Saturday, December 5, 2009

Sweet Rolls

My husband has to work on Sundays. We miss him for church, especially when I have to feed baby. Three sisters think they have to come with me to the mothers' lounge. That gets to be a little hectic when there are other women there feeding their babys too.
Anyway, he works with mentally ill people of all ages at the state mental hospital. He has to be there at 6:30 am, so he has to be up pretty early. That is why I am up at this hour. I would be asleep right now, but he mad a special request for breakfast. Sweet rolls. He wants my sweet rolls. "I want big, fluffy sweet rolls. Not skinny ones. I want something yummy to eat." Since my husband cooks, but cannot bake, I make the bread. My dough is better than his and always has been. I just know how to make a good bread dough. I don't know the secret. I couldn't tell you if you wanted to know. There's just something about the bread I make that it always, ALWAYS turns out right. AND it's fluffy, just like he likes it.
So I am waiting for the bread to finish.

I was thinking about my sweet rolls when all of a sudden images of my teenage church years came to mind. I was a class presidency member and we'd have weekly meetings at the adult leaders home and I would always take my "sticky buns" every week. I had a friend named Sallie who would go to these meetings with me. Sallie was my best friend for a time when she moved into the neighborhood. I was in 10th grade and she, 9th. We were mostly unseperable. Then she stopped being my friend. I was devestated. I had no other friends. Someone else moved in and they were the closest of all. Life was over as I knew it. This girl named Nicole came in and took Sallie away from me. I hated Nicole. I loathed everything about her. She was smug. She was Smart, she was beautiful. I was none of these. I thought myself cute, but that's about it.
But you know what? It turns out that Nicole has been one of the best people in my life. I grew to love Nicole and her beautiful spirit. She was and still is beautiful from the inside, out. She has an amazing spirit and testimony of our Savior, Jesus Christ that I absolutely think is so fantastic and she has no shame in what she believes. I only wish I...

So the next time you find yourself making sweet rolls, count all the blessings you have been given by our Heavenly Father. Give thanks for your sweet, wonderful friends. Those close to you and those you haven't seen, or spoken to in a while.

I Need a Time Out

My mom and dad came over today. I called earlier in the week to see what they were doing, or rather to specifically invite my mother to come help me finish cleaning out the garage. They came over, to put a long story short, and helped me get the pile of dead/buggy boxes (because bugs love open boxes in a garage and tend to die in them) cleaned up and sorted out and put up the shelves for our meager food storage supply (which was half the problem). Now, instead of a narrow ditch, which we had to tiptoe through, there is a single-file stack on the far wall of the garage, which will eventually---SOON---end up in the attic. It makes me happy that I don't have to pretend to ignore the mess, which my wonderful husband created when we moved in by unloading the moving truck into the garage, any more.
We moved and hubby unloaded the truck into the garage, and then, when we needed something, we'd go look for it in a box. shortly after that, we sorted and threw away most of the junk, which was literally half of what was left. when baby was born in October, my m-i-l moved the boxesto the edge of the garage and I have been ignoring it ever since, until now. We can move around the van, Finally! and I believe it won't take just myself more than a few afternoons to finish the job. After all, I do have to find someplace suitable for biggest sisters bicycle, and the lawn mower.
When we got to a suitable stpping point, we had chocolate muffins for a birthday girl.

Today, it was middlemost sisters birthday. She turned 4. We had cake and ice cream and she wanted taco salad for dinner. It was good taco salad. I took our babysitter (from Virginia, who is here for college) home from the party and dropped the nephews off too. When I got home, I took to getting the girls bathed and ready for bed. Littlest sister was in her diaper so long today, that it leaked all over and she had a shower. Then she pooped in her clean diaper, THEN, she jumped into the COLD bathwater from the bigger sisters--dressed in yet another diaper AND her bathing suit. I was completely annoyed. The bigger sisters were washing the tea set that Grandma and Grandpa L. gave to middlemost sister for her present in the bathtub. They just HAD to wash it. We got them out of the tub, dried off and dressed for bed when I discovered IT.

I desperately need a time out. I went upstairs to get my girlie girls to bed tonight and to my surprise, and unbelief that I missed it for an entire day, I witnessed ink writing covering the wooden bunk beds. They, all three of them, got into heaps of trouble for writing all over the furniture. I just can't understand myself, and why I get so mad at something that mundane. It's just furniture. And not even decent furniture at that. It's a cheap, barely basic bunk bed from my favorite Swedish store. But like most people these days, we can't afford to replace, or even paint for that matter, our things I guess I could turn the ladder around. The thing is, the biggest sister wrote her name on it. "I didn't do it." She cried. But then middlemost sister said, "littlest sister colored over what I wrote. But I didn't write there because littlest sister wrote over it."
They are all grounded. And don't get anything to write with (pens, pencils, crayons, paints, colored pencils) upstairs. Ever. They have to do all their coloring and writing at the kitchen table. For the rest of their lives. (If that's the worst thing that ever happens, They are in pretty good shape.

Biggest sister is already in heaps of trouble for sticking her fingers into the center of each piece of cake that was left in the pan. She's six years old. I remember being six and being terrified to step out of line. Wiping frosting off the top of the cake would have been out of line, but my children don't really think twice about it.

I really don't know how many times today I asked my children "what were you thinking?" or "do you really think that was a good idea?"

Yesterday I had a great accomplishment. I assembled baby boys crib. He's been sleeping in a pack and play bassinet in our bedroom all this time and I don't sleep. Neither does my hubby. You know how newborns snort and grunt in their sleep? It keeps us awake. Every night.
I put the crib together, put a sheet on the mattress, and a blanket on top of that so he doesn't get cold and when the time came, he went to bed in his own room, in his own bed. He's been sleeping for more than 6 hours/ night now. Because I don't get up at every grunt or snort to feed him. My fronts are sore in the morning, but that's a very small price to trade for over 7 hours of sleep. He'll go down at about 8-8:30 and sleep until 5 or 6 to eat, then back to bed he goes and back to bed I go. It's been wonderful these last 3 nights. I have loved it.
But I still need a time out!

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

That's New to You Too!

I have finally done it. I have jumped onto the bandwagon of blogging and begun a life I don't really have time for. already spend too much time cleaning my house and on facebook. I don't spend nearly enough time with my children making forts out of the kitchen chairs and clothes pins or reading to them from anything Shel Silverstien. We don't make telescopes out of old paper towel tubes or make cake and cookies all morning long every day with only the mixing bowls and cookie sheets. My hubby is gone by the time everyone else gets up and has half a day of work by the time dd1 gets home from school. Oh what a life I live.
I think that reading to my children is a valuable asset to life. It puts me to sleep and makes me lose my voice, but if I can manage to stay awake long enough, we can finish "the cat in the hat comes back". Not to mention, dd's 1 and 2 are both learning to read. and dd3 has an exceptional memory. Ds is just learning to smile and keep his head up and be cute!
I don't know if I'll have time for this like my friends Channin and Nicole and Heidi. They are beautiful people and I love them. I only wish my blog to be as nearly wonderful and entertaining as theirs.
Dec. 1, 2009