Friday, July 12, 2013

A yard full of rocks

We are renting the house we are currently living in. The owners did not want the renters to have a lot to fuss with in the backyard. With that said, the backyard is "landscaped" with rock. We offered to change that and they politely declined. Luckily for me, my kids are the eternal optimists and they found something to do in a backyard full of rocks! That is....they dug a hole, pulled out the hose and played in the mud! Heck yeah, they had a blast! Their friend Madalynn came over and helped build the "pool" as they call it. I am grateful that they can find great beauty in a very interesting backyard.




 Our friend Madalynn.

 Notice the backyard is full of water!

 If you look at the trampoline, Katie is showing off her front handspring tricks. She is our resident gymnast!


 Oh, and one more thing....the kids got bored one day and decided to cover Kellen's head with all of Katie's clips. I had to get a picture of it to fully embarrass him when he is older.


Katie insisted that I get a shot from the side to show to full effect.

Hall of Flame Museum

We were invited to go the Hall of Flame museum with some friends from church. They kids loved it! It was really cool though. There were several old trucks that the kids could look at. They also go to dress up like a fireman and slide down the fire pole.

 All dressed and ready to help those in need!

 Katie and her friend Jocelyn.
 Here is Kellen acting normal.

 Kellen was being a turkey for a moment and refused to smile. Then....

 he changed his mind!

 There is our resident monkey, Katie. She had no problem getting to the top of the pole.




 There he goes!

 Here we are next to an old fire truck.



 My handsome young man.

My sweet Katie Nana.

When it's too dang hot in AZ.....

You buy shaving cream and let the kids go to town with it in your bath tub! They had a blast and were playing for about an hour. Yay for shaving cream!


So this is how they started off. They were kinda covered....and then they sprayed more shaving cream and the rest of the pictures show what happened.









I think they had a lot of fun! 

Monday, July 1, 2013

Kellen's Armpit

Our conversation with Kellen tonight.

K-Today I licked my armpit two times

Tom-Really? One time wasn't enough?

K-Oh wait, I actually licked it three times.

Really, I never thought I would have the conversation with Kellen.

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Father's Day

This year Father's Day was held at our casa. We all enjoyed Hawaiian Haystacks in honor of Katie's request. It sounded easy and we knew that it would feed a lot of people. Good thing because we had about 12 people with 2 in utero (Jake and Erica's twins).

This year each father received his own tie cake. I got this off pinterest so I cannot claim to be creative. However, I can claim the ability to copy others. So, each father got their own favorite cake. From left to right: Ross-German Chocolate cake with a almond and coconut (whatever type frosting goes on German chocolate cakes). Tom-chocolate chip cake, cool whip frosting with strawberries and blueberries. Dad-Tomato soup cake with cool whip frosting with strawberries and blueberries. Jake-Fun fetti with cool whip frosting with strawberries and blueberries and sprinkles!

 After dinner, we all sat down to give my dad his present. We got him a book with pictures and songs that reminded us of him. It was really nice, I am just not super great at describing it right now. Of course we all goof off from time to time. Diana got some lovely pictures of us :)


 The kids played dress up that night. Katie dressed up as a bear. You can see Landon behind her as a wizard.

 For some reason Katie and Kellen decided to dress up like each other. Katie is so little that she still fits into size 5/6 clothing and she is turning 10 this year.


Finally, Kellen is playing the part of Waldo from Where's Waldo and Landon is a gun slinging skeleton with a  red sequin headband. As you can see we had a super fun filled evening!

Saturday, June 22, 2013

The Age of Accountability

It is no secret that Kellen is really funny but he doesn't even try. He is smart too so his comments surprise us at times. The other night Tom had to have a conversation with Kellen about being a leader, not a follower. Here is how it went:

Tom-Kellen, it is important to be a leader and make good decisions, even if your friends are not making good choices. (Then came the age old question): If your friends jumped off a cliff, would you?

Kellen-Well, yes. If I jump off a cliff right now, I could still go to Heaven because I have not been baptized yet.

Tom-What?!

Kellen-I am not 8 yet and I can follow my friends off the cliff.

Tom did not go into that conversation having to remind Kellen that we still need to try to make good choices before we are 7 years old. He cannot make poor choices until 8 years old and then all the sudden change.

This kid is so stinkin' funny!

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Introspection

I cannot sleep, hence the post. Tonight I had an interesting conversation with someone who may not think so but she is a lot like me. I could say, we are a lot like each other. Sometimes that works in our favor and in other times it drives a large wedge in our relationship. It causes a myriad of contentious emotions that everyone in our path is affected by. I have always wondered why that is. If someone is a lot like you, shouldn't you love them?! Shouldn't they be your favorite, like two peas in a pod? I mean hey, they are just like you.

I am trying to understand something though. How is it that someone in essence can ask you  to become someone you aren't just to make them happy. I have been told that I am a "know it all" who adds comments to every conversation and I don't care what I say. That was rather rough. I guess I make all sorts of medical comments that aren't wanted. Just because this person knows a lot of nurses that seem to want to diagnose everyone doesn't mean I do it all the time. I am being punished for something I try not to do just because I am a "wanna be nurse" at this point. Sure I can diagnose people with the best of them. However, something kinda funny. I don't know a lot at this point and I only have a few diagnosis that I can use. Let's see, maybe someone has Hashimoto's disease, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Bladder cancer, a thyroid storm, and my favorite, diabetes :) Really, compared to everything out there, my list of things I know is super short.  If only that person knew, that everyday in nursing school I am made to feel somewhat dumb. I am constantly being reminded of how much I do not know! My knowledge of anything medical only scratches the surface. If only this person knew that at this point I breathe nursing stuff, I think about it daily and I try not to think about while I am sleeping. If I try too hard I find myself dreaming about it. Ugh! Really, can I not leave that for just a few hours and get rest? If only this person knew that throughout the week, that on top of my nursing stuff, I also have to think about primary teachers, scout leaders, activity day leaders and especially the 80 plus primary kids that need every ounce of love that I can give them. That there are several kids that are constantly on my mind as I pray for a way to help them seek their Heavenly Father during trying times. Not to mention, I have two kids at home that need me as their mom to focus on them first, nothing else. How to juggle so many things and then have to find out that I pretty much suck and that I need to be quiet so as not to add too many comments to any one conversation. I would never ask for pitty, I simply ask for understanding.

I wish that I was simply given the benefit of the doubt. That I was not automatically thought of as the "know it all" but rather someone who wanted to contribute what I may know. I don't know everything, that's for sure! However, I do have some (little compared to some) life experience under my belt. I might have at least one or two things that I know. How do I just simply shut my mouth and allow others to carry on a conversation without saying anything just to allow someone else to feel happy. Really, do I need to be a silent statue to make someone happy. Am I really that awful? Am I not allowed to share cool things about what I have learned about just to avoid offending someone?

Something that I try to do when I am hurt or angry at someone is to try and find a way to serve them. I have tried many times to put this person before myself. This person says thank you after receiving my service but I don't understand why they cannot see that I am not a bad person and give me the benefit of the doubt. Is that too much to ask coming from me. Am I really that bad? The thing is, of course I would continue to serve this person but at times I do it reluctantly. This is not what we are taught to do as followers of Christ. Yep, I suck. I cannot even serve without wondering if this person is going to blow up at the next thing I say. I just truly never know.

In order to be treated the way you want to be treated you must first treat someone else with love and respect. I myself lack in my treating this other person fairly at times. If I want to be given the benefit of the doubt I fully realize that I need to allow myself to do the same. Perhaps when this person is challenging my parenting style, telling me I am dumb while laughing or rolling their eyes, they don't mean anything by it? Am I taking offense way to quickly? Yes, I am, I am sure I am. But I am not the type of person to sit and allow others to walk all over me. If you are planning on attacking me, expect it right back. Almost every time I see this person I prepare for battle. Going in to see them with battle gear on and a bad attitude about them never solves anything. I take part in disrupting a nice time between others that we are around. I have actually called to apologize to this person one time, they didn't take my call and I left a message. They never called back to acknowledge their part in the argument. They never even called to acknowledge my message period. I was hurt. I was kinda mad. I didn't feel like being the bigger person but I did it. And so it goes, the circle of contention continues and I continue to reflect within.

I am looking at all of my faults...this could take a while. I already know this is going to take a lot longer than one night. This will take weeks, if not more. I am human. I am learning. I am hurting. I am sad. I need to remind myself that I am also not so bad. I also have a lot to teach others, if they want to listen. I need to work on being a better me. I need to teach my kids that they need to be kind to others regardless of the opposition they are met with in life. I would like to spare them the 1am retrospection session at the computer. Although truthfully, it does help getting everything out in the open. So many emotions are floating around in my head right now that "spitting it out on paper" makes it a little easier.

Well, now it is 1:18am and I am wide awake! Really?! After all of this introspection fun, I am will try to get some sleep. Too late for melatonin and too early for any caffeinated beverages such as soda :)