It's the little things...

As I give myself yet another pity party on why life is so hard, I say it in my head, or write it in my journal or cry it out loud to my husband, even a part of me doesn't believe it. Yes, we all have trials, but it's how we react to these trials that decides what kind of a person we are. Do we wallow in self doubt and never try anything in fear of rejection? Do we wait around for someone else to decide our destiny? Or take the reigns of our own life? This is what my 101 goals in 1,001 days is all about. I want to rise above the nay-sayers and accomplish all those little things I've always wanted to do, but haven't yet because I was too busy or tired or lazy or scared. It's the little things that make up our life. No one is going to sit on their death bed wishing they had spent more time at work. They're going to remember the little things like;

Playing with costumes before Halloween, trying to find the perfect one. What do you thing?...

Biker Dude?

The Ring ?- Scaryor Little Joe Dirt?
Life's a garden, dig it.
Getting the 'Car Cart' at Safeway

A son that will eat a veggie assortment for dinner when I don't feel like cooking.
A baby girl who is learning to play by herself, slowly but surely she's gaining her independence.
Raspberries
When they stand for the first time on their own. Strengthening those legs for the freedom that comes with walking.
And Just being Us.

MilaBelle the Magnificent

And now, introducing MilaBelle the Magnificent.

Just an empty box, right? Or Is It?

A little tap, tap, tap and the magic words "AbracaBaby"
And a boy appears as if from nowhere.
Tah, Dah!!!

Hendrix was actually in the box in that second photo. Oh, the joy of a box when you're 3.

FINALLY!!!

Finally it's nice enough outside to actually go outside. At least today the kids and I were able to take a walk after 8am. We've been going a little stir crazy around here. Here's what we've been doing to entertain ourselves... MilaBelle perched under Hendrix's chair to catch anything that falls.I caught Hendrix setting up all these bottles in the bathroom, when I asked him what he was doing, he started naming the bottles. According to Hendrix from Right to Left We have:

Grandpa, Grandma, Uncle Jared, Aunt Tamara, Oma (my mom), Daddy, Mommy, Hendrix, MilaBelle (the little travel pack contact solution, how cute) The Large Hair spray is "the Jones Boys" Daddy, followed by their Mommy and then Ben, Jeff and Luke.

I guess these are the truly important people in Hendrix's life and I need to buy him some more action figures to play with so he won't have to play with hosiptal shampoo bottles.

A beautiful town with our new expanded train set, complete with airport, post office and police station. Awww, disaster has dinosaurs attacked our quant little village. Poor pilot lady.
Our friend Brent said it best in his talk yesterday when he said Arizona has four seasons:

(1) Tolerable (2) Hot (3) Really Hot and (4) Are you kididng me?

Enjoy the nice weather while you can, I know we will.

Free Rice

I saw this on my friends, Summer's blog and loved this. It's called Free Rice, and its advertising sponsors will donate twenty grains of rice per every English vocabulary, English grammar, foreign (French, German, Italian, or Spanish) language, geography, math, chemistry, or art history question you can answer correctly (you get to choose which subject you'd like to be quizzed on). The site was designed to raise humanitarian awareness while promoting education. Not only do you get to answer fairly easy questions, well at least the grammer ones, you get to see your little rice bowl fill up as you help combat hungry. Hendrix loved helping me with this and seeing our rice piles get higher and higher. You can visit this site as many times as you'd like. Happy Helping everyone.

Hendrix is 3!!!

Hendrix turned 3 last Monday, August 18th, but his birthday is officially over today, because we spent his birthday money from Grandma on a new tractor set. Hendrix had a great birthday though. He and I spent the entire day together, and every couple of hours, I let him open a new gift. I really wanted to spoil him, and I figure he's still too young to remember he was spoiled. I was so elated that HE was finally excited for his birthday this year!

The "Jones Boys'" mommy made an awesome train cake, which he loved and he had some of his dude friends over for swimming.

The Jones Boys gave Hendrix a way cool shirt with Lighting McQueen and Mater that talks. Thanks!

And Gideon got Hendrix some water guns for the pool. I think Mike and I are just as happy to be able to have water fights too.

Hendirx shares his birthday with his Uncle Tyler. Here's the handsome birthday boys.

MilaBelle wanted to throw confetii, but only had her veggie treats to celebrate with. Thanks little sis for the thought though.

The day after Hendrix's birthday as we cleaned up the balloons, Hendrix said "My birthday is very very over." What a cutie. Also that day Oma (My mom) had to go home. :( It was so awesome having her here. She is a great Grandma and mom. The kids loved her. Hendrix saw an airplane today, and said "Oma went in an airplane, I miss her, and Mommy miss her too."

But we had some great road trips while she was here...

-Yuma; to see Uncle Jared, Aunt Tamara and play... Hendrix's favorite things at Uncle Jared's was the portable pool Oma bought and

Bonezy (The skeleton they keep in the spare bedroom; they love Halloween) I thought Hendrix would be afraid of it, but, nope... he loved showing us where HIS bones were in relation to Bonezy's and even slept in the same room so he could help put Bonzey to bed.

This was MilaBelle's favorite thing at Uncle Jared's house. Crawling on top of the DVR/DVD box and scowering the kitchen floor for leftovers.

-Winslow to see relatives, the Root Beer Stand and this...
My mom and I drove past this and couldn't figure out why anyone would leave a toilet in their front yard, so my mom decided to ask them. When she got to the door, there was a note taped up that said "If your toilet's still for sale, call me." Although there was no one home, there was someone in the car in the driveway. He was house sitting and said the toilet was for sale, but it had been out there for a while, there was spiders camped out in there, and I think someone's using it, because there's a newpaper on the back of it for leisure reading. Small towns, you gotta love 'em.

Chino & Prescott Valley to see more relatives. My Aunt Jeanie has chickens, cats and a rooster, which Hendrix loved. We also saw a bunch of different bugs and a tiny horny toad.

We had lots of fun and I hope all of you enjoyed the pictures.

31 and still a GREENIE!

For those of you that don't know Mike is a conservationalist and loves anything to do with saving the earth one recycled can at a time, so for his 31st birthday last week, we recycled!!!

We had been saving cans for months; he thought I was using them for an Enrichment project for church, so we had 3 huge garbage sacks of cans. I reserved the church parking lot to do the crushing. Mike has always had a thing about making sure to run over cans in the street... and in High School he even damaged his truck door by hitting a pole while attempting to back over a can he had missed going forward. His family has made fun of him for years.

He really enjoyed racing around the parking lot trying to get every can, even the ones in the gutter and those the wind had blown. Hendrix loved running after the cans he crushed, after the damage had all been done.
He had a great birthday with a new football jersery from the folks, a Mormon Scientist book from me, Indiana Jones playing cards from Hendrix and chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, chocolate ice cream, and chocolate brownies with hot fudge (thanks Bekah, they were totally yummy).

I thought for his birthday I would also share some Green Tips with all of you.

(1) When your light bulbs die out, replace them with high efficiency ones. They cost a little more at first, but they shine brighter, while using less energy. They cost less in the long run, because they last much longer. If every home in America changed just one bulb we could shut down a power plant.

(2) Don't limit yourself to only recycling your aluminum cans! -Anything glass, plastic, tin, or paper, including cardboard can be recycled. You will be suprised how many things can be recycled. Check out this site for your nearest recycling facility.

(3)Listen to Jack Johnson's song about the 3 R's, when he says to Reduce and Reuse, even before you fall back on Recycling! Bring your own bags when you go shopping. Costco sells 6 canvas bags for under $2. Don't use those little plastic bags for your produce, you only use them from the store to your drawer at home. I don't put anything I'm going to wash or peel in a bag. Who needs em?!

(4) Any mommies thinking about going natural? Here's a great site with cloth diapers, I just found out about.

(5) Don't throw away your old CD and DVD's, either donate or recylce them here. They take forever to break down and it's added waste in our already overburdened landfills.

There's many many more, please comment and leave some of your "Living Green Tips." We're always trying to learn more. Find more great ideas HERE.

Merrill-Just a Good Neighbor or a Modern-Day MacGyver

My cousin is in Holland for 3 weeks and left her car with us, it couldn't have come at a better time. My mom is visiting from Washington and if you read our last post you know our car has been in the shop. Sooo... tonight as we're driving home, we notice the light above her driver's side visor turns on, the visor is broken and we can't figure out why this light isn't turning off when the car isn't running. Two neighbors mis-advise later and one phone call to Holland, which was no help, I just got the machine (I have no idea what time it is there) I call our neighbor and good friend Merrill over to see what the problem is (Mike was out of town) He figures out it's the mirror sensor and it's broken,

"Maybe if you use a bobbypin or something. We can hold it closed." He suggests

" I have a bobbypin in my hair." I remark.

" This is just like the movies." He says.

Although the bobbypin did not work,some cardboard from the recycling we had in the trunk worked perfectly. Thanks to good friends who are always willing to help.