Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away

My new vinyl arrived that I put downstairs. It got me to thinking about what moments in my life have taken my breath away. I guess I thought I would share my top 5 so it can go in my blog book just for fun.

1. The greatest decision I ever made was to marry my best friend! This month is our 18^th anniversary and I am more and more in love with him every day.

2. My very 1^st baby! Marisa’s arrival was an amazing and beautiful experience. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

3. Although it took 53 brutal hours, I was so happy to have Kayla join our family. Such a beautiful, sweet, and tiny baby.

4. The arrival of my only son. This time the epidural actually worked and I was able to assist in the delivery. An amazing and memorable experience.

5. The arrival of our last baby. Although she was a very sick baby, we were so thrilled to add her to our growing, eternal family.

This is only 5. I feel blessed to have had so many experiences in my 40 years that have truly taken my breath away!

Kidnapping and Happy Birthday Kayla!!

Happy 15^th Birthday to Kayla!!!

Kayla turned 15 yesterday! I am always reminded of the 53 hours it took to bring her sweet spirit into the world. She had kind of a tough week and was even home sick one day. But I think yesterday, the actual birthday, was a success! She requested Pizza Ranch for lunch which was fun to go to as a family.

Then, her friends planned this HUGE surprise party! They came over in masks, stormed our house, and kidnapped Kayla. She let out this blood curdling scream and they attacked her with cans of silly string, put a hood over her head, handcuffed her hands, and literally carried her off to their car. They took her to laser tag, played games, and even made her a cake! Im so thrilled she has great friends here. The only bad thing is that we forgot to tell poor Alayna that they would be coming to kidnap Kayla. After the kidnapped Kayla, I looked back and saw poor Alayna who looked like she just had a heart attack! She literally thought we were being attacked! Note to self: Next time give Alayna a heads up!

White chocolate raspberry cinnamon rolls

The raspberry rolls were a huge success!! They are so yummy! However, I am reminded why I don’t normally make things from scratch. Its way too much work and it makes such a mess. But so yummy!

Misc Stuff

~Marisa received her personal progress award today!

~Bob finally went to the doctor and we found out he has walking pneumonia!

~Tyler received an “Outstanding Soloist” award at the Coe College Jazz Summit!

~ Tyler had a HUGE show choir week! On Wednesday I was the show choir mom for their performance at Excelsior. Brought back so many memories of the dance studio: missing costumes and shoes, hair issues, late kids, etc. On Thursday I helped chaperone their elementary tours. Then yesterday, they performed at 2 different shows for the show choir show case. He did such an awesome job!!!

(Tyler is on far right doing solo)

~We got chalked and they put BBQ sauce on Marisa’s car.

~Girls started tennis team this week. It was way too cold to be playing outside but they did anyway.

7 Wonders of the World according to Tyler

1. League of Legends

2. Sitting

3. Spicy Doritos

4. Making noodles and eggs

5. Eating

6. Riding his bike

7. Show choir

7 Wonders of the World according to Alayna

1. Playing Webkinz

2. Food

3. Exercising

4. Watching TV

5. Wii

6. Riding her bike

7. Bowling

Dancing in the Rain and Bowling like Superman

Dancing in the Rain and Bowling like Superman

March 20, 2011

It is amazing how much crap junk one home can accumulate in one year!

Before I worked, I always spent spring break cleaning and organizing the whole house. The past couple of year that I have worked, I have saved the spring cleaning for summer and actually relaxed over my spring break (usually doing a puzzle). Not sure what happened to me this year. Somehow my brain and OCD kicked in to hyper drive and there was no turning back.

I went through almost every inch of this home and cleaned and scrubbed and organized. I also threw out quite a bit of stuff and we cleared the whole right side of the shed for garage sale items (which is growing by leaps and bounds). Again, the idea is to simplify.

Every room is done except the storage room (which I was bummed about not being able to finish). But everything else looks really nice. Now I need to find a good way to enforce it to stay this way! The kids helped quite a bit. I think they liked having some input on where things go and how we would fix things up. They actually got pretty excited about it.

I don’t have a “decorator’s” bone in my whole body.

Anyone who knows me knows I can organize like nobody’s business. However, interior decorating is, um…a huge weakness of mine. This year I decided I would try anyway. I’m always up for a challenge right? I figure with my brain and Kayla’s amazing gift with decorating, we might just be able to do it.

(New decorative floral silk pillows)

So, my brain (which never seems to sleep) went to work on tons of ideas to redecorate and update our home. Kayla and I had so much fun doing this together and I couldn’t be more pleased with the results. I will show some pics.

(New kitchen table decor)

(New flat screen monitor to replace huge old monitor)

I love vinyl lettering!!! This (and candles) have become my new love. We arranged this (see pic) and put up the lettering yesterday. Our other lettering should be here Monday. It says, “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass…it’s a about learning to dance in the rain”. I love that and it seems so fitting with our family and the current thunderstorm outside.

I also put up a new inspirational poster in the exercise room that says “Persistence: Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful."- Mark Twain

Tyler can bowl like Superman

Every Spring Break we try to do something fun as a family. This year we chose bowling. We had so much fun! Our 2^nd game, we did a crazy game where we did all sorts of things like : bowled left-handed, granny style, backwards granny, zigzag off the bumpers, using the smallest ball we could find, using the heaviest, etc. One time, when we were doing the smallest ball, Tyler took his steps, made a huge swing backwards, and literally went flying down the lane with his one arm forward and still attached to the ball. He looked like Superman and he was completely face down by the time he finished. We couldn’t stop laughing. THAT’S when I should have taken the picture, right??

(Bob Bowling)

(Tyler Bowling)

(Alayna Bowling)

(He actually asked me if he had “bling” and a “grill” if he would look cool)

We also went to Pancheros- one of our favorite places to eat.

(With burritos as big as your face)

(Chips and Salsa Girl!)

Raspberry white chocolate cinnamon rolls sound like a bite of heaven

Every once in a while, I feel domestic. It doesn’t happen often, so when I get that urge I have to jump on it. I have been gearing myself up for trying to make homemade raspberry white chocolate cinnamon rolls. I was 1^st introduced to these when some sweet ladies brought them to my brothers as a taste test to sell at the new movie theater/café. Man was I glad I was there to help “test” them out. I will let you know how mine turnout- wish me luck!

I’m getting old…

I used to be able to run like the energizer bunny with no problems at all. This week, I strained a muscle in my shoulder, yanked a tendon in my arm, and pulled a muscle in my back (all while trying to move heavy stuff). For a few days, I looked like a hunched over, one-armed lady with a crazed look in her eyes.

Hey- where did everything go?

We realized today that Spring Break is over! Where did it go?? I also completely missed St. Patrick’s’ Day- where did that go? We are heading into another busy month. The girls start HS tennis tomorrow (if the rain lets up) and Marisa starts in the pit orchestra for the musical “Oklahoma” this year. Tyler has several show choir performances as well as the elementary tour this week. I am COUNTING DOWN the days until summer and praying I will get a new job for next year. Only time I will tell. Until then, I just plan to dance in the rain….

(It was FINALLY warm enough to go outside!)

(Tyler and Alayna made for me)

Storm Trooper Blooper

Excelsior 7th Grade Choir 2011

Excelsior 7th Grade Jazz Band 2011

Cathartic Cleaning in a Galaxy Far, Far Away

May the force be with you!

Our Star Wars Marathon Madness was a giant success! I think we had over 16 teenagers throughout the day. We started off the day at 7:30 AM with a big pancake breakfast. There was much debate as to which movie should be watched 1^st, and the order that won was 4,5,6,1,2,3. I took a picture at the beginning of each movie to document the day. We also played the Imperial March when people arrived and Tyler greeted them in costume at the door.

(Star wars/Easter)

(pancake breakfast)

(Alyssa, the winner of the costume prize)

It was amazing how many memories those movies brought back. I remember the shock of learning Darth Vader was Luke’s father! I remember my brother Jonathan trying to be Bobofet. I remember the star wars figurines my brothers had. It was fun watching with the younger generation and chuckling at their responses. There were some pretty funny youth in our group who made comments through the whole thing. One even showed us a place where a storm trooper hit his head on a doorway and we all died laughing. We (ty, Alayna and I) also attacked everyone with silly string during the 3^rd one. We had to keep everyone awake right?

(1st movie –episode 4)

(2nd movie- episode 5)

(3rd movie-episode 6- notice Austin with the cookie princess leia ears)

(4th movie- episode 1)

(5th movie- episode 2)

(6th movie- episode 3)

Have you ever seen those traveling ants or beetles that consume everything in their path within seconds? Well, I witnessed the human version of that yesterday. We served sandwiches for lunch, pizza for dinner, and cupcakes and ice cream for dessert. Each time a movie ended the herd of “human beetles” came up, ransacked the food, and disappeared. 6 pizzas gone in the blink of an eye. It was hilarious! They also brought more junk food than I have ever seen I my life and it was all gone! They are now debating what the next marathon should be. But I think we need a place with more room. They were packed like sardines.

(I put a sign on the door in the morning. I wrote it in blue.  At night when I took it down, i found that one of the kids added the last part)

(The entrance to our “movie theater”)

(Taking a jog around the block to get the blood flowing)

Here is an awesome youtube video we found. Warning: It is hilarious but will get stuck in your head for days to come.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk5_OSsawz4

Cathartic cleaning

My friend worded it beautifully this week when she said that there is “healing power that comes from going through all the rooms and decluttering.” It really makes me feel good even though by the end of each day I am so sore I can barely move. My goal/theme this year is “Simplify, Simplify, Simplify!” I feel like we need to do that to our home and family life. Life gets so busy and we tend to let it overtake our lives.

Anyway, this week we got a ton done. I even attempted some interior decorating and thanks to Kayla’s gifted aesthetic eye, I am pleased with the things we came up with. I still don’t love the exercise room, but as Bob pointed out, it is functional. How do you make an exercise room “aesthetically pleasing?”

(Wall next to bookshelf downstairs)

(took 2 hours to organize all the jewelry in the house- not easy when you have 4 girls)

(The shoe nightmare- Marisa is no longer allowed to buy any shoes.  Most were hers)

We have the big 6 still left to do this week: shed, storage room, kitchen, garage, laundry room, and the bathrooms. AND we will attempt our first garage sale ever this summer.

More stuff

*Tyler had a choir concert on Monday and he even had a solo! He did such a beautiful job!

*Kayla gave a beautiful talk today in church about the importance of education. She did a wonderful job. It was surprising that we were all up and on time considering the girls and I went to bed at 2 AND we had stupid daylight savings. The things we will do to support our children, right?

* SPRING BREAK!!! HALLELUJAH!!!

*Alayna won some “gold medals” at the winter Olympics night this week for activity days.

* SPRING BREAK!!! HALLELUJAH!!!