Mothers

It's been a nearly a week since Berkley's birthday and I've been meaning to get to the computer to write about that, but it will just have to wait a bit longer because today is Mother's Day, and I feel drawn to sit down and write about mothers.

Maybe it's because, with everything going on in my life right now, I haven't felt like I've been the most stellar one lately. Or maybe it's because I've been missing my own mother a bit lately. Or maybe it's because motherhood is always on my mind--always forcing itself to the forefront of my mind and heart and soul so that I never forget how important it is, so that I never lay it aside for things that matter less.

To be perfectly honest, it's been a terrible day so far. My husband, in all his sweetness, set an alarm to get up early and fix a nice breakfast for me and clean up the kitchen mess from the night before, but as good intentions often do, his fell through due to the fatigue of the weak catching up to him. The alarm got turned off and he fell back in bed. My children woke me with excitement as they showered me with homemade gifts expressing love and adoration, but that was very short-lived as well. They hadn't even left my bedroom before they were fighting with each other. And the fighting continued throughout the entire morning.

One child had an especially rough day. By noon I'd spent most of the day discipling him and giving him pep talks (which apparently were completely ineffective). No one cooperated or worked to make it a day of peace and love, which are the only two things I really long for. It seemed that everyone was only out for himself and no one was willing to change. It definitely makes this mother stop to think how things ever got so out of control.

The crazy thing is I woke up very early this morning--like 3:30 a.m. early--and thought of how much I love being a mother. I thought of each one of my children individually and what that child has taught me. I tried to imagine how different my life would be if I hadn't had the opportunity of being a mother to these children of mine, and I even tried to think of how different each of these children would be if I hadn't been their mother. Would they be the same? Would they have the same strengths? The same weaknesses? Would they be developing the same talents? Was I really meant to mother these children??

Of course I can't answer these questions for sure, but as I pondered them for a while, I felt certain once again that I am meant to be their mother! Of course I am not perfect at it. I make mistakes every single day. And maybe some other woman would do some things differently--even better--but I do believe that I have what my children need. It's actually quite difficult to explain. I just know that they need ME. Even with all my flaws, all my craziness and all my weaknesses, they need me. They need my faults--my temper, my nagging, my panic when things seem overwhelming, so that they can learn to be wiser than I am.  They also need my strengths--my unique sense of humor, my strong desire to do what is right no matter what, my burning testimony of the gospel of Jesus Jesus Christ, and I think most importantly--my dedication to motherhood, because the truth is, no matter how badly I blow it again and again, I never stop trying to be the best mother I can be to these kids that I love so very much. I never stop trying to learn, never stop praying for inspiration, never stop giving it my best effort, never stop hoping, never stop asking for forgiveness. And I just hope, when it's all said and done, that it will be enough.

So maybe today was a horrible day. And maybe tomorrow won't be much better. But I just have to keep working at it. Days like today make me feel like throwing my hands in the air and surrendering, but what good would that do? It certainly won't help my children learn to love and respect each other. It won't help Boston through this difficult stage he is going through. It won't sanctify me and help me learn tolerance and patience and long-suffering, and it won't help our family grow and stretch in all the ways we need right now. And so, like mothers do, I must keep going. I must be strong. I must try harder, pray longer, love deeper and hope stronger that a metamorphosis will occur.

I've cringed every time someone has chanted "Happy Mother's Day!" today, feeling anything but happy, holding back the tears that threatened to burst like a dam down my hot cheeks. So maybe this Mother's Day wasn't the happiest I've experienced; I'm still so grateful to know I am a mother to five children I love with all my heart and that that little fact will never, ever change. Motherhood is the most difficult thing I've ever done or will ever do, but it is also the one that matters most, the one that changes me most, the one that lasts the longest, and so it is absolutely worth it.

Besides, at the end of every day--even the most difficult ones--I am always grateful to know I am a mother!

Mother's Day 2014. We look a lot happier than we really are:). Good thing pictures can be deceiving!

Family Culture--Monthly Family Goals

Holy Moly--where have I been? Life is flying by, and I have not taken the time to sit at the computer and write about it. Not much time now, either, but I am forcing my world to stop for a few moments to record something that matters more than laundry or dishes or even preschool calendars.

One really important concept I learned from a Power of Moms retreat I went to in Park City a couple of years ago was the idea of developing a family culture within our very own little families. I had always known family traditions were important, but this takes things much further than that. It's the idea that children need as many rituals and routines as possible to bind them to us and create family togetherness that will really last. It's more than just holiday traditions, although those are certainly an important part of family culture. It's weekly routines, monthly observances, birthday traditions, and so on that create a bond in families and also a sense of security and love that will last forever.

When I first began digesting this concept, I realized it was something our family could definitely improve on, and I was excited about it. I started brainstorming ideas that would be practical (after all, traditions are repeated, so you want to be careful about what you start) and meaningful and fun. I must say from the start, I am not the party type of mom by any means, so I had to keep reminding myself to stay true to my strengths and my priorities and yet also try to go out on a limb just a little. In the end, it didn't take any sort of monumental effort, and the results have definitely been worth it. We started a few things that have really made a difference in our home, things my children have especially enjoyed.

One thing I brainstormed is to have a monthly family goal (I admit, this was mostly due to the fact I felt we needed to work on some behavior in our home, and I was trying to figure out a positive way to do it). I started by buying a chalkboard. I simply write a goal on the chalkboard and then we all work very hard on improving ourselves in that particular area of emphasis (ha! ha!). At the end of the month, the person who has worked the hardest on the goal and made the most progress gets to choose what family activity we put on the calendar the next month. Oh, I forgot to mention, at the beginning of the year we brainstormed ideas of activities we would like to do together and listed them out. We cross them off one by one as they are chosen by the winner each month.

I can't remember what January's goal was, but Boston won and chose to go swimming at the Surf n' Swim. As fate would have it, our ward had it's annual Surf n' Swim night that month on the very night we were planning to go, so the whole ward joined us for our family event! Ha! Here are a few blurry pictures taken from my phone.

You've gotta love it when snacks are provided for your activity!:)

It might be time to get Berkley a new swimming suit. Last year's model doesn't quite cover her tummy.

This was February's goal.

Hallee won and chose to go out to eat at Pepperbelly's. This is a definite rarity for our family, let me tell you. We NEVER eat out at restaurants (unless you consider drive-thru Wendy's a restaurant experience). I wasn't sure my children would even know how to behave. It was so much fun, though! And the food was amazing! Just take a look at that tostada a few pictures down. Yum!! Good thing we shared that humongous thing!

The goal for March was . . .

We have a definite problem with this in our household. Honestly, we could have this goal every month. Regyn won and chose to go bowling. Again, not something we usually do. I think that's what makes this work so well--we do things out of the ordinary so they seem extra special. Unfortunately, I had been feeling sick for days (and still am, darn it) and hardly had the energy to get myself into the car and go to the bowling alley. Therefore, I only watched the bowling--and took pictures of course, which was the most fun I'd had in a while.

They look pretty serious about this bowling thing, don't they?:)

We kept having to tell Berkley she couldn't bowl. She just didn't understand why.

Dan was a pretty good bowler and took his turns seriously. He tried to tell the kids the proper way to bowl, but to no avail. I saw the strangest bowling techniques ever! They were not interested in doing it right--they just wanted to have fun.

 Nate threw the ball down really hard and with a side spin. It was like nothing I'd ever seen before.

Nate must have actually knocked down a few pins!:)

Regyn was a little cutie. Her left-handed bowling wasn't too bad. I think she took second place, behind Dad.

Berkley only wished she could join the fun. She finally took off and started playing on the other "stuff" at Boondocks. When we finally left, she was kicking and screaming that she didn't want to go. That was the un-fun part of the evening.

Boston was adorable. He took bowling very seriously (kind of like his Dad). It took his ball forever to reach the pins, but he did great!

Hallee was definitely the worst bowler!! Ha! Love the girl, but bowling is definitely not her game.

Nate finally gave up on regular bowling and did it "granny style" on his last ball of the night. I was laughing so hard. It was pretty effective, too, I might add.

His antics were hilarious the whole night. I just kept thinking, what a kid. Man, I love that kid! In fact, I kept thinking how glad I was I hadn't stayed home and gone to bed like I had wanted to, even though I was tired and miserably sick. It was so wonderful just basking in the fun of seeing my family enjoying each other for the evening.

 Here was the final score at the end. Those are positively the worst bowling scores I've ever seen! But, we sure had fun!!

And the goal for April is . . .

I don't know yet who will win or what activity they will choose, but I'm looking forward to it, no matter what it is. I firmly believe these are the moments that will be carved in my children's memories forever; at least, I hope they are. I hope they remember we did things like this as a family more than they remember me hollering at them for not putting their shoes away. Mostly, I hope they remember how good it felt to be together, just soaking each other up. That's the best part of developing a strong family culture--the feelings of love and unity and happiness and security. It's pretty hard to find any of those things out in the world any more, but here at home. . . well, I hope they will always be found here.

Being Beautiful--My Many Nose Jobs

 It's funny to think about now, but when I was a little girl I always hoped to grow up and become this beautiful woman that just stopped people in their tracks. I think that's probably what most little girls hope for. I mean, I don't know many little girls who dream of growing up and becoming someone homely or anything, but for me, it was something I thought about a lot. Probably more than I should have. I never felt like I was a very cute little girl, so I think I sort of envisioned myself as a caterpillar in a cocoon that would someday blossom into a beautiful butterfly somehow. And I thought a lot about the word "beautiful." I didn't want to be cute or adorable or even gorgeous, as great as all those words sound. No, I was really hung over on that word beautiful. It just sounded so . . . well. . . beautiful! To me, it meant flawlessness, exquisiteness, poise and unmistakable appeal. It was pretty much the whole enchilada!

Now, being beautiful physically was something I hoped for, but I also was determined to be beautiful inside as well. That's right--I was going to be the whole package! Not only was I going to stun everyone with my ravishing looks, even more importantly, I was going to impress them with my humility and goodness and deep inner strength and integrity. Sounds like a brilliant life plan, doesn't it?

There are a few hitches in a plan such as this, however, one being that a person cannot really control what physical characteristics or natural beauty she is born with. Now, I am not complaining in any way--it's just that it didn't take me long to realize as I started getting older and a bit more mature that beauty is definitely in the eye of the beholder and that working on that second part of my life plan was the part I really needed to focus on--and focus hard. But, even despite what life naturally deals you, there's still so much you can't control, like the aging process, for instance--ugh! My children remind me regularly that I am looking older and more wrinkled all the time. And why is it that every year on my birthday they keep assuming I am older than I really am???:)

Anyway. . .there are other factors out of our control as well. For instance, this is what my face looked like two-and-a-half years ago. It was only a week before I was to go into the dermatologist for a routine procedure to have a very small lump removed from beneath my nose. I decided we should get family pictures taken before I went in, just in case I had to get a stitch or two. That turned out to be a very good idea.

This is what I looked like a week later when I walked out of the dermatologist's office from that "routine" procedure (Sorry about the graphic picture. And I know I shared some of the following photos and a bit about this in a post a couple of years ago, but since I just finished the last of many procedures, I decided to post this again and show some of the different faces I've worn the past couple of years).

 Little did I know that the small little lump of cancer (basal-cell carcinoma) had spread clear to the corner of my eye and was to-the-bone deep. Nor did I know it had spread so far up my face and down my nose. I was supposed to walk right over to the next office over and have the plastic surgeon stitch me right up. He studied my face for a long while, then told me he would have to take pictures of my nose, study it that night and meet me at the surgery center the next day with a possible solution of how to fix the hole I now had in the middle of my face.

All hopes of being a beauty pageant contestant were now dashed. Ha! I'm telling you though, the little flaws I used to complain about seemed to inconsequential and stupid in that moment when I looked in the mirror and saw a good portion of my nose missing. It was definitely humbling.


I left the surgery center the next day looking like a prize fighter who had definitely not won the prize.

This was right after surgery. My eye was so swollen I could hardly see out of it. The worst part is that I had to teach my preschool class and I was so worried they would be scared of me.

A few days after surgery. I look like a ran into a barbed-wire fence.

I don't know why my eyes always look cross-eyes when I take these pictures, but thankfully they aren't in real-life:)

This is after the bandages had come off. I had that huge red square on my face for a long time where they grafted skin from my collar bone. 

A few months of healing had passed.

This is where they took a skin graft from. 

 Over the process of the next two years I went through a number of procedures to repair that nose. It was not fun. At times I looked like I had a run-in with a barbed-wire fence; other times I looked like I had been beaten in a dark alley. Each time it would take weeks to heal and everywhere I went people stared. I was pretty sure the stares were not from my ravishing beauty:). I remember one day when Regyn told me if she were me she wouldn't leave the house because she would be too embarrassed. I understood what she meant but was so glad I was over that stage of my life where being beautiful was so important to me because the truth is, even though I looked absolutely awful time and time again, it never phased me. My dreams of being beautiful had long since passed, and I was content simply being me. I had no idea what my nose would look like when it was all said and done, but I knew it didn't really matter. I was thankful to have caught the cancer before it had spread any further and very thankful that my day job wasn't modeling. Ha!

Don't you love that pocket of scar tissue that had built up on the bridge of my nose? There's also another pocket toward the bottom of my nose but this view doesn't show it well. Oh yes, I went around with my nose like this for months before they could inject something in there to fix it. 

This one was one of the worst ones. Half way through they decided to do a rhinoplasty (where they break your nose with a hammer and chisel) while I was awake! It was awful! So glad my nose isn't still that swollen.

After yet another surgery. The only thing that changes as often as my nose jobs are my hair styles. Ha!

I look like a battered wife here. I'm glad no one questioned my husband or anything--it does look pretty suspicious:)

In the end, here is what my nose looks like now:

That is one goofy picture, and here is a goofier one, but let's take a closer look:

It's pretty amazing when you consider the hole that used to be there, right? Well, I certainly can't take credit for it. I have had some great doctors who have worked to help make it look more like a nose again and then worked to get rid of that horrible-looking skin graft (their idea, btw, not mine, but I'm sure glad they had it).

The best part about the whole ordeal is that I realized something I think I already knew about being beautiful--it has nothing to do with my face. And boy, am I glad! Being beautiful is about loving and learning and teaching and laughing and enjoying and really living. It's about being the best that's within you. And it's not possible to be the best all the time, but it's about trying all the time, because you know it's worth it, and you know there's a whole lot of important people looking to you--hoping, watching, needing--you to be your kind of beautiful to them. Because you are so beautiful to them. And that's what really matters.

And so, although you will never see this mug on the front of a magazine or sweeping across a movie screen or entering any beauty contests, hopefully I'm working at being the right kind of beautiful to this family that depends on me so much.

And besides, I've decided that this face below--the one that laughs at my husband because he is so, so amazingly wonderful--the one that smiles from deep inside when my children surround me because I love them with every piece of my heart--that is my most beautiful face!

Work

One of the best things about the weather warming up is the opportunity to get outside and work in the yard. I absolutely love spring! It is definitely my favorite time of year. Although I love the change of seasons we get here in Utah, I think I love spring best because I am so ready for sunshine again after a long, cold winter. I love the blooming of tulips and spring bulbs and the grass that starts to green and the hope that I feel as I watch the earth begin to change from grays and dingy whites to yellows and bright blues and greens. And I love breathing in the fresh air! After being cooped in all winter long, it feels so good to get outside again and walk and play and work.

Saturday was a beautiful day, so we prepped the kids for a day of yard work. We told them how great it was going to be to work together as a family. We had a huge pile of compost delivered the day before and had plans to beautify our flower beds and get our yard in tip-top shape by the end of the day. We were soooo enthusiastic, we could hardly contain ourselves, let me tell you! Ha! We got our work clothes, cranked up our favorite tunes and got busy.

That cute little girl in the background is a neighbor who couldn't resist stepping in to help.

Can't you just feel Hallee's enthusiasm as she smooths over the compost? Ha!

We worked and worked, and after about two hours, that huge compost pile was down to this:

Hallee assured me it was not getting smaller! I assured her right back that it was, but I must admit, it didn't seem like it.

We had another little neighbor who stopped by to help. This little guy was sure he needed sunglasses like the rest of us so the dirt wouldn't get into his eyes. Regyn accommodated him with the funniest sunglasses ever. They had eyes painted on the front of them. I am so sad I didn't get a picture of him in those sunglasses!

Boston only lasted about 10 minutes before I realized he had run off to play. Regyn worked for about an hour. She recruited one of her friends to help trim our day lilies (a job that should have been done last fall). They pretended they were barbers giving the plants haircuts, and they did a mighty fine job, I must say. When they were finished they jumped on the trampoline for at least an hour. I loved listening to the two of them play! They were so full of life! They laughed and laughed as they made up routines and cheers and little plays. It made my heart soar just listening to it all. I love being privy to the imaginations of youth. They are truly so creative and lively.

Hallee was the only one who lasted nearly the entire afternoon. It might have helped that she rested between loads.:)

Either way, she was quite the trooper. She worked hard and long, and I was grateful for her (mostly) positive attitude, especially as the afternoon wore on and we were more than ready to be finished with the project. I kept thinking how I sure wished we had chosen a weekend when our 12-year-old son wasn't out of town playing baseball in Arizona! We definitely could have used Nate's help, but I assure you he had a huge grin on his face when he arrived home late last night and learned we had done the entire yard without him. I just smiled inside, thinking, there's always next year, son!

I personally felt I earned the "Hardest Worker of the Day" award (that's if you don't count Dan, of course:). I told myself I would only help for a short while since I have a really bad back and technically shouldn't do yard work at all, but I have to say, there is just something contagious about the sunshine and working together as a family and seeing a yard begin to take shape, and once I started, I just couldn't stop.

No, I don't usually dress this fancy to do yard work. I only planned to really supervise the whole affair, but then I worked like a dog all day and never stopped to even go change my clothes. It's the best I've ever looked while raking leaves and spreading compost--too bad I didn't smell as good as I looked!

The best part about work is that it gives you lots of time to think. Breathing in all that beautiful fresh air and sunshine cleared my head and my thoughts, and my mind just ran from one thing to another. It was like therapy. One thing I couldn't help but think was how grateful I was for two arms and hands. I wondered how I would possibly be able to do the work I was doing without both of my limbs, and I couldn't help but offer a silent prayer of thanks for all my working body parts. I thought how grateful I am for a strong, healthy body that can work. Yes, my back ached like crazy by the end of the day, but I was strong and able to spend the day working alongside my husband and children (while they lasted), and that was so fulfilling.

The other thought I couldn't help but muse over was how much I wish my children were better workers. Work is such an important aspect of life, and although I have tried very hard to teach this skill to my children and even to help them understand how to value and enjoy work, I don't think I'm succeeding. My children really love to play--and that is good. But man alive, helping them understand that play and satisfaction come after the work is done is not an easy thing to do. Teaching them how to work hard is not an easy thing to do. Teaching them how to stick to something until it is done is not an easy thing to do. And apparently, I am not so great at teaching these principles because I don't think my children are so great at doing them. And it saddens me. It's definitely something we are going to be working on in our household.

At the end of the day, I looked at some of our flower beds and smiled with joy. They looked so great! This rock bed was one of my favorites.

To me, there is just something beautiful about rich, brown earth dripping over rocks and piled over flower beds. Anyway, it was a great day. Not one I care to repeat any time soon since my back is still trying to recover, but one I am happy to have experienced.

I am definitely thankful for the principle of work. I never end a day full of work and feel like the day was wasted or unfulfilled. And if I could spend every workday right beside my husband, well, life really couldn't get any better than that!