Praying for Chris

I've been praying for Chris a lot lately. He's not sick or anything, just under a ton of pressure. Chris has his MBA test coming up in 2 days. He is so nervous about taking it. He's been working for this for 2 years and is on the home stretch of actually getting his MBA. Lately he's been studying 30 hours a week just for this test. After this, he writes a final paper and that's it!

He is such a good man. I pulled out one of my old journals last Sunday, and read what I had written when Chris and I first started dating. Man, I was so in love with him. I thought he was so amazing and wonderful and I loved him so much! The way I felt then doesn't even compare to how I feel for Chris now. It is so amazing to me how much my love has grown for him. I never thought I could love someone as much as I love him. Our marriage hasn't always been easy. It still isn't easy, but we have always persevered.

Chris is such a good provider and dad and friend and husband. He always keeps my secrets. He works 40 hours a week as an Accountant, teaches accounting to high school students, does electrical work on the side, fulfills his church callings, and still has time to watch the kids for me while I workout. He helps the kids with homework, makes dinner when I've had a crappy day, takes care of our yard, watches the kids sporting events, and he hasn't missed a single parent teacher conference EVER. He puts up with all my crazy ideas and eats vegetarian meals just so I don't have to touch the meat. He's one of the most forgiving people I know, and is always the first one to apologize. Chris is the better half of our marriage. I always tell him that if I make it to Heaven it will be because of him!

I am so glad our kids have such a great role model to look up to. They love him as much as I do. I am the luckiest girl alive to have a man like Chris. I only hope I can live up to all he has been to me!

Six days

Can you believe this is six days of laundry? You would think I lived in a house of all girls with the amount of laundry we go through. I know many of you feel my pain on the laundry front. I actually don't mind laundry. It's one of my more enjoyable tasks, but with 6 people, it can be daunting. The laundry really piles up fast, so I try to do it about every five days. Today I only had time to keep rotating the laundry as it finished drying, then onto my bed it went into a big pile. I didn't get time to fold it until tonight. This first picture isn't even all the laundry. I have 2 more finished loads in a laundry basket, one in the dryer, and some on the clothes line.

One hour later:

Socks

Our family has sock issues.

First of all, check out this picture of mine and Braxton's socks side by side. His is the bigger sock. His feet are almost as big as mine, and I wear a size 9 too! It just amazes me how fast all the boys are growing up.

Here is a picture with Anden's initial on his sock. No, it's not so we can tell whose sock it is. It's because it's actually Calvin's sock, and he won't wear it anymore. He refuses to wear socks with even the smallest hole anywhere on the sock, and if it feels even slightly "funny" he won't wear it either. Since Anden could care less, he gets all the socks that don't pass the approval of Calvin.

This is a pile of Chris' socks. This guy is totally OCD about socks. There are 9 pair of socks here and that is small compared to what the pile usually is on laundry day. He has socks he runs in, socks he wears to work, socks to lounge in, socks to work in the yard, socks for church, socks for when it's cold, socks for when it's hot, and on and on and on. He goes through at least 2 pairs of socks a day.

Family Pictures

Yesterday we got our family pictures taken. There is a girl in town who does an amazing job. Let me tell you, I have been stressing about this for a long time. It took forever to pick our outfits out...of course they had to be color coordinated. I'm sure I drove Chris CRAZY with all the talk about the pictures and how we all needed to match, and how Roy better stop picking the scab on his nose or it wouldn't heal in time for the pictures (it didn't), or how I had gained 10 lbs. and now it was gonna show in the pictures....blah blah blah.

Anyway, it'll take awhile before she has them up, but she has a blog ( http://brookepehrsonphotography.blogspot.com/ ) if you want to see some of her work. She is amazing. She is a graphic designer as well.

She'll have to work miracles with us. Roy was bouncing off the walls, Calvin was cheesin' it big time, and Braxton had bloody boogers from an earlier bloody nose (gross, I know)!

Super Hero

Andy had been playing outside when he came inside and announced that he is a super hero! Of course I told him that was awesome. He wanted to know if I wondered why he was now officially a super hero. "Of course," I told him. He promptly said, "because I get this thingy thing and pick up bugs with it and move them." He was holding a super duper hero bug getter in his hands...a clothespin!

Feet

Yes, that is a picture of my freakishly skinny feet. And, no those aren't my fingers attached to them, those are my toes; yes, my even more freakishly, skinny toes. I am so frustrated I could scream. I have the hardest time finding shoes that I like, but finding shoes that I like AND fit my feet is insane. During the summer I live in my Chaco's. They are comfy, cute, and they actually fit my feet. Well, now that it is winter, I have been looking for some shoes so my feet won't freeze. To start off with, I don't like wearing shoes. I never have. The minute I get in the car or house my shoes are off. But it is getting cold.

I've been looking on Zappos.com. I decided since it is so hard to find shoes that fit, I would order several pair, try them on, then send back the ones that don't fit. I ordered SEVERAL pair. They came today. They all look terrible on me! They feel like I'm going to walk right out of them. The straps gape open. HELP! They just don't make cute shoes for narrow feet. They are all granny shoes. If you know of any cute, skinny, long (did I mention I wear a size 9?!) shoe, please let me know.

Wow, life is tough.

What a difference a day makes!

This year I decided to not plant a real garden like I usually do. I knew I wouldn't have a lot of time since I was trying to train for a long distance triathlon. Well, we had just finished our concrete driveway, and had some concrete planter boxes put in. Since nothing was in them, I figured I might as well plant some tomatoes, basil, and peppers. We were also delighted when a volunteer cantaloupe plant started growing between my lavender.

Tomatoes

It ended up being a great idea! There was something about the boxes that the plants really liked. We were surprised, and they produced a bounteous crop. The basil thrived so well that we fed our rabbits handfuls of it everyday.

Basil

On Saturday, the weather guy said it was supposed to freeze that night. I never listen to the weather since they are terrible at predicting the weather for Blanding, but for some reason I decided to listen this time. We picked all the tomatoes we could see (it was getting dark outside). We dug up 3 basil plants and transplanted them in pots to be bring inside so we could try to prolong their life. We clipped the rest of the basil so I could make and freeze pesto. We also saved 2 melons from their cold fate.

When we woke up the next morning, everything looked like this: