Teething

What were you doing at 2:30 am this morning?

I was feeding Macie popscicles and frozen Thin Mints. Teething is the pits.

I know you're jealous.

:)

This girly girl is so happy all the time (as long as she's not hungry!). I love these pictures - they show her cute little teeth, her hair is finally long enough to put in a little pony tail, and these are her super happy smiles. Most of the time she is on the verge of a smile, just waiting for any excuse. She will smile when you look at her, at something the TV, or even just laying in her crib by herself before or after a nap. I think she's about as cute as they get - maybe I'm a little bias, but don't you agree? :)

(Yes, she has a little piece of paper in her mouth, and yes, that is drool dripping down her chest.)

Back to Work

Well, my week off work is officially over. I started again last night. It was so great to be home! We went to the park and/or on a walk everyday. I love, love, love the warm weather!

I made some good new recipes. This is Zuppa Toscana from Olive Garden - LJ's absolute favorite. I just Googled it and found this great recipe. It was dead on! (Note: I don't eat red meat, so I added more potatoes, took some soup out before I added the sausage, added more kale to mine, and added a spoonful of sour cream to make it creamy. It was delicious that way too!) It made a lot, so I froze the rest for leftovers. Gotta love that!

Macie chowing down on a biscuit served with the soup.

It was so fun just to be together. We all got LOTS of extra snuggle time with LJ (since he wasn't going anywhere) , and he is doing great now. It was a great week!

Mothers Day, Surgery, and a Week Off (sort of)

I hope your Mothers Day was wonderful! Mine was. The celebration part anyway. I had to work on Mother's Day, so we mostly celebrated on Saturday. We went to dinner, and I came home to some beautiful flowers and one of those recordable cards that the kids talked on with a cool song, and some presents. I did my own Mothers Day shopping - a few decorations for the house, a new church outfit, and a book on motherhood. It was perfect.
I love being a mom. I am so grateful the Lord has given me the opportunity to be a mother to His daughters, and a special mom to Grant. I can't even thank Him enough for the beautiful, wonderful kids we have been blessed with! They are all so different from each other and each has captured a special place in my heart forever. I am so grateful for my mom and the great example she is to me. I am also grateful for her friendship and for being such a good grandma to my kids. And of course for my husband's mom. What a wonderful woman! I admire her so much and am so grateful for all she did to raise the super wonderful son that she did. My kids love their grandmas SO much. Whenever they hear either one of their voices when they walk in our house, the kids drop whatever they are doing and make a mad dash to grandma. We love you both so much!
Being a mom is hard but so great. The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that motherhood and missionary work have a lot in common, as I’ve come to realize after thinking about this for a couple of weeks. You are called into full-time service. You are sent into strange lands, set to doing unfamiliar things. You are given responsibility over souls to teach and to show the way to live. And it can be the great spiritual experience of your life, if you let it. Before I was called on a mission, I was excited about the glamor of missionary work. I get the black tag, I get to wear a dress every day, see thousands of people baptized and teach discussions to dozens of eager listeners. Then I WENT on a mission, and I realized that missionary work is mostly just plain WORK.
Before I became a mom, I was excited about the glamor of motherhood. I get the cute stroller, the Baby Bjorn, the diaper bag, the walks in the park and at the mall. And let’s talk about shopping for the teeny clothes! Ah, be still my heart. Then Ellie was born. She was a good baby, but still - a baby. 23 months later, along came Addie. Then 16 months after that Macie arrived And I knew I was in for it bigtime. I began to realize that motherhood is mostly just plain HARD WORK. And for motherhood, just as in missionary work the development of virtues that may not come naturally, like patience – oh, so much patience. And longsuffering, the ability to keep long hours, the ability to see deeply and with perspective, the ability to see that these are choice spirits whom Heavenly Father has entrusted me with for a little season. Is a gift that only comes because of the sacrifices involved.
I love the quote by the First Presidency, "Motherhood is near to divinity. It is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind." But it often doesn’t feel that high or that holy. Especially on your knees scrubbing, or folding endless laundry, or the rounds of cooking and cleaning and cooking again, washing sand out of hair and clothing and, well, pretty much everywhere – learning to tolerate a much higher level of noise and chaos, and that "barely keeping it together" feeling. But it is so worth it. Oh so worth it.
On another note . . .LJ had knee surgery yesterday on a torn miniscus. This is his most painful recovery yet (oh, yes, this is is 4th knee surgery), but he's doing okay when the pain pills are working. Normally he's nice and sweet and funny - but it's even better when he's on narcotics. I felt like a sexy supermodel all day between the anesthesia, IV pain meds in recovery, and the pain pills. :)
So, I have the entire week off to help LJ and watch the kids. It's been so fun to be home. But (refer to paragraph above), hard work. At the beginning of the week I had a giant list of everything I wanted to accomplish this week since I was "off work" - work out everyday, keep the house perfectly clean, organize all the closets and make a D.I. run, blog everyday, clean the basement (storage), paint the laundry room and pantry, make an incredible dinner every night, scrapbook . . . but without LJ's help with the kids, it's just not happening. Between feeding kids, getting kids ready, changing diapers, holding crying kids, changing Addie's clothes when she decided to jump in Macie's bath water fully clothed. . .you get the idea. So I give up. I decided I'm just going to enjoy the week. Focus on LJ and the kids and just BE with them. I'll let you know how it goes. :)

Happy.

It has been such a great week. Two of the best things happened. #1: We got new carpet! I can't tell you how happy I am every time I see it, walk on it, smell the new carpet smell when I walk in the door... it's just wonderful! Our old carpet was a light beige color and so ugly! There were lots of stains and it was just cheap - the cheap stuff they put in when they build the house. It was just gross. And our new carpet is plush and clean and dark and multicolored and oh so soft and comfty (Ellie's word). I'm so happy! We have done so much to our house, but the final results were always not quite as good because we still had ugly carpet. Now that we have nice carpet, our house is so much cuter! Can you tell I like it just a little bit? :)

This is after they pulled the old stuff out:

And here's the new!

I could just vacuum it all day! We are being super strict about no food, drinks, or shoes on the new carpet, but just in case, does anyone have any spill-proof sippy cup recommendations? (We haven't found any that we love.)

And the other great thing was Women's Conference! This is a two day conference at BYU that I LOVE going to and look forward to all year. There are fabulous speakers in the morning and evening (Julie B. Beck, Camille Fronk, and Elder L. Tom Perry this year), and wonderful classes to choose from during the day. I went with my cousin Emily and my mom and sister and loved every minute of it. In the evenings we shopped, went to a great concert (put on for the conference), talked, ate good food, and shopped some more. Everyone should go! It is wonderful!

On the beatiful BYU campus in the rain. That almost made it more fun!

With the girls. We stayed together for some classes, split up for some classes, and each went to the ones we thought we needed most. We all came away refreshed from getting away for a few days, with our spiritual buckets filled, with stronger friendships, with lots of new books (dang BYU Bookstore does us in every year), and some new clothes, jewelry and WALLETS (a whole story in itself :)) Does it get any better that that for a girls getaway? Nope, I don't think so. :)

And a HUMONGOUS thank you to LJ for watching the girls for basically 5 days straight between the days I worked and the days I was at Women's Conference. I left a few days after the carpet was put in, so our house still wan't totally put back together. When I came home, it was completely put back together and spotless (AND the baby is teething). I think I am married to Superman.

And, he was supposed to have knee surgery on Monday, but was SO nice to wait so I could go to Women's Conference. So it's next week instead. Isn't he the BEST? I sure think so.

I sure have a lot to be happy for.