The Enforcer

Garrett is in a "stage" right now. I sent him to timeout during breakfast...yeah early start.

The rule is still quietly on the rug, that he's not even close to sitting on, behind him. I won't start the timer till they are sitting there and NOT making any noise. Garrett was rolling and squirming all over the floor and not even close to quiet. He kept whining that I hadn't started his timer yet. Next thing I see is Lincoln sitting on top of him...at least was being still...finally. Lincoln is the "husky" version of our kids and might out grow both of those big boys. I'll teach him young to be my Enforcer and then I can say, "Don't make me send Lincoln in..."

His 4 minute timeout took almost 45 minutes to get finished.

After timeout we require them to say, "I'm sorry for _______." If they don't remember why they were sitting there we remind them and send them back for another 2 minutes. Sometimes just getting them to remember takes forever.

In an effort to avoid an additional 2 minutes Garrett now has a list he apologizes for a loooong list of things every time he gets out. Today it went something like this, "I'm sorry for being mean aaannnddd being rough with Lynneah aaannnddd talking rude aaannnddd not sitting to eat aaannnddd saying bad words aaannnddd not sitting in timeout right?" Each time he'd say something his tone would go up a little like he was checking to see if he was at least on the right track of remembering why he'd been sent to the rug.

Thanks for the help Linkers.

Tried Again

I tried again. I think it turned out a little better. The house was ROASTING hot in an attempt keep her warm, but she still got a little cold and didn't want to smile. She doesn't look quite as annoyed, that's an improvement.

I'll take what I can get and declare her adorable!

My Little Stocking Stuffer

I've always thought little babies in stockings were so cute. This Christmas was my chance. None of our stocking were wide enough to slip a baby in, but Brianna had this pretty one that did work.

Lynneah is a long scrawny little girl, skinny enough to fit and eventually squirm all the way in.





Doesn't she looked thrilled with it? I thought I'd caught one with her smiling, but it was blurry. :-( She was having nothing to do with curling her arms up in a cute little pose. Those arms are out in every one. sigh...I tried.


I might have to beg Brianna to borrow it again so I can try to get a little better shot...unless she or my mom caught a good one.

Silent Night...

HA!

NOT a Chance!

Keep Dreamin'!

Not if I have anything to do with it...

It's beginning to look a lot like...

Christmas??

Or something like that.

Currently, Stephen, the big boys and several of the neighbor kids are having a large water fight. They're equipped with water balloons, guns and hoses. All of them are soaking wet. I heard Stephen on the roof a bit ago and have the house surrounded by water blasting kids.

Saddest part is they came to the door asking if I could come out and see something. Fortunately I was nursing at the time so Stephen grabbed his mega water gun (that was taken off the market due to injuries it caused) and went out.

Gotta love Christmas in the desert!

My sympathies to all the sufferers of snowy places. Snow is something I like to look at for about 5 minutes and then I'm done.

{;-D

I've Been Told...

There needs to be a new picture of Lynneah...not screaming her head off...posted here. Well, she did a whole lot of that screaming her head off, anytime she wasn't attached, for a while. I most definitely wouldn't recommend a two week maternity leave to anyone. It makes that time you're trying to get life + one figured out REALLY complicated. I've been tired somethin' fierce! The boys have been yelled at a lot; I was just flat out too tired to deal with the sassy little mouths, and total disregard for all the rules. Oh, and don't forget the new full contact wrestling/fighting moves they have. One more week and Christmas...er..."Winter" Break starts. It'll be a long couple weeks with all of them home all day *but* I won't have to worry about getting them up at a certain time, badgering them to get dressed so the can eat, have the morning fight about brushing teeth or have to get myself ready for work.Yes, they will still brush their teeth I just won't need it done by 7:10 am, and yes, I'll be looking pretty great in all my hag glory. Hopefully I can get lots more pictures of Lynneah at that point too. For now this will have to do.

I can never get pictures to embed where I want them too. I swear one of these days I'm gonna get smarter than this darn computer and and then we'll see who's laughing.

Anyway, the above picture was taken the morning I woke up to my alarm rather than already being up with her when it went off. I was SUPER excited. She slept from 10:00 pm till 6:15 am...IN HER OWN BED. We've had several days of real chunks of sleep at night. I hope she's not just teasing me. She's got allergies on top of acid reflux (very common in kids with diaphragmatic hernias) and wouldn't sleep, especially laying flat. So on nights Stephen was on shift she slept in the bouncy seat next to me. It kept her elevated and let me just bounce her back to sleep when she woke without getting out of bed. Poor guy spent 2 nights "camping" on the floor when he was home because I was so proud of my new set up and didn't want to give it up. After 2 nights he squeezed back in bed with the bouncy seat between us. I found the perfect pillow to help elevate the mattress in her cradle and she'll sleep in it now. The bed is ours again!

Don't Know If I Should Be Worried Or Not...

I always have background noise on, namely the TV, when I'm at home. It's not a good thing, I know, but it is what it is.

Today "Say Yes to the Dress" came on. All I've really ever seen of it is what ever I saw till I changed the channel to something I liked better. Today I came in, plopped down to nurse again and changed the channel. Gabriel looked over and said, "No Mom! I want to watch that." When I questioned exactly why he wanted to watch a show about picking wedding dresses he had a perfectly logical answer. "So I can know what to buy for Blianca (Bianca) when she...if she...marries me someday."

He's gotten pretty excited to bring the Helzberg Diamond ad, that comes in the mail, to me too. Maybe he can be my shopping buddy someday. I'm thinkin' he'll have a happy wife someday. {;-D

Welcome Home

There's no easing back into life when kids are involved.

This poster took Gabriel ALL DAY to finish. He wouldn't do it because I accidentally called it "homework" rather than just having him "color". He's the First Grade Friend of the Week and the poster is part of that. The 2+ hours of homework every night is getting fatiguing. Tonight I was informed that "homework sucks" and that "everyone at school says sucks". Nice.

While encouraging/prodding/ordering/pleading with Gabriel I discovered this...

This would be Garrett's Pull Up he didn't put away. I know it's gross that I took a picture of it. I have no idea if it was wet or dry because I made him clean the darn thing up. The dogs rip these things to shreds, wet or dry, and I'm not cleaning them up anymore. While scrubbing his hands this happened...

I left a grocery bag on the counter with two bowls of soup in it. I thought it was back far enough...I.WAS. SO.WRONG. Lincoln is like elasta-boy. He stretched that long ol' body of his and pulled the bag down. One of the lids popped off and did this. Grrr!! I let the dang dogs have a treat so I could take care of this...

*Notice she's mad as heck and still the right color.*
Life is Good.

Lynneah has "sun downer's syndrome". I don't know if it's a real thing or not, but the nurses at the NICU said it too. Everyday as the sun starts to set she completely freaks out. She looks like this till it's dark outside. So while I was addressing the above "issues" I was trying to soothe her at the same time. Stephen was on shift...this was one of the nights I missed having him here.

Everyday around sunset the body snatchers take my sweet kids and leave a bunch of crazies in their place. Once the sun is down the body snatchers bring my kids back.
Really, it's the weirdest thing!
Some nights I triumph patiently getting through the mayhem, other nights I'm a yelling crazy lady (probably when the body snatchers take me too). I actually made it through this night with my sanity semi in-tact.

It's good to be home.

SHE'S HOME...

Again!

We're confident for good this time.

After our really bad afternoon, and a delivery of ice cream from Aunt Sassy, she was able to sleep it off and figure out how to eat again. She still wasn't a fan of night time so I ended up in the the recliner holding her for most of the night. She was eating, which caused weight gain, which led to going home...sleeping in a recliner...totally doable.

My nights in the recliner led to some interesting observations, the main one being that night nurses get pretty punchy around 6:30 am. They start joking and giggle/laughing like crazy about half an hour before shift change. I think I'd do the same thing if I'd been awake all night dealing with very time involved babies too. Lynneah shared a room with 2 25 week preemies and a 27 weeker. She looked like a moose even though she's still 1/2 a pound below her birth weight. Those teeny tiny babies kept the nurses REALLY busy, Lynneah's fussiness just added to the commotion of the room, thus the reason I sat there and took care of all her non-medical needs for a week.

I'll be getting a full detailed post up as soon as I can, mainly because we don't want to forget the last week. The NICU is truly a place where miracles happen; we will forever be grateful that we are the recipients of one of those miracles.

Three Weeks Old

Lynneah is three weeks old today...and here we sit...in the hospital. Last night I ran home quickly to grab some stuff I needed. It was exactly one week since I'd made the same trip with no baby in the back. I cried my eyes out all the way home a week ago. I probably shouldn't have been driving. What a different trip it was last night, still no baby in the back, but I had confidence that once again there will be.

She had a ROUGH night last night. This girl just hates nights she fusses and cries and runs the nurse ragged all night. She finished it off this morning by refusing to latch and nurse before I had to run to work for a short time. I got back down to the hospital and had to drive around for 30 stinkin' minutes to find a place to park. I walked back in her room just in time to find her finishing a bottle. I'm not anti-bottle but had wanted to get back in time to nurse.

Fast Forward to this evening. She FREAKED out! The sun started to set and she went INSANE! She screamed her little head off for 2 hours. She shares a room with several SUPER preemie babies that need quiet. She refused to latch and eat. Her heart rate went above 200 and her oxygen dipped. She just screamed at me for 2 hours. The nurse practitioner said it might be colic. I firmly believe I've done more than enough colic for a lifetime with Gabriel. The nurse asked if we should give her a bottle. I agreed because she needed to eat and because it might quiet her down. She latched right on and ate it down. I lost it. :'-( I sat here bawling like a baby because my baby is RUINED and will only take bottles now. She, of all the kids, is the one that needs to nurse the most and now I'm gonna have to pump to build her darn immune system. She was such a dainty nurser, it makes pumping that much more dreaded. The nurses were very sweet about my total collapse. One assured me that she's never seen a baby that wouldn't nurse again. Oh, how I hope she's right. As an added bonus she freaked out before I got my time sheet sent in. {:-/

The doctor had said if she continued to eat and had gained weight when they weighed her tonight we could go home tomorrow. Yeah, I don't think tonight counted as continued to eat. I just want to go home...with the baby in the back seat. I miss Stephen...and those wild boys that are running poor Nanny ragged.

She's crying again...here's to another night. I think I need cold stone.

Lynneah's Surgery

The NICU has computer access so I thought I'd update quickly but this will be VERY short. Sorry I'm beyond exhausted.

Her surgery went well. The entire colon, small intestine, appendix and possibly spleen were in her chest. The doctor was able to get it all down to the right region of her abdomen. He wasn't ever able to see the spleen so we don't know where that is. He said that it's all down but will be in different positions compared to a person that developed normally. Before we leave we'll get an ultrasound so we know where everything is for future reference. Things like appendicitis (too tired to worry about spelling that right) may not present pain in the lower right region because the appendix might have landed somewhere else. Her heart will probably stay slightly to the right but is developed normally and healthy. Her lung was little but very pink and healthy looking. The doctor said it had begun inflating well and he expects it will continue to inflate and fill the now empty half of her chest. This was an "ideal" case for this problem. These kids are normally very very sick right from the get go, she actually was home for a while. She's a strong fiesty girl and it's served her well so far. The nurses will attest to the fiestiness. :-)

Her vitals are looking good. She's having trouble regulating her temp but the heater in the bassinet is helping with that. She remains on oxygen. They were able to lower it quite a bit and thought maybe she could be off of it, but they can only go down so far before she starts having her oxygen levels drop. The biggest thing we're waiting for is POOP. I never thought I'd be anxious for a poopy diaper, but here I am hoping for it. As soon as she poops I can start her back on nursing again. I hope she remembers how and is willing. We'll just have to wait and see.

At this point all is well. She still has a long, and fairly painful recovery, but she's doing well.

Thank you for all the prayers. We've been blessed by them and felt the love extended from family and friends.

The surgeon gave us very clear pictures I will post those later with more details.

The Knowns & The Unknowns

Here's what we know so far...

*This occurs in 1 out of every 5,000 births.
*There is a huge spectrum of severity...she's on the better end. The bad end results in horribly sick babies that have trouble immediately after birth or pass away quickly after birth.
*She DID come home for a short time and that's a good thing.
*We caught it early, before it became an emergency.
*There is a hole in her diaphragm.
*Major organs vital to life are in the wrong place.
*The surgery will happen early tomorrow morning when the surgeon has his regular team and they are all fresh. I appreciated him taking that into consideration. He said he can take pictures inside for us too.
*She is STARVING, but can't eat. The IV is just not how she wants nourishment.
*Leaving her at the hospital is the hardest thing I've ever had to do. You're not supposed to have them home then have to take them back and leave them.
*She's being very well cared for.
*Stephen is in the middle of his 6 days off and can stay while I get things squared away for when he's back on.
*She is darker complected than Lincoln and me, but NOT as dark as I thought she was. Her dark coloring was from the lack of oxygen in her little body. After they put her on oxygen last night she looked like a different baby. I've never seen her that pink.
*She is not another self pay baby. That would have put us under.

Here's what we don't know...

*How big the hole is. The size of the hole determines the surgeon's course of action AFTER he gets in.
*The state of her lung. The fact that she was alright after birth has the surgeon thinking that it should be pretty good.
*How well the vascular structure of the lung was able to develop. She won't be able to make any more of the little air sacs, but the ones that are there should be able to expand and fill the whole chest cavity with time.
*The health of her heart. They did an ultrasound this morning and will have the cardiologist read it sometime this afternoon. It was weird to look down and see the ultrasound wand on the wrong side of her chest. The Drs think it should be fine.
*How long her recovery in the hospital after the surgery will be. It is totally dependent on her little bowel. There is so much up in her chest it's going to freak out being moved.
*Several of our questions were answered with that will depend on what we find when we get in.
*How the boys will react. We were just getting them back from the body snatchers that took them and re-establishing their routines. Just the slightest hint of the insanity was starting to fade.

Don't Even Know What to Title This...

Something hasn't been right with our little Lynneah. I couldn't put my finger on exactly what, but my gut told me something was wrong. I struggled with how to even describe what was going on. She kept turning plum purple when she would cry, then she would kind of grunt while she was calming down, then she would have huge amounts of bubbles come out of her mouth as she relaxed again. It was a bunch of weird stuff that I couldn't connect to each other. Then I noticed her little belly button stump was bleeding. That was the defining weird thing that made me call the Pediatrician. We got in the same day. Belly Button was fine. He agreed that these were a bunch of odd symptoms and suggested we treat for acid reflux and see if there was any improvement. She was doing pretty well then had another episode. I was just getting her calmed down when the Pediatrician's nurse called to see how she was doing today. I had taken note of the progression of the episode this time and explained what had just happened. The Dr called back a while later and said we should go ahead and take her to the pediatric ER for an upper G.I. tract scan. When we arrived her oxygen levels were in the low to mid 80's (rather than the 98-100% she should be at) which led to an x-ray and lots of activity in the ER. The x-ray came back and showed a hernia in her diaphragm. The entire left side of her chest cavity is filled with intestine pushing her heart and lungs to the right side of her chest. Yeah, while the Drs were talking about what they saw I caught that her little heart is on the WRONG side. She is now in the NICU till she can get into surgery tomorrow or Thursday. I thought she might have to stay for a couple of days after the surgery then the nurse said that no we were looking at weeks in the NICU after surgery. I kept myself together till the drive home...weeks...weeks...not good. Tomorrow she'll be two weeks old. I hate that she's there and not here. Stephen stayed tonight with her because every time I held her she wanted to nurse and she's not allowed to do that till after surgery. It's killing me. I'm so glad my pump got here. That's what I'll be doing for the next several weeks. She's such a dainty little nurser pumping is really not fun, but I want her getting that when she can eat again. I'm glad we have insurance again. I have to sleep now so I can get back to the hospital for the meeting with the surgeons early in the morning. Big breath...pray for her...and her momma that's a big mess.

She had a very long day! It took two tries for the IV, then they had to draw blood, then they put a tube down her throat all the way to her stomach, she can't nurse, and finally went to sleep from the exhaustion of it all. Oh, my sweet girl hang in there you'll feel better soon.

Lynneah

Brand new!

10/20/10
8 big pounds 6 ounces
21 inches

Welcome Home Party

She likes having a warm head and this chair was the perfect width to keep her all cuddled up and head warm.

Just thought she looked so sweet. I love her little hands!

Her dark eyes.

All stretched out.
She had just a touch of jaundice so here she is in her few minutes of sun. She just hung out and looked around for a long time. All the big boys were gone and it was nice to be able to just let her be without the worry of someone jumping on her or man handling her.

These are just a few pics from the last week. I'm working on a real post all about the day she was born...mostly for me, but ya'll can read it too if you want. :-) There will be lots of pictures in that.

Buckelew Farm!

Me: We need to get our pictures by the measuring pumpkin.
Gabriel: I don't want to!
Stephen: Do you want to do it now and get it over with or do it later and have to think about it?
Gabriel: (through gritted teeth) Do. It. Now.

Ahhh, didn't it turn out so cute?!?

Garrett had a stroke of cooperation wash over him...which I was grateful for.

Lincoln needed some help staying by the actual measuring stick. He wasn't very interested in staying there, but we'll know that's the side of his blond noggin'.

All loaded for the wagon ride out to the pumpkin patch.
Can you tell how much Stephen was into pictures? He's sure a good humored fellow...most of the time.
As we were walking to the wagon Stephen ran into the wife of someone that was in the academy with him. She's connected to the farm and was actually working. She was a cute girl. As their conversation was ending she asked, "Hey, do you want some pumpkin tickets?" She then gave each of us a coupon for a free pumpkin up to 15 lbs. Not even 10 minutes earlier I was thinking I need to track a way to get coupons so we can stretch cash for next year. What a blessing. Stephen and I never get pumpkins for ourselves and have a hard and fast rule that you can only pick pumpkins you can carry by yourself. This keeps the cost way down. This year we each got one and Stephen helped Gabriel pick a slightly bigger one to actually carve. Garrett got to pick the design for the pumpkin Stephen picked.

Garrett's first pumpkin choice. He ended up changing his mind and actually getting a striped "tiger" pumpkin. But, of course, I didn't get a picture of that.

Lincoln's choice. The poor kid could hardly walk around in the field, but he was not about to give that little pumpkin up either.

Stephen took pity on him and carried him for awhile. Lincoln welcomed the break from tripping and falling every 3 seconds.

All my boys!

In the corn maze.
The sweet girl that gave us the pumpkin coupons also gave us some free admission tickets for the corn maze. We hadn't planned on doing the maze because they're expensive and I was SOOO pregnant.
With the tickets in hand off we went.
It was the first time any of us had ever done a corn maze, including Stephen and me.

We did the half maze. It had a F.S.I. (Field Scene Investigation) game set up. Each kid got a little card with animals, weapons, and scenes to find out who got the farmer. It was set up like the game clue. As we went through the maze there were little stations with a picture of an animal, weapon and scene. The kids would get to punch out what they saw till the mystery was solved. They were very dedicated to their games. I'd tell ya who done it but then I'd have to...just kidding.
We spent a lot of time in the maze. There were little maps posted around, but I can tell ya it didn't help me much. After an hour I found out Stephen was able to decipher it. Grrr. I told him to start reading that thing and let's get done. My body was about to give out.
The kids loved it!

Waiting for Dad to bring the van up closer.


We went to Buckelew Farm this year because it was much closer to town and I was so very pregnant. We figured if I did go into labor we'd be able to get to the hospital within an hour or so and all would be well.

After 5 hours at the pumpkin patch I thought for sure I'd go into labor. Well, I didn't go into labor and our little jack-o-lantern just stayed right where she was.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

She's Here!!

I can't even begin to tell you how nice it is to NOT be pregnant anymore.

She came fast...so fast in fact I got to do it all natural with NO epidural. To all the people that taut the greatness of natural childbirth I D I S A G R E E ! ! If you want to see a couple pictures you can check her out on my Ma's blog. She's beckoning me at the moment.

I'll be posting all about her arrival...complete with pictures on one of the days Stephen is off this week. She looks a lot like Garrett. I keep looking down and thinking, "who put Garrett in pink?" Then I remember... I have a girl!

Fun times. Hope my pump arrives tomorrow. Off to feed and try to settle in for the night.

Going "Green"

This is our new "green" washer. We bought it shortly after we bought our house. It's kind of one of those things you need. If I remember right the washer was purchased before our bed. :-)

Last week it decided it was time to go "green". I had the last of the four loads I did that day in and was just waiting for it to finish up. I noticed it was quiet (it was bought before I began making appliance choices based on decibel levels so quiet is pretty noticeable) and went to switch them to the dryer. When I opened the lid it was still full of water. I messed with the cycle knob trying to get it to spin out. I failed. Grrr! Now what do I do...Stephen was on shift and my parents were gone AND it was a load of whites sitting in Clorox water. I couldn't just leave them till Stephen got home. Later that day my Mom swung by to fish the clothes out. She was able to rinse and spin them out at her house.

How is it "green" you ask? Well, it agitates just fine. So, in an effort to reduce our water consumption I figure we'll just keep using the same ol' water over and over and over again. It'll probably cut our water bill in half. :-) Such a gross thought!

I figure with a broken washer it's a sure fire way to get this baby to come.

When Stephen got home he started his research, this is what he found:

Problem:
"Fool thing won't pump out and I got a tub full of stinky water in the washer. I'm gonna die! EEEEK!"

Possible Solutions:
*Calm down, the pump's fried. If it's a belt-driven pump, you can tell by feeling how stiff it is to turn. For electric pumps, hook up a test cord and run it. Pull drain hose and watch discharge stream. If stream fluctuates or is pathetic replace the pump.

* Worn drive belt. In this case, washer won't spin either (or will have a sluggish spin).

*The drain hose is clogged (usually with panties or nylon stockings, yee ha). Pull drain hose and watch discharge stream. A good discharge stream will have the same diameter as the hose itself. If less than this, it's time to play find the panties.

Stephen showed me all our options and I immediately started whining that I needed a new pump, for me not the washer, and that this was really annoying timing. He responded that a washer was more important than a pump. I gave him my sweetest smile, kicked him as hard as I could and strongly disagreed. He's since been able to get it all figured out and we'll both get our new pumps! With a little creativity we'll have a bigger washer, a fixed washer to sell, and a new pump for Me. Going "green" will have to just wait a little while longer...

My Gabriel...

The Monday and Wednesday morning schedule around here is fun. I either leave the little boys running wild at home or drop them off at Nanny's house around 7:15. That leaves just me and Gabriel left in the car for the drive to school drop off; then I head straight to work from there. He's a talkative little guy and tells me all kinds of stuff on the way to school.

Yesterday he asked, "Mom how do you get the baby out of your tummy?"

Hmmm, I doubt he's really wanting the how that happens. I could sure use some of that farm/ranching exposure I grew up with. That was an education...on more than one occasion. Ask me about billy goats and I'll tell ya a story. ;-) I'll spare you the cow and horse stories.

Me: "I just push them out."

Gabriel: "It hurts a little bit, huh?"

Me: "Yeah a little bit." (Which is why ya'll should be NICE to your Mommas!)

Gabriel: "How do you push them out?"

Me: "Just take a big breath and push, then they come out."

Gabriel: "Sometimes I take a big breath and push out my poop. It shoots (complete with hand motions) into the toilet like a rocket!"

Me: "Wow, that sounds pretty crazy." (No rocket babies for me thanks.)

Gabriel: "I wish my sister was already out of your tummy."

Me: "Me too buddy!"

And then he was off and talking in a totally different direction. We still have lots of challenges to conquer, but he's sure come a long way. Those eyes of his and that truly happy smile he gets sometimes always brightens my day.

Speaking of his sister coming out...she's making a little more progress. The Dr said she's dropped a little, 60% effaced and to a 3. My weight, although higher than allowed, is holding steady and blood pressure is actually going down. Weird. I think she's making a statement, "Go ahead and try...I'm a girl and am gonna do whatever I want."

Thoughts...

A couple Sundays ago I was asked to read a quote and share my thoughts on the Savior. I was very emotionally fragile that day, I don't know why but am pretty sure it had something to do with the 100+ degree days that continued, my ever growing girth and discomfort, and another fun Sunday of getting kids to church...or maybe I'm just a crazy female.

It was a powerful lesson and I learned so much from what the other women shared. I love that every week we, as women, are loved and strengthened by other women that are traveling this path we call life right along with us.

I read the quote quickly before the lesson started and knew I was in trouble; it pierced my soul.

From the talk:
He Lives! All Glory to His Name!

"I try to imagine what an intensely poignant moment it must have been for our Father in Heaven when the Savior cried out from the cross, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' (Matt 27:46; Mark 15:34) I don't believe Father in Heaven forsook His Son on the cross. I do believe the cry was motivated when that Son felt removed the sustaining support He had always enjoyed from His Father. His Father recognized that the Savior needed to accomplish the Atonement totally and completely on His own, without external support. The Father did not (emphasis added) abandon His Son. He made it possible for His perfect Son to win the eternal fruits of the Atonement.

None of us can ever adequately appreciate in mortality the full beneficial consequences of the Atonement."


As I tried to share my thoughts I struggled to form any kind of coherent thought. This so perfectly summed up thoughts I'd been trying to put words to for sometime now. SO many things rushed through my head and came out so disjointed. Frustrating...

We were in such a free fall, all we could think about or focus on was the immediate. Whatever was pressing the hardest at the moment was what we took care of...everything else just waited till it started pressing the hardest. There were no plans or foresight involved in our lives. We didn't like it, but what else was there to do? Now that we're in a time of rebuilding I have been able to step back and analyze...just didn't have words to put to it.

I am acutely and painfully aware that our problems were, and are, minuscule in comparison to many others.

Were there times we felt a little abandon? Yes. Well, I should clarify, I felt a little abandon. I've never pried into what Stephen was feeling, but could see the fleeting flickers of emotion that would flash across his face and be gone again. He was stressed, but did a good job of not showing anything.

Were we really abandon? No. Just like our Savior, we were not abandon, but left for a time to struggle and conquer on our own. We are not even remotely close in comparison to our Savior, when we began to approach a breaking point the loving hand of Father in Heaven would step in again with guidance.

I was surprised more than once at the random solutions that came to us. We were prompted to drastically modify our lifestyle and to do it immediately. It was hard to give up some things, and every now and then I felt the need to pout about it. I am a woman, after all, and have honed the ability to pout for many years. It was ugly. Did we survive it? Of course. My Stephen loves gadgets and cool toys; turns out we didn't need quite so many and lots of people are willing to give you money for them. As we dug through the shed, house and all the nooks and crannies that housed said toys I had a very clear thought come to me that getting broke is better than moving. You get to clean out and cull without the stress of finding a new place to live or packing what remained. Although, to say I wouldn't love a bigger house would be a lie. :-) At the same time I felt comforted that if we came to a point that a home sale was in order we'd already be half way ready to move out. Turns out people were willing to give us money for some of my "treasures" too. We needed to cut back more, out went the home phone. The health insurance that refused to pay a cent towards Lincoln's $9,000 birth started costing more than our mortgage so we canceled that too. They let us retro cancel so we didn't have to pay the current month. It was scary with a new baby, but that worked out too. A car broke. That Stephen of mine looked at the spa sitting on our patio and got another idea. He traded that spa for a "little red race car" (Garrett's name for it), then we traded that "little red race car" for a huge U G L Y full sized van (I loathed that van, but it got us from point A to point B), then one day Stephen got an email from a guy that had landed on harder times than us and was looking for something to live in. We gathered some non-perishable food, a couple blankets we didn't need and a few toiletries from our year supply to put in that horrid van and traded it for his motorcycle. Stephen doesn't have a motorcycle license so we had my Dad ride it to make sure all was well. Turns out that motorcycle was in great shape and had some original decals that increased it's value quite a bit. We finally sold that motorcycle and had the money we needed to fix the broken car. Back in the day we'd borrowed money against my Explorer to finish off the last little bit of our family room addition. We chose borrowing money against the car on purpose because if anything ever happened I would rather lose a car over my house any day. We were saddled with this darn car that still had payments. We were blessed that the loan was through a credit union, not a bank, they worked with us and we were able to find a buyer and get rid of that thing too. We were able to find fun free activities to do with the kids...they were sheltered from the reality of the situation. Their childhood bubbles are still in tact. The toilet broke, found one on craigslist for FREE. A system for using coupons and ad matching came together in my mind and reduced our food bill by several hundred dollars per month. Some months we made it on exactly $100 dollars. The kids were begging for a swing-set, found one with some broken wood from a storm for FREE. A couple hours replacing the broken wood and the kids got their swing-set. Stephen found hourly work that brought in some money, I swallowed a SIZABLE amount of pride and approached my supervisor, that DOES NOT like me, and asked for a little more work. A new career idea came to Stephen; one that I'd never even thought of, in a direction totally opposite of what he'd been doing or studied in school. It felt right and we went for it, despite the total disapproval from his Mom. In the middle of interviews I discovered I was pregnant. It felt like a boulder had been dropped on my chest. I couldn't breathe and was more than a little panicked! (We couldn't afford a baby and had no business being pregnant...and I knew it.) The Lord blessed me to be able to keep quiet for a month before I told him so he could focus on getting a job. These times of guidance were spread over a 2+ year period with times of suffocating desperation in between. We were not abandon, but definitely given ample time to grow and learn through the struggle.

Throughout the entire time we were scooped up by the loving arms of family and friends and carried during our times of weakness. We would've NEVER made it without them. Christmas 2009 will forever be burned in my memory. I was left in tears more than once at the generosity, love, and warmth shown to our little family. We were humbled and felt the pure love of our Savior through the sweet acts of others. To this day I have no idea who to thank (oh how I wish I could let them know how profoundly they touched our hearts). On Christmas Eve it dawned on us that Mom and Dad hadn't purchased anything to put under the tree for us. We prayed that the kids would be distracted enough to not notice. Our prayer was answered. Those, sometimes too savvy, boys didn't notice a thing. We learned that when the Lord calls on us to serve one of his children we must act; for we are here to serve Him and His children.

Are we abandoned? No.

Do we have to do some things on our own? Yeah.
Is it painful and hard? Without a doubt.
Would it be easier to skip the hard parts? For sure.
Did we learn from this time? More than I can ever tell.
Humbled? I was choking on all the pride I had to swallow.
Do I want to repeat it? No way.
Will hard times come again? Yes.
Will we be abandoned? Never Ever...

Thanks for handing me that quote. I now have the words I was looking for; we will never be abandoned. It is taped in my journal to remind me of it's important message for many years to come.

Dr: 30% effaced and 1 cm dilated, but she's still really high.

Me: Oh good! I'm done, my body hurts, I can't sleep, and she keeps trying to split me in half with that knee or whatever it is.

Dr: Well, we don't want her to come this week; it's still too early.

Me: I agree, but next week will be just fine. Now everything will be ready when she decided to drop into place. *Please let her come early. I'm begging.*

Here's to another really hot week...so the weather guy says. I'm sure loving those! I heard the other day that fall has officially begun, although, I'm suspicious.

Random Things for Me to Remember

Lincoln's Words:
-Gecko (pronounced with kind of an e/u blend) SO SO SO cute! The second we pull into the driveway at night he starts pointing toward the light and saying "Ge/ucko!"
-Da (Dad)
-Mom (but usually just hollers at me to get my attention)
-Doddy (Doggie) When we hear this we have to swoop in and rescue the poor little critters.
-Bee (Bee, Bird, Bug, Airplane or anything flying in the air)
-Nanny (all women) Of all the kids I figured Gabriel would have generalized this one because he was babysat the most by Grandma, but Lincoln's the one that thinks all women respond to "Nanny".
-Ba-ba-ba (Basket Ball)
-Na-Na (Night Night) Every night when I lay him down he'll tell me "na-na" wave from the mattress and "blow me a kiss" from his eye. His bottle is usually in his mouth so the eye will have to do. {;-D

He's the first one that has really tried talking on his own at this age. I'm VERY hopeful that he'll just develop his language without long trips to and from speech therapy.


Gabriel & Garrett were working on a dinosaur puzzle together. They'd each picked which dinosaur they "were"...

Gabriel: "Hey! I found my head!"

My first thought...was mine with it?


After getting a red light at school for having 3 physical outbursts in one day Gabriel explained that he gets a red in each grade. "I got one red in Kindergarten, then I was done." (He actually got many red lights in Kindergarten, but I think some of it was due to the student teacher that hasn't realized boys are DIFFERENT than girls.) "Now I got one in first grade and I'm done." I responded that I was glad he was done for the year and that we can just have green lights now. He quickly added, "Well, I can still get one yellow light in the week...as long as it's not for something too bad." Hmmm, "too bad" huh?

And It Finally Happened...

No, not labor. I'm still gargantuan.

Today was the first time I was really faced with following through on our new house rule:

"When it's time, it's time!"

I'm done with the fighting and power struggles. I'm not going to fight with a 4 and 6 year old. They can listen and obey or they can live with the consequences. If they don't learn at this age that Mom and Dad aren't joking I don't even want to think about the teen years. We now tell them what needs to be done and they can choose to do it or not and live with the consequences.

Stephen left for his early morning meetings at 6:20...I was still "sleeping" although the noisy kids that were already awake made that very difficult. I gave up and lumbered out of bed to reports of who hit whose eye and rebuttals (I have no idea if that's really how you spell it) on who started it by hitting or scratching or something along those lines. I immediately heard my Dad's voice singing, "There is beauty all around. Let us oft speak kind words to each other, especially to sister and brother." Yes, these are two completely different songs, but those are the two lines that were sung to us oh so many times growing up. I don't have any recollection of actually singing the second song till after we moved to Tucson when I was 13. I will never forget the day I was sitting in Sacrament meeting and that was one of the songs for the day. To this day I don't like either of those songs. Anyway, we started singing and all of a sudden I realized I was singing different words than the rest of the congregation. HE'D MADE UP THE WHOLE ESPECIALLY TO BROTHER AND SISTER PART! But I digress....

These boys are lucky that Dad got up before me because my Sunday rule is no breakfast till you're completely dressed and ready to walk out the door for church. I say they're lucky because Dad had already fed them. Lincoln and I got showered and ate by 7:30. At 7:50 I gave each of the older boys their Sunday clothes for today. At 8:15 I reminded them that when it was time to leave for church they were going in whatever they were wearing. They continued with their games of hide-n-seek, building pillow forts, fist fights, and NOT putting any Sunday clothes on. Lincoln and I were good little people and were all dressed and ready to go by 8:30. At 8:45 I gathered all the shirts, socks, shoes, and ties into a little backpack because I figured Stephen would want to finish dressing them. Well, along came 8:50 (remember that's the absolute latest we can leave and be close to on time) and I announced it was time to load up and get buckles on. I got a couple, "I'm not dressed" and "I'm still half naked" comments. I reminded them that when it's time to go we're gonna leave. So, the little half naked critters went to the van and got buckled. Gabriel was lucky his shirt was on but not buttoned so he was able to finish that up during the drive.

Garrett was very quiet there in his booster seat wearing nothing but his Sunday pants. As I pulled into the parking lot I hear, "Well, I couldn't get dressed because Gabriel was bothering me." It had sunk in that he was at church with very little on.

I gave Stephen the backpack of clothes and excused myself for a little cry/laugh. I was crying because, really had we gotten to this point? Are my kids really this out of control? How can I possibly suck this bad and parenting? How the heck do I get through to the them that just because Dad's not home they can't turn into naughty, psycho terrors? And, the fact that I didn't want to get dressed and go anywhere, I was not excited about subbing with the Sunbeams, I'm miserable at church because it's so flaming HOT every Sunday, and it feels like years since church has provided the edification that makes it worth all the effort of getting there. I was teetering on the brink...
I was laughing because really who takes their kids out in public like that? It's not like I was on the way to Wal-Mart where you can get away with that kind of stuff. What kind of mother doesn't even have the decency to fully clothe her kids before church? And last but not least, their state of dress in combination with the facial expressions was just darn funny. If it'd been someone else's kids I would have been laughing without the crying. But somehow it never seems to be someone else's kids, they're mine and this circus that seems to follow us everywhere is getting exhausting.

No one likes the eye of judgment burning a hole through them. Our ward has just have an insane rash of new people move in. Just Great. Anyone that's been around a while knows we're trying with these kids but I'm not naive or stupid either. I'm exactly the kind of mom that people look at and think, "man why doesn't she discipline or something." I hate that. I can see that all too often it looks like these kids are running the show. I can't tell you how many times other moms of all girls or all girls and one boy have given me advice on how to "just tell them to do it" or "you just need to teach them to do it". It makes me want to scratch their eyes out. Don't you think I've thought of that one? We really are trying with all our might...we just happen to be failing at the moment. I did have a couple people who know how crazy these kids are check in with me later to make sure I was alright. Which also means my state of mind was pretty obvious too. Fun times.

Sorry no picture, although I do have one burned in my memory that will make me laugh...someday...maybe...I hope.

A Couple Kidisms

A couple weeks ago I was walking into school with Gabriel. We passed an Asian couple coming out speaking their language. Next thing I hear is Gabriel mimicking what he heard.

I quickly responded with an, "Uh-uh that is not ok."

Gabriel disagreed and responded with, "Well, she was doing it."

(Mommy duh moment) I explained that they were speaking another language and it sounds different than ours.

He said, "Oh, we shouldn't copy it?"

No, if you want to speak like them you'll just have to learn how to speak it right.

All was well.



On a family trip to Wal-Mart Gabriel found a string or something to play with.

Backseat Conversation

Gabriel: Oooh look it's a heart!!

Garrett: That looks like a love heart. EEWW Gross!!


The stores always run out of Halloween costumes in Gabriel's size so this year we beat the rush. I showed Gabriel the pictures Stephen sent to my phone and he picked the Ninja. I asked if he wanted the black or red ninja?

He answered, "The red one so you can find me at night." Now, that's some logic for ya.

Stephen brought it home with the swords and weapons that went with it. I can't say I'm super thrilled with all the sword fighting going on, but they are boys I guess.

The winner of all the sword fighting???

L I N C O L N

Garrett: Did Garbriel come out of yours tummy?

Me: Yes

Garrett: Did I come out of yours tummy?

Me: Yep, so did you.

Garrett: Did Lincoln come out of yours tummy?

Me: Yeah, Lincoln did too.

Garrett: Our baby sister is in your tummy?

Me: Yep, see how big it is.

Garrett: Will she come out of yours tummy?

Me: I hope so.

Garrett: Who's tummy did you come out of?

Me: Nanny's.

Garrett: Who's tummy did Dad come out of?

Me: Dora's.

Garrett: (slightly suspicious face because we don't know anyone named Dora) Who's Dora?

Me: The lady who's tummy Daddy came out of.

Garrett: Oh, OK! (And he was off and running...er I mean jumping again.)

*We'll see how long it takes him to figure out that Grandma Joclair is Dad's Mommy but Dad came out of Dora's tummy. {;-D


He also loves to talk about someday when he's a Mommy and has a baby in his tummy.

Mariah Logic...

I went in for my check up this last week. They put me on the scale and I took note that I've hit the top weight I'm allowed to hit during pregnancy. I picked a nice weight that is within the healthy pregnancy weight gain range and then decided that I'm N O T A L L O W E D to go over it...ever.

REASON 1 for her to come.

Then the nurse took my blood pressure, 120/70. That's not high according to a large majority of the world, but I'm always at 90/60. 120/70ish are the kind of numbers I start hitting right before giving birth.

REASON 2 for her to come.

The doctor came in and said all my tests, weight, and blood pressure looked good. "Hmphf!" I thought. He reviewed once more how to treat the anemia that I've developed with this little Monkey Wrench. I had hoped that iron supplements would help the weak feeling I get after I move. It's seriously ridiculous; I get up and walk across the house and my legs feel like I just ran a race. I can assure you that there is no running going on around here. :-) I seem to always have a completely exhausted, wiped out feeling in all my muscles. I've noticed an ever so little improvement since starting iron.

He then measured my B I G belly. While doing that he asked if this was a very active baby. I explained that this baby is very quiet...honestly it's kept me paranoid. She's gotten better about checking in with me a few times a day and letting me know all is well. She's kinda like a lava lamp. On the few occasions she moves during the day it's slow and mellow. His comment?? That's because she putting all her energy into growing. I didn't think much about it till he explained, I'm at 34 weeks but measuring 37 weeks (that would be full term size).

REASON 3 for her to come.

I questioned if it was actually her or if I was just getting fat...I'm acutely aware of how many chocolate milk shakes I've downed in an effort to reduce nausea. Every time I'm feeling crappy a chocolate shake makes it better. He said that it was indeed her not me. He told me to plan on over 9 pounds. Uh...um...NO, that would be bad. Just because I got Lincoln out at 8.3 doesn't mean I'm shootin' to see how big I can go. He said if she's still measuring that big in 2 weeks he'll send me in for a sonogram to see what's up and make sure she doesn't get so big she'll get stuck.

Speaking of getting stuck. I'm only taking 2 weeks off of work; which means I can't go giving birth to a one year old that's gonna tear me up and make recovery long and painful. It just cannot happen. Garrett was the smallest at 7.4 and his birth and recovery was fabulous. He came right out with a couple pushes, didn't do any damage to me, and I could sit and move comfortably within the week after he arrived. (My emotional state is another story entirely.) I need a small baby, and smooth delivery, in order to pull off the rest of this semester.

REASON 4 for her to come.

We finally get a girl and apparently football is in her future...I'm thinking linewoman.

REASON 5 for her to come.

It's dad gum stinkin' H O T still (like well over the 100 mark) and I'm sick of sweltering. It makes me grumpy you know. The summer will never end so that leads me to...

REASON 6 for her to come.

My maternity work clothes are starting to get pretty tight and will look absolutely ridiculous very soon. I'm NOT going to buy bigger ones (although I'd like to find another Sunday dress) just for the last month so obviously there's...

REASON 7 for her to come.

I'm only 34 weeks and her lungs are obviously not ready to meet the world....

And that's a great big REASON for her not to come. This one beats them all.

There you have it** Mariah Logic** can give you all kinds of reasons for her to come, but in the end she's just not ready yet. {sigh} I'll go climb in the wah-m-bulance that just pulled up to take me away. Maybe she'll have genius lungs that are advanced for her age and be ready to make a little bit of an early entrance.

Neighbors

All of our neighbors are retired...on all sides of our house. They were a little worried when we initially moved in because we had a bunch of college guys helping us move our treasures. Once they realized we were newlyweds and it would only be the two of us living here I think they were relieved.

We all lived a quiet, nice little life of retirees and never home full time employees. They were and still are all friendly, with the exception of one that was recently rude so I've decided I don't like him anymore, and would ask how we were doing and always wave. Stephen has helped several of them with moving heavy things, etc. We had a great quiet little end of our street.

Then...

We brought home our screeching Gabriel. I felt bad leaving doors and windows open during swamp cooler season because I was worried all the neighbors would be bothered by the crying. They were all still nice to us anyway. The cute couple that lives right across the street from us are especially nice. They are a fun, super social, couple from New York. They've brought a cute little gift over after each of the boys arrived and send little Christmas gifts for the boys. Really we hit the jackpot with having them for neighbors, it's like the kids have a 3rd set of grandparents. Lincoln even waves and jabbers at them when he sees them. *Just a side note the wife has mentioned how bad she felt for me after Gabriel was born because she could hear him crying all the time. She said, "I told ---(husband) that baby must have awful colic or something with all the crying." So, I learned my concern that all the neighbors would hear the constant crying was valid. :-/ They still love us... and Gabriel...so all is well.

Recently, the husband came over for something. They hadn't noticed my ever expanding girth yet. He looked at my big ol' belly and exclaimed, "Whoa, what's that?" We kinda laughed and said it's what was planned for next April. He laughed, slapped Stephen on the shoulder and said, "Ha you dirty old man!!" It was hilarious! I wish I'd had a camera to catch Stephen's expression.

I still feel like the noisy intruders on our quiet end of the street. Now all the neighbors have to listen to the boys squabble and their mom yell at them. I'm sure it's a lovely thing for their golden years. We're working on bringing calm to the house and yard....for the benefit of all those in the surrounding areas. :-)

I AM SO
SICK OF THIS DAD GUM FLAMING HEAT I COULD JUST SPIT....among other things that have crossed my mind.

My plants are withered and dead.
My house is a hot mess...literally both of those.
The devil himself left 3 weeks ago.
My little dears are hot and cranky.
My sparkling personality is a dream to be married to.
Ok, I'm done.
Time to put on my big girl pants....right after it cools off, till then only a shirt.

At Long Last...

Stephen has been able to convince the new internet service to work, then with some more coaxing convinced my computer to be friends with it. I've been enjoying eating my bon bons and catching up on all my blogs.

Stephen's extended academy and first tour (yep I took a picture of his first day) continued till the Friday before school started. That meant we had the grand total of a Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday morning to enjoy our summer vacation. We squeezed in a trip to the new aquarium at Arizona Mills Mall and had lunch at Rain Forest Cafe. We bought a kid's meal for Gabriel; he wolfed it down in 5 minutes and was asking for more and more and more. I guess it's time to start ordering adult sized meals for him. He finished everyone else's meals as they got full. We've never taken the kids to an amusement park or done any of your typical vacation things so they have nothing to compare a day trip to the aquarium to; it was declared a vacation and we didn't let them know anything different. :-) My amazing aunt and uncle let us spend the night at their house despite the fact that they were flying out of town the next day at 5:00 AM. Our kids have fun memories of playing in their backyard and playroom and were as excited about seeing my aunt and uncle as they were about their "vacation" to the aquarium. They noticed the water park off I-60 and have asked for another vacation to there. How long you think we can pull off driving an hour and a half and have them think they're vacationing? Wednesday was 1st grade orientation. While we were all waiting to go in Gabriel started talking to a boy he knew from last year...this is what we heard:

Other boy: "I went to the beach and....(missed part of it, but listed several things he did)

Gabriel: (excitedly) "I went on vacation too!"

Other boy: "Where?!?"

Gabriel: "PHOENIX!"

Gabriel didn't have a reaction to the other boy's expression, so I've told myself he didn't notice it. What's a parent to do? We just smiled at each other. As the big boys talked to each other about their vacation we didn't correct them but always referred to visiting the aquarium. Now they're referring to going to the aquarium rather than vacationing to Phoenix. It makes us feel less lame. We did take pictures and I'll post some....someday.

Then Gabriel started school the next day, Thursday. We're having our usual schedule change behavior issues, but I've instituted a new policy that seems to be helping ever so slightly. He has been able to stay on GREEN since school stared. That tells me he's at least behaving there and saving all the naughty crap for his lucky momma at home. I'll take a well behaved kid in public and terror at home over the reverse any day. Although, he and Garrett have ZERO ability to control themselves and behave when they are together in public. Last year doing homework was painful. This year is going to be T O R T U R E, and we've only had one week's worth so far. Deep breaths and very limited amounts every day should make it work. I am happy to report that it's only the language stuff that's killing us, he flies through the math homework. Every time he tells me he's not smart because he can't read I remind him that there is plenty he can read (I remember clawing through it all last year) and that he's a lucky boy that got Dad's math brain. Math brains are good and something I'm jealous of. I'm not sure how to help him feel like a confident smart student in the subjects that are strengths while pushing him along in the other subjects. I guess that'll be this year's goal for myself. When I see other people making him feel dumb because of this reading stuff I want to scratch their eyes out. I'd love to beat 'em. I also have pictures of his first day that I'll post someday.

Garrett also started his second year of pre school. He's very disappointed he's not in kindergarten, but will just have to live with it. Academically he could probably handle kindergarten, but the whole sit in a chair for longer than a nano-second completely escapes him. I've often wished the boys had a switched birth order; Gabriel could really benefit from an older sibling learning stuff for him to pick up on. Garrett's teacher said it's been cute to watch him take the oldest student role. He needs to feel all grown up every now and then, it's good for him. He tells me all about what he learns everyday. I couldn't miss his first day and have a picture of that too. (wink wink you know how that'll go.)

Now, we're WAY last minute cramming a birthday party in for Gabriel. I've wanted to just scrap it so many times, but we told him he could have a "soldier" party and I can't bare crushing his little heart. He experiences enough crushing blows I want him to know that when his mom and dad tell him something he can depend on it.

Once that's done I think I've talked Stephen into helping get them all in for pictures. Garrett still hasn't had 4 year old pictures...yeah his birthday was in March. Just want to make sure he develops a healthy case of "middle child syndrome", poor kid. Gabriel is due for his 6 year old pictures, and that Lincoln is due for his 18 months pictures. Stephen manages the two not being pictured and sends them in one at a time. Then while I go through and pick what to order he takes them far, far away from me so I can think. IF they behave during that time they get ONE dollar to get a cheap toy from the dollar section.

That will take us right to my first day back to work. I have enormous amounts of anxiety about how to pull off this semester. I've never had to go back to work so quickly after the birth of a baby, but life is what it is and I'll have to be back a week later. I can't even begin to express how much I need the boys to step and do the things that they need to do ie. dressing themselves in the morning, sitting and eating breakfast without messing around. After a baby comes I'll have to be nursing and pumping while trying to get all 5 of us ready to leave the house for the day by 7:00 am. Am I nervous?? Y E S ! My income will depend a lot on them. I'm scared I'll fail horribly. I hate feeling like a failure. Knowing this was coming is why I instituted the "When It's Time" rule. When it's time to go, we load up and go. Gabriel has come very close to going to church in jammies and has gone with NO food or still hungry several times. He's slowly seeing that I'm not joking. When it's time to load up and go...that's exactly what we do. Garrett has run out of time a few times too. He's catching on more quickly. I'm hoping that this will help get us all to the places we need to be on time.

(DEEP BREATH) Here we go...

Well That Backfired!

Stephen got a new calling a little while ago. He's now got meetings he needs to attend the whole morning before church, lots of paperwork stuff to do during church, and tithing/fast offerings/more paperwork stuff after church. I've been apprehensive about how this will all work out to say the least. In all honesty I doubt I'll EVER be even close to on time again.

This morning I decided it was time to lower the boom on these naughty big boys that are teaching Lincoln how to be a naughty boy. I got them bathed and into separate rooms to get dressed. I explained to each of them that they would not get a bite to eat till they were completely dressed for church; and, when it was time to leave we were loading up and driving off. Lincoln is dressed by me so he got a full breakfast and I squeezed in a quick bowl of Fruity Cheerios. Those things are SO good! Garrett got himself dressed and managed to slowly eat half a bowl of cereal. That kid eats SOOO S L O W, dinner can easily take him 3 hours. Poor little, helpless, gonna be 6 next week, Gabriel just couldn't get his own socks and shoes on. Ohhh, wah wah wah. He'd flung his socks all over his room in a fit and couldn't find one so he wah wah wahed about that for a while. Finally he found it then wah wah wahed about how he can't put his own shoes on. It was 8:40 when this was all going on; we have to leave at 8:50 to get there close to on time. I just quietly decided that I wasn't going to fight with him and he'd go to church in whatever state he was in. I truly believed I'd be taking a kid to church wearing one sock and no shoes. I had to laugh to myself because I knew this would be the Sunday they sang Happy Birthday to him in Primary and THAT would be hilarious to see.

He managed to get everything found and on just in time, but not in time to eat. He grabbed two baggies of snacks left from yesterday's trip to Thatcher and thought he'd eat them in the car. NO WAY!! I'm mean, hot, and T I R E D. He was going to live with this natural consequence and hopefully make better choices next Sunday. If he doesn't I should have a good picture. :-) He was only allowed to eat that food after he'd reverently walked out to the car at the end of church and gotten buckled in. Oh how I hope this makes an impression so that next week will be more efficient.

You may be thinking, "Uh why did we have to see a picture of your lovely summer pregnant feet?" In the process of giving my kids natural consequences I COMPLETELY forgot to put my own Sunday shoes on and that's what I ended up wearing to church today. Nice. Note to self hang the nice shoes on the door so you don't forget them and look like an idiot.