Am I really that old?

I feel like I am still really young, like somewhere in my twenties.  I doubt I will ever feel really old.  And then I have moments like Thursday, that just proves to me that no matter how hard I try, I will age.  What brought this knowledge full fledged to my brain?  Walking around my daughter's new school and realizing that it has been a very, very long time since I have had to transverse the crowded hallways of in my case, junior high. (Sariah is going to the Intermediate school..which for those of you who don't live in lovely WASH CO..is a 6th and 7th grade school) Sariah has left behind elementary, and judging from all the paper work we received on back to school night, and all the supplies we had to buy..elementary is far, far, far, behind us.  Sariah is excited.  She wanted to get all her supplies that very day, but I was tired and needed to make a very long list of things we needed for my sweetness.  She is nervous, I could tell because she kept walking very, very fast, because it mattered to get through her schedule over and over again.  She clutched onto her schedule with all her might and she got us to all her classes without a hitch. (and side note, most of the kids in the hallway were all taller than me or close to it.  I really did feel like a 7th grader right then)  She wants to be older, I think.  Me?  I still want Sariah to be five.  She was worried about not knowing many kids, but I told her that eventually she will know most of them, and I think she is a little worried about fitting in.  I am worried for her..mainly because walking through those halls brought back a lot of memories of me as a seventh grader.  SHUDDER.  But i think she will do extremely well.   But, really, dear readers, am I really, really, really, that old?  I have a sixth grader who proudly told me yesterday that she is as tall as me.  Has 11 years really gone by this fast?  I am scared that the next 11 will fly by.  Good thing little man Ethan will be here in my home a lot longer..just to give you some perspective on my future life: When Sariah is in high school and learning to drive, Ethan will be in second grade and Luke will be just starting 6th.  Then i really will be old.  And in that time, you can tell me that!  But not right now!  Right now, I want to pretend that I am still 25.

can summer be over so soon?

We have two weeks.  Yep, two weeks and my kiddos are heading to school.  Sariah will start at the intermediate school.  She is excited, I'm nervous.  She is taking drama and choir.  She even wants to ride her bike.  Sariah.  She hasn't touched her bike in like two years.  I don't think she fits on that bike now.  Luke is starting kindergarten.  he's excited.  I am excited.  He is a super social, nice and somewhat well behaved little man, I think he will have a lot of fun..until someone pumps into him, or  touches him while sliding down the slide..there might be tears and screams.  Ethan will be home with mommy, all by himself.  I am not sure what we will do.  Probably watch a lot of Finding Nemo.  He loves that show, maybe a little too much?  But being the sucker I am..sometimes I let him watch him three times a day.  I don't feel guilty for that.  I need to get stuff done, and sometimes that is the only way anything will be accomplished in my house! But he still hangs onto me like a monkey..so

I will be keeping my house clean from the hours of nine to 12:30, so if you want to stop by during those hours, then I will let you in.  If you stop by after I will not apologize for the mess!  It has been a challenge to keep my tiny house clean.  And honestly, some days, I just don't want to clean it up!  I believe in weekends being free... :)

Eight Years

Today was a bitter sweet day.  I got to spend the entire day with my kids, running errands, getting treats and listening to them talk.  It was also a day for remembering.  I know I have posted about Quinn before.  Every day, I am reminded of him.  EVERY DAY.  It is in the little things...like when Luke gives his funny little (loud) laugh because he has discovered something funny, usually only to himself, or when Sariah looks at me with her big brown eyes and asks how I am doing and when she is so willing to help with her younger siblings..who are sometimes very annoying to her, or when Ethan does something silly, like singing songs with words only he can understand, but he is having a grand old time singing them!  I love when he shoots his eyebrows as far as they will go, and he tells me something in his little voice, like when he slapped my bum and said his very first full sentence.."Mom go to room and get GUM!".  These are moments when I remember Quinn, and feel that tingle in my heart, and wish above all else that he could be here, experiencing these moments with us. I knew that today would either be one filled to the brim with sadness, or one filled with happiness.  I chose to have a happy day.  I could have drowned in my sorrow, and I could have easily gotten lost in the pain of loosing a precious child, but I chose not too.  A line from a hymn came into my head this morning, today, of all mornings.  "The Lord is on my side"  from Let Us All Press On, in the hymn book.  Just that line.  He really is on my side.  Even when life is getting to me and I am not doing my best in all things, He is still on my side.  I believe he gave me this day to rejoice in the knowledge of eternal families.  Yes, it's hard, yes this day will always bring back those memories, and that deep sense of longing and loss, but I can still fill joy in the blessing I have each day.  Because He is on our side.

When I have a moment, I will write a wonderful spill about how my summer has been going..for now you will have to settle for a quick overview..

We went up to Lagoon...hot, lots of strange people, baby hating almost everything about that place, and lots of fun rides
Cold pool..freezing cold pool..don't you northern Utahan's heat your swimming pools?
Horses, a trout farm, and my son trying to steel a baby kitten.
Hanging out at home, a lot.  And by a lot I mean, mostly that is what we are doing.

We did, however, manage some swimming today, it was cloudy, the pool was cold..don't you southern Utahans know how to heat a swimming pool? And now I can smell cupcakes..time to frost!

I promise, my next post was amaze you!

Summer is almost here

Have you looked outside yet?  Today there is sun, actual sun shinning through my windows!  It is a glorious and long awaited sight!  This spring has been full of guessing.  A few weeks ago, if you went outside you would get burned..(I had the red skin to prove that) and then it started cooling down, and we had rain storms, and lots of clouds.  I am so happy to see the sun again!  YEAH FOR SUN!

So, after thinking a lot about some things..I have decided to start including family stuff on this blog.  M liked the idea of me keeping a journal of family events online.  Plus, I had my old blog published, and we love looking at the book.  I have been learning some things from other blogs..(Angie and Mindy) so, I have am going to try and keep this light hearted and about good things.  I don't want to live my life sulking. :)

Here are a few things that have been going on in our Family.

As I posted earlier, my Grandpa G passed away two weeks ago, on May 11.  He was 87.  We love him, and we miss him.  I don't think it actually hit me until I was sitting in the funeral services..(which fyi were 2 1/2 hours long) I was thinking about the last time I saw my grandpa.  He use to place both his hands on my cheeks and kiss me with some gusto right on the lips.  I realized that I won't feel his scratchy whiskers on my lips any more.  That was a hard thing to face.  But, he was such a good man, and he waited so long to see my Grandma again.  I can't be too sad about it.  He was a WW2 vet.  He fought in the Pacific.  He was a scout for his unit, so often times, he was the first to engage with the enemy, and often times, he would see his buddies die...He was BRAVE and FUNNY, and STRONG.  And HANDSOME.

My sister was put in charge of getting all the pictures ready.  She was leaving her house and went to pick up all the pictures at Costco...and to her dismay, not one turned out.  She called me, and I tried to figure out what was wrong.  My Photoshop skills are limited, to say the least, but we needed those pictures!  So, I sat down and tried to figure out what was wrong..turns out my aunt had scanned the pictures in a very low resolution, which resulted in very blurry and very unusable photos.  I spent four hours fixing that problem.  A lot of the pictures were scanned from the originals, which were old and needed a lot of love.  This is just and example below:

My entire family came down for the funeral.  They rented a house in Green Valley and we spent most of our time over there...all but for Ethan and Mike.  Ethan had a nasty cold, and my sisters...well, to put it lightly, are germ-a-phobes..so E stayed away for the most part.  I missed my baby!  S and L played their last soccer games on Saturday.  S is pretty timid on the field still....but I really don't mind.  She is a sweet and kind girl, and she would never want to take anything from anybody..even a soccer ball in the middle of an intense game.  L showed off his skills and even made a goal.  He was very pleased with himself.  Although, he was upset because baby E drank all his water.  Ooops.

Now we are counting down till the end of school, which happens to be Wednesday.  We are going camping on Friday..hopefully it will turn out!  Wish us luck!

This week

There has been a lot going on lately.  I have been checking in, but I haven't had much to say.  I am going on about three hours of sleep..and I am still awake.  I should have been in bed two hours ago.  The fates like to tease me though.  The kiddos did not want to fall asleep in a timely manner tonight.  And the bright lights from my computer screen sure isn't helping me with feeling sleepy.  Here are a few things that have been happening..

M and I celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary.  He was at first opposed to doing much.  Same old, same old was good enough for him.  But I planted the seed for a official celebration last November and have been working on growing that puppy a lot.  M booked a hotel room and we made plans to get away.  We dropped the boys off at my MIL's and left happily.  I think we were both looking forward to the quiet.  It was very nice.  We went shopping, we took our time..M took me to the oldest joint in town, The Frostop, where we ate hamburgers and munched on fries.  Then we looked for some cast iron skillets, because my non-stick pans that have survived these twelves years are starting to show their wear..and then we went and saw a movie.  I wanted to watch "Hanna", but we were late getting to the theater, so M picked "Priest"  I spent most of the movie hiding behind my hands.  I hate movie that have a lot of silent, waiting for something to pop out unexpectedly movies.. We then decided to try a new restaurant in town..and I would not recommend it.  It was alright, but I would have been much happier with my Cafe Rio salad.  We had a soccer game to go too in the morning, so our anniversary was short, but sweet.  12 years.  I honestly cannot believe it has been that long.

We also received the news that my Papa Gentry had passed away.  Although this news was not unexpected, it is still hard to loose a loved one.  I don't think it has hit yet.  Most likely it won't until I am sitting in the funeral, and I realize that I will not hear my Grandpa tell me stories any more in this life.  it is times like these, however, that remind me of my faith.  And that I know my Pops in with his wife, and that he is happy, they are reunited after 18 long years.  It's about time, I think it what Grandma would say to him. And he would tease her about wanting to stay longer.. Grandpa loved to tease.  I am grateful for the time I had to spend with him.  I was lucky enough to visit him often when I moved down to Dixie.

And to top off this week, E has decided to become sick.  Poor kid.  He had a low grade fever for three days, and he kept telling me his bum hurt..so i took him to the doctor.  Two hours later, we decide to just do a catheter and find out if he had a UTI, and after the pain and torture..he was fine.  Yesterday his nose started running, and now he has a cough.  He runs away from me whenever I need to change his diaper!  Poor, poor, baby!

A highlight, however, of this week, was visiting with my long lost (well, not lost, but very far away) friend, Denise, she even brought along her husband so that I could meet him!  One day, I will make it over to Switzerland to see her! :)

A Challenge

The past couple of weeks have been extremely busy and hard.  I have been trying to be positive, an aspect that I tend to overlook.  A good friend of mine has started writing her top ten things she likes about herself every single day, not just once, every day.  I like this idea.  Do we ever actually realize what we are good at?  The paradox of being human, I suppose.  We have all these amazing qualities, each and every one of us, and yet we are always wondering if we are measuring up.  It reminds me of an episode of one the shows I watch, where the FBI agent is trying to get a suspect to talk, and the suspect is refusing..so the FBI agent says something to the effect "let the record show that so and so is holding back information pertinent to this investigation.." and suddenly, almost as if by magic, the suspect talks, because he doesn't want to be on record..after giving up the information the FBI wanted, the agent says something like "by the way, there is no record".  Who is really keeping score?  In the grand scheme of things, who is really sitting there tallying up everything you are doing?  And why is it that we keep score on ourselves?  Why not just say, in a loud voice, or a quiet voice, or a normal voice, or a whisper, a shout, a scream, a proclamation,...I AM A BEAUTIFUL GOOD PERSON!  See, it really isn't that hard.  Try it.  Shout it.  Exclaim it!  YOU ARE A BEAUTIFUL, WONDERFUL, UNIQUE PERSON.  It is so easy to look at all the things we aren't good at.  To compare ourselves to what we perceive others have.  I am guilty of this.  I look at my sister, who is super mom. I look at the ladies in my ward, who all seem to live in giant homes, with designer clothes and who can give their kids every thing they want, I look at my friends who seem so strong, who have talents I wish I had.  I compare, and I despair.  Why can't I have those things?  Why can't I be super mom?  Or live in a big house, or have faith that is strong, or talents like sewing, painting, being a good listener, a strong woman, or a good friend, or a really good scheduler, or.....WHY?  And I give up, I see only the things I don't have, or that I am horrible at and I get so caught up in what I AM NOT that I forget WHO I AM.  So, I challenge you and myself, to be like my friend and find ten good things about you, and write them down on your blog.  Challenge your friends to do the same.  It's like when we they make us stand when we are in young women's and say the theme "We are daughters (and sons) of Heavenly Father, who loves us and we love him" Isn't it about time that we show him that we love what he gave us?  US?  He gave us this life, he gave us this world, he gave us everything we needed to see how much we are WORTH.  Challenge yourself, your family, your neighbors, your friends.  I bet you can find ten things you are good at, I bet you can find about a thousand more if you really took the time!  The possibilities are endless here, LADIES!

Ten Things I like about ME

1. I have a great listening ear
2. I am a good reader
3. I am a mother who tries
4. I am a good, honest person
5. I help others out
6. I can bake a mean cupcake
7. I can write some pretty good stories
8. I try to be compassionate to those around me (most of the time)
9. I am patient with others
10. I love to sing and shake my booty! :)