Life lately

I love that image at the top of the post because it looks so serene! This was after the kids went back to school from spring break and my house returned to its quiet daytime self (which is very very different from its after-school self...).

And my house is so quiet right now because the three older kids are at school and the two younger boys are at a playdate. Normally during these playdates I go for a long run, but I have a race Saturday so no run for me today--just yoga. I spent the last hour doing a lot of work-related stuff so I'm giving myself a few minutes of blogging before I start on the next task. (Oh, it feels good to be able to whip through things like crazy without any kiddo distractions!)

We had a nice slow-paced spring break...we stayed here and were pretty low-key. Nathan, Luke, and I all had a nasty cold towards the end of the week, so we had lots of pajama/Lego/books time. It was so nice after the hectic pace that we usually keep, even though I did a lot of daydreaming prior to spring break about just escaping somewhere warm for a week! (But after Nathan started throwing up I was sure glad we were home...poor kid always throws up when he gets a cold since the mucus triggers his crazy-active gag reflex).

 

Aren't these boys absolutely delightful? I took this on Sunday right when we got home (the girls had already changed, but Abigail kindly offered to get dressed in her church clothes again if I really wanted a picture! I told her I'd take one of her next week and that she was so thoughtful to offer!).

We made a lot of treats over the break--Jules made chocolate cupcakes one day when the boys had friends over, the little boys made oatmeal-raisin cookies another day, and Isaac and I made a stellar chocolate cream pie at some point. Pretty much somebody was always baking up something tasty. :-)

We also hosted Abigail's class pet (you guys I do NOT LIKE RATS). I said we could play host on two conditions 1) I never had to touch it and 2) it could only be held when Neil was home. The kids agreed and Abigail did a great job keeping it fed, watered, and cleaning out its cage. I did not touch it once. :-) (But I still knew it was there with its creepy rat tail. I was SOOOO happy to wave goodbye!)

Rat maze with the Magnatiles...I made them Clorox-wipe everything afterwards!

This guy is so sweet. Whenever we go to the grocery store together he does his best to be an awesome helper--he scans, bags, and then carries the groceries in when we get home. I love him so much!

My parents and my sister Mary Beth came down over the Easter weekend, just for one night each. I took this photo of Luke & Isaac waiting patiently for their beloved grandparents to arrive on Friday morning--they were SO thrilled and honestly spent most of the morning hanging out by this window hopefully. :-)

Their visits overlapped on Saturday afternoon and we had our big Easter dinner then! It was so nice to see them all and such a treat to have them here. I didn't get any photos with my parents (although I need to check our family photo drop and see what they put on there), but I did get this one of Mary Beth making chocolate-dipped strawberries with the boys on Saturday night. Not sure where the girls were...

We've had some really good news lately--nothing concrete--but good news in the offing, and Neil and I have spent a lot of time daydreaming and planning and hoping. It's pretty good around here right now. Our long run on Saturday was idyllic--we ran out west of town into the farmland and just had the best heart-to-heart about our plans and our family and our future. Good stuff.

And speaking of good stuff, how adorable are these two? Their animosity has melted over the last year and they have become the best of dear friends. Such an answer to many many many heartfelt prayers!

A few more spring break pics--one day we went on an adventure outing and Abigail packed our lunch. :-) Everyone was thrilled with this!

And another day Jules and I went on a run/bike date...6 miles of crazy wind and hills but she pedaled on valiantly and kept me running hard! So fun to chat with her and get one-on-one time to let her just talk talk talk about all the things that are near and dear to her heart. We took a sweaty selfie to commemorate our lovely time together.

New Year's Part II

Okay, I updated my New Year's post with a TON of pictures (because my family is awesome and texted them before I even woke up this morning!) so you should go check it out!

New Year's is up!

Finally finally finally! Albeit missing a ton of pictures...family, want to help out with that?  ;-)

Link here.

Thankful for dear friends

Hurray! I've updated my last blog post with some new photos (this is one of my favorites--a huge thanks, Melanie, for texting them to me!)

Looking at this photo makes me so grateful for good friends. Can you see from that smile just radiating out of my face how crazy happy I was that day? Oh man, some things about grad school are totally awful--I have cried my eyes out SO many times about all the good friends who I love to pieces who have moved away, and in many ways the last two years I've just shut down and stopped trying to make new friends--but I am so, so, so grateful for all the women I love so much who have been sisters of my heart during these long and lonely years. I wish I could gather them all around me right now, but I'm sure grateful for the years I've had them so close and the opportunity that I still have, thanks to the wonders of technology, to still keep in touch. (But what I wouldn't give to have my original date-night swap back, and my visiting teaching companion of 8 years, and my "enrich and renew" buddies, and my 3 fabulous running partners, and my playgroup ladies, and all the friends from our early years that I miss SOOOO much!)

It's darn hard being the only one still here--but at least we've got friends all over the country!!

and another one of my favorites from Melanie...do you like how we're on the same stripes-and-green-scarf wavelength?! Haha! I like how it looks like we sort of coordinated clothes for everyone and visually balanced our poses in this picture while in reality we had to haul half the kids back down the stairs and promise them that we would be SUPER fast and only take one photo, Nathan was completely sodden (see his shirt drying out on our stroller?) and Luke & Emma were two seconds from slumber/meltdown? Oh, good times!!

St. Pat's fun in Chicago

 I've put off writing this post for a week thanks to the "oh, but I need to get pictures from so-and-so..." and I need to just write it now! (Especially since I haven't actually texted anyone to get pictures because it makes such a convenient procrastination excuse...)

One of my bucket-list items is to see the Chicago River dyed green for St. Patrick's Day, and so when my friend Melanie texted me asking if we wanted to meet up for the river-dyeing, I was so thrilled! Melanie and I have been friends for years and years since our newlyweds-at-BYU days (and again while our husbands were in grad school at the same university!), but now that they live 8 hours away, a chance to see them is sure exciting!

And we were super excited. Giddy, really. Can you tell? :-) Very different from our last kid-free trip to Chicago together but we just talked nonstop anyway. :-)

 Nathan wasn't quite as impressed...

Juliet and Leah were so happy to be reunited!!

We arrived in Chicago about forty minutes before the river-dyeing started, so we got to see the whole thing! It was pretty exciting--everyone was decked out in vivid green and pretty inebriated already at 8 am--hah! And there were tons of mounted police everywhere, which most of our kids thought was much more interesting than the actual river.

 In this photo, you can see one of the boats for the Chicago Journeymen Plumbers, who are the ones dumping the dye into the water. It's really cool to watch it diffuse. We were up on the Michigan Avenue bridge where it intersects with Wacker, so we had a great view!

 

After twenty minutes or so we headed towards our friends' hotel and checked out the view from the windows (this was really great because we weren't perpetually trying to keep track of 9 small children in seething crowds!).

And then they checked out and we walked down to Millenium Station and took Metra to the Museum of Science and Industry. Sidenote: I was SO PROUD OF MYSELF because I realized that downtown traffic was going to be an absolute nightmare from the parade & partying and that we would not want to drive to the MOSI (good call since the streets that led to the parking garages where we were both parked ended up being closed most of the morning!). So I figured out the Metra and the stations and all of that good stuff and figured out how to have all the kids ride for free, and I'm happy to report that we navigated the Metra successfully and it was hands-down my kids' favorite part of the trip!

But I didn't get any pictures--mostly because, again, trying to keep 9 small children quiet on the Metra, none of whom wanted to ride downstairs with the daddies & strollers and all of whom wanted to ride upstairs with the mommies. Go figure! But seriously, the kids loved it SO MUCH. Nathan talked about it for days! He was very impressed by the fact that the train went both on top of the ground and under the ground, and we even passed a construction site, so it doesn't get much better than that in Nathan land (we won't talk about the human waste in the 57th St station...).

We hung out at the MOSI for several hours. I didn't take many photos--the lighting there isn't great and the kids were all pretty darn energetic, but here are a few from when they started to run out of steam and actually stayed in one place for long enough to photograph them. :-)

This is my very favorite photo of the entire trip. So classic! He was out of his mind with joy at all the tractors (and notice that he is wearing our friend Noah's coat with nothing under it, since he completely soaked his shirt at the Funzone playplace or whatever that thing is called...the place where the parents collapse exhausted, grateful for a room with only one exit).

We had a great time oohing and aahing over all the exhibits--the chicks, the trains, the avalanche, the U-boat and the planes, the fairy castle and the tractors and all the goodies they pack in there! Then we took the Metra back downtown and stopped by the Bean for a few minutes.

I think this is mid-conversation, but oh well! We seriously were talking nonstop all day. It was so great to be in person instead of just texting or talking on the phone! Can't wait until the next time we get together, and really crossing my fingers that our other dear friends from grad school are with us--I think we need another Thanksgiving-of-wonder-and-glory! These gals have gotten me through so much; I don't know what I would do without their love and influence and wisdom. 

Juliet and Leah were pretty tired by this point...seemed like an appropriate way to enjoy the Bean! (Oh my gosh, I think my kids were SO city-filthy by the end of this day...we used Purell like mad before getting back in the car!)

The pangs of impending separation...

And then we said goodbye to our sweet friends and headed to my sister Mary Beth's apartment, where she had graciously offered to let us descend on her for dinner! She is the best--we were exhausted and dirty and some of us were a wee bit grumpy (cough Nathan cough no nap), but she was the sweetest hostess as always, even with a friend in town visiting her for the weekend!

The kids had a fantastic time with Mary Beth's cat Lynx and rabbit Hazel, and she had the yummiest cheese, artisanal bread, and amazing cured meats waiting for us! Neil and I walked down to a local Thai place a few blocks away and picked up some yummy curries to contribute to the meal, and then Mary Beth dazzled us all with some fabulous pastries from the shop downstairs (you guys, if I lived in her apartment I would weigh about 400 lbs from all of the deliciousness in the surrounding restaurants).

And Mary Beth introduced the kids to their first-ever video games! They were SO enthralled...haha, check out Isaac here!

We enjoyed a couple delightful hours with Mary Beth & her friend, then wended our way homeward, where 6 of us promptly fell asleep and slept all the way home, leaving brave and valiant Neil to get us safely home--tired and dirty but replete with joy!

Kids & Chores

One of the super-fun parts of being a parent is turning feral barbarians into functioning (hopefully pleasant) members of society.

Sometimes it is not so fun.

But! But!

Sometimes you have a nice little moment where you're like, yes! Fruits of my labors!

This afternoon when the kids came home from school, the girls had worked crazy hard before school and on the way home to get the majority of their post-school stuff done (piano, homework, etc.). Then they whizzed through their remaining list items and booked it outside into the heavenly March weather.

Isaac, on the other hand, was stuck inside folding his laundry, which was the consequence of his ten-minute tantrum this morning about having to get a pair of jeans out of the laundry because he didn't have any clean pants, and having to wear "dirty" (as in they had touched his body for five minutes the previous day) pants to school after starting his laundry before he left (this is my child who routinely puts matched & folded socks in the washer rather than put them away, so I have no sympathy for his plight).

Anyway, I told him that before he could play, he needed to fold and put away his laundry, and then endured listening to him grumble and whine about it the entire time ("Mom, I bet GRANDPA just jams his clothes into his drawers and doesn't fold them, because he knows what a waste of time it is!" Note: my dad is king of the crisply-ironed-to-perfection shirt). And then he finished and the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth battle moved on to homework. Which is yet another procrastination fun time, as it always seems to be for the first-grade set.

Later that night after dinner the girls both happened to be on the post-dinner jobs rotation (the boys had the before-dinner jobs). Jules cleared and wiped the table without missing a beat, then swept the kitchen and asked if there was anything else she could do. Meanwhile, Abigail had washed all the dishes, dried the pots & pans, and wiped down the counters. I seriously did not do a thing to help--they were total rock stars (and I'm not throwing Neil under the bus--he was still at work). And then Abigail reminded me that she had switched bathroom-cleaning days with one of the younger kids, and that she'd remembered and already done it that evening.

And I thought, hallelujah, this is why we persevere through and stick with it and keep going! Pretty sure all of my kids have been convinced at one time or another that they might actually die if they sweep the floor properly (and believe you me, we have had some major battles over whether or not the stuff on the floor is actually visible and can be swept with the broom if one is not a superhero blessed with laser vision, and the first few times of sweeping the floor usually means a good hour and six or seven rounds of "Honey, you didn't sweep over there...please go back and do it again...").

But anyway, the point of this very long rambling post is to say that a) it is a total nightmare training your kids to do things properly but b) it is SO WORTH IT. And now I will come back and reread this to remind myself the next time someone flails on the floor at my feet and declares dramatically that yes THEY WILL DIE if I insist that they sweep the floor, or dry the dishes, or pack their lunch...etc. etc.

(And my girls are pretty darn awesome.)

Spring

Oh goodness, I am so grateful for the beautiful weather we are having these days! I've been really struggling the last week or so with some big-picture issues and feeling very despairing--yesterday was just a total bummer of a day with some awful news that eclipsed last week's awful news (that left me absolutely gutted and shattered, and in tears for an ENTIRE day), and today I was so grateful to wake up to a world that is rejoicing and making itself over anew. My tulips are cautiously poking up through the ground; the little boys were outside almost the entire day and the big kids joined them after school, and we ate lunch and dinner outside, then Neil set up the trampoline (he sent me to take a hot bath while he did it, which my aching muscles sure appreciated after running 11 miles this afternoon during naptime!), and the kids jumped away to their hearts' content until the stars came out and we rounded everyone up for baths and bed (it's nice that the stars come out at 7 PM--must admit I am NOT looking forward to daylight savings time changes coming this weekend!).

And please forgive the vague-blogging. These big weighty things on my mind are just so tender and so personal that I'm trying to process them myself and don't have much to say about them to the world at large. Yet another reminder that the older I get, the more I realize that I really don't have things figured out nor does life operate according to the rigid plans I've made for myself.

But there are other things that I'm thinking about so much these days--like the fact that Abigail is starting middle school next year, and it's this big milestone that I feel so unprepared for her to hit. I'm so excited for her, because she is excited, and at the same time it's so terrifying to me to think of navigating something so entirely new, and something where I am giving up even more control over her environment and proximity to our home. It's a very real reminder that our years with her under our roof are increasingly limited. She and I were talking quite a bit today after school about what she wants to do next year--she's thinking she'd like to try out band and cross-country, and asked me about decorating lockers, and whether I think it will be hard for her to reintegrate into the mainstream classrooms (she tested into both advanced math and English, but they drop the full-time high-ability classrooms in middle school, so she'll be back in the mainstream classrooms for the other classes, and she's pretty nervous about it since she doesn't know those kids at all or what to expect from having different teachers all day).

The post-run exhaustion is really catching up with me now, but it's been a good day. I have a good life. There are so many parts of it that worry and frustrate me, and drive me absolutely insane at times, and I think "how can this possibly be the life I have willfully chosen for myself?"but I truly am grateful for the opportunity I have to learn and to grow and to be stretched. And for the simple joys from today like watching my sons joyfully dig in the mud and eating a plate of carbonara outside on the patio under the twinkle lights.

And while I don't often wax religious here, I've been thinking about this over and over and over again the last few weeks. Do you remember the story in Mark of the father who brings his son to the Savior, asking him to heal his son? Christ says to him, "If thou canst believe, all things are possible unto him that believeth." And the next verse says "And straightaway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, 'Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief.'"

When I read this verse, I imagine that the father isn't responding with that sentence right away--his cry is more of a nonverbal plea for help, and then he responds, "I believe..." and maybe a pause as he realizes that his belief is inadequate to the task of healing his son, and then pleads, with tears in his eyes, "Help thou my unbelief."

That's what I'm doing these days--pleading with the Lord to make up the difference between what I can do, the faith that I have, and the faith that is required to accomplish the miracles that I need in my life.

Help thou my unbelief.