Another week goes by

Well it's Sunday again. I'm sneaking away from the kids to do a little blogging. Not much is new around here. I am still being a mom, still making cakes & watching kids, still a Young Womens leader.... still need more hours in every day but make do with the 24 I have, lol. I still think it would be just great if I could have one day a month where my body & mind didn't require sleep. I would totally use that night (where everyone else is sleeping) to get all sorts of things done... such a nice thought. Totally not going to happen though. Instead I live by this: My house may be messy but I'm busy taking care of the living. It's just my season in life. So many children, so much laundry, so many responsibilities... so little time! 

In the last year I have discovered that I am lactose intolerant. Wow, that really takes the fun out of eating. When I first cut dairy out of my diet, I felt like all I could eat are meat and vegetables and my homemade bread. I lost 10 pounds, which I'm happy about bc I'm back to my pre-pregnancy, pre-marriage weight. My mom thinks I'm too skinny, she's always telling me (and my siblings, lol) that she's worried I'm not eating enough. I eat lots... it's just food that really isn't processed at all, so the weight just fell off. I did figure out how to maintain the weight, I was a little worried I would keep losing and then really be too skinny. I eat almond 'ice-cream' and coconut 'ice cream'. Wow, those are sooooo good!! Thank heavens for the companies that actually produce dairy free food that actually tastes good! (There are alot of foods that don't taste good, I've wasted alot of money doing trial and error.) I would say that I am dairy free 99% of the time. Sometimes I will take a lactaid and have a little something, but not very often. It's just not worth it. I feel SO much better, my stomach doesn't hurt any more, the bloating is gone and all the other symptoms are gone. It's been a good change for me. I do miss chocolate alot though... I will always eat Bernard Callebaut chocolate though... it's worth the tummy ache & all the symptoms! But it's not around that often... too bad ;)

This past week I made a cake for a dental office. I had next to no time to do it... I had to really think on my feet as I made this cake! And I had to work fast! I busted my butt to get it done, but I did it! I covered this cake in fondant in record time... 9 minutes from start to finish! (that includes rolling the fondant out!) It was pretty fun to make. I was a dental assistant for 10 years so I had to dust off that part of my brain... I had to think about the anatomy of a tooth and figure out how to make cake LOOK like a tooth. Somehow I did it. I think it took me about 4 1/2 hours start to finish for the whole project, although that was over 3 periods of time. (lol, what's new there!) Here's the picture:

I love my little tooth going to tooth heaven. :) And I made the perio probe and mirror pretty close to scale. I even put a piece of wire to look like a burr (drill bit) in the hand piece (drill). So fun! (okay, maybe I only find it fun bc I was a dental assistant, lol)

Well, Bryce is home from his Sunday meetings. I'm off to go visit with him. (Oh and we still don't know anything about med school for another almost 2 months. All this waiting gets a little old, lol.)

Seriously...

Seriously, I should NEVER have posted about Dallin staying in the crib and not climbing out. Obviously I didn't touch wood, lol. Last night Dallin was having a melt down and we put him in his crib for a cool down/time out. A bunch of his stuffed animals were on the floor, and I didn't think anything about it. We shut the door, and then we could hear him moving around in his room, all the while still crying/screaming. Bryce walked in to find that he climbed out of the crib and was throwing his animals back into his crib. Bryce put him back in the crib and he instantly climbed out, like it was nothing. So much for having the crib out! So we put Dallin to bed in his toddler bed last night. He was happy... and he slept/stayed in his bed until 6:40 this morning. So much for ever sleeping in again. (Sleeping in to me is anything after 7:30... ya, I'm getting old...) Oh well. It had to happen eventually. The only catch is that he went and woke up Madi, he wanted her to take him to the potty. So now I have a tired Madi. Oh children, it's really good that I love you!! ;) I admit, I'm hiding in the office and sneaking in a quick blog... Madi's been crying for 20 minutes (or more, it's all a blur, lol) and Dallin is really tired too. And I love Bryce. I'm sure I have mentioned that alot. He's upstairs putting them to bed. I did get all the kids into pj's... and I will go now and help get them in bed... I'll mommy-up and help out, lol ;)

Happy Family Day! Oh one last thing. Bryce had all the kids doing push-ups, just to see how many full blown, chest all the way to the ground, push-ups they could do. Actually it started out with just the older boys (Noah & Adam) doing them. Then Dallin joined in, then Madi and then of course June had to try too! Pretty funny sight to watch them all!

OK, I'm off. At least the crying has stopped. We can do this. We can tame 5 kids and get them all to bed... right? (cue nodding heads, lol)

Sunday, Sunday

Well, it's Sunday again. It seems like Sunday afternoons are the only time I can kind of sneak away & do a little blogging. :)

This week has been good. I've been potty training Dallin. He's doing really well... which means I'm not super stressed about things. (BIG sigh of relief!) I really, really don't like potty training. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, it's my LEAST favorite thing about parenting. I still stand by my statement: If you potty train 4 children, the 5th should be free!! (I know, I'm sure I'm repeating myself...) Anyways, Dallin is doing well. There have been some accidents, but he's getting there. This morning I took him out of his crib and his diaper was still DRY. WOW. I wasn't expecting that!! Yes, he's still in a crib... there's no one following him, no one needing the crib, so what's the rush of taking him out? He won't climb out because I've told him enough times that he'll fall and hurt himself. And that's really stuck with him... that and the one time he tried to climb out he scared himself to death and hurt himself enough to make an impression. But now that's he had a dry diaper, I feel like I need to take out the toddler bed and run with it. Maybe he will night time potty train now?? No idea, but I'm going to try him in the toddler bed tonight. BUT I'm not taking the crib down... there may still be some use still... like when he needs a nap during the day... then I can put him in and know that he will sleep. (ya, this post makes me feel old... really exciting, potty training talk, lol... I need to get out more, alot more!)

Last weeks wedding order went really well! I did it! I made 21 dozen cupcakes & a 2 tier cake, while potty training Dallin and I had 10 kids home with me on Thursday & 6 kids with me on Friday. WOW. I did it. Pretty amazing, really. I started all of my prep work the Saturday before, and picked away at everything I could, so that by Thursday and Friday, I just had to do the last minute things. And I even had enough room in my 2 cake fridges!!  (Big relief there!) The wedding went well apparently. The mother of the bride sent me a message on Facebook and told me that the cupcakes were a hit, and that people kept going back for more & that she couldn't pick a favorite because they liked them all! I'm always sooo happy when I get some feedback... I'm so glad they were happy with everything. **All smiles**

We have a long weekend this weekend. It's so nice to have tomorrow off. I'm going to lay in bed for as long as I can... which, if I'm really lucky, will be until 7:30 or 8:00am, lol. I don't know if I'm broken, or what my problem is, but I have a hard time sleeping more than 7.5, 8 hours. I know sometimes it's because I have so much to do, I just don't sleep well... my mind is always sorting through details, always trying to figure out how to best spend the hours in my day, sometimes I just stress about things & sleep just doesn't happen. I don't have as much on my plate this week, so I'm optimistic that I will be able to sleep tomorrow morning. *crossing fingers!*

I sat with my Dad in Sunday School today. It was really nice. That's one of the things I am loving about living back in Alberta. It's really great to live close to my parents. My mom was home today, she wasn't feeling well. So my dad was at church on his own, and we sat together during sacrament meeting... well, we took 2 rows... our family is too big to sit in one row now. ;) Sitting with him in Sunday school was so nice though. It just feels good to be close to my Dad. He's just such a good man, I love him!! I love hearing what he has to say. He has so much wisdom, I always learn from him when he shares things in class. I am so grateful to be here right now. We were away from family for 6 years (because of Bryce's military work)... and we've been back for about a year & half. I don't know how else to say it, it's just good to be close to family again.

Christmas time was crazy busy this year, like all the other years! I had bought the kids a gingerbread house to assemble & decorate. (ya, I'm not that crazy to make it... why bother, I can buy one for $5... and it frees up more time to do other things) So, Christmas came, Christmas went, the house didn't get built. So I told the kids that we would do it for New Years. New Years came and went. House still didn't get done. That red gingerbread house was staring me down all January. ALL January. And the kids didn't forget about it either! One day, I decided that we have a new Christmas tradition. This is it: I will buy a gingerbread house kit and we will do it for Valentines Day. Smart, hey! There's alot less going on in February than December! I went to Bulk Barn last week and bought a bunch of cute pink, red and white Valentines candies. The day before Valentines Day, I assembled the house so that it would be all set when the kids went to decorate it. The next day, things were SO busy, and the kids were all CRAZY, so we didn't decorate it. But we did it the next day (for fun-Friday). It was great! We were all relaxed and happy. And I was really happy because it was done... no more red box staring me down! And last night, we ate the gingerbread house together! The kids were happy campers! It's like Valentine's Day lasted 3 days in our house! Last night, Bryce & I were with the kids & were dancing around to music and eating candy. (YES, Bryce danced around the living room with the kids... many people wouldn't probably believe it, lol, he's so reserved & kinda serious around most people... but he's hilarious around us! LOVE HIM!!) Since things went so well with doing the gingerbread house in February, we've definitely decided that this is our new family tradition. And I love it!

I'll post pictures of the finished gingerbread house when I get them from Bryce later... they are on his phone. ;)

Here are a few pics & videos from this past little while... see, we are alive, just not blogging all the time ;)

Here's a funny app Bryce put on his phone...

 I went snowboarding with my brothers, Jonathan (left) and Graham (right) at Lake Louise in Banff, AB. SO MUCH FUN! (January 2013)

Dallin cutting his pizza with a spoon and an upside down knife! (Feb 16, 2013)

Not sure what Madi's doing. I went to wake the girls up one morning and found Madi sleeping like this. She told me that she was asleep... but later told Bryce that she wasn't really asleep. Lol, either way, she's a crazy little girl! ;)

Here's Adam at the Remembrace Day ceremony at his school this past November. Love my cute boy!

Here's Bryce & Adam, Madi & June on Remembrance Day November 2013. The kids were sad because Bryce was going back to Wainwright to work...  it was a hard good bye...

My handsome Bryce with little Dallin & sad June. It was really hard to have Bryce leave part way through church. He was gone so much this fall. I was happy to get a picture of Bryce in his dress uniform. So glad he's home way more right now! Hope that lasts!!! Better yet, hope he gets into med school and isn't away all the time!! ;)

Well, I'm off. We are having the missionaries over for supper. And the kids want me to make a cake for dessert. (I kinda get a kick out of that... you know, just whip one up... some of my least favorite words... cakes take time, and alot of it!) So I guess I better mommy-up and get making some food!

Here we go again!

Well, it's February again. And once again, Bryce has just received another invitation for an interview for med school at the University of Calgary! We are really excited to have the opportunity! Here we go again... another month of preparing for the interview... and another 3+ months sitting waiting, kinda biting nails, wondering if Bryce will get into school or not. **crossing fingers** PRAYING HARD!! This is the 3rd yr in a row of applying and getting an interview. Ultimately, we know that whether he gets in or not, we will be where we are supposed to be, and having the experiences that we each need to be having. So as much as we really want it to happen, we are very happy where we are at, we are enjoying life in St Albert... so if he doesn't get in, it's not the end all, be all. All of our experiences are for our good... and we are constantly learning and re-learning this principle. Having said that, I've already been looking on the MLS to see what houses are for sale in Calgary, and what neighbourhoods, just to get an idea of what we may have to anticipate. The hardest part of this whole situation, is not knowing what will happen, where we will be living and that we will only have roughly a 2 month turn around time to sell our house & buy a new one. That is the single detail that stresses me alot. ALOT. It's alot like being in the military, lol, which we know soooo much about already! That's the other thing that's at the back of my mind. Bryce's posting ends in March (I think) and he's confident that they won't send him anywhere, and that he'll just have the same posting. I, on the other hand, am not so sure... I know the military can say one thing, but then things can change all too quickly... sigh. No stress here, lol ;) It's all good though. I'll just keep rolling with punches, life's not boring! 

My Dad often reminds me of a comment I made when I was 16 yrs old... you know, when my brain was scrambled and totally not working right (I didn't think that back then though!). I told my Dad one day that I hoped that I would have wild children because I didn't want to be bored. He reminds me ALLLLL the time of my not-so-wise statement, and that I should be careful of what I ask for. I long for the days of being 'bored', whatever that is... it kinda sounds dreamy. I'm so not bored!! I guess, that's good, it means that I am living my life, and not idling it away. Life is full, my life is good, very busy, but good. I am grateful for that. I'm glad I have 5 children, I am learning so much about myself and life. Somethings I like and somethings I don't like... the things/characteristics that need tweaking. There's no way I would learn life's lessons without all of it's ups and downs. I'm trying so love what happens in my life, both the good and the bad. That's really tricky. It's so easy to love when things go right. But when things are going sideways/wrong, it's hard in the moment to remember to keep perspective of what I should be trying to learn. I hope I have a long life on this earth... I need all the time I can get! ;)

I often watch Mormon Messages... they help me remember what's important and to keep an eternal perspective. I have been watching this particular one lately. Come What May and Love it... words to live by.

Today is Fast Sunday. I was thinking about Noah & Adam talking to each other about fasting. It was last year when church was at 1:00. It would have been late in the morning. Noah had fasted through breakfast, but had decided to eat lunch and break his fast. So Noah says to Adam, "I'm breaking my fast now." Adam says, "I am too." Noah says, "When did you start your fast?" Adam says, "I started my fast after breakfast and I'm breaking it right before lunch." And it was said all so innocently!! Still cracks me up whenever I think about that. And just about every fast Sunday since then I think about it. :) Adam, you are cute!

This week is a big week for me. I have a REALLY big wedding order! **all smiles** I really like doing wedding orders. I love making pretty cakes. I like that way more than doing crazy 3d cakes... those stress me out and I just really don't enjoy making them. (Although, I like the feeling of completing any of the cakes I've made.) This is the biggest order I have had yet. I'm making a 2 tiered cake and 21 dozen cupcakes and they are renting my cupcake stand as well. It's going to be a crazy busy week, and I'm sure I will having some late nights on Thursday and Friday this week. I'm trying to keep myself organized so that I can sleep on those nights. I started working on things yesterday. I've already made the sugar flowers that are going on the cake, I've made some of the toppers for the cupcakes and I have the cupcake stand all ready to go. If I pick away at everything, every day, I should be good. I have to be good... they're picking their order up at noon on Saturday! (no pressure, lol) It's nice to have some extra money. I'm putting some to debt, some in savings, some towards food storage items and I bought myself some more cake tools. (soooo excited for more tools!! I LOVE tools!!) Who would've thought that 3 years ago I wouldn't have dared take a cake out of a pan to decorate it, and now I am doing a huge wedding order! I have another wedding booked for April and 3 more weddings booked in August. I'm really picking and choosing what orders I do and don't do. My time is really limited, so I've decided that I'm only taking on orders that I like, that I have time for and that will pay me well. I've made enough cakes where I wasn't charging near enough for my time; especially in the first yr or so while I was figuring out what I could do and how much I could/should be charging for my work. I've had a number of people say no to an order after getting a quote, saying it's out of their budget. I'm totally fine with that because that means I have more time to do things for/with my family and for myself. And if they will pay, great, I get a new project to work on and I'm compensated well for my time. This whole making cakes for people has been a learning curve for me. It's good though. I like it. And when I do too many cakes and don't have enough time to do what I need to be doing, I slow things down. And if we need some extra cash, I just make more cakes and it helps us out. Last summer I didn't have any dayhome kids. The one family I was watching gave 2 weeks notice mid June... the mom wasn't working July & August and they didn't want to pay to hold a spot. So I found myself scrambling to find another dayhome family. I did find 2 more families BUT they weren't ready to sign up until September. Wow, that was stressful! So I put my cake ad on kijiji and the orders started rolling in. The heavens literally opened last summer. I had so many orders coming in that I literally had to turn people away because I couldn't keep up with it all! And we had enough money to live off of and to be able to pay for the kids school supplies. The Lord's hand was in our lives, it really was a blessing to be able to have all those opportunities! I am grateful for that trial... it was hard going through it, so very stressful to always be worrying about money... but once again, the Lord helped the Rollins family out with any opportunities to make money. And here's how I know it was the Lord's help. I know it because anytime we are short money, the flood gates open and soooo many people will want cakes from me. And when we aren't short money, I have virtually no orders. Plus I *feel* it. I know when we are being blessed because I feel it, I feel the peace & assurance that comes in those times of trials. And I am grateful to have had many experiences and trials so that I can know that feeling, they feeling that the Lord is mindful of little old me, and of my family. He has not forgotten me. And I will always be grateful for that. 

Back to Bryce's med school interview. Just the thought of Bryce having the opportunity to become a doctor gives me such hope. Hope that at some point, I will only have to worry about people... not money all the time and people. I'm glad if it happens, it happens this late in life. (Crazy I know!) But I'm really glad that we have had all these different experiences, ones that are shaping who we are. I know if he had become a doctor years ago (which wasn't really an option then), we would have missed out on these experiences that we need to have. And if he nevers becomes a doctor, that's ok too. Bryce has a good, honest, honorable job. We never do without the things we need, and I know that all of these experiences are for our good. I will be happy. Come what may and love it!

While I'm typing up a storm, I am watching out our front window and watching Madi, Adam and June playing together (and not fighting!!). Life is good. (for the moment, lol)

Oh and by the way, Dallin is sitting beside me with one of Madi's dresses on, lol. Life's not boring, and neither are my children!! ;) 

 Oh and one more picture of my crazy little Dallin. I don't think I put this on the blog yet. I had a cake in the cake fridge, back in September. It wasn't for anything special, it was just one that I was playing with... and the fridge lock was off, so Dallin saw an opportunity and took it. See what I found... 

He was caught red handed!! Mr Mischief himself!!

Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas today! We have had a really good morning so far. We got up and kept the kids upstairs until we were ready to all go downstairs together. The kids were beyond excited, of course! They checked out their presents and stockings and then we had breakfast... can't go into a morning of opening presents without food in us! ;) Every year, before we open our presents, we make sure that we sit down together and read the scriptures, and read of Christ's birth. Then we also watched a Mormon Message on Christmas... love love love the Mormon Messages! We all feel the spirit when we watch them... perfect way to start Christmas morning. :) While Bryce was reading with us, I got the turkey in oven... I had a feeling that if I waited until afterwards it would be too late in the morning and it might not have enough time to cook. I was right, we just finished about 10 minutes ago! It took us until almost noon! (We each take a turn opening a present, this way it becomes an event, not just 5 minutes of tearing open presents and being done.)

It's been such a nice morning! The highlight for me was Bryce's gift to me. Going into this Christmas, we decided that we were paying cash for everything. Everything. We don't want to paying off Christmas for 6 months after the fact! ;) Anyways, I start shopping early in the year and buy all year long so that we aren't broke in December and January. We also decided at one point, when things were feeling 'lean' for us, that we wouldn't buy each other presents this year. So we went into this Christmas not expecting anything from each other. That was fine, we were ok with that. I had already bought Bryce a present (slippers... his old ones were old and falling apart... I knew he needed new ones, so I had bought them a few weeks before we had decided not to do anything.) I had also scheduled a wedding cake for right before Christmas ~ I knew it would help the finances and that I could use some of that money to give Bryce a little money so he could go to Cabella's and buy some hunting things. (I would have gone to Cabella's and bought a gift card but I knew that if I went, I'd have little people who would have just told daddy what his present was!) Bryce did give me a card this morning, with a wonderful note (I LOVE his notes!!) and he had rolled up some money so that I could have a little 'mad money' to spend. He had taken a little out of our account over the months so that I wouldn't notice and so that it wouldn't impact our finances and he stashed it away so he could give it to me. So sweet! I appreciate that he did that for me, it's hard to spend money on myself, I always feel a little guilty doing that. BUT then he had us all come to the office to give me my second present. Bryce made a slideshow of our whole life together, from 1995 to 2012!!! It was the BEST present I've ever been given! I have no idea when he found time to work on it, and I had NO idea he was working on it! He did such a great job! I don't want to loose it ever, so I'm posting it on here!! It was wonderful to look back over the years and to see all that we have gone through. So many memories, so many places we have lived, so many pregnant pictures of me (lol), Bryce with hair & Bryce with less hair, then Bryce bald (lol), all our children as babies, the first days of videos without any sound and video clips with sound. My little people are growing up (*tears*)... we looked so young... I see us aging... I'm happy to be getting older with Bryce... I love him. He's my favorite person in this whole world!! He knew what I  needed this year... I just wanted to be remembered this Christmas. I don't need stuff... stuff is just stuff. It won't come with me when I die one day, but my memories and my relationships will. This was such a wonderful thing for him to have done! LOVE YOU BRYCE!! I wish I could post it on here... it's too long to upload... I'm trying to post it to Facebook... hopefully it'll work there!

The kids opening their stockings. Dallin kept saying, "Mine!" He's a true 2 yr old. 

Happy boys!

"Now what am I supposed to do with this box?"

Dallin loves the candy that Santa brings. (Santa only brings candy & chocolate to our house.)

Bryce helping Dallin open his trains. (By the way, I save cracker, cereal boxes, etc all month long so that we can wrap our presents easily. Plus if a present 'accidentally' gets opened a bit, no one will know what the present is.)

Dallin is a happy camper!

June loves her head phones!

Noah's happy about his Transformer! Dad got a lot of hugs from Noah today!

Cute little Dallin. Love my little boy!!

Madi and her Zhu Zhu pet. Last year we bought one for her but Dallin threw it in the toilet. Nice brother! Madi still wanted one (she talked about them all fall) so I bought one from Ebay for her. It came here all the way from Hong Kong! (my favorite place to by things... that's where all of Dallin's trains came from. I think I paid about $26 for 7 trains, with free shipping. LOVE DEALS.)

Adam and his pjs.

June and her iTunes gift card. Happy girl!

Dallin playing with trains...

...and still playing with trains!

Madi opening her jewelry! 

Madi blinging it up!

June opening up her watch...

... she was surprised!

Madi still trying on jewelry. (see the theme of Madi's presents, lol)

Noah and his alarm clock. He starts seminary next fall... he'll get alot of use out of this present! (little does he know, lol)

Serious Dallin working on opening his present.

Dad helping Dalllin. (I love Dallin's cute little hands!)

Adam opening his big present

June's such a beautiful girl!

Dallin opening up a new pair of mitts from Grandma Rogers.

More Madi with jewelry... 

... great expressions!

Adam and his new fishing stuff :)

Boys are never too old for Nerf guns ;)

Dallin in his new hoody

Madi opening up her new mitts... she's pretty happy about them. She kept wanting me to put my hands in them to feel how nice they feel. Thank you Grandma Rogers!

Dalllin playing with one of those mechanical bugs. Adam's friend gave it to him for his birthday a couple weeks ago. Dallin loves them... he's pretty cute to watch play with Adam's bug. :)

June and her new slippers and orange nail polish. (her favorite color) 

Dallin's getting the hang of opening presents

Dallin LOVES Thomas the Train. I found some pjs for him...

... Bryce is helping Dallin put his new jammies on. I just LOVE his little toddler legs and diaper. So stinkin cute! Love you Dallin!

Madi's outfit just gets more interesting as the day goes on, lol. She's such a girl! Love it!

June & Dallin are buddies!

June is a natural with Dallin & little kids. Love this pic of June & Dallin!

WOW. Now that's a pair of sunglasses! She totally loves them!

Woo-hoo! Madi's having a great time!

Adam's happy that he got a little more Ninjago stuff (and not more clothes, lol).

My handsome boys :)

Think June's having fun yet?!? ;)

Bryce and the kids :)

Adam, June & Noah... oh wait, and Dallin in the mirror! The kids are holding their presents from Grandpa Rollins. It's apple TV, the cable you need to plug the apple TV in & a schwack load of iTunes gift cards. This is the gift that keeps on giving! Happy children & happy parents too!

We had one more BIG surprise. My parents surprised us with a new piano! WOW!! SOOOO nice! We are still in shock! THANK YOU mom & dad Hogg!! Love you lots! We are loving playing every day... I am loving hearing June play every day! It's absolutely wonderful!

Life is good. We have so much to be grateful for. Somehow we never go under & we never go without. I know this post may look like it's about stuff, but for me, it's about my children being happy. I am grateful for Christmas. For the time we can be together as a family, so recognize the blessings we have and to remember the experiences we have had. I am grateful for the Savior Jesus Christ. I am so grateful that He was born, that He lived and died for us. I am grateful for the example He set for us, to teach us how to live so that we can return to our Heavenly Father. I'm looking forward to the rest of this day... to watch more things about the life of the Savior... and to spend more time with my family.

Merry Christmas!