back to the blog

     I have recently felt motivated to get back to my blogging.  More as a journal than anything else.  I love looking back over old posts, and I want to print out a book of them.
     We are now (as of July 2013) located in Albuquerque, NM.  Never thought I'd be here, but it's a good place to live.  Weather is milder than Denver and cooler than southern California.  It has a small town feel, even though it is a city.  We bought a home in the NE heights and remodeled it, perhaps I will post pictures of that later.
     Today I made three morning trips to the schools.  One for Emma, she had to be at school at 7:30 am for a band festival she is doing today.  Two for Ashley, who has student council on Wednesday mornings.  And three for Ashley, who forgot today was "sprint for spring" day and didn't wear running shoes.  Ahhh motherhood.  The kids are involved in many good activities and I am beginning to be a taxi mom.  I remember my mom telling me she should have a license plate that said TAXI, because that was all she did.
     Emma has soccer on Monday and Wednesday evenings, and stays after school for show choir on Tuesday and Thursdays.  Camille has drama club after school Tuesday and Thursday, and piano lessons on Friday afternoon.  Ashley has student council on Wednesday morning, and gymnastics on Wednesday afternoon.  Nathan has soccer on Saturdays and Taekwondo class on Tuesday evening.  Add to that activity days, mutual, scouts, homework, dinner, and keeping a house in order and it keeps us plenty busy.  I am very grateful to have the means to let the kids try all these fun things.  I think it is good for them to have these experiences.  Plus, Nate is so intense about Taekwondo and so cute in his uniform!

Update: Ashley's fhe

This is family classic right here.

Funny

Ashley was seriously excited tonight because she is in charge of the fhe lesson tomorrow.  She has waited forever, according to her.  The kids spent time after dinner rehearsing a bible story skit.  Justin and I laughed over FaceTime as we listened to them saying things like, "places everyone!" "And...action!"  

Then I called them in to talk to their dad.  They all excitedly talked about their parts.

Emma: I'm Daniel.

Camille: I'm the evil king.

Ash: I'm the angel.

Nate: I'm lion number one!

Some days they are so funny, and I am just happy.

Talking smack

Kids were rough-housing all afternoon. (Where did that expression come from? My dad used it.) I overheard Nate say to Camille while raising up his arm, "smell the power of armpit!"

The creeps

Ashley and Camille invited us to come to their Mexican restaurant this evening.
I ordered tostadas, and fruit with chili powder. Justin ordered "toquitoes," fruit with chili powder, and "creeps" for dessert. We all cracked up when he said it, but then Ash pulled it together enough to say, "ok, we'll try to give you the creeps later!"
Love it when the kids make clever comments.
When they brought our food, she got in his face and made a weird face. It was creepy!

Saturday morning

Sitting on the couch preparing for church tomorrow, I heard several loud thumps for the other room where Nate is.
I called in, "Nate, what are you doing?"
Nate says, "Ehh, boy things. Just finishing my movie."
He makes us laugh.

Post vacation blues

The days after a big holiday and long vacation are tough on moms. It takes a while to settle back into a routine, and in the meantime the kids are used to all day entertainment.

Wednesday was crazy--Emma, Cam and Ash all had friends over and our friends the Fraziers visited for a while. The house was a disaster, mess and clutter everywhere i looked. I took down the christmas tree, picked up a few groceries for my empty fridge, and by 9 pm I was beat.

Today was better. Emma and Camille got invited to friends houses, so it wasn't so crowded here. Ashley had a friend I love over--they play so well and don't usually pester me. Nate had a fun friend too. But I had time to do some errands and things around the house.

Now I'm sitting on the couch in pajamas thinking how great it is to sit on the couch in pajamas when the house is quiet.

Friday, November 2nd

Justin and I went to the temple Friday night. I'm grateful to live so close to a temple. We were looking for some answers. I'm grateful to feel I receive revelation when I am making decisions. We have been guided to make choices that have blessed our family.

Saturday, November 3

Had a birthday party for Nate today. October was a little busy...

I was grateful for a husband who excels in inventing games. I assigned him the obstacle course and he pulled it off without even breaking a sweat. He had them riding trikes and scooters, running in and out of soccer cones, and hurdling coolers. They loved it!

I'll have to come back later and add some photos--I got some good ones!

Sunday

I am in the primary presidency in my ward. I am in charge of sharing time for this month. I spent some time yesterday making personalized missionary tags for the kids in the primary.

It made me so happy to see those kids proudly wearing their tags. Nate came over to me for help putting his on and he told me, "Mom! I'm like a real missionary! I have a pocket with a tag on it!" Melted my heart.

I'm grateful sharing time went smoothly and the kids were engaged and excited about it.

Behind as usual

Today was a good day. I'm grateful my car passed the smog test--one less thing to worry about.
I had a nice nap this afternoon. I'm grateful to have kids old enough to look after themselves for a few hours.
I had lunch with a dear friend for her birthday. I am amazed by this girl. She has had some shocking experiences, but somehow is still tender hearted and always looking for ways to help others. Plus, she's FUN!
I'm so grateful to have a friend who I never have to feel inadequate with. I can be what ever I am and that is enough. A rare gift.

Happy November!

I did this a couple years ago, and it helped me enjoy Thanksgiving so much more.  It makes me feel happier.

TODAY, I am thankful that Halloween is over, and I am thankful that I didn't have any activities scheduled tonight.  It seems that each year Halloween gets harder.  It's so much work!  I'm grateful all the parties and planning are over, and I can put away the Halloween mess.  If only I had the willpower to chuck all the candy....

Anyways.  It was a beautiful day to recover from the chaos.  I helped in Nate's classroom this morning, did a few errands to get ready for his belated birthday party Saturday, and actually made a complete dinner.  Pasta with a creamy sausage sauce and steamed broccoli.

Nate calls broccoli "super-food."  I think he got it from his transitional kindergarten (TK) teacher.  He has been more willing to eat certain super-foods that he talked about in class--wuhoo!--although tonight he only nibbled off the tops of his broccoli.  Still, it's an improvement from the nonstop candy he has been eating for the last five days!

Spidey, who chose his costume early and never wavered.

Emma and her friend Brittany

Ash, who begged and begged for me to order this costume online.

Camille with friends Madison and Lauren.

Traffic lights

On the way to the movies Nate was explaining to Ashley how there are fruit loops in the traffic light that make it red and green. They are fighting, and when the red one is winning the light is red, when the green one is winning the light is green.
Ashley tried to tell him it was a red circle with a light, but he didn't believe her. He is sticking to his fruit loop theory.
Ah the workings of a child mind. Wow.

Graduates

Emma won the president's award, little smartie.  She gets top grades and school comes so naturally to her.  Lucky kid, she won't have to work her tail off as it gets harder.  But she has developed great study habits...far better than mine ever were!

 Emma has been so excited about the end of her year.  Yesterday she went to Disneyland with the whole sixth grade.  Where was Disneyland when I left elementary school?  She is gearing up to go into young womens, too.  Her birthday is not until August, but she gets to go to girls camp in June.  She keeps saying things like, "Father's Day will be my very last time singing in sacrament meeting," or, "Mom, this is my last time taking my backpack to school."  I just nod and smile.  I guess I remember that nervous/excited feeling knowing big changes were coming.

 My little buddy is going to full day school this fall.  (Assuming we are still living here, which I am for now.)  He asks me often about when he gets to go to the girls school.  He gets bored at home more now, so I'm excited for him to go, but I'll miss my little buddy.  I wonder how much longer he will still say, "snuggle time!" when I ask him what time it is.  We love our snuggle time.

Seattle is a cool city!

Volunteer Park

 View from the top of the water tower at Volunteer Park.

 Rhododendrons are the state flower.  They are all over and so beautiful!

 What a clown. :)

 The trees are huge!  It reminded me of the British Isles.

 From the top of the Space needle.

 Pikes Place Market.  I could do an entire post on this, it was so amazing.  The flowers were gorgeous and so cheap!  We saw them throwing the fish, they had a cool pasta shop and some really strange people.  I could have spent all day poking around there.

 Wouldn't be a big city without street performers right?

 So fun to catch up with old friends.  We ate good food, laughed so hard, and I wish I could go back this weekend!

Nate Dog...

We are getting ready for church and Katie is trying to convince Nate to change into pants that fit.

Emma trying to help says: "look how cute you little bum looks in these pants?"

Nate bends over sticking his rear end out at Emma and says, "Then feast your eyes!"

Just another priceless one-liner from Bubba.

A Night of Wonder

Last night was our stake's Christmas concert. There were multiple ward choirs and a children's choir that opened for the choir that Katie sings in. My job was to get there early enough to get a seat where I could see the girls (they were singing in the children's choir) and to try to keep Nate relatively quiet during the performances. I arrived about an hour early and had a great seat. But that was a LONG time to try to keep a 4 year old in check. About 20 minutes in he started getting restless and this was our dialogue:

Me: Nate, if you don't sit still you are going to mess up your hair. (he allow his hair to be done on Sundays only, but likes it to look good)
Nate: My hair looks handsome. If you want your hair to look as handsome as mine you should use Mommy's special stuff like me.
Me: Ok, buddy.
Nate: My hair is the most handsome of everyone in this whole place.
Me: Ok, buddy.
Nate: My hair is more handsome than that guy. (now standing on the bench and pointing behind me)
Me: Nate, put your arm down, it is not nice to point.
Nate: But Dad, look! (physically turning my head with his hands to see the guy sitting DIRECTLY behind us.
Me: Nate, shh, sit down.
Nate: That guy doesn't even have any hair!
Me: (Turning to the nice old man behind us) Hi, sorry, umm, yeah, he's 4.

Good news though, I only had 2 more hours of keeping him "reverent". He did pretty good the rest of the way thanks to the help of my iPhone. We only had one more outburst about half way through when just after a big finish of one of the songs he said over the quiet crowd "Can we go home now?" (not whispering) Overall it was a fun night with great performances.

A child's prayer

After we finished our family prayer the other night, Nate decided he wanted to say one of his own. It went a little something like this:

Heavenly Father, please help us to have another Haloween party so I can get LOTS of candy, please help my muscles to get really big, please help my dad to get home safely even though he didn't go to work today, and please help me not to have the scary dream where I am in the lake with the crocodiles, ...Amen.

I think that about covers it.

Halloween

I think I've mentioned that I love Halloween.  And this year was a great one.  I loved my kids costumes!  For once we didn't have the lamest ones!  Bubb watched The Nightmare Before Christmas right before Halloween and latched on to the idea of being a skeleton.  You should hear him say, "skel-eh-ten" with perfect pronounciation, it was so cute!  He was so proud of his costume and wore all parts of it, the gloves, shoe covers, and mask included.

We got the idea off familyfun.com for Cami to be a fortune teller.  I loved how it turned out, she looked so cute!

Her aunt Court was a fortune teller too, and came down to go to our ward Trunk or Treat party with us.

Emma was a witch.  She is such a teenager.  Her hat kept falling off, so she didn't like wearing it, and then she borrowed some random clothes from her friend and ended up not looking like anything.  It bugged me but she was happy.  Oh well!  At least I can post my favorite pic, haha!

The Elders quorum was in charge of the ward party, and they were supposed to all dress up like pirates.  I had fun penciling in Justin's moustache and soul patch.

They did an amazing job decorating the church for the party.  They had great music and everything, it was so fun!  And is Trunk or Treat not the best invention EVER?

Basherton wanted to be a jellyfish, another familyfun idea, but I couldn't find the stuff so we switched to Cruella at the last minute.  I think she turned out pretty cute!

Man I love this kid!

California...knows how to party!!

Justin scored some cheap tickets and we took Papa to the UCLA vs. ASU game for his birthday.  Brett and his girlfriend Lisa came too.  It was our kids first football game, and they ate it up.  We arrived early and got a great spot for tailgating.

Soaked up some rays.

I made the sliders and Papa manned the grill.

How lucky to see your first football game in a famous stadium.  We had such a ball.  It was so cold, but we brought lots of blankets.  We had to bribe Nate to wear his coat.  He says he never gets cold.

Nate clapped any time the crowd cheered, it was pretty funny.

This is Camille's favorite thing lately, EVERY time the camera comes out...