Birthday month

This month was filled with birthday parties.  Thank heaven's because we all needed some fun with this crazy snowy winter we've had.

First Aaron was off to a Addison's super hero birthday party.  He was so excited to dress like Batman.

Next it was my girls time to celebrate with their cousin Bentley.  The plan was to go to Ruby's Inn at Bryce Canyon to go ice skating but the weather turned warm and it was too slushy to skate.  Instead they got pizza and went to an arcade in Panguitch.

Aaron was over the top excited when Andrew's Star War's party was finally here.

Next it was my turn to celebrate.  Wow I can hardly believe I'm 39.  I feels like just yesterday my mom was 39 telling us she was having another baby.

My girls each made me a homemade present.    Jane drew a picture of me.    She even took the time to highlight my brownish hair.

Emily gave me this....

She said that whenever I would like a hug from her all I need to do is fill in a heart and she will give me a hug.


Bart surprised me by coming home from Sundance for the evening.    We had a very "romantic" dinner for 6 at Panda Express.  My fortune said "You will have much luck this year."  Thank goodness I don't want to experience a year like last year again.

Finally I ended my birthday with a trip to the Draper Temple with Bart.


Now onto February.

Freeze time

It's Sundance time so Bart is gone and it was snowing so we had nowhere to go so today after church. I suggested to my kids that we all make some Banana Bread together. Thanks to my friend Kathy, I finally found a Banana Bread recipe that is easy for me to make and very yummy.  Emily wasn't interested she had her own youtube project going on but stayed in the kitchen with us.  Aaron was more than eager to help since he is my designated "egg cracker" and Jane wanted me to teach her how to cook.    We put a calm Spencer in his highchair with a graham cracker and got busy.

In the middle of our mess I looked around and saw Emily hot glueing something,  Jane carefully measuring and sifting flour into a bowl,  Aaron excitedly cracking eggs and creaming the butter and sugar together, and Spencer smiling at all of us from his high chair.  My heart was full.    I often think that in the future when my kids have grown things have quieted down and my house will finally stay clean,  I will look back to this wonderful phase I am in and miss this season of motherhood. 

I'll miss the tween years with my girls.  Where they are happy, joyful and fun to be around.  There probably won't be another time when they have little stress in their life and time and desire to spend it with me.   I honestly feel we are great friends and I love just hanging with them watching the latest "Just add magic"series or talking about little occurrences in their day.  

I will miss my delightful 4 year old Aaron who is quick to smile, laugh and play.   I love that and the only care in the world is that we are all happy.

I will miss my Spencer who went from a cranky hard newborn to a lovable baby who is quick  to smile and seeks others attention.  I will miss rocking him to sleep at night while he looks up lovingly and stares at me while he drinks his last bottle for the day.  I will also miss giving him unobjectionable kisses all day long.

I know every season has it's good and bad times but for now I'm content to stay in this one.  Now if I can only figure out how to freeze time.  Maybe just for a little bit.

Snow man selfies

What do you do as a mother when your Jane and Aaron wake up first thing in the morning and see a at least 6 inches of fresh snow and are eager to get out and play in it.

Well you help dress them up very warm and send them out into the frigid air.

What do you do when a while later when you are still in your pajamas and they come bursting in the door begging you to come see their snowman.

Well you politely decline their offer but give them your phone so they can take pictures of it and come back in the warm house and show you their hard work.

This is what comes back...

Aren't they cute

Job wanted

I'm cleaning up Aaron's room and close to door to find this.

No wonder my  big Sam's club package of tape is almost gone.   This is a typical day for Aaron just finding creative ways to keep things together.  I've got to hand it to him he's good at what he does.  He loves any sort of rope or string and somehow figured out how to tie knots.   You should have seen the simple pulley he once made.    I'm convinced his brain is very mechanically driven.

Last weekend I'm at my mom's house with only Spencer and Aaron.  Bart was home getting ready for Sundance and the girls had decided to stay the weekend with their cousin Bentley at her house.    Aaron's a little bored and gets nervous so he starts messing with Spencer.    Baxter and Branson mention they are heading over to my dad's shop to tinker around and I ask them if they can take Aaron.  Baxter says sure but he might get bored.  I tell them to call me when he gets bored and I'll come and get him.

I never got that call from the boys and a few hours later Aaron comes storming in the house so proud to show me a dollar he had earned.    It turns out my dad's friend Rex was using my dad's shop to work on his truck and Aaron became his fast friend.    My dad said he has never seen a 4 year old stand on a bumper looking down into a motor for so long.  I wish I could have gotten a picture of it.  Aaron told me he worked hard and earned a dollar.  Branson said he earned it by sorting different sizes of bolts.

I've decided that for the rest of the winter what my restless Aaron really needs and wants is a job.   He'd make an excellent apprentice.  He's very hands on, is a busy body, has a lot of energy and would work for cheap.  Let me know if you hear of an opening he's available most anytime until bedtime.

Chief Example

Emily came into my bedroom holding an envelope from the school addressed to "the parents of Emily Richards"  I asked her what this was about and she looked a little apprehensive and said "I don't know".  Her apprehensiveness made me apprehensive.  Notes from school are usually not a great thing.  This however was a wonderful surprise to both of us.

The note invited us to a special assembly to honor Emily for being chosen as the "Chief Example of Service" in her class from her teacher.    I was overjoyed and Emily was so proud to be honored by her teacher.

The principle presented Emily with this honor.

This picture with Emily and her teacher is hanging on a bulletin board as you walk into the school.

This honor fits Emily perfectly.  She's always looking for ways to help others.    As Emily finishes up her last year of Elementary School I'm impressed with how conscientious  of a student she is.   She works hard, does her best effort and the results are showing.    I'm proud to be her mother!!

Jane's Baptism

This pretty girl got Baptized January 7, 2017. 

  Our ward was in charge of the program and Jane was the only one being baptized from it.   The Primary President asked if we could use family for the program so Jane picked Nona to say the prayer, Grandma Becky to play a piano solo and Aunt Sarah Preston to give the talk.  When it was her time to proceed to the font she got up and ran out the door and as Bart said "May have jumped right into the font if there wasn't another ward in her way.  She was so excited to get baptized and afterward in the dressing room she told me she felt so good. 



She was so lucky to have so many family members come and support her.

Nona made Jane this beautiful dress.  Jane requested a flower on it so Pauline  hand sewed a beautiful flower.  When I brought the dress home,  Jane gasped and said "Oh it's perfect"  What a treasure she will always have. 


We hosted a luncheon after the baptism and all the kids were head over heals excited to play with their cousins.  I caught small glimpse of Aaron and Mary's younger boys in capes and masks flying through the house with light sabers.  I told Jane this would be her birthday party so I made her a cake.  She wanted to blow out the candles so I suggested everyone sing happy birthday.  Bentley suggested singing happy baptism and the song went over well. 

How wonderful it is to have such a beautiful, smart, helpful and loving daughter like Jane

Please Bless...

Sometimes things have a way of coming full circle.  

It's a couple of days after Christmas and I am frantically trying to finish my blog book to get the 40% off promo code by the end of the year.   Aaron wants me to open and help him with a speed racing track he got for Christmas and isn't having the "maybe in a few days answer."  Jane volunteers to open it and help him put it together.    "OK by me" I say and the two disappear and I continue with my book.

Later I emerge to find that the two were unsuccessful at finishing the project of putting the track together.  Aaron did however find success at cutting up the big foam board that held the pieces into very small chunks and scattered them all over the main floor of my house.  

Not yet finished with my book,  I simply left the mess with directions for Aaron to pick up all the foam.   Of course Aaron weaseled out of the job without me standing there saying "keep going" "now these ones"   "lets see how many we can put in the trash in 1 minute" etc.    For the next couple days I haphazardly kept reminding Aaron that the foam was still his job as I focused on completed the book.    By the time the book was finished the foam had multiplied and was everywhere.     I turned on my "do it now or else mom mode" and Aaron and I picked up all the foam or so we thought.  

The funny thing about foam is somehow even when you think you've cleaned it all up it keeps showing up.  Spencer with his newfound freedom from crawling was like a magnet to all the tiny pieces of foam.    Whenever Spencer was loose it wasn't very long and someone would say Spencer's eating another piece of foam and would rescue him from choking.  

Aaron being a very concerned older brother was assigned the prayer over the food.  As always he took some time blessing things like dad would have a good day at work, that Emily and Jane would be nice and then he said "Please Bless Spencer won't choke on any more foam."     

Oh the struggle is so real sometimes!!

Winter Break

We had a great time at the Pace family party the day after Christmas.   The kids immediately took off with their sleds and spent a good portion of the afternoon playing in the snow.

We also sang to Jane as she blew out the candle on the Oreo cheesecake.

On Wed. we took Emily up to Nona's for a sewing lesson and Suzanne was there and invited us to go with her and Papa to the free Zoo day.

We had some lovely down time.  My girls enjoyed countless hours playing with their calico critters.

We also got a lot of snow so the day after New Year's  we took advantage of Bart being home and left Spencer napping while Bart prepared for Sundance and enjoyed some sledding time.

New Year's Resolution

As a family we decided to go out to eat courteous of my Grandpa Morrell's very generous Christmas gift of $50.    Our family hardly ever goes out to eat and this experience reminded me why.  We picked Red Robin thinking it might be a little less crazy and kid friendly.  Well about 10 minutes into sitting down we had rearranged the seating arrangement twice.  Emily wanted to sit by Jane so they could goof off and Jane wanted to sit by Spencer and threw a Jane tantrum when she couldn't. Bart moved in between the girls trying to settle them down.   The wait for our food was forever and the longer we waited the more wild my kids became.    Bart, who had the better view of everyone around us, said "Everyone keeps staring at us this is embarrasing ".    I respond with  my New Year's Resolution is to never go out to eat as a family again.

The food finally came as our stress levels were at an all time high.  Aaron who has become a grapefruit lover and has always loved oranges sees my lemon on the side of my plate and says "Mom can I have that I just love those."    I sense he thinks it's either an orange or grapefruit wedge so I play along.    He takes a bit bite out of it and pulls the funniest faces.  Both Bart and I bust out laughing and Aaron joins along.

 Pretty soon the girls were taking turns trying a lemon and we ended the night enjoying each other.   The best moment when Aaron took the first bite didn't get captured on film but here is a couple good pictures of Jane trying a lemon.

Thanks Aaron for always knowing how to lighten the mood in our family!!!