Spring Cleaning

Is it really over single digit temperatures? Is no snow falling from the sky today? Is it true we have actually entered the 50's? This sunshine is bliss for me and it's time to start dusting off all those winter cobwebs. Jon and I just had a very constructive talk about this during his lunch break. I do love Thursdays when he comes home -just a nice way to break up my day. Anyway, we got chatting about all the stuff we are cluttering our lives with, the boys endless collection of toys, boxes in the basement that are no doubt at least 50 percent garbage, thoughts, problems, stress, things, etc... Anyway, we decided it is time for a good spring cleaning physically, and metaphorically.

So I'm starting with my schedule. I got thinking today...I haven't been using the old Franklin lately, no wonder I feel so disorganized. I mean, I've had it since tenth grade for a reason. Anyway, I'm getting back to the organized Kat. She will soon resurface, a much happier, more accomplishing person. Just give her a little time! Along with the schedule comes the specific chores to do daily and weekly, the times when I just get to sit and enjoy being with the boys, working on handwriting or reading, time to spend with grandparents, time for American Idol, and so on. It's also time for a big spiritual boost. We just need it. Nothing more I can really say on that one.

The last focus for me is all the projects around the house. I just got settled in the last one and we moved. No better time to start eh? Gotta put all these in the schedule too. Ok now just try hard not to be overwhelmed. Spring is long, right?!

Luke's favorite game

Ever since watching his cousins play this game over Christmas, it's all Luke can ever think about some days. His grandma and grandpa Fuller surprised him with it for his birthday last month. We have limited video games to three days a week. But, I have to admit, I do enjoy playing this with my little guys. Harry sits on my lap with the #2 controller and frequently breaks my stream to the wii sensor, making it much more difficult for me. And those of you who have "played" this game with Luke, know he likes to watch! He tells us what to do and how to beat each level since he apparently watched his cuz Kieran beat the whole game. And now I'm off to beat the dusty dune galaxy with Luke; I promised him we'd play today and the day is almost over!

They grow up so fast

Today was one of those landmark days as a parent. I registered my big boy for kindergarten. I actually wasn't emotional; I'm sure I'll hold off on that until the day he actually goes to school. And will I cry? Maybe. Well probably. But I'm not sure. I might just be so elated that he actually is at school everyday. Now, don't take that as I am not a loving parent. I love my sweet little Lukie and it's hard watching him grow up. But it's great too. He's been asking to go to kindergarten every day since he turned five and with the structure of school, I know he will soar. He's loving preschool and if he could go everyday, he would. He's reading pretty well and doing some basic addition and it will be fabulous to have a place for all that energy. His motor skills are not quite as advanced, so we're working on his handwriting and stuff.

While I was there, I was pleasantly surprised at how many kids in the ward are going to kindergarten this year. I saw lots and lots of moms and it just makes me happy to know he's friends with many of the other kids there. I really am excited for this milestone for my little guy. I hope he enjoys it and has a great experience during these important thirteen years to come. I'm sure I'll take a million pictures of my little kindergartener and post them. Stay tuned!

Chili's, Rumbi, Cafe Rio, McD's...ooo the possibilities

We had quite a time figuring out dinner tonight. We were planning to meet some friends at Chili's and there ended up being an hour and a half wait, so we took off with our two hungry boys to go visit my folks in Orem. Playing with grandma and grandpa seems to always curb the hunger pangs. On the way back home, all the craziness began. We couldn't think of any type of food that really sounded like it would hit the spot and I didn't feel like putting a dinner together. Enter Rumbi - Jon's idea. He really felt like a rice bowl, but that didn't sound pleasing to my pallette. Cafe Rio, on the other hand, I could eat pretty much anytime, so I called them from my cell phone - yes I do have all the major local chains programmed in my phone. Critical for a sane mom. Anyway, their wait was just long enough that we could go pick up some Rumbi for Jon and the boys and hop across the street to get my salad. Enter McDonald's. Luke was not interested in rice, teriyaki steak, salad, chicken or anything that resembles "normal food." What he wanted was fries, and a root beer. Yes, this is the same child that sneaks fresh spinach out of the fridge and loads it up in his bowl for a snack. But, you know, sometimes you just want fries. What the heck, we were already going to get what mom and dad wanted respectively, why not add McD's? Oh and drinks are small and expensive, so why not just stop for the root beer at the grocery store in the same parking lot as the McD's? I ran into the store, grabbed some drinks and a couple snacks - shopping while I was hungry- while daddy got fries for the boys. Then Rumbi. On the way across the street it actually started smelling pretty good to me. hmmm. Then a 15 minute wait at Cafe Rio - ugh. Finally home. I almost took a picture of all the different take out and grocery bags on the bar while we were eating, but I figured there really was no need for visible evidence of our insanity.

I love to see the temple

Jon and I were finally able to make it to the temple last night and it was awesome, as always. A big thank you to my folks for watching the boys. Whenever I go, I am reminded of the scripture in Doctrine and Covenants section 109:22 that says, "And we ask thee, Holy Father, that thy servants may go forth from this house armed with thy power, and that thy name may be upon them, and thy glory be round about them, and thine angles have charge over them." What a beautiful promise for us if we just make it happen and get to the temple. Angles having charge over us, I mean does it get any better?! I've been feeling really weak spiritually lately and this helps. Life just keeps moving on, and as much as we love our new ward and our beautiful home and fantastic neighbors, I find myself missing my friends in our old neighborhood and basically just feeling sorry for myself. On the way to my folks last night, Jon and I had a really nice talk about this and some other things going on with our families. We made a concerted effort to lose ourselves in service, especially when we start feeling the pity party welling up inside. The bottom line for me is that God is in charge, not me, and everything will work out according to His purpose in my life.

A funny thought though....why is it when we leave the temple, we feel instant tension!? Of course we really know why, but it's so true. We joked as we walked out that every time we go to the temple we get in a fight the next day, and I have to say we've done great today! Jon came home for lunch and the boys were cracking us both up and he said, "This is why I came home today." Isn't it our kids that make all that we do worthwhile? We are so blessed to have such great kids, even if they never sleep longer than three hours in a stretch. It's so nice how the peace of the temple spills over into our family. Why is it we don't go more often again? Besides losing ourselves in service, we're committing to temple attendance once together a month and once on our own - twice a month just isn't too often. I really do love to see the temple.

Bloom where you're stuck in a vase of water

Jon gave me flowers on the Valentine's Day - he actually did the rose thing this year. Usually he does tulips or sunflowers (my fave), but I love his choice of red roses and lilies.

I was sitting in my kitchen tonight after dinner, FHE, and a little Rockband, thinking about how much prettier the flowers have grown throughout the week. Here we are several days later and the lilies are blooming like crazy. Maybe this is a good lesson for us - to bloom wherever we are! It might take a little time, but BLOOM! I always love having fresh flowers in my house. I can't wait for my cutting garden to grow. I guess the snow better melt first and then we can worry about landscaping!

Baby Kate

My friend Brooke came over yesterday so I could take some pictures of her beautiful daughter in her blessing dress. The dress is something out of a story book. Brooke's aunt made it out of her wedding dress and it is a little replica of Brooke's original dress. Kate wasn't the smiliest I've seen her, but we got some nice pictures. Of course, once the dress was off, she was all grins! I'm not a professional photographer by any means, but I really like this picture.

The Storm

Just wanted to get these up quickly. Last night was the storm of all storms for us. Tons of cars were stranded on the street and at the gas station behind our house. Highland Highway was closed most of yesterday, through the night, and finally opened up this afternoon. We opened our front door this morning to a wall of snow and several feet on the porch. The drifts in our yard are sensational and our neighbor got stuck in one on our street. The storm was surreal. We had our own little adventures. More to come...

Happy Love Day!

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone! Here is a "handmade" card from yours truly. Those of you who know me well, know I do my little card-making thing for bridal and baby showers, birthday invitations, and such. But I'm new to the digital scrapbooking world and loving it. I want to make sure I do things right when I use people's stuff. So I have to credit Andrea Victoria, and designerdigitals.com for the design of the quote, (I believe the quote itself is from Life's Little Lessons.) and "designs by krista" for the paper and embellishments. I really am enjoying this new hobby...a little too much perhaps!

Happy 40th Birthday Tom!

Today is my brother's 40th. Happy big one Tom! I had to share this fabulous photo my mom created to give him his gift. By the way, that is Tom in the pilot's chair. I love it, mom, and I need about a week of straight photoshop with you!

Coolness and Nerdiness

So here they are...the cool kid and the nerd. Totally kidding, but it is funny how glasses can change our perception of a person. In this case, my kids - Harry wasn't having it with his supercool camoflauge sunglasses, thus portraying his more academic side. Luke, on the other hand, wanted to show us his coolness/spy/CIA look. Funny boys. Wonder if this is fortelling or if the roles will totally be reversed!

Utah - the new TUNDRA

BRRRR!
It's sunny today so I had to show off the beautiful snowy landscape from our back window. However, the other picture is from one of the thousand storms we've had this year. I took it from inside the bay window in the living room. The front door was actually frozen shut and all of the other front windows were so full of snow we couldn't see out. Winter and I are not on such good terms right now, and I'm not so sure when Utah became a tundra. Does anyone know what happened with Mr. Groundhog last week?

Goodbye to Sweet Veda

Wednesday was a rough day. Around 12:20 pm, I happened to check my email and found a message from my friend and mission companion, Megan, saying our dear friend and mission mom Veda Welch had passed away and there was a graveside service that same day at 1pm in Springville. I raced to change my clothes, got the boys ready, and sped down to Orem to drop them off with my dad. All the while, the reality of losing a dear friend hit me hard. I cried and cried and finally arrived at the cemetery with not an ounce of makeup on and very red eyes, just missing the service. I'm sure it was beautiful; their family is truly amazing. I pulled myself together only long enough to walk from the car to the gravesite. I saw Keith there and just lost it. I sobbed and sobbed into his hug. How ironic that the widower was the one comforting me. It was so wonderful to see him. He really hasn't changed in the 11 years I have known him, other than a brief frail moment while he battled cancer a couple years ago. His smile brightened many dark days on my mission and it has truly been a blessing taking my growing family to La Verkin and staying with them several times in the last six years. I just kept missing seeing his little sweetheart next to him and every time I looked at him, the floodgates would open.

I haven't seen them since their 50th wedding anniversary a year and a half ago, just before sweet Mom Welch had a stroke. Things slowly went downhill from there and her health hit a rapid decline around Christmastime and she passed from this life on January 30th peacefully in her home. It broke my heart that we didn't know about the services in Hurricane, UT, because we would have made the effort to have our family be there. It would have been the least we could have done since they opened their home to us so many times for softball tournaments, just passing through, and most recently, our trip not long before Veda's stroke when we spent some time in Zion National Park. We took them on a drive through a tunnel high in Zion Canyon and Keith filled the conversation with interesting historical stories and it was probably one of my greatest memories of spending time with the Welches. We just hung out and enjoyed each other's company. Harry was just a baby and Veda was smitten with him and the smile he flashed her anytime he saw her sparkly eyes. Luke had no problem calling them Grandma and Grandpa Welch from the first time he met them, and he immediately found the hiding place for all the grandkid toys! There was another time we stayed there when Keith came down to my mid-summer all-night softball tournament in St. George and he sat in the stands visiting with Jon into the wee hours of the morning. Before I knew Jon, I went down by myself once, and Keith and I had a marvelous time chasing little white dimpled balls around the Hurricane City Golf Course, laughing all the way at how pitifully we played.

The Welches truly are such a blessing in my life. And at this time I'm just so grateful for the plan that allows us all to be together again. I only wish I would have seen them more often and been a better friend these last couple years. How fortunate I am to have such amazing people in my little circle. I pray for her family, especially Keith, to be comforted and blessed during this transitional time. I miss you Veda, and I am a better mom since I knew you. The quote on her program sums up her awesome attitude: "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth." (3 John 1:4)

Waiting for my noodles

"Mama, I want noo noooo!"

I was making a simple noodle dinner the other day and Harry sat at the bar the entire time waiting for his food....from the moment I pulled the box of pasta out of the pantry, he sat at attention in his chair at the bar. For a good 15 minutes, and with building emotion, he asked every few seconds where his noodles were. I couldn't resist the drama, so I captured it on film. If only I could have caught the flash of excitement when he actually got his dinner. He is such a ham. We are enjoying his sweet spirit everyday and all night long most nights. But that is another story altogether.

Elk in our backyard

Superbowl Sunday 2008 was the day the heavens poured out over 16 inches of the white stuff at our house. It was also the day we had some fun visitors behind our house. Earlier in the day, we had the special opportunity of attending Brook and Troy's blessing of their little miracle baby Kate, who they had sealed to them the day before. We drove home from Orem on some treacherous roads, but we made it and went to our own ward later. During Young Women, somene said, "Hey there's a family of elk in the field across the street from the church!" So we all looked and sure enough, there they were way out in the field, close to the Highland Highway. Later, at home I wondered if they were still out there. I looked out our back windows which look to that same field, and there they were....only much closer to our side of the street! I grabbed my camera, and took off toward the field behind our house. I didn't dare get too close, but it was pretty fun. I love living close to the mountains!

Our Little Pirate

Luke had a Pirate Birthday Party for his big FIVE and invited oh so many friends and all his cousins! It was crazy fun and I will soon be posting the photos to my picasa web album. http://picasaweb.google.com/KSFuller/LukeSBirthday The above pictures are remeniscent of our old "many faces of Luke" collection when he was less than a year old. Glad we have more to add.

Luke is a sweet, thoughtful, very smart little boy and we are enjoying him every minute of the day. He woke up on his birthday quite early and came running into our bedroom yelling, "Mom, I'm five, I get to go to kindergarten today!!!" He is loving preschool at Learning Dynamics and is reading up a storm. He is counting the days until he gets to go to the "real school" around the corner. He's also eating up primary and bears his testimony in sacrament meeting any chance he gets. He also gave his first talk in opening exercises a couple months ago and he prepared it himself. Mom just had to write it down so he wouln't forget it! We certainly are blessed to have Luke in our family.