Getting our family history recorded

I have no pictures.  I'm sitting here downloading church music onto the computer and figured I needed to write a little something on the blog.  We don't have much to report either.  Still, life has moved on and I would like to note a few things.

As I listen to my church music I can't help but feel gratitude and love for my Savior.  Sometimes I struggle comprehending the hardships that happen in this life and how it balances out.  Is there really enough good to make it worth all the bad?  When you see people struggle over and over with consequences that can be their fault but most times are the faults of others.  Is it really worth it?  Was this life on Earth really worth going through all the heartaches?  No one escapes it.  You do your best to follow the commandments and that gives you your best chance to avoid a lot of heartache but still, some trial will weigh on you; some tragedy will befall you or those you love; some illness will strike.  So I question again, is it all really worth it?  Even the best of us have struggles that feel so heavy to bear that we have no other recourse than to drop to our knees and plead with the Lord for relief.  When the scales seems to be tipped so extremely in the wrong direction my faith kicks in.  It HAS to be worth it.  The love of the Lord HAS to be worth it.  It has to be so great, so radiant and consuming that it swallows up the pain and it is worth it.  I'm grateful for my Savior tonight.  I'm grateful that when I begin to wonder and ask, "Is this even making a difference?  Are we even making progress?" that I feel that gentle warmth spread through my body and I know that Heavenly Father is answering my silent prayer.  Yes, it's worth it.  Yes, progress is being made.  Keep it up.  I should listen to church music more often.

On a completely different note:

The last few months have been busy.  They always are now.

Thanksgiving came and my sister, Kaylee, was able to join us.  Her daughter had to visit her dad but we got to enjoy the rest of the Smith family....all of them boys.  But we also got to hold baby Luke.  Kaylee and I did quite a bit of shopping.  Heidi ended up watching all the kids so that the adults could get some Christmas shopping done.  I'm pretty sure there are times she regrets being born first.  Luckily we have a wii.  Blake wasn't able to play the wii.  He had been grounded off it for not singing.  He never sings.  Not in primary, sacrament meeting or family home evening.  It was a pretty funny exchange that led to his being grounded off the wii but, in the end, he now sings.  When it comes to the kids feeling the spirit, at their age, the best way to do so is through the songs.  He's never going to feel it if he doesn't sing.  Hopefully what is now parentally forced singing will one day turn into an appreciation for singing.  You never know though.  I guess we will find out in 30 years if we did the right thing or not in grounded him off the wii when all his boy cousins were in town for the holidays.

Christmas was wonderful.  My brother, Joe, and his wife, Kristen, spent Christmas with us.  It was perfect.  What I love about Joe is that he is there to enjoy the day.  And even though they got to our house at midnight Christmas Eve, were woken up at 3:00am Christmas morning when the kids tried to start Christmas, and then finally had to get out of bed at 5:00 when we did start Christmas, he stayed up the whole day and played, and played and played with my kids.  It was awesome.  Poor Kristen was sick.  Ben and I were on toy assembly duty and it left Joe there to be the one adult that was able to interact with the kids.  He did countless sword fights with Reddick.  It was so appreciated and so fun to watch.

The new year brought the beginning of new goals.  I love writing out new goals.  I love seeing what the kids want to try and what crazy ideas of mine they are willing to do.  For our family goals we always have vacation related ones, financial ones, spiritual ones and something that has to do with behavior.  Why is it so easy to see what they do wrong?  Is it because we focus on the negative or is it because there is an overwhelming amount of bad behavior versus good?  I don't know.  There are times when I think my kids are awesome and times when I can't believe how rotten they are.  Most days are mixed with both emotions.

Ben and I are currently trying to find a car for Ben.  We've never bought a car with cash before. This is going to be a first for us.  As far as our Dave Ramsey goes we are out of our consumer debt.  All we have left is our house and our student loans.  Yay!!  We took a self-reliance class offered by the church this last fall and it was wonderful. I recommend it to everyone.  Regardless of your financial situation, be it good or bad, the class is fun to take and there is lots to learn.  We enjoyed it.  We even made some changes to how we manage our money that were different from what Dave Ramsey suggested.  However, we felt it was a good change to make.  We also saw so many blessing come out of that class, too.  We took some steps in faith and they paid off (literally!).  This year of 2018 our financially goals are to save, save, save.  We need to get a car for Ben and we are planning a family vacation to Disneyland before school starts but that's about it.  Knock on wood, we shouldn't have to save for any home repairs this go around.  By the way, big news, I was able to talk to Dave Ramsey and ask if we should sell the house to help with student loan debt....it wasn't as fun as I thought it would be.  However, he gave us the answer we needed.  It was totally different from what I expected but it was exactly what we needed to change.  Thanks to Dave Ramsey we even have a new debt-free theme song that we play to get pumped up for paying off debt.  We will get there.  One day.

As for our house, we are making a few changes this year.  Mostly things to make it look nicer or things we have to fix because we broke something.  Ben got me a new light for my closet for Christmas.  It was a good gift but the best part was that as Ben was fixing it he has felt that bug for wanting to improve other things as well.  I love it.  Finally we are on the same page!  So far this year we have changed out the closet light, plan to change out the laundry room and storage room light, have bought a new stairwell chandelier since we broke that wile changing out light switches, have painted the kitchen counters (they look SOOOO much better) and have bought the handles to make the kitchen look more updated.  I'm pretty excited.  We also replaced the baseboard in the entry way and plan to paint it.  Nice.  It's quite a bit to get done and we have a deadline-April 7th, Blake's baptism.  I would like to have it all done by then.  Each weekend we have some little house project we work on.  It's been fun.

Alright, that's it for me tonight!  I'm glad I got this recorded.

BS-Ben and Shauna

Can I just say that I love that our initials are BS?  It makes me laugh.  When I label our movies or other belongings we don't want to get lost I write out B.S. Taylor.  So fun. 

OK, here's what Ben and I have been doing over the last 18 months.  

1. We've been running. For Christmas Ben got an apple watch on the condition that he actually use it for running.  So we planned to run a half marathon on our anniversary.  It was fun that we did it, awful while we did it and something we are planning to do again (although I will pick the route this time...Ben's route was all uphill!)

2. Finally spending time away with just us. I know that everyone else has already been doing that but this is new for Ben and I.  We were always poor college students that never took trips; then we were poor graduate students with kids; for a while we were poor doctorate grads with even more kids.  Now we are maxed out on kids but making actually money that we can stat budgeting a little bit here and there for us to do things together.  Ben has a continuing education in Forest Grove that we go to each year.  The gas/car/hotel/some food is all covered so we are still being as cheap as possible.  This year we took an extra day to go hiking in Portland at Multnomah Falls.  Turns out we enjoy hiking together.  

The squeaked in some time between his classes to watch Wonder Woman (awesome) and then we continued our trip to Astoria.  This was our big splurge.  We actually paid for this hotel night ourselves.  :)

While in Astoria we also stopped by the school from Kindergarten Cop and saw the Goonie house from a distance.  

And finally, 3) We have been following Dave Ramsey.  We actually started this in 2015 but it has pretty much consumed and changed our lives from that point on.  It has been a great journey of learning and understanding money better.  We discovered that even though we've never missed a payment and didn't believe in "debt" we had slipped into a lot of bad situations thinking we were making smart decisions.  We have spent many nights working on budgets together, calculating student loan repayments, creating a time frame for savings and retirement.  Along with that we've made many sacrifices.  I now teach the kids piano, we've gone without heat in the winter to cashflow our HVAC, Ben sold his truck that the whole family loved, Ben either rides his bike to work or I drive him since we have one car, the kids have cut back on sports, and those crooked teeth have to stay crooked until we save up the money for braces.  It has been almost three years now of the Dave Ramsey lifestyle and it's been a huge blessing for us.  In those three years we have gotten our debt down to just the house and student loans.  We've also cash flowed some pretty major home repairs (windows, exterior paint, plumbing, HVAC, gas lines).  I keep asking Heavenly Father if we can just have 18 months off from home repairs.  Replacing every system in the house in the last 18 months has been a lot of work.  If we could just get a reprieve for a while it would be much appreciated.  I'm proud of us for paying cash for all the repairs and having the patience to wait.  It's not something we ever would have done before if we hadn't learned about Dave Ramsey and how to better handle our money.  We would have charged every house repair we had it would have cost us thousands more!  Ben is a trooper about it.  And he cheers me on for doing it.  It's been a huge building block in our marriage.  I feel like we a strainer now than we ever were before.  Our goals are united. We work towards them as a team.  The kids have also adopted Dave Ramsey.  If we can get them on better financial footing than we were then we will have succeeded.  

Heidi Bears Poopy Smears

Save the best for last...?  I don't know anymore guys.  Heidi is officially a teenager.  Yes, there has been shift.  I wouldn't say a complete change but definitely a shift.  First off, look how tall she is!  

Turns out I don't have many flattering pictures of Heidi on my phone.  This was all I could find for the year of 2017.  Apparently Heidi likes to eat cake. 

So here's what I mean about the shift.  Heidi has always been my go-to girl.  If I need help with house work, the kids, moving furniture, etc. She is there.  But lately she has changed from being totally cool with doing it to being like "but I don't want to."  Gag.  I hate when she says that.  But there it is!  She's a teenager and she is actually acting like one!  She will still do the work I ask of her but it's not the same.  Kaylee has taken heidi's old spot as my eager to help girl.  The problem is that I still need Heidi.  She is SO helpful (when she wants to be).  I can trust her with the kids, she puts the most effort into her Saturday chores, she is responsible for all her school work-I never have to worry if she is getting it done, and she is pleasant to be around at night after the other kids have gone to bed.  I miss her 'OK, Mom!' attitude but I also enjoy this maturing young woman as well.  She is a great first child.  We are so lucky to have her set the example for the rest of the kids.  

After girls camp she and I snuggled on the couch.  She told me how much she loved it.  She then went upstairs and journaled about it like a good girl would.  Her YW leader told me that she saw a whole different Heidi up at camp.  She was vibrant, laughing, engaged.  Heidi is so quiet that people never know if she is happy or not.  She is.  She just doesn't show it.  Except at camp.  

(Even though Heidi is becoming a teenager and changing a bit she is still awesome enough that she let me write Heidi bears poopy smears as the title)

Krazy Kakes

Guys, Kaylee rocked it this year.

She was in the 5the grade at her school which means she was the big man on campus.  She did awesome!  She has come into her own.  During the last school year she ran and won the student council positions; petitioned to continue and had the lead role in the Shakespeare play even though they were going to forgo it this year; had phase I braces which have made her teeth look great; played O Holy Night during sacrament meeting; submitted a Taco Soup recipe for the future chef competition and won 3rd place; and gave a speech at her 5th grade advancement.  I'm telling you, this was her year!  She even became nice!  She has become my right-hand man since Heidi is a "teenager" now.  She helps around the house, takes care of Reddick, babysits on occasion, and has almost learned the secret to staying up late (to be so quiet we don't care if you are down stairs...she gets it about 60% of the time)

When Heidi did the future chef we didn't know what to expect.  We were very ill prepared.  Thanks to Heidi's experience we made sure Kaylee was well prepared this time.  She made her soup multiple times before the competition.  She knew how to garnish it.  And she came out a winner!!  Yay!  (I do feel so bad for the kids that don't win though.  Breaks my heart.)

A favorite Kaylee moment of mine was helping her write her speech.  She wrote it out, had my look it over, we reorganized it a bit and she was adamant that I not use ANY words that sounded like adult words.  She had a specific way she wanted it written and that's what we did.  It was also fun looking for her dress together.  Once again, she had a ver specific idea in mind and was determined to find the right dress.  We went everywhere.  Finally, on a whim, I suggested Kid 2 Kid.  She did not want to go there but we were running out of stores.  Luckily she found just what she was looking for!  Then we had to go in search of a cute cardigan to go over it which we found two days before at Target.  Phew! She did a great job though.  I was a pretty proud mom.  And how cute that Heidi helped her do her hair?  

Kaylee is something else.  She is spunky, mouthy, easily annoyed, bossy, picky about food/clothes/her hair/cleanliness, too loud 80% of the time, very sympathetic to every one but Daisy, and very particular about following the rules.  Sometimes I have a bright hope for her and sometimes I don't know what to do with her.  even help us as she goes through middle school. 

Daisy

Isn't this a cute picture?  She looks so old.  She wanted to help make her cake this year.  She picked the chocolate mouse cake with chocolate chips and Mini M&Ms on top.  Not a bad choice.

Daisy is nine now.  She has officially aged out of my difficult child phase (5-8).  I am happy to report that she is finally transitioning into the responsible girl I like to have around.  Daisy is my most social kid.  She talks, and talks, and talks.  She is sometimes so distracted with wanting to talk and tell you everything little detail that she ends up not getting her work done.  At least, that was 8 year old Daisy.  Now she talks, I remind her to do her chore, she does it, and then comes back for more chatting.  It has been so nice having her mature a little.

Daisy spends most of her day and night reading.  We still put our kids to bed pretty early.  Even though she wants to stay up long er with the older girls Daisy goes to bed at sits there reading all night long until the older girls make it to bed.  She has also started walking with my friend and I in the mornings.  She doesn't talk much then but I think it is because she likes listening to our conversation.  

(4th of July)

The best part about Daisy is that she has taken the lead over the younger kids.  Heidi and Kaylee have sort of grown up and don't care much for the same activities the little kids like but Daisy still does.  She helps the boys, plays with the boys, shows them how to do things, and relates to them as their older sister who still likes to play with them.  I love it.  Its fun to see her as the "older" sister when it's just the four younger kids.  She loves to be helpful with them.  I'm excited to see how she grows over the next year.  She is coming into her stride.