insomniac

ok, saying i have insomnia might be carrying it too far. but i haven't been sleeping as well/as much as i would like. i have trouble settling down at night and have been waking up around 4:30am and am not able to go back to sleep. i'm not sure what time i'm falling asleep--10pm is my best estimate, which gives me 6 1/2 hours if my math is correct. i'm not feeling exhausted, but not exactly rested either. i'm not sure what is causing this, except that maybe i don't feel like i have enough time to get everything i need to done. there is always, always more to do. but i don't feel an unusual amount of pressure to get things done--no more than is always there. so i don't know what the deal is. even just one more hour would make a huge difference. at least in my head. 4:30 is just earlier than i want to see daylight....

what were they thinking?

this is what i think about the bishopric calling me to be the choir pianist--what were they thinking? today i had the first run-through of music for the christmas program & i feel out of my league. the music is beautiful & not terribly difficult in some aspects. but there is a lot of music and some of it is hard. i just feel like there are so many more talented people than me who could/should be doing this. i feel very inadequate. but even as i typed this, i realized that it wasn't actually the bishopric who called me, but the Lord. and i'm not sure the question i posed at the beginning would be the best one i could ask him....although i'm tempted. so i guess i'll just practice more and harder and maybe in two weeks when we go at it again, things will be better. fingers crossed?

ian's birthday

today i am remembering feeling your first kick inside my tummy. i am remembering a moment in the evening, three years ago when i first saw your dark hair and heard your cry as you entered the world. i can see your tiny fingers grasped around one of mine. i can feel your feet and legs tucked into a ball as you snuggled next to me. i think if i breathe in deeply enough, i will be able to smell that sweet baby scent.

today i am remembering your bright smile, your ready laugh, you long, baby blonde hair almost touching your eyes. i am remembering your little legs as you toddled around the house. i am also remembering the nights you snuggled up next to me as you slept and i held you close.

today i think about your excitement over turning three, your love of spiderman and the simple pleasure of a green cake. i am thinking of your cute expressions, your hugs and your kisses.

today i am thinking of you--who you are, who you were, and who you will yet be. i love you.

funny

my friend susan wrote the other day about kids saying funny things and i thought of a couple of funny things my kids have said recently that i don't want to forget.

ian calls belts "seat belts". i think its a funny play on words.

elise said the funniest thing last night. i don't know if the humor in it will translate well through cyberspace, but it makes me chuckle. she was pooping in the bathroom and i was brushing teeth, washing my face, etc. right outside the door. she opened it and makes this really loud pooting sound with her mouth. the she said, "you know what mama? instead of saying that nasty word "poopy", when we need to poopy we just go, "brrrhgrrrhhhrrrr" (tooting sound). that would sound much more nicer." then she just shut the door back & i cracked up. what a funny kid.

and he makes a mad dash...

my calling in the ward is choir pianist. this means that i have to be at church 1 hour and 15 minutes early and, of course, play for all performances. this past sunday the choir sang a number we'd been working of for a month or so. it's been coming along nicely and everyone was ready to perform. cory happened to be out of town this weekend on business and i was concerned about how to manage my calling and three little ones on my own. so, when all else fails, ask your mom. they graciously agreed to come help out and everything was going as smoothly as anything ever goes. after the second speaker, i headed up with the rest of the choir members, leaving mama & daddy and merry grace at one end of the pew, logan at the other end, and elise, ian, and their cousins kyleigh and marleigh in the middle. about a third of the way through the song, out of the corner of my eye, i see ian coming up onto the stand and proceed to climb up on the piano bench beside me and begin talking about how white the keys are. after a few minutes, he hopped down and took off running down the church aisle. a few minutes later, about 3/4 of the way through the performance, he came back at full speed and was back at my side. he stayed there through the end, talking very loudly about how fast he could run, but wanted to run back to my folks and since i wouldn't let him, had to carry him off the stage and out the door in a mini-tantrum. it was really funny. i should have warned my parents because the last time the choir sang, he did the same thing. but now we definitely have a pattern. what a rascal.

what the kids are up to.

merry grace has had quite the week. she is crawling well--not fast--but well. she's also pulling up onto everything in sight and standing up like a big girl. and she cut her first tooth!!! plus she has her first really bad cold, but is surviving it with her usual cheerfulness. she only screams when you wipe her nose. ;) so she's had many milestones this week.

ian is revving up for his birthday this weekend. he tells everyone he'll be three on his birthday and its so cute to watch him manuever the three fingers up. that ring finger can be quite tricky. i'm struggling with what to get him as his present from us. i'm thinking something spiderman, but i'm not sure exactly what to get him. maybe i'll be inspired at target.

elise continues to brave the world of kindergarden each day. cory ate lunch with her yesterday & she loved that. she's also been taking ballet and tap with kyleigh & emmy, her two cousins who live up here. i think she prefers tap becuase she likes the tappy tap sound. its pretty cute. they look adorable out there.

elise's standards

elise is big on standards and what is right & wrong. we've been talking about modesty and it has made a big impression. one of the first days of school she was telling me about who all brought applesauce for their lunches. she goes, "i had applesauce, abigail had applesauce, and immodest girl had applesauce." the way she said it made it sound like "immodest girl" was some sort of superhero (or maybe super villian, as the case would be). it was so funny. but i was proud of her for paying attention.

she also told me that her teacher's aide has two earrings in each ear. she wondered why she did that since president hinckly said it was wrong. i told her that she'd probably not heard of president hinckley and so she didn't know it was wrong. so elise said, "well, i'll have to tell her about him so she'll know. then she can take her earrings out." it was just so matter of fact for her.

cory has instituted a "turn it off" policy. if there is ever something bad on tv the rule is to turn it off right then. the same goes for the internet. or if you are around something bad, you are supposed to walk away. kind of how joseph ran from potiphar's wife. anyway, this has left a lasting impression with elise and she talks about it frequently. the other weekend cory's parents were here and had the tv on. elise walked by while a commercial was on. apparently she saw something immodest on it. just to be fair, the show they were watching was totally appropriate, but there was something immodest on one of the commercials. you know how they like to slip things in...and if there is something immodest or inappropriate, elise will catch it. it could be a sleeveless shirt and she will see it. we affectionately call her our morality monitor.

the other thing elise is fiercely against is "smoke". this means cigars, cigarettes, pipes...whatever. they are all called "smoke". she will not even step on one that has fallen on the ground. some workers had come to our house the other day and had smoked in the yard and left the butts in the driveway. elise spotted them right off and was furious. we had to get paper towels and pick them up to throw them away. but even that was a challenge, as she wanted no part of them, even at that range. the other morning she saw one across the road from her school where we had parked to walk her in. cory stepped on it and elise let him know it. you would have thought he had stepped on a rattlesnake. it was really funny and cute.

so, in some ways, she might have taken things a step too far. but i have to say, i'm glad she has. i want her to understand what is right and what is wrong and not be afraid to stand up for what she believes in. so far, she seems to be on the right track. maybe we all could stand to be a little more like that at times or regarding certain things. she's definitely made me think about where i stand on things.

life in these parts

life is moving along at a fast clip around our house. i don't know how you other mothers feel now that school has started, but i feel like our little world has just sped up. elise is loving kindergarden which makes us all happy. i love going to pick her up every afternoon and see her little self standing outside waiting with her little backpack on. she looks so small and yet so grown up all at the same time. mostly, sending her off hasn't been as sad as i thought it would be. not that i don't miss it, but she loves school & seems to enjoy her time there. and ian & gracie and i have fun at home. but i have moments where it hits me. on friday i just sat down on the floor in merry grace's room with she and ian and felt all blue that elise wasn't there, too. i just wanted to hug her. but when i start pondering on it too much it makes me too melancholy. and that's no fun. so i just try to enjoy the goodness of it.

we went to the ice cream place after school on friday & had a blast. we all branched out (well, except for ian) and tried some new flavors. elise got a scoop of cookies and cream and a scoop of banana pudding. cory got blueberry and i got a scoop each of cake batter & pumpkin pie. ian went with his staple of cotten candy. its actually a pale blue color, but its borderline green and he calls it green which is his favorite color. so that's all he'll eat. (we kind of tricked him into this because he wanted the mint chocolate chip b/c it was green, but he didn't like the sample. so we conned him into the cotten candy....) anyway, it was lots of fun.

then we bought a movie off of cable, the chronicles of narnia. i thought it was great, really well done. i thought it was a little grown-up, though. ian was a little nervous about it before he fell asleep, as was elise, although not as much as ian. and they typically don't get scared by stuff like that. i think some of it was that we had all the lights off and the music was intense. the mood really affected how you felt about what was happening. even i jumped a time of two. cory made his famous homemade popcorn (mainly for elise who loves it when he does that.) it was a fun night. plus, elise came and slept in our bed last night which i loved. its such a sweet snuggly thing & i miss her doing that. so i was glad she wandered in.

cory went to the unc vs. VA tech game which his heels lost. but he had fun. any UNC game is fun for him. i spent the day "boring organizing" as elise put it. i've been cleaning, throwing out, and straigtening up our closets. i've finished elise's and gracie's and am about 90% done with mine. it feels so good to have it neat and in order. i love it.

after cory came home, we went out in the yard and played for a while. elise practiced cartwheels, ian rode the tricycle, we jumped on the trampoline, played on the swingset, and even did a little tball and kickball before heading inside for baths. elise also went across the monkey bars all by herself several times & was quite pleased with herself. as well she should be!!!

so life is going fast, but we're happy and loving it. so you can't ask for much else.

our adventure

tonight we decided to take the family for a walk. elise was in from school, we'd had supper and it seemed a nice evening to be outdoors. so we trekked out with merry grace in the double stroller, elise in her tennis shoes, ian in his spiderman bedroom slippers, max on his leash and of course cory & i. we called it our adventure and we found what elise called "clues" along the way. everything from wildflowers to pine needles to the driveway rocks that ian & elise threw and chased after. the neatest thing we discovered were the mushrooms all along the road. i guess the recent rains and the humidity and everything had caused them to grow quite well. elise and ian were slightly intimidated by the first ones because they felt kind of weird. but after a while they were picking them right and left. we had such a fun evening together and everyone had a good time. the walk was about 1.3 miles and probably took us 30 or 40 minutes by the time all the discovering, stopping for cars to pass and the general adventure of five people and a puppy out and about was said and done. the funniest part was that when we were about .2 of a mile from our front porch--within sight of the house--the bottom fell out. i mean it started pouring rain and we got drenched. our neighbors across the street who were sitting on their porch had a good laugh as we ran our hardest the last leg of the trip. they gamely called out, "you almost made it" and so on and so forth. but we did have a great time together. my little bunch is just fun to be around!

elise's first day of school pictures

now that is a backpack! it's half her size!
she is all set and ready to go in the outfit she picked out all by herself.

she's so sweet.ian gave her a big "bye" hug.

 

buckling into the car...
walking into school
elise's nice teacher
playing in her classroom