Traveling with kids

Growing up my parents took my brother and I everywhere they went. The instilled a great love of travel in me. I want to do the same for my children. I feel that it is important for kids to learn about different cultures and places and people not just from a geography book but by being there. You can't fully understand a culture until living in it. And while living in a foreign country is not an option for us at this time, traveling is. So this summer we decided to take a month off of very hot Arizona and head over to Europe for some hot and very humid weather. I grew up in Romania and I wanted the kids to see the places where I spent my youth and enjoy the beauty that this country has. We also decided to take a 10 day trip to Italy while in Europe. I will expand on our travels over the next few posts but I just wanted to say this...traveling with 4 little kids will turn a lot of heads and plenty people will comment on your sanity. Was it insane? Yes at times it was. Kids are kids no matter how much beauty surrounds them. They will get tired, they will get hungry, they will be grumpy at times. And ours were all of those multiple times. However, they will also learn to appreciate their surroundings so much more. They will be more willing to try new foods when they are hungry and that is the only option for food. No matter how hard the bed they will sleep just fine. But first and foremost, they will have memories that will last forever. We have tried to do a lot of the touristy things and also the fun for kids things. We incorporated stories in the sites to make it all come to life. 

Overall the time that we have had with our children during this trip has been absolutely amazing. We have learned a lot about each other and are excited to travel some more. 

Writing

Do you ever feel like you have so much to say but don't think anyone will care to listen? I feel like that all the time; or at least a lot of the time. I feel like I have ideas and lessons I have learned that I would love to share but my insecurities get in the way of my putting my thoughts on paper. "I am not a writer" I think to myself. Or "what would it matter to anyone else?" And you know what...that is very true. I am not a writer and I don't think anyone should care about what I have to say. BUT, I have decided to write anyways. :) So while I don't think anyone is reading this blog anymore anyways I am now choosing to write.

Matt

Oh my how I love this sweet boy! He is so much fun. His smile melts my heart and I wish I could freeze that toothless grin.

 As you can see he is quite the stylish little guy.

And he is now learning to dive which is so fun to watch!

9 years old

It was 9 years ago today that we became parents; and not just parents but parents of twins! I remember standing there looking at them sleeping and thinking to myself...THERE ARE TWO OF THEM! And yes there are two! Twice the trouble but also twice the fun. Twice the parent/teacher conferences, twice the amount of school parties to attend, twice the joy in seeing my kids grow and become.

While a lot of things have changed in the last nine years I find that some are somewhat the same. We get a lot more sleep than we did back in those days and our children can, for the most part, get themselves dressed and feed. It is funny to think that while our children grow and develop we still worry about similar things to the ones we did when they were only babies.

Lizzy is the sweetest big sister. She is very confident in her own abilities and is a great friend. 

 Will is such a fun big brother! He is always coming up with fun projects to do. I am always amazed at how creative he is.

I am so grateful that these 2 made me a mom 9 years ago!

Becca

I wanted to write a post about this little girl because she is such a funny kid! She rarely stops talking and there are so many stories and one liners that come from her that I wish I had a camera following her every move. 

She is so much fun! Her love of life and her laughter are infectious. She is a little fish in the water as you can see from the pictures that follow.

 At swim lessons there is always a smile on her face.

 She LOVES treats! This is a girl after my own heart...always up for some chocolate. I have found some many candy wrappers by her bed because she sneaks candy upstairs so she can eat it in peace.

Today I was able to capture this picture as she was heading for her nap. Piggy tails because her dad loves them, dragging her favorite blankie and carrying her "sleepy bear". It melted my heart to watch her walk around like that. 

While parenting is hard and often times I have moments when I would gladly walk away from it all it is moments like this when I am so grateful to be a mom. I want to freeze time so that I can enjoy those piggies longer. I want to be able to enjoy the fact that she can't say her Rs and "girl" sounds more like "gil". I want to never forget her holding "sleepy bear" during family prayer because he was "asleep in her arms". I want to enjoy her coming in the middle of the night and asking me if she can sleep in my arms. Life is good when we choose to see the good and have a grateful heart. 

Positivity

Scott has been gone for over a week now and will not be home till Wednesday eve. The day after he left the kids started with a stomach bug which made for a lot of cleaning up for me as well as a lot of laundry and sleepless nights. It hasn't been the nest week. And in the beginning I got so frustrated and mad! I was ALONE! Alone to deal with all of this, with no one to help carry the burden. I cried, wrote exactly what I thought about motherhood and indulged in cheesecake and DrPepper. Then Saturday came and for some reason I woke up feeling more positive. Not sure what made the difference (maybe that I actually got some sleep) but something did. So I decided it was time to train the kids to clean at least their own bathroom. That proved to be such a fun thing that they continued to the other bathrooms as well! SO EXCITING! Then we played for a little bit and were about to lay Becca down for her nap and make plans for the rest of the afternoon when Matt threw up AGAIN! He was the one that started us with this last Sunday! I thought...REALLY? But something was different this time. Instead of being mad and frustrated with the situation, I actually started laughing. Not that it was anything to laugh about because the poor kid was not feeling well at all but because that was all that I could do at that time to not go insane. And you know what??? It helped! It helped me keep positive though him not feeling well all evening, waking up at midnight wanting a drink because he was so dehydrated and then through Becca and Lizzy both throwing up in the middle of the night. I only got 2 hours of sleep last night and cleaned up a lot of puke but I was not bugged with it. So I sit here and as I was thinking about this whole past week and the amount of sickness I realized something. In life there will always be trials. That will never change. The trials will change but we will always have them. Our challenge is how we bear those trials. Will we murmur like I was doing a few days ago or will we chose to be positive like I chose this weekend? When we are positive trials are easier to bear. Now, I know that choosing to be positive is not always something we can do. I have been there where I want to be positive so badly but it just isn't going to happen. So I just do the best I can. But when we can, let's just choose to be happy and positive. :)

Thoughts on Motherhood

With Mother's day tomorrow I have been thinking a lot about what it means to be a mom. I know a lot of people will say it is rewarding and amazing and all that but there is a side that we don;t always talk about. Motherhood is HARD! When I celebrated my first Mothers Day 7 year ago it was truly a happy day. I mean how could it not be?! I had spent 10 weeks on bed rest hoping a praying for two healthy babies. now that they were here nothing could be better. I could bear the middle of the night feedings, the endless number of diapers and laundry, the constant smell of throw up on my clothes because that is just what a mother does. But then the tine went on and that got a little old. And then we had more kids and that made it even more difficult. And so here we are today. I am a mother of 4 and most days I love it. I have great kids and I am very proud of them. But then there are a lot of times when I sit back and realize that I have lost my self. When we got married Scott and I agreed that I would stay home with the kids and he would work hard to provide for us. So when the kids came we did just that. What I was not prepared for is what came with that commitment. I don't have adult conversations most days (my husband travels a lot for work) and i don't listen to the news because i really don;t have the time. It seems that most days all I do is clean, cook, bathe, help with homework and discipline. I go to bed late and tired and wake up tired only to do it over again. I have slowly let myself go and am having a hard time defining who I am other that the mother of these adorable 4 kids. So...is that all a bad thing? It depends on the day. I have not yet figured out what it is that I can and need to do to get out of this funk but for right now i can tell you that motherhood is HARD. Very hard. And you sacrifice a lot of who you are to be a mom. And i know people say it goes by so quick and I know it does. I have 7 year old twins! When did that happen? But in the moment it is hard. and though my kids may thank me one day, right now they don't and that is hard. It will get better with time I know. I have to focus on the positives and take it all one day at a time. It will be worth it in the end, right?

Updated family picture

This is the most recent family picture we have so though I am sure no one reads this blog anymore we should still document that our family has changed some since the last pictures posted. Will and Lizzy are finishing first grade and are very excited to be second graders. Not sure they understand that with growing up comes more responsibility and life really doesn't get easier, but we will let them figure that out.
On a different note, we have been putting in a pool and it has been a very fascinating and at the same time frustrating process. We are getting very close to the end of it and will be very happy to have a pool to swim in over the summer. We really love Arizona and love being close to family. The neighborhood is great and the ward here has been awesome. Change is hard even if it is the right thing but we have loved this new adventure.

Changes

I guess it has been a very long time since we updated the blog. A lot has happened since the last post. The most important event that has not been recorded here is the birth of our sweet Rebecca Simona on March 11 2014. Yes, she is 2 years old right now and makes sure daily that she is our last child. We all adore her and are so grateful for her safe arrival. AS with my other pregnancies there were complications and we had to have her a day short of 34 weeks. She spent 2 1/2 weeks in the NICU but all was well and we were grateful to be able to bring her home and have our family reunited and complete.

I do feel very blessed to have 4 healthy children with all the complications we have had every time. I need to upload a recent picture of all the kids and post to see how grown up they all look. It is scary how fast time flies. 

After Becca was born Scott took a different position with BREG and he has been traveling a lot. That has been quite a change for all of us since we gave been so used to being together and enjoy that quite a bit. So that has been quite the adjustment. We then proceeded to remodel the entire house and have lived through some crazy things majority of which were done while Scott was out of the country. That has been very hard for me and I have felt alone a lot of times. 

In September 2014 I became a US Citizen. I am very grateful for the country I was born in and also for this amazing country that I get to raise a family in.

While we were in the middle of the remodel we have felt that our time in Florida had come to an end. It was a hard feeling to have since we have loved our life there and our friends and almost everything about it. But when you feel so strongly, against your own will really, that you need to go...you just have to do it. So 2 weeks after finishing all the remodel we put the house up for sale and started trying to figure out where we should go. Arizona seemed like the right place since Scott's family was there but he was not to sure about it and we were both wanting to explore other options. So we rented a car and we drove to Tennessee to visit our dear friends Chad and Melanie Gray. There was a lot of beauty along the way which made me think Atlanta could be a great place but it didn't feel right.

 We fell in love with Nashville but that didn't feel right either. Then the kids and I drove to Alabama to visit my friend Lori and loved every minute of the trip but it didn't feel right either. So on we went with trying to figure it out but it became more and more clear that Arizona was the place. So upon the sale of the house we packed up and moved to Peoria Arizona. Hard to believe we live here now but so grateful for the Lord's hand in guiding us. We really feel that we have been led here by the hand of the Lord. Staring with the fact that we needed to be in Arizona but also to which neighborhood we needed to be in and which house. I do often feel that the Lord has his plan for us and I just need to kick back and enjoy the ride. That is of course easier said than done especially since it has not been without hard times along the way. 

And as if this was not enough, we have also felt that Scott needed to do his MBA. So he embarked on this adventure too leaving me feel like a single mother. He is often traveling or in his office studying. We only have till December before he graduates but there are times i don't feel I will make it. But I am sure we will make it and look back on this time and be very grateful for the lessons we have learned and the experiences we have had. 

Loving Florida

We have lived here for almost 6 years now and we absolutely love it! It is such a beautiful place with so much to do and see. So we decided that we wanted to explore more and made a plan. Every month we pick a weekend and get in the car, get on Hotwire and pick a place within a 4 hour driving radius that has the best hotel deal for the weekend and we head off. It has been so fun! The kids love that they get to go to a hotel and have a sleep over with mom and dad, and we always make sure there is free breakfast, which everyone enjoys. :) Here are pictures from one of those adventures.

 

We have also gone to a couple baseball games since both Will and Matt love baseball and Lizzy is kind enough to humor her brothers. :)