Our Community Service

Last Saturday we spent the morning raking leaves for the Disney "Give a Day, Get a Day". They sponsored a big community service event and if you give a day of service, you get a pass to Disneyland. I know - not "real" service because you get something out of it, but we still had fun!

Jeremy and I didn't tell the kids that it was for Disneyland. Last Monday we had a family home evening lesson on service and talked about helping others and helping in your community. Then we told them that we would be coming up to rake leaves to help out in our community. I'm glad we didn't let on to the real reason we were up there because it made the project a whole lot more enjoyable.

Jeremy's parents also came up and helped out with us. We ended up cleaning in the park for a little more than 2 hours. All the kids seemed to have fun and they all managed to find jobs to do that helped out. This was a good experience for our family.

Pause my music at the bottom of my blog before watching. :)

I Gave In

We have 3 Nintendo DSs at our house and we insist that they are FAMILY DSs and not any one person's in particular. Of course they are always off limits to Alexandra because she is so little, but everyone else gets to play them on a limited basis.

Well, Alex seems to think she is so grown up that she can just do what everyone else does, even though she is only 2! I kept finding her hiding out in closets or little corners all hunched over with a DS. Our rule is that the games have to stay in the family room. She was breaking all the rules ... taking the game cartridges out (which are tiny), taking the DS to her room and other rooms, leaving games all throughout the house.

FINALLY, to spare myself much frustration I decided to allow her to play the dumb games. I figure if she has some access and can stay within the boundaries I set, then I'll avoid having the games lost or broken.

I know, dumb of me to give in to a 2-year-old, but that's how it goes this time. I have to pick my battles, right?

I guess the good part is that now I have a little extra leverage as a mom. Since she has been allowed to play the DS, it has become "her" DS and she is very possessive of it. I have to keep reminding her that it is the "family" DS and she doesn't get to play it all the time. It's a work in progress.

Jeremy is Old ... Like Me!

Yesterday was Jeremy's birthday and he is now the same age as me! I wonder if he will ever pass me up.

Having a Sunday birthday isn't the greatest thing in the world, but at least he got to celebrate his birthday all weekend. On Saturday, the kids and I took Jeremy shopping. He needed some new shirts, so we spent some time in the mall finding him just the right things. After that we loaded in the car to go eat his birthday dinner. He couldn't decide where to go and we just sat in the car for the longest time. Finally he started driving. He drove to the place he thought he wanted to eat, we sat in the car for awhile again, then he changed his mind and we ended up driving for another 1/2 hour to go get dinner! We ended up at one of our favorite asian restaurants and took the kids in. All of us were starving by that point and we devoured our meal. Everyone was satisfied and we decided to try out our good fortune by opening our fortune cookies.

Jeremy opened his fortune cookie, read the fortune, started laughing, then crumpled the fortune and threw it. He refused to tell me what his fortune said. Finally after much coaxing, he found the little paper and read it to me. It said, "You shouldn't overspend at the moment. Frugality is important."

Oh good one! And we just spent the day shopping for him and then eating out!!! So much for that. Looks like we just shot ourselves in the foot. I then opened my cookie and pulled out the fortune. It said the exact same thing!!! (Jeremy's is the ripped one, in the picture.)

After I read my fortune, Jeremy called over the waiter and told him that we had a problem and that we probably needed a refund. He then showed the waiter our fortunes. The waiter just laughed and told us - at least we got a fortune in our cookie! So, I guess we'll be watching ourselves from now on.

All in all, Jeremy had a great birthday. Athena and Samantha showered him with love notes and we also gave him a beloved BYU tie that he wore to church.

I love Jeremy and I'm lucky to have him for my husband. He works hard for his family and does his best to do what's right. He is my best friend. :) HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEREMY!

The Lunch Monster

I took this video of our conversation today at lunch. Pause my music at the bottom of my blog and you'll be able to hear the video better.



We have talked about the lunch monster before because the kids are SO SLOW at eating their lunches. Usually if they think the lunch monster is coming to eat them, they eat their lunch very quickly. Well, apparently they have made great friends with the lunch monster because according to Nathan, the lunch monster lives outside of his bedroom - and whenever Nathan goes into his room he gives the lunch monster high fives! So much for that brilliant idea. At least he is making friends.

HUGE Sigh of Relief

Last October the operating system on my desktop computer crashed. This was an enormous stress to me because I lost all my programs and possibly thousands of my pictures. The programs I really needed the most were Homesite and Adobe Photoshop, and I didn't have backups.

We ended up buying a laptop and that's been my computer for the past several months. I have been so sick about the desktop that I really didn't even want to try to restore anything for fear of what I had lost.

Well, I finally got up the gumption to face the facts and order the CD I needed from Dell to restore my system. After a couple hours of work on the computer I got it up and running. I quickly started to search through my files to see what I could find. I did manage to find most of my pictures, but still couldn't find the bulk of them - thousands of our most recent pictures.

At least I found some pictures and I was content for a little while. I've kind of just decided to let that computer be for the kids because it still seemed like a lost cause.

A couple of days ago I went back to the computer to see what else I could figure out with it. After several searches and clicks I actually located ALL of the lost pictures!!!! EXCITING!! And miracle of all miracles . . . I got my Photoshop AND Homesite to work! Unbelievable! I was sure these were gone and unrecoverable. So, after several months of stressing about that darn computer, the stress is finally gone and I feel a great sense of relief. Now that I have my Photoshop back, Jeremy is itching for me to post my pictures from our latest trip to Mexico. I guess that's what you now have to look forward to. :)

I'm So Gross

Today Nathan has a friend over. While Nathan was playing, I grabbed him (not his friend) and gave him a big kiss on the cheek. Nathan said, "Ew! That's so gross! Kisses are gross!" His friend then innocently replied, "My mom gives me kisses too."

This was so funny to me because I've never seen Nathan try to be a macho little boy who hates kisses. In fact, he likes to play DS in the afternoons, and yesterday while he was playing DS he sat there saying about every 10 minutes, "Mom, I love you" and ,"I sure do love you, Mom". Just over and over. So what's with the sudden change? He gives me kisses all the time!

So I guess he's too cool now, and I'm just gross.

Family Valentine's Day

I woke up on Valentine's Day, peeled back my eyelids, and saw a lovely vase of roses, a balloon, and a Valentine's card sitting on my vanity. THANK YOU JEREMY! I love you!!!!

Usually for Valentine's Day I like to leave a little bag of candy for the kids with a nice note by their bed, or I'll decorate the kitchen table with candy and stuffed animals for when they wake up. This year I was just so tired of candy that I didn't want to buy one more sweet thing, so I went really cheap. It turned out great and the kids loved it!

I made a valentine for each of them out of construction paper and Jeremy and I wrote a special note for each of them on the valentine. Then I simply taped each valentine to their bedroom doors as a surprise for when they woke up. They LOVED their valentines! :)

Then for dinner I did something really special ... I DECORATED the table. LOL

I know, not much, but for the kids it was really a special treat! We rarely use candles, so I lit some candles, put on a nice table cloth, got out the "fancy" glasses, and made an event.

For our Valentine's dinner I made a parmesan chicken salad and we had Crystal Lite to drink. It was very good! The lighting is bad for pictures, but it really was a lot of fun.



I love my family very much and I enjoy doing special things for them that they will remember. It was especially cute to see all the kids using their best manners and trying to use the special glasses all proper. Who knows, maybe this will become our new tradition.