random news and goings on

Mercedes and Grammie at her house on Skyline Drive, Labor Day weekend 2007

Today is Grammie's birthday.  We miss her. A lot.  Especially on long car trips.

She often came with us on our looooong drives to Utah from SoCal.  I remember her feeding Coop his bottle and then rubbing his back to help him to burp- all while he was in a carseat - when he was two months old.

She let Mercedes wear her high-heeled shoes and put on mascara - from the time she was Lincoln's age.

Grammie was always full of energy and up for an adventure.  We look forward to being with her again.

For the past week, I've been hooked on Taylor Swift's new CD, "Speak Now."  I'm listening to it right now.  "Why ya gotta be so mean?" is one of my faves.  I sprinkle in some Christmas music for good measure and to get us into the festive holiday mood.

Also today I deactivated my facebook account.  I've been thinking about it for a while... and just decided to do it.  I did it for a variety of reasons.  It just felt unnecessary to me.  And I'm striving to simplify.  Our family feels over-scheduled to me lately.  I'd like to cut Mercedes' gymnastics classes down to once a week (from two), but she isn't too keen on the idea.  With her not getting home from school until almost 4, I feel like we don't get enough time together.

Always present in my mind is the awareness that come this July, Brent will be gone so much that I'll feel like a single mom again.  A friend of mine whose husband is in his final year of residency said to me today, "I'm just done with being a single mom."  Her almost three year old son hasn't ever spent much time with his dad.  He's leaving (the dad) for nine days this week, and then in February will be gone for nine weeks.  All this and he spends most of his time at the hospital.  Made me even MORE scared of the next four 1/2 years!

I'm grateful for my sweet boys who are still home with me.  I am amazed at what they teach each other.  Yesterday Lincoln was pretending to be "a doggy," something that Cooper does often.  Mercedes always pretends that Coop is her dog and that his name is "cheese its."  Cooper treats his underwear the same way that he treats his diaper (if you know what I mean), and we often wonder if he'll ever be potty-trained.  But still, he is absolutely the cutest kid I've ever seen and I love to cuddle him.  He says, "Mommee-aahh" and "Daaddeee-aahh."  I don't know where he came up with that.  Lincoln loves to yell, "NOOOOO!" and "STOP!"  He doesn't mind me cleaning his bum when I change his diaper, but he FIGHTS HARD when I try to put a clean diaper on him.  He just wants to be naked all the time (which isn't so weird for a kid, but it's the opposite of Cooper and Mercedes who are really into modesty).  If he's able to get his pjs off in the morning, then he'll take them off and his diaper too.  I often go in to find him laying in his bed, grinning and sucking his little thumb.

I like to watch chuck with Brent on Monday nights.  It's a pretty funny show, and pretty much the only show that we watch together.  Usually if Brent's watching tv, I'm reading a book because I'm more into drama and he likes cake/cooking/mythbusters/pumpkin-chucker type shows.  I usually try to watch with him, but I get bored pretty quickly.  He's a sweet boy who will patiently watch all of my silly romantic-comedies with me just because he likes to spend time with me.  How'd I get so lucky?

Mercedes is still learning (and struggling - a bit) to read.  Before bed she likes to read the Book of Mormon (or sometimes the "story" versions) aloud to us.  It requires patience on my part (watching her struggle to figure out how to say "Moroni") but it's also a very special time for us.  I'm grateful that she loves the scriptures.  She loves to do what is right and tries so hard to be good.

I'm so happy and grateful to have a family.