Someday I'll be a whistler

So the past week of my life has been consumed with painting, painting, painting... the WHOLE house...top to bottom! I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I was painting everyday from the time I woke up until about 1:30 in the morning....sometimes later. I couldn't have pulled it off though without the help from the Farkels (aka....my fam)...so THANK YOU FAMILY...I owe you big time!

And my biggest thanks go to my sweet, sweet Dad who got to work every morning and hung in there and worked up into the wee hours of the night with me. My favorite thing was to listen to my Dad whistle as he worked. It would be after midnight and my mind and body would be shutting down and my attitude would be turning foal, but through my grumpy mumblings I could hear my Dad in the other room whistling a happy tune. It' s hard to stay grumpy when you are around someone who whistles a happy tune...even if it is LATE at night. My Dad just seems to be an all around happy go lucky type of guy...is that because he's a whistler....MAYBE...so I've decided I want to grow up to be a whistler. What will be the first song I'll whistle...I'm not quite sure, and who will be my first captive audience...most likely my kids because they are pretty accepting. (Although a couple of days ago when I tried to be silly in the car by singing and dancing with the kids, Sadie said "Mom stop that....really, I mean it...stop it"...hmm, I can't believe I'm already an embarrassment to my four year old. ) So here's another goal (to go along with the other 20 I've been all too slow to succeed)...but I'm going to become a more happy person and whistle my way through hard times.

Here's some of the finished product...the girls bedroom and Mason's bedroom. They were pretty fun to paint. The rest of the house was pretty daunting at times.

As tiring as this whole project was...I actually quite enjoyed being stuffed into our window taped shut...toxic breathing house with my family. You never can expect what will come out of my family's mouths after breathing in paint fumes all day. It was quite entertaining.

This was by far my personal favorite moment. This is a video of my Dad and brother trying to figure out a way to houst my brother up to the vaulted ceiling, OVER THE STAIRS, to paint two inches of triming. I thought for sure my brother was going to die. But we laughed so hard at how innovative they became and the ideas thrown around during this 30 minute "negotiation" process....so they call it...I call it a non-heated argument!

(The video is first taken on it's side...this is why I'm not a videographer! But I'm now a painter...let me just take up one thing at a time)...

Welcome to Utah

In an effort to see if Sadie is ready for kindergarten, mom decides to test Sadie to see if she knows the different kinds of weather: (It was cold and raining here in Utah yesterday)...

Mom - "Sadie what is the weather like today"

Sadie- "Um....it smells like horse poop and it's really cold"

Mom- "Yes honey....WELCOME TO UTAH!"

Our Good Samaritan

Today Grandpa took us out to get icecream cones but Mason fell asleep in the car before we got there, so we decided not to get him one. Sadie ate half of her icecream and then handed it to me and said she was finished and didn't want anymore. I didn't want to eat it either so I held it in my hands for a good couple of minutes until I heard Mason begin to stir. Once he woke up I handed it to him to eat. When we got home and Grandpa saw he had been eating icecream he was puzzled as to where he got one. Sadie said "Oh...Grandpa I gave it to him. I could see that he was SO SAD that he didn't get one. And I thought..hmm...what is the right thing to do, and so I decided to give him the rest of mine." Then of course Grandpa went on praising our "Little Good Samaritan" over the choices she had made...all the while I was in the back seat chuckling at her cute little fabricated story.

WHY YOU NEVER TAKE YOUR EYES OFF YOUR 2 YEAR OLD

So we survived our 12 hour road trip to Utah! Just after we arrived at Grandpa's house I let the kids run a muck around the yard. Mason was so excited when the neighbors two dogs came running out to play with them. I took my eyes off of Mason for only 1 minute when I realized he was no where in sight. I ran to the backyard, which is attached to all the other neighbors backyards (they are not fenced) and I could not see him anywhere. I began to panic! Sadie and I started running in every direction screaming his name. Then Sadie stops behind the neighbors back porch and yells "Mom he's right here!" I ran to the porch and looked everywhere but I couldn't see him. I kept saying "Where Sadie? I don't see him". She answered "Right there Mom." I STILL COULD NOT SEE HIM!!! Then my stomach dropped when she said "He's right there....inside that person's house!" WHAT!!! I looked to the window to see Mason with his face and hands pressed up against the window. Then I quickly ran through my head all of the options of how I was going to get him out. Should I go to the front and ring the doorbell...or should I just open the door? So I decided to just open the door...BUT IT WAS LOCKED...how did he get in there??? And what if he's getting into their stuff!!! So I ran to the front to let the owners know they had an intruder in their bedroom. Meanwhile I lost sight of Sadie. So I ran back towards the backyard calling her name. I was horrified when I found Sadie IN THE NEIGHBORS HOUSE TOO! That's when I looked down and noticed there was a small doggie door that I had not seen before. I guess Mason was not going to let that door stop him from getting that puppy. Which doesn't surprise me since Mason's favorite thing to do is act like a puppy.

So when I asked Mason to act like a dog for a picture for this blog post, Sadie said "Well I want to act like my favorite animal"....not hard to guess right?

And to think I wasted 20 minutes giving her a bath right before this picture. She continued to give herself a tongue bath all over her arms. Twice as clean I guess!

Packing the mini and headed to Utah!

Tomorrows the day...we are packing up the kids in the van and we're moving back to Utah. Sadie asked if she could pray for us tonight so that we would be safe during our travel. This is how her prayer went:

"Dear Heavenly Father, please bless us that we will be safe when we drive to Utah and that we won't fall out of the van while we are driving really fast!"...so I guess parachuting the kids out of the van if they are misbehaving is probably out of the question...oh well!

What a ham!

He's always been our ham...now he's our Easter 2009 ham...yum!

What I know to be true

(Please don't laugh at my fro....this was back in the 90's...)

It's been 6 years since my mom passed away on Easter morning 2003. As hard as it has been to move on through life without my mom, there's nothing more reassuring and brings more peace than the message and purpose of why we celebrate Easter. I know our savior was resurrected and through him we can be together and live with our loved ones again. The times I have felt the presence of my Heavenly Father most strongly are during those moments in my life when something big is being fulfilled in this wonderful plan our Heavenly Father has created for us. Those moments include my marriage to my husband, the death of my mom, and when my children entered into this world. I can't wait to live with my mom again, but in the meantime I'm enjoying the many blessing my Heavenly Father gives to me everyday.

Easter Pagent

For our date night this weekend, Rich and I (along with Kendyl...our favorite third wheel), went to see the Easter Pageant at the Mesa Temple. It was amazing and so well done. I couldn't believe the crowd this pageant pulls in every night. They were guessing that 15,000 people attended the night we went. I went 3 1/2 hours early and reserved us some great seats....it was well worth the time spent waiting. No Kendyl was not apart of the show...for some reason her warm fuzzie jammies didn't fit in with the time era of the costumes.




This was the ending and it was so powerful. This scene was actually on top of the roof so they were already about 40 feet above the stage. Again...what a wonderful experience. It really helped remind me what is truly worth celebrating this season.

APRIL SHOWERS...brings us...half naked kids in the backyard!

Hmm....why can't Mason stay dry???

Trying to stimulate their brains!

So my mission as a mom is to keep my kids bodies moving and the wheels in their brains turning. So I took them to the Museum of Natural History this week thinking they would return home with a much broader understanding of the world around them and a higher IQ. But the only thing they came home with was an exhausted mom.


Sadie says-"Mine is the big earth because I'm the big sister, and Mason's is the little earth because he's the little brother."

So what happens if Mason tries to take claim of the big earth???? He get's socked!


But no matter what kind of beating either one of them give or take...in the end they always come away being each others best friend!


PANNING FOR GOLD...they gave each kid a small plastic bag to collect the gold. But the pieces of gold were so small Sadie struggled to separate it from the sand. So in the end she just grabbed handfuls of sand and shoved the sand into her bag and called it good. On the other hand, Mason never even realized there was gold to be found. He spent his whole time scooping up water with the bowl and dumping it all over the older kids around him. That's one way to enforce crowd control!


Sadie posing in front of her knight in shining armor.



So I take my kids to the museum thinking I'm going to enrich their lives in ways I can't do at home or any place else. One of the first exhibits we went to was the poop laboratory, where they have on display a variety of poops from different species. Hmmm....not a subject I would have thought to expose my kids to....but THEY LOVED IT! Of course they did...they're kids! At least it felt like they were receiving some kind of higher education on poop when they go to the effort to dress it up like they did...FANCY!


Umm.....aren't we all??? I think mom received the most education this day!



Sadie's favorite part....our little aspiring actress gets to put her talent into production. The kids got to play in a "Blue room" while it projected everything they did on a movie that was already rolling. SADIE IS SUCH A HAM!

DO YOU THINK IT WENT UNNOTICED?

So yesterday Sadie talked me into making some yummy smores. After taking a big delicious bite... I headed off to the store all by myself. I went to the store in search for those Cadbury eggs that are small with a hard shell and just plain chocolate inside (which I could not find at either Walmart or Target). So I walked up and down the candy aisle about 10 times convinced that I had just missed them somewhere. I spent 45 mintues at the store, during which time I had talked personally to about 3 strangers. When I got back Rich's mom asked "Do you know that you have chocolate on your face?" My answer...."Ummm....WHAT!!!" I instantly started thinking about all the people I had talked to at the store and thinking back if I had gotten any weird looks from anyone. Then I started to laugh at the thought of walking up and down the candy aisle so many times and I'm sure the shoppers around me where convinced I was sampling everything. Oh well...at least my mother in-law made a good point....I probably won't see any of those people again in my life...especially since we are moving in a week!

Eating like a king

Kings not only like spagettios....they also love indulging in rare delicacies. We have discovered our little king has developed a liking for some unusual tastes:

It all started when a family friend who just returned from his mission to Australia brought over what is called "Vegitmite", which is a nasty salty creamy spread that looks like something that's already been digested. Not everyone dared to try it, but those of us that did try it only tasted a LITTLE of it spread on toast with cheese (disguising the taste as much as we could). Mason dipped his finger straight into the spread and licked it and said "Mmmmmm".

IT GETS WORSE!!!!

Then the next day while making cookies, I cracked the egg and set the egg shell down on the counter. I turned my head for just a minute until I heard a "Crunch, crunch, crunch"....I turned to find him eating the egg shell. I told him not to and to spit it out...instead he took the last bite of the shell and swallowed it and said "Mmmmmm".

HOLD ON....IT GETS WORSE!!!

Then later that day as I was changing Kendyls diaper I had just wiped her and put some more Desitin creme on her bum. THEN....Mason used his same little dippin finger to wipe up what creme was on her bum and YES he licked it clean....and then of course he smacked his lips and ended again with a "Mmmmmm".

We've always said this kid would eat anything...NOW ISN'T THAT THE TRUTH!