Almost, But Not Quite

Last year at tithing settlement, the bishop asked Porter if he had paid his tithing.  I never had considered having him pay any tithing yet because, for one, he doesn't earn money except for birthdays and holidays, and two, he technically he doesn't need to pay tithing yet right?  But Porter was mortified that he hadn't been paying tithing and has insisted ever since that he pay tithing.  Last year the kid paid $12 in tithing and I know for a fact he probably only owed $3 at most and most of that would have been from finding money around the house.  But who am I to discourage such rightousness right, even if he doesn't get the whole 10% thing?  Well, yesterday he insisted he was going to pay tithing and he brought in a whopping 12 cents to take with to church.  He said, "Mom I just love paying tithing because it helps build temples."  And I'm of course thinking to myself how awesome I am because my child gets it.  And then he continues by saying, "Because it's good to build temples and have some that look the same so when the bad guys blow them up and use them as their headquarters we have other ones that look like them and it's important to have some temples." What?  Who is thinking of blowing up temples? At least we are headed in the right direction with our gospel knowledge right?

February So Far

I feel like every time I sit down to blog I start off my post by saying how crazy life has been.  So I guess it is just the standard for life and at this point I should just take it as the norm.  I can hardly believe that it is already the middle of February, can we start this month over?  

What We've Been Up To?

We had two darling visitors (my 4 year old cousins Josh and MacKay) at our house last week for a two night sleep over and Porter was elated!  We brought the blow up mattress into his room and the three of them had a campout.  My boys were in heaven and I realized I can never have more than one child the same age at the same time.  Meeting all of their demands was exhausting to say the least :) They left last Friday and Tom left for California the next morning and was gone until Wednesday and life has been rather lonely with only children to make conversation.  I continued to only associate myself with children when our Relief Society Activity for couples had an impressive turn out and I had to jump in to the under staffed nursery to help take care of the 30 kids that were ready for bed.  Saying I was excited to have Tom home was an understatement.  

We have also been busy helping my mom and dad prepare and move.  After 20 years in a house there is a lot of crap stuff to sort through and a ton to pack!  We discovered a box from our house in Sandy of items from my bedroom.  Jenna, I finally found my Sullvanian Family Critters (ok, it is 20 years too late but hey I knew I had them somewhere!)  My dad keeps trying to give "cool" stuff to Porter until he finally responded, "Papa, I love you but we don't need any more of your junk."  And I have come to the realization that I in my small house have too much crap and have gone on the rampage.  Maybe the fact that I live so close to a dumpster is a bad thing :)

What else have we been doing?  Well, baking of course because we love to bake lick the bowl clean!

  

1st Piano Lessons

My kids love the rain!

Today was a BIG day for Porter.  Not only did he have preschool, but he had his FIRST PIANO LESSON!

My cute friend Jill is going to teach Porter piano lessons and she is amazing and amazing with kids!  Porter had a fantastic lesson and is already wanting to work on his workbook pages.

How cute is this?!

Let me just tell you about how fantastic Jill is.  Not only is she teaching these piano lessons but she also taught a few of us a Barre Class this morning while all our little rug rats ran around her house.  I'm so blessed to have such incredible friends!

Shutting Down the Deal Site

Just an FYI, I've shut down my deal site, Simple Mom Solutions.  (i know it's weird to just obliterate the .com address, but I have an addictive personality and I know that if I don't take it off I will slowly find myself going back to it and that is something I don't want to do even if it did make some money:)  But I've had requests from some of my friends for access to the recipes and the content so you can access that here: http://dealsyouwant.blogspot.com/

A New Year

As one of my most MAJOR New Years Resolutions, I am going to try to be more interactive with my kiddos.  And well, I'm a planner so I do better if I plan.  So we are doing theme days. . . Here's a little glimpse.  We will have to see how long I can keep this up, but Porter loves the anticipation.

ANGRY BIRDS DAY
Complete with an Angry Birds Preschool Pack,
 Angry Birds the Game and the Iphone App Game
oh, and the Pizza

BAKERY DAY WITH A NEW APRON
ok, so we "baked" Rice Krispy Treats at 10 am
but we were out of some necessary ingredients
Next on the docket is Cars and Dinosaurs

My main Resolution this year is Time Management.  With this I hope to be a better mom and get more organized and get more accomplished. Another resolutions?  Getting Jack sleeping through the night.  We are  also trying to focus on reading the Book of Mormon with our kiddos (well Porter) and so far it is going quite well.  Who knew I would actually learn more from reading the Book of Mormon with Porter than I have on my own?  

Self Expression

We fully believe in individuality and self expression around here!

Crazy Days!

My how time flies!  Life has been nothing short of CRAZY around here.  This past week was a whirlwind of Tom and I switching off back and forth each night with the kiddos.  He leaves for school at 7:30 am, then goes straight to work for 9 hours (ten starting next week as we begin busy season, boo!).  This week I had Relief Society stuff 3 different and he had Young Men's as well which meant we essentially inhabit the same house but have no time to spend together and I can tell this Busy Season stuff is going to be hard on all of us.  I'm struggling to work out balancing my time as it seems to have gotten all jumbled up and more complicated.  I am use to working at night when Tom gets home and after the kiddos go to bed.  But this week I found I had NO time at night because of Relief Society obligations and a naughty little boy whose medicine was discontinued which meant sleep was non-existent (more on that later) and I struggled to work with 2 kiddos whom I would much rather spend time with.  But, I guess it's time for me to pick myself back up and face reality because this is it!  But I am super grateful for what I do have:

Porter learned about Bakeries this week at school so we have been busy baking things in the kitchen this week:
Bread, Cookies, More Bread, Muffins and more!  (in case you can't tell, that is a baker's hat)

Oh in Jack news, we had started him on prevacid which was working great until they discontinued making the generic form.  He had started waking up only once!  That is huge!  Well, we couldn't afford the full price name brand prevacid and our insurance won't cover it so we have now been for a month without it and waking up 5 times a night screaming again!  But. . . the silver lining is that my awesome Doctor talked to a special pharmacy that will take the generic adult form of prevacid and create a children's dosage.  So here's to  sleep, hopefully its coming our way soon.