Family Time

The Amazing Race started last night. Our family loves to watch this race together. When I was a child, my family would gather together on Sunday nights and watch "The Wonderful World of Disney". So last night I was reminded of those times as we sat at my parents house and watched kick off of the Amazing Race. We all laughed through the show. We are looking forward to every Sunday night to gather together as a family and enjoy a family show together.

This is why I storybook

10 Ways to Love with Heritage Makers

1. Believe
You have a story. Part of the adventure is discovering what that story is. Maybe your story is about your high school years, your first kiss, or your prom. Maybe it’s about your spouse, your courtship, and your wedding. Maybe it’s about your children, their births, their first words, or their first day at school. Know that your story is important and needs to be shared. Give your children, your spouse, your friends…your heritage, their heritage.

2. Be Yourself
You don’t need a degree in writing or creativity to make an awesome book. You have everything you need. Your personality and your excitement will bring your story to life. Remember, this is about you, your family, your friends. Have fun with it.

3. Communicate (Listen)
Talk to your friends and family to get ideas for more great stories. Get their impressions, their experiences. Wouldn’t it be exciting to see how everyone remembers your memories, learn about their feelings and their thoughts? You can create a fun storybook with everyone’s participation. Get everyone involved. Get your characters together, have a party, and learn about the people who mean the most to you.

4. Show Interest
Create a story for someone-your parents, your best friend, your sister or brother. Help others see that their stories are important too. Then surprise them. Their smiles and tears will be worth all the effort.

5. Share Your Feelings
Share all the sights and smells of your story. Share the small details that made your experience-the smell of the roses at your wedding, the touch of tiny feet as you cuddled your newborn baby, the taste of a foreign fruit on your family vacation. Share your feelings, your thoughts, your excitements. These stories mean something to you. Let others know how and why.

6. Prepare
You have your story, now you need the details. Go through your pictures. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. So find the perfect images to present your story. Then decide how you want to share your experiences. If you’re stumped, you can use the Story Maps found in your Studio. They have great questions to get your ideas flowing.

7. Commit
Once you have discovered your story, your responsibility is to share it. Put some time aside to work on it each day. It doesn’t have to be much. Even 10 minutes a day will get you closer to a finished book. And once you start, you may find it hard to stop. It is way too much fun to create, to remember, to share.

8. Create the Atmosphere
Be creative. There are plenty of things in Studio to help you create a unique design. Have fun with the paper, the picture frames, the buttons, the ribbons, the tags. Or party with the templates. There are some great designs, perfect for any story. Make your story your story.

9. Snuggle
Storybooks make great bedtime books. Snuggle up with your children and share your stories with them. Let them fall asleep to the sound of your voice as you read your wedding story, your family vacation stories, or their baby stories.

10. Show Appreciation
Once you receive your book, display it, love it, enjoy it. This is your treasure. Show it off. Read it to your children; share it with your friends. Keep it where everyone can see it-on the coffee table or in the kitchen. Make it a part of your home.

These 10 things inspired me to do more storybooks. My sister-n-law (Scott's sister) and I are going to LA for the weekend to sit and interview Grandpa Wally. We are going to scan all of his pictures to get them digital. After interviewing Grandpa Wally and hearing stories from the pictures, we are going to create a storybook. A storybook for him and for our children. Grandpa Wally is 92 and lives in Southern CA. We don't get to visit with him very often and our children definitely don't know him very well. So our gift to him and our children is a storybook about their Great Grandpa Wally.








I hope this post has inspired you. Whether you create a storybook or scrapbook, the most important thing is that you are capturing your story, your heritage. When you are ready to storybook your heritage, let me know or visit www.createyourheritagebooks.com.

Flood of emotions return

For a moment today, I was able to watch the "Today Show", which is a rare occurrence. Usually if the TV is on, the channel to watch is Disney or Nick. Trent and Paige were upstairs playing nicely, so I quickly switched the channel. Right then was the story of the gal who had 8 babies. I am not using my blog to discuss her and her stupidity.

As Ann Curry and the mother were walking through the NICU visiting each baby. I had a flood of emotions overcome me. It was 14 months ago, but felt for a moment like it was yesterday. I had an overwhelming love for those babies and my children. They are special spirits sent here from Heavenly Father. It doesn't really matter if the mom isn't thinking things through with her decisions, it doesn't matter if we aren't very good parents, what does matter is that we are giving these spirits a chance to gain a body.

So as I was watching the NICU scene and wiping my eyes, I didn't notice that Paige had come downstairs with her baby doll. The moment passed and I changed the channel back to Disney and went back to cleaning the kitchen. Paige walked up to me and said, "Mom, my baby is sick and needs to go to the hospital." I said, "Oh yea, what's wrong with her?" Paige answered with, "She can't breathe and needs to go into the hospital to have a tube help her." I stopped what I was doing and realized that the same hospital scene that affected me emotionally also affected my daughter. So we talked about it for a minute, we hugged, and then she was off playing again.

Here is a picture of Paige walking up to me with her "sick" baby doll. She looked so adorable, I couldn't resist capturing the moment that we just shared together.

A new sport for Garhett

Sports - where do we begin. Baseball and softball run in my blood. I started watching at a very young age and playing at age 10. I was excited for our boys to be of age to play sports. And so it began. When Garhett was around 3 or 4, we enrolled him in a variety of sports so that he could be exposed to a little of everything. When we arrived in Boise, we signed him up for soccer, he played for a couple of seasons, and didn't care for it too much. Then he tried baseball. He started in T-Ball, went through Coach Pitch, and this past fall he was old enough to advance to "real" baseball. This is where the kids actually pitch. Fall ball was the deal breaker for Garhett. He lost his love for the game. So we were back at the drawing board of what sport to try next.
We have a rule that our kids have to play some type of sport to stay active. We don't care what sport they play as long they enjoy doing it. I asked Garhett what sport he would like to try next. Off the cuff he said, "Tennis." "Tennis? Okay, I will research where you can go for lessons." So I found a place that teaches entry level tennis lessons to youth.
Tonight was Garhett's first night of tennis practice. Unfortunately, mom wasn't able (aloud) to go, so before dad left with Garhett, I made him take the camera to capture this moment. Here is Garhett enjoying his first tennis practice.

Congratulations Trent!

We are so proud of Trent. Trent was recognized for his academic achievement and received recognition at the school assembly. Trent did not know that he was going to receive this award. So his shy introvert side really showed. Trent was so excited after the assembly because the Principal handed each of the winners a gift card to McDonald's. Basically they receive a happy meal without the "happy" part of the meal (aka toy).
The next day I took Trent to McDonald's so he could use his gift card. When we ordered the lady took the card for the meal and Trent about had a melt down. He kept saying, "Why doesn't she give me my credit card back, mom? She gives you your credit card back after you pay". So I explained to him that my credit card has money on it and his card was just specifically for the food that he bought, so she needed it back. I tried. I guess it worked cause he let it go. LOL
I feel all giddy as a parent! It's a joyful feeling when your child gets recognized. Now I kind of understand that person who drives around the car with one or more than one bumper sticker that says, "My child was honor student at blah blah elementary"! I never got that before. Now I do. I don't have a bumper sticker to go on my car, but I have our family blog with a condensed version of the assembly for everyone to watch. So enjoy!!

For Sale

Well our house is on the market. I know there are a lot of questions out there. So to help answer them, I have listed them below:

1. Why are you selling? Just feel that we need to.
2. Where are you going? Don't know yet.
3. Is Scott's job in jeopardy? NO!!!!
4. Is Scott changing jobs? NO!!!!
5. Are you leaving Boise? Don't know yet.

So many questions, we don't have all the answers. All we know is that we feel we are doing the right thing for our family.

I didn't think I was a pack rat!!

This weekend we had a lot of work to do around the house to get it ready. I have been overwhelmed with the daunting task that was placed on me 2 weeks ago with a deadline of this Thursday. So on Friday, while I was getting ready for the day and thinking about what needed to take place this weekend, I was inspired. I called my parents to see if the kids (all 4) could come hang out with them for the weekend. Of course being the awesome grandparents that they are, they said, YES!!! So when the boys got off the bus Friday, we loaded everyone in the car and drove to Twin to drop the kids with my parents. By the time Scott and I got back from 4 hours in the car, we were tired.

It was so nice to have slept the whole night through and not wake up until my eyes opened on their own, which was 8am, what a treat!!!! So off to work we went. We went from room to room dejunking. Scott has always been the one that says if you haven't seen it, used it or worn it within a year or more - away it goes! Easier said than done. This year, I reached down deep within me and decided that I was going to have that approach. This is when I discovered that I truly am a pack rat. I have had "unfinished projects" from 5-10 years ago that I was "really" going to finish. So I junked them. REALLY! If after this amount of time, I don't think that I was going to sit down one day and do them, in fact, half of them I couldn't even remember what they were supposed to be like when they were completed. This was invigorating!!! Onto the next room and so it went on. We had some great advice, as we take things down and put them away, we should have 2 boxes, one for the trash and one where you wrap it up and pack it away. What a relief and a time saver! This will save us so much time.

Lastly was the dreaded room of the entire house, our bedroom. Our room has been the catchall for everything. Scott was not going to let me avoid it any longer. So we began going through clothes in our closet. I have had clothes for over 10 years still in my closet (Stacy and Clinton from What Not to Wear would have my head!!) some I wear and some I don't. I have clothes from my "larger than life" stage that it was time to get rid of. My mind set is that I don't want to go back to being "larger than life", so the clothes needed to go away so I can stay focused on the new size and continue to make it smaller.

So 9 long hours later, 2 trips to the dump, and a trip to DI, our house is 1000 pounds lighter from the inside to the outside. Scott and I dejunked every room in our entire house and the backyard. What an incredible feeling I have. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders that maybe I didn't even know was there. As I walk into each room, I feel a peace come over me. I think its true when the Prophet tells us to "get your house in order" and you will have a change in your heart, family, and feel an over all peace over you. I have truly felt that through this dejunking process.

After an exhausting day, we cleaned up and went to a nice seafood dinner rented a movie and came home and slept through most of the movie. Went to bed had a nice rest, again I forgot how nice sleeping the entire night through was and how refreshed you feel in the morning. So after Sunday school, we headed to Twin to pick up the kids. Because it snowed the roads were terrible. I don't think Scott got over 40mph on our drive. A trip that would normally take around 2 hours took us almost 3. We picked up the kids and turned around and headed right back to beat the darkness.

This has been an eye opening refreshing weekend. I came to realize that I am a pack rat and it's okay to get rid of things and "dejunk" our lives. I came to realize that I don't like to go to church without our kids with us. At first I thought it would be nice to sit and listen to the talks and feel the spirit cause I don't usually get to with all the racket from the kids. I felt uncomfortable all during sacrament meeting because it was just Scott and I sitting on the bench. I came to realize that the gospel is true (not that I didn't know that before, but it was reaffirmed to me) because the things that are taught to us pertain to every part of our lives, even dejunking the stuff in our homes.

I feel alive again. I feel like our house is in order both physically (temporarily) and spiritually.