Happy Mother's Day

Why I love being the mom:

Getting hand made gifts with notes on the bag Finding notes like this And mostly because of THEM

Happy Mother's Day especially to my mom and to all the fabulous women in my life who are mom's that are such great examples to me.

This is for all the mom's out there. You may have already seen this one. If not, enjoy. For me it never gets old. Love this woman.
Happy Day!

Look Mom - No Training Wheels!

Last summer we tried to talk the girls into learning to ride their bikes without training wheels, but they refused. When the weather started getting warm and they wanted to ride their bikes, one look at their training wheels and we knew, we either had to get them new ones until they decided to try without or convince them to learn to ride without them. There was no convincing them - so I went and got them new wheels. That was 2 weeks ago, and what did they decide to do yesterday - learn to ride without them! Jeff and I laughed - of course once we got them new wheels they would decide to get rid of them!

Thanks to my friend Staci who lives across the street - she helped both Emilie and Ada. Emilie went first and she started out on their friend Bret's smaller bike. Emilie had it in about 5 minutes. So I took off the training wheels on her bike and off she went. Then it was Ada's turn. She did great - it took a little longer for her to pick it up - but she did it nonetheless and she is on her own bike now too.

I loved to see the huge smiles on their faces and how proud they were of their new accomplishment! So worth the wait. I have definitely learned that they will do things on their own time and when THEY are ready - not when I am ready for them to do it. Way to go girls! Mom and Dad are so proud of you!

Emilie

Emilie wanted to make sure I got a shot of her in full view without the training wheels

Ada

Ada on her bike

Sarah the spectator - she is very proud of her sisters too!

The girls were very excited to call the grandparents and tell them their news. They were very chatty with them and they even talked to my dad and to Richard (which they will never do!)

Got Milk? and a few other things....

This morning I came downstairs for my morning ritual of cereal for breakfast. But before I did that, I was going to get Emi and Ada some milk to drink. As I went to get them milk, I realized all that was left of the milk was about 1/4 a cup and chocolate milk. Now I know this isn't really a big deal, but the kicker is that I was at the grocery store yesterday to pick up a few things and thought, "Should I get milk?" But I decided to wait because I KNEW I had a gallon at home and I wanted to see if it would go on sale this week (the add comes out on Wednesdays now). Um, no milk in the fridge. So Emi and Ada got straight chocolate milk to drink (I usually mix it with 1/2 white when they have chocolate milk). I debated on chocolate milk on my cereal. Maybe if I were having Cookie Crisp, but with Honey Bunches of Oats it didn't sound too appetizing. Yeah for Target where I had to go today anyway!

This is my refrigerator door with no white milk

This is my refrigerator shelf with no back up milk, but I was really thinking that Lindt MILK chocolate truffles for breakfast was a good option!

A few other things:

This is the fuse that blew that belongs in my dryer. So the last 3 loads of laundry I did were air dried. Jeff pulled the dryer apart last night and found the problem. I went and got the part today - $14. Yeah for my husband who can fix the dryer so I didn't have to call the repair man and pay him way too much to fix it!

And This?

This is just one of the nasal strips I bought my husband (sorry Jeff if I embarassed you!) who snores more than usual lately. It has been very difficult to get to sleep and stay asleep - especially between me kicking him and trying to move him into a non-snoring position. No sleep = me unhappy! And when mama ain't happy - ain't nobody happy! I was skeptical, but last night was our first try - now I'm a believer - it worked. Yeah for no snoring and good sleep!

And last, but definitely not least:

This is a note I found in the pile of stuff brought home from school yesterday. Yes Ada, I do love you. Yeah for love notes. I am one lucky mama!

We've all had moments like this.......

Haven't we all felt like this at one time or another? And I'm not talk'n about the cold!

If I only had the guts............

The Raingutter Regatta

I know what some of you are saying to yourselves - "They don't have a boy in scouts". True. But I do have a husband in the bishopric who is over the scouts, so we were invited to join in the Raingutter Regatta Wednesday night. All the way to the church Emi and Ada repeatedly said how they we not going to participate (shocking) and that they just wanted to watch. Oh I wish I had brought my camera! Unfortunately I missed all the fun because I had to attend Activity Days, but from what I hear Emi and Ada saw the fun and decided to join in. They gave it a few good runs and even won a race! So much for NOT participating. And as for the decorating - HELLO! What else did you expect from us?

FYI - It was the girls idea. So glad to know they are being taught the right way. ;-)

The Spring Break that needed fixing

I was grateful to have a week off from the normal routine (whatever that is) and try to do some fun things with the kids. I had a few things planned, but wasn't quite sure how to fill up more time, not spend a ton of money and not fall into the watching TV all day slump. WHY? Because I knew the weather wasn't going to exactly cooperate, spring has been elusive in these parts up to this point, so outdoor activities were pretty much not an option.

Let me just say that Emilie and Ada have the ultimate love/dislike (I don't like to use the word hate when it comes to people) relationship. I know most siblings have this relationship, but I think it is different because they are twins. Last week (the whole week) was Spring Break for us and their relationship during the week seemed to favor the dislike side all week.

Now, may I give a bit of an explaination of my two oldest children. They are homebodies. Really no other way to say it. They have been clingy to me most of their life. They don't like change, they don't like new situations, they don't like the unknown. Now I know that these things can be normal for most kids. But, on a scale from 1-10 and 5 being normal - my kids are a 9 and sometimes a 10. And quite frankly I struggle with it - a lot. There is no worry at the moment for overscheduling kids at our house. If any thing we are underscheduled. They refuse to participate in any extracurriclar (sp?) activities unless I am participating with them. Even then it can be a very frustrating experience because they are extremely clingy and shy, and there are usually tears involved. I have suggested swimming lessons, gymnastics class, art class, sports class, dance class etc, etc. All to get an answer of "NO! Not unless you stay with us." Let me just say I am grateful that they go to school and love it! But, that being said - our current battle is getting them to the dentist. They have to go to the dentist by May 15th or no first grade. Every time I bring up going to the dentist and explain to them that they can't go to first grade unless they go, I get tears and screaming "I don't want to go to the dentist. Why can't we stay home with you next year." Yah - not a option.

Without turning this into too much of a vent session (probably too late), by the weekend I was truly at the end of my rope with frustration. Without going into all the details (it would take way too long!) let me sum up the week by saying between the twins there was way too much TV (we are entering TVAA - TVaholics anonymous) lots of fighting, whining, complaining, crying. And lots of yelling, yes by yours truly. I felt so defeated, like I was a horrible mother, that I could do nothing right. If I may use the same comparison as a friend of mine (hope you don't mind Chelle) I am the captain of this ship and we were way off course! But after a good weekend of reality checks (thanks to Genereal Conference) an attitude adjustment (by me and we're working on the kids) and a new week, we are going to get this ship back on course.

You just never know

You NEVER know what kind of influence you will have on someone.

On Sunday the missionaries brought an investigator with them to church. She had a roommate that had moved out of state and recently joined the church. So she decided to investigate and had the Elders come over to teach her. It was Fast and Testimony meeting in our ward on Sunday, and a member of our ward got up and bore his testimony and mentioned another member of our ward in his testimony. The investigator turned to the missionaries and said "I knew someone by that name years ago. He was our neighbor and when my dad passed away he came over an helped us with a number of things." After the meeting she was introduced to the man that was mentioned and sure enough, it was her neighbor from so many years ago. She is now scheduled to be baptised next month.

This link is to a story of another member of our ward who was baptised last year, 54 years after he was given a Book of Mormon from a member he was serving with in the Korean War.

http://deseretnews.com/cgi-bin/cqcgi/@cnews.env?CQ_SESSION_KEY=DRUFKOBDREJC&CQ_CUR_DOCUMENT=1&CQ_TEXT_MAIN=YES

I so love to hear these kinds of stories. It give me hope that maybe, just maybe I may be able to have or have had an influence on someone for good. We all can be an influence, for good or bad. It's up to us. You may never know what kind influence you may have, other times you might - it just may take a while to find out. It's so true that by small and simple things, great things shall come to pass.