Sept 30 2012

Wow! This week flew by! I'm committing myself to blogging every Sunday night after the kids are in bed. Can't believe it's already that time again! It's been a good week. Busy, but the weather's been so great, that I have been loving the chance to be outside for soccer practices. The games were great yesterday but I won't be talking soccer tonight. Church. That's what I want to talk about. Lately I've been able to go to Relief Society. Because of my callings for the past 5 years (Primary pianist and then Young Women) I had to miss Relief Society. And I was perfectly fine with it. I loved my callings. But the past month, I've been able to go to RS and it's causing a change in me. It's making me want to be a better person. I guess that's what they mean when they say that going to church helps to strengthen testimony. Such a Sunday School answer, such cliche, but I really am experiencing this and I'm glad. I've needed it. I need to be better. Raising children, it's a given. I need to be closer to Heavenly Father and Jesus and more intune to Their whispers and encouragements. I just need to be better and it's really been a neat experience to actually FEEL and better understand the purposes of RS. I'm not so much feeling motivated to serve "my neighbor" better or to run around helping people or paint park benches or what not, but rather, I'm feeling more motivated to chill out. To recognize more my priorities and to take it to a more "spiritual level" my responsibility as a mom and a wife. I see my children as such valient, courageous spirits, blessing my life with their choice to come to me, and I just need to do a better job at giving them every tool, every experience, every opportunity to be better themselves and more importantly, to have both a desire to be converted to the Gospel and also and understanding of how to be converted to the Gospel. And I seriously have a stomach ache, so I'm going to bed!

Yellow

Where ever I go and whatever I'm doing, it's a guanantee that I will be surrounded by my children. I don't know what it is! I could be seperating croutons with tweezers and my children would choose to be with me over a trip to Disney Land with Barney! The silver lining in my state of child claustrophobia is one, I always know where my children are and two, I get to hear what they talk about and believe me, conversation between children is more entertaining than anything Hollywood can come up with. Today my 4 year old and my 3 year old were singing a song frequently sung by my 11 year old. "Black and yellow, black and yellow". I don't even know if that's really a song. But it IS sung in my home. My 3 year old's version: "Black an yeh-youh, black an yeh-youh!" He was promptly interrupted by his older sister, "It's not YEH-youh, it's LEH-low!" He repeated slowly, "yeh-youh" only to be corrected with the slower, more pronounced, "LEHHH-low." She corrected with so much confidence, so much direction, and so much heart, that I continued washing my dishes, careful to not interrupt their time together. They could both learn, later on in life, the correct way to say 'yellow.' And I got to thinking. How many times have I found myself in a similar situation as my daughter? I want so badly for my 6 year old to love soccer. In my opinion, it's the perfect sport. I played in high school and college and the reason I did was because quite simply, it's the best sport out there. Yet when my 6 year old spends her day dancing, twirling, and singing, could I be wrong in my initial desires? I desire that my children feel stronger loyalties to eachother, so after family prayers, they are required to hug one another. You'd think they were in straight jackets when they "embrace." Am I teaching them how to be loyal to each other by saying "LEH-low?" Quite frankly, I do not know. But it is with heart, and my love for my children, that I guide them the way I do. And it's the only way I know how to guide. And just because I may be a little in how I guide them, doesn't mean I stop trying to guide them. YEH-yough, LEH-low, yellow. In the end, it all works out. As long as we keep on trying.

This week

Life's been good. The weather has been AMAZING! I love this "pre-fall" weather. It's absolutely PERFECT! Life has also been crazy. My days are filled with taking kids to school, working out, running errands before the kids get home, when they do, we have just a short window of time for the kids to eat, do homework, chores, then it's off to soccer practice. On Saturdays it's games all day and photo shoots in the evenings. To top it off, Matt has begun his P.A. program, so he's consumed with studying. I feel like the Lord is truely helping me though. Saturday I did a 5 mile run with Mildred in the morning. It was a good run. I totally look forward to that time when it's just me and Mildred. She's a kindred spirit of mine and that quiet alone time when we run, enjoy the beauty of the morning, and talk about EVERYTHING is so dear to me. Got home, made breakfast for the kids, then left for 2 games in Staunton. I took all the kids by myself so Matt could study and just camped out at the fields while the girls had their games. Afterwards, we rushed home, I made lunch, then packed the kids up again for another game that was in Nelson County. Got back, got dinner (thank you pizza place), had ice cream w/the kids, and sent them off to bed. Then Matt came home around 11PM. Then I did an ab work out and finished the day off by downing a very not tiny bowl of ice cream. Now, I say I feel like the Lord is helping me because I was able to get everything done. He's seriously, not trying to sound cliche, but he's seriously giving me strength I don't have. I think part of it is, He knows my heart. With Matt deciding to go back to school, I didn't want it to interrupt our lives. Meaning I didn't want the kids to take a backseat to Matt's schedule. Just because Matt won't be home much doesn't mean I sit back and tell the kids, "sorry, your dad's not here to help, so no fun for you." The kids love their sports and thank goodness, it's an extracurricular activity that I LOVE. I love watching them swim, I'm now loving just being at soccer fields watching them play. The Lord knows I desire so much to see my kids happy, to experience sports, team comradary (sp?) pushing themselves. I want them to experience winning, loosing, frustration, exhileration. Maybe that's why He's helping me? Plus being outside, watching their games/practices, helps with my mood, too. How can you not be happy when you're outside, enjoying the sky, the grass, trees, even cool butterflies that think your finger is a flower. Yeah, saw that on Saturday. You could see it's little antenna tongue tapping away at the tip of Ben's (friend of ours)finger in search of pollen. Kids played well. Angela is SUCH A GREAT PLAYER! The girl, ever since she was 4, has had a grasp on the sport. She knows how to THINK as she plays. She doesn't react. She's patient, she turns the ball, her anticipation is perfect. Plus she's FAST. Honestly, that's how I played soccer. I seemed to have a sense of where the ball was going to go, or better yet, what the player coming at me was going to do, and could anticipate every move. I was also super fast and never seemed to tire. Angela seems to have taken what I used to be and taking it to higher levels. Because I was doing all this when I was 16. She's only 8. I'm excited to see what she does when she gets older. The won the game 3-2. She scored 1 goal. She's mentioned wanting to play tennis in college however. As much as I want to see her stick with soccer, I'd totally support her in tennis. Really, any sport. She'd do great at anything she wants. Jess had her first game. She has no idea what she's doing, but she's aggressive. That girl goes after the ball w/o fear. Actually,she does everything w/o fear. Once she figures out the idea behind soccer, she'll be just fine. I can't wait to watch her season as it continues. I'm helping coach (not doing much cuz the real coach does fine all by himself) but I do enjoy being with her, literally, at her practices. I love soccer!! Dallin had his first game, too. That kid, though not the most athletic on the team at all, has no sense of defeat. Even though they lost 1-5, Dallin played his hardest to the very end. And when the same kid beats him to the ball 5 times, the 6th time he'll still run his heart out to beat him. And whats even better, is that 6th time, if he gets beat, he doesn't hang his head. Or that 6th time, if he DOES get to the ball first, he doesn't get all puffy and prideful. I don't know what goes through Dallin's head. I think he has the make up of someone who'll frustrate his competitors because he won't stop. And it's not like he's being motivated to be the guy next to him, he's being motivated to beat himself. I love that about Dallin! Colby didn't have a game. His game was scheduled for today and we're a non-sport playing family when it comes to Sunday sports. I'll be sticking by that rule because guess what? It's just one less game to have to worry about and this season, all the Sunday games are FAR AWAY! ;) Thank you Heavenly Father! Had a GREAT lesson today in Relief Society. The teacher, Melissa. A-MAZING. I just liked her questions and how she directed the lesson. It was about, or at least what I came away from the lesson thinking, our lives and the different aspects of it and w/in each aspect, were we on the Lords side, or on the devils side. Meaning, for example, when it comes to ... journaling. Do I journal as the Lord would have me, or as satan would have me? Lately, I'd have to say, as satan would have me. ie I don't journal. What do I have for my kids? Nothing lately. So because of her lesson, I was spurred to action and I'm recommiting myself to journaling every Sunday night. Today the kids were all in the family room, pouring over our family albums. The albums are SO IMPORTANT and incredibly INTERESTING to them. Imagine my journals/blogs? So I need to write more. How do I mentally spend my day? Pondering and meditating as the Lord would have me do, or brooding and sulking as satan would have me to? I have to admit, I do a LOT of brooding. The other thing Melissa said, which I LOVED, was being reminded that we don't have to change EVERYTHING we're doing wrong. It'd be too overwhelming actually. But to just take it one at a time, or even to strengthen something we're already good at. The Lord doesn't want us to fail, He doesn't want us to get discouraged, and if I sat down and tried to revamp EVERYTHING I'm doing wrong, I'd just curl up into the fetal position and suck on donuts all day long. Soo, that said, I'm going to get back to journaling. I really need to. Seeing my kids pouring over our family albums today just touched me. They LOVED looking at them. Imagine how much they'll love reading my thoughts, our days as a young family, the fun chaos that being a member of this family entails. They'd love it. I'm a good writer. I can strengthen this. And I am going to work at my brooding. I need to quit thinking of how people have wronged me and stop wasting precious thoughts and time. Instead I can ponder and meditate. I need to ponder some quilts I need to sew anyways! ;) As a family, we're going to work on how we treat each other. The kids LOVE to toss each other under buses any chance they GET! So the new plan is, instead of assigning each kid a room to clean, I'm assigning 2 kids per room. They have to work together. And when they finish, they come get me to see if the room passes inspection. If I say, "good job, you're done" then they high 5 each other. The other thing we're going to start doing is, after each family prayer, they need to hug each other. They do great at hugging Matt and me, and of course the baby, but not each other. That's all gonna change. We did both today. And it went really well. Super small change, but I'm confident it'll help the family to show outward love and concern for each other. Oh, onto a lighter subject. So I weigh 139.8. Ouch. I've decided to motivate myself a little more. For every 5 pounds I lose, I'm gonna reward myself with a charm for my bracelet. I need to get a charm for every kid. Total 35 pounds. OK, I don't need to lose THAT much weight, but I do need to get down to 120. And the day I hit 118, I'm gonna complete my charm-kid collection. OK, it's 11PM. I need to gets me some shut-eye! Until next week!

Soccer fun ... school has begun

So much to write about! Kids have completed over a week now of school. 6th, 5th, 3rd, 1st, and preK. And of course Matt, PA program. And to top it all, we're doing fall soccer. 5 kids. 5 different teams. Crazy. But it's all good. Once the kids are at school in the AM, I go to the gym, run errands, etc. and when they get home, it's snack, homework, chores, then soccer. Car pooling has become a reality for me. But it's really the only way I can be at 5 places at once. As much as I love sports and it's important to me to see my kids involved, it REALLY helps that they enjoy sports. Jess is really impressing me this season w/her soccer skills. She's a little pistol out there! Anyways, it's been a great start to the 2012 school year. Colby LOVES middle school (so far.) People ask why I don't homeschool. Guess if you have lots of kids, you're automatically clumped with the super involved homeschool moms? 1st of all, I'm not cut out of that fabric. I don't have the patience and I'm just super not interested in it. 2nd of all, my kids are social. They love friends, they love people, they'd be miserable if I kept them home. Dallin's doing great, too. He's said on several occasions, "My whole class is friends with everyone." I like hearing that. Angela ... she's pretty consistant w/her love for school. She loves teachers. I'm 100% positive she'll be a teacher when she chooses her profession. Jess loves it. She misses her best friend Rosie from last year, she's glad a bully girl from last year isn't in her class, and she's loving her teacher. Addi just can't wait for preschool to start. It's crazy how much she loves it with how shy she is AT HOME. I've decided to volunteer on a regular basis at the schools. I want to be a part of the kids at school, and more importantly, be AWARE of what's going on. Soccer is going well. Can I just vent though? Because of Matt's schedule, I have to do some things with all the kids. And I don't mind, especially taking them to the soccer fields where they can play and run around while their sibling/s is/are playing. Of course this elicits comments. Of course it's the, "They ALL yours??" And most common as of late, "How do you handle 7? I can't hanle 2!" I'm not going to answer rudly or defensively. I just wonder, really, why anyone would CHOOSE ON PURPOSE to have only 1 or 2 children. I really don't. I understand that some simply KNOW THEIR LIMIT and are responsible and mature enough to stop when they know they need to. That I get. But to just have 1 or 2 because it's convenient or more "acceptable" or "expected" or what have you, I just don't get. I have 7 because I want a big family (not to mention God gave me the blessing of 7). I love what Dirk said in church today. He was talking about his MIL and how she, being 88 or 89, is now depending on her daughters for emotional support. I loved that. I love family. I love how the circle of life brings the mom back to her children. I love it. And the best thing a child can have is siblings. No one understands me like my siblings do. Not even my husband. So why wouldn't I WANT to give my children a support group, a unit, a team, that nothing can compare to? I grew up with 1 sister and 2 brothers and quite simply, that wasn't enough for me then and it's definitely not enough now. I wish I had more sisters to call, to vent to, to analyze life with. And that's why I want to give my children siblings. And a lot of them. Anyways, not the point of this post. The kids really are doing well. Dallin did hurt his foot in soccer last week, so we'll watch it this week. Hopefully he finishes off the season! He mentioned to me having no desire to play football because he wants to concentrate on soccer. I'm down with that!! ;) OK, it's past midnight. I'm beat! I'll chat more later!