Seedy Business

I may or may not have mentioned that I'm planting a little garden this year, and I am SOOOO excited about it!  I'm not really sure why I'm so excited; perhaps it's because it gives me reason to be outside and doing something different?  I've already sown some flower seeds outside in the landscaping, AND I planted some pea and bean seeds a few days ago.  Today, Marin and I planted some seeds to start inside and later transplant outdoors.  I thought it would be good for her as a hands-on activity and to learn a little about plants and .... patience!

Here we are with our egg-cartons!

 Filling them with dirt...

 Poking the holes for the seeds....

 Putting in the seeds....

 Still seeding.....

 And watering the seeds, I found that a sippy cup without the valve was like a tiny watering can, with handles; perfect for 3 year old hands.

 I had Marin plant her own pea seed in a tiny cup, this way she can check up on it every day.

 With a little Owen in the background!

 Cute girl, she did a great job!

Toddle Town

Our little Owen has been toddling all over the house, and it is the cutest thing to watch.  He's been very able to take steps 4-5 at a time for a while now, but it seems as though he's found the gumption to take it to the next level!  The only hard part is watching the falls, oh, those nasty falls!  Poor little guy has bruises all over his sweet face.  There's no going back now!

 Hi, mama!  Look at me!!!!

 Hey, can I get some lunch?  What's a guy gotta do to get some food around here?!

 Here comes Owen!

So proud of our sweet boy, he's growing up, whether mama is ready or not!

Cool Foodie Mama: Sweet Potato Pizza Crust

 Cool Foodie Mama: Sweet Potato Pizza Crust: Ok, ok, I know you're thinking; "Riiiight, sweet potato pizza crust?  Not on your LIFE, lady!".  And truthfully, before I tasted this, I was...

Spring is Coming!

March is the wonderfully tempestuous, transitional month that I look forward to every year in the coming of Spring.  Spring is such a glorious time of year, a few perfectly refreshing weeks of wind, warmer temperatures, new life, energetic fervor and SUN!  All of these things play some dirty tricks on my spring-time allergies, but I'll suffer through it happily, Spring is here!

This past weekend was just lovely, and we took the kids to Sugarhouse Park for a walk and a few turns on the playground.

Owen checking out the slide.

 Nope, going UP, isn't working, hmmmmm.....

 Ahhh yes, going DOWN is much easier!  (poor Owen's eyes were watering and he was sneezing the whole time at the park....guess who has mama's spring-time allergies?)

 Marin, mid-flight.

 I'm doin' it, mama!

 Coming down the BIG swirly slide.

 Mama, look at ME, look at ME!!!

 If Marin has a favorite playground activity, it's the swings.  I'm usually glad when I take her to a playground that doesn't have swings, because she would beg to be on them the WHOLE time.  I do love swings as well, but there is never an empty swing for a silly 27 year old young mother who want to take a few minutes....I might get nasty looks from the other parents.  Which is why I want to petition for adult sized playgrounds.

 Ok, I don't get these swings.  The HALF swing.  By the time your kid is old enough to start learning how to balance on a regular swing, move them to a regular swing.  They'll get it.  But when you have regular swings, and HALF swings, where do the babies swing?!  They can't play on the playground, so the swing is about all they have.  We attempted putting Owen in this silly contraption and he just about fell out!  Ugh, American society is so obsessed with IN-ability.  Two swings:  baby swings, and regular swings. 

 My sweet little family.

I can't wait for this weekend!  I'll be buying some seeds and doing some planting, wohooo!  I've not really had a chance to do much planting since we left NY, so I'm a little excited.

It's Funny....

Saturday evening I had the chance to go to our ward Temple night by myself, and it was...a breath of fresh air.  Kristoffer sacrificed and stayed home with the kids, and I, for the first time in quite a while, ventured to the Temple alone.  I've forgotten how wonderfully therapeutic it is to be alone in solitary reverie and ponder things that are exclusive to just Samantha.

I don't have the chance very often to be alone and contemplate my Savior's love for me.  There is always dinner to make, clothes to fold, dishes to wash, children to feed and corral, etc.  But when I'm in the Temple, I have a good two hours to listen, and think.  No distractions, no time-table, just a wonderfully healthy serving of spiritual food for my poor little starving spirit. 

 It was wonderful, albeit, very warm in our packed-to-the-gills session, but I found myself, at the end of the session, sitting, and praying.  I had gone to the Temple with a very precise thing on my mind to pray for, and as I sat down and closed my eyes, my mind would not ask for what I meant to ask for.  My moment of thanks evolved into a prayer of gratitude, and I completely forgot what I had come there to pray for in the first place.  It's funny how when we come to the Temple, the really important things are put into focus.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And Sunday.  I have come to LOVE the last hour of church on Sunday.  Relief Society has never been a huge part of my knowledge base...I've never had a chance to be IN Relief Society!  Since I turned 18, I've been called to serve in the Primary and Young Women's Organizations, and those have been incredible experiences and I wouldn't trade them for the world.  I've LOVED serving the sweet, young children and teaching those incredible young ladies.  

Since we have moved to Utah, I've had the chance to actually GO to Relief Society, since I haven't had another calling, and within the last month or so, I have truly developed a deep love for the Relief Society.  What a wonderful feeling to be embraced by other women and have your withered, beaten and frazzled mother-heart fed such wonderful words of God's love for his precious daughters!  Kristoffer has taken Owen with him to Priesthood, so I'm able to have that wonderful hour to bolster my spirit for the upcoming week of hard, hard mommy-work.  As much as I love my son, I can't focus (or even be IN the room) when I have him with me, so I feel like I'm just biding my time until church is done.  And that little detail has made all the difference!  

It's funny how the Lord knows what we need.  In the moment when I had become so used to serving with the Young Women, the Lord knew I needed something else.  He knew I needed to receive strength on Sunday from some wonderful teachers.  He knew I needed more than just the same calling.  I've truly received a testimony of Relief Society, and I'm grateful my Savior knows me better than I know myself.

It's funny how things change, and how we grow.

A Few Little Pictures

After a VERY busy January and February, March has been nice and easy, and it's been a good break.  I'm sure April will bring some gardening my way!

And finally, a few pictures of my sweet children!  Sunday, I was changing Owen after his nap, and he was about the squirmiest little boy he's ever been!  He was simply *aching* to get to his big bouncy ball and mommy was being a big ogre and trying to pin him to the ground to diaper his naked little bum.  I somehow managed to get the diaper on, but forget buttoning the onesie and putting on his pants.  He was off to have some fun.

But you can't get mad, mama; I'm just too cute when I smile.

 Awwww, little buddy!

 Owen loves a good PB&J for lunch sometimes...with a sippy cup of milk.

 And Marin loves a good PB&J, too...also smeared all over her face ;)

 Mama had a bean burrito for lunch, hopefully I can get some recipes on my food blog, eh?

 The salmon was a freezer dinner.  I also precooked the rice and froze that as well, so dinner was pretty easy!  And the salmon was dynamite!

 Another freezer meal!  This one is chicken tikka masala, it was pretty good!  My first thought was to serve it with rice, but I was all rice-d out, so I made No Yolks noodles instead.  It's all fitting with Body For Life!  Today marks three successful days of BFL, which is great news for me!  I'll do a one week update on Monday, when I do my weigh in.

Ahh, here are my kids, again!  Owen having a bath.  He is a happy boy at bathtime!

 Marin watching the last few minutes of Rapunzel.  I have to tell you a tongue-in-cheek funny-ish moment she unknowingly lured us into Sunday during Sacrament meeting.  Sunday was Fast and Testimony meeting, and one of our elderly brethren was at the pulpit bearing his testimony, which is nothing unusual.  The twist to this story is that this brother had his voice-box removed within the last couple of years and uses a (don't ask me the real name) little device that he presses to his throat which detects the vibrations and spits out a very robotic sound, thereby giving him a voice.  He really is the sweetest man and has the cutest little wife!  But Marin looked up when she heard him start speaking and watched him for a moment, then looked at me with very serious eyes and said...not so quietly..."He doesn't speak very good, mama.", and went back to her snacks.  Kris and I just looked at each other and tried desperately to suck the smiles off our faces and gain control of our shaking shoulders.  It was so hard not to laugh at her sweet and blindingly innocent remark, however inappropriate it may have been!

Aaah, my sweet little children! 

Updates!

Oh, soon I shall have pictures for you all, my dear readers!  I've had a terrible nagging in the back of my head, knowing that it's been a little while since I've blogged anything.  So, to ease my little blog-conscience, I'll post a few updates and hopefully find some pictures for later.

~Today!  Today, is a good day indeed...the sun is shining, the sky is blue and the weather is teasing me with spring's warmth.  It's making me a little excited to plant my little garden in the backyard; I've been doing some research to find what I'd like to plant and I'm almost ready to map out a garden.  I'm keeping it very simple, it's been so long since I've attempted to grow, well...anything, and I'd like to make my first attempt a successful one.  I think I'm going to try some tomatoes, beans or peas, peppers, strawberries,  spinach or lettuce, broccoli, potatoes and maybe some carrots.

~Kristoffer and I start our Body-For-Life 12 week program today, and I'm actually pretty excited!  We had talked about doing this back in January, and it reeeeeally scared me, but I've kind of eased my way into some of the program food/exercise techniques as a trial run, so now the transition is hardly noticeable.  These past 8 weeks, I've lost about 8 pounds...which is great, and I have another 22ish pounds to go.  I can tell that I've toned up quite a bit already, so that's a big plus.  I will tell you that Kristoffer and I took "Before" pictures of ourselves and it was a real eye opener for me!  True to form, we stripped down to bathing suits and snapped pics...reluctantly.  I looked at the pictures of myself and cringed; it wasn't pretty.  It's funny how different you look when you actually take a picture (especially in a bathing suit, with nothing to hide the truth!), as opposed to just looking in the mirror everyday.  I think we can see the person in the mirror as US, but when we look at the picture, it's almost like we're a third party and seeing ourselves for the first time.  BUT, I'm excited to be fit again!

~I've started experimenting with freezer meals this week, and I'm excited to see how things turn out!  Over the past 12 weeks, I've become ridiculously frustrated with the amount of time I'd noticed I was in the kitchen; it felt like I was in the kitchen all...day...long.  Even ME, who loves to cook, was beginning to detest the kitchen!  So, I've been researching freezer meals that fit into our Body-For-Life program and I've made a few to put in the freezer.  The concept of freezer meals is to cook large quantities and freeze them into dinner portions and just pull them out to heat/cook when it's dinner time....much less stress.  There are a ton of freezer meals that can be waaay unhealthy, so I steered clear of those.  What I focused on were mainly the proteins dishes...pre-seasoned and ready to pop in the oven; and also pre-cooked brown rice (which takes forever to cook).  This way, I only need to make a veggie, and heat up the rice and throw the protein into the oven, and DONE!  I still need to actually do the final taste-test to make sure they come out of the freezer and heat up well, but I'm fairly confident.  

~Kristoffer might possibly be having a new and very exciting opportunity at work.  It is still very up-in-the-air, but we are hoping and praying and crossing our fingers!  That's all I can give you right now!

~Marin is such an exhausting ball of energy!  She want to play play play all day long, but not alone, she ALWAYS wants (usually) mommy to play with her.  It's really a challenge to balance playing with her, and playing with Owen and chasing after Owen and making meals and doing all the other house-wife stuff, phew!  But she loves her little brother and is so sweet to him (most of the time!).  She loves to carry her notebook around and draw, she loves her macaroni and cheese, she loves her stuffed animals and her play kitchen and her little puppy purse.  She's enrolled for pre-school this fall, which is crazy!  We had debated on enrolling her and the added cost of it etc.  We decided she was really craving the external socialization outside of the house, and she would appreciate the concept of school as a natural progression of independent freedom; something she has been wanting more and more of lately.  We chose the 2 day a week instead of 3 day a week program. 

~Owen is able to walk very short distances on his own, maybe about 4 to 5 steps.  If it's any further, he still chickens out and crawls.  He is still Mr. Happy and loves to laugh and smile and is amused by the simplest toy...like his big bouncy ball.  Honestly, I'm much less worried about/observant regarding milestones than I was with Marin, haha, isn't that how motherhood goes?!  He is such a cute boy, we love our little Owen!

Hopefully I can find some time to snap and upload some photo's very soon!

Principles

Might I rant...for a moment, on my own little piece of cyberspace?  This is in no way directed at anyone, it's merely a collection of thoughts from a concerned-to-tears young mother.

When Kristoffer and I were married, we had a few pages of scrapbook paper that people from our ward wrote pieces of advice on for our marriage.  One that I remember to this day is:

*Stick to your principles, and let your preferences go.*

I've been able to apply this my marriage frequently, and it has helped to ease my rather frenzied mother-mind quite a few times (don't deny it, you know you've all been there!).  There are things that really *don't* matter, in the grand scheme of things.  And, my husband has lightly teased me from time to time because I am a very principle driven person.  I feel very strongly that actions need to be consistent and a course must be followed through with, even if it is "just" for the principle.  We differ somewhat in this matter.  If, for example, we are talking about a "silly" monetary fee that may only amount to a few dollars, Kristoffer would rather pay the fee without question or further hassle, while I would rather correct the situation and get my 2 dollars back...not because I am really in dire straights for an extra two bucks, but because it's the principle.

I tell you all of this to preface my current frustration...with the world.  Where in the world have all the principles gone?!  Is no one out there standing for them anymore?!  It seems as though we've all found our petticoats in a tangled mess but we're content to leave them as is and pretend otherwise.  And by this I mean that it seems we've all kind of...taken the easy road.  What happened to true grit?  What happened to doing the right thing because it's the right thing?  Instead, here we are, exchanging our golden principles for

feather-y preferences, because, well, let's face it...it's too darned hard to carry those heavy golden principles around anymore.  Surely we can't be expected to carry the weight our WHOLE lives?!  We need to give ourselves a break, we need to lighten our load by giving up those heavy golden principles for some nice light preference feathers.  THOSE are by FAR, much easier to carry.  Right?  We would prefer to do so many other things than what the right thing is. 

So, to the world, to my own sweet children....what happens when you reach your journeys end, and you haven't the price to pay for eternal exaltation?  When you realize, far too late that entry can only be gained with payment of those golden principles?  And all you have in your satchel are worthless, light preference feathers?  Will they be enough to give your repentant mind a soft pillow as you bitterly weep for things lost?  I can only think of my sweet Young Women, the many young daughter's of God that I have had a blessed opportunity to work with over the years.  It is indeed a heavy burden to carry such solid gold principles, but we are never meant to carry it alone.  Please, don't ever trade your priceless principles for worthless preferences, no matter how hard to world will barter with you and nag at you and shamelessly try to fool you into thinking that feathers are better than gold.  Stand tall, press forward, endure to the end...and you will gain entrance to be greeted with; "Well Done.".