I thought I'd write on the old neglected blog. The kids are changing and growing so fast I can't keep up with it. I've completely worn myself out with taking on too much and I am dreaming of the holidays to be here. I've been watching Christmas movies non-stop as I've been editing and sewing and bedazzling. The pageant is next weekend! I feel so unprepared, yet I am so ready for this to get here. I have been stressing and working so hard, and my poor family has supported me through all of the neglect. I hope that my all is enough, and I can be happy with the outcome. We cut Sam's binky tonight--his bidoo he calls it. I cried. Where did my baby go??? It was as if someone just took my baby away tonight and handed me a man child, though he still looked completely adorable in his big fuzzy sleeper pjs. But he's just so large and everyone is having or just had a baby. Mine will be two. I can't believe how long we've lived in our house, we were reminiscing about Jake as a 2 year old in this house. He is now five. Worlds of difference. Hes so smart, and cool. He's pretty much cooler than I ever hoped to be. He kind of just does what he wants, that's probably bad to admit, but I love it about him. I'm mean he's still a good boy, but he knows what he wants and he does it. This definitely means he doesn't think things through but what 5 year old boy really does? I just love him, he's sweet, we wants me to snuggle him at bed time. He's started getting worried about things, like going out to the bus stop because he's afraid of the wind. So funny. And he does flips off the side of the pool. He's going to crack his head open, but so dang cool! And then there's Claire. Oh she's so old. She has really found her love for reading and pours over the pages of her books. I will soon have an 8 year old, getting baptized. She has such a sweet little testimony. She bore her first testimony in Sacrament meeting in October. I can't express the joy of that. It was simple and honest and sincere. Perfect. She was making me laugh tonight because she loves to text me from the ipod, and she talks about the funniest things. Tonight it was "so what's on your Christmas list". What a conversationalist--love it. I told her I wanted something for my camera and she texted me back a "cameraaaa frowny face" and a picture of Gru from Despicable me frowning. I don't know how she knows how to text pictures, but whatev it was so cute. Tonight I snapped a picture of the children huddled around daddy, watching scripture videos for scripture time. I love that he's so diligent about teaching them the gospel. Even Sam was up there watching and being reverent. I hope they always remember that. I have learned so many hard life lessons lately it seems. The biggest one being that I can't do everything I want all at the same time. That was kind of my dare for the year, see how much I can do. Don't ask me why. Maybe it's an "I'm 29 about to turn 30 and I can't stop this life from going way too fast" kind of a thing. I'm so burnt out. But I've also learned that I can dig deep. When I feel like giving up, I just dig a little deeper and keep going. I'm proud of myself for that. Most importantly I think I've learned that my kids are little investments. What I put in, I get out, sometimes even doubling tripling my investment, so I need to make large and quality investments. All these extracurricular are well and good but I need to stop dinking around. They need more time from me. I think that has been the hardest part of being a mom for me is giving of my whole self to them. I'm afraid that I might get lost. I feel like I haven't even experienced life yet, what do I even have to pass on? But really that's the myth of life, its too fast, and really the only valuable thing to do with your time is invest it in others. My brain hurts from all this thinking. I guess that's the best thing I've gotten out of the pageant thing so far. My "platform" is investing in our children through their education in school and at home. So I've been thinking a lot about this. What my children learn is up to me and there are plenty of negative things they will and have already learned, so it's up to me to fill them up with the good stuff. I've been thinking about homeschooling. I don't know if I could ever do it, but it's this little thought that's been floating around in my head for awhile. I am so pleased with their teachers this year, but maybe when that changes I will reevaluate. This whole job hunting thing is exhausting. I feel like the future is so up in the air. We got an offer for what seemed like the perfect job in Charlotte and for whatever reason it wasn't and I'm trying to just have some serious blind faith because if I don't I might go crazy. Our place is here for now. I really do feel so blessed.
She did great this year! She is getting really good at handling the ball and being aggressive. We were really proud of her growth in her skills this year. 
