Life Changing

Every school morning my routine is exactly the same. The girls alarm goes off at 6:45 as I lay in bed, half awake/half asleep wishing that I had one more hour Ashley stays in bed a couple more minutes wishing the same. Then after a couple of minutes I hear the two either giggling with each other or fighting over shoes, clothes, hair things or whatever. I still lay in bed trying to ignore what is going on. In the meantime Mitchell is stressed out getting ready for work sending emails, making a lunch, getting the girls to stop fighting and so on. I still lay in bed. 7:15 comes and the girls are no closer to being ready for the day then they were at 6:45. I hear the fighting again then one of them comes into the room to tattle on the other. OK, I will drag myself out of the bed, in a bad mood not wanting to face the world, quite yet. 7:25 comes and the girls run out the door to find the bus pulling up, but they make it. WHEW! What a morning and I have only been up a couple of minutes.

On Monday as I lay in bed ready to start the same routine I had a thought come to my mind. What if I get out of bed right now and read the scriptures along with that book that I bought a couple of years ago. That would be a great idea, but I am really tired and I do not want to get out of bed. So, I roll over for a couple of minutes, until the though reoccurred to me yet again to get up and read the book and the scriptures so I DID! I actually listened.

It was such a good morning. I sat there pondering the scriptures with my read along book while the girls got ready for school. Every now and then I was asked to help with a button or with a new hairstyle, but for the most part I was able to just relax and take time for myself in the peace of my home. There is something about a mother sitting with the scriptures in her lap that makes your children calm, I can do this more often.

What book am I reading? This book has called out my name from Deseret Book for quite some time. I have wanted to buy it so badly so I finally did, but then I put it in the bookcase to collect dust. It is "21 Days Closer to Christ" by Emily Freeman.On Deseret Books website it states "Nestled between the covers of this beautifully illustrated book is an invitation — an invitation to come closer to Christ through a 21-day journey. Each step of the journey introduces a new concept that will help you come to know and recognize the hand of the Lord in your life. With an emphasis on daily scripture study and personal prayer, each chapter concludes with an assignment designed to help you apply and personalize concepts such as humility, gratitude, and listening to the Spirit. In the rush of everyday life, this unique book provides a refreshing pause and the opportunity to focus our efforts on becoming closer to Christ.

So, I invite you to buy the book and take this journey with me. I am so excited to come and learn a little bit more about my Savior Jesus Christ. I am excited that it is helping my mood in the home and I am happier and more available to my children. I am excited to be able to read the scriptures into more detail and gain a stronger testimony of them. It will be a great journey and I can not wait to see how much I grow in 21 short days!

Someone Got Her Ears Pierced

A year and a half ago Lindsay got her ears pierced while her Grandma and Grandpa Couch were here to visit us. Ashley planned on getting hers pierced at the same time, but then let everyone know that she will not be getting them pierced until she was 17 years old.

I am so squirmy when it comes to blood or needles so whenever Lindsay asked me to help her take her studs out I could not do it. When we were in Utah in August my sister, Tricia, helped her take them out, but once they were put back in I told her she is to keep them in since her ear was sealing up after a couple of hours. The poor girl has been asking for a couple of weeks to be able to change her earrings again and today was the day. She was so excited to wear her cute earrings that we bought for her over a year ago. She is growing up WAY too fast!

On Saturday I needed to go to the mall for some excellent deals at JCPenney. (Have to pause with my story to show what great deals I got! I am so excited because I am pretty much done with school shopping for next school year and it cost UNDER $50.

I got 9 pairs of jeans, four shirts, a package of socks, a pair of shoes for Hailey and two dresses!!! Pretty AmAzInG Sale!I love this dress for Lindsay! It was $2.97.
Cute shoes for Hailey also $2.97.)

Anyways, back to my story. JcPenney happened to be right next to Claires. I asked Ashley if she wanted to get her ears pierced and she said yes. She was so brave and did so well. She sat perfectly still in the chair. She chose beautiful pink daisy earrings that look adorable on her.

On the way to church today she told us that she was not scared because she noticed that the girl who was going to pierce her ears was a "specialist". After asking what that meant she said she had a couple of piercings so she was a specialist and knew how to do it.

Bow Making Party

This weekend Mitchell had the opportunity to go snow caving with the Boy Scouts so I decided to have a Bow Making Fest with the girls. By the end of the night the girls were bringing me different outfits and asking for a special bow just for that outfit. We had a great time. Here are a few of our finished products.

Learn how to make this one here.

And these here.

This one I just made two of the boutique bows with one smaller than the other and glued it to the other one.

This morning Lindsay wore a dress that had a leopard print on it and she wanted to wear the following bows that are in Haileys hair. I love how her ringlets turned out!I could not bear to see it clash so much so I made her the bow below and it matched perfectly.

I made these curly bows a couple of months ago but I wanted to share this cute hairstyle. I put Hailey's hair in piggy tails that were parted down the middle. I then fish boned (In the previous post I shared a link as to how to do this.) the pig tails and folded it under and clipped it up with the clip. She looked ADORABLE!

I did that!

Yesterday my cousin, Tiffani, told me about a fun website for cute hairstyles. THANKS! Having three girls, I have to do hair a lot so I needed to check it out. The styles are so cute, but yet so easy to do. This morning I did Hailey's hair like this:I would love to know what fun sites you like to check out! I am always in need of making my life a little bit easier.

Happy Valentines Day

CLASS PARTIES

This year I have the opportunity of being Lindsay's Head Room Parent in her classroom meaning I get to plan all of the class parties. Yesterday we had a Valentine's Day party. We decorated cookies, played fun games and the kids gave out Valentines.

In Ashley's class they had a pizza party and read some fun Valentine's Day books. She made her Valentine holder look like a Giraffe. It did, at one time, have two eyes but one fell off. :)ASHLEY'S NOTE

I would not normally write about something like this, but I think it is so cute. In Ashley's mailbox yesterday was a box of chocolates along with this note. I can not believe that this is already starting in Second Grade! Wow. She said it was embarrassing and she tried to throw the note away, but not before I got a picture.

OUR SPECIAL VALENTINE GIFTS
For an Enrichment Activity we made fun cookie bouquets for our husbands for Valentines Day. They were a lot of fun to make and a whole lot easier than I thought they would be. I plan on making more in the future.

When I brought it home I had to hide it somewhere since Valentines Day was not for a couple more days so I hid it in the closet in the office. Apparently this was not a good idea because it melted the lettering so it looks like my LOVE cookie is crying.

We also give our girls a little something to let them know how much we love and appreciate them. My husband is not one who gives presents for things. For my birthday I had to ask him a couple of times if he needed to go to the store for anything, he finally caught on and bought me a beautiful necklace and earrings, but not without prodding. Today he surprised me. He came home from the store with these.

2 DOZEN ROSES they are absolutely gorgeous and they come in a beautiful vase.

I am so thankful for my husband. He is so much fun to be around and is such a wonderful father and provider for our family. He makes me so happy!!!!

Happy Valentines Day Honey, I Love You SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much!

Very Fun Young Men/Young Women Combined Activity

When Mitchell is in charge of something he loves to go all out. This month he was in charge of the Combined Young Men/Young Women Activity for our Ward and he did not disappoint. I have to say that this was the funnest activity that I have ever been to and I know that the youth had a great time also.

We planned a game show (which I posted at the bottom of this post. Keep in mind, this was for our ward with questions about our ward.) with different questions about our church that was projected on the big screen in the gym. Each of the youth (our ward has a TON of youth so we divided the kids into four groups of like 17 kids each) were to have one person from their team come up to the front of the room and answer a question. Some of them were multiple choice and others were not. Here is one of the questions:

How many pipes are on the organ at the Conference Center?

a. 10,000

b. 7,667

c. 13,000

If their team got it correct, then they got a point. After three questions the FUN really began. Up on the screen popped "Physical Challenge". The youth were all confused as to what this meant. We grabbed the person who was next and took them to the front of the gym. We placed four jars of baby food in front of them with their labels removed and the first person to eat the baby food won. Of course we got the yuckiest food ever just to make it funnier. We all had a great laugh!

I love the look on their faces. So funny!

We then continued with a couple more questions until the next physical challenge came which was a girl had to tie a tie onto a boy. The boy could tell her how to do it, but not help in any way other than speech. They did amazingly well, very impressive.Bubble Gum Blowing was the next challenge. We gave two kids from each team a Blow Pop and the first one to make a bubble won. This was a lot harder than it sounded because of the sucker portion of the gum. Here the youth are trying to chew the gum enough to get a bubble.

The next challenge was we gave one team member a sleeping bag with 5 articles of clothing inside. They were to get into the sleeping bag, find the clothes and put them all on. (She had the bag over hear head and could not see so she took it off to find her last article of clothing that she had to put on.)The final outcome. She looked so cute. :)

The pie eating contest was hilarious. Each team had one member put their hands behind their back and eat their pudding with whip cream pie. This had the crowd roaring with laughter.

They were wonderful sports and did a great job.Alphabet Soup-Two team members come up and have to make a five letter word pertaining to the gospel out of their soup letters. This is harder then it seems because you do not know what letters are in each bowl of soup. The word that won was "Bible".
The last game had to be the funniest. We had each of the group leaders come up and sit at the table. My husband then put cups in front of the leaders and three of the cups had a goldfish in it and one did not. As soon as the two women leaders saw this they started waving their blindfolds like they were surrendering, we reminded them that this was for their team and that they could not let their team down. Oh their faces of disgust were hilarious. Our Bishops wife was so funny, she said, "I won't eat that one, it just pooped." My husband said, "you may be the lucky one and not get the goldfish." We finally talked them into it (I actually whispered to the women that it was fake) and put blindfolds on them. We whispered to the youth to be quiet and we sat cups of water in front of each of the leaders and took away the goldfish. Upon saying "GO" I was surprised that the Young Men leaders actually did it! They gulped down their water without a second thought, still thinking that they may have a goldfish in theirs. They were all great sports!

Here they are wondering if the risk is worth it!

It was so much fun. We are not sure if we can top this one the next time we do a Combined Activity.

If anyone has any questions or wants to do this in their own ward let me know and I can help out in any way. I could, if you are nice, take out our ward info and send you the DVD that we used or you could make your own.

Heritage Pics

I am not one that knows how to say no very easily. It is very easy for a solicitor to talk things into me. The other day as I went to Fred Meyer there was a guy right at the entrance with adorable pictures to look at. He offered me a coupon for a 16x20 picture for $10.00. Who can resist that? As I was looking at their website I noticed that this company did "Heritage" photos where it looks Antique and I absolutely love photos like that. Upon further reading I realized that they have the cute "heritage" clothes there for the girls to wear. I was so excited!

The pictures went really well. They did two different poses with all of the girls, then one with each of them individually. The individual photos were ADORABLE! Hailey was wearing a mothers size high heel along with a red feather boa and a cute little purse. Ashley had a parasol and was lounging on a lounge chair and Lindsay was laying down next to an old fashioned telephone. I could not wait until the day I could view the pictures. Upon leaving the studio the guy gave me a pricelist.....this is when my jaw dropped.

The CHEAPEST package was $99.90 and that was for one 8x10 two 5x7's and eight walletts. I guess I am very spoiled with my friends prices that include a CD of all of my photos because this price was ridiculious to me. I should have known it was so expensive, they did provide the clothing after all. I guess I had a hope.

Today I was able to pick up the pictures and they are so cute. There was no way I was going to pay so much for each individual photo so I did not get them, but the guy tried really hard to sell them to me....I guess I do know how to say no. It was just so hard that they were going to just throw my babies pictures away, but oh well. I have some extra change in my pocket because I did not give in.

So, here they are, since they are a picture of a picture it is not the best quality.

I absolutely love the pictures and I will treasure them always!

Silly Girls

I wonder so often how my children come up with some of the things that they say. This afternoon we were in the car and Ashley said, "Mom, why is that called a Prindy (pointing to my gear shift)." Mitchell and I looked at each other and we said, "What?" Then we noticed the initials on our gear shift.

PRND2I or in her words "Prindy".

Then we were able to laugh at our other daughter Hailey when we were on the way home from the store. It was an hour past her bedtime and I said that when we got home they were to get into bed right away and I hear in the back, "Oh NO I am DOOMED!" What in the world was she talking about? She said, "I did not brush my teeth!"

I love having children just for the sheer joy of hearing the funny things that they come up with.