Mercy River

We had a stake Relief Society get together today with the LDS group, Mercy River. It was wonderful! My mom, sisters and I were able to see them at Women's Conference last year and so I was excited to see them again and hear their beautiful songs. They called it a Spa day and talked about all things spiritual related to that. It was adorable. They sang songs in between that fit in so beautifully. One of the ladies mentioned that in the Book of Mormon times they did not have massages. She said she knows this because they were always talking about their "stiff necks" - Hahahaha! One that stood out to me was one of them spoke about how as moms we do a lot of the same things every day over and over, like doing the dishes, laundry, feeding kids, etc. She said that sometimes that just gets old although it's necessary. As she was reading in the scriptures one time she read something that reminded her that among those things that have to be re-done over and over, that she needed to remember to do things that "stick" too. Like reading scriptures, praying, serving others. Those things always stay with you and make life happier and easier to do the mundane things of life. I'm so grateful I went even though it took up the whole day. It was very well worth it. Burke and the kids always have fun while I have my away time, also. He's so good to not mind letting me go away for things like this. :)

What do I want?

I was looking through our books today to try and get rid of some, I don't like taking up space with things that aren't used. I didn't get too far because I realized some of these books I wanted to give away might be good to actually read! I stared looking through one I had purchased a couple years ago called "Being The Mom". One part that stood out to me talked about how as moms we are so busy focusing on how everyone else is doing and juggling emotions of the entire family that we don't consult our own feelings and think about how we are doing. And by the time we are at our breaking point we don't even know it. She said that to get her out of this rut her husband told her that every Wednesday she was to go out and do something for herself. She was excited and left her house, went to the mall and wandered around, but didn't really know where to go! She didn't know what she liked to do anymore. She wondered what she liked and what she wanted, but didn't know. She had to do some serious reflecting back to remember what she liked to do. As she began to remember what she liked she brought that home to her family and used it in their lives. She realized she had even greater gifts to give them than just clean socks and hot meals. She realized those things are important to keep the house running smoothly, but also the importance of creating your own background as a mother "so that when the stuff in the foreground comes rushing at you like a tidal wave, you can handle it." I think most moms have moments like this in life where we have to step back and think about what makes us happy also and what keeps life fun for us too. As you know I love photography and crafting. I feel like doing these things helps my kids also to want to do stuff and create and think out of the box a little. I love that. So I do those little things and keep life fun for me too I think. I have really wanted to expand in my photography knowledge though and so yesterday I saw this ad about a class in Salt Lake for beginners like me. I talked to Burke about it and of course he said do it, so I did. It's at the end of March and I am SO excited. I haven't taken any classes for me since we've been married so I'm really excited. And I think it's good for our kids to see me doing something for me too and to see that it's good to continue learning through out life, especially for something that you love. So when I read this in my book this morning I felt good and like I made a good choice to do something for me and continue to become who I want to be while I am helping my kids to know who they are in the process. I hope they will always follow their dreams and enjoy life. :)

Sweet lookin' clouds

Sometimes I forget what I take pictures of. I took the pictures off of my camera and found these from last week. It's amazing how different the clouds look with a beautiful sunset shining on them. WOW!

Kaleb's Birthday

This year Kaleb wanted a Despicable Me cake - one of the little guys on it. Burke had some problems with a falling apart cake, but saved it and it turned out great.

He liked it. :)
We had a fun morning watching him enjoy his gifts - legos, wii games, movie, art kit, clothes, and spending money from grandparents. NICE! We had pancakes and strawberries for breakfast. Burke even made the pancakes shaped like the little minion guys also. He wanted to bring a Lunchable for lunch like Kaiya did. And he said it was SOOOOO good. Glad he had a fun lunch.
Kaleb has wanted a little book of Sally pictures. So I made one for him.
After dinner we sang and had cake.

Kaleb's sweet primary teachers brought him this HUGE heart cookie for his birthday. He was excited about that. I thought that was so sweet of them.

Kaleb is 9!

While I was tucking Kaleb in last night I told him about when he was born and that the Winter Olympics were in SLC at the time. As we were in the hospital and I was having contractions, he decided to do a flip - I blame it the Olympics :) - and so they had to do a c-section because he was now breech. I told him I was so excited to hear him cry for the first time - he was a bit confused about that, but I explained that that's when moms know everything is fine. And I was so happy to have him and hold him and love him. I found a few pictures we had scanned into the computer a while back when he was a little one:

One year old:

This is when we lived in Provo. We had FHE on the Temple grass sometimes. It was nice that is was so close.
I think he was about 6 or 7 months here? I love his cute little smile.
He's still got it:It was so bright outside so most of the pictures are like this - such a cutie! We're going to go out again when it's not so sunny. He was a good sport though. What a handsome guy. I sure love him.
Kaleb is so kind and loving. He has a very tender heart. He cares about others and doesn't like people to get their feelings hurt - or his own. He's doing so great in school. I'm so proud of how hard of a worker he is. I LOVE YOU KALEB!!!!! Happy Birthday!!!
I'll post more about birthday fun later. :)

Valentines Day fun

Kaleb's monster valentine box. I got to go and help Kaleb's class with their party. He likes me to sign up for this party each year because it's so close to his birthday. It was a fun day. I enjoy going and helping out when I can. Katelin does too. His class loves her to come too. They think she's a cutie, because she is. :)

We made Kaiya some heart hair, this is a different one than we did last year. We really like this one.

We made Katelin a skirt and matching bow with a fun tutorial on my friends blog Small Fry and Co.
The kids came home and watched a Chipmunks Valentine movie I got them for Valentines day - and ate their yummy candy from their friends. :)
And for FHE we played some games. Then sang some of the cute valentine songs Burke and I found for each other. Kaiya sang with me the whole time. She was loving it! When the kids went to bed, Burke sang me the rest of his. He had a lot. They were so cute, I loved every second of it. It was a great day!

Happy Valentines Day!!!

As the sun was setting the other day I had Kaiya run out with me and make her cute little hands into a heart. I tried to catch the sunset in the middle, but it didn't work so well. BUT her hands were too cute not to post them. So here you go. I'll have to try this again sometime. :) Hope you all have a wonderful day!

Katelin dancin' it up

Kaiya learned this dance for cheer camp a while back. She taught it to Katelin and so they would do it together for fun every once in a while. Then the other day while Kaiya was at school, the song came on and Katelin did the whole dance by herself! I didn't know she knew it on her own, so I had to record her. It was too cute. She is looking at her reflection on the TV while she dances. I don't know why, maybe she wanted to be her own audience?? I need to get this little one in a dance class.

CUTE Valentines song

I heard this song today while I was listening to Pandora and I just thought it was SO cute! I had to share. It is by Bruno Mars and it's called Count On Me. Burke and I are finding a song or two to share with each other on Valentines day. The plan was to sing them to each other, but now that we're both sick, I don't think that's going to happen. My less than solo voice, is even less than that now. We'll see. But maybe I'll just e-mail this to him for fun. Enjoy! :)

Kid food ideas

We are all sick over here. I mean, not just us, but the WHOLE town. Not even kidding. Strep, flu, it's not good. The kids have been out of school all week and now Burke today. We're coming out of it though, so hopefully they won't get it again when they go back to school! ANYWAY...I have nothing new to share...of my own. But I wanted to share a link of someone else's! One of my favorite blogs - Make it and Love it- has a kids food mini series with lots of cute ideas on how to help picky eaters by serving things differently - with recipes too! It is so much fun! I'm excited to try some things out. My kids aren't too picky, but hey it just looks fun to make meals exciting for them and do something different.

Check it out: Our Best Bites: Serving up kids food

Have fun!

Weekend to do's DONE!

Well, these weren't really PRESSING things, but things I've been wanting to do for a while. When we moved into our home, (3 years ago next month!!!) we painted everything, except the laundry room. So this morning I woke up at 6:30 - well the kids woke me up - and I had the painting bug - and so it began.

I found a BEFORE picture of when we moved in:

And today it looks like this:
And to the right:
I'm SO happy it's done. Sometimes during the day I'll just go in there and stand for a minute because it feels so good to have it done. And it's nice and clean.

And then I had these 3 canvases I found at our thrift store months back that I wanted to do something with. I wish I would have taken a before picture. They weren't so cute - they were white-ish with a different flower painted on each one. Since I figured out using my stamp rollers with paint (previous post) I had to do it again on these. So I made these for my craft room:
Here's an up close look at the roller stamp effect. I just can't get enough of it. I'll be doing this more often on things. I just love the extra cuteness it adds.
I'm tired now. Whew!

It worked!!!

I had an idea pop into my head and I just HAD to try it! So I decided to try it out on a little plaque for a friend. When life is full of "stuff" and she's a bit overwhelmed she always says "It'll be FINE!" And then we laugh and it seems to make everything better. So forever now I've told her "I'm going to make you a little plaque one of these days that says that". Well, I forgot and then yesterday she said it again and I laughed and told her again - I'm still going to make you that one of these days. So today was the day. I was feeling like crafting really bad. So I made her this:

But, the cool thing I wanted to try out is the decorative background part. I thought, "hmmm, I wonder if I used my stamp rollers with paint if it would work out???" So I tried it and um, yah it did. I love it! I need to go make something else!

I used one of these babies:

So fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)