1.26.09

Recently I heard a talk by president Bednar on prayer. He said we should use prayer as a spiritual planning of our day. And our nightly prayers report back to him how it went. This sounded good to me so this morning I tried it. In between diapers and exercising and taping Darth Vaders gun back on his hand 5 times. I dropped to my knees in the hallway. (I can't ever remember morning prayers when I first wake up) I thanked heavenly father for a beautiful day that is sunny and snowy and for the chance to be a mom. I do love it. Then I told him my goals for the days. Exercise, breakfast, laundry ect. And I also prayed that I might get something out of scripture reading today and feel of the truthfulness. I sat at breakfast with Cache and decided to read while I ate breakfast. Mother's just can't help but double task. I wanted to read aloud to Cache, so I picked something exciting. 3rd Nephi 11. When Christ appears in resurrected form to the people living here in America. I thought this might keep his attention. Nothing about the actual story really brought me a lot of peace, but most of the questions in my head, the doubts I have been having and worries about family members, were lifted, nothing answered, but the doubt was gone, the worry was lightened and hope for them replaced it. As I read I just couldn't see how I could ever deny that this book wasn't a truthful record. Deep down inside it felt so right, nothing miraculous or overwhelming, but just right. I knew who I wanted to be to other people around me, and what was important in life. Honesty with myself. And I can honestly say that something inside me says this is right. I've felt this several times before in my life, but I always always forget, and then start to doubt. I know I will forget again and doubt again, so I needed to write it down. This peace is such a blessing. I hope you don't mind me sharing such a personal story.

Oh 3rd Nephi did keep Cache sitting at the table, but as I read, he interrupted twice and this is what he said:

cache:"sssspanish?"
me: "What?"
cache: "Jesus Christ is in spanish and it is very important?"
me: "What?"
cache: Jesus Christ is in spanish and it is Very important to me!"
me: "Jesus Christ is in spanish?"
cache: "yes"
me: "what does that mean?"
cache: "i no know" (meaning i dont' know)
me: "But it;s important to you?"
cache: "yep!"

2 minutes later while i'm reading i was interrupted again...

cache: "Who's on dis box mom!"( pointing to the wheaties cereal box)
me:" oh he was is a swimmer and won a race at the olympics"
cache: "No Brack Obama winned the race."

Life must be so confusing to a 3 year old. :) Or maybe i'm the one confused,
because he seems to know exactly what he means.

1.25.09

hi Devin! here is some pictures of us sledding
last night. For some reason, all day long we will
watch the snow fall and think: "We should go sledding." And we
just never do. But then night comes and
we are like:"Hey the days almost over let's go sledding!" And thus night sledding
seems to have been a common thing. I have way more memories of sledding
at night than I do during the day.
Ya, just one of many things that we
do backwards around my parents house for
with no explanation. ANYWAY, we got an awesome trail
going down the driveway that was supa fast. Too fast
for Cache. so that's fast. Casey the crazy snow dog,
kept running in front and then stop and watch as you
uncontrollably came at her and every time knock her legs out from
under her. A couple times she landed right on my back.
She is so crazy. In fact her craziness almost cost her
life this weekend, but that is a story for another time. Maybe I'll
do a post about my little brother Sam and his dogs sometime.

I have have loved spending time with my two little brother's since being home. Sam and Joey are so nice to Cache and really great with Naomi. Sam is learning what it's like to have a younger sibling that wants to follow you around 24/7 , sometimes even to the bathroom. Sam is such a neat boy. He just really wants to do what is right. He has a great heart and goes about life calm and steady. He is very responsible for an 11 year old and takes awesome care of his dogs. When I'm making dinner or anything, he will come up and asks me: "Amie is there something I can do to help you?" And even if he doesn't ask me, and I need him to do anything, I'll ask and he will literally jump up and do it. This I know is truly unique, because I didn't do this, nor do I do this NOW.
What a special boy he is.
Joey is bigger than me,(way bigger)so cute, and it's fun to start thinking of him and talking to him as a friend and not a little brother. You just can't help but love Joey! He has a super funny sense of humor and makes me laugh just by hearing him laugh. I'm so glad I got to spend some quality time with them and I'm trying really hard not to be the bossy big sister, but sometimes I just can't help it, I need to Boss and let's face it they need some bossin around to get their keesters movin!
Now that I've talked about them, i'm feeling a lot of love for them,
and when I love something, well.... i take pictures of it!
So that's what I'm going to do tomorrow. They don't even know what's coming at em. Crazy picture big sister could get even worse than crazy picture mom. :)

For Daddy

We sure miss Devin here in Oregon and I know you're missin us! Here are some pictures of Naomi growing up a bit and sitting her highchair. We had to stuff blankets all around her. She is just silly. I'm working on putting on a video of Cache i took this morning. Love you Devin.

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1.19.09

Devin's brother Dylan and his family came to Oregon for the weekend, so we headed over the mountain to spend some quality time with cousins Taivan and Noah. Oh i mean Luke Skywalker and Qui gon Gin(spelling?) They had a grand time.


Grandma and Grandpa Orton are so nice to wake up
early with the boys so that the parents can
try and sleep in. I do mean TRY because upstairs grandpa was
playing human punching bag and the floors are a bit thin.
oh these boys love their Grandpa!


In effort to help the boys understand the principle of keeping the Sabbath day Holy, light sabers, star wars or fighting of any kind or band on Sundays at grandma's house. The boys had a hard time not playing with the light sabers, so we hid them in the closets, but I bet you didn't know that all little boys are born with built in pistols AND light sabers right in their hand. Now how do you take that away? Well by Monday morning these little boys were more than anxious to get their real light sabers back and made good use of their time with them..




I was also educated this weekend. These are the lessons that my nephews taught me:

1. Where every smoke alarm is in grandma and grandpa's house is located(Noah has developed a phobia of alarms and Taivin loves to torment him and point out all alarms on the ceilings.) Sound like brothers?

2. Who Qui Gon Gin is and that his is on episode FREE(three) of the stars wars trilogy.

3. Apparently the sentence "grandpa is in Baker" is the funniest sentence on the face of the planet.

** we miss you devin

Here are a bunch of pictures from Christmas. Good memories, starting with family Spratling picture 2008:

I love how everyone looks genuinly happy, but really it was cold, sick crying babies and everyone annoying everyone else. Do any of you have a GOOD time taking family pictures? So far it hasn't happened for me yet.

Well Ashley had a good time at family pictures, we laughed

a lot trying to get the perfect air picture.

As you can see it has to be pretty bad for Ashley to have a bad time.

Pictured below is my other sister Sarah and her hubby of one year Nick. We have the same anniversary, so we spent it together this year, with a movie and dinner. So fun to double date with siblings, we never get too living so far away in Missouri! Thanks for spending you first anniversary with us Sarah and Nick!

Devin's parent's live just over the mountain so we got to spend some good quality time with his parents and their animals. This is Devin's dog Cooter. The first time I met Devin, he had Cooter and wanted to show everyone his dog. I was the only one that actually came outside to see Cooter. Inside, the rest of the group began gossiping about us. "What's going on out there with those two?" Well actually nothing was, but i was the only one that wanted to meet the dog, so as Brian Regan would say "one thing lead to another," and we decided to make the rumors come true and we got married. So thanks Cooter for finding me a husband.

The best thing about this pup, is that he's gotta be old in dog years by now, but he still acts like a pup, so playful. Devin might be the only person in the world to outlast Cooters energy.

By the end of Devin and Cooters game of snow football.

Cooter was begging to be let back into his kennel! Really!

But Devin wasn't done, he kept going.

Cache and Devin spending some quality father-son time:

Naomi with her Uncle Ben

We love Uncle Ben!

aaah look they are already serving one another! I came
into the room to see Cache comfortably watching his cartoons.
I just love nose picker pictures.

A Blessed Day

My older brother Ben and Cindy blessed their new baby girl ,Savannah, while they were up here in Oregon for Christmas. It was such a neat day! They performed the blessing in our home, (instead of the usual church meeting) and we got to celebrate this special little girl. Savannah is very very VERY calm, and was appropriatly named after my mother ,Savannah Colette, who also has a very calming influence on those around her, most of the time :). Of course she could have also been named after Cindy who has that same affect on people. Well, atleast on me. We really didn't have much time to take pictures, so we did what we could with the little day light that was left in the upstairs bedroom before everyone arrived. sorry Cindy I wish we would have had time to get a better shot, but a few turned out pretty sweet.

once again, I couldn't decide which one I liked better, the sepia or color.

The chair Savannah is sitting in belonged to Savannah's great-great grandma Spratling. I wonder how many babies have been rocked in this chair? If furniture could talk! And now we rock our babies to sleep in this chair when we come home for a visit. The top floor aka "girl floor" in my parents home is now officially abandoned since Ash left for college this fall. But it really it is the prettiest place in the house. Very bright, cool closets and awesome white woodwork and windows. If decorated right, i think it could be in a martha stewart magazine. It's just so cute. The view from this window is the best,looking out over the deck, to the orchard(my mom refers to this as "her secret garden") and beyond that the wheatfields. I feel like i'm narrating a home decorating channel right now. haha. Well anyway, on that note. Tune in next time to Amie's home network and i'll have something equally boring to talk about i'm sure.

matchy matchy sunday clothes!

Cache and Claire loved holding their girls. "dats your girl and dis is my girl!" Cache now asks anyone his age that he meets: "whats your girls name?" or "Where's your girl?" very cute. He thinks all 3 year olds have should have a baby girl . Thank you grandma for the matching outfits.