Maesyn... The littlest basket ball player

It is hard to get a photo of this speedy girl.  Especially with Ben around.  He always wants to be on the court too!  So glad she is having fun.

Mikah's big boy friend Mike

Several months ago we had a lunch at Mike and Jenn Snow's home.  It was for the ladies so Mike played with any kids that came.  A while later we were planning Mikah's birthday.  She said no boys could come, except her big friend, who is a big boy.  It took me a while to realize it was Mike Snow.  They moved to Gilbert and had a going away party.  Even though Mikah would not do her chores we knew she had to come say good bye to Mike!

Mikah works out!

I try to have Mikah only watch tv hen j am running and working out.  It still amounts to over an hour if tv today.  I feel guilty , but Mikah looks forward to her tv time.  The other morning she started lifting weights on her own.  She said it made her feel like she was going to poop!

Ben is lifting too.  Or just resting.

Later that day I told her I had a headache.  She said I could lay down and watch a show while she worked out.

Visit with Great GREAT grandma Dorathy.

Looks like grandma finally got Ben to hold still.

Mikah does book club!

Every Tuesday we do book club with Mikah and some friends.  Some weeks we have up to 15 kids.  This week we read the paper bag princessand roasted   marshmallows for s'mores. It was great to have all the extra mommies there!

Food science club for boys!

I changed the name of Jake's cooking and science club to food science club.  This week we learned about yeast and made doughnuts.  They had a good time.  It is going to get tricky finding more science/ food activities!  We only have it 2x a month so no pressure!

Some pretty good athletes!

I did not do sports growing up, so I have to make an effort to offer them to the kids.  Currently Maesyn and Jake are in Swimming.  They have practice 3x a week and I do not believe they compete until the summer.  Recently their swim coach came out the the car and told me how well they were both doing.  She said that they are her secret weapons and she thinks that they will do very well in their age groups!  I cannot go into the pool to watch the kids.  Ben wants to just walk right into the pool and it is such a chore to keep him from doing that!


Maesyn has decided to do basketball again this season.  They had their first game yesterday.  I was unable to stay and watch a lot of it.  Ben, again.  He wants to walk onto the court and take the balls.  I nursed him while he essentially chewed on me...until I could not handle it any longer.  Apparently Maesyn was able to make a basket ball for her team.  She is the shortest girl on her team, and possibly in the whole group.   After the game someone came to speak to me.  She freelances for the paper and got Maesyn's name!  We will see if she is featured in the paper yet again!


Jake and Nate spent the day at Sunrise.  The weather has been less than idea, no snow.  They went anyhow and spent the whole time there.  Nate said that Jake did a lot of blues and blacks!  People always comment on seeing him do so well.  He is young, but because he is short he looks younger than he actually is!

I am good enough

I took this photo at the end of last year.  About a year after Ben was born.

 

  My tummy has always been my easy spot and I have been lucky enough to not get stretch marks.  My tummy does not show the signs of 4 kids.  My boobs.  That is a different story.  I have been on and off again contemplating having work done.  Not making them bigger, just having them out back where they were to begin with.  If course this would only be when we had the extra income.  But I have come to the conclusion that I need to let them be, and this post is to remind myself if that!  Those skin flaps have nourished 4 string babies, producing fatty milk through all my race training- including 3 marathon and a handful if half marathons ( mostly from the first and last baby).  This body has done me good, as a whole, but not without my care for it.  I have tried to eat well, we have run and cycles thousands of miles, and taken a few swims and lifted lots of weights, lunged, squatted and jumped!  If there is something on my body that I am not pleased with, if it cannot be changed to my liking through nourishment and exercise then it was not meant to be that way!  When i got my vo2 max testing for christmas he told me that my body was like a high end race car and it runs very   efficiently .  I liked that.  He then gave me some pointers on keeping it efficient at higher speed by training it to do so.   I an a nerd about that stuff but i also loved comparison. .On a side note, no matter how many miles I run, I could never run my butt into a good shape... Until beach body brazil butt lift.  I know it sounds gimmicky but it honestly worked!  Hard work, dedication and love yourself.  Keep in mind this is a hobby of mine!  I do think all mothers should care for their bodies and keep them healthy so they can e there for their children and show a good example.  I do not think it is necessary to have the same fitness goals as I have to be a good person.  I just happen to enjoy endurance sports! 

2014 is going to be different...and that is GREAT

I always have resolutions and if I post them or not they linger in my head and sometimes they happen and sometimes they do not. 

Last year was great, and I accomplished some things that I am very happy about, and this year is going to be better.

We have made some major financial goals this year and it is going to be strict and very tight and I am extremely excited. 

We had a lot less money when we were students but it seems that we managed or money much better.  With more money I have become frivolous and we even carried a hefty balance on our credit card that I would blame on moving, or remolding, but the truth was that I was not being wise.  When Nate graduated we got on a dumb loan repayment plan that kept our payments really low, but with the potential to be paying over 25 years with LOADS of interest.  We said when we made more to afford a higher payment we would switch to a 10 year plan.  Well, it has been a few years and we have been enjoying having more money and I have been spending it.  We would say that all extras would go to the loan principle, but it never happened.  We finally decided that we would just need to switch to the 10 year payment plan.  We will do that soon and have our loans paid back in 10 years at the most.  (yeah, that is when Maesyn will start college.)

Our other decision we made was to refinance the house to a 15 year mortgatge.  Our original plan was to just get a lower payment and use that extra for the student loans, but instead we commited to a higher payment and the piece of mind that we are going to be paying down our principle down faster.  The idea is, that when ever we move we will take our equity, put some away for taxes and then put that money against the student loans!!! We will rent for a few years to save up the down payment for our next home but be happy to have less debt!

We have some other small dept to pay back to ourselves and are putting any extra $$ into that savings account as well as our regular savings and contributing to our retirement. I revamped the budget to include just the basics with a skinny grocery budget and date night budget and the kids sports.  Our tax return, UOP Checks, and the 2 additional pay checks we get each year will go into a savings account for extras such as dr bills, car maintenance, gifts, vacations and race fees!  NO MORE SHOPPING JUST BECAUSE I WANT SOMETHING OR IT IS ON SALE!

I am excited about this new change. I hope to instill some habits of being more frugal.  I have prayed for contentment and feel that I am being blessed.  I am fine with our excellent cars and hope they don't get wrecked so we can continue to drive them for many more years.   I am excited about sticking to a grocery budget based on our menu and not wasting.  I am excited about finding more ways to be frugal. I know I can do it, I just have not practiced it in a while.

Our whole budget is very faith based.  I based it on Nate getting his bonus checks, which are not guaranteed, but I really felt this was right for us.  Nate can teach UOP classes if we are in a bind and is signed up to teach one soon.  It is not our favorite but it is there if we need it.  I really feel blessed by making this choice to get out of debt.  Even if it will take 10 years, it is 15 year less than we planned on!

I also resolve to complete our blog.  I realized I can quickly catch up on photos from my phone and do current blog post from my phone!   I hope to catch up with all the photos from my phone, then from nate's phone, then from the photos on our computer pre blog (yes, from when Maesyn was born- using our journal and photos on here...that will be the hard part).  Once that is done I will edit our old posts.  I hope to have this done by the end of the year...and I even want to scan FB for funnies and add then to the blog or just make a book.  FB will no longer my where I exclusively post what we are up to.  I want the ability to make a hard copy!  

Makeovers

Mikah likes makeup and I offered to let her do my makeup today.  It did not help that she told me I looked funny after.  The goal was to look prettier than all the other moms.  Mikah let me paint her nails, although she insisted on stickers on her nails rather than painted hearts and flowers.  She told me they were dumb!  

Straight a's and honor roll

This is the norm for Maesyn and I do not think I always recognize her for it.  So here is the proof if our very smart girl and her awesome grades!!!

Swimmers

I mentioned before that Maesyn and Jake are in swim team.  They got suits for Christmas and I convinced them to get caps too.  They look so legit now.  The suit I got for maes was too small so we had to get a different one.  That was probably a good thing because she got to pick her own after still being surprised that she got a suit.  She picked a way cute one.  I do not get to watch them swim.  If I did I would be fighting to keep Ben from walking into the pool the whole time.  But I am glad they enjoy it!  

Jake is smart and so is Maesyn.

We have had some very eventful weeks leading up to break.  Jake finished reading 97 books.  He started in October and read away!  He also is good at reasoning.  He got a kindle fire for his birthday rather than a party.  We have been having some behavior issues and he got grounded from going snowboarding the second time in a row.  I did not want to punish myself by having him be a stinker all day to the girls so I have him the option to loose out on snowboarding or the kindle for a week.  He decided the kindle.  I heard him yell upstairs to Maesyn.  " you can use a kj dale anytime, but you can only snowboard when there is snow."

Maesyn is always doing well I school.  She is in the gifted program ad in her after school odyssey program.  She recently competed in the spelling bee and made it to be an alternate in the school wide bee.  She has been freaking out because she left her list at home!  

Jake is growing up and loosing all his teeth

When Maesyn lost he first tooth is was a novelty and we were so excited.  I must say when jake lost his first tooth I was sad to see him grow up.  This offended Maesyn because she is dramatic and mad that I wanted her to grow up and not the others and Jake was bothered that I wanted him to stay little!  He lost his first front tooth a few weeks ago, but got a letter from the tooth fairy explaining that she could not take his tooth because he had been lying to his mom about brushing his teeth every morning for the whole school year!  He did get money for this one though!  

Our dog is a very good dog and our boys love him!

Happy new year!!!

I have never been a night owl, so I offered to go to bed early with Ben this year!  We had dinner with the garner grown ups at gecko grill and the kids got babysat together and had a blast.  We headed out to the temple lights after.  Mikah gets so excited about  Christmas lights.  It does not matter how simple or ornate, she loves them all!  Ben had a great time too, except he wanted to jump into the reflecting pool!  We decided to make doughnuts at the garners and before we knew it , it was 11:45!  All the kids were wide awake so I stuck it out.  Jake and Maesyn spent the night with grandma Garner and the rest of us headed back to my parents and were in bed by 1am!  I got in a nice slow 7 miler late in the morning with Colleen and then we went to a neighborhood breakfast!  Great start I a net year! 

Funny photo gifts to the grandpas!

Out friend Julie has these fun photos on her magnet wall.  When Pam and Dale came to visit a few months ago he really had a fun time playing with the set we made of our family.  I knew I had to make a set for the grand parents for Christmas!  

Christmas break

This break was eventful to say the least.  We started with the sad news that Nate's cousin Season had passed away.  She was just 25 and had a week inks baby London and a 2 year old Brecken.  Her funeral was scheduled for Saturday after Christmas.  We opened presents at home in the morning.  The kids all got something they want, need, wear and to read.  They enjoyed their gifts.  On our drive to the valley Ben barfed and this started the stomach bug.  As I blog I am home from church with step to cap of the holiday!  We had a good time when we were well with lots of bike rides in the neighborhood, trips to the park, two trips to the zoo, a trip to out of Africa, and the temple lights!  It will be nice to get home int my own bed though!  

Our of Africa Zoo

 We got groupons to go to this zoo and it was pretty cool.  We got to feed a lot of the animals and see some really neat demonstrations.  Too bad I was just coming down with strep.  It hit hard and I was freezing the whole time and had a sore throat.  The good thing about being super ill over a holiday is instead of gaining weight you loose it.  I am basically freezing and starving.

 Even Ben got in on the feeding.

 I might be a little tired here.