No more diapers!

 We love living in our brand new beautiful house in the country. There are two mountain ranges to the east and west of us and our house is nestled at the west edge of the valley against the mountain range whose name I do not know. The mountains to the East Ben said are the Oquirrh Mountains. I love waking up to seeing the sun just starting to come up over the mountains and blinding me with its glorious light. It can be a little annoying on say a Saturday morning but luxurious still the same.  

We roasted Marshmallows in our brand new fire pit for the first time last night on my 40th birthday.  We took turns snapping pictures of us and the kids to remember the momentous occasion by.  Ben made sure to send one to our landscaper Fred who finally talked us into letting him put in a fire pit for us.  He has 11 kids of his own and he wanted us to have that for our kids.  He kept saying he was just going to put one in for us for free and Ben didn't feel right about that so we traded a snowblower and paid extra for concrete.  I think we got a fair deal.  It was hard to tell when it was all said and done.  I think Fred took artistic license and did what he does best.  He didn't give us exactly what we asked for but instead I think he used his landscaper eye and put in double the grass and sprinklers we asked for and chose gravel that matched the house.  He gave Ben a hug when he was almost finished with our yard and said we're friends now.  There was one day I could hear him and an employee talking passionately about something. I thought perhaps they were fighting and I imagined the disgruntled employee coming back to kill us because there were two related landscaping company related murders in Salt Lake County last year that I read about in the news.  One happened in our old neighborhood just a few streets away.  I got as close to the window as I could without being seen to listen in on their conversation as any super sleuthing citizen should do.  You never know when you may need to provide intricate details as part of an on going investigation.  Well as I got close enough to hear I realized they were discussing the bible out there on a gorgeous peaceful nearly Fall day as they took a break from laying fresh sod.  In an instant my perception of the situation completely changed as I heard them discussing the Savior and how Peter is proof that the Lord can forgive us for anything.  Just then my 3 year old daughter Belle startled me by announcing very loudly that she wanted me to play the puppy the game with her.  

She has been really into that lately she loves to be a puppy and she's the only child I remember playing these make believe games with because she's all by herself in the mornings while Briscoe goes to Kindergarten.  As darling as she is, she is equally difficult and demanding.  We marvel at her cuteness constantly and then she does things like she did this morning.

My neighbor Kaycee texted me as has become the norm to see if I wanted to go for a walk.  I wasn't sure how Belle would do since she can be kind of stinker and she doesn't seem to like me talking to other people. She likes my full attention all the time.  It's a good thing she's so cute. She didn't want to stop watching her show, then she threw herself on the floor because wanted to wear her rainboots to ride a bike.  Then she started screaming over and over again that she wanted bread.  We finally made it out the door only to have the tantrums continue.  We didn't get very far before I  gave up on dealing with her tantrums.  I took her balance bike away and walked away while she stood there on the side of the road screaming.  Some other neighbors were out trying to get a little dog named Toby back inside and watching Belle screaming.  They seemed to recognize what was happening and that we were ignoring the tantrum. 

I can't believe I'm officially 40 years old.  This birthday has been the hardest one yet.  I'm only 10 years away from being 50.  I just want to hold on to my youth and be young and hot forever.  I hope I at least can age gracefully.  I'm at the age now where I consider it a compliment if good looking men are still checking me out.  At least I know Ben still is so that's the good news! This is the birthday that really has my head spinning about time and how quickly it passes.  I have to remind myself to be grateful for all the things I have and have been through.

Ben and I and Peter all spoke in our new ward on Sunday and I think it went really well because an older gentleman said he enjoyed our talks so much he stayed awake the whole time. Which is really the ultimate compliment for a sacrament meeting talk! I got several comments about how impressed they were with Peter and that we all did a great job.  So that was nice. I was proud of myself for speaking the whole time and only reading 3 short quotes. The advantage to being 40 is I have enough life experience to speak on almost any subject without having to take too many notes.  I only intended to speak for 8 minutes since Ben had really put a lot of effort and research into his talk and I spoke for 15 minutes without realizing it.