Blessed

I had a hard time waking up this morning. Grogginess left my eyes unwilling to open. After several attempts, they finally opened to see that it was later than I thought and if I did not hurry, Landon would miss the bus. Sigh. So, I stumbled out of bed and proceeded with the usual morning ritual of hurrying my oldest along through his morning. "Hurry and finish your cereal! You don't have your pants on? You have ten minutes until the bus comes! Stop watching cartoons and get your teeth brushed!"

Then comes the "Put your hood on, it's cold outside! Don't forget your backpack! I love you! Behave yourself at school!" And off he goes down the sidewalk to the bus. The house is much calmer now, and quieter without all of my pestering. Just Dora and Boots on the tv entertaining my daughter. Time for my morning hot cocoa and email. One of my favorite parts of the day. I am fully awake by now and soon must get going with the rest of my day.

Mackenzee bath time, Mom shower time, the rush of getting ready to go. I call the contractor working on our basement to let him know I won't be home when he gets here, so he should just let himself in. And...we're off!

I make it to Landon's school just in time for the meeting with the carpenters we've chosen to build the new bookshelves for the library. Poor Mackenzee has to come even though she is not feeling well. I feel guilty as I silently am grateful she is sick and under the influence of Tylenol cold. She sits through the 45 minute meeting quietly and falls asleep at the end. Unfortunately she is awake by the time we get to the car as it is FREEZING outside and the cold shakes her out of her warm slumber. Sigh. Off to the book store to get this years Primary CD-ROM so I can get my lesson ready for church on Sunday. 5 year olds....sigh. I have been officially asked to teach this age group of children AGAIN. I continue to remind myself that if I would just learn to have more patience then God would stop doing this to me. :0) He would realized that I've learned this life lesson and let me move on. I sigh knowing it will never happen and resign myself to being in the Primary for the rest of my life.

I must still get to the bank with the PTA deposit, but feel I have dragged poor Mackenzee around enough today. I turn around in the car at the stop sign and see her sad little face and offer her a happy meal. Was that to make her feel better or me? I'm pretty sure it was to help me not feel so guilty for dragging her out while she's sick. Her smile at the suggestion wipes away my "bad mom" feelings and off we go to McDonalds.

My phone rings...Landon has a stomach ache, could I pick him up from school? Sigh. The chronic faker strikes again. A bowl of Cocoa Puffs for breakfast and we're sick? Ok. I'll pick him up. Thank you for call me.....{I sigh in frustration thinking...couldn't he have gotten sick 30 minutes earlier as I was already at his school?}

The contractor is banging on things in the basement and I'm hoping Mackenzee will still take her nap with all of the noise. I have the kids lay down on the couch with their blankets until it's time for naps.

I realize the day is half over and think of all the things I have left to do. And then I hear, "Mom! come take our picture!"

And then I realize...forget about my list, about what I didn't get done this morning. Who cares about the lists!

They fell asleep together. Four pillows, six blankets, five stuffed animals, two kids and a sippy cup. Isn't it great to be a mom? Sick tummies and all {whether real or not}

I am blessed.

Sucker!

You see this guy? Remember him? I just told you all about him. But there's something I left out.....

He's a sucker for this girl. I don't think I ever truly understood the phrase daddy's girl until Jaysen and Mackenzee. Now, I know my daughter loves me. Even though she told me, "You mean mommy!" just this morning. She loves me. The kisses, hugs, and cuddles tell me she does. But, there's just something about her daddy.....She "knows" when he gets home from work. Like a little beeper goes off in her head. We were in the kitchen and all of a sudden she screams, "DADDY!" We were nowhere near a window, had not heard a car....so I told her that dad was not home yet. Two seconds later...he walks through the door. What???? She KNOWS. Sigh. And she knows just how to push his buttons to get what she wants too. He falls for it every time. The new nickname I have given him is "sucker" because it's sooooo true. Her new "win" over him is at bedtime. EVERY night she cons him into laying down with her in OUR bed until she falls asleep. It's a 30 minute ritual. Why? Because he just can't stand to see her sad face when he lays her down in her crib. It "breaks" his heart. Yeah.....it doesn't break mine. She doesn't want to go to bed, so she cries. Just like EVERY other kid in the world. She'll get over it.

And that's why she tells me I'm mean. How can I compete with daddy? There's no way. He's the nice one. At least I've got Landon that loves me....oh, wait. He tells me I'm mean too. Sigh.

There's no hope for me.

He's still a sucker.....

Happy birthday jaysen!

Today is my husbands 34th birthday! Happy bday old man! (For those of you that don't know, my hubby is about 5 1/2 years older than me. So, though I do not really think that 34 is old...he's just older than me. I have to poke him about this frequently. Just for fun.)

Anyway...I thought that I might share 34 things you may not know about Jaysen so that you CAN get to know him a bit better. So, off we go!

1. He is the youngest of four children

2. Had his own hay baling "business" in High School

3. Was a point guard on his High school basketball team

4. Is a Boise State Bronce football fanatic. Go Broncos!

5. Has a degree in photography that he doesn't get to use. :0(

6. He's a real estate appraiser instead. That's why.

7. Went to California on his mission

8. Was a daredevil as a child (this must be where Mackenzee gets it!)

9. Had a secret crush on Kirsten Dunst when I met him. (He even owned Bring It On!)

10. Changes his mind more often than a girl does!

11. Favorite food is Mexican. He would eat it every day if he could.

12. Has a tape fetish. No, not music tapes...sticky tape. He rolls it into balls and likes to have it stick and unstick to his fingertips. (Don't ask me!)

13. Wishes it would be 75 degrees year round. He hates the snow as much as I do.

14. Makes crepes for breakfast every Saturday morning. Yum!

15. Doesn't "do" the whole email thing. (and he married me?)

16. Loves to play golf. He would play year round if he could.

17. Doesn't like baked sweets. He'd rather have ice cream.

18. He's an expert milk shake maker.

19. Doesn't like scouting. He blames it on horrid childhood memories. I think this is why he's been called into the scouts twice now. :0)

20. Pushover when it comes to his kids.

21. Doesn't have a favorite color (who doesn't have a favorite color? oh well!)

22. Can't stand being in hospitals. He's passed out in one before.

23. Very supportive of his wifes scrapbook addiction. :0)

24. LOVES peanut butter cups.

25. Snores like crazy due to a deviated septum.

26. Has an awkward sense of humor (I could tell you stories...but it's one of the reasons I love him so much!)

27. One of the hardest workers I know.

28. Keeps his friends for life. He has friends from elementary still.

29. A kid at heart.

30. Is as bad as I am in keeping a surprise a secret.

31. Avid movie fan. He watches at least 3-4 DVDs a week.

32. Would do anything for his family.

33. Loves 80s rock.

34. Best hubby in the world!

Happy Birthday Jaysen! We love you so much!

It's Basketball Time!

Today was Landon's first basketball game. They get a 45 minute practice session and then the game is for 30 minutes. It was so much fun watching the boys try to figure out how to play a "real" game of basketball. This is the first year that TF Parks and Rec has allowed kids grad K-2 to play basketball. It was always 3rd grade and up, which was so disappointing for us. Anyway...though they don't keep score, our team won and Landon even scored a basket! We are so proud of him!

And, even better, the coach was so cute! So I got to watch my son and the hottie coach out on the court. No better way to spend a Saturday morning if you ask me! (For those of you that don't know my hubby...this is him coaching the kids. He volunteered to do it this year and he does such a great job! Such patience that man has!)

Go Rockets!

Peeker!

I wasn't expecting Jaysen to come home so early tonight. He's been up in Boise all day taking "continuing education" classes. So, I hadn't gotten his bday presents wrapped and put away. And in he walks....spotting the boxes. Sigh. It was over. The stinker. He peeked!

Jaysen's bday isn't until tomorrow. But, since he was peeking anyway...I just let him open the box. The shoe box of boys size 3 shoes didn't even fool him! :0) Oh well.

Happy early birthday Jaysen!

We love you! Even if you do peek at your presents!

Snow much fun!

Jaysen's brother, Steve, invited us over to go "sledding" this afternoon. His version of sledding is to tie the sled behind a four wheeler. :0) He drags the kids around on Grandpa Burnham's fields out there and tries to knock them off. Good clean fun if you ask me. For them though. I watched from inside. :0) Here are Gage, (friend), Landon and Jesse getting ready for the wild ride. Crazy kids!

Can you see how much fun Landon is having? Hold on!

Mackenzee was still too scared to ride, so she just ran around in the snow looking for Mow-mow's (kittens).

I LOVE this picture of her though. I sent Jaysen out with the camera to take a few pictures and this one was my favorite by far. Isn't she adorable? I'm thinking it needs to be framed. What do you think?

Teppanyaki

All Jaysen wanted for his birthday this year was to go to Sakura for dinner. For those of you that don't know about this restaurant, it is a Japanese Teppanyaki restaurant. You sit around a huge grill and a chef comes and cooks your dinner for you in front of you. Now, Jaysen's birthday is still a week away, so you can imagine my surprise when he walked in the door tonight and said, "Let's go tonight!" So....off we went. Landon was soooo excited to see the "show" that every five seconds he asked when they were going to bring our dinner out. Mackenzee was just plain awnry as usual.
And then....the show began with a big flame...bigger than the one above. Let's just say that Mackenzee was scared to DEATH so much that she had to sit on my lap, bear hugging me so tight I could barely breathe. She wouldn't even look. The ENTIRE time. As bad as I felt for her, I was honestly grateful because at least she sat still. :0) Landon LOVED it! And Jaysen did a bang up job of catching the flying shrimp in his mouth.
Needless to say, we are all extremely full. Though...I'm going to put my two cents in here at the end for those of you that might be interested in visiting this particular restaurant......

Jaysen and I first went to a Teppanyaki style restaurant for his 30th bday up in Boise. Landon went with us and it was great! Good food, great chefs doing great tricks with the spatulas and what not...and Jaysen and I went again this last summer up in Boise for our anniversary. We love it! Which is why Jaysen was thrilled to go to it for his birthday. It's fairly pricey for Chinese Food, but again...special occasions make it ok for me to fork out that much money for my children to NOT eat the food. :0) This place though....we tried to go last weekend after Landon's baptism but they were SO busy because apparently four of their cooks just didn't show up. So, we bailed and went out for Mexican. So, we made sure to get there early tonight so we would get a good seat without the long wait. Now, with these style restaurants, they seat about 10 people around one grill. So, if there are four of us, they usually have you wait a few minutes to see if they can fill up the other chairs before they fire up the grill. I understand that. So, they fill up the chairs and we finally get our soup and salad. Good times...the chef comes out and we get all geared up....and he wasn't NEARLY as good as the guys up in Boise. But, that's ok. I didn't need him to flip the salt shaker up in the air and catch it on his head....and I felt bad for when he tried to spin and flip the egg up in the air and instead of it dropping perfectly on the side of his spatula to crack open, it fell on the ground. Stuff happens. The show wasn't horrible...Landon was entertained. So, we eat our food and the restaurant is getting REALLY busy at this point. All 10 of us at the table are finished eating and we sat there for 20 minutes waiting for someone to bring us a bill. (Actually, our meal came with ice cream...and we never got it. But after 20 minutes, it's not worth it! We've got ice cream at home!) I asked TWO different bus boys about our check and neither of them knew what the crap was going on. Seriously...one of them said, "I just get people the drinks." Are you kidding me? There were about 15 people waiting for a table...if they actually brought us our bill so we could leave, those poor people who had been waiting for 20 minutes could have been seated. Sigh. If we were really naughty, our entire table could have walked out without paying and they wouldn't have even noticed. Even worse, the same lady that said she was missing four cooks last weekend told the lady at the table next to us that she was sorry they had to wait so long because, "four cooks didn't show up" so they were understaffed. Apparently it's THE excuse they use because they don't want to have a full staff. We got home TWO hours after we left for the restaurant...the restaurant is about 5 minutes away.

There...I've let it all out now. I don't feel better. I seriously spent some money tonight on DINNER and so to have such crappy service really annoyed me. Really good food though. So, for those of you in Twin Falls, maybe try it on a week night so you don't have to worry about this.

Happy eating!

My Landon...

...just loves to read! So, when I saw him sitting at the top of the steps a couple of days ago, I had to snap a picture. Pictures for me...are like capturing a memory. And I want him to always remember how much pleasure he has found in books. Santa brought him 5 books for Christmas and he's almost finished with one and already started in on another one. It's one of those traits that I am GLAD that he inherited from me. Others...not so glad, but this one is something he can use and enjoy his whole life.

My Baptism Day

Yesterday I got baptized. It felt good. I was nervous, but I did it. I went out to eat lunch with Mandy and everybody before the baptism. I ate macaroni and cheese, pizza, and green beans and corn. It was good.

Lots of people came to my baptism because I have a big family. It made me nervous, but I was glad they came. After I was baptized I felt great! I was worried the water would get in my eyes, but I just rubbed it out.

And now I am a real member of the church. And I can't make mistakes. But if I do, I have to say sorry and mean it! That's what my mom says.

Thank you for coming to my baptism. I love you very much.

Ashlee side note: I can't believe my baby got baptized. It's wierd to feel so many different things all at once. It was so great to see so many people there to support Landon on his big day. He has so much family now, he's a bit spoiled. We counted last night and realized he has 7 grandma's (great grandma's included). That's crazy! I honestly think we had the biggest crowd at the baptism last night. And he knew you were all there for him, which made his day that much more special. So, thank you!

Tea Time!

Jaysen and I woke up this morning to Landon and Mackenzee having a tea party. It was rather impressive. Kenzee got a princess tea set from Santa for Christmas and so Landon must have pulled it out and set it all up. Kenzee only pulls everything out of the container and leaves a mess of it on the floor. :0) Anyway....tea cups full of water, plates of goldfish crackers and bowls of fruit snacks. I'd say it was a pretty nice spread. My favorite part about it was that Landon even got out Teddy and Sparky (he's the monster) to participate.

Actually, my favorite part is that Landon would do all of this to play with his sister. He just adores her and she him. And that he would have a "girly" tea party with her and set it all up so they could play just makes me warm and fuzzy. Sometimes....I actually think about keeping him for a little longer. :0)

Thanks Grandma!

Today, Grandma Burnham took Landon to get his baptism scriptures. I had already bought him the bag for them and was going to take him on his baptism day to get the scriptures, but found out that it is tradition in the Burnham family for Rita to get the kids their scriptures. So, we decided to just all go together to get them.

Since there was no option for RED scriptures (burgundy was NOT going to be sufficient), Landon chose the blue ones. And, he also went for the quad vs. seperate books. Grandma even got him a scripture marker and a book mark so he's totally ready for church on Sunday!

And not to be outdone by her brother...Mackenzee gave Grandma the "PLEEEAAASSEE" look and ended up getting this pink teddy bear which she has name PINK. Sigh.

Seriously though, he is so excited to have gotten these. In the car he said, "Mom, this is silver on here!" My favorite though was, "what does H-o-s and J-u-d mean?" Yeah...I had to explain a little to him about how the books worked. But I am truly enjoying these one on one moments we are getting to have because of all of this. It's such a special time for him, and such an important time all at once. I'm so glad I get to share in it with him.

Homecoming!

Yay! My Landon finally comes home today! He's been gone for a week and we've missed him TERRIBLY so! It' just not the same without him around. Sniff Sniff. So, we are counting down the hours until we get him back. Tick tock. Sigh. It's not going quick enough!