"Begin today and write in it your goings and comings, your deepest thoughts, your achievements and your failures, your associations and your triumphs, your impressions and your testimonies. I promise you that if you will keep your journals and records, they will indeed be a source of great inspiration to you, each other, your children, your grand-children and others throughout the generations. Remember, the Savior chastised those who failed to record important events." --President Spencer W. Kimball

April 27, 2010

Feelin' so blessed!

So it's been an overwhelmingly crazy couple of weeks....I'm just now getting a spare minute to sit down and blog because it's 4 in the morning, my kids r sleeping, my hubby's @ work, and I can't seem to sleep.

First of all, I went back to work.  4 months off for maternity sounds like a long time, but it flew right by!  I had mixed feelings about going back to work....but I was glad that I got to go back part-time!  That means I only have to work 12 hours a week and I get to stay at home more with my kids and be a mommy!  I love it!  Lautala is 3 months old now and she's so much more alert.  She's smiling a lot and her little personality is coming out.  It's so much fun to watch her grow and to see how much her older brother's love her to death!   I think she's such a smart little girl because I notice how different she acts with different people.... for example.  If her brothers are smothering her with kisses, she'll just turn her head to the side and let them kiss her until she's had enough and then she'll start fake-screaming-crying to get them to leave her alone.  Once they've stopped kissing her, she stops crying.  She knows Ova and my voice and turns to us when we're talking.  She's so good with Ma.  She can sit for hours and hours on Ma's lap and not even make a fuss.  Ova and I always say it's just because she knows Ma's too old to get up and fua her, so she behaves herself with Ma.  I love seeing them together, they are so cute!

We moved!  Yep, it was completely unexpected and last-minute but it was a HUGE blessing!  A true testimony to me that paying your tithing can bring blessings.  It's a newer, nicer & bigger house and it's perfect for our family.  It's a rambler so Ma doesn't have to do stairs, but the basement is fully finished almost as a mother-in-law apartment.  Upstairs has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, living room, kitchen & laundry room....and downstairs it has 2  bedrooms, 1 bathroom, a kitchen, living room & laundry room.  It's so nice because Tea and Ashlee get to stay downstairs and have their independence while still being right here.  And my boys finally get their own room!  The yard is nice, it's on a third of an acre lot with a shed in the back, a garden, 2 apple trees, a apricot tree & a peach tree.  A built in swing set for the kids....like I said it's a HUGE blessing and it's so perfect for our family!  The crazy thing is that the house was a foreclosure, so it was such a great deal!  Ova and I continue to see the blessings the Lord has poured upon our family and we are so grateful!

Since this really is the first time my boys have ever had their own room, I have to share a cute story.  We put up a bunk-bed in our boys room and they were both super-duper excited!  They agreed that Makai would have the top and Mone would have the bottom...and that first day here they talked about how excited they were to sleep on their bunk-beds!  Well, night rolled around and that wasn't the case.  Makai was fine, but Mone had a really hard time with the idea that he had to sleep by himself, because he was so used to sleeping with either me and Ova or with Gramma Tea.  He cried and cried and threw a fit and he was so getting on my nerves.  I told Makai he had to sleep on the bottom with Mone for the first couple nights until Mone got used to their new room, Makai wasn't too happy about that, but he listened.  I tucked them into bed and Mone said he wanted to say a prayer, and that it was his turn so we all kneeled down to say our bedtime prayers.  This was Mone's prayer:  "Dear Heavenly Father, please bless me that I won't be scared and that I can sleep in my own room.  There are no monsters in my new house, that's what my mommy said.  My mommy said I can sleep with the light on and that Makai will sleep on my bed.  I can see mommy's room across the hall.  My mommy's friend is going to come paint Spiderman on my wall and he will protect me.........."  and he went on and on having a long old conversation with the Lord about how he was feeling.  It was so sweet.  After he was done, he laid down and knocked out.  He wasn't afraid anymore.  I learned that night that my 3 year old son understands the importance of prayer, and that Heavenly Father listens and answers them!

Oh, and that part in his prayer about my friend coming to paint Spiderman, it's true!  I have a friend at work that's an artist and I asked him if he could come paint my boys room with the Marvel superheros....he should be coming sometime next week and I don't know who's more excited about it, me or my boys!!

This would be a good post for pictures, but my camera is packed away in one of the boxes that I haven't gotten around to unpacking, so the pictures will have to come later!

April 11, 2010

Conversation w/ the Doctor

I took Makai to the doctor for a check-up and here's how the conversation went:

Dr:  "Makai, what's your favorite food?"

Makai: "I Love vegetables" 

(totally caught me off guard cause that is so not his favorite food...I looked at him and he had this evil little smile on his face)

Dr:  "Oh, that's good Makai, what kind of vegetables? Green ones? Colorful ones?"

Makai:  "Oh, I love all vegetables...... you know Dr.  if I have a sweet tooth, I just eat a carrot and my sweet tooth is gone."

(At this point I couldn't help but laugh out loud)

The Dr. steps out of the room

Me:  "Makai, what was that all about?"

Makai:  "Well mom, we want the Dr. to think I eat healthy don't we?"

Oh my goodnes....where does this kid come up with this stuff!

April 10, 2010

Easter Fun!

What a fun candy-filled weekend!  This weekend was extra special because not only was it Easter, but it was also General Conference.  A spiritual filled weekend with so many needed-to-hear messages from our leaders along with celebrating the greatest thing our Savior did for us...his Atonement.  I made sure in our FHE to teach my kids the real meaning of Easter, so they can know and understand that even though it's fun to have Easter Egg hunts and candy and the Easter bunny....that's not the real meaning of Easter.  It's hard getting the message across to little kids, but I hope that if I continually teach them that one day they'll really understand!  Our Easter started on Monday night when we had our monthly Makai FHE.... this month was me & Ova's turn so everyone gathered at our house.  We had Grandma's famous tacos for dinner, an Easter FHE lesson, an Easter Egg Hunt for all the kids and we celebrated Dad's 59th birthday.  It was a fun night, as always for my side of the family to get together.
The Birthday boys w/ the "59" cake Marie made!


Makai came home with a flyer from his school saying that Jumpin' Jacks was having their 1st annual Easter Party....the admission was $3 and there was supposed to be lots of activities and games for the kids.  I decided to take my boys and oh my goodness, it was SO MUCH FUN!  They had tons of stuff for the kids.... rock wall climbing, games, a band, mickey mouse, the Easter bunny, face painting, a raffle...and of course all the jumping things because it was at Jumpin' Jacks.... I was worried that it was going to be way too packed, but there actually wasn't too many people there.... probably because this was the 1st annual one, next year when the word gets out I'm sure it will be crazy!  They had a huge egg hunt at the park across the street... they said they hid over 6000 eggs.  They divided the kids into age groups (which was so smart) and let them go wild.  Both my boys filled their baskets FULL of eggs.... and inside the eggs were not only candy, but some had free meals at Bajio, gift cards to Walmart, tons and tons of prizes.  We ended up coming home with 10 free meals from Bajio's and tons and tons of candy.... it was so much fun!  In the raffle they were giving huge prizes like the WII and xbox 360.... too bad we didn't win this year...maybe next year!  hahaha

Right after Jumpin' Jacks we headed to another egg hunt... my good friend Mel Moleni puts on this awesome Easter Egg hunt every year.  She just does it for her family and friends, but it's always so much fun!  She does a potluck and everyone can bring a treat and then all the eggs are just laid out on the grass and the kids get to find them.  She had like 14 prizes for the kids who picked the right egg.  It was good times catching up with everyone, but it was F-R-E-E-Z-I-N-G cold so we all cut the egg hunt short after the kids opened their eggs to see who won.  It was short and sweet!

The last egg hunt was on Saturday at Papa & Barbara's new house.  That egg hunt was so much fun!  Again, it was just family and close friends....but there were TONS of kids there!  Barbara is so creative and she totally went out of her way to make sure the kids had a good time.  She bought cute little bunny shaped cookies for the kids to decorate, paper bags and easter stickers and stuff to decorate...and just all these cute little activities.  Papa was on the bbq and all the boys kicked it outside w/ him.  The singles hid the thousands of eggs that everybody brought and all the wives kicked it in the house with the kids.... the food was the bomb, and even though there were so many kids there, they all got tons and tons of eggs which means tons and tons of candy!  After the party was over, all the couples decided to go catch a movie together....so everyone left to drop their kids off and met up at the District to watch Clash of the Titans.  I opted not to go because Ova had to work, but it's all good cause they all said the movie sucked!  hahaha 

Barbara's fun activities!
The Egg Hunt (front & back yard covered w/ eggs!)
Good company!

Like I said at the beginning, a great weekend.... lots of candy, lots of food, lots of family and friends!

April 4, 2010

Pictures with Gpa & Gma

We all got together for dinner at Leslie & Pat's house and decided to try and take pictures of all the grandkids with Gramma & Grampa.... since it's almost Dad's birthday, we thought he would love to have a picture of all the kids..... here are some of the shots we got, keep in mind that this is 13 kids all under the age of 8, so it was impossible to get a shot of all of them smiling, let alone all of them looking.  Hahaha, it was fun though!  After sorting through like a thousand pictures, these are the best ones!

Also, I got a new photoshop programs.....the CS4, and I was playing around with it on these pictures....now looking back on them, I so need to figure out how to use it!  The pictures turned out way over-photoshoped....hahaha but it was fun! 
Funny Faces
Kids attacking Gpa
Kids attacking Gpa II
Kids attacking Gma
Leslie's Kids
My Kids
Marie's Family