Spring Flowers...

Here is Juliet showing off some of the beautiful Spring flowers...

Night frisbee...

We really like throwing a frisbee. Charles got me hooked on frisbees early in our marriage and consequently it is one of the few athletic, hand-eye coordination type things that I can do with some proficiency. Here is Charles holding up our night frisbee, which he is very proud of. He just got me to sneak behind our house and throw this for a little while. It is actually pretty fun in the dark. The kids like frisbee too, although they pretty much just run around excited while we throw and occasionally fetch it for us. They attempt throws which usually go about 1-3 feet.

Hey cutie-bambolootie...

Little Dragon...

I think this towel is supposed to be an alligator, but Juliet calls it her dragon towel.

Cole stuff...

Well, awhile ago I started a blog for Cole thinking that I would post on it often about the things we were doing with Cole and how he was doing, but I didn't post on it nearly as frequently as I had thought, so I wanted to put a post about Cole here. He has been doing very well lately. He seems very aware of what is going on around him, MUCH more than he has been in the past. His language is really improving, he is saying longer sentences and even better than his expressive language, his receptive language has been really awesome.

Here is an example, the other day I had just gotten to school and was getting ready to take Cole into school. As I was unbuckling Cole from his car seat I was talking to Juliet about how she had taken her shoes off on the way to school. How will you be able to come in if you took your shoes off. Once I had unbuckled Cole, he got out of his seat, got Juliet's shoes and put them on her. This is huge! He was listening to a conversation not even directed at him and was understanding what we were talking about. Plus, he helped Juliet, which I think is sweet. Also, that same day as we were walking in, Juliet was wandering off in the wrong direction. As I was calling to her, Cole left my side and went to Juliet. Taking her hand he pulled her back to me. Anyway, lots of good stuff like this happening and I'm finding it just thrilling!

My goals...

Well, some of you may know that last year (2006/2007) I was in nursing school working on becoming an RN. It was a VERY difficult year. After 4 quarters I was really worn down and felt like I wasn't succeeding in my life. After much pondering, I decided to take a year off of school.

I realized that a lot of the reason I felt so overwhelmed every day was that my life was very unorganized. I felt like I was buried under a pile of laundry and toys all over the ground and I never felt like I could accomplish anything that I needed to do. I just had too much going on. Well, it is my opinion that once things are in order, or a habit is established, it is much easier and takes less time to maintain it than it did to accomplish it. So, I decided that is what I would use this year for, getting organized and establishing routines.

Well, I have a little less than 6 months left now, so I really need to get going if I'm going to accomplish all of the things that I want to. I've decided to list my goals on a sidebar on this blog so I can keep track of how I am doing. I'm not putting them on the blog in order to brag or show everyone what I am accomplishing, but I visit this blog frequently and so I will constantly see them here. Also, it is a big motivator to me to be able to update the goal and say that it has been accomplished.

Juliet and Parker

Juliet really loves babies, here she is holding little Parker when my friend Lisa brought him over to our house.

The mother of all organizing jobs....

Well, I haven't posted for a little while because I decided that I was going to throw in an all out effort to organizing all the corners and crannies in my home. I had been slowly organizing things and it seemed like a job that was huge and would never get done, so last week I just went crazy and spent long nights and every moment I could find "getting it done." Let me tell you, it is the best feeling ever. You may not appreciate these pictures because I didn't take before pictures. But trust me, it was pretty scary. Charles says it is like living in a new place. I have to agree that it feels much better here.


The kids have this big shelf in their closet which is great for storing things on.

I'm even proud to display the area under my sinks.


The basement storage/laundry area was the bulk of the job. I really wish that I had taken a before picture here. The room was three times more filled than it is now, mostly with old cardboard boxes, open and tumbling into eachother. The room seems huge now.


This is the other room in our basement, also much more organized now.

The coat closet was horrifying before, now it has shelving on the side for shoes, and drawers to hold hats, scarves, sunglasses, etc...

Here's another shot of the kid's closet.

This is just a sampling of the organizing that I did. I cleaned a lot of other little areas. I'm feeling a lot better about our home now and have so much energy now. Now I am on maintenance, which is really where I prefer to be.

Tagged...

I usually never do these, but tonight I wanted to post and couldn't think what. This was actually kind of fun, I tag anyone who would like to be tagged. Let me know if you answer.

10 Years Ago:

Ah, 1998, that was an eventful year. I started the year in Paris, France (seriously). I had just finished a study abroad in England and had traveled around Europe with three good friends. That Spring after I got home I got a new (to me) car, a red Nissan named Penelope. I met my husband that Spring and dated him a bit. We were both Pre-Mission. That Fall I entered the missionary training center. Then I got down to the mission field and brought in the 1999 in McAllen, Texas in a rather flea infested missionary apartment.

5 Things On my To Do List Today:

1. Get more plastic bins for the reorganization project I’m in the midst of.
2. Do some therapy work with Cole.

3. Fold a growing pile of laundry I’ve been ignoring.
4. Return a DVD, August Rush.
5. Try to hold on to my sanity.

If I Had a Billion Dollars:

Lots of vacations, lots of really good food, a really good personal trainer (to counter balance the food), definitely a maid, maybe a cook, a mothers helper (I don’t someone else taking care of my kids but I’d love to have an extra person around to help), set of trust funds for various friends and family. I’d also try to counter-balance all the personal indulgence by giving to others, through fast offerings, etc…but I’d also like to find people who need help and secretly give to them to get them past a hurdle in their lives.

5 Jobs I've Had:
1. Worked at Great Harvest Bread (yum)
2. Gopher office work
3. Telephone research (had to make up funny voices to get through that)
4. After school program activity organizer/Spanish teacher
5. Legal secretary/very bad Spanish interpreter for Spanish-speaking clients

5 Places I Have Lived:

I’ve lived in a lot of places so here are some of the cool ones.

1. Panama
2. Germany
3. England
4. On the border of Texas and Mexico (just barely U.S. for my mission)
5. In the following states-Ohio, Missouri, Virginia, Kansas, Utah, Arizona

5 Things People May Not Know About Me:

1. I tend to over-analyze the thoughts of others so that by the time I’m done having a conversation with someone else they’ve had another conversation they don’t know about.

2. I used to be more wild and crazy than I am now, being accused a couple of times in college of being the drunkest person in the room although I never had one drink (this was not while I was at BYU). I think this was more due to the fact that I’m not that great of a dancer and I smile and laugh a lot.

3. I’m interested in dreaming and love to analyze dreams and talk about strange dreams with other people. I also have lucid dreams sometimes (dreams where you are aware and can change the dream).

4. I did a lot of acting in High School and got to travel and perform in the fringe festival in Edinburgh, Scotland.

5. Sometimes I like to make a goal just to break out of my comfort zone and do something I’ve never done before, some past examples, run in a race, Perform in a Speech and debate competition (both things I did only once, to prove I could do them).

Eating Pizza...

I don't know if you can see in these pictures, but Cole has decided that everything that he is interested in eating is on the top of the pizza. He ate off the toppings, the cheese, and then proceeded to lick off all of the sauce. Well, there's no accounting for taste.

Shhhhhh.....

I don't know if anything is more peaceful and beautiful than seeing your child sleep. The beauty goes beyond the vast relief you feel at getting a parenting break, there is something just pure and ethereal about a child in slumber.

Blog equals family scrapbook

Hey, for all my fellow family bloggers, my friend Emily Slusser turned me on to a great way to preserve your blog and digital pictures in a book. Go to the site blurb.com and you will find an easy and inexpensive way to make a bookstore quality book using your pictures and text. Think coffee table art book except with pictures and stories of your family. Once you get to the site you download free software which is super easy to use. The site includes a way of importing your blog directly into a book. You can then fiddle around with the formats of each page until it looks like you want. I've spent just a few hours over the last few days and I have all the entries of my blog this year worked into the formats I like. As I add entries to my blog this year I will also add pages to my book, and at the end of the year I will order my photo book. I plan on doing one each year. I think this is a great way to have both a blog that others can look at and a photo album for our family without duplicating effort. All my pictures and memories of the kids will be in a beautiful hard copy record. Emily said that she is also ordering copies of her books for her kids so that when they leave home they can have childhood pictures.

National Poetry Month

From looking at Emilia Smith's blog I've discovered that is National Poetry Month (I'm not sure if that should be in capitals, but it looks more official that way.) I've enjoyed reading the poems she has been posting on her blog everyday, and while I don't think I'll post one everyday, I thought it would be fun to post one or two throughout the month. I love poetry too, though I find I haven't been reading it much lately. This poem by ee cummings is one that my Mom would always quote when we went to the beach, and without fail I remember it everytime I'm by the seaside.

maggie and milly and molly and may
by E. E. Cummings

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea

Getting organized....

I've been devoting a lot of energy lately to getting organized. In the time we've lived here, our place has managed to create a certain disorder all on its own. So, I'm taking it back. Actually, I am someone who gets overwhelmed easily, so I need to have things organized and running smoothly. Unfortunately, because I am easily overwhelmed, I often start organizing, become overwhelmed, and find I must dive quickly into something like a book or the internet to distract myself. But this time I'm making progress, and it is invigorating.

The picture above is one of my victories. A binder in which I've organized the "plan" for running my household. It includes daily schedules, daily cleaning routines, weekly cleaning rotations, a month's worth of dinners, a tentative plan for lunches, breakfasts, snacks, etc... I've even planned out what food I need to get at the store each week. I went shopping with this plan this week and couldn't believe how much time and money it saved me. I guess it may seem like this would make my life too rigid, but the goal is to do the opposite. I hope that by making my work running a household a structured routine, it will free up time and energy for things that really matter to me. I'll be less stressed this way and able to have fun with my kids, spend time with friends, and be creative.