Play day

So I am trying this app for my phone to post this entry so if it's different well you know why.

This past Monday we had a play date for an entire day, which made it a really fun day. I had a friend call me up and ask if I wouldn't mind watching her little guy as her usual daycare cancelled last minute. Of course I said yes. How could I pass up having someone for Magoo to play with all day!

We had fun watching some shows and going to the park. We read books and ate food and played in the grass. When we went to the park I put Magoo in the backpack carrier and B in the stroller. They both fell asleep on the walk home an slept for 2 1/2 hours! I liked it.

Call me anytime Tara you need a sub or an extra break, we had a great time!

Be Patient, For this is only Temporary.

On Saturday night I shared the thoughts of my current circumstances with some girls I didn't really know and I ended up being thanked by one of them as she feels that she was inspired by my attitude. So I thought I would share them with you.

Well you see we recently moved to Regina in hopes of finding a great school for Jared to finish up in. And so far we feel like we did. The University here is really great and Jared is doing well. But upon moving that meant that Jared would be moving away from a great job that he had for a couple years, they worked around Jared's schedule for school and understood when I needed him to take a weekend off. With the help of his last employer we have tried to get him a job at a car dealership here in R-town , no one was able to work with his school schedule. So off he went in search of a job, one that was hopefully within walking distance to our house.

It didn't take long for him to get an interview and then a job. It's at Sobey's in the produce department. It pays $11 an hour...
It's a job, and I am so grateful he was able to find one quickly, one that works with his schedule and gives him lots of hours.

For me. I am at home with little Mr.Magoo, and the work isn't hard physically, and most days I down right love it. But there are days when it is mentally taxing. Jared is at the school a lot and often works when he is not at school. In fact he works till 11 o'clock tonight, meaning I will probably not see him really at all today. Oh he was home for a couple hours. But we were busy doing "stuff" our own things that needed to get done. Perhaps I can look forward to the weekends you say? Well I trick myself to believe that all week and then once Friday comes I remember that my man will be working 8-6 for the next 2 days, and now with my new calling in my church as Relief Society Secretary it is hard not having my Hubby there to take my 20 lb drool king from me so I can full fill my calling with a little more ease.

For Jared. Not that he would ever complain about our situation, he really rarely complains. So this is from my point of view still. But the poor guy is never home, and when he is home Magoo is often asleep, and once in awhile I am already asleep. Plus he gets paid crap (as I see it) when with his skills and ability should be able to pull in a little more moola to ease the financial wonders of Student Loans, oh and diapers (okay so we don't actually pay for diapers at the moment thanks to a very generous gift, but you get the point).

Even though things sound like they are pretty rough financially for us right now I will tell you that we are able to pay rent, by food, and I look around my home and see many things that we have that others do not. New things even. And I am grateful. I also contribute it to the fact that we are being blessed by a loving Heavenly Father for keeping his commandments.

One day when I was feeling particularly down about how my life looked at the moment I realized that this is a temporary situation. This was not going to be my life long term and I needed to be grateful for the little things around me, the fact that we live a small apartment makes it easy to clean. When I have a bigger house to clean one day I might miss this little apartment. One day when Jared is home for dinner every night (hopefully) I might miss the days when I could get away with making popcorn for dinner, or a simple salmon and veggies. And one day when I have to many "things" to care for and worry about I might miss the simple things and a simpler way of living. There are many days when I wish I could hop a plane to go visit my family, to go to a wedding or an event of a close friend, however I am unable to, but I am so grateful for things like Skype and FaceTime, so so very grateful.

I came to this conclusion well before Saturday night, but as I sat listening to the General Relief Society Broadcast, Elder Uchtdorf could not reiterated my thoughts in a better way.

Forget not to be happy now:

Using an example from the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, President Uchtdorf described how one of the characters, Willy Wonka, hid golden tickets within chocolate bars, promising to reveal wonders to five people who discovered the tickets.

“In their anxiousness, people began to forget the simple joy they used to find in a candy bar. The candy bar itself becomes an utter disappointment if it does not contain a golden ticket,” President Uchtdorf said. Whatever a “golden ticket” may represent to each person, President Uchtdorf warned Relief Society sisters to not put their happiness on hold as they wait for a future event, or golden ticket, to appear.

“The lesson here,” he said,” is that if we spend our days waiting for fabulous roses, we could miss the beauty and wonder of the tiny forget-me-nots that are all around us.”

Living in an imperfect world.

Alright so in a perfect world I would have blogged long ago, but since it always seems that someone needs me or there is too much other noise for me to concentrate or the fact that we only have one decently working computer in this house and I have to share it, well I have fallen behind on the blogging. But while I wasn't blogging I was going for bike rides, tickling a certain little boy, feeding people, cleaning things, reading, putting to bed, changing diapers, and well you get the idea.

So I am far from perfect all though I often like to think I am much closer to perfect than I actually am. For example, when Jared and I were first married I always insisted on doing the dishes. Well so did Jared. We would argue over who Got to do the dishes. His reasoning: because he loves me and wants to do it for me, it's his way of showing appreciation for dinner. And it still is. My reason: Cause well I did enjoy it, however I really didn't want him to cause I didn't think he did it well enough. haha, I'm a jerk. But now since I have matured a little I truly appreciate that he does the dishes even if the tops of my pot lids don't get the best cleaning. And I have even come to accept the fact that sometimes when I find a kinda dirty "clean" dish, that I could have very well been the one to "wash" it, gasp* shocker I know. I am slowly realizing, although I don't admit it often if ever,  that I do not do everything perfectly.

And on that note I am now going to give myself a pat on the back for something that happened today. What's that you ask? Well let me tell you.

Magoo and I started attending Kindermusik, and today was our second class. We both enjoy it and it's just really nice to get out of the house and socialize. So in the class we all have a spot on the floor and the kids are free to roam around and get to know each other during certain songs. Well during one of these times Magoo was hanging out with some of the other toddlers there in the middle of the room mostly looking at each other. Well I had noticed one boy (lets call him Jack) a bit older than Magoo (I would say like 15-18 months old) was creeping in on his space but in my head I thought he was just going in for some cuddles... so I watched Magoo's face to see what his reaction was. Well at first it was a face of clear uncertainty, and then confusion. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw the Jack pull his face away from Magoo's back (where I thought he was cuddling) only to see him dive back in and his head start to shake. It was a millisecond before Magoo exploded in shear terror and pain that I realized that Jack was now biting him with all his might, and that he was probably biting him before he went in for the kill shot as well.

Well both me and Jack's mom jumped out of our spots to split them. I took Magoo in my arms for a quick cuddle while I found his soother (which seems to be a great comfort item these days) and got him settled down quick, he is pretty tough anyways. But this poor Mom was absolutely mortified that her boy had just bit mine, and she was very apologetic.

Now some parents might have been really upset even offended that there child had been caused so much pain, but I knew that kind of reaction was pointless, I also realized that it could have been the other way around in another circumstance. My child biting another. And maybe one day it will be. But I sure didn't teach him it's okay to bite, nor would that action go without consequence. So I figured this mom truly just needed a friend and not someone who was about to judge her.

I reassured her that he was fine and that he would be fine, she insisted on checking his back, something I hadn't even done yet, and sure enough there were 4 big welts in his back (they were even there after his bath tonight...). But he really is fine. Needless to say Magoo didn't go far from me the rest of class, which I really don't mind.

 Well not long after the incident Jack went crawling along towards other kids and his now paranoid mother hovered and tackled every time he got close. It wasn't long before he made his way over our direction, which she was very quick to pull him back. Well I told her it was okay and that this would be a good time to teach Jack and Magoo something and to let him come over. So he crawled right over to my leg and looked like he was about to bite it, but before he could I gently reached for him and asked if he wanted to play with Magoo. He never did bite me, instead he stood up facing Magoo and I took one of Jack's hands and one of Magoo's hands and took it to the other boys arm while saying "be gentle" and rubbing each others arms for them. I think it was a success, I even think both Jack and Magoo learned something.

I read this blog post a little while back and it has great insight on how we should treat others, people we know, people we don't know as well. We need to have patients with those around us and take the time to learn... together. To serve others. And to be prepared to bring blessings to other peoples lives.


This is a quote from the above mention blog:
"I think we should just try to imagine it………that when a friend is quiet…or not showing up to stuff she usually shows up to….or acting a little “off”….or a family member is wearing pajamas to the grocery store for weeks on end……or not answering the phone…..or the lawn is not mowed…..IT IS A SIGN. It is not a sign that can be read in words and letters, but it is a sign that someone needs to be treated gently…that they need help….most of all, that they need love, understanding…and that they DEFINITELY DO NOT need to be judged."

I choose not to keep many pictures of him not so happy cause seriously... tare my heart out.

unresistable.

Magoo at his happiest. How could I not share?

Curtains for my Kitchen

Alright so I have to apologizes for the quality of the pictures, but they are what they are.

So since we moved to our new place in Regina I have been working on curtains for our big windows and so far I got the ones for the kitchen done so I thought I would share.

My inspiration were "waterfall curtains" and I kinda worked with what I had.
The first fabric is white with grey wavy stripes running through it and it was an old duvet cover I had growing up (I actually kinda was sad cutting it up knowing it would never go on a bed again) and the blue fabric I got from the $1 bin at Fabricland! And I layered them on an old fitted sheet that had a hole in it.


The people looking into our house might not get the nicest view since I didn't really sew any kind of backing on it, but it sure it nice from the inside.
I don't think the pictures do it justice so I guess you will just have to come visit and see it for yourself!

The cutest Magoo you've ever seen.

If you know another kid who goes by the name "Magoo" well he's just not as handsome as mine, I hate to break it to ya.

Bevan (my BIL) took some pics of my little man and I didn't even know it! Who knows what I was doing but obviously I knew he was in good hands.

What a Chunk Hunk!

(These were taken in G-Lo's office)

Family Pictures 2011

So I have this awesome Brother-in-law, he's a photographer and a good one at that. We like him.

He took some great pictures of our little family this summer at our "Bates" Family Reunion and they turned out great. Here are a few...





And by the end of our picture taking I'm pretty sure Magoo was expressing how Jared was feeling... apparently he takes after his Daddy when it comes to pictures.