Thursday, May 29, 2008

Our Photo Session








Wow, so many amazing pictures to choose from. This is just a snippet. If you want to see them all the go to... this site. The password is
rk52708

On My Own...With a Bunch of Kids



Rinar went with his group of "boys" to go river rafting in California. So, I am here with my boys until Saturday night. Oh wait...we also have some visitors! Lyf brought Bryn and Lindy down to stay with me while he is on the trip with Rinar. The kids have been having a lot of fun together. Yesterday they swam all afternoon and then we had spaghetti for dinner. I decided that it would be fun to make s'mores, using the fire from our gas range. They enjoyed it, but really just wanted the marshmallows. So, we may just do marshmallows tonight and skip the chocolate and


graham crackers.

Lindy was really excited that she was turning around in the pool, so I took a little video of her swimming like Ester Williams (sort of).

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Indiana Jones vs. The Aliens

Yep, that's right. In this one he fights aliens. Yes, it is that bad. Please, don't go see it.

**Spoiler Alert!!***

The glass skull is an alien skull. GAG!

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

A Proud Mama

I asked Zach on Sunday if he was good in his Primary class. He said, "No." But he followed that up by qualifying it with, "But at least I told the truth, Mom."

Today they went to their friends house to play this afternoon. When they came back I asked Raef if he played with his friend a lot. He told me no. I asked him why and he said that his friend was hitting the wall with a hammer and he didn't want to do that, so he went inside instead. I was so proud of him for making a good choice.

Aren't my boys wonderful?

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Our Family Heirloom


After years of searching for the perfect painting for my wall, I found this on a whim at an art show in St. George at Dixie State College. We just happened to go in before a play and there it was. I thought it was so beautiful and it was just the kind of painting that I wanted to go in the center of my home so that my kids and anyone else could see it everyday. It cannot be missed. I want my children to know that Christ is the center of our lives and a part of everything we do.
This is an original painting by Dan Lewis. He studied under Del Parsons, I believe. I don't know anything about him and there is nothing on the web, except for what I have linked to from the Joseph Smith Manual for this year. It has been hanging in our home for about a year now. The problem was that no one really noticed it because it was not illuminated. Well, our kind friend Mike the electrician, from our ward came and did a side job for us and now it is something that cannot be missed. It has emerged from oscurity. I love this painting and it is a prized possession; our first family heirloom.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

My Choice For Greatness

Humans are emotional creatures, what can I say? Just like the weather, the emotions can change quickly. So, I have rethunk the whole homeschooling thing. After visiting the private school, I have decided to put my best foot forward and dedicate myself to educating my children. I am the only one who can do it the way I believe it should be done. This has not been an easy decision and I know it is going to be a long, arduous journey, but I feel committed to it.

Today, as I was driving to church I listened to "Music and the Spoken Word". It happened to be the spoken word part of the program. Lloyd Newell was talking about adversity. Sometimes we wondered why we have adversity. He suggested that it is because it is our opportunity to acheive greatness. How can we acheive greatness if everything is easy? The first thought that popped into my head was, "I don't have any adversity so how can I truly acheive greatness?" I am not one to ask for trials and tribulation. But then I instantly realized that my struggle with home education and dealing with my children IS my tribulation.

So, it is my opportunity to acheive greatness, to let my children see the greatness within themselves and do marvelous things with their lives. But more importantly, it is my responsibility to teach them that they are children of the most High God, that they have infinite worth, that they are smart and can think great things. I can teach them not to settle for mediocrity but to reach beyond what they ever thought they were capable of doing.

With that perspective in mind, I am going to create the best school that I possibly can for my beautiful little boys. This means that not only will I educate them in the things I am comfortable with, but I will also employ tutors to teach them science, Spanish, art, etc. I am going to make a financial and emotional investment in them. It will me require me to say "NO" to kindly requests for help during the week because my children come first and my committment to them is my top priority. I am going to put both my feet in and get to work.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Confessions of a Shrill and Witchy Mom...

Is it possible to spend too much time with your kids? I have come to this conclusion...

YES!!!!!

I think I am sick of them. They are sick of me. They are sick of each other. We need a break from each other.

Tomorrow I am going to an open house for a private school. I hope it goes well because sending them away for 6 hours a day, 4 days a week is sounding more and more appealing every day. I always promised myself that if I didn't think I could hack it with them or if I felt they were getting short-changed then I would not hesitate to put them in school. The time has come. I yell at them all the time and I have an incredibly short fuse. They don't even listen to me because I am always yapping at them. I wouldn't listen to me either. So, I really can't blame them. Plus there are just way too many hours in a day, if you ask me. Also, Rinar travels a lot now with his job so I am really with them all the time.

With that said, I think I could probably still handle it just fine. However, throw an adorable little baby into the mix and I am a mess, plain and simple.

(My husband just saw this blog and he rolled his eyes at me!)

I am kind of hoping that with a good two year break or so, I might be re-energized to homeschool them again. Then again, I might like it so much that I will never go back. Who can really say?

Is there anything you want to confess?

Contrary to popular belief (hahaha), I don't have it all together, I can be a really mean person (which I absolutely despise about myself), and sometimes I really want to kill my kids.

But please give me some credit: I put my adorable kids into timeout and in a short span of 3 minutes (yes, I had a stopwatch and it was almost exactly 3 minutes), Zach was able to murder my adorable rooster that I had searched for for at least a year. Yep, it was on my end table looking all cute as anything and he was doing flips and knocked it over. So, Lindsay I can relate to the whole serving dish lid getting destroyed. Today I lost a special family member of the domesticated farm variety, and I didn't even get mad. I didn't blow my top, scream at him, nothing. I just said...
That was my favorite rooster.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

What Do You Do When Mom is Not Lookin'?

Last night, Rinar was out of town and so I put the kids to bed...8:00pm sharp. I mean, by the end of the day I am ready for a break from my lovely children. There was only one problem. They were wide awake and really had the sillies!!! I kept catching them and scolding them in my most menacing Mom voice. The last straw was when I saw the camera flash emanating from their bedroom. Here are some of the photos they took of themselves. I do believe that Zach was the cameraman. They really need to learn that cameras leave evidence for all guilty parties.

(Shanna, this is what you have to look forward to when your boys get older...get ready!)

This is another fun thing they do when I am not watching them. I had them give me a demonstration yesterday before they went to bed.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

My Birth Story - A Retrospect

My birth story - February 15, 2008

I want to write this all down before I forget... On Thursday night, Valentine's Day, Rinar and I dropped off Raef and Zach at the Paul's house so they could spend the night. Then we went to dinner at Outback Steakhouse. I figured that I would need alot of protein and heartiness for the next day because I knew that I would not be eating for a while. We had a lovely dinner except for when Rinar mentioned "The next time we have a baby...". I don't think it is a very wise idea to mention to a woman who is 39 weeks pregnant about a next time. You talk about those things after a few months, when there is a cute baby in your hands and no labor/pregnancy pains...but that is just a thought.



Anyways, we woke up bright and early on Friday morning. I showered and prettied myself up for my eventful, dreadful day. Rinar took a picture of me in all my womanly glory and then we headed off to St. Rose Siena Hospital. It is a lovely Catholic Hospital on the south side of Henderson. Once I checked in and put on the appropriate attire, they hooked me up to the baby monitors and then the dreaded IV. Those things hurt!!! The first one did not take, so then they found a nice juicy vein on my other hand and for the next hour and a half I was in silent agony as my hand kept screaming at me..."Get this thing out of me!" This made me even more terrified of the epidural I was getting ready to get. The last epidural I had took 5 minutes to put in and was extremely painful.



Finally, the executioner, I mean the nurse, came and we walked to the Operating Room. I sat on the bed and Dr. Sauter held my shoulders as Dr. Welch (the drug doctor) put in the spinal block. I practicing my handy breathing techniques, when to my surprise it was over before I knew it and it hardly hurt at all. I have had more pain stubbing my pinky toe on my bed frame. Then the drugs started pouring into my blood stream and I was blissfully numb. The only problem came when I started to get really nauseous and they had to put this pink, banana shaped bowl next to my head so I could throw up. Do you know what it is like to throw up when you are almost
completely numb? It sort of just trickles out of the side of your mouth. Then the Doctor piped in to say "That is why you come here fasting!" Boy was he right, because luckily there was nothing in my stomach except some nasty medicine they had me drink right before surgery.



So Dr. Sauter and Stephenson were busy getting the baby out, except he did not want to come out. He was perfectly happy in my womb. Dr. Stephenson was practically pouncing on my abdomen to dislodge the little fellow. She really worked up a sweat. I think you could liken it to a pro-wrestler falling on his victim with a lead elbow. It was something like that, but I had drugs, so what did I care? So, finally the baby was out and everyone was looking at him and I was finally like um..."people...is it a boy or a girl? Hello?" It was a boy. Deep down I knew it was a boy, even though all guesses leaned towards a girl.



You see, I watched the last five minutes of the Super Bowl and Rinar and I had already decided that if we were having a boy we were going to name him Eli...well, Elias Lynn officially. I said to Rinar, as the game was at a critical juncture, and anyone could win, "If the Giants win, we are going to have a boy." See, who needs an ultrasound when you have a Super Bowl game to determine important things in your life. The Giants quarterback is named Eli, FYI. I certainly was not naming a boy Tom or Brady, so I guess it worked out quite well.



I stayed in the hospital for 2 days and we came home Sunday afternoon. It was so nice to sleep in my own bed, although my bed doesn't have that handy button that makes it go up and down, so I really missed that when I had to get up and my belly was on fire. It felt like it was on fire till about Thursday, and now I am feeling good. I only have to pop an occasional pill, so I am happy I am out of the fog. Well, I think I covered all the interesting parts, at least the parts that are interesting to me. Thanks for all your love and support. I am so blessed to have you all in my life and I am amazed that I am now the mother to 3 boys. Heavenly Father must know what he is doing, because I would spend way too much money on girl's clothes. I am looking over at the futon and there is Rinar sound asleep with Eli on his chest, sound asleep as well. I am very blessed indeed.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Happy Mother's Day

Rinar took the boys to the Father/Son's campout at Lee Canyon. They were really excited and had a fun time. I had fun having a relatively quiet house. It was nice.




On Friday, Eli found his thumb....so adorable!!


Today was a pleasant day. I didn't have to go to Ward Council because all meetings were cancelled due to Mother's Day. My kids woke me up this morning and I walked downstairs accompanied by Raef while Zach serenaded me on his violin, playing "I am a Child of God". They had made me a very large omelet and then Rinar had bought me a digital picture frame. There were a lot of cute pictures in it.

At church I spent all of Sacrament Meeting in the hallway either feeding Eli or walking him around due to his cute cute fussiness. My arms were exhausted when it was done because he is heavy. He is over 16 lbs now! And of course I couldn't sit down...no, no, no! "Walk me around, Mommy or I'll cry!"


In Primary I had to be the hall monitor policeman. Two kids were rebelling and wandering the hallways. One of them was easy. I just got the papa and the problem was solved. The other one was not so cut and dry because his Dad is in Primary. So I spent about 1 hour with this kid in the hall, outside, in the men's bathroom. Finally, I got his Mom and it seemed to work out okay.

After that, I taught the Nursery kids and decided to use Eli as part of the lesson. The only problem was that he was asleep so I foolishly used him anyways and shockingly enough, Eli was awoken by the little munchkins in nursery. So, then Rinar was walking the halls for the second hour. Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest, but I sure got a lot of exercise.

Monday, May 5, 2008

An Hour With the Dermatologist

I took Raef to the dermatologist today because he has a wart on his finger. They told us to be there 20 minutes early to fill out paperwork. This is really a laugh because you know that they never run on time with the scheduled appointments so there is always a compulsory 20-30 wait in the lobby. After we saw the doc for 5 minutes, and she put some beetle juice stuff on his finger, we were done...one HOUR later. They don't mind if you have to wait an hour with 3 restless children, but don't you dare make them wait 5 minutes.

Sunday, May 4, 2008

A Beautiful Day...to...CRASH!

This was a beautiful weekend. After a long hard road, Nordel went through the St. George Temple yesterday with his beautiful wife Brooke. It was a very moving ceremony and the spirit was very strong. The sealer was a man named Doug Alder and he did a wonderful job. He is history professor and he had a lot of good things to say before he performed the ordinance. One thing he said that really stuck with me was that because we are covenant people, when we pray each day, we should say to Heavenly Father, "Lord, here I am, what do you want me to do today?" I need to remember to say that everyday when I pray, so that I can really be an instrument in His hands.


The day was absolutely gorgeous and after the sealing, we met at Worthen Park for a nice picnic of sloppy joes and potato salad and Hostess cake things (because Nordel gets them free at his job). Can you say, Ding Dongs!!
Brooke is six months pregnant and she is looking great, don't you think? They are expecting a boy and plan on naming him Tru. Since Nordel is 6'7" and Brooke is at least 5'10", I think they will have a pretty darn big baby...a boy to rival our little chunky monkey, Eli.

The kids had a ball playing with their cousins. They pretty much played outside all day. This is a picture of Zach with Lindy and Bryn in the background. Cute, huh?

I was not able to go to the endowment session before the sealing because of Eli. I didn't think he could make it that long without getting fed. So, I just went to the sealing. Grandma was so kind to babysit for me. Look at her, isn't she doing a fabulous job? When we got back to her condo, this is how we found her. Eli was in her arms, blissfully sleeping. She has the magic touch, huh?

Today was a nice day. After dinner, Rinar practice the violin with the boys and then they played a fun game of CRASH! What is that, you might ask? Well, take a look at this video for a demonstration.


Then I siezed the moment to get some cute pictures of all my boys and here is what we came up with...

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