It’s the little details

1.  These are Seth’s rainbow shorts. 

Anyone who has had the privilege to associate with Seth this summer knows all about them.  They are his favorite and we have an agreement that he can wear them every other day.  If they are not washed on HIS day, then he has been known to climb on the washer and start throwing soap in randomly and then begging people to help him start it.  Annoying, yes, but nothing is cuter than when Seth bursts into a room, proclaiming, joyfully:  “WAINBOW SHOATS!!!”

2.  Faith has now pulled herself to stand. 

But refuses to hold a bottle, or cup, or anything resembling a container of liquid.  She’s smart, that one.

3.  Jane asks us every time we leave the house or van, multiple times: “Did you lock the van?  Did you shut the garage?”  She’s is all of a sudden totally afraid of robbers.  (We think she was reminded of the car-theft incident, somehow).  It’s a little bit cute, but also has thrown a wrench in our newfound in-house babysitter freedom, as Emma does not make her feel as safe as we adults do. 

(Officer Jane wants the robbers to just STOP.)

4.  Gabe broke his toe.  That’s the third broken bone for my almost 9 year old.  It hurts him too much to clear the table, but he’s just fine operating in the Neighborhood kickball game, as long as he’s the pitcher.

5.  Emma has graduated from pre-braces to retainer.  We have 4 more years before we have to do the rest of them.  This is the main reason we can’t move:  the orthodontist offers discounts based on his previous services. 

6.  Ryan is interviewing for the only job in Spokane, as we speak.  Wish us luck.

Less than Ideal

This is a Real Life Post, written so that Emma, Faith, Jane (in 30 years) and anyone else, can read it and know, that,though I LOVE being a mother, there are hard phases and times when I didn't enjoy it. I'm hoping it will make them feel normal.

(in happier times)

Marjorie Pay Hinckley is one of the people I admire most. When I was relatively new to the mothering thing (Emma 3ish, Gabe 1ish), I read the book Glimpses, which is a series of memories and letters that give insight into her life and philosophies. It is uplifting and sweet and real. I highly recommend it.

Anyway, one of the things that stuck with me the most was this sentiment:

"When the kids went back to school at the end of the summer, she cried. She hoarded every minute she could with them."

I wanted to be that kind of mom. The kind of mom that enjoyed free time with her kids so much that she cried when it was over. And I was that kind of mom, really, during the summer of 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008.

And then the Summer of 2009 commenced.

It has not been fun. It has not been enjoyable. It has been stressful and hard and chaotic and out of control and depressing and looooong.

I really tried to keep this from happening:

I don't do well with the chaos of No Schedule, so we have charts that slightly minimize the crazy, but the charts then require Monitoring: "Have you checked off your chart? Let me check the jobs on your chart? Are you lying about reading the Book of Mormon for 10 minutes?"

I have a weekly schedule that includes planned activites we both enjoy (swimming, library time, lessons, art class), but those activities for the big kids, cause missed naps and irritation for the little kids.

There have been days where I had fun with the kids (mostly on vacation). There have been hours where I enjoyed having them near me (right before bed when I'm reading to them, Sundays in the kitchen while they cook with me). There have activities that have been stress relievers (swimming at the Taylors, outings to the parks, library activities).

But mostly, I have too many kids to worry about for too many hours all day, every day. There are SO MANY people at this house and they start at 5:30 (feeding Faith her extra feeding...the only one she does well) and don't end until 10:00 (when Ryan and I are in the basement watching TV, trying not to care that feet are stomping all over the bedrooms upstairs). "Quiet time" consists either of S and F sleeping while I feel guilty that E, J and G are vegging away watching more than the allowed hour of TV time or the big kid "playing outside", and slamming doors while they run in and out to go to the bathroom/get a drink/tell me something NOT that important. And don't even get me started on the omnipresent kitchen mess that results from 5 kids, 3 meals, 1 snack. Hideous.

And to make everything worse, I feel guilty and grouchy that I'm not liking it because I'm falling short of the Marjorie Hinckley ideal.

It's bad.

I realized about 2 weeks ago that the summer was unsalvagable. There's nothing to do but endure.

I just want to know, I guess, is this how it's going to be every summer, now that I have 5 million kids? Is there anyway to regain the Crying When They Go To School of past summers?

In the tops of the mountains

 

So, we went to Utah for our annual summer vacation.  Here are some of the most memorable events from the trip.

1)  Ryan hangs out with his mission buddies.

So Ryan has stayed really close to 5 of his (Baltic country) mission companions.  Over the last few months, they figured out that they could all be in Utah at the same time.  Apparently they golfed, geo-cached, made Fazer pie, played Utimate frisbee and other games late into the night.  But this is the only picture my husband managed to take of the event:

(this is Bertha, a felt chicken that used to turn up in cereal boxes, beds and shower drains on their mission and somehow has migrated all the way to the Bean Museum in Provo, Utah.)

2) That Ryan’s sister Elizabeth never let us pay for anything.

If you want to get a free ride on a vacation, have a birthday and lose your job the day before you go.  Everyone picks up your tab, wherever you go.  Besides the lovely accommodations and meals at Betsy’s, she kept paying for everything we did.  It got a little embarrassing, but we sure enjoyed ourselves at the Payson swimming pool:

and gorging ourselves at Tuccano’s Brazilian grill.

3) The traditional meal with fun fun fun blog friends.

Although, really, at this point, I think after 3-5 real life meetings, we get to qualify as FIRL.  (Friends In Real Life.  For those of you who don’t have an aunt as cool as Marcie to teach you the most important Facebook acronyms ).

4) That Seth kept getting MAJORLY lost. 

Notice he’s not in this picture?  Yeah, that’s cause he was sitting next to me at the Gateway fountains (“oh this is so sad.  I just get so worried that you’ll run off, you’ll need to just sit right here by me instead of playing in the fountains with your siblings”  Love and Logic lingo for Your Grounded From Playing.) 

Incident #1 involved me watching him (truly) like a hawk by the man-made pool in the Daybreak neighborhood and him going to play at the very close playground and then deciding to “walk to Grah-mas to get a dry towel”.  I was ill, sure he was at the bottom of that lake, because I couldn’t find him for a good 15 minutes.  As I started combing the neighborhoods nearby, people told me they’d seen him (BLOCKS away) and had walked him back to the lake, since he was wearing his suit.

Incident #2 happened THE NEXT DAY at SLC’s Gateway Mall.  He was sent ahead with Grandma and decided to go back to find me (waiting for to go food at a restaurant) without telling anyone.  I finally found him with a security guard, after another frantic 15 minute search in the busiest place imaginable.  That’s when he lost fountain priviledges.

He is the King of Sneaking Off and I’m at my wit’s end with him.  Any suggestions?

5) Our fun outing to Liberty Park in which we

a) sternly instructed some kids that they couldn’t hog all the floating balls that were part of the Canyon/Stream water area…only to find out that the balls were theirs and that they were SO NICELY sharing with all the 85 kids at the park.  Nice.

b) overheard this conversation between Seth and cousin Hannah (4):

Me: Let’s go guys, we’re going to the wading pools

Hannah (excitedly, always excitedly): Seth! We are going to the LADY pools!

Seth: Yay! We are going to the BABY pools! Do they quack?

Hannah:  Are the pools cracked?

Remember the game of Telephone?  Don’t play with these two.

6) The Oquirrh Mountain Temple tour.

Since this temple hasn’t been dedicated yet, my children got to go on a tour through our church’s newest temple.  I really tried to prepare them as we drove, sharing my testimony of temples and singing songs and it actually paid off.  Emma and Gabe especially enjoyed the tour and seemed to learn alot.  It is a beautiful building.

7) The Pioneer Day parade.

Actually, it wasn’t that memorable.  (No offense to our AWESOME seat savers!)

8) That my college roommate and HILARIOUS blogger Laurie, drove to Utah, partly because I was there!

We, and our 9 children and husbands, met up at Cafe Rio.  After sufficiently destroying the restaurant (and losing Seth again) we headed to a park in Bountiful where we tried to convince the kids that it was SO fun to play in the 95 degree weather while we sweated under the shade trees.  Read her much more fun account here.

9) Dane and Lorena’s all-too-short visit.

No picture, just some fun memories, an AMAZING recipe and a lame stomach flu that sent them home early!

10) Old friends (Anisa, Cami, Jacinda, Rachel and Bethany) who make time to see us.  Even if they have to buy me lunch (see #2) or head up an Amber Alert search for my missing 3 year old (see #4).

Thanks to Grandmas, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins and Friends who made this visit so memorable.  Thanks to you for indulging this Family Journal post, ensuring that my memories won’t fade.

Mostly true

This is the first “trick” I teach my babies:

I ask them: “ How big is Faith-y” in a big sing-song voice and pull their hands above their heads and reply to my own question:  '”soo big!”  Eventually they start doing it themselves (Faith started at 8 months).  It’s darling, but you have to catch them during the right window, because pretty soon they get lazy and can only manage one bored arm in the air.

It’s pretty much the first trick every kid has done.

And it’s appropriate:  She is so big…

• with her first tooth (a few days ago)
• army crawling (2 weeks ago)
• actual crawling (yesterday)
• saying “ah-oh” when she drops her cup/book/bow she’s pulled off her head (2 days ago)
• being in the 75th percentile for height
• somehow reaching 9 months of age

Of course, her so bigness does have limits:

she couldn’t quite carry off double digits in her weight for two doctor visits in a row…she’s back in familiar Romney Baby Territory:  a whopping 7th percentile for weight (that’s 17.2 pounds, folks).

I don’t care what those charts say.  This baby is TOO BIG for me.

Quick Quote

Pointing to her shirt (the one pictured) Jane called to me:

 "Mom...I weally do."

The Deal

This post has two purposes:  to inform and to ask for help.

Information:

Two days before Ryan was laid off, if you’d asked us, we would have told you that his job was completely secure.  His division of the company was the only one making money and they had just started a new 18-month long project.  It completely caught us off guard…and was that much more upsetting.  They decided to shut down Ryan’s entire project, so he had no way of fighting for his job; it was simply non-existent. 

We are fine.  He got a little bit of severance, we have a good amount of savings and no debt, besides our house.  Our food storage is (mostly) up to date.  We have always practiced hard-core budgeting and are in the habit of living below our means.  I am grateful to believe in a Gospel that places value on relationships over things,  living prophets who have long advised us on provident living, a Heavenly Father who blesses us as we pay our tithes and fast offerings, and a husband who make REALLY frugal look good.

He is, of course, working hard at finding a job and is doing some consulting work with a friend…it seems he has less free time now than before!

The Help:

With 3 layoffs in 7 years, 7 companies in 12 years, 3 job relocations…I’m kind of giving up on settling.  (I moved a lot growing up, and it was good for me.  Moving is fun; if you minus the packing and the friend-leaving.)  Which means…we’ll move wherever we can find a job and we feel like we’re “supposed to be”. 

This is where you come in:  Can you help?  Ryan is an electrical engineer.  He works in microchip design.  So what I need you to do is:

a) tell us if you know of any high tech, computer type companies that are hiring. And tell your friends who work at those places that you have a great guy to refer to them.

b) leave a comment with names of high-tech companies in your area.  Ryan can search those companies to see if they are hiring.

(If I read this post, I would think: “What?  I don’t know that kind of stuff.”  And if I really liked you and wanted to help, I would think:  “I think I’ll go ask my husband because he knows where people work way more than I do.”)

c) tell me why your area is a great place to live.

TO MY LIBERTY LAKE FRIENDS:  we do not want to leave.  We love it here, more than any place ever!  We don’t want to sell our house.  We don’t want to leave the best neighborhood on the planet.  There are just not that many options in Spokane for what Ryan does.  (There is one possibility that is promising, though, so say prayer for us). 

So that’s the deal.  Is this too much information?  Is Ryan going to be embarrassed when we sees it? 

Whatever.  Just help us get a job.  In case you haven’t heard, the economy’s not too hot right now, and jobs are scarce.  We need all the help we can get.

Favorite things about our trip to Bear Lake

Waaay back on July 1, we took a quick trip to Bear Lake, in Utah, with Ryan’s sisters Heather and Betsy and family.

The best things were:

• the cabin, with it gorgeous view, perfect amount of room and close location to ALL the Bear Lake action

• cousins playing together so perfectly

 

• late night talks with the adults

 

• Faith in the baby swing at the lovely park

• Aaron’s 4th of July firecracker show

 

• Matching Uncle and Nephew

• only having to make 3 meals, while eating Heather and Betsy’s yummy food the other days

 

• Ryan’s famous Bear Lake shake

• the bike ride that turned into a MAJOR workout

 

• the beach (and the HOT guy that hung out there)

• the (self-designated) Funnest Aunt Ever commemorating the 4th of July by breaking out into Patriotic Song and Dance, every 15 minutes.  (maybe this wasn’t so favorite for everyone else?)

  

It was a perfect vacation.  Obviously.

A Slice of Birthday Whine

(this fun little birthday cone at McDonalds in Dillon, MT and YOUR FABULOUS DE-LURKING AND WELL-WISHING COMMENTS, were the only good things about the day…)

Have you ever decided to drive 10 hours on your birthday so that your husband could get to his “Man-cation” with his mission buddies on time?

I have.

Have you ever found out that the birthday dinner your mom planned with your relative, when you arrived, had to be cancelled because your husband’s boss was flying into town, unexpectedly, and so you had to leave way later than planned?

I have.

Have you ever fought with your husband the night before your birthday, so you sleep on the couch, because you can’t sleep by him when you’re irritated, and end up with a huge headache when you wake up?

I have.

Have you ever gotten an email while you were doing the last minute trip packing, on your birthday, that said this:  “Just got laid-off.  Sorry.  Be home in 30 minutes?”

I have.

Have you ever had your mom call, during your drive to Utah, on your birthday, and had her tell you that doctors found two kinds of cancer in your grandpa?

I have.

Have you ever had your tire blow out, on your birthday, at 10 o’clock at night, with 150 miles to go and NO repair shops open, so you pray really hard and drive 50 miles an hour, on the spare, all the way to your destination?

I have.

And now I have three words for you:

Crappiest. Birthday. Ever.

Reasons why you need to tell me you read my blog today

 

1.  I’ve never done this before.  Most bloggers I know have done a de-lurking/tell-me-you-love-my-blog post before, but I haven’t.  I would love to know who’s reading and how you found me.

2.  I’m driving 10 hours to Utah today.  Do you know how fun it would be for me to check my blog every time I have cell coverage and find a new comment from you?

3.  Mostly:  It’s my 35th birthday today.  Give me the gift of comments, would ya?

 

(me, on my 5th birthday…

obviously my love of chocolate cake hasn’t changed much in the last 30 years!)

Sis. Alligator gets released

**Those who do not attend my church, might be confused by many of the references here.  I put links to explanatory webpages, should you be interested.

So if we have to travel on Sunday (like last week on our way home from our Bear Lake weekend), we find a Sacrament meeting and then drive the rest of the time.  Because we are missing Primary and Sunday School, we do our best to replicate those meetings in the car with the kids.  It passes the time, counts as Family Home Evening for the week and we don’t feel bad about ditching the last two hours of church. 

Here’s the Agenda from last Sunday’s Traveling Primary:

Conducting: Sister Mom

Welcome visitors/new members to Primary:  Faith

Recognize Birthdays:  Seth (real birthday is 8/28 but asks us EVERY DAY if his birthday is “tomorrow”…I even found a pencil to hand to him, as his Primary present)

Scripture:  Jane (“I will go and do the things…”)

Prayer:  Seth

Talk:  Emma (read story from The Friend and discussed)

Sharing Time:  Sister Man, who used the Sharing Time lesson in The Friend, and did a very good job.

Singing Time:  Sis Alligator …and this is where it all broke down.

 

Sister Alligator did not do a very good job fostering reverence.  She wore her sun glasses, made inappropriate jokes, sang VERY rudely and ate baby’s legs.  Finally, Sister Mom had to step in and tell the Primary that Sister Alligator had been abruptly released from her calling and singing time would now be run by Sister Mom. 

After many efforts to wrangle giggly kids (and allow Seth to sing his sobbing solo of “I Lived in Heaven”), we finished singing time and proceeded to the..

Closing Prayer: Gabe

Don’t hurt yourself in your rush to get your records transferred to our “ward”…our van only seats 7.

Quick Quote #34

 

After being told she is a good little mom to Faith, Jane replied, "Yeah, but I don't know if I will be a vewy good haiw do-ew when I gwow up." 

(At least I’ve got that one down.)

A Berry Good Post

(Emails, from the iphone, of course, sent to Ryan after he decided he couldn’t get off of work at 10:30 am last Friday when we went strawberry picking at our local mountain.)

Email #1

to: ryanromney@ourtotallyprivateemailaddress.com

from: jessicaromney@ourtotallyprivateemailaddress.com

Subject: It’s so peaceful up here.

 

Email #2

to: ryanromney@ourtotallyprivateemailaddress.com

from: jessicaromney@ourtotallyprivateemailaddress.com

Subject: Almost like you were with us, huh?

Email #3

to: ryanromney@ourtotallyprivateemailaddress.com

from: jessicaromney@ourtotallyprivateemailaddress.com

Subject: Big fight over this particular seat

Email #4

to: ryanromney@ourtotallyprivateemailaddress.com

from: jessicaromney@ourtotallyprivateemailaddress.com

Subject: Faith prefers extra-ripe strawberry LEAVES

Email #5

to: ryanromney@ourtotallyprivateemailaddress.com

from: jessicaromney@ourtotallyprivateemailaddress.com

Subject: “Mom, can you help me find my box again?”

Email #6

to: ryanromney@ourtotallyprivateemailaddress.com

from: jessicaromney@ourtotallyprivateemailaddress.com

Subject: Seth’s lots of help.

(We have since made:  strawberry jam, strawberry syrup, chocolate dipped strawberries, strawberry banana whole wheat muffins, strawberry pie and strawberry rhubarb crisp.  That should hold us over till next year.  And keep us really regular.)