Sunday, April 24, 2011

Happy Easter

I feel that after staying up last night until 1:30 in the morning making myself an Easter Dress and matching bow ties for my boys, a picture is certainly called for!

My children, however, were not too happy to be dragged out to the bridge on the bike trail near our home. Can you imagine, mom made them stay in their church clothes for an entire two hours after church? The horror.

Happy Easter to all!

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Mom, Your Blog Is So Boring!

Yes, my children are 100% accurate in their assessment of my recent blog posts.
I don't really have a response to that except to say that sometimes life is like that.
Sometimes, sadly, I think, my camera is full of pictures of cupcakes, not kids.
It's true...there are no recent pictures of my kids on my camera...lots of pics of cupcakes though.

Anyway, I guess that's what makes my blog so boring, at least to my children.

Maybe I could post the video (in it's entirety) that my four oldest children made last week where they sang, played guitars and drums to the music of the Beatles. But oh yeah, they would be SO mad at me if I posted THAT video. But let me just say, they were pretty good. Chuck plays some mean drums.

Let's see, what else? One day last week Joe came home from school and told me there was a parent meeting at the junior high that night that I needed to go to. We had some discussion/argument about whether or not the school was a Junior High or a Middle School. Middle School just sounds a little less scary to me, as a parent. It took me taking a picture of the school's entrance to win that argument, but win it I did. Alas, I digress. Back to the meeting. I've always promised myself that I would be a woman who would age gracefully...I wouldn't try to dress or act or look younger than my actual age. I wouldn't mind wrinkles or double chins...I'd take those spider veins with pride. Well, that was all well and good until it all started to actually happen. And for some reason, all those things started to happen last week, right when I was supposed to go to this new parent meeting at the MIDDLE SCHOOL, or at least it seemed that way to me. My confidence was not boosted when I saw an eighth grader at the meeting wearing a sweater that I own. That was kind of a low moment...at least I wasn't actually wearing the sweater at the time! So, anyway, I don't know if it was the meeting or the new wrinkles, but last week I really started to feel my age...and it's made me re-think this whole aging gracefully thing. I don't know....is Botox that bad? :) oh well, maybe it was just a bad week.

Actually, to be honest, last week was pretty tough. Things are not easy for our family right now. Things are not perfect. There are days that Joe and I look at each other and wonder if we'll be able to keep up with this busy crazy life we lead. We have certainly reached the limits of our capacity, and maybe that's good to know. I don't want to talk only of the negative....there are plenty of good things happening now too, and we are trying to count our blessings.... Joe still has a job, we still have health insurance, the weather is turning nice and our store is almost always busy, we have six wonderful children. Our oldest son gave his first talk in Sacrament meeting...he is truly turning into an honorable and kind young man. And while it makes me sad to see the time pass so quickly, it makes me happy in those moments when I hear him bear his testimony in church or pass the sacrament with such quiet dignity. We count our blessings and keep moving forward and working hard, its just not always exciting.....which leads, I guess, to a boring blog.

We have spring break coming up. Our school district still thinks its a really good idea to give the children two weeks away from school right before they conduct their state testing (just saying), so we've decided to get out of town...at least for part of it. I made some reservations at a resort in Palm Springs for the week after Easter. Joe won't be able to come with us (he has to stay home so he can FaceTime me with my cupcakes...I have some people now who help me, but I'm still working on letting go of some of the control issues) Anyway, my joints are looking forward to some nice dry desert air. We've never done Palm Springs before, but we're looking forward to a short drive and some beautiful weather and basically just hanging out at a pool and doing nothing. Something tells me the "doing nothing" part will only last for so long for the kids, and then we'll be back to whining and complaining and arguing about who sits where in the car-seriously, do all kids fights about that like mine do?

Well, whatever happens, I'll take the camera, I'll leave the cupcakes behind and take pictures of my other beautiful creations. Who knows, maybe something exciting will happen to inspire a blog post that is a little less boring. If not, there's always that Beatles video!