Another week down… literally

 Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday: These three days were exactly the same. I laid in bed, recovering. Our sweet and wonderful little babysitter, an angle on earth, from a family full of angels came over each day to take care of the girls while Travis got the boys ready for school until the boys returned from school (and then some). And to say that these girls were … HaRd To HaNdLe is a MASSIVE UNDERSTATEMENT! Avery has reached the full blown terrible two stage that no one in this house is enjoying!! I can’t tell you how many times I heard “I hate you! No! Never!” I felt so bad. Between the two girls, I was afraid she wouldn’t dare come back the next day! But bless her heart she kept coming back! And each day she came back she came prepared with new games, learning activities, and kept them so organized that they never even turned on the tv. And when the girls napped, she’d clean my house. She even organized my books and dvds that needed to get back to the library soon so I wouldn’t have to round them up. And her mom brought us dinner, along when two other families in our ward that brought us dinners. My friend and Neighbors took over the driving for me.

Thursday: “A New Sheriff is in town!” This was the text travis sent me the night before because he’d heard of the girl’s antics and he would be home all Thursday to take over, heh heh heh! And in for a ride awaking they were! So Travis took over as mom for the day and the house and the girls got all the attention they needed! 

Friday: We let the boys each invite a friend over for a fun evening of games, video games, pizza, and popcorn. 

Saturday: Travis was the best dad! He started the morning off taking the kids with him to rake leaves in the yard of an elderly woman in our ward, along with a a few of the Elders Quorum members. He said the kids did such a wonderful job that when they came home he instantly changed them into clean warm clothes and carted them away to the movies to see Clifford. I love him. I love them. I loved this day. He said they were so good, that Avery carried in her popcorn, Addie carried the candy, boys had the sodas (spoiled much?), and the girls each snuggled him and the movie was enjoyed by all. They came just in time for BYU football; what a frustrating game; I don’t think I’ve disliked a team we’ve played against that much in a LONG time! For dinner travis created a taste Of Utah and made us Polish dawgs with Jay sauce. Yum! 

Sunday: travis took the kids to church. Aaron was in charge of prayer. Last week Maddix has to do a little talk, and next week Addie is in charge of the scripture. I love that my kiddos aren’t afraid of public speaking and are always some of the first to volunteer. After church we had our Sunday pancakes for lunch. The boys decided to take the girls to play out in the yard instead of doing a special quiet time in the lego room… and I have to say, I was impressed! They bundled up as warm as they could because it was like, 28 degrees with the wind chill, but they stayed out and played for just over an hour! They did “fencing lessons” and taught the girls to sword fight 😂 And somehow no one was injured or offended during this time. Lion king was chosen as the Sunday movie, then scripture cartoons. We enjoyed beef enchiladas for dinner and a Jamba Juice creation travis whipped up for family home evening. After the kids went to bed, Travis and I put on Les Miserables and snuggled in the couch. Wrapped in his arms, my hands in his… I essentially bawled my eyes out for three hours! The. Struggle. Was. Real!! I cried at the injustice for Jean Val Jean. The kindness of the priest. The horrifying fate for Fantine. And her endless struggle to protect her daughter, that she never even gets to see. And on and on… I just looked at that movie and it hit me hard how GRATEFUL I am for my life. My family. For my world. I get so overwhelmed at the wickedness of this generation and I get discouraged that I have to raise my kids in it. But at the same time, I can shut it out. I can simply stay off the internet. Turn off the tv. Avoid traveling certain places. I can raise my children with knowledge, comforts, and each day can be turned into something great. I am so grateful to be living in today’s world where yes, there is an abundance of injustices, but we have never blessed with more!! 

From running to bed ridden

 So October was a month of accomplishing physical goals like our half marathon and the triathlon. November started out celebrating two very special birthdays: Adeline’s and Our Susan. And because they only have one day in between their birthdays, we get together to do a combine birthday each year  and Addie thinks it’s the most wonderful thing because she basically gets to celebrate her birthday twice. This year Addie only wanted corndogs for her dinner. And for her theme, she couldn’t make up her mind between spiders 🕷 and star wars… so she asked if she could have both! So she ended up with a Star Wars- Spider cake! And thankfully, I had the opportunity to make a fancier birthday meal for Susan. 

Okay, then with the birthdays over I spent a few more days deep cleaning the house, making freezer meals, getting projects done, prepping for Christmas (since I’d be down), etc  because on Nov. 5th I had a major surgery to correct my rectus-diastatis of my abs (I had a 3 1/2ish gap in between my abs from my pelvis up to my sternum from birthing 4 kiddos), as well as fix my bladder issues. The surgery was a quick one, where you go home same day with medicine drips placed into my abdomen to help control the pain for the first three days… which was life saving. And then I have drains placed on each hip helping to drain out the excess blood and swelling from the surgery. The recovery journey: painful. Least favorite thing I’ve had to do, I think, in my life. I have to stay down for six weeks. Hopefully the drains will be out by the end of the second week. 

Travis took great care of getting me home and explaining to the kids how soft they would have to be with me. He even took all four kids out mountain biking! Avery rode on the attachable toddler seat, and Addie rode her push bike the whole way! And then my mom flew in to take over for my first week down; thank goodness because that first week down was horrible. And Avery has hit an unbearable level of terrible two’s. We couldn’t have done it without her; they the heavens for moms. 

During the week my mom took the girls to the park, out in the yard, loaded them in a wagon full of popcorn bags, and helped Aaron deliver his fundraiser popcorn around several blocks… he sold lots! And it was freezing! She basically played mom so that I could play grandma (you know, only pop in at brief moments, smile at the chaos, think everyone is cute while they were causing mayhem, and then disappear again while she cleaned up the messes… the endless messes). She was brave enough to take them to the library, stores, to purchase Christmas presents (that just sounded disastrous to me! Ha ha), and then every night we would watch several episodes of Only Murders In The Building while she’d massage my super sore feet and back. Ugh I already miss her. The trip to take her to the airport was turned into a fun outing in which travis barely survived with all the kids; remember how scary Avery is right now??). They took grandma bowling at an under the sea themed alley, took her to the airport, and then went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse; yum! And I had hours of sleeping… and pure quiet! 

I’ve been having some rough days, we all have really. But today was one of my favorite days I’ve had in a long time! And I think my favorite part of the whole day was watching Travis reenact the “dumpster fire of a sacrament meeting” it was for him 😂 It was the primary program today (Maddix’s last one! Can you believe it?) and the show was stolen when Avery ran up onto the stage then around the pews, couldn’t find travis and began crying, and ran out of the room! And then Addie was pulling faces… and on and on; I received the whole play by play! What a good man. Or maybe my favorite part was making our lists to Santa tonight and seeing all the characters we ended up making on our papers by using the reindeer head; too fun. Or perhaps it was finally finishing the first Percy Jackson book that I’ve been promising Maddix I’d read for the past year! Or when he beat me fair and square at chess today! Or watching my family perform a Bollywood dance with dinner… talking with travis all afternoon… dreaming about our future… how well the boys did at letting Addie join them for her first “special quiet time” that they do each Sunday (typically the girls go to their rooms while the boys go to the Lego room and build forts, play imagination games, or build LEGOs for HOURS! And Addie has been so well behaved that she earned a ticket into the big kids quiet time… and it did not disappoint; the boys even made her her own special fort… she was in HEAVEN). 

Just a perfect day in the midst of some far from perfect ones. Here’s to 5 more weeks of resting, healing, and help from family and friends! 

Ps  It was also my sweet niece, Keili’s final primary program as well, and when I saw her pic in the Fam text stream I almost died; she looks so old and so beautiful. And Maddix too… where has the time gone??