Oh, those sweet moments!

You know, I am coming to believe that no one actually reads this blog, but that's OK. This has become almost like a journal, where I try every day to capture in my mind or on this page the little sweet moments that make life wonderful. I have been taking way more pictures of the mundane things that we do so that I can share them, but I've also started taking way more mental snapshots of my beautiful little family in our every day lives.

I am insanely proud of my kids' brown eyes (it's wrong, I know), and I just can't get over how beautiful they are. Every night in the tub, I just stop and stare at their chocolate brown eyes and think about how special these little souls are. Instead of screaming and spanking when I go to answer the phone and come back to 2 little "angels" emptying the contents of the bathtub onto the floor (true story, it took 2 days to dry!), I relish the look in Emma's eyes when she realizes she's done something wrong and is trying to apologize.

Oh, sometimes life is so sweet, even amidst all of the mania that we must deal with daily.

What a Week!

Well, it feels like it should be Saturday already! We've just been running non-stop all week, and I haven't had time to even stop and take a breath. So, I have taken a few minutes here to relax and think about all we've been doing.

The kids and I spent all day Monday running errands and shopping, shopping, shopping. While we were out and about, we were hit by a HUGE storm. There were INCHES of hail on the ground, and water everywhere. It was crazy! So, in the midst of this torrential downpour, the power went out in what seemed like 1/2 of Tucson. I had a really hard time trying to get out of town, because I was really far away fom the freeway, and had to go through tons of intersections with no stoplights or cops directing traffic. So, when we stopped by the train yard to take Andy some doughnuts, we said a little prayer that we could get home safely. Well, we finally got to the freeway when I realized there were no streetlights on the onramp, and this particular onramp was one of those circular ones with almost no distance to merge into traffic. I didn't even realize that I was thinking out loud about how hard it was going to be to get on the freeway until Emma said from the backseat "Mommy, you just gotta have faith, we said our prayer!" I was totally stunned. What a profound thing for a 3 year-old to say! I was so proud, and it was definitely one of those moments in which you manage to just stop and think that you have done something right with your kid after all!

Tuesday was Andrew's 31st birthday, and he wanted to go to Mesa to look at the temple lights. So we packed up the kiddos and made the trip. It was really nice because the weather was still kind of drizzly and there was not hardly anyone there. The only thing that really stunk was that I managed to forget the camera, so I have no pics of this great family tradition. Frank spent all of his time squealing and pointing at the clusters of lights that he called the "fowers". He loved the water too, because all of the lights reflected on the wet sidewalks. It was beautiful, like there were twice as many lights as were really there!

We were able to talk to Emma about the temple, and she is determined to marry her "little prince Frank" there someday. We'll see if he's still the one she wants to marry when she gets older!

Yesterday we got Emma's birthday pictures taken, and I SWEAR that next year I will remember to do it in November, when the whole city is not trying to do Christmas pictures. If I have to wait 2 hours to preview my pictures again, or argue with 1 more photographer about why we do NOT need a Christmas tree in the background of her birthday pics, I will just scream! Oh, having a December birthday is hard. Having 2 in the family is almost more than I can take.

So, tonight I get to go ref for young women's volleyball, and hopefully get to play a little myself. I missed adult volleyball at the church yesterday morning, and I could use a little stress relief.

If I can make it to next week, we'll have Emma's birthday party and get all of that last-minute Christmas stuff done. I really am trying to slow down and remember that we resolved to try and have a more Christ-centered Christmas this year, but I'm having a very hard time with that. I want to have a more spiritual, meaningful Christmas this year, but how exactly does one do that with 2 little rugrats running around and all of the crazy stuff to do that this world requires of us? Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Merry Christmas!

I thought I'd take a moment to introduce you to the other female in our house. Lulu is our kitty, and has lived with us since she showed up on our doorstep in October of 2002 and invited herself in to live with us. She's quite a little diva, and has NEVER liked anyone but Andrew or myself. She disappears whenever we have guests, and usually stays hidden all day until the kids are either taking naps or asleep for the night.

She also has the very creepy habit of knowing I'm pregnant long before I do. She'll climb up in my lap and get really close to my face and just stare at me for hours! When I was pregnant with Emma, we didn't have any idea what she was doing, we just thought she was hungry or something. But when it lasted for weeks, and then we found out I was knocked up, we figured out what she was doing. If I thought her staring was bad with Emma, I was surprised at how much worse it was when I was pregnant with Frank. She literally would narrow her eyes at me like she was asking "What have you done?" Let's just say that having a baby in the house was a rude awakening for this spoiled kitty.

It's been very surprising to watch her interact with the kids the past couple of weeks. Usually as soon as she hears them, no matter where in the house they are, she bolts. But recently, she has figured out that the kids can give her love just like the grown-ups do. About once a day, she'll come find me on the couch or chair and just sit and wait. When the kids come over, she'll actually rub her head against them and let them pet her. It's great to watch. Emma will get so excited and say "Mama, Lulu really loves me now! She's furring!" (No matter how many times I tell her that the word is actually purring, she refuses to change her mind about it.)

Today, Lulu actually jumped up on the couch next to Emma while she was watching TV and let Emma pet her. I guess our little Lulu has finally figured out that these little invaders of her domain aren't going anywhere anytime soon, so she may as well get some back rubs out of them while they're here.

Frank's Very First Time-Out

Ok. I will apologize to Frank when he gets older, because I'm sure this will mortify him as a teenager. But, I just had to share it!!!! This is his first time-out ever- he had just hit Emma across the face with a truck. I should have been comforting her, but this was just too precious not to take a picture of. I think that old cliche of "a picture says a thousand words" definitely rings true with this one.

Since Andrew is working on Monday nights, we had Family Home Evening on Tuesday night this week. We decided to decorate small Christmas trees for each of the kids, and it was a blast. We just got some $1 trees from Wal-Mart and made our own decorations from construction paper, foam and old tinsel. Emma was the most excited, but Andrew definitely got more into it than anyone. He constructed a gingerbread man, snowman, and even a tiny baby Jesus laying in a manger (hay included) for Frank's tree. Emma was working with Mommy and had to settle for hearts, candy canes from pipe cleaners, and 1 pink locomotive that Daddy made for her. Mommy is definitely not as creative as Daddy.

Christmastime is here!

Tinsel, anyone?
With everyone feeling better, we were finally able to break out the Christmas tree this morning. Everyone had a blast decorating, and it went up in no time. Emma is a little decorating diva and knew exactly where she wanted everything, but it would have been a whole lot easier on her if Frank hadn't kept taking off her ornaments and arranging them neatly underneath the tree. It was fun, because this is the first year that we've been able to just kind of sit back and watch as our kids did most of the decorating. Oh, they're growing up fast!

To finish off the tree, we brought out our custom made baby gate that we built a couple of years ago for Emma. We were inspired to build it because we can still remember the year Adam was 11 months old. Dana had no chairs at her kitchen table because they were all being used to as a barricade in front of the Christmas tree!

This one is lightweight and comes apart so that it can be stored in a small box or bag. It's been a lifesaver (or is that treesaver?). We just hope it can last a couple more years until all our kids have outgrown the tree-demolishing stage!

Ugh!!!

It's been a tough week. With both kids sick, and one of them in our bed almost every night, we haven't gotten much sleep around here. Thankfully, they're getting better. This was the scene at 2:00 in the afternoon the other day. There hasn't been a lot of motivation to get up and get dressed in our house this week.