Change

About four months ago my life changed. A lot. In a very short period of time. It's amazing how quickly life can be put into perspective and "things" don't mean so much. I'm more thankful for my family than anything else this world has to offer, because that's the only thing that really matters. I'm not going to go into details because quite honestly, it's no one's business. But I'm so thankful for true friends and for repentance and forgiveness. I've realized that forgiveness is not for the sinner but for the ones who are sinned against. I can't imagine carrying around the weight of grudges and not forgiving others. We're all doing just great now, but I don't think I'll ever be the same. And that's not a bad thing. I have had wonderful, true, good friends my entire life and I have an incredible, unusual family. Here's one of my very favorite quotes:

"Wherever you are, whatever the circumstances may be, you are not forgotten. No matter how dark your days may seem, no matter how insignificant you may feel, no matter how overshadowed you think you may be, your Heavenly Father has not forgotten you, in fact, He loves you, with an infinite love."  - President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

And another excellent one:

"Trials give us opportunities to show the Lord and ourselves that we will be faithful. We can choose to feel sorry for ourselves and ask, "Why me?" or we can grow from our trials, increase our faith in the Lord, and ask, "How can I be faithful in the midst of this trial?" We can let adversity break us down and make us bitter, or we can let it refine us and make us stronger. We can allow adversity to lead us to drift away from the things that matter most, or we can use it as a stepping-stone to grow closer to things of eternal worth."   - Larry Richman

On a MUCH happier note: Ben and I just took a week long trip to Florida. It was a.ma.zing. I wanted to go back before I even left. But I missed the kids. :) We went to Ft. Lauderdale, The Everglades, down to the Florida Keys, Miami, and Orlando. I love Florida! I can definitely see why so many people retire there. And it was FULL of retired people. It was so much fun!

Anyways, all is well with us. And what isn't well will be in time. I'm so thankful for the Atonement. And that I finally get it. After all these years, I get it. If you don't understand what it's all about, or just can't quite wrap your mind around it (like I couldn't) read "The Peacegiver" by James Ferrell. You can get it at Deseret Book. I'm thankful that it's not up to us to judge people, but to just love them and help them. One of my favorite songs of all time is "For Good" from Wicked. Look it up on youtube and make sure to have the lyrics handy. So, thanks for stopping by! Love you all!

Let's Try This Again!

I'm going to try & give this blogging thing another shot. Maybe, just maybe I'll keep it up. No promises though. :) I'm trying to work on my header but I can't figure it out. When I have a bit more time & patience I'll try to get it right.

Summer has FLOWN by! School starts in a month! Crazy. We've been pretty busy. We celebrated 3 of our kids birthdays in June. Can you say expensive??? At least all of our birthdays fall about 1/2 way through the year instead of right next to Christmas. All of the kids got new bikes for their birthdays this year & they couldn't be happier. All they want to do is ride their bikes, which I'm *usually* okay with. Abby turned 11 on April 11, Aiden turned 1 on April 16, Adam turned 9 & Amber turned 7 on June 14, and Allie turned 5 on June 27. Whew!

We went camping over the 4th of July for my family reunion. It was so much fun! But it rained for 3 out of 5 days. Like, pouring rain and hail and thunder and lightning. But it was awesome! Some of our wonderful friends let us borrow their trailer so we wouldn't have to tent it (thank goodness!) and it was perfect for our family. So fun!! The kids loved being in the forest & playing with their cousins. Of course their favorite spot was in the mud, which didn't thrill me, but oh well. Camping is supposed to be dirty, right?

We visited Utah twice in July. It was so nice to be able to spend time with our families & a few friends while we were there. And it was so warm! We went swimming with Tennille and her family one day up at Oquirrh Park Fitness Center. The kids had a blast! And so did I. I had to calm myself down a couple times because I'm not super comfortable having my kids around so much water, but we really had so much fun.

Ben is still working, working, working. His work takes him away from home for about 4 nights a week, so we miss him. A lot. But we're learning to deal with it & make the most of the time he's at home. He really misses being at home & one of his new favorite things to do while he's here is put the kids to bed. I say go ahead! That's the most difficult time of day for me, so any help I can get is wonderful.

We're trying to get the kids ready for school to start. It's so expensive! We've cleaned out their old clothes and realized that they really don't need a lot of new stuff. Luckily we still have a month to get ready because I haven't even started school shopping.

I've been starting to run on a regular basis & I'm getting pretty okay at it. I don't love it yet, but I'm really hoping that before to long I'll start to enjoy it. I can usually run for about 5 minutes at a time without dying, so that's a start!

Anyways, I'll try to keep up on my blog. I rarely think about it & when I do I feel like I don't have anything interesting to say, so I don't say anything at all. Thanks for stopping by!

Time...

Time is slipping away so quickly! I feel like I barely have time to breathe & kiss my kids before it's time to go on to something else.  I want to blog. I really do, but I have no time. Ben is working so much that he's only home on weekends, so it's just the kids and I all week long.  I'm learning to enjoy it & take advantage of it. But I constantly 100% of the time, I miss my husband. And they miss him too. So much. And he misses us.  Definitely not the best way to live. We know it's only temporary, but we don't know how temporary it is.  It could be "temporary" for a very, very long time. Bottom line is: We love him a ridiculous amount. Forver.

Pictures!

I finally figured out how to download my pictures on our new computer. I wish I was better with computers, but oh well. :) Here are a bunch of pictures of what's been going on with us:

Here are the kids on Halloween. I think they turned out really cute!

Ben hit a deer on his first trip to North Dakota. Scary! He couldn't find the deer after he hit it so we think it lived. Ben was okay too, just a bit scared. :)

Adam in his "Gi". He loves karate! And he's pretty dang good at it!

This kid loves to have his picture taken! So I love to take it (even if I look like a goob!)

This is pretty much the way Aiden always looks. Minus the santa hat. He is the happiest baby!

We went to Walmart one day & found a bunch of Christmas stuff. For some reason Allie thought the reindeer antlers went around her waist. Then she started dancing. It was adorable!

That's it for now. I'm tired. :) We're headed down to Utah for Thanksgiving this coming week. We're leaving on Tuesday afternoon & it's supposed to be awful travel weather. Wonderful! We're excited to spend the holiday with our family though. We're really lucky that we live close to our families. The holidays wouldn't quite be the same if we couldn't spend them with family.This year I think we're even going to brave Black Friday. We've never done it before so wish us luck! I hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving!

It's About Time!

It's been forever since I've posted. In fact, it's been so long since I've even checked other people's blogs that I forgot my password to blogger. Oops. I'm a slacker! Or, just a super busy mom! I tried to get some current pictures on here but we got a new computer & I can't get my pictures to download for some reason. Hopefully I can figure it out soon.

Let's see...since the last post the kids got out of school for the summer, and now they're back in school again. We had 5 birthdays in our family (out of 7 people), I started teaching preschool and piano again, I had surgery, Aiden got two teeth and started crawling, Amber lost two more teeth and Adam lost three. Oh, and Abby lost one too. And Allie thinks her teeth are all loose. Ben picked up about 5 more stores (thank goodness!) but he has to drive all the way to North Dakota now twice a month to see some of them (not so fun). And he hit a deer on one of his trips. Also, not fun. Adam started Karate, scouts and piano lessons, Abby started gymnastics (and piano and achievement days), Amber started dance and piano, and Allie started dance. We had 3 days of Halloween: Abby was a devil, Adam was a ninja, Amber was a witch, Allie was a blue fairy, Aiden was a monkey, I was an angel, and Ben was a salesman. :) I don't think we've ever been happier - or busier!

Aiden is honestly THE happiest baby I've ever seen in my life. He smiles at anyone and everyone and just randomly belly laughs. Tonight he was cracking up at Amber while she folded and unfolded paper. :) He rarely cries & is just all-around good natured. He just makes us all happy! And he's a tank!! He is 6 1/2 months old now & he weighs 22 lbs 11 ozs. A tank! But he's absolutely adorable. He holds his own bottle, is basically crawling and rolls everywhere. He eats baby food (and loves it!) He babbles and is starting to say, "DaDaDa" and "NaNaNa" we'll just pretend it's "Mama" and "Dada". We sure love him to pieces! 

The other kids are doing really well too. Abby is in 5th grade now & is so smart! She has some really good, cute friends that I hope she can stay friends with forever. Adam is in 3rd grade & is doing really well. The only thing he needs help with is remembering to hand in his homework & to pay attention to what he is reading! :) Amber is in 1st grade & is quickly learning how to really read. I was worried for a while about her reading but she's just taking off! Allie is in her 2nd year of preschool and is loving it! She's learning a few words and can tell us what sounds most letters say. 

So...we're still here and happy. I've just been busier than I've ever been in my entire life! I forgot how much work it is to have a baby around again - even though he is so good! Hopefully it won't be this long again before I get another post on here! :) Have a great day!

Us Lately

Lately I've been B.U.S.Y. I completely forgot how much time and attention a newborn takes. He's adorable and fun and wonderful, but so time consuming! He's growing so fast! I swear he wants to eat 90% of the time! I actually stopped nursing because he was eating so often it was painful & I couldn't sit & feed him all day. It's turned out okay though. Ben & Abby get to help feed him now & Abby loves that! I'll get some pictures on here sometime. He's starting to smile and "talk" a little now. He's sleeping a bit better than he used to (except for last night!) I'm going to the doctor on Friday to see about my tailbone since it's not getting any better. I'm hoping they have good news for me. It doesn't feel very good though & I'm unbelievably tired of being in pain all the time! What I would really love right now is for my house to be as clean as it was a few weeks ago and to be able to keep up on laundry again. All in good time, right?

The kids last day of school is tomorrow. I can't believe another year is already over! They're sad to be done for the summer. Especially Abby. I think she's realizing that school is a social time too. She's had a rough time with one of her friends for the past few months. It makes me really sad. I just wish I could handle it for her or at least talk to her friend and tell her what a wonderful girl Abby is. But that wouldn't solve anything. I'm hoping this summer will help things cool off a bit. I remember 4th grade being the start of the "drama" with girls. I guess that's why I stuck with mostly guy friends! :)

I'm itching to get out of my house! I've been here since December. That's the longest stretch we've stayed home the whole 7 years we've lived here. It's only been 5 months, but I'm going nuts! Hopefully we'll be able to make a trip to Utah in July sometime. That's the plan anyways.

We really don't have a lot going on, I just thought I'd let you know we're still around. It's pretty crazy around here right now. I'm glad I've got such good kids! I haven't really had to worry too much about them staying where they're supposed to and doing what they're supposed to be doing when I'm taking care of Aiden. I'm a lucky lady!

p.s. I just read through this & it sounds very complain-y. I'm actually really happy! Weird. :)

We're Home.

  Isn't he sweet?
 

We're home! We actually came home last Tuesday afternoon. He all of the sudden started doing really well. The doctors usually don't send babies home unless they're off of oxygen for a full 24 hrs but Aiden was doing so well that they let us go after only about 6 hrs off of it. We're so excited to have him home, but SO busy! I always forget how much time newborns require until they're here & I'm overwhelmed. We're adjusting though and just happy to have him here and totally in love with him. Thank you so much for all of the support. It's a nice feeling knowing we have friends and family who are praying for us.

Aiden and his proud big brother. Adam can't get enough of him!