for anyone who's ever envied my kitchen....

get your "un" envy fix here.... sniff, sniff.

it's called a faulty water line that has been on slow drip for a while.

it means mold contamination barriers all about your house and such. as you can see, missy is getting a kick out of the fiasco.

me, not so much. because those wooden things behind the couch, my cabinets torn in pieces. my wood floor is up, soggy, and beat to heck from a fridge being moved by gruff men. and now the mold is remedied, they left my kitchen looking a mess and said, fix it yourself ma'am. and the translation for that is prolly another 2-3 weeks of tears and discomfort.

could be worse.

getting there

the decor has been sluggish around these parts so i was thrilled when i found this item and couldn't get it out of my mind. like wake up and it is the first thing i think about love. and say it buffet instead of buffay, k. just cause i think it's funny my kids will be ruined because of my slaughtering the english language and all. buffet, buffet, jimmy buffet. hardyharhar.

and this here, evidence that the valentine's chicken does exist and visits the mac house every gal dern year.

this picture boasts my valentine's day blossoms that my "cinnamon lips" got me. (oh that was funny, cinnamon lips, whew, i can't contain myself sometimes) hehehehe.

32 reasons to celebrate 32 years of YOU

happy birthday to my red headed tramp;) and photo credit to my fantastic sister in law ashley!

32. my red head is nice.

31. like so nice, it could well take up numbers 1-32. i don't know what i did to deserve it.

30. he is happy.

29. like so happy, it could take up numbers 1-32.

28. despite that this looks like a joke, nice and happy are who he is. being around him makes you realize that nice and happy are a good way to go through life.

27. he is a partner that, without prodding, makes me want to be better. he has never instructed me on "how to" anything.

26. my redhead boasts a mean saturday morning waffle. this year his quest for a perfect waffle maker came to an end. his waffle skills have turned mad with some tips from my uncle david, who is waffle king.

25. scott is very laid back. no matter how flat a pancake can be, he always takes both sides in. rarely is a judgment ever made on his part of anyone, and if it is, well it's because i tell him to do it (make the judgement that is :))

24. scott is not a salesman. he enjoys truth.

23. scott hates money. it makes him sweat if i turn any money over to him. he knows where i keep the budget and i don't know that he has ever voluntarily got it out. thank goodness we have a testimony of dave ramsey.

22. despite scott hating on the green, he is passionately adamant that the house will be paid off for our 40th birthdays. (that's a lot of beans and rice and rice and beans)

21. scott loves suturing people up. skulls, backs. he takes pride in his stitches. the kids take pride in broken clothing as their dad can sew up anything.

20. scott loves to be in the operating room. 4 days a week isn't enough. he loathes clinic days and drug seekers.

19. scott has never done homework on a sunday. thru 4 years of a zoology degree and a chemistry minor at weber state, 2 years of a PA degree at yale, not one minute of the lord's time went to books. i think that could qualify him as stalwart.

18. scott does not fight with me. he does not degrade or make negative comments to me. sometimes i ask him to, to keep things lively, but deep down i think he might be afraid of me.

17. scott likes to putter in the yard, this drives me crazy because we have no yard.

16. i gave scott a fancy yale alumni license plate tag for christmas for his car. i found it on my car. when i questioned him about this he said his car was missing a hubcap and because of number #22 he will not be purchasing a new one. there are no airs about him.

15. scott loves people. he loved to say hi to people when we went on a vacation once and it mildly bugged me because i was 7 months pregnant. but once the fetus came out, i have thought about how nice this attribute makes him.

14. once when a dog bit his nose and i laughed, he forgave me and still wanted to be married to me.

13. there's a good chance he hasn't spent $20 since we got married. wait no, once he went to smith and edwards. he might have come out with a receipt.

12. he is the ultimate romantic. flowers, planned dates. fancy things and such.

11. my having his children makes him weep.

10. he is straighter than an arrow. in 10 years of marriage, i have never seen him just get out of bed. eyes open arms folded. it's my fondest thought of him.

9. the concern of another is ever present in his mind. he never gives way to any needs of his own.

8. he loves sushi. loves sushi. loves sushi.

7. tonight at his birthday dinner, (sushi) he beamed with pride as ella downed a tuna-salmon roll, grayce consumed udon with squeals, and easton devoured a very spicy curry rice. he said it was a proud moment to be the father of such diverse palettes.

6. he loved living in england for two years.

5. he has become a reader this year. after 6 years of forced reading, he couldn't be bothered. his nights are now consumed with books.

4. he's never questioned a decision i have made. good or bad. that makes me feel loved.

3. he will vomit on a roller coaster.

2. he thinks alternative medicine is hokey pokey.

1. he loves me. makes me want to be better. makes me wonder everyday what good deed heaven is rewarding to be his.

antics

(ella's discovery of the 12-18 month pile of boy clothes. apparently i made a mistake, she tells me. these are her summer oberalls mom. yes dear)

ella says to me: mom, we shouldn't pee on new couches, right?

me: that's why mom and dad got the 7 year protection plan honey, go potty ella.

wailing and gnashing of teeth insert here.

i will never, ever in this lifetime figure ella out. the older two, i know exactly how to talk with them, convince them, bribe them, whatever. ella, not a chance. which is why i have had white knuckles for 4 years and 4 months.

yesterday in church, well, back up here. before we get to church it took world war 3 to get her out of the house. she finally left with a summer dress that was too short and a sweater to cover her sleeveless arms, hence the winter season upon us. it took the jaws of life to pry her from scott's leg and get her to go to primary.

once she found me in sacrament meeting it was like being on a spit over a fire, slowly roasting. she was hot, hot, hot, hot. sweater comes off revealing the winner of WW3. then, the cough starts. oh her poor cough. she STILL has severe reflux. as in the doctor has said it is rare to see a case as severe as hers reflux. bless my soul. this is also rowans case. anyway, it causes a most annoying cough. more like a gag, ears stinging, who is making that noise cough. something akin to an animal attacking dinner. of course i quietly ask her to cover her mouth, this only spurs on her need to defy and cough more. and a holler to my ward members, would you please start pinching your neighbors in sacrament meeting, it is way TOO QUIET! at one point i am holding her jaw from coughing as there was a real sweet moment over the pulpit that has everyone weeping and a pin drop would've interrupted it.

her boice (voice).

even her school teachers have commented on it. it's loud and sassy. it has just the right pitch that when the on switch is on, oh murder. i was shushing her all thru sacrament when she finally yells, stop shushing me mom!!!!!!

when she started taking her tights and undies off in the isle, i decided it was time to go out. i've never had to punish a 4 year old for indecent exposure, especially in a house of worship. did i mention the stake president was about 4 rows away. like this should matter, but somehow when you can see your child's bum cheek in the lord's house, it does tend to turn your cheeks to a right nice shade of crimson.

i so love her, fiercely. she needs me the most as we figure out how to go along in life. my prayers at night concerning her usually produce the most tears and earnestness. i don't want her to change, no. i want her to be the best she can be, in turn making me a little better. knocking off my rough edges. she's knocking something off of me, that's for sure. her personality holds so much of life and i feel happy to be apart of it, as long as no bum cheeks are involved inappropriately;)

blessing

today i pulled the beautiful ivory table cloth from my linen drawer. i spread it over our dining room table, the table that we purchased from scott's family. it served his mom's table thru her growing up.

a few years ago i dropped by my grandpa's house to say a quick hello. i liked to go by as often as possible as he was recovering from the sting of loosing his sweet companion, my beloved grandma. he was quite flustered. in an attempt to keep himself busy he had signed up to feed the missionaries. i was proud of him as he was buzzing about the kitchen, getting everything just perfect, or just as grandma would have had it. the tablecloths, he kept lamenting, where did she keep the tablecloths. he was earnest in his desire to keep up the appearances she created when she had people to her table.

after grandpa passed, we were scouring the house, taking with us treasures that would help us heal. the physical things left behind that could give us left behind, some kind of comfort. down in the deep basement, in a lone corner, i discovered a small cabinet. i opened it and found grandma's tablecloths. stacked neatly with a JCPenny label attached was what would become my tablecloth.

i thought about the scripture in our "mormon bible" in mosiah, the one that talks about the sting of death taken away thru the sacrifice of jesus christ. what a wonderful thing to ponder on the day we bless my baby. we gather as a family, take this babe into priesthood arms, and bestow upon him a name and a blessing.

i ponder those not with us on momentous days as these. there to give me comfort are the butter dish from scott's grandma, the dining table from grandpa scott's family, the table cloth that grandma stashed away. tears seem to roll down my cheeks as i feel their absence, but comfort is given in the sacrifice of an elder brother that takes the sting of death from my heart. because deep in my heart i know they await to be reunited with us. maybe their heart tugs also wanting to be with us. so, i celebrate the ones here, 2 sweet great grandmas, whose lives well lived make me better by being apart of them. all of these people rooting for me, for my family, for my sweet baby, gathering us together with their love.

begging you for mercy, yeah, yeah...

this picture perfectly represents rowan's perfect mercy;)

that was a fun one hit wonder, no?

mercy has pricked my thoughts lately. it seems as though snippy has become my middle name. and not wanting to hide behind excuses, BUT. winter with a newborn does tend to lead to large amounts of time spent in a house with other short people who demand attention. lots of people inside all of the time usually means much more chaos and such. it's basically life. i don't think we have boasted health at our house since november. it's enough to put you in the nut house at times.

i have with sadness watched my pattern around here form with the long winter months of reflection. the other day grayce was testing out her sewing machine she received for christmas. her test run was rice bags, only we didn't have a large surplus of rice, so she used some hand me down wheat. she filled it up for quite some time only to get it 1/5 full and then proceeded to sew it shut. we were heading off to a birthday party which had me cooking supplies for the bulk of the afternoon. add sunday to the mix and it meant i had been solo for the day, plus a really cute attachment needing nourishment frequently. my nerves were frazzled. so, when my beauty came down with her beanbag, presenting the finished product that was less than finished, i snapped. the machine wasn't threaded properly leaving a huge build up of thread that never really closed the fabric around most of the bag. wheat had dripped along her trail from the upstairs to the downstairs to show me her creation. this was the present she wanted to give for the birthday party and i snippily let her know she couldn't give that and why didn't she call me when the machine started acting up. in her tween emotional response system, tears started falling at the criticism. i on the other hand was void of sympathy as i was pulling the dessert out from the top oven, the two pans full of rolls from the bottom oven, squelching cries from a cantankerous 4 year old about missing shoes, and directing my husband about the placement of the food in the car.

at the time i didn't view this as a horrible high stress situation. obviously it was as i write it out and have had her response haunt me for a week. i am still working with great skill to develop methods to divide my attention. it is a transition requisite for each change life brings.

as i have thought hard about what i am lacking that would have provided grayce with a nurturing response, the thought that fills my mind is mercy.

mercy is something in this life i will never ever comprehend. it is my weakness for whatever reason. i think being a perfectionist plays a large part of it. but understanding mercy would solve every crisis in my present struggle.

as i was talking about it with my mom, she gave me the thought that a loving father, abounding with mercy, wouldn't allow us back with him by the skin of our teeth. mercy allows to have abundant opportunity to feel endless eternal bounds. it quiets the voice of perfection and offers patience in its place. it offers a humble heart to replace one hardened by life's trivialities. my extension of mercy allows me divide my time sufficiently to the people i love the most.

understanding mercy is precisely the reason we are on this earth. it will take me a lifetime of trial and joy to understand sufficiently a loving father's sacrifice of an only begotten son. comprehending that miracle more thru daily hungering for understanding is what propels one forward and unlocks daily peril.

so here's to today, with a grateful heart grasping a little more of this beautiful thing called mercy.

rolling roland

ahh. sweet fetus looking soft and fancy...

we are still working on his name around here. some days, i forget how much i love his name. then, i have to say it over and over. i get real jane austin{ish} and fall in love all over with his name. but, just because i's be lovin it, don't mean nuthin.

the redhead was saying the family prayer and when he got to the above mentioned, it was something like this:

and please bless baby....... uh......please bless baby o, baby owen, (grayce whispering, rowan, dad, it's rowan)
and please bless baby rowan.

now it's a different name, i get that. multiple people make me spell it out for them and still mistake it.

one sweet neighbor has had me spell it twice and every time she hears mention of him she says with disdain, rowland, ROWLAND?

i politely interject - no, no, ROWAN.

ROGAN?

no, no, RRROOOWWWAAANNNN.

this name thing is getting so so silly.

and let's just add fuel to the roland fire, he has just taken up rolling like a fool........

roll on roland, roll on.....