Just because she's cute

I absolutely can not rid my heart and mind of sadness for the boy who lost his life this weekend and his family. Ross Barfuss, a 16 year old in my ward, was at the beach when he swam into the ocean to save the life of an 11 year old boy who he did not know. He has still not been found. I lost my mother at a young age, so I have felt the pain of death, but now that I am a mother it just doesn't seem possible for life to continue after losing a child. I haven't been able to sleep, and my mind has been clouded with thought of sadness and death, until tonight when I saw his mother on the news and she said

"We'll miss Ross, we always will, but home is not a building, home is in your heart, and that's where Ross is."

What courage and strength this amazing woman has, and what faith in our Heavenly Fathers plan for families to be together for eternity. My sister also helped me realize that there should be no sadness for Ross. He is in a better place. The prayers that have gone out to this family have been numberless I'm sure, but please join me in continuing them.

I just still can't believe that the words of the mother who lost her son were the words I needed to hear to feel comfort. Here is the link to the video of this amazing woman and family.

This made me happy.....

There's nothing like 63 degree weather in February

A few things

Here are some pictures from Jake's Sunday party that I haven't gotten around to putting on the blog. As a quick side note, Sunday is the best day for a birthday. You go out with your significant other on Friday night, have a party with friends on Saturday night, and a family party on Sunday night!!! It's the only way to go!

Here's Jaxon and the birthday boy. I love this picture of Jax. Look at those eyes!! I let Jaxon take over the job of decorating Jakes b-day cake. I made it from scratch and it tasted like cornbread. Blah. Heather on clean up crew. This is now the 3rd picture I have posted of her in this same spot doing dishes at Heidi's house! What a good sister.
This picture is cool. Look closely and you can see Jake ready to take on the 30 candles single handedly. Okay, Jaxon helped a bit.
Jake's got this super neat-o coat for his birthday. (at what age did birthday presents start getting so lame!)
Connor got a hold of the camera at this point. This is Abbie and Jaxon's best mad face.

Okay, are you sick of birthdays? Me too! On to other things. These 3 boys are in preschool together that I teach with two other moms. Here they are hammering golf tee's into Styrofoam. They LOVED it! Little boys in their element.And here is a not so great shot of the music group I teach Friday mornings. We were singing some cowboy songs in this picture. I love teaching these kids music and seeing how well they can learn it and how much they love it. It is very rewarding to hear Jaxon start singing one of the songs I've taught that week.
Jaxon and Jake had a little party last night watching Batman and eating popcorn and chocolate milk! Fun fun!And here is a picture from today before church. Sage is obviously not so happy in the picture, but look at her cute little outfit! She is so fun to dress. I sure love these crazy kids. I read on my good friend Melissa's blog a quote from Sister Hinkley that said,

"It is the mothers of young children I would like to address first. These are golden years for you. These are years when you will probably do the most important work of your lives. Don’t wish away your years of caring for small children."

I'll do my best!

With Mine Own Hand

I have the opportunity to be part of a musical production of the life of Nephi. We are performing for BYU Education Week in August, and are currently rehearsing the music that will be recorded to CD in March. It has been a very exciting experience so far, and already I feel so much closer to Nephi and his family. I am playing the role of Nephi's wife, and there is the most beautiful love song that Nephi and I sing. When I first heard it, I though to myself "of course it's a love song, they were in love" I had never thought of that before. Check out the website to find out more about it. I even have a head shot and bio on it! How crazy is that?

http://www.nephi-story.com/

Happy Birthday Jake!

Yesterday was a big day in our little family. Jake turned 30 years old. WOW! I remember thinking he was old when we were married and he was 24!! I guess I was wrong though, because as often reminds me, "you're only as old as the woman you feel" : )

Of course we had a rockin' party, because I love a good party, and my husbands 30th just had to be the best! We had a Casino Night, complete with blackjack, poker, roulette, craps, karaoke and bingo! The chips were flowing freely and the lucky couples with the most chips at the end of the night won awesome prizes! (okay, they were from the dollar tree, but don't tell!) Most of Jake's dental buddies were there to party the night away, and it was said by many that it was the best party they had ever been too!! Woo hoo! It was a great night.

These are some of the dental school widows! These girls are awesome!

Karaoke!!!

Five card draw

Now for a few words regarding the man who we spent the weekend celebrating.

My husband is amazing. Hummm...I wish there were a better word than that. Maybe I should say phenomenal! Or unbelievable, or incredible....he's just fantastic!

I love him so much. He is always everything that I ever need him to be. He is level headed and SO smart, he is hilarious, and can make me laugh even when I am determined to have a bad attitude! His kids are head over hills in love with him because he is so good to them. He comes home from 12 hours of school and spends an hour playing batman with Jaxon and cuddling with Sage. When Jake walks in the door at night the kids are overjoyed. It's really cute. Today we went to surprise Jake at school and he just beamed with pride as all of his friends told him how cute his kids were. My kids don't know how lucky they are.

Did I mention that he is so stinking smart? He is the #1 student in his dental class at OHSU, and has been ever since the first semester. Every now and again I really think about that and it blows me away. He is such a hard worker, and I can't count how many times he has stayed up all night long studying for a big test. He knows how important it is to be a good provider for his family, and he is determined to be the best.

More important than that though, is how much Jake loves me!! : ) He tells me on a very regular basis that he loves me, that I am so beautiful, and that he is the luckiest man on earth to be married to me. And I'm not even making this stuff up!! I love that we have been married long enough to feel like we've been married forever. I just can't remember him not always being around. He is the love of my life, and I'm so happy that he chose me to be the love of his life.

Happy Birthday Jake!

I love you!

Day at the beach!

We spent Presidents Day at the beach. It was not quite as warm as we had hoped for, but the kiddies just loved it, and that's what counts. We went to Seaside, and realized once we got there, that we had never been before! It was fun to walk down the mainstreet and go in all the candy and toy stores. We even played a few games in a huge arcade. Jaxon just kept saying, "What a fun day at the beach!"

There's nothing like sun, sand, popcorn, taffy, and ice cream to make a day kids dream about!

Things that made me laugh out loud this week

1. Jaxon busting up at the burp on the bird video. He was sure the bird was burping! We had to play it over and over and over and over......

2. Jake making the comment "any man worth his grain in salt......." rather than the correct term, "any man worth his weight in gold." I'm still laughing.

3. Heidi very adamantly letting Heather know that she was NOT prettier than an old flings new fling. It was all a misunderstanding of course. Still funny

4. Jake placing a small stuffed cat at the window in hopes of scaring away the STUPID bird

5. Your comments about the poor bird. There was no sympathy!

6. Checking on the kids last night to find Jaxon like this


7. Jake finding what he thought was a list of complaints that I had made about him. Really it was a chapter review my sister had written about the book Dandelion Wine for book club. Here are some of the 'complaints'..."lying in bed makes everything alright" hehe "sleep, cry, ice cream-good medicine" haha, "mad the machine work." I couldn't stop laughing most of the night. What strange complaints!

8. This didn't happen this week, but when I think of it, I still laugh. Heather calles me and tells me how she was in downtown Portland in SUPER bad traffic. No one was moving. It was a standstill. She then notices that the cars in the lane next to her are moving along pretty well, and a few moments later realized that she is waiting behind a line of parked cars. Oh, I love that story!

Poor Bird

This poor bird has spent the last 2 days banging it's poor little beak against my window. And as much as I try and scare the poor little fellow away, he contines to repeat his, what I now consider, suicidal attempts. I added some food to my makeshift birdfeeders in hopes that other birds will flock around him and help the poor soul out, but who knows. Even at this very moment as I type, he's banging his poor little wings and feet in attemt to break through the window. And when he's not at that, he just sits on the branch and stares at me with those poor beady little eyes. Keep this poor little bird in your thoughts today, because I'm not sure he's going to be around tomorrow. Poor bird.

Okay, and just a note on the video, I choose this one because it displays my preshool bird feeders so well, and because of Sagie's burp at the beginning. It's hilarious! Listen for it. And and you can hear the bird chirp too.

My two babies-both at one year