I know I said I was going to keep my birthday party small this year, but somehow it just kept growing. That's what happens when you're popular, I suppose. So, big birthday bash on Saturday night!
I took some melatonin to help me sleep (I haven't been sleeping well lately) so I'm too sleepy to go on. I have things to share. Car stuff. Work stuff. Workout stuff, etc. Pictures. Videos.
Xanga needs more love.
Good night!

Life lately:

• Nate went on a hiking trip this past weekend. I love it that he's rugged and outdoorsy ... it's inspiring. It was a long weekend for me and I had to work all day on Saturday ... I took the girls to a babysitter, my good friend Stephanie. She was the first non-family member to watch the girls for any length of time. She sent them home with clean diapers and had all of our stuff packed up and ready for me. It was so nice. Nate said he had a good time, but he was so tired. I'm not sure what's wrong with me, but I actually thought of asking him if I could go next time. What's happening to me?????????
• Mazie is now carrying on full conversations and has decided to start being in charge around here. Well, trying anyway. I'm teaching her about entitlement and respectful boundaries. The other day she said, "Mommy. Stop talking. I have something to say to you first."  Um ....
• Freya is still just crawling on her forearms or trying to walk. It's pretty cute. She wants to walk SO badly. She is teething right now and over the past few days hasn't eaten much, has slept a lot and has grown like three inches, I swear. She's all thinned out. She doesn't feel well and although I don't want my babes to feel sick, I do appreciate the extra cuddles.
• I hit the gym again this morning. I took last week off. I was so depressed and falling into emotional eating again. Big time. The bulimia is still under control though so I'm very thankful for that. I am going to meet with the nutritional therapist again within the next two weeks and I'm looking forward to knowing what the next step is. I read a quote this morning by Geneen Roth (author of some excellent books on eating issues. oh, and btw ... it's eating issues these days, not eating disorders. who knew?) "Weight (too much or too little) is a by-product. Weight is what happens when you use food to flatten your life. Even with aching joints, it's not about food. Even with arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure. It's about your desire to flatten your life. It's about the fact that you've given up without saying so. It's about your belief that it's not possible to live any other way -- and you're using food to act that out without ever having to admit it." ~ Geneen Roth  Last week I was flattening my life ... this week I'm blowing it up.
• My birthday (which came and went) party is this weekend. I'm keeping it small this year ... just doing dinner at my parents' and then heading to Cerulean to hang out. We'll probably end up walking to back to our house after that. My parents will keep the girls. I'm looking forward to spending time with people I haven't seen in a while. Speaking of people, I'm getting so many things figured out. Balance, priorities, expectations ... you get my drift.
• Last night I was thinking about what I'm teaching my teensy girls and I decided that I want them to always feel the following things in this home: 1) respected 2) heard 3) safe.
• Well, I'm off to change a diaper and take my little loves out on the swings.

We just got home from our vacation in Michigan with Nate's family. There were 30+ of us all together ... camping at Uncle Don and Aunt Margie's, staying up way too late, laughing and making some spectacular memories.
I have (literally) hundred of pictures to sort through. My camera was passed around amongst the cousins-in-law and I don't even know what's on there.

Some highlights:

• Maggie got her dreads cut off on Friday. She's had them for five years!
• Our average bedtime was 2:10 a.m.
• Grandpa Don had the time of his life ... he's up to 38 great-grandchildren now.
• Sitting around the fire until the wee hours of the morning.
• Being inducted in as one of The Outlaws. It's an exclusive cousin-in-law club.
• Scoring a bedroom inside because our tent was wet and our air mattress was deflating. Score!
• Standing around the island in the kitchen, tasting wine and being silly.
• Making a commitment with the outlaws to "power through" our sleep deprivation.
• Welcoming cousin Andy home by surprising him at the airport ... he was one of 19 guys out of 66 to complete an intensive SRT training. He had no idea we would all be there and was especially surprised to see his sister, Maggie who was visiting from Germany!! That was fun.
• Watching Mazie play with all of her little cousins. There are so many little kids and they were all so cute!

I have more, but I must go to bed. I'm so thankful that I married into this huge, hilarious family.

i curse you,
the clickiting damned i am.
big, fat, heavy thoughts,
oozing their simplest of simplies.
complicated and overcasted.
waiting for the who, what, what-nots.
clicking my clickity-click tongue,
clock•times pine for leaving.
pine for cleaving.
pine for leaving.
pine for click-clickity-clickiting clicks
all during prayer down here.
on bruised and sacred knees i am.
clicking, mermaid tales drowning,
loud and loud and clear.
the world, i think, is
too busy for the brain
of you, i think.
i think the clicking world will subside,
i think, remembering members.
look at you look ...
click, click.
clickity-click.
all on my clickiting tongue for you.

I came across this old xanga entry from a few summers ago.

i think this town needs a 24 hour diner. not the bright, clean steak-n-shake kind, but the dirty, little dank kind where everything is covered with a thin veil of stale cigarette smoke and the soup du jour is usually mushy vegetable soup. ...the kind of place where your waitress sits down at your table with a lit cigarette in her mouth and takes your order as though she were on break and refers to everyone as "hun".
i do believe that if there was one around here i would get in my crappy, little escort and drive straight there. right now. once there i would sip on some piping hot coffee (and i don't even like coffee) and pour my heart out on my laptop. i would also contemplate the usage of commas in my xanga entries ... they're so confusing.
i would do this, jammy pants and all. i know that some of you are stricken with the same affliction of not being able to sleep through the night so maybe we would run into each other here around 3 a.m. i'd let you sit at my table with me. i'd even put away my laptop as to engage in some middle-of-the-night, intelligent conversation with you. really, i would. 3 a.m. conversations usually end up being the best ones anyway.

nicole caulfield
diner

I discovered this running across our bedroom floor last night. Imagine my horror. It found a hiding place under our bed. Disturbing.
It was huge. I told Nate it was like a puppy ... so huge.
I can't wait for summer to die and take all of its creepy friends with it.

EDIT: One of the biggest challenges for me as a parent is not knowing exactly what to do. I assume this is a universal challenge as I can't imagine that any parent hasn't questioned themselves at some point or another. Right now Freya has developed a new sleeping issue ... it just popped right up, out of the blue. I'm thankful to have other moms in my life that I can go to and trust. I received some much needed reassurance and encouragement from two peers recently and it's really boosted my confidence regarding how we're handling this new um, sleeping roadblock. One thing I've appreciated about the online social world is the glimpses I've been able to take into other moms' lives. Just the other day my nieghbor wrote about taking her boys to the lake only to leave with them crying as soon as she got there. A friend from college wrote about taking her two young girls and baby boy (she's pregnant with her fourth) out to run errands while the baby screamed the entire time. She ended her post with, "this is why I'm never leaving the house again!". These examples help me feel normal. Not every day is perfect. I can't take things too seriously. There are bumps in the road and these bumps are to be expected.
Last week I made a personal commitment to change my attitude about some of my responsibilities as a wife and mother. I began looking at the late-night laundry folding and the endless outpouring of my self as a gift instead of an inconvience. I was falling into a rut and needed to pull myself out.
You know why I choose to fold the laundry instead of going to bed when I'm so tired I feel like my head weighs a thousand pounds? Because I love these people. You know why I don't get bent out of shape when naptime is interrupted by a poopy blowout meaning the project I was working out has to be, yet again, put aside? Because I love these people. I could on and on, but the point is ... I love these people. That means I not only give and give and give and giiiiiive, but I give willingly, with a loving heart and a selfless attitude. This past week I have noticed that the more I gave with a servant's heart, the more blessings I received.
I mentioned a few days ago that I'm making my world smaller and it's really helped. Back in the day families had less distractions, less clutter in their lives. They had a phone on the wall and a few channels on the tv. These days I feel like our families are under attack by the distractions ... Facebook, texting, chat, 4,000 channels on the tv and a dvr filled for days, so on and so on. We've been weeding out the distractions in our house (in a realistic way) and narrowing our focus on each other. This family consists of the people I love most ... they deserve an undistracted me. I'm the only wife and mom they have. I play a major role in setting the tone in our house and I want our house to be respectful, loving, focused, joyful, godly and full of life. So, no pressure or anything

On to the pics ...

We got my parents a little fire pit for their anniversary and tested it out a few weeks ago. Works great ... the s'mores were tasty.

Nate


Serena and my Dad in the s'mores eating pose


My Mom and Mazie




I like my marshmallows burnt, baby


Mazie, trying to figure out how to not get all sticky