new laptop

i got a new laptop.  i'm trying not to hate it.  i realize that sounds like a completely spoiled thing to say but does anyone else have a hard time with new technology?!  i would just rather that my old laptop work than need to get a new one and start fresh again.  i don't like that my pictures aren't on my computer and my bookmarks are gone and i have to enter in all my passwords every time i go to a new site... and i have to find all the sites myself since my browser history doesn't pop it all up for me.  and i have to get used to a new keyboard and mouse pad and windows 8.... i'm really hating windows 8.  that said though, here's what i love about my new laptop: it works.  and it was cheap.  i'm really into cheap things these days but that's a post for another day.  ohhhh here's maybe my favorite favorite thing though... my laptop is silent!  my other laptop had to have a super loud fan going 24/7 and would still get soooo hot that it could burn my hand.  with this laptop, i have yet to have the fan kick on and it's great.  i do need someone tech savvy in my life though to help me get rid of all the initial crap they put on (games and free trials and a million random apps) but really, i'm surviving okay.  setting it up was stressful and i went to bed with a terrible feeling in my stomach (which i eventually identified as mourning the loss of my old laptop) but i'm hoping time will solve my troubles.  before i know it, i'll be loving this computer and not even missing my old one... right?!  hopefully.

battle of the boy clothes, hoarding, purging, and ADD

here's a few minutes in my head right now.

i'm a self proclaimed hoarder of sorts.  it's practically impossible for me to get rid of something once it has made its way into my life.  clothing, cookware, home decor items... really anything.  lately, i've been feeling a bit like there's just too much stuff.  so i decided i needed to be more selective about what i let into our home.  but over the past month or so, i've just been feeling claustrophobic in too many areas of my life.  my phone is always slow and freezing and running out of memory (although i'm still trying to figure out how that is the case because it doesn't add up) and my laptop is always slow and experiencing difficulties because it's filled to the brim with too many pictures and things.  my car feels too full of carseats and toys and my grocery bags (i prefer the reusable ones... but that means i have to keep them in a noticeable place in my car so i remember to use them) and my closet feels full of clothes i don't like or feel guilty for not wearing, and the same story is true for both of my kids' closets, and honey's closet for that matter.  and even though we have a large, unfinished basement with tons of empty space, i find myself looking around and wishing there was less.  and my kitchen cabinets feel too full of pots and pans and mugs and sippy cups.  and my fridge and freezer feel like they're going to burst open at any moment but yet i'm always still trying to figure out what on earth we're going to eat for dinner (ughhhh, why does eating need to happen SO OFTEN?!?!) because we already had eggs for breakfast so i'm basically out of any more ideas for anything edible.  and my counter tops... they're not really cluttered but i want there to be less.  and my garage... well, actually i'm pretty okay with my garage at the moment. but seriously, i have no idea what is going on with me but i suddenly want to get rid of everything.  about a month ago, a very generous friend of mine gave me five large trash bags full of boy clothes.  i normally try to go through stuff like that immediately but it was the same day my mom was coming to town and i didn't have time to deal with it... so the bags just went to the basement.

today i was fed up with abigail having all of her drawers and closet space filled with clothes that weren't the right size or season, so i went through everything.  i filled a bin with all of the clothes she can wear next summer (good news is that she's 100% ready... depending on what size her foot will be at that point in time) and got out most of her winter stuff (it's been a cold summer and she's already been needing some long sleeve stuff).  i thought it was going to be hugely overwhelming for me but it wasn't (even though it was pretty time consuming) because she doesn't have too much stuff that she has yet to grow into.  she's got all of her clothes for next summer (at least half are new clothes i purchased at a good price) all in a clearly labeled bin, and other than that, she just has a small amount of hand me down clothes in a different bin that we get out from time to time if there's something random she needs (like stretchy yoga type lounge pants or something that i wouldn't typically have in her designated wardrobe).  when i was taking that bin to the basement, i saw the bags of boy clothes and thought i could tackle that in an hour or two.  HA.  jokes on me because it took forever and was such a painful process.  here's the problem.  most of the stuff was size 3T and 4T with occasional stuff in larger sizes.  brady is still wearing size 12 month pants.  they're a little short on him (since it's summer, he's only been wearing pants on sundays for church), but we just put them lower on his hips because i don't know what the deal is but the 18 month pants are all ENORMOUS on the kid.  i mean like six inches too long and the crotch is somewhere around his knees.  he's got two pairs of casual pants that fit him... the same two pants that fit him six months ago.  did he stop growing?!  this is going to be an adjustment for us because this summer, he's had a huge wardrobe... which has been great because he's a messy eater and needs fresh clothes throughout the day.

here's what else made today painful for me.  i've realized that i'm developing stronger preferences with used clothing.  i used to love it all.  now i only love some stuff.  my friend chelsey gave me boy clothes a while ago and brady wore all of that stuff last winter and this summer.  they were super cute and stylish and they fit brady well.  it was perfection.  i loved having all those clothes handed to me because it was like i had a personal shopper/stylist that did all the hard work for me.  but with many other hand me down boy clothes, it's not so easy and the biggest struggle is trying to decide if something will even fit brady when the time comes.  he's a petite kid.  so those huge cargo pants may be too short on him before he's ever big enough to fill them out enough to stick on his hips.  -- should i mention now that those two pairs of pants that fit him so well are both actually just girl's skinnies? --   same with shirts.  he's got small shoulders but a big belly.  and even though he's not tall for his age, he is skinny.  so i don't want to be saving all of these polo shirts that will likely be too short by the time they fit the rest of him.  but you just never know.  and then i think to myself about how i love picking out new clothes for my kids.  is it really worth it to save all of these clothes when i can get shirts and pants at old navy for $2 and $5.  and kids really don't need that many clothes.  but then i go back the other way and think about what a pain it is to go shopping and how time consuming it is to go through the clearance racks and how hit and miss it can be.  buying just a couple full price items to fill in the gaps totally blows your savings out the window.  spending $20 on a full price item kills me.  but last year i was loving life when i got two swim shirts and two swim trunks for brady for $.78 a piece when they were regularly $13 a piece.

and just because i'm going off on all of this anyways, i'll go ahead and say that i'm going to severely pare down on the kid clothes i save when they're outgrown.  we will hopefully have several more children but i'm struggling to see the likelihood of me having another girl in the same seasons as abigail and that i'll still like the clothes the second time around.  abigail had tons of great clothes as a baby and toddler, but she also had tons of clothes that didn't fit her well/were never worn/didn't look very cute that i saved anyways thinking that maybe they'll work for our next girl if we have another.  i'm definitely still saving the nice stuff that i love, but i don't want to hang onto stuff that other people could be using.  like how when abigail was brady's age she only had one pair of little skinny jean leggings that fit her.  so even though she had at least a dozen pairs of little flair jeans, she never wore them, because they fell off her hips and then when she grew more, they were just too short.

and perhaps i've been reading too many minimalist blog posts lately, but my real dream would be to start eliminating stuff from around the house that i don't love or use.  i go back and forth because, for example, i have a bin of stuff in the basement of extra "kitchen stuff" that i inherited from roommates in college.  it's second hand and i currently have no use for it.  but i keep it on hand because it's easier than not.  i know that if i was in the kitchen and suddenly i found a need for a certain kind of spoon/spatula/serving utensil/whatever, i could go buy one... but it's infinitely easier for me to just run to the basement to see if there's one in the bin.  and also, i'm getting annoyed at the mental clutter everything creates for me.  i think most people see stuff and forget about it in real time.  if they look in a drawer for a serving spoon, they're only thinking about that drawer in the moment they're looking at it.  that's not the case for me though... the stuff lingers on my mind.  i'm not even kidding when i say that those things keep me awake at night.  i can think about cookie cutters and be all "ugh, i never use those... i should just get rid of them so they stop getting stuck every time i try to open and shut that drawer" while also thinking "i need to be the kind of person that uses cookie cutters... why can't i be one of those people that's making a plate of fall sugar cookies in the shapes of pumpkins and acorns and delivering them to friends and neighbors?!  i'm such a failure for not ever making sugar cookies with cookie cutters" and it just goes back and forth and on and on.  yes, i know, i totally need counseling.  ; )

for the record, i did finally get the boy clothes all sorted out (and filled two large trash bags with clothes to donate/give away) and i think it's in a way that will work well and be simple to "shop" from when... and if... brady ever grows big enough.  it feels good to be able to celebrate that i like the clothes i've chosen to keep and that i can feel good about giving away the other clothes to someone who will actually use them.  now really, i just need someone to coach me through everything in my house and tell me what i need to keep/get rid of.  i'm really good at organizing but not so much at making these kinds of decisions.  i'm thinking my dad would be perfect for the job... i wonder how soon i could get him to come back to help me...

or maybe my mother will when she comes back in town next month.  because woohoo!  only four more weeks!

busy running in circles

lately, i feel like my head is cloudy.  i feel like i'm always running late, always busy, always playing catch up, but i really don't feel any focus or direction.  i know a lot of this is linked to the phase abigail is in right now (taking forever to do everything, needing to be by my side constantly, stalling allthefreakingtime, and being whiny and wearing on my patience) and that i'll have to suck it up and just ride it out, but it's hard.  yesterday and today especially.  

abigail is skilled.  she can completely dress and undress herself.  she puts her dirty clothes (and clean clothes actually!) away.  she puts her diapers (and brady's!) in the diaper pail.  she wipes up her spills.  she turns on her own nightlight and picks out her own bedtime story.  she goes to the bathroom by herself and needs minimal assistance washing her hands (i have to squirt the soap for her).  she feeds herself and takes her dirty dishes to the sink.  she cleans up her toys.  she gives brady toys and a binky if he's fussy.  she climbs in and out of her car seat.  and although i'll stop there, she does a million more awesome things that i don't even have time to type out right now.  she's pretty amazing.

the thing that bothers me though is that all of those things take for-ev-er.  really FOREVER.  it can easily take two hours from the time she wakes up to the time we walk out the door and the only thing she's done in the meantime is get dressed and eat breakfast.  same story getting home from somewhere.  we can get home at 1 and somehow it takes two hours to eat lunch and get ready for nap.  there's typically three hours between the time she gets up from nap and the time she goes to bed.  the entire three hours is spent painstakingly trying to move her from one activity to the next.  it drives me crazy because really i just want to to go the playground or play in the playroom or bake a treat or something but it's almost never possible because we barely even have time to read a book.  i have a lot of experience with kids.  and with kids of this age.  i know they like to do things by themselves and they stall before naps and are pokey about eating lunch.  but somehow, my kid takes this to a whoooooooole new level.  i talked to my friend, weed, about it and she kept saying the same thing over and over again.  basically, we believe in reincarnation.  because three year old abigail is the three year old me.  sadly, i'm still the slowest person i've ever met in my entire life but that's a whole other post for another day.

anyways, today, we woke up, went to the playground with friends, had nap time (not "napped" because abigail hasn't actually fallen asleep for nap time in over a week), cleaned up/watched strawberry shortcake/took a shower while brady napped, had young womens at my house while my mil watched my kids, and went to bed.  but yet, the whole day was just rushing from one thing to the next.  i didn't even get a chance to shower until riiiiiight before everyone showed up at my house for the activity.  no makeup and my hair was still completely wet.  i just want a lazy day at home with my kids.  baby girl, don't take 20 minutes stalling going to the bathroom and maybe we'll have time to make brownies, okay?

 

how does this even happen?!

 

he woke up from this nap after 45 minutes, completely hysterical.  not sure if it was because he wasn't swaddled or because my mil went in to get him since i was downstairs with the yw.

ding dong ditching treats

no reason why all three of them needed to sneak to the door and run back but it definitely made things more fun that way.

one laughs and then the other laughs and then they both just laugh harder.  best snowball effect ever.

they rolled all over together.  alllll over.  laughing and giggling and squirming and rolling.

i'm just the awkward third wheel.

 crossing my fingers that tomorrow will be less "busy" and more clear and carefree.  and that i'll magically have a ton of patience and my house will stay clean.

the cell phone saga

meet my current cell phone... as of less than four hours ago.

it's a samsung sway.  and i actually got it several years ago right before we moved to california... sooo fall of 2009.  it was cute and sleek and had all these cute font options and everything... i was in love.  but then for the next 8 or 9 months as i was loving everything else about my phone, i was hating the super short battery life.  standby time was less than 24 hours and the talk time was about 1 hour before the battery was drained and the phone shut off.  it was a huge pain.  after a million equally terrible refurbished phone replacements (can't verizon just admit it's a crappy phone that shouldn't be on the market and refund my money for a working phone?!) i gave up.  we struck a deal with the store manager that i could get a brand new phone as long as i started my two year contract over again from the current date.  so basically he let me out of the other two year contract and i started a new one, getting a new phone with it.  it was better than nothing but i was still annoyed to have to start a new contract.  and during that 8 months, verizon had changed their policy on phones and data packages so there were about 4 options for phones that didn't require a pricey data package... and they all sucked.  oh well... i got one anyways, just excited for a phone that i could talk on for more than an hour and didn't have to charge multiple times a day.

enter the lg cosmos.

i tried to console myself that maybe this phone would be cool because it slid open to reveal a full keyboard and might be easier for texting and stuff.  and actually it had a few things on there that i really liked... like the way it grouped my text messages by person.  i used this phone for almost a full two years.  until 2.4.12 actually... when i posted this post... after dropping my trusty lg cosmos in the toilet.  it actually dried out and worked somewhat after a few days but the wires were loose so to speak.  certain buttons did random unrequested tasks.  and occasionally it would just start scrolling through my contacts quickly and indefinitely until i turned off the phone.  i said goodbye to the cosmos and hello to...

honey's phone from 2006.  

i don't even know the name of this thing.  but it's six years old.  and it looked it.  iphone friends that had previously made fun of my cosmos for being a dumb phone were now speechless with the return of this ancient flip phone.  this phone had the mp3 option so if you pressed that "play" button you see there on the front, it would blast out your stored music.  i think there are less than 10 songs on there.  all from a chris merritt cd we bought at a provo street concert that first summer we were married.  talk about fond memories. and by the way, i sure miss our provo house.  anyways... this phone had some cons... short battery life (because it was so old) and that even if the phone was on silent, if that play button got pressed in my pocket or purse, it would blast out chris merritt.  which seemed to keep happening at very inopportune times.  like a baptisms and such.  or when i was leaning over the crib to place my drowsy babe inside... BAM!  CHRIS MERRITT!  and baby startled wide awake.  anyways... the main plus side was that a dance party was only a click away, and i really enjoyed that it was an extremely easy phone to text on.  oh wait... maybe the biggest con ever?  it was made before texting was big so the inbox held a grand total of... wait for it... 56 texts before it would start rejecting messages and telling you to clear out your inbox.  chris had some texts on that phone "locked" that couldn't be deleted... so really i only had space to receive about 30 texts before i had to start deleting them to clear more room.  that took more time out of my day than picking out what clothes to wear.  which trust me is a lot.  because i HATE picking out clothes in the morning.  loathe entirely.

anyways, i was able to overlook those cons and appreciate that i had a working phone.  i just kept brainwashing myself that i must have the easiest phone ever to text on.  my life with this est. 2006 phone was great until one april morning about two weeks ago, when my phone stopped making sound.  it wouldn't ring, it wouldn't alert me for texts, it wouldn't make a noise if i set the alarm to wake me up in the morning.  and if i made/answered a phone call, i couldn't hear a single thing coming from the other end.  it was a phone that couldn't make phone calls.  but at least i could see missed calls and respond with texts.  if i needed to have an actual conversation with someone i could either use honey's phone in the evening, or if it was family/close friends, we would just skype.  it actually was only inconvenient a handful of times.  one being that one of my best friends, jodi, doesn't own a cell phone because they give her migraines.  she only has a house phone... which doesn't text.  the only other annoying times were twice when i had a back and forth text conversations with christopher that took ten minutes when it could have been replaced with a 20 second phone call.  other than that, i really didn't mind not ever hearing my phone ring.  although i will say one weird thing is that it wasn't completely mute.  it would ring if my christopher called (he had a different ringtone than everyone else) and it still would blast chris merritt in awkward situations.  i asked my mother to send me her old razr phone asap monday morning.  because honestly, it's really scary knowing that if something happened to your child, you'd have no way to call 911.  it came in the mail wednesday afternoon (having a mute phone for almost a week, this was SUPER exciting!)  i literally tore it out of the box, and flew out the door to hit up the verizon store before our relief society activity.  it took about 10 mins to transfer activation and contacts and i was out of there.  when i asked the guy why the sound only worked sometimes he explained that it was a software error but that since the phone is so old, they don't make software updates for it anymore.  bye bye honey's 2006 phone.

hola mom's old razr.

this is actually the third razr phone i've had in my lifetime.  the first one was pink and i was in love with it.  like IN LOVE.  it fell in the toilet.  i was so sad and crushed that honey surprised me with a new pink razr off of craigslist.  after using it for a long time, the screen went haywire and i had to get a new phone... i think that's when i got the sway.  ANYWAYS... this was my phone from last wednesday night until this morning.  not even a full week.  i was very grateful to have a phone that had sound but three things about this phone absolutely killed me.  first, it used iTAPEN to text... not word.  for someone that's been texting with word for the last several years, this made my texting about as efficient as a 90 year old on an ipad.  also, there was  a six second delay between the time you pressed a button and the time the screen changed.  my phone would make a little ding, i'd see that the screen said "message from _____" and click okay to view.  an then i'd wait. one, two, three, four, five, six... actually, maybe it was longer than six seconds.  and if you really want to know how long six seconds is... watch it tick away on a wall clock.  like a little miniature eternity.  anyways... when i thought the suspense was just too much to bear, the message would finally appear.  you think this is something you'll get used to after a day or two.  i am here to tell you that is not the case.  it is actually just the opposite.  anyways, the third con... battery life... go figure.  just because it was so old it needed to be charged twice a day.  once over night and then once during the late afternoon.  so the max it could be unplugged was about 7 hours.  not at all inconvenient.  regardless, i am extremely grateful to my mother for lending me this phone... i appreciated it while it lasted.  which as i said was about 6 days.  because after our young womens kickboxing activity last night, i had to stay for a youth conference meeting.  and i had baby girl with me because honey's out of town.  well, she was doing really great on my lap for the first half hour but then got anxious and fidgety.  i don't know if i had my phone in my hand or in my lap or in my pocket or what but at one point, baby was squirming on my lap and the razr phone fell to the ground.  the back popped off and the phone turned off.  with most phones, this is pretty common if it's dropped.  so i picked it up, popped everything back in place and turned it on... the keypad lit up but the screen did not.  and has not since.  i could answer incoming phone calls but without a screen couldn't make outgoing calls, see missed calls, text, or do anything else.  having a phone without sound is infinitely better than a phone without a screen.  

so this morning we went to the park with friends from church and although it was hugely inconvenient that i wasn't able to text anyone that i needed to, it was once again the panic that, in an emergency, i wouldn't be able to call for help.   i went straight home (i was in such a hurry that i left abigail buckled in her car seat in the garage while i ran upstairs to look for more phones.  we have a plastic bucket upstairs where we keep random electronic stuff like old phones.  rifling through there i found my old samsung sway that i'd completely forgotten about!  i grabbed that and its charger, got in the car and went straight to verizon.  it was almost 12 30 which is creeping up on lunchtime but i wasn't worried because last time it only took ten mins to activate a different phone.  well, for other random reasons, it took over an hour inside the verizon store and multiple calls to customer service from both of my parents as well as the verizon rep helping me.  baby girl did great but i definitely had a headache when we walked out at 1 30.  it is no simple task to entertain a toddler in a verizon store for an hour.  but i have a functioning phone now (i'm sincerely hoping the battery life is not as terrible as i remember it... although at least i'm in the habit of twice a day cell phone charging now) and i'm thrilled!  because as stated before... this is a cute little phone, it texts with word, and i think i'm going to love it.  so let's just all pray that i'm not cursed and that the software on this phone won't give out anytime soon.  because as i'm sure we can all guess... they most likely don't have updates for the sway!

i kind of feel like i need a family tree or ancestry.com or something to showcase my cell phone lineage.  until they invent that sort of thing, this picture will have to suffice.  the cosmos begat the mp3 flip phone, and the mp3 flip phone begat the razr, and the razr begat the sway.  and thus ended the ten weeks in the spring of 2012.

although i find this a little amusing because it was actually the low battery life sway that begat the cosmos.  so is the circle of life cell phones.

so there you have it, as promised in this post (which was, ironically, before this most recent phone break), my rant about cell phones.  and in case it wasn't clear, i will clarify that we don't have a house phone so my cell phone is my only phone.  and if there was ever an emergency, it is my only way to call for help.  no working cell phone = no way to dial 911.  so, for safety reasons, i make it a point to always have a sufficiently charged and working cell phone.  

colorado weather

remember this post from our gorgeous weather trip to the park?  well, colorado is a little bipolar.  or schizo.  or has multiple personality disorder.  because today i woke up to temperatures in the 20's and this...

 

a forecast for ice pellets.  ice pellets?!?!  seriously?!  what are those?  and how are they different from hail?

never a dull moment around here i tell ya.

blessed are the meek

for they shall inherit the earth (matthew 5:5 and 3 nephi 12:5).

yesterday during our young women lesson, i talked with the girls about the word meek.  we'd read doctrine and covenants section 25 verses 5, 14, and 16 and i wanted to make sure they knew the definition of the word "meek" since it was mentioned multiple times.

 5 And the office of thy calling shall be for a ^acomfort unto my servant, Joseph Smith, Jun., thy ^bhusband, in his ^cafflictions, with consoling words, in the spirit of ^dmeekness. 

14 Continue in the spirit of meekness, and beware of ^apride. Let thy soul delight in thy ^bhusband, and the ^cglory which shall come upon him.   

16 And verily, verily, I say unto you, that this is my ^avoice unto all. Amen.

basically, it's counsel and revelation given to emma about her wifely responsibilities.  and then in the last verse, verse 16, it's basically a "ps- this is actually for everyone... not just emma."  so i had the girls write down their future to do list of wifely responsibilities and i wanted to make sure they knew what everything meant so they would be clear on how to fulfill it.


we talked about how the work "meek" gets such a bad rap in society these days.  that people associate it with being weak, submissive in a bad way, and basically crouching in a corner because you're too afraid and insecure to stand on your own.  then we talked about the true meaning of meek..."showing patience and humility; gentle, long suffering."  also that it's submissive in a good way, like how the scriptures say to be submissive like a child to his father.  i shared with them how my mother has always been a perfect example of this and how it's because of her that i have always striven to be meek... which i really don't think is a very common thing for people to strive for in 2012.  we talked about how the scriptures are never old fashioned... they are always for our day and they're always right, even when they disagree with society.  i really wanted the girls to know that meekness is an amazing quality they need to strive for.  and tonight only confirmed that for me.


honey and i were watching celebrity apprentice tonight.  we really love that show and it's the start of a new season.  i don't feel like explaining the whole concept of the show but basically, if your team loses a competition then the person in charge takes the two weakest people of their team and the three of them are judged by donald trump and one gets fired and has to go home.  so tonight donald trump was asking the team leader about the performance of his team  and basically who the two weakest people were.  the ones that didn't raise as much money, work as hard, etc.  and the team leader said "george.  there are a lot of strong personalities on this team and he just doesn't seem to have one.  he is really quiet and meek." MEEK.  he was saying that george should go home because he's not as macho and vocal as the other guys.  he was too much meek and not enough assertive.  and the thing is, donald trump was very surprised and taken aback that the team leader would use a word as offensive as meek.  donald trump actually defended george saying that he was a strong, smart, quiet type and that he didn't think meek was the right word at all.  and eventually the team leader took it back as well.  and WHEW, because heaven forbid should you ever on television use a word as offensive as meek!


so really i have no conclusion or wrap up... just this random story about how once again, society has it wrong and the scriptures have it right.  and it also reaffirmed to me the importance of keeping up with pop culture because it's insanely important to know what you're up against.  so for that reason, if nothing else, i am suuuper pumped for the rest of this season of celebrity apprentice!


ps- george didn't get voted off.  no worries.

insomnia... from the good life

i frequently have trouble falling asleep at night because my head is overwhelmed with thoughts of how great my life is.  and frequently during the day i do that awkward squealy voice is cracking giggle laugh while i get butterflies in my stomach and hop in place because i'm loving that moment so much.  i can't think of a time in my life that i have ever been happier than what i am right now.  that's a really good thing, right?

lately i've been wondering (not kidding, i just wrote "wonderful" on accident... words like that are just always on my mind) if that's really true.  i've been worried about that lately for a few reasons.

reason one:  i love my life so much that i'm getting a lot of anxiety about not being able to preserve time.  you can't freeze a moment.  each second only lasts that one second.  and you'll never experience that second again.  it's gone.  forever.  sometimes that's really great when you fall down and scrape your knee, but when you're me and you're playing with your baby all day and loving every second, you just want to take videos and pictures and blog about it but you also just want to enjoy the moment without having to look through a lens.  and the worst part is that no matter what you do, nothing will really preserve it.  putting together that puzzle and reading those books and watching your baby light up and scream "DADDY!!!!" while banging two pan lids together like cymbals can feel like the absolute best moment of your life... but there are so many... and they slip away and become fuzzy like all the rest.  i know more come, but i want all of them.  i want to keep them all in a little glass jar that i can see and hold and go to any time i want.  but i can't.  and it stresses me out in a very very bad way.

reason two:  i love everything soooooo much just how it is, that i'm hesitant for anything to change.  tomorrow something will change for me.  i'm excited about it but i'm also sad about it.  and really, i'm worried how it will affect my day to day life.  worried about "what if these changes make me not love my life as much?" or if i'll wish i could go back to how things were before.  and this feels like i'm opening a can of worms but i'll go ahead and say that something else along these lines is that i'm hesitant to get pregnant again because i know it'll change things.  i'll get sick, i'll be consumed with migraines, and i'll be miserable.  i guess i don't know that for sure because maybe it'll be different this next time around, but even if i got lucky, i'm sure i'd go through some sort of morning sickness... which will probably make me a less enthusiastic mom.  and then i'll have a baby.... a tiny little newborn.  and it'll be hard (because there is no freaking way i'm going to get an angel baby again) and i'll be tired and taking care of a toddler will become a chore and not the joy it is now.  i know this happens to people because i've heard many accounts of similar stories.  i know i can handle having two kids and three and four and five but right now?  my life is more than perfect with just the one and i don't want to rock the boat.  because that's kind of something you can't go back on.  there are a million more things i could say about this and explain the million ways in which i am torn, but instead, i'm going to go to sleep and pray my little heart out that i can get some of this emotional turmoil resolved.

tell me i'm not the only one though.  have you ever thought that maybe your good life is really just the calm before the storm?  comfort me.  please.

craigslist: is this a joke?

click to enlarge

there are so many things wrong with this i don't even know where to begin.  some people take themselves very seriously.  

first, i'm glad you listed the jars and the lids separately.  i used to use that same tactic when attempting to fill out my resume because i had no experience or anything in general that would make someone want to hire me.  

second, if there's no food inside, does it really matter that they're beechnut brand?  i bought beechnut for baby girl because it was the cheapest... little did i know of the superior quality of the jars/lids.  

smoke free home?  please.  like i need jars from a smoke free home (does glass pick up smoke smells?) to use for candles.

but really?  TWENTY dollars for some empty baby food jars?  i'm pretty sure i could pay about that amount for the same thing, with food inside that could actually feed my kid, and then just toss it in the dishwasher myself.  and lastly, if you are hoping to blow another ten dollars, have them carefully packaged and then flat rated to your door.

i really really really hope this is a teenager trying her hand at being a young entrepreneur.  this can't actually be a real mom, right?  

but if it IS a kid, i have to say that it was excellently written up and a far better idea than those kids in my neighborhood trying to sell me a rock.  i mean, whatever happened to a good lemonade/hot chocolate stand?!?!  

where does the time go?

i recently read this washington post article about what stay at home mom's do all day.  i have to admit that i frequently wonder myself.  i feel like i'm doing stuff all day long and then somehow my honey arrives home that evening and i'm struck with the "what on earth did i do all day?" question.  well, to help me answer this question, i've started to sometimes take pictures (of course) to help myself remember and give myself some slack.  

disclaimer: you are about to see pictures of every toiletry i own.  shield your eyes if you're not into that sort of thing.

my honey has 6:30am meetings every sunday morning because he's the ward clerk.  he normally gets home around 10ish and frequently passes out for a little while in the hours before church starts at one.  this was the case this sunday morning.  so while i showered and got ready, baby girl roamed free in our master suite (feel free to laugh...it's a joke... i don't really call my bedroom/bathroom a suite).  i feel like it doubles my time to get ready (while simultaneously halving my patience) when i try to put things away as she takes them out, so this time, i did not try to clean up while the mess was being made.  i just focused on getting ready.  which still took forever because i had to go looking on the floors for everything i needed.

so while my bathroom counter tops and floors normally look like this...

just the bare minimum: soap, lotion, picture frame...

after getting ready for church on sunday, they looked like this...

like a bathroom WWIII with a million toiletry casualties

and dangerous things like nail polish items, bag of edible choking hazards candy, box of tiny jewelry, etc. all had to be taken away and relocated up high. 

this gives me a panic attack just looking at it.

what i would give for my kid to show this enthusiasm to her toys...

so while i could write a novel about my thoughts on this subject, i'll just instead, take a deep breath, sign off, and get some rest, so i can do it all again tomorrow.  

i lead a charmed life.

trunk or treat

saturday was our ward's fall festival/chili cook-off/trunk or treat. our sweet girl was a little bunny and i'm not much for costumes so i wore my orange sweater and black pants. i called myself the official mascott of halloween. my christopher dressed up as santa. it confused quite a few kids.

baby is chomping on a [wrapped] sucker. i was sooo excited about collecting candy this year since baby was only 3 months old last halloween. sooo i'm a little bit bitter about how trunk or treating went down... to say the least. i either got comments from people like "ohhh this is for mommy, isn't it?" or "hmmm, let me find something she can have. here! have a sucker!" as if a nazi mom like me is going to actually give their baby sugar.  it's all about having a positive experience.  does it really matter who's going to eat this crap?  so we cheerfully said "thanks!" and went on our way. thanks? yeah right. i just handed over $15 of milkyways, 3 musketeers, snickers, and twix for santa to hand out to your make-the-rounds-eight-times-kids, don't give my baby a single dum dum and send us on our way.  i got like eight suckers and only 3 pieces of chocolate.  that. is. not. good. enough.  i know i know... i'm a grinch. i really don't care because i'm too busy laughing about it.  i just get a kick about such a double standard.  my husband is giving out good candy to your kids, so get your husband to give out good candy to my kid.  got it?  got it.

one of my favorite things about halloween candy is that you get to eat candy you wouldn't normally buy, or didn't even know existed. my favorite from last night? some sort of starburst gummi gushers. delish.

i used to recieve a card like this every halloween from my precious and adoring grandmother. sadly, not this year.

i feel so betrayed.

she's a real person now

i'm going to come clean a little.

maybe you remember, maybe you don't.  i tried not to write about it more than necessary because i didn't want it to come off the wrong way but, baby girl was the easiest, most angelic baby ever born.  she cried twice in her first four weeks alive.  once at the hospital getting her newborn bath and when she was three weeks old and i took her on a walk on a windy california beach.  both times were less than a minute and a half.  the only way i'd know if she was asleep or awake was if i walked in her room to check.  i would swaddle her, lay her down and leave.  "set it and forget it" always came to mind.  i'd peek in every hour or so to check on her.  around that three hour mark, if she was still sleeping, i'd wake her up to eat and play.  often though, i'd go in to find her just hanging out, wide eyed and waiting.  she could be hungry, tired, poopy, bored, overstimulated, you name it, and she wouldn't cry or fuss.  at 9 weeks old she was sleeping 12-13 hours a night without waking up.  and then she'd take three 3 hour naps during the day.  she was only awake for about an hour at a time in which i could hold her and play with her or i could just lay her down so she could watch me clean or do the dishes.  it was a very charmed life.

fast forward to now.  none of that applies anymore.  travel happened.  teething happened.  growth spurts happened.  travel happened again.  teething happened again.  packing and moving happened.  even more travel happened.  weaning happened.  molars happened.

and individuality happened.

my days are so very different now.  i know that's to be expected.  a newborn isn't like a toddler.  but everyone will lead you to believe that toddlers are easier.  i knew this wouldn't be the case for us because it was physically impossible for my newborn to get any easier, but it has still been a little difficult at times.

now, my baby fusses.  she cries.  she wakes up during the night.  her naps can be inconsistent.  she's a picky eater.  she's mobile.  she yells.  she gets into everything.  she gets hurt.  she requires constant attention.  she tests my patience.  she has opinions.

she's a real person now.

before, she was my little baby doll.  i dressed her up and posed her for picture after picture.  i fed her whatever i wanted her to eat, whenever i wanted her to eat it.  i took her wherever i wanted to go.  she slept whenever i wanted her to and for how long i wanted her to and where i wanted her to.  she stayed where i put her and played with what i gave her.  my self centered life was able to go on exactly as it always had.

these days, more is required of me.  sometimes i have to give up sleep.  sometimes i give up activities.  sometimes i give up my OCD.  sometimes i give up my physical energy.  sometimes i give up my sanity.  sometimes i have to swallow my pride and admit defeat.  sometimes i have to strategize.  just kidding.  always i have to strategize.  strategy is key.

but it's sooooo worth it.  it's fun.  and exciting.  and rewarding.  when i hear my baby wake up, i rush into her room to get her.  i jump up and down and talk in a creepy high-pitched sing song voice because i am so giddy in love with her and so excited to play.  i love my little girl like crazy.  i'm so thankful for her and that i get to be her mother.

these days, it's not so incredibly easy like it used to be.

it's soooo much better than that.

now what?

my honey has a tendancy in the evenings to fall asleep in places other than our bed.  it is most often on a sofa or the floor, which is much more than i can say for my only brother walter who frequently falls asleep sitting straight up or even at the kitchen table.  when guests are present.  very noisy guests.  and more than ten of them.

anyways, i digress.  tonight my honey fell asleep in our bed (YEAY!), with his clothes on and contacts in and teeth unbrushed (BOO!), on top of the covers (BOO!), laying diagonally (BOO!), with his head at the foot of the bed (BOO!),

RIGHT NEXT TO OUR BABY!!!  (who also has her clothes on and teeth unbrushed.  luckily she does not have contacts in... but she doesn't have a fresh diaper on.)

BOO!!!!!!
so now what?!?!  normally i would just wake him up, tell him to get ready for bed, and be done with it.  but what do i do about our baby?!?!  i can't wake her up because it'll be like a power nap and she won't want to go back to sleep.  and i can't just cozy on up with them because they are taking up the entire bed with how they're sprawled and i have a thing about needing to be under the covers.  i'm that person that can't go to sleep in an unmade bed.  it needs to be in perfect order before i crawl in.

and i can't just sleep in a different bed because 1) i don't like to sleep alone and 2) i'm sure my honey would roll on top of our baby... if she hadn't already managed to fall off the bed herself.

sometimes i feel like a single mom of 2.  one very big, one very tiny.  both exceptionally precious.

ps- tonight we went on a family date to walmart and bought me a bike.  with my honey's bike already having a babyseat, we're all ready to take advantage of the millions of miles of bike trails around here!  woohoo!

flat hair

remember that post about baby's fabulously downy fro puff hair?  well, here's the follow-up update because we're no longer sporting that style.

two weeks ago, baby's hair started filling in like crazy.  i mean i noticed it from day to day that week.  people say that you don't notice the changes and growing up of your own baby because it's so gradual and while i'm finding that to be very very true, this hair growth has been an exception.  it was fast and noticeable and lasted a whole week start to finish.

her hair went from this sweet 80's fro puff,

to this sleeker, more sophisticated style,

in a week!

ps- we're not ALWAYS in bed.  i have to take all of her hair pictures in front of the tv because the lighting and the black backdrop offer perfection when it comes to capturing her little blond baby hairs.  although we do log quite a few hours in bed so baby can practice sitting and scooting and neither of us have to endure our hard, terrible, scratchy student housing carpet floors.

and do not judge me for that crap on the dresser and tv.  FOR THE LIFE OF ME, i can not get my precious husband to put his clothes anywhere other than on top of his dresser.  about a year ago though i decided that it would be good for my ocd, and consequently our marriage, if this problem disappeared.  so there are 3.5 drawers in his dresser and i have designated one whole drawer as the "junk drawer."  so as soon as he puts his clothes on the dresser, i slide them off and stuff them into his junk drawer.  problem solved.  i used to either throw them in the hamper or put them away in his closet but he didn't like that.  anyways, now, i don't have to look at them and my sweet christopher is not complaining that he doesn't know what i've done with his clothes.  clothes on dresser --> clothes in drawer.  how wonderfully simple.  but sadly, i just wasn't on top of my game this time.

want to hear the saddest story of my life?  honey and baby and i were at church on sunday waiting for sunday school to start when my friend's husband turns around and starts talking to us about who knows what.  during the conversation he comments on our child's super blonde hair (not sure why it shows up so much darker in pictures) and then asks if there are any blonds in the family.  i wanted to cry.  i'm supposed to be blonde.  i've always been blonde and i know i haven't seen the sun in the past five years and my hair has gotten darker but still, can't i at least pass for a really dirty blonde?  if i'm not blonde then what am i?!?!  i know i can't be brunette.  that would just be wrong.  talk about an identity crisis.  just thinking about it makes me die a little inside.  

but to end on a happy note, my beautiful blonde child.  she's even smiling in this picture.

probably because no one's accusing her of being a brunette.

does anyone else do this?

i'm a little behind on my journaling.  it's because i have a loose and unofficial rule for myself that i will not write in my journal when i'm in a down or off sort of mood.  i feel like most of my days are really happy, or at least content.  but sometimes when hard days come along, i just want to sit down and vent it all in my journal.  let me tell you that it does not make for happy reading.  it fills pages and pages full of books of things you really just want to forget.  things that you learned from and don't need to hold onto any longer.  so now, when i get really upset, i can type it up on my computer.  maybe i'll save it and read it again in a day or two when my concerns seem silly or long gone.  i get over stuff pretty fast so really, i can just delete stuff normally within 24 hours.  but that's only if i really have the energy and am feeling super anxious.  i'll go ahead and say that most of the time i'll just talk to myself.  go ahead and laugh.  i know it sounds ridiculous but it's true.  and it works.  it's very healthy for me, i swear.

so last night i got really upset.  so i couldn't journal.  still wasn't up for it today.  that's especially bad because we had a busy weekend so i was needing to catch up for a few days.  well, it will have to wait til tomorrow.  because even though i'm feeling better.  i'm still not in the clear.  i think the green light for journaling will come tomorrow.

but i've been wondering if anyone else does this too?  i swear i'm not delusional.  i know i'm not going to be 80 years old and catch myself telling someone that i've never lost my temper with my husband unless i've really lost my brain.  i'm pretty sure i'll remember that i wasn't perfect.  i don't need to write that stuff down.  but every day, so many simple and good things happen.  things that i'm jealous of myself for experiencing if that makes any sense at all.  i actually don't know if any of this is making any sense.  but i guess that's what happens when you talk to yourself all day... leaves you in the mood to type.  i LOVE typing!  but back to what i was saying... i only want to write down the things i want to remember.  maybe that's superficial and fluffy but i don't care.  call me emotionally unstable, but for the same reason i don't like to watch the news, i don't like to detail bad experiences to keep them fresh in my mind for years to come.

does anyone else do this?  only write the good stuff?  i'm really curious to know...


and on a completely unrelated note...  i spent over an hour on the phone tonight with my blogging sister, emmy, while she went to a million different (like six) redbox locations to find the movie she wanted.

have no fear emmy, i blotted out your zip.

it was like a redbox scavenger hunt!  or amazing race!  well, maybe not.  but it sure was fun.  she was in her car in utah and i was on my computer here in california.  and i kept hitting the refresh button to track which redbox location(s) her movie was at.  that site is in real time.  she would be just arriving at one location and i would hit the refresh button and find that within the last minute, the movie was gone.  repeat repeat repeat.  so this was the screenshot from right after she picked up her movie.  only one location (with likely only one copy of her movie) left within fifty miles!

long winter's nap

i think my baby is hibernating.  i put her down for a nap at 5:30 and she never woke up.  ordinarily i would have just marched on in at 7:30 and gotten her out of bed.  except i couldn't do that tonight.  because i was also napping.  and i was counting on baby to wake me up.  didn't happen.

so when i woke up at 8:30, she had already been asleep for 3 hours.  i should have just rushed in there and gotten her awake.  that would have been the smart thing to do.  but i was tired.  and lazy.  and i decided to "think about it" which turned into forgetting about it.  until 9:30... and then it was really too late.

it's my own fault though.  because last night i took her to girls night with me since honey had a basketball game at 10 and couldn't stay home to watch her.  so with the exception of 20 minutes or so, she was awake from 7 until... after midnight.  go ahead and think i'm a bad mom for doing that.  i do.  but i still wouldn't change my decision to take her out.  in fact, i'm sure i'll probably be doing it again next week.  so she got to bed really late and woke up at her normal time.  8:15ish or something i think.

enter conflict number two.  bizkids story time.  we slept through music time last week so we couldn't very well sleep through story time too!  so even though she'd only been awake for less than an hour, i put her down for a nap.  great.  except that i woke her up 40 minutes later to get her dressed and go.  afternoon nap was 2.5 hours which is pretty long, but on our family walk she was looking so sooooooooo tired.  that's when we put her to bed for her late afternoon nap.  and i haven't seen her since.  except for the four times i've had to slide her from the top of the crib back down to the bottom.  how does she move so fast in her sleep?  and why is it always up?

and when is my kid going to wake up?  i'm pretty confident that she's tired enough to sleep all the way til 8:15 tomorrow morning, or at least until 7 (i refuse to get up with her before 7:00), but i know she'll have to eat sometime in there.  if only i knew when that would be...

so in case you glossed over all of that (no reason why you shouldn't), let me summarize things for you...

my kid is asleep.

_________________________________________________

POST EDIT:  i woke baby up at 12:30 to feed her and change her diaper.  she was asleep by the time i finished brushing my teeth at 1:00 and didn't wake up again until 8:20.  SUCCESS.

and just for the record... i don't regularly go to bed at 1am.  it was only because i'd taken a late nap.