Five Weeks

So, I just got done reading a new post from my sweet friend, Amber and I happened to notice her sidebar with the blogs that she reads. It's one of those new ones that shows the latest post written by each blogger and how long ago it was updated. You know what mine said? Five weeks it's been since I've written anything! I knew it had been awhile, but five weeks! Wow, I'm really a blogging loser. :-) With around 57 blogs in my Google reader that I frequent, and taking the digital scrapbooking courses, and websites to maintain AND I happen to be a stay at home mom with two kids home for the summer...I don't know how I'm supposed to keep my blog up-to-date, too. It was so much easier when everyone and their dog didn't have a blog and I didn't have so much to read every time I sat down to my computer. It also wasn't as much fun, though, either. :-)

So, what have I been up to for the past five weeks? Hmmm...good question. I got to go visit my beautiful, very pregnant sister a couple weeks ago, hoping to nail the time down just right and be there for the birth of her second little one. It was heaven. I got to leave on a Wednesday night and stay until the following Monday evening. I left my kiddos at home with Nate for the first time ever and hopped on a plane ALL. BY. MYSELF. Again, it was heavenly. I couldn't stop smiling to myself the entire trip. I'm sure people wondered what I was so darn happy about. Nobody asked me to do anything for five whole days. Nobody whined at me. I wasn't responsible for anyone or anything. I got to be just an auntie to my funny, little nephew Noah and was completely entertained by his antics. That kid is a charmer. Jenny and I tortured her hubby, Rick by making him take us out to dinner almost every night for (as she put it) Jen's "last meal" before the baby came. We got to see some movies and hang out with family, but most of all, we got to lay around a lot and do NOTHING. Seriously, for me, the best vacation ever is just sitting around and doing nothing. I know, I know...how lame is that?! Nate would hate every minute of it and poor Rick had a few choice complaints about it when it happened to interfere with his weekend and his type A personality that wants to go, go, go. He was totally overruled with two "Ivey" sisters together who were completely content to just sit and chat and eat and drink some pop and then sit and chat some more. Seriously, it was heaven. So, no, the baby didn't come. We willed that little guy into existance as hard as we could, but even at 4cm. dilated and contracting pretty regularly, he wasn't ready yet. I tried to get Nate to let me stay a few extra days, but he wasn't having it (actually he had terrible asthma, didn't feel good and needed his wife home, but that's another story too long to tell). So, I reluctantly came home and Jen went into labor the NEXT day. I know!? How rude is that?! Luckily, they had their laptop in the hospital with them and my sister-in-law had her cell phone, so I got text messages and chatted with Rick all throughout the labor. I sat and cried while she pushed and stayed up past two waiting to find out if he was okay after being rushed to the NICU. All is well. She is home now and my mom is there making sure all the laundry is done and Noah is happy and meals are on the table, which is more than I would have done while visiting. :-) So, I didn't actually get to see new little Caden, but I did get to have a few choice chats with him and he gave me a few good kicks to let me know he heard me, so I guess that'll have to do until we can make it down there again.

We finally got the girls enrolled in swim lessons just this week. At the beginning of the summer I told Nate that I was vetoing swim lessons this summer. Last summer was pure torture with two extremely whiny girls who I dragged kicking and crying and whining and complaining every single day for two weeks. I wasn't doing it again. I know I should be used to making kids do stuff they don't want to do, but swim lessons isn't one I can choke down too well. I have few bad memories from my childhood, but swim lessons is one of them. I took them year after year after year and each time got passed on from the level 2 class, but each time I refused to move on to the "deep end". I never did get past the level 2 class. Even in 3rd and 4th grade, we took swim lessons during school with our classes and I refused to move beyond level 2, even with the teasing and the taunting I received from all my other classmates. I think that's about the time I started giving myself constant stomach aches from literally stressing so much about having to go to school those days. My poor Mom. I think the swim instructor even had to call her down to talk to her because I was giving them so much trouble. Sigh. So, to this day I hate the water and can't really swim well. We now know it's on account of my sensory disorder, but at the time I just thought I was a really huge failure and weenie. So, when my kiddos start to cry that they don't want to go, I don't want to make them. Even though I desperately don't want them to end up like me, 30 and barely able to swim and barely able to tolerate water. So, imagine my surprise when we put up our little above ground 3 1/2' pool this summer and Nate challenged Kenzie to try to get her used to putting her head under water and it actually worked. Kenzie is extremely motivated by prizes and so we have a token system at home for doing chores and behaving well. Anyway, Nate promised her a token for every time she dunked her head under water without plugging her nose or using goggles to retrieve those diving sticks. I was all complaining to him that it was too hard and she was crying that she couldn't do it and then she decided she could. And when Kenzie decides she can do something, she does. She has earned over 80 tokens diving for those sticks this summer, she also tries to swim under water from one side to the other of the pool and she jumps in from the ladder. Amazing! Seriously, amazing! She also started BEGGING to go to swim lessons, as well. So, even though I knew Natie wouldn't be so happy about it, I jumped right onto signing her up for the next course. She is doing awesome and complains every day about how short the lessons are and why can't we go twice a day. Natie isn't so happy about it, but she isn't sobbing her eyes out either...so I'll take it.

We are loving having Nate off school this summer, even though it is causing him great pains of guilt. We thought we were going to get a job and move away and it would all be worth it, this time off. You'd think I'd learn by now that when I think something is going to happen with any amount of certainty, well then, that's about the time that it doesn't. So we spent a good portion of the beginning of summer working feverishly to get our house ready to sell and then when we realized things weren't progressing the way we thought, we have spent the last few weeks slowly trying to rearrange our priorities and thoughts back to staying another school year here. Now I'm just shocked that summer is almost over and I swear I didn't get enough of it yet. Nate starts school again in September and then we'll be back on track to hopefully finish this January. Kenzie starts 2nd grade the last week of August and I have no idea what I'm going to do with Natalie. So much for not planning on preschool for the fall cause I thought we'd be gone.

For the past three summers we've promised the kids we'd take them camping and haven't. So, that is something we are planning for sure in the next week or so. In fact, I believe we're going to try to go to Camp La Wis Wis up near Mt. Rainier next weekend. Anyone want to join us? I'm a little nervous what our two little prissy "I don't like to get dirty or touch grass or be near bugs" girls are going to be like out in the great outdoors for two nights. You want to make a 12+ hour trip from Utah to go camping with us, Gregg and Amber?! We need your boys to show our girls that it really is supposed to be a fun experience. :-) Wish us luck.

So, that's my five weeks in a nutshell. Right now I'm trying to work my way through Breaking Dawn as quickly as I can. It's not at all what I expected. I mean it is, but it isn't. I can't wait to be done so I can talk to someone about it. Oh, I totally forgot to write about that. I got to go to the Barnes and Noble Breaking Dawn party the night it was released with some friends and it was hilarious. Really, someone should have told us we were supposed to be under 17, not able to drive yet and willing to wear last year's prom dress and lots of makeup in order to attend. You can see some pictures and read about our night here. I can't even imagine what it must have been like in Utah. Crazy.

I'll post some more layouts from my classes soon, too. I CAN NOT get enough of these online photoshop courses. I am going to cry when I finish them all. For those of you interested in taking the beginning course, she now teaches a self-paced version which you can take at any time. The link to it is here. I HIGHLY recommend it. Totally worth the money.

Okay, now it's time to go back to my regularly scheduled life. The End.