Sunday pic

It's been awhile since I have added a Sunday Pic,  they are growing to fast.  It makes me a little sad. I know they are still little, but I felt like they were babies yesterday and I blinked and they aren't babies anymore.  I think I will blink again and they will be off to college, missions, and getting married.  I wish they would just stop.

Some things we have been up to (caution: may be boring to some, but I feel I need to write things down so I can remember this time in our life):

*Eden is enjoying school, and just participated in Jr. Achievement Biz town.  It was a real working little city located on the top floor of Discovery gateway museum.  She was a United Way volunteer coordinator, not the job she applied for, but had fun anyway.  I was able to go and I was placed in the First Security Bank.  I was able to see Eden when she came to cash her paycheck, she earned a whopping 14.00 for the entire day, all to be spent buying food from the restaurant and dinky little toys donated by various businesses around the valley. At the end of it all Eden still had 13.00 left :)  she wished it was real money.

*Asher is enjoying Chinese Immersion and is picking up on the language very easily.  Cache and I are always surprised when he comes home speaking phrases and singing songs in Chinese. We also found out this month that Asher has a condition called Uveitis.  It is when the insides of the eyes are inflamed.  The Dr. isn't sure what is causing the inflammation, but we have been sent to a specialist at Moran eye center that will be able to find the root problem and hopefully be able to treat it.  Right now we apply steroid drops 3 times a day, hoping they will bring down the inflammation so it won't cause cataracts, glaucoma, or blindness.  He is a trooper though and doesn't mind the drops anymore and didn't even cry or wiggle when he had to get a ton of blood work done.

*Ainsley is our social butterfly right now.  She asks to play with someone everyday and throws a fit if she is unable to.  She even asks to play with our sweet 20 year old neighbor, Elsa and calls her her "best friend". She eats way too much candy and loves "brown" soda, so much different that our health conscious Eden.

*Cache is living his dream, by starting his own business.  He has signed several clients and works hard with his employees in India.  He just returned from a trip to India where he was able to meet some of his employees face to face for the first time.  With him gone I realized how much I depend on him at home to help keep the house clean and to watch kids while I run various errands and volunteer at the school (It was a crazy 2 weeks with him gone).

*I am just being a mom, which I love.  I was able to be in charge of the primary program this year for the first time in all my years in primary.  It is a much crazier job than I expected, but very rewarding.  I was so amazed at what a great job all the kids did.  I have to admit I was so nervous after our practice two day before the actual program.  The kids were crazy, the seating chart wasn't right, and I didn't think the kids knew the songs very well, but everything went perfectly and without any errors (that I can remember).

That is our life right now.  Maybe I will post again in a few more months.

One of my favorite picture from today.......

SundayPic

2012 Primary Program

Asher was Narrator and spoke as a young boy who couldn't wait to serve a mission (the reason for the missionary tag)

Eden's part:  I need to be kind to everyone because Jesus was kind to even the lowliest person and I want to follow his example.

Ainsley's part: Sang "Wise Man and the Foolish Man" with the nursery choir.

Halloween 2012

 Asher-Karate Master

 Eden-Katniss Everdean

Ainsley-Hootie the Owl

The year Halloween was amazing.  The weather couldn't have been more perfect.  The kids came home with pillowcases full of candy.  Eden went out with her friends.  Barb and I took the boys and Ainsley.  After about an hour and 30 or 40 houses I had Cache come and get Ainsley and the we continued on with the boys for several more hours.  Ainsley had more fun at home passing out candy than she did trying to keep up with the speedy boys.  I wish every Halloween could be as great as this years. 

 School Parade

 2012 Halloween

"trick or treat!"

Camping in the Uintah's

We have become the little adventurers in the past couple of weeks.  It may not seem adventurous to some, but for us, a family with three young kids, this is crazy.  I have sworn off camping because I hate getting up in the middle of the night to stagger to the outhouse while searching for wild animals with my flash light.  I also hate lying awake for hours listening to cache snore and dealing with children that talk in their sleep and have go to the bathroom (again staggering to the outhouse, but this time with a child in tow).  But because of my husband's and children's plea's for a camping trip I caved and agreed to drive to the Uinta's for ONE night in the great outdoors.  It was much more fun than I thought.  We cooked hot dogs wrapped in rhodes roll dough (delicious), roasted marshmallows with Rolo's in the middle, and made smores with Nutella.   We also hiked (walked) around Butterfly lake, pitched a tent, explored a few meadows, and caught a fish.  Okay, I exaggerate a little on catching a fish.  I speared out of the lake a freshly dead trout.  I saw it floating and it didn't have gross flies flying around it and looked actually really good.  I suck stick in its mouth and pulled it out.  The kids had fun looking at it and then we gave it to some fisherman.  They actually decided to keep it-bleh.  The Uintah's are so beautiful and we had some good ole family bonding time.  I will say though, I didn't sleep AT ALL, and I did stagger to the bathroom, and eventually crying at 6:00 am because I was so tired.  All is good though, and I would possibly do it again, I just wish I was a heavier sleeper.
(please forgive these phone pictures. forgot the camera)

 Butterfly Lake

 Pigs in a blanket-campfire style

 itchy eyes+soot on hands=racoon eyes

 Provo falls

OH! I almost forgot to write about the faith promoting experience we had.  When we arrived in the uintah's we were looking for Trial or Washington lakes.  We ended up driving past the turn off to those two lakes and spent an hour trying to find them.  Once we turned around a found them we searched out a camp host who told us all the camp spots were occupied. bummer.  We drove to the next lake and heard the same news.  We drove to 2 or 3 more and again they were all full.  We decided we would try one more and if it was full we would go home and try another weekend.  By this time it was 5pm, the kids were getting hungry and we had been driving around for about 2 hours.  We drove into butterfly lake and Asher and Eden said they were going to say a prayer.  After about 2 minutes a man waved us down and asked if we wanted his camp spot because he had been up into yellowstone for the past week and was heading back home to SLC. He explained how his original plan was  to stay one night and drive home in the morning, but he was so close and missed his dogs and wife that he made a last minute decision to drive straight to SLC without stopping.  Lucky for us we took his camp spot , which was great because the rest of the campground was full.  My kids were so excited that their prayers were answered and their Heavenly Father listened to them even for something so small.

A few things to catch up

* I started this post months ago, and forgot all about it.oops*

I trained for a half marathon and survived.  I started back in January and ran 3 or 4 days a week, the marathon was scheduled for April 28th.  So that gave me almost 4 months to train.  I did so good and learned to love running, that is until I hit 10 miles.  After 10 miles I dreaded it.  I even stopped training as much, I only ran 2 times a week one short run and one long run.  My life at this time started to get really crazy too.  We were gearing up for moving and that seemed to occupy me more than I thought.  I guess I had some underlying stress that I wasn't recognizing.  The day of the HalfMary came.  I woke up and felt OK although very nervous to face the challenge ahead of me.  The furthest I had ran up to that point was only 12 miles, but I thought I would be okay because I felt like I could have done one more mile when I finished that run.

Let me fill you in on the day before the race......We ended up moving into our new house and there were so many bumps with the move. I slept only 3 hours that night in a new house with new sounds, not the greatest way to spend the night before a big run.  Carbing up?  I did a little, if you count 2 slices of cold Little Caesars pizza a good carb load.

Ok, sorry, back to the race.........I had a great friend that I ran with.  We started and were feeling good.  She felt better than me I am sure because she runs much faster than I do, but she was so sweet and committed to sticking with me (thanks Barb!)  Miles 3,4,5 came and went and we were doing pretty good.  We were staying hydrated at the water stops and we had downed our goo.  We were even a little under our (my) goal time.  Of course at that time I told my friend my goals were to not stop and stay under 12 minute miles, I was feeling good and thought these goals were totally reasonable.  I had ran 10 miles without stopping before (my 12 mile runs I had stopped for drink and potty breaks) I could totally do it again with adding 3 more miles.  7 miles passed still doing okay, but getting tired, I totally thought a Goo would pep me up.  8 miles came and I started to get doubts in my mind and mile 9 I broke down.  Tears started flowing and I had to stop and have a good cry. I actually had been near tears most of the morning, but figured it was from the excitement of the race (lame but I always get teary at races even if I am only watching them).  The stress of the move finally came out, maybe that's an excuse, but that is what I felt like it was.  The rest of the race was awful.  Every hill (and there was a lot of them) took all of my energy. I pretty much was running slower than if I was just walking.  I kept telling my friend to go on, to finish, but she wouldn't, which is good because I might have given up if it wasn't for her.  After about dying during those last 4 miles we made it through the finish line at 2 hours 46 minutes.  I didn't make either of my goals and I was so disappointed.  Would I do it again? Maybe.  But at least I gave it my best effort and I feel good about that.

Sunday pic

It's been a long time since I have posted a Sunday pic.  So for memory sake.....

Devouring the remainder of the brownie batter.  What more can a kid ask for?  

Welcome Summer

Summer is here.  Today was the last day of school.  Hello to fun times with my kids.  We started the season off with a movie in the park.  We all froze a little, but the kids said it was worth it and they would do it again.  I wish they showed a different movie though, it was Adventures of Tin Tin.  I will be honest, we didn't like it in the theater and we didn't like in the park.  I am not a fan of the drunken sailor and the violence.  We kept thinking this movie is really "PG".  

Look how pretty our park is.  I love how it is nestled in the foothills of the mountains.  I wish the city would do all the movies this summer in our park, I guess the city thinks there are other nice parks around too.  I don't agree ;)

Oh, I almost forgot that before we went to the park we went to classic skating.......The girls and Asher got their booty shaking all the while I sat and surfed the internet, I caught up on some blogs and Pinterest.  

Hard Work

I have missed my blog so much.  Life has just gotten in the way of doing any bloggin, even reading blogs-which is unheard of for me :)

This picture has been opened in my PS bridge for about a month and every time I see it I smile.  I love it.  It shows my husband who is such a hard worker, it shows my son who always wants to help and my 2 year old that always wants to be in the middle of everything (even now she sits on my lap as I type). Cache gave her the special job of holding his big cup of water, she took that job very seriously. When cache tried to get a drink it was all gone, ainsley had slowly drank very last bit. Another reason I love this picture.......see all those weeds? They came free with the house, but they have since been all removed and beautiful ground cover has replaced them. And because of those weeds we ordered 18 yards (which is a lot of dirt) of very heavy dirt and I shoveled a lot of it into wheelbarrows, so I acquired some sore arms and bigger biceps :) I will end with a "yeah me!" for taking the time to document a moment in our life!