Winds of change.....

"Shh. Shh. Shh. Shh. Do you hear that? It's the winds of change."

Yes people I am making some changes in my life. Nope- not pregnant, moving or even changing my hair color. Just general overall changes.

Growing up I always wanted to be a mom. My girlfriends and I had this list of who we thought would get married and start poppin out the kiddos first. I was always right up at the top of that list and proud to be there. I was always super stoked to have kids. I think it's cuz I'm such a kid at heart still. I used to wake up early on saturdays in college so I could watch saturday morning cartoons... Yup- I love kid stuff.

Then i had kids........................... and well I realized it's not all playing games and watching cartoons. Do I love it any less? HECK NO! There's so much gross crappy stuff but way way way cooler stuff too! Sure I've done my share of cleaning up barf, wiping poo off places you don't EVEN wanna know, yelling, crying, threatening and losing it. But man oh man the good stuff is soooo much cooler when you're their parent!

October and November were kinda my own personal cage match of insanity! "Cage matches? Yeah, they work. How could they not work? If they didn't work, everybody would still be in the cage." In my personal cage match it was a battle of me wanting to have hobbies and trying to do too much and still trying to fit in parenting and life in there. I had to work out some heavy stuff for myself. The biggest thing I realized is that my kids and marriage HAVE to come first. And I need to say no ALOT more often! It's kinda coincidental that this is all fizzling to the surface as the year is coming to a close and next year I'm gonna have a ton of new resolutions.... one of which will be blogging. I know I think I've written that like 50 times in the past few months but this is for real! Another new resolution is I'm gonna cut way back on hobbies and time wasting! Which will free up more time to blog at night and during naps! Yay!

Anyways- so the kids kinda got the shaft during my little personal cage match. LOTS of TV was watched. Like so much I think I would die of embarrasment if you all were able to see how many hours we logged of Netflix watching! I know- I'm a horrible horrible person who is surely going to hell! I know it more than any of you could even think of thinking!

Anyways- I keep getting side-tracked! Tuesday Scott came home from school crying because I had forgotten to bring in treats for his half birthday. Yeah I am the biggest loser mom ever! Then that night the kids were watching TV while I was getting some editing done and Dan was working on some scouting stuff. And it hit me. What in the HELL was I doing wasting time while my kids were growing up and not having FANTASTIC memories of me being the most awesome mom ever!!! So I broke out this gingerbread train set that I had impulse bought at Walgreens the day before (Thank you impulse shopper in me!) It was fun and real and memorable and just..... sigh.... exactly where I wanted to be!

So new things today...

I took the homebodies (Brock, Kara and Molly) to story time! Which HELLO- Springville has THE end all be all best flipping story time ladies that ever there were!!!!! I'm in love! And yes the free thing is super awesome!
Then I took Scott some cupcakes for his half birthday since his real bday is in the summer.
Then we hit the stores to get stuff for our Angel Tree (secret service santa) in our ward. And let the kids help pick out some of the stuff. Then they each picked out a present for their cousin. (We're trying to push the giving angle this year). Then we came home and played and made dinner and just chilled.

When I put the boys to bed they've started this thing where they try to out do each other with their good night kiss to me. It's developed over the past week... It started with Brock giving me a "devil" kiss (aka- double- he just says devil it's one of the words he mixes up- it's funny) Anyways- Scott was being a goober and trying to hide but I knew he would be bummed if I just left so I tried to give him a kiss and he moved and so I gave him another one and gave him little kisses all around his face and I told him he got an "Around the World" kiss! Brock thought that was hilarious so he wanted to give me one... then scott gave me one. Then Brock said he had a "suprise" kiss for me. So he told me to turn around and then told me to turn back around and yelled "surprise!" and then gave me my kiss. He thought it was hilarious and truly inspired! Then Scott told me he wanted to give me a "dodge" kiss. Which was as it sounds, he zoomed in for a kiss dodging back and forth before landing one on my cheek. (ALL of our kisses are on the cheek just for the record.) And yes this all probably sounds corny and weird to myself as I write this down but it's these kind of things that make the memories...)

I've been thinking back alot to what I remember most from my childhood as being fun.. . And the things that stick out are that my parents always used to tickle our backs (like slow and soothing like) after books to help us fall asleep. We would always beg to have our backs tickled- I still LOVE it to this day. My dad can tell the best stories- he'd tell Mr. Nabisco stories about food that could talk and all sorts of amazing things and we all keep asking him to write them down so we can tell them to our kids. I also remember we used to do MASSIVE paper airplane fights in our front room. We'd tip over couches and things to make a barracade and make paper airplanes for like 15 min straight and then we'd battle! My mom and dad would each be on a side and us kids would split up. We'd try to hit the other team and if you got hit you were out. then when you'd run out of airplanes you'd have to try to run out from behind the cover and rescue the used airplanes in the middle without getting hit. It was EPIC! We all LOVED it!!!! We'd also have amazing games of hide and seek where my dad would help us hide in the tip top of their closet behind suitcases or in the dryer or in the hamper under clothes. Aaahhhh Such good times were had at the Pace household!!! Maybe that's why I love kids since I had such a happy childhood!

I constantly wonder what my kids will remember? And I feel pretty certain that things like good night kisses and hide and go seek which are regulars at our house will be remembered. My bed time stories are pretty rockin (if I do say so myself) and I wouldn't be surprised if that's one for their memory banks. Dan wrestles with the kids ALL the time and i know they'll remember that. It always ends in a dead mans dog pile with dan just laying pinning the kids down and them hollerin for me to come rescue them. But other than that I have been trying to come up with traditions I want them to cherish... So that's one of my goals- to make life more wonderful and memorable for my littles! I feel like I'm doing a pretty good job but I hope to do better and better... I feel like Scott is getting older too fast and that I have such precious little time to mold him and give him memories and love that'll have to last a life time!

Anyways- so there ya go- my new goal and my forever long post on how important I realized time is... It's one of the only things you can NEVER get back...

So here's a few pictures of some fun stuff as of late... :)

These first three are of Christmas tree decorating. The first and third are of me trying to work the self timer on my camera- woops! Totally missed me and then dan in each picture.... but ya get the idea- we were all there. :)




This next one is the first day the littles played out in the snow. Cute! :)


During a wrestling dog pile game :) Kara always just sits up on top... :)


BLAST! Blogger is having dumb errors and won't let me add any more pictures--- but you can bet your sweet daisies I'll have more to post coming up real quick here! Along with recaps from all that I've missed!