Shuman Family Calendar

In case any friends are here reading this, I made this calendar for my grandma for Christmas and I wanted a way to let the rest of the family see how it turned out. Happy New Year everyone, and sorry I'm such a slacker about posting here lately! =)

So, family, if any of you want to order one for yourselves, I got it from Costco and they're $9.99 plus tax. It's free shipping if you pick it up (you have to have a Costco card) or you can also pay to have it shipped to your house. If you don't have a Costco card that's what you'd need to do, just call me with your credit card number so I can order it online and have it shipped right to you. Otherwise let me know which Costco you want me to have it sent to and then you'll pay when you pick it up. Thanks again to everyone for helping me gather everything! It was quite a feat getting birthdays and a picture of every single person in our family (including Grandma there are 112!) and I could've never done it without you.

I couldn't decide how to organize the pictures, so I just stuck them in on the months where people's birthdays are. That way when you see the birthdays in a month and you're not sure who someone is, you can always find a picture of them somewhere on that same page. I also wanted to have one easy reference place with everyone's full name and birthday listed by family, so I just put that on the cover. That's what the last picture is. I'm so happy with how it turned out and I think Grandma will love it (I'm finally getting it to her this afternoon). Thanks guys! I love you all! ♥Jessica

(Click on any picture to view it larger)

Leave It Like It Is

I think it was December when I was driving home late one Sunday night from dinner at my mom's house and I heard this song on the radio for the first time. It was late enough that all my kids had fallen asleep in the car so it was nice and peaceful as I drove (Joe was at work) and you know how much you love your kids when they're sleeping and how angelic and perfect they look. Well, this song totally made me cry! I loved it! As soon as I got home I looked up the radio station's website to find out the name of the song and artist and I've been a die-hard Cherie Call fan ever since. I LOVE her voice and her lyrics are so beautiful and honest and I just relate to them so much. I've bought tons of her music since then.

Tonight I was listening to this song again and I decided to write down the lyrics so I could put them in my journal but I thought I'd share here, too. They're really beautiful to read, but I'd really recommend listening to the song, because that adds so much when you can hear the music. It still makes me cry everytime! People always say kids grow up too fast and to live in the moment and try your best to enjoy it, and I really do try to do that every day. Although I love seeing my kids grow and learn and change, I also really love the way our life is right now and I hope I can always remember it and keep a piece of it in my heart to treasure forever. This song captures so many of my own thoughts and feelings.

So, here are the lyrics to "Leave It Like It Is" by Cherie Call.

I have lists of things I tell Him every night,
about the ways that I've been wishing that my life could be.
I close my eyes and say, "Help me get some sleep tonight.
I've got a great big day tomorrow, help me get it right."

And on and on go all the wishes, for the money and the business
that will come and go so quickly, but then time stands still.
And I watch the sleeping faces of the ones that I adore,
I see this life I love, and I plead with God above,
to leave it like it is.

The next day's a normal day, but I have changed somehow.
There's a halo made of sunlight touching everything.
I hear my children laugh, I see my baby smile,
and we're just talking over breakfast for a little while.

And all the questions and the wishes and the clean and dirty dishes
that are spread out on the counter seem to disappear.
And I am living in a picture with the ones that I adore.
I see this life I love, and I plead with God above,
to leave it like it is.

And it feels so fragile sometimes,
'cause it's more than I deserve
and it takes my breathe away.

I watch my daughter put a blanket on a doll,
and I know that she'll grow up and move away.
But not today.

And all the wishing and the wanting, and the dreaming and the
haunting will come back again tomorrow, time will not be still.
But as I live here in the presence of the ones that I adore,
I know this night won't stay, but I ask God anyway,
to leave it like it is.

Blue Easter Eggs

Alex, our 2-yr-old, really loves eggs, so when we were getting ready to dye eggs on Saturday and he kept hearing all the egg talk and then saw the dozens and dozens of eggs, he was pretty excited.  Then we went outside and I helped him drop one of his nice, white eggs into a cup of blue dye.  He had the funniest, most horrified look on his face when we pulled it out a few minutes later!  He did NOT want to eat a blue egg!  He wanted a white one!  I took this video of him with it and it makes me laugh so hard watching it.  At one point I handed him the egg and he half dropped, half threw it to the ground, so you'll see it's all cracked. I love the face he makes about half way through when I hold the egg up in front of him.  He was SO funny!

Sparkly, Shiny, and Swimmy

I'm still not sure exactly what it was that created Savannah's sudden obsession with having a pet fish, but it's been all she talks about for the past week or so. Then on Wednesday at school she was talking about it to her substitute teacher and telling her all about how much she wants to get a pet goldfish one day. That wonderful teacher said to her, 'Well why don't you just go get one? They're only about a dollar!' Savannah came home from school SO excited (and imagine how thrilled I was at her teacher's response). Savannah asked if it was true that they were so cheap and I reluctantly admitted it was true. I was quick to jump in, though, with the fact that we'd have to buy a fish bowl and food and other things that would make it more expensive. She asked if she could use our spider cage from her old pet "Spidey" (a wolf spider she found outside one day who lived to be over a year old after the guy at PetSmart told me it probably wouldn't last more than 2 or 3 months). I didn't know anything about goldfish our how much space they needed to I said I thought it would be fine to keep them in there, but we'd still have to buy food. That still only added up to about $4, according to my estimations, for 2 goldfish and some food. I was a little desperate scrambling for more reasons why we shouldn't get fish so I sat her down and tried to rattle off a long list of duties that would go along with having a fish.
1-You'll have to feed them everyday. "No problem!" she quickly blurted out. (Of course, I know it's true that feeding the fish is probably any kid's favorite part about having them)
2-Since they eat, that means they poop so you'll have to clean out the water at least once a week. At first she was a little grossed out as she started thinking about that and asked hesitantly, 'you mean I have to touch their poop?' But after I said yes and gave her a look like the decision has been made and we won't get the fish, she found courage from somewhere and bravely replied, "Okay, I can do that!"
3-I thought and thought to come up with a 3rd thing. I was hoping to come up with a big long list! But after a few minutes the only thing I could think of for the 3rd and last item on the list was to love them and talk to them and sing to them and give them kisses (on the outside of the cage) so they'd know they were loved. And of course that is what Savannah most wanted to do with her fish. She already loved them before she even knew she was getting any!

Trying to make my list and explain the financial burden of goldfish made it painfully obvious to me that there was really no reason why I shouldn't just go buy her a few. I told her she'd still have to do something to earn the $4 it would take to buy them, so I had her help me sort through and hang up every piece of clothing in our house. That was a big job because it included the much dreaded seasonal switch where you put away all the old summer clothes, pull out all the winter clothes from big tupperware bins, and hang them all up or put them away where they go. I'd been procrastinating doing it for a while so I was glad she gave me the motivation to finally get it done. So, once it was done we all packed into the car and headed out to buy her 3 little goldfish ($.28 each), some fish food, and a net (to scoop them out when they died, which I figured wouldn't take too long to happen). It came to $4.03, and she was so excited to be able to pay for it all by herself. I admit it was really fun at the store watching all of the kids so excited as we ran to the fish tanks and they started pointing to the fish they wanted. They were skipping all the way to the checkstand and it was really cute.

Here's a picture of the girls when we got home from the store.


Well, now that it's Friday and we've already had the fish for 36 hours, I regret to inform you that Swimmy and Sparkly passed away during the night and the littlest one, Shiny, is sick. I feel like a goldfish murderer! If you notice in the top picture, Savannah had just fed her fish and there's SO much fish food in the water! I knew it was too much, but wasn't really sure how big of a deal it was. The next morning Swimmy and Sparkly were laying at the bottom of their cage on their sides. Apparently fish will eat themselves to death. I've also learned that goldfish are very dirty and when you're using a small bowl, the ammonia from their own wastes will turn the water deadly in a day or two! We changed the water yesterday morning and planned on doing it daily, but this morning when we woke up the water is so cloudy and gross looking! I'm assuming it's from the two dying, which must have caused the otherwise healthy one to get sick, too. The water looked totally fine last night. We have Shiny in clean water now, but it doesn't look good for her. Savannah woke me up crying this morning but I tried to comfort her by telling her her pets were in heaven now in the most beautiful goldfish pond ever and they're with their mommy and daddy and they're so happy. I think we're done getting goldfish until we can get a much bigger fish tank. I would've filled up our little swimming pool and moved them there if it wasn't so cold outside. Maybe next summer we'll get more when we can do that. It's been quite an eventful and dramatic few days around here! Poor little goldfish...

Katie's 2nd Haircut

Okay, summer is over so it's time to get back in the house and back at my computer. I've completely neglected my blog but I am grateful for a good friend who got on my case about it and reminded me to keep writing. Thanks, Maria! =)

Earlier this year I had a blog entry about Katie's 1st haircut when she chopped off her bangs. Well, the Sunday before last Joe was watching the kids while I took a nap and Savannah went on a cutting frenzy. She's old enough to know that scissors are only for paper but for some reason she got the idea to start giving her dolls haircuts and then the neighbor boy (luckily he just had a buzz cut, though, so it wasn't even noticeable) and then she started on Katie! Supposedly Katie asked her for a haircut, which made Savannah think it was just fine to do it. Joe saw Savannah with the scissors and took them away from her but didn't even notice anything different about Katie when she looked like this:

I just searched a little in vain for a good picture of her hair before it got cut for a comparison. You can see where Savannah missed a little bit, though, and it was easily 4 inches that she cut off. Plus it was all her beautiful little baby curls that once you cut them off they're gone. I was so sad!

I normally try to cut the girls' hair myself to save money but this was enough of a hack job that I didn't want to attempt it on my own. The next day I took her to Fantastic Sams because I had a coupon but it was really crouded and hectic and there was a wait and while I waited I realized that getting her hair styled (which I knew I wanted so I could see how to style it short) would be $6 extra so it was going to cost $14. I had heard a friend talk about a place called Cookie Cutters that specializes in kids haircuts but I imagined it would probably be about $30 for haircuts there. I figured I might as well just call them while I was waiting and I couldn't believe it when they said haircuts were $13.95 and that includes styling! We drove right over and I was SO impressed with that place! I would HIGHLY recommend it, especially if you have a kid who's a little afraid about getting their hair cut or if it's a first haircut or something where you want a place that's camera friendly. The kids get to pick a cool little car to sit in instead of a normal chair and they also pick a DVD to watch while they're getting their hair cut. Then when they're done they get a balloon with a sucker and a cute little cookie cutter on it. Katie LOVED it! Alex also had a great time playing on the little slide while he was waiting. Here's a picture of her in the place so you can see how fun it is (plus another pitiful looking "before" picture).

She was so immersed in Dora I don't think she even realized she was getting a hair cut!

Katie's first look of her new haircut in the mirror.

She picked this plane to sit in.

The "after" picture.

I was very happy with how it turned out. It looks like such a little school girl haircut to me and I think it makes her look older and more grown up. It's sad but also cute and it's perfect timing because she'll be starting preschool in just another week. It's crazy how fast kids grow!

Happy Mother's Day!

Wow, I can't believe I've already had this blog over a year! I remember writing for Mother's Day last year, too! Today I just have this cute little poem that I found online. I reflects so many of my own thoughts and experiences as a mother that I feel like they could be my own words! I really loved it so I wanted to share it with any of you moms of young children or anyone else and I hope that you enjoy it!

Every Mother's Prayer

Dear Lord, it's such a hectic day,

With little time to stop and pray,

For life's been anything but calm,

Since you called on me to be a mom.

Running errands, matching socks,

Building dreams with building blocks.

Cooking, cleaning, and finding shoes,

And other stuff that children lose.

Fitting lids on bottled bugs,

Wiping tears and giving hugs.

A stack of last week's mail to read,

So where's the quiet time I need?

Yet when I steal a minute Lord,

Just at the sink or ironing board,

To ask the blessings of your grace,

I see them in my small one's face,
That you have blessed me all the while,

As I stop to kiss that precious smile.

(http://www.hugsandsmiles.com/everymomsprayer/index.html)

Here are some pictures I took today of my "precious smiles" that I daily kiss, with gratitude to their Maker for allowing me the amazing blessing and privilege of being their mother. No matter how hard a day may be, they're worth every second of it! I love these three little people more than I ever imagined I could love anyone. I feel so grateful to be celebrating Mother's Day today as a mother myself.

Happy Mother's Day to all of you mothers!

Our new car!

Well, I guess we're officially a Mormon family because we finally broke down purchased a minivan! We bought it a week ago at a government auction, which is the same place we bought our Taurus that we've been driving for the past 5 years and we've had a lot of luck there. It's nothing fancy, just a 2001 Dodge Caravan with no power anything so it makes me feel so old school rolling up and down the windows by hand and manually locking each door, but it runs great and the best thing is it only has 16,000 miles so it drives like it's practically new! We paid $4000 for it which is about all I can stand paying for cars anyway. I hate car payments so it was nice to just pay for it from what we'd been saving for a new car, knowing we'd need one once we had another baby and ran out of seats. Our double stroller doesn't really fit in it very well and I do really miss my nice big trunk, but other than that I'm surprised how much I'm liking it so far! I was really dreading getting one but it's not so bad! We went to the auction while Savannah was at school and we didn't tell her anything about it since we didn't know if we'd actually buy anything so it was a surprise for her when we got home and she was SO excited! She's been bugging us about wanting to buy a minivan this whole school year since my neighbor that I carpool with has one and she loves it.

I think the biggest reason Savannah really wanted one so badly is because she always wants to take extra people in the car with us but we never can since our Taurus barely had enough seats for the 5 of us. The first thing she she said was "Now we can take Julian with us everywhere we go!" (Julian is our 4 year old next door neighbor who's an only child so he's sort of like their adopted brother) So of course here are the kids, including Julian, just a few hours after buying it as we drove around to show it to my brother and mom.

This is a picture of the back seat of our Taurus after we got the car seats out of it. I had such a ghetto mom car! I'm determined to keep this new one much cleaner.

Some cheesy pictures of Joe at the auction site right after he bought it.

This is a big, exciting step for our family! I guess now we're one step closer to baby #4! We'll have to start working on that... =)