Happy:)

I've been pretty happy lately. I think I can only attribute it to doing goals that help me focus on the gospel and working harder on saying my prayers and reading my scriptures. I know it's not a high because I don't in the slightest feel like taking on the world. I'm just...happy.

Last night I got to go and help make all of the displays of the vinyl projects for our Super Saturday in November (craft day at our church). It was so much fun and I'm very excited about the projects. I love one of them in particular. I may or may not post pictures later, it depends on how the kids are. Ty has been sick this week with a cold, so he's very out of sorts.

Brettley has been loving his food. He has now had rice, barley, oatmeal and mixed cereals. For vegetables he's had squash, carrots, sweet potatoes, green beans and peas. For fruits he's had apples, pears, bananas and tomorrow he'll be starting peaches. He loves to eat and especially to stick his hands in his mouth when there's food in there.

Oh...His hand in his mouth. I never thought I would WANT a kid to use a dummy for longer, but Brett has proved me wrong. He gave it up at 4 months when he got a cold (same thing happened with Caleb at the same age). Ty lost his at 8 months when Caleb threw it in the toilet. I refuse to go past a year, but we've never made it there. Caleb and Ty both did fine once they were done and never resorted to using anything else. However, Brettley has realized that even though he doesn't want his dummy back that his fingers work perfectly fine for the same purpose. His fingers spend almost all of their time in his mouth. I don't know how to break him of that, I really don't. It's becoming a problem because he never wants to take them out long enough to learn how to hold things and pass them in between hands or to be able to crawl properly. He wants to crawl and does great with his legs, but he keeps trying to suck on his fingers while he does it and so it isn't so effective. I'm not sure what to do. Any ideas?

Caleb is going to "the big mall" today with Grandma Jo and Grandpa Bob as his belated birthday present. He want to play mini golf this year (last year he made a friend at Build-A-Bear). It should be fun for him:)

That's about all for now. Have a wonderful General Conference weekend!

The Projects

One of my favourite family members asked me what my goals/projects for Personal Progress are. Since I think she's so awesome, I'll post them.

First off, for those of you who aren't members of the church I will explain what it is. Personal Progress is a program for girls ages 12-17 in our church where they work on goals and projects to help increase their testimony and prepare them for the temple, marriage and motherhood. There are 8 different sections that you work on. Faith, Divine Nature, Individual Worth, Knowledge, Choice & Accountability, Good Works, Integrity and Virtue. In order to have completed the program you must do 3 required goals from the first 7 sections as well as 3 other suggested goals from each (you can pick your own as well, as long as it is appropriate for the section and is approved by a parent or leader). For Virtue there are just 4 required goals. Also, each section (we call them values, actually) there is a project that you must do (you can use a suggestion or make up your own and get it approved, except for Virtue). These projects must take AT LEAST 10 hours to complete.

I'm mostly just doing the required and suggested goals for all of them, I chose one goal of my own for Individual Worth. That one is a bit personal, though.

However, here's what I chose for my projects:

Faith: Complete all of the assignments for Book of Mormon Seminary & Memorize all of the Scripture Masteries for the Book of Mormon.

Divine Nature: Plan out and make lessons for Family Home Evening for the entire 2012 year and use them every week.

Individual Worth: Plan how to eat nutritiously and exercise for 90 days. Then do it, keeping a daily record of what is eaten, what exercise has been done and how it has made me feel about myself.

Knowledge: Learn and use a new homemaking skill (such as sewing or canning). *I haven't decided on one yet*

Choice & Accountability: Organize all of the rooms in our home. Record in my journal how doing this has helped in other areas of my life.

Good Works: Go to the temple to do some form of proxy work once every month in 2012. Write about each experience in my journal.

Integrity: Create books of quotations for myself and the boys that will remind us each day of our committment to be honest and true at all times and known for our personal integrity. These books will be given to them upon their ordination to the Aaronic Priesthood.

Virtue: Read The Book of Mormon cover to cover. (This is a required project and the one that I am currently working on. I am almost finished Mosiah and on schedule to finish the book before the middle of December.)

So there you have it:)

Sick on His Birthday

I have really been enjoying working on the Personal Progress program. I have passed off 13 goals and am currently working on 2 goals and 1 project. It has been wonderful to take more time to stop and think about my testimony of the Savior and our Heavenly Father's plan for us.

Caleb's party went well on Saturday. He had lots of fun and was very happy and appreciative of all the presents that he received. He ended up puking that night (too much sugar) and so John was up with him for most of the night because he didn't want to fall back asleep. In the morning, on his birthday, his ear was still hurting so John took him to the Medicentre but thankfully there was no infection. He felt better in the afternoon and was still able to enjoy his birthday supper and have Grandpa M over to visit.

Not a whole lot else is really new with us, I just thought I'd quickly write up about these 2 things since I'm severely slacking in the paper journal department. I hope you all had a good weekend. We are really looking forward to General Conference this weekend and being able to hear from our prophet and to know of the things that our Heavenly Father wants us to know at this time.

It Has Returned, Sort Of

I am pleased to announce the return of Attitude of Gratitude. However, it will only be once a month instead of once per week. So here we go:

1) I am grateful for a wonderful little boy who is turning 5 on Sunday. I have been sick the past few days and yesterday I felt totally run down. Before he left for school he decided he was going to clean the living room all by himself. He tidied everything up and even did half of the vacuuming. Then in the afternoon when Ty was throwing a raging fit and I was dealing with that Caleb came up and asked me what he could do to help me. He is such a wonderful person!

2) I am grateful for the weather right now. It's not too warm and not too cold, it's nice and comfortable and I'm loving it:)

3) I am grateful that I have such a great relationship with my brother. Seeing other people who don't have a good relationship with their siblings or even one that's fairly good but not great makes me appreciate how much Roo and I love each other and care about each other. There is no better brother, save Jesus Christ alone.

So there you have it. The return of Attitude of Gratitude.

The Personal Progress is going well. I have passed off 2 goals already and am in the middle of working on a third. It has been a great feeling so far as I do these goals and I'm so glad that I decided to do this.

Well, that's about all that's new for today. Have a good one:)

Public Again

Also, just a note:
I opened my blog back up to the public. Something kept telling me that I need to. I don't know what the reason is, but I felt like I had to, so I did it.

Life Is Good, Very Good

In the way of news, the biggest one is that I finally geeked out and started playing D & D with John on Friday. It's actually a lot more entertaining than I thought it would be. It's something he really enjoys and it's nice to have something to do together.

We have been gearing up for the weekend of parties. I'm having a ladies night on Friday and then Saturday afternoon is Caleb's birthday party. He has invited 5 friends, plus Ty.

I have decided to do the Personal Progress program at home. John said he'd throw me a recognition party when I finish. I've never done the program since I joined the church at the age of 19. I wanted to do something that would help me feel better about myself and help strengthen my testimony and I feel strongly that the Personal Progress program is the perfect thing to do that.

We are also starting to implement the 7 habits of highly effective families into our FHE lessons and hopefully into our lives.

Brettley has finished being introduced to 5 different vegetables and is starting fruits today. Fun times:) I've really been enjoying making all of his baby food (minus the baby cereal).

So yeah, lots of great things going on here at the Bly home. Life is good!

It's Been A While

I haven't posted in over a week. It's been a rough time for me. My grandpa had a heart attack and went for what was supposed to be a triple bypass. It ended up being 6 instead of 3. The hardest part of it is that my parents decided that we weren't going to tell my brother until it was all over with and my grandpa was on the mend, since Roo's in Europe right now. I had to straight out lie to my brother and his fiance about why my mum wasn't answering e-mails. I don't lie to my brother. Roo and I have such a special relationship that we've had mothers tell us they could only WISH for their children to have. We end every conversation saying "I love you", whether it be in private or in public. Having to go through this without being able to talk to him about it was hard enough. Having to lie to him made it so much worse. Anyway, my mum finally told my brother yesterday and my grandpa is well on the mend, so things are getting better and back to normal here.

Caleb absolutely loves school. He has been looking at lots of books and has a book fair tomorrow, along with meet the teacher night and a BBQ at the school. Ty has decided that he absolutely refuses to toilet train at this point in time, so we're waiting a few weeks before we try again. Brettley has now tried squash, carrots, sweet potatoes and green beans. He doesn't like carrots unless they're mixed with something else, but he likes the rest. Next on the list to try is peas. We thought he had some hearing problems, but he's been responding to noise a lot better since then.

That's about all that's really new here. Well, I should go. I think the boys are trying to kill each other.

Caleb Goes To School

I just sent my baby boy off to Kindergarten. Well, he's my oldest boy, actually. But he'll always be my little blue eyed baby.

For the record, neither he nor I cried. However, Ty did. He was so sad that Caleb left without him.

Update on the Kids

Caleb had his orientation yesterday. He was one of the best behaved kids in the group. I was so thrilled with his behavior. He is so excited to start school in "4 more sleeps". Caleb has also been wanting to help with Brettley a lot more. I usually let him hold the bottle while I hold Brett. My little man is growing up, I can't believe he's almost 5 years old already!

Ty has been in underwear most of the time these past few days. He's getting a lot better about it. Here's hoping it sticks and we can finish getting this figured out.

Brettley has started eating vegetables. My friend Amanda and I made him a freezer full of homemade baby food on Saturday. SOOO much cheaper than store bought and more concentrated which means more nutrition. He has been eating squash and he loves it. Tomorrow he will start carrots. Also, I think he might be getting another tooth. His appointment with the opthamologist got moved from early March to mid October, so I guess they agreed that he needs to get going on treatment instead of waiting for him to grow out of it.

Not too much else is new in the Bly home. We have had friends over on Tuesday, cousins over yesterday and today and have friends coming for a visit tomorrow morning. I'm not used to other people being around this much, but for the most part I'm happy about it (my kids don't always play the best with their cousins).