I love the “milestone” posts that my with-it friends post.  You know, “SoAndSo is SuchandSuch age, does this and that, etc.”  With four kids under six, however, they’re each lucky that anything gets recorded.

 That said, here’s Freedom at Five months.  Or so.  It actually happens next, uh… Mon, no, Wedn, no Thursday – no, Wednesday.  For sure.  Five months on next Wednesday.  Sheesh.  For someone who can’t sort out which date happens when, I guess I should be happy to know how old he is at all.

 He’s a doll.  I love the age (and/or temperment) where a baby will erupt into an enormous smile in response to a little attention from anyone.  It’s just so charming.  He especially loves his siblings, his parents, and my mom.  I love to see my older kids lavish him with playfull attention… And only get slightly paranoid that they’re going to crush him, poke him, break bones, share germs, or otherwise cause him bodily harm.

He rolls like a pro from front to back, and is swiftly approaching the back-to-front roll.  He sings, coos, laughs, grabs for things and often succeeds, and puts his binky back in his own mouth with greater and greater proficiency.

In other words, he’s a happy, healthy, normal baby, of more than exceptional cuteness.

(Shout out to the adorable Valentine blanket a certain someone made.  She’s planned to make a blanket for every holiday, to be loaned to whichever grandbaby happens to be of the age to use it.  We get to be the lucky first to break them in.  I think she should make a set of burp cloths for every holiday and sell them… I’m telling you, she could totally make a killing on Etsy…)

Back to Freedom.  I mean, really, isn’t he cute?  Super-duper cute?  Cinderella thinks so.  She loves to love him.

We even love him when he looks like this:

Yes, Freedom gets fussy.  How often?  Every time he gets tired.  And about every other day, maybe, he really digs in and screams and screams because he dislikes going to sleep so much.  Even when wearing BYU blue, evidently.  I have found that the homeopathic remedy “chamomille” is my best friend when it comes to his “dig in and scream it out” crying spells.  Awesome stuff, it is.

One of our exciting and unexpected happenings was Grandpa and Grandma coming down from Idaho to support a candidate they love.  I thought they were “laying low” for a while, and planned on us going up there in order to see them again.  Huzzah!  Another reason to love Morgan Philpot.  You can expect a political post coming later about him, I’m sure. 

Freedom loves seeing the Grandpa after whome he is named.  I do too.  I know we’re not supposed to have favorite relatives, and I totally don’t -cough, cough- but if I did…

I certainly wouldn’t say on a blog, would I?!

hahaha…

Uncategorized Freedom, milestone

Hm.  I wonder if forgetting to make this picture smaller is going to make it all squished and funny looking when it gets published.

Sorry, thinking out loud – or rather, into the keyboard – again.

Hi.

Welcome back.

Guess what we did tonight?
Can’t tell from the picture, can you?
Well, forgive me for putting you in suspense.  I had to wait all week long to find out what we were doing this evening.  It’s only fair that you get a few moments.  We look happy though, don’t we?  That’s my, “If I smile bigger I’ll probably look goofy and there’s a stranger taking the picture” face.

John loves to surprise me.  Many long stories behind that, but I won’t bore you.  Suffice it to say, I didn’t look at billboards or bus-sides, I didn’t check our credit card balances, and didn’t even listen to the radio during this last week after I found out he had something special planned for date night this week.

It worked.  I was surprised.  Delighted.  Giddy, even.

We went and saw… drumroll, please!….
“The Importance of Being Earnest” at the Hale Theater.  It’s been… wow, a long time since we’ve been to a play together, and that was a highschool production.  Well done, very well done, but not quite the same fun as we had this evening.  John knows I adore the movie of said play, so he figured this would go over well.  Great job, Dearest!!!

Earnest/Algy & Cecily

The “redhead” reminded me a LOT of Cinderella, both in looks and personality, and one of the Earnests reminded John a lot of the men on my side o’ the family.  (It took a while for me to see that, but I got there by the end.)

So I got their picture.

It was awkward.  I hate taking pictures of/with strangers.

But I did it for you, Blogworld, just for you.  (Can you tell I’m thinking, “Oh the embarrassment!  Hurry, hurry, hurry…”  Well, I was.)

This spectacular date was in honor of my birthday, which isn’t until Friday.  (He would’ve planned it for then, but as luck would have it, they’re switching out between plays next weekend.

Anyway, the punchline is — What a swell, sweet, swonderful guy I married.  <sigh>

I bet this is a ploy for another surprise next week, what do you bet? I won’t be expecting anything because he already surprised me.

Wait.  If I think that out loud he’s liable to do nothing, so then the surprise is that there is no surprise.

Dang.

Uncategorized Anita, John, wuv. twue wuv.

Are you ready for some fun?

My personal favorite photos from 2009.

(Yeah, prob’ly would’ve been a little better set some time in early January, but I just now thought of it.)

These two of Doodle are perhaps not my favorite pictures, but this is definitely one of my very favorite moments from last year.  Hardly into this and I already contradicted myself.  Oh well.

Doodle, in all his pick-my-own-outfit, 3yo sweetness, spontaneously heeding my command with a cheery,

Yes!  My Majesty!

By now I shouldn’t have to tell you who made the hat, should I?  And who should totally have an Etsy account?

Right.  You guys are so smart.  Mom, you are so cool.

Drumroll, please!

Ladies and gentlemen (if there are in fact any guy bloggers out there -doting husband aside),
Allow me to proudly present,

The Very Best Picture of All Pictures Ever Taken in 20o9…..

I really don't think words are necessary.

It’s convenient that this picture doesn’t need a caption, because it leaves me rather speechless.  Yes, of all the sweet, cute, “awww”-moment pictures taken last year, this one tops them.  It is truly 2009 in a photo.  Why?

I hate been pregnant.

It aught to be a four-letter word.  That’s how I feel every time I write or type it, you know.  The “I’m not really allowed to say this word but I guess I’ll say it anyway” sort of feeling.  <chuckle>  It’s really great when I tell you how it really is and say that (close your ears, sensitive ones) ”Pregnancy, for me, is hell.”  <guilty chuckle>
(gasp!  Did she really say that?!)
Oh yes, my friend, I did.  It really is that fun for me.  I feel totally justified using that descriptor, and I might even add that it’s hell for my Sweetie, too, but he’s the Bishop and he doesn’t use that sort of language.
<insert more chuckling>

And given that I was preggy for the great majority of 2009…. Yeah.
This picture is perfect.

Yes, babies are TOTALLY worth going through hell and back for.  Ikes!  That’s thrice in one post! Yes, I whole-heartedly and most sincerely will go on record stating that I wouldn’t change the close placement of our children for anything. (You should see them play together, you really should.)  Heck, I’d go through it all again and more to get them here in our family where they belong.

So, given all that, maybe some day I’ll gain a “little” extra patience, a “little” extra tolerance or long-suffering or something that will enable me to not visable twitch when I think that 7-letter P word.

Maybe one of these pregnancies <twitch> I’ll be able to get through it with a “little” extra something that will keep me from being incapacitated emotionally – which, as you know, makes mothering a “little” bit difficult.
(There.  I said it.  Did you notice?  No, we’re not “done,” thank you very much for not asking…)

But for now, we just won’t talk about it.

(Seriously.  Don’t bring it up.  My eyes will get all squinty at you and you don’t want that.  It’s the closest I get to a glare and it isn’t pretty.)

You can all breathe a sigh of relief and come back to this blog with great pleasure, knowing I’m completely done now bemoaning the difficulties of getting the amazing-and-totally-worth-it Mr. Freedom here.  Yep.  All done.  Got it all out, and life can move on.

Yay!

PS:  As a side-note, now you know why my kids are as cute as they are.  I mean, everybody knows that the more miserable the pregnancy <twitch>, the cuter the kid, right?
Right.

Uncategorized Cinderella, Doodle, Eagle, Freedom, funny, ramblings

A post of randomness. Exactly what I’m in the mood for.  Mmmm….

[brace yourself]

So I’m really glad I broke my back worked a little bit all week long two or three days last week getting the house spotless cleaner than it has been in a while so we could host the 5th Sunday Youth Fireside at our home yesterday.

Not that the Bishop’s house is ever really in need of cleaning, of course, because it just always stays clean.  Kind of like heaven.  The kids drop their stuff and POOF!  it just flies to its designated place.  Unless it doesn’t have one.  And then it incinerates, which is a feature I had built in last year when he got this calling.  I like it.  Highly recommend it.

Enough dreaming.  I digress.

Fireside. Here. House clean.er.

Good old Doodle to the rescue.  He was up half the night with various problems, 1/2 of which start with “b” and end with “arf.”  Poor little guy – he’s so cute, though.  Really, he is.  How can someone be cute while puking?  When the say, with their cute little growing-out-of-the-inability-to-say-R’s accent, and in deepest sincerity,

"I'm glad I made it to the toilet.  I didn't thwow up on the floy."

Awww… See?  I’m going to miss that cute widdle impediment, and it’s almost gone now.  Sigh.

And the way he says “Cindewella” and “Sistoy” — melt my heart.

What was I saying?

Oh yes.  Fireside. Here. House clean.er.  Child sick.  Fireside moved.  Sigh of relief… yay.

Mixed feelings, actually.
I was only pretending not to care about folks seeing our house less than spotless.  I mean, I don’t reeeeally care, but my subconscious hasn’t quite decided to go along with it.  But we haven’t ever had a churchy function here and it’s probably time.  Ah, well.  There’s always the next 5th Sunday.  Let’s check.

May 30th.  No good.  That’s our anniversary weekend.  7 messy magical years.

Oct. 31.  Sweet.  Then the cobwebs all over our porch ceiling can look like they’re there on purpose.

Does it not thrill you to read “they’re” and “there” and “their” spelled correctly?  Thanks, Mom.  You help me bring joy to wordophiles everywhere.

Punchline? I don’t know that there is one.  This is a post of randomness, remember?  I’m glad the yucky stomach bug was confined to just Doodle, and I’m glad it was over some time around noon that day.  Whew!

And by the way, in case you were wondering, I am SO DONE with sickies this winter.  I swear we’ve been sick more often than well during the last 3 months, and I hardly ever swear.  It’s not nice, you know.

But I am glad that the baby has made off the best of all of us.  He had one sad lethargic-baby day, and a runny nose, but no scary coughing, which is wonderful.  I hate it when little ones get scary coughs.

But speaking of mixed feelings,
I also had them about the celebrity-doppelgangers sweeping through Facebookland.  I mean, really.  Aren’t we all happy with who we are?

And then I figured out that on some weird level, it was like dressing up for Halloween.  Fun, silly, pointless.  So here’s mine.

Hmm.  So it turns out that sometimes life does indeed really stink.  What a bummer. 
But then, when else is one going to clean one's laundry room?

The end.

Uncategorized Doodle, funny, mother moment, ramblings

Because watercolor on paper is not nearly as fun...

Faces are much better.

Smithtopia Cinderella, creativity, Doodle, funny, Mommy, mother moment

It’s true.  I have grumpy days.

When I’m pregnant, I have 266 of them all in a row.
(It’s so fun.  Really.)

One would think that, to be fair, my family would then get 266 days in a row of me being not grumpy…
and then you’d be wrong.

This week I’ve had a whole 2 days of grumpy.  Sweetie gets home and says, “Wow, what happened, Dear?” and the only reply is…

“NOTHING,” followed by some melodious growling.
Don’t you wish you were married to me?

Anyway!  Wonderful news.  I got over it.  Past it.  Whatever you want to call it.
Side note: I love prayer.  It’s so great.

And now we have a much more put together laundry room because of those 2 faaaabulous days.  When I’m crabby I usually blame it on a messy house, and put all my energy into some big organizing project that I’ve been putting off because it’s unpleasant, thinking it’ll make me feel better to get it over with.  I also figure if I’m already grumpy, I might as well be doing something that would otherwise make me grumpy.  Right?  Infallible logic.

I didn’t take a before picture, but here’s a photo of part of the mess dealt with – which, by viewing, you agree not to call social services on me.  I promise it won’t look like this for much longer:

And here’s a photo of the dresser that used to be in there.  Yes, I had help moving it.  His name was Doodle and he’s 4 years old.

Funny, how it looked totally junky and out of place in there with the white freezer & washer/dryer, but in the same room as the lovely brown baby grand, it looks… well, just a little bit junky and much more at home.

And there’s the glorious dresser, so happy with its move from my parents garage.  It’s still classy, still beautiful, in great shape, and HUGE step up from what we’d been tolerating.  (roller-track drawers!  Can I hear a woot-woot?!)

The mis-matchy boxes on the right will be swapped out to match the ones on the left. Someday. Prob'ly soon. Ish.

I can’t wait (can’t wait can’t wait!) to get Cinderella’s room all finished (my old furniture still moving in there) so I can post a picture here and show the world that we do have one room rather put together in this busy, crazy home.  Well, two.  The front room is -or more accurately, can be- quite lovely.
(And John wondered why I so wanted to put out some serious $$ for nice dressers earlier this year!  See?  20 years from now we could furnish our children’s homes!  The investment lives on!  Oh wait.  I need to be showing more gratitude that John picked it up from my folkses and hauled it inside for me.  You can forget those last few sentences, Dear.  I’m pretty sure they just read, “I sure love my studly husband!”)

Thanks, Mom&Dad, for letting me take all the old furniture Lou and I loved so much growing up.  It makes me smmmmmiiiiiiiiiiiile!
(Neener, neener, Little Sister.  Don’t you wish you were old and had a million children under 6 and a need for a huge lot of furniture to house the mountains of clothing that are in constant and perpetual need of laundering every single stinkin’ day of the year?  I know.  I’m such a big meany.  It’s amazing you turned out so well, with me picking on you like this…  )

Looks miserable, doesn’t she?

Uncategorized funny, ramblings, wuv. twue wuv.

Cue the Christmas Carols!

Well, okay.  Don’t cue them.  I’m still twitching a bit from last month.

How about mission impossible? Yeah, cue that. 

Dun. Dun. Dun. Duh-duh. Dun. Dun. Dun, du-duh…

I found this online in my searching around last month, and my first thought was, “What kind of crazies actually try to drag Christmas out for the whole year?!” They call it the Rudolph Club, and on the 25^th of every month, they have a little pow-wow, do a few things to prepare for the holiday season.  By the time December rolls around, they’re all ready. I looked a little deeper mostly out of curiosity, and found that they actually had some practical and clever ideas.

Most importantly, it’s rather cleverly written.  In fact, they made me laugh out loud a few times in just that first month’s write-up. Go check it out and see if you don’t find yourself giggling, too.   I’m a big fan of laughing, so they won me over fairly easily.  I have officially and whole-heartedly joined those crazies.

Today and today only, you may call me Rudy.

Uncategorized