A Fun Fourth

These pictures are a little late, but I’ve been busy since I got home. 

Everyone hanging out on the cool grass. The weather was actually not terrible (considering the temperature hovered around 110 degrees practically the whole time we were in Tucson). Me taking pictures, as usual.

A little video of Joseline throwing poppers. I think the one in this video didn’t actually pop (the pop sound is probably from one of the other 20 poppers that were being thrown) but she got a kick out of it anyway! And she did get a few to pop.

Russ and his cousin Aaron shooting “popper” guns that shot confetti. We originally were trying to light what we thought were wicks on all the fireworks... then we figured out that they were actually just confetti popper type fireworks... doi. So, we had a noisy 4th of July, but not a fire-filled one :(

Us hanging out on the hammock (which we were breaking 8-o it as already broken, we just broke it a little more...)

 

Independence Day Cakes

Ingredients:

- white cake mix

- 16 oz. heavy whipping cream

- 4 T. butter

- 1 c. sugar (granulated or powedered)

- 2 tsp vanilla

- 1 pint strawberries, rinsed and sliced

- 1 tub blueberries, rinsed

- a bunch of kids who want to decorate cakes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just bake up the cakes, let them cool, make the “whipped frosting” – which is basically whipped cream with a little butter to make it a little thicker. I didn’t take the time to find a really good whipped icing recipe, so I just kind of made it up as I went along. It tasted great. And I didn’t measure anything at all, so, you know... I just kind of made up some measurements right now on the spot.

If you look at the top right hand picture above, you’ll see that the second cake started out as a star – but then there were extra strawberries and blueberries, and since the smaller kids were “in charge'” of the star, it ended up just being a pile of fruit on top of a cake. Delicious.

Toney working on the “star” cake that ended up being a fruit pile cake.

Joseline “helping”

Vincente “helping” (my kids sure have odd ways of helping out in the kitchen, don’t you think?)

 

More independence day pictures for your viewing pleasure:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

The hand with the lighter is Aaron. Silly man.

this little man

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Because She is a Mother

I have been doing a lot of soul searching lately, and I have had the great blessing of receiving personal revelation. It has been a sweet and tender thing for me.

In doing a little of my soul searching, I went to the Church’s website where I happened upon this MormonMessages video.

I bawled through the whole video, of course (as I am prone to do while watching Mormon Messages videos).

But then I looked up Elder Holland’s talk on the Church’s website.

I felt as if Heavenly Father was confirming the spiritual promptings I had previously received, and was preparing me for further inspiration that came later that night.

I love the things that I have learned. I love having that relationship with my Father in Heaven. I want to do His will, and I know that He reveal it to me as I become able to understand and act upon it, and as I prepare myself to receive it.

Motherhood is such a sweet gift.

I don’t need to feel pressure to teach my children the things the world pressures me to teach them. Elder Holland read parts of a letter he received from a young mother who said that “...she felt like the world expected her to teach her children reading, writing, interior design, Latin, calculus, and the internet – all before the baby said something terribly ordinary, like ‘goo goo.’”

I have often felt a lot like that. I feel a lot of pressure to teach my children these things. But then, when I sit back and reflect, I feel a greater need to teach them the gospel.

“...we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.” (2 Nephi 25:26)

“Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity. Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities. By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children.” (The Family: A Proclamation to the World)

The Proclamation to the World talks about successful families being established on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.

I find it interesting that the Lord doesn’t include “learning” as one of those principles – obviously he wants us to learn, as He has instructed us to “seek learning, even by study and also by faith.” (Doctrine & Covenants 88:118) But when he talks about “successful families,” the emphasis is on teaching Christ-like attributes, not teaching our children their ABC’s.

I never cease to be amazed at the Lord’s mindfulness of me. When I actually come unto Him and humble myself and really ask for revelation, He gives it to me! Just for asking. I feel really blessed, and I kick myself for not preparing more fervently for that revelation. I could have done more, and done better a lot earlier in life if I had just kept in close contact with the Father. He has so much to teach me, if I’ll just open up and listen.

Zipcode

We got to spend a wonderful weekend with Russ in Arizona! We also got to spend some great time with his fabulous cousin Aaron, and his family (Anne and four of the rowdiest Navajo boys you’ll ever meet – but boy are they well behaved! And sweethearts! And freaking adorable.)

On Saturday we went to the International Wildlife Museum in Tucson. It was pretty much the most entertaining thing we did. Holy cow – so many “stuffed” animals (not sure what the proper term for that is…)

While purchasing tickets at said museum, the lady at the ticket office asked for my home zipcode.
I hesitated.
Who on earth hesitates when you ask them their zipcode?!
I’ll tell you who – displaced Army wives who don’t live with their husbands, have a home of record halfway across the country and have their household goods stored practically in the Pacific ocean.

My goodness… I think I’ve known my zipcode at every place I’ve lived before I even actually lived there!! But now… er, just a minute… let me think about that… hmm, do you want the zipcode of my household goods? The zipcode of my “home of record”? The place I’m living now? Where our “head of household” lives? For your average human being, these are all the same number. For us? Yeah… we’re pretty messed up.

Aaron also taught us some things about the saguaro cactus. A saguaro cactus won’t grow its first arm until it’s about 100 years old! Holy cow, that’s an old cactus! After that it can sprout new arms every 40-50 years. So the cactus in that picture (not mine, btw) is probably 4-5 hundred years old! Whoa. You think I could have gotten a few of my own shots of these ancient wonders, but, you know, I had something (one) else on my mind.

The aforementioned museum is located kind of in the middle of a saguaro “forest.” Spending time in Arizona has kind of changed my perspective of the desert. While I would never choose to live in the desert, it does have its own strange beauty. I used to think of the desert of a dead, brown, dirty place, but the cacti, other plants, and even the mountains and rock formations and all the dirt have their beauty. If nothing else, the desert is sure fascinating!

The only tree that is older than the saguaro cacti are the redwoods in California (which, you will be sad to note, we never visited – not our fault – we had even reserved a campsite when the Army decided to change our plans for us).

So yeah cactus = really cool.

We also took the kids to Toy Story 3 in Disney Digital 3D! Basically, for Vincente it’s just an expensive ticket to see a blurry movie, since he refuses to wear the glasses for more than 10 or 15 minutes of the show. But whatever, he enjoyed it (and Russ and I love watching the shows in 3D).

On the way home, Vincente was singing “Hay un amigo en mi.”

Seriously, see Toy Story 3.

It was awesome.

Russ and I stayed at the Westward Look Resort in Tucson on Friday night while the kiddos stayed with his cousin’s family. Joseline didn’t think that was very cool (she wouldn’t look us in the eye for about half an hour after we got home), but we had a great time, even if we never did leave our room ;)

Next time we go to Tucson (I think we just might do it again someday… just because!) we’ll stay there and experience the Sonoran Spa and the horseback riding and all the other cool stuff.

I would like to learn how to
rock climb
and then go climb
Picacho Peak
or something.

P.S. I will post pictures of our 4th of July activities in their own post in the interest of keeping this post readable length.

The Land of the Free

Happy Independence Day!


-- Post on the go

The House - for real this time

Well, here is the house that we have put an offer on.

This is a site with a few pictures.

Hopefully we'll hear in a few months about the property. Ha ha, I say months because it is a short sale, and there is a lowball offer in the bank right now, so we have to wait for the bank to say no to that offer, and then say yes to our offer. Which is actually perfect for us, because we don't want to close on a house until at the earliest mid-September. We'll probably end up closing at the end of September or the beginning of October. Which is great, since that's when we'll be able to move in anyway. The home is perfectly move-in ready. The yard needs some work since it's been vacant for a while, but that's going to be more fun than work! As you my know from my garden blog, I love to dig in the dirt, and plant stuff. The whole house has new paint and new carpet. The only appliance we'll have to buy is a fridge (KSL, here we come!).

Just in case, we put a few offers on other short sales as well, but we won't even consider those homes until this house gets sold to someone else.

My friend, Trisha, told me that I would just know it when I found "the house" - but after walking into house after house after house (probably 50+ homes in 4 days), and really liking some of them, I kept thinking to myself, "Maybe that's how it works for her, but maybe I won't ever have that feeling."

Then I walked into this house in West Jordan and I just got that feeling - "This house." That was it. Before I even saw anything in the house. Then I started walking around, and I kept feeling it! "This house. Yes, this house." In fact, after I saw this house, we still had three or four homes on our list, and I had absolutely no desire to see any of them. And when we walked in to each of the other homes, we simply walked back out, because my feeling about this house was still so strong!

So, either we're supposed to live in this house, or we're supposed to learn a really hard lesson by not living in this house...

I'm hoping it's the former.

lost and found

Look what we found in Arizona!






Ps Vince has been telling me lately that "I lost Papai" and last night at Denny's he told Papai all about it:

"Papai, I lost you and so I had to turn into a dragon and fly to find you."

-- Post on the go

An Observation

Today on the plane we put on a Disney movie, and as usual at the beginning, Tinkerbell waves her little sparkles all over the Disney castle.

Vincente's observation: "Tinkerbell has milks!"

For those of you who are unfamiliar with 'Vincente-speak' milk is his chosen euphemism for 'breasts.'

My response: "Why yes, yes she does." and he went back to his movie.


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Puppy Love

Tomorrow we (me and the kids) are going up to Vilonia, AR to meet our little puppies! We are getting a brother and sister – black labs. We haven’t decided on names, but I figure we have until August (when they are ready to come home) to decide that kind of stuff.

These are the females from the litter – we’ll pick one maybe tomorrow, but maybe not until we get back from AZ – I’d like them to be a little older before we pick one. We’re not actually bring the puppies home tomorrow, since they are only two weeks old! But we will be bringing them home in August. Then begins the training. Without Russ. We’ll see how this goes. Thankfully my mom won’t be teaching lessons in the mornings in August, so hopefully she’ll be able to watch my kiddos, so that I can watch the new kiddos… we’ll see how that goes! It will definitely keep me occupied for the rest of the summer!!!

  The brothers! They come from a litter of 8 puppies, six females (3 brown, 3 black) and these two males. Ours is the one on the right. He looks a little shrimpy, but that’s okay. Hmm, maybe we’ll call him Shrimp. Just kidding!! I think he looks precious, and who knows, maybe he’ll outgrow his brother! (we’ll probably never know, but my goodness, don’t they look ADORABLE!)

We’re getting the puppies from here. Purebred, AKC registered little bundles of joy. Don’t worry – we’re not going to be breeding dogs. Especially not siblings. Ew.

wipe-out

My mom got Joseline from her bed this afternoon when she woke up from her nap. Apparently she woke up "happy as can be" (my mother's words...)

Come to find out, this is why...



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Olive

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In Which I Won a Water Bottle

… and a plush dinosaur toy that roars when you squeeze it. And Vincente ran his first 1K.

Results were posted here.

You can see more photos of the event here.

You can see my pictures here

(if you’re my FB friend – if not, friend me!)

Body Job

My van got some work done and now looks beautiful! Thanks to Javier. If you're in the LR area and need some body work done on your car for a reasonable price, call Javier. He was by far the absolute BEST price I found, and he did a GREAT job!



Laminacion y Pintura
Body & Paint
Javier Peral
3713-A MacArthur
N Little Rock, AR 72118
Cell 501-960-5864

You actually turn left down the road next to Bob's Pawn shop. Javier is under the pawn shop in the back.

Support small businesses! :)

-- Post on the go

Stability

I just wanted to check in so people know that things are stable (ish) right now.

Things will be okay for the next few days, and the hope is that they start getting better.

I got to Skype with my brother yesterday.

It was a sweetmoment for me in a sea of bitter days.

I will write a post about the houses we put offers on, at the very least. I may even post about the wedding reception and all the blessings my (Werner) family has been receiving (but I may just say that we have been receiving them). We have such great family and friends – all of you are really appreciated. I hope you know how much your love means to us.

I will also be posting a book review on my healthy living blog – A Word of Wisdom. I’ve been reading the book In Defense of Food and it has been fabulous, so I’m itching to write a review. I’ll try to get that done before we leave for Arizona next week!

Drooping Heart

Things are a little rough for our family right now. We need prayers and faith right now - and lots of it.

I may not be posting for a little while. If you know me well, you know where to find me if you need me.

My heart is breaking right now.


-- Post on the go

My Goofy Girl

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Childlike Faith

Vincente prayed this morning at breakfast. It went something like this:

Thank you for this food
Please bless the food
Put it in our tummies so they will be big and strong
Please let us go to the swimming pool today (this is a request in his prayers pretty much every day....)

My heart just melts when I listen to Vincente pray.



-- Post on the go

Sweet Lovin's

My sweet girl giving kisses to her precious baby cousin, Rosalyn.


Baby I need your lovin - got to have all your lovin!

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The House

So, we think we've decided on a house.

Well, you know... maybe. We'll see. We're going to let it simmer over the weekend, and in the meantime we're going to meet with a mortgage officer at our bank, and just - you know - take it easy and think about it a lot.

This is the house.

Here is a picture of the front:

They even left the Christmas lights for us. Ha ha.

It's an older home (1969), but it's HUGE (2460ish sq ft) and our realtor says there's probably some room for negotiating in the price. It need a lot of updating (bathroom and kitchen, mostly) and the basement isn't finished (but there are two finished bedrooms - in severe need of carpet... ). So, I figure we'll probably end up putting about $20k of work into it before it's completely like we want it. Only about $10k (or less) of that work will need to be done before we move in). It has 5 bedrooms, and 3 bathrooms, with the potential for a 6th bedroom in the partially finished basement. It's on nearly a 1/4 of an acre (HUGE lot! Especially for the tiny lots for homes these days...) It's in a pretty good neighborhood (so my realtor says - we may need to do some more research on the neighborhood), and it's down the street from an elementary school (like, walk down the street past 2 other houses, then cross the not-busy-at-all street, and you're at the school. Great for home value). Most of the homes in the area are valued at around $200k (and that's right now, when the housing market has kind of crashed). The Zillow estimate for the home back at the height of the housing bubble was $250k! Whoa. Anyway, right now the Zillow estimate is around $200k.

We figure if we update the house, add the 6th bedroom, and take care of it, it will have great resale value, and we'll at least make back what we put into the house (which is really all we would be concerned about - this isn't an investment property - it will be 1st and foremost, our home!)

So, like I said, we're not 100% decided, and there is still a lot to think about and be done. Then on to appraisals, inspections, negotiations, etc etc etc... yikes! Good thing we have a great realtor.

Good House Hunting

I think this picture basically says it all...


I spent pretty much the entire day house hunting. We found a lot that I liked, but the battery died on the video camera, so I wasn't able to take video for Russ. My realtor said the we can go back through the houses tomorrow and do the videos. He also said that if my camera keeps having problems he can bring his for backup.

My #1 favorite house is in Lehi (just by Thanksgivin point) - mostly because of the location (and because it is in GREAT shape and has an awesome floor plan. But then the price is a little higher than we want to spend.

My second favorite home is in Kearns - it has a great yard, a great floorplan, and a pretty good price.

My third favorite is the steal we're looking for - 2400+ sq ft, for about $134k. It needs a LOT of work, but structurally it is fine. It has just never been updated probably since it was built in 1980. It is on a HUGE lot with fruit trees, too. The only deterrent is the amount of work we need to do to make it how we want it. But we'll see what Russ says. I'm up for the challenge.

So, that is day 1 of house hunting. We have about 10,000 more houses to see tomorrow, including one of my favorites - the renters were being conveniently absent when we came by. It looks like a nice house in great shape. I can see why they might not want the house to sell.

We're going to try to look at it tomorrow (along with the other bazillion houses we need to see).

Wish us house hunting luck!


-- Post on the go

Avião

We've been up since the crack of dawn, and in aiports/on airplanes since 7am.


We is me, mom, Julia, and five children underthe age of 5 - including a five week old baby.


My kids are WAY overtired because, smart mom that I am, I put them down late last night. In my defense, Russ skyped us, and I did have to pack, and since we all three share a room I couldn't pack while they were sleeping.


Despite the lack of sleep and large number of small children, our travels haven't been TOO stressful. We all still like each other - that's a good thing, right?


The kids got a kick out of the moving walkways...


They liked to jump off at the end - like stunt men, I guess.


Then we had a race. KayLynn with her crazy long legs (for a 4 year old) was definitely the fastest. No wonder she likes racing so much!


While we ate lunch at the little Bar & Grill (where I had a crab Louie salad - which left much to be desired after being in Monterey for so long enjoying such fresh seafood) I looked up a playground in the airport (thank heavens for free wi-fi and iPhones!). So we mosied over there.

On the way, a nice airport man gave the kids little rubber airplanes.


The playground was a little dissapointing, but it was in a large, open, empty, mostly secluded area, so it's working for the time being.


It has definitely been an adventure so far, flying with so many kids, but thankfully we're still alive (if tired!) - but I shouldn't jinx our luck, since we have one more flight and a 45 minute car ride to go!

-- Post on the go

Food Safety

I wrote a little blurb over on my healthy living blog about food safety. Sparked by the yucky Capri Sun mold issue on Facebook. Yuck mold.

How Do I Breathe

I finally talked to my sweet heart today.

After three.stinking.days.

I have no idea how I made it through basic training without him.

Well, he made me promise to email him every day.

Having an iPhone will have never been so handy!

Riverfest 2010

The balloon glow on the north side of the river, seen from the south side of the river. That morning these balloons launched in Maumelle (fourth picture) and flew down the river, landing by the river. After dark, the pilots and teams do what is called a “glow” – they fire their balloons in sequence, so that the balloons light up like Christmas lights! It’s fun to watch, and was a nice way to end a great day at Riverfest.

At the International Village stage – the Kenyan Safari Acrobats. They did some cool jumping over fire stuff, too (see picture below). And please excuse the young lady to the right… she and her mom decided to stand in front of us pretty much the entire time. Try as I might, I couldn’t manage to get a good shot without getting their back sides in the picture. Finally I politely asked them to move, and five minutes later the show ended. *duh*