Random Pictures

Bentley is 5 months this next week. I can't believe how time flies by- even when I try to be mindful of it everyday. He is a joy!

Kensington has been trying new do's! The girls hair is getting really long again and I love it. She puts it on the top of her head often!

Cali and Bella love to play in the cul-de-sac. Bella tries to use my skates. So funny. Notice the neighbor's cat, Tiger, by Cali. He thinks he is ours. :)

My God-send friend, Suzanne and I took our baby's to Kemah today to walk around. It was so nice to be outside. We had a good time.

Meet Owen: my new bud. He is a stud muffin and has a super vibrant outlook on life. I think he's a brilliant little boy who is also the funniest child I've ever met. His momma is going to have her hands full in about ten more years!

Owen took this shot. :) I do not like the way i look in it but I like that both Suzanne and myself are in one together. :)

Owen snapped this one too! HAhaHA!!

:)

ahh look at my little guy!!! Melts my heart everyday!

Marble Slab Ice Cream. Who wouldn't love Cotton Candy flavor with colored sprinkles!

the kids making him laugh

He loves to look at the trees outside. Brae is a big helper.

There's lots of good things everyday, just trying to find them all to overcome the sadness. I have a lot to be thankful for.

That's what you get for being prepared :)

I have an addiction to caffeine. It's so great. I stopped last night (Saturday) on my way to Ku'ulei's to get a Dr. Pepper for Sunday so I wouldn't have to go out after church. I got a big size Dr.P and felt good about preparing myself. :) After church I whipped it out of the fridge only to find that I couldn't get it open. I tried and tried and Kuu tried. We couldn't get it open. That lid was totally stuck on there. We used towels and teeth and nothing was budging it. Seriously- look what happened to my hand after trying for only like a few minutes.

Big blister on my middle finger

and one on my thumb- plus a blood blister on the palm on my hand

What the heck~! I asked Kuu if she had a male neighbor we could ask for help but she said she works too much and doesn't know anyone. haha Well, this is what we ended up doing. Gotta do what it takes, right!

Yummee

busy anybody?

This weekend flew by even faster than I thought it would (and I thought it would!) Friday we ran errands after school then rented Letters to Juliet and watched it after dinner then finished a vinyl order and prepared a birthday drop the next day. Did some work online, went to bed late.

Saturday check this schedule out: woke up, got ready, took the three middles to the church to practice their Sacrament Program, came home to shower and eat breakfast, grabbed my addiction (soda), went back to pick up the girls, drove a different route to pick up some cupcakes for one of my most special friends (birthday drop), went grocery shopping, dropped off a vinyl order in Spring, visited with Shannon and family, went to the church bookstore, dropped off birthday treat, drove long trip back home, got home at 5, made dinner, tried to clean house and get my lesson finished but baby wasn't having it, watched Den Brother with girls (really cute!), tried to work on my lesson again but Bent was not willing to work with me, ended up putting him in bed finally at 10:30 and started the finishing touches on a lesson I was teaching today. Went to bed after 1am not feeling too wonderful about my lesson.

Sunday morning woke up by 7, read and re-read my lesson then started to feel better about what I had prepared. Got everyone ready and showered and went to church at 10:30 to receive my new calling as ward librarian (super exciting eh!! :), had the girls Sacrament Program in which the three middles all participated in and was super proud of them because they each memorized their parts (do I leave out the part where I bribed them each with a dollar if they did it by memory. I am not above bribery.), after that I fed the baby then taught my lesson during the last hour of church. It went really well and I was thankful for that. My appointment I was supposed to have right after church was moved to 4:30 so I was able to go home and eat lunch with the kids. Shortly after being home, a "prospective baby sitting job" came over to chat with me and see our home, after she left it was time for my meeting so I went back to the church with baby (who had only slept for ten minutes at this point all day and was beyond exhausted). I got home from that at 5:30 and began to wind down until we were going to a family's home from church for dessert (we had been invited before and had to postpone and then this was set up before any of the other chaos was). I got a call during this time and was told I may be able to catch my Stake Presidency if I headed right over to another church building so I loaded everyone up in a whirlwind of crazy and as we got to the corner I got another phone call saying never mind and I would need to wait. So, after pushing back the dessert and calling AGAIN to move dessert back to its proper time, it was almost 6:30 anyway. We came home for fifteen minutes, I grabbed dinner and then we went to have dessert with this wonderful family. We had a great time! We got home after 8 and I wondered what happened to this weekend and when I would get my relaxing time before my work week starts again.

So, I had a soda and relaxed a bit after the girls went to bed. That is why I am still awake at one am typing this post. I should head to bed I suppose but I'm hanging on to the last bit of weekend I have. Busy weekend and I think it will be a busy week too. I'm grateful that each day is filled with caring and loving people all around me. And each day brings new excitement (horror somedays) and chaos! Good night and "Aloha, goodbye" as they said on Den Brother.

One More...

I've had this on my stupid "to do" list for weeks. Seriously. This isn't even a big deal but it's so random and odd that I wanted to share. We live just north of the Johnson Space Center and literally just south (by a couple blocks) from Ellington Field. We have a lot of planed flying over and lately seems like even more. And they are flying low. One day, this plane flew so low and was SO loud that it set off car alarms as the girls were walking home from escuela. I was waiting for them at the corner and this thing flew right over us. I've never seen anything like it!

NASA's present Super Guppy Turbine, the fourth and last example of the final version, first flew in its outsized form in 1980. It and its three sister ships were built in the 1970s for Europe's Airbus Industrie to ferry outsized structures for Airbus jetliners to the final assembly plant in Toulouse, France. It later was acquired by the European Space Agency, and then acquired by NASA in late 1997 for transport of large structures for the International Space Station to the launch site. It replaced the earlier-model Super Guppy, which has been retired and is used for spare parts. NASA's Super Guppy Turbine carries NASA registration number N941NA, and is based at Ellington Field near the Johnson Space Center. NASA Photo by: Tony Landis

So cool! I feel so passionately about all things NASA. I think it's amazing to live so close to it all.

For Now

I have a lot to catch up on but for now I just wanted to post something that happened today and then I am going to bed.

I have this wooden tv tray next to my bed for now and Isabella has been bringing it out everyday to play with and then she will put it up. I have this insatiable need to have everything in its place all the time (which doesn't work well for me with five children!) so today when Bella brought it out like normal she told me that she wanted to sing me a song as she was standing behind the table. I said "Bella, that stresses mommy out when you bring that out all the time."

Bella: kind of waiting

Me: "What song do you want to sing?"

Bella: "Beautiful Savior"

Yeah, real nice Manda!! Score one for Bella. I am really working hard on my anxiety level from 4pm to 8pm each weeknight. It is high intensity over here and my chest feels like it will explode often. Why can't I just not worry about the small stuff, like that dumb table. She only wanted to sing me a song! :) It was wonderful and I felt pretty bad.

Ok, one more just so you have a basis on the whole stressed out situation. A couple weeks ago everyone was talking to me all at once (like normal) and I get this glazed look on my face because it's so much and Cali looked at me and said "oh great, we're stressing you out again!" It took me back and I had to talk to her and tell her I was sorry that I was making her feel that way and that I really did love spending time with them all and mommy just has a lot on her mind. Later that night I asked Cali to come talk to me and asked her if she was scared that I would have to give her away if I get too stressed out and she said "no, I just feel like you get annoyed with us." I started to cry and assured her and told her I would be more careful with what I said around them and how I handled my stress. She told me I wasn't allowed to say "stressed" anymore. And she stuck to that. She was like a "stress nazi" for many days after. If I was about to say the word Cali would catch me and be like "Mom, were you gonna say it?" And if I slipped up she would go straight into drama mode "you don't want to spend time around us, we always just stress you out, etc..." to which I put a stop to and told her now she was just being dramatic! Especially since the comment in Aisle 11 at Wal Mart on a Saturday with 5 kids went like this: me-" Please get off the cart and don't make this more stressful than it already is." Yeah, she went off on me. haha So, my sister came up with a code word that I could say instead and that is "beautiful". It works! Try it. It fits perfectly. I feel beautiful today. I am so beautiful. She suggested that my girls would think I'm vain but not stressed anymore. Yay!! I love solutions. So, at the end of that Wal Mart trip, with Cali right by my side, I walked out and said "Get me out of this beautiful place!" To which Cali laughed and said "mom, you said beautiful. Why?" Oh Cali, you will never know!

My sweeties! Especially when they are all five sleeping. Ahhh, peaceful night.

Testing :)

Just checking to make sure my friends can add my new blog to their Google reader if they want before I go private.

xoxo