Love

I love it when my siblings send an ornament with a story or scripture.  As I pull out my ornament and hang it up I get to have a little spiritual moment.  My kids are getting old enough I can pause and teach them the meaning of some of these ornaments.  

This ornament,  I'm sure not made by my sister but given by her is one such ornament. 

As I look at my tree, as I said before,  I am filled with love and joy for my family. But as this ornament reminds me, that the tree represents the love of God. He offers the fruit of His tree so that we can be filled with His love and joy. 

Christmas in a Nutshell

I had a dream the other night that I went on another date with a past boyfriend that I haven't seen since we broke up. I wanted things to work out so bad but at the same time I had sooo many red flags telling me that I was not going to be happy with  him. Anyway, in this dream I forgave him and went to something that felt like a ward party but it was McDonald's  (which was supposed to be novelty). During our dinner two flighty girls who lived by him came up and sat at the table and they had a flirty-ditzy annoying conversation.  After a few minutes I got up had a few awesome parting words and I woke up. I woke up so thankful for my awesome husband.  The night before the dream, I had sat admiring him as he held our sweet babe in the light of the Christmas tree. It was one of those moments that your heart swells with gratitude, joy and with a prayer that it will last.

The beautiful thing is that even though things do change and there are difficulties in life we do get to hang on forever. The beauty of the season is in our Savior. That He lived. He died. AND lives again. And we can be together with Him and our families as we covenant to live like him.

Christmas in a Nutshell

(From brother#2 it's Christ in a walnut shell. Cute.)

O Christmas tree!

I'm sitting here listening to Christmas music, admiring my Christmas tree. I love my Christmas tree.

My tree is filled with ornaments have been made/given by my siblings. Every year at least a few of us have exchanged ornaments. Some of these ornaments have stories or reasons why I love them. I know that I have to be realistic and admit that with three little ones some of these ornaments may not get to last forever. So I thought I should document these ornaments so I can always remember them and continue to feel joy in my family and in Christmas.
So over the next few weeks I may be posting a few of my favorites.

Today's ornament was one of the first exchanged. It brings me so much joy everytime I look at it.

Isn't he so cute? My brother sent this. I think it came as a great surprise to me to that my brother was so crafty. It was during his divorce, so I knew it came 100% from him. I just feel like there is so much love in this ornament.  It's the happiest elf I have ever seen.

This girl

Ever since boo was little,  good byes have never been a big deal. I barely could get a wave or a verbal good bye from her when I dropped her off at preschool.  I always half-wished I got more as I watched other kids hug and kiss their moms  goodbye. But I also knew it just wasn't who Boo was. She has always been so excited for school and being around friends that the temporary separation wasn't a big deal.
But lately when i've dropping her off at school, I get a hug, a kiss and/or blown kiss with an "I love you mom". Ahhhhh. It tickles my heart.
I've also started to say a little prayer for her most days as I watch her walk into school. I like that special little prayer just for her. I hope I can keep that up.

Spooktacular

Since Halloween fell on a Saturday, and apparently not tired of party planning yet, I thought we had to make Halloween a little more exciting. Halloween is not my favorite holiday but there are so many fun things to do. I decided to through together a little party, not really little but not big enough to invite all that I wanted to. I think those who came had fun but i think I learned a few things:
1. Make it longer, it was too short for me to sit and talk to anyone.
2. Either make it all at activities and not a meal, or start off with the meal so that i can enjoy the party.
3. do it on the years that we aren't doing a birthday party for Boo
4. just keep having fun. We are creating memories for our kids. I stopped for a minute one day why I care about that and why that is important. We want them to remember childhood as a happy time. we want them to remember our love for them and that we have fun together. And it is our memories that will bring a smile and warmth in our hearts when life gets hard our sad.
Anyway here's the party

Fairy god mother and Doc McStuffins

 My neighbor brought this craft and it was perfect, the kids LOVED it.

 The food table beginning to get full of all the yummy treats people brought

  Wrap your daddy up like a mummy:

 Donuts on a string

 so fun, so messy

 We also had other games they could play at their leisure: Spider tag (basically line tag),  black cat alley but it was really a spiderweb obstacle course that ran between our fence and behind the shed and trampoline, we had the jumping spider nest (trampoline), Witches hat ring toss, and bat flying races. 

 Ready to trick or treat:

 well Documented to help out those memory keeping skills. :)

Tea Party

I had fun putting together this party. I went a little crazy but had fun. Part of the fun in the party planning is doing it as simply and cheaply as I can but keeping it pretty awesome. The hard part of doing it cheaply means that I have to take more time creating and baking instead of buying it all put together for me. Say the pinata. I could easily bought a pinata. but it is incredibly cheap to make just takes time.

Or the paper banner and pinwheel decorations. Takes time but so cheap. The other part of keeping it cheap is that even 25 cents adds up pretty fast.

The tissue paper flowers were used for decorations and we used them for their fancy headbands they wore for the tea party.

I have no idea I spent or how many hours I put into putting this party together for my dear Boo. But I loved doing it for her and she loved it. Now, I am anxiously awaiting to have another tea party. And I really really want another petit four....plenty of work but so so yummy.

 We played musical chairs and sugar cube drop relay game (no pic of that one though)

 The lovely ladies:

This picture makes me happy, Boo's face makes it all worth the work!

Love this girl!

Squishy

So obviously I have a post baby body and I am totally okay with it. I'm okay with little miss calling my tummy squishy all the time ( don't love her pushing on it however. ) I know my body has paid a price for my sweet babes and that's okay.  I will exercise and feel good about my body.

But when you go in for the post-baby check and your doctor checks your tummy and states " you have a lot of loose skin. You're going to need a tummy tuck.".

Say what?!! Who says that, especially so soon. I wasn't concerned.  And in fact i'm pretty sure it's normal.

I'm glad i'm happy enough with my body and confident that I can exercise and know my body will be fine in a few months (or many months). Otherwise that could have really hit my self esteem.  Goodness. Her statement comes to mind often but I just roll my eyes and laugh it off.

All worth it. If my squishy tummy doesn't go away. I hope I can wear it like a badge of honor, being a mother of my 3 wonderful girls.

Wanna be farmers

GG had the day off yesterday,  ya you heard me right. :) happens once in a blue moon that he has no church or work stuff going on... ( I really don't know how rare blue moons are, but it may be more rare than a blue moon).

Anyway we decided to go and pick a pumpkin ...and raspberries and apples, just a few for the fun of it. I wish  that we picked more and either froze them or made yummy food with them. Oh well. Harvesting the fruit makes me want to have a big garden but them there is the planting and making them grow thing....

 They also had a few other fall activities.

Will we go back there for picking pumpkins instead of the big Halloween pumpkin patches in the future? don't know. I liked it but boo remembers the other patches and she wasn't as thrilled, I don't think. But I liked the simplicity, the price and the produce. 

Upload...maybe overload.

So this is going to be a picture blog so far behind compared to number of pictures on my phone :

 Love this binkie sometimes super helpful other times cumbersome but more helpful than not:

 One week old:

 Blessing day.
We were able to have the baby blessing at our home,you know, we are pretty tight with the bishop, so it wasn't hard to get approval. ;)

 Nonna came that weekend too. She was such a help with the kids.

We were also blessed with other family there to join the special moment who were conveniently here for a football game...well some of them anyway. 

 Grandma time:

 Ain't this the truth?:

 Totally zonked out :

Little miss insisted babe have glasses.

 I know we have a picture of Boo doing this to little miss too but it's not readily available on my phone to add to this post.

When did little miss grow up so much? She looks so old in this picture:

 Lots of snuggles, she loves sleeping like this:

I loved general conference this weekend, more than usual. Usually, I don't love it. it's 8 hours of fighting to stay awake and being distracted by other things and missing most of it. But there were definitely talks that I loved and so many I need to listen to again (or for the first time...I still was distracted or dealing with yelling and screaming children). My favorite talk was Elder Holland's about mothers. So beautiful. 

I loved the last part:

"To all mothers in every circumstance, including those who struggle—and all will—I say, “Be peaceful. Believe in God and yourself. You are doing better than you think you are. In fact, you are saviors on Mount Zion, and like the Master you follow, your love ‘never faileth [Moroni 7:46; see also 1 Corinthians 13:8].’” I can pay no higher tribute to anyone."

It's hard being a mom. In fact there have been way too many moments were I feel like i'm barely staying afloat, and moments I haven't liked how I was parenting but I do love being mom. I love my children so very much. 

Ok all done! :)

Swimming picture

Boo drew this picture at school. ..apparently she did this at the beginning of the yeart given my belly. I looked at this at just laughed.

This girl's attention to detail is amazing.  Each person needs a closer look.  First, daddy:

Love the ears, the chest...so funny.

Next :

That is her green striped swimsuit with no outline.  And her hair!! Looks like some dunce cap or something.  Hehe

The next one is me...oh my belly! !!!

And the artist herself:

Well, I think she did a lovely portrait of herself. No craziness there. :) 

It just makes me happy.

Staying alive

Somebody help please! How do you keep a third child alive? And while we are at it, how do I keep the second child alive as well? Seriously. The second child is the root of these problems of staying  alive. She doesn't seem to have any concept of danger or understanding what it means to be hurt.

So let's  start with little miss's problems with staying alive. We have counted 4 times she could have died. Twice choking, once in a pool and once running across the street. Right now it is the latter that has us completely concerned. She knows the rules. She just gets a mischievous look and starts running across the street, other times she stops. And when you stop her from running she just smiles and giggles.  Oye!!!!!
Now, i'm terrified for the life of our baby ( possibly blog name sweet). she probably thinks she's being helpful but instead putting Sweet in danger, you know giving her blankets but putting them on her head, etc. One time running and jumping on the couch only to land in the same area where Sweet is resting. Thankfully, I have only been a minute behind her. How do I stay ahead of little miss? I feel like I need to hold Sweet all of the time while little miss is awake to keep her our of danger. It seriously takes just one minute of my attention to be diverted elsewhere.

 What is a mom supposed to do? How do you teach a two year old how to be safe and the right amount of fear of danger?

I haven't even gotten started about me staying alive or sane yet with three children...but then I have had people and meals that have been easing me into life with 3 kids. Total blessings.

The nicu and our miracle

After our sweet babe was born (blog name still yet to be determined), I was able to hold her for a bit before the nursery nurse came to look at her and noticed her labored breathing. They took her away to give her oxygen. They also had to suck stuff out off her tummy since she swallowed a bunch of stuff while being born.
After a a couple of hours in the nursey not improving they moved her to the nicu. They hooked her up to a cpap, oxygen and stuck a tube down her throat to keep I believe fluid and air out of her tummy. They did x-rays and found she did have some fluids in her lungs. And they put her on antibiotics. It is so sad to see all that happen.
I wasn't worried that something serious was going to be forever wrong with her, especially having been through something similar to Boo's birth. Besides being concerned about the pain and discomfort she was experiencing, and what she'd have to go through to being whole, I was worried about how long her stay would be. I know this might sound awful, but I was concerned financially how a possible 7 day nicu stay would deplete our savings. It was one of my worries from the beginning of this pregnancy, knowing how expensive boo's stay was in the nicu.
As they poked and prodded I remembered my prayer the night before and that we would be blessed with a miracle.
We decided to call my dad over to help give her a blessing.
It was a special moment to call in the blessings of heaven through the priesthood on the behalf our baby.
We could just sit with her and look in on her little bed all hooked up.

(This is after the cpap and tube down her throat )

It wasn't until that evening when we were just sitting in her room that a night nurse let me hold her and nurse her. This was a no-no since she had the tube down her throat trying to keep everything out of her tummy. But I believe that night nurse was our miracle.  She was kind and encouraging telling me that skin to skin and nursing help the baby. It was amazing how holding her calmed her breathing down, I noticed that while I was holding her. After awhile we left. And probably a hour later or so GG went back to get something and she was off the cpap.
So she only was on the cpap and oxygen for 6 hours.  We just had to wait out to make sure she was okay and to finish the antibiotics.
They wanted to keep her longer but I questioned it a bit since she wasn't on anything and was doing fine. They decided to let her come home with me when I was discharged.  I was thrilled to be done with our stay and going home!