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Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Missionaries in Michigan

This past weekend we went to Ann Arbor to visit Eldon's parents on their mission. They are serving a CES mission at the University of Michigan. We have decided it is the most absolutely perfect getaway. It's only three hours, no hotel cost, and since we are with missionaries, it's cheap too!

Eldon's mom and dad really went all out for us there. They bought a real tent to set up in the living room for the boys. They had little airmattresses, and battery powered lanterns for them. They were in HEAVEN! Their apartment is furnished right from the famous church furniture we have all grown up with so it had a very "homey" feel to it. We really enjoyed learning about what they are doing, seeing the institute, and just taking it easy for a few days.

I loved having no TV. The boys had to play games and with each other which was great. On the last night, they had had enough of the missionary sacrifice of no visual media so we plugged in both laptops on each end of the couch. There they sat with their backs to one another and we had a marvelous album of Star Wars and the Wonderpets to entertain us for the evening.

We worked on a quilt for the new baby girl and played games and ate. Couldn't have been more relaxing. I am so happy that they get to leave everything behind and serve together. They are loving it and are so happy.

Friday, February 20, 2009

I'm finally a real mom and a real member of the Worthington Ward


I am a Honda Odessey mini van driver and I love it!!


Sunday, February 15, 2009

Cruelty

Shaving legs while pregnant. I haven't heard much about this from other women, but anytime I bring it up I usually get a moan. At first I thought it was just me because I'm a bigger girl with a stand up shower. But I have come to realize that bending over while you are 30 weeks pregnant for any length of time for any woman is just cruel. So today I must take a moment to share just how cruel this is.

Like I mentioned above, I don't have a tub in my shower. The shower is just long enough and wide enough that I can't hurle my leg up against the wall either. That has never worked before for me anyway because my legs lets just say are really heavy. The only way I can make it work is to either bend in half and frantically run the razor up and down my legs or to sit on the floor risking to create an unbelievable suction between my buttocks that won't let me get back up again. It's always a huge ordeal.

Let me digress for a minute. My poor husband. When we were first married, I shaved my legs almost daily to have the smoothest legs possible. He didn't even think hair grew on my legs. Well as time went by, it became more and more infrequent. I believe now he understands that my leg hair can catch up to him at anytime if I so desire. Let's just say, I haven't gotten to that point because that's just nastybut we have been close during the last tri-mester of pregnancy.

Back to pregnant shaving. Because I have no oxygen with water running into my eyes, and it is the most painful experience possible I usually let my leg hair grow a little longer just so I can see where I need to shave. The risk: missed patches look unbelievably disgusting. When you are 30 weeks pregnant, not only is it a feat to get to the floor to shave your legs, but getting back up may never happen!!

Today is Sunday. I feel that since I wear a skirt on Sunday's I should have minimal leg hair. I wear the same skirt every Sunday with awful black knee highs. Some of the knee highs you can see through and others not. I never know what will be clean so it's always a gamble. Today was not only the knee high debacle, but it had been a considerable amount of time and so I met the shower with a new blade and determination. I decided to quickly bend over and get it over with. After two seconds into the first leg, I felt like the baby's foot was crawling up my esophogus and my liver was going to explode. I began to be light headed, and there was water running into my eyes. I tried to remember to breathe and went as quickly as I could. One leg down I stood up to start the other. By this time, I already am completely hesitant but I can't have one leg done and the other hairy. So I take a deep breath and bend over for the next round. I race with the razor. I finish quickly and think, I survived. I get out of the shower and begin to lotion my legs and see the tiger stripes on the second leg. In my haste, I totally missed spots and eeewww. I refuse to get back in to fix it and say that will have to wait until the next shower.

So many of you may be saying, "why doesn't she shave in the tub?" I cannot sit in hair infested water. It's just something I can't do. I also don't clean my own tub and am too embarrassed to have the cleaning lady wipe up my hair. It's gross. I have told myself to not complain about this problem, "FIND A SOLUTION!" I even bought this hold to anything handle on an infomercial that I thought I could just prop my leg up on while shaving because it was supposed to "hold to anything." Yeah except for the small print of, not in water and with large amounts of body weight resting on it. The first time I tried, I hit my head on the wall when it broke free and sent me flying.

I think the only solution is going to be remodeling. Our shower is a mess and we need to replace it. I will not let the design go without a place to put up my leg to shave. If anyone else has a solution, or feels the same as I, please share!!

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Some Pics from Photography Class

We took a trip to the Franklin Park Conservatory. It was so much fun to have two hours to take pictures without kids hanging on your arm and to experiment with what we learned in our class. I highly recommend the class.
It was freezing outside but pretty.
This is the Chihule art. I over exposed the picture and I think it looks cool.
Very pretty little flower.
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Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Funny sayings

So the snow days last week really threw the Gale house off track. The kids had been very used to getting up and out the door. When the snow days came, they could lounge around in the morning on both Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday I had a 10 am meeting so we weren't in a real hurry in the morning. Then they had the weekend. Needless to say, Monday and Tuesday were awful!! How easily they forget!

Max is slow. He cannot find urgency anywhere in his soul. Combine that with not wanting to get out the door and it's a nightmare. I had to be to work early on Monday and Tuesday. Jackson was in tears both mornings over really silly things. I hate that. I get the biggest guilt complex when I'm hurling them into the cold and they are still trying to wake up.

So this morning I didn't have to be to work as early and so the morning slowed down a bit. I let Max play Lego Star Wars while I was getting ready. We have had an issue with him understanding that when we ask him to stop playing that we are not being mean, we are just needing him to do something else. So I told him that when I got out of the shower I would yell down to him that it was time to get dressed and he had to pause and get dressed and then he could play again until it was time to leave. So after my shower I yelled down and he paused the game immediately and said, "OK mom, I love to follow all of your GREAT rules!" I about fell over with shock and laughter. Even better was when I said it was time to leave, he pushed pause and came up immediately. This has never happened. He even had a smile on his face. WHAT????

Now Jackson had me laughing out of control this morning. He likes to watch Blues Clues and Little Einsteins in the morning while I am getting ready. I got out of the shower and he said to me, "Mom, can you get me a doughnut?" First, I was struggling to understand how he thought we had doughnuts? We never do. So then I told him we didn't have any and so he said, "Mom, I'll just have some candy." I told him no and asked him if he was hungry. He then said, "I just need some chicken nuggets with ranch dressing." I told him it was too early for chicken. He paused for a minute and said, "I know, if you give me candy, I won't throw the wrappers on the floor!!" He has a very bad habit of just dropping whatever wrappers on the floor he ends up with and I am always trying to get him to pick them up or throw them away. I thought it was so clever of him to try and negotiate with me.

So overall it was a great morning and I am so grateful to have these moments with my kids when I can't be with them all day.