Pete's "accident"

I told him he should wait and let his little sister, a trained hairstylist, cut his hair. But he got impatient....
this was what happened when he went to fix a few long hairs and forgot to check if the guard was on the clippers;)

I am going to get in trouble for this...

Something monumental happened yesterday that Pete is in denial about ....I made sure he didn't forget though;)

Happy 30th Pedro!

Her new Happy Ending

Just over 6 years ago tragedy struck our family in a way we never could have imagined. A horrific car accident claimed the life of my brother-in-law Kimball (Ryan carries his name) leaving my sister with 4 young children-she was 28 at the time of the accident. And while she has been amazing and stoic and graceful and thrived over the past 6 years it has been extremely and often excruciatingly hard. But last night things changed...She was married for the second time! And not just to anyone, but someone who she knew from High School and actually took her on her first date and was her first kiss! While I am sad that she will be moving away, I am SO happy that she won't bear the burden of life alone anymore and am excited to have new members of my family.

Congratulations Catherine and Luke!!!

Helping us remember

Grateful for this handsome little boy who told us the story of the Savior multiple times today and helped us remember what Easter is all about.

Balancing Act

Just like most people, I feel like i am in a constant balancing act with all the different roles I need to fulfill-mother, wife, daughter, sister, nurse, YW leader, neighbor, etc-but I can't seem to find the perfect balance in order to keep them from shifting the weight and causing my whole world to topple over. I can't seem to devote enough time to each area that I feel like I am giving it everything I have. I always seem to be thinking about something else I need to do when I should be focused on the present task.

I am especially struggling to find balance between work and being a mother. I find myself spending more time at work than I ever planned or wanted to, but I have to be there for financial reasons. Maybe I am struggling because I am constantly battling feelings of guilt-I feel guilty for leaving him to go to work, I feel guilty when I leave to exercise, I feel guilty if we don't do enough projects, i feel guilty if I let him watch too much TV, I feel guilty if he doesn't eat well or we don't read enough books. I need to learn to balance these two worlds so that I can feel some sort of peace in both of them. I love being a mom, and someday hope to be home all the time but have to figure out how to blend two worlds right now. I realized-after reading a blog post-that when I am home I need to take some time out of each day to spend quality time with Ryan and not push my agenda on him, but let him decide what happens. But how do I overcome that guilt that I feel on a daily basis? What are you doing to find true balance in your life?

Player #1

Ry's first soccer season is officially underway and boy was he excited!!! The game was some of the best entertainment I have had in a long time.
Highlights included:
-Ryan acting as Spiderman and webbing as he ran down the field
-Ryan and his friend showing each other their superhero underwear as they sat on the sidelines
-Ryan almost scoring a goal for the other team (they didn't need his help they had a champion soccer player on their team that left everyone wondering how someone that big and coordinated was only 4)
-Ryan giving us double thumbs-up anytime the ball came near him, grazed him or he actually kicked it. He would get so excited he would forget he had to keep playing.

Parkinson St. Patrick's Day Party and a little White Trash fun

My mom's favorite holiday is St. Patrick's Day. For as long as I can remember, she has loved Ireland and anything celtic;) We capitalize on the fact that she loves this random holiday and every year we throw a party to celebrate. This year may have been the best yet-we played minute-to-win-it leprechaun games, pin the shamrock on the leprechaun, the kids hunted for their own pots-of-gold, and we ate lots of yummy food (my brother-in-law brought his crepe maker and so I made sure nutella came to the party as well). I found these awesome St. Patrick's Day mustaches (so random) at Old Navy like a month ago and Ryan had been DYING to wear them. Too bad he only wore it for about 30 seconds;)











This weekend Pete discovered that there is a lot more white trash inside of me then he ever dreamed there could be. We went to the Nickelcade and he couldn't get me to leave-literally he had to beg me to leave so we could go get dinner. I had a blast and would have been perfectly content playing skee-ball and deal-or-no deal (my latest arcade discovery-so addicting!) all night long. I also fought with Ryan over whose turn it was to throw the ball in skee-ball-Yes, one of my finest parenting moments. I told Pete and Ry we are going there on a regular basis;)

I love how serious that guy's skee-ball stance is...


I also love how concentrated Pete is when he plays video games...

The nothing day

With today being my first day off work in a while, I had high hopes of starting to tackle my ever growing to-do list. It is 1 o'clock and do you want to know what I have accomplished today....absolutely nothing...

I am sitting in bed and am starting to feel guilty, but at the same time really enjoying being lazy. I just can't seem to motivate myself today...

Ryan's Prayers

A few months ago Ryan started asking me when we were going to have another baby to which I replied-I don't know, why don't you start praying for it to happen. He only recently took my advice and started praying that I would get "pregnick" (I LOVE how he says pregnant), but now things are getting a little out of control.

He used to just pray that I would get pregnick, but now he prays that he will get a brother and a sister at the same time! He also prays that the boy baby will be named Harry-Osborn-Green-Goblin and that the girl baby will be named Mary Jane and that he will be able to change his name to Peter-Parker-Spiderman. If the day ever comes that we do have another baby, I don't know what Ryan is going to do when we don't name it after a spiderman character:)