One Fabulous Birthday

Last Saturday was my birthday-I am 37FREAKINYEARSOLD!!! Crazy. Casey has been super busy with inventory at work-I was a little bummed he had to work all weekend and wouldn't be home for my birthday. My only request for the kids was to please just let me sleep until 10. My favorite thing ever is to sleep!

At 9:30 they brought me breakfast in bed-Rice Chex with bananas-I ate them and thanked them and told them they were the best kids ever...then asked if I could sleep for 20 more minutes. They were super disappointed...20 minutes later they were bugging me again.

The reason they were so excited is their super awesome dad had decorated the house before he left with special paper balloons he had cut out BY HAND. Each balloon had something they love about me. There are a ton of balloons-all over my house. I read each one atleast 5 times that morning and cried. So cool. Casey keeps asking me when I am going to take them down-they might be up forever! I love them! Nothing like positive affirmations to make you smile when you are the mom! ;) I still walk around the house and read them over & over again.

They say things like:

Very honest...unless you are hiding treats.

Strong Willed

Crazy macoroni.

I love how you can spread your toes.

You can talk to anyone-even if they don't speak English!

You strengthen us with your testimony.

You help us understand the scriptures.

You help us learn to read. You also read with us at night.

You make us feel like we can talk to you about anything. We don't have to hide everything because you understand.

You are the nicest mom that I ever had.

Thank you for helping us be the best we can be.

You know who you are.

Freakin.

You help us with our homework.

That's funny!

"Yeah...no thanks!"

I love the way you serve.

Very open with your life.

Can't go a day without a diet coke from the gas station.

You work hard on the house even though we are all messy.

You like to buy us stuff.

You are the beauty and dad is the beast.

You make sure we have clothes to wear.

Let's us eat PB&J sandwiches when we don't like the dinner that is being served.

Got soup?

You teach us about Heavenly Father

You love people.

Makes breakfast and cold lunch

You help us at school

You help us with homework

Love you lots.

Just a sample of the things they said....so cool! I am just one lucky girl! This meant more to me than any "gift" I have ever received in my life. Being the mom is hard work-I guess this made me feel like I am making a difference. That the little things I do day in and day out really do matter. And that they notice. And they care. And they are simply amazing!

I also got spoiled from some pretty dang good friends. A couple of really good books-a darling sweater and necklace-a super cute bracelet-a gift certificate to San Gelato-and a polygamous date with our friends Brian & Erin-they took me to lunch at Texas Roadhouse! Good times. Forgot my camera-would have been a great pic! So grateful for the amazing people in my life-and if I have to be 37FREAKINGYEARSOLD to enjoy all that I get to enjoy then I guess I will quit complaining! Life only gets better the older I get.

Little Reminders

I am a check list kind of girl. Helps me remember the things I need to get done (most of the time!) and I feel like I accomplish more. Sawyer is apparently the same way! He made these little reminder sheets to hang by his light awhile ago. Makes me smile every time I pass it...my favorite of course is #6 on his night list...."Give mom a hug." So sweet. So awesome. I love this dude.

These are seriously the moments that make it all so worth it! I love being a mom!

My Favorite Kid....Just For Today! ;)

I have no idea where I was when the artsy fartsy creative genes were being handed out in heaven...I'm sure I was getting a diet coke in another line or something! Makes me sad and frustrated but mostly overwhelmed with all of my kids cutesy school projects. They're jipped in the cool creative mom department. I hope I make up for it in other areas

Today after I took my kids to school I decided to sort thru the never ending always reappearing paper pile by our computer. In it I saw Sawyer had a cute cut out blank guy with a note that said to please have him decorate this person over the weekend to represent his ancestors. And to please send it back Monday. DANGIT!! Today is Monday. And I already took Sawyer to school. And he doesn't have his guy-all decorated and ready to share with his class-and maybe he is sad. Once again he remembers he has a loser mom. My kids need a therapist-or even better a support group. I hope there are other kids somewhere that suffer from the same issues my kids do.

Today was super busy-I got everything accomplished and picked my kids up from school. I apologized to Sawyer and asked how things went. He shared the stories of what he learned from his friends. When I handed him his guy we talked about Sweden...and England...and Norway. I mentioned he could always make it into a Viking. His eyes lit up and he said, "I will get Shaylee to help me!" (Didn't even hurt my feelings he didn't ask me for help-he and I both know better!)

It was fun to watch her go to work and help him.....and his Viking is pretty darn cool. So grateful for these kids-that they all have something different to offer our family. Today I am SO GLAD I HAVE SHAY!!! The cardboard box messes get a little old but dang she knows how to pull of a great art project!!!

The finished Viking-I ALWAYS POST MY PICS IN THE WRONG ORDER!!! Too lazy to upload again-start at the bottom picture if you want to see them the way I wanted them....you get the point!
Priceless! Just google a Viking and she can create it....he even got a red beard out of chopped up yarn! ;)

Happy Birthday Casey!

January is inventory at Casey's work....it's kept him super busy! The kids & I decided to throw a "surprise party" for him last Saturday with just our little family. Can you guess who took charge of decorations and activities? Yep! Shay! She got the kids to help her make a shooting range out of the cardboard from pizza boxes....Casey could shoot the animals with his new marshmellow gun or Sawyer's elastic gun from Cabellas. So funny! He had a blast! We are so lucky to have Casey-he's an awesome husband and amazing dad. He works hard for us and loves us. I am glad my kids can sense that and that they are willing to go the extra mile to make his day special. We think he's awesome! ;)

Clint stopped by and wanted to play....don't they look cool? ;) Not sure if they liked shooting the elk, deer & bear complete with REAL grass on the counters or the ducks hanging from the ceiling more!? :)

Merry Christmas 2010!

We had a fabulous Christmas!!! This is always my favorite picture-after all the hard work of finding just the perfect gift for each one of our kids it's fun to have a picture of the complete Christmas before it's all unwrapped...especially since I am not a huge fan of wrapping presents. ;) Please notice our white trashness....makes me laugh....see our "mantel"?? We had some awesome friends trade a fireplace for a deer mount (thanks ShaLae) but haven't had time to get it all hooked up and finished. I couldn't figure out where to hang our stockings-I thought I was hilarious to put them on the fireplace. We've never had a fireplace-someday it will work-until then might as well use what we've got, right?

Christmas Eve.....getting ready to open our Christmas Eve Jammies!
Christmas morning.....

Santa only brings 1 gift to our house. I hate the things come easy image Santa brings-and I sorta want credit for what I buy! ;) Since almost all of our gifts are under the tree and we want our kids to leave gifts alone we never put their names on their gifts. Last year we labeled each gift with a candy bar name that was code for their name....on Christmas morning whichever candy bar they opened told them which gifts were theirs. Make sense? So this year we did soda pop. We didn't wrap the 2 litre bottles-Casey had them each grab a 2 liter bottle and had an evil plan of saying "2 of you have the right 1...2 of you don't. Switch. K-1 of you has the right 1, 3 of you don't. Switch. K-none of you have the right 1. Switch." He loves to tease. Funniest thing ever-every kid grabbed a 2 litre bottle and they were all holding the one that was their "code"....Casey was super disappointed and I got a really good laugh! I love the fun traditions and memories of Christmas!!! So grateful for these awesome kids that make it so darn fun.

Finally Legal!!!

My kids are teeny tiny people. Their mom used to be teeny tiny but that's another story for another day. Oh well. Skinny is over rated. And exercise? One day I will love it. Whatever.

You all know I am a tiny bit overprotective. Paranoid even. I think I stress people out when they have my kids! Sorry about that. Carseats and booster seats are a MUST. Not optional. The law to be able to just wear a seatbelt and not be in a booster is that you have to weigh 80 pounds. When Alyssa turned 12 she was only 60 pounds. At 13 she was 65 pounds. I wondered if I was making the wrong decision by letting her just wear a seatbelt-how humiliating to ride in a booster to young women activities! It has really given me anxiety. I never want to face a situation that could have been prevented by simply being a little more careful. That stresses me out. We've always joked about how funny it would be to send Alyssa to prom with her booster! We laughed really hard-she didn't.

On Christmas day Alyssa stood on her grandma's scale and guess what!!??? Drumroll please....SHE WEIGHS 80 POUNDS!!! We thought this day would never ever ever come. So nice to know she's legal now and that we aren't taking unneccessary risks!

So this is Uncle Corey showing how amazingly strong he is. He can lift Alyssa with only 2 fingers holding each elbow. Not sure if this shows his super power muscles OR if Alyssa was a good choice to demonstrate with. Next time we see him I will have to see if he can do the same thing with me! ;)

What "off track" looks like at our house.....

My kids are creative. Not sure where that came from-must have been Casey. I am the furthest thing from creative. Shaylee loves nothing more than a fun project with the little kids-building huts, making some random craft, anything to have a little fun. I am trying really hard to relax and enjoy the little moments-when these projects are going on things get quite messy. I naturally see the mess but am trying so hard to see the beauty.

A few days ago she took Sawyer & Jaycee in her room with a pile of paper plates, a roll of paper towels, glue, yarn, markers & construction paper. A few hours later we have this under our little Christmas trees upstairs:

They are baby Jesus! They look like a taco but they aren't! He (times 3!) is even in a manger complete with straw.

SO...yesterday was the best. Our living room became an airplane. So funny. The steering wheel really turns (not really sure an airplane has a steering wheel but nobody tell my kids!) and they have an "earpiece" to communicate with the tower.
These are the seats to the airplane-complete with a few passengers. Sawyer is the pilot-Shaylee, Jaycee & my cute nephew Easton are the passengers.
They were super disappointed when I wouldn't serve them lunch on the airplane-it was ramen-not gonna happen! I did laugh and actually left the living room an airplane until today. Good times.