On his first day of school he was so very excited.  Such a big boy and just bursting with energy.  We had eggs and bacon and pancakes for breakfast at his request.   We then walked the whole way to school with the girls in the stroller.  We had timed this walk the week before so we wouldn’t be rushed, still were really rushed.  He left me without a problem at the door to his classroom after we hung up his backpack and took out his water bottle and his present for Mrs. McCullen.  He gave her a loaf of banana choc chip bread with a nice card.  And then sat nicely at his desk ready for the day.  I was so proud and sad.  I immediately started crying when I turned my back to him.
On his second day of school, he did not want to wake up.  Said he was too tired and didn’t need to go to school.   Guess that is what happens when you have to wake up for school at 630am and you aren’t used to the schedule yet.  But he went without a problem and had a great day at school.  I was so very proud of him.
He has his moments when he doesn’t like school, but there are many more moments that he LOVES it!!!  We drop him off at school every day and then he takes the bus home.  He feels like a big boy on the bus, and it gets him home faster than me being able to drive through all the traffic of kids and parents.  So bus it was.
I am so very sure that we will write about many moments of his school days.  For now, I am hoping nothing too eventful happens. (unless it is FABULOUS!!)

In May, we were living in our new house in Texas and Kara had her 3rd birthday.  Of course I did not have any of my cake making pans or decor stuff.  But thankfully my parents drove down that weekend and played with the kids.  They got Kara a wonderful birthday cake which Kara absolutely LOVED!!!  So thank you to my parents.  I will someday load the pics from then.

Also in May, I went to Kindergarten Orientation for Ryan.  Wow it was an eye opener to me.  I was crying already that my boy was this old and going to be in school.  Ryan loved being able to visit an actual classroom where a teacher read a story to them.  They then gave the kids all a set of readers to bring home.

In June, we went to Florida.  I wrote about that one.

In July, we celebrated Brooklyn’s birthday.  I still had not come across my cake pans or decor tools.  So made her a strawberry cake/torte with whipped cream and strawberries inside.  With Strawberry Shortcake toys decorating the top.  It was super cute, in my opinion.    She was spoiled rotten as Debby and James came over and joined us for dinner and cake.  It was wonderful to have them over.

Now that is an end to the forgotten, until I remember something else that I wanted to say. HAHA!

We came back home and then my parents came for a visit on their way to Brownsville, TX.  That Sunday Justin and I were both given callings.  Justin is the ward financial clerk and I am the Beehive teacher.   We have taken a few trips to the pool.  And unpacked a few more boxes.  Not much happening around here yet.  Hoping to finish making the house guest worthy by the end of the year.

Yesterday was my birthday.  Wish kids knew they should behave on our birthdays. HA, that would be great.  Thankfully we had wonderful plans after work.  I picked up our friends Tim and Patty’s kids, Katie and Anthony; and we met the working parents up at Dave and Buster’s.  It was fabulous!!!  Totally Chuck E Cheese for grown ups.  I loved it!!!  Skee Ball, Basketball, football, video games, dancing games, etc.  By the end of the night everyone was tired.  Patty used her tickets and got my kids stuffed animals and a slinkee for Ryan.  And I got a Hamilton Beach electric ice shaver.  The virgin pina coladas are gonna be coming.   I am so excited to use it.
So that was July for the Hurst’s.  Hopefully the rain will mellow out sometime so we can plan some outside stuff to do.  Even though we will only be out for an hour at most since it gets too hot.  It’d just be nice for the rain to not happen on a daily basis.

Until next month….

I really want to express my gratitude for the wonderful blessings we have received in Alaska.  I will always have a special part of my heart for AK.  And this house.  All of my 3 children were born in this very house.  This is the first house of Justin’s and mine.  This house has seen us through the past 7 years.  So much has changed in our lives in that time.  I am grateful for the friends we have made here.  Most of our friendships here really feel like family.  Especially since we don’t have family here to turn to, it feels really nice to know I can turn to someone here and ask of them as I would a family member.  To be able to rely on someone to come to your house in the middle of the night to watch your children is a wonderful feeling.  You can’t just ask that of anyone.  So thank you to my Heavenly Father for these close wonderful friends I call my Alaskan family.   I will surely miss you all and how you have touched my life and the lives of my husband and children.

I will miss the awesome sunsets in Alaska.  (I don’t usually wake up for the amazing sunrises in the summer, but I do see them in the winter when they come).  I already know I will surely miss the mountains and the view we have out our windows of the gorgeous snow capped peaks.  I will miss our off roading adventures.  We had great times taking the Jeep out onto the Glaciers and mountains and other awesome sites.  I will miss the wonderful life we have up here.

Now on to the good…..What I am looking forward to:
I am excited for the warmth (in May and June), still think I may be sticky and dying in July and August, ask me then.
I am excited to live closer to our family.  I am excited to take more road trips.  (In Anchorage the road trips we took were way too long to get to one place and ended up taking way too long for the kids.  Though we had some fun road trips to Seward, Portage, Kenai, McCarthy, etc)
I am excited to play outside for more than 4 months out of the year.  I am excited to have a bigger house, though not so excited to clean that bigger house.
I am eager to start over.  Trying to be more patient and kind and giving everyone a chance.  I know I don’t always give all a fair shot and make judgements (yes I am not perfect and am quick to judge sometimes, working harder on that)  I am hoping to be able to make friends quickly and find a playgroup or moms group in the ward there.  I guess I should have asked when I was down there in the ward (whoops)
I am super excited to get together with family for holidays.  Christmas with extended family is something my kids have never had.  That would be so wonderful to share with them. As the Christmas’s when I remember with my grandma, grandpa and ma are some of the most memorable.  I adore the memories I have of being with my grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles, etc.  I want my children to have more than the once a year reunion with them.

Okay, now that I have gone off way more than I originally intended to, I am off to bed.  Hopefully good dreams of what is to come.  (Meaning an offer on our house and Jeep hopefully!)

Here are some pics of the finished house now.  So sad to leave! (well, some of it I am sad to leave.)

Love ~ ME!

So here is my beginning of focusing on my happy things in life.  Thanks for visiting with me.

So my callings in life at this point in time are, wife, mother, sister, daughter, Primary 1st counselor, visiting teacher, friend, neighbor, have I forgotten anything else?  Seems like an awful lot for one person.  Yet I am expected to do all of this and still maintain sanity???  I’ll be the first to admit, I can’t keep my house clean, I can’t keep my kids in line, I don’t always make it to 100% for VT, I do argue with Justin, I don’t feel like I have many friends here so it makes it even harder.  So yeah, I am so far from being perfect in any of these many callings in life and yet things keep getting added to it.  I feel like my effort in one is suffering sometimes when I focus more on another.  I don’t want it to be like that and need help balancing it all I guess.  How do I do that?  And how do I keep from getting so down in the dumps this winter?  Last year was a bit easier as we had preschool more regularly and Wendy lived closer so we could watch each other’s kids while we each ran errands.  Don’t have that luxury anymore.

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Now on to our lives…..it’s pretty chilly right now.  Single digits mostly, so the kids aren’t too excited about going outside right now.  They have only gone out a couple times since it has actually snowed.  It’s sometimes not worth the hassle of bundling them up though because it usually lasts 30 minutes at the most.  I am done with the cold.  I am usually found sitting around in sweats which make me feel twice as big as I usually am.  So when the days come around when I actually get some nice clothes on and some makeup, I feel a bit better about myself.
Justin is looking amazing.  He is such a good example at keeping in shape.  I really wish I had the drive to do it.  Maybe on the Wii I can try to start a routine.  Because we know it isn’t gonna happen outside of the house.  Not gonna pay someone to watch my kids nor pay for a gym membership.  So outrageous.
Ryan just got all his hair buzzed off.  A little more than usual as I grabbed the wrong size clip attachment when I started cutting.  Whoops!  He loves playing video games, just like most boys.  And I wish he was more interested in learning more.  Reading is not his thing and I wish I could change that.
Kara on the other hand LOVES books.  She usually has one in her hand most of the day.  She is getting more independent and still working on potty training.  I’m still really nervous about completely taking her off the daiper during the day.  I don’t want any more messes to clean up.
Brooklyn had her eye surgery last week and is doing great.  Both eyes are now aligned and look normal.  She is still super small and petite, but there are no health worries.  So that is great news.  She has her followup appointment with the opthamologist tomorrow so we will see how her eyes are doing.  Thankfully all has gone well there.
We are so very blessed as a family.  Our 8 year anniversary is coming up and it has made me bring up all the memories over the years.  This is the longest I have ever lived in one place, one house and it is very weird.  I really want to move.  But I am so grateful for Justin’s job, that I will go where that takes us.  So if we are to remain here, then I just need a different house with more room.  It feels quite cramped in here especially during the winter.  I can never escape for my own time.  Unless everyone is asleep.  Then I am alone in the living room usually.
Okay enough of the nonsense rambling.  I will say until next time (which could be tomorrow or next year, I am not on a blogging schedule)

What a cute boy.  I was crying my eyes out while he was telling me this.  Just with the stick figure Mommy and the teacher’s writing next to it saying Mommy to be happy.  I love that my son wants me to be happy.  And I realize that me being home with him everyday is such a wonderful thing that I could never ever take away from him.  It is so wonderful to be able to teach him to read and write and do so many independent things.  I love him so much and am so thankful for the blessings he asks for.  Even when his prayers get a little funny and he asks for things only a 5 year old boy would ask for.  My favorite thing he says lately in his prayers is “Please help me to have fun playing my game (whatever Wii game), and please help me grow up and get older like Daddy so I can play my Mario fighting game (Mario Smash Bros.)”  Super cute and was pretty funny the first few times.  Now we are kind of used to it.  Is it bad to not try to talk him out of saying those things?
Okay, I have to get to bed now.  Tomorrow is the Primary Presentation and being in charge of it, I guess I shouldn’t sleep through any part of it.   Talk to ya later!!!

We also took a HOT trip to Vegas in July.  Justin’s brother Jeff got married to Cristy, a lovely lady from Mexico.  It was super fun and a great wedding.  It was wonderful to see all the family.  The kids got to meet their uncle Phil who had never met any of them.  We were happy that everyone was able to make this trip.  I also was able to see a great friend from high school.  Marianne and I used to have lots of fun back in the day.  We even went on our first group date together after our 16th birthdays.  It was so awesome to see her and her family.

We took the family up to McCarthy to camp for Memorial Day.  We camped and also rode our bike’s up the road to Kennicott.  A crazy hard ride for me.  But I may just be a wuss.  Oh well.  That was a fun trip with the Barney’s.  Justin actually rode his bike for half of the dirt road AKA McCarthy Highway.  I don’t know how he did it, but I was and am still proud of him.  While he was biking, I was in the Expedition with the kids and before we were able to get on the road my battery died at the campground.  Who is around on Memorial Day at the campground in the middle of the day??  NOONE!!!  Not even the campground managers were there.  I think everyone went to the parade.  But afters many tears and prayers and me leaving the kids in the hot truck with all doors open while I ran down the road to see if I could flag down a car.  After a few cars of noone being able to help, finally a family stopped to help me.  It was seriously an answer to my prayer.  Even better was that the kids were entertaining each other and playing nicely when I came back to the truck.  I was so worried about leaving them there while I ran down the road.  But thankfully our Heavenly Father was watching over them and me.

Lots of outside time with the kids.  Kara’s birthday was a care bear fun day.  Brooklyn’s birthday was spent in Vegas and we had yummy cake and she had all of the Hurst cousins there with her.  Then we were back home for my birthday.  And the Morris’s helped us celebrate that.  Yummy dinner and cupcakes made by Dustin-THANKS!!!  YUMMM!!!  Then Justin’s birthday, we had a water balloon fight in the backyard and grilled steak for dinner.  The best part was the homemade ice cream cake that was so delicious!!!  I think I am going to make those more often.
Summers are filled with so much fun.  If it could be summer all year round up here I would love it.  I am reminded everyday of what a beautiful place we live in.  Amazing mountains, waters, glaciers, falls, wildlife, flowers, etc.  So much to appreciate.  I hope to remember that when the dreadful day comes and the white stuff starts falling again and ruining my days outside.  YUCK!!  Maybe the kids will be sick less this winter and be able to play in the snow more often. …..Can you picture me crossing my fingers and wishing really hard?!

We are looking forward to ending the summer on a nice note with Ryan’s birthday.  Still don’t know what we are doing.  All he says when I ask him what he wants to do, is that he wants all of his cousins to play at his house with him on his birthday.  Poor guy.  I keep telling him that he doesn’t have any cousins that live here anymore.  So no more birthdays for him with cousins.  But he can invite friends.  And then he tells me that he doesn’t have any friends.  Just his cousins are his friends.  Ohh, my heart melted for him with his sad eyes looking at me.  We will make this a wonderful birthday for him and he will remember it for a very long time.  So it’s alright.

I hope that everyone else had a wonderful and enjoyable summer.  I end this as I go to can some more apple pie filling and applesauce.  I also made my first ever crabapple juice.  And I must say for my first juice ever made, it is pretty dang good!!!

Until next time……..

We had all the kids sleeping in their room.  We had the baby gate on their room so we would have time to get the video camera out before they came barreling down the hallway.  And we woke up before them.  I actually got up and made a yummy breakfast before they got up.  So we went in and got them up.  Then they came and saw the tree and got their stockings.  Santa filled them up with goodies.  Candy and nuts and oranges.  Ryan asked Santa for a shovel and he got a red plastic snow shovel.  Kara got a broom to help clean up.   And Brooklyn got a stuffed beanie pony.
Then there were all the other gifts to get to.  I know I won’t remember it all since it was 3 months ago, but here’s trying.
Ryan got buckets of animals, a glowing doodle pro, trains, puzzles, books, and more stuff.  Kara got leapfrog fridge magnets to share with Ryan, 2 baby dolls, books, art stuff, and more.
Brooklyn got baby books, a ball rolling giraffe thing, stuffed animals.
Mommy got 2 cameras.  YUP!! Justin went all out and got an awesome awesome SLR camera for me.  It took me a while to get used to it, but I am using it more frequently now.  Though I feel awkward taking it out of the house since it is so large.  I also got a little digital camera for the ease of taking pics on outings.  Ryan had just broken the camera the week before Christmas so this was a necessity.  Thanks honey!!!  I also got wayyyyy too much Pampered Chef stuff that I had saved for Christmas and not opened.  I was proud of myself for that.  Justin got a nerf gun set that him and Ryan played a little bit before Ryan was hit in the face and started crying.  He also got clothes and giftcards and I am sure I am missing something, sorry!
We had a very good Christmas spending time together as a family that day.

Later Christmas afternoon we went over to the Rivard’s place and had a get together with Jason, Erin, and Leah Rivard, Nick, Dag & Alina Barney, and Jayson, Chelsey & Reggie Jones.  We played games, ate a lot of food, and had a white elephant gift exchange.  Ryan loved playing with Reggie and Kara had to get used to him.  Chelsey was great with the kids, thanks!

We all had lots of fun and it was snowing like crazy outside.  So I was thankful we all were safe on our drives.

Ryan was super excited.  He had just asked me and Justin the week before to tell Santa he wanted a new shovel since he had broken his sand shovel a couple months ago in the snow.  So he got a Ryan sized snow shovel and was so happy about it.  Kara got a little broom and LOVES it too (as does Ryan).  And Brooklyn got a really really soft stuffed horse and a bib.  Kara and Ryan got some cute little toys in the stockings too.  Little etch a sketch’s that someday they will get the hang of.  And some other things. 
We played around the house all morning.  I cooked up some yummy food for a get together with the Rivards, Jones, Barney’s and Erin’s sister.  We all hung out at Erin’s parent’s house in Eagle River and had a blast with food, games and talking.  Loved it!!!

Okay, I want to post some pictures.  But it has been an hour since I started this post and have been looking through pictures and trying to figure out why the images aren’t showing up on some of them.  So stay tuned for the Christmas pictures.