What's up in the homefront........

Yeah I know it's been a while. So sorry about the lack of bloggin lately. Just been so swamped with projects and tryin' to live a "full" balanced life.

We're having a quiet Sunday night tonight. Went to my sister in law's ward this morning cause one of her son's leaving for a mission to Germany this week. I'm so excited for him and I know he'll do well in his mission.

Got back from Murrieta at about 6 pm and found out that ants have made themselves at home in our kitchen. The heat and the cereal bowls with milk that my kids left this morning has attracted them to come out of hiding (wherever that is) and have a feast in our kitchen. Yuck! Not the thing that we were expecting to find when we got home. Oh well, thank goodness for some ant poison and now all is well again around here.

Speaking of home I felt that I've totally neglected sharing my family pics here. I've been so excited to share my scrapbook projects I forget to post the family events/happenings. Sorry family. I'll try to be better soon. I've had comments that family and friends DO visit our blog and I appreciate the visit and I promise to think about you guys more often when I'm here. :)

Ok so what's been happening in the Tolman home lately? Well a LOT! Let me share some in pictures........

First off, last weekend was General Conference for our church. It's a big conference that all members of the church all over the world are invited to watch in tv's, satellite broadcast and even the internet where the general authorities/ leaders of our church shares to us their messages of faith and wisdom that helps us in our daily struggles. What I love about these sessions are that we get to hear our dear prophet speaks (which so happens was the first time our newly called prophet, Pres. Monsoon, was sustained and spoke as the Prophet of the church in this conference) and counsels us with scriptures, anecdotes and special stories about things that pertain to us RIGHT NOW! I emphasize on the "right now" cause that shows that Christ lives and he heads our church today and that prophesies that concern us AT THIS TIME still exists. We need these counsels cause each generation deals with different "demons" and we need to have that guidance to tackle them.

Anyways while watching the Sunday morning session, we had the kids sit on the couch cause they were making such a ruckus (sp?) that we can't hardly hear what's being said. By the time we got done, we found them like this. What' so funny about this pic is that Maddie was using Marcus' butt as a pillow. How hilarious is that! Yeah a definite scrapbook page waiting to happen here. hehehehehe.



And while watching the conference on the internet, I got a grand idea to multi task and make some changes in my scrap area. This is the result. Last year I posted a pic of my space and if you've seen that you know by comparing to this pic that I've downsized. Yes that was my goal. I felt that I had all this space that wasn't being used properly. I got rid of some small shelves and went vertical in my paper storage. I also got rid of ALL my old magazines and purged a lot of supplies (which went to my mom or the trash). Still can't believe I've accumulated all these things in a span of five years. I will have to make a post on the details but for now here's the space.


Our dear Marcus have been making such strides in his development. Totally gettin ready for "big kids' school" and I'm so impressed. Here's a pic of him proudly showing off his handwriting. Yeah that's "spiderman" all written by himself.


And I was folding laundry last Monday and he decided to help me. He pulled out all his shirts and underwear and started folding them. I gave him a quick little lesson on how to fold shirts and undies and he did this all by himself. Still needs some tweaking here and there but gotta love the fact that he wants to do them. Seriously my boy is growing up and I'm so happy about his development.



The only thing I don't like about the "stage" he's in right now is the part where he always asks the big "WHY" question. Lately everything has to be commented with a "why". Huh wish I had all the answers in the world then it won't be too difficult!

And finally, these last two pics are from our trip to the Santa Ana zoo this past week. It was our school district's spring break and so we decided to go on a field trip with a friend and her kids. I picked the santa ana zoo bec. the kids haven't been there in a while and it's small enough that I won't be overwhelmed taking them by myself (without Mitch). The kids had fun, they enjoyed seeing all the lemurs, monkeys and birds.


Here's Maddie playin in the little playground that they have. If you live locally and have little kids I totally recommend this place. Not too big, not too expensive and totally geared to younger audience.


Here's the kids on our ride in the little train they had. The kids sure had a blast.


ok so that's what's been goin' on in the family. Lots of fun and development.

On a little "plea" I wanna ask for your help to visit this website/forum- http://www.socalscrap.us/
I'm trying out for their design team and there's a contest for it. We are given challenges to make/share and at the end of the month everybody that has access in the forum gets to vote which person they want in the team. Please if you have the time to spare, check the site and vote at the end of the month for ME. My screen name their is scrappy grace.

Thanks.

have a great day and week,
Grace