My birth week

Kaleb always gives me a hard time because he says I don't have a birthday, I have a birth week. :) I'm not gonna lie, I do like to celebrate as much as possible! So, this week my birthday is on a wednesday, that actual day I was born. And I started off the week on sunday by celebrating with my family.

I had a lightbulb moment today. I have always looked forward to my birthdays, even now as each year I get older and older ( whats up with that???)  It seems to be the trend that the older you get, the less you like your birthdays, but I have not gotten to that point yet. Today I figured out why. My top two love languages are: 

#1: Quality Time

#2: Gifts

and on my birthday, I get both. All the people I love most I get to spend time with when its my birthday. Kaleb and the kids, my family, kalebs family, so many wonderful friends. I always feel so loved on my birthday, and I enjoy every minute I get to spend celebrating it with my favorite people.

When I give a gift to someone, I always try to put a lot of thought into it and hope that it will really fit that person. When it is my birthday, I love it when people say, I saw this and thought of you, or, I knew this would be perfect for you.  It makes me feel loved. :)

My sister april had dinner at her house on sunday and my mom made me my favorite dessert, chocolate cake and cookie dough ice cream. thanks mom!

 me and my silly sister camille. :) she gave me a gift card to amazon! and yes, I will be buying books with it.

 my sister sarah gave me the cutest swim cover, good thing summer isn't over yet.

 april(and jaren) gave me a darling purse. aliah said it right, you can never have too many purses.

 which is good because my mom and dad gave me a purse too. they really know what I love! my mom also gave me a cute shirt and earrings.

 I love my family so much, and was sad that my other two sisters weren't there to celebrate with me. One of my greatest blessing is my 5 sisters.

It has started off to be a great week. And yes, I hope to enjoy every day of my birth "week." :)

Nostalgia cont....

The best thing I have done is have my kids pictures taken at least once a year together. I never realized how special this pictures would become later on in my life. My kids just got their school pictures done again and as I was changing out the old for the new, I came across the whole stack of pictures, from the first one with all three of them after aliah was born, up til now. Yes, my heart was a little sad going through all this pictures. But how precious they are, and how grateful I am that I have done this every year. I know now I will continue doing it indefinitely every year, forever.

2003

 2004

 2005

 2006

 2007

 2008

 2009

 2010

 2011

 2012.

I honestly think these are the three most beautiful angels ever to land on this earth.

"For where your treasure is, there shall your heart be also..."

Gone...

I still can't believe summer is over. Gone. Where did it go? It was all just a blur to me now that I think of it. But I know that I enjoyed it. Now school is back in session and I have a 10th grader, a 6th grader and a 3rd grader. Which means this is the last year any of my kids will go to school together. How many times a day do I wonder where the time went and how they grew up so fast? My house is very quiet now. It is nice, but I know eventually I will miss the chaos of a house full of kids. But I also know I will enjoy my time every day while the kids are gone. I feel like my life if full of contradictions now. I think about it getting colder and winter coming and I get anxious. I am not ready, but I am never ready for that. I have decided my biggest challenge I need to overcome is that as soon as my kids are gone every day, I feel worthless. And I start stressing and worrying over what to do with my life, because I feel that my purpose is gone. That is going to change. That is a darker force at work trying to make me feel less that what I am. I am a mother, I will always be a mother. I am a wife. I am a friend, a daughter, a sister and there is a lot I have to offer to this world that is not a paying job. I am doing what I am suppose to be doing, and I am going to try to stop questioning whether it is enough. I am enough.

Thanksgiving Point Gardens...

This is one of my favorite places, Thanksgiving Point Gardens. Every august for the last few years we got to $2 tuesday. I love it. It is one of the most beautiful places.

2009

 2010

 2011 ( I must not have taken tage this year, there are no pix of him!)

 2012

I think I must be feeling a little nostalgic. Time flies.

What a difference a few years can make....

2009: Summer before 7th grade

                                                   

                                                     
 First day of 7th grade

2010: First day of 8th grade

2011: First day of 9th grade 

                                                     2012: Now.

My little girl has grown into a beautiful young woman. In just 3 days, she will be in 10th grade. A high  schooler.  I am left wondering, where did the time go?

Need a book to read??

Here are some of my top recomendations right now. :)

PS. ANYTHING by sophie kinsella is good. :)

Happy reading! When school starts I plan on having a lot more time for it. ;)

Its that time again...

Every six months or so I will decide that I need a new pair of jeans. Its something I have to prepare myself for and talk myself up and set aside a whole day for.  Lets just say that jean shopping does not come easy for me. Yes, I am a curvy girl, or in other words, I have a big butt. I'm just getting it out there.Yes,  I admit it, no, I don't want you to agree with me. :) but there it is. Jean shopping is my most hated shopping. Shoe shopping, any day!! Shoes always fit. Shirts, jewelry, no problem. But jeans, oh the agony! I start out with a good attitude. I wear shoes I can slip in and out of easily, I have a plan of what stores I want to go to. So, there I go. Try on my first 10 pairs. Nope, not one of them fits. What I hate, is that every size in every style and store and brand are different. Oh look, I went down a size in this pair! Holy Crap, I need to go up two sizes in this pair! Oh He*#, this pair won't even go on over my butt!!! See, I have this small waist and this big butt and that equals big gaping in the back!!! I hate it!! I kid you not when I say that sometimes I will try on 100 pairs of jeans in one day and find not a one. Oh how I envy all my friends that all they do is pick one pair, try it on and FABULOUS! The worst part is how I start feeling after trying on jean and after jean and nothing fits my shape. I can't be that different than lots of other woman in the world, can I? but I do, I start to feel kinda like a freak. I start to feel ugly and fat and horrible. And I hate feeling that way. SInce January when I started crossfit I have worked so hard to be in better shape and be healthier, but my body is what it is and doesn't much want to change. So I may be stronger and fitter, but that doesn't equal skinnier. And most of the time I am ok with that, and I am proud of my body and what it can do. but jean shopping takes all that away. And I walk around feeling like everyone is looking at the "fat girl". Isnt' that horrible?  It really is.
So, a couple of weeks ago I decided it was that time again, I needed a new pair of jeans. So today, I did it. And something happened that had never happened before, it wasn't a horrific, awful experience!!! I went to one store ( Maurices, they have great jeans I have discovered!) I picked out 10 pairs of jeans to try on and it was a miracle. Most of them fit. Maybe I didn't like the cut, or style, or color, but they actually fit. I found a pair I really liked and within a half hour my jean shopping was done. Miracle. Now, I don't want to lead you astray and have you think that I went down a size or lost a bunch of weight and thats why they fit. Nope, its just still same old me. I don't care about sizes anymore (ok, at least I TRY not to care). I just want something that fits and looks good (semi good??)  So, today was a good jean shopping day and I didn't end it hating myself. I call that progress. :)

I'm in love with summer...

This has been the busiest, craziest summer on record. It seems like all of us or some of us or one of us is always going somewhere. There has been a lot of packing, unpacking, laundry, and packing again. After our lake powell trip, we were home for 4 days and then celine left on Trek with our Stake. She had such a wonderful time. I am so glad she gets to have experiences like that.

Monday Tage left for clear creek. Every day I am wondering what he is doing, hoping he has met lots of friends and having the time of his life. I miss him, but I know this is a good experience for him too.

 Also on Monday I finally took celine for her school shopping.  I surprised her and took her to the Brow Spa and got her eyebrows "threaded." She didn't much like her surprise, :), but her eyebrows look great. It is super cool to watch them thread the eyebrows, and it only took about 5 minutes and she was done. Celine sat there so calm the whole time, and then when we walked out she said, Mom that really hurt! haha.

 We had a great time shopping, if only we had an unlimited budget.  But we did manage to get her a bunch of cute stuff and she is ready for school. At least clothes wise.

 After shopping she picked chick fil a, that makes ALL of my kids that chose to eat at the food court for their lunch date. I can't complain, I luuuuv chick fil a.

 Here we are today. All of us home bored, no friends, nothing to do. So I took us out to lunch at zupas, then we headed over to target to get some toe nail polish and school supplies. ( what is it about school supplies that I love? I just want to buy all those note book and folders and pencils and pens and erasers, and crayons. I dont' need any of it, but there is something about school supply shopping that I love.) We bought celine some notebooks and folders for school. Not too exciting. We came home and put on Hairspray and painted all of our toes for back to school. :)

I love my kids more than anything else. I can't wait for Tage to get home and tell me how clear creek was. I have loved spending the summer with my kids and I know I will love when they are  back in school too.
Doesnt get much better than this.