Last Blog @ blogspot...

Well, I finally figured out how to make our family a website that has the capability to do soooooo much more & sooooo much easier! I've sent a mass email to let you know the web address. Our blog will continue on the new site. If for some reason the email didn't reach you, please either leave a comment or email me and I'll send you that info. Hopefully this is the beginning of something really fabulous! xoxo

just another manic monday...

It's a Monday... AGAIN!? I feel like we just barely had Monday, but here it is again! YIKES!!! Usually on Mondays I'm psyched about getting the house back in order, but today I've left it in disorder. The time is drawing near to think of what to fix for dinner, but I'm doing my best to ignore that fact. I think frozen fish sticks will have to do, unless something amazing just happens to show up in my freezer.

I was advised by a toothpick-thin mother of ten that the way to stay on top of your figure when having kids is to get back to pre-pregnancy weight by the time the baby is 6 months old. Her theory was that if you don't get it off by 6 months, it may never come off. So, now that Claire is almost 7 weeks old, I've decided I'm going to start working out. The funny thing is that a week or so ago I gave up my gym membership (haven't really used it in a year or so anyways) for something else I really wanted. So, I'm now an honorary member of the "Clark Family Gym" which has excellent perks like the free childcare by my mom while I'm exercising and the no-cost membership fees. Today was my first morning trying it out. Bless my mom's heart, too, because I almost didn't make it because of running behind with getting the kids ready and fed, so she fed us all breakfast! And after exercising, she watched my kids so I could shower. Thanks mom!

It felt really good to exercise again. I thought my endurance would be shot and I'd be starting at ground zero, but I realized that chasing a toddler and giving birth to Claire have had their perks: I'm not in as bad of shape as I've thought I am. THANK GOODNESS!!! So, we'll see how this work-out system will "work out."

After our trip to the "gym," Tate had a playdate at our house with a little girl in our ward named Brooklyn who is a few weeks younger than Tate. It was really interesting to see Tate interact with someone so close to his age. They were almost too similar to get along very well. It was still a good experience for him, though. I keep scheduling playdates to help Tate learn to play better with kids. He's mostly around adults. Brooklyn is the cutest little girl! It made me really excited for all the girly stuff Claire might do. Brooklyn, for instance, can't leave the house without her purse! Adorable, eh?

Now, as usual when I write, both kids are sleeping. I should probably use this time to clean up my messy house, but that doesn't sound very appealing. If any of you actually read this, I'm sure you're getting more and more disinterested with every new post I write. The best part of all of this monotony that I write about is that I love my life! I love the monotony! It's interesting to me and I'm enjoying myself, so don't feel sorry that my life seems so dull: it isn't to me. :)

It's just another Manic Monday... that's all!

who needs sleep? no, you're never gonna get it...

I know I keep complaining about sleep loss and teething, but those two elements are stealing my sanity! Last night Tate kept waking up until finally around 2:20am Randy & I decided we would just have to let him cry. For any parent that's ever done this, you know how traumatic it is; not just for the child, but maybe mostly for the parents. I just kept checking my watch to see how long he'd been screaming/crying and finally decided I couldn't endure it any longer when it had been 20 minutes. Maybe 20 minutes doesn't sound too bad, but it seemed like an eternity to me. Tate was screaming and crying so long that I was afraid he was going to throw up from it, not to mention that he had thrown his binky out of his crib and onto the floor - a game he plays to get us to come in to get him - about 2 minutes into the cry-fest. (All our ears are super-sensitive to what the binky sounds like, whether we hear him drop it or are searching to find it somewhere.)

So, I decided to take in a bottle of warm milk and find his binky as a sort of peace offering/last attempt at helping him wind down, around 2:50am. I felt sooooo awful! He had been crying so hard that he was shaking and could barely hold his bottle steady enough to drink from it. But, the good news is that after he drank the bottle and popped his binky back in, he started to calm down and I only had to go back in around 3:10am to help him go back to sleep.

I bet heaven is like an E.R. during the night shift: it's their busiest hours. I know on nights like we've had, I've been overloading heaven with prayers for help. Last night the thought/inspiration came that I'm never "off-duty" from teaching my children. Last night's class was, "Learning to self-soothe so you can sleep in your crib, even when you feel crappy 101."

And of course after I got to sleep around 3:30am, Tate woke up again around 7:45am because he'd soaked through his diaper and was in wet pajamas & was, of course, freezing, which was a perfect prelude to then putting him back to sleep in our bed with Randy so I could feed Claire.

Now, it's 9:35am and everybody is asleep but me. Life would be easier if I didn't need sleep. I have a few quiet minutes all to myself and going back to bed doesn't sound as appealing as blogging my adventures to you. Dumb, dumb, dumb... I know. But, blogging is really therapeutic for me. Now that I've vented a bit, I can better go back to facing everything with a sense of humor, rather than discouragement. So... thanks for reading.

Growing Pains

Well, last night we had another teething misery night... hooray. Tate woke up around 1:45am screaming and crying and holding his mouth, spitting out his binky and grabbing his ears because it hurt to suck on his binky. (We joke and call the binky his "precious," picture Gollom and the ring in the Lord of the Rings and you'll get an idea of Tate and the binky's relationship are.) It was sooooo sad! It broke my heart!

But, around 4:45am I was useless to him. I was exhausted and found it hard to muster up patience with him. Randy took over somewhere around then (I hadn't let him before that - duh on me!) and I went back to bed, had a little cry and thought about how my children cry a lot and wondered why we're so blessed. (ha, ha). Seriously, I don't think everyone gets kids that cry this much... how come we got two? Don't get me wrong; I love my kids more than humanly possible, but I often fantasize about kids that barely cry, and when they cry, they're easily consoled.

Then, the thought came to me: growing is painful. Of course I knew this, but I thought of it in relation to my kids. From the time of conception it has been super-rapid growing for both of them. They're not here on earth for a vacation; they're here to grow and learn, & that can be painful.

That thought took me to remembering when I've been hurting from "growing pains" in my life and I realized how grateful I am that those experiences weren't taken from me so I could grow & learn. One of my favorite concepts is that often pain hollows out our hearts to make room to receive greater joy. Without pain, we wouldn't have much joy.

So the next time my kids are crying and my tendency is to think, "I'm soooo sorry you got the dumbest mom in the universe as your mom!" I'm going to try to instead think, "let me do the best I can to help you through this pain so you can grow and find more joy and happiness."

Let's hope for the best... meanwhile, I'm going to enjoy digiscrapping this photo & a few others I took last night when Claire was colicky. :) xoxo

p.s. For anyone interested, Claire's blessing will be at 1pm on Sunday, May 6th. Hopefully she'll fit in her dress and not have explosive poop that day... :)

Tate & the Sandbox

Here's the photo proof that Tate & Claire had way too much fun with their dad while I was at the Scrapbook Expo! Isn't it great that dad's play differently than moms do? Randy buried Tate in sand up to his waist in his new sandbox. I can't wait to digiscrap these photos! I want to title it "while mommy's away, daddy & the kids play..." or something around those lines.

Anywho! Today has been a great day! It's been fun to just have a boring, stay-at-home day. Poor Tate is still struggling through getting those teeth in. I'm thinking (if it's possible) that he's getting his incisors AND the first year molars. I know the tale gets bigger every time I write, but he is fairly miserable. Thank goodness he's crazy about movies, or I don't know what I'd do. For lunch he wouldn't even eat much ( I wouldn't either if I had at least 4 teeth breaking through my jaw) so I gave him a popsicle. HE WAS THRILLED and ate almost the whole thing... what he didn't eat dripped on the floor and all over his clothes & high chair. While he's been sleeping I downloaded "Toy Story" off iTunes so he could watch that. He's nuts about Disney/Pixar films, so I think he'll really like it.

Claire is doing really well today! She's getting so she's smiling a lot when we talk to her and she turns her head to follow sounds. IT'S A BLAST!!!

Hope y'all are doing well!

My Little Flower Girl

Randy put the flower in her hair and took this picture. I think it's adorable!

the ultimate Survivor challenge

I often compare motherhood with the show Survivor because there are lots of surprise twists & turns throughout the day & I often feel I'm being pushed & pulled to stretch beyond what I think is humanly possible for me to do. This week was a true Survivor Challenge week.

Survivors ready?

Randy had to work late, leaving me to manage the bedtime routine alone, most of the weeknights this week... an often exhausting process.

I decided to try playing in a volunteer city orchestra & was absolutely fried by the time I got the kids ready to be watched by their opa and got to the rehearsal that began at 8pm on Wednesday. I'm not sure that I'll keep going for now. My mind was about to explode as it tried to remember what it hasn't done for at least a few years: keep time while reading music and finding the notes on my viola. I was ready to collapse 5 minutes into the experience!

Also, my friend, April Oaks, owns a digital scrapbooking company and I often help her when she has events with it. This weekend was the Scrapbook Expo and I was to be there on Friday from 8:30am to 8pm and Saturday from 8:30am to 6pm. So, all week I've been trying to pump an extra bottle of breastmilk a day so that Claire would have enough to eat on Friday. It was really tricky to orchestrate & a big, fat pain.

My kids weren't going easy on me while preparing for all of this, as you probably saw in my previous posts this week. I checked Tate's mouth the other day and saw that he's getting 4 teeth all at once, 2 of them being his 1-year-molars! YIKES!!! This teething thing stinks! I thought all the other times he's gotten teeth were bad, but there's not comparison to this time. Also, Claire's been especially fussy and difficult to soothe this week, but that is thankfully improving, as of Thursday night, due to my friend, Mandy, and her homeopathic remedies - HALLELUJAH!!!

My mom had both my kids on Friday during the Expo, which I hope was a good experience for her, and blessings upon her head for helping me out! I had been really nervous about Claire even taking a bottle, but she seemed to do fine, which was truly an answer to prayer. Something I never realized before becoming a mom was that even when you get a break, you still have to pack your kids to last without you during that break, which this weekend was like packing for a mini-vacation. You've got to make sure you've packed enough diapers and wipes and clothes to change them into in case of emergencies. Then you've got to make sure they're covered for all the meals you'll be missing - Tate will eat big-people-food now, so he's no big deal. There are a lot of other nuances to pack also, but I won't bore you with those. Just know preparing to be away from my kids, especially a newborn, can be a big job.

The Scrapbook Expo blew me away! I have never seen anything like it! It was held in the SouthTowne Expo Center and the entire auditorium, except one section, was filled with booths that were stuffed with every possible thing you could ever think of that is related to scrapbooking. On Friday, the first person to arrive to get in line got there at 4am!!! And I bet she stayed until the Expo closed that day (midnight!). The line to get into the Expo was about 2-4 people deep and went from one end of the Expo Center, all the way to the other end. And most of them were carting in huge scrapbook boxes on wheels, because part of this expo is that there are tables set up throughout the auditorium to actually sit down and scrapbook on.

The tickets to this event were $12 for one day (if you were lucky, you could get a $3 off discount coupon from Roberts) and anyone that wanted a VIP ticket (your tables were in prime spots on the sales floor and they feed you meals throughout the day, offer snacks and drinks and give you free scrapbooking stuff) paid an extra $50 on top of admission. None of those prices included if you wanted to take any of the classes offered; that fee was a minimum $10 on top of admission price. The crazy thing was that people actually paid that! I'm sure if it's really your thing, it could be a blast to do, but I was a little overwhelmed by it all.

On Friday I worked at the Digital Scrapbook Memories booth, feeling like a missionary looking to convert paper scrapbookers to digital scrapbooking. Surprising (to me) there was a fair amount of blatant hostility towards digiscrapping! Some people were downright rude! I've learned some interesting vocabulary this weekend, including my favorite term, "paper purists," meaning those that believe scrapbooking should only be done using paper/traditional methods. Several people thought they were doing me a real favor by telling me that digital scrapbooking won't last and that my pages won't last for my children to view. This concept is laughable that so many "paper purists" believe it! Digital Scrapbook pages are printed as enlarged photos, meaning that if your photos on your paper scrapbook page will last until the end of time, why won't a digital page?

Since I needed milk for Claire on Saturday, I took breaks every 3-4 hours on Friday to go pump breastmilk in the handicapped restroom. It was quite an experience. Thank goodness there was a separate handicapped restroom and I wasn't doing it in the handicapped stall. I'm sure a lot of people were confused seeing me - a not very "handicapped" looking person going into that restroom with a cooler and my lunch (the cooler was for storing the pumped milk; the lunch was to eat, not to throw up). If someone would have told me a few months ago, even, that I would be doing that, I would have laughed and not believed it.

Saturday was pretty much the same, except Randy had the kids all day - a first since Claire's birth - & I taught more classes for April, so I got to hang out in the classroom and not be on my feet all day long. After all was said & done, I really did enjoy myself and it was worth all the hard work and opposition in preparing. It made me extremely grateful that I don't have to be a working mom. I'm very blessed that Randy works so hard to keep me home where my heart is.

In the last class I taught, I was working examples on a projector with pictures of Tate. It made me very homesick to be back with my kids. The very best part about being a mom was realized when I got home from the Expo each day: hugs & snuggles from Tate and happy jiggling of arms and legs from Claire. I haven't really thought about just how much I depend on and need their love before this weekend, but I really couldn't "survive" without my kids and husband's love for me. Stepping away made me appreciate that I've got the best job, ever, and I hope this week I'll be less likely to take that for granted. It might surprise some of you, but when you're home all day, sometimes your mind wanders to imagining being someone "important" in the business world, but this weekend I knew it is more than enough to be someone "important" in the lives I love the most.

Well, after appreciating my life so much yesterday evening it was off to another Survivor Challenge during the night. Claire woke up to eat at 1:30am and Tate woke up for who knows exactly what reason shortly after that & was mostly awake until around 4 or 5am. At one point of trying to help Tate relax enough to go back to sleep, Randy brought him out to the living room to watch a movie and was sleeping on the floor in front of the couch so he would wake up if Tate left the couch. And of course Claire woke up again at 6am to be fed...

Survivors ready?

too early to be up, but too late to go back to sleep...

Holy moly! Claire was up until around 1am screaming last night. Truly, this whole "colic" thing flusters me! You feel so helpless when they're screaming like they're dying! I've tried eliminating things from my diet, to no avail, and am now trying homeopathic remedies for her poor sensitive tummy. Also, she's got incredibly sensitive skin and gets rashes very easily, so I'm trying to help those clear up, also, but it's frustrating. I am truly blessed, though, because Claire knows the difference between nighttime and daytime. She's mostly awake during the day and then will sleep at least one 5 hour stretch at night... YAY! Last night she did this and awoke to eat at 6:30am. Thus the name of this post: it really is now too early to be awake, but too late to go back to sleep. Tate usually wakes up around 7:30-8am... YIKES! He's awake now! It's 7am! Oh boy, we're in for a rotten, awnry tired day for all of us!

Shhh... both kids are sleeping

Once a day a glorious hour can occur when both kids are sleeping! This is the only time I generally have to do anything I want, uninterrupted. It's precious time! Already I'm exhausted from having a record night of waking up with the kids 4 times. You may be thinking, "why isn't she napping while the kids are?" and the answer is that I'll go insane without some time to myself. Often during this time of day I get on the computer.

Since our computer doubles as our DVD player, if Tate is awake, he thinks he should be watching something on the computer, not letting mommy digiscrapbook. Consequently, computer time is something we often battle for. Tate seems to almost be addicted to watching movies. Ever since I was on bedrest with Claire and my OB said to introduce movies to Tate to help me stay off my feet, he's hooked. His favorite movies lately are "Cars" and "Monsters, Inc." It's pretty sad when your 16-month-old is laughing before the parts happen that he thinks are funny.

For Easter Tate got a sandbox and a slide. He loves to play outside and, given the addiction to movies, we really want to encourage him to keep playing outside. Today has been kinda cold, though, so he hasn't stayed outside very long. Also, those darn molars are still cutting through, so he's not feeling 100%. I'm so grateful I don't remember getting my molars!

Claire has been especially fussy lately. Our little baby girl is a screamer! If something is awry, our neighbors down the block probably hear about it! Even at 2 days old the doctors were impressed by her voice! Bless her heart!

Well, Tate's awake, so computer time is over. Hope you're all doing well! xoxo

A funny Easter Sunday extravaganza!

Yesterday we had quite the Easter Sunday experience. Claire seems to know that when she's all dressed in her finest and we're sitting in Church waiting for the Sacrament that it is the ideal time for her to have a blowout. Yesterday was no exception. She started to fuss in her carseat, so Randy took her out. Seconds later she's having a round of explosive poop. As Randy lifts her out of his lap to take her for a diaper change we notice that her explosion of poop has soaked through her clothes and onto Randy's suitpants. Trying to be as quiet as possible, we're scrambling to get wipes out of the diaper bag to clean her and his pants off just enough to get them out of the Chapel relatively discreetly. Randy - being the champion of all husbands - took her to the bathroom to clean her up and realized that we didn't have an extra pair of clothes for her in the diaper bag, so he put her little sweater over her naked body and snuck back into the Chapel to grab her carseat to take her home to put clean clothes on.

While he's gone, Tate fell asleep in my arms and - due to his one-year-molars coming in and making him congested - started sawing logs with record-breaking snoring. This was especially noticeable during the closing prayer, after which the whole row of people in front of us turned around to acknowledge they heard him. Needless to say, we don't really remember much of what was said in the meeting.

Here We Are!

Well, we finally set up a blog... are you thrilled, Crystal & Devin? I'll keep posting and get this "blog thing" all figured out.