If you're a mother of young children...

...or a grandmother or a teacher of young children...please read this!  It is beautiful and encouraging!

Funny Kids

Alden and Eli had the funniest conversation with Jaron this morning and I had to record it. 

Eli: "Dad, you look like a giraffe."
Jaron: "Why, because I'm so tall?"
Alden: "No, because you have spots with white skin underneath!"

HAHAHA.

Outside

We're having wintery-springy weather here - the snow has FINALLY melted  but our highs are still only in the thirties (under ten degrees for all the Canadians out there).  But whatever, we've had snow since before Thanksgiving so we'll take it!

We ventured outside today to do a treasure hunt and a scavenger hunt. 

First I drew a basic map of the backyard and marked a big "x" on it where I had hidden a "treasure chest" with a few treats in it.

We got a lot more educationally out of this than I thought we would.  It was fun to relate the map to the real backyard and figure out directions a little bit.  It was a little too easy to find the treasure - next time I'll have to be a little more clever.

After that we did a quick scavenger hunt.  There's not a whole lot of interesting things outside right now - our list included both dead leaves and dead grass.  Alden's reading and spelling have really taken off lately so I tried to make everything on the list words he can read.

The whole time Gracen was doing this:

throwing cute little whiny toddler fits about wanting to swing. 

Hello trampoline and swingset!  Oh how we've missed you! 

Gracen kicked and screamed when we finally went inside, despite her freezing nose, cheeks and hands.  Wow, is that two Gracen fits in one post?  Such is life with Gracen right now!  I'm trying to start to wean her.  I know, who says that when their "baby" is almost 17 months old?!  Well, it's not going terribly well.  Neither of the boys got so attached to nursing as Gracen is - when I wanted to wean them, I just stopped, period.

P.S.  Jaron's test is FINALLY scheduled - for April 4th.  Please pray for him - this test is a biggie for us!

Caterpillars and Gracen the Singer

We saw these fun little caterpillars in Family Fun magazine while waiting in the doctor's office one day.  They're made of rice krispies treats and fruit roll-ups.  The boys had fun making them and sharing them with cousins.

I love that picture of the boys because it's their classic "say cheese" faces.  Haha, too cute.

And in case you're curious, this is what I look down and see all day long:

Gracen, who rips her ponytails and bows out as soon as they're in place, has perfected the "Mommmmeeeeeee" that lets me know she believes I'm responsible for all the injustices in her little world.  She is one busy kid. (The injury by her eye is from falling off a kitchen chair on Sunday.   Not only does she climb on them, she likes to also climb up the backs after she's on!)

During the sacrament at church on Sunday it just happened to be silent and Gracen started singing.  She sang a pretty good rendition of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."  I tried to "shush" her but she just kept singing, putting her chubby little finger up to my lips to "shush" me.  During Sunday School I got 3 comments about her singing.  I never realized she was being so loud!  How embarassing.

She can't really pronounce the words but she does a pretty good "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," "The ABC's," "Old McDonald" and "Row, Row, Row Your Boat." 

I'm sure having fun with my kids lately!

  We are STILL waiting for Jaron's permit to take his test.  Hopefully he'll be able to do that by the end of the month.  We can't wait to get it done so that we can move on to the next step in our school journey.  School for me is busy - it's a lot of time commitment and I'm struggling to find enough hours in the day!  But it is great to be learning so much again.  And that is life for us at the moment!

Mark Mabry's Reflections of Christ.

Today for family night we went to the Mark Mabry exhibit at our temple's visitor's center.  If you haven't seen Mark Mabry's pictoral account of the life of Christ, see it here.  It is AH-MAZING and so worth seeing.

Temples are important places in our religion where we go to make covenants with God.  If you want to know more about temples, go here or here.

Christ is a central part of our religion but you don't see crosses in our churches because we focus on His life and Resurrection.

Each of the exhibit's pictures were accompanied by a scripture that explained the picture.

I think this one was my favorite.  It is titled "Resurrection."

Our family nights are always accompanied by a treat.  Today's treat took us to a local "serve yourself" frozen yogurt shop.  It's perfect for little kids because you can take just a little bit and choose from a ton of different toppings which ones to put on. 

Families are forever people, and that is awesome!!

A Few of My Favorite Things

These are a few of my favorite things lately:

 Gracen exercising her adorable little mommying skills. (Please excuse the fact she looks like an unmade bed - we've all had high fevers/coughs/sore throats/runny noses for the last 5 days and very rough nights!)

 The boys and their daily train track build.  Jaron and I sat there after he built this track, adding up how much we've spent to accumulate them all.  I feel like we've been lucky to accumulate them cheaply but I was surprised at the total (mostly eaten up by Thomas trains for the past two Christmas').  However, worth EVERY penny.  These babies are pulled out every single day!

And last but not least, one of our favorite things is when cousins come over.  With all 6 of Jaron's siblings and their 4 spouses and all their offspring (9 kids - with Alden as the oldest), it often gets a little crazy around here.  But there is definitely always laughs.

On this day, Katelyn was mimicking the kung-fu she'd learned from Kung Fu Panda.  It took only seconds for the rest of the kids to catch on.  My favorite was watching Gracen try to be a part of it all.  Good laughs!



Shoshone Falls

A few weeks ago I saw on my friend Marie's blog that she and her family had gone to a pretty neat place called Shoshone falls.  When I looked it up and realized how close it was to us, I couldn't believe I'd never been there before! 

After I talked to Jaron about it, we decided to take an impromptu family day trip to visit the falls and some friends who live close by.

 It may not look like it from these pictures, but the falls are 212 feet high, higher than Niagra falls!

The canyon dug out by the Snake River is absolutely beautiful. 

 Here is a picture of my family at the falls.  And isn't it wonderful how stellarly excited Jaron is to be there?  Yes, please zoom in on the photo if you need to. :-D

 Whenever I'm around something this awesome in nature, I'm always reminded of the power and majesty of God and how lucky we are that He has made such amazing stuff for us to enjoy.

 Despite the cold (49 degrees, YEAH RIGHT weatherman!), we walked along the trails for an hour and a half.  It seemed like water was seeping out everywhere from the canyon walls, forming tiny little "baby" waterfalls that the kids loved.

 Warning - the next few paragraphs will give you a glimpse at the random firing of my mind.

The water coming from seemingly everywhere got me thinking about how much water really is everywhere in our lives.  Our bodies are around 70% water.  We drink it, cook with it, clean with it, manufacture with it, swim in it, play in it, and travel across it.  A whole lot of our everyday lives really does depend on us having water everywhere.

Which got me thinking about the Living Water that Christ spoke of to the woman at the well.  John tells us the story about Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well:

"Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:

But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." (John 4:13-14).

Thinking about the "everywhereness" of water, I was struck with new meaning of the Living Water that Christ spoke of - it hit me that we really do need it to be "everywhere" in order for us to function happily.

I usually record stuff like that in my journal but since it went along with the falls and the pictures, I decided to record it here instead.

 The kids' favorite part was definitely not the falls, it was the water they got to play in everywhere else.  They loved throwing sticks into one side of these pipes and running back to see them come out the other side.  This is a picture of them racing to the falls to "throw their sticks in."  Have I mentioned I have three of the best kids ever?!

Our great friends the Terry's live nearby and they accomodated us for a short notice dinner.  It was so great to catch up with them - it'd been way too long.  The ride home was a little rough with late night crying spells and side-of-the-road potty breaks but we made it home in good time.

Note to self: Road trips make the best memories.