Mother's Day

Tyson's always done an amazing job making Mother's Day great. Mother's Day was really low key this year, which is fine by me. But he took care of the kids, made everyone food, and cleaned up messes.

I was most impressed with his dinner...

Poppyseed Salad (which this picture doesn't do justice)

Blackberry Sage Lemonade (idea from Melting Pot)
Clam Sauce Pasta
Delicious.

AWESOME...That About Sums It Up

The Past: An AWESOME Week

• Tyson's brother came to hang out and paint our house.
• We went to the WW1 Museum.
• Went out for sushi *mouth watering*.

The Present: An AWESOME Mother's Day

• Leila only woke up once last night.
• We made it to church ON TIME.
• Tyson made an AMAZING dinner.
• We at chocolate brownie waffles for dessert.

The Future: Preparing for an AWESOME next week

• My mom comes to visit.
• Tyson and my 4th Anniversary.
• Eden's 3rd birthday.
• Start packing.

It is busy. It is crazy. It is AWESOME.

Prepare for future posts.

Eden the Artist

In my house, you will never find a blank piece of paper. Here is some of Eden's artwork that I've found around the house recently.

(Click on the picture to make it bigger and easier to see.)

"The Big Bad Wolf and the 3 Little Pigs"

"Flowers", "Christmas Tree", "Chick", and "Helicopter"

"Unicorn", "Kung Fu Panda with a Bowl of Noodles, Chopsticks, and Spoon"

"Monster"

"Eden Naked with a Diaper" and "Smiling 'E's"

Happy Easter!

Easter turned out well. The only thing that wasn't "well" was Leila. She had a fever of 104. She was very cuddly, slept a lot, and hardly ate a thing. Poor girl was burning up for two days and now she's just got a booger-y nose.

Eden LOVED to color and EAT eggs. She also loves the Easter egg hunts, stories about Jesus, and of course...the candy.

Little 10-Month Old Leila

My little Leila is gonna be 10 months old tomorrow. I can't believe how time flies.

Here's a little bit about my Leila:

• She weighs 21 lbs and wears the same size diaper as Eden. But she's thinning out.
• She loves food she can pick up and feed herself. She's vetoing baby food.
• She can walk up to 7 steps at a time before falling.
• She's verbal (and loud). Mostly loud "AH!" or "UH?" sounds.
• She does say "mom", "dad", "more", "no", and "llama".
• She loves to figure out how things work...take apart and put back together.
• She loves to give kisses.
• She plays Peek-a-Boo. Mostly with Eden's blanket...that she LOVES much to Eden's dismay.
• She loves climbing the stairs, especially when she knows mom and dad are not around and she's being sneaky about it.
• She HATES diaper changes and getting washed after meals.
• She's really dramatic and complains to me by crawling to me until I notice her then she'll stop, throw her head down, and pretend to cry a little.
• She's got 2 teeth on the bottom.
• She favorite foods are probably plums, grapes, and green beans.
• She uses her mouth a lot when making facial expressions.
• She get SUPER excited about doing anything that she knows "big people" do.
• She can open the toy dresser and pull out the toys she wants by herself.
• She loves to play in the bathroom, especially unrolling toilet paper, putting finger in toilet water, and putting things into the tub.
• She and Eden love to share toys back and forth while in their car seats.
• She loves Eden. She's always trying to copy Eden.

Also, we have this book at my house...

I sometimes refer to Leila as "Pinkerton", the main character that is described as "pink, plump, and pushy". (I'm such a mean mom.)

Here's a little view of "Pinkerton" figuring out how to get around my obstacles I put in place so she would leave Eden alone and let her draw. But if there's a will, there's a way.

The last one is Leila trying to steal Eden's marker and Eden trying to swat her arm away and saying, "Leila's being trouble!" Eden also often says, "Leila, you're making this difficult."

I give Leila a hard time because she's so active and sometimes troublesome. But I really love her so much. Her strong personality makes her so lovable. I could hug and kiss her all day long if I could.

Eden and Leila are so different from each other. To see videos of Eden at this age, click HERE and HERE. These are some of my favorite Eden videos...I recommend watching.

The More I Know, the More I Know I Don't Know

Tonight I'm feeling a bit....uneasy.

After watching a friendly show on Netflix with my husband we got in a conversation about something on the show....Osteogenesis Imperfecta (aka: Brittle Bone Disease) to be exact.

(This is the part where my husband lights up like a firecracker...I mean, he's a med student.)

After talking about brittle bone, we talked about how the eye works, how cells work, how placentas are formed, how the heart works, diseases, and more diseases.

But of course he used much more complicated words that are far beyond my capacity to remember let alone REPEAT to all of you my fellow readers.

He started looking up diagrams online to help me understand.

That's when I started to feel uneasy.

Being a woman, I totally over-analyzed.

"He knows way too much."

"Does HE know how much he knows?"

"What have I been DOING with all my time while he's LEARNING?"

"I know NOTHING."

"He uses WAY more of his brain than I do."

"Have I just been wasting my brain's knowledge capacity?"

I mean, I know that being a wife and mother is extremely important but I feel enclosed in this bubble of Dr. Seuss books and figuring out how to keep my house clean. His bubble contains things like, "I've felt what a LUNG feels like and its the softest thing in the world".

How can I compete with that?

All of a sudden the world is getting bigger and bigger.

I'm getting smaller and smaller.

I ask Tyson, "What's something I know that you don't?"

His response, "You know how to make Cinnamon Knots."

He gives a smirk.

My eyeballs roll.

Although I admit, I like these conversations with my husband. Watching him LIGHT UP cause he can teach me something that he's passionate about as well as learning new things (that unfortunately I'll probably forget by tomorrow morning).

But I currently feel like a speck of dust floating through space.

I gotta keep telling myself that its OK to feel like a little person in a big world. But instead of hanging on to whatever I can in order to survive, I need to simply enjoy the ride and take this opportunity to learn something new.

What he memorizes are charts, medicines, diseases, and the body.

I memorize signs that my children give to show they need something, recipes that use up what I have in the fridge so I don't waste money and food, and what time I need to START getting myself and the kids ready to go somewhere in order to make it on time (with which I admit I still struggle).

I'm really not even sure why I'm blogging about all this. I guess I need an outlet for all this uneasiness.

So, for those of you still following this post....or this blog...now you know what I'm feeling.

At least what I'm feeling right now.

Best Sister Award

I've been feeling lonely lately. Mostly just a bit homesick and ready to see my family again. I miss them.

Last year, for the April General Conference, my sister Laura came out to visit me with her son, Trey. This year she decided to make it a tradition and came again (this time with Trey and her new little one, Ramona).

Laura wins the "Best Sister Award". I needed that break from life and to see someone in my family again.

We kept pretty busy going to parks, window shopping, riding around town, chasing around children, and of course watching conference (...when we weren't chasing around children).

Ramona and Leila.

(The ironic thing about this picture is that I think Ramona is a happier baby than Leila in general. Ramona TALKS and BABBLES like crazy and Leila gave lots of CRUSTY faces and WHINY noises.)

Eden and Trey are complete opposites personality-wise. They had a love-hate relationship with each other. But overall, they loved being with each other.

Leila's first time on the swings.

She LOVED it.

Tyson was busy with school,

but was able to come out and enjoy time with us too.