Cross Country Meet

Last week, my niece Lindsey had a Cross Country meet here in Kuna at the Middle School.  It happens to be right across the street, so it was really easy for us to attend.  Anyway, Dejah was ELATED to see her cousins!  The funny thing is that they only live less than 20 minutes away, but we don't see them very often.  Anyway, we had a good time.

Here is Dejah with Ruth (they are 1 month apart).  

Can you tell which feature they got from their Daddys?  

(who happen to be twin brothers)

A little to the left buddy.

Way to go Lindsey!

Alex Unplugged

Introducing.....

The man of my dreams.....The one who makes me cry....The one who makes me laugh....The one and only, Entertainer of Entertainers...... Alex!

Yes......he sings in the shower (and all over the house)....and it is HILARIOUS!!  What even makes it funnier is that he likes to make up his own words and they don't even have to form a sentence.  Gotta love my Husband.  Seriously, never a dull moment.

Farmstead Fun...Media Day

Our friends Hillary and Jim Lowe own the Farmstead Corn Maze in town and last week was Media Day.  Which is basically the day where the News People come and take pictures, and go up in a helicopter to get the aerial view of the Maze.  Anyway, we get the kids out there running around and they have a great time!  Here are some pictures of our day.

So if you live in the Boise area and want to have a Blast with your family, they have so many fun things to do there.  Check it out here Here!

It all started the weekend of BSU's big opening game against the Georgia Bulldogs.  I wanted to have friends and family come party with us, but as it has been in our house for the last 8 years....we had this!

Looks fun huh?  Lets go to the Beal home and watch the Big game on a 32" old school tube tv!...(or stay home).  So I thought, well my brother has an HGTV he isn't using, maybe he'll let me borrow it.  He did.  I got it home and it was no bigger than the one we already had.  So after much discussion Alex and I decided it was time for an upgrade.  Only one problem.  We have TWO TV's in serious need of an upgrade.  The top on my priority list was our bedroom TV.  I have been wanting to mount a flat screen HD TV on the wall so I could put my treadmill in my room.  It was a debate.  We settled on buying a new one for the living room.  As we were out looking for possibly TWO tv's, I got a phone call from my brother telling me we could HAVE his.  He said it was a little glichy and he didn't want it.  Whaaa!??  SOLVED!  So we inherited this:

And that day we purchased THIS!:

 Of course, what happens when you make a big splurgy purchase??  Something Breaks.  That was my VACUUM!  ON the SAME DAY!  Well, after my horrible Kirby experience (not the vacuum that broke, just the one I returned because I was succored into spending WAY too much), I've decided my next vacuum would be the Dyson.  But how do I justify spending $500 on a vacuum when I just bought a new TV.  Well, I go lower.  After some shopping around I ended up buying this:

Believe it or not, for a $200 vacuum, I am NOT disappointed.  It works amazingly and I am totally disgusted every time I dump it.  Anyway...we are loving our TV's and our new vacuum.

What Does a Mom Do?

A friend of mine posted this column on Facebook that I thought it was brilliant!  It's basically about this single gal who wanted to complain about her friend who had children.  She felt like her friend was neglecting her and had no excuses for complaining about being busy when she was a stay at home mom. 
Lately I feel like I have been so busy.  I really can't wrap my mind around it.  I mean I am home.  My biggest responsibilities are to my kids and the house.  I do have other things like groceries, two callings, husband, family, friends, ect.. but I just feel like my day goes by and I've accomplished very little.  When I read this column, it was all put into words that fit how I feel about my "job".

"When you have young kids, your typical day is:  constant attention, from getting them out of bed, fed, cleaned, dressed; to keeping them out of  harm’s way; to answering their coos, cries, questions; to having two arms and carrying one kid, one set of car keys, and supplies for even the quickest trips, including the latest-to-be-declared-essential piece of molded plastic gear; to keeping them from unshelving books at the library; to enforcing rest times; to staying one step ahead of them lest they get too hungry, tired or bored, any one of which produces checkout-line screaming. 

It’s needing 45 minutes to do what takes others 15. 

It’s constant vigilance, constant touch, constant use of your voice, constant relegation of your needs to the second tier.

It’s constant scrutiny and second-guessing from family and friends.  It’s resisting constant temptation to seek short-term relief at everyone’s long-term expense.

It’s doing all this while con-currently teaching virtually everything – language, manners, safety, resourcefulness, discipline, curiosity, creativity.  Empathy.  Everything.

It’s a choice, yes.  And a joy.  But if you spent all day, every day, with this brand of joy, and then, when you get your first 10 minutes to yourself, wanted to be alone with your thoughts instead of calling a good friend, a good friend wouldn’t judge you, complain about you or marvel how much more productively she uses her time."

I'm gonna have to admit, this post in itself has taken me over an hour to write because during that time (all while still in my p.j.'s)....I've been taking care of the kids :)  When I'm done, I will need to get to making beds. Picking up the jammies, blankeys, chocolate milk cups and toys that managed to get strewn across the living-room floor.  The breakfast and school lunch mess in the kitchen.  And hopefully before lunch I will be able to get a quick shower so I can put on some clothes.  Nice.

Mycah Gabbs

It is so funny to me that almost every time I take a bath, or do my hair, my little Mycah just comes in and starts gabbing about anything and everything.  A lot of what she says makes no sense to me and other things are just so funny.  It just so happened that I had my ipod in there with me so I decided to flip it up and film a little.  Seriously though, she was probably talking for at least a 1/2 hour.

Insecure

Do you ever get in a bit of a funk when you feel down for a while?  I guess its just part of life, but I don't like it.  I feel like I've been in a bit of a "funk" ever since school started.  For one reason or another it has just really been hard for me. 
First off, Alex is busier.  School has started, so now he is gone more.  He has responsibilities as an instructor that require extra work before and after school.  He also has a second job with the U of I.  On top of that he is taking classes to become a certified administrator in the State of Idaho.  Add a Ward Mission Leader calling at church, you get the picture.  Also, I am learning a whole new meaning to my duties at home.  My 7 year old Dejah is now gone every day at school.  I am home with the youngest three with NO help.  It kind of feels like having a 3, 2, and 1 year old....except the 3 year old is actually 4 1/2.  I will admit, she has calmed WAY down, but Mycah and Logan fight like nothing I've seen before.  They literally duke it out.  Logan will take something of Mycah's, she'll  hit him, he'll hit back.  Logan will pin Mycah down and bite her.... I mean it goes on and on like that.  I really try my best, but I feel like I am almost always in discipline mode.  When Logan has his screaming fits I just want to pull my hair out.  If we are around friends, I am so embarrassed by my kids.  Yet I know their other side which can be so loving and sweet.
Now to me personally.  When I wrote my post about how I felt about being a stay at home mom, I got some negative feedback.  I guess I just wasn't expecting people to take it so personally.  I have been feeling extremely self-conscious about what I say and do.  I'm pretty sensitive, so even Alex correcting me, kind of hurts.  I don't know where all this insecurity is coming from, but I am getting kind of sick of it.  At the same time I am not sure how to fix it.  I just want to be able to be myself and not feel like I'm saying something stupid or doing something wrong. 
Do you have a long list of things you want to accomplish, but can't seem to even grasp?  Here are a few of mine.
1.  Read The Hunger Games Series 
2.  Have Family Home Evening EVERY Monday Night
3.  Have two weeks to a month of planned meals scheduled so that there is no question about what is for dinner that day.
4.  Take one morning a week and PREP all food for dinners that week (chopping stupid veggies, thaw meat, marinade, ect...)
5.  STOP eating out for lunch.  I absolutely HATE homemade lunch...and I have been ordering it WAY too much.  (This habit started when I was a single working girl)
6.  Keep my closet organized!  Ugh.
7.  Work out at least 3 times a week.
.....................anyway......................you get the picture.