Fall Fun

Fall has to be one of our very favorite times of the year. Though, as each new season comes, I tend to think it is my favorite season. I am grateful to live in Utah, where we have such varied weather. I love the beautiful fall leaves, the snow falling in winter, the flowering trees in spring, and the warm-enough-to-swim-in sunny summer weather. Anyway, we had a lot of fun last October, so I thought I would share some fun fall pictures and memories for you. Here goes nothin!

I can't remember if my mom sent money for another swing in the summer or fall, but I did stumble upon these cute pictures of the boys on the swings. Alexander has started to love being spun while he swings. He could spin for hours! I am always amazed at his ability to spin, because I get dizzy so easily! Well, I have loved the swings, because the boys can have fun swinging while I do yard work, or hang clothes on the line to dry!

With fall, comes glorious piles of leaves! I was so excited to be able to rake the leaves when they came and so sure we didn't really have trees with leaves, that I volunteered to rake an elderly neighbor's leaves. It was fun, and I enjoyed putting the kids in the pile of leaves. A week later, we had more than we knew what to do with! Anyway, we got some fun pictures of us in a pile of leaves at our neighbor's house. You can even see our house in the background. They actually suggested it. In the pictures, you will notice Jacob is crying in one of them. That is a funny story! Scott saw the big pile of leaves and thought it would be fun to drop Jacob in the middle of the leaves. I don't think he realized he would sink to the bottom. The poor kid was so scared! It was funny though, and Scott felt so bad. Below are some fun pictures for you: 

Fall, also brings fun decor and cookie making! At least for our family. One day, I helped the kids make little ghosts to hang in the trees. We also got bats from the library for the boys, due to a fundraiser they were doing. And of course, we had to get some fun fall decor now that we have a house! We already had the wreath and window stickers, but we added the spider lights this year. And since my IC, I have learned how to make the yummiest sugar cookies! And the icing is fun because it is a glaze icing. So I paint on the base layer and let the kids paint on the rest. They love it!

Well, that about covers our first section of fall fun. I have lots of fun Halloween stuff to do, but it is getting late, so that will have to wait for another day. Hopefully, I will do this again next week! Tune in next time for "Rita's at Last!"

Mommy's Little Helper

As I was going through old pictures of October, I just had to take a moment to post about a few of the pictures I found. I stumbled upon some pictures of Alexander helping with the dishes. Aunt Debbie introduced me to how to let him help with dishes, while I am doing them. He has always been a helper, and I love it! When Aunt Debbie came, she moved the step stool over and let him "wash" dishes in a sink with water and soap. Well, he does it all the time now. But as I looked back at that picture, it just made me so grateful for my little boy. He really, truly, does love to help! If I pull out a broom, he wants to sweep. If Jacob drops his sippy cup, Xander pics it up for him. If he spills his milk, Xander will wipe it up with a napkin. I just think it is so sweet to see how much he loves to help. I just needed to take a moment and let you know how grateful I am for my little helper.

And, moments after I finished this post, I noticed a few pictures of Xander helping Daddy mow the lawn last year, and helping Mommy bake (which by the way, he helps me cook all the time) and "do laundry"! Anyway, here are a few more fun pictures for you:

So the bottom line is, I have a little helper and he's adorable! That's all. Tune in next time for "Fall Fun."

Enjoying General Conference

Of course, as it is February, I can't share with you some of my insightful thoughts on General Conference last October, but I am sure the talks were amazing, as they always are! That being said, I will take a few moments before I start this post, to share with you a moment of spiritual promptings I had a few weeks ago. It seems that the last few months have been filled with sickness. We have had to keep the kids home from church so much, because they were just too sick. Well, a couple of weeks ago, we kept Alexander and Jacob home from church because Alexander was super sick. When we took him to the doctor the next day, we discovered he had an ear infection, eye infection, cough, runny nose and a fever! Poor guy! It was a good thing he stayed home from church.

I know, now you are asking, "Why didn't you take Jacob?" Well, the truth of the matter is, because I am lazy. Scott stayed home with the boys because it would be tough to take Jacob when all he wants to do is run out of sacrament meeting instead of sitting in the pew, and then have to hold him for two hours as I try to lead the Primary kids in Singing Time. The poor boy loves Momma too much and wont let anyone else hold him. Anyway, you can see why I am talking about spiritual promptings I had two weeks ago, instead of yesterday. I love my sweet boys, but they can keep me busy; especially at church!

Anyway, I was sitting in Sacrament taking the bread and water and I felt like the Spirit was telling me that I need to spend more one on one time with the boys, and specifically give them more time to feel the Spirit in our home. Of course, we do Family Home Evening every week, where we share a spiritual message with the boys and try to do something fun together as a family. Some weeks these nights are more thought out than others, but we do try. We are awesome at Family Scripture study! Without fail, we read a small portion of scriptures with the boys right before bed time stories and songs. We have already made it through the Old Testament as a family, and are working through the New Testament right now. Being the Primary Music Leader has helped us to have more of the Spirit in our home, because I seem to always be playing primary music for the kids. I have all the church songs on my i-pod and play them sometimes while we are making dinner, or when I just need a break from crying, or while we drive to activities in the car. So, I did feel good about the things we are doing, but just felt we could do a little more. I felt like we needed to start teaching them personal scripture study. To give them a chance to look at picture books of Jesus and scripture stories, as we take time to read scriptures. I kept feeling in that quiet moment, as I took the sacrament, that I need to invite the Spirit to be in our home in the morning, so that I could be a more patient Mom, a mother who was in tune with the Spirit.

Well, the neat thing about that thought, was that the Spirit kept confirming it throughout the meeting. A missionary stood up to speak and I started thinking about my mission and how great it was. Then, I got this thought, "You need to treat your children like investigators and teach them the gospel every moment you get." That thought just hit home to me. The reason missions are so amazing is because you are surrounded by the Spirit every moment of the day. You pray a billion times a day and are constantly talking about the gospel. I realized I need to do things that will invite the Spirit into our home because if there is anyone I want to know the Savior, the way that I do, and to love him the way that I do, it is my children.

As the meeting continued, the last speaker got up and talked about motherhood and what it takes to be good parents. It was as if Heavenly Father had looked down from heaven in the hour I had free from my kids, and said, "This is your moment in time. I want you to know that I love you and am aware of the things that are important to you. Your children are important. You are important. Let's spend more time together, so they can feel my love too." It was perfect. And a few weeks later, I still think back on that moment in time.

Okay, so why am I sharing this with you? Well, I just felt it was good to take the time to write down my spiritual moment, and what better time, then when looking back at General Conference, which is a weekend full of talks given by church leaders, which often help us feel the spirit and gain desires to grow more. Anyway, I took some fun photos over those couple of days, of General Conference, so I thought it would be fun to post them. In the pictures, you will notice Xander shaving, while wearing his Daddy's old outfit. Xander is also coloring while watching General Conference, and cleaning off the wall as he learned his first lesson on where we are supposed to color. You will see Jacob playing in the ball pit too. And some pictures of Xander and Daddy together. Here they are:

Well, that about wraps up this post. Tune in next time for "Mommy's Little Helper."

Fun With Aunt Debbie

Life with two children, a husband and a house sure can be busy! I am still blogging about September and it is now February! Well, better late then never. I have officially made it a goal to blog at least once a week. Hopefully I will actually do it! In fact, a few weeks ago, Scott and I completely rearranged our basement and craft room. I decided that if we got a little more organized I might actually take time for me every once in awhile. Well, it worked. Yesterday I did some sewing for the first time in forever, and tonight I am blogging. Hopefully I can keep it up.

Well, onto September. In about the middle of September my Aunt Debbie came for a visit. Having her visit was like a breath of fresh air. It was wonderful. We had so much fun just watching the kids be kids, and spending time with each other. The nice thing about when Aunt Debbie visits is that I don't feel like I have to entertain her. She could be content just sitting in the back yard watching the kids run around. I guess Jacob wasn't at the running stage when she came, or even the walking stage. Though he was crawling. While Aunt Debbie was here, she brought a little swimming pool for the boys. They absolutely loved it. And luckily, it was still warm enough for them to get to use it several times before having to pack it away.

We also worked on some gardening while she was here. That was probably my favorite part about her visit. I have no clue where to really start as far as gardening, and as I have mentioned in other posts, our yard needed quite a bit of work on it. Well, she helped me get a few plants, and even a fun planter for the deck. I wish now, that I had taken some pictures of the stuff we did, but the only picture I could find was of Alexander trying to save our dying grass! Hopefully what we did worked out and we will be able to post some pictures in the spring as all the plants start to come up. I planted a ton of bulbs, and a few other small bushes and such to liven up our "garden" that used to only contain grass. I am getting excited as it is nearing spring for her to come back and help me even more. This year, I hope to start a vegetable garden as well as add a few more plants and flowers to the regular garden. It should be fun!

Oh! Another thing Aunt Debbie and I did together was sew. She bought me materials to make my very own cloth diaper for Jacob. It actually turned out pretty good too. I have been wanting to become a sewer but it has intimidated me. Well, she sat here night after night, helping instruct me and troubleshoot when the machine was being difficult. Now I can say, thanks to Aunt Debbie, I have the confidence to sit down and sew. Now if only I could find the time.

Well, that about wraps up what I can remember of Aunt Debbie's trip. Tune in next time for Enjoying General Conference!

A Visit From Grandma

Well, like I said in my last post, my mom came to visit us the first week in September. It was so great to have her here. The last time I had seen her was when Jacob was born (around Christmas last year). So it was fun to have her see how much the boys had changed since then, and just have time to visit with her.

If my mom took one of those Love Languages test her love language would be giving gifts. She sure does love to spoil us! She arrived with a whole bunch of cash and ideas on how to spend it. She bought Jacob a new car seat (he has just about outgrown his infant car seat), some clothes for the boys, and even some clothes for me. We were spoiled! It was fun to go shopping with her. We actually even scored a free video monitor for Alexander's room, when she bought the car seat for us. Anyway, she spoiled us tons.

The first day she was here, we decided to go to Lagoon! We had wanted to go to Lagoon for Alexander's birthday, but we couldn't get discounted tickets on the weekend of his birthday. Since my mom was coming for a visit a few weeks later, we just decided to wait until she came. For those of you who don't know, Lagoon is like a theme park that we have here in Utah. It has lots of roller coasters and carnival rides, as well as a few fun kiddie rides too. I thought my mom would totally dig Lagoon, but I think most of the rides scared her. I had forgotten that she has a fear of heights. She even got super scared riding on the ski lift. She mostly just helped watch Jacob for us when we went on scarier rides. Scott did manage to get her to ride on a kiddie ride with him and she loved it! It was fun spending the day at Lagoon though. Alexander seemed to have a blast! He had a ton of fun on all the car/boat/helicopter like kiddie rides. It sure was a fun extension of his birthday. Below are some fun pictures from our time at Lagoon:

Let's see, what else did we do while my mom was here? Oh yeah! We scrap booked! My mom has been talking about making a scrapbook for my brother for a few years now. She always seemed overwhelmed by the idea. So near the end of her trip, we spent two nights scrap booking. It was exhausting and fun all at the same time. We created a scrap book with 32 pages in only two nights. It turned out really cute and he really liked it too!

Well, I think that about wraps up the visit with my mom. Just a few weeks after my mom visited, my Aunt Debbie came to visit. So the next post will be about that. Tune in next time with "Fun with Aunt Debbie!"

Family Vacation

Well, here I am again three months behind in blogging. I guess I should just start accepting this as the norm. I have decided from here on out to switch things up. I usually do at least one blog post a month, wrapping up the month. Well, I think that with two rambunctious boys running around, that is a lot to blog about at one time. I have been wanting to blog for so long now, it has just been hard to find the time to blog about an entire month. So, for my sanity, I will just break up what you missed out on these last few months, into small posts. So, we last left off in August. Wow! It is December now. Time sure does fly when you are having fun. Well, the last weekend in August was Labor Day weekend. I totally spaced mentioning our fun family vacation.Well, here goes nothing!

First off, I have to say that we are super blessed. Scott's parents, Russ and Diane, and grandparents, Jim and Janine, both have timeshares in a company called Worldmark. I don't claim to fully understand it, but basically they can stay pretty much anywhere in the United States in condo/hotel like rooms. They get a certain amount of points and need to use them or they lose them. Anyway, it was either his parents or grandparents who gave us points so we could go on a family vacation together. Since Alexander had just turned two and Jacob wasn't even one, we decided to go on vacation somewhere close. We chose to stay at the Wolf Creek location which is located in a small town called Eden. It was basically up north a little in a ski resort type of area.

If I remember correctly, we drove up Friday night, and back Sunday morning. We didn't even realize it was Labor Day weekend when booking, and my mom was flying in to visit us on that Sunday. So we just had a short little trip. It was super fun though. The condo was pretty spacious. We had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, dining area and living room. It was perfect for our little family. The resort really was nice too. They had tennis courts, a regular swimming pool, a kiddie pool, a hot-tub, and even an athletic center. The only downside to the resort was one sign I found right outside our door. It was a caution sign, with a picture of a rattlesnake. Luckily, we never saw any rattlesnakes. Overall, it was a nice get-a-way. The first night, we mainly just checked in, went to dinner, and put the boys down to sleep.

Saturday was our fun day. We found out that there was a Dinosaur Park not too far from us. So Saturday morning, we loaded the boys up and went to check it out. It was awesome! There was a little museum with rocks, and some dinosaur bones and such, but the best part was outside! There were huge statues of all kinds of dinosaurs. You would just walk through the trails and look at the dinosaurs. Some of them even made noises. It was pretty cool. Alexander did get a little scared from time to time, especially around the noisy dinosaurs, but he seemed to have a good time overall. Alexander's favorite part of the Dinosaur Park was the playground (surprise! surprise!). He loved playing in the sand pit and climbing on some of the statues. For awhile we tried to get him to go on this slide that was shaped like a Pteranodon, but it totally freaked him out. Finally we got him to go on it, and he didn't want to leave. It was so cute! Below, are more pictures of our fun at the park:

Well, we did eventually leave the park, and then we headed to KFC for lunch. We enjoyed our lunch and Alexander thought it would be fun to wear the bucket of chicken on his head. It was just so adorable. He loved it so much, that he kept wearing it even in the car. Silly boy!

After lunch, the boys napped a little, and then we went swimming. It was fun to all go swimming as a family. I had taken the boys swimming several times at the public pool near us, but we haven't gone swimming much as a family. Anyway, it was a blast. Alexander was a little scared of the big pool, and mainly wanted to stay in the kiddie pool, but we were able to go in the big pool a few times. Below are a few pictures of us swimming:

Well, like I said, it was a short trip. Sunday morning, we packed up the bags and headed back home. As we left, I couldn't help but take a picture of a closet in our room. Some of you may remember that Alexander has a fear of ducks (which I think he is getting over). Well, on our first night at the condo, Alexander noticed a rooster statue that looked too much like a duck for him. He was so scared he was clinging to me and crying. He also seemed really disturbed by a little toy we got in a happy meal as we went through drive through. Anyway, we had to use a closet to help keep the scary things out of sight for Alexander.

As we drove home, we felt so grateful that we could have a fun trip with our little family. I looked back in the car to notice Jacob sleeping "like a baby." I guess our vacation wore him out. We kept on going, and then headed to church. After church, we picked up my mom from the airport. Then she visited with us for a week, but that is another story! Tune in next time for "A Visit From Grandma."