EASTER dude. Easter.

I love Easter. Love love love. I love Easter even more than Christmas. Why? Because the cold weather is mostly gone, the sun is out, birds are chirping, grass is green again, blossoms are growing on trees, even the air feels brand new. Not only does it symbolically remind me of the resurrection with nature coming back to life, but I'm just a happier person when the sun is out. Scott is convinced that I have that seasonal disorder where you start getting depressed when the weather is bad. I blame my Latin blood. I need sun. I am a weirdo who will go outside and just sit in the sun for no reason except to feel it on my skin. It's therapeutic for me. Also who can forget the joy of a Cadbury egg on Easter? Those morsels of awesome deliciousness are extremely high on my priority list this time of year.
Anyway Easter is my favorite holiday for so many reasons, for religious and non-religious reasons.
Unfortunately if you scroll back on my blog to last year's Easter the only picture I took was of the kids Easter baskets. Why? Because I was trying to survive my first trimester of pregnancy and the only thing that mattered at the time was trying not to throw up.
I hope I made up for it with this year's pictures.

On Saturday morning my neighborhood/ward had an Easter Egg hunt in the park right behind my house. If it were anywhere else, I probably wouldn't have gone, but it was really easy to wake up and go out the back gate. Also, I felt obligated to keep the kids busy because Scott was working yet again for tax season. (This is the part where I repeat over and over to myself in my head that we are lucky that he has such a good job in this economy and I try not to be negative.)

Seth actually went nuts, he took off like a bullet and filled his basket with way too many eggs. Occasionally when he wasn't looking I would take some eggs out of his basket and toss them into the grass for the other kids...I didn't want to be one of those parents that get crazy competitive over an Easter egg hunt, and I didn't want my kids to be one of those kids that push smaller ones out of the way so they can greedily hoard their little buckets full of toys and sugar. Yeah, that's the other thing, I didn't want my kids to come home with a mountain of candy. So I told them both that they needed to get seven eggs, and then we would eat breakfast, which was provided at the activity. Overall, they had a blast. My only complaint was that it was so early in the morning that it was freezing, (even though it got hot by the afternoon) and I had to stand in line with three kids and somehow get them all plates of food by myself because I was husband-less. Serving three plates of food with a baby in your arms and two clumsy kids who like to drop things should be a requirement to get into a heavy duty circus act...if you succeed. When I try and do it, it's just pathetic.

ANYWAY here are the pics of that event:





Later that afternoon we went to my parents house so that we could have company while we colored Easter eggs. My brother's son, Issac was there at the same time, and they had a blast playing with him while the eggs were boiling.


Let the egg coloring begin! I didn't want Seth to ruin his shirt, so he's shirtless int he pic below, which of course means he had to show off his guns.

Later that same evening, Scott was able to make it home by 7:30 so we had some more family (from his side this time) over and we all made ourselves pizzas. We started doing this a couple of years ago, everyone brings their own dough and pizza toppings (sometimes we share) and we all make our own personal pizzas for dinner together. I like this little tradition because Scott and I did it with a group of friends when we first started dating...and the first time we held hand. I don't remember, but Scott claims that I was the aggressor and grabbed his hand first. Figures. :)










After everybody left the "Easter Bunny" left out some goodies for Crystal and Seth. He figured Jake could wait till next year when he is old enough to realize that objects exist.






Another thing I love about Easter is that we get new Sunday clothes. Here are my sweethearts all dressed up in our Easter getup.

By now the kids were freaking out a little bit, so we took a couple of quick shots of the whole family and called it good.



We ate dinner at my parents house and got to hang out with family. Here is Jakey with his Great Grandmother/my Grandma.


Whenever there is any chocolate around, Seth ends up with a mustache...


This one looks more like a Hitler mustache with a tiny goatee...



My brother Jared and Scott with Seth, discussing technology




EASTER EGG HUNT!!

I love my family insanely. I'm so thankful that I can be with them forever. Hope you all had an awesome Easter.

Understanding words

So every six months we listen to General Conference. It's when the leaders of our church give us inspired guidance and counsel to live richer, fuller lives that bring us closer to god and eternal happiness. I love this meeting, it's my favorite thing ever. I always feel refreshed, reassured, humbled, and thankful after listening to it.
Listening to conference with kids is challenging. It's four hours a day for both a Saturday and a Sunday. Granted there is a two hour break in between those four hours, but it's a lot of listening, and small kids have problems holding still and listening.
Crystal knows the purpose and idea of conference but in the past we have always distracted her with crafts, crayons, toys, etc, and she wasn't really trying to listen at all. This time as a six year old, I felt that she was old enough to at least give it a try. She has learned to read and write in the past year so I gave her a pen and piece of notebook paper and to write down anything she heard that she liked or understood, and that if she did, I would buy her a conference notebook of her very own just like mommy's.
She was really excited about it until the first speaker, President Monson, started speaking. The general authorities of the church use very educated, elaborate and descriptive words when they speak...which get the point across wonderfully, but are very hard for a 6 year old to comprehend.
She got frustrated and started crying. I asked her what was wrong and she told me she couldn't understand a dang thing that was being said and she didn't know how she was going to write anything down.
At first I felt a little frustrated too. Not at her, but at myself and the situation. I wanted to do something that would help her listen and enjoy conference, and instead she was frustrated and upset. I couldn't help but wonder if I was pushing her too hard. The last thing I wanted to do was make conference a bad experience for her. After I had a minute to think about it I told her that she shouldn't try to understand all the hard words, and to just relax, and listen and if she heard just one thing, even if it was a small thing and understood it, to write that thing down and not worry about the rest....and to make it a game. To see how many things she could understand in every talk. I told her that whatever she understood from anything said were the words that Heavenly Father wanted her to know, and that's all that mattered. I told her not to get frustrated because if a talk finished and she didn't understand any of it, I would pause it and tell her a little bit about what the speaker said in words she could understand.
So we tried again. By now Pres. Monson had finished speaking and we were on to the next speaker. The speaker, (Elder Packer) said the words "Familes can be forever" in his talk, and she brightened up, because that was something she understood. So she wrote it down. After she got the hang of it, she wrote down anything she understood for the rest of the session. Then was the two hour break and I told her how proud I was of her. I had her show the paper to me to see what she understood, and it brought tears to my eyes. Here is what my darling 6 year old little girl got out of the first half of the first session:


Families can be forever
Parents need to help kids understand
Family home evening is important
Family prayer is important
We love the gospel of Jesus Christ
There is nothing like this Church in all of the world
The Savior teaches
We can enjoy the gift of the Holy Ghost
Heavenly father loves all of us.
Jesus sacrificed for us.
Jesus's blood was spilt
Jesus wants us to love one another
Jesus wants us to serve one another
Faith in Christ
We need the Gospel of Jesus
The Holy Spirit will be your teacher
The missionaries have a lot of faith
Thank you for the missionaries
I listen to the words of my father
Pray always

I was SO impressed, and really proud of her.
By the end of the second half of the first session, she fell asleep. The next day she did a good job for a while, and ended up getting distracted by her brother who was playing with Scott's ipad. That's okay though because for a beginner she did great. It took me years to try and sit down and listen to General Conference as a kid. She's way ahead of where I was.
This Monday we used the above list as discussion topics for family night. We got through the first five, but will continue to work on it every week until we've talked about all the topics on her list and what they mean.
I'm so thankful for the things my family and I can learn from listening to General Conference. It really does make our lives richer, fuller and happier.

I"M BALD!!!

Well, not really, but I hate this part of having an infant. The hair loss, from the hormones of breastfeeding and having given birth. It's started, and it's terrible.
Crystal was 4 months old when I noticed it the first time it happened, and back then I had no clue whatsoever that the hair loss after giving birth was perfectly normal. All I knew was that my hair was falling out and I completely panicked. I was positive I had some rare disease that was making all my hair fall out and I was going to be completely bald for the rest of my life; maybe a few hairs on there, maybe a culd-e-sac like older men get, or maybe just really thin like Donald Trump. I got online and instead of researching hair loss in new moms, I started looking at expensive wigs made from human hair to cover my bald head.
Luckily, Scott was smart enough to tell me not to panic and he did the research..(which was either motivated by my distress, or possibly because he saw the prices of some of those wigs), and found out it was a common complaint of women having just given birth and that it would look normal again in a few months. Phew, what a relief.
So with this new and exciting knowledge, I would explain to people at church, at gatherings, and yes, even a random stranger in the grocery store that my baby is making my hair fall out but it will grow back and it's normal. To my astonishment, most people already knew this little fact of life and began to explain to me about increased levels of estrogen giving you thicker hair when pregnant and how it drops dramatically after giving birth, making your hair fall out. Once I realized everybody knew this but me, I was just mad that nobody sent me the memo. It would have prevented a huge panic attack.

Here I am in my current balding glory...also posting this picture has made me realize that my blue contacts look so blue that they look fake, and I will be going back to green as soon as I can.




Mini Cul-de-sac. I ALWAYS get these on both sides of my head like horns after I give birth.

Which is which??

These are my three kids at the same age. Who do you think is who?

Happy Birthday Scott!!!!

Today is Scott's birthday.

I wish we could go out on a date and to the movies, maybe spend the day in the park with the kids, and sing happy birthday with a cake, but it's tax season.
Scott leaves the house at 7:30 in the morning (when I wake up) and comes home at 10:30pm these days. When he gets home I'm so tired from being with three kids all day and he's exhausted from being at work, (not to mention Jakey wakes us up every 2-3 hours still) we just go to bed once he's home. He usually doesn't see the kids on weekdays. They miss him like crazy.
I'm not trying to complain, I know that a lot of other fathers in the world are around a lot less. One of my close friends has a husband in the military and she just had her fourth child. She's spent several Christmas's, birthdays, anniversaries, and weekends alone with her kids. I've seen how hard it is on her, and so when I complain about Scott not being home for 3 months I feel like a jerk compared to what she goes through.
What can I say about Scott that I haven't already said whenever I praise him in previous posts? Just that I'm really really thankful to have him in my life. I know that 7 years of marriage isn't much to many other's who grow old together, but at this point in my life he's very much my other half. I once read a book by a marriage psychologist who said that it takes an average of at least 10 years for a married couple to really get used to each other in a marriage, and live life comfortably together in spite of how differently they were raised. I feel like I've already reached that point even though according to the author, I'm 3 years early. I can't imagine life without him and when I try to describe how deep my feelings run for him, I can't come up with the words. Which is interesting, because I've always been a better writer than speaker...you'd think I could figure out something eloquent to describe it besides the word "Love". He is just wonderful. I'm thankful for his birthday so I can have a day where I can celebrate his life, even if he's not right next to me at the moment.
So what to give him for his birthday has been a dilemma lately. I'm not allowed to spend money on him for his birthday. I want to do SOMEthing for him, so I made a video of the kids answering random questions about him in an interview...like those cute "Out of the mouths of babes" video's.
This is what I came up with, and it took me all week to get it together right. Let me know what you think (Forgive the choppy editing...I'm still an amateur filmmaker. Ha ha.) Although youtube may be responsible for slowing it down. That's my biggest issue with videos on youtube is the delay.
Also...my kids are crazy, and getting them to sit still for an interview is an adventure, so I added a blooper reel at the end to show the reality of getting my kids to do basically ANY thing here at home. Enjoy.

Why my kids are awesome

I have a problem with dressing up babies and taking pictures of them. Poor Jacob is my new victom/toy. Suits on baby boys never get old for me:
I was at the dollar store getting some random stuff for a neighbors birthday party when Seth discreetly put a pair of spiderman goggles in the cart. When I asked him about it, he proceeded to beg with all his heart for them. So I figured why not, they were only a buck, and they make a great addition to his superhero attire collection.

Since spring is almost here we buzzed Seth's head. Unfortunately closer to his scalp he still has blond patches of hair that haven't turned brown yet so they look like bald spots, but oh well he's still cute and I don't have to worry about cutting his hair for another couple of weeks.



Anytime my kids laugh it makes all the stressful moments worth it. I'm in the process of writing a post about why I'm stressed out and why my responsibilities are making me a little crazy, but I took a break to post these happy moments because they cheered me up and I'll save the other post for later.
After all, these moments are what matter most, and the other stressful stuff will fade and be forgotten one day, and I'll cherish the moments I loved the most.
I freaking love these kids.

F.H.E. and my kids

I'm trying to alternate my posts so that some are silly like the previous one, and others are more about my actual life.

FHE = Family home evening. It's something we do in my house to stay close knit as a family, spend time together, and to teach our kids about our religious beliefs. It's quality time that my church recommends all families should do, and it's a lot of fun. Scott and I do ours every Monday night.
Lately it's been harder thanks to Tax season and Scott coming home late, but I keep the kids up past their bedtime so that we can have that time together. It's also great for Scott because it's quality time he gets with the kids who are often in bed by the time he comes home until the middle of April.
For the past 7 years Scott and I give a short lesson, that can range anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes depending on how the kids attention spans are and then we end with some songs, a game and snacks.
A couple of weeks ago we had a great lesson about David and Goliath. I got to teach it, and since I'm a little crazy and also because I've taught lessons to the small kids in my church on and off for 13 years, I get a little animated to keep it exciting. This is especially helpful for my son who only pays attention when you make the story exciting. They loved it and talked about David and Goliath all week. It got me thinking that I needed to come up with more ideas where my kids could feel involved in the lessons and not just stuck listening to their parents the whole time, because even if the lesson is only 5 minutes, when those minutes leave an impression they are worth so much more.
I decided it was time for Crystal and Seth to start taking turns with me and Scott in teaching lessons every Monday. They aren't ignorant when it comes to stories in the scriptures and things they remember, so I let them choose the topic, and then I educate them about that topic everyday for about 10-15 minutes at bedtime all week until it's time for them to give a lesson about it in their own words. Since they are excited about giving their own lessons, and since it's a topic they chose, they listen more intently, ask more questions, and do a fantastic job when they teach.
Having your kids take turns in lessons for family home evening isn't a new and exciting discovery, but we hadn't done it in my home yet because they're both small. Crystal is 6 and Seth is 3. However, what swayed me to start them on their lessons at this point is that my parents let me give family home evening lessons as early as four years old, and the impact it had on my life was tremendous. It taught me from an early age to seek knowledge and to remember things that were being taught, and it also taught me how much I loved sharing what I knew. As a four year old, I knew I would be a missionary for my church one day because I loved telling people about my beliefs and showing them how they could find the same happiness I did through those beliefs.
I once was told by a friend, that teaching kids these things this early was equivalent to brain washing. I disagree. Teaching your kid not to lie, cheat, steal or kill, to be kind to others, to make good choices and to ask God for help is not brainwashing, it's educating them on how to live a full, happy and productive life. It's the same with my religious beliefs. As a parent who loves them, I teach them the things that have given me true happiness throughout my life, and stories that have taught me life lessons that I still use everyday.

Anyway here are some videos of Crystal and Seth telling some of the basic stories in our church. I was missing the camera during Seths actual lesson, but I had him retell the story on film this morning. He is still in his pajamas on it, I didn't make him change cause he loves his Batman pajamas more than anything on the planet. Here is seth telling a little bit about who Joseph Smith is. I'm posting Seth's first because he's only three and so his is the shortest.




Crystals lesson was a few weeks ago, and I was able to record it while she actually gave it. The lesson is in her own words, she just uses the pictures in the book as a guide so that she doesn't forget where she is when she's speaking. This also gives you a chance to see a little bit into our lives when we have our family nights together, although I did edit it a little because Seth started acting up and had a small meltdown in the middle of it, but I cut that part out so that you could only see the pleasant side of my children. :D Also I apologize that my floor desperately needed vacuuming during this video.

Here is Crystal teaching about our lives before we came to earth.


I'm so proud of my two smartie pants kiddies!!

Valentines ecards I've been sending to Scott all day

...Yes I realize that the first picture I posted of my new baby smiling is in this ridiculous post, but it had to be done. Hope everyone is having/had a fantastic Valentines Day!!

He'll be 8 weeks this Sunday

I have a bunch of stuff to write but I don't have time as usual. I would however, like to show that I'm not being neglectful. Here is my cute 8 week old boy. He's doing great, cooing, smiling (though I have yet to catch a big one on camera) and as wiggly as a worm. Personality wise, he's more high-maintenance than Crystal and Seth ever were. He's a lot more needy, but he's cute so holding him and rocking him all day is easy...which has caused my housework to suffer. Still figuring out that whole routine, but I'm taking it a day at a time. He's worth it though.