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.

my daughter

if i had to sum up my daughter in just one video, this video would be IT!!

caught her doing this walking into home depot. that's my princess for ya.

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"

yes sir

 about 6 weeks ago we decided to put baby e in tae kwon do to give him an outlet and an activity that he does all by himself. what a great decision if i do say so myself. he has taken on such an air of responsibility and for the first time does not complain about going. doing baseball and soccer was like pulling teeth. this has been great for him.
the picture above is baby e testing for his white belt. in most tae kwon do school they children start with the white belt, but here they start with no belt and test for each subsequent belt. master says it gives the kids a better feeling of accomplishment. he will test for his yellow belt in 3 weeks. they have started sparring, and i do have to say....it's so cute!

"today i am thankful for good friends who bail me out and help me"

uuuugggggggh bedtime

this is me at bedtime.....sometimes.

can't you just hear faye dunaway yelling "no more wire hangers"

i'll repent later :)

i love being mom

if i am to be totally honest with myself and you, i cannot say that being the mom is easy, always fun and instantly gratifying. some days are definitely more difficult than others. with perspective i know it's worth it and is so rewarding that i can never say i hate being a mom. it's finding that perspective that proves tricky sometimes.

as i organized pictures on my computer this week, i looked through the recent photos and felt gratitude for the chance to be a mom. it's these little moments that give me the perspective to look beyond the current commotion and drama and realize the amazing eternal calling as mom.

boys reading on the metro. one with the sports section, the other with comics.

the look of pure joy on this girls' face

baby e rocking out with speakers on his ears

princess grace goes to preschool

two days a week all of my kids are at school. shopping should be so much easier! princess grace started her preschool that meets two days a week. she is excited, and came home exhausted. love it!

it has begun

its the second week of school and i can say that i am glad it started again. my days are not spent breaking up fights, arbitrating arguments or talking legos'. i miss the boys some, but mostly i am glad they are happy in school, and making new friends.

baby e sitting in the cafeteria waiting for the fun to begin

jp meeting up with friends ready to get going.

possibly my favorite part of the day was seeing the little sister get mom all to herself. she met up with her bff after all the other kids were gone. it was pure joy for both of them.

never give up

my sister, we'll call her myrtle budge, has a blog about her family life called, never give up. it's a family motto of sorts.
as mentioned in a previous post this sister and her family are hanging out with those of us living on the right coast, so we get to spend plenty of quality time together. our family is loving it. our activity of choice is the pool.
on myrtle's cleaning day, i got to hang out at the pool with the 2 kids who had done their chores, we'll call them megs and soul man. soul man and megs decided to jump off the diving board. soul man has a little daredevil streak and was doing flips, epic cannon balls and jack-knives. megs is way more cautious and generally does a basic jump off the board. well, with chanting and cheering from the peanut gallery, megs started to try and do a dive. she was not necessarily successful in a perfect dive, but what she was successful in doing was impressing me.
she continued to try to dive for 30 minutes. get up on the board, hearing words of advice from me and from a random girl, who apparently was a diver. she kept trying. she even got a bloody nose, wiped it off and kept right on trying.
she never did execute a dive worthy of greg louganis, but she managed to show that you never give up, and that sometimes children do listen to what you say.

never give up!

things i dont want to forget

many things in life go fast. time, the fastest of them all. i love to keep track of some of the things my kids do that are funny by writing them in a little notebook, or in a file in my email box. it's a great reminder of the cute, or not so cute, things my kids say. here's a quick sampling:

jp - as an 8 year old, jp's humor is developing quite rapidly. however his joke telling prowess is not quite there yet. here's a recently told joke. "why did the chicken cross the road" "he wanted food on the other side" some jokes are better than others.....obviously.

baby e - jp burped and baby e turned to him and said "nice one! how'd it taste? jp responds "not bad. kind of like orange soda" baby e responds "cool. could be worse"
where do they come up with this stuff?

princess grace - she calls skirts - girks, when she wants to smell something at the store she will ask "mommy can i hmmmm that?" clearly everytime we smell something we say hmmmmm.

simplify

4 months ago hubsters and i made a decision to not put our kids in extra-curricular activities that required two or more days a week. this included sports, a mainstay of the social atmosphere where we live. it felt like our kids would be seen as having the plague or some deadly social disease if they did not do soccer, swim team and other team sports (most kids do 1-2 sports a season). since i am already a "slacker - non pta mom" i figured i didn't care what people thought

what a great decision!

no more running to practices and games and stressing out over dinner times. our kids are young enough and do not have a strong desire to do sports enough to have any adverse affects. after reading this talk by elder perry the decision was simpler. i understand it doesn't work for everyone, but we are so happy that it is working so well for us.

"In our search to obtain relief from the stresses of life, may we earnestly seek ways to simplify our lives." - L. Tom Perry

my favorite christmas letter

we all get lovely heartwarming christmas cards from friends and loved ones, dont we? well my favorite one happens to be from a fabulous seven year old boy to santa on christmas eve night.
it reads:

dear santa.
i beleave in you. please dont wake jack he will ruin your suit. please give us good presents!
signiture_____________


santa did oblige and initialed his note and stayed away from jack, the dog, to avoid any doggy drool on his expensive suit.
btw - did you know santa prefers silk?

yearly ornaments

the princess and her princess ornament

baby e with his indiana jones and the temple of doom ornament. it's musical.....oh joy

jp with his tom and jerry ornament

their tree

i'm sort of a mean mom. my kids are not allowed to decorate my christmas tree. so in order to create harmony in our home they have their own tree. i do think that this is the last year we will be able to have a small tree.

every year the kids get to pick out a new ornament from the store. we have an ornament for every child for each year of their life. it's a fun tradition, started by accident. don't you love those kinds of traditions! i will post pictures of this years picks later.

day with daddy

we were lucky enough to have hubsters home all day wednesday. it was a fun middle of the week treat for everyone. he is always so good about doing something fun and interactive with the kids, and yesterday was no exception.
one trip to michaels, 15 dollars and an hour equals pure joy!

harper's ferry

I suggest a trip to harper's ferry. i do not however suggest visiting the wax museum with small children. it's a story for a different day.

5 teeth gone

isn't he just so cute.
i had to post both cause dang, i love this kid!

exciting lives

we live in a pretty good sized house. 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms a family room/play room in the basement with a large screen tv and a kid friendly computer, and a living room/dining/kitchen combo with "spinny" chairs, yet where does everyone choose to hang out?.....

our bedroom!

i'm not sure why? could it be the large bed that everyone can fit on? the TV? The fact that we don't let them sleep here intrigues them? the yummy coconut lemongrass scentsy smell? who knows?

i could complain, but really is there anything better than just hanging out with your kids while they still want to? i think not

where does everyone congregate at your house?

i'm going there someday

the children from church went to the dc lds temple on saturday. this is the group our kids were with. they learned about the seagull on the flagpole, how big the angel moroni is, and how our family can be together forever.it was a great activity.
the best part was princess grace walking around say "ten bull"