Farm Gal

While in St. George, my sister, Lindsey, invited us to go to Staheli Family Farms with her Preschool class. To say Rachael loved it is an understatement. She loved seeing all of the animals and going on the wagon ride. Thanks for taking us, Linds! Rachael asks to go to the "harm" every day!

Today, we went to another farm. It was a different type of farm. The Staheli Farms is a farm full of animals, this one today, Tanaka Farms, is a produce farm. We went with some friends from our ward (thanks again for the invite, Lacey!) and it was awesome. Rachael got to pick some carrots, onions, and radishes. She also got to pick a small pumpkin. Going to the farm today made me excited for when we have a garden someday, and also made me excited for our next Rexburg trip to pick stuff out of Grandpa Russell's garden. There is nothing more delicious than fresh produce straight from the garden!

Dream Come True

While the girls and I were in St. George, I went to see the play The Little Mermaid at the Tuachan Amphitheater. I went with my mom, sister, friend Chelsea, Aunt Melanie, and her girls, Emery and Ella. It was SO good! Since it is outside they had a sheet of water every time the scene was under the sea. Amazing, I LOVE Tuachan!And you better believe I waited in line with all of the little girls to meet Ariel and Prince Eric! I wanted to shove them all aside and say, "I've loved The Little Mermaid for the last 22 years! Back. Up. Off." But I didn't. I waited like a good girl, and then I got to hug Ariel and Prince Eric! Loved it! (Let's not talk about Eric's gross man-ponytail. THAT wasn't in the movie!)

If you're ever in the Southern Utah area, try to see a play at Tuachan. Next year they're the first off-Broadway theater to get the rights to Aladdin. Woot woot, we'll be there! Maybe Rachael will go!

The Beach with Brit and Bret

A few weekends ago my best best BEST friend/cousin, Britni, surprised her hubby, Bret, with a trip to Lego Land for his birthday. And lucky us, they came to stay! It was so fun! They went to Lego Land on Friday, and on Saturday we all hit the beach. Nate and I are still trying to find our "go to" beach for when family comes, and this wasn't it. It wasn't a bad beach, just not ideal. But it was, of course, still fun.

Aren't they so cute? Aww!

Aren't we so cute? Aww!

The water was too cold to get in, but Rachael liked just playing in the sand.

Whit and I just kicked it in the shade (mostly).

B and B
(feel free to steal this picture Brit, its UBER cute)

We had a few projects going on on the beach. Bret made this amazing rock tower. 20 rocks, I do believe. And don't worry, Rachael came and kicked it over about three seconds after this was taken. In fact, I think that's her shadow on the left...

Since we didn't ever put Whitney's suit on her, I made a sand baby with it. Creepy or creative? You decide.

Thanks again for coming to play, you guys, come ANY TIME! And I'm sorry if my crazy children dissuaded you from wanting children, cuz you guys will be amazing parents someday! For realsies.

Snit

Oh. My. Gosh. Everyone should read this article! My friend, Brittani, posted this on her Facebook and it is seriously amazing. So deep and so true. I think a lot of times the role of "mother" is looked down on, but at the same time there are some amazing people who stand up for it, and don't judge and don't question what we do all day. I'll admit, sometimes I do get lazy and turn on a show for Rachael so I can peruse Facebook/Pinterest, but the majority of my day is NOT spent on the computer, or lounging in front of the TV, even crafting (which I would LOVE!), it is spent doing what this journalist says. Staying one step ahead of my kids, keeping them happy, teaching them, cleaning up after them. And when I do have a second to do something for myself, maybe I don't want to call someone or e-mail someone, sometimes I don't even want to write a Facebook message. Not only is everything we do time consuming, it is completely exhausting! Toss another kid into the mix and it is amplified to the max. It is only 8:00 right now and I am so ready to hit the hooskow (do other families use that term for going to bed? Ours does.). I think if you click on the picture it will get big enough to read. Seriously, do it.

(Actual picture of my children will be coming soon, I promise.)

Journaling

So I'm not the greatest journal writer. And when I say "not the greatest" what I really mean is "I never write in my journal." I feel slightly overwhelmed when it comes to journals, like I need to record every minute of every day. I have this blog, which obviously records some family events and some of my emotions, but lets be honest, I'm not going to blog about everything that goes on in my head. I've always worn my heart right on my sleeve and haven't been afraid of letting people know how I'm feeling, but I typically keep my deep feelings in. They're nothing fantastically interesting, just things people don't necessarily need to know about.
I had an eye opening experience at my mom's this last week. She was searching through her nightstand looking for her Disneyland Pass (yes, my mom AND sister both have Disneyland passes, and we don't. How dumb is that.). She found it but she also found her old journals. It was SO interesting to read through them. She was my age when she wrote them. It was fun for me to picture her with her long (occasionally permed. Excuse her, it was the 80's) red hair pouring out her soul into these journals. What I loved about them is she didn't document every single activity they had done that day, and some of the entries were only a few sentences long. It was her space to record her feelings. And really, in 20 years from now, no one is going to care the we went to the park or used sidewalk chalk today.
As we were sitting there on her bedroom floor reading some of the entries my mom says, "This is so weird. Its like I'm reading someone else's life, not mine." Then I said, "Its like I'm reading MY life!" And it really was. She had a lot of the same emotions. So it hit me that I need to start documenting my feelings as I go through my motherhood experiences so one day it will help my daughters. I can't dwell on the fact that I've missed so much already, but I'm going to do better and hope that one day my daughters will gain strength knowing that all mother's have close to the same emotions. Happy and sad. Joy and frustration. Fears and triumphs. Stress and calm. Everything.
So I started my new journal last night. It started off with an apology to my two daughters, and any future children. But then I recorded the emotions I remember feeling when I had Rachael. Tonight its Whitney's turn.

*Funny entry: My mom found a piece of paper in one of the journals that said something to the effect of, "Remember Allen? He just left on vacation and I don't think he'll call me when he gets back. I guess things just won't work out." Bahaha looks like things did work out. 30 years and going strong!*

Baaaargain!

So I just wanted to share about my super amazing find at the D.I. the other day.

I've know what Rachael is getting for Christmas for a long time. A pink Radio Flyer scooter, with the two wheels on the front for stability. Cute, age appropriate, and compact (convenient for both our small arpartment and the fact that we're going to St. George and don't have a ton of room in the car). I was ok with paying full price for a new one (only like $30 on Amazon), but was also on the look-out on Craigslist. Well what do I find with an $8 price tag on it at the D.I.? You guessed it! A scooter! Just take a magic eraser to it and it'll be good as new! So I was having them write up a tag for it in the back so I wouldn't have to try to hide it from Rachael while we were shopping and the {old} man writing up the ticket looked down and said, "Does that say $3? I don't' have my glasses on." Being the honest person that I am :), I said, "Nope, it says eight." The man, whose name was Reed, by the way..., said, "Eh... We'll give it to your for three."

SWEET RIGHT?!

I know, I'm stoked about it. Now I just need to get her a helmet and knee pads and we're all set.

(I won't even tell you about my amazing skirts I found there, too.

You'll be too jealous of my deal finding skills.)

Psychic

Sometimes, I'm laying in bed, so dang tired I think it will be mere seconds before I'm drifting through Dreamland. But I don't fall asleep. Still don't... An hour passes and I'm still not asleep. How annoying, right? Right. Then, for example, last night the alarm clock goes off. Did I set it. No, I most certainly did NOT set the alarm for 12 a.m., it set itself. Needless to say it woke up my sleeping babe. Not really a big deal, all I did was feed her and put her back down. But the point of this story is to tell you that this has happened before, multiple times. Different methods were used in waking up children, being it a honking horn, a slamming door, or her waking herself up somehow. My body seems to know that it shouldn't completely shut itself down because it will just be disturbed. Freaky right? My body is most definitely psychic. I have mixed feelings about it because as precious as my sleep is to me, it does make for less enjoyable sleep if I'm yanked from REM sleep to a crying child. Whether or not I approve of my psychic body, there is nothing I can do about it.

What I REALLY want is a full night of peaceful, lovely sleep. At least 7 hours. If that dang alarm clock hadn't gone off last night I would have most likely had it. Dumb.