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Happy Birthday, Jeremy!

You are my favorite friend, husband, father, provider, and Priesthood holder I have ever known. Every day you amaze me more and more. It is such a thrill that we get to experience this life together. Having you away today is so hard. I wish you were here to cuddle! There is a big stack of presents waiting for you, but I’m sure the best ones will be little tiny hugs from some baby babes that miss their daddy.

I can’t wait to see your list of 30 things to do before your 40. I went ahead and came up with 10 ideas to inspire you. I hope other people reading this list will contribute as well.

10 of the 30 things you should do before you’re 40:

1. Take a course at the Cordon Bleu school

2. Learn Farsi so we can get a cool Middle East post or French so we can get a cool Africa post.

3. Get over your fear of LASIK surgery and just do it.

4. Attend the Westminster Dog Show.

5. Build a woodworking shop in our backyard.

6. Read all the half-read books on your bookshelf (this might seriously take 10 years).

7. Design a real wedding band.

8. Buy a piano and learn to play it.

9. Use that gigantic brain to make us some fast cash (think Jeopardy or Who Wants to be a Millionaire).

10. Go dog sledding.

As a part of your present I wanted to take some Mormon-inspired photos of the kids. You know which ones – everyone wears the same colors, flat irons their hair, and searches for months to get the ‘perfect’ locations. Ha. Abby was not having it. Instead I got some fun shots of Oliver. Since only a mother can truly know what is on his mind, I was kind enough to put some captions for you.

This is the only photo I have of Abby. She had already, literally, pulled her hair out in protest.

Oliver was content to sleep but I had other plans.

If he could talk he would say.... "Did you really just put me on the dirty ground."

"I have on those silly bear ears, don't I?"

"Where is my sister, and why is no one holding my head up?"

"This is just getting ridiculous. Who is going to believe I climbed this tree?"

"Falling backwards.... someone grab me... leaves not strong enough to hold my chub upright..."

After a day like this, there better be chocolate in that breast milk!"

We’ve traveled the world together, and my favorite place in the whole wide world is next to you.

Now come home so I can kiss you!

TGIF

This is what I picked up from the kita today. It sort of looks like my kid...

This random sheep begged me to take her to a Halloween party I was attending later that day. We had so much fun eating sweets and playing with our friends.

I wondered how long this hat would stay on. Needless to say, it was less than the time it took to get her in this outfit.

Abby is so much fun to talk to in the car. She just chatters away and provides a running commentary. We've been talking a lot about daddy lately because he comes home in 8 days. We are so excited!

What Rules?

Oliver LOVES to sleep. He routinely gives me between 7-9 hours a night and two strong naps throughout the day. He can sleep anywhere, but is especially fond of napping in my arms, in his vibrating chair or the car seat.

While Oliver sleeps Abby 'colors.' Obviously I use that term very loosely.

Abby loves to throw things out of her playhouse more than playing with anything inside of it. Here she is throwing chalk to (or AT) the dogs.

Gracie spends a lot of time looking heaven-ward and praying for daddy to come home to stop the insanity.

Beth does a lot of hiding.

Some of the rules around the house go out the window when daddy's gone. Things like no playing on the table.

And no sitting/laying on the leather couch.

And no eating on the staircase. You can also include no leaving your room during nap time.

This is Abby using her puffer. She has had a little bronchitis for a few weeks. It doesn't get worse but doesn't seem to go away either.

These videos are seriously just for Jeremy. The first one is me trying to get Oliver to laugh, which was unsuccessful. The second one was me driving around with the kids showing him the fall leaves. Abby is totally thrilled to have come along for the ride. NOT.

48 Hours....

It is already dang cold in Germany. I'm told that during the winter months the sun sets at 4 and doesn't rise until 8 the next morning, which I'm sure gets pretty depressing. They compensate for the cold and dark days by creating tons of fun indoor playgrounds for children. Some of them are pretty amazing. The one we went to this week had four floors worth of entertainment -- indoor trampolines, carousels, go carting, climbing maze, balloon bouncy castles, etc.

We found this sweet mother of goodness on floor three of the Bamboo indoor playground:

I was a little hesitant to let Abby come here (she just fractured her finger two days before), but my little guilty heart couldn't fracture her finger and break her heart all in one week. I knew that she would dive right in and I wouldn't need to worry about her getting scared, lost or stuck.

Abby managed to rock this jungle gym with one working hand; although she kept getting a scolding for pulling parts of her bandage and splints over the side.

Oliver was happy to hang back and breastfeed the whole time. Going out in public makes my little boy so hungry.

She even manipulated me into buying her lots of sugar. That girl is good.

Abby took on this slide like a champion. She is either going to win the Nobel Prize or join the circus. There is no in between.

Oliver spent Saturday chillin' like a villain in his vibrating chair.

I should have been more specific about where I wanted Abby to go for her nap.

And I probably should have let her know I would not appreciate her putting on all my makeup while she's "sleeping." She looks like a serious junkie with all that makeup -- not to mention I found her trying desperately to get into her children's Tylenol.

I'm going to leave this junk on and make her go as Batman for Halloween. That will teach her.

Watch your infant boys because there is a cougar on the loose!

Bad Mommy

Living overseas is hard, even if you get a super sweet government post like Germany. There are a million things to learn: the rules the road, customs, language, where to shop, etc. It normally takes about six months to really feel like you’re more than just a visitor.

You don’t have that luxury to ease into the new system when you’re got an infant and a toddler. They can throw even the calmest of days into utter chaos. Combine that with your husband being gone and your children being left with you (an impatient, tired and stress-out mother) and sometimes heaven feels a little bit like H-E-double hockey sticks.

Take Monday for example. I planned to take Abby back to the Pumpkin Patch to bring a little bit more joy to her day. She decided to sit in Oliver’s car seat (with him in it) on the porch as I’m hurrying around getting the last minute things done. In frustration, I snapped at her to get off the baby. She did just that, and put her finger in the hinge-part of the door just as I’m closing it.

That story is bad enough, but what makes it ten times worse is this: as I turned back to see why she wasn’t coming, I heard an ear piercing scream (I think she lost her breath and it took a minute for her voice to catch up) and I looked back to see blood pouring down her arm and unto the doorstep and a tiny finger smashed in the LOCKED door.

I ran over and began frantically searching for my key, which was in my purse, to unlock the door and rescue her poor finger. It probably took about 15 seconds, but to a shaking and hysterical mother it felt like forever.

Yup, WORST PARENT EVER!

When her finger was free it was quite clear that it was hammered. The whole top part of her finger was FLAT. Blood was pouring out from behind the nail, which almost instantly turned black, and the lower part of the finger was twice the normal size.

I panicked. There is no way around it. The guilt overwhelmed me. She was in a HUGE amount of pain that I caused. Cue tears from both of us.

I left poor Oliver in his car seat on the doorstep and ran to the neighbors with Abby in my arms. I don’t know what I expected them to do, but I knew that I couldn’t stop the bleeding while driving around random neighborhoods looking for a hospital. I was totally lost (literally and figuratively) on how to help her.

One of my neighbors ran to get Oliver (who was screaming at this point), while the other neighbors called me a “taxi,” which turned out to be an ambulance.

Luckily, the ambulance ride lulled Oliver to sleep. Abby also passed out from the excitement at this point. It was all nice and quiet when I slowly realized that I didn’t have my health insurance card or my passport or my cell phone (which has all my embassy and church contacts, for times when you really need someone to come and hold a baby while you calm a screaming child in a foreign hospital with a foreign language). AWESOME.

Praise be to Wolfgang, my neighbor) who followed the ambulance to the hospital and kindly carried around Oliver and my purse. It would have been quite difficult to manage the baby while laying on top of Abby on the X-ray table to hold her down while they tried to take a few snapshots of her thumb.

To conclude the details of this day, which I hope to erase from my memory forever, Abby has a fractured pinkie. We were really lucky that she didn’t lose it, considering how long it was in the door, that it was on the hinge side of the door and how heavy and solid that door was.

We all learned a valuable lesson that day: Abby learned not to put her fingers in the door and I learned that Jeremy is a much better parent.

Perhaps it’s a good thing children this age don’t usually remember things….

My Crack

This is my friend, Kimmers. She pops up in my blog from now and then, usually after I've just returned from some exciting adventure. Right now she is in Afghanistan saving the world with her super-human powers.

Some of our past travels include: threatening to stab a person with my Swiss Army knife who was banging on our hotel door and screaming at us in India. (Our air conditioning was dripping through the roof of his house and he was FURIOUS we weren't turning it off. To our credit, if I knew that was what he was saying then I would have).

Conning our way out of a speeding ticket while driving from Jerusalem to the Sea of Galilee. I also enjoyed calling her from the West Bank and telling her that I couldn't get through the checkpoint before curfew and I would have to spend the night in Bethlehem. If that was true, I probably wouldn't be alive to write this blog. I thought it was funny....

We traveled around two different parts of Japan with a newly-birthed Abigail. The standout moment was her barfing into Abby's baby blanket on the subway. No, I don't want that back.

Our last adventure had us crying our way up a seriously HUGE mountain on our four-day trek to Machu Picchu.

Kim did the last part with one eye. Take that Taliban!

It's been FAR too long since we've braved this crazy world together, so we've finally settled on a place to meet up next year and giggle like school girls.

I gave her six choices -- volunteering in an orphanage with GVN in either Honduras or Panama, white water rafting the Grand Canyon, going to a Cowboy ranch (like the movie City Slickers), mountain biking Upper Patagonia with GAP International or kayaking the islands of Belize (GAP).

She picked Belize. We're thinking of next Oct/Nov. I am so freaking excited (until I think of spending a week in my swimsuit). Who wants to come?

http://www.gapadventures.com/trips/kayak-belize/BKS/2010/

The Filter Is Off

I’ve had a lot of random thoughts cross through my mind while my husband has been away. Having him to confide in helps me hide the crazy from everyone else I associate with on a daily basis. However, he’s not here, so I thought you might get a kick out just some of the things I obsessed about today. For your viewing pleasure, I put up a few random photos and videos of my children to break up all the insanity that is my inner dialogue.

Why are LDS-based products so dang expensive? You nearly have to give blood to afford anything at Deseret Book lately. For example, the new book Undaunted is $26. The Kindle version is $16. That’s ludicrous. I like Gerald Lund as much as the next person, but unless The Savior wrote the forward it’s not worth it. Don’t even get me started on The Living Scriptures.

Wait. Let’s talk about them. I can get them free online, but for some reason pirating church materials doesn’t quite feel right. A friend of mine offered to split the cost of the Book of Mormon ones (she would keep the discs and I could burn them onto my Apple TV) but that also doesn’t sit well with me. Paying over $300 for them makes me want to vomit in my mouth. Why can’t they just be a REASONABLE price for what they are – seriously outdated, yet educational, 80s graphic cartoons. For that price, my kids better become prophets after watching them.

I recently Netflixed the old TV show Christy. I remember loving it. Rewatching it was painful. Long story short, she was in love with two men: the preacher, David Grantland, and the doctor Neil MacNeil. Seriously, Neil MacNeil was the best name the writers could come up with? I am going to go ahead and say marry the other guy. At least I can take comfort in knowing I never married anyone named Jeremy MacJeremy.

Why is it that there are no clothing stores for anyone my age? I either have to try to fit into styles meant for teenagers or dress like I’m retired.

If you’re having an argument with your toddler and she “anger urinates” all over the floor to spite you – you’ve lost the battle. Just clean it up and move on.

Speaking of peeing… if your toddler pees in the water 30 minutes into their bath can you cross that chore off your list as accomplished? What if you wipe them off really well at the end?

A few nights ago I woke up to Abby and Gracie (my german shepherd) spooning in hallway between my bedroom and hers. Super tender. I don’t know why she loves to sleep with Gracie, but only comes near Beth when she wants to practice cutting with scissors.

Have you ever wanted to write a blog, but found that someone had already written it? I had this experience after General Conference: http://mormonchildbride.blogspot.com/2010/10/even-though-nobody-asked.html.

I found someone the other day that would make the best sister/wife should the need arise. I’m going to start a list.

Abby has just started playing with imaginary friends. I, of course, spent the whole evening looking up signs of schizophrenia. Seriously, it’s a little creepy. Isn’t schizophrenia technically just people that are really, REALLY loyal to their ‘friends?’ Doesn’t that just make the people who grow out that stage fickle?

I recently learned that they are encouraging people with certain cancers to drink breast milk. I took this a step further and have been putting my left over breast milk in Beth’s food bowl. You never know…

I watched the Sound of Music the other day and thought (for a brief second) how cool it would be to have seven kids. But I’m sure once they got sick of singing it was just turn into a lot of whining and seven different voices screaming “MINE.” Oh, Disney – you almost had me.