Goof Balls

This is my last post for tonight. I got strep throat somehow (my hunch is there is a little guy running around my house with sores on his face that are quite likely strep themselves. We shall see). Anyway, I should be sleeping, but I really wanted to make good on my promise to get the blog a little more caught up. I sill have so much catching up to do it’s ridiculous. But I can spend all day tomorrow doing that because… well, I have strep. So I’m going nowhere. With nobody, which means the kids will probably watch a lot of TV. And jump on the trampoline.

And there just might be a little bit of this goofiness -

          

Scratch that.

There will definitely be lots of this goofiness.

One of my greatest challenges as a mother? Teaching my children how to actually take some things seriously. At least.

Haiku… no… Hiatus

I took a long break
There was no time for writing
But I am back now

We got sick.

Then we got better.

Then my family came for Christmas.

Then we got sick again.

And during all that we had a situation with a friend that we had to deal with.

Then Russ left for a Chinese course.

The situation is taken care of (well, it’s out of our hands now).

And we’re getting better. Hopefully. That or we’re just passing the “sicky bugs” back around again. Let’s hope it’s the former.

I’ve been drinking lots of garlic syrup (dice a few cloves of garlic, soak it in a cup of apple cider vinegar for 24 hours, strain, store in a – glass – container in the fridge. Take a few tablespoons each day. I’ve been taking 6-10 tablespoons a day. I WANT TO GET BETTER, DANG IT!)

I’ve been watching lots of Psych. The kids have been watching lots of Wonder Pets, Backyardigans, and Yo Gabba Gabba. Thank you, Netflix. I am sorry your stock has dropped drastically. You are a great service, but you made some really dumb business mistakes. Just sayin’.

I plan on doing a lot more blogging – I moved my computer to the basement/family room/play room, so I can blog while the kids play! Okay, I know, I should probably be playing with them… but I have been alone with the kids – mostly sick – for the past two weeks almost… and it is MAKING ME CRAZY.

I love my kids, really, I do – but… I need my husband. A lot.

I posted on some of the other blogs, too, so go check those out.

Monday Musings – Things that Matter Most

There are things that matter, and things that matter most. Being showered, dressed, and looking nice? Sure that matters. But if it takes away the time I get to play with  my kids, I’d rather be wearing my jammies all day and playing Star Wars with my 3 year old in his undies, and my baby in her diaper.

Because that matters more than getting dressed in the morning.

Especially when we’re all sick.

Monday Musings – A House of Order

Sometimes this is what my life feels like. Messy with little bits of life strewn all over. I’ve been doing pretty well keeping my life and house in order, but the weekend was pretty crazy (thanks for coming, all you who came to warm our house!) and I felt like I was getting further and further behind on life – leaving little scattered pieces of life lying around for people to step on. It was tragic.

Thanks to my sweet husband, he picked up all the scattered pieces and delicately put them back together for me, while I slept most of the weekend off. It was great.

Then we had an uplifting evening with some new friends on Sunday, and today had Family Home Evening – a beautiful lesson about God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost (the Godhead). We sang the First Article of Faith song (in Portuguese – Regres de Fe) and we’ll sing it every day for the rest of the month, and hopefully Vincente will learn to recite the first article of faith himself. We’re going to make a sticker chart to “pass off” the articles of faith as we learn them (everyone, me, Papai, Vince, and Joss). We’re going to learn one a month, starting with the first this month (since it’s such a short article of faith, and the month is over half done, we figured it was a perfect time to start, instead of waiting until January – “New Years” resolutions can be made at any time of the year, in my book!)

So, now that the house is mostly back in order, and I got 8 full hours of sleep last night (plus a 1 1/2 hour nap! Which I wasn’t planning on taking...) I think I will be able to keep the little bits of my life from getting too scattered.

And Family Home Evening always puts me in a good mood – especially when they are followed with conversations like this:

Me: Vince, does Heavenly Father have a body like ours?
Vince: Yup.
Me: Does Jesus Christ have a body like ours?
Vince: Yep he does.
Me: What about the Holy Ghost? Does he have a body like ours?
Vince: Except, he don’t.

Love it. He soaks stuff up like a sponge (and I’m extra impressed, because FHE was entirely in Portuguese – which means he understands more than we think he does!).

What kinds of things throw your life off track? Do you ever feel like you’re leaving bits of your life strewn around? How to you clean up and get back on track? Do you have a sweet husband (or good friend) who helps pick up after you when you can’t seem to hold it all together?

Stability

I just wanted to check in so people know that things are stable (ish) right now.

Things will be okay for the next few days, and the hope is that they start getting better.

I got to Skype with my brother yesterday.

It was a sweetmoment for me in a sea of bitter days.

I will write a post about the houses we put offers on, at the very least. I may even post about the wedding reception and all the blessings my (Werner) family has been receiving (but I may just say that we have been receiving them). We have such great family and friends – all of you are really appreciated. I hope you know how much your love means to us.

I will also be posting a book review on my healthy living blog – A Word of Wisdom. I’ve been reading the book In Defense of Food and it has been fabulous, so I’m itching to write a review. I’ll try to get that done before we leave for Arizona next week!

Memory

I just got my double pack of 1GB memory from the nice UPS man today! My computer’s memory has doubled – hoorah! And now I can run all my programs – including PHOTOSHOP! Look out, world, here comes the mama’s photoshoppyness. I am pretty much thrilled.

Too bad it’s too late to start playing around. I need to eat dinner, and then alas, tutor online. Since the AP Calculus exam was today I’m hoping that I won’t have a whole lot of tutoring to do. Not that I don’t love tutoring. It’s just that I don’t feel so wonderful today, so I would like to just take it easy all night.

I’m really excited to start playing with my photos. I’ll probably start taking more pictures of the kids once I learn how to really enhance them with Photoshop.

And I’ll probably start scrapbooking a lot more, and playing around with photography crafts.

Speaking of photography crafts – remember that family tree craft I was telling you about? I’m coming up with an idea that has to do with using photoshop.

I’ll let you know how/if it turns out.

Waiting for Baby

We're just waiting for baby. Still waiting.  I have a Dr's appointment tomorrow, so we'll see if I've progressed AT ALL. Hoping something's different (besides my weight... I feel much much bigger than last week... mostly just in my belly. I'm afraid if she doesn't come out soon she's going to get too big. I want a small baby... a little tiny one).

Anyway, in the mean time, Vince and I are hanging out, and I'm getting over this sinus infection. Last night I took Tylenol BEFORE I went to bed, and I only woke up once. Not sure what time it was, but somehow in the middle of trying to get out of the bed (it's a little more difficult when you're belly is so large and protruding and your ab muscles are virtually useless), Russ beat me to the bathroom, so I had to stand there and wait for him to pee. And I just realized why he turns the light on in the middle of the night just to go pee. Ha - to aim. I never turn the light on when I get up in the middle of the night to go pee - light when I'm sleepy makes me cranky. 

Back to the point - here is Vincente rearranging my tupperware cupboard. It will probably stay the way it is until I have baby - mostly because I don't like getting down low... it's kind of hard to get back up.

And this is what happened when he realized I had the camera. He really really likes the camera, and was coming after me. He threw a huge two year old tantrum when I told him he couldn't play with the camera. 

This is actually an older picture from when I was really really sick - Vincente stole my apple, and here he is eating it. He's actually really really good with an apple. And he loves them. I won't complain.

Me and Vince - me sick as a dog, drinking some Red Zinger tea, and Vince chillin next to me, chowing on his apple.

Flying By

The past week has flown by... mostly because I developed a disgusting sinus infection that has been taking over my entire upper respiratory system. Yeah. It sucks. Major. Then I thought it was turning into the flu, because I felt like I had the flu, but no fever. Where's the major germ killing heater when you need it? I feel like I get over stuff better when I have a fever to go along with the nastiness.

Anyway, rather than go into the morbid details of my sick week... well, the being sick part of it... I will post a few pictures. 

Oh yes, and the blessing of my sick week? Well, I was only congested until Friday night - that's when things got ugly (couldn't sleep at night because I could breath, coughing my lungs out with every breath, blowing all sorts of nasty mucus out of... well, you get the picture) so the whole weekend (from Friday night until Monday evening) was just miserable. Sick and miserable. I got a blessing Sunday morning, went to Church (which I wasn't really planning on doing), started feeling worse after Church, anyway, you get the idea. So Russ had a four day weekend (for President's Day) which means he was home all weekend to take care of me. We discovered that I have a hard time taking it easy, and so Russ had to force me to take naps and take it easy - but I did it, and I'm recovering (sort of). The best part of me being sick was that it happened when Russ was home to take care of me. I don't know what I would have done being sick in the middle of the week... I don't want to think about it.  

Anyway, so the fun part of our week - 

Watching Vince run around the house naked (barely hiding his man parts with his Snuggle).

Cooking yummy-licious stuffed mushrooms!

Papai cuddling with Vince on the kitchen floor after Church.

Papai reading Vince bedtime stories (Russ translates Vince's favorite books into Portuguese - so this one is about a 'passarinho' looking for 'minha mãe.'

Vince finally playing nice with other kids! He let them play with ALL of his toys, and didn't even care. These are some friends from Church we had over for dinner on Sunday (against my better judgement... but we had fun anyway!)

Getting Better

I have been horribly sick all weekend - bleh. I think I got sick because of all the stress I was feeling this weekend. But I woke up this morning feeling much MUCH better. And I spent all day on campus in the fishbowl making up assignments for my complex analysis class. It wasn't the most fun I've had in my life, but it sure felt productive and it definitely felt good to get a lot done.

Classes are almost finished (HOORAY!) so I'm kind of just holding out until the end. I'm going to show up for textbook buyback on Saturday morning and see how many of my text books they will buy back from me. I don't want to sell my complex analysis textbook back until after I've made my "cheat sheet" for the exam (the one page of notes we're allowed to have), so I'll have to make sure to get that done Friday. I don't really care much about my modern physics final... I mean, of course I care, but it's just to the point where all I want to do is pass that class (which is a D-), and I think I can easily pull that off just by walking into the test and doing the best I can... 

Russ arranged everything for us to be PCSed to California! Hooray! We will do a "partial-DITY" which means we will weigh all the stuff we move in our car, and the military might pay us for it. Other than that, they will move all the rest of our things, and we won't have to lift a finger or pay a penny. And hopefully we'll get a little bit of money, since we're doing a partial-DITY. You'll definitely hear about how all this goes after it is all said and done. But having Russ arrange for everything has definitely been nice for me. I haven't had to do a thing! Which is GREAT!

So ... with a little cash from textbook sell back, and classes nearly finished, and passing grades nearly guarenteed in all my classes, I am a very very happy person. And Vince and I have been playing today - it is SO great. I love that kid... I can't wait for it to be just me and him every day! 

The End of the Rope

I'm at the end of my rope... I hate being alone (that is - I hate being away from Russ). Everything was beating down on me so hard that I did something I thought I would never do... I asked to be released from my calling. I think it will be better for the ward if they have a choir director for Christmas who can give it their all. Right now I don't feel like I can give anything my all, and when I feel like I can give something my all again, it will be my family.

I had to take a look at my priorities and remember that not only can I NOT do everything, but Heavenly Father doesn't EXPECT me to do everything. There is not enough energy in my body right now to be a mom, be a wife, be a student, be a choir director, be a friend, be a sister, be a daughter, and do all of them amazingly. Right now I am going to focus on being a mother and wife, and everything else I'm going to put on hold for about two weeks (that's when we'll be with Russ again for "good" - I use quotes here because I'm sure we'll have to be apart again, but it's the end of this round of separation). 

So, if you need anything, get back to me in two weeks. Because I'm starting to learn how to say "no" more often, even though I would rather help. I'm just not able to do it all right now. It's making me sick. Literally. I am actually physically fatigued and sick because of all the stress. Now I'm saying "good-bye" to the stress and taking the next two weeks one minute at a time, because that's all I can really do.

queasy

So I thought I had staved off morning sickness, but it just turns out that it didn't make its full force entrance until this past week. I'm trying to take it easy and try to get over the nausea, but some days it's really hard.

Bleh... hopefully it only lasts a few more weeks (like last pregnancy).

We'll see.