Rating Me

Dan recently expressed concern that when I blog, I tend to leave out a lot of things. It is true. I blog pictures so my family can see the kids. I blog mundane events and interesting events. I blog my complaints and use it as a venting medium when I feel the need. Dan worries that I do not share how fabulous I am, as much as my incompetency. The problem is, I feel fairly incompetent most of the time!

Tonight, for example, I went to get my stake Temple Recommend interview done. Mind you, I have to drive 30 minutes to the Stake Center, and they only do them at 9pm Thursday nights. I can't recall the last time I was intentionally going anywhere that late at night! I'm usually in my jammies at 9pm. Not so this evening! Tonight I was out there with my trusty sidekick, Rylee. I got in for the interview and couldn't find my recommend. I pawed through the diaper bag. I was sure I had put it in the outer pocket. Nope. I looked in my purse.... nada. Hmmmm, this is not good. The nice interviewer said, no worries, I could send it in with Dan when he came next Thursday. So we proceeded.

After it was over, I went to the couch and pulled everything out of the diaper bag. Oooh, I had chocolate eggs from Easter in the bottom! But no recommend. I went through my purse again, pulling everything out. Rylee had a ball with some items that came within reach. And there it was! Sitting in the back of my purse, right where I had put it so I would not lose it. Yeah, that makes me feel pretty incompetent! That seems to be the way my life is going some days.

To make Dan happy, I am going to tell you how fabulous I am as well!

I get up every morning and have Devotional with the kids. I make Joshua and Marian lunches. I make breakfast. I get 5 children dressed for the day, and I do a minimum of 2 heads of ponytails. I feed and entertain 2-3 children all day long. I transport Callie to preschool. I feed 3 children lunch and snacks. I maintain a blog and write a weekly letter. I scrapbook a LOT of pictures into books (1600 pictures for 2009!!!). I make dinner 6 nights a week and we sit down together to eat it. And I'm not talking about grilled cheese sandwiches! This week, so far, we had roast chicken, carbonara, cornbread casserole, and tacos. We have family scripture reading and family prayer every night. I usually tell a story to Callie for bedtime ("Once there was a bunny, he was very lonely. He was hopping through the field crying because he was sad. He couldn't see where he was going because he was crying so hard and he ran right into a big deer. The deer said "Why are you so sad?" and the bunny said "I don't have any friends." The deer said "I'll be your friend". And he was. And they were so happy together. The end.), and she love, love, loves it. She always tells me what animals are going to be in it. That's tough, you know! You try figuring out how to work a kangaroo and a flamingo into the same tale!

And back to me..... I help Marian with homework, send kids to bed, and I entertain a cranky Rylee till she's ready for bed. I get up 500 times a night to feed or comfort children, but usually just Rylee. (although last night Delaney wet the bed and was awake making noise that woke up Joshua, who then woke up me. That was fun too.) And that's the stuff I do on a daily basis. I am also the Budget Master and I pay all the bills and ensure our financial stability. I do the grocery shopping, the doctors appointments, and the play groups.

That's what I do. And I do it all very well. More importantly, except for the getting up all night long, I LIKE what I do. I like being a mom. I like taking care of my children. I like my life. And I am good at it. So, next time you think I am coming across as incompetent, I am that too, but I am also FABULOUS!

Random pictures from the weekend

I have noticed a distressing thread in all my recent photos. (Recent, for me, means in the last 24 hours!) They are all a touch unfocused. Then I realized that Joshua had been using the camera for his Lego pictures and had not been diligent about keeping it away from his sisters. I hate it when fingerprints get on the lens! Still, I have to share.....

I think this dress is the cutest thing ever! Rylee was adorable in it yesterday.

This was Delaney Friday night, at 11pm. That's what happens when she takes a nap! She isn't tired at all. Dan puts her to bed at the usual time, but she's so distracting and rowdy when Joshua and Marian come to bed that we bring her back downstairs and plop her in front of the computer and she will navigate PBSkids.org till we can get her to bed.

Rylee has discovered the joy of bath time!

And I just love the chubby-wubby dimpled thighs!

Playing with the Camera

Joshua has been making some neat "Lego Creations" so yesterday I suggested he start taking pictures of them and putting them on his Lego blog. He thought this was a fine idea, and the camera has been out and getting a bit of use the last 24 hours. I cannot resist the lure of the camera, so I had to play with it as well. It has so many bells and whistles that I don't even know all it can do. It does great pictures, although I have trouble getting the focus right sometimes. I have enjoyed the "burst" setting a lot, and if you make it all the way through this post, the burst pix are the last ones.

Marian is so much fun!

Delaney got a trike at the consignment sale and has LOVED it!

I know this is blurry, but it cracked me up, the way Delaney was trying to follow her big sister and Marian just zoomed on by, doing her favorite bike trick.

And here she is, showing off.

Here are the burst series of pictures. So that they may be viewed uninterrupted, I must tell you now that Callie cannot keep her hands off her baby sister. She thinks she must hold Rylee all the time. And I mean all the time! Rylee is less enthusiastic, as you may see:

Rylee decided she was done after this. Then she crawled over to me, hoping for rescue.

Hee hee hee! They are so cute!

And then Delaney threw a temper tantrum. She does it a lot these days over pretty much anything. Then she lies on the floor crying pitifully, "I fell down!" She didn't really ever fall down, she usually has thrown herself to the ground, but, whatever. Sometimes it just requires a tag to her hand to get her up, and other times she needs to be pulled up to feel better. Its a lot of fun. Really. Here is a taste of what it looks like:

My Report

I made a goal nearly 2 weeks ago and I suppose it is time to report on how things are going. I had been inspired by General Conference to start holding "Family Devotional" and had reluctantly decided the results would be worth the cost. I am very happy to report that it is beyond my dreams of worth it. I am getting up a bit earlier, which was a little tough, since Rylee has been a horrible sleeper. So, I get up at 7am. I get breakfast ready and wake the kids that are not already up at 7:15. I play the Primary songs on the cd player and collect everyone by 7:30. They need to be dressed when they come downstairs. We read a chapter of the picture book scriptures and work on memorizing an Article of Faith. Then we have Family Prayer. Then it is breakfast time.

I met with much less resistance than I expected. I recall being rotten when we did this when I was a kid, so I was anticipating a battle, but they are not only agreeable, they are excited about it! They sit around me and look at the pictures and ask questions and then they can't wait to practice their AoF. That has been a rousing success. Callie is too cute for words. She rattles off what she knows and looks so happy. The 3 older kids had #3 memorized in the first week. Callie passed it off to the Primary president and I think she said it 4 times.

Here is the amazing part. I have so much more time in the morning! I have time to make breakfast and lunches. The kids are dressed and fed and ready to go 20 minutes before the bus comes and everyone is more pleasant in the mornings. I haven't had to rush anyone out the door or panicked looking for lost shoes at the last minute or anything!

I had secretly hoped I would be blessed with a baby who slept all night, but I knew it would get worse before it got better, and it did. Get worse, I mean. She was waking up about every hour, and she was sick and snotty and unhappy. It was pretty awful. Fortunately, the Lord loves me and answered my prayers, and I was good to go, once I got up in the morning. No matter how bad the nights were, the days were great. I had enough energy to do what I needed to and I was able to keep a cheerful attitude (mostly!). I felt like I was well rested, even though I wasn't. It was a great blessing. And this week, Rylee has been doing better.

So, I have established this routine and we're going to stick with it! Yay for me!

Dan Rocks!

Dan had his Half Marathon on Saturday. He had requested that at least I make the trip out with him to cheer him on. I admit to being unenthusiastic about getting out of bed at 5am to drive 2 hours jut to see him run. However, he is such a fantastic husband, that I thought I ought to be more supportive, since he is always wonderful to me. So, rather than finding a babysitter, we hauled all the kids out to the car in the dark of morning and off we went. We just rolled them out of bed and into clothes and buckled them in. The littlest girls slept for the drive, as did I. I put in ponytails once we arrived, as we waited for Dan to finish his checking in process.

Here he is, all ready to go. It was a nice day, but the wind.... ooooh, the wind! We watched the race start and hooped and hollered for Dan as he went past.

Joshua is a great brother and indulged Delaney. We meandered to the van and I found a map of the race route and we set off to find a good cheering spot. We did get to a good location, around the 5 1/2 mile mark and we waited for the runners to go by. Dan was pretty close to the front of the pack- somewhere around the 15th runner, maybe.

As he ran past, the kids dashed out to give high 5's to Dan and we shouted and cheered. It was fun.

We had some time to kill till Dan reached the turn around point and came back by, so the kids hung out and looked for trouble. Oh, yes, that is water in a ditch! And yes, Callie did get her feet all wet and had only shorts to change into.

The kids were even more excited to high 5 Dan on the way back! Do you see all the runners still heading out?! I told you Dan was running fast! He's a good mile ahead of these guys here. And I love how thrilled Marian seems to be in this shot. The kids were so cute!

They snacked on donuts and played in the ditch. This is when Callie doused her shoes and pants and needed to change her britches.

The donuts were the biggest hit. Not the usual breakfast for them!

Rylee found a new favorite spot.

I had to corral the kids and we drove back to the YMCA to wait for Dan's triumphant finish. It was really windy. It would have been a lovely day, all sunny and warm, but the wind was a killer. It was really chilly at the finish line, with nothing to break the wind.

Here are the kids, huddling for warmth. They were tuckered out from running around and they got cold. The wind was pretty brutal.

Hooray! Here's Dan! I think he was about the 10th person in. Here he is, starting his glorious sprint to the finish!

I could not get the camera to focus and get a shot of the time clock for a few seconds. I think he was around 10 seconds faster than this clock. He was 8 minutes faster than his time last year.

The kids were delighted to help themselves to the post-race grub. It was an impressive spread.

I think Callie had a good 10 orange slices.

Marian was good about eating the food she put on her plate... unlike some others!

This kid was just awesome!

And Delaney was an airplane. She does keep me laughing!! We did hang out for a bit, and Dan showered and changed. I think he was waiting to hear what the fastest time was.

Isn't he wonderful? A 13.1 mile race and he still is happy to hold Rylee and put her to sleep!

Check it out! My man just took 3rd place in his age division! I was so proud of him! He got a certificate and a plant. Oh, and a medal. I love that he got this plant! Something that is actually useful and has a purpose. I was really impressed with Dan. He did a great job. And when we got home, he took a little nap and then let me take one too. He is the best ever!