Doggy Bags

This morning Emily looked at herself in the mirror and said,

"Mom, I have huge doggy bags under my eyes!"

Hmmm...is that where she keeps her eye candy??

What I Want To Do In The Next 15 Years

• Help my kids learn to love service
• See Rachel and Caleb get baptized
• See Josh and Caleb receive the priesthood
• Get Emily and Josh graduated from High School
• Attend the temple with my kids
• See Josh go on a mission, and Emily too if she'd like
• Learn how to take really good photos
• Find a cure for Crohn's disease (seriously!)
• Be a calm, sane, and understanding mother to teenagers (yikes!)
• Crawl out of my shell a little more
• Overcome my fear of flying
• Make a quilt for the wall above my stairs
• Learn how to relax and have fun
• Help Emily and Josh decide which college to go to, what classes to take, where they'll live...
• Be a better wife
• Be a better friend
• Catch up (and then stay caught up) on scrapbooking

What I've Done Since High School

Here's a list of "stuff" I've done since I graduated from high school....

• Graduated from BYU, BS in Speech-Language Pathology
• Diagnosed with Crohn's disease, and had 1 surgery and lots of other stuff along with it
• Graduated from USU, MS in Speech-Language Pathology, worked in 2 different elementary schools
• Met, dated and married my wonderful, handsome, sweet husband, Jared
• Had 4 kids (Emily, Joshua, Rachel, Caleb), 3 c-sections, and spent 10 days in the NICU with baby #3
• Lived in Provo, West Jordan, Logan, Salt Lake, Logan (again), Santa Barbara (CA), and River Heights (UT)
• Been a tax widow for 8 tax seasons (Jared is a CPA)
• Helped my husband get through his undergrad and then MBA degrees
• Been a sacrament meeting widow for 8 months (Jared is in the bishopric)
• Done lots of different church jobs
• Seen both of my brothers married and have their own kids
• Seen one brother join the marines and serve in Iraq 2 times
• Seen both brothers sealed in the temple
• Seen parents divorce
• Planned and spoke at my Dad's funeral
• Seen my mom set apart in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir
• Had dinner with Pres. Monson and sang with MoTab
• Attended Gen. Conf. in person for the first time ever
• Attended viewing and funeral for Pres. James E. Faust (related through Jared's family)

Now really, I'm sure I've done more than this, but these are some of the most memorable things. I guess my family is my life, but I really wouldn't have it any other way!

ATTACK!!

This is what happens when Rachel figures out there's a pie in the fridge...

Pesky Leprechauns!!

We invited the Leprechauns to come to our house on St. Patricks Day, and just look what they did! Those crazy little characters left a mess of our house - but everywhere they went, they left some "gold" behind. Maybe that will convince us to have them back again next year...

They pulled our piano bench out, turned it a weird way, and left the lid open!

They put a chair up on the table, and they left us a box of Lucky Charms for breakfast!

They turned our chair backwards and left it in the middle of the room!

They tied the drapes in a knot!

They got in a drawer, scattered lids around, and then just left the drawer open! And just look what they did to our toilet....

EWWWW!!! That's nasty!!(Josh wouldn't go near it - he wouldn't even flush it down!)

I'm not very happy about all this mischief, but the kids have begged me to let them come back next year. Afterall, they did bring us lots of "gold" AND a box of Lucky Charms to make up for all the mischief. Well, I'll just have to think about it!

For our dinner, we had Italian meatball subs, Irish style (we're not real big on the corned beef or pastrami - urp!), with green jello, celery, and carrots (gotta have some variation in color!). I couldn't resist the green hoagie buns at the store! (They're dyed green!! It wasn't a sneaky sale by the store to get rid of some moldy-oldies!)

And for dessert, we had Lucky Lime Pie, a very tasty, but very rich treat. (Unfortunately, I don't have a picture for it. But if you click here you can see the picture AND get the recipe.)

Kid Funnies

Several months ago, the light in our garage was on the fritz and would sort of blink, like the light bulb wasn't completely screwed in.

Emily's reponse..."Hey, the light blunk!"

What a great new word!

-------

The other night we were reading scriptures as a family. Josh was super excited because we got to start a new book, 3rd Nephi to be exact. He begged us to let him read the first verse, and we happily agreed. Whatever it takes to get them excited, right?

If you look at your scriptures, the first word in the first verse of a new book always starts with a really big capital letter and then the rest of the word is capitalized.

(Go get your scriptures if you need to.)

In his enthusiasm, Josh interpreted the difference in size for this first word to mean that it should be shouted. If only I had a recording of this! Just imagine what it would sound like to hear - "NOW it came to pass...." with complete innocence and a huge amount of enthusiasm.
Needless to say, we all laughed through the first verse and then stopped to compose ourselves!

Jumping for Joy

This is what seeing the end of winter makes me feel like...

Truly Unique

A few months ago, I started to notice something very unique about Caleb. It's not just that he is our little, wiry guy. It's not just that he wants to be held constantly. It's not even that he doesn't have red hair. Caleb is truly unique. You see, his right eye is not one solid color. The top half is green, and the bottom half is blue. See for yourself!