The Suprise Party part 2

Happy 50th Birthday mom! You don't look a day over 30! Love ya!




We did it! We totally SUPRISED her!

Mom and the girls!

Amy, Tammy, mom, me, Bobbi


Mom and her parents

My mom's family (-)two brothers

Jerry, Julie, Joan (grandma), Nyle (grandpa), Marty, Diana

missing: Danny and Randy

Me and Bobbi

Me and Amy

Bobbi and Amy :)

Mom, Dad, Me, Amy, and Bobbi

The girls :)

Diana and Matt Grover my aunt and uncle

pullin a nice face ;)

My nephew Kaiden

Adam on the phone, Uncle David, and family

Dad, Tammy, my neice Allison, and Amy

Dad checking out the present mom's brothers got her!! haha
(or was it for him)

Mom's brothers embarrased her good :)

Beautiful Lei from Evan and Charlene Stoddard (g&g) they got in Hawaii

50 gag gifts!!!

The Three Rs of Choice..President Monson

Sometimes its a rare thing when you a hear a talk or lesson that inspires you so much that you have to put it to work. During Relief Society our Teacher talked about President Monson's talk he gave in the Priesthood session of General Confrence The Three Rs of Choice(read it here).
The three Rs president Monson talked about are the Right of Choice, Responsibility of choice, and the Result of Choice.

In his talked he focused on each those and the choices we make in our life. However, for our lesson our dear teacher focused on those Rs pertaining to teaching our children the aspect of work and the major part it plays in our lives.

As I have already been implimenting this with my children I learned knew things and renewed my vigor in this. My parents taught me the value of work. Oft times it was "hard work", growing up on ranches and caring for animals and horses in my youth it built the foundation of my working skills. Along with the responsibilities of keeping a clean home with my mother, we were required to help with the chores outside taking care of the animals and the home. Me and my two sisters Amy and Bobbi, hauled hay with dad, mom, Shawn, and, Todd. We gardened together pulling weeds, we all helped collect and haul off hundreds of rocks by our home (that I could swear rocks were growing out of the ground), and hauled fire wood endlessly all summer preparing for the winter. Mom always insisted on teaching us the value of keeping a clean home. My brothers and sisters and I were expected to clean the house and keep it sparkling! :) I think Shawn somehow got out of this more then not because he was relied upon to help dad outside. But all in all I had a good foundation of what it meant to work and be responsible for it and have pride in what I did.

Along those lines both Adam and myself grew up in the "country" and not in town. It has been a struggle for both of us to indure city living. We would love to raise Keplar and Kyly the same way we were. That is not in the cards as of right now. But we can still teach them the value of work and to take pride in the work they accomplish. They have to make the right choice of working and take responsibility or their choice weather it be good or bad, and take pride in the result of their choice.

They won't be fixing fence or hauling hay or fire wood. But I will teach them the same values of hard work in our home. Just as my parents taught me. They are responsible to help clean, and take care of their belongs, and their rooms. I remebered this lesson this morning as I was folding clothes. Kyly came in and said "I want to help fold clothes mommy." Usually I'm very picking about the way the clothes are folded. I reminded myself "she will never learn if she doesn't do it." And to my suprise she was very good. She watches me meticously everyday as I busy my self about our home. She decided it was time to put her knowledge to the test. I led her in example and she choose to follow. She has done this several times helping with dishes and cleaning her room.

I could have insisted I would do it my self and not let her. I then would take away her right of choice to learn for her self and responsiblility to choose and ultimatly her result of that choice. It would have gone against everything I want to teach. Although, children are little they are capable of doing big tasks. Its important that I as a parent allow them to do things for them selves and learn the value of work. They will never learn if I don't let them do it themselves. It may not have been how I would have done it, but it got done. After they do it I have learned to praise them to death so they can feel pride in what they have accomplished just as my parents have done.

Happy Birthday!!

Today is my mom's 50th birthday! We did a suprise party for her on Saterday at Craigo's in Rexburg. It was great and we totaly suprised her. Bobbi did an excelent job planning it with mine and Amy's help. Most of the family showed up to celebrate it with us. Even her a couple of her brothers were there and her sister. We sure do love her. I wanted to make a Slide Movie for her as she looked back on her 50 years and the great memories she has made..

Happy Birthday mom I love you!

A Child's Prayer

Kyly's prayer over the food this evening was so cute that I didn't want to forget it so I had to write it down.. As she was blessing the food she said "please bless the food, to make our tummies full and then we could go to bed." It was so cute that I couldn't help but smile through it. Things like this I never want to forget. Children are so sweet :)

Mean Mom!

Its official, I am a mean mom :( Man it breaks my heart to hear Keplar say that. I must have been to leanint on him or something before. Lately whenever he gets mad at me all that I hear is that he hates me and I'm a mean mom. Really!?! Please tell me this is just a phase and anything that has worked in your homes with these types of comments. It makes me feel horrible. I know this is typical child behavior. I tell him how much it hurts me when he says stuff like that. I'm just trying my best to be paitent about this. But I need some advice here....