Success, we all need to feel this

We woke up to a beautiful blanket of snow. It was about 4 inches. I guess spring is like that. And what ever lens or filter we decide to look through will determine if we enjoy the snow that fell when flowers are expected or miss out in the enjoyment.

I got very home makey today. I ground some whole wheat & made some "memory" pancakes. I call them memory because that was the kind of pancakes I had growing up as a little girl. My Mom & Dad would grind our wheat & make home made pancakes (along with bead, rolls, pizza dough etc). My Dad would also make home made syrup. (I did not go that far this morning to make home made syrup). It was a hit, Derek & Hannah loved it. We had these same home made pancakes at Eric & Kelly's house & I really wanted to try them at my house and hopefully bring the tradition back to me & into my family.

Next I tried making home made ice cream for Derek and his friend Sam. They loved it. So I got adventurous & tried to make it healthy, I added spinach. The boys did NOT like it. No big surprise there. . . Although, Hannah did. Yeah for Hannah.

We had a great dinner also thanks to my brother Eric's wife Kelly sharing a great recipe with me. When we visited I noticed how appreciative he was of her. That is such an important virtue. We all need to hear & feel appreciated. I sure do appreciate how much my kids show & tell me of their appreciation/gratitude of me.

Happy Easter!

We had a great Easter. The kids and I went to church this morning. It was a great Easter service. I am Derek's primary teacher (have been for a couple months, used to be the 7 year old teacher) and we had a great lesson on Jesus's miracles. We focused on the miracle of the loaves feeded the 5000 plus multitude. It is great for us now to know that Jesus can make up for the all that we can't do that we wish and try to do but can't. To know that Jesus can make up for what we can't possibly do but feel expected to by ourselves or others that put unnecessary and unfair expectations on us it is a great comfort in a world that seriously lacks in the comfort area.

We had a great day of walking Koda, and having a great feast, I made the strawberry pie that we had at Kelly and Eric's, it turned out quite wonderful, thanks to Kelly again for the great recipe. The kids were so kind and told me how much they loved it. Thank you kids for your appreciation and your genuine love for what I do for you, it makes is that much more meaningful for me when I do things for you.

The kids and I are watching the Easter gift I got them in Iowa, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1". We of course had our traditional popcorn. It's getting late, I hope it's almost done, I'm getting tired. Koda is at our feet chewing/eating a bone, Derek is cuddled up beside her. I love when we are together. Good night, and happy Easter.

Spring Break

Ok, I put these pictures in backwards, so the story of this spring break adventure will start at the end and end at the beginning. . . Please go to the bottom of this blog to start reading for it to make sense.

We were on our way out the door to the huge international airport of Souix City. The airport was only about 20 minutes away, very nice. I was so glad that we were blessed to be able stay to be there for some of the time when my parents were there. They arrived very late Wednesday night and we were able to stay until Saturday and have time all together to visit. My schedule is extremely flexible and of course with my flight benefits we can pretty much come and go as we please.

Derek, Brandt and Eli. Derek became such good friends and so close with all the boys and Finley. I hope to be able to visit again in a couple of months. The flights were wide open from Souix City, about 20 seats open and about for the Minneapolis flight. We had about 2 hours to spend together in the Minneapolis airport before our flight home. We looked at tourist shops that had the baseball team, Twins, and the football team, Vikings. Mostly we looked at them because I am a twin and because my ancestors are Vikings. It was fun to just be together and have a nice sit down lunch together. We ate ate TGI Friday's and Derek was able to watch baseball.

Grandma had a great idea to help Eric out with their house. Unfortunately the soil was up against the house where the wood was and was rotting the wood. She had us all (her included) dig a trench around the part of the house that had the problem. It was great to see all the kids very eagerly help out. My Mom has always been great at helping others out, she is a great example.

More at the Floyd Boat Museum

This is at the Floyd Boat Museum

Another "place" photo. This is the Missouri River.

We found a Souix City Iowa sign. This was to go to a boat museum of a man that was with the Lewis and Clark expedition but died. They made a museum in his honour.

Here is a Welcome to South Dakota sign and Eli and Brandt are with us.

I have wanted to take the kids on as many adventures as I can and to as many States as possible. Kelly told us that they live very close to Nebraska, and South Dakota. She was very kind and helped me with my wish to take my kids to as many states as I can. Here is Nebraska

More of the creation unfolding. . .

Aunt Kelly is EXTREMELY talented. She taught Hannah to paint. Hannah is quite a talented artist already and loves to be creative. She has not painted yet. Kelly had Hannah find a picture of scenery on the computer that she liked, then had her draw it on a canvas that she generously gave to Hannah. Kelly was so patient and excited to teach Hannah. It was wonderful to watch their excitement. I got Hannah's creation on video and photos and the progress unfolded.

Derek and his little buddy playing "old school video games". He was playing Ms. Pacman.

Derek and Asher. He is quite the cuddler. He loved to be with everyone and do everything. We loved to have him around.

This a typical mood of Finley. She is quite a happy little girl. She is very lucky, she has a happy house to grow up in. There was such a nice sweet spirit in Uncle Eric's home. We all loved being there and loved the spirit we felt in their home.

Hannah loves little children. She wanted to help with Finley as much as possible. This is quite a cute photo. We captured little Finley as she was sneezing.

Derek and Brandt getting their Easter eggs done.

We all dyed Easter eggs together. This was so much fun. I am glad that Aunt Kelly helped us to carry on the tradition of Easter eggs even far from home and even if it is a different way of doing it. It is great to have some sort of "sameness" in traditions. It gives a sense of comfort and belonging, a sameness in a world that is ever changing.

Here is the finished product. Eli and Hannah (along with everyone else) loved it.

Hannah and Aunt Kelly made a strawberry pie that we ABSOLUTELY LOVED! We now have the recipe and have vowed to only make once a month. As we would both eat an entire pie if we could. Hannah loved to cook with Aunt Kelly. We got quite a few more tastey recipes from her. This is another tradition that we get from our travels to our family members. Yet another tradition to love. We can't wait to try our new recipes at home. We also got the recipe from Aunt Kelly that is a sweet childhood memory for me. We had homemade pancakes. The wheat was even homemade, ground at home. I made a batch that I didn't just double, I made it 5 times bigger than what it called for! They freeze great and the kids love them. I am so excited to try them out at home to bring more great memories at home from my home as a child. I think it is so important to build and focus on great memories.
There sure is something magical about candy!
Aunt Kelly took us to a very old candy store/factory. It was another place of wonderfulness for kids. I love places and ideas that are wonderful to kids. Their appreciation and excitement are a treasure I value very highly. It is an experience I truly love to be a part of.

At Uncle Eric and Aunt Kelly's house in Sioux City.
Hannah and I with Dora the Explorer and Diego
Right outside of wonderfulness, the "Lego Store". We went to an Easter movie here at the mall called, "Hop". I really enjoyed it, I think even more than the kids. . . We also were able to find a Minneapolis snow globe and some Christmas tree decorations to keep up with our tradition of getting memories from each state we visit. I sure do love this tradition. I love happy memories and I love to help keep happy memories alive.
Derek at the Lego store in front of the Lego "Death Star"

This is a Nickeloden (sp?) theme park of rides, in the mall!



More huge Lego wonderfulness
Derek arm wrestled the store clerk who said that he could have his Legos for free if he beat him in arm wrestling. The clerk was about 6 feet 7 inches, need I say more.
Derek and Woody from Toy story, a favorite movie of ours and we LOVE Disney.
Here are some of the Lego creatures
This was Derek's expression the whole time he was in the store, mixed with a whole lot of smiles. It was wonderful to see. I love seeing kids so happy and amazed. It is infectious.
Next we went to the Lego store. It was 4 stories tall! Derek was in heaven. There were creatures made out of legos all over and very big.



We went to the Mall of Americal the next morning, at the moment of this trip, it is the biggest mall in America. We were hungry and decided to have brunch at the Rainforest Cafe, a restraunt that we have been to in Washington, California, Florida and now Minnisota. In the restraunt they had rainbows, stars, shooting stars, all sorts of wild animals, vines, a tropical storm with lightning and thunder. We had mud pie for desert with gummy worms. YUM.

We have been on a new adventure this week. The kids & I have come to visit my brother & his family in Sioux City Iowa. Th trip started out setting a record I do NOT want to break or come close to ever again. We were going to try for a 5:00 pm flight. It looked good just a couple of hours prior to the flight. I looked again when we were going to leave and for some reason the number of seats available went WAY down. The kids hate waiting around the airport when we could be home so I told the kids not to worry about leaving right then because the seat availability went way down and that we would catch the 8:00 pm flight. Just on a whim (more like the Spirit prompted me) I looked at the seat availability on line at 4:00. (Remember, the flight was to take off at 5:00 pm) The seat availability was way up again, plenty of seats! I told the kids, so we raced and got the car packed and I changed back into my Flight Attendant uniform and we left the house at 4:10. Derek and I dropped Hannah off at the airport to get us checked in. If we didn't we wouldn't have made it. She had to get us checked in (passengers have to be checked in 30 minutes prior to the departure time) while we went to park the car at the employee parking lot. Derek and I RACED to drop the car off and get our luggage and on to the employee van that was right there. Hannah called me when she was getting us checked in at the ticket kiosk in the terminal. There were only 3 minutes to spare before the 30 minute window would be expired and we would not be able to check in for the flight, There wasw something wrong with the info and she needed more info, the flight number, which she did not have. While Derek and I were racing, hands full. I felt like we were defusing a bomb and had only 3 minutes to save the world. And. . . we did it. Hope to never have to do it again!

We decided to stop over in Minneapolis & spent the night. The next day we went to the Mall of America. The kids have never been to Minnesota or Iowa so this has been even more fun for them. It was perfect, the hotel was only about 5 minutes away from the airport. We got in and settled in. We decided to have a movie pizza party. We ordered in and got 2 big pizzas, soda, a complimentary cheese cake and cuddled all together on one full size pull out bed and watched a very snowy "National Treasure II". (The T.V. had pretty terrible reception) We thourougly enjoyed our cuddle and pizza and time together.

Koda takes the K.O. . . and Derek's tooth

This morning we are lucky not to have had a "Christmas Story" episode of "you'll shoot your eye out" with Derek and Koda. Daddy was getting Koda to "attack" Derek. We learned not to do this again as Koda took Derek's tooth out with one "punch", K.O. Koda. She knocked Derek's tooth out that was just barely loose. Fortunately all is well and Derek has a great story for school and hopefully a bit wiser on not having the dog do that again.

A great Sunday

It was a good day today. No snow, we have been having snow quite a bit. It sure is beautiful though. I heard a great quote about snow from one of my favorite book serieries (Mitford series by Jan Karon). "Snow makes everything innocent again, a winter's Eden". I love people that can and like to find silver linings in life. I feel a great need for that and place great value in this characteristic and am very grateful to find people with this attribute. I have been listening to the Jan Karon books on my Ipod and now am taking a small break and listening to "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe". I love innocence and the magic and hope that always goes with innocence. I love C.S. Lewis. I love so much about him. I love that he loves words, he and another of my favorite authors, Jan Karon, loves words and you can tell. They love to talk about possibilities and people, and the help they can give them and see the best in them. Much like a character from the Harry Potter books, Albus Dumbledor, if they have a strenghth that could be also be a weakness would be looking for the best in others, giving others second chances. I had the kids write a letter to their cousin, Elder Christopher Badger today. I have been writing him for a while now but I have been trying to be better about having them be more directly involved with the writing process by having them write their own letters to him rather than just sign the letters that I have been writing. I had the kids take notes during the Conference sessions last weekend for a couple of reasons. Some obvious ones, but also so that they could remember some key things that meant a lot to them to share with their cousin on his mission. I also had them write a letter/card to their Grandpa Ely for his upcoming birthday. This has been something that I have tried to incorporate into my life over the last couple of years. I observed a woman on one of my flights that was in first class. She was writing thank you cards during flight with post cards she had bought in Salt Lake. She was kind enough to write one to me as her flight attendant. This touched me quite a bit. I had already been loving giving cards on a regular basis to my kids and my parents. I also love saving/collecting appropriate jokes and quotes to put on my cards to my kids and my parents. (They LOVE this and it makes it easy and quite rewarding to give them to my kids as they let me know how much they love them). I got to thinking that I should get small blank cards and put them in my purse also to be able to send cards or give them as the spirit promps as this woman on the plane was a very good example to me. I have enjoyed doing this for people in the ward and some passengers on my flights. Some of the times I have gotten cards back expressing that they have really needed the words that I sent to them and sometimes a wonderful smile and "thank you" and some I will never hear from because of circumstance as them being a stranger on a plane. But, I know how much a kind word means to me and how much I value words and compassion, kindness, motivating words etc. I am watching Derek play baseball on the Wii right now. We sure do enjoy spending time together. I sure am glad that I do not have any hobbies/interests that take me away from my kids and that in fact my hobbies and interests bring me closer to and allow me to spend more time with my family. Ok, I have to brag, I, the "old lady" just beat my young and vibrant son at Wii bowling. Although, I have to keep my strength cause I am going to go on a walk with Hannah and our dog Koda. She will get a good walk in today, Derek and his friend Sam took her 3 times this afternoon and David took her 2 times and Hannah and I will hopefully take her another 2 times. We have read that Labs NEED lots of exercise.

Getting things done

Well, I just finished getting 4 meals ready for this next week. I made lasagna, heavenly hamburger (a great recipe from Delilah), hay stacks (another great recipe, this one from Debbie), and shredded turkey sandwiches. Tonight we will have left overs of Mexicali Casserole. I got this recipe from Rita. Thanks so much to all for the recipes. They have really been enjoyed! I like to get meals ready in advance when I can because some nights I don't get home til late and then David and or Hannah can just put the main dish in the oven and have it ready to go. As much as I love doing this though and the satisfaction that it gives to have gotten ready for the next week, I sometimes would like a break and just make dinner that night when I get home or have a House Elf to help me out. With all the time I spend in the kitchen, I hope when we remodel the kitchen soon that I can talk David into the need of having it done right, with pull out drawers and organizers built into the drawers and pantry. This would REALLY make my life easier (at least in the kitchen). Today has been busy, I have also swept up about 10 pounds of dog hair and I'm sure that Derek has vacuumed up equal amounts. I have done about 6 loads of laundry and gone grocery shopping and taken Hannah to dance class, and uh oh, I just noticed the time, we need to get to the library before it closes at 6:00 because I have some much coveted books from some very respected financial advisers, Suze Ormon, and Dave Ramsey that I need to take back. I have really got a lot of good information and education from them. I'll have to put them on hold again. I've been trying to take notes as I go, but I haven't had time to quite finish them as I have gotten other financial and communication books as well.

Favorite things

One of my favorites things to hear is my kids singing. Derek is doing his chores right now and I hear him happily singing. I can hear him especially well when he is vacuuming because his singing gets louder. These simple things are so close to my heart and are so valuable to me. He sure is a ray of sunshine today as it snows outside.

My kids

Tonight Hannah and Derek are babysitting together at our Dentist's house. I love that they want to be together. I have to admit that I sure do miss them though but I sure do get a kick out of thinking how much fun they are having together. Before they left Derek was talking about how his favorite thing to do with them was to play hide and seek. I love how he still wants to play "little kid games" with young kids. I am watching one of Derek's favorite shows (America's Funniest Home Videos) while I update our family blog/journal (I still want to call it a "journal"). He sure does place a high value on laughing and humour, that is one my many many many favorite things about him. I will be forever grateful to him for it and what it adds to my life. Hannah has been checking in on me every couple of minutes to make sure I'm ok. I love that about her. She is letting me know what they are doing so that I feel included with them. She is so generous that way. That is one of the many ways she makes it so wonderful to love her. When they got to the house they played a pretend game. Chandler (one of the boys they took care of) was a many headed dragon, Derek and Brookes were knights, Hannah and London (their little sisiter were captured princesses. Then the dragon (Chandler) turned into a monkey and saved the Princesses. Then the tired warriors settled down to snuggle and watch a movie.

Fun pics with Koda

Some great shots of our newest family member, Koda. Hannah took this picture of Koda's paw and her hand. How sweet.

This is becoming Koda's chair. She loves to look out the window, she is incredibly social.

Derek and Daddy on "poop patrol"

Daddy picking up Koda

Here is another shot of her in her favorite chair

Derek, Daddy and Koda