Guilt

This post is a little bit of therapy for me. If you start reading and begin to yawn and decide not to read it, I promise my feelings will not be hurt.

I think I've posted a time or two about guilt on my blog before. Ah yes, the whole wanting to be a perfect mother and realizing that I'm not and feeling guilty about my children possibly not turning out perfectly because of me.

That is just the tip of the iceberg.

These are the things I've been feeling guilt about lately:

- Not taking more time to just enjoy my family.

- Having to go back several lessons in Lizette's reading lessons because we pretty much took the entire summer off from that.

- The fact that my time management skills seem to be very poor. Why can I not seem to get anywhere before 10:00?

- I have slept in until almost 7:00 every day lately. Oh, I guess that answer's the last one about time management.

- For not spending more time serving my fellow man. Always on the list.

- I ate Jeff's birthday cake for breakfast, lunch and dinner a couple of days ago. And I ate the last piece for breakfast this morning. Sorry Jeff! (So glad to get that one off my chest!)

- I have not worked out in over a month and have absolutely no desire to start up again.

- For spending too much time blogging. :)

- Not starting up my organizing business/website yet.

- Dreading the fact that the neighbors down the street are going to pull out all of their obnoxious Halloween decorations soon that cover their entire yard and house. I should not be so snobby. They are festive and good for them, but instead I roll my eyes every time I pass their house. I'm a terrible person.

Yes, the list could go on and on. This is just a sampling. I think everyone probably has their list whether short or long.

Lately I just haven't had the energy I would like to have. Getting these headaches figured out is taking some time and I'm not completely myself. Therefore, I cannot go 100 mph trying to be super mom and super everything else. I've had to choose priorities and so a lot of the things I would normally be very motivated to do are on the back burner right now.

Well, I think this is okay.

It's okay to have some down time once in a while and I don't think I should feel guilty. So why do I? I need to take care of myself and my family first, after all. But there is this need to be successful and perfect in all other areas. Is this a woman thing? Does it stem from my childhood? Why must I feel this guilt?!

This weekend is our church's semi-annual general conference. We get the chance to listen to our church leaders speak on a variety of different topics. I think this is going to give me some much needed perspective. I really need it right now!

We've finally outgrown Marie!

When Lizette was one we bought her what I thought was the most adorable costume ever...Marie from Disney's Aristocats. Soooo cute! And you can tell from this picture that she absolutely loved it too.

Well, the Marie costume was like $20 and I decided to get as much mileage out of this thing as possible. Lizette wore it again when she was two. Lexi wore it last year and my plan was to have her wear it again this year. Much to my dismay, it does not fit Lexi this year. It won't stay snapped and the paws are way too small. She gave it her best effort here.

So if you have a little girl that fits into 18 month clothing, we have a cute costume available. (sniff, sniff)

ick!

My little Lexi has been my good eater in the family. She will eat broccoli, asparagus, all sorts of fruits, veggies, and pretty much anything I give her. But lately, she has gotten a bit more picky and has also picked up a new word:

ick!

When she eats something that she doesn't like she now says "ick!"

Really Lexi? You have to do this to me too? It's not bad enough that your father and sister torment my days with their picky eating habits? Now you too? You were supposed to be my eating partner through life! How can this be happening?

I can only hope that this is just a stage. Please let it just be a stage!

Spoiled? Oh yes.

Lizette is dying to get her very own princess adorned sleeping bag. So her latest ploy went like this today:

"Mom, when can I get a sleeping bag?"

"Maybe you could ask for one for your birthday or Christmas. A sleeping bag is kind of a big thing to buy so we should probably save it for a special day."

a few seconds go by...

"Well, spoiled people get big things even when it's not their birthday or Christmas, and I'm spoiled."

(therefore, I should get a sleeping bag)

I don't think Jeff's lectures to her on how spoiled she is have had the effect he was hoping for.

My Little Gypsy?

Last week the girls and I were driving home and had the radio on. The Fleetwood Mac song "Gypsy" comes on and Lizette goes "Mom! Turn it up. This is my favorite song! Let's sing it Mom!"

Really? Gypsy? It was pretty funny.

But then on Monday we were sitting in a parking lot waiting for Jeff when this guy gets into his Jeep and lights up a cigarette. Lizette goes "Mom, look at that guy. He's putting fire on that thing in his mouth."

I say, "Oh really. Well don't stare at him okay. And that thing is actually called a cigarette."

She says, "Yeah, there is usually hay inside of those."

Should I be worried? First Fleetwood Mac and now she seems to know a lot more about cigarettes than I would have thought she would at four years old, living in a house of non-smokers. Where do kids learn these things?! Has she joined some playground gang without me knowing it?

I'm gonna keep an eye on this girl. :)

Happy Birthday Jeff!

Jeff turned 37 today! The girls were very excited to celebrate. Lizette wrapped some presents in white tissue paper. A baby doll and a Twix candy bar were her gifts to him. She also wrapped a blanket for Lexi to give him. My gifts consisted of a pancake breakfast, a very lop sided and sloppy looking homemade cake, and a kiss. What do you get for the gadgety guy who is so hard to buy for? I decided homemade was the best way to go and he was thrilled with all of his gifts. What a great sport!

Happy Birthday to the best husband and dad any family could ask for! 

12 Years

I'm just now getting on the computer today and wanted to give a quick shout out to my family. Today it has been 12 years since our mom passed. We all miss her dearly but know she is enjoying every moment with all of her family and friends on the other side.

We were blessed to have a mom like her. Her legacy lives on in all of us as well as all of the lives she touched. I still get notes from friends about how our mom influenced them for good. She is an example of how one life does make a difference no matter how rich or successful you are by the world's standards. She was a humble little lady that made a huge difference to many, many people.

I think if she were alive today she would laugh at the fact that Lizette picked up her first swear word from me. She would tell me to stop worrying about how clean my house is and start enjoying life more. She would be so worried about me having so many headaches. She and Jeff would probably laugh together at all of my craziness. We would talk on the phone every day. I miss her.

She would be so proud of her family. Kids, grandkids and great-grandkids. She would have much to be happy about. What a blessed lady and what a blessed family we are to have had her in our lives.

Parable of the Butterfly

Someone gave this to me a long time ago. I just ran across it today and thought I would share. I love the message.

"A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could, and it could go no further. So the man decided to help the butterfly. He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that at any moment the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It was never able to fly. What the man, in his kindness and haste, did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were God's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon. Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our lives. If God allowed us to go through our lives without any obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been. We could never fly!"

Bammit!

Well, Lizette has picked up her first swear word. Sort of. Thankfully, she heard a slightly different version of the word.

Last night she was trying to move a chair and struggling with it a bit. In the process of her struggle, she says "Bammit!"

Jeff and I both turn around. What did you say?

"Bammit."and she just smiles as if she knows she may have said something wrong.

My mind instantly rewinds at 1000 mph. When did she hear me say that? Funny how I instantly jump to the conclusion that it was me she heard it from. I guess I know myself too well. The occasional little swearing slip is something that I've really been working on, but to hear my child repeat something not so great that they may have heard from me is a little bit humbling. Sort of funny, but humbling.

So I explain to her that she may have heard mommy say a word kind of like that but it's not a very nice word and we shouldn't say it. Mommy was wrong to ever say that and maybe just said it when I was frustrated or something. I don't know how long I went on explaining this all to her.

Then later in the evening I tell her it's time for bed and under her breath she says, "Bam".

Swearing is a hard habit to break.

Watch Project

Maybe being quarantined for the last couple of weeks has gotten the best of me. I actually did a craft project! I don't know if you remember, but I swore off all crafts several months ago. Well, this is what happened: I had some beading supplies in the house and they were calling my name when I needed a diversion from the chickenpox and migraine blues. And here I am at midnight on a Saturday night blogging about it. I may have issues.

I found a pretty good and easy way to make some cute beaded watch bands. My sister Abby made me a bunch for Christmas a couple of years ago that I absolutely love. They are the double strand, chunky, cute ones like this:

I've seen some cute, single strand, beaded bands lately. I thought making those might be more my speed as I am a bit craft challenged. So, this is what I did:

Supplies: elastic beading cord 

                lobster clasps

                beads with holes big enough to fit two strands through.

                finger nail polish

I looped the cord through the lobster clasp like this:

(blow these pics up if you are interested)

Then, I strung the beads over both pieces of cord.

After all the beads were on, I strung another lobster clasp over one of the strands and tied it off with the other strand in a double knot. Many beading sites suggest using a surgeons knot but I have not yet taken the time to learn how to do that as I am what you would call lazy. I placed a dot of clear finger nail polish on my knot to secure it, then sort of stuffed the knot into the last bead to hide it.

These are some of my finished projects:

You can purchase the watch faces online for around $4-$6, but I also found some at Craft Warehouse for about $4.50. The beads range in price anywhere from $1.00 per strand on up to $20.00 depending on what sort of beads you want to use. As you could have guessed, I chose the bargain beads and most of mine were around $1.00-$2.00 per strand of about 16" of beads.

Spoiler alert! If you normally receive a Christmas gift from me and you are a girl, you may just be getting these for Christmas this year. Hope you like them!  :)

Some Thrifty Finds

Over Labor Day weekend I did some thrift store shopping which I hadn't done in quite some time. I was pleasantly surprised with all the fun deals I found so of course I had to share.  :) I was lucky enough to hit Saver's 50% off sale on Labor Day. I didn't get there until the early afternoon and was sure all the good stuff would be gone, but not so! I went in looking for some things for the girls and did find them some cute stuff but I also found a ton of clothes for ME. I think I spent $50 and came out with 4 bags full of stuff. It was so fun!  

$2.99 for a nice kitchen utensil organizer.  I do have plenty of drawer space in my kitchen, but I kind of like the idea of having everything in one spot and easily accessible.  So far, it's working out great.

Isn't this so cute?!  This was my splurge for the day at $6.99 at Kid to Kid.  I LOVE this for the girls.  Okay, okay, so we don't get a ton of rainy days here in Boise, but when we do, we will be lookin' good.

All of these sweaters were $3.00 each at Saver's.  A nice addition to my fall wardrobe!  I also got several pairs of nice pants for $3.00-$3.50.

Fifty cents for each of these. 

Oh yeah, we went to the Fair!

We had a great time at the fair a couple of weeks ago. We always get excited to go and eat the fair food, but then get mad that most of it costs so much. :)  Our favorite sites at the fair were the photography exhibits, the butterflies (sort of. they actually made Lizette a little nervous.), the snow cone booth, and the rides. 

 

$4.00 corn! Not a smart purchase, but gotta have the fair food.

Lizette loved the merry go round.

The livestock section has never been my favorite. Even though I think this was just the petting zoo. I guess I'm a city girl at heart. What can I say? 

I don't think the girls were all that thrilled about it either.

Enjoying a snow cone. I think this was the highlight of the fair for the girls.

Chickenpox. What?!

Yes, Lizette has the chickenpox! I think she is past the worst of it and probably not contagious anymore, but we've been trying to take precautions to keep our germs in house as much as possible. Lexi still hasn't shown any signs of having it, so that is a good thing. I guess. So many people say it's better just to get it over with if you are going to get it. And someone told me yesterday that chickenpox is actually a great thing to get because it prevents several cancers and builds up your immune system. That's great news for Lizette. Maybe I should be wishing Lexi had gotten it too!

So here in the 90 degree weather in Boise, Lizette has been wearing long pants and shirts for the past week. We haven't gone to the park or out at all. Not fun! But we've made the most of it with lots of movies, games on Dad's iPad, coloring, beads, and lots and lots of make believe games.

If you're going to get chickenpox, I guess this is the way to go. Looks like a pretty cushy gig, huh?

Lizette's first day of preschool - 2011

Lizette started preschool on August 31 this year.  She goes to Little Joys Academy which is just around the corner from our house.  I think this will be a great year for her in preschool.  Her teachers, Mrs. Lawson and Mrs. Hurdman are so sweet and they have the cutest school set up.  All the kids have their own cubbies, backpacks and t-shirts.  They have lots of fun programs for reading as well as Ask Me About cards.  Each day, Lizette will bring home a card that explains a little about the main topic of discussion at preschool so that we can discuss it as well. So far, Lizette has had one homework assignment which was to read a book and give her opinion of it. She was very worried about getting her homework done so we are off to a good start!  

Unfortunately, our chickenpox episode has caused Lizette to miss this last week of school, so she will have some catching up to do. She has been very bummed to have to miss so much school! 

This is one of the many fuzzy pictures I snapped on her first day. I think she looks pretty cute even if she is a little fuzzy.  :)

Today I wore slacks...

I decided after our sort of down week last week that I would start this week anew and dress up a bit today. Do you ever do this for a pick me up?  Well, I picked my nicest slacks. They are in fact called trousers on the tag, so they are a little bit fancy. I wore high heels (high for me at least). I did my make up and hair, wore jewelry...the whole nine yards. By my standards anyway.

For the first hour or so I was feeling pretty hip. I even told Jeff, "Don't you think I look pretty good today?"  I'm not above asking for compliments.  :)

Well, now I just feel hot and uncomfortable. Maybe I should have waited until October to do this?

Hmmm...how am I supposed to function as a stay at home mom but also feel like I'm not so frumpy all the time?

Maybe I should stick with all things cute, but wear jeans or capris instead?

Any ideas from you other moms out there?   :)

Lexi Unplugged

Lexi loves to sing.  She can't really say most of the words in most of the songs she knows yet. She can, however, carry a pretty good tune which makes it very cute to listen to. Jeff caught some video of her today and I love watching her facial expressions throughout. The first few clips are a composition she made up which includes tidbits from "My Heavenly Father Loves Me" and something about a nose. It's a few minutes long and basically it's the same song over and over again until you get to the end when she does an arrangement of the ABCs and Twinkle, Twinkle.  

"It's a new dawn. It's a new day."

Well today is thankfully a new day. Things are going much better so far.

Yesterday, however, really was awful and I must share.    

We took Lizette in to the doctor and found out she has what they think is chicken pox. Even though she has been vaccinated. I guess there are rare cases when it still breaks through. Lucky us! So far, Lexi is fine which is a blessing. She was vaccinated in April so hopefully hers will work and she won't get it too.  

After Lizette's appointment both of the girls had pretty much had it. It was late in the day so I figured I would get them home and settled and then go get Lizette's meds after Jeff got home from work. In the mean time I had to call a bunch of parents and the preschool to let them know that Lizette may have contaminated other kids.  

In the mean time, I had a migraine all day. In between the appointment with the doctor and taking care of the girls, I was crying and a total basket case for most of the day. The girls thought it was fascinating to watch me cry so much. Glad they were entertained! 

I decided I better get into the doctor. So when Jeff got home I went to the Primary Health on the way to Wal Mart and prayed they would give me a good prescription. Since headaches are something you usually have to go through a lot more questioning and testing for, a doc in the box isn't exactly the first choice for getting the problem solved. Luckily the doctor was way nice. He gave me a couple of samples of the good, expensive migraine stuff that I used to take. Then made me an appointment with a regular doctor to see next week. Whew! One problem solved. My headache seemed to be gone in an instant after taking the medication.

Then I head to Wal Mart to get Lizette's medication. They said it would be about an hour which wasn't a surprise.  So I shopped around for an hour, went back and it still wasn't ready. Went back 15 minutes later and still not ready. The girl at the counter said they would page me in about another 15 minutes.  After about 25 minutes I get paged to the pharmacy. "We are so sorry but we don't have this in stock."

At this point I was completely deflated. My head felt better but I was numb from the day. I said nothing.  I just asked for my prescriptions back and left the store.

Good-bye Wal Mart. This is the last straw for me. I will not be back...EVER!  

I called Jeff to share the news. When he found out I had not complained at the store, he called them and talked to the manager. He's much better at these confrontations than I am.

I went to Walgreen's, got Lizette's prescriptions filled in like a half hour and came home.  

Well as I said today is a new day! We are not going to let a little bout of chicken pox, a bad experience at Wal Mart and a migraine stop us from being happy. Lizette is already starting to feel a little better. My migraine is gone. Lexi is in a relatively good mood. So life is good today!  

My next post will be about something fun, I promise!  

Complaining...

I probably should not be writing anything today given my state of mind. I just felt like I needed to do this so that someday my posterity would know what it was like for me when I had a migraine. Maybe they will have them too and this will help them in some way.

The pain is so bad. Nothing is helping. I've tried so many doses of Excedrin and ibuprofen that I have no idea what is in my system right now. I've tried sleeping, ice packs, banging my head against the wall  It just won't go away.

I've dealt with migraines for years now. It's so hard to describe how the pain feels.  It's like a very bad headache that makes your whole body feel sick. I can't concentrate. I can't function. I sometimes have several in a month. During a really bad one I shut down and don't do anything on those days. The girls play while I lay there and pray that the pain will stop. It's everything I can do to just take care of them and it makes me feel horrible that they have to deal with it too.

They seem to come on really strong during my monthly cycle. There are prescription options for me, all of which are ridiculously expensive. Every time we look at those options, I am usually not having a headache and I tell myself that I can deal with it. Treat it with over the counter stuff and move on. I just can't handle the thought of spending that much money for a problem that doesn't seem that huge.

Until I have one like this. It's so bad. Jeff is talking me into going to the doctor now.

And on top of it today, Lizette has broken out all over with some sort of rash. I'm taking her in today to find out what is going on. Hopefully it's nothing serious or contagious. It makes me cry to look at her poor little body covered with spots.

Woe is me! I know. I know I sound pitiful. I'm sorry to complain. Sort of. I guess I just had to complain to somebody so I'll complain on my blog.

A Great Weekend

It was a great Labor Day weekend! We had our sweet friend Angel stay with us for  few days last week and through most of the day on Saturday. The girls absolutely loved having her and we had such a great time.

On Saturday morning we all got up early and headed down to see the balloons go up. We were rushing to get there on time so we ended up watching them from the St. Luke's business center parking lot on Americana. Perfect spot if you want to avoid the crowds.  Jeff caught some awesome photos and did some fun editing to a few of them. (He's getting pretty good, don't you think?!) The girls loved watching the balloons and I was pretty mesmerized myself.

Saturday night was spent with Thayne, Angel and family watching the Bronco game. Go Broncos! I split my college football loyalties three ways:  BYU, OSU and BSU. I'm so confused. What can I say? I spent two years at BYU, two years at OSU and I'm living in Bronco Nation. How can I choose? I must support all three. All I can say is that I am glad to not be a Duck fan this year. Ugliest uniforms ever! The Broncos new uniforms are really not all that flattering either, but much better than the Ducks. Seriously...if I'm going to watch a game that I know nothing about, I would like to at least see nice looking uniforms.  :)

Monday morning we got up early again and headed to Krispy Kreme. Lizette ate two doughnuts which may be an all time calorie record in one sitting for her. She loved it. The rest of the weekend was a mix of shopping, relaxing and lots of fun. I am on a thrift store kick right now.  :)  I found a ton of cool things this weekend which provided me with some much needed retail therapy at a price I can feel good about. I might just have to do a post on some of my finds...