It's been a hard days night

On weeks that N8 is on travel I sometimes feel like nothing happens or gets done around here. So, it Tuesday and we've done at least a few thing!

On Monday for FHE the kids and I planted some seeds to start for our garden this spring. Bud had been begging me for the last 2 weeks to plant something. Hopefully we have something come up. We did 3 pots plus a pack of peat pots. We needs to do some more peat pots and get some more things started.

Today was Emma's playgroup. She LOVES playgroup. There are 4 moms and we rotate who's home and a theme. Today's theme was friendship and they made a darling friendship garden.
I've been working on some different vinyl designs for a few people. One is an FHE board and the other is a wall phrase to go above a door.

Lastly, we all have to lug things around to church with us and unfortunately my enrichment binder had bit the dust. I didn't want to spend the couple extra bucks for something more decorative and ended up with a plain blue binder. So, to spuce it up I decided to try out some vinyl on it. Although it is still very practical, at least a used a fun font (will & grace btw). The smudging is because I didn't think I should post a picture with my phone number on it!
Now for the rest of the week-- Maybe I'll get tired of how my house looks and clean, maybe won't! Maybe I'll take advantage of our 70+ degree weather and head on a walk or to the park, maybe I won't. Maybe I'll work on my lesson for Sunday, I probably will! Only time will tell. Something I know will happen, music makers and a presidency mtg tomorrow and N8 coming home on Friday.

This has been a very busy week! On Saturday N8's family came to visit us. We met them down in Lancaster and checked out some airplanes at a outdoor airplane park.
Then on Sunday N8 blessed Matthew. I need to put him back in his outfit and try and get a few more pictures, but here are a few. That day another friend Katie Anne was blessed as well. Their birthdays are just one day apart from each other.
On Monday we rented a big 'ol van!! It was huge, but it fit all of us together. We ventured to Death Valley. Everyone but Matthew and I went out to the dunes. They enjoyed the sand and some sledding.
We also made it to Badwater Basin and saw the badwater!!
I think Benjamin was done by this point in the day!
On Thursday we drove down to LA and went to the LA Temple. N8, Dan, Karen and Brent went in and did baptisms for the dead. Nate is slowly widling away at all of the family names he has to do. Then when they were done I went in and did some more temple work. This was our second time this month to be able to go to the temple. It so uplifting to be able to go and I'm glad that we have made that a priority in our family.

After the temple we headed over to Santa Monica Pier. I can't believe we had never gone there before!! It wasn't more than 10 minutes drive away (I'll admit there wasn't any traffic on the way there though), who knew! We walked the pier and then ate lunch at the Bubba Gump Shrip Co. It was a fun atmosphere and I had an excellent BBW chicken salad!

The everyone headed down to the water. It was pretty breezy and overcast, but that will never stop Emma from having a good time!!
There is also a little aquarium down there that the kids enjoyed.
We ended our trip with a ride on the carousel.
Now we have to get back into our groove! N8 is on a snow campout right now (Friday night) and then heads out on travel Sunday night for the week. I need to get out house put back together and work on the church stuff. We'll see how much we get done this weekend! The work is never done.

“By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class.”

Well Valentine's day has come and gone and we have a few things to show for it.
Here are some not so sweet things that came throughout our Valentines day:

1. Bud barfed!! Not so sweet!
2. This also lead to Bud not going to school
3. Canceling playgroup
   
4. Canceling babysitter
   
5. Getting my proposed dental plan :( I'm not sure what I excpected, but March 5th I get a root canal.

There were some sweet things that were able to help the day not be a total loss:

1. Waking and finding a dozen roses from my sweet hubbie!
2. Trying an new recipe and it not turning out too bad! Crispy Southwest Wantons!
3. Giving N8 the cute frame I made:
4. Coming home from a rough dentist appointment to finding a link in my email to this website: www.sweetcoder.com
5. Also no more barfing Bud!! We rescheduled our babysitter for tonight.
   

I hope you all had a great day!!

We're getting more and more smiles from our little guy, here are a few more!

Apparently this a phrase that gets said in our house. I never realized that I said or that N8 said it. But then one day when Emma was pitching a fit, I hear....Oh crap... over and over an over!! Well after I tried not to totally bust up laughing, I promptly told her this is not a word that we use. It hasn't helped and she thinks it's just like any other word. Today right before sacrament meeting started my cousin was holding her and our it comes... oh my goodness. Guess maybe that's the new phrase that needs to be adopted in our house!

This week there is of course lots to get done:

1. laundry (seriously, is it ever done!!)
2. Organizing our guest room (it's amazing what preparing for guests does to you)
3. Tape the RS vinyl projects
4. Work on a flyer for the RS birthday party
5. Decide on and start my RS lesson for March (any topic ideas would be welcome)

We didn't sit down and watch of the President Hinckley's funeral. Funerals are something I try and avoid. But I did switch to it and see some of President Monson's remarks. During that he said one of my favorite scriptures. It also happens to be one of my mom's favorites and it was my Grandma's favorite:

3 John 1:4 I have no greater ^ajoy than to hear that my ^bchildren ^cwalk in truth.