Friday, December 3, 2010

Things That Give Me Warm Fuzzys

This morning before Lincoln left for work he gave me a hug and kiss just like he does every morning.  I love that we have been married for almost 19 years (on Dec. 14th) and have 5 kids together (3 of which are teenagers) and his kisses still take my breath away and make me a little light headed.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Thoughts on a Friday

I can't believe it's already November 19th!  Thanksgiving is NEXT week!  Holy cow, time slow down a little, can you please??  I wanted to post a photo collection of Anita for her birthday last month, but I didn't get the pictures scanned, until today.  So here is Anita's 18th Birthday tribute....only one month and ten days late!  Love you Anita RaNae SeiLa'A Ku'uleialoha Uhi!


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Monday, November 15, 2010

Champions!

I just have to write about Pasi's football team.  They are such an amazing group of boys.  I just love them!  They are so fun to watch and they are such good boys!  I can't help but use lots and lots of exclamation points!  Most of these boys have played together since they were 8 years old.  They have had the same coaches for these past four seasons.  Their coaches are AMAZING!  They are so good with the boys and they teach them more than just how to play football.  They teach them good sportsmanship, teamwork, and to work hard to achieve your dreams.  This little team has dreamed of winning a championship since they were 8.  They have made it to the playoffs for the past three years, only to lose to the same team (Judge) in the first round of the playoffs every time.  But not this year!  They had an amazing season.  They were 9-0 for the season.  They were only scored on twice the whole season!  They won most of their games by at least 20 points.  Despite really BAD referees, the other teams cheating and taking cheap shots, they won and won and won.  Their championship game was Saturday against West.  They had beat West in the regular season 28-0 in a really ugly game that the referees tried to cheat the whole game, but these boys didn't let it get to them.  They stayed focused and they showed who they were.  Their "theme" this year has been, "This is our time."  I love it!  They are only 11 years old, but they are so amazing!  It is so fun to watch their games because they are so dang good and they are so dang cute!  In the game on Saturday, every time the refs would make a bad call (and there were many!), our boys would come back and the next play make an amazing play and usually score.  West came close to scoring only once, but they fumbled and one of our boys picked up the ball and ran for a touchdown, goal to goal.  It was fantastic!!  I wish I had a video camera and had taped that game.  It was awesome!  I'm so proud of all of these boys, they have class.  Despite what one of the coaches from a team they beat 34-0 (Cottonwood) said to the boys.  She told them, "Your team has NO class!"  Well, they have more class than she'll ever have and they also have a championship!  Love you Kearns Mity Mites! And I love you, Pasi! I'm so proud of you!

Thursday, November 4, 2010

I Was Thinking.....

I have been thinking about how I can be more positive in my outlook on life.  I decided to list all the things, big and little, that make me smile.  Beware, a lot of them have to do with cleaning.  Here they are in random order, as I think of them:

1. Fall leaf colors-I'm sitting here looking out my living room window and looking at the tree across the street.  It's gorgeous!  Red, yellow, and still some green leaves, LOVE IT!  I love driving up to Churchill and Skyline this time of year because the trees on the mountains are so beautiful!

2. Neatly made beds- They just make me smile, especially when I'm not the one that had to make them!

3. Clean mirrors- Always so nice to not see water, etc spots.

4. Looking out the kitchen window and seeing my kids playing and having fun together, and not fighting, in our backyard.  It gives me big warm fuzzies.

5. Folding towels. I like folding towels, especially when they are all warm and fluffy.

6. Finding a new piece of music that is beautiful and fun to play.  I recently starting playing from a book of Primary song arrangements I've had for several years.  I only had tried to play the first song and didn't like it, so I put it away and hadn't looked at it since.  Well, I got it out the other day and tried some of the other songs and I LOVE them.  They are challenging, but so pretty and fun.  There is an arrangement of "My Heavenly Father Loves Me" that I love , love, love!

7. Listening to my kids play music So awesome!

8. My kids' smiles.  I just love it when I catch them smiling a really happy, natural smile.  Warms my heart! I love them so much!

9. A good shopping trip. That's defined as finding everything I need in a timely manner and costing less than I had planned on.

10. Watching my husband dance.  I LOVE to watch Lincoln dance Polynesian dancing.  He is so good and looks like he is enjoying it so much that it makes me happy, too.

Well, that's a start.  I'm going to try to add to this list over the next few days.  It made me feel good just thinking of all the things that make me feel good. lol

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Blah day

Today has just been a blah day.  We had expected to have company this weekend, but due to circumstances beyond our control, that's not happening.  My kids are very disappointed, especially Pasi.  It has kind of made us all in a bad mood today.  I didn't really want to do anything and everyone is bugging me today.  It's the kind of day I should just be by myself so I'm not grouchy to everybody.  Unfortunately, I NEVER get a day by myself, so they have just had to deal with me today. 

Maybe I'm just coming off the high of parent teacher conferences.  We saw all twenty-five of the kids teachers at three schools in two days.  We got to listen to twenty five people brag about our kids and tell us how wonderful they are and how we must be doing something right to have kids as awesome as they are.  It sure made us feel great.  It really made me feel like Lincoln and I are a good team working together, trying our best to raise our kids right.  Maybe today was kind of a let down?

Monday, September 20, 2010

A Lazy Day

Is it ever ok or justified to have a lazy day?  I worked very hard pretty much every day last week.  I cleaned and cleaned every day last week, except Friday.  Of course, after the weekend with my family home you can't tell I ever did anything!  I had planned to get everything back in order and looking good today, but I got up and my right hip and back are very painful and I just have no energy.  It could be because I have Aunt Flo and Uncle Cramps visiting.  I'm ready for them to leave.  The last few years whenever they visit I get sooooo tired and painful that I can hardly function for the first few days.  Anyway, so today I want to just sit, watch tv, and work on my cross stitch.  Is that wrong? 
 LATER........
Well, I did force myself to sweep and mop my floors and tidy up Pasi's and Siu's room.  I just need to do some laundry, wash the dishes, and swish and swipe the bathrooms and I will feel like I've really accomplished a lot!  My goal, get it done before lunch (noon).  Sometimes when I give myself permission to be lazy I actually get more done than when I have my big "to do" list and feel like I HAVE to do it.  I'm doing it because I want to, not because I have to.  It's a control thing with me.  I have to feel like I'm in control.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Frugal Living

There is a blog I love to read.  I have to check it everyday to see if there is a new posting.  I don't even remember how I found it, but it's awesome!  It's called Want What You Have.  A Christian mom with three kids writes it and I love her practical and down to earth ideas and the way she doesn't try to make out to be perfect.  She's just a stay-at-home mom who likes to write.  Anyway, she posts things that she does to live frugally and simply.  One of her posts was, "Twenty-five things we do to save money."  So with that idea, I want to post my own list of things I do to save money.  I may not have twenty-five, but we'll see how many I can think of.

"Things We Do to Save Money"

1. I make my own laundry soap.  I have tried different recipes and have finally found my own version of a couple of recipes that seems to work well for me and our types of laundry.

2. I now hang my laundry out to dry.  It wasn't a deliberate choice.  My dryer broke and I don't have money to buy a new one.  I am enjoying the feeling of self-sufficiency it gives me and my clothes smell great!  So I'm saving money on my electric bill and I'm saving the money of not buying a dryer right now.

3. There are some things we VERY, very seldom buy, soda is a big one.  None of us need to drink it and it is not good for us.  I think it's a huge waste of money.  I almost wrote that we never buy soda, but that's not true.  We have bought it, but it's maybe a couple of times a year.  I very seldom buy potato chips and other junk food.  Now I do have a sweet tooth, so I do buy chocolate once in awhile. 

4. I usually buy almond bark and chop it up instead of buying chocolate chips.  I can buy a bar of almond bark from which I can make three double batches of cookies for less than the price of one bag of chocolate chips.

5. I make cookies from scratch.  I have a very good chocolate chip cookie recipe that my kids LOVE!  When we are at the store and they ask me to buy cookies, I just say, "My cookies taste better than those!" and they agree with me.

6. I only buy cold cereal if it is on a really good sale.  We can easily go through a box of cereal in one sitting, so I save it for a special treat.  We usually have oatmeal or farina (it's the same as cream of wheat and much cheaper! I get it at WalMart.) instead.

7. I set the thermostat to 68 degrees in the winter and 75 or 76 degrees in the summer.  This is easier for me in the winter than the summer because I HATE to be hot.  I just try to deal with it.  Winter is easy because we can just throw on another layer if we are cold.  We are used to it now, so it's not a problem.

8. Lincoln and I don't exchange gifts usually.  We have never really done this.  He didn't grow up getting gifts so he would rather have it that way. 

9. Lincoln cuts his own and the three boys hair.  We have pretty much always done this.  I used to cut the boys hair when they were little, but now their hair is harder to cut so Lincoln does it.

10. I make my own pizza.  The kids would rather have Little Caesars, but I try to make it at home from scratch.

11. I do our own taxes.

12.  I love reading and I love books, but instead of buying books, we go to the library every week.  I LOVE the Salt Lake County Library System!  They have had every book I have ever looked for with the exception of maybe one or two.  It's awesome!

13. Going out to eat is a treat.  We go out together as a family about once every 6-8 weeks.  Lincoln and I go out as a couple about the same.  That's not to say we NEVER get fast food, but it's a rare occasion.

14. Going to the movies is a treat.  When we do go, we go to the matinee, which for the theater we go to by our house that's any movie before 6:00 pm.  It's $2 cheaper and with seven of us, that adds up.  We maybe go 2-3 times a year and only if it's a movie we are dying to see!  The last movie we went to was Toy Story 3 about 3 weeks ago.  Loved it! 

15. Lincoln takes his lunch to work everyday.  He almost never eats out for lunch.

16. I make my kids' birthday cakes and if they have a party, it's a party at our house.

17. When things are on sale, if it's a fantastic sale I buy as much as I can.  Like when Target and WalMart have their notebooks for $.15 I buy 100 or more and that lasts us until the next year when they are on sale again.  Last year I bought so many boxes of crayons when they were $.25 a box that I don't even need to buy any this year.

18. We buy our bread and bagels at the discount bakery.  I love Grandma Sycamore bread and we can get it there for under $1 a loaf.  It's usually $2.99 in most stores.  Bagels are $1 a bag too.  If we can't get it there then I make my own bread.

19. I pay every bill I can online.  It saves me the check and a stamp.  There are very few things that I can't pay online, almost all without any sort of fee.  I pay all my utilities online and pretty much everything else.  I don't pay my house payment online because they charge a fee (I think it's $10) and there is a bank branch just up the street that I just make my payment at.

20. I reuse plastic store bags as trash bags for my small trash cans.  I only buy trash bags for my kitchen garbage can and my recycling trash can. (They use the same size.)

21. Lincoln has several prescriptions.  We order his medication through mail order.  That saves us a bunch, especially since our insurance penalizes us if we don't.

22.  I have pretty much stopped buying DVDs.  I used to think I had to buy the DVD of every Disney movie that came out.  But I soon (but not soon enough) realized that the kids didn't really watch most of them and I had to find a place to store all of them!  If we really want to see a movie, we rent it.  There are very few movies that we want to watch so many times that it's worth it for me to buy. 

23. I try not to buy many convienance foods.  I buy some, but I try to make as much as I can myself.



Well, that's all I can come up with for now.  If I think of more there may be a Part 2.  Now it's time to go make lunch.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Our Little Spicy Girl!

Here's my little sweetheart.  I want to wish her a very Happy 9th Birthday!  Please indulge me a little while I post some of my favorite pictures of her.  If I would have had a digital camera when she was a baby, I would have been posting pictures of her on here everyday!  I would have with all my kids.  Not to brag, but I do have some pretty adorable kids!








That's my little spicy sweetie!  I love you, Siu!

Saturday, July 17, 2010

My Young Women Leaders NEVER Said There Would Be Days Like This!

Ok, to start, I have a big complaint to blogger.  WHY???  Why did you have to change the setup and design, just when I finally got it figured out and was able to use it, so now I can't figure out how it works and I wanted to change my picture, but when I tried to post a new picture I could either get it itsy bitsy or gynormous! No in between, normal size.  So now I have no picture.  Why??

Today I am hosting Siu's 9th birthday party (birthday is tomorrow) with 11 girls attending.  She wanted a music theme so here is the invitation Anita and I came up with this: and in case you can't read mini it says:
Mamma Mia, it's Siu's 9th Birthday!! So be a  Super Trooper and come help us celebrate! Bring your swimming suit and be ready to Take a Chance and get wet.  Music is the Name of the Game, so be ready to sing some karaoke.  So, Honey, Honey say you'll be there to wish our Dancing Queen a Happy Birthday!
I thought it was quite clever.  Siu hated it.  But, being as how it took us all afternoon to make, that's the invitation we handed out. I'm getting ready to make a music scroll cake (don't ask me, I have NO idea how it's going to turn out!).  Anyway, it's going to be a busy, busy day and the party starts at 1:30.

Back to my YW leaders.  Loved them, thought they were awesome!  But they neglected to explain just what would happen AFTER I got married in the temple to the returned missionary of my choice, had some kids, got a house and proceeded to live happily ever after.  They did not say, for instance, that no one in the family (except me) will be able to find a trash can.  No matter how many I put in each room!  And if, by some miracle, they do and that trash can has a lid, they will put the trash ON TOP of the lid!  They did not let me know that after spending hours in the kitchen making a delicious meal, my little darlings would then say, "Yuck, is that's what's for dinner?  Can I have cereal?"  They did not tell me that laundry multiplies exponentially with the each child you add to your family and that the family's ability to get it to the laundry room decreases exponentially.  They did not let me in on the little secret that the sure fire way to get my kids to want to go to bed is to say that it's time to read scriptures.  Suddenly, active, perfectly lively kids the second before turn into semi comatose slugs who are soooooo tired that, "Can't we read tomorrow?"  Insert the whine here.  That's just a sampling.  Now, granted, these are not major problems, but like a rock can be worn away by water continually dripping on it, I'm being worn down by all the nonsense.  They also didn't tell me how to handle having 3 teenagers at the same time.  They didn't give me the secret to make sure that everyone gets the love, attention, teaching, discipline, and training that they need so they can be righteous, happy, successful, contributing members of society.  But in their defense, I will give them this.  They taught me that prayer works.  They taught me that I am a daughter of my Heavenly Father who loves me.  They taught me that one of my greatest tools is the scriptures.  They taught me that you can be happy, smile, and even laugh once in awhile while you are living your "happily ever after".  Even it sometimes seems like the "Nightmare on Bree St".  So I guess I can forgive them for not telling me the whole story.  They might have scared me away  if they had!

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

'Tis the Season for Regrets

The past month has been going pretty well emotionally.  Then all of the sudden, last night I fell back down the hole.  I was thinking of all the things I would like a "do-over" for.  Here are a few:
         #1 HAS to be, I wish I would have graduated from college (big one, huge one!)
         #2 I wish I would have not made all money mistakes I have made over the years (and continue to make, will I EVER learn my lesson?!)
         #3 I wish I would have enjoyed my kids more when they were little.  I wish I would have played with them more, hugged them more, read to them more, listened to them more, and scolded them less.
         #4 I wish I would have been a nicer person.  Still can fix that one! 
         #5 Related to #2, I wish I would not have accumulated all the STUFF that I now have to deal with.
         #6 I wish I would have taken better care of myself, my body, my mental health, everything.
         #7 I wish I wouldn't have had a tubal ligation after I had Siu.  I really feel that we were supposed to have more children.  Even the our kids have told us that they feel there is "someone missing in our family".  Their words.
         #8 I wish I would have learned how, early on in our marriage, to be a good homemaker.  I pretty much suck at it! (And you know how I hate that word!)
         #9 I wish I would have taken care of  my friendships and kept in touch with people I care about.
         #10 I just wish I was BETTER.  I wish I was smarter, healthier, kinder, more spiritual, more organized, happier, a better wife, a better mother, a better person.

Right now I am paralyzed by my feelings of inadequacy.  Everywhere I look I see my failures.  I see my successes too (my kids), but today it's not enough.  I know I probably need some medication to help me get through these times, but the stubborn part of me doesn't want to admit that I need help.  I should be able to handle this on my own, right?  Today I don't know.  I'm not sure how I'm going to get through the day.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Ward Campout



We got home from our ward campout yesterday morning.  We were all wasted!  I slept and couldn't seem to wake up and get moving.  We had so much stuff to put away and I didn't start unpacking until about 10:30 last night.  I went to bed at about 1:30!  But at least we got most of the stuff put away.  Now on to the laundry!  Holy mountain of laundry Batman!

The kids helped so much!  Lincoln and I are getting old and the kids did almost everything.  The boys set up all the tents (4 of them!) and took them all down.  They were great.  They also helped other people at the camp set up and take down their stuff.  They helped load up yesterday and unload late last night.  Anita was a great help, too, getting packed up and everything.  I'm so proud of all of them.

We all had a great time.  It was very nice and relaxing.  The camp site was very clean and nice.  There were hardly any bugs, definitely a plus.  It wasn't too hot most of the time.  I took naps every day.  LOVED IT!  We hardly saw Pasi and Siu.  They were running around with their friends all the time.  They had a lot of fun playing in the creek.  I watched a tv show about parasites last week and I was a little nervous with them playing in the water, hopefully they didn't get any parasites!





It was a fun camp and great to get away for a few days!  We all needed it.  It was so fun to see Cody and Faha spending so much time together and having fun together.  Pasi and Siu loved being with their friends pretty much 24/7.  Anita had time to read and rest.  I even enjoyed cooking on our little camp stove.  I hate getting ready to camp, I hate setting it all up and taking it all down and putting it away, but I like the actual camp once we're there.  We didn't really want to come home.  We have one more day of vacation, then it's back to real life.  Hopefully we are recharged and will get back to work Tuesday ready to go!