Valentine's Day, and more

For Valentines Day this year, we kept things quite simple. I want to save all the money we can for our future house! We didn't get presents and we didn't go out to eat, but the one thing that we will always do is homemade Valentine cards. It was wonderful! Tsadakah, being older and artistic, made very cute cards. Ellie's were all scribbles, and MIKE's were special! For Mike I did a few things that didn't cost a thing, like cleaning his garage for him, and other such stuff. For me he got me this flower! My favorite thing ever is a single long stemmed rose. I don't know why, but it seems more romantic to me than a whole dozen.



Can I just tell you how depressed I was when I found this!

I swept off all the chairs as best I could before I tried to clean them, but it was deep in the fibers and it just made a paste, uggg! I have to admit that this wasn't the first time that this has happened, but the other times it was when I was in the morning sickness stages and was laying around, but this time, it was all just me being non observant.

Tsadakah is still so in love with her littlest sister! She is proud of the fact that she can now carry her from room to room. Tsadakah said the funniest thing today, she said: "I changed my mind, I don't want to be an artist when I grow up anymore, I want to be a mommy..." Wow! I was feeling so proud and touched, and then she finishes by saying, "and have boobies just like you!" That is when I started cracking up!!

I took this picture because I wanted to try to get MiKaylah's teeth. She has 2 on bottom and 2 on top, but the ones on top are not the middle ones, they are on the side and it is so cute. It makes me smile!

MiKaylah is 9months now! She is confidently crawling and also standing all by herself. She can stand alone for 8 seconds! It is amazing because my other girls were barely crawling by 9 months. Maybe she will walk before her bday! yaya! She is so darling! She is still sleeping through the night. (knock on wood) and she is eating up a storm, all very different from her older sisters. It is so exciting! It is like having a first child all over again!

I

My little MiKaylah is such a cute little lover. She looks at everyone like she loves them so much and they are her best friend! She lights up as if she has been waiting all day for you to say hi to her! These are all pictures from my phone, which is why they are grainy but they make me happy! I learned how to add my videos too! yay! I love technology! ;0) so this lil film is of her eating her very first sucker. She makes me so happy! The way that she eats is adorble! My other kids were not such good eaters so this excites me. silly, I know.

pictures of house

Train Museum

We went to the Odgen train museum. It was real neat! The girls enjoyed the train. My dad came with us, which was a real treat! He is busy a lot so it was nice to have his time. Tsadakah liked seeing the trains going around, and Eliannah loved the little men, horses, and houses along the way. She wanted us to open the glass and get her a horse to play with. She kept saying, "I just want one!"
Tsadakah really wanted to play with the big train, but it was too cold. They only lasted five minutes on it. I was hoping it would last longer so that I could get more pictures, so here is all I got.

One of the things that I didn't know before was that the railway was built largely by Chinese people. It was cool to learn so many new things! We also visited the John M. Browning gun museum. I learned a little there. Then we went to Javier's (the original) one of my FAVORITE mexican resturants! yum! Then we went back to see the cars. I love old cars! They are so fascinating! I remember when Mike and I were engaged I used to get so excited whenever we saw one. He got into a habit of pointing them out just to watch me flip a lid. :)
Eliannah and I are making the train whistle! whoo whoo!
Okay, so this wasn't as much of a hit as it would have been if we had had three boys, but we are glad we did it.

Laurel & Hardy Party

Growing up, my favorite thing to do with my parents was to watch Laurel and Hardy. My mother laughs so hard at the silliness that there is now way to avoid laughing too! So since I haven't seen the films for a long time, I suggested this party. We all wore black and white and had pizza, while watching these wonderful movies! I was a night full of laugher and fun!
My sister, Leah, came with her husband, Troy, and their kids, plus some friends which was so much fun!

MiKaylah wont keep her bows on anymore. :( they only last 10 seconds before she pulls them off. *sigh, I guess she isn't a DIVA.

My Dad pretended to be Laurel and my mom pretended to be Hardy. They are a wonderful couple. Tsadakah and her cousin making silly faces.
Some of our favorite episodes which we watched were: Men O' War, Bohemian Girl (esp. loved the wine bottling scene), Comunity Hospital, and Sons of the Desert. There are so many more that we also love, but there just wasn't enough time. *sigh! How I love LAUGHTER, and how I love my family! I'm thankful to have support from them in doing such silly parties.

Sabath Humor

So Mike got mandetoried at work both Saturday and Sunday. It has been a long weekend! I feel tired and so does he. Looking at the silver lining, with all the overtime pay we will be able to pay a big chunk off of his medical bill that came in for his leg, that almost happened a year ago.
So rather than re schedule my Visiting Teching appointements, again, I decided to take them with me. Two of the women we teach are the kind of grandmothers who have lil glass trinkets all at a child's level! I mean come on! So on the way there I was drilling my kids about not touching things. I armed myself with a bag of candy and said that for every house we came out of that they didn't touch anything I would give them one.
My partner took it a step further and said, she is really mean and if you touch her things and break it then she will get mad at you. (This was a total lie because this woman is super nice) Then, just as we are pulling into the woman's driveway, Tsadakah says, "I promise to sit on the couch and not touch a thing. But I hope that Eliannah does and that she breaks it."
We were laughing so hard! The things kids say!

Another cute and funny thing that I wanted to share from a few weeks ago, Tsadakah's new CTR 5 teacher is Denelle Miner, my best friend here who we see at least three times a week for one thing or another. Needless to say, Tsadakah is familiar with her and calls her by name. Well the first day of church, Denelle took her aside and told her that she needed to call her Sister Miner while they are at church although she knows her as Denelle any other day. Then during class, Denelle called on Tsadakah, calling her Sadye, and Tsadakah said, "I know that you call me Sadye during the week, but on sunday you need to call me Tsadakah." :) Im so proud ofmy sweetie!

New year's Resolution

For a long time I wasn't sure if I was going to have one this year. I just kept thinking of tons of things that I needed to be better at and soon, I was overwhelmed! But then, on Epiphany day, (did you know that there is an epiphany day? I read it on my calender. I have no idea what it is, like is everyone supposed to get an epiphany on that day? If anyone could tell me, I'd appreciate that. lol) I got this...well...epiphany! It was a mental image of a tree whose roots, trunk, limbs and leaves all represented me inside.
So this year my resolution is going to be different than in the past. Instead of my goals being action oriented, like finish projects or keep house clean etc, my goal will be to have a make over on the inside. This is my tree soul:

1. Roots=Childlike
2. Trunk=Positive Perspective
3. Limbs=Adorable, Happy, Loving, Faithful, Forgiving
4. Leaves=all things that nourish or help accomplish the limbs.

The roots could not survive without the leaves and visa verse. I want to feel healthy inside my soul. The best me possible!

Of course the only way to be able to reach a goal is to have a measurable increments/actions. So I guess I didn't totally escape having an action goal. I have made these for each part of my tree, but I'm not going to go into them all because that would take too much time, but there is one that I wanted to discuss.

Love: I believe that we all only experience a sliver of the love that is available to us. If we were to draw nearer to God and experience His love more then we would be able to love our families with a greater magnitude as well. Sometimes we are afraid of how overpowering and strong true love really feels, like people in the bible were afraid of the angels who visited them. At first they were intimidated by the angels presence and don't understand it, but we as the audience knows that the angel is an extremely spiritual and good being.

Love is like that. We, or at least I know I do, shy away from opening myself up to the intense or overwhelming amounts of love. Like when I'm playing with my kids and I feel so in love with them that my heart feels like it is going to burst, it takes my breathe away so much that the intensity scares me, so I find myself using an excuse that I need to clean something or cook something. Its silly, I know! That is why it is my goal to be more loving. I want to embrace that love which I feel from God and then be a vessel of that love pouring it down upon my children and husband.