April 2015

April started off quite nicely.

I got my front yard all cleaned up and my spring flowers planted.  I ripped out my fig tree and moved my lemon tree to the other side of the flower bed in hopes of giving it more room.  I love the way it looks!

That garage of ours, oh how I hate it, every year the paint peels off and every year I sand that thing down and paint it again.  We get a notice from our HOA almost every year about it.  Maybe they should reconsider the paint that THEY required us to use, so everyones garage isn't a hot mess every year, I for one am sick to death of repainting it!


I hit an all time high with my daily steps.

Things rapidly fell apart from there.

After I gave birth to Dylan, I started to experience the most frightening and overwhelming anxiety.  It was some of the roughest days I ever experienced and I prayed that I would never ever have to go through those feelings and thoughts again.
I have had moments of great anxiety since then and I worried a lot after the birth of each of my children that I would go back to that place, but I never experienced the panic and terror like I did for weeks on end when I had Dyan.
I'm back in that hellish place and I can't help but think to myself, how did I live through this the first time?  I'm thousands of miles away from my mother and family who helped get me through the first round.  I have 4 children whom I'm supposed to take care of, but I can hardly breath, little lone function.  I'm snappy, and on edge, I can't eat without getting sick, I want to sleep all the time, I wake up in sweaty panic attacks every night.  I'm just so burnt out and there is no rest anywhere in sight.  I want to cry (even though I don't) about the world my kids live in, the filth and the violence and the constant garbage they are subject to at school, I want to scream at them as I see them make foolish decisions and disregard the things they have been taught.  This motherhood stuff is way harder than I ever imagined or dreamed.
It was in the middle of all these feelings that our bishop requested a visit with me.  Derik had stayed home with from church with sick kids, because I had Young Women's to teach.  I convinced myself that the Lord knew I was overwhelmed and that I was going to be released from my Young Women's calling so I could focus on getting myself back to a healthy place.  I loved being in the Young Women's, I loved my girls, so I was sad to have to say goodbye, but I was also a little relieved that I could focus on other things. 
I'm sure God gets a good laugh out of me quite often, Just when I think I have things all figured out, my feet are wept out from under me.
Our bishop then asked me if I would accept the call to be our wards Young Women's President.
While I feel totally inadequate and bewildered that I would be given this great responsibility, when I feel I have absolutely nothing to offer, I'm exercising my faith, I'm praying the answer to my problems lies in serving others, I'm willing to do the best I can because I believe God needs me to stretch and grow and give of myself more than I ever have before.
I didn't write any of this to make myself a victim of my anxieties, nor did I write this to boast about a calling, I'm writing this down so in some future day when my world collapses again, I can look back and remember how I felt and remember how I got through it. So I can look back and see Gods hands in my life.

On a  particularly rough day,  this little child of mine had driven me to the point of insanity, with his insatiable energy and need to be entertained, so in desperation I told him to fill up a bucket and wash my car.  I thought it was a great idea at first but after about two minutes he was having much more fun turning the hose on and spraying random things then in washing the car.

I lived through the transition of being a Laurels Adviser to being the Young Women's President.  My counselors are amazing!  We've got great advisers in place.  I still have very little idea what I'm supposed to be doing, but nothing has totally fallen apart either!  Next up to conquer is girls camp!

After 17 long years I said goodbye to an old friend.  I was surprisingly emotional as she drove away.

I've had that Honda since I was 18.  My kids grew up with my driving them around in it.  I remember the day I bought it and how proud of it I was.  But after sitting in our garage for the past three years unused, I knew it was time to donate her.  She was just sucking up precious space!  Ideally I would have loved to hang on to her so Dylan could have her as a starter car, but there just isnt a place to keep her for another 4 years!

March 2015

Daddy took Miss Abrielle out for a date.  She loved every second of it.

For Spring Break a few of the moms from our ward decided to do a mom-kids camping trip out to Huntsville State Park.  My kids were so excited to go!  We all had a great time.  With a lot of help from the other moms I'm glad to write that I took all four kids camping by myself and we all survived!

While working on cleaning up our backyard I had an unfortunate accident.  I was attempting to lift a large heavy garden box and stepped backwards onto a board that had a big rusty screw sticking out of it. It hurt pretty darn bad!  I couldn't verify that I had had a Tetnis shot in the past five years or so, so after my foot started to how sign of infection I went to our local insta care to have it looked at.  One dose of heavy duty antibiotics and a Tetnis shot later I'm happy to report my foot is healing nicely.
I took a whole bunch of before photos of the backyard so I could post before and after shots of the  changes I made this year.  Unfortunately it looks like I some how managed to delete all my photo's off my tablet without even realizing it.  

I'm always happy to see my Wisteria in bloom!

Isaac turned 5!
His birthday happened to fall on a Saturday this year, the same Saturday as the elementary school carnival.
The kids each got a handful of tickets to spend.  This bouncy house-maze was their favorite! 

After the carnival we finished celebrating Isaac's big day with birthday dinner, cake and presents. 

 

Alivia and her second grade classmates put on a suessical musical. 

 Sometimes life throws me through the ringer, and at this point in my life the rough days far out number the good ones .  It's moments like these where I see the ones I love most snuggled close together that I find peace.  I am grateful for moments like these!  Abrielle LOVES her daddy!


Our ward held another ward campout.  It is by far my kids favorite thing to do down here.  I didn't grab any pictures but the kids all had a ball.  The Mr. was feeling pretty sick so he went home and I slept with the kids in the tent.  There was a pancake breakfast and Easter egg hunt the following morning.  Mr. Giovannoni drove back down to the camp sight to help pack everything up, but soon realized he was to sick and dizzy to drive back home.  Thankfully the church I was going to be attending Women's Conference later that evening was only a few short blocks away, so we were able to park Derik's car there so I could safely drive him home. 

This year Alivia was old enough to go with me to the General Women's Conference for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!  She wasn't totally thrilled to go and I was a little worried she'd struggle to sit through it with out whining.  She dutifully took note for the first five minuted and then leaned over on my shoulder and napped the rest of the time.  I loved listening to the inspiring thoughts and words of wisdom from God.  After the conference I took Liv's out for a quick dinner at Cane's.
Yay, for new traditions!

Dylan finally put his globe puzzle together.  I love that he's so good at entertaining himself.  Sometimes I get so caught up in the disappointment and discouragement of the poor choices my kids sometimes make that I forget to celebrate the times when they are doing things right and being constructive. 

February 2015

Time is flying by and I can hardly believe I let myself get two months behind.  I keep myself pretty busy these days.

The Mr and I celebrated our 13 year wedding anniversary.  We may or may not have done something special, I honestly can't remember. I do remember the Mr giving me some new scroll saw blades....

Abrielle turned two! I know she's only two but those two years went way too fast for me.  She's still my little snuggle buddy and as long as she isn't being pestered by her siblings she a pretty happy and content soul.  She adores her daddy.  She loves food.  She can be a saucy fiery little thing, but that usually involves one of her siblings making her mad!  She's discovered the word NO and uses it all the time.  She is fearless. She loves being outdoors.  She loves camping!
I try to tell her everyday how glad I am that her little soul came to this family, boy oh boy do we need her in every way!

She was always running to the neighbors to play with their cool toys so we bought her this motorized car for her birthday in hopes she'd stay home and play with her own toys!

As part of my new dining room make-over I built a corner bookshelf to store our books.

 

I found all these melted magnets from our refrigerator inside our toaster, I have no idea how long they were in there or how a fire wasn't started. 

Isaac finally started Speech Therapy.  He was excited to "go to school" and he came out of class smiling!

 I built and stained two crates and then built and distressed a white box dessert stand for our ward's New Beginnings Program.  They turned out pretty awesome. 

 I saw a picture of a cute wooden wheel barrow planter on pinterest and decided to make myself one.

 Isaac gave himself a haircut!  Super glad he played "barber" on himself and not on his sister, who was his partner in crime!

We had some seriously chilly weather and the only thing that made it bearable was this little beauty wearing the hat I made for her.
 

January 2015

One month down already...Time is just flying!

Abrielle started to break out into hives about 6 days into her antibiotic treatment for her ear infection.  She looked pretty darn awful but didn't seem to be bothered by her rash.  After a quick check-up from the Dr to make sure it was indeed an allergic reaction we took her off the antibiotics.  Guess she inherited her intolerance for Penicillin from me.

I finally finished building and painting my faux mantle for my front dining room.  Here it is in all it's natural beautiful glory.

 Here's what it looked like with two coats of stain (pardon the mess on the table).

First attempt at distressing it.  I was so not loving it (I didn't even bother to notice the picture was out of focus) .  Second attempt at repainting and distressing it turned out worst then the first attempt.  At this point I was ready to just burn the whole thing to ashes I was so frustrated.  

I thought there was no salvaging this projects paint and distress job so I really just let loose and decided whatever I did to this thing could only make it look better.  I played around with some Elmer's glue and paint and accidentally got this lovely result.  What a happy little accident. 

One last close up.



 I was able to attend the temple with the Young Women and Young Men from our ward.  I LOVE the youth from our ward I am so happy and thrilled I've had the chance to get to know them.  They really inspire me.  Their parents have done an amazing job teaching these kids the Gospel, they are AMAZING kids!

I used a 1 x 8 board and my silhouette machine to create this wooden sign.  I broke the only two scroll saw blades I owned about 10 minutes into this project.  I had a crazy OCD moment where I just really wanted to finish cutting it out so I pulled out my jigsaw and finished the project.  Did I mention it was cold outside and I did this in my front room.  I just might never get all the sawdust out!



Remember this table I built a while back?

I decided I wanted to change it a little.  I finally got brave enough to use my table saw.  I started out by making a new table top.  While I really love the country farm look of the plank style top, my kids have a magical way of filling those plank cracks with all sorts of goobery food that doesn't clean out.   My first alteration was to make the top one solid piece so I didn't have to worry about food getting stuck in any cracks. Since I moved the table to the dining room I also wanted to make it rectangular instead of square.

 After the new top was complete I had to disassemble the bottom of the table and rebuild the aprons to support the new rectangular top.  Then I sanded off the old paint job and restained the whole thing.



I finished it off by painting the bottom white again and lightly distressing it.  While it's far from perfect It really did turn out beautifully!  I love how everyone of my building project teaches me how to do the job better the next time around.   Best part of all I got a "new" solid wood table for about 50 bucks!  

 

One of my goals for this year was to spend a month on each room of our house and improve it in some way.  I still have a few things I have to do to get our dining room finished up, but it's coming together really nicely.

The kids have been enjoying the mild January weather as have I!

I cannot remember if I wrote down that Derik was asked to serve as the Elder's Quorum Secretary. We all had a little bit of a laugh yesterday at church when Derik learned he had been released from teaching the youth a little over a month ago.  I guess it all worked out since the teacher they called to replace him last month hadn't been able to fulfill his calling until yesterday.   

Alivia made High Honor roll again!  I love how self motivated she is.  I never have to ask her if she's done her homework.  She really loves Math and Science right now. She is my little perfectionist.  It's a double edged sword.  One part of it pushes her to be and do the best she can, and I love that about her, but the other part just doesn't know how to handle making mistakes or not getting things right the first time. 

Dylan is still keeping himself busy with writing books, drawing pictures, and dreaming big dreams.

Isaac is counting the days until his birthday, he does a lot of counting down these days.  Since I've re-started the No TV Monday thru Thursday thing, he also looks very forward to Fridays.  Every day I have to answer for him how many days he has left until he gets to watch TV again.  Honestly I love love love how it has worked out so well for our family.  My kids get four (if not more) solid days of learning to self entertain and being engaged in real life. He also asked me to take the training wheels off his bike.  I think we spent like 5 minutes practicing before he was off riding all by himself.  He does really well going up and down the road in a straight line, but loses all confidence if he has to make a turn.

Abrielle has learned to get herself out of her crib.  I guess it's time to dismantle the crib for the last time and make it a day bed. She sort of has a terrible habit of thinking that our bed is where she belongs at night. 

I was asked to be the YW Camp director for our ward.  I'm more than thrilled that I get to go to camp and be with the Young Women, but I really dread the part that makes me in charge of planning camp, making exciting plans and following through with them are not my strong points!   Thankfully the Stake is in charge of camp this year, so I shouldn't have too much that I have to do.  Rumors are swirling that our Stake is splitting in two weeks and I don't know what that will mean for me or this new calling, I guess we'll just have to see.

December 2014

I finally got Isaac in to see someone about his speech.  I've noticed some change in his behavior lately and I think people not being able to understand him is frustrating him and making him act shy (he most definitely isn't shy).  He starts school in August and I wanted him to go there knowing he could communicate and be understood.  He is now scheduled to go to school once a week for an hour of pretty intense speech therapy.  I'm excited he's getting help!
Our Young Women were in charge of the Christmas Party this year for our Ward.  The YW presidency did a Charlie Brown theme, it was fun and spiritual.  I helped with a few of the decorations.  We have some seriously talented women in that organization and everything turned out spectacularly. 
This is the Snoopy House and Booth I made from cardboard.  

Alivia finally got to go to Activity Days.  She's been looking forward to going since my time as an Activity Days Leader a few years ago.

I finally finished my glass block nativity.  Only took my two years!

 
I made my nephew Brax this Ninja Turtle hat.

I only got just three lemons off my tree this year.  But look how beautiful these two are!

I got to go Ice Skating with our youth this year.  It made me feel all happy inside to be back in an ice skating rink.  I think it was one of my favorite youth activities, back in the day.  I realized about 10 minutes into it that I am no longer that youthful, my feet burned and hurt so bad!  My favorite part was when the machine in the ceiling made it snow.  I don't miss living with snow at all but It was fun to have it flying in the air for about 5 minutes!  

We spent Christmas eve with our Bishop and his family in their home.  We had good food and a great time.  I was really grateful for the invite, there's something really lonely about not being around our old friends and family during the Christmas Holidays.  The kids all had a great time acting out the night of our dear Saviors birth.

We made it home in time to Google Chat with my family and read the "Shimmy" story.  We let the kids open their Christmas Eve pajamas and then sent them off to bed.  The Mr and I turned on Lampoon's Christmas and finished wrapping up the last of Christmas gifts.

Christmas Day started out a little rough, when Derik couldn't get our camcorder to work.  Honestly folks we had one grumpy and distraught dad on our hands.  The kids all had a great Christmas despite it all.  They all said Santa is the BEST!

I decided that this year we would draw names for our family gift exchange, but I wanted the gifts to be homemade.  It didn't go quite like I hoped it would, but it's definitely something I would like to try again next year.  Alivia made me a paper tool belt, it was awesome!  I gave Dylan an IOU for a wood shelf he's been begging me to build him, Dylan made Isaac a cardboard airplane to play in, I helped Abrielle, Derik and Isaac out by crocheting hats for the girls they each got.  I also gave Derik a IOU for a running plaque I want to build him. 
Here's what Alivia's hat turned out like.

Derik bought me a scroll saw and some pneumatic nail guns and staplers.  I AM SO LUCKY!  I have such a giving and supportive husband.  I absolutely love working with wood.

I broke down and colored my hair again.  I did a violet color and I'm really liking it. My cell phone front camera takes really blurry pictures I apologize. 

Abrielle started to say her ear hurt so New Years Eve morning we got her into the Dr and found that she indeed had an inner ear infection.  Other than crying a few times the night before she was happy as a lark, I almost dismissed her telling me her ear hurt, because she was acting totally normal.

We had our friends the Oehring's from our ward over for a Chinese dinner New Years Eve.   They brought fireworks for afterwards.  It was really cold but the kids had a great time watching the fireworks!  My children really wanted to stay up til midnight, but I was way too tired so I made everyone go to bed. 
Our neighbors really went all out this year with ringing in the New Years.  The fireworks were so loud and intense at midnight that it sent Abrielle into hysterics.  When I went up to get her she was screaming and shaking like a leaf, poor thing.  New Years in never dull around here I tell you!

Here's to 2015 may it be a great year!