Moments

I had a moment yesterday. Small and fleeting but a moment all the same.
I was driving home from my Mom's in the early afternoon yesterday with Mason and Mia. We had gone for a short visit just to say hi. The kids had played outside and picked a handful of flowers (and dandelions) that grandma put in a vase and displayed proudly. They were so proud of themselves.
Anyway, on the way home they were chatting peacefully in the backseat. After a few minutes I noticed that it had gotten quiet back there. I glanced back and saw Mia with her head down on Mason's shoulder and Mason's head tilted and resting on Mia's head. They were both content and calm. It was then that the thought came to me, they really are good friends. They really do love each other. They're going to end up always loving each other.
Isn't that what we ultimately want? In spite of the fighting and tattling don't we long for our kids to love each other? Don't we want them to like each other enough to be friends? Really friends! To watch out for one another? To be their safeguard? That's what I want. And for a brief moment yesterday I caught a glimpse of how that might be.

Spring Break Project

During spring break Matt and I decided to tackle Mia's room and give it a face lift. She has always wanted her room to be painted pink so I decided she should get what she asked for if
possible. This is before....

and this is after......

She definately got what she asked for. It's PINK!! No other word

is necessary or fitting. It illuminates out into the hallway like a Pepto Bismol beacon. And of course SHE LOVES IT! As far as I'm concerned, I'm still undecided. I'll leave it this way for a while for 2 reasons: 1. It's what she wants and she loves it. 2. It was a ton of work and I think Matt would freak if I told him we needed to start over. ;)

I'm too lame.

Mason: "Hey Mom, you know what? I really hate Brenda Smith (name has been changed to protect the guilty)."

Me: " Oh yeah, you HATE her?"

Mason: "Yeah, I do."

Me: "Why do you HATE her?"

Mason: "You want me to kick in the details, huh?"

Me: "Sure dude, throw 'em at me (just trying in some lame way to keep up with the lingo)."

Mason: "What?"

Me: "Never mind."

I guess I'm not as cool as I think I am.

After It's Dark Time?

Mia has this phrase she uses several times a day. "After it's dark time, what are we going to do?"

Interpretation: What are we doing on tomorrow? No matter how many times we correct her ("Mia, the right way to say that is, what are we doing tomorrow?") she still says it this way.

So today Matt and I were in our room and Mia came upstairs. "Mom, after a lot of dark times, what day is it?"

Matt (who I thought was asleep) and I both started laughing. First of all, how many "dark times" are we talking about here? The possibilities of the correct answer are ENDLESS! I started to answer by saying "Tomorrow is Monday." That was evidently incorrect. After a lot of laughter from us and some frustation on her end, turns out the answer she was looking for was Christmas Eve........duh! I guess she's technically correct. "After a lot of dark times" it will be Christmas Eve.

For Me (oh, and you too if you'd like)

I use to be an avid journal keeper. Really I did. I have several journals chronicling from my early childhood years through elementary school, Jr High (ick), through High School and beyond.
You get the point.
My earliest one has more pictures I drew then actual words but some of them are really funny. I will always be grateful to my Mom for taking the time to get me to do these entries. Looking back through the journals from Jr High and High school is fun but can also be painful. It's difficult to look back and see how immature I was. Most of the entries involve one boy or another. Funny but not a lot of substance. There are some (more then I care to admit) that contain things I probably wouldn't want my family, especially my children, to read about me. I have SERIOUSLY considered burning these or perhaps burying them in an undisclosed location. The verdict's still out.
Why am I rambling about this? Well that's why I started this blog. Since getting married and having kids I don't take the time to journal. At all. I've never enjoyed scrapbooking although I really wish I did. So I have all these memories and all these pictures that are piling up in my house and in my head. I thought this would be a good way to write it down and add pictures. It's quick, it's easy and it's giving me a chance to get some memories out of my head and into form.
I've been reading a few other blogs lately and realized that I have a lot of memories and events that I want to add to this blog so I have them down somewhere. So I guess this is a word of warning. This blog is for my memories and it may be boring to the rest of you (I hope not) but it's my way of preserving them. Consider yourselves warned! Hope you enjoy:)

Fun...Fun...Fun

Last Friday we loaded up the kids and headed up to Logan to the American West Heritage Center's Baby Animals Day. Matt took the day off so we could spend some time as a family during Spring Break. After stopping for lunch and a quick trip to Smith's Marketplace we pulled into the parking lot (which was very crowded) and made the long walk to the front gate. There was so much to see and do. We looked at the ox, ducks, ponies, turtles, cool skelatal remains of lots of different animals, we even ended up bringing home a new baby frog to live in our fish tank. Mason tried throwing a tomahawk (I may have slaughtered the spelling of that). They had a cute "mock" rodeo that all three of the kids participated in. They rode a stick horse around the barrels to see who could make it in the best time. I personally think Mason smoked the other kids but they awarded the prizes to someone else. Too bad.

Here's Mia taking her turn around the barrels.

Mason doing the same. Ride em cowboy!

Madden was so cute. He ran the whole way

and really gave it all he's got! He was so excited

to be able to participate.

After we were finished there we drove to Brigham City and took the kids to see Monsters VS Aliens. Cute movie but not the best. We ate lots of popcorn and candy and all went home with stomach aches. The upside to that......I didn't have to fix anyone dinner :) What a fun, exhausting day!

Graduation from Talking Time

Mia graduated from her Talking Time class and we're so proud of her. This is the class she's been going to every Thursday for the past 3 years. It's a Mommy and Me set up so it's given the two of us some great one on one time (thanks to Ruth, Celeste, various neighbors and Amber for babysitting Madden each week) . Every week they would read a cute story and then we would do a fun craft that went along with it. Then they would take each child one on one and work on individual sounds and letters. She's worked so hard. She reach a point where she is talking at her age level and they don't even recommend speach therapy when she starts kindergarten....YEAH!















Look at her working so hard on her project. She loves to color, cut, glue, etc so the craft projects were her favorite part.

This is one of her teachers, Ms Sandy. She is such a sweet nice lady (but between you and I, I think she scared Mia to death!)




















This is Ms Alicia. What a fun creative person! We'll miss both these ladies a lot!







Good job Mia, we are so proud of you!

THREE STRIKES.....OH CRAP!!

Madden has become very curious and adventuresome lately. It's not unusual to find him scaling the kitchen counters to look in the cupboards. Or climbing up on dressers to get whatever it is he wants up top. I've even caught him a few times in the process of sticking some foreign object into an electrical outlet (this one produces terrified screams from me and severe reprimands).

Tuesday I was in the bathroom doing Mia's hair for school. I knew Madden was in my room. What I didn't know was that he found a key on my dresser and proceeded to stick it in one of the outlets. I heard this terrifying scream and then he came running into the bathroom. He was crying so hard that it took him a very long time to catch his breath. Once he did, he cried and cried and cried and then kept repeating "IT HURT ME!!" I couldn't see anything wrong with him so I took him in my room so he could show me what had "HURT HIM". I saw him glance quickly over by the outlet and there on the floor was a key. It didn't take me long to figure out what he'd done. Then I quickly checked his hands for burns and looked over the rest of his body. Lets just say....he's a VERY lucky boy! We're just praying that it was "shocking" enough to teach a lesson.

The next day he was climbing up on Mason's dresser to get his Nintendo DS. He does this by opening the bottom drawer and standing on it. So he was standing on the drawer and the entire dresser tipped forward on top of him. I heard him scream and ran into his room. I don't know how he walked away without getting hurt but he did. I hope he'll learn a lesson from this one as well. Too many scary scenarios!

The past couple of days have left me wondering, if "3 strikes - you're out" is the rule, I better keep him tied to me so I can watch his EVERY step! (prayers in his behalf (and mine) are greatly appreciated!! :))