30 Days

"Anyone can do anything for 30 days, right?!" said the drop-dead gorgeous lady, who was perfectly put together and looked like she hadn't had to try at anything her entire life. I raised my eyebrows. I wish I could say I raised one eyebrow in skepticism but despite all my efforts I do not possess that capability, so both eyebrows went up. I was at an Arbonne event and I was listening to a spill on their 30 Day Cleanse. How did I end up here? I received an invitation from a friend whom I hadn't seen in a long while and so I went purely to talk to her. And to get out of the house.

All of my walls had gone up the minute I walked into the room. I hate being sold over-priced products with about the same quality as the no-name brand (and much cheaper). To top it all off they were talking about protein shakes. Protein shakes! Can we say "ew!" Seriously, the fad with protein shakes had made me thinking everybody had completely gone nuts - was I the only person left in my circle of friends who liked to eat? I mean, yes I wanted to lose weight, but I wasn't willing to starve myself drinking disgusting, powdery shakes every day. Remember Slim Fasts? I had tried those out in college (not to lose weight, but to help me with my nutrition intake) and all they had done was make me gag and then be sick afterwards.

I sat there and listened to the presentation. The longer I listened the more I felt myself nodding, paying attention and saying "yes! yes!" in my head. Not aloud, that would be embarrassing. The first thing I liked was that the shakes were vegan. Yep, you read that right, vegan. This was important to me for two reasons, one, I have found that I am lactose intolerant. Two, I had watched Forks Over Knives and it had changed the way I thought about food completely. If you haven't seen it you should watch it. Right now. I'll wait.

Oh and while you watch that go ahead and watch I.O.U.S.A. - that will change the way you think about the economy and money.

Alright, now that you've watched it you see why this was so important to me. In fact, it had been over a year since I had seen that documentary and I had been researching the heck out of everything. Why? Because I was 30 and I was falling apart. I had been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia (you can read about that here) and despite all my efforts to eat better, exercise, go to bed early and drink water upside down while holding my breath - or is that for hiccups? - I wasn't getting any better. I couldn't be the Mom I wanted to be or the wife I wanted to be. I could barely exist on most days.

So there I was, in the middle of February, praying for a speedy end to winter (cold makes me hurt worse) and listening to Arbonne's nutrition plan and I suddenly thought, "why not?" I was desperate to try anything and I figured it couldn't hurt.

Those first few days of the "cleanse" was awful. The shakes weren't filling me up and I wanted to eat. Real food. I wanted to chew and swallow, not just swallow, but I had committed and I don't go back on my commitments, especially when I've invested money in it. I stuck it with it and in the second week I started to notice a difference. My afternoon sugar cravings had gone down drastically, I was starting to feel full faster, and I had a bit more energy. Carlin had even noticed a difference. I wasn't complaining as much and seemed overall happier.

Fast forward a month. Suddenly I've agreed to become an Independent Consultant. I've had such success with it and I want to share it with others (and get a sweet discount). Now it's been a couple of more months and as my kids say, I don't like it... I LOVE it. I love every moment of it and I've been able to meet such beautiful, uplifting women. And that drop-dead gorgeous lady from the beginning? She's been my biggest support and best example.

I could go on about what I love about Arbonne and all the great things it's done for me (did I mention my face has completely cleared up - yah, they have a whole skincare line as well), but for that you'll just have to ask me. Until then, I agree, anyone can do anything for 30 days. Oh and their products are all great quality and deliver on their promises.

4 of the Drop-dead gorgeous ladies I get to work with!

8 Years!

I've become quite the nostalgic, sentimental person lately. For example, my firstborn, the boy who made me a Mother, turned eight! EIGHT! This is a big deal people. In our faith, children are baptized at the age of 8, the age we believe they reach accountability. And it feels like my little boy isn't my little boy anymore.

It seems like yesterday I was staring at the pregnancy test trying to determine if that was a positive sign and what did that mean again...? Funny how peeing on a stick can change your whole life. Everyone told me how it was about to change, but it is just one of those things you don't know until you experience.

Playing pin the Lego head for his birthday party

Samuel has given us a run for our money in ways we never dreamed of and has been the best decision we ever made. Words can't describe what I feel for this boy of mine. The things I've learned from him, the ways I've grown as a person and the fact that I have had to learn this whole mothering thing.

He's growing up so fast and I just want to push the pause button. Since that hasn't been invented yet, we will go with the next best thing, capturing this moment, here and now.

Starting at the left: Layal, Jacob, Lilly, Samuel, Hannah, Sean, Eli, Ondrej, Taylor, Kennady

Favorite show: Odd Squad
Favorite color: all of them
Favorite primary hymn: I Love to See the Temple
Favorite foods: Pepperoni pizza, strawberries, carrots and chocolate cake
Favorite song: (since he just grunted at me I will guess this one) Everything is Awesome and What Does the Fox Say
Best Friend: Lilly and Tyler and Noah
Favorite thing to do: play Legos and Pokemon and make comics
What does he want to be when he grows up? An artist and a paleontologist (he wants to draw the dinosaurs he discovers)

Fanning out his candle... because it's better than blowing it out.

Doing Something Right

The house is a wreck. There are toys everywhere you step. The kitchen sink still has last night's dishes in it. The counters are a mess because I keep making more food without cleaning first.

Samuel lost his glasses... again. He woke up with a migraine this morning threatening to throw-up. He stayed home from school. Both Samuel and Lilly are sniffling and coughing due to allergies. Ah, spring.

It's 4:15 and I haven't showered yet - everything has been start and stop today. Jacob has had his third juice box, little stinker. It's just one of those days where nothing seems to work for me and I'm about ready to throw my hands up in the air and call it a day.

But then I find all three kids playing quietly together. Playing with the toys that are everywhere. They aren't watching TV or playing on the iPad or getting into general mischievousness. They are simply playing and encouraging each other.

That's when I feel that warmth in my heart and a smile bubbling on my face. It tells me that despite all my failings, I must be doing SOMETHING right. 

Autism: What You Don't See

Samuel was diagnosed with Autism about a year and a half ago. Since then we've had many comments and advice - but the main comment we get is "he doesn't look autistic." He is very high functioning but that doesn't mean he's not Autistic. I thought I would give you a sneak peek "behind the scenes" so to speak.

What You See: He makes great eye contact and communicates really well.
What You Don't See: 5.5 years of speech therapy. At the beginning we were receiving services 3-4 times per week, it included two 1-hour speech therapy sessions plus a special preschool twice a week for 2.5 hours. It included a listening technique in which he had to look at our faces to show us he was listening. We would say things like "look at my eyes" or "look at my lips" so we knew he was listening and it would also help him focus on our words. We practice conversation skills at dinner time in which he has to ask other members of the family how their day went. We still receive speech services working on things like expressive speech and idioms. We listen for sounds and language. I never knew there was a difference between speech and language until we began this journey so many years ago.

What You See: He is able to self-regulate rather well
What You Don't See: Once again the years of occupational therapy. The brushing, pressure points, weighted compression vests, rubber pieces attached to the end of pencils for him to chew on, suckers and noise-canceling headphones.

What You See: Me leaving a play date early, our family not attending an activity or our quick exit for no apparent reason.
What You Don't See: The signs of an approaching meltdown. What seems like an age-appropriate reaction to another child (a slight shove, taking a toy, etc) is actually the signs of losing control. Covering his ears, hyper-activity, or curling up into a ball might all seem slightly cute and endearing but for me it means it's coming. The screaming, hitting, body-checking meltdown. Sometimes we've had a very trying day/week and we know if we attend activity A it will push him to his limits and it's just not worth it.

What You See: A kid who is potty trained.
What You Don't See: The YEARS, literally, it took to potty train him. The fact that he wasn't fully potty-trained until he was almost 5. The fact that he still has enough accidents I send an extra change of clothes to school with him every day. How I have to continually remind him to use the bathroom and how the first thing I find when I go somewhere new is the public restroom. How I still won't go to parks or other areas that do not have easy access to a bathroom.

What You See: A child who is obedient, but whose mother seems to bribe him a lot.
What You Don't See: The logic of an autistic child - they need to know why to do something before they do it. They need a reason. We have a positive reinforcement system set up - when his behavior is good he earns a star. Usually around 5 stars he receives a small prize. Sometimes, he can earn bigger prizes like a new Lego set with 100 stars. We also have a red/green system. If he is on Red then he loses privileges, TV time, iPad time, toys, treats, whatever might entice him that day. You'll often hear me say "2nd warning." That means if I have to remind him again he goes on red and loses all privileges until he earns his way back to green. Not to mention the hours of behavioral therapy we attend.

What You See: He's rather successful in school.
What You Don't See: He's repeating the first grade, we moved to a school with an autism program set up to handle him better, and an IEP pages long (not to mention the countless hours in meetings). Academically he is doing great but socially he is behind even though he is doing much, much better this year.

What You See: A child who acts fine for you.
What You Don't See: The let-down that follows at home. Picking on siblings, controlling behavior, his alone-space. The resetting we have to do to get him back on a routine, get him back to normal.

What You See: A messy house, hair that needs to brushed, kids wearing clothes with holes in them.
What You Don't See: The countless hours I spend each week in therapies and routines. The exhaustion that comes with handling an autistic child plus two rather strong personalities. The battles you have to pick to fight because honestly, if his Tuesday shirt is long-sleeves in the middle of summer and it doesn't bother him, why should it bother me?

Then Life Happened...

Hello Dear Friends. It's been a long time. It's amazing how busy life gets with three little ones underfoot and making sudden life decisions. Where do I start? So much happened in 2015 that I have felt intimidated and overwhelmed to come back and write, but I need to write. I long to write.

I'll just start with an overview of the year. Consider it my Christmas newsletter. In March I turned the big 3-0. Carlin threw me a party complete with a rented frozen yogurt machine from Earth Fruits. It was pretty awesome. However, the really BIG part of my birthday came almost a month later when best friend Whitney and I headed to Cozumel for a week-long girl's trip. It was amazing. It was my first time out of the country, my first time snorkeling and my first time to get burned to a crisp, several times. But it was all worth it. We sat on the beach, snorkeled and I saw a seahorse, had ceviches and marquesitas, explored the ruins of Tulum and enjoyed some well-deserved girlfriend time. I came back relaxed and ready to tackle life again.

Which was a good thing because I hit the ground running. Jacob turned 2 on May 6 and to celebrate a tornado hit our house. It was mild damage and everyone was safe but we had to replace windows and the roof plus clean up fallen branches and debris all over. Our air conditioner also broke, turned out when the heater guys replaced our furnace they cracked the drainage pan for the air conditioner. They claimed it was old and about to go anyway and refused to fix it. So that was one more thing out of our budget. So, to recap for 2015 we had to replace: the furnace, air conditioner, roof and windows of our house. Needless to say we were strapped for cash by the time it was all done. Then our car decided to die - needed a new alternator, batttery, belt and something else.

All of this combined with a struggle to convince the elementary school that Samuel needed services specific to autism resulted in a rather hasty decision to sale our home. It had been something we had been playing around with as we were starting to outgrow our house and wanted a better location. By the end of May Carlin had had enough and we put it on the market. We immediately found a house we LOVED but couldn't buy it until we sold our house. Turns out, we knew the owners of the house and they agreed to give us the summer to sale our home. Three months and some Realtor drama later and we got an offer on our house, asking price. After a ton of delays and living out of suitcases for a week (with school in session) we finally made it into our new house.

While all of the packing and house showing went on we also celebrated Samuel's 7th birthday by taking him to Legoland in Dallas and catching up with some friends of ours who had moved earlier in the year. Samuel loved it. There was an anniversary, Carlin's birthday, a trip to the Salt Plains to dig for crystals and our annual Watermelon Festival trip. All in all it was a great summer.

Fall took off at a full sprint and we never slowed down. I attended one of the easiest IEP meetings I've ever had - they met all my requests plus made some additional suggestions. Samuel and Lilly love their new school. We moved into our new house at the end of September and have enjoyed the park, the duck pond and our mini-park in our back yard complete with a fire pit in which we've roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. For Halloween we had a Storm Trooper, Elsa and Curious George. We hosted Thanksgiving and Christmas for our families and I made my first ever turkey.

We also had some tragedy hit when we were present at the OSU Homecoming Parade when a woman decided to drive her car into the crowd of hundreds. 4 people were killed and almost 50 others injured. We had stepped off the street moments before it happened, however, my former boss and friend Bonnie Stone and her husband Marv were killed at the scene of the accident.

2015 was draining for us, emotionally, physically and financially. All of that was just the big stuff. We also had our day-to-day living to do. I'm Relief Society secretary, Carlin is chorister and Elder's quorum teacher. Jacob while not in the spotlight much is keeping up with his siblings and has done everything from dump an entire bottle of baby powder on himself to TPig my house and digging holes into our walls. Needless to say I'm a bit exhausted. And that's why I haven't visited my blog in so long. It's just been crazy. But I need this outlet once more, so if you're still out there reading this somewhere I promise, I'm back.

Rough Times

You know how you go through periods in your life where the road is just a bit bumpy? It’s not any one thing in particular, in fact sometimes the road is smooth sailing, but overall, when everything adds up the ride was just a bit rough. That’s where we’ve been in our family.

The past few years have been bumpy. There are the obvious – young kids means lots of stops along the way. And we’ve had lots of unexpected detours. Therapies, dentists, doctors, surgeries, potty training, messes, worrying, more potty training, laundry, IEP meetings, teachers, enrollment, ballet, gymnastics, and more.

Friends keep moving. We live in a college town so we expect the annual turnover, but it’s getting harder every year to say good-bye to one more set of friends. I’ve had to say good-bye to Laura, Dawn, Sharon, Marie, Jenny (twice), Rebekah, Brandielle, Kathleen, Rachelle, Hilary, Stephanee, Corene, Stacy, Jenny (a different one), Joellen, Sarah, Karen, Marijke, Bonnie, Candace, Julia, Lisa, Nina, Candice, Teresa, Cindy, Erica and I’m sure there are a few I’m missing. Not to mention their husbands and children.

There have been tears and laughter and stress. A lot of stress. There have been beautiful moments and moments I wish I could go back to college where my only worries were grades and paychecks.  I type this in a cold house because the heat exchange in our furnace cracked and we’ve been without heat for the past three days. If that doesn’t sound too bad just realize we were this close to being the family on the news that never woke-up due to carbon monoxide poisoning.  For once I was grateful for a leaky, inefficient home and following a prompting that we needed to get our heater serviced. In March.

So, now we have to dish out more money to replace the furnace. Money – it just keeps slipping through our fingers like sand. Why does it cost so much to live? I wrap this up while watching freezing rain bounce off the sidewalks and stuck in the house with children home from school because of a “snow” day. The morning has been full of screaming, tantrums, poop, art projects and finding Jacob covered in my brand new $12 foundation.

The future is bright though… and warmer. Much warmer. I hope to have pictures soon but first I need to find our camera charger.

Public Bathrooms

Nobody really likes public bathrooms, right? Right. However, being a mother of young children I really despise public bathrooms for so many, many reasons.

I swear to you now, my kids do the most disgusting, horrifying, embarrassing things you can think of in a public bathroom. From unrolling toilet paper as fast as their little hands and feet will carry them to wandering out of the bathroom with their pants around their ankles because they need you to wipe them (no matter that they insisted they could do it themselves and didn't need you in there in the first place).

I thought I had about seen it all until I braved the bathroom at Target with Jacob. Jacob, the one who has figured out how to unlock the stall doors, and instead of crawling on the disgusting germ-clad floor like a normal child, insists he goes out the normal way.

So, there we were - me trying to use the bathroom as fast as possible while keeping the door closed and Jacob trying to get out. In a split second he managed to open the door and wedge himself between the stall and the door while I try to desperately close it. Except I can't because I literally have a child in the way, who starts yelling at the top of his lungs because he's stuck. As if I needed any more attention than I currently had.

I pushed him out. I was desperate and there were people in the bathroom. So, I just shoved him out of the stall completely, closed the door and finished my business.

But honestly, I don't have much shame left. Three pregnancies and three rather active children do that to you. However, I really, really look forward to the time when I can use the bathroom by myself.