Treats and Preschool

Our ward has been so good to us this last month, in taking our kids every morning, and bringing in meals. Yesterday, we decided to bake a little fall thank you treat. The kids did more tasting than actual helping, but they had alot of fun delivering the plates to all their friends.

Today, we are still trying to catch up on everything and return to our regular schedule. I wanted to get a picture of Hyrum on his first day of pre-school, but unfortunately that was the day I was getting checked for kidney stones. He's been going for about 2 weeks, but I still wanted to get some pictures.

We were so lucky to get into the Baby Bulldog Pre-School that Provo High School runs. They have an amazing facility and there are tons of student helpers to give the kids attention. Hyrum goes Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 12:50-3:00 p.m. and the best part of all is it's only $70 a semester (which is October to mid December and February to mid April). He has had so much fun going to pre-school, and mom has really enjoyed being able to spend some time alone with Ella and just some time for herself.

This is one half of the facilty. The dress up center, the art center, the science center, and the exploring station.

Here's the other half. The reading center, the writing center,the creative station, and the bathrooms. They also have a playground outside, but it was freezing, so I didn't get a picture.

Hyrum, about 2 seconds after we got there.

I couldn't get him to even look up and smile.

Dinosaur Museum

I was feeling well enough that we were able to go to Thanksgiving Point for family home evening last night. We have had a pass for several months now, but I've never remembered to bring a camera. It was pumpkin night at the Dinosaur Museum so the kids had fun hunting around for hidden pumpins.

For those of you who haven't been up to the Dinosaur Museum, it's very different from traditional museums. It's a very interactive, hands on, kind of place. This is a picture of Hyrum hiding in one of the caves. If you look really close you can see one of the pumpkins next to the dino bones. Ella would not go near the cave.

This is where the kids learn about erosion. Can you tell who doesn't like to touch wet sand?

Can you guess who does?

This is the kids using paint brushes to uncover dinosaur bones.

Apparently dry sand is completely fine.

It was so fun to be able to be up and about and actually get out of the house for family home evening. The kids loved hunting for pumpkins and digging in the sand. Afterwards we stopped for some ice cream. Hopefully we'll be coming back to Thanksgiving Point for the Barnyard Boo at Farm Country this weekend for Ella's birthday.

10 Weeks

As of Sunday, I finally hit 10 weeks! This week my baby is about 1 1/4 to 1 3/4 inches and weighs .18 oz. Small! And baby is about the size of a small plum. Ten weeks is nice because most of the major organs have formed at this point and the baby no longer looks like a tadpole (which Hyrum was really relieved to know).

Ten weeks is also nice, because I'm finally starting to feel a little better. I still have the nausea and all the yucky pregnancy stuff, but I'm at least out of bed. Saturday, I did a little test run to see if I could drive by myself and go shopping by myself. Oh the healing powers of the mall! It was alot of fun to get out. I was even able to go to church on Sunday, although I was totally out of it because I woke up at 2:30 in the morning and could not get back to sleep. After lunch on Sunday we went for a drive on the Alpine Loop and it was so pretty! I was bummed that we didn't bring our camera. I got a little car sick, but it was worth it.

Today was the first day in over 3 weeks that I was able to watch the kids by myself. Ben still came home at lunch to help, but I did pretty good. I even cleaned out our fridge that has been accumulating moldy food for the last month. Hopefully I'll feel good enough to take the kids to Thanksgiving Point for family home evening tonight. I'll try to remember to bring the camera.

I'm adding some cute pictures we took of the kids before church on Sunday. It was the first time in over a month that they actually had on matching clothes, teeth brushed and hair done for church. God bless daddy, but he just can't do pigtails like mommy.

Ella looking cute!

And a little devious!

The ta-da pose!


Big Smooch!

Missing in Action

Well I've been M.I.A for the past three weeks and I've really missed posting on my blog. I'll give you a little clue as to what I've been up to. . . .

That's right, I'm having a baby! Well not today, but it is on it's way. The due date is May 18th and since none of my babies have made it past 36 weeks, you can probably count on an April baby. Thanks goodness the technitian added little arrows, because I never know what the heck I'm looking at. So here is our first picture of our little bean baby. The baby seems quite content, but has been causing me quite a bit of trouble.

About three weeks ago I caught some horrific virus that more or less just makes you feel like you want to die. I couldn't eat a thing and I had diareah like nobodys business. The doctors were trying to figure out if it was the pregnancy making me feel so darn awful or something else. So a million tests later, a couple of stool samples, and we still had no answers. So they sent me home with some Zofran and I had to go in to get an I.V. put in because I was so dehyrated. It only took them about a million pokes, because my veins kept collapsing.

A week or so later I started having these back/abdominal attacks that were so bad I would black out. I was already so weak because I couldn't even eat saltines, so we went in to get an ultra sound to make sure I wasn't having a molar pregnancy (the baby stops developing, but you don't miscarry) or a multiple pregnancy. Fortunately, it was neither of those options and the baby was doing just fine, but the doctors were still baffled as to where the pain was coming from. They ran some more tests and discovered blood in my urine. So I was carted off to the urologist to test for kidney stones.

They weren't able to run the regular cat scan due to the fact that I was 8 weeks pregnant at the time so their only option was an ultra sound, which unfortunately isn't very accurate. They didn't discover any stones, but my left kidney was slightly enlarged, which indicates there is a high probability I have a kidney stone.

This week has just been so fun waiting for that stone to pass, and lucky me, it's decided to just take up permanent residency inside. If it doesn't pass real soon it means I might have to go in for a surgery to try and remove it (not something I'm looking forward to). So now we are just in the waiting game.

It's been especially hard because I haven't been able to take care of my kids. Fortunately the ladies in my ward have been taking them every morning, but I really miss my kids company and just being the one who can take care of them. They really miss it too! Daddy's been sick this last week as well, so I think they kind of feel lost about who to turn to for a parent.

Yesterday, however, I actually got dressed and went and ate a hamburger, so I think that must be a good sign. I was starting to go crazy being stuck in my bed for three weeks. So hopefully, I'll start feeling better soon and can rejoin the human race. I'm currently 9 weeks pregnant and I'm really hoping to be up and moving soon because in the late 20 weeks I go back on bed rest, so I better have some time where I can enjoy the joys of motherhood. Or is that when the kids go off to college?

If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all . . .

Why does the world have to be filled with rotten people? I suppose it's to help the rest of us strive to be better, but I still wish I didn't have to co habitat with neanderthals.

I've been following the tragic results from the story of Camille Cleverly and my heart just ached for her family and friends. I went to her facebook site to offer my condolences and instead found some arrogant boy making snide comments about "alot of good your praying did, she's still dead" and "why don't you all keep your religious comments to yourselves!".

I was utterly appalled! How could anyone be so devoid of human feeling, as to attack someone when they are dealing with a loss? A better person would of probably said nothing, but seeing as I have some neanderthal in me as well, I wrote on the site and asked people to have some sensitivity. This of course opened the floodgates to cretins everywhere, to personally attack me, right down to my looks and weight.

Why do people feel the need to belittle others to make themselves feel better? Why can't people be tolerant of others beliefs and have some respect for human life, regardless if they knew the person or not. The whole thing just disgusted me. The natural man in me had some pretty witty comments for the bitter young lady who had sent me messages. I'm not the kind of person to stand by and let people take shots at me. I've never been able to walk away from a fight when it becomes personal, so it will surprise you all what I choose to do. Nothing. I blocked the young lady from sending me further messages (apparently my last message to her to stop emailing me, was not received) and I removed myself from the Camille site.

Unfortunately, now I can't stop all the witty comments from swirling in my head and the feeling of defeat and cowardice. I suppose it all comes back to the same thing, we need those kind of people in the world so we can rise above it all and become better people. If only we could do that and still have the last word.

Where Can I Turn For Peace?

The last couple of weeks I've been working on a hymn medley to sing with Ben and my friends Jayne and Jed Wells in church. We sung the song in church yesterday, and we had practiced it several times before that, but it wasn't until I was in the shower this morning, that the words struck my heart.

This is the first part:

Where can I turn for peace?
Where is my solace
When other sources fail to make me whole?
When with a wounded heart, anger, or malice,
I draw myself apart,
Searching my soul?

Have you ever found yourself asking these very questions? Where can I find peace? Do you ever feel like you are trying to fill the void with the wrong kinds of things? Do you ever have to dig deep into your soul when you are hurting? I know I've felt that way and it just sounded so profound to me. I found myself going "yes, I felt that struggle for peace, but where can I get real peace in the middle of trials?"

Then the second part of the song came into mind:

Be still, my soul:
The Lord is on thy side
With patience bear thy cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change he faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul:
Thy best, thy heav'nly Friend
Thru thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

I must of sung this song a million times, but never was it such an answer to my prayers. We can be at peace because the Lord is on our side. If we patiently endure our pains and trust God he will put things in order and provide for us. He is our best and most faithful friend and will lead us through the end.

Here is the final part of the song:

Our Savior's love shines like the sun with perfect light.
As from above it breaks thru clouds of strife.
Lighting our way, It leads us pack into his sight.
Where we may stay to share eternal life
Eternal life.

Our Saviors love is perfect; something that is given without us having to be perfect. I've often wondered how people going through hardships can claim they feel peace even though they still feel pain. Our Savior's love makes it possible. It's hard for us in our mortal state to understand how He makes it possible, but He does. Even when the path is unclear, or the trials are difficult, or the pain is strong, His love makes it endurable. All we have to do is ask.

Tales from the Potty Whisperer

I had the pleasure of spending my Labor Day weekend trying to potty train my daughter Ella. I realized she was only 22 months old, so I was leery about even trying since she was so young, but she had been very enthusiastic about the whole thing and I didn't want to discourage her.

Last month we almost went crazy trying to keep diapers on the poor thing. The minute she would see a potty (this could even be just a picture of one) she would pull off her diaper and go and sit down and then of course demand a clean diaper even though the old one hadn't been used. She would also do this the minute her diaper got dirty, which was pretty nasty when it was a #2 concoction. Twice, she successfully went in the potty. After much deliberation and several wasted diapers we decided to give in and start potty training.

It didn't take long for me to remember why I hated potty training so much. You are basically imprisoned to your house and sentenced to asking your toddler if they are dry every 5 minutes. I couldn't even escape it in sleep. My dreams were laced with "are you dry"s and "do you have to go potty?"

Ells was willing for the most part to sit on the potty, but actually doing anything on the potty was another story. We gave her tons to drink to encourage her to go, but the little stinker just kept holding it in. I had a chart to record when she drank, had accidents, and went potty etc. so I knew about when an accident would occur. Around that time I'd encourage her to go potty.

We'd sit and sit and sit, but nothing. Games, stories, singing, coloring. . . still nothing. She just kept holding it in. I finally let her get up when my legs lost all feeling in them and then after pulling up her pants she'd take a few steps and just explode. Augh!

This happened several times with the holding time just getting longer. Finally I decided I'd just keep her entertained on the potty until she went. She however was going for some Olympic record because she was not going to go. I finally had to leave for my show and I got a call from Ben a few minutes later that she had finally gone.

Ben did a big hooray for her and gave her tons of treats, but she still seemed upset. I decided I'd try again the next day and see how it went before I decided to bag it.

Again it was a game of holding it in, until she'd stand up, or even better the time when she was jumping on our couch and had a Niagra Falls moment.

After cleaning the couch I realized she just really wasn't ready for it after all. She was having some major concerns about actually going on the potty and I didn't want to make things worse. I decided I would revisit this nightmare again in a couple months.

In the meantime I've been fighting with the feelings of failure. Supermom could potty train in one day, why couldn't I? This of course just opened the flood gates for overall inadequacy. I was discussing this with a friend and I think I'm going to write a book: Tales from the Potty Whisperer and other fantastical stories. I envision a funny book making fun of all those extreme new age parenting books that claim to know all the secrets about parenting. For example I remember reading a parenting book that suggested if your child didn't pick up their toys, you didn't punish them or give them any consequences, but picked the toys up yourself and just told your child you were disappointed in them. Now any kid with the devious gene like my son is going to learn to live with the disappointment in exchange for a full service maid. Oh I've read dozens of funny claims that would just be funny to discuss in a book. (I've also read a lot of good ideas in parenting books too, so I'm not making fun of parenting books, just extremists)

O.k. so I'm not really going to write a book or anything, but it did make me think that maybe I'm just too hard on myself and my kids. Society sets these unreal expectations that anyone short of Supermom is going to fail. Unfortunately this is even more so in Mormon culture. We love our kids, we want them to have the best, and we want to be the best mom ever. But does that mean you have to do everything?

Is it really imperative that we all get up at the crack of dawn to make homemade bread, or make our own organic baby food, or hand sew all our kid's costumes, or have them reading before they are three, or get them into the most prestigious pre-school? No. Sure these are all great things, and I would kill to have any of these talents, but does it make you less of a Mom if you don't do those things. I've concluded that it really doesn't. What children are going to remember is that we loved them and made time for them.

Now does that solve all feelings of inadequacy. Unfortunately not, but hopefully it will give me some comfort to remind myself that I'm a good mom because I love my kids. Even if they are in diapers until they graduate!