Sunday Funnies

Do you remember the Sunday comics? Look at me, I speak of Sunday comics as though they are a thing of the past... I'm pretty sure they still exist. Well, we don't get the newspaper, so naturally we don't get the funny pages. But I remember growing up and having my sister beat us if we read the comics before her. She was mean like that. It's amazing I ever made it to adulthood.

Anyway, off that tangent. I thought I'd take a few moments to share some Sunday funnies of our own.

A few days back Kami was lifting a three pound weight in the family room.
"I'm trying to get skinnier" she says to me.

Um... okay.

(In case you immediately don't start laughing you must have missed the punch line. My daughter is, quite literally, a walking toothpick.)

Stake conference came and went today leaving us with a very confused and troubled son. You see, when they final speaker concluded his talk Cooper lept from his seat and exclaimed
"Now it's time for my big steak!"
I guess you can't tell a foodie about a "steak" conference without some misinterpretation taking place. I felt bad for the poor kid. He was even trying to be really good so he could make sure to get his big steak dinner with all his friends.

The other day I had to tell Landon not to drink shampoo from the shampoo bottle. Maybe you don't find this funny, I for one find it hilarious. (The things we mother's say.)

Landon brushed his teeth with my mascara.
9 out of 10 dentists recommend it.

Cooper told Brandon at nap time today that, and I quote,
"Mom doesn't like naked boys in her bedroom."
I'm sorry, I know that doesn't appear to be exactly G-rated. But I promise, the reason he said it was because he was sleeping on our bedroom floor and he had wrapped himself in a blanket to hide the fact that he was only in his undies because... "Mom doesn't like naked boys in her bedroom."

Today, Kameryn pants-ed Brandon. I laughed until my body shook.
(In her defense, he had it coming.)

And, to finish off, probably one of my favorite funnies from the week:

I was in the basement putting away food storage when Kameryn came quickly down the stairs. "Mom, come here, we really need you." Naturally I, thinking Landon was being crushed to death, bolt up the stairs. When I come to their bedroom Kameryn casually points to a drawer, "We need you to put the kitchen drawer back in 'cuz we can't"
odd. alright.
Then she says to me "We made a mess"
I glance around their room that mere minutes ago was immaculate and nod. "It looks like it."
"Oh no Mom! We cleaned up."
"You cleaned up?" I asked incredulously.
"Oh yeah Mom, it was a disaster!"

I can imagine.


These are old facebook status' from funny things my kids have said. I figure I might as well save them somewhere I can remember them.

Kami's excuse for locking her brother in the porch: "Mom! He's a screamer!" and then she says, with a little more sass then necessary, "Do you want a screamer in here?" - July 26 9:17 am

Brandon asked me how the kids have been today. I said fantastic. After he left kami said, "mom, why did you tell dad fantastic? I'm in time out." - July 28 1:31 pm

Here's another Kameryn one: She says to me at 8:50 this morning, "Mom, we haven't even made a mess today." She just woke up so I would hope not. - July 29 8:55 am

Cooper is on a roll. Today at lunch when I told him I wasn't going to bring his drink to him, he could come get it, he said to me "But mom, we don't have legs!" And then he smiled at me like: aren't I witty? - June 29th 2:49 pm

I am in the kitchen making dinner and Brandon, my husband, starts whining to me from the couch "Mom! Cooper (my 4 year old) is giving me titty twisters!" - June 28 6:34 pm

I found my two-year old putting a 1/3 a stick of additional butter on his pancake at breakfast. I told him that was a lot of butter. He looked at me and said "I like budda." - June 22 11:01 am

The Story of Our Awesomeness

As far behind as I am on blogging... well, I wanted to post some pictures for my brother and these ones weren't attached to any story per say. Except for the story of our awesomeness that is.
You should enjoy these.


Landon and I at Gwen's pool party.

Landon. That face. 'Nuf said.

This is my husband and he is handsome. He makes my stomach do flip flops. Plus he's a lot of fun.

Brandon pretending to eat Landon's feet. (Always a hit)

Kami and Kei doing a "Kami smile"

Mom and I
(Please note that all pictures of me in this post will be horrific. I know that's not abnormal for my blog. But this time I was really sick all day ... so that's an excuse.)
Anyway, I love my mom.

Dave and P-money. Look at Dave being all photogenic. Gina would be so proud.

Jamison and Megan playing cards.

Brandon and Landon.
Be prepared, Brandon was so smoking hot this day. Seriously. I just love him in this shirt. mmm... once again, feel free to lick the computer screen at any moment.
(Jandee, that is probably my favorite mental imagery ever. Thank you so much for sharing it. I have a feeling it will be my go to staple phrase from now on.)

We told Landon to open his eyes. CLASSIC! One of my favorite pictures of the year.

This is what happens when I tell my husband to take a picture with me. I love this man.
(Once again, I am appalled at my lack of appeal, but my man is so good looking I couldn't resist.)

Elvis wishes he could be this ridiculously good looking.

Dad and Landon.
Two of my all time favorite men.

And I wanted to end on this one from Jami.

And that is the story of our awesomeness.

For Reals

3 Nephi 24:10

"Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in my house; and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it."

I'm going to be completely candid, and I expect it to be a humbling experience. But I am going to share the whole truth, (so expect this to be a long post) because I need to testify of the immensity of my Father in Heaven's love for me, and the irrefutable fact that our Father in Heaven does bless us if we pay our tithing.

Brandon and I are in debt. And we aren't talking about a couple hundred dollars. We aren't even talking about a couple thousand dollars. And, regrettably, we aren't including home or vehicle debt... as much as I'd prefer to say it isn't so, the same could still be said if we weren't to include medical debt in that number. And by golly have we got medical debt.

Now we don't have creditors knocking down our door but we don't have lenders jumping at the chance to loan us money either. And we most definitely do not have extra cash we can save up to finish our basement or fix my son's teeth. We pay the bills every month. But we're paying the minimum because we can't afford to pay more. And we've got overdraft accounts being maxed out each month in between pay checks.

Do we make enough money?
Yes. The lord has blessed us with wonderful jobs and although we don't make bank, we make enough.

So, candidly, that leaves us one reason and one reason alone to account for the situation we find ourselves in:
gluttony
... or, to say it differently: irresponsibility. (gluttony was just a funner way to say the same thing.)
Or, to say it just as true but harder to swallow:
sinful.

Do you remember when the prophet advised us (which is just a cowardly way of saying commanded us) to get out of debt. Do you know what it means to disobey a prophet of God? Do you know how humbling and terrifying and repentant and, well what's the word that describes feeling like utter crap... okay let’s just say wrap those feelings up in a big ugly ball and that's how it felt to approach my Father in Heaven about our debt. (Remember, the debt, the pain, the fear, the complications... all the crap that resulted from disobeying a commandment of the Lord.)

Let's leave this tangent at this point because I feel as if I have clearly described our financial situation. But let me finish up this portion by saying something I want to make perfectly clear:

Our Father in Heaven is a God of mercy, a God of kindness, and a God of forgiveness.

Never once has He rubbed my face in my mistakes.
Never once has He told me "tough luck".

Never once.

Our Father in Heaven, the perfect unchangeable being, who knows the end from the beginning, will forgive us.

Please know that.

No matter what your sin, your Father in Heaven stands ready to forgive you and to bless you.

It’s crazy but it’s real.

The Atonement of our Savior Jesus Christ makes it real. His sacrifice satisfies the justice so that we can receive the mercy.


That’s serious stuff.

Oh how you ought to thank your Heavenly King…

Shall we talk about tithing now?

We pay our tithing.
We pay our tithing because we know our Father in Heaven commands it of us. (funny how we pick and choose those commandments huh?... I’m just saying)

We pay our tithing because we know our Father in Heaven blesses us.
We pay our tithing because, quite frankly, we need those blessings.

Now it shouldn’t be any surprise to you, given our debt situation, that were our tithing to sit in our bank account we would spend it. It would evaporate with all the other money we don’t pay attention to.
Knowing full well this would happen we created a separate tithing account. Our tithing goes in every month and only comes out if we write a check for tithing.

It’s a sweet setup.

Except the fact that I can’t seem to remember to write the check so the money sits in the account for months on end until I remember...

That was our current situation: A large chunk full of change sitting in a bank account. Not going anywhere.

Our other bank accounts weren’t doing so hot. I’d just emptied our savings to pay off a dentist bill. It was the end of a pay period so my account sat near to barren. And Brandon’s account was…

well Brandon’s account was $600 over drawn.

He wasn’t getting paid until at least next week. $600 over drawn and nowhere to pull money from. Nowhere except the tithing account that is.

I wouldn’t do it.

I couldn’t do it.

I couldn’t steal from the Lord what was rightfully His.

I couldn’t.

Not even if I was going to pay it back next week.
It was the Lord’s. It was sacred money that I owed the Lord.

I prayed and I prayed.

It’s been a superbly rough week. And we aren’t just talking financially. I mean it’s been a week from Hades. It’s been two weeks from Hades honestly. Top that off with a financial week from Hades and well you’ve got a triple scoop Hades sundae with a side of guilt sauce smothered in a big dollop of stress.

Sounds appetizing.

I prayed for patience.
I prayed for help.
I prayed for release.
I prayed for forgiveness.
I prayed for wisdom.
And I prayed for strength.

Looking at my bank account scares the stuffing out of me. So I don’t do it. But today the Lord told me to look at my bank account and to pay my tithing. And so I put on my big girl pants and I signed into my bank account.

Yep… still $600 in the hole.

And, although for some reason today was pay day, still no reasonable way to juggle the money around so I could pay it back.

I shook my head and decided to do what I had come there to do.
Pay my tithing.
It’d been a long time. Since December actually.

I started adding it up.

Counting up the months.

8 months.

I multiplied it out.

I was confused

so I multiplied it out again.

And again.

And again.

Finally for good measure I did it the old fashioned way: addition.

I couldn’t believe it.

I still can’t believe.

After my tithing, and a generous fast, my tithing account still held $2,000.
$2,000 from a tax rebate we thought was long gone.

$2,000

Two. Thousand. Dollars.

How?

I had prayed that the Lord would bless us if we payed our tithing. I didn’t know how but I had faith that somehow we could work it out. Maybe Brandon’s pay check would come early or something… I never expected.

I never expected this.

I never expected the Lord to bless us so quickly and so completely.
Things that I’d been worried about, that I haven’t even discussed here, they’d all been taken account for. Abundantly taken account for.

…and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it.


The Lord blesses us when we pay our tithing. He does. For reals.

Fort

(I'm getting really creative with my post titles lately)

On Kami's birthday we had friends come over to play. (Paige and Austin) It was a really fun day for all. Jami's kids are so well behaved and easy to have over. Austin was a little apprehensive about the whole play date and was content to sit on the sidelines and watch the kids play.
The fort was his idea. (and one he was really excited about)
and a mighty good idea it was.

My boys and the fort.

Kami with Aloryn (pronounced al - a - rin; she named her herself)
She had to cart the doll everywhere and she (the doll) had to be in every picture.
So I would say it was a successful birthday present.

The beautiful Paige

I know this one is blurry but it is posted to prove the point that my child is crazy. Anytime I went to take his picture he would flip himself over like this and show me his bum.
Boys are weird.

Landon looks slightly, well perhaps stoned. But Coop looks adorable.
(This is a much cuter side of him then he showed in the previous picture. Although he does have an adorable bum.)

Landon up close.
(that kid loves a close up)

I thought this one was adorable of Paige and Austin.

Paige sneaking out the exit.

Now for a couple "personal portraits"

Landon

Cooper

Paige

Aloryn

Kameryn

Austin wouldn't poke his head out. But, if you look in this picture of Kami you can see his fuzzy head in the background. He kept popping his head up over the couch but he was really quick and I am not known for my speed with a camera.

Beach

Last Monday our good friends the Smiths (super plural/triple) invited us to the beach with them.

Naturally we said yes
We are not dummies!
and naturally I took pictures('cuz I'm not a complete dummy)

All the kids piled on the "tube" with Joaquin

The Boaters - Look closely and you can see little Landon waving. They say he sat still as a statue with no expression on the whole time. But if anyone asked if he was having a good time he would whisper "yup" and give a slight nod. (Word is he even got to drive the boat.)

The daredevil tubers!
Anytime the boat went out Kami had to be on it. She kept wanting it faster and bumpier. The adults wore out before they did.

This next series is Landon and Ty.
They were born 2 weeks apart. Jesalee and I have high hopes that they will be the best of friends.

Seems to me they are off to a good start.

The bathing beauties:
Jade Smith, Kam, Shelby Smith

I figured it best to leave you with this image of male splendor.

To quote my cousin Jandee:
"I bet you sorta want to lick the computer screen right? He is just that scrumptious."