He is Risen

It's still boggling my mind that it's 2013. Just had to share.

Easter was so beautiful! How thankful I am to know of my Savior's love for me, for my family, for every human being. As with each of life's trials (and blessings) my testimony of His tender and watchful care has been strengthened a great deal in the past year and a half. I have a deeper and more personal testimony of God's eternal Plan of Happiness and our purpose here in this life. I truly "feel my Savior's love in all the world around me".

For the first time in five years, I decided to buy new Easter dresses for all the girls and make them look all fancified for our 9:00 meetings. Not an easy feat, I tell you, but well worth it. My day began at 6:30 and I didn't "sit down" until 9:30 that night. There were a couple of moments of "what was I thinking?", but they quickly passed as I spent a beautiful day serving my family and a yummy meal. We had a quick evening easter egg hunt and read from the Bible on the back porch about the first Easter.

Hazel was running so fast, that she couldn't be stopped for a picture, but you can
glimpse her in the background - behind Elsie's awesome pose.

I'm so thankful for the Atonement and Resurrection of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I'm so thankful for the life I have and for the blessings of the temple. I'm so thankful for the love we share in our family. This ARTICLE in the March 2013 Ensign has been on my mind quite a lot over the past month. It has been changing my view on what the Atonement means to me on a daily basis. To me, it means that my struggling, flawed, and feeble efforts as a friend, as a wife, as a daughter, and most importantly, as a mother are enough. That through Jesus Christ I can be more than I am, more than I'm capable of being.

I don't understand it all, not even close, but I get glimpses of heaven and feel his grace daily.

After church, the sun was shining so bright and lovely-like that we pulled over at a random strangers' pretty little patch of property and climbed out with our wild and beautiful little hooligans to snap a few pics -- while an anxious neighbor looked on. :)


The girls stopped their giggling and screeching long enough to get a couple of decent poses, but Violet had a moment of concern after I explained to her that the little round things she was collecting were, in fact, not easter eggs but moose poop. :)

Keep your chin up, Vi! Haha!

This picture cracks me up.

Sisters

"I could never love anyone as I love my sisters." ~Little Women

I think Lilie is the best medicine in all the world for Hazel! She has felt better since Lilie got here than she has all day. It's been kind of a rough day, but Hazel is like a completely renewed patient with Lilie here. Restored her spirit.

When Nels explained the seriousness of the situation to Lilie last night, she just lost it. She told me that she was just running all around the house so, so afraid. Nels said she was carrying on something fierce - about how sad and scared she was. She was disappointed at canceling our trip to Seattle, but really, really worried about Hazel.

When Nels and I traded off for an hour last night so I could go get some things, I returned home to find Lilie sleeping in Elsie's bunk bed with her. When I asked her about it today she said she was just scared. To which I replied, "So you just needed to snuggle a sister, huh?" She took a big breath and said, "Yeah ... But when it's like that, even a brother would do." :)

Elsie was much more logical than Lilie. :) While Lilie lost her head, :) Elsie reassured her that everything was going to be okay and it was just fine that we weren't going on our trip, because Hazel was more important.

Such sweet girls. I love them so!

I just can't imagine anything in the world better than having your sisters be your best friends.

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. :) 

Fabulous Friday

Wow. What a blah person I've been on here lately. I'm so sorry. I've been no fun at all --- and, you know, I'm usually just such a barrel of laughs (ha ha) that I just can't stand it anymore. I need something positive and upbeat on here.

In my defense, the past month has been crazy busy. We've gone to Utah once, spent a week and a half over in western Idaho, had family and friends staying at our house four or five times, on top of working and appointments and trying to have some free time on occasion . . . Yeah. It's been kooky.

So, I don't have time for much, but I think that we can breeze through a little Friday fabulous-ness.

1. I've got just over eight weeks until this baby is due. I just can't believe that. Less than two months. Today my cousin said, "Well, you'll be in your third trimester soon . . . " Umm. Yep. Passed over that bridge a while ago. :) Crazy. I don't have anything ready, but that's okay. I don't like getting things ready. 'Cause them I'M ready. And once I'm ready, it's time to get it done. And we're not there yet and I'm not ready.         So.          Eight weeks is a long time anyway.

2. My two big girls played at a friend's house this afternoon for four hours. Violet also took a two and a half hour nap while they were gone. And Elsie was happy as a lark to play by herself and just check in with me every once in a while. What a weird day. And now they are back home, asking a hundred questions, and Violet is just awake, sitting on my lap wanting to go outside, but refusing to go with her sisters, and crying her little tears and wiping her big boogers all over my shirt while yelling for her daddy.

-------------- Ummm. That was supposed to be fabulous. -------------- And somehow as I was writing it, everything turned upside down. ----------------- Hmmmmmm . . . well. I got a few semi-childless hours in today. It was nice. And prior to the last five minutes, the child-filled moments of my day were really wonderful too.

3. Today I woke up to a clean kitchen, fed the kids cold cereal (because I've decided that I'm on a "breakfast cooking strike" for at least a couple of weeks), a long shower - complete with shaved legs, actually blow drying and curling my hair, makeup, and painted toenails. I then took the kids to the pool - but only long enough to have fun and not so long that I have to start wondering why I torture myself with excessive ambition. :) Afterward we picked up the daddy that my kids hadn't seen in several days (due to repeated late nights at work), got lunch, and had a picnic next to the river. It was lovely.

4. The Fourth of July was spectacular! Last Saturday, Nels was hired to work a camera at a big shindig taking place up in Driggs, so we decided to pack up the kids and take a drive over and enjoy a few hours together as a family beforehand.

The event was held at the Huntsman Springs Resort (owned by "the Huntsman Family" - i.e. The Huntsman Cancer Institute and Jon Huntsman, Jr., presidential candidate). There was a big carni (do you know how hard it is to type while a one-year-old is trying to alternately force a rock and a crochet hook into your hands WHILE your typing and isn't taking NO for an answer????) - carnival - complete with bouncy castles and funnel cakes - during the day and then that evening Glenn Beck was speaking (which is what Nels had been hired to run a camera for) followed by a fireworks show. Other than the obvious things, like food, it was all free - with any proceeds being donated to cancer research.

Magically, out of the multitudes of people that were in attendance, we managed to plop our blankets down right next to the family of some of our very best friends (who are currently going to school in Wisconsin) and another family that's in our ward. It's a small world. And the kids had a great time playing until the show got underway. Hazel listened to most of Glenn's talk with me, saying over an over, "I really like what he's saying." When I quizzed her about what exactly he was saying and what she liked, she told me, "Everything. Like how great America is." I love my little patriotic girl.

Even though Nels didn't get to be with us as we watched fireworks that night, I was SO happy that we'd gone. The show was BIG and we were so close. The looks on all four of my children's faces were absolutely priceless as they all snuggled up next to me - I mean, on top of me. Violet snuggled up with me and loved pointing to the "pritties", Elsie laid half her body in my lap, Hazel tucked herself under my free arm, and Lilie lay her head on my other arm. My sciatic nerve was flaring up like crazy and what wasn't hurting had (mercifully?) fallen asleep under the weight of me, my uterus, and multiple children, but I would do it all over, again and again, to watch them and hear them sing - at full volume -

"I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free. And I won't forget the men who died who gave that right to me. And I gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today. 'Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land. God bless the USA." (Both girls learned this song in school last year.)

I don't care if it is corny, I love that song as much as I did when I first learned and sang it as a grade schooler. And it makes my heart swell with gratitude and pride and my throat choke closed with emotion to hear my children forcefully proclaim love for our great country. It took us about an hour to get out of a crowded, dusty parking lot at eleven o'clock at night and then drive the additional hour (plus) back to Idaho Falls (we barely beat Nels home - who had stayed to help pack up all the camera and video equipment and then drive home with some other crew members), but (again) it was all worth it.

Monday, the Fourth, Nels had the day off work and we spent it playing with our kids, cleaning up, enjoying a visit and a game of Cribbage with Grandpa Chick and his motorcycle-riding buddy - Craig, and watching more fireworks.

I love our country. I love my freedoms. We are so very blessed.

5. Life is good. It's often times crazy and/or frustrating, but it's so good as well. I've felt so strongly lately - as I've contemplated the make up of our family - how wonderfully blessed we are with our four little girls and how happy I am that they are as close together as they are. How blessed my little chickies are to have their sisters. They are absolutely the very best friends. They always have a buddy. They always have a partner in crime. They always have "someone to play with" and someone to help. They are close enough in age that this is possible. They are all growing up together. Sisters make the very best kinds of friends.

I'm so thankful that as they grow, they will know how to interact with other women, how to have healthy relationships with other women. I have realized in the world today, this is often times lacking. Many of the sorrows we encounter in our lives stem from women not knowing how to have healthy relationships with one another. So often feeling as if other women are "competition" rather than the wonderful "sisters" they have the potential of being.

I love both my brothers dearly, but having been raised in a family with four girls, by a mother that also had wonderful relationships with both her sisters, has been an enormous blessing in my life. I'm so glad that my girls will have this opportunity. I'm so excited to have another little sister join our family soon. They will grow to be such a force for good in this crazy world.

6. Tomorrow I have 4 uninterrupted hours with my husband. And he can't get away. We even have a babysitter. It's all scheduled. Now, it's "busy time" at Melaleuca right now. Nels is working long hours -- which will continue for pretty much the rest of the month. To what do we owe this "special" SATURDAY of him giving me his undivided attention? Are we going somewhere romantic? Are we going to do something fun? Are we going to have the time of our lives? Sure! We're going to a mandatory childbirth class at the birth center where we're going to have our baby! Hooray!!! Our FIFTH child and we are taking the Saturday off - with a babysitter and everything - to take a childbirth class. That's hilarious to me. But you know what? I bet we both learn something new. I bet we both have fun. I bet we're both are excited to have four hours of talking about uteruses and perineums . . . wait, what? Okay. Excited might be the wrong word for that one, but doggone it. We will be child-free and it's gonna be FUN!

Chicks make CHICKS!

Can you believe it? FIVE girls! We are going to have a whole lot of fun at our house. I tell you what. Lots of emotions, lots of silly fights, and lots of love.

I was raised in a family with four girls (and two brothers) and while we didn't always get along, I sure love my sisters. They are some of the very best friends that I have.

I am a little overwhelmed at the responsibility that is placed upon me as their mother. I think that the identity of women has been hugely distorted in our world today and I'm so amazed at the faith that the Lord has placed in me to show them how to be daughters of God. Or maybe more correctly, to guide them back to Him, so that He can teach them who they already are. How to be examples to the girls and women around them. To live with faith, integrity, strength, peace, and joy. To raise them with a desire to be mothers themselves. To have families and to serve the Lord. To seek after righteousness. To discover the divinity within themselves.

I am so excited for this new little lady to come. (But I have no problem waiting until September! :) I know many people who say things like: Oh, girls are so much calmer (or easier or harder) than boys! or Girls are so much easier to potty train! or any hundreds of other things that they have observed in their own families of "mixed gender" children. LOL! However, I can tell you right now, that each child comes with their own distinct personality -- quite regardless of girl or boy. Some of my girls are calmer than others. Some have been eternally easier to potty train than others. Some like pink. Some like blue. Some like princesses. Some like dragons. Some like robot-princess-dragon-ballerinas. :) Some like to sit still for hours, working at the same thing. Others lose interest in a matter of seconds and are always on the move. The ONLY (usually true) "gender absolute" that I have found in my last seven years of parenting all girls is this: girls are much more likely to deal with conflict in an emotion-based way, while boys seem much more prone to deal with it in a physical way. - But even that has its exceptions. :) I have found that each of them is entirely unique and I've never made two the same. -- Never even made two opposites! They all seem to come from entirely different planets all together. :) And I am so excited to meet this new "different" little person.

I absolutely love the variety of our seemingly-imbalanced family!

"If you don’t understand how a woman could both love her sister dearly and want to wring her neck at the same time, then you were probably an only child." ~ Linda Sunshine