15 years baby!!!

Benjamin and I celebrated our 15th anniversary on September 19th! We celebrated by going to Vancouver Canada! It was the farthest we could could go for the cheapest price :) We went to the Vancouver temple, hiked the Grouse mountain, biked around the beach and ate at yummy restaurants, road a few boat rides went to a street festival, road the train and had a fantastic time together. It was the perfect amount of time for a get away and thanks to my awesome in-laws. thanks Grandma Babs, we were able to do it!

15 things I love about Benjamin!

15. Right from the start he was always so open about his feelings, never felt the need to play it cool. I think it is because he is who he is, he doesn't pretend to be anything but himself, he is genuine.
14. He is faithful. Everyone has weaknesses, through Benjamin's he has never questioned if there is a Heavenly Father or if there really is a Savior. He wholeheartedly believes in our Redeemer.
13. He is extremely good looking and doesn't realize it. He could have married a Barbie but instead chose the girl next door!
12. He works so stinking hard!
11. He is so complimentary of me, never criticizes my housework, culinary efforts, mothering techniques you name it, he is positive.
10. He can fix almost anything! I can count on one hand how many times we have needed to call a repair man.
9.He enjoys working out and being active just as much as me. We love family hikes and moving.
8. He gets excited about holidays, trips, events, he loves to plan them.
7. He is funny. When we first met I didn't know if he would be goofy enough for me, but he is!
6. He enjoys helping others.
5. He is an excellent counselor and gives me great perspective.
4. We both share a love of ice cream. That has on many occasions brought us out of hard times.
3. He loves family, the one he came from, the one he married into, and the one we created.
2. He loves our children! He always trys to be a present parent.
1. He loves me unconditionally. He writes messages to me around the house. Whether he writes,  I love LJ  with paint on a mirror or leaves a note on the white board. I love every message and every hug. I love this strong, faithful man! 15 years baby!

A Halloween miracle!

We have had a White Yukon for several years, The car originally was very nice but over the years has had many electrical problems. So many prayers have been said over this car, we have inwardly hoped that it would get stolen and have even fantasized over locations in Tucson were this would likely happen.  On Saturday October 26th we had stayed home most of the day. At 2 o'clock I had left to go to Savers to get some last minute costume items. When I got into the Yukon it had this weird electrical smell. I called Benjamin out to have him smell ,we both couldn't figure out the location of the smell and decided it was ok to drive. The smell proved to be too much. Later that night we took the car to a friends house for a Halloween party, when we got home we cracked the windows over night hoping the smell would go away and leaving the windows high enough so that cats could not climb in and pee inside.

At around 11:00 pm at night I wake up to what I thought was a buzzer sound form one of my child's pee alarms that we had just purchased. I went to that child's room and the alarm wasn't coming from the child. I followed the noise to the front of the house, I opened the front door to find our Yukon's ceiling  engulfed in flames! The buzzing sound was the horn, as soon as I opened the front door the horn died. I ran to wake Benjamin. I said to him "Benjamin wake up the car is on fire, call 911!"  He called them and then we ran outside to see what we could do, our neighbor woke up to the sound of the horn saw the flames and ran to get a fire extinguisher. Benjamin and I both grabbed hoses and sprayed water inside the quarter-rolled -down windows. We luckily had the fire out before the fire department even got there. They finished the job and the verdict was the car was totaled! The fireman confirmed our suspicions of it being an electrical  problem the engine wasn't touched but the inside was a complete wreck!

The amazing thing was that none of our children woke up! That it happened when we were home and not on a date! And for the first time in my life I was grateful that I did not have a garage or carport! The fireman said it could have been so much worse or even fatal had their been a house attached!

To add to our drama Benjamin and I (thanks Bishop) had to speak the next day. I was able to use this crazy and miraculous story in my talk, I spoke of being grateful in spite of hard circumstance. I referenced the book the " The Hiding Place" seriously one of the best books of all time. Two sisters who once lived in a concentration camp because of their efforts to try to hid Jewish Dutchmen, they were inspired to pray for all things, even the fleas in their camp. One of the sisters questioned why must we pray for all things and even the fleas?! Later they found out why they should be grateful for all things, it was those fleas that kept the brutal guards away from their barracks and enabled them to spread the Christian message of love and hope from our Savior Jesus Christ. Well this Yukon has been a flea to us! The lord knew exactly how we could get rid of this nusance without any severe collateral damage.

Later we prayed that we could get a reasonable amount of money for this, with the hopes we could purchase another car. I admit I did not believe the insurance company would give us a reasonable price. Benjamin however faithfully prayed for a specific price. Later the insurance company got back to us with the exact price Benjamin had prayed for, a price that Kelly Blue Book didn't even predict for our car!! We bought a new car, a van, less miles per gallon, newer, smaller but it still fits our needs and better yet, still no car payment! I still have no carport but mind it a whole lot less now :)
 

Halloween

I Love Halloween!  Being a preschool teacher I know how much little children love to dress-up and use their imaginations in make believe worlds. My kids are no exception, Bella was a gypsy ( a popular choice for a middle-school-er) For the last couple of years Olivia has had a costume revolving around a card board box. She has been a dice, a rubix cube and a red box machine. Benjamin has been the maker of these costumes and plead with living to choose another route, I think he was done with spray painting. So together they came up with her costume which consisted of her with a normal card board box around her and a thought bubble attached to a head band, what was she?.... "Thinking outside the box". Super cute an no spay paint! Holman who became addicted to the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice ( thanks to a long stay at Nana's and Papas house) dressed up as Mr. Darcy, you know what every 8 year old wants to be.  Parkin was going to be a Missionary Vampire  but decided last minute to be a power ranger. Interestingly enough only Bella wore her costume to school. Adrianna dressed up as a butterfly princess.

At preschool we had three Halloween performances one for each class, I love the Halloween performances, we have a costume parade and performance all wearing costumes. This year I dressed as Merida from Brave the kids loved it, (Benjamin was my Scottish warrior wearing our families Wallace tartan and a fake muscle shirt, he was HOT)! Sadly he was gone on his annual Mens trip, the Cats were playing in California  that weekend and so he was on the road for Halloween night, we did get to use our costumes at two friends Halloweens parties though.

Bella staged a rebellion at school a couple of days before Halloween. A couple of classes talked of test and homework the day after Halloween and Bella wanted none of that. She made posters that stated "Give Halloween back to the kids no homework and tests the day after Halloween." She posted these posters up in the cafeteria and had kids sign their costume names she got over 200 signatures, luckily we were not called to the principals office! The day after Halloween there ended up being no homework or tests, coincidence....

School Change

We love summer and we also love the start of school. It always seems that the last couple of weeks of summer the kids are bored and I am ready to not be the full entertainment committee. This year all of my kids started a new school. My oldest went from one campus to another within the small district. The school that she had been going to was a middle school but they expanded it over the summer to make it a primary school, K-6th so she had to go to another campus that offers 5-12. Since they now offer elementary within the school district we gladly signed the younger kids up. The downside is that it is a new school so there are kinks to work out and the school is a drive. Its an open enrollment charter school called Basis.

Parkin and Holman study Mandarin Chinese, Olivia studies Latin and Bella is learning Spanish. I think there has been such a rise in the USA to learn Mandarin and I think one of these reasons is for the gospel to be preached to everyone in the world. Both my sons love this language and are doing so well. Parkin will write me little notes in Mandarin and then write the translation on the note, super cute.

Bella is in 7th grade she is taking Algebra II, Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Logic's, English, Spanish  and PE (finally a class that I can relate to). Olivia is in 5th grade she is taking Pre-Algebra, Latin, Classics, English, Science, Geography, Art, Music and PE. Holman (3rd grade) and Parkin (1st grade) both take TLC, Humanities, Mandarin, Kempo, PE, Fine Arts, Math ,Science and All Connections I love this school because their belief is that the average child who is exposed to knowledge with academic support can excel beyond their expectations. I totally agree!

The only kid that did not have to change schools this year was Adrianna. This year I have three preschool classes with a total of 38 students! The best thing about my preschool continues to be the families that come here! Adrianna is a sport she loves all the kids and has an insane memory of the different classes. My schools motto is;  "You are smart, you can learn and you can do it!" the kids here me chant this all the time :)

Walk of Champions

*I have held onto this post trying to find swim photos, since it is November I think I will post now so I can cover a little bit of our Tucson "fall"

Summer in our family isn't just a break from school its swim team season. This year we had to switch leagues because practice time didn't work with our school times. It ended working out great, the team met later in the day was closer to the house and cheaper! We joined the Y's year round team. The kids continue to excel at the butterfly and avoid breast stroke. They did several invitationals and all received medals.  I deserve a medal for sitting out in the heat, swim invitationals are crazy long. But truth is I love watching them race and to try to beat their times.

The best thing about this league is before each championship race they introduce the swimmers, announce their name, who they swim for and what there times are. Then they play rock music as they do the "walk of champions"to the starting block. Its great for the swimmers because it gets them all pumped up and its fun for the spectators because its a rock concert and swim meet in one.

Bella's two relays got first place. She swam butterfly in the medley relay, she got 2nd in backstroke and 3rd in butterfly and freestyle was a crazy close with a 4th place finish. Olivia's two relays got first. She swam freestyle in the medley relay, she got 4th place in backstroke, 3rd place in butterfly and 6th place in freestyle. Holman's two relays got first. Points for a winning relay are huge for a team total points. He swam butterfly in the medley. He got 2nd place in backstroke, 1st place in butterfly (Holman never lost a butterfly race), and 2nd place in freestyle. Holman was the 2nd highest scorer in his age group at championships, he got a special medal for it. The two races he got 2nd place were to his team mate, their particular relays literally lap the other teams.

Last year the Y got 5th place at championships, this year our team won the title with  200 points over the 2nd place team. Coincidence that we joined the team and now they are number one...I think not :)

Lemonade Stand

At the beginning of the summer we made a list of all the things we wanted to do as a family. One was make a lemonade stand. The kids have wanted to do this for a while, I figure if we officially put it on the list we might actually get it done. The kids were so excited we went to the store priced everything out, they figured out what would give them the biggest bang for their buck. We fronted them $20 fully expecting not to get any of it back. They sold lemonade, pink lemonade and popcorn. Between the lemonade, cups, straws, fresh lemons for garnish, each cup took .13cents to make. They sold it for .50 cents a cup. Good thing because they painted the sign weeks ago and had already determined the price. The popcorn took .12 cents to make and they sold it for .50 cents.

The kids set up a pop up tent behind Palo Verde high school, the street gets a lot of residential traffic. Both Benjamin and I were out there while they were selling their wares. They had a sign and a giant lemon that Parkin wore as he danced the customers to the tent. Bella, Olivia and Holman would race out to the cars with large smiles and greet their customers like a good QT employee, those people are friendly!

Two things I learned. 1) People are generous. We had some people drive by and just give us the change that they had in their car. People gave large tips. 2) Can't judge a book by its cover. The most unexpected people would stop and buy the lemonade. We had one monster truck full of large bearded men stop and buy cups of lemonade. A teenage boy in a sports car all alone stopped by to buy a glass. Everybody was so kind.

When asked what we were raising the money for we would explain it was a family economics lesson. We were trying to teach our children the cost of materials, the work required to make money, the attitude it takes to sell a product and the fortitude to be there till its done. I was so impressed by how they all worked so hard, they greeted each customer with a smile and tons of thank you's, their face were red from standing out in 110 Tucson heat but the take away was well worth it.

We actually didn't expect to get the $20 back, but in the end they made $58! Not bad for an hour and half worth of work. The kids decided to buy pizza for lunch thanks to the $5 pizzas at Little Ceasers. The kids voted and they thought half off shakes at Sonic would be a good deal. Not to eat all our profits they wanted a fun family activity and bowling was on the summer bucket list so we signed up for kids bowl free and all they had to pay for was the shoes. They made their money stretch! They were a little short for all five of them so Bella like the awesome big sister and tender-hearted girl that she is, chipped in to help pay for Anna

I am not sure if it is a good thing or not, but our kids know our family finances really well. They have been aware of the financial pit falls we have experienced due to our failed home building project. They know our goal is to pay it off as soon as possible. We have been paying for everything beyond bills with cash. I lay out in bills what we have extra and we start to divide what we know is coming up. They can see clearly what we have left after obligations. Maybe it is too much for the kids to worry about, but groceries are always bought, the house and utilities are payed for it is the extras of "mom can we buy new shoes, go to the movies, go to DQ?" They see what is available and what is possible. They know piano, guitar and swim team  do not come free and in fact it is a sacrifice to make those things happen.

Now they are trying to think of another money making possibility......

Parkin turns 6! And Mothers day epiphany.

Parkin tuned 6! He is such a LOVE. That is the word we use to describe this boy who is so easy going and easy to love. He hugs and kisses freely and forgives freely. He laughs often and gives full belly laughs. He always comes to the defense of who ever is down or feels picked on, he jumps right in and demands that we treat that family member better. It is in his nature to love and protect.

For his birthday we took him and his 3 cousins (Daniel, Collin and Desmond ) with us to the Wheeler Carnival. Everybody got a couple of tickets and we played games and had snow cones and cotton candy. Then we came back to the house and had a pizza and sleepover party. Parkin loved it! He was with his best friends and they all got various prizes. It was the easiest birthday party ever! He opened presents on the front lawn and we played outside till it got dark. Parkin was born on the national day of prayer and I have been praying a prayer of thanks to my Heavenly Father everyday since that I get to be his Mom, I love you son!

I had a mothers day epiphany. I was asked to be a speaker in our sacrament meeting at church. I was quite nervous, my topic was "what it means to be a mother this day and age." All week I had thought about it, but I was never really able to formally map out what I wanted to talk about.

Sometime during the weekend my stomach started to go south, I new my digestive track was having a problem and sure enough Sunday morning came and I was doubled over in pain. No mothers day breakfast for me. I was already telling my husband that he might want to start thinking about who could replace me as a last minute speaker. Finally the pain grew and I knew it either had to stop or I needed to find a replacement. I prayed on my knees telling Heavenly Father I was ok with the pain but if he wanted me to speak he needed to take the pain from me so I could focus on the talk and deliver the speech. Immediately after my prayer I felt better. I got dressed and I finally knew what I was going to talk about.

I have a dear friend, Alexandra that without fail always sends me a Mothers day card. Every year for 12 years. We have been friends since 2nd grade, 28 years of friendship. Sunday morning I was struck by how truly thoughtful that is. She is not a mother, I am certain that when she becomes a mother she will be fantastic. She truly honors motherhood and the mothers in her life. And then it hit me. Mothers day is NOT about me. It is about honoring the mothers in my life.

There is a quote from a short video about mothers and it says " Life doesn't come with a manual, it comes with a mother." I was struck by all the "manuals" in my life. My own mother/ manual is fun and supportive and faithful. My friend Alex has been a manual of friendship, loyalty and  thoughtfulness. Mothers day is about honoring these women who have played a part in helping me on my journey. It isn't about whether I woke up to a clean house or breakfast in bed, it is about how my actions can help honor the manuals in my life. All the good holidays are about love, not yourself. The best Christmas's are the ones where I focus on the Savior and helping others, not when I worry about me. If mothers day was just about the individual and their own mothering then it could be very sad, sad for the mother who morns the loss of a wayward child, or the loss of a child, or your own inadequacies as a mother.  When the meaning of mothers day is bout others it makes the day more joyful.

Every year our congregation passes out a gift to the women in the congregation as a mothers day gift. I remember that being awkward when I didn't have children, thinking I am not a mom I shouldn't take one. But there are two reasons that women should take them regardless if they have birthed a child. 1) your own mother would love for you to have one 2) You are a manual for others!

My mothers day was complete when I got to honor 5 woman and their kiddos, as well as my own mother and father, for a mothers day dinner largely made by my awesome husband. Their husbands are fighting in the war and I truly felt privileged to have them over for such a meaningful day. The night was made better when my husband handed the ladies letters that their husbands had wrote to them.

President Hinckley a prophet who lived in our day said,  “Only after the earth had been formed, after the day had been separated from the night, after the waters had been divided from the land, after vegetation and animal life had been created, and after man had been placed on the earth, was woman created; and only then was the work pronounced complete and good."


Eve was not a mother yet! She was a woman and by her very nature she was honored as being "good." So to all my friends and fellow manuals, I want to tell you, thank you! You inspire and uplift me and you are more than good enough. You are better than you think.

http://www.lds.org/pages/mormon-messages?cid=%20HP000061&lang=eng#to-every-mother