Kid's Say

Last night as we were driving into Cochrane to go choose paint colors, carpet and hardwood for our house in town, the kids started having an interesting discussion:

Lucy: "Mom, did you know that I won't live with you forever?"
Me: "Oh?"
Lucy:"yeah, like, when I'm a kid I'll still live with you. And when I'm a teenager. But when I get married, I will live somewhere else with my husband."
Max: "No!"
Lucy: "Yes Max, it's true. Just like how Sarah moved out of Grandma and Papa's house when she married Tyson."
(This is a sore point for Max. It's the only downside to an otherwise very glorified view of Uncle Tyson)
Lucy: "You have 2 choices when you get married. Either the boy moves in with the girl, or the girl moves in with the boy."
Max: "Well, Grandma married Papa and they still live at Grandma and Papa's house."
Lucy: "That's true. Mom, was it Grandma's house, or Papa's house before they got married?"
Me: "They bought it together"
Lucy: "Oh! So there's 3 choices. You can buy a house together AFTER you get married too!"
Max: (I imagine he is picturing going to the store and 'buying' a house) *giggle* "You can't just buy a house! You can go to the store and buy the pieces to MAKE a house though." pause "that would take a LOT of pieces!"
Lucy: "It must be hard work to put all the pieces together..."

By this time we had arrived, but I was dying on the inside. Kids are so funny. At least to me.

And look at this handsome. He doesn't say much, but he's sure cute.

Good Day

Today has been a great day, and I'm grateful. It started out by a sweet and simple conversation I had with my kids this morning while they ate breakfast. Lucy asked me why I wasn't eating and I explained to her that it was fast Sunday. This brought on a discussion about abstaining from food for 24 hours. Lucy's eyes got big and she said, I don't think I'll be able to fast until I'm big like Janeen. ( who is 19). I explained to her that she didn't have to do it all right away, and that we could take it step by step. Maybe just cutting out one thing at a time, like snacks, or drinks, etc. I told her that in Sister Hudson's family, when her kids were little, they would portion out their meal and the kids would choose which item they would fast from and then they would also figure out the dollar amount associated with that so they could pay a fast offering as well. After our discussion she looked at me and said, with a little more hope in her voice this time, maybe I can start fasting when I'm eight. As I thought about it more, I realized what a big deal this must have been to her. Lucy has the personality of extreme obedience...especially to things Heavenly Father or the prophet have said, so the fact that fasting seemed so extremely impossible to her at the beginning of our conversation must have been so disheartening and truly devastating to her. Not being able to do something she has been commanded to do would be the worst thing to her. And then realizing she could take it slowly, I could see the relief on her face. I vote my testimony in sacrament meeting and asked Lucy if I could share that experience, she said yes. I expressed how it made me reflect on times when I feel overwhelmed when I think about all the things the Lord has asked me to do, and how it can seem so overwhelming at times, but that the Lord doesn't expect us to do it all at once. Line upon line. Precept upon precept. It was a sweet reminder of that.
It was also a great day because we were a few minutes early for church and I always feel like I deserve a pat on the back those days. I try every Sunday, of course, but it rarely seems to work out.
Since I completed the Book of Mormon, I have started on the New Testament and had an opportunity to read a bit while Logan was taking his nap. I read in Matthew 5:25, where the Savior instructs tonforgive thine adversary quickly...unless ye be cast into prison, and I thought about how contention really is a prison. We feel trapped and frustrated and it's just hard to breathe or think clearly or be ourselves when we're involved in contention. Some might say that agreeing with your adversary quickly is a point of weekness, but really it frees you...and there really isn't anything stronger than that. Not being under control of contention.
The very last verse in Matthew 5 says, 'Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. He just spent the whole chapter talking about being meek and peacemakers and forgiving and doing good to them who use you, etc, and I thought, 'I guess perfection comes from doing good, even to those who hurt you. Isn't that the hardest thing to learn to do? No wonder that's what is required to be perfect. At the end if His life, after the Savior had done 'the most good' to all those who would hurt him, he visited the Nephites and then said, 'therefore, I would that ye should be perfect, even as I or your Father in heaven is perfect.'. He was good to ALL who used him, and now he was perfect.
Anyway, the day has just been up from there.

Better

I guess yesterday's post was a bit over-dramatic. Big surprise. I did reflect how I was feeling, but didn't reflect the fact that I was actually having a really great day with my kiddies. We've been hanging out a lot lately, and have all been enjoying it. Coloring, working on homework, making dinner, playing Wii racing (which is so fun to watch) and watching movies. "Oh Poop".
The kids helped me make dinner again last night, with our new highlighted menu item, quinoa. They're having fun helping me and saying it. And it's fun to watch them talk about how 'nutritious' it is for you. The meal even had beans in it, and Max was so good about promising to try it and he did. When he went to bed last night, I told him he had been such a good boy that day and he reminded me that he had been saying, 'yes, yes, yes' all day, and not saying, 'no' as he has been in the habit of doing lately.
I'm feeling better today too because my husband and I had some time together. Watching a movie last night, where he actually said he didn't even think about his dissertation for about 80% of the time, and a quick trip to Costco together today. Yes, we go on dates to Costco sometimes. You do what you have to do. Even just riding in the same vehicle to our many destinations today was a treat and had me feeling better.
I got to hang at my mom's and chat with my favorite girlfriends, my mom and my sister and SILs. It was a great day. Add to that the fact that tomorrow is Sunday which means a day of rest. As hard as it will be, we will not be thinking or talking about home renos for our house in town, or dissertations, or getting ready to move. We will play with our kids and eat a meal together, and just relax. It's going to be great, I know it. Sundays really are the best days.

If you dare

I'm not really sure what this post is about. I have a lot of thoughts rolling around in my head, and not enough to do to occupy my time to make those thoughts go away, and so they're festering. Most times I try to use this blog as just a day-to-day, 'in the life of' type journal without anything to deep or too personal, since it is public. But sometimes, a girls just gotta get it out. An idle mind is the devils playground...I've heard that before. And these feelings are important to me right now, and journalling is supposed to be about feelings that are important. However I've gone back and read my journals from the past about feelings that were SO important to me, and I think, that girl is lame. I guess that's growing for you.

Being the wife of a PhD student kinda sucks. I'm not gonna lie. It's pretty lonely. He's been working 12 and 14 hour days, he's super stressed, and tired, and stressed and the frustration builds and often he lashes out at me and it hurts my feelings. Not because he's trying to hurt my feelings, but because I'm tired, and stressed and lonely and sick and PMSing, and that's just how I take it. But I know he's stressed and tired, so I just let it be and don't say anything, because the last thing a stressed and tired PhD student needs is a naggy wife who's having a hard time dealing with 'feelings'. But I'm mostly just lonely. And my best friend is sometimes my worst enemy and it sucks. And I want to lash out at him, but then I want him to just give me a hug, but then we just end up sitting on the couch beside each other watching some lame-o tv and then going to bed exhausted.
It's lonely living out here. I love it most of the time. I love the view, and the quiet, and the proximity to Grandma and Papa's, and the wide-open space for playing outside, but in the winter, or when there's a baby involved, it's not so fun. It's hard to have to drive so far to get to anything. It's windy and we get snowed in often, which makes driving anywhere impossible. Grandma and Papa are in Mexico right now, so we look out the window at their big blue house on the hill and there's no excitement, because we know they're not there. We can't watch out the window to see a car driving up and get excited about who it might be, because there's no one.
I wanted to do something today, but had no plan. Lucy's leg is still really weak, so going anywhere that might require her walking around wasn't really an option. And going somewhere so I can push 3 kids in a stroller or shopping cart isn't that exciting to me either. I didn't want to go to the mall, because we're trying to save money, and that would just be counter-productive. So instead, just to get out of the house, we made a trip to Canadian Tire to get lightbulbs and furnace filters. Whoo-hoo. Necessities, but not very exciting. The kids also got their valentines for this year and are having fun writing their friend's names one them as I type. Max surprises me every year. The boy valentines this year were Transformers, Hot Wheels Cars, Batman, Spongebob. He hung on to the Transformers ones for a while and then suddenly switched it up to Hot Wheels, but as we were leaving he spotted some Star Wars valentines and chose those. Lucy however, is completely predictable and chose Disney Princesses. Not surprising at all...but sweet that she is so consistently sweet. I took a picture because I don't want this post to be a huge pile of words with nothing cute to look at...plus Lucy got her haircut last week and I love it, so I take pictures as often as I can. I'm sure one day they will look back and say, why did you take pictures of such unimportant things...but the things that are important to grown-ups are very different from the things that are important to 3 and 5 year olds.
Watching them make Valentines makes me think of Valentines Day. Shocker. I don't put a lot of weight in Valentines Day. It's not that big of a deal to me. But I know my husband has already gotten me something (perfume...we already had a discussion about how 'unsneaky' he was this year) and I don't have a clue what to get him. His 30th birthday is a month later, and that's making it even harder. I think I'm pretty awesome at getting gifts, he's just really crappy at receiving them. So how do you make the 30th birthday special?
Speaking of birthdays, Logan's is in 2 weeks. He will be 1. That's a big deal. That means I have survived a whole year of being the mother of 3 children. And not just any year, the first year, which I am convinced is the hardest. But I feel myself highly unmotivated to plan anything for his birthday. I did a monster 1st birthday for Lucy, because of course. She's the first. Max's was a pretty big deal too. But a big birthday party for a 1 year old seems a little pointless now. I want to do something special, but I also don't want to make it bigger than necessary. He won't remember it, and it might be a bit overwhelming. So how do I make it special, but not crazy? Then I feel myself leaning towards becoming my mom, which in most ways is not a bad thing, at all, but I always remember how birthday parties were such a drag to her, and she always tried to convince us not to have them. Now that I'm a mom, I completely see why...it's a WHOLE lot of work for mom...but I always vowed that I would make a big deal of birthdays for my kids, so I have a hard time going back on my vows. So I'm torn. It's not just a celebration of him turning 1, but of me surviving. It was a tough year. I finished the Book of Mormon just yesterday. I had made a goal to finish before his birthday. It was pretty anti-climatic. I don't know what I was expecting. I'm glad. It's quite an accomplishment for me, and the finishing wasn't the point...it was the daily reading that was the point. And that did make a difference. When I read Moroni's word to 'ask' I was unsure whether I should do that. I already have a testimony of it. I had many experiences throughout my reading where I could say I felt the Holy Ghost testify that it was true, so asking again at the end almost feels silly. But I guess I should try. I might be surprised by what I feel.
We're getting things ready to sell our house in Cochrane in preparation for our move to Kingston. There's a lot of renos that need to be done because after having a number of tenants living there over the past 4 years it's starting to look a bit shabby. We're going to paint. Replace the hardwood. Install carpet in the basement and finish the bathroom down there. I know it's all necessary work, but I am so not motivated to fix up someone else's house. It feels like looking backwards in order to move forward. I just want to move forward. Plus, I'm not very motivated for all the work it will probably take. That sounds lazy, and it probably is.
And thinking about Kingston makes me excited and worried. I am excited for something different. But I'm worried because if I feel lonely living on the Williamson's property, 5 seconds away from family and 30 minutes away from the rest, then how am I going to do when I'm across the country with no one close by?
I keep logging on to facebook to see what the rest of the world is up to. But nothing is happening, so either everyone else is as bored as me, or they're having too much fun to bother posting about it. My lonely brain is leaning towards the second.
I've had sinus pressure for about 6 weeks now and have been blowing my nose for just as long and it's nearly driving me insane. I'm serious. The insanity is like, right there. And then there are other times when I think to myself, 'really? sinus pressure is going to be what puts you over the edge into insanity? really?' It seems dumb.
Today is February 4th. The PhD is supposed to be done March 4th. This is going to be a long month.

All's Well that Ends Well

On Wednesday, we made another trip into the city to the Children's Hospital...but this time, hopefully for the last time in quite a while. Lucy was getting her cast off. She was so super excited and a tiny bit nervous for the occasion. She'd only been walking on her walking cast for the last 3 days, as she is a nervous and shy girl, and apparently that's not unusual. But having to walk around without the cast was another story. As we sat waiting, she told me that the 'next time' she gets a cast, she'd like a green one. I told her that we should try to avoid any more broken bones.

The skin on her leg is tender and alligator-like and flaking off all over my house, which is not awesome, but it's better than a cast.

I still have two scootch-bums on my hands, but I imagine Lucy's leg will get better and better every day and soon she will be running and playing. The doctor told us to expect almost as long with limping as she had the cast on. So we're looking at about 6 weeks of that.
I'd say this was a happy day.

Snag

Day 2 of the food revolution did not go as well. Salad was great, main course, not so great. Coming up with healthy recipe alternatives is exhausting. I want to eat better, but I don't want to eat tofu and granola all day. It's so much easier to get my kids to eat the usual. Chicken breast, potatoes and a veggie. Huge salads are not their favorite. Oh well, keep moving forward. This is all a move to healthier eating. It doesn't mean everything has to change in one day.

FHE

Tonight was FHE. Lucy has been so excited for this night to come, because we finally hung up the FHE chart that Kari and Barrett gave us for Christmas, and she SO wants to use it. I asked her to do the song, so she sang a new song they learnt in Primary yesterday, which was so sweet. Max joined in on the parts he could remember. Max said the prayer and thanked for things like primary and Lucy's singing. It was really sweet and thoughtful. I was on lesson, Logan was on activity and Dad was on scriptures. Lucy was on treat.
Tonight we learned about keeping journals. We are supposed to write about what we're doing these days. The kids drew pictures.


My journal: Dad is working late tonight on his PhD. We will be moving to Kingston in a few months. I'm excited for a new house, a new job and a new ward. Not that I don't love all the ones we currently have. It is an exciting adventure for our family. The kids are excited to see new places. Everyone keeps telling us that we will be a great addition to the church out there. I imagine it will be a great experience for us too. We've had fun looking for houses online, but can't wait to look in person. Max says he wants our house to have a red couch because he loves red.
I've also been trying to feed our family good food so we can be healthier. Tonight, we ate homemade spring rolls, which were a lot of work to make, but the kids loved them and gobbled them up, so I guess it was worth it. We also had a Soba Bowl with rice. The kids had a banana and a pita for a snack today and were over the moon about it. I'm glad it's going so well. I hope it continues. Buying a full cart of veggies is way cheaper than my usual groceries too. Score!
I gave a talk in church yesterday too, which I should probably include. Seems important.
Today was cold. Like -30. But it didn't feel so bad once we got outside. I'm hoping it warms up soon. Grandma and Papa are in Mexico and I'm jealous. I'd like to visit someplace warm when it's cold where I live someday.
Here's Max's picture of a red couch, and all of us smiling.
Lucy drew a picture of us sitting on the couch having family home evening.
Logan scooted around the living room.
After we were done our journals, we played Wii racing for a while. The kids favorite thing to do these days. Then they had some icecream for a treat and it was tubbie time, scriptures, prayers, and into bed.
I like it when things go smoothly.