sacrament

okay-so i left church feeling rather beat up. we have had numerous talks about sacrament meeting. first from Elder Oaks in conference, then from the stake presidency, then from our ward and then today we had a relief society lesson on Elder Oaks talk. well i have loved hearing what all the speakers had to say and think it is very important since it should be our most important meeting. but our relief society lesson turned to how noisy our sacraments are and quite a few of the older sisters kept talking about how they never brought toys or activities or food for their kids-and even some of the younger sisters kind of said the same thing and i was getting grouchy with all the talk about everybodys "perfect" kids in sacrament-because mine aren't! and i was starting to feel like maybe i wasn't invited anymore. well i seriously was kind of grumpy by the time i was heading home and then that night as we were reading the scriptures a scripture totally popped out at me from 1 Nephi 16:2 "...wherefore, the guilty taketh the truth to be hard, for it cutteth them to the very center." i thought back to my bad feelings and realized i needed to be humbled-i sometimes have a hard time being told i am not doing things the right way or even that i could do them better. so we will be having a family home evening to try to work on our sacrament behavior!

jack sprat

every month for pre-school koy learns a little nursery rhyme...this month was: jack sprat could eat no fat his wife could eat no lean. but koy goes around singing: pat pat could eat no pat his wife couldn't eat pat too! we all think it's too funny:]

105.5 the hawk

so the other day we are driving and brooke says, "mom-turn it to 105.5 the hawk" and i said "where did you hear that?" she said, "it always says that on the bus!" this is one of those moments that made me realize how quickly my kids are growing and how they are being influenced by the world...i mean she used to only ask to listen to things like "the wheels on the bus" or "snuggle puppy"!

movies

this was my stack of movies to put away after hunting season-that's one thing i kinda like when kent is gone i can stay up and watch my movies and get some stuff done because i don't like going to bed without kent so i stay awake as long as i can...my favorite movie "emma"-i probably watched it 4 times.

kelsi's check

kelsi put a scrapbook page in the fair for 4-h...it was super cute-and she won an outstanding ribbon which we thought was pretty cool, but when we picked up her page we found out that she also won some money, $10. well kelsi was pretty excited especially since this was her first check:) we went to the bank to cash it and kelsi signed the back and all...on the way home kelsi said,"that was fun-do you think when i babysit for you, you could write me checks now?"

november in review

at the beginningof november we were made into a new stake: henrys fork stake- we had some more good reminders of not letting our busy schedules keep us from the most important things, mainly the gospel-teaching our children and sharing it with others. i loved Elder Hammonds (he's my very nice dentist) talk about when he lived in Alaska and would watch the cariboo or deer migrate and the wolves would wait on the sides ready to pick on a weaker one on the fringe and he likened it to us and our own testimonies:are they strong enough to be in the middle of the pack or our we living the gospel on the fringe, where satan has more power over us...and he told the story of the girl in his class who was having a hard time taking out her second pair of earrings ( a question that had come up with kelsi earlier this year) anyways the girl attached her second pair of earrings to her test paper and wrote to Elder Hammond that she wouldn't be one of those whose testimonies was on the fringe.

we also had our presidential election this month-our first black president was elected, President Obama-this election was talked about alot and even my kids were into it, so when they learned that who i had voted for didn't get elected they were a little worried but i told them even though my opinions differ from President Obamas on some issues, i assured them that he was still a very good and inspiring man and we should always pray for all of our leaders.

For scouts we visited the museum and got to learn about indian heritage from Wesley, Two Eagles-i had to include this picture for kaden because it is his favorite now because this was when he still had his Harry Potter hair and if you look closely at the stick he is holding...it looks very magical- LUMOS!
and according to kaden you can't prove that magic doesn't exsist!
this is the only picture of koy's birthday-there is a reason, he got what i think was a clogged tear duct so his eye swelled up like quazimoto...plus it was a little (lot) busy with 10 little boys at our house but it was a happy birthday!
this is koy when he is about 5 months old-i thought i would write just a little about what i remember when he was born: kent had left to salt lake for a trade show for trendwest, i was feeding the dogs and running back into the house and my water broke-i of course am crying when i come into the house, yes that fast...i'm terrified of having babies. well kelsi asked me what the matter was and i said i just don't feel well. i went into the bathroom to think things over...in no time all the kids are outside the door because they know i never lock the bathroom and something must be wrong. i came out and called kent, he started his trip home and i prayed that this would be my longest delivery (that sounds crazy). i called diane to watch the kids and she appeared (seriously) in seconds,it seemed and she brought todd to watch the kids and she said she would go to the hospital with me-i was very happy to not be alone but also nervous, because i am not very brave and a big baby! when we got to the hospital i was not even dialated and the nurses wanted me to walk around and get my labor more started and i said my husband is not even here and once i start it goes fast-they still looked at me funny, even after i've had 3 kids? anyways i held off on the epidural for as long as i could and after i got one i did start progressing fast and they called my midwife, helene-i was a little nervous and i'm sure diane (what a lifesaver) was too and kent came right when i was to start pushing. my epidural was wearing off and they said the anesthialogist wasn't coming back around for another hour...so i panicked-i told helene that i couldn't do this and she assured me i could- i also remember telling her over and over he was stuck. but he did come out, i pushed for about 15 minutes-my whole labor was about 7 hours (my longest). i can remember the nurse said "wow, he has such a big cry!" little did we know we would hear that big cry lots...koy was a hard baby, a very hard baby! i read this quote in a magazine and cut it out: some of us don't get "easy " kids. we get the challenging ones. a little more is asked of us. no doubt someone upstairs believes we're up to the task. i have since realized that Heavenly Father knew just who to send me, i have often questioned why koy was so challenging for me and it just didn't seem fair...but about 2 years later i received an answer to my prayers, i needed to learn to ask for help-plain and simple, but not for me-i have a hard time asking others for help and i wouldn't have asked for help unless koy was so overwhelming for me. i had already been given kelsi to learn this lesson-failed! i had already been given brooke to learn this lesson-failed! then koy-i passed...i had to ask for help from alot of people: sometimes friends, sometimes family, sometimes my kids, sometimes kent, but mostly my Heavenly Father and he did help me! i love koy and have the efforts to prove it:)
we had a fun little girls retreat up at my friend tammie's cabin-it was lots of fun and very relaxing. kent is always so good at letting me have my breaks, i had bought the movie "kung fu panda" for the kids to watch while i was gone and this was the game they invented when i came home...
i love these kind of games!
we visited the nursing home and delivered some special turkeys-we were informed that we can't do this anymore without training. we will miss our older friends.
thanksgiving was pretty quiet at our house-well i take that back our house is never pretty quiet...we had yummy food-the best fried turkey ever, thanks to kent. i even hit the after thanksgiving day sales...it wasn't even that bad and that is from a non-shopper. then that night we put up our christmas tree-i love christmas!

teachers

for family home evening we have been going through the - for the strength of youth booklet - kents mom gave us a neat little study guide to go with it and since kelsi is going into young womens soon we thought this would be good, so we were talking on the section about friends and we started discussing a quote by President Joseph Smith:
"It mattereth not whether the principle is popular or unpopular, I will always maintain a true principle, even if I stand alone in it."
and one of my kids said but really we never stand alone, my primary teacher says that our Heavenly Father and Jesus are always with us. i am so glad that my children have such good teachers- and even though i'm sure they wonder if anyone is ever listening, especially my kids:) they are! two teaching moments that i can remember most is when i was in primary and our singing leader was trying to tell us of the importance of singing and i can remember her saying that when we sing we are showing our heavenly father how much we love him and he gave us our voices so he wants to hear everyone...now i always sing no matter how i sound, and i know it's not great. and i can remember a lesson in mutual about how our future children are watching us at this moment and that they are rooting us on: for me alot of decisions that i had i would really think- would i want my kids to see me do this and i just really didn't want to ever disappoint them!

i'm not going crazy-yet!

so for a few days when i would be driving in my car i thought i could hear voices- i would tell the kids "ssshhh, did you hear that?" or i would turn down the radio and see if i could hear anything, i even rolled down the window once because i thought it might be someone outside yelling. well the other day kaden and i were driving and he said, "mom i think i heard a voice." and i said "me too! i keep hearing it." well he started looking in the jocky box and there was an unopened mcdonalds toy that must of got turned on and occasionally when we would stop or go over a bump- it would talk. so hip hip hooray...i'm not going crazy!

koy fish

koy wanted a coi fish, so instead of the 28 cent fish at wal-mart we had to get like the $3.00 fish-koy's fishes never last long...i think it's all the shaking the bag gets on the way home:) so of course it died in a couple of days, well the next family home evening we were talking about how we can all be in heaven with the ones we love and kelsi, my animal lover asked if we get to see our pets that had died and i said that i thought so and koy piped up, "yeah, i get to see my coi fish." and we all kind of laughed and then he said, "is the toilet hooked to heaven?"

message board

i love my message board in my kids' bathroom...i copy little quotes or messages to them and then they will also write messages to me, mostly kelsi but i still love when brooke or koy even leave a little scribble: i know that means "i love you" in their own way! my mom used to leave messages for us in the bathroom too:)

puzzles

koy started to make all the puzzles during conference and stacked them all over the table, he wanted to save them because grandma anderson was coming the next day to visit and he wanted to show her. i had to take a picture because two things came to my mind:
1- that all my kids were old enough to leave them out and they wouldn't get all wrecked and
2- when i was little me and my brother monte would do all our puzzles and spread them out all over the ping pong table-what fun!
also i forgot to write how wonderful i thought conference was...we have such great leaders, my favorite quote by our prophet-President Monson:

"FIND JOY IN THE JOURNEY-NOW!"

october in review

well for the start of october we were in potato harvest-we were trying to figure out some fun stuff to do and of course my kids wanted to go to aunt christys house...i don't even think disneyland could rival aunt christys house to my kids. so we decided to stay a night-which turned into two. while we were there we wanted to get some potatoes from a "nearby" field, which turned into an adventure of it's own. we all piled into a little hatchback car that christy had on loan, while hers was being fixed: 9 kids, 2 adults, and 1 dog-daisy (you can't really see the dog but it is there behind kelsi's hand)
so we head off to the "nearby" field-christy has directions but for some reason we can't seem to find where they are digging the potatoes, so after about 20 minutes of driving the kids are getting hot and squished, well we pass a freshly hit skunk and the smell is too much and tyrel pukes in the back-the dog starts eating it, we hurry to the side of the road and everyone piles out, tyler then gets sick also. so christy takes the back part out and dumps a water bottle over it to clean it up...we pile some potato bags on the wet spot and pile back in. the smell is too much for everyone so now we have to drive with the windows down, which lets in all kinds of dust from the country roads. well the kids are getting kind of antsy by now and i have to admit i was getting car sick too. so we decide to go back to christys and call and see if our directions are right...we get new directions and head back out, just to drive around for another 20 minutes-lost! well christys older boys start teasing her about how she could get lost going to the mailbox but christy never lets anything get her down, she just said "well we haven't had a nice drive with our cousins for a long time." i love christys attitude, she can always see the positive in any situation:) we never did pick any potatoes but christy sent us home with plenty.
we made some potato people, one of my kids favorite things to do. but some how they turned a little crazy this year and this is what we got...
they were so excited to light the matches and fireworks on fire that night and "roast the marshmellows".
they had fun!!!
kelsi loved riding her ripstick all through christys house on her hardwood floors, another reason why they love aunt christys. we really had alot of fun-thanks aunt christy!
lisa marie brought us back some apples from her trip to boise...the kids love to help me dry them-kaden usually does the peeler/corer, but he shared pretty good. koy and brooke pretended to be like lady and the tramp when they eat the spagetti...
they would laugh so hard when they would kiss at the end!
i loved this cute little apple we found in our box of apples-lisa marie said meg picked those ones-so i loved it even more, it was in my window until it shriveled.
this was a crazy zucchinni from our garden-we called it the swan.
brooke had to make a monster for her kindergarten class-it turned out so cute, i love doing projects like this with my kids-they're so creative!
the day before the kids had to go back to school-we decided to go to leo's in idaho falls...we were especially happy when our daddy came with us, these kind of noisy places are not his favorite but the kids love to be with their dad!
i think he liked it too-even though he'll never admit it!
we had a straw maze right through the field this year-so it was fun to go with the kids, we made it through twice in the light but we never did find the end in the dark. we went back when it was haunted with monsters-koy came this time and he was so funny, he would not let me put him down and when one of the monsters came close to us he just stared at him and then he raised his hand and said "hi there". he still talks about the monsters- he'll say remember that goblin wanted to have me for dinner.
kent left the water on in the pasture-i thought it was so neat looking...koy went out there and karate chopped all the weeds down.

then we had halloween-with lots of fun activities: carving pumpkins, the nursing home carnival, class parties, a new carnival at rexburg motor sports, and the church trunk or treat.

kelsi was a football player again-this is actually last years picture, i didn't even get one of her this year. i think this is the 4th or 5th time she's been a football player but she told me this was her last year to dress up and trick or treat because she would be too old next year:(
koy was a power ranger:as he would say 5-2-8 activate!
brooke was a cute little "snappy" poodle-i had bought a hippie costume last year for cheap and she was suppose to be that but she said "what's a hippie?" i said like on scooby doo-but then i thought maybe you shouldn't encourage your kids to be hippies so i said "what do you want to be?" brooke says, "a poodle" i said, "do you know what a poodle is?"

she says, "yeah, it's what sirri is!"

kaden was the boy who lived-harry potter. we even dyed his hair black. he loves his costume (thanks mom for the scarf), he even puts it all on to read his book-he's currently on harry potter 5...his third time through the series. on a sad note: just yesterday i cut his hair and he has been growing it out since like may-i like it short, he likes it long...but i did feel bad because he cried when he saw how short i cut it, sorry!

i love scouts

okay you caught me...i love scouts!
-i love my yellow shirt (thanks dad)

-i love the whole silly scout humor
-i love the marking off goals and earning badges
-i love all the activities,especially making cool stuff out of garbage
-i love acting like an 8 year old again
-i love being kaden's leader
-i just love scouts!

this was a way fun game we played at pack meeting, called toxic waste.
i do need to learn how to be a scout though-this was me and kara's fire up at swim camp...we thought we were just brilliant by having the kids get all the tiny dry little dead sticks and fill the whole fire pit with them and newspaper, it was keeping them busy...

well: we almost burned down all of green canyon...it was so flaming-ashes were flying everywhere, oops!

september in review

well i got a new camera and i love taking pictures with it-no more weird colors:^)but now i have the crazy computer thing where my computer won't recognize any of my new pictures...so i was all caught up and ready to do more of a weekly post but now i will probably have to wait for a new computer-thanks to lisa marie she let me come and download these pictures on her computer.

koy started pre-school this month with mrs.tammie(all my kids have had her and she is amazing). koy is a little different than my other kids and since his birthday is in november he won't go to kindergarten next year,but i wanted him to be in pre-school with his church and neighbor friends. all my other kids when they started pre-school knew the abc's, numbers, shapes, how to write their names, etc. but koy really knows very little and could actually really care less. so we were doing some flash cards of the alphabet the other night and he was just pretty much guessing at every letter...then brooke showed him the letter m and he says "that's a mcdonalds sign!"
the kids all got on their cooking attire to help me cook sunday dinner...they love to help in the kitchen-i actually really love when they help too:when everyone is helping it's not so boring for me to be in the kitchen. kelsi can pretty much make anything now from a recipe-that might be dangerous for me, i might put her on cooking dinner every night...then it might get done!
brooke is such a smarty pants-she came home from kindergarten the other day and asked if sirri could come over and play-i said she could and we would call her in a minute...well next thing i knew brooke had out the ward directory and was dialing the number all by herself.
brooke had a little friend land on her at kadens football game...

i love her cute new toothless grin-i really don't like grasshoppers though!

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kaden had a little dillema after school a couple of weeks ago-there was another boy pushing him around and trying to take his book. kelsi happened to be walking down the fourth grade hall and saw what was happening and went in to tell his teacher but there was only a substitute who said "i'll write a note for the teacher"-what? so kelsi held the other boy back and told kaden to run to the bus. kelsi was staying the night with a friend in sugar city so she called me and told me what had happened-of course i immediately started crying and worrying how kaden must be feeling...the bus ride home is an hour long, which took forever! i thought he would get off the bus all sad and distraught but he came off the same old happy smiley "hi mom" kaden. i asked how his day was and he said "great" i told him that kelsi had called me and told me what had happened after school-he said well colby, the mean boy, was joking around at first picking him up because that's what his other friend was doing, then he said stop it and colby wouldn't-then he said some kids in the hall started telling colby to knock it off. then kelsi came and he got on the bus. i asked why he didn't stand up for himself, he said "i know that colby was just embarrassed because everyone kept saying to leave me alone" i told him you can be mean back if someone is being mean to you and kaden said "mom,he didn't hurt me, i won't be mean to him-everybody else is and that's probably why he acts mean." i immediately thought of the scripture *a soft answer turneth away wrath* sometimes it's hard being a mom, i hate to hear of anything bad happening to my kids-but they sure teach me how i could act a little better in some situations. what really cracked me up was the next day when kaden is reading this book...

kaden said kelsi had checked it out for him-she was so sweet to help him and still worries about him getting picked on...kelsi is more like me and would have pushed the kid right back.

a few days later i decided i needed to tell the principle, not about the boy, but because i was really angry that the substitute did nothing-so i went in and before i could even say one word i'm crying...i hate being a blubbering cry baby-i can't have a serious conversation about anything without crying. i was also very happy to hear that two of the kids that stood up for kaden were from our ward-it makes me glad we live in an area where people look out for each other.

this is a borrowed picture from my friend karens post-her boys garrett and justin and koy needed some hot chocolate the other day at her house...i'm not ready for the cold-what was so funny was that they came back to my house and ate popsicles out in the garage bundled in blankets...i don't think anyone is ready for the cold.
kelsi wanted to take her friends natasha and nitchelle out for their birthday -it was fun and they really enjoyed the "cookie monster" dessert!

the end of the month i went to the womens conference... i love the womens broadcast-it reminds me how great it is to be a girl! my favorite quote was from president Uchtdorf:

those who bring sunshine to the lives of others...

cannot keep it from themselves!

conference october 2008

i am so looking forward to conference tommorrow. i have just been so excited since we had a sunday school lesson about a month ago when we were discussing alma 57:21...yea, and they did obey and observe to perform every word of command with exactness...the class started talking about what it meant to obey with exactness and bro. black who had been away on an internship working somehow with the army, had went to their graduation. he said to see a huge body of people moving with exactness as every command was being called was so amazing! and then he said what really hit me-what if we as members of the church, when our prophet and leaders gave us "commands" moved with exactness. wow; how powerful we would be-an unstoppable force of good! i am such a visual person and when i heard this i just immediately thought of conference and all the wonderful messages we are given to improve our lives and help us back to our Heavenly Father. and in my mind and i'm not meaning this irreverantly at all i can almost see as our leaders in conference are giving us these "commands"- we, as a whole church, standing and saying-yes sir, i can do that-i can obey with exactness. i am so excited! i love the gospel!

dancing with the stars

okay i really do like "dancing with the stars"-the outfits are a little(okay alot) immodest but i still really like it.i dvr it so i can watch it when i have time and then i don't have to watch all the advertisements...so i just barely got to watch the first week and for those of you who have seen it-you will know who i'm talking about-i do not like the profane old grandma because i really don't like profanity but i especially don't like it from a grandma: they should only be sweet and cute! so i hope she gets voted off soon.

these are a few of my favorite things(and not)

a few little things that make me happy:
storage bins
gummy bears
chips and salsa(preferably homemade)
working outside
a new box of crayons
crossword puzzles(especially if i can finish it!)
the gospel
good smelling laundry
when my kids say thank you
"dancing with the stars"
a finished scrapbook page
googly eyes
jane austen movies(my favorite "emma")
watching kent play with the kids
working out everyday-you can even count sundays,i'm exhausted after sacrament meeting:)

a few little things that make me not so happy:
grasshoppers
the smell of old bread(or even slightly old)
waking up early
clutter
shopping(except 4 presents...i love shopping 4 presents)
my computer
cooking dinner

i lied

well anyone who knows me knows that i lie. i'm sorry i really don't mean to but i actually do it alot...so you can only believe some of what i say-kent actually turned 36 this year not 35. i'll try to report the whole truth and nothing but the truth from here on out!

is it time?

kaden is such a sweet kid but there is one thing that drives me bonkers about him-he hates being late and i typically am a late person, so he is always reminding me how late i am. we were on the way to his baseball practice at 3* clock, it was probably 2:57 and he starts worrying are we going to be late and i keep telling him it will be okay. but as the minutes get closer to 3 he keeps worrying and reminding me that he's going to be late. so as the clock turns 3 and we are not at practice he says "oh great! i'm late" and then it's onto counting the minutes of how late we are. well we roll into baseball practice at 3:04 and kaden says "i'm four minutes late mom" i assure him that it is okay and he looks at me very seriously and says "mom if the coach wanted practice at 3:04 he would of said so, he said practice was at 3* clock." this isn't the only time issue we have either-whenever i tell him "just a minute" he proceeds to count to 60 for me...i remind him that this is rude and moms will not help rude and impatient little boys, no matter how sweet they are. also if he asks me what time it is i usually round up, he then tells me no its not and gives me the exact time...i then ask why he asked me in the first place? uggggh