And the winner is...

Ok so first off I need to apologies for not getting back to you all on the winner of my contest. I really have been so busy, but I haven't forgotten. And thanks to a good friend, she made me get my butt up and draw a name. So after a very scientific, and random drawing we have a winner....

Laural!!!!!

I will contact you this week and get your yoga stuff to you, and to show that I really am sorry it took so long I'm throwing in a pedometer.

I just got one and I love it!! It was 5 dollars at Walmart and it tracks not only my steps by my miles as well. And I've been walking 4.5 miles a day! And this is not like walking around the block this is just my day to day things. Up and down the stairs, vacuuming, walking around the grocery store. Every one should totally get one. You would be surprised at how much you walk!!

Confession of a Blog Stalker

So here I am at 11:15pm. I've finished some track stuff and so now I'm just coasting along catching up on people's lives. I'm hitting the links for my friends and other people that I know, and all of a sudden I find myself on a blog that I have no idea who it belongs too. I'm not even sure how I got there. Do I turn back??? No... I'm to involved, reading every post on the page... looking at their kids... {hummmm... not quite as cute as mine} Ok so now is a crucial moment... do I leave a comment? Do I dare? How do I start that? "Hi, I'm Leah, you don't know me, I don't know how I got here, but this is what I think of your life....."

And here is another... Not only do I not know how I got to the random blogs that I have found... now I'm addicted to them and are stalking them daily....

Do you comment on people's blogs even though you have no idea who they are?

{For any random person who has manage to stumble on my blog, feel free to comment..... I've probably peeked at your blog too.}

Come, Come Ye Saints

I was in church today and after a lesson in Relief Society we sang this song.

Come, Come Ye Saints

by: William Clayton

Come, come, ye saints, no toil nor labor fear; But with joy, wend your way. Though hard to you this journey may appear,Grace shall be as your day.’Tis better far for us to strive Our useless cares from us to drive; Do this, and joy your hearts will swell All is well! All is well!

Why should we mourn or think our lot is hard? ’Tis not so, all is right. Why should we think to earn a great reward,If we now shun the fight? Gird up your loins; fresh courage take; Our God will never us forsake, And soon we’ll have this tale to tell, All is well! All is well!

We’ll find the place which God for us prepared, In His house full of light, Where none shall come to hurt or make afraid; There the saints will shine bright. We’ll make the air with music ring, Shout praises to our God and King; Above the rest these words we’ll tell, All is well! All is well!

And should we die before our journey’s through, Happy day! All is well! We then are free from toil and sorrow, too; With the just we shall dwell! But if our lives are spared again To see the saints their rest obtain, O how we’ll make this chorus swell, All is well! All is well!

Even with all the trouble and turmoil around us we need to remember that "All is well." We need to remember that through our trials that "God will never us forsake." We need to be actively engaged in good works and service for "our useless cares from us to drive." Read and reread the lyrics and remember that we are here to find joy in the journey and through it all truly "All is well"

Let them figure it out

So the other day I took the boys to McDonalds for lunch, it was a spur of the moment kind of thing. We were having a really good day, but it was a little cold for the park. So we had finished eat ting and the boys were playing and I was just sitting and watching them while listening to the conversations going on around me. {Yes I totally eavesdrop to what people are saying.. don't you?} Anyway, I look up and I see some lady scolding him for hitting.

Now I'm not the type of mom to hover over the kids. When the boys fall, unless they are bleeding I just tell them to brush it off. And on the play ground I just let them have at it and if they fall, they'll learn to be more careful. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to let them do anything to stupid, but if Tim wants to climb to the top with his brothers, then by all means... he'll figure it out sooner or later. I think that most kids will figure problems out amonst each other if given the chance.

So back to Tommy and this lady... I look up and see her and so I focus on that and I hear her saying "Little boy we don't hit." So now I perk up because Tommy doesn't hit unless someone hits him first. Oh, he provokes things and there are times when he does deserve it, but he doesn't just hit out of no where. I lean over to see Tommy and I hear him say "he was kicking my brother"

So at this time I have to admit I was having a proud mother moment. Tommy was sticking up for Tim and was not going to let some kid kick his brother.

Here's a question for you... are you the hovering mom? Or do you let your kids figure things out on their own? Now I don't advocate kicking or hitting, {and Tommy and I had a talk after the fact about hitting others} but really what do you expect a {almost} 4 year old to do. Sit down and have a conversation about why kicking is not nice with another 4 year old? I mean really..... See I think we need to let kids figure things out by themselves, we don't always need to step in. {And besides... boys will beat the tar out of each other and then be best friends}

I guess the point of this is that I think we live in a hovering society. I think it's good for kids to try things out and I think it's ok to let them fall. And I think it's ok to let kids figure things out with each other. So if your kid comes to my house know that I will watch them but unless there is an all out brawl I'm going to let the boys work things out them self. Most of the time they come out better in the end anyway....

JUST SAY NO!!!

TO CRACK!!

{won't Tim love this picture when he gets older}

We have been busy

It's amazing how busy life gets and you don't even notice.

Let's start there... did you notice the redo? Isn't it great!! I won the redo in a contest. My name was picked by Baggie {the cat} and Dustin did a great job. {with help with his {newly pregnant} wife Angela} So you should go and check him out he works cheap.

And speaking of winning a contest... those that entered my give-away, don't worry I know who you are and I haven't forgotten you. I'll be pulling a winner this week.

And then there is James.. boy oh boy... He's been at the computer all day, working his fingers to the bone.

James and Tommy are so funny, and Sunday night they James wanted to have his brother sleep wit him. So after prayers and a story up the two boys went. They laughed with Tim for quite awhile before falling asleep exhausted. {I love that they are such good friends}

Here is something you may or may not know about Tommy. He has one ear that is turned down. It's really quite cute, but here is the other thing.... he has a freckle that is on his ear lobe that is right where a piercing would be. I've seen people take a double look to see if I pierced his ear... No, no, it just his freckle.

Ok, back to being busy. Apparently I've also been working Tim way to hard. I woke him up from his nap, and took him into my bedroom and sat him on my bed while I changed. He must have had a hard day of playing and tormenting his brothers because less than 5 minutes later he was asleep again.

And me... busy. I really need to see if I can get 4 more hours put into the day. I've been busy with my church calling. Having meetings weekly, and sometimes twice a week. And being a room mom at Tommy's preschool. I really like it and I like all the women I've gotten to know, but the issues that come up.. my, my. And now for my favorite... TRACK! I love being a track coach. We've got a great group of kids that will be competing. The thing with track is that there is so much planning in every part of my life. I have to make sure that dinner is done so it can be put in the oven to be ready at 5 {speaking of I need to decided what we are having tomorrow for dinner} I need to have all the phone calls done, and need to plan my church meetings around track. But it's a lot of fun. I'm realizing how truly out of shape I am. I was just showing how to do a couple of drills and I'm sore... sad huh.

So I'm going to try to get back in the blogging swing of things and I promise to give the boys a day off now and then...

Happy Valentine's Day

So how was it? One for the records? I hope so. Do you want to hear what we did... Well good I'm going to tell you.

We took off Friday after dropping the boys off with Jen and Adam {let's hear three cheers for J&A} We were going to go up to Phoenix for the day and then stay the night at a 5 star Resort in Tucson.... But we had last minute changes. We were able to get the last two spots in an evening retreat to go up Mt. Lemmon. Mt Lemmon is known as a Sky Island, this is because you have many different ecosystems in a short distance. It's 27 miles up to the top and you go from this

to this....
Yes, there those are cactus you see in the first picture, and a people skiing in the next. In 27 miles!! It was really weird but cool at the same time.

Like I said we went up there for a retreat, it was to the Sky Center. Mt Lemmon is one of the best places in the WORLD to see the sky! The air is so clear and clean and there is little to no humidity. Can I just say Holy Cow??? HOLY COW!! The telescope we looked through was amazing!!

{Don't look at the fact that I'm blinking... just look at the telescope}

We met this really great guy name Adam Block who is the astronomer that does the program. He showed us some amazing thing that you can see by just using a good set of binoculars. He has taken some amazing pictures {yes ALL of them are real!} which we saw and then we got to look in the telescope and see two dying stars, we saw the birth of a star in the Orion nebulae. We saw Saturn, with it's moons. We were even able to see TWO other galaxies. We were able to see a Venus and a star in the day time {yes, the day time}. It really was amazing!! It really puts things into perspective! I would HIGHLY recommend everyone to go! It's worth the time and the drive for the 5 hours. {on a side note.... plan to go in the summer time. It was so COLD!!!}

Happy Valentine's Day Sweetie!!!! I'm glad that you were here so that I could spend this day with you. I'm glad that we got to see the stars. You make me so happy and I'm so in love with you!

What do we have here?

Monday night it was really cold and windy, I figured it would be the same the next morning when I woke up. Well imagine my surprise when I woke up to 2 inches of SNOW! Yes you heard me right... Here in southern Arizona {really, like 10 miles from Mexico} we had snow. Tommy and Tim were up and just happy to look at it from the window. I woke James up and showed him, and he was wide eyed after that. He got dressed so fast and was out the door. He was the only one who truly appreciated the snow. He tried having a snow ball fight with his brothers, but they were not into it. So I went out there and threw it around with him. Yup... as cold as I remember it.

The boys still had school so after a bowl of oatmeal and dry pants they were ready for school. By noon it was pretty much all melted.

It was nice to get a touch of snow. Just enough to play in for a bit and then be nice and sunny again in the afternoon. {today I was back in short sleeves}

Win a prize!!

I'm kinda excited for this... my very first GIVE-AWAY!

Did you know that it is February?? {I'll wait while you go check your calenders.....} Yes, February. So how are you doing on those resolutions? Are you working out like you planned? Well if you've slipped a little this is for you. And I'm not saying you have... maybe you haven't slipped at all, maybe you just need a little push. Either way, I'm in if you're in...

So what do we have here....there are two exercise DVD's {The yoga one is open but unused. the boys thought they were helping by opening it for me} and a set of blocks and a yoga strap. And the yoga workout is a weightloss one.

So what do you have to do to win...well you have to comment of course, and to earn extra entries you have to answer the following questions.{all of which can be found on my blog} One entry for any comment you leave, and one extra entry for each questions you get right.

1)How long have Steve and I been married?

2)What was my "Dirty Little Secret" while Steve was gone?

3)I visited my family in July... Where do they live? {just the state}

4)What is the new hobby that Steve and I have started together?

There you have it... Good luck to you all. Oh.. and the give-away will end Sunday the 15th.

Butt.... Butt....Butt

I was looking at Tommy the other day and I noticed something.... he doesn't have a butt.

The funny thing with this is that he is not only named after my dad but he has so many of the same characteristics of my dad. Fortunately most of the similarities that my dad and Tommy share are the good ones. Crazy sense of humor, the need to dip EVERY thing in ketchup, the sparkling blue eyes, and even the turned down ear. But Tommy also got the flat butt as well... {poor boy}

We had hot chocolate today, {yes is was cold, and there was even snow on the mountains this morning} ... take a look at this picture of Tommy and Tim. Apparently they thought it was better to wear it. My heavens is was a mess!!

*****Hey, check back Tuesday for my FIRST ever give away!!!!*****

One of THOSE days...

Have you ever had one of those days where if you hear the word "mom" one more time {especially if it's in a high pitch "I'm-trying-to-get-you-in-trouble", or "I-have-nothing-to complain-about-so-I'm-going-to-annoy-you" voices} you are going to box up children and send them away?..... or just lock them outside

I thought so. I knew I wasn't the only one.

{No child or pet or mom was harmed during this time and despite what any child will ever say they were only locked outside for 20 minutes.....and there is a hose and dog house, they would have been fine.}

His AND Her Hobbies

What hobbies do you share with your spouse or significant other? I asked the same question about myself. I'm thinking.... Hummmmm, in 18 years {because that's when all the boys will be out of the house} what will Steve and I do? See he's not that into scrapbooking or crafting, and he's not a runner, at least that is, not unless someone bigger than him is chasing him... {and considering the fact that he is 6'4" there's not many bigger than he is}

And me.... well, I'm not into the whole computer game thing. And Steve can really work wonders in the garden and yard, and me.... I kill any plant if I even glance in the general direction of it. {The poor garden shriveled up and died when he left in May}

So we have his and her hobbies but things to do together... we have one! I discovered while he was gone, I found out that I really like shooting. So when he got back I got my first gun!! It's a 9mm {and it's really pretty, if a gun can be that} and I love shooting it! Steve and I went out this past Saturday and went shooting, and I did really good!!! Steve's a good teacher. I shot both his gun and mine. Mine is a little heavier, but it fits so much better in my hands.

{look real close and you can see the shell casing in the upper right side}

So, here is a question, what hobbies do you do together?