October 31, 2012

These two have kept me quite busy lately!

As you can see, we're potty-training Spence, and actually it's going MUCH better than I had anticipated.  So that was a lovely surprise in my life for sure.

Landon and Spencer have been playing together this morning.  Playing and fighting together.  It's exhausting to me to try to teach them how to get along with each other sometimes.  When do I step in? When do I just let them hash it out?  When do I stick up for Spencer? When do I stick up for Landon?  GOOD GRIEF CANT WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?!

At one point, after their 304934th argument over a yellow truck, I packed them both up and stuck them in their room.  I needed a time-out. It really was Landon's fault, but in this situation, I didn't want to single him out. I know how frustrating younger siblings can be, so I do feel bad for him sometimes, even when he snaps at Spencer.

Anyway, after the crying, weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth subsided, I talked to Landon about it, and had them apologize to each other.  They snuggled right up together on Spencer's bed and just loved on each other and smiled and giggled.  That last appoxiamtely 0.0028 seconds and then they started wrestling, but nonetheless, I was reassured that they do still love each other.

Earlier this morning, the smallest rat invaded my pantry and found some leftover cookies.  He snuck them and two drinks upstairs, and when I finally caught wind of what was afoot, I found them having a lovely cookie and juice picnic together.  Landon said, "MOM! Spencer brought me a cookie and some juice! He is being SO GREAT!!"  It was hard to be mad at either of them for it, since I actually was super-impressed that Spencer had thought to share the contraband in the first place.

I was thinking about it today though, and I realized that all these little brother tiffs are important.  It's important that they learn how to communicate and get along with each other over "dumb" yellow trucks, so that when bigger issues arise in life or even their adult lives, they'll already have the foundation of forgiveness and mutual respect.  I hope they always love each other and try their best to get along.  It really does melt my heart when they do.  They are such a blessing to each other and to me, and I don't even remember what my life was without them.

October 26, 2012

I checked to see what pictures I had to post from the past few days, and the only two I had were of food.  Oops. Anyway, BK went to Walmart after scouts the other night to pick up some toothpaste, and he also decided to buy me a card and some dots.  But then I kept giving him all the yellow and green ones, and he wasn't too happy about that, but anyway, it was a nice surprise!

I found this lovely flavor of Blue Bell ice cream the other day, and MAN.  It is SO GOOD.

Yesterday was a fairly peaceful day.  I did the finished touches on the boys' Halloween costumes.  We picked Landon up from preschool.  We came home, and Spence went down for a nap.  Landon went outside to play, and I put on a show for me to watch in the living room.

I found that after a few minutes, I was actually watching Landon out the window than I was the show, so I paused it to watch him for a minute.  He was playing with the basketball hoop and chatting with himself.  And all of the sudden it hit me (for 50 millionth time I'm sure) that someday he is going to grow up and LEAVE me.  A few tears escaped my eyes, I must admit.  My life is so much about him and his younger version, that I just know a time will come when I will look outside my living room window and wish that there was still a chubby-cheeked 4-year-old boy playing outside and chatting with himself.  

It's so cliche, but he seriously was just a newborn baby yesterday, I promise.  The other day Landon was looking through some of my blog books, and he was enamored with looking at baby pictures of himself.  He showed one to me, and it had probably been several months since I had laid my eyes on a newborn Landon picture. 

My heart skipped a beat, and I thought "There's my Landon. This little mewing, cuddly baby.  Who is this grown-up boy looking at his picture??  When did this happen??"

I had a lovely chat with Melanie last night on our way home from our volleyball game.  We were talking about enjoying babies while they're babies.  While I'm excited to someday move past this stage and have my youngest child be Landon's age and take on a new set of stress and problems--I'm also excited to be in the stage that I'm in.  I'm not done yet.  I'll still hopefully get to snuggle another baby or two and watch the whole process start over again. 

Because it just goes way too fast.

As much as I want to encourage my children to find independence and the value of hard work, I still have a very soft and tender place for my little, tiny babies.  The ones that grew inside of me.  The ones I rocked and nursed during the wee hours of the morning.  The ones I smothered with good-smelling lotions and dressed in soft, footed pajamas.  They're so simple and lovely.  And I'll always love babies for that.

But someday those babies grow up, and they learn how to dress themselves and talk and walk and they become so talented and independent.... and they move away.  

I hope I never ever forget all the little details of my babies.

October 19, 2012

Today, so far:

BK and I were both up pretty late last night with stuffy/runny noses.  So we watched The Voice and then attempted to breathe/sleep. Spence decided to wake up at 5:45am, so I'm dragging a bit today, but so far, it's been a good day, nonetheless.  Potty-training successes, children playing together upstairs without the TV on, a good salad for lunch, and plans for going to a volleyball game later and then hosting company for the weekend.  Dan and his new fiancee Dawn are coming for a night.  We're excited to see them.

I had more to say, however Landon is having a particularly sensitive/crying day (he has really been struggling lately with being frustrated ALL the TIME) and he is now crying outside about his remote control car "not working" for the seventh time today.  

Like I said, it's been overall a good day, but good heavens, sometimes children can be frustrating when they're tired/frustrated when I'm tired.

Better go fix the dumb car for the eighth time...

October 18, 2012

This week several important events have occured so far.

First, we found Evie's missing hat.  But now Spencer doesn't want to give it back.  Good thing she's in Arizona.

I started our food storage. Mainly just because I was tired of the 34038 jars of apple pie filling taking up my whole pantry... but I suppose there's other good reasons to have it, too.

Spencer realized he loves my button collection more than anything else in the world.

He makes a ginormous mess with them.

But he loves them.

On account of Landon being bored and moping and whining around the house, I decided to pull out some of my old teacher supplies and start teaching him how to read.  Not surprisingly, he sort of already knows how to sound out words--but he had a fun time learning and writing "at" words.  We're going to move on to a different "word chunk" tomorrow. I'm glad he likes learning as much as he does.  It has and will make school such an easy transition for him when he's already confident about his abilities.  

Let's see... what else...

Oh yeah, I started some more diligent potty-training with Spence.  I forgot how annoying it is.  But changing diapers is also annoying--well, it's actually pretty convenient, but it IS expensive.  And I just keep thinking that I'll love myself for doing this when I finally do get pregnant and become sick for 5 months, and not have to change diapers.  Right??

I got my blood test results and the medication is regulating my hormones the way it is supposed to, and so there will be no need to double the dosage should we need another round of meds.  This was a huge answer to my prayers.  It would be an even bigger answer for me to not have to HAVE another round of meds and to just jump straight into morning sickness instead... but we still have some time before we find that out.  Trying to stay positive about it. :)

October 15, 2012

BK has finally returned.  *breathes sigh of relief*

Yesterday, our Sunday afternoon was pretty peaceful.  Spencer napped.  Landon and I worked on a little service project I decided to involve him in.  We walked to Mel's house to get a bandaid for my ridiculous toe that WILL NOT HEAL.  We came home and sat out on the back porch and soaked up the amazing weather.  I bathed the boys (finally) and put them to bed.  Mel offered to come watch the boys so I didn't have to wake them up to go get BK--huge relief! I made it to the airport and back to get him without incident, and life is back to normal.

I was thinking today about a couple of people I don't want to forget in my life, and so I felt the need to record it while I was thinking about it.  We had the amazing opportunity to meet so many wonderful people while we lived in Midland during BK's PT school.  Today I'll just tell you about two of them.

Our first bishop while we lived there was such a friendly guy.  He and his wife invited our little family (me+BK+4 month old Landon) over for dinner immediately after we moved in.  (New people were quite a novelty in this congregation!) He always had a smile on his face, and just made you feel happy when you were around him.  His wife was apparently super-great at making bread, and so every week or so when she did, he asked her to bake a couple of extra loaves for him to deliver to people who had been on his mind.  We received this blessed, warm-out-of-the-oven bread a couple of times during our 2 year stint in Midland, and it always came at a time when we really needed it.  Not physically, but spiritually--just to know someone was thinking about us.  I'll never forget that.

There was another man, who was in that bishopric who was legendary for "small" acts of service like this.  While he was never assigned as a home teacher or anything to our little family, we would randomly come home to find a dozen donuts on our doorstep--because it was BK's birthday, or just because.  He didn't leave his name on the donuts or anything, but somehow everyone in the ward knew that when you received a dozen donuts on your doorstep, it was from him.  His wife had recently had huge health troubles, and life wasn't easy for them, but he didn't let that stop him from being such a Christlike example to so many.  One time in particular, I was terribly sick while I was pregnant with Spencer.  BK had to cook dinner every night because I couldn't stand up without throwing up.  We were getting incredibly tired of frozen meals and everything else on BK's list of "things he could cook."  But we figured there were so many more people worse off than us, and so we didn't ask for help.

Unannounced, this brother showed up at our doorstep with dinner.  And not just a frozen Sam's casserole.  It was dinner. A huge container of fried chicken.  A huge container of corn on the cob. A salad.  An entire watermelon.  And dessert.  My husband had never looked so grateful for a real meal.  The leftovers lasted us several days--giving us a lovely break from frozen stir-fry.  He didn't know of our struggle at the time, but he must've followed a prompting, and I'll never forget his kindness.

When the Lord answers our prayers, it is usually through other people.  I want to be on the giving end of more of these experiences, as I have been blessed greatly in my life with those giving it to me.

October 14, 2012

There really should be a law against husbands going out of town for more than 24 hours.  I'm on day 4 of single-parenting, and it really bites.  Nothing really horrible has happened, and in fact, we've gotten a lot done, but my boys are just always "off" when BK is gone.  And I suppose I am, too.  Sometimes I feel like I just don't have enough patience to be both parents for very long.  

And of course, whenever BK goes out of town, they always wake up at like 6am every morning.  Needless to say, I've been taking a lot of naps to try to catch up.  Oh well. 

Today was stake conference at church.  I almost didn't go because a two hour meeting in the chapel with both kids and no husband seemed equated with torture to me, but I did it.  I can't say I heard much of the talks, but the boys were actually pretty well-behaved, and it reminded me that I can do hard things, even when I feel anxious about it.  

Even though I can't recall what many of the talks were about, I did leave with a resolve to try to be a better person.  While trying to maintain reverence in the trenches, I pondered about specific things I could do to be a better version of myself--the "me" I'm desperately trying to become but fall so short of in so many ways.

On Saturday morning I woke up and noticed my house was a complete DISASTER.  Piles of dirty dishes, boys' dirty laundry EVERYWHERE, the lawn needed mowing, out of milk and bread and cheese, when was the last time the children actually had a bath? (See, this is what I mean.  BK should NEVER be allowed to leave me again.  haha!)  I hid under my pillow for a few moments hoping that maybe when I resurfaced, it would magically clean and organize itself.  

While I hid under my pillow, my boys started dumping out bins in the playroom, so I resurfaced quickly to find an even bigger mess. 

I got them breakfast and looked around at my dirty kitchen floor, fingerprints all over my kitchen appliances, toys all over the backyard, toys/clothes/shoes/balloons(?!) all over the living room.  It felt completely overwhelming.  How did it get like this?  It seemed like I had just cleaned it!!

I decided to just start with something small.  The dishes.  I sent the boys outside with a pile of pumpkin cookies and locked the door behind them.  I loaded the dishwasher and started cleaning the baked-on grime off the stovetop.  I moved to the countertops, and then to the floors.  It was actually a noticeable difference. And I found more energy to keep going.

A couple hours later (don't worry I had let the boys in at this point, gotten them lunch, put Spence down for a nap, and employed Landon with a few chores) we had a clean house, a mowed front lawn, and a grocery list made and bought.

Anyway, I was thinking about that experience today at church.  I feel like overall, I'm a pretty good person, but lately I've just been having a really tough time with things, and it's really starting to show.  I'm noticing more of my weaknesses and less of my strengths.  When I think about how many small things I need to improve on, much like my mess of a house, it seems overwhelming.

But the Lord brought that experience that I had yesterday to my mind today, and the words I heard were these: Amy, when you just jump in there and start cleaning things up and organizing things, you'll find the motivation to do more.  Small and simple things really DO make big differences.  Just start with one thing, and I'll help you know where to go next.

And so that's what I resolved to do.  Just a few small and simple changes that I hope will give me some confidence and encouragement to move onto bigger things: the "front lawn", or maybe even the "pile of dirty laundry."  But, again, one step at a time. ;)

So like I said, I don't recall that anybody actually gave a talk on this subject today at church, but I know that because I was obedient and braved stake conference solo today, it put me in the right place to receive some answers that I needed.  

And now, it is time for a well-needed-and-deserved Sunday nap. ;)

(Landon and Spencer and some train buddies over for a playdate the other day)

October 10, 2012

Landon has a couple of friends over right now, so I have a moment to record some thoughts about the past couple of days, while they discuss guns, cars, and grandmothers. I love four-year-old boys.  Spencer is outside in a onesie in flipflops playing happily with the toys in the backyard.  I love two-year-old boys, too.

Monday night for Family Home Evening we had a lesson about how faith is like a seed--mainly just because a friend had gifted me a pot, some dirt, and some forget-me-not seeds, so this would give me an excuse to actually plant them.  During the prayer at the end of FHE, Landon said, "Dear Hemminy Fodder, please bless that our seeds can grow...."  Amen.
*********
I had an experience this week in which I knew the Lord had prompted somebody else to look after me--and it really meant a lot to me.  A friend I hadn't talked to in a long time sent me a message and told me that I had been on her mind for some reason, and she thought to check in on me to see how I was doing.  It was such a small thing, but it came at a moment that I really needed it.

It reminded me of another time several years ago--while BK and I were in the midst of infertility the first time around, and I spent a night wondering and prayer and crying about whether I would ever get the blessing of motherhood in my life.  And because only a small handful of people knew about our struggles, I felt incredibly alone.  I prayed that I wouldn't feel so alone and that I would somehow feel comforted.

I woke up the next morning to an email from a friend I hadn't talked to in awhile saying that I had been on her mind, and that she was hoping she wasn't being too prying to ask how things were going with the whole infertility thing.  It gave me a reason to talk about it and more importantly, I knew the Lord had not forgotten me in my trial.

I need to be more diligent about "checking in" on people when I can't get them off my mind.  There's usually a reason.
*********
Spencer's new favorite thing is to have dance parties.  I love him.

I love two-year-olds because they're part human, part creature.  He just does the funniest little things sometimes--he's in his own little world. He decided it was time for his yearly switch in parental loyalty, and so for the past couple of weeks, he's been quite the momma's boy--and doesn't really want anything to do with BK.  I can't lie--I'm totally eating up every second of it.  That boy is charming, I tell you what.

October 8, 2012

This weekend was conference weekend.  It was nice to just have a relaxing weekend--however, I'm not sure we really got much out of conference with our children running around--but we tried our best and look forward to reading the talks soon!

In between sessions, Melanie enticed me to come over with the promise of a snickers brownie.  There probably isn't anything I wouldn't do for one of those.  They're definitely one of my favorite desserts!  We ended up going on a walk with some of the kids to enjoy the cool weather and get out of the house.  I'm glad we have friends that live so close.  And I'm glad that they know how to make Snickers brownies.

We watched some more conference, and then Troy & Whitney & kiddos came over for dinner.  We made tomato soup and they brought grilled cheese sandwiches... then we made pumpkin bars.  BK and I are so blessed to have already made so many good friends in the area.  We just love it.  I've decided that I could pretty much be happy anywhere as long as I was living in a house I liked and had good people to hang out with. Even Waco, TX.

Today I packed up the boys and we headed down to the Waco Municipal Court to contest a parking ticket.  I'll have to start watching Law & Order again to prepare for my pre-trial on December 6!

This weekend I was really feeling the side-effects of the fertility meds that I'm on.  I know I don't have much to complain about in life if this is my biggest "trial" at the moment--but it's been really tough for me.  Frustration about even having to take it again after we lucked out so much with Spencer, extreme moodiness and irritability, nausea, hot flashes, and the list goes on.  It's no fun at all.  I'm trying to stay positive and count my blessings and just blaze through it, but it's still just really frustrating for me because I just don't feel like "me" when I'm crying at the drop of a hat and blowing up over ridiculous things.  It's just hard.  I'm not convinced that the low dose they have me on is even working, and we'll know for sure on Friday if it did, after they run some lab tests--and if it's not, they will double the dose.  I've been on these meds before and had to have the dose doubled before, and I remember how it really did double the side effects, too, and so that for sure concerns me.  I just hope this will be a quick ordeal.  In the meantime, I'll just have to redouble my efforts to stay on track in life and try to stay as positive as I can.  As I listened to conference (when my children weren't fighting over trains) I felt prompted to start looking for the Lord's hand in my life in "small" ways--to help me feel more grateful and positive.  Anyway, end rant!

The sunshine is out today, and it's in the 50s.  It's so beautiful.  I just love Texas, and I'm glad our life path has brought us back here at this time in our lives!

October 3, 2012

So I did end up getting my reading-on-a-rainy-afternoon time in the other day.  It was grand.

I've also recently been getting more into canning with my new pressure canner.  I made apple pie filling the other night and put whipped cream on the leftovers and ate it.  It was SO GOOD.  mmmmm.

I got a parking ticket on Sunday night in front of Dean and Melanie's house.  Ouch.  

Landon decided to take a nap next to me during my rainy Saturday afternoon reading. So cute.

This week has been a fun one so far.  I decided to go check out this super cute little Amish grocery store/ deli in Lott on Monday afternoon.  I will definitely be going back sometime! I also had the chance to help out some friends on Monday--and it put me in a really good mood.  Monday night we had Troy & Whitney & kids over for Family Home Evening and smoothies.  

Yesterday I dropped Landon off at preschool, and then Whitney and I and the remaining kiddos went over to Allison's house to learn more about canning.  We had a really great time hanging out and chatting, and I think this will go down as the first time in history that Spencer had a playdate at a house and i DIDNT have to go check on him every 5 seconds to make sure he hadn't broken something/run away/ hit somebody/etc.  He just played with the other babies there, and was completely well-behaved for the entire time!  Which was like 5 hours! After that we jetted back to get Landon. The boys and I went over to Melanie's house to drop off Rome's birthday present (a green car that lights up and plays rap music.  perfect.) and ran into Moriah and her kiddos there, too! So we had a little impromptu playdate until it was dinner/daddy time. Later  I went to a volleyball game and then to book club, and had a great time with friends at both of those!

Today I took the boys to Walmart to get some more diapers.  Then we went to the library to check out some more books. Then we ate lunch at Sam's with Troy & Whitney & kids.  Nothing beats a $1.70 hot dog and soda.  Then we went to the zoo with them.  Always a good time at the zoo.  This evening I'm watching their kiddos so they can go out for their anniversary, and I am DYING looking forward to holding their sweet little baby boy Rafe allllll evening long.  He is the cutest, sweetest baby!

This past weekend was a rough weekend for me.  The rainy weather certainly didn't help the cooped-up, stressed-out feeling.  But as usual, life always gets better.  This week has been a really positive one so far--with lots to do and great times with friends--and BEAUTIFUL weather!

The only downside of being so fun-busy this week, is that my house has devolved into a cluttered mess... so I think I'll go clean up for a bit before BK gets home.  Spencer is taking a late nap, and Landon is watching a dinosaur show.  So I think I'll put on some headphones and rock out to find some motivation.