Nine Things I Love

Nine years ago today, Brady and I were sealed for time and eternity in the Las Vegas, Nevada Temple.  It's one of the five best days of my life.  I still remember how nervous and excited I was that day.  How happy I was to call Brady mine, forever.  Nine wonderful years have passed and I am more in love with him than ever. To celebrate I came up with nine things I love about Brady to share with you all.  

1. Brady I love how intelligent you are and that you never make me feel dumb.  I know that accumulating information, storing it away in that amazing brain of yours, and putting it all together in ways that sometimes confuse me comes naturally to you.  What I love the most is that you willingly share your knowledge without making others feel like they are less intelligent than you.  I'm not as smart as you are and probably never will be, but I know that I can always count on you to help me fill in the gaps.  

2. I love how much you love our children.  It melts my heart watching you care for them, tease them, comfort them, and teach them.  You are at your most attractive to me when you are fathering our children and I am so thankful for a husband who shares the burden of raising our children. 

3. I love you for providing for us.  You work hard and have had to make many sacrifices for our family.  I know it isn't always easy, or even fun, but I love you so much for making it possible for me to be home with our children.  

4. I love your sense of humor.  I love that you can always make me laugh. 

5. I love that you are kind and forgiving.

6. I love that you are worthy of the Priesthood and preside over our home with love.  I love that you are worthy to exercise your Priesthood when we need it, and to use it help others around us as well.  I love that you care about keeping our covenants with the Lord and keep the commandments.  We have lots of room to do better, but I love that you are always willing to help us achieve our spiritual goals and don't see dedication to our Heavenly Father and following his teachings as a burden.  

7. I love that you still find me attractive and tell me so often.  Nine years, four children, and my deep love of food haven't been as kind to my body as I would like but you tell me often how beautiful I am anyway.  Thank you so much for seeing what I often can't see in myself.  

8. I love that you enjoy spending time with your family and that we are a priority to you. 

And

9.  I love that you are a nerd.  I love it so much.  I love that you share that nerdy-ness with me and our children.  

Happy Anniversary Brady!  I love you so much and I hope that we have many more wonderful years a head of us!  

Summer is here...

Oh summer.  How I love you and yet how I hate you.

Somehow, despite my best intentions, we always fall completely off the routine band wagon when summer vacation comes around.  The kids seem to think that summer means a crazy free-for-all with no rules.  Specifically no bed time.

Yeah. No.

I'm trying to let them have some fun.  They can stay up a half hour later some nights.  They can play outside in the little pool and on the trampoline as much as they want.  We can go to the zoo every Friday if they want.  And they do want.

We are only a couple weeks in and they are cranky, tired, belligerent, and generally big old pains in my neck.

So I cracked down on our routine again this week.  They are still tired and the constant rain and thunder storms aren't helping our cabin fever.  We do have a deal that we can go to the zoo once a week if they do their chores and behave like the nice little kids I know they can be.  I look forward to it actually as it gets us out of the house to do something interesting.  I also revamped our chore charts:

I always have a "big" chore for each day.  Each big chore gets done weekly so things never get really bad.  The idea is that we then don't ever have to do major weekend cleaning projects (for the most part).  There are still other things that need to get done (yard work for example) but so far this has been working for me.  The kids...well they try.  They have a really hard time waking up and doing the routine lately.  I usually let them sleep until 8ish.  Owen wakes me up at around 6:40am every day so I can usually get in a workout, dishes, and breakfast started before they get up in the morning.  Then I have to prod them through their routine in the morning.  You know, the basic stuff.  Get dressed, brush teeth and hair, eat breakfast, start chores.  It's so irritating for me but I think we will get used to it right about the time Cadence goes back to school.  :o)

My iMac is officially not functional.  I haven't been able to edit pictures in months.  It's a bit depressing for me.  Brady downloaded Gimp on his computer for me to mess with.  It's slow going but similar to Photoshop so I am thinking I might be able to edit on his computer for a while until we can afford to replace mine.  I won't be able to get another Mac nor will we be able to afford to replace my adobe Photoshop software.  I'm very saddened by this.  I really miss being able to work things like I used to.  I am irritated at having to learn a new program.  I won't lie.  There are some afternoons that I cry.  I haven't taken new pictures in over a month. I use my iPhone for random pictures of the kids.  I know I need to move on.  I know that in the end it will be fine and Gimp will work just fine for what I enjoy doing.  This is one of the times that I am irritated by being poor.  

So I'm sorry there aren't any new pictures in this post.  I have so much work to do, including pictures from back in December for my family.  I plan on starting there and working forward so look for those posts to come soon.  I'm hoping by summer's end I will be caught up again and proficient enough in Gimp to feel more like my normal self again.  

Happy Summer!

Rory's pictures from Gymnastics!

Rory's pictures from her gymnastics class this year.  

She loves all her friends and her teacher, Miss Erin.  The little girl next to Rory in the white is also named Rory!

We are so proud of her and all that she has learned the last few months!

Rory's Gymnastics

Rory has been taking Gymnastics at the Youth Center for a few months.  She LOVES it and will be moving up to the next level in the fall.  She is really fearless when it comes to trying new things.  She can even do a forward roll on the low beam (don't have video of that as they didn't do the beam for parent observation today).  Most kids her age have to be pulled around the bars and need several jumps on the trampoline to get on the vault.  

Owen is growing up!

Owen has recently learned to crawl.  It's wonderful and terrible at the same time.  I love that he is enjoying being mobile and following his sister's around everywhere.  I am hating that I have to vacuum every day (sometimes twice), hating paper (he always finds some...always), and hating that he is growing up so fast.  Thankfully he is still a big cuddle bug!  

He already puts up with a lot of dumb girl stuff. Poor guy. I'm just grateful that his sisters love in him so much.

I am also thankful that he loves his daddy!  He is perfectly content to sit, sleep, and play with daddy and it melts my heart to watch the two of them together.  The girls were such mommy's girls up until they were about a year and it is so nice to have a baby that will be happy with daddy.  

I have a feeling this will be a theme in his life.  Sorry buddy. 

I seriously love this boy and I am so glad that he surprised our family.  I can't imagine things without him. 

Beckah's 2!

It's hard to believe that my baby girl is two!  It's been a crazy couple of years but I am so glad that she is a part of our family!  She is so spunky, funny and full of life.  She brings so much laughter to our home.  I love that she still loves to cuddle with me and that she is huge daddy's girl.  I love that she is our best sleeper and has always been our easiest to put down for bed.  

She LOVES all her little friends cars so we decided to get her one of her very own.  She is very territorial about it too.  If Rory or Owen look at Beckah's car she gets cross with them.  Cadence gets off scott free for looking.  I think it's because Beckah knows Cadence can't fit in her car.  :o)

Grandma Suzi sent her some dress up clothes in her size!  She LOVES her "Brave" dress and wore it for two days straight. 

She also got some new clothes, a doctor kit and her very own LaLa Loopsy doll from Grandma Viv.  

She was also very sure she wanted a Rainbow cake.  It wasn't hard to make, just time consuming since I only have one 8 inch cake pan.  :o)  It was very yummy though!

Beckah I love you so very much!  You have always been so much fun and I love your budding vocabulary and crazy laugh!  I love that you think you can do everything your sister's do! I love hearing you say that you "lub" me and your big fish-lipped kisses!  Happy Birthday baby girl!

Cadence's Piano Lessons

Cadence is taking piano lessons.  We gave her the option of picking what instrument she wanted to play and picked piano so she could play like her Grandma Vivian.  :o)  She is doing exceptionally well.  She started lessons in October and has been flying through her first set of books.  I am very impressed with how willing she is to practice and how easily things come to her.  She loves her teacher and is looking forward to performing in the recital that is coming up soon.