Friday's Fabulous Five

1. I'm glad today is Friday. That is fabulous to me. I'm really tired of getting up and getting everyone out the door by 8:30 every morning. Nels' car has been on the blink for the past couple weeks and I've been needing to take him to work. I'm exhausted of getting up, feeding everybody, getting all the coats and boots on, doing Hazel's hair, making Nels lunch, and then driving 15 minutes over and 15 minutes back all by 9. Let alone then going to pick him up at dinner time. I like being a 2 car family. I do not like being rushed in the morning. Hallelujah for Friday. I get one day of not rushing tomorrow.

2. January is almost over and I can't believe it! How does time go by so fast?! Hazel brought home her "second semester" report the other day. I'm excited to see the progress that she has made through the first half of the school year. There are things that she is still working on -- like writing her name with no curly-cues, hearts, or letters "beautifully" hooked together :) - but she is such an excellent student! She tells me often that she loves school and she loves learning. She is such a genuine, happy girl and probably one of the most complimentary children on the planet. If she thinks it, she says it. :) And she just loves to experience life. She tells me about lots of the different kids at school. Which ones were nice that day and which ones weren't. I asked her the other day if sometimes she is not nice. She said no. That she is always nice. And I honestly believe her. Hazel doesn't think mean things. Even with her sisters, she rarely gets grouchy or sharp. She's such a tender child. - I can't believe how fast she is growing.

3. It has been kind of foggy the past two nights - and cold. As a result it has left the most exquisite hoar frost flocking everything. It's gorgeous.

4. Almost finished sewing all my bedding. Maybe I'll post a picture later today. - By the way. I love colors. I love fabric. I love finding the perfect fabric.

5. Elsie and Lilie are playing together happily and I believe they will remain that way for at least another hour. :) They are supposed to be cleaning up Elsie's bedroom that they demolished before breakfast this morning. They've been in there for the past hour. It still looks the same. I imagine in an hour, when I need to go pick up Hazel, it will still look the same - but there is the odd chance that they will actually accomplish their task. And if nothing else, I got two full hours of relative quiet with no tv, minimal fighting, and them being locked in the bedroom! :)

Indulgence

After Nels took a couple of pictures of me last night, I determined that pregnancy pictures were just not something that I was going to share with the world. I think I look just fine in person, but I do not like pictures of myself - most of the time. Particularly when I'm "trying" to take a good picture. However after browsing through pictures of myself over the past 7 1/2 years, I've realized that I have probably 3 pictures of my pregnant self, total. None of which are particularly flattering.

Considering that I have spent approximately 3 full years of those past 7 growing children inside my body, I decided that flattering or not, I would indulge the masses.

33 weeks - or about 7 1/2 months.

Only 7 left to go!

I was kind of irritated in this picture that Nels was still following

me around, clicking away, as I was trying to get ready to go to a meeting.

I also love the sewing mess that has become

my bedroom in the background. :)

I've been smiling over the past seven months about gals I know that are pregnant at the same time I am and have been obsessing over their coming babies. Over the course of the last several pregnancies, my brain has seemed to have developed a bit of a defense mechanism (against anxiety and impatience) to where I don't think a lot about being pregnant until the last couple of months. The fact is, I hate waiting. I hate counting days and appointments. It makes me crazy.

Last night as I was at a Relief Society Meeting, one of the women was asking about my pregnancy and what our plans are for this and that associated with bring another baby into our home. I answered what I could and then laughed off the rest with an, "I figure we've got plenty of time to figure that out . . . during the next . . . few weeks." And it hit me. Statistically speaking, this baby will probably come within the next 5 to 6 weeks. (As each of my other children have been a week to two weeks early.) I had a bit of a wake up call. I'm still not going to bust out the crib right now or start washing onesies and socks, but . . . That is not very long. And I'm starting to feel the prickles of excitement and anxiety at the coming month or so.

I had a dream last night about a beautiful little dark-haired baby with hair so long it was halfway down her little back! :) LOL! I thought it was funny that I would be able to put a ponytail in my newborn's hair. :) It was happy and silly -- a nice change from the only other pregnancy related dream that I have had, which was flashbacks from previous deliveries and not being able to follow through with my plans at going "natural" this time. That one wasn't happy OR silly.

Wednesday Writing Fix

Darn. I was going to post a Fabulous Friday post, then realized that it's not even Thursday night. It's Wednesday! :) Well. Today is a Fabulous Wednesday. :)

1. Seven weeks left. That's fabulous. I haven't been counting the days or anything, I'm just fine with seven more weeks, but I'm excited that it's only seven. Maybe I haven't been as active this pregnancy, chasing three children around . . . (uh, maybe not) or whatever, maybe I'm just getting old :), but the last few weeks my hips and legs have been giving me grief. My nerves are pinched and standing or sitting, I still seem uncomfortable if I do anything too long. I've also developed a definite waddle - or so I feel. :) Good thing I bought those cute new pants, or I really might not like being pregnant right now! :)

2. We've pretty much settled on a name. Exciting, huh? The girls refer to her by it all the time. I love it. -- But I'm not going to share. Mean, aren't I? I'm not one who worries about someone "stealing" my name or anything and I'm pretty secure with my choices, however, sometimes I just don't want comments. You never know when some pregnant crazy woman might pop up in my place and I don't need a bunch of feedback on name choices. I just want to like it because I like it.

3. My girls have been in bed for the past half hour and Nels is gone for the evening. The house is quiet, the kitchen is clean, the refrigerator is stocked, my basement is vacuumed, and I'm at a happy place with my laundry. --------- Scratch that. I hear Elsie laughing upstairs. :) I guess falling asleep in the car at five o'clock with no dinner wasn't a good bedtime for her! :) Oh well. With or without her, I'm going to watch Netflix movies and sew tonight. :)

4. Elsie is doing very well at potty training! Oh happy day! She has the inevitable accidents, but not a lot and I think that she's going to have it down really soon. At least that's what I'm praying for! :) (I hate potty training. In my opinion, it is the worst part of parenting thus far. I would go through labor all over again to avoid potty training. I hate it. Please, please, please let Elsie be one of those "easy children"!!!)

5. I have wonderful children with fabulous personalities! They are each so unique. I love them so much! Elsie has recently developed a fun speech pattern where she ends sentences with right and huh. "Where's my daddy, huh?" "Where's my sister, huh?" "Where's it, huh?" "You get me breakfast, right? Right, Mom? Right?" I love it. When Lilie is trying to finagle a situation, she begins all her sentences with "Well . . . " (Something that I realized today she picked up from her mother.) "Lilie, what is this doing in your room??" "Well . . . " :) Today at the Melaleuca store, she really wanted me to put some of the sample makeup on her (blue eyeshadow, in particular) and for once, I obliged. She was so happy with her blush, Caribbean eyes, and red lips. I smiled every time I looked at her. :) Hazel has recently wanted (needed) to help with everything. Granted, she has always been this way to some extent, but lately, she just can't get enough of it. Every time I start to cook, she wants to know if she can do it. She's also very into being able to do things by herself. Today she carried on a fifteen minute conversation with me in the car about all the things that she'll be able to do when she's big enough to drive a car. Her favorite idea is that she could go - all by herself - to get dinner for everyone. -- And maybe she could bring Elsie with her when she goes. :) Obviously going through a new stage of independence. :) She also was wondering if big people every live across the street from their moms. She'd like to live across the street from her mom when she's big and a mom. :)

Can I just say, something was in the water last year! :) Off the top of my head, I can think of about 20 women that I know that have either had a baby in the past two months or are due right now! HOLY COW! I've almost never been pregnant at the same time as very many other friends or acquaintances - a few here and there, but not TWENTY or more! Weird! Fun, but weird! How many more are out there?? How about you? Are you expecting? You probably are. LOL!

It-Snow-Fun! :)

For a few days last week, we accumulated a decent amount of snow - and it was actually warm enough for it to stick together in perfect snowman-making fashion. Hazel was able to talk her daddy into helping her out.

He's a pretty funny looking little fella, but those are my favorite kind! :)

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As opposed to last week's warm-up, this week has been frigid. The past two mornings have been -12 or so and have barely gotten over 10 degrees, if that. In true fashionista form, Elsie has developed her own winter style. Panties are apparently all the rage. Not necessarily using the toilet, but she loves her panties that Santa brought for her.

My plan was to just strip her down and have her run around in them for a few days until she gets it down. Alas, my plan has been foiled - as after getting over the pukes, her little system decided to go into overdrive and add a lot of poop to the fun. Always a sucker for punishment, I still drew the line at this and decided to just bide our time for a week or so before getting into potty training full-time. Nonetheless, Elsie still LOVES her panties and this is a pretty typical outfit for her the past several days.

A backpack - for going to stooloo (school) - a diaper covered by beautiful undies and her awesome sparkly red shoes! :) She's stylin'! When I asked her if she wouldn't like to at least wear a shirt, she said, "No. I'm hot." You got it, babe. You look pretty hot! :)

She has also taken on a funny game over the past month or so. I've had my fair share of kids pretending to be different things for extended periods of time. Lilie has insisted on being just about everything from bats to dinosaurs and went through a spell for about 2 months straight where I rarely got her to break out from being a kitty 24-7. However, with all the different creatures we've housed, I've never yet met a child who, more than anything else, insisted on being . . . GRANDMA. LOL!

Elsie talks constantly about how she is Grandma. Crazy, silly, pretty Grandma. But all Grandmas must have a Grandpa and who better for this role than Yours Truly? That's right, folks. She is Grandma. I am Grandpa. You would think that she would assign this role to Nels, however Nels has the very busy role of being Uncle Jake. Or Upin Jate, as she calls him. (Jake is my little 25-year-old brother.) She slaves away all day cooking up a storm for Grandpa, constantly asking where her Upin Jate is. When I repeat for the fifteenth time that Uncle Jake is at work, she again insists that he needs to come home to Grandma. She keeps me laughing all day -- but nothing is better than when she insists that it is time for Grandpa or - even better - Uncle Jake to change Grandma's diaper. "Dwamma poopy? Dwampa change Dwamma's biaper?" I bust a gut every time Grandpa changes Grandma's diaper. LOL!

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As mentioned previously, I'm finally getting over the nasty bug that I've had for weeks and weeks -- and am now starting to realize that I probably have less than two months left of this pregnancy. Realizing that next week I'll be moving up to appointments every two weeks for a month --- and then every week after that. I'm starting to feel a bit of anxiety that the end is coming so close. I'm so very excited to meet this new little babe, but I think I actually get MORE nervous with each child. Nervous for different reasons. At this point, as an "experienced mother" ;), I know better what to expect and start to feel a little apprehensive at being able to handle it all.

This is the first year in quite some time that I think I'm actually looking forward to the expected "slowness" of January and February. No yard work to do, no big holidays (other than birthdays) coming up, and a seemingly endless list of things that have been waiting years to be completed! :) I'm excited to share with you some of my hopefully completed projects in the coming weeks! Show you all the hard work that I've put into my bedding and desk. Complete the covers for the rocking chair that I've been using without a back cushion for more than a year. Recover a chair or two. Finish painting the girls' bedroom and maybe even start on the family room (if I can get a husband to comply)! :)

Also, sorry to those who have requested pregnancy pictures to no avail. I can't say that I feel particularly primed to take pictures of my ever-expanding self. There have also been a few other set backs. Firstly, a great many a day passes without me changing out of anything but sweats or yoga pants. Sorry if that kind of makes me seem pathetic (I know you all view me as the epitome of motherly perfection! :), but in my book, as long as I'm staying at home cleaning and cooking, yoga pants and a sweatshirt are perfectly appropriate. Secondly, even though I recently bought a new pair of maternity pants (which I love and look incredibly hot) AND finally purchased a new hairdryer after doing without for more than a month(!), it's pretty difficult to take a full-body picture of oneself alone. So you add the two together --- rarely looking spectacular, plus Nels not being home during the day --- and it just hasn't happened. (And YES, I do consider "looking spectacular" a prerequisite to taking pictures of my pregnant self for all to analyze. Sorry, I'm really shallow like that.) Perhaps the two will meet sometime in the coming weeks, but I'm not making any promises.

Over and out!

Christmas 2009

Christmas morning was fabulous! The girls woke up around seven and chaos then ensued.

A blue long-neck. What more could a 4-year-old girl want in all the world? :)

Well, other than a marshmallow gun!?

And what 6-year-old girl doesn't dream of Santa Claus

bringing her some more Legos?

And with light sabers to boot!

My one semi-normal daughter was so thrilled with her

new dolly (with hair) and all her new dolly clothes ---

including a nightgown just like hers! :)

And a princess dress with red sparkly shoes from Grandma!

I have to say that I think my favorite present that any of us got were new comforters! We opened those 4 enormous boxes last. A perfect way to end a crazy morning. Wrapped up in cloudy comfy-ness and eating candy and peanuts! :)

It was a beautiful, relaxed Christmas morning. Nels and I got in a two hour nap and then we had leftovers and made suncatchers with our girls. That afternoon we got packed up and headed to Mnt. Home to visit Grandma and Grandpa Chick, where we had a wonderful time playing with Nels' family. I'm so thankful to have such wonderful in-laws!

Even though I was still suffering through a very strained voice and lethargic bod, Saturday night Nels and I stayed quite late at his sister, Kendall's, house playing Rock Band and having a good old time hanging out with her and her hubby, Jeremy. Heading back over to his parents' at about 2:00, we were greeted with a puking Lilie, who was cared for much of the night by her loving father. Sunday was fine and then Sunday night both Hazel and Elsie went through the same ordeal (as did their daddy) from about 10 to 4. One would get back in bed and minutes later the other would be up puking again. So sad. I'm so thankful for my sweet, sweet husband who allowed me to get what little sleep I could, as I was still pretty sick myself. (I've been battling a horrendous cold for roughly three weeks. It is only now almost gone, but left me feeling pretty cruddy on top of being nearly seven months pregnant.)

Last week we had a grand old time recovering our health and pretty much just hiding out at home. We had a couple of small get-togethers with friends on New Year's Eve and Day, but Nels was pretty unimpressed with my lack of enthusiasm for staying up till midnight that night. :) I think I passed out while he continued watching SNL's The Best of John Belushi around 11:00.

All in all, barring the puke, we had such a wonderful Christmas together. The girls have repeatedly requested that we have Christmas at home every year from now on and I am ever so happy to fulfill their request.

Christmas Eve 2009

I don't really have anything specific to say right now, but I DO feel like blogging. So I'll post a couple of the pictures that I have from Christmas Eve and a few random others from December. :) I'll finish posting about Christmas Day soon, when I get Nels to download the rest of the pictures.

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It seems that ALL of them have crazy-looking faces in these pictures, but nonetheless, you can see the nightgowns that I made for each of them! :) They turned out really cute and I was so pleased.

Christmas Eve was funny, in that I had talked to the girls about their getting to open one present that night and for days beforehand, they were asking and guessing which one and what it would be. This just blows me away because we do this EVERY Christmas. They ALWAYS open pajamas. You would think that Hazel, being six, would remember this. Nope. So I was kind of concerned that they wouldn't be excited about their nightgowns because they weren't the toys that they'd been guessing. True to form, however, they made their mommy's night by being thrilled with their new nightgowns and still want to wear them every night, if they're clean. :)

 Group pictures at this stage are seriously a joke. Is it this difficult at your house?

I kind of think that my children have photo-ADD. Still cute though, aren't they? :)

I love these wiggly kids!

Christmas Eve (and Day) could not have been better (well, other than the part about staying up until three in the morning finishing Elsie's present of dolly clothes). This was our first year staying home and enjoying the holiday just as a family. It. Was. Glorious. We had so much fun. It was so relaxed. We had a semi-candlelit dinner Christmas Eve, followed by opening jammies and reading a bit of Luke 2. We talked about Jesus and why we celebrate Christmas (lest Lilie once again tell me that Christmas is about magic . . . :). Each of them went to bed happy and excited for the coming day.

As I mentioned, Mr. and Mrs. Claus were up quite late that night, but it was still so much fun to set up Christmas for our children in our own home. I could not have been filled with more contentment.

Oh, what a Beautiful Sunday!

Today was the switch! The switch that I've been waiting for for two long years. The day we go back to 9:00 church! Ahhhh! Sweet blessed Sunday.

For the vast majority of our marriage, we have met for meetings at 1:00 or later. We've moved a lot, student wards rarely change meeting times, and every time we've been about to change to an earlier time slot, we move again. I do not like meeting at 1:00. With or without children.

Today was such a lovely, lovely day. We were up and ready by 8:45 --- all except me, who, because of my lack of hairdryer was . . . struggling. But the children were pleasant and relatively reverent through Sacrament meeting. Hazel bore her testimony today - all by herself. It was short and so very sweet. She knows that Jesus died and was resurrected. -- I love that girl. -- And then we had the whole day to spend together. Quiet. Easy. Happy. It was so nice. Rejuvenating.

Today has helped me to feel a lot more excited about the coming year. Not that I wasn't before, but it's given me some quiet time to reflect on it. A knowledge that each of the coming weeks will begin with a day of rest.

I'm not really into resolutions. I figure I can make changes in my life daily, if I so choose, but I have reflected a bit upon some much needed changes in my life and in my family. I'm also not one to really share those ideas, as I've found that I am far more productive with internal rather than external motivation. However, I do hope that the coming year will bring a measure of growth that I've been craving. Another year of change. Another year of joy. Another year of the Lord teaching me who I need to be and how to achieve it.

This year Nels will turn 30. I will turn 28. We will add another sweet little child to our family! Four children!! I'm so excited. My Lilie will turn FIVE. Hazel will turn SEVEN. And my little baby Elsie will be THREE. Nels and I will have been married EIGHT YEARS! I will have my TEN YEAR class reunion. TEN YEARS. A decade. Lilie will start Kindergarten and Hazel will be gone all day in First Grade.

Along with the excited expectations of the coming year, there is also a small measure of loss. I love this time in my life. I love the ages that my children are right now. Can't they get older and stay the same age all at once? It's hard for me to have my babies grow up. Really hard.

I have never really loved change. I like rearranging furniture, painting a room, cleaning a mess, losing weight. :) But growing up? That's been a hard one for me for as long as I can remember. Making new friends: hard. Moving as a teenager: hard. Graduating from High School and going to college: painful. Learning to pay my own bills and manage my own finances: undesirable. Learning how to be responsible: resisted. I could go on.

The only major life change that was never much of a challenge, never really painful or hard? Marrying my dear sweet Nels. I have been thankful for that decision ever day of the past seven and a half years. Even becoming a mother was hard. --- Until I asked the Lord to teach me. Teach me how to love being a mother. And he did. I. LOVE. BEING. A. MOTHER. It's hard. It's stressful. It pushes me to (and past) all limits I ever thought or think that I have. It is humbling. ----------- It is Joy. It is pains me when my children have to change, have to grow. But it's obviously necessary. :) For all of us. I am so proud of my children. The way they try. The way they learn. It brings me so much JOY to see them grow, as hard as it is on me personally.

There's a lesson I'm learning here. A link through my rambling. A thought surfacing.

As I look back through the past decade. A decade of adulthood. There has been a lot of change, a lot of growth. Some of it harder, some of it more pleasant. -- Most of it both. -- The times that it is most attainable is when I've got the Lord on my side. When I stop myself and ASK the Lord to teach me. Teach me how to feel the joy that can come from and during times of change and growth. When I put my faith in Him and his plan for me. Joy can be there throughout all of it. Through the hard and the happy changes. If I ask. If I truly WANT it.

I hope that more than anything else, this coming year will bring me closer to my Father. I have learned that so much of parenting teaches me about Him. My relationship with my Heavenly Father. His unending patience and understanding of my irritating weakness and shortcomings. I realize that I am truly a child. Learning, growing - just as my children are from me. It helps me to be more patient with my children and myself.

I am so thankful for this past year. For this past decade. And I am so looking forward to the coming one. For the changes in store. Hard and happy. Regardless of what this world and future brings, I know that it can be a time of joy and happiness for me and my family. I'm excited!