So little time . . . and a Fabulous Five on Sunday.

There is SO much that I have been wanting to write and SO LITTLE time to do it lately. It make me sad because I know that I would have to spend a whole lot of time to catch up, but I really want to have some things recorded. Maybe I'll just have to do it in installments and then by eventually I'll forget so many of the things, that I'll stop worrying about it! :)


SO. FIRST OFF.

COLDPLAY WAS INCREDIBLE!!! We went with Ben and Kelly (my brother and SIL) out to eat at Cafe Rio before the concert and then headed down to the Delta Center. (I know, I know, it actually called the Energy Something Something Center Arena or whatever, but it's still the Delta Center in my mind.) Can you believe how L-O-N-G it is between the time that you get there and the time that the main attraction plays??!! Seriously I think that it was at least 9:00 before Coldplay came out, but it was well worth the wait! If any of you ever, in your whole life, get an opportunity to go to one of their concerts, I HIGHLY, HIGHLY, HIGHLY recommend it!!! And if you are still not a Coldplay fan, I HIGHLY recommend that you pick up some of their albums. Start with Parachutes and then go from there. They are incredible! I honestly could have listened to them play the entire night. It was so much fun!!! Thank you Mom and Dad for watching our kids and getting them in bed!!!

SECOND ITEM OF BUSINESS.

I am finished with one of my projects that I've started, almost finished with the bathroom, and hoping to make some major progress toward completeing my third one on the way home from Mnt. Home today. I cannot wait to show you pictures of all three because I think that they are fabulous and I always love praise. :) Just kidding. I just know that you've all missed me so much in my blogging absence these past few weeks, that I'm excited to show you why you've had to sacrifice so much. :) LOL! I'm retarded, I know. :)

THIRDLY, Elsie has started saying and doing lots of funny things in the past couple of weeks. She now says,
Hi
Mama
Dada
Daddy
Owey
Ight (Light)
Out
Baba
A-dun
Ti-ty (Kitty)
Pi-ty (Pretty)
Ball
Papa
Tata (Nana or Banana)
Hot
Tee (Tree)

and many others that I just haven't figured out what they are yet. She is such a babbler. She talk, talk, talks all day long. So sweet. I love my little lady. She tries to copy just about anything that I name for her. She waves, gives kisses and hugs, nods and shakes her head, and blows kisses. As she was "helping" me make cream pies the other day, she was Mmmmmmm-ing and loving the tastes that I would give her of the filling. After a while I asked her if she thought we should stir the coconut in yet. She shook her her, no. So I asked her if she thought we should just eat it all instead. She nodded and opened her mouth for more. :)
When I show her something that she really likes, she OOOoooo's and when she tastes something she really likes, she Mmmmm's. She is such a funny little girl! She definitely has some attitude and at times can be quite the little stinker. She knows how to throw a fit with the best of them, but most of the time she is an angel.

FOURTHLY. (Yep, it's a word. :) I LOVE MY FAMILY!
Hazel and Lilie have had SO MUCH fun the past two weekends with their Grandmas, Grandpas, and cousins. I am so thankful that they are able to grow up with them in their lives. We aren't close enough that we get to see them all the time, but still get to see them often. Cousins are so fabulous! I've never seen anything like the friendships that cousins can automatically have.

I am eternally grateful for my own family, my parents, siblings, siblings-in-law, uncles, aunts, cousins, nieces, nephews, husband, and children, but I am also so very, very thankful for Nels's family. They are SUCH good people and I love them all dearly. I am so thankful to have been blessed with such a loving and supporting family-in-law. We are truly blessed.

(I just realized that I haven't done my fabulous five this past week and then thought about sticking it into this post. THEN I realized that this IS like a fabulous five . . . so here I am with numero cinco.)

FIFTHLY.
This fabulous, is based on funny little story I thought of as I'm writing these funny words like fourthly and fifthly.
As Hazel was keeping me company the other day while I was cleaning, she was naming off her siblings and their number - like,
H: "I'm your first baby, huh, Mom? And Lilie is your second baby and Elsie is your third baby. Our next baby will be fourth . . . what comes after that?"
Me: "Fifth"
H: "And what comes after that?"
Me: "I don't know if there will be, 'after that'! Silly girl!"
H: "What comes after fifth?"
Me: "Sixth. . . . . . . I don't know that we'll have that many kids though. That's a lot of kids."
H: "Yes. We have to have a lot of kids."
Me: "I don't know. I guess we'll see. I don't really think that's up to you. - - - How many kids do you think we'll have?"
H: "Ten."
Me: "Ten?! I REALLY don't think so! That's a LOT of kids, Hazel!" :)
H: (said with the sassiest, know-it-all voice a 5 year-old can muster) "Mom. We'll have as many kids as Heavenly Father tells us to."

There was more funny conversation after this, but the gist of this fifthly little fabuloso is this. I AM thankful that I have a relationship with my Heavenly Father that will let me know when "we're done" . . . . . and that I can rely on HIM for that . . . and not my five-year-old. :) LOL! What a funny little girl! She sure loves her family!

Blissful Igorance

Okay, so I'm going to take a poll. What do you think of the phrase "Ignorance is Bliss"? (In terms of things that you have no control over. Not in things that would just make you uneducated. :)

My initial reaction has always been, that's just not true. I'd rather know. At least I'm informed and not taken by surprise.

But I've been rethinking this conclusion lately. I think sometimes, ignorance really IS bliss. Sometimes better to just not know.

But then, if you don't know, you're never given the choice of how to behave. Never bettering yourself through the challenge.

But you also don't have to sit and mull it around in your mind when you can't even do anything about it.


{smile. i know i'm retarded!}


Hmmmm . . . What do you think?

Friday's Fabulous Five

Holy crap! I haven't blogged in a LONG time! Thankfully, I'll have a few things to show for it - just not quite yet. :) Although it is one in the morning - it IS actually Friday and I'm going to post now - even though I'm exhausted, so I don't forget. Again. 

1. We are going to COLDPLAY tomorrow!!! I am so excited!!!!

2. I have been making progress on the bathroom tile. I'm so excited to have it done and to show you all! I am almost finished with an afghan for a friend of mine and I am almost finished with another fun little project. I'm really looking forward to getting them all completed!

3. I have the three sweetest children on the planet. We got to go out to eat tonight and they were all great the whole time! They make me laugh so much and they are always forgiving --- even when I turn into a psycho for a day . . . or a week. Elsie has been sleeping without a binky for many moons now. Lilie has recently decided that she can't sleep in her own bed and has been sleeping at the foot of Hazel's bed. :) I'm so thankful that they love one another so much. 

4. I have the most fabulous siblings and parents that I could ever ask for. I love my family SO much. They are truly my very best friends. I love them and trust them entirely. I am so thankful for the loving example that they are to me on a daily basis. I don't know why the Lord has blessed me so abundantly in this area of my life, but I will be forever grateful. In a blessing that my dad gave to my brother when we were kids, he was told that his brother and sisters were his best friends in the premortal world, before we all came here. I know this to be true with all of my heart and feel blessed beyond words to have them fill my life. I am so thankful that we all live close together once again and can feel one another's love and strength. 

5. My dear husband. He is my very best friend in the entire world. I am so thankful for the sweet blessing that he is to me and that I get to spend the rest of my days and the rest of eternity with such a man. I am really looking forward to getting to spend this weekend with him!!!!

One of those, please. No. Not THAT one . . . the other one.

Do you ever have "one of those" days? What about "one of those" weeks?

You know, the kind where you set the screwdriver on the counter and it falls on your foot? The kind where you do everything right, get the shower valve all connected and looking beautiful, turn the water on and then it's leaking from the one spot you would have to undo everything to repair? You repair it, put it all together and then the other side is leaking? The kind when you make a comment and it seems to take on a life of its own, spiraling toward chaos?  The kind where you seem to offend at every turn and yet that was NOT your intent. The kind where you can't seem to keep your mouth shut? (and neither can your kids? LOL!) The kind of week where you baby a project, spend hours on it and then at the end, cracks down the middle? The kind where you have a sick kid, take her to the doctor (running late, of course), jump out, go to unbuckle the kids, and then have your five year old tell you that you forgot to buckle one year old into her car seat and she kept standing up? (Why didn't she tell me the FIRST time? And how did I not remember???) 

Yep. It's been one of those. You know, the kind where you finally decide to make bread for your family, so you can once again eat lunch. The kind where it turn out SO good. The perfect consistency. Placed in the pans just so. Beautiful bread. Buzzer beeps to take it out. Check it. Perfect. Just 2 more minutes, to brown the tops. The kitchen is all cleaned. The dishes, washing. Flour and oil cleaned off the counter. The heavenly smell of bread filling your home! 

Can you hear the angels singing yet? The glory of the moment? Cold outside, nice and warm inside, the satisfaction filling your heart? 

And then you get distracted. And then you leave it in the oven for another HOUR.

You could crack a head with one of these loaves,

they're so hard.

Yep. Those are the ones. Those are the days. 

But you know what? I'm not going to LET it be "one of those" days. 

We can still eat the inside . . . . :)

YES! I can! Yes, I can! Yes - I can. Can I?

I need moral support. Anybody want to come help me tile my tub surround? :)

Don't get me wrong. I'm a do-it-yourself kind of gal. I LOVE to do things with my hands. I even dare say that I like manual labor - to some extent. I am a "can do" girl. Some of my sweetest memories with my dad are of me sitting on the driveway watching him work on the car. To this day, I can hardly contain myself from leaning over Nels' shoulder as her works on anything mechanical in any way, shape, or form --- that is, if I can't do it myself. (This really bothers him, by the way. -- The leaning over the shoulder part. -- Oh yeah, and the part where I can't be quiet about giving advice.) I've changed oil and brakes. I've recovered furniture and painted my entire house by myself. I build things and know my way very well around a hardware store. I move furniture, landscape our yard, help rip out concrete, rake rocks, dig holes, and occasionally tip over wheel-barrows. (C'mon! Wheel-barrows were NOT invented for women! :) I engineered all of the plumbing for the shower myself while Nels has been my fabulous go-to man, ripping out walls, cutting and installing cement board, etc. after and before work. I seriously think that I would make a fabulous mechanic or plumber or engineer in another life. :)

When I expressed my hesitancy at doing the tile, my dad informed me that I could do it. When I design how I want things laid out, measure and remeasure, I think, "I can do this."

If we only worked on it after Nels got home from work - this would be a mighty drawn out project. I can easily work on it throughout the day. Besides, two people in one little tub? How fun can that be?? :) :) But you know what? When it comes right down to it, I feel totally intimidated and I've been procrastinating all day.