4th of july

Today we went to Jason's work for their celebration and we got see the cutest ponies ever. There was even a baby and it was the littlest thing ever and seriously it was almost absurdly cute. We had to practically drag our kids away. The residents were very sweet, as always, and so appreciative of seeing our kids is was as if we had brought them for the same reasons the ponies were brought. I always love to here the sweet older ladies tell me how wonderful Jason is with them and how much they appreciate him. I think they love the fact that he goes home and takes care of a bunch of little ones. It always cracks me up when we go there because everyone always knows exactly who we are there for. Well anyway we had our own BBQ and went to a park and played and now we are waiting for it to get dark, since it doesn't till about 10pm, to let off our fireworks and crackers, since they are legal here in WA. Our kids are still sad about us not going to the beach since their cousins Hayden and Tanner are in from AZ and they worship them because they are the oldest cousins and they don't get to see them very often. Hopefully we'll see them next week. Oh ya our Cookie is finally riding a bike without training wheels! I love seeing her speed around. Have I mentioned lately how big my children are getting! Addalyn is now rolling places and can sit enough to be trusted. I am officially pressing pause though I might fast forward Jason so he can be done with school. You might have noticed that Payten cut about 12 in off her hair. Don't worry it's hair it grows back plus she donated to Locks of Love, I know plenty of people that had forbidden me to touch her hair. It looks so cute though and like I said it's not permanent.

Happy Independence Day

I have nothing of real interest to say just wanted to blog to blog. Tomorrow is the 4th of July and I love this country and am very nostalgic about about all things patriotic. My kids also have been getting in on it. They are determined to learn the National anthem and we have been doing a whole unit study on the USA because they are so eager to know about the USA. It has really been quite fun. We unfortunately aren't going to be going to the beach with my family this weekend because Jason has to work Friday and Saturday. so we are going to go to a BBQ at Jason's work, which the elderly residents at his work are always excited to have little ones around and being that we have lots of them it works out perfectly. We will probably then come home buy fireworks and have our own party at home and if the last few nights have been any indication enjoy quite a show in the neighborhood. If you are reading this please tell me what you're doing tomorrow I always like to hear what others are doing.

Another crusade

Ok, so I haven't posted for a while. To be honest I have been in a slump, and for you that truly know me you know that that is not a common thing. My thoughts and spirit have been sad lately and I can only attribute that to my lack at working on it. Yesterday though I had such a great day at church that it throughly replenished me. First all the songs during Sacrament were ones that I like, lately they have been those obscure ones that no one knows, Praise to the man and Joseph Smiths first Prayer are some of my favorites. Then I really enjoyed the talks and enjoyed the letter from the 1st Presidency. I then got to go to primary and teach CTR 7, Jackson's class. I did all that by myself because like you all know Jason works every other weekend. Church has almost always been my escape from my stresses but going by myself this often has worn on my spirit. I of course will be the first to admit that I would never use him not being there with me as an excuse as to my own spirituality because I believe with all that is in me that you chose that by yourself and cannot allow someone else to have the power to make or take that away from you. With all that said I truly appreciate and realize my sincere joy at having my husband there with us. I also opened July's issue of the Ensign and must be the first to report that it is truly an amazing issue. Amazing because each article deals with something that someone close to me is dealing with. All I can say is read it and you'll not be disappointed it is very uplifting. So I finally did it I canceled our cable today. So tomorrow we will have NO CHANNELS. While i have done this once long ago this will truly be interesting, difficult and exciting all at once. Exciting, you might be wondering? Well it is truly amazing how inventive and creative a family can become when there is nothing on, literally though. My hope is that our family will enjoy quality time together and not count sitting and watching the same show together as that. i hope that more of you will take the plunge, you will suffer for the first few weeks but after that you will be blown away at the amount of time it has freed up for you, not to mention the money it frees up. Any how this is one of my attempts to refocus our families goals and save us some money. I just get in a rut sometimes spiritually and the best way out for me is to strive extra hard to do as much as possible that is right. I guess I've always felt that if I am in great need to have the Lord's blessings that I better live up to my part of the bargain. However you want to look at it fortunately or unfortunately I am always relying on him to help me with many things in my life and most of the time he has helped me when there was no way I could do it alone. My life seems so busy right now that I truly do need the temptation of TV removed from me. Don't think that I've completely lost my mind we can still watch some shows on the computer which will make weekends fun and cheap. Plus this will free me up to Blog!

So sings my soul

Please turn your speakers on and get to know and understand what makes me me. These are a list of some of my favorite 30 songs. I probably missed some but these are the ones that make my soul almost jump out of my skin. I picked most because they pull so much emotion from me and have so much meaning to me. Yes, I love me some pumpkins! I am probably the most eclectic person when it comes to music other than Jason. Almost all the songs Jason and I love together. We both are obsessed with music so it is not a big surprise that all of our kids have such a love for it too. You should see them all sing some of these songs together. They memorize songs so quick it always shocks me. I swear I should take them on the road! Music has always been my escape and has always brought me sanity. Even as a child I would retreat and sing to myself for fun, though it was always more fun to sing constantly and annoy everyone within earshot. I now love to sing with my family and I love that they love to have me sing. It truly means the world to me because no matter the struggles that this life brings music has always made me feel the spirit instantly. So please go through my list and see if you know them or if you remember when we loved them together. If not consider yourself enlightened!

Just rambling

I have been so busy lately that I have been neglecting my blogging. These darn kids are so demanding of my time, don't they understand that I'm trying to have some time by myself:) Ha Ha!My blogs have been perhaps too serious lately but i cannot help myself when I sit to write I become so reflective and turn all church ladyish. Hopefully I haven't turned to many people away due to my preaching. It can be just so therapeutic to ramble on. I went garage selling yesterday and today. I love to garage sale, dang these gas prices. My sister and I are going to share a bike trailer that i bought today. I was trying to find a high chair. i guess I'll have to turn to craigslist for that one. My baby is screaming so I'll post more later about my undying love for garage sales

endure to the end

I'm feeling very reflective today on ones ability to control ones life. I was at the park today with some friends from church and we began discussing challenges we have or are facing. All of us have husbands that are in school or are looking for work. It actually struck me as odd that we all had so much in common. Even though we had individual struggles we all had the same ultimate one which is it can be hard being the wife and supporting your spouse as they find there way in this life. There is a fine line we have to walk to gently guide them and be supportive while they are going to school or looking for work. If we say too much we are being nagging or controlling and if we don't say enough then we are not being supportive. I am by no means saying that a man's role is easy either, common they have to put up with our hormones, and they have to be the one that is suppose to support the family. I guess right now I find it humbling that no matter how different our lives are there are many things that most LDS women have in common. I will hopefully never know how hard it is to have the pressure of having to do well in school so I can get a job to support my family. But like wise our husbands will never know how much we have to do to hold it altogether so that we add no more pressure to them. Sometimes I forget that while I'm waiting for this period to be over ,so that we can truly get on with our life, I realize that our life was really going all along. If you miss the opportunities to cling to one another while things are tough you will never really realize how great things are when things are easy. Being a wife can be even more challenging when the end destination is the same but the road you travel to get there on is different. It can be tough to decide whether you should give up your road, especially when you know it's the right one:) or nag them over to yours, it doesn't matter how you say it they will take it as nagging. Somehow all marriages come to these roads and while some women are content to never budge from there roads it really isn't any worse then those that never acknowledge there is any other roads but there husbands. Hopefully our husbands married us for our brains and not just our perfect bodies, otherwise they are in for a surprise to see what's left after 5 babies! We just have to be better about our approach It can just be so tough to sit and watch there choices affect our lives even when they make the right ones. I am lucky my husband values my opinion, for the most part anyway as you might have noticed I have an overabundance of them, He trust me and I trust him that no matter what road we choose to walk down, we do it together. We can only truly control a few things in this life and one of them is our attitude no matter the situation we can chose to be happy and positive. The most life changing book I have ever read , other than scriptures, was Dr. Phil's Life Strategies. I wish that everyone could read it. I recommend it to everyone who has ever struggled, will ever struggled or has ever been born! We all have similar struggles we couldn't all be alone otherwise during the atonement Jesus would have been there forever enduring each individual unique pain we each would have, he'd still be in there, so with each new struggle we can take comfort that even when we don't know anyone personally with the same struggles there have been many and are many that have endured this and isn't it always amazing how quickly the struggles are forgotten once they're over

Enjoying Life

First off my sweet Addalyn rolled over on Fathers Day for the first time, while I love that she is growing up I hate that she is growing up. she rolled to get a my little pony. I snapped this pic right after she rolled. She was not much happier after she rolled because she then was stuck. Jason had to work on fathers day so we celebrated mainly yesterday. We made him breakfast then he played on the computer with the kids with the new games he got to play with them. We then planted our garden, which you have never seen kids more excited to do. After that we BBQ and went to the park( on the other side of our backyard) to play croquet. After some really awesome fits by Jackson, he absolutely hates to not do well or have people"beat" him, we went inside and got ready for the end of the year LDS Homeschool potluck. After getting lost for 40 minutes we arrived ate, played, talked and left. We then went and filled up at Costco for $4.13, which by the way is about 15 cents cheaper than the rest of the stations. These gas prices are truly going to change all of our lives. After 9/11 I remember thinking that our world has forever been changed and that there are things I will probably never do now, like go back and take my family with me to Europe. Those bombings altered my perception on my families safety here and everywhere. In some ways though it made me realize that truly the time is at hand, but with gas prices and food prices skyrocketing I realize that we are again that much closer to the end. I'm in no means saying that it will happen tomorrow only that look how much has happened in the last 7 years. For me I see everything as signs to get myself and my family prepared. We are buying a lot of food storage supplies this week and hopefully will be getting our water barrels soon. I found this out of a talk by Dallin H. Oaks and it really made me stop and think.

“But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up” (Matt. 24:42–43). “But would have been ready” (JS—M 1:47).

“Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh” (Matt. 24:44; see also D&C 51:20).

What if the day of His coming were tomorrow? If we knew that we would meet the Lord tomorrow—through our premature death or through His unexpected coming—what would we do today? What confessions would we make? What practices would we discontinue? What accounts would we settle? What forgivenesses would we extend? What testimonies would we bear?

If we would do those things then, why not now? Why not seek peace while peace can be obtained? If our lamps of preparation are drawn down, let us start immediately to replenish them.

We need to make both temporal and spiritual preparation for the events prophesied at the time of the Second Coming. And the preparation most likely to be neglected is the one less visible and more difficult—the spiritual. A 72-hour kit of temporal supplies may prove valuable for earthly challenges, but, as the foolish virgins learned to their sorrow, a 24-hour kit of spiritual preparation is of greater and more enduring value.