Home. That's where my heart it.

sometimes i get certain verses of scripture stuck in my head and i have them on replay all day long in my mind. i love when that happens. tonight it was doctrine and covenants 121:7-8. these verses the Lord is talking to joseph smith as he and the saints are suffering immensely. the line "if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high" is so powerful. 

each of us has our "conditions" as my cute sister-in-law says, we are all here on earth going through experiences that are meant for growth and experience. some days, months or even years are hard and trying but if we endure it well, God shall exalt us on high. i hope that i am enduring it well, enduring it happily and with gratitude. i hope that my children and loved ones know how much i love my Savior and know that because of Him, i am surrounded by beautiful, happy, eternal things. i love my Heavenly Father with all my heart, i love Jesus Christ and know that he cares, loves, and knows each and every one of us because He suffered all things in behalf of us. i owe everything to Him. 

today i snuck around during nap time and took pictures of the here and now in our brazilian jungle house. 

feeling very blessed for all these views of mine.

Xo   

Friday!

 

when we find out that a family member is coming to visit brazil, we always have a list of items we want them to bring from home. items usually include peanut butter, maple syrup, binkis, some diapers, chocolate chips  etc,. sometimes we do a little online shopping as well. so when grandpa came last night it was basically christmas. costco fruit leather, apple sauce packets, my outdoor string lights i ordered (!!!!!) and my new cecelia new york shoes!  this is my sister-in-law's shoe company and she is a shoe genius. and has 4 little kids! i loove them. 

we ordered pizzas, played games, ate ice cream and taaalllkked. we love when family comes. 

 and now to a subject more serious... NO MORE BINKIE for mr. charley here! today was his 5th binkie free day. it definitely has not been a an easy recovery i tell you, there have been lots of tears, tantrums, sobs and i have actually slept in his crib while he falls asleep. yes. we've come to that.  wow. OK. we have no clue how to parent. 

this too shall pass and we will all be stronger for it;) 

Xo

Cracked.

we played crack the egg(s) all morning today on the trampoline. i am the cracker, they are my eggs. 

i had scrambled eggs every time. george was on my hip, his little head buried in my chest and his tiny hands clutching my shirt. he would giggle when they giggled. he will be an egg with them too soon, but for now i am loving my cracking buddy. 

Xo

Loving them.

tonight as i was putting shoes on henry and charles, charles reached up to the higher self and pulled down his old shoes from when he was crawling. (these shoes were his absolute favorite. he was always so excited to to put them on because it meant we were leaving the house.) he pulled them down and said to me," georgie shoe, mama, georgie shoe?" i said "no charlie, those were your shoes, from when you were a baby." and then suddenly all these terrible, nostalgic, baby missing emotions came flooding in. i said "charlie, mama doesn't want you to grow up so fast." then henry looks at me, "daddy said we gonna grow up soooo fast! (he could sense the sad/worried expression i had) but, i gonna love you when i get big, ok?" and as i sat on the floor with all three boys right next to me, i felt that my heart might burst. the thought of them grown up, serving missions, getting married, leaving our little nest was almost too much for my mother heart to handle. so i pulled each one of them close and told them how much i loved them, and at that moment i felt completeness, i felt whole. i felt like that that is where i was suppose to be at that very moment with the people i was suppose to be with. 

so when i'm old and an empty nester and missing all those baby boys of mine, let it be known that on the 22nd of february 2016 i gave them every last bit of love and gratitude that i possessed. and for a few moments in our lives, everything felt completely right.

Grateful

,

during the week daniel gets to come home for lunch since he works so close(!!!) it's wonderful because it breaks our days up and gives us something to look forward to, i mean how doesn't look forward to kissing that sexy beard of daniel's ;) buuut when he doesn't, the boys and i like to sneak to the outdoor feira and buy a pastel. they are an brazillian staple. and my favorite part is what they call vinaigrette, somewhat of a fresh vinegar salsa. sooo delicious. and i've said it once and i will say it again, street fairs are so romantic, am i right? all the fresh, homegrown fruits and veggies, big brown eggs, organic cheese, handmade clothes etc. we hit one at least once a week, and they never get old! 

charly had a little accident before arriving, hence the no pants. but he did have a stuffed snowman and hat on so thats got to count for something...

we went for a family drive yesterday while running errands with dad. sometimes i forget where i am  and become immune to the sights i see everyday. yesterday i was reminded again how incredibly blessed we are. as i looked into the neighborhoods as we drove home i saw farvela after farvela. these homes make my mama heart hurt. i know that a lot of them struggle to even have food for their families, and audults and children suffer. as far as temporal possessions go, they have very little. i was humbled. it is not what we have but it is what we do with it. everyone of our situations here on earth is so different, we all have trails and strengths and are each being tested on how grateful and believing we will be while on this earth. 

we really have a lot to smile about. God is so good to us. 

Xo

under foot.

i am not sure about you, but we spend about 99 percent of our time in the kitchen/backyard patio. george has been crawling for a few weeks now, but somehow he always ends up at my feet. i know i will miss the days always having a baby near my feet.

love these beautiful souls i get to mother. 

Xo

Slammed

danie and i had a great valentines day! saturday night we had a romantic dinner on our roof, it was actually on the water tower. we almost died getting up there and coming back down, but i kept reminding him "greater the risk, greater the reward", am i right?!  earlier that day when he was running errands i decided to check it out while the babes were napping. i climbed out the window and walked to the center of the roof and started making my way up to the tippiest of tops. i soon realized that the black stone on the roof was a billion degrees and i was b.a.r.e.f.o.o.t! i thought oh i'll just walk fast and it will be fine, but it was not fine! our roof is super slanted and has all sorts of places you have to climb up, or climb down...and that takes time people! and time on that black stone in 100 degree weather was b.u.r.n.i.n.g! needless to say it was horrible. but we survived. and now we're more in love than ever ;)

george went skinny dipping swimming for the first time this weekend! he loved it. the pool is heated by the sun, and it was the yummiest temperature, not too cold, but cool enough to feel refreshing. we swan and played in it all afternoon. 

last but not least, henry baby slammed his finger in our huge, heavy sliding glass door. he has been seriously out of commission for the past two days and requesting all sorts of extra ipad privileges. ahem. the things he'll do to get that dang ipad...it's insane! 

Xo 

happy valentines!

these are my valentines. and this is us trying to document the special day! 

love my boys. 

xoxoxoxo

Heart eyes!

george looks so much like a little old man here, " say that again, i can't hear you. say cheese?!!" doesn't it look like he's trying to hear something? anyways. he's the cutest. 

yesterday we were having a morning, you know, where you wake up tired and grumpy and so do all your kids. what luck! and then it dawned on me! shoot we haven't left the house since sunday!  getttt us some fresh air! we hurried and got dressed and called daniel and invited him out for a lunch date. he agreed, he's so cute. we had an amazing italian buffet, we all ate until we couldn't. 

don't tell my husband but i was cooking away all day today for our special valentines rooftop dinner tomorrow night, except i'm not sure it will be on the rooftop since all of ours on our house are extremely slanted, but nonetheless it will be special. 

 renata and pita and their two boys came for dinner. we really like them and it is always such a party to get all the (mini) bros' together. heart eyes! 

come get me weekend! (more heart eyes!) geez what did we do before emojis? did we even feel? i know i didn't! 

Bookmarks.

yesterday was one of those days, you know those days. those days when you constantly have a baby in your arms from the minute you wake up till way past your bedtime. you are peed on, pooped on, thrown up on, bitten, kissed, hugged, hit, and snuggled. then as daniel and i are doing dishes at 11pm we turn on a talk by elder holland behold thy mother and with tears streaming down my face i find peace, hope, strength and comfort.  

motherhood is a beautiful, divine calling. i am so grateful for my babies. there is a special, powerful spirit that babies bring into our lives and homes. every time i snuggle that little george of mine i can't help but pray and ask Heavenly Father to "save" those little moments so i can replay them in the eternities. i have so many moments bookmarked. but like elder holland says; "...the impact of such love will range between unbearable and transcendent, over and over again..." 

so yesterday was closer to the "unbearable" but when i get that snugly george tonight at 3am all 

bundled up towards me, pulling me as close as he can so he can nurse and then him grabbing my hair to pull my face so it touches his little nose and watching him drift back to sleep...well that's closer to "transcendent". 

Sunday

one of the many awesome things about where we live is that we are about a 7 minute walk to our chapel. church starts at 9am so we really have to get the ball rollin' early, but that sunday morning walk together is quite great. if i'm completely dressed and ready to go by 8'am sharp, then we can usually get the kids fed, dressed and out the door by 8:50. we're sweating, but we're out the door. and when i say fed i mean their eating there waffles in the stroller on the way. (but like, they are eating waffles so i get some points for that).

henry graduated nursery! it was quite the ordeal, they brought him a cap and sunbeam necklace, the primary president gave a speech and invited us in, but he wasn't having any of it. poor henry, he hates goodbyes. he sat with his head buried the whole time. afterwards he and i went and checked out the "big boy class" and when he saw that they had oreos, it was like "nurery who?!" 

on the way home i asked daniel to take a family picture (we needed a break before we hiked the last hill to our house ;)) he turned around took this ridiculous picture basically of himself and said "ok! took it!" in his defense, I guess we are all in it... can we talk about that curl though, and the sexy beard, and yeah, insert a million heart eye emojis here!

later in the day we had the sunday crew over, victoria (daniel's sister) alex and liam. we are so grateful to have them close. 

it was/is carnival weekend here in brazil, so we ate chicken alfredo and played blocks with the boys. 

things are gettin' craaaaa! 

selfie with george.

sometimes when i need to put mascara on for the day (usually around 6pm, right before daniel gets home) i put george on the floor and let him play in my makeup basket. then we take selfies on the ground because it's just so fun to hear him squeek with excitement when he sees his little face on the screen!

happy weekend! 

crafting!

the last few days we have found ourselves doing a lot of crafts. most outcomes look about like this (see picture above). but the best things in life (or raising small children) are (always) messy so the boys and i are counting them as a complete success! we live in somewhat of a forest and one of our giant trees fell down in our backyard, we are painting on wood from the tree, it worked awesome. 

buuut sometimes when charles and george are napping, henry and i pull out the big guns and paint tigers, pandas and ladybugs. henry was so proud of his tiger. he named him daniel. so we now have daniel tiger in our playroom. 

when we were all outside painting, of course darcy and lizzy showed up. our goats. they started licking all the paint, stepping in it, tracking it on the tiles, tormenting george etc,. henry immediately strated whacking them with his paint brush so that everyone and everything was in complete paint chaos. we quickly pinned up the goats, put away the paint and got the hose out. we gave everything a good spray down. the boys may have liked this part more than the actual painting!

so cheers to brazil where everyday we have perfect weather for outdoor paint chaos (crafts)!

Xo 

Long hair i care

we are in desperate need of a hair trim over here, things are out of control. whenever i threaten to chop it all off daniel replies " no you won't! i'm the hair coordinator, you go through me for any decisions."  BUT "honey, it's a mop! i never do it anyway, it's always in a side braid!  george pulls 

chunks of it out daily! it's so hot and in brazil it's always summer! you fell in love with me with short 

hair! the shoulder length bob is totally innnnn!" no. he just won't have any of it. 

the things we do for love;)

this weekend we took lots of bike rides with the boys. they are getting quite daring and ride up the hill, almost to the top, then zoom down holding their little legs out to the side while screaming and laughing. it's some of my favorite time during the day. 

we also spent a lot of time chasing the goats, feeding the goats and cleaning up goat poop. ahem. yesterday we gave them apples and laughed so hard watching them try to eat it with their little mouths. it was rolling all over, it was like head hockey. muito funny! 

happy tuesday!