Easter

onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXQG29iES5hIMdXhETUhftWdwghDM5dteCwVgqfOhAhpszYd7D9UQe5mI_cnOv5GeVJZRdZVipYLU4sgmyU-37TP0_eJjVIGoVGDAfxPwMqFKSzbFqCxH6T6p0Xx4sA4wei-JAyQ8s9E1m/s1600-h/IMG_7866.JPG">too tired to write anything else, just wanted to post the pict. Libby has a matching bubble of the outfit abby is wearing, but it doesn't fit yet, so i wanted to wait a few months and see if i needed to 'small it down' or if it would fit with out being altered. we had a nice easter, mom and dad threw an easter egg hunt/tea party for the girls down by the lake and it was just a beautiful day.

my friend barbara thought i was going a little far with this one...

scroll down to the bottom in blue. it's all i ever think about when i am playing with abby. too soon, she won't want me to play her princess games, and these memories we are making today are going to be all i have (especially now that i don't have time to take pictures anymore)

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All My Babies Are Gone Now By Anna Quindlen, Newsweek Columnist and Author

All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow, but in disbelief. I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost-adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast. Three people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like.

Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible except through the unreliable haze of the past.

Everything in all the books I once pored over is finished for me now. Penelope Leach, T. Berry Brazelton, Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education—all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are, they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the pages dust would rise like memories. What those books taught me, well-meaning relations—what they taught me, was that they couldn't’t really teach me very much at all.

Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test,then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything. One child responds well to positive reinforcement, another to a stern voice and a timeout. One child is toilet trained at 3, his sibling at 2.

When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of research on sudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow.

I remember 15 years ago poring over one of Dr. Brazelton’s wonderful books on child development, in which he describes three different sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil 18 -month old who did not walk. Was there something wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China. Next year he goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk, too.

Every part of raising children is humbling. Believe me, mistakes were made. They have all been enshrined in the “Remember-When-Mom-Did” Hall of Fame. The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language –mine, not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. The times I arrived late for preschool pickup. The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp. The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, “What did you get wrong?” (She insisted I include that here.) The time I ordered food at the McDonald’s drive-through speaker and then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons. What was I thinking?

But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them, sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night.I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.Even today I’m not sure what worked and what didn’t, what was me and what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I’d done. Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over the top.

And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world, who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity. That’s what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts. It just took me a while to figure out who the experts were.

at least I'm not shooting heroin?!

(i just found this post from last nov) the heroin reference was to an oprah show of a family that did meth together while transporting their 18 mth old kid...i felt that no matter how bad of a mom i am, at least i don't do drugs (with my kid in the car at least:-))

For those reading this that aren't Mormon, our Church had a general (worldwide) conference this past weekend where talks are given by men and women that cover topics such as being a better person, reading the scriptures, etc. Anyway, we watched it at my mom and dad's on satellite and of course at 2 minutes in, i was laying in the bed asleep. Here's the link if you want to hear the whole thing. I slept till P. Monson came on and somehow woke myself up out of my stupor to sit up and listen. I had thought at the beginning of conference that there would be a lot reflected in what's going on in the world/economy - being financially responsible, spiritually prepared, food readiness, etc...but unless i just slept through it, i didn't hear anyone talk about that directly. I liked Monson's talk (as always). This is what I got from it:

• He talked of how he's come to the autum of his life, parents are gone, friends and colleagues have gone, and that life is short. He said it's important to find joy in life and to be thankful.

It made me think of some other things I've heard recently that relate.

• On Oprah the other week (yes, I am a SAHM who tivos oprah and watches it when I should be asleep) there was an episode where a tired, over stretched, overworked mom was so preoccupied by life that on her way to work with her 2 yr old, she forgot to drop her off at daycare, ran errands and then ended up at work forgetting that the kid was still asleep in the back seat. It was 100 degrees outside and the kid died from a heat stroke.
  
• Their point was to live in the moment with your children. Don't get on your cell phone, don't get on your computer (mom is here now with abby). Just enjoy the time you are with them....now it's hard(er)
  

It's with a heavy heart and deep sadness that I announce...

Libby got her first tooth today!!! I have known it was coming, but today i let her bite on my finger and I felt A TOOTH!! I was so excited, and yet sad because she's my little baby and i want to hold on to every moment this time. When abby was this age I was going back to work, but I love being at home with the girls and i try to live more in every moment with them. I can't think where the last 6 mths have gone. It's gone by in a blink, and I am sure the older we get, the faster time will go by.
see it....right there on the bottom!

Thankful Thursday

As I was taking Abby yesterday to a 'toddler time' at the museum, I was thinking of all the things I am thankful for and it being Thursday today, I thought I would add them to my blog.

• yesterday was such a beautiful day. we went to the park after I picked abby up from school and we enjoyed being outside for a little while (till it was time for the museum)
• i am thankful for my wonderful, hard working husband. when we first got married i always asked him if he thought i should be a SAHM. he always said he just wanted me to be happy. he has supported me through the past 3 years of indecision over staying home/working/working from home and i am truly greatful that he is such a support to me and the girls
• i am thankful for abby. she is becoming quite the conversationalist. everyone was talking on saturday what their favorite stage is, and i am really loving that she's turning into a person right before my eyes.
• i am thankful that we were able to have 2 little girls who i hope will grow up to be the best of friends. libby lights up when she sees abby and abby's first thought is always of her 'baby sisiter'
• i am greatful for libby. libby made us a family and she has such a calm, sweet spirit about her that even strangers comment on what a happy, good natured baby she is. she has a double ear infection and is teething and you'd never know it
• i am greatful for my faith and my religion. without the church i wouldn't have my parents, my family, or chris (and subsequently my girls). i know that every step i've taken in life and every path i've chosen has been the right one. I love that song "God Blessed the Broken Road". that's how i feel about chris and about so many things in life that didn't come easy
• i am grateful to have a president that i can believe in and be proud of. with all the protests yesterday, i was thinking as i drove to the museum and then the library today for story time, of all the wonderful GOVERNMENT FUNDED programs that i take advantage of....i am glad to pay taxes for my kid to go to a good school, to enjoy library and museum activities. let the haters hate and the naysayers nay, but i just don't understand people and I am starting to get tired of keeping quiet about it.
  
• i am greatful Lost was on last night. i LOVE that show!
  

Here comes Peter Cotton Tail....

pictured above: kathryn (kimberly), libby (mine), anna (kimberly), ellie (neighbor child), austin (jamie), tucker (wade), davis (nick), abby (mine), kristen (jamie) and haley (wade). not pictured:cole (nick)nick supervising austin, anna, kat and haleyroll, baby roll!
kimberly mom and abby eating twizlers that matched their outfits (sort of)
libby in an outfit her gammy got her for easter

This weekend was really fun. We started off with a big family get together/hunt that lasted late into the night. I then had to go home and finish 'smalling up' Libby's outfit (kimberly and I bought it last september - 18 mth - libby wears about a 9 mth at most, so i had to cut and cut and sew and sew). All in all, WAY better than starting from scratch - love that Amanda Remembered warehouse!! Anyway, we had a big lunch then after diving up over 200 eggs, we decided to do things a little differently. The little kids (abby, davis and kristen) would hunt eggs in the grass and the big kids got to help hide and help/watch the little ones. Abby got pretty bored about 15 eggs in and couldn't be convinced to pick up any more eggs. So, off to the next activity which was.....wasting 4 dozen raw eggs. There are starving kids all over the world, but they weren't getting in the way of 8 kids that had permission to make a MESS!! We decided to play games while the eggs were being hidden for the big kids. First event was egg toss. Not too messy, except in the end where the kids wanted to prove the eggs would break and began to bust them open/play with them. Then we moved to spoon race - a tight finish, but Ellie came in over the finish line because Tucker wasn't listening to where the race ended. He stopped 5 feet from the finish and she kept going:-) Next was the egg roll (pictured above). They had so much fun and did really well - no complaints about getting dirty/eggie/allergic reactions to grass (love you Kat). I love those kids. Tucker won that one - he was so fast i couldn't get a picture of him once he got started. Davis took the easy way and ran with his...I told he and abby that all rules were off if they were under 3. This made Haley upset..."because I am 6" she told me. Then we moved back to the front of the house for the big kids hunt. We wanted to make the hunt challenging this year so the older kids would have more fun and it would take longer. We put names on a few eggs for each kid and also hid the eggs in the woods over a large (LARGE) area. Well, someone should have paid more attention to the large area and the egg putter outers because after 20 minutes only 1/2 the eggs were found and most kids had none to one egg with their name on it. It was pretty funny though. We learned there is a fine line between challenging and downright frustrating. I am sure we'll be finding eggs in mom and dad's yard for months to come! We had a great day and as wade and kristi left she said, "see you at the next get together". I was like, "YES! Halloween is only 6 mths away!!".

We missed Richard, Wren, Kinley and Logan and I'm glad they are back safe - sorry about the flooding! Also, my Grandmother (Nanny Poo) and Aunt Pam just got back tonight from Italy!! We are all glad for their safe return and can't wait to hear all about their week long adventures, how the diet coke tasted, and if Nanny will ever forgive Pam for losing her in a restaurant.