Buried

Oh, my blog.

{{{sigh}}}

I think about you daily.

I want to post.

I want to post the things that we're doing.

I'm GOING to post.

I just don't know when.

There is so much to do
-like laundry
-like dishes
-like dinner
-like unpacking . . . still
-like food
-like keeping Violet from pushing Clara's face into the ground
-like . . . avoiding the office because it's a disaster.

Now. I LOVE what I do all day

. . . except for the days that I have a meltdown on my two oldest kids because they leave a string of messes behind them - everywhere they go - worse than a toddler.

I love my life. I love being a mom.

I do not love moving my entire house.

I still haven't quite figured out what to do with everything and I'm now to the point of avoiding it by doing idiotic and unproductive things -- but not anything that is deliberate (like blogging or sewing) and I KNOW will take an hour or so -- because there really are other things that NEED to be done first.

Instead I spend all afternoon browsing Amazon for things that I don't need right now.

I also think I might need to reevaluate some of my current blogging techniques. I don't blog because I don't want the hassle of pictures. Well, I might have to just start going without visual aids for the time being . . . at least half of the time.

I just need to knuckle down and get to work.

Because I've been in some odd state of "unpacking" and "in between" for over SEVEN months now.

But I'm going to do it. Today is a new day and I've already made tremendous progress.

Just muscle through it so that I can start making time for some fun things that I've been looking forward to doing again.

I LOVE BEING A MOM.

I DO NOT LOVE UNPACKING.

The Scenes of Sunday

I love Sunday.

I love this Sunday.

Last Sunday, after being late for church three Sundays in a row I made a vow to never be late - because of me - again. Sure, if a bomb blows up in my living room, I'll give myself a break --- but never again because I wasn't ready.

(That being said, I have five other people to get ready every Sunday as well, so it's not like I'm sittin' around on my rear all morning or anything when everyone is ready to walk out the door but me . . . )

So. This morning I was up by 6:30. Showered, dressed, and ready before breakfast. I got all five girls ready with 3 bathed, 4 heads of blonde hair curled, five bodies dressed with SHOES! and dinner 80% made - all while Nels was writing a talk for Sacrament Meeting.

(A talk which, by the way, went incredibly well. It was so good.)

We were there with time to spare.

I love this Sunday.

I love sitting by the fireplace and looking out the back windows at the mountains and the sunset while Nels sleeps on the floor next to me on Sunday.

I love hearing my girls teach themselves how to play the piano on Sunday.

I love this beautiful girl who begged to stay in her purple church dress and frilly slip - that comes and lays her head on my knees on Sunday.

I love sweet sisters who love and snuggle and maul each other on Sunday.

I love this baby that is not only crawling and pulling herself up to everything and cruising around the furniture - but also has just started letting go of that furniture and standing all on her own for a second or two on this Sunday.

Even though she doesn't realize that she's still just too little to do such things.

And I love this little Chick with the chicks who is conspicuously absent in all the photos that I took on this Sunday afternoon because she was graciously sleeping off her crazies. :) 

A Bushel and a Peck

She's been two for more than a month now, but you know what? This is just the way we're rollin' these days.

Oh, Violet.

I love you, my beautiful, crazy, fun, perfect girl.

Violet is filled with spunky spunk and lots of laughs. She is such a ham. She loves to make us laugh. She loves her sisters.

She has gorgeous light blue eyes, lined with long, stunningly dark lashes. She has a full head of still-curly blonde hair - exactly like Hazel's and mine at this age. Violet is the most filled out of any of my girls at two. Not really chubby, just soft and perfectly toddler-esque. (She takes after her mommy at this age.) She is so nice to snuggle with.

Height: 34.5" -- 65%
Weight: 29# -- 75%

As a fourth child, she is pretty easy going, but also quite independent - in that she will get what she wants, when she wants it, all by herself. She's realized in her two years that if you want something done, you'd better do it yourself. :) And kitchen chairs can compensate for any vertical challenges that come with her age. She is very determined. - Just try convincing her that my iPhone is not hers.

She is also my most shy child. She is cautious. Cautious of strangers. Cautious of new situations. Cautious of dogs. Or petrified of dogs. You take your pick. Had a run in with a very "friendly" puppy when she was still crawling and has been anxious about them ever since. She can be a little clingy and likes to know where Mommy is at all times. She does not smile at anyone she doesn't know. Period. She will, however, do practically anything that her sisters tell her to do --- until she WON'T. :)

Violet sings constantly. And mimics sounds all the time. All of my girls like to make up songs and do a lot of singing, but Violet does it a little different. It's usually quiet - almost under her breath - and often I don't even notice. Perhaps because it's such a part of who she is. She started singing younger than any of my other girls. Nels recently pointed out to me that every time there are sounds outside, from an ambulance to a crow, she quietly mimics the sound. I never even noticed before then, but now I hear her do it all the time.

For quite a long time when she wanted to emphasize something, she would use the words "really bad." My favorite was when she would tell someone, "I love you really bad."

In more recent months when I tell her I love her, almost without fail it goes like this:

Me: Violet. I love you.

V: Bushel peck?

M: A bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck. :)

Recently her most oft-requested bedtime song is "La-La-Lu" - the same song that I sang to her as a little baby. She loves elephants, Winnie-the-Pooh, purple, bubbles, blocks, and "Lambert". --- And trying to get the Crawling Clara to give her "horsey-rides".

She is my buddy. She is absolutely delightful. I love Violet.

Her birthday this year started out with a bang.

We moved into the house just a week earlier and the day before, Elsie broke her arm. Violet's birthday morning was spent with just Daddy and Clara, while Mommy spent from 7:30 in the morning until mid-afternoon with Elsie at the hospital getting her arm set and splinted.

However, once we got home, Violet and I had a wonderful time making her angel food cake together. She was so fun and I just loved having her sit on the sunny counter and talk to me. It was a perfect afternoon with my birthday girl --- which morphed into a perfect evening all together as a family - celebrating our precious two-year-old.

drooling over the deliciousness of the good stuff to come . . . yum!

Clara LOVED the little bit of ice cream I shared with her and would stick her little bitty tongue WAY OUT for just one more lick. It was SO cute!

Self Portrait :)

Thank you, my sweet Violet for two of the most wonderful years of my life. I LOVE being your Mommy.

Locks

So the last time I REALLY cut my girls' hair was a while ago.

Three to four years ago, in fact.

Sure, they've had plenty of trims, but no significant cuts since either of them was about four.

We have a plethora of heads of hair in this household - if you didn't know - and getting everyone presentable in the morning is honestly a bit of a joke. There's a lot of frustration, a lot of tears, and a lot of time that goes into it.

So we decided a couple of weeks ago that it was time for a change.

Now, particularly for Hazel (because she's got hair like mine = crazy), short hair does NOT mean easier hair. ~Learned that last time we chopped it.~ However, we just really needed a change of pace in the mornings.

For Lilie, I love her hair long. I love her hair short. I even love her hair REALLY short and briefly considered the boy hair of 2009 cut, but in the end just settled on a short little bob.

Both had more than enough to donate their hair to Locks of Love. It made the chop a little easier for Hazel to swallow. Sweet, generous girl.

I'm going to write a post later about the hilarity/ridiculousness of taking all five girls with me anywhere in this town, but I'm just going to throw in here that hair salons are not my favorite place to have five children running around.

And that Clara is the most perfect baby I've ever seen.

It's incredible to me how much a haircut can do. Somehow especially Hazel, looks both younger and more grown up. She also looks a little less unkempt, which is really what we were going for. :)

Nothing But Blue Skies!

Oh, how I love the sunshine. Love it.

This March has been record-breakingly wet here in Sandpoint.

Idaho Falls gets an average of 11 inches of rain a year. Nothing surprising there; it's the desert for goodness sake.

Sandpoint gets an average of 34 inches of rain per year. THREE times as much! (For comparison, Seattle gets about 36.)

Now. Bring us up to the last month. March 2012. Rainfall over 8 INCHES!!! Almost as much as Idaho Falls' yearly! (source: Bonner Daily Bee)

Good heavens. It's been almost more than this Desert Dweller could bear.

Baptism by fire - or some such. :)

So this morning when I opened my eyes to see the sun shining on the mountains outside my bedroom window and the forecast to be above 60 degrees (for the first time this year), I was singing before my feet even touched the floor.

Seriously. I don't think Nels liked it, but who cares, right? The sun was telling me good morning and how could I not answer back?! I walked through the house singing,




Then I came upon my children apparently glorying in the first real rays of Spring as well.

I made breakfast, cleaned the laundry room, and then we all escaped the confines of the house and have been marinating in Vitamin D ever since.

A walk along the beach by the Long Bridge.


A picnic and a couple of hours at the park.

Home again for some naps and snuggling in the heat on the trampoline.


It's been heavenly.

Nothing buy blue skies in every direction.

A far cry from the picture I took a couple of weeks ago on my way to the library.

Cute little bebes.

They keep telling me the summers here are to die for . . . 

. . . after a day like today, I can almost believe it.