Breathtaking

BEST. GRAMMY. EVER. LOVE. HER.

My mom knows each specific characteristic, talent, personality, and whim that these kids have, and with exactness. She spends hours with them on the phone, reading books, making lists, teaching them all kinds of neat things. She listens to them and remembers her promises no matter how small. She will spend days with them, on the floor playing, quality time, laughing together. She LOVES her grandchildren more than I ever could have imagined. This last weekend we were home visiting and I couldn't take my eyes off her. She's so beautiful and youthful and smart, and happy. One can see in her countenance the peace she has in her life from being so Christlike. We are all so blessed to have Grammy in our lives.

Amen

Enrich your life with the beauty around you. There is such an abundance of it: the resplendent breaking dawn welcoming a fresh new day, the abundant arms of a blue spruce adorned with golden medallions from adjacent aspen, shimmering ripples in a mountain lake transformed by the brilliant sun, a hushed stillness of a forest glen bathed in moonlight, the exuberance of a child at play and the love in his mother’s eyes. “Rejoice evermore, and in everything give thanks.” ²¹

 “And he who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious; and the things of this earth shall be added unto him, even an hundred fold, yea, more.” ²²

RICHARD G. SCOTT

"He Lives," , (October 3, 1999)

Quote Boat Moat Quote

Jane asking about the Superbowl:
"Does daddy want to watch the Supergoal?"


Tim:
"Sharks and cops scare me to death."


Mark commenting on Jared's red sweats and matching red hoodie:

"Jared wears the Santa Claus suit everyday." 

Apparently its a novelty to "get to do worksheets" around here. I never new a boring old worksheet could be so thrilling. Especially since for me the word "worksheet" sent shivers up my spine. That, and the sentence, "Copy the notes from the overhead projector." So glad thats over.

Mother Teresa,

"If you judge people, then you have no time to love them."

Dr Seuss,

"When you are in love you can't fall asleep because reality is better than your dreams."

LOVE Birds ever since.

This proves that Jacob and Summer have loved each other from DAY 1. 

I figured Valentines Day would be a good day to post this

Sick Boy and a Brother

I happened upon this scene: Charlie laying on the couch with a barf bucket close by, 

whilst Jacob reads him The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Brothers are awesome.

Some things about Jacob:

1. He's a quiet guy, except when he's crying then he's loud. 

2. He likes to talk about his dreams. 

3. He always surprises us with how much he understands- he's a smart guy. 

4. When he hugs you, he wraps both his arms around your neck, its so sweet. 

5. Grammy taught him how to snap this month. 

Baby Love

I finally got to meet sweet baby Caroline (aka teeny budge girl).

BFF

It was so great for Charlie to have a friend to spend the weekend with. These two better love each other. They haven't played together tons but by the looks of it, they're comfortable enough.

Darling little heads.

We all need to spend a little more time under an umbrella.

Cuisine

I HIGHLY recommend this cookbook. Its hard to find a cookbook that you connect with, but every recipe in this whole book intrigued me. Like these Pinto Bean and Sweet Potato Enchiladas with Red Chili Sauce. Loved them. It teaches how to make regular staples from scratch, 

which I am trying to do more.

Mariah, you are the best (you have to hear Scarlet say your three syllable name, its impressive, she must love you too.)

Eli's going to change poopers soon...

So excited for this little biscuit to come.

Apps

You can seriously blow bubbles with your iphone. I love technology. All this apps business has got me thinking of ideas. How about this one: lint brush. wouldn't that be handy? I've actually never used one but if my iphone could do that, maybe I would. Idea #2 This one might make me famous, what if your iphone could tell you if you have bad breath. Now I know everyone would use that one.

Why is everyone so Quotable?

TImmy and I have been quite proud of our cell phone-free life. We've been putting it off for a long time and finally we decided it was time. So if anyone feels like sharing their favorite apps with me I'm interested and if anyone feels like emailing me their phone numbers I would be be a happy camper and I will let you in on our cell phone number secret. Anyways, back to the quote thing. I was setting up my phone with Jared and my mom on the phone and they started bombarding me with cell phone lingo in all their excitement.  The point is that I was iphone retarded and Jared quipped,

 "Sarra, you really did hit the 30 year old wall didn't you."

NEXT:

Talking to Tracie on the phone today (I could call he twice a day if I let myself), we concluded, "February is the new January."

NEXT:

Charlie singing "If You Could Hie to Kolob" (which is a beautiful song by the way) at our FHE:

"If you could hie to cola in the crinkling of an eye."

Adorable.

Next, Charlie again:

On our way to my parents house after Christmas Charlie was sitting in the back of the van thinking about how my dad and Jared would not be impressed with his new Christmas present (a bow and arrow) because they'd be hyper about the safety of it. He stated thoughtfully, "Mom, they don't have to like me that much."

Corners Of This Old House

Here is my gaudy chandelier #3 for this house.

 The new painted white floors. It turned out fabulous. Thanks for the idea mom. 

I love how it still looks wet.

We revamped the school room too. No more bunnies. yay.

 This chalk board wall is fun times. It works better than I thought it would.

We've been using it constantly.

Its so nice to have a place for all of our school stuff.

My BELOVED book collection. A copy of Milton's Paradise Lost from 1892 came with our house! It was left on the shelf.

All of our door knobs look like this. SO cool!

From this...

To this!

Our avocado plant is growing like a weed!

I have relevant books strategically placed all over the house. Learned that little trick from Momma D.

The sunrises through this window are to die for.

I changed a bunch of our switch plates and what a difference it makes.

Open this cupboard and take a whiff. My spices get their very own cupboard.

Seriously we found the coolest things all over this place. We found this scrap wood in the backyard with this RAD doorknob. I was dying.

Just went inside this shed thing in our yard for the first time today. 

Just saw this side of this building for the first time today too. Its so cool that this thing has a basement cellar (the kids claimed it for their "clubhouse") and an upstairs (in which we found 4 neato sleds). 

Skating Is Dangerous

We call this guy "the little boy in red". He has bright red boots and they make him so happy.

Little Scarlet calls Jane "Ny" or "Nunny"

Where is Charlie?? Too fast for me to get a picture.

The Gravitational Pull of the Moon.

Note that this is the first day and we are WHITE. We get consistently tanner as the pictures go on.

This is Sergio, Timmy's new best friend. They talked for at least an hour after dinner while I sat there wishing I new Spanish so I would know why they were laughing. The waiters made fresh guacamole at your table and we had some every. single. day. because it was deeeeeelicious. I watched it so many times I could do it with my eyes shut now. We made some when we got back to we could teach the kids but its just not the same here- the avocados aren't as good. Here's the ingredients:

Mexican Guacamole

4 avocados

1 tomatoe

little bit of garlic

fresh lime juice

fresh oregano

serrano chilies (spice)

1/2 a small onion

Meet the chocolate man.

Timmy fell for the classic "I didn't know he was real" joke. It was so funny.

Just wanted to note how nice it is to go out for dinner without kids. Its a whole new experience :0)

I should also note that we had tasty ice cream every evening after dinner.

I thought this was a beautiful scene so I took a picture of this random lady on the beach selling her wrappy scarf things.

Sandy toes.

We got these treasures for the kids. I'm thinking about using the conch to call the kids inside for dinner when they are down by the creek near our house.

How I love a good market. Tim was making all the Spanish guys laugh.

I was loving Tim's scruffyness while we were on vacation. He's always clean cut and that's nice too but I like the scruff best.

The kids always tease me about having donuts when they are with Gramma so I got this picture for 

them.

I'm trying to keep all my Mexico posts G rated but its hard since we were in our suits like 80% of the time. I turned 30 while we were there so it was a fun birthday. We went to this RADICAL Italian restaurant. So this may be my last picture without wrinkles, saggyness, gray hair and all the rest of oldness. As if turning 30 wasn't bad enough, to make things worse this older lady came to my house to deliver me a Birthday card while I was gone and she slipped and fell and broke her leg! It is the most tragical story ever.

In the tank at the restaurant.

This is just sick and wrong.

We took this picture in the dark, while we were sitting on the beach talking about life.

Love Birds.

More market stuff.

Lots of shopping time.

The last day. We were so sad it was over. I was so used to being with Tim every second that it was hard to leave his 5 inch radius when we got home. We may have to move there with the kids for just a year or something...

                                                            The eyeball moved around.

We had a crazy long 8 hour layover in Arizona. So we walked around and took the train downtown. Afterwards, Rachael (one of Timmy's best friends from BYU) met us at the airport for dinner. She hauled her three kids all the way to the airport just to see us for an hour but we were SO HAPPY she came. It really was the highlight of our trip and it made us want to try harder to see old friends because its always so worth the effort. She has darling babies and it was such a treat to see them.  Our kids are the same ages so it was painful to think of how much fun we'd have together if we lived closer.

We love this little family!!