Sunday February 14

Happy Valentines Day!!!!

Today started out early....

I heard little footsteps upstairs and thought it was Madi up and going to take a shower.

Then I heard giggles and laughs coming from Elsie's room.

I peeked in on Elsie and Port laying and having fun.

Port said Elsie was crying, and he was on the couch......cause he said he 'just realized he sleep walked there'....And he heard her and went in to make her happy.

So sweet :)

Once everyone was up we started getting ready.

I did make them some heart pancakes for breakfast :)

I do so much love heart shaped food <3 p="">

Cassi and I left to church early because Cass had one more practice before they sang today.

They did such a beautiful job singing!

There was one problem....the dang microphone!!!!

It kept falling!

They would bring it up and it would slowly fall.....then they would bring it up again....and over and over!

But, it was beautiful!

They even got asked if they would sing the song at our Stake baptism in March!

They were very excited about that :)

Church was great.......and everyone had treats!

Lots of treats!

I guess that's what happens on Valentines day :)

After church, Madi and I had a BYC meeting that lasted about an hour.

Then a little later, our Home teachers came over.

We then decorated cookies and also had a visit from Bubbles, Eldon and Vern.

The kids also went and played outside with dad while Madi and I talked and made dinner.

I made some 'Not chicken pot pie' for dinner.

It is basically chicken pot pie, just not in the crust......and you eat it with biscuits.

It was a big hit :)

Plus everything was heart shaped....of course!

Maybe Valentines is my favorite holiday.....I mean, when else can you make heart shaped food and not have your kids think you are crazy??????

The kids each got a fun little Valentines stuffed animal from Mom and Dad.

That buffalo Elsie got, cutest one she has so far!

It was a fun day with the fam :)

Saturday February 13

We got our Saturday chores done, without much fighting.

Not much :)

It wasn't a very exciting day.

Cassi and Port played a lot outside.

They went and used the long board for a while.

Then the boys came over to play.

I ran some errands.

Then Madi had a babysitting job tonight.

Port played with Cannon for a little this evening.

And Cassi had a birthday party to go to.

So it was just Elsie and I am some mac and cheese this evening :)

I did make some sugar cookies for dad's primary class tomorrow......they turned out cute.

I have a few fun little Valentines surprises for the fam that I need to go get ready.....

Plus I need sleep.

I don't feel so awesome :(

Friday February 12

Well, I have felt lousy all day :(

But I still got some more things done in the kitchen.

Got the stools put back together....and they look great.

I put a clear coat on the butlers pantry top, but it dried funny, kind of pulling in spots.

So I might need to sand ti a little tomorrow and try again :(

The kids had a good time at school today.

The little ones had their Valentines parties....so they got lots of sugar.

After school Cassi had her friends Halle and Keira over.

They will be singing a song in church this Sunday and they needed to practice.

We went to Sister Burks house to practice and then went to the church to sing with the microphone.

I am excited about it,

The other two girls have never sung in front of people before, and they are super quiet....but they will do awesome.

We just need them to come out of their shell!

Cassi is singing an alto part, and we are trying to perfect that part......she is singing it the right way, but the other two girls are so quiet compared to her, so her part sounds too loud.

But I think it will all come together and they will do great.

We will practice again before church on Sunday.

I am excited about it.

So is Cass :)

They stayed for dinner and I took them home around 8.

Madi was gonna go out with friends to a basketball game, but didn't feel good, so decided not to.

So it was a pretty chill night.

Thursday February 11

I spent most of the day in the kitchen again.

I finally put the last top coat on the island counter top!

Yay!!!!

I sanded and re stained the stool tops.

I painted the butlers pantry top again, and I will put on a top coat on tomorrow.

And with the extra white paint I painted a few other areas.

Drew made a couple doors for me that he brought over the other day.

They look so awesome and I am beyond excited about the prospects of maybe actually getting this kitchen done....maybe this year :)

But smiles here!

Anyway, I put a first coat of paint on one of the doors and it looks so good!

Yay!

Well, then I went and got Elsie and took her to PT.

After we got home and had dinner, the rest of the night was getting Valentines ready!

I ordered Port's from Oriental trading.

They are Army guy erasers......he was so excited about them.

Even more excited that there were some extras for himself :)

Elsie, I kinda went over board.....

I found a cute buffalo candy mold.

I am sure I will find a million other purposes for it, so that justified getting it :)

But then I made a little buffalo card that said "Wanna be in my herd? Happy Valentines Day".

She was super happy with it :)

The only problem is, the mold only makes 3 at a time....and I need 25 :)

So I have been filling them and ten putting them in the freezer, and then swapping it out once it hardens.

I only have a few more left to do :)

Elsie also needed to make a Valentines box.

She wanted a buffalo on her box, so I drew one for her, along with hearts and flowers, then she got it all colored.

Pretty cute :)

I am sure they will have lots of fun at their parties tomorrow!

*****

I got an early birthday present from Emmy today!

She got me another glass star and it has our family theme etched in it!

I LOVE it!!!!

*****

Another great family scripture night discussion.....

We talked about faith.

i shared with them an experience I had a few weeks ago.

I was out for a run.

I like to listen to my scriptures or conference talks when I run.

Well, this day I was really thinking and struggling with some things going on at home.

Mostly about the fighting and wanting things to get better and how to make it a better home environment.

I got the feeling i should say a prayer.

And I said to myself, ya, I'll pray when I get home.

Then I felt, no pray now.

So Then I was like, okay, I can pray while I run.

I do that sometimes when I am driving :)

Again the thought came to my mind to stop and kneel and pray.

So I did.

I said a fairly simple prayer, I think.

When I got back up and started running again, I started my conference talk back up.

A new one was just starting.

I couldn't believe my eyes when I looked down at my phone to see the title of the talk.

The talk was "Faith is the answer."

This was from a 1994 general YW conference talk.

Can you believe that?

I started to think about that, and what that meant.

I had an immediate answer to my prayer!

I wasn't having faith in my family.

Yes, we have some rough patches....

But the over all picture, I think we are raising some pretty fantastic kids.

I need to have faith that what we are teaching them will stick and that there won't always be fighting....or I at least know there will also be lots of not fighting :)

Things don't have to be perfect.

To have a good family does not mean that you never fight or have problems.

It means that you have each others backs even if we sometimes don't agree.

And sometimes we falter, but we are there to help each other up.

I have faith in our family :)

I am thankful for that simple, yet profound, experience I had while running.

I am thankful I got to share it with my family tonight too.

I think it is so important to share those things with our kids.....

I need to be better about it.

Anyway......it was a good evening :)

Wednesday February 10

Today was a very exciting day for Cassi!!!!

She got to start piano lessons!

She is taking lessons from Lexi Loveland, a super awesome girl in our ward.

I am so excited to get Cass going on piano!

Now we really need to get this piano up into the main level!!!!

Hopefully we can get it up here on Monday, somehow!!!!

I have to get Cassi to lessons at 3:40, the only free time slot.....

But she doesn't get off the bus until about 3:45, sooooo.....I will be picking her up from school every Wednesday, which will be just fine.

Dad went to a class all day today and tomorrow.

So I was alone for the day doing laundry and some cleaning....

I did go and help in Elsie's Art Smart class until I had to leave to pick up Cassi.

And after school, Elsie went to Activity days!!!!

Without me!!!!

Yay!

She went with Kyra, and they decorated hearts to 'heart-attach' the bishop's office.

Then they decorated and ate rice crispy treats.

She said she had so much fun......hopefully I can get her to start going regularly without me!

This evening we had a nice family scripture study discussion.

Well, it was kind of the family....with Port and Elsie asleep on the floor cause we were talking so much :)

But I really enjoyed it.

It was about why the Lord wants us to be virtuous.....we were reading in Jacob 2.

I have enjoyed what our family scripture time has turned into.

Instead of reading as much as we can get to without losing too much attention, we have been following the 365 book of Mormon thing that I followed on Instagram last year.

They turned last years posts into a book.

So we read the daily question, then read the scripture, and then read the question again.

Then we talk about it.

Sometimes we talk more than others.

Then we look at comments that were made in the book and discuss more together.

It has been really neat to see others perspectives and understand a bit more what the scriptures are really saying and how it applies to out life right now.

Anyway, it has been very cool :)

*****

Baby update!

These pictures are both from yesterday, I believe.

Kaiya has been doing so well!

She is getting some meat on her bones and looks so good.

She is over 3.5 pounds now, still on a feeding tube, but just on room air.

It has been amazing to watch her progress!

And little Cole has had some up's a down's, but still is doing good.

They have started weening him off the narcotic drugs, and he has had some major withdrawals, which have been hard.

But they say that yesterday it was more of a regular 4 month old fussy baby, and they hope the worst of the withdrawals are over now.

They did take him out of the PICU for a day or so, but then his lung collapsed again and they couldn't get him what he needed without being in the PICU.

So back he went.

He is a little fighter and just an amazing little miracle.

This picture shows him on the bi-pap, but I do know today he was taken off that and put on high flow oxygen, so that is an improvement!

Such a little fighter!

Step by step, he will climb this mountain!!!

Tuesday February 9

Today we worked on the bathroom floor!

Okay, not we as much as He :)

I tried to do some helping.....

But I had to get some errands ran and I also had to help in Port's art smart today.

But he did an amazing job.

I wanted the tile laid on the diagonal, so I made a lot more work for him then needed to be, but it looks so great!

I think he will forgive me when it is all done with :)

Also this evening for YW, Cassi and I went to the temple to do baptisms for the dead.

It was fun for me to be there with Cassi :)

It was cool too, one of the girls got baptized for an Elsie!

Made me smile when I heard the name :)

It was a nice evening for us.

We want to do it more regularly.

I really want to try and find family names!!!!

I am trying....it is very hard for me to understand everything that goes along with it!

But I am gonna keep trying!

Monday February 8

Today was kind of fun.

My friend Michelle has a friend who has been remodeling their house.

She wanted to get us together to show each other and her our houses.

She is also thinking of remodeling and wanted to get ideas.

So that was how most of the day was spent.

Looking at each others houses and talking :)

So I didn't get much else done.......

Dad did though :)

He pulled up a spot in our bathroom floor that used to be the edge of the house that we filled with insulation, but it had compacted and the cement board over top of it was starting to break......

Good thing we didn't tile in there yet!

See, there are good things that go along with taking FOREVER to finish stuff ;)

Anyway, he got that fixed up, so now maybe we will get to get that bathroom tiled in the near future.

Drew came over to check out what we wanted to do for doors on the cabinets.

I am excited about it :)

And this was the scene before dinner tonight.

Everyone working on their homework, even Dad.

It made my mama heart happy :)

Except it would be better if none of them had homework and we could do something fun........

Anyway.

After dinner, Port gave us a FHE about Repentance.

When he went to the 'Great to be 8' thing, they gave each kid a folder with 4 FHE plans to do the month before the kid gets baptized.

What a great idea.

But he REALLY wanted to start doing it, even though he doesn't get baptized until December.......

We can just do it all again in November for a refresher course :)

Sunday February 7

It was a nice Sunday today.

Testimony meeting was great.

Cassi got up and bore her testimony about the temple and how excited she was bout everything there.

She told me today she wanted to go do baptisms for the dead in all the temples in Utah :)

Pretty great goal.....might take a while.....but it's not impossible!

Elsie didn't go to class, but she did go with me to class, and she sat there the whole it me and let me be part of my class.

Which is fine.

I just hate sitting out in the hall with her fussing :(

But if I can go to class, I am just fine when she comes with me.

But Dad will be back the next few weeks, so that will be good for her to go to class with daddy.

Today was super bowl Sunday, of course.

Cassi went to choir practice at 4:15, and there were only like 6 people there, but then the leader was told about the Superbowl....ha ha....

She said maybe there would be more next week, except next week is a three day Valentines weekend!

Ha ha.....

Anyway, we did have the game on.

Port was so excited about it.

He would have liked it better with dad here......

*****

Today is my mama's birthday.

Happy birthday mom!

We face timed her from Madi's phone, and she took a picture, but she must have forgotten to send it to me :(

Hopefully I can get it and post that later.

It was fun for the kids to talk to her and I think we need to do it more often!

*****

Oh, and Dussy Boy has lined up a pen pal for little Elsie Bug :)

She is a 9 year old girl who is one of Dustin's friends daughters.

Elsie is so excited and got her letter written today and made sure to add a picture of her with the buffaloes.

It is gonna be great for her to work on her hand writing, etc....

Dussy boy said that this little girl is a lot like Elsie, and her mom is excited about the hand writing practice too.

Hopefully it will stick and be a fun new friendship :)

I am excited about it!

Thanks Dussy boy!

Saturday February 6

It was a crazy day and I was super grumpy!

I think I had too many things on my list to get done and was mad about not getting them done :(

But I did get some stuff done, so that is good.

And the kids did their Saturday chores and that is nice to have done too.

Tonight Madi and Cassi had some friends over, that's why it is a late night for me.....

I am hoping for a nice relaxing Sunday tomorrow :)

Friday February 5 (add pictures)

I spent pretty much my entire day in the kitchen :)

Not slaving away over the stove......painting!

I got another coat put on the island top.

Then i got a bunch of the cabinets painted.

It is tricky....and very time consuming!

Primer, then a couple coats of paint......but I am excited how it is turning out!

I hope to get a lot more done tomorrow.

I also got the butler's pantry painted.

It has been primed for awhile, and I don;t know why it took me so long to get to painting it.

But it is done.

I wish Brent wasn't working tomorrow so we could get the windows put inside it.....

I guess we can do that Monday, maybe :)

Anyway.....

This evening Dad had a date with Madi and Cassi.

He took them to the temple to do baptisms for the dead.

This was Cassi's first time (we have been really slow on getting there :( ) and Dad really wanted to be there with her the first time.

We go as a ward youth on Tuesday, we didn't want that to be her first time....and not be with Dad.

Sounds like they had a nice time.

Then dad took the two of them to Tucanos for dinner.

They had a really great time.

Cassi tried everything they brought around, including a chicken heart :)

That doesn't even surprise me......that girl!

I was home painting....oh and babysitting the Morgans kids to :)

Ha ha.....they babysat themselves......but I did give them dinner, so that counts, right!