Weekend through my iPhone

It's always crazy how a weekend can have extreme ups and downs.  We started our weekend with children up at 6am.   What happened to them sleeping in until 7? It's madness.  Josh went into his room to get some books off his  shelf to read to Joseph and the books fell knocking his piggy bank off and it shattered.  Our day began with tears and broken porcelain all over his room. 

Saturday morning I went to a stake Relief Society activity with some great friends. Following delicious food Hilary Weeks spoke and sang to us. It was an incredible and emotional experience. She is such an inspired and talented woman that touched my life forever. I came home feeling empowered and wanting to be a better person.

Things were going great, I spent some good time working on more primary stuff to once again run into more computer problems. (I keep reminding myself, this will all pass soon).

Unfortunately our Saturday afternoon took a turn for the worst and to make it even worse, there were other people in the house to experience the madness. Josh has been going through an interesting change (I don't know what to call it) he has extreme ups and downs and can become extremely angry, sad and vocal. Luckily we aren't the only ones going through this, other good friends of ours that have boys the same age say they are going through the same things.  Well this particular afternoon (i'm sure he had been playing wii games too long) he snapped. This time he was uncontrollable, shouting at me in front of his friend. It escalated quickly in which I had to escort him upstairs to his room, which was also not pleasing as he was fighting and kicking me. There ended up being a lot of shouting and door slamming.

As a parent I don't think this ever gets easier and it always leaves such a sad hurtful feeling in our house. Only a handful of other times has it ever gotten this out of control. We all felt bad for things said but are trying to learn from it. It was a quiet night, Aaron headed off to the temple to go through with one of his Young Men we discussed what happened and how we could better control the situation next time.  Not how I thought my day would end.

Sunday came quickly enough when Joseph decided that he was getting up at 4:40 in the morning. Aaron was already up watching Murray play in the tennis match. I tried and tried to get him to go back to sleep but he was refusing, so he hung out with Aaron and wandered the house. Between 5 and 6 both Josh and Rachael also woke up, it was a long morning of shuffling kids back to bed. Not an energizing way to start a day.

We all got up and started our day with bright and happy attitudes though. We made it to the first hour of church long enough to teach lessons and work through primary. Then headed off to my cousins farewell.


Jenna's farewell was so perfect! The spirit was so strong and I could feel her strong testimony through her words. She will be such an incredible missionary serving in Louisiana Baton Rouge.

She has a twin sister Sarah that Aaron is still struggling to tell apart. I accidentally mixed them up while at their house and then told Aaron that Jenna was Sarah. He had to take this picture to remember our embarrassing mix ups.

We are so proud of you Sarah!

Because of the 'early' risers we had some wild and tired kids so we didn't stay too long. After arriving home we relaxed by playing games, watching a movie and having a simple dinner together. It was such a huge difference from the day before. Josh was so much happier. I hate to see him or anyone else sad in our family.

Some other highlights from the last couple of days:

Wrestling... They love to line up just like this before crawling towards Aaron to wrestle and climb all over him

I normally NEVER take pictures of my kids on the potty but our 19 month old peed for the first time in his potty. For awhile now he has made it a habit to sit on his potty before getting into the bath. This time he went and everyone happened to be there so we all celebrated, danced and sang for him. He was a little proud of him self :)

Josh and Rachael insisted on getting a picture of him, they were so proud of their little brother.

Quick snapshots as Aaron has just walked in the door from work, these two always run to him in excitement that "daddy is home"

This last picture is to summarize my happiness. I truly am happy, my soul is full and I am so very grateful for everything in my life. It's never easy but so so worth the hard fight and perseverance to do what is right.

I am grateful for loved ones around us that increase our happiness. Family, friends, neighbors, co workers. So many people around us help touch our family's lives in ways they will never understand.
Times are rough, really rough but I KNOW that I will get through it and that I am not alone.
I wouldn't change our circumstances for anything.

Aaron came home last week with some unexpected flowers. They happened to be my favorite lilies.
Stargazer lilies give off a very strong scent. This scent is my favorite smell in the whole world. I love the smell of newborns but this smell tops it. I can't explain it but every time I get a whiff I have to stop and inhale again. Sounds silly but it's a simple reminder to me stop for a moment and 'consider the lilies of the field, and how they grow' I never would have thought that a simple smell would give me such a sense of peace that things will pass and there is light and love around me.

A Little Bit of Everything all at Once

Well another year has gone and another has begun.
Last year was an incredible year for our family with so much happening, unfortunately it ended on a hard note for me.

I have since learned so many important lessons through suffering and joy.

On December 19th my computer and hard drive completely died. Without panicking Aaron took it first to Best Buy to see what could be done. Was it a virus? Did the hard drive crash? Is anything retrievable?  Luckily at this point I wasn't too upset as the day before I had backed up everything on my external hard drive (so so grateful for that).

News returned that the hard drive was a goner and that nothing was retrievable. I'm still trying to be positive at this point (I had our past 10 years on that computer, everything from wedding, births, vacations, holidays etc.) Plus all my past photography work.
Aaron took the computer then to a good friend of his, he spent a couple days looking at it while we pulled out one of our ancient HP desktops and fired it up.
This all happened to come at such an inopportune time for me as we were nearing the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013. You see this is the most demanding time for me to have a computer being the Primary Secretary in our ward. I had new rolls, class lists, charts, great to be 8 and priesthood preview invites, lists, lists and more lists, bulletin board, cds with all the 2013 songs for the primary kids....

So after Christmas we had this old computer wiped clean and put windows 7 on it. I plugged in my external hard drive, pulled off the documents I needed and went on my way getting as much done as I could.  I was already nervous about plugging in my hard drive but everything seemed to be there.

Before Christmas I had started a video for some family members abroad. I had spent the year taking clips of our every day lives (I had some really neat things documented) and was so worried I wouldn't have all that.

Anyway, a day or so went by and I went to plug in my hard drive again, this time, nothing. I panic, try not to cry, I knew something was wrong.
I'll save the drama here but I was a mess, Aaron got home from work and tried what he could but it wasn't looking good. He took it to his friend (who still has it). His first response after looking at it was that we were not going to retrieve anything off it. What? How could this had happened?
I was so angry at myself, what could I have done different? What did I do wrong? This was everything, my memories :(

Well here we are over a month later, I have a new computer now but still nothing from the past 10 years. I am sick over it, I don't know if I'll even get anything back. I think of our trips, videos, baby pictures etc and want to cry (I am so glad that I blogged occasionally about things, especially our trips) At least i'll have that much.

I have found that the past month I have a lack of desire to even get on the computer, it has changed me (or maybe just upset me). I still have minimal desire to get on, especially because I don't have any of my projects and programs anymore...
In this time I have found a new sense of life, a better one. Trying to look past the sadness in what has happened (I hope someone can understand my sorrow as my pictures are my life, my journal, my memories I hope to have when I am 104 (like my great grandma) and sitting in my rest home to look at)

This experience has helped me to look at life a little differently, I am not as anxious to take out my camera and capture every single moment, but better yet to sit down and soak it in. I have come to love my iPhone as I have been able to quickly capture moments and then can slip it back away in my pocket.

Another thing I have come to reflect on is time. What happened to the sweet youthful days when days and weeks seemed like forever? I am now sitting at the end of every day pondering how the day slipped by me and how could I used to get so much more done?
I decided it was time to start a new, try to find more positive in everything and to better spend my time. I never wasted a lot of time on the computer (simply would come on to work on a few projects, photo shoots, pay bills etc) but it was the time in which I would get on it that would distract from my day.

Being a mother has it's ups and downs for sure, and at times I am completely exhausted and think to myself "Am I teaching our children the right things and would they desire to choose the right? Am I being a good example? Do we have a good enough relationship they would come to me for anything?

It was time to put more effort into the time I had with my kids, they won't be little forever.
I have found that through all the many things I do weekly (volunteering at Josh's school to help read with kids, gymnastics, piano lessons, preschool, soccer practice.... helping Josh to keep on top of his homework, reading & piano... cleaning house, cooking meals, laundry....
In all of this hustle and bustle I would get overwhelmed and could noticeably see how it would effect the kids behavior from my exhaustion.

I still have all these same things (and I'm sure it's only going to get busier when they get older) but I love it! I have put an bigger effort into more quality time and making these things matter. I can't emphasize enough how much I hope to guide and raise our children correctly.

Getting on the same level as the kids, talking to them face to face and including them in every day decisions has made a huge difference.
I spent two hours today at the church setting up our bulletin board, Joseph and Rachael helped me to prepare everything and were there with me the whole time. There were a few rough moments but it was quality time and they learned something. My little helpers they were!
When Josh gets home from school it's not always easy to direct him into chore and homework mode but once we get through it we are able to have so much fun.

Today as I began preparing dinner Josh and Rachael sat at the table by me and played an electronic battleship game Josh got for Christmas. I still had to help Rachael put in her choice coordinates but having them by me, playing a game was so much fun. Rachael ended up winning, Josh was in tears. But they had so much fun they then pulled out another game and spent another hour at the table playing it. It's what brings me joy.

This picture was captured as it happened, as she won the game and threw her hands up in excitement!

It's a little harder for Joseph as he so badly wants to play and keep up with the older two but he doesn't understand and they get frustrated with him. So I usually have to distract him a bit and find another source of importance for him.  Today he helped me unload the dishwasher and he does such a fantastic job for an 18 month old. He helped to peel oranges for dinner and then pushed his monkey around on a bike.

It's a new year and I am excited for changes, bettering myself and our family and eliminating distractions and becoming more organized with my time and efforts. It's a great life and through suffering/sorrow we find new beginnings and rise up to become better.
I still have a great sense of hope that we will be able to retrieve at least a little from my external hard drive but have prepared myself for the worst.

Here is to a great 2013!