Mother's Day

I think a lot of people view Mother's Day the way I used to view Valentine's Day--as an excuse to feel sorry/guilty about their current situation in life.  So I thought I'd make a weak attempt to change your perspective about a potentially painful day.

The best Mother's Day I've had was before I ever had kids.  When I woke up that morning, Johnny had a necklace on his pillow for me, an uncharacteristically romantic thing.  He told me Mother's Day was for me because one day I would be the mother of his children.  We went to church and all the women 18 and older got flowers, which subsequently died in my house a few days later, but that was due to my brown thumb, and not a reflection on the gesture, which reinforced what Johnny had told me.  I felt important and wonderful because I had the potential to become a mother.  I was never a better mother than I was on that day.

There is no such thing as a perfect mother.  I have never met a perfect mother.  There has never been a perfect mother.  So many times on Mother's Day I've seen people try to pin perfection on what was merely some woman's attempt to do the best she could to raise children.  This has never bothered me because I see that it is just nostalgic reminiscence of a perfect moment.  It's reassuring to me that children recognize and remember perfect moments, even after they've grown.  Because there are no perfect mothers, but each of us has perfect moments.  Lots of perfect moments.  In my short time as a mother I can find dozens and dozens of these moments when I thought, "Yes!  I said the right thing.  I handled that well.  I took advantage of that teaching moment.  I get it.  I can do this."

There are no perfect mothers because no one is capable of perfecting themselves.  But all of us are perfect mothers, even if it's just one small moment at a time.

I hope Mother's Day for you will not be a time of guilt, or pain, or offense, because of who you think you aren't.  But rather a celebration of who you are-- a woman. Despite what society, or the media, or the world tries to tell us, our legacy as teachers, friends, and mothers is those moments of perfect love.  And ultimately, our best efforts are good enough.

Zoo Day

One of the first things Johnny did when he started here in Texas was sign up for his work's social group.  They offer discount tickets to sporting events, shows, amusement parks, etc.  and host parties.  They do one thing a month.  This month, the event was an Easter Egg hunt at the Dallas Zoo.  We actually went to this last time we lived in Dallas.  (And I didn't post about it.  Shame on Me from 4 years ago.) We didn't do the Easter Egg Hunt then because it would have been pointless since The Captain could barely walk, but we did enjoy the discount tickets to the zoo, the free parking, and the monorail ride tickets.

This year, it was rainy and cold, and there was a walk for epilepsy that morning, which turned out to be the perfect time to go to zoo.  The animals were active and noisy.  I'm sure you've always wondered what lemurs really sound like.

Please forgive my videos.  I don't have speakers on my computer, so you just have to suffer through the whole, unedited thing.  Or don't, I really won't know the difference.

When we were here last time, the large animal exhibits were under construction, so that's where we went first.  First we saw the penguins.

 

The Captain is the same size as an Emperor Penguin.

We took an elephant ride.

 Saw lots of giraffes.

We almost decided to feed them, then the kids got distracted by . . . 

Cheetas!

And lions!

 One of the zookeepers for the lions was out and I learned tons of stuff about lions while we watched them run and play and pose for the females.  

Oh, and they were roaring.  Apparently, you can hear it all over the park.  I believe it. 

Sadly, my video only really got the end of it.  

Teenage boys, you think you look cool when you grow out your hair.  What you really look like is this:

Enjoying the gorilla walk.

 We had to go into the aviary since birds are a favorite for Joy.

Wrestling a crocodile.

 While we were waiting for the Easter Egg Hunt to start, we took some pictures of the kids as safari guides.

 Then we hunted Easter eggs.  

There were lots of kids, but even more eggs.  Even Joy filled her bag all the way full.  Though my strategy to go where no other kids were seemed to help.  

 The festivities were great.  Enough eggs for everyone.  And we discovered later they were filled with toys rather than candy.  That's a plus.  And we had lunch provided too.  Of course, we had to wait, so we visited the bug house.  It was interesting.  I learned some things there too.  And only felt slightly itchy.  

We had hugs for kangaroos at the children's zoo.

 The Captain enjoyed playing the spider and going to get the Joy fly.  

 After lunch, where we got even more toys and treats, we went on the monorail. The Captain had the camera most of the time, so I have lots of pictures like this:

Finally Joy tuckered out and took a nap in Daddy's arms for an hour.

 So we finished up the zoo with a trip to the Reptile House.  And on the way we saw lots of cool birds.  And afterwards, we decided to see the otters, then of course, the only way out was through the tiger exhibit, which ended up at the monkey habitat where the Gibbons were swinging and playing.  So we stayed to watch them for 15 minutes or so.  They were pretty much non stop.  Then it was perfect timing to see the bird show.  So we didn't get home until 4 or so.  Having left at 9 that morning, it was a full day.  But super fun.  I asked The Captain what his favorite thing was and he said "everything".  So there you have it.

Heartbreaking

I have shed many tears over leaving this part of the country.  So many things have happened to us here.  I feel like both Johnny and I have grown so much individually and as a couple since moving to Virginia.  This was definitely an experience we both needed, and we will miss it.

So Virginia, I have always loved your namesake, and now that I've known you, here are some things I'll miss:

The mountains.  Having been born at high elevations, I can never truly feel at home unless there are mountains surrounding me.  These have given us four beautiful, unique seasons, crazy weather, and awesome fireworks.

The stars.  One of the best things about teaching seminary was walking out to my car in the dark, looking up and seeing all the wonderful stars.  It made me think of Abraham and not being able to number the stars.  That's something you have to be in the country to understand. I also loved watching the sunrise on my drives to the church.

My neighbors. They introduced themselves to me when the moving van was outside.  They brought me gifts when they came to get the gardening tools I borrowed back.  They threw me a shower for baby number two.  They were wonderful.

Playing with the neighbor's dog.

Kindred spirits. I met three.  There are not many people my age in the county, yet I somehow found three kindred spirits among them.  I consider myself very lucky.

No traffic. Between my house and Blacksburg there were exactly two stop lights.  Yes, two.  In 20 miles.  And the only traffic happens when two people go almost exactly the same speed in both lanes, or when there was an accident, or when I tried to turn left out of the library.  And people did speed, but people also went slow.  And sometimes when the kids were asleep in the back of the car, I would go 5 under the speed limit and people would just pleasantly pass me on the left.  No drama.  It was wonderful.

Appalachian openness. I joked when I moved to Virginia that people introduce themselves by telling you their full name, address, and social security number.  Not true, of course, but people there were very open.  And it took three years, but I finally did find myself sharing my life story with strangers checking out my groceries.

The Best Preschool Ever. A class just for 3 year olds.  No more than 10 students in a class.  Two teachers.  Christian curriculum.  Show and tell every week.  $50/month.  They were wonderful.  And The Captain made huge social strides in their class.  We miss them.

My Seminary students. I found two gray hairs the other day.  A belated gift from my Seminary students, no doubt.  But surprisingly, I like them, just like my students.  I was very scared of them when I started this calling, but it didn't take long for me to love them completely.  Teaching Early Morning was one of the hardest things I've ever done, but they will always be my students, and I will always love and care about them.  They taught me a lot of things that I hope I remember when my kids are teenagers.

Feeling important. I knew right away, there was a space for us in Virginia.  We were needed in our ward, in our neighborhood, and everywhere we got involved people were grateful.  It was wonderful to feel needed.  I know I'll have to carve out my own space in Texas.

Our house. We had a beautiful house that fit our style, with lots of decorating opportunities and no major problems.  I loved that house.

Our yard. We thought we were on 1/2 acre, but it turns out it's much closer to 3/4.  There was a fenced in backyard with lots of space to run around and garden.  And we lived in Eden so even my brown thumb could not stop the veggies from growing.  And Johnny takes care of the lawn mowing, so I just got to enjoy the lawn.  Also, no one has sprinkler systems, so I had no pressure from my neighbors to have a perfectly green lawn.

 
The weather. It was hot and humid in the summer, but cooled off at night so we could open the windows.  It snowed and was cold in the winter.  We got four seasons, each beautiful.  In fact, I'm going to print up my favorite pictures of each season to hang on my wall as a reminder of what it used to be like . . .

Happy St. Patrick's Day

So, in an attempt to compensate for the lack of preschool, I've tried to include a nap-time craft for the Captain and myself.  Since it is March, I found a lot of rainbow crafts on Pinterest.  And I haven't used any of them yet.  They did give me some ideas, so we went supply shopping.  I really love art/school supplies.  Due to my not feeling very good (horrible head cold), we still haven't finished this project, but you'll get the idea.  And I'll post some final pics later.

First we water painted a rainbow, since we don't have grass for every color.

Then we glued on the grass.

The Captain was very focused.  

And since St. Patrick's Day was on a Sunday, we had a little celebration on Saturday, and a little on Monday.  Mostly Monday, except we didn't really wear green.  We made some rainbow necklaces for snacks.

Joy worked on her fine motor skills.

The Captain worked on his patterns.

Showing off his rainbow.

All done!

I'm finished, too!

Yum.

She had no problem figuring out how it worked.

We did Family Home Evening with a picnic at the park.  On the way home, we talked about the story of Noah and the Ark and why rainbows are important.  Then for dessert we had this:

 It was a huge hit.  Who knew they'd be perfectly happy with fruit for dessert?  

Winter

We were having some beautiful weather, reminiscent of last year's mildness.  In fact, it was around 70 degrees, record highs, and as we took a walk as a family one Sunday, the smell of our neighbors' barbecuing made us decide to cook hot dogs on the grill.  We set up a table and chairs.  We had tablecloths and pitchers.  It was fancy.

Then the storm hit.  12" of thick, heavy snow in a matter of hours.  Thursday, when the snow hit, our power went out.  This was bad timing because the children had just gotten over the flu.  They got it the week that Johnny was out of town and I was teaching seminary.  Did I mention I hate January? I thought it was very convinient for Johnny to be gone during all the sickness, but I think it would have been more horrible for him to have been gone during the power outage.  I don't know what I would have done without him. Anyway, I was supposed to be prepping the house for selling. And instead we ended up a week behind schedule.

We keep our house pretty cool in the wintertime, and with the power out, the temperature dropped pretty rapidly.  By Sunday, we still didn't have power and the house was 43 degrees.  We spent Friday and Saturday out and about in the car, which had both gas and heat, so we were only really home to sleep, but luckily, the power came back on while we were at church so we didn't have to find a hotel.  It probably wouldn't have come to that since we had many offers from our friends to sleep in their warm homes.

So while the power was out, I did what any self-respecting momtographer would do--I bundled the children up and took lots of winter pictures.

The Captain helping me shovel.  As you can see, the snow was accumulating almost as fast as we could shovel it up.

Joy can do a fish face.  In case you were wondering.

We had a close encounter while we were out.  Joy liked it. The Captain was in the stroller, so he didn't get to enjoy the kitty.

This is what we did on Saturday.

We were celebrating Johnny's birthday, which was a little lame without power. He did get a cake on Monday. 

The Captain took this picture.  He was not as interested in bowling as I thought he would be. And Joy was much more interested than this picture makes it appear.  She did just about the same amount of bowling as The Captain.

Resolutions

Okay, I know this is late coming, but I hate January and this one, while not as tough as last year, definitely kept me busy.  Something about moving . . . I don't know.

Anyway, because of this whole moving thing, I've decided that the new year doesn't really start until March.  But I'll post about my New Year resolutions anyway.  Sorry to disappoint, but there will be no monthly projects this year.  I'm not done cooking, or sewing, or crafting, but I don't have time constraints, so you'll have to make due with the random posts when I complete things throughout the year.

Basically, my goal this year is to take better care of myself.  This has many different facets.  On the physical side it involves things like clearing up my skin, taking care of my hair, stuff like that.  On the emotional side of things it means eliminating unnecessary stress.  Since I won't be teaching seminary for the rest of this year (this week is my last one), I have goals to keep reading my scriptures and saying prayers and using Family Home Evening to reinforce the monthly themes in Primary.  That sort of thing.  And for my social health it involves putting together a babysitting co-op so I can guarantee a date night every other week or so.

And as incentives for these goals, once a month I get to do something nice for myself like a massage, or a facial, or a manicure, or a shampoo and style, or whatever.  You get the idea.

I also decided this January to try to out-maneuver Wednesdays at their own game.  For the last four weeks, we have gone out of the house to do something fun on Wednesdays.  We've gone to Chuck E. Cheese, the Science Museum, Romp & Roll, and our friend's house.  It does help to have something fun planned, plus we've worked in a lot of things we wanted to do before we leave.  We have 4 Wednesdays left, so weather permitting, we'll go to the zoo, and the Transportation Museum again, and something else fun, maybe a park or something.

I must say, though, that Wednesday still gets the last laugh sometimes because of adjusted or missed naps.  Sometimes too late naps make everyone cranky and I do have to have dinner already planned and prepped because we usually get home late and hungry.  So maybe more menu planning is on the agenda for this year, too.

In review, I will say that I did a good job last year.  I started my photography business in April, but I haven't done too much with it.  I'll look into that this year.  I have some beautiful wreaths and good friendships.  Mostly I learned a WHOLE LOT about myself.  This was pointed out to me by myself at our last Relief Society Meeting.  We were asked to write down things we didn't like about ourselves, and it made me realize that I no longer focus on those things.  I focus on what I know I'm capable of changing and give myself plenty of praise and help along the way.  Ironically, this last year has turned me into a very positive person.  I think it's because I was forced to focus on the silver lining and enjoy all the hilarious moments that come with parenting.  At one point, my goal was to laugh full out with my stomach once a day.  It did wonders to improve my outlook.

So, there you have it.  Sorry about the lack of pictures, and the lack of posting recently.  I'll try to make up for it.  Though, I will have you know last year I posted more than any other previous year.  Maybe I should try to break that record in 2013 . . .

New Year means new beginnings

I suppose it's official enough to announce.  No, I'm not having a baby this summer like at least 10 other people I know.  (Congrats by the way, babies are awesome.)  We are moving.  At the end of February-ish.  It's hard to explain because there is still LOTS we don't know.  Johnny's work is super annoying about this.  I'll explain.

He applied for His Perfect Job back in September.  It's in business.  It's in Marketing.  It's the only job he has ever been excited about getting.  He worked really hard to get it because he wanted it really bad.  (This is starting to sound like our courtship . . . so I guess the moral of the story is: persistence pays off.) Anyway, he's replacing someone who already has a new position in the company.  His new boss is planning to retire in May.  All signs pointed to this being something they would want to fill right away.  Then there was the issue that he was the only one they interviewed.  We thought we had it in the bag.  I thought we'd be moving around the new year.  I started eating through our food storage and making mental lists of things we should not bring with us.  I started cleaning and organizing the house.  And we waited.  We poked and prodded at people in October.  Johnny had meetings about why we were waiting in November.  In which they told him he would have to wait.  We waited through other people's vacations and holidays and sicknesses.  We waited patiently for the first two weeks in December like they told us.  I sent out some emails and phone calls saying "still waiting, I'll let you know".  Okay, they were more like weekly emails and phone calls.  And I quietly went mad.  Then the day that Johnny left for his weekend MBA excursion he called me with the news that we had the job, (not a surprise) and NO other details about moving, just a vague date--March 1st or whenever the pay period around there starts.  Infuriating?  A bit.

I've discovered that Johnny's company is like the opposite of the army--we wait, then hurry up.  We've been through this before, but this time was hard because I'm teaching seminary.  Essentially, that is a part-time job that I have to quit and make preparations to leave, and the more time the better.  The timing of the move kind of stinks, but I am looking forward to a change, a chance for a new start, and some place warm.  I was hoping to escape some of the cold this winter, but we do what we can.

Anyway, here's what we do know--Johnny starts his new job Feb. 25th.  We will be renting for 6 months and house hunting once we get there.  I will stay with the house until the movers come.  Johnny will be spending next week in Dallas.  And, oh yeah, Dallas is where we will be moving.  I guess Texas is so big that it's gravitational pull is sucking us back in.  I'll probably post more about pros and cons and how I feel about this whole thing later.  Next post = resolutions.