Momma

I have a box that sits next to my bed that holds the papers that are most important to me; among those are letters from my husband, cards drawn by my children, but the thing that it holds the most are letters from my mother. They date back to me being in the 5th grade. My mother sent letters, she wrote and posted them from our home so that the post man would deliver them to us children.
My mother is a woman wise beyond her years, from finding the church at 18 to being stake Relief Society President presently. She has always been the most revered woman in my life. She is competent , strong, kind, loyal, and always loving. She taught me some life lessons that will always stay with me. A few of her quotes would be, “ You are the only person who can be responsible for your happiness” and “ You cannot expect anything if you have not voiced your expectations “ and “ You need to be beautiful inside and out.” These are the words I hope I will be able to embed into my children as she did.
As a teenager I was struggling with a few things. My dad traveled a lot and my mom was a machine at making our lives run smoothly. One night she stayed up until 3 in the morning talking to me about things. I knew that this would make her very tired for her tomorrow and my five other siblings, but she listened and listened, I never felt judged by her. She let me cry and hugged me, told me that she loved me and I truly felt better. Here is card I received from her on my 17th birthday;

Dear Robyn,
I suspect that your 17th year will be one of many challenges, and much growth. Try not to fight it but realize that some times in our life are meant for some refining. Also realize that when you choose to go “through” the experience we learn what is intended for us. I love you and I am here for you always .
Love, Mom

She has a way of making you feel like you are the most wonderful person in the world. Here is a paragraph that she wrote to me after moving to the dorms my first year at college.

“ We will miss you in our daily lives more than I can verbalize. You are the enchantress of our family. Always making life magical and charming. You are the second mother (and often the first choice) to your sisters. You are the passion and the emotion that makes the household sparkle in an inviting way that beckons to us all. You are my best friend and perhaps the only person who knows my thought and emotions so well that you recognize them in an instant. You are an empath who always feels our hurt, our pain, our joy and our excitement with us. You will never be replaced and you will always be missed, but life is progression for us all. And this is indeed the right step for us all at this time in your life.”

How can I ever compare to that as a mother? She has raised the bar for motherhood. She gave each one of her children such confidence . I am afraid I will never reach her potential, but I know I want to try too. I am so glad that Heavenly Father sent me to her because I could have never asked for a better mother and example. I love you Mom! Happy Mothers Day. I am just one of six, and I am pretty sure that ALL of my siblings feel as loved as I do. If you want to share some of your stories I would love it!

Craftiness is REALLY hard for me!

So this week I had to try my hand a little paper skills. I am a room mom for Abe's class and this coming week is teacher appreciation week. Part of the requirement was decorating the classroom door. Because Andrea is my friend and the the paper/scrap booking/all things crafty queen, I felt like I would really make an effort. Here is my end result! I am proud of my self for doing this but I will leave the paper world for others. I LOVED taking the picture of the kids, so sign me up to do that ANY time. Abe's teacher has been great this year so it was totally worth it! Ahhh...to be crafty!

Big girl bed!

Gwyn finally got her big girl bed! She has been in need of a bed for a few months (ever since she has been potty trained). If you ask her what she wants for her birthday she would tell you "I'm gonna get a big girl bed. Like a princess." After weeks of looking for the perfect bed we found it! I did a little overhaul of the bedroom and fresh coat of stripes and shazam! Gwyn's princess room!
It is not that she was asking for a canopy bed, but I swear it just screamed her name! I still have a few things to finish up, but since my mom couldn't wait for pictures......
She will get a new chest of drawers. (when I find just the right one) The changing table/chest of drawers will do for now. Thanks to Andrea for letting me use her Chest of drawers for Gil's room!
Close up of the bed. (Thank you Target....I love the Shabby Chic stuff.) A new light fixture is still to come.
This little section needs a little help so I will be working on it over the next few days.
She has loved the sheer curtains. As you can see they are being used just as they should be! Andrea came over last night to help me put the room back together after my painting was done. ( I paint alone, but Bob is great at installation of anything and everything.) As we were hanging the curtains we also had to play around with them just as Gwyn was. I will also say that we were giggling just as hard as she was. Girls will be girls.
So far the big girl is doing great in her bed. She likes to come and get me to lay with her in the middle of the night and I don't always love that. It seems that every new little step she makes she to grow by miles. She gave up her crib to her brother with no problem and only refers to it as Gil's crib. She learned to climb out of the crib a few days after she was out of it. She likes to climb in with Gil now after his naps. It is funny she never figured she could get out until it wasn't hers any more and she has a "big girl bed" as she tells everyone. She will be 3 in a few weeks and I can't believe it! Happy early birthday my little girl. We are really out numbered at our house but you sure make it fun and girly!

hand, foot and mouth????

A quick post to say that we are sick at our house!!! After a great weekend with the cousins (the Mitchell's) Monson ended up with some serious stomach virus, Hunter with Strep throat, and Gwyn ended up with the hand, foot and mouth virus. Her poor tongue has about 15 sores on it.....and that's all I can see. 9 kids, 3 different illnesses....impressive!
Gil was really grumpy and whiny today so I am betting his mouth will be ugly in the morning. Abe had some random fever and sore throat today so I kept him home from school. Sometimes during the day he seemed fine but other times he seemed really sick. Bob stayed home from bishopric tonight and I took Abe to the Night Clinic. He does not have strep like his cousin just some other random virus.
When we get home Abe is bouncing off the walls like he is fine until I ask him to help Tucker clean up the playroom. Then he is really sick and feverish and is complaining about his head hurting. I don't know whether to believe him or not. I tell him to help Tuck clean up. When I go up to tuck them in and read our Harry Potter chapter Tucker is still cleaning. Abe is curled up on the couch in a blanket and tells me "Tucker told me he would clean up for me because I feel so sick." When I look at Abe he is white as a ghost and really feverish again. He climbs in bed and Tucker soon follows while I finish the tidy up.
Here is where it gets really sweet! I can hear Tucker in bed talking to Abe. He gets really emotional and says "Abe I just hate it when you are sick, it just makes me really sad for you. (tears) I love you! I am glad I could help you by cleaning up. I hope you are better soon."
I sit there and think, I suck as a mom. I am yelling at Abe to clean up, I can't tell if he is faking or not. Of course sweet Tucker is all concern and kindness. Where did he come from? I seriously need to take a lesson from him. So, pretty much it sucks to be sick and I am your mom, but it is awesome if you are brothers with Tuck!

A Little Late......

Our Abe turned 7 on April 5th! We were visiting our new niece/cousin Greta (pictures to follow) up in Utah County. So we celebrated with cousins and family. What could be better?
It is a tradition to wake up to decorations on your birthday! So here is Abe showing off his decorations and presents.
Abe's favorite gift (and Tucker's) was the Wii game he got if you can't tell! (we have had no reprieve from this game. They play it the moment they get home from school until I tell them to turn it off.) Abe is REALLY good at this game and beats everyone.....Tucker is always amazed and so proud.
Abe wanted to go to Kangaroo Zoo,(If you have the chance to go, do it. It is really fun for every age.) many of his cousins met us there. Abe and Taft are buddies and they always have a great time together. They are pretty dang cute. Oh and a little shout out to the Pokemon shirt my son is wearing. My mother gave that to him, she knows I hate that kind of clothing, but alas it is his favorite.
My brother Brad and his darling daughter Gabi came and joined us.
Amelia and Gwyn stopped for only a moment to give me this mug shot.
Could you guess that these two boys are 8 and 9 years old? knuckle heads:)
This is my darling Gil who found it totally fun to slide down the slides face first. That's right, face first every time. When he popped up he had a huge smile on his face and ran to climb up it again, just to do the same thing.
Gage, Laura, and Dillon also came to the party! We love the Beutlers.

7 Awesome things about Abe!

1) He is so clean. He comes home from school clean. When he eats he does it very clean. (That is a big deal at my house because his older brother and younger sister are disgusting when they eat.)
2) He has the softest skin in the world. His skin is flawless, no bumps, or dry skin just perfect. When he is near I just like to kiss on his cheeks. Oh, and he will let you.
3) He can entertain himself better than any man, woman or child I know. He can make a game out of anything. Give him a guy(any kind of figure) and he is thrilled. What an imagination.
4) He has a very unique way of looking at life. He makes funny observations, and comments on life and people. He has a great sense of humor.
5) He LOVES babies. New baby Greta was held by Abe at least three times in our twenty minute visit to Aunt Kennan's hospital room.
6) He loves school and is so good in the classroom. His reading has improved so much and he is now at the top of his class with it. He told me the other day that he was "really starting to love reading."
7)He could live on cold cereal and Hot Chocolate. He can't go to sleep until he has a cup of hot Chocolate. His worst punishment is the threat of no hot chocolate before bed.

We are so glad you are ours Sugar Baby....you are the original. Our family would not be complete without you. You and your brother are a sight to behold, never where their better friends. We love you so much! Hope this year is wonderful for you.

Missed

Timothy Odin Lamoreaux

1978-2005

(Excerpt from Bob's talk at Tim's Funeral) I feel like the Indian, Wind In his Hair, from the movie Dances with Wolves. I stand here today and say, "Tim, I am your brother, can't you see I love you, please stay."

BoYs!!!!

Bob and I are getting ready for bed, you know, doing the daily blog check to see if anyone has posted. We are laughing about our kids and about how tonight Bob was pitching the ball to Tucker to hit, when Gil decides it is his turn. Tucker interest lasted about 10 minutes and Gil takes up the bat and swings at the ball for about 45 minutes. He was crying to keep playing while Bob was dragging him in to the bath. He seriously hit the ball at least 3 times. Pretty good for a 19 month old boy. I have to check my photos I think he was born with a ball in hand.

After Gil's bath we turned on some music and the kids were dancing Tucker yells out in surprise "Gil just did a somersault". We all turn and start chanting "do it again, do it again." Sure enough he is doing somersaults, by the end he was pretty much doing a flip he was moving so fast. We were all laughing so hard at this huge baby of ours. When I say he is coordinated, I am not saying more so than other children I am just saying that because of his enormous size! You would think he would get caught up in largeness.

Bob was also telling me that we already don't know so much about our boys. For example..... Two little girls(Avynlee and Brinkley) in our neighborhood are walking down the street when Abe rolls down the window and yells "Girls smell like poo!" Bob says that these are a couple of girls that you might be wanting to say "hey, ladies!"too. What are we going to do with these boys? Of course Tucker is cracking up in the back and Bob is shaking his head.

I promise I will update this week.....just been busy.

Happy 35th Birthday My April Fool!!!!

35 Things about the birthday boy!

1) His full name is Robert Lyle Lamoreaux

2) He sleeps with his eyes half open, freaked me out when I first saw him sleeping!

3) He loves ice cream and believes it fills in the cracks.

4) He loves to mow are lawn and keep our yard very orderly.

5) He loves to play basketball and softball. He plays on the Blue Bunny Softball team spring, summer and fall.

6) He would play golf every day if time and money permitted.

7) He is really nice......so much nicer than me.

8)His arms are strangely long.

9) He is really funny and can make me laugh at almost any given time.

10) He can do about any accent that he has heard. His Irish accent is amazing.

11) One of his jobs growing up was power washing gas stations at night with his friend Derek Taylor. They traveled all over Utah doing this.

12) He served an LDS mission in Atlanta, Georgia. Where he was AP for 9 months. (he so hates me for putting that in writing.)

13) He really enjoys his job and really likes his office and co-workers. This is the first office he has really enjoyed.

14) His car when we met was a Bronco. It had a huge baseball stuck on the stick shift. I thought it was silly and told him every time I rode with him. He loved it. When the Bronco met it firery death the baseball went along with it.

15) He was attacked by a Chow (dog) when he was young. He had many stitches in his shoulder.

16)Bob lettered in 3 sports in High school. (yes Brad 3)

17)He is quite the storyteller.

18)His best friend growing up was Saul Heelis. He lives in CedarCity, and we love to get together with he and his wife.

19)Saul and Bob would come up with great ideas of where to put lines in their hair.

20) Bob graduated from BYU in civil Engineering in 1998.

21) He wanted our first born to be a girl so she could babysit our other kids.

22)He was so proud when we found out it was a boy.

23)He is very snugly and affectionate with me and the kids.

24) He loves to play cards with my mom.

25) Loves Lord of the Rings trilogy and has read it 5 times.

26)He wants a bulldog more than anything.

27)He is the 2nd oldest of 6 kids and is the oldest boy.

28)Can cry at a drop of hat......Like the moment Tucker was born. Nothing sweeter.

29)He can learn the words of a song after hearing it once.

30)Snowboarded a ton until we started having children.

31) He worked as a security guard at Thanksgiving point.

32) Loves music and his music selection is huge anywhere from Justin Timberlake to Brad Paisley to Rap I don't care to listen too.

33) Loves to drive and carries binoculars in the glove compartment. He has had many a wreck while straining his neck to see what ever he deems interesting.

34) He is the King of going through paper piles at our house.

35) He is the perfect companion for me!

"wherever you are is my home,- my only home."

Jane Eyre

Cliff Notes.....

I have totally and completely been enthralled in Jane Eyre this last week. I have finished every task with the thought of "how fast can I get these tasks done so I can pick up my book again?" I have stayed up until 3 am reading. Somehow I read the cliff notes to Jane Eyre in my 11th grade honors English class, instead of taking the time to read this beloved story. So, sorry Sharon Allsop-Day (my wonderful English Lit teacher). How did I miss out on one of the best love stories ever written. I can't believe I am just now finding that this book I should have read almost 15 years ago is now on my top 3 favorite books list. If you have not read this book...you should. Has anyone seen any of the recent re-makes of this movie? If you have let me know which one is good I want to buy it.

The Evergreen Thunder.....(day 2)

As my Aunt Sandi has said before "it was a great injustice that Jeff never had a daughter" I have to agree. He was so sweet with Gwyn. He must have asked her for a hug 50 times in the 2 days we spent with them. She of course loved to oblige. Here they are swimming together.
Tucker and Seth. Mr. cool in his sunglasses!
I am not kidding, I did not get one bad picture of this boy! Seth is a little more than a year older than Tuck.
I really am proud of this picture! Seth and Susan are beautiful!
C-R-A-Z-Y ABE!

Jake in the Dugout.
The team watching the game.
Abe felt pretty cool hanging by the team.
This was the foursome. They were together non-stop. I really wished we saw them more. It was crazy to see them and have this immense love for them. I can't explain it, but I just love those boys. What a great weekend. After the last game we hit a seafood buffet called "the Experience" it was tasty. Tucker had to walk away as were saying goodbye because the tears were so close to the surface. Once we got in the car the dam broke and flood of tears abounded. He knows we won't be seeing them for awhile! Sweet boy always understands more than he should at his age.

P.S. Gil really was around, he just never stops moving and very few of my pictures turn out of him. The Ausmans got a kick out of how solid he is and he sure thought all those boys were fun.

Ausmans Day 1

This last weekend we had a great couple days with my Uncle Jeff and his family. It has been over 4 years since we saw them last. My Aunt Susan and Uncle Jeff live in Colorado. My cousin Jake had a baseball tournament in Mesquite and Santa Clara. It was so crazy because they ended up playing at the ball field in MY neighborhood. My boys were thrilled to see "my guys" as Tucker use to call them. This is Tucker and Eli together.

When my mom heard that they would playing ball in my neighborhood she hopped in her car and drove down to see her baby brother and family. We always love when Nannie comes. This is Gwyn and Nannie eating sunflower seeds.
Uncle Jeff! Love him. He was a really fun Uncle growing up. Since Bob and I have been married it seems like they were more friends than my Uncle and Aunt.
The boys and a little baseball talk!
This is my amazingly beautiful Aunt Susan. When I first met her at age 11 my brother Brad and I could have sworn she was Paula Abdual. (That was when the music video for "Rush Rush" had just come out.)
Abe just chillin'

Here is Jake in action. I don't have very many pictures of him because he was either playing baseball or hanging with his friends.
Eli Eli O
From here they are heading down to Phoenix to see Grandma. Seth and Eli have a baseball tournament down there. The boys brought candy bars to sell for there team. So here they are pushing a wagon full of chocolates around.
As it turns out, Tucker pretty much sold all of them. He had no fear in asking people if they wanted to buy some candy bars. I think we found him a summer job:)
Gwyn found her self a new boyfriend. She was totally attached to Eli. He was so sweet with her and took her everywhere. He was always chatting with her. She kept saying "where is that boy?" While swimming the next day he stayed with her all day and while all the other "cool boys" were talking he just entertained Gwynnie.

Easter Eggs......

I decided to cut back on the amount of real eggs we dyed seeing that only Bob and I eat them.
Gil wasn't to excited about the coloring of eggs so he was helping daddy mow the lawn instead. So here are my three big kids coloring eggs!
This it the first Easter she has really been excited about. She loved coloring eggs.
She was wearing more dye than the eggs....thank heavens it came out of her clothes. I love how thrilled she is about her hot pink egg!

The end result!

Hurray for Easter!

So here is Gwyn in Easter dress # 2!

Happy Easter! Here is our family right before heading off to church. I would love to say that we were just so happy but this picture tells all! I think next year we will do the Easter Bunny on Saturday. We had to rush through all festivities to make sure we got to church at 9am. I got up a little after 6am so I could be ready(that is just sad on Sunday) . It didn't even get light out until 8 am. I have to say that I was a little more grumpy than my family would have liked! Sorry. We ended up being 15 minutes late and that is a crime in my world.


My sweet boys could hardly sleep with the anticipation of the Easter Bunny. Yesterday we went to the Art Festival here in town. (pictures to follow) On our way out Abe spotted a basketball hoop for Gil and asked what we were doing with it. We told the kids that the Easter Bunny does not bring toys he just hides eggs, and that we choose to give them gifts. I am torn on the whole Easter Bunny thing.

Gil looking very dapper in his new Easter clothes. He didn't quite get the whole looking for eggs thing. He just toddled a long watching the goings on and shooting baskets in his new hoop.

Mom and Gwyn matching a bit!

Hope everyone had a great Easter.