I am trying something out. I have started a new blog about my boys. I will be updating it everyday. If you want to check it out click on the button below:

I am sick in bed today, the day before mother's day. I feel awful, but I have had the chance this past week to read, watch and think about being a mom and it has made me pause.

I struggle with motherhood. I did not embrace it with happiness and love. I have gone quite ungracefully into motherhood, kicking, crying and complaining the whole way (so far). I find it hard to feel important while doing the mundane. I find it hard to find purpose in the useless tasks I accomplish each day and I have felt like I have been missing the point for over 4 years now. And I hate that. I want to be happy with my daily life and I know it has to do with my perspective. A few days ago, I watched this video about Stephanie Neilsen (from the blog the nienie dialogues ), you may have already seen it. It's good, if you haven't take 8 minutes and watch it:



Then I read these two quotes by Marjorie Pay Hinckley:

"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails.
I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp.
I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbors children.
I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden.
I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder.
I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived."

"Think about your particular assignment at this time in your life. It may be to get an education, it may be to rear children, it may be to be a grandparent, it may be to care for an relieve the suffering of someone you love, it may be to do a job in the most excellent way possible, it may be to support someone who has a difficult assignment of their own. Our assignments are varied and they change from time to time. Don't take them lightly. Give them your full heart and energy. Do them with enthusiasm. Do whatever you have to do this week with your whole heart and soul. To do less than this will leave you with an empty feeling."

My particular assignment in life right now is to do something very hard for me - to be a mom. I feel frustrated and useless and angry so much of the time, but I know I can change my heart about this and see my beautiful boys as their Father in heaven does and love them for that. I love my boys and I desperately want to learn to enjoy this time of my life quickly before it slips through my fingers, before my boys are too old to give hugs and kisses when they leave for school, before their hands are bigger than mine, before they stop telling me everything, before they grow up and find a girl to marry (right now Noah is holding strong to the fact that he will marry me).

So happy mother's day - enjoy it.

As I finished this entry, I heard a knock at the door. It was Daniel and the boys coming back from running errands. I opened the front door and was greeted by this:



So I got to beautify my kitchen and nightstand ... but really I just felt an immense sense of gratitude for my little family.

Well, Daniel and I went to Chicago last weekend - without kids! ahhh! It was amazing. We had never been to Chicago and wanted to see everything, so we kinda crammed it all in to two days and were completely pooped after our "vacation" ... we've gotta learn to take relaxing vacations too ... maybe next time. I have lots of pictures to share and lots of details to write, but here's the short version and then scroll down for the long version with details below each picture:

Thursday night
- got inabout 9 pm, went walking down by the river.

Friday
- walked down Magnificent Mile (Daniel bought a Zegna suit on sale at Filene's Basement) :)
- walked to Navy Pier
- ate at Fox & Obel's (super cool upscale market)
- walked through Millenium Park and saw Buckingham fountain
- stood on "the ledge" at the top of Sears Tower
- ate at Giordano's pizzeria

Saturday
- breakfast at the Corner Bakery
- visited the Field Museum (saw dinosaurs and mummies)
- ate at Corner Bakery for lunch (not as good for lunch)
- visited the Shedd Aquarium (saw Beluga whales, sharks, 4D movie - I screamed)
- ate at Gino's East pizzeria
- Magnificent Mile shopping
- ate at Shaw's Crabhouse (the raspberry pie and homemade vanilla ice cream changed my life forever)

Thursday night



Friday


the tulips were gorgeous and all down the Magnificent Mile


Look at the super happy look on his sweet face.


the Drake hotel - this is for mom and dad - they stayed there once.


Navy Pier - a total tourist trap. We WERE gonna go on the ferris wheel but it was overpriced and time consuming. We just walked up and down the pier and took pictures.




We found Henry Weinhardt's rootbeer at the Fox & Obel Market next to Navy Pier. It's our favorite rootbeer and they don't sell it east of Chicago, so we came back later and bought up 5 6 packs, hahahaha.


I love food ...you will see more food pictures later too. I loved lunch here - salad you could order any way y ou like, crusty fresh bread rolls and clam chowder - ahhhhhh, my mouth is watering just remembering it all.


Daniel didn't want me to take his picture .... so I took like 10 more and captured these gems below:




My other favorite thing about Fox & Obel Market was the decor. The exposed brick walls, and wood beamed ceilings, the piles of bread in bins, fresh fruit in baskets and the coolest vintage looking vinyl chairs ... love it all.


Millenium Park


I don't exactly know why, but there was this statue of Bob Newhart ... anyway ... HAD to get a picture ...Daniel is such a little poser :)


I love close ups of Daniel. Look at all his cute manliness .... 5 o'clock shadow sexy face ... mmmmm.


There were signs everywhere for a Segway tour of Chicago and we saw them segway-ing around. It was too ridiculous not to get a picture.

My views about Chicago's rival pizzerias: Giordano's vs. Gino's East

After this trip I finally decided - I do not like Chicago style pizza (that's the deep dish style with tons of sausage and pepperoni and stuff on it) and I'll tell you why - it is too heavy. It's like eating a meat pie and I do not like it. Just a personal preference. Daniel loves it. I prefer Gino's East for two reasons: 1. the decor was cooler - it was unique. There was graffiti all over the walls (on purpose) from people who had eaten there/worked there and there was a homey feel to the decor, I liked the lamps and it was a two story establishment and it felt like I was eating at a friend's house. 2. I atea pizza I enjoyed more there - a thin crust pizza with bell peppers, onions and pepperoni on it. The sauce was like heaven and the crust was flavorful. Giordano's had a pretty run-of-the-mill look to its decor and didn't seem as well managed. We had to have dinner at the bar because they had taken 8 dinner party reservations of like 20 or more people each and had closed their dining room to the public. At Gino's East they only did first come, first serve and we didn't wait longer than 20 minuts to get in and eat.

Saturday


Breakfast at the Corner Bakery - I had this "scrambler" with avocados on top ... totally changed my ideas on omlets and scrambled eggs all together. And the toast was crunchy and whole wheat and had big chunks of wheat in it! The potatoes were diced with red onions sauteed in it .... yum.

** side note** One of the smartest things Daniel did on this trip was to research the CTA passes (that's their elevated train and bus system) it is usually like $2 for every ride you take on the train, or, if you're smart like Daniel and do a bit of research, you know that you can buy a day pass for $5 and ride as many times as you want - this SAVED our sweet little toes on Day Two since we were toatlly bushed after Day One walking EVERYWHERE - Go Daniel!!


The Field Museum boasts having the largest, most complete T-Rex skeleton in the world. The T-Rex is named "Sue".




Shedd Aquarium






Beluga whales




sting rays below your feet


The Wrigley Building


So many Chicago buildings were amazing architecturally, but the cool thing about the Tribune building is that it has chunks of rock from all over the world in the side of it. Rocks from the Berlin wall, Notre Dame in France, the World Trade Center, the Parthenon and more.


Standing on "the ledge" at the top of the tallest building in the nation and 2nd tallest in the world. "The Ledge" is a glass box hovering over the city, so you can see directly below you and how far up you are. It was disturbing to my insides to stand in it. I got sick to my stomach, to be honest. It was unnatural to be hovering like that .... uh. But Daniel thought it was cool. He's so brave.


The view from the top ... there's Chicago ... and we loved it!

Soooo .... on my google homepage there is a section that I have that tells me the local weather. Just for kicks, I added my hometown in California's weather so I could see what I was missing. That was a bad idea. Not only was it depressing to see the difference between here and there, but a few months ago, the link to my current residence in Michigan broke, so only California's weather came up. It was so sad. I would forget that the link was broken and skim the page and see that it was going to be 75 degrees and sunny all week!!! .... oh wait, that's California, my link is broken. uh, it was a sinking feeling in my stomach.

I was telling my dad about it a little while ago and he said, "that is so dumb. You should change that" ... and so I did. I took Dad's advice and now I see Michigan's weather and right below that I see the weather in Vorkuta, Komi Republic, Russia and Anchorage, Alaska. Right now here's the stats:

Michigan - 71 degrees and raining
Vorkuta - 31 degrees and sunny (snowfall on Tues and Wed)
Anchorage - 48 degrees and raining

Dad was right, this is much better now. Michigan looks a little better .... than Russia.

It is a hot, humid night here. It's 71 degrees and 86% humidity and raining (I never understood the humidity thing, if it's raining, doesn't that mean 100% humidity, cuz droplets of water are actually formed and falling from the sky?? ...) ... ugh. The boys have been whining relentlessly for years now, but a LOT today - especially Liam, who I think has crossed over into the terrible twos (his 2nd birthday is in a few weeks). Daniel and I had a long day at church that started at 10:30 am and ended at 5 pm. nuf said - we're all a little on edge around here - uncomfortable physically and mentally. Which brings me to a discussion I had with Daniel a few weeks ago that I have been thinking about - walking through doors, without children.

I was exasperated after a long, hard day with the boys and was venting to Daniel. I always feel like I cannot quite explain the position I feel I am in everyday as a mother. It is an endless and torturous job some days and that night I was trying to explain it to Daniel. I was trying to explain what it was like to try and accomplish any task at all with two boys ages 4 and 2 around your ankles. I could see by the blank and unsympathetic look in his eyes that he wasn't getting it.

I said, "for instance, I don't know if you really appreciate all the little things you get to do on your own everyday. I'll bet it's wonderful to eat lunch in silence and just eat without trying to coax anyone else to eat too. And you don't have to clean up after your meal and the meal of any of your other co-workers who have splattered food all over the cafeteria ... I'm sure your co-workers are much neater than my lunch-mates.

Do you appreciate being able to go to the bathroom just whenever the heck you feel the need to? That must be nice. I am regularly interrupted (sometimes mid-poop) when Noah runs into the bathroom and says he needs to go and I have to get off the toilet because we only have one in our house. It must be nice to go potty, alone, quietly, whenever you need to, yeah ... nice.

And walking through doors ....oh man, I'll bet you don't REALLY appreciate that, do you?"

To this Daniel looked confused, "what do you mean, 'walking through doors'?"

I responded, "yes, walking through doors. I'll bet you just throw open the door to your office and walk right in. You don't think about it at all, do you? Lemme tell you something - do you have any idea how hard it is to open the door with a 40 lb 2 year old in your hands and a 4 year old who races ahead of you through the door, stepping on your feet as he pushes his way past you, and then falls face first when he trips over the mat in the doorway?? I usually make quite an entrance with my two crazy boys. Even with a cart and automatic doors I have had trouble. Once I was pushing the cart through the automatic doors at Target and Noah was clammering for my attention as I was trying to buckle Liam in the cart and Liam was grabbing the sunglasses off my face and Noah started jumping in the cart and shaking the edge of the cart and I ran into the edge of the automatic doors and the automatic doors fell off their hinge and swung wide open (I guess they are supposed to open like that in an emergency). Yeah, what do you do then? The Target employee at the front of the store looked startled, confused and then annoyed. I just kept on walking, what was I going to do? Put the huge doors back on their hinges?"

Oh man ..... walking through doors ... I hope everyone who doesn't have kids fully appreciates walking through doors all ... by ... themselves.

So, I've come to a decision about something - the four seasons - I don't like 'em. I have talked to people (mostly from the east or midwest) before who rave about the four seasons and how much they love them and could never live without them. People have been quite passionate to me about how they adore changes in the seasons. So passionate infact, that it made me consider it ... and now I have ... and now I've experienced the four seasons in all their glory in 3 states in the east and midwest for 4 years and I've decided ... I do not like the four seasons. And I feel passionately about that.

I do not like winter - anything below 30 degrees is just downright unpleasant and in my opinion completely useless. And the picturesque idea of a "white Christmas" is not at all picturesque to me if you have to haul small children around in beanies, gloves, huge coats, scarves and several layers of clothing; or if you have to drive in that picturesque white snow ... or walk in it, or shovel it, or endure it for 5 months - yeah, not for me. I do not like winter.

And I do not like spring - the windy, rainy, unpredictability of it - no thanks. Spring is like waiting for a package in the mail - everyday you want it to come, you want it to be 70 degrees or warmer so you can start gardening and playing outside with your boys who go insane inside the confined house ... and everyday, you wait and think it's finally here and going to be warm and wonderful and ... it's not. And every proceeding day there is more anticipation with an even bigger letdown as you wait some more for summer to show it's shining face.

As for fall - it's not bad, I like sweaters and all but sometimes the "crispness" in the air is a little too crisp for me and I now have this forboding and heavy feeling as fall rolls around that reminds me that winter is on it's terrible, freezing cold way. So fall is like a Sunday evening for me, it's ruined by what comes next; Mondays and winter are just unpleasant.

Yep, I've taken in to account my feelings on the matter and I do not like the four seasons. I would be happy with a winter that never dropped below 30 degrees, only got as severe as rain (no snow) and only stuck around for about 3 months, then I'd want sun and LOTS of it! Sun pouring through my window every morning to waken me, sun shining on my freakishly pale skin, sun warming my freezing toes, hands and arms, sun feeding my plants and helping them grow big, tall and lush; sun illuminating parks, hiking trails, camping trips, BBQ's, backyards, pools, beaches ... ahhhh, yes, that's what I like .... sun.

So it's finally starting to feel a bit like spring around here -the biggest clue?? ... My tulips are in full bloom. It's still a little cool around here for my tastes, it stays somewhere bewteen 40 and 60 (although a few days ago it was 37 .... whatever). But right now I am sitting on my front porch, Noah is on his little bike, Liam is sleeping and I can smell the cherry blossoms on my tree wafting through the air as I wait for Daniel to come home from church (he had to stay after to do tithing). Good moment. It's quiet, smells good and my boys are happy. That makes me happy.