upcoming

We have a lot of upcoming things this next few months. I thought I would start listing them so I can look back and see all the chaos that is our life this spring. :)
1. MAATA convention (just this past weekend in Topeka, KS)
2. Head to GA to see Grandma, Aunt Barbie (and hopefully) Uncle Johnny and pick up furniture
3. Make yummy treats since Mike and I are off our diet... healthy ones of course.. not the crazy sugary ones I'm pinning...at least not for a bit.
4. Work...work and work
5. Soccer for Isabel
6. Dance for Isabel
7. Shriner's Circus
8. General Conference
9. Easter (and finish Dresses for the girls)
10. Kansas City Temple Open House (I CANNOT wait to take Isabel there!!)
11. keep training for 31 mile walk
12. Isabel's 6th Birthday (are you kidding me?!)
13. Mark Forester Memorial walk
14. Girls Camp
15. Trip to Oregon for Leslie's baby and Ph.D graduation
16. National Convention in St Louis.

WHEW! That is a lot.. I guess I forgot to to add winning the lotto. That would be helpful. :) This list doesn't even count Mike's big milestones he has to accomplish. I have such a great family and I am so lucky I get to do all of this list with them.
I just wish I knew if I could add moving to this list. We'd love to so we can get all of our (new) furniture ready to go and finally get to tackle my huge Pintrest boards and get all of my ideas done for them. Oooh and could you imagine the amazing culinary creations I could whip up in a big kitchen.... or even a normal sized kitchen?! I am doing better thinking about all of the blessings I have and trying not to focus on what I don't. I am trying to will myself to be hopeful and optimistic again. It's not fun being pessimistic and it's not in my nature to be so for very long. Some day's I hate dealing with the "natural man". But I am lucky with my awesome family, awesome weather, great places to walk/run to, tv and internet to pass the time when I don't want to read, and health. (not all in the correct order...) and of course the Gospel, my foundation, and my Savior. So here's to being more happy!

Doubt

Doubt, it's such a sad word. Doubting in yourself is tough because if you don't believe in yourself, who will? Doubting in others is scary because you want to see the best in people. And most importantly, when you have doubt, you can not have hope. And Hope is what keeps us going, hope is what brings us energy, happiness and allows us to wake up and move every day. I went back today and cried, a lot, as I re-read the comments and the posts about Brooklyn. Mike's Grandma is getting a bunch of information together for the families genealogy. I had so much hope, so much understanding, so much faith during that amazingly large trial. It's funny how at times my faith has doubt, my understanding has doubt, my hope is (not all)gone. (ok, it's not ALL gone). I have yet to figure out how I had all that faith, all that understanding, not a shadow of doubt in Heavenly Father's knowledge of me, His love for me, His awareness of what I am was through. Yet now, when times seem tough, when I have been dealing with the same trial, off and on for years, I doubt. I doubt that He is aware of my, I doubt that He cares what happen to me. And this trial, is nothing compared to losing my sweet girl. It should be nothing. I lost the greatest thing one can lose, and I stayed whole, my faith stayed whole. But this little trial, this inconvenience of a trial, consumes me and overwhelms me. I think one of the hardest parts is knowing that it is I who have wandered away from Him, I have have lost faith in Him, not the other way around.
Yesterday I was so frustrated, so sad and to be perfectly honest... pissed. So pissed that I tried to ignore and miss the tender mercies that were right in front of me. My heart was so hardened that even knowing I needed to smile, there was too much ice, I wasn't really letting it chip away. Then last night, it was almost gone. I can't say I am through the doubt, or all my hope is back because honestly, I am to afraid to hope. It hurts to hope, it is so tough to hope only to be knocked down.
One would have thought that all my rough places would have been made smooth by now, the refiners fire would have worked a bit more by now. But if I'm to stubborn to let it...
So here's to be back to my normal optimistic self and to find that faith I had not that long ago.

Projects

Easter is right around the corner.. yes I am skipping over St Patrick's day, green fun for the day will be had but I need more time to focus on Easter. I am making the girls their Easter dresses this year. Thru the amazing world of Pinterst, I have found new, fun, inspiring blogs to follow and one of those blogs brought me this...


Isabel has requested a yellow and pink dress, so the main part will be yellow and the specialty fabric will be pink. Stella's I'm thinking maybe purple and pink? I'm off to the fabric store in a bit to decide. I thought about making a different dress but since I have two to make, this one will bring me less headaches... I think.

Here is the other dress


I love it but... Maybe for a birthday girl dress for Izzy.

I also am thinking of making myself this for a cute spring top

I know, I know. If I made that top I could coordinate with the dress... but I don't want to share. Oh and I think all three of these tutorials can be found over at U Create... their link is over to the right.

Pintrest has been making my life so fun..I did just glance at the number of pin I have, it's nearing 1700. I think I may have a problem. But I am using much of what I have done, or ideas for it at least. Many friends have benefited from my yummy-ness recipes, my girls will enjoy my sewing (I hope) and I have so many great ideas for when we move.

Oh and I am gaining about two rooms worth of furniture at the end of the month. My Grandma has moved out of her home she built about 15 years ago. My mom and aunt are there as I type this packing up her home and going thru everything. The other two cousins and my sister didn't want any of her furniture and since we already have a few pieces from years ago of hers, we are finishing out that set (I wish I had a picture to show you... we painted it black and it is AMAZING), now we are also getting her old bedroom set.



Now I know this set seems old.. but Isabel is getting this set... it might have a few extra touches put to it. She will have a princess room! She is so excited.. I'm hoping she will forget that she really wanted a bunk bed. She wants me to paint it pink, but I told her she could not have pink furniture and pink walls.
And yes...that is a queen sized bed.. Isabel is getting a HUGE bed for her little self. Let the jumping begin!

Lastly, for furniture that is we are getting a gun safe.

No, we don't have a gun...not yet anyways but I do love this piece of furniture.

I am so grateful that my extended family doesn't mind that I just took it all. They were offered but didn't want it. So someone had to take it, or deal with selling it. The one thing I don't have a picture of is the player piano!! With scrolls. :) Toss in some china (ok, don't really toss it) some bake ware etc and I don't have to buy anything else for my house. :) THANK YOU GRANDMA (not that she reads this)

Now to rent the truck in 3 weeks to drive down there......

Big, Bigger and.... STOP!

I have two awesome girls. I have two girls who I adore and love all of these phases they are in. (ok, maybe I don't ALWAYS love Stella's stubborn streak....). Isabel loves being measured so the other day she wanted to see how much she had grown. Much to her dismay she had only grown about 1/4 of an inch. She is now up to my armpit. Yes, she is 5. So then she wanted Stella measured... we measured Stella 1/1/2012 then again on 2/20/2012.. in that time, my baby grew 2.5 inches. Yes 2.5 INCHES in 50 days. Insane. Couple that with the extra 5 teeth, yep, it's been an entertaining two months. And that is why her shirts are not fitting her, her cute little belly shows all the time now. She is built like me, so her pants are still too long. Go figure.

The other great thing Isabel has started doing it making her own breakfast. She loves to make her own eggs in the morning. She really does it all by herself. I do watch over to make sure she doesn't burn herself or get egg shells in her food but the rest is all that tall 5 year old. The part that has made me more centimental then other times.. this morning she got up and made her own lunch too. I am so proud of my big girl, soon be young lady, but it was a tad sobering.

I love that I get to raise these girls and learn how to be a mom at the same time they are learning how to be people. Learning together has its pains, but I wouldn't have this fun crazy life any other way!

Who will stand?

A friend of mine wrote this today on her facebook wall. Although I do not have teenage sons, the impact of what she said it profound. I will stand with her and teach my daughter how she needs to be viewed, and embrace her divine heritage.

Dear Mothers of Teenage Boys:
Society has been degrading womanhood for quite some time now, teaching our daughters that it is more important to be hot than to be beautiful, more important to be desired than to be cherished, more important to look a certain way than to BE someone of value. Having raised a teenage daughter, I can tell you that these societal forces are strong, they are coercive, and... they are difficult to overcome. Now that I am raising a teenage son, I recognize that he has a huge responsibility to shun these societal messages and show his (girl)friends that he will respect them, even when they do not respect themselves. Yet this is not something that society is teaching him to do. It must be ME who teaches him this. He does not understand how much power he has to influence the mind and countenance of his young (girl)friends; I have to help him learn this. I have to be willing to say the hard things, correct the wrong comments and actions, teach him over and over how he SHOULD be treating these young women. Unless I tell him what is appropriate, he will never know, because EVERYWHERE ELSE he goes, he is receiving a different message. Young women should be recognized for their beauty, both inside and out; 13 year old girls are never hot, sexy, or fine--no matter how much they may WANT to be those things. Our young men need to help our young women recognize what is of REAL value inside of them. They need to compliment their (girl)friends on their intelligence, their creativity, their compassion, NOT their bodies. They need to help these young women recognize that they are so much more important than the way they clothe (or don't clothe) themselves. Young men are naturally drawn to all the physical things about young women. That is the way they were created, and it is a strong force. The rest of it MUST BE LEARNED, and if we aren't willing to stand up and teach our sons...who will? So to the mothers of teenage boys, will you stand with me? Will you teach your sons of the power they hold, the power to influence young women? Will you teach them to respect and honor the virtue of women? Will you monitor their facebook accounts and their cell phones, holding them accountable to a higher standard? Will you hold MY son accountable when you hear him saying things he shouldn't be saying? Will you stand with me so that MY son will not be the ONLY ONE who is trying to do what is right? Will you teach, over and over and over, the RIGHT way to compliment a young woman, thus allowing our young women to learn to believe in themselves? Can we begin today to instill in this growing generation just how amazing they can truly be, so that when they reach the age to marry they won't have allowed Satan and the world to degrade them? Who will stand with me and shout the world down? Will you?

the joys of mother/wife-hood

I love what I do. And what I do is try and keep a happy husband and raise some cute kids. However, I must say, today I am not loving my job as much. There has been more vomit and poop today then I have dealt with in a while. Isabel woke up with a weird 12 hr flu. She threw up 8 times from 7:30-11:30. Then she was all done. Mike started throwing up about that point. Stella was doing ok then just threw up on me at 8pm tonight and had some awesome exploding diapers. So here is to hoping that by tomorrow all of this funk will leave my home and we can get back to normal.
To add to all of the excitement around here. My Dad flew into town for a quick visit. He flew in Saturday night and will leave tomorrow (MOnday) at 1. He has yet to lay eyes on Isabel or Mike. Stella still loves him though. So here is to a lot of prayer and hope and everything crossed that I will not be sick and that Dad can see Isabel for a few hours in the morning before he flies out. :)

Some new cute pics

First up, Dresses from G'ma




new skirt from G'ma



Bubbles after church one day.