Conference link

There is a great page with links, games, and printouts for kids for the coming Conference at lds.org.

Go check it out, it's good stuff:

https://beta.lds.org/general-conference/children?locale=eng

Those little moments

I am so grateful for those cute things that these little people do that just make my heart double in size.  Never mind that the house is a mess and we have an appraiser coming to our house at 7:30 in the morning.  I do the best I can and try to just let it go and stay in the moment with these precious people.  When I put Carter to bed, he usually protests a bit when I put him in his crib so I usually bend down and play some kind of peek-a-boo game or have some kind of moment with him.  Then he isn't so upset about being in there.  Sometimes we just do that for several minutes.  Today, he reached out with his chubby little hand and grabbed a fist full of my hair and gently pulled my face up to the bars of the crib and gave me a huge slobbery kiss!  Heaven on Earth to me.

At the Movies with Tanner

If you go to the movies with Tanner, don't expect a quiet experience.  He has no volume button and will make his comments really loud so everyone can here.  It is funny though.  We went to see the movie Shorts today.  It is a really funny movie for kids.  They got a big kick out of it.  At one point there are little alien space ships that clean the main little boy's room.  Tanner yelled "Hey, they could clean MY room!"  Then at another point a guy got turned into a huge Oscar Myer weiner and rolled down the street.  It was hilarious and I guess that got Tanner thinking about hot dogs.  Several minues later he yelled "Hot dogs are INSIDE corn dogs!!!" What an observation.  I really have to write all of these things down. I must.  I never want to forget Tanner as a 3 year old.  He is our funniest, yet least humored child.  He really doesn't think he is being funny, he is actually very serious.

As of Late...

Peter is really enjoying working with his dad.  He has even taken Dallin with him to work a couple of times.  What a nice Daddy!  Peter cut his finger open pretty badly last week with a drill, so he has to constantly re-dress the wound.  He couldn't have stitches because of the location and the way it cut so it is a slow healing process. Work keeps him busy along with many many things on his to do list at home.  He has been busy with refinancing our home, painting and carpeting the basement, rolling over his retirement from his last job and a lot of little home maintenance jobs.  Peters hours are all over the place, but likes the flexibility of being able to take time off when there is a family need.  Peter and his dad are very close, so they enjoy each other a lot.  What a wonderful, unique opportunity!

I am working hard at home as well.  Life is super busy with the kids.  I am still having some health issues that make things more difficult but I sure love my job!  I have been working on the Accountable Kids program with the kids and enjoying some more creative projects to beautify our home.  Peter and I have noticed that the kids seem to play with eachother all the time now and we are kind of chop liver.  They certainly don't need us for entertainment anymore. I love watching them play together and it makes me so happy that they have each other. We bought a used TV for the basement that is huge for $100, and some times Peter and I sneak downstairs to watch a movie after the kids go to bed.  It is so fun, like our secret getaway.  We also play rockband now so with all the basement fun, we don't feel the need to go out for dates much.  I  stole borrowed Lucy's Dance Dance Revolution game and have been getting some good excercise with it!  It really makes me break a sweat.

Dallin loves school now and is doing great!  He has been on spring break this whole week though, and has loved that too.  He is such a leader with his siblings and a good example to them.  I love that!  He is building, building, building.  He doesn't play with toys much.  He prefers wood scraps and bricks and anything else he can make a structure with.  I get a little crazy when he dumps all the laundry baskets and other containers for his projects, but I do like his creativity.  Going to work with Peter is such a huge treat and he works hard with his Dad and Grandpa and comes home exhausted.  He LOVES to work! Dallins new goal is to read a page a day of the Book of Mormon as a family so that by the time he is 8 he will have read the whole thing when he gets baptised.  We take turns reading now and I am amazed at how his reading has improved since we started doing this.  He prays about this goal and last night I overheard him asking for help to do this so he can be a prophet some day.  So sweet, he wants to be like Lehi and Nephi.

Eden is as sweet as they come.  She takes care of her brothers in a more nurturing way, but can also be a little tomboy with them.  She especially loves to play with Tanner and give him orders. She is starting to read a lot more and can't get enough of her lessons.  I am not too good at remembering to do them with her, otherwise she would probably be done with the whole lesson book.  She helps me cook all the time and continues to draw and color whatever comes to her imagination.  Lately she has been collecting little "treasures" from around the house and she keeps them in one of her little purses.  It is cute, I remember doing stuff like that when I was her age. 

Tanner is always making us laugh as you can imagine.  Lately he has picked up on that and become a little more sensitive about it.  If he says something funny like "Mom, if you drink red juice, you will turn into a llama!" (he watched the Emperors New Groove a few weeks ago), and I start to laugh, he says "Hey, thats not funny!"  Tanner still loves his Thomas trains.  I seriously don't know why we even have any other toys, that is all my boys need.  Dallin and Eden really love to play computer games on the internet so he enjoys watching it while they play.

Carter is talking more and more all the time.  He says full sentences, but I still only get about half of what he says.  He knows what he wants though, and makes it very clear through his actions.  He is always following the pack of siblings, but isn't quite big enough to do everything they do.  He learns a lot from them though and tries to be a big boy.  One year olds are so fun as they learn to talk and soak in so much of the world around them and I love observing kids at this age.  Lately he is obsessed with shoes insists on wearing  them all the time.  He even sleeps with them on sometimes.  He also insists on taking his vitamins so we never forget those anymore.  He thinks they are candy and begs for them.  The kids get a dinosaur multi, 2 fish oil gummies, and 2 chewable D3 so he loves his handful of goodies. 

Lily is so stinkin cute!  She always sleeps through the night now, 10-12 hours.  She watches all the action around the house and seems to be pretty content.  She doesn't cry very often anymore, she has a little wimper instead.  She almost sounds like a little puppy dog sometimes.  It is very different than my other babies.  Her little voice is really femenine and cute. Lately she has been examining her hands a lot.  She stares at them while she practices moving them.  You can just see how interesting it is as she discovers opening and closing her fingers.   She is definitely a very easy baby and I just love to hold her and cuddle her.

As a family, we are enjoying all the socializing with relatives and friends.  Dallin's school had a fundraiser from school selling movie theater tickets.  It was like $9 for 10 family movies and adults come for free, so we have been enjoying an extra outing together each week. I like going out with them because they learn how to behave in public and to stay seated so it is a little extra practice and fun at the same time.  Some of them like the popcorn more than the movies!

Tanner Quotes

• As we drove into the Ikea parking lot I explained to the kids that we were going to eat lunch at the restaurant.  I asked them to tell me what the rules are when we eat at a restaurant:

Eden: Stay in you chair.
Dallin: No Yelling.
Tanner: And NO belly flops!

I guess that makes sense.

• I passed out our chewable dinosaur vitamins to all the kids. 

Tanner(to Peter): The dinosaur's butt is tasty!

I asked Tanner about it and he made sure to tell me its really just a vitamin(with a bite out of its butt!)

Going All Uchtdorf Up in Here

When Eden was a little Baby, my Mother in Law gave me a sweet gift.  She gave me a skirt, and bought another one and had it made into a little baby skirt.  It was kinda fun to got to church all matching.  I still have the skirts and now the little one fits Lily.

Our garage is a wreck.  We had a ton of stuff in there from our move home, and when the basement flooded, all of our storage that was in the basement went to the garage as well.  I was out there looking for something recently and I came across a big tub of my sewing stuff that had been in storage.  I recognized some of the fabric right away and pulled it out curiously. 

When Lori had the little baby skirt made, she had given me what was left from the bigger skirt it was made from.  I had totally forgotten! I used one of Edens skirts as a pattern and managed to make the remnants into another skirt.  I had to be a little tricky, but from a distance you can't really see how I had to make do with what I had. So now Lily will wear the baby skirt, Eden has the new one and I will wear mine so we can all match!  I know its cheesy, but I don't care, its totally fun!

When I started having kids, I gave up sewing.  I enjoy it, but just didn't think it would work well for me with little ones around.  I just told myself that I will be able to sew again, but not in this season of life.  So pulling out my sewing machine and creating a cute little skirt was quite a treat.  I had so much fun, that I am rethinking my philosophy on the subject.  I didn't want to stop so I decided to make some hair decorations to match.  I browsed some Etsy shops for ideas and went to it.

Here's the new addition to complete our set:

Here's a headband for Eden.  I just cut out different sized circles out of the extra fabric and skirt lining and stitched it to a headband we had lying around.  I really didn't want to buy anything for this project so I sacrificed a necklace that I rarely wear for the center beads. I love how it turned out:

Yes, that is chocolate on her face. 

For Lily's I found another head wrap type headband lying around and sized it down by sewing a new seam.  Then I just stitched the same circle decorations onto it.  I wanted the headband to be scrunched around the sides so I just handstitched them in place as well. Nice crusties and spit bubbles Lil:

I was too lazy to stitch around the circles to keep them from fraying so I will have to be very careful with them. I probably should have done that.

I Can't wait to take pictures of us all dressed up in our matchies!  Brother Uchtdorf is right, I feel very satisfied.

"The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. No matter our talents, education, backgrounds, or abilities, we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before.


Everyone can create. You don’t need money, position, or influence in order to create something of substance or beauty.


Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment. We develop ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it into something of beauty..."
-Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “Happiness, Your Heritage,” Ensign, Nov 2008, 117–20

Tanner Quote

Tanner: What is that?
Me: Enchiladas, they are so yummy!
Tanner: I don't like them, they hurt my feelings.

Peter's Birthday

Peter turned 31 on the 2nd. I guess we are really in our thirties now. Hard to believe for me. We had a nice birthday party for him at Grandpa D's house. His big present was a Wii with Rockband! That will be so fun once we have the new carpet installed in the basement.

For Eden's birthday, I made one cake and it was not enough for our family group, so this time I bought 3 different cake mixes and that was way more than enough. I guess I will know how many to make next time. The kids wanted to help make Daddy's cakes and since I had 3 cakes and 3 helpers, they each got to make one. They thought it was pretty cool not to have to share the load, like they usually do. They did a gread job and we ended up with a chocolate, strawberry cream-cheese, and pineapple upside down cake.

We are all big fans of Peter around here. We love you Daddy!

Fun Reward System

I got my Accountable Kids stuff and we are starting to use it but I wanted to share a fun reward system that has really worked for our kids the last couple of months. One day, the reward system we were using got pretty stale so I just slapped a Candy Land board on the wall. We made a quick list of thing that they could do to earn cards and we used push pins for they player pieces. Wow, talk about motivated kids. They love to earn cards and even have a little bit of healthy competition to get to the end. When they get to the end the get to pick Peter, myself or any of their grandparents to go on a date with. How great is that to earn one on one time. It has been so great!

We were having problems getting the kids to stop crawling in our bed in the middle of the night and earning a card totally worked to get them to stop. Seriously, we have been trying to get one of them to stay in their bed all night for a really long time and this nipped it! They even beg for extra chores so they can earn a card(or catch up to someone who is ahead). We will probably integrate this into our new system since they love it so much.(note: I took out all the cards that make them skip around the board). I think a lot of people have a dusty Candy Land game around anyway, so this will put it to good use.

Love and Prayer

I need to work on this one. Some days I really wish I was a sweet little homemaker, that never complains or raises her voice but yet has strength and leadership that quietly guides children toward their loving Heavenly Father. I need to frame this one.

(from the daily GEM)
Let Love Abound in Our Actions
Posted: 07 Mar 2010 11:00 PM PST
"Let us lower our voices in our homes. Let love abound and find expression in our actions. May we walk the quiet ways of the Lord, and may prosperity crown our labors."
Gordon B. Hinckley, "An Humble and a Contrite Heart," Ensign, Nov. 2000, 89

I loved this one too. This is something I want to be perfectly obedient at, like tithing. We really try, but I know we could do better.

The Savior Told Us to Have Family Prayer
Posted: 04 Mar 2010 11:00 PM PST
"The Savior told us, 'Pray in your families unto the Father, always in my name, that your wives and your children may be blessed' (3 Nephi 18:21). In our day, the Church urges us to have family prayer every night and every morning. . . ."Family prayer is a powerful and sustaining influence."
James E. Faust, "The Lifeline of Prayer," Ensign, May 2002, 60–61

Polka Dots

Eden is such and easy little girl. I love having her around so much.
My selfish side never wants to let her go to school, that will be a hard day for me. I want to keep her!
She keeps herself busy and I don't think she even knows the word "bored". Here she didn't even want to stop to eat lunch, so she just worked right on through it. Um, if you were wondering why she is in her jammies at lunch time...no comment.

She is constantly coloring, glueing, and cutting and doing little projects. This day was full of polka dots. Another day she discovered that she could make a butterfly by putting glue on paper, then folding it in half and opening it back up.

Eager to Learn

Dallin is in a major question asking phase! I can't believe this is the same kid I knew 3 years ago, it is mind boggling. I am finding that I have to remind myself to be grateful (so very grateful indeed when I reflect on it) that he CAN ask me 5000 questions a day. Any answer given only leads to more questions, he wants to understand how everything in this world works and why. I admire his passion for life and never want him to lose the joy he finds in it. Those wheels never stop turning. I really love to learn and want to instill a respect and love for the unlimited opportunities to learn that we have in this country in my children. I mean all of it, secularly and spiritually in our religion. Watching Dallin soaking things up like a human sponge is amazing and I feel so much joy in that.

Yesterday as I walked him to school he told me that he loved going to school, so he can learn! That was music to my ears. That tells me that he is finally adjusted to his new school atmosphere and is ready to learn and be happy there. He has been trying so hard to adjust to the new people, structure, schedule, classroom etc. Now it feels routine to him so he is beginning to flourish again.

Tonight I took Dallin and Eden to see their first play. Aunt Lucy(who was the cutest munchkin in all of Munchkin Land!) was in her middle school performance of "The Wizard of Oz". Dallin sat next to his Grandpa and asked questions the whole time as he watched and tried to understand the characters. It was so much that his talking was becoming a distraction to those around us and I had to ask him to be quieter. It feels a bit counter-intuitive because language is a gift that prayed for him to have for so long.

On the way home he went on and on with his questions about any topic at hand. I was tiring of it a little and kind of started to tune it out, when he caught me off guard:

Dallin: What does that blue sign mean with the upside down jelly fish?
Me: What? I don't know what your are talking about.
Dallin: Right there, what does that mean?
Me: (looking around at the signs and passing surroundings) What are you talking about? I don't see any jelly fish.
Dallin: There! (pointing at the in dash system lights)
Me:(I finally notice that my bright lights were on and so the little picture was lit up in the dashboard. It is a half circle shape with 3 lines coming up out of it.) Oh! That does look like an upside down jellyfish!

We proceeded to talk about what we use the brights for and when all the way home(15 minutes). I wouldn't think that you could talk about the bright lights of your car for so long, but apparently there is alot to be said about them.

Lil' Lily

Lily, just saying your name makes me smile. I love your happy little face. You are three months old now and I can't remember life without knowing you. You no longer look like a new baby and your personality shows more everyday.

You stick your tongue out a lot.


You just this very moment discovered your feet.


"Achoo!" Bless you.


I like your feet too.


And your beautiful face.


Tanner likes you. You like him too.


So so happy to be here.


You think your fingers are tasty.

But mostly, know that you are adored by many.