Summer Days

Well it's been a month since I was last on the internet, yet I have survived. I'm actually borrowing my friend's computer for this entry. I don't particullarily have much to say, but I did want to share some photos of our trip to Texas and some projects around the house. We have had a nice summer; it's been busy, yet somewhat relaxing.

My good friend gave me this hutch and I painted it to match my dining room. I still have to paint the top part.

A 'hay' ride on Grandad's tractor


My finished flower bed


Our garden

Feeding the cows on the farm




Uncle Scott and the cousins

Off-line

Well, some of you may have noticed that I have not updated my blog as of late. You also may have noticed that I have not left comments on any of your blogs. Fortunately most of you know that the reason for this is because we no longer have the Internet in our home. We were paying a ton for a service that was terrible. So, we got rid of our cable, phone and Internet. It's been annoying at times, but we're surviving. I am sad to say that my blog updates will be few and far between for awhile. I don't even have any pictures to share at this time because I am using my parent's computer in Texas right now. Hopefully later, I will be able to update more frequently and add some pictures. So bare with me and don't give up on my blog - I will be back online again one day!!

Our Summer Begins

Today was Claire's last 'hour' of school. They went from 8:30-9:30 this morning. We are all very glad to have her home again. She is such a great help around the house and a wonderful playmate for William.

They were playing in the backyard today and William must have gotten his feet dirty, because I discovered him sitting on the dining room floor, brushing the bottom of his feet with his toothbrush. By the time I caught him, he was just finishing up and was very pleased to show me his clean feet. Silly boy.

We don't have too many plans for the summer; just the usual trips to the library, swimming in the blow-up pool in the back yard, playgroup and housework. We plan to make a trip to see family in Texas sometime soon. I also have numerous projects ahead of me. I finished one project today by sewing Claire a play dress and matching shorts out of some pretty fabric I bought for a great price months ago. One down, many more to go!

Baby, where art thou?

As many, if not all of you know, I am expecting baby number three in forever. I don't know if it's a boy or girl, but I will find out soon. Here's the thing: I am a tad over 4-months pregnant and have put on at least 8 pounds, but I cannot for the life of me figure out where the baby is. If it weren't for the sore "upper body area", feeling the baby kicking around a little, and the almost puking in ALDI episode I had today (I was very close to hearing them announce on the P.A. "clean-up on aisle one"), I would swear I'm not pregnant. I still don't have to wear maternity clothes - is this unusual for being this far along with baby #3? Where did those 8 (probably more now) pounds go? I definitely remember having to wear maternity clothes by now with William, and I put on a lot less weight with him. I guess I won't really believe it until I see the baby on the screen next week.

Not that I'm complaining (or bragging, for those of you out there who are annoyed with me after reading this due to your own pregnancy woes), but really now, where are you baby? Oh wait, I know, baby is sitting right on top of my bladder...I have to go now...

Happy Mother's Day to Me!

After talking to several moms out there over the past few days, I am truly convinced that Mother's Day, in general, is a bust. Now I'm not trying to put my wonderful husband down or anything - he is always very sweet and thoughtful in his own way on mother's day. What I'm talking about is the general expectations we mother's seem to form (mistakenly, I know) from either books, movies or TV commercials that inevitably comes crashing down on us on the actual day. The idyllic morning of letting mom sleep in while dad tends the kids, then makes a beautiful breakfast in bed, does all of the dishes, has a fabulous gift that does not involve kitchen gadgets, makes a lovely dinner, all the time keeping the kids from bothering mom while she relaxes on her "day off" AND keeping the house clean, is essentially ridiculous. I mean really, has anyone ever REALLY had a mother's day like that? Yet that is what the world portray as mother's day.

This being my 7th mother's day, I am seasoned enough to know better - yet every year, I secretly hope that this year will be "the year" of the magical mother's day. Instead, my day yesterday was for the most part, very stressful. It wasn't Ryan's fault that he was gone taking his sister to the airport when the kids woke up and were demanding food despite my exhausted and sick state. It wasn't any one's fault that I didn't have time to prepare my Sunday school lesson the day before (if I prepare any earlier, I forget what the lesson was about the day of and I have to spend Sacrament meeting reviewing) because of company over, making it necessary to prepare it while eating the waffles Ryan lovingly made me. It kind of was some one's fault that I had to go to church an hour early to practice a song with the soloist at the last minute because she "forgot" to set it up earlier, even though she was going to sing it that day during sacrament meeting and then on top of that picked a ridiculously hard song. Then it was some one's fault that I had to take the other Sunday school class because the teacher didn't show up or get a sub, making my class (usually 15-18, now 12-18) a lot more to handle than usual.

So instead of coming home relaxed and happy, I was literally running to the car, ready to pass out on the couch (which I did). Now it's the day after and I have my hands full (mostly of dirty dishes). So what, you ask, did I get out of this mother's day? Well, I'll show you with some pictures taken just this morning:
Church bags unpacked and dirty church clothes, dirty dishes and stove top from the dinner I threw together at the last minute out of starvation and then was too tired to clean (by the way, I did not make that mess on the stove-top, that was another member of my family), and my lovely flower from church. Am I bitter? No. Disappointed? No. Amused by the ridiculous expectations and annoyed at the false commercialism of mother's day? Yes. I would love to hear your thoughts on this - does anyone else share my feelings or do you have other experiences?

New Pictures

I finally cleared my camera off (after 161 pictures) and I now have some pictures to share. There's really no theme to this post - just pictures from the past month. In April, we went to Springfield,IL, the capital of Illinois. We saw the Lincoln Memorial Museum, his home, and lots and lots of other Lincoln sites. Springfield is only about an hour and a half away (for those of you that live around me) and has a lot of amazing historical sites. We have also been back to the Botanical Garden a few times.

The Illinois state museum

The State Capital

This is a funny one of William I took the other morning - I'm not sure what he was doing.

This is Ryan hosing off all of the puked-on towels, blankets and clothes from William.

At the MoBot

New Salem

Lincoln Home in Springfield

Claire's first look at an outhouse

I have more to share, but I have to run to the grocery store before William falls asleep on the living room floor.

When things go wrong...

I noticed it had been a while since I last wrote. I guess I have been lacking inspiration lately. Life suddenly got stressful and busy. We were cruising through life, la-de-da, and BAM!!! Things blow up in our face. Now to reassure you all, we are all healthy (for now, at this point I expect anything to happen) and we have a roof over our head (and it doesn't leak, though I wouldn't be surprised if that started either). I know things could be worse, I really do...and I know challenges in life are an opportunity to grow and learn. But in the moment, it really bites.

Here is a question for the cosmos - why is it that right when you can't afford for something to go wrong - it inevitably does? It reminds me of when I lived at home and every time my mom washed her giant van that took several people to wash, it would rain the next day, without fail. It was a joke that if we needed rain, we should just wash mom's car.

Or like the day some one's health insurance lapses between jobs or whatever, they have a major accident. As my dad always said, "When one thing breaks, everything breaks". I can't remember a time growing up when only one major appliance broke at a time, it was always the car and the AC, or the washer and the refrigerator.

Now that's all fine and dandy when you have the cash to spare. "Sure honey! We have the $1200 to fix the car and the $400 to buy a new washer! Let's hop in our unbroken, nice car and head down to Lowe's and get ourselves a new washer. And while we're at it, lets buy a new matching dryer. Hey, maybe we could look at getting our deck replaced too!"

So if anyone has as answer or theory to my original question: "Why is it that right when you can't afford for something to go wrong - it inevitably does?" I would be happy to hear it. I guess the best thing for me to do would be to stop whining, say a prayer (and maybe cry a little) and get to work...