a solid foundation

it has been quite some time since i have taken the time to share on this blog. life has continued. my children continue to grow, bringing joy, laughter, purpose, focus, and humility to my life. we have been busy working and growing as a family.

we have had some frustrations, stress, and setbacks in the last few months as we have been trying to move forward professionally. money has been tight and i have felt that for each step we have taken forwards, we have taken two steps back. now, for those of you who know me well, i am not by nature a very patient person. not having immediate answers to what we are going to do and how we are planning for our future has been really hard for me.

but, i am learning. i know and understand that we experience hard things in life so that we can learn and grow. and i am trying to learn and grow. i am learning to take a step back and wait. i am learning that taking my frustrations out on my amazing husband does nothing to help the situation but only divides us and prevents us from working together and supporting each other. i am learning to be part of the solution and not part of the problem. i am learning that you can be happy in the midst of uncertainty and stress. and i am learning that being happy is always a choice.

we watched this mormon message for family home evening last night and i wanted to share.

mountains to climb

i know that my own struggles and trials pale in comparison to many. i also know that if we turn to the Lord in all things, He will give us peace and strength to weather any storm. our trials are most often not removed from us - not because He doesn't care about our hurt, pain, confusion, or fear. on the contrary, He cares very much about us. but He loves us enough that He wants us to learn and grow in strength and knowledge. He loves us enough that He experienced literally all the hurt, fear, pain, sorrow, confusion, and worry that we feel. and that is why He is our Savior. He has promised that we never have to walk alone down our long and hard paths. we can always turn to Him and find the peace, hope, and strength to weather all storms.

and that is the solid foundation that i have built my life on.

it's official

as of yesterday, summer is officially over....boo!! don't get me wrong, i love the fall - it really is one of the most beautiful times of the year. i love the cooler days, wearing all my favorite jeans and sweaters again. but i really do love summer. i love long, hot days at the beach, camping, boating, sleeping in, and having a tan. i already miss the days of waking up and asking the kids which beach they would like to go to today. it really was a great summer.

and it ended with a bang! we headed to red deer for the last few days of august to welcome my brother robert home from his 2 year mission to the scotland/ireland mission. oh, what a moment it was, watching him run through those doors at the airport. we all jumped up and down and screamed with excitement as we rushed to give him hugs. there wasn't a dry eye amongst us. we were all so VERY happy to see rob, hug him, hold him, touch him, and listen to him after 2 years away. . i won't ever forget the joy i felt when i first saw him. and watching my kids squeeze him so hard....they really missed him a lot. i am grateful for his faithful service as a missionary but i am also so grateful that he is back home, with us, his family. i am grateful for all 3 of my brothers and the selfless and faithful service they have all given as missionaries of the Lord. i love them all so much.

my brother steve and his wife andrea also had their little baby boy while we were in red deer. i was SO glad to be there when little spencer was born. after the heartache and loss of their sweet baby stephen, we were all so very grateful that little spencer was born healthy and strong. it was so special to hold spencer and to welcome him in to our family. i am grateful for the miracle of birth and that steve and andrea have a little boy to hold and raise in their family now. he is so sweet.

such a great way to end our summer holidays.

waiting for rob to walk through the doors.

andrea and grace with rob

mom and rob

burton really missed rob

the wrestlers for life reunited

spencer and i

jess and i having a giggle as rob teases andrew:) i love my family!!

on a side note, brent and i completed our first ever triathlon at the beginning of august in coeur d'alene. it was a really, awesome experience. sometimes i find it hard to believe how fun it was to work so hard and push myself to finish something that challenging. i finished in 3 hours and 17 minutes, only 8 minutes behind brent (which isn't saying much as he really didn't train very much for it at all!). here's to beating that time next year!!

who's teaching who here?

in all our summer travels and busyness in the past 6 weeks, i have been humbled and taught by my wonderful and precious children several times.

we had a davis family reunion at the beginning of july in idaho. burton got a pocket knife for his eighth birthday and was really excited to bring his knife camping. the saturday before we left, burton misplaced his knife and couldn't find it anywhere. he was really quite worried that he wouldn't be able to find it and bring before we had to leave. I sent him to bed and told him we would look for it later. well, we didn't find it before we went to church on sunday morning. It was fast sunday and in primary, the kids learned about the importance of fasting and how fasting strengthens our prayers. when we were walking home, burton walked beside me, he'll my hand, and asked me if we could say a prayer that we would find his knife before we ate and stopped fasting. i was touched by his faith in what he was taught and told him i thought that was a great idea. we prayed together before we ate and burton prayed that we would find his knife and i said my own private prayer, asking for our Father in Heaven to bless burton for his simple faith. sure enough, not long after, i felt that i should retrace burton's steps through the garage from the night before and sure enough, i found his knife sitting in the bottom of our recycling bin. needless to say, burton and i were both grateful for the tender mercies of the Lord in hearing a little boys prayer of faith that he would find his knife.

we were at the lake last week with our boat. i was hanging out on the water with jensen and paige, playing on our tube, when i jumped in the water and asked paige if she wanted to come in and swim with me. as she joined me in the water, her favorite purple bracelet that she happened to be wearing slipped off her arm and started sinking. as i watched it sink deeper and deeper i thought it was gone for good and told paige as much. she was understandably distraught until jensen said, "it's ok paige. mom can get the goggles and dive for it. she'll get it." i shot jensen a look, thanking him for giving paige false hope, grudgingly got the goggles and started looking for her bracelet. the lake that we were at has a steeply sloped bottom and i was pretty sure that the bracelet had sunk too deep to find. when I surfaced for the third time, i was about to give up when I thought that I should maybe try one more time. and sure enough, just when I was running out of breath, i saw here little purple bracelet and was able to grab it . later jensen told me that he was sure I would find Paige's bracelet because he said a prayer that I would be able too. again, the simple faith of my son touched my heart and reminded me that our Heavenly Father does hear and answer even our simplest prayers and I was once again grateful that my child's simple faith was rewarded.

burton taught me about selfless service on our trip to the west coast oaf vancouver island. during the week, my mom started looking for sea glass instead of shells, which was a fabulous idea as it gave my boys and I something else to collect besides hundreds of shells as sea glass is much harder to find. it was our third day at the ocean and we were all walking together down the beach, doing some beach combing. my mom, burton, jensen, evan, and I had all found several small pieces of sea glass and were ready to head back to our cabin when my sister, jess, sadly stated that she had yet to find any sea glass. I told her not to worry, that we had several more days of beach combing to look for some and that I was sure she would find a piece some time. not thinking much more of it, I started heading back. I was a bit ahead with jensen and Evan when I heard jess say that she had found a piece. A few minutes later, burton caught up to me and pulled me aside. He quietly told me that he had taken one of his pieces of sea glass and placed it where we had been searching. He then told jess to come look one more time with him. She looked over it a few times and burton made sure that he kept moving it around until jess finally found it. It brought tears to my eyes to see the look of joy on Burton's face as he knew what a good thing he had done for someone else when the rest of us were too busy looking for our own treasures to worry about someone else.

i love my children so very much. i am often reminded of the things that are important by the experiences that I have with my boys and paige. I am so very grateful for the amazing responsibility and opportunity I have to be a mother and raise such special little people. as much as I teach my kids, I know that they are teaching me so much more as they continue to enrich my life with their faith and love.

I am so blessed.

10, 6, 3....35

well, here i am, finally sitting at my computer, typing a much needed update!!! our month of birthdays came and went. i must admit i did get a bit teary during the birthdays of my 3 of my children....really, do they have to grow up so fast??? we celebrated jensen's 10th birthday, evan's 6th, and paige's 3rd (gasp!! is paige 3 already??), all in april, followed by brent's 35th at the beginning of may.

because it was jensen's 10th birthday (i know, BIG deal!) i decided to go all out with a big party. i planned a surprise harry potter party for him and it was so much fun. as i was thinking up all the little details, i couldn't help but get a little giddy about it as i knew how much jensen would enjoy it; he is a huge harry potter fan! we had the party at the church gym. i decorated it like the great hall - complete with house banners, potion jars with potions and gross ingredients on the tables, house colours everywhere, a sorting hat where everyone got sorted before they could join the party, butter beer, and even a candy "kiosk" straight from honey duke's candy shop. there were bertie bott's every flavour beans, fizzing whizbees, chocolate wands, drooble's best blowing gum, and chocolate frogs - complete with wizard cards and featuring a special jensen wizard card. again, it was SO! MUCH! FUN! as it was also easter weekend, we were lucky to have family come for the party.

jensen when he saw the great hall

 

waiting at platform 9 and 3/4 for the party to start.

jensen’s birthday was the first in our whirlwind month of birthdays. we celebrated evan’s 6^th and paige’s 3^rd birthdays on the same weekend as their birthdays are only 5 days apart. we were so happy to have family come in to town for the weekend and celebrate with us again. those of you who know me know how much i like to make my kids birthday cakes. i put a lot of thought and effort in to making “cool” cakes for them. i have a few very talented friends who make amazingly beautiful cakes. just to be clear, my cakes are nowhere near the baked artistry of my friends' cakes but i still really like to make them. so for evan and paige, i wanted to make a layered rainbow cake. i found out the hard way that making a huge layered cake is much more than just baking and stacking layers. the type and density of the cake as well as the way you layer it are definitely things i should have taken in to consideration. even with the help of my awesome sister in law, my rainbow cake was more of a leaning tower than a cake. it was on the verge of tipping over when brent came up with the brilliant idea of propping up one side of the plate so the cake appeared more level. well, thank goodness for brent because his idea saved the cake; it remained standing until after we cut it! i was feeling somewhat depressed by my cake disaster until evan came in to the kitchen, saw the cake, and said, “awesome!” at least he liked the cake! and paige did too – it tasted good, just was a complete messJ

the other 2 birthday kids

paigey liked the cake a lot

the leaning cake

ev was just a bit excited

my beautiful birthday girl

birthdays always remind me of how fast time is passing. my children are growing way too much!! and with 3 birthdays in 1 month, i have really been feeling just how quickly my kids are growing. i love being a mom. that was always my ultimate goal – to be a wife and mother; to not just be a “stay at home mom” but to be a home maker. that is my favorite title for what i do; i am a woman, i am a wife, i am a mother, and i am a home maker. i make our house a home, a safe haven for my family. and i have been blessed with wonderful children in my home. of course they have their typical kid moments, but at their core, they are good kids. they are innocent and pure, untainted from a some times scary world. they want to be good and try so hard to do what is right. my fervent prayer is that they will continue to have this desire to do good, that they continue to be clean and pure as they are exposed to more and more in this world that is tainted and unwholesome and some times scary. i pray that they remember what brent and i are teaching them about who they need to be - what kind of people they need to be. 

i wouldn't trade being a mom and raising my kids for anything. almost everything i do every day is for brent and our children. they are my whole world. that being said, i find myself sometimes complaining about all the messes and work that come with raising children. i recently came across a quote by the prophet of our church,  president thomas s. monson, that said.....

"if you are still in the process of raising children, be aware that the piles and piles of laundry (and the dirty floors, disaster bathrooms, untidy rooms, shoes at the door, clothes strewn everywhere, etc.....!!!) will disappear all too soon and that you will, to your surprise, miss them profoundly."

one of my new favourite songs by hilary weeks also reminds me of how precious each moment with my growing children is. the song is called "stand still"

"fingerprints all over the sliding glass door and i can barely see underneath the toys on the floor. i have wished away the sleepless nights, the noise and the messes made. but my heart reminds me i'm going to miss those days."

i really do cherish each and every moment with my kids. each hug, kiss, smile, laugh, and "i love you mom!" jensen and i were walking the other day and he easily slipped his hand in to mine so we could hold hands. little does he know how very much that means to me! i hope that i can continue to raise my children so they never doubt for a second how much love i have for them. and i hope they are never too old or too cool for hugs and kisses.

raising children is so bittersweet!!

they are so very precious. my greatest treasures.

pj's love affair

paige has really discovered her love of snow this winter. she loves sledding, making snow angels, going for walks, and just playing in the snow. however, her most favourite thing about snow is making snowballs. and no, she hasn't yet learnt the projectile nature of the snowball. paige's deep love of snowballs stems not from a passion for snowball fights but from her desire to eat them. as long as paige has a snowball in her hand to carry around for almost the entire time she is outside sledding, making snow angels, walking around, and playing, she is happy.

normally the snowballs paige carries around are MUCH smaller than this one. but when her dad made this one for her, paige was in heaven.

she makes me smile:).

my Christmas baby

our family was truly blessed with a beautiful bundle of boy on Christmas day 8 years ago. and that beautiful boy has grown in to my handsome, kind, caring, sensitive, intelligent, intuitive, often wild 8 year old burton.

today was a special day in our family as burton was baptized. we had almost out entire extended family come to cranbrook for the weekend to support burton in his decision to be baptized and to celebrate the new year with us. i felt the spirit of our Heavenly Father touch my heart as i sat with those i love most and watched my burty burt enter the waters of baptism. how i love my family. how blessed i feel to have parents, brothers, sisters, nieces, and nephews, both mine and brent's, that i love so much and who love me and my family too. what a blessing it was to be able to join together today and let burton know how much we all love him. and how much more sweet and special it was to have my little brother, andrew, baptize burton.

and as i sat loving my burton, i felt a glimpse of how much our Heavenly Father loves him too. burton is a special little boy. as crazy as he can be at times, maddeningly so even, he is also very sensitive to the things of the spirit. he has a testimony of the gospel. he knows that Jesus Christ is the Savior. he is a brilliant not so little boy with so much potential for good.

when i had burton 8 years ago, i was grateful for the strong and healthy addition to our family. i felt that instant, heart filling love that all mothers feel after they labor so hard to have their babies. little did i know, as with each of my children, how much i would love that little boy as he joined our family. i was reminded today as i watched burton of how blessed i am to have the opportunity to love as a mother loves. to have the all encompassing love that begins as your baby grows inside of you and carries on in to forever.

what a good day this last day of 2011 was.

from the mouths of babes

our boys had the chance to act out the nativity scene at our ward Christmas party last weekend. jensen was joseph and burton and evan were 2 of the 3 wise men. a few days after the party, we were talking with our boys about the true meaning of Christmas, etc., and asked them to think of how it might have felt to actually have been in bethlehem to see the Savior after He was born; we asked jensen how he thought joseph might have felt to be the earthly father of the Savior of the world. we then asked burton and evan how they thought the wise men might have felt after travelling so far to kneel before Jesus. evan thought for a second or two and then said, in all seriousness, "tired."

well, not quite the answer we were looking for, but still true, i am sure!!