Update, Update, who's got the Update?

So, here's a quick run-down of all that has happened since my last post.
September 2009: Ben loses his job. A BIG blow to the whole family.

October 2009: Ben looks for a job. Ben goes to the ER for a skin infection. Ben spends a week in and out of the ER. Ben has to have surgery on the skin infection. Ben recovers. No job. We enjoy Halloween with our good friend's the Hess' and the Vincents.

November 2009: Ben looks for a job. Ben has some dead-end interviews for companies that sell cutco knives door to door and such. No job. Ben gets ANOTHER skin infection. Ben goes to Dr. to have it treated since this time it's very small. Discover Ben has type 2 diabetes, which is most likely causing the infections because his blood suger is sky high. Ben gets outfitted for diabetes maintenance (monitor and medicine). Go to Thanksgiving at my parents' house. Do a LITTLE black friday shopping. Go do dinner at Ben's parents' house on Sunday. Mom comes up to my house to help with decorating and cleaning and such.

December 2009: Ben looks for a job. We start enjoying the magic of Christmas with lots of family field trips to go sledding, look at lights, have fun with friends, visit Santa, ect. Ben GETS a job!!!! Not what we were hoping for, but it's a job! Celbrate Christmas with Ben's parents who are going to Houston to visit Ben's brother for christmas. Ben starts training. Christmas break comes (BTW Audrey and I are enjoying homeschool a TON!!!! I love teaching her!). Celebrate Christmas (sorry, no pics....I'm not good at remembering to take it let alone take photos with it). Looking forward to spending New Year's Eve with good friend's of ours and spending the night at their house. Woohoo!!

Well, that has been our life in the last few months. It's been crazy, scary, depressing, and joyful. I think we've run the gammit of emotions these last few months. I pray that things continue looking up for our little family, especially as I'm very baby hungry and would like to have baby #4 in the next year or so! We'll see what God has in store for us. I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!!!

The Last Straw

So, I have invested in a treadmill. I stepped on the scale the other day and the number was so depressing to me that I knew I needed to do something! The issue was HOW?! 1) Trying to exercise with 3 kids in tow during the day is not effective to say the least. 2)I can't afford a gym membership. 3) I don't like the thought of going out to exercise early in the morning when it's dark, or late at night when it's dark because it's scary and there's always weather issues. So, I decided that having a treadmill would be ideal for my circumstances. I went on KSL to check out what was available and then posed the proposition to Ben. He thought it was a great idea so I went back on to SERIOUSLY look and a miracle happened. Just as I logged on the second time a brandnew post had been put up, like 10 minutes before. A couple was moving and coudln't take the treadmill with them so they were selling it extra cheap. So, for $60 I now have a Nordic Track Treadmill that works great and I've already worked out on twice. It's nice to know that I can exercise when I want to and not worry about the kids since they can just watch TV while I work out. I'm excited to lose weight and stop being the "fat" one. And special thanks to Nana and Pa for paying for the treadmill!!! What great parents in law I have!!!

Happy Campers and a Trip to the Lake

Here are some highlights from our most exciting adventures this summer.

Aspen campground
We went camping with Grandma and Grandpa Pratt to a campground in the lower Uintah's called Aspen. It was near Hanna, Utah. The kids had a blast. They found a giant hill of sand that they spent most of their time playing in. We took LOTS of walks around the camp ground to keep the kids happy. The kids had a blast playing with Grandpa. They played frisbee and catch. Trent especially loved the fact that he was OUTSIDE all the time!

Spring Hollow Campground
So our friends and us went camping on (what we HOPE to make) our Annual camping trip. We tried out a new campground up Logan Canyon because it was the only one with an open reservation over the 24th of July. We didn't know what to expect, but just hoped for the best. It ended up being GREAT!! Our camp site was PERFECT for our two families. It had plenty of places for our tents, it was near the bathroom and the water, and it had a raised fire pit. There were a couple of creeks running through the campground, one of which that flowed right over the road. The kids had a BLAST playing in the water there. Audrey asked to go play in the water about a million times every day. There were also multiple hiking trails that left right from the campground. There was fishing available too. While we were there we even saw a "parade"! Well...a parade of rescue vehicles. A hiker had fallen off a trail that was above our campground and a bunch of rescue vehicles "paraded" right past our camp site on their way to the scene. Trent was REALLY hard to keep track of on this trip because it was so woody around our site. We survived though. All the kids had a blast.

Pineview Reservoir
Yesterday we went to the beach. Well the beach of the lake. lol. We went with two of our family friends. My friend Jen brought her three kids, and my friend Megan came with her family. All the kids had so much fun playing in the water. We took picnic lunches and just chilled for a few hours. Audrey had so much fun playing around with her friends Jacob and Dakota and "riding" on Dakota's dad as he pretended to be a dolphin. Marissa put on some water wings that had been stashed in the bottom of our pool bag for AGES and was amazingly brave! She LOVED the water wings! Trent loved playing in the sand and sitting in the water. Unfortunately, I got sunburned, though I'm not sure HOW that happened, as I put sunscreen on before I left and we were only out for about 2-3 hours!! Go figure! Anyway, the time came for me and Jen to take the littles home for naps and Audrey got to stay and play a while longer with Dakota. She was THRILLED.

Well, there you have out 3 most exciting summer adventures. What's your family done?

Much Needed Update

Gosh, it's been forever! Things have been plugging along in our house this summer. We have gone camping twice. Both times were a lot of fun, although keeping track of Trent was VERY stressful. We were looking forward to the ward camp out only to find out it's been cancelled. What a gyp. There really hasn't been a lot of note going on. For the Fourth of July I (Shelly) rode on a pirate ship float with the Clearfield Community Band and played music from Pirates of the Carribean. We had a BBQ that day and played in a concert that evening. We built a giant fort/tree house in the back yard for the kids...now if only we could find sand to put in the bottom of it to make a huge sand box. I'm waiting for all my boxes of homeschool materials from the Virtual Academy that Audrey is enrolled in for Kindergarten. The kids play in the spinklers a lot. Ok, so this is a really boring post and I better stop while I'm ahead! Just thought I'd post and let people know I'm not dead, although I have sort of fallen off the blogging band wagon due to lack of intersting posts......lol. Oh well.....

Hike from.....

We decided to try out hiking today. It hadn't rained since morning and it was nice and pleasant outside, if a bit cloudy. So we packed up the kids and headed out to find our first hike. We looked in our hiking book and chose a nice easy hike that was a 1/2 mile loop and advertised that it was wheelchair accessible (thus stroller friendly). Um......lets just say that the heavens did NOT smile upon us and the book must be out of date. We found our hiking spot ok, no problem there. Check. We got the kids out of the car and Trent into the stroller. Check. We began our hike. Check. We saw three paths........ummmm....NO check. The "loop" was supposed to be the right and middle paths, with the left path going to a look out. We only saw one path as we started...no problem. We probably just had to get to the right spot. A bit further in we DID find 3 paths! Check! The right one leads in a loop back to the middle. We took the right path and had a great time. THEN it started raining....well not TOO bad. We'd already walked about 1/4 of a mile so the loop was going to loop back around pretty soon right? NO CHECK!!!! The path just kept going, and going, and going. The rain started coming harder, and faster, and faster. Finally, we faced the truth after walking about 1/2 mile.....the path was NOT going to loop back around to the middle path. We turned around and headed back the way we had come. By this time, we were all pretty much wet, the trail was muddy, and the rain started coming harder and faster. We FINALLY made it back to the car, sopping wet, but laughing. Audrey said it was a bad idea to go hiking at one point....but lets look a little closer here. Did we get out of the house? Check. Did we do something as a family? Check. Did anyone get hurt? Nope. Did everyone have a fun time? Check. Even hurrying down the trail in the down pour we were laughing and singing "The Ants Go Marching." So, I guess over all, our first disastrous hike was....well, a SUCCESS!!! We all came home, got warm baths, ate dinner, and watched a movie. Guess it was a pretty good day afterall.

Summer Time is Here!!!

Yay! It's summer time! Time for pools, and sprinkers, camping, hiking, and all manner of fun! Here's just a quick look at what our family has planned. I'm excited to go letterboxing more over the next few months. We're planning on going to visit some ghost towns in Utah. There are 3 camping trips planned, which I'm really excited about since we didn't go at all last year! We got some fun day trip ideas from a book called "Fun with the Family in Utah." We also plan on checking out some great hikes with the kids this summer. All this in addition to a few trips to the pool, plenty of hours spent in the sprinklers, lots of cook outs on the grill, stake co-ed softball, and the fun holidays! What does YOUR family have planned????

Finally "Flying" Solo

I am so proud of Audrey. She learned how to ride her bike without training wheels this week. She was VERY reluctant to take them off. The neighbors have a little 12 inch bike that has no training wheels and she was riding IT, but her knees were like up to her ears and she couldn't get much speed and she couldn't balance all that great with her knees so high. We told her it would be a lot easier to rider her OWN bike without training wheels because it was the right size. She really didn't want to, but we convinced her to give it 3 tries and if she didn't like it we'd put the training wheels back on. Ben also told her he'd buy her ice cream if she got scraped up. So, a pint of ice cream later she is riding her bike like a pro! I can't believe how big she is! Along the bike lines, we ended up buying Marissa a 12 inch bike because Trent would freak out every time Marissa rode her tricycle. He thinks it's HIS. Well, NOW it is. I hope everyone will be happy for at least a year now!! lol

Reconsidering Pet Ownership

GGRRRR!!!! I am SO ticked off with one of our cats. She has REALLY done it now. Let me backtrack for a minute though to give you the full idea. We have a cat, actually we have 3 cats at the moment, but one in a loaner. The particular cat I am talking about though is a 7 year old tabby cat. All was well in our life, with the cats, until Trent became mobile about 9 months ago. When Trent began to crawl he discovered KITTY LITTER! Nasty. He'd head for it all day long and I just got to the point where I couldn't keep pulling him away from it and distracting him any more so we gated the litter off so that Trent couldn't get to it anymore. Everything went well for a while.....then we went on vacation. When we came home from our vacation it was to find that our house REAKED of cat....and NOT in a good way. The cat had decided she didn't want to jump over the fence anymore and had decided that some clean laundry downstairs was a better litter box. She had pooped all over our clean clothes! We thought it was an isolated incidence, but she kept doing it! She'd find ANYTHING soft on the floor and poop on it!! Clothes, bags, dress-up dresses, towels, blankets, We couldn't leave them on the floor for fear of the cat pooping on them. It's been an ongoing problem, so we decided we needed to kick them outdoors, but I wanted to wait for it to get warm. Well, last night it was the last straw!!! We came home from Provo yesterday to find that the cat had pooped in some dirty laundry. I was mad, but we cleaned it up and put the cats outside. THEN, when I was going to bed I knelt down to say my prayers. I kept thinking it smelled bad, but that it was probably residual. Then I put out my hand, ON MY BED, mind you to push myself back to my feet and I put my hand on CAT POOP!!! I yelped and went to wash my hands, then to take care of the mess. I then found the cat and kicked her outside! She is NOT to come back in my house, because pooping on my bed is NOT ok!!!! I would seriously take her to the pound if I wouldn't feel guilty about putting her there, but seriously, if anyone knows someone who wants a cat let me know!! She's not a BAD cat, but she IS fat and lazy and won't use the litter box anymore because she has to jump the fence to get to it. GRRRRR!!! So there's my nasty story. YUCK.

New Calling

So, last sunday I was called to be the "building cleaning coordinator." I'm not sure how I feel about this calling. On the one hand, I'm relieved to be out of primary for once (I've served there for 10 of the last 12 years), but I miss the kids too. I hate calling people on the phone and asking people to do things, so I don't really look forward to THAT aspect of my new calling. However, it IS an easy calling to fulfill as long as I find people each week to clean the building. I wont have to clean the building all the time unless I forget to assign people to clean. So there you go. That is my illustrious new calling! lol. We'll see how it all works out.

Kindergarten

Well, the decision has been made and it is final. Audrey will be attending Utah Virtual Academy in the fall rather than a traditional school. Utah Virtual Academy (UTVA) is an online charter school. We came to the final decision after a lot of thought, study, and prayer. Homeschool is the way the Lord wants our family to go. UTVA is different than typical homeschooling though in that they provide the curriculum and the parent is a Coach rather than a teacher as all lessons are already in place and just need to be completed. They send you all the supplies you need to school your child from the comfort of your own home. UTVA also differs from typical homeschooling in that Audrey is assigned a certified teacher to keep tabs on her and make sure she is staying on track. They also have field trips and gatherings and encourage children to be involved in other social outlets. We are very excited for this chance and know that we'll have a lot of fun even though there will be good days and bad. Wish us luck!!

Just a little post

I haven't posted in a week or so, so just to fill you all in on the Stephen Family Insane Asylum.....

Ben has been working and doing scouts...the usual. We attended his uncle's viewing about a week ago. We'll be going to my uncle's viewing this weekend. It's been a few months full of death for our family...only one was unexpected however. The other two were blessed releases.

I (Shelly) have been debating about homeschool again. I am looking forward to General Conference to hopefully give me some answers to my questions. I've had a cold. The girls have been sick too. I don't like it. I feel like a bum. My house is dirty, I have no energy, and my stupid Benadryl gives me medicine head long after the medicine has worn off......at least I only take it at night and it DOES help me sleep.

Audrey is her usual self. She's a social butterfly, which is one reason I would love for her to go to public school, but only in the right crowd. She makes friends with everyone, which in general is a good trait, but this means she makes friends who do not have a good influence on her all the time. I don't need more swear words introduced to her and I certainly don't need any more "Chucky" experiences!!

Marissa just turned 3. We took her to build-a-bear for her birthday. She LOVED it. She picked out a pupppy and named her Princess. She is FINALLY starting to sleep through the night! We're up to about 50% right now and I'm THRILLED! We have decided that the girls just sleep together every night. It's working and Marissa is starting to use Audrey as a comfort when she wakes up, instead of mommy all the time. She's growing up so fast. I'm glad she's beginning to leave the tantrums and whining behind now.

Trent is a goober!!! He's into everything. He climbs on everything. He eats everything. He is starting to throw tantrums. He's just a goober. He's so funny too. He gets this little mischevious look on his face and it's hard to not laugh at him. If you say his name in a warning tone, sometimes he'll look at you and shake his finger because he knows you're going to tell him "NO." When you tell him no, he often cries like you've wounded his tender little feelings. He loves to be outside and freaks out if someone goes out without him. I can't wait for the weather to warm up so that he CAN go outside! It's just too mucky and mushy right now to let him out unless I want to change his clothes 3 times a day.

Well, there's a little update. Hope you are all doing well!!

Our New Hobby

So, our family decided to take up a new hobby with it getting close to summer. We wanted it to be something outdoors. In one of my parenting books I came across a blurb about "Letterboxing." There was a website link in the book to check out. It sounded so fun that I thought my family just HAD to try it.
Letterboxing 101- It's kind of like treasure hunting. You are following directions (you get them from the website) to find a Letterbox. A letterbox is a small container (like a rubbermaid food container) that has been hidden somewhere like a park, historical place, or occasionally a building. You follow the directions to locate the box. When you find the box you open in up and will find a log book and a rubber stamp inside it. You take your own stamp (that you bring with you along with your own log book, stamp pad, pen, and maybe a small momento to leave for the next quester) and stamp it in the logbook of the box. Then you sign in with your Trail Name (Our name is The Goober Dudes....don't ask..lol). You take the stamp in the box and stamp your own log book and record any info you want to about your quest for the letterbox, etc.
Anyway, our family did this for the first time this last Saturday and we're hooked! We met up with our friends at a park where there were two letterboxes hidden. We chose the PERFECT first letterboxes. The directions were so easy that the kids were excited about finding the letterboxes for their first times. When we found the first one, Audrey and her friend Jacob were so excited that they rolled the rock hiding the box down the hill and Jacob's dad Aaron had to chase it down. Pretty funny. After replacing the box we hunted for the second one. Again the kids were excited because the directions were very easy and very short. They had a ton of fun. I can't wait to try more letterboxes!!! After locating the letterboxes we let the kids play at the park and had a picnic before heading home for naps. Letterboxes are hidden EVERYWHERE. In almost all the states, in foreign countries, in fact I think I counted 30 letterboxes hidden in JUST Weber and Davis counties here in Utah. So Fun!!!

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Audrey, Marissa and the neighbor girl Rosa were all outside playing "Ring Around the Rosie" this afternoon. However, this is what their version sounded like:
Ring Around the Rosie
Hacking up the Posies
Ashes, Ashes, We all fall down.

I just laughed myself silly at it all. My first impression was of someone spitting out rose petals.

What Would YOU Do?

Have you ever read the children's story "Fanny's Dream"? If you haven't, let me summarize. Fanny is a young woman in Wyoming who decides that the story of Cinderella is true. She decides that she wants to go to the ball at the mayor's house and marry someone important. She prepares herself then goes out to wait for her fairy godmother. Needless to say her fairy godmother doesn't show up that night, but her admirerer, Heber Jensen, does. He asks her to marry him and help complete HIS dreams. After an hour of deliberating, she shakes Heber awake and says "yes." So Fanny marries Heber and starts her life with him. Years later Fanny goes out into the garden to get a watermelon, and who should appear but her fairy godmother! The fairy godmother tells her there is still time to make her dreams come true and that she'll fix everything. Fanny, however has realized that the life she HAS is the life she wants and tells the fairy godmother she'd rather not go to the ball. So, my question to you is this: If you had the chance to redo it all, would you? I ask you, as the fairy godmother asked Fanny: "Do you want to go to the ball, or not?"

Little Miss Riss

Marissa is going to be 3 this month. I can't believe it! She has grown up so fast and has especially matured in the last couple months. She is evolving from a toddler into a preschooler. Marissa is....well Marissa. She can drive me crazy and to the point of frustration and tears, then melt my heart with a snuggle and a kiss. Marissa loves to play with baby dolls. She takes very good care of them, and I often hear her repeating things I've said to her to them. Marissa is very stubborn and strong willed. I suppose I'll be grateful of that trait as she gets older, but right now it drives me batty. Marissa is an AWFUL sleeper, well ok, I need to preface that statement. She has never been a GREAT sleeper, but she used to sleep most of the night and then go back to sleep in her own bed without a fuss, that is until last summer. Last summer Marissa broke her arm. Two weeks after getting her cast off she fell down the stairs and had to get stiches in her forehead. A couple months after getting the stiches out she got an awful respiratory virus that had us giving her breathing treatments with a nebulizer every 4 hours. I guess I can't blame her for being a bad sleeper now, after all that. She IS getting better. I pray for the day that her sleeping through the night is the norm and not the exception. Marissa is a quirky little girl. I love her a ton. She has taught me so much about being a mother especially about patience, perseverance, and unconditional love. One day, I'm sure I'll look back on her toddlerhood and smile. I might even MISS those days. I love my Little Miss Riss!!

My Soap Box

I just have to rave about my three favorite parenting books currently. I am a parenting book junkie. I love to read them and see what they have to offer. Each of these books has helped me out a TON in the last few weeks!:

1. "The No-Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers and Preschoolers." This book and it's techniques have helped Marissa a TON!! We are finally moving in the right direction without tons of tears and crying that wakes up the other two kids. My Favorite technique/tips: Put your kids to bed earlier and have a very consisitent bed-time routine. Thanks to this tip our kids go to bed at 7:30pm every night and are asleep usually within 5-10 minutes.

2. "Love and Logic Magic for the Early Years." I love this series because it helps promote kids who think for themselves. It stops all the threats, multiple warnings, and wishy-washyness in my parenting. My Favorite technique/tips: Set the Limit once. After the limit has been set once, if it is broken again you simply apply a logical consequence. No more warnings and lectures. For example my kids have been instructed that they may not leave the table without permission at meal time. If they leave without being excused meal time is over. How sad. The "Uh-oh" song. When Marissa acts up and gets out of control I simply pick her up and sing "Uh-oh, looks like some roomtime" and deposit her in my room until she's calmed down and is ready to act sweet again. She's gettting to the point that if I just say "Uh-oh" she stops what she's doing immediately. Energy Drain. Marissa likes to spit a lot...it's her new bad habit. When she spits, or when any of the kids does something that an energy drain will fit, I have an "Energy Drain." All my energy goes away and I can't do anything for them anymore and they have to put my energy back by doing MY chores.

3. "On Becoming Childwise." This book, I felt, goes hand in hand with the "Love and Logic" theory for the most part. I loved the analogy about monkeys. In this book they liken responsibilities to monkeys. When you kids are born all their monkeys are on your back because they are helpless. As they age and mature your goal is to hand the monkeys over to your child and make THEM carry their own monkeys. My Favorite technique/tip: Reflective Sit Time. This is mainly for Audrey and it works great for her. Instead of getting mad at her when she does something naughty, she is sent to a chair to have some "Sit time." While there she has to think about WHAT she did, WHY it was bad, WHO it hurt, and HOW she's going to make it better. When she can successfully tell me the answer to those questions she is allowed to get up and make it better. It's nice to just tell her, "Audrey, I need you to sit here and think about what you did/how you're acting. I'll be back to talk to you in a few minutes," instead of lecturing her all the time about things she KNOWS are wrong. Structure your child's day (This tip is actually from the Childwise prequel Preschoolwise.) This series is really into putting structure and routine into your child's day. I have found that since I introduced a bit more structure to their days, they get into less trouble and are watching less TV voluntarily!! I plan 5 activities for the kids during the day. One of those activities is an "alone time" activity where they play by themselves with a specific toy, one of the activities is some one on one time with mom, and the rest are group activities and such. It's hard for me to have to think about what the kids are going to be doing each day, but it's worth it in the long run since I have to discipline less.

Well, that's my soap box. Hope you all lasted through it. Maybe my soap box even inspired some of you!!!

Valentine's Day

Is there something wrong with me? I just don't get all that worked up about Valentine's Day. Maybe my brain is all screwed up.....

Name that Object

Can you correctly identify THIS object? (It's really not hard, but we found it amusing. Let me tell you, it was a PAIN getting it OUT of the dishwasher!) Sometime during the wash cycle it must have catapulted down into the depths of the dishwasher and met with a hideous death on the heating element. We are not sure yet if it was murder or suicide. There will be an ongoing investigation.

Families

Ben and I went to a Temple sealing on Friday. It was a great experience. It helped remind me of my own sealing, especially since it was at the Manti Temple where we got married. While we were waiting for the ceremony a temple worker came by with a sister who was getting a kind of tour of the temple. He asked if we wanted to go hear about the spiral staircases while we were waiting. We joined the pair and while we were talking, the sister made the comment that as memebers of the church we have three families: Our immediate family, our extended family, and our ward family. I would just like to take a moment and express my gratitude for each of my families.

My Immediate family: I have the most wonderful husband. Ben is the BEST husband for ME. He never cares if the housework gets done. He doesn't mind if dinner isn't always on the table. He is always expressing his love for me. He is always willing to help out with housework or taking the kids off my hands for a while. My little rugrats are also a blessing to me. Audrey has been SUCH a big helper lately. She is getting to be so big. I told her she had to stop growing one day. She told me she couldn't. When I asked her why not she replied: "Because Heavenly Father said I have to grow!" Marissa is slowly leaving the tantrums and whining behind. It is so nice to have an occasional bad DAY or bad MOMENT instead of feeling like we had the rare GOOD day or moment. Trent is just full of personality. I love his little smiles, and his laughs. He is SO mischevious and climbs on EVERYTHING. I love that he's such a happy and easy going little guy.

My Extended Family: I have the BEST mom. My mom is always there for me and she always knows how to make me feel better. I love my mom so much and I'm so grateful that HEavenly Father gave me her. I'm very thankful for a sister who got me through a rough time yesterday and then called me this morning to check up on me and just talk for a few minutes. I am grateful for my friends the Vincents, Hesses, and Crandalls who are more like my family than friends. They each are so wonderful and help me out in so many ways!!

My Ward Family: Ben and I have been truly blessed to live in so many wonderful wards. Our current ward is so friendly and loving. It is so nice to be in a ward where most of the ward are families in our same position of life. We understand each other and make good friendships because of this. It gives the kids so many friends to play with that share the same values. I love our ward.

I am so grateful for my three families. I love them all in different ways.

A Glimpse of the Divine

Motherhood is a hard job, at least for me. The thought of raising kids to be honest, spiritual, compassionate, responsible, self-disciplined adults is very overwhelming. Motherhood is full of frustrations, whining, crying, fussing, laughter, smiles, fears, and many other emotions. However, once in a while, when you least expect it you can catch a glimpse of what the Lord means by calling motherhood a "divine" calling. As I held my baby boy, who is closer to a full on toddler than a baby now, at 3am last night I caught one of those glimpses of the divineness of motherhood. When my little boy, who rarely sits still, just wanted me to hold and snuggle him I felt such a surge of love for my calling as a mother. I was not excited to be up at 3am with a child that RARELY wakes during the night, but has done so multiple times in the last few nights. I picked him up and took him to the front room to just hold him. He fell asleep in my arms and I felt so special. I put him back to bed and when I climbed into bed, my little Rissa snuggled over to me in her sleep. Suddenly it didn't matter that Marissa had been in our bed since 10:30. It didn't matter that she ends up in our bed every night. As my beautiful little girl snuggled up I was happy for this moment in her childhood where she loves her mommy so much. Suddenly I felt so proud to be the mother of a baby boy who climbs on everything and makes a break for the bathroom at every opportunity. I was in awe of the little girl who loves her mommy and craves her company so much that she drives me up the wall day in and day out. And for just a moment, I thought of my 5 year old sleeping peacefully in her own bed. I wished, for just a brief moment, that my little girl, who is so happy and sure of her world, needed her mommy a little bit more.

Happy Birthday Trent!!!!

Flour Boy

Trent, a very active toddler that is into EVERYTHING + Flour in a cookie jar because the old jar broke = THIS

New Year's Resolutions

Taking a page from my friends book, she said that the more people who know about your resolutions, the more likely you are to keep them. So here, for all the world to see, is our family's resolutions for 2009.
1. Ben and Shelly will attend the Temple AT LEAST Quarterly.
2. The front room will be picked up every night before bed so that at least ONE room in the house is clean in the morning.
3. Audrey will learn to stop sucking her thumb during the day.
4. Marissa will learn how to fall asleep easily in her own bed and learn how to STAY in her own bed all night long (at least MOST of the time).
5. Trent will get his own room and move out of the girls' room. This will require a MASSIVE rearranging of the house, but needs to be done.

Now, it is the job of all that read this to REMIND me of my goals and make sure they get accomplished!! Don't you wish you hadn't read this post now?