Cameron loves Paige

Cameron decided to alter his chore list just a bit yesterday morning.



In case you can't read it, he added:

*Play with Paige
*Hug Paige
*Unbuckle Paige (she was sitting in her booster seat eating breakfast)

Someday when he tells me he doesn't like Paige, I'll have proof that it's not true!

Reclaiming the Basement

Last Monday morning (2.18.08) Blake and I decided that we were going to get the carpet back down and the furniture back in the room that night. I secretly decided I was going to be superwoman and lay the carpet back down myself that day. I knew I just needed to use a knee kicker but wasn't exactly sure how to go about the whole process, so I did an internet search on how to lay carpet and educated myself. Then I drove on over to the local tool rental store and got me a knee kicker.

I had a few minutes later in the afternoon so I ran downstairs to try it out. It was all quite simple. I realized about halfway through though that I was probably going to rub some holes in my jeans. When I slipped into shorts I discovered that I already had a nice rug burn on my left knee. When it was all said and done I had several rug burns to show off. This is what my knees look like a week later.

I'd like to say that I had the whole room done by the time Blake got home, but I didn't. I was a good start anyway. We even had time to get all the furniture put back in place.

*For those of you who have been wondering how the basement flooded: We had a lot of snow, rain and freezing temperatures. Near this window, we have a down spout that is buried underground and takes the water to the front yard. It had been so cold that the water in it froze and and the new rain just bubbled out and into the window well. When the window well got too full it came in the house.

Happy Valentine's Day

We started the day with a family breakfast (which means that I actually got out of bed and came downstairs before everybody started eating) of pancakes and eggs. This is not the best picture, but what can you expect this early in the morning? The gift bag was our family's Valentine's gift.

It was full of some candy and toys as well as earplugs and tickets for Monster Jam! Needless to say, the boys were excited by the prospect of attending such a cultural event. (I, on the other hand, feel that my attendance at a WWF event a number of years ago was enough of a cultural experience to last a lifetime. But I did what all good mothers would do and purchased the tickets!)






Caleb happened to have preschool on Valentine's Day. He was excited, as were Cameron and Cade, to pass out Valentine's cards to his friends. Caleb, Paige and I went to help out at Cameron's class party later in the afternoon. This is a picture of Cameron holding his envelope for Valentine's cards. He loves to draw this parrot so I had to take a picture of it. We also stopped by Cade's classroom to see how he was doing. Candy, candy, candy! Who wouldn't be happy?






They all spent the time during the party eating candy as fast as they could and continued on through the afternoon after we got home. Of course I was saying all the things that a mother would say:




--"You need to stop eating so much candy, you're going to get sick." (I always have a hard time really selling this one because my mom use to say the same thing everytime we would go to my Oma's apartment and I would raid her candy jar. I never got sick.)



--"You need to stop eating candy now or you're not going to be hungry for dinner."



--"You need to stop eating your candy now. You're not going to have any left for tomorrow."



--"If you don't stop eating your candy now, I'm going to have to put it all away!"



--"You've had enough!"




Then later when Cade was too full to eat his dinner:



--"I told you that if you kept eating candy you would be too full for dinner!"



--"No, you can't have a treat!"





After we got the kids off of their sugar high and into bed, Blake and I made dinner and dessert and watched a movie together. The menu included shrimp alfredo fettuccine, tossed green salad, toasted garlic bread, and mini chocolate molten cakes with ice cream and raspberries.



The dessert was probably the best part, but I was so full by the time we got to that part of the meal that I could hardly enjoy it. I think I snacked a little too much earlier when we were feeding the boys that I wasn't very hungry for my dinner...I should listen to myself better too!

Hope you had a Happy Valentine's Day too!

Nursery Day

This picture was taken on our way out the door to church on 2.10.08. It was the big day...NURSERY DAY!!! We have spent many hours walking the halls during church the past few months and counting down the weeks until Paige was old enough for nursery. I guess I cheated a little bit by taking her in on this day since she wasn't officially 18 months old until the following day. I think she handled it better than most of the kids in there though. You can see from the picture how excited she was to go to church because she knew it was nursery day!



When I walked into nursery with her at least 4 kids were close to hysterics. She looked at me like, "What is wrong with everybody?" I began to worry that she was going to get upset just because everybody else was upset. We found her a couple of toys and she started playing. I told Sister Ulrich, the nursery leader, that I thought she should be fine, to which she replied, "She's been in here before and she did great!" With a confused look on my face, I immediately tried to recall when she had been to nursery because I certainly hadn't brought her. I began thinking that Blake must have brought her recently and not told me, but that isn't really like him. Then Mary Burt, holding her crying son, pipes up that she brought Paige in with them when she and her husband watched the kids while we were in Hawaii. She was very apologetic about it, but of course I didn't care at all. I was just relieved that my brain hadn't really stopped working enough for me to forget something like a trip to the nursery! After this exchange of words, I replied, "Okay, great! We'll see you later then." I hope I didn't seem too hasty in my exit that immediately followed. I guess that's what 4 kids has done to me.



Unfortunately Paige woke up Sunday evening from her after church nap with a fever. It made for a long week for me as she wanted to be held whenever she was awake. I did feel bad for her, but sometimes it gets tricky to make lunch and dinner, do the laundry, have a shower, do the dishes, etc. with a toddler who wants to be on your hip all day. This picture was taken midweek when she decided to just lay on the kitchen floor instead. You can tell she wasn't feeling well. Poor thing! We are happy to report that she is feeling much better now and ready to go back to nursery tomorrow!

Remembering President Hinckley

It has been not quite a month now since our dear President Hinckley passed away. I started this post a couple of weeks ago (that is why it says this was posted on 2.2.08 but it is really 2.16.08), but haven't found the time to finish until now. Even though it has been so long there are still a few things that I would like to record for journaling's sake.

I loved President Hinckley. I looked forward to hearing him speak. He was always so positive, and witty and encouraging. We were over visiting with some friends when we got the word that he had passed away. I admit I felt a little unprepared for the news. I knew that he was old and that his time was getting shorter, but I didn't realize that he was on his death bed. I felt shock that he had died, sadness that he would no longer be here with us and then happiness when I thought of him seeing his dear wife again. Oh what a joyful reunion that must have been! He had missed her so much.

President Hinckley was more than just a wonderful man, he was a prophet of God. I know that the Lord leads his church today through his prophets just like he did in ancient times. I know that He is at the head of this great work. Serving as a missionary in Lithuania where the gospel had only been for a very short time and the church was still being established, I would often reflect upon how wards and stakes can function and the great good that they can do when there are enough members to hold all the different callings needed. It would be at those times that I would know again that this is the Lord's church. He is the one that has organized it here upon the earth again and He is at the head.

I will miss President Hinckley, but I know that the work of the Lord will continue to move forward no matter what.

Flood Zone

So what do you do after your basement floods?

We woke up to a flooded basement last Sunday. Of course I had to play the organ and substitute in YW that day, so while I went to church with the kids to take care of those responsibilities, Blake stayed home and moved furniture, vacuumed up water and pulled up carpet.





















Can you see the wet footprints in the carpet? It went into the storage room too, which fortunately is unfinished.

Well, since you have already had to move out all the furniture and the carpet is up, why not do that painting that you have been talking about?






























Thanks, honey!! You're the best!

Tagged

Apparently I've been tagged and that means that I'm suppose to share 7 things about myself that perhaps not many of you know. I've been mulling this over for a couple of days now and this is what I 've come up with:

1. Most nights I have a bowl of cereal before I go to bed. I have done this for probably close to 20 years now.








2. I am TERRIFIED of snakes. We had a pet snake in our 5th grade class room and one day after school he bit a boy in my class (provoked I'm sure). I think I've been traumatized since. It gives me the creeps just to look at pictures. I almost couldn't handle downloading one for this.








3. I have horrible eyesight! I literally need my nose touching the paper to read if I don't have my contacts in. If you see me out in public with my glasses on instead of my contacts in, you can assume something is wrong. This is a realistic representation of my glasses.







4. I would love to live in Europe somewhere for a few years and learn a couple of new languages in the process.









5. I have gigantic tonsils! Dentists and dental hygenists always tell me I have some of the largest tonsils they have ever seen. I just say, "Thanks!"








6. I have this bad habit of "air-typing" (think playing air-guitar here) words or phrases that I hear or read. Sounds a little OCD...probably is.







7. My date and I both fell down part of this waterfall back in my college days. It's Stewart Falls up above Aspen Grove in Provo Canyon. At the time it was funny because neither of us got hurt. Now I look at it and wonder how we survived!



(Look at the bottom half or 2nd section of the falls. At the top of it you can see a small section that sits back a little before it drops off again. We fell down the small section on the right. It was just like going down a waterslide into a pool. If we would have gone over the next ledge we would have been in trouble!)