Kids say the cutest things

I wasn't feeling good this morning and Princess E (4) came and put her blanket on me and told me, "Mom I sure hate it when you are sick. I want you to get better." Then she gave me a kiss. She thought I was asleep. Then Princess M (2) climbed up beside me and started petting my hair. Nuzzled in close, then softly she said "your my bes friend, my bes friend ebber". She thought I was asleep too.

Oh man I just melted, especially after the last few rough weeks we have had together. I love you girls. You really make me want to be a better Mom.

"I'm a Big Kid Now"

Today was a very big day for the Royal Family. Princess E was finally able to go to preschool. It has been a fun couple of weeks, as we have counted down the days.

We pulled out the scrapbook paper and we made her countdown chart together for craft day about 3 weeks ago. She was really good at remembering everyday to put on a new letter sticker so she could see the days pass by. Then the big day finally was here. We started it off last night by having a FHE about priesthood blessings and then King J gave her a fathers blessing. Princess M also sat still long enough for him to give her one too. Then we talked about what was going to happen when she went to school and the types of things she would learn. Then we asked her what she was the most excited about and she said, "Um, playing. Playing with my friends."
We laid out her new school clothes last night and she woke up bright and early and got herself all ready to go. Princess M decided that she wanted to "yuck in my Shirt" for the picture. LOL she cracks me up.

This one was just to priceless. I turned around and Princess E had her arm around Princess M and was telling her, " I am going to school today. But I will be back and when you get bigger you can go to school too OK?"
This is where she goes to her school. It is called, "Building Bridges Preschool."
She has been waiting for weeks to wear her new backpack. She is SO cute.

They had to find their names before heading in. Hers was the purple crayon on the bottom. Headin' in. She wasn't shy at all. Just excited. I on the other hand was having a very hard time holding back the tears. I held it together pretty good. Until I got back to the car. :)

Princess E and her new teacher, Mrs Bodine.Finding the cubby with her name on it, and her place at the table. I was a little worried when I saw the scissors sitting with each of the name tags. LOL I made sure to warn her teacher about her recent mishap and to keep a close eye on every ones hair. LOLThis was the scene when I came to pick her up. It is a good group of kids. There are a total of 12, and a good mix of boys and girls.
And here she is with one of her best friends Claire, who is in the same class. Claire has been going all summer to Building Bridges. So she is an old pro and helped show Princess E the ropes.

As any of you moms out there can agree, it is hard to see your little ones grow up. It is just hard to begin cutting the apron strings. You know it is what they need to grow and to become the people that you want them to be, but you are not sure if you are ready for that yet. I am sure next week will be better. Besides it will give me the time to have the one on one time with Princess M, who did wonderfully by the way. I will just need to make her her own name tag next week. That is what she was sad about. She wanted her own name tag. LOL

"Daddy, mine do the monkee jumps too!"

So we didn't have many plans for this Labor Day weekend. Other than just really being together as a family, and going over to a birthday party at my moms. It was a good thing we didn't have a full schedule because I got the flu very bad this weekend. I told King J that I haven't been that sick since I had princess E. I was seriously hugging the toilet just about every half hour the first night and if it wasn't coming from one end it was from the other. I was so grateful for the 3 day weekend and the fact that it blessed me while King J was home to take care of the girls and me. So we just kinda layed around all weekend and got better.

Well today, Labor day, I was feeling mostly better so we cleaned up the house in the morning and then after naps headed to our favorite park. We were the only ones there which is very unusual, but more fun for us.

Here they are being brave going down the hot slide.

Hooray, victory she made it down after some coaxing and convincing that she had pants on so she would be fine. She truly is our drama queen. We don't usually do the swings because there are lots of kids, and face it, mom tends to be lazy and wants to sit in the shade. LOL
Princess M decided to take a break and lay down to watch the clouds. A new favorite of hers.
Both mom and dad decided to take a turn at the swings. We even did it with a kid on our laps. I jumped down for the great photo op. Sorry there isn't a pic of me and Princess M. She didn't last quite as long because her legs kept getting squished.
One thing that Princess E loves to do whenever we go to the park with daddy is the monkey bars. It only happens when he is there because, well I am just to dang short to hold her up. LOL.She loves it. It makes her feel like a big kid.Well while Princess E was doing this, Princess M comes running from out of nowhere yelling, "Mine do the monkee jumps too!! Daddy, mine do the monkee jumps too!" It was so cute.

Once she was up there though, she was pretty chicken. She wouldn't hold on at all.

We then ended our fun by going to our favorite drink place, Sonic, and getting slush's. It was a fun day and way to finish our pretty crappy weekend.

Having a hard time Choosing the Right

So we have had quite a few discussions in our family the last little while about what it means to choose the right. These pictures will help you see why.

Both princesses have decided it is really easy to climb up anywhere to get just about what ever they want. This is what I came down to after getting out of the shower one morning.That is toothpaste all over her face, neck, arms, legs and feet. She looked at me in this picture and said whining, "it hewtz momee, get it off!" This was after Princess E decided to climb up on top of my dresser and get a pair of regular size scissors off of my tall dresser. All the barbies are now bald as well.

There are spots where it is completely to the scalp. And it was pretty much all grown out almost to one length since the last beauty shop incident about 6 months ago. Princess E gave herself a nice mullet. Hers also was all grown out to one length and it looked so cute. I was planning on getting some prof. pictures done of her with her backpack since she starts preschool this week. It will be another memory now.
Nice hack job.
I don't think I have been that angry in a long time. When King J came upstairs to see what all the commotion was I was almost hyperventilating. He reminded me to calm down it was only hair and it would grow back.
She was the most upset that she wouldn't be able to wear pony tails for a long time.

After: Princess M's is still to the scalp in some spots. The 2 hairdressers just looked at each other and said, "so what do you think we should do?" I told them "whatever you can. If it has to just be shaved all off to save it, then do what you have to do." I think they did a pretty good job considering what they had to work with. Besides she likes to go around feeling it and saying "yook mom, mine air pikey"Princess E is pretty excited with hers as well. We have since figured out a cuter way to style it. It is very naturally curly in the back and sides. And today we found out it still fits 2 little pig tails on top. That made her pretty happy.

I was at the grocery store the other night and King J called me pretty upset and said that he found these 2 upstairs "just cleaning up" (their words). They had found their way to my make up drawer and there was makeup everywhere in our bathroom. One of them had even taken a lip pencil and drew a nice mural on the wall where our headboard should be. This picture was taken after King J had already cleaned up a bunch of it off of them too.

I got really sick that night and they both ended up with those black eyes for a few days. It was kinda funny to see every time I was coherent enough to see them.
Here they are cleaning up more of the lip pencil we found later.

So as you can see, any advice you may have on how to help our dear princesses to try harder in choosing the right, would really prolong their lives and my sanity.

I'm So Frickin Awesome!!

So my extended family has a message board, and one of the reoccurring threads is on called "I am so frickin awesome..." It is a thread where you are allowed to brag about something you have accomplished that day, no matter how big or small. Well I feel like I want to brag a little bit. I was recently told by one of MOF's "that you seem to be the Holly Homemaker that I wish I could, and never will be." I guess I am always responding, or others are asking advise on things that I know and have experience about. At first I was a little bit embarrassed by the comment. But then I took it as a huge compliment.

I find great joy in my role as a woman and a mother. I am very grateful for the talents that Heavenly Father has blessed me with, and the people who he has placed in my life to help me learn them. I have a great mother who taught me and each of my sisters wonderful homemaking skills. I think it is kinda cool how each one of us has kinda excelled in different areas of home making.One of the skills I have developed, and love, over the last few years is that of canning, or bottling your own food for food storage.

I have been called, twice now, to over see the Cooking/Recipe exchange group for our Relief Society. We hold it once a month, and usually have a pretty good turn out. Well this month I decided to teach how to bottle/can peaches, and other fruits and veggies. Well it was a long couple of days. It took 2 trips to get the 13 bushels of peaches that had been ordered due to a mix up on both ends of the order. (Thanks mom and Bonnie for helping to get them to me.) By the time Saturday rolled around I was grateful they were still to green to do more then just the demonstration that originally was the plan. One by one all of the sisters had come to me and said, "if we stay can you help us do ours too?" How do you say no? So we were up to 5 women planning on staying and canning 7 bushels of peaches. So it was a blessing that they were green and I could say, "well this is how you do it, go and do likewise."

So my good friend Lisa, and I had planned on getting together the following Tuesday to get our combined 4.5 bushels done. She is a fellow caner and we had already planned to do it together before the class was even scheduled.

Monday morning Princess M woke up with pink eye. Extremely contagious so we are grounded to the house. I decided to just do a few jars here and there for the next few days by myself. Since Lisa couldn't come over and I was home bound, and many of the peaches were starting to ripen. By Wednesday morning when she was finally able to come over, due to my sick kiddo's, to help be finish up, I had done 55 quarts all by myself. We then helped another friend do hers since she hadn't had a chance to get to them, and then blanched and cut of the rest of ours for freezing and peach jam.

The blanching and pealing station. These 2 bowls are the peaches waiting to be turned into jam.

The 8 quarts of frozen peaches for smoothies throughout the year.

55 of the quarts. I wish I had taken a picture of them when they were all out on the table. It is way more impressive. But I wasn't going to take them all back out of the boxes that were ready for transport. :)


We decided to borrow the wards camp stove and do the hot water baths outside. This is the only way I will do it from now on! It was awesome to have all of the heat out side. It was a pretty sweet set up.


When it was all said and done we had done a total of 75 quarts in jars, 8 quarts frozen, about 55 cups of peaches ready for jam, 1 peach cobbler and some very sore feet and backs.

So yeah, I am Frickin Awesome!!