Let's say, hypothetically, that you are trying to have an important conversation with your husband when he calls home from work this morning. Let's pretend that you're bathing two rambunctious boys at the same time and they start jumping in the bath while you are on the phone trying to keep the cell to your ear while scrubbing their dirty little heads. Let's also hypothetically say that while you are still on the phone with your husband trying to make a decision about your broken down car that both of your boys smack their heads into something and start crying - seperate smackings about 2 minutes apart. Let's pretend that the boys start jumping on your bed and it turns to tears in under a minute and you find yourself locking yourself in your hypothetical bedroom and letting the boys trash the house while you finish your phone conversation.

Let's imagine that you also have 14 other things on your mind today besides the call, your boys and preschool. Hypothetically speaking, maybe: laundry, visiting teaching, singing, the fact that you are counting canned applesauce as your kids' fruit servings for the day, food shopping, the primary activity on Saturday, preparing for my trip next week, how to clean canola oil off the basement floor, carpets and table, more laundry, choir stuff for Sunday, Primary stuff for Sunday, did I eat breakfast?, sending off that card to Dallin, coordinating with babysitters for next week, and dishes.

Let's say, hypothetically that it's 1:33 in the morning and you don't have time to not be sleeping because you know you'll pay for it tomorrow morning when it all starts over again, but you can't get your mind to stop thinking and you can't lull yourself to sleep with happy thoughts. Instead, everytime you lie down you think about what might possibly go wrong while your gone, or how your going to not get it all done and you want to keep a pen and paper on your nightstand so you can write it all out - as if that would help somehow, to have a massive list of things to do waiting for you tomorrow morning, staring you in the face as soon as you become concious hearing your youngest scream when he wakes up.

I'm sure glad this is hypothetical, because that would just be stressful. That's not my life ... hypothetically speaking, of course.

Two days ago I called my mom. We talked for about 45 minutes about flowers and bushes. We got online, while on the phone, and googled a few plants we were talking about to see what they looked like and if they needed full sun or shade. Then mom pulled out the latest Martha magazine and read me an article about "Proven Winners". I never thought I would be doing something like this. But I think I like to watch things grow.

There is a certain satisfaction in planting something in sweet smelling soil with your hands, watering it and watching green things begin to poke their little beautiful heads up out of the ground. With my kids, I put in all the effort and sometimes feel little reward, but plants are somewhat predictable and I like that. I guess you could say I like the plants sense of obedience. If I do what I'm supposed to, they do what they're supposed to (that seems to never happen in parenting).

I planted tulips and daffodils last spring and fall and I am starting to see them come up. love it.

My latest project was planting wheatgrass - which is doing very well - it only took about 5 days to see grass and now it's almost overgrown! (only about 10 days later) So, I started another indoor green project. (I have to do these indoors because it's still too cold to plant outside, plus, it might snow one more time this year ... Michigan is sucky that way). I started growing sunflowers!!!! I plan on transplanting them outside along my back fence as a privacy wall of sorts.

I think I like to garden, who knew? I guess I'm a gardner - ha!

Just a few happenings that I wanted to document. Noah has a new friend, Haley, from preschool. I hate to use the word "girlfriend" because that implies romantic interest, but she's a girl and she's his friend. I found out about them last week when one of the teachers at his preschool mentioned how they follow each other from station to station and hold hands, dragging each other from place to place. So, we've had a few playdates. I don't know how I feel about it. A girlfriend?? He's 4 ... oh man, I'm not ready for this. He doesn't say anything about how he likes her and he doesn't talk about her hair or eyes or anything goofy like that. hmmmmmmm.

Anyway, I know how I feel about Liam's new boots though - ecstatic. These boots were passed down to Noah from Dominic and now on to Liam. My favorite thing about these boots is that Liam can put them on by himself - awesome. Besides the fact that Liam looks amazing in tight jammies and boots ... check out the pictures :)

Totally different and random: I love this new camera of Daniel's. The past few days it has been unbelievably gorgeous and sunny and sort of warm, so the boys and I have been outside every moment we can be. Yesterday I did as many summer things as I could:

1. Gave Noah a buzz haircut.
2. Bought play sand to put in the sandbox. Then came home and played in the sand.
3. Gave the boys applesauce outside on our little picnic bench.

I love good weather ...




Noah and Haley

... it's more like I have two kids and sing a little too. I've been spending all of my extra minutes and moments lately doing two things: singing and reading the book of 3rd Nephi out of the Book of Mormon.

I am preparing for a concert I will be singing in as a soloist in two weeks in southern California. The oratorio is new, written by Brett Stewart, a friend from BYU who went on to be an amazing musician and who composed this piece of music taking the text from 3rd Nephi.

I remember as an undergraduate at BYU, asking many friends, teachers and singers how to incorporate being an opera singer with having a family. All those that I talked to just simply said, "if you want to do it, you can". So I find myself with a 4 year old and 1 year old and I'm trying to fit in vocalises, voice lessons, study of the text, interpretation, expression and flat out learning notes. And they were right. You just do it but it is not at all how I imagined it would be.

I knew a great soprano from the Bay Area, Karen Anderson, and she gave me voice lessons one summer many years ago while I was home from BYU. She seemed to have it all. She was married with two girls (then older) and had a successful singing career both as a soloist and teacher. I imagned her life to be blissful, fulfilling and in control. I imagined her rehearsing calmly and peacefully in her "music room" which was of course outfitted with a baby grand, floor length mirrors and vintage opera scores (okay, that's just my little fantasy ... whatever). I imagined her playing with her two little girls after school and helping them with homework, attending PTA meetings and going out on dates with her supportive husband. I imagined their little family having dinner quietly around the dinner table together each night. It was a beautiful sight ... in my head.

My reality as a mom and a singer is nothing like that dream. Sure, I practice singing, but I do it in my basement in front of an old bathroom mirror and my keyboard (not even a real piano ... sigh). And I very rarely have a chunk of 20-30 minutes when I practice, unless it's after 8:30 pm. I find myself plucking out my part, trying desperately to hear my keyboard over the sounds of Noah (my 4 year old) playing games on pbskids.org. I struggle to sing quietly while Liam naps and to catch a few minutes of real full out singing while both boys play around my ankles. Often times I am competing with hammering, banging, Noah yelling, "Mommy! Stop singing! I have a question!!" or "Mommy, you're scaring me, stop singing. Mommy it's too loud!"

I get interrupted constantly, even in my one haven - the shower. Just last week my shower was interrupted with Noah yelling, "Mommy! Liam has a knife!" ... yes, he did and it's amazing both are alive. And because I try to dedicate my life to singing and my boys, other household chores tend to go by the wayside sometimes. I'm going to be perfectly honest and reveal that I dried off with a hand towel yesterday because I hadn't done enough laundry to have clean towels - anywhere.

Besides the housework and harried moments at home, Daniel is attending night school to get his MBA. Finding babysitters while I am driving to Ann Arbor for voice lessons was not what I pictured. Singing at 9 or 10 at night was not what I pictured. Wearing swim suits until I find time to clean underwear in the luandry was definately not what I pictured. The truth is, I don't feel like much of an opera singer at all. I feel like a mommy. That's what I do 90% of the time. I stop practicing to wipe poopy bottoms, clean up pen marks off the sofa and make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. But I love it. All of it.

I love my boys. My crazy, silly, energetic, beautiful boys. I love my husband. My busy, tired, absent husband. I love my singing. The tiresome, difficult, frustrating, gorgeous expression of it. So if you love it, I've found you just do it. I find time for my boys - not just for the needful stuff (feeding, bathing, clothing) but the important stuff - reading to them, laughing with them, kissing them and covering them with blankets. I find time for my husband - dating him, talking to him, holding him. And I find time even for singing - slowly warming up, relishing pianissimos and delighting in swelling lines of emotion through song. And it's a beautiful thing that fills me with happiness.

So, it's springtime in California right now and for some reason, my body and soul knows that. I feel ready for birds, plants, sunshine, rain (not snow) and 60 degree weather. The last week here in Michigan has been unbelievably beautiful - weather in the 40's and 50's, sunny and the snow finally melted - yeah!!!!! Plants aren't exactly budding just yet, so I decided to make some green show up inside my house. I started growing some wheatgrass on Monday and here it is Thursday and it's already a few inches tall - I LOVE it. It's fresh, green and Noah checks it every morning to see how it's grown through the night. Com'on spring, let's get movin'!

There has been no preschool this week for Noah and Liam is sooooo glad. 3 days a week Noah goes to preschool from about 12:15 to 2:00 pm. Liam takes a nap while Noah is at preschool. However, Liam would sleep much longer, if we let him, but preschool keeps us a on a pretty tight schedule, no time for sleeping a little later. So 3 days a week I feel bad for Liam.

When I put Liam down for a nap right after we get home from dropping Noah off, Liam gleefully grabs hold of his blanket (he calls it, "bee-bink") and falls asleep peacefully and silently.

It is the waking up part that I feel bad about though. He looks so confused and slightly bewildered that I am tearing him from his sweet slumber in his comfortable bed and dragging him out into the freezing weather to pick up Noah. I finally caught the wake up faces on film .... poor Liam ...

Let me be totally honest, I do not get up when my boys get up in the morning, Daniel does. Don't get me wrong, I wake up and become concious with their terrible and ferocious calls, but Daniel answers the call, gets them set up with juice, cartoons and locks Liam in his room with a gate and lets me sleep. That being said, mornings can still be a little crazy.

For the past few weeks, both boys have been waking up somewhere between 6:00 am and 6:45 am. It has been rough. And it wouldn't be so bad if they were demure little angels that sat quietly in their beds and read books until we awoke, but they are not.

So, for the past few weeks both Daniel and I have awoken to screaming, laughing, banging, crashing and pounding that shakes the house. I don't know how or why they wake up that way, but they do. Usually one will be awake before the other and yell at the sleeping one (usually this is Liam yelling at Noah, he screams, "Nano!! Nano!!" over and over and over ... and over ...). It's weird because their beds are seperated by about 2 and a 1/2 feet of space, so they wake up and basically scream in the face of the other, who is only 2 and a 1/2 feet away - I have no idea what is posessing their little heads to think this is acceptable or a proper way to start off the day. It is a terrible wake up call.

Yesterday, I tried to lie down and take a nap because I've been sick and my body is still recovering from snowboarding (yeah, it's almost been a week ... so what?!). I put Liam down for a nap, set up Noah playing games on the computer and tried to sleep on the couch. It took me a while to fall asleep because I never usually take naps during the day, but once I did I was only asleep for about 25 minutes before being awakened by riotous laughing, loud ringing and banging. I awoke in a panic only to hear Noah pounding up the basement stairs laughing and giggling all the way, as he rounded the corner into the front room where I was sleeping, he proceeded to tell me how his game downstairs was "so funny". I hate waking up to loud noises - banging, crashing, pounding, and even laughing seems to lose it's golden ring when you hear it through a fog of sleepiness (and laughing, in my experience with my crazy boys, usually turns into screams of pain or anger in under a minute ... so .... yeah, no golden ring in their laugh).

Well, I thought I was pretty lucky this morning because it didn't start with screams! No, this morning started off differently.

I was having these insane dreams where I was picking a million ants off my bed and there seemed to be no end to the ants. Then I dreamed I was trying to leave a place and there was no end to the amount of coats, blankets, bags and jackets to gather up, then once I did gather up everything, I couldn't find my kids ... so from these frustrating dreams I awoke to my phone ringing. It was Daniel and he asked, "hey, did you return those redbox movies I asked you to on Sunday?" ... dang it.

"no", I replied, "I forgot".

"So, they've been acruing $2 a day for the past 5 days?" (he sounded perturbed)

"Yes"

"Can you return them today?" (he sounded exasperated)

"Yes"

"Okay. Love you, bye" (he sounded hurried)

.... nice wake up call.