MIA

We've been MIA from the blogging world for awhile now. Not because we've been anywhere interesting, but because we've been enjoying our summer to it's fullest. We've been having so much fun lately, I can't believe that it's already the end of July!

July started off with the 4th of July. We had a barbecue with a bunch of our neighbors. It was so much fun and all the kids loved the fireworks, that's the best part anyway, watching the kids' reaction to the fireworks. We had so much fun! And so did Emma, Claire was an angel and fell asleep and slept through the majority of it.

Emma and her sparkler. She loved it!

Miss Claire enjoying the outside. Shortly after she had had it and fell fast asleep.

All the kids enjoying the fireworks!

Emma and Jade. Emma is telling her a secret here.

Emma's wonderful outfit. I told her the skirt and shirt doesn't match. She quickly informed me that they do because they're both pink....OK! She stole those shoes from a little boy running around. It was quite the outfit.

The next big event the happened was that my amazingly wonderful Grandma and Grandpa Spanos returned from their third mission. That's right, your heard me, they have served THREE missions. It is so good to have them back from Malaysia, we've missed them dearly. They calculated that while they were gone they missed the birth of two grandchildren and six great grandchildren. Emma is totally in love with her grandma Spanos. I keep telling my mom that she has been replaced. My mom is ok with it as long as it's only Grandma Spanos.

Claire has also started rolling over. She is my rollie pollie. I love it. This morning I heard her screaming and so I went into her room and found her on her stomach, she had rolled over and realized that she didn't like it as much as she thought she would! She's so fun and such a wonderful baby! She has also started on rice cereal and LOVES it! At first I didn't want to start her until she was older because of all of her stomach problems. But I gave in and decided to try it, she's been doing wonderful and I'm so glad. Emma HATED rice cereal, I had to skip that stage completely because of how much she hated it. But Claire, oh Claire just loves it. I still can't believe that she if four months old, it seems like I just brought her home yesterday. At her four month appointment she weighed a whopping 12 lbs. 9 oz.! I can't believe it! Emma didn't weigh that much until she was 6 months old. But I remind myself that Claire is still little. She is such a joy. I just love her!

Claire rolling over and smiling like a madman! How can you not love this face?

Claire in her bumbo, with her fingers in her mouth like usual.

Overall our summer has been wonderful! I love being the mother of these two beauties!

Drowning

Lately I've been struggling with this whole motherhood role I now take on day after day after day. I honestly have felt like I'm drowning and the more I try to keep my head above water, the farther I sink. I get frustrated too easily, I yell too much, I don't let the little things go, etc., etc. This is definitely not the mother I have always wanted to be, and it makes me so sad.

Emma has had ultimate control over me and I haven't known how to control her. How am I supposed to send her to her room when sending her to her room makes everything ten times worse? How am I supposed to tell her not to whine because when I do the whining turns into full fledged screaming and bawling. My life has been consumed with constant noise and frustration. I'm so sick of noise I could just scream! Noise from Emma crying and whining, noise from me yelling at her for making noise, noise from Claire crying (which doesn't happen that much anymore), noise from Neil getting mad at Emma, just noise, noise, NOISE! The thought of going back to school made me sick to my stomach, how could I possibly go back to school and take on that task when the task at home is overwhelming in and of itself?

Anyone who knows me knows that I don't stress about anything, I'm a very low stress person, I just roll with the punches. These last few weeks I've had a few spells where I'm doing something and then all of a sudden I feel like I'm forgetting something really important and get the annoying nagging feeling all day long, and then it turns into a headache. It's been miserable, I tell Neil it's the closest I've ever been to any sort of an anxiety attack. I can only imagine what a full blown anxiety attack feels like. My home life has been making every other point of my life excruciating. I'm so lost.

Just when I feel like I'm in the thick of it, I came across this blog. Tears were streaming down my face. This woman is a remarkable woman, someone I want to aspire to. She has been through more than most of us will be asked to go through, and she still is so thankful for everything, even for her trials. I read blogs from the beginning for her blog up to her most recent, her life totally transformed in a matter of minutes. I remember one post, not too long after her crash, where she talks about her youngest who was crying one night and her husband was getting frustrated with him. She decided to pick up her small boy, she was so overjoyed with the fact that she could actually pick him up herself, and she walked him around the house one time, another thing she hadn't been able to do for an extended period of time. She concluded with the fact that she was starting to feel like a mother, at least starting to. This post made me realize how incredibly ungrateful I have been. I've taken for granted the ease it is to pick up my crying child, and the fact that I actually say no so often makes me sick. Here is a woman who is so thrilled to finally feel like a mother again, and then there is me who has been dreading my role as a mother.

Last night while laying down for bed I came to the conclusion that something in my life has to change, and it's me. I need to change my attitude. I decided that this change isn't something that I can do overnight, but that the start of the change had to start today. I made a few goals for the day, just a few small goals which were to say my morning prayers (which I am terrible at), read my scriptures (again, something I'm ashamed to say I'm terrible at), and spend quality one-on-one time with my angel Emma. I'm proud to say that I accomplished every one of those goals today, tomorrow is the same three goals until they become habitual, and then I will add on three more simple goals. But today, oh today, it was so wonderful! I hardly lost my temper with Emma, Emma was better behaved than she has been in a long time, our house seemed, dare I say, calm.

When I knelt down to my Heavenly Father I asked him for help throughout the day, help for me to learn how to let the little things go and help to not get so impatient with Emma. can I just say how much I love my loving Heavenly Father. He is amazing and he loves us all, even me, the screaming, impatient, loony mother. And I love him.

Here's to a better me...