New Blog Header

 I just wanted to document the change in blog headers. It's about time because Caleb was only ONE in the previous header. But I finally took a few minutes and updated to a fresh family photo for this special little space on the internet where we blog the things of our heart as we live "the peaden life." 

Dear Thursday: A list of things I love.

For today's installment of "Dear Thursday", how about a list of things that I'm really loving right now? Okay... go.

Things I really love right now: 

-My Contigo water bottle with a straw. (Gotten as a gift after Caleb was born.) I prefer to drink my water through a straw and this water bottle is so nice and makes me happy (and helps me drink more water.)

-My new can opener. After months of using a barely functional hand-can opener that you had to muscle your way through to open anything David surprised me with a hands-free battery operated opener. I've opened three cans today and my love for this opener grows each time.

-Regency Romance Novels. I go through phases with books, sometimes getting into science fiction, sometimes contemporary novels, once I really got into anything that had to do with the French Revolution, etc... Right now I just really really enjoy these Regency romance novels. Sarah M. Eden is my favorite Author right now and all her books are just sooo good!

--My scripture study. A while ago I bought a Book of Mormon Study Guide from the Red Headed Hostess and I truly love it. It has a small section for each verse, with probing questions like "draw what was happening" or "write about a doctrine or principle" or "record a phrase or lesson that stands out to you". It's really made me slow down and dig deeper into my Book of Mormon study. Instead of just reading it, and maybe writing down a verse that stands out - I'm thinking about each and every verse and what I can learn from it. I'm getting more involved in the story. I'm drawing stick figures and writing down take-away lessons and I'm really enjoying it like I've never enjoyed my scripture study before. Another thing that has helped with that study journal is that I also have the Book of Mormon Student Manual: Religion 121-122 and as I read the Book of Mormon, I've been able to read quotes that expand and illustrate the things contained in the verses. It helps me to think about what I'm reading and then I'm able to write down the things that are important to me into my study-journal. 

After the last conference, listening to Elder Nelson's talk about our Savior, I decided to buy another little journal and take his challenge to use the topical guide as a curriculum and read and mark every verse about Jesus Christ and record my thoughts and testimony. It's been a beautiful experience and I'm not even through the first section "Jesus Christ: Summary". I also pulled out my "Family Inspiration Journal" that I started in college before I was even married where I've recorded important inspiration that I've received about how I want to teach and love my family and quotes that have inspired and uplifted me regarding the importance of family. I've been making an effort to be writing in that more often as well. I do don't all of those study things every day, but I'll pick one area to focus on for the morning, then when I'm done- I stack everything up in a big pile and stick it under the desk in my bedroom. Then, the next morning, I pull it all out again. 

I write about this because I want to share my testimony that when you are making the effort to study the words of our Savior, when you're reading your scriptures and recording the things that you've learned - you truly do feel strengthened and uplifted. My testimony has grown and I feel more confident in my every-day happenings. When I'm faced with uncertainty, I can draw upon the things that I'm reading and learning and it fills me with strength. I've never really felt like I was "feasting" on the words of Christ. But now, I'm feeling like I have a taste of what that is like. I enjoy the time I have in the scriptures and often wish I could keep reading and studying for much longer than I am able to. (Sometimes I wake up before the kids are up to read, but most mornings I sit on my floor to study with Caleb laying out by me and Lydia and Austin playing with toys, Caleb, or each other nearby.) I hope that they know that their mama loved the scriptures, and that those scriptures helped her to be a better mother every day. 

--The Thanksgiving Meadows Babysitting Co-op. It's a babysitting swap where you earn popsicle sticks by babysitting other people's kids and then you can use those same sticks to "pay" others to babysit your kids. It's been such a lifesaver for errand running, visiting teaching, doctors appointments, etc... All those small little things that are difficult to take kids to but are during the day when David is at work. I love it! (We also do a Babysitting Swap for date-nights with two other couples where we watch all the kids on one night and we get two dates out of it. It's been the best thing for our date-nights, ever!) 

--I've been working on a paint-by-numbers painting over the past six months and although I can only work on it a little here and there, I've really really been enjoying it. 

-Watching Hallmark movies with David. The cheesy plotlines, the use of the same actors over and over, and even the terrible typography for the title at the beginning of the show that makes it seem like it was made in the late 80s. I'm glad that David likes to watch them as much as I do.

-I got to go to the temple one evening last month while David stayed home with all three kids and it was wonderful. I basically cried the entire time I was there because of how grateful I was to be in the temple that night. I'm so grateful to be able to live so close to a temple and to go and feel of the Lord's love for me there. Someday I hope to be a temple worker, but as for now, I want to try to go to the temple even more often.  

 -This bread is sooo good.

-Okay, so my van (a 2014 Chrysler Town and Country) is SO awesome. It's hands-down the newest, nicest, fanciest car I've ever owned. My one requirement when shopping for a new van was having a back-up-camera because we live on a street with SO many little kids. But it's got some other cool features. I just realized that you can download your music CD's to the van's hard drive and then select favorites from each CD. Austin would always request specific songs from different CDs, and now I have them all downloaded into one playlist and it's awesome. I also like that my phone is connected to my van and when someone calls me I can answer from my steering wheel and talk through the dashboard. You've got to admit that's cool. (I'm sure soon, that will be totally standard in every car - but for now it's pretty cool.)

--This is the prettiest illustration of a mermaid that I've ever seen. If I ever have to do a mermaid costume or anything, I'd want it to be like this.  

--Let's talk about Chick-fil-A's Frosted Strawberry Lemonade. I'm not one to spend a lot of money on fast food, especially for myself, but this cross between a lemonade and a milkshake is just soooo good. It's a limited time thing, which is good, because I've already had about five this summer. David's taken to asking how much I like something in relation to how much I like this drink. "If I were to come home would you like that more or less than a frosted strawberry lemonady" Ha.


--Listening to books on Overdrive. Both me and Lydia have really been enjoying this. Overdrive is an online library where you can download books and audiobooks to your phone. I used to watch tv shows while folding the laundry and such, but I've started listening to Audio-books on my phone because I feel like it doesn't make me so unapproachable to my kids but I'm still able to be entertained while doing something fairly monotonous. At night after we put Lydia and Austin to bed, we've been letting Lydia listen to the Boxcar Children books for 15-20 minutes and she's really been loving it, too.

-I love my laundry room. I love the window I can look out of, I love the counter that I can fold clothes on, I love the L-A-U-N-D-R-Y letters above the washer/dryer. I have a method called "don't start another load until the clothes have been folded directly out of the dryer" and it works for me. No baskets of clean clothes hanging around. It will be hard to ever move because I love this laundry room so much.

-Great Value Tropical Trail Mix. It's got dried fruit & nuts, including cashews. We've been eating a lot of this lately.

-I had a realllllly bad experience with a wedding announcement client back in September and I honestly considered shutting Red Ladder down and calling it a good run. I just recognized that there were times that I was putting too much stress on myself and my kids were suffering for it. (Seriously, it was an awful experience where I basically worked through the night for a week to get a rush order finished for a couple who originally said that they just wanted something simple, but then were easily the pickiest and most demanding couple I've ever worked with - only to have them be dissatisfied with the final product and ask for their money back, after I'd already delivered the announcements to them. I lost money on the order, not to mention the countless hours I'd put in, and it almost caused me to stop doing what I love to do.) However, after several months I've finally started to do a few announcements here and there again. I've made some new rules for myself (like NO rush orders) and I'm feeling really good about things again. I just recently did these announcements for a family friend (Mikelle Oliver) and I love the way that they turned out. Plus those envelopes, guys. I swoon every time I see them. (There are florals on the front, too.) They were originally going to be black and white (due to cost), and last minute I decided to print them in color anyway and for days I'd be doing something completely unrelated and I'd stop and say to David, "Remember those envelopes? They were so gorgeous!" I really love having something in my life that is so creatively fulfilling, and even though I've taken a huge step back to make room for my bigger priorities in life (aka- my family), I'm glad that this can still be part of my life. 

This was originally going to be a short-and-sweet post of a few things that I was liking right now, but it ended up getting a little longer than I had planned. In fact it took a full morning to finish it all up. Luckily, the kids were pretty happy to play with each other and let me blog - but at one point I looked up from my spot on the couch and saw this: an empty entertainment center and toy corner. The result is that my kitchen looks like this right now. #bloggingisworththemess At least they are having a good time while I get to blog, right?  

I'd be remiss if I didn't include these three (and their dad) in my things I love post. Because, although I'm not always the most patient, or the most perfect, I love them so incredibly much.

New Years Eve

December 31st is David's sister Amy's birthday (Happy Birthday Amy!) and most years we throw a big party and celebrate with her - which we love. However, this year for New Years Eve things worked out a little bit differently and we ended up having a relaxing stay-home day with just our little family. It was exactly what the doctor ordered for this pregnant, tired, slightly overwhelmed mama. My only regret from the whole day is that I didn't get a family selfie picture to end the year with. (Honestly, I was sad enough about it that as I sat down to write this post I legitimately thought about going upstairs and waking both of my children up so I could take a picture. Thank goodness I came to my senses quickly.) 

We started the day with a yummy breakfast of aebleskivers and yogurt. Reading books, playing with Christmas toys, enjoying a slow day together. Also- Tacos. This is the favorite thing for the kids to do with David. He rolls them up in a blanket (usually together, but I only got a picture of Austin) then pulls one end and rolls them out. The kids love this. Austin seriously said some version of "I wanna taco/wanna be a taco/taco" like 200 times. It was a good morning. 

We asked Lydia what she wanted to do in the afternoon and she said that she wanted to go to Walmart and bring her quarters so she could get a prize. She counted out all of the quarters in her money bag (where she stores her money) and put all three of them in a smaller bag in her pocket. We took the opportunity to buy a massive amount of storage bins to aid us in our quest to organize our basement. Austin had brought a quarter that he had earned, and had insisted that he hold it in his hand the whole time. I'd been impressed with how well he was holding onto it but by the time we stopped at the much anticipated quarter machines, he'd lost it. We took a quick walk retracing our steps but couldn't find it. My sweet Lydia, without any hesitation at all, piped up and said "I'll give him one of my quarters!" Later, when I was telling her how proud I was that she'd decided to give him one of her hard-earned (and saved) quarters, she responded with "I gave him one of my quarters because I didn't want him to be sad." Melt. My. Heart. This girl has the biggest, giving heart and I'm absolutely in awe of how wonderful she is. Austin got some skittles and Lydia got two-quarters worth of a tiny sticky frog. Ha. But the lesson and example of my sweet girl was a perfect way to end 2016. (Also, those bins - although expensive - are going to be awesome for our basement!) 

When we got home we put together a last minute "New Years Eve" countdown with a balloon for 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Inside we put papers like "make ice-cream Sundays together as a family" and "play with a new Christmas toy", ending with "write one thing you want to do in 2017, watch a New Years Countdown, and get ready for bed". It was so awesome. It was everything that I could have hoped it to be. Both kids were so excited to pop the balloons, and we all had fun with the little activities. Our neighbors started shooting off fireworks while I was making dinner (little pizzas, chips and dip, and apple cider). It was SO fun. The kids loved watching them from the window, and at one point Lydia said "New Years Eve is so much fun! This is the best holiday." 

As soon as the kids were in bed, David and I popped some frozen pizzas in the oven and sat down to our big New Years Eve Plans: 

Catch-Up Blogging!

I know that this doesn't sound like the most exciting thing to most people, but I've been looking forward to it all week. It's easy to get behind on the blog posts that we want to do, and it's always so nice when we can sit down together and make sure that we record the events of our lives. (Or at least caption most of the pictures that we've taken.) There isn't anything I'd rather be doing tonight.

Catching up on 2016 blog posts. Pizza. Dr. Pepper. Hallmark Christmas Movie that we ditched in lieu of While You Were Sleeping, which is SOOO much better. Cozying up on the couch. Talking about events and life and our little family. The best of the best. 

Happy New Years Eve! 

Little Friends

I've been doing quite a bit of babysitting lately. For someone who once thought that she would never even consider having an in-home daycare, we have quite the flow of kids in and out of our home each week. And you know what? I pretty much love it. Tuesdays and Thursdays I get to watch the Cooper Crew for a few hours in the afternoon, plus a handful of other random kids throughout the rest of the week. A couple of weeks ago, by Wednesday - I'd had ten extra kids at one point or another. By the end of today (Tuesday) I will have had six extras (plus two that came over Monday night with their parents). Sometimes we'll be outside saying goodbye, and my neighbor Katie will jokingly ask "How many today?"

I ran into a good friend from the ward next to ours at a neighborhood music class, and she introduced me to one of her friends as being the Queen of all Babysitters (or something along those lines). And a lot of the time when she drops off her daughter for our Babysitting-Swap (so amazing!) there are other kids here, or kids who are just leaving. But I feel a little weird about it. It's not like I'm really good at babysitting (at least not any better than anyone else), or that I love it especially much. But I don't mind having kids over, especially if it's a help to their parents. I'm not good at so many things, especially service-wise, but I feel like I can help other moms out who just need a couple of hours for a doctors appointment, or to take a nap after having a new baby, or whatever they need. It's something I can do, and at this particular time in our lives we can handle a larger amount of kids than we have been able to before. Lydia enjoys having friends over, and in most cases they entertain each other while I am able to do some laundry or the dishes or whatnot without feeling like I'm not giving my kids enough attention. It's pretty win-win. 

I've just recently started watching the Coopers on Thursday in addition to Tuesday. I don't write about this a lot, but I love these kids so much. And Ashley, their mom, is such a blessing to me. There is something so comforting about knowing that you have a friend there for you all the time. Most of the time it's for random gmail chatting about which swimsuit style to order, or a funny story from the day, but those things mean the world to me. (And other days, like today, it was messaging her to ask if she could come pick me up from the side of the road if I got stranded taking my broken down car to the mechanic, which resulted in her sending her mechanic husband to my house so I didn't have to drive my poor sad car.) Lydia asks pretty much every day if "Carson-Elsie" are coming over, and the bonus is that I get to chat with Ashley in person at least a couple of times a week.

Lydia has lots of friends that she loves - but almost every time she says a prayer (other than the prayers that are shorter than two seconds) she says "Thank you for Henry." This little friend is super special to us.

Recently we had the chance to visit with some new-ish friends. Kajsa and I met at Utah State when she started dating her husband, who happened to be David's roommate. We really only met a couple of times, but we became facebook friends - then blogging friends, we've stayed in touch and gotten pretty close.

I've been reflecting recently how interesting it is that there are really only a few people whose blogs I still follow and most of them are women that I was only acquaintances with in person. Now I look forward to their posts, comment like we are best friends, and admire them incredibly. I realized that it's because although I might not have spent a lot of time with them originally, as we've grown we've developed similar attitudes about mothering, families, and life. These blogging-friends inspire me to remain faithful in time of trial, remind me to enjoy my time as a mother, crazy as it might be, and encourage me to keep blogging this little record of our life.

Kajsa is one such friend. She writes beautifully and is able to convey things that I think/feel in such a great way. Austin and her youngest, Declin, were born just hours apart - and it was so fun to read about her pregnancy and to watch Declin and Austin grow up so similarly. She doesn't live close, so we haven't ever spent time together in person, but recently she was visiting her family in Salt Lake County and we arranged to get together. I'm so glad we did! It was so fun to visit with her in person. Our kids got along great and played pirates and tag and all sorts of games. We chatted and picked right up where our blogs left off. (The Coopers happened to be there for part of the time and they loved Kajsa's kids, too.)

We tried to get a good picture of the five of our kids (she has one just older and one just younger than Lydia), but as you can imagine it was quite the task. The best picture I got was a "just one last try" but Declin was already in the car.

Although our house is kind of crazy most of the time. This is a good time of life. We are enjoying all of our little friends and I'm blessed to be surrounded by such good adult-friends, too. 

Blogging and Preschool and... Nothing

I have so many half written blog posts in my head. I'll be doing something, like washing the dishes, and I'll start composing a post about a certain topic. I'll remind myself to file it away for when I finally have the time to sit down and post, but inevitably- when I open up my computer with the intent to blog - my mind goes blank and I can't think of a single thing to say. 

I'm sitting here wracking my brain for the hilarious post I was thinking up yesterday while doing laundry. Or the thoughtful and sincere post I started thinking of while driving to see my grandma and grandpa last week. Or even the bulleted list I had started about things that have been going on recently. But I've got nothing more that bits and pieces and can't figure out how to formulate it all into words. 

*sigh*

Lydia is at preschool right now. I haven't posted about it yet (because I basically haven't posted anything recently), but we are really enjoying the experience. When people started asking me last March where I was putting Lydia in preschool, I would get this deer in the headlights look and answer "She's two!" I hadn't even thought about it one. single. second. But apparently you have to start registering your two year old for preschool in March because she's going to turn three in May, and if you wait until August to look for a preschool you're done for. I almost immediately knew that I didn't want to put her in a real preschool. Friends, do you know how much preschool costs? A lot. And I just am not ready to send her off to preschool yet. Luckily I was able to get a group of other moms together who have kids the same age and who feel the same way. We set up a little preschool co-op and take turns teaching a Tuesday/Thursday set. It's been wonderful. Lydia gets to socialize with other kids, learn a little bit about letters, and have fun with some interesting themes. She likes it most of the time, and I'm so glad that it's worked out so well. 

{Preschool 2015}

An hour and a half isn't a very long time (in fact I only have a half hour before I need to run and get her) but I've started to think that this is the time that I'll set aside for my blogging. I miss it. I want to do it. (I just need to jot down my blog post ideas on paper instead of leaving them in my head.) I think I posted this before, but an author that I really like was giving a presentation about her books and when asked about how she finds time to write she said something to the effect of, "You've got to take the time for the things that matter to you. No one is going to give you the time." I think about this quote all the time. It's different than "making" the time, because let's be honest, you can't make time. If I could make all sorts of extra time, I would totally do it. Rather, you have to take the time. That means taking the time that you would have been giving to something else. Sometimes this means taking the time from mindless facebook scrolling and giving it to my children. Sometimes this means taking the time from cleaning my kitchen and instead giving it to myself so that I can sit down and blog. I'm in charge of where I allocate my time, but sometimes it's hard to take the time from one thing and give it to another. I'm working on making sure that I take the time for the things that matter to me because it's true that no one is going to come knock on my door and give it to me. 

And so, here is a lame blog post about nothing at all. I'm tempted to just delete it and try again later. But I'll post it and hope that getting this out of the way lets my creative juices start flowing and maybe I'll try to post again this afternoon. 

Because it's 10:54 and I'm off to pick Lydia up from preschool. 

I love blogging.

I love blogging, and I have a whole handful of posts that are half written in my drafts and I am just seriously having a hard time pushing through to the end, making sure all my thoughts come together, and actually publishing the post. And, I have to admit - I've gotten behind, so most of the things that I do post, I wayyyy back-post so most of you don't even read them which doesn't make much sense, except that I blog for myself and my family first (hello blog-books) and am just super happy to have my friends along for the ride. One thing that I miss the most about being better at blogging is posting about the little things instead of just the big things. I always think to myself "Self, I should blog this." And then I spend the time thinking out exactly what I would say (usually while I'm doing dishes) but I've had a hard time sitting down and writing it.

But today as I was doing the dishes (again), I thought about writing this post and even though I can't remember exactly how I was going to word everything - I'm going to write it anyway.

Yesterday we had a big kick-off for our 2015 Summer Stay-cation! David has the whole week off and we have a whole list of fun things that we have planned. It starting with the library and park for Lydia in the afternoon and then a special movie-night before bed. We picked up Paddington from the Redbox (it was the best choice available for Lydia), pulled our couch up close to the TV, made popcorn, and let her eat dinner while we watched. We only got through about half of the movie, but it was perfect.

After we got Lydia to bed, we switched DVDs and David and I watched Interstellar. We'd heard mixed reviews but, it was awe-some! 12 minutes in and we were totally hooked. It was so super super intense but really good. Also, it was SO long. Even with a 7:00 bedtime for Lydia we didn't finish the movie until midnight. (Granted there were several mostly-unsuccessful attempts to get Austin to fall asleep in his bed, so there was a good amount of pausing going on.)

Today Austin, David, and I all woke up with sore throats, goopy eyes, and tired bodies. Boo! Definitely not my plan for a fun family vacation. David and I basically switched off kid-watching every couple of hours while the other one slept/rested. Austin was a trooper and was pretty happy between his extra long naps. Lydia was pretty happy because she got to play puzzles on the ipad (which she never gets to do at home), watch PBS on my cell phone, and watch Netflix with the couch pulled up close. We figured that even if we were going to be lame and sick on our vacation, we could try to help make it special for her - and we were too tired to do anything else.

I started feeling better towards the end of the day. David started feeling worse. Double-boo.

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Austin is pretty much the most darling thing in the whole world. This age he's at? I. love. it! So much. I have his 9 month blog post started but not finished, so this will be a little redundant, but if babies were born at this stage that he's at right now I wouldn't be able to stop myself from having 100 of them. He's so sweet and smiley (always has been), but now he's mobile and so darn cute that I can't help but cheesy-grin every time I look at him.

Lydia is at such a fun age, too. She constantly surprises me with the things that she says and that she is able to articulate. She loves to give Austin big hugs and lately she wants to help him stand up by holding his hands. Today she got too close and he grabbed at her with his sweet baby fingers and pinched her neck a bit. She didn't like that much (even though I had been telling her that she needed to give him some space and that he was just playing with her in the only way he knew how as she was invading his personal space so thoroughly) and after I explained that he hadn't meant to hurt her and that babies sometimes just grab at whatever is close so we have to be careful she got down on his level, put her face right in front of his face and proceeded to explain to him why she was upset and that in the future he shouldn't grab her neck like that. "Austin, when you grabbed my neck it hurt me and I didn't like that very much. It didn't make me happy, it made me sad. We don't grab peoples necks because that might hurt them and make them sad. Okay? Okay, Austin? So just don't hurt me next time when you want to grab me...." I was equal parts proud, amused, and reflective. Proud of her for being able to express her feelings so well, amused because it really was so funny, and reflective because it was a very simplified version of the conversations I have with her. I'm realizing more and more and more and more that every single word I say is being absorbed into her consciousness and will be the voice that she uses to talk to others, and to talk to herself. Like, when she came down the stairs and wanted to show me the pajamas she had picked out which consisted of a pajama dress, leggings, and a skirt from her closet. (She's dressing herself now, and it's... an adventure.) I was busy cleaning the kitchen up, and when she asked me what I thought I replied, "Oh Lydia, that's perfect." She immediately ran to David and said "Mommy says that the clothes I picked out are perfect!" I was surprised to hear my words reflected back so immediately in her 3-year old innocence and I was struck with the thought that what if I had said "Lydia, I don't really care which jammies you picked out, please go finish getting ready for bed." That is what she would have heard. Not all of my interaction with Lydia are as positive as "Oh, that's perfect." but I want them to be. I want her inner voice to sound just like me and be forever supportive and loving and encouraging.

Wow, that little thought about Lydia took on a life of it's own. But, that's why I like to blog so much, because I like having a place to write down whatever comes in my head, even if I tend to write in run-on-paragraphs. (My 11th grade English teacher, Mr. Anderson would be appalled.)

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Last month, I was able to attend a special Book Club event at our library where Julianne Donaldson came and spoke about her books Edenbrooke and Blackmoore (loooveeed Blackmoore). One thing she said really has stuck with me. She talked about her writing and how you have to take the time for the things that are important to you, because no one is going to give it to you. Blogging is important to me, and I'm going to make sure that I allow myself to take the time to write, even if that means staying up late or letting go of my endless to-do list, or whatever.

Now David is sleeping in our bed next to me, and I really should be going to sleep, too. But I just wanted to make sure that I was able to finish this blog post - even if it was about mostly nothing at all.

Here's to more blog posts in the near future.

Brain Dump

I just watched a video clip that showed up in my facebook news feed. It showed a herd of elephants standing in a small river. One of the baby elephants suddenly gets swept downstream and the mom charges down the river to save her baby. The next minute or so is spent watching the mom struggle to help her child to the bank of the river until one of the other elephants (the father?) comes over and together they are able to get the baby back up to the safety of the shore.

Insert many, many tears.

The fact that this video clip brought on so much emotional turmoil probably speaks to my mental state lately.

Life is so weird, looking back over the past couple of months I only remember the happiest times and feel like we are doing great! Then I start to remember about how many days we were only able to get the absolute minimum done: survive. The days that the dishes were stacked up, the tv was left on, and the laundry left un-done. I guess we are doing a pretty good job of simultaneously having wonderful adventures and enjoying our life - and feeling like we are barely keeping our heads above water. Can those two things happen at the same time? I don't know.

David's been working a lot over the last couple of months. *sigh* Busy Season strikes again. He's been such a champ to make such an effort to see Lydia and Austin every day, even though he has to work so much. He either tries to go in late so he can see them in the morning, then works late that night - or he tries to go in super early so that he can get home before they go to bed. I know that his work is taking massive amounts of energy and I'm continually amazed at how much time and energy he devotes to making sure the kids and I are all taken care of and aren't feeling lonely or neglected. We are on the count-down to the end of busy season and we are looking forward to summer when things won't be as busy. (Two weekends left - hooray!)

I love blogging and feel sad that this poor little space has been so neglected lately. I enjoy blogging and appreciate having this space to verbalize my thoughts and feelings while at the same time being able to record our lives together. I've had a few RLD clients that I've been working with over the last several months and that, combined with the massive amount of Primary stuff that I do on the computer, has pretty much taken all of my computer time. I feel like I always have something that is "really important" that I need to be working on, and I promise myself that I will blog later that night even though I know that I won't because I know I will be too tired. Today, I'm putting off design work and finally sitting down to blog while Lydia and Austin are napping.

I can't stand the thought that Lydia might think that I like the computer more than her. Sometimes when I'm working on completing a task on the computer, I find that I've completely ignored her trying to tell me something even though I'm sitting right by her as she watches a "show". It breaks my heart and makes me want to put the computer away and never pull it out again. I love her so much. Sometimes I look at her and my heart just wells up with how much I love her, and it makes the times that I let her down that much harder to bear. Here's to learning from my mistakes and working even harder to be the mom that my littles ones deserve to have.

Last week one of my friends posted about a study that her favorite professor at BYU was doing about memory and the pregnant/postpartum brain. She was asking for people who would like to take part of the study. I can't tell you how much I love stuff like that. (Throw-back to when we used to do taste-test studies in the NFS building at USU to get free Aggie Ice Cream tokens!) I totally jumped on the bandwagon, barely making the cut with Austin's age, as they were only accepting up to 6 months postpartum. I did a survey online, then had to go to BYU for the second half of the study. We made a lovely day out of it and got to campus just in time to hear the bell tower chime 12 o'clock. We counted the dongs, and then enjoyed the music that came afterwards. Lydia was enchanted and loved the experience (she even counted the 12 gongs all by herself!) We walked across campus and enjoyed the sunlight and fresh air, and although it was quite obvious that I didn't really belong there anymore - I loved being back on a college campus. The study itself was interesting and fun - and Lydia and Austin were great for the college students who were there to watch them. I was a proud mama as they told me that my children were darling and had been perfect. (Ha!) To top it off, they gave me $40 for participating. Yay for more money to put towards our Thanksgiving Point Memberships. After the study we met up with David who was in Provo working on a client and went out to lunch at Chik-fil-A, which was delicious and such a fun treat.

This last weekend we made a trip up to Idaho Falls for my cousin's wedding. We went up Friday morning and spent the next couple of days enjoying the happiness of family. We stayed with Jenna and I loved spending the days with my sister and Lydia loved spending the days with her cousin Camille. My mom and dad and brother Matthew were all there as well and I just loved the whole thing. David couldn't come because he had to work - but I'm so glad that we made the trip. Austin didn't sleep great, but he did roll over for the first time so Idaho Falls can keep it's "magic" status. I don't know what it is, but Austin just loves his Aunt Jenna. He laughs and giggles (and apparently rolls over) more than almost any other time. I guess I can relate, Jenna can make me laugh more than almost anyone else as well. The lack of sleep made for some of my not-the-greatest parenting moments, and we were late to the temple for pictures, but overall I'd say the weekend was a smashing success.

My Grandma Walker hasn't been doing super well lately and is in a rehabilitation facility in Ogden for three weeks. She's been up and down for a while now, but a couple of weeks ago - she had gotten so bad that she couldn't even feed herself. But then, she snapped out of that low stage and the doctors are trying to help her get better. She hates it at the rehabilitation center. Hates it. She just wants to go home. But they are working wonders with her! They have her in physical therapy and she is using her fingers better than she has been able to in years. I don't exactly know how, but they've gotten her off of her oxygen tank which she's had for years and years. (David said that he doesn't remember ever seeing her without it, I can't even remember how long it's been.) They are helping her body be able to take care of itself again, which is amazing, but she's just so miserable. It's so hard to see her like that. We stopped to visit her on our way up to Idaho Falls and then again on our way home. Both times we left, she started crying about how much she just wanted to go home. (I think it was also very hard for her to miss Chris and Tara's wedding - I don't know that she's missed any of her Grandchildren's weddings before.) My sweet Grandma has done so much for me, I just keep wondering what I can do for her at this point in her life? I wish that we lived closer so that we could spend more time with her. I just hope that she knows how much she is loved.

I know that this post is pretty jumbled and rambling - but I feel so much better for having been able to sit down and write whatever came to my mind. I have a whole bunch of pictures that need posting, but that will have to wait for another blog post. Some of our friends have invited us to a Chocolate Chip Cookie tasting party, and it's about time to wake up my sweet sleeping children from their naps in order to get dinner eaten and get ready to head over. (More on the many, many, chocolate chip cookies we have/are about to consume later, I'm sure.)

Five things on Saturday... night.

1. You may remember this little fella at that used to sit at the top of our blog:

(It reads: **Attention anyone who reads "The Peaden Life"** The author, Shantel, is suffering from a severe case of "Needstobevalidated-osis". The only way for her to overcome this terrible illness is for you to leave a comment at the bottom of her posts. It can just be "I read this post." It can even be "I think your posts are lame, but I read them anyway." She just needs some serious validation. Thank You!)

I posted it as a joke when we first started our blog and then ended up leaving it for who knows what reason. I actually grew kind of attached to it because I think it's funny and because I really do love to get comments. Recently I got a comment from a friend, Molly, that just said "i read your blog!" repeated about 60 times. I laughed out loud.  However, I realize that it's probably a little silly and immature. So i decided to take it off. The only thing is - I really do like getting comments. I try to comment on the blogs that I read because I know that I like knowing when someone reads my post.  I know people are reading - but my blog details read like this: 

You can see only a fraction of the people reading our blog are actually commenting. Only two out of 39? What did the other 37 people think? (I realize that some of these are probably repeat people, but we don't track our own pageviews so it still means that a lot of people are reading.) 

I'm not too worked up about this - but the reason that i'm writing about this is that I recently hit the limit for people who can access my private blog. As new people have asked to be added, I've been going through and deleting people that I don't think follow anymore. I'm always worried that I'm going to delete someone who reads but just doesn't comment. So the moral of the story - if you want to keep from getting deleted, comment once in a while so I know you are following. 

Sorry for this random first item- it ended up being longer than I intended - in our real news of the week:

2. For David's birthday I got him a pair of Pass-of-all-passes. We've been mini-golfing once, but because October is at the beginning of winter (and the beginning of busy season) we haven't really been able to use them much. We were so excited when we realized that Monday was one of the Real Salt Lake soccer games that we could go to for free. After David got home from work, we ate a quick dinner and then we bundled up and headed to the game. I can't tell you how much I loved handing the guy our passes and then having him hand us two front row seats without any monetary exchange. It was awesome. 

Lydia's first soccer game! And really, my first real soccer game. I've watched little kids play soccer, but I've never been to a real soccer game (although I have watched a few on TV with David). And when I say real, I mean... actual. Not necessarily Real. That is hard to type out and make sense. 

It was a little chilly. The wind was blowing and even though we were bundled up with coats and a couple of blankets it was still a little cold. Lydia didn't like the idea of staying under her blankets because she wanted to be moving around. The best part of the night was when a family came and sat behind us and Lydia let me wrap her  up and cuddle with her while she watched the kids talking to each other. (There were lots of "Umm, that baby is staring at me" 's and  "Seriously, she won't look away!"'s - I tried not to laugh and silently thanked them for providing her with entertainment.) 

Our awesome seats at the game. 

We had a really fun time, even though we didn't stay for the whole thing. We packed up just a few minutes before halftime (about 45 minutes) and headed home because Lydia was getting pretty cold and tired. But it was totally worth it and we would definitely go again. 

3. Thursday was HBM's annual "End of Busy Season Party". This year the party was held at the Boondocks in Layton. We dropped Lydia off with David's parents in West Jordan and then made the 40 minute trek to the party. 

 I asked David to describe it in three words and he said "Awesome, spin-out, fast." Then he said "Really... It. Was. Awesome." Haha. You can see that we had a good time. 

It was worth every mile. We started out by chatting with some of David's co-workers while we stuffed ourselves with pizza. Up next were some fairly intense go-kart races. We really like the people that David works with and so we had a good time talking to them in line and then racing out on the track. This Boondocks has a couple of pretty fun racetracks and they let you go for a decently long period of time. Last year I was SO pregnant, so we stuck to the mini-golf portion of the fun center. (It probably wouldn't be advisable for a 8 1/2 months along pregnant woman to drive a go-kart. The volcano at the end of our mini-golf game almost put me into labor.) This year I was excited to be able to get out and race and we both had a really good time. After a while we were ready to head back inside so we played some arcade games (David rocked me at skee-ball and I beat him at basketball) then headed to the bowling alley. We both bowled great! David scored a 149 and I scored a 115. That may not be great for some people, but we felt pretty good about it. We decided to head back out to the racecar track before it got completely dark and I'm so glad that we did. We had some of the most epic races of the night, including a neck-and-neck race with one of the partners (Paul) which ended up with me spinning out in the middle of the track and being rammed into 4-5 times before they could come and pull me back the right way. It was awesome. We ended the night with another game of bowling and then a few last arcade games. 

We are so grateful for HBM for putting on such a fun party. It's so nice to know that (for the most part) busy season is behind us and we have the summer to look forward to. (Yay for half-day Fridays!) I appreciate their effort to say thank you to their employees for working so hard. We had a fun time hanging out with all of David's friends and coworkers and can't wait for the Summer Party. 

4. You may or may not already know that I have been looking for a swimsuit for Lydia for ages. I worked myself into a tizzy one day stressing about how so many of the baby swimsuits are made to look so mature and... "sexy". Grr. Why would my 12 month old baby need a padded/ruched bustline? She doesn't. *cough* Sorry, back on topic. I wanted it to be cute, without being too "adult" but I also wasn't willing to pay $20 (or more). Finally... FINALLY... I found the perfect suit. It's navy and white stripes with a little red flower at the top and I love it. It's got pretty little ruffles along the top and as a bonus it matches a cute little swim skirt that I got in a bag of clothes from my mom! (The skirt is navy with a little red belt- darling.) I could practically sing I am so happy. I paid a little more than I was hoping to pay. ($12) But it really was worth it.  Sooooo worth it. 

 In fact, the whole shopping trip was super successful. (Sue came with me and I told her that she must be my good luck charm.) In preparation for Lydia's 1 year pictures next weekend, I found some darling little silver shoes, a pretty white jacket/bolero, and a yellow scarf for me. I still haven't decided exactly what Lydia is wearing, but it is narrowed down to two outfits that are both yellow and blue. I figure that either way, if I wear a yellow scarf and David wears a blue shirt it will be really pretty. I hope so.

Again, can I just tell you how excited I am for that little swimsuit? Now I just have to somehow hold off until our pool opens next month. Whose bright idea was it to not open the pool until after Memorial Day? I want to go swimming NOW! (Impatient much? - Yes.)

5. To finish off our wonderful week, David and I were blessed enough to be able to go to the temple today. Wendy and Sam offered to watch Lydia for us, even though they had an extremely busy day themselves. Before we had Lydia we never missed a month of attending the temple, and although I knew it would be hard after Lydia was born- I thought that we would just make it work. But, it's been much harder than I thought. There are so many other things that you have to do that it's pretty easy to use up all of your babysitting passes for the month and then it's hard to ask someone to watch your baby for 2-3 hours. Anyway, we definitely want to to better - because we love attending the temple. We are so grateful that Lydia was taken such good care of and that we were able to go. I love the feeling of peace and comfort - and also the desire to be a better person - that comes from the temple. 

Today I've been filled with an overwhelming feeling of gratitude for my life. I have so many good things - especially a wonderful husband and loving baby girl. Life can be hard, but it can also be SO so good. And those good things are the things that count most of all.