They make me laugh!

I have a positive post today! I don't usually post every day, but I just couldn't not share! Today, both Delaney and Marian cracked me up and I had to write it down. This evening, Marian was chatting with me and we were talking about when we had to move to a new house this summer she might have to switch schools. She said she was okay to go to a new school. She was a hoot. Marian said, "Actually, I would like to go to a new school. The kids at my school are not normal. A lot of them do not act normal." What a funny girl. Here she is, a kid considered "not normal" on occasion, and to her, she's totally normal and everyone else is not! I love it!!

Tonight I was tucking in Delaney and she said instead of getting a kiss and a song from me, she was going to give me a kiss and a song. She was a trip. I helped her with her prayers, and every time I said "Delaney", she replaced it with "Mommy". So, when I said , "Please bless Delaney to sleep well." She repeated, "Please bless Mommy to sleep well." So cute. Then she did give me a kiss and said she was going to sing the ABC song. I didn't know she knew it, but she sang the whole thing, ending with "Now I know Mommy's ABC song; next time won't you sing with me."

I love kids! I love their quirky little minds and the funny things that they come up with. It really makes my day!

And lest you worry, although night times are pretty rough, daytime is fine. I'm only miserable at night. Once I'm up and going, its all good. Am I blessed?! O yeah! I know that I am born up on wings of angels each day. I know that the Lord blesses me to get done what needs to be done, and He helps me to have a positive attitude. And last night was a little better. Rylee seems to have an internal clock. She woke up at 11, 12, 1, 2, 2:36, 4, and 6am, almost on the dot! On the plus side, she went right back to sleep, so I was only up a max of 15 minutes each time. And, I have an amazing and supportive husband. He was home early today and sent me up for a 3 hour nap. Ahhhhhhhh. Then, after dinner, he sent me out for some alone time. He really is the best ever and I do not know how I got so lucky with him!

No words necessary

No words are necessary, but I have a few anyway!

Uh-oh!

Terrifying.

Exciting.

Trouble... Definitely Trouble!

I'm also pretty sure that she is Brilliant, Advanced for her Age, and Amazing!

After all, the kid is only 6 months old!

The Emperor's New Clothes

Today I am here to report that the Emperor is Naked. Yep, even though everyone else says he is wearing something wonderful, the truth is, the man is nude. In today's case, the Emperor is a popular and very sought after event. And I can't figure out why.

Today, we had the inglorious opportunity to attend the White House Easter Egg Roll. Everyone was jealous that we were going. I felt pretty special. (Dan was able to get tickets through work, and I thought it would be a good experience.) I was stressed out about what to wear to such an event, and I was concerned because it was suppose to be hot- really hot, as in up in the 80's. I was really disappointed to find no information on the official web site either. No information about anything! Well, there was a list of things you could not bring in, but that was all. I had hoped for some guidelines or rules, but there was nothing.

So, today I took Joshua and Marian out of school early and off we went, our whole family of 7 and a big double stroller. It was about an hour of travel, mostly by Metro to get there. Then another 1/2 mile of hoofing it to get to the big field, sorry, "The Ellipse". After asking directions, we ended up at the end of a very long line. A very long line that snaked back and forth across the very big field. That's when Dan said there were 5 sessions throughout the day and 6,000 people attended each session. We were the 1:45 session- #4. We were in the tail end of the line at 1:30, and the gates opened for us at 1:45.

And it was hot. Really hot. Hot enough that it was too hot to get upset when Joshua complained non-stop about the heat. And it was hot enough I could have wrung out my undergarments, but instead, I had to settle myself under the only un-taken shade tree and lift said undergarments so I could nurse Rylee. Oh, and that line there in the picture, behind the kids, that's the people behind us, and it snaked around a long long way.

Finally, the line began to move. It was stop and go for a while, and then it was hustle, hustle, hustle. And it took a while. I would say we walked a good half mile in line to get to the entrance.

I will say that all the volunteers and people working the event were very friendly and great. They had to check through a million people and they had to be wicked hot too, but they were unfailingly polite and cheerful. The guys who did the security check were even thoughtful enough to lift the double stroller over the barrier, so that we did not have to fold it up. They were quick too, and pleasant. That was nice.

The next thing was a line of tables with cold drinks and energy bars. So of course you grab them and head on to the next line, to get into the White House front Lawn. The sign in front of the entrance to this next line says, no food or drinks! So there by the entrance is a huge pile of unopened drinks and food, just being thrown away. It was such a waste! I wish they had had a sign saying you had to eat it all right there, so maybe there would have been less stuff thrown away.

And here we are in the second line. This was to get us into the White House lawn. It took us a good 45 minutes plus, just to get onto the White House Lawn. Oh, and did I mention that you only have 2 hours?!! Yep, our time was 1:45-3:45 and we had to leave at 3:45. And we spent almost half the time just getting in the event. Ug.

This was the grand entry. See all those people in front of us? Most of them were pushing strollers (including us!). It was hot. Did I mention it was hot? To make it more fun, there were a lot of little kids having meltdowns in the heat and the press of humanity. Our little kids were doing really well. Joshua was the biggest complainer, and he wasn't bad.

Oh, look. Here we are, in front of the White House. This is probably the closest I will ever be. Do you see all those people? This picture does no justice to the sheer number of people milling around. It was insane. It was worse than the time I went to Knott's Berry Farm on Toys for Tots day. We really just stopped here to get out of the crush.

Then Joshua decided he wanted to Hula Hoop. So off he went. It looks like the Wii is paying off! He did a really good job and stopped complaining about how hot he was. This was the only thing we successfully managed to participate in.

And Callie and Delaney wanted a picture. It was a little nerve-wracking to try to keep track of all 5 kids with so many people all over the place. They did an awesome job of sticking close and running back when they strayed too far. If I had lost one of them, I'm not sure I ever would have found them again!

We tried to find the Easter Egg Hunt, but this was all we found. And you had to be aggressive and unencumbered to get to the front of the booths to see anything. We did not find that fun at all. Plus, with the sweat flowing freely, even the sunscreen did not seem to be working, and there was no shade. No shade!

This is what it looked like. This is what we spent 45 minutes doing. This, this is not fun! There are No new clothes on the Emperor! No fun. We polled the kids- did they want to continue to see if there was anything fun to do, or were they done. They were done. And I was glad, because I was ready to go home. So we left before it was even 3:45.

We headed out, got our 5 commemorative eggs and 5 boxes of Peeps, and hiked the 3/4 mile to the Metro. This here is the highlight of the trip- the Peeps!

We got nearly all the way home before switching Metro lines. There was some trouble on the line and it was 15 minutes between trains. During that incredibly long wait, I looked over to see Delaney standing in a puddle. Oh, yes she did! I whipped off her pull-up, wiped her down and had a new pull-up on before Dan even realized what was going on. He nearly had a heart attack, since we were right next to a Metro worker. Fortunately, he was oblivious. It was just one more thing to cap off a day that was not all we had hoped it would be.

So, my take on the event is not a positive one. It was pretty well run, but there were way too many people to do anything or to have any fun. It was pretty much a waste of my entire afternoon. A really hot, sweaty waste. Now it is one more box in life to check off and say "I did that."

***********

Dan feels that I am a bit extreme here. He doesn't think it was a complete waste. I concede that he is correct. We did accomplish something. We have aquired bragging rights to be able to say that we got to go to the White House Easter Egg Roll. And he was also correct in pointing out that the kids got some character today. They endured something that wasn't a lot of fun and they did it really well. We didn't feel the need to throttle anyone and no one got lost. Thus, it was a success!

I would like to point out that I still have a valid complaint. This is the White House Easter Egg Roll! There is a lottery (A lottery, people!!) held across the USA for people who want to attend. And yet, to accommodate so many people, it is nearly impossible to have a good time, or to do anything unless you have no children, no stroller and are willing to be really aggressive. As someone who doesn't think poor behavior should be rewarded, this is not the kind of function I enjoy. So I am astonished that this event is so popular. It isn't any fun! It is crowded, it is hard to get anywhere, it is hard to do anything, and you spend more time waiting than doing anything. Oh, and did I mention that the President wasn't present? Nope, he was off throwing the first pitch of the baseball season. So why is this such a big deal? I am not getting it at all. No clothes, I say, the Emperor has no clothes!

Fun With Easter

Hmmm..... This looks a little odd....

Very odd.....

Okay, who gave Rylee a Robin Egg?!!

Marian was pleased with her bright colored eggs.

Joshua was also a fan of bold and bright colors on his eggs.

Too bad I got the cheap, crummy egg colors. Good thing I also got a better set as well!

Someone missed the memo that you do NOT eat the eggs as soon as you finish coloring them!

I did indulge and I got the paint and sprinkle egg colors. Callie loved it, but after she got it all over her sleeves, it was time to paint shirtless. Her favorite part was sprinkling the sparkly stuff on top of the wet paint. It was actually not as bad as I had feared.

More exciting blogs to follow in the next day or two!

General Conference Ramblings

I have a love-hate relationship with Conference. I love to hear it, but hate trying to stay awake or struggling with children to do so. Today turned out to be extra fun with 500 things to juggle around Conference. Those things included a baptism (which Dan was fabulous enough to take Joshua and Marian to), and a birthday party for twins in Callie's preschool class. I realized at 11pm last night that I had not even thought about a present. I also realized about that time that I had promised Kera something for her baby and had not mailed it. Since she delivered her baby on Friday morning, I thought perhaps a stop by the post office was in order. So the craziness commenced this morning. I gave up both sleeping in and exercising this morning to get things done and we were able to watch both sessions of Conference. Whoo-hoo!

Again with the love-hate relationship. I love to hear the messages and I love the way I feel when I hear it. I feel like I CAN do this, and I CAN be better, and I'm all motivated to be a better person and to start doing the things I know I need to do. And that leads to the hate part. I feel like there are so many things I should be doing and I'm not sure how I am going to do them. Then I feel inadequate, and I hate that. I wonder how my mom did all these things. She had more kids than me, and we were all spaced closer in age, so how come she could do it and I am whining that I can't?!!

I have decided I AM going to do it! Yes, that is what I have decided. I mean, we do a good job with a lot of things. We have family scripture reading and prayer every night. We read one full page of the BoM, and recently I have decided the kids can darn well sit reverently for it. Previously we have run the gamut- some days they sit well, and other days we just make sure they are in the same room. After last week's irreverence in Sacrament meeting, I think the whole 10 minutes we spend reading each night needs to be a practice for being reverent on Sundays. So I have become more strict on that. Oh, we also do really well with FHE. And I mean we do really well on consistently having it. The quality of it could improve, but currently, I am content with 10 minutes from beginning to end! I figure we are establishing the pattern and we can get better and do more as the kids get older.

Now, on to my new goals. I am writing this down so I will hold myself accountable. I like to be motivated and make grand goals and then never actually DO them. So, I am telling you that I am going to do this and that way I'll be more motivated to follow through, and I hopefully won't feel like an idiot saying that I never did it.

What do I plan to do? Well, today after the morning session, I decided we need to have morning devotional. That's what my mom called it when I had to suffer through it. She made us get up early and we had to learn a hymn and then we read scriptures and we had to work on memorizing a poem. It was so tortuous and horrid. I hated it and I recall fighting her at every turn. Somehow, she doesn't have the same recollections that I do. Good thing, I guess! So, believe it or not, I learned a lot of hymns and I can still recite the first stanza of "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere", and in a recent Conference, President Monson recited one of the poems I had memorized as a kid. I felt sooooo cool then!

For our family, I think we will keep the evening scripture reading and will add scripture stories for the kids. I'm not sure they know the stories, and sometimes it is hard to make reading the scriptures something the kids understand. So I think I will use the picture scriptures and I think we will work on memorizing the Articles of Faith. I admit that I have an ulterior motive for the Articles of Faith! See, when a kid passes off all 13, our fantastic Primary President brings them a cake. Yep, a cake. And I like cake! So if I get all 3 older kids to pass 'em off, that's 3 cakes! heh heh heh.

I think I have rambled sufficiently from my main point. That main point would be that I AM going to do this. I have decided it is so. I can get up 30 minutes earlier to make it happen. I can give up those 15 minutes I spend lying in bed trying to wake myself up (after a night of getting up every hour for Rylee). I can ask the Lord for the extra energy and enthusiasm to do this. And I will either get sufficient energy, or I will have to make Rylee suffer (meaning, no love, no food, and more tears for her in the middle of the night till she can learn to self soothe and go back to sleep instead of crying till I come and help her).

My problem is that I keep planning to do things later. Later when they are older. Later when Rylee sleeps through the night. Later when I feel like I have a handle on my life and think I can make a routine. I have come to the realization that those things may never happen. And the older the kids get, the less likely they are to fall happily in line with the changes. So, I am going to do this. I am going to do this now. And I mean it. Ask me how its going in a week!