Why I Hate Sundays

First, I have 9 o’clock church. I wake up about 6:30 every morning, including Sundays. But for some reason 2 ½ hours is not enough time to get myself, 2 children and a husband ready. I shower, put on make-up, get breakfast, get the girls dressed and their hair done. All the while having to prompt Brent to get in the shower, do his hair, turn off the TV, get off the computer. I then have to find his belt, pack a diaper bag, get my hair done. Multiple times through out the morning I have to throw one or more members of my family out of the bathroom so I am not tripping over them. They each take a turn or all pile in to either stare at me or be under foot so I have to take 15 extra steps to grab a q tip instead of just reaching for one. I have to keep one eye alert to who is close to the curling iron in an effort to prevent Sunday morning burning. I herd my children and husband into the car. Brent has no concept of the need to hurry. He plods along slow and steady and has little care about my nerves frazzling as I twitch all morning long.

We arrive at church and have to find somewhere my children will be contain, but close enough to the door for a speeding exit when the inevitable tantrum or bathroom break occurs. I have to pray my goldfish/pretzel supply outlasts the speaker, and on High Council day my faith is tested.

The speaker is finished and all the mothers sigh a little sigh of relief knowing they have managed to control their children for 65-70 minutes and behavior will be a primary teacher's problem soon. Then our beloved bishop, a kind and righteous man whom I respect and care about,  rises on a day he isn’t conducting. I cringed inside and a wave of panic washes across me as I frantically eye the goldfish and see the empty Ziploc bag. He adds his testimony and experiences to the topic of the speakers and those extra 5-10 minutes stretches myself and my children to the breaking point. My baby seems to be programmed with an automatic switch that allows 65-70 minutes AND ONLY 65-70 minutes of patience and then she is DONE. Spirit or no spirit, she does not care what the bishop has to say and will truly bring that chapel to the ground if she is not set free soon. The closing song then has 4 FREAKING versus and the organist knows one speed: slow. By the end of the 4 verse, 2 page “I believe in Christ” I want to throw the hymn book at the conductor, run screaming from the building, ninja kicking the door on my way out.

The closing prayer is punctuated with wailing toddlers and sighing children.  The lovely, elderly sister saying the prayer makes sure she blesses EVERYBODY.

I am then off to teach primary. First problem with is: I hate children. 2^nd: I have anxiety and even getting to church should qualify me for a medal. I am currently at war with the primary president that causes a mild amount of awkwardness when I flat out tell the 2^nd counselor he should just be grateful I haven’t committed a crime and to tell Sister Fussy Pants to back off.

The lessons are boring. Church is boring. Those dear children will eventually appreciate that one day they will glean a drop of spiritual understanding from lessons, but for now they are just being tortured by a woman who probably knows less about the gospel than they do. I bribe them. We have an understanding.

3^rd hour arrives and I hurry to the library to help there. An hour of boredom punctuated by the ward that is after us letting their children run free down the hallways in an irreverent and disruptive manner.

I rush home to hurry and get lunch prepared. Lunch is consumed at top speed because we are all hungry. Church meetings cause an abnormal need for nourishment apparently. We then rush to get in naps. Rush to visit family. Rush to get home and get bath time done. Rush to get everyone to sleep so I can have a few minutes of peace with my husband before the week starts all over again.

I lay down to sleep and think “Shouldn’t I feel good when I go to church? Shouldn’t the desire to march to the front, grab the speaker by the collar and unceremoniously plop him back into his chair NOT be a part of the feelings in sacrament meeting?” And heaven help us all if it’s fast and testimony meeting. But that is a whole other post for a different day.

I sigh and pray that when next week arrives I will not let my blood pressure get so high and I will do better to not want to take a cattle prod to everyone.

My babies.....Not so much babies anymore

I am amazed every day how fast time flies by.

I took the girls to their well check appointment last Tuesday.

They were well behaved and very brave for their shots.

 

 

 Scarlet stats:

Height 78%

Weight 61%

Head 77% (so yeah, giant!!)

Scarlet is huge!! She is well on her way to be vastly taller than her older sister. Her doctor was amazed at not only the fact that she's a big girl, but that she is so huge after coming so early!! It's probably because she is a bottomless pit and eats everything in the house!!She loves being outside and loves animals. She has overcome her disturbing attachment to her daddy but still loves him most I think. She loves to be chased by him or her Sissy.

She is learning new words every day. Her most commonly used are:

Shhhhh

Shoes

Fish

Doggie

Kitty

Ball

Daddy

Maymay (mommy)

Bunny

Uh oh

All gone

Sissy (Ella)

And she likes to sing the shark attack song from Jaws

She throws epically, deranged temper tantrums that should be studied and I sincerely hope she survives through them. She is also very sweet when she wants to be.

She is SNEAKY. Well, I should say, she thinks she's sneaky!!!

 

 

Ella's stats:

Weight 40%

Height 37%

 

I can't believe Ella is getting ready to start kindergarten!! Everyone keeps asking me if I'm sad and the answer is, no I'm not. Not in a "I can't wait to get rid of her kind of way".

She is very ready to start school. I'm excited for her to have the opportunity to learn and have friends and expand her boundaries. It's only half of day. But honestly, when I think about 1st grade I could weep. She'll be gone all day. Her teacher will see her more then me. I shiver at the thought. But you never know, by the end of next year I may feel different!!

Ella's accomplishments:

Know her letters

Knows the sounds

Can count to 100

Knows all her shapes including the weird ones (like a hexagon or a rhombus)

Knows all her colors

Likes to do math problems

Loves outside and animals

Loves to dance and sing and pretend

Love to paint and craft

 

I love my daughters. I love this age where everything is exciting and fun!!

 

 



Mother's Day!!

Mother's Day weekend started out AWESOME with Zumbathon!!

If you weren't there, you should feel really bad, cuz it was amazing!! Plus we burned something like 1200 calories and we all know that all of us got chocolates for the holiday. So my chocolates were left in the Old School. Everyone else will just have to live them on your BUTT!!

 

 

 

Me and my Zumba buddy Steph.

 

 



 More of my Zumba buddies and my awesome instructor Annie!!!

 

 

 I finally got to see The Avengers. From the comfort of my own couch. Everyone snuggled up and watched it with me. I loved that. :)

Even Molly wanted in on family togetherness.

Look at my daughters both glaring. I have no idea where that comes from.
Even the cat is glaring!!

 

 

 Ella cheesed it when she realized what the phone was for!!

 

 

My pink Duck Commander shirt.

 

 Ella and Scarlet got me a new contact case. So cute!!

I love owls!!

 

 

 My new running shoes. Unfortunately they are a half size too small. Rats!!!

Now they have to go back to Amazon because stores don't carry the size I wear. I HAVE to order them. It is not fair that my shoes size is discriminated against.

 

My new rose gold bangle. I love rose gold but it goes in and out of style. Right now it's socially acceptable so I will wear it!!

 

 

I love jewelery. I'm pretty sure I have too much, but I don't like fashion jewelery. So every holiday I like to get something shiny!!

 

 

Happy Mother's Day to all the women in my life!!

My Mom, my sisters and my Granny.

(May she rest in peace!)

Happy Anniversary!!

8 years.

He makes me happy.

He makes me crazy.

He makes me laugh.

He holds me when I cry.

He knows the true inner me and still loves me.

He has beautiful hair and pretty eyes.

He loves our children.

I trust him.

I'm grateful for him.

I love him.

 

This was taken March 25th, 2002.

The day he was set apart to be a missionary.



Crafty Crafty

I have not had enough time to remember that I am actually a person and not just a SLAVE at the Bowler house hold, so I started taking some time to do things that give me an outlet.

 

Ella was in need of a dresser. When Scarlet was born we gave her the big (HUGE) 9 drawer dresser and I got Ella a small, storage dresser. It just wasn't cuttin' it anymore!!

My friend, Diane had a yard sale and I picked this up for a cheap price!!

I was originally beat to HELL and had an oak finish.

I painted it white and spray painted the knobs pink.

Then I just kind of free handed some simple flowers.

I'm sure real crafters would die if they saw it up close, but I'm satisfied with it!!

 

For Mother's Day this year I decided to make my mother in law a gift. She is VERY practical so I thought I go the sentimental route.

I bought canvas and had the girls finger paint over painters tape to spell a word.

I thought the ones above were ugly!! That's right, I said it. I don't like the color green and there it was EVERYWHERE. So we did it again!! The girls didn't mind at all!!

These turned out better. Not perfect, but I'm working on that being ok!!

 

 

Scarlet is not so sure about this mess. She did have fun eventually!!

 

 

Ella had a blast!! She would do this every day if I let her!!

 

 

I have some other projects in the works. I'm making a peg board to hold Scarlet's jackets.

I've been slashing and trashing some old shirts for Zumbathon!!

And I have to make a curtain for the skylight in the hall bathroom.

What person thought skylights were a good idea in the desert!?