Surviving winter

Hey there, winter is still killing my soul over here.

I don't think I got out of the house once yesterday. I'd reckon that's pretty unhealthy with how little our home is and how many children I have constantly at my feet.

yesterday my throat was shot for something and I could seriously only whisper all day long to talk to Max and the babies. At one point in the day Max was downstairs yelling "mommy!" and I couldn't yell back to answer him so he just kept yelling and yelling and yelling my name while i finished my task upstairs. Soon enough the babies caught on and were on the stairs both yelling "mama! momeeeeeieee!" It was quite funny, luckily.

I was so patient at first but then my patience went more down and downhill as the evening dragged on.

I definitely had some repenting to do that night. A little before we put the kids to bed I thought to myself "oh man, this is one of those evenings that I would look back on and not be proud of myself, tomorrow I will do better."  I'm so grateful for the power of repentance in my life. All too often I take it for granted and go about my merry day but without it, I would be lost. For me repentance is so often used in those small imperfections of life  and I am not going to let them hold me back. Grateful for my Savior Jesus Christ!

Casey and I tried ending the night on a happy note with our kids and inflated our little bounce house in the basement. Sadly it leaks lots of air so we got to fix that pronto, but back to the bounce house. Max was in heaven, no surprise. Bryson liked it quite a bit even with all the accidental abusings Max gave him, and then Quinn just did not like it at all. It was fun for the first little while and then once babies wouldn't stop crying because they were getting hurt too much and Max just wouldn't listen to us anymore. Oh the glamorous life I live.

BUT today, the bounce house was still out. So the kids and I blew it up, Max burned off a little energy for 10 minutes, it was great.

So, here's to surviving winter.

Snow days

Snowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. 

I am not a fan of winter. Well winter is ok for just 3 months, at the maximum. After that it's just not welcome in my books, BUUUUUUUT, if you add in some snow, honestly, winter could last a lot longer if that snow happened more often and stayed white and fluffy and pretty. Snow makes the cold so much more fun and pretty and wonderful! A week or so ago we got 2 pretty good snowstorms back to back and it made for a beautiful outside snowy wonderland.

 It snow/rained half of Saturday and didn't stop until Sunday afternoon. It was so beautiful outside. Church was cancelled and we stayed home and just watched the beauty of this earth. And then Monday school was cancelled too, yippee!

Max loved watching the tractors plow the snow

 We walked Max around in the sled and went down the tiny hill next to the driveway over and over. The snow was so deep he just crawled on his hands and knees up the hill, it was so funny to watch.

The next day we graffitied the snow with some colored water and built a beautifully rough snowman.

And that was our fun with the snow.

winter, tears, and hugs

the other day i had a meltdown. i am done with winter. DONE. it's kinda killed a little piece of my soul this year, i think my mistake was not taking a trip to arizona in march, after that many months of winter my soul needs to be outside in the warmth. no warmth coupled with an active toddler, a small house, and very few indoor places to retreat to has done a number on me. don't worry i don't have depression and i've survived the winter and i've still gotten together with friends, i'm just so over the winter season. 

so as i was on the floor like a blubbering bafoon crying my complaints out to casey, i saw maxson just stand there in the middle of the room staring at me, he was so confused at what i was doing. he slowly kept inching toward me, not taking his eyes off me. soon enough he was standing right in front me looking straight into my eyes with a kind of questionable face. he then slowly came into my lap and put his arms around my neck and held me/let me hold him while i cried, he pulled away and began touching the tears running down my face, this was all so new to him. he was so still anad calm and cuddly, so unlike middle of the day maxson. i think he sensed what to do since i had done the same to him so many times over the past 16 months. 

it was a really sweet moment, sure i was temporarily unhappy with my situation, but it was just so sweet how maxson reacted to my sad moment. it made me go from feeling like a -2 to a 4. man i love that mr maxson of mine. (i can't forget casey in this situation though, maxson soothed my physical-emotional needs at the moment but casey soothed my mental-emotional needs. that man sure gets me through everything, he's the best husband.)

ON A MUCH HAPPIER NOTE. this weekend is general conference, it's been wonderful thus far!  2 times a year the prophet of the lord speaks to us and it's just so incredibly uplifting. watch with us on sunday at 10 am/2 pm MST, you can watch it live on lds.org!