Swimming and Scrubbing

Monday, I just needed out of the house. The kids were out of school and I didn't care what we did, my kids needed exercise and I wanted to not have to think about anything.

I convinced a sweet friend of mine to head up to Green Canyon Hot Springs - passed Rexburg - with me to take our SEVEN kids swimming. -- All by ourselves. We were obviously feeling ambitious. :)

The kids all had a wonderful time and the swimming part was great fun for all. I can't say as much for the undressing and redressing and brushing hair and can't-find-the-keys parts, but well worth the struggle to give my children a day of swimming. :)

Hazel and Lilie have turned into quite the little fishies. They swim and swim and practice and practice and practice. Loving every second of it. They get so independent that at times, I feel a bit nervous about where they are and if they're dead, :) but they always do such a good job at following the rules and not doing anything too crazy. 

Hazel and Elsie both make friends with everyone they see. I love it. Even at a loud crazy pool with lots of sisters and lots of friends, both of them find someone random to be their best buddy. :) Hazel spent hours talking with another little girl as they used the rope to pull back and forth, back and forth across the pool. Such friendly little ladies. I don't think I was like that as a child . . . it's fun to watch my children's personalities. 

Lilie played with Hazel, but mostly just practiced different maneuvers over and over and over again. She loves experimenting and seeing what she can do now. I love it. Violet just loved being in my arms and watching everything going on around her. She was such a trooper - with only 15 minutes of nap under her belt for the entire day. She is such a pleasant baby. 

On the way home, we stopped for dinner at a restaurant with a playplace to get out ANY remaining wiggles - which was mostly just tired energy at that point. By the time we got home, those kids were T-I-R-E-D ---- which is what had been my plan all along. :) They were all four in bed within half an hour of walking in the door. Awesome. 

Nels was working late and I wanted some downtime for myself. What I hadn't been anticipating was how exhausted I would be after a day of chasing four kids at a pool. :) I didn't last very much longer than the kids did. :)

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And today? {Aaaahhhhhh} Sweet success.

Today I managed to accomplish something. It was wonderful. I even had Elsie and Lilie help while the mess-maker was napping. Elsie is always so helpful. She is always the first (and usually the only) one to ask if she can help me with anything that I'm doing. Whether it be cooking, playing, or scrubbing the toilet, she loves to be my helper. I appreciate her willingness and love more than I can express. She is such a doll.

Lilie on the other hand, is usually AWOL (away without leave). (Nels told me yesterday that he doesn't like it when people use military acronyms. :) Yes, Lilie is usually AWOL - or MIA, whichever you prefer - when there is work to be done. However, on occasion (especially lately) she has been showing her real colors. She just has to be self-motivated. (That isn't new news to me - it's just that motivation is usually in short supply. :) Lately I think she has been learning the sweet feeling that comes from not only doing a job well, but also from helping someone else. - Even if it's not your favorite thing to do. And let me tell you, she is going to be a GOOD cleaner. She sat with an old toothbrush and some Comet scrubbing our bathroom step stool till it was gleaming --- at least a good 45 minutes. She is one after my own heart. :)

After rinsing the stool and setting it to dry, she was just so pleased. Full of lots of hugs and kisses and "I love you's". Feeling so happy for helping and so pleased with her hard work that it just came bubbling over. :) "I really like helping you, Mom. Even if it's not my favorite thing to do, I really like helping you."

Those two little workers made my day today.

It's 27 degrees outside, throw open the windows!

Funny 

The updating is just going to wait a little bit longer.

Do you feel happy when you feel overwhelmed? Do you feel ready to take on the world when your house is messy? Do you feel like you're gagging when your house is stuffy? i do.

So. Today. No excuses. No more - "the mess will still be there tomorrow." This is fine for a while. It really is. But today? I need a clean house. I am going to slowly make my way through each room with an Elsie, a Violet, a package of sanitizing wipes, and a vacuum. And as we close each door, we're going to open a window. (And then climb every mountain.)

It's just going to take some natural gas and some elbow grease (and maybe a cage for the mess-maker) to finally have a clean, non-stuffy, warm HOME again. Until everything smells clean - like Pine-sol and Comet.

It might take a few hours, a whole day, or maybe several days, but it is going to happen.

Friday's Fabulous Five

How many one-year-olds can open up mascara?? Seriously.

Okay, dudes and dudettes. I'm feeling it today. We're going to get caught up. I KNOW it. It might take a little while, but I'm going to start and well . . . that's something.

But first. First, we must have a fabulous five. It's been way too long. And after that, there will hopefully be some more goodness - after I see if my hard drive with all the pictures from the past year and a half can be saved . . .

1. It's been a good week. I could leave it at that, but here's the skinny. Monday was Valentine's. {sigh} Just kidding, I don't sigh about Valentine's day. It's a nice holiday and we had a good time - but it's always overshadowed by a much better day. Nels brought home flowers and potato wedges and corndogs and chicken strips. It was a simple dinner (that I didn't have to make) and the girls and I all loved our roses. Nels is quite the man to be enough for five ladies. :)

Both the older girls made it to their parties that day and were so happy. Elsie felt very left out. However when I asked her if she'd be my valentine, she was not impressed. She looked at me funny and kind of scoffed saying, "NO! I'm a human!" (The girls had been making valentines all weekend, apparently it was confusing. :) Love that kid. So, instead of turning her into a valentine, we gave her a fancy hair-do and took her to have a lunch-Valentine's-party with daddy at work.

Cool effect on this picture, huh? That's what happens when your camera is on the fritz -
'cause it got dropped on its eyeball.

2. The much better day I referred to in #1 is NELS' 31st BIRTHDAY - which, every year, seems to fall the day after Valentine's. :) And this year, I was home for it (and V-Day) -- for the first time in two years. :) Both of the previous TWO years I'd been attending weddings. :) So it was extra special.

Nels took most of the day off of work and came home to be with us and keep it simple. He decided to take his ladies out to a movie for his birthday and then we went out to get Chinese food afterward. It was very nice to be together and PERFECTLY low-key. Just how Nels likes things. I also made him an awesome raspberry cream pie that everyone reading this MUST try. SO, SO good. And so easy. :)

Oh, how I love good food.

3. I just realized that most of the pictures that I need to catch up on my blog are not, in fact on my haywire hard drive. They're still on my SD card. Awesome. Hooray for being lazy. :)

4. In the past few months of doing occasional transcription work for Melaleuca, I've gone from earning about minimum wage - which is, in all honesty, hardly worth my time - to, on a really good day with no interruptions and an awesome speaker, about 5 times that amount. Of course it also takes about 1/5 of the time as well. :) But all in all, I'm pretty much an awesome transcriber . . . transcriptionist? Yeah. Transcriptionist. :) It's only about once a month, but totally worth a few hours of my time. Nice.

5. I think the worst of the "winter blues" are behind me. Hooray for change. I know that winter in Idaho could still quite possibly last for another 2 (or even FOUR!) months, but I'm feeling much better and that, my friends, is a happy, happy thing. Fabulous, even. :)

P.S. Oh! happy to report, the pancake was successfully removed from my carpet this week! :)

Fe-BLAH-uary

Does everyone lose their drive to blog in February? I think so.

It's not as if I've been extra busy with cleaning or painting or sewing or anything else particularly, (because painting and sewing and recovering - etc. - can't happen unless the house in as least in order) but I just can't find my drive. I feel as if I've been stuck in neutral for a month.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this. Part of me never cares if my house is clean again. I feel just like my kids when I ask them to unload their clothes baskets and they fall to pieces about how HARD their lives are and how HARD it is to put away their own clothes and how they do everything.

Sometimes I fall to pieces just thinking about cleaning up the pervading mess that magically materializes everywhere. It's just going to come back before I can blink anyway, so why clean it up? Really. Then there's the other part of me that says, stop griping and get to work. Then you can actually do something fun instead of just hide from the pancake smashed into you bedroom floor. :)

Yep. It's awesome. Thank goodness for Nels. He loves me so much and has been my go-to guy for dishes (and often dinner) for weeks. He. Is. A. Fabulous. Husband.

I think the seven weeks from the middle of January to the end of February are my least favorite of the entire year.

Also, thank goodness for mother-in-laws that come to visit, so regardless of my blah-ness I still will get it cleaned up on occasion. Hooray for Grandma!

There are a few exciting things coming up in the next few months -- some that I am at liberty to share and some that I am not.

Nels's sweet Mama is coming over this weekend to hang out with us. - Super excited about that. - Nels is playing bass for a friend of ours for a Valentine's "concert" (of sorts) and Grandma is coming to enjoy it with us. I love watching Nels play. I love that his mouth hangs open when he's concentrating. :)

Did you all know that Nels was in a rock band when we first met?? I bet most of you didn't. This is always funny to me. To realize that most people that know me -- even if they "know" Nels -- don't really know Nels. It's hilarious and kind of surreal to me to watch friends' reactions when they see Nels play Rock Band, for example. They are shocked at how into it he gets and how loud he is and how funny and fun (and hot! :) he is. That's when I remember that they don't really know my husband. Because if they really did, they would NOT be surprised. He played bass and their band played a mixture of different rock-n-roll songs. Nels's roommate (nicknamed Senor Inferno) sang for them (and dressed up with a mask and tights and a cape!) and blew fireballs on stage. They were called the Young Republicans. It was funny and it was awesome. Later, after we were married, he was in a Misfit's cover band.

My first outing with Nels included almost getting kicked out of Denny's by the manager because the guitar player for his band was yelling and making a ruckus which included the words "Commie Pigs" several times. We listened to the Ramones all the way home from the restaurant in his great big blue Ford van. When he told me that he loved me more than rock-n-roll, I knew that it was serious. And should you think I'm making that statement in jest, you have got another thing coming. There was a time in our early relationship that all conversations began and ended with music. Needless to say, I got educated pretty fast and have been able to hold my own in a music conversation for nearly a decade.

........

Woah, that was a tangent.

I'm excited for Nels's mama to come visit for the weekend and I'm really excited to get to watch Nels play.  :)

My baby sister is getting married in April! That's exciting, no?! She's getting married to her Southern Sweetie that she met a few months ago. They are perfect together and are so loving and cute. The first time I saw a picture of the two of them together, I knew that she'd found her man. She looked complete and peaceful. I'm so very happy for you, Genny and Ben! They're throwing a huge party for me on my birthday --- with cake and white party dresses, a trip to the temple, pictures and family and sparklers and everything. It's going to be awesome. :)

Violet turns 1 in a month. My baby is 11 months old now and she's walking around like a champ! She still only takes about 7-8 steps before she falls over, but she's doing so great and I'll have to take some video soon. -- Too bad that my camera is still broken.

The older girls are excited for Valentine's Day. - Hopefully they don't pick up the Nasty Yucky that Violet and Elsie have, or else there will be no school for them on Monday.

Nels's birthday is on Tuesday and he really wants something exciting - like a hard drive. --- He's about as fun to shop for as my dad. :P And for the first time in two years, I'm actually going to be home for Valentine's Day and his birthday. :)

Elder Holland came to speak at Stake Conference two Sundays ago. It was wonderful and I'm SO thankful that we were able to go to the adult session on Saturday night. It was very uplifting. - And frankly, I left the Sunday session SO angry with my whiny children that Hazel and Lilie both got to sit quietly on chairs "practicing how to be reverent" for half an hour after the meeting was over. Regardless of my frustration, it was wonderful to be in the presence of an Apostle of the Lord.

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And with that, I'm going to leave you. - To pick up Lilie from school. I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend and I hope to be able to report later that there are no longer crackers or pancakes smashed into my carpet.

The past two days have been SO cold! -3* yesterday and -18* this morning. Because of the weather, plus wind chill, Hazel's school has been closed the last two mornings. This morning I was relieved at first, nice to not have to get her out the door, but afterward I was kind of frustrated. I knew from yesterday that it's a little difficult to entertain her all day with no Lilie. :)

When I got home from dropping Lilie off at her school, Violet was awake, but when I opened her door to get her, I realized that she'd puked.

But guess what?! I didn't have to clean it! Those sweet little ladies (Hazel and Elsie) were able to be bribed into cleaning it up themselves!!!

They really must think their daddy is the coolest, because lunch with him was enough to convince them to clean puke! :)

Nels, you are loved!!!