Sunday Naps

Tonight we sat down to have family home evening. It was my turn for the lesson and I chose to show a 20 minute movie about the Easter story and the life of Christ. When I clicked on the lights at the end of the movie, this is what Dan's end of the couch looked like.

I think someone missed their nap today :)

The Business Gets a Blower

Today Dan and the kids went outside to do a little "spring cleaning" in the yard.

Dan had a new toy to help with all of the leaves and debris. 

With each chunk of money that  comes in this spring from Dan's lawn and landscape business Dan gets to buy one more piece of equipment for his business. This weeks purchase was a blower. Ky had fun trying it out. You should have seen it. Talk about FUNNY. The machine weighs as much as he does and blows air out at about 200 miles per hour. NO, SERIOUSLY.....200 miles per hour!!!

He would pull the trigger and then go for a ride. The thing about knocked him on his butt a few times and blew him in circles another couple. Good Times! 

"For the first time in my life, I feel...WICKED"

This weekend Dan and I went to Wicked. It was awesome! As you probably know from my other posts we totally love going to Broadway  or off Broadway shows. Wicked came highly recommended and we weren't let down. 

About a year ago when we picked the tickets up in the first place we decided to buy a few extra tickets and pawn them off on some friends. The Despains, Madders, and Kissells all took advantage of the tickets and together the eight of us made a weekend vacation out of it. (Thanks for getting us such great seats Dad. Front and Center!) 

Our weekend started Friday morning 9am in the Despains driveway. The 8 of us split up in 2 cars and caravaned to Portland. 53 potty breaks later we arrived at our first shopping destination in Portland. The Washington Square Mall. We spent a few hours shopping and then hit the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. Yummy!  Next stop, the Portland Temple for an evening session, then back to our hotel to eat our leftover cheesecake desserts and play some card games until we were ready to crash.

With no kids tagging along we all agreed that sleeping in was a must. When 9am rolled around we grudgingly drug ourselves out of bed to meet up with the crew for a killer day of fun. We started Saturday out at the Woodburn Outlet Mall and then drifted back up to Portland for our play. 

Wicked started off great and ended even better. The music was awesome and the story line was so much fun. This is one of the best plays we have seen and I cant wait to go to it again some time in the future. 

We chose to eat at the macaroni grill for dinner and then plugged on home to round out our weekend. 

It was so much fun. The friends we went with were so much fun and we totally enjoyed the activities we ended up doing. Thanks for all the laughs!

Lets do it again!! How about......this weekend. 

Ridgeview Elementary Extravaganza

Tonight was the Extravaganza at the kid's elementary school. Each of them made a project to put on display and were very excited to show it off. All 3 kids new exactly what they wanted to do their projects on and did most all of the work themselves. It was nice that they wanted to do their projects on things they had been studying in class, this saved mom and dad from doing a lot of topical research with them since they already knew the content of their subject.

(Instead of keeping all of these 3 foot by 4 foot posters I decided to take a few pics and display them on my blog as a keepsake for them :)

Alaina chose to do her project on Water and wrote a 5 paragraph essay on the cycle of water. She thought it was so cool that we could actually be drinking the same water that a dinosaur had walked in millions of years ago due to the  cycle of water.  She came up with the idea to give fun word scrambles and water coloring pages as handouts. 

Ky brought home this viking ship, he had made at school, about a month ago. He was excited to do his extravaganza project on Vikings because his 3rd grade class just got done with this unit. He knew all about famous vikings, their ships, the food they ate, weapons, and armor. Ky thought it was pretty cool to find out that vikings used cow horns as their drinking cups.

It wasn't mandatory for Hailey to do an extravaganza project this year but because her older brother and sister were doing one she really wanted to do one too. She chose to do her project on art. Crayola Art to be exact. We did a lot of different art projects with crayons. A few of her favorite art projects were melting old crayons together to make new rainbow crayons, making a rainbow snow globe with crayon shavings and making sun catchers by melting crayon shavings between wax paper. 

Great job guys! Your projects turned out awesome! Can't wait to see what you come up with next year.

Hailey's 7th B-Day Party Hapenings

Happy Birthday to my Big 7 Year Old!!!

Hailey chose to have her birthday at Garland's gymnastics this year. This is a family favorite birthday party venue. It is one giant play ground for kids with rings, ropes, trampolines, zip lines, swings, and a bounce house. 

As the birthday girl she got to demonstrate all of the gymnastic activities for the other kids before the party started. Everyone had a ton of fun on all of the gym equipment.

Here's all of the crazy kids at Hailey's party gathered around to watch Hailey go on the birthday bungee!!

For those who don't know, or haven't been, the birthday girl always gets to strap into the bungee thing. The other kids get to cheer her on, but only she gets to bounce to the ceiling.  She did back flips, frog hops, and her favorite... the sling shot.

We love you Hailey! We hope you had a fantastic day and wish you a magical year. 

Hudson's Rippy's and Bink

The dreaded day has finally come. 

Time to get rid of Hudson's Pacifier, and his favorite blanket (commonly referred to as his "rippy's" because of how ripped, tattered, and torn it is.)

He loves them dearly and has grown very attached to them these last 2 years.

Here is the proper way to use a pacifier and a fuzzy soft blanket, according to Hudson Jax...

He even schooled his teddy bear in the proper pacifier and blanket bedtime routine.

The rips in his rippy grew...

and grew...

and GREW!

These last few weeks I think Hudson could sense the time for rippy's and bink's was coming to an end. So he went on overload  and enjoyed every last minute with them.

Good bye old friends, you'll be missed!

11 years, and loving it!

Hey Stace,

I know today may feel like any other ordinary Saturday, for you, with my busy schedule and the kids sports and our other family activities that are planned, but I just wanted to take a minute before our day starts to tell you Happy Anniversary.

I am so happy to have shared these last 11 years with you. You are my best friend. I’ve been thinking about how much I’ve been working lately and how busy I’ve been and how much I miss you. I have grown to love going on 2-3 dates a week with you. Seriously, how many couples get that kind of one on one time? I love it… every minute of it. I love talking with you about our lives, our kids, our goals, our faith, our frustrations, and all the rest. If I could choose any one person on this earth to just hang out with, and be best friends with, I would choose you. Everytime!

It has been really fun for me to be married to you and to grow our eternal family one child at a time. The blessings pour into my life in ways that fascinate me. I don’t necessarily know what I did in this life or the life before, to deserve you and what you have given me, but I am grateful to be the receiver of so much goodness.

I love your “LOVE”. I notice DAILY what you are doing for me. I know you work so hard at motherhood, wifehood, business helper-hood, and all the other "hoods". I am constantly amazed at how you display your love and commitment to me. You always have been that way, and I assume you always will be. I can’t tell you how much I LOVE your LOVE, and how you show it.

I have to acknowledge you at a spiritual level too. I love and appreciate your efforts to keep the scripture reading going on the days I am not there. The family home evenings and lessons, the lessons on service by your personal example… they are all noticed by me and are appreciated by me. The attributes that you display are exactly what our Father in Heaven has asked us to do. And you do it so well. Thank you for your strength, and your testimony.

You are looked up to by so many people. You are adored by your children and loved endlessly by me.

I have loved these last 11 years that we have spent together. I hope that as you look back, your memories are as fond as mine are. I wouldn’t trade any of it for anything. I adore you and thank you for blessing my life with your LOVE and your SMILE.

Forever Yours,
Dan


P.S. I can’t wait to take you to Portland next weekend for a real Anniversary Celebration. It will be nice to get away and finally be able to spend some quality time together. Love ya Babe!

I feel old...

It's official, I finally feel old. I can't believe I'm already here. Aren't our 30's suppose to be "thirty, flirty, and thriving?" 

I remember being a little kid, with a TON of energy, being raised by my mom who was in her thirties. She seemed sooooooo old to me at that age. She was always so tired, had headaches, and constantly wanted to take a nap. Ahhhh, but, now I am beginning to understand...

Not a day goes by that I don't wake up unrefreshed, feeling like I have slept on a pile of rocks all night, and then ran over by a semi truck. My body aches, my head pounds, I feel swollen all over, I am sooooooo tired, and at some point throughout each day I always think to myself "I need a NAP!" 

But it doesn't stop there. I not only feel old and tired, I am starting to look old and tired. Notice the evidence below in Exhibit A and Exhibit B.  

Each day I ask myself a few questions, predictably....

Holy Dark Circles and bags!?!? How can I make those go away? Where did all of those freckles, age spots, and moles come from? When did I start getting wrinkles? Where have my eyelashes disappeared to???

With how I have been feeling lately, I was pretty sure I must have cancer or some other life threatening illness. (How else to explain the feelings, the pain, the digestive track problems, 2 miscarriages, the headaches, and the tiredness.) But, after a few doctor appointments and check-ups that all came back fairly positive, it's all starting to sink in... I'm not dying... I'm just getting "OLD"! 

Crap! Seriously! Ugh!

So, where do I go from here? I have got to believe it can only get better. I hope it can't get any worse anyway. My mom is now in her fifties and seems to have more energy and looks way better than I do in my thirties so at least I have that to look forward to.  

I want my old self back; that's for dang sure!

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!)