New Links!

Can you believe this is my third post within the last 24 hours? What's gotten into me?

Actually I just wanted to point out that I'm finally getting around to adding some links to my blog:

Anthology- My sister-in-law Meggan's blog. Meggan is great. Very straight forward and lots of fun. I love to read about her life in Southern CA. I especially like to see pictures of my cute little nieces and nephew.

Tales of Love- This blog is by Meggan's seven year old daughter Bree. She thought of that catchy title all by herself.

Every Day a Story- The author of this blog is Missy, Meggan's sister. Hers is the first blog I ever read and I quickly became addicted. I loved reading about her pregnancy and now her experiences as a first time mom.

Tater Tot Casserole- My friend Nikki just started this blog. Nikki is a homeschooling mother of six children. I have no idea how she does it. She is also a voracious reader and holds a book club in her home that I attend every month. She is super smart and every time she makes a comment in church classes I think, "Wow, how profound".

All Recipes- I love this cooking website! You can type in whatever your looking for and you will get numerous recipes for that entry. Each recipe is rated and people have given reviews on them. It makes it easy to find really tasty recipes.

Confessions of a Pioneer Woman- So, so funny! This blog is about a (hilarious) city girl who married a cattle rancher. She details life on their ranch and be forewarned, some posts are not for the faint of heart. I love all the great photos on her site and I admire her motto of "keepin' it real". I like that she presents the good, bad and ugly in her life.

[rm] Overexposed: A Photo Blog- This is who I want to be when I grow up. As far as photography goes anyway. I like the lifestyle photography that she does. I especially love that she photographed her son's having a pillow fight after she cut open the feather pillows!

R-r-r-r-ibbet!

One thing we love about spring is that it is frog season. At night we love to open up our windows and let them sing us to sleep. During the day the kids have a ball catching them in our neighborhood drainage pond.
My handsome, quick, fearless frog catcher.
Most of the frogs are found by over turning rocks.
Isn't he a cutie? Think he will turn into a prince if we give him a little kiss?
"Please, please, let us out!!!"

Don't worry, at the end of the day all froggies are safely returned to their home sweet home.

WhooHoo!!!

Yesterday I purchased my new prized possession, a 10.2 mega pixel digital SLR camera! I've been putting a lot of thought into it and have decided that I would like to get into professional photography. I've always been very passionate about photography and now I've decided to really pursue it. My first step was to purchase an appropriate camera. Next I will begin taking classes/workshops. I'm looking into two different places that offer classes and I haven't yet decided which one I'm going to go with. If I go with one I will start in May, if I go with the other, I will start in June. I am REALLY excited.

A Second Chance

For the past two weeks Lauren has been begging me to take her to the park. She had it all planned out. We would first buy food from a drive through restaurant, since she doesn't care for brown bag sandwiches. We would then head for the park where we would enjoy our little picnic lunch. Then we would have a great time playing on the playground together. As much as I like to make her happy, I found myself repetitively telling her no, not today. I just didn't want to go to the park. Then I began to think about it and realized that in her whole life I can only remember taking her to the park less than a handful of times. What kind of mother am I? This realization forced me to examine my reasons for park aversion. At the time Austin and Amanda were born, many other woman I knew were also having babies. This naturally led to many play dates at the park with these toddlers and their mothers. What sounds like a fun afternoon in the park really wasn't that fun for me. First of all, little tiny kids climbing massive playground structures just plain scares me. I spent most of the time following my kids around because I was so worried they would plunge to their death if I weren't there to catch them. The day I saw my tiny dare devil daughter dangling (how's that for alliteration) from some monkey bars I nearly had a heart attack. When I was able to relax a bit and settle on the grass with the other moms I would usually find them involved in a full blown gossip-fest. There was also the catty competition over which mom was thinner, whose son was smarter, who's little girl was most petite, and whose husband made the most money. Finally I'd had enough and my park days became a thing of the past. Now I have this third child wanting to go to the park with her mommy. Yesterday I finally gave in. We picked up slices of pizza at Pizza Hut Express and headed to our city park to enjoy a little picnic. Immediately two adorable little girls ran over with handfuls of squirmy worms and invited Lauren to come play with them. It was a warm beautiful day and I enjoyed reading my book while Lauren played. I realized that at age six she wasn't going to kill herself having fun on the playground. After she was through playing with the kids I pushed Lauren on the swings, gave her monkey bar lessons and played a few rounds of tic-tac-toe. Before we left a cute little bushy tailed squirrel came up to visit and Lauren fed him crumbs from her pizza crust. I have to admit that we had a very pleasant afternoon in the park and I'm glad that Lauren forced me to give it a second chance. We might even go back sometime.

Random...

It appears by the look on Amanda's face that Lauren is desperately in need of deodorant! Just kidding. They will probably kill me for posting this picture but it made me laugh so hard I just had to share it. We were actually sitting in our truck waiting for Aaron to get done giving a bid and I just started randomly snapping nonsensical pictures. I nearly laughed myself silly over this one. Now that I'm actually posting this, I'm not sure you guys will think it's all that hilarious but for some reason it really tickled my funny bone.

Austin's Room

A few posts ago I wrote about the kids switching bedrooms and how we spontaneouly decided to paint a couple of walls in Austin's room green. Well, the next day I went online and discovered that this giant wall mural from Pottery barn Teen that I have been wanting for a year and a half had gone on sale from $199 to only $39. I couldn't believe it. Needless to say, I had to have it. I love Austin's room now. It is so "Earthy" and has such a calm feel.

Pretty Little Princess

Date Night

I love date night. Here we are fourteen years into our marriage and I still get excited about going out with my man. We have always tried to go out once a week, just the two of us. Sometimes we don't manage it EVERY week but at least we try. Most of the time we go out to dinner and see a movie. Not too creative, I know, but it works for us. Every once in a great while we break out and do something different. Mostly we just enjoy the togetherness and the opportunity to catch up with each other. I strongly believe that date night has helped keep us "in love" instead of becoming just a pair of cohabiting parents. This weekend we had the opportunity to go out with another couple but Aaron declined the invitation. Later as we headed out on our own Aaron told me he was glad we didn't go with them because "I really wanted you all to myself tonight". AAHHH...what can be greater than hearing something like that from the one you love?

Confession...

A few days ago a woman in my ward, whom I don't know very well, called and asked if I could babysit her daughter one day this week. Out of pure selfishness I came up with an excuse and got out of it. I've never been very comfortable babysitting other people's children, but I COULD have done it, I guess. Since then I have felt very guilty that I didn't put my discomfort aside and help her out. Then tonight I picked up my manual to read The Relief Society lesson I am teaching on Sunday and saw that the lesson is titled, "Selfless Service". Of Course. Come Sunday I will be eating a huge slice of humble pie.

Bold but Cheerful!

After painting Austin's room, I felt inspired. I decided to finally be brave and paint my kitchen red. I've been wanting to do this for a year but kept putting it off. I recruited Aaron to help me and he turned out to be a life saver. Normally he refuses to pick up a paint brush but this time he helped me tape everything off and did all the brushing along the edges for me (not only once but for all three coats of paint we had to apply). He also did most of the cleanup and all of the touch up. To top it all off, he didn't even complain about it. I can't even describe how happy this made me. After the painting was done, we decided to buy a kitchen valance and matching curtains for the dining room. Miracle of miracles, Aaron still didn't complain when it came to hanging them! Hanging curtains is second on his list of things he hates to do. Second to painting, which holds the number one slot.
To me, paint and curtains says, "We're home" and makes me feel settled. The more I make this house a "home" the happier I will be to stay here.
All in all, Aaron and I had a lot of fun doing this project together and we are pretty happy with how it turned out. We are looking forward to more "home" projects in the future, although I don't think I'll ask Aaron to help with more painting any time soon. That would be pressing my luck!

Busy Day!

It's 11:23 pm and I am exhausted. This afternoon as the kids and I were eating lunch, Austin and Amanda decided that they would like to trade rooms. Austin wanted a room with more space and Amanda wanted more room in her closet. Why not? Let's do it! We jumped right in and began moving Amanda's furniture out into the hall and Austin's furniture into her room. Then we got the brilliant idea that maybe we should do some painting in Austin's new room before we put it all back together. We spontaneously ran to our little hardware store and purchased a gallon of forest green paint called "campsite". We went home and Austin and I painted two walls in his room. Painting the whole room such a bold color might have been a bit much but two walls was perfect. The contrast with his light pine furniture looks great. After getting the painting done we reassembled Austin's room, moved Amanda into her new room and swapped out all the junk in the closets. It amazed me at how efficient we were and how much we got done in the amount of time we did it. I LOVE having older kids that can tackle a project like this and be such a huge help. We had a great day and the kids love their new rooms.

Mean, Mean Mom

This afternoon Amanda asked me if she could go to her friend's church for a Good Friday celebration. I told her no, that I wasn't comfortable with that and she got REALLY mad at me, to put it lightly. I felt really bad because she thought I was just being mean to her but that wasn't it at all. And I didn't say no out of religious snobbery because that wasn't it either. When I was a kid I had an intense desire to learn about religion and would often ask friends if I could go to their churches with them. Unfortunately, I had some pretty scary and uncomfortable experiences by doing this. Experiences that I don't want my daughter to have. I know, having been to so many different churches, that she would be totally unprepared for what she may encounter. I'm not saying other churches are bad. I appreciate any church that loves God and teaches their people to live good lives. I just know that they sometimes go about it in a way that could be quite overwhelming for a child who has grown up L.D.S. I know Amanda saw me as a MEAN mom today but I hope someday she'll understand that it is because I am a CARING mom that I have to sometimes make decisions that make her upset.

My Budding Cameraman

A few days ago Austin dug out our old camcorder. I'm ashamed to say that it got boxed up long ago and only finds it's way out every once in a great while. I remember being so excited when we first became the proud owners of our own camcorder. However, after a couple of years of frantically trying to catch every special moment on film, I began to feel like I was so busy documenting those moments, I wasn't getting to truly experience them. After that I didn't get it out so much. Now it has found it's way into new hands that are making use of it. Austin and his buddies have been taking it out into the neighborhood and taping their antics. They've taped daring feats, practical jokes and downright silliness. It's been fun to watch them get a kick out of seeing themselves on film. I warned Austin not to tape people who don't want to be filmed because it is an invasion of privacy and also, the moment he catches me on film without makeup is the day it disappears. Until then, it's all good!

Giving Up Our Dream...For Now Anyway.

Today we made the decision to take our house off the market. For those of you who didn't know, we've had it for sale since October. We've been dreaming of having a home a little more out in the country with room for a little hobby farm (chickens, a horse etc). We still would really like to have that someday, but I don't think now is the right time. The home we are in right now is much more affordable and with our business here still being pretty new it's probably better not to stress ourselves out more with a bigger house payment. On one hand it kind of kills me to postpone our dream but on the other hand I like the house we are in and I'm looking forward to doing a little more decorating here (some paint, curtain, etc). Today I heard a snippet of a Sheryl Crow song that says something about "not having what you want, but wanting what you've got". That's what I've decided to do, just be really happy about what I do have and make the most of it.