Turning Forty

Ok, so I've had a hard day and I didn't think it would be this hard! I know it's just a number and it doesn't matter, but it kind of does, because it's like the "hump" day of my life. It was one thing to have a halfway mark on the mission and burn the panty hose and the jumper, and it was another thing to have a "hump" day to college when you knew you were halfway to graduation BUT halfway to my life? I know I could live past 80, but most women these days with all the stress and craziness only live till they're about 75 don't they? And frankly, I'm not really one of those people that pines away to live till I'm in my 90s or 100s. Have you seen most people who are in their 90s? I have seen a few and frankly I don't want to wear Depends, I don't want to slobber when I eat and I definitely DON'T want my children having to change my diaper. I feel like 40 is halfway to all of that and it's kind of depressing.

But... I am taking the advice of my brother Rick who tells me to be grateful for my body, because it works and it breathes and it walks and it laughs and it does all the wonderful things that it was created to do! He's right, I know he is, but for just one day I want the chance to feel how I want to feel and to be depressed about it and then I will move on.

People have been telling me that they have this bucket list for when they turn 50 and 60, but I've decided after reading the book "The Happiness Project" (which is a great read) I'm going to start one now. The first item on my bucket list is this:

1. No more being a computer circus monkey.

A computer monkey is that thing where you sit down at your computer and your brain has been trained over time to automatically go through the same motions over and over just...because that's what it does! Example: Sit on red couch, turn on computer, check bank account, check Facebook, check e-mail check 3 blogs that I've been reading for years and are frankly becoming completely mind numbing, turn off computer and sit and think....that didn't make me feel any better.

So, instead of being a computer circus monkey, I'm going to be an analog wild monkey who thinks and acts in its natural habitat to do natural things.

I have many more things on my bucket list, but too many to explain right now, so I'm just going to let the girls continue doing my hair for me and trying to make me feel special! That's all...Happy Birthday to me.

Busy, Hectic, Memorable Week!

Wow, we have had a FULL week! The Kansas City Temple open house was going on these last two weeks. We literally didn't have a weekend to go, so we decided to just take a day off of work to get there. Tuesday night was my 1st grade Rodeo show. It went well, but I was SO glad that it was overwith. I love the people I work with, but sometimes I will say this...we women LOVE to have total control over everything! I'm the music teacher yes...but sometimes, people forget that.

After the Rodeo program we got in the van and drove 4 hours straight to Kansas City. Amelia was pretty stressed out the whole time, because she was missing out on a presentation she had to give on Anne Hutchinson. She was supposed to do it as a group, but we were gone and now she is refusing to do it alone, because she is shy. Oh well.

So, in Kansas City, we got a sweet deal at the Comfort Inn and Suites, which by the way was beautiful. That night Julia got a fever of 102 degrees. Tom went to Wal-Mart to get her some medicine and she slept all night and all day the next morning.

Got to the temple by 1:00. Got the tour. Was beautiful and was everything I imagined. My daughters got to go inside and even into the most sacred part of the temple. I will say that it was probably one of the most special/spiritual family experiences that we've had. Loved it!

Anyway...had a great time.

This Saturday night we had a huge party for Tom. Had a blues band. Val Damuni cooked the most amazing food. Kahlua pork, teryaki chicken, sweet and sour meatballs. Had a really great time! I'm now exhausted! Yes, I am. But a good exhausted. I feel very blessed this week to have all that we have. 4 beautiful girls, a wonderfully supportive husband, wonderful in-laws who love my girls and watch them often, and of course a house, even though it can at times be a mess...and wonderful people that I work with. Love them.

One more tidbit. Tonight as I was doing dishes and was trying to get the house settled, the girls all 4 of them decided to make a movie about Rudolph. Eliza was dressed as Santa Clause, Olivia had a red nose painted on and was dressed like a reindeer, Julia had Elf ears and a red outfit on, and Amelia was the director. They were adorable. I love those moments, even though it was past their bedtime....they will cherish those memories as they grow up and so will we. It sometimes just plain sucks that kids have to grow up. Oh well...

Nighty night.

Our First Real Family Vacation

This week was Spring Break. I felt like myself all over again. Working full-time is a whole new ballgame. Not sure that I'm cut out for it actually. We took the kids to Silver Dollar City and stayed in the Fall Creek Resort. Had a ball! Really had such a good time. It felt good. Just being with the girls and me and I felt zero stress.

I rode a roller coaster that I thought would make me sick and throw up, but actually it wasn't so bad. I really did think I was going to die at one point. It had actual G-FORCES pushing against me.

So I'm going to go again with the girls when it's not so crowded. We got season tickets and we are planning on surprising the girls some morning and just telling them that we are going to silver dollar city. Really we had such a great time. The log ride we rode with all of the girls and got pretty soaked, but had a ball. Julia, Eliza and Olivia were screaming at the top of their lungs as we plunged down the ending slope. It was a riot! The didn't want to go again, but Amelia and I did, so we stayed in the log boat and rode again and again. We had so much fun! It was like being a kid all over again.

Emily just read me this quote, "Life by the yard is hard, life by the inch is a cinch." Love that quote. I loved it! Seek heavenly guidance every day.

So, we LOVE Silver Dollar City. It was a refreshing getaway and we need more of those memories with our family.

Work starts again and I have to get going. Hugs!

Spring Break 2011

Here are the pictures of our Spring Break! We went to Nashville, Tennessee. It was a total blast! Seriously...I hadn't been back in years since right after my mission and it was just so much fun! We stayed with cousin Alison Leonard for the first 3 nights which was really nice. She is the sweetest cousin of Tom's who is just lovely. We got to make a fort underneath the ping pong table...Wonderful. We also got to go and meet all of Tom's high school buddies over in Lebanon. They were so nice. All of his Germany high school peeps live out there. He LOVED Nashville and said over and over how he would love to live there.

The highlight for me was seeing Mary Towns family. Mary was a young 20 year old back when I served a mission who I was able to help teach the gospel to. She was baptized and is now married to an awesome guy who serves in the military living out in Ft. Huachuca, Arizona. It is wonderful to see how the gospel helped her and she's got four beautiful little boys. What a neat story. Love her so much.

Another wonderful time was going to the home of Andrew Jackson. President of the United States in the 1820's. What a cool tour. We loved it. The other thought that Tom and I had the entire trip was how nice it was to vacation with our girls now that they were all 3 and up. It's like we realized that we entered into a different chapter in our lives. They all played with each other and were cute with each other and were happy. It was seriously one of the best family vacations EVER!

We got to stay at the Embassy Suites for 5 nights. That was also a highlight. Amy and Courtney Scheeser met us there and we swam and saw the sights with them. We got to walk all around the Grand Ole' Opryland Hotel. Went downtown to the Parthenon and walked all around. Ate some really good pizza one night. Tom and I also got to do a temple session in the Nashville Temple. That was amazingly beautiful to be there. Toward the end of the week I got a phone call from my mom telling me that Nena had died. I was sad and had to fly out for her funeral early in the morning on Saturday morning. It was a beautiful funeral and it really made me miss her and wish I had gotten to see more of her the last 10 years.

So, that in a nutshell is what we did. Here are the photos! The one of me in front of the house is where I lived when I served a mission. Great memories! Great time!

Benji and My Deer Husband

I just have to tell this story, even though it happened a couple of months ago, it must be recorded, because it has made me laugh over and over and over again. I don't know if anyone else will find this humorous, but at least it will be written down for me to come back to when I need a little "pick-me-up."

So, it was about 6:30 a.m. in the morning, when we were all still waking up. I was laying in bed and Tom, getting in the shower, looks out the back window and says, "Girls! Bambi is in the backyard!" and disappears into the shower. Sure enough, it was the smallest, sweetest, most peaceful little creature I had ever seen. This little fawn still had the speckled spots on it still. Maybe it was three or four days old. I couldn't believe that I was looking at such a perfect, tiny creature right in my backyard eating the grass and just being so mellow and cute.

I woke all four girls up to come outside and look at the baby "Bambi." They were ecstatic! We quietly tiptoed to the back door and as I cracked the back door open, I turned around for one last minute to remind Eliza to not let Benji out.  Famous last words.

The girls were very careful and all five of us were standing on the back porch, admiring the serene/tranquil national geographic scene, when I noticed that Benji had stuck his nose in the doorway so as to make the door ajar. He pushed his little body out through the crack and it was the end of our serene moment. Enter the demon.

Benji is a Cockapoo. I'm pretty sure Cockapoos are hunting dogs. At least this one is. Now that I think about it, I'm almost positive that the Royal family takes their Cockapoos to the Balmoral Summer Estate to hunt foxes. Our Royal dog Benji hunts every bird, cat, grasshopper, moving living breathing organism in our yard until they either A leave the property or B die. It's quite annoying really. This morning was NO different

The milli-second that our #@!* dog was out that back door he was chasing poor, sweet, innocent little Bambi. The sad part was, Bambi was not tall enough to jump over our 4 foot backyard fence so Benji would bark and snarl at this poor fawn and he would run as fast as he could and try his hardest to jump over the fence only to slam his entire body into the chain link barricade, fall to the ground and dizzily/wobbily try to stand up and make a run for it again. It was like a ping pong game with animals. 

Back and forth they went from left to right barking and slamming and falling. After about three rounds of this I immediately went into my doctor "trauma unit" mode. (I'm not a trauma doctor, but you know the mode that I'm talking about where there's a physiological explosion that is released somewhere between the heart and the brain.) I then started running after the dog yelling things that I can't repeat at this time. Just as soon as I thought I had Benji he'd outrun me, and I'd fall to the ground. To add even more chaos to this scene, add four crazed high-pitch screams (my little girls) with voices screeching as loud and as big as a voice box can get, especially Eliza, "BENJI-NO NO DON'T KILL BAMBI!" 

In my mind I had a picture of Benji getting the little Bambi and gnawing on his leg with blood squirting out, and me in the middle of the dog and the deer trying to pry the sweet fawn leg out of Benji's mouth. My mind did get ahead of myself, but it's just how it works sometimes.

The level of chaotic energy reached the maximum and it was time for me to call in reinforcements. I ran as fast as I could leaving all four girls to watch the foreboding scene.

Meanwhile, Tom was enjoying his extra-hot, calm, soothing, wake-up shower routine when I rushed into the bathroom, opened the shower door, reached in, turned off the water and yelled with every ounce of frazzled, anxiety inside of me "TOM, BENJI IS EATING BAMBI! YOU HAVE TO COME RIGHT NOW AND SAVE BAMBI!!!" I threw him a towel from the unfolded laundry basket,  he wrapped it around his cold, wet body and went running in an unknown direction. The ordeal was all happening in the backyard and that is where I went, Tom went running to the front yard.

I got back to the scene and somehow that sweet little Bambi found his way out. I think the fawn angels must have picked him up and plopped him over the fence. Benji then proceeded to go chasing after Bambi into the forest, barking and snarling the entire way. The girls and I yelled, "Run, Bambi, run!" with tears in our eyes and gallons of blood being pumped through our hearts by the second. I turned around to see where Tom was and there was no sign of him. I started yelling through the house trying to find him when finally I opened the front door and there he was. Picture this: Tom standing on the front driveway wrapped in a white dish towel dripping wet yelling Benji, Benji, (in a very sort of muffled/annoyed tone) with a thick fog all around him. He turned back to me and said, "Where are the dog and the deer?" "Well," I said "The entire ordeal took place in the backyard not the front yard and somehow, in someway a miracle occurred and the precious Bambi got away." I explained the entire manic scene to him that, mind you, HE started and then missed it all.

I then thought about it and stated, "Honey, while you were in a hot, relaxed mellow spa land, I was literally stuck in a National Geographic episode called Predator and Prey."

Tom looked at me and said, "Can't we just have a normal, peaceful morning like other people who look at the cute little animals and coo and caw over them?" I calmly exclaimed, "Yes, honey that would be nice....BUT this is going to make for a great story!" Tom replied, "Yes, but I like to READ these stories, not LIVE them."

And so it goes.

Cereal-y, So Blessed

I grew up in a large family and one of the ways my mom chose to save money was by making hot breakfasts. You know, the Waffle House sort of breakfast. The price of cold cereal could pay for days of thick buttermilk pancakes with that warm homemade maple syrup or oatmeal and brown sugar, bacon and eggs that were never ending, even funnel cakes in the letter of our first name with powdered sugar on top and hot dripping syrup. Ok, my mouth is salivating and it's 10:00 p.m. at night. I have to stop.

Due to my "hot breakfast upbringing," I have noticed that cold cereal does NOT do it for me like a hot breakfast, unless it is the sugary "bad for you stuff" that I was only allowed to have on Saturday mornings as a little girl. Tom, on the other hand, is perfectly content with his Bran Flakes, skim milk and flax seed for the rest of eternity. He finds it entertaining watching me eat a bowl of Raisin Bran cereal in the morning knowing that I am just pining away for a big HOT "grand slam" or maybe even some Cocoa Krispies.

The week started off as a dream childhood breakfast week.  Monday through Thursday I got up early and fixed the girls hot breakfasts. It was oh so good, but then...

Last Friday I woke up and realized we had no milk, no syrup, no eggs and no bacon. I got up and drove to the nearest grocery store and told myself I would buy only a couple of boxes of "healthy" cereal and stock up later on bacon/eggs and all of the other stuff. I got to the cereal isle and sort of lost my will power. I ended up buying $50.00 worth of cold cereal and milk. I don't know if it was the kid inside of me or what, but I did. I came home, put the boxes on the counter and I WISH I had a video camera to have filmed what came running down the hallway. Four screaming, frenetic, excited, little girls that saw those boxes of Peanut Butter Captain Crunch, Oh's, Lucky Charms, and about 7 other boxes of the yummy crunchy, candy sweet cereal. You would have thought it was Christmas morning. In fact...I honestly think the screams were louder on this sugar cereal morning than they were on December 25th 2010.

Tom and I decided after witnessing this extravaganza that we know EXACTLY what we will be wrapping and putting underneath the Christmas tree this year. Waffle Crisp, Frosted Flakes, Crunch Berries, Lucky Charms, Sugar Puffs, Honey Combs, Cinnamon Life, Reeses Puffs, Trix, Fruity Pebbles and Count Chocula. 

Why not celebrate Christmas with some sweet crunchy soggy goodness? If Jesus were here on Christmas morning with us he might even have a bowl of Christmas Crunch himself and maybe I would even offer a funnel cake in the letter "J". One thing I do know is that I would like to personally thank Him for inspiring the man that invented sugar cereals because it has made many a sad mornings happy. Thanks General Mills and thank you Jesus.

Life is Like a Soccer Practice

Amelia came home about a month ago and said, "Mom, I REALLY want to play soccer this year!" So, like a good mother, I got her signed up after registration with only a $10 late fee. We went out and bought the ball, the socks, the shorts, the bag and we were ready to go! She and Daddy practiced a lot in the front yard.

After the first practice she came home and said that she liked it ok, but that she didn't really know what she was doing and the coach didn't really explain things very well. But that she would try again.

The following week it was time for soccer practice. Amelia did not want to go and started throwing her little fit:

Amelia: Mom, I don't want to go! I can't do it. All the girls are better than me and they know what they are doing and the coach just yells stuff and I don't understand.

Mom: Amelia, when you are confused do you ask questions to the coach?

Amelia: No, she scares me.

Mom: Amelia, you do realize that your coach is an adult and that adults are still kids inside trying to figure things out just like you. You don't have to be afraid of her. Ask questions when you have them.

Amelia: Well, it's not just that, it's hard because I have to run a lot and I get tired sometimes.

Mom: I don't care. We are going to finish this. We are not quitters and sometimes in life you have to stick to something before you find the joy or the fun in it. And, when it gets hard and you are out of breath just know you'll be a stronger girl for it. Guess what...

Amelia: What?

Mom: I HATE laundry. Did you know that? I H-A-T-E doing laundry, but guess what.

Amelia: What?

Mom: I do it, why? Because in the end when all the clothes are put away it feels good. And when I really don't feel like doing the laundry I focus on my family and the clean clothes and the good smell that I am giving to my children and husband as a gift. It's like a BIG present in your closet every week. Remember that ok?

Amelia: Ok.

Mom: And you know what else?

Amelia: What?

Mom: When I was in graduate school I wanted to quit about 100 times, but I didn't, because Dad would not let me. So I am not going to let you quit.  You just started and you are going to learn some wonderful things from soccer about endurance, and hard work and some stick-tuitiveness.

Amelia: Fine...

So, she got on her soccer garb and off we went to practice. She did great! She ran and she kicked and she dribbled and she watched and listened and had a great time.

After practice she came running up to me and I asked her, "How was it?" She replied, "Mom, it was good, I really liked it. Can I keep playing and go practice dribbling?" I was shocked and said, "Sure!"

So off she ran back to the field to dribble and run. Her coach came up to her and they were huddled together talking about this and that when I saw one of the girls from the team across the field, probably 40 feet away, drop the ball and kick it towards Amelia and the coach. It was really like watching a movie in slow motion at this point. The ball flew high up to the sky with one of those perfect arches that balls can do. It was a beautiful kick and against the blue blue sky it looked like a flying saucer. As it came down it could not have been more dead on. It hit Amelia on the left side of her head striking her cheek and her ear. It was in one of those moment when you say to yourself "REALLY? THAT DID NOT JUST HAPPEN TO MY DAUGHTER NOT AFTER ALL OF OUR POSITIVE TALK! Seriously what are the chances." And then you look at the girl who kicked it and she has NO remorse and just stands there and mumbles sorry to you and then that mama bear starts to come out, but you have to completely control her!

I watched as the coach hugged her and her body started to shake and convulse from the sobs.

I got up and ran as fast as I could to hold her and hug her and it was then I realized the lesson that I would share with her. Sometimes life is like a soccer practice. We don't want to do it, we struggle and we work and we endure and then we love it and we have a grand time! But just when we think that it is all going to be great and good and fun, life hits us square in the head. And that is the real test. That is when we cry and yell and and let out our pain and pray that we can keep going. And we do. We keep going and going and eventually, we forget the pain and find the joy again in this marvelous game called life.