Wedding invitation

Today over lunch Zachary said that he was going to invite me to his wedding.  Then Nathan chimed in and said I could come to his too.  I asked if they thought they  were going to get married the same day.  Zachary said no because he is younger.  Wow, that 13 minutes makes all the difference.  He sure gets a lot of mileage out of being the youngest in our house.  He thinks he should go first whenever we play games and he wants all the other privileges of being the youngest in the family.  

 Poor Nathan, he gets all the disadvantages of being a middle child.  

UGH! A Utility Bill

I got my first utility bill today.  You get a little spoiled living in base housing and never receiving a water, electric, or gas bill.  Now it is time to start really conserving.  Despite being 95 degrees outside, we are trying to hold out like the neighbors and not turn on the air conditioning.  The neighbor told me that they try to wait until the triple digits.  Looks like that will hit by Thursday this week.  This morning I was using my treadmill and Mario came in to shut off the light.  The sun was coming up so I guess he figured I didn't need that light anymore.   It is a little depressing in my house with all the windows and blinds closed.  But I guess that is necessary to keep out the sun and keep in every ounce of cool air we have.

But I am not complaining.  I still love Tucson!  I will take the heat and utility bills over the cold weather and small house(but free utilities) any day!

Mario and Tim

We are so excited to be living in Tucson.  One major perk of living here is that Mario gets to know his little brother that he hasn't seen (except once) since Tim was 2.  Tim has a beautiful little daughter, Mackenzie who is 3.  

Cheap Labor

As a mom, I am always trying to figure out how to get my kids to do their chores.  I don't care if they complain about doing them-just do them!  I often think of my favorite babysitter, Brianna, and her family (Kristy-I hope you read this).  Brianna used to tell me that their family did most of the cleaning chores on Saturday.  Her dad was the supervisor and would make them redo their chores if they didn't do them well.  Their house was always immaculate.  I wish Mario and I could get our kids to do an equally good job.  

The other day after FHE we started discussing chores for the new house.  I decided to make a list of all the chores that need to be done and I assigned a monetary value to each one.  Then I let the kids choose which ones they wanted to do (with the condition that if they didn't choose, I would choose for them.)  Well, we are on our third day and my house has never been cleaner. Erin loves to buy Breyer horses so she is motivated.  She has even asked for additional chores that aren't on the list.   

I wonder how long this will last.  Probably not much longer, but I am going to enjoy my dusted shelves, clean blinds, mopped floors, clean bathrooms, swept patio, sanitized doorknobs, etc for today.   I probably better think of incentives to keep it going.  Maybe a bonus!

Legoland Pics

On our way to Tucson, we stopped in San Diego to visit Legoland and Seaworld.  I loved Legoland.  The rides were mild and the Lego statues were amazing (especially the Obama Inauguration one)  Just a thought, if McCain (or my favorite-Romney) were to become president, would Legoland have done a great big Legoland Inauguration for them too?  I wonder? 

New Favorite $4.99 Toy

The other day I took Zach and Nathan to Toys R Us.  Zach has a lot of money in his savings account but he doesn't want to spend very much of it.  He goes around the store and asks how much everything costs.  It doesn't matter what it is, if it is $5 or less, he wants to buy it.  Of course, most of the things are junk!

But then he came across the yo-yo aisle and decided that he wanted one because it cost $4.99.  I said, Eric probably has one for you to borrow.  Nope, that wasn't good enough, he wanted his own.  Turns out, we didn't have a single yo-yo in the entire house until Zach bought this one.  It was a hit with Eric.   He was letting Zach play with his most favorite (and even expensive toys)  in exchange for using Zach's new yo-yo.  Zach decided to be generous and buy Eric his own yo-yo.   Then Erin decided she wanted to try it out.  Next thing I know Zach is playing with Erin's American girl dolls while Erin plays with his yo-yo.  I decided this was way too much power for Zachary and decided I may as well purchase Erin her own yo-yo so she wouldn't have to let Zach play with her expensive dolls anymore.

It is amazing how many hours the kids have played with these $5 toys.  I love it because they are spending time together learning how to do tricks with them and best of all, they are off the computer!

Way to go Zach for picking out a great toy!  

Having Faith

Today we were having FHE and I asked the kids a question like, "What should be some new rules for our house." It was apparent that Zachary was not paying attention. When I called on him, he said "Faith!" Mario told him that would be a good answer for almost any question at church, but not for my question.

But speaking of faith, I am so grateful to have faith and to know that Heavenly Father knows best. We had been looking for a rental home. The top priorities for finding a house were good schools, a church very close, and a short commute for Mario to work. We thought we had found a great house in a new neighborhood with brand new schools and about a mile from church. Mario and I really wanted the house. It was a really good price, but we couldn't get the realtor to send us any pictures. It was very frustrating to us because we were ready to send in our deposit if we could just get some pictures. We were so disappointed when the house rented out. I felt like maybe we should have just rented it sight unseen.

Fortunately we found this other house that is about 800 sq feet bigger with room for food storage and close to the park and 1 mile from church. We felt very blessed. Then we found out that the original house we wanted was not in the ward that we thought. It was actually about 6 miles to the church instead of 1. I know that to some 6 miles doesn't seem like much, but when you have 4 kids and callings, you spend much of your time at church (esp. when your kids start seminary). If we would have rented that house and then later found out about the 6 mile drive to church, I would have been so disappointed.

I am sure Heavenly Father knew how important it was for me to be close to the church and schools and he blessed our family with the perfect place. I need to always have faith that things will work out because they always do.