You will be missed

Tom woke me up at 11 o'clock last night to tell me that our beloved Prophet had died. I knew this day was coming but I honestly didn't believe him. How do you know? My dad told me. How does he know? The missionaries told him. He has been the one prophet that I have really really known. I think deep down I didn't want to believe him. I certainly didn't sleep well after that. Between needing to go to the bathroom, blowing my nose, thinking about the Prophet, thinking about Primary, needless to say I watched the clock tick by several hours. Can you imagine the reuniting with his sweet wife? This man has been such a part of our lives for so long that we know him even though we didn't know him. You will be dearly missed President Hinkley. Thank you for encouraging me to be a better person. Thank you for loving us all. Thank you for your influence throughout all these years. We are so happy for you and your sweet homecoming. But you will certainly be missed.

A new goal

Yesterday my blog was all about me. Yeah thats fine from time to time. However I felt like such a heel last night and the first thing that I thought was maybe you could have known if you had not been so focused on yourself lately. I went to church to have a Primary meeting. It was a good meeting and we accomplished a lot. Then I asked my secretary if she would do something that we needed to get done. She asked how long she had to get it done in. That should have been my first clue. But nooooo I didn't listen. So I just said well just whenever you can get it done but the sooner would be better. So she proceeded to say that the reason she asks that is........ And she talked about how she is working her butt off trying to get her temple blessings restored and how Satan is doing everything he can to try and stop her. She is physically exhausted because she is doing everything she can to keep her family and her dads business afloat. The only thing she doesn't do is stable the cabinets together. Everything else, staining cabinets, measuring for cabinets, book keeping, payroll. Everything. So this is my main point. I have a talent for picking up peoples struggles and sensing that something might be wrong. I didn't with her and I feel absolutely horrible. Life has been all about ME, that I couldn't see past that. It reminds me of my sister whom I needed badly when my 3rd baby was in the nicu. The spirit told her go see your sister and guess what she did? She listened and I really needed it at the time. I haven't been listening well to the spirit obviously. This is not just with this instance. I have done this since we moved here. For some reason I have made excuses for getting close to people(I think because they are all so screwed up). Oh I am tired, or I am so busy, or if I call her I will be on the phone for days because they love to chat. People need people and I have not been there for people lately. That is an embarrassing thing to admit. This is my new goal. To pay attention to people again and listen when the spirit may be trying to pierce through all the other thoughts that I may be having at the time.

I'm alive

I wanted to sit down and write something really profound but all I could think about was me. Life seems to be more about me lately. I am not as young as I use to be. Therefore being pregnant when I am not as young as I use to be is getting harder. I am now officially to the point where I can say I am tired of being pregnant. I had hoped it would last a little longer but I think that I am ready to have this baby on the outside more than I want him/her on the inside. All I can focus on while trying to come up with something clever to say is how bad my hips are throbbing. How for 3 nights in a row I wake up to go pee and then can't get back to sleep usually at all. So I am loosing several hours of sleep a night. I know I know, this is just preparing me for the baby, it still doesn't make it any easier. After I talked about how not so big I felt at Stake Conference and how everyone was commenting, I officially have blossomed and feel actually quite bigger than with any of my other kids.
I asked Tom if he thought I am bigger than with the other kids. He didn't want to comment but did say are you asking me to recall your measurements from previous kids. That is a very sly way of avoiding the question. So officially I must be a barge. I still feel beautiful though. As big as I feel, being pregnant is just beautiful. I never have to worry about my "pooch" because for once it is suppose to look like that. The only thing that is keeping me from going crazy is that I still have painting to do and a car seat to buy which is proving harder than ever. I can't find one that I like that has a good price on it. I do feel like so many things that should be taken care of will not be done by the time baby is born. And I am sure all will be just fine. At least I am alive and the Lord has seen fit to bless our family with another little one. That truly is a blessed thing!!! (This was the best I could do on my own, I will have to have Tom take official ones later and for those wondering I have 6 weeks left to go )

Wrong side of the bed

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. There are several reasons for it. One could be that I dreamt that Emma almost died and I remember praying in my dream to not take her but take the baby in my tummy because I couldn't bear "watching" my child die. But if this little one died I wouldn't have to watch it happen. How sick and twisted it that?? It is embarrassing saying it out loud. Then as I lay there(not daring to close my eyes for fear of seeing that scene again) Emma and Sarah came in the room and said that Matthew peed in the bed. So I told them to hop on the top bunk and go back to sleep. This was about 5 am. Sarah has to get up for school at 6 am. They never went back to sleep. They lay there talking and making noise. That is enough to drive someone batty. Not the fact that I was awake but the fact that the house was suppose to be perfectly quiet at 5 am and it wasn't. So this is my attempt at changing my day for the better. Here is a question for ya(I do expect answers) Why did you decide to become a mom? I think that the answer is probably the same for so many of us. Me? Well it was always something that I wanted to do. I had always hoped that I would have a family instead of having to go to school for something. Being mom is so hard sometimes. YOu have such heartache at times. But then again you can look at the total opposite way.









If I never had kids I would never have seen my child want to please Heavenly Father so much that every day they ask mom, would this make him happy? She even asked if Heavenly Father would be sad that I poured soda out on the grass. How cute is that?
If I never had kids then I would not have learned to be as patient as I am now(I may not have massive amounts of patience but you should have seen me with #1 kid)
If I never had kids I would miss out on the gut wrenching laughter created by one brother watching another brother throw cereal up in the air and catching it in his mouth
If I never had kids I would miss out on watching them share because of something that I may have taught them
If I never had kids I would have missed out on getting hugged so tight that I couldn't breath
If I never had kids I would miss out on getting the most sweet slobbery kisses ever invented on this green earth
If I never had kids I would miss out on seeing the kids excitement about how awesome different stories in the Book of Mormon are or hearing a kid say I really don't like that book of MOsiah because they eat their families in that one
Hey I think its worked a little bit. You know what I am a mother because I want to be and because I am privileged to be because the Lord trusted me enough to let me do this job. I have an obligation to my children to be a good mother. Even if being a good mother means to suck up the fact that I didn't wake up the best way in the world and be sweet to my children.

Seriously?

Why is it that kids think they can lie to us? It may be something very small but none the less kids think they can flat out lie and get away with it. They must be delusional. Nathan- did you brush your teeth this morning? Yes is the response as I am looking at him smiling at me and there are bit of food spilling out of his TEETH!!!!! Go brush your teeth NOW!!! He takes off. A few minutes later I see him again. Did you brush your teeth? Yes. Only this time he is not smiling he is obviously avoiding eye contact with me. I said okay let me smell your breath. And instead of admitting he didn't brush he blew his breath sideways to me as if that would stop the bad breath from coming to me or something. I just don't get what makes them think they can lie about something that is so blatantly obvious. Maybe I did that as a kid too. I don't remember though. I claim selective amnesia.

Boys and their toys

Men, Boys, they are all the same aren't they? They love their tools and their toys. For men I think they are one in the same and that is okay. Someone in our ward was getting rid of their trampoline that has hardly ever been used. So they thought of coarse the perfect family who needs to get rid of some energy. Yes we had a trampoline already but it was getting quite worn out. This is a spring tramp and not a strap tramp. Apparently they are totally different. I wouldn't know because in my fragile state I am not allowed on a tramp;0) Anyway as Tom brings home the new tramp Aaron runs inside to get "his" leather man. I think that it was an old one of Toms and he just claims it as his. He starts undoing screws.









The next time I turn around I see Tom with his new drill. Wait a minute here the tools just keep getting bigger. I didn't think that the job was this hard. Alas the tramp is finally down and they are assembling the new one. Here is where the toys come in. That is all the kids can talk about now is how awesome this one is and how much higher they can just and how "totally awesome!!!!" it is.
Matthew has become a bit timid on it because they are able to bounce his little body so much higher. Or should I say mom has gotten more worried about her little being with them all as they are jumping. He almost got bounced off and I was standing right there. Anyway it was fun watching them jump and unscrew things. Both of which gave them so much joy. By the way the middle kid in the first picture is a friend of Aaron's that was over that day.

Happy kid

OH how I love a happy kid. Let me count the ways.
#1 He wakes up singing(instead of crying)
#2 He asks for a "dwink" (instead of crying so hard that he can't form a sentence)
#3 He cuddles with his sister(instead of crying that he can't smash his feet underneath her body)
#4 He sits on my lap and lets me play with him(instead crying and throwing himself on the floor)
#5 He asks for something to eat (instead of standing at the pantry door crying )
#6 He sits happily watching whatever is on the tv at the time(instead of crying and saying change momma)#7 He takes what we call his fish medicine well(instead of crying that the steam is hitting his eyes and complaining that the straps are too tight)
You get the idea here. What a whole 12 hours of sleep can do for a kid is amazing!! And what a whole 12 hours can do for mom as well. It makes life so much more pleasant.

How does that happen?

I get up this morning to get the kids out of bed for school. I walk by the bathroom and guess what I found? A glob of toothpaste enough to brush all kids teeth for a couple of days on the floor. How in the world does that happen? I just don't get it. The day before I found toothpaste on the wall beside the light switch. I just don't understand how they can be such slobs when it comes to toothpaste. Everyone was getting ready for school so I just cleaned it up because I didn't want anyone stepping in it. Because for some other reason the kids would go in there are and just say humm. A mom goes in there and says oh my gosh this is going to become a bigger and bigger mess if not cleaned up. Hopefully tonight I can remember to question each kid about it. Now a days it could have been Matthew. Oh guess what else I found in the bathroom in my cleaning up? 4 brand new rolls of toilet paper that had been soaked. That is almost a given that it was Matthew. I don't think any of my other kids do that right now. I am so glad that I have my own bathroom.

Do you hear anything?????

Do you hear anything?? The only thing that I hear is the washing machine washing clothes and the occasion click on the counter from Matthew's fork. Emma is still asleep and the older kids are off to school. Its been a while since it was this quiet in the house. I love my children to death however to hear such quietness is bliss right at this moment. We all dragged out of bed this morning because our clocks were on vacation time yet as everyone got some breakfast the mood got more and more excited. Everyone was excited to get back to see their friends and to tell teachers what happen to them over the holidays. Sarah said she couldn't wait to hug her teachers and tell them she lost her two front teeth. Aaron couldn't wait to get on the bus and listen to his MP3 player like a big kid. Nathan and Daniel were just excited to be out of the house I think. Emma will wake up and mope around the house for half a day missing her siblings whom she fought with constantly. And Matthew doesn't care about much of anything as long as he has his food and his trains. Thats not to say that he doesn't love his siblings. As soon as Emma comes down he will yell Emma with such enthusiasm that you would think he hasn't seen her in ages. Just because the kids are in school doesn't stop our lives by any means here at home. There is still grocery shopping and laundry to be taken care of. But for now its nice to have a little quiet around the house.

The innocence is gone

First of all I must say I need to be a little secretive because I have little ones all around. So here is how the conversation went. Mom, I know that (the little fairy who brings money for little white things under pillows) is not real. Oh honey what makes you say that? Well Daniel got the same exact quarters that had been on your dresser earlier. I couldn't even hide my little smile. I tried my hardest. So I said honey how do you feel about that. I don't care- its cool. Then he proceeds it with then that must mean that the (jolly old man who comes down chimney's ) is not real either. I said why would you say that. He proceeds to give me reasons that disprove him. Including I had the same candy that he gave them that one special night of the year. I said tell me how you feel about that? He said I have been wondering for a while about that whole thing. I makes sense to me now. I proceeded to tell him that all those things would still happen for him as long as he told no one of what he discovered. We have entered a new frontier. It makes me a little sad because that truly means that my little boy is growing up. Growing up? means that he comes out of the bathroom with his hair spiked up in this weird Mohawk due for church. Growing up? means that he must takes regular showers and apply deodorant so as to not gross us all out. Growing up? means that he asks us for a cell phone all the time(as I laugh with hysteria at the thought) Growing up? means that he wants to listen to music all the time. Its sad but it also means so many other things that we have not experienced. Seeing my son pass the sacrament, seeing my son do baptisms for the dead, seeing my son serve in the church in ways that not only makes us his parents happy but Heavenly Father beam with such pleasure. Its such a big deal to be parents to these spirits. Its our responsibility to teach them. I just pray that we can do the job that the Lord entrusted us with. I often wonder when I am fed up with the house being a mess, the kids fighting, and the phone ringing all at the same time.

What's up with this??

Okay we get back from Christmas vacation and we find that our tv is not working. Tom was up late gooffying around and after being in bed for about 2 hours he comes upstairs and asks me if the kids had moved the trampoline into the grass before we left? What? What? Still half asleep I didn't understand why he was asking such a question. He proceeds to tell me that the trampoline is right up against the house and the satellite dish has been bend in half and that is why the tv had not worked that night. I just chalked it up to lots of storms that we had been having. Luckily it was only a little amount to get it replaced but still that is not money that we planned on spending. So this is our guess. We have really pissed of a girl across the street. She is the one that I emailed about asked what to do. She often times is on drugs and such and is suppose to be taking care of her 5 year old brother. They had a big party the same night that my neighbors dogs were going crazy barking at our fence. So we suspect she came over and jumped on the trampoline and hung off the dish. We don't know for sure but regardless, who in their right mind would do something like this? I was not brought up this way and I'll tell you what if I knew for sure that really happened. OOOOWWWeEEEEE We filed a police report just for the simple fact that there have been some other strange things that have happened around here and we want to document everything. We are now locking our car doors on a regular basis because who knows what could happen with them and these weird people around here.

Pitty Party Anyone?

I love babies. Doesn't everyone? At this time in my life now that the holidays are over and the next big thing in my life is the arrival of our new little one, I have been pondering. It really is much easier being Aunt than it is being mom. These sweet little girls I could cuddle and wuddle and when they got to be too fussy I could hand them back to momma. I am now getting worried about my little one. Having not planned this one, and being in surreal mode, what will life be like when you can't give them back. With these sweet babies I was calm and not stressed out. I still had a bit of sleep deprivation but nothing compared to getting up for hours in the middle of the night. I know what most of you may be saying you have done this before and you can do it again. Well that may be true but you don't know what things I am feeling nor could I actually get it on paper really. There are pluses and minuses to having more and not having more. Plus -you can hold them whenever you want and your kids can hold them whenever you want. Minus- All babies get fussy and that is tough at times. Also I am feeling a bit resentful towards Primary. I want to enjoy this baby and give he/she, me. That is hard to do when you have something that encompasses your life so much. Primary may not always be physical but it is always something you have to think about and worry about. I didn't answer my phone at all yesterday because I didn't want to get back to that reality. I really am in a predicament huh?? I really have enjoyed being pregnant-with exception to 1st trimester. I hate to think it will end because then the hard part starts. I still have so many things to do and I want to act like Primary doesn't exist. I am sure that makes me the just a horrible person. Maybe a blessing, that might help with such an attitude. I read back on this and it sounds like I don't want to have a baby. On the contrary. I do its every thing else that I don't want to do. YOu add all those other I don't want to do's and it drags down the I do want to do.

Christmas has past

Well here we are back at home from time in Georgia and Christmas is over. That is always such a sad feeling. YOu know how you all get. We are all excited about Christmas weather we are big or small. You must admit it. For me its the smells and sounds and all around preparation and anticipation of what is to come.
Then the day has come and its AWESOME. Then there is December 26th. Every year it never fails. I feel a sense of sadness. The anticipation-gone. The presents-gone.
The overall feeling that people are wanting to do good because its the right thing to do-gone. The non stop talk about Christ-gone.
It is no longer "PC" to talk about Christ. For that brief time all around you feel like everyone is on your side. Now we are the weird ones again.
Because we believe that Christ is real. But you know what despite all of that. YOu know what I hold onto?
These pictures and memories that we have made.
Pictures are just awesome because they focus on the good
and push out anything that you didn't like. Yes Christmas at my parents house with 3 full families is a bit crowded and we have some tense moments at times but the memories are in the cookies that we made and the icing that was all over their faces.

The memories are in their sweet little faces when they
open up their gifts to see something
that they wanted
The memories are in how awesome that coke from Africa
was. Despite the suffocation
we adults may have felt with so many people around. The memories are in the
rice krispie treats we got to eat for breakfast from Mutta
because it was something
she wanted to give us out of love. The memories are in the fun trip we took to Jumpin jelly Beans and how much we sweated and got tossed about by
Uncle REid. How we got a skinned up backed becuase someone pushed us down the slide
when we weren't quite ready. The memories are in the time we got to sleep in the tent outside with dad and how cold it was on our noses but we were oh so cozy.
Those are the kind of memories that comes out of all the pictures taken. Life is about all those wonderful memories
that we make when we are together. As far as the world
and their "PC" views they can just stick it because what matters to me the most is what you see in all the pictures I take. FAMILY!!!!