This is what you'd see...

...if you came to my house right now.  

Nate playing his ipod.  His fav thing to do right now is text his buddy Trek.

Open kitchen cupboards.  Anyone else have this problem?  It seriously drives me nuts.  I  just remembered something funny...When I was in college, my roommate Stacy knew that open drawers and closet doors were one of my pet peeves.  So one day she left every single one open...just to make me mad.  

My pile of towels that I didnt get around to washing yesterday.  (Dont look at the dust under my bench...I NEVER get around to cleaning that.)

Valentines Decor

Tyler playing Dads I-Pad.  I guess he is playing "Cartoon Wars"

Austin on his bed.  Top bunk.  For some reason he and Luke switched beds.  Lately his bed is his favorite place to hang out.  I suppose it is the only place in this house he can call his own.

Yes, those are chickens.  Yes, you can see them from my back window.  Yes, they are ours.  YUCK!

Steve is texting his BFF.  Notice his flip phone???  He will not switch to a more user friendly  phone.  

Proof once again that my children are not capable of shutting cupboard and drawers.

Piles of stuff the boys took to church and then dropped off on the front room couch ---on their way in the house from church.

Our wood stove is working double time today.  It is 82 degrees in our family room right now.  Take notice of the brick behind the stove...Steve and his Dad did that.  I love it but I wish it went all the way up the wall.  The green pan is full of water because we think it will humidify the air.  

Just one of many 72 hr kits.  This thing is heavier than me.

On the way to Tyler's room you could see these....

Ode to Burke.  He is graduating from boot camp in three and a half weeks!  

Jersey on "her couch"

Fire starters for our wood stove.  I bet your jealous that you dont have these buckets in your family room????

Just a few of my necklaces from Paparazzi. I am seriously in love with these 5 dollar beauties.  Who wouldn't be. 

The view from our front door.  Christmas lights still up and probably will stay that way until next Christmas.  Our rose bushes are totally over grown but it is just another bit of security we have.


Other things you might see...Our itinery  for the vacation to San Diego, my bucket of school stuff that I have not touched all weekend, my bed--unmade, a bag of rice that saved my i-phones life---after it went for a swim in my Dt. Coke,  bags of cereal on the kitchen table because I refuse to cook more than one meal on Sunday's, and many other things that prove that I am not Wonder Woman.  The whole point of this post is to "keep it real."  I am always trying to remind myself that I can not possibly to "it all."  But, like so many of you, I feel it is necessary.  Necessary to be a "perfect" mom, wife, teacher, wife, friend, and any other title that I bare.  I try.  I fail.  Sometime I can do it.  Sometimes it is absolutely impossible to keep up with everything.  Most of the time I am judging myself and comparing myself to every other mother, wife, and teacher out there.  Do you do the same???  How can we support each other's endeavors without judging or comparing??  

Some of my thoughts....

• I'm watching the Golden Globe Award show--Madonna is incredibly beautiful.  George Clooney is GEORGE CLOONEY!
• An acquaintance of mine recently passed away.   She was a bit younger than me.  It is hard to imagine her young girls living life without their mom.  Girls need their Mothers.  
• I really want to see the movie "War Horse"  
• Tomorrow is MLK day.  I cant even begin to tell you how wonderful it is knowing that I do not have to teach school tomorrow.  If you need something to do tomorrow you should watch "The Help"  it will be a great way to honor all the Dr. King worked so hard for.
• Steve had to work today.  Today, I went to church.  It was the first time I have ever gone to church when Steve was at work. This means that the boys and I went to church without Steve.  I'm pretty proud of us.
• Teresa introduced me to the game Bananagrams.  I bought it yesterday. 
• Soon I will have a Student Teacher.  That is kinda a lot of pressure.  But really it is an honor to know my principal has enough faith in me to place a student teacher in my classroom.  She is 22 years old!!!  That is just about half my age.  I feel old.  I hope she remembers this experience just a fondly as I remember my own Student Teaching Experience.
• Everyone should read the book, "A long Walk to Water." It is based on a true story about the boys of Sudan.  
• Any one want to start an on line book club?  Like a blog that you can post good books you have read.  I will do all the blog stuff and you can just post????
• It is going to be a LONG year in politics.  
• As for politics---Remember that change is not a spectator sport.
• While we were in Zion I couldn't help but think how much my boys would have loved it as much as I did.  We watched 7 deer for about 45 minutes.  It was one of those moments in life that I wish I could bottle up and share with the boys.  I probably shouldn't admit this but I didn't miss the boys much--until that moment.   
• I know that I am addicted to my I-Phone.  I probably need an intervention.  I even thought about turning it off tomorrow.  I'm not ready for that though.
• Did you see Octavia Spencer's (The Help actress) gorgeous  lavender dress?  

Contentment

(My computer has a mind of its own.  I had a thoughtful and emotional narration to go along with this post but all of the sudden my computer decided it needed to shut down.  I refuse to type it again.  Just know that Steve and I went to Springdale and Zion.  We were celebrating Steve's 39th birthday.  We SOOOO needed a weekend away.  My mom said it perfectly, we needed to "to renew whatever.")

Our dinner was delicious.  Our hotel was comfortable.  Our conversations were relaxed and enjoyable.  But it wasn't until we entered the amazing Zion canyon did I fully comprehend how much I was craving the stillness of the canyon. I was craving stillness from the chaos and monotony we have in our life.   

We spent a few hours surrounded by natural beauty and peaceful stillness. THIS is what life is all about--being content. I found contentment,

I'm over feeling sorry for myself ;)  I'm not quite sure what was up.  Well, I do know.  I was/am feeling like my boys don't really need me any more.  They are just starting to grow up.  We are moving into a totally new stage in our lives and parenting is getting more and more difficult.  TEENAGERS and PRETEENS (need I say more?)  Seriously, it is like being a  mom to aliens.  I am afraid for myself and for them.

Steve is a WONDERFUL father.  I am envious of his patience with them.  I need to learn more from him.  I let the boys attitudes and yelling and eye rolling and mood swings and hormones and selfishness and entitlement and.....get the best of me.  I just do not now how to do it!  The other day, I had to go to my bedroom and lock the door, turn the T.V. really loud.  I found myself loosing every ounce of patience I had.  I did not want to hear another kid tattle or wine or tease or cry.  One would think that all of these things would have been a symptom of toddlerhood but NO it is an on going struggle in our home and they do it LOUDER.

I see another issue I am having is the fact that I do not have many friends that are in this same stage of life.  I do not have many girl friends to compare my struggles with.  I wish my sisters-in-law were closer so I could WATCH how they Parent.  I especially wish Jeneal was closer because she has 3 teenage boys.

I am coming to understand that I need to be physically involved with the "Boy Stuff" that they enjoy.  By boy stuff I mean shooting guns, camping and hiking.  I also need to go and not be such a bossy mom.  I kinda freak out a bit about safety, cleanliness and what I deem appropriate behavior.  In the past, I have let Steve take the boys and do that stuff.  I love the peace and quiet.  When they were all little I used that time to clean the house.  Now, I realize that I need to go with them and CHILL OUT so they enjoy having me there.

Enough rambling.

...there are so many times

"What if the water that came out of the shower was treated with a chemical that responded to a combination of things, like your heartbeat, and your body temperature, and your brain waves, so that your skin changed color according to your mood?  If you were extremely excited your skin would turn green,, and if you were angry you'd turn red, obviously, and if you felt like shiitake you'd turn brown, and if you were blue you'd turn blue.

Everyone could know what everyone else felt, and we could be more careful with each other, because you'd  never want to tell a person whose skin was purple, that you're angry at her for being late, just like you would want to pat a pink person on the back and tell him, "Congratulations!"

Another reason it would be a good invention is that there are so many times when you know you're feeling a lot of something, but you don't know what the something is.  Am I frustrated?  Am I actually just panicky?  And that confusion changes your mood,  it becomes your mood, and you become a confused, gray person.  But with the special water, you could look at your orange hands and think, I'm happy!  That whole time I was actually happy!  What a relief!"




                                                                                Jonathan Safran Foer
                                                                                Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
                                                                                                                         

Faithful

My friend, Lisa, at Over the Big Moon (check out the link on the right, had this fabulous idea about having a family theme or scripture for the year.  Last night, was Family Home Evening and we talked about what our New Years Resolutions were.  I mentioned to the Steve and the kids that I thought we should pick a scripture/theme that we could use as our family goal.  Steve immediately recommended the above scripture from The Book of Mormon.  We all opened our scriptures to Alma 44:4 and read it together.  It just seemed to make complete sense to me to use it as our family theme.  Today, after Lisa had posted her theme on her personal blog, I was motivated to get ours typed up and looking cute so I could post it somewhere in our home.  I'm hoping that we can refer back to it often and use it in our everyday lives.

I was thinking I'd type my New Years resolutions here on my blog, but again, I'm having some "what is my role as an mommy" issues and I do not want to talk about it yet. Mainly, I just cant quite articulate what I am feeling.  So, I'll tell you Austin's personal resolution---"Get a girlfriend."

p.s.  If you spot any typo's in the theme page, please let me know before I print a million copies.
p.s.s  Thanks Kristi!   And, please remember that I did not ask for everyone to proofread my post just my theme page. I type like I talk...run-on sentences and all!

I'm a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints!

How many of you can remember many of the details of your Baptism???  I honestly do not remember ONE thing about it. I barely remember Tyler's, Austin's or Luke's baptisms.  When I look at pictures of they boys baptisms it helps trigger some memories but not much.  I'm confident that Nathan will remember many details of this special day.  

I was having major issues with having a "Stake Baptism."  I wanted this day to be all about Nate. I wanted to remember this day forever mainly because it was our last child to be baptized and I am having serious mommy issues.  (Those issues will have to be an entirely different blog post but in essence, I am not sure what role I play in their lives anymore.) Another reason I was hating the idea of a shared baptism  is the fact that the scheduled date was not working for some important family members.  It was important to me to have them there.  After going back and forth for a few weeks about who, what, when, and where the baptism would be held we got special permission to have Nate baptized in Diamond Valley at Grandpa Christians pool.  Isn't that awesome??!!! 

Typical "I'm so done with this" expression.

I can not even begin to express how awesome it was!  The program was ALL about Nate.  It was all about what he wanted.  He got to pick the talks, songs and who would say the prayers.  Everything was geared toward him.  We had a little program in Grandpa's basement.  Tyler read the poem/scrapbook that Grandma VerDon made for all the boys baptisms.  At the end of his talk Tyler started asking him questions and began to lecture/remind him of all next steps he should take now that his is a member of the church--priesthood, mission, and temple marriage.

This is our Bishop.  Man, I love this guy.  He makes us feel extremely valued and important.  It was awesome that he came over even though it was his Wife's birthday.

I sure hope that Nate realize how important and unique this day was.  Most kids can not say that they were baptized in their Grandparents swimming pool.  But then again, most kids are not Nate!  I love my boy!!

Nate is Eight!

Christmas 2011

First, doesnt Austin look so grown up??? We had a fabulous Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  I loved every minute of it.  The events leading up to those two days were exhausting but on Christmas Eve day about noon I started to get in the Christmas spirit.  We had school up until Wednesday the 21st.  Does that  explain all the exhaustion?  I think it is dumb that we did not have more time off before hand.  Next year if this happens again I will be taking a personal day do get all my Christmas preparations done.  I had a HUGE cold sore that had even infected my lymph nodes because of all the mental and physical toll the holiday's brought.  

   

 The boys started off the evening with decorating Gingerbread Houses.  They turned out very cute and we even kept the dogs from eating them.  Next, we opened our Christmas Eve jammies.  Everyone liked their jammies (even Luke) and best of all they all fit!  My mom and brother came up and they even got new P.J.'s

 We totally missed Burkeley this year!  I hated that he was away and couldnt even call home.  We continued our Christmas Eve by reading the Nativity Story from the Scriptures.  In 17 years of marriage this is the first time we have actually read the Nativity Story.  Steve's dad sometimes comes over and retells it or we watch a video about the birth of the Savior but we have never sat the kids down to read it.

Christmas morning started at 5 a.m.  I always get soooo excited for the day to start and I can never sleep.  I even had to wake the kids up!  What 38 year old does that?  The boys got an xbox 360 from Santa.  Austin, Luke, and Nate each got a 22 gun (thats safe, I totally know) and Tyler got a back tire for his mountain bike.  I scored big time with 2 pairs of Ugg boots.  My mom and Steve both got me a pair.  Grandpa and Grandma Christian came over about 7 to see what Santa brought.  I took a few pictures of them but  Laurel had her eyes closed in all of them.

Unfortunately, Steve had to work at 8 a.m. on Christmas Day (another cause of my stress). So the kids, mom and my brother took off for Las Vegas to have a traditional breakfast with my side of the family.

Jeff and My momma's dog Zelda

Look at Jamey's beard!!!  Steve wishes his was that thick and dark.  

My little brother, Zach.  The boys loved that their Uncle Zach was with us for Christmas day.  He is always  so great to them.  

Earlier in the year, we had a little scare  well, BIG scare  with Grandma's Health.  I haven't blogged about it cause I dont want to think about how hopeless I felt knowing that Grandma was sick and there was nothing I could do about it.  He she is happy and healthy in all of her 80 year glory!  

Here Steve is opening his special present from Uncle Jeff.

The boys and I traveled home after the day filled of family.  I wish that time could have lasted forever.  We got home about 6 p.m. and totally fell asleep by 7:30.  I wish I could say that all my stress before had was worth it, because it wasn't, but all in all it turned out to be a MERRY CHRISTMAS.