Meet Big Mama

So you know how when you're dating and someone tries to set you up on a blind date and you ask what he's like and the person responds, "Well, he's just such a great guy, from an awesome family, amazing cook, great smile, such a strong testimony," and then you instantly know that he's probably five hundred pounds and lives at home with his mother?
That's how I feel introducing you to our new van, aptly named "Big Mama." She has a flat screen bigger than our computer monitor (not hard to do, I know).

She has a dvd player. And in rare fashion, she also has this:

Yes, VHS.
She has room in her for Marianne to crawl around.

I can almost stand up in her.

I can almost stand up because she has a high-top. Which is a very nice place to put all of the wood paneling and mood lighting.

She has dual exhaust. (A favorite of Rus')

She has doors on both sides. Not sliding doors, regular doors.
She's all leather. Power everything. Almost purrs, runs like a "raped ape." (Rus' words.)
Meet Big Mama.

For better or worse.

From Rus:
5.3L V8
285 HP
Dual Exhaust
4-wheel disc brakes
18" alloy wheels
Need I say more?

Easter Fun

My favorite part of Easter was hands-down reenacting the crucifixion and burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ with my kids...with Lego men. We had made a little garden tomb scene last Monday for family night

and we had talked about how Jesus had died and then was resurrected. I wanted to reiterate the point on Easter morning, after the Peeps had been devoured and the Easter baskets plundered, so we gathered in Jacob and Beau's room and busted out the Lego men. Bekah even has a Lego girl, so she ran and got her so she could be Mary Magdalene. That is my favorite part of the whole story - where Mary Magdalene thinks that the gardener has taken Jesus' body, only to find out moments later that she is talking to her beloved - and now resurrected - Jesus Christ. My kids helped me tell the story...I want them to know and remember what Easter is truly about and why the empty tomb is so marvelous.
As for the rest of the day...we went to Church (where the kids enjoyed lots of candy, courtesy of their teachers), and later had a family dinner and Easter egg hunt with cousins. It was a really fun night. I love this picture of Rus and his brother and sister chatting out on the back porch while the kids played. Don't make fun of Jacob's face..he really does look like that. ;)

After dinner the kids were dying to do their egg hunt (well they were dying before dinner but they had to wait until after). The adults hid the eggs outside and then the kids lined up youngest to oldest, ready to find them.

My backyard, as you may recall, is a mess of cactus and sagebrush and dirt, and thus the eggs were hidden in cactus and sagebrush and dirt, but they still had a good time and no one got poked. This was the best "hiding place."

Beau found the egg but he couldn't reach it...which made for a very loud and whiny Beau, and a very amused panel of adults. I did help him...after the picture.
Here are Russel and Beau showing off their treats:

And here are some other pics, just for fun:
A happy Marianne (who is seven months now and has her first tooth!)

And a very happy Beau

I hope your Easter was just as delightful!

GC at the Payne House

How we roll during General Conference:
Rus and Beau nap on Sunday afternoon.

 

Bekah, in her princess dress, distributes the appropriate amounts of candy to herself and Jacob, a reward for listening.

 

We reposition the furniture to face our tiny 17" computer monitor. 

Bekah makes "scary eyes" at a jelly bean. She is wearing makeup - she begged, I conceded.

 Last week was General Conference for our Church. So for two wonderful days - eight hours all together - we got to sit and listen as a family and be inspired and taught and uplifted. And when I say "listen," of course I mean something like this:
Mom - "Beau, sit down!"
Bekah - "Ug! Mom! Jacob is kicking my head!"
Jacob - "I just need to stretch! How am I supposed to stretch with your head there?!"
Mom - "Jacob, stretch in a different direction. Beau! Quiet! I can't hear!"
Bekah - "Mom what does adultery mean?"
Mom - "Beau, go sit with your dad. He's falling asleep."

And of course each talk was punctuated by the candy count - each child counting up their tally marks for the word they had been listening for and getting the corresponding number of m&ms or skittles. This year I felt sort of genius when found the mini m&ms at Walmart and used those for their treat. That way when Bekah heard "family" 48 times in one talk she was really only eating the equivalent of three bites of chocolate.
I really do love conference. I know that if I take the time to listen to each talk, I will be uplifted, and the counsel isn't just good for a day, it's planted in my brain for when I really need it.

Here are some of my favorite highlights: (click on the name for the link to the talk)
Cheryl A Esplin's talk about teaching for understanding. She said to create an atmosphere where our children can feel the Spirit and then help them recognize what they are feeling. As children learn gospel principles, they will be more self reliant, more responsible, and they become part of the solution to family problems.
Donald L. Halstrom's talk about the Church vs. the Gospel. I loved this talk, in large part because I don't remember it being talked about so clearly before. He warned that it is possible to be active in the church and inactive in the Gospel. He gave three different ways to strengthen our Gospel foundation.
Jeffrey R. Holland's talk about the laborers in the vineyard. I loved how he shared the parable of the laborers from the bible and summed up the master's words at the end: "Why should you be jealous because I choose to be kind?" Then Elder Holland talked about envy - and I just loved this whole paragraph so I'm quoting it here:
"Furthermore, envy is a mistake that just keeps on giving. Obviously we suffer a little when some misfortune befalls us, but envy requires us to suffer all good fortune that befalls everyone we know! What a bright prospect that is—downing another quart of pickle juice every time anyone around you has a happy moment! To say nothing of the chagrin in the end, when we find that God really is both just and merciful, giving to all who stand with Him “all that he hath,” as the scripture says. So lesson number one from the Lord’s vineyard: coveting, pouting, or tearing others down does not elevate your standing, nor does demeaning someone else improve your self-image. So be kind, and be grateful that God is kind. It is a happy way to live."
Also, I loved this quote: "It underscores the thought I heard many years ago that surely the thing God enjoys most about being God is the thrill of being merciful, especially to those who don’t expect it and often feel they don’t deserve it."
And: "It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ’s Atonement shines."
Great talk. Click on the link, read it.
Dieter F. Uchtdorf's talk, "The Merciful Obtain Mercy." I, along with everyone else watching, appreciated when he shared a bumper sticker he had seen that said, "Don't judge me because I sin differently than you." SO TRUE!
He also said (and I paraphrase), we all depend on the mercy of God. How can we deprive any of the mercy of grace that we wish for ourselves.
Ronald A Rasband's talk "Special Lessons." I loved this quote: "Thus another special lesson learned: If you come upon a person who is drowning, would you ask if they need help—or would it be better to just jump in and save them from the deepening waters? The offer, while well meaning and often given, “Let me know if I can help” is really no help at all."
This talk was on my mind a few nights ago when I was exhausted, it was late, and I wanted to go to bed but I needed to wake and feed Marianne so that she would sleep through the night. Rus asked if I wanted him to do it and I said no, frustrated that he was asking. I thought it was obvious that his help would be appreciated; he thought he covered his bases by asking me if I needed help. This happens repeatedly in our marriage. I think that you should just help when you see a need, and Rus thinks that you need to ask for help if you need it. So he gets mad at me - for being mad at him for not just helping me - because I didn't ask him. (Read it slowly. Twice. It might make sense then.) I realized that most of us will jump in when we see someone obviously drowning. The problem comes when the person is drowning and no one can see it. Thus it is our own responsibility to ask for help, even if it's hard and humbling to do so.
M. Russell Ballard's talk "That the Lost May Be Found." He said that there is no service greater than that which promotes the home to a divine institution. I love it when our leaders remind us and refocus us on the importance of our homes. Life is so busy and hectic, I need the reminder that my family and home are first and everything I do should elevate or at least support my family.
He also said, "Now, if for any reason you individually or as a family have lost your way, then you need only apply the Savior’s teachings from Luke, chapter 15, to correct your course. Here the Savior tells of the effort of a shepherd searching for his lost sheep, of a woman searching for a lost coin, and of the welcome received by the prodigal son returning home. Why did Jesus teach these parables? He wanted us to know that none of us will ever be so lost that we cannot find our way again through His Atonement and His teachings." None of us will ever be SO lost that we cannot find our way again through His Atonement. What wonderful and hopeful words those are!
Larry Y Wilson's talk "Only upon the Principles of Righteousness." I loved this quote, "Our children are in our homes for a limited time. If we wait until they walk out the door to turn over to them the reins of their moral agency, we have waited too long. They will not suddenly develop the ability to make wise decisions if they have never been free to make any important decisions while in our homes. Such children often either rebel against this compulsion or are crippled by an inability to make any decisions on their own." He also said to help our children establish their own connection to heaven.
 And finally, I loved the hymns that were sung during conference. They sang two of my absolute favorite hymns, Praise to the Lord the Almighty" and "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing." My favorite lyrics from the first are, "Ponder anew what the Almighty can do..." My favorite lyrics from Come Thou Fount are, "Take my heart, O take and seal it, seal it in thy courts above."

The end.

What Goes Up...Must Come Down

My van stinks. It has that kid-infested smell that used to gag me in my sister's van when I was in college. I would never have a minivan, I thought.
Ha. I'm laughing a little at that self-righteous girl.
The van-stink is just one source of the irritation I feel right now - irritation that my kids keep getting sick, irritation that I can't seem to get the faces right on a drawing I need to finish for someone (someone who actually tracked me down and purchased from my dormant shop, bless her...), irritation that my backyard is an unfriendly mass of overgrown cactus, sagebrush, and brown, irritation that my clean, new running shoes hold much less appeal than the sweet-stuffed recipe book in my head...Nothing is safe, from the visible dirt on my floor to Jacob's newfound ability to move slower and whine more than ever.
I think it's fallout. Whiplash. Let-down...from my awesome adults-only girls trip with my mom and sisters in Chandler last weekend. While Rus was heroically dealing with kids (who unbeknownst to him were coming down with bronchitis - Beau - and the flu - Marianne), I was shopping, eating, sleeping, hot tubbing, movie watching, and traumatizing a middle-aged balding big guy in the elevator.
(Dark elevator. Said Man. Enter Amy and I. Lights flicker.
I turn to Amy and teasingly say. "Don't worry, I won't take advantage of you."
Man replies, "Oh, okay."
Amy says, "No she was talking to me."
Situation deteriorates beyond capacity to save.)

I managed to eat at Paradise Bakery and Cafe twice, try Chipotle for the first time, make it to the dessert menu at Olive Garden, and buy four pencil skirts and bright red heels. I also almost made it through a full box of lotion added tissues, thankyouverymuch pollen-filled Chandler air. Ooh and did I mention we got lost on the way to Target and thus found a couple of rewarding garage sales. Bonus. Amanda cut her hair in a drastic but successful fashion, I literally added a blonde streak to mine (don't judge), Amy found some great work/church clothes and my mom, as usual, practically walked away with nothing. How does she do that? We visited my Grandma and Grandpa in their super cute new mobile home - she had oreos for us how cute is that? Amy and I fell in love with our cousin's almost-five-year-old daughter and interrogated her thoroughly. She dealt with us very graciously. Oh and on top of all that we saw the Hunger Games. (eek!) I loved the book and I loved that the movie was well made and didn't severely butcher the book.
Can you see why coming down is hard? And irritating? If Rus was being irritating I would at least have some time away from him during the day. (Not that he ever, ever is. Irritating, I mean.) But I can't really get away from myself, which means *sigh* that I have to just fix the problem. Go to work. Get up. Stop being lazy. Stop hiding. Stop thinking of which would be better - snickerdoodles or lemon monkey bread. Rent a bobcat. Tear out the plants I don't want. Inject gardening/landscaping wisdom into my brain, Matrix style. Ug. I think I'll just go fold laundry instead. ;)
Um...here is my hair in a wandering reverse braid

...and here is my blonde streak. :)

Spring Break Away

Spring break started with some fun spray-painting with cousins...and ended with a spontaneous birthday celebration with my mom in Sierra Vista. Some loves of this past week:
*spray-bottles full of paint, half painted children and beautiful weather

*going to Discount Tire with all of my kids to get tires rotated for the manvan...okay you got me, I'm being totally sarcastic here.
*Driving to Lordsburg. I love roadtrips with Rus. He usually drives most of the time and talks my ear off. He may not freely admit it, he may not even realize it, but Rus has the gift of gab. Just don't get him on the topic of conspiracy theories. You'll have to up your "Uh-huh, yeah, right" game. But seriously, we always have great conversations when we drive. He even sings sometimes. (For grumpy Marianne.)
*Leaving Rus in Lordsburg to walk, feed, and water his Dad so his mom could take a quick trip to Alaska. (I know. Personally I didn't know "quick trip" and "Alaska" could be in the same sentence.) Rus' dad was in a motorcycle accident a few weeks ago...I'd add "minor" but his ribs would not agree. He is doing much better but Rus jumped at the chance to hang out with him for the weekend. For all of you familiar with my and Rus's seemingly regular separate vacations I want to state that this is not actually a "love." But it did enable me to visit my mom for her birthday.
*Playing Super Scrabble with my dad, Amy, and her son Luke. The board for Super Scrabble is twice as big. It makes triple word scores look paltry. The corners have quadruple word scores and there are numerous opportunities for double-double word scores and triple-letter-double-word scores. It was awesome. And we only lasted two-and-a-half hours before we called it quits. My dad won, something to do with the word "soliquid" and my uncanny ability to assist him in transforming "quid" to "soliquid" and thus earn 86 points. Amy will happily rake me over the coals in telling the story. She's just mad because she got third place right behind me.
*Making THIS Triple Layer Coconut Custard Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting.

Just saying that makes me salivate. As do the pictures I took of the finished product. Good thing you only turn sixty once, Mom! I have to note that the yummy toasted coconut on the outside is from an actual coconut. I made the grocery list for my dad and he thought it'd be funny to buy me an actual "unsweetened coconut." So we cracked it, skinned it, shredded it, mixed it with some sugar syrup and toasted it. And it was SO worth it! Crunchy, sweet, yummy.
*Hanging out with Amy's family. They stopped at the ostrich farm on the way down - they swear it's awesome - and brought an ostrich egg with them. Amy left me a message on my phone: "We're bringing breakfast!" And she meant it. One ostrich egg equals 24 chicken eggs. Amazing. The egg comes scored on the top; you crack a tiny hole in the top, use a knife to break up the yoke, and then pour it out into a bowl. It took at least ten minutes and was a family event. This picture shows everyone's rapt attention on the egg...but not the egg. Whoops. It is under that knife Luke is holding.

 I love this picture - my mom enjoying five seconds of royal treatment from Joshua and Luke. She is holding the ostrich egg and they are fanning her with ostrich feathers.

We also had a great time doing a spontaneous dance party,  (here are the boys getting their groves on)

going swimming at the Cove, and hiding sixty happy birthday notes for Cutesy all over the house.
*Seeing my mom love on Marianne.

She could not get enough of the bug. And Marianne was super fun too. She was happy and roly-poly and just loved all the attention from my Mom, Grandpa, Mike, Amy's kids, Tyler, Gina...She does know when she's not with Mom now, though, so sometimes she was not the best sport when someone else wanted to hold her.
*Seeing Tyler and Gina. They made a lemon cream pie for my mom. Tyler+Gina+food=yumminess. Next time we'll have to get together for more than just an evening.
*Looking at slides with my Dad. He took a million pictures when he was on his mission and had them put on slides, and then never looked at them. So it was really fun to walk down memory lane with him. He also had pictures from us as kids when we lived in England. Great family pictures. It was so fun.
*On the drive home, Beau's hands got sticky from a ring pop and he was tired and grumpy and wailed over and over, "My hands are going to be sticky forever!" It was hilarious.

And that's a wrap. Good job for making it this far.

Marianne at Six Months

Lucky you...it's that time again where I get to gush again about my baby...
Last week Marianne reached the ripe old age of six months. She celebrated by being officially cleared of RSV by her doctor, going grocery shopping, helping set up for a relief society activity, and taking a big long nap.
Yesterday I realized I hadn't taken any official "six months" pictures so after her bath I snapped a few...dozen. Here are my favorites:
And if Marianne could tell you about herself she just might say something like this:

Hello world! I am so big now, I really should be keeping up with my big brothers and sisters. I get so mad when they walk away from me! (I like to shriek and yell at them; I cry if I'm desperate.) I can actually get up on my hands and knees and rock...

...if I could just figure my arms out then nothing would be out of reach! (Soon...very soon...) I can usually be found with a toy in hand (en route to my mouth), blowing raspberries, with a pink nose and a very excited little smile if you look my way. I love to grab things and play with them, so sitting right by the toy bucket where I can grab things and throw them makes me one very happy camper. Beau is great at playing with me - when I eat his toys he just says they're getting washed. As you can see I can sit up now pretty well, that is, until I fall over - which only makes me mad if I nose dive.

I still like to do yoga - see this awesome move where my hands and my feet are both off the ground?

My eyes are super blue, I have rubber-band-everything and my toes are super yummy.

I eat them every time I get my diaper changed or take a bath. Mom seems to love them, too. Speaking of Mom, and Dad for that matter, I am really getting used to them both and it makes me just a little sad to see them from afar. (Closer is always better.)
Anywho...I am pretty much amazing. The world revolves around me. That's pretty much it.
love,
The Bug.

Don't look at me hungry...you'll drool

Almost ten years ago Rus and I (as an engaged couple) realized we needed a computer. Rus's cousin Sam had one to sell to us. The computer didn't last super long, maybe a year or two, but the monitor he gave us lasted through several computers until last week when it turned off for the last time. The thing was a monstrosity, as deep as it was tall and I can't say I miss it at all considering the tight space it used to fill. After three days of living "in the dark" (no internet access, eek!), I am so happy to have a nice, thin new monitor and be once again connected to the outside world!
Those of you who know me well know that I love to cook. I try a new recipe at least once, sometimes twice (or more) a week. My kids will one day say how they hated this. Heck they say that now. I love Cooking Light and I love to pin recipes that I find surfing the net. I also love to make homemade pizza. We probably have that every couple of weeks, and Rus would tell you that having any repeat recipes is a rarity. If he likes a meal he'll say, "keep this on your regular rotation, meaning I want to see it in a few months." (I have gotten better at holding on to the ones I really like.)  My sis-in-law mentioned how much she loved the Pioneer Woman's potato leek pizza and I had to try it. So while my kids had a half pepperoni, half cheese pizza, I enjoyed this beauty:

I love it when my recipe turns out like the picture in the real recipe. :)

YUM! Thinly sliced potatoes, mozzarella, sauteed leeks, bacon, crumbled goat cheese, parmesan cheese, and a sprinkling of pepper. It was really good. I made it small so I could also make a man pizza for Rus - sausage, bacon, pepperoni, mushrooms and red onions...also good.
Another thing I've been up to in every second of my spare time for the last week was making these paper flower centerpieces. You know, you can make a craft for super cheap. But it will take you forever.

I made them for a luncheon our stake had yesterday for Sisters Barbara Thompson, Elaine Dalton, and Sharon Esplin from the general auxiliaries. They spoke on Friday night and it was a wonderful meeting. Anyway, they were meeting with sisters from the different stake primaries and I thought it would be fun to do something really bright. I saw the idea for colored rice HERE and the tutorial for the flowers HERE. I am so happy with how they turned out!
And here is Jacob. Yes, he is combing his hair. Jacob will undoubtedly be my dapper, clothes horse, gel-wearing kid. He loves to look handsome on Sundays and he loves to fix his hair. Here he is before he caught me with the camera:

And after...so handsome!

Marianne wants you to know that she knows yoga. I don't know yoga, so I can't tell you what pose this is, but she knows it well and practices everyday.

Sooo...Next week I hope to not have a baby with RSV, not have a Beau with a fever, and not freak out because my kids are off school two extra days because of parent/teacher conferences. I hope to paint a sign, orchestrate entertainment for nursery kids for a RS activity, and make a provoking argument to many women about how and why to keep their family history now. I also hope to win my playoff game. (Hockey. I'm actually looking forward to this "to do.")