Lent

I know that as Mormons we don't celebrate Lent.  But I have always wanted too.  I am kind of a sucker for self denial and constantly striving to find ways to continue to perfect myself.  I understand the concept of Lent is flawed.  If there is something in your life that you should give up - you should give it up forever, not just for a few weeks.  However, it has always appealed to me as a way of "testing the waters" of my weaknesses and seeing what I really can go with out.

Well this year I decided I really wanted to give it a try.  I have a good friend a few houses down from me who is a strong Catholic and she was trying to come up with something to do for Lent - and it was the motivation I needed to come up with something myself.  I had a few things on my mind that I wanted to try going with out and as my mind began to ponder them the Spirit told me almost instantly what I needed to give up... Facebook.  I get the most important Facebook things sent to my email (posts from the groups I am in, posts I am tagged in, etc) - the rest are just time fillers - and honestly I don't have a lot of time I need filled.

I do like Facebook to see what is going on in the lives of people I truly love - but don't see or talk to as much as I like - and when it comes to using Facebook this way I do not have any problem with it being in my life.  And the truth is I don't spend too much time on Facebook.  I don't have a smart phone, tablet, or laptop - so it is only when I am up on our desktop computer - so in all reality it is only for maybe for 5 - 10 minutes a couple of times a day.  But the REAL problem with Facebook was the articles that I was reading.

I have several very smart, educated, spiritual, intelligent, informed, thoughtful friends from all walks of life who "like" and "share" all sorts of interesting articles... and ones not so interesting.  But I wanted to read them all, and in the end - most were not uplifting and left me in a depressed mood.  I had noticed that it was really starting to get to me a few weeks ago - all the articles about the church, and feminism, and 50 Shades of Grey, and apostasy, and mommy-wars, and modesty, and politics, and, and, and.  It was TOO much.  Too much to think about, too much to read about, too much to try to fix.  They were like weights weighing me down. I tried to make a goal to just not READ them, but many of them are about topics I care about and want to be informed about - but even just the titles themselves led my brain down paths that I either didn't have time for or places that I didn't wanted to be.  Even the uplifting ones I found didn't really uplift me and in the end I knew I would be more "uplifted" by reading my scriptures or a good old conference talk.

So in the end I decided to give up Facebook for Lent.  And so far - it's been great.

No more nursery

I remember the day our last child went into nursery.  And now... she has gone into primary.  It is weird not have any more children in nursery.  I feel like I am in a different "group" in the ward now.  I no longer have young kids, or babies, just a bunch of kids in primary.  While it feels a little weird, and I often forget, I am ok with that.  Madison loves primary.  It took a few weeks, but now she is a rock star.  Mostly because her teacher is a rock star.  My children have excellent primary teachers whom I love and truly respect.  They love my children and magnify their callings in ways that I know I would struggle to do in Primary (at least right now).  Madison, and the rest of her class, were a love-bugs today at church and delivered Valentines to all the ward members. 

Valentines

Grandma Hanna sent the kids (and Jason and I) a Valentines package with our favorite candies and some Valentines.  The kids LOVE getting packages!

Megan's surgery was on the 13th - so we knew we were not going anywhere or doing anything special for Valentines day.  I absolutely LOVE chocolate dipped strawberries.  So after the kids went to bed Jason and I dipped some strawberries and watched our show, "The West Wing" (highly recommend it).

Don't they look wonderful!  I am one lucky lady, he knows me so well.  AND he got good chocolate too - not just Bakers chocolate.  To quote him exactly, "I got the best kind of chocolate Walmart had."  That was the quote of the day for sure, "best kind... Walmart had."  But he was right... it was amazing.

I think this might have been one of my favorite Valentines.

Well, except for this one.  That one was better - it also had chocolate dipped strawberries.

Megan's Surgery

When Megan was 2 and a half we noticed she was starting to go cross-eyed.  We took her into an ophthalmologist who told us that she was not only cross-eyed - but had horrible vision.  She was very far-sided.  Her prescription is about a +7.  The hope was the glasses would help straiten her eyes.  We tried for about a year and a half and while the glasses helped - they weren't helping enough.  So last week Megan went in to have her eyes surgically fixed.  

It was difficulty to really explain to her the purpose of the surgery.  She wasn't cross eyed with her glasses on, and when they were off she couldn't tell a difference, and after the surgery she wouldn't be able to see any better and would still have to wear glasses all the time.  So she never really totally grasped the reason for the surgery, but she trusted us enough, I guess.  Because on the day of she was ready and brave. 

On the night before the surgery we had a family meeting and talked everything over.  Megan can't rough house, jump, run, swim, or get hit in the head for several weeks, and since that is 90% of what we do around here - we knew it was going to take a family effort to keep her safe.  Everyone had a lot of questions and concerns, then Jason gave Megan a blessing, then we put the other kids to bed and stayed up and talked with Megan for a little while longer.  She had a lot of good questions, and then at the end she said, "well, I don't have any more questions, but I am still a little scared, but I think I will be ok."  When I went upstairs  I found that Brock was very nervous about Megan's surgery and was crying saying his nightly prayers, when I talked to him about it he said, "I was ok with the surgery, until dad said they were going to use a knife, and now I think it is too dangerous."  This is just like Brock, he thinks he is responsible for everyone in the house, he is a very caring big brother.  We talked about the surgery for a while and then he went to bed. 

We had to wake Megan up at 6:30 to go to the hospital.  My good friend Krista, came over and stayed with the kids all morning - it is so great to be away from family and have friends who will step in and fill that void.  She was so happy and bubbly all morning waiting for her surgery.

They told us one of us could go in with her until she fell asleep.  She really wanted Jason to - and Jason is VERY protective in hospital environments, so it was natural that he was the one to go in.

Then right before they wheeled her back they told us that I could go in also.  So I got all dressed up and we were both able to be with her.  It wasn't a long surgery - only 45 minutes or so.  But when it was over, no one had prepared us for her waking up.  She was screaming and inconsolable.  It was heart breaking - I have never seen a child act like that before.  Jason picked her up and put her in his lap.  It helped a little - but she was so confused and so out of it that she just cried and screamed.  She wanted him to sing "If Praying were Horses" from the musical "Civil War".  So he did, over and over again.  Until she fell asleep.  We unhooked her from the IV, got her dressed, and took her home all while she was still asleep.  She must remember her dad taking care of her in the post-op room, because she hasn't wanted to leave his side since we got home.  That night she told me, "I love you, but it is just that I love dad more."  Awesome!  I said, "It's ok - I love him too."  She has been very responsible and happy about her recovery, except for her medicine, she has to put this gel in her eyes every morning and night.  And she would not! (it makes her eyes blurry and she hates that)  She was so upset about it - we had to force it every time - with screaming and fits.  Then on Sunday morning she came into our room at 6:15 am and said, "I want my medicine now so I can go back to my room and close my eyes so they don't have to blurry."  What a smart and sensible girl - I hope she always stays that way.

It took a few days for her eyes to become completely blood shot.  This was everyone's favorite part.  especially Madison.  On the days leading up to the surgery Madison would say in her prayers, "please bless that Megan will love her red eyes".  And as soon as we came home from the hospital Madison said, "I want to see Megan's red eyes."

Valentines Cookies

Last Monday the girls and I were trying to come up with something to do in the morning.  We decided to make some Valentine cookies and then go deliver them to their primary teachers.  Lest you are impressed with my awesomeness (as you should be) you should know 2  things: 1)This is the first gift my children have given their primary teachers... ever... including Christmas, end of year, or birthdays; and 2)I have not made cut out/frost sugar cookies with the kids since we have moved to Denver, we used to do it every holiday in Utah - but not having an island in the kitchen has drastically cut down on my desire to cook with my kids.  

So today, I was clearly feeling ambitious - so I googled "no-chill sugar cookies" and found what appeared to be a good recipe (it was).  And off we went to the kitchen to make some sugar cookie.

It turns out the the girls are old enough to do most of this very independently, correctly, and not overly messily.  I guess we have crossed that threshold and we can do stuff like this with out total chaos.  It was a lot of fun to work alongside them rather than "for" them.

We whipped up some frosting while they were baking - luckily I had some valentines sprinkles that I had brought with us from Utah!

While the girls had a ton of fun - they couldn't help but feel guilty that Brock and Noah were not with us.  They kept talking about how they would love this.  Well... it was Madison's turn to pick the activity for Family Home Evening that night - and it didn't take long for her to put two and two together... during lunch time she announced that her activity for FHE would be make valentines cookies as a family.  I had previously planned on deep cleaning my kitchen during nap time - but, like I said earlier, I was feeling ambitions - so I agreed, and I spent nap time making more sugar cookie dough and more frosting.  (I would like to say that I waited and deep cleaned my kitchen during nap time on Tuesday, or Wednesday, but here I am a week later, and still haven't cleaned it.)


Just for a little humor, I will tell you that while I was getting everything out for us to start rolling out the dough for the cookies, Maddie said, "I change my mind, for my activity I don't want to make sugar cookie, I want to play Duck, Duck, Goose."  Seriously?  :)  Too bad - we are making sugar cookies!

Things like this make Jason's head want to explode - see, he is a little ocd and tried desperately to teach the boys how to correctly cut cookies out of dough by placing the shapes together as closely as possible.  They weren't really buying it.

Our creations:

Littleton Farms

We have had about 8 birthday parties to go to in the last 3 Saturdays.  It has been a little crazy.  Last Saturday the boys had 3.  So the girls and I went to Littleton Farm's, especially since it was 70 degrees outside!  They really wanted this picture by this statue.  It was a beautiful day and we had a lot of fun.

Chuck E Cheese

As per my goals from a few posts ago.  I am wanting to do something fun with the kids one day a week after school.  The best day for this is Friday.  On Monday we have homework packets to get done before Family Home Evening.  On Tuesday Brock has Basketball.  On Wednesday we have Chess Club and Cub Scouts.  And on Thursday, well Thursday would work fine, but we do have spelling test the next day - so we just have to make sure we are done with that and all of the other homework due on Friday.

Well last week I picked the boys up from school and we went straight to Chuck E Cheese.  Santa had given them quite a few tokens in their stockings and they were eager to spend them.  Brock broke his record and got 280 tickets!  Mostly because Chuck E Cheese is always EMPTY from 3:30 - 5:30 and Chuckee still came out and did his "free ticket throw" and my kids were the only ones there to get the tickets - score!!

On the way home we went through a car wash (which my kids had never done before) - when we got home Megan told Jason she had the best day ever, "we went to Chuck E Cheese, went through a car wash, and listened to the whole Wicked sound track."  I never knew car washes could mean so much.

Weddings...

As soon as we got back from Utah the girls were in "wedding mode".  Obviously we had just gotten back from Utah from Danial and Angie's wedding, so everything in their lives became about weddings.  They had also gotten SEVERAL Anna and Kristoff dolls for Christmas - so naturally Anna and Kristoff were the ones getting married.  But the BEST part... they got married in the temple!!  It was hilarious... and wonderful. Megan told me that her and Madison were going to have a wedding for Anna and Kristoff - I told her I thought that was great.  About 20 minutes later they came and got me and this is what I found.  

They had gotten down a book that I have with a picture of the temple on it - then they put all the "friends" sitting around the temple - and then Anna and Kristoff "walk out of the temple" and everyone claps and cheers.  (If you are not LDS - this is how my kids experienced a temple marriage).  I loved it.  I am so grateful for Daniel and Angie for being such a great example to my girls.  They are at very impressionable ages right now, and I know that having been at the temple and seeing Daniel and Angie solidified in their mind that "you get married in the temple".  Had they seen Angie walk down an isle and get married by a preacher, I am sure there would have been an isle on this table and Anna walking down.  

This has continued over several months now - they even get married in different temples, by collecting pictures of other temples I have around the house.

Wednesdays/Pinewood Derby

Wednesdays have been some of my hardest days since moving here.  Most have brought me to tears at some point.  When we first moved here Jason got put into Young Men's and I got put into Cub Scouts.  Both are on Wednesday nights (mine at 5:45, his at 7:00) - and we can't take kids to them - and it is very hard for Jason to get home predictably at 5:30.  On top of that it seems that the kids extra curricular activities all fall on Wednesdays after school or nights as well - soccer, basketball, chess club, etc.  Several of which have been across town.  The worst was when we first moved here and didn't know anyone and couldn't turn to anyone for help.  Sadly, I am not exaggerating when I said they have brought me to tears - I have never felt more alone, far from family, and inadequate than I have on Wednesday nights.    But it is these moments that make us stronger... right?  Or at least let us know we can do hard things.  I know this isn't really a hard thing.  But it was at the time.  Jason has since been released, and basketball this season is on Tuesdays (hallelujah) - and as the kids get older things like this get easier.  Not having a two year old makes everything seem more manageable. :)

We were at our Pinewood derby last week and I realized I hadn't documented on my blog my hard Wednesdays - so I took a few pictures to remind me to blog about this part of my life.

Pictonary

We have stumbled across a new family favorite activity.  Pictonary.  We play girls against boys.  They love it.  And are really good.  We are having a hard time coming up with things to draw because everything is too easy.  Soon we are going to have to start doing abstract things like "love" or "imagination".  haha

Swimming

On Martin Luther King Day we decided to go swimming.  We have a great indoor pool close to our house with a lazy river and a rope obstacle course.  My kids love it. 

 Here is Madison's story with the ropes course.  I didn't let her do it the first few times we went - because... well.... she was two and two year olds could not do that.  Finally one time the pool was hardly crowded, so I let her try.  Boy was she determined to show me.  She did  the whole thing - it took her about 20 minutes... LITERALLY.  She has crazy upper body strength.  Her feat would slip off the floaties into the water and she would just hold on to the rope and try to swing her body back on to the lily pad.  She would fall off again, but swing her self back on, again.  She would repeat that process about 10 or 15 times - but she never let go of that rope.  By the end of it she had attracted quite a crowed of cheering kids, parents, and life guards.  The life guards said they had never had such a little kid ever try, let alone make it across (she is 3 now - but 2 when this all happened).  Sadly I didn't have my camera that day so today I remembered to take some pictures.  It is funny to watch everyone's reactions when she gets in line - usually a "big kid" or a lifeguard will move her out of line and tell her she is too little - she firmly tells them she is not and can do it.

Seriously - she kicks her legs back up and slides her bottom back on that to stand up - over and over and over again.

Her hardest part is this crocodile nose - it is too narrow and slippery to kick her body over, she will get her feat up and then she just slides back over to the other side, she will seriously do this 10 or so times.  Eventually she has to scoot her hands along this rope and try again on the crocodiles back  - which is hard because it is so much higher out of the water.

They make us get out for 10 minutes every hour.  Here is Brock and Jason just chill'n.  

Dart Wars

Sometimes we like to "surprise" (ambush) Jason with an activity when he comes home from work.  In the summer it is usually a squirt gun fight.  We had been having a rough few weeks at home - we were all kind of in a rut.  We needed some good, stress-free, fun.  Each person had a dart gun with bullets, we set the house up with barricades, hiding places, and "sniper stations".  We put "re-load" bullets in the hiding places and in random locations around the house.  We left a note and a gun with bullets for Jason in the garage.  And then...

We waited...

And waited...

Jason was longer than normal getting home that night, the kids waited with GREAT excitement and anticipation for about 20 minutes - just looking out the window wondering if each car was his.  

When his finally pulled in we all hid behind the first barricade facing the garage door just waiting, we heard the garage door open, and we cocked our guns.  And then... nothing.  

After a few minutes we let our guard down and wondered where he was... he had seen the note, got the gun, and decided to sneak around the house and go in through another door - he started shooting all of us from behind.  And the game began....

I didn't get many pictures... way to busy being shot at and defending my position.  The game lasted about a half hour and was exactly what we all needed.