Crazy Days

The kids were extra wild and crazy today for some reason. There was lots of wrestling, running around and screaming.
Tenley found a new and creative way to read. She read her whole story in her reading lesson on her head. I was impressed that she could read it like that. She's silly.
When Kade got home, he got into the costumes and they all wanted to dress up as batman. Luckily we had enough batman costumes in all their sizes to do so. Kade taught Ryder how to speak in a low batman voice to say, "I am Batman!" It was super cute.
And then there was a really sweet moment tonight. Brad had left for scouts so while we were reading scriptures I was trying to get Ryder in his pajamas at the same time. Since I couldn't help Tenley read a verse, Kade helped her instead! It was really sweet to watch and I let Ryder run around naked for a minute so I could snap a picture. I think their wild personalities and the craziness of the day made this moment even sweeter than it would have normally been.
I know the house is a mess, my head is spinning from their screams, and I have to do it all again tomorrow, but these sweet little kids of mine are worth it all. I love them.

Silly Kids

Tenley and Ryder were so silly today. Tenley found a string from my yoga mat, hung it around Ryder's neck, and pulled him around like a puppy dog. She even taught him to pant like a dog! It was hilarious. Then Tenley would take a turn being a dog. I love the simple things they come up with at this age.

For family night tonight we watched the new Pete's Dragon. That was one of my favorite movies growing up and I love the new one even more! The kids were really into it and poor little Ryder was a little scared of the dragon. He wouldn't cry though, he just wanted to be help by either Brad or me and he'd cover his eyes whenever the dragon came on. He's a sweetie.

My friend, Erinn

When I was in middle school a fun family moved in next door with a girl one grade older than me. We became great friends! I have a lot of fun memories with her, like dancing to N'sync really late at night. We live far apart from each other now, but social media has made it easy to keep up on each other's lives. She is such a good mom and I love that she shares the wisdom she has learned. She recently shared this cute post and I just love it! It really resonated with me and made me want to be better. She's the best.

"My son threw this awesome life-hack at me this morning and it blew me away! I've been thinking on it ever since. He said, "Mom, if I look at people, I love 'em!" Why do we let our pride and judgment get in the way of simply loving people for who they are right this minute? I think it is totally possible to giveaway this kind of love without any expectations on our end. Obviously, Christ is our greatest example of this! Real Christ-like love isn't dependent on anything other than we have a beating heart, which automatically makes us a child of God. Our value lies in this alone! What a beautiful truth! I don't know a ton but I know I want to extend more love to those I know or meet. I want my knee-jerk reaction to be love!!"

Saturday Workouts

My kids love to exercise with me when they can so lately we've been exercising together on Saturday mornings. They like to play freeze tag, which Kade is super fast at! I can never catch him. And then they like to do zumba dance video workouts on YouTube. They're getting pretty good at the dab. It's so cute.

We had a pretty relaxing day until we got to go out to dinner with Brad and then on to the car wash to get the car cleaned after the dirty camp out that Brad took it on. Ryder gets scared in the car wash, but instead of screaming and crying he just hides under his blanket and peeks his eyes out every once in a while to see if it's over. He makes me laugh!

One-on-one Time

This morning I needed to go to the grocery store to help Brad get ready for a scout campout. Kade and Tenley wanted to stay home so I got to spend some time with just Ryder. He was super good the whole time. It was fun to have some time with him.
After Brad left for the campout, Kade got to go have a playdate with a friend and was gone until 9 o'clock at night! He was so excited. So Tenley, Ryder, and I got to have a fun little night at home together. They helped me organize the toy room, then we ate dinner while watching a movie. And I made popcorn for them too. I had fun with them!

Buddies

Tenley and Ryder are super close buddies. Ryder loves to be involved in what she's doing and when she's willing to let him, everyone is happy. But when she gets sick of sharing her toys, he's pretty sad and lonely. Luckily today, Tenley was pretty content with being with Ryder. I was cleaning out my closet and she wanted to walk around in my heels so Ryder did too. I was impressed with how well he walked around! Brad wasn't all too happy with the video evidence of that haha.

Daddy's Homecoming

There's this wonderful primary song called Daddy's Homecoming and the lyrics go like this:

I'm so glad when daddy comes home,

glad as I can be;

Clap my hands and shout for joy,

Then climb upon his knee,

Put my arms around his neck,

Hug him tight like this,

Pat his cheeks, then give him what?

A great big kiss.

This is exactly what my kids do when Brad gets home. They are always so happy to see him! They'll meet him by the garage door and scare him sometimes which is what they did tonight. I love how much they all love each other.

Tenley is getting really good at reading. She can recognizes certain words everywhere now. It's fun to see her point things out and read them. When we read scriptures as a family at night, I used to have her just repeat what I would say for one verse, but today she read the verse herself! I, of course, helped her with the more difficult words, but I was impressed with her willingness to try and with how much she did know!

Popcorn

Every Tuesday night when Brad gets home from scouts, he checks in on Kade and Tenley in bed. They're always awake waiting for him to come and say goodnight to them. They've started to tease Brad about all the fun stuff he missed out on at home while he was gone because they know he'll tickle them like crazy if they do. So tonight I made sure they had something fun to brag about to him. We popped some yummy popcorn and watched some kid shows. We usually only have popcorn on the weekend so they felt pretty special to have some tonight.

Birthday Packages

I got a sweet birthday card and package from my parents today! It was so nice! And I love that my birthday keeps getting drawn out :). The yummy candy inside inspired me to make my favorite peanut butter chocolate chip cookies with Reese's pieces. They were so good!
Tenley was in charge of family night tonight. She found a great video all about our journey on Earth by President Uchtdorf (who is one of my favorite people ever. I always instantly love any of his talks.) And she taught us all about the plan of happiness! Kade and Tenley were both very attentive as Brad and I taught them more deeply about our Heavenly Father's plan of happiness. It was one of the best lessons we've had with them. I love our kids.
Then Tenley chose to go to McDonald's for dinner. We let Ryder get his own ice cream cone for the first time ever! When we put him in our new car with his ice cream cone I instantly regretted getting him his own, but he actually did a great job eating it all on his own. He didn't leave a mess!

Multiple Birthday Parties

I got spoiled for my birthday today-again! When we got home from church Brad said he was going to make me dinner. What a sweetheart! So the kids and I cuddled on the couch and watched scriptures movies while Brad worked hard in the kitchen. He made a yummy dinner of homemade rolls, homemade cinnamon butter, chicken, salad, and mashed potatoes. He even got out some sparkling cider for the occasion! Kade helped set and clear the table AND do the dishes! Then we had my favorite ice cream cake for dessert. It was a great day!

My Birthday

It was my birthday today! Brad and Kade made me pancakes this morning and they were delicious. And then my best friend Becca and her family drove all the way down from Spokane to hang out with me for the day. They made my day amazing. The kids loved being together. Becca and I got to sneak away and go shopping while Landon watched all the kids for us. It was really nice of him.
Becca and I had a blast shopping. She bought me the cutest new journal and took me out for a yummy treat. She's such a good friend.
Tonight Landon, Becca, Brad and I were all able to go on a date together. We tried a new sushi restaurant in town and I had sushi for the first time! It was pretty good. The Woolf's love sushi so it was fun to go to that restaurant with some experienced sushi eaters.
My friends and family are so awesome. I'm a lucky girl!

Friends

We watched the Inauguration this morning. It was neat to see the transfer of power. I love being an American! I love our country! Then this afternoon Brad asked if he could take me to lunch at one of my favorite little places here in town. It's actually closing for good next week so I was excited to go have one last meal there! We decided to check Kade out of school early so he could come with us. We didn't want to leave our Kade out!

Tonight my friends were super sweet and planned a fun dinner out for me for my birthday that's tomorrow. It was so fun! Yummy food and fun conversation, it was great!

Journals

Life is a little bit difficult at times and I've learned that I worry and get stressed about things a lot. As I was having a 'worrying' moment yesterday I had the thought to read through my old journals. I started in the year 2000 when I was in high school and I've read through 2005 so far. I've always been pretty consistent at writing in my journals so it was a lot to read! I laughed at myself a lot and came to realize even more that I allow myself to worry about the future more than I should! It was funny to read about me worrying if I'd find a good man to marry and what our future would be like and if we'd be happy. Looking back now over the past 16 years, life has turned out really well! Better than I could have imagined at that time I'm sure. So why was I so worried?
In fact, I really shouldn't worry about the future at all, should I? In the scriptures we read that we should "take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." (Matthew 6:34). So worrying and trying to understand what the future holds doesn't help me. I realized today that I need to just focus on each day and let the worrying go. If I do the simple little things each day that I know I need to do i.e. prayers, scripture study, quality time with my kids and husband, and a goal to love God and others, everything will be great. Everything will probably be better than I can now imagine.
Well, that was longer and cheesier than I expected, but it's been on my mind all day. I really am grateful for the detailed journals that I've kept because they are really helpful to me now. I love the chance to reflect and remember.

While I was busy reading about my high school and college years, Tenley was busy working! I pulled out a kindergarten workbook for her today so she could practice writing her numbers. She started on the number 1 and each number has two worksheets to go along with it. She ended up working all the way to number 15! When she was done she said, "Phew! I feel a lot smarter now!" And I'm sure she is. While I was making dinner she decided to work on some more pages and it inspired Kade to as well! Can't every day be this awesome?!

After dinner we called their cousin J.T. to sing to him for his birthday. J.T. just turned 6 and his older sister Elly is Kade's age. The four of them chatted together about all sorts of things for several minutes. It was super adorable!