The Summer of Sugar Cereal

I haven't written in a while, 25% because our laptop is out of commission  (and I hate typing on our tablet, #firstworldproblem,) and 75% because I've been feeling like garbage because... I'm pregnant! I am so excited for this baby (it's a boy! Woot!) But this pregnancy has been really hard. Hard on me, hard on Brad, hard on Amelia. I'm pretty sure Baby Brother is just swimming in there oblivious to the havoc he has caused. I was miserably sick for the first twenty weeks with Amelia (and then again the last 8 weeks), but this pregnancy makes that look like a walk in the park. Nearly every day until week 23 was a fight to stay hydrated enough to keep out of the ER. That sounds very dramatic, and now that I'm starting to feel better I wonder if I exaggerated it, but I don't think so. It has been miserable. I still lose my breakfast almost every day, and occasionally another meal, too, but I don't throw up between meals anymore and that is a beautiful thing.

I pretty much gave up on life for a few months. My goal for every day was to keep my toddler and my baby alive and me out of the ER. Amelia and Brad ate a lot of burritos. I ate, well, whatever didn't make me gag, and what I knew wouldn't be miserable coming back up. Brad did all the laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping, and bathing of the babe when he got home from work. I left the house for docor appointments and church if I was having a good day and that is it. Homesickness set in hard. I just wanted to be in Utah where my mom could come and take care of me. Brad and Lauren did a great job at taking care of me, but they both work full time and I just kept wishing for someone to stroke my hair and change all the diapers. Amelia did her very best at taking care of me. She was good at bringing me books to read to her while I laid on the couch or in bed, and patting my back and saying "Gross, gross!" while I threw up. Then she would get bored, shut the toilet lid on my head, and sign "All done!"

There have been lots of tears of frustration in the last few months and lots of guilt over not playing with my toddler, and not glowing with excitement over the precious life I get to carry. Baby Boy I love you so much, but I have not been able to feel all the excitement I wanted to feel. I have been too sick.

This will always be known to me as "The Summer of Sugar Cereal" because for the first time in our married  life we gave up on being cheap and started buying cereal every week. (For anyone out there wondering, cereal is way easier to throw up then most other breakfast foods.) I don't know when we'll start having normal breakfasts again. Hopefully soon or we may all get scurvy.

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest, internet. Sometimes I just need to tell someone that life has been really hard for me, even when it's supposed to be so great.

Mother's Day Goals

Mother's Day is a hard day for a lot of women. It's a day of mourning for many- mourning for children lost or not yet born, mourning for mothers that have been lost to death or estrangement. I wish I could take away that pain for the women around me. I do pray for them every year on Mother's Day, praying for their comfort and for their hearts to heal. I wish I could do more. Maybe some day I'll figure it out.

Mother's Day is also hard for a lot of mothers because of the focus on "super-moms" who can do it all. That's a pity to me. Moms work so hard they really do deserve a day to focus on what they do well. No mom is perfect, but most do a fantastic job. To fight the temptation to compare and inevitably find myself lacking, I have decided to write a list every year on Mother's Day of things I feel like I am doing well. I want this day to be a happy one for me. So, here it is:

1. I share my love of reading with my daughter. We read books all day long. She reads them to herself, but mostly she brings them to me and Brad to read to her. Books are a constant in our lives and I love that. The library is one of our favorite places to visit.
2. I let her get dirty. It's important to me that she feels like she can explore and discover. It's part of being a toddler. I let her feed herself, even though it makes a huge mess. I let her play in the dirt even though it creates more laundry. She loves it.
   
3. I give lots of hugs, kisses, and snuggles. Physical affection is important and I offer it all day long.
4. I let her pick her own outfits. I don't have a great sense of style, and neither does she, but she has fun with it.

   

   This girl loves her panda pajamas and her butterfly sandals and often requests to wear them together. Why not. They're both pink, right?

5. I silly dance with her. We spend a lot of time every day turning on music and dancing until we drop. Her dance moves are much better than mine.
6. I work to maintain a good relationship with her daddy. I try to model healthy relationship behaviors for my daughter. I want her to see how a good marriage works, which means I have to keep improving ours.

   

   Not the best picture, we really struggled taking pictures last night. Amelia was not in the mood.

7. I call grandma every day and let her talk. It's hilarious to watch her gab to my mom. Neither of us have any idea what she's saying, but she has a lot to tell her grandma.

I am not a perfect mom, but I am trying and I'm getting better at it. I'm trying to show her by example that you don't have to be perfect to love yourself and that you can see imperfections without being overcome by shame. I'm working on that. Hopefully I'll be better next year.

Still working on this motherhood thing.

Apparently being held upside down is hilarious. Who knew.

What I Learned From Peter

My mom flew in this weekend to see my sister perform in the Mesa Easter Pageant. 

I'm so glad we went. And not just because it's good to support your family (Lauren was great!). I was reminded of a lot of important things. Most importantly, I was reminded of the reality that the Savior lives. That he lived and died and lived again for us.

While I was watching, I thought about how Peter and the other disciples didn't comprehend that Christ was going to be resurrected, despite all that they had been taught. It seems silly almost. You've been taught so much, but you don't even realize the magnitude of Christ's sacrifice. But then I thought, neither do I. I have been taught so much. I have been blessed to have the scriptures, modern day prophets, and many teachers who have preached to me of Christ, and I still don't get it all. I don't think I understand yet how powerful the atonement is. I'm working on it. 

In the mean time, I am grateful for what I do know, and that I can keep learning, now and for eternity.

Birthday/Anniversary Celebrations

On March 6, Lauren had her birthday. I've waxed cheesy about her before, so I will leave it at, "We love you, Lauren!" and move right along. We had my Aunt Meredith and Uncle Norm over for dinner and celebrations, which was so fun. I should have taken a picture, oh well. I also tried to make her favorite Lemon Poppy Seed Cake and it failed, so she bought herself a pie. It's the thought that counts, right?

On March 10, Brad and I celebrated our fourth anniversary. Brad had to work late and I served leftovers for dinner. We are, obviously, devastatingly good at romance.

Clearly this week needed more celebration, so the four of us went to the Phoenix Zoo. 

We loved it.

I've always loved the zoo, but this might be the best one I've seen.

This was Amelia's facial expression 99.9% of the time, totally fascinated.

There is a very similar picture of Brad on his dad's lap on a tractor at the Phoenix Zoo when he was about this age, so we had to recreate it.

She had very mixed feelings about petting the goats. At first, when Brad tried to get her to touch the goat, she cried. But then, after a while, she learned to try it.

Are you sure it's not going to eat me?

She had a hard time understanding why we wouldn't let her walk through the zoo. Maybe because you walk .25 mph hour sweetheart.

It's pretty tricky to see from a stroller.

Most of the time if the animal wasn't moving very much, it was invisible to her. (Part of why we call her the T-Rex.) But, she still loved the Lions.

Goals

I didn't make a large, numbered, organized list of News Years Resolutions this year. Shocking, I know. From about age 9 and on I had a habit of making a list of goals in a variety of areas: Physical Health, Spiritual Health, Time Management, Financial, etc. etc. Every year it turns into a long list of everything I wish I could change about myself, which makes me think about all of my faults, and I achieve a few goals, but not very many. Then I'm all sad the next year when I make my list because I write the exact same goals (5k I'm looking at you, buddy.)

Last summer I read  Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin. In the book she chooses one goal a month to work on, so she doesn't get overwhelmed by the onslaught of goals at the beginning of the year, and then adds another goal the next month. That is my new plan, and I think it's going better.

My January goal was to read my scriptures every day and write down something I have learned. Although I know how much better I feel and act when I regularly study the scriptures, it has been a habit that has come in and out too many times to count. Writing down something every time I study has totally changed the habit for a couple reasons. First, it's an easy way to keep track of how often I am actually achieving my habit, which keeps me accountable. Second, because I also wrote down the time of day I was studying, I realized that I almost never read my scriptures at night. I always have good intentions about reading before bed, I think I'll have more time and be more awake. But now I realize that I will just not do it. I will convince myself to do something "more fun" at that time of the day. It is morning or rarely at all.

My February goal was to get moving more often. Vague? Yes. But necessary. I am out of shape. I don't think I've actually been in shape for very long. I was running and doing yoga fairly often around this time last year but then my work hours went up and I didn't exercise at all. This month I decided to wake up with Brad, since he has to wake up pretty early to go to work, and immediately put on exercise clothes. It has been too dark for me to feel comfortable running outside, but I've done dance and stupid aerobic youtube videos. They may be cheesy, but they get me moving, which will hopefully help me be in shape? Hopefully. But, I have been pretty successful at maintaining the habit. (2016 is finally going to be the year of the 5k!)

My March goal is not to snack throughout the day. It is March 3 and I have failed every single day. :) Oops. I probably need to write things down, like for my January goal. Bah, humbug.

It All Begins With a Squeaky Wheel

Saturday morning I took a good hard look at Amelia's gums in an attempt to figure out why the whole week had been...less than ideal. There were three little molars barely poking through her gums. Three! Molars! In one week! This explains so much.

I realize that only a mother thinks that things like molars merit an entire blog post, but to me those little buggers affect everything at home. Amelia is the sun and I am her little planet orbiting around her. Let's extend the analogy and call molars asteroids. The sun is resilient and strong, she will withstand the molars. She will bounce back, sunny and happy. The planet is going to lose all intelligent life due to lack of sleep.

On Friday I took Amelia to run errands right after nap time, figuring a well-rested baby would handle the excursion better, but I made a fatal mistake. I went before lunch.

I should have known the whole thing would go wrong when we got a cart with a crazy wheel. Through the whole store the cart kept drifting right, right, right. I'm obviously a weakling because by the end of the trip my right bicep was aching with the effort to keep my cart from running down sweet old ladies and St. Patrick's Day displays. Amelia was entertained for a few minutes because I let her pick out a new toothbrush (I gave her two choices because I'm a superfun mom), and I let her hold it. Once she was done with her toothbrush, she wanted to get down and walk. We were almost done, and I couldn't keep track of her and steer the cart from heck. She started whining. I tried my best to talk in soothing tones. She started grabbing at her seat belt which came apart and then refused to clip back together. (Why is it that all Walmart cart seat belts are always broken?) The crying increased, she tried to stand up in the cart, I tried to use my forearm as a seat belt. Old men kept passing me and saying, "Oh, looks like the little sweetheart needs a nap." (Yes, there are a lot of elderly people at the grocery store because it is February and I live in Arizona.) I gave a weak smile and continued shopping. When it became clear that she was attempting to somersault out of the cart, I finally put her on the floor. She bee-lined it for a shelf full of little tiny jello packets and knocked an entire shelf to the floor. Cleaning up the jello, I ignored all the stares, picked her up (her screams intensified as she threw herself back and slapped my face repeatedly), and went to the checkout line.

The woman ahead of me in line let me go first. She told me she has six kids and she knows how I feel. While she unloaded my groceries she gave me tips on teething pain. Thank goodness for understanding moms everywhere.

Amelia kept crying through it all. Her face was all red and splotchy, just like mine gets when I sob too long. (Between my stinky feet, my splotchy face, and my cankles,
Amelia obviously won the genetic lottery.)

She saw a bird hopping across the parking lot on the way to the car, which made her start laughing. She gurgled the entire car ride, and, well, my face was a little splotchy by the time we got home.

Amelia's favorite thing to do when she's sad is to take selfies.

12 Month Collage

I took pictures every month with the same background with the same toys for an entire year. In other words, I am a successful mother. I even wrote in my journal every month about everything new Amelia was doing. I'm a hero. Of course, I didn't post all those things on my blog like I was going to try to do, but, oh well. 

This exercise was surprisingly difficult for me. I'm not a photographer. I have no skill when it comes to composing a beautiful picture. So why do I love the collage above so much? Because every picture contains my favorite tiny human. And while the above pictures are decent, most of the pictures looked more like...

Oh well.

What I love about the progression of pictures is being able to see how much she has changed. I feel like her features changed a lot in the first 3-4 months and since then she's just gotten bigger. You can also tell that she started crawling around nine months because that's when her face started to thin out (though I think it's filling back in since she eats like crazy.) Since her features have been pretty settled for the past several months, I have started imagining what she will look like as she gets older, which is a lot of fun. What she'll look like as a three year old, or her first day of school, or when she graduates from high school. I have a feeling that she will look like her Aunt Abby when she grows up, and that would please me to no end.

Happy Stress

I've been thinking a lot lately about a conversation I had with my mom when I was newly married. I was trying to explain to her that I was enjoying all the bliss that came with being a newlywed, but that I was also feeling stressed and rundown. I felt guilty about it. I felt like I shouldn't feel the stress because we were so happy. I thought that there must be something terribly wrong with me. My mom, who has an uncanny knack for understanding how I feel, told me that the happiest things can also be stretching and growing experiences that leave you exhausted. She explained that being married was hard, and being stressed didn't mean I wasn't happy, and being happy didn't mean I wasn't stressed. The two feelings can, and often do, go together.

The last few months have been full of this emotion I call "happy-stress." I was excited to move. I am happy to be here. I think this was absolutely the right choice. And I may or may not have a smallish bald spot from tearing my hair out. (Just kidding about the bald spot, but really, the stress. Agh.)

The best method of entertaining Amelia while packing: putting her and a toy in a box.

There are so many things about moving that are hectic. Add a one year old and it gets even more fun. One of the best moments was four days before we moved. We took a much needed break from packing and went out for sushi with some of our best friends/cousins. Amelia spilled ice water all over herself (on purpose, she loves playing in water) right before we left. We stripped her down to her diaper and put on the extra onesie that we had in the diaper bag. Unfortunately, there was no extra pair of pants, so Brad had to zip her legs into his coat. (It was probably around 10 degrees outside.) And in all the craziness of leaving, we lost her pacifier. 

Cue all the parents groaning. 

Yup. Bad.

We were able to get her to sleep without it, but I knew she wouldn't stay asleep so Brad ran to Walmart to buy another one. And then they were out of her favorite kind. (This is where the background music of my life starts getting even more ominous.) Brad just decided to buy a random kind and came home.

Around 2 a.m., Amelia woke up. I offered her the new pacifier. She put in her mouth, gave it a trial suck, pulled it out, and threw it all the way across the room. Eventually, I convinced her to go back to sleep and crossed my fingers. It didn't work. She kept waking up.

Finally, at around 4:30 a.m. I went to the other Walmart in town to see if they had the right kind. They didn't. They had something that was close-ish, so I said good enough. (Thankfully it did work.) While I was there, I decided to grab more boxes from their recycling bin (Yes, this is how we got all of our boxes for the move.) Because it was a balmy 1 degree outside, by the time I was done my hands ached with the cold. I muttered "Arizona, Arizona, Arizona" all the way home to comfort myself.

My beautiful 4 a.m. Walmart trip outfit: tennis shoes, polka dot pajama pants, plaid coat, and a crazed expression. 

The most stressful part of the move was finding a place to live. The weekend before we moved, we found cheap flights through Allegiant (which meant not getting to sit by each other, and passing Amelia back and forth which was challenging since Brad sat a couple rows back and across the aisle from me. So fun.)We stayed with my Aunt Meredith and Uncle Norm, and Lauren babysat while we looked at as many apartments as we could fit in a single Saturday (Yay for wonderful family members!) We found an apartment that we really liked and a small house that we kind of liked, and kind of hated everything else. We applied for the apartment, but 24 hours later they let us know that someone had applied just minutes before us. So we applied for the house. And waited, and waited, and waited for them to get back to us. Monday at noon (we needed to move in that Saturday), we decided we had to move on. We got online to see if there were any new listings, and lo and behold, there was a house that was exactly like the other house (in the same cluster style development, same floor plan, etc.). We called, applied, ran to the bank for a cashier's check, ran to the post office to get it there as soon as possible, and it worked. And it ended up being the best option of all three. But I learned a really important thing through this process. I really hate not knowing where I'm going to live in a week.

Baby's first flight, and Mamma's first flight in 15 years.

Everything else really has gone well. Brad's parents drove our car down and entertained Amelia while Brad and I drove the moving truck. And Amelia behaved! (Or so they told me. Bless them, they are saints.) Starting in St. George on the first day of two days of driving, she has been to a park nearly every day since leaving the arctic weather of Logan, UT, and I think that has really helped her adjust.

Even with everything going so well, my happy stress has been alive and well. It feels weird to not be near family. It feels weird to figure out the layout of a new grocery store. It feels weird to go to church and hardly know anybody. (Though seeing my mother-in-law's cousin and one of my best friends from college in our ward that first Sunday was a surprise that was oh so good for my soul.) I just feel a little exhausted by it all. I'm ready for some boring.

I feel like #bringontheboring should be a thing. Introverts and homebodies unite!

Miss Independent

It took me about thirty seconds to realize I had given birth to a baby that already had a personality. The last few months of my pregnancy, Brad and I had narrowed down our name choices down to two, and were struggling to narrow it down to one. I shouldn't have worried. She was clearly too sassy for one of the choices. Amelia (though a sweet-sounding name) seemed much better equipped to hold the personality our little girl so clearly had. Because she had a rough start to life, the doctor warned us she might be sleepy for a day or so, but not so. She was awake, aware, and taking everything in from the get go.

Thirteen months later and I have not changed my mind about her personality. She likes to know what's going on around her. Before she could hold her head up, she much preferred to be in a bouncy chair than on the floor because she could see better. Now she insists on sitting in her high chair while I cook so she can see exactly what I am doing.

She also firmly believes that she can do anything, and loves to imitate what we do. She loves to scrub the floors, rock her babies, read to her babies, feed herself, etc. Anything she sees me do, she wants to do, too.

She has always preferred to feed herself, but lately she has become insistent that she can hold the bowl and maneuver the spoon on her own. Eventually she gives up and eats the soup or applesauce with her hands, but she refuses any help. Emphatically.

She also prefers to walk herself, thank you very much. And go down the slide herself. And eat the woodchips herself... She's getting very good at whining to tell me that I am helping way too much. Gosh, I hate that sound. Toddlerhood is shaping up to be a mixed bag of fun and super annoying. (Any advice on stopping temper tantrums?)

She is a little sassy. But she is also extremely nurturing. Lately she's been turning everything into a baby, from a spoon to the remote to her toys. She hugs it close, rocks back and forth, and sings. It's basically the cutest thing of my life.

And of course, her other favorite thing to do is read books. Her current favorite is Chuckling Ducklings. We read it approximately 8-10 times a day. I'm only mildly sick of it. So far.

And that is the update on what life is like with our baby girl in February 2016. Thanks for reading!

Amelia Turns One!!!

 Amelia's actual birthday passed with fairly minimal fanfare. I was so busy and stressed about the move that I decided to just keep her birthday super simple. I sang happy birthday to her several times (which she loved) and made crepes for her birthday dinner. I thought that she would like the yogurt, the blueberries, and the bananas. She didn't. She just liked the crepes.

Luckily, my mom and my mother-in-law are way better at this than me. They both made her cupcakes. Which she loved a lot.

Also, this cute crown was made by my brother-in-law. I bought the felt for it, but then we decided to move up her birthday party. I had skied all day and was too tired, so my sister, Lauren said she would sew it. Unfortunately, she didn't know how to use the sewing machine, so Bruce showed her how. And then finished. Yay for Bruce! So basically I didn't do anything for her birthday. Other than that, a year ago I gave birth to her, which made her birthday possible. So that was a pretty big deal.

It may be overdone and cheesy, but her birthday made me a little weepy. This girl has changed our lives.  She has made me stronger and more tender, more tired and more invigorated, . I feel like she has been part of this family forever, but it still surprises me that it's been a whole year. I am so thankful that I can be her mom. I hope I never stop telling her how wonderful she makes our lives. She is the silliest, sweetest, most charming little girl I have ever known.

I'll love you forever Millie-girl.

Photos by my dad.

Arizona, Here We...Are, We've Been Here for Two Weeks

We are now living in Arizona, and we love it. Amelia loves that we have been on a walk or to the park every day since we left Utah on January 15. We are excited to get to know our new ward, make new friends, start new jobs, and be closer to Lauren! The last couple months have been really exhausting and kind of a whirlwind. I never got around to sending Christmas cards, so I decided I would just post it here.

P.S. I wrote this Christmas letter three days after Christmas. I'm really winning at this procrastination thing.

Dear Friends and Family,

2015 was a big year for us. It started with McKenzie pacing the apartment trying to get labor started and ended with Amelia taking a few steps of her own. A brief rundown on what happened: Brad went canyoneering in March while McKenzie stayed home with the baby,  McKenzie went canyoneering in October while Brad worked on his thesis (and Amelia stayed at the campsite with Grandma Smith). We went on many hikes and trips to the park, tried camping with a baby (not as bad as we imagined), and drove to Oregon where Amelia learned to hate her carseat and love her Aunt Delaney who kept her entertained in the back seat.

Updates on the fam:

Brad: spent many long hours at the Utah Water Research Lab at USU, spent too few short hours on his new hobby of RC airplanes, finished his master's degree, and got a job with Carollo Engineers in Phoenix, AZ.

McKenzie: spent most of her time this year just being Mommy, but also got to perform with the Utah Festival Opera and Musical Theatre, teach a full violin studio,  and made so many loaves of bread her KitchenAid started smoking.

Amelia: made her earthly debut January 6 (her due date) at 11:43 AM. She was 7 lbs. 3 oz. and perfect. She is extraordinarily happy and friendly. Loves: music, books, being outside, making people laugh, and anything soft and cuddly. Starting to walk,  eats constantly,  and says "Dadda," "Mama," "wow," "woof," and "moo." 

Merry Christmas!

The Clawsons