Swensen Sentral

On Mon April 22nd we said goodbye to a long time member of our family, The Honda Accord. She was such a good car to us. My first memory of her was when Rick picked me up for a fancy date with rose petals leading from my doorstep all the way to the car door. He borrowed it from his dad that night so he could propose. It was the most amazing date ever! After we were married, I remember how excited we were when we traded in the old sky blue Pontiac to purchase this NICE car from Rick's dad. Before kids came along, I remember driving her from Chicago all thru the night to Riverside CA for a summer sales job. After kids, I remember cramming 3 car seats in the back after having our 3rd child and hoping the door would shut. THEN, I remember cramming our entire family of 5 in her and everything we needed to live for a summer, and embarking on the drive from Provo to Boise. With things literally stuffed in every nook and cranny, we about went crazy on that trip. We vowed to return to Pro...

T-R-O-U-B-L-E Found her at it again.  None of my other kids had this problem?  Luckily it wasn't permanent this time. Then I find her walking around the house with several hair elastics on her arm and fingers (small ones I might add, that she stretched to get on).  Her purple hand wasn't liking it so much, but she seemed oblivious.  Luckily I caught her before it fell off.

Chase is like obsessed with his light blue blanket that Nana made him as a baby.  Ok, maybe not obsessed because he CAN sleep without it at night and he doesn't carry it around the house or anything (thank goodness, cuz that would be weird for a 7 year old boy to do).  But he DOES love it a whole lot, and I catch him sniffing it every so often and snuggling it to his face when he's not aware I'm looking.  So the other day he told me this... "Sometimes when I smell my blanket I have tears of joy....and I can't get my nohse off cuz it smells so good." ...I busted up laughing.

So Chase was asking to watch a movie, and I suggested one thing and Rick suggested another. Chase liked my suggestion best but Rick said no so I consented. Chase wasn't happy with that so he said, "But you said yes mom!" To which I replied, "but dad said no", to which HE replied, "Well you're the mom and moms are usually in charge of the house." Looks like the whole feminist movement worked.

So today was an especially hard sacrament meeting.  Soleil wouldn't sit still for more than 10 seconds at  a time.  As soon as she got situated on my lap, she wanted down, and then she wanted up, and then back down again.  She was just very busy and all over the place.  And between that I kept trying to find things for Sawyer to do, and nothing held his attention for very long, so he kept moving around on the bench and I kept reminding him to sit down and talk softly and be reverent.  A little over halfway through sacrament meeting he found some kid scissors in my church bag and asked if he could use them.  Usually I would say no way, but today I thought "whatever it takes to keep you happy and still."  So I told him he could use them on ONE little piece of paper, and he had to sit RIGHT at my feet and stay still.  I figured the quiet it would buy me would be worth the mess I'd have to clean up after sacrament meeting was over.  Then bac...

Pic 1- Sawyer said "Mom, take a picture of me doing this." Pic 2- Soleil decided to try tasting the flour and yeast mixture I was using to make pizza dough, despite my warnings not to. Sometimes you just have to learn the hard way. Pic 3- Rick happened upon Soleil having her first experience putting on makeup...all by herself...well lipstick as makeup Pic 4- I don't have this picture but wish I would have taken one of the tiger stripes Soleil drew all over both arms yesterday with a black permanent marker, oh and on the side of her face and her shirt. You can see the remains of the table as evidence.

(I wrote this last Sunday but for some reason it didn't post) So this evening Sawyer smacked his face on the wall while playing with Chase and I think his glasses cut his eyebrow. It was bleeding a lot so I knew the cut was bad. We called a friend of ours who kindly gave him 3 stitches for free. Not more than an hour after Sawyer's injury, Soleil walked in the way of Amelie on the swing and got smacked in the face. She came running to the house with blood gushing from her mouth. I cleaned her off and gave her a Popsicle. Luckily her cut was inside her lip and only ALMOST went through the skin, so we opted not to entertain the idea of stitches with her. Hope that was the right decision. Just another day in the life...

Her hands got cold drinking her smoothie, so she went and put gloves on. Haha!

So far so good on the Food Nanny Plan. Said me to Rick, "You know, eating is actually enjoyable when you like what you're eating" as if that were an epiphany of new revelation to me. I know it sounds ridiculous but I'm serious folks. Her recipes ARE delicious and my kids do like them mostly. I really like knowing ahead of time what I'm going to fix for dinner and not even having to think about it. And Rick?...well he is in heaven. He's been doing after-dinner clean up to show me his gratitude. I love it. I don't mind cooking so much if I don't have to do clean up. Here's some pictures just for proof. Notice someone in the background sneaking licks while I'm trying to take a picture. Little stinker.

Dinner time is my least favorite time of the day. It's stressful and loud and messy and chaotic and it happens to be the time of day when I am the most tired. Not a good recipe for success. To top it off, I've never liked being in the kitchen. I'm not much of a "food" person. Rick laughed at me one time when I said "Food is just sustenance for the body." Basically I was saying that I eat to survive, nothing more (well chocolate is a different story). I don't find enjoyment in cooking or baking, I just see it as work and a mess I have to clean up. And the times when I HAVE tried to prepare something delicious, it often ISN'T delicious and my kids don't want to eat it. De-motivational. So naturally I'm not well-suited for dinner time. But I've wanted to change that. Recently our Relief Society invited The Food Nanny (from BYUtv) to come talk to us about the importance of dinner time with the family. I felt like it was Heavenly Fa...

My mom has been visiting since Wednesday and we have had so much fun with her! The kids were so excited for her arrival that they couldn't wait inside the house any longer. So they placed a blanket on the driveway at 8:30pm last Wednesday and were sitting out there in their jammie's huddled together jumping at the sound of ever car that drew near. Nana and Gma Bonnie finally arrived about 8:45 and the weirdest thing happened, the kids went silent. Hardly a word from their mouths as they greeted each other. Kids are so weird sometimes. And Soleil of course acted afraid of them and found her comfort in my lap and refused to hug or touch either of the , even with candy and toy bribes. Stinker. But she warmed up by the next morning. She always does. So far we have colored Easter eggs (since we missed it because of the stomach flu), made "cakesicles", gone to the mall, read books, painted nails, hit the tide pools at the beach and watched a movie. Grma Bonnie had to he...