Optimistic

Good things have been happening here, and I just have to write them down so I can look back on a day when maybe things arn't going so great.

Alex asked me to take this picture of her- with her briefcase, on the exercise bike.

I filed our taxes in January this year! It was a huge relief just to get them done, but when I found out the HUGE amount of money we would be getting back, I about died!  I seriously called 3 people to ask what they knew about taxes and if this could be true or not.  Lets just say that having a child, Tyler in school not making much money and the earned income credit- was a recipe for happiness.

 I've been playing with the idea of preschool and pricing them out, and WOW, they really add up!  I wasn't sure if we would be able to afford sending Alex at all, but with this return we will not only be able to pay for preschool, but also send out P.A. school applications, and send Tyler to interview at any schools that may want him.  Depending on how much that costs we may even be able to afford a modest little vacation to Southern Utah, or a neighboring state! I've been dying for a real family vacation!

I had decided that if we got over $300 back then I would ask Tyler if I could splurge and spend $200 on new clothes.  I don't think I've seriously bought nice, non-clearence new clothes since before Tyler and I got married. Sad huh.  But lets be honest, I never really cared much for fashion or keeping up with trends so it wasn't super hard.  Well, we got a lot more than $300 back, so I got myself a fancy new pair of knee high boots, some new pants and 2 new shirts and I'm feeling like a million bucks!  It's amazing what some new clothes will do for a girl!  Now I'm on the hunt for a nice dress and a good pair of shoes and I will be set for another 5 years.

Another giant eyes no smile picture of Heidi. These are my specialty.

Tyler has been doing a great job teaching his Anatomy lab, and got to know the guy who teaches the section before him.  Apparently he changed his mind about wanting to teach this year and offered the section to Tyler.  So now Tyler will be going up to SLCC and teaching an 2 classes and only have to do the prep work once.  It's a great blessing in our lives because it offsets the cost of gas, we can sure use the funds, and it's twice the money for about the same amount of work.  I'm so proud of my "professor" husband!

I love teaching Joy School, but my turn is finally over and it's at someone else's house for the next month! I suddenly feel like I have all sorts of time now.  And it couldn't have come on a better week.  This year Tyler and I decided that instead of stressing over what to buy for people for their birthday, we would instead throw them a party!
Monday was Susan's party and I think it went fairly well.  Awhile ago I quizzed the January and February birthdays on the things they like and what kind of a party they would like.  I was surprised at the answers and the diversity!  Susan wanted to keep things simple (something I'm not so good at), so with Kate and Kara's invaluable help we made a fantastic dinner with fancy goblets and a kids table (so the adults could enjoy their meal).  After dinner, brownies and gifts we went to the reorganized for that occasion basement, and watched a few home videos.  I was able to get a video clip of everyone in the family saying their favorite thing about Grandma, and the video turned out great!  We had carmel popcorn while we watched and then threw in a few super old videos of family vacations when Tyler was a kid and even some of Susan as a baby and Grandma Jake when she was young!  I think it turned out pretty good.

Friday we celebrated Kate's Birthday and started things out with a 1 K!  Kate loves running so I scavenged a bunch of old matching youth conference t-shirts and repainted them to say (I heart K. 1K) and then everyone had to run around the block before dinner.  It was pretty fun and funny.  We had a great dinner of Salmon and roasted veggies, then Apple cheese crisp for desert (the cheese part is slowly growing on me).  After dinner we did a round of minute to win it games and by the end of the party I think everyone was finally partied out!

Pre sledding group.  The older I get the more my life is like "A Christmas Story". The kids had to sit outside because they were dying of heat in the house. Heidi kept falling over and couldn't get up.

Saturday was the Kara's party and probably the funnest of them all because it was sledding!  We drove up Tibble Fork to the fantastic sledding hill there and spent a couple of hours wearing ourselves and the kids out on our own private hill.  Heidi LOVED it, and it was so funny looking at her snow covered face while she giggled and asked for more.  Alex took a few minutes to warm up to it, but by the end she was hauling her own sled up the hill and yelling at everyone NOT to catch her.  Archie was a dive bomber, I know he ran into me at least twice, and I'm surprised Ben and Devin made it out alive.  We ended the activity with fancy hot chocolate and doughnuts while the kids played in an awesome igloo someone had made.  It made everyone remember why we have been wanting snow all winter.

Favorite place in the house.

Saturday ended with me and the kids driving around looking for something fun to do.  We ended up as Maceys for 50 cents worth of soft serve goodness and my heart just melted watching those two eat their  icecream (Alex ate the chocolate half of her swirl cone first, and Heidi insisted on eating her's with a spoon).  It was one of those great Mom days where everything went right and the kids were behaved.

Susan got a Wii for her birthday and so we've been doing Zumba.  I've set a goal to get up early every morning and workout and then read scriptures to the kids while they eat a healthy breakfast.  I'm going on almost 2 weeks in a row and feeling great!  It's amazing what that does to start out my day and I hope I can keep this a life long habit.

We have church at 9am this year.  It's wonderful.  I have entire hours in the afternoon where I can relax guilt free and read or nap or just talk on the phone while Heidi sleeps and Alex magically entertains herself.  I love it.  It's my favorite day of the week.

I rearranged a few rooms in the house this week.  It's interesting how switching things up every now and then can refresh everything.  The kids are suddenly re-interested in playing with their toys, and things seem somehow cleaner.

I guess all in all I finally feel like we are almost in reach of our goals.  For so long it seems like life has been a few more semesters of school, just a handful of classes, one more year of this or that and THEN we will be there.  I know we still have a long road ahead, and who really knows what the future will bring but at least with Tyler's graduation in sight I feel something will happen in the next year.

Tyler caught us ending the day with a few scripture stories clips from LDS.org.

So those are the happy thoughts.  It's so fun to be around family, and my kids and I have hit a good spell- hopefully with a little work it will last awhile!