Daddy Daughter Date

A couple weeks ago, our kids got to stay ay my mom's for a week while Scott and I had a week to ourselves to get things done and "reconnect." :) It was really great. However, on the way to Spokane, Addy didn't seem too excited about staying at Mimi's if we weren't going to be there. She didn't want her dad to leave. So he decided she needed a daddy/daughter date before we left. And he was right. She loved it and talks about it still. Here are some pictures that Scott sent me while they were out :)

They picked up a pizza and had a picnic in the park. They then played on the playground for nearly and hour and a half. Then they headed to the mall for ice cream. Addy has an obsession with "moving stairs." So they took a few trips up and down :) And then, and this is my favorite part, they found a photo booth! I seriously love how much Scott loves our girls and how special he makes them feel on a daily basis. They are such daddy's girls and it's no wonder because he's way cooler than me!

And guess what? Addy told us when we left that she was going to "be so brave and not cry while I'm sleeping at mimi's house." And guess what? She didn't. Not that it's hard because Mimi's house is pretty much Addy's heaven on Earth!

This is rotating this one...and it won't quit! But here it is lol

Mushy gushy

So this post is going to be extremely mushy. So those friends of mine who comment on my facebook statuses about my perfect husband with things like "get a room" and "oh geez" should probably quit here :) 

My husband is sleeping beside me. And, of course, because it's daylight savings, I can't for the life of me sleep. But I can't help but think about this guy beside me. I think of every cliche in the book and they are amazingly true. 

"He's more than I imagined."

He really is. I never imagined my husband would get up at night with the kids so I could sleep. I never imagined he would find me so beautiful even after the "miracle" of having kids (it's a miracle how messed up this body has gotten).  I never imagined he'd truly do anything I ask in earnest. I never imagined he would greet me every single morning for almost 5 years with "good morning beautiful." And yet he does all those things and more. 

"He takes my breath away."

I still feel giddy when he asks me out. I feel giddy and anxious when I know he's on his way home from work. When I see him down the hall or playing with my kids, my heart skips a beat. Everything he is is so big I have to stop and catch my breath. (And no, hon. Not a fat joke).

"I love you more than yesterday but not as much as tomorrow."

My love for my husband grows every single day. Our song is by Tim McGraw. Titled "and I thought I loved you then." My love and appreciation for him is constantly changing and growing. 

I could go on and on. Guys, I am seriously the luckiest girl alive. I am loved by the most loyal and forgiving and humble man. I am loved by the most Christlike man. I am loved by the man I am going to spend eternity with if getting there kills me. Which it will. Because I'm a stubborn, opinionated son of a gun. But I will change an learn and grow. Just so I can earn the right to stand at his side in the eternities. 

I want to remember this night and how I feel. Lucky. No. That's not right. There's nothing lucky about it. Blessed. I am blessed. 

I love you Scott Dean. For forever. 

Katie Grace is 9 Months Old!

This baby. I love her. We have had a special bond from the beginning. With my other two girls, the newborn stage was kind of hard. Mastitis and not enough milk was stressful and hard. And they slept 5 and 6 hour chunks right from the start. But with Grace, breastfeeding was awesome for the first three months before supply problems started. I wasn't miserable, she latched great, I didn't get mastitis. It was perfect. And I spent a lot of time with her because she was up every hour and a half all night long for the first month. I also knew how fast babies grow, so I just took the time to really, really enjoy those snuggles and the sweet smell of new baby. I just loved it. Every second. And she wasn't an immediate daddy's girl like my other two. And even now, nine months later, she still occasionally picks me :)

Grace is mellow yellow. She doesn't let much bother her. She hardly cries. And I mean hardly. When she has a rough day she maybe cries a combined 20 minutes all day long. She's very patient. I almost have to set a timer to remember to feed her! She took the longest of my kids to roll and crawl. She just likes watching and tinkering with her hands. But once she took off, she took off! Yesterday she pushed a chair across the room, walking along behind it. She's very opinionated. She doesn't like formula now that she's started food! She just wants to eat anything and everything! And she does. Today I fed her a banana by just holding it and she would bite off chunks and gum them up. She LOVES cookies! And she's not one for lone veggies. If I just puree carrots, she'll tolerate it, but if I smash up our food she eats more than Addy most days! 

She is a weird teether. She got one bottom middle tooth and then one outside, and then a couple days ago I realized she has the two top outside teeth! So she'll have a little Jack-o-Lantern smile. 

I asked Scott what he would say about Grace and he said, "Oh, she's the sunshine of our lives. While the other two are busy teaching us patience one way, she's teaching us patience another." What a wise comment. :) Addy and Ellie teach me patience by demanding it. Grace exemplifies it. If you can't tell, this girl is seriously loved and adored. 

Her stats:

Height 28 inches

Weight 18 pounds 10 ounces

Head Circumference 15 3/4 inches

Overall Assessment: Perfect.

We love you Katie Grace and I will forever be grateful that we have you. Oh my goodness, I love you.

Catch-Up!

I took a pitiful number of pictures on my camera the last couple months. But here are some memories I want to record and remember! We played in the brief snow we had. It was so warm that the snow kept melting just enough and then freezing to make a solid, icy layer. Addy's comment? "Mom! I'm walking on the snow like Jesus walked on the water!" She wasn't very pleased about the fact that snow angels weren't working.

Ellie Belle was not the hugest fan. She doesn't like cold hands. And she hates mittens and snow pants and the impossibility of helping herself back up after falling. So between those two things, I consider myself lucky to have caught her smiling lol.

Gracie, in her hat her Grandma Carter made her. I love, love, love it!

The girls had a really fun time playing together. Addy enjoyed stomping through the icy surface and making "holes in my deep, deep, deep snow!" I seriously cannot get enough of them playing together. It makes my day every time.

Lately Addy and Ellie have really been excited about making Grace laugh. I thought this video was pretty cute, despite the horrific cinematography
.

This is the very best we could do. It's becoming a recurring theme in our lives. Pictures of all 3 kids are just destined to be sub-par.

Oh, look! More pictures where we couldn't for our lives get a smile from all three at the same time. Or at all. Ellie is quite the stubborn child. But I got these dresses for a combined total of .... are you ready .... TEN dollars. In July. Bam.

Ellie's smile in this one just makes me happy. And Addy's. And Grace's. They all just show their personalities so well!

Squishes! Ellie is constantly saying that she wants to hold Grace. Gracie doesn't love it but she tolerates it for a second, by which time Ellie is usually ready to move on anyway :)

I love my baby girls. I love having all 3 girls. When we found out Grace was a girl I was kind of taken aback. I was so sure she was a boy! But now that they're all here and together, I love being able to say that "my girls and I" are going to go do something. It makes me feel super cool. Plus, look at them. They're gonna be best friends. In fact, just the other day Addy said, "Ellie is my best friend mom. And my best sister!" I'm not sure if Grace was offended, but if she was, she forgot about it real quick :)

What I'll Teach My Children II

Work. Learn to work. Love to work. Work.

Something my parents did a pretty excellent job of emphasizing was work as an eternal principle. They taught us how to work. We have a whole list of numbered lectures my father gave to us while growing up. They range from "We don't do things where if we have an accident someone gets hurt or dies" to "If you were coming you would be here." But mixed in there somewhere in the middle are several about work. Among the most memorable:

"Start in a corner and work until it's done."
"Start at the top and work to the bottom."
"Don't take an hour to do a ten minute job."
"That ______ is not even pretending to be clean!"
"Wake up and get your jobs done. Then you can play for the rest of the day."
"Work hard. Play hard."
"Learn to love work."

It sounds like I had a pretty rough childhood, huh? :) But I didn't. That's the thing. Because I was taught to work efficiently and honestly. I was taught the value of an honest day's work. And it's served me very well in my role in the work place and now as a wife and mother. I haven't once, not a single time, cleaned the toilet without hearing "Start at the top and work to the bottom." These lectures, however much we griped, apparently did the trick!

I am SO thankful to my parents for these lessons. For their examples of work and the expectations they held for us. And if my siblings don't now, they will. Did you know that in college, of my 10 roommates there were at least 4 who literally did not know how to clean a toilet. As in, had never done it before. The apartment complexes had a "clean check checklist" that literally explained step by step how to clean a bathroom. It's for real guys!

And now that my husband has the great opportunity to work with student employees, I have the great opportunity of being thankful for my work ethic and the great desire to instill in my children the same honesty and efficiency. So here's what I'll teach my kids about work.

• When you're at work, work. You are being paid to provide a service. You are being paid for your time. So work. The whole time. Do not stop. 
• When you have a job, show up. On time. Every time.
• Every place of work has some kind of dress code or uniform. Wear it. Always. And don't complain. It's a job. If you don't like it work somewhere else.
• Do not give excuses. Ever. Take ownership for your successes, but also for your mistakes.
• Treat everyone you work with professionally. When you write an email to your boss, use spell check, for goodness sake.
• Work. The whole time. Do not stop. Did I already say that? But it's so important. I would die if my boss walked in and I was sitting around doing nothing. I would be so embarrassed. And I hope my children would as well. I try not to get into the whole work thing because, hello, this is a public blog and word gets out. And let me tell you, word gets out. But I'll share this one experience because, well, I can't help it. We go to campus to pick up Scott's laptop after work one day because he had forgotten it. We walk into the auditorium where students are getting ready for a concert and one of them is full on laying down, on the floor, on the stage, playing on their phone. I was blown away. I mean, if you're ready for the concert and there's nothing else you can do, at the very least sit your butt in one of the hundreds of chairs and look professional while you wait! Work. The whole time. Do not stop. 
• Find your own solutions. Use your brain. If you come upon a problem you don't know the answer to or run into a snag, use your resources and figure it out. A worker who has to be told every little thing to do it more annoying than useful.
• Enjoy it. I don't think that work has to be awful and dreaded. I think you can learn to love it. Not by slacking and getting away with doing to least you can do, but by learning to find satisfaction in a job well done.   

I pray every day that I will be able to teach my children the value of work. Because it's something we have to do our entire lives. And it's something we'll do in the eternities. 

I Love/Hate My iPhone

My husband loves technology. He watches Apple's new product announcements, spends his free time researching all the great things new audio consoles can do, and has an amazing ability to fix anything that involves wires and screens and capacitors and soldering. He's also kind of an Apple snob. He just admires things that work well and abhors things that are subpar (which makes the fact that he picked me rather an anomaly).

I, on the other hand, love money. In the bank. Not being spent. :) So I'm rather impressed by laptops that only work for 2 years but only cost $150. And my reason? I could buy nine, NINE, of those before paying for one macbook. Just sayin'.

So we're on this great corporate phone plan with the university where our combined phone bill is less than $60 and we have unlimited everything on our smart phones. But a year and a half ago, when our windows phones came up for replacement and there was a free upgrade option of an iPhone, I got pretty irritable. To me, the iPhone represented everything I hate. It was trendy. Like leggings, refusing immunizations, and naming kids normal names with crazy spellings, or names that were just plain made up. And I hate trendy. It was powerful. You can use it for everything. Including wasting a great deal of time. It didn't have a keyboard. It was touch everything. And I hated touch texting. And, again, it was trendy. Shudder. I just wasn't jiving with it. Plus, if I'm being honest, I was scared I would like it and then when my kid dropped it in the toilet, I'd want to pay to replace it, which, as aforementioned, I refuse to do. And then I'd have to go back to my sad and sorry windows phone.

However, I realized that marriage is about compromise. And since I'm pretty sucky at that, I decided that phones wasn't a battle I'd pick. Ya know, if I compromise on phones, then I don't have to bend on anything else simply because I can remind Scott that at least he has the phone he wanted :P

So we got iPhones. Not the newest version, mind you. Because, after all, it was a compromise!

And guess what? I was wrong. I love it. I mean seriously. I have, in my pocket, the ability to google anything from how many licks to the center of a tootsie pop to how to make my kids some rockin' dresses for my brother's wedding. I have every conference talk ever given, every ensign ever printed, and every verse of every book of scripture. In my pocket. Not to mention the GPS. And for a girl who turned on the wrong street to get to the doctor's office every time for the 2 years they were in that office, this was a lifesaver. I can go anywhere I want to go! And I never have to be lost! And I got over the whole "touch" thing. I'm pretty fast. :)

But I was right too. I hate it sometimes. I hate that just because we all have cell phones now, we expect immediate responses and attention. Like, when we text someone and then get annoyed because it's been ten minutes and, hello, I asked you a question!  I hate that it's so easy to pick it up and check Facebook. I hate that I'm always using this dumb phone camera (which is rather impressive for a phone) instead of using my camera that takes AMAZING pictures. I hate how "connected" I feel all. the. time. (Which I realize is a "me" problem, but that iPhone makes it too easy!) I hate how little I blog because the ease of the iPhone makes it seem like such a pain to actually take nice pictures, import and edit them, and then repost them. Which I have to do on a computer instead of the thing in my pocket. *gasp*

So I'm repenting. I'm gonna blog. Because my brothers on their missions can read it. And I don't want them to miss out on a thing!

Take a Deep Breath and Here We Go

I may have to delete facebook. I seriously get too wrapped up in things. Today at devotional, it was announced that come April we will have a new president at our school. Scott has spent lots of time supporting events and firesides with President Clark as an audio engineer and has grown so much as a result. I believe that President Clark is an inspired man. He is an intelligent man. He is a wise leader. He is a kind leader. On the posts of news articles on Facebook about this change, I have seen several comments that have blown my mind and made my heart hurt.

First there are the comments that are just plain rude such as "this isn't news" or "who cares?" Well, judging as this was posted by a LOCAL news channel and over half the population of Rexburg is somehow involved with the school, I would say that it's probably noteworthy. At least as noteworthy as the weather man's guesses. :)

Then there are the comments about the honor code and how "hey, maybe shorts and flip flops will come to campus now." To those people. Oh boy. I can't even do this tactfully. Shut up. Your ignorance is mind blowing. Do you really think that the honor code is President Clark's idea? Because you do realize it's been around since the university became a four year school...a good long while before President Clark. And guess what? That's not even solely up to the president. There's committees and votes and counsels for everything. If anything I hope that President Gilbert cracks down like crazy because the disobedience and shameful dishonoring of the agreement EVERYONE here signed is seriously ridiculous.

Then there are the comments about how it's going to be great to have a younger guy in the office. Yes, there are benefits to fresh blood, for sure. But (and again, my husband works closely with President Clark on many technical ventures) you will not find a more tech savvy man than Kim B. Clark! He's a genius and his ideas stretch the A/V and other crews around campus. And if you're implying that a younger man will be more "up with the times" again, you're ignorant. Because guess what? God helped pick this younger man. And while he's younger you can bet he has the same testimony and standards as President Clark, who, by the way, probably wishes he were far less in touch with the issues of the rising generation.

And then there's just the incessant arguing that ensues. Like when I post that I'm grateful for President Clark and his efforts and progress, people feel the need to criticize and argue in a super negative way. Referring to President Clark as my "Dear Leader" and pointing out that I spelled BYU-Idaho wrong (didn't hyphenate on my phone while my three children under 3 were climbing all over me). Honestly you guys. I just can't handle this.

SO here's my thing. If you don't like it, GO SOMEWHERE ELSE. There are hundreds of thousands of universities all over the world. But here's the kicker. They can't get in there. They can't afford to go there. That's the thing. It's entitlement written all over this. They feel that they should be able to go to this school, wear and do whatever they want, and have half their education paid for by tithing dollars (which, btw to the man who commented referring to them as "my tithing dollars" are NOT yours, but the Lord's). And that, my friends, is entitlement at its finest.

This is so frustrating to me. Here's a man who, after being appointed by the Lord, spent 10 years at this university making it better to the best of his ability (which is all anyone can ask). Widening its influence to the world through the Pathway program. Educating the maximum amount of students for the least amount of money. And what does he get? Negativity and ignorance. So this is what I'm saying. If you've run a university for 10 years, graduated from Harvard, served your entire life in time consuming church leadership callings and had a successful marriage and raised successful children, I'd love to chat. Other than that, get your head ... (that vulgar comment was for you Marlee :)