My great date with my husband!

So, it has been a couple of months since we have gone out on a date or really had anytime away from the children. The other night I came home from the school and my husband asked what we had going on Saturday night. I told him I wasn't aware of anything. He told me that was good because he had made arrangements for a babysitter and asked if we could go out on a date. I am so grateful for a great husband!

We decided that we would go out in the afternoon so that we could be home to watch the BYU football game tonight. I love watching the games with the kids and my husband.

I have always loved movies with Richard Gere so the new movie out interested me. I usually watch 2 - 4 movies a year and maybe make it to a movie theater once a year (because we have free tickets that have to be used :). I think this was actually my 4th - 5th movie this year - maybe I am starting to relax a little more in my life. Well, we decided to go see "Nights in Rodanthe". I was really enjoying the movie until close to the end. I REALLY hate sad endings. So the verdict on this movie is that I am not sure if I would watch it again due to the sad ending (but that is the only reason :). I know I am a wimp when it comes to sad movies, but I figure there is plenty of sad things around us so I like to watch things that make my happy, laugh or teach me something.

We then went to Red Robin for dinner. It was fun to just spend time together. The funniest part is that we always say we need to get time to talk with each other, but when we go out we just enjoy the peace and quiet. Today was a movie and then at Red Robin we watched the BYU football game and talked sports. Not much applicable to life, but nice and relaxing.

I am VERY grateful for a GREAT husband who takes care of me and our children!

For my mom-sanity tip I would just say to take time with your spouse or with those that are very important to you. Those times are so important. The most important part is to enjoy the time you have together. You never know what life will bring.

Abbie's Baptism this morning

This morning we started the day off by going to my niece's baptism. It was so neat to see her smile and to feel the spirit. My dad had the opportunity to baptize her and to give the blessing to give her the gift of the Holy Ghost. It was a special morning and it is always neat to remember the covenants and promises we make at baptism.

I actually felt a little emotional this morning realizing that my 2nd son, Brayden will turn 8 in January and will be baptized the beginning of February. He is so excited and can't wait for it to be his turn. He has such a pure and sincere testimony and helps keep us all on the the right track.

Rick and I are leaving to go out on an afternoon date which will be nice. We haven't been out for quite awhile so it will be nice to have a little break and have time to just talk and be together without the interruptions of fun children wanting to talk to us :). We are hoping to make it back to watch the BYU game at 4 p.m.

Hopefully BYU will play better today!

Crazy, but fun night!

Today was a fun day and tonight ended up being a crazy, but fun night.

I spent the afternoon over at the school helping clean up from the successful book fair we had at our school.

I went over to my mom's and Rick was out working with my dad and brothers pouring cement. Tonight was an enrichment in my parent's ward for the girls and for their spouses. My sister-in-law asked if I would babysit her 3 children tonight. Then my sister called and asked if I could babysit her 3 children so they could go. I had only 3 of mine, because Michael had the opportunity to go the the Space Center for an overnighter. He was SOOO excited! It is the first time I have had him to an overnighter besides his grandma's and my brothers. I have to admit that it isn't easy to watch my oldest grow up.

Anyways, my other sister has one very cute boy and she wanted to go out with her husband. I had figured that Rick would be around to help so I told her I would be happy to watch her boy too. From 6 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. I ended up with 10 children under the age of 7. They are such cute kids, but Rick ended up working on the cement so I was on my own. We played patty cake, ate lots of food, cookies, chocolate milk, colored, watched TV, created huts with the cushions off the couches and had lots of fun.

I have to admit that I was a little worried, but I had a good time. I have to say that kid's say the darnest (cutest) things.

Mom Sanity Tip:
Along with going through being unemployed right now I have several people ask how we are doing it. I strive to smile a lot and laugh. We laugh a lot in our family and boys that recognize their blessings. The way that I am able to do that is by recognizing the blessings we do have. We are extremely blessed. There are definately daily challenges and times that the weight of the world weighs on us, but I try to recognize some kind of blessing in everything that happens in our lives. I know that we are not alone in the challenges we face and that there is always an anwser.

Exhausted!

Tonight I have hit EXHAUSTION from the week. It has been non-stop (fun, but non-stop) so my tip for the day is that when you have hit exhaustion SLEEP is the best solution :). Goodnight!

Even though there isn't much from today I would recommend looking below. There are some fun and interesting pictures of my children.

Brayden's Surgery in August

I wanted to post a few pictures of my 2nd son that had surgery in August since I put pictures of his brother up yesterday. Brayden had to have his 2nd surgery on his foot on August 29th. He had his first surgery when he was 9 months. He was born with a 6th appendage on his foot and the doctor suffocated it off while we were at the hospital when he was born. It ended up doing damage to the foot and we have had to work through this over his last 7 years of life. This time he had a bump in his foot and we thought the doctor was going to shave the bone down. When he got in there he found that there was a syst in his foot. We are grateful that we chose to do the surgery so the syst wouldn't grow and do any additional damage. It ended up not being anything serious and he was a FAST mover on his foot and is happy to have it off now. Rick was laid off in August and we chose to hurry and have the surgery since our insurance was going to run out on the 30th. I truly believe that this was a blessing. We probably wouldn't have chosen to do this surgery right now if it wouldn't have been for that. There is always a blessing in everything - not always the way we want them to come :).

He got to have Cosmo (BYU Cougar) sign his cast. That was a highlight for him! He had to save his cast.

SEP's

Today started a little slower, but it picked up for the afternoon and evening. I had a hard time getting moving this morning. Getting to bed really late and and starting days early for the last little bit have worn me out.

This afternoon I got to work at the School Book Fair for a couple of hours. I have done a lot around the school over the years, but the book fair isn't something I have ever done. It was fun to see the families come through the book fair and visit with the parents and children. What was worse was that I loved seeing all of the fun books that the book fair had. I have a MAJOR weakness for books! We probably have over 2000 books in our home.

After the book fair Rick and I went to visit with each of the children's teachers for SEP's (Parent Teacher Conferences). The good news is that all of our children are very smart and doing well in school. Our children tested really well with the different evaluations that they have had done and tests they have taken. I am glad that having so many books in our home has paid off.

The most exciting part was that Mrs. Abney had all of the students fill out a form on how they thought they were doing in school. Michael has struggled for years with self-esteem and being bullied / teased at school. On the form it asked how he felt about school and he marked happy, friends and other positive words. Grades matter to me, but what matters to me more is that my children feel happy, confident and positive about life. That was very exciting to me!

SEP's also motivate me to be a better mom and be more committed to helping my children do better with their homework and helping them at home. That seems to be where we slack in our home. We do things, but are definately not as committed as we should be. I remember my mom always trying to figure out the best way to help all of her children do their homework. I feel overwhelmed with 4, let alone 9 children in school. WOW!

In keeping with my mom's sanity with the topic of school I strive to find balance with each of my children. I know that education is VERY important, but I am a FIRM believer that there is balance with education and living life. We tie education into our daily lives and strive to make it fun. As we are driving on a vacation we will throw out multiplication facts, addition or subtraction facts or say the alphabet with words along the way that start with the different letters. I have had my children count to see how long it takes to get from point A to point B. We will be sitting on the couch relaxing and make up a fun story problem that pertains to what we are doing right then. Then I let my children challenge Rick and I with fun questions or problems that they make up.

It may not always tie into the specific things they are doing in class, but it is educating my children with basics that they will need in their lives.

We read books to each other. My children will read to Rick and I, we read to them and they read to each other. I will encourage my children to share with me things they have learned in school and have them teach me (I probably wouldn't do very well on "Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader?" since that was so many years ago).

I ended up doing pretty well through Elementary, Junior High and High School and furthered my education in College and got good grades, but we still did MANY fun things in our family and education was more a part of our lives than just consuming our lives and always worrying about only grades.

Another day of canning. . .

Alright, I am a little sad because I wanted to take more pictures today, but my camera died. It is a rechargeable battery and I just didn't pay attention to the battery light until it was too late. So, I thought it would be fun to show some pictures from my oldest in the hospital in January from his sledding accident.

In January, on a Friday evening, we went sledding for a FUN family activity. Michael was supposed to have a Basketball practice, but it was cancelled so with fresh snow on the ground we figured we would go sledding. Of course, I am the nervous mom not wanting my children to get hurt. I could hardly watch them come down the hill with their crazy tricks.
I was visiting with one of my friends and Michael starts crying. I figured it was some small incident so I told him to quite crying and get back up the hill if he wanted to keep sledding. Then I turned my head to look and see what was happening and was in TOTAL SHOCK and PANIC (with 4 boys it takes alot for me to panic :). We ran to the car and loaded 4 boys and 4 inflated tubes into the van. Ran to instacare, but within minutes the doctor was telling us to rush over to the Emergency Room because he was concerned about the swelling growing so fast.
This is what his eye looked like on the way to the Emergency Room. The swelling was growing as fast as I could drive. Zachary and Michael had decided it would be fun to see if Michael could jump at Zachary as he came down the hill with his tube to see if he could stop him. He stopped him alright, with his head.

This is what Michael's eye looked like about an hour after being at the hospital. We ended up going to an optomotrist at 10:45 p.m. to see if he had lost his vision in that eye.

The good news is. . .it has been 10 months now and his eye is healed and he didn't lose any of his vision. We sure are lucky!
The best part was that he decided he didn't want to miss his Junior Jazz game on Saturday so here is a picture of him playing on Saturday morning. He also had team pictures a week later. Team pictures we will never forget :).

Here are a couple of pictures of his eye healing over the next few weeks in January.


We've been starting to get in a good consistent habit of reading the Book of Mormon everyday. We were actually getting to the point that we would read in the morning and in the evening. We loved it and the kids loved it! For some reason we have gotten back out of the habit for the last week. We decided that this morning we would read before the kids hurried to the bus. By 8:00 a.m. the phone was ringing and by 8:45 a.m. I had gotten 4 phone calls. Needless to say, our habit didn't start back up this morning.

Then I ran off to a PTA Board Meeting. I am the Treasurer this year so I had to get there a few minutes early to make some copies. I got done with the meeting and the few things that I had to take care of around 11:30 p.m.

After that I ran over to pick up my son from Preschool and then raced to get my kindergartner off the bus. From there we spent the day bottling tomatoes, making Raspberry jam and making Strawberry Syrup.

In the middle of that I had scouts. We got to go to the Fire Department for scouts today. It was alot of fun and the boys had a good time. Field trips for cubscouts always make it fun for the boys and easy for us. We only have 4 boys and we have a good time.

It is always fun to be with my family. We laugh, joke, work hard together and of course, have our differences every once in awhile :). That adds for great variety and entertainment. I love it!

With the 2 days of canning together here is my mom-sanity thought:

Yesterday I got a phone call asking me to share a thought at the PTA Board Meeting today. Each month we have a Character that we focus on with the students. This month is Tolerance and Diversity. When I got the phone call yesterday we were DEEP into the Strawberry Jam and working with several different personalities. As it got later and everyone was tired and hungry the word Tolerance came to mind.

I am grateful that I have such a wonderful family that shows alot of tolerance for each other. No matter what we go through and our differences we love each other and can work together and find ourselves willing to do things for each other.

In the packet of thoughts and activities for this Character there was a quote that I loved. "The highest result of education is tolerance" by Helen Keller. I find that tolerance and recognizing the best in individuals is very important. I truly believe that most people strive to do their best.

If you would like to see all of the packet or other ideas of other Characters you can go to www.lindoncharacterconnection.com. Then click on curriculum and you can find all of the packets. They are great for office thoughts, FHE topics with your children, etc.

Strawberry Jam

Today was a long, fun, interesting, family and STRAWBERRY day! My dad got 10 BUCKETS of Puree Strawberries. He called to see if we would be interested (actually Jenni did). We had to agree to be over there today to help do the strawberries. I was excited because we go through jam like it's going out of style. We just had to have the other supplies. I figured no problem, I have jars and the other stuff wouldn't be too much. Well, it came out pretty good, but I have to say sugar, jars and pectin add up really quick :). We have sufficient jam to last us the year - I would hope.

Anyways, it started out this morning at 10 a.m. and we got home at 10 p.m. The kids had a blast playing all day at grandma's with their cousins. They ended up FILTHY, but had a great time. We ended up doing 351 jars or cooked jam and 16 boxes of pectin for Strawberry Freezer Jam (I don't have any actual count on the freezer jam). We also did 28 jars of Strawberry Syrup. That was delicious! We are thrilled with all of our supplies. It is nice to be prepared with something.

It was fun to be with the family. We had a great time. By the time 8 p.m. rolled around I think we were all getting close to being ready to being done. I have a sister that is going to do hers tomorrow, but we got through 7 1/2 of the buckets today.

Here are some of the pictures from the day (what you see isn't anywhere near all of them):

Mom Sanity tip: I loved today, but I missed spending a little quality time with my children. I know that they are alright and in bed sleeping sound, but I missed that few minutes of a visit with them today. The other day I had a friend of mine tell me that in a training she was in that she was told that a child only needs 7 minutes a day of quality, undivided attention from a parent to feel content and happy with their parents. That is such a small amount of time for each of our children. They deserve it!

I love General Conference!!!

What a GREAT weekend! I love to hear from the Prophet and others. It is so inspirational to me and gives me motivation and hope. To help my children pay attention to conference I print off bingo cards that have different words that they listen for. We have M&M's (we've used fruit snacks, skittles - whatever the kids like) and they mark the picture / word as they hear it. They keep track of how many bingos they get through all of the conferences and then they get a token at Chuck E Cheese for each bingo. It's nice because it becomes another family activity and they think about conference tied to Chuck E Cheese and fun. We have done this for several years and it has worked really well. They look forward to it every 6 months.

After Conference we had a family council meeting. My dad wanted to talk about the economy and how to survive the challenges that are going on in our economy. Everyone was able to be there except for Ranee and Jerry, Saundra (she was sick) and Tawnya (she's on a mission in Hungary). It was a great family council. You never know how it is going to go when you have 15 people there and a whole bunch of children that are supposed to be entertaining themselves. My dad was in charge of the Family Council meeting and it went really well. There was amazing council that I feel I really needed. The children all entertained themselves and the spirit was right. It was neat to have almost everyone together.

This is the group that got together tonight. This is last years Halloween Group picture, but it shows what a wonderful, close family we have. We do so much together and love each other.

This is my sister, Tawnya, who is on a mission in Hungary. Last year she did this booth for Festival of Trees. She is always willing to serve and is energetic about sharing the gospel and what she has been blessed with.

Here are the top 3 things that my dad counseled us on and I would recommend these 3 items as my mom sanity tip of the day:

1. Invite Christ to be a partner in our lives and invite Him to heal our hearts
2. Invite Peace into our lives and homes (Satan cannot counterfeit Peace)
3. Pray Often (includes listening and acting on the promptings)

There were alot of details and discussion, but I have to say that these 3 things sum it up really well and believe that these tips are going to continue to make my life better.