On Motherhood

While watching conference, my husband drew this picture of me.

My days are filled with little moments that, when they happen, I think, "Oh, I don't ever want to forget how he said that, or how she looked at me, or how it feels to have her little face so close to mine."

Hours later I have forgotten. Our days are so busy and everything is always interrupted, it's hard to remember the details at the end of the day. But I can remember laughing with them, and being happy. Today it was as simple as whispering into Edmond's ear in a whisper yell, "Wizard bogies." and him throwing back his head and laughing about it. Charlie wanted to hear the secret too, so I told it to him. We laughed and did it over and over. They don't even know what wizard bogies are (it's a Harry Potter thing) but it was funny to sit on the couch and whisper yell into each other's ears. I don't ever want to forget the joy I feel when I am laughing with my children.

Life for us is chaotic. Crazy. Unbelievable at times. Like last Sunday when all four of my children had a bowel movement during sacrament meeting and I spent the majority of the hour in the bathroom wiping bums and scooping poop out of underwear and changing diapers. When it was over I couldn't believe that that had just happened,

But it's also magical. Dreamy. Perfect in every way.

I belong with these guys. They belong with me. Life is one big adventure.

I always knew I wanted to be a Mother. This is the life I have chosen for myself and always wanted and have been miraculously blessed with.

And I am not alone. I have the constant care of the living mothers in my life to help me and guide me through my task, and I can feel the support of the generations of mothers before me. My blood is their blood. My cause their cause. We are one big army of Mothers, working toward one great common goal...to love our children like Heavenly Father does, and teach them how to get back to Him.

I am honored and humbled to be a part of this great work called Motherhood, and to see the word "Mom" and know that that means me.

How We Do It

Juliette is a little peanut. She has a very petite little face, people always say so. She's squirmy and smiley. We really like her around here.

One day I looked out on the trampoline and I saw this girl riding her bike on it. I wonder how she got it up there?

She's all about My Little Pony these days. One day while she was napping I laid all this stuff out for her on the kid table so she would walk into the toy room and be surprised. She sat down and started to color her little book. It's funny to watch girl shows with her...I haven't watched them since I was a little girl. The pony's names crack me up. There's Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie (Edmond calls her Pinky Cake) Rainbow Dash and all sorts of other funny names. Who thinks this stuff up?

I also caught her jumping on the tramp with her Superman cape on. She's always bringing it to me and asking me to put it on her. Once it's strapped on she spins around and races off saying, "Whoosh, Fly!" with her cape flapping behind her.

The baby was quietly flapping her arms and squirming in her chair in the corner. I glanced at her and realized that someone had put this crown on her.

And here's Edmond doing his favorite big boy thing to do: Hold the baby.

Two Boys in T Ball

This is the post where I cram all of our tball pictures into one post.

We put the boys on the same team this year. The rest of Edmond's friends went on to play Farm Ball, or machine pitch ball, but we kept Edmond in regular Tball so that he and Charlie could be on the same team and it would make life easier on us since we have a new baby this year.

Best decision ever.

Having two boys on one team made the games very entertaining and made it easy for family to come and watch. Grammy and Papa and Uncle Ed came to nearly every game. We even had some cousins come. Since Edmond was one of the older kids on the team, he was one of the better players and he got lots of practice throwing and catching the ball. He played first base a lot.

Charlie was funny to watch play outfield. He was always swinging his arms around while he waited for the ball. He liked to scream at the batter from the top of his lungs, "BATTER UP!" He was one of the youngest kids on the team, and one of the smallest. But since he'd seen his older brother play last year, he knew the game pretty well already.

Every time a ball was hit, he would chase after it to try to catch it...along with half the team. There unded up being a pile-up almost every time as they fought for the ball. The victor always wore a huge grin as he threw the ball to first base.

Here's Edmond our first base man.

He got pretty good at paying attention to the game, and he was usually ready for the ball when one of his team mates threw it to him.

Here's Charlie in one of his pile-ups.

Little boys in tball uniforms is probably one of my favorite things to see. Edmond is so skinny, he was drowning in his.

Baby sister usually ended up falling asleep during the games.

And Scarlett hung with Papa and Uncle Ed. They usually made a trip or two to the snack shack during each game. It's all about the hotdogs and cheetos, guys.

Scarlett has always had a thing for Uncle Ed. She follows him all over the field and I find them sitting like this all the time. She likes to pick grass and give it to him. He likes to give her candy from his pocket. She likes to ask him, "What's your name?" even though she knows it. He likes to ask her the same question.

Charlie played first base one inning. Daddy helped him.

It was an exciting day when these guys showed up to cheer the boys on. They even brought donuts! Edmond and Charlie had a bigger fan club there than anybody else.

And this girl was constantly stealing all the pink baseball paraphenelia and putting it on. Pink batting helmets, pink gloves, pink bats all found their way into this little girl's hands.

The last game was on Saturday. I wish the boys could always be on the same team. I have a feeling I'm not going to like it as much next year when we have two practices and two kids' games to go to. I really like to keep things simple in our family, I don't like it when we are rushing everywhere and not able to enjoy each other and life in general. But at least for this season, Tball was a huge success.