own I hope I can show them the magic of Christmas, the excitement, the anticipation, the joy and the love. This year I am doing the 12 days of Christmas for our family. Each day there is a little gift that is wrapped and left on our porch with two rings of the doorbell. The kids know it is from me because I always include a note signed mom but I tell them my special helper delivers it. They are so excited when they hear the two rings of the doorbell and run to see what was left on the porch. I love the twinkle of excitement in their eyes and I love Christmas just like a child again!

The song "I Need A Silent Night" has helped me remember the joy that I feel around Christmas time. It is not the presents but the people. The quiet times at home with those you love. Feeling like you belong, you are loved, and you love those around you. I hope everyone can feel the magic of Christmas and enjoy a few Silent and Holy nights this Christmas season.

Merry Christmas and House Pictures

Once again, I have seriously neglected blogging. I get so busy having fun and keeping up with things that I don't have any time to document it. So, lately we have been doing a lot of fun Christmas activities including a tree, decorating the house, a gingerbread house, community events, ward party, wrapping gifts, making candy, watching Christmas movies, and enjoying Christmas Pajamas.

Last week Ben had to go to D.C. for training so while he was gone my mom came to visit. We had such a great time! She helped me get some projects done, we went on a walk, out to dinner, worked on her RS lesson, played tons of games with the boys and just had tons of fun! We love having grandma visit!

I love getting the kids Christmas PJs. Here is this years pick;
Jacob's PJs say "Chillin with my Homies"
David's PJs say "I'm one tough cookie"
Madeline's PJ's say "I'm Santa's greatest gift"

Finally we are done painting our house! It has taken a long time but it looks great now and feels so much more clean! This is our family room that is just off the kitchen four stairs down.

These two are in the kitchen, you can kind of see how the kitchen is attached to the family room

The kitchen is painted gray and I love the color.

This is the living room/office. Since we don't really have any living room furniture our living room is now our office and music room. It works until we can afford LR furniture. You can kind of see behind the LR is the dining room.

This is the entry with the ledge and new chandelier. We replaced almost all of the lighting in the house because the old was UGLY!

This is our room, it is the same gray as the kitchen which looks great in the bathroom with white linens.

Calcium Deprived?

Yesterday I bought a box of gogurt which I usually don't do so it was a bit of a treat. Unlike the box pictured, I bought the family size so there were 16 tubes instead of 8. I have seen two boys eating some and have told them no more or they will all be gone. I was surprised to look in the box this morning and see only one left, someone has been sneaking! This doesn't surprise me but 15 in one day! I thought this kind of eating didn't start until they were teenagers:)

Crazy Weather

This is a little old but I thought it was still worth posting. Last week we woke up to snow! Today is was in the high 60's! It is crazy how varied the weather is right now, you never know what tomorrow might bring. Of course the boys had to go outside and play right away.


Jacob wanted some carrots, I think he was going to try and build a snowman but the snow wasn't right for that. He ended up making what he called, Santa's village. Each of the carrots are a house in Santa's village.

Madeline wanted to join the boys outside but got to hang out at the door for a bit instead.

After they were done playing we sat by the fire, (which is so fun to have) I think we will have a great winter!!

Happy Birthday Jacob!

Jacob is 5 years old today. I can not believe how fast the last five years have gone. Jacob is a great boy who is usually obedient, thoughtful, and imaginative. Here are a few pictures of him over the years.
Jacob at 18 months old

Jacob at 2 years old


Jacob at 3 years old

Jacob at 4 years old

Jacob at 5 years old

We had Jacob's birthday party on Saturday. Last year he went to a Star Wars birthday party in Michigan and ever since then has loved Star Wars. He had to have a Star Wars party this year so I pretty much copied the party he went to last year, thanks Amy:) I made this cake of a fighting scene from Star Wars. I couldn't quite capture the volcano on camera very well, we had dry ice so it would smoke.

After the young Jedi's had been trained the door bell rang and Darth Vader was there to fight the Jedi's. Some of the kids didn't realize Ben was just dressed up, they kept talking about how cool it was that Darth Vader really came.

Here are some of the Jedi's receiving some training.

We ate cake and ice cream outside, I had the cake on a little kids table that was the perfect height for Madeline. She liked to eat all the crumbs and little pieces.

We had a great party and love Jacob!
Also, Jacob shares his birthday with my mom, Happy birthday mom!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

We have been busy with Halloween activities this past week. Last Saturday we went to "Trick of Treat Street" put on by the businesses in our community. The kids had a great time and we got a lot of candy that we were able to recycle at our wards trunk or treat last night! I think we will recycle some of the trunk or treat candy tonight:)

David decided he wanted to be an elephant this year, doesn't he look funny! We went to the zoo this week and he thought it was great fun to see the elephants and know that was also his costume.

The skirt Madeline is wearing was mine as a little girl and I thought it was the perfect shape for a poodle skirt so I added the poodle and made a little scarf, total cost; $2.50 that is the kind of costume I like!

As many of you know Jacob thinks that Star Wars is the coolest thing right now so of course he wanted to be Obi-Wan. I found how to make this costume on the Internet and it was the EASIEST costume ever made. He has been wearing it for the last couple of weeks to play in, go to the store, to a friends house, he loves it!

We carved our pumpkins two nights ago. Ben couldn't resist the M which he says is both for Mower and Michigan, he is still a fan even though they are terrible this year. While we were carving Jacob said, "Mom, isn't this so fun" I am glad he liked it.

Growing up my mom always made holidays so fun, so I am trying to live up to her legacy:) I made pumpkin pancakes for breakfast this morning. The boys really liked them, I think mostly because there were chocolate chips, who doesn't like chocolate for breakfast? And it is just what they need, to start Halloween day off with some sugar, whoops. I have decided that from hear on out we will have soup and bread every Halloween dinner so I am going to make the Zuppa Toscana soup from Olive Garden for dinner which is delicious! I hope you all have a great Halloween and happy trick or treating!

A Little Humor

This evening as I was cleaning up after dinner the door bell rang. I went to get the door and there was a sales man on the porch. Jacob and David were right there with me, he looked at me and said, "is your mom or dad here" I laughed a bit inside and just said, "I am the mom" So funny, I bet he was a bit embarrassed. I guess it is good I still look young!

Back to Life, Back to Reality

We have had a reality check this week. After three years of law school(that were actually quite enjoyable) and a summer of bar prep that wasn't too strenuous and then two months of no job, no school, no studying, Ben has now started work, bummer. A pay check will be nice but the hours he is gone just aren't very fun. Ben takes the light rail to work and since we only have one vehicle we all get to take him to the station each morning and pick him up each night. Luckily it is only a ten minute drive from our house. We pull the kids out of bed at 7:05 stick them in the car and then take Ben. It takes Ben about an hour to get to work, another bummer. He comes home between 5:30 and 6:00. I know those aren't terrible hours it is just an adjustment after having him around so much, which we loved! Now that it is the third day we are starting to get adjusted by going to bed earlier so that we aren't so tired in the morning. I am lucky to have a friend close by that helps me get through the days. We have a schedule of the week that includes, swimming, going to the park, and story time. We really like where we are living and are settling in. Ben is enjoying his job so far so I hope that continues! Below is a picture of Ben on his first day getting sworn in, doesn't he look official.

A Homeowner For Two Weeks

It has been two weeks now since we closed on our house. We have had a busy few weeks, it is a lot of work to move into a new house and especially a house that is dirty and needs a new paint job on all of the inside. When we showed up to move in a day later then we had planned on this is what we saw. Yikes! It was an odd day trying to not be mean to the guy moving out but still letting him now that he needed to get out, Now.

He took everything out onto the driveway and garage and sorted through his belongings because he could not fit everything on his truck. The day that we moved in he was outside until 11:00 p.m finishing packing everything in his truck. I felt a little bit bad because for me when I leave a house it is always a bit strange and I like to have that last walk through to give me closure, say goodbye and move on. It must have been really weird for him to leave with a strange family now living in "his" house. But enough was enough and he had two extra days then we had planned on so we had to give him a little push to get out.

Because he could not fit everything on his truck this is the lovely garbage pile he left us with. It took a week and a few calls to our realtor until it was finally taken away. I am sure that is a good way to make a first impression with your neighbors!

The day after we moved in Ben went to work painting the house. We decided to start with the kids rooms and then work our way down. I think the rooms turned out really fun! Ben is doing a great job at painting. He is almost done with our bedroom and then we will have four bedrooms, a hallway, and two bathrooms done. Basically the whole upstairs and then it is on the the main level. Here is a picture of Madeline's room.

This is the boys room. Both of the kid rooms have the same dark brown as the background and then the colored stripes and polka dots. Jacob likes his stripes but tells us they are not quite as cool as Star Wars stuff.

Last Saturday Ben was painting the play room and I asked him to come to Madeline's room for a minute, while we were in her room she crawled out without us knowing and crawled down the hall to the play room where there just happened to be a gallon of opened paint. What a fun discovery! She put her hand in and then spilled the whole can. Ben was really mad. We took a puddy knife and scraped up as much paint as we could and then I took a wet towel and tried to soak up as much paint as I could while Ben ran to the neighbors to borrow a shop vac. We poured water on the paint and then vacuumed the area. I was really surprised how well the paint came out. Here is a picture, the spot is in the door way and is even less noticeable now that the carpet is dry.

While we were working on the carpet I stuck Madeline in our tub because she was covered in paint and she would be contained. Here is what I found when I went to take care of her after we had cleaned up the paint. I think she knows she did something bad.

We just keep working each day getting a little bit more done. Ben starts his job next Monday and our all day long work days will be over. We have met some friends and are enjoying Colorado!

Housing Frustration

I am mostly writing this post because I have absolutely nothing to do, here is the story. We were set to close on our new house in the Denver area yesterday(Tuesday) at 11:00. Last Sunday evening we got a call from our realtor saying that the seller of the house was planning on moving out on Tuesday which is the same day we were to close and move in OUR house. We sorted things out and decided he could move out on Tuesday and we would start moving in first thing Wednesday morning which is today. We still closed yesterday at the scheduled time and the seller said he would be out by 10:00 p.m that evening. This morning Ben went over to the house because our POD was being delivered, when he arrived he saw the seller's moving truck still there with boxes and stuff all over the driveway. The seller came out to talk to Ben and said he wasn't going to be able to fit all of his stuff on his truck maybe we would like some of it, um no, it is all junk. Anyway, Ben saw in the house and noticed that there is still a lot of stuff everywhere, not boxes ready to be loaded but loose stuff. Frustrating!! So we called our realtor(who we really like) and he called the sellers realtor and the seller has two hours to get all of his stuff out, he ordered a POD to put the rest of the stuff in and then all of the junk he decides he doesn't want will be put on the curb and a garbage company will come pick it up tomorrow. Do you think he will be out in two hours, I doubt it. Even if he is the stuff will just be on the driveway and yard while he sorts it and loads a POD. Maybe next time he moves he will learn to be a little bit more prepared, but probably not. So we are all sitting here at the house of our friends parents wasting away time. Hopefully we can get to work soon. Oh speaking of work, if he is rushing to get all of his stuff out of the house do you think he will take time to clean it, hmmmm, I think I will be cleaning a house today. Lets hope our afternoon is better then our morning!

This and That

Get ready for a lot of pictures! We have been doing a ton of fun things this month and it has been really fun to have Ben at home without any school or work! A few days ago Ben and I went to Park City for the day without kids (thank you mom) we went to the Olympic village and watched freestyle skiers practice their jumps and land in a pool of water. I was impressed with their skill and how high the jumps were, it was a lot of fun to watch!

Yesterday we went to Payson Lake and had a picnic and then walked around the lake. Madeline enjoyed some crackers and turkey at our picnic, the bees were everywhere.

Jacob and David had fun hiking around the lake, they liked to take every side trail they could find.

Last week we went to Bridal Veil falls. We hiked up the water fall a bit and then came back down and played in the pool of water at the bottom, this was a fun activity we all enjoyed getting wet.




Last weekend we went to Idaho to visit Ben's family, we had a great time but I didn't take many pictures. This is David in Logan's football pads, to bad Michigan didn't do well at their game last week, maybe they need David's help.

At the beginning of the month we spent a few days at Bear Lake and had a blast! Jacob and David loved playing in the lake and floating on these little boats.

Thanks to my aunts and uncles we were able to have a boat ride and enjoy wave runners. David and Ben rode the wave runners together and David loved going "so fast"

Madeline liked the water and sand, she was always filthy!

I thought this was a cute picture of David and my grandpa.


Also not pictured because my camera ran out of batteries is my brothers wedding. I was really disappointed that the camera didn't work, it was a nice wedding and he married a great girl! On Monday we are off to Denver! I am excited to move to the next phase of our life and move into our first house.