Family Home Evening

Family night is always on my to do list. Sadly it's also the one on the list that does not get checked off as often as it should. It's hard when TJ works Mondays nights and scouts and work and school and date night and with everything else that falls on all the other nights. It's hard for me when I don't get a night that is SET APART as family night. It's also hard for the kids if it's not consistent and predictable. We work on it. We know it's important. Lucky for us, TJ was able to come home early tonight. I threw a quick lesson together. Nothing spectacular, but we were together and that's the point. We always end FHE with a game of HIDE and SEEK. What's funny is we NEVER seem to run out of hiding spots and it's always FUN. I love my family.

(The girls think it's COOL to wear their MOMS oldschool T-shirts as night gowns...and to think those shirts are small on me.)

I was once a laid back easy going person. And I think I still am in some ways but I definitely have become more of a stressed out person. And it really makes me sad because that is who I DO NOT want to be. I find myself nagging and nagging and ordering things done and yelling and threatening and speaking unkind words to my kids. And it's not just the words that are not nice but the tone in my voice most of the time. This past weekend was especially bad. I was in need of TJ to come and rescue the day. I was counting down the hours. When he did get home it was only to pack a bag and leave for St. George to see is Grandma Wilson who was slipping away. It was awful. The girls were sick and stuck inside and constant fighting and bickering and I was LOOSING my mind. I LOST it. I became a MONSTER MOM! I yelled and screamed about the smallest things, I told the girls to shut up multiple times (I promised myself I would NEVER say shut up to my kids). I was out of control and my poor sweet girls took it. and then they shot it right back at me and I watched them yell at each other, shouting that they hated each other. I heard the tone in their voices and I saw their anger and rage. I was teaching them to be MONSTER PEOPLE. That night after I basically threw them in bed I just fell to my knees and started to sob. I'm slowly becoming the mom that my kids don't deserve. I'm the kind of mom that I looked at growing up and was embarrassed for because she was yelling at her kids in the grocery store. The kind of mom who went crazy and would yell and scream over spilled milk at the dinner table (cause really how hard is that to clean up??) The kind of mom I SWORE I would NEVER become. What happened to me?? I have never felt so low as I did that night. I just cried to Heavenly Father for help. I can't do it alone. I need His help to be the mom I want to be. The mom my kids NEED me to be. I need to put off the natural man and try to become Christ like and love like He loves. Because my children are HIS children and I have no right to treat them any less. My eyes were opened and I know that for me to be a good mom I need to pray daily and read my scriptures daily. And sometimes when my kids put my anger to the test I can simple just walk away for a minute. Being a mother is HARD but I SOOOOO LOVE IT! The last two days have been so great and there has been no yelling and there is definitely a new spirit in my home. I know it will be a day by day process to keep the spirit in our home but it is so important. So important in a world of chaos and conflict to keep my home a safe haven where my family will want to be and where we can feel our Heavenly Fathers love. I love my girls, they are my life and right now I am their life. And I want to make it a good one with LOTS of great memories of love and laughter. I am a work in progress.

We have turned the house upside down today.

SPRING CLEANING!

I hate doing spring cleaning in the spring.

Who wants to be inside when it's finally nice out?

I do my cleaning early so it's DONE by the time spring rolls around.

It makes me happy.

I have been cleaning the basement, TJ cleaned the garage and my car.

I have cleaned the 6 inches of dust on the ceiling fans.

Time to clean the carpets (4 years overdue).

I'm tired due to Lexi being up all night for whatever reason

but all you can eat french toast at Maglebys will help me get over it.

The weather was nice enough to play outside the other day.

Lexi is in LOVE with the sandbox.

She threw the biggest fit when it was time to go inside. I think I know what she will be doing all summer and I know what her diaper will be full of....SAND.

It was funny watching the girls jump Lexi on the trampoline, she could not stop laughing.

The good weather didn't last long...it snowed the next day but the girls happily played in the snow while I ran on the treadmill watching from the window. We spent the day doing puzzles, going to the library, and dancing it up with the Wii. The girls put on a fashion show with ALL of their princess dresses and I even got in some spring cleaning. I'm in the middle of cleaning all the blinds. I HATE it but LOVE it when its done...the windows will have to wait until the snow stops. I also registered for the Utah Valley Half Marathon today...CAN'T WAIT!!!!

Valentines Day was pretty great this year.

The girls woke up to balloons, hair clips and tiny gumball machines.

Then we all made breakfast together which included pancakes with strawberry sauce, bacon and eggs.

Tallie was off to school and TJ off to work.

Chloe and I prepared lunch for our tea party.

I pulled out the real deal china that I have collected at garage sales and inherited from great grandparents (hopefully I can add to my collection this summer).

We made tiny heart sandwhiches, cubed cheese and bananas(with toothpicks in them to make it fancy) and chocolate covered strawberries.

I LOVE HAVING GIRLS!!!!

TJ surprised me and came home for lunch and brought me these beautiful flowers.

They are not just ordinary flowers...there are 8 red roses for the 8 years we've been married

3 yellow roses for our 3 beautiful girls

and 1 pink rose for the love of his life.

He really knows his stuff

He also got me a gift card to Downeast...

Again, he really knows his stuff.

Always stealing my ipod...

For the rest of the day I watched my friends kids while she went to help at the schools V day party. ONE DAY I WILL DO THE SAME

It was a BEAUTIFUL day but I spent it chasing my kids around Burlington Coat Factory with Tessa while she looked for V day gifts (what was I thinking!) I should have been outside.

Heather Soules came over to watch the girls I LOVE HER.

TJ and I went to dinner with the MONA and BOB at Goodwood BBQ where I am OBSESSED with their Ribs!!!!

It was a good night

GOOD NEWS!! TJ got his license back and is now independent once more!!! Let's just hope that seizures on the road are a thing of the past. LEXI is now an ALL NIGHT SLEEPER!!!! Which makes the nights much more appealing.

It's been kind of a rough week. TJ has been super busy with work and school so he has not been home much. Verizon launched the iphone and apparently its very coveted. He had to be at work that morning at 5 AM and there were already people standing in line (it's still freezing here)to get their greedy hands on the latest phone. People are crazy!!! Needless to say it's been a LONG week. At the end of a not so great day I told the girls that tomorrow I would practice being nice and not yell and they would practice listening. The next night Tallie said "Mom, I thought you were going to be nice today?? "I'm thankful for Tallie and her brutal honesty and that she puts me in place and reminds me of who I need to be. I really need to work on this. I don't want to be the mean, stressed out mom. I once was a laid back person who was really easy going...how can I get back to her? I'm better than that and my kids deserve more. I'm tired of going to bed at the end of the day with a heavy heart and tears in my eyes because I feel like I'm the worst mom. I have a choice to be who I want to be I just need to remember to choose it.

All week I have been overhearing the girls planning a big SLEEPOVER. I'm thinking that its just talk and that it will be forgotten by Friday. They NEVER forget. Tallie had her first sleepover with her friend Elena Wakefield last summer and as soon as i agreed to it I regretted it. I'm not sure I want to go down that road. I remember being a kid, and I was a good kid. My friends however, were not so much. I remember the things that went on during sleepover. Most of which were not UPLIFTING. Times are DIFFERENT now. With much more going on. It scares me. Other kids parents scare me. Satan scares me. So I think I might be super lame and put a stop to the sleepovers before they start. So not to break the poor girls hearts Elena and Callie (her little sister) ate dinner with us, they all put on their jammies and I popped popcorn and we are having a movie night....they couldn't be happier. Hopefully when they are 16 they will still be happy with that.

P.S. The new favorite game is "NAIL POLISH". The new frequently asked question is "DO YOU WANT TO PLAY NAIL POLISH?" How to play: pretend nail polish bottles are people....

Tallies New Years resolution this year was to have a family pillow fight at least once a week. It never gets old. I tried to get some shots of the girls just getting nailed...TJ and I could not stop laughing. Endless fun.

We had a great lesson on temples today in Relief Society. It's amazing the great sacrifices people go through to be able to go to a distant temple. Some people save up for years and spend their life savings and travel countless miles just to get to their nearest temple. Growing up we did not have a temple in New Mexico. We traveled once a year to the Mesa, AZ or Salt Lake, UT or Denver, CO temples. Mesa was the closest at about a 6 hours drive. Finally when I was in high school the Albuquerque temple was dedicated. It now took 15 min to get to the temple. I now live in Utah where we have MANY temples!!! I don't just have one but I have a plethora to choose from. So why is it so hard for us who live to close to go to the temple? Why are we not there so often? We are so blessed and I find myself saying that this week is just not convenient or next week it would be easier. So I put it off...I put my blessings off and the blessings of others off. When has going to the temple ever been easy? I don't really think it's supposed to be easy. The work done inside the temples is so important and Satan knows that. And that is why it is so hard for us to get there. Satan will do anything to keep us from the blessings that await us there. And sometimes all it takes for him to win is simple stuff, like not being convenient. I'm a firm believer that we should never say out loud that we are going to the temple. Satan can hear our words but he can not hear our thoughts. If we don't say it out loud we have better chances of getting there. Today I am recommitting myself (TJ too) to go to the temple frequently. I mean really, who doesn't want to leave this world for awhile and step inside a piece of heaven?

Kids are CRAZY!

Yesterday the sun came out. So we sent the kids outside for fresh air. The weather was nice. It was 18 degrees instead of 9. The girls were loving it running around playing in with the rock hard snow. Either they didn't notice the chill in the air or they were too frozen to feel it anymore. I watched them from the window. There was no way I was going out there.

Some strange things happen in the middle of the night. We are in the process of teaching our almost 13 month old how to sleep thru the night. This involves lots of crying and most importantly no nursing...it's hard(and no judging about nursing after 1 year...I know). We should be used to it since its our third time. I'm hoping Lexi doesn't pull a Chloe and cry for 7 nights straight before she realizes no one is coming for her. We are on day three. Naturally when one stops nursing the milk starts to add up. I was a lopsided miserable ginormous mess last night. I got up to warm my rice buddy in the micro for relief. Before I could press a button I went down. I remember for a half second thinking that I felt really sick. TJ heard the big crash and came to pick up the pieces. I passed out. I must have hit my head first on the counter which would explain one huge bump on one side and then hit the other on the tile floor which is the reason for the other. TJ found me out on the floor with the dishwasher somehow open with me I guess underneath. Its a blur. I was crying and screaming coming out of a small seizure. I felt nauseous the rest of the night and threw up a lot. Poor TJ even threw up while washing out my throw up bowl. He is a great husband. This happened about 2 years ago, same middle of the night pass out and seizure. Once it happened in college. When I was little it happened a lot. I would be covered in hives and do the same thing. I have to say I'm over it and do not care to do it again. I really have the best husband around. He was up with me pretty much all night. He took care of everything while I stayed in bed till one o'clock today. He swept and mopped the floor even. I love him. He has seizures too. Only his is from a tumor in his head. He is on medication that makes it harder for him to have seizures but it will never take them away. Brain surgery would help that. But we don't really want to go there. So he keeps taking his medication and we pray daily that any seizures he will have can at least be in a safe place. We have been very blessed. He has had two while he was driving on the freeway. He walked away from both unharmed and cars intact. Just this last one he randomly traded in his Acrua TSX for a truck one morning and coming home that night he had a seizure. Because of the bigger tires of the truck he didn't crash, but he would have in the Acura. The freeway was also wide open that night. A pure miracle. There is nothing worse than having a highway patrol man call you and tell you your husband has been in an accident. I hate this dark cloud hovering over us. Not knowing when or how the next seizure will come. We just keep praying. Needless to say I have been doing a lot of driving lately. They took TJs license away for 3 months. It's been brutal but family and friends have helped a ton and I am so grateful for them.

I used to steal my moms bathroom rugs from all over the house and use them as a pathway to my Throne because I was a queen. My girls do it now.... It's pretty much awesome.

Lexi's First Birthday

Finally there is one good thing about January. Lexi's birthday! It's crazy to think that my baby is "1" already and that she is slowly growing out of the baby stage. She can walk across the room but is still wobbly so she mostly crawls still. She laughs like crazy though when she does walk. This picture totally describes Lexi. Partial to food. She gets upset and emotional about it. She never even touched the cake. Just looked at it and screamed. She is definitely a challenge in the food department. To celebrate her big day we went to Jump On It. Actually we went for us. Lexi not so much.

I am obsessed with Lexi. There is just something about her, a bond we share and I just love her to pieces! I call her my miracle baby. When she was born everything fell into place and my world just got better. She has brought TJ and I closer together and she has made our family more complete (notice I said "more" complete, meaning there is room for more!) She may not sleep or eat for that matter but she is my doll and she loves to snuggle and if anyone tries to take her place on my shoulder or my lap or in my arms (even TJ) she gets very defensive and pushes and hits and cries until she has her spot back. She loves to follow her sisters around if she hears the bath water running she'll cry until she gets put in. I'm having a hard time pulling the plug on her..I admit I am still nursing her. It's only during the night but still I've got to stop! Maybe if she would just sleep thru the night already and not make me have her cry it out or if I wasn't so tired that I just nurse her so I can get back to sleeping. It's sad that I won't be "Physically" needed by her. That part of my mothering is over...always a sad day.