Staying Sane

As a mother I have found that I must find things to do during my day that not only help me to stay SANE, but also that help me to be a better/happier mom to my kids. Like having a piece of candy (and it's just one piece of course;) at the craziest time of my day. One of my main things that helps me out a ton is if I can lose myself in a great book! Even if it is only for 10 mins! Another great thing is exercising, although I haven't done much of that lately, but I have high hopes of making that a constant in my life just as soon as I can get over the flu! I have found that quiet time is an essential as well!

I am guessing that most of you moms out there have things that you must do as well to stay sane, and I'd love to here about them! But if reading is one of them....well then do I have the book for you!!! I should have really titled this blog "My new favorite book", but I thought I might lose some of you! This book has helped me so so soo much! It is full of wisdom, and has affected me in how I am as a mom.

If you can't read the title or author it is called Tending Roses and it's by Lisa Wingate. It truely is the best book I have read in a long time and it was so helpful to me. I think that any mother could relate to it and I even think that a newly wed would get something out of it! There are 2 quotes I want to share:

#1 "What we cannot change we must endure without bitterness. Sometimes we must try to view the actions of those around us with forgiveness. We must realize that they are going on the only road that they can see. Sometimes we cannot raise our chins and see eye to eye, so we must bow our heads and have faith in one another."

#2 "The secret to a happy life is not in getting what you want. It is in learning to want what you get. Don't waste your time crying over what you're not given. When you have tears in your eyes, you can't see all the beautiful things around you."

Those are my favorite quotes in the book. I must say it wasn't the easiest read for me, it was kind of hard to get in to. But I think it came at a very good time in my life, and was well worth the time! So those of you who are readers...read this one!

Nascar

If your asking yourself if you are on the right blog, don't worry you are!

We are Nascar fans! Now those of you who know me are probably wondering if Matt druged me,but he didn't! We took our 3rd annual trip down to the Vegas race track to watch the races. It all started when we moved to Lehi, so you can blame it on that! If someone would have told me that I would love nascar 3 yrs ago I would have laughed myself silly! But having gone to some races and understanding makes all the difference! I don't think I could be a fan had I not gone to a race!

The very best part about our weekend was that our driver, Carl Edwards, won the big race last weekend in Vegas! It was such a good race! He is #99.

My other favorite drivers are #9 Kasey Kahne, # 17 Matt Kenseth, and #88 Dale Earnhardt Jr. Matt and I decided to go for Carl Edwards the first year we went down to the races, so he is our favorite! We have drivers that we don't care for much either, #20 Tony Stewart and #24 Jeff Gordon. So now you all know my little secret about Nascar!

Birthdays!

First of all I must say I'm sorry for taking so long to blog, January tired me all out! You see January is a major Birthday month for our Family! First we have Uncle Chris' on the 2nd, Aunt Staci on the 5th, Uncle Michael's on the 9th, Grandpa Art's on the 23rd, Sara's on the 28th, finally little Blake's on the 30th. I think I gained 5 pounds this month due to all the cake we ate! It turned out to be a very busy (and expensive) month.

Sara's Birthday end up lasting three days this year! She had not one but THREE birthday cakes. We first celebrated with Matt's Family, then had a combine birthday celebration for Sara and Blake with my family, and then a friends pary!

1.

2.

3.

This year was the first time Sara had a birthday party with friends. She turned 5 (going on 12), and I had such a hard time last year trying to decide whether or not to give her a party when she turn 4, I decided that she was a little young and that she didn't need a bunch of gifts. Plus once you start you can't stop right? Then all her little friends that turned 4 later that year all had parties. I felt like a horrible mother not giving my daughter a party. However after this years party I am so WAY glad I waited! It was a little stressful for me. I am tired just looking at the pictures again. For Sara's friends birthday party we ended up making wands and crowns, playing games and then opening presents and eating ice cream.

The one mistake I made was opening gifts too early! They then wanted to play with all the gifts and didn't want to play the rest of the games. The 9 girls were bouncing off the wall the entire time! I don't know how school teachers do it! They should write a book on how to throw your first birthday party, and what to expect, and what order to do things in, and what time of the day is the best time to have it! What I should have done was just called my friend Brittany I think she is the worlds greatest mom as it is and the birthday party that she threw her little girl last year, was absolutly incredible. I did have fun watching Sara with her friends, I just think I wasn't quite prepared for the intensity of it all. There was so much planning involved for a 5 yrs old party! So what is the rule with Boys, when do they have to start having parties? Do all kids have birthday parties every year? If so does it make me the worlds worst mom to not want to throw my kids birthday parties every year!

St. George

This last weekend we made the trek down to St. George with our children. We thought it might be fun to go with some friends down on our weekend off. As we were traveling Matt and I realized that this is kind of a first for us in vacationing with our kids. (Not counting camping trips that we make in the summer.) It was quite the adventure! It started out with Zack asking every few minutes if we were in St. George yet. Which at first was really cute especially the way that he says it, but after about 3 times it got old. We left Friday night hoping that the kids would sleep on the way down, but no such luck. Curtis did fall asleep for about a half hour. It was quite exciting with 7 kids and 6 adults in the house! On Saturday we slept in till 8:30 and then got ready for the day and went to the park. It probably was in the high 40's and low 50's while we were there. The kids played for a while then we got pizza, and then kicked a soccor ball around. It was fun! Sunday we went for a child size hike and got some good pictures. Then we got up Monday morning, and cleaned and headed home at noon hoping to hit nice roads. We were very worried on the way home, hearing all the reports about how much snow utah county had recieved that morning, however roads were really good almost the entire time and we came home to beautiful amounts of snow! Over all it was a fun vacation, not exactly restful, but fun!