Ali's school talent show

Ali's talent show was today. I was so nervous. Notice the word "I" and not "Ali". All morning I was nervous as I got everyone ready. Then sitting there waiting for her to perform, I thought I might throw up. I was so worried she would forget the words. Or something worse. But she did great! I took Shadrach and Liam with me. I left Enoch at Terri's house. I just knew that Enoch wouldn't be able to sit that long. shad was wonderful and so was Enoch. The whole talent show made me love her little school and this crazy little town. Her teachers are so supportive. I loved walking to her school to see her perform. i smiled the whole way.

Enoch/me and me/Heavenly Father

If you don't know Enoch and I are going through a trial right now. He wants to be in charge and so do I. It has been going on for almost a year and a half. At first I just thought it was the terrible two's but now I am starting to fear it has lasted too long for the terrible twos. Every day I ask myself why he does what he does? Why does he refuse to eat at meal time and screams for treats all day? Why won't he go to the bathroom instead of just standing there and scream? Why does he hit people? Why does he demand? Why does he yell? Why does he take his shoes off and throw them and refuse to walk?





Doesn't he know he would be happier if he would just listen to me? Doesn't he know he would be happier if he just obeyed the rules? Why can't he trust me that I know what is best? And then.. i think of Heavenly Father.





How often does Heavenly Father say these very same things about me? How frustrating for Heavenly Father.





Enoch is so stubburn and so full of pride..... and so am I. If I just humbled myself and trust Heavenly Father like I want Enoch to trust me, I would be so much happier. My joy would be that much more.





I am pretty sure this is why Heavenly Father decided to have families and parents. Being a parent teaches you eternal truths that I don't think you could understand without being a parent.





It is hard to trust and believe in something that you don't quite understand. It is hard to have faith and believe. Why do we have to go to church when our kids just jump on us through out the whole thing? Why do bad things happen to people who are already sad? Sometimes you don't understand everything, but you need to believe anyway. You don't need to understand ever single thing. Just believe. Because Heavenly Father knows the BIG picture. Just like I do with Enoch. I know that Enoch needs to eat Healthy food or else his body will suffer. Enoch doesn't understand that, but I do. Heavenly Father understands my life and my struggles. I just need to believe He does.

Life with Number 4

Sleeping... Liam loves to sleep. Which is nice because i am able to get some stuff done. With some of my other kids, they would only take 10 min. little naps and I could never get caught up. He still is only sleeping 3 to 4 hours at night. But that is ok. He is only a month old.

So he can roll over on his side! I can't believe it. He was even doing it when we were in the hospital, and he slept in that little clear plastic thing.


Surprisingly Shadrach is the most caring, loving child towards Liam. Shadrach is a caring, loving boy so that isn't surprising; i just thought Ali would be more involved. All the children love playing with him, but Ali and Enoch talk and play with him whenever they aren't "busy". Every time I put Liam down, Shadrach is right there play with him, talking to him, and even singing to him. It is the sweetest thing to see. Liam loves it too. He will stop crying when Shadrach is there. I wonder if these two boys will be more a like than Shadrach and Enoch. Only time will tell.


Liam just being a cutie pie.

Family Home Evening 5/23/11

Greg taught the lesson on the Atonement. ( yeah I know, the atonement! We dive right in to the big lessons too sometimes.) The kids really seemed to get the subject. I asked Ali what was the worst thing that any one could ever do. She said bite some one. :) It made me smile. She is still a little girl. I then told her she could be forgiven of that because Christ suffered for all of our sins and mistakes. Greg gave the analogy of having a clean house and the kids walking through it covered in mud. And what you would do to clean off the mud before you could go into the house.

We had white cake with white icing for dessert. I don't really like cake all that much, so I don't make it, but it had been awhile since I had any and it was a fun change for dessert. Note the plate of dinner in the center of the table. That is Enoch's. He again refused just to take one bit, so no dessert. Stubborn.




We played Simon Says for the game. Shad was Simon during this picture. I think I look awful. My body is some kind of weird, floppy, extra skin, extra fat kind of thing right now. I started going to the Y every day, and i am on a really healthy diet. I REALLY want my body back, so I am going to try to be super motivated. I want 10 more pounds gone before my six week dr. appointment. Then if I just lose a pound or 2 a week I will be satisfied.

Greg was holding Liam during the lesson, so Enoch got a baby doll and is kissing it. It was so sweet.

Song: Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam

Lesson: Atonement

Activity: Simon Says

Dessert: cake!

Family Home Evening 5/9/11

Greg taught the lesson on The Law of the Harvest. Always a good lesson. i was surprised how well the children understood the concept. So for the activity we weeded the strawberry patch.

And we had watermelon for dessert. Everyone loved it.

It was a beatiful day FINALLY. We spent the whole afternoon outside. It was also my first day being on my own because Greg went back to work. It was a good day. Liam was wonderful. Enoch had a bad day ( but that is typical) and everyone else was happy too.

Lesson: Law of the Harvest

Song: Child's Prayer

Prayer: Ali

Dessert: WATERMELLON

FHE May 2 2011 Puzzles

So I failed my Goal of having Family Home Evening for over a month I think. :( I really felt very sick the last few weeks of my pregnancy. I just couldn't get myself to pull a FHE together. BUT here is to getting back on track! We had a puzzle party. We had several puzzles that were missing pieces, but I knew some of the pieces were just hiding in other puzzles. So we put together all of our puzzles to find all of the pieces. It was great fun. Everyone liked it. It was Greg's idea. We threw away around 6 puzzles with missing pieces.


Ali is conducting the music. We sang " When we're happy, We're helping". Which is fun because that is the name of my blog:)

Ali enjoying our dessert. Ice cream sandwich cookies.

Shadrach unwrapping his ice cream sandwich cookie. I can always tell how well I feel/ how well I am doing by how often I make homemade cookies. I have made then twice this last week-- which is awesome considering I just had a baby. I only like to make cookies if the house is clean and all my work is done for the day. When I was little I used to always help my mom make chocolate chip cookies. We would make them for my brothers and sister while they were at school. Then they would come home to fresh baked cookies. I was the official test tester. I had the recipe memorized at 4 years old because we made them so much. :) It is a very happy memory I have of my childhood with my mom.

Enoch is crying because he didn't get an ice cream sandwich. He didn't eat one bit of dinner. We told him if he just tried one bit he could have an ice cream cookie sandwich. He refused. Strong willed child.
By the way - our lesson was on Charity. Greg taught it. Shad and Enoch said they would be charitable by sharing their supper hero toys and Ali would show charity by giving me a hug. :)

EASTER 2011

Shad dressed up in his Easter Outfit showing off his lego star wars thing he got in his Easter Basket. ( you are right... Greg bought all of this Easter things this year...)

Greg and Liam. I thought Greg looked Super Handsome. The picture doesn't do him justice. Liam and I stayed home from church. :( He was only 6 days old and it was only 6 days after surgery for me.

Ali and EE. Ali is upset because I sort of yelled at her. :( Sometimes moms aren't perfect. I let her wear some of my perfume-- two squirts. Then when I was doing something else she went and gave herself 2 more squirts. Normally I wouldn't care but I am going to blame hormones. I gave her some kind of speech about how when ever I let her do something fun or extra nice she always want more than what is given.


Enoch exploring his Easter Basket.




It was a good/different Easter. Greg's parents came over to help out at church and then for Easter lunch. It was nice. Weird because I didn't go to church. I was feeding Liam at 7:00 in the morning and we live close enough downtown to enough churches that I could hear bells ringing loudly. It almost made me want to cry. It seemed so joyous. Bells rang through out the morning. I assume when other church services started. I tried to watch BYU TV but of coarse it wasn't on anything Eastery. I think my favorite part of my day was Shadrach coming home and telling me the Easter story. That guy has some kind of awesome memory. I love how he remembers all the details but with a four year old twist. "Jesus' best friend Mary looked for him at his tomb. But the big rock- the boulder- had already been moved out of the way. ......... Then he went to his other best friends- The disciples. ( his recount of the story is about 10 min. long so I will spare you it all.)

Great

This week and a half has been wonderful. It has been great having Greg home. He decided to take 2 weeks off of work to help out. I can't begin to describe how awesome it has been. Nothing has been stressful and everything feels comfortable. It will be sad when he has to go back. It is weird because normally once we get the kids to bed we spend the night talking to each other. But since he is home all day long with me now we don't have anything to say! Because he was there whenever anything happened worth taking about. I told Greg that we will have to do this again with the next baby. I think his eye balls almost came out of his head. NEXT BABY??!?!?! I think he is ready to be done with four. As of right now I am ready to be done with four too, but who knows five years from now....
This is a picture right before we left the hospital. My neighbor Terri gave me the out fit!