Cousins

I was reading a post on my little brother's blog the other day, was in his photos looking at wedding pictures, started snooping and came across this picture. I love it. This is a picture of me and Bren, my sisters and two sisters in law, and many of her cousins that are her age. All but one were born within a year of her birth. Count 'em.


Yes, we Proffitts know how to procreate. Rachael has 4 cousins that are her age. She has always loved it. Kindyl kind of came in between rounds of babies but still has 2 cousins that were born only a few months before she was (unfortunately, both are boys. Poor little K) but she has always been able to play with the older girls or take care of the younger ones. Mitchell has 6 cousins his age, including 2 boys. (Boys are scarce in our family, so he really hit the jackpot)



All but two out of the 11 of us live here in Mesa, so our kids get to see each other often. They are really lucky. It is kind of like having built in friends. How lucky are they that every vacation they go on they have tons of friends to play with?

Of course, since so many of them are girls (and so many of us for that matter) there is bound to be some drama every now and then. We try to keep it to a minimum and have our little ways of avoiding it.



So this picture got me thinking about this next baby. It will be pretty lonely! My sister in law Margaret is pregnant and two months ahead of me, so it will have one little friend. But Clark and Margaret are moving to Tucson. And their baby is due in August and mine is due in October. I don't believe in putting your kids in school early, so this means they will probably be in separate grades. We have dealt with this before though, so it may be O.K. But what if it is a girl? (Marg is having another cute boy. Can you say jealous?) .)


I am number 6 in my family. My 5 older siblings are all done having children, so I have no hope for them. I don't think there is much hope for my 5 younger ones either. One is in a looong process of adoption, and two just aren't ready for another baby yet. What can you do?


SO what is the fate of this little baby # 5? Is it going to have only one little cousin to play with who happens to live hours away? At least they will be together for vacations, right? It may have cousins who are only around a year younger. That wouldn't be so bad.

What do you think? Did you grow up with cousins? (We didn't really) Will this baby be O.K without them? Or is it really just no big deal?

Sickness, Nice Drivers, and a Beautiful Day

So I woke up this morning feeling like death. By 7:00 I was thinking that I couldn't get things together enough to find one of Brenley's bathing suits and take her to swim lessons by 10(Yes, three hours away). I was dreading driving carpool.

I am 12 weeks along today and part of me was really hoping that I would start feeling less sick. I know, all four other pregnancies were pretty bad until 16 weeks, but since I started getting sick earlier with this one I was hoping I would start feeling better earlier too. No luck.

So I debated whether or not I could keep one of the older kids home part of the morning to help me with the baby. The answer is no because I am pulling all three out for almost a week to go to the beach house soon. No extraneous absences allowed. Shoot.

I am feeling like I wish I could go to sleep and wake up in four weeks when I will hopefully stop hurling.

I finally drag myself out of bed to drive Rach to her bus stop and drive Mitchell's carpool in my PJs.

On the way to my first stop, traffic is kind of busy, and I need to get into the next lane to make a left turn. I turn on my blinker and the car next to me instantly slows down to let me in. AZ drivers are just nice.(At least to a frazzled mom in her PJs;) I don't often run into a situation where a driver has been purposely rude. All you have to do is drive on any CA freeway to realize how much nicer AZ drivers are. I'm not sure why this is true, but I am often surprised at how willing AZ drivers are to let a person in.

When I get to my first carpool stop, my friend Tiffany is outside with her kids holding her 4 day old perfect baby girl. She brings her over to me and says, "I thought you might need a little reminder that it is all worth it." She was right. It was the perfect reminder. I even almost thought it wouldn't be so bad if I had another high maintenance girl. And that is saying a lot;)

As we are driving to our next stop I hear a little five year old voice from the back seat say with his little five year old lisp, "Mitchell's mom, isn't it a beautiful day?" Yes, yes it is. It is sunny yet crisp, and flowers and trees are blooming bright everywhere.

I still have to use the big barf cup in the car. Driving rarely fails to make me puke. There is still a sink full of dishes in the sink and three loads of laundry on my bed that don't have a prayer of getting done by me today. This means that there isn't much hope of them getting done at all. There is still a two year old at home that will require my assistance all day and still needs a missing bathing suit for swim lessons.

And yet, it is a beautiful day. I wouldn't miss it for the world.

Pregnant dreams

Crazy! I have the craziest dreams when I am pregnant. Nothing is out of bounds, and nothing at all has to make any sense.

The other night I dreamt that my mom and my sister were setting me up on a date with my 8th grade boyfriend. And that sister was pregnant. (Don't worry, this dream was rated G)This is physically impossible for this particular sister, and my mom is in Germany. It is weird on so many levels. I don't know what happened to Wendell, but in the dream I still had 4 kids and I was still pregnant. But I remember thinking in my dream, "He is 31 like me, I wonder why he never got married?" Now, this is funny, because I went to his wedding! and I know his wife and have met all of his kids. Nothing but strangeness and incongruity in this dream.

The next night I dreamed that we lived at South Carlsbad. That is the state beach we used to camp at when we were kids. Now, while it would be lovely to live on the beach, you could never live at South Carlsbad. There is too much dirt. And who can share a bathroom for that long? Anyhow, while we were living there, all of our meals were served to us. One evening we were served some kind of yellow alcoholic beverage. I thought it looked like lemonade, and I wanted to try it. Wendell didn't want me to. I had a sip anyway and it was disgusting. gross. If you ever want to try alcohol in your dreams because you know you never would in real life, don't do it. It's gross;)

The next night I dreamed that our good friend and neighbor came over. Now, why would this be strange, you ask? Well, recently I have been sick as a dog and the house has surely suffered. And even on a good day my house is never as clean as this neighbor's house. There has been a time or two that this guy has been to our house to drop something off or pick something up and the house was messy enough for me to be embarrassed by the view from the front door. That is just sad, I know. But in my dream he was all over My house. Messy kid rooms, cluttered garage and all. He was urging me to have a garage sale.;)

Anyhow, I am tagging all of you who are pregnant ( you know who you are. Marg, Kim, Melanie,Rhonda, am I missing anyone?) to tell me your weirdest recent pregnant dreams. I know you have them. And anyone who ever was pregnant, if you can remember yours, feel free to share.

Thanks, Melanie!

So, I have been watching as Melanie has been redoing a few of our other friends' blogs and admiring her work. I may have mentioned this to her (O.K a few times;) and she offered to do mine for me! This was fabulous because, for one thing, I don't have photoshop, and for another thing, I wouldn't know what to do with it even if I did!

I gave her a few ideas and a few colors I am digging right now, and she incorporated all of them! I told her that "the Clan Macnab" is the name of the centuries old Scottish clan that Wendell's family comes from,(O.K- I realize that may be obvious to some of you;)and she was able to use some paisley paper in her design to bring out the Scottish in us. I told her the colors I was loving right now and she used them all.

That's talent. I don't know how long it took her, But I know I e mailed her about it this morning, and when I checked my blog again tonight, it had changed. She has three cute little kids, and is pregnant with her 4th and is a very busy mom and wife! I appreciate the time and thought.

Thanks Melanie!

Renaissance Days

The Montessori classes at Mitchell's school decided to have a little mini Renaissance festival to correlate with the European unit they just finished. It was enlightening and a lot of fun!

The day started off with a little play depicting the caste system and the changes the Renaissance brought.

Next the kids were able to make their own crown and shield. They learned about how different families were depicted by different colors and crests.


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Poor Mitchell got in huge trouble and ended up in the stocks! (j/k. he was very good the whole time. You can tell the kid is not really suffering.)

Here they are, the royalty of the school.

They had a very authentic spread for snacks. They had different types of breads and cheeses. And I mean ALL different kinds! I think the mothers enjoyed the cheeses the most. I know I did! It went perfectly with the sourdough, pumpernickel, rye, etc. And of course the super dark peasant type of bread.(yes, that IS the official name;)I hope there isn't anything to that warning to pregnant women not to eat soft cheeses!;)They had wine(grape juice) and Ale (as in "ginger") which was Brenley's favorite part. all kinds of fruits, and figs. Delightful..

Then the kids got to have their faces painted, and go around a real maypole!(O.K- confession time. Brenley did not want to wait to get her face painted. Or I didn't. Whatever. SO they had two kids sitting there painting faces with little grease paint crayons. They had like fifty crayons, and were only using maybe 4 at a time. So I asked them if I could just use a couple of crayons, and drew two flowers on Brenner's face. I was done in two minutes, and it was much easier then sitting in a long line!)

They really went all out, and did a great job. And a good time was had by all.

No big shocker here...I wonder if Wendell knows?;)

I feel loved when...

The Five Love Languages

My Primary Love Language is Acts of Service

My Detailed Results:
Acts of Service:	11
Words of Affirmation:	7
Receiving Gifts:	4
Physical Touch:	4
Quality Time:	4

About this quiz

Unhappiness in relationships is often due to the fact that we speak different love languages. It can be helpful to know what language you speak and what language those around you speak.

Tag 3 people so they can find out what their love language is.

Take the Quiz!
Check out the Book

Fabulous Weekend

O.K- this is going to be such a great weekend. Can you guess why? Because nobody is moving this weekend? Yes, that is part of it. But not all of it.

It is Conference weekend! Yeah! i love, love, love conference weekend. I look forward to it for six months.

Did I learn to love it even more when our church time switched from 9:00 to 8:00? Maybe. DO I love snuggling on the couch with my kids to watch "church" a little better then sitting in the chapel? Possibly.

But that is not really the point. I love to listen to our prophet. I am so grateful to be a part of a church that includes continuing revelation. There is something so fabulous about sitting down to listen to what our Heavenly Father intends for us to hear right now. How can any church subsist without it?


I am so grateful for our gospel. I am grateful that our Heavenly Father loves us enough to communicate with us through our scriptures, our own prayers, and our prophet.

Have a great Conference weekend!

Random question tag

O.K I got tagged by Julie on Saturday. She called it a "Saturday Social Tag". Today is Thursday. I know I am a total slacker. It is actually a smidgen ironic that I took so long, given the question. I was quite flattered to be tagged, as this is my first time. So thanks Julie!

Question- Are you a procrastinator? Um....yes! I am the queen of procrastination. I know some of you may think that title belongs to you, but you would be wrong. What do I procrastinate? Everything. I am the type of girl who will take my kids and leave the house because I don't want to clean it right now.

I started young, of course. I was the girl you would find frantically trying to finish her homework at her desk before the bell rings. My friends knew they could call me at anytime in the middle of the night on the night before a physics test because I had procrastinated studying until the night before. High school and college included many unnecessary all nighters. Yes, you could find me sprinting to class from the ASU library ten minutes before a term paper was due, praying I would get to class on time. (No I didn't have a computer and printer in my apartment. No laptop. This was 1994, people, and we didn't have such things.)

What do I procrastinate on now? Well, everything. I end up having to skip the gym on Mondays (when I am not barfing) because my grandma comes over at naptime and my house has to be at least semi presentable. Sad, I know.

I procrastinate getting my Art Masterpiece packet until the day before I teach it. It takes me at least a day to gain an appreciation for an artist I have no natural inclination towards. Most artists I naturally like right away, but I have been heard to say at midnight," I still don't like Jackson Pollack. He is not a nice person and his work is a crock". Besides, some artists were brilliant but crazy. It takes me some time to come up with a way to showcase the crazies to little kids in a positive light. I don't know why he cut off his ear/ cheated on his wife. he was crazy.

My husband and I have been known to sleep with a load of laundry between us because I procrastinated folding it until I was too tired. Sad but true.

So there you have it. I am computer illiterate and don't know how to do a link without just giving the email address. SO if you want to e mail me with instructions, feel free.

I am tagging Kim at http://benandkimsfamily.blogspot.com/, My little sister Callie at http://callieandbryce.blogspot.com/ My friend Krista at http://frankieandkrista.blogspot.com/ and my sister Jannalee at http://danjanand7.blogspot.com/

This is my first time and these are totally random. Enjoy!