Motherhood

As a mother, I feel so discouraged sometimes! The kids will find any little thing to get mad at eachother about and fight. They are all so passionate about life and their own little world that they are so easily angered. Something that I look on as a trivial thing is so important to them. I feel like all I ever do all day is make life good for my children. I feed them every meal, I help them get dressed, I take them to parks, to the pool, help them play the Wii or nickjr.com. I wish I had a giant feeding me, dressing me, and carrying me around to fun activities all day! :) I am always running around tickling them, reading books, and helping them with their chores. I try to teach them little gospel lessons every day and we do our family scripture readings mostly consistently! Where am I going wrong? Why is it that I do my best and give them these great things and they fight and are ungrateful?! Sure, I don't do everything for them and they each have a chore chart and things that they are responsible for too, but pleeease!

It struck me a few days ago when Lils threw a fit that we didn't go to this other pool, we just spent 2 1/2 hours at our normal pool that things were getting out of hand. That next day I made Lils and E spend the entire morning in their rooms. The first hour they would open their doors and say, "I'm bored!!!" and I would then say, "That's your own fault, if you want to do something fun, then do it! You have all of the things in your room. Play." So they did well after that in their rooms and were surprisingly friendly and kind to eachother that afternoon.

I was complaining to Dave a few days ago that I felt SO under-appreciated! All I want is for my kids to be happy! All I want is for them to get along, learn, grow, become well-rounded people. That's all I do all day! I read to them, teach them, play... ok, Ive already gone there... sorry! :) You know what I'm saying! Dave listened to all of my whining and then with a few words, he taught me one of the most important lessons of my life. He said, "That's probably how Heavenly Father feels about us!" Here we are: His children. We've been given this gorgeous earth that gives us all of the things our bodies need. I have shelter, an amazing husband, the gospel, healthy children, wonderful parents and siblings, good friends and neighbors..... and I find reasons to fight. I find reasons to complain. I find ways to be unhappy. I can almost feel God looking down and thinking, "Oh man! What more do you need! You have everything! Just be happy! Use what you have and make the most of it!"

The things that are so important and so monumental to me are not, in the long scheme of things, super important. In Heavenly Father's eternally vast and omniscient perspective, my problems are trivial! My troubles are small and easily remedied. Just like I can look at E getting SO angry that Lils touched his lunch or Baby No wants the pink towel, not the orange one. Whatever their problems are, I try to get them to laugh about it, talk about it, think about it in perspective. Most times they can't. These are the things they have control over and they don't have the same perspective that I do. I mean, if I could go back to high school with the mind set that I have now, I would laugh at the mean girls with the snooty fashion! I wouldn't be intimidated by them. I wouldn't be so obsessed with listening to the cool music or wearing the name brands or having to have a boy like me to know that I was worth something. Please.

I am going off on a tangent, but what it comes down to is this: I have a greater perspective than my kids, Heavenly Father has the greatest of all. "For Behold, this is my work and my glory, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man" (Moses 1:39) Our Heavenly Father just wants us to be happy, to be grateful! And sometimes we get sent to our rooms (figuratively) all morning so that we can realize how good we have it! This is why we're here and I am very much like my children. I can get very whiny and ungrateful when I am in my own little tunnel of short vision. Does it really matter? What are the most important things in life? Am I putting the right amount of push on the things that matter most? Where are my priorities?

I don't want to sound like my kids are always whining and fighting, I do find the joy in the little things. They really are pretty fun.... mostly. :) And I do take the comments from the older generation to heart when I hear "enjoy them while they're young! They grow up so fast!" I do and I remind myself to everyday. But that doesn't mean it isn't a little crazy too.

That is all. Those are my jumbled musings on a Tuesday night.

Spray Parks

One thing I really love about where we live are the parks! We have three spray parks within 5 miles of our house. I love to just load the kids up with sunscreen, have them each grab a towel, throw a snack in my bag and we're off! My kids are at such an "easy" age right now. Yes, they can be crazy, but I really love having Lils as my oldest. She takes care of her brother and sister and is such a great help to me. E is a good boy and is always happy to play or read or run around like crazy. His only kriptonite is Rose and her uncanny ability to want everything he wants and to scream and cry about it. Oh well! Rose is very fun right now, though her fiestiness is a bit wearing!

She wasn't too sure about the water at first, but once I put her hand and feet in the water a few times- she was loving everything! She was running around like her brother and sister squealing and smiling like little cuties.



Ebay kept waiting under the buckets to get dumped on!

Our Utah Weekend!

We went to Utah this weekend. It was so great! My nephew was baptized and my dad flew out from Virginia to be there. I was so happy to be there at his sweet little baptism, he's a good boy. We always have a blast in Utah. As you can see from the pictures, my sister has an amazing backyard! What you can't see are the two goats, chickens, dog, and cat running around out there as well. My kids sure do love all of those animals and we had fresh eggs every morning.
I was so excited to spend some time with my dad and for him to see my kids. It's tough when you live far away from your parents. There's this need and longing for your kids to know their grandparents and for your parent's to know and love your kids. I am sad to be so far away from my Mom and Dad, but of course, I am also very happy the live where we do. I will jump at any chance to get together with my family as much as possible. Rose took to her "Papa" almost right away, but once she had him, she wouldn't let him go! I think it was all of the swinging. :)

Papa and most of his west-coast grandkids- we are missing Juni, Ebay, and Apollo in this picture.

Monday we went out to American Fork canyon. Dave took the kids out on the 4-wheeler and the rest of us played in the water a bit, threw rocks, and went on a little hike. It was so short because almost all of us had flip-flops on and I had to carry Rose in my arms! It was very slippery and scarey with only flip flops on!

Lils and Azure- man they love eachother!

My attempt at a "High School Musical" picture... uhhh. And also, don't look too closely at that death-trap we call a trampoline. Why does that blue padding always get so nasty and scarey?

My sweet niece Willow. She is so cute! I loved seeing her little dance performance!




Me and my gorgeous sister, Cora! I love that girl so much. I love spending time with her and her family. She is a great Mom and really works hard to be the best she can. I have such great sisters, and of course my Mom is pretty amazing as well!

My dad!

Rose and Auntie Cora looking over the spill-way. There was a massive amount of water going over that. We'd drop a stick in there and it disappeared instantly. Very powerful water pressure.


Our view. What a beautiful place.

The Playhouse is finished!

From humble beginnings:

The loft.

The roof and siding are up...

Finished! This is the little loft with carpet and pillows.

An inside view.

Our hands: Dave's, mine, Lil, E, and No's.

Isn't it it? Dave cut out that darling trim with a jigsaw.

Our sideyard! Dave enjoyed the work. He would come home from his job and go right to work. The kids loved helping him by bringing him nails, screws, the leveler, and other odd jobs. Once they were in bed, Dave worked until the last light was barely visible. He really made a great little house. Welcome friends and neighbors. Come and play!

Hikin'

Last Saturday we took a fun day trip to Codfish Falls. We had never heard of it before, but we knew we wanted a little waterfall hike within an hour and a half drive and no more than 3 miles long. Dave just googled that and we found this place! It was perfect! We drove out to this bridge after a good 3 or 4 miles of skirting some mountains on a dirt road with lots of potholes and cracks! We were so glad we took Dave's jeep. We never would've made it in our van! It was just a perfect day. Lils and E did great on the hike, it was a perfect length for them. By the time they started puttering out, we made it to the falls and had a huge rest and snack before heading 1 1/2 miles back. It was a beautiful day. Dave and kids built a nice little dam in that first picture. they were so proud!


After the hike we played in the river. Here's Dave skipping rocks.

Baby No was in heaven! She just threw rock after rock into the water giggling and spinning her feet and wrists in delight!

Love this shot of E!
The falls.

The kids loved riding in the jeep! It's so much cooler than our van. I think so too, people! Believe me, I'll take a jeep anyday... :)

Summertime!

Is that one word? Dave fixed our little pond's (wading pool's) waterfall, cleaned out all of the winter gunk, and fun was had by all! Here's Baby No with a few cheezits and a happy face.

Lils and Rose dancing before church. My sister Lorel made those adorable flower clips and I tried to get a picture of them both with matching hair! Rose does not like to have her picture taken, so here's what we have! Thanks, 'Rel!

Showing off her swirly dress. I love the open space we have in our "loft" outside of our kitchen. I don't think any other room in the house gets as much use besides the kitchen. It's completely open and the kids love to dance, wrestle, and do gymnastics in there. I love to put music on for them and just see them run up to the loft and start dancing a giggling. They are just so sweet. I don't want them to grow up so fast!

Rose's favorite new thing. We bought some draperies from Ikea thinking we could see how they looked and take back the ones we didn't like. Well, unbeknown to us, once you open something from Ikea, you can only get a store credit! Lame! We ended up not liking either of the drapes, took them back and had a pretty substantial in-store credit. So, we bought this cute little kitchen. It's Rose's favorite thing in the world! She likes to make the food and will giggle so hard when you "eat" it.

Pond fun. It's so nice to have that little area for the kids to play in. They love it. The saddest part of this picture is lil' Rose, she is so happy and semi-dry right there, not knowing that within a fraction of a second, she'd be soaking wet! She was not happy.


This was her little job. She did this for a hour and a half straight. She'd go to the pond, fill up her bucket, run over to our trees, pour the water in, and run back over to fill it up again. She likes to be busy. Look at her little tongue sticking out! Love it!