up to something{6}

This little face is all too familiar around my house. There is never a dull or quiet moment when Charlie is awake. He is either entertaining everyone or fussing so much that we all want to stuff our ears with ear plugs. Until you are a mom, you can't experience the true roller coaster that comes with raising children. Charlie can drive me crazy one minute and the next pull at my heart strings. Through all of his fussing, he still seems to brighten up every day around here. He begins each day by insisting on handing out hugs and then demanding to be put in his chair for breakfast. Then he struts around like he really is the king of the castle. He swings his left arm as if it helps him to go forward....a funny little quirk! He knows what he wants to wear in the morning. Yesterday morning he just had to wear his swim suit and then fussed and fussed when I didn't put a swim diaper on him. I would have given in but those swim diapers don't hold very much. Heaven forbid we put anything other than his tennis shoes on his feet. Doesn't he know he is an Arizona kid and therefore must wear flip flops? There is nothing better than a Charlie smile, a Charlie hug and kiss, and when he rubs your arm when you are reading him his bedtime stories.

Eliza's Preschool Program

(Please excuse the little girl walking in front of the camera. This was the best picture that showed her true smile. So I'm using it!!)

I think Eliza smiled just like this during the entire "Preschool Graduation". Really... could she smile any bigger? It is so cute and she gets compliments on her smile all the time! The program was complete with songs, choreography to music, pledge of allegiance, poem recitations, and refreshments.

Eliza recited the "Manners" poem along with another little boy.

We say thank you.

We say please.

And excuse me when we sneeze.

That's the way we do what's right.

We have manners.

We're polite.

I hope that her teacher wasn't sending a message to Eliza and her parents by having her say this poem!! Oh my!! Maybe we need to start reciting this poem at the dinner table.
Now take a look at this picture. When she "poses" for a picture this is quite often what you get. A crooked smile!!! But it's still pretty cute! Eliza loves her preschool teacher, Mrs. Kerri. Really, she thinks Mrs. Kerri hung the moon. Heck, she probably did! She's amazing! Eliza had a wonderful preschool experience this year. It took me two weeks after the last day of preschool to convince her that it was summer time and she wasn't going to preschool. Everyday she would ask, "Is it a preschool day?". She is counting the days until she goes again in the fall.

eliza's 4th birthday

Eliza celebrated her birthday with five butterflies and five of her closest friends!! We played lots of games that all had to do with BUTTERFLIES!! Susan Eck, the queen of all children's games, came to the party with her daughter and helped me out! These are some of the things we did....

ELEFUN

WRAP THE KIDS IN THEIR COCOONS(TOWELS) AND THEN THEY COME OUT AND PRETEND TO BE BUTTERFLIES

CATERPILLAR, CATERPILLAR, BUTTERFLY(INSTEAD OF DUCK, DUCK, GOOSE)

PARACHUTE(PLASTIC LITTLE BUTTERFLIES WERE FLYING ALL OVER THE PLACE

BUTTERFLY HUNTERS(THEY HAD TO "CATCH" THE BUTTERFLIES THAT I SCATTERED ALL OVER THE BACKYARD)

In the weeks before Eliza's birthday, we watched five caterpillars go into their chrysalids and then turn into butterflies. So, although I did not plan it this way, it just happened to be a great theme for a birthday party and the kids loved the real butterflies. And, of course, you can't have a four year olds birthday in the desert heat without including "otter pops". The kids ate their otterpops and watched the butterflies in their habitat.
The birthday cake for Eliza and her friends were simple cupcakes with little butterflies on the top.


Eliza blew out candles three days in a row!! The first day with her friends. The second day in a stack of pancakes with her mom, dad, sisters, and brothers watching. And the third day she blew out candles on her birthday cake along with Uncle Brad. He celebrated his birthday only four days before Eliza. Happy Birthday Brad!!

To add a little bit more fun to opening presents, we love the tradition of hiding the presents. We hide the presents around the house. Then we play the "hot and cold" game to help the birthday girl find them. The kids think it's the greatest thing!! In this picture, Eliza is dashing over the treadmill to discover the present we hid under the blanket. The treadmill really does get used every once in a while!

We even taunted Brad by making him search for his birthday gift.

byu women's conference

My BYU Women's Conference experience started out a bit crazy. The weekend before the conference we went to Rocky Point. When we walked in the door from our trip, Brenna went straight to the toilet and threw up. She was home from school on Monday and back at school by Tuesday. I was keeping my fingers crossed that no one else would get sick. Tuesday afternoon Todd called me from work and said he felt terrible. He lasted as long as he could and was home by 4:00 and in bed. Oh no!! Now I was really starting to get worried. I was scheduled to leave for Utah Wednesday night to be there in time for the opening session Thursday morning. So, keeping my fingers crossed still, I packed my bags. No one else threw up and no one else was sick. So all of the arrangements had been made for all of the children and my friend Jennie took me to the airport Wednesday night. Lori took the kids until Todd could come up from work. Lori didn't know what she was in for. Todd called me while I was going through security at the airport and told me that Charlie had just thrown up while with the Stapley's. Oh my...are you kidding me! I can't just go through security and then not fly anywhere...yuck!! At least when you go through the whole security mess you have a vacation desination at the end of all of it. There was no way I could leave my little one sick. So I called another friend, Lisa, to come and pick me up from the airport. Todd felt bad that he even called me. He wanted me to go ahead and go knowing that he could handle it. I know he could have but it's a "mom thing".
The next morning we all got up and Charlie was fine. So I took the first flight out that I could at 8:30.
I arrived around lunch time and Gary picked me up and ran me over to BYU. We stopped along the way at Hogi Yogi for some lunch....yummy! It's always so fun to visit Utah/BYU and enjoy all of the good food that you miss.

My first class had a "service center" set up in the back. So I was able to help out with these little newborn hats. At first I was one of the cutting gals and then I moved up to one of the folding gals.
That night there were tons of humanitarian service projects going on in the Smith Fieldhouse. We helped out with the newborn kits and

then the school kits. I was the pencil gal...4 pencils in every bag!

(what a yucky picture of me...my excuse...I just went through airport security two times to get there)

This is my good friend Kristi from Nashville. It was so good to see her! I don't think she knows it but I totally worship her creativity, I admire her ability to make everyone feel included, I'm envious of the way she is able to be a totally fun and creative mom in any situation(Brenna still thinks she is the coolest mom on the planet!) Sometimes you have regrets in life and I think that's okay because it helps you to realize what you should have done better. One of my regrets in life is not being a better friend to Kristi when we lived 50 yards from each other.

One of the best parts of women's conference was hearing Julie Beck speak. She is so wonderful and inspiring! Here are some things that I learned from her talk:

1. If we are willing, the Lord will be able to use us for His purposes to further his work.
2. Don't complicate the gospel. It's about a simple testimony.
3. Our influence in the gospel and in the world is important. The Lord cannot do his work on the earth without both a man and a woman.
4. Moses 1:39 This is my work and my glory to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.
5. This is Heavenly Father's work. Then why should our work be any different?
6. Alma 48:7 Amalikiah was lying and decieving the people and Alma was preparing the people to be faithful to the Lord. Alma had the people build walls, trenches, small forts, and places of resort to protect them from the enemy. Are our houses a place of resort to be able to go there to defend ourselves and families?
7. If we are not living the code of conduct from the Strength of Youth pamplet then Satan will be able to have influence in our homes and on our children.
8. We are responsible to strengthen and fortify the schools that our children attend. Don't leave it up to others
9. With our teenagers, are we more worried about entertaining them rather than teaching them? Are we so worried about them being happy right now that we are not looking out for their eternal happiness?

I try daily to make my home a refuge from the world for my family. I want them to feel safe here and be able to feel the spirit in our home. I know that if I allow worldly influences to slowly creep in that it will diminish that spirit.

This is my mom and my sister, Susan, that I met in Provo for the conference. It was so fun to spend time with them!
This is Gary's adorable wife, Tara. She was only able to come to the conference for a couple of classes included the session that President Monson spoke at. After my first day of being at the conference and not getting a BYU brownie, Gary and Tara scoured the campus for one to give me. They found a full tray of them but the little place had just closed and the girl wouldn't sell it to them. How cute are they? I enjoyed my BYU brownie the next day. It was worth the wait! Okay, so it's not the best picture in the world but I didn't have my nice camera and my good lens to take it any closer. This is President Monson waving to the large crowd as he was leaving the building. It was so great to hear him speak! I have a strong testimony that he is a modern day prophet and that he is the Lord's mouthpiece on the earth today.
This was one of the highlights of the trip for me. I look like a total goof ball in this picture but I'm in the middle of joking with Sister Beck that she is a celebrity. It was fun to run into her at the airport. She was so kind and friendly as was her husband. They were heading out on a vacation with her parents to celebrate her dads 90th birthday.

krispy kreme

After closing months and months ago because of bankruptcy, Krispy Kreme reopened today out at Superstition under a new owner. So I took the kids out there before school and waited in the drive-thru line for 30 minutes to get a couple of dozen hot donuts{and chocolate covered sprinkled, of course}. And they were only a few minutes late for school.
Then I had to take some to Todd. For those of you who know my husband, you know this is a GREAT day for him!! I'm surprised he didn't camp out there last night to be the first one in line.
{By the way, there is only the one generic picture of donuts on this post because I forgot my camera this morning since we were trying to get out of the house so fast.}

activity days

We just had our Activity Days Recognition Activity! Our theme was temples and testimony or a "T-party". In preparation of this activity, we took the girls to the temple and then had them write down their testimony at the end. I took all of the pictures so that we could do something with them to give to them or their moms. When I got home and started looking at what I had, I decided that I wanted to do a little bit more than just put them in a frame. So I did this little fun project. I was so excited with how they turned out! I shot the picture in such a way that you could see the structure of the temple and have no doubt as to what it was. And I made sure their was plenty of room above the girl for all of the fun writing. I hope the girls will all hang them in their rooms and treasure them.

Here is how you make them:

1. In photoshop, add a "grunge" type border, their name, year, and temple in different fun fonts. I used different digital kits and fonts that I bought from http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/

2. I saved the photos to a disc and took it to staples to be printed the odd size that I needed.

(9 1/4 X 6 1/4)

3. Buy a board at Home Depot. I used one that was 9 1/4" across and then cut it 6 1/4".

4. Sand the boards.

5. Paint the edges and an inch around the edge of the front.

6. Using a spray adhesive, adher the photo to the board.

7. Using a spray top coat(matte finish), spray the finished product with several light coats.

8. Attach ribbon to the back with a staple gun. We asked the girls what ribbon color would match their bedroom but did not let them know what we were doing.

butterflies

The caterpillars crawled around in their little cup and ate all of the very yummy food at the bottom of the cup. Finally they made their way to the top of the cup,attached themselves and hung upside down in a "J" shape.
All of the caterpillars, except one, went into their chrysalide very quickly. The last butterfly kept trying to crawl to the top but kept getting kicked down by on of the other caterpillars already in his chrysalide. The girls and I watched him struggle and the girls were getting very upset(being silly) with the caterpillar. It's kind of funny to watch!
After(I think) about a week of being in their chrysalides, they started to appear as butterflies. The first one came out just after the big girls went to school on Monday. They were afraid they were going to miss it.
The butterflies like carnations with sugar water sprinkled on them.

We kept them for just over a week. Eliza took them to show and tell. She had a birthday party all about butterflies(so fun)!
Then after our Mother's Day dinner(with family visiting) we watched them fly away.