Say it isn’t so…

Summer, over, really?

I don’t like the idea of this.

So I am going to proclaim that it isn’t over, nope, not really.  Not yet.

We still have stuff we want to do.  So much more fun to be had!

So what if they are “in school”.  I will just pretend that it is just a practice run until our summer fun is really over and done.  (Well, more like when the weather doesn’t shout summer at us anymore.)

Sunday night, we slept out on the trampoline, you know, one last “hoo-rah” before bedtime becomes nazi-ish again. 

(And when I say “we”, I really mean just me and the girls.)

We attempted this in July, the night of the 5th (really our 4th what with the real fourth being on Sunday and all..) but a little rainstorm somewhere around 3 in the am cut out night out on the trampoline short.

This time, I was going to have all our bases covered.

- good weather (check)

- mosquito repellant (check)

- plenty of cushiness (check, check, check, check)

- sprinklers off (check)

Or so I thought on that last one.

4:30 am I hear the combined gush of air and water and then one drop, that was all it took, right on my forehead.  I was up faster than I have been in a long time, running back into the house, out to the garage, and turned that water off!!

It was pleasant sleeping after that.

Well, until that period of time, right before dawn, when I would swear to you it gets its coldest.  I wasn’t sleeping too well then.  I wished I’d had my socks on then.  So instead, I curled up in a little ball, snuggled close to Peyton’s warm little body and fleece blanket, and all was better.

Yesterday evening was back to school night.  We knew exactly what we were going to get with Ash’s teacher, and we were ALL very excited about that.  Lynn was a little nervous about her teachers.  There was a last minute switch to her teaching line-up that left my already nervous daughter that much more.  I think some of her fears were put to rest after meeting them.

We came home and had family home evening.  We talked about prayer, that the girls can always go to their Heavenly Father in prayer, whenever they need help.  Even if it is while they are sitting at their desk and need help.  We also talked about the priesthood, how it blesses our lives.  Merrill then gave them each a father’s blessing to start their year off right.

Peyton was so excited, she even got one too.

That is a tradition I cherish.

Then there was last night.

Sleeping (or trying to).

In our own beds.

At a nazi-ish time.

I don’t know who slept worse..  me or them. 

Third grader..  times-tables and cursive?  Really?!  Good heavens, I had to buy her a flash drive as part of her school supplies.

And then there’s the first grader.

I will miss her terribly come 11:30.  She will have lunch, at school.

It is a happy time of life.  It really is all good…

But it sucks that summer is over.

Testimony.

This year for family home evening, we are delving into the Book of Mormon more.  We are taking the Gospel Art picture kit (the old one) and taking one picture at a time, discussing the story, and reading the most pertinent verses out of our scriptures TOGETHER.  Lynn struggles to look them up on her own, and this is a way to help her become a little better at it.  She is so excited to read them out loud, and the little girls are really enjoying it as well.

Every week, we do a re-cap of sorts, to refresh our minds as to where we are in the storyline of the book.  Tonight, Peyton went on and on about how Nephi was really a princess. ;)  Great story telling skills that girl has.

The story we were on was about the arrival of the Liahona, how it worked, and how they needed to be in order for it to work properly.

I shared a couple of stories about faith with them, personal experiences, (one that I realize I should record here..) and likened that to how the Liahona worked.  They needed to show faith, believing that it would give them direction.  Lynn was so sweet, as I was finishing she asked if she could share a story with us.

She re-told the story of her day at kindergarten, when she found no one in her classroom, and ran back outside to find me, only to find I had left.  She did cross paths with a sister in our ward (someone Lynn didn’t know), who calmed her down, reassured her, and helped her get safely back to school.

At the end of Lynn’s story, she told us, “I know that Heavenly Father blessed me.  He sent Sue to me so I could get back to school safely and so I wouldn’t be sacred.”

How proud was I!!  She gets it!!!

After the prayer, and after I sent off the little girls to get their pajamas on, I held Lynn back.  I asked her if she knew what she had just done.

“No…”

“You don’t know what that was that you just told all of us?”

She just shook her head.

“That was your testimony.  You shared something that you believe.  You shared a story of when you had to use your faith, and you told us how you were blessed.  That is your testimony of faith.” 

I am so thankful for family home evening, for this time of learning and sharing, to see how my children really do understand and grow from the teachings of the gospel.

Day 15.

Today I find myself thankful for so many things!  I seem to find more and more every day..  just one side effect of looking at life this way I guess.

- Merrill has a job.  It’s a job that keeps him busy, but it’s close, and it’s regular.  He is close to home, so on those nights when he gets to pull the midnight shift, he’s not that far away.  It’s also quite the perk to show up with lunch and eat with him, like we did today.

- Family time.  Tonight we had FHE, a lesson on what else, Gratitude.  Peyton started off the evening by giving the opening prayer, it was Ashley’s assignment, but she was being Ashley, and Peyton was quick to fill in.  Her prayers are so sweet!  Peyton was in charge of our song.  She chose, “I am a Child of God”, stood in front of us, raised her arm in the air, and started to sing, and lead us in her own little way.  So cute.  I found myself so thankful in that moment for her wonderful nursery teachers, and an incredible song leader, who have obviously taught her well.  We had a naked turkey in the house, and we needed to help him out.  I prepared paper feathers for us to write things that we are thankful for on, then stick them in our turkey.  I cut out only a few for the poor guy, which we appropriately named “Ham” (per Ashley’s suggestion).  Soon, all the feathers were full, I needed to cut out more.  It was also pretty awesome to know that Peyton was really listening and got it.  When I asked her to tell me something she was thankful for, she replied, “Parents”.  We got quite the variety of blessings, we could have gone on.  After that, we enjoyed a little drive.  It is such a blessing to have this time set aside, nothing else to do but to be together!

- I am thankful for my girls’ sense of humor.  To hear them giggle.  Ashley and Peyton were watching a movie, and one of the animated characters was a little hefty.  They started laughing so hard, saying he had “man boobs”.  I have no idea where they even heard that term (unless they’ve been hanging out with uncle Kev…) but had to laugh at their laughter.  Ashley was tired at the end of our day, playing with the dwarfs from the Snow White playset, she mixed Sleepy and Sneezy’s names to get Sleezy.  To see her face when she realized what she said was not right, too funny.  Another sweet giggle!

Love One Another..

Despite Merrill’s evil plan, we had another great FHE.

(He hinted at his evil plan in the last FHE post found here.)

We started the evening off with singing “As I Have Loved You” and learned the sign language to it.

We read in the scriptures, and broke it all down together, talked about how we can show others that we love them, and why it is so important to Heavenly Father that we love everyone.

That is always good and interesting time with the girls..  their insights are sweet.

We talked about showing love and respect to those in our home and how we can do that everyday.

I bought these cute little mailboxes at Target back in January, they were so tempting in that dollar bin..  I thought we could all write love notes or draw pictures to show our love to each other especially this month, but hope to make it a habit for the rest of the year.  The lesson kind of followed, but worked in perfectly.

The girls have really taken to it, and I enjoy it too.  I have yet to get one on my pillow :( but I love that when I want to tell them how much I love them, or how much I appreciate something they have done, I can write it down, and they love it.  The little notes mean so much to them!  It’s also fun to draw little pictures for them.  We put the flags up if we have placed something in someone’s box (I know, a little backwards) and they sit and wait on the counter for them to come and see the flag is up.

I think it’s safe to say that Valentines’ has gotten an early start here.

Another successful family night..

Last night made four in a row for our little family.

Little do they know, this was a goal I had set for us this year; being more consistent with our Family Home Evenings.

Last night, we talked about the “Word of Wisdom”.  We read it from the 89th section of the Doctrine and Covenants, broke it all down and discussed it on their level.  We applied it to modern day concerns as well.

Our Heavenly Father promises us great blessings if we abide by  His counsel, and I bore my testimony of this to the girls.

Right after having Lynn, I remember everyone left the room, it was just Merrill, Lynn, and myself.  He sat on the bed next to me, I was holding our new baby, and he said to me, “Min, she is perfect, she is healthy, and it’s all because you took care of yourself.  You lived a clean life, didn’t party, didn’t fall in to peer pressure, and we have a beautiful, healthy baby because of it.”

I feel that it is so important for my girls to have this in mind as they live their lives.  The world is a much different place than it was when I was their age, and it will be even more different when they are teenagers.

It isn’t always the popular or easy thing to do the right thing when our friends or the rest of the world is saying it’s okay to try something just once, or to sacrifice  our values to be cool for a moment in time.  I desire for them to remember that the promises of a loving Father in Heaven are far, far better.

We ended the night with a treat, banana splits.

If ice cream can be President Monson’s favorite treat, and we pair it with bananas, then it should be really good for us, right? ;)

Should I be worried?

Last night, we had a fun Family Home Evening. 

We made chocolate chip cookies, and likened the process to being obedient.  We talked about being obedient to the commandments and to our parents.  (Just a couple of scriptures used: Deuteronomy 12:32 and 1 Nephi 3:7.)

If we stray from the recipe, and add whatever we want, or omit whatever we want, the cookies wouldn’t taste very good.  They might not even end up being cookies.

But when we do what we are told to do, add the right amounts of ingredients, the cookies (and more importantly the dough in our house,) taste good, and we are happy.  Things are enjoyable.

Same thing happens when we are doing what is right.  We don’t have excess worry, and life is just better.  (I am not saying that trials don’t pop up..  they do.)   We focused on the commandment “Honor thy father and thy mother.”

The girls needed this, as they have been having some struggles listening to their parents.

You know, Us.

They participated well, and we thought that they got it.

Not so much.

As soon as some freshly baked cookies were enjoyed, the normal nightly routine began.

“Get ready for your bath (or shower) and make sure to put your clothes in the hamper.”

Do you want to guess where the clothes ended-up?

I bet you guessed right.  If you guessed anywhere BUT the hamper..

While they were in the tub, they were instructed to not get any more washcloths, they each had one, that was enough laundry for mom to do.

I turned around, and what did I see?

Ashley with two more.

She was grounded from the computer for the day today.  You see, there are consequences when you don’t do what is right.

Bedtime became an even greater adventure in the skill of not listening and being obedient.

I think that next Monday evening might be a re-run, minus the chocolate and sugar.  I think those just proved to be too distracting.

Hotter than...

This was what I was trying to decide last night.. I know I will be eating my words come mid July when it really is quite unbearable at 113..
What was my house hotter than? I can think of a few things...
Nobody was getting any sleep.. well, Merrill was, Peyton was between her tosses and turns. But Lynn, Ash, and myself, up. Hot and uncomfortable.
The girls did end up going to sleep, after I gave them each a gallon-sized Ziploc freezer bag filled with ice :)
I hinted to Merrill all day how hot the house was, and he teased back about how the temps were supposed to drop again to mid 70s the middle of the week.. those thoughts do not help to cool me down at night.
We had FHE and needless to say, we are worried about Ash.. she let go of the "Iron Rod" (me) when "Satan" (Merrill) tempted her first, with a piece of bubble gum, and then with a Hannah Montana concert featuring the Jonas Brothers as her opening act.. oh, Ashley..
We enjoyed our treat... which was in the freezer..
But Merrill stayed in his suit.
No swamper tonight.
As we were all trying to settle down to sleep, he kept apologizing.
"I should have done it."
I can't blame him. I am dreading the yearly event myself..
1- Will the bathroom doorway rain?
B- Or will Peyton's light fixture turn into a sprinkler again?
III- That clean-up of all the dust and dirt that settles in the air duct, then blows all over the house really sucks to clean up.
I even stayed up watching "Paranormal State" trying to catch a chill ;)
Lack of sleep isn't the only side-effect of this blessed heat.. cat fights (rrreearrr!!!).. the girls just can't seem to get along on anything.
So today, I have an appointment with Merrill, not wearing a suit, at 4 pm, to hook up the swamper.. now I just hope there aren't any thunderstorms a brewing for the appointed time, or one of those lovely splits in the copper tubing that runs through the attic that we have had the pleasure of dealing with for two years running now. While I love a good storm, or rainstorm on the top floor of my house, I don't love either more than a good night's sleep!
So today, we have retreated to the basement.. it's cool down here for more than one reason ;)

FHE..

NOT the FHE you are thinking..
Family HOTEL Evening!!
We went down to see the latest developments.. well, within the last week anyway..
So many exciting things!!
The automatic doors are running.. the girls thought that was exciting.. Ashley especially..

Here's the lights all hung in the entryway.. gorgeous!! I love so many elements about this building.. I asked Merrill if we could just move in for a while :)
Fireplace.. another reason to make it my temporary home..
The pool area is lookin' good.. which is good because the girls are living in their swimsuits, hoping that will help summer to get here faster.. I could live with this too...
Here's Merrill and the two older girls.. making their way down the second floor hallway.. taking us the long way to the most awaited thing yet.. a (just about) finished room!! See the carpet?
So, you walk in the room, and here's the floor.. I want this dark floor. Can you believe it's vinyl?!? Looks sooo good..
And of course, the bathroom is what you see first.. Peyton loved seeing all the mirrors lined up against the walls, outside the rooms in the hallway last week while they were hanging them.. I think she loved seeing herself repeatedly as she walked down the hall..
And here's the room...
TVs and fridges aren't there yet.. close Merrill says..
But I can see myself reading, right here..

Traditions...

We have some current traditions we love... and some new ones we tried on for size this year that we'll be keeping around for years to come. We also have a small list of some we didn't get to this year, and hope to next year.
We always have our list of Holiday flicks that we watch, "Mr. Kruger's Christmas", "Joy to the World", "A Christmas Story", "Trapped in Paradise", "National Lampoon's", "Frosty", "Rudolph", etc... We'll keep that one up.
This year we tried to do something Christmas-y every night. We'll attempt to keep at that one.
This year we painted ornaments for FHE. That will be one that we will do every year. It's so fun to add to the tree and see what the girls create.
Another new one, a slumber party around the Christmas tree on the "eve of the eve". We will be doing that one again. We put up the queen sized air mattress, brought in a TV and DVD player (that room doesn't have that kind of stuff.. although we are re-thinking it for this purpose... and Halloween, and the fact that it was fun and different..) watched Christmas movies while we ate pizza and other goodies together as a family (even though my toffe didn't trun out right... must have been the humidity, stom came in :)..). The girls so enjoyed it! The only "party poopers" (meaning those who didn't sleep in the front room..) were Mer and Peyton, for obvious reasons... it was great fun... even with Peyton tearing apart the tree, Ashley our "special child" jumping on the bed despite us telling her to not do it over and over and over again... and Lynn asking a million and one questions about EVERYTHING during the movies. We'll do it again!
Since this Christmas, we really tried to pare down, we used a tried and true tactic, it worked on Merrill and siblings growing up, they could open a new gift every hour... we altered it a bit, our kids don't have that kind of attention span, and let them open one every half hour. That kind of forced them to play with their new gift and enjoy it. It worked out very well and that will be used every Christmas now.
We didn't get to a few others...
Ally mentioned Elf on the shelf. I am doing that one next year for sure!
We also wanted to implement a letter writing to Santa... but not your typical letter writing. We want the girls to write a note to Santa on Christmas Eve telling him of some of their accomplishments from the past year. I have heard that Santa will leave a note in reply in their stockings...
We also want to copy another of Holly Brimhall's traditions, the slumber party was one... and wrap 25 Christmas books, themes ranging from fun, to religious, place them in a basket underneath the tree, and every night leading up to Christmas, open one and read it. Cute, eh? I already have a collection started...
I also want to take a picture, one to represent each individual day leading up to our celebration. Then make a fun mini album..
I think that's it.. I do have some grand plans... and around 360 something days to get them all together...

Monday in a nutshell..

Oh, Monday...
We started the day off with finishing Lynn's poster. She is the "Star Student" this week. We had fun putting together her poster. She freaked-out at me when I began sewing the gold paper onto the poster board. "Ms. Ashby is gonna be so mad at me! It's against the rules to sew paper..." She's wacky...
I love how she writes her name...
I spent the day taking down the whole tree, lights, ornaments, branches, everything.. well, except the first row of branches. You see, the very first string of lights we put up burned out. I un-did it all, and then spent the rest of my afternoon re-doing it, because I have A+ blood. I will have to do an Ally-inspired grand tour when I have my home all put together. It helped that it snowed today.. it was great until the battery in my Zen went dead and I couldn't find the charger...
We have been trying to do at least one Christmas activity a day. It has been something as simple as reading a Christmas book, or watching a Christmas movie together. Last week we watched "Elf".. "There's no singing at the North Pole!"... "Yes there is!!!"
For FHE we painted ornaments...
And Peyton made sure we didn't get paint anywhere that she could reach...
The girls loved painting. I got the ornaments at Michaels and the genius that I am, forgot to get more brushes, you know, so the WHOLE family could paint... thanks Brooke for picking up more while you were out :)
Merrill was cracking me up the whole time. He was acting like it was a contest. Telling Lynn to let him take credit for her ornament and saying that it looks like Michael J. Fox painted his... not so family home eveningish... it gets better...
Our little tradition is that he alters a Christmas tune or two.. this year, I think we are up to 13 or so...
Here's the finished ornaments. Ashley's has the most colors, layered on top of one another... Lynn's is mostly metallic colors, she loves shiny things... mine is the sock, and Mer's is the "JOY" that looks great! Don't you agree?
We finished the evening off with eating popcorn and brownies all while watching "Mr. Kruger's Christmas" (my brothers would appreciate that, especially Ken...) and the girls were sent off to bed.
Here I am... sleepless. Tired. But sleepless... this whole done nursing thing has me messed-up. I think the stress and worry of no calling isn't helping matters either. I have not had migraines or insomnia since I got pregnant with Lynn.. here I am now, with a headache for like the fourth or fifth day in a row. I haven't been able to sleep. I watched quite a few episodes of CSI on "On Demand" until 3 am this morning (well, yesterday now... here I am, not sleeping...) These hormones (or lack thereof) also have me in a B cup bra again... thank goodness it is a push-up from Victoria's Secret. It helps, a little. Too bad it can't give me the lift I really need.
I am looking forward to tomorrow... praying for a better attitude. I'll take whatever help I can get! Do you think if I asked, my C's would come back? ;)

Funny stuff...

The kids have been on a roll lately... I need to post the funnies!
The girls have been so focused on the "eating meat = eating animals" thing. Every night, well, the nights we eat meat, they would ask, "What does this come from?" We would answer, pig, cow, chicken, etc. In astonishment, they would reply, "I don't want to eat a dead (chicken, cow, pig) body!"
So on Thanksgiving, the question was asked, "What does this come from?" to which we answered, "It's Turkey."
"Was it alive?"
"Yes, at one time."
"You want us to eat that?"
"You've had it before. You liked it."
"But it's a dead body!"
So Merrill eats a drumstick and traditionally, hands off the remainder to Ashley to pick clean. Ashley picks at it for a minute or two, then says, "What if the turkey wakes up, and looks down, and says: 'AHHHHH!! One of my legs is gone!!' Wouldn't that be crazy?!"
Later that day, at my mom's, she had the relish tray out. Ashley loves olives, let me tell you... and she ate every last olive from that relish tray. She very excitedly ran to me and exclaimed, "Mom! I JACKED all of grammy's olives! I am an olive girl..."
Lynn starred as "Baby Jesus" in the "Book of Mormon" movie, a fact that she is ever aware of and very proud of. MiKell and one of her friends even gave her the title of "movie star", which she proudly calls herself now, thanks MiKell... Up at Merrill's parents on Thanksgiving, Dixon was showing Ashley one of their Nativities, pointing out the different people in the scene. He got to baby Jesus, and said, "And there's baby Jesus."
Lynn was walking past and said, pointing down at her own head, "Yup, here's baby Jesus... that's me!"
Last night we were enjoying our family home evening, we don't always get a structured lesson in, but have an evening of no TV and fun. We have been trying to sing the books of the New Testament song, saying the names of the books correctly :), and were having quite a bit of fun singing it in silly voices. Afterwards, we popped some popcorn in the hot air popper. We have done this so many times, and Lynn is still amazed at the contents of an un-popped kernel of corn. As the kernels got hot enough to pop, Lynn got so excited. "Mom! They are just exploding all over the place! The corn is turning into popcorn!"

Summertime Rules and Regulations.

Here's to summer...
Last night, well night before last if you really wanna look at it that way... we had an FHE about our summertime rules. We went over lots of information with the girls. Everything from what bugs and spiders are good and we shouldn't run screaming from them, to which ones we should tell mom and dad about and not touch. Swimming rules. Staying in the yard rules. Stranger Danger. What to do if they get lost or separated from us. Chores. Keeping food in the kitchen. The one that I always hate to even bring up because it makes me feel so sad that this world isn't a safe place... good touching and bad touching. We have talked with them about it before, but...
There was an incident this last week in Orem with a mom and her little girl at a Wal-Mart. The mom left her little girl in the shopping cart to go around the corner and get an item. A stranger came up and touched her underneath her shorts. The girl told her mom, the mom saw the guy, and he knew that she had told on him and he ran. So we have to teach our children now, that even when they think that they are safe, it is possible that bad things can still happen. I don't want to teach my kids to fear everyone and every situation, but I think it is important to teach them what isn't acceptable and what they should do about it. I want them to know that I know what goes on and they should tell me if it were to happen.
So tonight we quizzed the girls at dinner.
Me: "Okay Ash, pretend like I am a stranger... 'Hi little girl. What's your name?'"
Ash: "Ashley!"
Mer: "Buzzz!"
Lynn: "She did it wrong! Let me do it!"
Me: "Now remember, I am a stranger...'Hi little girl. Your mom wants me to take you home. I have candy in my car, c'mon.'"
Lynn: "Nope. What's the password?"
Me: "Fartknocker?"
Ash: (giggle)
Lynn: "Nope!"
We have taught them that they can still be friendly, not grumps, but to keep their distance.
We also went to see the hotel. It has a second floor now! It is so amazing to see it is really happening. Every day, something new is going on down there. It's so cool to watch and to know that this is just another part of our future.
Kevin and Randee lost the baby... I feel so bad for him, since this is his first experience at fatherhood... I hope it happens for them soon.
Ally has gotten me in the mood to scrap. Since I am feeling better, but still don't have the energy back, I have been trying to get caught up on housework before I play. Today I was all set out to get all the floors done. I busted my butt to get everything in it's rightful place and clean up trash along the way, got all the vacuuming done and went to use my favorite tool (well, up until today...) the Swiffer. To my horror, it just wouldn't work. I replaced the batteries thinking that was the kink, nope, nothing. Now I do have to say that Ashley has a little kindergarten crush on the Swiffer. She has Swiffer radar and knows when the cleaning closet is open and goes to the Swiffer and presses the button just to hear the sound it makes. I keep the cleaner separate, because I have learned that she likes to do that. So I thought that she wore out the batteries. Apparently it is something far, far worse... my floors aren't as clean as I had hoped they would be.
But I do plan to play tomorrow!
We spent part of the evening at Lagoon... three year old metldowns as we leave the park and five year olds falling off of retaining walls... might just keep us away for a little while. Peyton was the best behaved.
As the girls were going to bed, we had to explain the science of shadows to Ashley. She thinks that they will hurt her. That was interesting. She just couldn't seem to stay in bed after that. She got up to go to the bathroom, again. To get a drink, and then to tell us, "Goodnight, don't let the big bugs bite." And finally, she brought in her blanket to me and asked if I would "decorate it on her". I have no idea how she came up with that word for spread it out... so I "decorated" her, and they were out. And now my post is done, and so is my float!