A New Year, A New Outlook, and Eternally 39

I've never been a big believer in turning over a new leaf on New Year's Day. Probably because I never once followed all the way through a goal set then. But here it is, the new year, and against my will, a desire for change has come upon me.

I find myself no longer tolerant of my previous habits, destructive desires, or lack of follow through. Maybe, at the beginning of the year where I will turn 39, I have finally accepted adulthood, and all that means. That my life is my responsibility, that if I don't do the best for myself, my husband, and my children, who will?

And so, though I've made nothing concrete, no STATEMENT OF INTENT followed by a workable plan, I am moving forward with the plan to just DO BETTER. I know what I need to do to be a better person, I've just avoided doing it for years because I DIDN'T WANT TO. (How juvenile is that????)

As to being eternally 39, it's a joke in my family that if you ask my parents how old they are, they will say 39. And have been that age for 25 years, give or take. The realization that I am at that age, that I will turn 39 in a couple of months, and though according to the government and my children I will continue to age, if anybody ever asks me after March 15th how old I am, I will always be 39. And my life, such as it is, needs to stand for more than my inborn selfishness. So I will indulge myself in this one last selfishness...I will not age beyond 39.

Happy New Year to All, and may all your nothingconcretewithnostatementofintent goals see the light of day!

And Then There Was December...

So November came and went, with a late Thanksgiving, and early activities, and suddenly it's a month later and I've blogged nothing. Not a thing. And now Christmas is a week away, we're not done, and, well, I'm just sitting around feeling overwhelmed. So my post is this...we're here, we're alive, we're enjoying the holiday, and hope that it's a joyful holiday for all of our friends and loved ones!

(P.S. Here are the two calendar pages I put together as part of a family calendar that will be a gift for my parents this christmas. I'm a total newbie at this, and I'm sure my siblings' will be much better, but it was still fun to put together.)

Specific Instructions

This week has been one where I discovered that in fact my children cannot read my mind, and when I say something (or don't say something that is obvious to me), I will reap the rewards of my lack of proper communication.

Example 1: Benji has started toilet training. But if I do not say to him the right words, the bathroom is sprayed with urine. Yeah. 'Nuff said.

Example 2: On Wednesdays I am gone in the afternoon from 3:30 to 6:30, when I take Peter into Salt Lake for Salt Lake Children's Choir rehearsals. I usually have something already to put in the oven or cooking in the crockpot on these days. Last week I made up a recipe for a breakfast casserole, with a hashbrown base and and egg, cream and cheese mixture poured on top. I left it on the oven, covered in Saran Wrap, and told specific instructions to Sarah on when to put it in the oven, how long to cook it, etc. It was a busy evening, as we were going to attend the wedding reception of my niece, Kacey, and there would be little time to do anything else but stuff down a few bites before running out the door.

When I came home, everyone told me how yummy dinner was, and that saving any for Peter and me was difficult. I ate quickly, thinking that it was odd that it hadn't browned after an hour in the oven, and that the liquid must have over flowed it a bit, because there was a slight film around the edge of the pan.

Eventually I got around to cleaning it, and realized that the egg film was NOT egg, as I had supposed, but Saran Wrap, melted, and eaten, by my entire family, myself included.

It had never occurred to me that I had to specify removing the plastic wrap to my daughter. But I have learned my lesson. If I want something done a specific way, I have to say things like "Please point it into the toilet," or "Remove plastic wrap before putting it in the oven."

Just thought I'd give you all the benefit of my experience so this doesn't happen to you.

November Heebee Geebees

November has always been a fun month for me. I enjoy the anticipation of Christmas, and the yummy food of Thanksgiving.

This year, however, I am adding a big 'ol stress to that...NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. The challenge? Write 50,000 words in one month, or the length of a full novel.

Never done that before. Ever. But need to desperately, if just to prove to myself that I can.

I almost didn't even start, just so I wouldn't be disappointed in myself half way through the month. But what is life, if not a series of attempts and failures along our quest for perfection?

It's still giving me the heebee geebees, though. I'm terrified!

Benji, Ph.D in Daaaaaannnnce

Isn't this a great picture? Sarah is on the yearbook committee and had borrowed the school's camera to take pictures of Red Ribbon Week. She just shot this for fun while we were getting out of the car one day after school. We need a really good camera so we can take more of these.

The reason I posted this pic (other than to show off Sarah's awesome photography skills) is to share the most recent silly Benji moment.

He and Andrew have watched "Monsters vs. Aliens" a hundred times. No exaggeration. He loves to imitate his favorite parts, one of those being the "Dance Dance Revolution" of Dr. Cockroach. (If you haven't seen it, you're missing out.) Benji kind of bounces around, flapping his elbows in his own version of the Funky Chicken.

So this is this morning: He wants to get dressed by himself, including changing his own diaper. He got COMPLETELY undressed, had all his new stuff ready to go, when this part of the movie came on. Naked little boy doing bizarre Funky Chicken dance while giggling insanely.

Need I say more?

LDS General Conference and My Testimony

So we went to East Canyon this weekend for conference. We invited my parents and my youngest brother and his family to come up and enjoy conference and the tradional joys of rice and bacon. But with my dad sounding like a loaded down dump truck (nasty sore throat), my mom having to REALLY rest from her broken hip, and it raining buckets (probably just normal stuff for say, Seattle, but around here, if water comes out of the sky, people start to build arks), we ended up being by ourselves. It was great to be able to just sit and listen, even though the Sunday morning session I barely heard because that was the one I was yelling through, trying to get the kids to "SIT STILL AND BE QUIET BECAUSE THE PROPHETS ARE TALKING!".

Elder Holland's talk during the Sunday afternoon session was impossible to miss, however. Even from the beginning I could tell that this would not be a 'kiss-kiss-nice-nice' kind of talk, but her was revving up to some serious box-breaking. (Italian missionary language, translated from 'rompere le scatole', which means to scold or really get after someone.)

I was so impressed with his statement about going on record for all of the world and heaven to note, that the Book of Mormon is true, both in origins and in translation by the prophet Joseph Smith. We live in a world where we are so PC, trying so hard not to step on anyone's toes that sometimes we don't even stand up for what we really need to shout from the rooftops. It was an amazing talk, and I for one am willing to follow humbly in his very impressive path and say that I, too, know that the Book of Mormon is the true word of God, written by ancient prophets for our day, to give us a path to lead us to Christ. I also know that Joseph Smith was called of God, that he saw, in the flesh, our God and his Son, Jesus Christ, and that all that followed, through the recieving and translation of the Book of Mormon to his last testament given through the shedding of his blood.

Our Family Photos, Part 1

So I'm finally getting around to getting these pictures up. These are the ones we took with my family in July. It was soooooo hot, but everyone looks pleasantly pink in the cheeks. This is one of the 5 kids. We purchased a 16x20 to put on our living room wall.

We could NOT get Benji to take his finger out of his nose for this big family photo. So we bought a not so big one of this.

Okay...I'll post more later....children. What can I say? They are who they are. ;P

Light at the end of the Summer Tunnel

So there is a little over a week before school starts for the oldest three. Sarah is thrilled because the 8th graders get to come to school at 10 am instead of 8 am the first day, and this somehow translates to the whole school year. Peter is semi-excited to go back, with no friends in his class, though, he's less than thrilled. (Of course, he had all of them in his class last year, and it turned into a jabberfest everyday, according to his teacher. Very social, that boy. This year, none of them are in the same class. Makes you go hmmm.....) And Meri is entering kindergarten this year! (Okay, so I'm old.) Of course, the craziest insanity will still be staying and playing here at home, named Andrew and Benji (aka Gorilla and Monkey Boy, respectively).

You know, I distinctly remember being excited about having the summer come, to step off the hamster wheel of school schedules. But after a summer full of run, run, run, go, go, go, it'll be relaxing to get into a familiar grind.

Collins Extraveganza

So I haven't posted for a couple of weeks because, well, my whole family was in town for most of that time. Four of my six sibs live out of state, and my mom was giddy with joy at having them all at her house for almost a week. Well, everyone but us. We live about 20 minutes away, with my youngest brother, his wife and little boy living in the small apartment above my parents' garage, so they might as well have been in the main house. But the rest of them, four siblings, four in-laws, two two month old babies, and eleven other grandchildren. Our 5 stayed home with us, but we spent most of the past weeks at my mom's house, so it was like we never really left. We did some church family stuff, a baptism for my niece Emma, and the baby blessings for the two baby boys, Henry, and Mason.
We also did some swimming:

and took family photos:

(sorry, Tina, I totally stole your photos since we never seem to take a camera anywhere)
The photographer was amazing, Aime Maughan. Check out her work! You might even see one or two of my kids in her galleries.

And one day, my mom and all of us mothers (except Merci and Haley who were already back in CA) went shopping at the outlet mall in Park City. Now that was fun. A full day of shopping...so much so, we didn't even eat lunch!
We said goodbye to everyone last night, so life gets back to "normal". But boring. Oh well. Next year it will be 10 days in So Cal, and we'll get our Collins fix next summer!

Vacation, Staycation, and Escapism

So we spent last week up at East Canyon, where we have a membership. It was horrible getting up there, packing clothes and food for 7 people for several days. I was so grumpy by the time we got up there and poor Andrew, who decided on July 4th to be newly independent from diapers or pullups of any sort, had not yet gotten used to using a toilet not his own. I was prepared for accidents, but not that many. I was afraid that first night all the progress we'd made would be swept away by another toilet, until I figured out it was because the toilet was too tall, and the upstairs ones were the right height. It only took 3 hours and 4 accidents before I hit the "DUH" button and reset my brain.

Honestly, though, after the first day it was great, very relaxing, and I could forget, for a few days, that real life with all its time pressures was waiting for me at home.

I've talked to a few people this summer about taking vacations, just getting away from it all, and between those conversations and my own observations, I have realized that even if a vacation means more stress for Mom, they are so important to the sanity of the household. And I have to agree. That family bonding time is important, away from the normal ins and outs of life. It strengthens the family unit through common experiences and memories, even if the memories consist of kids throwing up, kids throwing bottles at the other passengers in the airplane, kids throwing up, "AAAAAAHHHH! Mom, he's pinching me! AAAAAAHHHH", kids throwing up....

That being said, Kendall and I have two different definitions of what a vacation is. For me it is doing whatever will cause the the least amount of stress for all parties, myself being the exception. (And now I know why my mom was always working during vacations. I could never figure it out at the time, but now I know that for mom, if the vacation includes the children, there is no vacation for mom, only the same work in unfamiliar surroundings.)

Kendall's definition is exploring, finding interesting places to visit and learn about, expanding one's horizons. That was great in Italy, where every P-day was filled with those visits to amazing places and vistas all crammed into that little boot, but here in Utah it's all too familiar. And if it's not familiar, it's too expensive for a family of 7.

So this year we opted for the staycation approach, something really close by, and within reason. (This is also because Benji is still a horrible child in the car, demanding after about 45 minutes "Stuck! Stuck! Stuck!" at the top of his lungs, pulling at his carseat buckles all the while. He has occasionally been able to worm his way out of the seat, I don't know how, and wandered freely in the car until we can pen him in again.)

But after we came back and reality with all its pressures had reasserted itself, I find myself searching for ways to escape. Not that I'm running away, mind you, but I just am tired and don't want to do it anymore. So I am reading. A lot. Or staying up until 2 in the morning. Too much Facebook. Any and all of it, just to escape it all for a few minutes.

Sometimes it's harder to come back from vacation than to be on one. Sigh.