Deep breaths are good.

So the good news is, I am reachable again.  Try to contain your enthusiasm.  I have a phone once more and all contacts are restored as well as all my games.  That's the important thing.

In other news, my darling, delightful, adorable 3 year old is driving me insane.
After the ceiling came crashing down, she has had a mortal fear of the downstairs.
The day after the ceiling came crashing down we heard an animal scratching at the roof in my bedroom.
Thus was born the mortal fear of the upstairs.
The girl will not leave my side.  As in, the actual, physical, side.
She won't just sit in a chair next to me.
She cries if I leave her in a room by herself.
Just a moment ago she was eating chips and getting closer, and closer and closer.
Need I remind you how I feel about people eating super crunchy things near me?

I can't wash my hands, or go to the bathroom, or take a shower without her within 3 feet.
Heaven help me.

Her redeeming quality right now is that ever since Sweden, she has begun taking naps again.
[cue the Hallelujah chorus]
Thus giving me a one hour break from this sweet, darling, wonderful, barnacle.

Crappity Crap. (Pardon my language.)

I have lost my cell phone. 
In a public place. 
You can call me or text me. 
I won't answer. 
Nothing personal. 
I am just a moron.
Also, I don't know anyone's phone number. 
So don't expect a call or text from me anytime soon.
Oh.  And if I am playing a game of Words With Friends with you, don't bother. 
I probably would have beat you anyway.

My very interesting commentary on some of our daily happenings as of late.

 Sorry, maybe I should have warned you first.  In a house of five girls, five girls with a lot of hair (and one stressed man living with five girls), we vacuum up a lot, A LOT of hair.  It is disgusting.  But I love my vacuum and if I want it to continue vacuuming up all this nastiness, I have to snip the hair off the rotary thing at least once a month.

Gross.

Double gross.

Make that triple gross.

 Sunday naps.

Sunday is a magical day.  Clark and I take naps (one upstairs and one downstairs to play half-conscious zone defense) while Hazel naps with one of us and the other three play calmly and quietly.  It is a total phenomenon and we are not sure how it happens but we just go with it.

The best birthday present ever, from all the wonderful and related women in my life.  I wish I could tell you more about it but I am waiting on my brother to send me a picture or two.  What Spencer, do you have a job or something?  Get on it.

 Mia started dance.  Love it.  Love them.  Love everything about it.

 Abby started tennis.  She may not be able to hit the ball, but she looks simply adorable and has unmeasurable fun = totally worth it.

 Haley started gymnastics.  She is in love.  And those long, lanky legs are being put to good use.

 I kid you not, the week I got home from Sweden I found these growing in our yard.  I guess I didn't need to go all the way to Scandinavia after all.

 What. the. heck.

I just don't even know what to say really.

 Clark facilitated a night out by myself last night.  I went to see The Help.  I loved the book.  The movie was excellent and feel good and about quality life enriching stuff.  More on that later.  I love seeing movies by myself (and it ended up being free because the sound wasn't working.  So not only did they give our money back but the manager must have felt sorry for me because I was all alone and loser-ish looking and so he gave me a free popcorn and diet coke, you know, to help me stay awake for the next showing an hour later.)

 My workout this morning was 4.5 miles around the lake with a 35 pound weight on my bike.  Gorgeous.

And the cutest 35 pound weight ever.

The End.

The Super [Manly] Sleuth and His Lovely Dutch Assistant. A Story.

Once upon a time, a very lovely couple sat at their computer looking at dream houses.  Suddenly, from the other room, a commotion! Gathering, from the sound they heard, that an elephant was emptying his swollen bladder on the living room floor, they ran to see.  There was no elephant, but there was a gallon of water on the carpet that had recently, very recently, been spilled forth from a bulging ceiling.

The sleuth ran upstairs with his heavy flashlight to find the source.  The sleuth then proceeded to tap on every inch of floor upstairs to try and find out where the leaking was coming from.  He looked, and tapped, and looked and tapped.  The assistant corresponded by cell phone so as not to yell from downstairs to upstairs, waking the children.  The sleuth and the assistant were married you see.  They may have used the opportunity, while on their phones, to whisper sweet nothings in one another's ears.  Or maybe not.
And still, the ceiling was dripping...

And tearing...
And dripping...

 And tearing some more...

Until they decided it would be best to conduct a "controlled" loss of the ceiling rather than wait for it to come crashing down.  The Dutch [but really just partly Swedish] assistant may or may not have videotaped the "cutting of the panel", just in case another gallon of water came rushing into the face of the manly sleuth.  She didn't want to miss something potentially funny, naturally.  (No gallon came rushing down.  It was just a boring, run of the mill removal of living room ceiling.)

This, of course, is post mess clean up of 'said' drywall from ceiling.  The assistant may have forgotten to suggest laying down a tarp before the "removal".

At this point in the story, we find the assistant perched atop the ladder with the flashlight fixed down through the rafters to the location of the leak.  She hears the manly assistant head upstairs with a drill.  She then runs after him, afraid that he is taking it upon himself to "drill" something, somewhere.  As "renters", the assitant is very, shall we say "uncomfortable" with this assertiveness.  She may have told him very forcefully to "please not drill any holes!!" a little louder than she should have with sleeping children.  Of course, the lovely assistant (didn't I mention she was lovely?  She was, er, is) realized how smart the sleuth actually was when we found him in their bathroom simply using the drill to unscrew a panel behind the shower.
Thank goodness for all the cobwebs because in the dust, he was able to see the fine stream of water spraying forth from this very corroded pipe.   Do you see the stream?  Look closely and then try and guess how long it's been doing that.

Enter the invaluable talents of the "Dutch boy" assistant (except please try and remember that the Dutch Boy assistant is actually a partially Swedish lovely young woman, with, hopefully, a better haircut.)  She plugged the hole with her finger while the manly man when to find the duct tape.
She waited.
And waited.
And switched fingers when they started to cramp.

And finally after 15 minutes the manly man returned with the duct tape but she had to be woken with a kiss (or a little kick to wake her up before she fell off her perch on the toilet.)

Here is what I am grateful for.
Clark is here.  There have been lots of leaks and breaks and messes that he has not been present for over the years (see March 2010 entry for example.)  It is so much more fun to clean up soggy drywall with someone.
We rent.
We deal with a very good, thorough and prompt property management company (very unlike our last one.)
Clark and I work well together.  We actually had a little bit of fun even though it was past our bedtime and I was getting cranky.  I'm sure it would have been a lot less fun if we knew that we had to pay to fix it.

However, I need to dash out this morning to get in my lost errands of yesterday, before the property management calls me back and instructs me to wait in my house for a repairman from 8-3, everyday, for as long as it takes to fix a leaky pipe, wet drywall and a 3 foot hole in the ceiling.

Aren't you glad I have taken pictures of the whole ordeal?  It would not have been nearly as exciting if I hadn't been thinking about blogging it.
It's way better than what I had planned today...that being the complaint about how since we have early release from school every Monday, my disaster-strewn-house-from-the-weekend actually lasts through Tuesday because my Monday is so short I don't have time to get anything done.
Yeah, this was way better.

Delusional can be so entertaining

The youngest has changed since the older girls went back to school.  She is still funny and silly and downright spunky but there is something more.  She gets a lot of one on one, even when everyone is home so I am curious about her new, "habits".
Hazel has begun talking, regularly, to inanimate objects.
Yesterday she was so excited that she turned to her juice box, cradled it close to her face and whispered excitedly, "she said yes."  Apparently my answer to her about something was too thrilling not to share.
She told me she has two pretend friends.  One is Stella and the other one, she doesn't know his name.  Is that bad, when your child can't remember the name of their own imaginary friend?
None of my kids have ever had imaginary friends before.  This is kind of new territory.  But I am finding it highly entertaining.  They probably are so accustomed to having people (namely lots of sisters) around, that they enjoy a little "alone" time.  Who wants an imaginary friend around bugging you when you finally have some peace and quiet?
I guess she just is trying to fill the void her sisters have left during the day.
Maybe I should get to know the juice box.

(Please do be sure to turn up your sound so you can hear how obnoxiously animated I am about the TV watching and how I was telling my Megan in law how afraid I am that I will offend someone.  I love TV.  It's true, OK?  Also, if you ever come over to our house when it is raining, for heaven's sake, do NOT come running into the garage because it is more slippery than a greased pig on a hot Sunday afternoon.)

And now for something a little different.

I have wanted to post this for a while now.  They are some of my notes from a talk/article that I reread recently, about some things that have been on my mind for a while.  I am taking a different approach to my scripture study this year.  For years I have wished that I had a catalog of thoughts that I could refer to whenever I felt so inclined.  I have a file of some topics but I wanted a much more intense and detailed one.  So now when I sit down to read/study, I have my little notebook next to my scriptures, and every time I read something that makes an impression (or causes me to have an impression or insight) I write it down.  I first write the topic, then the reference and thought underneath.  Someday I will type it all up by category so I have a nice little personal reference file.  It is coming along nicely.  It is also interesting to go back and read the impressions I have had about certain things at certain times.  It is one of the invaluable blessings of the gospel.  Personal revelelations is a true blessing,  one that reminds me, daily, that Heavenly Father is aware of us, He knows us, and wants us to learn and grow.  He speaks to his children.  Why wouldn't He?
Once a month we get the Ensign (a church publication.)  I like to sit and read it cover to cover (just like a Reader's Digest, only better!) I came across a talk that really articulated well, what I had been thinking about and trying to make sense of for some time.
It is a talk called "Defending the family in a troubled world" by Elder Bruce D. Porter (Ensign June 2011) These were some of the quotes that stood out to me.
"Selfishness in any form or degree weakens the bonds that hold families together".  It's true, right? Any time any one of us, parents or children, put ourselves and our wants above the others, the balance is thrown off and there is discontent. (Notice I said wants, and not needs.  That is quite different.)
"Today, however, the world is in danger of abandoning all sense of absolute right and wrong, all morality and virtue, and replacing them with an all encompassing "tolerance" that no longer means what it once meant.  And extreme definition of tolerance is now widespread that implicitly or explicitly endorses the right of every person to choose their own morality and truth were mere matters of personal preference.  This extreme tolerance culminates in a refusal to recognize any fixed standards or draw moral distinctions of any kind.  When tolerance is so inflated out of all proportions, it means the death of virtue, for the essence of morality is to draw clear distinctions between right and wrong.  Regardless of what the future may hold, God has ordained that in the dispensation of the fullness of times, the parents of the church will be given power to help save their children from the darkness around them."
It struck a chord with me for lots of reasons.  One, being that there are a lot of issues around us today, both in the social and political arenas that separate us as members of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.   We are a rather conservative religion with solid beliefs about where we come from, who we are and where we are going.  We have a road map of how to do that, it is unwavering.  And yet in the world that we live in, our views are pegged as being intolerant, biased, bigoted and close minded.  We strive to preserve the family, which is central to our Heavenly Father's plan.  We are defending it because it is more precious than anything else.  It does not mean that we hate people, or that we are un-compassionate or unloving towards human condition.  There are, without a doubt, challenges all around us and in us that complicate life and its beliefs, but trial and adversity is the key to unlock experience, which begets growth, understanding and knowledge.  It is not supposed to be easy.  Nothing that is of worth, comes without a fight.
I fear for my kids who are growing up, surrounded and saturated by the belief that we need to be more "open minded" and "tolerant".  Because in most cases all that means is that people want us to forsake our core beliefs in order to accept anything and everything.  In moving that line of morality so often we are dissolving it all together.  It will not be easy.  We will be ridiculed for it.  People will look at our "intolerances" and interpret that as hatred toward individuals which is a gross misrepresentation.  We are taught love and acceptance of the individual.  I know that it is a difficult task for some to separate the individual from their beliefs or actions, but that is what we are taught.  It is at the core to love one another.  No one is perfect, and it may be a difficult thing to understand or separate in some minds but that's what it is.
I hope that I can have the fortitude to teach my kids.  My hope is that they will be able to understand and embrace the doctrine of these truths.  It will save them in a world that is swirling about them.  The gospel and these truths will be the anchor.
 But now, behold, they are led about by Satan, even as chaff is driven before the wind, or as a vessel is tossed about upon the waves, without sail or anchor, or without anything wherewith to steer her; and even as she is, so are they.
(Mormon 5:18, Book of Mormon)
Ironic as it is, I don't like the ocean (ironic because my husband is in the Navy and we have always lived near the ocean....love the coast, love the shore, don't love being out in the ocean.)  It is this image of being out in the water, away from the shore, being tossed upon the waves without sail or anchor that terrifies me.  And when thinking of the spiritual ramifications of being "without sail or anchor", that is even more paralyzing.  What then, of the thought of it being my children out there?  I will not shirk from teaching them right from wrong.  My prayer is that I can do it while teaching an increase of love and compassion.   They may be ridiculed, they may be teased or called awful things that are a shadow of the truth.  I hope they will understand that what people may think of them, because of their beliefs, is born of a misunderstanding or misinterpretation of our beliefs.
It will be worth it.
I hope this post was interesting, even if it had no pictures.

I need a foot rub.

In the midst of utter and complete chaos tonight, I had the three year old asking me to smell the underwear dangling from her middle finger.
You know those ebbs and flows of motherhood that we talk about?  Sometimes it's more like being flung on the jagged rocks of a really coarse coastline.
I love motherhood.
Just thought I would share some of my thoughts tonight.  I have much better thoughts sitting on my desk to share but that's about all the energy I have left for now.

Update of a soggy nature.

Just an update, last night Clark was waiting by the car, poised and ready to pounce on the chance to get through.  I got a phone call from a neighbor that said with a secret password (the name of our street) the cop was letting people through for the next five minutes (this is last night at about 7pm).  I called Clark and yelled "GO GO GO!!" and he did, and they made it through before the copper closed the road again.
The rain let up enough through the night that the road is open both directions again (amazingly enough!) but that car is still sitting in the middle of the road with a huge tree against it.  Clark went to work but school for the entire county was canceled.
We are all good, albeit a little wet!
Thank you for your concern, the yummy dinner was had and Clark was awarded his presents for being such a good birthday boy and bringing our babies home safe.

Earthquakes, Hurricanes and Floods, Oh My.

OK, three posts or more in one week...things are getting crazy around here and I'm not just talking about my blogging frequency.  Let's talk about what Washington DC has done to deserve earthquakes, hurricanes and floods all in the same month.  Scratch that, I'm sure you all have a lot to say about why DC deserves those things.  Rhetorical questions can be fun though, can't they? Ha, I got you with another one.  Don't answer that.  I don't really want to know.
Right now I am sitting on one side of this,

 and this,

the only two ways out of my neighborhood,
while my hubby and two of my babies are on the other side.
I came home from a lunch at about 2:30, and at 3:30 the school bus was turned around because the road was closed.  Luckily (for a lot of things, one being that I came home when I did because Miss Haley was home by her lonesome, trying to get over the fever that has caused her to miss the first two and a half days of school this week.  I cannot imagine if I hadn't gotten home and she was still by herself) but also luckily a friend was "on the other side" and picked the kids up from the school.
However, the road both ways is still closed. 
Also luckily, Clark's flight landed home safely and he is now with the chittlins, chillin until we have word about the road.
I wish my whole family was on this side.
I had a yummy dinner planned.
We were going to celebrate Clark's birthday tonight.
(Do I need to gripe about the "no TV" for the month of September again? cause I can.  But I won't.)
I don't like being apart from my family during a natural disaster...it's kind of a fear of mine.
Luckily though,
we still have power,
we are safe,
the rain has let up.

I hate to ask, but what next?
And to my dear, dry family in Texas, you know I would share if I could, right?

Wednesday.

Oh my goodness, again already?  Here's the deal, Haley is home sick, I know, on the second day of school!  She actually came home from school early yesterday.  She has fallen prey to what all the rest of us has had and is missing the first week of school! So stinky.
Anyway! Aside from Haley being home, and already being done with the dishes, I am totally bored already.  It only slightly has something to do with the fact that the Scharmans have gone unplugged for the month of September (TV, not computer, obviously.) I will go into that later.  But without TV, we are getting "creative".
Yesterday I discovered yet another of Hazel's hidden talents.  She was sitting on my lap and copying something I was singing.  It was very Kat & Garth 'esque.
So just because it's Wednesday, AND we are not turning on our TV for 23 more days, AND we had a camera man home and available AND we have nothing else to do, here is the debut of Hazel and Mom, singing sensation.

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
www.onetruemedia.com

Despite what the video says, this is not from 2007.  It was though, about 20 minutes ago. 
And despite singing "Happy Birthday Haley", I would like to dedicate the show to Clark, whose birthday it is, TODAY!!! Oh husband, who is so far away on this particular day, Happy Birthday....just watch this video over and over again (then can we call the whole "present" thing good?  You're a peach.)  I will have to give him his own birthday post soon, like maybe 9am tomorrow when I am bored all over again.
Don't worry people, a little boredom is good right now because I'm sure I will find plenty to keep me busy soon enough.


And of course a taste of what Kat and Garth do exactly, because it is hilarious.
Garth and Kat Summer Concert

Too soon? It's too soon, itsn't it.

So, it's only 9am and I am bored.

It must be the first day of school!

I suppose I could go clean up the kitchen, but then what would I have to look forward to for the rest of the day?

It was a rainy first day but the girls were excited and ready.  Haley is in fifth grade this year and a safety patrol on the bus, such a big kid.

Abby is in third and Mia is a big first grader.

Now it's just me and Hazel, all day.  I'm thinkin' we need to reinstate naps especially convenient because she has been asking for them ever since we got back from Sweden.  So besides having an amazing vacation, Sweden also blessed us with naps and a better sleeping schedule (mainly the adults with night owl habits now exhausted by 9:30 and popping awake at 5:30...I could do with a later wake up time but I'll take it for now.)

I also have to take a moment and give more than honorable mention to the two other birthdays that we have celebrated last week.  Mine was a wing dinger so I felt bad that on Haley's I was feeling pretty poorly at the height of my sickness.  

That and most of her presents hadn't arrived in the mail.  Poor kid, she did a new leotard for gymnastics that starts tomorrow and Ben & Jerry's.

And then just two days after Haley, we celebrated Mia turning 6.

 This girl saw the walking puppy a couple of months ago at the store and it's been the talk of the house ever since.  She was so so excited...and Clark and I were as well because it may just hold them off from getting a real dog for a while.

 (I discovered an entire "photo shoot" on my camera on her birthday.)

The dog's name is Delilah, just in case you were wondering.

Mia was our Texas baby.

So 

Happy Birthday!

girls.  Our family would not be as fun, or crazy or amazing without you both.

Sweden, The Final Installment.

Ah, Stockholm.  It took us several days.  I could have stayed a month longer.

THE WARSHIP VASA

 Go read about this, it is completely fascinating and amazing.  Basically what happened was, the King of Sweden wanted the biggest, baddest warship on the seas.  He made his engineers build it, despite their reservations and warnings.

It took almost three years to build it.

They launched it.

It got less than a nautical mile from the shore, caught the first wind in it's sails, and sank.

The King was conveniently out of the country at the time.

 It sat at the bottom of the harbor for over 300 years and was just pulled up about 50 years ago.  It is amazingly well preserved and on display, along with artifacts and skeletal remains.

 Clark, the ocean engineer. "Hm, I see the problem.  You're using pebbles for ballast!"

 They have been able to piece together amazingly detailed information about the people that went down with the Vasa.

 "It sank?!"

(I personally like Hazel's comforting hand on the woman's shoulder.)

 Next stop: JUNIBACKEN

Author Astrid Lindgren, children's museum experience extrodenaire

 Pretty much the most fun place, ever.

 She is the author of Pippi Longstocking, and lots of other charming stories.

 Don't I make a smashing ice queen?  All of my subjects think so.

 After a little ride that takes you around and above models of her stories, you end up at Villa Villekulla, Pippi's house.

 Awesome.

Next was the ROYAL ARMORY

In the basement of the royal palace they have a museum but not just any museum, pretty much the coolest museum I have ever been through.

This is a real horse.  A real King's horse that was shot in the neck (right where that mane is parted.)  It didn't kill the horse, they stuffed him later when he was good and dead of natural causes.  The king however, did die.

 Let me just give you an example of some of the amazing things in this museum (not all as gross as this, but just as fascinating.)

These are the rags that the King was wrapped in after he was shot off of his horse.  That bloody rag on top is the one that they wrapped his heart in, before giving it to the Queen.  She then proceeded to wear the heart in something around her neck until she died.  Yikes.

 At the beginning of the museum the kids pick up this cool tackle box thing.  It is full of fun little objects that go along with clues given by a tiny mouse in different cases throughout the museum.  You have to find the little things that go with the story in the display case and then you read an explanation of whatever it is you are looking at.

So fun right?

 I think ridiculously wide hips should come back into high fashion.

 This is Princess Victoria's dress from when she was presented to Parliament.

 One of the kings was shot during a masquerade ball.

This was his actually costume along with the masks of the assassins who surrounded him.

It's like something out of a novel.

 Then the women went shopping and the men took the kids upstairs to play dress ups.

 This is grumpy Queen Hazel,

 and not so grumpy Queen Hazel.

 And I am seriously considering blowing this one up huge and hanging it on my wall somewhere.

I love it.

 Did you know Stockholm is sometimes called The Venice of the North?

I had no idea, but it is actually a cluster of islands.  There are charming waterways all over the city and you cross over on bridges to get from one neighborhood to another.

 This is the tiniest sculpture in Stockholm.

I wanted to put him in my pocket and take him home.

 They say, if you rub his head you will have good luck.

I'm not sure what the bread and money is for.

 I do think that Mia makes an adorable viking.

 Abby got better at the beginning of the trip but Hazel and I fell prey to a fever and cold the last couple of days we were there.  Hazel was feeling pretty crummy but let me tell you, Swedish Tylenol is so much better than what we got here.  For all I know the pharmacist could have been giving us meth, but it sure got rid of the fevers quickly.

 (A chapel in the royal palace.)

 The most narrow street in Stockholm.

"Does this street make me look fat?"

 Hazel, still feeling too crummy to plunder.

 This viking was so inebriated that she didn't realize her buddy was a goat.

And probably my most favorite place of all, SKANSEN

 And not just because it began with delicious French sandwiches and cinnamon rolls the size of my head.

 Skansen is a place where there are homes from all over Sweden, from all different decades and centuries.  The oldest home there dates to about 1300.  They are the actual homes, brought from all over.

There are people dressed in period dress that can tell you everything and anything.  It was so huge we barely scratched the surface.

I loved this place.

 In a homestead from the southern part of Sweden (where Clark also has a lot of family from) we talked at length with a woman doing household chores.  She put the girls in aprons and kerchiefs, anxious to "have a servant for the day" and put them to work washing dishes and feeding the pigs.

 Then I saw a moose.  I really wanted to see a moose in Sweden.  I was kinda hoping to see one in the wild but I will settle for one behind a fence.

 This man was making the red paint you see all over Sweden.  A copper processing byproduct gives it the red color and it lasts for 200 years or more, which is why so many houses are red.

 The house from this area (which I cannot remember) has hand painted walls, covering every inch.  It is so incredible.

 There were several stages in the park with dancers.  The girls were content to sit and watch (except the ones above where Mia took Hazel in her arms, and Papa twirled the girls with some other couples.)

 The music, I love the music.  It just brought such vivid and comforting feelings back from a small part of my childhood and a love for the Swedish in my family's roots.

 Like I said before, there were baby carriages everywhere! and I was pleased to see how accommodating stairs all over the city were for families.

I don't even have an amazing picture of my parents waving good bye to us to end my posts of our trip.  It would make me too sad anyway.  I was having a hard time looking back at them on the other side of security at the airport, waving good bye, because it was making me cry.
I don't like saying good bye to them.
I don't like that they are so far away.
And I hate that our trip is over.
But I am so glad and grateful that we got to go and experience and see all that we did.
I will never ever forget it.
Thank you Mo and Papa!!!!!!

(To see my last post, click older posts...apparently this one was so long it was the only one on the page...there is another new one, I promise.  Don't miss it, it was a page turner with mushrooms and everything!)