Spring Fever

No, not Beiber Fever. SPRING FEVER.  For me that translates into obsessing over getting every closet, drawer and shelf cleaned out and getting RID of stuff. Spring cleaning fever has hit me. Over the last several weeks I've been trying to accomplish my ultimate dream of having every nook and cranny in my home organized. Today was a day I realized  likelihood of that EVER happening was like slim to none. Sad. Though I needed to acknowledge the attempt is important as well as essential to not only my sanity, but to the welfare of my family members. Cleaning out, parting with STUFF is always good. More room for things coming in, because let's face it. With growing kids, stuff will be coming in for the next 20 years and it needs handling. {Do you have trouble getting rid of STUFF? Watch Hoarders. It will motivate you. Cross my heart.} 

  I feel it in my bones that if I could just accomplish this ultimate dream of having everything in it's place and ridding my home of things we don't need, use, or have multiples of, THEN I'd have peace in my heart and would be a better mom. However, during the process of purging, I am not a good mom. I didn't time Cade and his friend as they were making loops on the go-cart, I didn't sit and play a game with Sav, and Ruby hung out in the saucer all afternoon in the garage with me if she wasn't napping or being fed.  I was on a mission and so focused.Today was forecasted to be the only sunny day this week, so I set it aside to clean out and organize the garage. And not just quietly in my mind. I mean this was an event that was discussed at our calendaring session during FHE, making it a totally official event.

There's a problem with the garage though.  Like many garages in America, it has LOTS of stuff. Stuff I'd LOVE to get rid of. but also stuff I"d like for him to evaluate how often he uses it in order to decide where exactly it would go. As such, I need Kyle present to make those choices. However he has this thing called work, so he couldn't help me clean out the garage today and so after about 3 hours I felt like I had gotten nowhere and I was getting really agitated. My favorite part about starting a project like this is finishing. And I didn't get anywhere near finishing. So I got irritated and short and by 5 o'clock today I wanted to pull my hair out. It was a scene of complete disarray. The toy room had blown up, the garage was a mess, dinner was cooking in the crock pot but the kitchen was a disaster....and the dinner that was cooking wasn't turning out how I wanted it to. I had this bad idea that I should try a new potato soup recipe for dinner tonight. It's especially a bad idea because I was bringing someone dinner tonight. It was BLAND....salt helped...but not the kind of soup you want to share with a neighbor recovering from surgery....

It's a good thing my friend who was my "partner" in bringing dinner to our neighbor brought a delicious chocolate cake that I swear looked just like the chocolate cake painting I dream about. I'll have to show it to ya'll some time when I have it hanging in my kitchen.  It has fresh strawberries, homemade frosting....and is just beautiful to look at. I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I mean, after all, chocolate cake can make anything better. Including a mysteriously colored potato soup with serious lacking in the flavor area.  For me, personally, I do NOT like the color a soup turns into when you use water, chicken bouillon cubes AND milk, cheese, and sour cream. Not appetizing. Oh Sister M. I am so sorry about the soup. Hopefully she just skipped the soup and went straight for the dessert. I know I would have. 

So after the family was fed, the kids put to bed, Ruby's sheets changed after she spit up/threw up?  and re-swaddled to bed, and the kitchen was cleaned I sat on the couch and took a few deep breaths (you wanted to take a breath reading that run on sentence, didn't you?), all of the sudden I felt better. Really, truly better. I laughed. It was really that hard to finally get a moment to just sit and take a deep breath. Who would have thunk? Oxygen made it all better. So I went upstairs and apologized to Cade for being so short with him and promised I'd do better tomorrow. 

It's nearing my bedtime. Below is a snipit of one of our evenings around here.....

This girl is delicious.

I mean these cheeks are just SO kissable. 

Cade reading Sav her bedtime story.

 Cade decided he wanted to hold his baby sister.

Then Sav wanted in on the fun.

And was determined to hold her just like her own baby.

Except Ruby wasn't such a fan.

*Funny sidenote about the outfit Ruby's wearing. She received an outfit just like this from our sweet neighbors across the street. From the perfect pink color to the darling tutu on it, it was my favorite outfit of hers. I was so sad to pack it away when we couldn't squeeze her chubby wrists through the armholes anymore. One night last week I drove to what I thought was the Dollar Tree to pick up some last minute items for Cade's birthday party. The Dollar Tree had completely disappeared. No sign saying "we've moved...." or anything. BUT-- as luck would have it, Kid to Kid, a Second Hand clothing store for babies and children was right next door. So I went in and tried my luck. Usually I can find one or two cute things for a good deal. Well, amidst the picked over 6-12 months girls section was this outift in MINT condition for a few dollars. I was so excited I didn't have to say goodbye to it after all. :) 

Then I drove to the nearest existing Dollar Tree and stocked up on silly string and glow swords. More on that excitement to come.

PS-- ordered 2 of these several weeks ago and they finally came. So comfy to read on! If only I had more time to read....

The end.

And then the tiling was done!

Admittedly,  I was a bit hesitant on this project because unlike most of the things around here, I didn't make all the decisions. Kyle was the one who actually picked out the tile, deco strips, drain, etc.  I'm really pleased with how it all turned out. Brad and his brother-in-law were amazing. I really appreciate the attention to detail Brad takes. He's quite talented. They cranked this out in a total of 3 days and 4 nights. Amazing! ( though unfortunately after 2 days and 3 nights of working on it, they realized they'd have to come back down the following week to finish the job b/c we didn't have enough tile on hand) They returned last Thursday morning and worked long and hard until it was done and drove back to Idaho late, late that night. Crazy? Yes. Sick of our bathroom? Probably yes, too!

The bench I'd have to say was the hot topic of the project between Kyle and I. Kyle was less than thrilled with the idea of a bench in the shower because it would take up so much standing room. I admit I was a bit worried myself. But it actually works great and there's plenty of room. After 2 foot surgeries I've realized how wonderful it would have been to have a good shower bench. Before we just had a little corner thing that was really no good for sitting on.  The problem is now very much solved! Though I don't anticipate foot surgery ever again. So I told my little sister she'd have to use it when (or IF rather) she gets her feet done so it wasn't built in vain. :)

:)

No More FLUbruary!

Had to report my exceeding gratitude that our FLUbruary is over with. Every single week last month, there was at least one person sick in our little family. It actually started mid-January with Savvy, moved on to Ruby...and it just went on, and on and on! So friends, I am sorry for not returning your calls, e-mails, and generally forgetting about everything else important in life beyond the basics of feeding the family and getting them clean clothes to wear. I'll not think fondly back to the week that I was sick, as well as all three of my kids, and Kyle was out of town. I wanted to cry. And I did. Ashamedly, I didn't express a great deal of sympathy to Kyle when he was sick while out of town.  A little self-absorbed at the time, I was comparing our situations and thought he had it much easier-- him not having to be up all night with the kids sounded like a dream.  Anyway, not my proudest of moments as a wife.

Fortunately, the stars aligned for our family vacation which took place the 2nd week of the month and all of the kids were better. Kyle wasn't feeling great by then, but not so bad that he had to lay in bed all day.  Of course the day we got back, Cade battled an on and off fever for almost a week. Then came the stomach flu. Oh my. Cleaning up puke doesn't get any easier as I tuck more years of motherhood behind my belt.  Though good did come from my children having the stomach flu. They kept referring to it as the "sickness that mommy has when she's pregnant."  I got an awful lot of empathy from my children the few days they were throwing up.  Unfortunately, the stomach flu came around right when we had several family members in town for Little Benjamin's funeral.  I quarantined the kids until I was sure they were completely over it, but still... I hope we didn't get everyone sick.

It was so terribly sad and pitiful when Ruby caught Savvy's cold/flu/sickness. I took her into the hospital twice one night to get her nose suctioned out. Fortunately it didn't "turn into" RSV, though it was thought to have for about 12 hours. It was so sad. And scary.  Now that we're all healthy we all have a renewed sense of gratitude for being able to breathe through our noses, being able to swallow without wincing, being able to eat without fear it may come back up, and being able to see Ruby's grins and hear her giggles again. Life's so good I just may have some time to play catch-up on the blog.

I'll go ahead and start with some Before and After pics regarding some exciting things happening in our lives right now....

This is my sister Melody BEFORE (a few days..or maybe even the DAY before??) giving birth to little William

*yet another darling top I am thrilled she will be adding to our sisterhood community maternity bins. It's so funny because for about 7 months she refuses to wear ANY maternity clothes and gets away with wearing her "fat clothes" or my "skinny clothes" that I still couldn't squeeze into since Ruby. Then all of the sudden she pops...and she finds herself buying maternity clothes after all.

This is Melody AFTER {picture courtesy of my Dad}



This is our master bathroom BEFORE the demo/ re-tile

* don't let the seemingly pristine-ness of the white tile fool you. There was TONS of mold underneath the shower tile. We learned about it when we did the home inspection before bought the house...we're just finally getting around to having it done....like most things around here.

This is our bathroom DURING

And by tomorrow I'll have a lovely after picture to post. :)

And here's some of my favorites which you have my permission to steal off my blog to put as your desktop background. Who wouldn't want to?!

This is Ruby BEFORE trying to get her to smile for the camera during lunchtime {lest you fear our baby is not getting enough to eat, I had to take a shot of her with squash and rice cereal all over her face for proof. Because her bulging cheeks aren't t a dead give-away that she is far from skinny.}:

And this is Ruby AFTER trying to get her to smile for the camera:

If you're really good you notice her expression has changed ever-so-slightly.  I think her cheeks are so fat that it just takes too much out of her to push them apart with her lips for a full-blown smile. I love her big blue bug-eyes! 

"Mom, I changed my mind..."

Last night after putting the girls to bed, Cade begged to read another chapter in the Book of Mormon Reader in his bed. I told him he could for ten more minutes and then I'd come and tuck him in bed. I went down to face our office to re-attack the chaos it had gotten into again and quickly became consumed in a mind game. Battling between doing just enough or just right.

"I'll just sort these papers...then file them later." "No, I should sort AND file now. But the ones that don't have a file for I'll make a file later." "No, I should make a file for them now. But I'll just handwrite the label."  "No, I should print it out with my fancy label maker now, so I don't have to re-make the label later..."

And so it went.

The next thing I knew, it was 9:30, and I heard Cade running down the hall.  "Mom! You know something really cool? I read the whole Book of Mormon! I finished it!"  He was so proud I couldn't be mad at him for staying up so late. After all, I had completely forgotten to tell him his meager 10 minutes was up and tuck him in for the night.  I was quite proud of him, too.  I gave him a hug and sent him off to bed.

Or so I thought.

At 10:30 he came to me in the office and admitted to finishing his Treehouse Book.

Oh my. So this time I learned my lesson and tucked him physically in bed and told him good night.

This morning when we were discussing more about his read-a-thon last night he said, "Mom, in the scriptures it talks about being nice. It made me change my mind. I decided I want to invite Tyler to my birthday."

It was all I could do to not bust out laughing. Granted, it was a tender thing to say, and really sweet. But just thinking back to the previous days' events and how quickly his heart changed made me giggle. Yesterday his cousin Tyler was over and they got in some tiff over something monumental like Tyler was being too silly and you could only be "sort of" silly while wrestling...or some scenerio along those lines. Cade got mad and told him he didn't want to invite him to his party and of course this devastated Tyler.

Thank goodness for the Book of Mormon. It softened Cade's heart and changed his mind. We delivered the invites today and Tyler got one.

This Makes Me Happy

While some days are hectic and my to-do list always seems to wax rather than wane, I'd still maintain that I live a relatively simple life and simple things bring me great pleasure.  Most days revolve around my home and family, as do my nights. I was going through my picture files and I was really happy to see these shots. I forgot I had taken them. I'm so glad I captured this one evening....it really is a slice of Woodbury Life.