Our Sweet Life: Today is the day...

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Today is the day...

Happy Mothers Day! Yes, I know these are random pictures.

Do you ever sit down on this day and look at your life, wondering what you could have done better, what could have gone wrong, or has gone wrong, and what you can change for the future? Who is the little girl with the attitude in the kitchen?

Congrats! You're a woman! Don't be hard on yourself though. The dishes may not always be done when they're supposed to. Your children may go to the store with peanut butter on one cheek. You may leave the house in a tizzy to go to the doctors office, only to realize your not wearing makeup. Mothers are required to keep everything running and I believe we deserve an MBA for this. If you can run a house a corporation is a snap! There is a point to my ramblings though. And here it is.

Slow down

I can't tell you how many times my husband has said that. And it's good advice. Make sure that as you drive to dance, drive to school, drive to the store, make everything perfect for dinner, perfect for school projects, perfect for proms, and dances, and dates you don't put yourself off. Perfect is a state of mind really. While we strive for perfection we most often neglect ourselves. While your busy making everything perfect remember to give yourself time to breath, take a step back, and understand that it's OK. Okay if it all doesn't go as planned, okay if your child doesn't compete in all sports. Okay if you can't get it all done.

The memory you leave your children can be one of a worn out woman who falls asleep during dinner. Or a mother who is there to nurture, talk, and make life slow down when her children are out of control. Who helps calm the situation and teaches her children that it's okay to slow down and enjoy life. To think outside the box.....haha....

My mother is amazing. Through out the chaos that we created as children. And boy, we could create some chaos! She survived. She took care of us, and herself. I have my testimony to prove it. She has always taught me to take care of myself. I love her for that. So now while I'm franticly trying to make everything perfect. I can calm down and remember the advice she gave me when I was a new mother. "If you don't take care of yourself, you can't take care of anyone else." Perfect.

Love you mom,

ER

1 comment:

Jamie CountzMay 9, 2010 at 4:03 PM
I love you Erin! You are an amazing mother and you have the most increadible children to prove it! You are right, and I hope that you always follow your own advice, and repeate it to me when Alan and I have kids. You're also right about our Mother. She is also amazing, balancing all that she did and teaching us all of the things that she did at the same time. I am luck to have you both in my life!
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Things My Children Have Said

Shawn: "mom, why is there a fire in the oven?" Completely calm while I panic and throw baking soda everywhere...
Shawn in the public restroom with me--"Mommy, you go poop! Yeah!" * thoroughly embarrassed at every store in the county!*
Haley--"Grandma, this week you can call me Gordon."
Shawn--"Mommom, you go away." Shawn caught raiding the cookie jar.
Haley-- "Mom hurry! We can't be late for my Dance Recycle!"
Haley---"I don't think I'll have a baby, I don't like to throw things up, and a baby is too big."
Haley--"Does anyone want a turn walking Shawn?" As she holds Shawns "leash" at the zoo.
Shawn 2--"This is tasty!"
Shawn 2--Yelling at his friend in church..."mama! I go to Kelvins! My Brother! My sister!" (believes he belongs in their family!)
Haley 6--Writing in a notebook.."Mommy, this is my diarrhea.." Mom--Don't you mean Diary? Haley--"No... Diarrheal."
Haley--6--"Mark, remember that movie, you know 'Michael Jackson and the Lightening Thief'?"
Haley, 6, listening to the radio about the House being in session. It said, "After tomorrow the house will leave for thanksgiving." Haley exclaimed, "The House is leaving! Where will we live!"
Shawn, age 2, when seeing snow for the first time, "Snow! Look Chickens Flying!"
Shawn to me when I'm bending over..."Oh NO! Your Undies!" At this he pulls my shirt down to meet my pants...yikes!
Shawn, "Sheet Down!" translation: (sit down!) to just about everyone standing.
Haley-"Mom, why can't other people hear the music in my head?"
Shawn..."What doin' yodi (jodi)" and any answer is "Yep" or "Nope"
Haley in the pitch black Redwood Forest, "I am totally freaked out!"
Shawn--looking at the Lewis and Clark statue in Seaside--"Dada!"
Shawn--looking at a man in the next campground with long brown hair and a beard--"Jesus!"
Marky--his first day of baseball, "Mom, why do I have to run around the bases, it seems dumb if I end up where I started!"
Marky--"I was playing rock, paper, scissors and Shawn cheated!"
Haley and Mark talking on the "Phone" (hands in ears) Haley--Helllo...is this Mark? Marky--No this is Brad....silence..Haley--Brad who?
Marky--"You know, in kindergarten Kashia really liked me....but we seperated in the first grade, she's in another class. Now Megan thinks I'm cute...Meeeeeggannn....ahhhhh she's cute. giggle"-heheheh
Marky after doing me a favor, "Yeah, I know I'm good. I just can't help it!"
Haley to Shawn, "You just don't understand!"
Mark and Haley Playing, Mark: "Haley, I am Harry Potter. (pointing stick at Haley) SILENCIO!" ..Haley just stares at him, Mark :"Good, now you can't talk." He goes on reading.
Mark--drawing a picture--"Look mom, these are fierce landscapers, they hunt birds and deer!" I reply.."Landscapers?" he says, "Yes! You know those people who hunt!"
Mark--"Mom, did you know that this used to be a lake?(salt flats) And if it were still here we'd all be under water? Wierd!"
Shawn--"What's this?" --to just about everything...;)
Haley, "Mom, I want to change my middle name to Ginger." -huh?
Driving down the highway(maybe in the twilight zone), listening to the news on the radio with my kids I started when suddenly it cracked then went silent. A voice came over the radio and said "Erin, Erin are you there?" Mark exclaimed. Mom! The car's talking to you.
Mark explaining to Haley what happens in a cemetery, "You die, then they bury you in a box, then you turn to dust, but you don't mind because your brain is in heaven!"
Marky in a Prayer, "We thank thee for Shawn that he could grown in mommy's tummy we really really like him, and want another."
Haley about the F-16 on display at the Aerospace Museum, 'Check it out mom! These are awesome!' (4 Years old?)
Haley about automatic flushing toilets at the zoo, "Those toilets freak me out mom!"
Haley during a prayer, "Please bless the baby in mommy's tummy that it is a girl!" (I am NOT pregnant)
I was rushing Haley home, she asked why so I told her I had to use the restroom. She replied, "Don't tell me...I'm not your mommy!"
Haley, telling Mark where babies come from, " A Mommy and Daddy get married and have a baby! Then they get married again and have another baby!"
Mark, explaining to Haley how to swim under the water, "Never go under the water without your air freshener!"
When asked what she was doing crawling with Nicoles baby "I'm playing livestock!"
"Glorious Chaos! Ha ha ha..."---Haley in a moment of insanity
"Haley is the most beautiful fairy in the world!!" -- Marky on Halloween
"Shawn is so furry!" -- Mark
Said during a prayer, "Thank you for Jesus getting baptized with his brother Jordan."--Haley
Said during a prayer, "Bless President Monson and his posse." -- Haley
"I want you to go to the zoo and get me a pet monkey for my birthday."--Haley
"Are babies always this loud?"--Mark
To Grandma: "You have to give our baby back."--Haley

Some of my Favorite Quotes

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause. - Mark Twain
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
The people who make a difference are not the ones with the credentials, but the ones with the concern. ~Max Lucado
The truth is more important than the facts. - Frank Lloyd Wright
~Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands - and then eat just one of the pieces. ~Judith Viorst
If you ever start feeling like you have the goofiest, craziest, most dysfunctional family in the world, all you have to do is go to a state fair. Because five minutes at the fair, you'll be going, 'you know, we're alright. We are dang near royalty.' - Jeff Foxworthy
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.--Miss Piggy