Blessings

As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints I believe in fasting. We go without food for 2 meals & pay what we would have spent on those two meals to our bishop. As we go without food we also pray for specific needs, or blessings, or people. Each time I have fasted I have been blessed to know someone specific who is in need of my faith & prayers. Today was no different. I give all credit to my Heavenly Father for blessing me with this guidance & revelation. I have seen mighty miracles, softened hearts & many, many blessings come from fasting & prayer.

My cousin does a marriage blog where she posts "apples" to try each day to help our marriages. She posts talks & uplifting quotes. Today she posted a talk by Julie B. Beck given at Women's Conference. I tried this "apple" & have truely been uplifted & inspired to be better, to prioritize essential, necessary & nice-to do things. HERE is the link to read it.

Today started off as quite the "poopy" day. It's amazing how aware my Father in Heaven is of me & my needs. He sends instruments in his hands to help & uplift me. How grateful I am for friends, neighbors & family; each one was sent to me for a specific reason & purpose & I'm grateful to those who listen & follow promptings to serve me.

The Cabin

Sometimes I wonder if anybody really cares; but here goes another post.

We headed up to our cabin over my birthday weekend. Last year we did the same thing & on the drive home Makelle got car sick & threw up all over! This year, I got lucky, no throw up! We had lots of fun looking for deer, frogs & killing flies. The adults stayed up late & played Loaded Questions... I love that game! I haven't laughed so hard it a very long time!

Ethan is loving Kindergarten, he looks forward to going every day. Next week he goes off track, I'm not sure how much I'm really going to like tracks.

Kyler is sitting up & rolling everywhere.

Today I'm thankful for patience. The kids are fighting like mad, but I haven't lost it yet. Heavenly Father really is watching over me & helping me raise these kids.

July catch up

My sister-in-law's parents graciously let us use their condo & their boat & we headed up to Bear Lake with my family. We all enjoyed the beach... Ethan didn't like the sand getting EVERYWHERE! But he loved the boat ride. And he loved swimming in the pool with his water wings. Lexi is our little fish. She swam in the lake & the pool & went EVERYWHERE! She is fearless! But she did awesome swimming all by herself. Makelle loved the beach! She loved getting sandy & playing in the shallow part. She HATED the boat ride! She clung to me the entire time & so OW! OW! She didn't like the pool at first either, once she got used to it she didn't want to leave. Kyler was chill everywhere we went. He was sooo good about being drug here & there. He was up every 3 hours at night; but during the day he was a peach! Lexi chose to go on the boat instead of going to the caves with us. We had fun & got quite the workout climing 996 stairs.

Kyler is growing up so fast! He's rolling everywhere & loves when his siblings play with him; he always gets a huge grin when he sees them.

Makelle goes missing every once in a while. When I haven't seen her for a while I always look in my bathroom first & 99% of the time I find her here... in the sink. She loves to draw on my mirror with my deodrant, pretend to paint her toes, put on make up & read books.

Guess who started KINDERGARTEN?!? I can't believe it either! He started on August 3rd. He's my little social bug; I never worry if he'll make friends, he makes friends EVERYWHERE he goes! He's loving going everyday & looks forward to centers. Right now he's not learning anything new, he learned everything in pre-school. He's reading REALLY well & recognizes all his numbers. He loves to write & draw really cool pictures. He has a great imagination!

A few people asked how I did dropping him off on his first day. I DIDN'T CRY! Ethan is SUCH a good boy! I knew he would follow the rules, make good friends & love every minute of being away from home. Ethan is so loving, he always says "Bye mom, I'll miss you. Love you." And when he comes home he says "I missed you, but I had a lot of fun." I LOVE HIM!

Firsts

We took the kids bowling for the first time. It was nice to do something we don't normally do. We all had a lot of fun!
Ethan won the game! GO Ethan!! He even got a strike! I got 2 strikes at the end & took 2nd place- wahoo!

Makelle helped roll some of the balls, she was just happy to watch the balls come up. Good family fun!

My mom ran her first half marathon. She did awesome!

The finish line... maybe one day I'll run one too.

In other news, Kyler has 2 ear infections... & so does Makelle. Kyler is on his 2nd medication because the first one didn't clear it up. Makelle is on her 4th medication, because the first 2 she was allergic to & the 3rd one didn't clear it up. This is our last option, if it doesn't clear up this round then our only option is tubes. We took Kyler in for his "well" check (even though he was sick) only to find out that he's losing weight instead of gaining. I felt a little bit like a failure. We are now bottle feeding & he is much happier & will hopefully start gaining some weight. He was in the 10 % for his weight. It was stressful for the first 2 days to get him to take a bottle; he's getting used to it now. Needless to say it's been a very stressful 3 weeks.

This is pretty cool

Left to Right: Ryder- Sept '09, Tucker- Nov '09, Coen- Jan '10, Kyler- March '10, Ikyka-

May '10

These are "the 5 boys" born on Jeff's side of the family. There is no shortage of friends for Kyler. It's kinda cool that a baby was born every 2 months for 8 months

INSPIRATIONAL

I needed THIS today. It's been one of those days. It is very inspiring & gave me modivation to continue my day striving to do the best I can & rely more on my Savior. I can't do it all by myself.

I've lost it!

So I lost our camera. I have no idea where I put it & I'm a little bit peeved about it. So here's a little update & when I find the bloody camera I'll post the cutest pictures you've ever seen.

Lexi has started dance with her cute friend Abby... they're so cute together! I love that she has a little playmate, I love that they play so good together & I love my cousin Stephanie for doing joy school & arranging their friendship!

We took our first camping trip of the season. We went up to 12 mile canyon. We had lots of fun playing "baseball", I say "baseball" because Ethan makes up his own rules for the game; so it was closer to baseball than any other sport. We played catch, rode on the 4-wheelers, relaxed, & fished. It was an okay trip until the ride home. We got stuck in the stupid Utah County traffic (down to two lanes on the freeway on a weekend, PATHETIC!) So it took us about an hour just to get through Utah County, & then 2 miles from home our trailer blew a tire! Thanks to our awesome neighbor for coming to the rescue & helping change the tire!

Kyler is officially rolling over & is the happiest he's ever been. We found out yesterday he has his first ear infection... let's hope he doesn't keep getting them! And Makelle has 2 ear infections. It seems with 4 kids not all can be healthy at the same time, it's always one thing or another.

Here's hoping for the best summer ever!