Tuesdays with Evie

...and Dee, Jeigh, Elle, and Cee of course.

Oh, and Joe! He's home and balance has once again been restored to the universe.

Pink eye has claimed its third victim, but somehow it doesn't seem as tragic now that Joe is back. Everything's better when Daddy is home. Dee will be staying home from school tomorrow so as not to spread The Pink Plague; something he is not incredibly broken up about.

It is Tuesday, which means it's "Clean the Toy Room Tuesday", which means I was cleaning up toys and other random things --as it so happens in the toy room-- as Cee watched. Eventually she got tired of watching and fell asleep like this...

 

And like the good parent I am...I left her there to go find the camera and capture the moment before I scooped her up and put her in bed. Because moments like these are what makes parenthood so worth it.

Moments like those and moments like when I skipped out on the workout I had planned to sit down with my four year old in her little kitchen and chat with her about recipes, chocolate, her unstable relationship with peanut butter, tigers, her friends at school, the difference between "friends" and "cousins", and how my hair is going "blond". I can't even remember the last time we had such a good talk. She positively glowed with the individual attention she was getting from Mommy. Note to self: Those chats really must happen more often.

Don't worry! I didn't skip that workout completely. After our chat, Elle took it upon herself to pick the workout of the day and we did Zumba together. Well, we did Zumba together for about 5 minutes. Then she just sat on the fireplace step, watching and intermittently yelling, "FASTER, MAMA!", "WHY ARE YOU SO SWEATY?", and "WE'RE GOING TO HAVE LUNCH SOON, RIGHT?"

Four year olds are hilarious. Like when they come running to tell you that the baby is drawing on herself again.

Is that a stick figure the two year old has drawn upon her own back?

In other news, Cee suddenly doesn't like Muddy Buddies. I think she may have been switched at birth.

I can't watch "Lost" while I fold laundry. Too many subtitles. And too many kids walking in on too many scary parts.

The two older kids figured out how to do flips on the trampoline tonight.

Today, I voluntarily offered to run a half marathon race on Saturday. That's in--ahem--four days.

My poor little four year old niece just found out she has Type I Diabetes AND Celiac disease. My heart is breaking for her, but I'm feeling grateful that maybe Elle and I can help her a little bit.

One of my videos on YouTube is going "viral"-ish and it's kind of freaking me out that people are making comments on it, "thumbs-upping" it, and subscribing to my YouTube account.

And I found this lurking in the kitchen sink disposal...

Just another Tuesday at our house.

The Ides of March

Thanks to my high school English teacher I will forever remember March 15th as "The Ides of March" or...the day Julius Caesar was assassinated. Now if only I could remember my own children's birthdays as well...

We're spending the day trying to recoup from this crazy week. I'm feeling pretty drained, physically and emotionally, after being up every night with Cee (I can't remember the last time I slept more than an hour at a time) and speaking at a church meeting last night about my weight loss journey.

I was asked to speak AND sing last night, which I was very happy to do. I've just felt great anxiety about it, especially as my children have been getting sick and the chaos has been thick. (Hey! That rhymes!) I prayed many times, for many things, but especially that I would be well enough to deliver on Thursday. Being sleep-deprived and surrounded by pink eye and various other viruses, I felt doomed.

My prayers were most certainly answered and I could feel many times that we were blessed this last week even as I questioned why Heavenly Father wasn't helping out the way I wanted Him to. (Oh, stupid mortal.) So I promised that if I woke up this morning with the plague, I would not complain one little bit.

No plague for me. It looks like the blessings are still coming. (yay!)

After school and naps, I took the kids to the park. The weather is getting beautiful. Spring is here and we are so ready for it!


That's one lucky kid.

 

Then we did a little grocery shopping at Costco, stopped for hot dogs and pizza on the way out, and rushed home to make a Taco Pie and some Muddy Buddies for my brother-in-law, Jordan, who is celebrating his birthday today and has been living with us for 6 months while he works and tries to find a home of his own. I stuck a few candles in his taco pie and the kids and I sang "Happy Birthday" to him and then left him to his birthday dinner.

Later that night, as the kids were going to bed, I gathered my two oldest children together. We had saved a wishbone from a chicken earlier that week and it was dry enough to "wish upon". I told the kids to make a wish and then pull on the wishbone. Jeigh got the bigger piece and therefore earned her wish.

Dee burst into tears...followed quickly by Jeigh. Dee's emotion I could understand (kind of), but Jeigh's? Upon inquiry, she confessed that her wish had been that her birthday would not be like Uncle Jordan's.

She explained through sobs, "It was a terrible birthday! No friends and family. Just a couple of kids sitting around watching him eat, all alone. No excitement or presents. It's just sad! I don't want my birthday to be like that! I want excitement and lots of friends and family eating WITH me and being happy!"

I really had to work not to laugh because she was so sincere and sweet as only a six year old can be. Not to mention worried that she might end up with "no excitement" too.

Sorry, dear Jeigh, but after this week, I'm fresh out of "excitement".

It is Monday. And this is my life.

Watching "The Walking Dead" makes me want to beef up on my food storage. And guns. Lots and lots of guns.

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On Friday my four year old daughter let out a huge belch in the Costco food court. Before I could melt with shame an old man walked by and congratulated her. I might have congratulated her myself. Had we been at home. 

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 I left my crown and pearls at home, but other than that...TWINNERS!

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In a fit of familial fixing I decided we should declare Sundays "screen free". My husband whimpered a bit and settled into negotiations. "Screen-Free Sunday Evening" it is! On Sunday evening, we turned off the TV, the iPad, and the phones. And then we stared at each other wondering, "Well, what do we do now?" The kids decided we should play the game of Life. Little do they know, Joe and I "play life" every day and sometimes it doesn't feel so "gamey". But it was fun...until we pulled the lid off the box. And then it got very, very frustrating. Two and four year olds are not so big on Life. Six and eight year olds are, but they aren't so big on getting married or paying taxes or playing by the rules. Our first Screen-Free Sunday Evening didn't last long. But at least it happened.

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY MOM!!! I don't know if you read my blog anymore, but I love you and am so grateful for the influence you have been in my life. You are one of the biggest reasons I am what I am today. Thank you for teaching me about hard work and testimonies. Thank you for passing on your love of mountains and pioneers. Thank you for showing by example that anything is possible if you work hard enough and never give up.

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A couple of weeks ago, I posted this status on Facebook:

Waaaay back in high school, I was supposed to read "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad. But I didn't. I faked my way through the unit, probably because I was too busy being social or sleeping or something. I've felt guilty ever since, so today...today I will read "Heart of Darkness".

You are welcome, Mrs. Fleishchman.

And I STILL haven't been able to get through the first chapter.

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I also posted this on Facebook...

...And somehow I have once again managed to simultaneously feel incredible pride and humiliation. Kind of like when the four-year old belched in Costco.

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And this...while not posted on Facebook...makes me really not in the mood to make dinner.

I ran out of dishwasher detergent so I had to wash all of these...BY HAND! Oh the horror! Those are clean dishes. Why dirty them up now?

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On Sunday I seized the opportunity to bear my testimony in Fast and Testimony meeting as I had not been able to the month before, thanks to a woman who took the better part of 25 minutes relating to the church congregation just exactly what kind of medications she can and cannot take when traveling out of town. I had really wanted the chance to publicly express my heart-felt sentiments about my beloved religion to my son, who was recently baptized a member of our faith. As I did this on Sunday, I looked down to the bench where he was sitting to look into his eyes, which were bound to be tear-filled as I declared my cherished convictions...only to see him using his little sister's wooden dress-up doll to repeatedly bonk himself in the head.

Maybe I ought to find out what meds that other lady is on.

Keep Happy

Someone has been posting propaganda around our house. On every door upstairs you will find one of these signs...

"Keep Happy"

An uplifting reminder, lovingly created and posted by 6 year old Jeigh.

Also lovingly graffiti-ed by 8 year old Dee. His propaganda? The kid loves his Skylanders. The world should know.









Speaking of happy...

This is how we had fun on Saturday after being inspired by THIS video...

Bald is Beautiful?

They say "Bald is beautiful!" And the menfolk in my house whole-heartedly agree. My husband does not shed tears over a rapidly receding hairline. In fact, he embraces it. He cuts his own hair short short short and is looking forward to the day when it's all gone. Which, honestly, isn't too far off.

But the man is 31 years old. It's the time and season. While I don't care for his military length, I admire his positive outlook on what most of the world bemoans as a curse.

I just wish he would stop sharing his "bald is beautiful" mantra with our eight year old son. Bald is NOT beautiful when you are eight.

Dee has been begging and begging to go bald for a few months. At first I flat out refused. But he still pleaded. So I resorted to bargaining. If he would at least wait until after his baptism, then I would shave his head. I had hoped with time he would forget his "cue-ball quest", but it only seemed to intensify the burning desire within.

He was pretty excited about his baptism date, but I think 37.2% of that excitement could be contributed to it being the preliminary event to Mission: Hair Be Gone. Even the morning of his baptism he asked if we could cut his hair as soon as we got home from the church. Luckily, a luncheon and a household full of people was a fairly valid excuse even for an eight year old boy with passionate pursuits. The chaos of that and a Superbowl party and the oncoming week of school stalled him for another week, but today he walked in the door from school. With hardly a breath he asked yet again, "Can I go bald now?!"

With resignation, I got my clippers out and began to remove his handsome head of hair. I even used my own pink razor and shaving cream to take every last stray follicle from his sweet little head. Throughout the entire process he cackled and screeched with delight. "No one's going to recognize me! They are going to be SO surprised! This. is. so. AWESOME!"

Seeing how happy it made him, I couldn't help but get into the spirit of things. He may have a (now painfully obvious) odd-shaped head, but with that huge happy grin on his face...bald IS beautiful. It's fun to have a change every once in awhile. Hair grows back. No harm done.

Unfortunately, his sisters don't see it the same way...

Joy Toy Tuesday

For the past seven years I have noticed something about my home.

There are toys...E V E R Y W H E R E.

And those toys must be breeding like little bunnies because some days I wonder if they are going to take over the house. Typically it irritates me to have the mess of toys around the house but every now and then I find one placed just so that I can't help but laugh and remember just why I love being a mom so much.

Enter my new meme: Joy Toy Tuesday. Every so often I want to share a picture of the toy that was placed ever so carefully such that it reminded me just why being a mom is such a hilarious endeavor.

Conference meeting in my office. Stat.
We'll be discussing the downward trend of glitter, Barbie segregation, and how to cut the risk of snarly manes.