What you feel

Took a quick trip today to Phoenix for Maliea's braces to be redone once again. We are slowly nearing the end. For today's school I had her listen to The Manifestation Course by G. Hendricks I find that learning principles to grow, heal and learn how to be honest and open with yourself and others is by far better education than learning something like calculus which she will never use in her life. One thing in the audio that rang true with her today was about denying our feelings. The audio program talks about a man who was feeling a lot of fear but wouldn't admit it. Making the statement that if he admitted he was scared / fearful that he might never get in a plane again (he was a pilot). What he had to learn was that even if he was denying the fear, his body was still vibrating it. He was still feeling it whether he admitted it or not.
All to often we are really really good at denial. Believing that if we don't face it , don't admit it's in our lives that it won't affect us. The truth is.... what is inside us is constantly being manifested on the outside of us.
So I have this broken down van sitting in my front yard, with no plan. This van was the first major thing I purchased on my own, with my own money , without a man. The first real thing I purchased being a single mom several years back. And I'm feeling sad that it's broke. And I am feel angry at myself that I am not ready to give it up consciously. Okay it does have over 185,000 miles on it. I drove it back and forth to ID a lot. It was an excellent van. My commitment to having a happy marriage and being in love everyday with this wonderful man is now stronger than the broken down van. So I am trying to make changes to release it. Are you getting the connection? It is time to let it go...I know it doesn't make sense to keep it in the long run but I still love my van. I am going to let Maliea learn how to drive with it. Only one gear is totally out, 2 nd and low work fine but you can't drive on the road that way. On to the new wonderful incredible vehicle that is coming my way!
We have to learn to love the bad as well as the good. I once had a dear friend from Guatemala, and she told me there was a saying in her country that if it never rained you could never seen the rainbow. On to loving!

"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart" -Rilke

The month I became pregnant with Thayne, I happened across a treasure that was just sitting on the shelf in a small store in Idaho. It was a book written by a woman who had completely changed my life 10 years ago with another book , Everyday Sacred. Sue Bender's perspective on elevating the ordinary and approaching life with gratitude created such a paradigm shift in my own that nothing has been quite the same since.
I snatched up this new book I had found with eagerness to embrace what gems she had to share. I have just completed it today. The quote by Rilke above is the last line in the book called Stretching Lessons. Very apropos for this journey that I embarked on with this last pregnancy. It was with apprehension that I began reading . Wondering what major drastic shifts this book would make on my life, but it has a quiet grace. Sue shares that we all must be more gentle with ourselves, that our spirits can have wings even with solid roots and even when life hands us "heavy grace" we can be at peace.
There are many things that are still unsolved in my heart. I have a long way to go before I figure out how to be more gentle with myself. I needed Thayne's birth to be perfect. It was to be a gift to myself, my husband ,to my best friend and to the others who know who they are. It was far from perfect. As much as I wanted it to be spiritual, peaceful and perfect; it was not what I had hoped for. The perfect birth I had envisioned was for naught. What is so incredible is I know just how I would counsel someone else with my perspective about "perfect" births. Everything that was what I had wanted as perfect was not what was needed for all of us to grow. So I still mourn how it was "supposed" to be and marvel at what it was.
Maybe just maybe if I figure out how to be more gentle...I won't need that nervous breakdown that I have scheduled for when I am 92.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!
It has been a long wonderful day. Lydia has been mostly ill and now Thayne is acting like he feels unwell also. One of the best parts of Christmas is getting to talk to many friends and relatives although this year I wasn't able to call everyone. Inbetween helping children throw up and open presents all in the same hour I didn't get to accomplish everything I had planned. But there is tomorrow! For Christmas holiday is not just for one day around here. There are more presents to unwrap and lots of yummy food we still need to consume. So on to tomorrow...may the madness continue.

QOTD

" I am going to be so pimply this next week" Chaiya- after opening a giant sized candy bar from her brother.

cookie making

Lydia saved by sickness

By default Santa allows children who are sick on the NICE list. Lydia decided to have a throw up fest in the middle of WalMart this afternoon. I am very grateful for Cindy who just happened to be there and she ran to get a large roll of paper towels. Thayne's little blanket was used instead of a towel and it is now in the trash. She seemed to recover for us to go out but she just crashed again a little while ago so it looks like sick kids for Christmas. Santa will bring her something really great!
Mark left at 5:45 and we headed out to find snow! OK the reasonable facsimile thereof. At the mall on the weekends they have a snow machine that blows for just a 1/2 hour. The kids didn't know about it so I took them up there. Maliea thought I was crazy for going out to find snow but she had so much fun playing also. We then went to look at The World's Largest Gingerbread Village at Prescott Resort. Drove home listening to Focus on the Family's broadcast of Dicken's Christmas Carol. We finished making sugar cookies and they are laid out on the cookies for santa plate. I think we are set! (ok..in truth there are still presents to wrap and santa has a few things to set up and prepare so getting in bed by 2 am will be a miracle)
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night....... what is up with the good night thing? Parents don't sleep.
Well I'm off to help the elves and Santa and wishing all of you a good night!

Almost done

I actually made it home by 8:40 pm this evening with shopping completed except a few grocery items. I ended up picking a pumpkin cheesecake instead of pie for Christmas. Very yummy..can't wait to dig into it.
The older children's dad arrives tomorrow for a short visit. I believe that I will take the little ones and hang out at Fry's picking up the last of the food items while he is here. Truffles all turned out well and I am making a few more treats for my family that is around here. It has been incredibly warm lately. Very unseasonable. So we are looking at a dry warm Christmas. Lydia is still on the naughty list. She has one day to get on the nice list we will see if Santa will give her a reprieve. She has been quite the attitude girl lately. Being mean to Maliea is her game. Headed to bed early tonight hahaha tomorrow will be interesting!

Lists

On Monday evening at 10:30pm the children provided me with Christmas lists. Ok it's a little late in the game but their lists offered some interesting insights.
From Maliea's: item #6 A great day with family
Chaiya's: Fact or Crap (we assume its the game she is referring too)
Quayde's: all in caps UNDERWEAR! NEEDED!
and Lydia's: a SpiderMan costume
I love my unique kids!
In fact Lydia the princess, her list contained everything that a 5 year old BOY would want. spiderman , pokemon, bionicle etc.... I think she has been influenced greatly by her brother. NO girlie things for her.
So today is another day for trying to finish.hahahaha
By the way if you are in the area, the WalMart at the old Pondrosa Plaza site had lots and lots of stuff still as of last night at midnight. Unlike the other with the shelves stripped.
I am writing this while my incredible wonderful husband drifts in and out of sleep next to me. I am being to understand the statement that 'youth is wasted on the young'
Once upon a time this man and I were able to stay up all night talking and still function the next morning ..okay that was 19 years ago but in our minds we are still the same. :)
Off to make a new list for myself about how much I will accomplish today.

Each day this next week

Today's lesson in RS had the possibility to be incredible. It was titled "Let your Light So Shine" I had pre-read the lesson and was really looking forward to the discussion. Unfortunately our instructor today wanted no participation and droned on and on about how great she and her relatives were. I was disappointed. So I have decided to use the lesson for a Family Home Evening because I really feel it was great and I don't want the opportunity to let the message of radiating goodness and love pass by without sharing it with my children. If everyone understood how each of their actions and attitude ripples out like a stone thrown in the pond, wouldn't this world be filled with more peace and love if we all tried to be better people.
This time of year my thoughts turn often to Mary, the Christ child's mother. How much she had to endure, the judgment from others and the hardship. All to fulfill a calling she had been asked to bear. Even though it made no sense to those around her. I am sure she struggled with knowing and searching her heart. Staying faithful when everyone thought she must be crazy. Having a baby is hard enough even when everything is perfect. I could relate to Mary's struggle when I was pregnant with Lydia. Trusting and hoping.
One week till Christmas.
There is much to hope for, trust in and radiate. When we focus on the abundance, the love and the peace..we attract those things in our lives. One of the affirmations I used in the childbirth classes I used to teach was to "Focus on what you want rather than what you fear". Like attracts like.
I am going to find a quiet space even if only for a couple of moments each day this week to focus on the good in my life & the good in the world, so it can grow and radiate.

Quick Quick

Okay I have five minutes... I have already been to visit two church ladies, dropped off and picked up the girls an hour later they had to clean the church this morning, went to Fry's to buy sparkling cider (on sale with coupon) for Christmas, shoved a couple of treats and a pumpkin muffin down my throat and it's still before 11:00am. Now I am back home and the madness begins. One week to Christmas count down. Almost have packages already to ship, priority mail of course. Ran out of ink, can't finish anything without ink of course so picked some up last night otherwise things would have been mailed yesterday.
Had school group over...gosh I love my friends. It is so nice just to relax and talk each week while the kids do their activities or play. And just in case they are thinking I am close to perfect or anything..... That toilet in my bathroom still hasn't been scrubbed and it keeps screaming at me everytime I go in there.
Last night as a family we went to the Courthouse and froze while we walked around the square and enjoyed the lights. Ran into a couple of people we know who were freezing also but it was really fun and nice to get out and do something. Then we dragged 5 children to Walmart , it seemed that everyone else had their Friday night date night at Walmart with their children too! Made it home at 10 something and the stuff is still in the bags waiting to be placed in proper places. Hope there wasn't anything that needed the refrigerator or anything.
So I am off to get all those presents finished that I am making...won't say what they are because you all read my blog. :) And so I am off .

QOTD

"When I am empty please dispose of me properly", - On side of a WhatABurger cup

Chaiya thinks it would be a good sticker to stick on someone's forehead

What do you think about a motto for a funeral home??? ( I know I'm sick!) but it is funny.

morning?

I am not by any stretch of the imagination a morning person, so I am finding it odd that I am actually blogging in the morning. I believe it is the try to squeeze in any moment of time to accomplish as much as possible thing. Last night I made the most beautiful truffles, the rum flavored ones needed more flavor though. So I actually have started on Christmas. There is an undecorated tree in the living room, that should be decorated by the time school group gets here tomorrow. Still the list is daunting so we will see how much really gets accomplished today. And that darn baby wants to eat again...geeee

Christmas time is here

Apparently Maliea has been entering the car each morning in a cheerful way announcing how many more days till Christmas. To which Michael and Chaiya just grumble. I adore Maliea! 99.5% of the time she truly embodied what Christmas means. She is always loving. She is always kind. When she is involved in enjoying life, she is right there being present in the moment. She has a pure heart. I was observing some of the girls at church and what is really refreshing about Maliea is that she is real!! She always hopes in the best and believes it can happen. I am so blessed having her as my daughter.

Now the grumblers....I am trying to adjust to having two melancholics in the house who feed off of each other. This year is the first year that Chaiya is financially aware of what Christmas cost and being a teenager on hormones... well you get the picture. Michael must have some serious programming issues cause he just doesn't care all together and says he'll worry about things on the 24th. Oh Joy!

So today I really am going to attempt to get the house decorated , maybe go find a tree even if it is just me, Maliea, and the younger ones. Make some goodies and try to get into the spirit. Okay I know Christmas is in a week and a half and my lesson at church had advise on having things done earlier so one could enjoy the meaning and not be stressed by the preparation; need to take my own advice.
Hope everyone else has done a better job than I. Happy Wednesday!

Winner!

We have a winner in the Lamest Christmas Decoration category:

Taco Bell

Frontier Village

Luau skirts with Hawaiian print fans

with plastic Christmas tablecloths

???????????

Can anyone explain this or why they even bothered to put anything up?

Yesterday

Our guests started to arrive at 10 am for our weekly homeschool group meeting. We are going to start having it here at the house since it is a wee bit cold sitting at the picnic tables at the park in the winter. Although somedays I wonder if the inside of our home is really that much warmer. When you put 18 children and a group of adults in our home is cozy.
How much paint do you think children can put on wooden gingerbread men? And I am not sure I understand where the fanged teeth come into play either. It was great fun seeing how creative the kids got. I wanted them to make something that would last a few years and they would get a kick out of when they are teens.
Can you believe the only mess was from Quayde and his bag of potato chips (he wasn't supposed to have)?
It will be nice to have everyone over each week. Just got to come up with enough activities.
After everyone left , we had about an hour before our next company showed up. A much calmer crowd....well maybe not as Quayde came running through without a shirt and claimed the girls took it. My best friend brought me Dr. Pepper. Always a much appreciated thing. Okay.... so I worship the ground she walks on for being an enabler of my addiction. I need to be very sly next time though. Lydia has a Dr. Pepper beacon. She spotted it and promptly drank about half, when she wasn't trying to share (forcefully) with Kristi. Good thing Kristi is very patient.
Kristi and her kids head off giving us about an hour to get ready for our ward Christmas dinner, can't call it a party really, there wasn't anything except dinner and the little nativity thing. Michael promptly took the next 40 min getting himself ready. Meanwhile I am trying to calm a crying baby, prepare food for Lydia, get Quayde's wiseman box finished etc... Needless to say the two little ones and I arrived about 25 min after the rest of the family and all I could find to wear was a dirty purple shirt. Guess who is not on my happy santa list?
But then I can't really blame him because he's only like really lived with us for 6 months now, and is still learning.
So we are headed into the weekend here and part of the power is out in the house I need to go hunt down which breaker has tripped, but man it is cold out there. I am not doing anything today.....and if you believe that...I really am an alien from Mars.

Truth

I have been following the news story on the Pennsylvania teens that went wrong. Mostly it deeply disturbs me that these parents truly made the best choices that they believed for their children and now because of a 14 yo girl who thought sneaking out to be with her boyfriend was a better choice..her parents are dead and her community is shattered. It makes me angry and it makes me very sad.
I have a 14 yo girl, I probably have most of the same "rules" as Kara Borden's parents did, we homeschool....Our lives are similar just without the boyfriend in it. I don't understand why a household would "need" 54 guns, why an 18 yo boy would have full access to all those guns or why he would purposely take several when asked to talk to her parents.
I try to find something clear in all this...the answers won't come.
I try to teach my children from the time they can understand, that every action and every choice they make in their lives affects everyone in their world. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Karma. Law of Restoration. ETC..... You can not make a choice without consequences good or bad and those actions will continue.
If any thing good has come from following this tragic story is that it has opened a dialog with my teenagers...letting them understand that who they consider friends and the activities they choose to be involved with, do impact the whole family and can impact the rest of our lives.

Its the middle of the night... both of the little ones are fast asleep. My body is so used to getting no sleep at this point that even though I could be off in dreamland alas I can't seem to get my body and mind to shut down.
Thayne got his first tooth through yesterday...the next one is not far behind and he is not a happy boy. It is about the only time in his whole life that he has cried and been fussy.
The homeschool group is invited over here on Friday. Chaiya , Lydia and I have been base painting these wooden gingerbread men, we are all covered in brown paint. Better us than a lot of little kids and my floor. The children will be able to customize their own and hopefully they will turn out cute.
Trying to figure out a way to juggle finances, Christmas you know and a lack of weddings in the last month make it lots of fun.
My good friend Judy gave me some of her 6 grain stuff to make bread with. Can't wait to play and experiment. Thanks Judy!
When I write my book its title will be kamikaze Rabbits, Reflections at 2:00 am. But for now all I have is this blog.
We are to the last few chapters in Harry Potter 6...Told the kids we will have to read the rest during the day and not right before bed. When I read it through by myself first I cried for longer than an hour.
Lydia just awoke and asked what am I doing with the computer in the dark night.
So off to spend time with her. Hope everyone else is sleeping well out there!

Monday

I thought I would be clever and write a little ditty for my blog this evening but it is Monday and my brain just is not functioning any more. The baby is teething...those little teeth are just about ready to come through. Had a magnificient conversation with a telemarketer in Cleveland OH a little while ago kept her on the phone for 35 minutes and didn't buy anything. It is already 34 outside and inside it is not much warmer despite the fire. Jo-Ann's craft store keeps emailing me coupons to use with my non-existent money. And it's Monday. There is a sign on my refrigerator that says "Tracie DO NOT eat any dairy after 5:00pm , it makes you very sick!" It's after 5 and I am drinking hot chocolate. I ate pork loin for the first time since 1987 this afternoon. My body will probably go into shock at about 2:00 am. The kids are watching cartoons on Yahooligans they figured out a way around the no tv thing here, thanks to Michael. Got almost no school done today. Quayde's Primary teacher decided to lecture him on how worthless his life will be if he doesn't read better. Which of course created a great many tears today while working on a phonics lesson. You don't want to be his teacher when I see him next. Maliea did work on percents today and is understanding it quite well and Chaiya chose to take up knitting again and found that you never forget how to do it. Need to make treats for Scouts tomorrow they are going to see to the old folks at one of the homes just down the road. I am totally unmotivated to do any thing right now and I have a million projects to accomplish in time for Christmas and it is Monday!

peace?

I have been working on a lesson for church on "How to have Peace this Christmas", it actually was a little harder to write and piece together than I expected it to be. This evening I was placing the finishing touches on my writing and outline when Quayde came through the living room. He inquired as to what I was doing and I told him some of the points of the lesson. He commented as only a little boy would do, " Just tell them not to eat yellow snow".
Yes, I guess that would make all the church ladies Christmases a little more peaceful.

To those who are following the mousecapades here....Chaiya and Maliea caught the bidet mouse under a crystal bowl this afternoon. A little fancier way than the whack-a-mole hammer and white hanger that Michael and Quayde attempted.

QOTD

This statement I found on the front of the package of bacon this morning , in fairly large letters, " THIS IS NOT A REDUCED CALORIE FOOD"

oh yeah ....no kidding!