Happy Mother's Day

Dear Mom/Grandma Smed, We love love love you!

The reason's why:

Landon, "because she gives me hugs."

Austin, "because she takes me to the store and gives me treats, and because she lets me sleep in Alina's bunk bed."

Me, "because I always know that at least my Mom is on my side. When the chips are down, especially, you lift me up. You let me talk your head off on the phone even you're busy. You have done so much for me and I'm grateful for it. You are an example to me. I love you."

Dear Grandma Perigo, We love love love you!

The reasons why:

Kyla, "because she is nice and she does everything for everyone."

Landon, "she lets me sleep at her house."

Austin, "because the same thing as Landon said... I mean because it's the grandma in the red house."

Today {and everyday} we love our moms and grandmas. Thanks for the support and just being you.

My Kiddos have been celebrating Mother's Day for three days now, thanks to their teachers.

My Landon. I just love him! His class had a "Mother's Day Tea" on Friday. When I got there Landon greeted me at the door with a hand-made corsage. He escorted me to my seat and, after we played a game, served me some refreshments. We watched a video that showed each kid telling why they loved their moms. Landon said, "because she makes me dinner...um, I think." I asked him later what he meant and he said, "I love that you make me dinner but sometimes I don't like what you make." (at least hes honest!) Just before singing us "Skid-a-Marinky-Dink", The class went around the room reading their Mom's the placemat poems they had written. When Landon got to the end of his poem he got a little teary-eyed and gave me a H-U-G-E hug. I had to wipe a tear away, myself after that. It was one of those "tender" moments. This kid makes me so happy....

.... and so does this one. Austin's preschool had a Mother's/Father's Day celebration too. The class entertained us with "The Gingerbread Man" and "The Three Little Pigs" along with some cute songs. Austin was hamming it up. He's tricky because sometimes he can be so shy but other times he LOVES to be the center of attention.

It was hillarious when he gave me my Mother's Day present. He pulled a recipe card holder (hand-painted, of course!) out of the bag and, proud as could be, said, "I got you an ingredient!! Can we make it?!" He is just so cute. Sometimes I can't help but stop what I'm doing to give him a hug because he's so cute. He also made me a little book, with the help of his teacher, and my favorite page is this one. When I asked him about it he said, "your so old. (60) and you're not fat (9 pounds)."

I love being a Mom. As cliche as it sounds it's the best thing I ever did and I wouldn't change it for anyhing. So today I'm celebrating for all the mom's I know. You are all great examples to me. Happy Mother's Day.

And on to something more {Positive}

Got a phone call today - the house is ours!! After 2 counter offers and someone else putting an offer in we are relieved and can finally start planning. We've gone from feeling like this:

to this:

Amazing what a good night's sleep and a call from the realtor can do for you!!!

Um... why?

I was just checking up on some blogs and happened to notice that on my sidebar I spelled Isaac's name wrong! What the Heck is wrong with me?! No idea. I feel like everything I do is only half done. I'm trying not to get discouraged and take one thing at a time but I am going through a "rough patch". It's always just one thing after another. Seeing my own baby's name spelled wrong on my own blog just put me over the top. What is wrong with me?!! Seriously. And for right now it just has to stay that way. No time to fix it. On to the next project: operation, blow up air mattress for Kyla (Cameron's sister and neice will be here in an hour or so. They'll be here for a week - fun times!)

The Last Two Weeks Have Been B-U-S-Y

... And Lots of Fun {and a little stress!!}

Cameron spent this past Thursday - Sunday batchin' it alone while I went to Women's Conference at BYU with some friends. What a good Dad he is and a great husband for giving me some time off. He spent all of Saturday doing this:

...except it was 30 degrees and raining all day. (this picture is from two weeks ago) Landon had two football games and pictures on Saturday. So the guys spent the day in the freezing rain. Cameron said they were covered in mud and grass by the time they got home.

The other days he had to get the kids up, fed, dressed, and out the door to the babysitters and get himself to work {a special shout-out and huge THANK YOU to my friends who babysat}

He did all the work while I had a great time with friends at BYU. We ate {way way way too much}, talked, shopped, walked {and walked!} and listened to great talks. I feel uplifted and revved up to re-commit myself to being a great mom and wife. And doing all the other things I need to do bring myself and my family closer to the Lord. It was a great fun weekend - by no means relaxing, but very fun.

{this is just before the clossing session - a great talk by L. Tom Perry}

We left for the Denver Airport at 4:00 in the morning {i got up at 3:15, ugh!} on Thursday. Just two days after coming home from Ogden. That weekend we drove to Utah Friday afternoon droped off the kids and slept. Drove to Mountain Home, Saturday. Looked at 18 houses in one day. Looked at a few more on Sunday. Drove back to Utah to pick up kids and sleep. And then Drive back to Colorado. WHIRL WIND!! We did spend a little time with these crazies:
Jared and Steph (my brother and his wife)....and we visited with Cameron's parents and mine a little. But mostly our trip was for the purpose of finding a house in Mountain Home. It was a bit of a dissapointing trip because...well, lets just say it will take some getting used to. We came home without making an offer on a house and thinking we would try Base housing. After a couple days of pondering and thinking we finally decided to go ahead and put an offer on this...
... a cute little house in a good neighborhood. We're still in negotiations so depending on how things work out this is where we will live. We are slowly making progress towards getting excited about the move. We have a long summer ahead: moving in June. Cameron figuring where he will spend July and part of August while he finishes work here. Me figuring out schools (mountain home schools or private - yeah we might go with private based on some of the research I've done on the schools there), unpacking {alone!!} staying with my family in Utah (which will be fun!) and just getting settled. That's how it goes around here: lots of "just a minutes." and "I'm almost done"'s. It seems like there is always so much "business" to take care of. But I do try do things with my kids and spend time with them. Like this:

...I took the kids horseback riding one day just before we went to Mountain Home, in between all the craziness. They had fun. It was a good break for me. Balance. That's what it's all about. And now that Isaac's awake and screaming for freedom from the crib and Austin's yelling, "MOM!! Come RIGHT now!" It's time for some more balance - no more computer for me! {for today!}

Snow Day *with an amendment

Here's the thing with Colorado Springs winters. They don't start until March! Seriously. It's weird. We've spent all January and February wondering where the winter was and now that we're in the mood for shorts and capris the snow starts coming.

I must say, though, we need the moisture. And it's not so bad! This weekend a major storm warning was issued and they basically shut down the city. Landon's football game was canceled for the second week in a row due to snow. Really, all the news stations were telling people not to drive unless absolutely necessary. It wasn't bad at all during the day when temps were just above freezing (which is HOT compared to Iowa snow storms, by the way!) It wasn't even too bad at night. The roads were slushy but not super icy.

We took advantage of a break in the snow fall when the sun was shining and you can still see grass coming out of the snow. This was no MAJOR snow storm but it was fun! I have to admit, it did snow for two days straight and we had a ten minute down pour of hail and thunder and lightening so I guess the weather man was right, a little bit!

Austin spent the day making snow angels and sledding down our "bunny hill". I wanted Landon to come out too, but his friend was over and "not so respectfully" declined the invitation to come out. So Landon missed out for a day of Legos. Oh well. I'm sure there'll be other snow! But I was missing him. I've decided next time, I'll just drag the friend outside or send him home!
Austin's new favorite thing to do - ask me to take his picture and then run away just when I'm about to shoot it. He screams, "April Fools Day!! ha ha ha". It's funny and really quite annoying! So this is one I snapped when he stopped to see if I still had the camera out.

Zacky-boy got to wear his new boots. He LOVED them, until he tried to walk in them. I felt bad for him because he did have a hard time walking. To make matters worse he would NOT leave his gloves on. So every time he picked up his ball he screamed, "COUDE, COUDE!!!" (COLD, COLD). And then he'd throw it, then he'd want it back and run after it and end up like this:

"COUDE! COUDE!"

So we cleared off the walkways and let him stand on the cement with his shovel. It worked out much better.

*Amendment to our Snow Day*

So I posted this early this morning and this is what we did after dinner today:

Go figure. It was 62 degrees and the snow was almost completely melted. Crazy.

{a little side story: Notice the Hotwheels bandaid on Zac's forhead? Isn't it pretty?! For some reason Isaac just doesn't watch where he is going. He runs into walls, chairs and other furniture all the time. He doesn't realize that when he turns his head his feet keep going forward. This morning he got a big gash on his head when he ran into Austin's metal bed frame. It's pretty deep and long so we're trying to prevent a nasty scar with bandaids and neosporin. It's just too bad I only had Hotwheels ones left. I bet people at church had a good laugh at that!}

"PuFfY" Pancakes

(or German Pancakes - but Cameron objects to calling them that since he says, "they have NOTHING like that in Germany.")

These yummy treats have adorned our breakfast table for Conference Weekend and Easter Sunday. Since we don't get out of church until 4:00 I've been trying to give my family BIG Sunday breakfasts and a quick snack before church. This is our family's new favorite. Here's the recipe:

{Puffy} Pancakes

6 eggs

1 C flour

1 C milk

1/2 tsp salt

1 - 2 TBS melted butter

{optional ing. that I always add}

1 tsp vanilla

2 TBS sugar

1 tsp cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice

Mix everything except butter in blender until smooth. Pour melted butter into a 13 x 9 x 2 baking dish; add the batter. Bake uncovered at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

Top with favorite pancake toppings. We like smashed strawberries and powdered sugar. It's great with regular maple syrup too. We think this tastes like French Toast, without the bread. YUM!

Announcement Time...

We know!! We are going to Mountain Home Idaho! It's 45 min from Boise. This is bitter sweet because we love all our Colorado friends but it makes it so much sweeter knowing that prayers were answered. I know I was a little dramatic (I wrote Friday's post when my emotions were a little high!). I don't know why but I've never been so nervous and worried about anything like this before. I feel good about it though.

Finally! We can get on with LIFE!