Lots of crying!

General Conference this spring was wonderful! We felt, as I am sure everyone did, very spiritually fed. There were so many wonderful things that touched my heart and uplifted me. Matt and I both however, had very strong feelings after listening to Elder Hales talk about finances and provident living. We both felt very impressed that we need to be very aware of our money right now, we need to be saving every penny not spending, and teaching the kids the difference between wants and needs.

As much as I wanted to fight it, I knew our big trip to Utah had to be cancelled. It is hard because we were supposed to be leaving next week and the kids and I staying for almost a month. We found a really good deal on flights, so we weren't even going to have to drive. Still, you have to multiply that by 6. But you just can't ignore a prompting when it comes along.

The hard part is of course the disappointment of the kids (who are we kidding...me too!) We were really looking forward to so much time with our Oma and Papa. I think it perfectly accurate to describe Taite as heart broken. She cries daily and brings me her pennies when we told her we need to save our money. So sad.

The big girls have been great. It was a good lesson to them on exercising our faith and following counsel when given. I am proud of them, they haven't complained at all. I knew they would understand more, we've tried to include them in the way our family spends money. 9 times out of 10 I have them all grocery shopping with me, so they see my meal plans, my list and my dorky little calculator. They know we try really hard to stick to our budget. And they for sure see me do my HaPpY DaNcE when I come in under our food budget!! I love that! It is one of my favorite things...does that show my age or what! But I am sure you all know its hard feeding your families without spending a fortune.

So to all our friends and family that we were SO excited to see this summer....we love you and miss you tons! Anyone that is up for a trip to Indiana...our door is always open!!! It is sad to not get to go home and there has been LOTS of crying, but a good feeling to obey.

Just for Cy

The other day Cy seemed fed up with the girls and came and said "Bye bye Mommy. I go working." I thought he was being funny, I knew the girls were bugging him. Then I come around the corner into the living room and this is what is sticking out of my couch..

He discovered that the cushions flip up on the couch. So now when he needs some alone time I guess, he climbs on in. He will stay there for quite awhile. He even will take his snack and go climb in the couch and eat in peace. He asked me to take his nap there, I have to draw the line somewhere.

Thank You

I LOVE this country more than words can express.

Thank You from the bottom of my heart for all of you

brave men and women out there

protecting me and my family. You are truly heroes.

We lovingly remember those who have given the

ultimate sacrifice for our country
We are so blessed to be Americans!

So....can he Sow?

We all know now, that Matt can sell corn, but can he grow corn? Now I already know the answer to this, because Matt is talented at just about anything that he sets his mind to. Plus we have had gardens before that he has done great with, but never one this size! Expanded family...expanded garden. He even tilled up a little more after this picture, so this is the before and I will post the after before the harvest!

He loves his garden...spends a lot of time there.

Half of our backyard,

a picture of the finished product for my parents!

A little drama goes a long way.

I have been pretty sick lately, a little bronchitis action. The kids have been very understanding of my lack of usual enthusiasm. I am a leaky, snotty, no voice, mess. I know wahhh wahhh!

Last night at dinner we had a little drama. Matt left the room for a moment and the kids were still eating at the table. I was feeding Gus in his highchair. I had been feeling light headed and when I went to stand up, I stood up too quickly. My slipper was caught on my chair and being so off balance, I fell over hard on the tile. I thumped my head good on the tile and took the chair down with me landing with a huge bang!

Just the thud from the chair would have been enough to scare the kids. But the fact that I wasn't saying anything (because I was trying so hard not to cuss!) scared them even more. Ellery and Bay ran over to me yelling Mommy. Then, so hilarious... Taite stands up on the bench and cried at the top of her lungs, I quote

"Oh my Goodness! My Mudder is dead! Daddyyyyyyyy!"

Her sympathy did not last long though, because the next morning I still had no voice really and was trying to tell her something. She couldn't hear me well enough and said "what?" several times.

Finally out of frustration she said, and I quote again, "Mommy....PLEASE use your real voice, I don't like this game anymore!"

Her comments always bring me such happiness. This little girl is adorable beyond words with her sweet personality. I asked her this afternoon, "How did you get SO cute?" She replied simply, "From my Oma...she makes me cute!"

Glad I went through labor and delivery of her 9lb. butt to not even get a little credit!

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Well I was much in need of a night out, so Ellery and Bailey and I headed off to a South Bend Silver Hawks game! It was just perfect, and let me tell you...exciting!

DiNnEr

So we started out by having dinner, these girls are so much fun. I LOVE being with my kids. Elle and Bailey both have such strong fun personalities, I have so much fun with them.































TiCkEtS
Then it was off to the game. We had some free tickets, but when we got to the ticket window, the lady said that the "reserved" seating was all full and I would have to pay. I don't know why our "free tickets" weren't just as valid for the lesser seating, but whatever we just wanted to go in so badly and the ticket lady didn't budge.

I thought it was pretty cool because as we walked around to the gate, someone from Silver Hawks management chased me down and gave me my money back and apologized for our "free" seats costing me money. I thought that was very cool...made a fan out of me!

Doin the YMCA

VoLuMe CoNtRoL
So into the game we go. The girls are definitely my daughters, they wanted to understand the game SO badly. It was just like at home, they want to get into the game just like Matt and I. They asked a MiLLiOn questions. What is this, why did he do that, what does that mean, why can't he just always throw a strike, who swings and misses, what if the ump is wrong, can you skip a base, is there any pushing, can you climb the fence, why isn't it called 4th base......all actual questions! Still my favorite was "a ball, of course he threw a ball...duh!"

Bailey was having some major volume control issues and all of these questions were audible to anyone within 50 feet of us! I said, "lets just watch the game for a bit and see if you can start catching on at all." Bailey watched for a minute and then stood up and said so loud "Well, I think it is pretty safe to say that I actually know nothing about baseball!" She was still having fun though!

PaY AtTeNtIoN

There were a ton of foul balls hit right in our area, an old man 2 rows behind us caught a ball right over our head with his old bare hand, just snagged it right above our heads. This was not enough action though...

So we are enjoying the game, its the 6th inning and the kids are still having a blast. The girls were both on my right side and I was turned slightly toward them answering ....that's right a question. When just barely out of the corner of my eye I see something coming our direction. Another foul ball? I didn't hear any crack of the bat. I turned just in time to see and then throw my kids to the ground as the bat...yes the bat comes flying right at us! It nails this lady 4 rows directly in front of us and then flies up over the next rows hitting a little boy in front of me! I am telling you that thing was flying SO fast! The lady had to be taken to the hospital probably to get a million stitches, I felt so bad for her. It was awful! I thought we were toast!

TaNtRuMs

So, the batter, from the other team, comes over to our section wanting his bat back. We were all encouraging the little boy to keep it! The batter wasn't a jerk or anything and he felt bad for the lady you could tell, but he wasn't budging..he wanted that bat. We were all hollering at the kid to keep it and sit down. But the batter was making a fuss and the ushers came over and took the bat. This guy on the 2nd row apparently didn't like this and chucked his drink at the batter, unfortunately not such good aim, he pretty much drenched a 6 year old little boy in front of him. This earned the guy a security escort to the door and some rather loud booing, mostly from me. They did end up bringing the kid in front of us a bat for giving up the flying one without a fight!

Meanwhile as the game continued, the Hawks manager got upset about something and made his opinion known in classic style, yelling and screaming and kicking dirt all over the ump and home plate. Ellery was irritated by his behavior and yelled loudly "Why is that old guy throwing a fit?" He got tossed.

And finally....

MoRmOnS...really, MoRmOnS?

The people in front of us ride Ellery and Bailey's bus with them. So we were chatting through the whole game, especially after Anthony caught the bat. They were really nice, invited to a BBQ. I was getting excited because we really haven't met too many people still, outside of church of course! Anyway, she asked where we moved from and I told her Utah, then after a minute she said "So are you Mormons? Just kidding, I am sure that is all you ever hear and I bet you get tired of people assuming you are Mormons." I laughed and said that we are and she said "Oh, really?" It was funny because then others behind us and next to us were like "Mormons...really, Mormons?" It made me laugh, we were interesting to people.

Too fun, but what...are we strange?

So a great night full of action, maybe we should get season tickets!

Little Led Heads!

Yep Zoso in the house! I am raising my kids right. We are BIG fans of Led Zeppelin -Matt and I...in case any of your were unaware of this fact! Okay, I might take it to an obsessive level, but still I was hoping that my kids would share my love the of the greatest band EVER!! You can see from these pictures that they most certainly do. I often put Zep on in the car and much to my delight, they have always loved it. Cy can't handle it when one song is over and you have to wait...like 2 seconds for the next track to start. He starts yelling "Mama, more song!!! More song!!"

They all jam and dance around in their seats, it is truly hilarious! Their favorite song, by far is the Immigrant Song, they literally start screaming when it comes on. This just cracks me up. I told Ellery to take some pics of our Zeppelin fun the other day, here is what we do driving around good old Plymouth!

Bailey is a bit of a head banger!

We can't even get out of the car until the song is over!

Yep all of my kids have so much fun, except.....

Poor Gus! I don't think it is the Zeppelin that scares him, just his crazy siblings!

He'll get over it though....he'll have to! Just ask anyone who has ever lived with me, my love of good tunes is serious stuff! (All of my old Roomies are groaning right now!) Put it this way, I put off my induction date with Cyrus for an extra week so that I could still go to the Eric Clapton (another of my loves) concert with my Mom. That is love and it was worth every extra ounce that Cy grew that week and all the discomfort of my 9 months preggo self trying to squeeze into a stadium seat!

Now go put on some good music everyone

This will have to do

Photography these days is pretty great. So many people seem to be so talented with a camera. I have been coveting some of the pictures that so many of my friends have of their kids and family. I would LOVE to get some taken of our crew, but I just can't bring myself to pay the pretty price that seems to go along with it. I have a strict budget and I can't seem to fit that in, not at half of my monthly food budget anyway.

Anyway, the kids were all dressed and ready for church and looked so cute I thought we'd take some WAY amature pictures in our flower garden! So here are my kiddos, all spit shined and ready to go. I don't know how to pose them or anything, so I just kept taking as many as I could as fast as I could and see what would turn out! I just sat there and watched them so they didn't really know when I was taking a picture or not.

Here comes the Bride

My wonderful sister-in-law Beth just got married to Jason! We are so happy that Jason is in our family now, they are awesome. We had SO much fun at their wedding...especially Taite. It was like a real live princess and she was in Heaven! She still talks about her "Princess Aunt Beth" in the beautiful white dress. It was a beautiful wedding and we were so glad that we were here for it.

It was a great time! Beth bought the girls these cute dresses and even Cy a pink shirt and tie. When I put it on him, he freaked out! "No pink! No pink! Don't like!"

It was awesome and we are so happy for them! They are perfect together! My camera had an awful time, half of my pictures are totally blurry so here is what I did manage to get.

What up G!

What up G! We just realized that his initials, Gus Quentin are GQ, so here is my little GQ man!

Look who is 6 months old!! Wow, how time flies by. Gus is pure heaven! He is so fun and so full of smiles all the time.

He is so patient being mauled and smothered by his older siblings that can't get enough of him. Being poked, kissed, picked up, tickled, kissed again, squeezed, smooshed, kissed some more.....all normal for him!

He actually did this one to himself, I don't know how he rolled into it, but he did. I don't think he enjoys the pink!

He is still our tall bean pole. When I had his check up he was 19lbs (65%) and 29 1/4 inches tall (off of the chart) then his head was 17 1/2 (also the 65%)He is sitting up, trying to crawl and getting into everything already. I just want to go wake him up and squeeze him one more time! I LOVE this kid!

This is why I LOVE being a Mom!

Taite is SO funny and always has quirky funny things to say, daily! These were just a couple from the last couple of days.

Taite- Mommy can we go to the park

Me- Maybe

Taite- No, don't say maybe!

Me- What?

Taite- Say yes please! Maybe mean no.

Me- How do you know that?

Taite- I know everyfing.

I chuckled- Oh really? Well we can probably go.

Taite-No, probably is no, JUST SAY YES....like this Yeeeeeeeeeessssssss!

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I was putting on some mascara the other day and I was startled by Taite yelling...
T-"NO!!! Mommy stop please!"

M-"Taite, what is the matter?"

T- "I don't want your eyes to pop!"

M- "Honey it is just fine, my eyes will not pop." as I resume.

T- "Stop!" she taps the mascara "The TV say this will make your eyes POP! Please don't hurt your pretty eyes!"

She must have seen some commercial, I can't think of one that promises to make your eyes pop, but that is what she got from it!

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Taite is a little obsessed with anything princess! She had SO much fun and is now obsessed with her real live princess experience watching her Aunt Beth get married last weekend! She was in heaven seeing Beth in her beautiful white dress! So she says to me today...

"Mommy, when are we going to have your wedding?"

I said, "Honey, Daddy and I already got married!" pointing to our wedding picture.

She got the absolute saddest, most heartbroken look on her face and said,

"You didn't wait for me?"

I tried to explain that we got married before we had any kids. This did not help.

"I want to see you marry Daddy, the handsome Prince! Did Oma get to go? I need to be there."

She literally cried for 20 minutes.

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In the car today, Ellery and Bailey were saying how unfair it is that girls don't get to play football. I started to tell them that Jenna Lisonbee and I used to play with the boys at recess. I said, "My friend Jenna and I,"

I was rudely cut off by Taite saying, "Oh Mom......you don't have any friends!"

Nice.