Perseverance

(You know what they say…)

If at first you don’t succeed:

Try, try again:

 

(…and again):

What is that tooth fairy’s problem, anyway?

He has his reasons

 

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

7:08 pm Ryan is given the oath of office for a Council Seat #6 for our little  Northwestern town.  (Because he’s been twiddling his thumbs, wishing he had more to do in his life.  You know, besides training for a half-ironman, going back to school for his MBA, parenting 5 kids, working and being the ward clerk.  You can see why he was so bored.)

7:11 pm  We, all 6 of us, arrive to witness the oath of office.  Oops.

7:12 pm  The mayor proceeds to ask Ryan to introduce us.  He says, “This is my wife and our four kids.”  I correct him by holding up all five fingers and then the mayor asks him to give names and ages.

     7:15 pm Seth begins rocking his chair into the lady next to him. 

7:22 pm Some lady stands up and starts talking about the census.

7:22:30 pm Faith starts fussing.

       7:24 pm  Faith barfs sweet potatoes all over one of the city council chairs.

       7:26 pm  Me, and our five kids, head out the door.

I think Ryan might have had an ulterior motive when he decided to enter the political arena, how about you?

 

Half-Full or Half-Empty?

Things I Don’t Feel Good About:

1.  That I still have 23 lbs to lose before I get to a happy weight

2.  That none of my clothes fit…I wear them, I just look like a big girl trying to fit in a smaller girl’s clothes.

3.  That I’m continually chagrined at how large I look in pictures

Things I DO Feel Good About:

1.  That I took second place at our local gym’s weight loss contest (I lost 6% body fat in 3 months!)

2.  That I tied for first place in our friend weight loss contest.

3.  That, after running consistent 10 minute miles while training for the half marathon, last Saturday, I finished it in 2:00:33—which, if you do the math, is a 9:06 minute mile average! 

 

My friends who ran the race with me, and my husband who OBVIOUSLY grew up in the ghetto.

iHappy

(that title is kind of ripping off Paige’s cleverness , sorry.)

I really don’t think I’ve been this giddy over a material object since I bought my first new car after I graduated from BYU. All day at church, post-gift receiving, instead of thinking of Jesus, I kept remembering “Eeee! I own an iphone!” and “Eeee! I can type recipes into the Loseit! app and it will tell me exactly how many calories, etc, it has per serving” and “Eeee! You can sync up with your ward website and everyone’s phone numbers and emails at your finger tips!” (I know. I probably ought to do the whole church thing over again, huh?)

So far this is why I love it:

1. I typed, in the “Notes” section, Jane’s birthday list and emailed it to loving grandparents WHILE IN LINE AT WALMART!

2. I typed just the name of the obscure wallpaper store I was going to today, in the Map section, and in, like 2 seconds!, it pulled up the store. THEN it pulled up me, in blue dot form, and showed how Blue Dot Me could get to the store. Then, on the screen, Blue Dot Me moved whenever my car moved and told me exactly how close I was to my store.

3. At the wallpaper store, I could take a picture of the wallpaper and email it to Ryan to see if he liked it. (Except I didn’t find any I liked, so I only emailed him a picture of me and Faith, but still. I could have.)

4. To show the owner of the wallpaper store what I was looking for, I simply found the wallpaper I’ve been admiring on the Target website and showed it to her. (She didn’t have it. But still.)

Can you even believe it?

So this is what I need to know from iphone havers:

1. How, seriously, do you not spend every moment playing with the phone? (Really. I want to know, because I’m having a limiting problem, which I’m hoping is just the newness of it.)

2. What tricks did you not know when you got it, that you want to share with me?

3. What apps do I need?

Kay, that’s all. Sorry to be so in love with a material object. Maybe next week at church they’ll have a lesson about that. I’ll try to listen this time.

Mother, I Give you My Love with…

Today, we did our mother’s day celebrating over a breakfast of Saturday-bought Cinnabons.  The following are examples of the heartfelt/handmade poems, letters and gifts my family gave me.  I realize my children’s darling poems, recorded here because we all know Jessica will lose them in a week or so, will be only of interest to a grandparent (maybe), but you’ll want to skim down to the end.  Ryan’s was a doozy.

Seth’s Mother’s Day letter (as dictated to the Primary helper):

I loved you.

You cook good breakfasts.

I love you to make brownies.

I love to make cookies with you.

 

(Hmmm.  Any guesses on what I spend a lot of time doing?)

 

Jane’s Mother’s Day Recipe:

Mom’s Macaroni and Cheese

Ingredients:  1 pot full of water, 1 stick of butter, 1 cup of milk, 2 boxes of milk.  2 boxes of noodles, 2 packets of cheese.

Directions:  First, you boil the water.  Then you stir in the macaroni and cook it for half an hour.  Then we take it out.  Put in the milk, cheese and butter.  Stir it 1 time and then it is ready to eat!

 

 

 

 

 

Gabe’s Mother’s Day Poem:

Mom-oh-Mom I love you swell.

Mom-oh-Mom, you treat me well.

Mom the greatest you are so kind.

Mom the greatest the lost you find.

Mom so nice you are cool every day.

Mom so nice I hope you never fly away.

Mom dearest you are mellow.

Mom dearest you are YELLOW. (?)

Mom oh mom you are so nice on Sunday.

But today is Mother’s Day, yip i yi yay!

 

 Emma’s Mother’s Day poem:

She is wonderful in every way.

She wonders if when we grow up if we will be all that we can.

She hears everything,

She sees everything, you can’t hide anything.

She wants us to live to our full potential.

She is wonderful in every way.

She pretend she is a star, but in my eyes she already is.

She feels what I feel and tries to help.

She cries when she’s touched. 

She is touched when something brilliant happen to anyone because she is caring. 

She is worried about the day when I’m grown.  But I’ll always be her little girl.

She is wonderful in every way.

She says she would give her life for us, and I would do the same for her.

She dreams and knows we will live together after we die.

She tries to do her best and she's great to me.  She hopes we will follow Christ.

She is wonderful in every way.

 

Faith’s Mother’s Day present:

Sleeping in the church kitchen during Relief Society so that I could enjoy the whole 3rd hour of church.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ryan’s Mother’s Day present:

Certain presents I laughed at, certain presents I teared up over, certain presents…(let’s just be honest) were my favorite.

Butter and Salt with that?

Dad:  (having been prepped by Mom)What’s in your nose, Seth?

Seth:  A nut.

Dad:  Is it going to come out?

Seth:  No.  Cause it’s far, far.

Dad:  Why don’t we try blowing it?

Seth:  I did that with Jessica (my friend Jessica who was “watching” him while I went to the gym).  I blowed it in a paper.  She had a little black flashlight.  I got popcorn in my mouth.

Dad: I can’t see it.

Seth:  But Jessica could see it and she feeled it.

Dad: Are you sure it’s in there?

Seth: Yeah. 

Dad: Where is it?

Seth: On one side.

Seth:  There’s two nuts in my nose.

Dad:  How did it get there?

Seth:  Like this (fingers up nose). 

Mom:  Why?

Seth:  Because I was eating it.  Because I put it up my nose, I need a tissue.  Hey.  Where’s my candy?

 

(What does one do with a child like this?  Really.  One month later, the kernel’s never been found, but there have been no foul smells emanating from Seth, at least not fouler than normal, and so we are assuming the kernel is not rotting in his brain.  Though that could explain quite a lot about this kid.)

Summary: Where Are They Now Edition

Jane

Status: crying in her room, after running up the stairs yelling: “I hate my mom!” This is because I informed her she couldn’t use the computer because I was going to use it. She might be feeling emotional because, as she told me yesterday, “I used to have 2 boyfriends but I broke up with one of them. I haven’t kissed the other one, but I was telling him a secret and I kissed his ear on accident.” This is so Jane: super social and sensitive…I know it totally bodes well for teenage-hood.

(Also, Jane loves to read, is begging me to teach her piano—what? did she not get the “Mom Has Five Kids” memo?—and her favorite thing is when we walk her to school, so she can ride her bike home with Emma and Gabe.)

Faith

Status: sleeping in her crib, probably with her thumb firmly planted in her mouth and her little fingers wrapped around a satin-y blanket. (Like I’d be blogging if she was awake…) She is probably exhausted from her sitting up, rolling all over the place and her Mamama-ing. Maybe she’s dreaming of her brush with fame. The picture above is Faith holding “her” windmill, one of the 2,893 that were put outside the hospital where she was born to commemorate the babies born there last year.

Gabe

Status: at school, resting his legs after his fun early morning run with his Mom. Gabe’s been participating in an after-school running program. He’s completed a few 4 mile runs, in 45 minutes and ran more miles in the 6 week program than any other 3rd grader. When my running buddies ditched me this morning (thanks Randi and Laura), I ran home and grabbed him and we had THE FUNNEST TIME chatting and running together.

Jessica

Status: blogging for the first time in a week, because who has time to be on the computer when you spend four days in Arizona with your oldest, best friends:

when your fun Mom comes to visit for a week:

and you have to keep track of all the free/cheap ice cream deals this month had to offer.

Ryan

Status: of course, working. If it were 11pm, he would also be working, because some guys on his team work in India, and he’s been up late working in their time zone. But that’s not the only reason he’s tired. No, he’s tired because he has to try to keep up with me while we train for an upcoming half-marathon. (What?! You don’t think 10.5 minute miles are a challenge for him?)

Emma

Status: also at school, hopefully winning her Dress Up Your Skeleton contest. She picked Elvis, and proving the crafting genes skipped a generation, had him all decked up in sequined pants and guitar. She gets extra credit if she wins, but, despite tendencies toward procrastination (also skipped a generation. I swear.), she doesn’t need them. She has great grades.

Hopefully, she’s not getting another tick, because despite the fact that she carried said tick around in a test tube for a week…it was gross:

Seth

Status: at co-op preschool, where his teacher has requested another day, in order to get them ready for assessments (?). I’ll make it easy for them. Seth knows 4 letters: s,o,x,e and makes no sense ever. And he eats pickles, sandwiched by Snickerdoodle cookies. (Seriously, yesterday I watched him eat the whole thing. Weird.)

He’s really awesome on a Big Wheel, though, which he proved on Sunday, when he escaped without parental knowledge, to the end of our cul-de-sac…prompting a visit from the local police who had received a call from a “concerned” neighbor. We were so grateful (please read with sarcasm dripping from your voice).

And since this is all about to change: the kids will be home, Jane will calm down and Faith will awake, change my status to Awaiting Your Comments.