New Year's Resolution

The past few months I've really been thinking about how I spend time as a mom. I had noticed that a bit part of the day was going to cleaning, cooking, laundry, etc.. I just love when my house is clean. It was almost becoming an obsession. I think out of all the things to be focused on, I picked a good one, but.... I couldn't be obsessed with cleaning and be the kind of mom I wanted to be. So one of my new years resolutions was to have a messier house :). To spend more time playing down on the floor with my children, doing field trips with them, and lots more cuddling. So far it is going well! I used to lay down with Jude for his nap to help him fall asleep and instead of enjoying the moment I was feeling anxious for him to fall asleep so I could get to the laundry, or whatever else needed to be done. Now I lay down with him and just enjoy the feeling of holding my son, and moments like those are what I imagine heaven must feel like. I am blessed with 3 beautiful children and so far the time is flying by so I better enjoy them while they're still little.

2/2011

February

This month was a good month! We had some snow, Paul actually did a really good job on Valentine's day, and Jude ate a whole salad by himself for the first time :). We also did swimming lessons this month for Jude and Violet.
Jude was pretty freaked out the first 2 lessons, and then he started to have fun. Violet is always into it. Paul even heard her teacher say to the other kids, "look at how good Violet is, be more like her". The last day of lessons was a "play day" and the pool had rafts out and had turned on the water umbrella and the slide. Only one other girl showed up in Jude's class so he was able to do a lot with his teacher. Violet went down the water slide all by herself, which is a big deal for her, she's pretty timid. Jude was excited to show me he could float in the deep water with a life jacket on.

Violet and daddy went to a Valentine's dance together. They had a lot of fun. This is the second year in a row they have gone. I think it will be a tradition from now on. You can tell from the
pictures she's way more interested in the crafts than the dancing.

We had our second snow storm of the winter. We LOVE snow, and wished we got more of it.

Cutest pictures of the month:

(I'm not sure if everyone knows this, but if you click on the pictures you can see a bigger version of them. I make them small so I'm not taking up a ton of space)

Still catching up...

January

Jude is now in primary. He made it in by about 8 hours :). He is doing well now. When I dropped him off he cried but I was told he was fine within 5 minutes. Violet is a CTR 4 girl. She is so good and loves going to primary. She loves to comfort Jude in sharing time if he ever gets a little upset. She also has memorized the first 3 articles of faith and we are working on the 4th.

We were so excited about the Duck's being in the national championship. We were pretty frustrated with the game (frickin slippery turf) and with the outcome. We were a little more sad than we thought we were gonna be when the game was over. We had to put a funny show to try to get ourselves out of the funk.

Catch up again

I hadn't realized how long it had been since I posted something. December was a good month. Both Paul and I were super busy with work and we love Christmastime. I love doing everything I can to add to the magic of Christmas for the kids. I love buying the presents, making the crafts, singing the songs, etc... I tried not to spoil the kids. They only got 2 presents each from Santa, some small presents in their stocking, and PJs on Christmas Eve from mommy and daddy. I was pretty proud of myself because it would be so easy to spoil them. They're such good kids and as a parent its so hard to resist buying them things you know they would love. But there's one quote from Dr. Phil I always remember from back in the day when we watched his show (I think we watched the first 3 to 4 seasons) and he would say "kids who have everything appreciate nothing." I grew up kind of poor. At the time we didn't realize how little we had but I now am glad to have grown up without very much. I don't want my kids to be spoiled and we did a pretty good job this year...... Although my dad spoiled Jude. Violet already has a Barbie power wheels jeep and he thought Jude ought to have his own power wheels so Christmas morning Jude got his very own power wheels 4 wheeler. He's a pro now.

Here's some December pictures:

SNOW DAY!

Christmas Tree Farm

Decorating the Tree

(yep, that's Jude with just a diaper and antler ears on)

Meeting Santa...

Preschool at our house...
(these pictures are adorable!)


And the Cone-bone
















Also we had Jude's 3rd birthday. Our camera was having issues, so a friend took some pictures for me and I still need to get them from her. He had a great time on his birthday. I was super tired out from Christmas stuff and I had worked a lot in December so I wasn't into having a big birthday party. We just had family over and it was nice and simple. Next year I'll throw him a big ol' bash.
I don't have too many pictures for January because of our camera issue. We'll see what I can find in the next couple of days and I'll be back to update that.