Cooper's talk

I forgot to write about Cooper's talk that he gave in church. Not this past Sunday but the one before that. That was his second time speaking in sacrament meeting. He's done a great job writing his own talks. Craig and I do not write his talks for him. We've heard some youth speakers who have obviously had the talk written by the parents. Anyway...

His topic was on how he's experienced the Lord's love in his life. He was talking about how we had traveled to Utah and nobody was injured. He really meant it as how we had traveled in safety, but people took it as a joke, as in Craig and I didn't injure any of the kids during the drive. We've had people comment on that quite a bit.

Just thought I'd write about it before I forgot.

That's all for now.

Good weekend

We had a pretty good weekend. Pretty uneventful. Craig and I have been going to town with just Adam the last few weeks to run errands. It's been nice to spend that time together. It's been extremely hot the last 2 times we've gone. I swear Adam was supposed to be born into a single-child family. He's great when he's with just Craig and me. He's also really good when we let him stay up after the other kids have gone to bed. He likes his attention!

***

We tried going to the pool but a thunderstorm came in. It was an AWESOME thunderstorm. We've had some good ones this summer. The power went out right as I had started the program. Good thing I have gotten fast at doing the program so it wasn't that big a deal. Wish I had saved it before the power went out though.

***

I was thinking the other day that weekends as a member of the church are shot. Friday night is really the only we weekend we get. Saturday night you can't stay up too late, especially if there's early morning church. And Sunday night you can't stay up late because there's work Monday. That's why long holiday weekends are sweeeeet!

***

I have been thinking about possibly getting a part time job. I want to get out of debt so bad. I need to talk to a couple of people in the ward about some jobs. If I could find something close that would be great. Even though I wouldn't be crazy about working, it wouldn't be bad because I would know it was temporary. If I could work long enough to pay all the credit cards and Craig's car then all we would have would be the house and student loans. Then we could start making some serious progress on the student loans. We'll see what happens.

***

I'm stealing the 3 star things in between paragraphs from Stephanie Nielson. I think they're cute! That's all for now.

Proud & glad to be a HOMEMAKER!!

Lately I've been thinking that even though I struggle with the kids being home. And dealing with the fighting and crying. And just being home with them in general. And wanting them to hurry and do things for themselves, I am so glad I can be home with them. I'm especially grateful when we're at the pool. Or Monday when we went to the movies. I have no work schedule. I'm free all the time. Except for the few appointments here and there, I can do whatever we want. Even when the kids are in school, I'm free to do whatever with the kids at home. It's great. When Carolyn Beattie was working she saw how free she used to be. It's so nice.
***
I'm so glad Craig is able to provide for us so I can stay home. I am truly blessed :D

No title

Nothing major to report. Just thought I should write.

I guess one BIG event that happened was that Caleb lost his first tooth! He was pretty excited. He came running in and said he had bitten a ball and the tooth just came out. He kept saying how he couldn't wait until bed time so the tooth fairy could come. She did indeed remember and left a whole dollar!

This past Saturday was pretty good. It was hotter than heck so we didn't do any work outside. We ran a couple of errands and then went to the pool in the evening. The water was quite warm! We continue to have an excessive heat advisory. The humidity id unbearable!

I took the kids to the movies today. Cooper, Audry and Caleb went to see Despicable Me and I took Lauren and Adam to Toy Story 3. It was pretty cute. Adam watched the majority of it. We're getting to the point where he will sit through a movie now! Woohoo :)

I gave all the kids hair cuts Saturday. I think these were my best yet! Adam did much better getting his buzzed. Didn't scream as bad as he usually does. Lauren got a trim. Caleb's looks pretty good. It's his that I tend to mess up on, but I think I've figured how to make it look good. Audry wanted hers pretty short. It looks cute on her. Cooper wanted a trim. I didn't cut it as short as last time but he still thought it was too short. At least he didn't cry this time!

Oh my!!! I am having a good moment so I better record it. Audry is cleaning the kitchen, her turn to do so. Cooper is on the computer. Caleb and Lauren are playing. Adam was playing the toy computer and it was peaceful. And... the moment is gone. Adam decided to join Caleb and Lauren. She started smacking him and he began to cry. Now Caleb and Lauren have been sent away to their rooms. It was good for the few seconds it lasted but not nearly long enough. Wish I had more of these moments.

The other day during dinner I wished I could have fast forwarded to about 5 years or so from now. It seems like I couldn't take a bite without somebody asking me to pour something or get them another serving. I can't wait until they can pour their own drinks, and serve their own food. I WILL NOT MISS THAT!! I don't care what people say. I am looking forward to the day we can all feed ourselves, wipe our own mouths, clear our own plates. Someday...

That's all for now.

Unusual 4th of July

Our 4th of July this year wasn't a typical one. It fell on a Sunday this year so it threw us off a bit. When we got home from church we just grabbed whatever was around to eat since it was also fast Sunday and we were all starving. No meat was grilled. Audry thought it wasn't the 4th until we had some kind of meat grilled. We did head out that night to go see the city's fireworks but upon arriving saw all the cars driving out of the park. It had started to rain right as we left so the fireworks were cancelled. :( The kids were pretty disappointed. Bishop Sample was planning on having his own fireworks Monday night though. Those ended up having to be re-scheduled! Tuesday night we finally had fireworks! In my opinion, it just doesn't feel like the 4th until I see fireworks. He did an AMAZING job.

Even though I am not a US citizen, I can't help but feel like one. I am so proud to be living here. I love my freedoms and privileges I enjoy as a resident of this country. Even with all the flaws I see in how the country is being run, I LOVE living here. I feel proud of my country.

Is it bad that I don't feel the same about Mexico? I like being Mexican but I guess I just don't feel the same about being a Mexican citizen. I know that if I lived there I wouldn't have the same advantages as I do here. I have lived in the US longer than I did in Mexico so I don't even feel a strong connection to that part of my life. Should I? Am I betraying my heritage because of it? In some ways I think I am. I wish I remembered more of Mexico, more of my parents, more traditions. Am I a bad mother because I have nothing to pass on to my kids? I feel like I have nothing to offer them. I can make rice and flan and that's about it! Pathetic, I know. I don't know what to do though. In talking to Claudia and listening to what she remembers, most of it I don't remember. I guess all I can do is tell my kids all I do remember an instill in them all the good my parents instilled in me. I can teach them to be responsible, contributing members of society. If I can do that, I'll be happy.

Today is Caleb's 6th birthday! My bear is getting so big. He is such a sweet little guy. He always seems to know just when I need a hug. I'll be sitting there having a bad moment and out of the blue he'll come over, give me a hug and a kiss. What a sweetheart! He just had his teeth cleaned and found out that his two bottom teeth are loose. He was pretty excited. We're hoping the weather cooperates and we can go swimming.

That's all for now.

More details of our trip

I thought I would write a few more details from our trip. I was pretty tired and out of it when I wrote about it earlier this week and just wanted to hurry and get something put down.

It was really good to see Claudia, Danny and the girls. The kids were very excited to see each other. Arcelia and Cerina hung out a lot with Cooper and Audry at Lagoon. They also had a ton of fun in their back yard. Jenny, Spencer and their boys had a good time too. They wore each other pretty good playing together. It was good to finally see Trace. The kids were very happy to see Yvonne. Lauren kept asking when we were getting to where Yvonne lives.

I've got to be honest and say that I was pretty much ready to come after Lagoon. That was a tiring day. It didn't help that Adam wasn't sleeping well, which meant Craig and I weren't sleeping well. But we did leave and drove straight to Idaho without stopping! It was good to not have such a long drive up there. I LOVE Rhonda's house. She has such great taste and it was good to see them all. We finally got to see Sadler. That is one cute, spoiled baby. Just as it should be right? ;) That Brown family is just so dang awesome!!! We were also very happy to see Brydon, Nicole and their kids. We hadn't seen Presley and were glad to meet her. What a great little family they are. The kids just played with each other right away like they had just seen each other. Cooper hung out with Kolton a little bit. Lauren was in heaven with all those babies around. She wasnted to pet Sadler all the time. She was also in heaven with all the cats that were around. There was one kitten that she particularly liked. Caleb was happy to have other kids to be goofy with. Adam loved going outside but kept his distance from ALL animals. Towards the end he got a little closer to the dogs than when we first arrived. Audry was pretty happy to just go along eith whatever was going on.

Oh yeah. We also got to see Teedy, Margot and Tom while in Utah. it was really good to see them too. They hadn't seen Lauren or Adam. They kids bahaved pretty well while at Margot's. Teedy looked great and it was to good see her living with Margot and Tom who treat her very well.

I got some goos shopping in too. Went to Wood Connections in Utah and got a cute shelf and knick knacks to put outside. Rhonda took me and Nicole to a realyl cute place there. I could have spent a lot more but I controlled myself. Somewhat! ;)

The drive out wan't too bad. Adam stayed glued to the DVD player. I hated to have sit there hour after hour watching it, but it did help a lot. The older kids didn't watch it as much as I thought they would, but they were pretty good. The drive back was what almost did me in. Adam wasn't feeling well, so he was much worse than he normally is. He cried a lot no matter what we tried to do for him. We gave him some Benadryl and it hep for a little bit, but not as much as I would have liked. Lauren was a mess too, crying for every little thing. Glad that's over with and we don't have have anywhere else to drive this summer.

Baseball is over and now we have nothing planned. The only activities we'll have going on are church things. We had combined YM/YW last night and I felt really out of it. It's hard to get into the swing of things after being gone so long. At least we have about a month and a half before school starts so we still have time to relax.

Glad this was a short week for Craig since he had Monday off and this next week will also be a short week because July 4th is on a Sunday, so Craig gets Monday off. Woooohooo!! Love those long weekends. We don't have anything major planned. Just hanging around here. The ward is doing fireworks Monday night so we'll go to that.

That's all for now.