8 THINGS...

8 Things I am PASSIONATE About...

1. Family
2. The Gospel
3. Being a good mom (teaching my children manners, respect & being kind to EVERYONE! oh and to be good sports)
4. Friends
5. Serving Others
6. Keeping a journal (blogging)
7. Learning new things, developing new talents
8. Having good frineds and getting together often

8 "words" or "phrases" I say way to often...

1. Shut...UP! totally sarcastically. I know NOT a good word to say...my kids remind me of that.
2. Whatever
3. Crap
4. Tyson/Carson stop that
5. Gracie you are so beautiful
6. No way!
7. Tyler...can you help me
8. Good job

8 Things I want to do before I die...

1. See the Redwood Forest in California
2. Take my kids to Disneyland
3. Take all the kids on a cruise
4. See Celine Dion in concert
5. Make lasting memories that my kids will remember fondly
6. Take the kids on a camping trip to Zion National Park & the Grand Canyon
7. Grow old with Tyler
8. Go to Peru with Tyler & the boys to help people install proper cooking stoves.

8 Things I have learned From my past...

1. Patience...the Lord knows what is in store for us and when
2. We CAN be forgiven
3. Sometimes you need to say your sorry
4. Watch out for poles at McDonald's drive through
5. Tyler will ALWAYS love me...no matter what (his truck isn't as important as I thought it was. LOL!)
6. Your family will ALWAYS be your friend
7. Sometimes your heart does get broken...but it mends over time
8. Tomorrow is always a new day to start things over

8 Places I would love to see...

1. Japan
2. Thailand
3. The Maritimes
4. The Pyramids
5. The Sacred Grove (Mormon Trail)
6. Hawaii
7. Cuba
8. Vancouver Island (I have been there...but when I was younger and would LOVE to go back)

8 Things I Currently Need or Want...

1. New furniture upstairs...leather
2. A remodeled kitchen
3. New carpet upstairs
4. To be totally debt free
5. Happy, healthy children
6. Everyone to feel loved and accepted for who they are
7. No bully's at school ( we haven't encountered any yet...but I'm sure that sometime one of our kids will)
8. My children to always CHOOSE THE RIGHT!

A Few Giveaways...

Through my Internet browsing I have come across a few adorable giveaways that you might be interested in...so I thought I would share them.

Hair Flips: Most Popular Item Giveaway. She also has an Etsy store. Her stuff is SO cute! A girl can't have enough hair accessories can she?

Polkadot Papoose: Baby sling giveaway. Such cute baby slings...love all the fun fabrics.

Simple Finds: Is a great website for all those cool new things that you may not know about.

Have fun entering all the contests...hope you are a winner.

This Past Week...

Life has been busy this week. The boys started skating lessons on Tuesday. I am SO thankful that Carson is enjoying himself. Last year it was fight every week. There were LOTS of tears and a very frustrated mom. Half the time he didn't even skate because I was pregnant and didn't feel like dealing with a 3 year old who was crying all the time. So 1 year later...things are much better!

Tyson continues to enjoy school. I am SO thankful that he is fitting in and loves learning. He gets so excited to do his sight word flash cards each night, and reminded me last night about it. I told him it was the weekend and that we could take a break. He seemed a bit disappointed. He also got chosen to be the school spirit leader for his class. This is RIGHT up his alley. I know he will enjoy being involved in this. He has so much enthusiasm and energy, it will be great to have him use it in a positive way.

Friday night we had a movie night with a pizza picnic. The kids LOVED this! We watched the movie Paulie, it was so cute, I recommend it. The kids and I went to the grocery store and they each got to pick out there own pop & chips. I know...not to healthy, but hey it was the weekend. I couldn't believe how many pieces of pizza they both ate! Tyson ate 3 and Carson ate 4...they are definitely growing boys. It was nice to spend some quality time together.

Yesterday we went to Green Haven for their pumpkin fest. It was SO much fun, I wish we would have had more time to spend there. Tyson had a birthday party in the afternoon so we had to get home for that. This function was a fund raiser for the Make A Wish foundation and all proceeds when to this cause. They had little games for the kids, 2 astro jumps, a petting zoo and a wagon ride. Of course there was pumpkin pie, and lots of pumpkins you could purchase. Here are a few pictures of the kids.

Here is a picture of my little Gracie! I can't believe that she is 3 months old. The time is going by WAY to fast. She is my little princess. We are all enjoying her so much. He truly has blessed our family.

It was a GREAT DAY!

With pumpkins on my mind I decided to try a new recipe. It is called Dinner in a Pumpkin. There is a new family that moved into our ward so I thought this would be a fun meal to bring to them. Here are a few pictures of the meal:

Hollow out your pumpkin removing all seeds.

Meat & Rice mixture. Tasted a lot like that Chinese casserole. It was YUMMY!

Fill the pumpkin with the meat mixture. Replace the lid and bake in the oven for 350 degrees for 1 hour. I put Chinese noodles on the top when I served it. SO good!

Then I decided to make Creamy Caramel Popcorn. So DELISH!

Everyone enjoys a give away don't they...and who couldn't use another adorable bag. Enter the contest at Handbag Planet for a chance to win.

While listening to conference today one of the quotes I enjoyed the most was this:

Find JOY in the JOURNEY...NOW!

President Thomas S. Monson

Our Solution...

So I think I may have come up with a solution to solve the "I want everything...NOW" problem with the kids. I decided to make a reward chart set up with expectations and what they get as a reward. Here is what Carson's chart looks like:

Carson will EARN 1 sticker for:
1. Listening to mom & dad
2. Cleaning up his toys when asked to
3. Playing nicely with Hunter

Carson will LOOSE 1 sticker if he:
1. Whines when asking for something
2. Miss behaves during church
3. Fights with Hunter or his brother

When Carson earns 10 stickers he may choose either to:
Get $5 to buy anything he wishes
Movie Night at our house with video of his choice
A secret toy purchased by mom
A special lunch date at any place he chooses

So far this has been working quite well. Tyson has lost a few stickers and Carson has been threatened that he will loose a sticker a few times. The kids are about 1/2 way to reaching their goal. Tyson can hardly wait to get to 10 stickers so that he can choose the secret toy bought by mom. He is hoping that it is a Bakugan...which it is, but he doesn't know that. So we will see how long it takes the kids to get to 10. Some days I feel like it will take them forever and that they will loose interest. And other days they are both angels and I want to reward them with LOTS of stickers. I have come to the conclusion though that if they reach their reward to quickly they won't learn anything along the way...so slowly but surely they will make it, it just might take a few weeks to get there. In the end the reward will be so worth it. Isn't that how life is though?

On Saturday we went out to the Corn Maze. SO FUN! It was a beautiful day...but windy. Still we couldn't complain because the kids had a great time. Here are a few pictures:

For this picture above I used a GREAT photoshop program called Picasa to edit all the photos. Holy cow...SO easy and I think it does a great job. Thought I would pass along the info.

Here is Tyson with a pumpkin that he picked out of the pumpkin patch. He was needing to find a fall item to take for Show & Share this week and this is what he chose. When we went to pay for it though he decided to pick a smaller one so that it would fit easily in his back pack and wouldn't be so heavy to carry. He was excited this morning to take his special pumpkin to show everyone. It is amazing how a little thing can bring so much joy to a chid.

We have been enjoying this beautiful fall weather! I think we are having a nicer fall than we had summer. This week is supposed to be nice and HOT...YIPEE! Yesterday Carson was a big helper to his Great Grandma. He helped her rake up the leaves in her yard and then put them in the bag. Grandma had to tend to baby Grace and turned he back for just a minute and Carson decided that he wanted to make a snowman out of the leaves and dumped the whole bag out! Grandma had a good laugh over that one. Before we went home though we helped her pick them ALL back up. I am very thankful to my grandma who is always SO willing to watch the kids for me when I need to run errands. Yesterday I was getting my hair cut and totally planned on taking Grace with me, but she insisted on me leaving her, so that was very nice. It is a great blessing to have family so close. I am happy that my boys know their grandparents and are able to visit them often.

Well the house work is calling my name...so make today a GREAT one!

Teaching Kids to Work...

Lately I have been thinking alot about how to instill a good work ethic in my kids, especially Tyson. Tyson turned six this summer and it seems like he is old enough now to learn the importance of work. He is constantly wanting things, they latest toy, or candy and it can become over whelming trying to keep up with all his demands. He has friends at school who have all the "cool" new toys and are getting something different each weekend. Do these kids work to earn the money to buy these items or are their parents just handing them everything on a silver platter?

I have started to pay Tyson for jobs that aren't normally required of him. The other day I told him I would pay him $3 if he went out in the back yard and picked up all the apples on the ground. To me this was an easy way for him to make some $$ and a great way for me to get a job done that I didn't want to have to do myself. Well the little stinker went outside and saw the task ahead of him and came back inside crying to me that it was to hard and that it would take him to long to pick up ALL the apples. I tried to explain to him that if he did it happily that it wouldn't take very long and before he know it he would be done and I would gladly give him the $$ that he earned. That didn't seem to convince him to go out and do the job. Later after he was moping around the house I again tried to explain to him that if we want something we have to work to get it. I told him that if dad didn't go to work we wouldn't have $$ to buy thing things we needed to live. I also told him that he could go out and pick up the apples happily and earn $3 or he would end up picking up the apples when his dad got home and that he wouldn't be paid for it. Do you know what Tyson decided to do...not pick up the apples happily and in the end when Tyler got home from work he had the boys go out and pick up the apples...without being paid for it.

So it was a hard lesson learned for Tyson. I'm just wondering what other families do with kids this age. How do you teach them the value of work and how do you reward them? Do you give your kids an allowance, and if so how much do you give them? I was thinking of giving Tyson $6 per week, because that is how old he is. He would have to practise his piano, do reading everyday, and other various chores around the house in order to get the allowance at the end of the week. Any other suggestions?

I remember as a kid we were taught how to work. From weeding the garden, which I totally disliked, to cleaning the house. We knew that come Saturday there were certain jobs we had to do before we could play with our friends. I know that my husbands family was taught how to work...they worked hard from sun up till sun down. There were always a handful of chores to do on the ranch and it required every one's help to get them all done. I am thankful that Tyler grew up knowing how to work, he is such a hard worker. He very rarely does anything for himself on his down time. He sees something int he yard or garage that need to be done and he just does it. The only time throughout the year when Ty does something fun for himself is at the beginning of Hockey season when he prepares for his hockey pools. I know he has fun doing it and I try not to give him a hard time when he is spending countless hours on the computer figuring out his stats. LOL!

With the way the world is now with an attitude of buy now pay later and getting the gratification of having things NOW rather than saving for items, it scares me that my kids are going to get themselves in trouble financially. If they don't learn the value of money when they are little they are only setting themselves up for a disaster when they are older. It is so difficult to know how much to provide for your kids and how much responsibility to let them have. There is a lot of pressure when you area parent to not spoil your kids, but at the same time I feel that if we can provide them with what they want then why shouldn't we? Anyone have any thoughts on this subject?

Domestic Divas...

Yesterday Tiffany and I decided to attempt to make WonTons. For any of you who love wonton soup like we do you have to try to make your own. They are SO yummy..and really easy, but a little time consuming.

First off here is our meat mixture.

It consists of: Ground Pork, green Onion, garlic (lots of it), soya sauce, salt & pepper. Then of course you need the wrappers which can be purchased a most grocery stores. We bought ours from Superstore...love that place!

Here is a picture of the finished project...140 wontons later and it took us about 1.5 hours. We had a blast!

Then we got the big idea to try and make spring rolls. So after heading into Lethbridge to get a few more groceries from the Asian market...we were all set to try our hand at making these. Basically it is the same ingredients as the wontons except you need to add shredded cabbage & carrots. We just bought a coleslaw mix to save time and that worked fine. Here is the meat mixture for spring rolls:

Another difference between wontons and spring rolls is that you cook the pork first for the rolls where you don't for wontons. Here is the finished project. I think we made about 72 of the spring rolls.

Isn't my sister Tiffany SO cute!

After slaving away in the kitchen ALL day we needed to try out what we made. So we made up a really good batch of Wonton soup, then baked the spring rolls in the oven, and ordered lemon chicken & ginger beef from the local Chinese food restaurant. It was a great meal! I must say the Wontons were SO good...better than the spring rolls. LOL! So we will definitely be making them again...

For Domestic Diva day 2 we decided to attempt to make these:

Cupcake Pops. Tiffany came across this adorable blog awhile back and this girl had made these pops on the Martha Stewart show. I thought they would be so cute to make for Tyson's school class for Halloween. So off to Michaels we go to get what we needed.

I can't take much credit for these...Tiffany did all of the work, and a lot of work they were...but SO worth it! I was too busy making hair bows. Anyway these little treats are a lot of work with many steps but we think we learned a few tricks along the way, so hopefully next time it won't be so time consuming. Here is our final result.

I think they turned out pretty cute, and they taste SO yummy! So while attempting to wrangle 5 kids who were having tantrums, and fighting matches, we managed to pull these off. Not to mention make homemade pizza, and 40 temple shaped sugar cookies at 10:00 at night! It was another busy, fun day in the life of Tiffany and Jodi.

In all seriousness I am SO very thankful that I have my sister so close to me! She is my very best friend, the one who I can totally be myself around. We get along so well...most of the time, and that is so important to me. She is the most loyal person I know, and would do anything for me. If I had no other friends but her...that would be enough for me. Love you Tiff!

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!