GREAT QUOTE FOR THE DAY!!!

"'What most people lack are: 1) The awareness that what will make them happy demands a great deal of thought. 2) The self-discipline to overcome their natural inclination to do what is most pleasurable at the moment instead of what is most happiness-inducing.' ---Dennis Prager."

I saw this on my former bishop's facebook page this morning. This TOTALLY hits the nail on the head for me! I KNOW the things that I should do to be happy, but it's overcoming what I want now instead of what I want LATER! Now how to go about that!

Value of Good Friends!!!

 

I am SOOOO grateful that our kids have some really good friends. One of Mason's new found friends is Tait. He is such a good influence on Mason. Mason is a really good kid, but I know how important it is to be surrounded by GOOD FRIENDS! I remember a talk I heard John Bytheway give about peer pressure and how important it is to be with good friends that help you to make good choices. They aren't perfect and I'm sure there will be mistakes made...but I feel so grateful to have good friends around that bring out the good in my kids.
This year...Mason and Tait just earned their Arrow of Light together...(another post another day) and they are also on a football team together. They both enjoy sports, riding ripsticks, playing video games, and eating! Pretty typical boys, huh?

Spring Sing ain't for Whimps! :)

Every year we are supposed to sign up for 2 things to help with at the school. It's hot when we are registering and I'm not thinking straight....for the last 3 years, I have signed up to play the piano for one of the concert, (winter or spring) but they have never called me! I thought maybe it was because I go into all of the kids classrooms once a week and they were giving me a break. Right? WRONG!!!! I got a call from the music teacher saying that she wanted me to play the piano for the winter concert. I was secretly happy when I noticed I'd be in San Jose for that week and wouldn't be able to do it. She was a step ahead of me though, and asked if she could reserve me for Spring! Ahhh!!! What do I do now? To make a long story short, I said "yes."
The good thing is, it made me buy a piano. I found it on Craig's list and David went to go and pick it up. We got a great deal on it. The bad news is, she picked TOTALLY hard songs! I thought they'd be simple like "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" or something like that. But, no, it was like 6 Sharps or 5 flats and some songs had the craziest timing ever! I was practicing up until the day OF the concert!
I wasn't sure if I could take pictures, so at the end of the day, I decided to take out my camera and get one of Abbie at the rehearsal. Of course I forgot to bring it out when the boys were in there practicing! I had to be there all day Friday and All day Monday for rehearsals! NOte to self: Pick the track and field or book sale or something much more SIMPLE!

 

Here we are ready to leave for the concert. This is my moment of truth! Would all that practicing pay off? Here is the lovely piano from Craig's List that I found. IT's nice enough looking.....I just gotta find a tuner! I didn't realize how badly it was out of tune until I played the cd to learn to play the right rythm...and then could hear how badly the notes on the piano really were! I've been wanting a piano forever, and finally have one! Now the next question is if we should have the kids take piano. There's always somewhere for the money to go, isn't there?

 

Here I am with my boys. I just love them so much. Aren't they just so handsome? They are great kids. I really couldn't ask for any better. A mom has to say those kinds of things sometimes. Is there room for improvement? Always, but when you see them all spiffed up and ready to go sing their hearts out, you can't help but feel grateful for such wonderful kids!

 

I tried going outside to take a few pictures, but as usual, we were running out of time! I always think I have more time to do things than I actually do! So, apparently I didn't get a picture with all 3 kids, just Abbie and Eli. My mind wasn't totally there, I was thinking about how glad I would be when I would be done playing the piano! IT's a lot of pressure!

 

David got home just in time to go with us to the concert! I'm glad he is such a good, fun, supportive dad!

 

Here's Abbie after singing her 3 songs.

 

Here's Eli after his songs. Apparently I looked out into the audience and David snapped a quick picture of me looking at him. I look thrilled to be up there, don't I?

 

Last but not least, Mason's performance. You know, there were some REALLY hard songs to play at the concert! One song had 6 sharps and some had 5 flats. Flats are WAY easier for me than sharps....but I practiced so much that I ended up doing better on the hard ones and messed up on the easy ones. Lesson learned, you can't relax when you think it's going to be "easy"....always gotta be on your "A" game, right?

All in all, I'm glad I did it. I love to be involved with the kids at school. For right now, I'm still "cool" and the kids like me coming. I'll enjoy it while I can, who knows, pretty soon I will be an embarrassment to the kids and they won't want me coming to their school!

 

My Roomates Came Back to Visit Me!

I went to Ricks College....that is currently BYU Idaho in Rexburg, ID. I guess this dates me a little, huh? :) It sure was fun going there. I ended up only going for one year. I realized I didn't like paying so much money to go up and socialize! Some things NEVER change! Well, 2 of my roomates came down to visit. It was SOOO fun to see them again! Amy (Slade) Lemke and Shanna (Wood) Fuhrimann. We really had so much fun together! We laughed about some of the things we used to do! I can't believe how much I forgot! Something I didn't remember but they did was that I would go into different bedrooms to talk to people while they were studying. Apparently I didn't study so much, but would feel bad bothering the same person, so I would trade off who I would go in and talk with. I DO have pictures of me studying, but apparently it wasn't enough! Nothing to be proud of, but those are just the facts!

 

Here we are....Me, Shanna and Amy! It was so fun to just be with them again, even if it was only for a couple of days!
Amy had the idea that we should all go up to Washington to see Karie's grave. (She is one of our roomates that died of Hodgkins Disease). The weekend they picked I wasn't going to be able to go. I told them they should still do it and just post some pictures. I guess they decided we would do that when we could ALL be there, so the next best thing was to come and visit me in Arizona. Shanna has a friend here that wanted her to do some faux painting, so she came down to do that, and Amy rode the Greyhound bus from New Mexico to have our little reunion! It's fun to see how we have changed. Definitely different now that we are older and wiser....I hope we are anyway, but fun to talk about those good ole'days...

 

My kids had lots of fun getting to know them. They thought it was funny to look at pictures of their mom with curly funny big hair. Hey, that was the style back then! :)
Amy and Shanna came to church with us. After church, they taught my kids to fold papers into a pac man kind of thing. What are roomates for? Nothing like having one more thing to clean up, huh? LOL just kidding!

 

We'll definitely have to do this again. I forgot how much fun we all had together! Love you guys!

 

Raw Egg Toss at Easter!

The kids have all had their scooters stolen. They must be a nice and easy thing to take. I didn't realize they were all gone, cuz they will ride their bikes and other things. But recently I was having some of the neighbors complain that my kids were always taking their kids' scooters and going to other neighbor's houses. Just what a mom wants to hear. So, we decided that since we didn't have birthday parties for the kids this year, that we would get them an "easter gift". They have LOVED these scooters! That will be another blog entry...but I thought I'd include the pictures to show them getting them anyway.

 

The neighborhood HOA held an egg hunt. I tried to capture pictures of the kids looking....but I was busy SNEEZING! I don't look forward to egg hunts just because it's spring, everything is blooming and standing in the middle of grass with blooming things around is not my idea of fun. I know, these pictures look like everything is DEAD! But somewhere, it's all trying to come back to life and it's KILLING me! Don't I just sound like the funnest mom in the world? :)

 

My friend Tawni and her husband Brian went off for the weekend. She is the one that taught me to blog....and I thought I would at least capture her kids in the egg hunt. Their grandma was kind enough to come and watch them and bring them to the egg hunt! Cute, huh?

 

Now this is something I have never seen done at Easter. Maybe it's nothing much to the rest of you, but I thought it was funny to see people tossing raw eggs to each other. You know, the game where you toss the egg, and then take a step back and you keep doing that until the egg breaks! I've seen this done with water balloons and the end result is not NEARLY as messy as the end result of eggs. But you know, they were all good sports about it! This was actually the bright spot for me! I had fun watching them!

 

Wouldn't you know? Poor Eli ended up wearing his egg! It was hilarious to see his reaction and watch him try to get the slimy gunk off! He was sliding on the grass, rubbing himself on the tree or shaking his arms. Anything but actually TOUCHING the stuff to get it off! I was really laughing!

 

Easter was a little different since it fell on "General Conference" this year. That is when our church meets together as a WHOLE church to listen to our Prophet and his Apostles. (we watch it on TV or the internet). It was really good! I guess I took advantage of the fact that we didn't go to "regular" church.....and didn't buy the kids Easter outfits. Nice mom, huh? It's just one more thing. So, here we are casually sitting outside dying eggs and blowing bubbles. Very low key! I think this was a year we were really able to focus more on the Savior and the real reason for Easter! (No, dying easter eggs is NOT the real meaning of Easter. :) )

 

Mark, Liz and Cade came over for a Ham and Scalloped potato dinner. They are like our family here. We have just loved living close to them. It's always nice to have people over that you feel so comfortable and can just sit around and talk, and arm wrestle, watch movies, play games, etc. All in all, it was a nice Easter. Very different from the ones I grew up with, but nice.....

 

My Kids WIll NEVER!!!!

Famous last words, huh? "My Kids Will NEVER!!!" Do you know how many times I have had to eat those words? I remember being the "babysitter" growing up and noticing some things that were errors on the part of the parents that I was tending for. For example: I couldn't imagine why parents would buy SOO many toys....it's hard to keep them organized and clean! Well, now my kids' rooms are messes from "little pieces" like legos or crayons or something else.

Ok...Here's another one....My kids' faces will never be messy and their noses will always be wiped! Uh......my kids always have a booger or 2....or when they were small had colds with noses dripping and their little tongues trying to catch it....you get the point.
Well, here is another thing that my kids were NEVER going to do! Ok, MY kids were supposed to be the "cool ones" that dressed REALLY nice! You know, the polo shirts and stuff. I thought I was the cool mom that "knew" the styles. Apparently NOT!

So, what do my kids chose to wear? Sweat pants and t-shirts and even worse, old soccer uniforms day in and day out! OH MY GOODNESS! I need to hide these 3 shirts! Eli is constantly looking in the laundry for these shirts! MY child wasn't going to do that! I always thought it was funny when there were kids hooked on one shirts! Ha ha!!!! Now I have one of those! I put him on a "diet" and say he is only allowed to wear them once a week!! Does this make me a mean mom? Am I worried too much about what others around me are thinking? Do people think I still dress my kids at ages 7,9 and 11? I hope not! Well, we have DEFINITELY gotten our money's worth and them some outta this shirt! Look at the neck! It's officially a lint collector now! WOW....

 

And THIS shirt! THIS ONE takes the cake for sure! I think this shirt is from 3 years ago....and he has worn it 3 times a week since then. WHY oh WHY did I ever buy the 20 other shirts that are in his drawer? I have NO idea, cuz all they do is CROWD the drawer and make it messy....cuz ELi throws them all out looking for those top 3 shirts! I am ready to HIDE them or THROW them away or DONATE them! I'm a bad mom for sure for posting this, but I HAD to do it for posterity sake. Just to remember what these good ole' days were really about!

 

Please Help my Wife! She's looking like a Mormon Mom!

Being a hairdresser is a FUN job! I love it more than I ever thought I would. I didn't grow up thinking I would be a hairdresser. In fact, I always played "secretary" and loved taking care of babies. So I thought I'd either be a pediatric nurse or a secretary somewhere. I changed my major LOTS of times, but for some reason, after nothing seemed "right" I gave "Hair" a go....and whadayaknow? I LOOOVVVEEE it! WHy you ask? It's so fun to make people feel good! I love hearing the words "I LOVE IT!" Or "I feel SOO much better! THANK YOU!" I love meeting new people and I love the friendships that have come through GREAT clients that I have! With that said, there are some REALLY funny things that happen as a hairdresser. Most people set up their next appt for 5 or 6 weeks out. THen, there are others who have long hair or whatever and call me when they are in desperate need. I have to say, I have never seen this desperate and I HAD to write about it!
So, I was in California doing my week of hair there, when I get this phone call from my friend Jamie's husband. I thought that was weird cuz I don't usually talk to him. I am NOT joking when I say this.....he said, "Hi Heather, this is Travis, Jamie's husband. She says you're in CA but I am checking to make sure. We are leaving Sunday morning to go up to Utah for her brother's wedding and she NEEDS a haircut! She is looking like a Mormon mom and needs your skills!"
Now, just to make sure no one is offended by this statement....I will say, WHAT is wrong with being a Mormon Mom? We are REALLY nice people! And I will say that alot of us have some kind of fashion sense...at least I think we do.....I think he was trying to exaggerate a little to let me know that she looks better with a less conservative haircut.....Anyway, I called her and she was SOOO embarrassed! She couldn't believe Travis had "gotten into her business" and didn't want to put me out....but since she has been one of my best friends from Utah and is like my sister...I told her to come over at 10:30 at night after I got off the plane and i would "save" her and give her to doo she desserved! LOL!!!

Here she is in the "before" shot. Isn't it funny how in the "before" you don't want them to smile or anything? Kinda like....WOA is me! It's really not that bad! I was ready to see something WAY worse... none the less....I was ready to get out my scissors and carving comb and have at it!

Oh My! 11:24 pm? It's so late! She IS a great friend! :) Really, I don't mind....I would do anything for Jamie. I love her!

WOWZA! SHe is Gorgeous! No longer a frumpy mom! She is ready for the ball! I mean wedding! :)

Here is my HAPPY friend! This is why I love my job! Look at the way Jamie is smiling after I'm done with her hair!

Bradley D. Foster

Bradley D. FosterI was so excited to see my mission President speak in General Conference today!  President Foster is such a great man and I feel like I learned so much from him!  IT's crazy to think that I've been home for 16 years.  Where has the time gone?  He has hardly aged!  He looks great!