The Silver Lining

Last post was "golden moments" and this one is about silver linings. I sense a theme coming on. I'm simply trying to accentuate the positive. The positive here is that my kids are dang cute!. I don't know why I haven't posted these pictures before. My awesome niece Zadi got a fancy camera for Christmas and tried it out on our kids when we were down in St. George. Didn't she do a great job? I wanted to make sure I posted these here so that one day when I get around to making blog books, these pictures will be in it!

Golden Moments

You know the funny thing about me working? I think I'm actually a better mom more of the time now! I'm more conscious of what I'm doing with my kids when we're together and I'm trying harder not to lose my temper so often. Although that doesn't always work out. In fact the other day I had my first, "Stop yelling at each other or I'll stop this van right now!!!!" moment. It was monumental, but I'm glad I don't have anything to really document it. It was ugly. I also feel like I'm running around lots more, and I'm not a huge fan of it. I'm already wondering how all the moms out there with multiple older kids, and all their schedules do it. ??? Props to you guys. I cherish our time at home together more, and now when we have a "boring" day where we don't leave the house all day, I just revel in it, which didn't always used to be the case. I guess all of this rambling to say, I think my kids are cute. :) I'm glad they're mine and that when I've had a hard day, I can sneak into their rooms at night to make sure they're warm enough and watch them sleep for a minute or two. It always calms me right down and makes me exceptionally grateful.

Gwen's obsessed with babies. She's always carting them around, putting them in their crib and piling every single blanket on top of them. If you look closely you can see her purse. Another favorite accessory.



The other day I had a golden moment with Gwen. She woke up from nap time just beaming. Miles wasn't awake yet and I was trying to watch a show of mine, so I convinced her to snuggle up to me so I could finish watching it. Her cheeks were so round and rosy and warm. We just cuddled and tickled for a good 20 minutes. It was awesome. Why don't I let myself have moments like that more often?

The other morning, Gwen found her sunglasses and insisted on eating her cream of wheat and toast with them on. Miles wanted in on the camera action and knew just how to do it. Lots of kissing and hugging between siblings is a favorite of mine. The other day I was rounding up the kids from their classes and when Miles and Gwen saw each other the hugged and kissed (with no prompting from me, mind you) and Miles gave her lots and lots of compliments about her artwork from the day. Pay day!



Cousins Ethan and Caleb came over the the other day for some music time and it's fun watching them really start to play with each other. Gwen and Ethan hopped into her baby's crib and laughed and talked for a good 10 minutes. Miles got in on the action and pulled his first ever funny face! Gwen and Miles practically mauled baby Caleb with loves,kisses, piling blankets on him and holding him on their laps. Can you blame them? Look at that cutie!



So amid those times when I'm rolling my eyes and trying so hard not to totally lose it, there are those really special moments. Tonight while getting the kids ready for bed, they were really grumpy because of a lack of nap. When that happens, there is no rational reasoning, there is only sobbing, back-arching, and whining. It causes my angry level to escalate really fast, and pretty soon I was getting up in Miles' face, being a nasty mom. Throwing his pajamas back at him because he wouldn't choose, but didn't like anything I chose. Forcing the toothbrush in his mouth because he refused to brush his teeth, and dragging him into his room, literally. Ugliness. But after we had all calmed down a little, dad put Gwen in bed, and I had time to apologize to Miles for my meanness. He begged me to cuddle with him in his bed, which doesn't happen very often. Although I wanted to come back to the computer to blog and eat some chocolate chips, I grudgingly obliged, because truth be told, my blood was still boiling a little bit. However I'm so glad I did because I had another golden moment! He wrapped his arms around my neck and that perfect, smooth cheek of his fit right on the bridge of my nose. We gave each other butterfly kisses and eskimo kisses, and I thought of how quickly he won't want to do this with me anymore, and we snuggled for one more minute.

Balentimes

Miles was so sad when Christmas was over that I had to tell him we were taking down the Christmas decorations so that we could get ready for his birthday. When his birthday was finished, he was extremely bummed that we had to take down those few decorations, so I convinced him to let me take them down as long as we decorated for Valentine's day. I sense a pattern here...
I have about 2 Valentine's decorations, but we put them out and got feeling festive. Miles and Gwen are at really fun ages. They really got into making "balentimes" for our friends and family and made about a million of them. I loved cutting out heart after heart and letting them decorate as much as they wanted. I remember my mom helping me make Valentine's for school every year and it brought back good memories. I always had the best homemade Valentine's to hand out and the most awesome card holder!! I also remember my mom helping me host at least one cookie decorating party for Valentine's day when I was about 9. So it never seems quite like Valentine's day without decorating sugar cookies.
We invited our friends over from a monthly play group to come over and get on a sugar high, make creative messes, decorate sugar cookies. The cookies were upstaged, however, when the garbage man came and captivated all 6 kids.



Miles helped me decorate the rest later on in the day to deliver to friends. :)


Every Valentine's Day we have our family fancy dinner. Basically we just eat something out of the ordinary and light candles at the table. It's always a hit. But to up the "wow" factor this year, we did a little chocolate fondue! I offered fruit and pretzels, but all they wanted was to dip marshmallows, go figure!

Richie got me a pedicure and as tradition calls for, I cleaned his car and left a little present inside. I sure love this small, but significant holiday.

Miles turns 4!

We have a 4 year old. Officially. He got to celebrate his birthday all week long! The Friday before my parents were in town and took us out for pizza, on Sunday they sang to him in primary and the bishop gave him a treat, on Monday we took cupcakes to Joy school and they gave him a present, on Tuesday we took cookies to pre-school and he got to wear the birthday crown all day (super big deal), Wednesday was his actual birthday so he chose pancakes for breakfast and we went to arctic circle after dinner for ice cream and playing. Whew! By Thursday we needed a break from all the partying! We had his actual party on Friday with some of the Garner fam.
Miles requested a Mickey Mouse cake, and balloons. I'm so glad he's still easy to please! I'm also glad that he gets to share his birthday with 2 awesome uncles, uncle Ben and uncle Jeffrey. Jeffrey was ok sharing his birthday party with Miles, so Miles thought he was pretty special. We played pin the Mickey ears on Miles and ate homemade cafe rio. Everyone was super generous with presents and Miles has loved playing with them all!! We decided since we didn't really do a lot of games, we thought we'd turn opening presents into a game. So I made a giant "Toodles" out of cardboard and Miles had 4 mousketools to choose from to help open the 4 presents from mom and dad. For instance, I wrapped one with lots and lots of ribbon and tape, so Miles chose the scissors to help him open that one.
He was on cloud nine! I love seeing my kid happy. You could tell he felt really special that all of this was for him. Success! I'm always amazed at what a good boy we got. We really won the lottery with Miles.

Deja Vu

I realize I still need to post about Miles' 4th bday! I'll get around to it, but until then...

One morning a while back Gwen woke up with the best bed head! She was super ornery that morning and add that to her awesome hair, we just thought the likeness to George Washington was uncanny and couldn't stop laughing. Miles was jealous of the picture taking, so we took his picture too and he gave us his best "cheese!" face. Later on in the day we tried to cheer Gwen up by painting her nails. It's one of her favorite things, but it just didn't seem to do the trick. She gives really good 'ticked-off' faces.

Some time passed and I hadn't taken any more pictures. The kids are extra cute in the mornings and I decided to snap a few pictures recently, on account of their cuteness and Gwen's fantastic bed-head...again. After taking them, I scrolled through the most recent pictures I'd taken only to discover that the last pictures I took were shockingly similar. Pancakes for breakfast, bed-head, chessy grins. Deja vu. They were cute eating their mac n cheese for lunch too, so I snapped another picture. I don't ever want to forget those over-the-top, squished-nose, squinty-eyed smiles.