Visitors

You all shouldn't be so nice when I write a whiny post like the previous one. Just tell me to buck up.

I have been a terrible blogger lately and only seem to write a post when I have something to complain about. I promise to not paint such a one-sided picture all the time. I gotta keep things real but there is good stuff that happens around here too :)

On the flip side, we have had VISITORS!!! Not just any visitors, but AMAZING people who have CHANGED our lives and made us better people. We live for visitors.

First, meet Metta, Marcos & Gigi.

We visited them in March but that unfortunate picture deleting accident took place and we never properly documented it. They were kind enough to stop at our house for the night on their way home from Nauvoo to North Carolina (by the way, I don't think Columbus is in between those two places so it meant A LOT that they took a little detour to see us). Metta was my mission companion for one -oh too short- transfer in Japan. I am always in awe of everything she does...talented beyond belief. She along with her husband Marcos (also in my mission) are the people who make you feel like a million bucks every time you are around them. On top of that, they literally left us and our home WAY better than they found it. Even the vent/hood above my stove was clean! (I'm almost positive I've never touched it).

Isn't Gigi gorgeous!

Were you guys wondering why the guest bed was a little uncomfortable? Probably because it doubles as Luke's trampoline :)

Then, just over a week ago when I was in the abyss of unpacking and having a mini-life-crisis...this ANGELIC family blew through the front door.

They were gone again in what felt like the blink of an eye, but I could have cried I was so happy to see them. If you haven't had the pleasure of knowing Mike & Linzi, don't worry, they are slowly making their way across the globe and I'm sure they will end up in your neighborhood at some point in your life. You will be so happy when they do because they are such genuine, GOOD people (I can't even finish that sentence or I'll get all teary). Anyway, now they are in Boston but as long as they have a storage unit in C-bus we can hope for a visit :)

This little toy almost destroyed a friendship..

see Luke getting the "sharing" talk...

and then TOTALLY ignoring it...

We sure do miss this red-head in our lives

[p.s. we have some new technology in our house, so my pictures/video are going to be sub-par until I have time to figure out what I'm doing.]

Even Moms Need Timeout

So I'm not gonna lie...the last few days have been ROUGH. I don't know why it is always like this when we get back from vacation. The house is a disaster (and for some reason I decided to clean out the closets making it an even greater disaster), my boys are awake all night long (but they're nice and take turns :)), Andrew has been home for one hour in the past two days, Cammy cries every time I put him down and screams if I leave the room, Luke is still in starvation mode, did I mention that the boys are awake ALL NIGHT LONG, and to top it off I bought the wrong eyeliner and it forms a black cloud around my eyes after about 5 minutes. No sleep + black raccoon eyes = scary.

Today, all I could think was how much I would LOVE just a day to myself, or even just 10 minutes of not holding Cam and not hearing him scream because of it. I hate to admit it, but he was really buggin' me. My mantra for the day was, "One day he will grow up to cure cancer, or bring about world peace or something amazing and it will make all these days totally worth it" (really, I think I said this to myself at least 3 times). Okay, it was more like a mumble under my breath, "you'd better cure cancer one day". Definitely more of a threat than a compliment. And he's not even crawling yet.

But then tonight I finally had some quiet time to myself without Cammy in my arms (he passed out on my bed and I'm sure he'll notice I'm gone in 3....2....1.....:))

That's when the selfish demon that has possessed me all day finally got bored and left, then clarity settled over my mind. That's when I realized that when Cams grows up and leaves our home to cure cancer, I'm going to be a wreck. I'm going to wish he was 7 months old again and just wanted to be held all day long. I'm sure that I will crave another day just like today. Only instead of thinking of every way possible to put Cams down so I can get something done, I would probably be perfectly fine with holding him and letting the house go down the tubes. Being so desperately needed won't last forever, so I better enjoy it while it lasts. And all these little things that seem so important to get done really don't matter...Cams must be trying to tell me that.

Lets hope I remember this lesson tomorrow...

MIA

This summer has been a blur. We just got back from Utah where we had tons of fun. But I can already tell that acclimating to real life is going to be a chore. Luke and Cameron were both still awake at midnight last night. I thought maybe it was just jet lag but then after a short nap Luke was up again from 3-6am. ??? Hopefully tonight will be different or else every blog post is going to be about how much I miss sleep.

I think some catching up is in order...

Luke rarely likes playing on the playground these days. He prefers to hang out in the baseball diamond which he lovingly refers to as the "sandbox". It is the perfect racing spot for his cars.

Once I start taking pictures of Cam, I can't stop. You'll see I had the same problem on the swings, but those will have to be in the next post because blogger is not uploading any more of my pictures for some reason.