Come what may, and love it

Last night, it hit me that a new year is almost here. I'll be honest, I almost started to panic. It seems a new year always means a new trial or challenge to overcome. Last year it was a brief period unemployment, followed by living on my own for three months with the kids while Nic started his new job and we tried to sell the house in Utah, then moving to Nebraska to join back up with Nic. The year before that it was having twins. The year before that we moved, the year before that, we moved and went through our ordeal with the birth with Josh etc. As I started to worry and wonder what this new year might hold for our family, I realized that there was nothing I could do about what life may throw at me, but I thought of Elder Wirthlin's quote from his last conference talk "Come what may and love it." I realized that was the attitude I needed to take, not one of fear and trepidation. Come what may and love it. I looked up the talk this morning and read it. It was filled with good counsel and wisdom. Here is the link:

http://lds.org/general-conference/2008/10/come-what-may-and-love-it?lang=eng

What a great talk! So I guess what ever comes to us this year, I will do my best to face it bravely with a smile, because looking back, the hardest things in my life have brought the most growth and blessings. So 2011, come what may and love it!

Brotherly love...

If you ask Abbey what's it like to be the only girl, you would get an earful about how 'awful' her brothers are; how they 'torture' her and tease her everyday, all the time, a never ending misery. And, she's partially right. Her brothers DO tease her. A lot. And I do feel bad for her and try (unsuccessfully) to get them to stop. After Halloween last year, on clearance, I picked up a couple of shirts for the boys which say: Who needs Halloween? My sister is scary enough! I pulled them out this year, with the Halloween stuff for the boys to wear. I showed them to the boys thinking they would appreciate the joke. Cael (one of the biggest culprits of all) looked at the shirt, then looked at me and very sincerely said, "But that's not true" and refused to wear the shirt. I was touched by the genuine and sweet way he said it that despite all the teasing, he really does love his sister; despite his 'tormenting', he cares about her. I guess that's how families go. We tease or treat each other with less than our best selves, but deep down there is a bond of love more powerful than all of that. I hope Abbey realizes this. I also hope, for her sake, that the teasing stops or at least diminishes enough that she can survive being the only girl. But I hope she knows despite the nonstop teasing and 'torturing' (as she says) that her brothers really do love her and care for her and that for now, she's at least not scarier that Halloween :)

Here's a smile for today

I thought you might find this amusing. Anita Renfore is pretty hilarious and has done parodies on quite a few songs that I really like. Anyways, thought it might give you a laugh anyways :)

My little Cookies....

Because I have twins, I get a lot of comments from people about them. My twins are technically identical, yet they look different enough you can tell them apart. Our doctor has told us even with identical twins, you can get a lot of variance for a lot of different reasons. Lately I've heard a lot of, "Are you sure their identical? I thought identical twins were supposed to look exactly alike?" Well, as I've thought of this, for some reason my mind turned to chocolate chip cookies. In a batch of cookies, even though they all have the EXACT same ingredients, they still all turn out slightly different when they come out of the oven. I guess identical twins are like that in a way too. So then I got to thinking about how all my kids are sweet and delicious as well, and what type of cookies they are:

Daniel - SNICKERDOODLE mostly just for the name. It reminds me of his funny and quirky personality.

Abbey - PUMPKIN CHOCOLATE CHIP warm and comforting sweetness, with a little spice :)

Joshua- HOMEMADE OREO - pure, sweet goodness.
Zach and Gabe - CHOCOLATE CHIP since that's what I first pictured them as.

Cael and Nathan - PEANUT BUTTER but because they're not twins, different recipes of the same. They have so many of the same personality traits, Nathan is often dubbed Cael Jr.

Then I thought of Nic and wondered about his cookie status. Immediately I thought of PEANUT BUTTER again, because it's his favorite kind. Ironically though Cael and Nathan are both so much like their Dad, it's fitting they are all slightly different variations of the same yummy goodness.

Me? Hmmm...well I guess I'll go with CHOCOLATE WITH WHITE CHOCOLATE CHIPS AND A FEW NUTS. I have a deep love of chocolate and as this post clearly indicates, am slightly nutty as well. Well, here is to my wonderful family, full of sweet homemade goodness that I find irrestible and wonderful! I'm grateful for the joy they have all brought to me:)

Joyful mother of Children

Due to the lack of everything from our recent move, I loaded up all 7 kids in the car and headed to the store today. We were in need of a bunch of stuff. Of course the kids got wild and restless. Shopping for 2 hours isn't that exciting, so they felt the need to create their own excitement. Needless I came home disgruntled, with 4 grounded kids, a bunch of stuff I had forgot, a bunch of stuff I didn't want (but what covertly put into the cart by the kids) and feeling like a freak show due to all the people staring at me and my many children. And most of all I felt guilty. Guilty that I hadn't been a better example of righteous happy motherhood. I kept thinking the whole time of Julie B. Beck and her powerful talks about being a positive example of motherhood to the world, and that I wasn't doing a very good job. Now that we are no longer in Utah and we live in a place of a lot more non LDS people, I keenly feel the importance of demonstrating our values and beliefs concerning families and motherhood. I felt today that somehow I had let Sister Beck down. Being a mother is so stinkin hard and being a happy mother is sometimes harder. I realized a lot today the need I have to work on that. I need to study, pray, and ponder about my vital role as a motherhood and as an example to the world on that, so on days like this it is easier to fufill that role in a way that's pleasing to me and to our Father in Heaven. So I can be as it says in Psalms 113 "...a joyful mother of children."

The Invisible Woman

I read this article awhile ago, and found this clip on my sisters blog and wanted to share. I'm grateful for the reminder of why we mothers do what we do. I loved the reminder of who we really work for as mothers, we don't work for our kids, we do it for Him.

Kids say the darnedest things...

One of the funniest things my kids have said lately came from my daughter. She came into the living room the other night with her eyes covered with one hand and a book in other. She had been looking at our Children's Atlas and had found something that had disturbed her and exclaimed, "Mom! There are naked people in the Japan section!" I took a look at the book and it was a picture of some sumo wrestlers. I tried to explain them to her and she repsonded, "But mom, you know your butt crack? All they have is a string up it!" As she walked away still upset I heard her mutter, "They should be called 'strap crack wrestlers'!" I had to laugh. Yes, I suppose that would be a more fitting name... :)

I love to see the temple...

One of my New Year's resolutions (out of the two I made for myself this year), is to attend the temple once a month. I had the chance to go this morning. A lot of thoughts and feelings have been weighing on me lately. I was anxious for the chance to go the temple and glean from the peace that is there. I sat in the chapel praying and reading my scriptures, trying to figure out exactly what it was I was seeking for when I was struck by the words to the song the organist was playing: Lead me, guide me, walk beside me, help me find the way... That's how I felt. Like a small Primary child pleading to her Father for help and assurance. I attended the session and afterwards, in the Celestial room, I sat amidst its sacred beauty and prayed again, a child pleading to her Father. After awhile the thought came to me, "You are a woman of Zion. With that comes privileges, responsibilities, and covenants. Covenants that give you power, if you live up to them." I realized that as a covenant daughter of God I was blessed with all that I needed shoulder what I needed to bear. Like the pioneers, I had the strength and the ability to continue to walk, despite the difficult terrain and journey. The the Lord was with me, loved me and would help me. Coming to the temple I felt like a lost little child and I left feeling like a strong woman of Zion, and as the scripture says, "endowed with power from on high." That is the glory and beauty of the temple. I know the temple is the house of the Lord. I'm grateful for it's sacred ability to bring together heaven and earth. I'm grateful for it's holy and sacred nature, for all it stands for and represents. But most importantly, I'm grateful for the covenants we make there with a loving Heavenly Father who most assuredly leads us, guides us, and walk besides us. He will help us find the way which I quietly learned today and bear testimony of.

Crafts

I've been trying to finish up some crafts projects the past little while and finally got some done.

But first, my daughter loves crafts like I do and on Saturday came to me asking me if she could do one. She exclaimed, "I want to sew buttons!" I mentioned a few simple flower projects she could sew a button on and she insisted, "No, not one button or flowers. I want to sew a LOT of buttons. On fabric." Not thrilled with the thought of her just sewing all my buttons on random fabric I came up with an idea.

I got her a strip of wide ribbon and my buttons. I taught her how to sew a button on and then let her go at it down the ribbon. We then folded it in half, I sewed down the sides and tada! Bookmark!

She was so excited! She now has her treasure with her scriptures and took it to church so she could show off her handiwork.

I also got some flowers on clearance at Walmart and have been wanting to turn them into barrettes for Abbey. I finally finished a few of them.

Then I decided, hey, she needs a place to put her new barrettes and quickly came up with a barrette holder to hang in her room next to her mirror. Though as I saw how few barrettes it holds, this will probably just be a temporary one as I work on making her a bigger one that holds more.

And last of all, my mom has been sending my sisters and I a pattern for quilt blocks once a month to be put together for a final large "Count Your Blessings" quilt by the end of the year. I finally finished the pieced blocks for the first few months. It feels so nice to have a few projects done. Now for the other hundred floating around in my head and stored in my craft room....:)

Mom moment...

So I had a 'mom moment' last night. It was fairly late and I still had all 4 little kids awake. As I laid with them on their bedroom floor, hoping they could play and tire out quickly, Zach crawled over and on top of me. As I sat there holding him and enjoying the sweet softness only babies possess, I was suddenly hit that these are my last babies. The special squishiness, innocence, pure love and joy of these little babies will be gone soon. These are my last few moments in time to enjoy it. The tears started leaking out of my eyes and trickled down my face and I just sat there and quietly held them. I wanted to somehow capture the feeling and lock it in time. We certainly don't expect and want babies to stay babies forever, but there is something sad about watching them grow up. These sweet innocent fresh spirits are such a glimpse of heaven, naturally invoke such a feeling of peace and love, how could one not want to cherish that forever? I sat there with my silent tears, I knew I certainly wasn't the first mom to feel such emotions and not the last either. Motherhood runs deep and holds such powerful emotions that only another mother (and yes, perhaps fathers) understand.

Sweetest thing...

Kids say the funniest things and sometimes the most profound things as well. My favorite from the past little while happened last week. I had babies and kids crawling all over my lap and I said in exasperation, "Good grief! Why do I always have kids climbing all over me?!" My son looked at me and with sweet sincerity said, "Because you have a lot of children who love you."

Gently humbled, my full lap suddenly felt like a blessing rather than a nuisance :)

Mother of Boys

So I am a mother of boys. Not just a few boys, but 6 boys. Six boys and one girl. There is something said in being a mother of boys. Let's just say there is never a dull moment or a quiet one for that matter. I jotted down a bunch of indicators your house is over run by boys a while back and thought that I would share it.

You know you’re the mother of boys when…

AYou wonder if you should just see if Lowes carries an already yellow toilet, or at least yellow linoleum.

AYou can name every Ninja Turtle, Star Wars character, and super hero, but when it comes to politics, you can barely name the President of the United States.

AYou can’t seem to go a whole day without of conversation that doesn’t involve Bakugan, Pokemon, or the Wii.

AYou own a machine dart gun that can shoot almost 30 bullets in about 30 seconds!

AYou find yourself saying things like:

No ball in the house!!!

Not in your school clothes!

Not at the dinner table

And THAT’S why we don’t play ball in the house!

AYou are shopping and when your daughter finds a pink little purse she wants, your son exclaims “Oh, that’s cute Abbey, you can put all your favorite weapons in it!”

AThe only version of Eensey Weensey Spider you know involves crawling up the person’s leg, entering their ear, and laying eggs that hatch!

AThe only version of Jingle Bell your kids know is the “Jingle bells, Batman smells” version.

AYou get after your son for proudly demonstrating his ability to burp the ABC’s at the dinner table, and then silently wonder why after all these years, you as an adult STILL can’t do it!

AYou suggest perhaps it’s your turn to pick out the family movie and are met with desperate cries “NOT the Sound of Music! “NO WAY am I watching Pride and Prejudice!” etc.

AA few days after your only daughter gets a Barbie house for Christmas, when you go to pick up her room, you glance at the house and find Pirates on the patio, a dragon soaking in the bath tub, and Batman on the couch.

AYou get after your boys for jumping off the top bunk with their eyes closed, telling them they are going to hurt themselves, when they reassure by saying, “Oh, don’t worry mom. We said a prayer first!”

AYou are thankful God made ladybugs, because they’re cute enough for mom to handle and buggy enough to satisfy little boys.

AYou son has 10 reasons why a python would be the perfect family pet.

ABodily functions require a public service announcement.

Valentines Day and Chinese New Year

I love, love, love holidays. I love to do crafts and activities with with my kids and have fun creating memories. This year when I found out that Valentines Day was going to fall on Chinese New Year, I was excited. Two fun themes thrown together in one! Though I never have the time to do all the ideas that come into my head, we at least managed to get some of them done. My daughter and I (who loves holidays and crafts as much as I do) made pink paper lanterns to set the mood. My husband and I as of late have enjoyed cooking new food together. It's been a wonderful way to spend time with each other and to eat something other than the same old, same old we always eat. We were ambitious and decided to try and cook four chinese dishes: Crab Rangoon, Ginger Beef, Sweet and Sour Chicken, and Lettuce Wraps. They actually didn't turn out too bad, the lettuce wraps being my favorite. Then for everyones Valentines from me I made mini chinese boxes with candy and a fortune cookie in it. What a fun day which made for some sweet memories!!

To really live...

“I don’t want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with grass stains on my shoes from mowing Sister Schenk’s lawn. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor’s children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone’s garden. I want to be there with children’s sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived.”

-Marjorie Pay Hinckley-

This is a quote that I found a while ago that I really love. Sister Hinckley was such a wonderful, sweet lady. What wonderful words of wisdom.

Mother of Twins

Besides being a mother of 7, a mother of a special needs child, I'm also the mother of twins. My twins are numbers 6 and 7, they are our last children and are currently 9 months old. It has been a real fun and interesting experience having twins. Just when you think you are getting a grasp on being a mom and you've experienced pregnancy and babies and toddlers five times over, wham, you get pregnant with twins and you are back at square 1. Pregnancy is different. The risks are different. Nursing is different. Everything is different. You never go shopping the same way again, you never sleep the same way again, you have to approach so many things differently. It has been a lot of work, yet very rewarding as well. There is something incredible about watching two little souls, who shared the womb together, come out and discover life together as well. You always hear about the special bond twins have, and after watching them, there is no wonder how there could NOT be a special bond. They are always within a few feet of each other, if not on top of each other. There is always a playmate. You should see their face light up in the morning when they see each other, the way the hold holds when the sleep, it's magical. Twins are a whole new different experience. Yet, with all their sameness, it's interesting to see all the differences as well. Though they share the same birthday, look the same etc. there are definitely two different spirits and personalities. You see how they respond differently to the same thing, how they hit milestones at different times. They are their own different and unique person. I'm learning a whole new aspect of motherhood with my twins for which I am grateful. Like they say: twice the work, half the sleep, but double the love!

The mother of...Josh

So my mind has been pondering the past week what it means to be a mother of a child with special needs. I was on the internet trying to find ideas for my 4 year old’s Transformer birthday party when I stumbled across a poem a mother had posted called “For Chosen Mothers”. It is a poem about mothers who have kids with disabilities.
Apparantly the mother who had some fabulous Transformer party ideas, also has a son with autism and posted this poem on her site. For some reason it dawned on me that I’m a mother of a child with special needs. I guess I just never really think of myself that way. I’ve always reserved that title for moms with children with severe physical needs, perhaps in wheel chairs, or for moms with children with more ‘invisible’ special needs like autism. I’ve always just considered myself, well, Josh’s mom. Though Josh is behind developmentally, has diagnosed medical conditions, and receives visits from 4 different EIV therapists a month. I’ve guess I don’t really think of him as special needs, just special. He functions so well, that it doesn’t require me to do a whole lot of extra things to care for him as compared to my other children. Besides, Josh just radiates such love, goodness, and happiness, that that’s how I see him, as a sweet special ray of sunshine. It was amazing how reading that poem and then another short article she had a link to, written by another mother with a special needs child, entitled “Welcome to Holland”, how I was reminded that Josh does have special needs. It seems to come a go in a cycle. You remember, then you forget, and then unexpectedly you are reminded again that your child is different and with that brings a wide range of emotions that only a parent of a special needs child can understand. I realize that we will go through this cycle over and over again as Josh grows up. It’s made me very humble and thoughtful, at least this past week, and has made me grateful for who and all Josh is. He’s an amazing spirit to be sure, one who’s so called special ‘needs’ are inconsequential compared to special gifts he brings our family. So whatever it means to be a mother of a child with special needs, I’m thankful God has allowed me to at least be the mother of Josh. I know my life is richer and more fuller because of it. So thank you Josh. I love you!

the Purpose of my Meanderings...

So, I've decided to start a blog pretty much for pure journaling purposes. I need a place to record thoughts and ideas and it's so much easier to do it on a computer than to try and do it the old fashioned way. Typing is so much faster than writing by hand, (though I will still occasionally try and write in our actual hard copy journals). When you are a mom of 7, like I am, there is not a lot of time for things beyond day to day survival. So though I don't have a lot of time to actually DO things, I have time to think about things. Some days my head is swimming and swirling with different feelings, ideas, dreams, and thoughts. Here will now be the place for me to get them out and share them, even if it is only to share them with myself. Sometimes things make more sense, thoughts become more concrete, feelings become more defined, and dreams become more real when they are forced to be put into words. So hopefully with all of my mind's meanderings, I will gain insights to this Journey called life along the way.