Perry’s prayer

About an hour after we put Perry to bed he came out of his room. He couldn’t fall sleep. I brought him back to his bed and tucked him in and sat down next to him. I suggested he say a prayer and tell Heavenly Father everything he was thinking about. So he immediately started to pray.

Perry: Dear Heavenly Father, I want pizza. I want yummy cake. And banana pie. I mean banana bread. And more cake. And cheese its. 

Me: Buddy, are you hungry? Is that why you can’t fall asleep?

Perry: Uh huh. 

So we brought him a second plate of dinner and his prayers were answered and he fell right to sleep.

(above picture from last week’s pack meeting. He got his first set of awards, participated in a skit, and loved every minute of being with those boys)

Wicked

We had a lovely night out last week with my sister and brother in law. For Christmas, they gave us tickets to see the musical “Wicked.”

It was the first time that Eric and I had seen it. I’d heard most of the music before, but, obviously, the music is much more enjoyable and makes more sense now that I’ve seen the play and know the story. Such a great night!

One of my favorite quotes from the musical:

“I’ve heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason

Bringing something we must learn

And we are led to those who help us most to grow 

If we let them and we help them in return”

MBA

Presenting Master Eric!!

In less than 18 months this man earned his Master of Business Administration. We are so proud of him!

He worked so hard to get it all done as quick as possible. He would’ve been done within a year except that he took a few months off during my chemo season.

We celebrated him with dinner out and gifts and a treat. 

It was a perfect evening at Joe’s bbq.

We love you, Eric, and we are so grateful for all you do for our family! You work hard and keep improving and learning and we think are pretty amazing.

sunset hike

Views like this feed my soul. 

Eric was out of town all last week (to Italy and Poland!). I made sure to plan a couple nights out for me to help me get through the ten days. 

One of those plans was to go on a night hike. And wonderful Kacin babysat at home so Kyler and I could go. I have the best teenagers.

I enjoyed every minute hiking with Kyler and hearing his plans for life and laughing and trying to run up the mountain.

We took a few minutes at the top to be still and quiet and soak in the beauty of the night before heading back down in the dark. I was feeling so grateful for a healthy body right then that could get up the mountain and enjoy everything about that lovely evening. 

Life is good.

stealth mode

“In all of living have much fun and laughter.” —Gordon B. Hinckley

I’m sure he was implying that we should all sneak around at 10:30pm on a school night dressed in black to help our teenagers pull an April fools prank. 

It all started with a couple of boys on April fools day who had a late start at the high school the next day. So they concocted a plan. And pulled me in as driver.

They prepared for the evening while watching high school musical. Which I think just added a certain element to the night.

The plan involved balloons, forks, and these pretty pictures.

They dressed in black and loaded up the back of our car with their supplies.

But, alas, the family that they wanted to pull this prank off on had a dad outside doing yard work at 10pm at night! So we parked in the driveway next door thinking he would go inside any minute. Which he do not. Let me tell you hiding in a car for 20 min with those clever and funny boys got me laughing so hard and I don’t think I stopped for the rest of the night. 

At one point, the boys thought the dad had gone inside and so they got out and peeked around the wall only to see him literally right on the other side of the wall from them. 

Eventually, we drove around to the street behind their house to see if they could sneak in the back way. They could see people awake inside, but determined it was maybe an option. We drove back and forth a few times. For over an hour! Patiently waiting for the dad to go in the house. Because what kind of crazy is that to do yard work so late at night? Well, it didn’t seem like he was going to finish any time soon. So the boys switched up their plans and went to tape all of their pictures up on their back glass door. 

But they were determined to put the rest of the stuff in their front yard. So they went into super stealth mode and climbed over the wall and through a gate and got themselves onto the front porch. They laid this down and snapped a picture of how close they were to the yard working dad. 

They didn’t want to push their luck all at once so they were going to sneak away and then come back. But that’s when they were spotted and chased to the backyard. They jumped the fence and called me to pick them up on the next street over. They told me they’ve never run so hard or scaled the wall that fast. 

We decided it would be best to wait until another night to use the balloons the boys had prepared. 

In total, we spent almost two hours sneaking and spying and laughing. 

The next morning the mom sent me this of their work:

So even though it didn’t go according to plan, going into stealth mode was for sure a fun night.

These Days

We just got our 2018 blog books in the mail. That always inspires me to sit down here and catch up a little bit on the ordinary days of life.

Brinna and her bottle...I know we need to transition her off soon, but this baby girl loves her bottles and I love her being our little baby. Though she is looking more and more grown up every day.

When we are in the bathroom getting ready for the day, Brinna often comes to me holding out her hands and says “hand” which is my cue to give her lotion to rub on her sweet little hands.

Perry participated in his first pinewood derby!! He loves being surrounded by all these boys and by some great leaders. (Really, really great leaders!)

We watched my sisters four kids for the weekend. Nine kids is crazy! The only picture we took of the entire weekend was this picture that I found on my phone after Perry was playing with it during church. 

Love this boy! 

Layla played a trick on Perry for April fools day...

She covered his bed in bugs.

The ninth graders had a late start so I got to take these boys to breakfast to partake of the worlds largest pancakes. They each got two of these!

They each barely got through half of a pancake. The leftovers came home in a pizza box.

We were entertained watching those boys stuff themselves with pancakes.

Eric left out of town on the first day of general conference. Let me tell you, that Saturday was a crazy day. So I was grateful for friends who took the boys to priesthood session. 

I personally didn’t get a chance to sit down and listen to very much of conference. Between Perry and Brinna I was up and moving and busy. And then when I finally did sit down to listen to one talk, a picture frame randomly fell off our wall and shattered. It was one of those moments in life...all you can do is shake your head, laugh, and clean up the mess. Needless to say it wasn’t until Sunday afternoon that I sat down to listen to any of conference. 

Brinn has become a bit mischievous and is testing the boundaries. She knows she’s not supposed to drink the bath water, hence the look right at me to see what I will do and then laugh when she’s told not to. 

Layla and her friends were out serving again. They asked every neighbor in our cul de sac until someone let them walk their dogs.

This quote is a good reminder.

We love meeting up with friends at the park.

I took my three youngest to the park one evening while the older boys were at the movies. Perry was pretty excited when I let him ride shotgun for a short distance. 

Perry wanted to be the photographer while we played at the park. I can’t get enough of his sweet fingers in all of these pictures. And all of the many more that I deleted!