February Dates with Dad

The kids each had a fun date with Dan this month. On Valentines Day the girl's went out to breakfast with Dan and then to Lowes to one of their "Build and Grow" free Kids Clinics.

The girl's had a lot of fun building this jewelry box with their Dad on Valentines day!

This morning the boys had their turn with Dan. They also went out to breakfast and then to Lowes to build one of these awesome race cars. The boys sure love those tools, but even more then that, they LOVE spending time with their Dad! 

What cute little builders with their aprons and goggles :)

Miss Young Women's Valuable Pageant

We had a super fun New Beginnings tonight with our Young Women. 

We held a 

Miss Young Women's "Valuable" Pageant.

(We had 8 girls to represent our 8 different values) 

The Lovely Contestants

There was Francine Faith, Darlene Divine Nature, Isabelle Individual Worth, Nelly Knowledge, Chaney Choice & Accountability, Gracelyn Good Works, Izzie Integrity, and Vivian Virtue.

We dressed the girls in the latest fashions of course :) Our very own prom dresses from the eighties, along with one golden chair cover with neck and arms holes cut into it. Talk about vogue. They looked fabulous!

The girls preformed a song together for the talent portion of the competition, they hammed it up as they modeled their evening wear  down the cat walk and then it was onto the question portion of the evening. Each girl was asked how their value will best help them "To be an example of the believers?" (This years theme) All of the girls did a great job. 

It was excruciating waiting to see which value would be crowned "Most Valuable."

The judges votes were in and a most remarkable event occurred. They decided that EACH value MUST be of great importance. Therefore each contestant was crowned Miss Young women Value of the year! 

All Winners!

Here is the poster I made for a decoration. It is 5 foot x 3 foot, covered in glitter, with light bulbs bordering the entire edge. It turned out pretty cute and added to the event.

I spent way, way, way to many hours on this prop, so I defiantly can't just throw it away, so if any of you other ladies in Young Women's could use it in your wards, let me know. (I'll even throw in the script.)

A much needed Enrichment Night!

Tonight I was able to get out of the house for a little while to attend a Stake Enrichment Night. Our speaker, Kim A. Nelson, was awesome! He is a nationally recognized speaker from "Time out for Women", he's a family and marriage counselor, has been a bishop and a stake president, and the author of "Happily Forever After and If God Loves Me, Why This? His message tonight was about, Finding Joy and happiness in this life. It wasn't too hard to find "joy" during his presentation tonight, he had us rolling with all of his props, funny stories, singing, jokes, analogies, and one gigantic doillie. He was Hilarious!

Along with being funny, he delivered a great message. I know I will probably mangle his message but I just wanted to take a minute to write down a few of his points, that were meaningful to me.

-He started out by explaining the role we played in the process of choosing to come to earth, about how excited and happy we were in Heaven to get a chance to come to this earth.

-He talked about the level of the adversary's commitment to keep us from these truths and how Satan is truly our Enemy. He wants us to fail. He is someone who wants us to feel unloved and to be unhappy in this life.

He said "Sometimes, when life gets particularly painful, it's hard to believe that God cares about what's happening to us. In those trying times, we often jump to wrong conclusions: "Maybe I'm not very valuable to Him," or "He must think I need this mess," or "I must have done something to disqualify myself from His love."

He talked about women never feeling like they are good enough in our Heavenly Father's eyes. Always comparing ourselves to others and being extra hard on ourselves. Sometimes we may think that our Heavenly Father's love and the gift of the atonement applies to everyone but ourselves, or that it is for everyone who is more perfect than I am. But, President Nelson taught us that we are all "imperfect" and that simply means that we are "normal".

-He talked about Heavenly Fathers Parental Love.

Our Heavenly Father loves us, just as we love our own children. President Nelson asked a women in the audience, "When did you start loving your children?" Did you start loving them after they were potty trained? Once they started School? Only when they were kind and loving?" The women in the audience said,"She loved them before they were born." President Nelson related this example to our Heavenly Father's love for us. He loved us before we were born, His love is unconditional, it is not something that can be earned or something we loose by making poor choices.

He explains that it is just like the pictures our children draw for us. (You know the ones. Stick figures and "I love you mom" written on it, spelt with an 'R' in it." Of course these works of art go straight to the fridge.)

It's not the masterpiece, but the artist that is of the greatest value!

This is true as it pertains to our Heavenly Father's love. It is not the "pictures" that he loves, but it is us. We are Valuable. His atonement and love apply to me because I am His daughter! I am loved!

President Nelson wanted us to ask ourselves... "If you saw a mother, treating her daughter, the way that you treat yourself (your self talk); what would you think of that mother?" (Would you think that she was patient, loving, understanding, and uplifting or would she be abusive, harsh, judgemental, and unforgiving)

Another thing he brought up is that the next time you find yourself in a difficult situation, we should pretend that your best friend just called you with the same predicament, and apply the same advice that you would have given her, to your own situation. He asked us to be kind to ourselves. Go easy on ourselves and know that we are important, have worth, and are loved.

He had tons of fun insightful stories and analogies that shed new light on truths that will help us find happiness in God's plan, and what we can do to get the most out of our earthly test. He delivered a great message and he made me feel loved.

I'm sick of being sick, Let's get out of here!

Hudson has been really sick all weekend. This is how he has spent most of his days.

He has been very tired, cuddly, and just wanting to lounge.

Poor sicky boy :(

By Monday morning he was feeling much better and before the kids could get on the bus for school, this morning, he had himself dressed and ready to go. Where is he going you may ask?? Anywhere! After a weekend of resting he was ready to get OUT!

I love how ambitious he was with getting dressed this morning. Shoe's, coat and all. Once he was this dressed he started saying outside-car-go. (Repeated 300 times)

I'm glad you're feeling better Hudson, it's good to have my little active boy back!

"Old Fashioned" Fire Truck

I was running errands today with Kase and Hudson and as we were heading down the road I told Kase, " Hey, look out your window at that Old Fashioned Fire Truck". "Cool Huh?"

His response back to me was, "Uhhh, Mom, did you say that fire truck is Old FASHIONED?"

I said, "Yeah, did you see it?" He said, "Mom, that truck is NOT "fashion" but it is "old" because did you see all of the dirt on it."

Too Cute!

ALL WORK, and NO PLAY :(

It has been "All WORK and NO Play" around here lately.

Usually our family has a nice balance between work and play but for the last five months Dan's pie chart has been filled 99% with work, and 1% divided between family, fun, 2 church callings and sleep. (Did you notice date night is no where to be found in that 1%. Ughhh. We've gone from 2-3 date nights a week, down to zero a week. I know I have been spoiled for the past several years at Dan's ability to take so much family time, so I shouldn't be complaining, but when you grow accustomed to something, once it is gone it feels like a big sacrifice)

With the way the economy and the real estate market have been going, Dan made some business decisions that didn't pay off for him as anticipated. He was driving his business in one direction, believing he would match the direction of the market perfectly, and instead, his business slowed to a crawl. He doesn't want to give up on it because he has such a passion for real estate and investment and knows that with some adjustments in his business models that he will still thrive in this market. He just has to retool and adjust how he has been doing things.

He always does a great job providing for our family and through this dry spell it has been no different. While reorganizing his real estate investing business he has started working with a good friend building up his Alarm Security System business by selling Alarm Systems as well as helping him grow their sales team locally and in other cities here in Eastern Washington.

Dan is such a talented businessman and provider. He is great at what he is doing and has been making pretty decent money doing it. Well, I should clarify, it isn't near the money he has been accustomed to making with his real estate activities, but we feel very blessed that Dan is able to provide for our needs.

The friend that owns this Alarm Company is Jacob Rose. He is also a successful and talented guy who has run a couple of companies of his own. This new Alarm Company is called Nationwide Security and Dan has been helping Jacob put some systems in place to hopefully produce some residual income for Jacob and for our family.

In addition to continuing to run his "limping Real Estate Business", as well as taking a full time active role in building up Nationwide Security, Dan also just started up his 4th Lawn and Landscape company. Dan has owned 3 other Lawncare and landscaping businesses in the past, which all proved profitable, so he decided to start one up this spring just for a little back up cash and for a way to employ the kids as they get older.

Dan has a great business mind and is working his tail off to get us back to a place where he has the time freedom and flexibility we are accustomed to. But for now, I think we have a few more months of these outrageous hours.

Here's a typical Day for Dan...

4:45am-8:00am- Passes out flyer's door to door to advertise his lawn mowing business and spring clean-up services. (Anyone who knows Dan, knows that he is NOT a morning person. So this is killing him. He has been passing out flyer's for a month now and says his feet feel broken. Ouch! He is trying to get 20,000 flyer's out by the end of March.)

8:00-8:30am- Shower and gathers his stuff for the day

8:30-1:00pm- Works at his New Horizons office doing Real Estate Investing

1:00-8:00pm- Works at Nationwide. Selling Security Systems, Interviewing and training people. (Also, usually fielding lots of real estate and Premium Lawn and Landscape calls.)

8:00-10:00pm- Usually gets called in to help with closing a deal or talking about business plans.

10:30-1:00am- Works on his laptop. Finishing up whatever he needs to, as it relates to the 3 businesses he is in the process of starting up.

Then it's off to bed for 3-4 hours of sleep. I don't really know how much longer he'll be able to keep this up. It's been grueling.

I won't even go into my day, other than saying these two simple words... "Single-Mom".

I have been trying to do my best to be supportive and to take over all of the family responsibilities at home, but the kids really miss their Dad. Dan has been doing a great job making sure the kids know that they are loved. He likes to leave them little notes, or take them out for an early Saturday morning breakfast date, at a restaurant.

It's hard to complain about Dan working so much, when I know he does it 100% for our family, to provide the things we need and to set himself up to have the time freedom he desires, to be with our family more. We are hoping that all of this hard work will start paying off soon so we can get back to a more normal, balanced life.

We sure love you Dan!

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!