Valentine's Day

This year for Valentine's day Rudger had some big plans for what he wanted to do for his class. He spent the evening before writing out hand written notes for each kid letting them know they are awesome, then he rounded up treats and put them in baggies. Nothing says first grade quite like this. It made my heart so so happy! Then he wrote his teacher a note with hearts all over it and gave her a Utah Truffle. I love this boy ♥♥

Levi made a hot cocoa 'mailbox' that was quite creative. He pulled out all the crafts and did the whole thing himself. Since all the crafts were out, everyone else decided they needed to make something too. :) 

Valentine's day started out great and then I got the worst prank call of my life.

Someone, pretending to be our cities police officer, said that they were so sorry but my husband passed away in a crash on 200 N. They knew my name, and his name. There were siren noises going on in the background. My heart stopped, I kept saying...no, this can't be right, NO!! After several seconds of them saying, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, they said just kidding this is a prank, and hung up.

Who could do this? I called Justin to really make sure he was okay. I called the number back, but of course it was a number that couldn't be reached. I called the police station and let them know. They said it was probably a punk teenager. 

It made for a pretty emotional day. But I am surrounded by such kind, loving people who helped lift my spirits that day. ♥♥

 I was so happy to all be together this night ♥♥♥

life is precious

I have had so much on my mind lately. On Saturday I found out that my cousin passed away. My heart is so broken for his sweet little family, they have been on my mind all week. He was my age. Life is so precious. I loved reading all about my cousin from social media this week, he really was an amazing person. I've decided I want to be more like him and dedicate more of my time to serving and loving others. I want to be more purposeful in life. I want to spread light and goodness. I want to focus on what really matters. I want to teach our children to value these traits. 

On Monday we talked about making a difference in this world. I quoted Martin Luther Kind Jr.

"If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way"

We each said something small we can do to help make the world better. I believe we can each make a huge difference just by living with kindness, helping others, loving so big, and spreading light. A life just like my cousin lived.

This is exactly what this world needs.

lately

:: I wish Corbin was in this picture ::

At the beginning of 2018 I sort of made a goal that I would be better at documenting our family life here. And here we are, almost at the end of February, and not one post. I think I'm making it more difficult than it needs to be. :) Time to change that and get these stories, pictures, and moments on this page because my memory is horrible and I don't want to forget these happy (and hard) times. Right now feels like the ideal time in our little family. I wish I could pause time for a while and just soak it up even more, but I've said that before. So I'm hopeful that I'll say it again in the future.

The last couple of weeks has been, if I could sum it up in one word, ROUGH. Two weeks ago Corbin came home with a headache and then hardly left the couch for nearly a week. In his fourteen years, I have never seen him so sick. It's been a week since he has started to feel better, and he is still EXHAUSTED. Yesterday he came home from school and slept the rest of the afternoon, woke up to eat a couple of bites, and then went back to bed for the night. We're not sure if he's still recovering or going through a serious growth spurt :) 

During that time, Rudger missed almost a week of school (he even missed Valentines day) :( Taylor missed a few days, Adeline was a little under the weather and Justin and I kept feeling like we had something but it never knocked us down. Last Friday I was talking to Levi's teacher and she asked how we were all feeling. She said Levi came to school and told her "I do NOT want to go home, everyone in my family is sick and I don't want it!" Then he told her he was just going to avoid the couch because that's where all the sick people are sleeping.  So far it's worked out for him :) (and he really did come home)

During that time, Adeline threw my phone in the bathtub and I was terrified that I had lost all 3,475 pictures and 100 + videos that were on there (that I am silly enough to not have backed up). Although we did figure out that Taylor's tablet has all my pictures from my phone on there. Something to do with the cloud and that his tablet is under my account??? I really don't get technology. But thank goodness.

Luckily, after a couple of days in rice, my phone was perfectly fine. I offered a lot of gratitude prayers and then spent a couple of days trying to get pictures off my phone and then organized all our photos from 2012. (I was on a roll) During that time, I don't know how on earth I did it, but I lost almost all the videos from 2016. I. was. devastated. I tried EVERYTHING to find them, but had no success. I cried over the fact that those were videos of Adeline as a 3-11 month old (some of my very favorite stages) After many tears, I just came to terms with the fact that they were gone and I would cherish the few videos we do have. (There are a couple on Instagram and we do have the videos from her first birthday and everything after that) 

Life moves on and I realized we are so lucky to live in a time where we CAN record so many happy moments. And as bad as my memory is, I won't forget that precious year with Adeline. They are some of my happiest memories. (And we still have hundreds and hundreds of pictures) :) 

So the past couple of weeks has been rough, but there have been so many good moments too. The cuddles on the couch, smiling while looking through thousands of pictures, evenings at home watching the Olympics together. I'll take them all. 

the hard and the good

The hard:
This weekend we went to a family cousin baptism and the two youngest had a hard time being quite during it. Adeline has discovered that she has this high pitch scream and it is draining. The downstairs remained a disaster all weekend. Adeline was loud and wiggly in church. The election has our whole family annoyed. Bedtime was way too late.

The good:
I got the pantry cleaned out and organized. We worked on cleaning up our neglected yard and Adeline loved being outside (where she could squeal as loud as she wanted). Daddy gathered the boys around to watch funny pranks on youtube. We got an extra hour of sleep. We cuddled together on the couch while reading a fun book together about history. The boys fasted without complaining too much and with a purpose (for kindness to return to our country). We went to tithing settlements where Corbin told the bishop that he had the best parents ever :) (then I leaned over and told him I would pay him later, which I immediately regretted because I kind of hate when people say that). The boys were happy to do Fast Sunday pictures and most of them smiled without making too many weird faces. We had a cozy evening at home that felt completely like Christmastime and I declared to them that I am putting up the downstairs Christmas tree this week! It hasn't happened yet, but I am seriously going to do it when life slows down :) 

Now today I am off to vote, which is kind of depressing this year, but I am still so grateful we have this opportunity in America. And I have great hope that America will be great again. (bahahaha #trump) But, seriously, I think America is awesome, and I know there is so much goodness here. 

And the kids are dying to find out what we are having for dinner and dessert tonight. We voted and it is a very tight race. It all comes down to Rudger's vote.