Cheltzi's Funny, What I Found Under the Couch, and a Surprise

This morning as I was helping Cheltzi get her leotard for dance class we had this conversation:

Cheltzi: Hey, that was my job.
Me: What was your job?
Cheltzi: For my shoulder holders.

I had helped her put her arms in her sleeves. I laughed so hard.


And this is what I found under my couch last night when I tipped it over to see if I could fix the cushion. Luckily, I got the cushion fixed without losing an eye. My glasses saved me. There is some change mixed in there too. $1.65!!

And for the Surprise

A Few Pictures That I haven't Posted Yet

I found my camera!! It's amazing the things you'll find cleaning out your car. These pictures are in no particular order.

This is the first year since Cheltzi was born that we didn't get pictures with the Mall Santa.

This Picture was taken at my mom's company party (Good 'ole Walmart).

Cheltzi at Kevin's company Christmas Party acting silly

Dominik at Kevin's company Christmas party. Such a handsome boy.

Pay It Forward

I got this off of my friend, Nykki's blog and thought that it would be fun! It's a fun way to do something nice for someone else! :)This is how it works: Pay It Forward Exchange is based on the concept of the movie "Pay It Forward". I will send a hand made gift to the first three people who leave a comment to this post on my blog requesting to join the PIF exchange. All the gifts will be made and posted out 'sometime within the next year'. How exciting to not know when your surprise package will arrive! What you need to do in return, is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog. This Exchange is only open to those with active websites or blogs. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS PROMISE TO POST THIS SAME 'PAY IT FORWARD' MESSAGE ONTO YOUR BLOG, WHICH MUST BE ACTIVE IN ORDER TO PLAY. YOU WILL PAY IT FORWARD TO THREE PEOPLE WHO COMMENT ON YOUR BLOG. I'd love for you to join me! Will you? Other comments are welcome, but only the first three will be my Pay It Forward recipients.

After Commenting please e-mail me your address to maplefam(at)hotmail(dot)com.

Goals

I am not one for "New Year's Resolutions". Sure I have made them in the past, but did I actually resolve what I wanted by the end of the year? NO! So not wanting to make resolutions I decided to make goals. We all have goals. Some days I have a goal to just get out of bed. Let me tell you that sometimes it really is hard for me to do this. Anyways I'm getting off subject. I am hoping that by writing these things down and having easy access to them I will be more inclined to actually make an effort to improve myself, my family, my spirituality, my marriage, and my home.

#1. Spirituality- a) I have never in my whole life (no not even in seminary) read the Book of Mormon cover to cover. I keep hearing people say that we need to "immerse" ourselves in the scriptures and truly study them. How can I truly study them if I don't even know what it is I am supposed to be studying. So my goal on this one is to read the Book of Mormon from cover to cover and learn how to study the scriptures. b) Go back to the Temple. This is a big one for me and I want to accomplish this goal within a few months. c) If I ever get a calling, (I'm sure I will) I want to do the best I can and "magnify" it to the best of my ability

#2. Family- a) Relax a little when it comes to the things Cheltzi does. I have had several people in the last few weeks tell me to pick my battles. Which really I need to. Some of the things I get mad about, when I think about it later, really aren't that big of deal. b) I need to take more time to play with my kids. I am getting so sick of T.V. and movies. c) I want to also make more quality family time. d) FAMILY HOME EVENING!!

#3. Marriage- a) Date nights. Kevin and I need so desperately to have date night more often. Not only do we need alone time, but I think it might be good for Cheltzi and Dominik to have a night once in a while without us. b) Pray together more often just the two of us.

#4. Home- a) This is a big one for me. For some reason I always have a hard time keeping our home clean. I have struggled with this since we had our first place. It gets way out of control and gross. I am sick of it and I want a cleaner place for my family. I also believe it will help with bringing the spirit into our home. b) I want to get pictures on the walls. Pictures of my family, my savior, and the Temple. c) Cook more homemade meals. b) This one could possibly be a goal to improve myself because it is something I enjoy, but it also benefits my family. So I am putting it in the home category. I want to continue my new found hobby, sewing. I have never been interested in sewing until this past year and I love it. I want to continue learning and making things. At some point this year I want to get quilt frames and start quilting.

#5. Myself- For some reason this is hard one for me. I am always more concerned about Kevin and the kids that I forget myself. I don't want to become selfish, but I do believe there has to be a happy medium. I don't have any specific goals right now on how I can achieve this, but as I think of ways I will document them.

I will be blogging more. I hope that I will be able to at least once a day blog about what I have done to improve in these areas. I am thinking about making a different blog that will separate my goals and myself from my family blog. I can't decide yet.

Any input is VERY welcome.

I promise there are pictures to come. I need to dig my camera out of my van (that needs a goal category all to itself).

Happy Birthday to...

ME!!

Ugh. I spent the day driving. We made it back to Colorado again. I am hoping it will be a while before I have to make that trip again. Don't get me wrong I love my family and I miss them, but if Kevin and I are going to work on a happy marriage I have to be home. Cheltzi was so happy to be home and to see her daddy. The whole drive she kept telling me she was going to give her daddy a "bid hud and a kiss on the cheek". So cute. Hopefully we will go out on Saturday for a birthday date.

Cheltzi was talking about a time that she and Dominik spent the night at her aunt and uncle's house when Kevin took me out. She told me to take daddy and baby brother to Uncle Andrew's house for a sleepover so mommy could take her on a date. How stinkin' cute is that? I love my baby girl. I missed her while she was at Nana and Papa's house.

Happy New Year... I hope the first day is not a sign of things to come

New Year's Eve Cheltzi, Dominik, and I spent time with my cousin and her family. Super fun and the traditional taco party. I used to despise the taco tradition but this year instead of resisting it I embraced it whole heartedly. I loved it and I loved spending time with my best friend. Watching our kids together was a lot of fun. (Forgot the camera). Cheltzi got some "Mr. Magorium" pops from Nana so we took them with us and all of the kids loved it. For those of you that have not seen Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, there is a scene in the movie where Maloney and Mr. Magorium dance on bubble wrap in the park. Ever since Cheltzi has been obsessed.
Since I was not home with Kevin on New Year's I called him just before midnight so I could be the first to tell him I love him. (Which I do more now than ever and things are going good and can only get better). We hung up and I took my cranky kids to grama's for a spend the night.
Later in the day Kevin called me. Kind of a surprise since I am usually the one to call him. But I was excited. He said he was just getting off of work, but he called me around 10:00 a.m. I asked him what was going on and he broke the news. About 5 minutes after I hung up from our new year talk. He got a call to go into the shop because a truck broke down. Kevin said he couldn't go in because he didn't have a way to get there (I have the van in Utah). Dispatch told him he HAD to get in and they sent someone to pick him up. Well other than he had a truck to fix the reason they called him in was because the shop was robbed and all of Kevin's tools were stolen. They stole a couple of laptops, broke a window in the BRAND NEW shop truck, stole a welder, and knew how to drive the fork lift meaning that it was either an inside job or someone that had worked at his place of work before. Kevin said the fork lift is really finicky and it doesn't work like regular forklifts I guess. The other thing that is suspicious is whoever this was only tipped over the other mechanics tool box and took a nice set of wrenches.
Dispatch had to go and take a load of water somewhere, but when he left he forgot to lock the door. I guess he didn't even get the load done because one of the other trucks broke down so he had to go back to the shop to call Kevin and get a tow rope. When he pulled into the yard to get the tow rope he saw someone take off. They also stole the spare keys to the big trucks and the owner's friends truck was running when dispatch got there. So they think the thief was going to take that truck too, but dispatch showed up again.
This is a big deal to us because Kevin needs tools to make a living. It's his job. They were his tools. We don't know how we are going to replace all of the tools that got stolen. We don't know if his boss is going to buy him new tools and then just keep the insurance money or if we have to wait for insurance money to get new tools. We actually don't even know if we will be getting insurance money to replace the tools.
I'm pretty frustrated, but I have faith that everything will work out.