Courtney, Mommy, Sunday activity, Family Home Evening

Courtney is trying to not suck her thumb. She is doing much better. She usually falls asleep by sucking her thumb. Yesterday while she was in her booster, Ben noticed that she didn't suck her thumb to fall asleep. She gently folded her hands together and fell asleep. It was so cute! She got a booster the other day. She is loving being a big girl in her new stylin' booster :)

I don't know how she can sleep like this. She is too funny! She had to have her thumb here. We drove up the mountain on Sunday. We hiked up to the waterfall. If anyone hasn't been to the waterfall up Payson canyon, you so need to go. It is so much fun. The kids were a little nervous to get in the water, so we didn't stay long. After we left the waterfall we drove further up the mountain and came down Santaquin canyon. We stopped in Santaquin canyon for a picnic. Bennie packed us some pb&j's, animal crackers, and capri suns. I love that man to pieces!!!! I could not imagine my life with out him and the kids in it. They have helped me better my life. I will forever be grateful.  


It was a refreshing, fun, beautiful day!

I have been lacking in the sleeping department lately. I only have myself to blame. Mornings seem to come way too early. I have been spending too many of my nights staying up watching netflix. A couple of my favorite series to watch are The Ghost Whisperer and Monk (Ben and I have been watching Monk together. I love it!) The kids are fascinated with Fred The Movie. If anyone knows what that is, they know how insanely obnoxious he is. After the kids go to bed, it is my time to relax. My relaxation has been sitting in front of the tv. Really nice, right?! Definitely ;)

I hope everyone is enjoying this amazing hot weather. As for my family and I, we are simply LOVING it!
I can't stop thinking about the importance of family home evening. We have stepped off track of doing that for awhile. We have recently bought a cute little family home evening chalk board and I can't wait to put it to good use. For those of you who don't know about family home evening, it is simply amazing. For more information about Family Home Evening, click HERE!!
I promise, you'll be glad you did :)

It seems like just yesterday.....

Yesterday was one of those days. You know, the ones where you just can't seem to get anything done allll dayyyy longggg. It was getting quite annoying. But then I got this email that put me in good spirits. The email said,
"I just want you to know how BEAUTIFUL you are!!! You are texting right now and you have no idea how much I love watching your beautiful face. I hope I can make you as happy as you should be, which is always infinitely. Love you me love.
Ben"
Ben is always good to send me cute emails like this and telling me stuff like this. It just brightens up my day. It is important for a woman to hear that they are beautiful and loved and appreciated.
I am thankful to have a wonderful man who I know loves me with every piece of him and I know who would do anything for me and the kids.

So, I'm a totally overprotective freakish kind of Mom. I check on the kids like 500 bajillion times a night after they get put to bed, and before I go to bed, to make sure they are okay. From the moment they were born I always had to make sure I could see their chest rise and fall to make sure they were breathing while they were sleeping. I was terrified of SIDS. I thought this routine of checking their breathing would stop after they were past the baby mark, but that didn't happen. I still check all my kids at night, more than once, to make sure their chest is rising and falling. My babies are now 7, 4 (almost 5), and 3 years old. My son will be baptized this year. I cannot believe it. It seems like just yesterday that I was swaddling him up in my arms and soothing him right after he was born.
I am one lucky Momma! I have 3 amazing, happy, healthy, cheerful children, and a wonderful husband. Now if that isn't enough to make a woman smile, then I don't know what is ;)

He is SO handsome!

I am totally in love with babies feet. They are so small and cute. Almost every time my babies were laying down, I would kiss their little feet. I have kissed these feet about a million times. I just can't believe how big they are. It's bitter sweet!



I love this little boy to pieces!!!!

Wanna see what I'm making for a 4TH of July Barbeque with Ben's friends and their wifes? Click HERE to see. Directions included. It looks super easy and fun. It's red white and blue. You should try it too! :) Plus it's healthy.
Remember me showing you a link of the cans I was going to make all the dads for fathers day? Welll....that didn't happen. That's what I get for being procrastinator. I did make them carmel popcorn though.
This is what I got Bennie:

I bought him this candy, sunny D, and a journal. I tied little notes to them. For example, the note that I tied to the reeces pieces to said, "We bought you these reeces because we love you to pieces." You get the point :)

I hope that everyone is enjoying the summer! I'm so excited about the warm weather that we have been having!

Yawns, shoes, and sno-cones

Today has been a full day, but a fun day. The girls went to a kindermusik summer class today. Marshall went to his a couple of weeks ago. Marshall's theme was Japan; Courtney's theme was Sun, Sand and the Beach (it was something like that); and Madison's was Under The Sea. They were all super cute and the kids absolutely loved it! I am exhausted. My hip keeps hurting. It's only 8:30 and I'm ready for bed. I really have no reason to be exhausted, but I am.
Dinner at our home tonight was chips and salsa for me, a sandwich for Bennie, cereal and cheese rolls for Courtney, and cheese rolls for Marshall and Madison. Yum! Very nutritional ;) I'm sure I'll end up feeding the kids some good ol' microwavable mac and cheese before bed. Microwavable mac and cheese has been a life saver around here. Seriously.
Tonight is one of those kicked back, relaxed, house full of yawns, sitting in front of the TV nights.

After Bennie and I got done hanging up these coat hangers, we walked back into the room to see this. Compliments of Madison. I like how she decided to flip one of the shoes the other way. So cute! 

We basically lived off of sno-cones last summer. We were addicted. The kids couldn't wait for it to warm up so we could start getting sno-cones again. Today was our first day getting sno-cones for the season. Oh how I have missed them. I got the root beer float flavor, Ben got the sour green apple flavor, Marshall and Madison got the rainbow flavor, and Courtney just wanted yellow, so we got her the banana cream pie flavor. One word: YUM!!!!!!!!

PS: I've always wondered what PS stands for, so I googled it. Are you ready for this? Drum roll please........It stands for post script. Cool huh!
Night! :)

Freebies2deals

Check this website out for tons of discounts and free offers!
Click HERE 

Here are some examples of the deals they have listed:
* Pampers Splashers $5.48 with Free Shipping!
* 6- Pack ALL Natural Skippy Peanut Butter $9.27 Shipped!
* Utah Readers:  Cheap Summer Activities List
* 1 FREE Month to Netflix with Instant Streaming Movies too! (Netflix is SUPER cool! I am in love!)
* 50 Free Prints from Kodak Gallery
* Free 12 Pack of Krispy Kreme Donuts when you bring in an Ugly Tie. ( Confirmed locations are Layton Utah, Orem Utah and Meridian Idaho.

It is super cool! I love getting good deals on things..... who doesn't?!

I have a new obsession with the color yellow; the brightest color of yellow there is. It's so bright and it pops. It may just be my new favorite color. Okay, pink will probably always be my fav, but yellow comes in 2nd. Bright yellow and bright pink together..... hmmmm.... I may just have some new ideas now!

I'm starting school on my birthday, July 6th. I'm starting out in a 10 week course to brush up on my math skills before I enroll sometime in the fall (maybe)
School? Am I crazy? Yes, I think I just might be! ;)

I came across this recipe. I haven't tried it yet, but it sounds delish to me.
Flourless Peaunut Butter Cookies
1/2 C Peanut Butter
1/2 C Sugar
tsp Vanilla
1 Egg
Sea Salt
Flatten with fork prongs. Sprinkle with Sea Salt (not too much)
Bake Tablespoon dolops @ 350 degress till its golden brown

Silly Sleeper

I always see Courtney sleeping in some weird positions. I can't help but take photos. She loves to suck her thumb and hold hair with her other hand. She's done it since she was a baby. I don't get it, but it soothes her, so that's all that matters. She used to always pull my hair, but one day I had a genius idea to try and buy her a dolly with hair and see if she would pull that when I wasn't right next to her. To my amazement, it worked! She is so silly. We are trying to get her to stop sucking her thumb before it messes up her teeth. She already has an overbite. Truthfully, there is not much we can do about it. When we see her sucking her thumb we just try to get her attention on something else, or we get her being active so she doesn't have time to sit back and suck her thumb. I asked her one day if it tasted good. She said yes. So, I asked her what it tasted like. She said, "Chocolate milk!"

Here's how I captured a photo of her sleeping yesterday:

As you can tell, she dressed herself :) She's wearing a leopard print skirt, and a long sleeve pink shirt backwards.

I went through some older photos to see how many I could find of her sleeping. There are tons more, but here are a handful. As I was looking through older photos, I came across a bunch of photos from the past. As I was looking through them, I felt the familiar sadness that always lingers when I come across things from the past. I missed the good times before the divorce. And that's okay. I'm glad I will always have good memories to look back on. But then the sadness subsided and was filled with an amazing warm feeling of happiness because I remembered that I have a new life now. I love my new life! We are happy!

Marshall and Courtney. I love it!

FYI: Don't ever rent or buy a home with this color of carpet. This is from an apartment we lived at. I got most of the stains out, but I was scrubbing.... a lot!!!!

This was after a swimming trip. They played hard!

She gave up trying to pull her pants up. She must have decided sleeping would be much more fun.

I found her in the bathroom one day sleeping like this. She didn't even put her pajamas back on after her bathroom break. She layed them over her like a blanket. I guess she was too tired to make to make it back to her bed. This photo always makes me laugh!

There is something about the car that puts this girl right to sleep. I'm guessing it's the boredom!



Courtney and Madison. This was right after they got their bunk beds. They now sleep together. They alternate from the top to the bottom. Courtney's is the bottom. It's a full size bed, so they tend to sleep on that more. Why they sleep together now, I do not know.
Sweet sisterly love!

Wanna see what I'm giving all the lovely Dad's for Father's Day? Click HERE to see. I'll be using the "A Corny Treat For One Sweet Pop" label. They have a link to print off the labels.
I'll be using their carmel corn recipe to put in the cans. Click HERE for the recipe.

I hope everyone has a joyful, eventful, relaxing, inspiring, amazing weekend!
Happy Father's Day to all you awesome Pops out there!

Evening Walks

Exciting news: We are moving up in the world! We got netflix yesterday. We hooked the internet up to play through our Wii. We get tons of movies and tv series right on our tv. Buhbye redbox. This has nothing to do with my post, but the excitement is too much ;)

We are loving it here. We love the smaller town feel. Pretty soon it will be overgrown and the little town feel will subside. I am excited to get more neighbors and to have our church built down here. I guess the clubhouse will be coming in next year, not this year. I. can't. wait.

I am LOVING having the kids out of school! I hope summer is niiice and sloooow. I know it will fly though. I guess it's time to start saving money for the good ol' school clothes. 

We try to go on a walk together in the evenings. After we ate our yummy spaghetti dinner yesterday (compliments of Ben) we all sat on our front porch and watched the lightning storm. We saw not just one rainbow, but two rainbows. After the rain subsided, we went on our evening walk. Everything looked so clean and pure. Since we are on the outskirts of town, we get to see the beautiful scenery. It's amazing. We are truly blessed.

I took these photos posted below a few days ago. All of these photos were taken within a couple of blocks from our home.

It was Madison's idea for me to take pictures of her and her sister in the orchards on our way home. Marshall and Ben had to cut this walk short because Marshall had an ubrupt need to go to the bathroom.

I think somone had to go to the bathroom.

Mady always does cute little poses. I swear, she is going to be a model one day.

"Road Closed"

Last Saturday we loaded the kids up in the car and headed out to enjoy mother nature. Utah is seriously one of the most beautiful places on earth. Not that I have seen everywhere on earth, but I just know this to be true because I'm just simply that smart {WiNk WiNk}. Our plan was to go around the loop, stop up there somewhere to let the kids play and enjoy a picnic together. We almost got to the top before we saw a "ROAD CLOSED" sign. There was snow blocking some of the road as well. Of course 2 of the kids were complaining that they had to use the bathroom. Not just number 1, but number 2. Not that I didn't just tell them to go to the bathroom before we left because there were few bathrooms up there. And, of course, none of them had to go to the bathroom even after I begged and pleaded with them to just try. They insisted that they didn't have to. Next time I will be making them sit on the toiled for a few minutes each just to make sure. We were able to go down the mountain a different way, so we were able to see some different scenery. Anyway, on our way down we had to make a stop for a potty break in good ol' mother nature. The bathroom break was sure a lot of fun with no toilets. Luckily I had just purchased some baby wipes at Walmart before we headed up the mountain. Those things are such a life saver. One of the kids had a hard time using the bathroom without a toilet. I won't say who it was, but they got it all over them. Literally. In their underwear, on their pants, in their shoe, on their sock. How? I do not know. It was delightful. I had an extra pair of their pants in the car. There are benefits to being a procrastinator. The pants were left in the car and I had forgotten to bring them in the house. Had it not been for my procrastinating ways, my poor child would have rode home with a towel wrapped around them. Too bad I forgot to buy some hand sani wipes.
We eventually made our way down and had our picnic at home. We enjoyed our evening walk together after giving one of the kids their second bath for the day.

Overlooking Utah County

Look at how much snow there is.

We have had so much water this year. The rivers and lakes are so full. The rivers are roaring this year.

When Courtney is in her carseat for more than 15 minutes, this is usally what happens. I don't know how this girl can sleep like this.