Nine is sublime!

** Still loking for Birthday photos arggg

Olivia turned 9 on December 26 and these last couple of months have really been amazing for her. She has accomplished so much these last 5 months. About a month before she turned 9 we set a family goal to fast for Olivia so that she would have the courage and determination to stop sucking her thumb, as far as habits go this is a very tough one to break!! When Olivia was born she had a hicky on her wrist of where she sucked in the womb, a habit she had before she was born, we even have sonogram pictures documenting this! So for a month we would pray at every family prayer and every personal prayer for this goal. Then when the fast Sunday approached we all new what was on our families thoughts. Sunday came and went with no real change. Then the following Tuesday on the way to piano lessons I saw Olivia about to put her thumb in her mouth, she paused and then put her thumb down. I knew at that exact moment that she was ready! I told her Olivia do you feel that in the air? She said what mom? I said it is something amazing you are done sucking, this is it! And to celebrate we need a reward, I will take you out to get a pedicure and you need something else, what should it be? She said I would like to wear mascara to church for a month. I said done! With the help of the family prayers and the strength she got from the Holy Ghost she did it!! All before she turned nine! My sister Lindsey told me that amazing things happen after kids get baptized and they have the Holy Ghost to help them always, she was right, we consider it to be a great miracle in our family.

For her birthday we had her best friend from school over, friends from church and her some of her cousins over for a cookies and a hot chocolate party. This was the first year we had her birthday before Christmas. Usually her birthdays consist of a family gathering, I mean it is Christmas time after all. She always gets a cake and presents but usually we don't invite friends because it is family time. So she was so excited to have friends. We made a ton of sugar cookies and icing. We ate pizza and decorated cookies. Then we took beanie caps and decorated them with felt flowers and buttons. The girls were very creative. We played holiday music and served the hot coco in tea cups and talked in British accents. It was a very fun all girl event.

Olivia amazes me. She is confident, independent, helpful, nurturing and so very smart. One of her best qualities is she forgives freely and doesn't hold grudges. She is beautiful inside and out. When she sets a goal she goes for it and tries her very best. I never can predict what Olivia will say or how she will react she is unique, we call her our spice, she adds flavor to an otherwise boring day. I love you Livvey Jane and consider you to be a young woman of great strength and courage. Love and Hugs always.xxx000xoo0

Seven is heaven

**I know this is way late, but I wrote this post back in December but was waiting to post it with his birthday photos, which I cant seem to locate on the computer. If I am to catch up on my kids birthdays I must publish their birthdays with different pictures.


H-Man turned seven December 1st. He wanted a dog themed birthday party,which I have done before but wanted to make unique for him. I got doggy bowels at the dollar store, one for each guest. I made chocolate cupcakes and put it in the the bowl and covered it with "puppy chow" the rice cereal that is covered in peanut butter and chocolate and then sprinkled in powdered sugar. I t was adorable, if I do say so myself. Holman still uses his dog bowl for cereal. He had a good group of friends come, he is a shy guy at school but has made some really close friendships with neighbors, class mates and church friends.

Holman is my sweetheart. He is responsible and really looks after his siblings, he loves Adrianna and is always helping her, he does this even though she doesn't always show her appreciation :) He is an excellent big brother to Parkin and even will pick a fight with older kids if he thinks his older sisters are not being treated well.

Holman from birth you have been easy going. My only kid not to require a binky or suck on your fingers, you were just chill. That is how you are now, you are incredibly funny not in a showy way, you wait for the best timing and say your comments sudaley and then we all bust up laughing over your wit. Just last week we had cut up cucumbers for dinner as a side dish, after dinner you quietly grabbed two and laid on the couch, put on each eye and just laid there with your hands behind your head all zen like. I love you son so very much and I think the world of you and look forward to watching you grow.

Terrific Twos!

We have now entered the terrific twos. As my friend Emily said in her recent blog it seems once you have children time flies super fast. I love this little angel, for as much as my children take after their Dad, with their dark hair and olive skin (which I truly love) this little girl is a mini me. She is blonde (for now), blue eyed, blanket carrying, highly opinionated girl. She calls her blanket (which her Grandma Babs made) dinky or deedee, I had a blanket (made by my fathers mother Grandma Holman) which I called Bobbey and also loved to pieces, literally. She wakes up carrying it, she finds it for comfort and for joy and makes sure she has it when she falls asleep. If one of her brothers or sister's is sad she will hand them her blanket as a complete gesture of charity and love. She rarely is seen with out it. She will take it in the car and when we run into a store she knows she can't take it with her so she will say bye "dinky." When she returns with complete delight she will yell "deedee!" Because she is the youngest of five she knows how to speak up for herself, and speak up she does! I love this little lady with all my heart and am so thankful she she is in our family. We recently took family pictures and Jen Howe, our family photographer, had each of us hold a letter so that the seven of us spelled FOREVER and our little Adrianna was in charge of the last letter R. She did such a great job. She held that letter like her blankets life was on the line. It is this determination that describes her. She is fun, loving, determined and beautiful we love you so very much, my little dutch girl.

My little angel girl

amongst the cousin throng

Look how excited she is!

Aj loves getting new clothes, what a girl :)

11-11-11 Eleven superficial things I love on this super day

Things that are super in my life, in no particular order

11. I love my living room rug, I stole the rug from John and Robins place and they said it was ok that we copied them, and I believe them because that's the kind of people they are (in this photo it looks like there is spots on the rug but Anna just spilt water, the rug is really forgiving)

10. Because i mentioned the rug I need to mention the tile. The reason we needed the tile was my friend Alison.The reason why Alison helped with the tile is because she had a baby. The reason the baby helped was because of the gift. The reason the gift helped was because of the onesie. The reason the onesie helped was because of the fuchsia paint. The reason the fuchsia paint helped was because of Adrianna. The reason Adrianna helped was because she splattered the paint all over the carpeted floor. Love that girl and hated the carpet, but wait this is a superficial post no family, friends or lasting things are mentioned. I love our tile.


















10. I love the window bench in my front foyer room. In the winter time it is the best place to read a book and in the summer time it is the best place to watch the lightening storms.















9.  I love the Cat picture in our bathroom, I see it and it makes me laugh (it reminds of when Parkin saw  it in a magazine and for like 10 minutes he would pick it up and laugh out loud, he loved it so much, oops there I go again)

  
8. Speaking of the bathroom I love the handmade wall art that Jen made, it instantly classes that room up. When Our renters  left our place they took our bathroom decorations that Amy gave us after she moved out, I was really sad cause I loved the wall decorations. But Jen's artwork is original so I way love it (darn it those family and friends keep sneaking in).

  
7. Our living room couches. They get washed once every tow weeks, because someone pees on them, spills milk on them, grinds crayon on them, and no I am not talking about Benjamin. Those couches can take a beating (there is a picture earlier).

 
6. My five dollar frame from the thrift store.  A large charcoal drawing of a dog was inside it, a pretty good drawing I have to say, but it is the perfect size for a family picture. If I am going to have a drawing of a dog it is going to be of the best dog ever Luke Two Howe.

















5.  I love my Holiday tree. The kids love decorating and no matter how lame the decorations are we always have our tree decorations up.

4. My never ending supply of paper.  The best YW's president, the model I use when I am serving in our churches young women's program, Meridawn gave me a truck load and I mean truck load of card stock, poster size paper and every type of paper you can imagine. She got it from a friends paper business that was going out of business and she thought of me because of my preschool business. I have so much paper I have to hide it in random locations like under Anna's crib.

3. Our massive dining room table, is large and not my favorite wood choice, but I am sanding the chairs down one by one and will repaint and recover the chairs. Benjamin did some computer work for a nice lady and she traded his work for this table. Its sturdy and big.

2.Another awesome thing for the preschool. My friend who is in the military is moving over seas again. She use to be a felt distributor and she has been hauling around a big supply of felt that she hasn't used. Shed didn't want to ship it again and she thought of me. I got it two weeks ago and  I am still going through all the lesson plan ideas.






1.Hot water. I have always loved hot water. After tens months on "the land" with out running water let a lone hot water, there is not a time when I take a shower especially in the fall and winter that I don't flash back to taking a tent shower under the stars, I am still shuddering....

Life is good.

This is what happens every time we play "Real in Rio" from the motion picture Rio.

She has the moves like Jagger.

My moment in the sun

This year for the ward chilli cook off I decided I would bring chilli and cornbread instead of corbread and a dessert. I actaully thought about what would make good chillii and went to the store and bought the ingredients. The fact that I thought ahead and went to the stroe instead of just making due with what I had was quite the effort. I decided that the key to good chilli was sausege and velvetta cheese, those two would make a beautiful combination.  They had three tables set up "hot", "medium" and "mild" I turned to Benjamin and asked where I should put it, with a laugh he tells me mild. Unfortuently we got there just before it started and the mild table had the most entries, my pot was at very end. It was a great turnout with a lot of people and the best table decorations I have ever seen at the annual cook off.

There were were 5 categories:
Best mild chilli
Best medium chilli
Best hot chilli
Most unique chilli
Overall favorite

When they announced that my chilli won for  fan favorite I was so shocked and embarrisingingly excited. I shot out of my chair like a girl at a family reunion and danced my way to the announcer. I then asked for the mic to give a speech, yes thats what I said, I asked to make a speech....As soon as I did this I realized this wasnt a family reunion and what was I thinking. I then just said "I win." Yeah a real graceful winner. I would never catergorize myself as a good cook so this was so exciting, what added to my victory was that I didnt vote for myself neither did half my children. A true victory. peolpe afterward kept asking me which pot was mine so they could get a taste,  I had to suppress a laugh, like chilli  that good would have any left, hah. It was licked clean.

The next day I woke up to find the kids watching cartoons. I told them I had the most fantastic dream that I had won the ward chilli cook off , then I said oh wait, that was reality!! They asked how long I would keep talking about this and all I could say was, quite some time.

Sadly this gave me such a smile for like a week, what a happy diversion. One sweet boy from church came up to me with a pipe cleaner ring he had made me for winning the chilli cook off, how sweet is that! He must have known how excited I was by my dance  :)

40 Years of Wedded Bliss

For my parents 40th wedding anniversary we had them over for dinner, we celebrated their years together with a "home made game" called Nanpaperdy, based off the Jeopardy game (my sister in law Melissa did this for her birthday once and it was so much fun).

Each of their four kids made a category with questions and answers.

Hillary did "Take me to Ajo" a category about family vacations.

John did "Lemon-aid" a category about family cars

Lindsey did "mi casa es su casa" a category about family houses we lived in.

Lesley, I did "creature Feature" family pets.

We also had a potpourri category with random questions.

We had a ton of fun watching my parents battle it out for the best memory. It was close but mom pulled it out (in large part because dad missed the double jeopardy question, it was hard! They had to tell us the license plate number of a car they had over 10 years ago!How John remembered this is beyond me). Bella announced the winners and she said it best, "Papa did great and Nana did better."

Benjamin made little cake toppers for their lemon anniversary cake too funny.

We love you Mom and Dad, your example of love, forgiveness and especially laughter are all things we admire and look up to.