Guilt

I have felt guilty lately. Not because of anything that is going horribly wrong in my life. Actually, it is quite the opposite. I have felt guilty because of this little one.

He is just too patient and easy. I keep telling myself that Heavenly Father understands my struggles with Mason so he sent me an angel to restore my faith in boys. As many times as I repeat this in my head though, it doesn't change the pit in my stomach when I walk past Cade and he gives me a big grin and I rush on by.
Mason has started a little preschool with some of the kids in the neighborhood. It is nothing too formal but just a time for him to get out and interact with some other kids. This has been a blessing from heaven for me. I anxiously look forward to Mondays and Wednesdays because I know I will have a two hour block of time with Tylie in school and Mason at his preschool. Cade is often asleep during this time but there are times that he isn't. I lay him on the couch or in his swing and he patiently stares at the ceiling until I walk by. He will give me a big grin and then allow me to continue cleaning the house without making a peep. He doesn't demand much attention. The two other kids will burst through the door when my two hours are up and Cade will continue to wait patiently while they tell me about every person that sneezed and every knee that was scraped in the last two hours. By the time I finish making lunch, doing homework, and sweeping the floor I realize that Cade is still there in the same spot. I pick him up and play with him as long as I can until Mason spills apple juice all over the table and I am pulled away to clean up the sticky mess.
I feel like I am neglecting him in a way. I feel like I should be toting him around where ever I go but he allows me to put him down and so I do. I don't want him to have the third child syndrome. I don't want him to think he was just thrown onto the pile and forgotten. I want him to have just as much love as the other two. And he does- I just have less time to give it to him. I am not sure how to balance this. I do love the two hours we have together alone though. There is something very special when it is just him and I. He is my little sweetheart. I could do 10 kids if they were all like him. OK- I am getting carried away. But, he makes me love being a mom. He is a joy right now. As I am writing this I am picturing myself in the future. Sitting in my living room reading these words remembering that he was a good child one time. He will probably be up in his room screaming and kicking demanding a new kind of attention. It will be good for me to remember these times. After all- Mason was an incredibly mild baby until about a year. Then he flipped a switch on me. For now I will feel this guilt. I will try to internalize it for later. And I will enjoy having a wonderful baby. Chances are the next one will not be like this!

Choocack

Choocack. Yup. Choocack. Say it just like it's spelled.

It is 2 for 2 now with my kids. It seems that whenever I have a baby my children come up with imaginary friends. I guess it is just their way of coping with the dramatic change. With Tylie it was "pink baby" that appeared. Now with Mason it is "Choocack". He showed up about 2 months ago. It took me some time to figure out but now I am really enjoying our new friend. He gives Mason someone to talk to when I am feeding Cade. He love to eat breakfast with Mason in the morning. He enjoys long naps with Mason in the afternoon and makes it easy for mom to sneak out because choocack is there so Mason doesn't feel alone. He also likes to get into a lot of mischief with Mason. Whenever there is a huge crash and I go rushing into the room, it is always choocack's fault. That darn choocack likes to rip toilet paper off the rolls, dump a gallon of milk off the table, throw toys at Cade, and sneak treats out of the pantry. He is definitely much more trouble than pink baby ever was. I have enjoyed having him around though. I remember when pink baby left and never came back. It was a sad day for me. I just try to make choocack feel comfortable until he feels like it is his time to leave. And then I will anxiously await for Cade's "friend" to show up. It is times like this that I really love to be a mom.

"I need a place to put the lawnmower. The garage is just too small," Jake tells me. "OK," I replied. This is the phrase that started it all. I didn't think too much about it but that only shows my naivete. By now, after eight years of marriage I should know how my husband operates. He gets an idea in his head and by the time he mentions it to me, he has already put hours of thought into it. If I don't like the idea I better shut it down right away. Once the train leaves the station, there is no turning back. Jake has two speeds when he does a project. Off and light speed. When I didn't hold up the stop sign he took that as a green light to go. A few weeks later he brought it up again. "So where do you want the shed in the backyard?" he asked me. "Huh?" I questioned, "Oh! Are we really doing this?"
In my mind's eye I started to envision what he had in mind. This is what I thought would take up residence in my backyard.

For those of you that know anything about my husband, you are chuckling right now. As time went on, I realized that what I had pictured in my head and what Jake had in his were vastly different. My first clue came when he asked me what chunk of patio we should take out. Then he wondered what window we should block. He then came up with the idea of having a "small" clubhouse in the top for the kids to play in. The vision in my mind had to change a bit.

It was when Jake started calling the city and asking about height restrictions that I realized I had completely lost control of the situation. Alas, permits were obtained and construction began. Jake toiled relentlessly. He would rush home at night, shove down some dinner and rush outside to work until he could no longer see in the dark. He spent hours on the computer googling the best products to use. And thanks to us Home Depot had a record breaking year in sales. But I am happy to report that it is complete. Done. Finished! Contrary to what I had pictured, it turned out to be exactly what Jake had in mind.

Yup... there it is. The Taj Mahal of sheds that graces my backyard. I give Jake a hard time but I must admit that he did a fantastic job on it. I am proud of him that he carried through on his vision. It is the most elaborate clubhouse I have ever seen. Fully equipped with cable TV, heater, 2 motion detector lights, ceiling fan, carpet, bead board, deck, scalloped siding, and vaulted ceiling (ten feet high!). No, I am not trying to sell a house on the MLS. I know it sounds like it. Please know that I am not bragging. I am the first to admit that he went WAY over the top on this thing. I just want you to see how crazy all this actually is. So, there it is. The saga that has been our life for over a year. I just hope that the kids love it as much as he does and it is put to good use. We are off to a good start though. Santa loved it so much that he moved our tree up there on Christmas Eve and we celebrated there.

There is one tiny little fact that I must share with you though. A fact that makes me laugh and sob in the same moment. I was getting the kids out of the car the other day and I tripped over something as I was headed into the house. When I looked down I couldn't help but laugh at the irony. I tripped over the lawnmower. Yup... that's right. The lawnmower is still resting peacefully in the garage.

A walk down memory lane....

I turn thirty tomorrow. I am having a hard time with this one. Thirty. 3-0. 10,950 days. 262,800 hours. You get my point. A really long time. I feel old. I am no longer the "young adult" or the "newly wed" or even the "young mommy". Nope. I am the "experienced mom" (yeah right!) with three kids. I am in mid life. I am supposed to know what I am doing by now. All of these thoughts have me hyperventilating a bit. I am just not ready to be thirty. I just seems too grown up. Much more grown up then I feel. Anyway... with my birthday quickly approaching it was ironic for my parents to find an old chest of mine high up in their garage last week. They thought it was some old Christmas decorations and pulled it down. When my dad showed it to me, I kind of laughed and told him to throw it away. It was just a bunch of junk I had lived without for ten years and not missed at all. He refused and put the dusty old thing in the back of my car and sent me on my way. When I got home I started to sort through it, I learned a few things about myself.
First- I used to be a ridiculous pack rat! I found crap in there that you wouldn't even see on an episode of "Hoarders." I found ticket stubs, choir program pamphlets, tie dyed boxers, and about a million red pencils to mark my scriptures. None of them were sharpened. What does that say about me? I couldn't believe how I had saved every knick knack from Disneyland to girls camp. I had enough boondoggle in that box to supply summer camps for ten years. And why did I really think I needed to remember the exact date, time, and theatre of the five times I saw Titanic? Who knows but I can prove to you that I did see it five times because I have every ticket stub. And I can tell you who I saw it with. No, I don't have that great of a memory. I can tell you because I even went so far as to write it on the stub- every name of every friend that I went with! Pathetic! Embarrassing!
Anyway... Amid all the crap I did find a few golden nuggets that I feel I must share with you. Please note that this is bearing some of my most vulnerable and awkward stages in life. Go ahead and laugh, I did. Just keep your judgements to yourself.

First- The Wilfardo hat. This little beauty was given to each grandchild when we had a family reunion in Disneyland. I believe I was about 10 at the time. You could see about 30 of these babies running around Disneyland that whole week. My mom's hat, however, rarely strayed far from "It's a small world." She claimed that it was the only ride that Mark and Josh liked but it turned out that it was really her favorite ride. My favorite part about these hats were that they were all personalized. I am grandchild number 6- obviously.

Ahhhh... the classic mall photo booth. I particularly like this pic because it highlight the enormous zit protruding off my face. This was my weak spot on my face. I think I had a consecutive zit in that exact spot for a solid ten years.

This is from the previously mentioned trip to Disneyland. My parents had given me a camera and of course I had to bring it on the trip. I really thought I was some kind of grand photographer. I found numerous pictures from this trip in that box. This one just made me laugh. I can just picture me, ten years old, demanding that all my siblings pose for a shot in front of the fountain. I am sure that they thought I was a complete moron but I appreciate their tolerance of me. Except for Chad, he is obviously not thrilled about the shot. Actually, now that I look closer at the picture, none of them are really participating. Except Brittany. Thanks Britt- I can always count on you.

This is from an annual trip with my cousins that Chad and I went on. We would go kayaking down the Green River. I have many fond memories of these trips. Things like truly wondering if diet coke was an actual food group and wondering why Chad is dumb enough to go off a waterfall standing up in his kayak. This is also where my jealousy of my cousin Erica began. She would always have the cutest kayak and oar because she was so darn crafty and would paint expertly. The jealousy continues to this day as I sit in my house toiling over how to tie a cellophane bag and she is creating grand centerpieces out of toilet paper rolls and tootsie roll wrappers. And yes, Erica, that is you in the background with your perfect tan!



The classic group shot every school year. My friends and I were a photographers dream when it came to picture day. We would spend hours coordinating what to wear, who would be in the picture, and what pose to be in. It consumed us for weeks before that actual day. I would always order the best package because I was sure that I needed at least 4- 8x10's and as many wallets as they would shove in that envelope. These pictures would adorn my locker the whole year and then were taken down and put in that lovely box for me to find 15 years later.
And finally, these were probably my favorite thing in that whole box. My grandparents birthday cards. These are true treasures. My grandma has always made our cards on her computer. They have definitely evolved over the years but they have always had a special message right from them to me. They started out without any color.

A few years later, color ink came in.

Then technology caught up with my Grandma and she was able to start putting pictures in them.



And this is what we have today. I was given my card on Sunday at my birthday dinner and I was just as excited to get it as I am every year. Time has not changed that. I look forward to seeing what pictures are in there. I love to read what they have written to me. And I love that I get to add another card to my collection. I know that one day these cards will stop. But they haven't yet. Thank you grandma for the constant effort that you put into these. I want you to know that we recognize that it is a lot of work to do cards for six kids (and their spouses), 33 grandchildren (and their spouses), and 23 great grandchildren. You are truly amazing and we love and treasure those cards.



Well... thank you for walking down memory lane with me. It makes me feel a little better. I am grateful to be out of the awkward zit stage. I am grateful to have siblings that tolerate my ridiculousness. I am grateful that I have survived thirty years and am relatively normal. ( It's all relative, right?) Here's to another thirty years worth of memories!

It's time

My six week sabbatical is up. I am healed from Cade's delivery and I have no more excuses. For weeks I have looked solemnly into the mirror at my five double chins but could do nothing about it. With my other two pregnancies, the weight seemingly melted off after delivery. With this one, however, it is clinging to me like a fat kid clings to a Twinkie. I weigh myself every morning but the scale has not budged. I even began to question if it was working properly until I put Tylie on it and realized it worked just fine. So...with all that said, I made a choice a few days ago. I got my fat butt off the couch, put the Butterfingers down and strapped on the ole' running shoes. I turned on the treadmill and after a few creaks and complaints of not being used for months, we became good friends again. It felt good to run again. It felt good to push myself (even if it was only for three miles!). It just felt good to be able to move! I am going to do another 1/2 marathon with my sister in June. I better get moving. I can't wait to get the extra poundage off that I am carrying around. I don't want it to seem like I am complaining to much though. I am happy to be a mama again. I just want to be a smaller mama than I am now. But, no matter what, this is what I got out of it.

It is worth it, even the 5 extra chins!

What a weekend!

This last weekend was crazy family fun! Full of Thanksgiving feasts, seeing the new Twilight movie ( which was disappointing to say the least!), Black Friday shopping, Baptisms, baby blessings, and a long nap on Sunday. So, with all that going on, it is only fitting that I post all the pics to go along with the excitement!

I love this picture of Dylan! He is just such a cute sleeper!

Poor Ayden wanted out so bad! He sat at that window and solemnly watched the kids play outside.

Mason is planning out his black friday shopping.

Ema's baptism

Ayden and Dylan's baby blessings

All three girls with all three boys.

Worthless

The other night Jake's sister, Valene, and I decided to whip up some homemade shakes. I had done this many times when I was younger and found myself reminiscing about Sunday nights with my siblings. We would make a mess as we created chocolate chip shakes but we loved it. One thing stood out though. It was always impossible to get the blender to mix them right. It would pulverize the bottom but leave huge chunks of ice cream on the top. I would have to jam a wooden spoon down in the mixture several times trying to get everything broken up and by the time I was done I would end up with chocolate chip soup on the bottom and random whole chips through out the shake.

The other night, we set about to solve this problem and decided to try my food processor instead. Genius! It whipped it up so fast! It made perfectly thick smooth shakes with evenly dispersed chocolate goodness! I have decided that the blender is completely worthless. I have tried to convince myself that it is good for something but I cannot come up with one thing. Everything that I have thought of can be accomplished just as good, if not better, with the food processor. I love that I have found a fabulous way of making shakes! I don't love what those shakes are going to do to my hips!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend full of food, black friday shopping, baptisms and baby blessings. Hope your holiday was wonderful as well. I will try to post pics soon.