10 Years and Running

Ten years ago, I made the best decision of my life.  It was the decision to marry my best friend and love of my life Karsen Andreasen.  He has always been there for me and has made my life all the better for it.  We have been through some tough times the last 10 years but throughout it all he has stood by my side and made me stronger.  I have heard that you should marry your best friend.  I must say that I have been lucky in that Karsen was my best friend before we even started dating so it seemed natural that shortly after we started dating we talked about marriage. Two years after we started dating we got really serious and decided to take the plunge.  This was after Karsen proposed at our Ward party in the bishops office (but thats another story for another time) On November 3 2011, we woke to a beautiful fall day and drove down to the Logan Temple to be sealed for Time and all Eternity.  The Best day of my Life!!!  I love you Karsen and cannot, and hope I never have to, imagine my life without you in it.

My favorite of our wedding photos.

A kiss and a beautiful view!

I seriously love this man sooo much.

It was such a beautiful fall day for a wedding.  We got lucky with the weather, Especially in this area.

Headed in to the reception.  I love this picture because two of the girls that are in it are now married and one of them is in my young womens class.  Sheesh ,  how time does fly!!!

Me and my amazing four sistas!!  All who are mommies now!!

I consider myself infinitely lucky and blessed in choosing who I did to marry and look forward to spending Time and all Eternity with him.  Love ya hon, to the moon and back 10 times.

Let's go Trick or Treating

Halloween is such a fun holiday!!  When else do ya get to put on a costume, go around to peoples houses and demand candy.  And the best part......they actually give it to you.  My little monsters had lots of fun getting dressed up and into character this year.

Brock on his way to the Bat Mobile!

Quite possibly the cutest Elmo ever!!!  He loved this costume and wore it all day long.

Don't ask me why but for some reason Miss Emma was set on being Big Bird.  She was so excited about it and told everyone that she was gonna be Big Bird.  Kind of an odd choice for a 4 yr. old girl but hey what do ya do?

Jayden showing off his mad Ninja skills!!

Now lets go get some candy!!!!!!!

Its Punkin carving Time

I love how Halloween is my husbands favorite time of year.  He loves to decorate and carve pumpkins with the kiddos. We had lots of fun doing it this year.

Everyone getting ready to decorate and carve.  Yep thats right Sawyers is rockin the diaper look.

Brocky posing with his punkin.

Emma and Beans showing off their artwork.

Bugs pumpkin he designed and helped carve.  He was soo proud!!

And lastly, digging out the guts.  I love the looks on thall their faces as they play in the pumpkin goo!!
Lots of fun and more memories made.

Family Adventures

A few little pics of our family when we have gone up in the mountains to cut down firewood.

Emma and Beans sitting atop the pile in the back of the truck.  I love how the sun is shining on this picture.

Brocky, showing off the Autumn leaves that he found

Jayden helped in hauling a lot of wood but paused for a moment to show off the Big Guns!!!

I know that I am biased, but he is just tooo cute!!

Posing with daddy before leaving.

Being a Mom

As I sit here tonight and look at the sweet faces of the little angels that I tucked into bed, it occurs to me just how lucky I am to be a mom.  It is hard work with long hours and sometimes no recognition.  But that being said, I couldn't imagine my life without my kiddos in my life.  They are my greatest blessing and I love them more that anything. I found some quotes on motherhood that I wanted to put down so that I could remember them and look at them when having a particularly difficult day (and lets face it, we all have them)

"Of all the rights of women, the greatest is to be a mother."

I have worked a lot of the time that I have had kids.  I was lucky enough to be able to stay home and just be with my babies starting about a year ago.  I live for moments like these, when I am able to stay in my pajamas and play hair salon with my monsters.

Arent we stunning after our makeovers!!

My cute little stinks!


At times I kow that I complain sometimes because being a mom is truly the hardest job that you will ever love and I believe that is very true.  Yet I dont think that there is a better one.  That being said, sometimes I look at them and thing "Who raised these kids???"  But I suppose that is all part of the package.

Dear Lord, it's such a hectic day
With little time to stop and pray
For life's been anything but calm
Since You called on me to be a mom
Running errands, matching socks
Building dreams with building blocks
Cooking, cleaning, and finding shoes
And other stuff that children lose
Gitting lids on bottled bugs
Wiping tears and giving hugs
A stack of last week's mail to read
So where's the quiet time I need?
Yet when I steal a minute, Lord
Just at the sink or ironing board
To ask the blessings of Your grace
I seen then, in my small one's face
That you have blessed me
All the while
And I stop to kiss
That precious smile

Love em!!

Things I never thought I would say #1

Im finding that as a parent, I hear myself saying things that I never thought I would EVER say.  Thought I would just put a few down so that I can remember them.

"Sawyer, Stop putting the Polly Pocket in the toaster"

"Son, stop licking the cats back!"

"No Brock, you cannot eat plain butter"

"Do NOT punch him!! STOP punching him"



And finally I found myself saying something that when I was young, I swore I would never say because when my mom said it, it drove me CRAZY.

"Well ya know what,  Life isn't fair!!"

Mom would be soooo proud of that one

The Mean Mom

So lateley Karsen and I have been really struggling with our oldest son Jayden.  His whole life he has been a very easy going, happy and all around good kid.  Then he turned 8. I honestly feel like now he does every and anything that he can do to push my buttons.  And its working!!!   I have spent a lot of time talking to my mom and friends to see what to do to handle it.  The main theme that I have gotten from them is when I say Im gonna do something, I need to stick with it.  Okay, .......confession time.  I do not always do what I say or threaten to do so I can see why this attitude is my fault to some extent.  Basically I have to just be as my friend Angela says "the mean mom"

Anyway, yesterday was a particularly trying day with arguments ranging from homework to cleaning his room to talking back.  A particular comment that he said sort of set me off.  When I told him that he needed to do what Heavenly Father asked and honor his mom and dad, he looked at me and yelled "But Mom, That is IMPOSSIBLE!!!  I had to leave the room after that one.  So as I was stressing about how to deal with it I thought of the mean mom thing and decided to channel my inner mean mom. I decided that I was gonna ground him from a boat race that his scout troop is doing and that I HAD to stick with it.

So I sat him down and told him that  I wasnt very happy with the behavior that he had been having.  I told him that now that he was 8 and baptised, it was his responsibility to make the right choices. And that the way he was acting is Satans way of sneaking into his life to cause problems.  Then I dropped the bombshell of him not being able to go to the boat race.  Holy teenage girl like freakout!!!!  He proceeded to tell me that I was a .....wait for it.... Mean Mom.... and that I never let him do anything fun...yada yada yada.  Essentially by the time he was done with the accusations and tears I felt like a total creep.   But I stuck to my guns (pat myself on the back moment) and told him that I love him and that it is my job to teach him responsibility and that is the way that I am doing it. 
Anyway, the next morning when he woke up,  he was a complete delight.  I didnt have to yell or get after him at all.  Thus far it seems to have taught him (and me) a very good lesson.
When he went to school today he even gave me a hug and kiss and said "Mom your the BEST mom ever!!".....at least when Im not being mean I guess

My sweet boy and his daddy on  baptism day.  Could he be any cuter??

Going on a Berry Hunt.

Since I was young, one of my favorite things to do in the late summer/early fall, was to go huckleberry picking.  We used to go and make a whole day of it.  I have many fond memories of those times.  Because of those fond memories,  I want my kids to be able to make the same kind of memories.  I think that is an important thing and one of the reasons that my family is so close to this day.  So this past weekend my sisters and mom and our families all went out to find the elusive huckleberries.

Loading up the truck to go up in the mountains

When we actually got up there and found a good spot, the kids did more playing and eating than actual picking.  But Karsen and the kids did find lots of wild raspberries as well as huckleberries.  I made the boys pose for this picture during their fun

Little Rhett (my sweet nephew)  hanging out in the truck with Grandma.

Beckham (another nephew) running to tell his momma  "Mom, I gotta go pee!!"

Me and Sawyer being silly!!

The two lone girl grandkids gotta stick together dont ya know

And finally, some of the yummy berries we picked.

It was so much fun and now we get to enjoy the "fruit of our labors"  (pun intended)

Its a Beach Party!!!

Okay so its not really a beach party but gimme a break,  I live in SE Idaho where beaches arent exactly plentiful!!  Anyhoo...we had a little celebration to mark Brocks 6th Birthday and Miss Emmas 4th Birthday.  We had it at our house and used this awesome blow up pool and waterslide that my in laws have.  The kids were able to invite lots of friends and the weather was absolutely perfect.  Here are a few little shots of the fun we had

Here is that awesome water slide

Miss Emma and her bathing beauty friends

Brock and friends sitting down for some English muffin pizzas.  Yummy!!!

Emma and her gals havin some lunch

Jayden and cousin Jack

Emma and her friend Hayven really enjoyed their snow cones!

CAKE TIME (I love Brocks face)

Both kiddos showing off some presents they got.

Lots and lots of sun and fun.  But mom is definitely glad its over!!!

Building a Beach

So since my kiddos Brock and Emma have birthdays so close together (about 3 weeks), we decided to to their parties combined.  They chose a beach party theme (pictures and a post from that to come later.)  Anyway,  we decided to do the cake at home and decorate it ourselves.  Since I am not a cake decorator I was a little nervous as to how it would turn out.
First I made one of my kids and husbands favorite cakes, a Texas fudge cake, and put it in a large sheet pan.  Then i let it cool and here is where it got really fun!

First I tinted some icing blue and iced one side of the cake and made it really thick to be waves of the water

Then I iced the other side white and crushed up some graham crackers to make the sand

Here is what it looked like with that all done

Here are my little helpers. Although you can see from their faces they were doing more eating than helping

Then we had to add our people and other decorations to the beach.  We used some icing to give our teddy graham beach goers swim trunks and bikinis.

Then we added the writing on the cake.  We also made beach towels, a surf board and a shark fin out of graham crackers and then added our people and the candles.  This is the finished product.

All in all it turned out to be a really fun project.  And the kids loved it.  In the words of Emma "mom that is the most awesomest cake ever!"