Always There!

I just had a wonderful experience that I had to record for my own journal. Last night I was pretty down as I thought about this whole house thing. I just feel overwhelmed by all that we have to do and the light at the end of the tunnel is no where in sight. It is so easy for me to sit and pout. However, this morning I had a gentle reminder that our Savior is always there for us and we are never alone. We had a huge pile of "stuff" piled in front of our garage that we needed to discard of, but had no idea how or when we were going to. We had carpet rolls, carpet pad, boxes of junk that we shouldn't have even moved with us, a box spring mattress, and lots of empty boxes. It was starting to look pretty bad and I was starting to worry someone might say something to us. While I was outside breaking down other boxes in the backyard, the kids came out to tell me the garbage man wanted to talk to me. The garbage man?? Sure enough, the garbage man had parked his truck out front and wanted to know if I needed help getting rid of our pile of junk. Really??!! He was SO nice and loaded everything, including the mattress. He said his company usually makes him charge for each bulk item, but he didn't mind. He refused to take any money from me. I thanked him a million times and then came inside and cried. It may seem really silly and meaningless to you, but what a huge burden this lifted off my family. I truly have no idea what we were going to do with the stuff otherwise. He told me that he would be happy to take anything anytime...which is so great because we are getting ready to tear out our countertops! I am so grateful for my Heavenly Father and I know Jesus Christ lives.

P.S. I just have to tell you more about our neighborhood...Last night a couple was walking up and down our street carrying wine glasses drinking as they talked to all the neighbors. Isn't that the funniest thing? See what I mean about feeling like I am living on a TV set or a resort?

Home Sweet Home...an update

I know many of you are wondering how it is going...so here is an update. We are slowly getting settled into our new home, but we have an overwhelming to-do list. It is so hard to do much more than an hour or two of work each day with three kiddos to tend to. It is hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It is hard for me to feel organized and comfortable in a house that still has so much work to be done. I wish I had a magic wand to make everything get done faster. I swore I wouldn't move again until we were rich enough to hire painters, but here I am painting again. I mean it this time with this as my documentation...I will not move again unless we are rich enough to hire painters. I hate painting!! Enough grumbling...the huge perks of our move are the neighborhood and fabulous city in which we now live. Our neighborhood is unbelievable. I feel like I am on vacation when I look outside...there are people everywhere outside working in their yards, riding bikes, walking dogs, jogging. There is always someone around to talk to. We had treats brought to us the first night we were here and were invited to a cookout the second day we were here. Everyone is so nice and inviting. We have met everyone on the whole street it seems. I feel like I am living in a huge resort or something. I just love it! Visiting with the neighbors helps me to forget all the work we have to do. I can't wait until our house is ready to host a neighborhood bash. They have no idea what is in store for them :)

End of the year fun

Trenton's school held a "sock hop" during school hours as a way to celebrate the end of the year. Trenton had a blast! He was drenched in sweat by the end of the dancing.


After dancing their hearts out, the kids were treated to ice cream sundaes. Trenton loved it!

Ashleigh the photographer

Ashleigh has been taking pictures with the camera lately. I found at least twenty pictures on it this time that she had taken. Here are a couple of my favorites. Here she must have been standing on top of her toy box looking down to take this one.



This is her friend, Ryan. Originally his face was red and background was white, but when I edited it, it turned everything green. I think it's hilarious.

Hanging with the girls

I thought it was so cute to see Owen sitting all grown up looking with the girls watching television. He never does this normally. He loves attention and Jenna (a neighbor girl) just loves to give it to him whenever she comes over.

Mothers' Day Tea

Ashleigh's preschool had a Mothers' Day Tea last week. It was SO sweet! They drew pictures of us and made us Mother Day presents.


They sang cute songs to us.

Ashleigh with her teacher. She is so funny at school. She is very shy and hardly speaks when she is there.

Here they are getting ready for their performance.

You have to know what is behind this picture. They were singing the most hilarious song and we Moms were doing it with them. Thank goodness they didn't have cameras to take pictures of us! In the song they have to put their thumbs up, elbows out, feet apart, knees together, bottom out, tongue out, and eyes closed. It was quite hilarious!

Where do you row?

Okay, fill in the blank: Row, row, row your boat. Gently down the ________.

We were singing this song with Ashleigh and in her song the boat rows down the "street." When we asked her how this was possible she just giggled and giggled. She loves to sing and usually makes up little songs about whatever she is doing at the moment.

Getting prepared!

This past weekend I held a canning party in my garage. For those of you who have no idea what that means, our church encourages preparedness and self-reliance. One way to be prepared for a period of unemployment, financial difficulties, loss of electricity, being snowed in, or soaring food prices, is to store some food away. One of the best ways to do this is to "can" it so that the food is preserved for a really long time (some foods will last 30 years when canned) and is insect and moisture-proof. Their were 21 people who ordered food with a total of 700 cans of food to be canned in my garage. It was stressful fun, if that makes any sense. I love the fact that so many people have some food stored away for a rainy day, but I am so glad my garage is empty again considering I am in the middle of packing for our big move next week. I would do the whole weekend over again in a heartbeat though! I was really worried about how long it was going to take us to finish all 700 cans, but we got done in record time thanks to the Baker's (that's them above). You rock!

The beautiful finished product!

Here we are half-way done as you can see the empty pallet in the front. That one was full of cans when we started. It was quite fun explaining this whole thing to my neighbors who both came to see what in the world we were doing. They were very curious, but I bet they are wishing they had some food stored away now too!

Bug Hunting

Here the kids are searching for bugs. Notice Owen is even down on the ground looking. Also notice that Trenton is not in the picture. He is not a fan of bugs. Ashleigh loves to look for bugs. One day she came in from outside with about twenty dried up worms in her hands and was excited to show me her collection. I unfortunately was not impressed :) Yuck!

Owen never misses a thing!

A natural

Owen has loved all balls since he was little. While our good friends were watching our kiddos last week so that Nathan and I could go to the temple, Owen played t-ball. We were told that he knew exactly what to do and could hit the ball right off the t! Amazing! I can't wait to enroll him at the YMCA, but for now we need to get practicing at home. We might have a pro on our hands!

Field Trip Fun

Ashleigh has had the best year in preschool. She loves it so much and what a huge help it was in getting her ready for kindergarten next year. Her school went on several field trips -- it seemed like once a month they were going somewhere. I was able to be a chaperone for the last field trip to the zoo.

What a cute bunch of kids!
It is so funny how this old van is one of the highlights of the zoo for my kids even more so than most of the animals.
Field trip to the Louisville Science Center. They are so cute in their matching shirts. How we miss Jenna!

The Popcorn Station

I found the most fun place today thanks to a tip from my friend, Holly. It is The Popcorn Station in Jeffersontown, KY. It is absolutely amazing. They have a million different flavors of popcorn that you can buy by the bag for $2.00. The flavors include cheese, caramel, chocolate, strawberry, bubblegum, and even dill pickle. My favorite is the Sweet & Salty which they said is their number one seller. Check out their website for all their flavors http://www.thepopcornstation.com/ I wish I would have found this place eight years ago or even a year ago, not two weeks before we move! It will just give us one more reason to visit Louisville more often. I highly recommend taking your kids to this place; it is a very unique experience. My kids were so excited to get their own bag of flavored popcorn. They were so sweet and thanked me both individually on the way home.

Sucker

We thought for sure that Owen's first word would be "ball" because he loves them so much, but instead it was "sucker" or "cuh-ker" in Owen's language. He does love suckers so much that I went on a mission a few weeks ago to find those soft, powdery (is that a word??) suckers that break into tiny sugar particles as you eat them. They were so hard to find, but I did find them at a candy store in the mall. We now have plenty of suckers in our food storage :) After "sucker," has come "go-go-go" and "cracker." He also has a unique word/sound for doggie and cup. I think his vocabulary is really going to take off now. He is such the copy cat.

For the Scouts

Trenton's Cub Scout pack just held their annual fundraising event to pay for their summer day camp. It is a huge yard sale that is always very successful thanks to the awesome location of our church building. Nathan made me donate our huge playground toys which really drew in the customers and sold within the first hour. These are the only two boys Trenton's age, but he loves them dearly and will surely miss them when we move. Trenton is the little jokester as you can see. Notice how tall Trenton is compared to the other boys. He is growing up!

While the boys were out helping the customers carry items to their cars and climbing trees, the girls set up camp in one of the minivans. It was so cold out, so the van was a nice refuge. They literally sat in there for three hours straight and were perfectly content. We are sure going to miss all our great friends :(

Roller Fun

Trenton and Ashleigh recently had the opportunity to go roller skating for the first time at a friend's birthday party. They both loved it instantly and shoved off Mom's cautions from outside the rink where I was hanging onto Owen for dear life because he desparately wanted to join them. In the picture you can see Trenton hanging onto the wall, but this didn't last long because he eventually got the hang of it and bravely went right out on the floor. He even participated in a racing contest with the other boys his age. The skating rink offers weekly lessons which we would definitely have looked into if we weren't moving in a few weeks. It is something I plan to look for in Cincinnati.