Brrrrrr.....

It's sunny, it's chilly....it's a "neck shirt" day!

Being 5 is the best

Doesn't this face make you want to snuggle up and watch Tom & Jerry with them!

Don't worry I did!

We needed it after a week of crazy moments

including.....

......one precious child missing the bus because they refused to change their underwear......geez it's hard to be a kid ;)

Eeeeekkkk!!! a mystery man, Two princesses, a fairy?, Indiana jones, and a ninja!

What more could you want?

Oh, I know Candy!

Operator ... can you reconnect me?

I'm so grateful for my 3 Beautiful sisters and Mother. I had the blessing to reconnect with them this past weekend!

I learned so many things from them and I hope they know how much I love them and how BEAUTIFUL they are!

Who are these great women you ask?.....Well let me introduce you...Oldest to Youngest of course.....

Toni....She's the oldest, wisest, sweetest...best listener you've ever talked to.....How sweet you ask? when she would babysit us she use to always say "Don't worry you can do that ....I'll take the blame". She is now our very own Stamping queen and always provides us with the best,cutest, crafty projects to do. We couldn't have had a better example in an oldest sister.

Tina ....Funny, Serious, Gorgeous, Spiritual. In the dictionary under the word nice is Tina. She had lots of weird boy stalker's in High School because she was nice to everyone...
She's the best muffin maker in America...When I lived downstairs from her at Ricks College I could always count on her to be awake at 1:00am to talk to...what was she doing at 1am? making muffins of course!

you know me...Dori....I'm Daughter number 3...the middle child...that alone explains a lot!

And my little sister.... Micki...The braces make her look 18 but she's really only 3 years younger than me....She's the best.... she will sew anything for anyone...except pleats...Can you believe that I once pulled her hair so hard that she threw my teddy bear (from Bill) out our second story room window.....She is my kid's favorite because she is SUPER AUNT! and she's available..so all you guys in UT that read my blog.....just call me I'll give you her number! (Oh she's going to kill me for that or throw my teddy bear out the window!)

We were so lucky to be raised by........

well we just call her.....MOM...she's was always able to make

us behave and we are so blessed for that...she's super tough and can do anything she decides she wants to...sewing, pruning, mowing,tilling, baking,cleaning,writing thankyou notes,visiting teaching,teaching, and she usually has it all done by 6 am!!

I've decided that my mom's best parenting skill was being able to live the gospel almost perfectly and let us see the joy in living the gospel.

It was nice to go back in time this weekend and share a room again wth all my SISTERS it was truly like the old days....laying in bed talking and being silly, and mom telling us to go to sleep it's late!!!

What have I been doing, done, been, seen....

Geez I noticed on a friends blog roll that I haven't updated in 2 weeks.....It caused me to reflect on what had I been doing and how times goes really fast.

Well I took a day to think about that and what I should post about. But as I reflected I thought about a talk I heard once about making sure that we are doing the important things...you know the really important things...
.... I know laundry is important...to quote my sister "one more day and I'll be naked! " But there actually are more important things...

So I reflected in the past 2 weeks have I done the real important things....The things I've always meant to do everyday.

After reflecting..... this word popped into my head "discipline" It really is the key...I must discipline myself to do those things... those little things, those things I KNOW that I'm suppose to do. Everyday.

So the things that I knew I should be doing I did this morning. Wow. that took so little time but feels so good.

The words I'm done feel so much better than I'll do it tomorrow.

Monday the day...

1. Your kids Hide under the bed so they won't have to go to school!


2.You try to recover from having an abcessed tooth and emergency ROOT canal on Sunday!


3. You do mounds of laundry.....

4.You try to find something to eat and all you can find is chocolate chips! Which you should make into a great afterschool snack for your kids but ....it's monday so you just eat the chocolate chips!

Dinner conversation....

A friend brought whole wheat rolls for dinner....

Jessi says "Mom, I like your rolls better"

I respond "You don't like wheat? I was going to start trying to make them."

" ew yuck mom, We don't have to be that healthy...I DO P.E.!!"

One of my favorite times of the day...

One of my new favorite things is.....

My new Sunglasses ....and my kids saying

"Mom those are too big...Mom those are huge you shouldn't wear those.."

and yet I wear them anyway and LOVE them.

This Week...which is now over and is not really this week..

We ate Lemon cake.....Why? Because we always eat Lemon cake on September 10th...Bill's Birthday!

this week I couldn't resist this place mat for Macy...because she is our

"Macy Monkey"

What's in the bowl you ask? Tomato soup noodles..or in other words homemade spaghetti O's! (It was friday night and Bill was working late) It was either that or Popcorn for dinner...what would you have choosen?

Where did everybody go?

Well Macy...


Jessi & Ellie got up early and waited for the bus














And Ty waits here a little later

Then Sophie gets ready and waits here half way through the day:




















and the wheels on the bus go round and round...
.

Leaving just Mom and Macy!

Happy First week of School!

One Last day!

This week has been a bit of a whirlwind....but I wanted to finish my count down... I know it's a little late but don't get all riled up about it!

So the Last day of summer: Labor day! That's exactly what we did. Labored. We we went to Corvallis (Home of the Beavers!) and helped my grandparents paint their house. The kids mostly talked to Grandpa & Grandma and played with their toys. Bill helped my dad on the sprayer and I helped touch up paint. They had picked a great color for the house....

After we were done at grandma's there was one question raised...."Can you really visit Corvallis without visiting the Beavers stadium? Well the answer was obvious .....we took off to visit and what did we find? We were so lucky to watch the last few minutes of practice! and then we found an open gate!

The kids are BACK! 2 days to go!

We had a great little staycation. Bill and I did lots of fun stuff, movies, dinner, temple, hike, clean garage,baseball game and our favorite...eating Tillamook Ice Cream!!

Today is Sunday and I was trying to get Ellie to help me clean up the living room...She said "Why? why should I?" So I was explaining if her friend came over what would you say? "Don't mind trippin' over all the stuff?" Which some how led Jessi and Ellie into making a song out of it....Silly girls... while I kept trying to get them to help me clean up they created this dance in their room ...I grabbed the camera and hid it under a sweatshirt and recorded their performance....O my after this performance they went on to create a few more dances named "You can't make us clean up" and something like " No way are we going to clean up".

So as you can tell in this video it really does need to be cleaned up......How many more days of summer?!!?!!

Omy Day nine! How many left?

Well I had a tight schedule yesterday to be able to fit in the fun activity I had planned. Clean up rooms, pack for Aunt Toni's, go on a bike ride, visiting teaching, dinner...go to Aunt Toni's to drop of kids to spend the night. I think the kids heard , blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...go to Aunto Toni's because it took them ALLLL day to pack and they weren't happy until we threw open the door of the van and they planted their feet on Aunt Toni's property!

So we left them... yep all 5 kids at my sisters for 3 nights and 2 full days! They were so excited because as you know a cousins house is just as good as going to DisneyLand!

So you could say our little countdown is on hold... or is it? I don't think so I'm still going to be having fun.

So what am I going to do you ask?

1st: Breathe

2nd: Clean my house and watch it stay clean.

3rd: Enjoy sometime with my Bill.

Our first activity after dropping of the kids....

Day #8 6 days Left :)

What could be better than having great friends. Tuesday we had friends over...Jessi and Ellie's good friends from our old town. We picked them up on the way home from Grandma's and they stayed the night. Fun for the girls... What did they do? Be girls. Up late playing games in their room, be silly, made treats, went on bike rides... Begged to watch TV... can you hear me now "No, your friends are over, do something".

Well Ty had a friend come for a little while and Sophie actually went to a friends house. Which I heard was so fun because they played "Lions". I just love little imaginations.

My Kitchen is still trying to recovery from so many cooks in the kitchen yesterday....

Monday!!! Day #7

If we did nothing else all summer but the activity we did yesterday we could call it good. We packed up and were on the road to a town about 40 minutes away to visit my Grandma and the kids Great Grandma. She now lives in a semi assisted living community and the kids had not seen her since she moved. It was a great visit with Grandma. We picked her up and went to the park and ate our lunch and let the kids play.... I got to sit next to my grandma and visit with her on a park bench. What a perfect moment. I hope she enjoyed it as much as I did.

At one point while we were cleaning up our lunch I was reminded of a memory of my grandma that I shared with my kids. Do you mind if I tell you?

My mom always made homemade ketchup. I detested it. It was like putting tomato sauce on your fries. I was a kid and now knowing how kids can be itprobably wasn't so bad. I guess I made a big deal about how I didn't like it because my grandma knew of my dislike. While at a Christmas party at my Grandparents house my grandma told me she had a special present for me in the fridge and what I found was the perfect gift ever... a brown bag full of the restuarant style ketchup packets! She had been saving them for me every time she went out to eat. Which now that I think about it wasn't alot because they lived at least 20 minutes from town. For months I hoared those packets in our refrigerator as "My Ketchup" .

Soon we will visit my other set of grandparents. How I wish we were closer...but is that really an excuse for such long periods of time between visits?

Jessi, Ellie , Ty with Grandma in her amazing yard before she moved. (Did you know Jessi is named after her?)

Sunday Day #6

Since Sunday is the sabbath I guess we kinda took the day off from having a fun moment...Until I actually got my little girls in bed and had a few extra mintues and thought "I should play a game with my 3 big kids" and since my thought started with I should I jumped on it. It really is my new theme instead of my "I should's" turning into I should've I try to make it happen. So I whipped my big girls in my favorite game ..... Othello.... I'm sorry there's no mercy they need to learn! :) But then I played Ty... since he's 8 I let up a little...I was so wrong to do that because of the few things I let get passed me (on purpose) I couldn't come back....He Killed me!!! It was sad but now I'm glad I have some real competition!!

As a kid we planned tons of board games and I loved to be the best and I've been a little disappointed that my kids don't have the same love of games I do. We'll guess who's fault that is? If I would've actually played with them more then they would love them too. So no longer I'm making Sunday night " Just try to beat mom night"!

What do you want your kids to love?

Saturday--Day #5

We live in a great semi-small town where there are always great activities going on around us and as hopeless as this sounds we never take advantage of it. In fact it's ridiculous there are so many things....Concerts in the park, Saturday market, 3 on 3 Basketball tournament, lots of farm activities, the county fair. but we are always busy doing something...Like yard work or family events (out of town) . SO This weekend I put a stop to our madness and we went to the Largest Dahlia Show in the world! (2 minutes from our house) Well and I don't know if it was the biggest in the world but there were tons of tours buses from every retirement community in the NW! :)

The show had indoor arrangements and then you could check out the fields and fields of beautiful rows of blooming Dahlias... Don't know what Dahlias are? Well I'll show you.

There's Big ones:

And small ones:

And ones with funny names:

I told everyone to pick out there favorite things of the show (meaning flowers) but this is what Bill and Ty picked...sillies!

Day #4

So when deciding what we are going to do each day I have been reaching back into my brain and reading the list of all the things I've meant to do...You know that list we all have. I should.... I should... So yesterday I took one of those I should's and took Ty to the swimming pool for a much needed swimming lesson. (I certified in College as a swimming instructor and have only used it on a few cub scouts and my own kids). That was really nice to have one and one time with Ty and help him. I think he's made some good improvements. I just have to say it does my brain such good to have a break from the house. I hope to go get in the pool more someday. Swimming is one of my favorite things to do.



While Ty and I swam the girls stayed home and watched Spiderwick Chronicles and loved it. When we got home we all decided that we needed a really really really good snack!!!! So we made banana bars! Yum yum yum yum they are definitely one of our favorite treats. If you have never had one.... oh my.



I have to say with my focus on the kids(and me) having as much fun before summer is over it has helped be more willing to do things with them, like let them help me cook...I know you know what I mean.



I wonder if they will think weeding is fun tomorrow? :)

Day#3

Our fun moment started late in the afternoon. Ty, Sophie & Macy went to our friends house, which Ty loves because they have a wii and boys to play with, They also have 2 girls close to the little girls ages. They had a blast there.

Then I took Jessi & Ellie to Middle school registration (Crazy I have 2 kids in Middle School!) We went and got Ellie on a soccer team....and right next door to the house that we were dropping her registration off at was....Grandpa Leder....funny...he had broken down and needed a jump start. So you could say we had a hero moment :) Then we headed out of town to shop til we dropped. Funny we were all wearing pink shirts and had a great time. We hit Old Navy, Kohl's, Target...and the pet store where Jessi adopted a new pudgy goldfish "Noodles".

So again we were successful and had another fun summer moment...except that we were school clothes shopping and that really means summer is coming to an End.

Day #2

Well Day 2 didn't go exactly as planned...My vision was a service day ...we were going to all make Banana bread together than deliver it to the neighbors and friends...all together and have a great fun moment. Well...

It was still a fun day . I made the banana bread, didn't have enough pans to make as much as I wanted. The kids were distracted by other things, good things, playing games together. Macy distroyed one of the 3 loafs we were going to give away and then we ran out of time. So at about 7pm Jessi and Ellie delivered one loaf to the neighbor... I was feeling way to ugly to go with them. :) So what are we going to do on day #3 to top that? Won't take much :)