As if I don't have enough to do...: January 2010

1/29/10

My salvation lies in your love...

Strange title, I know, but it's from a song that my sister, Erin, turned me on to by Alexi Murdoch called "Orange Sky". It turned out to be the perfect song for my latest family DVD slideshow that I just finished last night. He's not the greatest singer but the song really hit a chord with me because it talks a lot about brothers and sisters. My siblings and I are all grown now and have our own families, but I still have such a soft spot in my heart for them and the memories we made growing up. My heart still breaks when they have problems in their lives, move away, lose jobs, their kids get hurt, etc. And I still rejoice with them when I hear about victories like new jobs, new babies, kids getting baptized, new houses... you get the idea.

There have been a couple of incidents recently where my kids have come to the aid of each other instead of Mom and Dad. Last weekend, Emmy was incredibly emotional about everything. Zach upset her to the point of tears by just hugging her and messing up her hair. I didn't help matters when I told her it was time to stop crying over something so silly. We were on our way home from something and she insisted on getting out of the car as soon as we were in our neighborhood and walking the rest of the way home. Connor was already at home so I quickly texted him and told him to come to her rescue as soon as she walked in the door. Sure enough, by the time we got inside, she was in his arms on the couch crying her eyes out. I resisted the urge to run and get my camera to capture the moment, but did peek around the corner to watch this tender moment. Doesn't happen very often...

Then there is Simon and Emmy's special bond. Simon has been dealing with night terrors ever since he had a whopper of a nightmare a few months ago. He is terrified of his bedroom at night, but we've been dealing with it and I think things are getting better as long as I keep his door open and his bedside lamp on. Last night was a different story, though. After trying to fall asleep for about an hour, he started crying again. Emmy went in to try to comfort him and he said through his tears, "I'm not safe in here!" He's never used those words before, and it cut Emmy to the core. She has had bad dreams about people taking Simon away and hurting him. She scooped him right up and marched past me into her bedroom despite my rule of not getting him out of bed to rescue him. When I came to take him back to his room, she wouldn't let go of him and tearfully told me that he WOULD be sleeping in her bed because she was worried for his safety. I let him stay.

1/21/10

SNAPSHOT AT 2:00 P.M.

Husband-At an all day photo shoot with his client, TCBY. Remember those guys? They are trying to make a comeback here in Utah where they used to be the big yogurt guys. I love this man. He is so good for me and knows what I need to be happy. He just gave me beautiful hardwood floors, for crying out loud. What a guy.
Son-Currently in his TV/film class at Murray High. He is working on their newest project, making music videos. He told me yesterday that he chose to do stop motion claymation video. I don't have the heart to tell him how LONG those take to make! He is also hard at work learning a new song for Percussion Ensemble, Cop Drama, that they are going to play at some big festival coming up. It is really difficult and I admire his persistence in practicing it.
Daughter-At school in the 5th grade surrounded by friends who are secretly planning on attending her surprise birthday party tomorrow night thrown by her awesome friend Jaxynn. I can't wait! I have to somehow make an excuse for me to be there with camera in hand without tipping her off.
Son-Sound asleep upstairs in my bed. While laying down with him for his nap today, I had the strong feeling that I didn't want to be anywhere else at that moment. So often, I think about what I could be doing instead of laying down with him, but I know there are countless years ahead of me where I will have nothing but productive hours to fill my day and I will probably be wishing for a little 3 year old to lay down with while he strokes my cheek with his chubby, somewhat sticky fingers that smell like hot dogs. I am loving these years with him. Lord forgive me for ever thinking I was crazy to have him!
Wife-Cleaning for Simon's playdate tomorrow with his church buddies, catching up on blogging, listening to my friend Sue's blog in the background because she always has such great music. Right now it's "Nobody Knows Me at All" by the Weepies and a minute ago it was "We're all in this together" by Ben Lee. She's got great music taste!

Emmy turns 11

Instead of a birthday party, all my baby girl wanted was her own baby for her big day...

Meet Buddy, Emmy's new cockatiel. He is a sweet baby bird and lets us all hold him, pet him, massage his neck, give kisses, whistle to him and feed him out of our hand. He hangs out in the kitchen since flock birds like to be where the family interaction is.

1/5/10

Weekend Adventure

My house is under a little construction at the moment which is rendering my kitchen and front room kind of unusable these days. Not completely - I do have use of the major kitchen appliances but no table to sit at, and there is a tiny spot on the couch I can sit on but I am surrounded by big airplane boxes. And everything is covered in construction dust. Despite how excited I am to see the finished product of new hard wood floors and how appreciative I am of the hard work that my father-in-law is doing, I've been going a little stir crazy not having the full use of these two rooms. So when Zach suggested a night at a downtown hotel as part of Simon's birthday celebration, I was out the door in a heartbeat.

We started our adventure off at the train station downtown to board the new Front Runner train, a larger commuter train that runs up north to Ogden. Our kids have lost the excitement of riding the smaller Trax trains so Zach wanted to up the ante a little to make it feel like more of a happening. I thought it was really cool. The train cars have two levels like a double decker bus, and some of the benches facing eachother have tables and outlets so people can plug in their laptops or phone chargers on their way in to work.

After the novelty wore off and about a half hour into the journey (roundtrip was 2 hours and 10 minutes), everyone started getting sleepy on eachother. Simon ended up sleeping the rest of the way which was really great because I don't know how we would have kept him entertained that long. Let's face it - it runs through the industrial corridor of Davis County alongside the freeway, not much to see.

Connor wearing his "just try to impress me" expression.

After returning to downtown SLC, we headed over to our hotel room which was overlooking the Gallivan Center plaza ice skating rink and lots of trees still lit up with Christmas lights. It was very festive and felt like of like being in NYC (or what I'd imagine it feels like). After checking out our view, we headed out into the cold to check out the rink. Since my fall on the ice a year ago, I don't think I will ever try skating again. Too risky. And Emmy has unfortunately picked up on that fear, too, so she wasn't interested in skating. But Zach took Simon on a "walk" around the rink wearing street shoes, and I swear that kid thinks he was skating. I don't think he put 2 and 2 together which is a good thing because then he would have thrown a fit until he got some skates on and Zach just can't say no to him. Connor was happy just staying warm by the bonfire.

We walked to nearby Lamb's Grill for dinner, an historic Salt Lake restaurant that is 90 years old. It's becoming a family thing of ours to find local "haunts" wherever we travel, even here at home, and sure enough, they have stories of people seeing the original owner, George Lamb from Greece, up in the windows of the office overlooking the restaurant smoking a cigar and propping his feet up on the desk like he was always known to do.

Back at the hotel, the kids and I went for a swim while my mom and brother met up with us at the hotel pool for an impromptu party for Simon. Zach managed to get a single piece of chocolate layered mousse and 3 candles from the hotel restaurant for us to sing Happy Birthday with and we all had a few bites. It's so easy having a kid who doesn't know how typical parties are yet and doesn't have any expectations!

As if this evening wasn't adventurous enough, we had one more item on the agenda. We walked yet another city block to the artsy Broadway Theater to go see "Fantastic Mr. Fox". Simon was in his PJ's since it was 9:30 by this point, and I fully expected he would conk out in the middle of the show. He didn't. He made it to the very end but he was really good and entertained by the movie so it was okay. The movie was better than I had expected thanks to a pretty cleverly written script and great actor voiceovers like George Clooney, Meryl Streep and Jason Schwartzman. It was funny seeing my kids' impressions of the theater without it's stadium seating, moveable arm rests, digital picture and THX sound. We sounded like old folks saying, "Kids - this is what the theaters were like when we were young!"

(Like all good things, our fun adventure came to an end, or rather abrupt halt the next morning when I finally gave in to a whole night of nausea. I figured it was better for the housekeeping department to clean up after me than me at home!)

1/4/10

My little man turns 3

Today is Simon's 3rd birthday. What a happy day. How I wish I could have known several years ago what happiness this little boy could bring our family. I wouldn't have waited 8 long years to have him. I know some would use that same argument to support the fact that more children would have just the same effect but I'm not gonna go there...

For his 1st and 2nd birthday, I made a picture board book celebrating that year of his life. I haven't done his 3rd book yet but I hatched an idea for it just a few minutes ago while laying down with him for his nap. It's called "Simon is..."

Simon is... mischievous