A Little Change

After years of whining about the color in our living room we finally made a change last week and changed this...

into this...

I was so nervous about picking the colors out without help but both Allan and I are so pleased with how it looks now.  What a difference a little paint can make!!

We also finally got family pictures put up.

Allan was quite the handyman that weekend and spent Monday evening making these cute little picnic tables with my Dad out of extra wood from their deck.

 

The kids are so thrilled with their pint-sized picnic table that they have spent every second outside, reading, coloring and eating on it.

These are just some extra little pictures from our evening in the yard yesterday.

Lilybug

 Our Lillian turned 10 months old this past week. She is as busy as ever and runs me ragged nearly everyday. From scaling the stairs in 5 seconds flat to pulling pots out of cupboards and books out of bookshelves this kid is into EVERYTHING!! She keeps us all amused with her goofy faces and silly antics and is more and more fun all the time.

Lillian is the only child that we've needed baby gates for.  She would launch herself right down the stairs without them.   She was hugely unimpressed when I put them up though. 

She got herself into this position without any help from me.

We can hardly remember what it was like before our sweet Lilybug was around.

Happy Mother's Day - A Day Late

 Our Mother's Day weekend was a busy one.  Allan took me out to dinner and a movie Friday night and we spent all of Saturday together picnicing and running errands as a family.  Then he prepared a delicious Greek themed dinner Saturday night while I relaxed in the yard and played freeze tag with the kids.  THEN he helped the kids make crepes for me on Sunday morning complete with fruit and whipped cream.  I certainly felt pampered.  While I love Mother's day I can happily say that this is not an uncommon occurrence in our home.  Allan strives daily to make me feel beautiful and pampered and perfect.  I am so grateful for a husband who lets me know how much he appreciates me regularily. 

Sunday evening was spent with my Mom and the rest of our family at my parent's home.  It was so nice to visit and watch the kids play and interact with their aunts and uncles and cousin Eli.  That is my long explanation as to why I didn't get a Mother's Day post up sooner.

Of mothers President Monson said "one writer summed up our love for mother when he declared, 'God could not be everywhere, and so He gave us mothers.'"  President David O. Mackay beautifully said "this ability and willingness properly to rear children, the gift to love, and eagerness, yes, longing to express it in soul development, make motherhood the noblest office or calling in the world."  These quotes make me think of my own mom who, even though her children are grown and some are having children of their own, continues to nurture, inspire and lead her children and grandchildren in all that she does.  I can attribute so much of who I am as a woman, wife and mother to the example that my mom set for me.  From things as simple as getting the laundry done all in one day or getting exercise daily to my desire to share my testimony with my children and provide them with meaningful, spiritual experiences.  Some of my fondest memories are of long conversations with my mom as she sat on the edge of my bed and heard the joys, fears and insecurities of my young heart.  She shared her testimony with me regularily and I took strength from hers as I gained my own.  Now I find joy in watching her with my own children who adore her more and more everyday.

I am also grateful for the good woman who raised my husband to be the righteous, valiant man that he is.  For her sweet and gentle nature and the love that she has for our children.  I found this sweet little poem on Pinterest the other day about mother-in-laws.

Mother-In-Law

You are the mother I received the day I wed your son

And I just want to thank you for all the things you've done

You have given me a gracious man with whom I share my life

You are his lovely mother and I his lucky wife

You used to pat his little head and now I hold his hand

You raised and loved a little boy then gave to me a man.

Happy Mother's Day Moms!!! (one day late)  We love you very much!

I can't talk about my Mother's day without mentioning the lovely "spa" that Emma's kindergarten teacher arranged for all of the moms last Thursday night.  Emma was so excited to treat me to a manicure, pedicure, makeover and massage.  It was such a fun night to spend with my sweet little girl.  However I don't think that I will be letting her do my makeup again anytime soon.

Mrs. Semeniuk had the gym decorated and relaxing nature music playing.  We were even told to bring a housecoat so that we could be cozy.

The manicure.

The pedicure.

The neck rub while we waited for my toe nails to dry.

The lovely make over.  She insisted that each of my eye lids be a different color.

  It was the perfect mother's day gift.







Family Home Evening

I love Monday nights, particularily because it is Family Home Evening and I know that we will all be home together for the night.  I started a new Monday night routine with the kids last week.  Each Monday night Emma and Walker take a turn choosing what we will have for dinner, helping prepare the meal, and then helping with the dishes afterwards.  Emma went first last week and she decided on spaghetti with meat sauce, raw carrots with dip, and soda crackers with cheese melted on them.  She loved peeling the carrots all by herself and carefully preparing each of the crackers.  Because it went so beautifully last week we tried it again with Walker tonight.  He chose pizza...with no melted cheese on it.  So we reserved a special slice just for him with all of the toppings except for cheese.

By the time the pizza was ready to be put in the oven Walker had eaten half of the toppings and nearly a pound of pizza crust dough.

 

He was willing to let Emma in on the prep.

As much as I love cooking with my kids sometimes I feel like this by the end of it.

After dinner we had a Family Home Evening lesson in the backyard about gardening and plant care.  I love working in the dirt and helping plants grow and thrive.  I've been doing a lot of research to find different projects that I can do with the kids in the yard and in the house that will help them learn and enjoy it too.  This morning I had the kids paint a terra cotta pot and then tonight we planted lemon seeds in it and talked about how we can care for the seeds to help them grow.  Apparently the seeds will grow into a beautiful little plant that will smell like lemons.  I'm excited to see if it works.

This kid LOVES being outside.  That rubber boot is probably the least disgusting thing she had in her mouth all day after eating a leaf, a pine cone, grass clippings, and a handful of dirt.

Love Letters

Emma got her first love letter today. Please tell me that she is too young for that already!!!

Bing!!

We spent all of last week with our family in various stages of recovery from a nasty flu virus.  Walker got the worst of it, at one point running a fever of 104 degrees!!  Thank goodness for Advil and for a little boy who loves a good bath even if it is a cool one.  I was feeling a little stir crazy and weary of having one sick child after another clinging to my leg, waist or arm so I ran to the library one night while Allan entertained our lethargic and grumpy little ones.  I intended to search the shelves for a new book for myself but as usual spent the hour looking in the children's section for new Cds, games, DVDs and books for the kids.  I found this little gem amidst the countless children's Cds that are often overlooked and left unused. 

 

I couldn't wait to listen to the Mother Goose classic, particularly because it was told by Bing Crosby.  The next morning I put the kids in the living room with some books and cozy blankets in the hopes that I could get a few things done while they listened to this cool crooner.  Bing Crosby's voice followed me through the house as I tidied and cleaned and eventually lured me to the living room where Lillian and Walker were playing and reading quietly.  They seemed to be lulled by Bing's soothing voice and it afforded me a few blissful moments of peace and quiet.

This is a little long but it only takes a couple of minutes to realize why the kids were so inclined to sit quietly and listen.

Look at those eyes!!

Emma got sick and recovered long before any of us and after a field trip to the hospital she was well equipped to fight off the germs that her baby brother and sister were harbouring.

Book Worms

Even before I became a mom I hoped that I would be able to foster a love of books and literature in my children.  In the evenings leading up to Emma's birth, while Allan worked late into the evening, I would read some of my most loved story books, and some new ones provided by my little sister Haley, to my sweet baby that I could feel kick and move inside my tummy.  Allan and I began reading to her when she was only weeks old and our efforts seemed to pay off as she grew older and began to be more interested in her books than she was in any of her toys.

Once she was big enough to get around without any help I could almost always find her near our bookcase surrounded by her books.  At the young age of one she would spend hours on our laps listening to children's books and sitting silently by herself looking at them.

She continues to love having books read to her and now that she is learning how to read herself she is excited when she recognizes words that are familiar to her.  I was thrilled this past month when we received her report card and her teacher said that she "demonstrates a love of literature". 

I spent months trying to find a chapter book that Emma would enjoy and after striking out several times with books like The Rainbow Fairies, that made me feel less intelligent with each sentence, and The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, that was a little long and wordy for Emma, we finally found this book...

t.

I loved it as a little girl but loved it more still as I read it to my little girl.  She identified so closely with quirky Ramona and enjoyed listening to all of her kindergarten adventures.  We quickly finished that one and have moved onto Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. 

Because of Emma's instant love for all things literature I anticipated that as long as Allan and I continued the same reading practices with our next child that we would achieve the same results.  I started to become anxious when Walker arrived and would scream and squirm whenever I tried to read to him.  He was far more interested in his trucks and cars than he ever was in any of the books that we supplied him with.  Fortunately, countless trips to the library taught me that the content of the book was very important to Walker.  The books had to have trucks, trains, monsters, dinosaurs or super heroes in them in order to capture and hold his attention.  Now he will happily snuggle up and read with us as long as the book has the above requirements.  That is why I was so happy when I found one of Allan's old treasures while cleaning out the basement the other day.

Walker would have spent all night listening to the stories of the Cowboys of Moo Mesa if I let him.