Annie

These pictures are a perfect representation of Annie. She's always with me/ touching me. I can't do anything without her climbing on me or saying " I help" whether its cleaning, cooking or simply pushing a stroller. She's actually a really good cleaner- better than both boys.
She loves her brothers but has a special love for Gray. She misses him when he's gone. Tuesdays are tough on her. Last Tuesday she kept going out to the car saying " get gg" - g was at preschool. Anyway, lately she's been wearing his pjs. So Monday I tried to get a picture of her in g's pjs. When I told her to say cheese. She grabbed herself and made a "tooting" sound. Can you tell she has 2 older brothers? Love her and pray her feminine side comes through in the end:)

Valentines day

Because our anniversary is 2 days before Valentines day, the 14th is celebrated as a family. Anything that could be dyed pink or cut in to a shape of a heart, was. Mac was all into it. He made sure I put a heart love note in his lunch cause "that's what all the good moms do:)" I love my family And I'm glad we celebrated our love all day long!

The powells

 It's that time of the year. Friends start getting jobs other places, leaving us behind (do I sound sad? cause I am) it never gets easy. The big exudus that is happening reminded me that I haven't blogged about the powell's move. Wade got a new job back In November in Louisville. Lucky us, just a short 1.5 hours away. Nancy is the type that does a lot for people but hates attention on herself and hates surprise parties. So how do you say a proper good bye to someone like her? You throw a Christmas party that has a surprise theme:) The night was a lot of fun.

One thing I have been blessed with all my life is good friends. Friends that would do anything for me and I for them.  The powells lived here for 5 years. A lot happened in those five years. A lot of transition happened for me. I went from 1 to 2 kids and then 2 to 3 kids. Drew graduated from law school and started a very demanding job. He also got 2 very demanding callings in that time as well. Without sounding too dramatic but I'm not sure I could have gotten through all that without Nancy. Well, would have gotten through it but not happily. It's a blessing to have a friend that you can show up on their front porch with a colicky baby and just hand him over. Or a friend to eat with, run with and laugh with. There's a reason why Drew calls Nancy "Diana." We miss having ike over every day and we haven't found a friend that has replaced him yet but probably never will. Luckily they are still relatively close and we have been able to see them a couple of times.

Boring post...

Being a mom and wife are hard. I have moments when I'm totally proud of myself, i call drew and tell him what I accomplished and how I handled the situations. Those are the good days. Then I have the days that I look at the kids and think " what was Heavenly Father thinking, trusting me with these perfect children and all I've done is screw them up." And then I list the things I'm not doing. Why do I do this? It's not productive. It doesn't make me a better mom. There are certain things that I have tried to do since Mac was old enough to be disciplined and have responsibilities and ill be honest, consistency is not my forte. I once was a laid back person but I find with every child I have I loose that part of me. But instead of being patient and "laid back" I ignore somethings for a bit and then lose it. Ie cleaning and jobs. I would go a week with the upstairs being a mess and then loose it, demanding cleanliness from the boys. Hours later the rooms would be cleaned. What were they learning? Back in November we decided to do 2 things budget and do a consistent job chart. The budget we wouldn't start until January but the jobs we jumped right into it. Drew was on board and so were the boys. The jobs and allowance are simple because I don't do complicated:) They have 2 chores everyday, clean their room and clean the playroom. If they accomplish it, they get a sticker. On Saturdays they get an extra job, bathroom, vacuum out car, fold laundry ect. For every sticker they earn they get a quarter but if they get a sticker on Saturday they get 50 cents. We are on the 4 th month and it's working! We have consistency! The boys love that they are earning money, not much but enough that they are learning the blessings of tithing, savings and the value of money and hard work. And I have a clean upstairs most of the week and it has saved us a ton of money. I no longer buy them anything when we go to the store. No treats, stickers, only what they need I buy. I think they are getting sick of the "you can spend your own money on that" phrase.

Budget- this post is really lame:) we looked over our financial stAtements and saw where we could save and where we needed to throw more money ie student loans. We have never budgeted ever! When we were students we just didn't shop, we went without. Then drew got his job our money management was more month to month " ok we didn't do great last month lets do better next month." Or visa versa. And surprisingly it worked ok. We stayed in our means but we weren't saving as much as we wanted. So we came up with a budget and every night we sat down recording our spending. Ill be honest, I thought I only spent a certain amount on groceries but ya, i was off by a lot! So staying in a smaller grocery budget was hard. There were some pretty skimpy meals. Even though i went over my grocery budget we finished the month of January under budget and we saved a ton of money! This month has gone better. I have figured out how to shop in our grocery budget- basically I can only go to the store 3 times a month. This has taken a lot of planning on my part and smart meal planning. But we are on track once again to save lots of money. Last night drew paid off a student loan and now we are only down to one! While budgeting has put a damper on shopping I have found it so rewarding! Plus I hit the gym a lot more cause what else do you do when the weather sucks and target is off limits?

Nat';s visit

Nat's visit started out Rocky. She was suppose to land at 9:00 Thursday night but her flight from Cleveland kept getting delayed. Finally at 10:00 they cancelled her flight. So instead of waiting for the next flight (Friday morning) she got in a car with 2 strangers and drove to Lexington! Of course I did not sleep well and ended up meeting her out on new town pike at 4am to pick up my precious cargo:) it was great having her. We stayed inside for the most part cause of all the snow but had a great time and as always 3 days just wasn't enough! I met with mac's teacher and she said " Mac talks a lot about his aunt Nat. He really loves her" yes he does and so do we!

8 years

On the 12th Drew and I celebrated 8 years of marriage. Life is busy, kids, work and church rule our schedules. The times we take ourselves away from the big 3, life slows down and it's just like how things were at the beginning, but better. I'm thankful that when we do fight and don't want to be around each other, that neither of us stop working to get ourselves back to where we should be. Back to the place where it all began. Here's to 8 years to 2 people who have fallen in love too many times to count. What's 365 x 8? Love you Drew!

Families

 

I've been working on a photo book for my grandpa Heaps. Sorting through pictures has made me feel all nostalgic. As I thought about what to write to my grandpa a flood of happy memories came back. Not just about my grandpa Heaps but about my grandma and my McAllister Grandparents as well. I'm thankful to have had the relationship with my grandparents that I did. They were and still are a huge part of my life. When I was in High school my parents took our family and both grandparents to Hawaii and we also did a trip back east with them and let me tell you, I have 2 very different set of grandparents!

 My grandpa and grandma McAllister are very musical, they constantly sang to us. They both have beautiful voices. If we were bored grandma would teach us a new song or grandpa would read us books. Most my memories of them are of playing card games or other bored games. They were very scheduled and organized, discipline people.They are and were very active. Up until my grandpa got really sick he was biking and walking miles a day. My grandma to this day walks 3 miles every morning. I loved going on hikes with grandpa, he knew so much about the trees, plants and had a love for birds. Many discussions were about politics and education. They valued education- my grandpa was an accounting professor at BYU and served as Orem's senator.

My Grandpa and grandma Heaps were and are relaxed. It took a lot for grandpa or grandma to get mad. It took being really bad for grandma to get grandpa mad. He loved and supportive my grandma in everything. He adored her, she was the best cook, house keeper, decorator and he let everyone know. They made a big deal of everything- birthdays, holidays, sporting events.  When we went over to their house I would hide away in my grandma's closet and bathroom, playing in her make up and scarves. Every time I left her house she would send me home with some makeup sample or nail polish.  They both made you feel comfortable and loved all the time. In fact most my friends called them grandma and grandpa too.

 Me and my Great Grandma Heaps- I inherited her beloved dimpled  chin.

 Me and Ry visiting grandma and grandpa Heaps in California

I feel blessed to grow up in the family I did. Things weren't perfect all the time- or any of the time but the things that mattered were taught and felt. While my grandparents were very different their values shaped who I am today. They were constantly bearing their testimonies of the truthfulness of the gospel by word and deed. They served in church and in community and changed people lives for the better and I from a young age was able to witness this.  I'm grateful to be sealed to them and that some day we will all be reunited. I'm grateful I still have my Grandpa Heaps and Gradma McAllister to influence me and my children.