A Little Catchup

Remember that thing about slowing down? Well I'm reevaluating. Going slow doesn't work either. All it does is make things build up and stress me out, and stress is causing me to not lose weight, which is endlessly frustrating. So instead I made a schedule, including daily routines, that I will try to follow to keep on top of things and keep me sane. In the meantime, one thing I feel like I am keeping on top of is most of the time enjoying life and enjoying my children, well at least after some time away from them when my sister took them for me and we went on a really fun date.

Hey Jesse, I love how you treat your little sister. I love that you teach her everything you know, including how to pretend fight bad guys. You taught her how to count, and that's why she skips the number 15, just like you do. You taught her to put her face in the water and to lay down in the bath without being scared by singing the Herman the Worm song. When I get her in trouble and she cries you look at me funny and hug her. Today you tried to teach her to play Mary Had a Little Lamb on the piano, and you probably taught her the words to that song, too. Thanks for picking up my slack, buddy.

 Afton is one sweet little cookie with a very friendly and easygoing personality. She rarely cries, even when I sometimes leave her on the floor on a blanket for long periods of time. She rolls over from tummy to back already and is obsessed with sucking on her hands! Jesse and Breanna love her so so much!

Today Brad had to write an exam for 4 hours so I got some time with my kids on a Sunday with nothing to do but hang out. It was seriously the richest experience. And my kids were being too cute for me not to take a few pics. I read books to them for, like, an hour and a half. Jesse is in love with Indiana Jones and I got a big book on ol' Indy from the library, as well as archeology. It's so fascinating! I should have been an archeologist I think.

The other day I was walking around in the kitchen cleaning up and saying "you know, Breanna, right now things are pretty stressful. It's hard but it's going to get easier-well, people say different but not easier, but I think it gets easier. At least it's always wonderful." And Breanna looks at me and says, 

"Moo-om, are you talking to yoursayalf?" 

I'm really tired and I'm going to go to bed now!

Love

Okay so today was Valentine's Day and what did I do, I did nothing-oh, except laundry and grocery shopping. Brad stayed at work late today to finish an assignment and this is the second Valentine's Day he hasn't done anything for me.

I was feeling pretty bad for myself.

(I do not hate Brad or want to kill him, I just thought this was funny hahahaha!)

BUT then I realized.... I'm only feeling bad for myself because I think I'm supposed to! I realized, Brad works really hard to support our family. He's working really hard at school so he can continue to support us. He came home and loaded the dishwasher. He read scriptures to all of us tonight. He cuddles me in the morning before he leaves for work. He gets water for me when I'm feeding the baby. Sooooooooo he skips the card and flowers on Valentine's day.

I know he loves me.

But he better have something really good planned for our anniversary ;)

Oh yah and then there was this.

Memories

Please excuse the bad pictures! We are not photographers and take most of our pictures with the iPhone. We went to Banff and made some really good memories as a family. I'll tell you one thing, we needed some time away!

Do you know that we live in the most beautiful place on earth? Right in our back yard. People pay big bucks and fly from around the world to get here.

First thing we did when we got there was go to the resort's giant play place! It was so fun the kids could have stayed there forever. 

Brad took the kids skiing. Well, he snowboarded all day while the kids were in ski lessons/tiny tigers daycare. I struggled with the idea of teaching my kids to ski because growing up there was no way we could afford it (think single mother of 6 kids going to school full time to be a writer) and yet from the time I was in elementary through Young Adulthood, all the "cool" kids skied/snowboarded. It seemed like kind of a status symbol. I would think to myself, well, if I could afford it I would snowboard! 'Cause I love stuff like that! Anyway, Brad brought me back to my senses and I'll shut-up about it now. Oh the things I hold onto from my childhood :)  Anyway, I hope sometimes we can bring a friend who otherwise couldn't go.

Ski lessons-Brad says it was pretty funny to watch. Hey, these things take time. I stayed back at the hotel room and wrote a talk on gratitude and looked out the window from time to time to see deer roaming around the grounds and a coyote with golden coat prance by. I felt the spirit really strong. I know God is real.

Out for dinner that night.

This place also had super fun waterslides but I could never catch them coming down the slide with my camera! So instead you get this picture.

I'll tell you one thing I love. Lofts. So I took a picture from the loft looking down. This is what our suite looked like after coming home from skiing and dinner and swimming. This is also Brad starting a fire in the fireplace. One of my favorite parts of the whole thing! How cozy. Don't look at his bum. Or the bacon grease all over the back of his shirt. Haha! One of our favorite things to talk about this holiday was what white trash we are. My Mom will be seriously offended by that derogatory term, but I want to remember that's what we talked about! :)

What are holidays for if not jumping on the bed? I was doing it too and it was really super fun. Especially jumping from one bed to the other. Boing!

Memories are great. They are worth it. The only thing I would change is, I would not come back more tired than when I left. Haha.

My Life in a Chaotic Living Space

Everyone says Afton looks like Jesse and I have to agree.
He seriously adores her.
There's hardly a minute when she's on the floor
that he's not laying beside her,
talking baby talk and hugging her.
It's very sweet.

 After church today we had a delicious roast beef dinner courtesy of Brad- Sunday dinners are always courtesy of Brad these days. Then we watched Prince of Egypt. We were watching this part, when all of a sudden we heard our little Breanna sobbing. Her tender heart just couldn't take it, and then I couldn't. I picked her up and cuddled her for the rest of the movie, and she was fine. But after the movie she went straight to the toy-box, got out her doll and wrapped it in a blanket. Then she found the wicker basket her plastic food is usually in and put the baby in there. Her own little Moses. It's interesting how kids work out their emotions with play.

And this picture is just pretty indicative of my life these days. Here I am doing Young Women's stuff in a chaotic living space.

I had a bit of a revelation this week. And this is what it was: SLOW. I guess I'm not superwoman like I want to be. It's pretty humbling to realize I'm just a normal person and can't have a blog about how I don't know what everyone's talking about three is hard, about how I can have a clean house and work out, like, super insanely hard and do my calling and cook 3 healthy delicious meals every day and practice piano and hang out with my friends and play with my 2 other kids and teach them stuff and breastfeed a baby who's up 3 times a night (only during her growth spurt, she's back to 8 hours again) and read my scriptures and travel here and there for family functions while my husband is doing a CMA while working full time and ALL on less than 1800 calories a day!! Hm. Yes, that's what I was trying to do. It didn't work and now that I see it on paper I see why, ha-ha. I failed at that miserably because suddenly on Thursday it hit me: STOP!! Before you snap and go nuts. I mean, literally schizo ape wacky coo-coo. I did. I stopped everything and made a new plan. A slooooow plan. A "diligence to win the prize" plan. And really, it's nice to know I don't have to prove anything, because I'm just a regular human after all. On Friday I got up (after a morning in bed with kids in front of the TV, I must admit) and slooooowly started picking up the now messy house. You all were right (ahem-Lindsay)... I did just have a baby, and I'll go easy on myself.

Busy and Dizzy

I'm dizzy, and I think it's because of stress. I have a trillion things I should be doing right now besides a blog post but I want to write about it in hopes it will make me feel better. I think mostly I'm just tired, but I like things to be clean and organized and that is just not happening right now. My garage and my car are so dirty and messy they've entered the "kind of gross" phase.  I met up with a high school friend the other day and she saw my van. I was embarrassed because there was garbage all over the floor and a box of diapers I haven't had a chance to bring in and a bunch of stuff between the seats that I need to give back to people. And it probably stunk because my kids eat food in the back and then leave the leftovers in the cup holders. My house is not that messy but I like my house spotless. I am super tired. I have to exercise still today but between taking Breanna to ballet this morning and feeding the baby I haven't had a chance. I gained a pound back today and I'm hungry all the time because I think Afton's going through a growth spurt. She's eating a tonne and not sleeping long stretches like she was. I feel like I need help. Like, hired help. Brad could help but he's also stressed out and exhausted. He's got school and work is busy and he does what he can. He's taking the kids to swimming lessons tonight. I'm going out with girlfriends and I cannot wait.

Now I see. Three is busy! And I'm dizzy.

Seeing Brad with our baby is sweet. I would say sexy but that's a bit TMI. It's sexy.

I went into my room to pray when I got a minute after ballet. I wanted to say a looong prayer. I need a long, long prayer. I said the basic stuff but Afton's fussing turned into a cry and I can't concentrate on praying when she does that. So it ended up being short. I know Heavenly Father heard me anyway. Now if Afton would just have a nap I could exercise. One thing down.

Conversations

All I can say is that I love this adorable, smiley, sweet, angel of a little baby I have in my house. I love her but I do not take pictures of her. Here is a rare one I took before going out sledding and you can't even see her little head. It doesn't do her justice. 

We "talk" all the time and I love our little chats. She makes the face in the picture and then she gets a serious look on her face and says "goo" and "coo" and kind of gurgles and in between smiles a lot. It's the most beautiful conversation. I sit there with my knees up and she's all scrunched up in there and we talk. I think she's an old soul. We love each other.

Every day I feel like I'm running a marathon. 

Afton is going through a growth spurt, which means she didn't sleep straight through at night the past few nights. But I've been spoiled so I can't complain.

I've lost 4 pounds. 26 to go.