Screen Free Week begins tomorrow!

This is just a quick message to invite our friends and family to join us in Screen Free Week. It goes from April 30-May 6th. (It used to be called TV Turnoff Week!)

My sister and her husband and cute kids will be here all week to keep us distracted! :-) Hopefully there will be some nice weather so we can enjoy being outside. I am looking forward to it.

See you on the flip side!

Easter and Celebrating the Sun

I am tired, but I wanted to say Happy Easter and give a quick catchup! It has been a beautiful weekend. I have spent many hours in the sun, my favorite place to be! We had our 10th annual Easter brunch with 2 other families and it was wonderful. We opted to not have Easter presents in the baskets this year, and I actually think it worked! We had a very low stress day and the kids got along very well. We started the day with their candy and watching a movie about the life, death, and resurrection of the Savior. We then had the brunch/ easter egg hunt and went to church. Emily and Jeff sang in the choir. After church we had a dinner out of the leftover cinnamon rolls :-) and then walked over to our old neighborhood and chatted with friends. The weather couldn't have been nicer. 

 Spring break was a lot of fun. My sister Crystal came to visit and we went to see my aunt and cousin in Seattle. We LOVE having Aunt Crystal around and the weather was not too bad.  A little cold, but not too rainy.

After Crystal left, we just chilled out at home for 2 days (catch up on laundry!) and then realized we needed to get out. We went to the Rock Museum and it was a great outing. I liked the fossil room the best.  We met up with the Williamson's at OMSI (thanks for the passes, Ranell) and the kids played legos for 2 hours. There was an amazing lego display and the floor was covered with legos for them to build with.

 I then left my kids with Ranell for 2 days and Jeff and I snuck away to Mt. Hood. We stayed in a cute bed and breakfast and spent the day skiing. We thought it was going to be rainy, but the weather and ski conditions were perfect. We had a great time together, watched Hunger Games, explored the beautiful Hood River, and just relaxed. It was a much needed getaway!

Friends came over to dye eggs and the kids also got out on the trampoline! I am loving our backyard and neighborhood! I am hoping to get my garden going tomorrow. We will see...

I always say I am a better winter mom than summer mom, and I am enjoying seeing the sun come peeking out! I hope it is here to stay!

Happy March!

I love a new month! It feels like a fresh start. I don't love the title of my last blog, so I thought it was a good day for a new one! :-) Here are some pictures of some happenings around in our family. 

 One of my favorite sights is my kids playing together, but especially reading together!

 Emily has finally decided that she is willing to wear jeans and I think she looks so cute! Thanks Grandma Di for the awesome vest!

 Dallin and Jeff decorated a cake for the Blue and Gold dinner for Cub Scouts. Ours was not as fancy as some of the others, but Dallin designed it and did most of it himself. The funny thing is there was a theme of "What do you think of when you think of Cub Scouts." Somehow I missed that memo, so Dallin did his favorite subject. Shhh...don't tell him!

 Basketball season ended on a great note. Dallin's team was undefeated and most importantly, played well as a team. It was not a team of superstars and they each did their part. Jeff coached with his good friend Brent.

Here is Dallin swishing his 2 free throws. 

 We have now started soccer again for Bryce. He is so funny that he already lives and breathes it. He slept in his soccer clothes before the first practice! It is fun to watch him!

Emily has started gymnastics. It was a challenge at first because she just wanted to play on the bars and the coaches are pretty strict. But now she is enjoying learning new skills. We are excited that our next door neighbors will soon be going with us!

Now onto March!

Suck it up!

That is what I feel like telling myself. I am going to say it every day. :-) Maybe I will put it in vinyl lettering in my kitchen! (Kidding of course) As I was listening to the talks in Sacrament Meeting, that was the overwhelming message I felt. (They didn't phrase it that way!) The talks were on happiness, and I realized they were just for me. I have been wallowing for a little over a month. Yes, I need time to grieve. Yes, I can be sad about my situation. But, I also need to be a whole person again. I am forever changed because of this experience, but I can also look to the future with excitement instead of dread and trepidation. I am ready to do the things I love again. I am training for a marathon which will give me purpose to getting my health back. I am starting to think about what to put in my garden boxes. I am in a great stage of life and I am enjoying my extra time with Bryce. Have you spent time with him? He is one funny kid!! He makes me laugh every day. I have great friends and family who love me. I have a Heavenly Father who knows me and loves me and wants me to turn to Him. I have a Savior who died for me and understands ALL of my heartache. I will turn to all of them.

March is my birthday month, so it is a great time to find myself again. I just found out I will be getting a weekend alone with my amazing sweetheart! (Thanks Ranell for taking the kids!)  I made a yummy, healthy dinner tonight that actually made me appreciate that I can cook again. I am not setting a million expectations of myself, I just want to get back to being the person and mom I love to be.

1. Active
2. Healthy
3. Fun Loving
4. Patient with my imperfections and others
5. Striving to be close to the Spirit
6. Kind
7. Silly
8.Friendly
9. Quick to Apologize and Forgive
10. Laugh at my mistakes!

Love and Compassion

I think Love and Compassion is a great title to describe the first half of February!

First of all, I was loving the sun!! We had a good week of nice, warm, not normal February in Oregon weather. So, we took as many chances as we could to go on bike rides and go to the park. My good friend called me to go the park and it was kind of a crazy day, but I couldn't pass up the chance and I am glad I did! Bryce was pretty excited that he learned the monkey bars! Dallin had a non-birthday party with all the boys in his class who were in town (8 boys total!) and I was glad the weather was nice enough for them to play outside most of the time. I sure love our location on a dead end street!

We have had lots of family time, and our focus has been on showing more love to one another. We went to a BYU basketball game with good friends. BYU won and it seemed to be more BYU fans than University of Portland fans. And yes, we are all matchy matchy. :-) (Dallin and Jeff's shirts came in the nick of time!)

Valentine's Day Kelly style- I have been trying to be more accepting of the fact that I am not a naturally creative person. I love to celebrate holidays because it is fun for the kids, but I have a hard time figuring out what to do. I am also frugal (ie cheap!) so it is hard for me to spend money. This year I found a cute "Love" sign on sale at Safeway of all places and these cute heart shaped notepads. Emily had suggested that we do love notes for each other and since I had not gone shopping for buckets, we made do with paper bags. I think the heart attacks on the doors turned out cute! We did a "fancy" dinner with sparkling cider and I made waffles with strawberries and whipped cream. It was a fun night and I am happy with how it turned out.

My sweetheart- Jeff and I have been lucky enough to spend extra time together this year. When Bryce is at preschool, we are able to go to lunch together sometimes. This included yesterday (no pictures though!). The other thing we were able to do this year that I haven't mentioned is we went to a concert for his birthday. I think it was the first time I was truly able to surprise him with something he really liked. :-) We went and saw City and Colour one of his favorite singers. (Don't worry if you haven't heard of him.) It was fantastic and we ended up getting the only seats. (There was probably about 30 seats, the rest was standing room-it was a small concert hall.) This was in the middle of horrible January and just the distraction we needed! We also had a fun Valentine's date on Saturday night. We went out to dinner with Ranell and Brian (we usually swap babysitting with them, but this time opted to go together and paid a sitter!) and then went to a dance at our building. I don't have pictures (need to get some from Ranell!) but there was a good turnout and it was a lot of fun. I hope we can make this a tradition!

Compassion- Emily received an award at school for Compassion. I can't think of a better characteristic I would rather have her honored for. She definitely takes after her Grandpa John and is living his legacy. She is so helpful and thoughtful. I love any time I get to spend with Emily. We were able to go on a field trip to the Children's Theater together. She is my little play buddy and I love her!

 Well, that is February so far. Whew!

10 years- Really?!

Happy 10th Birthday, Dallin Jeffrey Marker!

Yes, I am that mom saying, "Where has the time gone?" I will never forget the day I became a mother. My road to motherhood was not as smooth as I would have liked and then I was disappointed to end up with a C-section, but when I held that sweet baby for the first time, none of that mattered! I couldn't believe my dream of being a mom was coming true! I loved so much about those early days, months and years. The C-section allowed me to spend more time sitting on the couch then I think I would have. I loved watching his first smile (at 4 weeks) and then every first after that! I loved teaching him new "tricks". He was a quick learner and was a lot of fun. He has always been very mild and kind hearted. He is obedient to the extreme. Even when he doesn't want to do what I ask, he can't NOT do it. It's very funny. (Not to him.) He loves sports and never takes off the Green Bay Aaron Rodgers jersey he got for Christmas. He loves to play sports in real life, but his new obsession is the Xbox Madden game. He loves to give the play by play.

He is great with his brother and sister, some of the time. :-) He enjoys playing football and soccer with them. He has been a true joy to raise. I am so grateful to have him as my first son. What special memories and fun we have shared. I will have to add more pictures.