3 Men & A Little Lady: {Count Your Many Blessings}

Sunday, April 28, 2013

{Count Your Many Blessings}

Every year our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, hosts a community, "Helping Hands" service project. Members assist in their own communities at different locations. Last year we helped clean up a school facility and this year we went to Child Help. Child Help is a group home for troubled children who have been neglected or abused by their family. It was an honor to go there and help in cleaning up their awesome ranch facility.

Unfortunately, Kenny had to go to work, but I still took the kids to go and help. Before we left the house, I talked to my kids about why the children were living at Child Help. Ian's tender side came out and he ran to our garage and started grabbing toys he wanted to take the kids! I read them one of my favorite scriptures, Mosiah 2:17 -"When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God."

We left eager to serve and were surprised by how much fun we had in the process!!!

Before we got to work we met the horses!

Ian loved feeding them!

We started by first cleaning the fences. We were warned about the spitting Lamas, but that made my boys even more excited to clean right beside them!

Owen made many new friends!!!

After 30 minutes of cleaning fences, Ian was ready for another task. He went to work on the weeds!

Drew was glad to join in on the shoveling of the cut down weeds.

Ian decided this looked like more fun than pulling weeds and joined in!

The boys loved getting to ride on Mart Westbrooks truck to all the cut weed piles.

Ian left his shovel for a paint brush! He was excited to have complete access to a big bucket of paint and a brush.

On our way to the dump Mart showed off the dead squirrel to the boys! They loved it!!!!

At one point I couldn't find Owen anywhere. I had 4 people out looking for him and he was found in the barn! He was as happy as could be with his find of a Shetland pony and a tortoise!

He had so much fun at this ranch that he wants to move there!

The boys found some great climbing trees and made themselves comfortable. They ate their lunch up in the tree!

I was so proud of my children working so hard all morning. I know they will be blessed for their efforts! I am grateful they had this experience to help those in need and hope they will remember the good feeling they felt from doing so!

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They say the cutest things.....

Mya, my little girl, said in her prayers last night, "Please help us to be strong and healthy like the Hulk!"

Owen almost ran straight into a woman as we entered a dark parking garage. As I told him to watch out, he quickly yelled, "Well she's all black!" Coincidentally she was African American! She was wearing a black dress, which is what he was referring too!

Owen told me today, "You are the best mom I ever had! I love you all the way up to Jesus!" He also loves kissing and told Kenny, "I just want to stay home from school and kiss mom all day!"

Drew lost a tooth at school when he bit into his apple. He felt the tooth inside his mouth as he was chewing and when I asked him about it, he said, "I didn't realize it was mine and I wondered if it was one of the workers!"

While at church, a teacher asked the kids what happened to Jesus right after he was baptized and brought up from the water. Ian enthusiastically raised his hand and said, "He asked for a towel!"

After a long struggle with my boys, to get them inside, bathed, and into bed, I yelled, "I am done, go to sleep!" Owen looked up at me and said, "Mommy I'm sorry you're sad, but the problem is that you don't beat up Drew and Ian. Just beat them up and I will be on your team!"

We are not a family who eats beans, so when Drew went to a friends house to play and eat dinner, he was hesitant to eat the burrito that had refried beans in it. When I picked him up he said to me, "Mom she put mud inside the burrito!"

Aunt Connie pleaded with Owen to shoot his daddy with the gun instead of her and his response, "No, he's the best daddy i've ever had!"

I begged the boys to quit fighting and Drew looked at me and said, "Its not Mothers Day anymore mom!"

Owen got kicked in his "man hood" and said, "Oh, I hurt my Tenders!"

Drew asked this morning, "Mom in 2011 can we get a cat?"

Everytime I feed Mya prunes, Owen comes up to me and says, "Me like chocolate mom!" I give him a bite and his face turns to total disgust.

Owen ran up to me after wrestling the dogs and said, "Me see Cassie's boobies!"

While I was nursing Mya, Drew walked in and said, "Is she done drinking from your boob?" I replied, "No and it is called a breast, thats the proper way to say it." He looked at me puzzled and said, "No thats the Spanish word for it."

Kenny opened the fridge and said, "Something in here stinks." Ian looked at him and said, "Dad, sometimes I toot over there!"

Last night as the boys were saying good night to Mya, Drew looked up at me and said, "Mom, Mya has a boy haircut!"

Drew was reminding me about how when we saw macaws in Hawaii, that one of the macaws was chewing on a woman's hair. He said, about the macaw, "Thats not very nice, it's not choosing the right."

My favorite word Drew and Ian used to say when they were toddlers was, Laddie- for water. I thought it was such a cute word. Owen comes to the fridge and points his little finger and says, "Wa-Wa" for water. So cute!

Last night Kenny went in on a call to deliver a goat and Ian came into our bed. He climbed in and snuggled up beside me, he usually snuggles into Kenny. I asked him why he was snuggling with me and he said, "I can snuggle you because daddy isn't here mom!" He is such a daddy's boy.

Ian is such a daddy's boy. The other night Kenny had to go to the clinic and Ian was sobbing for him for a good twenty minutes because he wanted to go too. When I asked him why he was so upset he replied, "I just want my daddy, he is my favorite boy!"

Birthday parties celebrated in California are usually BIG! There is always a huge jumper, pinata, food for the whole family, and tons of presents. Well we went to a party last night and the boys spent 2 hrs. jumping in a big jumper. On our way home we saw another party going on that had an even bigger jumper with a slide attached. Ian asked, "Can we go to that party too?" I replied, "We don't even know who those people are. " His response, "Well lets just go ask them their names."

As we prepared to go to the Glenwood Springs pool in Colorado with Kenny's four sisters Drew impatiently said, "Come on girls, you're taking too long!" Kenny told him, "Get used to it, this is what men do, wait for girls to get ready."

Much to my dismay I found black ink all over our white sheets on our bed. I of course went straight to Ian and asked very sternly, "Did you write on my sheets with a pen?" With an innocent look he replied, "I was just trying to write my name."

Drew was watching me as I divided my hair into sections with clips to straighten it. He looked up at me and said, "Wow, you look beautiful!" Then when I was completely done with my hair he said, "You're a cute little mommy!"

Ian was dipping his finger in Kenny's contact solution and then touching his eye. I asked him what he was doing and he replied, "Just putting my eyes in mom!"