sila bethany patterson, age 5

today,(actually the 29th but this is not a leap year)is sila's birthday. my baby turned 5 and will be starting school in august...too soon, i know. there's so many things i can say about sila...here are just a few.
she's strong willed(makes for a good leader, right)
she's always the first to help me with almost anything
she's bright, funny, clever
she memorizes songs like no one else
she's a good singer and dancer
her whole face lights up when she smiles-i love it.
mason and i are so thankful and happy to have her as part of our beautiful family.
happy birthday sila girl-WE LOVE YOU LOTS!!!

never too young

in an effort to "take it easy" due to my little/big mishap and emergency trip to the hospital on tuesday night(long story short-i overdid it and started having contractions), i've been trying to rethink my way of doing things around the house and getting the kids to do more, to help me of course:) so tonight, i thought-it's thursday, i really should cook dinner. so i got everything out to make meatloaf and decided that mese would help me. he did a wonderful job and had lots of fun doing it. he asked many questions about the ingredients and was quite interested in the whole process-yay! and when it was time to eat, we were all quite satisfied with the outcome. not bad for his first meatloaf, and he's only 6. who knows, today meatloaf-tomorrow creme brulee. i can dream can't i.

have miracles ceased?

after several, ok maybe 4 long, very long weeks, lots of headaches, and finageling(don't know the exact spelling) with work/school/church/other stuff on one vehicle, and $1000 later...
MASON'S CAR PASSED SMOG!!!
so my answer is: NO, miracles have not ceased! and i'm sooooo glad:)

monday, monday

is it really, so good to me? monday really has a bad rap for being bad, what do you think? it hasn't been all that bad, yet.
i mailed off a bunch of things i needed to send out today-easy.
i went to find out why i was billed for electricity when i just paid a week ago-not too hard.
i'm trying not to eat too much before my dr.'s appt. for fear of having gained too much weight-i guess it's a lost cause at this point, right.
the kids are all taking a nap-yay:)
i wish i was:( but got to go to see dr.
i did have some yummy chocolate macadamia nut biscotti-that made me happy.
and maybe, just maybe we'll get mason's car fixed by the end of this week(that's a whole nother post guys).
hope your monday is fabulous!

and...

we did have a delicious sushi lunch yesterday and we enjoyed every minute of it-thanks to our good friend johanna, who watched our children. really...can it get any better than that?! chocolate and sushi in one day?

a weekend full of love

what a weekend! grandma & grandpa came to visit from st. george on friday and they stayed til monday. we love it when they come!:) we have so much fun and the kids can't get enough of them(we can't either:). we spent the weekend doing all the things we like to do-play, eat, shop, eat, relax, eat, talk, eat and enjoy one another's company. it's a very good thing.
what did my honey woo me with this year?
*ritter sport-german chocolate which i absolutley love
*carpenters gold cd-i think karen carpenter has one of the most beautiful voices, ever
*peter & the wolf dvd-i've never seen this so it should be good
thanks honey-i love you always.
and what did i do for my one and only?
*the kids and i made sugar cookies-he loves them, and i'm so glad because that's about all i do for him on heart day:)
*and of course, he received 2 reeses' peanut butter hearts and a card-the reeses' are a sure gift to mason for every holiday that involves gift giving.
and thanks to mese & anna for ending our lovely weekend last night with a most delectable molten chocolate cake-ohhhh it was sooooo good. you can come over anytime and make that for me:)
thanks to all our family & friends who helped us celebrate our weekend of love-we love you and wish you an awesome week!

blessed saigon

last night mason made rolls for dinner and had a small amount of dough left for cinnamon rolls-can you say yummy?! he tried our new ground cinnamon we purchased from costco a little while ago and it has to be the best cinnamon i've ever put in my mouth! the label on the cinnamon bottle states this:

"cinnamon trees are nurtured for 20 years prior to harvest in the tropical highlands of vietnam, our ground saigon cinnamon rewards cooks with a sweet-hot flavor unmatched by any other cinnamon."

thank you saigon for making my taste buds do the happy dance:)

enough is enough

i often ask nani, "what's in my belly?", to which she responds, "a baby." then i ask her, "is it a boy or a girl?" and most of the time she tells me, " a boy." but this particular time she said, "a girl." mese happened to be listening...

mese: mom?
mom: yes?
mese: if that baby's a girl, i'm DONE!
mom: what?
mese: if that baby's a girl, then i'm DONE! that's 3 sisters!

poor mese, i guess he's feeling a little outnumbered these days.

happy almost weekend

can you say...WEEKEND?! i so can't wait. there have been some downs this week that weren't fun-but what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, right? and to celebrate our almost weekend, the kids and i will be making valentine cupcakes tonight-red velvet with buttercream frosting(i'll be trying out erica's recipe)...mmmmm. i'm sure that's going to make us all quite happy, don't you think?

who loves you?

every morning mason asks nani, "who loves you nani?", to which she responds,"daddy!". this morning was different.

mason: who loves you nani?
nani: daddy.
mason: and?
nani: mese.
mason: and?
nani: sila.
mason: and?
nani: johanna.

it's nice to know that my children feel loved not just by family, but by their friends too:)

but i was wondering...what about mom?