Organizing is my Calling

Last year, after my Richard passed away and I lost my job, I found myself with no spending money and a whole lot of time on my hands. In perfect timing, a friend of mine was looking for someone to do a little organizing of her home. I had some free time and could use a little fun money so it worked out perfectly. I have discovered that Organizing is my Calling in life. It makes me sooo happy!!!! I seriously look forward to diving in- making a mess and putting it all back so it looks awesome! Call me crazy but I love it!!!

Although Brett is always giving me a hard time because I forget to take any "before" pictures. I just get too excited to get started, I guess!!! Too funny!

Black Hands

We have the Payne kids over every Wednesday while their parents serve at Church. The kids have a great time together! (except when barbie body parts start getting pulled off or fire alarms scare the crap out of everyone! LOL) Tonight, the kids helped me with a painting project. They got a little wild and painted more than my boards. Silly kids! Glad they were willing to help me though & had a little creative fun!

Laminating Queen

I volunteer every Wednesday at the school. Every other week I rotate between Victoria and Glory's classes. Last year I was the Copy Queen but this year, I've been promoted???? to the Laminating Queen. All the teachers know that on Wednesdays, I'll be in the teacher's lounge- laminating!!! ;) And all the kiddos know that I'll be at lunch with my girls. It's so fun to spend time with them!

Victoria's Double Digit Bday

Victoria turned 10 today!!! Can you believe that???? We are so lucky to have her as a part of our family! She's like the glue that keeps us all together.

We celebrated by a special breakfast of Pancake Sandwiches. Justice helped make eggs. We baked up some bacon and put them all on little pancakes. Yum! Oh yes! We also had "mangos! mangos! mangos!"

We had lots of fun gifts for her birthday. She requested Shopkins, shoes, basketball shorts, candy, frosting, boots, etc. 

She opened some in the morning and most at the evening with the family!

For dinner, we made her chicken, potatoes & gravy, broccoli, avocados and raspberries.
For dessert, we sang to her over ice cream sundaes and cookies.

We have the great privilege to be this girls parents. We are seriously so lucky to have her in our lives. She is so smart!! She's creative and kind and brave and loving and funny and peaceful and gorgeous! Love this girl! XOXO

Nine Year Old Memories

For our super sweet, creative, beautiful girl-

Victoria's Nine Memories

* Favorite Color: Still pink
* Friends- 3rd Grade- McKenzie, Jadyn, Sophie & Aspynn; 4th grade- Sophie, Jayden R, Clara, and Kaylee, Other friends- the Weaver girls & the Payne kids
* Very creative- learned oil painting, make puff balls, drawing notes for everyone
* Had a part in the Missoula Children's Theater- The Little Mermaid
* Visited Hawaii & Seattle and the Lewis & Clark Caverns
* Loves to swim
* Learned to Ski
* Perfected the Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
* Won the Dear Author Award- she won $150 for her school & a Kindle Fire

Leap Year Lucky Charms

Happy Leap day!!!!

My kids LOVE Lucky Charms!!! (They take after their dad who loves cereal more than he probably should. LOL)  I thought it'd be appropriate to remember how they eat them currently. It cracks me up! They pour humongous bowls of cereal. They pick out all the marshmallows. They pour some milk and eat all the plain cereal. Then enjoy their enormous pile of sugar as a treat at the end. Silly kids!!

Light from the Heavens

The last couple years have been a rough time for me. I have a million things to be grateful for but my heart has been heavy and I feel like the heavens have been bolted shut on me. I've struggled getting out of bed and getting anything done. Planning things, getting together with people and crafting (things I normally love) have been hard for me to even fathom. Relationships have been tricky and imploded from all sides. Redefining myself as a mother that is childless most of the day- has been almost impossible to figure out. Being a mother of teenagers has proved to be way harder than I ever imagined. My self talk has been detrimental and sadness has enveloped my heart.
But...
I've been going through some EMDR counseling. {I've had bad experience with counseling in the past and was skeptical about it) It's different than anything I've done before and has made me be responsible for my own answers. It's made me get in touch with my body and emotions and how they affect each other. It's led me to do a little studying about chakras. I've realized how stuck I am in my quite a few of my energy centers. I've been working on them. In turn, they have made a difference in how I see things and how I interact with others.
So... I'm just taking it one day at a time. And I've been trying to live the motto "fake it until you make it".
Somewhere along the way things have been slowly (painfully slow) changing for the better.
Today, I saw this light from my backyard---
I'm choosing to take it as a little Light from heaven. Hopefully more is coming!

Night Skiing with the Youth

Brett was able to go on a youth trip tonight to take the kids night skiing up at the Great Divide. They didn't have a lot of youth but they had a good time!

Grandkid Tea Party

Walt has been helping us with the drywall in the basement. Today he brought his grandkids to come play while the men worked. They had a little tea party! So cute!

Be My Valentine

Brett does such a fantastic job at making Valentines a special day for me & the kids! We are so blessed to have him in our lives. We all dressed up festive in our Valentine attire. We got lots of comments today at Church. (even though we're not sure if some people just think we're crazy! LOL) Liberty even curled her hair all by herself to get all dolled up. So proud of her! All the girls looked darling!

For breakfast, Brett made the family cinnamon rolls and pink milk. So cute! I was unfortunately at morning meetings but they saved me one! XO

After Church, we did presents. Last week, Brett had bought me some tulips and they bloomed in the last couple days. They're so pretty! Brett & I both wrote love letters to the kids and each other. We are so lucky to have such great kids and to be married to each other.
Everyone got a treat of some kind. Justice and Brett strung together 8 packs of Sixlets and laid them out like a heart for me! How special is that?
I found this plaque for Brett. Over the last year or so, I have realized even more that Brett really is my best friend. He is one of my favorite people EVER! I plan on hanging it in our room so I can remind myself of that every day! Love you, Honey!!! XOXO

Brett made us all a fabulous candlelight dinner. It was AMAZING!!! We had BBQ ribs, Lobster tails, salad, potatoes & gravy and virgin margaritas. Best dinner EVER! Yum!

For dessert, he poured his heart into yummy gooey brownies. ;) What a perfect ending to a most lovely day!

Love to you all this Valentines! XO

Triple Date in Manhattan

Brian and Brett planned a fun Group Valentine Date to check out this restaurant located in Manhattan, MT. It's about an hour or so away but it was such a fun adventure to be together. We had a blast chatting in the car and learning about each other. Each couple shared how we met and our Engagement story. So cute! Sir Scott's Oasis had some yummy food! Brett & I spoiled ourselves with Prawns and Finger Steaks. It came with everything from crackers and a relish tray to soup or salad to main dinner with toast & potatoes (the JoJo's were amazing!) to dessert. Delish! We were all absolutely stuffed when we left!

Sir Scott's Oasis

204 W Main St, Manhattan, MT 59741 · ~62.3 mi

(406) 284-6929

Our ride home was quite the adventure with us being pulled over for speeding. LOL Oops! It was pretty funny and he pretty much sweet talked his was out of it. Happy Valentines Day!
Then they all came back to our house for a Candlelight dessert that my kids had got all set up. The whole upstairs had candles burning and we stuffed ourselves even further with some Valentine cake with fresh strawberries. What a fun time with some fun people! {We missed the Fifes cuz they thought they'd check into the hospital instead of joining us- what's up with that??? We missed you guys and hope you feel better soon. Luv you anyways! ;)}

Fancy Valentine hair

For the girls school Valentine parties, they had me do their hair fancy! It was so cute!

Dear Author Award

Victoria recently read a book called A Mouse Called Wolf and wrote a letter to the author to participate in the "Dear Author" Contest for her school. We were informed this last week that she had won!! Way to go, Sis! Tonight, our family attended the Awards Ceremony held at the downtown library. Each of the 5 winners got to read their letter to the audience. We were totally surprised but she won $150 for her school library AND her very own Kindle Fire. She was so excited!! And her siblings were super jealous! ;)
It turned out that 3 of the finalists were students from Victoria's school. The Librarians scored with $450 to buy books for their library! Awesome!
We're auper proud of what a smart kid Victoria is! Great job!

Here's her letter she wrote and then read at the Awards Ceremony. 

Dear Dick King-Smith,

     Hi. I’m Victoria Seamons. I’m 9 years old and live in Montana City, Montana. Thank you so much for writing this book. I read it in my fourth grade class at Montana City School.

Reading A Mouse Called Wolf made me realize that I can do big and great things even if I’m small. Even though Wolf was the runt of the family, he still believed in and followed his dreams.

Wolf’s siblings were mean to him because he had a longer name unlike all the rest of them.  I think that the world should be nice to others even if they’re different. I realized that I want to be more careful about how I treat others.

 A Mouse Called Wolf is meaningful to me because even if people say you can’t- you still can. Wolf tried to sing because he thought he could. I have begun to take violin lessons. At first, I was way squeaky. It sounded awful. I also am left handed and thought that maybe I wouldn’t be able to learn from a right-handed teacher. But with time and practice, I am getting the hang of it. I hope to play beautiful music on my violin one day.

 This book influenced me to strive to try more things because I can do it. Wolf still thought he could sing even when his siblings and mom said he was crazy. Thank you again for writing this book so I could read it.  

Sincerely,   Victoria Seamons

Here's about the Contest:
"Dear Author" contest @ Lewis & Clark Library

Lewis & Clark Library is hosting a "Dear Author" contest for students in grades 4th and 5th. "Dear Author" encourages students to read YRCA Nominated books, past YRCA winners, or a Newberry Medal Winner and write a letter to the author of the book they chose. 
Letters must be typed on 8 by 11 paper and include student's name, phone number, name of school or home school, and age at the top of the page. Letters will not be returned. Submissions can be sent between January 25-29, and the five finalists will be notified by Feb. 4. The five finalists will be honored at an awards ceremony held at the Library on Feb. 9 at 7 p.m. 
The "Dear Author" contest replaced the annual Battle of the Books. The award was established in 1940 by a Seattle bookseller, the late Harry Hartman, who believed every student should have an opportunity to select a book that gives him or her pleasure.

Don't know if this will work but here's her reading her letter:

SuperBowl 50

We've never been huge watchers of the SuperBowl (mostly because it's on Sunday but also because we are mostly made up of girls;) but for some reason Justice was excited to watch it this year with his Dad. So I whooped up some party snacks and we had our our little SuperBowl ParTay! It was fun to be together and do something the boys love. XO

No TV/Screen Week- We Survived!

We are so proud of our kids for making it through an entire week without electronics. We seriously needed a major detox from them so it was perfect timing. Good job kiddos! Proud of you all!
Victoria made us signs for every TV and computer in the house. She's quite the artist and good reminder!

We celebrated by taking them to DQ for a celebratory ice cream on Saturday night! Yum!

For every day they went without TV or Screens, they got to put a ticket in for a drawing for a prize. Justice won a Bowling Alley Gift Certificate. Glory won some chalk. Lucky kiddos!

Family Fun Night

The school had their annual Family Fun Night at the end of the No Screen/TV week. A fun activity to get us through one more night of no electronics. It was simple and free and the kids loved it! They got to put together puzzles, play Brain quest, stack candies, throw marshmallows, fill out questionnaires and a few other things to earn tickets for their prize drawing! The kids got lots of tickets and won some fun prizes as well.

We ran into our sweet neighbors and got to hang out with their youngest daughter. She is like the sweetest thing ever! She figured out pretty quickly what the drill was. Go to a table, get a ticket, tear it in half, put it in the fancy wrapped bucket and then Shay would clap for you!! It was the best thing EVER in her opinion. Man! I love that girl! She even figured out that if she stood really cute-like by someone that had a stack of tickets- eventually someone would give her one. She did the whole process repeatedly while I followed her around. And my kids loved helping her put the tickets in the bucket and watch her grin from ear to ear when I clapped for her. Too funny! It was seriously one of the cutest things I've ever seen! Fun times!