Resurrecting the blog

I was looking back at my blog and so grateful for the insight into my thoughts and life from years ago. It is time to start it up again. So here I am. Can't even begin to fill in the gaps except with the real short summary. I now have 8 kids and my husband serves as Bishop of our ward. That means that we are very, very busy. This fall I am looking forward to 2 kids in each school- 2 in high school, 2 in middle school and 2 in elementary and 2 at home.

I am certainly busy and have no time to blog so we will see where this goes.

Things that I love that we are doing in our family:

Camping: We have been on 2 camping trips this year. Our family is learning to love the outdoors and the wonder and experiences that we can have. Mom and Dad love the price and watching the kids work together to hike and set up camp

Using hymns: We are getting better at using music(singing) to help bring peace to our home at certain times like family scriptures and prayer. It is far from perfect but with my kids growing up and learning to sing harmony, there are a few perfect moments.

Accountability: We have the kids fill out charts daily to account for jobs and positive behavior. This determines their commission/allowance. It can be a lot overwhelming but we know that it is a good thing.

Paying down debt: We have been working hard most recently to pay down debt which is only our home mortgage. It has led to us being good at budgeting and planning and we can see the difference in our total owed. And the blessings have been pouring in like refinancing for 2.75%.

Comments

Speedy Gonzales and the Black Stretchy Pants

Tues April 6 started as any other day. We woke up and went to a doctors appointment for the girls. That afternoon when I got home I was starving. I ate way too much and then soon got a headache that I blamed on the chocolate dessert that I ate. After resting for a while the phone rang and it was a neighbor who started off the phone call saying "I was hoping that you wouldn't answer because you would be at the hospital. I laughed at her and said no way I have at least two more weeks left. After the phone call about 6:30 Dave told me our goat had had a baby but had died so we called all the kids out and told them about it and we buried it. Then we had a late dinner and put the kids to bed. About 5 minutes later I had a contraction. I thought weird and Dave told me it was just goat sympathy pains. So as I had a few more sporadic contractions I convinced myself that it was just braxton hicks because there was no way that they were "real." I sat down and watched AI ...

Yesterday the boys had a school holiday so Dave took a day off and we headed for the mountains. My awesome husband loves to ski and spent many hours on the slopes, but that was all before he married me. I would love for him to ski but life happens with a family and budgets exist and it makes skiing a hard hobby to maintain. Plus we spent about 3.5 yrs in Minnesota where you get lots of snow but not a single ski hill in sight-what a waste of snow. The last couple years, I have tried harder to give my husband chances to ski. We even went out about 3 years ago and purchased all the gear at a rental store going out of business. And I close my eyes as I see how much we pay, tell myself it is all worth it, and then smile. (Remember I am cheap so skiing just wouldn't naturally be on my radar.) This year for Christmas I gave my husband 2 lift tickets purchased for a great deal at Costco. First of all, I am used to spending lots of money at Costco and that way I wouldn't stress ...

Finally some pictures

Hooray we have new windows! The installers left this morning and we now have 5 beautiful vinyl windows and one of them is a bay window. We are taking advantage of the tax credit for energy efficient windows and hoping that we can stay a little warmer this winter. So all day yesterday we had no windows in our house and at the end of the day our house was full of flies. Thank goodness that global warming has taken a vacation in CA because it has been a burning 75 degrees the last 2 weeks. Of course it happens to be the weeks that my kids are in swimming lessons so they have been freezing. Yesterday one of Daves work colleagues came by to look at our goats. Seeing that we know nothing about them except what I have found googling, this guy is a definite expert. He told we should butcher them soon or sale them as they are ready. If it was a matter of me being ready they would have been butchered 2 weeks after we got them. They have been a real pain in the neck. I have gotten used ...

Search This Blog