Sometimes I think I'm pretty funny

 Which picture would you have picked?  

I picked this top one. I know I'm kind of squinting because there was a glare off the window across the street but.....I like my hair the best in this one. Plus, the way I'm sitting looks more natural. Plus I like that I don't have a big smile on my face. This picture says to me...."Yo. I'm a mama but that don't mean I always have to sing about my kids" or how about. "Dude, I don't know what the heck I'm doing but I'm trying to rock out here"  Or maybe "I'm almost 40 but I just figured out my favorite thing so watch out homeys  I'm going to be a rock star" or how about this one "While I do the dishes and the laundry I'm kicking some booty writing songs in my head!"

 Since I picked up my box of Demo CD's this morning I've been going back and forth between satisfaction and happiness to anxiety and embarrassment. This is how it sounds in my head.

"Oh happy day! Look how far I've come. 22 months ago I didn't even know I could sing like this let alone write my own songs. Yippee I made a CD!" 

Then my freaked out self pipes up.

 "What exactly do you think you are doing? I feel very uncomfortable all the time thanks to you and your big ideas."

Then my dreamy cheezy self rebuttals 

"Haven't you been listening to our inner voice? You need to go watch Oprah's Life Class and say your prayers tsk tsk tsk"  

Then anxious insecure girl says.

 "Need I remind you that your daughter's best friend who is 12 can play the guitar better than you? And anyway, you're squinting in that picture" 

Then cheezy positive girls says

 "Hush. You must grow up and stop being afraid to try. Making mistakes and doing things even when you're not perfect at them is the only way to learn and move forward and I know I'm squinting, haven't you read what I just wrote up there?"

Just so you know I've been writing this blog post while my twins keep getting out of bed and  talking and laughing and screaming and complaining and I keep having to put them back in bed and open the windows because Sarah is hot then close the windows because it's too cold then threaten to take all their toys away if I have to tell them to get in bed one more time and Sarah says "OK, do it" which makes me laugh and not sound convincing. 

Here is anxious insecure girl's Demo CD cover. Except her CD has no songs on it because she was too scared to try ;)

Let me know if you want cheezy positive girl's demo CD. I'll give you one for free. 

Even if you live in Cote d Ivoire in West Africa and speak French, I will still mail one to you.

Insanity avoided

The lovely setting for our hike

 Is it just me or does my mouth look freaky in that picture.

Can you see Emmaline and Luke way up at the top? 

Gwen was scared, poor girl.

Luke and Lincoln. Best friends since they were tiny babies. 

Hiking during the usual after school crazy time was a great way to avoid loosing my sanity yesterday. 

 I had 2 of our favorite neighbors along with my 5 and only one of them was a complainer.

 Maybe you can tell from the picture who the complainer was.....

Nate worked really late so when I got home we had left overs then bathed the dog and went to bed. 

Poor Gwenyth had a scary witch dream the night before so she didn't want to go to bed.

 She told me, 

"I saw the witch mom. I saw her face and I saw her hands. She touched me. She shut my mouth." 

 I wouldn't want to go to bed either. 

When I was about her age I used to have a reoccurring nightmare about hiding in an old abandoned house inhabited by a witch.

 I was hiding under a blanket while she walked from room to room looking for me. Scary!

 Nate said he remembers a witch dream from when he was little. 

A scary witch came riding  into his room on a tricycle with a head light. 

Last night Emmaline and I tried to comfort Gwenyth. She was so scared to go to bed. 

 Emmaline put the twin's mattress on the floor side by side so she and Sarah could snuggle. 

We Put the dog in between them and put a night light in their room. 

Gwen was so distracted by the novelty of it all she went to bed happily and fell asleep fast. 

The long hike I'm sure helped her be nice and sleepy. I'm glad to say she slept all night undisturbed. 

It is cold and cloudy and a bit rainy today so I'm glad we were outside yesterday. 

The twins had dance class this morning so I used my free 45 minutes to take myself on a date to In-N-Out Burger. 

10:15 in the morning and I was ordering a burger and fries with a coke and a chocolate shake.

 I've been craving this meal for at least a week and since it was a rough morning with AnnaKate and Luke I decided to treat myself.

 I was surprised they were open that early and I was surprised there were like 7 men in there who were also craving a burger at 10 in the morning.

  Is there a point to this post? 

Was I going somewhere meaningful today? 

I guess not. 

The twins are off to pre-school now. 

Shall I go fold and put away my 7 loads of laundry or should I lay on my bed to read and think?.....

Easy choice.

P.S. 

the demos are ready to be paid for and picked up. I'll be heading out to Salt Lake to get them in the morning. 

P.P.S.

my solo in Sacrament Meeting for October was moved to November 20th and then was postponed till January. Not by me. I was ready and willing to do it in October but things keep coming up I guess....

at least I'm willing. 

Have a great day and I hope you don't have any scary witch dreams when you go to sleep tonight. :)

marsh lands and messy houses

 This is where we went today. It's called Farmington Bay. It's basically a big marsh land.  These marsh lands run into the Great Salt Lake. It's very close to my house. I wanted to go see if I could spot some pretty birds. Of course I had Gwenyth and Sarah and our little friend Sarah J. so I couldn't get too serious about spotting birds. If I would have had a pair of binoculars, bug repellent and a very nice camera I would have been set but instead I had 3 little girls, a dog and a so so camera. It was still beautiful. It was fun to have the windows down so we could hear all the pretty and interesting bird calls. We saw tons of fish teaming in the river that flowed into one of the big ponds. We even saw a very cute fluffy tailed skunk. Clearly I didn't take this skunk picture but this skunk is as cute as the one we saw but ours had a fluffier tail. 

 We even got to see this giant blue heron as we were leaving.

 He heard us and flew off. 

What a sight to see his big self fly off.

 We stopped at the pumpkin patch since it was close by. 

They have a hay maze that the 2 Sarah's loved.

 Gwenyth wanted to sit in the car and snuggle the dog.

Aren't the red mountains pretty.....

When my kids get home from school I am going to force them to get in the car so we can go on a hike before it gets cold tomorrow :(  

 I say force them because the 3 older kids must be forced into family outings these days.

 They walk in the door and start pelting me with requests. 

Mom, can I call so and so and can you drive me there and we need to go buy me stuff for my Halloween costume and can you take me to the store and my head hurts and my leg hurts and I'm hungry and we have no good food in this house and so on and so forth.

 It's 3:18 right now. Emmaline should walk in any moment, then the other 2 kids. Sometimes between the hours of 3:30 and 7pm I am barely hanging on to my sanity. Barely. 

If we take a hike maybe I can skip the insane part of my day....

Speaking of sanity.

 Nate asked me what I wanted to do over this past weekend. I said paint our bathroom. 

He said he wanted to go to Hyrum to our family home. He then suggested he'd take the kids and leave me here alone...........................alone you say?...........................oh my goodness gracious I'll take it!!! 

Friday they all left at noonish. I lovingly helped them pack and load the car. 

Kissed them goodbye. 

The kids were like, "mom, you should come" I assured them I'd be just fine, I must paint and clean the house. Off they went. YAHOO!

 I painted my bathroom, and listened to music and had a marvelous time. 

I tell you when I'm alone my body must start producing endorphins at an intoxicating rate. 

Wow It felt great.

 I finished the bathroom around 11pm and fell asleep after watching Oprah's Life Class. 

You can better believe I love watching that show!!! 

I slept in Saturday morning.  I thought I'd clean the house and do laundry then maybe I'd drive up to Hyrum......I started cleaning and got so frustrated with all the kids toys and junk and clothes and shoes!!!! The American curse of having too much stuff!!!!

 I then proceeded to bag up toys and clothes and garbage at an alarming rate.

 I think I must have walked 5 miles with all the running up and down my stairs and all around my house as I tore up closets and drawers, banishing bags of too much stuff up! 

I stuffed Nate's truck full and took it to the D.I. 

 Sometimes as a mom I start to wonder if I'm lazy or really unorganized or old and slow because my house is a mess most of the time.

 This weekend I discovered I am lighting fast, extremely efficient and young and strong. 

I ripped through this house like an organizing, cleaning machine. 

When I have 5 people undoing all my cleaning and dropping there stuff and needing my help when I'm in the middle of a chore, so I stop half way, it creates the illusion that I'm a terrible housekeeper. 

Not so.

 I'm just so out numbered. So that's nice to know. 

I told the kids I was going to crack down on their slovenly behavior. I warned Nate I was going to be obnoxious about the kids picking up there rooms and the house and it was going to be different around here. This isn't a house full of babies anymore so I'm going to start expecting more! Do I sound like a tyrant? Aren't you glad I'm not your mom? All right. The kids are home, time for a hike. I'll post hiking pictures tomorrow hopefully.

Hope you're having a great day and I wish I could read your blog and find out what you're up to...

P.S.

Demo's should be done this week. If you want one with my picture and the song titles printed on the CD let me know. I'll have 100 of them. Well, 99. I'll keep one for myself.

It must have been a sign that I was in for a good day

 This morning after I did a little Pilate's mixed with a little light yoga I decided to see if I could stand on my head. Not just stand on my head where I'm leaned up against the wall but stand on my head in the middle of my room. I put my head on the ground, carefully put my knees on my elbows and then straightened my legs up in the air. 

I stood on my head! 

I didn't even know I could do that! 

To all you coordinated people out there this is no big deal, but to me, a person who has always felt like my body and brain connection wasn't so strong....this was an exciting accomplishment. 

To have my day start with such a surprising stupendous athletic feat set the tone for the rest of my day.  I was in the shower singing a song I  wrote over  a year ago. I love this song a lot. I've never sung it for anyone. When I wrote it I couldn't even hit the notes I was hearing in my head but now I can. So as I was belting it out while washing my hair. I felt marvelous. I felt so marvelous that when I came to the end of that song I heard hints of another song playing in my head. I listened and started singing that one and sang a whole new song. How is it that when these bursts of creativity come through me it feels so good emotionally, physically, even spiritually?

Sure, most of my songs are all little orphans right now with no one but me to hear them, no one to love them. I have faith that they won't always be orphans. 

The perfection of the day just continued.  My sister in law just had her 5th baby so I wanted to have her other kids over so she could enjoy her beautiful baby boy. He's not just beautiful because all babies are beautiful, 

he is beautiful because he really is beautiful!

After lunch at "Ric Donald's" we went to one of my favorite parks. The sun was the perfect amount of sunny. The sky was the perfect shade of blue. The clouds were the perfect shape of fluffy. The breeze was the perfect amount of cool. Angel faces were smiling back at me. We climbed and jumped and hiked and saw butterflies. 

And to top off the perfection we ate galaxy frozen custard.

These are the days I want to remember. I hope my kids will too. I sure don't have very many memories of when I was 4 or 3 or 2 so I doubt any of these little angels will even remember this perfect day. I will though. And I will write down the other parts of my perfect day in my journal......because I love to feel like I am capturing joy......in some form or another. 

family pictures and funnies

All pictures by LeeAnn Samsel

I have been writing some really great blog posts. In my head that is. As I fall asleep or as I'm getting ready in the morning. Then when I sit down at the computer to type them out I have a stupor of thought...........wait what was that brilliant post I was going to write? Oh yeah............can I say that stuff on my blog?.......

So here I am, with not much to say but my head full of words and stories. I love telling stories. I tell myself stories all day. I make up scenarios in my head of things that would be really fun to do. I think of people I'd love to talk to. Some of them dead some of them alive. I have a lot of fun in my head. Sometimes I'm pretty sure my life in my head will always be better than my real life. Not that my real life isn't good. It's great. I just have so much fun and adventure in my inner world, plus in my head I'm very strong and heroic.  I think motherhood is very conducive to day dreaming. So much of my time I'm outside with my kids riding bikes or taking a walk or hunting for bugs or playing pretend with the twins. So much of my time I'm doing completely mindless work. Sweeping, weeding, washing things. My head is free to wander to happy places. I don't exactly know why things have felt so peaceful and fun this fall but I'm enjoying every day of it. Things always change, life, weather, my moods and the moods of my kids. I'm just going to enjoy this season of happy flowing routine for however long it lasts.  

My good friend wrote a post the other day that I loved. I feel like I want to put a link to hers since my blog has been so sparse and lacking in nutritional value as of late. 

I know! I'll tell you some funnies that my kids have said. I type them down in my iphone so I can read them and make myself laugh.

AnnaKate 10 years old

" I hope I have a baby with an outie belly button. Do you get to pick what your babies get?"

 Gwenyth 4 years old

a friend of Gwenyth's said "my dad is bald" 

Gwen said "my dad is Nate"

Sarah 4 years old

I was trying to strum really fast on my guitar and it wasn't going so well for me. Sarah was sitting in the room with me watching. She was quietly laughing to herself. I stopped and said "what?" She said

 "It's a little funny when you play the guitar" 

Emmaline 12 years old

Nate had been enjoying a whole lot of deviled eggs....digestion for him that night was a little turbulent. He sprayed some air freshener. Em came in the room and said

"Ugh! It smells like farts and spring"

Luke 7 years old

We were talking about our dog Tabitha and how her breed (dachshund) was originally bred to go to ground and pull badgers our of their burrows. I was saying how badgers are aggressive and mean. Luke listened and said

"I never want to mess with a platypus!" 

Hope you are having funny moments in your days. Don't you just crave funny moments? I do. 

just a little note

Melissa and I (mostly Melissa) have been working on her MAC getting the picture insert ready for my little demo. The demo's I've given out haven't had a picture so when we had our family pictures my aunt took some of just me. I mentioned that in an earlier post. Anyway hopefully today we can get them to CDI Media. I haven't had much time for blogging or really anything other than my kids and home. I have been wanting to blog about some of the great books I've been reading. I also have been wanting to go record some more songs but this time just for fun. You know just make a CD for me, put some of my other songs on there that Nate and some of my sisters really like. Hopefully this Saturday I can squeeze in an hour and half to sneak away to Melissa and Kurt's. I had to quit my guitar lessons because Danny's only openings are 5:30 or 6:00 pm on a school night and all the way in Salt Lake. I bit the bullet and went to 4 lessons but every time felt so anxious leaving my kids. Mothers know this is homework time and fixing dinner time and driving kids around time. It would be nice to at least record some of the songs I have already written. All right well, have a great day. Hope your October is cozy and colorful.
Love
Kristen

Wednesday's with my mom

October 6, 2011

It's raining today. It rained yesterday and through the night. It's even cold. I am trying to remember all the reasons I like fall and winter. I'm trying to get my last looks at my pretty vibrant orange inpatient's and my southern hydrangea that go from green to pink to purple to green again. I'm trying to be happy that I get to wear cozy sweaters and puffy coats. Spring and summer are most certainly my favorite seasons in Utah so even though fall is beautiful I'm always pushing away feelings of sadness and dread for winter. Today I've been busy all day but I haven't gotten anything done. I really dislike these kinds of days. I'm still in my yoga clothes but I haven't done yoga and the twins will be home from pre-school in an hour and 10 minutes. I've had AnnaKate home sick all week. I told her these next 2 hours are mine so she needs to just sustain life without me for a bit because "I can love her with all my heart but not with all my time" to quote Emma Lou Thayne.


I went to Anthony's Antiques with my mom yesterday.

 That's the second Wednesday in a row I got to have my mother all to myself. I could sing my mother's praises for pages here. If you know my mother I bet you could sing her praises for pages too. Talking with her is so satisfying and so nurturing and so enlightening. She understands me. Can anything make you feel more loved than being completely understood?

 Anthony's Antiques is a huge gallery for antique dealers and they don't usually let regular people in there but my mom is charming so they let us in.  Would you look at that picture? Those stained glass windows are from an old old church somewhere in Europe. Look at that old car too. When I first walked into this room I didn't even see the car because I was so enchanted by the windows.

 Look at that humongous baby/angel holding up the ceiling! My mom and I were wishing we could know exactly where all these amazing things came from. Who made them? What was their life like?

 Who wore these jewels? Were they happy? That one in the center is a "tennis bracelet"  What's it like to be so rich that you wear rubies to play tennis in?

 These were original paintings and there were some massive ones. Wouldn't you love to know about the people who posed for them?

I think my blog could win the prize for worst quality pictures. Or maybe the prize for the most sporadic posting.