Moments of Motherhood

Today, is Kalebs's 10th Birthday. It's been a great day of donuts for Breakfast, piano lessons, opening up present from parents and grandparents, playing with his gifts and going out to eat at Kalebs favorite restaurant, Chili's. He likes their chips and salsa.

I read an article on Facebook today about taking a few minutes each day to write down the things that make you happy during the day. It talked about how mothers occasionally get into the mundane activities of taking care of kids an other responsibilities and sometimes fail to recognize those wonderful moments in motherhood. This article resonated with me because I worry that I don't take the time to enjoy those wonderful moments of motherhood. After reading this article, I wanted to record a moment today that made me so proud. Kaleb takes after me and loves parties, holidays and gifts and it makes my heart so happy when I see how excited he gets to celebrate his birthday and fun holidays throughout the year. In fact, Karmindy also finds joy in celebrating holidays and birthdays too. I think I have passed this sincere excitement down to them both. My parents, brothers and sisters have playfully teased me for years about my enthusiasm for celebrating holidays and that includes birthdays and opening presents so I am glad my kids have a little of me in them.

Today's proud momma moment happened after birthday gifts were all opened. Kaleb was sitting at the kitchen table assembling his newest Minecraft Lego kit, when his sister came in holding a modge podge of a card stock folded into a pocket. She had told me the night before that she was making Kaleb a present and was going to fill her present with money since her brother loves money. Karmindy creatively made bows out of paper and had meticulously colored this handcrafted gift of hers.  She walked up to Kaleb while he was playing with his Legos and said very excitedly, "Brother, I made you a gift and it's got something you have always wanted..." Kaleb was excited to open his gift and took his time opening Karmindys gift. He ooooooed and awwwed over her gift and then his eyes got big when he looked inside. Karmindy had shoved over $15 dollars of her hard earned money inside thr pocket. Kaleb sat there in awe and said a grateful, "Thanks!" Karmindy's response to Kalebs gratefulness, "Brother, I just wanted you to have a nice birthday!"

This was Such a proud mom moment for me to watch my children learning to serve each other and trying to make each other happy. The First thing that made me proud was when Kaleb took the time to acknowledge his sisters gift because it looked like a disheveled mess from the outside. It was so thoughtful though.  Second proud moment, was when Karmindy thought of her brother without any reminder from us and gave him something she knew he would like.

Most days I feel like I screw up real bad at this mother thing, but seeing these small acts take place between my children truly tugs at my heart strings. It makes me so proud to be a mother, their mother. I feel so incredibly blessed and incredibly humble to be Kaleb and Karmindys mother. I hope they will always know and remember how proud I am of them and the wonderful little people they are turning out to be.

New Smile in The Making!

Karmindy has been loosing teeth left and right lately. Losing teeth for Karmindy has become quite the dramatic event. She leaves her teeth in until they are hanging by a strand because she doesn't want anyone to pull them for her. Since Mark hates blood, I am the official tooth puller at the Frisbey Residence, and I kind of like it. I remind the kids that I did after all work in a Dentist office before they were born and had a lot of experience will teeth. This seems to promote some faith in them, that their mom won't hurt them...thank goodness! However, Karmindy is extremely dramatic when I touch her teeth to pull them and will scream and cry and continues her dramatic episode until well after the tooth has left her month. It is quite the sight to behold. After about a half hour of her dramatic episodes she will then get incredibly happy after we remind her that the Tooth Fairy should be paying her a visit! Oh the joys of having a little girl!

Last night, Karmindy lost her other top tooth and she was so excited to put her tooth in our family tooth pillow in hopes that the Tooth Fairy would visit and leave some money! Sadly, the tooth fairy forgot or had a huge work load last night {Huge Parent fail on our part!} . Karmindy was pretty bummed but we reminded her that the Tooth Fairy is a very busy gal and we were positive that she would be by tonight! 

I sure love the kids toothless grins! It does make me sad that my babies aren't babies anymore and are growing up on me! I wish I could bottle them up and stop time and enjoy and savor these milestones a bit more!

Celebrating the New Year!

This year we rang in the New Year with some of our close friends and neighbors. Brett and Nicole Rowe and Joe and Crystal Albrecht and their kids, Cambree and Tevan joined us. 

Our festivities began around 7 p.m. and we started the evening out by munching on appetizers, drinking yummy slush and eating some delicious desserts. After gorging ourselves, the kids played downstairs, while the adults played several games against each other. We had a great time playing games and visiting. When the New Year approached we put on party hats, shot off a cool confetti cannon for the kids and blew on squawkers. The kids seemed to have a great time, including us big kids. 

After we rang in the New Year we headed downstairs to our mak- shift photo booth. I had found a cool background and some photo-booth props at Wal-Mart and had set it all up in the basement. The kids and adults had a great time taking a few pictures before heading home. As a party gift, I wrapped up some Hershey Kisses in some party bags and printed out cute labels that said, "Midnight Kisses" for everyone to take home. It was such a fun evening spent with some of our great friends.

Winter Season & Snowy Days

 We have had such a dry fall and winter here in Northern Utah.  I was a little bit afraid and kind of sad at the thought that we weren't going to have a white Christmas this year. I sure love having the four seasons here in Northern Utah, it makes celebrating the Holidays so enjoyable! I even love the snow, at least for Christmas. I typically get sick of it after New Year's and wish it would go away. Howeve, we were relieved when Santa brought snow with him for Christmas this year. He didn't bring much snow but we were happy with what we got.

 Several days after Christmas, the kids needed a morning out of the house from being cooped up for too long so we headed to our neighborhood park and did a couple runs down the sledding hill there. Even Mark and I joined the kids and we had fun going sledding as well. We had fun spending time as a family. Kaleb brought one of his neighborhood pals, Will Searle, with him and the boys enjoyed sledding with each other. Karmindy was content to sled with either Mark or myself. After we got home sledding, Karmindy insisted on building a snowman. The snow was very fine and wasn't sticking well so she had to settle with a tiny snowman but it turned out so cute!

Several days later, we met back up at the neighborhood sledding hill with our friends the Bradfords. Karmindy had fun sledding with her friend Carson and I enjoyed sledding down the hill with cute little Brayden to give his mom a break. I also enjoyed visiting with my friend Natalie. It was bitter cold out so we didn't stay long but it was a nice little outing with friends.

Its been nice this winter to have just a taste of snow so we could have a White Christmas and enjoy going sledding with friends at our neighborhood sledding hill.

Christmas Piano Recital

Back in August we switched Kaleb to a different piano teacher, her name is Kellina Norby. We decided to switch Kaleb from Tauna Broadhead to Kelli this semester because even though Tauna did a great job we didn't feel like Kaleb was progressing as well as he should be after taking for two years. Also, Kelli had majored in Music and Vocal so we thought we would give her a try. Kaleb has done very well over the course of the past few months while taking lessons from Kelli. Kaleb has worked so hard on practicing and memorizing his piano pieces this semester and did a great job preforming his pieces at his Christmas Piano Recital. The two pieces that he preformed were: "Angels we have Heard on High" and "Hedwigs Theme" from Harry Potter.  Kaleb is a huge Harry Potter fan and so I know "Hedwigs Theme" was his favorite piece to practice and perform. Kaleb did an excellent job and we couldn't be more proud of him and his amazing performances. Mark and I are both so proud of Kaleb for taking the time to memorize his pieces too. This boy has some amazing memorization skills!

Kaleb truly has put a lot of time into practicing and developing this amazing talent. I know there are many days that Kaleb gets discouraged from practicing and wants to quit because it gets difficult, but I sure hope he will stick with developing this amazing talent. We are so proud of you bud!!

Let's Dance: Winter Dance Performance

This year in Dance, we enrolled Karmindy in ballet again and decided to give Jazz a try. Karmindy has been going to dance practice each Wednesday night since August and has truly excelled. It has been such a joy to go and watch her practice on the first Wednesday of each month and see how her dance techniques and training are progressing from month to month. Karmindy has tried ballet, jazz and tap thus far but after watching her over the past two years, I think ballet is her forte. She seems to really grasp Ballet and has a knack for it.

For the Winter Dance Recital, Karmindy performed a jazz and a ballet number and did an excellent job performing both of her dance numbers. Her jazz number was entitled, "Sleigh Ride" and her ballet number was entitled, "Do you want to build a Snowman?" from the hit Disney movie, Frozen. I think her favorite dance number she performed was her ballet number because she loves Frozen. You could just see how into it she was while performing. I am sure dancing to a song you are familiar with is quite motivating.

Karmindy we are so proud of you little sister and have truly enjoyed watching you excel at ballet and jazz this year! Keep up the hard work girlie. We love you!!

Merry & Bright Christmas Lights

For the past several years we have had the tradition to go see the lights at Thanksgiving Point and each year it gets better and better because they add more and more light displays to look at. Going to Thanksgiving point is a tradition that our little family seems to enjoy. I feel bad that we haven't taken the kids downtown to see the lights at Temple Square since we have lived here in Northern Utah but it is always so bitter cold and we have just enjoyed the convenience of getting dressed in our jammies and staying in our nice warm car to enjoy the beautiful Christmas lights. However, I don't feel too bad about not going to Temple Square to see the lights because at the end of the display at Thanksgiving Point they have the most darling Christmas Story about our Saviors birth that you can read and then drive by a Nativity. I just want my kids to always remember what the true meaning of Christmas is all about- Our Savior.

This year we picked up some Dunford donuts at Harmons and then drove to Kneaders to pick up some hot chocolate before heading down to Lehi to see the lights. We had a fun time staying in our warm car and drinking and eating our yummy treats. It was such a nice evening spent together as our little family. I truly love Christmas and all of our fun family traditions. I hope my kids never forget all the fun we have and how hard I try to make each holiday special for them.