Tuesday's WITL

Some of my thoughts on Tuesday:


I am grateful for the comfort of my bed!


Gas, while still expensive, is a little bit cheaper down here and I am finding that I am using a lot less.


I am grateful for my own transportation and that I can be a "Mom Taxi."


I still can't believe how rural of an area we are in...


I am so grateful for the breeze of a ceiling fan.


Watching the boys thinking and playing together is really nice!


I am so grateful to be doing Project Life


We just can't seem to get too far away from the video games. But I love his pudgy, little hands!


I am grateful for siblings! I always wanted some of my own and I am so happy for our children. I hope they will continue to grow and nurture their relationship with each other always.


Madasyn's spirit and her ability to just walk into a group of children she doesn't know astounds me. She left the 4 hour camp her first day with 4 new friends.


Grateful that they understand each other enough to be able to play together. It isn't always peaceful, but I'll take it.


Honey red wine vinaigrette! We had ranch chicken and a candied walnut salad with this dressing. The recipe should say feta cheese in the salad, that is how my sweet friend, Erin, made it for my family. Delicious!


Grateful for boxed cake mixes :) I made dinner from scratch, at least ;)


Dinner with the Missionaries!! I am so grateful for them and their sacrifices and teachings. These are really sweet young men.


I am grateful for the help in the kitchen.


Grateful for the study guides given to me by my dear friend Kasey. These will be used and loved!


Grateful for all of Ryleigh's help at all times. She is an amazing young woman.


Grateful for my Maddi and her willingness to help with the chores no one wants to do. She is also becoming an amazing yound woman!

Monday's WITL

This is really late, but I wanted to share some of our photos from each day of our week in the life project. I still ned to do some editing and then put the photos in the digital templates before printing, but that mayhave to wait a bit. I hope you enjoy and think about trying the project in your homes! Even for just one day.


Finn in the morning! One thing I captured last year with this project was how happy he always woke up and this year is no different. He is so happy!


I love that this morning Hunter had breakfast with his light sabre.


Lots of enrollment and health forms to fill out to register the kiddos for school!



There was a lot of errands to run in the morning. First we went to the Elementary school (upper left) and it was still closed. So we went to the Middle School and found out Maddi could attend a 6th grade day camp the next two days. Ooff the the 9th grade school for Ryleigh. I'm still not too sure about this one, so we will see how she does and how she feels. After that it was off to Walmart so I could supply the school. The items were so specific, especially for Jack (who is in 5th grade.)


Our new street!


Lunch! Coke and ranch dressing....who really needs the lettuce?

Hunter's obessed with Angry Birds this week.a

This isn't even a third of the shoes that are usually clustered around the door. I love that you can see all of your different and styles (sort of.)


Dinner! Hawaiian Haystacks. Check out the recipe here

Hunter "This is my house."


Mr. Blue Eyes


This is such a proud moment for us. Hunter only rode for a few minutes, but I think as parents, John and I thought we would never see this day.


John took the three oldes on a bike ride. They loved all the hills around the neighborhood.


Gumballs! I do not smoke or drink....I love gumballs he he!!

Week in the Life

I just added my Week in the Life banner! I am so excited to do this project again this year. I decided to join the fun last year after I saw this post. The whole family had a ton of fun doing this project! The kids loved that I took pictures, of literally, everything we did. I definitely started out really strong in the beginning and then faded off a little by the end of the week. I am hoping to keep the momentum up better this year. My only regret last year was that I didn't put the album together right away. Between budgeting in the cost of the photos and just plain old proctrastination, it is still sitting waiting to be finished. I wanted to share some of my finished digital templates, in the hopes that it will inspire all of you :) The digital templates can be found here and I used them in PSE.

I would love, love to see all of my friends documenting a week in their lives. Even if you don't scrapbook, this is a fabulous project! I was able to capture so many "moments" not just "events." My five little ones are growing so, so fast and I don't know about you all, but I don't want to miss ANYTHING!!

A Little Off the Subject

I just have to share this because I feel like the bulk of it is so true for anyone and I am always so blown away when my Testimony is strengthened just when it needs to be and in an unexpected way! I kid you not, I have to sit back for a minute because it takes my breath away, literally.

Here's my experience:

The background:
I have been terrible lately about getting to church, reading scriptures, and really connecting spiritually. I haven't been to church in at least a month, but my older children have been, I often let myself get distracted or misled and that is not good.
Today:
My biggest issue lately has been about moving and leaving everyone behind. I feel like my heart is literally breaking into a million pieces and I will never recover. So, in Relief Society (the third hour of church, this is a class just for the women) Sister Myrabou gave a lesson on talents. I think, "this is a cool lesson." Everyone is so wickedly talented here. We talk about being envious of others talents, learning talents, having faith, and working hard. As some of the women are sharing stories of learning from each other, it comes to me in a big wave (the Spirit.) I am not leaving everyone behind. I'm not doing that at all...I am taking everyone with me! (I'm tearing up all over again!) Every single friend that I have here in Michigan, both at church and not at church, has shared with me some part of their individual talent (and in the lesson we talked about how talents aren't necessarily just sewing, scrapbooking, knitting etc, but also compassion, service etc really anything.)

So, I want everyone/anyone who reads this to know:

If you are a friend of mine or have ever spent time with me, I have learned something from you and I know that it came from you. You will always be with me no matter where I physically live on this planet! Thank you for taking the time to teach me, listen to me, help me, support me. My life has been forever changed by all of you.

Kentucky, Ya’ll

The rumors you heard are all true!  We are heading south, and not just for the winter!  It has been a real emotional rollercoaster.  This is going to be the biggest change I have ever made in my life, so far, and I am not loving it!  In all honesty, I don’t like when we move the furniture around.  It completely throws me off and I cannot even help John figure out where to move it too.  So this is significant for me!

The children, on the other hand, are excited!  Well, not excited to leave their friends, but excited to go somewhere new and experience all that Kentucky will have to offer.  They are the most amazing people!  I need to adopt their perspective and go with it…I will keep telling myself this, I promise :)

So here is the trip John and I took to Kentucky!  I hope you enjoy the pictures!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Most of the pics above are right in the area of the house we are renting.  We were excited to see that the church was 5 minutes away, the Bengals training camp is about 10 minutes away, the little main street is about 5 minutes away.  I also found a really nice library, an indoor pool (community center), and an outdoor aquatic center!  What I thought was the most interesting…wasn’t even all the horses and farm land….it was when we went to get our utilities turned on.  The electric company and the water are literally next door to each other and they both have “drive thru” windows and the people actually go there and pay at the windows.  I don’t know why, but this  struck me as so bizarre.  They don’t use on line bill pay?  Ok, back to the pictures and the story of Downtown Lexington…

As if the the idea of paying bills through the drive thru wasn’t strange enough to me, we went downtown to experience the “night life.”  So we get there around 8:30 and it’s still daylight, but there are a lot of people out on the streets, including families!  Like people with babies…as we follow the crowd we see a trailer, that is a stage, like a traveling band shell….and not only is there a band playing, but people are dancing in the street, and in front of the courthouse families (mostly the kids) are playing in a fountain, that is water coming out of the ground!  What the heck??  The pic below is actually another fountain, but very similar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So that is our story so far.  We did find a house to rent, but that will be another post.  I will try to keep this updated better, but it seriously took me about 2 hours to put this together and it looks my Livewriter isn’t working right, so I guess I will have to wait and see how this posts!