oh to get back into the swing of things. it's tiring, yet oh so rewarding. i'm amazed how much i love doing my own house work (after i've had a 3 week hiatus from it). monday and tuesday have been non stop go and i love it. when you're at other people's homes it's a torn internal battle between a) but i'm on vacation and b) what else can i do for you? there's of course things that i see that need to be done but it's those little things that really get the nitty gritty housework done that give you so much reward. being a ruler over your dominion is truly fulfilling. example: i scrubbed all the walls in my kitchen areas down yesterday. nitty gritty work? most definitely. but the accomplishment of it looking so great and sparkling afterward is so rewarding. doing all the dishes yourself and knowing exactly where they need to be put away. finding the right ingredients because you know their homes. making batch after batch of yeasty dough concoctions and feeling perfectly happy in the middle of the mess. i'm so very grateful to be a wife, a mother, and a homemaker. it truly is such fulfilling work in my mind.
changing the gears to unhappiness: my hibernating bear has come out of his hibernation mode. cue tears. the past 4 days have been back to waking up at 7:45 am, sometimes waking up in the middle of the night and having to cry for a half hour, fighting me to go to sleep, and sleeping around 10 hours each night. it was oh so fun while it lasted. casey and i will be implements all the known variables we experience from wyoming to nebraska that we can think of beginning with switching him to a pack n play. that's the main difference we can think of between the 2 rooms. here's to hoping for success! oh an remember when he was sleeping well and not eating well? well now he's back to eating REALLy well and sleeping not so well.
this last sunday our stake (pretty much all the LDS members in Lincoln) met up for a special meeting that night to learn of new boundary changes for our wards. we were so saddened to learn that we'll be losing a chunk of around 20 solid active families in our ward (casey was most saddened that stake basketball teams were completely messed up). it's all for good reason and we'll still be friends it's just hard knowing that you won't have as many opportunities to rub shoulders with them so often. with the boundary changes and a few other things going on, casey has lost his whole elder's quorum presidency, it was a hard blow on him this weekend.
last night for family home evening we watched this video that just so happened to be kind of about new years and kind of about helping mom around the house. ha, it was silly but good. i hope casey and maxson got a lot out of the less, wink wink. then we had an impromptu family dance party in the kitchen for about 15 minutes. we kept finding new fun songs on groove shark and dancing away. maxson couldn't get enough of watching us and then excitedly flapping his arms to join or stomping his feet as fast as he could. i'm so grateful to have married the man i did. casey's humor and complete disregard of an ego/embarrassment makes my life so much better. he is my perfect match in so many ways.
maxson was utterly spoiled in our time in wyoming and was ALWAYS held by someone when he wanted. if you're in the kitchen, there's a 90% chance he will be at your thighs, trying to shift your body towards him so you will pick him up while on the verge of crying/yelling. he wants to be apart of all kitchen things going on. loud noises in the kitchen are his favorite: blenders, mixers, bread machines, washing, etc. he is there and he wants to watch it at eye level. cupboard: he's in them. drawers: his toys. he loves all things the kitchen i swear. if there's a counter space clean enough i can pull up a chair for him to watch me as i'm going, but he's grabby and can reach far, so that's hard too. we're both adjusting.
since we're on the speaking subject of maxson let's just continue. he's adorable. 1 year old are so much stinking fun i can't believe it. they are so much work because they get into EVERYTHING and even when you thought something was get-intoable, he'll make it that way. BUT for a trade off they are so funny. they understand so much, can't communicate with words too much but can communicate in so many other ways: voice intonation, signs, body language, facial expressions, sounds, actions, i'm just eating it all up. we can ask him where his hair, nose, tongue, and belly button is and he points to them all (when he's in the right mood). we can ask him "what does a dog say" and he sticks out his tongue to pant like a dog. his little laugh is contagious and brings us the biggest smile. he loves to be tickled and chased, and being pretend nibbled on. he is just a ball of joy.
he is HEAVY too, have i mentioned that? picking him up is like lift a brick that doesn't support itself too much. he's somewhere in between 26-27 pounds. AND he's totally grown taller too. he's about as tall as all the other 18-22 month kids around him it seems like.
casey and i listened to the book for all eternity by dr john l lund on our trip back from wyoming. this is our 3rd time listening to the book and it seriously such an awesome lecture series on marriage and how to be a nice person in life, and it's extremely entertaining. it kinda makes me want to go back to college to sit and learn from these professionals. so for the last week casey and i have been working on the 24 hour challenge where you find a block of time for 24 hours that you didn't criticize anyone else in any way: truthful, sarcastic, demeaning. whatever it is, just stop. neither of us are super bad at this but we catch ourselves every few hours saying some snarky comment or putting someone down in some way or another and have to start our 24 hours over again. it's been really good for us and it's fun exercise.
other than that, we're just kicking it in nebraska again. casey back to the books at school. i'm back to domestic home like. maxson back to single child life with all his toys. valentine decorations are up and nebraska is back to it's blah winter weather.
and since every post deserves a picture:
the stereotype that children are obsessed with escalators rang true as maxson was introduced to his first one last night, all he wanted to do was go back to it every time he got off of it. man with a mission i tell you
