An Amazing Experience

I had the most amazing weekend with my sister and lots of other fabulous women! I am on the board of my friends Power of Moms website and last weekend they had a board meeting and then a mothers retreat in Park City. In 6 years, I’ve only left my kids for 1 night so imagine my excitement at getting a little break for 3 complete days!

Heavenly – Yes, Fun – Yes, Life Changing Ideas – Yes!

It was a lot of fun to meet the other mothers on the Power of Moms board. We email each other and work on projects together, but most of us do not personally know each other. (Saren's sister Shawni is an amazing photographer and took all of these pictures at the retreat)

We had a lovely dinner at the Eyre’s home in Park City. These are such great women doing their part to strengthen and promote motherhood.

On Saturday, my sister and I attended the retreat at the Eyre’s home. There were 100 women in attendance. It was truly an amazing experience and I'm so glad Trina got to go with me. I took pages of notes, but one mom boiled the ideas down so nicely: Being Deliberate not Complacent in mothering, Present for our kids not Distracted, Thriving not just merely Surviving.

We stayed at my in-laws home and I woke up early Sunday morning to a perfectly quite home (I find it funny that I finally have the chance to actually sleep in and I still couldn’t sleep past 6:30 a.m. any morning) The quiet was so wonderful as I was able to really think and ponder the ideas that had been presented. I took my pages of notes out and went through them and created my Things I’m Going To Do List – it was about 2 pages long. It’s going to take me awhile to get to all the things on my list, but I feel compelled to do it. My first big task – Think with the end in mind – when my children leave my home what do I want them to have learned, experienced and felt in our home. Thinking with the end in mind definitely influences the choices we make.

It was fun to meet so many great women. I had 4 different women tell me what beautiful eyes I had. Can I just say people used to tell me this a lot, but I think it’s been a few years since anyone complimented my eyes. It made me laugh as I thought why this may be. My conclusion – I’d FINALLY had a few nights of sleep. Jenna has been a hard baby and does not sleep very well, couple that with the other kids getting up every so often and I sometimes get up in the morning wondering if I really slept at all. Obviously I look that way too! But with a few nights of uninterrupted sleep I was a new woman!

I’m lucky to have Chuck who is a wonderful dad and had a great time with the kids while I was gone. I knew the kids weren’t going to miss me a bit when he came home Thursday night, just before I left, with bags of chips and cookies. He even took the kids hiking all by himself. When I called to talk to him one evening wondering how he’d survived he told me it was hard, but it was also nice to be your own boss. It really made me think, sometimes I forget how nice it is to be the CEO of the household. I am in charge of how our day goes, I do decide what we well do and how we will spend our time. Motherhood is hard at times, but it is also wonderfully amazing!

I May Scream or Cry!

Okay so I'm venting for a second because I really feel I may get Super upset in a minute!

I can't find my girls new Easter dresses anywhere!!!

Really - how did this happen! I bought matching dresses almost a month ago and now I can't find them. I only have so many closets how can they just disappear!

Alright - enough venting back to tearing the house apart!

__________________________________________

I found the dresses and now my closets are a bit tidier.

I'm not sure how it happened, but the dresses where buried among Chuck's clothes. I try to ignore his side of the closet because it not very organized and he has a lot of clothes all tightly bunched together. Despite the fact I'd checked his side a few times the size and quantity of his clothes somehow managed to literally swallow two pink dresses. He didn't even realize the dresses were among his clothes. I'm glad I finally found them because I hate wasting time looking for lost articles, but I was fully prepared to go buy two more matching dresses and I do LOVE buying dresses so that would have been fun.

All Aboard!

We celebrated Isaac's 3rd birthday with a train theme.

He LOVES all trains, especially Thomas.



This was Isaac's super cute cake. The kids had so much fun decorating their own trains. I loved that it only took me a couple of minutes to decorate the Thomas train. All the other kids were declaring that they wanted a Thomas birthday cake next time it was their birthday. I told them not to worry I'm planning on using this cake pan again around Christmas.

Several times that day this was declared the Funnest and Best Birthday Ever.

Now I bet you can't guess why the kids thought this.

You may think it was because they had so much fun decorating their own train cakes and then getting to eat a lot of extra candy.

You make think it was because they all loved watching their little brother celebrate and blow out his birthday candle - I love that they are all blowing.

You may think it was because the cake was so yummy.

Or that the presents were so much fun.

Or that the house was a complete wreck after opening presents - it reminded me of Christmas morning. (Thanks Grandma Jerri Lynn for getting the kids the Lego Table. All the kids are really into Legos right now. Even Jenna loves packing them around and tasting them.)

But all of these answers would be wrong.

This was declared the Funnest and Best Birthday Ever because Isaac chose to go to McDonald's for his birthday dinner and all the kids got Happy Meals. Samuel said, "I can't believe we each get our own Happy Meal with a toy." And Bella said, "And we don't have to share!"

I have taken the kids to McDonald's A LOT. When Isaac was younger, I took the kids to McDonald's every other week when Chuck had City Council because we all just needed a break by the end of the day. The kids would always ask for happy meals and I would always tell them sorry, but we were getting the "Sad Meal" - which consisted of a big order of nuggets and a huge fry for all of us to share. So as my friend likes to say, when you set the expectations low the kids are delighted when they get something out of the ordinary!

Spring Break

Trina and I loaded up the minivan with our 6 kids and drove to Grandma and Grandpa's home for spring break. The drive was interesting - okay to be honest, it isn't super fun to drive a long way with lots of little kids. Someone kept asking relentlessly for more fruit snacks even though we'd said a least a thousand times we didn't have any more, someone was thirsty and needed a drink this instant (I don't like to give the kids drinks because then we are constantly stopping for potty breaks), someone couldn't see the movie, babies were crying because well they're babies and they cry, Bella was the only one not complaining.

We were laughing when we stopped to eat lunch because there was a lady in a car next to us and she just watched in amazement as we unloaded all these little kids out of their carseats. We seriously looked like a load of circus clowns. The drive home was even more interesting because what would a get together with my family be without a few people getting sick. Poor Bronson's eardrum burst, my mom got the flu and so did Trina who was curled in a ball the whole drive home trying not to lose it.

We had a lot of fun despite the drive. And we were glad that Grandma and Grandpa worked so hard to get their house put back together so we could come for the week. They were literally laying carpet the night before we got there and just hours before we arrived they were moving furniture back in the bedrooms.

We played at the Dinosaur Museum.

The girls pulled out our old dresses that my mom had sewn for us and played dress-up. My mom was an amazing seamstress and would sew us beautiful dresses for church.

The kids made a complete wreck of the house. We had fun digging in the storage for some of our old toys. One of the favorite finds was our cabbage patch dolls.

The kids rode the 4-wheeler. The 4 oldest would all climb on and then Grandpa would stand on the side and drive them all around. I took 3 of the kids for a ride over the dirt track behind my parents home and nearly bounced Kambree and Isaac right off the 4-wheeler. Good thing Bella managed to keep them on after I went over a jump a little too fast.

The kids threw countless rocks in the river. Grandpa would fill up the buckets with rocks and then the kids would have a blast throwing them in the water.

The kids shot the BB gun. I was laughing as I watched Isaac get so close to the clay pigeon and still somehow manage to miss it at almost point blank range. Grandpa will have to give them some target lessons when they get a little older!

My favorite part of the trip was taking pictures of the boys on main street in Helper.

This place is a photographers dream!

There are so many interesting and amazing places to take pictures. Every old building is full of color and texture. And the most amazing thing is that I went out several nights and NEVER saw another photographer. Around here I see other photographers almost every time I'm out taking pictures. If I lived in Helper, I would seriously want to open a photography studio right on main street just because the place has such character and endless possibilities.