the Lion

I wish I could render

The way you feel

I wish I could make it known,

so you wouldn't reel,

when I say, 

this is how I see the world.

Relationships, oh they hurt,

but in the end

what matters is love.

Decency.

Truth, my friend.

I wrote this poem partially in my sleep last night. There has been much going on with me lately in several different situations where I end up wondering if I said the right thing. You know, I never used to understand poetry. I used to be annoyed by it, even. But after writing in this blog for almost 5 years now, I have come to appreciate the power of writing more so than I ever have before. Poetry, especially, offers a unique platform in which to get one's feelings across. (My English teacher is saying,"Duh, Kayleen! Tried to tell you that!") Indeed, sometimes one don't want to write a five paragraph essay, yet there is still something that needs to get out there beyond one's own head.

I always talk things out with my husband and boy, that helps. But sometimes, more abstract thoughts need to get out. I did not write this poem to one particular person. Well, that's not really fair. I did, in a way. There are actually four different people out there right now who I was thinking of, and a variety of situations I've found myself in. I have not felt peace about these situations. Not because I am uneasy about the truth, but rather I'm uneasy about speaking the truth. Basically, I'm left wondering - when is it the right time to just shut up? When do you be quiet and just live it? Of course the truth needs to be spoken - but there is a time and a place. St. Augustine said, "the truth is like a lion. You don't have to defend it. Let it loose and it will defend itself." Maybe I haven't let the truth speak for itself enough. For one thing, I feel like I haven't prayed enough about these situations before opening up my mouth, and have possibly done more damage than good. My aim in all of it was to be better understood, but I fear I have accomplished the opposite!

What is a person to do? I guess I already gave you my solution: it's time to shut up for a while. It's time to pray, pray, and pray some more. The only person right now who truly understands me and the intentions of my heart is not on my facebook friend's list, not my best friend, not my mother -not even my husband. That person is Jesus Christ - and so he is the only one I can talk to for a while. He loves me and knows me. It's time to quiet my heart and listen....

...perhaps, if I do, the lion will come roaring in for me. Yes, actions speak louder than words. But the truth speaks yet louder than both.

Conversations with hubby

Morning Conversation

 me:  man I'm sad it's Monday

 michael:  why is that?

 me:  oh nothing

just the usual stuff

but that's very ungrateful of me

Where's my positive attitude??

 michael:  I wonder if you left it in my bag

what does it look like?

 me:  hehe

a skinnier, college aged Kayleen

very in love

very niave

newly Catholic

daily mass going

have you seen her?

She's got my positive attitude

 michael:  yeah, when I left for work

she was feeding a baby

 me:  awww

yes, a very sweet baby

who was worth the trade in right

 michael:  I don't think trade in is the right word, just the maturing

 Sent at 8:08 AM on Monday

 me:  Maybe so. Either way, I gotta go. I've got a sweet baby to change and bathe.

Love you

 michael:  love you too!

Mike and get to talk sporadically throughout the day on gmail chat. I'm so grateful because sometimes I miss adult conversation and I miss him. It definitely does make me miss college where we spent all of our time together that we were not in class, which was really only a few hours each day. You don't realize that when you get married and get busy that you don't get to see one another all that much. But I'm glad we can be in touch through technology. It helps.

I should blog more of our chats. We can be quite funny. And philosophical. More often than not, we are downright silly. And as parents of children in diapers, yes, we talk about poop sometimes. :P

New sheets

Costco had a good deal on King sheets so I picked some up this week. They are flannel and so very cozy. Perfect for winter. 

Oh, and they look great with a baby boy napping on them .

Wouldn't you say?

 oh, I love it!

Happy Friday! I'm sure many of you will be doing Halloween activities this weekend. We are! Have fun all :)

Oh, and if you have flannel sheets, I recommend going and putting them on now! If not, Costco has them for cheap

{p,h,f,r}

Pretty

This is a little notebook that I get love letters in. No, you may not read them :)
But sometimes, to cheer me up, I peek inside and read over old ones.

Babies are so pretty. Whether they are girl babies or boy babies. I love this new perspective we are getting of him now that he's lifting his head up more. But I'm sad too - sad that he's growing up and out of the newborn stage so darn fast.

Happy

This was Monday when we went outside. Actually the girls weren't terribly happy this day.
However I am still putting it in the "happy" category because I was still able to get them some fresh air and it helped them sleep better for naps. Also, I like the way our yard looks during fall. Also, Lou looks so gosh darn cute in her boots! I will look back at these pictures I snapped and smile. I won't remember the bad parts.

The girl loves her boots! And so do I - so easy to put on and take off!
And I can just rinse them off when they get dirty. Love that part too.

Funny

There are a few bunnies in our neighborhood that the girls just love to point out,
and to chase when we go out on walks :)

Real

Oh little Josie pye.
She has been a handful this week.
She has just been super clingy - she always wants mama to hold her.
Even at the park she wanted me to hold her!
Poor girlie. I hope we can all get through this okay.
Louisa has come down with a little cold so maybe Josie is feeling it too, despite no symptoms yet.
Her 2nd b-day is coming up and my plan is to throw a big party for her!

It's getting dark far too quickly these days
I miss my daylight!
Plus it's getting cold too! brrrrrrrrrrrr

Tonight is a date night! Well, really a double date night...woot woot :) And, wink wink - since it is kind of a blind date thing we set up for two of our friends. We shall see how it goes! I feel like I am a terrible matchmaker. The worst. But hey, I still like to try! I'm sure we'll all have a fun time no matter what the outcome....right? :) Haha, well I'm definitely looking forward to it. We haven't been out to dinner and a movie since Michael was born so yay!

Have fun checking out the other posts linked up from Like Mother Like Daughter! Gotta go! God Bless :)

Weird Monday

 Ok we are having a really strange day so far. My kids were all pretty grumpy this morning. The funny part is that I'm actually in a decently good mood. I can't figure out why. It is Monday after all, and like I just said - my kids are grumpy. Somehow I was able to just chuckle at their grumpiness and now they are all napping. A few things about the morning though, just to give you and idea:

Being goofy in the playhouse this morning

-To start out they watched Dora while I got myself ready. While I was in the shower Lou got apples for her and Josie. Josie ate hers in our bed so there are apple bits in our sheets. Nice.

Silly girl!

-Lou left the fridge open so everything got kind of warm in there :/ oops

-We finally all got ready and stopped at the coffee stand. Michael was not happy and screamed. We were going to go to the park but then Lou had to pee and Josie started crying for no apparent reason.

Not happy about being in his car seat. Plus his little nose is cold! 

-So, we come back home, I want them to play a little outside because it's too early for naps. They do but quickly start to melt down. Plus it's chilly outside.

-Lou asks to lay down for a nap

-I re-heat pizza from the party yesterday but Lou is so upset she barely eats it. Says she wants a nap.

-Michael is mad again for being left in his carseat while I 'make' lunch. So Michael is screaming, Lou is refusing to eat, Josie spills orange juice in our room and is slurping it up from the carpet....

-Eventually I get everyone down for naps, including Michael.

-Somehow mommy is still in a good mood! Weird! :)

Maybe I'm just in a good mood because of my new rain boots and my mocha with whip!

Alright, so there you have it. I wonder how the rest of this Monday is going to go. Mike and I have a "paperwork sorting" date tonight. Should be a grand time. I insisted we have cocktails to go with it otherwise, no, it really wouldn't be a grand time. We also need to go over our budget once again. Man, I need to work on being a more frugal housewife. : (

UH OH, baby's awake! Happy Monday to you!

Happy birthday to my mom!

 Happy birthday mom! 

Hope you had a lovely day.

We all love you lots!

I'm tired and hungry....still got some cute kids though

I definitely should not write about how smooth my days are. It always seems to be the case that the day after you write posts like that you can expect a rough day! :( Silly Thursdays. Oh well, today wasn't all that bad. Lou just threw a big tantrum and took off all her clothes this morning (I hate it when kids do that. A little boy in the first grade class I taught used to get really upset and take off his shoes and socks and throw them...?) Then she chose not to nap (which is very rare. I attribute it to bragging about what a good napper she is yesterday :). This is after she would not let me go near a huge sliver in her thumb even though I really needed to get it out. It is infected looking and seems to have gotten worse and worse from when we first noticed it. I gave the girls a bath and used a baking soda paste and wrapped it with a bandaide. Here's hoping....

So yeah, I was going to do a {phfr} post but I'm too tired! Mike took the girls to go watch the Seahawks game at his parents so it's just me and Michael. Even though it's 6:00, we are both very tired and might just nap. But I'm hungry, too. Not sure what I should do :(

Lucky for the baby - he gets to do both at the same time!

Here are some pictures of the last few days since I have the camera chip in. Today we did a little art project and I got the idea from this wonderful blog. 

Getting ready to make a Thankful tree

Putting thumb prints as the branches

At first I wasn't going to let Josie paint so I could focus more on Louisa and now worry about her painting herself or the table or both...

Then I went ahead and let her. She did pretty good.

Lou is thankful for: friends. Mommy and Daddy. Food. God and church. And Josie and Michael :)

Later on, showing off some new rain boots!

I just took this picture as they were heading off! Showing off her new boots too!

Alrighty, time to go get some dinner and take a nap? Or since I have free time I'll probably end up doing something fun like....Organizing the girls' closet by putting away summer clothes!!! Bye for now!

Days with 3

A bit about my days...these days:

I was trying to get some cute shots of the girls all dressed up before church on Sunday. 

1. List format makes the most sense because I feel like my brain cells are very limited at this point, so coherent posts are still a big out of my grasp. I thought multi-tasking was supposed to make you smarter??...Oh well, I guess there are only so many tasks you can handle at any given moment. But if you want a one word summary of my days - Multitasking would definitely be it!

2. Energy wise - I am definitely in a much better place than I was in my third trimester and taking care of the girls. Which is not to say I am a bundle of energy! I still feel quite tired at the end of each day. But just comparing that to how I was feeling in those last few weeks, I do feel like I can do more and feel better in general. So - huge bonus there! It feels good to not have a gigantic belly, if nothing else. I can get a lot done and not feel totally spent. 

3. Speaking of brain cells - I do have to watch it because I've been doing some uber clumsy things lately. Monday night I made homemade pizza and kept sabotaging myself on accident. Like, I made the whole pizza with toppings on the cutting board instead of on the baking pan. So we had to carefully transfer it and made a mess. Before that I had pre-heated the oven with our little grittle inside (what, you don't store stuff in your oven??) Then yesterday before heading out to go to Costco and the park, I almost got in the van with my hair totally un-brushed and so greasy yucky. Now, some of you might think it's not that big of a deal. I am a mom now - I can't always look "put-together" - but if you know me you would know that is totally out of the norm and kind of upsetting. I like to look at least half-way put together. I meant to grab a hat and throw on some eye-liner, but I completely forgot about myself in the hustle of getting everyone out the door. I did remember and put on a hat, thank goodness. I would have been really embarrassed, guys! My hair was really, really greasy.

4. So yes, showers are now an every-other-day thing. Again, maybe not such a big deal in a busy mom's world - but yes, if you know  me, this is quite the leap. I like to shower daily. However, now I'm fully immersed in a world where my needs do not come first. I would have said this with one child, and two children, but it is most especially true with three. There literally is not enough time for me to take a shower. Unless of course I want the whole house to be trashed and Michael to be crying the whole time and Josie to have a fresh new bruise on her big forehead ;) Once again, it's okay.

5. I still do have some alone time, my friends. Thank my Father in Heaven (seriously), but my kids are still great nappers. So I do have 1-2 hours a day to myself (well, with a baby, but still) where I can take a breather. I usually nap myself. It's good for me, I need it, it helps. So while 90% of the day, my needs come last, at least 10% of the day they move up a bit on the list. 

6. ...My needs are also attended to when Mike gets home. He still is a great husband and father. He tries every day to make sure he gives me a break. Our lives are so busy, and we are both tired, so it's pretty amazing that 95% of what he does when he gets home is oriented toward helping me. Thanks to him, I am maintaining my sanity.

7. Another thing that helps so much is the INTERNET. Seriously moms, how did you do it before? I love social networking and the blogosphere because I can feel CONNECTED. Like I'm not alone in my struggles and frustrations. Like how I can share what makes me laugh and what makes me cry. It's so great, this internet, when used appropriately and in moderation (of course) I don't want to go too far and call it my savior - that would be quite heretical (duh, Jesus is my savior :) but it does help me a great deal and I'm grateful for the support it provides in multiple faucets of my life. 

8. I have other crutches that help me have a successful day. (What is the definition of a successful day you ask? A day where I can pray, where the kids are all fed, got exercise, and feel attended to, and where my husband and I could connect in some way) One is shows. My children watch a half an hour show in the morning, almost without fail now days. That is unless we have somewhere to go right away in the morning. But yes, a Curious George episode every morning and then occasionally another half hour show in the afternoon between naps and when daddy gets home. I really try hard to keep screen time at 1 hour a day, no more. I start to get nervous if they get more than that, but it does happen sometimes, especially if mommy and daddy want to watch something important or clean out the garage or something. Then they might get to watch half a movie or something like that. Right now Louisa is really really into Wall-E and asks to watch it a lot. She also likes Ice Age.

Gah, I guess I have been writing a lot. I'm sure it's super boring to you all. But if you did want to know what my days are like - there you have it. Well, some of it. If you really want to know let's arrange a play date and you can come over :) 

I feel pretty good about life these days. I'm feeling optimistic about having a larger family than society dictates now. I feel excited about homeschooling in the near future. I only feel overwhelmed on occasion, and most importantly I feel good about my family living out the plan God has for us. We are plugging away, and enjoying the many blessings we've been given. We have our daily struggles, but overall we are doing quite well. It really helps that Michael is a super easy going baby. I feel like things would quickly spiral out of control if he suddenly because super demanding. As of right now, he is happy when he gets to nurse and gets to just listen and observe what's going on around him. Love my boy. And I love my girls, too. I feel so privileged being their mom and getting to be home with them every day.

Mother goose

What are little boys made of?

Snips  

 and snails,

 and puppy dog tails,

 that's what little boys are made of.