Just a few of my favorite things

There are a few things that have been making me just so happy as of late, and I wanted to write them down before my deteriorating mind forgets...

1- Our friend gave us her playset when we moved, which we love, only problem is the wood is a little rough and the kids have had several slivers from it...James, who had never had a sliver before was calling them owies until he heard me talking to Kylie about one of her slivers and he now talks about his "snivers" everyday. Oh how I love how he calls them "snivers" Its one of my favorite things.

2- Bennieboo has an obsession with granola bars. He seriously eats like 5 a day. What I love though is that he asks me each time if he can have a "nalona nola bah." I seriously laugh each time he says that. Even if I'm in a terribly grouchy mood- hearing him say that makes me chuckle each time.

3- In my 3rd trimester of each pregnancy I get rather anemic. I cant get enough of the smell of dirt and the chonking of ice. I have chipped several teeth throughout my previous pregnancies with all the ice I chonk on. And right on cue- I got to my 3rd trimester in this pregnancy and I cant get enough ice-- but since my sweet Daniel bought me a shaved ice machine several months ago- we have been enjoying our shaved ice each night. I LOVE IT! And since its shaved ice- its saving my teeth this time around.

4- I have always had a thing for sunrises and sunsets. Its not only therapeutic, its also a spiritual thing for me. Anyway for the past 2 months I lost my walking partner, and have been walking by myself- and since I'm by myself,  I go walking a little later than the 2 of us did, so on the last part of my walk I get to see the sky ablazing with the morning sunrises. But for the past 2 weeks I have not been able to get my self out of bed so early to do my walking. (I blame the anemia) So instead I have been going in the early evenings. And now instead of the glorious sunrises, I walk as the sun in setting. this week-- the sunsets have been out of this world! Also- since its a full moon- the past week has been really cool to see these gorgeous sunsets on one side of the sky and then turn and see this ginormous full moon rising from the other. Majestic!

5-lastly--again with my Bennieboo. I ask him all the time why he is so cute, and he always responds "I awesome!"  He's just matter of fact about it too- it just cracks me up. and this past week he has started adding "ya know" on the end of every sentence. SO he says "I awesome, ya know!" Man alive I love that kid.

Happy Friday ya'll!

Lets talk about LOVE

I know I maybe slightly go a little tiny bit overboard with bragging about my Daniel, but since its my blog, and my journal...I think its good for my kids to know how great their daddy is in his role as a husband, so I tell it like it is.
I am not a big Valentines Day fan...I try to make it fun for the kids and try to come up with some small gesture to let Daniel know how much I love and appreciate him, (like vandalizing his car) (dont ask) but I like the ordinary day gestures best..I dont care so much about flowers on Valentines day- although Daniel does get them for me..and I wont refuse chocolate any day either..which Daniel does as well..but what I really love about my Daniel is that he really puts his heart and soul into our relationship, and to being "there" for me, even/especially when there are a few bumps in the road.

I have been more emotional with this pregnancy than I have been with any of my others. I seriously cry all the time, which is making me think I'm crazy cuz I'm not too big on crying. "It gives me a headache"-(famous quote by Sister Hinckley ringing a bell?!!!) but seriously- my hormones have been so wack for the past 29 weeks and I cry all the flippin time. When we were in the mess of renovating, I went over to the old house to pack some things up, leaving Daniel, my dad, and our kids at the new house. (I kinda needed a break from my wild ones, and Daniel thought I wouldnt "over-do it"  while packing stuff up, like I had been trying to renovate at the new house. Anyway.. after a couple of hours I was burned out- it was late, we had been working for over a week and had been doing late nights and were all off the routine and I just became overwhelmed thinking how much more we had to do, and was feeling like a bad mom since my kids werent getting all the attention they usually get from me, and I just sunk to the floor and sobbed for a good 15 minutes. I was feeling so alone, and just overwhelmed and in that moment decided to pray. And I told my father how I was feeling and let it all out... and pleaded for some help. Not 5 minutes later my sweet Daniel came in. How I love the quote "Heavenly Father hears and answers our prayers, but it's usually through another person that he takes care of our needs." I believe with all my heart he sent my sweet Daniel over to comfort me in that moment. And Daniel just hugged me for a good 10 minutes while I cried on his shoulder. Never once making me feel bad for "loosing it." Never once making me feel like the crazy psycho pregnant woman I am. Just loving me and then helped me load up some boxes to take over to the new house. SO again.. i love that Daniel is "there" for me. And its on the days and in the ways I need it most.

Secondly- I love how thoughtful my Daniel is. I seriously dont know how I got so lucky to be with this guy. HE is the most thoughtful, caring, selfless guy and many times over I realize I really dont deserve him. I just really really lucked out. Again..in the chaos of renovating, Daniel was getting up early to go to work, and tried cramming his usual 10 hour daily work load into 5, so he could get off and come spend all afternoon and evening working on the new house. once i got my oldest 2 off to school, I would load up snacks and what not and bring the other 2 over and let them play in the backyard while I worked on chiseling away old shower tiles, shoveling rocks(dont ask), prepping/masking for paint, and clean up. By the time each day was done we were all exhausted. And my dang back would be killing me, and the one thing that wanted above all else was to soak in a hot bath to ease some of the intense pain I was feeling...but the dang water heater went out, so we had several nights of freezing cold quick showers before we could get it replaced. But my sweet Daniel- who was exhausted himself, knew I was in pain and knew that some slight relief would come with a hot bath, so he got out all the pots and pans and boiled the freezing cold water a hundred times over to fill up that bathtub-(he carried each one up the stairs each time to pour it in the tub- seriously he went up and down those stairs at least 50 times)-- all so I could get a few moments of relief. Who does that? He was so tired himself and dealt with the cold shower and Im sure he just really wanted to sleep, but instead he did that for me..without my asking.  if thats not love- I dont know what is.
So yes I brag about my Daniel..but really- how could I not? I write it down so that my kids know how incredible their daddy is and in hopes my boys will one day grow up to be like their dad. After all the world could use a few more like him...perhaps thats why we are getting "blessed" with so many boys...(im still trying to wrap my brain around having another boy join the ranks in a few more weeks.!! One more trimester to go....)

Feels like Home

Good news!!! We are in our new house, and I must say I LOVE IT! What a crazy few weeks we had, but now that we are settled, unpacked, organized, all fresh and clean and new, and everything is almost just how I want it, I can say the adventure of getting to this point was well worth it!!!
We had many late nights, many early mornings, and trying to do it while maintaining some sense of normalcy for the kids was quite the challenge. I had a few emotional breakdowns during the process, but seeing as how we were renovating one house, trying to pack up clean and move out of another, move into the new one, deal with broken collarbones, having the water heater in the old house go out a week before moving out, continue to try to get homework done, piano practiced, people fed and taken care of all while sporting my ginormous pregnant belly...well it could have been worse. :) Thankfully we have some great friends/ward members and thankfully my Daniel was very supportive and patient through it all.

                                                                    Kylies room-

                                               The office-- my dad had it up in no time at all. He is
                                                     pretty amazing if I do say so myself!

                                          The front room--now the perfect size in my opinion!

                                     The kitchen- eventually we will replace that dishwasher and fridge and go
                                       with an all stainless steel look...but we have to work up our savings                                                                            accounts before we can splurge. :)

                                                             The kids "ducky" bathroom
                                                  (its hard to see the detail with my camera phone,
                                         but believe me, the tile looks amazing, especially considering
                                                       how gross those tiny tiles and black grout was!)

                                                    the trampoline that is now in the ground!
                                                     My boys loved watching grandpa use
                                                           the backhoe to dig the hole.

                                                        Small part of the family room
                                                     (all new carpet, paint & trim! Lovin it!)

I took some before pictures, but now cant find the SD card they are on, and I was gonna take some after pictures with my awesome camera, but unfortunately my camera  bag wasn't zipped up and got knocked over and my camera fell out and busted. (I am seriously so depressed over that right now!!!) So I took some after shots with my phone instead.
The previous owners had a dog, so I wasn't too thrilled with the old gross dog infused hair and germ ridden carpet. The bathrooms had those small white cheap tiles with the grout that was once white, but after a few years turned black, so it was disgusting and yucky, the kitchen, laundry room, and bathrooms all had cheap gross old linoleum flooring, the paint was ugly and old, the window coverings were yucky , dirty and old. And the front room was just a big wide open waste of space to me...so we (and by we I mean my awesome dad) first built an office, and cut the front room down to a more appropriate size, we repainted, re tiled the bathtubs, shower, and the bathroom and laundry room floors, we put some laminate down in the office and kitchen, re carpeted, got some new blinds-(we looked into shutters as I love the look of shutters, but holy smokes shutters are so dang expensive!!!) put in some ceiling fans, and even got the backyard set up a bit more to my liking.  My awesome dad even put in some shoe shelves for us in the garage, and some shelves in the kids closets, and after all that and a very thorough scrub down, we unpacked, organized and are seriously in love with our home. But now that the house is looking so great, Daniel and I are thinking we are gonna need to replace our old furniture sometime soon. If only our tax refund was gonna be bigger. I am missing George Bush's economic stimulation checks... :)
Now we get to prepare for our little Phineas. My kids are worried he is gonna be bigger than our house since my protruding abdomen is getting bigger than our house apparently. Sometimes I am not a fan of the honesty of a child. My dad thought I was due next month as he thought i was looking ready to pop. And even my Dr made a gesture at my last appointment suggesting that I am looking very pregnant. (I'm kinda surprised since he is a ob- one would think he would play cautiously to the fragile emotions of a pregnant woman)- but there is no escaping it. I'm humongous. At least Daniel tells me I'm not. Bless him. He is just so good to me.