But...........

It has come to my attention that my children are becoming debaters.

I ask them to put a toy away. 

"But I didn't take it out!" 

"Really!?  I am very much aware that you didn't take it out!  Will you please put it away for me?"

"BuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuT! I didn't take it out!"

"Wrong answer , this is where you say... Oh yes I would be more than happy to put that toy away for you, my most wonderful mother who birthed me and then nursed me for 12(+) months, 3 of which you said you thought your nipples were going to fall off because of thrush, and has taken care of my every need for so long, it would be the least I could do."

Child stares at you and then catches on somewhat and says

"Fine I guess I will put the toy away"

"Oh thank you so much, for being soooo willing to help!"

But what you really say in your head is "You better say fine,child,  because I am sick and tired of listening to you complain to me about the injustice of you helping me with things that you think your siblings should be helping me with.  So help me, I am going to lose it one of these days!"


Just saying, some days are better than others!

TOFW-Phoenix

I get to be a "Time Out For Women" team member for this years event in Phoenix.  I am so excited to help spread the word to help women of all faiths come and participate in this uplifting and gratifying experience.  If you are interested in buying tickets let me know and I can help you get a group discount of $10 off the price.

I went last year right after we moved here.  I got to go with my sister Wendy, and it was so worth my time.  Here is a link for who the presenters will be here in Phoenix http://deseretbook.com/timeout/event/156

A Servicing We Go

A couple of months ago I felt this strong need to find ways for our family to increase our efforts to be involved in service opportunities for our community.   I went to http://www.volunteermatch.org/ , I put in a few key words and, bada bing bada boom, I found this wonderful organization.

I was drawn to this organization for many reasons.  One of the main reasons stems from their mission statement which is this :

"Family homelessness is damaging to everyone it touches. Save the Family empowers families to conquer homelessness and achieve life-long independence.

• • •

We envision communities free
from family homelessness."

I love the fact that they are striving to help families to know how to be proactive in the choices they make, enabling them to better understand how they can conquer, as they put it, homelessness and achieve independence.  

They have this program that asks for volunteers to bring in sack lunches, snacks and sack dinners on a daily basis for the families they are helping.  I was drawn to this particular program because it was easy for me to know how I could involve the children in this service.  And this morning we were able to put all the planning into action.

The younger girls helped me make the bread the past couple of weeks.  This morning everyone was able to have a hand in putting together the sack dinners.  Lucy helped with putting the cheese sticks in, Kady the dessert, Sera the carrots, Emma chips, Kady and Lucy sandwiches to dad to put in the bag, Eliza was the cheerleader.  I made 15 peanut butter and jelly, 15 ham and 10 chicken salad.  It was so exciting for me to see the girls be excited to help those who may be struggling temporally right now.  

For scripture study this morning we just read one verse, because I did not take into account how long it would take to put all of the sack dinners together.  Nonetheless it was one that came to my mind quickly, and it fit the mood of the morning.  It is from one of our standard works.  From The Book of Mormon  

Mosiah chapter 2 verse 17 

"And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God."

Whatever struggles we may have as individuals or families, I have found that one of the easiest ways to find a  solution to, or lighten those burdens or struggles is to reach beyond ourselves and help those who may be struggling themselves.  At least, that has been my experience.  

On another note.  I was watching a program this afternoon while little people were still sleeping.  The programs title was family dinner time.  The guest was a lady who apparently is a guru on helping families have  more meaningful dinner time.  As I listened to the host and guest speak, I thought how I have been doing what they were talking about since before I even got married.  I had a very prideful moment.I even called Jared and told him that he married a genius! Here is a link to my post I did a long while ago about meal planning  It is well worth looking at, mostly for the funny movies.  Happy full moon!

p.s.  If anyone is interested in me doing a list of meals we eat here for your own meal planning idea, or even a more detailed approach to how I organize meal planning let me know.

Princess Ballet

Lat night the 4 older girls and I went to the Ballet with my Step- Mom and one of my nieces.  The girls had such a great time. I was so impressed with Kady's ability to be so attentive to the performance.  She even seemed to understand when the end was drawing near of an act and would get her hands ready in anticipation to clap.  So cute!


We got to go back stage afterwards and the girls got to meet some of the main characters. 

This picture is from my step moms phone. 

On the way home we talked about the performance.  We talked about how the boy ballerina's costumes were a bit distracting for them.  Emma said it was AK(higher voice inflect)WARD(lower voice inflect)  I got a chuckle out of their embarrassment, as I could see myself back when I was a younger girl.

As you can see in the picture they wore their princess dress ups.  Grandma Palmer made all of them for birthday presents, except Kady's.  We got Kady's at a garage sale.

My attempts at cleaning the home yesterday were fruitless.  It seemed that if I started cleaning something I would be sidelined with little people doing mischievous little things.  Like painting themselves with play makeup and nail polish.  I thought I had gotten rid of all of the nail polish and makeup from Emma and Sera's beauty kits they bought last week.  Oh well!

I decided it was not worth it to clean.  Instead we made some more bread for our service project we will be doing on Monday.  More on that Monday.

The girls had so much fun "forming" their loaves.  I learned a new trick from good ole BYUtv the night before.  To get any air bubbles out of your loaf you are forming you slap in down on the counter.  Eliza especially liked throwing her loaf down.  The loaves were not perfectly formed but at least I know they literally had a hand in helping with making the food for this service project we will be doing.

I played basketball this morning.  I have not played since just before I got pregnant with Daniel.  My lungs got a good stretch today.  The women I played with were so much fun and I look forward to playing again next week.  I think it would be good if I practiced my shot sometime this week.  I had forgotten the finesse you need when shooting the ball and may have over shot or under shot my share.  But I did have plenty of perfect shots that went in so gracefully. 

Today the girls all worked so hard in getting our home ready for the Sabbath.  I find that cleaning goes so much better if I am there guiding them along. This is very tedious for me. Repetition is the key.  And a lot of fake smiling.    I know that one day they will just automatically do these things naturally.  This thought helps me to persevere  through these formative years.  Because frankly when you help some children, what you really feel like doing is pounding your head against a wall.  But fake smiling works better for me. 

We got to go to my Dad's tonight.  It was sort of a time to say good bye to my Step brother, his wonderful wife and their son.  They are some of the best people I know.  We did a BBQ.  I love BBQ's so much, especially the combinations of hamburger's, hot dogs, potato salad, and baked beans.  It is so magical to my taste buds.  Really I could eat this meal at least once a week, if  I didn't know how unhealthy it is. 

Here are some pictures from today

 When I was going through Daniels clothes today the girls found a shade hat for him and decided to put it on him.  I just let the picture tell how he may be feeling.

 Eliza insisted on having goggles to wear.  If you click on the picture you will see how they distort her eyes and ears. 

 Then she would flip those goggles up

 So cute and funny

 Emma enjoying the swimming

 Kady enjoyed wearing goggles too!

 Miss Lucy right after coming out.

Eliza demonstrating perfect form! 

Bleeping Out The "D" Word Can Be Tricky

So I think I may have been experiencing some depression since we decided to load our lives up in Michigan and head on over here to the beautiful land of the sun.

I have thought a lot about the "D" word for a while now.  The other day I was reading a fellow bloggers post on the subject of depression here.    I realized that some of what she talked about is what I have been experiencing.  Especially the thought of something is not right. 

I think I am having a hard time processing everything that happened in such a short time.  Especially with our move.  I kept on telling myself to just focus on getting everything done, that I think I missed out on being able to put some adequate closure on that chapter of my life. 

I am not sure on how to do that now, so that is why I am writing about it. I know there will be a time when I have found how to make that closure happen and I will have figured out how to move on. 


The kind of depression I think I am experiencing is that I am not sure how to connect with this new environment I am in now.  I find myself asking who am I?  Do I fit in here?   It's like I am the new kid at a school and I still have not found where I fit in.



I know I am on the road to bleeping out the "D" word. I look forward to getting to that point.  I am just not sure what avenue to take.  I have never been one to be depressed, but I do know that I feel generally off.

So for me I ask myself-- is it just the fact that a whole lot of change happened all at once in a very small period of time, or am I chemically imbalanced?  I don't concretely have the answer to those questions yet.


What do you do to help bleep out the "D" word?  If you have had similar experiences I would appreciate some feedback.