General Conference with our Kids

We had a wonderful day watching to general conference today. I had planned on making applesauce this morning while listening to conference, but we weren't ready, the kitchen was still a big mess from breakfast. The kids all quietly gathered in the tv room with the notepads, coloring pages, and began watching conference. Even Kevin played quietly throughout the session. Rebecca took notes, lots of notes, and the spirit was in our home. I just couldn't bring myself to interuppt such a peaceful setting, so the applesauce had to wait until between sessions.

I really enjoyed Elder L. Tom Perry's talk about preparedness. Although I was able to listen, I wasn't able to take notes, so I look forward to being able to read the talk, and listen to it on my mp3 player. It is so wonderful that the church has the talks on the website within days to read and listen to again. I'm looking forward to using this talk to organize our family preparedness. It will be a great one to use for famiy home evening next week.

This is a Mother's Room!

I walked into this Mother's Room and exclaimed, "This is a Mother's Room" All told, there are twelve rocking chairs, 1 changing table, and three large diaper pails, plus a handwashing sink. WOW! Where did I find such a mother's room, in a new chapel on the BYU Idaho Campus. We were attending church in Rexburg to witness the blessing of my nephew Carson Freeman. I have never seen such a large mother's room, and this one was never even half full while I was there, but according to my sister-in-law they have a lot of babies being born in Rexburg, and this mother's room was located in a building with 2 chapels - so it could very well be full someday. That is a sight I would love to see.

We recently got a new mother's room in our chapel, but it still only has 2 rocking chairs. We have pulled in a couple of folding chairs, and it is very often full, and we take turns using the chairs.

Carson and MaryAnn

The wonderful thing about digi scraping is that if you have a digital camera and a laptop, you can scrapbook anywhere. We are in the middle of our weekend roadtrip to Rexburg Idaho. Everyone else was playing Wii so I took the opportunity to take pictures of the babies and here is the result!

Stand Up Mouse

I went to the doctor today and he said I needed to get a "standing up mouse." I've never heard of a standing up mouse, but I guess when you have a problem like mine a mouse that stands up is the best kind solution.

Ok, so he also said that I have a repetitive stress injury in my right wrist, and I already knew that it came from using the computer. If I avoid the computer it gets better, but digi scrapping and blogging are so much fun, besides all of the other work that I have to do on the computer it is hard to avoid the computer.

It's amazing how all the muscles and nerves in your hands can be taken for granted. Cooking, opening doors, changing diapers, signing checks, etc, etc, all are difficult when your wrist twinges if you twist i the wrong way. I've been icing my wrist, and giving it breaks for a few weeks now, but when I woke up in pain this morning I finally decided I'd better take care of me so I could keep taking care of others. I enjoy a break every once in a while, but doctor visits aren't exactly my idea of "alone time". I've been to the doctor twice this week(Isaac got stung by a bee, and his foot swelled up), and I have 3 appointments next week for MaryAnn, and now I I also have to go see a hand therapist, to get some therapy and strengthen my wrist.

So tonight, my husband ordered me a new mouse, I wonder if I can teach it to roll over, play dead, or any other tricks besides standing up!

I scrapped yesterday's pictures already!

We Did It!

I was joined by all three of my girls, Rebecca, Emily, and yes, even MaryAnn (only 5.5 months old), and my sister Malinda, and my sister-in-law Emily. We would have liked to start the race sooner, standing around in the rain isn't as much fun as splashing through the puddles. It was fun to join with 13,000 other women in having a "bad hair day" and yet we were celebrating being women!

MaryAnn joined me for the Special Achiever's Course of the 2008 St. Luke's Women's Walk. She was tucked into her sling, covered in a blanket, and buttoned inside my coat. While she was dry(I'm not talking diaper's) and happy we had a great time. It not only was an overcast day, it poured, it thundered, we saw lightening, and it poured, and it poured some more. By the time the walk started we were soaked, yet our spirits were still high.

I did feel a little let down that I didn't complete the whole course, since I committed to this walk I've been walking almost daily to prepare. However, I knew that I could have completed - so I instead took care of MaryAnn, you never know when a baby is going to say, "Ok Mom, I'm tired of being wet(soaked to the skin) and hungry" After having to stop at the Jackson's convenience store about a quarter of a mile into the walk to feed her, and found out that she wasn't as protected as we thought we knew that her needs had to come first.

I'm already looking forward to next year, my girls are quite so sure!

Date Night - all by Myself?

Last Friday night I took myself on a date, by myself, no husband, no baby, just me. I even spoiled myself, I bought 2 new pairs of shoes, one pair for church, and one pair because I desparetly needed them. I've been wearing old moccasin for a long time, and all my lace up shoes were lousy. Since I'm doing the women's walk in 2 weeks I figured I'd better get a decent pair of shoes and get them broke in before September 20th.

Ok, so usually a date does consist of 2 people, but my husband had been sickish all week and wasn't feeling up to going out (shopping) with me, and our live in babysitter, was visiting her Aunt and Uncle for the weekend, so I had no other choice, but to go by myself while my husband watched a movie with the boys and the baby slept peacefully.

The best part of the evening was browsing peacefully through Deseret Book. I had time to explore, and look at books, to get ideas for Christmas presents (I do my present buying almost exclusivly at DeseretBook), without the pressure of making decisions.

Here's a few of my great finds - that I may purchase in the near future.

(I only bought the 2 items I had on my list!)

This reminded me of the American Girls book "The Care & Keeping of You: The Body Book for Girls " that I mentioned in Spa Night with the Girls. My sister has a great beauty quote on her bathroom wall, that I love, maybe she'll post it in the comments for us - it talks about inner beauty. This book looked like it incorporated inner and outer beauty.

It looked like a great book, and it will probably appear in my home in the near future as a Spa Night read.

I have been trying to read the Book of Mormon and figure out who's who and what the geneology is, and some of the different war scenarios, so this book really caught my eye. It would be a fun book to study and learn a lot more about the Book of Mormon. I find that the better that I understand the storyline, the easier it is to understand the messages.

I love John Bytheway, we listened to his tapes over and over as teenagers. I still have some of his tapes and the time is soon coming that I will be sharing them with my kids. What a great collection, and take a look, he was done so many different projects - there are 46 different products.

So many books, so little time!