NC Museum of Art

For our third field trip, we visited the NC Museum of Art.  It is a fantastic museum, although it isn't very child friendly and so I was a little worried.  The kids surprised me by how good they were but I will admit that at one point we lost track of Thad for less than a minute and a guard found him standing on top of a mosaic art piece.  Ugh.  I'm going to have nightmares about that forever.

We had two other families from our Classical Conversations group join us.  It was fun to be with friends but it was a bummer that it was raining and we couldn't have our picnic afterward.

This was Ben's and my favorite piece in the museum.  It's like an adult version of I Spy.  There are glass versions of items found in famous paintings and you had to look closely to identify them.  We were able to find the dead rabbit in a painting and I'm pretty sure the bouquet of flowers was one of Van Gogh's.  It was a really fascinating piece.

Our art museum has a really big section dedicated to paintings of Christ.  Ella wanted to stare at them forever.  I was holding her in my arms and she wouldn't let me leave when everyone else moved on to the next section.  She was really serious about it, but then when I pulled out my camera of course she turned into a cheeseball.

I'm pretty sure Ben's favorite part of the museum is the section with ancient Roman and Egyptian artifacts.  Although some of the artifacts in a different section were over 4,000 years old.

Of all the pieces of art he could have had his picture taken with, he chose this one.

My friend Catherine is getting ready to throw a '90's party at her house and gave me a mixed cd with '90's music.  This is Ella singing to The Cranberries.  I don't know why she has always loved Zombie but she has.  She started loving this song when she was 2.  She's gone several months without hearing this song and suddenly it was on in the car again and she said, "This is my song!"  While we were driving to the art museum Ella sang her version of Zombie.

Marbles

With our trip to Hong Kong in the plans for our current school year, I was really hesitant to take any other time off school so that we wouldn't be finishing up the school year too late.  As it turns out, we have done really well on time and have less than 2 weeks left of school.  We have finished up our end of year testing and have already finished up a few school subjects.  But legally we have 8 more days of school left so what do we do?  Go on field trips!

Marbles is our local kids museum.  The last time we went was when Ella was about a week old and I remember carrying her around the whole place.  Lily and Skyler have come here on field trips also while they were in public school.  They've been begging to go so we went!

For the record, Ella had this beautiful bow in her hair before we left for Marbles.  As we were walking from our parking spot into the museum, I noticed she was wearing this Burger King crown.  "Where's your bow?" I asked her.  "I left it at home."  

I have no idea where the crown came from and I haven't been able to stop laughing about it.

My kids have an obsession with all things Peter Pan related.  The #1 thing they were looking forward to was being pirates on the ship!  I think I heard the word "Arrrr!!!" about 21622656 times while they were swabbing the deck.

I admire kids so much because they can randomly meet another kid, ask them to play, and instantly be temporary best friends.  Why aren't adults like this?

Thad quickly figured it out and actually became great at hitting the puck!  Maybe he and Skyler are Carolina Hurricanes in the making!

Thad has a love for Classical Music.  Last week we went on a field trip to see the North Carolina Symphony.  I knew sitting still would be an issue for him so I gave him a notebook and pen.  He held up the pen and swung it around with the music and yelled, "I'm a conductor!"  At Marbles, they had buttons for dancing to different music genres.  He kept hitting the "classical" button and kept yelling, "It's Little Einsteins!!!"

He was so proud of his car.

It scared me how much Ella and Thad enjoyed sawing.  Yikes.

With the symphony and Marbles under our belt, we have a few more field trips to go on.  Brace yourself for more posts!

Mother's Day Week

Mother's Day actually started for me on Thursday.  I serve on the Relief Society Meetings Committee and have for almost 3 years.  It's one of my top two favorite callings that I have held and I love it.  We have a meeting every month and this month we had a mother's appreciation "T" party.  We had speakers talk about saniTy, humiliTy, and spiritualiTy.  Our committee put together this tea party (aka lemonade party) with yummy finger foods and lots of flowers.  It turned out so precious and part of me hopes that this becomes an annual thing.  Our Relief Society works so hard at emergency preparedness, service projects, and learning other skills each month, that it was nice to sit back and enjoy a little spiritually fed party.

Just some of the ladies who attended.  I was so thrilled that so many women went way out of their way to dress up!  We all enjoy spending time together each month.

It had been raining all week and finally on Saturday we were able to go strawberry picking.  Each kid got a bucket and picked away.  They had a blast and I enjoyed watching their excitement.  These years of excitement over simple things won't last much longer and I'm trying to savor it as much as I can.

A very typical Ella smile.  :)

Watching them spending and enjoying time together is the best gift to me as a mother.

These two clones... gah.  I love them.

I'm not often in pictures, but I do want my kids to know that I exist too.  :)  I was just always behind the camera instead of in front of it.

It was a bright sunny day, but I'm glad to have this picture of me and my babes.

I think fathers are the most overlooked and under-appreciated people on the planet.  Aside from the gift that my children are to me, my favorite part of motherhood is getting to be partnered with this guy.  I couldn't do it without him.  The journey we've been on together has been my most favorite adventure ever.  To anyone who says that I'm a good mom, I'll say that I am because of him.  He helps me and serves me every day.  I'm truly blessed.

My Miscarriage

For some strange reason the subject of miscarriage is taboo.  This has bothered me since before I even had a baby.  I don't know why we don't talk about it or why we wait to share the sweet news of being pregnant until we're in the "safe zone."  I'm sure plenty of people have personal reasons as to why they choose the secrecy, but for me, I feel like it's something that should be talked about just like any other birth, death, or other major event in someone's life.

So if you're someone who I just described above, I promise I'm not trying to hurt your feelings.  In fact, it's the opposite.  I'm just trying to honestly deal with my own feelings, because when others reached out to me I realized first-hand how many people suffer alone.

I was so excited for my first OB appointment.  I had to wait longer than normal (until I was 11 weeks) to have my first checkup.  It took us a month after Ben started his new job to receive our insurance cards and so the day they came in the mail I jumped up and down with joy.

I went alone because Ben had meetings he had to be in that day.  As the sonographer pulled up video of our adorable tiny baby, I immediately thought, "So cute!  He's mine!"  But then I noticed that blood flow was going around everywhere in the picture -- everywhere except for in the baby.  I noticed there was no heartbeat but I wondered if they had the ultrasound on mute.  Then the sonographer told me, "There's no heartbeat."

"So..... the baby's gone?"

"Yes.  I'm so sorry."

Instead of going right home they immediately took me to the OB's personal office.  We had a long chat about my previous pregnancy complications with Skyler.  We talked about how I had another miscarriage when we were trying for Ella.  We called the hospital so that I could have a D&E the next day.

The next morning, before we took the kids to my parents' bright and early, I told Ben I wanted one picture of this pregnancy.  I knew I would regret it if I didn't.  And I want to mention that I'm smiling in the picture because I was grateful for the opportunity to be able to carry this baby, even if it was only for 11 miserably sick and exhausting weeks.  To me, this baby is still a part of our family.  Ben and I even plan on naming him.  

This I know: we all deal with trials in different ways.  Most people go through a serious mourning process after a miscarriage.  But Ben and I didn't.  We have felt peace the whole time and we know that Heavenly Father has a plan.  We are so grateful for the peace we have been able to feel.  Part of my peace came to me after I realized something.  I had been so sick that at 9 weeks I asked for a priesthood blessing.  In it, Ben said many things.  The next day my sickness had completely disappeared.  According to the ultrasound, that was the day the baby died.  I feel like the blessing was a way to release this baby and let him return home.  His purpose was completed, for now anyway.

Recovery after a miscarriage isn't easy.  It took me just over a week to feel back to normal.  I was in  pain and my heart struggled.  I had a fever come and go.  I even had hot flashes.  Whaaaat???  3 days after the D&E I had to ask for another priesthood blessing.  I was so grateful for that blessing because it gave me the strength I needed to teach at our stake Relief Society's women's day the next day.  My testimony of the priesthood was strengthened even more.

Ben and I always like to look for the light in all dark situations.  In this case, we were so blessed by our family, friends, neighbors, and most especially our ward members (who are really our second family.  We love our ward so much).  We were brought so many dinners, bouquets of flowers, desserts, cards, and other things.  I was feeling down that we were missing strawberry season and that I wouldn't be able to make freezer jam.  But the Lord cares about even the littlest things and 4 people showed up at our door with fresh strawberries or strawberry freezer jam.  Tender mercies are real.  There truly are living angels among us.

In times like this I am especially thankful for the gospel.  I feel like the veil is always a little thinner and I can always see the Lord's hand just a little better in times like this. Truly, we see the stars shine the brightest in the darkest of places.