Numerous November Gratitudes

Brad and I went to a stand up comedy show featuring local comedians (with a Groupon of course). Going on a date with the Hubs was glorious. Especially because we love laughing. We don't date as often as we should. We need to utilize our awesome date system with our good friends that live close by. After we put the kids to bed one of them will come chillax on our couch while the kids sleep. The next night one of us will go to their house and do the same. It's quite genus.

Found Jayda in the morning like this. I honestly have no clue how she did it.

Our van was backed into by a man that lives in another building of our complex. He tried to "hit and run" but a security guard witnessed it, chased him down in his golf cart and threatened him into coming back and waiting for me to come outside so he could tell me what he did. This was one of my "frazzled mom" moments. First of all, I haven't been a car accident since high school. Secondly, I had two noisy kids with me and a schedule to stick to. Thirdly, I couldn't understand this man's accent very well. I definitely couldn't remember what steps to take after a car accident. I got his name and apartment number and said I'd be in touch. I did not file a police report right away, like I'm apparently supposed to. The cops did come eventually but only for the purpose of coaxing the insurance info out of our neighbor. He was not very cooperative. Ee learned his insurance had expired. In the end he paid out of pocket to fix our van and it looks great, so we're satisfied. What an awesome security guard. He is officially one of my favorite people.

Post pigtail hair.

This year Halloween candy was a huge problem for me. Most people I talk to are like, "Yeah I let myself eat a piece of the kids' candy everyday." and I'm like, "One piece of candy?!" I literally ate at least 20 pieces of candy every day until the bucket was empty (or void of anything tasty enough to justify the calories). It didn't even last a week. I have more than just a love of sugar. It's a serious addiction.

One time my friend Heather told me her philosophy of parenting [her six kids] in relation to church: Nine months in the belly, nine months of cuddling [the baby against my chest], nine months of "Why do I come to church?" and finally at 18 months they can go to nursery during second and third hours.

First hair cut! The chopped locks are all curly too *sniff*

Jayda is in the "Why do I come to church?" phase. She gets tired and cranky but won't fall asleep on me anymore so she walks around church and screams. If it weren't for our "village" of wonderful friends that love our kids and help so much, I probably wouldn't be able to do it. 

I've always felt I didn't hold Jayda enough as a newborn. I guess that's a disadvantage of having kids so close together. I had to chase Kallie around a lot and it took me a long time to get the hang of handling two kids (do I have the hang of it yet?). Next time I want to use a carrier more so the baby can snuggle against me all the time while I have free hands for other things. And I am always open to tips and suggestions.

Gotta have her socks.

Jayda totally understands what's going on around her. When we say "prayer" she folds her arms and bows her head. She also signs "more, milk, Mama, Dada, tree, grass, hello, sleep, wash hands, potty, shoes, eat" and more. 

One day as we were walking out the door Kallie randomly said, "I'm mad! I need to calm down," and with a motion of her hand as if she were showing the height of someone taller than her she said, "One, two, three, four, five," lowering her hand a little with each number. "Okay, I'm calm." and walked out the door. I stared after her with my mouth wide open. Where does my child get this stuff from?

Sometimes I really wish I had a workout partner at the gym. Especially when I'm trying a new exercise and have no idea what I'm doing. Apparently one time it was obvious that I was confused because a sweet middle aged man asked if I needed help. He showed me the right place for the exercise I wanted to do and showed me how to do it. It was so nice. But after that exercise I thought, "Now do I have to smile and chat every time I pass him or can I go back to ignoring him like I do everyone else around me?" I just don't know proper gym etiquette. I really do love meeting new people and getting to know them but the gym is one place where I'm really on a time restraint. Child care at the gym has a limit so I have to utilize my time wisely.

Our good friends invited us over for Family Home Evening because their nine year old son loves our kids and wanted to teach Kallie some gospel principles. He planned a wonderful lesson and had a book with illustrations and everything. Kallie's attention span at this point is about five minutes so that was the point at which sitting still on the couch and listening was over. I suppose this is why our Family Home Evenings aren't very consistent yet. I hope he wasn't too disappointed by the short lesson. He has so many cool things planned to teach her! It's so sweet.

As I was folding laundry this week a quote came to my mind that a family member shared on facebook right after having her first baby, "The days are long but the years are short". I started wondering what I can learn from the monotonous things I do as a parent everyday. What does God want me to learn from these things that must get done in order for our household to run successfully? Well, by folding laundry every week I get to look at all the clothes my kids are wearing. These clothes remind me how much my kids have grown and how fast that's happened. It's surreal to think the shirt Jayda is wearing fit Kallie two years ago (but seems like a week ago). Or heartbreaking that this onesie is already too small for Jayda! She's technically not even a baby anymore now that she's a year and walking. She's still a baby to me.

I recently started following The Matt Walsh Blog because I love his posts and so far I agree with his opinions on just about everything. He talks about politics, public education, parenting, world issues, sociology and anything you can think of. One post was a reply to a soon-to-be dad that asked what to expect when his twins are born because the author of the blog, Matt Walsh, also has twins. Matt described his first time watching the twins by himself so his wife could get some sleep. He expected to sit back and watch football while the twins slept in their cradle swings but let's just say, that did not happen. The twins basically broke his self confidence for the first time. However, toward the end he said it's really easy to paint a picture of how hard parenting is. It's easy to describe the hectic, stressful, insane happenings that are so ridiculous you have to look back and laugh hysterically at them. But it's impossible to describe the stuff that makes it all SO worth it. The force of love parents develop when their kids are born and the times their kids do things that are so cute you want to burst because you love them so much.

For me, it's still surreal to look at my kids and think, "I created that human being? She came from me yet she has this unique personality and imagination?" It's mind boggling! I love how Matt wrote his response to that soon-to-be dad. I'm obviously the parent that lays it all out there for people to listen to or this case, read. All the crazy that comes along with parenting (or anything for that matter). But I hope people know that even smack in the middle of my frazzled mom moments bursting with stress, sweat and repetitive whining, I recognize the humor of it all and how I couldn't learn these unique life lessons anywhere else. I also love relating to people and knowing we are experiencing the same things. It fills my bucket. There's really no such thing as over-sharing to me. So if you're ever wondering whether or not to spare me a particular detail, never worry.

My friend's neighborhood had a community garage sale so a few of us girls crashed it and we all scored amazing deals. Something else that fills my bucket is buying loads of stuff for dirt cheap. I feel amazing for weeks. Sure, the total amount of money I end up spending doesn't necessarily seem "dirt cheap" to my husband but seriously, I'm getting it all at 95% off. At full price these piles of stuff would have been hundreds if not more than a thousand dollars. It's especially gratifying when clothes end up fitting perfectly because I do not try on clothes at garage sales.

In case you don't know me at all, I get stressed out easily. Especially when I'm hot. And when we have people over for dinner or parties.  I usually time the cooking all wrong. As soon as Brad walks in the door I'm like, "Get over here and HELP!" and then he saves the day. Some foods get done way before others and we sit down to eat an hour late but without Brad the entire meal would be a complete disaster. This month however, we had the sister missionaries over and for the first time EVER I prepared everything I possibly could way ahead of time so I was actually able to - get this - enjoy dinner. I didn't even ask Brad to do a single thing.

Black Friday shopping

Our precious Kallie turned 3 years old this month. We taped a bunch of balloons to her bedroom door so when she opened it in the morning they floated down on her. I want to start that birthday tradition. I think her birthday is destined to be gloomy and cold because it's been that way every year since she was born. So much for a party at the park! I thought that would at least work in Florida. We went to the play area at the mall, rode the kiddie train and had lunch (with ice cream of course).

Our church organized a father/sons camp out so logically, Brad took Kallie. It felt weird packing her backpack to spend the night away from her mama *sniff*. They camped close to some good friends and had lots of fun. Meanwhile I took Jayda on a mother/daughter shopping spree.

We've been going to choir practice at church lately. We love singing, especially with good friends so it's basically a party every week. I'm far from being good and would never sing a solo to save my life but I can stay on key enough to contribute a voice to the altos. Brad is surprisingly good and can sing harmony really well. It's been fun for me to hear him lead the tenors. It makes me giddy to hear him behind me. My friend Carmen plays piano for the choir and her daughter Caroline comes along for the sole purpose of watching our kids so we can participate. I saw an LDS comic strip of a bishop at the pulpit conducting sacrament meeting. He announced, "For those of you considering serving a full time mission, know that the bar has been raised...for those of you considering joining the ward choir, the bar has been lowered."

My brother and his wife had the idea of taking Christmas pictures together. Not just any old picture. We do super cheesy family poses. We did it back when we all lived in Rexburg and this year we tried to do an Old Navy style photo by laying on the ground in a circle in order to look like a snowflake. It's actually possible for this to look pretty cool, but we have four tiny kids and no photographer so...no. It did not work.

Cheesy family picture from '09:

aaand this year:

I saw a joke somewhere on the internet that reads, "My kids are the reason I wake up each morning, the reason I breathe...and why my hair is falling out, my house is a mess and I'm crazy." Yep, that's me. And I've only been at it for three years! There's a lot of child-rearing I haven't done yet. In spite of my limited parenting experience I have a serious case of terminal mommy-brain. No one would ever find me credible because of my horrible memory. I try to reference an article I just read but can't remember who wrote it, when it was published, and don't even get me started on paraphrasing. At this point I say, "I read this really good article! It's about...oh forget it, just read it yourself." I can't seem to form my thoughts into coherent sentences and I stumble over my words all the time. The message I try to get across to people is often translated exactly the opposite than I intend.

Yes! My size!

For example, every woman at church age thirty or above is apparently under the impression I think of them as "old ladies". I do think families with kids old enough to be in school are in a different stage of life than me. My oldest is barely starting to speak understandable sentences. I don't know a thing about enrolling in school and making science projects on a deadline. But I LOVE hanging out with everyone. There are plenty of women in that category I consider good friends and they are all more awesome, funny and cool than me. Socially I think of all these women the same as me. But when I want to say "I understand you may not be able to come to a play group full of toddlers and babies because your kids are old enough to be in school and your life is even crazier than mine", what probably comes out of my mouth is, "Your kids are so old! That must mean you're ancient." Sorry ya'll. If anything I say seems like I think I'm all "young" and "hot" and "cooler" than you, I'm actually just sleep-deprived and not sensible. Maybe that's why I like blogging.

I love combed hair fresh out of the bath.

On Thanksgiving morning we really wanted to take Kallie to see Frozen. We debated whether or not Jayda and I should go; she's at a very wiggly, anti-sitting-still age. We really didn't know how she would do. We decided to go, hoping she would fall asleep on me. Nope. One of us was walking around with her down by the door or completely outside in the hallway the whole time. I saw about a third of the movie. After trying things like this with two babies I think I know now when to not even bother if we don't have a babysitter. On the other hand my kids surprise the heck out of me sometimes. There are situations that can't be avoided and I'm convinced it'll be horrendous but then they suddenly act like perfect angels. That's why it's impossible to know for sure which things we should try with the kids and which things we should avoid until they're -without question- old enough.

For Thanksgiving dinner my brother's family came over as well as some of the sister missionaries (our ward has SIX sisters and two elders now!). This was our first year ever hosting this holiday so I was nervous to be in charge of so much food. My brother and his wife made all the more time consuming dishes like casseroles and mashed potatoes. Brad was in charge of the turkey and his first method of choice was to deep fry! His coworker loaned him all the equipment and the night before he syringe injected marinade into the muscles of the turkey. It was cool watching all the spots plump up as they filled with liquid. It came out with a perfectly crispy crust and really yummy seasoning. Sadly I didn't see the whole process because I was busy getting everything else ready and I'm so mad I didn't take a single picture that whole day. Anyway, all I really had to do was make deviled eggs. Everything else I could possibly buy or make super easy, I did. I know, it's not as special when everything isn't from scratch but I didn't care for our first year hosting. The less to think about, the better for me. It turned out great. I'm SO grateful to have my brother's family close. Thanksgiving is seriously a great holiday. Such a long weekend we all got to spend together.

On a walk Kallie bent down to watch an ant colony do their thing and said, "I wanna go home with the ants".

Kallie: I like it!

Me: Me too.

Kallie: Me too too!