Our Missionary

We flew home this last weekend for Austen's farewell and to take him to the MTC. I am so grateful that we were able to go and support him in his decision to serve the Lord as a Missionary. The farewell was so awesome! Austen did such a great job on his talk and Levi got to share his testimony as well. The meeting was so spiritual and made Levi and I so excited for Austen to start something that is going to change his life forever.

The Gospel is so important to Levi and I. It has honestly brought so much joy and happiness to our lives. Sure there are always hard times and trials to go through, but everything just seems easier with the Gospel and knowing that we have our Savior to guide us through those rough patches. I feel so happy that Austen gets to share the amazing message of the Savior to the people of Cambodia. When we went with him to be set apart as a missionary, he told us that he already felt such a strong bond and a love for the people of Cambodia. I know that there are people there waiting for him to come and teach them. He is going to be such an amazing missionary and have such a great adventure!

A few fun facts about Cambodia:

The people offer you live crickets to eat when you come to visit

Fried tarantulas are a common tasty treat

There are a lot of snakes (which Austen hates)

One of the few places fresh water dolphins are found

Angkor Wat is in Cambodia (click on the link to see what it is)

I set up a blog for everyone to keep up to date on Austen. It will be updated when we get new letters from him:).

eldersweeten.blogspot.com

Heading to the MTC

Glad I don't have to learn that language!

Abby was so sad to say goodbye! She had her own tissue and was wiping her eyes saying how sad she was.

Kid Trouble

So here I sit in my basement on the verge of tears trying to figure out what to do (any advise is welcomed) while I listen to my sweet Abby cry. She hasn't been sleeping well for the last couple weeks, well actually she hasn't slept well on and off her whole life. She will get in bed and is good for a few minutes then gets out of bed or starts screaming and crying to the point that I can't even understand what she is saying or what she wants. It's not like we shut the door and turn all the lights off. We leave the door open and a hall light on, and her little sister is in the same room for heaven sakes. So our nightly routine is to go comfort her give her loves and tell her it is time for bed, then we head out for the second time. Again with out fail 5-10 minutes later the crying starts and she gets all worked up, gets out of bed and comes down stairs! This situation is not good for any one, poor Audrey ends up getting woken up like three times a night, (hopefully this won't start any bad habits for her, she has been such a good sleeper) which isn't fair to her. So now after waking her sister twice tonight we decided to let her sleep in the pack and play in the basement so that Aud can sleep. She has been crying for the last hour on and off and asking to get out, needs a drink and on and on and on. I am at the end of my rope, I have no more ideas...I feel like the worst mom! Has anyone else been through this???
Well I have had quite a few people tell me how grateful I will be for her determination when she gets older...but right now I am not so sure. She is such a beautiful girl and is pretty good most of the time with listening and being polite, so I'm just not sure what the problem is. She always apologises and lets me know the next day that she is going to try harder to stay in bed, but it ends up being the same story every night. In the beginning Levi and I thought it was a bit comical, but as it continues the humor is fleeting fast! I have read a bunch of great books on getting your kids to sleep well at night and I feel like I have tried all their ideas over and over. Some of them work for a while but nothing long term. So who knows what will come of this situation...but one thing I have learn from being a mom is that nothing lasts forever!! I have to remind my self of this OFTEN so that I can make it though all the rough stages. Hopefully this is one of those stages. Sorry for the vent session... Abby is asleep now and I feel better. Hope your night was better than mine :).

Abby's First Day of Preschool

I can't believe that I have a kid old enough to go to preschool!! Well truth is I do and she is so excited to be big enough to go! She had a great time the first day, so hopefully it will continue to go well!

Tired!!

Audrey got a little tuckered out after lunch the other day! It was so funny because Abby and I were just chatting away and I looked over and Audrey was completely out! It was so fast that I didn't really think she was asleep. She has never done that before so we were kind of surprised! All I know is I wish I could be a kid again... eat, sleep and play, what a life!

Tutu Girls!

Here are the latest pictures of the girls. My cute sister is the photographer...amazing hu!! Check out her blog Over The Moon Bliss Photography . Jen thanks for the darling pictures can't wait to see the rest!

Labor Day Weekend

Saturday:

PIG OUT IN THE PARK!!

YUMMY, GREASY, MASSIVE

Pig out in the park is Spokane's annual food fest. They have all kinds of crazy yummy food!

As seen below...HUGE CHEESE FRIES!!

(can we say heart attack waiting to happen!)

Abby and Audrey enjoying the fries and an ice cream ("bannilla" of course").

Stuffing our faces:)!!

Audrey popped her balloon with her teeth within two minutes of getting it.

Snugglin' with DAD!!

Sunday:

Well the morning started off great... a yummy pancake breakfast! Then I headed to a Bishops interview...a little stressed...Called to First Councilor in the Young Women's:). I am really excited that I don't have to teach every week!!

Headed to church and listened to a great talk by Levi while I was wrestling with my girls.

Abby yelled out "Great Job Dad!" as soon as he finished and had everyone around us laughing!!

Enjoyed a nice evening with the family!

Monday:
Levi got up at 5:15 to go golfing with all his friends. They had a blast, but if you ask me that is way too early to enjoy anything!!

Then we headed to Manito Park...one of our favorite places to go. The girls love to feed the ducks, well I guess we all love to feed them. We saw some crazy looking cat fish, a turtle, ducks and geese.
Finished up the weekend with a fun BBQ with our friends! Good food and great company...can't ask for more!

GO INDIANS!!

Here we are at the Indians Baseball Game! Anyone who know us knows we are always up for a hot dog, Pepsi and a baseball game. We had a great time enjoying all the food! Some how we chose the right night to go...it was family night and all the food a was a buck! The game wasn't that exciting...but we had some friends come which made for great company. I think the most exciting/scary thing happened at the end of the game. A foul ball came our way and hit a little girl in the head just a few rows in front of us. OK definitely more SCARY than exciting!! I think it really sacred Abby, she kept asking us if we could say a prayer for her. What a sweet girlie!

Temple Day

Austen, Levi's little brother went through the temple last week. It was such a great experience to be there with him and to support him in this decision to serve a mission! He leaves in less than a month to Cambodia! We are so excited and proud of him for making the decision to serve. He will be an amazing missionary!

We have been having so much fun watching the Olymics this year that we decided to get in on The Games...hope you enjoy!!!

The Olympic Games

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WARNING POSTING CRAZE!!

So just a warning about the million posts that follow!! As you will see from each post we have been gone for the last I think 5 weekends on some sort of vacation. That is why I haven't had time to update this thing!! So now you get them all at once... Sorry!! I know its a lot.
We are heading back to Spokane on Monday so hopefully things will settle down and I will be able to get back on a normal schedule...probably not, but we will see.

Camping Trip!

Well if you think we haven't been on enough vacations here is one more!! We headed up AF canyon this weekend with Mom and dad, Nate and Jenny and Matt and Angie to have a little R&R. Well we definitely didn't get any R&R but we did have a lot of fun!! Friday night the rest of the fam came up for dinner. It was fun to play games and listen to dads stories around the camp fire. Grannie had a lot of fun projects for the kids...a magic candy tree, planting donut seeds and waiting for the donuts to grow!! We went fishing all day Saturday which turned out to be a success!! All the kids caught at least one if not more!! Audrey loved the fish and wanted to keep holding it (you can see her in the pics giving it a hug). We cooked them up and enjoyed the taste of fresh trout! Here are some cute pictures from the weekend!

Be sure to click on it so you can see them a little bigger!

Presents

We brought the girls home a yummy sucker and a superman cape for Abby from California. They were in heaven to say the least!! It is funny how a little sugar and a $5 cape will make your kids happy for a week! All I can say is it was money well spent!! Abby looks a little funny because she is trying to

fly by jumping up and down.

Need I say More!!

California

We took a little trip to Cali with our good friends Pio and Ashley. Ashley works for Jet Blue so we got a great deal!! We went to six flags and had a lot of fun! We definitely got our fill of thrills! We rode X2 which is the newest coaster and it was unbelievably awesome!! Then we enjoyed a day at the beach soaking in the sun and playing in the waves! This is my kind of vacation!! Thanks for the great time Pio and Ash!!

(the turkey leg picture is for you Kyle and Jamie!)

Bear Lake

We had our annual Marchbanks family reunion at Bear Lake this year. My sister Amy and her husband Brett have a cute Cottage that we stayed at. We are so grateful to them for letting us stay and enjoy their darling cottage. We had so much fun just hanging out on the beach, boating, playing cards, watching movies and the highlight of the trip the Pickleville Playhouse Play!! If you ever go to Bear Lake go see a play at the Pickleville Playhouse. We haven't laughed that hard in a long time. We enjoyed every minute of the vacation and can't wait to go again!!

Dad, Amy and Mom
Audrey digging in the sand
Audrey floating in the boat
Us at the play with the villain...Juanito Bandito!
Abby ready to go boating
The fam

Me and my cute sisters minus two
Me, Heather, Jen and Amy
Lizzy and Angie were on the boat.

Park City

We spent the weekend at the Marriott in Park City with Fran and Todd and the Eyres. We had such a fun time with them. We rode the Alpine slide, Alpine coaster, and a bunch of little kiddie rides. We also had a great time swimming and relaxing in the hot tubs (I think there were like 7 of them) not to mention playing our new favorite game Killer Bunnies. A big thanks to Steve and Pixie for introducing us to the game! We had great food and great company!! Thanks so much Grannie and Pa!!

$$ VEGAS BABY $$

We headed down to Vegas to see our friends Jen and Kyle and their cute boy Bridger. We had such a fun time. We went to the Pro Bass Store which was amazing! We also made it to a few of the kid friendly casinos (if you can call them that?) Circus Circus and New York New York. The kids loved it and we did too! Jen was such a great sport...9months prego and still trucking around the strip with all of us. We had some great card games and a fun time swimming. It was great to visit and catch up on everything.

Congrats on the new baby he is darling!!

Some cute pics from the trip...although there arn't any of us moms?

Kyle and Levi

Bridger and Abby the hunters!

Cute kids