Not so sweet release....

I feel strange writing about this but it is part of my life and has been a major part of my life for almost all of my married life so it is a major change and I feel like I should write about it for my sake more then anyone else's. Just so that I don't forget how I am feeling today. If this is to personal for you, don't read it, so read at your own risk! But these are the feelings of my heart! For most of my married life, about 90% of my over 10 years of marriage, I have served in one way or another in Primary at church. I have come to to know the children in our ward. All of them. And love them. I not only love them but feel our Saviors love for them. I enjoy being with them, they bring joy to my heart. I love spending hours planning activities for them, planning sharing times for them. Teaching and being with them. I am not going to say there haven't been weeks where I don't come home from church with a head ache and need a nap but they still fill my heart. I know that the Savior loved the children and I know why he wanted them to "come unto me" They are so precious!!! I was released today at church and given a new calling as the Enrichment leader in our ward. This will be foreign to me. I have attended Enrichment's for years but spending Sunday's away from the hustle and bustle of the primary room will be a totally new and terrifying experience for me! It sounds crazy to some but truly this has become my life, my love, and there is no where I would rather be then with the children on Sunday! I pray that all those who serve in Primary know how truly lucky they are to be in the presence of these wonderful children. Even when they don't seem so wonderful they are still easier for me to understand and deal with then adults often are for me. I guess it is time for me to learn a few new tricks. But I have to admit my pillow has been wet for the past few nights, there has been little sleep, and I know my heart is breaking a little knowing I will no longer be serving with these angels. The women I have served with have taught me so many things and helped me grow in so many ways I didn't know were even possible. I am not the same person I was 2 years ago when I was called to be the primary president. I feel like I will miss the quarterly activity that I started planning, I had so many fun ideas and was looking forward to it, I was looking forward to the primary program in October. This will be the 2nd one in 11 years that I will be in the audience instead of on the stand with the children. I only pray that I will learn to love the sisters in our ward the way I love these children. I know I will enjoy serving where ever I serve, and I typically love change, but this change is scary for me. I shouldn't identify myself so strongly with a calling, and I don't necessarily think it is the calling it is being with the children that I will miss. But I will feel like there is something missing each Sunday when I go to church. I think I will follow the example of a few wonderful people I know from the Prineville ward where I grew up. I have been to more Gospel Doctrine Lessons, and Relief Society meetings there visiting then I have in my own ward and I have to admit that they inspire me. When I start to attend these meetings I want to be like them. It is obvious that they all (for the most part) read the lessons a head of time. They are all prepared to participate in the lesson, which is the way it is suppose to be I believe because we all learn more this way. I will be my goal to do this so that I will not feel like I am missing out, or doing my job. I am so use to preparing lessons, and planning every week anyway I don't think I should go on vacation I guess. It will be a hard transition for me but I know that this is the Lord's will. Our Bishop is a wise man and I know he is inspired. Now I just need to convince my heart, and hope that they children will still hug me and say hi to me in the hall because I know I will miss them desperately. I don't know if the emotional part of this is worse because I am pregnant or not but it just is. I will never forget these children, or those I have served with all these years! I also am so grateful for the sweet understanding of our last bishop who saw me crying in the hall, hugged me and told me he knew how I was feeling. I knew he truly did understand. It is hard to leave a calling when you love it so much. On top of it he and his wonderful girls who I have loved working with blessed me again this evening by bringing me brownies (still warm) and a wonderful thank you note. Just like we did for him the day he was released. This very thoughtful act touched me in a way I can't describe and I will never forget their kindness! It has been a hard day for me... Thanks to all those who have allowed me to serve in this capacity and let me love their children. Now it is on to the next chapter in my life, no matter how reluctantly I go.

The Sound of Music

I have been wanting to get Ethan started on some piano lessons but first we needed to get something for him to practice on. I started by looking for a key board thinking it would be easier, cheaper and take less space... well It wasn't going to be cheaper. I found this piano on Craig's list for $50! I was so excited. It plays great and isn't too ugly! So this morning Larry, the kids and I drove out to Aumsville and picked it up. The kids were all so excited to play with it all day. I am looking forward to years of it playing beautiful music! I ordered some piano books from Amazon so when they get here we will get him going with some lessons and soon enough Brock will follow. He wants to start right now too but I think I need to let Ethan get a head start. I promised Amelia she could start as soon as she learned to read. So probably by the end of the school year (next year) she will start up too.

Cravings!!!

Last year during the summer we had dinner at a friends house and she made the yummiest pork I have had! I told her then I wanted the recipe and meant it but hadn't gotten around to getting it. But as with most pregnancies I think most of us start to fixate on a food and want that food and only that food will do! Well this is the food I have been fixating on for over a week. I have wanted it like crazy!!!! So finally Monday morning before I headed out to do our bi- monthly shopping trip I call my friend Jessica to get her recipe. Good thing I did because half of it is stuff I don't have on hand all the time. I made it today (it takes all day). I have been smelling it cook all day in my crock pot just short of drooling I couldn't wait for dinner. I was sooooo happy when I took my first bite and it was just as wonderful as I remembered it!!! OOOOOOHHH I am sooo glad it makes so much so I can eat it for lunch for a few days. Usually I send left overs with Larry, and I almost never eat left overs this will be the exception! He will be lucky to get any more after tonight! I just might hog it all!! YUM!!! I thought I would share the recipe just in case I am making you drool too!
Jessica's shredded pork
4-5 lbs of Pork roast
put in crock pot in the morning 1/2 covered with water
cook for 1/2 the day (around lunch time)
drain the water and add
12 oz bottle of taco sauce
1 cup brown sugar
1 TBSP ground cumin
20 oz Coke
Cook the rest of the day
About 2 hours before serving remove the lid to cook out the juices so that it isn't too runny when you serve it!
Serve with rice and beans
We like black beans I just warmed them a little bit and the rice I cooked a little "fancier" I sauteed the rice with some garlic and cilantro and then cooked regular with just a little lime juice in the water!!!
Oh and this is not complete with out the sauce!!!
Sauce
Ranch
2 tomatillos
cilantro
1/2 jalapeno
(Larry said I could have used the whole thing but I didn't want to scare the kids!)
Blend till smooth
Serve on tortilla
Enjoy till you feel like you are going to explode! Well at least I did!!!

p.s. I didn't even own a blender but wanted this so bad I had Larry buy me one! It was worth every penny!

Weekend Camping trip

Larry and I decided to take the kids camping this Friday night and hopefully get a ski trip in for Larry and Ethan. Friday night we built a fire and Larry cooked us some yummy hobo dinners.

This is Brock waiting for dinner by the fire. Which is a rare shot because most of his time was spent whacking weeds with a stick!

Here is our master chief cooking dinner!

I got Hayden to show me how old she is for the camera. I taught her to do "two" like she is doing a gun with her fingers. It is really cute! We also learned that Hayden is really affraid of fire. Our first kid who isn't dying to throw stuff in their. It is nice to have one be a little more cautious!

Amelia waited for dinner by collecting bee bees from around camp.

The next morning it was raining and we were killing some time after breakfast to see if it would let up so we could head out on to the lake. While killing time I convinced the boys to let me do funny things to their hair since we didn't bring any games to play.

Brock had a little fun with it
Ethan willingly let me do it but didn't want to act like it thought it was funny!

The only way Larry could get them to smile for the camera was to talk about "gas" and not the kind that is fuel. They smiled enough to get a few shots that didn't look like I had tortured them. They only agreed to let me post these pictures because I told them that my oldest brother has a picture taken like this only he was probably 13 or so when my Aunt and I did this to his hair. It is a really funny picture. I am suppose to post it with this but I can't find it so I will look for it and maybe get my mom to send it to me so that I can post it with these.

Ethan got to ski first and he popped right up just like he skied yesterday! I was so proud of him he did such a great job and skied for a really long way! I am guessing he will be on one ski by the end of this summer!

Games and Snakes

Every summer I make my kids to "school work" out of workbooks. Usually just a few math pages, or something to keep them from loosing everything they learned that year. Along with it we always do a craft or two each week just to do something fun... Today I thought we would make these cup and ball games. My kids weren't thrilled at first till I finished one and showed them how to play it! They all got excited and made theirs. (I actually made Hayden's) Ethan became quite the expert very quickly. I think he caught it close to 100 times in a row. Brock and Amelia never really played the game they just kept decorating them with stickers, colors, and pipe cleaners.... my little crafters. Hayden had a lot of fun playing with hers. She couldn't actually do it but thought it was fun to count a long with Ethan and pretend to do it. I wish I had got the video going earlier because it was so cute how she was copying him.

This looks like Hayden was catching it but she actually had put the ball in the cup and was probably starting to dump it out.

Just a little later in the day this was what Ethan was doing.

He is sooooo proud of him self he caught this snake all by himself with out dad's help. He has tried before but usually got just shy enough they would get away. For some reason they seem to be in our yard more this year then ever before. We typically see a few each year but this year so far hardly a day passes that I don't hear the boys yelling about a snake. Maybe it is because they are out looking for them more... Not sure which. But I am not a fan of snakes so he has to stay outside with it and he can't keep it! YUCK!!!

This afternoon the kids discovered that their is a birds nest in our sandbox and there are baby birds in the nest! I told them to stay out of their for the babies protection.

I also made cookies this afternoon because I was feeding the missionaries and I like to give them dessert when they eat with us. Only I was sending them with food this afternoon because Larry and I are going to the temple tonight and won't be home for dinner time... Anyway when my kids came in I offered them a fresh cookie out of the oven and Ethan asked me, "what are these to celebrate for?" (Like I only make cookies to celebrate things, where has this kid been I make cookies just because I want chocolate!) Anyway I told them I was giving some to the missionaries and Brock quickly said "they are to celebrate the baby birds!" Funny kids. I will attempt to take pictures of the birds with out disturbing them much we will see!

The Name Game

Larry and I are trying to get a little more serious about coming up with names for this little one on the way. Since we are not finding out what this bundle of joy is we have double duty of coming up with both boy and girl names. We probably will go in with a few of each that we like and choose when baby is born. But I thought it might be fun to do a little poll to see what other people think of what we have come up with so far. I will list the names here and then put something for you to vote on on the side. Our middle names are Ben or Curtis for a boy and Donna or Amy for a girl. (They will depend on which first name we finally choose) If you want to leave comments on the names feel free. But understand that we will do the final choosing (mom!) This isn't a democracy, highest votes don't win, and this is a non scientific pole. But we would love a little help. Thanks! Oh and if you have write in votes you can leave them as comments.
So far for boys we have come up with Steel (Larry think my dad will like this one) Carter, Grant, Calvin, Porter, Sawyer or Carson. For girls we have come up with Naomi, Esther, Lily, Sage, and Ruth

Strawberry Heaven!

So this morning I asked Larry if he was going to take the kids to pick strawberries for me so we could make some jam. I told him I didn't need a lot since I had done so much last year... Mental note and duh to me since I already know this about my husband.... Tell him to get half the amount you really want! I told him 2 flats is more then enough. I knew he was picking them so we don't have flats I just sent him with bowls and he wanted buckets for picking into also. I said the 2 bowls full would be plenty (they are giant metal bowls I use for canning). He came home with the two bowls heaping full and 3 buckets full. We made a few calls to see if anyone else wanted some because that was waaaay more then we needed. Luckily we have good friends who were willing to share our "burden" So what do you do when you add.....

1 wonderfully helpful husband

17 boxes of Pectin

34 TBSP of lemon juice

Lots and lots of strawberries!

About 34 cups of sugar

You get about 50 plus pints of the yummiest strawberry jam! Oh you will also need a few hours to mix these all together. But since I have such an amazing husband it took me half as long or less then it would have to do this by my self! He really is the most amazing canning partner I could ask for! Even if he does over do it when it comes to buying the fruit EVERY TIME! You would think that going with him would stop this event but it doesn't he even did it with peaches once while I was standing there telling him to STOP PICKING! Gotta love this man!!! At least he helps me take care of it all. We also froze several gallons whole so that we can use them for waffles latter on, or for strawberry lemon aid. There are several quarts frozen for later also for mixed berry jam. But now my feet hurt so it is time for my wonderful husband to rub them with lotion and paint my toe nails since I can't reach them anymore anyway! Oh and this evening when Amelia told my I should paint my toe nails again (they are pretty chipped and I was painting hers) I told her I couldn't reach them any more and she very sweetly said. "oh yeah cause your getting so fat." Thanks!

In Full Bloom!

Joseph's Coat

Sterling Silver
Tree rose

I love spring time when all my bulbs are blooming in my yard. But as soon as as they are all gone something else wonderful comes out of hiding. My beautiful roses. Larry does a wonderful job at fertilizing, and pruning them. I love to smell them. We always have lots of people tell us how beautiful our yard is because of them. But Larry really does all the work. I use to do a lot of it but the more children we have the less yard work I end up doing... Someday I will enjoy working in the yard again. Till then I just enjoy looking at it. I also have to give some credit to a sweet friend of ours that moved to Alaska. She gave us a Joseph's coat. Which is a rose I had wanted for a long time because I love the colors of them. She had one in a pot and gave it to me when they moved. It was around 2 or 3 feet tall when she gave it to us 3 years ago. Larry pruned it back to under 4 feet in Feb. It is now at least 8 feet tall and covered with the beautiful variegated yellow, orange, red rose. They are so vibrant and the colors change as the bloom and I just love them!!! Thanks Julie!

Peace and Quiet!

The other night Larry and I were cleaning up dinner while the kids were suppose to go get their jammies on. Low and behold before I was done all of them had their jammies on and it was very quiet in the living room. I looked in to see this site. My sweet Ethan reading to his siblings and they were all sitting quietly listening. Larry and I were amazed because every night when I read to them there is a wrestling match over who gets to sit next to me and "I can't see..." It was so peaceful and such a sweet sight. I only took over for scriptures they were doing so well!

The Good Samaritan

Today when Ethan got home from school he asked if he was late. I told him no he was right on time. He was worried that I would be worried because on his way home from school there was a girl who had forgotten she was riding her scooter home and wore flip flops to school. So she had ended up hurting her foot really bad. In his words she had a big flap of skin! So he rode back to the school (he was on his skate board) and asked for a band aid and a cup of water so he could clean her cut. Oh and one of the older girls in our ward got there too and stayed with her while Ethan went back to the school. So Ethan got back to her and helped take care of her so she could get home! He told me he felt sad because there were some other kids that passed her and they just laughed at her. I was so proud of him for making a good choice to help and that he had the courage to go all the way back to the school (he was about half way home). I told him it was just like the Good Samaritan.

Last Baseball game!

I know you are probably all sick of hearing about baseball!!! Well it is finally over! Last night was Ethan's last game of the season! His coach let them mix it up a bunch for their last game and let them try new positions. Ethan got to play 3rd base for one inning and did a great job. One hit came right to him he caught it and threw it right to first base. I was so proud of him! He did get another hit and was very excited. All my kids were dead set on going to DQ since Ethan got a hit but DQ has bleed me dry for this months budget already so sorry Ethan not tonight! Even though the boys got to play positions they were not use to they still won. Not only did they win but they creamed them! 3 innings were called over because they scored 5 (here if they score 5 or get 3 outs the inning is over.) So the game ended 18 to 3! Go Reds!

Ethan throwing to first from 3rd

Catching the grounder at third!

Up to bat. He hit once, walked once, and struck out once.

Last week updates

Last week was extremely busy! We went from one thing to the other and unfortunately because of my pregnancy brain I was double booked a few times and missed a few things I was suppose to do also... I guess I will have to get better at using my planner! Anyway Monday was our yard work, BBQ day, Tuesday Amelia had Gymnastics. She only has one week left. She has loved it and I am amazed at all the things she can do and do well. I love watching her on the balance beam.

Later that night Larry and I were going through a bunch of stuff to take over to our friends garage sale and I saw a raccoon run across the street right towards us. I told Larry and he went to look and it ended up climbing onto our roof. I know you can't see it very well in this picture but it was the best I could do. Larry ended up chasing him off the roof because he was trying to break in through our roof vents. We really don't need a Raccoon living in our attic!!!

Ethan had another game Wed, which was great but I missed a Cub Committee meeting I was suppose to be at at the same time (one of my many double booking). Then Thursday Amelia had gymnastics again and we missed a little get together things for Brock and all the Mentors at school that come work with the kids who need a little extra help with reading, math... what ever their need. Brock's happens to be a reading buddy. But the school counselor had told me his mentor wouldn't be there because she was out of town. Then Thursday night I was babysitting the little boys I watch and Ethan had a Pack meeting (more double booking) I would have had Larry take him but he was working late that night so he ended up going with another family in our ward. Sorry bud I missed it! But Such is life for right now. Anyway Friday Ethan had another Baseball game. (They won! and Ethan hit 2 times!!! DQ is making big bucks off my kid this year!) Oh and this was after a day of taking stuff my my friends garage sale, watching her little boy so she could run the garage sale, and having 3 of my other boys I watch on Fridays! It was a boy crazy day!!! But it was perfect weather for it. They rode bikes, and swam all day long!!! Lots of fun! Oh and we went to the school because Brock got Student of the month again and we went to see him get this award. I was so proud of him! I failed to get pictures because I had one of my extra kids with me and he is a busy kid so I never had a minute to get a few shots. Plus I showed up just in time for them to call his name so I wasn't even ready! But Yeah Brock! Saturday was filled with our Primary activity (which I forgot to make my treats for until that morning so I whipped out some no bake cookies at 8:30 am to take. My mom has also arranged to do my Grandpa (her dad's) temple work. So due to the timing of the schedule Larry and I were able to stay at the activity long enough to watch all the kids perform but needed to leave as soon as that part was over and leave clean up to everyone else. Thanks to all who helped. We made it to the temple and were able to spend the afternoon with my parents, and 2 brothers in the temple. It was a wonderful afternoon!!! We also got to have "lunch/dinner" together when we were all done. We headed home and picked up our kids from our wonderful sweet amazing friends who are moving away next week!!! Oh and while we were gone all day Ethan had 2 baseball games! (more of the doubling up on schedules! ) Luckily there were great mom's willing to get him to his games and keep him in between! What would we do with out great friends?! Anyway it has been a very busy week and I am ready to have a "quieter" week this week. Oh and all of this was on top of having my 2 little boys that I watch about 5-5.5 hours a day. (Good thing they are such sweet and easy boys!) Oh and my ultrasound was thrown in there on Thursday along with a hair color and cut before I went to my ultrasound! I was way over due! But since I have pregnancy skin I am unwilling to post any pictures of myself with the new color (the cut isn't different just a trim). This week should be "quieter" as in Ethan has one game (HIS LAST!) and Amelia has her last 2 days of gymnastics. No other major extra things other then a relaxing dinner with friends who are moving away, and my follow up appointment with my Dr to get all the results from the ultrasound and check everything out. I haven't been for over 6 weeks so I guess it is time. (I spaced them out with this one so that I don't feel like I am there ALL the time. I think it will help the pregnancy go faster too! Look we are already over half way there and I have been in 2 times, plus the ultrasound!) Yeah! Anyway it was a busy week with a very busy Sunday to wrap things up. Sunday we had church (normal) but it was one of those kind of crazy Sunday's in primary. (Which still beats any day in Relief Society for me but I won't go into that.) Then we came home, fixed dinner, (while Larry was Home teaching) ate dinner, our Home teacher came over I left before he did to go to our Primary Teacher improvement meeting, which I taught half of. And then home just in time for 1/2 hour of family time and bed time! WHEW! Part of me felt overwhelmed and exhausted by the end of this, today as I have already mopped the floor, only have one load of laundry left in the house (this included my sheets!) and a few other house hold things including paying bills I am feeling like I can conquer anything! Look at all I have done in a week and with 1/2 my day! Plus I am blogging it all! So at the risk of jinxing myself I am going to say "Yeah me! I can do anything... with lots of help anyway!:)" Here is to being busy, staying busy and hopefully taking a nap!