We had quite the Mother’s Day weekend these past couple days.

The priesthood had their father and sons’ outing (yeah, it’s a funny weekend to have it) and part of that included a service project–in my backyard! Hooray! My yard is looking so much better these days.

Saturday night we enjoyed a dinner and movie under the stars. We ordered pizza on the way and spread our blankets on the grass and played games The weather was perfect and the crowds were small! And my kids are getting old enough to sit still during the movie! Great, great times!

Sunday morning I awoke to a trail of sweet gifts from my sweet husband. (He was really disappointed that he had morning meetings that he had to be too…).

And then things slowly started going downhill. Just some usual cranky kids. But how can they smile a “Happy Mother’s Day” while simultaneously smacking their sibling and spilling their juice all over the floor? Repeatedly.

In church we had to sit in a different spot (so I could lead the music for primary), but new spots always seem to create extra wiggles/fights over the cool spot on the pew (I really don’t understand how one little space is so much more desirable than the next 18 inches over…okay. maybe I do. But still!) Needless to say we were dealing with some major meltdowns before Sunday school (me and the kids. Don’t worry, after putting myself in timeout for a good amount of time, I went and apologized to those nice sisters…)

Life became more manageable. And then we went home and people started to get sick. Very sick. Chris was the first to get hit with the upset stomach, which made him feel more than awful to have that happen on Mother’s Day, and which made me feel awful lonely.

We made it through the afternoon with more than a little crankiness. At one point my son even wrote me an angry note (Happy Mother’s day…). I realized that people were probably just a little tired and tried to compensate with an extra healthy meal (which also happens to be one of their favorites) and an extra early bedtime.

And then Andrea was hit with the unset stomach. And I sobbed as I cleaned it up off the carpet. Over the next couple hours Josh, Zach, and me were all hit with the upset stomach. Luckily at that point Chris was starting to feel better (or better than me) and he took care of the kids. Yes, those were some absolutely low moments.

But we had several very high moments! My kids made me a bouquet of flower pens and wrote many sweet notes during primary. My primary sang sweetly! All our cranky tiredness was redeemed by the fact that our bodies were really battling a yucky sickness. I got several hours of free time to myself and finished a  couple  books. We got neat wood turned pens and a mother’s day brunch during Relief Society. It didn’t turn out how I’d imagined, but I am still very thankful to be a mom. Even when the going gets rough.

ps. We’re all feeling much better now. The kids recovered much more quickly. In fact after they’re rough night they were up and running (although a little slower) the next day (I’m thinking we ate some rotten spinach or something). The next morning when Chris asked Josh if his tummy was still sick he emphatically proclaimed “NO! All done.” Andi commented that you never really know when you’re really done throwing up, and Josh turned to her and repeated “NO. ALL DONE.” He absolutely did not want to do that again. And who can really blame him.

Zach only has 16 days of school left. Can you believe it?! I’ve been thinking about the fun things we plan on doing this summer. Lots of splash parks and camping and visiting grandma’s house! Hopefully a trip to the museum and one to Shark’s Reef.

And popsicles. Lots and lots of popsicles. Just last week I got this fun popsicle maker, and last night we tried it out. I blended 3 cups of frozen strawberries, 3 Tbsp of lemon juice, and 1/2 c of honey (with a little water to help it thoroughly blend). Chris said they were the most wonderful popsicles he has ever tasted. (That’s really high praise coming from him), and I have to agree. They were pretty amazing. So it shouldn’t be any wonder that my kids were begging me to make more popsicles first thing this morning. We did a strawberry-blueberry mix this time, with a little sugar and lemon juice and milk. And wow. I really don’t know if I can wait the four hours for it to freeze….

I also looked at allrecipes and pinterest and found a number of tasty looking popsicle recipes. Like apple-grape pops. and watermelon mango pops. and fudgesicles.

Oh it’s going to be a glorious summer!

And speaking of summer, the last three nights after dinner we turned our sprinklers on and let the kids run wild in the backyard. Yep! Our summer’s off to an amazing start!

Most the time, I like to focus my posts on our happy times and fun activities. But we have tantrums, my kids fight, and we have some pretty monumental meltdowns. I guess I’m thinking about this because yesterday…wow. I was picking my 6 year old up from school, and there was a slight disagreement over who sat where, which escalated very quickly to my six year old hopping around and screaming at the top of his lungs. Literally bouncing around on his two feet if you can picture that.

This quickly escalated further to him jumping into the car and throwing the booster seat out of the car and into the parking lot. I’m sure the whole thing would have been pretty funny if it hadn’t been my child doing the screaming. Sigh.

Luckily, half of me was still feeling pretty calm at this point (I had actually just finished reading an Ensign article about loving and nurturing your kids), so even though half of me wanted to spank the naughtiness out of him, I took him out of the car and said in a very quiet voice “I can see we’re both too upset to discuss this right now. We will talk more about this when we get home and have calmed down.” (That line came from a love and logic class I took during college. It’s amazing what jumps to mind sometimes).

Unfortunately, we didn’t go right home. Because even though there was a little voice yelling in my head “Your child cannot mentally deal with the library today!!!” the other voice in my head said “It’s Wednesday, library day. Time for story time.” and so we went to the library.

The library started off rocky. And then it seemed to calm down. We found some fun books (actually quite a hilarious one about a princess and dragon who decide to switch places and everyone lives happily ever after….) and the library lady read Guess How Much I Love You, a sweet little story for mother’s day. But then…oh then…it was coloring time. And I’m not sure what happened, but suddenly my 6 year old angrily shoved his brother and raced out of the room.

I’m sure you can imagine what happened from there. And if you can’t…well, it involved a lot of kicking and screaming, and me carrying a large sack of books and an 18 month old in one arm while chasing and wrestling a 6 year old with my other. We made it through the check out line (because, dang it, I wasn’t going to leave those books behind), and past glares of some parents and the library security guard (who had just recently informed us of our various infractions of library rules on a previous visit) and past the turned heads of friends who couldn’t bear to look us in the eyes (which almost hurt more because it’s like they were ashamed of us;  an understanding smile saying “oh yeah, I remember those days” would have buoyed me up so much), we loudly got in the car where he screamed the whole way home.

I think it’s going to be awhile before I can go back to the library again.

Anyway. We had lunch. We told jokes. We calmed down. And then when the other three kids were off playing we talked. About how rude and inappropriate and…and…and (fill in the blank here) his behavior was. But I didn’t yell, which helped me feel better about life (really trying hard to be an example and not losing my temper). He served a very long timeout, and then life went very smoothly after that.

Until dish time. Because wouldn’t you know it, it was his night on dish duty with me. And he reeeeeaaaaaaalllllllllly didn’t want to help. And he let me know it. And at that point, I didn’t want to be in the kitchen with him either (I was sick and tired of the whole day and didn’t even want to be doing dishes, let alone with a cranky 6 year old). But I also knew that work is good for the soul, and I needed to have him in that kitchen with me.

It took some doing (again I’ll let your imagination fill in the blanks) and finally we were working on dishes. At one point his whole little body relaxed and suddenly his whole day poured out and I heard about the kid that yelled at him and stole his job as the line leader and how another kid hit him in the face at recess (on accident I believe). Oh man, I’m glad I didn’t add to the rotten list by yelling at him.

Every day is different, and I don’t always handle those situations like that. Usually there’s more screaming and yelling on my part. But at that moment, doing dishes and listening to my 6 year old I felt strangely at peace. I guess the bitter day really brought out the sweetness of that moment.

Today for lunch I wanted a Cafe Rio salad, but I didn’t really want to drive clear over there with all my kids and such, so I made my own. As I was doing this I realized that really I didn’t care about the tortilla or beans or rice and such; really I just wanted a nice salad with a lot of guacamole, salsa, and those yummy tortilla strips.

I sliced up some corn tortillas we had lying around and toasted them, and then sliced into a beautiful looking avocado.  Zach and Andi lined up, palms out, begging for some sliced avocado. Katie, always the little copycat of her older siblings, lined up too and got her own little taste of avocado. She quickly spit it out with a look of disgust.

After sharing half the avocado I, mashed the rest up with a little salt and garlic powder and put it on my salad. Zach snuck a taste and discovered that he did really like it (previous he thought that it somehow became really, really gross and spicy once it was mashed up). I gave him some tortilla strips and he happily munched them with the remaining guacamole.

Josh came along; recently he’s become a very picky eater, refusing to eat almost everything. The tortilla strips looked interesting though, so he carefully picked it up and sniffed it, and then very carefully (head tilted to the side to get the best vantage point) took the tiniest lick. It must have passed some sort of test because he decided it was a worthy food for his mouth. So much so that soon he was sitting on the table (ahem. I mean sitting politely by my side) snitching tortilla strips and chicken (that were covered in guacamole which is something he had hitherto diligently avoided) as quick as he could. Katie soon joined him, and they both quickly devoured my salad.

Darn. I was hoping that was something they wouldn’t realize its tastiness until they were much, much older….

Zach started kindergarten, we stuck him in a charter school (smaller class sizes and all that sort of thing). The only problem is that it’s a bit of a drive, and so we were looking around at some closer options. It was something that I thought about a lot actually.

Last week a friend told me about a charter school that was in my neighborhood! I looked it up and it looked promising, and lucky us, there was a parent information meeting the very next day! I felt like the stars were aligning and my prayers were being answered.

The more I looked at the school the more excited I became. This school was part of a larger branch that had created 20 successful charter schools across the nation. Usually this school had a waiting list of 900, but since this one was just opening up, we had a much better chance. They were structured and very strong in mathematics and reading and writing. I started hyperventilating with hope that my kids could get into such a great looking school.  So what that they required official uniforms with logos. That’s character building, right? So what that it was Monday through Friday instead of our wonderful Tuesday through Friday. Driving time was only 3 minutes! Hooray!

So Chris and I dropped everything and got to that parent meeting. We listened to an energetic and enthusiastic principal. He told us great things about the school! But the more I heard, the louder the voice in my head screamed the wonderful things about our current school. By the end I was thoroughly convinced. The school we were looking at was a very, very good school. But we already had a great school, the perfect school for us. I felt very grateful for the the opportunity to peek into another school, and see all the wonderful things that Zach’s school offers.

Routines are wonderful things. They give you something to look forward to and give you one less decision to make. Like Taco Tuesdays. I already know what I’m making for dinner, assuming that I had my act together and got the tortillas made. Usually I make our tortillas because I have so much spare time on my hands…oh wait. not really. But we do like them, and my kids eat them better. And some days it’s fun having my kids sit up to the table while I roll them out and they cut out special shapes with the cookie cutters.

When the tortillas are all rolled and cooked we put a little butter and sugar on them, roll them up, and cuddle on the couch reading stories. I told you we’re a book loving family. Poor Chris, he’s usually at work for the festivities.

Lately I’ve started using a different recipe that calls for olive oil instead of shortening, and I feel so much cooler and healthier. But I’m still working on perfecting those ones. The dough is a little more…delicate? Well, finicky for sure. It needs a little extra loving to get it rolled out just right. But they do taste better, or at least they seem to disappear faster…

Anyway, after Taco Tuesday we have our Waffle Wednesday. On good days I actually get them made for breakfast before getting Zach off to school at 7:15 in the morning. Ugh. More often we have them for lunch when he gets home. Or on really bad days we just have them for dinner, because sometimes you just need to have waffles for dinner (oh! did I tell you about the time we had a waffle party? Very fun!)

Wednesday is also library day. We pick Zach up from school and mosey on over to our library for story time. We have a fantastic story lady! After some songs and stories and crafts we fill our library bag with a load of books and head home, and sometimes -if they’ve been really extra super good (or I know there’s nothing in my fridge at home) – we stop and get pizza. It’s a fun treat once in a while because then lunch and clean up are a breeze and leave us with extra time for a huge mom-kid-cuddle on the couch with a mountain of books.

Today was one of those lucky pizza days, even though when I looked back over my shoulder I realized that Zach was no longer on his chair, but under his chair, pretending to be a snake slithering under the chairs of several nice and unsuspecting ladies. I just knew that at any moment he was going to grab someones ankles and yell “Surprise!” (I did that to my grandma once. Boy was she surprised and boy was I in trouble…)

Yes, we stopped for pizza, not because my kids were extra nice, but because life is short and I don’t have many library/pizza days left. Routines are great, but as we grow they, of necessity, change and adapt to our lives. Next month school will be out! Next year Zach will be in school full day. Next year we might be attending a different school that’s not right next to a library and pizza store. Next year/next month/next week…who knows! Gotta love these sweet moments right now.

Lots of little things have been flowing through my mind; lots of little sweet moments that make me feel overwhelmed with blessings, like Katie growing and being so big and running up and giving me a big hug from behind and yelling “pize!” (surprise), or watching her stomp around in her big sister’s shoes puffed up with her own bigness. More sweet moments include seeing Zach grow taller an more independent. He loves making his own toast in the morning (which means I need to keep those homemade laves sliced so he isn’t tempted to wield his growing independence with sharper tools).

The other night, while Chris was out with Bishopric stuff, I had all my kids lined up helping me with dishes. For some of you amazing moms that probably happens ever night. But it was a first for me to have all four up and helping and what’s more we were all having a great time together! (Equally cute, but as yet uncaptured by camera is seeing all my kids lined up and reading together, sharing books or sometimes each with their own. Even Katie loves looking at books and carefully turning the pages. We are a book loving family!)

Of course with our up days we have some down days, you know those wicked trials that make us stronger. I was recently outvoted in the peanut butter category. I’m an extra crunchy lover. It’s the only kind I’ve ever bought. But recently my kids pulled a coup. They started complaining and refusing to eat their pbj sandwiches! What kid doesn’t like pbj? What else can I fix for lunch in a blink of an eye? But it turned out that pbjs were fine…they just liked it better without all those funny bumps. So I started painstakingly removing all those little nuts for my little nuts. Oh wait. I’m not that nutty! I broke down and bought smooth peanut butter and life is getting better and easier in the lunch category (although their favorite way to eat it is on a spoon with plain jam bread on the side).

We’ve also undertaken the potty training battle. Sigh. Josh turned 3 last March so I’ve really put it off as long as I could. Diapers are pricey, but are a cheap price for sanity and clean carpet (anyone who tells you they potty trained their child in one day is lying, or conveniently forgetting to mention the part about reinforcing for months after the one day wonder. That part where you ask every half hour if they need to go, or eying the nearest bathroom every time you enter a store…sure you trained your kid in one day….but helping your kid keep his pants dry seems to last eternally)

But I’m happy to say that two days into the process we’ve had more successes than accidents…let’s not talk about day one… but day two is going well. He’s showing he understands what’s going on. Thank goodness for starburst rewards. They definitely work better than the m&m rewards I had for the older two.

Anyway, life is good! and I hope you’re all having a wonderful day whatever the circumstances you may be going through.

Taking my four kids grocery shopping (or anywhere for that matter) seems to give complete strangers the permission to assail me with unsolicited advice and borderline rude comments like: “Tell your husband to leave you alone!” or “Whoa! You have your hands full” (said with a look that says “You’re completely insane to have four kids so close in age” (they’re all about 18-20ish months apart)). My sister who has five kids and lives in CA usually gets asked “Birthday party?” although once at COSTCO a gentleman behind her informed her that he had 800 “big ones” in the bank, and that he attributed it to his choice of having NO children.

I’ve heard some pretty rude or caustic remarks, but recently, these I’ve also received some of the nicest comments. I was at a park, and another mother turned to me and stated, “I always felt that four would be too crazy, but you seem to genuinely enjoy it!” Well thank you! I do!

Another day we were leaving Sam’s Club with a full grocery cart and the gentleman at the door checking receipts looked at us and stated in an honest voice “You look like you could use a couple more [kids] and another grocery cart!” I’m glad my kids and I don’t always come across as out of control chaos. Thank you to those strangers who respected me as a mother.

I have to admit that this year I was feeling a little bah-humbugish about Easter. Not the religious side. I get goosebumps every time I read the scripture “Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen”

No no, my quarrel is with the Easter bunny, because what the heck does that have to do with Easter anyway? (And why is it that the people that scream “Keep Christ in Christmas!” or “Remember the reason for the season!” seem to be the most keen to do everything fun from Easter bunny baskets to egg hunts? I guess they haven’t found any inspirational rhymes yet….).

I won’t bore you, or drag you down with all my evil thoughts on the subject. But, looking back, my biggest frustration was just finding a better balance between the fun and the spiritual. At one point I figured since we’d colored Easter eggs in Provo and the kids had Easter baskets from their grandma, I didn’t need to do any Easter bunny stuff (in fact, my kids thought that Easter had already come and gone, as they told the lady at the grocery store who asked if they were ready for Easter).

Luckily, I was inspired and realized I was being a little too cranky on the subject. I realized that along with celebrating the religious side of this holiday, creating happy memories with my kids was also important (Thank goodness for nice Mormon Mommy blogs that helped me realize this. I particularly liked this one. I love how she displays the biblical events of the week leading up to Easter. What a great way to “remember the reason for the season”).

I decided that making Easter baskets for the kids, and creating a trail of string to each basket would actually be a lot of fun, a fun memory that they might get all nostalgic about when they get older and have their own kids…But I felt strongly that that fun Easter activity should happen Saturday morning (leaving Sunday clear for more Christ centered activities). Unfortunately this change of heart didn’t happen until Friday night, and I really didn’t have the energy to brave the stores to battle over the last bags of Easter candy…So we broke out the Easter supplies from last year (baskets, eggs, plastic grass) and filled them with things from our cupboards: goldfish crackers, cheerios, croutons, craisins, granola bars, and three bags of mini chocolate eggs I’d gotten earlier in the month (before my cranky heart intervened) when I planned to make these fun treats with my kids. We threw in a couple eggs of quarters for Zach and Andi (They were quite excited about those eggs!).

The next morning my kids were delighted to follow the maze of yarn, and as a bonus, I didn’t mind them eating everything in their basket (besides the quarters) before breakfast and we had no sugar buzz to deal with. Hooray!! (but next year I will plan ahead and get a few more treats and toys to fill their baskets).

Later we went to our ward’s Spring Fling (a BBQ and YW bake sale auction to raise money for girl’s camp). They had an Easter egg hunt (before my change of heart, one of my less favorite activities to do in a big group setting. It always seems to turn into a big race of how-many-can-I-get-in-my-bag-forget-about-everyone-else….How Christlike is that?) Andrea ended up with a grand total of one egg. And then, without any adult prompting, other kids came and shared their eggs with her. Because they had a lot, and they could see that she didn’t have many. How Christlike is that? My heart has melted more, and I actually get tears when I think of the childlike sweetness, and how wrong I was to be disgusted with these fun activities.

I’m so grateful for my Savior’s atonement, which allows me to repent and become better. Easter Sunday was a beautiful day.

“Of Him the Prophet also declared: “And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives!” (from “The Living Christ: the testimony of the apostles”). I sincerely hope you all had a wonderful Easter day!

PS: Eight years ago the most wonderful man in the world proposed to me on Easter Sunday with a picnic, part of which he had made chicken cordon bleu. So today, to follow that happy memory, we had chicken cordon bleu for dinner, and had a nice older lady from the ward over to share it with us.

Spring Break this year coincided with Conference weekend, and so we packed up our bags and headed north to Provo. Construction was a little thicker than last time, and so I missed our exit, but it turned out just fine because we got to drive up Center St. and look at all the “popcorn” trees! Wow! Spring is here and it is beautiful!

Upon unloading, Jenny volunteered to babysit our kids so Chris and I could sneek off for a date; we went rock climbing at the Quarry for two hours. After sitting in our car for 6 hours, it felt amazing! It was also nice to see I was stronger than last time I went. I guess carrying my kids around really is a good workout.

That was the first night; now that we’ve been here four days we’ve done fun things like easter egg hunts and dying easter eggs (and my inlaws got really crafty with glue and glitter. They were gorgeous!). We walked to the park and threw rocks in the river. The weather has just been perfect! Yesterday Grandma Williams took Zach, Andi, and Josh to feed the ducks. They came back quacking (apparentely Grandma Williams turned them into ducks named Sonny, Penny, and Happy) and bursting with happy energy. I love seeing my kids have so much fun with their grandma!

We’ve also done quite a bit of melty bead (you know, the ones you iron) and coloring. These were nice quiet activities for while we listened to conference. And wasn’t Conference just wonderful? I really, really enjoyed the messages from our prophets and apostles.

We’ve had a great time! Thanks to all our family for having us!