The simple life.
There are many times when I can't help but think being a stay-at-home is the best job ever. Especially afternoons like this. The skies cleared and we had a little break of pleasant weather so I brought the kids outside after their naps and we sprawled out on a blanket in our front yard with some bubbles and a truck; the essentials. ;) I felt like my skin was telling me it had missed the sunshine and I loved being outside with my babes. Ezra and I looked for shapes in the clouds and then he was off chasing bubbles and his dump truck. Scarlett was brave and ventured onto our rough grass for the first time and she didn't even eat one leaf.
Thinking about it . . . . . before she braves the poky grass and unknown textures.
(I don't even walk barefoot on our grass here.)
. . . . and off she goes!
Why can't I crawl into the street mom?
Is he my little stud or what?!
I've taken to calling Scarlett "my little beauty" and "Scarly" lately.
Ezra runs with this truck like he is training to be a future olympic bob sledder. Hmm. . . . . how long until that dump truck collides with Scarlett?
Not long.
Sorry dude, you can't launch your truck down the drive way into your little sister.
All ended happily when we finished our time outside with Ezra riding his bike and me pushing Scarlett on a scoot/ride along toy. Scarlett is growing up fast as she wants to do everything she sees her big brother do! I must be acclimated to Texas now because I'm actually looking forward to summertime; hot days in the sun and water. :)
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Sticky rice is one of our dinner regulars. (Our version is a compromise of California brown rice and Japanese style white sticky rice.) Scarlett has long refused to be fed which means every dinner looks something like this. It is already so clear to me how different it will be with each child because this almost never happened with Ezra. He wouldn't even have food on his face hardly. Since he was my only child I could sit and patiently feed him every bite and he let me and really didn't like getting food on himself. Clearly, Scarlett is different. :)
Hard to refuse that sweet, little face!
It is not my favorite though when she grabs her little fists full of food and then rubs them in her hair and down her neck. And she does it just to rile me. Look at those eyes, just waiting for my reaction.
"What mom? Oh, did you not want me to put the rice all in my hair and on the floor?" :)
"But I'm so cute so it is all right, right?"*While I had looked forward to Spring Break, thinking Chris would actually have a few days home with us, he ended up coming home at 9pm all week, as he had to catch up on work during his break from school. But, we did have a fun weekend! Our friends, Matt and Sharon Gosney, drove down from Tulsa to visit us! Yay! I think Ezra was just as happy as we were to have them visit. I worry sometimes about my talkative and outgoing Ezra being a little too much for some people, but Matt and Sharon put me at ease. It always warms a mother's heart when other people are not only kind, but know how to respond to their child. (I think I could be a lot better with other people's kids, so I especially admire this talent in others.) Our kids thought they were great and didn't want them to leave either.
Matt and Sharon are expecting their first child, a boy, and we couldn't be more happy and excited for them. I enjoyed getting to talk all things baby with Sharon. We spent a few hours shopping for a few baby essentials at Babies R Us on Saturday and then we got a sitter and went to a scrumptious dinner at Cool River Cafe. Oh that place is so good. They are foodies, so it was fun to eat and talk food with people that care as much about their food as we do, probably even more right now. We dream of traveling places and eating good food as we go. I have my phases where I fall out of love with cooking, but after this weekend I'm ready to get back into it.
We were sad to see them leave on Sunday but appreciated that they would drive all the way down from Tulsa just to visit us! We loved having them! 
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Woohoo! I did it! I took pictures and blogged them within less than a week!
So now I know it is possible. Maybe, just maybe I can do this blogging thing. Mostly what takes me so long is downloading and organizing months of pictures and by the time I'm done with that, I don't want to stay up any longer to actually post them and blog! So here I go, one week at a time, and just last week. (It is so hard to not go back to all the previous events though, ah!) I figure working with family pictures can be an ok Sunday night activity after my kids are in bed. Chris is on his laptop doing things for his calling anyway, so this way we can at least spend some time sitting next to each other, which is a rarity.
Life is good, we just don't have as much together time as I had imagined our family having when I had naively imagined my future family life when I married a boy from small-town-Utah. I had no idea Chris would leave the small town of Brigham City, leaving the family business with his brothers and the blessed 5 minute commute, to live in Texas, starting two new companies, in two separate towns. I never would have guessed he would go back to school full time to get a PhD in pharmaceutics, requiring leaving for class before 7 am, 5 days a week, and many late nights of studying complexities of DNA and chemistry, etc., while still working for the two start-up companies, while trying his best to serve as Elder's Quorum president, and while in the time of having babies. These are all good things. All blessings. My husband is doing all that he can in so many areas of his life, and he is just exhausted. I know he loves me and would like things to be different, more hours in the day, but I also know that what he needs most right now is to sleep and not have pressure or stress added to his load. So we are in that phase. We fit in what we can and count our blessings. :)
I need to remind myself to woman up sometimes, remember how to be independent, and when I want to think of my needs, instead I need to turn my heart to taking better care of him and supporting him. (That great quote comes to mind, that Julie Beck gave a few conferences back, from Eliza Snow, saying woman need to not be babies, lol.) The hardest thing with Chris' schedule is for my little Ezra, as he starts the day crying when he realizes his daddy has left before he woke up, and misses his daddy so much when he goes to sleep before he comes home. This is the norm, as it has been for most of Ezra's life. But I know this will not always be the case. I just have this calm within that tells me it will change some day. Not that we aren't blessed and happy now, but I do long for the simple blessings of having family prayer with every member there, every morning and every night. I dream of having family dinner at the table with daddy every night, or at least more nights than not, any nights during the week! I think it will happen. It is our family goal. Chris knows his kids will need him home at night when they are in school; we especially want to give our children that strength that comes from having mom and dad home every night and family dinners together, family prayers, etc. Of course I still pray and we obviously have dinners without Chris, but it is different. Ezra needs his daddy more than I think I will ever understand, and after years of doing this, I'm starting to feel I need his daddy here too.
I appreciate learning from other women; how they do it. Everyone is busy and wants more of something. I appreciate talking to strong, positive women. It gives me strength. I recently asked my mother-in-law how she did it with her young children and her husband gone so much for a phase, and the main message I got out of our conversation was that times were different. The simple life is where it's at and how it is happily done! I think that is why I have heard many mentions of simplifying life and not letting too many activities clutter our time, over the pulpit of General Conferences lately. My mother-in-law said she could send her kids out to play for hours, so I think that is a huge difference. We don't feel it is safe or allowed to send our children out to play for hours in the yard or neighborhood, plus they are young, so instead we keep them in our house and feel the responsibility to constantly entertain and then take out for various activities. My mother-in-law, and I believe most women of that generation, weren't running their kids somewhere every day, let alone various places in one day. Kids simply played outside and that is when moms cleaned and cooked and sewed I bet. There also wasn't this pressure to keep up with some list of things one must do to show they were a good mom. Plus the obvious missing distractions of all things doing with the internet. So I hope to simplify, slow down, and therefor enjoy this phase more without feeling behind all the time. I am enjoying this phase, but I think I could enjoy it more if I could remove this pressure I feel. Why do I feel behind? Who is telling me I am behind? I'm learning it is ok, and doesn't mean I am not as good a mother, if we aren't doing as many activities or cool crafts and outings as some appear to be doing. We do what we can. Everyone is different and that just needs to be ok.
I know this is all so normal and so many families have this phase of husbands in school and super busy and exhausted. I just didn't expect this PhD phase, especially after the years of Chris working Saturdays, holidays, late nights and months of travel at a time every year. So here we are now, coming up on 8 years of married life together with Chris having had this consuming work schedule for most of our marriage, to the point where it has even caused him to be depressed in the past, and now he is in his first year of getting a PhD. Oh patience I am learning. I thought I would never experience my husband in school, ha ha. Maybe it would be easier if we lived in BYU married housing for example, surrounded by other families with the husbands always gone, school and work full time, instead of in my ward where it seems so many husbands work from home or come home every night at 5:30. I know, I know, don't compare.
Comparison is the thief of happiness. I've never really struggled with caring about what other people have or comparing myself to others before, and maybe I got prideful and thought that would never be a temptation for me. But then this temptation of comparing husband's home hours snuck up on me. I understand why it is a sin. It just does not lead to happiness to want what someone else has, even if it is something seemingly innocent like wanting your husband to have a different schedule, lol. I get it! And yes, I am aware that no one really knows what goes on in someone else's home, and things always appear better than they are, etc. I know everyone is busy. If one person has a good work schedule, they probably have a more time consuming calling, struggles with health, finances, children, etc. Everyone has their things. I know. So I have said Chris is not the only one learning right now; it is a learning experience for all of us.
Gratitude and charity = happiness! :)
Prayer. Patience. Sweetness. :)
I have two wonderful children, life is good, so go make some fun!
(I've come up with quite a few of these simple mantra's lately, lol.)
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