Guilty as charged

I saw this picture and thought, this is so me.

I'm so often guilty of thinking the grass is greener on the other side.

Ok so first of all I have to admit that I totally stole this idea from another blog, one of my recent favorites. But as soon as I saw it and read through it ( a few times) I knew I had to post it for myself.

Ok here goes....

I feel bad about it because I'm not sure its possible to feel this way and feel grateful for what you do have at the same time. Is it?

Its so hard, especially for women to not compare ourselves to our fantastic friends who seem to have it all together. Its even more difficult to not want a body like hers, or a gigantic house that would have lots of closets to hide all our junk.

We put so much pressure on ourselves to want to be someone else, when we're missing out on who we are right now.

So- like it or not:

this is me:

I'm married to a good man, we may be having a tough time right now but I am very certain that we will both work through this and come out stronger people , I have three very cute kids- that I could not imagine not in my life, I was meant to have each one of my kids and they together make me complete. I wish I could say more about them, I get jealous of my friends ( who will remain nameless) who can post beautiful wonderful well written blog posts about their kids. I have a very hard time going into depth descriptively about them. I do know that I need more patience when it comes around to a certain time at night when I just need to relax, I also know that I need to give Skyler more alone time to be able to show me all the new grown up big boy things he's learned or is in-to. I am perfectly content right now renting a home, I no longer have any desire to buy a house. I do however need to find a home that I can feel more comfortable entertaining in. Trust me, If I had a better designed home, I would invite you all over a lot more! I don't really mind my mini-van. I am thankful to have a working car but it drives me crazy that every car I have owned in Maine has rusted after a winter with me. I also really wish I had a automatic closing side door like all my friends do.

I wish I knew how to do more things- I resent my mother for not letting me have the opportunity to do more growing up. I now have to learn how to do everything I want to do as a adult. At least I know better for my kids.
I keep a pretty clean house, I wish I wasn't so OCD about certain things when it comes to cleanliness though. I wish more than anything that I could shut off my brain when there are a few dishes in the sink and my kids want me to color with them. Brain- Why do I have to clean those dishes now? No-one is coming over to visit and the kids could care less- so why do I need to clean them right now? My kids want to play with me!

I can speak publicly- I'm fine with it. Ask me to say the opening or closing prayer anytime, anywhere in public and it's a much different story. I can't even think about it.

It doesn't take me very long to get ready for the day. I do like to take a shower every morning just to feel clean and refreshed. I wish more than anything that I could have my hair blow dryed every day but it rarely happens. To all my maine friends- all your hair looks great- every day, honestly!

I can not leave the house until every room is picked up entirely, including all laundry in the basket downstairs, all garbage taken out of the bathrooms and all beds made. And there have been many many times that skyler has just made it to school on time because of this. The kids know this about me and I'm sure they think every mom is this way but I feel horrible about it.

I can pray to my Heavenly Father on a constant basis, but it is very hard for me to read the Book of Mormon on a daily basis.

I have a great life, and from now on,

I'm gonna love the grass on my side.

Skyler's 6th birthday

Skyler turned 6 on monday the 19th. I can not believe that 6 long years ago he was born. Little bugger... 3 hours of pushing and 10 lbs later he came into the world. I love skyler's personality. He thanks mike and I almost everyday for moving to maine, he thinks it was the best thing we ever did as a family. I most definitely agree, except when it comes to buying a house, but that is a whole different story. Anyway, we were originally planning to have a nice party at a gymnastics studio and even invited his entire kindergarten class to come. But as it turns out spring break is not the time to have a party because only 3 of the 16 guests could attend. So, we made a decision to cancel the party and take a little family trip to portland. We stayed at a hotel ( a very nice one too -thanks to priceline), went to the beach, build- a -bear, the wildlife park in gray and tons of other little things. It was great time together as a family and we really needed that. And now I know for the future to plan his birthday party a few weeks before or after spring break.

Madison's birthday party

My little girl turns 4 this thirsday the 11th. I still remember the day she was born and how I thought " wow, she looks so different than skyler." Her skin was so dark that I thought the nurse brought me the wrong baby. We have certainty had our share of kinks to work out with my madi-padi but I think we have ourselves a well oiled machine now. :) Her party was saturday and even though I have sooooo many cute pics I will post a few of my favs.

My pretty ballerina ( & tapper)

Madison started dance lessons a few weeks ago. She takes ballet and tap. Here are some cute pics of her in the tutu that my grandma sent her. (Everyone in my family has been waiting for her to be a little girly so at the first mention of dance, tutu's started coming in the mail)

Homemade cookies... frozen dinner :)

We are having a little get together at our house tomorrow to make valentines and heart cookies, so most of today was spent:

1.) making sugar cookie dough with madison and aubrie ( which as we know means it took much longer than it should have)

2.) letting the dough chill

3.) cleaning up the extreme mess that making the dough made in the kitchen.

I made double what I knew I needed for the get together because I knew there would be no way I could make cookies in front of the kids and not expect them to want some. ( And Mike and I too ;) It about drove me crazy today all the time I spent in the kitchen cooking or cleaning. The end result however, was 1.) quality time spent with ALL 3 kids baking cookies and decorating them. 2.) The first day in a WHILE since school started that Skyler was calm, cool, collected and POLITE to his sisters and I. All in all it was WONDERFUL!

And because of how tired I was from baking all day I decided to make dinner entirely out of the FREEZER. He He!

Creche Exhibit/ Nativity

This year was my first time EVER experiencing a creche exhibit. I was AMAZED at how beautiful it was! I have never seen the church look as pretty as it did the weekend that the exhibit was going on. We were there saturday for the kids to do some singing with the little children's choir, then Skyler performed in the live nativity ( he was a shepard). We also went back sunday for him to perform again so that Mike could be there to watch him. I have seen live nativities before but they were always in a much bigger setting, and something about the intimacy of this one really touched me. The kids also had a great time making cookies and art and doing all sorts of things, the best part was that they did this all surrounded by people/ kids they knew and loved.

Treworgy Farms.... again

Today was supposed to be a nice relaxing day home for all of us. Skyler was off from school for columbus day and I wanted to just bum around. Until I heard that it is supposed to snow tomorrow.... oh my! So I freaked out and decided to bring the kids to Treworgy to pick pumpkins before they all die from frost. I think it was a good choice.

Here we are....