I hate when I end up making excuses when making goals

I should know better than to publish a goal about getting caught up in blogging.  It's always at times when you think you will have tons of spare time that life really gets rolling.  Shortly after I declared that I was going to get completely updated our ward (church congregation) split (got rezoned) and my new calling (responsibility) at church became young women's president (overseeing the youth program for girls 12-18).  At the time I was also in full planning mode as the assistant stake camp young women's camp director (assisting in putting on a 5 day overnight camp for the aforementioned church girls for a collection of 7 congregations).  Between those church responsibilities, planning Miss A's 5th birthday, a 10-year-anniversary trip with Br, and then a surprise move to Colorado,  I didn't manage to make my catch-up goal.  Now as I sit in a small two-bedroom apartment in Littleton, Colorado with very few commitments and responsibilities, I'm hopefully going to motivate myself to spend some time actually catching up since as life has attempted to teach me, it is unlikely that I will have this much downtime again in the near future.  Hopefully, there will be actual posts to follow this before another list of excuses for my slacking. 

February

  I have a goal to have the blog up to date by the end of the month.  Since I'm still 4 months behind, we'll see how it goes.  

The major event for February was this guy

 

turned 7!

Per his request, here is a picture of him with his completed birthday present.

 

Months before he requested a magic show with our friend Alex and daddy as our entertainment because "they are the best in the world". E had grand ideas about what we should do at his party.  We decorated hats and and painted magic wands.

We tossed white rabbits into a top hat, disappearing chairs, and pin the hat on the magician.  The kids took turns picking invisible strings, one of which sawed our white rabbit pinata in half to reveal enough white rabbit Webkinz for each little magician (can you say AMAZING dollar store find?)

The kids grabbed some food from the snack bar, pulled up a pillow and watched the show.  

 Br warmed up the crowd with some fantastic juggling.

He was followed up by the amazing Magic Kid Alex. 

E lit up when he got to be Alex's assistant. 

 

We ended with cake.  E actually designed the cake.  He asked me to draw him blueprints for approval.  After a little input, he finally gave the design a thumbs up.

  

And now a final February note...because Miss A would kill me if there wasn't at least one picture of her posing in the post, here is her valentine's day card.  

 

Just imagine it printed with a sucker inserted to make it look like she is holding it. 

1 month down...3 more to go!

January

I've been known to say that we don't really travel all that often, but looking through pictures from January, I guess I have to stop pretending and admit that we really do take many spontaneous trips.  We started off the year with our family Christmas present.  Although we went back and forth about it a billion times, we ended up booking the last cabin on the last Disney Cruise departing out of Galveston.  Br and I enjoyed some nice time together while the kids hung out with princesses and pirates.

 

Anyone who knew E when he was 2-6 would be shocked to see that instead of a pirate he decided he'd rather be the ship's captain during the theme night.  My little boy is turning into a man.

It was a short cruise only stopping off at Cozumel and turning back around.  We stepped off the boat to beautiful weather and hit the beach.  Miss A spent most of her time on the beach while Mr E adventured out to a huge inflatable obstacle course.  No pics were taken out there as I couldn't even take a single step on that contraption without ended up on my rear.

We were finished up at the beach a few minutes too late and our beautiful tropical weather turned into a huge tropical storm--or polar vortex-- or whatever they called it.  All I know is that the sky opened, the winds picked up and when we hit the open seas after leaving port the waves were splashing over the top of the boat and the boat was a rockin'.  I'm not sure if it was unnerving or kind of funny sitting in a theater on a boat that literally felt like the ocean was periodically falling out from underneath us while watching the scene from Frozen when (spoiler alert) the parents are lost at sea.  A few seasickness pills and a little rest and we soon found ourselves back at home and back to reality.  I have no complaints about the trip.  After all while most of the country was completely frozen over, we were doing this.

  

 (Proof the kids like each other)

On the last cruise we were on the most exciting part was when we got the news that my sis was blessed with two adorable newborn boys. Just days before we were about to board a ship again, she called to tell us that their adoption had been finalized.  As a result we were excited to join them in Saint George to visit my hero G-pa Hobbs and attend the sealing of the cuties a few weeks later.

 

(a forever family)

I'm so grateful that my kids have had the opportunity to get to know my Grandpa a little bit.  I have MANY fond memories of spending time in my Grandparents' house.  It was like a wonderland with fun projects developing in the workshop, walks to the park with cousins, popping penny after penny in the fun banks, mixing up black cows in the kitchen, hunting for Easter eggs filled with loose change, and spending hours on end getting lost in our imaginations in my Grandma's garden. 

 

Unfortunately, my kids never had an opportunity to meet my grandma, but it is amazing how we naturally find a little place in our heart for those to which we are related.  While we were there we walked down to visit my Grandma in the cemetery.  Miss A walked down with my aunt A.  When she realized that we were just visiting Grandma's headstone and not Grandma (who in her mind lived in a little house in the park) she asked, does him miss her?  E was also concerned about Grandpa and really hoped that "Jesus sometimes let Grandma visit him". At the grave, Miss A picked some flowers and collected little treasures from around the grounds for Grandma.  Ironically the flowers were dandelions--Grandma's former nemesis.  

When it was time to head back to G-Pa's house Miss A seemed to be wandering around the cemetery aimlessly in the opposite direction.  I got a little short with her and said we needed to leave.  She got frazzled said, "but I'm trying to find Grandma to say good-bye".  Boy did that make me feel bad for getting frustrated with her. I took her back to Grandma and let her have a moment alone.  She said a few words then walked reluctantly away, then stopped, turned around, gave the headstone a hug and kiss and then rejoined the family.

The rest of the weekend was definitely all about family.   From taking tons of family pictures (that's what you do when you realize you are all we wearing nice complementary outfits right?)...

 

 

 

 

 

 

...to celebrating the newest official family members' 1st birthday.  

I think the guests of honor favorite thing was realizing G-pa Hobbs had a nifty contraption that would help them walk independently.  And yes, I mean independently.  The picture may indicate that they walked together, but they soon found out it really just worked for one boy at a time (evidence not pictured).

My kids absolutely loved being surrounded by family.  They had the time of their lives spending time with their cousins (and their cousins' cousins).   

They also strengthened their bond with their aunts and uncles and great Aunties M and A. 

In fact, another highlight was spending Sunday afternoon harvesting, cracking and eating pecans in G-Pa's yard with great Aunt A. 

I'm really glad that we were able to start the year off with quality family time-- both as our little family and as an extended family.  

And as a final note, the focus of an activity I was incharge of at church was connecting with our family and ancestors.  The way I connected with them...

  

...family history cupcakes

December 2013

Looking back at December it appears to have been a month of nothing but poorly documented events.  Most of the big things like the church Christmas party I was in charge of and Christmas day don't have a single scrap of photographic evidence in our house.  The other events, as you will see if you dare to finish this post, have only been documented with really, REALLY bad quality phone pics and videos.

For instance, here is a horrible video (imagine a horrible video that may or may not ever make it off my phone onto the computer-- my phone and I are fighting) of Miss A filling the role of Mary in her school play.  

Followed by Miss A blowing out the candles on the cake for the birthday celebration afterward for Jesus.

 

I didn't manage to get any better pics at E's school's performance

 

 I did get some okay classic pictures of the kids with Santa, but to be fair they aren't actually from December.  (The neighbor wanted to get a little jump on her Christmas card and called on her connections to get the big guy over to her house at the end of October)

The best worst documentation from December were the pictures Br took as the kids and I were getting ready for our night out at the theater to see a fairy tale, Christmas Carol.  I'm not sure how we watched the play, because apparently, we didn't have eyes when we left the house.

The kids and I had one more date, but it was at home during the school break.  Miss A set up a little tea party for us.  She got all dressed up while E sat back and enjoyed being served.

 

Among other things, I was in charge of our ward's Christmas party for the second year in a row.  I chose a white Christmas theme but of course, the only photos I have are these lame ones someone else took of their family:

Two fun episodes with the kids:

E and A are playing some sort of imagination game and A just referred to her "sister-in-log" and E decided that all NYC needed to take care of the giant Stay Puffed Marshmallow man was a giant cup of hot cocoa. Who you gonna call? Swiss Miss!

Overall, although we have little evidence to prove it, we finished the year off quite well. 

Motherhood-a post more for me than anyone else

This is probably more personal then I would normally share here in the Melton Pot, but my heart it full and since this has become my only real documentation/journal of our current family history (don't judge-- I am well aware that I am lacking in this arena) this part of our journey as a family has had far too huge of an impact not to include.  I feel kind of silly since what has really opened up my feelings this evening was watching a TV show.  In this particular episode of Call the  Midwife I watched a mother struggle through the fear of losing another child after her first pregnancy was stillborn, others are ashamed of mental health struggles, one mother even being institutionalized and taken for her newborn, and another suffering in pain in silence.  It definitely made me grateful to have been bearing children in this day and age and instead of in the 1950s. 
As today is Mother's day I've been reflecting a lot on motherhood.  I often crack jokes about how crazy my kids are but in reality, I love those little crazies more than anything.  I think any parent knows that because you love them so deeply the anguish you feel when things are a little rocky is equally intense. Nothing tears at your heart quite like seeing your child struggle with you know they inherited from you.  Nothing is quite as hard as not strangling a stubborn child who digs her heels (or his) heels in as deep as you did as a child.  Genetics or Karma?... I'm not sure.  What makes things even more challenging is the joy of how whacked out hormones can make a person.  I in particular struggle with an imbalance.  Every time I am pregnant it throws me a little more off.  A couple years ago I was in turmoil over the fact that I felt like I shouldn't have any more kids because I feared that more pregnancies would put me in such a bad place emotionally that it would affect my ability to be a good mommy to the kids I already have.  I was 98% sure there would be no more Meltons from these loins.  

Then out of the blue a couple months ago I started questioning that decision.  The kids seemed to have matured in leaps and bounds.  I was finding more joy and less frustration in parenting.  It didn't seem to be a struggle.  I'd found a good balance in my medication that helped me overcome my emotional struggles.  That's when I had this thought "I think I could do this again".  Within the tiniest window, I found myself on the road of doing it again.  Although there we times when I wondered if I had had a lapse of judgment, especially since my little angles went back to being a little more of the crazies I've known and loved for the past 5-7 years, but overall I was kind of excited on seeing what this new turn in my adventure would bring to the table.  I only had to wait a few months to see where things were going.  I hadn't planned on telling anyone about the pregnancy for a while.  I ended up telling some family only because I felt silly not saying anything when my brother announced that they would be welcoming in another child just a few weeks before I was expecting our new addition.  The pregnancy hadn't been like any others at that point.  I wasn't sick, just a little tired.  I was a little in denial, but on my first apt I saw the little flicker of a heartbeat and it became real.  Only days after I shocked my family with my news something else I hadn't ever experienced began to happen.  I went to the doctor for an unscheduled visit because things didn't seem quite right.  Br was out of the country at the time so I had to do something else uncharacteristic, ask for help and reveal why I needed a last-minute apt so that my friends didn't think that I was dying or something.  With the help of my friends, I was able to make it to the doctor.  An ultrasound still showed a little being with a flickering little heart and I was sent home.  

The next day things seemed like they were just getting worse and I called the doctor again.  I felt silly.  I'm the type to assume everything is just fine and put off seeing a medical professional.  I mean I rolled my car when I was 7 months pregnant with Miss A and then just gave my OB a courtesy call the next day to let her know what had happened before she ordered me to go to the ER.  My primary care physician is whoever is working at the Redi Clinic that day.  I had bronchitis for a couple months before finally going into the aforementioned clinic to get medicine that made it go away in a matter of days (ain't nobody got time for that).  In any event, I felt silly yet terrified driving back out to the doctor for yet another last-minute appointment.  This time the ultrasound showed a slow flicker of a heartbeat.  She didn't have to say anything to me.  I knew what it meant.  I was watching my tiny baby die.  The cruelest thing was being sent to the waiting room alone with all the other pregnant women or mothers holding their new babies while I waiting for the doctor to call me back and confirm what was already eating me alive.  The doctor pretended that there was a little glimmer of hope but we both knew I was well on my way to "an impending miscarriage".  

Once at home things got much worse and there was no denying what was happening.  My husband was still across the ocean.  The kids only knew mommy was really really sick and entertained themselves while I laid in bed in pain (emotional and physical), then tolerated a dinner of Cheerios before they sweetly assured me that they were going to put themselves to bed.  I had an outpouring of love from my friends as they brought husbands over to give me a blessing, took my kids all day even though it was good Friday, brought me food, wept with me and helped me feel not so alone.  

I had lots of time to reflect as I spent days in bed.  When the physical aspects let up the emotions would rush in.  It was Easter weekend.  I went to part of church to show gratitude for the sacrifice of my Saviour who was wounded so that I could be healed.  My heart needed healing.  There was such a huge hole and so much emptiness.  I never could have imagined how horrible of an experience this could be. In times past I'm sure I'd thought things like "ah that's sad, but at least she wasn't that far along" or something like that minimizing the experience.  If I take one thing away from this it is a greater amount of empathy for those who have experienced loss.  My heart aches for all those who have hoped and never conceived, or have carried by never looked into the eyes, or have hugged and kissed but have done the unimaginable and had to say goodbye.  Although I have no idea what the road ahead has in store for our family, and I still struggle a little with why all of this happened, I am grateful for those I have around me who support me, for my three kids, and for my husband.  I don't have regrets about being a mom.  

The line in the show tonight that really hit me right in the heart was "Invisible wounds are the hardest to heal for their closure depends upon the love of others and patience and understanding and the tender gift of time."   With every day I feel more and more like myself again.  The holes begin to fill as I've engaged myself in good things.  These lines from a hymn keep ringing in my head "Soothe my troubled heart and spirit, May my unseen wounds be healed". 

 Trois (as Br and I affectionately called him or her)

 

November 2013

November was kind of a hodgepodge of events for us

It all started when I walked out into the courtyard and found this little guy.

So I know the picture is super fuzzy, and the creature in question happens to be camouflaged in the gravel but it is an owl--- and not just any owl-- It's Pigwidgeon.  He got injured on his long flight from Hogwarts so we took him to the wildlife rescue to recoup before he journeyed back over the pond.  

 We did a little search around the yard and found what he'd traveled all that way to bring us.

Nestled in a bush we found a fun brown paper package tied up with string (it's one of my favorite things) sealed with wax (may or may not have been melted crayon).  

It seems as if someone found out that we had been listening to all the Harry Potter books and sent the owl over with delivery from Ollivander's.  

My picture history indicates that we had a little trip to the zoo with friends for a birthday party.

We also decided to do a little kitchen remodel.

Before

After 

I have to admit that I'm pretty much in love with the makeover.

The renovations finished up just in time for my mom's arrival for Thanksgiving.  While the meal was being prepared she and the kids stamped it up to make the fun place and table settings.