Our Week

Bowling for FFD yesterday was a hit. I think the bowling shoes are super cool. I want a pair to wear around town.

Now for the action photos.

Eden standing back to see what happens.

Jonah was awesome! He got a few strikes.

Celeste bowled with style.

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Also this week, Jonah finally got all those Scout awards he earned way back when. His Bear badge, Religious Knot, Outdoors Activity Badge, Leave No Trace Badge, a Gold Arrow Point, two Silver Arrow Points, Progress beads, BB Gun Belt Loop and Archery Belt Loop.

He was so proud of himself! So proud in fact that when it was time to leave for Brigg's football game he told me to hold on a minute. The rest of us got in the car and waited. He came out wearing his Scout shirt all pimped out. He said he wanted everyone to see how awesome he is.

Brigg's game was great too! He is in High School Football. He got a few tackles and blocked a punt kick too. He is amazing. And we enjoyed the view from the stadium.

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Also this week, I got to go to lunch with a couple of old high school buddies. It was great catching up!

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Finally, I've got a problem... My garage is giving me anxiety and bugging me big time. I am almost ready to get rid of everything in it. I can't park in it. I can hardly walk in it for that matter. When we moved here all these boxes got sloppily packed and thrown in there and the organization overwhelmed me. Not to mention I felt too crummy when I was pregnant to deal with it. Now that I'm not pregnant, I keep having a hard time getting myself out there to face it.
I've got to buckle down and get it done. After a few pressure tactics on Steve, he's starting to be willing to help out with it. He actually worked on it most of the day yesterday. I was so grateful! But you still can't park in there. And it's still really bad.

I've decided that starting tomorrow, I will only allow myself 15 minutes of computer time each day until that garage is done. That gives me enough time to get a quick check on the outside world, but takes away my temptation to put off the garage doing something more fun. Like spying on all of your blogs and facebook. Cause you guys are much more pleasant than my garage that looks like it was hit by Hurricane Katrina.

But if I am being realistic with myself, I think this is gonna take a minimum of 16 hours to do. Since I don't get large blocks of time to work, this may take a couple of weeks or so. So I'll let myself play on the computer longer on Sundays since I'll take those days off from work anyhow.

Cuteness~Thrills & Chills

This is my favorite photo in this post. So I put it up top so that it will be the photo that shows up on all those bloggers who have a photo thumbnail on their feeds. Enjoy. (Painfully Cute) This little boy; we'll call him "Tiny Tim", is in our Primary class. To my delight, he showed up at church today with these extra legs. It was the highlight of my day.

He just cruised down the halls with these, just as happy as could be.

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Now, as promised, the "Thrills". We went to the State Fair for Family Fun Day yesterday. I was wondering if I could throw Charity's diaper in here.

Told ya it was thrilling. **Rolling my eyes.** I've decided I'm not a huge fan of the fair. You could easily drop as much cash going there as you would going to Disneyland. You be the judge on what place is more worth the cost.

Cell phone pictures stink as bad as being in these buildings to see the livestock. We need to buy a new camera. We have about a $200 budget. Camera people, can you give us suggestions please?

No, I didn't dress my girls in leotards to go to the fair. We had just come straight from gymnastics. Cost to slide down this slide once, taking about 30 seconds: $2. We fell for it.

The kids reactions to the Shark Encounters show.

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Now for the "Chills". I found some black widows in our garage this week. I've done a decent amount of online research about these freaky things and could give you a report that would give you nightmares.

It would include information about how the females will mate with the males and then kill them. But worst of all, it would talk about how a black widow spider bite could possibly kill your children. Yeah, I've learned what it means to live in fear.

But on to more happy thoughts. Like this lady eating her soup. You can see it was really tasty. And Steve and Charity too. We had a nice lunch date at my new favorite place to go out to eat. Zupas.

This is us at last week's Family Fun Day.

We went skating.

This is the best skating place I've ever been to.

They let you take strollers out on the floor.

And scooters too. And it wasn't busy.

Life is pretty good for us right now. Just please keep our family in your prayers. Pray that the spiders will all be killed asap. Thanks in advance.

Thoughts

I've been thinking a lot lately about my life. The other night I was thinking about my old dancing days a few years back. My life was kind of consumed with it. I owned my own little dance studio, I taught and I danced a little at Ballet Idaho too. Choreographing for people was a bit of a thrill for me as well. Especially when you see a piece of yours being performed on stage and the praise and awards your dancers get. And now the whole thing seems so strange to me. I will always have a special spot in my heart for dance in general, but honestly I don't miss it at all. Occasionally I will do a leap or a spin just out of the blue around the house. But I think that will be the extent of my dancing career from here on out. Not to mention I don't know if my body would ever allow it anyhow.
Then there's all those other random obsessions I've picked up here and there along the way. Like running. Currently after taking 9 months off, and gaining so much weight, I wonder if I'll ever be able to run like I used to either. Do I even want to do another marathon? I'm not so sure anymore. I guess I'd like to, but it's not the same.
Regardless, it doesn't really matter to me now. I feel like a changed person. I don't think I've ever in my life felt more excited about being a mom. And I've been doing it for over 10 years now. I had all these dreams of things I wanted to do and become for so long. Even after becoming a mom I still dreamed of doing those things someday. My mind would take me to the days when the kids were grown and I could...you name it. But now I am so in the moment --This moment. I'm loving it. I want to do this for the rest of my life. I know being the mother of young children couldn't last forever, but I've decided to relish this time. Maybe I made that decision a little too late. However, I'm not looking back - or rather, forward anymore. My kids are my mission in life. And I am so excited about it! This is what I want to be doing the very most. The fact that I've got 5 great kids who bring as much joy to me as they do, is just too good to be true. How did I get so lucky?

Face time

Celeste said to me the other day "Mom, I know what the hardest part of being a mom is. Not loving the youngest the most."
That's pretty telling of what's going on here isn't it? Don't worry, I gave her all the right answers and have tried harder to give those older kids as much love and affection as I can fit in.
So Celeste, Eden and Becca all are in gymnastics. The best part is their cute bodies in those leotards.
Celeste is in the front row on the right end. Eden is behind her. Becca is two over from Celeste displaying why she could never be a ballerina. She has absolutely no ability to turn her legs out.
Jonah started his Taekwondo career and ended it after only one class. It was a total joke and he hated it. I watched the class and thought it was stupid myself and didn't want to put him through that kind of torture again. (Much less myself.)

The owner/teacher seriously made those kids practice the same lame move the whole class. The simple move only deserved a 30 second practice. Super boring.

But Jonah is running each week with either Steve or I. On Saturday he ran 4 miles in 45 minutes. I thought that was pretty good!

Yesterday we went up the canyon with all the Utah Bishops. Steve worked :( But the kids and I had a great time roasting marshmallows and hanging out with the family.

Our camera gave up the ghost so these are cruddy cell phone pictures.

A couple of funny things said this weekend-

I wasn't in Sacrament Meeting Sunday but Steve said the Bishop got up and called Nursery teachers to form our 5th Ward Nursery Class. (So many kids!) Then he says, and I hope I'm getting this right, "It's ok. Keep having kids. We'll make more [nurseries]."

Also a conversation I had with Celeste.

She was holding Charity and admiring her. She says "She's so perfect."
Me: "I know just like you were"

Celeste: "Yeah, like I was."

Me: "Well, once we turn 8 we all start sinning."

Celeste: "8? You can't start sinning until you're 8?"

Me: "Nope."

Celeste: "But Becca is 6 and she knows when she's doing something wrong or not."

Me: "Yeah, but God doesn't count it as a sin until you're 8."

Celeste: Long pause, thinking. Then she finally says to herself in frustration, "All the things I could have done!"