A Moment of Peace

Often times things in my home feel chaotic and out of control.  There is often someone watching TV, someone fighting, someone playing piano, someone fighting, someone yelling, someone crying, someone singing, and probably someone else fighting...unless of course no one is home.  But the other night we had a moment of peace.  It was actually on Emmie's birthday.  I had made the kids turn the TV off because I just couldn't handle the noise any more.  What happened next was almost magical.  Emmie and Ainsley started playing a game at the table.  Quietly.  Owen headed outside to rake leaves.  And I just sat and watched.  As I watched I just had a moment where I thought, everything really is going to be okay.  Owen causes us quite a bit of trouble and sometimes heartache, but as I watched him work and problem solve on his own I felt at peace with all of it.  He is actually a good kid when he is engaged.  And he is a hard worker when he wants to be.  He has so many good qualities that he will be able to develop over his lifetime.  My moment of calm that night was very short lived and also very welcomed.

Emmie's 3rd!

Emmie celebrated her 3rd birthday on Friday.  She is officially all grown up.  I tried to interview her.  I only got silliness.  But I can officially confirm that her favorite color is "sparkly." 

 

She lucked out this year and scored 3 days of birthday celebrations.  Appropriate I suppose since she turned three.  However if we continued the tradition I would get a full month of parties this year, and thats just a bit excessive I think!

 

On Thursday we did a mini-party with my family.  Michael and Rachelle happened to be in town and so the whole Welch clan (minus my parents because they are bums and left for Hawaii) gathered at our house for dinner and cupcakes.  And a couple of presents.

 

On Friday, her actual birthay, I invited the little girls in Emmie's weekly playgroup over for a playdate and cupcakes.  The girls were all so cute.  I've seriously never seen a group of 3 year olds get along so well.  They actually play together and we rarely have issues.  They are adorable.  Emmie was super excited to have her friends come over.

We had Susanna, Molly, and Elsie.  Emmie was actully a stinker that morning.  She only talked in baby talks and grunts.  It was kind of sad that the first time she was a stinker with her friends was on her birthday...but, what do ya do?

 On the afternoon of Emmie's b-day it even snowed a little.  And by a little, I mean a teeny, tiny bit.  As demonstrated by this picture.

That night we ate Emmie's dinner of choice.  Pizza, broccli with ranch, cupcakes, and ice cream.  We rented a movie and had a laid back night at home.  It was nice.

On Saturday the birthday festivities continued!  John's parents were in town to be apart of John's brother Dan being called as a bishop.  So we quickly took over the day and made it about our child :)  Everyone came over for dinner and more presents and more cake and more ice cream.  Emmie insisted that John take a picture of her with each and every one of her presents.  How cute is that?!  Good thing there weren't that many!

 I'm including these pictures just because John got some of the adults and none of us look very happy.  I'm not sure who is the recipient of my nasty glare, but I apologize whoever you are. I forgive you.

Dan and Paige don't look super happy either. 

The only one semi-happy is Steve. But I must admit his smile looks a bit fecicous.

After an acoustically amazing round of Happy Birthday we had the last of our cupcakes...

 And then the older children promptly took over the birthday girl's new toys. 

But we'll forgive them, because let's face it, the drawing is awesome.

Odds and Ends....

The month ended in a whirlwind. John and I realized on the Sunday before Halloween that we still hadn't set aside time to carve pumpkins.  We then realized that he wouldn't be home any evening before Halloween to help carve pumpkins.  Since I was in no mood to carve 3 pumpkins by myself I finally convinced the kids that this year we could paint our pumpkins instead.  Some how that seemed much easier.  And it was.  They eventually conceded (Ainsley waaaay before Owen, in case you were wondering) we pulled our all of our paint an craft stuff, and this is what we came up with.

I swear that we did indeed dress up on Halloween, attend school classroom parties, trick-or-treat at John's work, trick-or-treat relentlessly in the neighborhood, and came home with more candy than we know what to do with.  But I didn't take a single picture. It was fun :)

 

 We also began the festivities of Emmie's birthday. My parents will be in Hawaii for her birthday (poor them) and so they brought her gifts over before they left.  The appropriately named "Pony" and "Barbie" have yet to be out of her sight.

We are also approaching the re-opening of the Boise Temple.  We've been without a temple nearby for over a year now.  I've missed it. But the rededication stuff has been kind of fun. John and I were called and asked if we could clean the temple last Friday.  John ended up being sick so I called a friend and she went with me.  It was a great night for me because they actually had too many people from our stake volunteer so my job ended up being dusting all the gold and crystal in the temple with a feather duster.  I felt very "Downton Abby-esque" all night.  I wandered and explored every nook and cranny of the temple.  Kind of cool, since I'm sure I'll never have that opportunity again. 

We wanted to take the kids through the temple when it wasn't so busy.  Saturday's they have literally of thousands of people they are shuffling through tours.  I've been told over 1000 people an hour.  I wanted the time in the temple with the kids to be calm and special.  So we took the kids out of school a little early and headed over on a weekday when things were a little calmer.  We got to go on a talking tour.  I think the kids enjoyed it.  Well, actually, maybe not Emmie so much.  Ainsley was impressed with the bride's room in particular.  Strange to think that the next time I'm even near that room with her could be when she's getting married.  We also had a moment to look into the eternity mirrors in the sealing room as a family.  It was touching.  The sweetness of the moment only lasted for about 2 seconds. There I was contemplating my eternal family when Emmie hopped up on a chair and nearly sent it smashing into the wall.  And then the moment instantaneously ended.  All in all it was a nice afternoon with the kids and we're excited for the rededication in a couple weeks.  Our excitement may or may not be due to the fact that there is no church that day.  Just a dedication and then home.  Nice :)

Primary Program...and then some

This is a random and certainly non-cohesive post about my random feelings.....enjoy :)

This weekend was crazy.  On top of the regular stuff we had a program practice, Ainsley's recital, Trunk or Treat, the primary program, and John worked most of Saturday and even Sunday evening after church.  I have been a bit of a negative Nelly lately.  I think I'm just tired.  With John being gone all of the time I think I just dread all that I know I have to accomplish on my own each week.  How do single parents or people with husbands that always work tons do it!?  I've been struggling trying to get everything done.  Every week it's something else I dread doing alond, this week I'm dreading getting the yard all taken care of and ready for winter by myself.  I'm more than a little anxious for his trial to end. 

I've been negative about my calling lately too.  I would say that being in the Primary presidency is a busy calling, but it's no where near as demanding as Young Women's or Relief Society.  Which makes it even more pathetic that I'm such a whiner.  But within the last 3 months the primary chorister and every member of the presidency except myself has had a baby.  We have 4 newborns in our primary right now.  Not to mention the other babies that are with some of our teachers.  Needless to say my primary load has been more demanding lately as well.  I can honestly say I've never been so close to asking for a release, maybe not a release but a change.  In my opinion we do not currently have  a functioning presidency.  We are all just barely getting by.  Everyone is trying, but some things are just out of our control.  Every Sunday morning I secretly hope for a phone call saying our presidency has been released.  It has yet to come.

That brings us to today's program.  All in all it went fine.  But for some reason I came away from the experience feeling sad.  I sat by Owen during the program.  I sat there embarrassed while he was naughty during the whole performance.  It's hard having the naughty kid.  I sat watching John wrestly Emmie in the chapel.  She was just plain naughty as well.  I also sat teary eyed as Ainsley stood to do her part and had the scratchiest/frog in throat voice I've ever heard.  She's had a cold and sore throat but nothing serious enough to keep her home.  She stood at the microphone and tried to start her part over and over and she just couldn't clear her throat.  The poor girl had to say the entire 4th article of faith in a crazy voice.  She's a trooper though.  She finished proudly and didn't seem to let it bother her much.  She even got a sweet anonymous note from someone in the ward telling her she did a good job.  And for some reason it made me sad and teary.

And then on top of that, the primary program and watching the kids sing just fills my heart and makes me cry. But this year it was bitter sweet.  Maybe because my attitude about primary for months has been far from stellar. Maybe because I feel like my load at home and at church is more than I want to bear right now.  I honestly wish I was one of those people that just went about working and never complained.  Unfortunately, I guess I'm a natural born complainer.  I need to find a way to re-light the fire.  To be excited about the fact that I get to turn every gospel principle into a game.  To be happy when I pick my kids up from school and look forward to my evening with them instead of dreading the long hours that I know are ahead of me.  I want to be one of those people that are just naturally positive and happy about life.  Maybe this should be a goal of mine.  Because honestly, right now I feel like I'm doing a poor job in all areas of my life, instead of making the best of it and enjoying the ride.

Trunk or Treat 2012

I'll save my soapbox speech about Trunk or Treat for another day.  For today, here are our few pictures of this years event!

This classy picture of Owen is being included to forever remind us of the 30 minute fight he and John had about his pants.  It was a good one.

He's obviously still grumpy about it here, but it fits with the whole pirate thing so we'll go with it!

 

 Ains especially always wants me to dress up.  So I did this year.  It was actually kind of fun.

 

Ainsley's Recital

Ainsley has been taking piano for 2 months now. She has already moved out of her primer book and is doing great! She had her first recital this weekend. It was a casual recital and the kids got to dress up in their Halloween costumes. The recital was at my parents store so that was kind of cool too. My niece Bria started piano this year as well so these girls will get to perform together all year! And here are the two best pictures of the night. Seriously....these were the best.

On a bit of an unrelated note: John and I often say that our children are the worst behaved at any group gathering. this night proved no different. Emmie was a huge pain (I'll blame it on the fact that we had been running all day and had gone straight from the primary program practice to the recital, but still!) The moment when both Owen and Emmie tooted *loudly* was the moment I wanted to stand up and leave. Children are embarrassing.

5K

I ran a half marathon while I was in college.  It has been over 10 years and I haven't run a race since.  While never want to run another half marathon, I've wanted to run more...shorter...races. With a little bit of coaxing I convinced a friend to run a 5k with me.  It was just a small race at a new park right next to my house.  I think the nice/safe thing about 5k's is that most people could complete one without too much effort. The only training I did was doing a long run at least once a week.  I ran 4 miles a couple of times and so I wasn't too worried about this race.  I'm a REALLY slow runner though.  I run at the pace of a turtle.  So I was happy that my official time was 28:20.  Anything under a 10 minute mile is great for me!

The last stretch. I'm obviously a bit tired.  Probably because I ran so freakishly fast!

And now a happy shot, happy because we're done!  Now I have my eye set on a 10K this spring.  We'll see.  That one would take some training effort on my part.  Anyone want to join me?

They had a fun run following the 5k for the kids.  They got to run about 3/4 of a mile. Kort and Dan came so that Bria and Bailey could compete in the event.

 I love this picture of them finishing.

I especially love that they told us that they stopped half way through their run when they were offered water at the water station.  I can just picture them stopping and drinking for a couple minutes. And that makes me smile.



I also love that they all got medals and Owen wore his all day.  Literally.  Afterwards of course there were plenty of bounce houses and games.  It was a fun morning.

I was kind of bummed that John had to work and missed the day with us, but I was happy that my parents were able to come and have fun with the kids and I.  And I think my dad did an awesome job getting the action shots.  Stellar photography Dad!