The Art of Homemaking

My parents passed through Utah on their way home from my sister Jessalyn's this last weekend, and as is tradition me and Mom shopped the local Deseret Industries. It is a habit of mine to always, always, always check the book section for yet another copy of Fascinating Womanhood. I will find a copy every few months and on rare occasion, as was this, I find a hardback version. As I was standing in front of the books showing my mother, she picked up a book that she recognized from years earlier named The Art of Homemaking. I recognized the title and thought it would be a fun read.
After my parents left I picked the book up and poured over the pages. I was hooked. I just love the old fashioned and CORRECT way of thinking. I love the way they just state the simple truth with no concern over "political correctness" and NO apologies. I feel a little silly that it has taken printed pages to teach me things that I should already know, and in a way I do know. However, this book has changed my attitude towards house work and given me a new motivation for my job as wife and homemaker.
I am indebted to my grandmother for introducing me to Fascinating Womanhood, a book that changed my world forever. Now I have found a new "printed treasure" that is changing my world all over again. I am so grateful for a Heavenly Father that knows what the next step is for me and gives me such beautiful and simple maps to follow. I will now have another book to look for at Deseret Industries, so if you want one let me know!

Halloween 2011

Halloween 2011

What a beautiful success!!!

It is rare when you have six children for everything to just go well at all! So I was not surprised when my car battery died the week before Halloween. I had not finished any of the kids costumes, and had planned on spending the entire week tying up loose ends. My wonderful husband was finally able to fix my suburban the Saturday before Halloween. But by then I had been canning grape juice the entire day and was just beat. So when Halloween Monday rolled around I was reinvigorated. My amazingly awesome friend watched Freja so that I could run to Walmart with the other 3. Trenton and Semaj' were spending the Halloween with their dad in Henderson, NV, so I had 2 less costumes to be concerned with.

I bought Anton a pair of slacks for $3 at DI (2nd hand store). We already had a suit jacket that didn't fit anybody and an incredible hulk costume in our dress up box.

I had my heart set on Brynja being a clown since I had taken Semaj' to the circus earlier this year. The only things I purchased for Brynjas costume were the fuzzies on her pants and shirt sleeves $1, the pipe cleaners in her hair $1 and the suspender material for $4.49.

And they were perfection....

I honestly didn't know what I wanted Braun to be until the day of. I was looking for something classic, easy and WARM! I found this sweat suit at Walmart for $9 and WALA...

I found this sweet little costume at a yard sell and it fit her perfectly. Yeah for yard sells and keeping an eye out months before Halloween $3 Little Lamb!





My favorite picture of the year!
She is so funny and popped this pose all by herself.

I was so so so proud of her costume and she was a die hard trick or treater. We were our hours after Anton and the others had tired and gone home. I thanked her several times for making Mommies Halloween so wonderful. She makes me happy!


Cheap and Easy! My kind of Halloween!!!

Big B. Little b. What begins with B? Brynja's Birthday and Blogging begin with B's!

So many words come to mind when I think of my little Brynja, whom we lovingly refer to as Brynja the Ninja. I honestly don't know where to start there are so many words and yet no words could properly convey the joy that this child has given to me since the moment of her arrival. Brynja is the most joyous, happy, and delightful child I could ever have imagined and here she is in my home. The Lord has blessed me with the amazing gift of Brynja Sage Kohntopp! She has this laugh...it's loud and pure. When she laughs she really laughs and it's infectious, Aaron and I will be in another room and she will start laughing and we can't help but joining in. I don't mean to make you believe though that she is a perfect little angel she is quite the opposite. She gets in to more things than any of my other children ever did. Sometime she will see something and she will go "oooh" in this high pitch, it's a present for me, type voice. The problem with Brynja is when she is doing something naughty she is so happy, smiling and giggling while she pours and entire gallon of milk on the kitchen floor. She thinks that is great fun. I could go on forever, Brynja is one of my six favorite subjects! Though I have to admit she makes me laugh harder and smile a little more than the rest. She is in the kitchen right now...maybe playing in the knife drawer...gotta go. Happy fourth to my fourth. I love you Brynja!

Wow! I don't even know where to start...I almost died. I'm so happy to be alive!!! It feels like a scene from a movie where you come in from water to dry ground and you kiss everything in sight. I just kiss my husband and kids, so happy to still be with them. Shortly after having Freja I contracted Group A Strep. Apparently my uterus did not close in a timely fashion, allowing bacteria to climb on board. I kept thinking that the pain was just after birth pains because I usually do get those pretty bad. It wasn't until I could hardly put my own pants on that I decided to go to the hospital. I always wait too long! So I went in to the ER where they diagnosed me with septic shock. They were giving me morphine (nasty stuff) for the pain. The morphine would give me about ten minutes of relief and then the pain was back. Anyway they transferred me up to the ICU where I stayed the night. The next morning I was given a paper that I was asked to sign saying that in case of anything getting worse that I consented to them taking my uterus. I wasn't sure I was done with it yet...but it wasn't really a choice anymore. So I called Aaron and sobbed to him. He of course came right away. Within a couple of hours I was in surgery having an emergency hysterectomy. I had a 50% chance of coming out of the surgery alive. My uterus was already a dead organ when they pulled it out. Luckily they were able to save my ovaries (yay). I was kept in a sleep induced state for about 30 hours. My sisters came to see me and I am disappointed to say that I later found out that Chauntel was the only one that cried when they saw me like this. I did not see any bright lights or Angels or anything! But after a few more scares...Dr's thinking my liver might be infected, water around my heart and just general swelling, I was recovered enough to go home. I had a lot of firsts while in the hospital. It was my first time in my adult life in an ER, taking morphine, in an ICU, first surgery, first chest x-ray, first time having an IV in my neck (I had 5 IVs total), staples in my skin, first time having a bowel movement before I could get to the toilet (it's funny now)! Well, my mom stayed for a week after surgery and took care of us. When I released her from duty I thought she would absolutely float out of here she was so happy to leave. My house is small and pretty disorganized. It must have been really hard for her to stay as long as she did. Thank you to all those who came to lend support by visiting or helping. First of all my husband who was my rock, the only person that can truly comfort me, Second of all my Mommy, my amazing sister Chauntel (who in the back scenes of all that was happening to me was taking care of my precious newborn Freja), to my sisters Jessalyn and Darci who flew out of their homes and directly to Utah to do whatever they could, to Lara Kohntopp my sister in law who traveled at a moments notice all the way from Logandale and stayed for almost a week to help watch Anton and Brynja,to Carolyn Grey, to Larry and Jeanie Kohntopp, To All the Chattertons especially to Brandon for making me laugh so hard that I could have busted my gut LITERALLY!, And thank you to all the people who called and lent my husband support during this time, and who brought in food to feed my worn out family. Thank you for all the prayers, I truly saw the divine fruits of those special requests. Thank you!