Pie Night

We had some friends invite us over for Pie Night. I thought this was the best idea! As it turns out, I can only eat about one piece of pie before I feel a little sick. The good news was that I got to bring my leftovers home, so I had pie for breakfast and that wasn't too bad. Here was my contribution.



I had never made a cherry pie before, and it turned out fairly tasty, and pretty (my girls chose my pie simply because of the hearts—I know how to woo an audience). There was a good selection there, but like I said, I should have stopped after the first slice.



This sounded like a great tradition, but it won't be one we adopt ourselves. However, I would definitely attend again. I mean, who can say no to a slice of pie? Here we all are digging in.



Might I draw your attention to the attractive arm in the middle of the picture. Yep, that is Tyler. There isn't an inch on that man that isn't HOT! He was the tastiest looking thing there. Okay, I'll stop.

By the way, happy Thanksgiving tomorrow and all that. Enjoy your own slice o' pie.

Serenity Now!!

I was planning on blogging about our cute little FHE that we always have the week of Thanksgiving. We make a turkey and there is a feather for each member of the family describing what they are thankful for. Well, I guess I am blogging about the turkey, so here is a picture while I am at it.



This year the girls chose their own feather colors; hence the pinkish tint of the turkey. I think he looks pretty good though.

Then I came across something else that needed to be blogged today. It is not everyday you can take a picture of a pet peeve. Here is one of mine.



The girls sometimes decide to 'cook', or mix, or... drive me crazy. They will take every bucket and box of toys they have and combine them in one huge mess. AAAHHHH!!! This is worse than a normal mess because it means sorting things out again (because I'm anal like that). It was probably my fault since I was making a pie and they decided to 'make' a pie of their own. Somehow I thought that the last time they did this, I was exceedingly clear that they should never do it again, so I was actually surprised to see it happen again (what? My children don't listen to me?) Just walking by that basket made me want to yell "Serenity Now!" I demanded that they stop immediately and start cleaning up, at which point the doorbell rang with kids that I was going to babysit. "Serenity Now!" Usually the mess only increases when kids come over but Seth and Lyncoln were actually quite good at separating toys back into buckets. Then of course Ivory felt that these new kids needed to see the baby right in the middle of Daisy's nap. I reached the door too late to stop the impromptu show-n-tell and suddenly my baby was awake an hour early. "Serenity Now!" Most days I do feel like I am working backwards. The house starts in an awkward state and slowly proceeds toward utter chaos. Is it the fourth kid that tipped the balance? Or maybe I am just slowing down.

The Laundry Fairy

Today I was visited by the laundry fairy. I had folded half the laundry and I was in Daisy's room feeding her when June walked in and told me to close my eyes. Okay. Then every few seconds she told me to close my eyes again as she passed by the room. She is older so I don't worry about her usually, but there are still times when she gets into things hoping to surprise me and then it ends up being too much of a surprise. So I was getting a little curious as to what she was scheming. I was not supposed to go in my room, but I had to change the baby and all the diapers were in there. So I peeked in...
I noticed right away that most of the laundry had been put away; however, June does not like a surprise to be interrupted half way through. She yelped in dismay and told me not to look and I obediently told her that I did not see a thing.
Later she asked me what I thought happened to all the laundry. I asked if maybe she had put it away.
"Nope," was her reply. Of course, questioning the other girls came up with no solution either. I exclaimed, "It must have been the laundry fairy. I have heard about her, but she has never visited my house before." I could tell that June liked this answer a lot and she immediately played along. She told me that she would go look for the laundry fairy to thank her and she came back with a detailed description. I wish I could tell you more of what she looked like but I was on the phone part of the time while June chattered on about the laundry fairy. My favorite part (that I did catch) was the laundry fairy wears a shirt with a picture of a guy doing laundry on it. "A guy?" was my response. It seems fitting since we all wish some other guy was doing the laundry for us.
I'm sure I can work this to my advantage. The only problem is I had to put the laundry fairy to bed before the second half of the laundry was finished. So, I guess it is just me tonight. I'll have to remember and finish during business hours next time.

Confessions of a Moody Mom

I confess that I don't think much of herbal remedies. My Dad would be appalled to learn this. He has a whole slew of vitamins and what-not that he is always trying to feed me (I take some of them...sporadically).
So now I am on this herbal thing to make my milk come in and man—it is doing something to me. I imagine it must work on my hormones, to help my body produce more milk. I'm not sure of the exact process, but the end result seems to be that I feel extremely moody, interspersed with bouts of light-headedness and occasional headaches. Now the last two may have nothing to do with the herbal medicine. I told Tyler that I am killing myself slowly and he looked a little confused. I explained that you are supposed to eat more when you are nursing because you are feeding two and your body will give the nourishment to the baby regardless of the mother. Well, (more confessions) I am not the best at eating. I tend to feed my children and forget about myself. I grab a snack here and there, but I am not adding a significant chunk to my caloric intake. And then I go and start taking a supplement that is making my body produce MORE milk. Thus, I should probably be eating even more...I'm not.
So the dizziness and occasional headaches are not entirely surprising, but the moodiness is a bit unexpected and annoying. I told Tyler today that I was feeling out of sorts and he said that I have been a bit short recently (I don't think he was referring to my height). I feel bad when I can see my husband gauging my reaction before he says something. And I hate being cross with my children. I feel every situation can be handled with some grumpy stern words or some creative problem solving and a bit of humor. Yeah, I have been using more of the former.
So perhaps herbal stuff works better than I expected (sorry Dad). I need to reach inside and find some extra patience and perhaps reach outside for an extra bite to eat. I promise to eat a LOT next Thursday at least.
In the meantime, I will put my headache to bed; alone sadly. Tyler went back to work. I can't imagine why, I am so much fun to be around right now...

Rejects

I am getting ready to make a couple more scrapbook pages for Daisy (I do them by month) and I had too many pictures that I liked. So I chose the best to print and then I decided to put a couple on here to entertain the viewers. Notice, these are the ones that DIDN'T make the cut...and look how cute she still is.



If you want to see the ones that were worth printing, you'll just have to come over and look at her scrapbook sometime. Tell me you are coming and I'll make cookies (I always need a good excuse).

The Bane

Laundry is my bane. I truly detest it. I'm not loving dishes (although, with a dishwasher they are bearable) and cleaning bathrooms is just so-so. I actually enjoy vacuuming because it means the floor is clean enough to see.
But laundry...ick. I think it is because it takes so long. I like to start a project and finish it. The dishes I can tackle and then stand back and be proud of a job well done. But laundry...you spend ALL day doing it and then there are still piles to put away. And if you don't put them away, they either end up on the floor needing to be washed again or it's just more work for tomorrow. My children like to change outfits during the day and they will put the clothes they wore for twenty minutes in the hamper. Part of this is my fault; I stopped encouraging them to put their clothes back in their drawers after I would find macaroni stained shirts when I put the clean laundry away.
I tend to get a bit feisty now when I see them changing clothes. If they knew how much I hated laundry they would understand why I start to breathe fire when I see them in the third pair of pants for the day. My motto is: "Don't worry, it will dry" (unless it is pee—come on, I am not that heartless).
I try to stay on top of laundry, but it breeds in the corners and under the beds, and then there is the random laundry like the slip cover that needs changing every so often, and don't get me started on the beds. Sheets tend to stay on the beds longer than recommended (once again, unless the kids pee on them) because it just means MORE laundry.
Anyway, I only mention this because Tyler who doesn't do much of the laundry (I am NOT blaming here—if I could get out of it, I would too) washed load after load after load last night so I could just fold and put away today. I was folding my last batch of laundry and Daisy was getting fussy. I picked her up off the floor and cradled her in my arms while I continued to fold and then she proceeded to puke in the hamper of clean clothes.

COME ON, BABY!! CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?

It was only five items of clothing that never even reached a drawer but instead went straight back into my bane box (also known as the laundy hamper). Sadly, one of them was my blue sweater which she did the unkindly justice of spitting-up all over on the 7th (I remember, I was at Ready to Learn sitting by Deanne). It then got left in the car for over a week, finally to be retrieved and washed, only to be spit-up on again before it even got worn. Ah, the injustice.

The prophet said this last conference, "If you are still in the process of raising children, be aware that the tiny fingerprints that show up on almost every newly cleaned surface, the toys scattered about the house, the piles and piles of laundry to be tackled will disappear all too soon and that you will—to your surprise—miss them profoundly."

Miss them?
Fingerprints - yes
Toys - maybe
Laundry - never!

Everyone Needs a Good Cry Once in a While

Mine was today.

I didn't think it was going to be a crying day. There was no indication (besides the fact that it was Monday, and Mondays can go either way). Nope, I was just jumping into the day as usual. I got kid number one off to school and then packed up two, three, and four to go to the doctor's for a check-up. Daisy is officially four months old now (I know, where has the time gone?). She is doing very well, except she didn't really gain as much weight as I would have liked. I know my children run small, but I still like to see them keep a steady upward trend on the chart and this time she kinda dipped down. I wouldn't be so worried except that I had problems when I had Robyn. I think my milk gave out early, because Robyn didn't gain ANY weight between 4 and 6 months (not normal for babies). So, I am a bit paranoid about keeping my babies fed. I swear my milk is non-fat to begin with because my babies don't chunk up like they should, but it is even worse when there isn't quite enough and I feel like I am slowly starving my child. So that news settled on me like a baby beluga. The doctor had some suggestions; she said to try More Milk Plus and it should help the quantity I produce. So I left thinking I would find some at my earliest convenience.

I staggered outside doing the lumber a mom does when she is carrying a carseat, holding the hand of a two year old, balancing her purse and trying to keep child number three reasonably close. There was a huge brown UPS truck parked next to the sidewalk, right by the crossing area. I realized that you couldn't really see around to tell if cars were coming, so I cautioned Robyn to stay very close as I tried to peek around.

I can't even begin to tell you how happy I am that I thought to take caution and that Robyn obeyed so well. Only seconds later, a lady came tearing through the small intersection. She took the corner sharply and sped away into the parking lot. I don't think she ever even saw us. She was probably intent on an open parking spot close by so she could save herself two minutes walking.

Furious would not be an adequate word for how I felt. I stopped to make sure all children were still accounted for and thanked my lucky stars that I was still walking towards my car instead of carrying Robyn back into the hospital (our doctor's office is part of a hospital). I would have tracked down this lady just to yell at her, but I couldn't see where she had parked and I was still carrying the carseat and holding Ivory's hand. So instead I just fumed inside.

Adrenaline doesn't wear off as fast as I would like. I got home with plenty in my system and then I made the mistake of calling Tyler. I think I wanted to tell him about this lady, and I wanted to ask if he was coming home for lunch so I could run over and get some lactation medicine. Instead, all my emotions bubbled up inside; adrenaline and a baby beluga don't go well together. They tend to just burst out through the eyes. I wasn't on the phone for more than a few moments before I regretted my decision to call because I didn't want to cry on the phone.

Try convincing your husband in a voice verging on hysteria and tears that nothing is wrong.
Yeah, he didn't buy it, and he came home despite my pleas to the contrary. It was nice to get a good hug though, and have a nice cry (most of which happened before he got home). He even let me run over to the store and purchase this medicine



(although I wish I had gotten the capsule kind, because I ended up with the liquid that tastes like I am eating thistles with a drizzle of honey on top—not the tastiest stuff, but whatever).

Not the most tragic day by far, but apparently I have been bottling up some tears that needed a release. And I'm not really complaining. I'll take crying over my kids NOT being hit by a car any day over the alternative.