Mothers Day

Mother's Day, I used to hate this day. I don't mind it so much anymore. I think I hated it because I felt like such a terrible mother. After yelling at the kids all morning to get ready so we wouldn't be late for church and then listening to speakers talk about how perfect their mothers were, well, you get the idea.

With everyone gone now, it's different. I still have my anxiety about not being the greatest mom, but now I can look forward to spending the day with family that I love so much. It's hard to get through those years with babies and young children. When my husband was bishop in our ward, I used to beg him to change up the sacrament meeting a little on Mother's Day. I wanted to hear from moms. I wanted to hear from a new mom, a mom of teenagers and a grandmother. I also wanted to hear from a childless women. I wanted it to be real!  Of course he wouldn't do it. Maybe that was wise, but I'd like to see it happen just once.

So what I'm really saying is that Mother's Day is filled with many different emotions for me. Right now I am feeling gratitude for my own mom. She is my champion for anything I do. Do you know what it's like to have someone believe in you all of the time?  I do. That someone would be my mom. I believe she would do anything for me and my kids. I am grateful for her example and unconditional love.

I am also amazed at what really good moms my two daughters and daughter in law are. They have the patience that I never had. They are raising the children who I love most right now and they are doing fantastic jobs of it. They put up with my opinions, take what they want and ignore the rest, which is fine with me. You three are wonderful so don't get discouraged.

Happy Mother's Day to everyone!

Tribute to my Father

I was a Daddy's girl.  I always knew it and I loved it.  I knew that my dad would do almost anything for me.  I don't think that I ever took advantage of this knowledge, at least not intentionally. There were times while growing up, when I wished I had a sister, but those times were fleeting.  Most of the time I really didn't mind being the only girl because I was my dad's girl.  

He always called me "Jo".  Jo is my middle name and he was the only one who ALWAYS called me by that name. While he was in the nursing home, he still called me Jo. 

He was a wonderful father.  It was always obvious to me that he loved us all dearly. He introduced me to skiing, golfing, fishing, family day drives to the Mill to fish or shoot clay pigeons. We went to tons of movies as a family and if the movie we wanted to see wasn't playing in Logan, we traveled to Ogden or Salt Lake to see it. The only one we didn't leave town to see was "The Sound of Music".  He hated musicals and so we had to wait over a year for it to open in Logan. 

He had a great sense of humor!  I loved that about him!  He always had a funny come back for anything. My mom was the brunt of most of his jokes but she took it well. That sense of humor never left him. The nursing home staff loved him, even though he was confused at times, he was always good for something funny. 

He loved kids. Grand kids and Great Grand kids were everything to him!  He loved to have them around and he always wanted to make sure he had a new toy to give to them. No matter what was going on with him, he always wanted to know if I or anyone else needed anything. He always wanted to know if I was feeling okay and he was great for my ego because he always thought I looked too thin. 

He knew how to work and it was important to him. When I went back to school and then work, he drove out to my house in the early mornings and worked on my yard. It was wonderful to have all of that help. 

He was my biggest cheerleader, I could do no wrong in his eyes and I felt the same about him. I hope that I never disappointed him, it would crush me to know it if I did.  

October 2012

 

In October we celebrated Brynly's 6th birthday.  Bryn and I went to lunch and then we shopped for her presents.  She got to pick out (with in a price limit) toys and clothes.

 

We also celebrated Halloween with the kids and had a great time as we watched them trick or treat.  Baine is missing from this picture because they hadn't arrived yet.  Jax is dressed as Grandpa Brooks, greasy and all.  Bryn is a skeleton/punk girl, Molly is, of course, the princess Cinderella, Mac is our newest Dairy cow and Bo is and orange haired Bronco fan/punker while he watches over Mac. Baine was dressed as Mickey Mouse in preparation for our trip to Disney Land.

 

Major catch-up!! September, 2012

September 24 we celebrated Kara's birthday and also the birth of Kade and Jessica's baby boy Mac!

He has turned into the sweetest baby and I hope he stays that way.  Molly is thrilled to be a big sister and is especially good with him.

 

New toy

I don't really know if anyone really reads my blog much, but I guess it really doesn't  matter since this is mostly a journal for me.   I have found this to be a perfect way for me to journal and then at the end of the year, make a book. Of course I can't put everything out here for all to read but it really works well for me.  I have much to blog about and to catch up on, but right now I'm enjoying my birthday present from my kids and husband.  They gave me an iPad and I can't stay away from it! I love it!

Catch up!

It's time to catch up on the Tarbet happenings.  Since this is a journal of sorts for us, I need to do a little better job of posting.

We had another fun 4th of July in Lewiston this year.  I think my kids love Lewiston 4th celebrations almost more than Christmas.  The park had the bounce houses up but this is the only picture I got.  You can see Bo just behind Molly. 

This is a picture of Grandma and Grandpa Tarbet with all of the grandchildren and great grandchildren.  (minus Kent's family)

Baines birthday is also in July.  Baine turned two this year.  He seems older than that to me.  Maybe because he's so smart.  I know, we all think our grandchildren are the smartest.  Well, it's true in my case!

Baine is opening the gift that Brooks and I gave to him.  He handled this birthday quite a bit better than last year.

Kelsey goes to the nursing home to cut my dads hair when he needs it.  This last time, she took a picture of Baine with my dad.  My dad totally loves the little grandchildren and he talks about Baine all the time.  It's kind of funny, he doesn't remember alot of things.  Most of the time he is quite confused, but he always LOVES the grand kids and talks about most of them often.

Last Saturday we reserved the pavilion at the church next to the nursing home and brought my dad over and had a family party.  We missed a couple of families that couldn't be there but I think my dad really enjoyed himself.  He didn't eat much.  That's another funny thing, he loves the nursing home food and he didn't like what we brought for him to eat that day.  I can tell you that a year ago he would not have even taken a sniff of the nursing home food!  Not that it's bad food, he just felt that way about it.

We wanted to get a picture of Mom and Dad with as many of the great grand kids as possible that day.  I love these next two pictures.  I love how my dad has his arm around Jaxon.  I love how Brynly is always the little mother.  Notice her holding Baines hand and her arm around Bo.  I love how Molly was so happy to be with her cousins from daycare.

Julie's baby was crying and notice everyone looking at her except Molly (still cheesing for the camera) and Jaxon. (not interested in babies).

It was fun and easy to do and I hope we can do it again.

May Recap

Time has certainly flown by.  I have not blogged much lately.  I've had a hard time coming up with things to blog about.  I have been quite busy so I'm not sure why I can't think of anything to write about. 

We had some warmer weather and so Kara, Kelsey and I took the kids to the park.  Jessica was working and I was tending Molly that day.  I guess I only took this one picture that day.

We celebrated Grandpa Del's birthday again at Maddox this year.  Everyone was there except our niece Raquel and Kara and Bryn.  Bryn was sick that day.

Jaxon took one look at the kids menu and asked if that was the only choices he had!  He ended up ordering from the regular menu and really enjoyed his dinner.

We also enjoyed another Spring soccer season with some fairly nice weather.  Jax was invited to play on a new team and they finished their season competing in and winning the Kohl's Cup.  Jax has wanted to do this since he started playing.

We also found that Kade and Jessica are having a baby boy and we can hardly wait!  I pray every day that this one will be calm and easy for them.  This is nothing new for me.  I pray for all my kids to have healthy, happy babies. I'm not sure the calm part has ever worked yet.