Being a Mother

Ok you guys, my son is the cutest.

I love watching him grow and develop and learn. 

Little Buns learning to play the accordion

I love his strong little personality.

I love being a mom.

But sometimes, I feel like the worst mother.

I know everyone who is a mother has at some point felt this way. Had this recognition that they are not perfect and they could be doing better.

Admitting that there is room to improve is actually a good thing.  That is part of our purpose here. To learn and grow and develop. To recognize our faults and tr to fix them. It won't be easy but it is totally worth it.

And guess what! By the time you die you still won't be perfect. That's ok as long as everyday you are trying to better yourself. Even if it's a smidge each day.

I think sometimes we make a list of all things we need to be doing to be perfect and it's so overwhelming. It's like when I walk into my kitchen and I'm thinking, "This place is going to be spotless when I walk out." But then I get overwhelmed by the dishes and the mess my son has made with all the recycling stuff and his toys and etc and etc. So I just grab Oreos and milk instead.

So we make this huge grand plan of everything we should be doing but it's overwhelming and we don't know where to start. 

But we have to just do what we can at first until that becomes part of who we are.

Then we can start on the next thing.

Anyways, this post got way off track because I was actually going to make a list of the cute things my son does but now it doesn't seem like it fits in this post so maybe I'll just make a separate post about that.

I had this thought today while I was sitting with Little Buns and feeding him some yogurt while watching my guilty pleasure show "Dance Moms" (new season on Hulu y'all). I don't want my kids to be exactly like me. I want them to be better than me. I want them to take the good parts of my personality and improve on the bad parts of my personality. And that's what I'm trying to do with Little Buns.

I know he's only 18 months but I'm constantly worried about what he'll be like as a 12 year old boy, or a teenager. I'm worried about how he'll treat his siblings (this is not an announcement except to announce that in the future sometime we will, hopefully, have more children).

I guess what I'm trying to say is, motherhood is a journey and not like a Candyland kind of journey where you get stuck in some delicious candy. It's more like a combination of Chutes and Ladders and War; where you have really big highs and lows and the game only ends never. And you never know what's going to happen next.

My advice is to rely on the Savior and our Heavenly Father's plan and always have Oreos in the pantry.

****So I know this post is kind of hard to follow. But hopefully you get it. Like I said it wasn't planned to be this way at all so meh.

10 Reasons I Love AZ

From my last post you may think I hate Arizona. But that's just not true.

I really just hate being hot. 

And I have this semi-irrational fear of gangs that I won't get into right now.

Anyways, I actually love a lot of things about Arizona.

So here's a list of 10 reasons I Love Arizona

1. The people! Almost everyone I know from Arizona is so chill. They just roll with the punches and like to laugh. Oh sure they are human sometimes things get out of hand. But a lot of my favorite people are from/in Arizona.
2. The winter! So it's the perfect weather in the winter because it's not so hot. It's perfect for hiking, playing soccer, playing tag, jumping on the trampoline. All those things can happen during the day and you don't have to worry about snow (most of the time-yes it has snowed in

   

   The 3 wise men and their camels.

   Phoenix) (and unless you're in Northern AZ where it does snow in the winter). Also the Mesa temple Lights are the best! My favorite part is the 3 wise men crossing with their camels across the front lawn.
3. It's actually a pretty desert. If you've ever driven through Nevada you know what an ugly place the desert can be. (Sorry Nevada) But Arizona actually has the pretty red rock, the Saguaro cactus (that bloom really pretty blooms) and lots of other cactus that add color  to the scenery. And it all is so beautiful against the Arizona Blue sky. Arizona's skies are beautiful and different than other places I've been.
4. The sky. Ok Sunsets at the beach are petty but Arizona Sunsets are the bomb.com. They are all that and a bag of chips. And yeah it's the pollution, but seriously, you have got to see the sunsets. To see these skies check out my cousin Libby's facebook page  Hello From New River. She takes really beautiful photos of New River, AZ where she lives.
   
5. Public Pools. Ok I don't know if the prices are the same but when I was younger the price to get into the pool as a kid was like $.50 and a $1.50 as an adult. Somewhere around there. Oh and after 6pm it was $.25 for everyone. I remember that because we used to go with our friends sometimes. So I was shocked, SHOCKED, when I took these kids I was babysitting to a public pool in Utah and it was $5 per person and $10 if you wanted to use the wave rider. It was crazy! My best friend and I would go to Cactus Park at least once a week to go swimming when I was younger. That would not be possible in other places I have realized. Perhaps it is seen as a public service to keep people from dying from heat. I don't know but I loved it.
6. Castles and Coasters. I know what you're thinking "Really?" But yes. It's probably mostly nostalgia but I love that place. I have lots of good memories from there with family and friends. Also the log ride people. It's the best ride there and if you go at the right time no one is in line and they just let you stay on forever.
7. Water parks. Water World (I just can't call it Wet N' Wild, it will always be Water World in my heart) & Sunsplash are awesome. (I have never been to Big Surf) Not just nostalgia this time I have not actually been to water parks better than them. Plus Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure was partly filmed at Sunsplash

   

   I took this picture at Sunsplash in 2007 in the Lazy River.

   and that's one of the greatest movies ever made. I digress. Other water parks I've been to have been way crowded, not just with people but I feel like the rides are so close together. And you have to rent tubes even for the lazy river. So that means people are SWIMMING in the LAZY river. Sorry but it's not called the "kind of lazy" river. And then if you do get a tube your constantly drowning the small children that are swimming in there without a tube. Tubes should be in the lazy river free of charge (and not be allowed taken other places understandably). I'm probably going to start a change.org petition about this.
8. Northern Arizona. It's really pretty you guys and if you just can't stomach the heat anymore down in Phoenix, Flagstaff is just a 2 hour drive away. Or one of the other numerous small towns in Arizona. It's really lovely. I love that most of Arizona is a lot of small towns.
9. The down hominess of it. I don't really know how to describe this very well but I think it relates to the chillness of the people I mentioned in #1. I just feel like even though I was from this huge sprawling metropolis of Phoenix and the surrounding areas, things were...It's really hard for me to describe. People take their time to do things... But I mean idk hopefully Arizona people understand what I mean. It just had a nice feeling for the most part.
10. Maybe you will say I'm cheating and that 10 is the same as number one but I think they are different. 10 is that my family is mostly all there. All but one of my siblings and their family live there. And I have lots of extended family there. And that's where I feel most comfortable is with them. They are my people and I love them. 

So I haven't shunned Arizona forever, maybe we could live in Northern Arizona one day, but never Phoenix.

Phoenix, Arizona

Ok, if you didn't know, now you do, I'm from Phoenix.

Most of my family is still there.

But despite that, I have a goal of never living there again.

IT'S SO HOT THERE!

And you're going to be like "Oh but it's a dry heat!" 

And then I'm going to have to punch you in the throat.

You don't understand. 

I don't care if you've been there and you're like "The humidity is worse."

I really don't.

It's hot. It's hot there 24/7. It doesn't even cool down at night. It's still 100F at 2 in the morning. By 9 am it's already 95F on a good day. On a horrible day it will already be 100F by 9am.

I've been to the humid places. I mean, I've been to the equator (though I will qualify that I was there in the 'winter' so it wasn't as humid as it normally gets) and I would take that any day over the sweltering oven inferno that is Phoenix, AZ. To me living in an oven is worse than living in a slow cooker.

(And when I get hot I hate everything and everyone and it's the absolute worst.

I realized this at church today because it was so hot there. I was sitting there and I was sweating and fanning myself and trying to avoid holding my child on my lap because I was so hot. And I was just mad. I just hated it. So yes it did take me 28 years to realize why I hate the heat. Probably because I was too hot to try to figure it out before.)

Anyways, last week I went to Phoenix because my dear older sister was getting married.

She got married in the Phoenix, Arizona temple. (So beautiful btw). And then her reception was outside! 

Lindsey and Austin after getting married! And probably like "It's so hot!"

I love my sister. This is how you know:

1. I went to Arizona in the summer.
2. I helped set up the outside reception.
3. I didn't stand in front of the giant fans the entire time at the reception.
4. I helped clean up the reception.

ALL IN THE SWELTERING HEAT!

It seemed so much worse this year than ever, probably because I've been gone for almost a decade.

But I love my sister and the reception was actually really nice and lovely. And I like her husband too. He is good and they are good together. Oh and I got to do the flowers again. So I liked that. And it was nice to see my family. 

But I love them more in the winter than in the summer.*

 No but seriously, I was so happy I could go and they could get married and everything worked out. It was really fun!

*Depending on my location