Singing' and Dancin'

Today is the one Sunday I cherish most out of the year.  And it only comes once a year.  Better than Christmas or Easter Sunday.  The Primary Presentation in church.  All of our kids had speaking parts and since Noah's and Ellie's were pretty short we decided to attempt memorizing them beforehand.  In order to help Ellie remember her line, we made a tune out of it.  She does really well at remembering lyrics so I thought if I put her line to an easy tune, she could remember it.  Well.  She did.  But instead of speaking her line today in the microphone, she sang it as proud as could be.  Ha!  Joe and I got a kick out of that.  And so did the rest of the congregation.  I never know how Noah is going to be because he occasionally zones out.  We bribed the kids beforehand with ice cream.  If they did awesome they got three scoops, if they were okay, two, if they were not that great, HALF!  Not even one scoop!  I think it worked.  Noah sat still and sang every fourth to fifth word of each song with a bored face.  But he wasn't hanging off his chair or bugging the kid beside him so I'll take it.  And he said his line nice and clear, no mistakes.  I was worried he might freeze and need help, but he was super confident, which is a new side I am seeing to him.  Jackson, of course, did great.  Because he's older I don't usually have to worry about him with singing all the songs and sitting still.  He had quite a paragraph to read, and did it well.  Since he is turning eight this year, his class talked about baptism.  My son.  Ready to be baptized!  Only months away.  Crazy.  I will not talk about it yet, or I will start to cry.  Towards the end of the program, our family sang, "The Hearts of the Children" all together with Granny.  I was hoping Grandpa could join since it's about family history, but being the Stake pres is a busy life.  Each child had their own little solo and their little voices were like angels.  I love having opportunities to hear them sing and to teach them new songs at home.  Sometimes getting them to initially gather to do something like this is like pulling teeth, but it always pays of.  They learn a new song, build confidence and feel great about how they did.  Maybe even feel the Spirit.  My "proud-Mom" level of them sky-rocketed today.

This week was a bit of a crazy week.  Jackson "started" school choir and the kids started dance.  Joe was also out of town so I had to bring the kids with me everywhere.  Choir is after school once a week and when I was about to drop Jackson off with the choir director he got SUPER cold feet and started crying.  I felt so bad, but at the same time I wanted him to at least try it out once.  Well, that was NOT happening.  He clung to me and cried and told me he didn't want everyone to see him crying.  This is so not Jackson.  I asked him why he was being so shy about it now and what did he expect when he signed up?  Well, he thought his whole class would be doing it, and not a single friend his age was there.  My Mommy-heartstrings were a-tugging and I tried several times to encourage him to go, but at the same time, I'm not really interested in putting my kid into something that he will hate.  He'll get plenty of that throughout his life, so why start with this?  He loves music and I didn't want this one experience to taint his love for music, so I told him he could come home (this is all while I am holding a runny-nosed Zoe who decided not to nap that day and Ellie and Noah were restlessly complaining about wanting to play at the park and why were we still here? etc.  It was fun).  But I didn't let Jackson off that easy.  I told him he must be really tired and need a nap, so he could choose between choir or taking a nap.  He chose the nap, but cried the whole time while cursing my name.  Moms are the worst. Yes he was tired.  And yes, my Mommy-heart did feel bad for him.  I was really hoping this could be a good experience for him.  Not to mention, it's free and he's already at school!  He loves music, but perhaps this just wasn't his year.  Sad.  Not sure if he'll change his "tune" this week.  We shall see.

Well onto our dance class experience!  Ellie is taking ballet and the boys are in an all-boys-hip hop group.  SO CUTE!  Well, as I am helping Ellie get all dressed up a half hour before we are about to leave she starts to cry and doesn't want to go because she is shy.  We can thank Jackson for THAT example!  No matter what I said to her, it did not do a thing to console her.  Then Noah, bless his heart, came into the room on his own accord and told Ellie that she is going to make so many new friends and have so much fun.  And guess what?  That did it for her.  She looks up to Noah so much, and I just thought that was the sweetest thing for Noah to encourage her to go and be positive about it.  She had a great time and didn't look back.  The boys are in a class of about ten boys and at the end of the class they invited the Moms in to check out what they had already learned.  And.  Oh.  My.  Heck.  I could die it was so cute.

Here are some priceless poses before class.  I know.  I know.  They don't look like they need any training at all.  Total naturals.

So Tough

I have done some pretty physically challenging things in my life.  I believe I have narrowed down a top three.  Growing and delivering babies. That's still number one for hardest. Number two was running a portion of the Big Sur marathon ten years ago without training (before babies when my body's possibilities were endless)---I was swimming a mile everyday instead of running and Karen had to drop out of the race for some reason the week before, so I stood in for her.  I was only supposed to run the first ten miles (as a relay team with Lindsay and Jenny), but then someone in my bus that morning was like, "you might as well just keep running to see if you can finish it!"  Well.  I ran 15 miles.  When I got to the 15 mile mark I was DONE.  Beyond done.  The lady at the mark was like, "Oh sorry, ...the bus to take you to the finish line is at the 17 mile mark.  So I had to walk two more miles.  My body was angry with me for a solid week or two.  I remember the day after the race we decided to walk around San Francisco and each time I had to step down from a curb or get back on one, my body wanted to cry.  Look at my beautiful tanned skinny legs before I had kids.  What a great experience/trip that was.  Jared ran---nay, sprinted the whole marathon without any real training.  Got blisters at the 20 mile mark and had to walk the final 7.  Sarah and my Mom ran the whole thing together (they dropped me after our ten mile run together when we got to the seven mile long hill.  Three and a half up and three and a half down.  Barf).  Jenny, Lindsay and I were on a relay team, so I never got to run with them.  Although a great experience, it has made me never want to train for a marathon ever.  My Mom has since run a zillion more.  For one of them just last year (because she ran two that year), she wanted to have a more competitive time in her age category and ran a 9.5 minute mile.  Pretty sure I've never run that fast.  Ever.  Not even during my soccer games.  My Mom just turned 67 today and could kick my butt any day of the week.  Here we are after the race.


The third on my list of hardest physical things was the Tough Mudder race (Drumheller) that I ran with Joe and a group of friends last week.  Sarah and Jenny somehow managed to talk me into doing it, and I signed up with little to no information!  Bad idea!  16.5 km run with 20 obstacles involving craziness or a lot of mud.  Jenny ended up getting injured before the race so she didn't even end up coming.  Boo!  But I would totally do this again, even though it was really hard.  Next year Jenny!  Sometimes it's nice to have something to train for to make your body get out of bed every morning and get fit and eat right, or to just say, "I did that!"  So Joe and I both signed up and kept each other on track.  In fact, for one of our date nights this Summer we went on a 7km run together on some pretty trails in Red Deer.  That was one of my fav dates I've had with him in a long time.  We later gorged ourselves on Wok Box, which was also part of the awesomeness.  And then a week before the race we decided we should at least make sure we could run 16 km (Run 1km, walk a minute).  That was a terrible idea, because although we finished it, my knee joints and hip joints were in terrible pain.  ALL WEEK!  Even right up until the race.  I prayed like crazy that it wouldn't effect me, and my prayers got totally answered.  If they hadn't been answered, this would have most certainly been a completely different experience for me.  Seriously, it was a straight up Christmas miracle.  Other than our nasty run the week before, training for this race was so great.  I was going to say "fun," but it's never REALLY fun before or during a workout.  It's usually afterwards that you feel empowered and awesome.  It's just nice to feel active and be fit.  I think that's one of the hardest parts for me about pregnancy is that I can only do so much.  Especially in that last trimester.  Heck.  It's a feat to even tie your own shoes!  I don't have any pictures of us during the race, but I'd say my fav obstacle was jumping into a crate of ice water.  I was so hot and so thirsty and in a matter of seconds I thought I might have hypothermia.  Thankfully Joe went in before me and helped me out of that thing!  (Two days after our race it snowed.  Probably would NOT have been my fav then.  We are lucky we had perfect weather).  A lot of the obstacles were mind over matter.  Like jumping off a plank 4-5 meters high into dark water.  That one was scary, but awesome.  I just said, "1-2-3" and went for it.  Heights are NOT my thing.  Or running through a bunch of volted wires just to get shocked for the heck of it.  And a lot of the course was all about "how muddy can we get these people?"  The great thing about this race is that everyone is super friendly and helpful.  Could I do this course on my own?  Heck no.  We had to climb walls.  WALLS!  Like, walls I couldn't even reach by jumping.  Sarah's Joe and my Joe had to boost me for each wall.  Same with the half pipe-run, ...if I didn't have someone to grab my hands and pull me the rest of the way up, there would be no way.  It's a total team effort.  Which is funny because our team of twenty totally split up into three within the first couple miles.  I was in the slow group.  Sarah and Joe kept saying that it didn't bother them to be with the slow-pokes, ...which is hard to believe because Sarah is competitive.  To make it more challenging for himself though, Joe S would do the hardest parts of the obstacles that you could easily skip, like jumping over bales of hay instead of going around or sprinting up the high part of the trail instead of sticking to a level section.  Crazy boy.  Save your energy!  Seriously though, he got me through that race.  He stuck with us and made it fun and was our cheerleader to the end.  Not to mention the friendliest person to every living soul on the trail.  If we needed to stop he'd stop with us, he'd talk us through cramps or making it to the next place before taking a break and walking, and he'd be the first to help with various obstacles.  This was Sarah and Joe's third Tough Mudder so their excuse for hanging back with us was that they've already done this competitively before.  AND they were going to do the Spartan race in two weeks.  Those crazies!

I am really proud of Joe and I though.  We worked hard to get here, and although we weren't keeping up with the leaders of our group (who finished an hour before us), we finished!  We did every obstacle.  We paced ourselves.  We didn't get injured.  And we crossed that finish line.  Upon finishing the race Joe and I decided it would be fun to train even harder next year so we could really challenge ourselves.  It's an inspiration to see those people who really pushed themselves and finished in a crazy time.  I'm not gonna lie though.  I trained pretty hard and was still super slow (I like to call it "steady") and not as strong as I thought (even though I was doing lots of cross training---squats, high-knees, tricept dips, push ups, split jumps, etc.  Maybe I need to add some chin ups or something).  Sarah and Joe made it look easy.  We'd finish going up a half km hill and there would be another obstacle waiting for us and I would want to die, and they were ready to go.  Likely because they had been at the top for a while waiting for me!  Haha!  The best thing about this race is you make it as hard as you want to make it.  Likely how I was able to finish at all.  Seriously, although super hard (for where I'm physically at in my life now), such a positive experience and would totally do it again.

Here are some before and after pics from the race.  We had a group of twenty and called ourselves the Walking Mud.  Some of our team members dressed up like zombies (which came right off after the first few miles anyway), and the girls wore the toughest of camo leggings.  So so so very tough.

(L-R: Me, Diane Gibb, Barb Butler, Kelli Gordon, Michelle Gibb, Sarah, Julie from Sarah's ward, Lindsay Anderson, Front Row: Angie and Jenny Parkins, ...but with married names that I can't remember). 

Here are a bunch of shots that the Tough Mudder crew managed to capture during the race. Our first taste of mud after a few click of running was the "Kiss of Mud."

This is me laughing at Joe because he did a cannon ball into the "Arctic Enema." What a crazy!  I was not smiling for long. I remember reading about this one and they said get in and get out! Don't waste time. So, ...I didn't. I jumped in, went under that wall as quickly as possible (scary dark water!), and waded into Joe's arms.  And I still managed to stop functioning before getting out of that thing!  Joe had to drag me out.  You can tell from the look on my face that I clearly thought death was upon me.  Somehow this was still my fav obstacle.  I was so hot and thirsty at this point, and this seemed to be the best way to cool off and get a second wind.  If it were not such a hot day I am sure I would have a different story.

Least fav! This one wasn't a physically challenging one. Just mind over matter. "Shock Therapy!"  Our group decided to link arms and go for it.  Well, the linking didn't last long.  We just wanted to get out of there!  Each buzz felt so weird.  I did NOT love this obstacle.  But it was the last.  The finish line so close!  And I promised myself that I would do each obstacle (or at least try).  I made it alive.

Sarah and Joe split off with a few others to complete a different part of the course because this was their third time doing it, so we waited for them before crossing that finish line! I wanted to cross it with the one who got me into this mess. Such great memories. Thanks again Sarah! Will definitely do this next year!

Sisters

Last year at exactly this time of year, I did a sisters shoot with Zoe and Ellie in an apple orchard on the other side of the country. We have no such things where I live now, but we have beautiful prairie lands. I was very excited to learn that we would have at least one more week of Summer weather because these dresses are Summer dresses and were not going to wait another year.  These girls are growing like weeds!  I bought Zoe's vintage dress last year online from France, and Ellie's is a score from Value Village.  Unfortunately, Zoe can't really wear that dress anywhere else because it is basically paper.  Thank you online shopping.  And Ellie will never wear her dress again because she thinks it is hideous.  I had to bribe her to no end (which ended up being four whole licorice candies), but she managed to put on a face.  And so did Zoe.  Many many weird ones.  These are my girls.  Glad they are finally becoming fast friends.

Alert! Alert! Posting About Kids. Again.

Noah is the most tenderest of boys.  Joe made the mistake of telling Noah that he was going on a trip for a few days and now Noah is in tears because he "will just miss him so much!"  Right now Joe is in his bedroom consoling him.  Usually when he is sad or upset about something I will stroke his hair and sing him whichever song he chooses, and it's usually "I am a Child of God" or "I Love to See the Temple."  I almost started crying multiple times tonight while singing because all I could think about was holding him as a little baby or toddler and doing the exact same thing.  His fav is the hair-stroking.  In fact, sometimes he would even stroke his own hair when he needed instant comfort.  Or pretty much anytime he felt the least bit tired.  Seriously, that kid is the sweetest.  And with that experience I couldn't stop thinking about how grown up all of my kids are getting.  Just stop it!  Stop it I say!

I don't want my babies to grow up.

Ellie is another baby that I can't believe is "almost five."  She's been saying that ever since she turned four, but in a few months it will be true.  It's been good for us girls having the boys in school again.  I find it difficult sometimes to stretch myself between all four kids.  Yes.  I said it out loud.  Four kids is hard work.  And the squeakiest wheel often gets the most attention, and lately it hasn't been Ellie.  It's Zoe.  Having the boys back in school allows me the time to really spend with Ellie or give her the much needed attention she deserves.  As I have said a zillion times before, she is much sweeter and kind when she is given enough attention and kind, gentle tones---which are sometimes not easy for me.  I have found when I lay down beside her before bed, she is the funniest and most talkative.  It's been a while since I've done that.  I used to do it every night, but sometimes you just want to get all the kids down so you can breathe again.  Well, I didn't realize how much I missed it until I laid down with her again earlier this week before bed.  Boy, that girl can talk.  Sometimes I have to just leave while she's still going and close the door on her mid-sentence.  She will literally keep talking no matter how many times I say, "Okay, Mommy has to go now.  I'm closing the door.... right.... now!"  Last week we had a Family Home Evening on service and after her prayers tonight (she blessed that Kwyncee would be nicer and that she would love her again), she said, "Mom, what's that help-word again?"  "Service?"  "Yes, service....  I gave service to Kwyncee because I found her shoes for her and Jesus likes it when we do service."  If you know Ellie at all you know that's a big step.  She is not best friends with Kwyncee, but lately I've been noticing her trying to be more kind with both Kwyncee and Zoe.  The other big step is that I honestly thought she wasn't getting a single thing out of FHE last week, but apparently something stuck!  Wow.

I feel like Jackson has never been a baby.  He's always been an old soul in this little body.  And today I pulled out a suit for him that had been given to him as a hand-me-down a while back.  It was massive not that long ago, and now it fits him.  What the heck?  Also I have to add that Jackson is the most loyal "boyfriend" ever.  He was telling me that at school the girls were chasing him and his friends around (I still have memories being that girl in elementary school with Alan Smith and Gord... something....  Ha!).  Well, I asked him if any of those girls liked him, or if he liked any of those girls.  "Mom, of course not.  My girlfriend is Charlie."  Yes, the same Charlie from Kindergarten--TWO years ago---in Burlington that he will likely never see again.  Awwww.  I didn't tell him that.  But I also reminded him that he's not allowed to have a girlfriend this young anyways.  Jackson is also now old enough to be in the school choir.  I figure if you are in grade two it's not nerdy just yet.  In fact, Sarah tells me it's the cool thing for kids these days.  But what does she know, she's a Mom too!  Anywho, I figure he's got a really great voice and he's going to listen to a choir instructor before he will listen to me about it.  It's a start.

Zoe.  Zoe be crazy.  She is still my baby, even though she is turning into a chubby toddler that knows everything.  She LOVES books.  Like, in an obsessed way that I don't think ANY of my kids have shown.  She is so curious.  Everything is "what is dis?" followed by answering her own question "twenny-five."  Yes.  She know her numbers.  And colours.  And letters.  And shapes.  I feel like she just decided to memorize everything over the last couple weeks and now she knows all!  Honestly though, she's a smart one.  You tell her something once, and she's got it.  Kind of like Ellie with listening to a song once---she can sing it right back to you.  My fav these days is that she calls Ketchup, "Kepuch."  Her new fav things are the two stuffies that my Mom gave her for her birthday (an Aristocat and Minnie Mouse).  In fact, bed time is getting a little out of hand these days because she MUST be surrounded by very specific stuffies.   "A mouse?"  "Yup, here's your mouse."  "A duckie?"  "Here's Duckie."  "A kitty cat?"  "You're holding it."  "A doggy?"  Sigh......  if any one of them lands on the ground, there ain't no way anyone is sleeping until it is back in her possession.  Like I said, she be crazy.  But the cutest kind of crazy.  I can say that now because she is sleeping and it's quiet.

In conclusion, I can't believe my babies are growing up.  Everyone warns you.  Almost to the point of annoyance.  But it's so true.  Ain't nothing like watching your kid grow before your very eyes to remind you how old you are getting.  Jackson will be baptized this year!  Ellie has moved from the innocence of "My Little Ponies" on to "Barbies."  Okay, ...not much of a difference.  Point is, they're all growing up.  And I feel like the only solution is to just have another baby.  Yup.  That's the solution.  Life is getting just too darn easy.

Paint Fight!

When I told the kids we were going to have a paint fight for our next family photo shoot, they could not wait! I should have waited to tell them the day of. Big mistake. We had such a great time with this photo shoot. A massive thanks to Alysha Sladek (www.alyshasladek.com) for being the best photographer out there and for capturing all of our craziness! I was really hoping Zoe would nap in the car during the day since we had to travel to Calgary for an evening shoot, but that didn't happen until precisely 30 minutes before the shoot. I'm sure you can imagine how happy she was, which is why I am so impressed at what Alysha caught.  A huge thanks!!  I think the hardest part about this shoot for me was figuring out which outfits to wear that were cute enough, but also possible throw-aways in case the "washable paint" lied to us and did not, indeed, come out.  Should I wear my good bra?  Should we dress it up a little more?  Should we dress up all red-neck with bandanas or army-like with camo print?  I stress about those things and believe it or not, I even lost sleep over it.  I know, I'm a weirdo.  Note: Everything made it through, but MY shirt.  I liked that shirt.  But at least my bra made it through.  Actually I'm impressed that anything made it through because we got MESSSSSSSSS-SAAAAAAY!

Here are some befores, afters, and after the afters (washing up in the nearby river.  The kids did NOT like that part).  Enjoy!

I have to interject here that Alysha told the kids to whisper a secret into our ears, so Noah turned to me and said, "I love you, Mom." Best secret ever.

Only three of the four kids ended up in tears after about fifteen minutes of madness. Not bad.  And as you can see, I got attacked the most.  I think it's because I am the most loved though.  Zoe was pretty much not impressed just about the entire time.  She was either crying or wondering what the heck was going on.  That poor girl needed a real nap.  Next time, I will come a day early and spend the night in Calgary just so I can have the day to give her a nice, delicious, beautiful, crispy, lovely and delectable three hour nap that she requires in order to function as a happy, delicious, crispy, and lovely toddler.  Ellie was super involved.  She liked getting painted on, and she also loved to attack.  Noah seemed more interested in what the paint looked like on him than anything else.  Jackson was definitely full-attack mode the whole time.  My little warrior.  I got Joe pretty good at one point, and then paid for it the rest of the fight.  Ha!  All in all, a super fun shoot followed by a delicious, scrumptious, delectable, delightful and crispy hot shower (after having to wash in the cold river.  Not my greatest plan, but the only one if we wanted to save our car!).  Thanks again Alysha for taking the time to make sure you captured the best!