This morning I had to kick S.A.M. out of my room. He kept jumping on the bed (with dirty already-been-outside-in-the-mud-in-my-bare-feet) and just wouldn't stop. He went straight to his room, where he found his dad getting ready for the day (because that's where the bathroom is) and told him to get out of his room.

Silly kid.

Tyler informed S.A.M that it wasn't his room, that it was really owned by Tyler and he just let S.A.M. use it. S.A.M. didn't agree, so Tyler explained, "I'm the king, and you, you are my jester."

Classic.

Here's the run down of our Memorial Day festivities.

Tyler patrolled all day. Just like all weekend.

We stayed home. It was an eventful day that included me accidentally forgetting to feed a child breakfast before he went over to a neighbors' house to play, some throwing up from Benefactor, and some pyromania from S.A.M. Not my best day ever, but, then again, not my worst, either.

To make up for it all, and end on a good note, after dinner we headed to the park for some quick play time. Now we are back home, and this very minute, if you were to stop by, you would find Mademoiselle and S.A.M. in their jammas, out in the dark, on the muddy lawn, searching for nightcrawlers with their ever-fun dad.

The day is now fully redeemed.

beauty all around

"There is a great work for the Saints to do. Progress, and improve upon and make beautiful everything around you. Cultivate the earth, and cultivate your minds. Build cities, adorn your habitations, make gardens, orchards, and vineyards, and render the earth so pleasant that when you look upon your labors you may do so with pleasure, and that angels may delight to come and visit your beautiful locations. In the mean time continually seek to adorn your minds with all the graces of the Spirit of Christ."

-Brigham Young

"The more you trust and rely upon the Spirit, the greater your capacity to create. That is your opportunity in this life and your destiny in the life to come. Sisters, trust and rely on the Spirit. As you take the normal opportunities of your daily life and create something of beauty and helpfulness, you improve not only the world around you but also the world within you."

-Dieter F. Uchtdorf

At 7:30 this morning Tyler was dressed in his full uniform, ready for a day of Memorial Day Weekend patrolling. He had on his bullet proof vest, his gun belt, his boots, all of it. (And he looked good.)

He was ready for anything.

And he was pushing Benefactor on the tree swing, high up into the branches of the cottonwood tree, spinning him around in circles, obeying in an instant when the little guy squeeled out, "Faster, daddy! Faster!"

I wish I had my camera charger!

If I could find it, you'd be seeing adorable pictures of (finally) happy kids running through the rain, in the grass, under our fruit trees, in 40-something degree weather.



Benefactor is riding on a horse that is actually an oar, and is debating drinking from the gutters.

S.A.M. is wearing a tie over his t-shirt.

Mademoiselle is giggling, kind of maniacally.



It's a beautiful sight.

I do love going butterfly catching.

We were up on Mt. Lemmon. We caught some pretty cool butterflies there. I miss going there. It was so fun. We also ate some raspberries on our way.

When we catch butterflies we put them in bags. Then, when you've got a lot, you go home and you freeze them. After a couple days or one night you put little pins in the back of them and then you put them in a little picture frame with a window.

I love having them in the house and they look really beautiful.

My favorite part about catching butterflies is looking at them and feeling their soft wings. Their glitter, the thing that makes them fly, it looks like fairy glitter. I imagine that I'm a fairy and I feel like I'm flying. When I've got that glitter on my finger I wish I could fly.

by, Mademoiselle

(as dictated to mom)

So, today is a lay-back day. (You know, in sharp contrast to all those high-speed, power-hungry days I normally have in my life.)

Here are the reasons.

Tyler is out of town. I miss him when he's gone, but it also makes me want to take advantage of the calm. He's a hard-working, energetic, impulsive man, which I adore. And sometimes, like when I'm in my third trimester, those traits make me a little tired. Like 10 hours of sleep at night tired.

Yesterday was kind of stinky. I had an appointment with a state agency and when people treat me like a cow (in the cattle sense, not the large sense) it puzzles me. I mean, I'm pretty great and I think all people should react positively to my amazingness. When they don't, I kind of go into a tailspin. And I think it's safe to assume that hormones may have something to do with this.

It's cloudy and cool outside. There's a gentle breeze and a chance of rain and the temperature is hovering somewhere around 60. Days like this put fuzz in my brain. In a very good way.

S.A.M. has very suddenly started having trouble sleeping. So our half an hour of hang out time around 1am has had a little bit of an effect on me. It's my fault, too, because instead of being an angelic and comforting mom, I kind of got mad after the 3oth "Moo-ooom" and that got me riled up and made it hard to fall back asleep.



So, I thought, in the spirit of laze, I'd let Mademoiselle blog her little heart out for you all this morning. Okay? Okay.

news!

Here's the news:

He's a he. Our baby is a boy! And all of you who thought you knew he was a she...well, you were wrong. Myself included.


3 boys! Now I need to go find me some more energy to keep up with them all. Anybody seen any extra energy laying around somewhere?

Here are a few stories about the last 24 hours and how much our life rocks now that we live in our own house in a small town in a rural area.

Yesterday a neighbor kid came over for the day. I was watching him because is regular babysitter and his back up babysitter were both unavailable. Plus, my kids think he's pretty great. S.A.M. likes to play with him, and Benefactor always NEEDS to wear a "church shirt" when he sees him. I don't know why. He's 2. He does strange things like that.

Coincidentally, Tyler also had the day off. He was working on digging down a section of our yard that runs along the parking area so that it can be low enough to get some of our allotted hour of irrigation water. We're putting in a grape arbor there, and the grapes need water to grow. (and I wonder if I can call it a grape arbor. Is that right? Grapes are vines and arbors refer to trees. Someone help me with this.

So, he was digging heaps of dirt, and piling it in another area of the yard that we wanted to raise up a bit and which will someday support a wood oven/grill. And in those heaps was not only dirt but lots and lots and LOTS of broken glass.

It's not really a great idea to have kids running around on ground that's covered with broken glass. They could get cut.

And the kids were looking for something to do.

So, they each found something to dig with, and something to store in, and dug for buried treasure for maybe 2 hours. And ended up with buckets full of broken colored glass.

I'm such a good mom. And babysitter.

But that's rural living, right?



I mentioned that we get an hour of irrigation. That's one hour of water flooding our yard once a week. And we got our first hour last night. Tyler woke before his alarm went off at 11:50 for his midnight date with the ditches.

By 12:15 he was at the back door calling to me to get the emergency number for the irrigation people because some guys had come and diverted his water and we were missing out on our precious water time. I found the number for him, he went out and called and got no answer. And all that woke up Benefactor. So I went and settled him while Tyler re-directed the water back to us. I got to go back to bed (but not to sleep) while he got to have a tiny little confrontation with the guys who had diverted it in the first place. They finally realized that they must have gotten their time wrong, and their water hour began at 12 PM not 12 AM. A sad mistake.

Meanwhile, we had missed out on some of our water time. Our generous neighbor let us take the first little bit of his irrigation time, and today we have a muddy, muddy yard, and some muddy kids to show for it.

Tyler got back to bed around 1:20am, and neither of us could fall asleep until around 2am.

Ahh, the quiet, peaceful, bucolic country life.



Here's a bonus third story just because. My baby belly is pretty huge by now. I have something like 3 months left, and I don't know where all that baby growth is going to go. I really notice the size of my belly when I'm doing two things in particular; the laundry and the dishes.

When I do the dishes, my short little arms have to extend pretty much all the way out to reach to faucet and scrub. And my belly is pressed against the counter and always ends up wet. (I'm in serious want of an apron.)

When I do the laundry it takes me 2-3 trips to get the dried laundry from the dryer to the couch (where I do the folding). 2 or 3 trips!! I used to easily fit it all in my arms in one trip!




See? All around, life is better. The kids are happier, we are more rested, and we feel physically better than we ever have with all the work we do to keep up with our house and yard.

(For the record, and because I suspect my older sister is about to have a heart attack of worry over the danger I put my kids in, I want you to know that the glass is all old and dull from being in the ground for decades, and no one got even a little cut. Promise.)

news!

We're home.

After four months in our temporary housing (that was supposed to originally last about a month) we are home.

And we own this home. We've never owned a home before. And we're staying here a good long time.

I couldn't be more happy.


more to come soon. and pictures. I need to charge my camera for the first time in 3 months.