Birthdays, Birthdays and more Birthdays!!!!

You might think, from the title, that this will be about the birthdays of my daughter Hannah, my brother Danny and myself which are all within 1 week, however, this is not so. I am speaking of the numerous birthday parties I have had to plan for one small girl turning six.



Because her birthday was on a Saturday and she is now a schoolgirl we needed to celebrate with her class on Friday. This seemed very stressful to me as I made 5 dozen cookies the night before and worked on getting all the gear in the car the next day, but it all turned out great and I left that class a glowing success. I read the kids a short story called the Birthday Zoo and then gave them all Ginger Crinkles (one of Hannah's favorites--she isn't big on chocolate) and apple juice. The kids enjoyed the story and everyone adored the cookies so I could relax and enjoy Hannah's happiness--I did forget to have the teacher take our picture, though.


Then to add to the confusion, her birthday was General Conference weekend. And not just any Conference weekend, but the weekend my sister's fiancee and in-laws-to-be were coming so they could finalize all their plans and parents could get to know one another. Mom really helped with this one so it wasn't extremely stressful in the planning stage, but fitting in pizza and a couple presents in between the first two sessions and cake and pie and the rest of the presents between the afternoon and priesthood sessions (add in extra people, wedding planning, Paul's 5th and 6th grade football game and an overly excited little birthday girl and it is amazing that we made it through!)

Now, owing to the fact that her birthday was during conference I am now obligated (as she sees it) to plan a final party for her and a few friends this coming Friday after school. I almost made it for Thursday after school but remembered that that is MY birthday and didn't think that I needed to ruin my day with that stress (Funny how I can't hardly remember my own birthday anymore). I can't wait until we can finally just be glad she is six and stop celebrating!

TGIF

Here is just a quick thought that I had today. I used to love Fridays. It meant fun and relaxation were on the way. Then I became a mother and all days seemed to be pretty much like any other yet Fridays were still pretty good because it meant that Paul would be spending more time at home for two days. However, now that I have four children and two of them attend school I find that I now dread Fridays. Weekends now mean two whole days of trying to get kids to do chores and get along with one another and feed all of them instead of just a few and watch them make bigger and even more messes and an even bigger dread of Monday when I have to make my sorry, exhausted self get the house back in order (and depending on the week that could take up until the next Friday when we start all over again!) I guess I really have been spoiled having my quiet Emma and my two-nap baby be the only ones with me the majority of the time. I need to learn to adjust to this new way of life. Don't get me wrong. I love my kids and I love to have them home (when they are being nice!), but I am not the best homemaker around and it is hard enough on normal days to conquer the chaos that seems to repeatedly swamp our home so it only gets worse when we are all there!!! I just think it is kind of sad that I no longer get that feeling of TGIF and I feel guilty that the causes of my stress are two little people that I deeply love. Hopefully it is mostly because school has just started and I am not used to the routine and am feeling extra tired these days since I am getting up an hour or two earlier now so I can get the kids on the bus. It is all about adjustment--I just wish I adjusted more quickly!

My Top 10 Reasons for Not Blogging in a Month!

I really don't have time to be doing this right now (we are leaving for a family reunion in a couple hours and I still have housework and a sharing time to prepare), but I have been feeling the pressure to write something so I will give a short list of the things that I have been doing that have kept me from really thinking about blogging.

1. Right after my last blog we had a family reunion for my mom's side of the family and my brother brought his family from Utah so they could bless their baby that weekend with lots of family around. The above is a picture of my youngest being held by his favorite person--my handsome husband!

2. I was in the middle of doing all those before school doctor appointments, haircuts and taking Hyrum and Hannah on special dates to get all their school gear.

3. I was swamped with housework and painting our family room (which is still only half done, by the way).


4. I had four children running around me, making messes, demanding attention, fighting, wanting to go places, eating everything in sight, etc. Above is a picture of one of the aforementioned mess-making-demanding-eating kiddos.

5. My sister came home to visit.


6. We had to celebrate my youngest daughter's 4th birthday party early so that she wouldn't feel deprived of anything since we were going to be traveling on her birthday.

7. I had to prepare my home and family for our trip to Montana this last weekend.


8. We were attending school open houses, kindergarten orientation, and getting kids to school.

9. I went on the above mentioned vacation to Montana.

10. When you live an hour away from any good shopping places running those errands and going on those dates are no small task.

Now I know that these might seem flimsy excuses to some, but they seem very rational to me. They at least have kept me busy enough and exhausted enough to have little energy left for writing something. I hope that now that we have two kids in school and one of the kids left at home plays so well by herself and the other takes two naps a day I might find a little more time to do some of the things I enjoy and finish up a few more projects.

100 Random Things About Me At 29!

This is something I have thought about doing for a long time for a scrapbook layout I was doing, but I never actually did it. Then my friend Ilene got this same idea for another friend and did it for a blog and I decided to stop procrastinating and just do it. I mean the scrapbook layout is already all made up and just waiting for my list of things and if I don't hurry I won't be 29 anymore and will have to redo the layout to read 30 (Yikes! I am getting old!). So here it goes.

1. I love to eat brownies. I just have a hard time stopping once I start.
2. I have been losing weight all year and am finally only 15 lbs. away from my goal--which is still 15-20 lbs. more than high school but I have given up on that dream (Thank goodness I am tall!)
3. I am still very in love with the first love of my life--together 15 years, married 9 years.
4. I love to reread old favorites. (Jane Austen, Anne of Green Gables, Mitford, and Harry Potter to name a few).
   
5. New books make me a little nervous because I worry about the cleanliness of the content and whether it will be emotionally demanding--I greatly prefer happy books.
6. Same goes for movies.
7. I love the color yellow.
8. I love spring and fall. I love it when the weather is cooler and the seasons are changing. Winter and Summer are more extreme, I like the moderate.
9. I like to play the piano, but am only moderate at it. I plan to improve, but that will probably not happen until my kids are older.
10. I have 4 beautiful and intelligent children.
11. I love the sound of children playing together happily and using their imaginations, creativity and talents--I just wish that that happened more around my house! : )
12. I do not like calling people on the phone. I get nervous. I am doing better at this but it is still a sort of phobia that I am working on!
13. I am rather a reserved person until I get to know someone and then I am very open and warm and rather too chatty sometimes. : )
14. I love to sing, but have low confidence in my abilities (except in my own imagination).
15. I used to think I was an intelligent person but since having children my mind seems to have shut down. This actually bothers me quite a bit. I guess that means I was a little proud or vain about my brain before, doesn't it?
16. I loved school and getting the new books at the beginning of each semester and learning.
17. I hated writing papers and tests made me so nervous. I would study for hours and hours in order to get A's.
18. I thought I would be good at homemaking and mothering until I became one.
19. I do not enjoy housework. I love the FlyLady!
20. I enjoy knitting, crocheting, embroidery, scrapbooking, etc. I guess this is why I am perfectly content to stay at home with all my quiet, solitary (and, sadly, sedentary interests).
21. I do not enjoy solitary exercise. I need a movie or a book or a friend to help me get moving.
22. I love to eat.
23. I do not love to cook
24. I love baking.
25. I like to be in the water, but putting on a bathing suit is embarrassing.
26. I can't fall asleep at night unless I read a little something.
27. I tend to rub my feet together or on something when relaxing--I guess it is soothing to me.
28. I love good photography. I would love to learn how to do it myself but don't want to spend the money on all the equipment so probably will have to just keep enjoying others work.
29. I am not a decisive person usually.
30. I don't like contention. It makes me anxious.
31. I don't usually contradict people. That doesn't mean that I agree with them, but I just keep my opinions to myself.
    
32. I love the smell of fresh baked homemade bread.
33. I love the smell of bookstores with all those new books.
34. Libraries and book stores are two of my favorite places to go.
35. I have a strong testimony of the gospel of Christ.
36. I spend large sums of money very carefully and thoughtfully. If I could just extend that carefulness to small purchases as well we would never have to struggle financially!
    
37. I can come up with great ideas for furniture placement and how to paint and paper walls in an effort to decorate my home. I am not good at deciding what pictures, curtains, knick-knacks, shelves, mirrors, etc. should go on those walls. So my home (after almost 5 years here) still looks like a work in progress.
38. I enjoy making homemade cards.
39. I want to learn how to be proficient at sewing.
40. I want to be able to get a college degree before I die.
41. I love history, but my retention of all the facts is iffy. : )
42. I only like to work outside in the spring and fall when the temperature is more bearable.
43. I love to dream up home improvement projects and get all the stuff to do these projects, but then I seem to struggle to start and completely finish said projects before jumping to another one.
44. Some of my favorite music is LDS (religious) artists, broadway, show tunes, oldies, and Primary songs.
45. I enjoy watching old movies and old TV shows.
46. I love my parents and siblings and think they are amazing and intelligent people who I look up to as examples.
47. I worry about things too much.
48. I am usually pretty good at giving people the benefit of the doubt.
49. I have a hard time saying no to people.
50. I have a big curiosity about people and their lives.
51. I like learning something new, but I am not really great about trying new things in a group of people (especially when all eyes are on me) Call it pride or vanity, but so it is.
52. I love the feeling of intense love I feel sometimes when looking at, listening to or being with my children or husband.
53. I love all of my in-laws. I do not have struggles with any of them which is a great feeling.
54. I love carbohydrates more that fruits and vegetables which makes it hard in trying to change my eating so that I can be healthier and set a good example for my children. : )
55. I am a good driver but I do not like driving much.
56. I have a hard time giving gifts because I always want to give the perfect, most useful, or most beautiful or most loved thing. I am still trying to learn the concept, "It's the thought that counts".
57. I think that I am more similar to my mom in looks and gestures and how I carry myself, but I think I am a pretty good mix of my mom's and dad's personalities--maybe even leaning a little more towards my dad.
58. I think my parents are some of the greatest people in the world and want to be like them.
59. I have not worn jewelry much and have a hard time choosing something out to accessorize with because it looks strange to me when I put it on (at least with necklaces that is) and earrings tend to hurt my ears.
60. I love video taping family life. I am a definite amateur at it but I enjoy it.
61. I love flowers. All sorts. They make me happy.
62. I love to get together and chat with my friends.
63. I tend to avoid housework and other stresses in life by escaping to another world or time reading a book. I have to fight this tendency all the time.
64. I love family get togethers.
65. I love living out in the country except for the fact that a hospital is 45 min. away. (Especially when thinking about my son with his extreme peanut allergy and asthma and when contemplating having another baby.)
66. I am not ready to have another baby quite yet. : )
67. I tend to get most angry with my husband when he is not spending much time with me. Though I also don't enjoy it when he is relaxing while I am still working--but that could go along with not spending time with me, right? : )
68. It is almost the exclusive ability of Paul and my children to make me really angry. Why is that?
69. I look back on my two years at BYU with nostalgia. Those two years meant a lot to me.
70. I love reading marriage books. Not because my marriage is in trouble. I guess I just figure it can't hurt and will probably help and they help to remind us of what we should be doing in our marriages to keep them strong.
71. I like the smell of paint and stain and finish and sanded wood and all that.
72. I love to sit around a campfire and smell the smoke and watch the flames.
73. On dates I probably most look forward to the meal because I don't have to cook it or clean it up--and I love to eat!
74. I am sentimental.
75. I love romance but, like my friend Ilene, I am usually too practical.
76. I am a private person, but am pretty open to close friends--as mentioned earlier.
77. I tend to be a little bit of a control freak about some things.
78. I love order, lists, planning, etc.
79. However, in the matter of housework my motivation is low and so the above love gets overlooked and, therefore, causes me some pain and stress.
80. I have a loving and helpful husband who helps out a lot. He should probably be the one at home since he tends to face the work more instead of avoiding it. : )
81. I am rather a perfectionist I am discovering and not sure that I like that.
82. I am looking forward to buying some new clothes in October for my birthday when, hopefully, I have reached my goal weight, or at least am very close.
83. At this time in my life I feel my best physical features are my eyes and my mouth and skin.
84. I love to look at organizational tools and products. There are so many great things out there to help improve the organization and efficiency of our homes. However, I don't usually buy any because I can't decide if it will work for me or don't want to spend the money. (Refer to #'s 29 and 36!)
85. I hate asking people to babysit my kids.
86. I have a great sense of humor and like to think that I am witty, but I am afraid that it usually happens by accident! I admire those who can witty and think creatively in a quick, spur of the moment way. I am a bit more slow--though I like to think that part of that is the death of so many brain cells due to pregnancy and child-rearing. : )
87. I am a patient person and I think that I am a kind and thoughtful person. However, I am not perfect in these areas because at home, where patience, kindness and thoughtfulness are very necessary I often fall short! : )
88. My favorite time of the day is when the kids are in bed. Isn't that awful!
89. My least favorite time of day is about 4 or 5 pm to 7 pm. By that time I have had it, I am cooking dinner (not one of my favorite things), the kids are tired and things are pretty rough.
90. When Paul is unhappy everything seems worse. Maybe that is because he always seems happy, laid back and not worried so when he is then all my worries kick into overdrive. : )
91. I struggle with the bad habit of nail biting. Sometimes I am doing well and have beautiful nails and then worry or boredom or something happens and I chew them all off. My Grandma D. says that nail biting is a sign of perfectionism.
92. I am a little embarrassed about being overly talkative, but can't seem to stop myself! Look at the length of some of these entries! : )
93. I love to hold newborn babies. There is just such a special feeling about them.
94. I am amazed at the fact that this year my son will be turning 8 years old and getting baptized and my oldest daughter will be starting Kindergarten. Where has the time gone.
95. I get so excited for my kids when they go back to school because I can still remember my own excitement in and love of going to school when I was there age and I want that experience for them.
96. I do not do well at impromptu speaking.
97. I love the Willow Tree statues and Precious Moments figurines.
98. I love Christmas. The decorations, the food, the family get togethers, the excitement in the air, the feelings of goodwill. Everything except trying to buy those gifts for everyone (see #56)!
99. Having parties at my house seems to stress me out. I guess I need to practice more so I can become a better hostess.
100. I do not like shopping. I guess it is because of my indecisiveness, not knowing if I should spend the money, crowds, etc. I am sometimes better at it than others but I can never honestly say I like it.

Well, that is me in a nutshell. I will probably think of other things that I'll wish I had written instead of others later (since my creativity is a little slow), but I have children who need attention and I still need to do my hair (it's noon!) so I will leave it how it is. Sorry if there seems to be some repeats. My mind is a little obsessed with food and weightloss and improving my homemaking and mothering skills so I kept coming back to those topics. I hope that you enjoy reading and learning (or remembering) these things about me.

Nine Years and Still Crazy About Each Other

My sweetheart and I just celebrated our 9th year of marriage together! It is amazing how fast the time has gone. I used to think that couples married for 10 years were getting so old and mature and either knowing everything about how to have a great marriage or their marriage is falling apart. Neither of those is happening to us which is maybe not so good with the former half of the sentence but great in regards to the latter half. We can't believe that we have been married that long until we count up our four children! Then we realize how much time and how many experiences of life we have gone through together. The great thing is that we are grateful for everything we have been able to go through together and that we still want to go through an eternity of experience together. Not to mention the fact that we are still so much in love after all this time (I mean, in reality we have been a couple for 15 years!) I am so glad that my first choice turned out to be such a great choice!

For our anniversary this year we spent a couple days together (alone!) in Seattle. We were married in the Seattle Temple so it was romantic to attend that temple together again. It was so nice not to have the stress of dealing with kids for a couple days and to not have the burdens of daily living to think about. To just get away from it all and focus on each other for two whole days was heavenly. It was great to realize that we are still crazy about each other and enjoy each other's company. It isn't like we never remember those things but it seems to come in a lot clearer on these anniversary trips that we take. It is so relaxing to just be the husband/wife/best friend and leave off the father/mother/provider/nurturer/homemaker/church worker/teacher, etc. It allows you to remember why you fell in love in the first place. Here are some of those reasons for me:

1. He is a kind person.

2. We can laugh together and don't take ourselves too seriously all the time.

3. He loves the gospel.

4. He loves family.

5. He is very appreciative of my strengths and verbalizes his
admiration. : )

6. He is also very forgiving of my weaknesses and is rarely critical of me. (Something I do not do so well at myself) : (

7. He is a gentleman and a gentle man.

8. He is an affectionate person.

9. He seriously finds me a beautiful and attractive person even after 4 children and definite changes in body sizes and shapes!

10. And finally, he is a very handsome man. : )

There have been many more reasons to add to the list since marriage and children but they have nothing to do with why I fell in love in the first place so we will leave it at that. He is a great man and father and I am very grateful to have found him and hopefully get to spend an eternity with him.

One sad thing is that I have hardly any pictures of him and me together since we were married. And most of that is simply because I have hated how I looked and found myself unphotographable. I am going to try hard to rectify this in the future--not that I now think I look good in pictures but it is sad to not have any pictures to record our years together. I was going to get some pictures on our anniversary trip but forgot the camera in rushing out the door. That is the reason that there is no picture of us for this blog. Maybe in the future I can post a picture of the two of us. Until then I will just post a picture of Paul since this blog is about him and his greatness! : )

Summertime Blues

It has been a long time since I last wrote. I could blame it on the fact that it is now summer and I have all four children home with me and spend a great deal of time caring for and spending time with them (which really is partly to blame). But the truth of the matter is that I just can't think of anything worth taking the time to write about (or that someone would want to take the time to read!). I do not have the talent of making seemingly small things still amusing and witty (like Ilene!) so I just keep putting it off. However, my husband and oldest son are at the ward Fathers and Sons outing and everyone else is in bed so I decided to stop procrastinating and try to compose some of the small happenings going on here in the Hansen Household. Hopefully, then, the guilty feeling I get every time I read Ilene's blog will cease for a short while.

I decided to try out an idea I found on-line for keeping the kids excited and happy about helping around the house during the summer. It is sort of like a camp, but we don't really run it like that. Basically we plan certain fun activities to do each day when the kids finish their routines and chores in the morning and give rewards for their help so that they can earn small prizes and things. The only thing that we have done to make it sort of campy is to have a way for the kids to earn a sleep out in the family room. We did it once already and the kids loved it so that now I just have to remind them that they are trying to earn another fun night of games, stories, treats and movies in the family room and they shape right up and pitch in. This last week we were really busy spending time with family so things started to fall apart with all of our running around and Hannah said that we needed to get the house picked up so we could get it back to feeling like it did last week. It was nice to know that they could tell the difference and wanted to have the other type of home. I mean, it is hard to tell that your kids don't like living like pigs when they throw their garbage on the ground as nonchalantly as we throw ours in the garbage can, refuse to change out of their favorite clothes even when they are filthy, regularly trash their rooms (in a short amount of time) so that you can barely glimpse the floor, etc. You get the idea. It was just nice to know that they could feel a difference in the atmosphere of our home when things were more orderly and we were spending more time together. I found the time spent together helped me to appreciate the great kids I have rather than viewing them as mess makers and loud voices full of whining and demands. I am actually enjoying my kids more now. That was not something I was expecting from spending MORE time together. Before I always found that I needed to get away from them for a couple hours in order to enjoy that feeling!

However, talking about the camp out in the family room reminds me of the utter chaos we had that night. I had decided that we would just roast hot dogs and marshmallows over the grill to keep with the whole camp theme and was looking forward to this easy to prepare and clean-up meal. Well, I realized that we didn't have any hot dogs and so needed to go and get some. Paul was busy re-roofing our house that week and ran out of materials and so needed to run into Tri-Cities (45 or so min. away) and get more supplies, but he would be late getting home. Well, I thought that eating later would be okay since we were letting the kids stay up late and party anyway so I asked him to just get the few things we needed while he was in town so that I wouldn't have to load everyone up and go into Mattawa (where you pay an arm and a leg to get anything). He called up when he was at the store to get a refresher of what he was supposed to get so everything I felt that everything was going well . . . until he came home without the hot dogs! Luckily we had three ratty old hot dogs that I figured wouldn't kill anyone to eat so the kids could roast those and I could cook a few hamburgers to make up the difference. I turn on the grill and throw on the hamburgers and then I leave to go round up the crew who were all very busy and seemed as though they couldn't care less about food. I go back to flip the hamburgers and find that our grill had run out of propane! So now I drag everything back into the house to cook it. I throw the burgers on a frying pan and turn it on high so that I can cook everything fast (I mean Paul didn't get home until after 6 and I was trying to hurry here.) I run out to tell Paul that everything should be ready soon and to please bring in the kids. I get distracted, however, because Paul had just crashed his remote control airplane into the corn field by our house and wanted to tell me about it. We are talking for a while and then I remember the hamburgers and realize the noise that I have been hearing in the distance is the fire alarms going off in our house! I tell Paul to round up the kids and dash into the house to find charcoal burgers and a kitchen thick with smoke. So now I am rushing around opening windows and trying to get the alarms to turn off! I tell you, this simple meal just wore me out! Everything went pretty smoothly after that but I had no energy to present the meal in a nice or attractive way and I couldn't really get into a campy spirit cooking hot dogs and marshmallows over the stove in our kitchen so the meal was much more low key than originally planned. However, the rest of the night went smoothly and was lots of fun except for story time which took almost an hour to read 3 stories because each kid seemed to want to comment or ask a question after what seemed like every sentence! Needless to say, the kids didn't get into their sleeping bags with a movie playing until 10 o'clock. Next time I am not mixing dinner and camping out. It is too stressful to have such simple fun!

Other than that there really hasn't been anything happening and all my thoughts seem to be focused on the house and kids activities which leaves me feeling pretty low on the blogging ideas. I feel kind of in a whirl some days. Yesterday and last night provided some excitement in the form of a near drowning of my baby and an attack of croup in my oldest daughter, but I think I will save those stories for another blog. This one is already long and boring enough. It is only ten but my brain feels like it shut off around 2 or 3 this afternoon so I apologize for the non-creativity of it. Maybe I can make the drowning sound really dramatic when I blog about it. Don't hold your breath though. I never think that it is going to be long between blogs and then I realize that weeks have gone by and I haven't done a thing. But due to having all four kids at home I definitely make no promises for better behavior in the future!



This has nothing to do with any of the things I just wrote about but it is one of my new favorite pictures and I just wanted to share. My little Mozart-in-the-Making!

Wal-Mart trip from *@!?

Today I took my baby to the doctor and found out that he is wasting away! At 10 months he weighs only 25 lbs. 9 oz.! He has now gone down from the 97th percentile for weight and is now matching his height in the 90th percentile. : ) But this blog is not about Joshua. I want to rant a little about the time spent at Wal-Mart after the doctor. Living an hour away from any good shopping we take what we can get. In Othello, where our doctor is, there is just a Wal-Mart so that is of course where we headed to run our errands. However, this trip to Wal-Mart was one of the worst that I can remember.

I had the girls and Joshua with me and Emma spent half the time whining and crying, Hannah spent half the time telling me all the things she wanted to buy and sulking because I wouldn't let her (and complaining about how it wasn't fair that Daddy and I got to buy whatever we wanted but they never got what they wanted! If she only knew!!!), and Joshua had had it and needed a nap and bottle. I went into the store before feeding him because I wanted to get him a new nipple for his bottle first and I was only going to be in there for 1/2 an hour. I should learn by now that when you add children into the mix you are never going to get in and out of anywhere in the time you normally would. We did not leave Wal-Mart for an hour and a half and half an hour of that was spent in checking out.

Shopping of course takes longer when you have everyone constantly fighting over who gets to push the cart and who gets to ride where in the cart (and there are never enough spaces for all my children). And then of course I have so many helpful little shoppers that I have to keep curbing and replacing all of there "purchases". And of course Joshua does not want to be anywhere except in my arms and in case you didn't catch this earlier, he is 25 lbs.! I cannot do a lot of carrying and cart pushing and supervising without becoming quite stressed. However, with a lot of maneuvering of children and keeping a strong curb on my temper we make it to the checkout stand and the real torture began.

My first problem was that I got in an extremely slow line (not that there were many choices). My second problem was that when I finally got everything unloaded I found that we had lost the tag for the fabric we were buying. The register would not accept a typed in price so when we finally got everything rung up and paid for (try writing a check and holding a fussy 10 month old at the same time--NOT FUN) I had to go back to the craft section of the store and get a new price tag and then go back and pay for that. Imagine to yourself the great time I am having. I saw one Self-Check register empty so I thought I would just go there since I only had one item and was paying with cash. This turned into a big mistake. Hannah wanted to help and accidentally rang it up twice so then we had to wait for someone to come and help us and, of course, there was no one around to do that! I finally caught someone's attention after 5 min. and could pay but found that I was short just one penny in cash so had to dig out my debit card to pay and then the receipt wouldn't print!

All of this is frustrating enough but keep in mind that I had a crying baby who didn't want to be put down and a 3 year old who kept up a running whine/cry of wanting to be in the cart (which was full!) and wanting to leave and being tired of standing, etc.; and you can see why I was wound up like a tight spring. I still have not really come completely unwound and we have been home for many hours.

To make the perfect end to my horrible day in town we went to the KFC drive-thru for lunch. I thought everything would be good since I was able to avoid having another lunch at McDonald's (my children's food of choice). However, as we are driving down the road I reach for the mashed potatoes and gravy, which was all that I ordered and realized that they neglected to give us any spoons!!!!!!!!! I thought I would have to continue starving until I got home, but I decided to be creative. I dug around in our diaper bag (of course we were pulled over, what do you think!) and found a tube of Baby Orajel. I used the bottom edge of this as a scoop to shovel those potatoes in. Of course I spilled a bit on myself but I didn't care since we were just going home and I could change (or not!), but I just couldn't help thinking that this just put the icing on my terrible day cake!

I need bedtime so I can stop dealing with kids and messes and just relax. Hopefully then I will be okay! Sorry for this unloading but I really just needed to vent and Paul only now walked in the door. Life really is not that bad around here, it has just been a rather stressful day. I will write again when I feel better so that you will not worry about my sanity! : )

Fishing Tradition

I cannot tell you how much I love these pictures. They were taken on our yearly fishing trip with my Grandma Jean and Grandpa Ted. It was Joshua's first time and I didn't think that he would like the wind blowing in his face when we were driving the boat to our fishing spot, but he loved it! And when we moved him up to help Grandpa Ted "drive" the boat it was the cutest thing. Doesn't he look like a competent little boat driver in the first one and a crazy baby driver in the second? Just had to share these photos.

I love this tradition of going fishing and my children do to. Not that I actually fish anymore. I am the historian. I need to man the cameras and take a ton of still shots and video footage so we can always remember these fun times. I don't mind doing this since it isn't the fishing that makes me love these little trips. The fun of visiting and relaxing as a family and having this time with my grandparents is so wonderful. And I must admit that all the snacks and candy and drinks that my grandma provides for us on the boat doesn't hurt any either! : )

Funny Face

(Taken when we were fishing with my grandparents. He loved the feel of the wind in his hair as we took the boat to the fishing spot. None of my other kids were too thrilled with the windy boat rides until they were older. He is such a happy baby)

I love this face that my youngest does--all the time. I think he is going to turn into a little clown. He shows all eight of his little teeth and wrinkles up his nose and heavily breathes in and out. He loves it when people laugh at him when he does it or mimic him. It is ugly and cute all at the same time. It makes me think of that song "My Funny Valentine" :

My funny valentine.
Sweet, comic valentine.
You make me smile with my heart.
Your looks are laughable,
Un-photograph-able.
But you're my favorite work of art.

I am amazed so often when I look at him and see this pale little blue-eyed, blond haired baby. With Paul's and my darker coloring and all of the other kids being brown-eyed and darker haired it really looks like he was switched in the hospital. However, there were no other boys born that day so we know that that didn't happen. Paul calls him our recessive gene baby. I call him our miracle. Not because there was anything miraculous about his birth or anything but because I never expected to get that coloring. I love it!

He is now just shy of 10 months old and is only army crawling. However, knowing that it is not a bed of roses to have a mobile child we are not complaining. But I can see that he is frustrated in not being able to move around. My girls were both almost a year before they crawled and they have turned out normal and intelligent so I am not concerned. He is such a nice squishy baby. He is going to have to build up enough muscle to haul that body of his around before he can get too much more mobile.

Some nicknames that we have for him are Joshie, Blue Eyes, Fatty-Fatty Fatterson (compliments of Aunt Erin!), Chubs, Angel Boy, and Joshie-Poo. We are all crazy about him and are so glad he is ours.

Riding around in the girls' doll stroller. He almost didn't even fit in it, but he had a great time.

Imagination

I love to watch and listen to my kids when they are using their imaginations. Sometimes you get to hear fun little romantic dramas from the girls' Polly Pockets, barbies and princess dolls as they discuss love and marriage. Or you get to hear about the grave peril other toys are in (such as when Hyrum plays with his animals. They are always running away from something so they won't get eaten and falling off of cliffs and things.) And I love it when they are "reading" books. They look at the pictures and make up their own stories if it is a new book or they try to retell it through memory if it is one that I have read to them. It is the sweetest thing.

I am not so sure I enjoy listening to them playing "house", however, because the mom and dad always sound so demanding and downright mean. I can pretend that it is all learned from the TV shows and movies they watch, which might be true to some extent, but I know that a lot of the phrases they use come out of my own mouth. Of course, they don't seem that awful when I am saying them (and we do have to allow for artistic license and all that), but it sure makes you think about how your kids are interpreting everything you say and do!

I didn't really mean to go off on a tangent like that. I was mainly writing this so I could share some pictures of my girls in some of their "imaginations". SO . . . drum roll please . . . here they are!





This is Hannah and Emma playing "At the Ball". Hannah wanted to be a princess dancing with a prince at a ball. There is nothing like a willing little sister to supply the want of the real thing. They came up with the "prince's" costume on their own. She is wearing her big brother's sunday pants (rolled up) and shirt with her own Sunday shoes and a cape (every prince needs a cape!). To top it all off she is wearing one of the girls' knitted caps with a crown on top. It was too adorable! They even had the correct dance position, but as the dance continued it turned into more of a headlock! It was one of those, "I love being a mother!", moments.




This is Emma in another of her get-ups! She is playing with her Polly Pockets which she LOVES. She and Hannah had created a whole house outside with tons of dolls, books, flowers, baskets, toys, etc. They had a great time and the house was quiet so Joshua had a great nap so I had a great time. Bringing it all in and cleaning it up was not so much fun, but that is the price we must pay sometimes.




Hannah loves having a brother who will dress up with her again. Not that Joshua had much of a say in the whole process, but looking at his face I think it is obvious that he didn't have any objections. He really was just too cute!


I wish that I had a picture of Hyrum using his imagination but now that he is a big school boy we don't have as many photo opportunities. Plus, now that he is older he is more into organizing and list making and managing made up parties, dinners and activities. He is not your typical boy in some ways (not big on super heroes and sports), but he is very loveable with his seriousness, love for animals and his love for reading (especially anything about animals!)

I LOVE MY KIDS!!!!!

Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde!

Our house is a little more peaceful than it was this morning. You may not believe it but our sweet boy, Hyrum, was putting up a big stink all morning. I know, it is strange. It all started with his scooter. He wants to keep it in the house (when he remembers to bring it in). I want it outside. Today I decided to make it a rule that it should stay outside. I didn't think it would be a big issue because we were dealing with Hryum and not Hannah and he already left it outside a lot of the time. But since I decided that it now HAD to stay outside he was not going to let that happen. I told him that he could choose to leave it right up next to the house by the 4-wheeler or he could put it in either side of the shed. If he still wanted to fight about it I would lock it up until tomorrow. I gave him 15-20 min. to get over the sulk and make a wise choice but he refused. So I had to take it away and lock it up. However, I first had to take him outside and lock him out of the house because he was putting up such a fight! After that I let him back in and told them all that it was time to pick up the family room. He refused and just sat there on the couch. I talked the girls into cleaning without him by talking up the whole service bit. You know, we are going to serve our family by cleaning this room and especially Hyrum by cleaning up his stuff for him even when he was acting like this. I was surprised that it worked, but Hannah was in a very giving and righteous mood so it did. However, Hyrum tried to make things harder for us by throwing the stuff on the couch onto our cleaned off floor and pulling out everything under the couch. This was not in the attitude of helping us to do a good job, however, but just to make us work harder. Paul told me to tell him that we would lock him in his room if he was going to continue to hinder us in our efforts or be disrespectful. For a while he left us alone, but when we went to clean the girls room he shut the door on us and held it closed so the girls couldn't get out to put things away! So, he was locked up. After banging on walls to get attention he decided to beat on his door. After a few loud crashes and such from things being thrown or banged on the door I went in there and there were some holes in his door and pieces of the molding around the door and frame were laying on the ground along with the vent that is over his door! I therefore told him that he would now have to stay in there until his dad came home (about 1/2 an hour). Actually the vent fell off after I told him this in one of his other fits. I kept telling the girls to ignore him, but their way of ignoring him was to tell him that "mom said to ignore you!" Or "we can't talk to you right now" They just had to say something! Hannah is a little mother and trying to point out just where he was wrong and repeating all the things I had told him and also to point out the ways that she had made the right choice ( i.e. that she left her bike outside or in the shed when we told her to without making a fuss.) You can imagine how this was appreciated by her brother. Paul came home finally and spanked him and locked him in the room again! But before you turn us over to Social Services or whatever, we told him he could come out when he stopped making a fuss and could be good for five minutes. So about 7-10 min. later he was finally a free man again. Anyway, I am glad that he seems to have recovered and that he is now playing nicely with everyone. His dad told him to come and ask me if there was anything that he could do to help me and he did it in the nicest way. My sweet boy was back! I don't know if I am tough enough for this mothering gig!

Random Thoughts

I have been avoiding writing ever since I started this blog since I feel paralyzed by not having the perfect thing to expound about and the perfect way to express it. I am a much better reader than writer, but I figure that there is no point of having a blog if you never use it. So, I am going to just ramble a little bit this time and see if after a few more blogs my perfectionism will die down and this will get easier!

I was thinking as I washed the dishes this evening that I love my kids. Not that I have never come to this realization before, but today I was able to enjoy them a little bit more and the fights were minimal so I could really feel a lot of happiness when contemplating them and some of their cute, sweet ways. I think I will record a few of these now so that I can remember them.

First I thought about my youngest daughter. She is 3 and we are still trying to get the whole using the toilet thing into her head. Well, this Sunday at church she decided that she wanted to use the toilet so my husband took her to the bathroom. She came back all proud for having accomplished this and pleasing mom and dad. At the end of Primary she was at the front waiting to give the closing prayer and the Primary President was talking to the kids about not getting up and down so much to use the bathroom and get drinks. Well, Emma went around the podium up to our Primary President and informed the whole primary that "I went to the bathroom." She was so proud. I hope that she didn't realize all the chuckling was from what she said.

Also, that same day, my oldest son told the whole primary that as a way that he would follow the Savior's example would be to "not hide when he was supposed to be cleaning" Now I thought that was so cute, but it would be even better if I believed that it was actually going to happen. At least I can now always bring that up when he hides and maybe his better nature will exert itself!

My daughter Hannah was in her Primary class and they were learning about the Word of Wisdom. Her teacher explained that candy wasn't that good for us but that we could eat a little bit each day and it wouldn't hurt us. Hannah gave the closing prayer in her class and told Heavenly Father that they would try to eat one piece of candy every day! She is also getting ready to go to Kindergarten next year and I took her to get her Kindergarten shots yesterday. My mom had promised to give her a dollar for every time she got a shot and didn't cry. It was great! I never had a kid so excited to get shots before. The doctor was running late and she kept asking me when it was going to be her turn. In the examining room she would keep looking over at me and whispering or mouthing "I am being so brave." It was too cute. She figured that 4 shots would be perfect because combined with the finger prick that she had earlier that would be five dollars! Well, she got her wish. 4 shots! And she was very brave. She had a little break down just before her fourth shot--said she was too hot and that made her too uncomfortable--but she quickly pulled herself together and got that last shot with no more fuss.

And there are so many other great stories that I prize, but I won't bore any one with more right now. I know that mothers find their children a lot more entertaining and sweet than anyone else can.

This last week we went to Utah for the week to go to my brother's graduation. That is a big part of the reason that I haven't written before now. Trying to pack a small minivan with the stuff that would be needed for 6 people to stay away from home for one week and all the necessary snacking and entertaining things we would need for such a long trip was a little overwhelming at first, but we managed to do it and even made it there and back without wanting to lock ourselves in our rooms and pretend to be alone when we got back. I think that it really helped to break the journey up into two stages and have a halfway point. Thanks again to Stephen and Jen if you ever read this! It was a great vacation and we got to see so many family members and friends that we haven't seen in a while. We were so glad that we went. A side note: Paul and I read the Five Love Languages on the way there and absolutely loved it. I recommend it to anyone who hasn't read it.

Friends are marvelous creatures. I was able to see one of my old roomies from BYU days while in Utah and it was still so easy to talk to her and be with her. That is what I think makes good friends--the ones that are going to be your friends your whole lives. And then when I got back I saw my friend Ashley and she told me she had missed me when I was gone! It feels so good to have friends. I would go and list all those that I count as true friends but I would be sure to overlook someone so I won't attempt it. I don't know what I would do without friends. To be able to get together and visit or chat on the phone or receive an e-mail or letter can just brighten the whole day for you, especially if your day consists of cooking food that no one seems to like and cleaning up messes that will never stay clean and trying to solve problems and fights for rather irrational small children and dealing with a fussy baby and not really be able to have a lot of adult conversation because your husband is gone or when he is home he doesn't really want to talk about everything and . . . you get the idea. We need friends.

Well I think that is enough random (and possibly very boring) thoughts for now. In summary: My kids are ADORABLE (don't you forget it!), Long trips with your family don't necessarily have to turn out badly, and Friends help keep the smiles on our faces. Tune in next time for more amazingly boring thoughts from Amazing Mommy! : )

The Adventures Begin!

O. K. Ilene. I am now the official owner of my own blog site and had the great fun in creating my name and profile and template and all that. Now I am faced with the awful fact that I have nothing to say. I am afraid that this blogging will not only be full of my "dumb thoughts" but will be extremely boring!

It is, however, almost my bedtime so that may account for my writer's block--it does not help with the fact that I have a hard time writing entertainingly, but I figured that any friends who choose to read this will be kind enough to keep their yawns to themselves! I will probably mostly just be recording the cute and frustrating things that my family does with maybe a glimmer of original and sparkling thought now and then. I guess I would relax about the whole thing if I just wrote for myself and didn't worry about who else will read it and what they may think of me as a result, right? So let the "adventures" begin.

I don't have much to say at this point. I did a great job of getting the house presentable by 11 am and was able to enjoy a nice long visit with a friend, but somehow between then and bedtime (actually it was more like between 5 pm and 7 pm) something happened. I think the three older kids let a tornado have free reign in our house while I dealt with a fussy baby. I sent them all off to bed with a lot of cranky words in their ears. Needless to say I am not feeling much like Amazing Mommy this evening! Thank goodness there is always a new day "with no mistakes in it--yet."

I need to go sweep up the cheerios scattered all over my kitchen floor and straighten up the kitchen at least before bed. I will be scouting around in my brain really hard for a good idea for a blog, but don't get too excited. My brain hasn't been functioning at top level for many years now!