I might be doing something right!

So, the other day it hit me like a ton of bricks... maybe I really am doing something right in the way I raise the kids! Oh, I should say WE, because Chris and I as a team are really the only way these little people are here in the first place. I have always just beat myself up at needing to do even more even better at my parenting. I know that Chris does this to some degree, but I can't speak for him right now. We are pretty laid back, but have guidelines that the family runs by. I know I am pretty free spirited and I know my kids certainly are as well. If you drive by the house and see 2 tan naked toddlers running around the front yard... dont be alarmed. HA! I try to keep them clothed and contained, but seriously... I am sidetracked.....Anyway... I was having one of those moments that I was talking to my sister Jo about child rearing and wondering if I should be doing something different. I suddenly thought of Isabel. I think this girl is like the best parts of Christmas Morning. She is awesome. I really enjoy being around her. I know that sounds weird coming from a mother, but any of you that have lots of kids and have older ones, totally understand what I am talking about. I want to be up late talking with her, she is funny, she is a good friend. She just is great. I could go on and on. I shaped this person. She came with her own stuff that I had nothing to do with, but I did something right! I know I have a long way to go with her as teenage hood has really just begun, but I will try to do my best and not let her down, or the other amazing 4 kids I have. I will try to be the best mom they can have! Oh Heck Yah! (Insert a Chris Cheer here!) (oh, you know what I am talking about if you've heard it. You are never the same again after! hahah!) Yay for getting to be parents and raising good people!! 

Gabe's Cycle of Life project

I was looking through some pictures for my etsy shop and found these and was laughing so I had to share. (even though I need to be sewing! haha!)

Last school year, 5th Grade, Gabe had to make a Cycle of Life poster for School. I LOVE the kid's charter school!! :)

Gabe is an amazing artist on lots of levels. He went right to work on this poster with a pen and never had a messed up spot AND was done in about 45min. He did color this later, but I did not get a shot of that. The reason why I love this poster is because it really does show his personality here. Most of the other kids cut out pictures from a magazine or off the computer, but he went to town with his imagination. I heart imagination!

Birth (with a binki) 

Infant (crawling like a cat!)

Toddler ( silly tight shirt with diaper and heli hat, dimple chin) 

all of that makes me laugh...

Child ( "Steve", Gabe's mohawk hair. Yes, he named his hair-do long ago. His glasses, his cool bracelet Granny made him with a dog tag saying CTR on it. Cool. OH! and his shirt... "Have a Day". funny)

Adolescence ( Steve is still present, glasses, weird cartoon character Troll he draws always but on this shirt and cool bracelet. But has starts of facial hair that probably took weeks to grow and he has a car. Because that is all kids that age care about is driving. hahah!)

Adulthood ( Steve is bigger now and he now has a real beard. His Tshirt is Dr. Pepper because by the time you are an adult, you can drink that with out your mom nagging you not to touch the stuff. HA!)

Old Age (Steve will always be with him. Tshirt will say "Death Is Coming" for the world to see every day. And, who doesnt love the cane.)

Death (RIP Gabe A Lheron. Has Steve scalp on his grave to remind all of his cool hair. The roses are there with a sign "Not" because the people that leave that will say they leave the roses out of obligation vs love.)

Heaven (turns out he did get to keep his hair to it's glorified state! And got his wings! :) YAY!)

All of it together

I love this guy. He is becoming a kid I always want to be around. :) YAY!

BYU Idaho Education Week 2012

Chris and I met at Ricks College. The college turned into BYU Idaho in 2001ish. haha. I dont exactly remember. We try to go back there to Rexburg, Idaho on occation. It brings back loads of memories of my time with Chris and also with my friends and family that I interacted with there. Its like a swarm of events memories in my brain as I walk through all the grounds of the campus. Many things have changed and have GROWN, but it's still amazing to feel all those things.
Now we have a reason to go to Ricks... I mean BYUI every summer together! Education week is an amazing event! We went in 2009. If you ever get to go, DO IT! It's like an EFY for grown ups! They actually do have youth classes for 14 to 18 and the youth have a dance and or activities too! I want to take Isabel and Tessa next year! That will be awesome for them! :)

WE COULD NOT HAVE DONE IT WITHOUT GRANNY!! THANK YOU THANK YOU FOR WATCHING THE KIDS FOR 4 DAYS!!!!

The thing I learned mostly was this..... The more I learn about the Gospel, The more I know, I know nothing about the Gospel! HA!!
I also got a feeling of urgency that there is no more room for error from my life and family! I have got to be the best I can be! :) How cool is that! It actually made me feel kinda panic-ish at first, but then I felt like... HOW COOL! I get to try to be the best I can be and become the person I know God wants me to be with all the things HE has given me! YAY!!
So, what I want to do (not sure if it will happen today or in a month... haha) is re-write my notes from the talks and classes I took. I think that will be super cool and I'll remember them even more.

But, I will start off by pictures.... 

We found our Dorm Room!! YAY!!

This is us after driving in the 80 Toyota Corolla with no air conditioning!! HAHA! We had the windows down for our 3.5 hour trip. :) Chris washed out a fly in his hair when we got to the dorms. Funny. 

We found some great little nooks in the gardens to eat breakfast in every morning. 

When I see this picture, I think of... Yes, We like to make sure we are having fun! He's a good sport for posing for any time I need/ feel like him to. :)

These are some pictures of the amazing gardens around campus...

Weeping willows are super duper!

 Jessica, you should have Dan build you this garden. :)

Just some plants we want in our garden...

 Vertical Planter that looked awesome. :) in the Benson Building. 

 Cool garden behind the Ricks Building....

YAY FOR ALOE!

 Trees being trained and trimmed in these shapes... pretty cool! Also the several garden additions to make an artsy look. Fun.

 Me and my terrible hair day... but it's proof we were there! :) I also wanted to keep this in here because right before I took this picture, Chris said.... " I should have been a Horticulture Major."
WHAT! That was kinda totally fun to hear him say! So, I took a picture of us... looking into the sun. :)
Then, after this picture, I said he should do whatever he wants to do! If I am living some of my dreams, he should too! Crazy kid!

 Parsley in the flower gardens. Love that! I did take a sprig and ate it right then and there. HA!

We Walked and Walked and Walked up and down those hills at BYU-I. It was also a nice 90* but the wind made it totally nice! :) My feet were a bit sore when we got home. I wish I could afford some great Birkenstocks or other supportive sandals. Why do I always love the expensive stuff? :) 

The funny thing was I really did have a headache when we got home from all the classes we went to. It all requires so much thinking and pondering. It was exhausting. :)

Parker/Phillips Family Reunion at Bear Lake

We had a wonderful time at the reunion this year!!
Thanks for planning it Andi! It was a hit! Bear Lake was really pretty and we all had so much fun!
These pictures are from the day we were at The North Beach. I ran out of battery power after these were taken, and I do have lots of pictures of the tug o war, but these pictures are to share with my family too. :)

We divided up into 3 teams and we did several events. All of them were so fun! The green team did win, but that is because gpa is on that team! HA! jk. The cousins played and played. I only wanted to put some adults on time out! The kids did great! I have a picture on my phone that has my 2 little ones totally asleep in their car seats after we left the hike and lunch 2 mins down the road. :) ha. I felt like that too. I wondered why I have not talked to my step bros and sisters and all the inlaws??? We all get along so well. I love them all. I will look forward to seeing all the family in 2 years. YAY!

This is a bunch of pictures that my other family members have given me of the Reunion.

Hi! I'm Bea. And I Skate!

not a great picture, or great videos because I did not have room on my camera,  but that is what we got. 

Cutie in skates!

In this video, She is skating and talking.... that is pretty much all I know what she is doing. HA! She is a girl. She likes to talk about lots of things as fast as she can and it doesn't always make sense, but guess what.... 

I LOVE IT! 

she gets that from me ;)

Please excuse the mess! The house is under Saturday chores work. But, it's a perfect place for skating while the table and chairs are out and the floor waiting to be mopped!

Show me what you got!!...

She has been wearing skates for days and days!! I dont always love that because then I have to help her do everything everywhere. Selfish, I know. But, Bea is a good one to tell to go figure stuff out herself while I am sewing am mother the other 4 kids. HA! So, she DID IT! She figured out how to skate just by doing it herself and Practice, Practice, Practice.  I am proud of that girl! :)

She is doing better than this currently, because every day, she gets better and better and this was taken maybe 2 weeks ago. 

I am international!!!

That is right! I have my first order from FRANCE! :) I have had an order from Canada before and I have had a few people from Australia interested and it has not worked out for me to sew for them. I also had someone contact me from Brunei Darussalam. (Google that one.) But, here I am sewing for someone from France in a pretty town about an hour out of Paris! YAY!! 

I am sewing one of my favorite designs, 
The Annalise Dress. 

Charlotte (2 1/2 yrs.) is the only child that changes the TP roll.

1 out of 5. It's better than nothing. Thank you Char! :)

2 blogs

Yep, You know I have 2 blogs....
      This one, about my family and our goings ons.
      Then I have my LeslieLheronCouture blog. I am revamping my Etsy shop and will provide a place for my fans to see how my designs get to the finished product and just a little bit about my design side of my brain. I just did not want to crowd this blog up with all that. So, if you ever want to see what 's up, go check it out.
I have a link at the sidebar too :)

oh, yea, We went to Utah... a long time ago.

I am trying to catch up a tiny bit. I LOVE to blog, but never seem to fit it in. So, I thought I'd recap a bit. 

We went to Utah a while ago, maybe this spring, and we had so much fun hanging with all the family down there, loving seeing the mountains and also, just being together!

One of our favorite things is to "window shop" esp at the Gateway Mall... Gabe is taking this quite literally. :)

We are Happy Campers at Tucanos Restaurant!! It's a Brazilian grill. (Chris went served an LDS Mission there for 2 years and so he LOVES the Brazilian food! YAY!)

Hanging or Jumping with our cousins!

This extra cutie is Lily. She is Zoe's little girl that was born only a few weeks before Charlotte. :) Oh she's cute. The little ones had a fab time playing together! Yay for cousins, Boohoo for the distance between us. 

We had more cousins we saw and we got to see Granny too. But, I did not get the camera out for that. Oops. I always regret that. 

My new theme song.... for just being me. :)

      I was making homemade PECTIN, you know, like the pioneers and the hippies do. :)
   I had this song blaring and thought it was totally fitting that this is what I was listening to while I was doing something totally hippie and knew I had like a million other things I had on my list to do. I LOVE finding out old ways that are so amazing and useful! I just love to try to do everything. Not because I want to be superwoman someday, but because I am just so dang curious! :) So, my very own theme song is shared with a monkey, but hey, who cares.

FYI, making pectin is so stinking easy. It just takes some time. :)
Here is how you do this in a nutshell:
REALLY new green apples, smaller the better, like golfball size or so. You know, what is on the apple tree at the same time strawberries are. Because God is awesome and he designed everything to work together perfectly! :)
Then, cut up with peels and cores in tact. Boil for 20-40 mins. Mash, strain in a wire strainer or over cheese cloth. Sit overnight (or be like impatient me and squeeze all the juice out).
Boil that juice for about 20 mins to thicken it up.
Let cool. Done.
You can Google it if you have questions!

Ok, why so curious? this time. I could not have my newly picked 5 gallons of organic strawberries from the strawberry farm that took me 2 hrs to pick because I went way early in the morning and with a friend that we were talking too much doing so that it took forever, messed up with synthetic pectin and gross sugar to make jam! So, I did what every other superwoman hippie wannabe would do... looked it up in my Ultimate guide to Homesteading and knew there was a natural way. For a recipe of 4 cups of strawberries, I only used 1/4 cup of this pectin and 1/4 cup of honey for sweetener and that is it! YAY!! It is like the yummiest jam I have ever made or tasted! Chris agrees! :) ok, esp on my homemade bread! :) double yay!
Enjoy your strawberries people!! And enjoy your life! Hopefully you can find out something fun as a result of being curious! :) 

Strawberries and a Pinkalicous Morning!

We are so very greatful for our Strawberries growing in our backyard! :) YAY for yummy, organic food right out the door! 

 We have gotten maybe 14 cups of berries and more to come. :)

Well, one night the boys were off to a campout! Chris is the teacher's advisor and so he's in charge of all the boy scout campouts in our ward. It's pretty fun! Well, they have had lots of campouts that the 11yr old scouts have needed to come for some thing or another. So, the boys have been gone on campouts! YAHOO! Girly night and mornings! :) Love them! 

Add Strawberries and Girls only....

NATURALLY we would have a

 PINKALICIOUS morning breakfast! :) 

 We bought the sunglasses at Target for $1 each! YAY! 

But then the boys got home early and dug into the "cupcakes" aka muffins...

Everyone was happy. I have to be cool every once in awhile and do something fun! :) Why limit the fun, right!