Catching up...

I can't believe how quickly time passes.  Once upon a time I was an avid blog writer.  I tried hard to record the little details of our lives as they were happening, then life got in the way.  Things got very busy for me as I went back to school to accomplish my goal of obtaining my degree.  It took 4 years of hard work for me, but I did it!  I graduated on July 20, 2016 with a BS in Marriage and Family studies from Brigham Young University-Idaho.  Brett and I decided that it would be a great opportunity for us to head to Rexburg, ID to participate in the commencement and graduation festivities.  It was a surreal experience for me to step on campus for the first time and to reflect on all that I had accomplished.  I was so thankful that my family was there to support me!  Going back to school and getting my degree has blessed my life in so many ways. first, My secular knowledge and testimony have increased simultaneously.  I also gained greater confidence in myself and in my talents.  I learned to value family life in our society far more than I did.  I also developed skills that have helped me to strengthen my own family.  Even though the process of working towards my degree was difficult at times, it was so worth it in the end! This has become one of the greatest blessings in my life.

Other changes since I last blogged...
We moved to UT!  We were blessed in 2015 to be able to move our family home to Utah.  We now reside in Cache Valley and we couldn't be happier!  We love raising our family and living here in this beautiful valley.  When we moved here Erik started his junior year in high school, and had just gotten his driver's license.  Cameron started 8th grade.  Austin started 4th grade, and Ethan started 1st grade. The boys adjusted really well to their new schools and made friends fairly quickly.  We could truly see the hand of the Lord in our lives with all these changes.  The boys were truly blessed with good friends.  We have now been here for the past year and a half and still feel so happy and content to be here.  Erik is now 2 months away from graduating from high school.  Cameron is wrapping up his freshman year and is looking for ward to getting his learner's permit later this year.  Austin is finishing up 5th grade and has really enjoyed playing basketball and baseball here.  Ethan is finishing 2nd grade this year.  He is growing up so quickly!  He is counting down to his birthday in a couple of months and is really excited about the opportunity that he will have to be baptized!

Erik Junior year 2015-2016

Erik Senior year 2016-2017
Class of 2017!

Cameron 8th grade 2015-2016

Cameron 9th grade
Freshman 2016-2017

Austin 4th grade 2015-2016

Austin 5th grade 2016-2017
Student council

Ethan 1st grade 2015-2016

Ethan 2nd grade 2016-2017

 One more big change to share.  After graduation I stumbled across a job posting that I thought would be a perfect fit for me.  I applied, interviewed and got the job.  This past year I have been teaching preschool for Logan school district!  I love my job!  This year has been part-time which is perfect as it has helped me to ease back into the work force and has still left plenty of time to care for my family as well.  I am really enjoying putting my education to good use by working in a job that is challenging and extremely rewarding!

Terrible Two's

It's been awhile since I've written about Ethan and I wanted to take a minute to document a little of his personal history. Ethan turned 2 on June 1. So here are a few things to remeber about Ethan at this stage of his life.

Ethan is a tornado of destruction. He keeps me busy each and every day cleaning up the various messes that he makes all over the house.



Every day, multiple times a day, he pulls all the cushions of my couches. He jumps on them and uses them to build forts.





He refuses to sit in the shopping cart.

He hates tags in his clothes. I have to hide them or cut them out. Today he called me in to the bathroom to show me a tag on the towel. Oh brother!

Ethan is talking a lot! He can say each of his brothers names "Erck", "Cam", "Autin" and he can even say his own name "E-in"

When he sees me in my workout clothes he says "esercise mom?"

Whenever he gets a boo boo, he comes to me for a kiss to make it better.

He used to say ck-truck for truck, but now he just says truck

He likes Erik to get him out of bed. When he sees him he says "Hi Erck, what are you doing here?"

He loves to paint "a paint mom?"

He calls robots "robot eyes" Not sure where that came from, but it's pretty funny.

He loves stickers. Sticker books are the only way that I can keep him still in church.

He can do all the actions to "Head, shoulders, knees and toes"

He loves to have a bath!

He loves the movie Cars and knows all the characters.

He continually pulls the keys off of Brett's laptop.



He is an artist and loves to draw on everything. (*see below)



He loves to draw with sidewalk chalk. Sometimes his artwork shows up on more places than just the sidewalk....the car, the house, the tile inside the house etc.




Ethan is a sweet, cuddly little boy who always gives lots of hugs and kisses. He is generally happy and full of energy. Even though he wears me out most days, I am so grateful for his curiosity and fun-loving attitude. I love you Ethan!

P.S. as a follow up, I was just finishing up this post and was going to get the boys into bed when I smelled and overwhelmingly strong scent of Febreeze air freshener coming from up the stairs. I got to the top and noticed that the carpet was slightly damp right where Ethan was sitting. HMMMMM. I asked the boys what happened and Cameron told me that Ethan was spraying the Febreeze and he took it away from him. OK!, so I took Ethan and washed his hands and got him ready for bed and dried the carpet as best I could, then we all gathered around for family prayer. Austin climbed in my lap and just as he started saying the prayer I kissed him on the head and low and behold he smelled like (you guessed it) Febreeze! After the prayer, I asked Austin why he smelled like Febreeze and he said "because Ethan squirted me 2 times!" Seriously?! So it was off to the tub for a quick bath before bed. But not before I put the can of Febreeze on the highest shelf way out of the reach of some very mischevious and curious little hands! I guess that's where it should have been all along!

World's ugliest cake.....

Just wanted to take a moment to document something very important.....

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WORLD'S UGLIEST CAKE
What the heck happened to this cake. It just crumbled to pieces as I was frosting it, but believe it or not, it was pretty moist and delicious and just so that we were not wasteful, we ate every last bite.

Mouse update....

So, remember fat fuzzy (as I have begun referring to my little mouse nemesis)? Well, he has yet to find himself in one of my traps. I have found some traps with missing peanut butter, and I just know that that is the work of fat fuzzy. You may think that this story starts and ends with him, but no, there is so much more to this story. Apparently Fat Fuzzy has invited all of his little rodent friends to come and squat with him. The other night I had just finished vacuuming my living room. It looked so nice and clean so I sat down on the couch to enjoy a quiet little moment of bliss in my clean room. As I was sitting there on the love seat, I look over at the couch and I see this little grey mouse run up from either behind the couch or (gasp) in the couch and he perches his little behind on the arm of the couch and we make eye contact. (I'm sure he was taunting me). Now seriously, you have never seen a 30 something woman jump up and run as fast as I did and the mouse takes off back into the couch! I yell for Brett (who is relaxing in front of the T.V.) to come and get this mouse out of my house. Cameron, his friend and Austin come running in to save me. They came armed with flashlights and bins to capture this little critter. I at this point am sitting on the stairs watching them try to scare the mouse out of the couch so they can take him prisoner. At that point, we see a little brown mouse run up from the loveseat (I was just sitting there, it gives me the creeps just thinking about it). So now we know there are 2 mice running around my living room. Brett hears all the commotion and decides that he'd better come and help get this mouse situation under control. So, after about an hour of trying to get the mice, the little friend goes home and Brett decides the boys need to go to bed. I remain on guard duty to make sure the mice do not leave the living room. I am afraid at this point that if they do, we will not be able to find them. While I am sitting there I see the little brown mouse run across the floor and up the steps and then he darts into my dining room. I yell for Brett to come quick and then like superman Brett shows up with a bin and runs into the dining room where the little mouse is hiding in a box, playing dead. Brett tells me to shake the box and when the mouse comes out he will trap it in the bin. And that's exactly how it went down. We caught that little mouse and then we looked at him and thought Awww, he's kind of cute (We used a clear bin, so we could see him in there). Cam came downstairs to check him out and he said "He's cute, can we keep him?" NO WAY!!! But we felt way too bad killing him, so Brett took him down the road and released him into the wild (I'm sure that as I type this, that little rascal is hitch hiking his way back to our place). Then we set out traps everywhere and that night we caught 2 more and since then our count is up to 5!!! Can I just say GROSS!!!! I need to deep clean my house! So tomorrow I am going to sing this little song.....



If all these animals insist on giving me grief, then they better earn their keep!

Confession....

It's true, I am a worrier. I worry about EVERYTHING! I worry about my kids, my health, my family's health, our safety....you name it I worry about it. It's exhausting, but it's me. Well, my worrying finally got the better of me this weekend, and I'm pretty sure that my worrying ways have finally earned me the

MOM OF THE YEAR

award.

How you ask? Well...Saturday afternoon Brett and I had to go and run a couple of errands. These errands would literally have taken us 30 minutes to complete. The boys did not want to come with us and truth be told it would have been nice to quickly run them with just little Ethan in tow. But, I was worried about leaving Austin home with the boys. Erik and Cameron are both extremely responsible and capable of holding down the fort and I have on occasion left them home alone for short periods of time. I have yet to allow Austin to stay home with them mainly because he LOVES to answer the door and being the worrier that I am, I am terrified that while I am gone some crazy person will show up at my door and Austin will answer the door and let said person in. This thought evokes FEAR in me like nothing else and I just can't do it.

That said, Brett decides that the boys (minus the baby) can all stay home for a couple of minutes while we go and run our errands. Immediately panic sets in and I tell Brett that there is no way that I am leaving Austin home. Brett does not agree. I decide that I will perform a test. I tell Erik and Cam that we are leaving, but that in a minute I will come back and ring the doorbell to see if Austin comes running to answer it. We perform the test and Austin passes. I try one more time (just to make sure) and Austin passes. Then I decide to go and give this a try (even though I am still worrying like crazy). Then I remember that my cell phone is in the house and there is no way I am leaving my little babies home without a way to get a hold of me, so.......(this is where the story gets good)
I realize that I don't have a key to the house on my keychain, so I ring the doorbell and no one answers. I ring it again and again and again....no answer (good boys). Then I decide to go and pound on the door in the garage (surely they'll figure out that that is me right?!) So here I am banging and banging and still no answer. So then I decide to go back and forth between front door and garage door banging and ringing the doorbell and still no answer. Finally I use Brett's cell phone (why in the world didn't I think of this sooner) and I call the kids. Cameron answers in a quiet, timid voice and I tell him to open the garage door. He does and there stand all 3 of my kids crying....I scared the living daylights out of them. They were convinced that there was some crazy person at the door (which apparently there was) and they were SCARED!!! They even said a prayer for their safety (how cute is that?) I hugged them and apologized, grabbed my cell phone and then I along with my 3 scared little kiddos (who were not about to stay home alone now) shuffle out to car to go run errands with one smirking husband behind the wheel.

So there you have it, MOM OF THE YEAR award goes to....ME!

BYU...

vs. Oklahoma! What an awesome game. Brett and the boys (all 4) were huddled around the TV watching the game while I was getting in a little sewing/ watching the game myself. There was a lot of cheering going on in our house! What a great way to kick off the College football season!

Final score:
BYU 14
Oklahoma 13
Go Cougars! ♥

A little bit of good news...

They caught the guy who robbed our house! A police officer stopped by our home to let us know that they had the guy in custody. He actually showed remorse and broke down as he was showing the officer all the homes that he had robbed and also telling him how he had broken into them. He confessed to robbing our home and about 12 in all in our neighborhood. While I am sure that they will not recover any more of our stolen property, I am relieved and happy to know that he is not out there doing more harm to anyone else. I really hope for this kids sake that he takes this as an opportunity to change his life. I can definitely find some closure in this and it feels good!

Today....

I will make time to work on a little project. I bought these frames at IKEA (love that store) and I plan to make something fun and cute for the boys to use in their playroom. You'll have to check back to see how it turned out. But before the fun begins, I have a few rollover chores from yesterday. How'd I do yesterday?

1. Fold laundry and put away 3 loads washed and put away!

2. Wash sheets all clean and beds were made, Brett finished up our bed (I told you he's the best)

3. Begin to clean and organize the office that may become a kids room (where are we going to put a 4th child?!) I'm not wanting to face this, but today I will.
4. Pull out the baby clothes and start more laundry I better hurry with this one or baby C will not have anything to wear. I also want to make him a cute pants and shirt outfit and a cute freezer paper stenciled onesie and a quilt.....

5. Do something fun with my kids (Cameron just asked if we could have a picnic, maybe an indoor under the AC picnic) We're going to Jamba Juice today!

6. Try to stay cool. Darn heat wave. If it doesn't go away, I am going to finish out my pregnancy in Utah! Way too hot yesterday...today is looking much better!

7. Work on a fun project for the kids play room (probably won't happen today, but I can dream.) Todays the day!

8. Fix the date on my camera. Done!

A few chores completed not on my list: cleaned the kitchen about 300 times (OK, so it wasn't 300, but it felt like it.), payed the bills, held my little guy who has been running a fever the last few days (poor kid), put my kids to work cleaning their playroom and bedroom.

So I didn't accomplish it all, but overall it was a productive day.

Some random thoughts for today...

(I just noticed that the date on my camera is wrong.)

First off,It was Brett's birthday yesterday! So happy birthday to the greatest father and husband around! We love you!

Second, why in the world is it so hot! It is making this pregnant lady a little irritable! I thought that I had timed this pregnancy just right this time to have this baby before it got too hot. Wouldn't you know that this would be the year for record breaking highs in April! In case you haven't noticed, I don't handle the heat well.

Third, I am having a tough time getting back into my usual schedule. Being on vacation always has this effect on me. I have managed to unpack and I've washed the laundry, now I need to fold it and put it away. I cleaned my kitchen and mopped my floors and things are generally tidy, but there is more that needs to be done (isn't that always the case?). So in an effort to motivate myself, here is my checklist of chores that I would like to accomplish (or at least begin) for today.

1. Fold laundry and put away
2. Wash sheets
3. Begin to clean and organize the office that may become a kids room (where are we going to put a 4th child?!)
4. Pull out the baby clothes and start more laundry
5. Do something fun with my kids (Cameron just asked if we could have a picnic, maybe an indoor under the AC picnic)
6. Try to stay cool. Darn heat wave. If it doesn't go away, I am going to finish out my pregnancy in Utah!
7. Work on a fun project for the kids play room (probably won't happen today, but I can dream.)
8. Fix the date on my camera.

Finally, my boys are crafting! I love to see them hard at work creating something they can be proud of. Looks like fun doesn't it?!



Now I'm off to tackle this list of chores!

Life as we know it....

has been pretty crazy here for the past few weeks. We've had a lot of ups and downs (when I say we, I mean mostly me, but thankfully I have a very supportive, loving husband who has been very patient with me). Now slowly but surely things are returning to "normal". Here's what we've been up to....

Beefing up security:




We added window locks to all of our windows, padlocks on the gate, new locks on the doors, and a security system. I think we are as secure as we can be at this point.


Cleaning: Yes, we finally cleaned up the third car garage! Now we can pull another car in here! Trust me, this is clean!



We also got a jump start on rearranging bedrooms to accomodate boy #4.

Thank you Jed and Kathy, we couldn't have done it without you! And just in case you were wondering, it is still clean!

Suffered through a sinus infection (me). Sorry no pics for this one.

And finshed a few crafts too:

I made a spring wreath for my welcome board using a wreath and moss from the dollar store, speckled eggs from Michaels and some ribbon from my stash.


Still working on my spring runner....better hurry!

And here are the spring pictures for my little frames:




I love my dollar store, butterfly, welcome sign! So cute on my spring wreath!

My home is reclaimed and now I am ready to get back to work making it our own! Lots more projects and crafts in the works! Thank you all for your thoughts and concern for us, and for those of you that I have not responded to, I haven't forgotten you and will as soon as possible!