Thanks to my dad, I got the chance to go to what might have been the last Sacramento Kings game ever. The team might be relocating to Anaheim next year--it's still up in the air. Plus it was Kings vs. Lakers! If you are a die-hard Kings fan, you must hate the Lakers.
Anyway, I thought it would be fun to take my nieces, Emily & Abby, and Elizabeth. We had so much fun! For one thing, because of the significance of this game, the arena was packed and we were cheering so loud for our Kings. It felt like the playoff games of old when the Kings were good.
(Here is a picture from that era, taken in the summer of '03. It's me with Mike Bibby. I am also very sunburned. OK, not all of the redness of face could be called a sunburn. :)
Funny sidenote: This was taken between Joe and I's first and second dates. That is terrible grammar, isn't it? I can't think of a better way to say that...)
OK, back to the game... after being down by 20 late in the game, the Kings stormed back to take the lead at the very end. The crowd was going crazy: It looked like the Kings would win! Unfortunately, Kobe Bryant hit a 3 with seconds left to send it into overtime. Darn that Kobe. The Kings couldn't hold it together in OT and lost.
The biggest reason it was so much fun was the company. These girls are awesome. My girls have some amazing older girl cousins (and boys too, but all the oldest cousins are girls on both sides) who are all excellent examples. I hope my girls turn out like them.
(How did they all get so big anyway? Here are my oldest three Allen nieces, Emily, Abby and Hannah, with me and my mom in the summer of '02:
It's also funny that I'm wearing the same gray Kings shirt in both pictures.)
Wow, I'm going a little crazy with the parenthetical tangents. Sorry. I must be feeling nostalgic. :)
Again, back to the game...We had fun eating snacks and cheering on our Kings. Elizabeth was an excellent fan at her first-ever game. Emily even caught a t-shirt, despite a 50 year-old woman diving to the ground in front of her in an attempt to snatch it. :) (What is it with people going crazy over free t-shirts anyway?)
What a fun night. And here's hoping the Sacramento Kings stick around!
I am sick of everything I cook. I was talking to a friend the other day whose children are older than mine. Her oldest is in college. We were talking about how her kids have their favorite meals that she makes (don't all kids?--I still make my favorite meals from when I was a kid). I asked if she ever gets sick of everything she makes and she said a resounding "yes!" That's why she is always trying new recipes. Her kids don't necessarily enjoy that, but she has to do it for her own sake. So, apparently this is a common problem.
I recently wrote down all of the meals I could think of that I make. I came up with a list of 52. That was more than I was expecting. You'd think I wouldn't be sick of them all with that many, but I am. I still make them, of course, and I do still enjoy eating most of them. It's just that the thought of making something from that list no longer excites me, which makes cooking feel like an even bigger chore. Anyway, I am going to post the list mostly for my own sake. I think that years down the road I might actually enjoy looking back on this list, just like I sometimes enjoy thinking about the things I made when we were first married and I had no idea how to cook. Here it is: (Sorry--the list is cut off when this posts and I don't know how to fix it. Hopefully you can still figure out what they are!)
Now, if anyone wants any of these recipes I would be happy to send them to you (or give you the link). BUT, you must send one of your favorites to me in return! As you can see, I have a lot of Mexican-type meals already, so unless it's different from one of these and really good, none of those please. If you have any good vegetarian meals, those would be greatly appreciated. Not only are they typically cheaper and healthier, but for some reason I am sick to death of cooking meat lately (I am not pregnant!). Also, I do occasionally cook fish but I haven't lately because we are trying to save money right now and it seems to me that it has gotten a lot more expensive. I used to be able to get a bag of salmon filets from Costco for like $13 but now that same bag is over $20. Maybe I'm just imagining that, but I thought that was the case. Is there a cheaper way to get fish that I don't know about?
If you haven't noticed from my blog already, I love Our Best Bites. Many of the above recipes are from them, including the black bean soup, tortellini sausage soup, and baked chicken penne (except I used roasted red peppers). They are good. I love pretty much all of the recipes of theirs that I have tried.
Hooray for March! I was so done with February. Didn't I say the same thing about January? Oops. Maybe it's me. It seemed like February was just full of sickness for us. First some flu-like stuff and then the rounds of cough/colds.
It had its ups, too. A good amount of sunshine to save our sanity, for one thing...
Picking daisies
They rediscovered the joy of making daisy crowns/necklaces/bracelets and beg me for them all the time now. I used to make them before Nate was born but hadn't since then and it was like it was brand new to them! The joy of childhood memory loss. :)
They picked SO many. This is only about a 1/4 of them...
My boy
We also finally finished our alphabet hunt. I started back in October. I haven't made the book yet. I might just put the prints in a dollar store photo album I got and call it good. The kids really liked it although it was much harder than I thought it would be. I'll admit that we manipulated twigs a couple of times to get hard-to-find letters.
Can you see the letters?
We tried to have fun inside, too. I saw somewhere the idea to finger paint with vanilla pudding. The kids loved that, although they were a little upset to realize that their pictures wouldn't dry and had to be thrown away.
We tried to get some indoor exercise by dancing around to our favorite Pandora station (the "Part of Your World" station--it's basically a Disney/Broadway mix). The girls especially love to dance to "Bare Neccessities", "Step in Time" (from Mary Poppins), "I Could Have Danced All Night" (from My Fair Lady), and "It's the Hard-Knock Life" (from Annie).
They love to dance and they love each other
We are all better now. I'm still going strong on my running schedule. Haven't missed a day yet! I even somehow managed to get up last Saturday morning when I stayed up way too late the night before downloading new music for my ipod. Note to self: Sleep is much more important to maintaining the running schedule than new music is. (I'm always up for more suggestions for good motivating workout music if you have any! One I've discovered: "One Day More" from Les Miserables (London cast!!)--I think that song could get me through anything.)
Today was a good day. I got to have some quality time with Nate. We had fun playing and reading books together. For some reason today he started giving me these tight hugs around the neck every time I lifted him out of his car seat. And they would last a long time! Oh how I loved every second of it....
I made it through the first of week of training! Yea for me. I ran on Monday, Tuesday and Saturday. I did the elliptical on Friday morning since it was very stormy. I did an endurance setting that was really hard to try and make up for it. I also went to Zumba again! It's a lot of fun. I'm so glad there aren't any mirrors there because I am pretty sure I look quite ridiculous doing it. Thanks for talking me into it, Steph!
Anyway, hopefully I can keep it up this week. I am coming down with a cold so I'm sure it will take some extra oomph to get going in the morning. I like blogging about this. It will hold me accountable.
I've committed to running in the Wasatch Back Ragnar Relay race in June with Joe's family. This will require me to step up my current exercise plan from 2x/week (on a good week!--that's right, I've been failing in my New Year's resolution) to 4x/week. And, I want to actually run (I've been using the elliptical) so that will mean I can't just stick a movie on for the kids mid-morning--I'll have to get up early. We'll see how this goes. I am hoping the race will be sufficient motivation for me. It's been so long since I've either consistently exercised or consistently gotten up early, let alone both together!
Well, I need to blog about something. I have been in a rut again and I just want to get something out of me. Who knows what will be the result?
I have some goals for the New Year that I have been working hard at lately. Well, I was working hard until I got sick this week. That has made things more difficult so I haven't done as well lately but I am cutting myself some slack. Another problem is that Joe's new schedule means he has class until late on Monday and Wednesday and with cub scouts for me on Tuesday night, we don't see each other much except late at night, so we keep staying up late so we can actually talk. The combination of these factors has made getting up early very difficult. Anyway, I guess I should say what my goals actually are:
-Read from the scriptures in the morning before the kids wake up. -Exercise 4x a week -No free computer time (except checking e-mail) until my "jobs" are done. (Basically I'm holding myself to the same standard that the kids are held to--no media time until chores are done.) -Be more grateful and record (either here or in my journal) the small blessings in my daily life.
So, the first two require rising early. Not a strength of mine but I feel so much better when I do. The third one helps me be so much more productive. I do not want my children to learn from my example to spend a majority of their time staring at a computer screen.
Sidenote: That actually reminds me of a funny segment the kids and I saw on Sesame Street. I was laughing so hard and I don't think the kids got it at all. Telly (one of my favorites!) traded in his regular pogo stick for an "iPogo" but learned that he didn't enjoy the new technology. He missed doing the work to make it jump himself. It was just a hilarious little skit about the fact that technological advances that attempt to make our lives easier are not always better for us. The only video I could find of it is a song they sang during part of it called "There's An App For That":
Yes, I realize that my main form of entertainment right now is a television program for children. Such is my life.
That leads me to the other theme dominating my thoughts lately: motherhood. What else, right?
My dad forwarded me this article. It's called "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior". I thought it was really interesting. Joe and I had some good discussion from it. One thing I have certainly learned since becoming a parent is that successful, compassionate, responsible, awesome kids come from all different kinds of parenting styles. Great kids even come from terrible parents and great parents produce children that completely disregard what they've been taught and go another way. But, I'm not getting into all that. My point is that I don't believe there is one right way to be a parent. I believe there are principles that we can follow to be best parents we can be (go here for some important ones to me). But, I think there are many different ways of going about it.
I think that different parents have different priorities when it comes to the values they want to teach their children. For some, teaching their children to be self-sufficient and to work hard to contribute to society are paramount. Others focus on teaching their children compassion and to be aware of those less fortunate than themselves. Still others focus on teaching their children social skills to allow them to get along easily with others. I could go on and on. Of course we can teach our children many different values but we all have our priorities (probably because of the way we were raised or because of our life experiences).
I think if you focus too hard on some areas, it may be easy to lose sight of other important values you could be working to instill in your kids. Of course that's fine, too, and I don't think people that do that are bad parents in any way. I just feel that for me, balance is important. I think of the children in the article. Yes, they learned well the lesson that with hard work, anything is possible. Yes, I'm sure they will be successful adults. But, what did they miss out on? As every parent learns, and as I am just starting to learn, there are only so many hours in the day of a child's life. Only so many activities that can fit into those hours. If 3 hours are taken up in the study of an instrument, for instance, those are 3 less hours available for other worthy pursuits.
“Life offers you two precious gifts—one is time, the other freedom of choice, the freedom to buy with your time what you will." (Elder Richard L. Evans from this Conference address)
That is true not only in our personal lives but in our roles as parents. The time we have with our children while they are young is a gift. How will I spend that time?
One thing I am forever grateful for is my understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This gives me knowledge, direction, strength, and also reassurance and peace when I mess up as a mother.
I am also so grateful for my own mother who is the perfect example to me. I got to take a vacation day last week. Joe took care of the kids all day. I went down to my mom's and got to spend the afternoon with her. It was wonderful to just talk and be together. If I am even half the mother she has always been to me, I will consider myself a success. I am so thankful for all of my grandmothers and also for Joe's mother and grandmothers. These women were and are not perfect but they dedicated their lives to mothering. We, their children, have been immensely blessed by their sacrifice.
My mom lent me a book which I finished today and I liked this quote. A woman was asked if she loved her mother who had passed away:
"The easy answer is yes. But it's too easy just to say that when you're talking about your mother. It's so much more than love--it's, it's everything, isn't it?...When someone asks you where you come from, the answer is your mother... When your mother's gone, you've lost your past. It's so much more than love. Even when there's no love, it's so much more than anything else in your life. I did love my mother, but I didn't know how much until she was gone." (Anna Quindlen, One True Thing).
Whew. I guess I needed to "get my words out," as my mom would say.
I am going to end this interminable blog post with some things I was grateful for today: -Washing a tiny little baby back in the bath. -Reading There Is a Bird on Your Head! with the girls and laughing together at the end of it.
My friend across the street took some really cute pictures that I've been meaning to upload. They have some great trees for dropping leaves in their yard and they let us come jump in the leaves one day. It was such a perfect day, weather-wise.
My boy
Looking at this baby face makes me want to freeze time:
Don't grow up and become a man, just stay my baby forever. Not possible? Well, I guess that's OK.
All smiles
Mid-conversation with his little friend, Sydney:
Too cute
Working hard on that leaf pile:
Playtime!
I thought this one was funny...
So sweet
I was messing around with the camera the other night and took these...
I had no idea he was smiling like that. So funny.
Natalie all ready for the ball, with homemade crown, veil and everything.
Elizabeth finished her soccer season off with a team pizza party:
After listening to President Monson's talk, I feel a great need to count my blessings. Do you ever have those moments where you feel completely overwhelmed with gratitude for your blessings and also just feel like a complete shmuck for not feeling that way all the time? I had one of those moments last night. I want to hold on to that feeling more. Even after the immense gratitude of last night, I wasn't a perfect mother today. I didn't treasure every single moment with my kids. But, I was a little better and it made a difference.
So, I am thankful for....
...cooler weather! Hooray! It has been so nice lately. I want to go to the pumpkin patch, rake some leaves, put on a sweater, bake some apple pie, etc., etc.
...my health. Sure, I get tired a lot. I was talking to some friends the other day, also moms to young kids, and came to the realization that most everyone at this stage in life is tired. Still, I have the energy to do the things I need to do. I do not have to deal with any significant pain or sickness right now (knock on wood!) and that is a big blessing.
...Joe. I truly am. He is wonderful and I am thankful for his example and strength. That is all. He does not approve of blog-PDA. :)
...General Conference. It was just the boost I needed. I'm thankful for the Spirit that spoke to my heart: "You are loved", "You are doing great"... but also... "Be a little better" and "You can do it, but only with help from the right source." And especially: "Remember what's really important and focus on that each day."
...3 beautiful little kids who give my life a purpose and depth I never thought possible. The joy they give me each day is immeasurable. How can I ever repay them for that? How can I ever repay my Heavenly Father for entrusting them to my care? I can't. I'm thankful to be a mother.
Then: Refers to the period of time when I had one or even two kids. Now: Present-day life with 3 kids.
Important to note: I am making no value judgments on any of these. This is just how it is for me. :)
Then: Made sure I looked nice, with hair done (perhaps in a ponytail but still done) before leaving the house. If I got spit-up on, I would change.
Now: Couldn't care less what the people at the grocery store think of how I look. I have a window of time to get the shopping done, and it must get done whether or not I've had time to shower/dry my hair/change out of spit-up-stained clothes.
(One morning, I literally put a sweatshirt over the pajamas I slept in and went shopping like that. This would have horrified my former self.)
Then: Made sure my kid(s) looked nice before leaving the house. That meant their hair was done and they were wearing decent, matching clothes.
Now: I'm lucky if their hair has been combed, let alone styled in any way beyond a clip to keep it out of their eyes, and if they are in fact wearing clean underwear (or any underwear at all) under their frequently mismatched clothing.
(To be fair: This isn't so much due to a change in me as to a growing need for independence in my kids. Why must they have their own opinions, anyway?)
Then: Carefully dressed the baby in coordinated outfits with matching shoes and socks, long before the child had any use for shoes.
Now: Don't even own a pair of shoes that would fit the baby. Don't bother with socks, either. They'll just end up lost on aisle 13 of Target. I'm sure it's warm enough.
Then: Kind of disgusted at the sight of baby food, particularly such fare as Garden Vegetable or Chicken Dinner. Felt slightly guilty about feeding it to my child.
Now: No qualms about licking the spoon of Garden Vegetable clean in order to put it back in the diaper bag, or licking off a glob that dropped on my hand. It's really not that bad.
Then: Had no desire to touch my kids' uneaten food. Yuck. It went in the trash.
Now: The uneaten food is my lunch. So what if the peanut butter sandwich is smashed and a little soggy. At least it's edible and available.
Then: Made sure the high chair tray was scrubbed clean after each meal.
Now: As long as there aren't any choking hazards on it, we're good. A little dried peas and some stale Cheerios never hurt anyone.
Then: If we were out of baby food, we went to the store right then to buy some. What else would we feed her?
Now: Rarely have much baby food in the house. Have to get creative and have even made a lot of my own. There's plenty of available food the baby can eat.
Then: Made sure to time EVERY feeding while nursing in an attempt to make sure she had eaten enough. If she didn't nurse long enough, I would try to force her to eat more, giving up in frustration if she refused.
Now: If he's done, he's done. He's got some chub and is growing fine.
Motherhood is... hard. Just when you think you've been through some hard things as a mom, you go through something harder. It changes you in unexpected ways. It's humbling--that much is for sure.
It'll be interesting to see what my perceptions will be 10 years from now when I have teenage girls.
I am in a funk and I'm not quite sure how to break out of it. The first week and a half or so of Joe being gone went pretty smoothly. These last couple of days--not as well. I have not been very patient. The girls haven't quite been on their best behavior. For one thing, Natalie has now had 4 accidents in a little over 24 hours. I have no idea what is going on with her. I thought we were done with all of this. She's also developing quite the little attitude lately. She is just getting to that age. You know--hitting or throwing things on the way to her room when she's been sent to have a time out. Stuff like that.
Elizabeth has just been blatantly disobedient. Sneaking around doing things I've specifically told her not to do, or trying to convince someone else to do those things. Lying, pretty frequently. Hopefully this is all a phase, too.
So... life is hard right now. Life is hard for everybody. Still, I have noticed blessings along the way and I would be really ungrateful if I didn't acknowledge them. First off, I have good friends, who have been great supports to me, bringing me meals and helping with the kids (thank you!!).
Yesterday, I was pretty humbled. My garbage cans were still on the curb (this was Wednesday, and pick up was on Monday--I know, I'm lazy). I looked out the window to see my elderly neighbor, who lives in the other half of the duplex, pulling them up to the house for me. He has a pretty severe limp which almost makes me think he may have had a stroke but I've never asked about it. He is always out every morning walking down the path. Anyway, I was touched by his willingness to help in that way, even though it was clearly difficult for him.
The kids have their cute moments as well. Now I'll move on to some more positive things I wanted to post about...
Here is a cute picture Natalie drew of our family:
I especially love how she drew Joe with his glasses
Elizabeth has a love of learning that honestly amazes me. She frequently says she wants to be a teacher when she grows up and I could totally see that. She literally jumped up and down in excitement one time when I told her I would print off some math worksheets for her. She is always asking me to give her word problems. Needless to say, she is ready for school.
Yesterday, she was kind of sitting by herself writing on a paper and I later learned that she was making her own worksheet:
I thought that was hilarious and pretty cool, too. She even did the first one wrong on purpose, she said, so she could correct it. A lot of her numbers are backwards but you get the picture. The down side of her always wanting to play teacher is that it can get annoying to those who are being taught. If she could just scale back the bossy, know-it-all aspect of her teaching style, it would be perfect. :)
We've had some crazy weather lately. Rain at the end of May! That's unheard of here. It did give the girls a chance to play in it, though:
OK, this has been therapeutic. This is why I love blogging. It helps me to remember all of the good in my life.
P.S. Joe is doing well. We talk pretty much every day. He is busy and I don't think getting very much sleep but seems to be loving it. He mentioned sending me some pictures. I will post some if he does.
Two posts in one day! It's partially because I didn't really want to keep that nursing one up as the most recent for too long :). Also, it is a nice way to keep myself busy instead of fretting about the fact that Joe is somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean right now.
I may be weird, but I get really excited about children's books. I have so many favorites and I love it when I discover new favorites. Often, I am more excited about picking books out for the kids to read than about getting ones for me. I am definitely in "mommy mode" at this time in my life. (I hope that this also serves as a reasonable explanation for why I had a dream the other night about Sid the Science Kid speaking at General Conference, and that there are no underlying psychological issues at play here.) :)
Anyway. . . I recently discovered a new author that I love: William Steig. I'd never heard of him before until one day when Elizabeth picked up Shrek, written by him. I didn't even know the movies were based on that book. I actually didn't like that book all that much, although it had its moments. It was when we picked up Caleb & Kate that I first fell in love with his stories.
After that, I actually requested a bunch of his books from the library and we found a lot of other great ones:
These two are touching:
These are all just good fun:
The kids loved that last one and trying to figure out what all of the combinations of letters were saying.
Am I the only one who hadn't heard of this guy? He did win a lot of awards so you'd think I would have.
Does anyone else care this much about children's books? What are your favorites? I guess I should also ask--what are your kids' favorites?
The reason that we were traveling on Mother's Day is that we drove to Idaho for Joe's Grandpa's 90th birthday party. It was a quick trip--drove there Friday, came back Sunday--but it was so fun to see everyone. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera so we got zero pictures. I'm still hoping those of you who took some will send them to me (that's friendly reminder #1). :)
I did get some from some from my cousins-in-law who were at (I'm sorry--planned) the party...
I thought this one was really sweet. I think this was taken while we were all singing Happy Birthday to Grandpa Hall:
Natalie is with her cousins James, Joelle and Sam and a second cousin in the back (I don't know his name).
It was a pretty neat moment. I can't imagine living 90 years and seeing so many people come as the result of your own little family. How amazing would that be?
Here are some taken by another talented cousin. Her photography blog is here. I love these pictures! Thanks so much, Jessica.
Joe and his cousin Jake (and babies close to the same age)
We also struck picture gold in some old photos that Marsha let us have. I haven't seen very many old pictures of Joe so I love it when I come across some.
What a cute baby
Now compare those to this one:
Definite similarities, right? Especially the mouth.
Future football star, playing in his grandparents' backyard with brothers and a cousin:
A bunch of the grandkids together with Joe in front:
You can spot he and his 4 brothers because they're the ones in suit coats. I actually really love that they all had to wear coats. I think it's so cute. Especially on cute little Richard. :)
Thanks to my dad, I got the chance to go to what might have been the last Sacramento Kings game ever. The team might be relocating to Anaheim next year--it's still up in the air. Plus it was Kings vs. Lakers! If you are a die-hard Kings fan, you must hate the Lakers.
Funny sidenote: This was taken between Joe and I's first and second dates. That is terrible grammar, isn't it? I can't think of a better way to say that...)
It looked like the Kings would win! Unfortunately, Kobe Bryant hit a 3 with seconds left to send it into overtime. Darn that Kobe. The Kings couldn't hold it together in OT and lost.
It's also funny that I'm wearing the same gray Kings shirt in both pictures.)
