Ty Ties for First on his first Try!

Dad and Ty of course made a "OSU Beavers" Pinewood derby car. I can't believe that he got first...well Tied for first! It was so fun!

Friday

Oh where oh where has Dori gone oh where oh where could she be!!
The days seems to just scream by and then again I haven't posted anything. Which I just hate, because I just love to read everyone's blog and wonder where are they when they haven't posted for one day and then here I am not posting for a million years. So after I read Memory's post and she's so busy I knew that I couldn't wait any longer. Well that was 3 days ago :). But now it's Friday! I treasure Fridays so much. It's the only day I don't have to worry about what I'm teaching in the morning. I have to make my seminary lessons first priority during the day or I don't have anytime to do them and then it's just bad! I've learned so much about myself in these past 7 months teaching..At first I use to have a break down..bad breakdown..about once a week.. you know the kind "I have too much to do" cry, cry and cry somemore(how embarrassing but I know you all have them too!). About January I came to the conclusion (with my Heavenly Father help) that my family and seminary lessons where my two priorities.. nothing else.. not the kitchen floor, not laundry, not the bathroom,not babyshowers,parties..those things should never..unless the toilet was clogged...take priority. And when I did that and left it in the Lords hands to help me get everything done it some how has. Not always exactly when I would have preferred it to but it got done... usually on Fridays:).

So today has been great, the sun is shining and it's warm outside, I've cleaned my room, the kitchen, put all food back in the pantry (Longstory..I'll post a picture),cleaned the bathroom,started the laundry. It's still amazing to me how much I've changed though. My list of things to do is still a mile long for the day and I know that I will not get it done but I can some how stay calm inside and just know that someday it all might get done but if it doesn't today there's always next Friday!


Saturday night one of the kids climbed the shelves to reach a bag of chips..and it all came crashing down!

Enjoy Mom's with Minivans everywhere!!

Asleep..awake..asleep..

The Perfect Valentine's dinner?

It is our tradition to have a nice 3 course meal on Valentine's day...including candlelight, a perfectly set table, Mom in a good mood, dessert that Martha Stewart would be proud of...but well...I was tired & completely wornout Valentine's night... So what's a mom to do... I threw on Valentine's fabric for a table cloth (which Sophie thought we should leave on forever) We had everyone's favorite Fettucine Alfredo(easy), our salad was just sliced cucumbers, I did manage to throw together some homemade garlic bread ...luckily one of Bill's clients gave him a homemade loaf of bread:)! and Dessert?....Donut holes leftover from Ellie's school Valentine's party!! Which I didn't eat because I had already eaten 15!:) At first it seemed really disappointing but I think in the end I really did learn a lesson from it....Sometimes we just need to forget our own expectation and do what we can and enjoy it because in the end the kids still thought it was awesome and really the only thing different than every other nights dinner was we had a table cloth! hee hee!

Gotta love the kid sticking food out of her mouth for the nice picture!

Ode to Valentine's day!

10:00am-So I have already eaten a heart shaped cookie, 2 heart shaped brownies, 3 small candy bars and 1/2 of a huge Symphony bar and no breakfast! O it must be Valentine's day! I packed my kids lunches with lots of veggies hoping that will off set the enormous amount of candy they will eat today and forced Ellie to eat breakfast (she never wants to)! I'm such a hypocrite and eat my candy bar instead of breakfast!! ;) Well we of course have Valentine's parties today and Hopefully I will pull it all together and we will have our annual Valentine's candle light dinner!
It also feels so good because tomorrow is Friday!!!! and for me as a Seminary teacher that is HUGE!!! Happy Valentine's Day!

One year later...

Macy's hair is so funny...I saw this old picture of her the other day and just had to post this !

"God is anxiously waiting for the chance to answer your prayers and fulfill your dreams, just as He always has. But He can't if you don't pray, and He can't if you don't dream. In short, He can't if you don't believe." --- Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

In Honor..

In Honor of President Hinckley who passed away Sunday night my Seminary class decided to dress up for school today. (Following the example of kids in UT) My class of Seniors spread it to all the other seminary classes, It was so humbling to see all the kids wanting to do something for "their Prophet" President Hinckley. I decided to also spread this to my kids and with very little hesitation Jessi & Ellie wore dresses to school. Sophie decided she would put on a dress this morning too...because she heard what was going on... I thought that was so cute because I never said anything to her directly.

Like so many others I too have been touched by the life and love of the Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley. He had a way of making you feel so loved by him without knowing him personally. I am so grateful for the gospel and the way it helps me live my life in the right way. I'm honored to be able to help teach it to the Lord's precious youth.

Lynette, Charlene, Heidi & Julianne !

January...

According to my blog it looks like Christmas was just yesterday! but some how January is actually almost gone now!
The last two days we haven't had seminary due to weather conditions...It feels like Heavenly Father caused it to snow just for me! I needed time to catch up on studying and laundry!! I went to an all day Seminary Training meeting on Saturday and now I'm filled with great ideas and a little more hope. I was starting to get that overwhelmed feeling....Bill would say I get that way every Sunday night but this time it was worse. So the all day training was fabulous and inspiring! Yesterday I think I went to that level of craziness that only Seminary teachers do and made my own cheap version of the ark of the covenant!!

I know really cheap and small version and I didn't have any angels for the top!!!

I was so looking forward to Christmas break and having a little break from preparing for Seminary...But honestly it hasn't seemed like much of a break...Christmas has been fun and busy. Bill took the entire break off from work...That has helped so much..

The fun all started with..... Saturday...

The Webster Christmas party!!

Uncle Frank, My Mom, Grandma W. Aunt Bonnie

This is the party with my mom's side of the family. We always love it because we only really see these fun folks once a year. Grandma Webster always makes a Christmas tree ornament and writes another chapter of her life history.

Most of the Webster Grand kids..soo excited to get their picture taken!

Melinda,Toni, Mom, Aunt Bonnie,Miranda

These are Rosettes my grandma has made them for every Christmas party since I can remember and I am old:) Well this past year Grandma moved into assisted living (which I'm doing as soon as I'm eligible) so she passed on all the stuff to make these including a lesson and guess what? I did it! I couldn't believe they were almost as good as Grandma's!

Right after the Webster Christmas Party we headed to:

The Extended Family Leder Christmas Party...

Which is held at the Church because there are just way too many people... Grandma Leder as 9 kids 49 Grandkids and most of them are married and have kids of their own ....I can't remember the exact number but I'm pretty sure she has over 100 great grandkids and we are all still pretty close......So here are some pics of that crazy party....

Singing Carols with Nancy

Aunt Tiffany and Sophie!

Ellie, Uncle Ethan, Uncle Nate, Gracie & Sophie

Macy loves to sit on Great Grandpa's lap...she was telling him something about her fingers


Well that's a start with those two Christmas parties Christmas had official begun...

Christmas!

I'm so excited we got a new camera right before Christmas so we can actually take pictures now! Wahoo! We love Christmas bonuses! We had a great Christmas More pics and details to come!

7 Random Things.....

So I got tagged...That means on someone Else's blog they tagged me to do this(Thanks Jen!)...Write Seven Random things about myself.... ummmm....

1. I really like doing laundry...sounds crazy I know...

2. I LOVE putting on freshly laundered pj's....

3. Thursday I ate more Halloween candy than my kids did....ugh..I was sick..

4. I recently got out of a speeding ticket!!!! The only time I've ever sped in my life! :)

5. When I was growing up I told all my secrets to my stuffed Curious George and hid my money in the hole in his armpit!

6. When I was a kid we would ride our bikes to Dunkin Donuts and I always got the chocolate frosting filled donuts....yum!!

7. One of my fears is driving off a bridge into a river of water...every time I go over a bridge my stomach churns.
Okay I have to do one more......


8. I always have at least a 10lb bag of chocolate chips in my cupboard!!! no joke!

Gotta love the snort!

School, Seminary, Sophie....

Somehow we got everyone ready for the start of school....just barely...luckily I had the camera in the van already or I would have not gotten pictures of Ellie and Ty on there first day...poor Jessi she wasn't so lucky...I totally forgot on the first day and then forgot to take the fake first day of school picture on the second day (That has happen a couple years).

So now It's week 2 of school and some how we are surviving.....Especially since seminary started yesterday. It's only been 2 mornings but it's seemed like 2 weeks! But it's going as any class would. Morning at home for Bill and the kids is going alright I think , we are expecting that it will take a week or two to really get into a good morning routine.

I am really loving all the studying it takes for my seminary class. I am lucky that this week is not super busy so that I have the time to study and figure out what I'm doing. This morning I tried to explain to Sophie about seminary:

Sophie :"Mom lets play hide & seek"
Mom: I'm going to read my lesson and then we can play
Sophie "NO, right now"
Mom (I realize she doesn't have a clue what a lesson is): "Sophie before you wake up mom goes to the church and teaches a class full of big kids about the sciptures, So I need to read them so I know what to teach"
Sophie: "Are the kids big like Jessi?"
Mom:" Bigger, they go to High School"
Sophie: "Oh, They're in High School Musical 2!?"

end of summer....

Well we are into the last weeks of summer...I'm kinda sad...kinda happy...Last week and this week has been almost the only weeks of the summer that weren't crammed with activities.
This is just a few things the kids have been up to....

The kids finally convince there dad to put up the trampoline a few weeks ago.... I love it...

Ellie and Ty created a very creative "tree fort" I would call it more like littering the tree.... o well I would rather have them being "creative" than watching TV.

I found Sophie all by herself on the tramp one day playing with Jessi's bunny...They had all gone inside and gotten distracted and forgot to put the bunny away she told me "nobody's coming back" I told her they were having her babysit..... She thought that was so great.

Macy loves to snuggle with things that are white...it's so silly....she finds white article of clothes in our dirty clothes baskets and drags them all over! The other day she found in Jessi & Ellie' room a pair of ...actually clean.... panties I saw her snuggling with them, then she placed them on top her head and walked off...next time I saw her she was sitting on the couch watching cartoons with Sophie and had gotten her head through one of the leg holes and was wearing them around her neck....crack me up!!! It made me laugh so I just left them on her for hours!

I'm finally cool and figured out how to upload video!

(Only because blogger made it extremely easy now:))

So I had to share our favorite video...Sophie had just turned 3..she's now 4..and I was trying to capture her on video singing BofM Stories because she was extremely good at it for only being 3!

This is what happened.....

Fighting cord clutter

I loved this idea for cleaning up all those dangling cords so I just had to share it....He says it would only take 60 minutes to assemble but I'm thinking it would take me at least 3 hours. It's definitely on my list of things to do! So check out this idea and see what you think!

http://www.efetividade.net/2007/08/11/declutter-your-desktop-an-organizer-for-those-cables-and-gadgets-for-under-10/

We love Family!

What a great weekend we had. After a 24 hour delay Morgan, Bill's youngest brother, got home from his mission in the Dominican Republic. He was suppose to get home on Wednesday at 6:30 but do to some unforeseen difficulties we finally welcomed him home at 11:00pm on Thursday night! How great it was to have the whole family together again (minus Josh until Friday night) Morgan got to see Grandpa & Grandma for the first time after being baptized!

It actually does say "Welcome Home Elder Leder!"

Grandpa "Babysitting"

Morgan surrounded by girls already....to bad they're your nieces!

The rest of the weekend was filled with lots of family activities including "Nacho night" Eating Nachos and watching Nacho Libre! Family pictures on Saturday morning and then Saturday night we all went to Temple...what a great thing for Bill & Pam to have all their kids in the temple at one time!! We finished up the weekend with Morgan's homecoming talk in Woodburn and then of course dinner at the Farm!!!
We are so glad that Morgan made it home safe and sound and...... that the weekend is over :)!

Momsense

I wish I could memorize this song! Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlY8STkhopc