-Speaking of my parenting skills, I feel like God keeps upping the ante on me. Two weeks ago it hit me that *maybe* I shouldn't be annoyed every time my kids want to talk to me and was working on that, and feeling pretty good about the progress I was making by not yelling and screaming about everything. So then, I get asked to teach Relief Society this coming week, and the lesson is all about being a good parent, with lots of suggestions that I need to start doing. (And they're good ones, too, so I can't even shrug them off!) And if that wasn't bad enough, I wound up watching Inside Out twice and it was really hitting me how quickly kids grow up and how I need to be better about enjoying the moment and then I realized that, at close to 9 years old, Bentley is halfway done with his time living at home before he'll head off to college! How completely freaky is that??? So I'm trying even harder. I'm trying to enjoy my kids and talk to them and teach them and be the Mom I always assumed I would be. Before life got in the way and I got busy and tired and stressed out and grumpy.
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| I like this picture of Colton hanging out with my Dad |
-To that end, yesterday we were planning on going to the library, but when we drove by this awesome park, we changed our plans and went there instead. The kids had a blast and we can't wait to go back! It was so fun to find a park where the playground equipment didn't look just like the playground equipment at every other park!
-Still working on getting our house in Manassas sold. Everything was going smoothly-- even the home inspection didn't turn much up!-- until the appraisal. Apparently the woman hired to appraise the house knows absolutely nothing about homes, fair market value, or anything. And she appraised it for less than we were getting. (Just to give you an example, she thought the tile Craig had just put in was laminate. She said, "When I tapped my camera on it, it didn't feel like tile." 'Cuz, you know, the good old camera tap is the standard for these things...) Anyway, after much debate and a lot of angry ranting on our part, we finally just took the lower price rather than listing the house again. But we're still pretty upset about the whole thing. It's infuriating when someone so stupid and inconsequential has so much control over you and there's no way to appeal or change it.
-We DID finally manage to close on our house here in Charlottesville, so that was good to finally get checked off the list. This was also infuriating, since the bank kept saying we'd close "in a few days" and then not being able to. I don't understand what all these underwriters are doing and why it's so hard for them to actually do their job? Isn't this all they do??? How are they so bad at it?
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| Here's a cute picture of Camille to counteract my frustrations |
-Colton is figuring out how to open doors. I feel like this is one of those developments where as a parent you just sort of stare in horror at your world falling down around you. Obviously, he needed to figure this out eventually but hoo boy, it's gonna make my life more complicated!
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| Here Colton is reading a children's version of the Book of Mormon. He asked for it by saying, "More more Jesus" |
-For her birthday (back in February) Kendra got a gift certificate for live butterflies! We were waiting until the weather was warm to order them, and then when we found out we were moving, that got pushed back again. I was delighted when Kendra knew right where her gift certificate was so we were finally able to order them! They came as caterpillars and turned into chrysalises almost immediately. One of them failed to attach to the ceiling of their cup, so we didn't think that one would make it. But we were delighted when it did! She ended up with five beautiful butterflies, which we released just a few days ago!
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| Painted Lady |
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| Apparently these are the most social of butterflies, and the most likely to land on your hand or shirt! |
-Colton also is doing all sorts of adorable things these days: he gallops slightly sideways from room to room; if he's feeling shy he'll suddenly slouch over in the worst posture ever (we picture him asking some girl to the prom this way and die laughing at the idea of it)... And he's continuously building up his vocabulary. His recent acquisitions are down and up, and he'll hold toys up and down and yell about where they are, and occasionally make them fly and fall down. It's fun-- and noisy!-- to see him developing.
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| Very sleepy Colton on our way home from swimming in a nearby lake. Love that look on his face...! |
-The big kids are all registered for school, and I can hardly believe it starts in about two weeks! This summer has been the weirdest ever, with the move and Craig's new job. It's felt long and short all at the same time, and while part of me is relieved to have them back in school (and for them to finally ride a bus!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), I'm always sad to see summer end...
-I'm still trying to figure out what to do with Ryder for preschool. There are a couple co-op preschool groups in the church here, but they both have younger kids (one group is 3-year-olds, the other group is 2-year-olds), so that seems a little silly for Ryder, since he'll be 5 in November. I should probably just sign him up for a real preschool, but I hate to do that until I have a better idea what our finances are-- what Craig's take-home pay will be, how much we're spending on groceries here, what our house payments really will be... All that stuff. I hate to commit another few hundred dollars a month without that information... Can you sign up for preschool late?
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| Ryder plays so nicely with Camille! |
-I'm also getting really frustrated with how I have to do everything at least twice for it to actually be done. I put something in the diaper bag, and then in the process of picking up the diaper bag, that thing gets caught on the straps and falls back out again. I throw something in the garbage and miss. I call and cancel our garbage service in Manassas and then get a bill a month later for the same payment I already made. I spend 20 minutes looking for a receipt so I can return something to Target, I get there and somehow managed to not bring the receipt... We buy new doorknobs for the house, realize they're not the keyed the same, so we have to bring them back and have them re-keyed. But when we bring them back we don't have all of them so we still need to return two more... And in the middle of all this, Craig gets a flat tire so he takes my car so I'm stuck at home for the day... This stuff just kind of kills my soul. I know none of it is a very big deal, but it grinds me down in a very bad way. Everything is just a little too far away, and Craig is just too busy, and we have a few too many kids to do things like this easily, so then when we have to do it all TWICE... That's when I have to be really careful and not start taking my frustrations out on the people around me. (Sorry, Craig. Sorry, kids...)
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| Better add some more cute pictures to help me calm down... |
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| Much better...! |
-After finally getting to cook a few meals at home, I have concluded that I LOVE my kitchen. Love, love, LOVE it. It's not very big, which I'm sure to some people would be a hit against it, but I think it is perfect. Everything is close by, so I can grab whatever I need quickly. But there's plenty of counter space, so I never feel like I don't have room for whatever I'm doing. It's perfect for me. Cooking in it (and even cleaning up and putting everything in it's place) makes me so happy. The only thing I didn't especially love was the way the silverware basket in the dishwasher was attached to the door. It never worked very well. And then I figured out that it could also attach to the end of the lower rack! So now that's perfect, too. And I felt like a genius for figuring it out. So that was great.
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| Yeah, I got a couple degrees from college... |
That's everything I can think of for now!
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