Love, love, love her.

My brother could not have picked a better mate. This is my new sister-in-law Jessica (Jones) Beynon. They came down to visit this last weekend. My girls love her as much as I do. So much that Eden with heavy eyes, crawled up on her lap and feel asleep, Jessica followed shortly.

A fun mom

Every mom has different things she wants to be, and usually lots of different things she wants to be. On my list of what I want to be as a mom is FUN. Some days I do better then others. I don't even dare want to ask my kids if they think I am fun, because lately all I hear Eden say to me is "Mom, you are a crazy, mom." I'm not offended, I interpret that as she is 3 and doesn't really know what she is talking about. Now when she is 10 and still saying I'm crazy we may have a problem.
During Spring Break, we decided to have some fun. 2 other moms and I loaded up our 4-wheelers with kids and hit the trails. We went cave explorer and just 4-wheeled around.
This picture cracks me up, there you have little Eden in her winter coat (I thought it would be colder), rain boots and bike helmet - safety first.
This little girl was my personal cave guide, she took me through the caves later, because I watched all the little kids, while the big kids and other moms went in.

While the boys are away the girls will play

It's our annual tradition to have a spa night while Darrin goes to Priesthood session for conference. This year, was even more special because Grandma Case got to join us. We painted fingernails and toenails. I think that I ended the night with 1 yellow toe, 4 orange, and then Eden got bored. After nails we did facials. The girls were so clean and shiny Darrin asked several times if they had had baths when he got home. Am I revealing too much by admitting that Darrin was shocked that they looked clean? After the facials they said "now we get haircuts". So just in time for Easter I gave each girl a trim.

Can I just say, I love having girls? I love that for the next 15+ years we will be doing facials and nails twice a year, and enjoying being little ladies!

One year older...but is she wiser?

Jaya celebrated her 7th birthday this year. As her birthday came and went, I was slow to do a party (by party I mean a friends party). I actually asked her if we could just skip the whole friend thing this year, and go out as a family. She thought long and hard, and finally said "what do you want me to pick mom?" After my spill about how I am really tired, she said she would pick a family party. I was relieved. Later that week Darrin found out about our plans and conversation and said "Darcy, she is 7, let her have a birthday party." I find it interesting he ended up suggesting it be on a day and time, he would be at work, but that's not the point of the story. So 3 weeks after her birthday we had a party.

Because Jaya was in charge of helping me plan she came up with the idea of a Journaling Party. It turned out to be so fun. I love that she picked such a creative theme. We decorated these cute little journal jars. A Journal jar is filled with pieces of paper that have questions to help prompt you on what to write in your journal.

We also did those Mad Libs and came up with crazy stories.

Now you may be wondering why my 7 year old has ice cream on her face in the above picture, and that's where my question of, is she wiser comes in. After she blew out the candles, she thought it would be funny to stick her face in the cake. I tried to coax her not too, I was pretty embarrassed that the guest of honor was going to willingly subject herself to this sort of humiliation, but I guess it's not humiliating if you want to do it. I asked her right before, "why?" which she replied "because they want me to!" the timeless phrase popped into my mind...would you jump of a bridge because your friends want you to? And the resounding answer for my Jaya at age 7 is YES!

To kill some time we played Red Rover, which Eden was invited to join in. She did awesome, she didn't say anything, but she ran like a steam engine and actually broke through. I love this picture where Jaya is helping her sister run across the field.

Happy 7th birthday Jaya! It's going to be a great year.

If you can't escape it then...embrace it

This winter has seemed especially long. Just until these last 2 weeks, I wondered if I would see my forearms again, it's been cold and snowy.
I really wish I enjoyed the winter more, but it's a struggle for me. I think the distaste really comes from putting hats, gloves, coats, boots, and scarves on 3 1/2 children who insist they want to play in the snow, but then come in and out every 5 min, where the above mentioned clothing is removed and put back on, till I finally force them to stay in. It's a chore, this winter thing.
New Years Day I finally decided we were all going to go out and enjoy this season a little bit more. With ski's and sleds packed in the van, we headed to a local park and hit the slope. We had a great time, there was minimal crying, which makes everyday great!

High Pain Tolerance

I have wondered about Jaya's tonsils for years. She's had a house-shaking snore since she was two, and it's contributed to her large tonsils. Between her snoring and grinding her teeth I flat out refuse to sleep in the same room with her, unless she stay at someones house then I will put on my polite face and share (but I don't like it.)
After pediatricians showing no concerns in my concerns and quite honestly not really taking me seriously, I went to the ENT on Monday. Sure enough he validated me and said they are abnormally large and he would recommend them being taken out. I made the decision that we would and went to the scheduling desk.
She looked at the schedule and said "How about tomorrow?" After some surprise on my end (seriously who gets in the next day?) and some panic from Jaya (she said she wasn't prepared, she needed to eat more food) we scheduled it.
Jaya's nervousness left quickly though, after she returned to school and talked to a fellow classmate that had hers removed and thought it was "fun" and wanted to do it again.
The next day everything went very well, she was out in a little over an hour, after the anesthesia wore off.
Since, I haven't been able to keep her down. She was talking instantly (we couldn't understand much, but at least she was trying.) Eating everything, and I even caught her sneaking out the garage to get her jump rope.
Dr's orders are no school for a week, and no physical activity (PE, Dancing, etc) for 2 weeks. What are we going to do for a whole week??

Last night as Darrin and I were watching a movie, he paused and said "Listen, there's no snoring." and he was right. And we all got a good night's sleep.

Our good little patient ready for surgery.

Waiting

Here's Jaya right after anesthesia.

She kept looking up at me and smiling,

but it was a look like I love you, but I have no idea who you are!

"A bee Clark? It was a big bee!"

From the desk of Darrin:

During my mission I had this inside joke with one of my companions that had to do with the movie "The Santa Claus". It is the part where the main character was turning into Santa and had put on a lot of weight. While he is in a business meeting he tells everyone that he was stung by a bee and then orders all these cookies and hot chocolate for lunch. A lady says "A bee Clark?" He replies "It was a big bee.” Needless to say this past weekend I had my own case of this type of so called "bee stings".

While on my Saturday morning run, I stopped at the last drink stop and had some Gatorade to finish off my run. This was just your average blue Gatorade, the same stuff I have drank time and time again. Well right after I had some I started to run again and felt like my tongue was starting to get some canker sores on it. There was only about a mile from the last drink station to the cars where we stopped. By the time we reached the cars I felt like my face was frozen and it was hard for me to talk. This is a picture taken right after the run.As Darcy and I walked to the car I told her that I felt like I had some type of food allergy happening. She replied by telling me I looked funny, and then once we got to the car she started freaking out because my face was swelling up so fast. I talked her into just going to the store and getting some allergy medicine instead of the ER (which is where she wanted to go). By the time we stopped at the store my left eye was so swollen that I could hardly open it. After a couple of antihistamines, shower, and a blessing from my Dad I started felling better.
(I am smiling in one of the pictures and not in the other, can you tell the difference?) By the end of the day I was practically back to normal. I am still not sure why this day Gatorade was the catalyst for causing this reaction, but let’s just say I haven’t had any since that morning.
This is me, this morning; I really don’t see that much of a difference. I think I can rock it either way.