Zoey's First Swim

As soon as it was warm enough this Spring we took the family to the lake. While we were there we thought we should see if our pampered little Zoey could swim.

She hated the water. Oh, she swam back each time we took her out into the water. But she hated every second of it. The kids, however, had a blast.

Cami Rehearsing

Cami has been singing this song around the house all week in preparation for the Elementary School Concert. A clip of her at the concert is posted below.

Cami Singing Taylor Swift

Cami performed this last night at the Butte Elementary Choir and Band Concert. Her friend Kaylee was planning on singing it by herself. Last week she got a little nervous about remembering the words and asked Cami to sing it with her. Cami certainly stepped up to the plate. They did a good job. That is a very brave thing to do as 4th Graders. I was very proud.

French Class Semester Project

These are the kind of school projects I love. Tyler and his friend chose to cook a French meal for their families. They also had to make a 5 minute cooking show. I ahven't seen the final product for that yet. I am sure it is very entertaining. They made Chicken Cordon Bleu, Cheese Puffs, Loaded Mashed Potatoes with Feta Cheese, and crepes for dessert. It all tasted great. It was also lots of fun having Shane's parents over for dinner.

Tyler's New Job

This spring Tyler has taken on a job doing farm chores on Gardner's Farm for a few hours a day 3 days a week. I am very proud of him. He has been able to work, play Basball, and keep his grades up. He enjoys the farm animals. He sweeps the barn, feeds and waters the horses, sheep and a Llama and clans up after them. That is the nice way to say, he scoops poop. He also does random yard chores like shoveling snow, pruning bushes and when summer comes he will being doing some lawn mowing. The animals know who he is now and have learned his routine. It is fun to watch them follow him around. Tyler likes to show Conner and Aubrey the animals every once in a while. These pics were Aubrey's first time feeding the horse. Her name is Tosh. Tyler likes to brush her when she starts getting shaggy looking. This has been a good experience for him to learn to work hard and save money. Next Spring he and Braden are going on a trip with the high School band to Orlando and have to come up with $1800 to get there. Tyler has a pretty good start.

Trash to Treasure?

Last month we made some major rearranging with bedrooms. Braden moved to Tyler's room on the 3rd floor. Shaelyn and Cami took over Braden's old room and Conner and Aubrey moved in to Shaelyn and Cami's old room. Tyler and Braden were not happy about the move. They did not want to share a room again. All the other kids were excited. The girls got a bigger room and don't have to share with Aubrey anymore so obviously there is a huge reduction of messes in thier room and Conner and Aubrey now have a place to keep thier toys and can play without getting in the way of the older kids. Even though Tyler and Braden were not happy I think things are beginning to work out. They are becoming friends again. I am glad we made the change. In the process of moving rooms around we were able to get rid of lots of old toys and cloths. Conner and Aubrey got into one of the bags and found Bradens old Pokemon books, the Gameboys and a few Gameboy games. I found them sitting on the rug in the Livning Room flipping through pages and playing Gameboy. They were having so much fun and getting along so well. Needless to say, we kept the Pokemon books and Gameboys.

Silly Aubrey

Lttle Aubrey just cracks me up. Aubrey and I were downstairs doing laundry. I gave Aurey and laundry hamper and told her to go upstairs and get the laundry out of the bathroom and bring it down to me. When she didn't show back up I went looking for her. This is where I found her. In front of the TV with Conner's undees on her head watching cartoons. What was she thinking? We may never know.

Am I Done?

A typical day in our home.
5:00am Ryan wakes up and gets ready for work. I wake up right behind him and start his car for him
5:30 Ryan leaves for work. Tyler wakes up.
5:45 Braden and Shaelyn get up and fight over who needs the bathroom first.
6:00 leave for the morning Taxi driving.
Tyler- seminary 6:10 (or so)
Braden-Jazz band at the Jr High 6:45
6:36 Bus picks up Shae (I love how the bus stop is my driveway)
7:00 Tyler leaves Seminary and heads to Jazz Band at the High School
7:30 Cami wakes up.
7:30-8:30 Conner and Aubrey wake up, eat breakfast and we attempt to get dressed for the day
8:33 Bus picks up Cami for elementary school. I then begin my work for Jarel on the laptop if the work is available.
12:00 Finish up work. Feed the little ones lunch. Gather laundry. Attempt to do as much house work as possible before.........
1:45 when I leave to pick up Tyler from school. Mon,Wed and Fri I take him down to the Middle School for wrestling practice. Tue and Thurs I take him to Dr. Gardner's house where he does farm chores for 2 hours.
2:00-4:30 run errands until it is time to pick up Tyler from work and Braden from wrestling.
4:30 we head home. Ryan gets off of work and school.
5:00 we are home and then begins the fixing of dinner and the kids chores
6:00 clean up from dinner and kids and Ryan do homework.
7:00 Tyler, Braden, Shaelyn and Cami argue over who needs to shower first.
9:00 get ready for bed. All kids are in bed by 10:00

In all my spare time this an average week of laundry.

56 pairs of pants
56 undies
56 pairs of socks(at least)
112 shirts (includes undershirts)
56 pairs of jammies
7 tablecloths
countless wash cloths and dish towels
32 bath towels or more
and if we get to it, 8 sets of sheets and comforters.

The dishwasher is filled and emptied a minimum of 3 times a day and then there are still some left over to wash by hand at the end of the day.

I work an average of 30 hours a week between my 2 jobs. 1 with Wendys and the second job at MatSu Regional Med Center.
Ryan is in shool full time and works at least full time.
Ryan is in the Stake Young Mens Presidency and has meetings to attend at least once a week and with it being the beginning of the year and our Stake has something like 12 wards. He attends 1-2 Ward conferences on Sundays.

My house needs a good floor cleaning, wall washing, kitchen scrub down and much more. There seems to be chaos everywhere. I decided last week that something needs to give. Because the house is chaos we often find Aubrey getting into something she shouldn't and Conner spends too much time watching Noggin and playing x-box. The girls are constantly fighting. Tyler and Braden are 'too busy' to help out. I am at my wits end. Some may wander why I have been so negative lately. I say everything previously listed is a good explanation of that.

I miss my cuddle and play time with Conner and Aubrey. I miss my conversations about conspiracies and science and life with Tyler. I miss listening to Bradens nonsense. I miss sitting with my husband and talking. I miss going on dates, real dates. Driving into Palmer for a Diet Pepsi is not a date. I miss Family Home Evening. I missed church 5 Sundays in a row because of work.
I get frustrated when I see people around me who have family and friends and seemingly endless help and support from others. I get frustrated when I am told that "Someone says you need a break from your calling". I felt they should have just said what they meant "we don't think you are doing a good enough job and we know someone who has more time and can do a better job..."
I feel disappointed when I would like for family to come and visit me and my family and maybe help me relieve some burdens, or even just call or email or chat on FB. It gives me a new understanding of how my aunts and uncles must have felt when they moved away from Utah. It gives me a realization of who I can truly count on.
This brings me to what I have decided needs to be done. My Heavenly Father is my best friend. I know I can always count on him. When I feel alone, I can pray and I feel as if he has given me a hug for comfort. So number 1: I need to keep my relationship with him stronger than any other.
My family is my pride and joy. I love them more than anthing in this world. So, number 2: I need to put my relationship with my husband and children right up there with my relationship with my Father in Heaven. I find happiness when I do things for my family. So, number 3: I will serve my family with my whole heart not feeling sorry for myself but grateful that I am blessed with a husband who holds the Priesthood and who is inspired to make the right parenting choices for our children who is supportive and loves to provide learning experiences for all of us. I am blessed with 6 children who are special. They are all so talented and smart and so much fun. I love them deeply. These are my 3 priorities and I believe that if I can focus on them everything else that needs to be done will fall into place.

First of all you have to know we have been working on the house, a little here and a little there. Our bedroom closet was disassembled and turned into a utility room in October of '09. all of our belongings that were crammed into our large closet ended up in our bathroom in the torn out shower and round about our room. We have finally made some headway this last couple of weeks. We finished hanging te sheetrock, taped and textured ourselves and last week found our paint colors for the bedroom and closet. Ryan and I primed the closet over the weekend. Monday I decided to surprise Ryan and put the paint up. One less thing for him to worry about. It looked fabulous and he was so happy to see that it was complete. Well Monday night is our families favorite TV show "24" , so we sat down to watch the show. when the show was over and we all headed to our beds everyone hears a very loud scream from my bedroom "AUBREY" . Yeah that was me. While we were watching Aubrey decided to help me out, uh huh, that's right. She got into the primer and painted randomly all over my fresh painted "Sand White" colored closet. I then found the roll of sheetrock tape in a big mess by my bed. I now get to repair the mess she made in the closet. Isn't she just the sweetest little helper? I guess it could have been worse. She didn't paint anywhere else and it wasn't all over her.