Productive Days

What I have learned this week: I feel SO much better about my life and myself when I am being productive.
The week before New Years, some friends and I were talking at the park about resolutions. Everybody seemed to have different resolutions and one lady even said she didn't make resolutions because she doesn't keep them. This may be something that has been true in the past for me. I often don't look at my goals even the day after writing them. But not this year.
This month has been a success so far. I've studied my scriptures more, kept up with our Tot School, and today I did a temple session all by myself for the very first time. School has been so much fun for the kids. They love learning new things and having my full attention to help them with practie the things I am teaching them. Spidey is working on the color green this week......while Petey is working on the letters E, P, and the number 4. These papers are from the first day of the week. She has been a sponge for learning how to write her letters and I am impressed with how well she is doing.
I've also been trying to be a better mother, just in my day to day life. My kids are going to be little for only so long and I want to remember and enjoy these moments with them. Last week, we had some friends over for the whole day and it was so fun for me to be a mom of 4 for the day. Petey enjoys have a "baby sister" in the house whenever L comes over. I had to take pictures of my full car when we drove to the park. I love having my van and being able to fit so many littles in my car. Again, Miss Petey loves L. She was such a good little mommy and helped with anything I needed. And on a side note, these swaddler blankets are awesome and I am totally getting some before we have next baby. :)
It makes me happy to see my kids happy and to see them showing love toward others. Often times, I feel like I've done a pretty crappy job so far as their mother so it's nice when I catch them doing something and I know it's because of the way they are being raised.
I really lucked out. I have two of the best children in the entire world (though I'm sure every mother feels that way).
I know that I am striving to be a better mother and in doing so, I know I will get better at it a little bit at a time.

And that's how Suze sees it.

Ruffled Jeans ,Hard Days, and FHE

Wel, today was quite a day.
More on that later but first, I'm here to show off my latest craft project.

I have this cute pair of capri-length jeggins for Petey that I wanted to try some ruffles on. I've seen the idea ALL over Pinterest and wanted to give it a try! And boy, do I love it! I think they turned out adorable and added just the right amount of girly fabulousness to my Petey girl's pants.
So now would you like to hear about my hard, hard, very hard day?
Well, this morning my kids woke up at 6:30. Bleh! But anyway, we got up and I realized we had almost nothing in our kitchen. No milk, no eggs, no bread. So as soon as 8am rolled around, we headed to Trader Joe's to go grocery shopping.
An hour later and a cart full of food, we were checking out when I realized I didn't have my correct debit card to PAY for said food so after a quick call to my husband, I put my groceries on hold and left the store.
My husband insisted he didn't have the card so I headed to my parents, where we'd been staying these past 2 weeks, to see if it was lost somewhere over there.
I came up with nothing so we headed home, still with an empty kitchen. For lunch, the kids and I ate a total of 8 granola bars (I won't tell you how that was divied up), dried blueberries, and tap water. I was feeling extremely stressed out and was a crappy mother most of the morning.
I finally decided we needed to leave the house so we could all be less grumpy (especially me). So we headed to the park for some fun! And it did the magic trick. We were all giggling and playing and had a great time.
And mostly because everyone could use a laugh on a Monday, here is a video from our park trip. Pay close attention to the first 5 seconds of the video. Poor Spidey...
I love that my kids fit in our single stroller together. And no, Petey isn't choking her brother. :) We went on a nice, long walk after playing at the park and it really helped my mood.

Of course Boss got home at 3pm and at approximately 3:03pm, he found my card! It was on the floor in my car. I'm so thankful that he found it and as soon as he did, Petey and I headed back to Trader Joe's to pick up the groceries that they still had on hold for me. Phew! I am so glad everything worked out today.

Tonight, Boss had to go to the library to get a bunch of homework done so the kids and I had Family Home Evening by ourselves.

We watched our Living Scriptures video of the Nativity 3 times (Seriously, 3 times) and then had a blast playing Dont Break the Ice and Duck, Duck, Goose.

I am so thankful for my children and my husband. We all play a role here to make this family work and stick together and it is important that we keep our end of the bargain and make this life as much fun as possible (At least that's how I look at it.). :)

And that's how Suze sees it.

Happy Friday

What better way to celebrate a Friday night than with some hilarious family pictures. Introducing...Mr Junk in his Trunk. If he would've stood still, his behind would've been even bigger but between me and the iPad and our moving target, this is what we got. :)Dear Husband,
At the expense of someone else's laughter, I have chosen to put these pictures up on the blog. But you don't care, right? :)Alien Andrea. Does this not remind anyone of the movie Megamind? She was like super-dee-duperly pregnant in this picture. :) It's not just the head. Don't we look alike?Block head!Hmm, Andrea, I think there's something on your right cheek. Possibly a vortex?


As you can see, my mom's iPad has provided hours of fun for us. Thanks, Mom!

And that's how Suze celebrates her Friday night.

Proud Mommy Moment: My Special Spidey

Who knew carousels were this fun?Doesn't it just make you want to squeeze him? He is such a happy little boy!
Today, I am proud of my little buddy. The feeling is mostly general since I'm proud of both of my kids a thousand times a day. But I'd like to talk about how proud I am that I have a son.
As our first son and the first grandson on his dad's side, my special boy will have a lot of special opportunities in his life. I remember finding out that he was a boy and being kind of sad (which will NEVER happen again) because I wanted Petey to have a sister close in age to her. Plus, I was afraid of having a boy.
You see, I have about a million sisters (well, really just 4 of them) and didn't know much about raising a boy so I was kind of scared.
And boy, he is! My boy is beyond boy. Really! He likes trucks, balls, and dirt! And more than anything, his favorite thing is to wrestle.
And instead of run and hide or make him stop being so crazy, I have been trying to embrace his boyishness. :) Because remember, he is a boy.
I am proud of my son. Proud of his two year old self and proud of who he will become in this life. He is such a great blessing in my life.

And that's how Suze sees it.

Why I Love 'Duck, Duck, Goose"

I was reading one of my favorite mom blogs this morning back in her archives about motherhood and parenting and although I absolutely love her blog, I kept thinking, "I'll have to come back to this when my kids are older like hers. I can't use any of this right now with my two young children."
But as I was clicking through some of her old posts, I realized that there are many things in this post that I can use in my day to day life with my children.
So I walked up to Petey in the midst of all the chaos ("The Chaos"= a 2 yr old, 3 yr old, and 4 yr old running through the house like wild geese, screaming and giggling as loud as possible.) and pulled her aside to talk to her.
I asked her what some of her favorite things to do are and she told me she loves Duck, Duck, Goose, Hide and Seek, and swinging on the swings outside.
So I turned off Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, gathered the two other children and told them we were going to play Duck, Duck, Goose. And we did.
And as we played and giggled (and screamed a little), I couldn't help but smile at the fun this simple game was. There are no losers in Duck, Duck, Goose. If you are the goose, you get to run and if you are already "it" and get tagged by the goose, you get to go again! Everybody wins in Duck, Duck, Goose. So today, I realized how simple it is to be 2 or 3 years old. There is so much fun to be had during these young years and I can already incorporate some of the things I'd like to do with them as they get older, like short little interviews to help my children know how special they are.
It is realizations like these that help me to know why I stay home and why we choose to live with financial difficulties for a few more years. Because money is not as important as being there for my children.

And that's how Suze sees it.

ABC's and Happy Birthdays

This week is going to be tiring. Getting up at 5:30am to get my little sister up for school sounds tiring and I didn't even have to do it today. But tomorrow, it begins.
So in celebration of my fantastical week to come, here is my son singing his ABC's, which sound entirely unclear and hard to understand. And no, that isn't the sound...he just really doesn't pronounce his ABC's! For being such a great pronouncer/talker, this surprises me---but I digress, it is kind of hard to understand where he is in the song. :)
Nevertheless, it is still amazingly adorable.

And in this next video, he is singing happy birthday. This is in celebration of his new cousin, who is to be born sometime soon.

More fun videos to come. I have been on a video kick and have been taking many of the kids lately. But really, it's easy to take pictures of the two cutest little people in the entire world!

And that's how Suze sees it.

A Sun Devil Night

We had another fun ASU game last night and I took tons of pictures.
It was a kids club night and lucky kiddos, they got to high five the players as they ran onto the court.

George and Petey waiting to go line up. The best picture I got of the 3 grandkids in ASU kids club. Seriously washed out face but still a beautiful little princess. George is so sweet to Petey. Prom pose! haha. He actually had both arms around her on her waist and we told him to move his hands because it looked really weird. :)Sparky came and high fived the kids before they went onto the court.There they are!

My girly was quite popular at the game. This is a picture of her up on the jump tron while before the players came out onto the court. They kept the camera on her for a long time.

She ended up making it onto the jumbo tron two more times that night. This was the first time she really recognized that she was up there and she kept making funny faces for them. :)I got one good picture of the both of us (the boys stayed home this game).

And then a couple silly pictures. Ha!Isn't she adorable?Towards the end of the game, Petey got to dance with the cheerleader and shake her pom poms. She really had a lucky night and we had such a fun time.

Go Devils!

And that's how Suze sees it.

Mothers Who Know Are Nurturers

"Hey, Bubba, watcha doin'?""Oh, you know, just walking my big sister around on a leash."

I love my children. I love their creativity, their spunk, and the funny things they do while playing together.

My favorite cd right now is Hilary Weeks newest cd and the song I was stuck on today was "Stand Still", which talks about how children grow up too fast. The chorus goes:

"If I could, I would ask time to stand still

so I could hold you a little longer.

I'd make the minutes stop

so we would always have today.

I wont let the sun go down

until you know how I feel.

I love you so much.

I wish time would stand still."

To hear a tidbit of this song, go here. http://hilaryweeks.com/blog/3

This song helped me realize something very important in my quest to become a Mother Who Knows.

I've struggled these past couple of months with posting the last segment of my Mothers Who Know posts because I often feel like a failure when it comes to homemaking skills. Everybody else just seems to have it together, have clean houses, cook meals every night, and nurture their children every second of every day. I know this isn't true but we usually see the best in others and the worst in ourselves.

I've learned throughout this whole experience that being a Mother Who Knows is not about being a perfect mother and homemaker. It is about trying my best with the situation that I have. Some days I do really well and other days, I don't succeed at all.

But I am a Mother Who Knows. I am not a perfect one but one who strives to live better each day. The point is that we try. We make goals and we try to keep those goals. And then we fix another area in our lives that we'd like to work on. It's a process.

Little by little, each day we become more the person we want to be. Change does not happen in an hour or usually even a day.

The biggest thing I've learned throughout this whole process is that we, as mothers, don't give ourselves enough credit. So cut yourself a little slack and I'll try to do the same.

And that's how Suze becomes a Mother Who Knows.

Repurposed: Jeans to Skirt

Remember this post from almost 6 months ago? I had attempted to repurpose a pair of Petey's jeans into a skirt and it turned out really adorable.
Well, I never showed you the picture but I made my cute little niece a skirt with different fabric but the same tutorial.

That was back in October for her birthday and I think it turned out even more adorable than the first skirt.

Well, today I was sitting here sorting through my bucket of fabric after realizing Petey's other pair of jeggings was ripped (a pink pair this time) when I saw my zebra and pink polka dot fabric. Then the excitement started...and thirty minutes later, my girly had another new skirt! This pose is killing me! We watched America's Next Top Model last week while at my parents house and today, she whipped out this pose. Scary! I don't think I'll be letting her watch that show with me ever again! Ever!

The only thing I did differently with this skirt was cut squares of my two fabrics and sew them together. The bottom ruffle is just a plain black. I love how it turned out! And here's the back. We're going to have to find some of her black leggings so she can wear it for the rest of winter time but after that, it'll be the perfect summer skirt!

And that's how Suze sews it.

Monday Brag Time

Today is Brag Day. I haven't officially branded this yet but it is a work in progress. :)
Anyway, I really have the most awesome family in the entire world. If you've never met my son in person, youre missing out. This kid is hilarious. He is always thinking of ways to make us laugh. And he always gets himself into the weirdest situations, including having one arm out if his shirt. Lately, he has beencoming up with new words/phrases like crazy. He is adding small words into his sentences like "the, a, to, at". He loves to say, "Look at me, Mom." and "I dont wanna do that." And then there's this guy. Even though he just passed gas while sitting right next to me (true story), he is an awesome dad to our little chicklets. He is often found playing with them, helping them, or sleeping next to them. He even let Petey put a headband on him the other day and take a picture. Ok, fine, so she did that while he was sleeping and I helped by taking the picture. :) He is so busy with school and we don't see him as often anymore and I love that he doesn't take us for granted. We are so lucky to have him!And then there's our smarty pants 3 year old. She has been working so hard on writing her letters and practices daily. It isn't uncommon to find her scribbling on some paper and holding it up to show me her perfect letter A...Or a page full of N's. She can write the letters A, C, H, I, L, N, O, T, U, V, and Y all by herself with no help. This week in tot school, we started working on the letter N and she's already writing it perfectly by herself.

I'm just so proud! Can you tell? It seems everyone in our family is doing something fantastic in their lives right now and it's hard to complain about money issues or having no baby right now when we have SO much to be thankful for throughout each day.

I hope your week is starting out as wonderful as ours is.

And that's how Suze brags about the people she loves.

The 2nd Child Growing Up

What have we been up to the past couple of days?
Oh, you know, just potty training my son.
I'm only being slightly sarcastic.
You see, Spidey has been asking to use the potty many times in the past months and it has become more and more frequent. Also, a week or two ago, our little man went #2 on the potty all by himself!
I posted on Facebook, asking my fellow mom friends what they would do if there 27 month old was acting interested and I also mentioned that Petey started potty training at 26 months and it took 15 months to fully potty train her (As in, it just sunk in 6 weeks ago...)! That being said, I've dreaded the day that my son would want to potty train because after that first experience, I never wanted to potty train a kid again!
But all of my friends said to try it and see what happens. So I did...

Little Man was beyond excited to be wearing underwear like this big sis.And luckily, it wasn't too cold for him to play outside with no pants on (because I was not about to clean up a bunch of messes inside).

One accident happened...he sat on the potty...nothing...tons of juice was consumed...he sat on the potty...nothing...two accidents now happened...and I put him back in a diaper.

He screamed when the diaper went on and begged to sit back on the potty but I (mean mommy) was done and wasn't ready anyway so on that diaper went!

Tweny minutes went by and we were in the middle of playing a game when my boy grabs his diaper and says this: "Huh! Oh no! *insert mischevious grin here* I go peepee in my diaper. I did it! Yay!"

What?! Petey never told me when she went potty in her diaper. Ever. She still wouldn't. So yes, I know my boy is ready. The problem is mommy isn't ready. So we will wait until he becomes more adamant about potty training and then we'll push forward.

All of this makes me realize how fast my baby boy is growing up. Can't he just stop it for a little while?

Am I really that close to potty training child #2? We were just doing this last year! I guess that's what happens when you have babies a little over a year apart. :)

And that's how Suze sees it.

PS: The ONLY thing that tempts me to potty train my little boy right now is the cost of diapers. Seriously...they're so expensive! And I buy the cheap ones! :)