Happy Birthday Scott!!!

As I was looking for a picture for this post, and couldn't find one of just him, I realized that he is the picture-taker in our family. He's always the one behind the camera. And that is something I love about him-he remembers stuff, like taking pictures, and other little things that really matter that I so often forget. And just about being behind the camera, he's often in the background making sure that things go smoothly, giving support and encouragement to me and to the kids when we need it. He's not too fond of the spotlight sometimes, but he deserves it more than anyone I know. He's my best friend, the one who makes me believe that I can do what I need to do. The reason I believe that I can be a good mom, that I can try to stop stressing about anything and everything, and that I can even try to unclog the dishwasher on my own (since he showed me how). Because of his support, I can play the organ on Sundays while he watches three very squirmy, loud, irreverent children in church, I have time to do fun things, like sew, crochet, and paint, and I can go on a trip for 8 days to NY by myself while he watches those same children the whole time...
Another thing I love about him is how he loves to build and invent things. He built a bassinet/changing table for Krysta when she was born, he built the coolest rig ever to hang our newly-acquired canoe from the garage ceiling, and he built a balance board for Tyler to play on. He changes the oil in the car and truck, vacuums, mops, and sweeps when my back hurts, puts the kids to bed almost every night, goes to work everyday at 5:30am, rubs my back when it hurts (and when it doesn't), reads books with me, and helps the kids with their Saturday jobs.
He can play the guitar and sing (my favorite is Shenandoah), he can speak Spanish, he is so amazingly good with kids, loves to play games with the kids, can get Emalyn and Tyler to really talk to him, and he lets me win way too many arguments.
These aren't even close to all the reasons I love him, but that would be a really long list.
Happy Birthday Scott!!

Valentine's Day

We had the funnest Valentine's Day yesterday. Every year up until this one, I think of it as more of a romantic holiday rather than just a holiday of love. This year, Scott and I put more emphasis on the whole family, rather than just the two of us. It's fun to have the romantic holiday, but well, we didn't have any babysitters lined up, and so it seemed better to just include everyone.

It started with a Valentine's primary activity in the morning, then we went to Lowe's to do their Saturday bi-monthly project (Valentine mailboxes). Tyler and Emalyn had lots of fun pounding in all the nails with their hammers. After that, it was nap time and quiet time. Tyler and Emalyn were suprisingly cooperative with that, so Scott and I got to read together (we've been reading Warrior Heir by Cinda Williams Chima), and that was fun to have time together in the middle of the day without our kids.

After that, we started on dinner, which I'd been planning for a week. It was so much fun to have the kids help. We made a cake and decorated it with chopped strawberries that the kids arranged to say "I love you". It was so cute. Then we had strawberry lemonade (with real strawberries!!) We had spinach raviolini and asparagus. Add that to the BEAUTIFUL pink roses that Scott brought home for me, and this is what you get:

I thought that we had a better picture of the cake, but it turns out we didn't take one. But arent' those roses beautiful? It was a nice surprise.

Anyway, it was a really fun day. As I was writing about it, I realized that we didn't really do anything that spectacular. In fact, when I woke up that morning, I was in a horrible mood. Scott and I'd gotten to bed late, and with different kids waking us up in the night and then Emalyn getting us up at 6:30am, we got around 4-5 hours of sleep that night. I was really sad to be awake that early. I'd made these fun plans for the day, and I really didn't want to do it all being so tired. But we did it all anyway, and I just remember going to bed that night and thinking about how much fun we'd had making that dinner together. I guess it was just the excitement of the kids over making everything that made it just really special. It was a day that I hope we remember.

Also, on a different note that has absolutely nothing to do with Valentine's Day, I finally got to see my mission president and his wife at the temple on Friday! A while back, I posted about how they were called to be the president and matron of the Idaho Falls temple, and they've been there since November. I've been trying to see them every time I've gone to the temple ever since they started, but they've never been there when I was there. Sometimes I just missed them by half an hour. But they were there on Friday evening! When I saw them, everything I'd been planning to say flew out of my mind, and I just stood there with the biggest grin on my face because I was just so overjoyed to see them. I love them so much, and it's been about 7 years since I saw them last. He was in between meetings, so I knew he didn't have much time, but he kept saying to not worry about it, they had time to talk to me. We caught up on stuff that's been happening in the mission and in our lives since. We only talked for probably about 15 minutes, but everytime I think about it, I just keep smiling. I had some rough times on my mission, and President Stoddard talked to me and was there for me when I was really struggling. They are so dear to me.

A day of sledding

Last Saturday, we finally made it- we went sledding! We've had a goal to go sledding as a family for, well, all winter, and Tyler and Emalyn were getting pretty impatient with us. We have these huge soccer fields that are surrounded on one side by a huge hill just about a block from our house. It was supposed to be really cold that day, but it turned out to be just perfect.



Tyler was the best. He went down over and over and over, all by himself, and brought his own sled back up every time. It was so slick there, that a couple of times, his sled went down without him (it happens in one of the later videos on this post)! He was a pretty good sport about it, just laughed and went down and got it and brought it back.



Krysta tried going down twice on a sled with Scott, but she preferred her own way of sledding:




Here are some more fun videos of us sledding: