Lemons, flowers and CTR rings

Zurich has always taken good care of the things that are important to him. He is a saver. He got a few sheets of stickers for his birthday and they still hang on his board. He amazed us by how well he took care of his Mack truck that was meant for a 6 year old but we gave it to him when he was 2. He usually knows pretty well where the things he cares most about are.

A few Sundays ago he was given a CTR ring. Gary commented that he is amazed that it is still with us, especially since Zurich often wears it.

Olea had come home early from school sick and she and Giddy were napping. To keep the house quiet for them Zurich and Nev and I went out to get the mail and check on our lemon tree. I had good little lemon pickers and we discovered a bunch of flowers we haven't seen yet on the property. Zurich
thought that he had lost his ring outside. While we were looking he said some silly things, "We just need to look for something shiny." "I think it is in the lemon," or "I saw it in the tree." Literally meaning in the trunk of the tree. He also insisted on digging up a bunch of rocks in the driveway looking for it. That surprised Gary when he had a bumpier than usual drive down the lane that evening.

I later determined by looking at pictures we had taken outside that he didn't have his ring on while outside at all. This eased his mind and we later found it on the couch, he went and put it in his treasure box with his pirate necklace which you can see in the picture (a Gianni Versace chain he found in the garage, we cleaned it up and everything because my guess is that it was a dog collar.).

I juiced the lemons and made Lemonade using a recipe I found on Pinterest. They said Juice 6 lemons.... Our lemons are extra juicy, I will modify the recipe in the future, because it was way too much lemon. (Not for me, but for the rest of the family).

I love sweet time with these two.

An olive branch

I titled this post carefully and hopefully it makes sense. I'm going to talk about something personal and very close to my heart and hope those who read it will appreciate it for what it is and see why it is important to me to share these thoughts. I could share a lot of thoughts, but I am trying to keep this succinct.

Thanks to Wikipedia I have this definition to help me show you the connection I am trying to make.

An Olive Branch: is usually a symbol of peace or victory and was historically worn by brides.

 

This thought comes from an experience I had while attending college. I was at BYU in a class called Clothing the Family. It sounded like a useful class that would cover budgeting and smart practices and skills to, well, clothe the family.

The class was an utter disappointment.

One day the class had gone to complete poo when a married girl in the class commented on how her husband just wasn't living up to his potential and the "professor" carried on with it. I am not for man bashing. I don't mind joking around about the differences in the genders but serious bashing is right out for me, (I'm gonna get mean here) especially coming from a dim witted, wobbly stiletto heeled, died platinum blonde girl and a justifying debited, needy, older woman who really should know better.

Listening to my tuition money coin in and tinkle around in these empty headed women I couldn't take it any more, and as I sorted through what they were whining about I wondered what was different? Why didn't I have disappointments in my husband that I was just bursting to share with this group of tawdry women? Was it because I was still a newlywed and still had my blinders on? That couldn't be it, some of these girls were more freshly married than I was.

So what was it?

I think sometimes, we women get some pretty big ideas about what marriage and men are like and what our role will be like with them. I know there was plenty I had wrong. But ultimately I think a big problem is we tend to think of our future spouse in a checklist form for so long that when we are married we still think of marriage and our spouse in this checklist form instead of human form, you know, like WE are.

But I had one thing right, the man I married and the fact that I married my man for who he was: imperfect, anal, sometimes irreverent...

I bet most women had that same thing right when they married their spouse. Somewhere we loose perspective though. We've got flaws, sins, weaknesses addictions: I'm talking chocolate, exercise and lack there of, self demeaning practices, weak self worth, sense of entitlement, feminist ideas, laziness, unrealistic expectations... whatever, anything that is out of moderation, anything that hinders our ability to love others, anything that puts us above others, that supersedes our ability to love and forgive:

To get over ourselves.

To marry him for who he IS, every day.

Somewhere, I think we forget why we married them. Even just for a moment, and if we let that moment grow, we have a problem. It's our problem. My heart started beating really fast and my thoughts clarified.

"If you marry someone

for their POTENTIAL

you will be consistently disappointed.

If you marry them for who they ARE

you will be pleasantly surprised."

Class was over for me that day.

But I've come back to this thought often in my life. I am certainly not a perfect woman or wife. I struggle, have setbacks and disappointments, I let my husband down, I waste time, forget stuff and just avoid things that need doing because they are unpleasant, I have different forms of addictions. We all do. Think about it, you've got some "bad habits" just like me. I could go on, but think about it, I'm not perfect. So why should my husband be?

You are not perfect. So why should your husband be?

He shouldn't.

I am gonna go out a limb here and vocalize some thoughts I keep having. This idea applies to many aspects of marriage but I am going to touch on just one now.

As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we expect our men to be seriously moral.

This is awesome.

I think it is right.

However, we also live in a world where this is extremely uncommon. Many women in marriages just accept that their husband does things (strip joint, web sites etc) that in the LDS church we seriously frown upon. We don't accept it. However, as a local church leader shared in a Young Women's lesson, the temptations are always there, people are always cajoling our men to take a peek, it's not so bad, it's still funny, it pops up uninvited, etc.

Any woman or man who thinks that pornography isn't a problem in their home to some extent is just plain fooling themselves. I don't care how great you all are. I'm not saying that everyone needs counseling or anything like that, I am just saying it is a temptation, like any other temptation, it's real and it's something that you can't just ignore and hope it isn't a problem or won't be a problem. You'll face it somewhere, your husband, brother, friends, son etc. It's something you have to actively fight against. If you don't, it's sure to rear it's ugly head. I see it all around me, and have for years in various forms and casualties.

It's downright crappy. But it's truth and the flesh is weak... It's that temporal body we are so blessed to have and so blessed to try to learn to over come.

So what to do?

Support our men in their struggles. I don't mean pat them on the back and say, "That's cool, I don't mind, it doesn't hurt me." That would be a lie. That's one of those big ones, you know, the Ten Commandments. So don't lie.

If you are a woman, it hurts. No matter what level it exists in. But we have to help them, it's the whole "for better or for worse" thing that we commit to do when we married them. It's their sin, but we can't let it become ours, (it becomes our sin when we let it tear our marriage, family and relationships apart, when we ignore Christ's atonement and it's role in our healing, forgiveness and their recovery) we have to help them daily fight it. It's not the man's fight alone. There have been lots of awesome talks about fighting it in General Conference. Here's a search. They often talk to the men about it, but it's real for women too. So I'm saying my two bits about it to women. Because we have a role in helping our men fight it.

I have been blessed in my marriage because I have a husband who is serious about fighting the temptation. We have found a system of checks that works for us. I don't babysit his browser or anything like that it was a plan he came up with and it works. It's active. It's always active.

In the words of a very wise woman who knows, and whom I love dearly: If he's there, in the marriage and he wants to work on it, you've got something to work with. That's so much better than not having a marriage at all.

I mean be willing to forgive, be active in their recovery, be active in their success. Always be active in your fight against the Destroyer.

Remember you married a person, not a check list, not a perfect ideal.

Extend an Olive Branch: Strive for Peace, Strive for Victory in your marriage.

It's hard, but nothing is as hard as walking in this world alone.

p.s  pictures are completely my own (except the olive branch which was found through Google and I can't find the origin). If you would like to share please do so by linking back.

Clamor

Tonight after dinner which was it's own stress with preparing 3 different meals, two children whining, one throwing up (because she ignored the repeated call for lunch and ate FunDip instead) and wanting to tell me all about it, the other banging his sippy cup, screeching at me, and throwing food on the floor and Mr. relating a troublesome conversation from work... I finally gave up and took the whining, dead-tired almost 3 year old up to her room for cuddles, hoping she would give up and fall asleep. No luck, she wanted the lights on (and can reach the switch). So after a while I went down to get a book to read and saw the kitchen still a mess and everyone else relaxing or making another mess. I sighed and went back up stairs as Nev was whining for me again. Later the eldest is sent to bed because she is too sick to clean out the dishwasher but not too sick to wrestle with her brother. So Gary and I gather up the kids sleeping bags to roll and stuff them away and 3 of the kids follow us. Nev has brought a basket full of her polly pocket type dolls, accessories, and furniture. Giddy baby is chewing on something and wants to nurse. Zurich wants cuddles.

Gary and I try to roll up the bags but Giddy is rubbing against me like a cat and clawing at me and pulling my hair and climbing on me. Nev insists that I look at how she has arranged the contents of her basket on her dad's night stand. Zurich is just puppy dog eyes in the background whimpering every so often and Gary is heaving and hoing trying to suppress the sleeping bag enough for me to keep the extra material out of the way and zip is the storage bag's zipper. Giddy is hampering my ability to move and see and Nev is making my ears ring while Z pulls on my heart strings because he's been waiting all day. Eventually both sleeping bags are zippered shut.
That's 10 minutes, maybe.

I'm nursing the baby and Nev is wandering up and down the halls. And I still have to move laundry and clean up dinner, etc.

This is the life I chose.
I am going to choose it again as I put the baby to bed, find Nev still awake, and head downstairs to spend the next two hours on chores, because I am lucky.
I have a joy that most people don't even know they are missing or that most who do have it don't know that it is a joy.
I have a family.
I have children.
I have a husband who provides for us in many ways. He lives toward a higher moral standard than most men in the world and he's imperfect at it enough to love imperfect me.

And because Gary will most likely help me with the kitchen and laundry tonight.

Coretta

Sent from my iPod touch

baseball hat

My husband isn't a fan of baseball, but he sure likes the hats.

The first glimpse my kids got of their dad, he was wearing a baseball hat.
#1
#2
#3
#4
So it's no surprise that they associate a baseball cap with dad.

After washing Gideon off after a meal I found a baseball cap that someone had left on the bathroom shelf. I put it on Giddy while he was looking in the mirror. He said, "Hi, Dad." Yup, you must be dad if you are wearing a baseball cap.

Being Rich

I always tell Gary, "when we are rich..." I want such and such. Some of those items have been pretty silly like a Lava Lamp. We must be rich, because I have one. ;)
Some are just pie in the sky... okay that makes them silly too.
Anyway: The other day I had a brain child. I've had four real children so a brain child shouldn't be too far of a stretch.

Gary was outside teaching Zurich how to ride his bike with no training wheels. Awesome. View.

Nev had just gotten run over by Olea (who was riding her bike). I took Nev inside cleaned off her knee and affixed plain brown, but super huge band-aid and had her fetch a basket.

Of course the scene of me and Nev gathering mystery objects in the grass was intriguing so eventually I had all my little helpers there adding to the basket.
Coming so close to the ground and seeing, because we were looking, Olea commented, "We are rich in acorns."
We are. Super. Rich. in Acorns.

So there. I am now super rich.

I could get the squirrels to do whatever I wanted...

We gathered lots of acorns and a few pine needles too for good measure.

Sometimes Gary is really good at taking pictures, sometimes he even lets it focus. Sometimes not so much. :)

Then some wading in the pool.


A few days later...
some awful hot glue and a ring of foam core board...
and an awesome hot glue burn...

When we are super rich: I will still make my own wreaths and I'll still have a lava lamp.

Gratitude turkeys

For the last few years we have used this basic body pattern to make Gratitude Turkeys. I had a bunch already cut out this time around from when I got them ready for an activity days' activity. This worked out very nicely since it was a bit of a spontaneous desire. I started making one with Zurich, then Oma (German for grandma-my mother) and Olea, then Gary and Nev. Opa had already turned in for the night.

My mom said when asked about legs that her Turkey was sitting on them, thinking she'd get out of the legs business, so I cut her some and arranged them in a yoga pose. We got a good laugh out of my solution to Mom's comment. Zurich is grateful for things like blood and hugs. Olea wanted her legs like Oma's, but I'm not cool with copying so I cut her something different but silly too. Gary said that male pattern baldness is a problem even in turkeys. Nev kept putting glue on the front of hers. I HAD to add Surgery Monkey to my list just to get a reaction out of Gary. You can read into SM as any comfort items. :)

Always fun, quite simple, and a nice gratitude reminder. We will tape them up in the entry tomorrow.

Rocking

He fell asleep
I'm still rocking
His big head on
My arm going numb
Soft breath flutters with
Cherub fists involuntarily clasping
Occasional sucking
I adore

He's too big too fast
But he's my
Baby
So I hang on
Rocking and watching his face
Soft in sleep
Alive in spirit

And want to do nothing else
But hold this soul
While I can
While he'll let me
While he's still perfect

Shooting Star

I've have four kids. The oldest is over seven years old. That means I have had experience with kids putting things in their mouths for at least 7 years.
But today was a first.

I had to call 911 for it.
We had picked up the front room this morning and had been playing elsewhere most of the day. Early this evening I put out age appropriate toys for Giddy to play with so I could go through mail, deposit a check (remote deposit) and put away dishes etc. I could hear a tv on upstairs and Zurich telling Olea to shut it off so she could do her homework and come play pirate with him so I glanced over at Giddy to check his current state of happy and he was making his way to the library bag and smiled up at me. By now Zurich was yelling and I knew someone would throw a wounding blow soon. Upstairs I intervened and reminded Olea that the rule was no tv till after homework and certainly no tv during homework.

I headed back downstairs and heard Giddy gagging. I rushed to him to find him in the same place as I'd left him, which is interesting because he drags himself around now. I did a finger swipe of his mouth and didn't feel anything. I could tell something was wrong as I picked him up and took him to the kitchen to wipe his nose. He didn't have a runny nose before and he was still crying in an unfamiliar way. Upon wiping his nose I noticed the mucus was coming from his mouth mostly, at this point I started to get worried. I tried whopping him on the back and that didn't change anything. I swept around in his mouth again. Nothing. More crying and mucus. He still had an airway but he was obviously uncomfortable. I took him upstairs with me to get a bulb syringe... Realized that wasn't of any use and called my mother in law (who is a nurse). She walked me through technique of trying to get it to exit through pushing on his diaphragm and the whomping him on the back. When that didn't produce anything but mucus and crying she told me to calm down and call 911.
I've never dialed 911.
He still had an airway but since I had no idea what he had swallowed I didn't know for how long it would be. He coughed up more mucus and little spots of blood. When I could hear the sirens dispatch hung up with me. By then I had made my way with him to the front porch since Olea and Zurich wanted to go outside. (That's silly isn't it? That while one child is choking I have to still meet the "needs" of the others so I can concentrate on the one...) and I wanted to make sure they were out of the driveway when the ambulance came.

As I sat there with him coughing, gagging and drooling mucus and hanging over my lap on my arm because I felt that was the right position to help him the most, l just prayed. Thankfully as uncomfortable as he was he had had an airway the whole time. Just as the fire truck stopped at the top of our driveway he coughed more and out shot a glob of mucus and in that pile of that m word, was a dark object.

Prayers of thanks.

He coughed twice more whimpered and stopped crying. I cuddled him and looked down to see what it was. A metal star shaped snap clip. When the paramedics made it down the drive I was still shaking and with the relief, crying now. They looked him over blood pressure, pulse and commented on what a pleasant and big boy he was. There was some miscommunication between them and dispatch though because they had another truck and expected to transport. They were told he was blue. I remember her asking me about that and I said he's been breathing the whole time, he's got good color.

That is SO scary. I am so grateful he didn't have to be transported. Grateful that we live as close as we do to the fire station. Grateful for paramedics and firefighters, dispatch. Grateful for nurses, for mother-in laws, for prayer. And for such a pleasant little boy. We have been blessed today and our prayers answered.

After they looked Giddy over and we determined he was fine and didn't need to go to the hospital they invited the two oldest up to look in the truck, sit in it and honk the horn. Cool stuff. The best was Zurich was wearing a pirate costume and towing a light blue rolling suitcase full of toys. (Nev was asleep on the couch in the front room the whole time, that was a blessing too.) Olea was shy at first and didn't want to sit in the driver's seat but I urged her to put aside shyness and take advantage if the cool opportunity. She did.

The offending object as it landed and my happy Giddy all moved on. I do expect him to have a sore throat though.

Ode to being 29

When I was about 16 I or so-ish I came across this song. Love it.
Now you must listen to it now that I am 29.


"There's no intention worthy of mention if you never try."

Thank you. That is all.

Fighters

 
I'll always be safe with my little fire fighters.

Summer's end: The End

We are now deep into school with Olea. It got kinda crazy there at the end.
But here is how we finished it out.

WEDNESDAY
Today we worked on a collaborative watercolor. Since we have very different ideas and skill levels I am glad we picked up Beautiful Oops by Barney Saltzburg at the library Monday. Here is a fun read along.

Olea was very concerned with Zurich's painting style juxtaposed with hers on the same piece of paper. She totally chilled after we read the book and I took the board the water color was taped to and turned it and it started dripping all over itself thanks to Nev's awesome wash job.

What made this special to Olea was being able to use my watercolors and not their crayola washable water color. After they had had their fill of painting (well they probably could have kept going till it was all mud, but we do have to move on at some point) they got to sprinkle it with salt and place pieces of saran wrap on it. We also sprinkled some of the glitter that Nev dumped out last week that didn't get cleaned up.

Let it dry. Peel off saran wrap. Scrape off salt.

Hoping we didn't loose too much glitter. Stay Tuned....

THURSDAY

Olea has been dying to make something with the ceramic clay. I have been re-hydrating some remnants from our last build. So I gathered them around while Nev was napping and Olea made a dish and Zurich a bowl.

It's hard for me to make anything with the kids because they either want to help on mine or need help with theirs. So I was surprisingly happy with the little whale toothbrush stand. I thought for fun I would try to make a shuttle. I didn't think it would work for use but tried to make it for it anyway. Then as I was cleaning up Zurich had a desperate desire for a spaceship. So I tried to hurry and put one together on a cork we had for use as a piggy bank.

Then let them dry for two weeks up high on the cupboards.

FRIDAY
I got a very fine tipped Radiograph pen and the watercolor and gathered the kids around and asked them what they saw and then I drew in the outlines and details they described.

Here are some details of it:


I love it! I need a frame! :)

It's back!

"Eek! Its back!" I exclaimed while driving home tonight. Last week I complained to Gary that they had taken it down before I got a picture of it. Gary said, "Get out your camera," and drove up to the intersection and made a u-turn and then into the rink lot so I could get a good shot on his phone. It is outside of a roller rink. I get such a great laugh out of it every time I pass. Talk about taking a biased survey. But at least they appropriately reported their survey audience.

It might be dumb, but Gary has learned over the years that though I take amusement in simple silly things, it's best to humor me in it.