They are great you store them in the dishwasher and they pop out to help!

For some reason our dishwasher doesn't close properly, it is really annoying. You have to close it at just the right force to make it stick. For the life of me I just can't figure out why????

"Sometimes your the windshield sometimes your the bug"

My mother always calls my Dad a blooming genius, more on that later....

Sunday morning after attending my ward choir where I perform my no-talent talent that of singing soprano I got in the car with my boys and headed home. Benjamin had the girls in his car and had beat us home from choir. They were standing in front of the house waiting for us to back in and unlock the front door. As I was backing in I thought to myself "Man I drive really well in reverse" just than my foot slipped and I don't really know what happened and I accelerated right into the front of the house. Full force right into the bricks. I hate those shoes that I was wearing. I bought them on an impulse buy and have regretted my very non characteristic decision of buying them in the first place. Anyways back to the awful wreck. The girls and Benjamin stood by and watched the whole thing absolutely stunned. Benjamin said he was just seconds away from walking behind the car to help me unload, but on an impulse (tender mercy or prompting from the Spirit) he hesitated just long enough to see me accelerate into the house crushing the wall where he would have been standing. Yikes....When you are trying to sell your house it is not good to have your brick wall completely bowed by five inches in the center, also if you have a seating area it is not good to have the seats slanted and on seatable. Benjamin assures me that he is not mad at me for as the girls put it, for almost killing him. He also says he is not mad at me, he is mad at the situation, I don't know how those two can be separated but beggars can't be choosers.

Benjamin took out the non functioning window benches, love that handy man and waited for my dad to arrive to basically save the day. Now for the blooming genius. Dad and Benjamin hauled these massive beams that Dad had had left over from a job site ( before Dad worked for IBM he was a general contractor and apparently a very good one!) . Dad braced the wall with a beam and had another beam in the center with a jack at the end, braced with another beam on the good wall. He basically forced the bowed wall (and bowed windows which amazingly did not break) back into place nearly five inches of movement. The wall looks incredible it still has some unsightly cracks do to well be running into, but we are planning to hire a mason to hopefully replace the bricks. Dad saved us a ton of money and relieved some of my heart ache over my untimely mishap! I think one of the reasons I love Benjamin so much is his ability to do all things handy just like my Dad. Thanks to Dad he gave Benjamin a new thing to add on his list of things he now can do. Blooming genius!

P. S. I wish I would have taken before and after photos but my faith was pretty small I was just at the hoping things would be better stage.

The no-talent talent show

Bella comes home from first grade today and told me about the school talent show that she watched. She said a girl from her class "performed" she tried to do a headstand to a Hannah Montana song. Bella said she was really embarrassed for her. I said well you love Hannah Montana was listening to the song good, she said no because it wasn't really loud, they just had it up a little so she could find the beat. I was totally smiling because I remember all the horrible no-talent talent shows that I was apart of in elementary school ( you know what I am talking about Alex). What were my parents thinking when they let us dance to "You gotta have Faith" by George Michael......I guess it would be nice if I could.....I mean where were they for that one. Bella said another guy attempted to jump rope but he kept tripping. Of all the performances we go to as parents and I miss the talent show. It doesn't get better than an elementary talent show. Don't worry I asked Bella if she told her friend she did a good job, she said of course I did she is still my friend. It starts so young.

A new Career .....

Lindsey with Ryan, baby Owen and her real mid wife

Me the mid wife in training with baby Owen

Lindsey with her crew, it now has 7 members now!

I received one of the most notable tender mercy's of the Lord that I have ever gotten. And it all happened after I turned thirty! To me the definition of a tender mercy is the witness that our loving Heavenly Father knows who each of us are personally and because of that, He knows how to individually bless us in ways that my seem insignificant or not note worthy to other people. But it is His godly timing that lets you know that such events occur because of Divine intervention.
Stated more eloquently by the Apostle Elder Bednar, "Some may count this experience as simply a nice coincidence, but I testify that the tender mercies of the Lord are real and that they do not occur randomly or merely by coincidence. Often, the Lord's timing of His tender mercies helps us to both discern and acknowledge them."

Last weekend I flew up to Utah to go to Women's Conference with Lindsey, I would have just the weekend to bond and be kid free, we both had been looking forward to this for weeks. On Thursday,we attended various uplifting speeches. It was amazing to walk into a stadium full of 15,000 plus women of all ages attending this conference . We took part in a huge world wide relief service project (we loved the assembly line putting together hygiene packets that were getting sent to hundreds of locations around the world). The next day Friday would be the same, speeches service projects that good feeling, but Heavenly Father knew otherwise.

That night on Thursday evening there was a concert for the conference, it was basically a rock concert for mommas, it was great! The last performer commented how earlier performers had moved the audience to wave their cell phones in enthusiasm and how he had never seen the audience do that for him, I turned to Lindsey and said get your cell phone out, She reached down with her pregnant 37 weeks self and leans over to tell me her water broke! Yahoo I would be able to be there for the delivery. After laughing so hard we left the concert and drove back to Bountiful were she lives and almost 19 hours later she gave birth to her beautiful baby boy Owen Ryan Wallace Smith 7lbs 1 oz . Her husband Ryan was gracious enough to let me help coach her natural delivery...yes 19 hours worth! It was like cheering her on in the 2 mile tack meet event or rather our Marathon that we had run together as teenagers. It was great, I cried more than Lindsey and Ryan combined. Heavenly Father knew how special that weekend would be and helped with the timing, seriously one of the most blessed weekends. I even got to cut the cord! I think his name should be Owen Ryan Lesley Smith :) but I will settle for my Scottish heritage in Wallace! Great fun here are some picks. I think I need to go back to school for Midwifery !

PS Suzie got us a great souvenir of the Conference a CD of all the performers and a signed autograph of the last Singer who put Lindsey in a labor! Too Cool!

not sleep walking......sleep squating

Last night we went out to the land to have a bond fire with our new neighbors, no not Scott and Suzie (unfortunately they couldn't make it), it was the neighbors that bought the third lot. They are from Massachusetts's and they love the land just as much as us. We didn't get home from the smore roast until 9:30 so the kids were asleep. Liv went to go to the bathroom before getting into her pajamas and going off to bed, but five minutes later she wasn't in her bed so I checked in the bathroom and this is what I saw.......she was fast asleep.Oh to sleep that good!

The cheese stands alone with her Heinz 57 sauce

I couldn't believe that in my fist pole question that there were that many people out there (OK the poll was less than 20) that actually liked Twizzlers better than Red Vines, but then the universe corrected it self and red vines came out with the win. But I am astonished that more people (an even smaller amount that voted this time) liked A1 stake sauce better than Heinz 57. I was the only person who voted for Heinz. How can the lady with two number one answers on Family Feud be so off on the pulse of American tastes? I had no idea. I will make sure to stock up on my A1 sauce for all visitor's that come to my steak parties.

My two dollars, I want my two dollars!

I was so excited when I found out that my health insurance was now not going to require co-pays for all well check-ups! Those frequent monthly check-ups for Parkin for the first year all covered! Now this new change happened after the first of the year so the first time I got my free well check-up was for Parkin's 9 month appointment. I originally didn't even schedule for Parkin to go in at nine months because what do they do any way, right? Well now that it was free I decided to go, after all it was only my time that it was costing me. At his free well check-up it turns out that Parkin had an ear infection ( he was acting a little off and I knew his appointment was the next day so I considered it a bonus that they would be checking his ears). I left the office happy that I didn't have to pay for that day's service knowing that I would have to pay for his follow-up appointment. At least I didn't have to pay for his initial service......Not so lucky. I got billed for the well-check-up because Parkin wasn't well at the time of his service he was sick.... Gotta love our health care system. Two phone calls later one to the pediatrician and the insurance company and the result is the same. Nothing in this life is ever free! So now my therapy is this blog, hey wait this blog is free!