Skyler Boy Is Three!

Well here is a saved post that is LONG over due! My Sky turned three over Thanksgiving break and with a bunch of cousins in town it was a PARTAY!!!

We decided to do a lawn Mower theme because of Skyler's obsession with them. However as of late, lawn mowers are totally out and Spider Man is the new craze. Here I am getting wheels together to play pin the wheel on the lawn mower.



Here is a picture of the lawn mower thanks to the creative talents of Marianne, Nathan, Aria and Thais!



We played "lawn mower" races!


And musical chairs but the kids had to pretend to push lawn mowers as they went around the circle.



Here were the last three cuties left in the game. There was some tough competition!

Skyler loved opening his gifts. Here he got spider man shoes and shirt from Grandma Teresa!

A BYU football helmet and jersey from mom and dad. ( I am pretty sure we were as excited to give this gift as Skyler was to get it) He was sooooo adorable when he opened the present. He even sang the cougar fight song for us :O)

Nana gave his this awesome BYU hat which he absolutely loved! He wears it all of the time...

He is the cutest cougar fan I've ever seen!

Another gift...,

Sky couldn't wait to try out his new foot ball gear on Papa!

This was my first attempt at a home made birthday cake (sad I know!) Thanks to Nana we even got the handle to stay up :O)

Just another shot of our work!

Here's little Beck licking frosting off the wheel :O)

It was a great party and we were so happy we had family to celebrate it with us.

We sure love our boy!

Gracie In The Hospital

A few weeks ago little Gracie was put in the hospital because she had a Kidney infection and a UTI. I love this picture because she is all hooked up to everything in her hospital bed and still just smiling away. Gracie is such a good baby. If it wasn't for the high fever we wouldn't have even known she was sick. I sure love this little girl!

Another shot of this cutie. I have to say that I was so grateful to my sister in law Abigayle who came down from SLC to watch my kiddos. She played with Skyler and took him to the store and bought him gum so she is a big favorite around here.

Last picture. Love those green pacifiers!

I have to be still!

I decided to put a picture of the child that made me a mother, although this post is very much about all of my babies. The world is a scary place for a mom. I am always wary of watching the news because I usually end up mildly depressed and sad. The latest news has been no exception as Jordan and I have followed the recent Penn State Scandal. Stories like that have always deeply affected me but since becoming a mother it literally puts my heart into a state of panic. I am left wondering how in the world am I going to protect my children from it all?? The process for me is always the same. I cry. I ask a lot of hard questions that

there are no answers to. Then when I am on the brink of locking my children up in an underground cellar for their entire lives my answer of peace comes to me loud and clear, "Be still and know that I am God!"

I always fight this answer. How am I supposed to be still when there is no guarantee that my children will be safe in this life. We are told to have faith but I think Elizabeth Smart's mother was a good faithful person and she has lived every mother's worst nightmare. I don't understand why sometimes parents are prompted and are able to save their children from tragedies and others go through terrible ordeals having to trust that God's will was done. No one will ever have these answers and I can accept that we're just not supposed to in this life. There a couple of things that have helped my fears as a mother in this day and age:

1. The quote, "Faith is not knowing what the future holds, it's knowing who holds the future!"

It takes a lot of pressure of knowing that a loving Father in Heaven is in control of all things. I feel so strongly that I should only worry about the things I can control and let Heaven take care of the rest. There is so much power in the phrase, "Thy will be done."

2. It occurred to me one day when Thais was a baby (I was having one of my panic attacks about how bad the world is) that Thais isn't only mine to protect. What I mean by that is, I was thinking about how I would always keep her close to me... home school, lock her up, whatever it took to protect her and I realized suddenly that she wasn't only MY daughter. She is also Heavenly Father's daughter. The thought literally crossed my mind that He was willing to sacrifice his Son for me and I had to be willing to do the same with my child. That doesn't mean I allow my children to be in bad environments and let them do whatever they want, it means that I teach them to be IN the world and not OF the world because that is the only way for them to set an example and save souls. I have been told in blessings that my children are missionaries. I know the only way they can fulfill that role is by me letting them go. It's hard for me. I worry, even though they are still so small.

I drive Thais to the bus stop every morning and we have this tradition where she always takes a window seat on the bus and we wave to each other and give each other the I LOVE YOU sign as the bus slowly pulls away to school. This is such a reality check for me that my daughter is no longer under my control 24/7. She goes off on her own and I just have to pray I am teaching her everything she needs to know. A bit of sadness pulls at my heart every morning when I can no longer see her little face waving at me from the window but I also get excited to know that she is growing and every day I get to see more of this little person's spirit and personality.

It is true there is a lot of evil in this world. But there is a lot of good too. My children bring me so much joy and I am so thankful I get to be their mother.

I just have to remember to be still.....

We've got Cougar Fever around here!

I don't know what it is but my kids have decided they are HUGE Cougar fans. We lived in Wildcat country forever and they didn't catch on but here they are all about BYU. This makes me happy for a few reasons:

1. You can't get a better education for the price than BYU! Jordan and I would be ecstatic to have our kids go here.

2. They are excited about where they live. I was sooo worried when we moved that they would hate it here.

3. Skyler makes the cutest little "football guy". Whenever we watch games he has to pretend to be a player and it's pretty much adorable. I also love it when he yells, " GO B- I (he can't pronounce the Y) U COUGARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Halloween

This year Halloween was a PARTY! The MBA school had a party, our ward had a party and this was a party planned in our neighborhood. It was so cute!

Check out the creative food....

Mummy Pizza

Band-Aid crackers

Spider oreos

Cookie Fingers and mice.

This isn't a very good picture but Thais and Gracie were both cupcakes this year.

I guess while at the party a little girl went up to Thais and said, "Are you a cupcake?" and Thais in her sassy little way said, " Yep, don't eat me!"

Jordan makes a killer pumpkin Chili that tastes mighty fine in a cooked pumpkin!

Here are our little trick or treaters.

Sad Little Blog

My blog is sad! One good reason is that I haven't updated it since May and I feel like everyone is so into FB that no one even checks blogs anymore so I sort of lost interest in blogging. I am going to start again because Jordan made the comment the other day that it is really sad that I have quit blogging because it was a Journal of our lives. Good Point. We need a family Journal and this is my journal of choice. So here it goes...

This story is a little beauty I don't want to forget. My neighbor told me that Thais and her friend Aria (here is their pic)


decided to go around the neighbor hood and sing for money. These crazy girls knocked on our neighbors door and this is how the conversation went:

T&A: Hi we are here to sing for money

neighbor: Okay great

T&A: How much are you going to pay us first?

neighbor: That depends. How good are you?

T&A: Well, we are REALLY good

neighbor: Kindly listened to 'twinkle twinkle little star' and paid them 50 cents each.

I was wondering why Thais came home with a handful of change the other day, but she told me she found it outside. When I confronted her about this she said, "well I did find it outside because when we sing, we sing on the doorstep!"

She's tricky! I so remember selling candy bars and lemonade for money. I never tried singing though. I have to hand it to her, that is pretty darn creative!

Gracie Girl

Easter

Our community has a darlin' little Easter egg hunt every year. Here we are posing with the Easter Bunny.


They had fun games for the kids. I wish I had gotten this on video, but see the boy to the left of Thais? Being much bigger than the other kids he got off to a mad start and was totally winning, but Thais started catching up and the boy tripped when he felt Thais behind him and Thais ended up winning the race. I was so proud :O)

Here she is with her winning Easter Basket as a prize

Later that day we had the Nelsons over and Jenn and I put on a feast!

Here is the kiddie table....

After dinner, we played Jordan's family traditional Easter egg roll.

Here are Thais and Skyler going head to head...

In the finals it was Jenn and Thais.

Jenn ended up taking the win! It was a blast :O)

While we were out there the sprinklers turned on and it turned into a big water fight for the kids.

Easter morning, the kids had fun looking for their Easter Baskets!

Here are their baskets this year.

Some eggs we painted. Thais LOVED this part of Easter!

We also did a lesson with Easter Eggs where I put 12 different items in plastic Easter Eggs that represent Jesus's resurection and the atonement. I think my kids are still at the age where the candy is the most exciting part, but I am excited to make Easter a really meaningful holiday for them!

T-ball

It is t-ball mania around here! This season we signed Thais up to do t-ball with several of the kids in the ward and it has been so much fun! I love this picture of Thais with her best buddy Tyler. Sometimes I can't believe that Thais is friends with the kid of my best friend from high-school! It has been so much fun having this time with the Nelsons...boy are we going to miss them!




Check out these cute Hatch ladies! Hannah is Thaisy's teammate. Go Dodgers!


Team stretching before the big game! I love how Skyler is participating..he can't wait for his turn to play sports!

I couldn't resist this picture of Chase- the Dodgers cutest fan!

Thaisy's friend Marin waiting in the dugout for her turn to bat!

Thais on first base! Love the pink helmet:O)

Just a little video of Thais up at bat..

The goal is not simply to go through motherhood. The goal is to GROW through motherhood!

As our small family approaches a big move to Utah next month, I have been thinking about the many things I am going to miss living here in the desert! One of the things I will miss the very most is the amazing group of moms we have here in Marana. As you might know, I was hooked up with an organization called The Power Of Moms, and for me this connection has been wonderfully life changing! I have discovered an entire network of women who are impressive and committed to motherhood in the most stimulating and thought provoking ways. It's the idea that motherhood isn't something women just endure daily in order to raise some kids; rather it is an exciting and ultra-challenging career in which our ability to be present, intentional, motivated and disciplined shape the lives of our children in such profound ways. I believe that motherhood can be the most powerful tool for good in order to combat a morally decaying society because we are the first voice in the ears of the rising generation. I wonder how many social programs could be eliminated if everyone had a mother loving them and leading through a positive, upstanding and deliberate example!

These ideas and convictions led me to start what The Power Of Moms call a "Learning Circle." It's basically a group of women who get together once a month and discuss an article based on Motherhood, and we talk about how to improve and incorporate some of these ideals into our daily mothering. For me this group has been almost like a support group because I've been able to share some of my deepest feelings about my role as a mother and I have been so uplifted and inspired as I listen to these women talk about how much they love their children and how hard they are working to be all that they can for them. I admire and love them all so much and it makes me sad to no longer be part of their lives on a monthly if not daily/weekly basis.

I wanted to post some older pictures from a workshop that Jamie, Jenn and I put on back in october. We all became trainers through The Power Of Moms and this was our first experience putting on an actual workshop all based around empowering moms! The workshop was a three part series POM's put together based on the Eyre book Three Steps To a Strong Family.
I got to present on how to establish a family legal system i.e. having each member of the family set up laws or rules and consequences in order to establish order in the home. I learned so much!



Jamie and Jenn were awesome presenters!

It was so cool to see all of the moms taking notes and interacting as we would during an important business meeting. Motherhood doesn't come with an instruction manual so I am thrilled to get all of the training I can get!

Here we are at Chili's after our first night of the workshop.

Group picture at the end of the workshop.

I am sure going to miss these girls!