Things I actually did on a day where I felt like I hadn't accomplished much

I've blogged before about how easy it is for me to ignore all of the things I've done in favor of the things I've left undone. Tonight as I was showering post-run I was enumerating all of the undones--the living room was still cluttered with library books, two loads of laundry were waiting to be folded, I hadn't spent as much time reading & playing with the kids as I normally do (this one was really really really bothering me--not once did I get a chance to sit down and assemble train tracks or help find a puzzle piece), etc. I just felt like it was an incredibly unfulfilling day--one of those ones where you're going nonstop all day but then you can't actually pinpoint what filled the day up--know what I mean?

So here is what I did today, and I must confess that compiling this list made me feel better.

• nursed/pumped/syringed Nathan 4 times
• washed all the breakfast dishes
• got the two little boys dressed
• paid bills, balanced credit card, checking, and savings accounts; paid Neil's & Isaac's tuition
• took 4 kids to the dentist (Jules had a couple of fillings; Abigail tagged along since there was a two-hour delay & Isaac was at preschool)--entertained 3 kids while Jules was having fun in the dentist's chair
• soothed and bandaged (twice) a bloody knee after Abigail took a nasty spill on some ice outside the dentist's office
• returned library books
• took Abigail to school, then picked her up a few hours later
• made, served, and cleaned up lunch
• responded to (some) emails
• changed six diapers
• made my bed
• chatted on the phone with a dear friend & my mom
• gave Luke his medicine (poor kid has been having a sad bout with rectal prolapse for the last three or four months--every bit as miserable and awful as it sounds. fortunately we're only an hour away from an awesome pediatric GI specialist).
• cleaned up Luke after he had an accident
• made 3 batches of fruit leather for the kiddos

• ordered new glasses for Abigail to replace the ones which snapped in half this weekend
• completed and filed 2013 income taxes
• read stories to the kiddos
• picked up about a gazillion toys
• supervised homework and piano practice
• quizzed kids on spelling words
• made, served, and cleaned up afternoon snacks
• cleaned up Luke after he had an accident
• made, served, and cleaned up dinner
• scrubbed down the kitchen
• had family home evening with everyone
• had family scripture study/prayer
• made a list with the kids of all the fun things we'd like to do this winter (please please please let it stop being -25 F outside!!) and taped it to the pantry door
• apologized to Jules and snuggled with her and rubbed her back after I started yelling when she ripped the casing of one of the floor pillows I just made (ooh it drives me crazy when they wear the pillows as wings because they ALWAYS end up ripping them)
• tucked the kiddies into bed and sang them their goodnight songs...somewhere in there I was foolhardy enough to promise Abigail that I would help her sew a stuffed velvet dragon tomorrow...
• set up a playdate for the kids tomorrow since school is cancelled AGAIN (okay, mostly for me!)
• read (sporadically throughout the day while nursing) a book that Abigail loved and really wanted me to read
• ran 6 miles
• graded student papers for an hour
• did my best to use up all of the hot water taking a shower at the end of the day while thinking up this list

nearly wordless wednesday

Luke is a very satisfying companion when one's in the mood to whip up some hummus.

Just don't forget your own bowl.

Coming to know myself

I turned 30 earlier this summer. I didn't set 30 goals or reminisce about the previous 30 years or look towards the next 30 or anything like that. But I've been thinking a lot lately about what makes me happy and what makes me enjoy my life and what things I genuinely enjoy. I've been rereading Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project for the fifth time, and I keep thinking about what she says about "being Gretchen," or acknowledging the fact that while you may wish you were the type of person who loved going to the symphony, you aren't, or you wish you had a taste for sushi, but in actuality raw fish sounds terrible, etc.

Anyway. Lots of times I feel guilty for things that I feel like I should be doing but I really have no desire to do. Does that make sense? They're not necessarily things that I should be doing in order to ensure a certain quality of life; it's just things that I think the Platonic version of Rachael (i.e., the perfected one) would probably do but I don't really want to do.

So I've been keeping a list lately of things that I'm acknowledging and embracing about myself, even if in the past I might wish I was different.

1) I would rather stay home. I don't like commitments. I don't like anything that cuts my day into pieces or makes it so I have to be somewhere at a certain time.
2) Staying up late reading will always be one of my favorite things in this world, no matter how tired I am the next day.
3) I would rather wear yoga pants.
4) I have some OCD tendencies. I've learned to live with them and I don't really have any desire to get over them. In some ways I feel like they help me out.
5) I would rather read stories to my children than do anything anything anything else.
6) LEGOs are worth the price tag.
7) Listening to music makes me feel much more content. Singing is a sign of my mood--when I stop singing around the house, I know something is really wrong and I need help.
8) I really hate having my hair in my face. I know it looks better down and the bangs add a lot, but I just can't stand it.
9) I could care less about hard, gummy, or sour candy. I LOVE CHOCOLATE and that is all.
10) A headache means I haven't been drinking enough water.
11) Running through the woods alone is the epitome of feeling centered in myself. Nothing else that I do makes me feel so much like I am being "me."
12) I really don't care about current events or politics. At all. Like seriously not one single tiny bit.
13) I find great joy in making things, whether it's baking bread or sewing a quilt or even just painting with the kids.
14) Fresh flowers on my dining table give me butterflies of happiness every single time I look at them.
15) I say "I love you" with food.
16) It is impossible to catch up with the laundry. Even if everything is clean right now, somehow the baskets will magically be full again by the end of the day.
17) I loooove getting emails from friends, but I don't like writing them back. I'd much rather talk on the phone.
18) A clean house is really, really, really important to me. My mood is so much better when everything is sparkling and uncluttered.
19) I am great (fastidious, even) at planning trips, events, projects, etc. It's the follow-through that I don't enjoy.
20) I have a master's degree in American literature but I would much rather read a good fantasy novel (i.e. something by Robin Hobb) than dive into the books I loved in grad school. Reading is a form of mental escape for me and since I had children I just don't like to read anything that is difficult/sad/tragic/disturbing/etc. I have enough things to worry about already (case in point: The Poisonwood Bible was one of my favorite books in high school. I started rereading it about a year ago and just couldn't do it now that I am a mother myself).
21) I love sleeping in. I deliberately try to never schedule anything early in the morning because it makes it so hard for me to fall asleep at night (when I used to get up at 5:30 to go running with friends I would literally sleep about 3 hours because I was so worried about oversleeping and making them wait).
22) I have a giant deluxe tub that takes up a ton of space which I never use (unless I'm pregnant) because I don't like taking baths. I can, however, take a 30-minute shower.
23) Given the opportunity and no health repercussions, I could live quite happily on Red Baron pizza.
24) I am a creature of habit--I always order the exact same thing at restaurants, wear the same favorite clothes over and over again, and would much rather know exactly what I'm getting as a gift than be surprised.
25) I really love having friends over one-on-one, especially if we can have lunch while our kids play.
26) French fries and Lay's original wavy chips are soooo delicious to me and probably always will be.
27) I dislike swimming because I worry about losing my contacts in the water/blinding smacking my head on things.
28) I don't like to sweat unless I'm exercising. I really hate being outdoors in the summer. I don't like wearing shorts, I don't like bugs, and I hate being hot. I used to come up with all kinds of excuses to not go out with the kids when it was hot outside--fortunately they're old enough to play outside by themselves now and I can watch peacefully from inside my air-conditioned house.
29) I don't like ice in my drinks or milk in my cereal.
30) I excel at pushing myself to do hard or intimidating things, even when it would be healthier/smarter/better to not do so.

Why hello, little blog

Things are good these days. I'm really enjoying my children and the opportunities we have in our lives. They are delightful little people and I love spending time with them. Especially the boys, because their lives are still so simple and uncomplicated--all it takes to make them happy is my company. I did not appreciate that enough when the girls were younger. I'm really trying to soak up the stages the girls are in now, because I know it will just keep getting more emotionally complex as they get older! I'm finding that the most important parenting thing I can do is just to be calm and available. Abigail came home from school today in a super-stormy mood and after dinner today I pulled her aside and we just sat together in silence for ten minutes while I rubbed her head and she finally opened up. When the girls were younger I felt so much pressure to be out and about to avoid boredom and give me mental stimulation--and quite honestly, it was good for that stage in our lives--but now I just really love being home.

On Sunday our family sang together in church (this song, if you're interested). We sing it with the kids every night--I have a great video of Isaac singing it just before he turned 2--and they know it well enough that they were comfortable doing a little solo for the second verse. I loved listening to them...and I told them I would make caramel popcorn after church if they sang nice and loud. Which they did. So that night we ate our popcorn and played a family version of Trivial Pursuit (i.e., "What is something the person at your left does really well?" "What is Dad's greatest ambition for you?" "What would the person two to your right buy with $1000?"). I love evenings like that.





Today was Isaac's half-birthday. Since all of our birthdays are clustered together in the summer, winter can be kind of barren around here party-wise. So Isaac and I decided this afternoon that we would bake a cake. We originally planned to bake half a cake but then we decided that WE LIKE CAKE and we wanted a whole cake.

Neil worked straight through yesterday evening and didn't come home until about midnight, so we had family home evening tonight instead. After Abigail taught us a great lesson about table manners and ways to be polite & appreciative at dinner (let's see if any of that sinks in...) we had our delicious cake. I nabbed the recipe from my friend Jen's 30 Cakes project. The cake itself was delicious; I should have looked harder to find my original mint buttercream recipe (Jen did a vanilla frosting but I'm kind of a sucker for mint) because the one I used wasn't fantastic. And we wanted our cake right away, so the ganache didn't have much time to set, but it was still super yummy.

Natie took his first bath in the big tub tonight (he's being doing sink/baby tub baths) and he loved it. So so so darling.

 I just can't get enough of my beautiful little boys. Their chubby little arms! Their cheeks! The spiky soft hair! The round tummies! My older three kids are starting to grow so fast and they're all long arms and legs and bony elbows...I have to kiss these baby cheeks while I can (plus the older three don't let me pretend to eat their cheeks anymore, more's the pity. Luke and Nathan still think it's hilarious).

for my sister

 Yesterday as I was vacuuming the living room I finally decided that I was done with blogging. I just felt like I didn't really have anything left to say other than posting pictures, and I felt like my life was so full right now that it was something I could cut out to simplify things.

And then my sister ended up in the hospital, and as I was talking to her and asking if there was anything I could do, she said she'd like some pictures of the kids and what we've been up to lately.

So this is for her.

Have I mentioned lately how sweet and patient this cat is? We totally lucked out. He's amazing and I love him so much. I really and truly do.

 


Yesterday some of our dearest friends came into town and we were able to spend the day with them. We have missed them so much and it was so wonderful to have them here! I loved how the girls just picked up right where they left off--every time we see them it's the same way. I'm glad that we live close enough that we've been able to visit back and forth four times since they moved away.

 Oh, I've missed this so much! Seriously, I was so thrilled to have them jumping all over the couches together...made me smile every time I looked over.

 Group shot--we love these people!! (and look how old Abigail looks holding Nathan. That girl is growing up so fast).

My sisters Elise & Rosalind both crocheted me these gorgeous scarves for Christmas--seriously, they were so beautiful! I wore both during the course of the day today and they totally lived up the nickname I gave them of "sister hugs." I've told my sister Rosalind a million times that she needs to just be my personal shopper and pick out my clothes--for Christmas she gave me an outfit all put together and so I wore it to church today and felt very loved.

And Juliet wanted to get in on the photo action.

Annnnd the Tot is darling.

So we're right smack in the middle of that awesome storm path. We had at least a foot of snow today (on top of the three inches we already had) and I haven't looked outside in a couple of hours, so it's probably even higher now, plus the drifts! No school for the kids for the next two days, and the university is officially shut down, and the town is under a snow emergency. We went to church today just for sacrament meeting and then made our (veeeeery slow) way home, where we proceeded to clear our driveway several times so we could get the van up the hill!

And this is what happened to our lawn in the process. Fortunately we have really awesome neighbors and thanks to their snowblowing and van-pushing and snow-shoveling help, we finally got it inside the garage. Crazy, I tell you!

Wild-haired Isaac drinking hot chocolate and eating coconut-chocolate pie (which is just as delicious as it sounds. 4 T. butter mixed with 11 oz coconut for the crust, bake at 350 for 20 minutes, and then pour 1 1/4 cups of boiling cream over 14 oz of chopped bittersweet chocolate, let it sit for 10 minutes, then stir it together and pour into the coconut crust, and chill for 1 hour. You're welcome.)

The camera was still all fogged up from being outside and I didn't notice before snapping these, but still pretty cute little kiddos.

Abigail is diligently working to master the selfie.

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Isaac took this photo of me right before bedtime tonight. It's not the most flattering, but I'm posting it for two reasons: 1) Abigail has been making me rubber-band bracelets for days and I love them and her so much and 2) you can see my chopped-off pinky in this picture, which I don't know that I've ever mentioned on this blog but is certainly an interesting fact for posterity. :-)

Once we lit the fire, the cat planted himself nearby on a sheepskin rug and stayed there for the next 4 hours.

Doesn't Totty have gorgeous eyes? I'm hoping they stay this shade.

So this is how Tot spends 99% of his time on his stomach--SuperBaby! No arms and legs touching the floor! I would have the most amazing abs if I just did this next to him all day.

 Snow levels at some point during the afternoon...

 

 And some more SuperBaby with the requisite sheepskin, because I realized that I had not yet done a naked-baby-on-sheepskin photo session with Nathan, and the fire's warmth seemed to lend itself perfectly to that opportunity.

Look! Two dainty little teeth.

Completely fascinated with the crinkliness of his diaper (we haven't been able to cloth diaper Nathan very effectively since his legs are so slim that they just don't fill the diaper leg holes. And quite honestly, it was so stressful for me to see this at every diaper change--total panic attack-inducing--that I'm just not going to worry about cloth diapers right now.  Maybe if he ever gets out of the needing-to-be-fed-with-an-eyedropper phase, but since it's been going on for six months now, I kind of doubt that.)

I love baby toes. They're so perfect and they just make my heart swell up. I've really been having a hard time lately watching Nathan get older. I would really like to have at least one more baby, but the idea of stopping after that is just awful to me. I love my little babies and toddlers and preschoolers and kindergardeners and elementary-aged kids so much. Each stage has so many heart-warming and heart-wrenching moments that I just don't want to move on out of this phase of my life. I was sitting on Isaac's bed tonight singing him to sleep and rocking Nathan in my arms while I rubbed Isaac's back and thinking that I just don't want this to end. Ever. Yes, of course there are days and moments where I think I'll go crazy, but by and large, I love my life so much and I am so grateful for the influence I have in my children's lives. I can't comprehend the point where we will finally decide that our family is "complete" because it just feels to me (now) like that's closing so many doors. Can't I just forever live in a world of baby toes and toothless grins and four-year-olds holding my chin between their hands when they talk to me and eight-year-olds who tell me that we never have leftovers because I'm the best cook in the world and six-year-olds who draw funny little pictures of the two of us holding hands with a heart over our heads and two-year-olds who insist on sitting on my lap whenever possible and giggle happily once they're ensconced in my arms?

Christmas

We spent Christmas at home this year and then drove up to my parents' house over the weekend to be with my parents, grandparents, and my two youngest sisters Elise & Rosalind plus their husbands (respectively) Paxton and Chris. I felt like we got the absolute best of both worlds--we had a quiet lovely low-key delightful Christmas at home where I was 100% focused on my little family, and then I got to spend a glorious 5 days with my extended (but they don't feel extended! I just don't know what to call them now that I have children. My "original" family?) family. Magical and marvelous.  It would have been twice as amazing if my sisters Ruth & Mary Beth had joined us with Jordan and Evelyn...but I'm hopeful that we'll all be able to get together in the next year! I have to admit that it makes me so sad to know that all of my sisters live within an hour of each other and can get together whenever they want--my sisters are truly my best friends and I miss them so much living so far away! But I'm also really grateful that they are so close to each other and can be a support network for each other--one of my sisters was hospitalized yesterday and I was so grateful that one sister could be with her in the hospital while the other orchestrated the hospitalized sister's cross-town move that day.

Speaking of magical and marvelous, when I was a kid Santa's reindeer always left their droppings on our floors (did you know Santa's reindeer leave behind dark chocolate-covered raisins?). This year they were even more untidy and tromped snow all over our house. Abigail was 100% sure that it was powdered sugar, so the kids were all licking it off the carpet. Sadly, we decided that the North Pole snow tastes more like baking soda than we'd imagined.

All the presents were such a hit and we've been glorying in all of the days off school so that we can fully appreciate the goodness of sitting in your pajamas all day playing with toys (as I type this, Neil is sitting on the floor working on a LEGO model--Isaac has become so obsessed with LEGO assembly that nobody else can really get in during the day).

Luke's favorite was this giant T-rex from my sister Mary Beth, or "Unicorn Aunt," as the kids usually call her.

And why do they call her "Unicorn Aunt," you ask? Well, one year when my girls were little she saved all of her stocking goodies and fed them to the girls while they watched "The Last Unicorn" on her laptop. This year she sent them the DVD and of course everyone wanted to watch it Christmas night. We made a big comfy nest and snuggled up.

Then we had all the fun of Christmas all over again once we got together with my family!

I have to say that one of my very favorite parts of this trip was something I just did by myself--I went on two runs through the snow all alone and it was just wonderful. I haven't been able to run outside in weeks because of Neil's work schedule, and let me tell you, training for a marathon on a treadmill is preeeettty boring. I was running over ice and crusty ankle-deep snow and my pants were caked with ice up to my knees and I literally had ridges of snow building up on my cheekbones and It. Was. Awesome. I did a 5.25 mile run the first day and then walked another 3 miles with my family later and then 4 miles the next day and I was SO sad that I didn't get to run more! I seriously felt like I could have gone for hours. So incredibly beautiful running through the snowy woods and just feeling so grateful for a healthy body and my family and the snow and all of the wonderful things in my life.

Like this guy. He's my favorite.

Tot was a total stinker the whole time we were there (as in he pretty much didn't sleep AT ALL, which is why he looks so tired here cuddled up with Rosalind), but we love him anyway.

Speaking of Rosalind, I just adored her gorgeous wrapping job. Isn't this beautiful? She made the stamp herself.

And some sideways pictures of my dad and Nathan that are refusing to rotate...

Which is a real shame because these are some really awesome pictures.

I'm not sure who actually received this puzzle because all of the kids were doing it simultaneously. Big hit!

My sisters are blessed with beautiful voices and I loved the evenings where we gathered around the piano and sang together. Paxton provided some gorgeous guitar accompaniment because wise man that he is, he'd learned John Denver songs and we were all thrilled. :-)

Not the best picture of Jules, but I was sort of shocked to see how tall she looked. She and Abigail can now wear the same clothes.

More family gathered around singing. The ones listening look pretty tired, don't they?

 Elise with Tottles

So the afternoon that we went on a hike through the woods was super cold. I was planning on zipping Tot up in my jacket, since I had him in the Ergo carrier, but my coat wasn't big enough to go around both of us. My dear noble husband suggested that we trade coats and he was SUCH a good sport about it.

His coat was a great fit for Natie and me, and Nathan just conked right out and went to sleep (which meant that when it was time to turn around and walk back to the car, I opted to keep walking in hopes of getting Nathan to take a decent nap. My dad, Elise, Paxton, and Abigail kept me company while we trudged another couple of miles through the snow to end up at home.

One of my favorite family traditions is our New Year's Eve hors d'ouevres extravaganza. I look forward to it all year! This photo shows Paxton and Chris wrapping Little Smokies in bacon before they covered them with brown sugar and baked them. Yeah, it was awesome.

A blurry photo of Elise and I while I was folding spanokopita and she was laughing at how horribly I did it with Mary Beth there to help me...

Luke at 6:30 PM on New Year's Eve. He's actually sitting up, but the picture is showing up sideways.

Neil feeding Nathan...I love this color on him! (We had to go buy him a bunch of new clothes because he forgot and left his garment bag at home).

And last but not least, Dad and Isaac at 7 PM New Year's Eve (Isaac conked out just when Luke woke up. Thankfully they both went to bed around 8:30 without any problems).

One of the things I love most about my family is that they are just the coolest people--definitely the kind of folks I'm thrilled to be sealed to for eternity!! I love being with them so much and I always look forward to seeing them. I know that this is often not the case for many people and I'm really grateful that my sisters and I all grew up and became people who adore each other instead of fighting like a bunch of teenagers. :-) (It gives me hope that my kids will eventually feel the same way about each other!) One fun thing that we did this year was to make up a family bingo card for all of the adults with things that we often say or do. It was hilarious to have someone just talking along and hit one of the bingo items and see everyone drop what they were doing and rush for their card to mark off the square. Good times.