Isla's First Story

This story was told by Isla, dictated by Grandma Williams

Special dinosaurs are nuffin but sloppy scales and tails.  And hammerheads have special hammer things that break through the wood. 
Snake dinosaurs have fears and they stick their tongue out. 
And most humans have dinosaurs for pets in their backyards.  They have special long necks to get a drink of water to store in their bodies.  And then their stomping feet have special alavities and to stop through wood like hammerheads. 
T - Rexes have nuffin but sharp teeth and loud roars to call out to the jungle.  And most dinosaurs go in parades.  And little baby dinosaurs have little baby balls to play with.  And most crabs like to eat baby dinosaurs but the daddys keep the crabs away.  And most dinosaurs eat squirrels.  And bull dinosaurs can charge through bad rhinos. 

The End. 

A few Sunday thoughts

Ian and I were walking Isla into church.  We each had her hand while she "skated" on the icey parking lot.   She was laughing and for a brief moment, I thought, "This is happiness."
I don't always feel that way in family life.  I don't always think in every moment, "ahh this is happiness."  In particular with mothering, I have felt guilty about that, the fact that I'm not always happy.    I'm good at some things.  For example, I like adventures.  The other day I told Isla we  were going to ride the city bus.  Even though it was pretty dang cold we bundled up and walked out to the bus stop and waited for our bus.  She was thrilled with the experience of getting on that  big bus.  We rode all the way downtown.  We walked over the sky walks and looked at the cars below us.  We told each other to shoosh as we walked quietly through the bank and then we stopped at a toy store in the mall and played with the toys there.  Then we walked downstairs to see the giant Christmas tree and say hello to Santa.  He waved and gave her a candy cane.  Then It was time to go back home and we went back through the mall, through the bank and over the sky walks to the bus station where we caught our bus home.  It was a great day.  I'm good at stuff like that. 
But if Isla asks me to play with her?  Dieing a thousand deaths is what I feel like.  Anxiety comes over me as I try to play pretend and think of something for my character to say.  I look at the clock and find myself saying, "ok I'll play for 5 min."  Nothing in me enjoys "playing" where there is no point or no objective, just pure playing.  I have had so much anxiety over this and have even audited myself at the end of the day.  "Did you play enough today?"  Beating myself up if I hadn't or if I had but didn't enjoy it.  This guilt has intensified in the wake of the tragedy in Connecticut where so many parents don't have the privilige to get on the floor and play with their kids anymore. 
Today in Relief Society we studied the talk by Dieter F. Uchtdorf called Of regrets and resolutions. 
It talks about regrets many people have who are dieing, one of them being wishing they had spent more time with their loved ones.  Immediately my guilt radar comes up.  "I don't enjoy the time I have playing with Isla or I just don't even play with her enough."  Then someone made a comment about doing things with her loved one that she didn't like to do but she did them to spend time with that person.  Something clicked with me.  I don't sit down at the side of the bath tub with Isla playing a game with her 30 different bath toys where we help them one by one jump into a bowl and have a conversation with each one before they are able to jump into the bowl because I love to play that game!  I do it because she does and because I love her.  So as I look at the clock and think of a million other things and even wish  this game would speed up, I can remind myself, "Im doing this because I love her.  It's ok that I don't love it.  Before I would avoid these games because all I would think the whole time was "I hate this."  Now I can give myself a break, and hate it but do it anyways and hopefully free myself of a few regrets.  And when those happiness moments come, I can soak them in for all they're worth.   

A perfect fall day

Earlier this month we did our traditional visit to Greenbluff to get our pumpkins.  We love to visit the cafe and get a treat and listen to the live music and then go pick out our pumpkin, plus all the other usuals like the maze and the animals.  It was a beautiful day, very warm and sunny while still having that crispness of fall in the air.  I enjoyed it in particular because I felt good and I haven't felt good this year which has been very hard on our little family.  This was a good day though, one that I will always remember and be grateful for. 

Happy Forshus Du Ly!

Isla has been looking forward to "Forshus Du Ly" or as some call it, the 4th of July, like it was Christmas.  She has been so excited.  She remembers exactly what we were doing last year in detail and can't wait for it to happen again.  Last year we went to Sandpoint with my dad and Aunt Jenni.  We had a great spot on the beach.  We swam and walked around the cute little town and got ice cream.  Then during the firework show we huddled under a blanket and ate m &m's.  It's understandable why she loves this holiday.

This year my Mom and Terry invited us to their friends cabin on Loon Lake.  Terry made the best monterey chicken sandwhiches for lunch.  We hung out in paddle boats and kayaks on the lake.  Isla splashed around in the water.  I was the only one to actually dive in.  I paid for it.  It was pretty cold, but lakes were meant to be jumped into.  What was most impressive were the fireworks.  There is no official show on Loon Lake so each cabin brings their own fireworks.  I swear the people next to us must have spent $1,000 on fireworks.  It was the best show we've ever seen.  We sat on the dock and it was like the fireworks were above our head.  The show went on for about 25 min.  It was so impressive.  I felt like we needed to send the neighbors a thank you note because our contribution of pop its and roman candles didn't quite measure up:)  All in all it was a good time.  Happy Forshus Du Lai!

A weekend with the Richmond Boys

Zeke and Zion came to visit Elk for two weeks this June.  We were so excited to spend time with them so we decided to dedicate a weekend to them.  Friday we packed up and headed to Elk.  Isla loves her cousins and they were so excited to see each other.  The boys didn't wast any time asking Ian "Sonic" questions and we all caught up while jumping on the trampoline. 
On Saturday we wanted to take the boys into town.  In a brilliant twist of fate, I found a $20 bill in my jacket pocket!  Where do you go when you have an extra $20?  Goodwill of course!  Ian got some awesome water galoshes, I got some cute new kicks and the kids all picked out a toy.  All with some change to spare!  After that we headed to the apartment so the boys (and Isla - she loves Sonic too)  could have Sonic time.  I ran a couple errands.  Then we went to Burger King.  Oh my it was so delicious.  I've been trying to loose weight and I just went for that Burger instead of the Salad and I loved every bit of it.  After that we took the kids to the Reptile Store in the mall.  They have every kind of scary thing you could think of which I am so desensitized to now because I have a daughter who was born with a love of reptiles.  They just come the way they come.  The boys loved the store.  After that we went to the dollar store so the boys could get their fill of candy and we headed back up to the mountain.  That night we watch Mary Poppins at Zekies request!  How cool is that!  We popped popcorn and cuddled up.  I love it that Isla loves that movie.  I loved catching up on the movie until I fell asleep which is what I usually say about every movie I attempt to watch after 8pm.  We all went to church the next day and came home and had lunch.  
Oh my!  I forgot about Ian showing me our land that he and Galen had cut out.  I couldn't believe how real it felt walking walking up our road and standing where our house will stand. 

We had such a great weekend and we love those boys so much!

Ian and Isla's latest favorite game to play together called "Steamroller."  It's pretty self explanatory:)

Sick Week

Well this week was an official sick week.  Ian went in to work a couple hours late on Tues.  to help me because I wasn't feeling well.  We had both noticed Isla had some goop in her eye and as soon as he left it stared getting worse and her eye was red.  So off to the doctor we went to find out she had pink eye.  In addition to that, the nurse she saw (not her ususal doc)  seemed to think we needed to test her for symptoms that she may have due to her UTI she had when she was 3 weeks old. She said her kidney could be affected but wouldn't show any noticable symptoms and this could cause high blood pressure.   She said she needed to have a catheter for this test and we may want to consider putting her under since it can be tramatic.  We're going to get a 2nd opinion since the original doc that diagnosed the UTI said it would just go away with time.  Plus she's seen another doc since then who never mentioned anything about continueing problems.  Don't you just wish when it came to you kids that the doctor could Always be right and never be wrong so you wouldn't have to worry about whether or not you should trust their advice?
Well since Isla was contagious, we spent 24 hours inside of our tiny apartment in a quarentine.  We couldn't even go in the backyard because we share a courtyard with a hundred other people and most of them have kids.  Thank goodness for pinterest!  We used a couple ideas I found on there.  Here is a picture of Isla doing some "spy training."  She loved it.  I didn't think about the fact that she'd want me to do it too.  I soon learned how weak my abs are and how out of shape I am as hovered under the "lasers" over and over. 

 

We also sent Grandpa King a "hug" from Isla by tracing her arms spread open and cutting them out and sending that to him.  Also a pinterest idea.  On the way to the mail box we spotted a worm, so we decided to get a jar and some dirt and bring him back in with us.  Isla named him "Sherman the Wormin", which I believe is a Backyardigan character.  

Grandpa Williams stopped by because he had a hearing in Spokane and said he didn't care about her being contagious, he just wanted to say Hi for a minute.  That small visit from the outside world was huge for both of us and bolstered our spirits!

After our quarentine was over we were a couple of stir crazy girls!  Poor Ian had gotten a cold starting Weds.  and the whole house was feeling droopy.  I took Ian a care package to work with all the works you could need for a cold.  Then after my floral class I called Mariah and asked if she wanted to walk the Centennial trail downtown with the girls.  She said yes.  On the way up to the South Hill to get her, Isla and I stopped at the Public Market to get some food for lunch.  We chose some very huge grapes with a sign next to them appropriately titled, "Big Ass Grapes."  They were quite good.  Then we chose two different scones.  One was Pina colada flavored and it was amazing.  The other was lemon blueberry and it was equally amazing.  Once we all got downtown, we decided to go check out the river instead of the trail because the river is so high right now.  It was an awesome sight to see!  It gives you so much adrenaline to look at because it is going so fast and the water splashes up on the walkway.  Yikes.  Sometimes I confuse the feeling of adrenaline with the feeling of terror so I had to do a little translating for myself while we looked at that river, especially with having the little ones with us...Yikes.  But it was amazing.  Isla said afterwards, "That was a great adventure!"  Awesome.  I'm glad she mixes adrenaline with excitement :)