For anyone interested I have a new blog, which is a medical blog. If you were interested in the immunization blog post from a few years back then I hope you'll enjoy this! I'd love to hear your comments and for you to fill out the survey. Thanks!

http://oneappleaday.weebly.com/blog

Remembering the Small and Simple Things

This week has been HARD!  I am not gonna lie!  Kyle has been home sick all week and i have had to do everything all on my own.  ALL  WEEK LONG!  My poor love has had a really bad sinus cold and he just cant function.  Poor guy.   So, this week has been crazy.  I have felt very stressed out, very impatient, overwhelmed and I have cried a couple of times.  But now as I sit here and think back to my week and what happened, I cant help but smile.  I smile because i think of the wonderful little things that have happened, and as I add up all my wonderful little moments, I realize that my hard week hasn't really been that hard.  A scripture comes to my mind:

Alma 37:6
by small and simple things are great things brought to pass.

Today I am grateful for all the small and simple things that have happened this week.

1.  The trees are beginning to bloom and it is just beautiful here in Nanaimo.  I am glad I live in this beautiful world, Heavenly Father created for me.

2.  I was able to go to my favourite place on earth... Westwood lake!  And I was able to go twice!  I am grateful for this beautiful weather and this beautiful walk and I was able to go with my beautiful and wonderful friends.   The kids did sooo well.  They were all happy the whole time!  Yay!!!  That doesnt happen very often, but this week it did!  I am grateful that Kate has these 2 little friends.  They all get alog so well!

3.  This is the very first time that I have ever seen Madelynne jump rope with friends.  It was so fun and wonderful to watch.  When I was little I use to love skipping and it is so fun to see that my baby loves doing it too!  She was so good at it aswell!  Oh Mady, I am so proud of you!  You are amazing.  I love watching you learn and grow and try new things.  You amaze me everyday at how kind, loving and talented you are!  You are growing up way too fast!  Please be my baby forever!

4.  This week Kate got invited to her 2nd birthday party ever!  She was so excited to go!  And what made it even more special was that it was a party for Mady's close friend Zoe Zollinger, who we all love soooo much, who turned 8.  She insisted that Kate came to.  She said she loves Kate and thinks she is so sweet and kind.  This sweet gesture made Kate and her mommy feel very loved!  Look at this girl, isnt she beautiful!!!!

5.  We had a lot of fun playing at the park.  Noah is such a good big brother!

6.  Recently we watch a cute little episode from Sofia the first and it had the most darling song on it.  This week Kate has been singing this song to me non stop.  It is soooo adorable!  I can't get enough of it!  It is called Two by two from Sofia the First!

7. I love my famiy.  They bring so much joy into my life.  I am grateful that Heavenly Father has blessed me with these precious children and a loving husband.  

Life can be so hard at times and this week definitely was a struggle but then as I sit back and look at these pictures and remember this week, I can recall the small and simple things.  And you know what, the small and simple things is what made this week great and wonderful! 

Today I am remembering the small and simple, because by small and simple things great things come to pass... and this week was a pretty great week!

love always,  

mommy

A Tender Mercy

Today I am writing as though this is my journal.  I think that is what I have a desire to start doing.  I want to start a private blog for myself, and when the time comes for my posterity.  I was talking to one of my most favourite persons in the whole wide world.  Someone who i love and admire and look up to with the upmost respect, my grandmother, Shirley Mae Johnston.  Oh I love her dearly.  She was telling me that she is going back to her handwriiten journals and putting them into her computer.  And after our conversation about journal writing, I have had a desire to start writing in my journal.  I want to write about my faith about my happy times and my sad times.  I want to write about the loves of my life, my family, who I love more then anything in this world and would do anything for.  I want to write about my experiences and the joy and happiness and peace I feel everyday.  I want to remember the little things that are happening in my life right now, the precious moments I am getting with my children.  I want to remember all the good and I want an outlet for all the hard times I go through.  I love my life and I am so grateful for everything I have been blessed with.  I am so grateful for all my blessing.
 Today I want to tell you of my tender mercy.
1.  My love, Kyle

Today I am very grateful for this man.  I have been having a hard time being patient lately... like i have no patience... not even joking, none at all, and this wonderful man recognized that I was at the end of my rope and while i was doing dishes and crying, he came and lovingly stopped what i was doing, brought me to my bedroom, put me in bed, gave me my phone, and computer and just hugged me and told me he loved me and to rest for the rest of the night.  It was 5:45 and he put me to bed.  It was a tender mercy and something that I needed so much.  I am grateful to kyle for recognizing that I was weak and that I needed him to help me and strengthen me.  I am so grateful that last night he was compassionate and loving and helped me through my hard night.  Thank you Kyle for being my angel today.

Noah's Angry Bird 4th Birthday Party

So Pam and I have been wanting to post pictures of the idea we came up with for Noah's fourth birthday. We asked Noah what kind of cake he wanted and he was adamant that he wanted an Angry Bird Cake. We also thought it would be fun to have a scavenger hunt and so we brain stormed for ideas of what we could do. Here is what we came up with. When Noah and the other kids woke up in the morning all of Noah's presents were wrapped and laid out in the family room. After a little bit of fondling we had some breakfast and got read to go to the spray park. Once the kids were all in the van ready to go. I ran back inside and took away all of Noah's presents and replaced them with a note that Pam had prepared:

I'll explain the note and other preparations we made before we left for the spray park but first here are some pictures of a great morning we had at the departure bay spray park

Mady

Katie

The birthday boy

Gaby and Olivia sound asleep at the park

So after spending the morning at the park Noah was excited to go home and open up his presents. He ran in the house and found the above note. This was the start of the scavenger hunt, which lead to cup towers (picture below on the left). These had been placed in and around the house (out of the wind!!) with more clue behind them. So before we started the scavenger hunt we told Noah to come to our bedroom, where we had planted three present eggs (Pictured below on the right). We put these out while the kids were out in the vehicle (don't worry an adult was in the vehicle with them!).

The note with the egg presents

These eggs contained three (as we had three kids participating) plush angry bird toys, which we had gotten Noah for his birthday (we were just going to use random balls but got these on sale). We sat the kids in a circle to open the egg presents one at a time. We turned on fun kids music. Each time the music stopped the child had to pass the egg to the right.  

If you look at the above picture of the cup tower you'll notice that we tapped pictures of pigs to some of the cups in the tower. We got these pictures of angry bird characters from a dollar store colouring book. We coloured and cut out the characters. I guess we could have used stickers as well.

Back to the scavenger hunt! So behind each tower was another note with another clue, which they could only access after knocking the tower down with their plush toys. This lead us around the property until we got to the last cup tower in the basement that was extra large and had the presents behind it. They knocked this down and then Noah opened his reclaimed presents.

Finding another clue in Mady's room

Noah really wanted the cake to be an angry bird cake, but then at the last minute a day before the party after everything was in place he wanted an orca cake. Pam made this delicious cake that was a big hit!

All in all it was a really fun day. It took a few hours of prep and the cups, wrapping paper and almost everything else we were able to get at the dollar store. Noah still talks about how fun it was... I think Pam and I had more fun planning everything though!