April So Far

I was telling my good friend Jana this morning (by telling, I mean huffing and puffing and trying to spit it out while I did mean p90x push ups) that I used to watch movies and be frustrated at a certain scene that every single one of them had.  You know the one...the first half hour of the movie is the baby growing up till he's about 3 or 4 and then suddenly there's a 2 minute montage and the kid is 10 years old.  It drove me crazy!  Don't those movie makers know that those years go by so slowly?  That's when a kid really grows up!  Don't skip it!


Well, I stand corrected.  I feel like I'm living in that montage right now.  Life is passing by so quickly and I can hardly keep up with it long enough to write a few things down.  I snap pictures on my phone daily and I'm so grateful for that.  But I have these profound thoughts about motherhood and life and the gospel and they're gone before I can find a minute to sit down and write about them.

I will share one neat experience I had recently before I throw seven million pictures into this post.  I dictated it into my phone right after it happened and emailed it to myself.  That's as close to journal keeping as I've gotten lately.

"Living by the Spirit and listening to its promptings is a beautiful experience.
I was listening to Elder Neal a Anderson's talk about missionary work. I felt a prompting to call or to email a friend of mine Brooke simpson. I pray that I might know what to say and how to say it. I sent her a little message asking her to email me because I didn't have her email address. I haven't heard back from her yet. But in the meantime I received a phone call from a friend in our ward who asked if I and Stanton would participate in a baptism. She asked if we would provide the musical number and a talk on the Holy Ghost. Maybe she would've called me anyway. But feeling like I was praying and seeking a missionary opportunity gives me a little feeling that perhaps the Lord was answering my prayer and giving me an opportunity to share my testimony with someone who might need it."


Now for the pictures.

 We have been going to story time at the library lately and this week, Cannon got a surprise.  :)

 A throw together dinner (using random stuff from the fridge and pantry) that I Instagrammed.  Talapia and asparagus.  The topping on the talapia was olives, artichoke hearts, red peppers, olive oil, and italian seasoning.  It would have been much more delicious had I sauteed it before putting it on the talapia, then cooking.  Still darned edible, though!  :)

 The kids had friends over and what did they do?  An exercise video.  :)

 I Instagrammed my annual visit to the doctor.  I made a commitment 3 years ago to go while I was healthy so my doctor would recognize when I wasn't.  I hope all my friends will do the same.  A really neat gal that Stanton and I knew in Ohio just passed away from breast cancer - that had spread to her brain by the time she was finished with chemo and radiation and a mastectomy.  She was only 32.  Our health is SO precious!

 This one in a million shot pretty much made my life complete.  Henry is so stinking fun and adorable.

 I accidentally deleted the original of this pic off my phone, so I took a screen shot of it.  I bought new shoes in hopes that they would motivate me to work out (my old ones were getting pretty worn out).  The shoes have helped, but really it's working out with Jana every morning that has gotten me back on track.  We get up every morning to do p90x by 5:30.  It's crazy early, but makes all the difference in my day!

 Chloe with her best buddy Winston.  He is the sweetest kid.  They've been buddies since before Kindergarten.  I can't believe how big they're getting.

 Henry has the sharpest little fingernails ever.  He loves to grab Stanton's face with them.  :)

 Here was the Instagram caption for this picture:
After years of only allowing one pair if sneakers, one pair of boots, and one pair of church shoes per kid (just out of sheer desperation - one less thing to keep track of!), I've finally let the girls get some cute shoes to go with their outfits. I'm not sure who loves them more....me or them. Probably me! 👠🎀 #chloerose #lilyvirginia

 Cannon is my little artist lately.  I've been trying to wean him off Disney Jr. (the boy is addicted) and painting is one of his favorite activities.  In fact, after he ran out of paint, he spent his own allowance to buy more.  Score!

 Little Hank reminding me to look for the light.  Isn't he a precious little nugget?

 Henry was having a particularly adorable day that day.  Look at those chubby hands and feet.  This was his first time on grass and after a moment's hesitation, he was down with hit!

 We snuck over to the preschool to watch Cannon with his friends.  Fun!

 Looking at this larger, I realize that I over-edited his face, but darn it, it's still about the cutest little shot in history!

 We walked over to the park to pick Lily up from soccer practice.  Love this shot of Brigham deciding which path to take.

 Oops!  Did it again!  I've got to watch that.

 It's been glorious to enjoy some blue skies after a reaaaalllllly long and grey and inversionated Cache Valley winter. (PS, it's grey again today, 4/16/13...)

 I started to make my bed 5 different times this day and kept getting distracted.  It did finally get made, though.  :)

 I'm always up for a little proof that I'm an idiot.  This day I dropped my granola bar in an unfortunate spot.  :)

 A beautiful Friday afternoon spent with friends.  Chloe and Alice gave makeovers to Rylee and Lily.  Cute girls!

 Brigham and Kyler played in the sand box.

 Cannon and Charlie hung out under the trampoline.

 And Henry longed to be out there with them!!!

 Driving home from our sweet niece Sarah's baptism.  I liked my dress and shoes together and darn it, my legs were restless.

 

 Brigham spent his allowance on a new set of wooden blocks.  The kids have all loved them!

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 Chloe discovered a fun little treat.  Microwaving a marshmallow for about 40 seconds perfectly toasts it!

 Henry sat at the sewing machine with me while I worked on a project.  It's fun to have him on my lap, but he is a maniac with buttons!  (He's doing it right now while I type, as a matter of fact!!)!

 I have the very fun privilege of sewing some clothing samples for a local quilt shop here in town.  Too fun!

Henry actually stuck the same two fingers (but on the opposite hand) that he sucks into Stanton's mouth to suck.  How funny is that?

So that I can exercise at Jana's house and Tyler can exercise here with Stanton, I get up at 5:00, wake Henry up to feed him & change his diaper, and put him back to bed before heading over to Jana's.  This way, Henry doesn't interrupt the guys exercising and Max (2 weeks older than Henry) is asleep where we are exercising.  Anyway, sometimes I'm done with all of that before I need to walk over, so I've had some time to read scriptures in the morning.  It's been wonderful to get back into that good habit.

 Sometimes life is so humorous. Stanton and I decided that we were going to drastically slash our spending and go to a cash budget (inspired by @rachlovesjimmy and a desire to put a huge down payment on our new home when we decide to build). What month does our garage door break? Of course the first month into the cash budget! I was tempted to just say, eh, this can come out of savings..., but we're committed- it's coming out of the cash and we're going to live tight to make up for it. The real irony isn't that this happened, it's that I feel a huge sense of freedom and pride that we are paying for it this way.
 We are halfway through our first month and still have half of our cash left -- and I've already payed all of our big expenses:  gym, preschool, piano, the garage repair...even the housekeepers.  I can't believe how easy it is to keep the spending down when we know exactly how much we have to spend.  We've had our very best year financially with the practice.  We made more than we really ever thought we would with this business -- I find it so interesting that Heavenly Father has really inspired both Stanton and I to, in spite of that financial success, really pay attention to our outflow and be wise stewards.  I'm thankful for Rachel & Jim who finally got us motivated enough to make the leap from just talking about doing it to actually putting it into practice.  I have been pondering lately on this concept of "trials" and I think Stanton is right.  The "trial" isn't the difficult situation...it's how we react to it.  We are on trial.  This has helped me to see that I don't have to constantly worry that some bad thing is going to happen (you know, because we are always taught that we will have trials in this life).  The trial is NOW.  Yes, there will certainly be difficult times ahead where we will be tried in different ways, but I'm in a trial right now.  When things are financially great, will we still follow the promptings God has given us to be wise stewards?  I'm grateful that, at least for now, we are rising up and accepting that challenge...passing the trial, as it were.  Of course we are only 2 weeks into it and consistency is one of the great challenges of mortality.  We'll have months where we struggle to keep our determination.  We'll fail sometimes.  But we're moving in the right direction and I'm so thankful for that.  (All this thought for a picture of an invoice- ha!)
 

Gosh this boy is sweet.  He has been fighting a really yucky virus for nearly 2 weeks now.  He hasn't slept as well because he can't breathe through his nose, which means he can't suck his fingers, which means he can't comfort himself.  In spite of the sickness, he's been the sweetest, most cheerful boy.  He's definitely cried more this week than he usually does, but he is just an angel.  Honestly.  We have just been blessed to have him in our family.  We love Henry!

Finally, here are my two babies playing while I worked on the blog all day (seriously...all day.  I didn't even look at the dishes until 3:45...well after the kids had gotten home from school).  Charlie is very patient with Henry, who loves to give him dental exams, pull on his paws, and pull his hair.  Henry is patient with Charlie who likes to lick him.  They are good buddies!