when it snowed

The first snow of the year could not have been on a better day for us.  It was a Friday.  The snow had picked up enough in the afternoon that there was a good four inches to play in by the time McKay got home from school.  Elle had been waiting all day to go out and play in it, but I made her wait until he got home so I only had to do the snow clothes once, and so that they could all play in the freshly fallen snow at the same time.  By the time he got home, Elle had been dressed for half an hour.  He was ready to play and so we dug through the boxes of  snow clothes and everyone got dressed.

They had so much fun.  Layla was just crawling through the snow on all fours most of the time.  I don't get how little kids can just do that and not freeze, but she lasted about an hour before her little mitted hands were frozen and red.  We built a snowman, threw snowballs, made tracks and I broke in our new shovel.  It's been a loooong time since I've shoveled snow.

After they were done playing we went inside and had hot chocolate (we also had it with breakfast!) and had Aunt Glenda's sauce for dinner, which I had never made before.  The kids were super happy about that.

After dinner we cozied up on the couch, broke out the halloween candy, made popcorn and watched Mirror Mirror with the fire going.  It was a great end to a fun, snowy day.

We were sad that Brian had to work.  We missed him.  I know he would have loved to play outside with the kids.  Our neighborhood was just this beautiful winter wonderland as soon as school was out, there were kids playing outside all over the place.  It was, um. . .magical. . .if I were ever to use the word magical.

We may have enjoyed the first day of snow, but the second day I was ready for it to go.  I realized how high we are and how much more snow we are going to get.  And I'm just not ready for it to be cold like that.  After living away from the snow for a few years, I must admit I didn't miss it too much.  Oregon is pretty fun because when it snows, it's really fun and surprising, and then the next day it's gone.  I think they have the right idea.  However, I do realize that now I live on a mountain in a place where it will snow often, and there's nothing I can do about that, so I am trying to be good with it.  Remember how magical the first snow was?  Yes, I remember.

thoughts on a sunday

• Thursdays are usually days where I don't have anything.  Every other day I have school drop offs and pick ups and add a napping girl to that and I feel pretty stuck.  I have been feeling bad for my girls that we never go out and do anything fun, but also bad for McKay that if we were to go out and do anything fun, he would miss it.  I have realized that I just have to get over it and start doing things, because he got to do them when he was little, so my girls need that chance too.  So on Thursday, Jana planned a fun day for us.  We started out going to library story time- which I now feel awful that I haven't done here yet, because they loved it, especially Layla.  So that was a hit, and then we were temporarily insane and decided to take four children under five shopping.  We only got to one store, but we immediately got depressed and headed to Jana's for lunch.  Had a nice lunch there and then went to Farm Country.  Again, girls loved it.  I was beat by the time we got home, but I'm happy that my sis encouraged me to get out of my house (aside from the grocery store) and do some fun things.  I can do it!

• So this is why we got depressed.  We went jeans shopping.  I mean, who likes that anyway?  But we were searching for jeans that aren't skinnies, that aren't flares, that aren't straight-leg mom  jeans.  So what?  What is the answer to this?  There are none is the answer.  Sometimes I dont' want to wear skinnies.  There's got to be an in-between!  What is it!!!

• One day, about two weeks ago I got brave and decided it was the day I was going to cut Layla's souci.  I just did it without thinking of it too much.  We have been talking about doing it for awhile now.  She was shocked that it was "broken" and wanted to inspect it quite thoroughly.  After we talked about it for awhile we decided to throw it away and down she went for her nap.  Except she did not nap.  And she didn't nap the next day or the next day or the next. . .for a week.  And she was waking up an hour earlier than usual.  This did not make for a happy little girl...and an even unhappier momma.  After about a week I was sitting in her room and she was going through the toy basket.  She ran over to me and in the most excited voice said, "My pink souci!!!  I found my pink souci!!!"  It was then I realized that I wanted her to have that pink souci.  I decided that I'd put her down with her precious pink souci and see if she slept, and if she did, the souci was back.  She took a two and a half hour nap.  So, yeah, it's back.  And she's napping daily and we're both happier.

• I am smitten with Layla again.  I lost it the week that she didn't have her souci.  Now that it's back we're back in love.  Who knew that little piece of plastic was so very important.

• I surprised the kids and bought them slippers the other day.  They were both super excited about  this.  I figured that we've already had two days where its slipper day or pajama day at school, and one more coming up for McKay, so I thought, "why not?"  

• I think I've mentioned that my kids think air blowing is a real instrument/talent.  McKay used to be the only real air blower in the family, but lately Ellery is getting really into and is rivaling the original air blower.  I compliment them often on this skill.

• One of the things I've been loving lately is hearing Ellery sing songs that she's learned in preschool.  She learned all sorts of Halloween and Thanksgiving ones.  

• At school the other week Mckay's teacher sent home a turkey for them to color, as part of a coloring contest (improve your coloring, really).  He took this extremely serious and spent a whole afternoon coloring that turkey and all it's feathers.  He went with a BYU theme with colors of blue, white, gray, black and turquoise.  He was sure he was going to win because his teacher loves BYU, so naturally he would win.  Well, she had set up some voting system where the other teachers voted.  He didn't win, but he did get some votes and by what he described he was fourth.  He was cute and said that he was going to tell the winners congraulations if he didn't win.  When I asked him about this he said, "Yeah, I told them all, except Leah.  I'm going to tell Leah congratulations tomorrow."

• McKay and his friends at recess have started making the honking signal at cars that drive by the school.  He usually reports how many honks they get after school.  The highest I've heard is 14.
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• We made a thankful tree for family night.  I cut out most of the leaves and the kids got right to work with what they are thankful for.  I thought I might have to help Ellery, but she immeditately started drawing pictures of the things she was grateful for.  For some reason I was really impressed and proud of this.  Layla was coloring a picture while we were doing this so I asked her what she was thankful for.  The only two responses I could get were, "a light moon" and a skateboard.  McKay did great writing his own down and thinking of all sorts of things.

• The other morning I was wearing one of my t-shirts that I wear as pajamas.  McKay looked at my shirt and said, "Mom, I really like your shirt.  You should wear it, like with makeup and stuff."

• On Tuesday McKay and  I had a fairly large squabble in the morning over going to school.  He woke up feeling sick and I told him I'd watch him in the morning, give him medicine and see how he did.  He got the bug in his head that he wanted to stay home so we had quite the disagreement over this.  He was not sick, although I'm sure he felt it upon waking up.  But you know how you can be sick when you wake up and then it goes away?  That's what happened.  I won't go into all the details, but I sure hope that after what happened on Tuesday morning none of my kids will ever try to fake sick again.  It was pretty major.  I felt like it was a parenting milestone I wasn't quite ready to tackle- I mean, he's only in first grade.  We established some rules about staying home and after a nice heart-to-heart, we made up and he was only an hour late for school.  I know that's not the only time it's going to happen, but now I feel more prepared for when it does.  

• I wasn't really expecting to have a second go of it on Friday, when he was actually really sick.  But it's easier when they really are sick.  He actually took a nap on Friday, which he hasn't done since 2007.  

• I think I now have whatever he has, and I wonder if Layla has a bit of it too.  And Brian had a nasty bug last week.  I hope we all get healthy again soon.

• Ellery's had two episodes of throwing up in the last week or so, and it seems like her medicine isn't really working, although it's making her episodes different than they usually are.  

• Brian and I got to go out on a date last night.  We went to dinner and then to do sealings with his family at the Provo temple.  It was a fun night and I really love when we have the chance to get out.  My parents were very sweet and came over to our house to watch the kids.  My kids were SO excited that they were coming- Ellery started bugging me about it at nine in the morning.  "Are they coming yet?"  "No Elle, not for five hours."  "So if I count to five- one, two, three, four, five- then they'll be here?"  "No Elle, it's five hours.  It doesn't work like that."  Then we repeated that conversation many, many times throughout the day.  

• McKay: "Mom, I was thinking the other day if I had to kiss one of the first grade teachers, which one I would choose.  It would be Miss Squire. . .if I HAD to."

• Layla has a new word:  Seriously.  "Dad, I need some cheddar bunnies, seriously."

• Another thing Layla told Brian when he got her out from her nap the other day was, "I have poo poo.  It's like a diamond. . .in the sky."

Ellery named our car Rachel awhile ago.  I kind of love when we refer to the car as Rachel.  

• Another from McKay:  "Mom, I want to be fat when I grow up."  I explain that he doesn't want this- there are many unpleasant and hard things about being fat.  "Okay, well not fat then.  I'd like to have Poppy's body.  Yeah, Poppy's body and dad's beard and really black hair!  That's what I want to look like when I grow up."

Happy Sunday!

a first grader

It's been about a month since I started feeling a little pit in my stomach.  You know, like when something is hanging on you and you don't quite know what it is.

It's been a couple weeks now since I figured out what it was.  And each day that has passed since then I have known that soon I would have to write about it to let it out in an attempt to feel a bit of freedom from the feeling.  I knew I would have to let my thoughts spill onto this page as a way of understanding them further and keep them from building too big inside my head.




McKay is in first grade.


This is not a horrible thing.




It's just, well, I guess I thought that since the first couple months of school were fairly easy to get used to and the big adjustment to spending six and a half hours at school really didn't seem all that much like  an adjustment, we were in the clear.

We're not.  The adjustment was late.  It snuck up on us and hit sometime in October.

And we're still going through it.

Six and a half hours at school.  McKay reminds me of this often.  He has a sense of pride and of dread at the fact that he is at school for six and a half hours a day.  People told me he would be really tired at first.  He wasn't.  I kept waiting for him to fall asleep in the car, or crash on the couch, yawn a bunch or at the very least fall asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Nope.  Didn't happen.  None of it.

But after we started seeing him break down about little things time and time again I wondered if it was all catching up to him.  He is not generally a crier.  Or wasn't, I should say.  Now it seems like he falls apart every time he is disappointed or told no.  Several times Brian and I have looked at each other thinking, "Where did this come from?  Who is this?"

I have now come to the conclusion that this is his form of adjusting to first grade.  This is what he's going through and how it's presenting itself.  We try so hard to be patient, but it's hard to do it every time.  He is going through something that none of us really understand, but we're just trying our best to get through it.  He's not horrible.  He's such a good boy.  He's just not himself lately.  Crying and throwing little fits about little things is not him.  We really don't know how to handle this sudden change in our boy.  I feel sad for him because I know it must be hard to be getting used to this new life he has now.  



With the extra worrying I've been doing about him and what he's going through, it's come to me that I am mourning a little bit.  Mourning the loss of my little boy.  He's getting so big.  He's still sweet and good and innocent, but he is seven.  And seven is not the same as three or even five.  Seven is so far from five I cannot believe it sometimes.  Seven worries sometimes about what other people might think of him.  Seven spends all day with people I don't know and kids I don't get to monitor.  Seven is independent.  Seven gets embarrassed more.  Seven is enthusiastic and has homework and due dates.  Seven learns things that I didn't teach him.  Seven is starting to understand social cues and takes note of social situations.  Seven is older. 

I'm mourning the loss of having my kids home with me most of the time and having the freedom to explore and learn here at home, plus to go wherever we wanted during the day.  Now we have drop off times and pick up times to dictate our schedule.  I kind of hate that sometimes.

I'm mourning the loss of his free time.  Six and a half hours a day.  That means he gets home at quarter to four and that is an hour and a half until dinner time.  That is him missing going to library story time with us (not that we do that, but if we wanted to:) or going to Grammy's or playing with cousins or going to the park during the day.  I almost feel like we shouldn't do anything too big or too fun while he is at school because I feel sad that he'll miss it.  Sometimes I marvel that he doesn't say more about the dramatic loss of fun time in his life.  He's mentioned it here and there, but thankfully he is still mostly excited about being at school.  I'm glad that is still mostly fun for him.  

So. . . I have no major conclusion to these rambling thoughts.  Only that I think we'll get through it.

An adjustment never lasts forever.

this is halloween

Started the day off at Mack's school parade.  Cutest little viking I ever saw.  I'm sure he was super hot all day, but I do know he lost the beard once the parade was over.  I don't blame him.

The gross Spooky Dinner that almost ruined my Halloween.  Learned a lot from this gross meal, including keeping dinner easy on Halloween.  Pizza maybe?  This meal put me in such a bad mood, but I finally just had to tell myself that it was Halloween for my kids and they didn't care about the failed meal. . .because it was Halloween!  I had to get over it and just enjoy the night.  And I did!

The group:  SWAT team member Max (neighbor), beautiful bride, Spidey, Viking, a little kiss and Minnie. 

 The Viking

The Bride

  

Minnie Mouse

(who occasionally confused herself with Mickey or a kitty)

Off they go!  

It was such a great night for trick-or-treating.  Because of the perfect weather, everyone was out in the neighborhood sitting on their porches passing out candy.  It was like a huge block party!  I bought way too much candy, and I was surprised when Brian and the older kids came home a little after eight.  The kids had just decided they were done and wanted to head home.  Not huge candy piles, but that's totally fine with me.  They had a blast and it was a great day for these two.  Layla?  She was a bit of a handful out on the streets.  She couldn't keep up but wanted to do it by herself.  She had a bit of a meltdown when I took her home, saying, "SERIOUSLY!  I want to go to trick-or-treating!!!"  Seriously, it was time for bed.