more thoughts on a different sunday

I've been super busy and my camera broke. That combination means I'm not on my bloggin' game. So until I get my camera fixed and find time (and inspiration) to do a post other than thoughts on a Sunday, that's all I've got.

• A few significant events this week: Jaynie graduated from high school. Ken and Missy moved to Alaska. My parents moved out of their house and will be moving into their new house next week.

• I think I'm a little bit obsessed with Kris Allen. I usually like to watch American Idol, but haven't really been able to at all this season. I knew who some of the contestants were, but hardly ever heard them sing. But then I watched the finale- and I really liked it. And since then I haven't been able to stop thinking about Kris Allen. I told Brian I think he just might be trying to be my new boyfriend.



• The other night I asked Ellery what song she wanted to sing at bedtime. She replied with a word that shocked me. McKay used to say this word when he was trying to say "truck". So she said this word and I asked her again, "Elle, what song do you want." Same word. We repeated this conversation a couple more times until finally I realized - she was saying frog! So then we sang Five Little Speckled Frogs- her new favorite- and she was happy.

• Lately my new favorite dessert is 'smores made in the microwave. When I'm camping I kind of think 'smores are a pain because they are so messy and the chocolate is always too hard, but I'm totally loving them at home. Until recently I had never had a 'smore indoors. It's still messy.

• Brian and I are trying to decide whether to list our home with a realtor or do it ourselves. We keep going back and forth - actually, it's just Brian who keeps going back and forth. Every time he changes his mind I think, "Okay, that's what we'll do," and I start preparing myself for that, and then there he goes again. Flip flopper. Any advice on which way to go?

• Today at church, since Brian wasn't there to hang out with Elle, I didn't even attempt to take her to nursery. She ditched and hung out with me. As we were walking by the nursery door towards the end of church she heard them singing. She had a total crying fit and wanted to go in more than ever before. She cried, "Nursery. Nursery, in a whiny scream until I decided to give it a try. Of course when I opened the door and ushered her in she clung to me like a monkey and changed her mind. I should have known.

Happy Sunday.

thoughts on a sunday

• Being the young women's president at age 27 has opened my eyes to a lot of things. I have learned so much since getting this calling- it's been life changing. I've had so many incredible experiences. But one of the most common feelings that I get from this whole experience is that one day I will look back on this time and think, "I was a baby." What's interesting about this realization is that I can already look back on the last year or so and have similar thoughts. I find that I'm really enjoying getting older. . .for now.
  
  
• Brian got a new bike this week. He's been wanting one for about three years, really bad. What he really wanted was a road bike so he could start joining in on some triathlons, but we both agreed that starting a new sport/hobby right before going to a gruelling two years of graduate school is not the best timing. So a mountain bike it was! He took the kids on a ride on our bike trailer/stroller thing and they all loved it. I especially love seeing Ellery in her big orange Dora helmet.

• Speaking of helmets, McKay got them out before bedtime on Monday and they were both wearing them around the house. Ellery was so passionate about wearing her helmet that we had to say prayers and sing songs with it on. Very hard to snuggle a baby girl with a big old helmet on her noggin. It was all I could do to take it off before I put her in her bed. She has since worn her helmet several times to the dinner table.
  

• While at a play date at aunt Lisa's, McKay was outside with his cousins playing in the sprinklers. Nature called and McKay decided to pee in one of the window wells, right on the window. Brian and I laughed when we heard because he and his brothers were famous for peeing in the neighbors window wells every spring as little boys. Like father like son.

• Ellery has stopped saying "hello" and now pronounces it "all-lou" like a proper little British child.

• Today while waiting for me in the hall after church McKay was being a little too active on the furniture. Brian kept asking him to calm down and be good and McKay responded, "But dad, there's so much for a boy to discover in the whole wide world."

Happy Sunday!

"racing day- it's racing day"

My husband does amazing things. I could list all of the amazing things he's done, but I really get uncomfortable being too mushy, so I'll just say that I've been proud many times of the remarkable things he's accomplished.

But it's not often that I get to actually see him do amazing things- referring now to the amazing accomplishment of running marathons. Out of the nine marathons Brian has run, it was only on Saturday that I actually got to be there as he ran across the finish line. I was amazed, inspired and incredibly proud.

For those of you who have always known Brian as a runner, let me enlighten you on his past a little bit. Brian didn't run. Hated it, or said he did anyway. It wasn't until the year we were married, 2003, that he got the running bug.

My sister Jana talked us all into running the Freedom Run 5K on the fourth of July. Brian decided after this little race that he didn't actually hate running. After that we started a little running club with my dad. Long story short, me and my dad quit the running club long ago, but Brian kept going. Shortly after the dissolving of the running club, Brian started running with his dad and they've been running together ever since. Six years now!

Now, back to Saturday. Brian, his dad and brother Ken ran the Ogden Marathon.

Lindy, Missy, Elise and Addie drove up with us to watch our runners. We found a spot as close to the finish line as we could and waited for a familiar face to run by.

I love this picture of Elle.



The oh-so helpful Lindy anxiously awaiting their arrival. She was nice enough to be the official photographer- most of these photos are hers.

Here are the marathoners!


After a few chocolate covered raisins and some much needed hydration, Brian was off again.



This time running the kids race with little Mack.

Please let me just tell you how serious my boy was. He, obviously, very easily gets into the character of whatever he is doing, and running this race was no different. He was running so hard and with such concentration that he ran right by us- screaming and cheering his name on the sidelines.

Brian had to stop him and point us out. That finish line was in sight and he was going for it! The announcer at the end actually noticed the pure joy and pride on McKay's face and made a comment about his huge grin. As soon as they crossed the finish line McKay looked up at Brian and said, "Did I win?" Well, no, but he did it all by himself and we were sure proud of him.



My boys. I was pretty impressed with Brian for running another mile right after he'd run 26! What a sweet daddy. He didn't get the time he wanted and he felt really frustrated about that, but after the races I just kept looking at him, feeling so proud and impressed. And he even looked pretty cute all sweaty and salty!

I am so glad I got to go and see these guys run. They really are amazing.

thoughts on a sunday

Thinking of doing a little rundown of our week every Sunday night. It seems that there are lots of happenings during the week that I'd like to post here on my little blog but I don't feel like doing a whole post for each one. I also seem to get quite contemplative on Sundays, so those thoughts might be thrown in here too.

• We had quite a busy Sunday. After Stake Conference this morning I had a young women's meeting, followed by Brian home teaching, followed by seminary graduation for one of my laurels.
• My camera broke, but first something really exciting happened. There was a teenage bird on our doorstep. I know that he was a teenager because he still had his molt-y feathers, but couldn't fly (really I have no idea how old he was). So the teenage bird could not fly away and was stuck in our little porch area. The kids were very excited when Brian caught the bird in a butterfly net from the dollar store. McKay was thrilled when the bird "whined" while in the net and Ellery was unhappy that she couldn't touch the little guy. I grabbed my camera to take a picture of Brian trying to catch this big little bird in a teeny butterfly net and the next time I turned it on the digital screen was black. I am depressed.
• My parents are moving so I got to go through some of my old boxes, which produced my old journals from high school. What a treat to read Sarah's teenage thoughts. I would randomly grace Bri with a lovey, drippy, weepy excerpt from the journal I kept right before he left on his mission. These excerpts softened the blow of the other two high school journals dedicated to another boy. I think our story is sweet, yet I think I would die if Ellery met her husband at seventeen.
• Ellery is giving up her nap. She is eighteen months old. If she naps during the day she is up until 10:00pm. I am depressed and I can't really talk about it. But now you know.
• Brian ran his 9th marathon on Saturday, and McKay ran his first race right after. Big old post coming soon on this one.
• McKay keeps trying to play with older kids outside. This is painful/amusing to watch. I don't want to intervene too much and discourage him from being outgoing and friendly, but sometimes these older kids look at him like, "Who are you kid?" And McKay talks to them like he's one of their best friends and totally knows what's going on.
• We started packing some things up in preparation of putting our house on the market in June. Brian also started doing all the projects that have needed to be done forever, like bolting the dishwasher back to the counter top, and touching up the crown molding. Our dishwasher has been rocking for three years and all it took was a few little screws and five minutes to fix. Why do you get your house all perfect right before you're going to leave it?
• For those of you who know Katie- she now has a blog, and although she doesn't write on it very much yet, go and say hi because she will eventually be making her blog a private one.

Happy Sunday.

mother tell me the story. . .

This year mothers day seemed very real to me. I felt like I was part of it, instead of just supporting it.

I found myself thinking often today how grateful I am to be a mother.

Their mother.

Happy tears kept coming from those thoughts, which began as I watched my little Sunbeam proudly sing from the front row of the stage today in church. It melted my heart, and if I weren't standing with a group of other mothers singing back to the children on stage I would have just let the tears flow freely next to Brian in the congregation.

I have a child who sang in Sacrament meeting on Mother's Day. I felt like a mother today, and it felt wonderful. I love my job so much. Sometimes I don't- like when I have to chase McKay around the park because he doesn't want to go home, all the while trying to make sure we didn't get run over by a riding lawn mower- but almost all of the time I do. I get to have moments when my son comes up and tells me he loves me out of the blue. I get to have days where we play outside and pick flowers and pretend we're puppies. I get to wake up to two beautiful faces that are ecstatic to see me in the morning. I get to sing to my little girl while she snuggles against me in the middle of the night. I get a lot of good things out of this motherhood thing. Today I didn't want my kids to celebrate me being their mother, I wanted to celebrate that I am their mother.

I can't end this post without mentioning two other mothers I know. My mom. Oh how I love my little mother. So generous, so thoughtful, so loving, so sweet. And so stylish and young.

And Brian's mother, Adele.

So selfless, so Christlike, so talented, Grandma-extraordinare. I really lucked out in the in-law department. Like really.

Happy Mother's Day!

dandelion whine

Somebody is completely obsessed with flowers.

She is constantly walking around the house saying, "A flowah. A flowah." Then whining, "A flowah outside?" until we take her out. The first thing she does when we go outside is scope out the lawn for the good stuff.

And when she finds one there's no stopping her. She actually took a nose dive into the bushes right after I took this picture, all in an attempt to pluck that little gem.

The first time I left McKay with my parent's to go to Denver a few years ago I remember thinking that if he died while I was gone I would have dandelions at his funeral. Does anyone else start thinking really cryptically when they travel? Anyway, it was because he too was obsessed with flowers. . .dandelions specifically.

I remember walking around outside with him when he was Elle's age picking every dandelion we saw. But miss Ellery has taken the dandelion obsession to a whole new level.

But I love it. I'll collect dandelions every day if she wants to. There is something so wonderfully feminine about my little Elle.

. . .my sweet flower girl.

no good deed goes unpunished. . .

My good deed being trying to take satisfactory photo documentation for this very post.

Brian and I may or may not have gotten in an argument because of it. Funny story, we actually got in the same argument on our honeymoon. When will he learn that he's married to a woman who wants the perfect picture. When will I learn that with Brian I will never get that perfect picture? Instead I get this:

or this:

or this:

All I'm doing is trying to look all cute like a darling little self-portrait taking couple, and all he's trying to do is bug me. But you know what? I think he kinda looks cute in this one, no?

All of this photo documentation, you know, the really descriptive, memorable, car self-photos, were in honor of this:

We saw Wicked last Tuesday. . .and it was SO good!

I took a few more photos, but due to the argument in question I may or may not have deleted them out of protest.

Don't worry, we're better now.

Now, these girls are always up for a good photo shoot. Thank goodness!

they did it again

Last year Brian said that he wanted to run the Boston Marathon again someday. Neither of us expected it to be just a year later.

He ran the marathon again for his team Marathon Strides against MS last week. He and his dad, McKay, tackled Boston again and this time left all the girls at home. They said they were both missing their own personal cheerleaders at mile 24, but they got to do some fun boy things like in the picture below, without a bunch of girls to whine about how long and boring baseball games are.

A RedSox game at Fenway Park- one of Brian's dreams fulfilled. I just asked Brian how the game was, since I'm finding it hard to write about something that I didn't experience, and he said, "We ate hot dogs and basked in the history and the glow of Fenway Park." Sad to have missed that. . .

Here are the runners after the race. They were freezing and sore and so relieved to be done.

And here's Mr. MS himself. For those of you who aren't familiar with marathons, Boston is the big one. It's a difficult course and it's quite an accomplishment for these two.

Sometimes when we're driving Brian will relate the distance from where we've come from to marathon miles. I still can't believe he can run that long. I also can't believe he continually wants to, but we're so proud of our runner- and of Grandad too!

made by mckay

I have a sweet boy. I have a sweet boy who was so excited to show me the most wonderful surprise the other day. He walked me into his room and proudly showed me this:

He made his bed. . .for the first time. . .all by himself!

sweet baby girl

We went in for Ellery's 18 month well child checkup yesterday and so I thought I'd take this opportunity to do a list of what my girl's up to.

• In the elevator on the way up to the appointment, a lady looked at Ellery and she fell completely apart. Couldn't stop crying. You'd think she pinched her or something. It was funny/embarrassing.
• Dr. said we can start giving her time outs in a chair. Also said that putting her back in the chair 100-200 times is normal at first. 200? Um, right...
• Time to get rid of the souci. I'm feeling sad for her about it. She only has it in bed, but oh how she loves it.
• This girl is proving to be very different in temperament than her brother. She is feisty, sassy and wants what she wants when she wants it.
• She surprises me with a new word practically every day. I can't even count how many she can say. But her voice is so precious and little and sweet and I just love it.
• We are learning to share around here. Ellery has no concept, or wants no concept, of sharing with her brother. He is usually very patient with her. She is not at all patient with him.
• On the way to my parent's house the other day McKay and I were counting. He stopped in the middle and said, "mom, Elle can count too!" Sure enough she was counting right along with us. I had no idea.
• We are getting seriously attached. The other day we went outside to play with some neighbor friends and they said hi to her. She pointed at me and repeatedly said "mommy. mommy. mommy. mommy," poking me each time as if to say to make sure they knew she was with me.
• She is not interested in taking baths, but always says she wants to when I ask her so she can run around naked.
• She is now allowed in the nursery. We went in on Sunday and lasted two minutes. I'll have to share my wonderful Sunday experience in another post, but it's safe to say that Brian will be hanging in the nursery. . .probably until we move.
• Elle has discovered how to turn on her bedroom light while in her crib at night. I hear the click of the switch and then she starts saying, "Oh no! Oh no!"
• She loves bird watching.
• She still has diarrhea. What are the rules on talking about your children's bowels on your blog? Long story made short- Ellery has been drinking soy milk since she turned one because of a milk intolerance. . .or so we thought. Now it's looking like it could be a gluten allergy- which is in everything. I am kind of freaking out at the thought of a nearly vegetarian household wiping out a whole other food group (wheat) and feeling sad for my girl and for my laundry.
• On a brighter note, she goes around the house singing twinkle, twinkle all the time. I could die it's so cute.
• She dances by running around in a circle- around and around- and is so proud of this lone dance move.
• Since Easter, she thinks every candy is called "egg".

She may be feisty, but we couldn't love our little Ellie-girl more.

. . .bubbles. . .

McKay could not have felt more important last week.

He was in charge of this little guy. . .or girl, not really sure.

Bubbles.

McKay was very serious in his responsibilities. He made sure to feed Bubbles breakfast and dinner, and showed tremendous restraint when he wanted to give him several unscheduled snacks the first day.

Several times I found him hugging the bowl and consoling Bubbles, telling him that Aunt Marilyn would be back soon and he'd get to go back home.

This little one probably enjoyed having Bubbles around the most. Every morning while eating breakfast she would say "fishy, fishy!" and she could have sat like that watching him for an hour straight.

I however did not like having Bubbles on my counter. He was constantly making this face to me, opening and closing his mouth as if to say, "help me, help me. i'm so bored. help me." He had a look of desperation and he followed me around his fishbowl making that face.

Marilyn made me feel a little better when she told me that fish have a memory span of only three seconds. But then she googled it and found out it might not be true.

Oh well, he's back resting on Adele's kitchen counter now and she's the one who has to look at this face all day.

"help"

easter goodies

Easter. Of course the real meaning of Easter is the very most important part of the celebration, but coming in at a close second is the fun of dressing my darling little girl in a new Easter dress- moms am I right?

Imagine my complete sadness when Ellery came down with a nasty virus on Tuesday and was still not well by Sunday. No showing her off at church for me. I did get to show off a handsome little man in a fancy new shirt and tie though, and that helped ease my sadness.

We had an FHA (family home afternoon) of dying eggs earlier in the week. McKay was into it, Elle wanted to dump everything out and Brian and I thought, "Is it really worth all this preparation and mess?" I guess it is.

I was sad for poor Ellery that she had to miss not one, but two egg hunts during the week. The virus she had really knocked her out. She hardly ate anything and all she did was sleep, snuggle and fuss.

On Friday two of my neighbor friends put together a fun egg hunt outside. McKay loved running around gathering the eggs with his friends- who happened to be all girls except little Sawyer.

Next, Aunt Jenn put together an egg hunt and picnic with the cousins. No pictures because Elle and I stayed home and the pictures Brian took were either really far away and boring, or of the back of McKay's head. (Okay, the real reason is because I forgot to upload them and I've already started all this so it would mess up my spacing)

McKay came home and noticed that I had set aside a few eggs in Ellery's basket. I told him that we saved some for her to have a little hunt in our house, since she couldn't go outside. I went to a baptism and when I came home there were eggs hidden all over our bedroom (and Brian had cleaned the whole house! Awwww.) McKay had planned out the whole hunt for Ellery. He hid all the eggs and was pacing by the time I got home. Ellery was still asleep and McKay could not wait for her to wake up. It was physically painful for him to wait. He was so excited for his sister and I was touched by his sweetness and thoughtfulness.

So little Elle did her little hunt in one half of our tiny bedroom and McKay looked on like a proud parent. At first she was cranky and didn't know what to do, but then he showed her how and she loved it. I love how fun finding plastic eggs is for kids. Why don't I hide things and have them hunt for them more often?

After church on Easter Sunday I peeled my little girl's pajamas off and placed her in her dress for dinner with the family. I at least wanted to put her in it for someone to see.

We had a yummy dinner at Lisa's and had fun relaxing and talking afterwards.

McKay had fun being with his cousins and getting spoiled by Grammy. She gave him a few new movies and consequently McKay was Monstro the whale and Otis the dog today.

Brian and I still haven't decided our Easter traditions. Every year it's been different. I am trying to decide what to do. Does the Easter bunny come, or do we just leave him out of it all? Do we do real eggs or plastic eggs? Do we do just candy, or candy and toys and all the other Easter goodies that are out there? If we do the bunny, do we do it on Saturday or Sunday? If we don't do the bunny, what do we do? And either way, how do we remind them of what Easter is really about? Do you see the stress I am under about these decisions? We have to decide by next year though, because McKay is smart and this year he was asking questions.

How do you guys do Easter?