Warm Fuzzies

I just had to share this cute little video. Nate's mom posted it on facebook and as I watched it I too felt 'warm fuzzies'!! The elderly lady 3/4 of the way through past away last week and her funeral is tomorrow. She is Nate's Grandma's Aunt! What a wonderful women.
God bless you Aunt Erma!

Today I had a friend call me to see if her little girl could play with Mara this afternoon. This friend is on bedrest and has eleven weeks left to go in her pregnancy. She has had a really tough time. It was nice for Mara to play with her friend. And as I walked this little girl back home after a nice afternoon of playtime I carried in my hands dinner for my friend so she wouldn't have to worry about the meal tonight. I too felt warm fuzzies as I did this small act of service.

Yesterday I felt warm fuzzies as I watched Mara help Caleb get ready for swimming! She is such a good helper! She took of his clothes and tried putting on his swimming suit, but Caleb was so excited to go swimming he couldn't hold still and she kept having to chase him around to get him dressed! Cute! So cute her willingness to serve her mom and brother!

One act of service....can be so small yet can feel so good!

"Have I done any good in the world today?
Have I helped anyone in need?
Have I cheered up the sad?
Or made someone feel glad?
If not I have failed in deed."

My Date With Nate!!

It's not very often my husband and I get to go on a hot date...and an entire day for that matter! It was one of the best days of my life! I love my three children very much, but it was just a nice little break for the two of us to get away and have time with each other! We enjoyed nice conversation without being interrupted! We didn't have to get the kids in and out of the car a million times and drag them into stores! We didn't have to hear teasing or fighting!! Wow! We might have to do this more often!

We started the day by going to the temple. Almost ten years ago this year Nate and I were married and sealed for time and all eternity in the Salt Lake Temple. It was so wonderful to go back to the temple together. We hoped to get on a certain session but missed it by five minutes! So we did sealings first and thought we could do a session after--the sealings went longer than planned so we missed the session again! But that's okay, it was very special and quite spiritual to seal so many families together! We did names from back in the 1600s and many families from all over the world: Germany, Norway, America, Philippines....how grateful I am that we could have that opportunity to give the special blessing of being together as a family forever to those that have gone on before! It made me even more grateful that I was sealed to my husband and that we can be a forever family and live together after this life.

Next stop: Lunch at PF Chang's! Yummy! Not a place for kids so we were grateful we didn't have ours with us! We haven't been here often, but we like it. Nate received a gift card to PF Chang's a couple years ago and we've never used it! Nothing is better than a free lunch! Oh my mouth is watering for those tasty lettuce wraps already!

While we were in Salt Lake we had a few stops to make all around the city! How would it be to have any store you desire right where you live?! Maybe it's a good thing Price doesn't have all the stores! It helps us stay frugal and on our budget!

Message board for our kitchen: $30

Nothing! They didn't have what we were looking for! I love the way Nate and I shop! No browsing and dottling! We are in and out! We have what we are looking for and we are on a mission when we go into a store! We look. We find. We conquer! Or we leave the store without a purchase being made!

Two Reese's Peanut Butter 'BIG CUPS' and one Coke: $2.00!! Hit the spot!

2 tubes of caulking and 3 light covers: $15!! Sweet! Now maybe we can finish up the kitchen tile project!


One of my favorite stops of the day! Just going into this store makes me excited and anxious for the warm weather to arrive so we can go camping, hiking, and play outdoors! We needed new air mattresses or something to sleep on for our next camping adventure. Our last trip we slept on the ground because both air mattresses went flat and it's no fun sleeping on the ground while camping! After looking at all our options we decided to buy 2 Kelty brand air mattresses which happened to be on clearance! Now I'm ready to go camping! Too bad it's snowing outside right now, I think I'll wait for warmer temperatures!

Oh yes! What is a trip shopping without the good old DI!! I LOVE the DI! I can always find great deals and just what I'm looking for! The Sugar House DI was a new experience for us! I was very impressed--higher class than the one in Price! Excited about my $5 long pair of GAP pants--SWEET!

Our date wasn't over yet! Eating out twice in one day was WAY beyond anything we were used to! We barely eat out twice in one month yet alone the same day! Chili's is one of my favorite restaurants! We met Nate's family there for a nice dinner all together without the kiddos. It was kind of weird not having the cousins all together, but it was very nice to be able to visit as adults without spilled drinks, crying, and everything else that goes with eating out with kids!! I just couldn't get enough chips and salsa and my Quesadilla Explosion Salad was delicious!

Our whole reason for our date was to go to the Hale Theater and watch The Tale of Two Cities. All of Nate's siblings were given tickets for their birthdays and we all went together and enjoyed the play! It was the most amazing production. I really enjoyed it. I tried reading the book for book club but could barely get through it! So I read the young reader novel and liked it. The music, and dancing, and acting, and lighting and singing were just fantastic! What a great play! Thanks again Dan & Dyann for a wonderful night!

So that is our date in a day! We really packed it in! I sure missed my kids and was so glad to be able to kiss their sweet faces when I returned home! Thanks Mimi & Papa for watching Ty, Mara, and Caleb for us!! We sure appreciate it and hope they were really as good for you as you say they were!

Eh, what's up doc?!

The other morning I was busy making lunches and Caleb found a carrot sitting on the counter and chowed down! Carrots for breakfast?! Well...okay! He ate a good amount of the carrot, but after three scrambled eggs, a piece of toast, AND a bowl of cereal he was too full to finish his carrot! He's a pretty hefty eater! He's got to be to maintain those cute chubby cheeks!

Girly-Girl!!

Can I just say I LOVE having a little Girl!!! It is so fun to be frilly and pink! And that's coming from someone who is more Tom-boy than girly-girl! I am a T-shirt and jeans kind of a gal, who seldom dresses us and is hardly ever fansy-shmancy! But I just love that Mara is a girly-girl!

I hear about a 100 times a day--"Can I paint your nails?" So that's what we do on most days--have pedicures and manicures!

Not too bad for a 4 year old! I forgot that my toes were painted until I got to the swimming pool and saw this! Boy was I proud of the good job my daughter did!

And of course she wanted her toe nails painted also! Match-match-double match!

This little sassy pants loves getting dressed up!

Every day it's a new fancy outfit and sometimes it's three different outfits in one day!

Caleb tries to keep up with his sister, but she is quite the dancer!

I think Mara is ready for dance class! This fall I'm going to enroll her in some sort of dance experience. She did great with tumbling and loved it, but now she's ready for something new!

The other day I asked Mara to go get ready for preschool and put on her school clothes! She came out wearing this! Nice try Mara-Lew!! Cute, very cute though!

The Day of Love?!!

Our little family has been under the weather, sicker than dogs, and feeling quit lousy for three or more weeks now! Come on! Let it end! This past weekend turned out to be life of laying in bed, being sick, and miserable. So when I went to bed Sunday night I was NOT excited about waking up Monday morning-- Valentine's Day and being cutsie-tootsie with hearts, loves, and all that jazz! I admit, I felt a little bah-humbug about Valentine's Day! I just didn't feel good!

Well I not only woke up feeling worst Monday morning, but my eye was completely swollen with green boogies coming out and I could barely see! So much for feeling the day of love when I feel like this!

But as soon as I went downstairs to wake up Ty for school something changed inside me! I felt like I had to do something to celebrate this day! Why? I don't know! But I quickly changed my bad-mood-Monday and hurried to make cute "Heart Shaped French Toast"!!

This was my kid's breakfast for Valentine's Day! They thought it was awesome!

This was mine! This was really how I was feeling about the day and about life I don't think it quite tasted as good as the heart shaped ones!

I tried offering a scrumptious breakfast in bed to my sweetheart but he could barely move and was soooo sick! I took matters into my own hands and decided enough was enough! It was time to go to the doctor! Mara had been complaining about an earache, Caleb had had an ear infection and I wasn't sure if it was gone, my eye was swollen and about to fall out, and my husband was hacking up a lung and I thought for sure he had pneumonia! So I called the doctor...then I called twelve more doctors! Every doctor in Price was full! One lady even told me "I'm sorry. We don't have time for you today." RUDE! So it was either the ER or drive over the mountain! We'll take choice #2 please!

So we enjoyed a nice little drive over the mountain. Nate and I listened to Sports Radio, and the kids enjoyed a movie! It was a nice little date! The weather was beautiful and although it seemed like a wacky thing to do to drive an hour and a half to some random doctor it was nice getting out of the house!

We went on a wild goose chase looking for an Urgent Care or InstaCare! No, we do not have a TomTom or any electronic device in our car that tells us where we are going. I only had printed off a few addresses! So we started in Spanish Fork driving around to some address that didn't even exist! Next stop: Provo! So we drove around Provo and finally found an InstaCare with no wait, they accepted our insurance, the nurses were nice, the doctor was as much fun as a box of rocks, and we got the needed medication to help us all feel better! It was worth the drive!
We even enjoyed going out to lunch before heading back over the mountain!

When we arrived home we found a bowl of soup and French bread on our porch! Talk about feeling the love from good friends and neighbors! Dinner was done! So now that my eye wasn't so inflamed and infected I actually felt like maybe we could make dinner kind of fun and special!

We had a romantic candle light dinner!

Cheers! To our Valentine's Day! Ty and Mara giving a toast!

How can you not but LOVE this little boy! He is one in a million!

Mara trying to give Ty a big kiss!

Caleb just loves bubblies! Good to the last drop!

Can't you just feel the love in the air!

Heart-shaped chocolate brownies with ice-cream, caramel and chocolate sauce! A perfect ending to a perfect dinner!

I guess Valentine's Day isn't so lame after all! It was actually rather nice celebrating a day devoted to LOVE! We had a nice Valentine's FHE before going to bed and I couldn't help but feel my little heart full of love for my dear husband, and three wonderful children! I truly love them very much and want to do a better job showing them my love more every day, not just on Valentine's Day!

The Valentine's Box

What do kids do when their parents don't help them out?! I'll never know, but I am so grateful that I can help my kids and that they have the best dad in the world who is creative and willing to do the impossible!!

Every year for Valentine's Day Ty's school has a Valentine Box decorating contest. It's fun to get the creative juices flowing and create something that is unique. Well this year Ty wanted to make a T-rex box! I thought it would be way too hard and complicated and told Ty "Why not just put a few dinosaur stickers on a box!" Well, I asked Nate to give Ty a hand with his box one night while I was out, and when I returned I found the boys designing and making this incredible beast!

This is the book that inspired the T-rex box! This is one of Ty's favorite books and they used the pictures to make the design of the head.

It actually turned out to be a beast because of the time it took, but I'm very thankful that Nate would work so hard in helping Ty feel sooo good about his Valentine's Day Box!

Ty's box opens up and you put the Valentine inside the mouth! Watch out! You don't want to get bitten by this monster!!

Farewell Dear Friend

Today a wonderful woman and friend will be laid to rest. You will be missed by many lives you have touched Carole.

I met Carole Robinson one Sunday at church in the Tillamook Ward while we were there visiting on our house hunting trip before we moved to Oregon. I had introduced myself in Relief Society and after the meeting Carole came up to me and asked if we needed a place to stay before we moved into our home. She had listened to the spirit and said to me she felt like she needed to offer her home to us. Seriously? Who does something like this to a perfect stranger? Carole. That's who.
We were unsure of our housing situation whether we would be moved in or not. But as it turned out we were unable to move into our home for over a month and so we lived with Carole and her husband Mel, in their furnished basement apartment. Mel happened to be our Bishop at the time, and these two wonderful people watched over and blessed our lives! They had build their retirement home right on the coast in Cape Meares. It is a beautiful home over looking the ocean. We felt like we were on vacation every day.....that is until we drove the ten minutes to our house and worked day and night on fixing it up, but it was always a comfort to drive back to the Robinson's after a long days work and feel refuge and peace there.
Carole is one amazing lady. She always had a smile on her face. She struggled with cancer for eight years, but getting to know her you would never know she had anything wrong in her life. She was always optimistic and positive. She loved the rain and cloudy days never seemed to bother her.
Carole had an organ in her house and was the ward organist for many years. She was a wonderful organist. She would often ask Nate and I to sub for her when she was unable to be at church and I'm grateful that we were able to help her out.
Carole was immaculate and had the most organized house I have ever seen! It was clean from top to bottom! She taught a Relief Society class one night on how to clean and organize your house using the card file system. She has a card for every day of the year. On each card it has what she needs to do for the day. I too wish for a clean house like Carole's but then again, she did not have three small children running around! Maybe someday I will be clean and organized like she is.....but someday is not today!!
If there is anyone ready to meet their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ it is Carole. She has such a strong testimony of the church. She showed this just by the way she lived her life each and every day! I am grateful I knew Carole Robinson and I am a better person because I knew her.
Carole's Obituary

Birthday Boy!

January 20, 2011

Caleb turns 2!!!
Our little guy is growing right up! We had a weekend celebration with the Lewis family before his birthday, and here are a few photos of Caleb on his BIG day!

Birthday french toast! Yummy!

Caleb loves blowing out candles!

Even if there are no candles to blow out! Every time Caleb heard 'Happy Birthday' he immediately blew as if he were blowing out his candles!

Caleb not only cracks himself up, but he cracks us up as well! He is such a funny kid! Our lives got a whole lot happier when Caleb joined our family! This little silly boy always has a smile on his face! We especially enjoy the loves and kisses he shares with us! He is just so cute!

Here are a few of Caleb's words....


I can't think of anything Caleb loves more than balls! He loves basketballs, soccer balls, footballs...he is our little sports star! So here is one of his birthday cakes--a giant basketball!

Look at those little lips!

I wonder what he wished for?!

For Caleb's party (the following night) we had a 'Sports Night' with friends at the church. I made several pots of soup and we had a little pot luck dinner. Here is Caleb's sports cake which as one little boy said 'It's actually pretty good mom!' After dinner we visited and hung out and the kids ran around and played basketball, soccer, and with the parachute. It was a fun night!

Happy Birthday Caleb Boy!
We sure love you and think you are a wonderful kid! We feel so lucky to have you come join our family!

While we are on the subject of birthdays! We also had another birthday boy the same week! Two days before Caleb's birthday it's Nate's birthday! To celebrate we went to McDonald's and had ice-cream cones! Happy Birthday Nate the Great! Sure glad you are out daddy and you are the best husband in the world! Hope you had a great day!