Angels, books and Mac 'n Cheese

The other day Kately was trying to take a nap, but her cough was keeping her awake.  She started crying and calling for me.  When I went in there she said, "Mommy angels will come, huh?"  I asked her if she wanted to pray and ask Heavenly Father to send angels to help her sleep.  She said yes and asked me to say the prayer.  After the prayer she said, "Mommy, I will call the angels down."  I sang to her and then closed the door.  From outside her room I could hear her calling, "angels, angels".  It was very tender to know that she has a testimony of angels coming to her rescue.  I truly believe that angels are sent to help us more than we know. 

Kately and all of her dollies

Today I couldn't find Ember, after searching my entire 4 room apartment, I found her sitting in her sister's room with a book laid out in front of her.  She had shut the door behind her.  I went in and sat next to her.  She shut the door after me too.  We sat and read a few books.  Emberly loves books.  She loves to point at all the things in the pictures.  If there are animals she attempts to make the noises, attempt is a very broad word for the sounds she makes.  It was nice to just sit with her and read. Later Kately came and joined us.  Reading with my girls is such a delight.  One of the tender mercies from the Lord to let me stay home with my two pixies every day.

Ember wanting me to open a book for her, I think this one is a little above her level, but its the thought that counts, right?

Later our friend Reed came to play.  He and Kate had lunch together.  I made Mac 'n Cheese with hot dogs, carrots and peas.  It was great.  Kate ate all of the carrots, peas and hot dogs out of her bowl and Reed ate all of the macaroni from his bowl.  I thought of that nursery rhyme about Jack Sprat.

Jack Sprat could eat no fat
His wife could eat no lean
And so betwixt the two of them
They licked the platter clean

Betwixt Kate and Reed, the two of them would eat all of the lunch, too bad they weren't sharing bowls.

Kately

Reed

It was a fun day!  I love being a Mama and playing with my pixies!

The Binky Fairy

Sorry that it has been a while, life has been busy!

If I tried to tell you all of my wonderful stories that have happened to us since the last time I posted my blog would never end.  I think I'll just take it one story at a time.  This story happened last Monday.

Kately, our 2-year-old, is in love with her binky.  She took to a binky right away and absolutely loves it.  I had decided to ween her from it before Emberly was born, but the few months before the baby came Kately was in the hospital twice and it was very nice for her to have the binky.  She then broke her leg last fall and was in the hospital again in March when she was diagnosed with diabetes.  With all of these traumatic experiences in her life I decided to just let her have the binky. 
Well, it has been several months since her last hospital visit and I finally decided that it was time for her to say 'farewell' to the binky.  I have been nervous to do this because I didn't want to put up with the fighting and crying that would come afterwards.  After looking at Pinterest, I decided to have a visit from the Binky Fairy.  We told Kately 3 days before that the Binky Fairy would be coming on Monday at she would take all of her binkies and give them to babies who needed them and then she would give Kately a big surprise.  Kate was very excited!
That morning we found all of the binkies that we could around the house, including the one wedged between the wall and her bed, the one she hid inside her Fisher-Price barn and silo, and the few others that we found in random other places around the house.  It was a blessing that her sister Emberly takes a different kind of binky so we could distingish between the two kinds. 
After collecting all of the binkies, the girls drew pictures for the Binky Fairy and we put the pictures, a note and a box full of binkies our doorstep outside waiting for the Binky Fairy.  My mother came and took us to her house, it took some convincing to get Kate to leave the box of binkies on our porch, but she finally did.

There are pictures of our gifts to the Binky Fairy.

While we were at my mother's house I got a text from my upstairs renter.  He asked me if he was supposed to do something with these binkies and if he was supposed to make something magical happen...oops I meant to call him.  He cleared the doorstep for me.  But, the Binky Fairy was tricky, she came to my mother's house and dropped off the gift. 

 The Binky Fairy gave Kately a Princess doll and sister Emberly a lamby.  The Fairy decided that it would be easier if little sister got a gift as well so there wouldn't be any fighting.  Kately loved the doll. 
Later that night she cried herself to sleep in my arms because she wanted her binky back.  Luckily I could honestly say that I didn't have the binkies and I could not get to them, it was the truth!  She woke up a 3 times that night with a cough, I think she kind of made herself sick from crying so much.  Each time we settled her down and she went right back to sleep.  She never asked for another binky!  I couldn't believe it!
There was never any more crying or fussing over binkies.  She even found 2 of them around the house and was quite willing to give them to me to give to the Binky Fairy. 
I can't believe how easy this was!  I truly believe this was a tender mercy from the Lord.  I've been sick lately and was scared that it would be very tiring to deal with the drama of no binkies, but the Lord stepped in and helped Kately move forward!

What a tender mercy! 

My little pixies!

Could I be any more blessed?

I feel so blessed in my life right now!

Tonight my cousin Eliza came over and had Family Night with us.  It was an adventure.  We learned all about being kind and saying we're sorry.  Jesus likes when we are kind.  We talked about Nephi and his brothers when they built the boat and how the brothers weren't nice in the beginning.  We then built a boat of our own, in our imagination and sailed to the promised land.  I held Kately and Eliza held Emberly as we sailed across the sea and were tossed about the waves.  It was fun.

Father's Day: Kately decorated the frame (which would soon hold a picture of daddy and his girls)
and breakfast in bed with chunky monkey pancakes!

After Family Night was bed time.  Kate kept coming up with excuses with why she couldn't go to sleep.  And every time impatience would creep in, Kately would look at me and say, "I love you Mama."  I couldn't be more blessed!

You know, I have hard things going on in my life:  Chris is gone all the time with work and school - He is Superman I don't know how he does it.  I am fighting depression.  We are struggling financially, a little.  Kate is struggling with diabetes . . . BUT!!!
LIFE IS WONDERFUL!!!
I feel so blessed with my situation!  I get to spend every day of my life with these two little pixies.  My pixies were sent from heaven to make my life wonderful!  I have an amazing husband who works 40 hours a week and goes to school whenever he isn't at work.  We don't see him much, but he NEVER complains.  Wow.  I love my little family!

Life is definitely hard, it is also, SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS.  It is the only word that I feel like could even possibly come close to explaining my life.

Thank you HEAVENLY FATHER for everything thou has given me!

Come What May & Love It

I watched this Mormon Message tonight and really liked it.  How often do we dwell in our troubles longer than we need to?  What I mean by that is how often do we let our troubles completely consume our lives and not let us see the joy in them?

I loved the things that Elder Worthlin said in this video.  Learn to Laugh!  I am getting better at this one, of course I'm not perfect at it.

Here is a story that I can laugh at now, that counts right, to at least be able to laugh at it later?

On Sunday we were sitting in Sacrament meeting trying to keep our girls under control, which is usually a chore.  I was holding Emberly on my lap and she was kind of fussing.  I thought that maybe she would like to stand next to me on the pew.  I picked her up and moved her over, but I guess my angle was slightly off because I bonked her head on the back of the bench.  She immediately starts to scream, of course, so I picked her up and started to head out of the meeting.  Kately was sitting at Chris' feet and I tried to step over her, but I knocked her head in to the pew in front of us.  Needless to say, she started to scream.  So, both Chris and I, girls in arms, headed out of the meeting.  You ever feel like there should be an award for times like these?  The Stupid Parent Award.  We hereby declare Christina Myers the winner of this prestigious award.

The wife of the family sitting behind us caught me after the meeting telling me how funny, yet sad that was.  Yes, funny, but sad, and remarkably stupid.  Oh, well.  Neither of the girls were permanently damaged and I cried longer in the lobby than they did, utter humiliation.  But, guess what?  I can laugh about it!!!

I would like to put a few pictures below that show you everything that I have had to love over the past little while.  My family is wonderful and here are some fun videos and pictures to share.

I HAVE SO MUCH TO LOVE IN MY LIFE!!

Kately tells us what an elephant says.  (I tried to get her to sing at the end of the video, but it didn't work, Just stop watching at the end of the elephant part, I wish I knew how to cut the video down)

Kately went around to about 25 of the 50 rocks that made a wall around this park and sat on everyone.  She had to tell me as she did this, "I'm sitting on the rock, Mom."

I made this poster/poem for Chris' birthday!

Don't you love my wrapping job?  All of these odd boxes actually had birthday presents in them :)

Chris got a tool set for his birthday from my parents

Happy Birthday Daddy and Uncle Jacob!  31 years-old

Kate's cousins dug a whole in Grandpa's sandbox and what did Kate decide to do?  Sit in it of course, and get stuck.

The Renaissance Fair

Here is a link to a Google Story of us going to the Renaissance Fair

Emberly learned to climb the stairs all by herself!

Sweet Dreams my loves!

Emberly's first pony!

Zions National Park

Zions National Park

SmOREOS,  yum yum yum

I think the squirl liked the hashbrowns more than we did

Kately taking Emberly for a walk

"Look at the rock mom!"  "Hold still so I can take your picture, Kate!"

Easter Egg Hunter

Easter Eggs are fun!

Family Fun at Grandma Myers'

Singing her new favorite song:  Let it Go! (we're not quite sure how she knows it, since she had never seen the movie before this)

Watching her favorite movies:  The Fishie Movie (Finding Nemo) and the Wizard of Oz

Who said you need to be able to walk to play Ring-Around-the-Rosies?

Emberly and I (in the stroller)  playing follow the leader with Kately, way up there!

Park Time Fun with my Sis

Our friend Reed

Kately's little house under the playset

Will she go down alone? 

She did it!

Kately closes her eyes and says, "Grandma, it's dark!"

Kately and her new diabetes purse to hold all of her equipment

Mom and Kately wearing the cool slippers Grandma Dew made us for Christmas

Kately's first selfie

Heavenly Father Loves Mommy and Daddy

About 2 weeks ago we went to a family party.  One of my nieces told us that she was playing with Kately and they were looking at a picture of Jesus.  My niece asked Kately if she knew who that way.  Kately responded, "Jesus.  Heavenly Father and Jesus love Mommy and Daddy."

At our last Stake Conference (a church meeting with several congregations meeting together)  a lady got up and talked about Family Home Evening.  She said that when her children were toddlers she and her husband would teach lessons from the Nursery manual.  Nursery is the Sunday school class for the 18 mon - 3-year-olds.  I thought this was genius and Chris and I have been using the Nursery manual to teach lessons for Family Home Evening.  The lessons are no longer than 5-7 minutes long, but they obvious must be doing some good.

It is so neat to watch these little souls that the Lord has so lovingly given to my care.  I know that my daughters have testimonies of their own, already.  They may be young, and maybe not able to talk for themselves very well, or at all, but I know that they know Heavenly Father loves them.  I remember when Kately was about a week old and lying on the edge of the bed.  It was 6:30 am and Chris had jsut left for work.  I was about to change Kately's diaper, she was fussing and squirming and fell off the bed.  I was horrified.  I was sure that Kately was going to be hurt in a serious way, or damaged somehow.  I called my parents, waking them up, of course, and asked my father to come over and give Kately a blessing.  They were very kind and came over.  I still remember parts of the blessing that my father gave that newborn baby.  He blessed her to know that Heavenly Father loves her.  He blessed her mother, through her, to have peace and know that all would be okay.  Kately was, of course, just fine.  I have often pondered that blessing in my heart.  A newborn child being told that her Heavenly Father loves her, but not only told that, but blessed to KNOW that love.

My daughters bring such a sweet spirit into our home.  I have found Emberly often staring at a picture of Jesus and smiling.  I'm sure she remembers Him.

I love my little pixies and I know that Heavenly Father and Jesus loves them.  We tell the girls often how much Heavenly Father loves Kately and Emberly and Mommy and Daddy (and everyone else she knows).  We are truly blessed!