falling in love pt. 3

i fell in love with this little girl, all over again

her self portrait checking her hair on my phone

again, this is not the kind of twitterpated love that we associate with love, but love nonetheless. it's amazing to me how kids change not just over time, but in different settings or when given individual attention.
princess grace spent 7 1/2 days with me and no brothers. there were cousins to play with, but she got undivided mom time. that's not really all that unusual for a home preschooler, but this was different.
she was amazing!
this 5 year old got 5-6 hours of sleep each night in a new place with new people and new things and she rocked it.
at the wedding she stayed out of the way. never really whined or complained. found cousins to hang out with and made it special for her.

probably her favorite thing of the whole trip was hanging out with her cousins. look at these girls. could they be any cuter?

when she had downtime, which she had plenty of, she occupied herself with doing things her own way. she loved jumping on the trampoline and became a champ at jumping off the "tower". 

when she wasn't jumping on the trampoline she was in the backyard or front yard searching for, finding and collecting potato bugs aka rolly polly's. pretty sure she collected over 200 of them over the course of several days. i learned she has very limited fear of her own abilities.

one of the funnier moments was at a pool party on memorial day. we crashed a party with my sister and princess grace swam the whole time. typical right, except not really. there were about 10-12 boys between 12-16 in the pool playing chicken, marco polo and doing crazy dives off the  board. then there's this crazy girl jumping off the board right along with them. they were totally respectful and it was totally funny. wish i had a picture of her, but you can enjoy a pic of the ladies chatting it up moments after we were splashed by aforementioned boys. 

falling in love is about gaining appreciation for a person and what the can and do add to your life. i learned during this great adventure with this little girl that she is fabulous and i totally fell in love with her all over again. i will remember to read this again during the days surely to come where she tells me how much she hates me and i'm ruining her life. i'll still love her then.

floating boats

recently there was a political analyst who stated that ann romeny hadn't worked a day in her life. while she says she misspoke the subsequent chatter from others made me think about my life as a stay at home mom. the controversy surrounding Hilary rosen's comments should have died away but something our president said struck a chord with me. a loud dissonant chord with a minor 5th and 9th :) he said that "michelle and i did not have the luxury of her staying home". wait...what? come on now. perhaps you do not quite understand like i thought you should. staying at home is not a "luxury" per say. many of us give up, money, clothes, cars, travel, secondary educations, etc., to stay home and raise our kids without making money. this should not make us martyrs, nor should it make us better than anyone else. it's a choice. honestly, it's a choice i get to make everyday. there are days i want to go back to work. i want to leave the chaos and sometimes mundane tasks behind and feel like i am accomplishing something immediately. something with immediate reaction and reward. today was a reminder of why i make that choice everyday. princess grace and i ran errands. an hours long drive to the scout shop to purchase awards for my volunteer work with cub scouts. we came home made lunch and i was going to sew a lamp sleeve (you'll see later). as i reminded her to stay in the driveway where i could see her, the water company came and started pumping out the fire hydrants. . i kicked my shoes off made two paper boats and we floated them down the ditch, seeing if they could make it all the way down the street as we chased after them. we then walked through the water kicking it up. we saved about 10 worms from a sure drowning and placed them in our garden. princess grace found a sling shot stick and made soup out of leaves and hydrant water. all and all it was about 30 minutes of my day, but this is the reason for me. these small moments of mommyness that i get. that i treasure. these are all mine. staying at home is a lot like those boats we floated. there are days when i'm rushing so fast down the water it goes by and the day is over. other times i'll get stuck on a garbage can (as princess grace's boat did) and i'll be stagnant and finish the day only with divine help. what i wish my days were, a boat that floats scenically through the waters stopping for worms and little girls toes and finishing with a great languishing spin at the end looking back at all the fun the ride was. somewhere in there is the immediate reward i felt i needed from work.

fix you

as a mom sometimes you feel like you need to fix everything. you know logically you can't, but when your child is in pain, struggling or feeling insecure about something you just want to fix it.
our jp has been struggling recently and naturally as a mother i struggle with him. during a particularly difficult morning i lost my patience and left the chaos of the morning routine and knelt down in prayer for about 15 minutes (about a lifetime in morning chaos). i doubt my children even noticed until they opened their lunchbox at school and saw the lack of yumminess.
during that prayer i realized that i was personalizing his struggles too much. i was taking on his struggle, not helping. my job is to support him, not be him. sometimes being a mom means to be mom. sometimes i need to be hands off and allow him to go through this on his own knowing that i will be there whenever he is ready.

i listened to this song........and cried.....and cried some more.....




"today i am thankful for the power of prayer"

southern fried

sometime in february (probably around february 10th) i was assigned/asked to be in charge of our church youth fund raiser. the dreaded 5 letter word:

mulch

i had no idea how it would consume me.
in the meantime, i also started watching a friends little girl quite frequently.
i don't think i have gone to the grocery store, for more than that nights dinner, in about 5 weeks.
it's been that bad.
my house is a disaster.
my kids are restless.
my husband feels abandoned.

i am fried.

alas, it is finally over.
no more microsoft excel obsession.
no more trips to the post office.
no more strange people calling me, even yelling at me.
no more mail (this part was actually fun. when's the last time you got a letter addressed to you?)

cub camp registration is done. cub scout fundraiser starts in 3 weeks, and numerous other spring related activities are sure to fill my time. for the time being i think i will snuggle up with the hubsters, get myself a mani-pedi and chill the heck out.
cause like i said

i'm fried!

december motto

every month in family home evening we choose a family motto. november's motto was "i can be thankful". here's a picture of the finished gratitude turkey, which i saved for future use.

for december our motto is "i can serve others". every night at dinner we talk about something we did to serve someone else. we then write the service on our service chain on the kids' christmas tree. we got the chain started with blank links so that we could add later too.

the kids' love the idea, and i love that it's a great conversation starter.

gratitude turkey

this is tom, our gratitude turkey. we each get a colored "feather" to say what we are most grateful for every week on monday night. the boys cut the feathers out and hubs and i did the freehanded the rest. it took about 15 minutes, but hearing things the kids are grateful for is so much fun.
can you guess which color belongs each member of the family?

the tempest is raging

i have several things going on in my life that i do not share publicly, or even privately for that matter. matters that press on my heart and my soul. things that cause me heartache, pain and a sense of helplessness. i know it surprises many of you that i keep things to myself, but i do.
(i also know you wish i would keep more to myself....yeah,that's not going to happen.)
during my recent studies i read this talk by robert d hales.
i am like the prophet elijah who fled to the caves during the most tumultuous times to hide from my sorrows and pains. i am frequently admonished likewise to "go and return unto thy way".
i must take comfort and know that though the storm blow all around that i have a peace that can calm my troubled heart and a love that can ease my pain

thoughts

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart..In all thy ways acknowledge him, & he shall direct thy paths Prov 3:5-6




sometimes it feels so helpless being a parent, and sometimes it feels like that being a child of God. we know what the greater good is but letting go and allowing life to occur can frustrate us and cause us to try to intervene in things that we need not. sometimes the best we can do is hold tight and enjoy the ride. are you enjoying the ride?

dictionary

here is my dictionary for sarah speak:

lilah - either james or elijah, she's indiscriminate at this point
da - dad
ma - mom
gapapa - gramma, pa pa
blah blah - banana
riry - lily
me - means sarah, mine, and ....me. the best is when we ask a question she raises her hand and says me!
foo - food
ho ho - winter, snow, santa, anything cold
dudoh - uh oh
taintu - thank you
bee - this means any flying bug
abop - abra, our friends dog
ahow - cat

joy in the journey

we had a new friend over for family home evening who happens to be blind.
it was pure chaos as most of our fhe's are. as hubby said "poor guy could literally not see what he was in for". he got water spilled on him and cookie dough splattered on him. but he was happy to be involved.
when i was leaving to take him home the boys ran up the stairs and both gave him big hugs saying, come back again.

pure joy!

joy in the journey

james - mom, i could just hug you forever
elijah - when you get old i'll fix your car for you
sarah - grumpy face....crazy face (she makes faces on demand now)

the boys wanted me to take a picture of them last sunday because they thought they were so "slick". aren't they beautiful!

joy in the journey

this is my sad post that reminds me to find joy in the journey. i hate to share this sort of personal stuff, but this was so poignant to me that it gives me the chance to reflect on the joy my family brings me:
in an email from our friends the richey's whom we met as newlyweds

"Dearest friends and loved ones,
We are saddened to tell you that our sweet little Cadence died in her sleep while napping Tuesday. She was healthy and beautiful; it was time for her to return to her Heavenly Father. She was born 8/4/08 and died almost 4.5 months later on 12/16/08. "

earlier in the week lindsey shared this story

i promise to hold my punks a little tighter and a little longer to remember that life is precious and that my children are a gift from God.

joy in the journey

" i wanna pray for barack obama" - elijah
"mom when you're old i'll buy you stuff" - james
"shoes!" - sarah

new series

"Day by day, minute by minute, second by second we went from where we were to where we are now....Time never stands still; it must steadily march on, and with the marching come the changes."
from the Music Man, “You pile up enough tomorrows, and you’ll find you’ve collected a lot of empty yesterdays.”
“The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.”
"We will never regret the kind words spoken or the affection shown. Rather, our regrets will come if such things are omitted from our relationships with those who mean the most to us...Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved."

just some of the quotes from president monson's talk now entitled
"joy in the journey"

look for it, coming to a favorite blog near you.

in this spirit i will list some things that give me pause and a chance to reflect on the amazing life we have.