Dear Mom and Dad

Dear Mom and Dad,

Today I'm sending some love your way! Why? Today while I was running 13 miles on my treadmill with no t.v. to distract me from the long miles (hopefully getting fixed on Monday), I had time to do a lot of thinking...a lot of time actually. I reflected for a long time how much my current happiness is a result of the time and effort and love you gave me as a child.




You taught me the most important things and I hope that I can do the same for my children. I didn't realize how hard it would be...and stressful.




I am so grateful to you! Thank you!! I love you!!

Love,

Me

Date Night

I love Friday night! I look forward to it all week. Here are my reasons: no children, good food that I didn't have to cook, adult conversation, holding hands, laughing, fun friends, no rushing, no schedule, no interruptions...just us! I'm already looking forward to next week!




Cheesy picture, but I still like it! Our oldest took it.

Cute Kids

When we were down in St. George the other weekend, we snuck out to the red rocks to take a few pictures. Here are some of my favorites:

Pretty cute kids!! I know I'm a little biased!

My First

On Sunday my husband and I were sitting in church together. He started playing with my hair which felt great, but then I noticed he was picking my hair, like he was getting a piece of lint out or something... Next thing, he taps my shoulder and I turn to see him smiling with a slightly devilish look on his face. "You have a gray hair." He whispered it, but I think everyone around us heard! "No I don't!" So I quickly grabbed the culprit hair, which he was still holding, and I yanked it out. I laid it on my black skirt, and, sure enough, it was very gray...white even!! It started out brown on one end, but then half way it changed to a coarse, gray hair.



I'm still in denial...but slowly I have begun to accept the idea that I now have a gray hair. I had him check (at home) the rest of my hair to see if there were any other rogue hairs on my head, but he couldn't find any. I blame our youngest...he is definitely the cause for my one gray hair!! I just don't know that I'm ready yet...I suppose one is never "ready," but geesh that totally took me by surprise!

Kitchen Decor

It was strangely quiet and I knew he was up to something!! This is what I found:

He was poking various kitchen utensils into his four-wheeler. When I asked him what he was doing he said "I'm making it awesome, Mom."

Sharp Shooters

Two weekends ago our two boys competed in the State Junior Olympic Qualifying Match.

They competed in both Small-bore and Air Rifle. In small-bore (.22's) our oldest won and our second oldest took second.

In the air rifle competition our oldest won. He scored 491. He beat the rest of the field which consisted of high-school and college-aged shooters and his younger brother. He was pretty excited.

Their medals came in the mail today...pretty cool!!

A Great Weekend

Last Friday the kids had no school and Monday was a holiday....which meant we had a four-day weekend! We headed south to visit and play with our fun cousins in sunny St. George.



We always have fun when we visit them...they are soooo fun!



We had three sleep-overs in a row! Wow!


We had some fun in the pool.



Yes, we pretty much took over the pool.



Our youngest boys found the cutest girl in the hot tub!!

We spent many hours playing...Star Wars, of course.

We played cards, ate yummy food...

and we even got to celebrate our cousin's 10th birthday!

The cake was delicious!

But, best of all, we got to play outside...no boots, no coats, no snow. It felt like summer/fall again and we just loved it!

We spent hours on the trampoline and we got a few high bounces in.

The boys even went hunting(of course!) They got up early Saturday morning and tried to call in some coyotes. They saw two, but the elusive coyotes escaped!

So the mighty hunters turned on each other...it wasn't too pretty!

Thanks to our St. George cousins for a fantastic weekend! We had the best time!

Baby Blogger

Our youngest saw me blogging today and wanted to join in. He hopped up on my lap and has helped me with this post. He says, "I want to go swimming wif Warsens. My clone trooper can come and sit wif Warsen. Luke can come wif us too. Han solo wants to come wif me. He can sit by Warsen too."

Mother interpretation: This cold spell is really getting to him...he wishes it were summer and he could go swimming with friends. But all his new Star Wars guys would have to come with him to the pool....there you have it. A glimpse into our youngest's thought of the day.

They're Moving!

I am just so excited today because I found out last night that my sister and her cute family are moving back to Utah! Yay!! They will be just a few hours away down south, but that is much closer than Oregon! We can hardly wait!

My New Year's Resolutions

I've decided to post some of my goals for this year. Why? Because if I share them, I will be accountable and much more likely to follow through.... So, here goes:

1- Spend time one on one with each of my children once weekly doing something they want to do.

2- Be more successful at eating dinner together as a family.

3- Read to my youngest for half an hour each day when the other kids are at school.

4- Prepare more meaningful FHE lessons (which means thinking about the topic sooner than 20 minutes previous).

5- Limit the time I spend online (reading news, email, facebook, blogging, etc.) to under an hour each day.

6- Earn the YW medallion. (I earned this when I was younger, but as a leader, I have the opportunity to earn it again...might as well!)

7- Run a sub 3:25 marathon in St. George this October.

8- Go to Hawaii for our 15 year anniversary!

Okay, maybe that last one is more of a hope than a goal, but you have to start somewhere! Right? I'm being a believer that if I write it down, it has a better chance of happening!