Summertime

We started the summer with Hailey having surgery on her ingrown toenails...AGAIN. Poor girl. The doctor told her they only grow back less than 5% of the time. :( She had them done 3 weeks before girls camp and 4 weeks before Trek so we were keeping our fingers crossed they healed fast.

 Brian started the summer with a 1/2 marathon that he barely trained for because he got sick a few weeks before and he did great...finishing in less than 2 hours but I can't remember the exact time. (I think an hour and 53 minutes or so.) Always so proud of him as I watch him cross the finish line!!!

 Nick started the summer with a severe eye issue...we went to 4 doctors 5 different times and they went back and forth between thinking it was a bacterial infection or allergies. After trying 3 different antibiotic drops/pills they decided it was not a bacterial infection since the medicine didn't do an ounce of good. So they went the allergy route and after 2 different kinds of drops that didn't work, we took him to the NAET doctor (voodoo doctor) and started treating the specific allergies. His eyes FINALLY cleared up after about 2 weeks of the NAET treatments.

 Hailey decided she wanted to re-do her room...again...so off we went to Ikea in search of a new dresser. She had fun playing on the cart until the worker told her to stop. :) She bought herself a new dresser there that's big and awesome and ordered new bedding off the internet. Her room is now zebra-free...kinda sad to see all that go, but I love what she got and it looks great. (Too bad I don't have a picture to post of it.)

 Nick got a fun surprise one night when Brian and I brought home the new "teenager car" that he, as the first teenager, will get to drive. He's really looking forward to when Hailey turns 16 and he has to share it with her...hahaha.

 I started my summer by going to many, many girls camp meetings for my Stake Camp Committee assignment. One of the things I was in charge of were the t-shirts for all the girls and leaders. Starting around 11:00 pm one night, Hailey and I sorted out all the shirts by ward. I think Hailey lasted for the first hour and I was on my own after that.

 ...and this is what Rocko has been doing this summer.

 Hailey didn't make it to many swim meets this summer because of girls camp, Trek, family vacation, and a trip to St George with a friend. But in her first meet she won two of the three heats she participated in...in freestyle and breast stroke.

 When we went to the Trek kick off meeting they girls were told they could not bring any make up on Trek. So part of Hailey's important Trek prep (which turned out to be camp prep too) was to have her cousin Chelsea put on fake eyelashes. Hailey doesn't wear much make up but she does wear mascara and with these beautiful lashes, who needs mascara. :)

 One of Nick's summer projects was to make a new feeder for the chickens. His invention turned out to be pretty genius but he did end up having to make it bigger since the chickens were going through the small bowl of food pretty quickly.

 One of the highlights of Hailey's summer was Trek...although she wasn't as excited about the pioneer clothing as she was about the actual experience.

 Nick was really not excited about Trek, but despite what he says, I think he's glad he went. We went to the Trek fireside last night and the video that Russ Lasson put together of all the kids on Trek was amazing!!!

 A couple weeks ago I found myself in the back seat of Nick's car while both my kids were in the front...with Nick driving. This stage of life is very strange for me but I appreciate that Nick is trying to be a very conscientious driver...and I do freak out less from the back seat. :)

Happy Birthday Hailey

It seems like every time I turn around I'm doing a post about one of my kids' birthdays...they are growing up way too fast for this mama!!!!!

Hailey turned 14 over the weekend. Her BFF Shaylee took her out for breakfast Saturday morning and then  Shaylee and I were planning a surprise party for her that night. We took her out for a family dinner and in the meantime Shaylee and Brinn came into the house and decorated the basement with all the decorations I left down there and set out all the food. I was cutting up a bunch of fruit during the day and when Hailey asked me what it was for I told her Memorial Day...she totally bought it! :)

We made sure she was the first one through the door when we got home and the girls TOTALLY surprised her...sadly she bit her tongue...haha. But the funniest part of her reaction was she just kept on walking all the way to her room. I've never seen anything like it. I think it was a startling surprise and she just needed a minute to re-group. Note to self - maybe no more surprise parties - she's a lot like her dad. :) But once she got past the surprise, they had a blast! She has such great friends it turned out to be a great night for her.

I really should have gotten a picture of all the fun decorating the girls did!!

The funniest thing about the picture below is that Faith (the girl in the white shirt on her knee) shoved Shaylee (the girl in the blue shirt and red pants) to the ground right as I was clicking the camera and she totally looks so innocent right as the picture was taken. :)

 The food was a lot of Hailey's favorite things...watermelon, cantaloupe, pineapple, cucumbers & ranch dip, chicken in a biscuit crackers, pringles, cookies & cream drops, mini reeses drops and mini rolo drops and to drink mini waters, cream soda and rootbeer.

We gave Hailey a new bike for her birthday so on Memorial Day she and Brian and I went out for a great bike ride on the new Murdock trail. I LOVED that trail and Hailey loved her new bike.

 ...and Hailey being goofy on the ride home. :) We love this girl and as sad as I am to have her growing up so fast, we are so happy with the amazing young woman she is becoming. Our house would not be the same without this spunky little gal!

What We've Been Up To...

In April, Brian attended Woodbadge...something he had been putting off doing for a couple years now. I would even go so far to say he was dreading going...haha. But he obediently (finally) signed up and headed down to the scout office to buy his (probably first ever) scout uniform. 

You can tell how excited he was as he mockingly posed for a picture for me. :

 But he came back...a FIRM BELIEVER!!!! He loved everything he learned and thinks EVERYONE needs to go through Woodbadge. What he loved most is that it was not necessarily about scouting, but it was about teaching those that work with the youth how to lead them and make positive impressions on their lives.The things he learned are applicable to all areas of life and he might even go so far as to say it was "life changing"! :)

This next story took a couple years off my life. One Sunday night, Nick went up to the neighbors to feed their huge snake...which he has done many times before. When he came back, he was sneaking into the house backwards while we were chatting with a girl Bryson brought over. I immediately thought he was sneaking an animal down to the basement so I yelled, "Stop! Turn around". When he turned around I just saw his shirt covered in blood. He had been BITTEN by the huge snake and bled profusely. Brian and I thought we needed to get him to Instacare immediately but Nick showed us that it had stopped bleeding and it was not a venomous snake so there was really nothing to be done at Instacare. I just know that I nearly had a heart attack when he turned around and I just saw blood!!!!

Hailey just wrapped up another season of basketball...this time she played both rec league and the AAU league back to back...made for some busy weeks!

Bryson had surgery on his jaw bone. This was originally a big scare for us because we were basically told to be prepared for his bone biopsy to be cancerous. Luckily, both tests came back benign but he did have a lot of fibrous cells in his bone so they had to go in and remove them. He was pretty funny coming out of the anesthesia! :)

 We also had a kitten adopt us for a couple days. Nick went out in the backyard and heard some very loud "meowing" and found this cute little kitten staring up at him. (I like kittens but I do not like cats.) He of course, brought it to the back door and showed me that it was practically skin and bones so of course I had to feed it...tuna and milk. :) She ate like she hadn't eaten in days!!! We knocked on a lot of doors trying to find the owner but no one claimed it and I could tell the kids were getting more and more attached. AAAAHHHHHHH The bad thing is that even Brian and I were thinking this kitty was adorable...we just had to keep reminding ourselves that it would grow up to be a cat! :)

 After making it a home in our puppy kennel out on the back porch and actually breaking down and buying  a few cans of kitty food, and debating over and over again what to do with it...........it ran away. I guess that takes care of that.

I have an assignment on the stake young women's camp committee so we headed up to the camp sites a couple Saturdays ago in the pouring rain & hail to check out the cabins, kitchens, etc...Yes, cabins & kitchens...it's definitely not the camping we've done in the past with the girls...it was awesome! :). It was nice though to get up in the mountains and see these deer wandering right next to us...very cool!

 With it being the last few weeks of school we've been busy attending all the end of the year events. Below is Hailey getting super excited to play the triangle for one of the songs in the band concert. :)

Nick went over to a friends house a couple weeks ago and came home with a pillowcase full of 8 tiny baby birds that had fallen out of a nest and been abandoned. So he researched what he could feed them and put it in a syringe to squirt into their mouths. They ate like champs. But he found out that sadly you have to feed them about every 30 minutes and it is nearly impossible to raise birds this little without their mama. By the next day, only 2 were still alive and they both died that following night. He tried!

 I had to take this picture of my daughter who was completely bald until she was about 2 years old and now has this gorgeous head of hair!!!! I know it's against the commandments, but I envy her hair. :)

 Hailey wrapped up her first year doing track with making Alpine Days in the shotput. Way to go girl!

 We received a letter in the mail last week saying that Nick was going to receive an award at 9th Grade Honors Night. It was a neat night and he received a certificate for High Honors for having a 4.0 grade point average and was given the Outstanding Student award from his Foods Teacher, Mrs. Case.

 I thought it was neat that they read a short note to each student from the teacher who selected them with the reasons why they were selected.

 Nick's friend Masey was selected as Outstanding Student from her Drama Teacher.

 His friend Nick also received a certificate for High Honors for also having a 4.0 grade point average.

 I think just about every one of Nick's friends earned an award on this night...Jacob receiving a High Honors certificate, Nathan receiving the same certificate, plus $100 scholarship for his Pioneering Spirit Essay. I absolutely love that Nick has surrounded himself with such amazing friends!!!

 This is Mrs. Case, the teacher that selected Nick for the award.

 ...and here's where my "Mother of Year" award should come in...Nick's biology teacher asked him to bring in his snake, his frog and live mice for them to eat for pet day. So guess who gets to transport that to the school...MOM! Nick, being the awesome kid that he is, had everything put in containers inside a bin so all I had to do is pick up the bin and put it in the car. Then I texted him when I got there and he came out and got it. I was freaked out all the way over though that one of those creatures was going to get loose in my car!!!!! I'm still having nightmares about that!!!! But they were a big hit and Nick was THRILLED to show them off!

 Unfortunately the frog wouldn't eat with all the commotion around him but the snake did!

 And last but not least, Bryson headed up for more Marine training which he was very excited about...NOT! He hates this uniform but I think he's so handsome in his Marine gear!!!!! :)

Thankful for New Perspectives

I downloaded this book quite awhile ago because it sounded interesting to me and then promptly forgot about it in the busy-ness of everyday life. :) So, when I was looking through my downloads recently I came upon it again and could not stop reading...I LOVED it! I knew it was a book I would reference often so I also went out and bought it so I could easily flip through the pages and find the sections I wanted to read again. AND I even emailed the author to see if she would share her resolutions chart with me and heard back from her the next day with the resolutions chart attached. I have since found out that I'm not as special as I thought I was when she sent it to me, because it is available to all the world on her blog. :)

This author of this book, Gretchen Rubin, although already "happy", spent a year testing the wisdom of the ages around what makes people happy and then wrote this book to share her year and what improved her life or made no difference. She repeatedly states that everyone's own happiness project would be different from hers because we are all uniquely "us" but it was so fun for me to see different perspectives on what can boost our happiness in our everyday life...nothing in here is extreme like moving to another country but it was about becoming more aware of how things affect us. She wrote this book a few years ago and more recently wrote the sequel called, "Happier at Home" which I also loved. It was so inspiring to me about being conscious about everything we do that I have created my own year long happiness project...that is somewhat different from hers and uniquely "me". 

There are a couple of key learnings for me so far in my first month of my happiness project that I am thankful for:

1. The idea of "It is easier to do something everyday than every once in awhile." For me this applied to reading the scriptures. (The book is not a religious book, but this is a big part of who I am so it obviously needed to be part of my project.) The idea is that if we do something everyday we will not use the excuse of, "I can do that tomorrow...or next week...etc." and ultimately it never happens because you can always put it off. Because I have made this a daily resolution, it gets done everyday...no putting it off until tomorrow. What's amazing to me is that I had a hard time always fitting this into my day in the past and it truly only happened every once in awhile. Now, it happens everyday and it's easier.

2. The idea of "Making the Positive Argument". This will come in even more handy when it's actually on my resolutions chart during my marriage-focused month, but I've noticed I've started incorporating it into my thinking ever since reading about it. Most times when someone upsets us or makes us angry we start rationalizing in our brains all the reasons why we're justified in feeling upset or angry. (I am a PRO at doing this.) "Making the positive argument" however, is about thinking of the reasons (from the offending persons perspective) why they did what they did. For example, if our spouses aren't home when they say they're going to be from work, instead of thinking about the inconvenience it is on us, think about the project they must be involved in at work, or the traffic they're having to deal with, or their willingness to go off to work each day to provide for the family, etc. Making the positive argument in our own minds beforehand allows us to never have to regret what comes out of our mouths before we know the situation...along with not wasting time stewing over a situation. This can obviously be applied in MANY situations with spouses, kids, friends, co-workers, bosses, etc.

I am thankful I came across this book! I have always considered myself a generally happy person but I love the difference some of these things are making in my life.

*My heart is also heavy for those in Boston and Texas and the events that have taken place in both areas this week. Those people are in my prayers everyday!