monday... when i was awesome at life

most days i think i do little more than keep my kids alive.  my laziness and incompetence at life leaves me plenty of days that i can enjoy but not that many days i can truly call a success.

but today i did a lot of things i don't usually do and it made for a pretty wonderful day.

i think i woke up between 7:30 and 8, ate some cereal, and, after checking facebook for a bit, realized i was being stupid, and so i got out my personal progress book that hasn't been touched since i got released from young women's.  i read some scriptures and journaled and crossed off choice and accountability number three and it was very satisfying.  definitely a better start to my morning than just checking facebook.  abigail came downstairs later than usual and so we went back and forth with her about how "i don't like to clean my room" wasn't a valid reason to skip putting away her pj's.  and then when her room was clean, i got her some cereal.  i'd been texting liza about food so then she called and we talked about food and she motivated me to take my kitchen by storm... kinda.  but it was very motivating (i even put stickies on certain pages of my cookbook with liza's notes about the recipes).  i got off the phone with liza around 11 and brady was calling out for me from his crib so i got him up.  and then the kids and i made banana muffins and both kids shared a bowl of oatmeal while the muffins baked.

and then they danced while i cleaned up and texted or something.  i put brady down for a nap a little before two and then went back and forth with abigail about how "i don't want to have quiet time" wasn't logical reasoning enough to change my mind.  i read two books with abigail.  one with a character named emmy and one with a walter.  it was great.

honey had been texting me about taking dinner to a family he knows from work so once the kids were set for quiet time, i went downstairs and made chicken enchiladas.  some for them, some for us.  at 3:30, i told abigail that quiet time was over and go to potty and get her shoes on.  i got dressed, and then i grabbed brady from his crib and got us all in the car to pick up my friend's kids from school.  it was my first time in an elementary school pick up carpool line... i won't lie... i was nervous about it, but all turned out well.  we got home at 4:15 and then all of the kids played together.  mostly basketball in my great room and i'm happy to say that nothing and no one got broken.  the parents came to pick up their kids at 5:30 and then abigail and brady cleaned up, honey came home to get the dinner and a frozen pie, i started a thomas show for the kids, and honey left to drop off the dinner.  i put our enchiladas in the oven and started on the squash.  i set the table for us all right down to silverware and drinks and even dished abigail and brady's plates (so their food could cool down and they wouldn't have to wait five minutes after the prayer to start eating) and honey came home at the exact perfect time.  we all sat down to eat and enjoyed a wonderful dinner together.  brady's favorite part was the blackberries, abigail's favorite was the enchiladas, and my favorite was definitely the squash.  but all four of us finished our plates and went back for seconds and thirds.  abigail ate so much i thought she was going to be sick.  cleanup was a breeze while honey took the kids up and all of us cooperated and had a peaceful time getting ready for bed.  the kids were down by 7:45 and honey took off to go for a run.

my kitchen is clean, my great room is clean (in my mind that might as well equate to my entire house being clean), i never yelled at my kids, i served two different families in need, fed my kids three hot meals, cooked muffins, enchiladas, and squash all within 6 hours, started my day with scriptures, and ended my day journaling (aka blogging).  as you can see, a lot of things that aren't typical for me.  so i definitely mark this one as a success.

there's just something about mondays for me... they just always seem to be above average.  and thank goodness for that... i'm very appreciative of it.

puppet show and girls night

brady woke up sometime during the night and ended up in bed with me.  it's difficult to get up and showered when you awake entangled in a sleeping babe.  when i finally freed myself, he squirmed his little body over the edge of the bed.  so then i just waited and watched while he got closer and closer and closer and then i grabbed his leg as he was falling head first off the bed.  ; )  he was like a little sleeping inchworm.  see, these are the specifics i wonder of people that cosleep with mobile children.

brady was a little frightened by the situation and still really sleepy.  his cuddling has been out of control lately.

since abigail had a cousin sleepover, it was just mom and brady and me.  we went to the puppet place and met up with liza and all the kids.

while we were waiting, brady decided he was keen on crawling.  mom and i were just cracking up.  seriously so random.

the puppet show was peter rabbit and it was really cute.  the kids were all wonderfully behaved and it was a lot of fun.  abigail is temperamental about pictures... but i swear she only put on the frown for the picture.

cousin love

sister love

abigail was getting pretty whiny about wanting these angry bird graham crackers i wouldn't let her have at the time.  i started taking pictures of the mean faces she was giving me while she was complaining and once she saw i was taking pictures, it was a split second of silence followed by "cheeeeese!"

cheeeeeeese!

 i told her she couldn't have the angry bird crackers because we needed to eat lunch first.  but my parents' pantry is too tempting for me as well and i made kettle corn that we all shared.  very nutritious.

since brady's sleeping is so terrible lately (i'm nearly positive it's teething), i had to lay down with him to get him to nap.  which led to both of us napping in my bed for a few hours.  when we woke up, we all headed to walmart for some birthday shopping for abigail.  abigail picked out princess themed plates and napkins and a table cloth for her party.  abigail wanted every single thing we saw and it was great to see the things she was interested in/became easily bored with.  we lost track of time until mom said "oh my goodness carrie, it's almost 8!"  crap.  the plan was for me to be at lynell's at 8:30 and there was no way i was going to be able to finish my shopping, check out, get home, feed the kids, get them ready for bed, spend 30 minutes getting brady to fall asleep, and drive to lynell's house in less than two hours.  we quickly finished our shopping, i helped super fast at home with the kids and then ditched my mother with two grumpy kids, one being a baby that cries endlessly and refuses to sleep.  give me the dual mother of the year award and daughter of the year award.  my mother is a saint.  thank goodness for her.

i got to lynell's house and let myself [and a few cats] inside.  and then i sighed and smiled at this sweet sight.  so excited to meet little baby harper and so excited that lynell is a mom now!  warmed my heart.

we ate cheese cake and danced some irish jigs (lynell, want to email me that harper video?  i laugh just thinking about it) and talked about life.  so. much. fun.

lynell is an avid baker.  a true baking enthusiast as evidenced by her cake stand.

and then we took this little picture.  i got to be the photographer because i had the longest arms.

and then i came home and admired by little girl in her last moments of being three.  i kept looking at her like "when on earth did her legs get so long?!"

and when did she grow all of this hair?!

sometimes she just leaves me speechless.

random day of pictures

wednesday was the birthday of my favorite eldest sister.  this is how i celebrated...

i still really love those cheese eggs on toast (have i mentioned that i add cream and it makes them simply to die for?!) but i have another breakfast favorite too...  oatmeal!  a half cup of oats, one cup water, 1/4 cup flax seed (i'm currently out, and so is costco, and i'm really not happy about this... it's healthy but really, it adds amazing texture) and microwave for 2 minutes.  then stir in a few shakes of cinnamon and some brown sugar.  a little whole milk, a little whipping cream (not whipped), and one whole peach cut up (or a cup of diced strawberries).  it is knock your socks off incredible.  i guess you could make it healthier if that's your thing but i like sweets/dessert for breakfast and this hits the spot.  i might even prefer it to peach cobbler.  similar but doesn't give you that gluttonous nauseous ioverate feeling.

abigail plays with her dollhouse all day long.  sometimes brady and i join in on the fun.  when we do, we all like to play with "our" dolls.  i'm the mom, abigail is the blonde big sister, and brady is the little baby boy (sadly, his doesn't come in blonde but he doesn't seem to mind).  and when christopher gets home, he's the dad.  we all know our place.

i gave abigail a haircut.  i love and hate it.  mostly hate it but it was necessary.  her hair barely grows (it's been the same since she was 18 months old) and so thin and fine.  it was growing longer on the bottom but not on the top and since it was so thin, it just looked like a stringy little mullet.  as her mother, i thought it was cute because it perfectly resembled my hair at that age but honestly, if i looked at her through unbiased eyes, it looked just plain bad.  so i cut it.  i evened out the bottom and gave her a little bob.  i kept as much of the length as i could (the right side was significantly shorter because she doesn't ever twirl knots with her left hand) while evening it out as much as i could.  chris says she looks like a boy and i say she looks like she has a helmet haircut.  anyways, it was necessary and so even though it totally changes her look and makes her look so much less like my baby pictures, i try not to cry about it too much.  someday it will grow, right?!

my friend, jodi, dropped off a few new nail polishes for me on friday (she's always getting fun stuff for abigail and me and dropping off delicious treats so even though my toes looked absolutely horrendous all week, i'm going to pretend it was just a coincidence).  as soon as abigail saw my freshly painted toes, she begged me to paint hers too.  it took a few days but finally happened and i painted her fingers too.  she looks so adorable with painted fingernails and it's such a flattering color.  so i'll try to forget the fact that she "ate off" all of the polish on her right hand.  it's just her toes and her left hand that are blue but it's still pretty cute.

 

i can't stop sneaking into brady's room to take pictures of him while he sleeps.  i hit the timer button on my baby app when i put him down and then when it's been between 15 and 30 minutes, i sneak in and take pictures of him.  he's just so adorable i can't help it.

abigail is all over the place.  there should be a support group for parents with three year olds.  em said her three year old is only good or bad.  abigail is allllll over the map.  good, bad, and every single thing in between.  lots of in between.  i am comforted though that she said her little girl was terrible at three but it completely awesome now.  it may be a long tunnel but there is a light at the end!  also, abigail would sooo greatly benefit from learning to tell me not to yell.

i'm an idiot.  my three year old still wants to sleep in a crib but i occasionally push her to try out her bed.  three times in the space of forty five minutes, she came downstairs.  three strikes you're out, so i put her in her crib and she came downstairs again.  it wasn't even until fifteen minutes later that it clicked and i realized she must have climbed out.  ha.  not a successful nap day.  (today started out with tantrums to nap in bed, getting out of bed, tantrums because i insisted on the crib, and then i broke down and gave her a binky and she fell right asleep.  struggles.)

this guy's naps have been shorter... like an 1h20 instead of 2h20.  my days have been much less productive as of late.

i put brady in his bumbo and then ran to my room for a minute to look up a recipe on my computer.  while i was doing that, i heard a thump from the kitchen and thought to myself "oh no!  brady fell out of his bumbo!" but when i listened, i didn't hear any crying.  so i thought maybe he'd just grabbed the thomas book that sits on abigail's little wicker toy basket and the book falling to the floor was the thump i'd heard.  umm nope.  it was definitely brady  jumping out of the bumbo.  and he was just happy as a clam about it.

monday morning my honey left for salt lake.  wednesday morning he flew from slc to st george for a quick meeting before coming home.  i wasn't expecting him until later and didn't have a real dinner ready so i told him i'd make him an egg salad sandwich.  he said yes, he'd like french bread and no, the bread didn't need to be toasted but he'd like his sandwich with a little bit of love on top.  that guy's texts always makes me smile.

i think greek yogurt tastes horrendous.  but that doesn't stop me from buying it when i find a good sale.  this time was my first buying the greek gods brand.  i got two containers... one plain and one vanilla honey.  reading the side of the vanilla honey container it said it was a good substitute treat in place of ice cream.  i scoffed because i know how bad greek yogurt tastes.  but when i tasted it, i was blown away (i later checked the nutrition label and it has a whopping 32 grams of sugar per serving... that's why it's so delicious) and repented... purposefully scooping it out to look like ice cream.  the funny part?  my christopher and abigail both independently made comments about how i was eating ice cream.  so delicious.  it is still "healthy" for you when it has 32 grams of sugar and 14 grams of fat per serving?!  because we polished off that 24 oz container of it in less than 24 hours.

abigail has never liked baths.  as a baby, she rarely cried and rarely laughed.  friends would always tell me how their kid was soothed or excited by bath time but abigail always seemed pretty indifferent.  that's the same story now except it's accompanied by an intense fear of washing her hair.  so imagine our surprise when chris was showering and asked abigail if she wanted to shower.  i wasn't there but apparently, she just immediately stripped down and got in!  chris called me in to see it.  you can't see the water in this picture but seriously?!  all over her hair, face, ears, and she was enjoying herself!  is it weird if your three year old still sleeps in a crib but has already graduated from baths to showers?  not conventional... we'll see how this pans out longer term.

 

sooo, although my very favorite part of the day was actually talking to liza on the phone... which i didn't get a picture of... because were talking.... the rest of the day was pretty great too.  happy birthday liza!  i'm glad your birthday was so awesome!

an ulterior motive

i know i've said it a million times before, but brady could not have asked for a more adoring sister.  ever.  she is so sweet to him and tolerant of all the inconveniences of having a high maintenance baby brother.  she uses infant directed speech and constantly gives him kisses and hugs and tells him that she loves him (for the record, she has not ever not even one single time told me that she loves me... but brady and pooh bear get that luxury daily) and is willing to do anything that will count as service towards him like throwing away his diaper (she won't throw away her own anymore... just his) and bringing me his burp cloth or binky.  seriously, she is the most amazing big sister ever (except for my two.... love you liza and emmy!) in the whole universe.  so tonight he was hanging out on the floor when i turned around to see him surrounded by baby toys.  two minutes later baby girl came to me with this question...

"when brady gets bigger he can turn on thomas for me?"

and i said yes.

all this time i thought she was just being sweet... turns out she may have ulterior motives.

other notables from tonight:
"brady cries a LOT."  as we attempted to eat dinner while brady screamed in his swing every 5 seconds after his binky would fall out.

"don't throw it in the blocks!  i told you not to do that!" after she found brady's burp cloth in her big bin of legos.  and then she just kept telling me "i told you not to do that!" over and over again.  whoops.  i guess i made a mistake.

so we can conclude that abigail is only nice to brady because she wants him to grow up and turn on thomas for her (i can't blame her, i want him to grow up and kill spiders for me), this little boy is still very angry at life, and i discipline my child too much and she's ocd enough to call me out when i don't follow my own rules.  awesome.

A good day

Today was a success. I got a shower before 10am, Abigail had an awesome time at playgroup school sassy girls club, we went to the library and got new books (we now have 95 items checked out), abigail ate lunch and had time for ten minutes of Thomas before nap, both kids napped at the same time so I had two and a half hours to myself to do laundry and cleaning, I did a million loads of laundry start to finish, Abigail and I read books together in bed again for almost two hours, Brady was pretty low key and napped alright, Abigail scarfed down her meatloaf and strawberries for dinner, and I had both kids asleep by ten (even if Brady did wake up again at ten thirty), and my teething baby stops grunting and fussing and just goes to sleep after I give him orajel! I even vacuumed my entire house! Seriously, this is major cause for celebration. Look at me! I'm awesome!