a little reading...

So, I've been planning out my garden, and while waiting for the sprinkler man to come and cap off some sprinkler heads, I've been doing a little reading. Here's a link to an organic gardening site. It's about companion planting, grouping certain plants together, because they help each other ward off certain pests, etc. I thought it was kind of interesting, and I'm going to try and plan my garden accordingly. And...I'm really trying to have more patience, because I'd really like to get my hands in the dirt!

I'm a tad excited...

So I am just a tad excited to get my garden started. We haven't even cut the sod up yet, but I'm really looking forward to getting my hands dirty. We've never had a true garden before, I planted a few things in my flower bed last year, but this year I have convinced Jared to help me create a little masterpiece in the backyard. So, it might be more of a weed patch, but I can hope, right? Actually, I've only convinced Jared to help me rent a sod cutter, and break ground. He says the only green thumb he'll have this year is going to be from golfing. Ha! I think I'm a little more persuasive than that. We'll see. So, I'm planning on planting tomatoes, peas, beans, cucumbers, carrots, onions, red potatoes, green bell pepper, and pumpkins. I also found chinese lanterns (Martha made a really cool fall wreath with these), and sunflowers for the kids to tend to. They'll go in the extra space I have in the flower beds. And my strawberry starts that I got from Janalee survived the winter!

I'm super excited, and hopefully the weather will cooperate with me!

thanks!

So thanks for all the comments about dog books, I think we might just try them all! Leslie's comment about the Little Golden Book "Pokey Little Puppy" brought back a fun memory. One year my Grandma and Grandpa Lybbert read those books and recorded them on tape for us. I can still remember my Grandma's voice, and the little chime they used so we knew when to flip the page. It's a good memory. I really want to be a good parent, and then an awesome grandparent someday. I've got lots of good examples to follow.

Our first dog, Cooper. He was super cute, crazy, and eventually HUGE!

Maddie is an animal lover, and we often found her in Coopers kennel laughing, and covered in slobber.

I got to experience dog obedience school, trips to the vet (for such a large animal, Cooper was a wimp), combing masses of black hair out, always hoping to be relieved from vacuuming each day. He shed constantly!

Sadly, Cooper lost his eyesight, and after growling/entering attack mode at Maddie one day because he couldn't see her or smell her (he was part Great Dane and had a bad sense of smell), we decided he needed to be put to sleep. I have since told the kids everyone needs to be out of diapers before I'll even consider another pet. Cooper was fun, but my kids are enough fun for me right now!

Instead we'll just learn about dogs, read their stories, and enjoy them from a distance.

I'm so old...

So last night I pulled out my scrapbook (that my mom so lovingly created) of my high school years. It is huge, and filled with all my cross country, volleyball, track pictures, and newspaper clips of the scores, times, etc. She is amazing, and I'm sad to admit I have only started a book for Colin, and it only contains his first few days. I am way behind. So why did I pull it out? I wanted to find my personal best time from cross country. Our meets were 3 miles long, and since I started running again this spring, I wanted to create a goal. I want to be able to run like I did back then. So I have worked up to running at least 3 miles each day, but I know it's taking me longer than it did back then. Now that I know the time to work up to, I have a new focus for my runs. I'm excited to go tomorrow and time myself. Volleyball was my favorite sport, but cross country and track are a close second. We had lots of fun back in the day.

Me and my cross-country teammates, in our short shorts. Yikes, those were scary.

And another gem I found in the scrapbook. I was nominated for Homecoming Queen, didn't get it, but I was prom queen if it's any consolation. I know, my dress isn't so modest. I'm going to teach Maddie all about modesty and repentance before I show her my scrapbook. :) And that cute little girl Cori just finished her sophomore year at BYU-I. That makes me feel old!

And off the subject, don't look at food blogs when you've just had a cavity filled, and you're still numb. I found this really yummy recipe that I'd love to try, but since I can't feel my cheeks and half my lips I better not start baking. Here's the recipe if you'd like to try it.

summer ideas...

So, I read Leslie's blog, and I've been thinking a bit about how I'd like our summer to go this year. I always try to make a plan, and my kids seem to resist anything planned. So my goal this year is to have a plan, but not divulge the plan, and pretend to be spontaneous. We'll see how it goes. I did find a cool website while looking for art project ideas for Colin's class tomorrow. This website has tons of art ideas, that will be perfect when we need to spend an afternoon inside.

I'm excited to see what my kids think.

Part of my plan is to read Beezus and Ramona with the kids, and then go to see the movie for Colin's birthday. Then for August, I'd like to read them a book about dogs, and take them to the museum exhibit Wolf to Woof in Idaho Falls.

I haven't decided on a dog book yet, any ideas?

a few lost gems...

So after finding the lost memory card, I decided I should see what would have been missed had it stayed lost forever. Turns out, not much. Well some of them were cute, but most were self portraits of my kids, and someone had a hay day following Gavin throughout the house. I think there are about 50 pictures of him pointing, probably trying to get them to put down the camera, and find him some apple juice. Turns out the videos of his first year were already saved to the computer.

Here are a few samples:

Kate enjoying a little ride in Arizona during Christmas break.

Maddie telling me the ride was a tad lame.

The kids experimenting with Gavin's long locks in the tub.

And a typical self portrait of Colin.

So, I've been alternating between three parenting books this last week, and have received some good advice. The tidbit I found most helpful, was to look for the good things your kids are doing and give them positive reinforcement. I tend to be a little pessimistic, and only catch them doing something they're not supposed to. I tried yesterday to seek out the positive things, and praise them, and you should have seen their faces light up. They loved getting the postiive attention. One author said that sometimes just using positive reinforcement will completely change a child's behavior. It definately made our home happier yesterday.

so happy....

So can I tell you how happy I am just now? Do you see that little red and black thing stuck in my computer? It happens to be a memory card that I have been searching for and missing for at least 4 months. I have been really upset about all the photos and video I had lost. Like 2 hours of video, mainly Gavin's first year!

I woke up from an awful dream last night, where Gavin rolled down a hill in his stroller, flew out of it, and broke his nose. I could actually see the bones sticking out of it. And then some random man running up to me saying, "oh, it looks like he broke the bridge of his nose." Uh, ya think? It was the worst feeling, and I vowed I would always set the brake on the stroller and buckle him in it every time. So, since I couldn't calm down after that I started in with the whole anxiety thing, about all the old videos I need to burn to dvd, and of course about the missing memory card. So, after an hour of tossing, turning, and worrying, I decided I needed to pray. I first asked that I would be able to go back to sleep, and then I prayed that if I spent some extra time cleaning up the computer room today that I would be prompted as to where the memory card might be.

So, I dusted the computer room, looked in a few spots that I thought of last night, and then I just randomly thought to look in the cd/dvd slots, because Gavin likes to push those buttons, and watch the tray go out and in, and that's when I spotted it! He had shoved the card into the wrong slot. I ran for the tweezers, and it was finally free! And now I am finally free of the worry! I am so thankful for those simple random promptings, that I know were from the Holy Ghost. I have searched all over the house, and I know that the random thought was not mine.

I think it's amazing that our Father in Heaven loves each of us enough to give us a way to communicate with Him. "Ask and ye shall receive". I'm also grateful for a mom who taught me at an early age to do just that.

it's here!

Yay! My conference issue is finally here. Having gone to Montana over conference weekend, I missed the Sunday sessions of conference while driving home. Most of the 6 hour drive is through mountains, and the radio doesn't come in too well. I'm not sure any of the stations there would even broadcast conference. Anyhow, I have been anticipating seeing it in the mail, and to my surprise, it's in color! Maybe I missed the memo somewhere, but it was fun to open it up and see the difference. And since it's a gloomy sort of day, I'm excited to put the kiddos to bed and crawl under the covers to read it.

Also, thanks for all the parenting book advice. I picked up "Have a New Kid by Friday, How to Change Your Child's Attitude, Behavior, and Character in 5 days" by Dr. Kevin Leman from the library. The only problem is, it'll take me two weeks to read it, so I guess for me it'll be a new kid by next Friday!

I also grabbed "How to Behave so your Children Will Too"" by Sal Severe, Ph.D. I know this is a big part of our problem. I need to change a few of my habits and behaviors, and our house would definately run more smoothly.

Hopefully these will give me some advice while waiting for Love and Logic to arrive. I also liked Kim's advice about the scriptures and prayer. That's another goal of mine before the kid's get out of school. I want to finish reading the Book of Mormon so I'll have a little spiritual guidance when the heat, exhaustion, and grouchiness arrives.

With all of your suggestions, I've got a new reading list for the summer.

I better get busy I guess.

Mother's day, bah humbug!

So Mother's day has never been a very great day for me. I think it's because I set myself and my family up for disaster before the day even starts.

Actually, the first hour of church went surprisingly well. Gavin decided that zipping and unzipping Maddie's scripture bag was all he needed to do, and he was a happy, quiet little boy all during sacrament meeting. The last two hours were a different story. Gavin was not interested in nursery at all, and I was getting more and more grouchy by the minute. I was ready to go home by the time church was done. The kids brought home some tootsie roll pops and these cute little flower messages that Becky made. She's awesome, although I never did see how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop. The kids had them gone before we even got home. Colin felt bad, and made me this cute little sign with leftover Easter and Halloween candy. It brought me to tears, I had been in such an awful mood, I'm so thankful for a sweet little boy who brought me out of it.

If you can't read it, it goes like this: I'm glad I hatched (with a chocolate egg) in this family. You're so fun like a (Fun Dip). These (smarties) make you the smartest mom ever.

Love Colin, Maddie, Kate, and Gavin. Isn't he so sweet? I asked him to hurry and make the grandmas each one. And Maddie made me a nice card, and Kate picked me lots of flowers/weeds from the back yard.

I like Colin's: "I love you because... your going to give me this candy." Such a jokester.
And Maddie's: "I love you because... she tacks care of me." Someone must have to her she misspelled takes because she then underlined it.

And Kate's: "I love you because... you are nice." Well, I'm nice everyday but Mother's Day.

And what did Jared get me for Mother's Day? Well, his hard work allowed me to buy some new exercise capris, and the Love and Logic parenting book. Thanks Jared! We're not really good gift givers. He did make lunch/dinner, and helped clean up the house. Oh, and on Saturday he did help me take down the Christmas lights, finally! Those things are not going up on this house again. After getting up on the ladder myself to put them up, and then again to take them down, I have discovered I'm a little afraid of heights, and so is he.

So, in preparation for the summer, I'm looking for good parenting books. I'd like to have a few tricks of the trade to pull out when the summer gets rough. So, if you have a favorite, let me know. There are over 10,000 choices on Amazon, and I'm going a little buggy trying to search through them all.

who knew?

Who knew Playdoh could be so much fun? We bought a pack of 24 colors because Maddie needed blue, green, and brown for school, and I'm not so culinary to whip up some of our own. So Kate has been asking to play with the other colors, and I decided while Gavin was taking a nap we'd crack open the fresh stuff.

First we created a little red bird. Kate was pretty impressed with my playdoh skills so I sat down to impress her some more. The sweeping and mopping would have to wait until she was done anyways, right?

So I made a little cut-out dog. This is exactly why I don't want one of our own. Darn dog pooped in my flower bed! She giggled over that one for a while. I wonder where my kids get their bathroom humor?

And then Colin and Maddie came home and we all made our own little masterpiece. Colin made a snake with some freakishly large fangs, I made a cute little turtle. Kate made a ladybug to add to her collection, and Maddie chose a simple pink dog. It's been the first afternoon in a long time that I haven't had to split up any fights, or argue about reading/homework. We do have things to get done, but I'm just going to let them work everything out in the playdoh first. It's been kind of nice.

This morning we had a little graduation for Joy School. I gotta say graduation hats on 4 year olds are pretty cute. Thanks Raygon, Jen, and Kate, it's been a lot of fun!

And last Friday night, Maddie had her dance recital. She did great, and it was a fun night. I'm sad to have missed Gavin shakin' his own groove thing at the Ward party, but I'm so thankful Gerald and Denys took Kate and Gavin so we could watch the recital in peace. It was nice to focus on Maddie for a change.

in case you missed it...

So, in case you missed Relief Society yesterday, like I did, because I was playing crazy conducting/horrible piano playing lady in Primary, here's the talk the bishop used in his lesson. We had a little discussion about it at our joy school graduation, and so I wanted to read the talk since I felt I missed out.

My favorite lines are "You knew what was going to be required of you. You knew it would be difficult, and yet you were confident not only that you could accomplish your divine mission, but that you could make a difference." Sister Dalton was of course talking about us in the pre-mortal life looking forward to our mortal lives. I have a testimony of our Heavenly Father's plan, I know it is a perfect plan, but sometimes life clouds my clarity. That confidence seems to shrink, and I feel like it might make more of a difference if I just stay in bed. But those are the times when the Savior and His role in the plan come to the rescue. I realize that I have an important role as a mom taking care of children that He loves. And that confidence comes back with a renewed sense of determination to make a difference in their lives and my own.

I wish I had been able to be in Relief Society for the whole discussion, but who would have stepped in to create Heavenly music in the Primary, right? Ha! That reminds me, I need to practice those mad piano skills sometime today, so I don't embarrass myself like that again!