One of those things . . .

This blog has become one of those things . . . you know the things you think about at the end of the day, the little side chores that you keep putting off because they aren't that important. I think about it and want to do it, but when the day is done and I have a few spare moments, it's not high enough on the priority list to require action. So, in keeping with my Relief Society lesson that we need to slow down and evaluate what is truly important in our lives, I have decided to let my "tight like unto a dish" blog sail quietly away into obscurity. I enjoy writing it, but I don't enjoy the sense of guilt or neglect that I have when I don't. I am in no way shape or form saying that blogging is a waste of time or unimportant because I learn new things all the time from those who are willing to put their knowledge out there on a blog. All I'm saying is that for me, at this point in my life, this blog is an "extra", something that can be let go, fairly painlessly, to relieve the stress of feeling like I have to do it all, be it all, have it all.
Thanks for the laughs and the tears and putting up with my insanity! I'll still be around, going through all the same old stuff . . . .just a little more quietly,

I go from the 5th to the 24th without any updates . . . I really am trying to get better at this! Let's see if I can remember what has happened since then.

Since we have so many birthdays in the family in September, we decided a few years ago to celebrate them all together. We got together with Mom and Dad Sherwood, Mom and Dad Theurer, Jason, Andi, Justis and Nia at my parents house for dinner and dessert. The kids got to run around and play outside, which they always LOVE. For dessert, I had a craving that morning for doughnuts so I had the idea to do a doughnut bar. I made the doughnut dough and we fried them fresh, then everyone could chooose which glaze they wanted (maple, vanilla or chocolate) and then a bunch of toppings to dip in (sprinkles, mini chocolate chips, coconut, toffee pieces). It was so much fun and sooooo yummy! Who doesn't love fried food? Horribly bad for you but oh so delicious!

The other big thing going on around here is that Kadin started preschool a couple weeks ago. He is loving it and so am I! We were going to put him into the pre-K program at the local elementary, but due to budget cuts the program got canceled. So after talking to a bunch of people, we decided to go with a preschool run by the church down the road from us. They have a great program and some of Kadin's friends from the ward were going to be there. We went to the parent orentiation and got their full missionary effort. We got invited to their worship service, song service, potluck dinner, coffee hour, and I'm sure a few other things I forgot. I can definetely tell it's a church-based preschool because nearly every handout he brings home has something about God or Jesus. He is having a great time and loves going, even though I have no idea what he does beyond snack time and play on the playground (every time I ask him what he did in class, those are the two answers I get.).

The time that Kadin is at preschool is a great chance for me to get some work done on the many projects I have in progress. I frequently find myself wishing that I had a craft room to work in so I could leave them all out in their various states of chaos, but I have to put them back into some semblance of order before they start to take over our bedroom (it's getting close). I've got the kid's Halloween costumes to finish, some holiday decorations for the house and a TON of stuff for Christmas. Yes, I am already working on Christmas stuff. Trust me, I will need all the time I can get if I am going to get all my plans done.

The weather has been so weird around here lately, sunny one day and rainy the next. This week started out kind of cold and drippy and I got pretty drippy myself. I blamed it on the change in weather and a recent run of late nights (staying up with Jeremy trying to catch up on Season 1 of Glee before we start watching Season 2), but I just kept going downhill. It started on Tuesday and by Thursday I was miserable. I could barely breathe out of my nose and my whole body felt like I had been beat with a stick. I seriously wondered if I had caught the flu somewhere. Then I had an awful realization. When I was filling my weeks pill organizer (yes, I am that lame, I have so many pills to take in the morning that I just throw them all together so I don't have to open a million bottles), I had forgotten to put in my prednisone. Such a small pill and yet it makes such a difference. I was surprised at how drastically my health changed in just a couple days. It was just another confirmation of how much I truly do depend on that drug; nasty side-effects and all. Even though I hate the side-effects, I am grateful that I have something that gives me a somewhat normal life.

Hopefully sometime soon I will get the pictures off my camera and uploaded to Picasa . . . just one more thing on my to-do list!

After what feels like the shortest summer ever, September is here already. It's been a fun week with Aimie and Jaxon in town; wish they lived closer so we could get together more than once a year! We took the kids to Out of This World so they could run around and play while it was gray and drizzly outside. The boys had a fantastic time playing on the bigger play structures (Kadin had to give Jaxon a boost up some of the stairs) and Kylee would have been content to slide down the baby slide all day long. All the kids were worn out by the time we left at lunch time; just what we were hoping would happen!

Wednesday we got together with Andi, Justis, and Nia and took the kids to OMSI for the day. I haven't been there since I was a little kid and it was a lot of fun to go back and see all the new stuff they have in there. Upstairs they have a kids area with bubbles and water and sand . . . we could probably have camped out there for the day and the kids would have had plenty to do. When we took the kids downstairs to the rocket/machinery exhibit, we had a little bit of a scare when Jaxon ran off to see something exciting. With so many kids, we kind of lost track of who was watching who and no one saw where he darted off to. Luckily, he didn't go too far and we found him, but it got us all a little worried for a bit (I think Aimie was more than a little worried, which is totally understandable). After that, I took the kids over to visit Jeremy at work. It was fun to get to see him in the middle of the day and I think the kids really enjoyed seeing where Daddy goes everyday.

On Friday, I was feeling antsy being in the house so I spontaneously decided to take the kids out to Woodburn to see if they had any good Labor Day sales on fall clothes for the kids. I haven't ever really taken the kids somewhere like that by myself before so I was a little nervous how that would go. Kadin has a tendency to get impatient with running errands and Kylee can only handle being in the stroller for so long. Thankfully, they both fell asleep on the way out there so they weren't super tired and grumpy when we got there. I had my own lost child scare in Gymboree after Kadin wandered away from the child's play area and I couldn't find him for a few minutes. He popped out from behind a clothes rack with a huge smile on his face and said "Here I am Mommy!" I was torn between relief at seeing him safe and anger at him being disobedient and wandering away. I guess that's always the mix with kids; lots of love and lots of frustration.

Saturday we took the family up to Vancouver for the day. Mom, Dad, Aimie and Jaxon met us there and then Mom, Andi, Aimie and I took off for a little girl's time away. After the crazy few weeks we have had with Jeremy being gone at meetings or working late or whatever, I really needed a break and some grown-up time and it was so fun to spend it with them. We went to lunch at Olive Garden (their salad always makes me happy) and then just wandered around Vancouver Mall. It has been a long time since I just got to wander a mall and window shop with out kids or husband hurrying me along and it was nice to just hang out for a little bit. But, we had to get back because the boys wanted to watch the BYU football game and they didn't thinkl that babysitting kids made for the optimum watching situation (which I totally get). It was a really fun day, but by the end our kids were exhausted and grumpy and we all crashed as soon as we got home.

For the public school kids, school starts this week, but we have one more week before Kadin starts preschool. We signed him up at Bethlehem Lutheran down the street from us and he is really excited about going to a new class. He will be going with some of his friends from church, which will be nice for him to know some people already. I am excited for those couple of hours with just one child again! Not that I don't adore Kadin, but he is extremely high energy and most of the time I am not, so a breather every now and again is always appreciated! We went and got his school supplies this week; he is in love with his Iron Man backpack. It's fun to see him experience the excitement of school and getting ready for a new year. Hopefully, he has a great time and continues to love school.

Let go

I am a book junkie. I'll admit it; I have an addiction to books. I have a list of books I would like to read that is ALWAYS growing. The list grows every time I go to Costco (I would hate to see what it would all add up to if I actually bought every book that I thought looked interesting or worth reading), read the newspaper (I love reading the book review sections), flip through a magazine in the checkout line . . . pretty much anywhere. More often than not, I will go and request the books through our local library so I can see if they are worth it without breaking the bank (I bet Jeremy is grateful for that). There have been more than a few times I have taken a book back without getting past the first 50 pages, glad the only investment I made was my time.

One of these recent reads I got from the newspaper book reviews, I think. It's called "Confessions of a Slacker Wife" the follow-up to "Confessions of a Slacker Mom". They looked intriguing, so I put in a request and picked them up a few weeks later. They are both incredibly funny and, I think, incredibly insightful into the lives of women as both wives and mothers. The author, Muffy Mead-Ferro (how can you not love someone with the name "Muffy"?), is a total straight shooter and says things that I would bet most women are thinking but don't want to say because they don't want to be thought less of (or maybe it's just me).

The one thing that really stuck out to me was that we, as women, feel that if we are going to do something, we have to do it to a level that will wow the socks off everyone. I feel this way COMPLETELY! If I am going to make a birthday cake, it should look like it belongs on a Food Network Challenge. If I am going to sew a dress for Kylee, it should qualify to be in the next Children's Place catalog. If I am going to scrapbook, then the work I do should be getting published all over the place. If the things I do don't meet this criteria then what's the point? Sadly, I get way to caught up in this frame of mind and drive myself INSANE trying to be amazing at everything. I completely forget why it is that I do these things in the first place; because I enjoy them!!! I love to bake because I enjoy the mixing and measuring and exactness of it all and I certainly don't mind eating the delicious results. I enjoy sewing for the same reason; the measuring and matching pieces and coming out with a finished product that I think is cute and original. I enjoy scrapbooking because I can look back on all our great memories and make them even more beautiful for us to enjoy again and again. With this perfectionist veiwpoint, these activities are creating more stress than they are relieving it (which kind of defeats the purpose of them).

So I have decided to try and talk myself down from my ledge and remind myself to just LET GO. I don't have to have matching hairbows for each of Kylee's outfits and Kadin will love a cake frosted with plain old frosting just as much as one covered in fondant. If I do choose to tackle any of these projects, it will be because I want to, for fun, and not because I am trying to be Super-Mom and show everyone just how amazing I can be. I need to make the commitment now because I know, as we roll into the holiday season, my over-achieving, perfectionist tendencies will kick in and I will go bananas trying to make the perfect centerpiece for my table to coordinate with my tree decorations, and the new throw pillows I am sewing. Just repeat over and over . . . . let go, let go, let go.