birthday party

we had my mom over for her birthday dinner. my mom is amazing. i'm so happy i get to live closer to her. the kids LOVED messing around with her candles so it looked like she was 1101. they also put peeps on her cake because "grandma is a chick"....and she is!

#1 mom award

this week is FULL of reasons why if mom awards were being passed out, they would be skipping right over me. does anyone else ever have weeks when you make your daughter late for school and then tell her to just slip in and maybe her teacher won't notice? or when your house seems to always look like this:

it has been that kind of a week.

but for sure the high point was this....

abe has been telling me for about a week that he needed a pencil for school. i heard him, sort of. a few days later i got around to buying him some pencils. i went to his class to help with a few things and noticed his desk drawer was a disaster! his last class had a system for organizing and this class doesn't. i realized abe was in need of a "system" so we started to clean it out and come up with a plan, when i pulled out this:

i chuckled and said, "nice pencil, abe." he got a little teary and said, "i've been telling you i need a pencil." he has been using this pencil for days.

a lesson on listening to my kids! i will try, try again this week.

If at first you don't succeed....you're normal?

good day, sunshine!

well, still waiting for sunshine, but it was a great day none-the-less!!

good #1
our cute cousin, annie, got baptized! i love baptisms, the spirit is always so strong. cousins are important to my kids and they wanted it to be a good day for her. sadie made her a candy bar poster. the cousins all sang, my brother kelly gave her a beautiful blessing about receiving the holy ghost. it reminded me of this
the bishop spoke. he explained that when we are baptized we become part of the Lord's team. there are almost 14 million member of the church compared to almost 6 billion people in the world. that means the members of the church make up 0.2% of the population, yet it is our job to share the gospel with the world.
he then told the story from the bible. the israelites were in bondage to the midianites. the lord calls gideon to gather an army to go against the mideonites, who were described as 'the sand by the seas side for mlititude', which means there were a lot of them. so gideon gathers an army of 22,000 and the lord says, "the people that are with thee are too many for me to give the midanites into their hands" so he tells gideon to ask who is afraid and let them go home. so now they have 10,000 men. the lord says it is still too many, so he has them drink water and only the men that drink from their hands will make up the army to fight against the mideonites. 300 men are left. he tells gideon to give every man a trumpet in one hand and in the other, a pitcher with a lantern inside. when night comes, the three hundred men surround the mideonites and all at once they blow their trumpet, then break the pitcher and the light shines all around them. the mideonites are startled and fight against themselves, then flee, and the israelites are delivered.
even though we are small, we are so much more when we have the lord's help, and because we are on his team we can have his help, and we can do great things. he encouraged annie to look around school and make a difference. i really loved this story and the application. i also was touched at the thought of being a family forever, and seeing all my family trickle in, feeling love for them and feeling happy to be connected to each one.

good #2
we quickly headed to ogden for the high school 5A championship game. tj, another cousin plays for lone peak who was playing in the championship....and they won!
what a great day. students rushed the court. i told abe, kai, and their cousin gabi, they could go on the court so i lifted them over the railing. abe was really concerned that they were breaking a rule, but i reassured them it was ok. next thing i knew, they were being escorted back to the stands by this little old usher. abe gave me a look and said, "i told you mom." my brother marty asked britton johnson to let them down. he said anything for a fellow red-head and walked them past the usher and next thing we knew, they were on the court, a little nervous, but happy to be up close to the celebration.
way to go teej!

good #3
dave's sister in getting married and the girls spent the evening shopping, then we headed back to dave's parents' house to hang out. one thing about dave's family is they can laugh and laugh. i love it. we had a fun time talking about wedding plans.

i'm grateful for all the experiences we've had and the awesome places we've lived, AND i am so happy to be back in utah so we can celebrate with our families.

best snow on earth

abe has been sick with a fever and a cough since thursday. dave has been working and it has been snowing a lot! by saturday afternoon, i was starting to go stir crazy, so we decided abe's treatment plan consisted of some fresh air!
max couldn't remember ever making a snowman. i forced them to put all their snow gear on and play in the snow for ten minutes. me included. we stayed out until dark and had so much fun. we built two snowmen. one was going to be tall and tie dyed, but ended up only blue due to darkness and a hot cocoa distraction. what could be better than drinking hot cocoa in the snow?

this morning, i woke up to more snow and max, with a fever, handing me his snow boots....i wonder what we should build this time.

doctor day

doctor day #1
kai's class is learning about community workers, so dave did a little presentation about some of the things he does as a doctor. he put a fake cast on kai and the kids loved it.
doctor day #2
we were five minutes out the door on our friday night date and sadie called panicked. kai hit his head on the nightstand and he was bleeding a lot. we rushed back, and dave did some stitching up on our kitchen counter. luckily , kai only needed two stitches and i'm pretty sure that kitchen towel was completely sterile.

diez!

january 20th was abe's tenth birthday!

i still remember way back, when we lived in virginia and i waited to be induced with our second child. the nurse ask me a few questions. my favorite was, my pre-pregnancy weight and how much i weighed now. i remember her looking at me and saying, "wow, you really ate your way right in here didn't you." i think so....and so did abe, weighing 8lbs 12 oz.

when abe was born, all i could say was, "he is so cute, he is so cute, he is so cute." the day after i had him, i got bell's palsy. not fun. i remember holding tiny little abe and he would make this "mmmm, mmmmm, mmmmm" sound and he seemed to make everything all better. he still does seem to make everything all better at our house. he is an amazing brother, peacemaker, and quiet leader.
he wanted to have a family dinner for his birthday. since we just moved back to utah, that sounded great. thank goodness for great families and wonderful cousins!!!!

happy diez day! we love you!!!!!

farewell flagstaff

we will miss you!