Mother's Day 2012

The Wednesday before Mother's Day, there was a "Mother's Day Tea" at his preschool. Sadly, I was the only mother to show up unarmed with a camera, or an iphone. Abram and his friends sang some songs, said a scripture, and had made treats for us. It was really sweet. Abram didn't sing very loud-when I asked him about it-he said the music was his voice. I love that kid. The tag on my bag looked like this:

On Mother's Day I woke up to breakfast in bed-actually I woke up to boys squealing with excitement ready to go make breakfast-which ended up being undercooked biscuits and jelly. Then I got to open presents, that the boys picked out themselves. Abram got me the bracelet "Mom, you like sparkly things and it's sparkly!" Reese picked out the necklace, "Mama, you like owls." and during church he was wrapping the necklace around the owl's head and saying, "Look it's a girl!"

We went to church and Abram made this

I'm not going to lie, on both "Mom questionaires" I may have teared up a little.

I got to take a long nap, and Kris made an awesome dinner.

I have always wanted to be a Mom, always. I have always wanted my own family. I don't know what I did to deserve this,

but I am so grateful. Even in the crazy of it all-I feel honored and humbled that Heavenly Father would trust me enough to be their Mother.

It was a great day.

Father/Son Campout 2012

Every year our ward does a Father/Son campout, this year was no exception. Kris was really excited about it, and the boys were even more excited.  I was really impressed with his bravery taking them both (Reese had never been camping before). The boys loaded up on Friday when Kris got home from work and headed out for the 2 hour drive to the campsite at Big South Fork. As I have mentioned before on the blog, Kris isn't really the picture taking type-and I'm sure it may have been a little tricky trying to put up a tent, keep up with two over excited boys-but thankfully he did get a couple. Kris has talked about taking the boys camping since they were infants-how awesome it would be, etc. Abram said his favorite part of camping was the smores and playing with his friend Kaitlyn (who was able to go with her Dad, even though she didn't fit the "son" part :) ). Reese's favorite part was throwing things in the fire. Kris said his favorite part was Friday night. He took the boys a little ways from the campsite and layed on a blanket looking at the stars. They talked about how Heavenly Father created the stars, and about flashlights, and bugs. They could see their breath because it got chilly and they pretended they were dragons blowing their breath across the light of the flashlight.

The next morning they ate breakfast with everyone and played for a bit before heading out earlier than the rest to do some Mother's Day shopping. Kris said the boys did awesome. Reese was a little sad that night and missed me, but other than that, they did great. In fact, Kris is taking Abram camping again this weekend with the scouts.

These were taking early in the morning on Saturday...

I think it's safe to say this will be on going tradition.

Strawberries For the Pickin'

Two things come to mind when I see strawberries. When I was little, my Mom worked at a farm market. One of the things she made was strawberry pies-they were a-ma-zing. There is an old family story about me and my cousin being little and eating a whole pie for ourselves. I don't remember it, but I'd believe it.

The other memory is of my Grandma. She had a big green tupperware bowl, I have so many memories of that bowl. There was a large silver bowl for stringing beans from the garden or wilted lettuce and the big green bowl held potato salad, or in this memory-strawberries. I always thought it was magic-the way the juice was made. I never knew how she could get it with just the perfect amount of sweetness. She would slice them with a pear knife into the bowl, and one day I asked her. She told me all she did was add the sugar and the strawberries did the rest. I felt as if I had just been clued into the most amazing secret. I think about these things everytime I bite into one. It makes me wonder if I love strawberries for the sweet taste, or for the fond memories they give me.

I took the boys strawberry picking this year. I loaded them up with a plastic Easter baskets and myself a large bucket and off we went. The boys share my enthusiasm for strawberries, so they were more than obliged to learn what kind of strawberries were ripe for the pickin, and what needed to be left on the plant.

I would drop a few in Reese's bucket and he would say, "Mama, you're the best girl in the world." It was super sweet-he didn't feel that way when we had to leave and he was ready for a nap, but I'll take what I can get.

As you can see there was a bit of "taste testing" going on. Unfortunately, Reese would taste a bite, and the put it back in the bucket. I kept hearing, "Ma-ma! This is a squishy one, guess I better eat it! Ma-ma! This has dirt on it, guess I better eat it! Ma-ma! I dropped this one! Guess I better eat it!" I started to get a little suspicious, and then turned around to see this.....

"What are you looking at me like that Mama?" he said.

We may or may not have bought the weight of a small child in strawberries that day.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

I wanted to go strrawbeery picking this morning. We loaded up, the kids were SOOO excited, drove 40 minutes, and the place isn't open on Tuesdays. I had a couple of sad muffins in the car.  So I told them today was as good of a day as any to plant our "garden". I'm not so sure how well it will grow this Summer-because I had a lot of......."help" while planting.  And some "help" on picking out what to plant. Poor cilantro needs a container, because the boys decided we needed cucumbers. There was a lot of....... "care" given to the plants. I'm not sure of the survival rate. Nothing a little Miracle Grow can't fix, right?

The picture above makes me laugh because the parsley leaf fits perfectly over Reese's mouth!

It started raining...

And apparently, we are back to the fake smile for pictures, (sigh).

YEE HAW!!

There was a fundraiser at church for the Boy Scouts. It was a silent auction/spaghetti dinner with a hoedown theme. Super fun, super cute, and my kiddos were more than happy to dress up like cowboys.

On a side note, one of the things we purchased was a aquarium for a snake-oh no, no, no, silly friends-we will not be having one of those-however, a lizard was the thought at first-until I talked to a friend who had bought hermit crabs for her kids. I am liking that idea. We'll see.