Its annoying.

 just a distraction.

 Not at all what I am intending on writing about.  but……Some things are too big to start…..Some topics too vast to even approach. and yet there is really no other way……

have you ever had in your life a huge “what if….”? A regret that nags. And although you know it isn’t healthy or logical to keep revisiting….still you do…..you wonder “what if…….”

I remember when my grandpa passed away I remember thinking that although I had been able to have so many amazing memories of him I still wondered why I didn’t spend more time with him. Why I didn’t ask him more questions…..what if I had? And then I remember thinking…..”I would never want another loved one to pass away knowing that I hadn’t made my best effort to have a better relationship with said loved one….”

what if……..

it was said that now we will all be faced with the what ifs and that we shouldn’t let those thoughts linger, instead replace them with good memories, something positive to cling to. What if there aren’t any memories to catalog through? What if all I know are one sided negative stories…. pictures of a no good, lazy, incapable being……..

I refuse to believe they’re all true. I understand why they were spoken….but I don’t believe them in their entirety….too much hurt comes along with those stories….regret….mistakes……unclaimed guilt…….

As a mama I don’t understand a lot of why things turned out the way they have……….as a mama I understand perfectly why things have turned out the way they have……

neither side fair.

but what if?

what if someone would have said sorry………….what if someone would have tried harder……………..what if we all knew who were truely are and that we are loved………what if………

what if I just let it go and never think on it again?

what if the what ifs take over?

what if I would have been more of an adult with less baggage……..choosing to forget the baggage……….

the light keeps flickering……..the dryer drones on………….the what ifs keep coming………….

It’s easy for me to continue on with life, my babies, my hubby, my faith, my everyday everything. It’s easy to not think on the what ifs, its also not easy to escape them.

I just want five minutes, to persuade, to beg, to reason….what if that’s all it would have taken?

it’s not fair.

I want to scream.

I want to cry.

I want to forget. I want a complete picture.

The eternities are available, I know. I know with my whole being…..but I don’t understand, I don’t understand why we are plagued with the what ifs……….

I would have said sorry…………I would have asked for the real story. The version that was real to someone…..

what if the wounds could have healed…………….

his……………..and mine.

what if……

So I blog about it and I get another entry for the giveaway. Visit the site and enter, if I don’t win and you do, please let me come over and use it sometimes? please??

I’m out.

I did realize this, having more than one blog to manage is basically mind numbing. I get excited about new little projects and then after a little while forget to love them.

So here is the part where I tell you that I just updated here and here……………………….oh wait no its not.

my brain is on vacation, starting……………………………………………………now.

 Rob was working, Oliver was taking his morning nap, Coop was at pre-school, and the Doodle was livin it up first grade style.

 And Ella…..oh our Ella………….she was talking, and talking, and talking……….with total disregard for our responses or our involvement in her conversation. And this, my dears, is what she was saying

 {typed as she was talking}

Teeny tiny table

Baby too big to go outside

I lost yours key back

I lost yours keys a little bit

I break my oranges

Peaches

Go shows mama…………baby button………I want get down my chair mama

Owie hand? No that baby jammas

Shake yours booty

Watch shows? Why? You in there?

Too big for oliver’s ears

Yo gabba gabba…. Jump flap flap

This polka dots? Too big olivers ears

No more bathtub

Where my poo go? You fix it?

Why cherry eyes?

Need clothes on…..need shirt on……..me buckled already …try again

{Pointing at my shirt}……haves cookies?

Buckled already polkadots

Watch ella owie?

Get yours eyeball out dere

I like it out

I wont watch yours monster  ’puter

{I love her………she is the best kind of insane}

and what I am loving lately:

{hearing Aleksia’s bedtime prayers after a family home evening about gratitude….she listened}

~getting a thank you phone call for doing something that I was worried didn’t go as well as I had hoped~

{antibiotics for little bodies}

~long curly boy hair~

{baby smiles}

~advice from the hubs~

{online book clubs}

~friend chats~

{invitaion making}

~baby face kissing~

{hanging out at Aleksia’s school on Thursdays}

~sleeping in a bit~

{”marketing research” for Sweet Lizzie’s candy store}

and mostly…………..I love most parts of my day to day right now. Of course there are things I want to make different, but I feel happy right now. And that, my friends, is delicious…….

cheers,

yeah…..it’s fancy. We think we’re pretty spectacular. It even sometimes slips out when I am helping in Aleksia’s class and the doodle’s classmates look at us a little sideways.

so….. we have been doing stuff here. I like it. It makes January a little less January-like.

{awesome thing #1}

We had an awesome trip to the emergency room…..I think a guy in the next room kept coding……….so yeah the ER doc was pretty busy and we just kinda sat there with a bleeding Ella patty.

 {so the story goes like this}

    Ella was drinking from a glass in the kitchen~ Coop thought he would tease her a little bit and ran by her and knocked her shoulder~ which then made her drop the glass ~ which then broke into a thousand million pieces~ and that my friends is how fairies are born~

I mean…..Ella was  thrown off balance and headed for the floor~ She put her hands down to catch herself of course and thats when her hand and a large glass shard became one for a brief instance ~ not such a pretty site~

7 or 8 stiches later our crazy girl is back to normal~ she doesn’t pay much attention to her broken little patty and we’re thankful things weren’t worse than they were.

{mind you this is at re-bandage time, we’re not so negligent that we let our two year old glass shard victim run around with a naked owie hand….just so you know}

{awesome thing no.2}

Rob’s sis Carlene and 2 kiddles Carmen and Howie {from Cali} stayed the night at our place and we partied it up in true “we have six children under 8″ kind of fashion. Meaning we did nothing but hang out and enjoy eachother’s company. It makes me miss that awesome Martin crew so much. But yay for California vacations and family that lets us crash at their homestead.

{awesome thing Number C}

{awesomness infinity}

I remade my topiary.

I know everyone has been wanting to know how the whole Topiary tragedy of 2010 panned out. Well, don’t worry folks I now have a perfectly lovely set of moss covered topiaries just hanging out cute as can be. And they are deliciously black and white so they will live in this spot long after my Valentine decor has been laid to rest.  My soul is happy.

{awesome times no. 5}

I have nothing else to add to this ~ but this~ did you know that you can be minding your own business just reading a night time story to your two little princess faces and when you least expect it a profound answer to your pleading prayers will abruptly appear before your eyes?

 God is good.

 He is mindful of all of his children. He knows us and our inner most desires. And He LOVES us. Each of us.

So maybe I got a little jealous that he’s been stretching his artistic muscles.

and I have ummmmm……….been……….well, not doing so much but blog stalking.

Tonight I decided I would try to hack it as an artist once again. Its been so so very long since I have sketched anything but castles for Coop and babies for Ella…….little silly line drawings………….easy peasy.

I love sketching,  its magical starting with lines and slowly adding contour and shading and see your vision come to life.  It has just been something that I haven’t had a chance to use in my every day life.  Of course I get my craftiness on pretty often, and that is a good release but a good sketch session is oh so delicious.

so…….wana see what I drew tonight?

It was a nice little artistic workout this evening and I think I need to keep it up. yay I have nothing else to say.

other than………….. The Biggest Loser this season is bugging me so much…………..blech……….green team mom and daughter?? mean mom always talking for her daughter and not really letting her be normal……….and drama drama drama.

annnnddddddd what should we craft next?  any ideas?

The reality was dissapointing. I don’t know why I don’t have love. Its cute….maybe.  I need input. HELP

ok here we go slightly step by step.

I gathered materials (by the way I HATE Tooele Walmart, it smells like butt and the selection is lacking. ugh)

next I thought that I would paint my Martha Stewart pots I bought when Rob and I were first married, but then I got lazy and didn’t want to sand the glossy glaze. So I modge podged. This is my favorite part of the entire project.

I started with two little helpers, armed with pencils and tissue paper squares. If kindergarten taught me anything it was how to glue anything to anything. And we embarked.

and the Elmers Glue didn’t work. Hot Glue did……but made it harder for little ones to help.

I mixed white tissue paper with striped pink and white tissue paper…..I don’t know if I have love. meh

I was glueing for HOURS…………the hubs thought I was crazy…..near the end I was……

is the bow fugly? is the topiary all around fugly? are my five hours worth of work an utter waste of time?

more pics of my kiddles’ art projects. I love how much fun we had making these. They were simple~ the frames have been sitting in my cabinet empty because I cleared everything to make room for Christmas decorations, and all the supplies were scraps that needed to be used.

anywho I am overall mildly dissapointed in my topiary, but I DO love my kiddles little art creations. so I suppose all is well.

I am toying with the idea of a monthly craft club. Has anyone ever done anything like this and have you had success? I would love to hear ideas on how to make it work and of course let me know if you want to play along.

Thanks for stopping by…………I’m out.

We started bedtime routine  around normal time. As usual lately, Cooper fell asleep before he finished dinner. We told the girls to go to bed.

They wouldn’t

at 10PM our Aleksia finally closed her little princess eyes and drifted off to  blissful first grader slumber.

Rob and I went to bed way before we usually do.    We closed our eyes at 11pm.

and then at 12am

and again at 1pm

once again at 2am

and so on and so forth until 5 in the am this morning.

Coop had a rough night (he’s plagued with the boogie face)

And since Rob does all the hard stuff around here, he was the one to get up with Coop as he usually does when our little man has a rough night ~ it happens  more often than one would think.

But even though Rob did all the dirty work in the wee hours of the morning, I felt exhausted and unrested from a night interrupted with night terror screams.

so I did nothing constructive into the afternoon hours …………I slept a bit, I built wood block castles with Coop monster, watched Ella smash wood block castles, held sleeping Ollie, ate some brownies, made mac n’ cheese, ate some more brownies, made frozen hot chocolates all around…..slept.

after listing everything it seems like I did more than I actually did. I guess the point is that I didn’t clean. not at all. and it was delightful.

in the mail I recieved this:

and it made me want to do something. I really wanted to scrapbook, but I didn’t want to pull out all of my stuff just to have to put it back in time for dinner. So I told the kids that we needed to craft.

so we took this off the piano (and left it on this very spot…………..its still there now)

we made these little beauties

and these fun little babies

I think its missing a couple little topiaries for either side. I  will run to walmart tommorow for all my supplies for that project.

I don’t know why I didn’t think to take any pictures of my kiddles WHILE crafting, but they had fun and I had fun and where we once  had winter sadness we now have lovely framed goodness sprinkled around our home. It makes me happy.

And I so love this guy~ he is my rock. And the little one is pretty amazing too.

more craft goodness to come. I think  in addition to my topiaries I will make a few pennant banners. fun right?

Why is Andy from Ellen wearing pants now instead of his signature short shorts?

How much higher can my laundry couch be piled with clean laundry? The battle is half won. I’ll fold tommorow…………maybe

Cooper can do puzzles like nobody’s business, but he refuses to say the alphabet with me.

Tonight Ella told us in a sad voice that her glasses are broken.

After dinner she pointed to the counter and told me she wanted some. “some what” I said. “uncles, want some uncles” and over and over and over. Until Aleksia discovered she was pointing at the Penko bread crumb box. We gave it to her, she promptly threw it in the garbage.

Coop likes to exercise. He does this by running like a mad man in circles. Sometimes he jumps the one step from the kitchen to the  family room. Regardless of who is trying to walk or cook or change baby diapers or avoid a large head boy impailing himself straight at you.

His hair is big right now, when it’s big he’s naughtier.

January is quite possibly the most dissapointing month of the year.

I need to craft. Not just a little “wouldn’t it be lovely to have a wee little craft day?” she ponders as she lovingly scrubs dried cereal off the kitchen chairs. It’s more of a burning all consuming over the top desire to create something that will beautify my living space. I NEED to paint, sand and repurpose.

Rob is handsome. I see him basically all day long and yeah he’s pretty dang good looking.

I am reading a book called City of Bones I like it, it’s a good read.

This is a site that one shouldn’t read because really no one has time for such frivolity but here is the link for you anyways http://theoatmeal.com/comics/misspelling

I never want my children to remember me as a mom that had a really clean house but never sat down on the floor and played games with them.

Is it really hard for little boys to pee INSIDE the potty? or is it a game to see how much they can get on the walls……or the floor………..or the toilet paper roll………or inside the garbage can………..

Aleksia has another loose tooth

Oliver talks alot but,  not english.

Sometimes I think I would have time to take some photography classes…………but mostly I think this isn’t the season of my life for such things. soon, sometime soon.

I love my babies.

I like the internet.

I enjoy blogs.

I sometimes wonder if it would be fun to live on the same street as all my brothers and sisters.

We can’t use dishwasher soap in the dishwasher…..we have to use little brick soap thingers its the only thing that makes our dishes sparkly clean sans water spots.

Coop hasn’t been sleeping well lately. He’s all stuffy and can’t breathe. Its sad.

We have a dent in our car door that makes me want to swear a little bit. And instead of being honest and just giving us insurance info, the lady that hit me keeps playing stupid games and avoids handling it like an adult. bet they don’t have insurance. … suck

Ella has a bad habit lately of sticking her fingers in Ollie’s mouth. It grosses me out.

You know those stories I posted a while back? two truths and a lie? they were all true.

When we were younger my brother Jeff and I used to sing the duet to A Whole New World from Alladin….. he wasn’t always hogtieing me.

Michael Cera is funny in a really understated kind of way.

I’ve used google to spell check this entry already four times……can you guess what words?

I belong to a gourmet food group. We haven’t started yet.

How long will this post be of random one liners?

There really is a lot of insane merchandise out there that can be yours if you but “CALL NOW”

My fingers hurt.

Rob and I were watching Millionaire Matchmaker the other day and one of the ridiculous bachelors listed the must haves in a woman. One of those requirements was that she be funny……….like Conan O’Brien.

Everytime I leave a comment on someone’s blog that I don’t know, telling them how much I enjoy their blogs, the next post is always about how they think they will be cutting back posting because of the type of feedback they are recieving and not wanting to have to live up to the pressure of being witty in every post.   I am a blog killer.

My eyes are tired and I still need to read some.

Primary President is a hard job.

I look forward to planting flowers in the spring.

It’s time to go on a date with the hubs. It’s been too too long.

I spend way too much time on my laptop.

and now we will be done.

And now on to what we have been up to. In true mormon mom fashion I am about to bore you with roughly 1.5 million photos for your viewing enjoyment.

First up, Christmas projects……….

ok my picture uploader thinger is hating me, check out my crafty photos over at flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/heatherjh/sets/72157623001323439/

At the beginning of December we joined the millions of smarties already participating in ugly sweater loveliness and threw our own festive get together. Check it all out here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/heatherjh/sets/72157623126483866/

and now on to Ollie baby’s blessing and Ella’s birthday extravaganza found here~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/heatherjh/sets/72157623126713082/

and because it’s  one million o’ clock I won’t finish tonight……………….we’ll make this a to be continued post, everyone’s favorite

’till the morrow~ cheers