My kids LOVE to eat the weirdest things, like frozen green beans and uncooked pasta, which makes me wonder why I make dinner in the first place. =D

Spring Cleaning

I actually love spring cleaning! I dedicate a whole week to it for the vernal equinox. I was going to do deep cleaning all day Monday, but things just got in the way and I barely got to tidy up by 2. It was a slow going start. Tuesday I had many interruptions throughout the day so i didn't really get to do everything I had planned or to get into a good long project. Wednesday I thought was still Tuesday (probably due to my lack of production) which really fouled me up! Good thing I had Mike around to help me. So I really didn't get to my cleaning until more than half way through the week!
The things that I cleaned were walls, windows, window wells, window screens, picture frames, and kitchen cupboards. I also spent many many hours outside in the beautiful weather cutting the grapevines. We have a wonderful Arbor and it was one of my favorite things about this house, but it was WAY over grown (probably 5 years since its been pruned) There is so much to cut and it is tedious work because I have to carefully examine each to determine whether it is possibly fruitful or not and then switch back and forth between my big loppers and little sheers. Come Saturday i still didn't have everything done that I wanted to do, so i will have to save cleaning the carpets and the couches and the kitchen chairs for later and try to squeeze them in her and there.

Other things that we have done:
Tuesday night we went to the Primary Pizza Party that the kids earned by being reverent. Mike was off so he was able to be there. It was nice to have him with us! I had such a great time with the kids. They had a parachute that they were having the kids shake and then run under. During one of the times that they wanted the kids to just shake it, MiKaylah crawled under and sat there with the parachute making her hair stick out all over with electricity. It was so cute I had to get video of it on my phone! The leader (who is pregnant) crawled under to save her when she noticed. I popped up laughing that I, her mother, didn't stop it but instead was just making a video. lol
My grandmother's sister passed away. :( I went to her funeral on Saturday. It was a beautiful funeral. I cried myself into a headache, but what a beautiful life she led. I came away from the service wanting to be a better person. I want to be a better wife and mother, and yet, I also was reminded that we don't have to be perfect in order to be deeply loved. They gave each family a book of her poetry written on the subject of mothering. It is so fabulous. I have enjoyed reading it. All my love in thoughts and prayers to you and your family, Maydene Brown Bodell.
My favorite moment of the week was taking the girls out to our circle to teach them to ride their bikes. This is no small task at all! They each need SO much of my help that we don't get far before I am tuckered out and I wanna go home. haha. But on this day Eliannah decided to abandon her bike and run along side use yelling, "You can't catch me! You can't catch me!" Then she would turn around and run...with her tutu stuck in her panties! hahaha I love my life so much! These fun girls are everything I live for. They are always with me and that is the way I prefer it to be.

St. Patty's Week

This has been an amazing week! On Monday I went to a friend's house and we made St. Patty's necklaces. It was something that Tsadakah really wanted to do, so I made it happen. I loved getting to know my friend Annie and her family better while having fun and making Tsadakah's wish come true. Annie also has 2 frogs, which Eliannah got to hold. She is obsessed with frogs so I thought that she would be over joyed and she did like seeing them, but holding them freaked her out! She dropped the poor thing!
On Tuesday night we had another girls night. It was oobers of fun! We had chocolate and played scum! I feel that we had a good showing and some of the ladies expressed that they were so glad to have a girls night for fun cause it had been a while and they needed it. After the game died down we talked until late. It was so great to get to know them even more!
On Wednesday I took Tsadakah to her all day Kindergarten early and stayed for the "Show What You Know" which is a short performance of the things the the kids have learned this term. They started the assembly by having the pledge of allegiance and ALSO singing the National Anthem! It brought me to tears to see my girl being patriotic. I am SO grateful for this school! I hope it never changes.
For the show she recited the first part of the Gettysburg Address! It is so awesome what they expect and what she accomplishes there. She did so great and I am so proud of her!

On Thursday night (well actually it was early afternoon) we went on a date! Mike took me to Sushi! It was yummy of course. My fav was the Mexican crunch roll. After that we stopped at Home Depot and picked out our new back sliding glass door! I am so excited.
Loved our little baby sitter that we had. She was SO cute about the girls, and she didn't just have them watch TV which is top notch in my book. But she left something at out house so after dinner we went on a walk over to return it. She wasn't home but her lil sister was (Addy is 10) and she played with Tsadakah, letting her ride her motorized scooter. She really likes my kids and she is so fun!
Friday we went to the zoo! It was something we haven't done for a while.

Made it home just in time for Tsadakah to get to tumbling. When I was picking her up, Addy was being dropped off and she went out of her way to make sure that she could say hi before we got in the car! So cute!

St. Patrick's day finally arrived! Tsadakah wanted everyone to be head to toe in green. She wore her necklace! Make sure to look closely at this pic so you can see it! :) Other than getting dressed for the day, it wasn't a day out of the ordinary at all.

This has been a week of blessings and fun! I am grateful for all that I am blessed with! We especially love our friends! Tonight (Sunday) Addy and her sister, Halee (our babysitter) came by and brought us fudge, just for the fun of it! Such darling girls! I'm so impressed with both of them! I really hope that these are lasting friendships!

Fun and Exciting Changes!

Change #1: Monday (03-05-12) I got a hair cut. It is very cute and I like it. I have yet to actually take my picture on the same day that I have done it so I have no pic to share, but rest assured, it looks good. I have had many compliments on it already! :) Thanks, Joy! I should also mention that it is not cut off short, just shaped.

Change #2: During FHE Tsadakah lost her very first tooth! Earlier that day I had noticed that her adult tooth had already emerged which really concerned me and I was like, that baby tooth has to come out! But it was such a busy day that I didn't think about it again until FHE. So for the activity (It was my turn to pick) I said I want to pull your tooth. She was so good about it. Sat still and didn't cry a bit! She was the most excited little girl! She made ANOTHER picture for the fairy, this time on the computer. That tiny little tooth is a treasure to me. Silly for being sentimental, but she's my first kid, so I think that is normal. :)

Change #3: Potty training at night. I was so nervous about this one because she is still in her crib so I was expecting the worst. She HATES to be woken up before she is ready so I thought that she would wake up screaming and then fight me the whole time I had to change her clothes and bedsheets. So:
Night one-wet the bed, but slept through it.
Night two-Wet the bed and woke up, but was super pleasant. She was so thankful to be changed into dry clothes that she didn't seem to be bothered and went right back to sleep.
Night three-Woke me crying. I went up expecting her to be wet, but she wasn't! I took her to the bathroom she went and then she went right back to sleep! How nice is that!?
It was so much easier than I thought it would be! She still has accidents at night some times but I am so proud of her ability to accomplish so much so little! :)

Wednesday we had 2 play dates. First, in the morning, my friends from Tooele came and we had lunch together. It was SO good to see them! Denelle asked me to cut her girls hair which I was happy to do. It is always a fun thing for me and they turned out so cute! Her youngest girl has gorgeous curls that I am jealous of, and I have curls! lol
Then in the afternoon we had some new friends from this ward come over. We did a lil craft together and it was fun! I was told that I am a "way cool mom!" yay me! We made butterflies out of construction paper and empty toilet paper rolls. My girls LOVED them. They played with them for 2 hours straight after that and then after MiKaylah got a hold of them and ruined them they begged me to make new ones! It just confirms my theory that children enjoy so much more what they have worked for than what they are just given.

And the biggest Change of all...Da da tada....Our new wood floors!
Aren't they beautiful! Mike is a super hard worker and he did splendid! He worked so hard on getting it all done in a short amount of time for our sake!


He bought some big power tools in order to do the job. He was so in love with these shiny new machines! He kept referring to this one as his new girlfriend. haa haa. Look at that smile, its like is was Christmas!

Taking out the tile was not easy! He started by chipping it out by hand, and that didn't take long to figure out that it was going to take forever if we did it that way! So he went to the store and found a $14 tool that got it up in no time. Whew! That was well worth the money!

He seriously worked so hard! His idea of fun is to work. He cannot sit idle! He is amazing! The things he has done for me in the years we have been married are all unbelievable!

Kayzli's Blessing

Kayzli was blessed by her dad, Devin, in Willard on March 4th. Becky organized the blessing up north for all our benefit and combined it with her twin brother who was also blessing his baby boy on the same day. It was a cute thing to do. The party was held at their parent's house.
This is just a mini group shot. Me, Cris, Jonathan, Stef, and Emma.

Tsadakah, Amila, Bella. Sadye just loves her cousins!

All my girls have been girlie, but MiKaylah is unique. She actually asks for her bow to be put in every morning and she is the most likely to still have it in by bed time. She loves chap stick and jewelry and she is shaping up to be a shoe-a-hoic. :) She sure is cute!

The brother-in-laws, chatting and having a good time. We sure will miss Brent!Blessing girl with her mommy!

She got passed around a lot cause of course everyone wanted to hold her. I am glad I nabbed this one because Devin's look is so candid! Our niece, Brooklynn, is holding her.

Kayzli's grandmother made her dress and it was very pretty!

What a special day!

A busy week!

My sister, Simcah, came with her whole family to visit for a night (mon-tues)! It was SO much fun to have her here. We ate Spaghetti and french bread and a big salad. Then we put the kids to bed and stayed up late talking, laughing and eventually watching Scrubs.
The next morning while the men were at work, we made bows. The kids stayed in their jammies all day and we didn't look any better (which is why I don't have pics of us:) We made a bunch of bows and I was very happy to be able to teach her some things and to learn from her. One thing she taught me was zipper bows! Isn't it cute?!
On Wednesday (Leap Day) my friend, Melonie, threw a play date-party. It was so great! She planned coloring pictures, Bingo, Leap Frog, Hop Hop Leap and Frogs In the Lilly Pond games. To top it all off she made darling frog cupcakes with green gumdrop eyes. We really appreciated the work that she put into it! It was so fun! One of the other guests gave each of my girls bottle of bubbles with a frog on the front!
KIA recalled 3 parts in my car. I made the apt 2 weeks ago, but one of the parts were on back order. :( I was frustrated, thinking we would have to drive out 4 times, but they took great care of us! They rented us a car for the whole weekend. It was so nice! It had a back up camera and warmed leather seats! It was almost too high tech for me. I couldn't figure out all the buttons! lol
We went shopping at Layton Hills Mall. It was so fun! Mike bought a suit and a hoodie. He looks good in everything we bought. I like this new suit so much better than his last one!
My father in law loves to go to Chuck-A-Rama every year for his birthday, so that is where we went. Lots of the family was there and I was really great to see everyone. My sister-in-law, Debbie got in some trouble though. Becky was throwing ice at her from 2 booths over. When Debbie threw some back it didn't make it and hit a stranger right in the forehead! Poor Debbie was mortified! She took her kids and left immediately. It was so funny!


My sister in law, Cristina is moving back to Brazil with her husband, Brent and their kids. We will miss them a lot! Cris is always a party. She gets things going and entertains well. She plans wonderful games and parties! Favorite memories from her get-together are karaoke and dance dance revolution!
For the last 2 years she has been selling these darling bows at the Quilted Bear. She does a great job on them. She gave these to my girls as a goodbye at their goodbye party.

Me, Stef, Carol. My brother in law, Scott, hates to have his picture taken, but he also loves to ruin pictures with bunny ears. I looked better in this picture than the one we took after without his hand in it, so Peace Out, Scott. Power to yo' people!

Sciotts beautiful wife, Lisa.

The whole shabang!

And lovely Cris! Love ya lots! We wish you the best of luck on your adventures there! May the Spirit guide you to wherever you are most needed!

February Finale

February was a fun month. I have done the things that I have blogged about throughout the month but I also wanted to touch on some of the things that I didn't share for one reason or another.

My brother, Gault and his wife Janet, added a new baby boy to their home! :) New life is always exciting. Although they live in Cali and we wont see them for months still we were very excited for them. He was the perfect addition to their family.

I volunteered for the first time in Tsadakah's class. I had visited her class for presentations and I have volunteered after hours, but it wasn't until Mike started swing that I was able to go to her classroom and help out. I love seeing how she interacts with the other kids and meeting the kids she talks about. They are all sweet kids and my heart is falling in love with them even though I have only been there twice. I used to want to be a teacher, I think those are the reasons I wanted to be a teacher, to connect with the precious little children. Have I mentioned before that I love her teacher?

More bows! Yes, as promised, pictures of the new various styles that I have been experimenting with. First, felt! I think that I enjoy making these more that I love the way that they look. They are just so fun.

My experimental. Still love the rosettes and I am trying to make my own style of the cloth bow.

I worked on this headband for a month! It took a lot of courage to do because I wanted it to be gorgeous but I was afraid my Rivkahness might ruin it.

On Valentines Day I didn't take pictures of my gifts because my ring needed to be re-sized, but here they are now. Mike got me a new ring because my original one was too big. I lot of people asked why not just get it re-sized? Well because we weren't sure things wouldn't change again. I know that some people wouldn't want to wear anything but the ring that was put on their finger the moment of their vows, but I like it. I new ring, new style, its fun! I hope I get another one in seven more years. ;)

I love my purses! I haven't had one in 5 years and I am LOVING it! I can't believe all the things I have been missing.

Other things that Mike accomplished this month were finding the exact banister rung for out stairs. (Before we bought the house someone broke in and kicked the rung out) It wasn't easy and we had to stain it ourselves, but now we know that our children wont fall through!

He also sanded and re-finished the front entry way. (previous owners dogs scratched it up pretty bad) It turned out beautiful too!