Sunday, April 22, 2012

3 crucial errors of girls night



 Marty went on a father-son camp out this weekend. Brynnie-Pie and I look forward to this thing all. year. long. We do something seriously girly and every other sentence out of her mouth is a sing-songy "Girl's day! Fablious!" Of course I loved it and we had so much fun. But here were my big mistakes:



1. First of all, we made muddy buddies together again, just like last year. My big mistake was to make those at 1:00 in the afternoon. Brynn is a girl who can not, repeat, CAN NOT hold her sugar. It's the strangest phenomenon. My quiet, calm girl who could spend the whole day sitting at her little red table creating starts acting like a human pin ball machine bouncing off the chairs, tables, walls, knocking everything over, and speaking non-stop at hyper speed. And seriously, the non-stop chatter is just bizarre. I should have given her the muddy buddies at bedtime and let her bounce around her room where nothing (read: Gabe) is breakable. Instead, I got to watch her burn off her sugar high at the movie theater.


2. Error number two: When I took her to see Beauty and the Beast in 3D at the dollar theater, I didn't take her to the potty first. So just a few minutes into the movie her crazy rocking back and forth was not only a result of the sugar, but also having to go potty. Of course, after the movie started she was totally into it and absolutely refused to take a potty break. I swear I just about had a nervous breakdown. (Ok, but parts were ADORABLE, like how almost every single song was, "GASP! This is my FAVORITE part!")


3. The only other thing was that I feel like I over scheduled it. I asked her what she wanted to do, and planned ALL of it plus a few different things that I wanted to do together. Because of that, we didn't do much of what we do best together, which is just coloring princess pages together and shooting the breeze and expressing our love for each other. :) It was kind of a rush from one thing to the next feeling.

But it was still wonderful to be able to focus on her. She LOVES attention, but just doesn't demand it the way Brycer does.

Here are a few pictures of a tea party (of course). Just like last year, she got to pick any 3 things she wanted out of her tea party book and we made them together.







I have to say, I sure was relieved to see those 2 boys walk through the door together. I do not like being here without Marty and as soon as Bryce walked in and batted his long eyelashes over his big blue eyes I realized how much I couldn't WAIT for a Bryce "nuggle."


Although...now I can hear them downstairs fighting with each other. That is something I did NOT miss. Maybe it's time for a daddy daughter weekend...? :)

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

First rice cereal

 Crown courtesy of Brynn - she made one for each of us to wear at dinner and, of course, insisted that we call each other by our "royal names."  King Daddy, Queen Mommy, Prince George, Princess Sally, and Prince Gabe.  Speaking of names, Bryce has been calling me Em-o-ly all day.  Hm.   Anyway...

Chillin'


Social


Leery


Curious


Tolerant


Dislike


Disgust


Wroth


Bonus: 
A VERY relaxed bath

Monday, April 16, 2012

Happy birth..BLARGH

Three sets of candles to celebrate three birthdays - my Dad's on the 5th, Bryce's on the 26th, and mine last Friday.  My parents were in town and it was so nice to have them here on my birthday!  I asked Marty to make pineapple upside down cake in the dutch oven and, as always, it was sooooo good.  He actually made this the night before my birthday, because he and I were planning on a marathon date, which is something we never get to do on our birthdays because it is just too spendy to employ a baby-sitter for very long (plus we always feel bad keeping them out late).  

So we went to bed Thursday and at about midnight Bryce came in our bed saying his tummy hurt.  We gave him a kiss and sent him back multiple times (he's kind of the boy who cried wolf at night).  But then a little while later the inevitable happened and he puked all over himself and his bed.  Long story short, he threw up off and on from about 12:30 until 4 a.m.  Around 2:00 I sent Marty to a couch, knowing he was going to have to be up early to teach a zero hour seminary class.  Happy birthday, Mommy. 

So the next day, my birthday, I had a scripture going through my mind a lot.  It's one Marty showed me after a particularly long night with a newborn Gabe.  In Proverbs 31:10 there is the commonly heard verse, "Who can find a virtuous woman?  For her price is far beyond rubies."  And I usually stopped there. But if you continue, there are lots of really neat phrases that describe women.  So the phrases that kept coming to my mind were,

"She riseth also while it is yet night..." (31:15)
and
"Her candle goeth not out by night..." (31:18)

So, no, I didn't get my marathon date, just a quickie out to dinner and to pick up my present.  But at least I could feel that my "price was far above rubies."  That was nice, too.

I'm grateful I married someone who values motherhood and helps me to find the worth in the...humblest of circumstances. :)

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Here's something I'm working on...

See that sweet little boy riding his bike all the way down the sidewalk?
 The picture is a little shaky because the photographer is trying to hold back a full-blown panic attack.

I'm one of those moms.  I don't like my kids to be more than 5 feet away from me.  Bryce is a good little boy.  He's smart.  He's not going to dart out into the road, I've trained him.  No one is going to come snatch him right in front of me.  He can't get going fast enough to break a limb if he tips over.  I'm not sure what I'm worried about.  I just like to have a hold of each of my kids hands whenever we are anywhere (and sometimes at home).  Alas, I now have three kids and only two hands.  At some point I'm going to have to let go of the control and trust them a little.  And they deserve it.  They are good kids who have earned my trust.  I want them to be independent.  So watching from my driveway to see if Bryce was going to turn around at the end of the sidewalk and come back (like he was taught previous bike riding trips when I was two steps behind him) was a small victory for me.  I'm working on it. 


And by the way, he did.

Monday, April 9, 2012

Happy Easter 2012

This year before Easter, we wrote a letter to the Easter Bunny asking him to come on Saturday instead of Sunday, so that we could focus on the real reason for Easter.  Brynn was NOT into that idea.  Sweet girl that she is, rather than fight with me about it, she wrote a song about the Easter Bunny "hop hop hopping to houses on Sunday and NOT Saturday...." (and so on and so forth).  Then I was kind of bummed because Sunday ended up being so busy and crazy I felt like I hadn't really made a difference for the kids anyway.  But then Brynn showed me this picture she drew and I felt a little better. :)
(Jesus on the cross)


So theses are from Saturday morning.  I'm glad Bryce wasn't disappointed when he opened up an egg full of grapes after  Brynn opened one full of Peeps.  Probably because Peeps are really gross.


Sunday afternoon we had the other teachers at Marty's seminary over for dinner.  We displaced-no-family-in-AZ-Utahns have to stick together. :)

An awesome dinner, an egg rolling contest (that Bryce won!), good friends, not to mention the choir music I was worried about directing went amazing!...it was a nice holiday. :)

Friday, April 6, 2012

Egg hunt

We had so much fun at our Easter egg hunt today with all my park day peeps. That's Bryce in the middle.  He is so different at this age than Brynn was.  She'd stroll around, find an egg, examine it, stroll a little more.  Not Bryce.  He's a kid who knows what he wants and finds a way to obtain it.  He tore out onto that field, and started by FRANTICALLY gathering as many eggs as he could, then suddenly changed his strategy.  He realized the bigger eggs must be better and would pick up an egg, shake it, and decide if it was worthy of his Easter basket or not (lightening quick, of course).  Many didn't make the cut.  He is so entertaining.


 Brynn happily just picked up the eggs she passed.  Not a competitive bone in her body.





I'm sad I missed a moment with my camera, but this is the tail end of it.  After we'd been playing at the park (for long enough to get a sunburn - bad mom award), Bryce was looking tuckered out.  Brynn ran by him, just chasing her friends or something, and Bryce reached out and grabbed her to stop her.  Then he wrapped his arms around her middle, and she squeezed him back.  Then they proceeded to play together for a while with their hands held.  Sometimes a little guy just needs his big sister.  I'm so happy she was there for him.  I expect she always will be.





Thursday, April 5, 2012

General Conference and spicy food

Was anybody else SERIOUSLY chastened during this last general conference? I've decided that being chastened during General Conference is kind of like spicy food - It hurts so bad and yet it's such a wonderful experience! :) As always, I've come away with a great big list of stuff to work on.  Anyway, we really did have a great and very full weekend. 

We started off with feijoada (Brazilian black bean stew and rice).  Mmmmmm.  I didn't want to leave Gabe out.  And YES, I'm aware you're not supposed to put the bumbo seat on an elevated surface, bla bla bla, I was right there. :)




Then we decided to set up the tent.  Partly because we still feel a little bad about our spring break "vacation," and partly because we wanted to do the whole "facing-your-tent-toward-the-prophet-during-general-conference-kind-of-like-King-Benjamin thing."


 I call this series of pictures:  "Thank you for setting up the tent for us, Daddy."



 Marty got out the illustrated Book of Mormon and went over the story of King Benjamin, but to be honest the kids were pretty hyper in there and I don't know that it really sunk in.  We started watching conference in the tent on Marty's laptop (we don't get it on TV in AZ anyway) but it was a little rowdy, crowded, and hot, so we went inside.


Obviously.


 Marty made cinnamon rolls the next morning with the kids.  I tried to talk him out of it.  Start to finish (including clean up) it took a big portion of the day.  But he had fun with the kids.  Unfortunately, cooking is no longer fun for me, standing around on that hard tile floor is just painful.  But that was a goooooood breakfast.
 The bag idea was lifted strait from pinterest.  Each apostle's picture is on a bag, and inside is an activity for them to do while listening to that apostle.  To be honest, it was even better than I was hoping for.  They were so excited to get the bags and most of the activities kept them pretty busy.  Luckily, Bryce slept through both afternoon sessions.  This bag had a couple Friend magazines in it along with scissors and glue and they got to make a collage with whatever pictures they wanted.
 In another bag was conference bingo.  We really lucked out on this bag, because we've done bingo a few years in a row now, and we have NEVER ended up with a board this full!  Thank you, Elder Hales!

So, we had to watch conference upstairs on our computer, and sadly it got pretty hot on Saturday.  I was so determined to stick it out, but by the afternoon session and I couldn't take it any more.  I turned on the air conditioner.  That was March 31st, folks.  I didn't even make it until April.  I haven't needed to use it since then, but I don't know...we may be in for a hot one this year.  (At least I'm not pregnant.)

************
In other news.......

The day after conference I cried multiple times.

First, when Gabe had to get his four month shots.  He is such a perfect little angel, how COULD they???

And second, when I registered Brynn for kindergarten.  I'm still deciding which experience was more embarrassing.  Either way, I don't think I'm cut out for the emotions that accompany motherhood. Especially since Monday I was a constant blubbering gushing mess over my beautiful children, and today all I wanted to do was to give them away, ha ha.  Seriously, though. 

What a roller coaster.  It is SOOO time to find a creative way to STOP the FIGHTING!  It's getting completely out of hand.  Bryce knows exactly what buttons to push and Brynn so easily has an emotional meltdown (and from reading this last post, I can't imagine where she got THAT from...). 

Oh, speaking of contention, a couple of days ago they were playing together and Daddy went off to young men's.  It had been a long day so I gave them a big talking-to about being peace-makers and they promised they'd be good.  So just a few minutes later I hear them fighting, and I am thinking about intervening when I overhear, "Oh, Bryce!  Mommy told us to be peace-makers!"  And I'm thinking, "You GO, girlie!"  And then I hear her whisper, "So we need to fight quieter...."

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Happy Birthday, Georgia

Today is Marty's mom's birthday (she passed away when he was 12).  Every year I bake a nice cake and we talk about her.  The first year we were married I wrote out a bunch of questions to ask Marty about her, so that's what the jar of red papers is about.  Things like, "What nick-names did your mom have for you," or "what made your mom laugh?"


Nothing like some therapeutic blogginess, right?

Dear Georgia,

Even though I have never been able to shake your hand, or give you a hug, or put your grand baby into your arms, I know you are aware of me, my family, and especially your son.  I know you are too busy in Heaven to just hang out and watch us, but I do believe your presence has been felt at the biggest moments of our marriage (most recently at Gabe's blessing).  And I appreciate that.

I love your son.  I adore him.  In six years of marriage, he has never once yelled at me.  He is kind, gentle, and the most devoted father any kids could ask for.  He honors his priesthood and takes his role as the leader of our household seriously.  He is smart, optimistic, obedient, humble, and so darn much fun.  He is also the wisest thirty-year-old I've ever known.  Even waking up before 5:00 in the morning to study his lesson for seminary, he still wakes up early enough to get his "personal study" in as well.  I believe I have you to thank for his passion of the scriptures, as I know you instilled that in him at an early age.  In fact, I believe I have you to thank for most of the qualities that make him Marty.  Knowing you would only have a short time as a mother, I know you put every ounce of energy you had into that holy calling, and you inspire me as a mother.  I know I can never be Georgia, but I hope someday I can come close.  We love you so much,

Emily

P.S.  Your grandkids often pray that you will be resurrected soon. :)  I thought you'd like that.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

There she is!  My first little t-ball player!  This is her "stance" Daddy taught her.


"One.........two.........FREE!!!"

 Yes Brynn, we saw you make it to third base....
 A high five from her coach as she skips onto home plate.  We absolutely LOVED her coach, he treated her so cute and was so patient with all the kids.  Sometimes after he'd called her name 3 or 4 times, he'd just pick her up and move her where she was supposed to be for the sake of efficiency.  :)  Bless her heart, she really did try not to space out.

Awe, poor flushed cheeks.  This was her first game that was HOT.  What was I thinking signing them up for soccer next month?  It is going to be blistering!!

 Good stop, Brynn.  (I made most of these pictures small because I always feel weird about posting other people's children.)
 "What foot do I step with?  This one?  No?  THIS one?"
"Just THROW THE BALL, sweet angelic Brynn!!"

 So I think I mentioned this earlier on a post.  Sports...well, not even just sports, physical activity in general has been on my mind a lot.  I don't feel like I should have to beg my kids to go play outside.  Shouldn't kids just want to go play outside?  That was a lot of our reasoning for getting the new playset, and it's made all the difference in the world.  I guess a patch of grass just isn't exciting enough for them or something.  But anyway, Brynn so far hasn't shown a lot of athletic interest.  She's never been the fastest runner.  In fact, when I see her play tag with kids at the park and she can't keep up, she usually just loses interest and starts collecting flowers or something.  I just don't seem to see her exerting herself often.  So we signed her up for soccer.  Now this girl is a total social butterfly, she totally thrives on being with friends, family, strangers who quickly become friends...she just loves people in general.  So we thought she'd be thrilled when we told her she was going to start playing soccer on a team, but instead she started CRYING!  We asked her why she was crying and she said she didn't want to play soccer because all her friends were faster than her and she couldn't run.  Yes, HEART-breaking!  We did what we could to comfort her and decided to sign her up for t-ball first to get her feet wet.  Since then, we've been "practicing running" a lot.  I think the biggest thing is that she is seriously pigeon-toed on one foot - the one she broke a couple years ago.  I asked the doctor about that a year or so ago, but he said she'd grow out of it.  I think I'll ask again, another doctor this time, and see if I get the same answer. 

Anyway, I didn't seem to really see the anxiety come back while she was doing t-ball.  She was social as always with the team, tried really hard to improve and listen to her coach, and seemed to be pretty confident and happy.  She got a really cute trophy and I think she's excited for soccer now.  We'll see how that goes.  I'm trying to be a better example and to take the kids out on their bikes and things like that more often.  I'm thinking back on that awful pregnancy where every step was super painful, and right before that all those serious problems I had with my feet, she probably hasn't seen me do enough walking or running.  Before the feet "broke," I did take her with me often to go jogging, and we walked to more places that we could have been driving to.  Well, the last couple months I've been doing more of that stuff again, plus I'm getting a pretty nice bike for my birthday in a couple weeks and I hope things get back to normal. 

The real fun is going to be watching my...assertive almost three-year old playing soccer....