the day i tried really hard to just say yes

when it's easier to say no all the time, sometimes you have to plan to say yes.

friday was yes day.

i let blythe run around the library like a crazy banshee. i normally never take her there because it's too busy and she destroys everything and she ALWAYS poops in her pants during checkout. i took her when no one was there and let her do her thing and i just followed closely behind and picked things up in her wake.

my great friend, jessica, from waycross surprised me by coming in town yesterday and we went to lunch at my favorite place and i let blythe eat junk to her heart's content. i also said yes to eating to my heart's content and i didn't enter a single thing into myfitnesspal. YES!

after we picked up the big kids we had friday fun at the park!

yes to glorious fall weather!

the key to say yes to things day is to not tell them you're going to say yes, just let them think they are finally getting their way in everything. 

blythe sitting on the dog pillow makes me cringe, but i said yes(for a few disgusting minutes)

blythe still loves the dog and we've had zero takers on our free dog offer. 

i finally am going to put away that embarrassing card table. i finally said yes to myself getting some new/used patio furniture! 

i said yes to tracking down this movie instead of suggesting something we already own. from the few minutes i was allowed to watch in between cleaning up and general mom duties, it was pretty good.

i also said yes to eating a pizza picnic in the living room for movie night. that was nearly as painful as saying yes to popcorn in the living room. i also said yes to the kids picking up each and every errant kernel of popcorn on the floor.

axis and allies united and we all won today.

being calm is not my thing

i cannot claim to be a paragon of calm and serenity. i feel like on the edge of crazy way too often. so when ol' pizza farts himself(meatball, the un-wonder dog) took a chunk out of blythe's hand on sunday evening, i was at an all time high on the frantic reaction scale. poor, little blythe just loves that dog so much and he hates all of us, all of the time. 

he hasn't always been a vicious attack dog, though he does have prior history of biting. (nicole, i'm more sorry about that than ever! so. sorry.) each kid has only added in his contempt for us mere humans. 

sunday night we had spent a few minutes petting and loving meatball and i went to do some dishes(made some homemade cafe rio thanks to a recipe from my college roomate amy. thank you facebook for that love connection. it was a success. thank you very much.) blythe followed him around the corner to his food dish and he took a bite outta crime. 

when i got to her she was covered in blood. i wasn't sure where he had bitten her because there was blood all over her face because she had rubbed her hand on her face. i got her wiped up a bit and when i saw the two gashes on her arm i knew i wanted to take her to the emergency room. i called my friend karina and thankfully she could decipher my breathy, gulpy crying and she came to get the big kids. i was loading up blythe when i realized that her carseat was in thomas' car and he was at the church teaching a teacher development class. lucky for me, i got to drive up there and make an appearance in my bleachiest, sweatiest sweatpants and holey-est holiest BYU t-shirt from 13 years ago. of course i didn't have a key to thomas' car so i actually had to barge into the meeting and demand his immediate attention to procure said carseat. as you can imagine, i was about as coherent as ozzy osbourne at a pharmaceutical convention. lots of pointing and grunting. 

i successfully made it to the ER at this point. she was calm and the best thing i could say about myself was that i had two matching shoes on. right before the doctor came in i had the presence of mind to put lip gloss on, because that really pulled the rest of my "look" together. the doctor glanced at blythe's hand and said while the cuts were deep, they couldn't stitch because of their location. the nurse came in a washed her up and wrapped her and sent us on our way.

little lamb was in a lot of pain for most of the night and spent a solid hour in the morning just sitting quietly on the couch, a great indicator that she wasn't feeling well.

i think she did take some pleasure with playing with some of scarlett's favorite toys without her knowledge while she was at school. 

i cleaned her wound the next day according to doctor's instructions. the red on her arm is where infection was spreading. excellent. i took her into her pediatrician after i got the big kids from school and took scarlett to ballet.

everyone should take all their kids to the doctor's office at 5:45pm on a monday afternoon. this was during a break in the body slamming in our examination room.

she wouldn't let me put her arm in her shirt.

after an hour at the doctor we were finally able to go home. i was sitting in the car by myself scrolling instagram, as i am wont to do when i'm not ready to face reality inside the house, and scarlett strolled out of the house like this:

this is how we solve problems at our house. a girl after my own heart. a baby spoon makes you feel like you are eating a huge glob of nutella when it's really not that big as opposed to eating a huge glob on a regular sized spoon. perfect logic.

evidence of my stressful day:

blythe is still undaunted. she was so excited to see him when we got home. too bad his days are numbered.

anyone looking to adopt an old, grumpy dog who hates kids? also likes to eat dirty diapers. that's his only trick.

the blog version of a vacation slide show

the blog version of a vacation slide show, no one really wants to watch but you can't pull away.

the day after you get home from a loooong trip:

exhaustion combined with grocery shopping to make up for 9 days of travel. COMPLEX THOUGHTS ARE HARD! and a spoon of nutella is a must to get you to lunchtime!

for real. we spent 3 days in georgia with thomas' mom and then we came home for a day so thomas could attend some work meetings so that his bank would not implode without his very important presence. then i did laundry and repacked because the world would spin off it's axis if i didn't have fresh laundry as we left for 5 days in utah for my brother's wedding. 

our trip could be summed up as this: traveled. humid. traveled again. screaming baby. dry weather. ears popped. cafe rio. football. flew home.

but for posterity, here's the blow by blow and every excruciating detail:

we drove to georgia with 3 heavily drugged kids. no one slept but me. 

we visited with the kid's beloved mimi and she honored the tradition of attempting to trick the big kids into thinking manual labor is fun. they both got to take quite the lengthy spin on the mower and did not realize that the purpose of driving in circles for 2 hours in the RIDICULOUSLY HUMID south georgia swamp was to mow a field. smiles abounded. 

we visited the barnyard animals that are recent additions to mimi's farm. new piglets were born the night before and they smelled like absolute steamy,ripe death. we were also greeted with synchronized pooping from the other 300lb hogs. a family reunion indeed. 

 

these are the types of shenanigans my kids get away with in church when we visit mimi:

it took all my strength to not swat those unrighteous, irreverant bottoms.

after our 24 hour interlude back to south carolina, we headed up to charlotte, north carolina to catch out flight to salt lake city.

flying with blythe was just about as bad as you can imagine but at the same time, those experiences are just about as spiritual as you can get. i know prayers are answered. think about wrestling a greased pot-bellied pig for 43 hours while tied to a stool and praying like your life depends on it. on our second flight of the day, we were all separated with boys in one section and girls in the other. i volunteered to take blythe because i was hoping to use it for leverage later on. she screamed for 45 minutes straight all the while i am praying, nay, PLEADING in prayer that she will fall asleep after having had only 5 hours of sleep the night before. finally, my heart's righteous desire was granted. blythe fell asleep. right after she pooped her pants. there was no way on earth i was waking her and changing that diaper and i informed my seat mates of this and told them to breathe through their mouths and be grateful for tender mercies.

by time we arrived in salt lake we couldn't wait to get out of confined spaces, but we changed our plans and made a beeline to the cafe rio at the airport. over the next 24 hours, we would have cafe rio 2 more times. dinner in park city and lunch in provo. 

we took in some of the sights of temple square. some liked it more than others.

after temple square, we drove to sugar house and saw one of my favorite people of ALL TIME AMEN, emily!!! i hadn't seen her since we lived together at byu. i teared up when i saw her on her porch and felt like i needed to tear off my clothes, put a sweaty, ripped up shirt on over my swimsuit and eat 54 otter pops on the front porch whilst playing the ever popular and continually relevant game, "who would you rather kiss?" it was like 2001 all over again. i love her dearly. God has given me good friends.

after visiting emily, i got a text from someone in south carolina. i didn't know who they were, so i decided to play along. if only i had played along a little longer i could have heard what i can only assume to have been a really fascinating bit of news. thinking about this exchange cracked me up for days.

after all the day's festivities, blythe put herself to sleep.

DAY 2. i know, just day 2. that morning we saw all my siblings at my brother david's house in west jordan. then we drove to provo and briefly saw grandma bonnie. during all that family time with people i hadn't seen in 3 years, i took one picture. my grandma's world map with all our family's past and present missionaries posted. it's a treasure trove of work and history.

in provo, we drove to all our former apartments and houses that we could find. the kids loved it(sarcasm). being a starving college student is one of the best experiences you can have. not fun, but best.

the sky is a bit bluer in provo.

we got to be "that family" walking 4 wide with a stroller during class breaks on campus. who needs a marriage prep class when you see us coming?

someone is always dancing in the ballroom.

they've drastically improved the wilk barber shop to a full-service paul mitchell salon. i'm sure the students are the worst tippers EVER.

we indoctrinated as much as we could. we may bark with the georgia bulldogs and roll with the alabama crimson tide, but we are BYU cougar true blue all the way. this is where you want to go kids.

day 3
wedding day at the salt lake temple
christmas card accomplished

the fabulous bride and groom. i'd like to thank shayla for allowing mark to be a part of her wedding.

i must say that i did have a mini, internal temper tantrum when i saw her dress for the first time. i may have thought, "i hate her stinking guts for looking so good when i was stuck getting married in the early 2000's and the only dress option was a white t-shirt style dress and a voluminous skirt that made you look like a shapeless blob." but, shayla is really nice so i forgive her for being so pretty. 

we are now 5 for 5. we tricked 5 unsuspecting people into joining this band of weirdos.

because you can never have enough pictures of the salt lake temple. 

my delightful cousin jen, who just birthed her 3rd offspring a few DAYS prior, wrestled blythe during the wedding luncheon.

mark gave a nice speech at the luncheon and i kept wondering who this nice young man talking was. funny, charming and full sentences. everyone really does grow up eventually.

after the young lovers left for the their honeymoon, the rest of us repaired to our sister-in-law christine's family cabin. we proceeded to eat until we were void of emotions. happy, sad, it didn't matter. we just ate. 

the becks in their natural habitat.

 




we also watched beck family home videos. it's an acquired taste. this time was especially poignant for us as this was the first time we had all been together since dad's funeral. hearing his commentary on the home videos is priceless. 


there were even footage i had never seen. me in hello dolly! 1994. perhaps it's time for another perm?

day 4(i know, it seems like day 342) we went to the hogle zoo. i sort of really hate the zoo, because it's hot and smells like poop and that's a terrible combination. but we were so close to the university of utah you couldn't even tell the difference! (ba da bum! still got it!) the hogle zoo was really quite nice. plus, it was nice hot, not unbearably hot. i won't be making an hogle zoo patron donations, but i may even pay for my own ticket next time. a pleasant zoo experience indeed.

cousins in the monkey house, visiting family! (see what i did there? still got it!)

if i could pinpoint one big difference between southerners and the rest of the country, it's willingness to talk to other people they don't know. at our hotel during breakfast, we found people avoiding eye contact with us and shutting down any conversational attempts. i guess friendliness made us the weirdos. on three separate occasions when people actually would reciprocate conversation, we found out they were from louisiana, alabama and georgia. 

this is thomas talking SEC football with an LSU fan:  

 i had also never been to dad's grave in sandy.

afterward we headed to uncle ray's and ate our brains out again and watched byu triumph over texas. it was a beautiful thing. 

we looked like this at the airport on day 5.
 simpson=delightfully obnoxious

the end. i'm convinced i will actually try and make my own cafe rio sweet pork now. can't live without it.