Last Sunday Thoughts

Today was my last day co-teaching our crazy Sunbeam class.
Just because, Bronwyn gave her first talk today in Primary.
She was loud, and I had to keep reminding her to be a little quieter while she spoke, otherwise
people's ears would hurt.
She did great overall though! :)

This will be the last Sunday, hopefully, where I sit and decompress
 for at least a good hour after church,
so that I can go down and face little children again.
I think in my next ward, I will ask not to teach a class I have a kid in.
It's one thing to have my own kids every day, all day long.
And then to go to church on Sunday and deal with my child plus 5+ more of other people's
children of the same young age.
It was challenging, and became much more fun when I got a great co-teacher.

Anyhow, my kids are sad to be moving.
Surprisingly, people in this ward know who we are
and feel sad we're moving. 
It took a while, but we finally got there.
Go us! :)

It's nice to feel that you'll be missed.

On Moving....

Moving next Thursday.

 I hate packing. 

Trying to do it while pregnant (please read this as hormonal),

 with 3 young kids to run here and there and by myself this week has helped me to hit the wall. This is not something I enjoy. 

In fact, I may hate it as much as going to the dentist to have cavities filled. 

It's kind of been a perfect storm though as well. 

Moving alone is not causing me to stress to my max. Nope. 

It's all the interruptions my day has and trying to balance trying to keep doing it all. 

It's the 17 month old who gets into everything and drags it out of the boxes that are nearly filled but not quite enough to tape shut yet. 

It's the 3.5 year old who keeps messing up the few toys I've left out and drags them all over my being packed/messy front room. 

It's trying to keep it all together, when I'm the only one doing so.

It's trying to keep it all together, when inside I'm falling apart from trying to keep it all together. Have I mentioned how much I hate moving? 

I need a moving buddy. 

Someone to hold my hand, hold the kids off, hold the boxes and the tape and the permanent marker, and tell me we got this. 

That we're almost done. 

That there are only a few boxes more, so let's push through together. 

All is not lost, all is just stressed.

I'll keep holding on if you will.

This too shall pass. ;)

And just because, here's a song about moving on that I love.

Sunday Best

Today I talked Aftyn and Bronwyn into bearing their testimonies at church. In sacrament meeting!

I asked them while we were sitting in our seats what they wanted to say. They both gave me an idea and with lots of reassurance that I would be right there to help them, we walked up to the pulpit after the current bearer spoke and Aftyn took a breath and with some hints from me and a couple reminders of what she told me she wanted to say, she finished.

It was so sweet and touching! The things she bore testimony of, that Jesus was real, that He loved her and she loved him, were so amazing to my heart because she said it all so sincerely and with a serious tone to her voice.

Bronwyn got up and was so sweet, and as Bronwyn-nie as possible, bore her testimony and said that she loved Jesus and she loved mommy. With a big proud grin on her face.

I sure love my girls. I'm grateful for their sweet spirits and testimonies. It's amazing to see how big their testimonies are at 3 and 5, almost 4 and 6. I am impressed and maybe only a little worried that I am doing my best job with them, as most mothers do worry.

And lest you think my children are perfect, they both struggled for the rest of the day with listening, being kind, and not hitting or being mean to each other. And that's a normal day around here. Because after all, they are 3 and 5, almost 4 and 6. ;)  But the one perfect moment of the day was a good thing to hold onto.

Glutened

Ever heard the term "glutened"? 

Maybe if you are a member of the elite group I belong to, the gluten sensitive club.

All last night and even up until 30 minutes ago, my stomach was killing me.

It only occurred to me while speaking to my husband on the phone that this feeling

was oddly familiar. And then I remembered.

When I first began having signs of gluten sensitivity, the lining of my stomach would

become exacerbated by gluten, feeling like the top of my stomach was on FIRE.

Not to be confused with the feeling of heartburn.

Oh no. No. This feeling is all around the top of your stomach. It burns, it aches,

it really, really hurts. Generally, it feels like you want to curl into a ball on the couch

and stay there until the horrible feeling goes away.

Yeah, thankfully I haven't felt this feeling in about 6 months or so I'd say. Maybe longer.

What's the best way to deal with it, you might ask?

My solution is: do not eat. Drink lots of water but do not add to the fire in your stomach.

Your stomach needs to reset itself and the best way to do that is with nothing added.

You're welcome.

Sleeplessness

Okay, well, it happened again so I figure I may as well document it.

When I am pregnant, and awoken in the night by something, I cannot go back to sleep.

It is horrible. It happened last night again.

I was awoken from a deep sleep around 3 am, and couldn't go back to sleep until nearly 6.

My mind was spinning with all the things I needed to do for my day, baby names,

needing to pack, anything and everything was open for conversation in my poor, overly

tired brain.  Finally, just when I was giving up on the very idea of sleep, I started to

get groggy. What the heck?!?!

I need some tips. How do I help this to stop??  It tends to get better near the end of

pregnancy when I'm so tired that I can easily slip back into sleep, but it's not usually

so bad at this point. Perhaps I should just be patient and wait it out because my tired phase will

be here in about 12 weeks and that isn't all that far off. I don't have this insomnia that often,

only about once every 2-3 weeks probably.  Anyhow, I guess I needed to document this and

also ask for any tips that anyone might have. Thanks!

The Curse/Blessing of Adding To Your Family

I have experienced an amazing phenomenon 

almost every time we even think about adding 

another child to our family. 

Care to hear?

I call it the "what are you thinking" phenomenon.  

1.The thought to have another child enters your mind.

2. As you are still contemplating this thought and probably leaning toward the affirmative,
   the children you are currently parenting suddenly go into "horrible child mode".

3. You think, "what are we thinking?", along with "Heavenly Father knows what He's doing,
   this is just a bad day. Every day will not always be this bad. Have faith."

4. You get pregnant. Things seem to be okay, children AREN'T acting in every horrible way
   possible, so you decide it was just a fluke.

5. There will be several days throughout  your pregnancy that at least one of your children acts
   in a way that seems very unlike them. Or one of your children suddenly hits a VERY difficult
   patch in their development. Don't worry, this is just your proving ground. Proving to yourself
   that you can handle difficult situations even while juggling being pregnant and parenting
   other children.

6. You give birth! You learn that all that horribleness while pregnant was just to prepare you for
   the challenges of adding a whole new person for you to care for while caring for the other littles
    in your charge.  Welcome to juggling life while having little time for yourself.

Repeat every single time you think to add to your family. I'd say that's about right.  ;)

Today was one of those days. 

Sigh. 

Mirren and Bronwyn were tag-teaming it today. 

What were we thinking? 

Things That Need To Be Recorded

Mirren finally started walking FULL TIME this weekend! Woohoo!! She is so happy and excited to finally have the confidence to be doing this. I feel like I'm seeing the happy little girl I've been missing since she started teething 4 months ago. Although, she is also getting all her molars in right now so I'm not sure how that whole happiness thing is suddenly working again. I guess she is just really excited to be a big walking girl!

We're finding out in 2.5 weeks what we're having, so now is the time to get your guesses in! Boy or girl??  Your vote is wanted!

We are also moving in 4.5 weeks. This past weekend I officially boxed up some more things. Yuck. :P

We're having our own ham this Easter weekend here at home! I'm so excited because I've never made my own Easter dinner, so this will be a first and you all know how much I love doing (most) of my own firsts. I want it to be fairly healthy-ish, so I've got to figure out what to do besides a salad. Maybe some smashed cheesy cauliflower instead of mashed potatoes? We shall see.

The weather here in Idaho Falls is beautiful lately, except for the random windy day on Saturday. Beautiful mild temperatures. I think we could actually call it Spring!! :)

I may add more as I think of it, but this feels like all I've got right now. Have a happy week!!