Working from home

I am very very very blessed to have the job that I have that allows me to work from home. I am so very happy that I am able to do that. However, it is HARD. Like right now, I'm posting on my blog rather than working. Sometimes it's lonely. Sometimes its frustrating. A lot of times its a huge balancing act. I wouldn't trade it for the world because it allows me to be a mom and be at home with my kids. However, it is HARD. Now, I'm going to quit being a slacker and get back to work!

Boys will be boys

It just amazes me with the whole nature vs. nurture thing. I haven't taught my boys to use guns, I haven't taught them play in the dirt, and so many of the other boy things. My mom told me that little boys will make anything into guns. It is so very very true. Zach went on a treasure hunt today after drawing a map. He just came out and showed me he made a shooting bridge out of legos. Not just a bridge, but a shooting bridge with guns. I'm not a big gun person at all and haven't purchased toy guns in the past. We have water guns and the nerf guns they got for Christmas, but that is it. I've never encouraged them about that at all. The only thing I can come up with is that boys will be boys.

Preparedness plug

I know there are so many other people that are better at food storage than I am, but I still consider myself a bit of a food storage junkie. It's pretty sad, but I get very excited about case lot sales. I think it's mainly because I hate to pay full price for anything. Anyhow, I've tried to build up my food storage over the last couple of years and put money into savings as well. As we've had to rely on our savings and our food storage over the last little bit, it's given me such comfort to know that we've got stuff set aside just in case. Thankfully, our trials have been pretty minimal. Jeff stated the other day that, as we tried to be smart in our "seven years of plenty", that we'll be ok during our "years of famine". I sincerely hope it doesn't last seven years! I know our trials have been very minimal, and as a result we're still trying to be smart and do our part to be prepared for any future struggles we have. I'm just so thankful for the prophet's counsel! I love food storage!

A New Year

If you've read any of my posts over the last couple of months, you've probably caught on that we were very very excited for a new year. 2009 had a lot of challenges and we were ready for a new start. As 2010 started, we were still in the same position. Jeff didn't have a job, I still have an child with asthmatic tendencies, the dishes still need to be done, my boys can still be little tornado's, etc. etc. However, I think we just decided to change our attitude. As long as we have a positive attitude, that's what matters. Jeff and I have talked a lot about how blessed we are and we're trying to pass that onto our kids as well. We're trying to be very positive and are so very very grateful for our blessings. I made a list of potential New Years resolutions I want to work on. However, I think the only real resolution I've made is that I'm going to be happy and try be the best me I possibly can. I'm not going to beat myself if I'm not perfect with some of the goals I'd like to make. I think I'm just going to take one day at a time and be happy. As long as I'm tyring to be the best person I am and do what I'm supposed to, I think that's all that matters. We're just taking one day a a time and we're happy for all the blessings we have! So, though I'm a little late, here's to 2010! May be it be a great year with lots of real possibilities!

Honda Love

While I'm on things I recommend, I also have become a huge fan of Honda's. My little Civic isn't that pretty anymore, but it has 240,000+ miles on and still runs great. It also gets up to 50 mpg as well. It's been a huge blessing over and over and over. we've had very few mechanical issues with it other than some of the normal maintenance wear and tear stuff. Jeff and I have decided that we're Honda converts and will stick with them when our little car does die. Wahoo for Honda!!!!

Mechanic recommendations

I think the world of my mechanic. I trust his opinion and recommendations and I think he has some of the best prices we've found. There have been other times where we've taken a vehicle somewhere else and they charge us signifcantly more. There have been times where he could have charged me for things and he didn't because they couldn't find anything wrong. I had once where I thought a battery needed to be replaced and all he did was clean it and it worked great. He didn't charge me for it. Anywho, I have a wonderful auto mechanic and and highly recommend them. If you live in Utah County, its Greenwood Automotive in American Fork. The only problem is sometimes it takes a couple of days to get in. However, I think they are highly worth it.

I adore my mechanic!!!

Nathan is Six Years Old!!!!

I can't believe it, Nathan is six years old! We celebrated his birthday over a couple of days and I think he had a lot of fun with it. I've been so busy I haven't been able to do my post. Here's a really quick one and I'll have to do more later;

Favorite color is gold
Favorite animal is giraffe (and monkey)
Favorite food: HAMBURGERS!!!!
Favorite TV show: Rescue Heros
Favorite toy: legos
He loves to build things
He likes school and has become a great reader
He loves to ride bikes, scooters, jump, go hiking and camping and be very active. I love my little boy so much and I'm so glad he's a part of our family!

Addison at Six Months!

I can't believe how time has flown by. My little Addison is six months old already. She is adorable and I can't imagine life without her. The boys are really sweet with her and take good care of her. They'll play with he and love her. Jeff calls her princess all the time and the boys have been doing it as well. She's just a very very happy baby who smiles all the time. I've had many many comments from random people when I'm out shopping that she's just a happy baby. She definitely has her daddy wrapped around her finger already. He'll randomly tell her that she's just so adorable. He's more affected her her cries than I am. She's definitely Daddy's little girl.
She is almost sitting up on her own. There are times where she will, but then she'll get excited and lose her balance. She loves to stand up when someone is holding her and she also likes it when Jeff tosses her in the air. She LOVES to grab onto anything she can her her hand on. I recently gave her a piece of paper and she had a ton of fun crumpling it up and playing with it. She also really gets into playing with toys. She is rolling over all over the place from both front to back and back to front. I'll lay her on her tummy and she can turn 360 degrees if she's given enough time. She'll scoot backwards a bit, but she hasn't quite figured out how to scoot forwards. She'll get up on her knees for just a second and Jeff thinks she'll be crawling soon. I'm not ready for it, but he's excited for her to crawl.
She can be very quite most of the time, but if she's in the right mood she'll VERY loud. Jeff claims she said "Da" or "Dad" recently, but I told him no one else witnessed it so it doesn't count. I'm still coaching her to say Mama first.
She also loves to flail her arms. They are constantly moving up and down. She'll waive at times, and Jeff took her into class with the Priests (16-17 year olds) recently and the boys swore she did the beauty queen waive, the "elbow elbow wrist wrist wrist".
I took her to the doctor recently for shots. She's still in the 25% weight and is at 90% in height. No teeth yet, which is a big surprise. Nate had teeth at 4 months and Zach at 3 months, so we think they should come in at any time.
We love Addison dearly and are so thrilled to have her in our family!

Crazy

Life has been crazy lately. I've increased my hours at work and just trying to keep up with everything has been challenging. Thankfully I have a wonderful family that I love to pieces and it's all worth it. We have high hopes for this year and we're trying to feel very positive about everything. I know it will all work out. In the meantime, I'm trying to find time to do all that I need to!

New Years Eve

We had a low key New Years Eve, but I think we all had a lot of fun with it. We bought a Papa Murphy's pizza and I rented G-Force for the boys to watch. The boys were really excited to have a movie night. We watched the movie together and did pizza, chips and dip, drinks and ice cream. They had a ball and it was fun to listen to the boys laugh at the movie. We put them to bed at a pretty decent time, which was yea for me!, and Jeff and I got to watch Night at the Museum. It was a very simple night, but I think it was a great way to start the new year. We're hoping to have a wonderful year this year. I think one of my favorite parts of the year was when Jeff and I ripped up the 2009 calendar with great joy. This is going to be a great year with lots of wonderful things that will happen. I'm so greatful for all of our blessings and am thrilled I have a new year to spend with my family.

Christmas

Christmas was a little more low-key this year than in years past, but it turned out to be great. Jeff and I usually go skiing with his brother and sisters on Christmas Eve, or as close to Christmas Eve as we can. However, we opted out of Skiing this year. It turned out to be a really nice, easy day. I did a little work, we got the house cleaned, the boys played and we got everything ready for Christmas. The boys also helped me make sugar cookies for Santa. They had a lot of fun making the cookies as well as eating them.
We went to Christmas Eve dinner at Jeff's parents house, which is a tradition every year. We usually have a nice sit-down dinner with a turkey or ham and I was totally shocked that we ended up having Papa John's pizza! It was very nice to get together and MUCH easier on Jeff's mom to not have to cook, and to not have to do much clean up either. She made fried ice cream which was incredibly yummy. After dinner, we retired down stairs and had family home evening where we talked about the true meaning of Christmas and read from the scriptures. When we were making Christmas cookies earlier in the day, Nate and I talked about the symbolism of candy canes and about how Christ is how shepherd. During the family home evening lesson that night, I was impressed that Nate remembered what we talked about and could explain it to everyone, with a little prompting.
After the lesson, we went home and got the kids ready for bed. Nate and Zach got to wear some new P.J.'s and we placed the Christmas cookies on a stool next to the tree so Santa could find them. I was very happy that we got the boys into bed at a decent hour with the house mostly cleaned up. It made for a much easier night for me.
On Christmas Morning, Jeff and I were, of course, the ones who woke up first. I got ready and was contemplating waking up the boys. Jeff reminisced about how, as a kid, they got two-liter bottles of pop from their Grandma as a present. He mentioned how cool it was to have his very own bottle of pop. I had a couple of bottles downstairs and thought briefly about checking to see what I had for the boys. I was a really good thing he mentioned something because I had two more presents for the boys downstairs that I completely forgot about! I got them up under the tree just in time before the boys were up and about. The kids were up around 7:30 a.m., which is normal time for them.
We got everyone ready and Jeff got the camera out. We had gotten some used bikes from my brother for the boys and I thought they would be really excited about them. We placed the bikes around the side of the tree so they were kind of hidden. I had the kids check to see if the cookies for Santa were gone so they would see the bikes and, hopefully get a great reaction out of them. They saw the Christmas cookies and then looked up to see the bikes. They didn't seem every excited so, I asked what they saw. They said there were some bikes and I asked how's they were. Zach said, "for you and Dad?". I told them they were for them, but we still didn't get much of a reaction. They boys grabbed their stockings and then sat at the counter to look inside their stockings. I had to prompt them to even start opening presents! We started opening presents and got a little more of a reaction. Some of the first presents were socks and underwear where we finally got a reaction. I got more of a reaction out of opening socks and underwear then the bikes or some of the other presents! The boys got more into it and had a lot of fun. Addison opened a couple of presents and did great with pulling the paper off. There was one present where she ripped some paper of and was having fun with it. I tried to take the paper away from her and she got very upset with me.
Zach had asked Santa for a water gun, but Santa got the boys nerf guns instead. Kind of scary, but that's what he had asked for every time and that was apparently the best Santa could do because the North Pole doesn't make water guns. Nate had asked for a dinosaur race track with a loop-da-loop. Santa got a race track with a loop-da-loop, but Nate mentioned a number of times that it wasn't a dinosaur one. Oh well, I think Santa did his best and we discussed that a couple of times.
They all had a lot of fun and Nate mentioned a number of times that this was the best Christmas ever! We had just enough time to open presents before we had to leave to Jeff's parents house. We had breakfast down there and opened presents there as well. It was great to spend time with family and we had a lot of fun. The kids were great and we love Jeff's family. We were there from about 8:45-11:30 before we had to leave.
We then headed over to my parent's house in Highland and got there about 11:45 a.m. We were able to have lunch and open presents there as well. My family has a tradition of giving each other crazy socks for Christmas that they have to wear while we open presents. Some were more tame than others, but the best were the socks that my "little" brother Shawn gave to Jeff. He gave Jeff two HUGE Christmas stockings that, when he put them on, they went up to his thighs. It was hilarious. We took a picture of all of the socks, but Jeff didn't keep his on while opening presents. We opened presents and had a great time. We then stayed to hang out and talk for a while. We loved to spend time with my family and had a wonderful time visiting with them.
We finally left about 4:00-4:30 and headed home for a couple of minutes. The boys got to play with some of their new toys for a little bit before we finally headed back to Jeff's house for a little bit for some dinner and to hang out with Super Grandma. We were able to spend a little more time with them before we finally retired home and into bed. Overall, it was a very long, but wonderful day. We loved to spend time with family and had a great time. However, I think we were all very ready for bed!