The roller coaster day, baby showers, and greyhounds

thursday morning dawned bright and early at 5:40am, like it does every morning. i always wake up and see everybody off to seminary/work/school. c doesn't leave until 6:45, so every morning we watch cnn, discuss current events, and then he'll says "okay, can we pray?" and then he leaves. such a good boy, he is.

by 8:15 i had everything packed up for preschool, little girls already buckled in their carseats, c's ss project that he had left behind all ready to be dropped off, when amanda called and said preschool was cancelled cause her kiddos were sick. i have to admit that i was pretty relieved. i love all our preschool kids but i've been feeling kinda run down lately. we went ahead and dropped off c's project at school and came back home.

it was fortuitous ($.50 word for the day, cha ching!) that preschool was cancelled, because matt and i had both forgotten about the group baby shower that was being held at his work that day and delaney was the guest of honor!

(none of the other 3 babies have been born yet:))

the baby shower was fun, the food was yummy, and his co-workers were so generous.

frankie had fallen asleep on the way to the shower and addie looked like this on the way home. this only lasted about 5 minutes once we got home, so that meant we were going on day 2 of no naps and mama's patience was wearing thin.

so. my day started off stressful (getting ready to get anywhere, especially a place that involves multiple drop-offs and pick-ups like preschool), then super good (we got a nice refund check for an overage in our escrow account), then good again (bigger income tax refund than anticipated), then good again (fun baby shower), then stressful again (short car naps = crabby little girls), then stressful again (big kids don't want to do chores), then good again (reading BoM with 15-year-old), then stressful again (13-year-old pulls massive attitude), then stressful again (2-year-old messes up bath water), then stressful again (2-year-old screams through shower, wakes up 2-month-old), then good again (3-year-old cuddles and kisses at story time), then good again (33-year-old goes for run with 2-month-old snuggled nicely in jogging stroller), then good again (42-year-old finally gets home (at 9:30!) and lets 33-year-old vent and cry out all her frustrations). 

i'm just feeling a major lack of time lately. i know it won't always be like this and i'm finding myself looking so forward to when delaney won't be breastfeeding all day, when addie goes off to school, and when lexi leaves for college. and i don't like it. these are such good times! all my 5 little children are home with me and i want to enjoy it and appreciate it and love it. and right now i'm so caught up in the logistics of life that i'm finding it hard to enjoy the family because there are always a million other things needing to be done.

i know, it's the plight of mothers everywhere, that horrendous and wonderful balance thing. balancing the right amount of time for cleaning (which i know isn't the most important thing but makes me feel so much happier when it's done), time with kiddies (which i know is the most important thing but is so hard when there are so many other things screaming to be done), and everything else (church callings, school, hobbies, time alone, etc). every time life changes, a new balance must be found and with a beautiful miss delaney and matt starting school, we're just needing to find that new balance. we're working on it though, so all is well.

and now i'm done venting. :)

i was determined to make friday a better day. i got up a few minutes earlier than normal, prayed (amazing what a difference forgetting to do that makes!), got kiddos to seminary nice and early, cleaned and organized for the day, spent quality time with the little girls with no tv (!) (we've fallen into some bad habits lately and now we're working our way out of them), discussed all of life's mysteries with my sister (and solved most of them;), made the girlies a nice lunch and actually sat down with them to eat it (more bad habits i've gotten into! makes such a difference when i actually sit down with them!), made a list of tasks to do during naps and completed them, even though i really wanted to sleep, and kept calm and collected all day long.

(as i type this i'm seeing all these little things that i've been doing to cause a lot of the little problems we so often have. see, blogging can really be so therapeutic, even if i'm the only one that ever reads this super long biography!)

anyway, big kids got home from school and we finished packing them up, dropped off little girls at aina's, and then headed to baltimore. we had a really nice drive, we talked, ate, laughed, it was just fun and relaxed. i was even able to sneak in some little snippets of wisdom and life lessons here and there for them. ;) and we made it up to the greyhound station with an hour and a half to spare, which was fortuitous (cha ching!) because i had forgotten to print out their tickets which caused major drama. to make a long story short (ha!) - very rude and unhelpful employee refuses to let us pay the $5 to print our tickets, she and i exchange words, we drive to holiday inn, super nice and helpful employee allows us to print our tickets, he and i exchange nice words, i call unhelpful greyhound employees manager and give him a very nice piece of my mind.

(to those that might think i make too big a deal about disrespectful employees even lex and chris couldn't believe how we were treated. after we left greyhound, lex was all like "i was about to tell her, you talk to my mom like that one more time..." it's good to know she's got my back! ;) i just don't see any reason to be so rude and unhelpful. she would have had us completely miss our bus. i worked retail and restaurants for many years and you just don't treat people that way. and seriosuly, greyhound should think about joining the 21st century. even movie theaters let you print out your tickets at the theater!)

now i digress.

finally it was time for their bus to leave, so tickets in hand, i sent my babies off for a week in new york with this chick.

so excited for them and can't wait to hear about all their adventures!

and right now i'm super grateful (and amazed) at the small miracle of getting all 3 little ladies down for naps in time to sit down with some cadbury mini eggs, my pen with a plume (thank you, fancy nancy!), and general conference.

mama needed it.