The Short and the Long of it

I told Kyle last Sunday (as in Sunday, April 28th-- it has taken me nearly a week to finish typing up this entry!)  that if I made it through the upcoming week I would be so proud.

Cade had 3 soccer games, 2 soccer practices, pinewood derby, & piano lessons. Oh yes, and a report due on the grasslands ecosystem on Monday.

Savannah had to be driven to and from school. She also had dance class and dance pictures. And one swimming lesson.

Sign-ups for swim team. (you have no idea!)

Ruby had one swim lesson. And naps of course. Had to be sure to get the naps in.

A month ago I would have looked at the schedule for the week and cried. And resolved I wouldn't be able to do any of it besides put Ruby down for a nap. (she still does this very willingly. and she still loves her pacis. I am ok with this.)

Thanks to fasting (by other people) and prayer (by me and other people) and a lot of help from many wonderful people I made it through the week! And it was a great week. And we even managed to add a few extra items not on the agenda.

That's the short version. I can give you another version, too.

Monday the girls had swim lessons. The weather was so fantastic and our pool was warm so the girls swam right after lessons at home. Savannah learned how to dive. It was awesome. Ruby liked hanging out on the little step and kicking and saying excitedly, "I'm swimming, Mom!" I love that she knows her boundaries and doesn't test them. She stayed kicking on the step for a good hour.

I have this app on my phone called Good Habits (or something like that) and it sends me little reminders through the day that correlated with some habits I wanted to keep up, form, develop, etc. I get one at 4pm that says "Have a dinner plan" -- lately I've been doing great with that but that day I was so utterly sick and exhausted by that time Monday  I didn't even want to think about how I was going to feed my kiddos.  As fate would have it, my awesome sister Melody called--it was actually my nephew Tyler who officially extended the invitation and it was super cute-- and had us over for dinner. It was a beautiful thing and it was delicious. We also had FHE there. I did have a huge fright though. They live off a busy street and Ruby was being defiant when it was time to go and ran off around the corner heading for the busy road. Being in my weakened and sick state I was pretty helpless (i thought life and death situations were supposed to send some amazing adrenalin through your body so you could do things you wouldn't normally be able to?! Alas, didn't happen this go around.) so I shouted at Cade to go after her. He misunderstood where she went and headed inside the gate rather than around the outside of the gate where the busy road was. Savannah soon ran out of the car to help. To think I shouted at her to get back in the car! I'm glad she didn't listen to me. She ended up finding Ruby in a jiffy, and coaxing her to safety.  Other than that it was a pretty low key evening that was enjoyed by all. Oh, and our sweet neighbor Brother Stimson helped Cade put on his wheels for his pinewood derby car.   Somehow I got the kids in bed and then spent the next several hours  throwing up. Monday was just not a good night in general, but it's in the past so I'm grateful!

Tuesday I felt much better in the morning. I even cleaned alongside Rosalva, my trusty every-other week cleaning lady. While she scrubbed the bathrooms and kitchen floor, I picked up the rest of the house and vaccumed. I love a clean house. I know-- who doesn't really? While it lasts for about 10 minutes, it's a beautiful 10 minutes.  Later that afternoon I did something huge. I got a haircut! My first made-by-appointment outing since becoming sick. It was a glorious thing. I reassured my hairdresser she had done nothing wrong when I arrived. I just was too sick to leave the house for a really long time and then even when I improved, my health wasn't reliable enough to trust I'd be able to keep an appointment. So that's why I hadn't been back to her in forever. Suffice it to say, getting a hair cut always makes things better. And I never make it look as good as she does so I enjoy it for as long as I can.

Cade had a busy night that night. Pinewood derby and a soccer game. He decided he'd very much like to do both...so he commissioned my father to stay for the final results after he had left for his soccer game. What a surprise we got that evening! My Grandma Sheppard joined my father for the fun. It was so great to see her. I was so sad we just had a short time together before I had to take off for the soccer game. I did get some photos though:

 The line up.

Sadly, by the time we had to leave, the races hadn't even begun. Even worse, the bag I handed to Cade to change into his soccer uniform at the church had a water bottle in it that leaked. All over his shorts. It was freezing outside.  We made a quick pit stop home to get some different shorts. I wasn't entirely the worst mom in the world, but pretty close.

Cade played a great game, but he was already getting tired of losing, so this one really poured salt on the wound. This spring his team moved up to the highest competitive level, so they were playing some really tough teams this season. A lot of them had been really close, as with this one, but they still lost. It was a bummer to Cade and he decided afterwards he wished he stayed at the pinewood derby with Great Grandma and Grandpa to watch his car do flips on the track. I don't blame the kid.

Shivering in the wind. I love the mountains here...Watching the game I am always mesmerized by the beauty we are surrounded by. 

Cade shivering in the cold again as the sun started going down. Spring soccer in Utah is rough!

This is Matthew. He's a great athlete. He played defender with Cade this year. I thought this was a good shot of him-- sadly, I didn't get one closer of Cade. Oh well! Glad to get one of Matthew though. He's a terrific kid.

Wednesday was a banner day for me. I made it to my first Wednesday night activity for Young Women's that evening. We delivered flowers and cards to some folks in the ward since it was May Day. Loveliness.

Thursday was a yuck day. I felt sick most of the day and spent a good portion of it in bed. After I got Cade off to school I hired Savannah to "babysit" Ruby for the morning. Oh what a gem that girl is! She is so great with Ruby. It's adorable to listen to her be so loving with her little sister. Ruby is great, but she can be pretty headstrong these days. Savvy knows just how to get Ruby to do what she needs to though and it comes so natural to her. They also genuinely enjoy one another. So while I hated being so sick, I was filled with appreciation for a daughter I could rely upon. I drug (dragged?) myself out of bed to pick Savvy up from school and head to the Rec Center to sign she and Cade up for swim team. Holy cow it was a nut house. I didn't even get parking for a while and got lucky when some random high school student left at the back of the lot. Sign ups started at 4. Turns out people started waiting at 1! My sister saved my bacon and requested time slots for me from a friend who had hired her niece to come sit at the place early in the afternoon. Anyway, regardless of how, I managed to somehow sign them up for lessons, drop Savannah and Ruby off at home and get Cade to a game in Alpine in the nick of time. I managed to watch the entire game without throwing up (it's kind of turned into a thing for Cade. He's paranoid I'll throw up at his soccer game. I reassure him if I do, I'll go somewhere away from his teammates so he won't be embarrassed) and was able to "keep it in" until we got home. We worked for a bit on his project and then called it a night.

By Friday, I knew if I was going to make it through the weekend, I needed a good nap. So bless her heart, our darling sitter Kayla picked Savannah up from school (friday's are rough because they are early out days at her kindergarten so Ruby and myself are lucky to get a 45 minute rest before we have to pick her up again) and kept her out and about until 4pm so Ruby and I could both nap.

I got a text from my college roommate Jennie saying she was available to an ultrasound so as soon as Savvy got home we dashed over to Jennie to find out what we are having!  We had actually gone in 2 weeks prior before Kyle left to see if we could tell the gender. She was 90% sure it was a girl then-- which at the time really shocked me. I had no inclinations prior to it that it was a boy or girl, but just for Cade's sake I had been planning on having a boy and naming him Mitt. (true story!) So, this time after a nano-second Jennie knew for sure without it was a girl. We called Daddy and told him the news then dashed into Little Caesars to pick up pizza for Pizza Night. Savannah and I devised a plan of how we would break the news to Cade and she was pretty proud of it. We picked Cade and his buddy up from soccer practice and then got dinner on the table.

Savvy and I dashed off for our "date night" together once our other fabulous sitter Aubrey came over. We had fun attending one of my young women's dance performances. Savvy was in heaven and couldn't sit still. Finally she stood up and started dancing along with them in the aisle. I was kind of conflicted the entire time about that. She was likely taking some attention away from the dancers and I wanted her to know proper dance performance watching behavior was...but at the same time, it's a lot to ask a 6 year old to sit completely still for 90 minutes while dancers perform to some catchy tunes. After assessing the crowd behind us I determined it was a very laid back group of people so I didn't stop her again. Nobody was bothered or cared and Savannah enjoyed herself and also enjoyed watching the girls. We attempted to go to Farrs after the show but I soon discovered after getting out of the car ice cream was going to have to happen at home. There's was this awful greasy smell next door to the ice cream place that was not agreeing with my stomach.  We went to the party store to pick up our "supplies" and headed home. I made home made Oreo shakes that thankfully appeased Savvy's disappointment for not getting to dump gummy worms, bubble gum and hot fudge all over her ice cream of choice at Farrs.

That night once Cade was asleep I tried waking Sav, but she was dead to the world. Fortunately Cade was, too. I decorated his room with pink crepe paper, tied 3 pink helium balloons to his bed, and spray painted his hair pink. He slept through all of this. Then I hung a poster over his bed:

Saturday morning Cade woke up a little perplexed (he didn't see the poster until I showed it to him) and thought I was just being goofy putting pink all over his room.  Ruby asked if it was his birthday, funny girl. When he saw the poster he was convinced we were just teasing him and that it was really a boy. Poor kid. Lucky him, he had a soccer game first thing in the morning so he got to sport his pink hair at the game. He tried to act bothered by it, but I think he thought it was pretty funny.

Aaaaand speaking of the game-- they were playing a team that had originally beat them 9 to 1, so we were preparing for another licking. They actually only lost 6-3. Coach mixed things up for the kids at the end and Cade played forward. He did great, but he still maintains he likes to be a defender. I disagree but I'm just Mom.

I'm really going to miss watching these. It has been a lot of fun.

A wonderful friend of mine took Savvy to her dance pictures that morning because darnit, I can't be in two places at once. So Ruby and I got to enjoy the game together. She is learning to cheese for the camera like Savvy does.

Last team huddle!

After dropping Cade's teammate off at home and picking up Savannah I decided I better "hurry" and do some errands while I was already in the car and feeling decent.  These were errands I had put off for weeks and I really needed to seize the opportunity. For the next 3 hours we trudged through shoe stores, Target, the mall to do some returns, (incidentally some purchases, too). The kids were really amazing despite the awfulness of being out for so long. There were some pretty hysterical parts of the afternoon...like Ruby trying on shoes. She was still in her jammies from having the leave the house at 8am for the soccer game,  but she needed to try on shoes when we got to the shoe store. She was wearing footie pajamas, though. Naturally, in order for her to try on shoes she had to take off her PJs. So I took them off and put on her shoes and told her to walk around in them. She ran. And ran. Practically naked except for a diaper and I just couldn't run after her. So instead Cade and Savvy and I laughed and finally Cade offered to go get her since people probably started to wonder who the naked runaway baby was.

Another funny thing-- just as we were leaving the mall we got sucked into the Living Scriptures kiosk (FREE dvd!). They had a movie going so the girls were completely engrossed in it and Cade was totally mesmerized by the awesome deal the sales guy was trying to give us. He stacked and stacked DVDs that were going to be "FREE" with this amazing offer. Cade kept saying, "Mom! We've  got to do this!" It was great. I declined in the end, but happily we took home our free DVD while I explained to Cade I wasn't ready to commit to spending hundreds of dollars. "He was a really good salesman, Mom. He made me want to get signed up so bad!"

I love the honesty.

The errands, clearly taking much longer than anticipated, had exhausted me and Ruby was ready to collapse. I finally got her down for a nap and told the kids I needed to do the same. They played in the culdesac with a few bizarre requests//complaints here and there but for the most part they were great and I rested.

Savvy and I spent our early evening just before dinner playing paparazzi to the high school gals in our neighborhood. It was prom weekend! We drove around the 'hood and got to see the girls all dolled up for their big nights. Savvy got to get in a picture with each of them. She LOVED this part. I so appreciated each of the gals' modest choice in dress. They are such great role models for my daughter. For her to see that you don't need to show skin to be beautiful was far better than any lecture I could have given her on this. It was also so fun to see how each dress fit the girls' personalities so much.


Emily K:

Bain

Emily E:

Rachel:

Rachel was really sweet and didn't even bat an eye when Savvy's head (which had been spray-painted pink bc she was wanting to join in on the pink hair fun) rubbed against her white dress. I gasped and Rachel shrugged. No joke. Nothing pink got on her dress fortunately, but even if it had Rachel just doesn't really get her feathers ruffled very easily and said it would have been no biggie. Oh do I have SO much to learn from her! We had a great evening seeing the girls off and I was so grateful we were able to catch every single one of them before they headed off for the evening. I really love these girls!

My mommy showed up that evening, coming to my rescue for the umpteenth Saturday during my pregnancy. She kept the girls happy while Cade and I finally made some serious progress on his ecosystems project.  There wasn't much time during the week to make this happen and in hindsight maybe I should have forgone the errands and just got working on it that afternoon? I don't know. We really needed groceries. Savannah really needed shoes. Oh well, what's done is done and I am learning that Cade isn't much of a self-starter...yet . The most he was willing to do independently during the week for his project was read his books on the Grasslands we checked out from the library together. I'm still learning how to "teach" my son to get things done on his own....and want to. Clearly I've really failed in a lot of ways when it comes to him and his school work.  As far as I could think back I took ownership over my own school work. I independently studied for tests, did my homework...and typed up my reports. That was also just the culture of where I went to school. Here a lot of the studying and preparing takes place at school and I rarely know when Cade's tests are (this is STRANGE!). Mom and Dad-- please chime in! I know I'm conveniently forgetting the stuff I did that made you pull your hair out (my Dad is bald for those of you who don't know...it very well could have been me who did it to him!). I know they helped, but I still wanted to do well and took the initiative....or so I think. That's not to say I wasn't the queen of procrastination. That, I did very well, too. Still do. I'm surprised I didn't give my mother ulcers over it.

Sunday I taught my first lesson to my darling Laurels in months. I was worried that I'd have to turn the lesson over to one of the girls mid-way through, which actually after I thought about it wouldn't be a bad idea anyway, so I stopped worrying.  It was a great topic, making our prayers more meaningful. As with most lessons, I probably got the most out of the lesson than anyone, which is why I love teaching so much. These are both really great talks to read, btw: This one and this one The gals in my class were great sports even though I know they were dead tired from being out late from the night before. They  participated in the discussion and nodded their heads so at least I think I made some sense while I was trying my best to not let my nausea get the best of me.

That afternoon my mom helped Cade with his project while I did....I can't remember exactly. Maybe I did nothing? A bit later Savannah helped me get ready for a special early- Mother's Day Dinner since my sister was in town from Vernal. Did I take pictures of that? No, of course not. But trust me, it was lovely and we ate alfresco which made it even more lovely. My chocolate cake was lacking, but you can't win them all I guess. And considering we decided the menu at 10pm the night before with my Dad, I think everything else turned out great! It's fun to get together and make chaos with all the cousins playing with each other as we adults tune them out (unless there is blood of course) and catch up.

After everyone left I tucked the girls in bed and Cade and I finished up his written report then, in his words, "got to the fun part!" We made a diorama of the African Savanna Food chain. Be intrigued. It was fascinating. By the way, did you know that Hyenas have amazing digestive systems that allow them to digest bones--- which pretty much makes them able to eat anything? Glad I'm not a hyena. But pretty cool nonetheless.

After staying up way too late, and ignoring my little sister (who was spending the night) far too much, Cade and I finally finished and went to bed.  The next morning when he had to fill out his self-evaluation for this project, it was then that he decided he wanted to "go the exra mile" so he could earn some more points and wanted to add a few more things to his food chain. I indulged, but it made me crazy. And then I remembered I'm sure I did that allllll the time to my parents, being an awesome procrastinator combined with an achiever.

We took him to school and once he was out of the van walking toward his class that was lined up outside, I heaved a sigh of relief and declared the day a holiday. I had officially survived!!!

So I did what any mother would do to celebrate such an accomplishment.

Rebecca and I went out for pedicures. After dropping Savvy off at school and eating lunch, I took a shower. Then I took a cat nap. I bid a tearful farewell to my sister.  Dinner was ready by 5:00. We had FHE at 5:45 (a lovely lesson provided by Savannah by the way).

And then the ULTIMATE celebration for making it through a crazy week happened next. All three kiddos were in bed ASLEEP before 7:15.  I really know how to party, don't I?