Catch-up !

Avery Noelle , age 3 months

Logan Frost, age 3 years

Logan and Avery, May 2007

So May was a big month for us. I turned 30 on May 4th, Avery turned 3 months on May 2nd, and Logan turned 3 years on May 20. I finally took the kids to get their pictures taken a few weeks ago. It's so much fun to see my cute kids together in a picture! I love it! I have their pictures hanging on the wall above the fireplace, and after they are in bed at night, I sit on the couch and look at their pictures and they make me happy. They are such sweet little people! I love them so much.

Here is the tricycle Logan got for his birthday. His daddy wanted to get him a good tricycle, and not a plastic one. I happened to find this all-terrain tricycle on Craigslist. It was a really good deal, so we got it. It is a bit too big for Logan still, but he will grow into it and be able to ride it for a long time. The bummer is that he can't ride it by himself. He needs help because when he tries to steer, then he can't reach the pedals. He was very excited about it though, and he loves it.

We are also planning our vacation for the summer. It will be fun, but we will be doing a LOT of driving! We are leaving June 13th and driving from here to Blanding. We will be there for about 4 or 5 days. We will be there for the round-up, so Tony and Logan get to be cowboys. Tony's whole family will be there, so we will get to see everyone and Logan can play with all his cousins. He will have a blast! Plus everyone will get to meet Avery. Only Tony's parents have seen her so far. After we leave Blanding, we are driving to El Cajon (San Diego) to be with my family. My sister and her family will also be visiting from Idaho, so it will be my parents,brother, sister and I all together. That will be 4 cousins for Logan to play with. We are thinking of trying to go to Disneyland with the whole family. Tony will also get to go to a Padre game. Tony will fly back to KC on Saturday or Sunday the 23 or 24th. I will stay with my family until the end of June. My brother that lives in California is planning on moving to Cedar City the first of July, so I will drive up when he goes. My parents will probably drive with us so I will have help. After Cedar, I will have to drive to SLC by myself with the kids. I am hoping I can handle 4 hours alone! I will visit my best friend Heidi who lives in Woods Cross. She will have a brand new baby, so I will get to see him! Tony will fly into SLC on July 3rd, and then we will drive up to Idaho Falls to see my other brother, my sister again, my grandma, and my grandpa. We will be in Idaho for the 4th of July, and then we will make the long drive home that week-end to get home by the 8th. And after that I won't want to drive anywhere again for a LONG time! So that is the plan! Sounds crazy, I know, but at least I will get to see everyone in both families. I mapquested it and it will be over 4,000 miles of driving!

So, hopefully I am caught up now. We did have some computer issues as well, so it was hard for me to get online as frequently as I do. We are all fixed now, so I am back!

I have been tagged

My friend Vicki tagged me to do a meme listing 7 random things about myself. It is always hard for me to think of things to say in these types of things but I will give it a shot.

1. When I was little I wanted to be a scientist. I hate math! That career will definitely NOT work!

2. I was a Barbie addict. I think I played Barbies until I was 13 or something like that. I even would hide in my closet to play with them in the middle of the night when I had friends sleep over, or even with my sister to play with them so my parents wouldn't hear us.

3. I have a minor in Folk Dance.

4. I got a $500 tip once when I worked at Sea World. It was from a tour I helped give to Saudi Arabian royalty.

5. When I was in elementary school, my fifth grade teacher told me I should be a diver. We had year round school and would go to the pool at the HS down the road sometimes. Considering that I don't tan and was (and still am) very self-conscious in a swimsuit, I steered clear of something that would require wearing a bathing suit all the time.

6. I love jelly-belly jelly beans.

7. I hate mopping the floors.

Ok. That was hard. I hope those things were random enough. If anyone knows anything random about me that they can think of, I would love to know! Leave me a comment!

But now I have to tag 7 people, and this is also hard. I will tag you, but won't feel bad if you don't play.

Heather, Amiee, Whitney, Andrea, Kenzi, Lark, and Kris.

Happy Mother's Day!

What a wonderful day! Not only do I get to be grateful for my mother, but I get to be grateful for being a mother! I love my two sweet children! I am so proud of them, and how precious they are. I feel so lucky to have such beautiful, wonderful kids. It is so much fun to see who they are! I mentioned to Tony today that I loved seeing what my children are like after always wondering my whole life what they would be like. I told him I was so glad they were cute, and asked him if he was glad to finally see what his kids were like. Apparently boys don't wonder about that kind of thing. He said he didn't ever wonder what his kids would be like. How could you not? I don't think that's a "girly" thing to think about at all? Do you? Anyway...whatever. It just thrills me to pieces to see my very own, very cute children in real life. I love them so much!

Tony made me breakfast this morning. I don't think the kids really helped, but it's their presence that matters! We had bacon, eggs, and blueberry pancakes. Yummy! You have to snatch your bacon rather fast however or Logan might eat it all. He could eat the whole package of bacon if we let him I bet. He loves it. I guess that is a good thing, considering the only other meat he will eat is chicken...as in chicken nuggets. Not that either method of preparing the meat is healthy, but it's protein, right?

I also got to sleep in a bit after breakfast, so that was nice. Nice if you can sleep listening to Logan pounding on the bedroom door yelling" Mommy, let me in! Let me in Mommy!" No, I didn't lock the door. Our bedroom door tends to stick a bit, so it can be a little hard to open...especially if you are only 3. Oh well. I just layed there trying to sleep and thinking I was lucky that my son loved me so much.

After church, we went over to our friends house for dinner. It was really nice to not have to make dinner, and to get a chance to visit as well. Logan didn't get a nap again today, so once we got home, Igot him ready for bed and he was asleep before 7:30. That was soooo nice! It was a nice Mother's Day.
Yesterday we went to a children's farm that's near our house. Logan had a great time milking the cow. He said he was a cowboy. He kept going "whoosh, whoosh" as he was milking. Funny kid. He must really be his daddy's son, and his grandpa's grandson. He has the cow milking gene. Tony' has milked cows, and my dad milked cows. My mom's parents had milk cows for a long time too. What a funny kid. We almost couldn't get him away from the fake cow! He was so excited to milk the cow!

Logan has a little "girl" friend named Sarah. He always talks about Sarah, and how she is his friend. Well, Sarah's mom told me that Sarah had already decided she was going to marry another little boy from church. Well, today she told me that Sarah told her she wasn't going to marry Jacob anymore. She was going to marry Logan. Go Logan! I guess we better refine his potty skills before then!

Birthday RAK's

I am just now getting around to posting these fun Birthday RAK's I received! Sorry it has taken so long! I loved getting them, and I appreciate the thoughtfulness of the senders! Feel free to visit their blogs by clicking on their names!

This one is from Simone from the SCS Blogger RAK group. Thank you Simone!

This one is from Nancy also from the SCS Blogger RAK group. I love the colors on this one!

This one is from Angie. SCS name Renski. She is just on the SCS RAK group, not the blogger group.

Fun Stuff

So, I have been addicted to the internet lately. I have a fascination with coming across really great websites that are full of ideas and neat things. Since I have embarked on the journey of motherhood, stay at home mom, homemaker, Enrichment leader (for church), and Stampin' Up! demonstrator, I have found myself looking for helpful tips, ideas, and suggestions for how to be the best I can be in all those areas, and maybe even to find new areas to grow in. I have mentioned a few sites before, but i will compile all the fun new places I like to visit here in this post.

(These are not numbered in any particular order)

1. www.menus4moms.com This is my new way of meal planning for my family. It is really quick and easy as far as printing up the grocery list, checking what I already have, and then going to the store. I then know that I have everything I need to make 5 dinner meals for the upcoming week. I cn usually make it stretch becuase we often have leftovers, so I can get through a whole 7 day week for sure. It has helped me save money on groceries, and we have been trying new things, so it has been great.

2. www.splitcoaststampers.com As a Stampin' Up! demonstrator, this website has been a wonderful resource! I get all sort of ideas and help for my business, or for anything else I might need some creative inspiration for. Love it! But beware...if you enjoy this kind of thing, you will get sucked into it and might possibly spend hours perusing the galleries and forums. Just a warning!

3. http://deseretbook.com/mormon-life/curric/archive?area_id=7 This is awesome if you are in a bind about what to do for Family Home Evening. I have seen FHE packets and kits to buy, but this is free to download, and very cute. It is perfect for young children too. You could make your own FHE booklet with these, and color the pages, or whatever. Such a great resource! I had to share!

4. http://www.save-on-crafts.com/ I recently came across this site. I haven't ordered anything from it yet, but it looks promising, so I decided to add it to my favorites for future reference. I am sure it will come in handy.

5.http://www.fontifier.com/ Now this is really cool. I haven't done this yet either, but it is on my list. Just think how cool it would be to have a font of your very own handwriting! You could even do this for your kids at different ages to document their writing. I am visioning handwritten cards and letters minus the crampy hand! How nice!

6. http://www.flavorshare.com/ This website was created and shared with me by some friends we met in Indiana. It is so much fun! I had to share. I love recipes!

7.http://www.jennysmith.net/search-lds-activities.php?ActivityID=43 This site is very helpful for any chuch calling. I never come up with my own ideas, so i always need to get them from someone else.

That's all I can think of right now. If you have any really fun, cool, useful websites to share with me, please do! I am always tying to find new things to visit!

My Roly Poly

My baby is already reaching her milestones! She rolled over tonight! She has been working on it for a week now. She started rolling onto her side last Thursday, and tonight she made it all the way over onto her tummy! I am so excited! She has managed to be able to spin herself in a circle, and it has been fun to watch her working so hard to accomplish these things. I totally didn't have my camera, or else I would have a picture to post. I will have it out tomorrow so I can document her achievement for sure! I love these proud mommy moments!

On to the other child. I thought Logan was napping this afternoon when I heard some noises upstairs. I went up to see what it was and found Logan trying to climb up on the potty by himself. Now I would have been really proud of him if he wasn't using it as an excuse to get out of bed. But at least I know he is perfectly capable of going potty on his own, and I was proud of him. I can't believe how big he is getting! He will be 3 in just over a week!

Well, we have all been a bunch of sickies around here this week, so we are trying to get better. I hate being sick! And it is even worse when your family is sick too. I hope it doesn't last long!

Pouring Rain and Birthday Fun

These are just some pictures of our backyard being flooded! It has been storming pretty good since late last night, and now our backyard is one big puddle. There is a creek that runs behind our house, and a drainage ditch as well that runs into the creek. Before church today I was in Avery's room getting her dressed and happened to look out the window. I saw the big pools of water in the trees and at first just thought it was a puddle. The closer I looked, and the more I looked I realized how high the water in the dithc and creek were, and that it was overflowing the banks in some places. This is way cool. Kind of exciting! Our house isn't that close, so I am not too worried about our house flooding, but if you noticed, there is a picture of the pipe from the sump pump draining. Our sump pump has been spouting out tons of water every few minutes it seems. I am glad it is working! If it quit working on us, we would be in big trouble! Anyway...before dinner I put on my flip flops and waded my way through the muck to take these pictures. It was fun. It was really pretty in a crazy, wet kind of way.

Here is the beautiful birthday cake my visiting teacher brought me. I was going to take it to my mommy/daughter night at my friends house to share, but I caught Logan taking one of the candles out, licking it, then putting it back on the cake, so I decided I better not share such a thing with non-family members. I am not sure how many of the other candles he had done the same thing too when I wasn't watching!

I had a really fun time at our girl's night. There were 6 of us "big" girls, and about 10 little kids. We had some yummy food, and nice conversation. The first girl left at 9 because she had to go pick up her husband from the airport. The next few girls left around 10:30. There were 3 of us left at this point and we had a good discussion until about 12:30 when one of the girls left. I ended up staying and talking to Hillary (whose house it was at) until 2:30! Avery was sound asleep in the swing, and Hillary had to feed her baby at about 2 a.m. anyway (plus her little girl woke up a few times after 12 anyway, so she was up. There is nothing as therapeutic as some really good girl talk. I think we both really needed that, even though we haven't quite recovered from our late night! It was fun.

So that was my birthday week-end. I had a nice birthday, and now I need to try to act like the 30 year old that I am! I guess it is time to grow up. I will start tomorrow.(Well, we will sure try anyway!)

Trip to Archivers!

So I made my first visit to Archivers today. My friend Cherisse works there so I told her I would come visit her while she was working. It was also a nice get-away for a few hours.

I came home with some lovely treasures. The item I went there for specifically was primas. I am finally discovering the need for these sweet little flowers. I got the bottle of mixed colors, because I couldn't narrow it down! I saw so many cute things! I also got some cute pink and green chipboard letters that I thought I would use to make an altered lunch tin for Avery's room with her name on it. I then got myself another color of Stickles. I now have diamonds and lime green. I also had heard about the Sakura Gelly Roll Stardust pens, so I had to get a pack of those. I also got this really cool glue pen. It is so cool! It is a fine tip just like a ball point pen, so you can write very fine and use it with glitter, or whatever. Really cool.

The best find of the day was this. Two things I love combined in one magazine! Are you kidding me? It is totally awesome! Now I can look at recipes AND paper crafts, all at the same time. Someone was very clever when they thought of this. Seriously awesome.

Well, that' all for now.

Happy Birthday to Me!!!!

I was going to wait until later to post so I could have some pictures to include, but a good friend was waiting for me to post so she could comment. SO here I am! Pictures will have to wait until later!

I am officially no longer in my 20's today. Yikes. Not sure how I feel about that. We all went out to breakfast this morning to Cracker Barrell. Yum! I love going out for breakfast! After that, I took Logan and Avery to the park for our Mommy and Me play group. Tony and Logan gave me an Mp3 player (yippee!) so after lunch and the kids were down for naps I prceeded to try and figure it out. My eyes got too droopy, so I took a little nap! Before that however, my VT'er came by and brought me a cake! How nice! I can't remember how long it has been since I have had a real birthday cake. I was so excited!

Tonight is the father/sons campout, and Tony is taking Logan, so I am taking Avery over to a friends house for a mommy/daughter night. It should be lots of fun! When is it not fun to get together with friends, eat, and socialize? I am almost always up for that!

Logan is eyeing my cake, so I better go share with him! I will post pictures later! Happy birthday to me!

Motherhood

This post is a bit more serious than most. Just to let you know what you are in for before proceeding.

I read the other day in my Woman's Day magazine an article titled Motherhood in 2007. This got me thinking a lot about being a mother, and the views of society about the role of women...especially mothers, and even more about stay at home moms. I have had this on my mind a lot over the past 3 years, and I know I have friends who have also been struggling to find their worth as a stay at home mom. I know many mothers lose their identity and sense of self when they embark down the road of wife and mother. There are a lot of roles to fill, and it is easy to lose track of who you were before becoming a wife and mother.When asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, the only easy answer for me was to be a mom. I never had any passion, or interest or desire to have a profession or career. In college I changed my major 5 times before settling on a course of study that would help me in that path. I worked full-time before having children and pretty much hated it. It was a way to bring home a pay-check, but I never had a sense of satisfaction with what I was doing. I knew that working full-time in the "corporate" world was not for me. It wasn't who I was.The reality of what being a stay at home mom entailed of course hit shortly after I quit work to stay home with my son. While I was relieved to be out of the brown-nosing politics of retail management, I soon fell into the monotony of my days as a mom, and began to miss the intellectual and social stimulation I got when I was working. I had to find other avenues to make myself feel valued and important. I know that being a mother is the most important job there is, and that you are the most important person to your children, but it is hard to see that sometimes. I have spent every day since then trying to find a way to balance myself and create a new definition of who I am, and feeling pleased and happy with that definition.

I have discovered stamping, card making, scrapbooking ( a little bit) and paper crafts as a way to feel a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. I became a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator when my son was 9 months old as a way to have a new hobby and creative outlet. I have also enjoyed making new recipes, and recently began trying to learn to sew. There are so many rewards to being a mother and having the sweet little spirits in my home, that I wouldn't trade it for the world! After they are in bed at night, I find myself thinking about them, and their cute smiles, funny things they said or did, and just remembering their hugs and kisses. Even on days when I feel like I am not happy with who I am, and I just want to quit. I could never actually quit. I love them too much! It has just been hard for me to embrace motherhood whole heartedly while maintaining my old self. I still have to redefine myself and find comfort and peace with that new definition. It is an ongoing search, but I hope that one day I will find it and be happy with it. The search is on....

Popcorn Head

This is what happens when I am busy on the phone and the computer and not paying attention to Logan. Yum. What a silly kid! I look over at him and there he is with two bowls on his head and the popcorn all over the floor. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother vacuuming? I guess when the floor looks nice and clean, it is too tempting to mess it up again? Anyway. I had to laugh and hurried and grabbed my camera. I really wonder what was going on inside his head when he thought to stack the bowls on top of his head. He was just in his own little popcorn world. Oh to be 3! Or almost 3!