Growing up

So we've done a lot of growing up in this house the past few weeks! 

Wilson is a fully-fledged Captain Underpants and Elle is walking!

I have also just applied for a nursery school place for Wilson 

It's hard to believe he's almost been my baby for 3 years now - although he HATES it if I call him my baby "I not a baby, I'm a big boy mummy!"

Time goes so quickly and I'm thankful that my husband works hard so that I am able to spend precious time with them. 

Good thinkin'

I came across this quote recently and I love it - it's from 'the Twits' by Roald Dahl. 

I read this book along with many others by Dahl when I was younger - who knew there was so much wisdom in his words?? Certainly not 6 year old me!!

But this is such a beautiful and simple reminder to always try and have good thoughts, not only because it's nice and makes you and others feel better, but because it will make you look lovely :)

Ruth

My sister Abigail's friend Ruth started to learn about the Church in recent months, yesterday she made an amazing commitment and got baptised! It was so wonderful to see the joy on her face in having been able to do something that she really wanted to, because she knew that it was right. She is such a lovely young woman and has made an impact on so many others already. 

        (Stole this photo - thanks Erin :D)

After the service had finished, Ruth gave big hugs to her family who are not Church members which really touched me, and she proudly wore her newly received young women pendant. The girls pictured above had a huge group hug straight afterwards and it made me cry - I felt such joy and a sense of how they all felt, so happy at their friends decision, that she had joined them in becoming a Latter Day Saint, and being able to be there to witness that and celebrate together. It made me think of what Heaven might be like, filled with those we love and much rejoicing. I'm grateful to be a Mormon, for the comfort, love, happiness and satisfaction that it brings, there's no place I'd rather be.  

We almost lost him

Tonight I was playing 'go go' with Wilson in the dining room, he loves to run around having us chase him and change directions. He had just changed direction and fell into the wall. I ran over to him after he screamed and his face seemed to be stuck in an expression of pain, and he wasn't breathing. He has done this a few times before and blowing in his mouth usually gets him going again. But not this time. He was limp, then stuff and had now clenched his jaw so tight we could not get it open! Thank goodness Ric was home, he took him from my arms and I could sense the panic from him as we both tried to get him breathing. He was unconscious. I ran to ring an ambulance, shaking, whilst my husband forced open the mouth of our 2 year old son and gave mouth to mouth resuscitation. I thought was dead. Whilst explaining what had happened to the emergency services I heard him cry and I felt relief. He was in Rics arms and we all stood and cried together. After a few moments, pale as a ghost, he stopped crying and slowly became like himself again. We took him for a drive in the car and tested his brain asking him lots if questions to check he had not had any damage to his brain. He was fine, happy and laughing again in the bath before bed. 

I know it sounds crazy but that was the scariest moment of my life and those 90 seconds or so from just a little fall whilst playing together could have taken my sons life.

I have never felt such a sense of the reality that we will live again with our families after this life, and I've never had such cause to reflect upon my own life and how I can improve it as a mother, wife and Latter-day Saint. I will try harder and appreciate the moments that I share with those around me that I love - I hope you will too :)

Weeekender

Friday was Valentines Day! We enjoyed spending time together, although it was not really romantical (we watched a documentary about Mitt Romney!) it was nice to chill and eat Chinese food - after 5 days of trying the Atkins diet...oops!

On Saturday Ric was feeling very inspired by the Winter Olympics, esp after our Brit won a gold medal in the Skeleton - Go Lizzy!!! So we visited the Chill Factore.

 

We are searching for a unique sport to get Wilson into so that he can one day compete in an Olympic Games. I say unique as it gives him a better chance of being selected, but for a 2 year old, he is a really fast runner so who knows, he could actually be the next Usain Bolt!

We then ate pizza, ice cream and Krispy Kreme donuts like total fatties and loved it!

This photo sums up Wilson!

We then went home and I made a yummy steak dinner. 

Today we went to Church, the sun shone and it was beautiful. We all had a nap. I tried to make bread and failed. We took a stroll to the park and did bedtime.

It was all good :)

Party with Prince George?

My daughter Elle was born on the same day as the Royal Baby, Prince George! 

As a little gift we received a lucky silver penny from the Royal Mint as a beautiful keepsake. 

I have been thinking and hoping and then wondering how I can make it happen - how fun would it be if Wils and Kate invited all the babies born on the same day as George to celebrate their first birthday together??

I think it would be fantastic - does anyone know how I can make the suggestion to the royal?

I'll work on that, for now here is my 'Royal Hare to the Throne' (i love joules!!)

(Who did not enjoy the photoshoot before bedtime!)

Jade x

February Visiting Teaching Message

My lovely friend, Lucy at Lucy Kim Likes creates beautiful Visiting Teaching Handouts. I love the one she has created this month and it is perfect for me to use for one of the Sisters that my companion and I visit.

With that inspiration, I created my own little hand out based upon the message for another Sister we visit, she is so faithful and dedicated to the Gospel and yet all of her children have fallen away from the Church and living the kind of life I know she would love for them to lead.

I wanted to give her a little comfort and let her know that she inspires me and I know that there is still hope and Heavenly Father really loves her.

My nan is such a lovely lady and she has always remained faithful to God, yet out of her 6 children only my Mum attends Church, but my nan never gives up or complains, I know she will be blessed for her efforts and example.

Thank you to these wonderful women in my life who show me how to be like Jesus Christ and to never lose faith!

Name change!

So I changed the name of my blog because when you googled jade's journal, it comes up with this….

And I don't have ANYTHING to do with alcohol or drugs!

So I changed the name to lemonade jade, I prefer lemonade to alcohol any day!

Salsa!!

Ric served his mission in America and they love Mexican food there so I had go at making some salsa for him. 

I made it when the Elders were coming for dinner ( to remind them of home!!) and actually ended up making a complete fool of myself getting chilli in my eye when trying to put a little concealer on before they arrived and having to stand over the kitchen sink for 30mins whilst I cried and tried to soak my eyes in water! I was having a conversation with then from the kitchen sink and telling them all to eat up and apologising for my foolishness and hopefully it was worth it for some good tasting salsa! They said it was so here is my recipe to try for yourself :)

5 x tomato, deseeded and chopped into small chunks

1 x green chilli, dressed and chopped (be sure to wash your hands before rubbing your eyes!!)

Juice of 1 lime

1/2 white or red onion, chopped (which ever you prefer)

A handful of fresh coriander (cilantro if any American reads this and don't have a better recipe, but I'm sure you do and if so please share ;)

I love my Jamie Oliver knives, good knives are definitely worth investing in!

 

I find it easiest to add all the ingredients to a jug as it needs to be whizzed with a blender or put into a food processor. You can make it without one of these but you will need to do some super fine chopping and it might not have the same consistency, but it will still taste yum!

 And there it is, super easy, healthy and definitely worth buying some Doritos for!

Enjoy!

Quiff man!

Wilson had a trip to the barbers this morning! He's had his hair cut by me before but I've only really cut random bits I could reach whilst he was in the bath so this was kind of a big deal!

This was taken yesterday and I realised that he definitely needed his hair cut so off he went to the barber shop with daddy! He looked so cute sat on Papa's knee (Wilson calls Ric Papa and me Mama - cute boy!), he was a little hesitant but the Elvis wannabe barber gave him a Postman Pat van and all was well!

 

The shop is a vintage stylee and the barber is pretty much obsessed with 'the quiff' - he even had newspaper articles about anyone with a quiff up on the walls! 

I love the result, Wils looks like a real handsome little man! So thank you Mr Presley man - we will be back!!

My favourite 12 year old!

My baby sister Amber turned 12 yesterday. As members of our Church you can attend the temple when you turn 12 and we are so lucky to live close by to the Preston Temple - so last night we went together as a family :)

We had a lovely time together and did some special work on behalf of my grandad. 

       (Excuse my coat - it was raining!)

We actually ended up getting locked out of our house and had a long night and caused everything to be late for everyone, but Amber kept cool and patient and everyone had a lovely time. 

 

I made this cake for Amber! It's the first  birthday cake I've made and I'm happy to say thanks to my beautiful new mixer, it went well and I will forever more make my husband/children/siblings/anyone who wishes a birthday cake!

               This beauty in action!

:)

Love Jade x

Take a moment to stop

Some days I get a little impatient with Wilson. He will ask me to play choo choo's then gets frustrated when the train comes off the track or he will ask for something to eat and then not eat it etc, and I can find myself complaining in my head and thinking about the housework I could be getting done. But then I stop and think. These 2 years he has been around have gone so quickly and I'm sure the next 2 years will also, and I might forget his cute little ways of communicating because he can't speak fully yet, or the way he says "wow" to things as though they are so amazing! He is so full of fun and enjoys life, times when he doesn't are often because I won't allow! I love him and his excitable ways, I'm grateful to have such a happy, healthy, fun-loving little boy. So tonight when it seemed like we were playing a game of getting in then out of bed, I took a minute to think and enjoyed being able to cuddle him and watch him pretend to be asleep as he drifted off, to make me laugh, rather than getting annoyed that he wasn't exactly when I wanted him to be!

I hope that you will take a moment in times of frustration or upset, to think about what there is to be thankful for - there is always something!

            Saying Woooooow today!

A Disney kinda Christmas

Belated post about our lovely trip to Disney from 20th - 23rd of December!

We set off at 2.30am and Ric and I were sooo excited! The kids were brilliant and slept the whole way!

         Elle ready to go meet Minnie!!

When we got to the park we went to our hotel, unloaded and off we went to the parks :) 

It was so cold but beautiful. It was dark so everything was lit up and so festive, like Christmas heaven! 

     Tired but worth the drive - loving it!

After we paid about £12 each for a burger and fries!! and watching an amazing firework display by Olaf! (LOVE Frozen!!!), we went back to the hotel and crashed! 

Next day was my little Wilsons 2nd birthday - cute boy had no idea! So we went on all the things that he would love and foolishly took him on a toy story ride which scared him, and I'm not surprised!!

We went to watch a car stunt show which he loved and went to planet Hollywood for tea!

Next day we queued for over an hour to meet Mickey Mouse, Wilson was star struck! 

We visited everything, too much to say and we really had such a lovely time, it was cold, quite wet and tiring but I loved it and I'm so thankful to my mum and dad for such an amazing Christmas present that we will never forget receiving !