48 Hours

I decided to document our weekend in pictures.

FRIDAY
The weekend started off with 7 pm extended family fun night doing this:

SATURDAY

9 am Rick to the church, no picture.

10 am Everyone to Connor's first this:

11 am Rick to Blue & Gold Banquet:

While we did a lot of:

2:30 pm Brayden & Maddie off to a piano festival competition. Maddie has been playing for 1 year and Brayden for 1 1/2 years. They each played two songs with Maddie scoring 97/100 and Brayden 100/100, both superiors! Snippets:

3:15 pm A quick stop here:

...since 3 kids and 7 pairs of pants suddenly have holes in the knees--how does this happen all at once?

4:15 pm Tracy to here:

Then Rick to here:

While Maddie did this:

To get ready for 6 pm this:

Off they go for dinner & dancing:

Meanwhile at home, this tasty dinner:


And more of this:


Onto Tracy prepping for choir:

Which turned into discovering this:

And inspiring this: Ole!


And finally, this clean & peaceful sight:

Time for Rick to prep his lesson:

While Tracy did this:

Finally, lights out...when we were good and ready.

SUNDAY

9:15 am Off to here early:

To practice this with the choir:


10 am -1 pm Church meetings complete with Fisher's weekly this:

...but rallying to have his most successful day yet!

Home for an hour, then back to church for more of this:

Immediately followed by this:


5 pm...everyone home and ready to:


Sigh. And make dinner.

7 pm What we completely overlooked:

Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting

Oops.

We heard it was excellent, but I have to say by Sunday night, ignorance was bliss.

Blog Envy

I've become somewhat addicted to blogging. I think because it's a journal of sorts. I used to be an AWESOME journaler, then I...wasn't anymore. I think blogging fills that itch for me. I also love reading the blogs of people I know. It makes me feel connected. I've noticed lately that my friends & family's blogs have increasingly huge lists of links to people they know with blogs. Seriously, they need to scroll down their screens to see their whole list. It makes me jealous. The list of people I know with blogs is nothing like that. Maybe that's a good thing, so I don't spend all day reading blogs. Even so, may I make a blanket suggestion that you who read my blog, who don't yourselves have a blog, consider starting a blog of your own so my list of fellow bloggers can be longer. What better reason? Blogging is surprisingly simple--well, some blogs aren't simple at all, but yours' can be--and it really doesn't take much time, unless you type it with one hand while bottle-feeding a baby in the other, like I'm doing now. You wouldn't necessarily have to do that. Unless you like multi-tasking. Anyway, start a blog!! C'mon, everyone's doing it...you know you want to.

P.S. stlouisnative? is that you emily? if not, then who?

Stumped

You know when you need to find a rarely used, somewhat important item in your house that you deliberately put away in a specific place so you'd remember exactly where it is next time you need it, so you look in the place it SHOULD be, that you are CERTAIN said item is, only to find it NOT in the logical place, so suddenly you're at a total and complete loss at the TRUE whereabouts of said item because if it isn't where it should be, it could be anywhere, therefore nowhere, and it becomes an all-encompassing task to locate said item and in your haste to do so, you end up with multiple scenes like this


scattered throughout various zones of your home that you must get back to later regardless of your search ending positively or not?????

Now you know what I've been up to. After days of wracking my brain, tearing through every possible location, and throwing my hands in the air about the whereabouts of our latest mystery item that I so smartly tucked away last time I had it, I miraculously stumbled upon it!! WAHOO! It was not at all near where this picture was taken and naturally, somewhere stupid that should have occured to me days ago to look, but whatever, I FOUND IT!! The end of this particular search came at about 1:30 am last night...and now I'm cleaning up. What a relief. Only one question remains, WHAT IS ALL THIS STUFF and why do I have it? That was two questions, but you get the point.

11 Minutes

I am going a little bit berserk, a little more each day. The reason for my berserkness is the little voice on the baby monitor that piped up just now, just as I was digging into the clutter-fest that has become our desk, telling me he's awake and ready for my attention. As sweet as this little voice is, it would be much sweeter if I didn't hear it precisely 0-10 minutes after I have laid another sweet, slightly older voice down to nap. To really drive home the berserkness, voice #1 is ready to go back to sleep approximately when voice #2 is calling "MOmmeee" and banging on his wall. This is usually about a 1/2 hour before voices #4, and #5 come home from school. Voice #3 is the wildcard in the equation and either "rests" at the same time as voice #2 or preschools. On the off chance that voice #1 is ready to go back down to nap before voice #2 wakes up, I inevitably need to pull both said voices out of nap to pick up voice #3, and then voices #4 and #5. I guess "getting a moment's rest" at my house these days literally means one moment. Speaking of, 2 minutes later, voice #1's sweet little fuss has evolved into a fully awake cry, so that's my cue! What a nice 11 minutes I've had all to myself.

Timing is Everything

I came across this picture and had to share it. It was taken 3 years ago at Disneyland. The kids had been playing in those random water shooting fountains and we were rounding them up to take a sopping wet picture. Two-year old Connor hadn't been the least bit interested in getting wet and had somehow, miraculously dodged every single fountain the entire time we'd been there. All the kids were gathered and waiting, except for Connor, who Rick chased down and stuck in line with the rest. This is what happened the exact second I snapped the picture:

He flipped out.

Where I Am

On Wednesday, Rick & I had the chance to spend the day in the temple, something we've only done once before. We called it an early Valentine date since getting kid-coverage to be alone once in a month is an enormous luxury--twice just isn't realistic. It was a wonderfully peaceful day and a refreshing break from our regular routine. It being Brayden's birthday that day, I found myself thinking about him and each of our individual kids. On February 13th exactly one year ago we made the surprising discovery that we were expecting a fifth baby. I was distressed, overwhelmed, heartbroken for my little 9-month old, and fearful of another pregnancy. I grappled for months and months with what I knew was a blessing coming to us and I remember telling myself it'll just be what it is and it'll be fine. Of course, this has proven true and it is fine. Sure, I'm generally exhausted and more fragmented than I've ever felt before, but it's great even. As I was thinking of all this this February 13th, my eyes were filled with very different tears, of gladness and fulness. For whatever reason, I have landed here--as a mother to five--and I can't think of anything more worth doing. I simply felt incredibly blessed to be exactly where I am.

Tasty Bits

Love it, LisaO. How awesome is it that not only am I mint chocolate chip ice cream, but it's also my favorite flavor to EAT! I've always felt a deeper satisfaction while eating it than mere flavor. And I do have tasty bits of flirtiness...

Maddie of the Sky

Maddie just finished a big project on Amelia Earhart that involved a report, presentation and wax museum. This is a fun 3rd grade tradition at the kids' school. They all pose seriously, then spring to life to explain themselves when someone pushes the button on their hand. She's had fun learning about this interesting woman and dressing up like her. Too bad we couldn't take a day trip for her research to the National Air & Space Museum in Washington D.C.! Here she is getting ready for the wax museum:

She's a girl after my own heart since I did my 9th grade history fair project on Amelia too. She did great! I should also report that Brayden is heading to the Regional History Fair! He is pretty excited, especially after having to miss the actual history fair! Ironically enough, my Amelia Earhart project went all the way to the state competition, the day of which I had a terrible flu. The flu version of me knocked my presentation score down 2 points--2 points that kept me out of nationals. Sad! It was the first of many "character building" experiences of my youth, right Mom? Oh wait, I just remembered the speech festival debacle of 7th grade. But I digress. I find it funny that we've had Brayden's [much less traumatic] version of history fair sickness and Maddie researching Amelia Earhart all in the same 2 weeks. Aren't I a little young for my life to come full circle?

Go school kids!!

Tagged: Togetherness

Six things Rick & I like to do together, in no particular order:

1. Watch King of Queens. We just discovered this show a few weeks ago and it makes us LAUGH. Still laughing about them getting lost in the mountains last night and Doug going "a little overboard." (Is that you crying? ...No.)

2. Go to dinner with no kids. Any restaurant, just as long as we can take our time. These days Logan is tagging along, but he tries to be quiet. Someday it'll be just the 2 of us again.

3. Go to the temple with no kids. Gets us back to the basics and always triggers great conversation. Reminds us that we're great together.

4. Go to movies WITH our kids. There's something great about looking at everyone lined up down the row and us smiling about it to each other.

5. Talk on the phone in the middle of the day. Cue phone ringing "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" from all of his numbers.

6. Hang out with great friends. We have the BEST friends from coast to coast. We are a better couple after being with our dear friends.

7. Play games. I always win with my street smarts. We used to like doing puzzles together but I don't know what happened to that. Maybe kids happened. Or maybe I stole his thunder one too many times by inadvertently finding the exact piece he'd been looking for for 10 minutes, and he put the kibosh on them. (Is that how you write kibosh?)

8. Go on trips. Just us or as a family, we try to do both. We love weekend getaways and we love roadtrips. We like getting new music for every trip. We're excited about our first cruise in April and northern California in July! Sigh...it's only February.

9. Go on drives a.k.a. Get the family out of the house. Maybe me more than Rick--he likes to have a destination and I like to have a journey. I also like having everyone consolodated in the car. Rick humoring me has evolved to him actually enjoying it too. I think.

10. Laugh. It doesn't matter at what, but I love hearing Rick laugh. He probably likes me laughing too because it means I'm not grumpy.

11. Sit. Usually on the couch after the kids are in bed and the house is straightened for the last time that day. Sometimes we treat ourselves to DoubleStufs and milk. Mmm. We've learned to pace ourselves with the cookies, though, because if we let them, they can get the best of us. We do love the DoubleStufs.

Well, that was more than six, but I was on a roll. Now I'll publish this, think of many more and feel like I've done my marriage a disservice by not thinking of them sooner. Tag, you're it.

New Friends

Okay, the mold was just too gross to leave as our top story. And YES YES YES, my kids assured me they washed their hands. That was my first question. They also assured me that no one tried to taste it, nor did they store the new pizza in the gross pizza container. They thought I was crazy for asking those questions, but come on.

To change the subject in a fascinating way, I'll introduce you to this guy:

He is a humidifier. Our old humidifier stopped humidifying, so I picked up two of these animal kinds. (The other one is a frog.) Upon meeting the penguin at its bedtime debut, Connor, not surprisingly, wanted to name him and asked me if Barry is a real name. So, meet our newest friend, Barry the Penguin.

Then he told me he changed his name to Bat-Connor. This would be less random if he were into Batman at all. I am mourning because suddenly my funny little Connor has his first loose tooth. Contrary to my enthusiasm on the outside when he showed me, I shed a single tear on the inside. He's growing up. Plus--as adorable as the cute, missing teeth smile is that comes next, it's always a bit alarming to see it replaced with the transitional snaggle-tooth smile and later, the teeth-too-big-for-my-mouth smile. Sure, they grow back into their teeth, but it's the end of an era. Again. Our orthodonist is going to be our BFF.

(Rick--BFF means best friend forever.)

Home Alone

Ever wonder what your kids are up to when you're not home? Well, Rick & I (& Logan) learned one answer to that question when we came home the other night to multiple video clips on the camera like this:

So... MOLD was what happened while we were gone. I'm glad they made a video as proof since I'm sure we couldn't have imagined such a thing coming from our very own fridge. Incidentally, we had to rush home early that night after our friends got a "so & so cut his head open and it's bleeding all over" call. Yep, we were pretty content to be greeted with videos of mold.