Photo Shoot

Backdated from Oct 4, 2012

 

 

 

  

 

   

 

 

  

   

 

  

 

 

These were taken in beautiful Haigler Creek outside of my dad’s cabin,

by the talented husband/wife combo of my sister Mimi and bro-in-law Dave.

This is the best day ever!

There is nothing

like hearing those words from your children.

Aside from an unsolicited “I love you” -- They are probably some of the greatest words a mother can hear.

(The last time I heard them say this phrase was Christmas Day. So this was certainly a treat to hear.)

As I reflect back on the day, I think what made it so great is that we did everything together.

{Even running into the grocery store for a carton of icecream and a redbox.

Would have been easier to stay in the car with the kids while Greg or I ran in, but we did it as a family.

All 6 of us.} 

We visited the cemetery where we gave my Mom some new flowers.

We played at the park, until it got too hot,

and then we escaped to McDonalds to use a Happy Meal coupon and refresh ourselves with a cold treat.

We came home and did chores together.

Then we napped together,

Went swimming in the back yard together (yes, even this big ol’ Mama got into our little kiddie pool with the kiddos).

The kids had behaved so well all day, and I had been craving a certain Mexican Pork and Apple salad for weeks, that we took the youngin’s with us out on a date to Tia Rosa’s.

And what a surprise, there was a balloon animal artist at the restaurant.

If that didn’t top the day off for my kids, then the quick trip to the grocery store producing a free cookie, a redbox, and icecream surely did the trick.

We walked into our clean house, and the kids could each be overheard saying those wonderful words.

This is the best day ever.

And we watched our movie together.

And the kids played around with their balloon animals.

And fell asleep on the floor.

And drifted off into blissful dreamland,

as we carried them each to their beds,

And whispered “I love yous”.

Then Greg and I snuggled, and talked, and … ..

It really was the best day ever.

While it lasted

Well, it was nice while it lasted. But all good things must come to an end…

including Evan’s good behavior.

 

 

You can take a guess at what he did in class today that prompted

a phone call from the teacher,

the writing of an apology note when he got home,

and the writing out of sentences.

 

 

 

Sentences in which I just noticed he left off one of the most important words. :(

Fail

Well.

So much for every day.

My computer hasn’t been working for much of the last few days.

And let’s just be honest.

I’m tired.

I wish I were sleeping right now.

But it’s hard to sleep with this hanging over my head.

Why do I do that to myself?

We’re sposed to write in our journals every day, right?

This is my journal.

And I WANT to write in it.

But I almost just spelled “write” the wrong way.

And the “right” thing to do is to probably just sleep.

 

My plan is to still get my thoughts down from the last few days and backdate them. I don’t want to look like too much of a failure in the future. :)

Every Day May

It’s May again. And my infrequent blog posting has spawned the notion that Every Day May should live on.

So I’ll begin May by delighting you with something simple and sweet.

Our little Chunky Monkey.

She is 9 weeks old tomorrow. I like to say “weeks” for as long as I can because it makes me feel like I still have a newborn, and therefore an excuse for not having lost all my baby weight and justification for the continuous lack of sleep. If it were acceptable to say that my baby was 52 weeks old instead of one year, than I would do that too. 

Her checkup was today. She is 12 and a half pounds and in the 75th percentile! I’ve never had such a porker. That’s the size my six-month-olds (I mean 26-week-olds) usually are. I’m worried she’s not going to fit in her blessing dress on Sunday.

But I am loving lovin’ on all those rolls.

Check Out

We began this morning’s grocery shopping trip positively.

Shopping in Arizona is so much different than Utah. In Utah, my children were just a few little faces in a crowd of matching faces at any given time or place, and were special to very few besides myself. 

Here, I have to be ready at any given moment with a smile on my face from the dozens of strangers (mostly white-haired snow birds) that take an interest in my children and hand out frequent “they’re darling”s and “my you have your hands full”s and “look at the little baby”s. Today was no different. In fact, I even had to spend some of the kids’ precious good behavior time on looking at a random old lady’s pictures of her great-grandchildren. Good behavior time I would soon regret having spent.

But what’s a kind-hearted soul such as myself to do?

Like I said, we began our shopping trip positively.

One worker in the produce section even said, “You are so blessed.” And I had to agree.

But by the time we got to the dairy, I was shakin’ my head.

The girls took advantage of the seatbeltless car-cart (the only one of its kind in the whole store and I felt grateful to have snagged it, but its lacking seatbelts are a lawsuit waiting to happen I’m afraid) and started climbing in and out and on top of it. Something I could handle, until… the baby woke up… … Screaming.

Now, I’m used to a baby screaming. And it almost doesn’t even bother me. Like it doesn’t at this very moment, while I type this sentence about it. [“Evan, go give Haven her pacifier”] But I was certain all those white-haired strangers were not accustomed to such bleating. So I felt obligated to attempt a silencing.

To no avail.

I grabbed the milk and headed to the checkout with a full shopping cart, but without everything crossed off my list.

Checkouts are painful. Especially with a screaming infant and two restless monkey-girls. And I was sweating as I made my 6 different purchase transactions. Transactions that lasted a good 15 minutes of baby-crying time.

I’m sure everyone’s eyes were on me. I could feel them. But I never looked up to find them.

As we left, I overhead a kind soul say, “Poor thing.”

I’m sure she was referencing my baby girl.

But I like to think she was talking about me.

Exhaustion

Dear Mom

I totally get it!

Super Mom

I’ve had a few moments in my mothering career when I’ve felt like “SuperMom”. Like when I went grocery shopping with a newborn and two toddlers while feeding the baby a bottle, pushing the extra-long shopping cart, and sorting through coupons at the same time. I felt pretty super. Or when I had to keep a baby Taryn asleep during one of her ABR hearing tests for which she was hooked up to all sorts of machines, but she had a poopy diaper that was making her cranky, so I had to change her, while she sat in her carseat, still hooked up to all the wires and doohickies, and I did it, and kept everything in its place, and she went back to sleep and I felt super super.

Today was a super mom day.

We had the opportunity to go to the Maricopa County Fair for free through Taryn’s School for the Deaf program. This is a HUGE county fair, not like our little county fair up in Utah (where we lost Taryn last year). I wanted to take my kids. I told them all about it and we’d been looking forward to it for weeks.

But suddenly Greg had to work. Which left me a single Mom sporting three rambunctious children and a needy newborn. But I decided to be adventurous and try calling forth my super mom skills.

I was pretty nervous about it though. So before we left, I fixed little notes to the backs of each of my children’s shirts.

Just in case. :)

Well, we had a great time. The biggest trouble came with the fact that the majority of my kids were too short to ride on any of the rides. That was disappointing. But there was still lots to do once the tantrums subsided.

 

My hands got pretty full during lunchtime when I tried to feed all the kiddos, including the baby. Taryn took this opportunity to hop on stage and dance along with the live singing entertainment – crackers in hand and all. She is still, as always, our little dancer.

  Our newest addition was a perfect little angel and slept through all the noise and bumpy stroller rides and screaming and mooing and cockadoodledooing, only to wake up just in time for lunch and then go right back to Havenous dreaming.

And our oldest somehow decided that being tall enough for a ride meant he was also big enough to put his arms up in the air on the downhills. Where did he learn that from? 

The adventure ended without incident and with a smile on everyone’s face. They all fell asleep in the car on the way home, so it must have been an exciting activity.

I sure felt pretty Super.

And tired too.