the economy

okay this is just a post for me so it will be very boring. lately i have been very confused at how in the world our economy got in such a mess and how in the world are we going to get out of it. i am not very smart at politics and how it works and i happened on a news story, i think it was 20/20 and they were talking about how that most of our debt is owned by china...well i guess in my oblivious world i didn't think about that we were indebted to someone else, i just thought america paid herself back?! so then it got me thinking that if we are trillions of dollars in debt, it's hard to say we're completely free. i know the feeling of having debt and it's not fun. we recently paid off everything except our house and it feels wonderful and i know that we would not be able to stay up with our bills if we had not paid all this debt off, especially with all kents crazy job changes. so anyways in our local paper there was a story about an earmark that rexburg got in the great big stimulus package to refurbish the old west wood theatre for $150,000-i agreed with the writer that putting money into such things as these is not such a smart idea in such rough times, she quoted Thomas Jefferson "I, however, place economy among the first and most important of republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared." and then as we have been reading in Alma in the scriptures, all the wars and stuff-we came across this scripture: Alma 51:18 "...and it came to pass that the armies did march forth against them; and they did pull down their pride and their nobility..." and in my fun little family scriptures(which i love) President Ezra Taft Benson commented on this scripture: speaking about modern concerns in the U.S. warned us "if our blood-bought freedom is surrendered, it will be because of Americans..." and he goes on to quote Abraham Lincoln who asked: "at what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected?" and then answered "if it ever reaches us, it must spring up among us. it cannot come from abroad. if destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be it's author and finisher..." this just got me thinking-i'm so glad i have the gospel and such great leaders to trust in, that makes me feel very safe and happy:) in such uncertain times!

underwear

kaden said, "mom, i need new underwear."

mom said, "oh, is yours getting to small?"

kaden replied, "well no-it's just that they have pictures on them and i need more MANLY underwear!"

i don't like my kids growing up:(

glasses

brooke loves me to read to her but she is not a big fan of reading on her own-so we were doing her homework together and she said, "mom i think i need glasses." and i asked her if she couldn't see the letters very well and she said, "well kelsi says glasses help her to read things better and i need to read better, so i need glasses!"

february in review

february went by super fast-but i guess we squeezed in a few fun activities...
the boys took off for the father and sons outing the first weekend- our ward camps at the girls camp up past ashton-so you have to snowmobile in, kent was brave and even took koy: todd and carter also came. kaden was so excited to ride his own snowmobile into the camp. koy loved when dad cooked little smokies on his snowmobile for a snack.
so us girls decided to have a girls night too-diane and hali and paige came up to rexburg...we went bowling and watched movies and painted our nails in the morning. it was fun to hang out!

kent was gone for valentines day-but we were happy he was working. i don't get much into holidays for us old people-i told kent i would rather he be nice to me all the other days of the year than just one day! which he is-

LOVE ISN'T A BIG THING, IT'S A MILLION LITTLE THINGS!

one of the little things that he recently did for me was when my car was in the shop being fixed. it was a super cold day like -21 when we woke up. so we went to pick it up and he said bring a towel, which i looked at him kind of funny. he started my car for me and went in and paid and then came out and scraped all my window for me and laid the towel on my cold leather seat. i thought that was so sweet, because he knows i hate being cold!

for valentines we decided to go have some indoor fun at blast off. the kids loved it, and i loved watching them run all over. brooke loved the rock wall and wanted to keep climbing, i didn't know on weekends that you have to pay for each climb-so i could only afford 2 times for her. she was super fast and even did the medium side.
even kelsi got in on the fun, she brought her two friends: natasha and nitchelle.
they had a big ball fight!

koy was crazy, i seriously couldn't get him to hold still even for a picture...i tried to catch him in the tunnels but he was so stinkin' fast. na na na na NA!

kaden got to play laser tag with the girls and was so excited.

we had some more snow fun this month too-we headed up to the farms above rexburg, it was a perfect sledding day: we actually had quite a few of these nice days, yay!

brooke i think would of never stopped, she was up and down, up and down, over and over.

koy loved to throw snow up and watch the dog chomp it, he did this forever and the dog never tired of it.

i love a day when the kids are all smiles!(and tired)

kelsi even hopped off the snowmobile long enough to go down the hill a few times.

kaden getting a ride back up the hill from kelsi.

kaden and kelsi went to the eye doctor and both needed glasses, they inherited my bad eyes:( kaden competed in his schools scholastic bowl this year. they take the top 3 students in each class to compete in a subject, kaden chose spelling. he did great- there was only 4 of them left in the last round and he missed his word: turquoise. he spelled it right the first time at home so it was not one we reviewed and he mixed up the u and o. he was pretty disappointed to not place, but by the end of the night he was alright. kaden is very understanding when he thinks things through-he gets that everybody has tried hard to get there and that he tried his best. on the way home we were talking about it and i said look the moon even thinks you did a great job...

it was smiling-i don't see the moon this way very often, so we're sure it was for kaden:)

kelsi looks super duper cute in her glasses but has chosen to wear contacts most of the time. kelsi was able to do baptisms for the dead for the first time-she loved being in the temple. and she really loves young womens-so does her mom! i guess i forgot how great a program it is and kelsi is just at that perfect age where whatever her leaders say is just wonderful(and she has amazing leaders). she comes home and does things without asking like cooking dinner, playing with the kids, reading her scriptures, doing family home evening. i love it! she is going to be talking in sacrament on Sunday about her experience at the temple...she says this is the not so fun part of being in young womens.

and here is the last day of february...we are looking forward to more days of blowing bubbles and riding bikes!!!