Life is Good

We're always looking for an excuse to visit family, and we found a pretty good reason this past weekend. Richie's sister and her husband were coming to SLC for a baptism, and we just found some couches to buy in Layton! Our old couch was a hand-me-down from Richie's Grandma and it was starting to show some real wear, so we spoiled ourselves a bit by getting a couch and over-sized chair that are new to us, although we bought them used off of ksl.com. Richie's family was nice enough to pick them up for us, haul them all the way up here, and then immediately turn around and drive back to SLC with us. Wow huh!? We love the new couches. We feel like we practically have a new house! Richie's mom also took me to a fabric store to find some awesome fabric for projects around the house including making pillows for our new couch. Don't be too jealous of this fabric. I LOVE it. I think if I could, I'd bathe in it.


We had a wonderful visit with Richie's family! Thanks again!

Richie with his bro Tanner, Miles and Richie's Cousins little boy!


Working in the Garden!


Miles on a pre-Easter egg hunt


Please Sir, I want some more!

Secret Garden

I flew through "The Secret Garden". Why have I never read this book before? I've seen the movie and musical, but the book is pure magic. It teaches so many valuable lessons in my opinion. For instance: Most times, people will act how you condition them to act. Giving people the hard truth, coming from the right place mind you, goes a long way. People who care about others first always seem to have all their priorities straight and seem happier than most people. And of course, playing outside in the fresh air will do more for you than any amount of learning about fresh air.



Speaking of gardens, we're starting one! A couple in our ward has family that has land near us and we're going to do a good sized garden together. We're stoked! Is that still a word cool people use? If it is, then yes, we're totally stoked. If it's not such a cool word, then, we're very excited. We've already started some of our starts. Now it's just time...Hey spring...could you get here and stay here sometime soon? Please and Thanks.

Where's Waldo?

More like where's Miles? Sometimes hurricane Miles hits our house and leaves wreckage strewn about the living room, his room, the kitchen... everywhere. Luckily, Hurricane Miles is fairly easy to clean up after. The only problem is that he sometimes gets lost in the mess. Can you find him?




The weather is being so fickle around these parts. It keeps teasing us, like Spring really might be here, but the next day, we're stuck inside. So when the weather is nice, we take advantage of it. We went to the park the other day and let Miles try out the playground for the first time. He's fearless. He loved it.




The other night, Richie taught swing dance to the youth in our ward. They absolutely ate it up, which was nice. Here's Miles with 2 of the boys we had in our old primary class. They sure love Miles. They even all got together on Miles' birthday a while back, and found us to sing Happy Birthday to him.




Last night for FHE, we were planning to go to the park again, but the weather turned icky, so we made edible play dough instead. It didn't take more than 5 seconds for Miles to realize he could eat it and that he LOVED it. I guess we'll have to wait for a bit for him to enjoy play-dough the proper way. :)

A new love, and an old love

I have a friend in the ward who knows how to refinish furniture etc and recently she offered to help me refinish some of ours! Not just show me how, but she let me use her paint, paintbrushes and disc sander! You have an awesome sister Nicolina! :) Anyway, here's how some of our projects turned out! I LOVE how they look now and now have a new found love of refinishing furniture and painting. I'd better be careful, or this could become an addiction! The owners of the mini storage had some left over paint they said we could use, so we also painted our entry-way this past weekend. Richie was not a big fan of it and when I told him how much fun I was having he said I had to stop watching so many Mormon commercials. :)





In other news, the snow finally melted enough to go frisbee golfing! Richie was extremely excited and couldn't wait until it got warmer, so we bundled up yesterday and went to IF and played some frolf:) We took Miles about 1 year ago in the baby backpack and he didn't really get it for obvious reasons. This year he totally loved it!

Finding Joy in the Journey

As some of you know, I recently got my old job back working as a waitress at "Da Pineapple Grill" to help earn some extra cash. It was not our first choice of things to do, but we felt it was what was right for our family at the time. It was stressful and hard, but provided us with some money to tide us over. So many times I'd come home late with my feet just killing me and I'd sit next to Richie and think, 'One day, I won't have to go to work and that will be awesome" or in other words, "then, I'll be happy." Long story short I was semi-forced to quit this past week. I know we always have a choice, but the female owner didn't like me too much and just stopped scheduling me because she was afraid that if she fired me, she'd have to pay me unemployment. So I ended up quitting because it just wasn't worth it. So I should be breathing a sigh of relief, right? Yay! I don't have to go to work at night anymore!! Right? Well, although it is nice, I'm not 10 times happier than I was before, like I expected.

My point is, I seemed to always be trapped in thinking that I would be happier if "this" just happened, or one day when we get "this", I won't worry so much, or if I had only done "this" before I was married, I would have so much more of "this". It seems to be a chronic illness, akin to what the Bernstein Bears like to call the "Gimmies".

I've had this quote up for as long as I can remember to help me with this condition, and it looks like I'll have it up for quite a long time more. Maybe one day, when I'm finally over the "gimmies", I can finally take down this quote. ;)

"For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin-real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. This perspective has helped me to see that there is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way. So treasure every moment you have and remember that time waits for no one. Happiness is a journey, not a destination"
-Souza

Insert wise and whimsical Irish phrase here _______

So this past Friday we had our friends the Christensens over for IRISH NIGHT! We realized it's way early for St. Patrick's Day, but wanted to do it to make sure we got it in, in case our scheduling changed, plus we were just itching for something out of the ordinary.
The menu consisted of Corned Beef and Cabbage, Irish Soda Bread, Pistachio Pudding squares, and a pint....of root beer. Megan brought over some delicious fruit salad and a totally Irish movie for us to watch. "Secret of the Roan Inish" The girls liked it, the boys preferred to make commentary throughout to make it more interesting. We listened to Irish Pub songs on Pandora, and had a fantastic, out of the ordinary, Irish night!
If anyone's interested in the recipe's above, let me know! They are in the "Mormon Celebrations" cookbook if you have that. Everything turned out way yummier than I was expecting, and much easier. So if you're looking to do something special for St. Patty's day, this might stir things up a bit. Richie has also had fun finding clovers around the house that I planted. It's such a fun idea for spouses or for kids. I found the idea at Love Actually, whose button is on the right side of the screen.




Totally unrelated: Miles caught a case of the croup (sp?) this weekend. So not fun. If anyone has any creative ideas on how to ease the symptoms, let me know.

Modge Podge Post

I had a few random things to post about today.

Book Review:

I recently finished reading "Leadership Education" by Rachel and Oliver Demille. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who interested in home schooling, or just making their home more conducive to nurturing a great education. It's written by LDS parents who home-school their 8 children; the basis of the book is how everyone who has been or is in the public school system, has gotten a "conveyer belt" type education. They want to help educators and parents turn away from this style and help give children a true leadership education by giving our children the tools they need to think for themselves and to love learning. As with any educational book, you have to think of how their suggestions will fit into your family and then adapt the things you agree with in the best way possible for your particular situation. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, and look forward to reading it again and again.

Project!


While the Garners were here, Richie's mom helped me make some bean bags with some left over fabric and old pop corn kernels. How fun right?! We made squares, circles, stars, hearts and rectangles. Some were big and some were small, and they all had different colors and patterns. He LOVES the fuzzy one. That didn't surprise me. I had a left over oatmeal container, so Miles and I painted it, and all of his new bean bags fit perfectly inside! Too bad he's already destroyed the twine on the outside. :)

Miles:

As messy as ever! My friend Megan came over to visit and brought us some delectable brownies. They were a bit messy as you can see. You can also see Miles' typical reaction when the sweets are all gone. He can now fold his arms for prayer and 'says' amen. He can also 'say' Jesus when we point to His picture. Unfortunately, he thinks every picture is Jesus; including pictures of himself.

Mormon Message:
It's been a while since I've posted one of these, and I thought it was about time. I especially like this one because I do like to create! But it's something I get to continually work at and practice. It reminds me that to create is not just something you do for fun, but something you exercise, nurture and develop because you were created by the most creative being ever and it is central to our happiness.

How Many People Can One Baby Entertain?

This weekend, it was at least 7. Miles had everyone wrapped around his chubby fingers. We had a great weekend with the Garners who thankfully came up to help us with our taxes among other things, but mostly just to cure us of boredom and homesickness. I never remember to take as many pictures as I'd like, but here are a few.

Grandpa and Grandma getting some kisses on Miles after bath-time!


Uncle Jeffrey sharing some Nilla Wafers with Miles


Before Sledding:


During Sledding:


After Sledding:


See how much fun doing your taxes is???


Everyone humored Miles by dancing with him


I've never been able to get a video to upload. This one did, but it wouldn't play for me when I viewed me blog, let me know if you can watch it.



Thanks for the great weekend Garners!