Will you vote for me? PLEASE

Can I ask a favor of you and all of your friends?  I really want to win a Bamboo Craft from Wacom...so I entered a scrapbooking contest and whoever gets the most votes will win.  You have to cast your vote before May 31st.  But why wait?  Will you vote for me and have all of your friends vote for me, too?  Just click on the link below to see my layout and vote.  (You won't be disappointed!)  Thanks.

Happy Mother's Day!!!

Happy Mother's Day to my amazing Mom and Mother-in-law.  What wonderful examples you both are to me.  I hope you enjoy your present.  I wanted to post it here for everyone to see, too.  Hope you have a great day!

plus my own husband and children made me breakfast in bed and got me some earrings and a necklace. THANK YOU!!!!

Book Club Party!

So I hosted the book club this month.  We read The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown for the month of April.  I just wanted to post a picture of my fun creation:

In the book, Robert Langdon had to carry around a granite pyramid in his shoulder bag.  He was also carrying a solid gold capstone in a sealed box.
So...I made one out of pound cake and whipped cream and we ate it with strawberries!  Those symbols on the pyramid are some sort of code that he had to break...
It was sort of a last minute idea and I was happy that it came together as well as it did.  When the kids woke up that morning and I was frosting cakes they wanted to know who's birthday it was.  They were disappointed to find out that it wasn't anyone's birthday and that they weren't invited to my book party.  Thanks to my amazing husband, who rode against a headwind to and from the park, for taking great care of the kids during our meeting.  I loved discussing the book and I loved the company of such good friends.  I loved the fact that we were able to talk without being interrupted.  We missed those that weren't there, but had a blast!
I am having a really hard time getting into the next book.  I am trying though...any suggestions?  I just fall asleep whenever I pick it up.  I'm sure that has nothing to do with the book, only with the fact that I stay up too late at night.
Lovin' life!

Remember when...

On Sunday I did Eliza's hair in 2 French Braids (and am so sad that I didn't get a picture of it :( ) but was reminded of all of the years that we did our hair in millions of braids, corn-rows and such for cross-country races and GIRL'S CAMP.  Mostly I remember girl's camp, but I can remember braiding Shannon's hair a couple of times among others on the team for big races...I think I could even find a picture somewhere...hmmm.

But Girl's Camp hair braiding parties were the best.  We would have to start on Saturdays sometimes because there were so many people that we would invite over and so much HAIR!  The best was watching Anne of Green Gables every year while in our braiding trains.  We would sit one person in front of the other and each would busy their hands by braiding the person in front of them.

The best was that we wouldn't have to worry about our hair the whole time that we were up at camp.

I have got to find some pics!
The first on is when I was a youth leader on the 4th year hike 1996.  I think that this was the first year I actually braided my hair for camp.

This next one is of me after a week of braided hair.  I remember it feeling so weird and fluffy-like.

And this last one is of three of my amazing sisters and their amazing hair and our friend Kelly Phillips. 

What memories!

A child's prayer...at our house

I hope that this post isn't sac-religious in anyway because I just think that it is absolutely adorable how my children say prayers.  Brendan and Eliza’s prayers usually follow this general flow:  “Heavenly Father, Bless Amber on her mission.  Help Brandon and Sara to have a baby.  Bless us to be strengthly (not misspelled) and healthy.  Bless that the prophet will be our leader.  Help us to be good on the Earth.  Help us to be happy and play nicely.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.”  There is usually some variance to it, other than the first sentence before and, as of late, the first two sentences.  Most of that stuff they came up with on their own.  The cutest is when Brendan helps Eliza to say it.  Priceless.

I have to add in this little tidbit of a story.  When Grandma and Grandpa Bedke were here visiting us right before Steven and Jill's wedding, we were sitting around the table and getting ready to eat and Eliza was asked to say the prayer.  Brendan didn't want to help her this time so Neil was helping her.  The prayer was a bit longer than usual because Neil was helping and Brendan decided enough was enough...he had better intervene and help Eliza end this prayer.  So after Eliza repeated what Neil had said and before Neil could add anything, Brendan jumped in and said: In the name... and waited for Eliza to repeat it.  I thought that this was just too funny and I started to laugh.  I was trying to muffle it, but then I just started shaking because I was laughing so much.  Eliza being the bright child that she is and never letting anything get past her, noticed and got this really confused and almost hurt look on her face.  I opened my eyes to peek at her because she wasn't finishing the prayer.  She was just staring at me and then of course at Grandpa, too because then he started laughing.  Then she started crying.  Neil ended the prayer.  I tried to explain that I wasn't laughing at her and that I was just laughing at the fact that Brendan had butted in because it was taking so long for him.  But there was no convincing her of that.  I tried to say another prayer with her, but I really couldn't compose myself.  I hope that Heavenly Father had a sense of humor in that moment, because I just am still giggling about it. 

I have to redeem myself now because I want everyone to know that I am trying to teach about prayer to my kids.  We pray quite frequently to help us find things that are lost.  But Brendan reminded me the other night at Family Home Evening about a special prayer that he had said back in July.  If this four year old kid can remember something as far back as 6 months ago, maybe something is sticking.  When we were in Mammoth for the family reunion Brendan lost his shoes.  They were the only pair that we had brought with us besides his Sunday pair.  We really needed to find them.  So we went looking...and looking...and couldn't find them.  Then he and I knelt down in the living room of one of the condos and said a prayer to have Heavenly Father help him find his shoes.  Right after the prayer, we went and looked in the rooms again and we were able to find his shoes.  He put them on, we said a prayer of thanks, and then he went off playing again.  Grandma later told me that he walked into their condo and Ryan asked where he had been and he told Ryan that he had been looking for his shoes and that Heavenly Father was helping him and that he had then found them.  What a great kid!

I hope that my children will always turn to their Heavenly Father again and again throughout their lives.

Oh and one more thing.  Every night Eliza will fall asleep during the song A Child's Prayer.  I think it is one of her favorites!  I know that it is one of mine.

Pause

I am excited for this new year!  I can't believe that 2010 is here already.  Sometimes I wish that I could take just a little while and pause everything that is going on around me.  Wouldn't that be great?  The kids think that they can pause just about anything.  Today Eliza put her chips on pause so that she could come and help clean up her toys.  They have paused their playdough and even put their robots on pause.  See what the pause button on our DVR has done to my children?  Neil just asked me about 2 minutes before midnight if I could pause everything...has he become corrupted, too?  Just kidding.  What would I do if we could pause for a moment and take a look around.  I think that this is going to be my resolution for this upcoming year.  I would like to pause more often and take a look at my life and count all of the many blessings that I have.  I am happier when I can see them and I can see them more clearly when I pause for even 3 seconds each day.  :)

We got some snow today...lots of it and the kids got to go out and play with their Dad.  Lincoln didn't know what to think but Brendan loved it.  He said "Wha-hoo" every time he slid down the hill.  He is just such a boy and I love it.  Eliza just ate snow off her gloves the whole time.  She didn't like the sled at all.  Doesn't she just look so cute with her purple hat on.  Pink and purple are her favorite colors.  :)

I loved the festivities tonight.  We played Candyland and Squiggly Worms with the kids and then drank sparkling cider at 12 midnight hoosier time (9pm PST).  We figure that the 2 older kids were born there and as far as Brendan is concerned we are moving back there after Dad is done with school.  And they were super tired even at 9!  They are just so cute!

We are sad that we have to take the tree down tomorrow.  The kids don't want to take any of the Nativities down either.  This has been a good Christmas and New Year season.  Can't wait to see what next year has in store for us...Neil's graduation!!!!!! The countdown has begun!

Happy Birthdays in November

Have I mentioned how much we enjoyed having Traci here in October and November?  My kids are still talking about it!  It was a lot of fun for them, probably boring for her!  But WE LOVE HER!  While she was here we got to celebrate her birthday with her.  I'm sure that it wasn't much compared to the birthday that she would have gotten if she were at home, but I wanted it to be special somehow so I got her this book:

She had just finished reading New Moon before she got out here and I didn't want the fact that she was here in Washington to interfere with her being able to continue in the series!  :)

So we made her a cake.  We made it a special cake in the shape of a heart because we love her and baked it as a surprise.  Brendan was so sure that it needed to be a surprise that he tried to keep Traci out of the kitchen for most of the day.  He was SO excited!  Then we all sang Happy Birthday off-tune I'm sure! (and yes there is only one candle on there...that is all we had!)  Eliza had burned her hand and that is why it was all wrapped up.  :(

And for those of you who aren't familiar with our family birthday tradition set by Grandma Erickson on Brendan's first birthday, (I'm pretty sure that she wasn't attempting to set one)  The kids are saying in this picture:  Are you going to EAT THE CAKE?

And eat the cake they did!  And they ate a lot of of the frosting, too!

Hopefully she had a good birthday...and then 7 days later I had a birthday!  Traci watched the kids and Neil took me out that night.  If I remember right we ate cheesecake instead of regular cake because we were all burnt out on cake.  We SO enjoyed Traci being here because Neil and I were able to go out so often!  Oh I have to share about my best birthday present (not really) I got a call from the mortgage company saying that they hadn't received payment for the month of November...SHOOT! With everyone being sick at the beginning of the month, I TOTALLY spaced paying ALL of the bills...NO FUN!  So I spent most of the day frustrated at the fact that I am human.  What a birthday to remember!   I got all of the bills caught up just in time to have my honey return from the clinic and make me feel like everything was going to be just fine.  He always does this so well and I love him for that.  He is so understanding of all of my faults and flaws.  Someday I will be perfect, right?

Do I whistle while I work?

I don't think I do...I know I don't because I don't even know how to whistle...but I must have a smile on my face or something because I caught Eliza starting to throw some food on the ground from her plate the other day. I said, "Hey, don't do that! That isn't very nice manners."
Her reply was, "But mom, you like to vacuum."
So I guess that to my dear Eliza I am enjoying ultimate bliss when I am cleaning the house.

Chocolate Milk and other yummy things

Yesterday was Sunday and I decided after I was finished doing Eliza's hair to spray some hairspray on it so that her whispies wouldn't be so bad. She doesn't let me do this very often but I assured her that I would be careful. She praised me for not getting it in her eyes. (Yay for mom!)
A few minutes later she came up to me and said, pointing to the part that I had sprayed: "Mom, feel this. I think I got some chocolate milk in my hair. We need to wash it." I know that she didn't get chocolate milk in her hair...she was just feeling the crusties from the hair spray. It is just so funny that she thought up of that reasoning. I am always blown away at how kids think! :)
The other yummy things are PEACHES and PEARS. I bought two boxes of each. I think that turns out to be a bushel of each...and have canned them with a friend from the ward. She rates herself as just experienced but is an expert in my mind. I had a lot of fun working with her and we got to know each other a little bit better. I am so grateful to be learning this art with so much locally grown fruit. The expensive stuff is still cheaper than the cheap fruit in Indiana. I am excited to have fruit later on this winter to enjoy.

And one more yummy thing that I did on Saturday was finally use the vinyl lettering that Sarah gave me 3 years ago to make a family home evening chart. Now the kids are excited to help out with their part on FHE. I like it because it is me and not like any other chart that I have seen.

Beanbags and more

Yesterday was a monumentous day in my life...I finally finished Eliza's bean bag that has been mostly done for months! (Brendan's has been done forever.) I won't say that it was an easy task with Eliza being herself all day. She just makes me laugh. I laugh because otherwise I would scream! :) For example: She came over to my sewing machine and said (to the machine), "I don't want you in here because you are making it too shiny in here" and then slapped the machine with the toy that she had in her hand. I guess the little tiny light bulb that is in the machine was too much for her to handle or it was crowding her spotlight. I really don't know about that girl sometimes. She is just such a character! But I hope they enjoy their bean bags. They did a lot of work by cutting up foam to go in them. They are experts at using scissors now becuase of it.Meanwhile...in another neck of our wood...Lincoln is managing to get himself stuck in a lot of places. Although I wouldn't mind getting stuck here:
Oh another funny thing. Lincoln is at that stage where EVERYTHING goes in his mouth. Today as we were pulling a small toy out of his mouth Brendan provided the explanation as to why he is always doing this: "He just wants to smell what it looks like." Hmmm....thanks Brendan!

Long time no blog...

A million things happened during the month of May...and I thought about blogging them...and never got around to it. So here is an update:

Brendan just got back from the Father and Son camp out this past weekend. It was the first time that he has gone and spent the night and he was pretty apprehensive about it all. When I got up the next morning I found his blanket sitting on the couch in our family room I was hoping that he survived the night ok. But he had a GREAT time and loved it. He did say that he missed me though and that makes me feel important. They went to Ensign Ranch (that famous one that we were stopped next to on our way to Maple Valley) and rode a horse, went in a canoe, went fishing, got to see a snake...all things boys and I heard that they threw lots of rocks-not at each other, but into the water. :) At family scripture study we have been letting the kids read a lot more. They love to repeat what we read, but lately Brendan has been wanting to read by himself. He tells us about the lions and zebras and everything else. What is funny about that is that we have been in the Isaiah chapters in 2 Nephi. Maybe he understands it better than us and is interpreting it into our language?

Eliza is such a beautiful princess. While Dad and Brendan were gone we got together with some friends and had a girls night with our girls (and baby boys, of course). We stayed up late talking about Fancy Nancy and eating chocolate cake at 10:00pm and scrapbooking...and just giggling! She is just so cute these days. Her eyes (which hid behind her hair most of the time) are such a deep, beautiful brown. I love looking into them. She has such the sense of humor, too. I can often find her in her room surrounded by books and reading one out loud. And if you interrupt her reading time she gets really upset. (She must be related to me because I am the same way when I get into a good book.) Her favorites are still Fancy Nancy and Curious George.  Sometimes she even falls asleep! I'm glad that she loves learning so much. The other day I was opening up the curtain in the morning and we get the bright morning sun through our windows in the morning. She said, "No, it's too shiny!" The sun was really bright but I don't know if she knows that word, yet. I don't know how she couldn't know that word because she has mastered so many others. It is fun to see her reading the scriptures and the hymnal at church. She will point out letters and gets so excited that she is recognizing them. I am pretty excited, too. Oh and something else is that she is on this kick where she wakes up and asks for Wheat Thins (specifically). I am ok with this as long as she doesn't go back to asking for chocolate pudding...Cwazy gwill! Favorite movie by far, right now, has to be Peter Pan. She loves it when they sing Following the Leader.

Lincoln is on all fours-no crawling yet, but I know that it is just around the corner! And he is eating solid foods now. When I say solid, I mean solid. He is anti spoon and it really is driving me crazy! I have made all of my own baby food with Brendan and Eliza and was all geared up to start with Lincoln (I have frozen mango cubes in the freezer) and he won't have anything to do with pureed stuff. He wants to grab something and put it in his mouth by himself or for me to put it in with my finger. He gags and throws up EVERYTHING else. This has been kind of hard for me...but I am learning-AGAIN-that every child is different and has their opinions about everything very early on. I love his giggle though. I find him laughing with the kids so much. They get a kick out of it, too. My heart has taken a picture a couple of times when I look at them playing together, giggling together, and communicating on their own level with each other. I really can feel a little bit of heaven in my home and that is a good feeling. It makes me feel like I am doing something right.

Neil is almost done with his classroom school year. We made a paper chain a couple of weeks ago and the kids love tearing one link off every day that he gets home. This is his last week of lectures and then next week is finals. YEAH! We are so proud of him. And he still finds time each week to go to his garage sales and get screaming deals! He has actually made some money reselling some things. The kids love to see what he brings home for them from the yard sales. I think that they think it is the coolest store or something. He is amazing and we are excited to honor him on Father's Day in a couple of weeks.

Life is good and we laugh a lot!

Can you guess what movie we have been watching lately at our house?

I will give you some clues: Master ShifuOogway:
And everybody's been Kung Fu Fighting...doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo...
KUNG FU PANDA

love it!

Middle of the Night

So Brendan woke up in the middle of the night the other night and I asked him what was the matter. He answered: "My bed is tickling me."

Whatever that meant. I asked him to lay down again and then I turned the music on and he went back to bed without any more of my help. If the bed is tickling him and he can now go back to sleep by himself...let the bed keep on tickling him!

Eliza sings in her sleep. I have been woke up to "I am A Child of God" at the top of her lungs. I will go in there and she is completely asleep! She is constantly talking about Lightning McQueen (Ka-Chow) in her sleep, too. She is such a cheeser...(and I am too because I am putting in a picture of her chewing on a piece of cheese).

Lincoln has been waking up more often, too. I can't understand why. It couldn't be because these two are constantly in his bed and throwing everything out or everything in it.

I hope that he gets to sleeping through the night again. Last night I just turned him over so that he could lay on his other side. He put himself back to sleep by cuddling with his new blanket from our amazing friends, the Lukes and sucking on his fingers. Love it!

Another night...in the middle of the night...I went on an adventure! I don't know where this dream came from but I was touring the world in a blow up hot air balloon (do they even make these) with a lot of college friends...headed up by Alice Petty! :) I really enjoyed this dream compared to the recurring dream of being in the middle of a semester and finding out that I am signed up for a class that I wasn't aware of and one that I hadn't attended at all and now I needed to take a test...or fail the class completely. I haven't even been in school for almost 4 years now...but I have this dream ALL THE TIME! It really drives me crazy. So this new adventurous dream was really refreshing and I really woke up smiling...almost laughing. The really funny part was that I was in charge of blowing up the balloon everytime that we had to take off again. Maybe this just means that I am full of a lot of HOT AIR! I think it may have been inspired from the new Amazing Race 14.

I am really looking forward to the time that I don't really know the middle of the night anymore.

Cherries

In the October 2008 Friend we really liked reading the story about President Eyring's message about giving. When we were reading it I remembered that one of my good friends in Indiana, Pat Finley, had once given us a jar of cherries, too. We still had it in our cupboard. So I went and got it down and Brendan and Eliza thought that it was so cool to see that we had a jar of cherries just like President Eyring. We were able to look at the dark color of the cherries and then the bright gold top, too. I appreciate good friends who always are giving me gifts of life and learning. Pat is one of those friends and I am eternally grateful to her for that. There are so many friends and family that have helped out and given me so much. I only hope that I can give something in return to others.
Last night we took that jar of cherries over to our friends the Lybberts and shared them. The kids helped us in making a cherry crisp to eat. It was so yummy and we were able to feel good about giving, too. It is the small experiences that really mean the most in life...by small and simple things are great things brought to pass. (Alma 37:6)

A Favorite Talk

I am posting this here for myself, but also my mom who was listening to this when she was making dinner at our family reunion. I listened in to just a little bit of it and loved it...it may be because I know him personally, but I really like what he has to teach me and I want to share it with others.

Family Attachments: The Practical Eternity (A. Lynn Scoresby)

So mom, click here and then press the play button on the page and you can listen to it...or you can download it onto your ipod and listen to it later and over and over again.

Things I've noticed today

Brendan and Eliza have been so good today. They helped me put leaves into the wheelbarrow when I was cleaning up around the pool. Then they sat on the ground and read books together while we were finishing up. Brendan then colored and Eliza explored the outdoors more. I guess what I am trying to say is that they actually stayed out of trouble and helped me work today. I appreciate that so much. They are good kids and can be so cute together.