A Blur

That's been our lives for the past few months.

Regular craziness of life with five kids and two dogs plus pregnancy plus end of the school year activities plus home renovations plus three sets of house guests equals serious exhaustion.

Better than last year when we had a series of unfortunate events, this year has been filled with positive things, albeit too many all at once. But we can't really complain about...

three dancing daughters

sweet preschoolers (including a preschool graduate!)

clapping out our fifth grader so she could move on to Junior High (okay, I may be complaining a little about this one...how did I get old enough to have a child in Junior High?!?)

a Girl Scout bridging ceremony

darling baseball players (who are also doing swim team this year)

a beautiful newly renovated basement (this only shows a portion of the goodness)

new paint and carpet in the family room

a shoe and coat closet in a spot formerly occupied by dead space

meals and fun with cousins visiting from St. Louis and Evanston

a surprise sixteenth birthday party for a visiting niece

grandparents who came all the way from California

superfun cousins from Phoenix

an amazing summer beginning band concert with our very own flautist

and the opportunity to live by my brother these past two years while he's been getting his MBA (though we can complain that he just moved away).

And now I stand at the threshold of six weeks of mostly unscheduled summer and I can hardly decide how to best enjoy it. It's been so long since I had control over my time that I'm not really sure how to handle it, but hey, blogging some semblance of an update on our family so I can remember some of these blessed events seems like a good start.

New in 2012

Version 6.0

Life Moves Forward

Whether or not I'm blogging, our lives seem to move forward at full speed. May has been an especially busy month so far and doesn't show any signs of slowing down. We are renovating and repairing parts of our home which means more chaos even than usual. All of the basement toys are strewn throughout the living room and dining room. Drywall dust blankets the foyer, downstairs powder room, and basement. We've demolished the basement bar, and begun work on four new closets/storage areas. We've purchased about 25 gallons of paint and ordered new ceiling tiles. Still haven't chosen a carpet, but we'll get there.

The children are busy with baseball, upcoming dance recitals, guitar lessons, and end of the year field trips and activities (I'm headed out to field trips both Monday and Tuesday next week). Dave and I were asked this week to sit on the board of the Chicago BYU Alumni Association. We have some other big plans we are preparing for this year as well. Life is feeling very full.

Last weekend in a whirlwind two days, the Actress and I flew to Long Beach for Time Out for Women. I was pretty exhausted having not been to bed the night before our 4:45 AM cab departure, but it was a good two days. We sat on the beach Friday afternoon, and attended events Friday night and all day Saturday before flying home. There are two thoughts that really stood out to me:

 1. One of the speakers said they believed in saving guilt for sin. As women, and mothers especially, we tend to feel guilty too often for situations where we really may be doing our best under the circumstances and not acknowledging our own efforts. She told us to put off that kind of mommy guilt, and reserve guilt for when we have truly sinned. Good plan.

 2. Another speaker was referencing the power of prayer and in living our lives as if we have already received or will receive those blessings we long for. She asked us to think about what it was we really really wanted in our lives. And I was struck with gratitude, because I have everything I really want most. My family is healthy. We have the means to provide for ourselves. We have the gospel. I love my house, even in this disaster, and my neighborhood and our schools. We have good friends. And I feel an underlying peace in my life that we are living how we ought to. This doesn't mean things are perfect, and clearly we're not perfect, but I feel blessed with everything I need, and enough of what I want that I couldn't come up with anything. It was a great feeling. 

Hope all is well with you and yours!

How I could truly use a vacation and am trying to win one for our family...

This is my entry in the Just Ask Bucket List Getaway Giveaway. Just Ask offers a breast and ovarian cancer screening and is encouraging people to share 15 things that I want to enjoy in my lifetime as a reminder to be aware of my health. Want to enter? Head over to TodaysMama.com to get the details.

Share your list and you have a shot of winning a trip of a lifetime. The grand prizes are:

A family vacation of a lifetime to Universal Orlando® Resort.
A Las Olas Surf Camp Safari
Ski Lessons and stay at Park City Mountain Resort

And fifteen things from my bucket list (in random order):

1. barefoot water ski off the line (don't laugh...*only just* need to get back to marathon fitness level, and then some)

2. own a boat for the family and take the family out regularly (which would also help with number one)

3. spend a month one summer with my children living on someone's farm so we can understand what that is like

4. write a book

5. get my house as organized as it was 6 years ago, just before Little Mommy was born

6. speak at an EFY, or a women's conference, or something similar

7. learn to play the guitar

8. put on a concert with our family (when they're older)

9. learn how to drive a stick shift

10. go to bed before 10 PM every day for a whole month (I can't imagine how awesome I would feel for doing this)

11. take my kids to see Cats and Wicked and Les Mis

12. learn how to make my own bread

13. decide what I want to be, career-wise, in my post-young-children-who-are-home-all day season of life

14. write a song

15. go on a cruise

Leave me a comment with a link to your bucket list if you decide to enter.

Why I should draft all permission slips

The Actress forgot to bring home the permission slip she needed for school so she could work with Skittles during science. I told her not to worry, that I'd make my own:




I give express permission for my daughter [the Actress] to experiment with Skittles at [the Actress's] Elementary. She may touch them, smell them, look at them, listen to them, and taste them. She may put them in water, vinegar, Sprite, juice, or any liquid substance known to be safe around fifth grade students. She may cut them up, twist them, group them, number them, name them, or photograph them. She may not, however, put them up her nose or in her ears.

Signed:___________________________Date:_________


I expect to be asked to draft all future permission slips. I thought of some better ideas after dropping the kids off to school, like permission to hot glue a Skittles mosaic, but I'm still pleased with my first draft written seven minutes before we needed to leave. Good thing the Actress's teacher has a great sense of humor!

First Days

First days seem forever ago now for the older three. The younger two didn't start school until 2 weeks ago. At any rate, is it too early to be counting down to summer?


The Actress, Fifth Grade


The Artist, 3rd Grade


Little Mommy, kindergarten


Max, 4's preschool class


Princess, 3's preschool class


The preschoolers together. I love how Princess admires Max. They are such good buddies.

How could all of my children go to school now? It's so cliche, yet so darn true: they just grow up too fast.

And then the summer was over

School starts in only three days.


My third daughter goes to kindergarten and my fifth goes to preschool (provided we find potty training success in the next couple of weeks).

Next year I will have a middle schooler.

How often do I wish I could freeze my children as they are, in their sweet innocence at a time when the center of their world is our home and our family?

Maybe when they're gone more I'll make more time for writing, but in the meantime, I'm off to make a birthday cake and enjoy the company of my wild bunch.