Change is hard...

But it is so good too. Today I have thought alot about changes in my life and how I deal with them. I was released from the Young Women's presidency today in my ward, and it is such a bittersweet thing. A part of me is so excited to be able to give that time to my children and husband, do some things I have wanted to do for the last two years and have simply had to let go. The other part is just plain sad. I grew to love the Young Women so much, and also the other women I have served with. I have made dear friends that I have learned so much from and I am better because of them.
Today as I sat in church, I just kept thinking "did I do enough?" "Did I adequately express my love and the love of our Savior for these dear Young Women?" And finally, "did I do the job my Heavenly Father called me to do?"
I don't know for sure the answers, but that isn't the important part :) The important part was realizing these are questions that we all have to answer, as mothers, friends, wives and daughters. And frankly, we never know when we will be "released" from our different callings, and when it will be time to be accountable to our Savior.
I have a renewed energy and desire to be able to answer these questions positively when it comes to my most important and treasured calling...that of Mother. Am I doing enough, am I showing my children my love for them and our Saviors, and mostly, am I doing the job my Heavenly Father has called me to do?
So today as I try to be grateful for one release, I am excited to work harder and be better and more loving in all my other "callings" :)

Britton

The last 6 months have completely flown by! My little guy is not so little anymore, and is getting more and more fun by the day. He loves to roll around and play with his toys, he does NOT love baby food, being on his tummy, or those two mean teeth that are trying to push through! He is still as lovable and sweet as ever, and getting chunkier by the day, just the way I like him :)

Murder at the Juice Joint!

Last year our friends Nate and Kristin threw a great murder mystery party (seriously you guys, we had a blast!:) and we wanted to keep the tradition going and have one this year too. We decided on the Murder at the Juice Joint, a 1920's themed party!

It was so fun!! We have some great friends who really got into it and made the night a lot of fun.


This was the main table, I love to throw a party!


Gotta love a fun party favor! Beer mugs filled with mini Martinelli's Sparkling Cider


These were the different envelopes that had your objectives you had to accomplish before and after the murder.


Prizes for Best Dressed, Most Money, and Best Actor. I just decorated old formula cans and filled them with chocolate covered pretzels.


Here are the invites, had all the background info and character information.


Here is the whole group in all our glory!


Everyone examining all the evidence and voting :)


Detective Pinkerton (Matt) at the crime scene. Poor Nick (Paul) was the one to go!


These are the drinks, it was supposed to be a bar after all!

It was a really fun night, thanks for coming everyone! :)

One of our better family home evenings

So more often than not our family home evenings are, well frankly, disasters :) That might be a little dramatic, but they just don't usually turn out the way I envision them. This one however was great!! The kids had fun, it kept their attention, and Skylar is still talking about it.

Lately Skylar has been having a little trouble with lying. I think its pretty normal and part of a stage she's in, but still, I felt like it needed to be addressed and I think fhe is the perfect place for that. So for this one I got two big pumpkins. I cut the tops off of both of them and scooped the guts out of one, and left them in the other. Then I made up a silly story about two pumpkins, Patty and Perry. Both cute pumpkins made some mistakes and told some lies, but Patty said she was sorry and tried very hard to not do that any more. Perry didn't say he was sorry and kept telling more and more lies. I then talked about how Perry felt inside when he kept lying, and how Patty felt when she apologized and didn't lie anymore. Then I had the girls stick their hands into the pumpkins, Perry was yucky and dirty, and Patty was nice and clean. I asked Skylar what she wants her insides to be like, you can guess her answer.

It was really, really fun and a good visual for something I am always trying to explain. You could also definitely use this for repentance or a lot of other things. Then after we carved and painted the pumpkins and just enjoyed being together.

And of course, gotta have a fun dessert and dinner :) I saw these pizzas at Papa Murphy's and thought "I could do that" :) and saw these cute candy corn desserts online somewhere, I am sorry, I don't remember where. It is just butterscotch pudding, then banana cream pudding, with some cool whip on top.

One thing that made me smile today...

She is my quirky little girl! :)

One year anniversary :)

This picture was taken at the Cheesecake factory last week where we went to celebrate the fabulous Karlee and her birthday (We missed you Nate)! Afterwards Paul and I were reminiscing about how we have been friend with these fabulous people for over a year now. In life sometimes you meet people that you automatically click with, and these, for us, are those people! The first night we hung out I cried from laughing so hard, and haven't stopped since. These are the kind of friends you can laugh hysterically with, but they are always there when you need them too. I could go on and on about the wonderful examples they have individually set for me, but just so I don't get too mushy I'll just say:

Happy one year anniversary!! :)

I love Gardner Village :)

I don't know what it is about this place, but I absolutely love taking my kids there, and at Halloween time it feels almost magical. Today was one of those perfect days, the wind was blowing we were bundled up with scarves and cute fall sweaters, the leaves were falling, it smelled like apple cider and my kids were angels. What more can you ask for in a day??

This year we printed off the list of Witches they have from the Gardner Village website and went on a witch hunt. It was so fun, and the kids got so excited when they would see one from our list! This is my favorite picture, the kids were being so cute, imitating the witch hula-hooping! :)



We always take a lunch when we go there and today I tried to make ours a little festive. I know, I am a HUGE dork, but my kids get a kick out of it, so I don't care :) Pumpkin shaped pbj's, and vanilla pudding colored orange with ghost sprinkles in it!



My kids also loved playing in all the leaves. You can tell we don't live in an area with big trees, they were so excited to throw them in the air and jump in them.





So many days at home with the kids are difficult, but thank goodness for days like this when you remember how much FUN being a mom is!

Creative Party Place

If you are like me and love to throw a fun party you NEED to check out this site,
www.creativepartyplace.com

The parties they feature on this site are amazing, and somehow they were kind enough to feature our fun Elmo party we did for a Kendall a few months back. If you ever need any ideas, make sure you check this place out, I can't wait for an excuse to throw another party!!

Wee Witches Night!

On Saturday night Paul was planning on going to the Priesthood session, but came down with a horrible 24-hour flu bug. So like the wonderful, loving, doting wife that I am, I left him at home with Britton and went out with the girls! And by the girls I mean Skylar and Kendall :) Gardner Village (one of my absolute favorite places!) was having a Wee Witches Weekend, and I knew we had to go.

They had lots of fun activities for the kids and Skylar about died when she saw the Glitter Eyes booth. I am such a sucker, I just couldn't resist. Isn't she gorgeous?:)



The girls loved getting dressed up in their costumes and Skylar especially loved the big stage she could get up on and DANCE! This girl is a born performer, its fun to see how uninhibited she is, she is my joy.



Kendall just loved her warm, snuggly costume, she is such a content little girl. She just hung out in the stroller and laughed at Skylar's antics. I am such a lucky mommy!

I need your help...:)

I've had this idea in the back of my head for several months now, but am ashamed to say I haven't followed up on it. It keeps coming to me again and again that this could really bless our family, but then I get busy and forget :) Well, no more! Only problem is, I need some of your fantastic ideas.

I have decided I would like to have a family service project that Paul, I and the kids do every month. We will use the first family home evening of the month to kick this off, sometimes we will be able to accomplish it that night, other times it will just be a starting point. My problem has been in coming up with service projects that will not only bless the lives of others, but that my children, even as young as they are, can participate actively in. I have thought of a few that would have special meaning for our family (taking things to families that have babies in the NICU, etc) but I need many more! Please leave me comments with your ideas, I am lucky to know so many amazing people that are such great examples to me! Thanks!

Tummy Time!

Tummy time at our house has always been a much-hated thing! ALL of my kids have screamed and screamed on their tummies, and Britton (up until this week) has been no different. So I decided we would have family tummy time every day and do some pilates moves I remembered from doing it years ago. It is cute to see how much fun the kids have and how Britton is slowly learning to not hate it so much, doesn't hurt that he can now roll over any time he wants to be on his back again :)

I need some FUN!!

Do you ever have one of those weeks (or months!) where you get so caught up with everything that NEEDS to be done, that you forget to have fun?! That has been me lately. I have been trying so hard to accomplish all these different tasks that I haven't done anything fun with my kids for weeks, and that is not like me :) If you have ever taken that color code personality test, I am ALL yellow, fun, fun, fun!! So yesterday I snapped out of my funk and we had an awesome afternoon together. Here are some things I came up with that were super fun and easy, and most importantly, FREE!!

Skylar had been looking forward to Monsters vs Aliens coming out on video so I thought I would go rent it from Redbox. I always have a bunch of free codes, and even though its only a dollar, who doesn't love free? While Skylar was at preschool I thought it would be fun to use my cricut and cut out different shapes that we could use to make monster faces. I already had all the paper so this was free and only took a few minutes to do.



Then I tried to think of some kind of snack I could make for us to eat while we watched the movie. It had to be something I had on hand and something that would go with my monsters theme. So I give you....(imagine I had blue jello:)

BOB JIGGLERS!!!



I just made jigglers and then cut them by hand (obviously, they are not too great, but Skylar loved them!) Then I used white and blue frosting to make the eyes and mouth.



Today was a good lesson for me. I am a huge planner, and I like that. But it was good to realize just because I didn't have this huge elaborate well thought out plan didn't mean I couldn't still be creative and have fun with my kiddos!

A fun, simple, CHEAP craft :)

You have probably seen these a million times, but I think they are a really cute, inexpensive gift or craft to do with your kids. All you do is get the .50 composition notebooks from Walmart and cover them with scrapbook paper. Then I cut out some words with my Cricut and finished it off by tying with a ribbon and sticking a pen in! These are a few I made for a girls weekend a few weeks ago.

What have the Johnson's been up to?

I am glad you asked! :)

This is just too cute (if I do say so myself!:)

Last week I got together with one of my most favorite people, "Aunt Lisa"! I love her to pieces, and its actually funny, while she really is my aunt, we are only a little over a year apart in age. She feels much more like a sister to me :)

She is one of the craftiest people I know, and she did it again, and invited me to come over and make one of her newest crafts. You may have seen these around, they are advent calendars made out of 24 ct muffin tins! I absolutely love the idea of these! You cover the tins with individual square magnets that you decorate with scrapbook paper and embellishements and of course the numbers to represent the different days. The thing I love most about this is that I can just make magnest for all the different holidays and keep it up all year round. I still have to do the numbers, but I couldn't wait to post this in case anyone else wants to make one :)

Without any further ado...



Now I need to start making some for all of the other holidays...:)

Happy Birthday Kendall!!

I can't believe it, 2 years old already!! Kendall is such a fun part of our family, she is the quirkiest little girl I know. The littlest things can make her SO happy, like having a lipgloss or taking a nap with her shoes on, but man, if you make her angry WATCH OUT! It has been so fun to see her personality really start to come out this year. I have always hoped she wouldn't be in Skylar's shadow, since Skylar loves attention and is quite the little performer :) I am not worried about that anymore :) Even though its in a very different way, Kendall makes sure she gets the love and attention she needs, and every day is better because we have her! And of course, gotta love squeezing those chubby cheeks :)



For her birthday this year we decided to have a little Elmo party and our friends came over to join us! I had so much fun doing all this, sometimes I think I enjoy it more than the kids :)

We had fun Elmo cupcakes and little treat bags for the kids.





All in all it was a pretty laidback party, but still such a fun way to celebrate our precious Kendall. Love you sweetie!!