Park

Clara begged me to take her to the park yesterday. She didn't want to play outside at our house and she didn't want to go on a walk. I had 5 really good reasons not to go:

1. It was almost 5pm. Dinner was around the corner (not that I was cooking... haven't tried that since Sunday).
2. It was cold. I've been cold all week, ever since the highs dropped below 75*.
3. I had hours and hours and hours of work to get done. Just so you know, if you ignore your accounting for 2 years and then try to get it done super fast because the IRS is at your throat, it's likely to stress me out.
4. I had no less than 4 loads of laundry to fold. Which reminds me, the jeans are still in the drier and they are going to stink. Gross.
5. The house was gross. Things were picked up, but I hadn't wipe the counters and table and that bothers me.

So, we went to the park. After all, I had two even better reasons to go.

Loving Myself

Some of you have suggested I list things I love about myself with my 14 days of love. On day 10, I decided maybe I could put a few things about myself that I love. The thought, however, brought me to instant tears. Not just watery eyes, tears streaming down my cheeks. Tears because I have never thought about why I love myself. Tears because I don't think I could list one thing, let alone 14 things, that I love about myself. I am content with me. But i do not love me like I love others. I am not just content with my family and the things I've been sharing about them. Their qualities are things I love. It seems the contentment, rather than the love, that I feel towards myself is indication that I consider myself mediocre. It made me sad to think that I don't love myself the way I love others. If nothing else, I am special because I am a daughter of God. I believe that and I believe that our divine nature alone makes each and every one of us special AND lovable. After pondering some of these thoughts for a few days, I feel very strongly that Heavenly Father wants us to love all of His children unconditionally, including ourselves. If we can't do that, what does that say, we aren't children of God? We are not special? I am going to learn to love myself. For starters, I love myself because of who I am, a daughter of God.

I also want to be comfortable loving myself. For some reason, that sounds so narcissistic. It sounds arrogant and proud. As humans we don't want to say, "Hey! I am good at {insert talent here} and I love myself for it! Aren't I awesome?" I think some reservations in loving ourselves is good. Because if we loved everything about ourselves, we wouldn't have much motivation to progress and we all have areas needing progress. However, I think in general, especially as women, we don't take the time to identify why we love ourselves and be comfortable in that. For me personally, I am so insecurely confident. I don't embarrass easy, I don't mind sharing stories of dumb things I've done and I'm definitely not one to delete hideous pictures of myself, especially if I know it's sure to make a few of you laugh (like the one below!) Yet, I always struggle feeling like I'm never good enough and never cool enough. I am very comfortable being different than the "in" crowd and just being me, yet I am constantly feeling like nobody likes me.

Not for you, but for myself, I'm going to try to list 5 things I love about myself.

#1: That I can post a picture like this online and care less who and how many people see it. It doesn't make me feel self conscious one bit or embarrassed at all. I guess I just have lots of neck skin because the second I move my chin down more than 1/4" and/or laugh in a picture, I have an insta-double chin.

14 Days of Love: Day 14

Jason: I love that he is so easy going. Sure he is passionate about things. Sure he has a few things he's extremely opinionated about. But in general, he is super easy going. This means when I do dumb things (like melt my lids in the oven or run into a shelf in the garage) he laughs about it and never makes me feel dumb. I never have to worry about him being upset with me over the mistakes I make no matter how avoidable they are.

Clara: I love that Clara is incredibly mature for her age, yet she still has, and uses, her brilliant imagination every day to be a kid and have fun.

Hazel: I love that Hazel likes other people. I joke that she has cried more when I've taken her from someone than when someone takes her from me, although that might be more of a truth than a joke. I love this because I don't get stressed if I need someone to hold her for me and it seems to make people more likely to ask to hold her.

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Date night. After a "normal" week, I am not one of those people that "needs" a date night. After the kids go to sleep, Jason and I get to spend time together so on the weekends, we're perfectly content doing just that. We watch TV shows online, watch movies, talk, clean or just discuss random news articles we've read and/or are reading. However, things over the last several weeks have not been "normal". It seems like Jason and I have not had our time together in the evenings. We've been busy, we've had lots going on and I realized, when we don't have this time together, I do "need" a date night. I just crave alone time with Jason where we can visit, laugh, relax and enjoy each other. Maybe in March...

14 Days of Love: Day 13

Apparently this whole "I'm going to list 14 reasons I love each of my family members" thing is a bit over my head. Yesterday I duplicated yet another previous thing I love about Jason. Poor Jason. I'll do two for him to make it up (again!) and hopefully I don't screw things up tomorrow. It's my last shot to get it right.

Jason (Day 12): The first thing Jason does every evening after he changes out of his work clothes is play with Hazel and Clara. He loves to play with them and they with him.

Jason (Day13): He has an overwhelming sense of responsibility to provide for our family and is not afraid of hard work. I think I'll forever be grateful for the time in our life where he spent a few nights of the week cleaning parking lots and Saturdays cleaning up a construction site so we could buy groceries. Having to do grunt work despite having a 4 year degree and having to work for much less than he was worth didn't stop him from doing all he could to help put food on our table.

Clara: she is genuinely concerned about me (and people in general) and gets very upset if she catches me crying.

Hazel: Has recently realized her head exists. She'll "clap" with her head between her hands, she smears food in her hair (well, the little bit she has) and she rubs the little fuzz on her head that we call her hair.

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On Sunday, just seconds (seriously, seconds) after I was feeling rather proud of myself for thinking I'd have the dishes done, the kitchen clean, the house clean and dinner ready on time for our family dinner, after such a crazy week, I realized my cookie sheets and plastic lids were in my oven that was pre-heating. In case the picture doesn't make it obvious, dinner did not get done on time and I stopped feeling proud of myself.

14 Days of Love: Day 12

Jason: The way he reads (think: spell checks) my blog posts and tells me what typos I made. Actually, he doesn't tell me. He asks, "Did you know you spelled clowns wrong? It said clowsn." And yes, he even sounds out the mispelled word for me.

Clara: She loves and eats lots of raw fruits and vegetables.

Hazel: Going outside makes her so, super excited and she kicks her legs, flaps her arms and makes noise when she realizes what is coming.

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I've just wrapped up a pleasantly full week. A little bit of work, hanging out with Jen and her family, helping with and hosting Angela's baby shower and attending a friend's baby shower. All things a good life is made of. A good life is also made of a good night's rest which is why I will be posting pictures of our fun-filled week after I get a good night's rest. Yeee!

14 Days of Love: Day 11

Jason: The way he smiles at me when he knows I'm manipulating him.

Clara: She is very quick to forgive and forget when I'm unreasonable with her.

Hazel: The look she gives me when she's not going to sleep at nap time. She thinks she's so clever when she throws her pacifier and sometimes blanket overboard. You should have seen the day she also took her pants off and threw those down with the pacifier and blanket.

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Monday of this week was a really great day. Hazel got filthy from crawling for two hours in the sand and eating an avocado by the fistful. Clara got filthy from playing in the backyard and playing at the park. I got filthy from climbing an orange tree and making 6 homemade pizzas. I learned a few things on Monday:

1.) the dirtier you get, the better the day

2.) I need to climb more trees.

14 Days of Love: Day 10

Jason: He is more protective and cautious when it comes to our kids than I am. Sometimes this makes me roll my eyes, but usually, I am grateful that I don't have to worry about them when they are in his care.

Clara: She loves to hold hands with her friends - especially if they're smaller than her.

Hazel: Recently she started crawling much more dramatically, but she doesn't seems to move any faster. She just shakes her hips side to side.

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I've been thinking a lot about comparing. I catch myself doing it often. Too often. Especially when it comes to what I lack. Sunday I was watching someone during the sacrament and they seemed to be having a much more quite and reverent experience than I was. I was thinking more about shoving halved grapes into Hazel's mouth as fast as I could than reflecting on my week and how I could do better. I spent more time worrying about my kids being quiet than I did thinking of the Savior. Obviously there is a time and a season. My youngest is 13 months old and this other lady's youngest is twenty-something. Clearly it's unreasonable to expect to have the same experience and clearly this is the problem with comparing. We all have different situations. We are all at different phases in life. I'm working on comparing myself to me. Is it my best? 'Cause that's really all that matters.

14 Days of Love: Day 9

Jason: He has an unusual attention to detail (especially for a guy). It sure is nice considering I'm so anal. This is especially great when he helps with the cleaning since I don't feel like I have to redo what he does. For example, last Saturday, (after he worked all day in the yard to make it look nice for a baby shower) he told me he'd sweep/vacuum the house so when I got home from the grocery store, I could mop. When I got home, he was half way done mopping. He even moved all the furniture completely out of the family room so as not to miss a single spot.Clara: She loves to pray and usually volunteers to say the blessings. Her prayers are also very genuine and thoughtful.

Hazel: She is 95% angelic and 5% feisty

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Show of Hands

We have people come pick our oranges. It would be so much work to pick them all by ourselves, not to mention we wouldn't really be able to eat/juice all of that fruit. This year, we have had a lot of people say they want oranges. I want to tell the pickers we don't need them to come because I'd rather my friends have our excess, but Jason and I are worried not enough people will actually come and pick. So, if we have a day or two when you can all come help yourselves to our oranges (you'd have to climb up in the trees or ladders to reach them), who would be interested?

14 Days of Love: Day 8

Jason: When one of the kids wakes up at night, he tries to get to them before me. I love that we argue who gets to get the kids not who has to get the kids.

Clara: The way she sometimes stares off in space then looks at me when she realizes I'm watching her and smiles like she's the happiest little thing on this planet.

Hazel: She fake laughs to try to fit in if people are laughing.

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Do you think the manufacturers of Hazel's pj's thought a 12 month old has 2 inch long legs or was it more that they thought the distance from the crotch to the belly button is 18 inches?

14 Days of Love: Day 7

Jason: He gets two today since Angela caught me using the same one twice. What's funny is before I posted it, I thought it sounded familiar, but apparently didn't read my previous posts close enough. I started making my list a few weeks ago so I'll blame it on that. Anyway, first, he's not afraid to clean the hair (which obviously isn't his) out of the drains and does it all the time.

Second: The way he reads (think: spell checks) my blog posts and tells me what typos I made. Actually, he doesn't tell me. He asks, "Did you know you spelled clowns wrong? It said clowsn." And yes, he even sounds out the mispelled word for me.

Clara: Loves to try to find some way to cheer Hazel up or pacify her whenever she's fussing (often I don't even have to ask - she sees the need and gets to work).

Hazel: The bath tub makes her hyper and wild and crazy.

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Black cardigan, white button up with blue and gray stripes, gray pants and gray shoes. As if I could have picked an outfit that screams Accountant! any louder.