First Thing This Morning...

I had just woken up and went into Maren's room to get her out of bed. The very first thing she said to me was, "Mom, you look so pretty with that in your hair." The "that" was a ponytail holder...holding back my just-out-of-bed-Afro. What a sweet, sweet girl...always with something so nice to say to boost your self-esteem. She's a keeper.

Easter 2009

Well, I'm not even a week late on this. That's amazing! We had a really fun day before Easter this year. We went to the Bliss' house. They have a humongous back yard with lots of great egg-hiding spots. They had us and the Bancrofts over and everyone had a blast. The kids were all busting at the seams to get out there and hunt for their eggs so we did that first. Maren really got into it this year and Evan did a great job, though he will never be an aggressive child. He goes at his own pace, no pushing, no shoving, no running. It's pretty funny. Unfortunately, I didn't get ANY great pictures of him.

Maren, however...

This is how she carried her basked around most of the time. Of course, to keep it on her shoulder, she had to put her hands above her head. It was pretty cute. She dumped her eggs a few times!

The first egg she opened had these M&M eggs. I'm not watching for two seconds and the next thing I know she's shoved four of them in her mouth. We narrowly escaped a choking, episode, I'm sure.

After the hunt it was time for fun and games. First the egg relay. The kids really enjoyed this. I thought this picture of Maren and Michael was cute. Like how I artistically off-centered it? (Ha ha!) Evan had really great balance with it and had lots of fun.

Then the adults-only egg toss. Yeah, I opted out. I wasn't too hip on wearing egg that day. But I really enjoyed watching the others play. They had a great time and I loved watching my friends laugh and smile.

This is mere moments after the egg finally fell and broke...

About two inches from Maren! See where her basket is? She was sitting right next to it! She was so funny about it saying, "Whew. The egg almost broke on me. Whew." Yeah, my sigh of relief, too, girl! Wouldn't have wanted to clean you up after that!

And since you all have put such cute pictures of your kids all decked out in their amazing Easter outfits on your blogs, I thought I'd delight you with my extra-modelesquely beautiful children in their stunning Easter outfits. You'll have to scroll down. Drum roll, please...

Mmhmm...that's as close as they got to being dressed for Easter. That's because none of us went to church...on EASTER!! Hello! Of all the days to not go to church. Well, I was still coughing pretty badly and the pain in my back hadn't gone away overnight. I was starting to worry that it might be my lungs. Evan was fighting illness and was dead tired and Maren had been up coughing and her nose was running wild. Michael was feeling it creeping up as well. Sad state of affairs. I was really sad to miss Sacrament Meeting, especially, because it was supposed to be a really special program (always is, but even special for Easter!). And Maren was beside herself with grief at not getting to go to her class. She lives for Sundays and her Nursery class. It was heartbreaking when he finally decided that we would have to stay home. It would be WAY harder to actually be at church and tell her she couldn't go to her class because the others would think she had some dreadful disease. We couldn't find our copy of The Lamb of God movie so Michael did some searching and found the whole thing on YouTube. Ha! Who knew? We enjoyed our [sickly] time together and still got to think about the Savior and what he has done for us. We are so grateful that Christ lived and he died for us. We are eternally grateful for his resurrection that will make it possible for all of us, including Dallin, to be resurrected and reunited. That will be an exciting day for our family.

Let's Get Real!

WARNING: This post may be disturbing to some readers. Reader discretion is advised.

I like to think that I go through pregnancy gracefully. I mean, it's my fourth time. I know what I'm doing by now. I like to do things myself. I try not to waddle. I definitely frown upon whining. I try to be as unobnoxious as possible. Well, I'm blowing that all out of the water today. You see, I've had "the cough" for about a week now. Normally the cough and I don't get along (remember, I'll probably be getting esophageal cancer because of it!) but never has it been so rotten as right now being pregnant with it. So I'm getting real. No sugar coating. And here's where the detested whining begins...

First of all, the darn thing is keeping me up all night. So here I am about to finish up my second trimester and I feel like I'm at the beginning of my first trimester again because I'm so tired during the day. Three hours of sleep a day definitely isn't cutting it. How, exactly, are you supposed to get better when you can't get enough sleep? A couple of nights ago the coughing actually caused me (I think!) to throw up. I ran to the bathroom as fast as I could and barely made it to the toilet before the second heave came. That was a nasty, rotten night.

Second, I guess my back and stomach muscles are stretched out, right? Well, when I normally have "the cough" I just deal with the cough. Right now I'm dealing with evenings full of really, really bad pain in my whole back, my sides and my side stomach muscles. When I wake up in the morning they feel fine, but as the day wears on, all that coughing really does a number on all those muscles from being tightened up so much. By 9 p.m. when I'm sitting at the computer doing my work, I'm in bad shape. The other night I was in complete tears because I couldn't take the pain anymore. Right now I'm wondering if it's worth it to finish this post in this much pain. But, yes, I will persevere. And then I'll get myself the heck into bed!

Last, but certainly not least, and the reason for the disclaimer...the peeing. That's right. Each big cough squeezes from the top of my stomach all the way down to the bottom. And I guess since there's a little boy sitting on my bladder right now and I've had three children, I have little bladder control with that much pressure trying to get out. I have been peeing myself for days. Forget the pantyliners. I got rid of those two days ago. I'm back to my good ol' overnight pads that I was looking forward to not having to use until July! Little did I know that I'd need to use them like a diaper! Yesterday I literally went through 8 overnight pads. That night...four more. Yes, just during the 6 hours I was in bed. It's so frustrating! And you know I love pulling down my pants to go to the bathroom and smelling like urine. Mmm...nice. It's not a wonder I haven't hardly left the house this week. Too tired. Too painful. Too smelly. Embarrassing.

I'm off to bed now. First I'll take my Robitussin (of course it doesn't work but we always hope for the placebo affect, don't we?) then I'll change my pad. Who knows, maybe there will be a miracle (it wouldn't be the first Easter miracle!) and I will wake up well-rested and DRY in the morning!! :-)

"I Do It By Myself"

You get one guess as to who I hear this from all the time. That's right, the 2-year-old! Oh boy is she Miss Independent. She wants to do everything herself. Buckle her seat belt, put her socks on, pour her cereal and her milk, spray her hair, wipe her bum, you name it. What I need to remember is that I have to plan extra time for everything and I never do. I'm constantly saying, "We need to hurry, Maren!" But, late or not, she's going to do it by herself of you're gonna hear about it. Ha! She's a feisty one but so cute!

She asks me multiple times each day to let her watch the video of everyone singing happy birthday to her. I'm getting tired of it, frankly. So I told her we should make some new videos to watch. Unfortunately this all came up on a day that she and I were both very sick. And it was right after I changed her diaper and we hadn't yet put her pants back on. And her hair is a mess...she kind of looks like an orphan. BUT, she sure is cute. First up is her singing I Am a Child of God. I missed the first little part but she does a great job. Usually she speaks much more clearly, but I don't think she could breathe very well this day. :-)

Next, for your viewing enjoyment, is her "reading" a book. She doesn't have the book memorized but she's great with colors so she can easily figure it out. I love the whining at the end. Yeah, you can tell she's sick.

And lest you think this post is all about Maren, here's a funny about Evan. Last weekend he got naps three days in a row because Michael was home for two of those days and they napped together. Now, Evan's at a rough stage. If he has a nap, he's not tired for bed until around 10:00. But if he doesn't have a nap, he's a little grumpy in the evenings. Probably a nap every other day or every couple of days would be a good idea. Or maybe an earlier bed time. Something other than what we're doing. Ha! Anyway, he had clearly had too much sleep last weekend because it was Saturday, a week ago. Saturday is his special day to sleep in our bed (until the baby's born, that is!). He and Michael went in there to read books and I was busy doing my work on the computer out by the kitchen. I heard them around 10:00 and wasn't too concerned because I was sure he wasn't very tired. Around 11:15 I started closing things up to go to bed. I was beat! At 11:20 Michael and Evan walk out of our room and I ask what on earth they're doing, as they walk into the kitchen. "Oh, we were just hungry for some cereal, Mom", Evan says. WHAT?!?! So, they sit down and have a bowl before heading back off to bed. Whoever heard of such a thing? I had to take a picture to document the whole affair. Clearly three naps in a row was way too much sleep for that boy!