It's My Birthday... week!

I may or may not have polished off this entire caramel apple. But if I did, I deserve it. So there.  The best is that I just finished writing a post about how awesome my weekend was with my perfect little angels and then Monday happens.  All of my kids went to bed early and I was even too flustered to sing songs before prayers.  In fact, Ellie didn't get either.  I didn't even take her to go potty or brush her teeth.  She went STRAIGHT to bed.  That is the state of how my evening was.  Haha!  I think the hard part are those evenings when I have no husband.  I've decided that no matter what Joe does for work, he has to be home for dinner.  Dinner is meant for TWO adults to handle.  Not one Mom who has been around her kids all day AND when there's a baby who eats solids now and makes dinner time that much more stressful!  One day I will have it down, but tonight was NOT one of those nights.  How can I remember one measely weekend that went well when every other night is like tonight?  "Eat your dinner.  Sit on your chair.  Take another bite for pete's sake!  Pick up your fork.  YOU dropped it, YOU can get off your chair and get it.  Take that bite or it's time-out.  You choose time out?  Gaaaah!  Fine, no time out.  Eat that bite or else Mommy will go crazy and scream!" 

Happy Birthday week to me.

In The Words of Scarlett O'Hara...

I'm discovering a lot about myself these days.  I think I like cleaning.  I think.  Maybe it has more to do with how my house looks after I am done cleaning and how I feel IN a tidy house.  That would probably be more accurate.  Yeah, I'm going to go back to not-enjoying-the-cleaning thing.  Today was Saturday, ...a special day... a day we get ready for Sunday!  AAAAAND my house was a mess.  Two weeks of sickness and throw in a mini-vacation and BOOM!  A bomb went off in our house.  So today, the kids and I took care of business.  They usually complain quite a bit but today was different.  They actually got right to work alongside me.  It was great.  It reminded me of Saturdays at my house as a kid and doing my typical assigned chores like dusting (yes I still hate that chore), cleaning the bathroom (every week as a teenager x 1.5 until Sarah moved out and then it got upped to 3!), and cleaning out the fridge (it's been on my to-do list for... let's see.... ever since we moved here!  I know. Gross! My Mom would die of shame if she knew how disgusting my fridge looked right now.  She taught me better).   Anywho, today was just the perfect day.  I really felt like a good Mom for more than a second.  That doesn't happen very often people!  This morning the kids had swimming, I got to work out, and then we went to the library and instead of playing the whole time, they gathered on my lap while I read to them.  I took a picture in my mind and I hope I can remember it forever. When we got home I had a mini-nap and let the kids play and THEN, we cleaned the house as a family. They're getting to an age where they want to work to earn things, ...with the exception of Ellie.  She doesn't give two hoots about earning anything nor does she believe in lifting a finger.  But because I wasn't yelling at Ellie to pitch in, we may have passed as the perfect family today, minus the part where I looked homeless and wore my pajamas all day long.  But seriously, I felt the need to write it down so that I could remind myself that one day out of my life was pretty darn great.  I didn't lose my patience.  I worked hard.  I spent quality time working with the kids AND quality time reading with them and being a fun mom.  To top it all off we took the kids out to this nifty (and over priced but still worth it) burger joint called, Licks.  It was Noah's idea and that kid has the cutest voice in the world, so it's really hard to say no to that child.  Plus, it meant that I didn't have to make dinner OR do evening dishes, ...so I was all over that idea.  After a long productive day, eating out with the fam was just what the doctor ordered.

 I, on the other hand, ordered a burger and fries.


But the whole purpose of this entry was because I am in the middle of reading the Five Love Languages, by Gary Chapman, and it has made me especially aware of the needs of my husband and children.  Everyone receives love differently and I want to make sure that as a Mom and wife that I am filling their love-tanks properly!  The five love-languages are: Quality time, Words of Affirmation, Gifts, Acts of Service,  and Physical Touch.  I am pretty sure my love-language is acts of service.  Nothing means more to me than a helping hand, which is maybe why I was so pleased by my kids today with helping me clean and not complaining about it.  I feel totally filled.  Though I think it may also be tied with quality time.  Spending our evening together as a family at Licks tonight was such a special treat and means so much to me when we can do those things as a family and that Joe can join us too since he rarely gets free time like that these days.  Joe claims to be service as well.  But instead of guessing I made him take the test with me and he is just like me: service and quality time.  As for my kids, Zoe's too young to tell (though my fav thing about her these days is how she reaches up to tenderly put her hand to my face and just look at me), but Ellie is definitely physical touch/quality time right now.  She always wants to snuggle or hold hands or be held or kissed AND she used to be able to play on her own really well, but lately she has been asking me to play with her.  Like a lot.  But it goes a long way.  I can tell that when I respond to her with those things she is a happier person throughout the day.  Noah is for sure physical touch.  He loves to sit by me or on my lap.  He loves to be held and coddled.  And he loves when I stroke his face while singing to him before bed.  I am pretty sure Jackson is words of affirmation.  When he's done a job well done, he LOVES to hear about it.  He wants to feel appreciated.  He wants to know that someone noticed him and cares about what he did or what kind of person he is.  Although, I can tell he most certainly SHOWS his love through acts of service.  One morning before Joe and I even got out of bed, Jackson emptied the dish washer for us.  Just because.  He is six people.  SIX!  What a sweet heart.  The book says that often kids will show us how they like to receive their love by how they give it, so I think Jackson may be tied with those two.  As I think about all five love languages though, aren't all of them important?  I've been trying to keep all of them in mind with Joe and with the children, just trying to figure out what they best respond to and it's kind of fun.  I wrote a note in the kids lunch last week.  Jackson told me all about it when he got home from school, and Noah totally forgot.  Jax.  Words of Affirmation.  Haha!  It's just interesting how each child can respond so differently from the same show of love.  I guess God made us all differently. 

Speaking of God and families (okay, so maybe that's a bit of a stretch, but it's on my mind), the other night we had book club and we were talking about kids and the "right" number of kids to have.  I thought to myself, it would be so easy (for my sanity and for so many other reasons) to stop now.  My kids are easy.  We're in a groove.  Life is pleasant.  But I know deep down that our family is not complete.  It delights and scares me!  AND it makes me not want to think about it right now!  I just had a baby!  Anywho, as I was driving home that night, I often say prayers in the car when I am driving late at night and as I was praying about this particular thing I was telling God that I think five is a good number.  I think I can handle five kids.  One more.  I can do one more.  But then I got this pit in my stomach and I was like, "What's this about?  Is that the Spirit telling me that I need to have more than five?"  yes.  "What?  So is that the Spirit?"  yes.  "Why?  I don't think I can do it."  yes you can.  "But is that me saying that in my head or is it the Spirit?"  It's the Spirit.

I need to stop praying about these things.

I've felt for a long time that there are two more in Heaven waiting to join our family (Gibb and Jane.  Yes, I've named them already and yes it's one boy and one girl), but I've also felt exhausted about Motherhood.  My sanity is slipping.  My energy is gone.  I can't be sick again for two more pregnancies!  Can I put in a request for twins?   Wait.  No.  That scares me too.  Blah, I need to be like Scarlett O'Hara and not think about this right now!  I'll think about it... well, not tomorrow either.  Anywho, I think today was a tender mercy though;  God telling me that having children is pretty darn awesome and that every once in a while you can have perfect days like this.  Just please bless that my children will feel like I've given them enough.  I think that is my greatest fear;  feeling like I am split in so many different ways that I can't possibly give each child the attention they require of me.  Will I be able to "fill their love tanks" efficiently enough?  Will they resent me because I couldn't go to every basketball game or maybe I wasn't able to come to that one recital?  Will they hold a grudge because I didn't spend enough one on one time with them?  I guess if God has six kids for me, then I sure hope He's prepared a way to make them understanding, because I sure as heck am not perfect and I hope my kids will have the patience and the love required to put up with their Mother who is far from having it all together. 

I'll think about it tomorrow.... or in about three years.

I Went To Quebec

A few months ago, Joe and I decided it would be fun to take our little family to Quebec to visit the Pedersons.  Well, a week before we were supposed to be on the road we all got sick.  It would start with a two day fever and then end in a nasty cold/cough.  We couldn't get it all at once.  No.  That would be too easy.  It had to happen one at a time.  One would get better just in time for another to get sick.  It was NOT a good time to be thinking about taking a trip.  But if we didn't go now, we would miss our opportunity.  So, ...we decided to take our chances and keep planning on it.  WELL, ...after packing up the night before we felt pretty content that every one's health was in pretty good order.  I had some minor sniffles, but that was about it.  And then Ellie woke up that night with a lovely fever.  And then she barfed.

Did we still go?  You bet.

We love sharing things with our friends, ...especially our germs!  Actually, that morning Ellie was acting just fine so we took our chances (with their blessing) and headed north to visit Steve and Krysta Pederson and their family for the weekend.  I am SO glad we did.  We came at the right time.  They had Winterfest going on where the whole park was set up with ice-slides and other festivities.  We had perfect weather for it too.

(L-R:  Eliie, Noah, Jackson, Elijah, Finlay)

We had a lot of fun going down the slides.  I went down with Ellie on my lap, trying to feel young again and immediately bruised my tailbone, making me feel old again.  I love this picture above.  This guy was speaking French the whole time and people were laughing and nodding, ...so I just followed suit.  Who the heck knows what he was saying!
 
This is one of the many sculptures carved out of snow.   It was so cool and they were seriously everywhere!
 
Joe got roped into being a volunteer for a group of jugglers.  Their Quebequios accents were so thick I couldn't help but chuckle a little.  Dey war try-ying sow haaard do tok widout ain accant.  It was cute.  But even cuter was my brave husband who had to hold a pen in his mouth while the jugglers hit it out with their pins.  Scary! 
Back to Ellie.  I wish I could tell you that she enjoyed the day there and had a blast, but that statement would have been absolutely 100% FALSE!  She screamed and cried if she wasn't being held and didn't want to go on any of the rides.  In fact, she made that day pure Hell for me.  The boys were all having a blast and here we were with our friends just trying to play and have a fun time, ...and then there was Ellie.  I could have strangled her.  But then I tried to put it into perspective.  If I was feeling sick and yucky, I probably wouldn't want to be out and about either.  So, ...while the rest of the kids went skiing (for the first time.  I missed it!) and to the Museum across the street (darn it, I wanted to go!), I got dropped off at the Pedersons for NAP TIME!  I think we both needed it terribly.  Words cannot express how exhausting it was trying to get Ellie, Zoe and Finlay to the car.  We were parked far away and only had one sled to pull the girls, ...but Ellie would NOT be pulled.  Neither would she walk.  Zoe and Finlay could not fit on one sled, so I ended up carrying Zoe AND Ellie to the car while Krysta pulled Finlay on the sled.  Exhausting would be an understatement.  After a while, Krysta decided it would be best to leave me with the three kids and bring the car to me.  I agreed!  But people kept passing me and giving me these "I've been there" looks of pity.  One person even asked if I needed help, which was very sweet, but also a little embarrassing.  One asked if all three girls were mine.  I said no, and she was so relieved for me, but little did she know that I actually have four kids.  Haha!  I decided to skip that conversation.  Anywho, that nap was the best nap I have ever had.  When I woke up it took me a minute to figure out where the heck I was.  Those are always the loveliest of naps! After dinner, Steve and Krysta made plans for us all to go on a double date to see the ice-sculptures in downtown Ottawa and go Skating down the Rideau Canal (which is the longest skating rink in the world.  Cool!).  The nice thing about other people planning your date is that you actually get to do something out of the norm.  It was refreshing, and not just because it was cold out!  We ended up borrowing Steve and Krysta's skates so it was just Joe and I on the ice for a while and we actually flirted and laughed and acted like we were dating again.  Fancy that.  We even made up a couples routine and presented our dazzling performance to Steve and Krysta at the end of our skate.  Probably the best we've ever done.  Haha!

With the exception of Ellie being a bit of a terror (she's back to normal now folks), the weekend was so fun.  I even got to meet up with Mark and Karen Mitchell (they're in the same Ward!) and chat about musicals, etc.  Right now Mark is putting together his Stake's Musical Production, which is Broadway-based, and one of the songs being performed is one that I wrote about eight years ago and he arranged called, "Oh My Son" which is based off the Book of Mormon story of Alma the Younger.  This song is his father's prayer.  They're performing it in a few months and I really hope I can go see it performed live for the first time.  Having this visit with the Mitchell's really inspired me.  I know what I need to do moving forward with this musical (solidify my plot before writing anything else.  The hardest part has been trying to find a story original enough!).  Since I have been home I took out some sheet music from the library and have been practicing!  It's so daunting sometimes, but the skill to sight read will be worth it.  Plus, sometimes learning to play other sheet music is a great way to open the doors to creativity when it comes to song-writing.  I have also decided that I'd like to write a cantata for Christmas.  (The story has already been written.  Easy!).  I started a few years ago, but all of my ideas got erased accidentally and I've been too frustrated to return to it.  But I think it's time now.  In fact, I'm really excited about it!  I feel like a squirrel, SHINY!  I get so excited about too many projects at once and then end up losing focus and completing none of them!  Haha!  Well not this time people.  Not this time!  All I need to do is be a Mom, solidify my musical plot, and write a Christmas cantata.

Ain't no thang.

I Heart V-Day

So, ladies and gentlemen, this year is my first year with kids in school PLUS Valentines day put together.  You can imagine how excited I am with all the valentines being created and passed around.  And they're not even for me!  It's funny how you start living vicariously through your kids. I wanted to be on the ball, so last week for FHE we had a Valentines day prep night.  We talked about how Heavenly Father wants us to love one another (gotta fit in a gospel theme!) ....and then put together all the kids valentines.  I knew Jax would be fine on his own with spelling out his friends' names, but I was super impressed with Noah.  He has come such a long ways with his spelling and writing!!  He was determined to spell out each name AND sign his own on 25 valentines!  Well done Noah.  He didn't complain.  He was all over it.



And yes, I totally stole this idea from Pinterest.


I made the dough the night before so it wouldn't feel like such a hectic evening.  Joe and Ellie took charge of cutting out the cookies and baking while I helped the boys with their valentines.
 
I decorated some....

And so did the kids. Haha! I think Noah took one bite of his and was DONE!
We also spent some time that evening making birthday cards for my Dad because his birthday is actually TODAY!  He is the big 72!  I got to talk to him today and wish him a happy birthday with the kids.  They are at Shannon and Justin's babysitting, and my Dad said that the best present (other than our cards, of course) is that their mission call will be waiting for them by the time they get home this weekend!  I am so excited for them and can't wait to hear where they are going.  My Mom would love to serve in Denmark (her heritage), and then I think Manhatten temple would be tied for first choice, ...and then Washington, DC temple, which would be really cool because that was in Joe's mission which we want to visit while we are out East.  And if they are serving there we will get double the awesomeness of getting to visit them AND see Joe's mission.  BUT, ...now that I am thinking this through, New York would be a WAY more exciting place to visit!  AND, ...we'll have a place to stay.  Ooooh!  Broadways.  Shopping!  And my Mommy.  Okay, ...I am getting ahead of myself.  Anywho, I am pretty darn pumped for them.  Happy Birthday indeed!

I'm a Businesssss-MAN!

So today we played the kid-version of the game Monopoly, ...and Noah KILLED it. It was really cute. I was expecting a few tears from our overly-competitive Jackson, but he was pretty cool about it. He posed for the below pic to show how truly poor he was during the game AND to show he was a good sport about it. It was a lot of fun spending time with the kids like this.

So, why am I talking about a game of Monopoly you ask?  Well, for one because it was dang cute to see Noah all jazzed up in his Sunday clothes looking like a true-blue businessman.  AND because we had a great time as a family.  Lots of times after church it is SO easy to slide into "let's have quiet time" and nap the afternoon away (and there ain't nothing wrong with that every once in a while), but the last few days I've been feeling like I need to spend more quality time with my kids.  Jenny posted an excerpt in her blog about setting up a work station for Milo.  She put so much effort into this and I thought to myself, "Am I really giving all I have to my kids?"  I've been a little distracted with my musical, ...AND I'll admit, my darn phone that I have judged so many others about in the past.  I am ONE OF THEM!  But I don't want to be.  I want to be that fun Mom that takes her girls to the "Ploo-Place" (play-place) during the week to meet up with friends Ellie's age (and not just the YMCA one).  I want to be that fun Mom who would rather play Monopoly on a Sunday afternoon than take a nap.   Today at church, we talked a lot about making priorities with our life and filtering out the non-essentials.  I felt like I could probably filter out quite a bit in my life to make me feel less "busy" and more available to my children.  Some days I am pretty good, I think, but I know some days I am very distracted and need to give my kids some motherly attention.  The kids have been cycling through this nasty fever/cold/cough (all but Noah and I have had it.  I'm sure it's just a matter of time...).  It has forced me to spend some loving/nurturing-Mother time with them helping them to feel comfortable and well cared for, etc.  It has forced me to focus WAY more on each one of them rather than myself.  For example, tonight Ellie and I laid in her bed while I read some stories to her and it felt SO great to be able to do that.  She was starved for my attention.  I could tell she just wanted to talk to me.  In fact, I hardly read at all because she would point out everything that was going on in each page before I even said a word.  It was pretty darn cute.  She doesn't always get my one-on-one attention because she is one of four kids and that is hard for me to balance sometimes, but I remembered my goal today about spending one on one time at least once a day with each child and knew she would love an activity like this before bed to make her feel loved.  She was so happy and I could tell she felt really special to be able to have time with just Mommy and no one else.  It made me feel like I did a pretty good job today.  The trick is keeping it up I guess.  Please bless I don't get sick so I can!

The Yoga Fam

I have come to enjoy yoga. They offer classes at the YMCA but they are always at the most awkward times so I don't always get to go.  Joe is awesome, and he bought an app on his ipad for doing yoga at home.  I'm sure you can imagine us side by side looking ridiculous trying to get into these poses, ...and ridiculous would be the right word to use, too!  Next time I will have to make sure to separate our mats a little further because SOMEONE really likes to flirt.  Sheesh!  Well, I thought it was going to be a pretty useless app and did not have a lot of faith in it, but we tried it and found it to be pretty intense.  The funny thing with Yoga at home is that you don't always feel very "zen" during it.  I am pretty sure we had to pause it at least 5-6 times because Ellie wanted a new show on, or she had to go potty, or Zoe woke up from her nap earlier than expected.  She decided to join us in this pic (Upward-dog pose.  Another reason it was not-so-zen, ...I had to stop to take pictures because Zoe kept doing la-git yoga poses and I was dying from the cuteness!  She moves around quite a bit now and is really digging in her head and sticking up her bum to prepare for the crawling stage.  Please slow down).  So, the next time I tried this routine, I hid upstairs in my bedroom thinking I've outsmarted my kids.  Privacy!  But NO!  They find you!  At first it was just Ellie and she wanted to do the poses beside me.  And I thought that was cute so I didn't shew her away.  Eventually she got closer and closer to my mat until we were sharing the same space.  And then Noah found us and joined in.  And then Jax.  Within about 15 minutes of starting my workout, I had three children all trying to share ONE mat with me!  Ha!  It was actually pretty funny.  I thought for sure they would get bored and eventually leave.  But no.  They stayed for the rest of my workout.  I can't even pretend to be annoyed.  It was SUPER cute watching them all attempt their different versions of each move.  And any time I did the downward dog, Ellie would crawl under me like a cat and then I would squish her.  And if you know yoga, you can imagine how many times that happened!  Just another cute story I hope I can remember about my kids being really cute, ...even if they did ruin my workout. 

But maybe that's why I liked it.

My Musical

I know my last post was about song-writing, but this time it's about ME writing songs.  ME!  Well, I've been working on this Musical (untitled STILL) for over a year now.  In fact, I spent all last year being involved IN musicals so I could be more educated in the process and feel inspired, etc.  Well, now that I am feeling more settled out here and it's a brand new year with brand new goals, I've decided to really delve into writing this piece.  It's hard not being in the same city as Jayna and Mark.  Jayna and I had a few "meetings" together before I moved (I make it sound so posh.  We met over mini-eggs and water.  Now THAT's luxury!).  We were able to come up with a rough synopsis from three very different ideas I had going on in my head.  It's nice to bounce these ideas off of people who know what they're doing and have that creative drive like myself.  I knew I wanted to work with Jayna because after working with her in ANNIE last year I had such a blast and she is such a wonderful and genuine person, ...not to mention super talented!  Anywho, ...back to the writing process.  Then there's Mark.  He's actually in Ottawa right now which isn't too far away, but far enough away.  Not to mention we all have our lives on top of this and different schedules.  So all that being said, I decided to just get started!  I started off by revisiting a bunch of old ideas and went from there.  A lot of my ideas were for other musical possibilities, so there were many changes that had to be made, but once I started writing the script things started falling into place.  I wrote my first song, "Have You Ever Had a Dream" which I am not confident enough to post just yet, ...and that to me is a sign that it still needs some work.  I am pleased with parts of it and I think it's close, ...but not quite.  So, then I wrote "The Life of a Servant" which is my maid piece.  I was super pumped about how everything came together and thought to myself, "Hey, this might actually be really good."  I posted "The Life of a Servant" on Facebook/Youtube just to get some feedback from friends and family and for the most part it was well received.  That only pumped me up to write some more!  So the next day I sat down and could not for the life of me come up with anything remotely near as good as what I had already written.  How am I supposed to keep up and keep pumping out awesome musical-tunes?  This is still very new to me as my forte is in the world of FOLK/POP! So, to feel inspired I decided to do some homework.  Which basically means I watched a bunch of musical numbers on youtube.  I got to "Forget About the Boy" from Thoroughly Modern Milly and I felt a flutter of emotions.  For one I thought, "that is amazing!" and then it turned into, "I wish I wrote that song" and then even further to, "I could never write something that amazing."  ...Until I was swallowed up in my own self pity and suddenly the excitement I felt about finishing my first piece was completely gone.  I tried not crying all day and was only semi-successful.  At any rate, I gave myself a day of feeling sorry for myself.  I KNEW deep down this was Satan's attempt to tell me I am not good enough and give up.  But I know deep down that I have a LOT of potential to do a lot of things.  And this is one of them.  So I hunkered down the next evening (I say evening because my kids won't let me focus during the day and that's all fine and good because I still need to be a Mom.  Just wanted to clarify that I am not totally neglecting my children.  Only once in a while!) and cranked out a piece I had been working on over the past month.  Everything just came together.  It was a total tender mercy.  I really needed to feel that security from my Heavenly Father telling me I AM good enough and I can do this.  It's called "The Curse of a Woman."  It still needs some work, but I think a lot of that will come in the arrangement.  I will say it's funny because my very, VERY first song, "Have You Ever Had a Dream" I can totally relate to.  It's the opening number and the female lead has moved to big time New York seeking to fulfill her dream (which right now is to be on Broadway, but that it subject to change).  Throughout the number everyone is telling her she can't do it.  It's not going to happen for her, but in the end she says, "I choose to dream."  And isn't that exactly what I am doing?   I may or may not be tearing up right now.  Ha!  I'm so predictable.  Anywho, that thought got me really pumped up.  I don't feel like coasting through life.  I don't feel like la-dee-da-ing my days away.  I want a fulfilling life where I can say, "I tried this" or "I did that."  I know this is something I can do because I want it bad enough.

Me?

I choose to dream.