It's a Leah thing

Leah disappears every morning after breakfast.

Where do you think she goes?

The answer might surprise you...

Yes. She goes to her room, climbs up on Lainy's bed right next to the bookshelf, and "reads" books for about half an hour.

Sometimes Lainy joins her.

But mostly it's just Leah's thing.

Cute.

Lainy's Pics

We gave Lainy a kids digital camera for Christmas.

She loves it.

Last night, we downloaded some of her pictures. I was surprised (okay, I was shocked) at how good they are!

Some are very artistic...

Some feature her toys...

Brad and I make an appearance in some of them...

But this little baby is by far Lainy's favorite subject...

Aren't they great?! It's fun to see the world through Lainy's eyes.

Mom

My Mom came to see us last week. She is wonderful and so much fun. It was good to have her here for a few days!

UW Campus

Jellyfish Lainy at the Aquarium

Octopus Leah.

Playing with octopus legs

Leah loved the Aquarium! Lainy took a while to warm up... and didn't dare touch the starfish in the tidepool exhibit.

Beautiful weather at Carkeek Beach

Look at that view!

Mom found this cool fort on the beach

The girls loved playing in it!

Lainy and Leah inside the fort

As soon as I got back in the car after dropping Mom off at the airport, Lainy said tearfully: "I'm going to miss my Grandma so much!"

Thanks for the visit Mom! We love you!

Writing

Alaina wrote her name for the first time the other day.

Can you see it?

I know that some of the letters are backwards or upside down, but that just adds to the charm, right?

She concentrated so hard! I may or may not have choked up a little bit.

It was awesome.

Way to go Lainy!!

Superwoman

Last Friday I found out that I'm not Superwoman.

It was a bit of a shock.  Mostly because I have been fully convinced, for about a month now, that I have it all together.

Two kids? No problem.
Husband in medical school? Totally doable.
A church calling with some heavy responsibilities? Piece of cake.

I had a busy day planned for Friday. It was full of good things too: transporting Brad to and from different hospitals in Seattle (so he wouldn't have to ride his bike in our unusually cold weather), visiting teaching, grocery shopping, and taking dinner to a sweet elderly lady in our ward who needed some extra help. Somewhere in there I was hoping to find some time to go over the Relief Society lesson that I had been asked to teach on Sunday.

I thought I could handle it all...I must have temporarily forgotten that I have kids. Kids who like their naps and their routine. Kids who like a mom who has some time for them. Two adorable kids who, it turns out, don't really appreciate being dragged all over Seattle, even if it's for a worthy cause.

Everything started falling apart around 10 a.m. when I came home from the grocery store and called the sweet elderly lady only to find out that she's allergic to precisely the menu I had planned for her. That meant we had to make another trip to the grocery store, which meant that Leah didn't get her morning nap.

Things went consistently downhill from there.  I won't go into all the sad details, but by 5 p.m. I found myself in rush hour traffic having just dropped off Brad (late and without dinner) for his all night ER shift, with two exhausted kids, and with a sad excuse for a dinner that I had hastily thrown together for the sweet elderly lady. She'd asked me to bring dinner at 5 p.m.. We didn't deliver it until 5:45.

What a day. I managed to do everything I'd planned to do, but I don't think I did any of it well. It was awful.

So, I've been re-evaluating my priorities. Even if my schedule was full of good things, they weren't the best things for my family. This week we have taken things more slowly. I've tried to make my husband and my girls feel like my highest priority. I've delegated some of my church responsibilities. I even said "no" one day when I felt like it was too much to handle. What a difference a week makes!

Friday was a hard day, but I think I needed the wake up call. I'm not superwoman. And honestly, I don't really want to be.