Recomitting

I had 3 posts in September.  I had 6 in November.  I am going to do my best to post everyday for the rest of the month/year in hopes that I'll lose my antiblogging attitude.

I will go before your face

DC 84:88 I will go before you face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up.

My friend, Ben Draper, photoshopped these 2 pictures together, and I LOVE IT!  I just thought I'd share. He explains where the idea came from on his blog.  Thanks Ben!

Ceramics Classes at the Rec. Center

My friends Ashley and Liz and I are taking ceramic classes at the Rec. Center. So far  I've painted a Turkey and a Santa.  Ashley and I took a toll painting class and we painted Reindeer.  I never thought I'd enjoy classes at the Rec Center but I LOVE THEM!

Feeling Crafty

We had an enrichment night a weeks ago and painted these blocks say 'Family'.  Often times, I'll walk by the piano and see other words spelled out of these blocks...there is always room for sarcasm.

We had our friends, the Drapers over for Thanksgiving Dinner and when they left, David had spelled the word 'filyma'.  Good times!

Ken's birthday cake.

Ken turned 32 on 11-15. We made his cake.  The kids 'designed' it after looking through a cupcake decorating book.  It was fun to decorate and it tasted good.

Coming Soon!!!

All the updates I've been too lame to post about in the last 4 weeks.  Here's your preview...

Birthdays!!  Happy birthday toooooooo
Rhonda, my sister in law 11-3
Larry, my brother in law 11-5
Garen, my brother 11-6
Rick, my brother in law 11-12
Nolahn, my nephew 11-12
Ken, my husband 11-15
Mom, my mom 11-16

Calamities at our house...
more flu bugs
my computer screen shattered...hence no awesome blog updates
I lost my digital camara...found it today!  HOORAY!
My cell phone got ran over...i think.  not really sure on that one.

Good times recently had...
My birthday 10-24
Ken and I went to Wicked...AWESOME as always!!
Out LAST Halloween as trick or treaters. The kids are DONE!  HOORAY again!
We had a GREAT Stake Conference today

I'll end with a couple of things I've heard from school recently...all quotes from Duncan...age 7.

Principal: Duncan, what happened to your face? (He has a large scratch under his eye)
D: I hit myself in the head with a porcupine.
***
D: Where's Keith? (1st grade, 6 years old)
Me: At PE
D: Go get him.  Keithy's my dog.  I love dogs.  He's a puppy.
***
D: Mrs. Cheney!! I have my underwear on today!
***
D: I'm going to kiss you!
Me: I don't think so
D: YES I AM!  MY MOM SAID I COULD!

Wrangling Alligators

So I started this post so long ago I'm not even sure I'll get the details correct!  Just in case I leave anything out, you can go here to double check my facts.  At the beginning of fall each year, our local zoo takes all the alligators out of their swamp and moves them to the airport where they sit out the winter in a lovely heated airport hanger.  We were lucky enough to be at the zoo on that day and got to watch them catch the gators.  Below are some pics from the event.  I took video that was too big to upload on blogger and my computer is too lame to put it on YouTube.  If you click on the link mentioned above, you can go to our friends, The Draper's and they have video and good info.  Sorry I'm lame!

A FaNtAsTiC SURPISE!!!

Last weekend I had a very nice surprise.  My Mom and Dad and Sister, Heather surprised me by coming to Kansas for the weekend.  Although things didn't go exactly as planned...Matthew and Ken had H1N1 and Matthew had pneumonia on top of that...we were still able to do some fun things.

The pictures below are on top of the Rock Monument in Pawnee Rock.  From the top of this Momument, you can see MANY of the surrounding towns.  The weather that weekend was pretty crumby, but it was still fun to go up there with Heather.  My Mom and Dad stayed in the car--they were FREEZING and had been up there before.

While they were here, we drove them around Great Bend and Larend so they could see where we used to live and where we go to school and work now, as well as just to show them where we call home now.

They were impressed with the fast pace life Kansans lead...20 minutes at Wendy's to get 3 frosty's and a milkshake. 

My favorite part of the visit was when we were just hanging out at their hotel and visiting while my Dad and I did a jigsaw puzzle together.  He mostly rearranged the pieces while I put it together, but we were a good team. 

They were able to go to church with us on Sunday and then Monday before they left, we went to Hoisington and ate lunch at a mennonite restaurant.  It was a fun weekend and I cried when they had to go back home.  Hopefull next time they come, we'll all be in better health and can spend more time together.

Thanks for coming you guys!  I LOVE YOU!

Too early for flapjacks?

We make pancakes for breakfast A LOT at our house.  When I am feeling like letting the nice Mom out for a while, I cut the pancakes into shapes they like using cookie cutters.

Matthew LOVES airplanes.  The cirlce is a cloud...in theory.

Nicole is super excited about Halloween.

Ken LOVE Mickey Mouse.  The heart is because I love him.

I know you are dying to know what shape I enjoy eating my pancakes...afterall it wouldn't be fair for them to get awesome shaped flapjacks and mine are just boring circles.  Have no fear though...mine are the coolest of all...

AWESOME right??  Having trouble figuring them out?  Here's another photo.

Seriously, even nice Mom is not going to waste food and according to my THREE children eating at the dinner table this morning, those were ruined.  :)

Whenever we eat pancakes, I always think about the part of the movie 'Groundhog Day' when Phil is driving drunk thru town and the police are chasing him.  Here's a clip for you if you've never seen the BEST MOVIE EVER MADE.

10-08-2009

Ken has H1N1
Dedra needs a nap
Matthew was pneumonia
Nicole is doing AWESOME playing the clarinet

Tender Mercies

It's kind of a long story...

When we were in Utah last month Gina took our family pictures. I decided the clothes we would wear before we left Kansas and although I like all of us to match, this time I decided that Nicole would wear a different color. When we were all getting ready Gina commented that she thought it was weird that Nicole didn't match the rest of us. The pictures ended up turning out nice and I liked how it looked with her in a different color. I didn't think anymore of it.

This is the time of the year when things that have happened in our life gets to me. I LOVE the holiday season but there are some bittersweet memories that come along with it. As I was watching conference this weekend, I wrote down some of the things I've been thinking about lately in hopes of finding answers from the talks. A couple of the questions were about Robert, our son who passed away almost 8 years ago.

Before Robert was born I was very judgemental about family. I thought it was ridiculous that a family would only have 2 or 3 children. I was not thoughtful to women who had miscarried babies or had delivered stillbirths. If a woman lost her baby because of own addictions I did not feel bad for them, even if they were truly upset about their loss. I just didn't know better. When Robert died, I was moved to the receiving side of such judgements. I have been asked in the last month why we only have 2 children. (We have 3 actually, and I can't get pregnant.) People have asked about our son and when I told them he lived 2 hours, they disregaurded the whole story. Here are a few things that I had never thought about...

A miscarriage, stillbirth and infant death is a horrible loss. Just because a child wasn't known on this life for very long, or at all, there were dreams and hopes for the lost person. A chair is still empty at the dinner table. If a woman loses her baby because she has an addiction, she still loses a part of her. ok, enough of my soapbox...

This season I have wondered how I am doing as a mother. I know I do my best with Nicole and Matthew but I am also a mother to a perfect little boy who is not on this earth. The questions that has eaten at me are, Am I a good mom to Robert? Is it wrong that I say I have 2 children when asked? How can I make sure that my children remember they have a little brother? I thought about these things this weekend but nothing came to me.

Today Nicole, Matthew and Ken are all sick. We've had fevers, hacking coughs, loads of kleenexes used and it's not very fun here today.

When I got the mail this afternoon, a midst all the bills and boring mail was a padded envelope from an address I didn't recognize right away. It was from Orem, UT. The kids thought maybe it was from my sister, Gina. After a second I told them it actually looks like my friend Trishelle's handwriting. I guessed correctly.

Trishelle is a dear friend of mine and I do not deserve her friendship. I am VERY blessed to have it though. She wrote our family a love note and enclosed a treasure she found at a yard sale. It is an angel ornament with the name Robert written on it.
When I read her note and saw the ornament, I immediately felt that she was an answer to my prayers. This beautiful little ornament is the perfect way to help my kids, and me, remember our sweet little baby. I decided to hang it on the wall, next to our family picture. The neatest part about that is...

the wings on the ornament are the exact same color as Nicole's shirt.

This is one example of the Lord's tender mercies in my life. If you have stories to tell, I encourage you to share them on your blog too. I'd love to read them.

Happiness is...

...bestmen that take their own pictures at weddings
...straw phones that you can talk to yourself on

...people who ruin all the pictures...most of the time

...swimming in your clothes

...putting your sister in a headlock

...Surprise!! I just love this picture. It makes me laugh.

...Nicole holding the dog like a baby. He lets her do it too!

...matching flip flops!

...Spaghetti Tacos. Okay, not really, but Matthew wanted one and he ate it. He said it was good.

...beds that are made

These are a few of my favorite things

Double Yellow Lines

There is a littler town right next to our little town. They had construction on their main street for a few months and everytime I drove thru, I laughed at the double yellow lines they construction people had painted. I actually videoed it...

swimming this summer...ish

These were taken this summer. We bought this pool frmo a friend of mine and we got a GREAT deal. Unfortunately, it had a plethora of leaks in it. In this serries of photos, we were filling up the pool and Matthew couldn't wait for it to be full.

We ended up patching and refilling the pool THREE times before murdering it with kitchen knives and throwing it away. Lesson learned...by a summer pass!

300th post

In honor of my 300th post, I want to tell you how much I LOVE General Conference!

In my mind General Conference is the kick off to the best part of the year. This weekend is the beginning of my holiday season. I've got our home decorated for fall. Now we have Conference. Next my birthday, Halloween (bleh), I LOVE THANKSGIVING...it's my FaVoRiTe!! Then of course Christmas, which I also enjoy.

I loved this morning's session of conferece so much. So many of the words spoken were exactly what I needed and many were answers to the prayers I have had lately. I feel blessed to be able to watch conference and the feel the spirit so strongly. I am thankful that there are still 3 more sessions that I get to watch this weekend.

If you missed this morning, I hope you watch it as soon as it is available online. Also, tune in this afternoon and tomorrow. I know that if you do, you'll feel the spirit so strongly and it will help to make your burden lighter, your testimony stronger and your faith and hope brighter.

You can click on 'General Conference' at the top or here to watch Conference live. I'll link the videos once they are available, later on in the week.

Enjoy the rest of your Conference Weekend!!

random pictures of children I know...

Some of these pictures are of children from school so I had to distort their faces. You get the general idea of each photo though. As you can tell, I associate with geniuses!

Matthew's ice cream cone...don't ask me why he did that!
This is a 1st graders socks during P.E. He didn't understand why I wanted a photo of it.

One of the girls from my class, 'playing' on the monkey bars...kind of.

A boy and girl from my class...

Piano Lessons...

Sometimes they don't go as well as I want them to.

Random Happenings

I was going through my pictures this morning and I came across some events that I never blogged about. Some of these are almost a year old, but they are blogworthy.

Meet David. I love him! He is one of the cutest and sweetest little boys I've ever known. If we have a daughter in the next little while, I would want him to marry her. Not only is David cute and sweet, he is also very talented. You see, David has a knack for finding things we didn't know we had and them using them in anyway he feels like it. For instance...

We didn't know we had any paintballs! We had a bunch of them, but David came over one time and decided it would be fun to walk on them, on a blanket we had. We ended up getting rid of the rest of them and the blanket did come clean. Fast forward 1 month. We had a New Years Eve Party. When David's Mom and Dad walked in the house, one of the first things they asked was if we had any paintballs and we assured them that we had gotten rid of them.

We were in the middle of playing a game when we were interupted by Nicole yelling, Oh NO! David hit the brand new TV with a paintball!! It was true. He found a paintball that was deep in outerdarkness (probably under Matthew's bed or the couch) and threw it at the television.
I cleaned all the paint off and the tv was good as new. A little side note about this tv...3 weeks before this party, Ken had decided he wanted to go to Walmart to buy some chips and salsa. It was about 10 in the evening. When he came home an hour later, he had a new television and no chips and salsa...nice

Memory Lane

I'm a para at an elementary school and I work in a special ed classroom. We have children in 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th grade. Throughout the day, we take each grade group to the regular ed classroom for different subjects such as Music, P.E., Social Studies, Science and Handwriting. Our 1st grader also gets to go for story time.

In the 4th grade class, they are making timelines of their life. It's really neat to see the children tell about the events in their lives that are important to them, as 9 year olds. It is also sad to see the children from my class who have no memory of yesterday, let alone what they did in 1st grade or even last week!

I've decided to share a couple of memories from when I was in elementary school. If you don't really care...stay tuned, I have some funny pictures I'll be posting in a little bit.

Kindergarten...I went to Kindergarten at Meridian Primary in Meridian, Idaho. My teacher was Mrs. Dahl. I remember getting up on my first day of school and I my Mom took my picture in front of the curtains in the 'Blue Room'. I walked to school with a girl who's Grandma lived down the street. That winter when the snow was finally starting to melt, I remember walking home from school and falling down on my rear no less than 20 times. My friends and I would make it a goal to take 5 steps without falling. Sometimes we walked in homeowners grass, but there was a really mean guy who always yelled at us, so we stayed out of his yard. One day I fell 3 times walking back his house. My teacher gave us grahama crackers with frosting everyday for snack and our own carton of milk. I only went to school half-day so that was very exciting to me. I remember that last day of school. I didn't know it was the last day until we was hugging us all goodbye and one little girl gave our teacher a gift. I told her I would bring her a gift the next day but she said school was over and I wouldn't be able to.

A quick little update

Since I last blogged...

We took a quick trip to Utah for my brother in law's wedding
Ken's been sick
Matthew's been sick
The dog got a haircut
We all got haircuts
I've met with the principal TWO TIMES!!
We've had a half a day suspension
Meetings with a teacher
Bought groceries
Made curtains
Taught Relief Society
Started reading the Doctrine and Convenants
Got a cat to be a mouser
Got rid of the cat...I hate mousers
Nicole learned we will rock you on the clarinet
Decorated the house for fall
Went swimming fully clothed with Gina and my friend Jessica
I burned dinner
We ate chinese food
I've watched 'Lost in Austen' FIVE TIMES!! If you love Pride and Prejudice, you MUST MUST MUST watch this movie!!!

I'm sure I'm forgetting some stuff, but there's an update. Hopefully between sessions of General Conference, I can update and post a few pictures.

Have a great day!

September 7, 2009--labor day

Today I cleaned my bedroom...I found Ken's phone charger that's been lost for quite a while. It was behind the dresser...No, I wasn't the one who's been looking for it. I found it and set it on the table in my room. An hour later, Ken came home and Matthew walked in, right to the table and said, 'Hey Dad! Look, I found your charger!' way to go Matthew.

Matthew turtle died this morning. Rather, it was found dead this morning. He burried it in the backyard inside a dish towel.

Over the 3 day weekend we have washed 8 loads of laundry. It is all folded and put away now. I only found 3 pairs of underwear for one of my children. You can try to guess who it is, but the clue is...there is a theme to all these comments so far...oh and MATTHEW folded almost half of that laundry himself!

Matthew hates cresent rolls and hotdogs. Today I made dogs in sweaters--as opposed to pigs in a blanket--hotdogs cut in half length wise and rolled in cresent rolls. He loved them. I LOVE HIM!

****

Nicole helped me move my all my craft stuff from my bedroom to the playroom. It's all back on the shelf and looking lovely. I am excited about our home having more and more order. It's difficult getting back on the work fulltime routine.

Nicole made lunch today. She hates making lunch so she decided on Macaroni and Cheese. She only boiled the noodles for 2 minutes and then proclaimed that she likes it better crunchy. When no one ate it, she said, 'I guess I won't have to make lunch anymore.' I made her help me with the dogs and sweaters and she is now washing all of todays dishes by herself. 1 point for all the mean moms.

We were in the middle of folding all the laundry and Ken called for Nicole because she was MIA. She called back, I'll be there in a minute, I have to put on some makeup. It was 2 in the afternoon.

Besides the makeup moment and the macaroni and chceese episode, Nicole worked right along side me the whole day and was a great helper. I LOVE HER!

***

Time for FHE! Have a great night.

Saturday is a special day...

Today has been VERY productive. I love Saturday's like this...

I can see the carpet in the play room. It's an ugly brown color. It took me 2 hours to find it but it's BeAuTiFuL!

I got rid of 2 trash bags worth of clothes/toys/garbage today. I've also got a pile of stuff I'm going to put on Amazon to sell.

I haven't made dinner yet and it's 6:26 pm. Got Cereal?

I'm going to finish the Book of Mormon tonight after I start my fast. I don't know if I've been this excited about a fast or finishing a book in a LONG time, but I am.

I'm excited to go to Utah next Thursday. Ken's brother, Rick, is getting married. I will also get to see my sister, Gina, and she's going to cut my hair.

Matthew had an ant farm in the bottom of one of his toy bins. It was gross and took 4 clorox wipes to clean up.

College Football started tonight. I am NOT excited about this one. I've heard the boys shouting for the last hour, 'OH YEAH!!' 'RUN RUN RUUUN!!' 'STUPID REF!' 'I'M HUNGRY!' and so on. My guys love the football. When Nicole speaks about it, she uses finger quotations because she thinks it's lame and says it's shouldn't even be called football. I agree with her. It should be called, 'Get the ball and run like heck to the end of the field or until you get trampled ball'

I have been listening to John Bytheway all week. Such good talks. You should dig out your old talks and listen to one today.

Alright, time to go fold my mountain of laundry...Go Cougs. (whatever!)

I've learned something new...

This morning when I was reading my scriptures, after I read a chapter in Ether, I went back to 1 Nephi and read the first 2 chapters. I have decided to attend an institute class in the area and our assignment this week is to read the first 10 chapters of 1 Nephi.

As I was reading, I was reminded of how much I love Nephi. He is funny to me, as well as inspiring, good and true. This morning as I read in chapter 2, I discovered something I never knew...I always thought that Nephi was older than Sam. I guess I figured this was the case because of how much Laman and Lemuel complained and moaned and groaned either because they had to do so much work or because their little brother was bossing them.

1 Nephi 2:5 says, '...and my older brothers, who were Laman, Lemuel, and Sam.'

Reading this gives me more respect for Sam, who was humble enough to listen AND FOLLOW his little brother. It also makes Laman and Lemuel (in my eyes) even bigger stinkers than before!

To learn more about Nephi, click on his name. I LOVE THE BOOK OF MORMON!!

ttfn!

thoughts on motherhood

Things that are disturbing to me as a Mom...

*Finding apple cores in the bathroom trash.
*Being told, 'don't worry! I found the turtle!'
*Having to tell a child to get the electric screwdriver out of their mouth.
*names written on the mirror in toothpaste
and soap
and crayon

Things about being a Mom that make my heart full...
*Crooked and toothless smiles.
*Contagious laughter
*Hearing my kids' interpretations of the scriptures they are studying on their own.
*Squeaky Clarinets (this is a new one)
*Late night serenades on the recorder.
*Hearing my kids tell me that I make their heart smile.

Things that break my heart...
*Sad and hurt crying and tears.
*Being told, 'It's all your fault!' (this has now happened twice)
*Seeing elements of my children's lives had negative effects on their self esteem...why can't we just keep them home ALL THE TIME?

Things I've learned since I became a Mom...
*Never say no when you can say yes. (Marjorie Hinckley)
*50% of the time, bedtime is overrated.
*Impromptu Slumber Parties are AWESOME!! Especially when I get invited. haha
*Enjoy today

The biggest one I've been thinking a lot about lately is a little personal, but I have to write it somewhere so I can hold myself accountable...

All of my friends are having babies again...or many of them. My baby died almost 8 years ago and I haven't become pregnant since, even through many fertility treatments and a major surgery too.

My friend just lost a baby prematurely and since I found out, I have been so sad for her and reliving Robert's death too. I have never had a miscarriage so I can't even imagine the pain that comes from one. Although my baby was born full term and I held him and saw him breathing, I didn't know him for long so I mourn what I think I am missing. I also find myself second guessing choices that we made at his birth that we KNOW were Heavenly Father's will for Robert and out family. Why do I do that?!

I am sad for the missing people at our dinner table...Robert as well as the 2 other spirits that I know in my heart are missing from our home. I am sad that my kids only have each other. I am also SO THANKFUL that Nicole and Matthew do have each other!

I guess what I have learned is something I have known for a while but I need to remind myself of...Robert is perfectly fine in heaven. I've had the thought for sometime that he is a mission companion with my Uncle Lyn. I'm sure they are having a great time up there.

I love every stage that my kids are in. Right now they are stretching boundaries, breaking rules, rolling their eyes are me and letting me know it's all my fault. At night I cry into my pillow and in the morning I try to start again. I tell myself that I am looking forward to the day when...____________________________you can fill in the blank, there are many things to put there. But really I love each day.

Okay, so I don't really know where this post is going, but like I said earlier, I just had to get it out there so I could read it and remind myself that I am happy, dang it!! Life really is good.

on a lighter note, here is the conversation I had with my kids on the way to school this morning...

Matthew: I wish I had a brother.
Me: I wish you did too.
Matthew: I'd also like a sister.
Nicole: I AM YOUR SISTER!!!
Me: I'd like you both to have another brother and sister.
Matthew: Can't you just have triplets?
Nicole: Can't we just get a trampoline?

Life really is good. I love those two!

On the way home

All the feet and the hat too are 2nd graders sleeping on the hour and fifteen minute ride back to school. Yes, all 4 of mine are snoozing.
Sent from my BlackBerry Smartphone provided by Alltel

Chilis

Sent from my BlackBerry Smartphone provided by Alltel

Flowers

We are on a field trip right now at a nature center. I pointed out some pretty flowers in a garden and Duncan, age 7 asked, 'Can I stomp on them?'

What a sweet little boy :S
Sent from my BlackBerry Smartphone provided by Alltel

Quote from a 2nd grader...

I might do that someday, I just don't have the time.

He was talking about getting a Facebook account.
Sent from my BlackBerry Smartphone provided by Alltel

Back to School

The kids started school a week ago Monday. Nicole is in 6th grade, Matthew is in 5th grade. I can't believe how big they are. Every year I can't believe how big they are! I have to say my favorite part about this year was the cheesy smiles though. These pics are the best of the worst.

Here are some things I LOVE about school being back in session...

*We are A LOT better about reading scriptures as a family. I don't know why it's so hard in the summer but for us it is. Sadly we average family scripture study only 3-4 times a week in the summer. Since school started, we've have 100%.

*I LOVE bedtime!! The kids are in bed at 7:30pm on every school night except Wednesday nights. As a result of this early bedtime, out whole family...give or take Ken...is up and moving and HAPPY at 6am. I got to bed between 9 and 10 during the school year, typically closer to 9 and I get up at 5. The hours of 5 to 8am are my most favorite of the whole day. I LOVE THEM!

*During the school year we eat breakfast 5 days a week as a family. I love this extra time together. Once again, I don't know why we don't eat our morning meal together during the summer, but we don't. And I'm actually lying. We don't eat it together because I am too lazy to get up and cook it. I feel overwhelmed cooking 3 meals a day. For this reason, I have commissioned Ken to cook breakfast during the 2009-2010 school year. He's made it 4 times since school started...not such a bad average. That's 4 more times than he's made it the last 12 years!

There are more reasons, but I'll just start with these for now. Stay tuned because I will have MANY quotes to share with you from my class...which my class alone can be another reason I LOVE SCHOOL!

No news is...

KEN'S FAULT!!!

As many of you know, Ken had a VERY IMPORTANT appointment with a nurologist on Monday. That morning he did not get up with us as we got ready for school, I figured he was getting a little more rest before going to the Dr. in Hays...an hour away. I was at work for a couple of hours and I called him to see if he got to the Dr alright and I dounf out that he DID NOT GO!!! He canceled the appointment. I have to admit that it is a scary thought be agree to be electricuted, one nerve at a time, with out the possibility of any pain meds, but seriously! We have had this appointment for well over a month and to reschedule it will be another 6+ weeks. BLASTED!

Ken had a second appointment on Monday was with an orthopedic surgeon for his knee. Because he was sure this surgery would be the answer to all his medical woes, he put the nurologist out of his mind. When he got to his appointment Monday afternoon, the Dr. told him he wouldn't do surgery or even scope his knee until the nurologist has either solved his mystery or told him there was nothing more he could do for him.

So...here we are. 2 months later and no news. I'm a little frustrated but I'd be lying if I said I couldn't see Ken's point of view on this. I secretly hoped that the knee surgery would fix everything...I just wanted to know what the nurologist thought ALSO.

So that's my story.