G is for Greatest Vacation

I love the water and the beach, so naturally my favorite vacation was with LOTS of family, on the beach. Rocky Point to be exact. My Grandma & Grandpa Bleazard's whole family was there, minus 1 or 2 missionaries and one cousin who was traveling (in Europe, I think). I'd never been to Rocky Point so I had no idea what to expect. It was awesome! 4 days of just chillin' by the beach watching my mom & Aiden play in the water. A few cousins got stung by sting rays (apparently we were there during sting ray mating season!) and I had the anxiety attack of a lifetime when I thought I would be stung for sure. If you want more to that story you'll have to ask when you have a few minutes. Hahahaha! Insane freak-out on my part though! It was such a great thing to do at that time because we are all getting married, having families and moving all over the country (or so it seems) now. For so many other reasons that are just hard to express, this will always be one of my best vacations ever.

Oops! Sorry May 17th. I forgot about you!

So I've been thinking I need to take a break from "letter of the day" and post about my fabulous calling. I've been pretty busy lately with Youth Conference and Girls Camp on the agenda. Youth conference was this weekend and I think it went really well. We did it on a ward level. We took the YM & YW out to the Gila Valley Temple open house on Wednesday, had a water party on Friday and a service project & fireside on Saturday. Then concluded with a testimony meeting on Sunday during the YM/YW hour of church. It was a great experience for everyone who joined us. I was super busy getting ready for all that we did and I was glad when I could relax after it was over but I am also SOOO glad for the opportunity I have to be involved with the amazing kids in our ward. They are examples to me of strength and faith. I'm blessed by the chance to associate with each of them.

F is for Favorite kind of music

The person I was in high school would be shocked to know that I really don't listen to music very often anymore. I love music and I love to sing but the kids only want to listen to kid-music and I can only take it for so long. :) And when I'm in the car by myself I will listen sometimes but I usually like it quiet. But when I'm with Jeremy in the car or while he's tinkering in the garage, I like almost everything he listens to. As long as it isn't too hard. One of my all time favorites is the Les Miserables soundtrack. This is a very rambling post. So I'm done now.

E is for Essential start to my day

My must have each morning is a hug from my kids. They are still young enough to be excited to wake up and they come bouncing happily (usually) into see me. I love their sweet morning hugs.

And... Happy Birthday to my awesome, wonderful, super, MOM! I love you so much. Hope you had a good day.

D is for dessert I love

Raspberry Pretzel Jello is what I call it. I will post the recipe later but I am exhausted and still have lots to do before bed. Tomorrow...

C is for Chore I hate

Mopping. Hands down. Toilets rank a very close second. But mopping takes the cake. And I happen to have just finished doing it. I love clean floors but its a fleeting thing with kiddos always spilling stuff!

B is for Book I enjoy

I'm not a big reader. But my favorite book is The Princess Bride. Its also my favorite movie. Hollywood did a great job following the book (for the most part) when they made the movie. I read the book in High School while I was avoiding doing my reading assignments that I was supposed to be doing. I grabbed it off my mom's bookshelf while I was home last and I've been reading it again this week. Its a pretty quick read. But if you are inclined to pick it up, you have to get the abridged version. The original is ridiculously long and the story gets lost in the authors ulterior motives.
I think when I finish the book this time I should be allowed to watch the movie again. I'm usually banned from watching it cause I can quote the whole thing. Its okay if you're jealous.

A is for Age

I'm following after all the ladies doing this Month of Me challenge and I'm turning to the alphabet for ideas of what to blog about for the rest of the month!
So A is for Age.
I'm 28. Born Jan 23, 1982. If I'd have been born in 1945 my birthday would be 01-23-45. But I wasn't.
I was 22 when I got married, turned 24 six weeks after Aiden was born, 26 just before Zack got here and exactly 27 1/2 when Chloe was born.

I grew up in Vegas

And the strip is just not that cool! During the youth session of our stake conference last weekend one of the girls who spoke talked about how weird it was to go on an Orchestra trip to Vegas. She talked about the nasty smoke smell in the casino, the cool yet evil flashing lights on the gaming machines and the general feeling of unease that she experienced walking through it all. And that's pretty much how it is. Having lived here in Mesa for 3+ years now, it is strange to walk back into a casino (to get to the movie theatre inside...tell me that wasn't strategically planned!) and cough and gasp for fresh air again. That's one of those things that is easily and happily forgotten.
But I LOVE that I grew up there. Although my parents probably cringed a little more than some just to send me off to high school, I am so grateful that I had to learn to be an example of what I believed instead of "just another mormon" who could justify anything they did wrong because some other "mormon" did it too. Just like standing on the west side of the Vegas Temple grounds and looking out toward the Strip and the evil that it represents, I had to be set apart from the evil that was there in the school. Vegas is black and white. No gray.
I don't mean to say that I grew up in a better place than anyone else, but that it was the best thing for me. We are told "someone is always watching" and I always knew that was true. I learned at a young age to be the example the Lord needed me to be (and I hope I didn't blow it too often) and it helped me form habits that have made me the person I am now.

Happy Mother's Day

My mother's day didn't go quite the way I had planned. You know, get up at 7:15 to get myself ready for church while the children & husband quietly get themselves ready for church without any ado, then pile into the car singing "love is spoken here" and then walk into church with arms folded and kids whispering "I love you mom, happy mothers day."
Hahaha!!! Here's how it really went: 2 babies crying at 6:45 means I'm holding one while trying to feed the other. Zack is sick. Not going to make it to church as a family at all. Aiden doesn't want to go to church. Get my self ready all the while hoping that no one barfs on my dress before it is time for me to leave. Aiden is begging to go to primary now. Start getting Aiden dressed. More tears, this time from he who doesn't want his shoes on. Send the hubby & Aiden off to church, barely in time for primary to start & Jeremy to teach his lesson in Sunday School. Babies napping now. (yes, the above saga took until 9:30) Makeup finally gets put on. A little quite time before I wake the kids up and take them to church and switch parenting duties so I can be in YW. Ca-ray-Z!
But the beauty of the day is that Aiden did say about 7 times today "I love you Mom, Happy Mother's Day!" And I got to enjoy cuddling with Zack (I hate that he's sick, but I love feeling so needed by him!), reading too both boys and watching Chloe giggle and squeal at me all day.
Mother's Day, like motherhood, is not always what I had thought it would be. But man, is it good! I love those little munchkins to the moon!

Family History

I just started looking at the info that new.familysearch.org has in its records. I have never been the family history doer, but I thought I'd take a look and see what the website is like. Its cool. There is work to be done only a few generations back. I have to take small steps with this one cause it could be SO overwhelming, but I'm excited to be looking back into history a little!

Out of ideas!?!?!

Only day 7 of this little challenge and I am out of ideas. Yikes! Or maybe its that I waited until 10:00 to log on and start typing today. We'll talk about that. My sleep.
I love my sleep. I am blessed with children who sleep 12 hours at night. 8pm-8am. More recently I've had many 7:00 mornings. But I can handle that. I've always needed more sleep than the average person. Ten hours at least occasionally is a must for me. No less than 8 will do. And this is not a "princess" complex I have going on here, it is a true need. Several days with only 5 or 6 hours a night and I will have strep throat or a sinus infection or both. Bleh! Not quite sure what I'm going to do when I have to get kids ready to be out the door by 8am (or earlier!) for school, but for now I am enjoying the fact that I can sleep in and so can they.
GOODNIGHT! :)

Aiden...

How can my "month of me" be complete if I don't throw in a little about my kiddos!?!? Today is just another "aiden-ism".
This morning when Zack and Aiden got up, Aiden was trying to give Zack a "good morning kiss" and Zack wasn't thrilled. If you'd smelled Aiden's morning breath you would understand why. When I told Aiden to quit it, he looked up and said "But MOM! I'm a kissing machine!"

Lifeguarding

I was a lifeguard a few years ago... or at least that's what it seems like. It was more like 10 years ago. Okay, there. I said it. 10 years ago! I can remember when I COULDN'T remember what I was doing 10 years ago. But I digress.
Lifeguarding. I loved it. I was mexican-tan, crazy blonde hair - with no chemicals... other than chlorine:) and I spent my days by the pool. I got paid crazy amounts of money (relative to my age) and did basically nothing to earn it. I met some of my best friends ever during those summers. Including myself. I gained so much self confidence. I learned that there were people in the world who like me because of who I am and not because I acted the way I thought they wanted me to. Those were a few very liberating summers!

Me, cook? No....

One of the first weeks of our marriage Jeremy was talking to his dad on the phone when dinner was ready. He shamelessly rubbed it in that he had to get off the phone because his wife actually cooks. My mother in law does not cook. Jeremy thought he had struck it rich with me. Haha! Little did he know.
I have about 5 meals that I feel good about putting on the table. Not including grilled cheese & quesidillas. I make chicken enchiladas (which I love but Jeremy mostly just tolerates), sweet & sour chicken (a recent discovery), tacos (which almost falls under the grilled cheese category), potato cheese soup and pizza (no not delivery, DiGiorno!... and homemade!). Maybe there are more. Maybe. But not many more.
The sad thing is that I actually kind of like to cook. When the kids aren't playing with hot wheels cars right under my feet and pestering me about when they get to eat, and when I have all the ingredients, and when I know that once the food is on the table that everyone will actually eat it... THEN I enjoy cooking. But that just doesn't happen very often. Its usually a 5 o'clock "hey babe, what's for dinner" that spurs me to consider what is already in the pantry & the fridge. Hot dogs maybe? And hamburgers if I have time to defrost meat & I can convince Jeremy to light up the grill? Or maybe its a DiGiorno night? GROSS!
So help me out ladies! Give me some quick, easy, the-whole-family-loves-it-every-time ideas here. I'll take your "plan ahead" ideas, but I'd especially love the ones I don't have to think about until my tummy is rumbling! Please comment before 5:00 tonight! :)

The REAL May 3rd Post

Back on schedule. But don't know what to talk about. Oh! How about stake conference. And me repenting a bit!
I was REALLY dreading stake conference this past weekend. It really filled up my Saturday with the Youth Session (leaders too!) and then the Leadership session and then Adult Session. And I did not want to dedicate myself that much. I murmured. A lot. You may have heard it? And now I am repenting. I forced myself to go to all of the sessions on Saturday and the Sunday general session and I was blessed. Despite my bad attitude, I was blessed to learn and grow and feel the spirit in each meeting. I really enjoyed all of it.
Jeremy & I have hardly seen each other for the last 2 weeks and I could have easily justified ditching any of the Saturday sessions to spend time with him. But one of the blessings I received from being where I was supposed to was that I felt like the time away from him actually helped me feel closer to him. Unlike the last 2 crazy weeks where we've just had a lot of stuff going on.
I feel like I'm rambling a little. But I am glad I went. And hopefully next time I will be grateful for the opportunity and not whiny about the time commitment.

May 2nd retroactive post

Wow! Off to a great start, huh? Missed the second day of the challenge. I'm making it up anyway... I might be disqualified from the "challenge" but what the heck.

My best friend left a super sweet comment on my May 1st post, so I'm dedicating this post to her. Month-of-me appropriate? I think so! She has had a great impact on the person I am today! Cassie is one of my truest, most loyal, most sees-me-for-who-I-am-and-still-loves-me type friends. We met when we were in primary in the same ward for a brief time but we became friends in Spanish class during my sophomore (her freshman) year in high school. It was an instant friendship. One that you know you picked up right where you left off. We have always talked about how we are kindred spirits. She is my sister in the purest form.
We have some silly & crazy life happenings that seem to mirror or match each others'. Lets see if I can do justice to the examples... its been a while :)
Our birthdays are January 23rd (me) and January 24th (her) one year apart.
KIDS...Our daughters birthdays are July 23rd (mine) and July 24th (her's) 5 years apart. And you'll notice, our daughters are born on our respective 1/2 birthdays! She has 1 girl & 2 boys in that order. I have 2 boys and 1 girl. Both our oldest sons are a month apart.
Our husbands were both a part of our lives LONG before we knew we'd marry them. We fell in love with our hubs at the same time of year, just not the same year. We married them at the same time of year, just not the same year.
Anyway... silly, but we've always laughed about the little similarities. And there are a lot more that I'm totally forgetting or leaving out.
The point is, she is awesome! At a time in my life when I had many people who claimed to be my friends, she was one. I owe a lot to Cassie. A debt that I can never repay.
I hope everyone has a friend like her. Someone who you've know a lot longer than just this life. Someone whose a part of your eternal family, someway, somehow, even though there are no earthly family ties.
Love you Cass!

Month of Me

My lovely friend Julie has issued a challenge. A challenge to write something about myself every day during the month of may right here on my blog. Not sure I have that much to say about myself, but here we go.

I am a mom! Simple right? Well, hardly. But that statement means so much more than words can express. My "about me" on Facebook says "I am doing what I've waited my whole life to do!" And these four little words are what I've waited for. I don't think I'm any different than most of you who feel the same way. I think we all feel that way (most of the time) :) And I love it! Serving with the young women gives me the opportunity to be ever mindful of what I felt and thought and hoped for at that age and I've come to this conclusion... I'm meeting my goals & doing what I've always wanted to do. I am a mom!