2 of my 3 wouldn't come within three feet of Santa

any guesses?

the "in line" faces say it All.

a good game.

School was important, but my mom used to keep us home on every good Friday to watch Ben Hur.  It was fully a part of our Easter celebration.  I thought about this when Jim pulled the boys away from their normal 8 p.m. bedtime last night to watch the Sun Devils beat the Wildcats (which was by no means certain until the end of the second overtime). 

ASU football is as much Religion to Jim as Ben Hur is to Cyndee. 

...and my Three Believers went to bed beaming.

perfect chaos.

I picked up my phone and snapped this picture while I was elbow deep in icings and food color last Friday.  Five fat flies were buzzing through the house by the time Jim got home, but the open door policy of the late afternoon was a worthwhile Bliss.  The boys ran to & fro, while the girl watched in delight, while the mom piped and Enjoyed.

Lately I feel like my life is pretty near perfect. 

I have zero free time, a DVR full of unviewed shows, a stack of unread books, and a mess of laundry to be done.  Every morning we patch Aidan's pants, dig for matching socks, and sweep more cereal crumbs to the floor.  But every morning we also pray, hug, kiss and hold. 

It's the only kind of perfection I expect to attain. 

Someday the house will be spotless.  Someday I'll get to my book pile.  Much of the chaos will vanish, but I can't imagine life will feel quite so crazily perfect without these Three.  These are definitely years to Enjoy.

why I love my husband

There are hundreds of reasons. 

But this one has stood out to me most lately: 

He is a phenomenal dad.

I was irretrievably smitten when I married the man. But I do remember having moments of lucidity during the courting.  And in those moments I'd always worry about just that - Jim as a dad.  He didn't like children much and expressed no interest in having any of his own.

But this was one area where I have been most surprised and most grateful. 

He spends time and energy with each of these lucky three.  And he teaches them.  

On Monday he taught us a simplified lesson on Jacob 5, which is anything but simple.  It was a chapter we had only skimmed over in our morning scripture study, and he wanted his boys to understand more.  So he came home from work fully prepared with handouts and enthusiasm.  Of course, the boys didn't understand the allegory fully, but they did understand that it was important to their dad.  And the lesson ended with Aidan saying, "that was really interesting". 

That night when Davyn knelt with me to pray, he said, "Bless us all so we can be good fruits." 

Amen.

Coming from the branch of my Jim, they have a good chance of being just that.

happy halloweening

from us.

Tonight we'll spend another 30 minutes wrapping this guy up so that he can be completely worn out to the borderline of tears by the time we're ready to hit the big party.

And then I'll spend two minutes make-uping this guy so that he can embrace the vampire persona and drive me batty by insisting to speak through oversized fangs all night. The boy may as well be speaking Transylvanian.

Oh the joy of candy and costumes and hyped little humans.  Are you feeling the sarcasm?  I don't think I'd feel this way if Halloween hadn't somehow recently become a week-(or month?!)-long holiday...what's up with that?!

But I did get a welcome bonus this year.  Of the cake kind.  Melissa is letting me bake for her party.  She is my good friend and my Nie Nie cake auction winner.  So my kitchen is some kind of spooky mess right about now. And I'm liking it.

I'll post pictures when I finish.