Steven & Ashlee Simons

This little light of mine, Elsie Lou, doesn't go to school yet. But she gets my attention most other days all day. I love her and there is nothing better when she starts to sing,"Good Morning to you!" as I walk in her room in the morning. I would be lost without her and the other three in school all day long.

See this little girl, she's a looker, with an attitude, with a slight mouth on her. She is probably more like me than I care to admit. Steven told me the other day that my paints were too tight, I looked at him and said, "Oh, you think I'm fat?" He said, "Umm okay crazy Sammy." I just burst out laughing because this is SOOO something Samantha WOULD say. "Samantha please get your reading done." "Oh, you think I can't read!" Yep, that sums her up.
But what is so perplexing is Samantha's ability to be so nurturing, loving, and mother like. She is the best cleaner, baby sitter and best helper when her attitude is in the right place. I love her dearly and hope she only changes her tone of voice with me as she ages. She is willing to help and take care of me when needed. She is an amazing student, I don't think I have ever had to work extra hard with her on a project it just all come easily and naturally to Samantha, friends as well. She has so many good friends and is loved by her teachers and primary teachers.
I do feel like because she falls in the middle she gets over looked, which is possible considering she glides through life with little issues other than her attitude at home.
I am so excited to see her be a mother and the man she marries I am sure will be someone loving and carry, because if he is anything like her watch out! It could be war.
The one thing I want to tell her is to embrace her compassion and her nurturing virtues. She is so thoughtful and empathic at times that I wonder where this goes when she is mad and upset. I do tend to be upset with her the most, but I would say that is only because I see the potential she has inside of her. She aims to please.
Today she bore her testimony in church for the first time. Elsie came up on the stand and I had to leave her to do this herself. I knew she would, I knew she could, and would be perfectly appropriate when standing before the congregation. And of course she was.
It makes me so happy to know she has a strong foundation of the gospel of Jesus Christ and she strives to do what is right. This will serve her well throughout her life. I would be so lucky if all my children were to leave my house with this knowledge of who they are, where they came from and where they will be going in they live a righteous life. It would be only my greatest achievement in life if ALL my children were good husbands and wives, fathers and mothers on the day I leave this earth.

-Every once in a while I feel inclined to do a post on Mountain Man, aka my husband. Why Mountain man? On our first date we went horse back riding and he made a comment about the wind and how this "always happens in the mountains" I politely told him, "Thanks, Mountain Man".  . .  he told me it was that moment that he knew he was going to marry me and every time since that time whenever my husband wears a beard I think "Mountain Man."  On the day we went to get these pictures he came home and said he would shave. I told him to leave it. He grows a nice beard twice a year and I told him at some point I want to remember he had one. Also, I feel if this is his way of being a rebel than that's fine by me.

"I'm the teacher!"- Samantha

"I'm the principal"- Ben

"I'm the class room hamster!"- Marin 

-As we were driving home from Costco Ben says, "I'm going to live in that big wood house right there!"  Our Costco is in Vail and the home is well over a million dollar home, so I'm loving his ambition.
Marin says, "I'm going to live in that house."
Ben gets so excited and says, "You want'a live with me Marin!"
Marin says, "No."
Ben, "Marin, you said that you would marry me if I went on a mission!"
Marin, "Ben I'm not going to marry you and I'm not living in the same house as you."
Sam chimes in, "I don't think you can marry your brother? Mom, can you marry your brother?!"
They didn't know Steven and I were listening, they are so funny. Poor Ben was sad. He is the sweetest boy, I wanted to tell him I would live with him . . . but I left it.

-I was walking past Ben's room into the bathroom the other day and I hear Ben talking to himself.
"Mom, boys just do stuff you know. Like toot and pee on things. Boys are just like that."
Umm, well I'm not sure what he was rehearsing for and I hope not to find out.

-Steven got me a treadmill for Christmas and one day I was running on it when Marin says, "Mom you don't need to exercise you are perfect."

Elsie was playing with the hitch on Steven's truck and Steven had asked her many times not to, finally Steven told her she was naughty. Elsie said, "Oh, I sorry." It was funny because we didn't know she knew this word.


All the kids are now in school I took this picture of them on my front porch on Monday. Where does time go?! Ben looks like he is 10 and every time I look at Marin I think I am looking at myself! After they left on Monday Steven got it in his head that he wanted to clean the garage. As we were cleaning it out Elsie was playing with the broom and I said with tears in my eyes, "What would life be like if we didn't have Elsie?" Steven replied, "Quite." Ummm not the response I was looking for Steven, but then again, I think I would have six and Steven would have had three, so maybe four is our number.

 She gets out her pink stool and her tea set. Next her baby in her stroller and another baby on her lap.

She wore her "good" shoes and makes sure everyone has a cup. It's the same thing every time. I love how she gives her baby in the stroller a cup.

 Elsie lou- this is a picture of my heart living outside my chest. She is so funny, well pretty much whatever she does I think is funny, cute, adorable, note worthy . . . well you get the picture. I came outside the other day and found this- relaxing call cool in her car with her baby and some cookies.


Elsie LOVES her babies. I have never had a little girl so into babies, it's fun! She loves to have tea parties with them (I will have to get a picture of her tea parties they are quite cute!) and put them to sleep. It's pretty much like ended on a high note with her because I love(d) dolls.We moved all Marin and Sam's baby doll crib and changing table up to her closet so she could play with them.
She is a very good mommy to real babies as well. Yesterday we were at the park with some friends and one little boy had dirt all over his face. Elsie looked at him and yelled, "Dirty! Mess!" Then ran to get the wipes from my bag. She cleaned him up good and was very concerned about him going back in the dirt and continually warned him that was "dirt!" I might have another Samantha on my hands.


This morning I told her that we needed to do her hair. About five min. later I heard her talking to herself in the bathroom. Here is where she was sitting waiting for me to do her hair. How she got up there I don't know.




Click clack, click clack, click clack. I know who this is walking around my house. Elsie Lou with her princess shoes on. One nice thing about having three little girls is I pretty much have all the toys that a little girl could want we just cleaned them up and organized them for her in her room. All these shoes were Sam's, but now they are Elsie's, very few match, but Miss El doesn't mind. She will make Samantha wear them with her while they walk around the house. Sam pretends to be annoyed, but let's face it, she loves her girlie sister!!!

Ben-jam-in graduated from pre-school! He is so excited to go to kindergarten next year he can hardly contain himself. He would ask all the time,"Mom, I have a question for you. When am I going to Marin and Sam's school? When will I be in Kindergarten??" He was however very happy to be the biggest kid in his pre-school class this year. He liked to be called Big Ben (He really did love that)!

This handsome guy steals my heart all the time. He is so sweet and is totally sensitive. I LOVE IT. He honestly says the nicest and LONGEST prayers I have ever heard a child say. He blesses everything and everyone and then proceeds to talk to Heavenly Father and Jesus about everything he know about the scriptures. Everything from Nephi to something about Amon that I didn't even know the other night.


 He reminds me so much of Steven in this photo, he is going to be a heartbreaker when he gets a little older.
 He loves Elsie and insisted that she be in this photo. He does take good care of her. Although, she would probably say he likes to torture her, but he is not trying to, just trying to help her. I have had more than one or two older people at the store tell me what a good big brother he is to her.



I think he is going to do so good in kindergarten next year! I am excited for him!!

After spending more time budgeting the past few weeks than I care to admit (we hired someone and that just mean we make less money until we get that person paying for themselves and making money for us which normally takes a good long while) but I always find it better in life when I rain in my speeding than I do when I let it lose. How is this possible? - I don't know. But there is so much more useful stuff around when I can't spend money then when I can. Translation- less is more. There are such good lessons to be learned when life is on nonnegotiable budget (I sure wish our government was on one of these).

A few years ago I read a book, "The Total Money Make Over." My sister-in-law was on a kick about it and so I gave it a try. It's pretty good, in fact it pretty much changed the way I ran my company finance and our personal finances. It probably saved me thousands of dollars by just changing the way I did a few simple things, I don't put things on credit cards I can't pay off so I wasn't paying interest, I just restructured the way I paid things and when exactly they had to be paid. Just by gaining a relationship with cash makes you not want to spend it. So I got right down and started courting my cash. Read it, it's good. It will for sure save you the money you spend to buy it, probably thousand's of times over. Or better yet get it from your library.

Anyway, back to my budgeting talk. Needless to say I find when I am on a budget I really don't "need" anything. We need food, but really nothing else. ;) So in light of my new found insight into "things" I 'm going on a shopping hiatus for myself. From now, May 25th until September 25th. What this means . . .

No buying . . .

Cloths
Shoes
Jewelry
Hair things

Difficult, maybe, imposable for sure not. So wish me luck, here I go. I wrote it down so I could be held accountable. Feel free to write on my wall and ask me how I am doing (Actually please do)!

I'm actually being facetious. It hasn't been a steller week. In fact, it's been a pretty bad week, but rather than bore you to sleep with all that has happened I would just like to take a moment and think hard about something that life has taught me.

I have thought to myself many'a time this week, "Had I know what this week would bring I would politely pass and move straight on to the next." But, life is sort of not that way. So instead of looking at life and wishing it were different. I'll try and look for things that have come to pass because of the negative and not dread the negative that hasn't even happened yet.

We all know Steven broke his foot in December and we have been balancing the recovery on our heads like one of those women who carry water on the heads from miles away, except my water hole was six long months away. It's been a little taxing challenge to say the lest, but I think to myself, "Steven saved not only his life but Ben's life in the processes of braking his foot, he might limp for his life, but this is a small price to pay for being able to spend the rest of my life with my husband and son." So it's really not bad at all, in fact the broken foot is really not very significant if I sit and look a the bigger picture. I should be thankful for the brake and thankful that everyone walked away safe, well not really, but you know what I mean. :) The broken foot is such a blessing.

My grandfather fell a few months ago and I hear the discouraging sound in his voice that his neck has not healed. But perhaps the greater blessing is that everyone in my family has reached out to fast and pray for him and have become closer to my grandparents right now that my parents are in Peru. Perhaps Heavenly Father preserved his life when he fell, along with his mobility and these are the blessing. Perhaps the blessing is knowing my grandfather and grandmother better by speaking with them often. I don't know, maybe it's all and maybe it's none, I don't pretend to know "God's Ways" I just trust that he knows best.

When I lived in Germany, my host mother, Annamarie, took care of her mother day in and day out for many years. She fed her and bathed her and would sit and read by her bed for hours. I remember her serving her for the entire year  I lived in the Seute's home. What an amazing service that Annamarie performed for her mother, what a remarkable and elect woman Annamarie is for the compassion and patients she gained while in the service of her mother.  Without a doubt the blessing there is Annamarie was able to gain a quality to her character that she might have missed had this never happened. I'm sure her mother new that she was there. I think to myself now that perhaps if Marin were to take care of me so faithfully I wouldn't mind lying in bed for so many years. . . if I was able to be by my daughter's side for so long. How in the world could anyone view that as waisted time on either parties time line. I certainly wouldn't. Time well spent and time well lived.

A few years ago I read a book about Meriwether Lewis and William Clark called  "Undaunted Courage."It was a good book with very many interesting facts about their journey and home coming. But one part of the book really struck me as an important fact that I so many times do. As Lewis looked out upon land he was about to cross, the snow covered peaks would apear from time to time in the vast distance (the Rocky Mountains). It was Lewis's view not to fear, despair, or dread the "unknown" "until proven otherwise." I think Meriwether Lewis had a view of optisim, well I think optimism is the wrong word, but "of courage undaunted" as Jefferson put it. Or in other words he did not give himself the trail of worry until presented with the gift of tribulation.

I say "gift of tribulation," because so many'a time this is what life is. It's just moments in time that allow us to become better, to be better and rise above the trail and learn lessons we would have denied ourselves had we had we been the creator of our own circumstance.

Thank Heaven's I'm not the Creator, but I get to live in the painting. Whatever that painting maybe at any given moment in time.

I can honestly say I had the best mother's day of my life today. My sweet children and husband are so thoughtful and loving. I woke up to breakfast in bed, the girls rubbed my hands and brushed my hair until I got out of bed . . . they also gave me my presents they had made me from school. These are my favorite presents! They are so thoughtful, funny, and did I already say funny! I keep them in my night stand. All my children know I keep my special presents here. That's why it's stuffed full of children's coloring pages, birthday cards and a long list of other items, it's a mess (One day I will organize it all.)



 This is a funny one. I love it! I'm 6 ft. 2 in. and weigh 7 lbs!!! Sweet! She gave me coupons to keep her room clean and she loves my long hair!


 I love that I am in a field with a beautiful flower! This is the way I hope she sees me!





I got two gifts from Marin. The first one was this homemade "ABC's of Why I Love You . . ." All of my children wrote down they are so thankful I cook. . . make lunches . . . the best pancakes (I do make a mean one) . . . or other little things I do that I think go unnoticed! So nice that they think of them as something I do just for them.
Desert!! Yum, Yum!!


I have a strick policy among my children if they do not get up early enough, get their rooms clean and show promptly to have their hair down their lunch's do not get made and you have to have hot lunch. So as much as I hate to say it, "hot lunch" is a bad word around my house and you do not want to have to eat it, because it's basically a punishment around here. ;)


Later that day as I walked into church my oldest daughter was up on the stand obviously ready to give a talk. I didn't know this. So all week she kept this a secret from me and had her father type it up! I love it and will cherish it forever.

Marin's Talk

I have many wonderful mothers in my life.
My Great Grandma Suker is kind and loving and I love to visit her house.
My Grandma Bloomer makes me feel good, because she always has something nice to say about me. She is also a great example because she is serving a mission in Peru. Plus she takes me shopping.
My Grandma Simons give great hugs. She has wonderful sleep overs, even though she leaves the TV on all night.

My mom is the best example of all because she helps me with my homework. She is very pretty. When I am hurt she helps me feel better. She always makes me breakfast, lunch and dinner. I hope to be like her when I grow up and I hope to be like her when I grow up and I hope that I can become a great mom like her. I love you mom.
In the name of Jesus Christ Amen

Now you see why I had a great day. Such special children I have in my home.

Since Marin and Sam are 7 and 9, I've decided this is a good time to talk about important life decisions that they will face in the next ten years. Things like why not to get a tattoo, why not to pierce your nose, belly button, tongue or other body parts. See, I told you it was important stuff. It actually really is, I'm not being facetious (side note, I actually spelt that word right on the first try, small steps) because if one of my daughters comes home with a ring in her nose I will honestly think to myself, who raised you? What planet did you grow up on? Where did you learn that that was beautiful? Not from your mother? (I apologize to anyone reading this blog who does have any of the above, but I'm pretty sure I'm totally safe because I have completely normal friends and even if you did do any of the above I'm pretty sure you regret doing it now).  I like to point out as we walk by Victory Secrets that these women do not  have nose rings, tongue rings or other jewelry or ink in their bodies (thanks Victory Secrets for having scantly clad women hanging on your store front windows as I have actually turned this into a teaching tool for my young girls).
I remember watching Road Rules on MTV when I was a teenager, this was back before MTV turned into a total freak show and I would never allow it in my house now, just a side note. On this episode the show was wrapping up a season and one person decided in order to commemorate his five minutes of fame he was going to have Kermit the frog tattooed on his derriere. Now I 'm going to go on a long shot here and say that at some point they have thought to themselves, "Why do I have Kermit the Frog on my butt?" or "I really like being reminded of a stupid thing I did when I was X old every time they relieve myself."
Back to my story. The other day as I was doing the girls hair for school they were asking me about getting their ears pierced. They have been told they can do  his when they are 12 for many reasons which I will tell you right now . . .
1. I don't want to take care of 8 ears. Mine and my three daughters. I already have enough going on in my life without that! Besides people wine and cry around here about other far less painful things.
2. I have this theory that deterring them from this mile stone in their lives will some how be rewarded to me by them not having any of the above mentioned more severe scares later in life. I will let you know if this plan paned out on their wedding day as I hold that the day they are really completely out of my control and should be a totally sensible adult.
3. I wasn't allowed to get my ears pierce until I was 12. Plan and simple, I don't think it's a little girl thing, I think it's a young woman/woman thing. You can shave your legs, paint your nails, wear make-up in this house when you are 14 and your ears you may have pierced when you are 12. There is no rhyme or reason behind these numbers other then they sound good to me. So I'm sticking to my guns!!
We were doing their hair and they wanted to know if it hurt to get your ear's pierced. Now, in my mind I did think for a spilt second that if I told them it hurt this could possible buy me two more years of not stepping, fighting, or healing ear ring holes gone awry. So I blurted out the first thing that entered my mind, "Of course it hurts. Someone is sticking you with a needle in the ear." Marin's eyes got large and she declared she was never getting her ear's pierced. Samantha wasn 't bitting as hard and thougth for a moment, "That's why you wait until you are twelve Marin!"

Well, here's to giving it a shot and hoping that my poor lying some how will pay off in the future.

8:39 am in the Morning- Speaking of lying to children . . I just told Ben that if he didn't do his hair this morning it would lead him to looking unkept and when he was 18 he would look like a pirate with green teeth, scraggly looking hair and unwashed cloths. He just looked at me for a moment and is now brushing his teeth with his Sonic tooth brush which he never does (Well his hair might still not be done, but his teeth are now clean, so I count this as a score for mom).

Sammy-Doddle had here first grade play! She came home about a month ago and said she needed me to make a costume for her. I was excited because I knew she was. So I picked up the piece of paper and read over it. She was going to be a bristal worm. Well, that ended the excitement and she started to cry, big tears of, "I'm a worm! That's disgusting! Alexs is little Miss Muffet! She gets to wear a cute dress! I'm a worm! I'm not going to do it! I can't believe I'm a worm!" She went down in her room and pouted all night. I am probably a bad mother and just let her pout. The next day I read what the costume was "supposed" to look like. It wanted me to buy some around foam balls and spray pain them red and put her in red sweats. I started to laugh and she started to cry . . . yet again. In her defence I wouldn't have ever made my daughter wear red spray paint foam around her head and I wasn't about to spend good money on red sweats that I would never expect her to wear again, EVER! SO I came up with a few ideas because while I might be a busy mother I am certainly not too busy nor too lame to not be able to come up with something better than that. A trip to Grand Junction and $8 latter. Here is her cute costume!!! She loved it, and was happy, and what makes Sam happy makes me happy. Well, most of the time anyway.

So I've been a little busy. Playing doctor to my husband who broke his foot in four places. Needless to say I was going a little crazy being in my house and taking care of a husband who couldn't walk for four weeks. So, I asked Steven if I could over haul the girls room in December (this is when he broke his foot, yes I know, and he has to have another surgery next week to take out the four plates and nine screws that were put in on January 5th, I'll pause for a moment of silence while you feel bad for me . . .) and that seemed like as good of time as any to start what turned into a major over haul of decor in my house!!
It all started in the girls' room and yes, I wrote girls' on purpose because I had all three of them in one room. With one bunk bed, one crib, one way too big doll house, one small dresser, one doll house bookshelf, and one ugly salmon color pink I had painted on the walls years ago  when I let them pick the color (WOW, will never let a child pick out paint color again, but in my defence that was Steven's idea).

So end of January I got started and finished today!!!! And I don't have before pictures because I hated the salmon color so much I don't want to remember it!!!!! And I will try to block out trying to keep a three girl room clean for 18 months as well.

I love this room I walk in in the morning because the green is so bright and beautiful. The walls are painted green with a different color green on the ceiling (this was a leap for me who normally likes white walls), white drapes that go from floor to ceiling, matching white roman shade, shelves around the room, a little white chandelier, pink rug, fun mirrors, UBER cute bird decals that were dirt cheap at Hobby Lobby, and the letter E to top it all off on the wall above her changing table. I love it, love it, love it, it's a little busy for my normal style, but for my little baby girl I love it!!! It makes me so happy to play in here with her!!


 I couldn't bring myself to change the color of this crib, I bought it when Steven and I were dirt poor and I couldn't afford a nice white one so I found this very nice super strong crib (I like to climb in it all the time with my babies and help them go to sleep). So you know it's strong in that I have lied in it with four children.

This is my favorite wall, of the girls and me . . . me and my girls . . . my babies and I.




Ahhh, new pillows on a solid couch, nothing better!! (Oh, I bought the mirror too back in March, this is about the time I started to drive Steven crazy in case you are wondering! Poor man still had a month to endure.)

New curtains I bought from IKEA with a little modification, okay a lot of modification, but all Steven know is they were $19.99 from Ikea, steal of a deal!!


Unfortunately, you can see right into my master bedroom from my great room, so if I redo something in my great room my bedroom has to coordinate, sorry Steven, it's just the way it has to be in this redo.

But I am done for now, I think, I have great plans for my kitchen next winter!!!