Mother's Day

My Mother's Day was great.  Jason always does a wonderful job.  In the morning I dropped off some cookies for my ministering sisters.

The kids gave me some sweet and thoughtful gifts.  Some decorations for my fairy garden and a willow tree of a girl reading her scriptures.  I felt very known and seen.

I wrote a blog post on the night of mothers day to go along with the above picture.  Here it is:

I just went to go wash my face and go to bed and this is what I saw in the mirror. I almost laughed out loud at my disheveled state. You can't see great, but my mascara is running all under my eyes. Strangely my state didn't match my feelings - which is why I think I was so shocked about what was staring back at me in the mirror. Most days I look tired and done by the end, most days I don't have make-up on, hair done, or wearing anything but yoga pants, but today was a great day... and I still look like this. Ha

Today, Mother's Day, was a great day overall. Jason kills mother's day, I had a wonderful breakfast and dinner that I didn't make or clean up, he does most of the "hard parenting" for the day and I just get to read books and play games, I got an afternoon nap, an extra hour in the morning to read my scriptures, and sweet gifts from my children. But beyond all of that, I felt an extra deep appreciation for what it means to be a woman and a mother. I had a HARD day at church, one that sent me into the lobby in tears with my 2 littles. We are back to second hour with no nursery, Jason was teaching elder's quorum and my best friend, Krista, was teaching her first relief society lesson. I had been looking forward to it all week. We didn't last 2 minutes. I was mad and frustrated. All of the other parents were in the hall with their nursery age children and we just walked and walked and walked. It was almost all dads, because it was mother's day so the dads had the kids. I was feeling sorry for myself that I was out there with "the dads" and not in my lesson, that I had 2 babies with me, that there wasn't a nursery... I wasn't sure who I was mad at... I was just mad and kept holding back tears. Then I saw these little 18 month year olds who have never known anything but the pandemic, who have never been to nursery or story time or birthday parties, they have never sung together or done anything structured together. But they didn't care, they were just running and playing together. So I gathered them up, in the lobby of the church building, sat them in a circle and sang songs with them. We sang pop corn popping, do as I am doing, I am a child of God, head shoulders knees and toes, etc. Most of them looked at me like I was crazy, but after a few minutes they were loving it, and I was happy. I felt a sweet spirit come over me that THIS was the true gift of being a woman. This is what being a mother is on mother's day. Ministering to these precious children and using my talents to brighten their day and let their dad's go to Elders Quorum. Today I felt extra close to heaven... and yet I still look like this. I hope this is what qualifies me for such a wonderful place.

 

Farm

My FAVORITE activity to do when my first 4 were young was to go to Wheeler Farm.  We went probably once a week.  The highlight of the trip was the river.  We have a local free farm but it doesn't have a river and not as many animals.  So, sadly, I don't think it will become a favorite - but it is something to do. 

All Dane wanted to do was see the horse.  check

 

Evee-a-da-bee

Oh how we all adore our Evee.  Here are just way too many pictures of her.

 

Tractors

 

Dane's brain is fascinating.  One thing is that he has a little gps in his brain.  There are some tractors on Santa Fe, we have driven past them several times, but we have never stopped and looked, or really talked about them.  One day we were in our front yard and Dane said he wanted to go see the tractors and started walking down the street.  I was unsure what he was talking about, so I just followed him.  HE kept walking.  He never looked back and we never talked.  He just walked and walked.  It started raining, he kept walking.  HE must have knows i was there because when he got to a street he needed to cross he lifted his hand in the air, knowing i would be right there to grab it.  I did.  WE crossed the street and he said, "thanks for taking me across the street".  Then he turned and kept walking.  He navigated our neighborhood, took all the correct turns and crossings and eventually got himself to Santa Fe.  He pointed across the highway and said, "tractors".  At this point it was raining pretty hard and I just wanted to go home, but I was impressed so I took him across the bus street.  We sat, in the rain and mud, for about 30 minutes watching the tractors do their work.  Several times I said something to the effect of, "its raining, lets go home", where upon he said, "you go home, I stay here and watch the tractors."  Jason eventually called to tell me that Eve was awake and he had a work meeting soon.  I convinced Dane to let Jason come pick us up.  It may have been one of my top 5 toddler days.  I love toddlers.

Spring time

It felt so good to emerge from winter this year.  Not only did we say good bye to cold weather, snow, and short days, we also started saying good bye the pandemic and doing things we hadn't done in a year and a half.  

We started park days up again.  I am in a weird space of life with these last 2 little babies.  All the friendships I have cultivated here in Denver over the last 8 years are around the mom's of my older kid's friends.  I still love them, but we are now in different phases of life.  They were ONCE my park-mom friends, but now have no children to take to the park.  All the women in my ward having kids are in their early 20's.  So I am the "old woman" at park days.  Which is ok with me.  When I was a young mom (I actually still feel like a young mom and when people talk about "young moms" I think they are talking about me) we had an "older woman" who had a caboose in her late 30's and I LOVED when she came and is now one of my dear friends.  I hope they see me that way. 

The girls walked home from church with all the other girls their age.  I hoped it would turn into a weekly event, but they haven't done it since.  We are in a hard place in our ward and with the girls' friends.  As you can see we have a ton of girls in our ward their age (this isn't even all of them), but ALL of them go to Charter schools.  I hate it.  My girls are the only members at their neighborhood school.  The girls on our street (6 of them!) also all go to different schools.  We are surrounded by 9, 10, and 11 year old girls but struggle to connect with them.   I pray the older they get the less of a stumbling block this becomes.

The girls playing with some girls in the ward after school one day.

And then painting with neighborhood girls another day.

And then the typical house project.  We had a smaller-than-a-pin-hole-leak in one of our pipes for probably years and then one day the ceiling collapsed. There are many gospel lessons in there.  We may or may not have turned it into a family home evening lesson.

Hanging out in the back yard.  I got a hammock from a garage sale.  It may have been my best purchase ever!  It has actually brought them closer together as they hang out in it together often.

The girls did make-overs one afternoon. 

I couldn't find Dane one day, he had taken a pile of books into the boys closet. 

Usually I have a post about end of year school projects and plays, we didn't have any last year, luckily we had a few this year.  Megan was able to do the science fair - although I couldn't come look at  them.

And Madison did a virtual play of "John Henry" and played Paulianne.  She was John Henry's wife.  John Henry was her guy friend and she was teased a lot (but I think she secretly liked it)

The babies and I were so excited to get out again.  I have never been a "take my babies on a walk" kind of mom (that includes bike trailers), in fact I have never owned a bike trailer or a jogger stroller.  And while I still don't love it - it is more necessary this time around.  

And then my sleeping baby.  I could watch her all day.

 

Grandma and Grandpa Herbert

 The day after my mom left (see post back in May!!) the Herbert's stopped to stay a night on their way to Arkansas.  They were only here for a few waking hours - but it was nice to eat dinner, play some card games, and catch up.