Picture Book

Emily at a rest stop in Arkansas.

My sister-in-law and her mother working with a long-arm quilter. They let everyone try a block!

The block I did. Don't look too closely at the dark colors!

Charlotte and my brother-in-law's dog. This picture does not do justice to how big he is, especially compared to Charlotte.

My bro being Emily and Nathalie's "green dragon". What a good-natured uncle!

My grandma holding Charlotte.

Granny and Charlotte.

The Nan.

My girlies and my cousin's daughter having a playdate.

My grandma with all her great-grandchildren. It is fitting that my grandmother, who had 4 daughters, would have only great-granddaughters.

Me and the bebe.

The bebe who adored the dishwasher! If we had one of these at home, it'd provide hours of entertainment!

The birthday boy.

Granny and Nan.

Evening walks. My man is such a stud.

Crazy times.

My bro. The tallest one in the family besides my dad. That includes Matt and my brother-in-law.

Playing telephone...see next picture.

Cute bee.

March in Arizona. The water in the pool was freeeeeezing. I stayed in the hot tub.

Future swimsuit model? I hope not.

Hard to walk when your face is coverd by a towel.

Studly. I told you I'd put this picture up Bud!

Emily wrote this note all by herself. Do you understand it? "Emily loves Granny. Nathalie dus too. Mommy dus too. Daddy dus too. Charlotte dus too." She still doesn't believe us that it is spelled "does"!

Good byes.

Love this pic.

4500 Miles, or There and Back Again

A few weeks ago we returned from our trek West. Well, to the West and back, that is. We went out to visit my parentals in AZ and my brother-in-law and fam in El Paso. We drove.

I'm not gonna lie. Sometimes it was not fun. Like when Matt had 9 hours of sleep over 2 days and I had 10. He couldn't drive anymore and I was exhausted. But we had 3 more hours to go. So I drove it and prayed. Praying worked. Or when the girls started crying at 1 pm on the second 12-hour day, asking when we were going to arrive at the campsite. And we told them 8 more hours. Or that same day when Charlotte cried for the last 2 hours of the drive and I had to rub her arm from my seat in the front, resulting in a very numb arm by the time we reached St. Louis.

But there were also great moments. I gained 4 more states- Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma. I loved seeing the wide open spaces of Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle. The beautiful rolling hills of Arkansas and Missouri. The broad expanse of central Texas. The fact that we started each day with our princess song cd, followed by the Tangled soundtrack. Or when we played kickball at the rest stops while we made our lunches. Or how the girls ADORED sleeping in the KOA cabins and thought we were the best parents in the whole world. As Nathalie said the first morning she woke up in a cabin, "Mom, this is fantastic! This is SO great! I love this cabin!" Matt and I played some vicious alphabet games which he always won, even when he was driving! And we all loved our detour to the Louisville, KY temple so that we could show the girls where their Mommy and Daddy were sealed together forever. We had some great moments.

I did have to share this hilarious car. We saw it at a rest stop in Tennessee. It left the stop before us. A few hours later near Texarkana, it pulls up about 30 minutes after we do. I love that the stuff is piled so high it effectively doubles the height of the car.

More pictures to come of a beautiful two weeks.

As a side note, when we bought our van it had 49k miles. We put 500 miles on between Dec 2010 and March 2011. Between March 2011 and the end of our trip in March 2012 we put 19,500 miles on our van. That's right. 20,000 miles in ONE year. And it's not a commuter vehicle. And we walk a lot of places. YIKES.

Life With Three Girls

Let me explain to you a little bit about life with three girls. First off, if you have three daughters, then everything revolves around princesses. Nathalie's dresses have princess names-- her Aurora dress, her Tiana dress, her Rapunzel dress, etc. We go around singing princess music all the time. I am constantly categorized as a wonderful queen or Mother Gothel (depending on if they love me at the moment). Daddy is the king, Emily is the oldest, Charlotte is the youngest and Nathalie is the mediumest. At least according to Emily.

And the drama. Oh, the drama! Stealing hairbrushes, wearing each other's clothes, playing with each other's dolls. It starts young, let me tell you. And if it's any inkling on what I'll be dealing with when they're teenagers, I'm pretty much doomed. On the other hand they play "babyhouse" magnificently (One is the mommy, one is the baby). They like to tote Charlotte around like an accessory. And babies, babies. My girls love babies. Emily wants four, she tells me. Two girls and two boys. Nathalie smiles at every baby and exclaims, "Mommy, it's a baby!" as if babies were something she didn't experience every day.

I also have great helpers. They know how to help me cook, fold and put away their own laundry (Nan is still working on the folding). They can sweep, clean, organize. They know how to brush their hair and LOVE to brush mine. They go to the bathroom together (and it starts!). They are best friends, 50%. The other 50%? Frenemies.

Truthfully, I adore having three girls. I love, love, love it. It is SO fun to read things like Fancy Nancy and princess books. I love painting their toenails, dressing them in matching outfits (poor Charlotte, who will have to wear this outfit every other year until she's 5), putting bows in their hair and choosing beautiful clothing.

Sometimes this motherhood thing rocks.

Hello, it's Mr. Nasty

My mom told me this story once of a mom who, after 8:30, would tell her children, “I’m not your mommy anymore. My name is Jazelle.” After 8:30, she was done with her children.

While I think it’s funny, it’s very true in my life. I have “trigger” moments—times when I transform, to quote Tom Hanks, and say, “Hello, it’s Mr. Nasty.”

Some of my trigger points are easily identified. Lack of sleep. Gray skies. Messy downstairs. No adult conversation. Some of my triggers are harder to identify. Like when Nathalie won’t listen, over and over and OVER AND OVER AGAIN. That really gets me. Or when it’s bedtime and I don’t want to be needed anymore but I still have to brush their teeth, read books and scriptures, recite a scripture or Article of Faith and say prayers and gosh dang it if I have to answer one more question or pretend to be happy to be reading the same book for the 50th day in a row I mightjustloseitandthrowthebookdownthetoilet.

Or when Nathalie gets out of bed a million kajillion times. Or when Emily pours salt on the stairs (why? why?) or when Nathalie plays with my makeup again so that I’m down to three eye cream colors and that’s it. Or when Charlotte cries every time I put her in her crib because she just wants me to hold her.

I know that compared to many other parents, I’m doing pretty well. I don’t spank too often, I don’t demean or make statements about my children (like “you are so dumb!” as opposed to “that was a really bad choice”) and I tell them I love them and give them lots of affection. On the other hand, I know many wonderful and great mothers who don’t raise their voice frequently, who are willing to put down the laundry and dishes to be with their child, who seem to make it through bedtime without the herculean effort I make.

I aspire to be like those women. I yell way too much. Ironically, they would probably listen to me more if I yelled less. I spend too much time cleaning and not enough time playing. I really should be working with Nathalie to become more independent but it is so much easier just to dress her. I should be (and am, for once in my life) going to bed at decent times even though it means that I literally give up any time I have for me. But at least I’m not Mommy Monster.

Without a doubt, motherhood has been the absolute hardest and most humbling thing I’ve ever done.

What are your trigger points? How do you cope with the neediness of every day? How do you balance “you” time, house cleaning/daily tasks and spending quality time with your kids?

11 Down, 1 to Go

We just got back from a trek across the country. 2 days after our return, Charlotte turned 11 months! What a quick 11 months. I can hardly believe she is this big.

Charlotte is such a joy. She is the "prize-to-be-won" of her sisters. Everyone loves her. She is adored all around. She smiles and laughs a lot. She loves to cuddle (and be cuddled), to give kisses and loves to be around us. She can say "mama" and "na!" which means no. She shrieks for attention a lot and her favorite word is "digglebut". At least, that's what it sounds like. When surrounded by people she loves, Charlotte talks constantly.

She's beautiful too. It looks like she's going to have curly hair like Emily. With her huge dark eyes and her dark, thick curly hair, a button nose and long, long lashes, she is quite the looker. I've already had to fend off the boys. Okay, the girls too. Mostly grandparent-aged people.

She's a petite little thing. She probably weighs around 20 lbs. She still wears 6-9 month clothing. She's getting better at sleeping through the night. At least, she was before our trip. We kind of have to start all over. Charlotte is still my special girl. She wants to sleep next to me, to cuddle with me. She still prefers nursing over bottles and I don't think she'll want to wean when she's a year. She'd rather have me than anyone or anything.

We sure are lucky to have this princess in our lives.

Milestones

We've had some big milestones for our family lately.

Emily has graduated from non-reader status and is now a pseudo-reader. She can read a lot of words and simple books but won't do it by herself. She still will only do it if we're next to her. She is learning that she can sound out long words, but in the meantime she can read about 5 of our easy read books all the way through and sound them out herself. Reading is so fun!

Charlotte is walking now! She learned to walk at about 10 months and just about 10 days ago really took off. She hasn't crawled in a few days.

And last but not least, Matt had his birthday! The only man of our house is now 28!

Is it just me or is time moving faster every day?

A good place

We were at Kroger the other day and Nathalie was opposite my checkout lane. She was looking at the Barbies. I was watching her while I was checking out. She would take out the Barbies and lay them on the floor to compare them side by side. Periodically she would come over to me and I told her to put her Barbies back on the shelf.

I was almost done checking out and had just told Nathalie to put the Barbies back for the last time. She was .... reluctant, so she was kind of slouching back to the Barbies.

The man behind me was probably late 30s, bald, big mustache and tattoos all up and down his arms.He had been watching us the last few minutes and offered to help Nathalie put the Barbies back. So he helped her put them back and walked her back to me. He also brought a Barbie package with three Princess Ballerinas in them. I told Nan that I wasn't going to buy the Barbies for her and he said, "No, I'm buying them for her!"

I protested and protested. He finally said, "The good Lord put it in my heart and so I've got to do it."

So he did. He bought Nathalie the Barbies simply out of the goodness of his heart.