SCORE!

So not only am I reading these days, I actually took charge of our little book club.  If you would have asked me 2 years ago to join your book club (let alone lead one) I most likely would have laughed in your face and then said no.  Yet here I am trucking a long and busting out a book a month.  I know that is still not a lot compared to how much other people read, but it is a pretty big deal for me.  And I love it!  I feel like I am learning so much and using this brain more than just at a toddler level.  I love feeling like I can contribute to real adult conversations.  Overall it just feels good! I thought I'd share our book list with you and a little review of the book.  (side note, most of these I read many months ago so the reviews are not going to go into much depth, sorry.)   So here they are: January: We met and decided together the books we would read for the year.  We try to get a variety, memories, histor...

I drove to Washington with 2 toddlers all by myself? It was about 740 miles from door to door. Do you know what else? My kids were ROCK STARS and did AMAZING! Seriously, I don't think we had even one "Are we there yet?". They are the best! We left bright at early, probably around 5 am.  The kids slept for the first 3 hours and I made some great time.  By the time we were about to Medford, OR they were ready to get out.  We went to a little park and then also stopped by the Temple.  They loved it and had run roaming the Grounds.  I did feel bad that we were at the temple and they were in their PJs, but we pretty much stayed in the parking lot, so I don't feel too bad. Medford, Organ Temple We hit some pretty ugly traffic in Portland, but finally made it to our destination just in time for dinner.  We went to WA because my best friend & college roommate lives there.  Jeff's family was having a reunion the following week...

When I was a kid, I had one cassette tape that I LOVED!! I listened to it ALL THE TIME! I still remember all of the songs on there and every now and then something will remind me of them. Well, for a few years now I have been trying to find them on CD because I listened to the tape so much it is ruined now. I really LOVED those songs and wanted to be able to share them with my kids too. Every once in a while I'll search online but find nothing! Well today I found this link http://mormontracks.com/ and it has almost all of the songs there to listen to! I have been listening all morning!  (please note, I wrote this first part MONTHS ago, like probably last year.) I did a search again the other day and discovered that Deseret Book sells a CD that has half of the songs.  I got super excited and showed Jeff and told him that this would make a great Christmas present.  He then asked me how much it was, I told him and then he said, "Just get it right now."  No...

Last weekend we headed out Livermore to hit up  G & M Farms  for their corn maze. I wish I would have copped this picture, because I don't think his smile could get any bigger. Seriously, if you have young kids, you should take them to a corn maze.  Running around in a maze with mud and dirt... my kids LOVED IT!  Especially P.  When we came to a fork in the road he would say, "Which way should we go?  This way!"  or "You go this way, I'll go that way. Ready GO!"  HE LOVED IT!  Em mostly loved picking up dirt chunks and throwing them, hence her extremely filthy face in these pictures. This particular maze was HUGE! And that it just the view in one direction.  We were probably in the maze about an hour.  It could have been shorter, but they were happy so I let them stay in as long as they wanted.  Em got tired so we carried her for a lot of it, but P literally rand the entire time.  To...

Here is another post that I started back in JUNE.  Not sure why I never posted it, but here it is. Father’s day talk This past conference   there were quite a few talks relating to the family and the rearing of children.  Today I have been asked to speak on one that was given by President Boyd K. Packer entitled “And a little Child Shall Lead Them.” While   studying at BYU   I had the opportunity to   major in Family Life.  Being raised in the church the topic of Families has always been dear to my heart but after taking dozens of classes based on the Family, my love for the subject grew tenfold. Brothers and Sisters, the family is the most basic and fundamental organization both in time and in the eternities.  Time has even proven this.  Just as it says in the Proclamation, “The disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancien...

So yesterday we went to Costco.  We do not need any more books in our home yet I still always find myself walking down that aisle.  They always have such awesome kids books and for a great price in my opinion. Anyway, I ended up picking up this bad boy.  The kids have a recent love for Winnie the Pooh and we don't have any of their books so I caved.  This one happens to be 15 stories in one book. This bad boy is big!  I figured we would read a story a night for the next couple of weeks. Well, we finished the book today.   Please note the page number below. Yes folks, that says 300.   Yes it does have pictures, but still... 300 pages people!   I only bought the book 24 hours ago!  They just kept wanting me to read more and more.   I was the one who wanted to take breaks.   I am so glad that the kids have such a love for reading.  I hope that it continues throughout their life. ...

A few of my other mom friends have told me it is never a good idea to pray for patience because Heavenly Father is always willing to give you opportunities to be patient if you do.  I personally had not experienced this until today.  I had 15 minutes this morning while the kids were still occupied so I decided I would read my scriptures like I had challenged my YW to.  I said a prayer before I got started and I asked for help applying what I was reading to my life and I through in a little line about being more patient as well.  I felt like my study went really well and was feeling really good and excited to start my day off on the right foot. When I came out I found my children on the floor smashing frosted mini-wheats into the carpet.  As in they dumped the ENTIRE bag on the floor and took P's tools and were hammering them into the floor.  How on earth do they come up with these things?  I felt like my prayer helped in the sense that I did not y...