snippets of conversation

The following are small conversations I am overhearing as Addie and a friend are playing barbie

Addie- "I've never even heard a prince or seen a prince or touched or kissed a prince. Please mother, can I really get married to a prince? I will run away if I don't. You already married him twice mother"
Grace-"NO!"
Addie-"I'm going to run away and start camping"

Addie-"if you don't like me, I will poison your mother and father"

Addie-"lets pretend that she decides not to get married and stays home with her mother because did you know that it's better to stay home with your mom because my mom never gets to play with or see her mother now and she misses her so much."

It's a sweater!

Since moving to Omaha, our taste in clothing has changed a little bit.
Ammon likes to now wear pink sweaters with cows all over it. I especially love the 4 cows going down his left arm

I like to wear cardigans with Indians on horseback. (which you can't see in the pictures but you can imagine)
I don't see anything wrong with our new clothing style.

We fit in with our new friends who have great taste in clothing as well.

So much fun. Ok, so we might have gone shopping at Good Will and we might have left our tags on our clothes so that we could maybe take our clothes back after the ugly sweater party that we went to. But just maybe....
Ammon won the "Cheesiest Sweater" award. Get it? Cheesy...Cows.... hahaha
I won the "Ugliest Sweater" award
It was some tough competition

On another note, look at this cute little mouse.
Yes it's alive in this picture and yes he washed his hands REALLY good after this picture

Maybe it's not as cute when it is running around your house. Our previous neighbors had this mouse in their house that they had been trying to catch for a while. He ran under a piece of furniture and Ashlee (our neighbor) ran over and grabbed Ammon since her husband was gone. Ammon was able to catch the mouse for her but then he didn't know what to do with it. He really is soft hearted and didn't know how to kill it so he just went and threw it in the forrest so I'm sorry in advance to any of you who this mouse chooses to live with next.
Cheers

Notes from around the house

I thought I would share some of the notes I have found around our house lately. I love finding these notes.
This first one we found this morning on Ammons pillow. Addie had made our bed and put Ammons slippers by the door and had this picture waiting for him when he came out of the bathroom. I love that it is a picture of a camel in a desert and it says "your hot" LOVE this note!

I love this happy rainbow picture that she drew that tells Kimball that he is rude to her. Classic

This one came she brought home from school this week. I seriously cannot believe her penmanship. It is better than mine and she is in Kindergarten.

And this one just touched my heart.

I tried typing on it what it says but just in case it is to small, here is what it says.
"To my family.
Dear Family, I love you so much. never stop going to church. Always eat the bread and water. You will have to have to! Eat the water because you will remember Jesus's blood and bodie.

I love this girl.

Do you ever feel...

Do you ever feel like you are not the person you imagined you would be? I remember growing up, I had all these wonderful ideas of what kind of a wife and mother I was going to be. I was not going to get mad at my kids, because they of course were going to be perfect children because I was going to be an awesome mother (ha ha). I was going to have creative things for them to do and be such a fun mom. Then....REALITY HITS and you are tired and your house is a wreck and you send your kids down to be babysat by PBS kids while you clean and do your own thing..like shower and check e-mail. I've been thinking a lot about this. I don't think I am a horrible mom, but I am not the mom I wanted to be either. I know there is a balance in there somewhere. Obviously growning up, I didn't think about the all the mundane stuff that takes TIME like doing the breakfast, lunch and dinner dishes EVERY DAY (which sad to say, I don't). I didn't realize how much patience really does get worn down and things stop being cute and start getting annoying when its the 100th time. Being a mom is really frustrating sometimes but then, I have these moments of absolute sweetness and joy and laughter and I could not be happier. Take for instance yesterday morning. Addie came in with a blanket on her head and said "look, I have hair like Repunzel now mom." She climbed into bed and snuggled with me and said "Mom, I love you so much, I love you as much as 5 hearts as big as the world with little tiny hearts inside of it. " MELT my HEART! Tonight I was at Addies dance class and while she was standing there waiting for the music to start, she ran over and gave me a big hug and kiss on the cheek. MELTING. Other moments like tonight when I thought Kimball had been asleep for a while and then I hear him yell to me from the top of the stairs "MOM, I dust tooted" me-"OK, can you say excuse me?" Kimball-"Koos me". Or when his eyes light up about sometime you say and he says "YEAHHHH! I'm so be-guided (excited)" and gives me the biggest hug and kiss. Or even when he gets hurt and just runs to me for comfort. I love that, and I love that I am here with him. Then there is Avonlea who is such a joy. I love her laugh that sounds like she is trying to clear her throat. I love that when I hold up a camera, she scunches up her nose and gives me the biggest cheese. I love picking her up and just feel her grab and hold onto me so tight and hug...I don't enjoy the bite on my shoulder that soon follows but I'm at least now prepared for it. I love her growling...which she does ALL THE TIME...infact, yesterday Addie said "mom, Avonlea is practically a dog huh" Thinking this was not very nice, I said "No shes not" but Addie replied "Well she growls and crawls on the ground and bites people." Ok Addie you have a point but she is a cute little puppy.
Anyway, I know this is a lot of rambling but there are frustrations and joys and that is what makes being a mom so rewarding and makes me realize that even though I am not the mom I want to be right NOW that doesn't mean I can't do better. I can make more sacrifices. If I were to spend half as much time actually doing crafts and decorating as I spent searching for crafts and decorating tips, I would have SO much done. I really love checking blogs and facebook, but I need to re-prioritize my time. My children need to come first. My childrens "status" is much more important that that person I haven't seen since 3rd grade. I have decided I am not going to be on the computer while my children are awake. I can use nap time and bedtime for that and this is a step. Becoming who I want to be is going to be a step by step process.
Ok, enough of this...

Better late than never

It seems like the days are going by so fast and I blink and a week has past. Crazy how fast time flies. Anyway, Ammons birthday was last week but I just haven't been able to blog much lately. Better late than never though. We had a fun time celebrating Ammons birthday as a family and then also had a great party with friends.
If you have never tried Ammons cooking, you are missing out. Not only is he amazing at the guitar, singing, a little smarty pants and a billion other things but he is a great cook.

Look at the bright side honey, you don't have to worry about going bald as you are getting older. Been there, done that.

"My Dad is the best dad in the world"

Really I don't know how I ever got so lucky. Ammon is the best father and husband ever. He will come home from studying all day at school and somehow find the energy to run around the house playing chase, or swords with the kids. Then when we put them to bed, they BEG him for a Candyland story. He has such a creative imaginations and makes up all sorts of stories about a magical place called Candyland. He "relaxes" by cooking dinner and gives me a night off quite often.....well not as much since he is in school again but over the Christmas break, I had many wonderful "nights off."
He makes me laugh and is funny and positive. I don't think he has ever raised his voice to me even though I know I have deserved it several times. He is patient and humble and leads by example. Basically, he is one amazing guy. I love you so much honey. Happy happy birthday.

Merry merry merry

Now that it is the middle of January, I figured that maybe I should post about Christmas and our Wonderful break. Oh man was it a nice break. Ammon did not do ANY homework and he was in between jobs so he did not work at all. ahhhhhh.... it was so nice.

This year, I made an advent calendar where the kids got to pull a card everyday that had an activity to do. We loved this! I tried to get some pictures of our favorite activity's but there were a lot that I missed. One of our first activities was going to the Lauritzen Botanical Gardens right down the street. They have a GIANT poinsettia tree as well as all their trains set up inside. We love these trains and all the little miniature Omaha buildings

(don't you love Ammon's head in the top corner ;-)

(One of the train bridges [and Ammon by the giant tree in the background])

(the train going by some of the miniature painted silo's we see when we drive on the freeway)

Another one of our activity's was decorating a tree outside for the animals. It has only snowed 1 time this whole winter so we decided to make our own indoor snowstorm. We set out a sheet and popped some popcorn without the lid. After, the kids strung the popcorn with a thread and needle and did VERY WELL I might add.

"I can take a handful and make a treat, a popcorn (snow)ball that would smell so sweet"

We decided it probably wasn't a good idea to give Avonlea a real needle but we gave her some noodles and a plastic needle and she made her own noodle garland. She did surprisingly well

The next day we cut up the fruit and put ties on to hang it up on the tree.

We wanted to be able to watch the animals eat the stuff so we just put it on one of the bushes we can see from our front window.

It turned out great and the animals LOVED it, except for the oranges which are still hanging there. Oh well, it's the thought that counts right?

On Christmas Eve, instead of dressing up and acting out the Nativity scene, we used our playschool nativity set and let the kids act it out.

This next picture is a typical scene from out house. Avonlea picked up one of the pieces, hit Addie in the head with it. Addie cried, Avonlea hugs her to tell her she's sorry and life goes on. Who is the bully in our house? Tornado...but she is great at saying she is sorry.

Pictures after we opened our Christmas jammies.

This year for Christmas we got 3 presents for each kid (+ 1 present that Santa Clause left) to help simplify things and help them appreciate their gifts more and represent the 3 gifts from the wise men. Addie asked for a Rapunzel dress, which I thought, "oh I'll just make one." Note to self, never buy the cheap satiny material again when making clothes. The edges frayed SO BAD and I had to singe EVERY EDGE with a lighter.....IT WAS A PAIN!!!! But the end result turned out nice and she loved it so I guess it was worth it.

Kimballs favorite gifts were his remote controlled monster truck and light saber...which he has slept with every night so he can kill all the monsters with.

Addie also got an American Girl doll from Ammon's mom. She loves her so much and she to has slept with Addie every night....but probably not so she can kill the monsters

This little angel got a little doll that moves and talks when there is any movement. Some days she loves her, some days she could care less. She is such a cute little stinker-pot and I cannot get enough of her.

Santa also found a great deal on a Wii, and although we weren't sure if he should bring it to us, we have enjoyed it very much and have enjoyed the power it has to motivate the kids to do chores, schoolwork, and anything else that needs to get done. We have had so much fun playing Just dance together as a family and our few other games. After church on Christmas, we came home and got back in our jammies and had some fun teaching the kids how to drive

Another fun gift that we got was from Ammons brother James. It is a remote controlled Sumo game....yes that's right, diapers and all. This picture is suppose to be a video but I still can't get videos to upload right to my blog (any help would be appreciated) but the goal is to knock your opponent over or push him out of the ring....it has been a lot of fun...until they got left on and the batteries died. Time to load up on the AA I guess

Some of our other favorite activities that we did in December were watching the kids take hot coco to the bell-ringers outside of the stores, going ice-skating together down by Old-Market on their outdoor rink, driving around to see the lights, and having a movie night and sleeping by the Christmas tree.

Ammon has started school and work again so I guess that means that I have to do the laundry again and cook the food and keep our house organized. I REALLY REALLY REALLY Loved Ammons help over the break. That was my favorite Christmas present. Back to the grindstone

da da da DAAAAAA Kitchen reveal

I've been so excited to post this.....infact that has been what has helped me to "finish" this project (Is any project ever really finished?) I have been waiting years and years to paint and decorate my own home and now I am having so much fun....well fun being the "I'm so sick of painting I could scream" fun. But really I have enjoyed this so much.

This made me realize that my plans are going to take a while but that is okay. I will just do it room by room and enjoy the process.
So this was our kitchen before. Not bad at all, just not what I had in mind.

after much work....and believe me, it would have taken me forever without Ammons help. I love this picture because he looks like he has "old man" head

Hey there sexy

and now, the after shots
I plan to antique this bead board back-splash to really make it pop and I am going to try adding some fabric behind the frame and see how it looks....sometime


I got the idea to do some silhouettes of the kids in this awesome frame my friend Misty gave me but I'm trying to decide if it is just to much and if I should just leave the frame blank. What do you think? Really I would love a commentI still
I still need to do a bunch of touch-up work but I am very happy with the results. This summer, I am going to give our china hutch a paint job so I'm sure you will see some updates as time goes by, for now, I am one happy gal