Quick pics

I just realized I haven't posted some pictures in a while. (Probably because I haven't been taking them as I  lust after a new camera...) So here's a quick pic update.

The girls helped Daddy plant flowers in the front yard on Monday night. It was a long and arduous process as I'm sure Matt will attest to. But they had a blast. 

The new watering cans will get a lot of use I'm sure.

The only problem now is keeping them from picking all the flowers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here we have a great example of Kenna's Star Wars obsession. She actually sat down with the DVD case and copied it - hence the word  "WIDESCREEN" written at the top. From the way it was explained to me Obi Wan is at the bottom left, then Han Solo sort of sitting on his head. Leia, excuse me, PRINCESS Leia is next (with the bun shaped hair) then Luke and his lightsaber. (This particular movie is her favorite because Leia's hair is the prettiest.  Well of course! That's how I pick all my favorite movies!) The gray thing next to Luke is one of the ships...Matt will have to say which one, I don't know a Tie Fighter from an X-Wing. The gray circle is the Death Star. You can see a picture of what the real cover looks like here, on the top left.

She is starting to creep me out with this. I regularly hear her puttering around the house humming the Darth Vader theme.

Here are some of the pictures the girls have taken with their new little Bean camera.

 

They have hundreds of pictures already - most of them of the carpet or the grass. I'll spare you.

You're welcome.

Skimming the surface

When I was a little girl, I was fascinated by my dad's ability to skip rocks across the surface of the water. I remember him teaching me how to pick a smooth, flat rock from the many that littered the beach and showing me how to curl my finger around the edge. He taught me how throw it hard and low so it would have the right speed and angle to bounce across the water several times before finally losing its momentum and slowly descending to the bottom of the lake.

Lately I've felt a little bit like those rocks...like I'm just skimming the surface. I know that I'm missing out on the depth, but at the same time, I'm not really sure how to change it.

I crave more in so many areas of my life - more depth to relationships, more spirituality, more knowledge and understanding, more compassion - but how does one go about adding all of this "more"? How do you find the time to really seek it when there's so much other junk that screams for your attention?

Life seems so busy. There are innumerable ways to use the time we have; so many options continually at our fingertips. It's easy to get caught up in all the day to day "to do's"; to sprint from task to task without ever really stopping to think about what we're doing and whether it's really important. Or sometimes we know what's important, but for whatever reason, we end up avoiding it or just putting it off.

This whole issue has been occupying an inordinate number of my thoughts lately...and I still haven't come up with any conclusions on how to remedy things, aside from learning how to live without sleep, that is. (Even with as as much practice as I've had, I'm not very good at that one.)

If you have any suggestions...I'm all ears.

In the meantime, I'll be skimming along the surface of things, trying to figure out how to slow down enough to finally get some depth.

Week in Review

Since I was a little preoccupied with other things this last week, writing everything down sort of fell by the wayside. I need to play a little catch up with the "goings on" before I get into the thoughts that have kept me so distracted.

Monday: Got the invitation to an old and very good friend's wedding. We were best friends when I lived in Hawaii back in 6th to 8th grade. I am so excited for her. She is an amazing person - I can only imagine that he is too. I wish I could go and be with her on her big day!

Tuesday: I got to go to chemo with dad and the rest of the "entourage". (Mom and 4 out of the 6 kids were there with him.) He has a little train of people that follow him through the office. I personally think it's SO cool that my sibs make the time to come with him to so many of his appointments. I am grateful for such a close knit family!

Kenna had tumbling so I got to hang out at my sister's house and contemplate a family history project with her. (My sister has a tumbling studio in her garage...)

While there I learned that my niece is expecting a baby!! She is the one that miscarried not to long ago so I am doubly excited for her and her hubby. What great news!

Wednesday: Some sad happenings with friends from work. I found out that a former co-worker and beloved grandpa type friend has been diagnosed with cancer. It breaks my heart to hear that yet another person in my life has been afflicted with this horrible disease.

Another sweet hearted person that is in my work group found out her 23 year old nephew was killed in a car/motorcycle accident. This also breaks my heart. I have some nieces and nephews around this age and couldn't bear to lose any of them, especially like that.

Thursday: Crazy busy day at work. So many things had to get done and it felt like I just couldn't find the time to do it all.

I found out a project that was scheduled to move forward this week didn't go because someone didn't get the submission packet turned in until today and it missed the approval committee meeting. It killed me to see the project get stalled after the person had known the urgency and had promised to move it forward. I was extremely disappointed, especially since the person responsible has not yet called to let me know - I had to find out from another source.

Got to go to lunch with a dear friend. She needed mashed potatoes and I needed some time out of the building. Being with her always cheers me up.

I was also able to spend some time with mom and dad, and review the family history project with them as well. I actually got some of my old junk cleaned out of their basement too. (I've only been married for 7 ½ years...and officially living on my own for 11. It's about time!) I found some old cards and letters which I'm thoroughly excited to read again...just as soon as I can catch a spare minute at home!

Matt had his last day of class for the semester. One more class and he's done!

Friday: Another busy busy work day. Deadlines were moved up, which always creates a special type of chaos. We finished the most important items though, and I was able to sneak out a half hour early to get a head start on a weekend with the whole family at home. I love Matt's weekends off - four days straight of having him home in the evenings goes a long way to improving my sanity levels.

Saturday: Matt took the girls shopping to get a few of the things we need to get the yard/garden in shape for the summer. As much as I really hate yard work, I'm excited to get things spruced up and looking nice. I know the girls will love having some flowers in the front yard that they can help take care of (they even have their own watering cans now thanks to daddy).

I was able to get a few things done around the house while they were gone, and I got a little one on one time with the boy.

Grandma and Grandpa T. took the kids later that evening so we could have a night out. They had the 4 other local grandkids over too so it ended up being a very fun evening for the kids...although I'm not so sure about poor grandma and grandpa.

Matt indulged me and took me to look at a camera I've been ogling for a while. It finally came out on the market this month and I've been anxious to get a look at it. Not that we can afford it right now, but it's nice to know what you want should you ever be the recipient of a large sum of money you can't figure out what to do with. (I must say I'm unimpressed with the staff of Best Buy and their knowledge of digital cameras.) We ended up getting a small (and cheap!) digital camera for the girls to play with.

We went for a late dinner and ended up running into Matt's brother Joe. Seems he was working the off-road show at the convention center up the street and was able to get us in for a peek after we finished eating. It was fun to look at all the tricked out Jeeps and other off-road vehicles.

It was even better to hear about all the progress that Angie (Joe's wife) is making though. The last few months have been amazing. She's almost rid of her cane and they are talking about moving forward with her transplant in August.

Sunday: Church was nice. The girls were pretty good and Liam slept most of the way through it. I had a dead arm, but it was worth it to get the chance to concentrate on the lessons. My visiting teacher still thinks I'm her project, but she's nice and helps with the baby when I need it. The Relief Society teacher did a great job and I had to hold back tears all the way through the lesson. (When did I get to be such a cry baby!?! I get choked up at everything these days...)

We had a pretty nice slow day at home. The girls were able to go outside and try out their new camera. Lyssa took a bzillion pictures of everything. Kenna's were a little less prolific and a little more interesting. I was able to press all the quilt blocks (finally!) and finish getting them arranged. Matt was able to work on a schedule readjustment for work in the hopes that they take his suggestions instead of what their current plan is.

If you actually read all that, I'm impressed. I barely had the attention span for it myself. Here's a little reward for your stick-to-it-iveness.

Fountain of all Knowledge

I found it. The fountain of all knowledge. No, it's not the internet, silly. It's my MOM.

Can I just tell you that my mother is the most amazing woman on the planet? She's like my own personal, walking reference library. I can ask her anything and she springs to my rescue.

As in, yesterday morning:

"Mom, we want to plant a garden. Tell me everything you know."

I'm not sure if she told me everything she knows (well, because she knows A LOT) but man, with what she told me I could have my own farm.

I am seriously floored with the amount of knowledge this woman has in her head.

That and she's so amazingly generous with it.

As in, yesterday afternoon:

"I'm here to look at your garden."

That's right. She came over to my house to give me a personal consultation. How amazing is she!
She also gifted me with some stellar advice on putting together my quilt. I do not know what I would do without her.

Weekend of AWESOME

You know those weekends where you get everything accomplished that you want to so on Sunday night you can sit back, relax and take a breather knowing that you did everything you possibly could to make the most of the time you had?

Yeah. Me either.

But this past weekend came about as close as I can get to that.

Matt had Friday night off work since he has been putting in so much extra time teaching training classes. We were able to go out and spend some time with friends that we haven't seen in like... forever, due to my AWESOME parents and their willingness to baby-sit even though they've already watched the kids twice this week while Matt was at school. We haven't had any nights out for a while so it was VERY VERY MUCH appreciated and needed.

Saturday I was able to spend some time working on the quilt. Due to Matt's EXTREME AWESOMEness, he took the girls to the grocery store and left me home with a sleeping baby and a load of material to cut. SWEET. I got all the pieces cut out that I needed to while they were gone. I was even able to get a bunch of blocks sewn up later that day due to AWESOME children keeping themselves entertained while mom was holed up in the basement.

Today was pretty good as well. The AWESOME kids behaved through Sacrament Meeting, the rest of the blocks are sewn because my AWESOME baby took a 3 hour nap (I'm positive it's because of the constant prayer running through my head "Please let Liam sleep long enough for me to finish this..."), the AWESOME kids actually ate dinner and my AWESOME laundry got folded and put away. (Okay, so the laundry is far from AWESOME, but I was on a roll with the theme there...)

So what if the bathrooms didn't get cleaned and the yard didn't get worked on and the garden didn't get planted...Or the kitchen floor still needs to be scrubbed, or the garage still has unpacked boxes, or the mirrors still have fingerprints. I had myself a weekend full of AWESOME.

Plus, I GOT MY BLOCKS SEWN YA'LL.

And isn't that what's really important?

(Don't answer that...)

Medicine for an (already) rough day...

It's 7:30am and I'm already having one of "those" days.

Then I find this...

And I get me a good giggle.

Too bad I don't have a Hawaii Chair or I would REALLY be set.

Quote of the Day

"You have a choice. You can wring your hands and be consumed with concern for the future or choose to use the counsel the Lord has given to live with peace and happiness in a world awash with evil. If you choose to concentrate on the dark side, this is what you will see....Now the brighter side. Despite pockets of evil, the world overall is majestically beautiful, filled with many good and sincere people. God has provided a way to live in this world and not be contaminated by the degrading pressures evil agents spread throughout it. You can live a virtuous, productive, righteous life by following the plan of protection created by your Father in Heaven: His plan of happiness."

~~ Richard G. Scott, Ensign, May 2004

"How to Live Well amid Increasing Evil"