"I don't want to walk"

I must have heard Sean say that over 50 times on our preschool field trip yesterday: a hike on the Embudo Trail. He wanted to ride in the pack. Are you kidding me? That boy weighs as much as his 5-year-old sister. Besides, I wasn't carrying Hayden very long before I realized that I'm not in very good shape-- (Certainly in no shape to hike Half Dome this summer.  I'm thinking I should probably go hiking with Hayden on my back once a week to get myself up to snuff. -- Don't worry Dad, I'll be ready.)

Anyway, even though Sean repeatedly informed me that he didn't want to walk, walk he did, and by the end he finally forgot his woes, and even had some fun.  

Hayden was a happy camper riding in the pack and singing to himself. When he descended from his throne at our picnic spot, he promptly headed for the water and sat down in the little muddy stream, and then spent the rest of his time splashing his shoes and hands in the water.

It was a great day for a hike--sunny with a cool breeze and once we got past all the whining, we just had a super time.  Sean ran all the way back to the car--I couldn't keep up with him to save my life, and both he and Hayden fell asleep in the car on the way home.  I was worn out and had the best night's sleep I've had in a long while.  (Clearly, I really need to exercise!)

Hats for Hayden

Hayden has been into hats lately.  I didn't get a picture of his laundry basket hat, but that one was pretty cute too.

Backing up a bit

Here are a couple things I missed last week.

1. On Wednesdays the kids have early out day--kind of random and weird, but I like to have them home early, so whatever.  This past Wednesday they had a great afternoon playing together really nicely (which is not always the case) but it just made me feel so happy I had to document it.  

Playing nicely can really wear you out!

2. Also on Wednesday, I made some really yummy chicken wraps that turned out too delicious not to share so I'm posting the recipe here.  I got it from a Costco cookbook they were handing out for free one day!  Score!

Avocado Ranch Salad Wraps

1 avocado cut in 1/2 inch dice

2 tsp fresh lime juice

1/2 c ranch dressing

salt and pepper

*1 lb Willow Brook Kettle Fried Turkey Breast

I couldn't find that, so I just used chicken breast instead

4 c mixed salad greens (I just used spinach leaves)

4 10 inch flour tortillas

12 grape tomatoes, halved

1/4 c cilantro 

1/4 c sliced red onion (I omitted this and used green onion instead)

3 Tbsp shredded extra-sharp white Cheddar Cheese

Combine avocado, lime juice and ranch dressing.

Season to taste with salt & pepper.

Shred turkey, and stir into the avocado mixture.

Add cilantro and onion to the mixture

Place salad greens on tortillas, followed by the turkey mixture, tomatoes, and cheese.  

Roll up the wraps & cut in half.  Makes four servings.  

Enjoy! They are very tasty! 

3.  My birthday was this past weekend.  I also, had my Quintessence Cabaret Concert this past weekend, so the birthday festivities were kind of spread out.  We took the family out to eat at Olive Garden Friday afternoon and when we got home, I opened my birthday present.

 

Arthur got me AN ICE CREAM MAKER!!!!   I have such fun memories of my family growing up making homemade ice cream together and all taking turns cranking the handle with Dad.  

Arthur got me one that can be hand-crank or electric, which is great!  I just know we have lots of fun memories in store for us, and I can't wait to break it in.  

Sunday night, we had my birthday dinner.  The kids set the table with a table cloth, and name tags for everyone, and picked pansies to arrange in my small circle vase.  They put out "special glasses"  (I think they might be parfait dishes) for Arthur & I, and filled all the cups with water.

(Unfortunately, it was more temptation than Hayden could handle, because he climbed on the table, plucked the petals off a few of the flowers, and spilled two cups of water, saturating Sean & Dallin's name tags and soaking the table cloth--so things were a bit damp for dinner.)

This is just a picture of the name tags & vase since I didn't get a picture of the whole thing last night.  I just loved their flower arrangement and the nametags written in their cute 1st grade/kindergarten handwriting.

Arthur made me a delicious white cake with strawberries and whipped cream. (Can't get enough of that stuff lately.)  And since he couldn't find the bag of candles, we used the broken number three.  But really it stands for 24.  

okay fine.  29.

4.  Which means, that my parents celebrated their 30th anniversary this weekend!  Congratulations you guys!  What an example you are setting for your posterity.  We love you and can't wait to see you this summer.

5.  As previously mentioned, my last Quintessence Concert was this weekend.  It is the fun one of the season--members of the choir do solos, duets, and small ensembles with lots of different kinds of music.  A lot of show tunes and jazz and things.  Despite getting the video camera charged and the camera ready for Arthur, he forgot them in his rush out the door.  So Jenny & Julianne, I'm sorry, but I don't have any recording of my solo, "Girl in 14G," which is such a BUMMER because I nailed it.   

A friend in the choir did email me these pictures, though.  

This would be the girl upstairs in 15G (the jazz singer)

Here's me as the 14G girl.  

All we need is the 13G opera girl, and it would be almost like being there.

Anyway, the concert went well, (if a little long) and was well attended.  Thanks to my friends who came to support me!!!  It means a lot to me!

I'm also thankful for my Arthur who has been awesome in supporting me in developing my talents.  He has held down the fort by himself most Sunday evenings when I have been at rehearsal over the last 3 years.  He is so great at giving me "space to fly" as Marjorie Hinckley used to say of her husband.  Thank you, Arthur!!!

This Made Us Smile

Arthur was driving our 10 year old mini-van home from church today going really fast and taking the turns too sharply.  I kept saying, "Whoa!  This is old reliable, not Lightning McQueen!  Take it easy!"  I turned to the kids, and said, "Daddy thinks this is a race car, guys.  But it's not."  To which Daphne replied,  "Come on, Mom,  let Daddy use his imagination!"

Counting my Blessings

1. Dallin:

Here's a little conversation I had with Dallin on Sunday:

Mom:  Okay, after lunch we are having quiet time.  You can read,  you can draw, you can write in your journal, you can play quietly, but you have to be quiet.

Dallin:  Can we watch a movie?

Mom:  You can watch a church movie

Dallin:  Can we play on the computer?

Mom:  No.

Dallin:  Come on, Mom.  Couldn't we play on church.com?

He's a thinker that one. 

2. Daphne:

Daphne has a sweet tooth.  Well, let's be honest.  Everybody in this family has a sweet tooth.  Sean and Daphne will frequently ask me to bake cookies, not because they actually want the cookies, but because they like picking in the cookie dough.  (I still can't figure out how the recipe says it makes 5 dozen, and we only end up with 3 dozen.  Do we really eat that much dough?)

So the other day, Daphne and I made cookies, and of course we ate lots of the dough.  I watched her take a ball of dough that was the size of a cookie and pop it in her mouth.  I told her that was QUITE enough cookie dough for today and she'd be sick if she ate more.

Sure enough, a little while later, she was holding her tummy and couldn't even be tempted by dessert after dinner.  I said, "Well, Daphne, that's what happens when you eat too much cookie dough.  Next time, we should probably hold back a little."  

She said, "Mom, how do you know it's the cookie dough?  Do you know everything?"  

I said, "I sure don't know everything, but I know an awful lot about cookie dough tolerance because I've been eating it for a lot of years.  And I know that when you eat too much, it makes your tummy feel bad."

Sometimes if you really go crazy, you might have to call your friend and cancel your outing because you feel too sick to go.   And yes, that happened this year, not when I was five.  

3. Sean:

So I've been potty-training Sean in some degree or another since August.  That's right.  It's been eight months.  Now maybe I'm just spoiled, because my first two got the hang of it in a week.  But doesn't 8 months seem like an extraordinarily long time to be potty-training?  Tonight it seems especially long because I just stepped in a puddle urine (on the tile--counting my blessings) that Sean failed to tell me about.  

He did tell me about his accident earlier today.  He was wearing Lightning McQueen underwear and we had a long talk about how if he wanted to be friends with Lightning McQueen, he should go potty in the toilet, not in his McQueen underwear.  He was in full agreement.  Well not too long afterward, he came downstairs and said, 

"Mom, I go'ed pee and poop in my pants.  

And now Lightning McQueen doesn't want to be my friend."

sigh.

He totally knows how to do it, he is just too lazy to stop playing for a minute to take care of business.  I'm about out of ideas.

4. Hayden:

This guy really keeps me on my toes.  He's into the basics- unrolling all the toilet paper, or paper towels, coloring on the walls, dumping out the family bean jar--(not sure how he got it down) and crawling on the table, which means if I am not on top of clearing the table, this is what I find:

Busted.

5.  Actually, my #1 blessing is Arthur.  (Save the best for last, right?--no offense, Dallin.) He is a rock and I would be lost without him.  He's so good to hold his tongue when he gets home and the house looks like we took a grenade to it.  And he's awesome about coming to the rescue when he comes home from work and I still don't have a glimmer of an idea of what to have for dinner.  Oh how I love this guy.

A Little Venting

I just finished this post, and it's pretty long.  Only the die-hard will make it through this one.  

Let me preface my remarks by saying that I am very grateful to be a mom, and that I get to stay home with my children.  I find so much of it very fulfilling and hugely rewarding.  However, I think any stay-at-home-mom will agree with me that it is REALLY hard.  

One friend of mine put it this way:  

"Most of the trials in my life come from my blessings."  

To illustrate:  I don't mop my floor as often as I should, so when I do, it's a big deal to me.  I feel so proud when it's done.  Just preparing the floor for mopping is a big deal--it's like a race with the kids to see if I can sweep it all up before somebody comes along to spill something else on it.  Well, yesterday, I swept the floor, mopped the floor, and even washed all the rugs in the kitchen and the one by the back door.  I'd say about 30 minutes after it was all done, the chairs pushed back around the table, and the clean rugs back in place, Daphne came in from walking around in the mud with her bare feet, and thoroughly wiped her dirty, muddy feet all over the rug I had just taken out of the dryer.  I just stood there staring at the rug with my mouth hanging open.  Dallin followed her without even pausing to wipe his feet, and started tracking mud on my clean floor.  I stopped him after three steps and marched him straight back outside to take his shoes off. 

Now I know that lots of moms out there can relate;  it's just part of life, right?  I mean that's what that rug is there for, right?  Daphne was doing a good job, wiping her dirty feet on  . . . .  my freshly . . .  cleaned . . . rug.  

But yesterday, this experience just captured the epitome of my frustrations lately:  So much of what I do everyday is not permanent.  It feels like the things I spend my time on throughout the day just get undone, one by one.  I do the laundry, and at the end of the day, there are dirty clothes again in the baskets.  I empty the dishwasher to make room for yet another load.  I go grocery shopping, and the next week I have to go again.  I mop the floor, and and the next meal it's a sticky mess again.  I could spend all day following the little ones around, keeping the house picked up, and clutter-free and when the older ones get home from school, and Arthur home from work, and they all add their contributions to it, it looks like it was never clean in the first place.  

Essentially, what I spend hours on during the day, can all be undone in 5 minutes.  

That is so frustrating.  

I know I should be grateful for the laundry because it means we have clothes to wear, the dishes because it means we have food on the table, the toys because it means we have children filling our home with laughter . . . . and muddy footprints :)  But I guess I have a hard time remembering it in the moment of destruction.  

Something else that would help me, is to remember this wise advise from my friend, and former Visiting Teacher, Merideth.  She shared this with me during one of her visits and it has always stuck with me, (though sometimes not as often as I wish it would).

Do something permanent each day; 

Something that doesn't get undone in the same day.  

It could be writing in a journal, keeping in touch with friends, reading to your children or reading the scriptures, (some of these things are done everyday, but they are never undone,)  working on a creative project, (a sewing project, a scrapbook page, the sky's the limit) home improvement projects: organizing a closet--(that usually doesn't get undone in the same day, but I guess on a really bad day . . . well, who can say?)  painting, planting a garden, beautifying a space,  or finally putting pictures in those empty  picture frames.  The days that I have done something permanent, I feel a lot happier than the days I spend too much time cleaning, and then five minutes after everyone gets home, it looks like someone picked up my house and gave it a good shake.  

So, after that very long thought process, here are my conclusions:  

 

1) Remember to be grateful--I really am lucky that most of my trials do stem from my blessings.

2) Do something permanent every day, even if that means limiting the amount of time I spend cleaning.  (That shouldn't be too hard, seeing as how I don't particularly love cleaning.)

3) Don't underestimate the influence you have as a Visiting Teacher.  You never know when something you share with a sister, may just stick with her for quite awhile and maybe, just maybe, even make it on her blog.  :)

And now that this is all off my chest, I feel like a new woman all ready to do lots of laundry tomorrow!