Lessons Learned in Lava

So... we went to Lava Hotsprings for our annual family trip.  We floated the river, we soaked in hot pools, we played Ultimate Frisbee (poor Kell sprained her ankle the first like 3 minutes in!), we swam at the pool, we played games, squished pennies on the railroad tracks, and did hair wraps in each other's hair.  It was all the usual and fun things we do in Lava!

However, for me, this was not my favorite event of the summer this year.  It was the end of a flurry of busy busy weeks. Since arriving home from Alaska we had hit the ground running and not stopped.  I have already posted aaaaall the stuff we did, but it seriously seemed to suck the life out of me.  Though it took me a long long time to figure out that I was stressed.  I felt busy and overwhelmed with to-do lists, but didn't realize the toll it was taking until we got to Lava and Malcolm was freaking out over swimming in the water, I was frustrated, and then SNAP!  I'm at the pool, in the glorious sunshine, surrounded by loved ones and a place that is usually one of my "happy places" and I'm not happy.  I felt drained, fatigued, and sad sad sad.  I was crying at the pool.  In the peak of summer sunshine happy happy joy joy-ness!  I was just done and so tired of being tired and unhappy.  It didn't go away either.  I felt sadder and sadder until I was finally wondering if I needed clinical help.  I looked back on the weeks previous and though there were bright spots of happy times, I felt like I wasn't liking life.  I didn't like my children, I didn't like anything.  I felt like all I wanted to do was stay in bed and sleep away everything because in sleep there isn't anything.  Bad signs!

After much prayer and examining of what I was prioritizing my life on, I decided there was a good chance it was just stress, and poor management of it.  I had crammed my schedule full and was focused more on the cleanliness of my house or what people would think of ___.  So I made a game plan that I shared with Ryan.  That I would end each day by putting all the stuff away.  It drove me crazy to wake up to yesterday's mess when today's mess was just starting.  I tried harder to start the day before the kids got up.  Even if it was only to be awake before Malcolm came into my room so I was just mentally more prepared to be 'up'.  And I tried to pray in the morning before starting every day.  I put less stress on getting exercise, and tried to just fit in some core strengthening exercises to get a good base.  I let just a little be enough and tried not to feel guilty that I wasn't say, running 30 min. or getting my heart rate up.

And you know what?!

Nope, not what you think.  It wasn't over night.  it wasn't night and day.  It wasn't a light switch suddenly turned on.  It was very gradual.  Day by day I tried to let my burdens go.  I tried to focus on playing with my kids rather than cleaning the house--which was made easier by the fact it was clean at the start of the day now.  I could focus on them more.  And after a week-- last week in fact-- a whole week, I feel better.  I like life again!  I like my children and can find the joy in their presence again.  I'm more patient.  I'm living rather than surviving.

It still takes daily effort to refocus my brain.  Plus the prep work for tomorrow before I go to bed at night.  I have to be purposefully a part of life.  It's weird. It's not like any major life event happened.  No one died. I just let weeks and weeks go by where I let myself get dragged down.  You know that whole frog in boiling water thing?

I still have had days where I lose focus--usually particularly tiring ones--where I almost feel that downward drag again.  (Hence the post back a ways titled "Enough".  Not posted on a good day...)

I also try to not focus on the fact that I think it's silly I should feel this way at all.  What do I have to be sad about?  Life right now is good!  But the fact is, that I did feel that way.

I don't want this post to be dreary, it's a good thing!  A life lesson learned.  That no matter how "right" life is going, the snares are there and you can get caught.

So... yep, that's all.  Stuff is good now!  I'm happy!  Yay!

The End...ish.  :)



Oh!  and another thing... After that week of de-stressing, I lost weight!  LOTS of weight.  I'm now 5 lbs away from goal weight and my clothes are falling off me.  It's amazing what stress does to your body.

Elliot: 6 Months

The months wizz by!

Here's Elliot at 6 months old.

The Stats:

Wt: 12.4 lbs (1%)

Length: 25.8 in (47%)

Head: 16.1 (11%)

As her pediatrician says, "she's not the fat girl at the party".  But she's still growing and progressing.  We tried to start baby foods.  Tried and tried.  She hates pureed food.  She spits it out and gags on it.  We've since given her just little pieces of this and that and she likes solids much better.  She has had a recent set back in her sleep.  She wakes more often at night on a regular basis.  I still feel fairly rested after a night, but it's getting really old to say the least.  She's digging wearing cloth diapers most of the time.  She still smiles a ton and can roll from front to back and back to front.  She is in to EVERYTHING she can reach.  We're in trouble when she's mobile. She squeals rather than laughs and just last week has started making 'm' sounds.  "muh muh muh"  So pretty  much your standard 6 month old.  Still working on the sitting independently thing.  Oh!  and she has teeth!  You can see them if you look real close in her smiling pictures.  We just love love love her!  What more can I say? Pictures speak louder than words though, so here, enjoy some of those:

She's like an old toothless lady! ha ha!

She looks like a doll!

A Wedding Week

I mentioned that the weeks leading up to Kevin and Lisa's wedding were busy.  The few days before were really busy!  We hosted a get together with a bunch of Ryan's family who wanted to be able to visit with Brad and Julie while they stayed with us.  Then we had the endowment session with Lisa, Malcolm's birthday, a wedding rehearsal dinner type dinner that night, then I had to work.  Luckily the wedding was in the afternoon so I could sleep in the morning before all the wedding stuff that night.  Mal, Elle, and I got to play with the Hibberts a bit before they went to their family reunion in Heber, and then.... well, no and then.  It was just lots of stuff in a small amount of time.  We had lots of fun and got to visit with lots of family.  Weddings are a special time for everyone, really.  Here's some pictures from all of that stuff...  (My blog post are so journalistic these days.  'and then... and then... and then...'  meh.  What can you do.  It's the only journal/photo album I have!) 

Heading into the Draper temple for Lisa's endowment.  We drove up to the temple and were pulling in the parking lot and I was just overwhelmed to tears brimming in my eyes because it had been SO long since I'd been in the temple.  I really miss being able to go more regularly.  I feel like there's a babysitter quota we reach every month with so many other things I hate to ask someone yet AGAIN to watch my kids.

Grandpa!

Some more wedding photos from my phone.

Laura caught these of Malcolm and Denali.  So funny!  They look like highschool dance photos.

This is my current phone wallpaper.  His face and everything!  SO malcolm.  Photo cred: Lindsay Hibbert.

We went to Scheels and then to lunch with the Hibberts.  So fun riding the ferris wheel! Malcolm was too short and too chicken.  

Waiting down below with Auntie Lindsay

Kevin and Lisa Get Married!

This month, Ryan's brother Kevin got married.  It was nice to see all the Green family so soon, and to have excuses to go to the temple so often in close succession.  We went to the endowment session that Lisa did her live session in the morning before Malcolm's birthday party.  My parents were nice enough to watch Malcolm and Elliot the next day for the sealing. It was a lovely, though hot and stuffy day.  The pictures outside the temple were very toasty!  We got the hibberts, Vo and Jared, and Paul to try JCW's on the way to the reception, and the reception was infinitely more comfortable as it was up the canyon.  Lisa is a really lovely girl and we are so happy for Kevin and Lisa.  We've seen them recently and they still seem to be their happy selves!  Yay for newlyweds and weddings and pretty stuff!  (I know, I'm so eloquent.)

The "Green side"

When we got in the car afterward, Malcolm said, "I don't like pictures".