If Only

If only there were a way to fit 8 hours of sleep into only 5 hours of pillow time. How lovely that would be.

 . . . . . . .

If only there were a way to subtract 7 years . . . for just a few hours . . . right now. I'd go through labor all over again -- a hundred times over again -- just to hold that sweet little baby in my arms again . . . for just a little while. To look into those precious little eyes. So bright and curious. The most attentive little eyes that I've ever seen on any little newborn, ever. Looking right at me. So excited to be here and and experience it all.

 . . . . . . . .

. . . for just a few hours.

If only.

Scaredy Squirrel

And she shall call him Acorn.


Several weeks ago, Lilie got it into her mind that she would catch the squirrel that lives in our big ash tree. To me his name is always Bob or George. I like good solid names like that in squirrels. Lilie decided that Bob needed to be our buddy. She wanted to look at him, study him. Secretly I think that she was hoping to learn the magic behind scaling trees and wires . . .

I study him every morning, out the window, while I wash the dishes. He and his "friend" chase one another up and down our pine trees, accomplishing great feats of acrobatics as they fly through the air from branch to branch and around and around and around and around the trunks. Playing peek-a-boo.

Many in our fair city detest these hyper little rodents. They eat their strawberries, apples, plums, sunflowers, cherries, etc. and apparently do damage to homes and cause power outages. Besides, they're not really indigenous to the area.

I, however, love them. (What's a little power outage, anyway?) I think they are one of the most fascinating creatures to watch. If I had to be any animal, it would probably be a squirrel. Like this one. LOL. :)

Back to Lilie.

I let her come up with her primitive "traps" - using things like our cooler - with cherries tomatoes as bait. :) When I mentioned Lilie's obsession to my neighbor, she offered the use of her real squirrel trap. Which she uses to catch the little monsters that eat her fruit. She then takes them to Animal Control . . . and . . . dum, dum, duuummmmm. Of course we had no desire to "dum, dum, dum" George. We just wanted to look at our little friend.

We set up the trap with half the sunflower head from our garden. As I was getting lunch ready, I looked out the window and saw our crazy little critter bouncing around the trap. Lilie was SO excited! She ate her lunch in record time. Elsie immediately decided that she didn't really like mac-n-cheese (even though she's been asking for it for a week!) and rushed out the door before I could come up with a threat (for not eating any lunch).

We thoroughly enjoyed watching our buddy freak out while buzzing around his dungeon. He, on the other hand, was not thrilled and in his zealous attempts to ram himself through the 1-inch square holes, was banging up his noggin pretty good. We really wanted to hold on to him till Hazel got home from school, but I'm pretty sure he would have had a heart attack by then.

Lilie christened him "Acorn" and then raised the hatch and watched him rush back to his nest.

Poor little fella. We've probably scarred him for life, but it was really fun to see him up close. I've probably committed some sort of crime by letting him go - seeing as how there's an enormous fine for anyone who releases any squirrels in Idaho Falls (they really are a huge nuisance). But we could never end Acorn's life. He's been our buddy for years.

Hay Chicks!

Okay, okay. It's not hay. It's straw. :)

Two Sundays ago, Nels and I took our little chickies up in the foothills above Idaho Falls. Looking for the perfect golden background to take some pictures.

I really like all the girls pictures to have matching backgrounds on my walls and while I've always been kind of a fan of the "school picture" look (I know! **GASP!!**), this year I just couldn't justify the expense of over a hundred dollars to have school pictures taken of all four girls! Nels has a fabulous camera and with both of us combined, we probably add up to one pretty decent photographer. :) It was so much less stressful on all of us to take the pictures ourselves. In fact, it was actually a lot of fun.

Did I just put the words pictures, girls, and FUN in the same paragraph!? Wow. we've come a long way in the past few years! :)

We were able to find a really fun stack of rolled straw just off the road. - And while the dirt road leading into the wheat field next to it had a "No Hunting No Trespassing" sign on it, the broken fence that we went through didn't say a thing about not trespassing! :)  (Had I been truly concerned, we wouldn't have done it, but I think the farmers up there are far more concerned about people going into the fields and/or hunting on their property - than four little girls standing in front of and hiding in their bales of straw.)

The weather was perfect, the sun was gorgeous with the glow off those golden bales, and we were happy the whole time. I love Idaho this time of year. So many of my favorite colors. Turquoise blue sky, green trees just about to change yellow, and lovely golden wheat fields. {LOVE}

I still need to finish editing the pictures of the girls all together and our family picture, but I just can't wait to share some of the lovely portrait shots that we got of our little ladies.

Hazel, 6 (almost 7)

Lilie, 5

Elsie, 2 (almost 3)

Violet, 6 months

Ah, so beautiful. I could honestly just stare at these little faces all day! Can't wait to get them printed! (And yes, Grandmas. We'll be getting you some copies too!)

Unsocial

Tonight I checked my voicemail.

It has been approximately 3 weeks since I checked my voicemail.

70 percent were from my cousin. 15 percent were from my friend. Both of whom call me when I drop off the face of the planet. They love me. They make sure I'm not dead. 10 percent were people that needed immediate action from me. I did not know. They did not get immediate attention. The remaining whatever percent . . . well, I don't know their names and I don't care that I don't.

To anyone who has called me in the last three weeks. Please forgive. It's not you.

It's me.

I just realize tonight that I haven't updated my blog in almost three weeks.

Poor, lonely blog.

I haven't checked my facebook account in almost a month. Facebook and I have had a falling out. It eats up my precious time. I've decided that I hate facebook. It's a vicious monster of a distraction. I start *thinking* in facebook status updates. My life becomes, in my mind, one long string of semi-clever, entirely irrelevant, one sentence summaries. I don't like it.

But I DO love my blog and I love you. So here I am with this random post.

I wish I could say that it is my desire to share my life with you which has brought me here. It's not.

I have to teach a Relief Society lesson tomorrow morning. Tomorrow afternoon, I will be thankful for my calling. Right now. I'm avoiding going to sleep, thereby avoiding waking up, thereby avoiding getting four children ready for church by myself, and therein delaying the teaching of my lesson.

Except not really. My subconscious doesn't realize that it's going to come anyway. In the exact same amount of time. I'm just going to be tired instead of rested.

I go through phases of being entirely anti-social. I don't know why I do this. I love my friends, I love my family members. I also love being alone with just my little family. I don't actually know how to describe it. It's weird.

I've been a busy chick the last three weeks. I'm excited to break my silence and show you the pictures that we took of our family last Sunday. - I've spent hours staring at and, if possible, falling even more in love with the beautiful faces of my children. - I'm excited to show you the transformations to my house that have taken place. - Oh man! the completion of projects - YEARS - in the making. -  I'm excited to share the thoughts that have been tumbling through my head. - Maybe not interesting, but needing to be released so that I can have room for something else again. :)

And again, to anyone who has gotten the "shaft" from me recently. To those who call and never get a return phone call, I'm truly sorry. I love you. I'm just productive when I hide away from the world and I can't say I'm entirely ready to leave yet.

Soon. Soon.

I should probably just redo my voicemail message to say something like this. "Hi, you've reached Rachel's phone. I won't say that I'm unavailable in general, but obviously I'm unavailable to you at the moment. I'm feeling rude today and apparently don't want to answer. If the information you wish to relay or receive is very important, please call back two or three times, I will usually answer after several attempts. If not, please pray for me and then call back in a few weeks. It's not you. It's me. Thank you."

Another One Bites the Dust

My dad hates that song.

A couple of weeks ago, Lilie told me she had a loose tooth. A few days later, we yanked it. Just another reminder that she's growing up. {{sentiment, sentiment}}

Well, I guess her new bottom tooth must have really been laying on the peer pressure, because the remaining baby just couldn't seem to handle it.

At bed time Sunday night, she went into the bathroom to brush her pearly whites. Always a lengthy procedure for Lilie because she must: stare in the mirror, play in the water, play around with her toothbrush for a little while, eat toothpaste for a little while, play in the running water again for a long while, roll the toothbrush around in her mouth for a long while before brushing begins, halfway through - take a potty break, make miniature animals or shoes out of any random hair elastics laying around, see if she can fit under the step stool, balance on the edge of the tub, ignore her mother's reminders of "what you're supposed to be doing", finally slowly brush each individual tooth with excruciating care, spit in the sink for a while, play in the water -- without ever actually cleaning off her toothbrush, spread some more toothpaste around on the countertop (just for funsies), and then forget to put away her toothbrush or the toothpaste.

See? That would take anyone a long time. With a system like that, it's a wonder she ever makes it out of the bathroom at night.

However, Sunday night - she didn't take QUITE as long and I was distracted -- finally getting to eat my dinner, after everyone else had eaten and left the table -- and had forgotten my role as "Reminder". I probably wouldn't have ever even noticed her slip behind me, headed for the stairs, except for one big tip off. Lilie hasn't yet realized that stealth is often just as big an alarm as screaming -- probably even more so. When Lilie is silent and "smooth", I know something is up. --- That and she was doing just the slightest whisper of sniffles.

Turning around from the table and just catching a streak of her ducking down the stairs - "Lilie, what are you doing?"

"Umm. {sniff, sniff} Umm. . . . Well . . . it's just . . . fine. {sniff, sniff}"

"Why are you crying? What's wrong?"

"Well . . . {starting to crack} . . . {a small, sad crying grimace makes it's way onto her little face} . . . it just . . . well . . . {sniff, sniffer louder} . . . I was brushing and it just hurts, but I don't want it to come out! {wimpery wailing ensues}"

"You mean your tooth? You were brushing and it started hurting?"

" . . . Yes. But I don't want to PULL IT OUT! WHAAAAA!"

Sadly Lilie knows that I'm like a shark and just can't resist the smell of blood in the water. Something that I can wiggle and pinch and pull . . . Poor kid. I'm just like my mom. And Lilie is incredibly, even less dramatic than I was as a kid. :) However, when it comes to teeth, to "help" them overcome their fears, I tell them horror stories of when I had a loose tooth as a kid and WOULD NOT let my mom pull it out, even though it was really loose, because I didn't want it to hurt. We were at my grandma's house. Well, it fell out in the night, I swallowed it and ended up gagging and puking all over my grandma's bed. And my sweet grandmother cleaned it all up. (One of the many ways that I know my Grandmother went straight to Heaven when she passed away.)

So, anyway. Lilie. She knows that she doesn't want it to stay in and she knows that once I get a look at it, there'll be no way I won't pull it out, BUT Lilie HATES blood.

She came up, we took a look at it. And true to form, she was hysterical. Awesome. There is a big part of me that loves watching Lilie lose her head. It's incredible. A true sight to behold. Her "About Bees" movie shows a little bit of what I'm talking about. It's . . . like nothing else I've ever watched. :)

She bravely posed for a before and after picture. Nels got some good video of her nearly fainting at the sight of blood on the tissue. :) I'll have him edit it and add it later, hopefully today.

We're glad that she lived.

what I'd really like to know is HOW Lilie's teeth got put into Violet's mouth . . . :)