General Conference was amazing. And Carolyn is amazing for what she took from it. She changed. She opened her sweet heart and let the spirit pour in and changed. The moment Conference was over, she was up on her feet serving and working towards her new goals. Today she was so amazing as well. If you know Carolyn, you know she is always sweet. It's just how she came. Today she exceeded her sweetness. She woke up on her own this morning - got dressed and read her scriptures (in the past it's been a struggle to get her out of bed some mornings). Today she offered to do more to help. She was quick to do her chores and went the extra mile in her chores. She did them quickly and with joy. She was so sweet to her sisters. Emily got hurt and she was quick to make her laugh, bring her ice, etc. I love it. How amazing Carolyn is for letting Conference seek in her sweet heart and becoming an even more amazing sweety. I can say the same for Andrew. Last night I was too tired to go downstairs to get my phone with my alarm clock. Andrew (being the crazy worker he is) mentioned that he would already be gone by the time I woke up (yes, I was waking up at 5AM and Andrew would already be gone). Anyways, I fell asleep without ever getting my phone. I woke up so pleased and happy to my phone alarm! Andrew had brought it up...charged it...and then set another alarm in the room to ensure I would wake up. If that wasn't enough, he called me at 5:05 to make sure I was up. What a little thing that meant a lot to me and wasn't so little to me. I was so grateful to have the best husband in the world. Ever. 

I love the General Conference Game Angela played while watching General Conference. She thought of a few words she wanted to listen for during General Conference - we then found pictures that matched what words she thought of. We put a few candies/marshmallows on the pictures. Each time she heard the word, she'd eat a candy. We also put a picture of the Prophet and Apostles. Each picture had a candy on it. When she would see the person talking, she would find the picture and eat the candy on the picture. She and Emily colored the pictures on their posters while listening as well. It was so fun!

Drum roll please....I reorganized somethings in the house. It feels great! I just wanted us to be more organized. I cleared out the pantry and found fun/organized ways to store food in the kitchen cupboards. Each person in the family has a shelf in the pantry! I love it! On the side (as you can see) are markers, pencils, etc. Below that is a little 3 drawer - one drawer for our family scriptures; one drawer for church magazines; and one drawer for books we want handy (ie "Preach my Gospel")

 Look how fun and organized! Each girl I have a compartment where I can store stuff I am working on with the girls.

 This is my personal favorite. Let me just toot my own horn and say that I am super resourceful. I didn't spend a penny in organizing all this stuff. I have just been collecting things. Such as this. My friend brought over a little fruit tray for our "Frozen" party a few weeks ago. I cleaned out the fruit tray...and Tah Dah!!! Look - it's a perfect compartment to keep all of Andrew's stuff in it!! Sweet.

 Hanging on the wall when you walk in is the calendar and chore system we have going on. To the Left is all our craft supplies and such.

Today Carolyn and I started making her baptism dress!!! It will be so great to have that to work together. I am nervous about the whole thing but am just praying to enjoy the journey of making the dress with my sweet Carolyn. And my prayer was answered - I had to remind myself not to stress and just enjoy - but all-in-all it was fun spending time with Carolyn and she is so excited about it.

A quick update..

Learning time fun...the girls wore sunglasses and looked to find their "suns" hidden around the room. Angela found the yellows and Emily the orange suns. Of course they needed their sunglasses to protect their eyes while finding and talking about their suns.

 This girl just climbed up on the table on her own and got right to work :) Thanks Em!

 Where we put our picture that we picked out together. Love that it's one of the first things you can see when you walk in the front door.

 Just call me Ms. Fix-it. I've fixed 2 horribly conditioned bikes...and the car this week! Here are Angela and Emily helping me fix the car. We had to take it a part a bit to get to work :)

 You can see those crazy eyes Emily makes through her glasses. Crazy girl :)

 Making our sight-word hands. Some words are just hard to learn so we find as many different ways to talk about them. One way. Tracing our hands and writing the word on each finger on the paper. Each time we say the word, we put down a finger.

 Carolyn made the paper!! Carolyn's class made the paper for a musical performance :)

 ....And to end off this post...why not another cute picture :)

General Conference has been inspiring and amazing. I can not wait until this afternoon's session. I just feel like it will be so amazing and wonderful.

Carolyn is such an example to me. We finished watching Conference 23 minutes ago. Just as soon as we dismissed ourselves, Carolyn went onto vacuuming the family room where Angela and Emily were listening and doing their Conference Activities and then brought up 2 shelves I had bought at the Thrift Store yesterday but had left in the car and had not brought it in. Carolyn brought those shelves in and carried them up to my room. Then, I saw her proceed to make a chart of one of her new goals. She wrote on a piece of paper eveyone's name on it from our family. She then put two talley marks next to "mom"....she had served without being asked and vacuumed and carried my shelves up. What perfect example of harken to the Word of God. She has sat for all the sessions...writing notes and listening...and thinking. She hasn't been distracted or have fallen asleep. Then, within 23 minutes of Conference being done - she had made a chart for her new goal inspired by the Word of God and completed 2 tasks on her goal. That is harkening to the word of God. Listening, studying, pondering....and then rolling up her sleeves and going right to work.

April 3, 2014

The Ashton Family has a book club. I am not in the book club but I heard they talked about me the other day during their book club. They were discussing how to help their children to like to help out in the home. Andrea brought up what we do at our home. When Andrea told me this - I first laughed because chore-doing I don't feel is a strength...but I do try to make it fun. Angela always catches on and loves the fun of working in the home. We like to dress up (today it was like a princess who had to work because of the evil queen) This is her outfit:

 We also blasted the soundtrack "A Princess Christmas" that we got at the Library today.

 I love how easily Angela is to please. Such an amazing attribute. When I told her she needed to go on a scavenger hunt in the home and find all the heart stickies with "that" written on it. She got so incredibly giddy and starting jumping around.

 Sometimes I don't think enough about how cute the things are that my kids say. Andrew heard Emily say something that made him laugh that I didn't realize was so funny. She said, "A few weeks ago you had my lip gloss." It was funny. I guess you might have had to be there but Andrew thought it was funny. And it was. She used to always say that anything that was past-tense was "yesterday" so we've been trying to talk to her about how there is more than just yesterday...so now everything is "a few weeks ago..."

This girl looked like a little star today (Which - by the way- when she wears this shirt if you push her button (the star in the middle of her shirt she makes silly faces.,..hehehe). I think she would make an amazing actress right now in movies TV shows...Here's my little star:

 GORGEOUS hair! Long, beautiful color...a bit of natural curl...gorgeous!

Andrew described Emily to his mom today as a little girl with big hair. Oh, how I love this girl. I esp. love the shirt she is wearing. She loves playing the "push the button game"...if you push that star on her shirt, she makes a silly face :) We do this with several of her outfits/shirts/jackets/etc...but that shirt is the best for button-pushing.

We miss Chantal and her family living close to us. We used to get to see them quite a bit. We made her birthday cards for her birthday to send in the mail. I just couldn't get over how much I loved Angela's drawing for Chantal (see how she even put the bun in her hair like Chantal does? And I love the Birthday Chandelor she drew...I just loved it! She is one talented artist!)

 I also loved Angela's letter for Chantal.

April 1, 2014

Tonight Andrew said that Carolyn reminded him a bit of Ryan O'Riley
Ryan:

Carolyn

See the resemblance? 

 Tonight Andrew gently was able to get that front tooth to come out.There was MUCH. MUCH. MUCH excitement in the house.

March 31, 2014

Carolyn is the most ticklish person in the world. Just no one tops her. Today I was cutting her toenails and she seriously couldn't contain herself. She was going CrAzY as I held her foot to cut her toenails. No tickling...JUST holding her feet....and she was going nuts. Absolutely nuts-o!

Emily was a little angel today. I have been really trying to not be so distracted. I only have a few years with my precious girls and then they move on. I want to savor every moment with my sweeties. I try not to talk on the phone, text, check email, etc during the day with them. Definitely not near perfect to this, but I try. But sometimes I feel like it is best (good, better, best) to be doing phone calls, emails, etc. for things such as my calling. Today was one of those days. I love how we do visiting teaching reports in my ward. I get to personally call each sister in my district and talk to them personally about how each sister is doing...not an email or a text...a phone call. I love it. It's such a great way to get to talk to the sisters each month. Anyways, I needed to do some calls today. Emily was such an angel. We talked a lot about today and how it would be different - I needed to do things for my calling. Of course, we worked up to the moment...talked about it a lot and tried to give her lots of attention before hand. When the time came, she was such a sweety during my phone calls....she sat by me and did puzzles most all the time and would wait until in between calls. She is such a sweetie. And it was such a tender mercy of Heavenly Father's....through my sweet girl.

Angela, Emily, and I also got to work this morning. My very good friend's birthday was today. Her husband is a pilot and always gone. We decided we would make her favorite cake...by scratch. And the recipe required lots of steps and lots of work (and it was lots of yummy). The girls helped me so much. During making the cake, Angela exclaimed out of no where, "I love this!" After making the cake, we road bikes on a dirt road and delivered the cake to Amy - I love my friend, Amy. I learn so much from her amazing talents. So fun we got to make her a yummy cake today.

 I laughed pretty hard after this picture was taken. The funny thing is this is a common look for Emily. Yes, she's crazy.