Hope

This past week in 12 Step the focus was on Hope. This picture captures my Hope perfectly. I hope for a happy future for my brother. I hope we will have a good relationship with him. I hope he will one day wear a white shirt. Hope thru the atonement of Jesus Christ is the motivating force that keeps me going one day after another.

Happy Things

This month my sista' Amy and I were able to spend an entire day together. We drove up to Sandy for a friend's wedding reception and while we were up there we did a bit of shopping together. It was so much fun and I miss having Amy around more often. I can't wait until she is a stay-at-home mommy so we can party every single week together.

I love, love, love having my own garden. This was taken looking out our front door during a summer rain storm. Plants make me happy.

I finally got brave enough this month to color my own hair. This first time wasn't perfect, but now I feel confident enough to keep on doing it by myself. I will always be grateful to my good friend Diane for teaching my how to do it. I just wish she hadn't moved to Texas which forced me to learn this new skill.

Don't really need to say much here - he is so good (and very generous) to me.

I've started attending their family support group meeting. It has been such a healing outlet for me. I've been going to help me become a better person and to help me understand some of the things my younger (but not youngest) brother is going through right now. I will forever consider this program a miracle in my life. It has changed my heart and every fiber of my being. I highly recommend it and would love to tell you about how wonderful it is. Just ask me and I'll tell all.

SMA Trip

The boys and I had a delightful trip today to the Springville Museum of Art. In fact, we had so much fun on our trip that we had to go back tonight and take Dad with us to see all of the fun things. This time we didn't see as many amazing quilts (they are having the annual quilt show right now), but we did get to see some pretty amazing art made out of scrap metal. If you have the chance go and enjoy it too. Peter and Luke loved it!

I'm not perfect...yet

This month has been a very important one for me. You see, I came to the realization this month that I have a addiction - a very serious one - spending too much time on the computer. Haha, I know you'll laugh, but it was getting really bad. For example, I would wake up and instantly head to the computer to find out what everyone had done during the night. Then, I would check for updates at least 10 times a day. Ridiculous. Anyway, I finally came to the conclusion that something must be done to get me back to being a sane person who spent more time with her kids and less time on the computer. So, I asked Brandon to please put a password on every one of our computers and to not let me on unless I really needed too. It's been such a blessing and most night I don't even get on at all.

Amazingly enough, I've seen drastic changes in my happiness level and the cheerfulness level in my kids. We are enjoying each other in ways we never have before. It's been wonderful! So, if you realize I'm a little behind the times with news, etc. you'll know why. For you see, I'm off having fun with my boys or cooking something wonderful in the kitchen.

Peter the Wizard

Each night at bedtime I tell Peter a story. Most nights the story has something to do with Buzz Lightyear, Woody, and Andy. However, the other night he asked me to please tell him a story about when I was a little girl.

I decided to tell him about the time when I learned about the Vikings in Homeschool. I told him all about how the Vikings lived a long time ago in Iceland and Greenland. I told him how they had to use boats to carry all the men away so they could find food for their families. He thought it was really neat that they wore fur for clothing. Then I told him that we made viking boats out of paper after we learned about the Vikings. He thought that was REALLY cool.

So today I thought it might be fun to make Viking boats. It turned out to be the perfect day (rainy and a bit humid) and we settled in with our craft supplies and had a blast. Peter ended up naming his boat Peter the Wizard and asked if I would please help him spell Wizard on the boat. What a cutie pie.

Luke, was all sorts of crazy during the craft and he did more hindering then helping. However, we all had fun so it was worth all the screaming.  I even made a boat complete with oars and a sunshade. I almost wonder if I had more fun then Peter did.