Ward Easter Egg Hunt

I think I've mentioned before on the blog how active our ward is when it comes to ward activities and holidays. They definitely take it to the next level. It's definitely my favorite thing about the ward. The day before Easter, we went to the ward Easter Egg hunt. They did a pancake breakfast and a craft. All the kids could make their own custom bag to use in the egg hunt. Once again, I was really not in the celebrating mood. My dad and Curt took the girls to do the craft. Then we did the hunt. There was a long line of young kids to get out of the door and Ella was a little ahead of us with my mom. As soon as she got out the door she was so excited and ran to the eggs and instantly got to work on gathering her 12 eggs. Seriously...this girl has the best reactions. We love it! I wish I was out the door before her to see them and take pictures.

Isabelle and Emery loved it too. Emery loved to crack the eggs open and just take the candy instead of actually picking up the egg. It took her a few tries to get the hang of things and just realize it's about the eggs and candy later.

Overall, it was lots of fun for the girls and we were glad to take them.

29 at 29!

Another year has come and gone and it's time to put together another list of goals. I have to admit...I'm very excited for a fresh start. Twenty eight was not good to me. I'm still recovering. But I'm excited to put 28 behind me and start on 29! It's only been a few days, but 29 is already liking me much better!!

1. Buy a house. You may be asking, "Wasn't this the first thing on your 28 at 28 list that you checked off?" Why yes it was. We are going for house number two this time. 

2. Refinish my dining room table. 

3. Do not make a trip to the ER! I went five times during my 28th year. I don't want to go back at all this year!! 

4. Live healthier. I have several goals within this one for me and us, but they can all be summed up by those two words. 

5. Make lots and lots of quiet book pages. 

6. Make lots of Americana decorations. I have at least four or five things on this list.

7. Decorate our house. With our first house I feel like we only barely started the decorating phase cause the fixing up stage took up pretty much our full year here.

8. Make silhouettes for Curt and I and possibly redo the girls' silhouettes. 

9. Continue with the idea of Santas workshop and get started by October. Almost all of the gifts the girls received from Santa last year were homemade gifts and I really enjoyed it. I did not enjoy the stress though. I definitely need to start earlier this year.

10. Plant a garden. Or encourage Curt to plant a garden. :) 

11. Keep the blog up to date.

12. Blog all about our house fixing up adventures. 

13. Buy Curt a new car. 

14. Potty train Ella and Emery.

15. Refinish a hutch. 

16. Completely declutter our home and keep it that way! We'll need to buy a new shredder to do this.

17. Develop a budget and live by it. 

18. Learn more sewing techniques and sew something. 

19. Buy the girls bikes. I would like to get all five of us bikes, but that's a lot. 

20. Expand our essential oils collection. 

21. Do a project with each of my girls at least every other week. 

22. Hang a picture of Christ in our home. 

23. Make long curtains for our new home. Especially our bed room. 

24. Do seasonal bucket lists and complete them.

25. Have Family Home Evening every week, family prayer and scripture study every night. We have a decent foundation in this...it isn't like we are starting from scratch. However, we need to be even more diligent. 

26. Become an active member of our new ward. (Please let it be a good ward!!) 

27. Strengthen my own testimony. As an individual, not as a mom, wife or family. Those are important and part of me...but I'm currently referring to me as in individual. (Temple attendance, scripture and General Conference talks study, getting more out of church, preparing for lessons, calling fulfillment, etc etc...)

28. Take more couple and family pictures. Be in pictures more altogether.
29. Be a better mom. Across the board...

I actually feel like this was an easy list to put together and I could have kept going too. Hopefully that means I'll finish evening than I did last year. Here's to a good 29th year. Please, oh please, be better to me than 28!! 

Isabelle's 4th Birthday!

Isabelle turned four at the end of March. We didn't have any special birthday plans for the day. I have to admit, her birthday fell at a really bad time for me. I had been in the hospital three days previous and I was really not in the mood or health to celebrate. Her birthday fell on a Tuesday and she has dance class on that day so we had to do that. After dance class I took her to an instrument store to buy her a foam violin. She has been obsessed with violins for quite some time. I can't even put my finger on why, either, but she loves them. She was so surprised and excited. Of course once she spotted the real violins on display, she really wanted one of those instead. Sorry, kid. She loves her violin, plays it often and is so adorable when she does.

After we got home from that in the early afternoon, I was done. I didn't have any more plans. Curt had school on Tuesdays so he wasn't even going to see the girls at all. I didn't have any other presents. While I did want to do a cake, I didn't want to make it. I was just not in the mind set to celebrate. At.all. However, my mom called and Heather called and said they would take care of it. (Which I was and am so grateful for!!!) My mom came over to bring her presents, Heather and her family came over with a present and to hang out. Curt surprised us by skipping his evening classes and even brought a present. He also made a cake once he got here. In the end, Isabelle had a impromptu birthday party that she loved. I was so grateful to all of them for showing up and taking care of her when I couldn't.

This girl seriously loves cards! She hangs on to them for months and looks at them a lot! If you ever want to win Isabelle over, just get her a princess card. Especially one that sings or is interactive in some way.

She seriously loved everything she received. From Grammie (and Papa, who volunteers at the Temple on Tuesday evenings and why he wasn't there), Isabelle received roller skates, a card, Sofia the First figurines and a Sofia shirt. Heather gave her a Merida Barbie in a purple dress. (She's been asking for a purple Merida since before Christmas.) Curt gave her a Belle card and a Snow White Lego set. Thank you everyone!

P.S. Isabelle is very into picking out her own clothes and is very picky...hence the outfit. She thinks they match since they are both purple. :)
P.P.S. Please excuse the mess. We were in major construction mode at this point. 

Summer Bucket List

As far as I'm concerned, Memorial Day weekend kicks off Summer. This year I wanted to put together a list of things that I wanted to accomplish with the girls.

1. Go to a splash pad. (6/26)
2. Clean the garage. (6/8 and 6/22)
3. Take the girls to the beach. (7/6)
4. Go to the Aquarium. (7/1)
5. Have a BBQ picnic. (Done 5/27)
6. Eat ice cream cones. (7/27)
7. Ride bikes. (7/1)
8. Feed ducks. (Done 5/27)
9. Blow bubbles. (Done 6/12)
10. Play hopscotch.
11. Draw with side walk chalk.
12. Play with water balloons. (Done 5/27)
13. Spend time in a pool. (7/4)
14. Fly kites.
15. Go to the library.
16. Go to the Museum. (6/17 and 7/5)
17. Eat sno-cones.
18. Find a parade. (7/20)
19. Take the girls to see fireworks. (7/4)
20. Go to a Lowe's Build and Grow Workshop. (8/10)

What A Mess!

Leave it to Ella...

This child is seriously the most curious mess maker ever. This was the biggest pain to clean up!! She seriously could have played here all day. And she did for quite a while because Curt and I were remodeling our Master bathroom while she did this in our closet. We chose to pick our battles on this one since we were desperate to keep the kids out of the bathroom and away from the paint and drying tile.

FHE: Family Bowling Night

Back in February, we had a Family Home Out Evening with my family. We had bought Groupon bowling passes to our local bowling alley. They were about to expire, so we decided to finally go and turn it into FHE. We had such a fun time!! The girls loved it, the adults had a great time and it was something out of the ordinary. Overall, it was a super fun night!

Most of the time the girls would hit the ball and be done. They didn't ever look to see the pins fall down. Eventually we taught Isabelle and Ella and Emery watched once or twice, but really they just wanted to push the ball and do it again as soon as possible. 

The kids started getting crazy so we tried to keep them sitting on the step so that they didn't accidentally get hurt or in trouble. They did okay, but they were ready to be done.

See...Emery just started to spin circles on the slippery floor. Time to go. :)

Clementines

All three of my kids fell in love with clementines earlier this year. If they see an orange, grapefruit or a clementine they immediately start asking for a '"renge." Their favorite part is definitely the peeling of it. All three of them do it all by themselves. Usually they like to stand right by the garbage to do it, but I talked them out of it for these pictures. Most of the time they actually don't eat all or even most of the clementine, they just love to peel them. They have to do it themselves too.

Valentine's Day

I can hardly even remember back this far. Back blogging sucks...

For Valentine's Day, we didn't do much at all. In fact the only thing we did is make some yummy sugar cookies and let the girls frost them and add sprinkles to them before eating. They loved it.

 Ella, doing what Ella does best: Making messes. :)

Yep, they loved it. Plus they got a rare treat before bedtime. Yummy cookies made from Great-grandma's personal recipe. Best sugar cookies ever!

Happy Valentine's Day....three months too late.

Four Years and an Interview

Isabelle recently turned 4, and right around her birthday I did a little interview with her...

What is your favorite color? Purple
Who is your favorite princess? Aurora
Who is your best friend? Sadie
What is your favorite toy? Princesses
What is your favorite food? Cereal
Who is your favorite Super Hero? Firestar
What's your favorite drink? Peach juice
What is your favorite show? Merida (Brave)
What's your favorite fruit? Strawberries and grapes
What's your favorite animal? Horse
What's your favorite song? Ah, ah, ah... (She sang the tune Ariel sings while she's losing her voice.)
What's your favorite scripture story? Nephi and the boat.
What's your favorite book? Princess one!
What's your favorite thing to do outside? Play in the pool
What do you like to sleep with? Ariel! My unicorn pillow.
What are you good at? Church (Me: NOT!), lessons and coloring.
What does Daddy say to you a lot? "I love you."
What does Mommy say to you a lot? "I don't know." (Yeah....that's cause you never listen to me!!)

28 at 28 Final Tally

1. Buy a house.
Check! Now, we're trying to sell it. Kind of a bummer. But we're hopefully moving on to bigger and better things! If nothing else, this house taught us a ton and now we will be able to afford a bigger one.
2. Attend the temple every other month. I should be more proactive and say every month,  but I am trying to be realistic.
Epic Fail...
3. Potty train all three of my girls. Yes, you heard that right. Well, I'm going to attempt it anyways.
Well, I did one. I attempted to do the babies too about four weeks ago. I gave up after 20 minutes. 
4. Take bi monthly family and couple pictures. 
I did take some, but not six. I can think of one family picture and three (ish) couple pictures? 
5. Listen to all the General Conference talks, one at a time before he next session of conference.
I did well with this in the Fall. This Spring...not so much. At all. I still have several months though to make it through.
6. Stay up to date with the blog. Sigh...I'm not doing so well with this lately.
Fail. Ugh...
7. Try and make yelling at my kids something I don't do.
Fail... Just ask them.
8. Have Family Home Evening once a week.
We were doing so so so good with this until Curt moved away. When we are out of this hellish limbo, I'm determined will be good again.
9. Start working out. Blah...
:(
10. Sell some of our stuff. Old dining room table, old double stroller, practically unused cloth diapers I didn't like...
I still need to do this. I did attempt somethings though. I still have more to do.
11. Make the girls their pillow mattresses that I already have everything bought for.
Check! They are done. That was their Christmas present from us. 
12. Organize my pinterest pins. They drive me crazy...
Mostly check. Not perfect, but much much better.
13. Get a Christmas tree. Curt really wants one.
Check! It was so fun to have one too!!
14. Organize my pictures. I didn't do so well with this last year.
Grrrr...I don't know that they will ever be organized! I have a nice organized list of "to scrap" pictures though and I love that. So...part of it was a success.
15. Take bluebonnet pictures this year.
Nope. This Spring has been a nightmare. And Ella would just pick them.
16. Get my children weaned from juice, get them to drink plain milk and water.
Check!
17. Work on not complaining/being a pessimist so much. This will be hard.
I don't know...so probably not. I have a lot to complain about. 
18. Have an 11:00 bed time.
We have good days and bad, good months and bad. Sleeping alone has made me really bad at this. I put it off as long as possible...
19. Figure out how to break Emery and Ella's biting habit!
Well it stopped for a while, but now it's back. I'm not really sure you can teach them to stop. 
20. Go through all of our storage and organize it.
Check! We did do this!
21. Teach Ella not to put everything in her mouth. 
Check...she grew out of this. Now I need to change this goal to getting Isabelle to stop liking her hands and arms.
22. Start using oils in our home as a natural remedy.
Check.
23. Continue to stay out of bad debt. House and student loans aren't bad debt according to Joseph B. Wirthlin. Phew. :)
Grrr...It has been one heck of a ride this year, starting within 24 hours of actually writing this list. Now we have lots of medical bills. Having no insurance with 5 ER visits in a year has not be pretty.
24. Be an active member of our new ward.
Don't like it...Don't care to be. Glad we are moving...
25. Work on forgiving and letting go of things. 
Recently I've done amazing at this. Since the goal was to "work" and not overcome, I think I succeeded.
26. Eliminate clutter.
Our house is amazingly uncluttered. It hasn't always been this way. It's just cause it's on the market. But I love having no clutter around and I definitely want to keep it up!
27. Learn how to do something new.
I and we have learned how to do tons of things new!!! They are mostly all house related, but TONS!
28. Finish more than eight of these goals since that's all I did last year. 
Check!  I finished 12 and have two items that get half credit.

Now I have a week to do my 29 at 29 list. 

Something Happy...

I haven't been blogging. I have lots of reasons why. Lot's of hard, heart breaking, tough, exhausting, even scary reasons why. But for the first time in weeks and weeks and months...I have totally amazing, 100% good, truly great news.

I scored the biggest, best gig in digital scrapbooking. Indisputably ..there isn't a bigger honor that can be placed upon someone in my hobby. I can't believe I had enough luck to turn a whole list of bad things around and add something good to my/our lives for the first time in months. Hopefully this means good things start happening now instead of all bad.

The only sad thing about this moment is that Curt wasn't here to celebrate with me. Since he pretty much lives in another part of the state now. At least he woke up enough to text me a congrats when I texted him the good news.