In all Seriousness...

Does life get better?
I submit that it does not.
Because this is what 8:45 looked like at our house today.

Just an Update of Sorts

I'm good.  I'm happy.  I'm also really tired and so I have nothing particularly clever to write, so I'm just posting some pics of our recent happiness.  And that's all.  And that's enough. 

 Mom's 50th Birthday Party.  It was my labor of love with help from lots of others. 

The banner says "Time to Start That Bucket List" which was our theme instead of "Over the Hill" or something like that.

 120 cupcakes.  Caramel Banana for the surf and Chocolate Peanut Butter for the sand. Get it?  Buckets... sand?  Oh, you do get it.  Good.  Dad engineered the stand.  He's the bomb.

 Mom and Alli made the 7-layer cookies, my personal favorite (I ate 12...or more.)

 The "display."  Mom helped cut the vinyl and I put it all together...I love how it turned out.

And there's the wonderful birthday lady and her handsome husband.

So that was one weekend, and this was the next...

 Happy 2nd Birthday, Love Girl!

You'll note the carryover from last weekend...we're on a budget here. 

 Sea turtles swim on a Caramel Chocolate cupcake.  Super-easy...if you can find all the right candy.  If you improvise on the fins, you might end up wanting to curse because this was supposed to be the EASY party.

 Left-over buckets make awesome party favors and candy collectors.  

Thanks mom for making them all personalized.  

 I work REALLY hard to not lose sight of the KID while I'm preping the KID'S party.  So all the baking was done one morning while Grace slept in, and the lobster banner was a super-fun project for me and Grace on the morning of party.  She kept saying, "It's so silly, Mommy!  So silly!"  while I painted her hands and feet.  And yes, the Love Angel speaks in complete sentences.  It still catches me off guard some days.  But there are DEFINITELY perks anytime communication is enhanced.

 The adorable little "fish!"  Thank you neighbors for use of your bomb pool stuff!

 That's me and my hott lover.  He looks awesome.  I look...tired.  It's like 90 degrees and not pictured is a 51/2 month pregnant belly.  I make no apologies for my tiredness.

 Wonderful family.

 Sweet cousins.

 Birthday wishes.  She has that candle thing down pat.

 And Paul and my favorite part...the pinata.  We made an octopus this year.

Grace calls it an "Ah-pah-tus."  That is THE reason we chose to make an octopus...just to here her say it 500 times.

 Candy grabbin'.

Present Opening 

Happiness.

And for the record, this is not the precedence for all future birthday parties.  Mom was worth EVERY SINGLE hour of labor for her 50th birthday and Grace was a lucky recipient of left-overs.  The rule for Grace's party was that I could do it if it was fun for me, meaningful to Grace, and with-in the budget. The only thing that got out of hand were those silly turtle fins.  For my momma this year, the rule was Nothing is too much as long as daddy was willing to pay for it and absolutely no procrastination; I will sleep EVERY SINGLE NIGHT.  And I did...but I am still so very tired.

My Journal Entry

I haven't written much this last year.  It's been a hard year and I have a tendency to either tell you everything that's in my head or, out of protection of my heart, tell you nothing.  I shared nothing.  But I'm excited right now, to show you a little peek of my heart if you're interested.  So here's my journal entry from April 3, 2012.  It wasn't written with an audience in mind, so hopefully it still comes across alright...

March 30, 2012

April 3, 2012

March was a good month.  Especially the second half.  You see, Paul had this interview that we were feeling really confident about.  They didn’t let us know for WEEKS that he didn’t get the job.  I know, we should have seen that as a sign, but when you REALLY want something, you’re willing to look right past the red flags, or at least, in this case, remain blind to the thought that no green flag also means no job—and I don’t know what color flag that would be.  But it was okay.  Because happy things just kept happening.  


We were enjoying all these mini-family outings to free places around town.  We were hiking to the tops of local islands—and when you are SO far away (literally and figuratively) from the exotic ones, the desert island in the middle of the Salt Lake DOES count.  We had birthday parties and early Easter celebrations and warm weather.  And everything was still okay.  In fact, on March 29^th, I told my mother in-law, “We have no plans.  None.  There is absolutely NOTHING that I can plan past tonight’s dinner.  And you know what?  I’m okay.  I think I am actually being patient to a degree and at a level that I never have been before.”  She knows me very well.  She was proud.

And then came Friday, March 30th.  We had another job interview which was good, but we were not feeling nearly as confident about this one as the last (and remember how the last one didn’t work out so well?)  But Paul gave it his all, and called and reported that he had done his best, and he’d be home in an hour or so.  When he got home, he kissed my face and I washed my dinner-prepping hands and folded them across my chest to chat with my mom and Paul.  Paul handed me a paper, and all I could see on it was a dollar amount.  And then, it clicked.  He had the job.  And holy cow, they weren’t going to be stingy about the compensation either.  I sobbed.  And sobbed.  And sobbed some more.  And little by little, the weight of a thousand worries both spoken and too dark to be spoken, were lifted.  We celebrated that night.  We went out to dinner and saw a movie at the expensive theater.  Then we went to buy a pregnancy test which I took the next morning.  And guess what?

We have another one on the way.

Seven months of self-doubt, dissolving plans, and bitter disappointments just turned a page for us.

Update: I am now 15 weeks along, with baby due on December 2.  Paul and I have rented a great little apartment in Clearfield, Utah and life is moving along beautifully again.  Finally.  And about my Grace?  Well, frankly, I think she's stunning.  OH!  And I started sewing.

Why I'm Going to Take up Sewing

Life doesn’t go as planned. I know. I know. I should have learned that by now, but I mean, it REALLY doesn’t go as planned. In fact, it SO doesn’t go as planned that when I went to the quilt shop (shoppe?) with my mom last weekend and I saw a trite little phrase stitched on a pillow that normally would have made me roll my eyes (behind my eyelids because eye-rolling is super rude in my book) or shudder somewhere in my guts (because I got this idea somewhere—Blake—that I am too sophisticated for trite phrases)…instead, my eyes watered and my heart dropped to my guts and in that sickening moment I felt a connection with a Higher Being. I connected, and not just connected, I’m talking SPOKE-TO-MY-SOUL, did this trite little phrase. See? I didn’t plan that reaction, and I didn’t plan for what’s on my plate right now. My whole life is full of watery eyes and anxious tummies these days.

And it’s not bad, it just mostly is. And that’s the hard part! Because I had this great plan! Essentially, the plan was to do everything right and avoid pretty much all the hard stuff. I'm serious. The only trials that were acceptable were the ones that obviously couldn't be planned for, but all the others weren't going to happen to me. My foresight was simply going to be a good as my hindsight. Because I decided. I PLANNED it.

It didn't work.

My foresight is not as good as my hindsight.

In fact, I am beginning to wonder if MY sight had anything to do with it at all--except that it might have been the crux of the problem.

But I’ll let you in on a secret. The mere fact that I can even mention this to you at all is because I am coming to terms with things. I am starting to accept the new path. I’m not as afraid. And probably that’s why the trite little phrase caught me so off-guard. It mocked my self-induced pain; reducing it to its true and pitiful form. And not wanting to be the fool who couldn’t take a hint, I let it heal me.

So…the moral is…

If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

P.S. I am tormented by the irony that I am exasperated by trite phrases, and yet this post is littered with clichés. Sigh. So much more for me to learn. Perhaps my next life lesson on humility will be skillfully tole-painted on a piece of wood.

P.P.S. Plus, this is better than anything I could have EVER planned. Ever.

She put that hat on herself.

But I was the one to color on her face.

No. Not really.

But clearly, there's nothing to REALLY worry about here. You might say, "It's all under control." Just not mine.