it is great to be 8!
I know a few good kiddos who are turning 8 this year, making a great choice to be baptized. such an exciting time of life!
(ashley will be one of those.. gasp!)
brandon is our darling neighbor, maybe a future son-in-law?
(keeping our hopes high and fingers crossed..)
and I must mention, he is the total junior of his dad.
love this kid!
so another month has gone by like that.
(snapping of fingers.)
seriously?
again, so much I wanted to accomplish. not so much of it actually got done. but whatever.
my family is still kicking and breathing. so I must be doing something good, right?
here’s a sampling of some of the creativeness from the month:
(click on images for full list of credits.)
peyton turned four..
and then there was valentine’s day. lynn made these as her valentine’s.
(thank you pinterest.)
I actually snapped some pix of mah-self.
(thank you merrill for the remote for christmas. xox)
and ashley lost her other top tooth.
(she is terribly frightened that she has no permanent teeth.)
she lost the top right first, bottom right second, bottom left third, and the top left most recently.
(darnit, she’s cute!)
I suck at blogging.
I suck at keeping up on anything that I really enjoy doing just for me.
I blame it on my children. the number I have, their ages. the fact that they go to school. (well, the majority of them anyway.) that they eat, dirty their clothes..
I wish someone would have warned me about the consequences of my choice to birth three of these time vacuums.
cooking?
cleaning?
laundry?
playing?!
reading books?!
homework?!?!
sheesh.
it’s a good thing I love them.
all joking aside, I wouldn’t give up being a mother for anything. not even sugar or diet coke. (see, totally serious now.)
I remember well enduring those horrible teenage years. dating. that stupid game of dating! I never want to go back to that circus.. wishing that I could be grown and married already, have a family and home of my own. *sigh* life was going to be so much easier when I got to that point.
truth is, many days, I wish my biggest stress was a spelling test or mastering a cursive “r”. dealing with a total punk on a date? piece of cake.
there are many days when I look at the day ahead, and get excited for bedtime.
there seems to be a never-ending list of things that need to be done, things that I want to do, and things that I should do.
guess what? I never get it all done.
there are days when I go to bed, feeling like I have failed, didn’t do all that I possibly could do that day. I even compare what I do/have done, to what other moms and women do in the course of their day. did you know that comparing is stupid? like, really. it is bad. you shouldn’t do it, and it always makes you feel bad.
did I already mention that it’s stupid?
I found this quote on pinterest, and it will be my mantra for the next little while.
a sister in our ward spoke in sacrament meeting a couple of weeks ago, and her talk was an answer to my prayers.
she likened our lives to a triathlon. there are many participants of different ages and differing competitive brackets, and they all race a different race. their swim/bike/run might be longer or shorter than yours. they might have signed-up for a different race complete with different distances than you. you might start out your swim with one group of people, end up swimming with another group of people, and start your bike race with an entirely new group of people. ride the bike portion with people you’ve never seen before, finish with another bunch, only to run with an entirely different group.
dude, you can’t compare your race to any of theirs. they are not running the same race that you are. yeah, that 80 year old lady, she isn’t running the same race you are. neither is the 22 year old guy with endless energy.
I learned an invaluable lesson: some people are able to do certain things with their life, with their time, right now. they are different that what I can do, right now. while those things would be good, no doubt beneficial, it is not my season for those things. I cannot go to the temple everyday, not even once a week right now. someday, when everyone is in school, I can do that! while I would love to be all caught up on my scrapbooks, instead of stuck in 2008, I don’t have the time to dedicate to that. sure, I could if I chose to, and that would mean choosing to neglect other things that really need to be done. I would love to have a pre-baby body (shallow, I know), and realize that that could take hours out of everyday if I went as gung-ho as that pursuit would necessitate; but I would much rather spend my time, creating an environment that encourages health and happiness for my whole family. I would rather spend time with peyton, teaching and helping her throughout our time together at home, instead of spending hours working out. now don’t get me wrong, I exercise, occasionally… just not hours at a time, or very consistently for that matter.
maybe one day, when all the kiddos are at school, when they don’t require as much “hands on” attention, I will have some time to do some of these things that I am interested in. I am not complaining. I get to do things that I like to do now, it’s not all work and no play over here. (I am not insane, yet.) there just seems to be a growing list of things I would like to learn/do/improve.
so while I don’t update the happenings at this house very often on this here blog, you can be sure that it is for a much more worthwhile cause. (like helping a third grader with math homework?)
and while I may not visit some of my most favored areas of the internets, it is most likely for the same reasons. thing is, that is one of my favorite relaxing activities. I love to see what my friends and family are up to. I like to see what is being created, I like being inspired. (I don’t like so much getting inspired and not having the time to create.. that bugs.)
I am just going to try to keep on being the best wife/mother/friend/comedian that I can be. and I hope that I will become a master at time management so I can do all the things I enjoy.
(without the aid of obscene amounts of caffeine or illegal drugs.)
(indulge me here, k?)
today, peyton turned 4.
4 brings lots and lots of excitement to life around these parts.
today, we tried out various combinations with our fingers to get the number 4.
we based a whole day around a new obsession, “aladdin” and all things princess jasmine.
the other day, peyton finally wrote her name!!!
(and in “finally”, I mean she finally showed interest in writing anything more than a “p”.)
as she wrote the “p” there was a little excitement, cause you have to show it every time. then she got to her “e”.
I teared-up.
after she wrote the rest of those all too cute letters in her name, my eyes were glassy.
she said, “let’s do it again mom.. and this time, don’t cry. k?”
see, she’s 4 alright.
and because my children want to challenge me in my cake decorating skills, peyton asked for a jasmine cake.
(her eyes are too big, but what of it? they are turning into poop even as I type.)
to aid me in my feat, we watched aladdin.
a lot.
the music is etched into my brain.
so, now she is 4.
once again, the perks of being related to a member of the state legislature, are kicking in.
last week we went to the clark planetarium.
dude, our kids love it there!
everything from the dome theater, where we get to explore the galaxies, and laugh about different constellations, to the IMAX flicks, the free exhibits, all the knowledge! we just love it.
this time, the girls enjoyed a demonstration with liquid nitrogen. (let’s be honest, merrill and I did too.) amazing.
peyton made a request for this for her birthday..
ashley looked forward to this favorite at the top of the stairs.
and the dome theater. she loved seeing betelgeuse (pronounced: “beetlejuice”) again. she looked forward to the dome theater the most.
she liked the IMAX too, but something was off about it all….
lynnie-lou loved the IMAX flick the most. ashley was so-so, it was way over peyton’s head. it would have been better to see “born to be wild” but we got there just as it was going to start. “space jund 3D” had to be it. it was quite interesting. free popcorn and drinks helped the less-interested of our party.
this pic is so blurry, but I love it! I took in in the dark, so I couldn’t really see what I was doing, it was like pointing the camera in that general direction and praying. it was so dark. but look at how into the movie she is. I love it.
lynn lifted a meteorite or two.
then peyton saw “newton’s daydream”.
she was in her own daydream enjoying this.
when she initially saw it, she said, “mom, I wish I was one of those little balls in there…”
but, really, everyone loved it.
and then we walked on the moon and mars, and went home.
so thankful that my kids get these kind of opportunities.
we are already planning a trip back.
peyton really likes playing with her dolls, especially their hair.
this is what I found the other day:
all she wants for her birthday (today anyway) is a comb and a spray bottle.
I have to say that jasmine is quite the sport.
I am still wondering where in the heck january went.
don’t mistake me, I am happy it is february. I mean, I’ve been looking forward to it and all, it’s been on my calendar and such. I just had stuff I wanted done before february came, and well, it’s not done. so in my mind, february can’t happen, yet. my january to-dos aren’t done.
sheesh.
so catching up, in a frazzled-like fashion, here you go..
here’s some january layouts:
(click on the layout for credits and junk like that.)
now I have to go and catch up some more.
