Thoughts

 These are going to be random, and disjointed, and without back ground.  But there are just some things I want to record.

• Reading my blog books helps re center me and reminds me of the mom I used to be and the kind of mom I want to be.  That doesn't mean that I feel like I need to be the same mom I was 10 years ago, I don't feel that pressure - but it does help me see more of my parenting journey than what is right in front of my face.
• I have been struggling to find my footing for a while.  Probably a year.  I remember vividly last March knowing I wasn't ok, but not knowing what was wrong.  I have tried LOTS of things to try and figure out what is wrong.  While there have been a few steps forward most have felt lateral.  Certain areas have improved, but nothing has moved the ball forward.  Through a few priesthood blessings and an inspired RS super Saturday workshop class I think I have found the heart of my problem.  I am not present in my life. I am not intentionally choosing to enjoy the moments.  I am multi tasking too much, always thinking of what I need to be doing, and trying to rush through what i am doing right now so i can do the next thing.  I have stated learning to meditate and I hope all the things I am learning will help.  My brain is hurting and my spirit is hurting. I spend to much time working on the back stage that I am not in the act.  
• An ideal day: Wake up at 5:30 and spend time with my early morning seminary-ers and get in a work out, pray and read with them before they go, personal devotional (pray, read scriptures, conference talk, and a bit of family history), get ready, spend some time with Megan (read and pray with her) while making a breakfast, all before babies wake up at 7:30.  Read and pray with Maddie.  Make a yummy breakfast for me and babies. Then during show time I blog, blog book, or checklist, and be ready to give my all to the babies at 9:30.  I would love to do more educational/intentional activities with the babies, especially Dane.  An outing.  Make dinner during naps. Eve up by 3:30.  Be able to help Jason more with house clean-up and time with the teens in the evening.  Parent to the end.  
• I had no idea I was as bad at decorating and making decisions as I am.  I thought is was a conscious choice, I can now clearly see that I am truly truly bad at it and do not enjoy it at all.  I recognize beauty, I feel better in beauty, but I struggle to create beauty.  I need help.  I need someone to just do it for me.  
• 2022 was a hard hard year with the babies.  But I think we are on the mend - things are getting easier and better.
• I need to have more joy with my children.  All 6 of them.  I really want to have fun with them and be silly with them - but  I am always to distracted.  Always trying to think about what to say or how to teach or how to make it a gospel lesson. That goes along with the earlier bullet about just being present and in the moments and enjoy it for what it is.
• Our teens are amazing.  They were amazing toddlers and kids also.  If life just keeps going this way, it will be unbelievable how easy they were.  I have not met a family (in really life or on my mothers FB page) where the older kids happily help out as much as ours do.  They really do so so so much with out really any complaining or protest. They deep clean the house every week (that they can), every night they clean up the whole house while Jason and I put the babies to bed (messes they did not make), they clean up dinner, they baby sit, play with the babies, they hang out with Jason and I every evening reading or playing games.  

Skiing

We got tickets to go skiing at Loveland again this year.  Megan opted to stay home.  She still got to skip school and stay home to help Jason with the babies.  She said she was glad she went but doesn't ever want to go again.  

I picked the warmest day for us to go, but I guess the weather reports were wrong because when we got there it was snowing and like negative 10 degrees.  It stayed cold all day - only warming up to about 17 degrees.  Basically it was COLD.  However nobody complained and still had a great time. 

With everyone becoming much better skiers we spent most of the day over on the bigger side of the mountain and everyone pretty much skied o their own.  It made me a little sad because one of my favorite things about skiing is the time we spend together, but I had a chance to ski with each one of them.  Mads and I stayed together most of the time.  We both liked going through the trees along the side and found some really great runs.  We didn't have any major crisis and everything went great.

Do we look cold?

We all really enjoyed the beauty (but not he cold) of skiing above the tree line, hopefully next year it is a bit warmer and we can spend some time exploring up there.

 

Valentines

Somehow the babies got really excited for Valentines day.  So I brought up all my preschool valentines books and activities, made a valentines making station, and then, of course, we made valentines cookies.

Making sugar cookies is a long process and they did each step and waited patiently until it was time for the next step.  Make dough, chill (wait), cut out and bake (wait), cool (wait), make frosting, frost. 

They were only interested in frosting for about 2 cookies (I figured)

They mostly wanted to sprinkle all the sprinkles and eat the cookies.

Later that night I put most of the frosting in piping bags and the teens decorated cookies while Jason read MistBorn to us.

Megan's gluten free ones are on the pan.
 

The story of the Book of Mormons

 How many Book of Mormons should a family have?  This is going to be a long, and pretty useless story, so buckle up.  

First off my children like church, they like the gospel, they like going to church, reading the scriptures, watching general conference, going to the temple and early morning seminary, and participating any any religious activity we tell them to do. They participate in gospel discussions both in and out of the home and bear their testimony in church.  However, none of them have developed or even really made an effort to have individual scripture study or prayers.  Almost none of their religious observations are self motivated or driven, they will happily eat what is fed to them and truly enjoy it - but they have yet to ask for or produce their own spiritual experiences.  (Megan a few months ago has started reading her scriptures in the morning, Madison has read a scripture/quote from a daily devotional journal every morning, Brock has tried to listen to a conference talk every day and has done it maybe 5 times, and Noah has had some good morning prayer streaks)  But with all my "lack of religiosity" until I was 16, I was always making a real effort to read my scriptures as early as 5th or 6th grade.  So I just wonder.  I invite, I inspire, I challenge, I testify, I try everything I can think of to help them understand how important these daily holy habits are.

Around Christmas I was listening to a devotional from Elder Bednar and he was advising the audience to get a blank copy of the Book of Mormon every time they have a questions and read through it with that question or phrase in mind and mark it, and then write in the back what you have learned about that topic when they are done.  Then he said "and by the time you are my age you should have four or five hundred Book of Mormons marked and on your shelf.  ha!  It sank deep into my heart.

Then a few weeks later I went to a stake women's conference workshop and they had a table full of probably 200 or more Book of Mormons and told us to take as many as we wanted.  Remembering Elder Bednar's advice I thought it was a good time to stock up.  So I grabbed 4 or 5 with intentions to grow my spiritual knowledge.  When I got home that night I put them on my dresser, the kids came in for scripture study and inquired about them.  They were intrigued, they asked several questions, I told them about Elder Bednar.  Then I said, "if you think having a blank copy of the Book of Mormon will help you read and mark your scriptures you can have one." (BTW - they all have their own scriptures AND a blank BoM already - but sometimes new is novel).  They perked up, all grabbed a book, a pen and started reading and marking (they really hate marking scriptures).  I was filled with gratitude.  Over the next few days I "spied" my kids reading and marking their BoM and they brought them to family study and marked them up.  But in the moment when they took them they all felt bad for taking my BoMs and I assured them I didn't care and I would rather they have them.  

Afterwards I sent a text to the stake RS president and asked if I could have a few more BoMs, she said yes and that she would drop some off.  The next day we went to church, I guess they didn't get rid of all the BoMs so in the cultural hall their was a table full of BoMs.  I guess every member of my family separately saw this table and thought of me.  By the time we all got home after church (many of us had meetings and came home at different times) we discovered that every person took 5 or 6 BoMs to make up for the ones they took from me, then the RS president dropped of 5 or 6 more.  And that is how we got all those Book of Mormons!  Isn't that sweet?

At conference Elder Rasband begged us to flood our neighborhood with the Book of Mormon.  I told myself that is what we were going to do with all of those. I haven't yet.  I intend to.  I will.  I promise.  Its just hard.  But I will.  I promise.

Lincoln

Lincoln was my 5th child.  We went years where he was at our home everyday, even when Brock wasn't.  I fed him, drove him to activities, and even attended parent teacher conference.  He lived 3 houses down and had a hard home life.  He liked our stability, our light, our food.  It wasn't all roses and sunshine.  I complained.  He was hard.  He didn't have the same values and he was difficult.  But I knew he needed me/us.  IT was worth it.  I truly love him.  I thought it would be this way all through high school.  But then one day it just stopped.  It sort of tapered off, but that is also how Lincoln was.  I would see him non stop, every day for months, then nothing, for months.  It was his mom who lived 3 houses down, his dad lives across town.  Sometimes he would be there a lot.  He also has an older brother and Lincoln would go through these phases where he only wanted to be with him.  I wasn't actually his mother so I never chased him.  If he showed up I took care of him, but if he didn't.... he didn't.  Plus he and Brock weren't friends at school or anything, just at our house.  

The last time we was at our house was summer of 2021 (going into 9th grade).  He came by a few times that summer.  We had some good chats.  In fact he told me he wasn't taking seminary or going to youth conference, he thought he might be "done with that".  I pulled the car over, looked him in the eye and said, "I am not going to let you do that, I have put way too much into you to let you throw it away now.  Everything I have done for you was because I love you and I want you to be happy and have a good life and if you haven't figured it out by now, it is only through the gospel that that is going to happen.  So I would be signing him up for seminary and youth conference and I would drive him every morning."  He asked if he could sleep over and just go with Brock.  I said yes.  That shocked him (not having sleepovers on school nights was one boundary I had held  - with the exception of one rough night) - so with my quick agreement of basically letting him move in - he knew I meant business.  We took him to seminary every morning he woke up for it and was at him mom's house that year (I say we but it was really Jason).  But that was it.  I never saw him again.  Things got worse at his mom's house and he moved in full time with his dad and he and Brock drifted.  I have missed him. I see him out in the world sometimes, I have texted him and invited him over, but he hasn't come.  Then the young men had a basketball tournament and he played against Brock.  I was on cloud nine.  I warmed my mother heart to see them together again.  They were very teasy and joking with each other  - I loved it, I couldn't' stop smiling.  I made them take a picture together after the game, but they put their arms around each other on their own.  

 

Noah: Spy School

Noah made "lights" for the winter play "Spy School".  I am loving his new passion for stage crew.  He has goals (lead lights by junior year) and is making good friends.  (he has made it look so great hat Brock opted to do "tech" instead of volleyball this spring).  He is such a cutie!

His siblings went one night to watch - they said the lighting was the best part of the whole thing (I agree - I went another night)

 

Jason's BIrthday

 My dear-dear Jason.  Oh, how we love him.  I don't think I have the words to adequately express how fundamental and foundational he is in our life.  If I were to be honest I think I pretty much rock.  I have a good head on my shoulders, good mental health, am not very dramatic, emotional, or sensitive, I am spiritual, (I know this is a post about Jason, I am getting there) I am a good mom, housekeeper, homemaker, scheduler, and very intentional.  There are things about me that drive Jason CRAZY - but those are personality things and I always figured that I would be a great wife to someone who was never home.  I am not needy (emotionally) and I can run a house and the children just fine b myself, thank you very much.  With all that being said - the truth is... Jason is the heart beat of our home, not me.  Usually it is mothers/women who are the center of the home, the one everyone looks to, relies on, and comes to.  They are the one who everyone wants, needs, and asks about.  The set the tone for the family and home.  In our home it is Jason.  He is everyone's favorite.  If dad isn't doing it, no one is doing it.  What does dad think?  Where is dad?  If dad isn't happy no one is happy - and really everyone could care less about how I feel (which is fine - I am usually happy).  He keeps us on schedule, clean, organized, and moving forward.  He feels all our love buckets and knowledge buckets.  If I can get Jason on board I have won the whole family.

He still is my most favorite person.  Our biggest risk in life is ignoring our children because we are too busy talking.  We can't stop - it is like a disease. I love him.

A few fun things about Jason at 38:

• He works out everyday.  Even if it is at 10 o clock at night, if he hasn't ridden his bike or lifted weights he does it  - it is so impressive.  He has gotten really cut from it - very sexy.  He has these divots in his arms and legs that are really hot!
• He makes sure we have a standing temple temple endowment appointment for Saturdays and we take turns going.  So nice to have that taken care of!
• He teaches early morning seminary - for the third year now, and just got released from Sunday school after 6 years!  sheesh.  He is starting to write a curriculum to teach an emotional wellness class to the youth in our ward and he is going to rock it.
• He, of course, reads his scriptures everyday - seems un noteworthy for an outline of his life because it is just a given, but these days it seems that it isn't a given for so many people and I am grateful I never have to worry about him.
• His teens are reading Lord of the Rings and spends a lot of time discussing it with them.  For his birthday they spent literally hours picking out and fighting over the perfect wizard figurine to give him.
• He always wants to play a family game or do a read aloud. 
• Work is... work.  I won't spend to much time here other than to say we are so grateful he works for us.  I don't have to work which is such a blessing, he provides a beautiful life for us and makes sure we have the things we need, want, and plenty for our future, AND he works from home and helps all. the. time.  AND there may be some good things coming up on the horizon.

Around the House

January was the coldest month on record.  Never before has Denver had a January that never got into the 60s.  And boy did we feel it.  On every previous blog years I have posts with us in tee shirts having picnics outside in January and February.  So far this has not been the case. It has been cold and snowy.  We have snow that happened in December that is still here (inches of it) and that has NEVER happened before.  We have spent a lot of time indoors.

These 2 cuties are playing really well together.  It is still a lot of parallel play, but they don't fight, they don't always need me involved, and sometimes they interact.  It is pretty cute.

In this picture they were going to a party at Krista and Marisa's house and kept talking to them - it was so cute.  I love that even though we don't have family they have found their own "aunts" in their lives.

One day we had a great snowfall and I sent all four kids out to shovel our stuff and then to do a few other houses for service.  Well... No good deed goes unpunished.  Noah took my keys to get a scrapper out of Jason's car to scrape off cars and at some point in the 3 hours Noah was out there my keys fell out of his pocket.  By the time he came in and he realized it was dark outside.  After an hour or so of looking it was obvious they were burried under the snow piles he had made shoveling.  Ahhhh!!  Over the next 2 days we all undug the very work Noah had dug.  At one point a neighbor came out to help us for a minute as we were shoveling through her side yard, she took a shovel and on her first scoop she found the keys!!  Halleluiah! 

We all love homemade pizza night.

No matter what I always end up bbq-ing in the snow or rain.

 

Old Testament Come Follow Me

In January we transitioned from Old Testament to New Testament in Come, Follow Me.  For the first week the manual didn't have us jump into the new testament so I took it as a week to have a few book end lessons on the Old Testament and see what we liked, learned, and remembered.  I was impressed by the things they learned and liked.  Jason took the lead last year in the Old Testament and he did a great job keeping it exciting, accessible, and Christ focused.  It just my feelings and made me sad to not be as involved as I had previously been, but I knew it was right (for everyone).  

After our lessons I put all our stuff on this wall and it made me happy.  I went through the manual and cut out the good pictures.  Wish I had done this every year.

At the end of Book of Mormon we did this excessive where it had the words down one side that said "obey like...., pray like..., etc) and they had to come up with someone in the BoM who exemplified that attribute and then explain to us why (also they had to find the scripture refence).  I remember that going fantastically so I figured we could reproduce it for the Old Testament.  I used the exact same verbs as I did the BoM, but half way through the activity I wished I had put some more work/though into it and picked words that were more applicable to the old testament like "Sacrifice like...., courageous like....., etc.  I am going to do this activity at the end of every CFM year, so I can grow and change every year.  If you were to zoom in on the wall you would see that everyone shared what their favorite story was and/or what was most influential for them.  They gave some amazing responses that spanned the year.  Megan's was by far the best though, but it didn't start that way.  When it was her turn she said "I didn't have anything"  I didn't accept that answer and told her to really think and ask the spirit to bring something to her remembrance, that upset her and she got really emotional and said that she just didn't have any, I again pushed.  She then poured out her heart about the Abrahamic covenant and bore a beautiful testimony about how she knows she is a daughter of God and how that is foundational to who she is.  It was powerful and impactful to all of us and we were all a bit speechless afterwards.  I didn't know she felt so strongly about it and am grateful I kept pushing.  I don't know if she knew how she felt, but once she started talking she found her voice and gave words to the feelings in her heart and the spirit bore witness to her that what she said was true and I think she surprised herself a bit.  

 

Family Temple Trip

The week after Maddie went to the temple by herself for the first time we went as a family.  Since we lost our babysitter (Maddie), I got my ministering sister (Mia Chambers) to sit at the house while the babies "slept" (our appointments are Wednesday's at 8 pm).

It was a great evening.  Not only was it Madison's first time with the family it was also Brock's first time as a Priest, so he got to baptize everyone.  It was incredible.  Noah was the first to be baptized by Brock and they both smirked and laughed a little.  Noah is taller than Brock, and the emotion of it was I think a little awkward for them, but they weren't too irreverent.  Watching Brock baptize Maddie made me tear up a little.  As she walked into the font and he tried to help her and tell her what to do, I saw in my minds eye her at about 18 months and Brock about 5 and how sweet he was with her.  They had the most tender relationship of all my children, it was like they had this secret code.  He loved to help her and play with her and make sure she was happy and taken care up - even all the way up through her toddler and younger kid years.  I had almost forgotten those memories, and I was so grateful for the spirit bringing them back to my remembrance in that moment.  We all loved the idea of Brock baptizing dad and how weird that was, and of course it was a tender moment for me when he baptized me.  It was great to have all 4 of them there with us. We all felt the truthfulness of the momentous occasion and as we pulled out of the parking lot they all agreed that we would all be back in the temple together when Eve got her endowment that will be a good day (they will likely be on missions when Dane and Eve go for baptisms).

I can not over emphasize how excited I am for this stage of life.  I have looked forward to this day and this "season" for almost 12 years.  There have been other wonderful seasons (from Maddie's birth until 18 months when ALL 4 of them were home all day - no school) from 2016-2019 when all 4 were in elementary school and now this one) but this one, when all 4 will be in the YM/YW program together for 2 1/2 years might be my absolute favorite.  I have so many plans - but mostly I just want to enjoy it.  Really really enjoy it.  Elder Stevenson has a talk called "your 4 minutes", it is about the luge in the winter Olympics and about how it doesn't matter how great you practice or how well you have done something, or will do something, but the only thing that counts is how you perform those 4 minutes at the Olympics and how to recognize and live up to "our 4 minutes".  Well... this is our 4 minutes.  We get it once.  We have 4 youth in our home and eternity might just hang in the balance.  I want to have fun, connect, build a lot of love and relationships (not just parent child but sibling to sibling) I want testimonies grown, foundations built, traditions established and started that will bring them back home and make their hearts ache with joy when they are not home, I want to work and serve.  5 years ago I taught them to do chores and clean the house really well because I looked forward to this day, I envisioned a moment when the ward would need a bunch of help to do something (set something up, clean something, etc.) and no one signs up or shows up, and they think "where are we going to find a bunch of people right now?"  Then come the Herbert's - 6 totally able-bodied, capable people.  It is rare to have 4 kids, all at once, who are capable of doing anything and I knew that if I had prepared and planned right we could be relief to many people.  They are such a joy in my life and have been some of my beast and dearest friends.  I feel like not only have I watched and helped them grow up but they have watched and helped me grow up.  I love watching the men and women they are becoming and stand all amazed that Heavenly Father entrusted their care to me.  They are good, deeply good.

 

Young Womens

 Madison went into Young Women's in January!  Her and Megan are in the same class (our YW are separated into 2 groups, high school and non high school).  They are doing great together and Madison is loving the increased socialization opportunities.  Her favorite Young Woman is Ryan Stolk (a junior).  Ryan is athletic, full of energy, and happy. It will be fun watching where these next few years take Maddie.

Wrestling

Even though Brock said that he was only going to wrestle one year, he surprised us by wanting to do it again this year.  To be honest we were super annoyed.  We barley made it through last year and all agreed it wasn't worth it.  We had a very busy fall and were excited to have a s l o w winter with our family home and opportunities to do things we can't do when so busy, he also needed to double down on work for his upcoming Disney world trip and wrestling meets are like 10 hours and you wrestle for like 3 minutes randomly - so watching/supporting him is so so hard.  We told him he could do it, but we weren't going to put in great efforts to watch him.  Well... we surly kept up our side of the deal - I went out to one match for myself and luckily walked in just minutes before he started a match and one night when a meet was at thunderidge we all went (except Noah) and watched.  He was a good sport about it.

His wrestling buddies.  Cameron is the one that talks Brock into wrestling and then he gets hurt the first week and then doesn't wrestle the rest of the season.  Its awesome!

I am glad that he wrestled this year though because he got so good!  (well... that is what other people tell us... since we didn't go watch). Everyone was always telling me how great he was doing and what a good wrestler he was.  He won almost all of his matches - usually in just a few seconds with a pin.  

I am glad he stuck with it and got better.

He is such a cutie!

Both the babies and Megan have benefited from his wrestling.  They love wrestling with him, and it turns out so does Megan.

Go Brock!