Love Song

We don't have a song. Some may find that unromantic, but when you meet in February and are engaged by April and married by August...there really isn't time to find a song. We were too busy getting to know each other! We also didn't have dancing at our reception which would also not lead to the necessity of having a song.

However, if I got to choose a song for us it would be From This Moment sung by Shania Twain and Brian Adams. I absolutely love this song. It describes my feelings for my husband in song...which I could probably never do on my own (with a song that is). My handsome man was a music major in college and so music is extremely important to him which is why I find it funny that we don't have a song. I guess he satisfies himself with making up songs about me...and then singing them to me in very public places (like chasing me around Wal-Mart).



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Great American Postcard Swap

My sister-in-law is doing a fabulous 50 states postcard swap! We're excited! You can click on the picture above or go here: Adventures and Pursuits. She still needs participants....here are the details:

How it works: 50 families (one from each state) will swap postcards over the next year. Each state will have their own week and will send out 49 postcards, one to each state, during that week. We will go in alphabetical order of the states. I would like to start the first week of March. At the end of 50 weeks we will all have received a postcard from 49 other states!

To join: email me at adventures and pursuits @ gmail dot com

If you are interested, but your state is not on the list of states we need, send me an email anyway. With enough interest I will put together a second (or more?) swap. I don't want anyone to miss out!

States we need:

Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California

Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii

Illinois
Indiana

Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Mississippi
Montana
Nebraska
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Vermont
Virginia
West Virginia

Since I'm not big on Valentines day, but the kids think it's fabulous I'm trying to do some Valentines crafts.

I bought these clothes pins at the dollar store with another project in mind, however they were inspiring.So, I cut out some hearts to make Valentines Butterflies.I cut 2 different sizes to make layers.Wrote what we wanted on the back. We are using them as gifts hence the Happy Valentines Day! And added stickers.
Then we folded them in half. And glued them together at the crease with regular glue sticks.Then the hot glue gun got turned on. I ended up doing this part myself. Because of the way the clothes pins are shaped, I couldn't just put a line of glue and have the kids put the wings on. So I did it to spare any burnt fingers.
Then I drew a face on the butterfly and we were good to go.

I think they turned out great, the kids thought they did too...which is the most important part!

Marriage

I really never thought I'd get married and so when my husband proposed I had really never thought about what I expected or really wanted from a marriage.

8 years later however, I've had time to think. This week's Wordful Wednesday (go ahead and click it...you know you want to) topic is the 3 most important things to me in marriage.

When we were first married I never...NEVER thought we'd argue. Of course just like every other couple in the world we don't see eye to eye all the time. So I guess I'd say THE most important thing to me being able to Talk to my spouse. I love that no matter how mad we get at each other we can always work things out and they are always better. I also have anxiety and being able to talk to him always calms me down. I joke that he is my anti-anxiety pill. I may be joking, but it's partially true. Life is always better for me when I can at the very least talk to him on the phone.

Any marriage can work if you both put your minds to it. However, it's not nearly as much fun if you don't Love the person you're married to! He is my best friend, and working along side him to make our marriage work and to go along through life with him is so much fun!

And last but not least I believe that being able to say I'm sorry is so very important. I'm not very good at this one, I'm working on that. Stuart is SO much better at being first to say I'm sorry....whether or not he thinks he was wrong. Saying I'm sorry changes so many things! It softens hearts and allows talking to being.

I asked Stuart what he thought was most important and he said....Love, understanding/compassion and commitment. I'm glad we both feel love is important!

Saturday

I was a little worried about today. I was incredibly ill yesterday and today is the first of 6 Saturdays Stuart will be gone. And yet when we all woke up this morning I felt pretty darn good. Which made our morning great. Well, for me anyway. We cleaned...technically KatieJo, Samuel and I cleaned. Phillip walked around pretty much naked because he refused to put on underwear. He was also eating the dog food and kept tackling Samuel while he was trying to clean which led to a lot...A LOT of giggling from the boy's bedroom.

Maija on the other hand was trying to help me. I was Clorox wiping all of the bedroom doors, bathroom door, baseboards, cleaning night stands off etc. She kept mimicking me washing the walls down....which I might add was quite funny.

I almost gave in and decorated a little bit for Valentines today. I say almost because we were going to make some decorations after I finished exercising. Unfortunately for our Valentines decorations after cleaning this morning and 10 minutes of exercising (because that's all I managed to do) I realized I had over done it and had "relapsed". I spent the majority of the rest of the afternoon sitting down feeling horrible, Maija and Phillip napped and KatieJo and Samuel (much to their joy) played the Wii. They started out by saying they needed to "work out" then they talked me into letting them move on to other games.

Samuel was convinced that KatieJo has NO idea how to play the Wii and so kept telling her how to do it. She was so mad at him, and finally got back at him when she beat him on several of their games.

Stuart finally got home a little bit before 7, and everyone was so excited to see him! I think it makes him feel good after being gone all day to have them run up to him when he gets home.

Hope you all had a great day!

Epiphany

I've recently had an epiphany. Oh yes, I have. And what was that epiphany? I really don't like Valentines Day. That may sound a little sad, but really I've come to the conclusion that it's just an over commercialized holiday. Flowers, candy, dinner. Hmmm, over-rated. Really, what is the big deal about celebrating Valentines day when I can go on a date with my husband and we can express our love for each other whenever we want. Why does it have to be on Valentines Day? Does one day a marriage make?

Of course I could also feel this way because Stuart will be gone.....again on the Friday and Saturday before Valentines day. He also will be gone for the next 6 weekends sans Sundays. Kind of depressing, but such is the life of those who like to pay their bills...right (affirmation would be nice right about here)?!?!?

I thought about getting the kids a little valentines gift, however Stuart nixed that idea because I guess he thinks it's a little bit silly as well. I even thought about decorating, however I would have to make decorations and my hand isn't up to 100% yet so I can't make anything yet. I guess I could drape everything in pink and red....

Is there a Scrooge for Valentines Day?

Mi familia

Mi familia es muy bonita! Okay, I won't write any more Spanish in my post...I promise because that's about the extent of my Spanish.

My husband spends the majority of his days at the local high school teaching Spanish. The other part of his day (while away from home) he is a swim coach for the high school boys. Well right now anyway. The other seasons he coaches football and middle school boys swimming. Sports and Spanish are BIG in our house!This is the most recent picture I have of the two of us. This was taken about 5 years ago at his College graduation.

I am a stay-at-home mom. We have 4 beautiful children ages 7, 6, 3 and 1. I stay plenty busy with the two little ones at home and I home school our 6 year-old son. I am the PTO President at our oldest daughter's school and I am meeting with our High Councilman tonight to find out what my new calling is going to be (I'm a little bit scared for that meeting!).
My Children....as I'm sure all parents know, my children are so different in so many ways! Our 7 year-old is preparing to be baptized in April, she is so excited she can barely contain it! She loves to read, sing and dance. Oh and she's our social butterfly. We can't go anywhere without her knowing someone. She also chose not to be home schooled for that very fact. We gave her a choice because we didn't want it to be forced upon her and she chose school. I'm sad that she doesn't want to stay home to learn although I am proud that she knows what she wants and didn't cave in to the pressures at home.
Our 6 year-old is too smart for his own good. He thinks of so many things that I NEVER think of. Sometimes they get him in trouble, but more often than not they lead to us just laughing. He too loves to read and has read all of the kids books and chapter books that we have in the house for the kids and so has moved onto Harry Potter and my husband's Terry Brooks books. I often have to pry him out of the bathroom so he'll get back to his school work and not sit in there and read all day. He has recently started wrestling on the USA wrestling team. He's so excited...like I said before, sports are BIG here.Our 3 and 1 year-old have just as big of personalities as the older kids. The 3 year-old LOVES planes, trains and anything else with wheels. He also has a VERY vivid imagination and tells me that his Grandma made him anything and everything he owns. He likes to dress himself and is often found with all of his clothes on backwards with 2 different shoes on the wrong feet. He has also been known to wear his older brother's polo shirts as pants, which by the way is pretty amusing. People often ask me when they see him why I let him out of the house looking like that. The answer is simple, he needs to figure out who he is and it's really not worth me fighting him. At least he's dressed and has shoes on. He also likes to get into things he shouldn't. He is my first child to do this and I'm fairly certain it's going to make me go gray. The other day he brought me a tube of Super Glue and his tooth brush and asked to brush his teeth. OYE VEY!
Our sweet 1 year-old is the apple of her daddy's eye (could be because she is very much a daddy's girl). She refuses to learn how to use sign language which frustrates me...until she smiles at me. She does sign all done and blows kisses. Other than that she prefers to try to talk. Her first word was DU. That may sound silly, but she was calling our dog Duchess whom she LOVES. She is also a BIG eater. She will eat just about anything you put in front of her (unless what you have in front of you looks more appetizing).

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