Bedrooms "Filled" with LOVE

I love doing secret, sneaky, surprise things to make the kids feel extra special & loved on Valentines Day. Through the years I've done love notes in the kid's lunch bags, had flowers, candy or balloons delivered to school for them, served them an all pink breakfast with the table and place settings all done in a Valentines theme, and last years favorite... Heart attacking their rooms! They LOVED it! They left the hearts stuck all over their walls, ceiling, and beds for weeks, and now because of that they love to "heart attack" our room as a little surprise for mom and dad. So Fun!

This years secret surprise was "filling" the kid's bedrooms with love.
(These are the 375 balloons I plan on doing that with)
The Plan: To fill the kids bedrooms with hundreds of balloons while they are sleeping, to give them a big surprise when they wake up tomorrow morning, on Valentines Day.

Dan and, my nephew, Kayleb were my helpers for the evening. I bought a couple of cheap balloon hand pumps and thought it would be a breeze.
Dan's no dummy.

As Kayleb and I were pumping away with our little hand pumps, Dan walks into the living room dragging an air compressor hose, from the garage, behind him. Then the balloon filling races began. (Dan vs. Kayleb)

Take a wild guess who won :)

Kayleb tried to keep up with Dan's pace, but after a few balloons he realized it was a lost cause. Dan's pumping skills were clearly superior.

After competing with Dan for a while I noticed beads of sweat rolling down Kayleb's face, so I grabbed the hose from Dan and began cooling Kayleb off.

An hour and a half later... The balloons are finally done! Yeah!

After all the balloons were blown up we spent the next 20 minutes pushing, fanning, batting, and corralling the balloons down the hall and into the kids bedrooms as quietly as possible.

We were successful! We're so sneaky. Project complete! Now it's off to bed.

To say the kids loved it would be an understatement. They totally freaked out when they woke up, this morning, to a room full of balloons. They've had a blast playing in them all morning and plan on keeping them as long as possible.

(Here in a few days we'll get to see how fun it is to pop 375 balloons.

Plug your ears!)

Happy Valentine's Day!

The First Five...

The first FIVE people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

1- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!

2- What I create will be just for you.

3- It'll be done this year. (might be a little while)

4- You have no clue what it's going to be.It may be a story. It may be poetry, shoes, bags, or a little invention of my own! I may draw or paint something. I may bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!

5- I reserve the right to do something extremly strange. Believe me... it may blow your mind!

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must re post this on your blog and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on your blog. The first 5 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me! Oh, and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it! Sounds like fun, right? So, let's play!

Tagged: 6th picture in the 6th folder

I was asked to post the 6th picture, in the 6th folder on my computer. I was a little nervous as I scrolled up to the very beginning of my picture folders, remembering that I had scanned in all of Dan and my childhood pics, and placed all of them in chronological order on my computer. I was thinking for sure it would be my ugliest baby picture or even better, one from middle school with braces, huge bangs, huge earrings, and leggings. Maybe a picture of me giving birth to Alaina. That would have been SWEET!, but you all lucked out. I scrolled right past Dan's childhood pics, Stacey's childhood pics, Dan's mission (now a few of those might have been interesting), wedding pics, etc.

I ended up in this folder. Almost 4 years into our marriage...

Alaina at age 3

I had these white pictures taken of the kids as a surprise Christmas gift for Dan. I framed the pictures along side a saying Dan wrote for the kids. It was a saying that talked about being a "Child of God", about who they were, where they came from and what was expected of them to return back to their father in heaven one day. Dan would say this with the kids during family home evening or some nights before they went to bed. Soon Alaina had it memorized and would say it all the time.

I remembered that I had an audio tape recording of Alaina at age 3 saying it,

so I thought I would include it in this post.

"I am a Child of God,

He is my Father who lives in Heaven.

He sent me to this world to be tested,

so that I may become more like him.

It is my job to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ

and to Choose the Right, every time that Satan tempts me.

If I will do my best to keep all of God's commandments

I will be forgiven of my sins.

Because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ,

when I die I will live with my Heavenly Father and Jesus again in Celestial Glory."

This picture brings back a lot of memories. I totally remember the day it was taken, I remember those little curls, and those big blue eyes. I remember what house we were living in at the time and the joys and struggles that came from being a mom to a 9 month old, 2 yr. old and this sweet little 3yr old.

So precious!

Although these next pics were not #6 in my 6th folder, I thought I would show them off anyway. (Pics of Ky and Hailey taken in that same photo shoot.)

( K, I tag anyone who reads this post. Come on let's see it, 6th picture, 6th folder!)

YW Girls Camp Fundraiser "2009"

Tonight the Young Women held a Valentine's Date Night, and Service Auction, as a fundraiser for girl's camp. They invited all of the couples in the ward to come for a Dinner date night at the church. The young women provided free babysitting while the couples ate and then held a Service Auction to raise the money needed for girls camp.

The Young Women were divided up into committees (advertising, decorating, food, babysitting, and auction), and have spent the last month planning and preparing for this event.

This evening was well attended due to Whitney and her advertising committee. They did a great job on posters, flyer's, and getting the word out these last 3 weeks.

Thank you to Jenna and the rest of her decorating committee. You guys did a great job!

A big thanks to Kevin for being our hilarious Auctioneer.

And to Chiara and her committee for organizing and collecting all of the auction items.

The dinner was excellent, thanks to Michelle, Kate, and the rest of their food committee.

All of the girls came up with at least 3 services or donations to contribute to our auction. Some girls did them all themselves, while others got creative and asked other adults in the ward to donate items. A big thank you to all who contributed.

Alot of the items were in the form of redeemable service coupons. These coupons included babysitting, pet sitting, painting, car wash, house cleaning, haircuts, sewing lessons, pool party, a boating trip, and baked goods. Just to name a few.

Dan donated a coupon for lawn thatching in the spring which went for $100. And another coupon entitled "Night out with the Ostler's, on them/friend for the weekend". It sold for $80 to Kate and Clint. (Now we need to come up with something awesome to take them to do.)

Thanks for bidding on us guys!

Kate donated a years worth of vinyl lettering signs to either hang in your home or give as gifts. These were a big hit and earned lots of money! Thanks for this generous donation Kate!

Along with live bidding we offered a silent auction which included many donated and hand made items like quilts, antique window frame, aprons, hand bags, and hair bows. In front of these items were papers with running tally's with the highest bidders name and bid. At any point during dinner, dessert or the live auction you could go over to the table and up the bid.

Three of the silent auction items were donated by the 3 different Young Women classes. We had a friendly competition going to see which class would receive the highest bid for their basket.

The Laurel Class donated items for a "Scrapbooking" basket.

Which earned $24.00

The Miamaid Class donated items for an "Outdoor Family Fun" Basket!

It went for $44.50

And the Beehive Class made a "Family Movie Night" Basket

Which raked in $75 .00. Declaring them the WINNER!

During this event all of the Young Women took turns rotating through the different babysitting rooms, helping to watch all of the couples kids. Jenne and her committee did a great job thinking of fun things to keep the kids entertained during this 3 hr. event. (A huge thanks to Ashley, who supervised in these babysitting rooms all evening)

At the end of the night the girls had raised $3000 to go towards girls camp! Yahooo!

Thank you to all of the people who attended this event. We really appreciate all of your generous bids and donations and for making this such a successful and fun evening!

5 star dinner at the Knights!

Dan and I were invited to a Valentine's dinner party tonight. Usually, dinner at a friend's house means potluck, b-bque, or something really casual. But not tonight.

Tonight was fancy, fancy, fancy! I was blown away when I walked through the door to see mood lighting, hear music playing, tablecloths, fine china, and assigned seating with place marks. Loved it!

Karri and Wendy went all out. They had a Chef in our ward (Jason Demmerly) come help prepare/cater the meal, and it was delicious. I thought the presentation of the food was the funnest part of the meal! It created an awesome atmosphere.

We started with a salad that had bitter greens, shallot vinaigrette, blue cheese, bacon, walnuts, and a poached pear decoratively fanned out on the top. It was both delicious and pretty! 

The main course was roasted rack of lamb with a pistachio crust and port demi gloss. It was  served with whipped potatoes, and baby carrots. YUMMY!

And here's dessert. Flour less Chocolate cake with creme an glaze and raspberry sauce. Topped off with a chocolate butterfly. So Cute!

  I really enjoyed the meal. The plate presentation was awesome and it was interesting to have Jason (The Chef) tell us about eat course before we ate it. Thanks for all of the time and hard work you guys put into this fancy meal.

After dinner we played games for a few hours. One of my favorites was when everyone went around the room and told their marriage proposal story. One person was assigned, ahead of time, to lie and make up a different story then at the end we had to guess who's was the made up proposal story. This ended up being really fun and a great way to get to know each other.

Thanks for the super fun evening Karri and Wendy!

Valentine Craft Night

Jenne invited a few of us girls over tonight to make this super cute Valentine Craft.

Love'em!

Thanks for putting this together Jen, it was lots of fun!

Candy Thief

So I was over at my friend, Jenne's, house this morning helping her with a little craft project she was working on. I brought Hudson with me and he was having a great time playing with her kids. The kids were playing right outside the craft room door and Hudson would come in every few minutes to show off his toy and to check and make sure I was still there and that he hadn't been left. 

After not seeing Hudson for a while I stopped what I was doing to see if I could hear him playing with the kids right outside the door. But I didn't hear anything. It was Silent!

And we all know what silence and a 2 year old in the same sentence means!

 

It means they have found something EXTRA fun and entertaining to do! And yes, even a 2 year old knows when they need to sneak things quietly. 

These types of EXTRA, fun things usually involve toilets, bunk bed ladders or stairs, the dumping of  large containers of flour or fish food, scissors, or fabulous works of art with permanent markers using only the most obvious of walls and furniture as a canvass.

At this point I'm thinking about Jenne's beautifully decorated home as I go running out of the craft room to find Hudson and see what he's up to.

I found Hudson kneeling in the middle of Jenne's dining room table helping himself to her Holiday decorations. (Vases full of Valentines Candy)...

Hmmmm? What do we have here? 

I think I'm in Heaven. 

So many choices, so little time.

Oh yeah...Come to papa.

REACH!

Got One!

Quick, hide the evidence. 

Huh? What candy?

 BUSTED!

Caught red handed.

Luckily no damage done, but I'm pretty sure I owe the Kissell family about $10 bucks in Valentine Candy:)

Our Rebel Child

I walked in on Jax today attempting to pierce his own tongue. 

What's next, blue hair and tattoos? 

We're hoping it's just a phase :)

Ky's 1st Pinewood Derby- 2009

Our family just attended Ky's first Pinewood Derby tonight. Ky has been having a lot of fun since becoming a cub scout but this has been his favorite and funnest activity so far!

Ky worked really hard on the design and construction of his car this year. I hear dad's usually have more fun than the boys in making these cars, so I asked Dan, how much of the car did Ky actually do himself? He said about 90%. In Dan's words, "He just had to guide Ky's hand with the saw on a couple of the sharp turns." Otherwise, Ky did all the design, cutting, sanding, screwing on of the hardware and painting. Way to go Ky!

After seeing some of the other boys creations tonight, Ky is already brainstorming next years car.

Ky's car did pretty well at the races. He won all 3 races in one of his heats and ended up coming in 5th overall.

Ky even won a blue ribbon for having the best hardware on his car!

The View from the drivers seat of a pinewood derby car. Buckle Up!

Two things I could never live without... but had to today!

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you had to "rough it" 

and do without some of our everyday, modern conveniences. 

Well, today I've discovered 2 things I really can't live without. 

#1. The MICROWAVE

I don't know how they did it before microwaves??? This morning when I was trying to heat up some instant oatmeal for the kids, our microwave blew up :( We've had this microwave since we were married, about 11 years ago, and today with a rumble, crack and loud pop it was gone.

Throughout the day it was made very clear to me that I just can't do without this appliance. I discovered this after the 4th time of putting something in the microwave out of habit even though I knew it was broken. (Heating up leftovers, thawing chicken, microwave popcorn, and 1 frozen burrito) This wasn't something I was going to be able to go a whole 24 hours without, so by 4:00pm I  was perusing the nearest appliance store aisles, picking myself up a new one :)

As if loosing the convenience of a microwave wasn't bad enough, couple that with the loss of my most used item in the kitchen.

#2 The Paper Plate 

  Ahhhh, the torture! We are out of paper plates!

In this day and age who washes dishes anymore. Everything at our house is disposable. You better believe I grabbed some of those while at the store picking up a microwave.

Now that we are restocked I'm smiling again, but I keep wondering what "can't live without item" will be next...

I hope it's not the toilet paper, or remote control because either of those would be a close runner up. Could you imagine actually having to stand up and change the channels or using leaves or a cup of water to clean your backside. Yikes!

"Guilty Mom Syndrome"

K, so I totally suffer from "guilty mom syndrome". 

You know, when you're at the end of the day (or week) and you're just not feeling like you've been the best mom you could possibly be, so the guilt starts to creep in. 

The guilt is usually unbearable as I imagine all of the other mom's in the neighborhood sitting in their perfectly clean and organized homes, all lovingly helping their kids with their homework and piano. Patiently, taking time to read and do flashcards with each child. There's no fighting. No need for chores because the perfect mom and housewife has already done all of them. The kids only talking in whispers, never yelling or arguing. Meals are always homemade from scratch. These moms probably put down everything they are doing to play and interact with the kids all the while keeping a spotless house and did I mention, they are all showered, with full hair and makeup done, looking and smelling great! 

(As you can see in the picture below, I'm not quite there yet. This is how I look on most days. (Yes, I actually leave the house like this.) Sweats, hair back in a messy bun & head band, no makeup, totally overweight and out of shape, with dark circles under my eyes, covered in who knows what and a shower... what's a shower? All of my friends complain about these same things and tell me, they too, live in sweats but I'm pretty sure I take the frumpy housewife look to a whole new level.)

Well today has been one of those days. Or should I just confess and say one of those months. When I was younger I thought I was going to be a great mom. I was 100% confident that it would it be a snap! I mean I babysat all of the time and I was truly great at it. Yeah that's right...I am tooting my own horn!!

A few of the things that I hadn't quite factored in when transitioning from a babysitter to a full time mom were... 

-You don't get to clock out after 3 hours of watching the kids.

-You don't get paid.

-While babysitting I was never recovering from giving birth, or having a "BUTT" surgery (If ya know what I mean).

-You get to babysit at someone else's house, which was either just cleaned before you arrived or fun to clean because it wasn't your own home.

-I was a babysitter from ages 9-15, therefore got a lot of sleep and had a lot of ENERGY. Not so much now.

-You could devote all of your time to playing games, coloring, play dough, and watching movies with the kids, there was no disciplining or teaching involved. 

-As a babysitter I never balanced a checkbook, ran errands, took kids to the doctors, held a church calling, ran a home based business, did yard work, or helped them with homework, piano, and sports.   

-The kids I babysat were so happy and excited to see me, they rarely fought or acted up. They wanted all of their time with me to be fun filled. They couldn't wait to see what I had brought to do with them.

Another thing that I had always envisioned when I thought of being a mom was that there would be a dad always hanging around by my side to help me out. I don't know if my visions of the future always took place on Saturdays, when dads were home or what, but welcome to the real world, I guess.  Don't get me wrong, Dan is an awesome dad and usually splits the load with me really well. But there is this funny little thing called "work" that seems to take him away, for several hours of the day and I am left with all of the household responsibilities and child rearing to myself. Ugh! I don't remember that in my youthful visions of the future.

Sometimes I wish I could walk around with a camera crew, because most of my days have to be seen to be believed. With 5 young kids, things are very chaotic, to say the least. Today has just been one of those days where I have a lot of mommy stuff to get done. (Bills, errands, volunteering at school, church callings, treats to be made for a kids class, phone calls, book work/taxes for Dan's business, thorough cleaning of the house so we can have our carpets cleaned, and the list goes on and on.) 

Here's where the guilt comes in. Because I am sooooo overwhelmed and busy, this means that Kase watched a lot of TV today to keep occupied, and I had my 2 year old, Hudson, take 2 naps even though he usually only takes 1. When my older kids got home from school I was irritable, frustrated, very short tempered, and ready to cry. Yikes! Just one of those days I guess. 

So after having a day where I feel like I have done everything under the sun, except being a good mom I start to feel guilty and I think, what can I do to make it up to them? I put down everything I'm doing and think of something they would think is fun to do. I usually hope that the activity will be fun enough and memorable enough that it will overshadow the gloominess and stress of the day,  and lift my mood and hopefully drown out the kids memory of all the neglect and impatience. 

 

So, here's my guilt reducing activity of choice for tonight...

It's a "no school day" tomorrow so I'm letting the kids stay up late for movies and fun. 

We started our evening off with making homemade cinnamon rolls. 

(Just like June Cleaver, Right? :) 

The kids really enjoyed making these, "all by themselves". Yummy!

Next it was off to build them a fort in the playroom. To my kids, it's amazing what you can build with mom's help. They can never seem to keep their forts standing longer than 15mins., nor are they ever this big. Go Mom! They were way excited when it was finished and they could move all of their pillows and blankets into this big, circus tent, of a fort. 

It's amazing to me that a few sheets and 6 clamps prove to be just as fun as they were when we were kids. You can never go wrong with a homemade fort! It's kind of like the cardboard box being the best Christmas gift a kid could get. It's cheap, it allows the use of imagination, and it spans the generations of time.

The kids played inside the fort for hours with lanterns and flashlights, we did an art project, they watched IGOR in their fort, ate cinnamon rolls, and had a sleepover in the fort. Super Fun Evening!

I'm so glad I could end my day devoting a few undivided hours to the kids tonight. It was kind of like I was just their babysitter.

I take comfort in knowing that no matter how many times I screw up, my family is right their to hug me, forgive me, help me, love me, and have fun with me. 

Thank Goodness!

I really need to work on more balance. I really want to feel like a good mom for more than just a few hours a day. I can't keep going from the lowest of lows, and then swinging into a the super-mom mode for several hours, and then back to overstressed and over worked, feeling guilty about my imperfections. 

Where is the balance? Hopefully I can get it figure it out before my kids move out of the house.

Massage Party

I've had a headache for days now and my neck and back have just been killing me, so Dan had a little surprise in store for me tonight. A nice relaxing massage planned for me, once the kids were in bed. 

While I was away at a YW presidency meeting tonight the kids helped Dan set up the massage table. Once everything was in place the kids couldn't stand not trying it out before they went to bed so everyone got a little mini massage to test it out. 

This is what I saw when I got home and walked through the door tonight. Too Cute!

Aren't I the luckiest mom ever. Thanks guys! 

And a special thanks to Dr. Dan for being so thoughtful tonight. Love ya babe!