Blessings...

Today I am thankful for so many things, but 4 things most importantly.

1. I am so thankful for the power of the priesthood. I am so thankful that I have worthy husband who holds it. what a comfort it is to know that at anytime I can ask Tyler for a blessing, and that he is able to give blessings to our children. I remember fondly the 3 times I went into have each of our children, Tyler gave me a beautiful blessing of peace and comfort. I felt the power of the priesthood each time and knew that the delivery of the baby would go well and that I would endure the pain and get through it fine. And each time the blessings came to pass.

Today we blessed baby Julia Grace Pilling. She looked so pure & heavenly all dressed in white.

She really is a special little spirit. She has brought so much happiness into our lives. It was a wonderful experience to have our family and friends with us for the occasion. It was great to have my grandpa Jensen in the circle. He health isn't very well and it probably won't be too many more years that he is on this earth. It was also great to have Tyler's father and brother in the circle.

2. I am thankful for wonderful grandparents. All of my grandparents have been such wonderful examples to me. They have endured trials and hardships that I wouldn't want to go through. But through their unwavering faith they have overcome all obstacles, and with a positive attitude. They have taught me so much about patience, kindness, and forgiveness. I have been blessed to have grandparents that were living for most of my life. I can remember both sets of great grandparents fondly.

I am also so thankful for my parents. They too have been such a good example to me. They are so supportive of all things that Tyler and I do. They are always willing to lend a helping hand, or take the kids for a night or two. They have taught me many important things: the value of hard work, of patience, of kindness.

3. I am so very thankful for the good husband that I have. He would do anything for me, there is not limit to what he would do to make me happy. He is supportive and loving, and a good listener. He is the hardest worker I know, and quite often has to leave for work in the wee hours of the morning. Sometimes I wonder why he does it...but I think I know the answer to that, he does it for his family. He is the most non-judgmental person I have ever met, and he also has the most patience of anyone I know. I guess to sum Tyler up he is pretty much perfect, at least in my eyes. He is a loving father and loves to spend time with his boys either playing or teaching them to work. He loves his little girl and is the best at putting her to sleep at night. Heavenly Father couldn't have chosen a better partner for me. I love this man...more and more each day!

4. I am very thankful for these 3 beautiful children that our Heavenly Father has blessed Tyler and I with. They have each brought us so much joy! Each one of them has such different personalities.

Tyson is a sensitive, charismatic boy who loves anything to do with reptiles and amphibians. He is very protective of his brother and sister, and is a great friend. Tyson is a momma's boy and seldom doesn't want to do things unless I go with him. He is adventurous and will go on any amusement park ride. He can't wait until he is tall enough to go on the roller coaster at Calaway part, hopefully next yer.

Carson is a mellow boy but seems to becoming out of his shell more each day. He LOVES his older brother Tyson and follows his example...even if Tyson is doing something he shouldn't. He loves cars and trucks and loves to play in the dirt. He is a very happy boy, and smiles a lot. He is also a daddy's boy through and through!

Baby Grace is such a princess. We love her to pieces! She is starting to smile more each day, and lights up when the boys talk to her. She is a good sleeper with I am thankful for. She likes to be bundled up in her moby wrap and go for walks with mom.

Heavenly Fathers blessings have been poured out so abundantly on our family. I am so thankful for the health of my children. They are vibrant kids, with lots of energy and I am thankful for this, even on the days when they are going crazy wild, I wouldn't want them any other way!

I have realized that even in hard tough times there is always something positive that we can thing about, there are always blessings and miracles surrounding us. We just need to remember that...

Life is good!

1st Day of School...

I can't believe that Tyson is in grade 1! It seems like only yesterday he was born,

and here we are 6 years later and he is going to school FULL time. He will now spend more hours at school than at home with me and that makes me SAD! Tyson was so excited when he woke up in the morning, it was like he had ants in his pants. After a filling breakfast (I would hate to have him hungry on the 1st day of school...lol!) it was time to walk to school. Along the way we talked about who his teacher might be and what friends he thought might be in his class with him. After finding out from the office that his teacher would be...Mrs. Kerr, we went to find his classroom. I was SO impress with what the teacher had done! She had the whole classroom decorated with those adorable bright yellow smiley faces, and even Mrs. Kerr was dressed up. She had a cute vest made out of smiley face material & she wore bright yellow crocs. In the class she had happy face helium balloons. You could tell that she is enthusiastic and loves to teach children. This is her first year at Jennie Emery, but she has taught school before. I am kicking myself now that I didn't get a picture taken of Tyson with her all dressed up! I was to concerned about him finding a desk and getting all settled that it completely slipped my mind!

Tyson was happy to see a few familiar faces in his class, but there were alot of kids that he didn't know. This doesn't really concern me as he is an outgoing boy and makes friends easily. I'm sure by the end of the week he will be friends with everyone...at least I hope.

As school has fast approached I have taken sometime to reflect on Tyson and the special boy that he is. He is a sweet, kind, very sensitive boy. He is so protective of his brother and sister, and he is a loyal friend. I see such potential in him and hope and pray that I can be a good mother to him. One of my greatest fears as a mother is that my children won't have good friend. Friends who have good values, friends who are honest and loyal, friends who don't do what is right. I know how important friends are and it is so crucial to have GOOD FRIENDS! So far Tyson has good friends and for this I am happy!

Grade 1 is such an exciting year. It really is a year of 1st's. They learn how to read and write, and so many more fundamental skills to learning. I hope that Tyson catches on quickly and enjoys reading. I have tried to instill a love of reading in him. I have read to both of my boys since they were very small, and I hope that by doing so will help them to have a love of books.

Each day Tyson comes home more excited about grade 1 than he did the day before. (0kay it has only been 2 days...lol!) But I am happy that he is enjoying school!

Now for this happy little kid! He truly is a happy little boy, and he was SO happy today when he got to go to his pre-school open house. Carson was very disappointed when he had to wait until after lunch to go to school. He was wanting to go in the morning with Tyson. He couldn't wait to wear his pack pack (what he calls his backpack.) Finally it was after lunch and time to walk to school. He was so giddy the whole way there.

I know that Carson is going to really enjoy pre-school. I couldn't get him to leave. There are so many fun new toys there, plus a lot of kids that he already knows. I can't believe that my baby boy is old enough to start school. Well he just barley meets the cut off date by 2 days...and I am thankful that he can go. He is SO ready!

Now if this little face doesn't spell MISCHIEF...I don't know what does! Watch out Miss Rita.

Catching Up...

Wow there is SO much to catch up on! We have been gone camping, and then off to Calaway Park, and are now finally getting back into the swing of thing. I don't know where to start...so things might be random.

Here are some pictures of us camping at Wasa Lake. We had so much fun there! The weather was HOT...just the way I like it. This year we rented a boat and took the kids on the tube, they had a BLAST.

I bought this water trampoline a few months ago at Costco thinking that the kids would have a lot of fun with at the lake. They sure enjoyed playing on it. Tyler wasn't so thrilled with having to haul it there and back...and now his dilemma is where to store it. LOL!

Here is Tyson on the morning of his 6th Birthday. I made him a special Egg McMuffin...with a candle in it. I thought it was a pretty great way to start off the day, and so did he!

Here is Carson chillin on the beach. This little boy LOVED to play in the sand. He spent hours just diggin and playing with his trucks.

Next we were off to Surveyor's Lake. This is probably our favorite place to camp. Usually the weather is SO nice and HOT...but this year it wasn't so great. It was rainy and cold for 2 days. So we spent lots of time playing cards and Risk. But it didn't stop the kids from riding their bikes. Good thing mom remembered to pack the gum boots and rain coats. And thank goodness for DVD players.

We couldn't keep Carson off of his bike. I can't count the miles he put on his bike while we were camping. Thank goodness we brought it, it entertained him for hours!

It is always fun to take a walk around Hidden Lake and look for turtles. The weather was nice and sunny so the turtles like to come and get warm on the logs. We were able to see quite a few, but the boys didn't because once we stopped the dog would run in the water and scare the turtles away. Grace enjoyed being wrapped with close to daddy. She had a good nap.

One evening we went to an interpretive program. Carson was SO tuckered out that he fell asleep right on the bench. My kids will fall asleep anywhere if they are tired. LOL!

We did manage to have 2 nice days to spend at the beach, although it was too cold for me to get in the water. It didn't seem to bother the kids though. Overall we had a great holiday and I was surprised at how I was dreading coming home. Usually after about 1 week I am wanting to come home, but not this time. It seemed to go buy way to fast and we were enjoying ourselves so much that I could have spent another week camping. Oh well...I am already looking forward to next year.

After we got home from camping we decided to go to Calaway park as Tyler didn't have to work. The kids LOVE the rides. It is a toss up though with every ride between Tyler and I to see who is going to ride with the kids. We both used to love rides, but as we get older...LOL! we don't seem to do as well on them as we used to. Usually Tyler will ride with them though...and I am thankful.

And finally here are a few of the pictures I had taken of Grace & our family. I love how they turned out!

I just wanted to share these 4 pictures of Grace that we had taken by Rebecca Cooper. I am SO happy with how they turned out & I can't wait until the rest of the pictures of been edited and I have the CD in my hands. LOL!

Kalispell Adventure...

This past weekend we went to Kalispell, MT with the "gang." Tiffany & Trevor, Ryan & Heather, Dez & Nicole, and my mom. It was a BLAST. We all camped at the Glacier Campground. This is a great little campground with all the comforts of home. There is power and water hookups for those who have a trailer, and they also have a great shower house as well as laundry facilities.

We arrived there first, on Thursday evening. Friday we decided to take the boys up to Big Mountain to rid the gondola up to the top. It wasn't NOT a nice day at the top. The wind was blowing and it was chilly, but it was a fun ride up and back.

After that Tyson was dying to go and do the MAZE. The kids had so much fun trying to figure out which way to go. I wasn't quite sure how Carson would take to it, but he LOVED it. At first I wasn't all that thrilled about doing it. I thought that the kids wouldn't last and I was tired, but actually we ended up doing it in under an hour. I was impressed!

On Saturday we headed to Big Sky Waterslide (minus Tiffany, Trevor and my mom). It was a PERFECT day. The weather was great and there weren't too many people there, so you didn't have to wait long in the lines. The kids had SO much fun. They probably went down the slides 30 times...easily. We couldn't seem to tire them out. We arrived at the park at 11:00 a.m. and didn't leave until 6:30. So they had a long day and were tuckered when we got back to camp.

Another fun thing to do at the waterslide is to go on the bumper cars. Carson was SO excited to go on these...he is obsessed with cars and going fast! Unfortunately he didn't meet the height requirement...or so we thought. Carson was bound and determined to ride the cars, so after waiting his turn he just hoped into one. We thought for sure the attendant would tell him he was too little...but he didn't! What do you expect when it is a 16 year old working. LOL! Carson was so excited. I was elated that he was able to go on the cars. It seems he is always missing out on doing things because of his size. I was so happy that he didn't have to miss out on this. He has a perma-grin the whole time he was driving it around. He loved it SO much...we let him go on twice.

Sunday we spent relaxing around camp. We took a short little drive into West Glacier and let the kids throw some rocks into the river. It was a really nice HOT day and it was WAY to temping for Tyson to get into the water. At first he slipped a bit and got only his pants wet, but by the time we left his was TOTALLY wet. The power of temptation...it is so strong. This little incident although very innocent really made me think about life and how the adversary using his cunning little ways to make us succumb to temptation. At first it is so little of a temptation that we hardly even notice it. Then we slip and fall and before we know it you are trapped by his evil ways. This was a life lesson I hope to be able to share with Tyson when he is old enough to understand it.

Monday everyone went in to Kalispell to shop. It was fun to go to the stores that we don't have here in Canada. One of my goals was to get Tyson all of his school supplies. Some things were SO much cheaper than here at home. How can Walmart up here compete with $.22 Crayola wax crayons. They were a STEAL of a deal. I managed to accomplish this task about 50%. I had NO idea what some of the items were and I couldn't believe how specific the list was. The school wants specific colors for scribbles and different ones for duo tangs. I mean come on...this is grade 1! So I decided to just get what I could easily find and understand and get the rest at home. Even though the things I purchased were relatively inexpensive I couldn't believe how fast it added up. Of course it would though when you have to buy 10 JUMBO glue sticks, and 5 black erase markers!

After shopping everyone headed back to Canada, except for us. We decided to stay another night. Tyler wanted to take the kids to the drive in movie theater to see Space Chimps. So we packed up the lawn chairs and some blankets and loaded back into the truck. The kids had alot of fun at the movie and I was surprised they managed to stay awake...mom didn't though. LOL!

Well that about sums up our weekend. We all had a BLAST and hope to do it again next year.

And one more thing...Baby Grace is 1 month old now. I can hardly believe it. Time is going by so fast. She is changing more and more everyday. I am so in love with this baby, and so is the rest of the family.