Last night when I was cuddling by Graham and before he said his prayers i told him i wondered if he could think of two things he was thankful for and one thing he would like help with.  He's got this prayer lately that he says over and over and over.  "Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for no scary monsters, name of Jesus, Amen!"  So he thought a little and this was the prayer he gave; "Dear Heavenly Father, thank you that Micheal Jackson was not alive anymore and thank you for dinosaurs.  Please help me clean up my toys.  Name of Jesus, Amen!"  and after that super prayer I stifled my giggle and asked him what song he wanted me to sing him.  We always sing primary songs.  But last night he thought for a minute and said, "Hmmm, how about "this is my fight song"?"  Oh man that Graham kills me sometimes:) We started a little mommy pre-school with these cute kids, plus little lindy who isn't shown and Leah kinda tags along too.  I love doing pre-school co-ops with cute little 3 and 4 year olds.  Best ever.

cats and kids and conference

To start out this really awesome post, lets talk about leah's bed head.  Her hair is identical to 2 year old Clara hair and this is just what her hair looked like in the morning too.  So funny. 

 Last march we started noticing how velvet was looking kinda fat.  She was about 8 months old and our vet had told us to wait until she was between 9 - 12 months to get her fixed.  But as we the weeks went by she kept getting fatter and by the first of april we had  baby kitties.  I called the vet just a tiny bit ticked to ask them about it and the cute girl on the line said, "well.....sometimes they mature early!"  No kidding:)  She wanted to have our babies under our bed sooo bad (velevet is an outside cat) and every time the door was opened for more than a second she would jet in as fast as she could. Then after she had had the babies,  me and b were sitting out on the grass one day and saw her carrying a cat in her mouth and sure enough, she had deposited 5 of the 7 under our bed!  Ahhh - she did this a few times and once hid them under a few different beds and couldn't find one of them for an hour or so.  Oh we loved those kitties and were so sad to see them all go.

 For easter and conference aaron and timmie and co. stayed with us.  This is aarons idea of  a cousin sandwhich.

 and his idea of flower crown making:)

 It was so nice to finally have grass (or the beginnings of it) outside this spring!  After last summer and the dust bowl we lived in, I will never take green grass for granted again.  

 We took turns on habanero before conference started.

 And this post nap hair and face are just too dang cute not to post.

 And last of all...on the monday after easter we had some of brandon's very best childhood friends over for dinner while Mark was in town.  Mark, Kelly, Brandon and Josh.  The amigos.

The end. 

little leah turns 2

This happened in March. Eek!  I'm a little behind.  The top pic is not from leah's actual birthday, but shows how these two spend a lot of there mornings once the big kids go to school.  Books and lego's and graham and leah are set.

 oh how clara adores her baby sister!

 We had the jacksons over for cake and wrapped up a bunch of clara's old princess stuff and that is about as good as it gets when you're two!  Happy Birthday Baby!

February 2015

 I looooooove valentines.  but i don't love how much candy my kids come home from school with.  so to at least not add to the problem I came up with this greatest idea for valentines.  We got a bunch of rocks from the driveway and painted little hearts on them.  Glue em to a piece of cardstock that says "you rock" and whishy woosh, done.  And Clara and Grady thought that sounded great, until Grady decided that his really really needed to have a treat.  And Clara decided that hers needed to all be different and unique and those 55 little heart rocks i painted didn't even get used:(  ahhh man. it was kind of a lame idea anyway. but their valentines were still just about the cutest things I've ever seen.   who doesn't want to be told "you rock like fire!"?

And then a couple weeks later it was my birthday.  I went on a hike and watched the most beautifulsunset and then we got food from costa vida, and the kids stuck some candles in my salad.  what more could i want? really though, on my hike that day i climbed up on this big rock with my heart pounding in my chest from exertion to see something so beautiful and i don't think i've ever felt so grateful for another birthday in my whole life. Having a body that can climb me up mountains, then going home to a family and a home with people i love and good food to eat...sometimes, even when life is hard, it feels so incredibly good.  I feel so grateful to have had another year. side note - we didn't get leah anything, figuring she could share, and she  totally took over brandons burrito.  poor dad!

this is a little random, but leah is really pushin me these days.  she is so in charge of things.  she opened up a box of little clothes one day and came up with this outfit.  that's a shirt on her legs. and she wore it to the store like that.  that's just how we roll, cause getting her to change her mind once it's made up is impossible.  this is there favorite game when i fold laundry, it sure helps out a lot. 

and one last one, ahhh it spiwwed....

Christmas Day 2014 and a little January

 December used to be my favorite month.  What happened?  But I still love Christmas day.  We stay home with each other, in our pajamas and I finally take a breath.  Christmas movies and walks in the snow and a fun Bethlehem themed dinner and lots of toy playing.  So good for us.

 They FINALLY got kendamas! Life has begun.

 After a month without snow we woke up Christmas morning to a foot of it!  We were outside in the falling snow when we looked behind us and saw the cutest little miniature horse looking at us from out neighbors pasture!  My kids were soooo enchanted with him!  They were hoping he was for us, but nope, Greg and Jody must have been a little bit nicer than us last year.

 We had a Bethlehem dinner that night.  Fun to talk about how Mary and Joseph must have felt that night after the baby Jesus had been born.  We had flat bread with olives and hummus, cheese and fruit on the floor by the fire.  An awesome way to end Christmas day

 In January we invited/begged Brandon's friend from work to come teach us how to make sri lankan food.  I gotta admit, when they showed up i thought there was no way they could make good stuff, they were waaay to skinny.  But I was wrong.  Prasat and Gaya were awesome and if i could have captured the smell in my kitchen that night I would have.  It was amazing!!!  And the coolest part about it - Gaya left a whole bunch of awesome spices and herbs with me that her mom brings back for her when she visits them.  Oh what a fun night and so fun to get to know some really really kind people.  Prasat's stories of being taken to a boarding school at the age of 5 blew my mind.  Such cool people, and their little girl Maya is adorable.

 And to round out this really cohesive post - Brandon showed the kids a bunch of parkour videos and for the month of January things looked like this a lot....kinda cool, kinda scary:)