My own little pinterest board:

it's totally true what they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder. I am growing very fond of kaleb right now. :) How lame am I? Can't even go a few days without him. Sometimes I can, right now I can't. I miss my best friend. I miss knowing someone is next to me at night while I am sleeping. I miss having him here at night when the kids are asleep. All those cheesy sayings, yep, they are true. He is my sunshine on a cloudy day. :)

i...

I think I can finally see the light at the end of my tunnel.
I think I found the window that was opened, when a door was closed.
I think I see the sun peeking through the clouds.
I think I am enduring to the end, but this isn't the end.
I think I might have found my smile again.
I think I am ready for some joy.




                                                            I know I am grateful for the tender mercies of my Heavenly Father.
                                                            I know that my prayers were heard......and answered.
                                                            I know that everything eventually will be ok.
                                                            I know that I will be ok.

Febraury:

I'm not gonna lie, I will be glad when February is over. And March. Hopefully by April it will be getting to be spring!!! And sunshine and warm. But we have had a good month as a family. Me and kaleb went to our last game against the lakers, and totally won!!!! It was the best game ever. :)

 Tage got the opportunity with the 5th grade boys to go to clear creek for the night. He had a blast. We also had his maturation program and it turned out really good. My boy is growing up. He will be 11 next month. Wow.

 Celine celebrated her 15th birthday with all of her girlfriends, until the boys crashed the party. ;) She is in bravo in school and their bravo class is putting on a spring play, Once upon a Highschool, its kind of a mixed up fairytale. She got the part of sleeping beauty and is very excited about it. For her bday we gave her a "new room" so kaleb has been working hard ripping out and building a new bed and we will be repainting. Its a work in progress, but is going to be awesome when it is all done.

Aliah is the same, nothing new or exciting with her. Which is ok. I need one of my kids to not go through a big change for a minute. :)
Kaleb is leaving for a dirt bike motorcycle trip to mexico with his dad and brother in a few days. He will be gone for 10 days. I am excited for him to go, but not for me. I don't know if I can survive that long without him. He is pretty much what keeps me going these days. I will be so lonely without him. Guess I will be watching a lot of chick flicks. This has been a rough couple of months for me. I try to just get through one day at a time. Doing cross fit has helped a lot. I feel so good about myself when I do it. I did a little bit of redecorating in my house and that made me happy.  But, I keep trying to figure out what direction my life needs to go, and I feel like maybe I might have found a path. Its just an idea, but at least its a start. Nothing in my life feels the way it was just a couple months ago and that has been really hard for me to accept. But I am really trying. To accept the things that I cannot change. To let go of the things that make me sad. To hold onto the people who don't. It's a real struggle, and maybe in a few months I will feel better again about everything. Who knows. But, I am surviving thanks to Kaleb. He is my rock. And my kids. I don't know what I would do without this family of mine. I am blessed.

Happy 15th birthday Celine!!!

 15 years ago this little angel came into my life. I was so young, so unprepared. But she was patient as I learned all about how to be a mom. She taught me so much. I don't think it was any coincidence that she waited a week after her due date to be born on Valentines Day. She has always been our sweetheart!!

 I literally feel like her life flew by. For 4 years she was our only child. We did everything with her!! She was my best little girl and always by my side.  I usually freak out every year that she turns older. I seem to be handling it OK this year. I just feel so happy with who she is turning out to be.

 Here celine is the day we got sealed in the temple. This will always be one of my happiest memories. It is a day I will treasure forever. Celine has always been so smart, has always loved to read and has always had a great memory. She is a great big sister to tage and aliah and is a great example.

 Celine has turned into a beautiful young woman. I am so proud of her and all of the choices she is making in life. I have loved, loved working with her in Young Womans, it has been such a blessing! I am so grateful that we have a close friendship also. I love that she will talk to me and tell me everything about her and everyone else in her life. I know I can trust her, and I hope she feels the same about me.

 Celine and kaleb have always had a special relationship. She loves her dad and no one can make her laugh like he can. He helps her not take life too seriously sometimes. Celine has also always loved her grandmas so much. Sometimes I worried that she liked them more than me!!!

 I can't believe she is 15 today. I can't believe how fast 15 years has gone by. It feels like just yesterday she was our only one. Now we are talking about things like getting her drivers permit and she is trying on her aunts prom dresses!!! One year til dating???? Before I know it she will be married and giving me grandkids!!! Not for at least 10 years, right???? I am not ready for her to leave my nest, probably never will be.

Look at her now, all grown up. Celine, I am so blessed to be your mom. I will always be your best friend too. I will always be here for you, no matter what. I hope your birthday is amazing, just like you. I love you more than you will ever know until you become a mom yourself. 

Happy 15th birthday celine!!!!! xoxo-mom.

All you need is love....

I thought a long time about what to name my blog way back when. And I knew this was perfect. All you need is love.....Tomorrow is technically valentines day, but it is also Celines birthday, so I always dedicate the day before to writing about the people I love. Namely my family. And my hubby.
I am beyond lucky to have kaleb as my husband. For eternity. Always. Forever. I can't imagine Kaleb without imagining all these words.  We have spent more of our life together then apart, and I wouldn't want it any other way. We had a beginning that wasn't easy, the odds were against us, people didn't believe we would make it. But we knew. We knew we could do it. And now 15+ years later, we are going strong. It has not always been easy. In fact, it has never been easy, but it has ALWAYS been worth it. And I love saying that our marriage is better than its ever been. I love that we have grown together all these years and figured out the way together. Kaleb is my best friend. He makes me laugh more than anyone, he is my shoulder to cry on, he is my peace, and my comfort, he is my logic among insanity. He is the person I love most to spend time with. At night, after the kids are in bed, I look forward to hanging out. Even if its me reading a book while he plays a game. Its my best way of winding down after a long day. He is always there when I need a friend, he is always there to listen to whatever crazy thing I am feeling or going through. He is the best dad. I love to watch him with our kids. He would do anything for them. He works so hard for our family, always giving all he has to us. I love him so much and I am so grateful for him!
Celine, she is my angel, always has been. She taught me so much about being a mother, and she still is. She gets to suffer through all my mistakes as I learn on her. She is a joy. She is my friend. More about her tomorrow. :)
My only son tage. I can't imagine not having a son. He brings so much to my life that girls can't. I love learning all the things about boys that I never knew. He is funny and sensitive. Always the first one to say thank you and that he loves me. Always the one to give me hugs. He wants to do his best at everything, and sometimes that can be frustrating. He must get that from his dad. :) He loves to spend time with his dad,  and sometimes he even loves to spend time with his sisters. :) He will always be my best buddy.
Aliah, my princess. She brings all the drama to my world. :) I love her sassy spirit, even when it frustrates me to no end!!!! I love that every morning when she wakes up, she loves to come and snuggle with me for a few minutes. I treasure those few minutes every day. She will always be my baby. She has such determination and always tries to do what is right. She is so stubborn, which is good and bad. She is so smiley and happy and giggly and girly. So different from her older sister. I love that I have these two girls that are so different.
So many other people in my life that I love and am grateful for. My parents, my sisters and their families. Kalebs parents and his siblings and their families. Friends, lots of great friends from lots of different places.  When I stop to think, I have been blessed with a lot of great people in my life. But nothing will ever make me as grateful as for the man I married and the 3 kids I get to be a mother too. Hope everyone has a very happy valentines day!!!

While the parents are away, we play too!!!

 On friday night we were able to go up to our friends(parents) cabin up above heber. I was so excited for a night away. I have been best friends with these girls since high school and I was 14. Imagine, ALL these years later :) and here we still are. I will be forever grateful for them!!! It was me and kaleb, bri and ryan, brinda and shad and corey and dave. Val and nate were suppose to come but Nate ended up being out of town. We sat and ate and talked forever, and then came out the big guns, and by that I mean NERF WAR!!!! Can you imagine 8 grown ups playing girls against boys nerf capture the flag(pillow) in the dark.? It was probably one of the funnest things I have ever done. :)We had a great time and only got a few wounds. ;) But now I don't think I will ever see a nerf gun without flinching, kaleb kept using me as his target ALL NIGHt LONG!! :) We finally went to sleep around 2 and we had to leave at 11 in the morning, so it was a short get away, but so much fun. I can't wait til the next time!!!

Arise...

 "ARISE AND SHINE FORTH THAT THY LIGHT MAY  BE A STANDARD FOR THE NATIONS..."

D&C 115:5

 Tonight we had New Beginnings for Young Womans and we chose the theme "Arise". We wanted to challenge each girl that this year they all strive to arise to their potential, to work on their personal progress, to go to the temple and we challenged them to memorize "The Living Christ." So much work goes into things like this. I get to work with amazing woman and we all come together and do amazing things. We want to do things that make it memorable for the girls. We chose to feature a lot of balloons so that the girls would think of Arise each time they see a balloon. Me and kaleb had a big surprise coming, the Bishop stood up and announced that a Young Woman had completed her personal progress and had wanted to keep it a secret from her parents until tonight so that she could receive her YW medallion. Imagine my surprise when he said Celines name!!! I knew she was close to finishing but I had no clue that she had finished, talked to the bishop and was waiting for 2 months to surprise us on this night. What an amazing daughter of God me and Kaleb are raising. She stood up with the Bishop as he awarded her and put her medallion on her. My heart was so full tonight, I am so proud of this daughter of mine. She has had to go through some hard times these last few weeks, and I am so proud of her for keeping her head up and pushing on through. Despite what the world around her is saying and doing, she knows who she is, that she is a precious Daughter of God, and she is doing what she knows is right. As I have been disappointed in so many around me this last while, she has made me so proud with who she is and how she handles things. I don't know that I can take much credit for her, but I know that I am so blessed to have her.

Todays theme song:

I wish every day had a theme song, that would describe my life exactly at the moment. Todays: Kelly Clarksons "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." I love that I just heard this song the other day when I was feeling that life was hard. :) So, Kaleb has let me know that my last few posts have been big downers. Sorry. I told him, its my blog and I'll blog what I want. :)  Sometimes, life is just a big 'ol downer. But, today is not one. :) Its better than yesterday and hopefully tomorrow will be even better. I guess I have learned a few lessons over the last few days, one being on trust. I used to think that I could trust most people, now I'm to the point where my list of those I do trust is pretty dang short. But, life lesson learned. On the up side: here are some things I have to look forward to: Bunko tonight, tomorrow is friday, Jazz game on saturday, valentines day, celines bday, a cabin overnighter. Here is me lookin on the bright side of life. :)

2004

I want to go back to the year 2004. I had a sweet, blonde hair almost 7 year old daughter, the cutest thing ever with a low voice almost 3 year old son and a brand new 3 month old with a whole head of black hair daughter. I want to go back to the hardness of having little kids. The crying, the constant need for attention, food, changing, entertaining. Where my biggest stress was when my kids were driving me crazy because we had been in the house all day. I want to go back. I want to go back to being 24, not having depression, thinking all was great in my life and I was happy all the time. I never questioned anything back then. I want to go back to when I trusted everyone, I never questioned any of my friendships, I just took for granted that they would always be that way. I want to go back to before my kids had real friends, that I was the biggest part of their world, and I could control most things in their world. I want to go back to when I was the most important person to them, they preferred me over anyone. I don't want to  see the sadness and heartache that comes with becoming a pre-teen, a teenager and then an adult. I don't want to see my kids struggle with friends, gossip, rumors, mean words and hurtful actions. I don't want them to realize how cruel this world can be.  I don't want them to find out that sometimes the people you love the most hurt you the most, and that you can't always trust those you think you can. That the people you think you can count on no matter what can turn on you. I hope I have taught them that family is always there. Mom, dad, brother, sister. Those are the people you can count on. I hope they know they can always come home and find a friend and shoulder to cry on or someone to laugh with. I hope they feel most safe and comfortable at home. I want to go back to when I didn't have to send them off everyday, hoping they can get through the day without me. This is hard, this year, this phase. It hurts, it breaks my heart. I know what its like to go through all this things, I've been there, done that. And I don't ever want to go back. But I will go through it again with them, my kids. And I will help them get through it the best I can, with the least amount of heartache. Yes, today, if I could, I would go back to 2004. To my angel, my bubby, my princess. I would gladly stay home all day and listen to the crying and whining if I could not have them go through this now.