I'm Not Tired!

Several days this week Alyssa has dozed off to sleep in random places.  First it was the garage steps, waiting for dad to come home (at 1:00 in the afternoon... long wait!).  Next it was the front porch next to the dryer vent where she was "warming up."  It's a good thing we didn't have any visitors because it looked like she had passed out on our doorstep.  Yesterday she fell asleep balancing between 2 bar stools.  Today she was eating her chips and cheese on a plate - her favorite lunch- and a few minutes later I discovered her here.  She thinks she's too big for a nap and with all the kids home during the summer I'm not so good about making it happen. When she wakes up in her bed a few hours later she insists, "But I wasn't tired mom!!"
Did you notice the her new trendy wardrobe? The layered look is in  :) and its just fine to go intentionally mismatched (at least that's what they do lately in the jcp ads). 

Not So Picture Perfect

Last Sunday I saw the kids all huddled together in the kitchen around a bowl of cookie dough that Rebecca was making.  It was one of those picture perfect moments with everyone being peaceful and cooperative and I wanted to quickly snap a picture to remember the moment down the road .  when I pulled out the camera, the kids got silly and after snapping tons of shots this was the best I could come up with, which I guess is really a more accurate depiction of our everyday life... not so picture perfect!       

 Rebecca's expression reminds me of how my sister Kara would look at Aaron and I when we'd try to snitch the cookie dough from her as kids!

Grown UP

I've had this dress hanging in my closet for years that I bought with Jared soon after we were married.  I haven't worn it for ages, but was just curious how close Rebecca is to fitting into it.  Crazy that my little girl is so grown up she can almost wear my clothes!

Online Inspiration Sources I wish I'd known about sooner

Lately I have stumbled upon new links to inspiring videos, music and audio clips that have added to my daily peace, I just wish I had known about some of these resources earlier and wonder how much more I'm missing out on.  So if you have any favorites, could you share them with me in the comments?

lds.org video/audio archive

There are so many video clips that are perfect for family night or keeping Sabbath a more peaceful day.  This weekend we watched a few of the old time seminary videos under the Book of Mormon tab and the kids were chuckling about the Star Trek style simulation on pride. I loved watching President Monson's life story again and I think we found where the idea for Napoleon Dynamite was born in "The Phone Call."  This was a little short of "inspiring" but my kids sure found it humorous!  A few of my favorite tabs (although) I haven't had a chance to explore them all are:
Bible Videos - most are short but come straight from the bible text
CES Firesides
Homefront Commercials - Rebecca loves these!
Humanitarian - makes me think of the hymn Count Your Blessings.  I'd love to show some of these to my kids to go with a family night on service or gratitude.
Youth Curriculum - I love using the new youth curriculum as the basis for my scripture study because it is arranged by topic with thought provoking questions, scripture links, conference talks and these great video clips.

The District - Real Life as a Missionary
These bring back the mission memories & I like showing them to my kids so they can get a glimpse of mission life.  Sometimes people aren't nice, sometimes you don't know what to say and have awkward moments, but the Spirit directs you and sharing your testimony and praying with all of your heart for others is such a blessing.

Youth Music
A variety of free downloadable music with great messages.

Just yesterday I found this treasure...
Stories from General Conference
I love it when people share stories and personal experiences to teach true principles.  This site has various topics such as perseverance, sacrifice, prayer, etc.  with clips of stories from conference.  Today I was motivated to do better after listening to one episode on sacrifice that had a story about a crippled man who sacrificed to help a blind farmer who was on the verge of losing his farm.  Wouldn't this make a great way to end the day with "bedtime stories" for the kids?

Sisters

Rebecca went to spend a week with my parents.  I was surprised how emotional and Emily & Alyssa were when she left.  They exchanged multiple hugs and then broke down into tears for a while when she drove away.   They eagerly await her phone calls each night & Emily hates sleeping all alone so she has joined the boys in their room each night.  They are so fortunate to have each other & to have to share a room.  I think that is one of the benefits of having a big family.  It makes me think of the good times growing up sharing a room with my sister Melinda.

Road Trip Day 2 (by Becca)

This is day 2 of our road trip.

And it isn't Heidi writing this, it's Becca.

Ready?

So we left Nancy's house

and headed out.
We were originally going to stop at a children's museum, but we changed our plans. So we drove six hours straight to my Dad's Uncle Lee's house.

When you're in the car for 6 hours, there's lots of time for messing around with cameras.

Stopping at gas stations

Looking at scenery

Oregon actually looks a lot like Idaho, just more rocks and not as many tumbleweeds.

We were always SUPER excited to get out and stretch our legs. Hence, Emily's smile.

Once we got into Washington there was a lot more water, and a lot more green.

All these pictures were taken from the car, that's why you'll see seatbelts and dark lines along the edges of a lot of them.

There were lots of bridges too, so that you could cross over all that water.


There was this one river that just continued for eternity. It went on fore-e-e-ver. It just kept following us all over.

We finally got to Uncle Lee's and ate hot dogs and chips. One of the coolest things was that he had a pool.

That had a diving board. Jacob got lots of cool photos of jumping off (all the ones of Daniel were of him standing on the board and plugging his nose. And my mom didn't take any pictures of me)

Like I said, Jacob had lots of cool flips.

My swim shirt got lost in the car somewhere (typical) so I had to wear my Dad's huge gray one. It was okay, you couldn't tell too much in the water.

While we swam in the pool, the adults played bocce. (I personally think it's boring, but most people really like it)

If you've never played bocce, you must not know my parents very well. I think we play it at every family gathering, and at lots of the adults-from-the-neighborhood-get-together-and-eat-chips-and-play-mafia-game-night.

Alyssa is sort of attatched to my Dad, and when she broke her leg that increased. The world pretty much ends if he goes to work without getting her cereal. Or if anyone else takes her to the bathroom. Or if he sets her down.

But it's sort of cute.

They also had a really bouncy trampoline. Josh had fun on it too.

But that may be partially due to the fact that there was a half eaten capri-sun that he got to stab/squeeze to death.

It was pretty fun. Stay tuned for more!