Swensen Sentral

Gave my blog a facelift.  Do you like?  Took me forrr...evvv...errrr  to figure out.  Annoying, but I like it now :)

Rick has been begging for this. What's a busy mom to do?

I had a vision (if you can call it that) while driving the other day of my children being full grown tomorrow. Tomorrow. My heart sunk as I realized I will never get this day back with them. I think it was a tender mercy of The Lord, helping me realize I should enjoy this day and live with no regrets. Then I had a lesson in church yesterday about focusing on what's most important in life and having no regrets. I spend way too much time "socializing" on my phone when I could be spending better time with my family. So due to that lesson and inspiration from a friend (thanks Allison) I took my first step. I deleted facebook and instagram on my phone. All too often I've been the mom at the playground that is busy texting or facebooking or whatever on my phone and ignoring my children's requests to push them on the swing. Embarrassing and sad. No more temptations for me right now. Time to focus on the things that matter most. I know I posted this before, but it is...

Started the day off pretty well.  1) Valentine's Day gift bags for Rick and the kids, and the first part of my gift from Rick.  2)  I kept the kids home from school since Soleil is still sick (I vowed to not let any of them return to school until EVERYONE in our house was well) so they missed their class Valentines parties.  But we still dropped off their bags of Valentines at the office to distribute to their friends in class.  3)  Since we were home, I let the kids play outside in the backyard and they had so much fun.  The weather was so nice and I just sat and watched them every time they said "Mom, watch this!" or "Mom, look at me!" (which was about every 10 seconds).  It was so pleasant and the sun and the fresh air made me feel so happy.  I also took some really cute pictures of them all in their red.  4)  After lunch the little ones went down for naps and I finally got to folding some laundry.  Soleil woke up fr...

I love birthdays.  I love that everyone has a day of the year that they get to feel so incredibly special and important, and be showered with gifts and doted upon.  Today was Amelie's day.  I think it was a good one.  Started the morning with her favorite cereal "Smarshmellow Matey's" as she use to call them.  She opened gifts from her grandparents (2 books and princess dolls).  Then she got dolled up for school, wore her favorite outfit (a dress of course), I curled her hair just how she wanted, and let her wear dangly earrings.  She celebrated at school by eating chocolate chip muffins and juice boxes with her class.  Then was surprised by an early school pickup from dad, who took her to see Transylvania at the theaters.  After that I took her to Paint A Dream where she picked out a ceramic cat and together we painted it according to her specifications (pink and purple tail, red stripes on the head, brown body, you know the usual cat colors...

Written on Mon Jan 21st: It was a good day. Taught the kids about Martin Luther King Jr, let them all write down a dream and then we spent the day fulfilling their dreams. Sawyer dreamed of playing at a play place, so we hit up Ikea's smalland. They all loved it. Amelie's dream was to ride horses, so we took carrots and apples to our friends horses and fed them, almost as good as riding. And Chase's dream was to watch a family movie, so we ended the day with Air Bud (a movie about a soccer-playing dog). Thanks to MLK we had a day of dreams coming true.

Sawyer is already making me laugh for the day. He wants to watch "The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl" but he calls it "Shark Boy and Wot Hava Goyl?" Hahahahaha! Then he tells me that he can jump on the couch. I ask why. He says "because it's green and green means go!" Touché.