(heart)strings

Saturday was Summer's baby shower. 

It was great having everyone together, especially all the mother's in our family.

We are all at such different stages in motherhood.

Summer at the very beginning not knowing yet what it's all about but ready to find out.

Myself adjusting to growing kids who are becoming more and more independent.

Nicole getting ready for another one to be graduating and moving on leaving only one at home.

and my mother...

well thankfully a mother's job is never finished so she still mothers and prays for us all daily. 

I love that we are all here for each other.

The shower was fun and what adorable things she got, baby girls are so easy to shop for.

Of course I might be a little biased but I think Kimberly will love to wear this outfit

and the card that Ryan wrote out for her was pretty sweet too. 

Sunday was church then working outside.

We just bought a new to us camper this week and had a lot of outside work to do in order to get it parked next to the house.  The boys had to help out too, moving firewood and rocks and helping clean and do chores.  Surprisingly enough Cody was the hardest worker but he did find some time to read while waiting until we all went back inside.  Ryan enjoyed helping Heath change the oil in the vehicles and Luke spent most of his time not helping but playing tether ball in the backyard.

It was a great way to spend our last weekend in February,

I wonder what March is going to bring?

so whole(heart)edly proud

Cody was very excited when he brought home the paperwork a few weeks ago to fill out to become a member of the National Honors Society even though it didn't guarantee that he would even be selected.  The paperwork had many areas to fill out, things regarding leadership skills, academics, citizenship, community service, and responsibilities. To be honest I wasn't for sure what we were going to fill in for some of the things but that didn't seem to bother Cody at all, he just sat down and filled out the paperwork himself.  It was great seeing through his eyes how he felt that he was accomplished in those areas, I guess it worked because last night he was inducted into the National Honors Society.  

Our seats weren't the greatest, you can see that we were the farthest away from Cody as possible.

 The whole ceremony was pretty quick but not as quick as Cody was to grab his certificate and go.  He was heading back to his seat before he even got the award in his hand.

 He had to turn back around though because they had other things to hand him, crazy kid.

Cody is such a great kid (and funny too), I hope that he can always have this attitude to strive to be his best in everything.  I know that he can accomplish great things, we are so proud of him and lucky to be his parents.

 The refreshments afterwards was the only part of the night that this little nut enjoyed!

my sweet(hearts)

Remember those overall I bought Cody for his school play?

Well Thursday it was finally time for him to wear them but the day before he informed me that he didn't need them, he already had a costume he could wear at school.  I told him that it would be nice for him to share this information with me because he knew that I had already bought the overalls.  He was also supposed to wear a red plaid shirt with the overalls but thankfully we already owned one of those, but when I mentioned the red shirt to him he told me that he switched sides of the railroad and that now he would be needing a blue plaid shirt.  Again I reminded him ever so sweetly that these are things that he needs to share with me but lucky for him we already owned a blue shirt also. He told me that he would take the blue shirt with him to school because he didn't really like the jean jacket they had for him but that he didn't need the overalls.  So when I first saw him at the play I was speechless, his costume consisted of the blue shirt that I sent him with.  That was it, no overalls, no other part of a costume, nothing,  just the blue shirt and the pants that he wore to school that day. I guess we need to work on a little better communication around here because it just doesn't make any sense to me.

So once I got over the whole costume ordeal, (or lack thereof) I tried to enjoy the play.  The kids played a few songs on their recorders, acted out a few scenes, and sang a few songs.  The kids were in charge of all parts of the play from staging and props to lighting and publicity so you could tell that they were very proud of themselves and all the hard work that they had put into it. Way to go fourth graders! 

Something that totally made me laugh was seeing one of Cody's friends who apparently had

forgotten his recorder play his 'air recorder' I bet he didn't have great communication with his mom either.

Ryan had a special day this week also, he got to be the class scientist and show the class an experiment of his choosing.  I helped him pick The Rubber Egg Experiment thinking that would be a fun one to talk about and would be simple enough to demonstrate.  After going back and forth he decided that I would be able to come to the school and watch him.  He was so excited when it was time to start.  He loved being able to wear the scientists special lab coat and to have the classes somewhat undivided attention.  He read through each of the steps and explained the experiment to the kids, the kids then each got to touch and feel the rubber eggs and lastly it was time for a round of questions.  Ryan loved this part, he loved being able to decide which kid would get chosen.  Sometimes he would do this by eeny meeny miney moe or he would say, "class you need to be quiet I can't hear Mitchell way in the back trying to ask me something."  The kids questions were pretty much all the same, "would the egg break if an elephant stepped on it?",  "would the egg break if you hit it with a bat?", "would the egg break if you poked it?"  "would the egg break if you poked it like this?" "would the egg break if you squeezed it?"

It was such a fun day for Ryan!

 Friday was one of those perfect days with the kids.  They were kind, they were happy, they were helpful, they were pretty much perfect kids, it was so nice. I love those days!  I decided to order pizza instead of make a dinner and Luke was starving like always so he asked if he could set the table and have everything all ready for when Heath got home with the pizza.  I told him how sweet that was of him to offer to do that and then I couldn't help but laugh and be a little embarrassed when he asked me if he needed to use real plates or fake plates in setting the table.  Fake plates of course being paper plates, which I guess we use a little too often around here. 

Those are my sweethearts...

(heart) attack

painting hearts on rocks is what the boys and girls were busy doing yesterday

along with a little help from amanda and myself

today we walked around our neighborhood delivering them

leaving them quietly on the doormats

of our neighbors and friends and even complete strangers

thinking that when they stepped outside and saw a sweet little rock with a heart

they will know that someone loves them

we even left one on the playground at the school for some lucky kid to find tomorrow

it was such a fun project to help spread a little love

a happy (heart)

a few of the things that made my heart happy this week...

ryan made me laugh when he came home from school with this paper. when i asked him to explain his picture to me he said, "it's me breaking out of an egg (like a dinosaur) and i'm yelling FREEDOM".

ryan was also a good sport when he had to go shopping with amanda and i to hit the kohl's clearance sales. even though i was reluctant to go at first i got some great deals so i was happy, and ryan kept us entertained.

last week we were low on groceries and everything i asked luke if he would eat in his lunch he vetoed so  since i knew he wasn't going to eat it anyway i packed him a juice box, a bag of veggie chips and an apple, good mom huh?  i figured he would have some lovely words for me once i picked him up from school  so once he got in the truck i asked him what he thought when he first opened his lunch and he told me, "i see i only have three things" so i then asked him what he really thought about me when he saw that lunch and he said, "oh, so this is the game she's gonna play." i don't know if this made my heart happy or not but it did make me laugh.

friday night i headed out for tucker's last regular season game before districts start, plus it was also senior night so i knew that i wanted to be there.  i wish i could say they won but they didn't, it was a crazy intense game all the way to the very end.  tucker had a great game though, he hustled, played smart and is a real team player. he is so much fun to watch and we were all super proud of him

saturday morning we went to cody's game, i don't have any pictures of him because i was asked to keep track of the score.  he is improving all the time, he rebounded a couple of balls, was able to get one shot off and he even tried stealing the ball.  it was fun to see a little more motivation from him out there, it might of helped too that i promised him a moxi java hot chocolate if i saw him working hard.  he also had some more fans in the stands, jason, amanda and the girls game to cheer him on so we appreciated that.

sunday started out a little rough for me but i changed my attitude so i could have a happy heart and enjoy the day with my family. after church we came home had some lunch, hung out and then went outside to enjoy the beautiful day that we were given.  heath and jason headed to town so amanda and i had the kids work on a heart project.  who knew this project was going to be such a hit and go on and on, the kids loved it and so did we. 

we also played some uno this weekend which the kids were loving. we played two rounds and had a bet that the two people that won were going to get first choice of their piece of brownie (brownies that amanda was making for us). i won the first game and then met amanda at the fence for our brownies which were two very large pieces that we could cut up ourselves.  ryan was in tears when he saw that there were only two pieces even though i told them i would be sharing. the older boys were for sure they could win the next game but didn't plan on sharing any so heath and i thought we would teach them a little lesson.  we did a little card swapping under the table during the game to make sure they didn't come out the winners and when heath won the game luke instantly broke down in tears which didn't come as a total surprise.  it all worked out in the end, we all shared the brownies, the boys hopefully learned a little lesson and we enjoyed the rest of our night together

all with a happy heart.

(hearty) har har

This little boy is such a nut

he really cracks us up around here.

My brother stopped by quickly after work to pick something up from me

when he came in through the kitchen Cody saw him, said hello and gave him a hug

Ryan laid on the couch not moving just watching tv

Matt said hello to him but there was no response

Matt went outside to say hello to Luke who was outside playing tether ball

Matt then came back in and we went upstairs to work at the computer for a little bit

When Matt got ready to leave he talked to the boys again

after hearing his voice Ryan looked up and said,

"Hey Uncle Matt when did you get here?"

Matt told him that he'd been here for awhile and that he tried talking to him
but he was too busy watching tv and just off in his own little world

to which Ryan replied,

"Hey, how did you know that I was off in my own little world?"

I always (heart) a good week

~a few of the things that I loved about this past week~

a quiet week at home with no errands and running around this meant lots of me time when the boys were at school

cheering tucker on at his basketball game

visiting and catching up with a friend at her house

a morning spent baking chocolate chip cookies & pumpkin cream cheese muffins and sharing them with friends

hearing ryan say "and guess what" a million times when he tries to tell you a story

finally being excited about our disneyland trip now that everything is coming together how I wanted it

watching my amaryllis flower finally bloom another little reminder of my grandma

feeling the warmth of the sunshine

seeing the excitement on ryan's face when he gets to have a sleepover in the boys room all weekend long

finishing the book 'the glass castle'

taking a nap

celebrating a good friends birthday

seeing most of my family at different times but especially seeing summer's pregnancy waddle (just eight weeks to go)

watching cody's basketball game and seeing the look on his face when he saw his fans that showed up to support him

I hope this week can be just as good.