Rori's First Hair Cut

Normally this post is made up of pictures of an adorable kid sitting at a hair salon or on a chair in the bathroom, draped in a hair cutting cape. Then the words are usually ones of how big their child is and how they can't believe they are getting their first haircut.

This post, however is will have none of that.

Rori did in fact have her first major haircut yesterday but it was n

ot in a salon, or even in the bathroom. It was in the dinning room, and she did it herself.

I cried and cried. I am devastated. I know it's only hair and it will grow back but her hair is (was) long and it will take years for it to look normal again. I really wish she had cut her bangs instead of the side of her head. At least her bangs are supposed to be short.

I have been putting off cutting her hair because her hair is (was) so beautiful and it had lovely curls at the bottom. I was afraid that if I cut her hair her curls wouldn't grow back. I guess we will find out.

Some of you may be wondering where I was during this ordeal or why the scissors were left where she could get them. The answer is almost embarrassing.

I was holding Islay when Rori asked for a drink. Ridge said he would get it for her, since he was being my big helper that day. So he got her a drink and she was in the dinning room. I thought she was just drinking when I heard an unusual noise. I wondered what the noise was but it had stopped. Then I heard it again and I realized it was the sounds of scissors. I stood up and looked in the dinning room when I heard it again and realized Rori was not only using the scissors to cut, but it was her hair. It was all over the floor! I ran to her and I started grabbing her hair. Handfuls were coming out. I just started crying and I got sick to my stomach when I saw the damage.

So to answer the question "Where was mom?" I was in the living room side of our living/dinning room. (about 15feet away)

Now on to why the scissors were where she could get them.

I usually keep the scissors inside my cedar chest with my other crafting stuff or on top of a bookshelf. However, the other day I had printed out coupons and I needed to cut them out. I was in a hurry to go somewhere so I quickly cut the coupons out and ran out the door, leaving the scissors on the cedar chest instead of inside. BIG MISTAKE.

So there you have it.

I am "that" mom who left out the scissors, and neglected her child which resulted in her daughter having a new "DO"

I am having a really hard time with it. Rori, of course, doesn't care. She is too young to really understand what happened, but I am not. She took my beautiful girl's hair and made it impossible to style.

Coupons!

In an effort to cut our grocery bill I am attempting to coupon. Wish me luck. Hopefully I will be able to head back to UT this summer with some of the money I'll be saving.

I've tried to coupon before with no success, but I'm changing the way I shop and am really giving it an effort.

To be honest I'm honestly trying to develop this as a new talent. I don't have lots of extra time to devote to developing any new skills just for the fun of it but I spending time trying to save money is another story.

So wish me luck and lots of saved money

Striving for Perfection

At what age do we start becoming dissatisfied with being imperfect?

I think I may be ruining the blissful childhood of my oldest son because he is no longer happy with giving his best efforts. He wants to be perfect.

Today when he came home from school I asked him to bring me his homework folder so I could see the papers he was bringing home. He brought me 2 crumpled up papers. I looked at the papers and at then at his face and he looked very sad and disappointed. Upon closer inspection of the papers i realized that they were a math test and a spelling test. The math test had a large 91% written on it and the spelling test had 90%. I was so excited for him but when I told him how proud I was of him he said "No mom, I didn't get 100 and so I just want to throw them away."

I tried to talk to him about the scores and that we don't always get 100% but we always have to do our best and try our hardest. He listened, and nodded when appropriate but at the end of our conversation he asked if he could crumple them back up and throw them in the garbage.

At first I was entertained by his attitude. I thought it was kind of cute that it was such a big deal to him to get 100%. But after thinking about it, I'm more concerned. I don't want him to spend his entire young life worried about being perfect. I want him to always strive to do his best, and work hard at learning, but I don't want it to affect his self esteem if he isn't perfect.

I realize now how much of my attitude Dyson is putting into himself. I struggle with lesson myself and so I don't know how to help or teach Dyson to not be this way. Sigh.

I guess we will both have to work on this and maybe in the process of helping Dyson become confident in who he is and his ability to be successful without having to be perfect all the time I can learn it myself.

I don't want Dyson to stop trying to get 100% in school though, so we both agreed that we are going to make sure Dyson is super prepared for his spelling tests and that he knows if the math problem is addition or subtraction.

He is super smart and I am going to help him reach his goals of getting 100% on his next tests. Wish us luck!

One Happy Girl

Miss Islay is one of the happiest babies. She is so content most of the time and she hardly cries. This is especially great after having Miss Rori. She was dramatic from the get go and only wanted her dad. Ice (that's one of her many nicknames) is much more of a momma's girl.
She has started to smile and does it all the time. She loves to talk to us and I swear she has something important to tell me. The noises she makes are very excited and she concentrates so hard.
She is growing more and more every day and it makes me more and more sad. I want her to stay little forever. I love snuggling with her and snuggling chest to chest seems to be how she prefers to spend her time.
She is such a joy to have in our home and we all love spending time with her. In fact the house work and laundry seem to be put aside so that more Islay time can be had by all.
Gotta love that smile!

When ever I am doing the dishes or in the shower I seem to be able to think of several blog topics and how I would word them. Of course they are always eloquently written and full of life altering insights about myself or the world. But, when I finally get a min to sit at the computer to compose such a post... all my wonderful thoughts are gone. Welcome to mommyhood. haha.

So I guess you'll have to settle for whatever is in my head right now.

Lately I've been thinking about my goals and what I want to accomplish. It sounds cliche with it being January and all but I haven't been thinking about it in a "New Year's Resolution" sort of way. More a "Who am I and what do I have I done with my life." This reflection usually comes from admiring my friends who seem to have it all together and me, of course, comparing myself to them.

I know it's unfair of me to compare myself to others especially because I compare their strengths to my obvious weaknesses, but I do it none the less.

It seems that my life goes in circles of contentedness and not, and finding the balance to be content with who I am and the progress I've made in my life and yet not be satisfied so I will continue to strive to be better is something I can't seem to grasp.

Probably the biggest and most public aspect of my life that is affected by this is my ability to keep a clean house. I grew up in a home that was full of love and laughter, and clutter. As a newlywed I struggled to keep a clean house (even when there were just 2 of us living there.) We always wore clean clothes and ate on clean dishes, but the clothes were usually pulled from laundry basket of unfolded clothes, and the dishes would have to be washed before we could eat. Since then I have made tons of progress in knowing how to keep a house clean and with 4 kids the progress is AMAZING. At times I am so pleased with the growth in self discipline and then people will be coming over and I see all the areas of my home that have been neglected and I feel as if I have made no progress at all. I am struggling with the ability to be comfortable with the fact that I have made huge improvements in how clean my house is and to be proud of how well I am managing with 4 kids and to not be embarrassed if the floor isn't swept or there are baskets of laundry. I worry that if someone comes over and there are dishes in the sink or the counters haven't been wiped that they are scrutinizing me and my home.

I want to be able to not feel that way. But at the same time I don't want to lose the desire to be better. The only way I was able to be where I am today is because I felt like there was so much room for improvement. I don't to become completely OK with the way my house looks now. I want to keep striving for "better" but I don't want the fact that it's not perfect to affect my self esteem. (Which, to be honest, it is)

Learning to be comfortable and even confident with who I am and yet be unsatisfied with where I am at in my personal journey (whether it's about cleaning my house, spiritual growth, or anything else) is something is not coming easy.

Wow, this post got kind of serious. On a lighter note. We got some new games for our Wii and we have been having a blast! We got Mario Party 8 and a Mater game. We also got 2 more controllers so we can all play.

Scooting

Islay is starting to scoot. When we lay her on the floor for tummy time she pulls her knees up and scoots a bit. This makes me very sad. She is my baby and she is growing too fast. I wish I could stop time. I know she will grow, like they all do, but that doesn't keep me from being sad about it.

The Storm

Our van is in there, somewhere.

This is the path from the front of our house to the driveway.
Two cute boys! They had so much fun playing in the 3 feet of snow. The snow was as tall as Ridge!
He still pulls faces in all the pics I take of him. Not much has changed since he was a teenager. But I still love him, crazy face and all!

This is our neighbor snow blowing his sidewalk.

Gotta have a picture of this sweet baby.

The kids in their Christmas jammies from Grandma on Christmas Eve.

I love my kids!

I Did Forget About This Blog...Yet

So much has happened since my last post and we have enjoyed every moment. Islay is 3 weeks old today and I can't believe how fast the time is flying by.

We had a wonderful Christmas full of fun and canceled parties. We were supposed to have a party for Ridgedon's Joy School but with one girl out of town and another one sick we decided to postpone the party. Then our good friends were hosting a Christmas Eve dinner party but their whole family came down with some super fun sickness and their son ended up in the hospital with a fever that wouldn't come down. So, that party was cancelled and we stayed home as a family of 6 and enjoyed the time together.

The family got a Wii for Christmas and Jason and I wanted to make sure it worked so we stayed up WAY too late "testing" the nintendo and you can all rest assured that it works just fine. haha.

Islay spends most of her day being held and she spends maybe an hour total each day not in someones arms. This is in part because I have 3 little people who love to hold and kiss their new sister. I have to admit that I am reluctant to help her grow up. With all the other kids we did lots of tummy time and interaction to help them reach major milestones. But with Islay, I find myself content to let her stay little for as long as possible. I know she will grow up regardless of my efforts but I really don't want her to do it earlier than

The kids are all adjusting as well as can be expected. Dyson is doing just fine and has stepped into the role of big brother to 3 sibblings just fine. Ridge has felt a little displaced I think and has acted out by fighting with Rori. Rori retaliates to Ridge and I have about had it with their fighting. I am working on giving them each individualized attention and today that seemed to help.

We have been enjoying the time we have gotten to spend with Jason while he's been on break and I loathe to see it end. Come Monday school will be in full force for all my men. It will just be us girls at home during the day.