ANOTHER Post About Emma

I know I've posted a lot bout my daughter lately. She's just been doing so much! This is a page from Jackson's spiderman book that she did. I love her handwriting! It's so cute!

Friends, Horses, and Another Old Lady

My own little cowgirl....


and cowboy.

Yesterday Emma, Jackson, and I went out to lunch and horse back riding with my friend, Sarah, her daughter, Ali, and Grandpa Dick (Sarah's father). We had SO much fun! We started out going out to lunch at a museum cafe. So I ought to get this first story out of the way. The kids had been sitting and eating lunch for about 20 minutes and we were getting ready to go. They weren't being extremely quiet, but we were doing our best to continually remind them to calm down. At the point when we were readying to leave, I let Jackson out of his highchair and he just went running and squeeling away from our table. What would you do as a mother? I stood up and called him back and began to walk toward him. This is the run-in with the old lady. At the end of the isle there was probably a 70 year old lady sitting at her table and she started frantically slapping her hands and yelling at him to get away from her and back to his mother. This is where I came walking down to get him. He was crying (she was scary) and I was infuriated. I walked over to her and told her she was NOT welcome to talk to my child that way. She replied (yelling, mind you) "I will yellat him if he comes by my table again." Me: "I am his mother and you saw that I was coming to take care of him. Once again, you will NOT talk to my child again." And I walked away. That's my second run in with an old lady this week. I have a poor time expressing stories because of the emotion that gets built up in me. Do you have a hard time when people "mother" your children? I don't even yell at my kids the way she yelled at my kid. And I feel like I discipline my kids. It made me angry, though!

His horse wouldn't move and he was stuck out there for a couple minutes not knowing what to do. Finally, some other horses caught up with him and nudged him along. It was funny!

She looks so pretty on a horse!

Anyway, we made our way to this CUTE little pony farm that let's the kids ride this track going slow, medium, or fast. It was hilarious! To get the ponies going medium, a worker would kind of cackle and chase the pony a little just to get her going, and to get her fast they would do this around the entire track and the kids heads would just be bobbing up and down from the trotting. It was so fun to watch. Emma and Jackson both loved it! They would yell and wave at each other from across the track. Emma wanted to go on the faster horse (we'll have to go back!) and Jackson whined as we walked away, but was very fine when I told him we were going to ride on the choo-choo train.

I'm so grateful we have started getting close friendships with others. I have made some great friends since we moved here and I'm sure I will bawl my head off in three years when we leave here, too. I keep looking at friend's blogs from KY and seeing Brinn's tummy (slowly) grow and hear that Sarah had her baby and Denise (who fortunately I talk to cause she NEVER updates her blog) is busy doing what I'm doing! I miss you guys (and more of you) so much! I can't wait to come out for Thunder again!

Emma's first performance!

At violin last week, Emma played her concerto PERFECT and her teacher asked if she would perform it in front of her group class this week so this is it! She did fabulous! She loves it and we are having so much fun watching her!

A Proud Mommy Moment

Last week we were asked to come up with a musical number to sing in church today. I was so excited for the opportunity because I wanted Emma to join a song with us. She has really opened up since beginning karaoke nights and she is totally come out of her shell. So we talked to her about doing a song with us and settled on "Teach Me to Walk in the Light of His Love." We practiced throughout the week and Jack mentioned a few times the fear of putting too much pressure on our four year old girl. I think I have felt like I want her to get over those fears now because of what that would mean to her when she grew up. There is so much insecurity in life anyway, but if she could conquer a fear of being in the public eye, then that would be something else. So those were my good intentions as a mom. And she said she wanted to do it, so I said good for her. She did the first verse solo, and then Jack and I came in on "come little child" and then we all sang the third verse together. Anyway, SHE DID AWESOME!!! We got up and she got right in the microphone and started out singing the second verse, but with our help she quickly swapped to the first verse and didn't look back. So I was so proud I couldn't hold back the tears. Jack and Emma more or less did a duet and I just stood up there for moral support. We got it recorded so I'll try to download it so you can hear her. She honestly did just so great. She has had a lot ofpressure the past week and has handled it like a champ! She memorized her talk in primary last Sunday, sang in church this Sunday, and is doing her first violin solo in her group class tomorrow. I've been really proud of her and am hoping she just keeps chugging along cause she is doing fabulous! I love you, Emma!

Mean People

Don't you think life is hard enough without those who are so willing to point out your faults? Maybe it is because I am pregnant. Maybe it is because I am getting tired. Or maybe it is just that people can just plain be mean and I'm sick of mean people being on the earth. Here is my scenario. I go to church (early, in fact. That doesn't happen as often as it should) and find a bench to sit at that is close enough to the front for comfort because Jack, Emma, and I sang a song today in sacrament meeting. I will write a different post about that...don't want to mix a wonderful experience with this one. There was just an older man sitting in the seat in front of us and no one behind us as of yet so I'm fairly safe. Now I am a seven month along pregnant woman with a VERY active two year old ALL boy and a four year old girl that does pretty well, but by no means sits still the entire hour and ten minutes. I have brought the essentials: snacks, books, coloring books, and even two puzzles today. We made it through sacrament meeting pretty well. Jackson only threw a few puzzle pieces and yelled out all of his animal sounds from his book a couple of times. Not too bad. The woman that had joined the older man in front of me looked back a couple of times while he was saying his animal sounds and I apologized for the volume and she shrugged it off and asked how old he was and then complimented his intelligence for his age. I felt like she was being nice and grateful for a good attitude about a little boy (or so I thought). Meeting is over. I clean up the mess that we are very capable of making in the one hour time frame and head on my way to nursery and primary drop offs. End of scenario. I went to visit a friend tonight to a friend who told me I was brave for sitting next to this woman in church. Not knowing what she was talking about, I inquired and learned that she is quite the vocal woman and is excellent at pointing out the faults of others in the ward (and I also recognize that yes, I am doing a little gossiping and fault pointing of my own right now). My friend went on to tell me that after the meeting this woman came up to her and said she was holding a puzzle piece of ours ransom until we cleaned up the mess that we made during the meeting (which I thought I had done). Apparently, we left our wipes, program, and a few crayons under the bench. This IS my responsibility to clean up after myself. I really thought I had cleaned up my "mess", but since I can't breathe because of the basketball that knocks the wind out of me when I bend over, I admit I did not get on all fours to look every direction for traces of Hardy. I'm so guilty. This didn't bug me at first when she told me. I think I'm pretty good at letting things roll off my back, but unfortunately, I allowed myself to stew. So this is what I have come up with. I need to take responsibility and take an extra step to take care of the Lord's building. I need to be more forgiving, also. I just have such a hard time with those who are so quick to pawn judgment off instead of think what they could do to help. It is not her JOB to help me, but we are at church....ya know? Once again, I am guilty of this also, in a different way. I just want to remind myself and others of things such as the idea of being a Christian (since we ARE at church). What if she had recognized the load that I had and thought to wonder what could be done to help instead of finding a missing puzzle piece and refuse to give it up until further notice? What if I never clean up my mess? Does she knowingly keep the puzzle piece and feel guilty of stealing? I know that's stupid, but as I'm typing this I'm really thinking about what I need to learn from this. Which leads me to the next point. Whatever happened to wisdom in old age? I have heard many times from those who have been around longer than myself how you learn to not judge so quickly because everyone is dealing with something in their life you don't know about. My mom tells me how she loves being around rambuctious little ones now because it helps her remember those days as a mom that she took for granted. If you choose to post on this...please help me see something positive that I can learn from this. I don't want to harbor angry feelings at some woman I don't even know. She actually probably does have a lot of wisdom at her age, but still has things to work on like the rest of us. I am sick of mean people. I see no sense in knowingly saying something with the intentions to hurt someone else. But sometimes, being the blunt person I can be, I also tend to hurt others feelings even when I don't realize it. So I should cut some slack there, too. Oh, the things I learn as life goes on...

Random Thoughts

I'm sitting here watching an Eloise movie with Emma waiting for our chocolate chip cookies to get out of the oven. I'm excited about those. I told Jack to put Jackson to bed and lie down to take a nap himself. About five minutes later Jackson came running out and when I went to check on Jack he was snoring in our bedroom. Love that kind of help. Fortunately, Jackson fell asleep the first five minutes of the movie so I got to lay him down anyway.
So it's only 98 degrees in LA today. I don't want to use the AC because it's only April, but it might have to be cranked on sooner than later. We want so badly to jump in the pool and spend our family time swimming today. It kills Emma to hear about how we're supposed to keep the Sabbath Day holy and that includes staying out of the water. We do try to tempt her as much as we can by putting our legs in the water just to cool off.
So if you read the blog below this just gives an idea of the torture I'm going through. My dear friend, Monica, can appreciate my bluntness and, bless her heart, chose to be open with me, today, too. I was bumbed to pull out my nursing bra (34 H) (doesn't that make you want to cry?) and I fill that baby out perfectly already. HELLO!!! My mil hasn't even come in yet. So I haven't shared this information with anyone yet, but Monica came up to me today and pleasantly informed me that the girls were looking very milk filled today. She carries the same heavy up top burden I do so I could see the empathy in her eyes. Whoa is me...
Jackson's birthday is coming up. What do you get a two year old boy when you already feel like you have toys and junk coming out of your ears? I struggle with the whole birthday toy thing anyway. I never know what to get that won't be a waste of time. Anyway, that's all for now. I'm trying to be a little better about posting more often, even if there's not something to post about! Ta-ta for now!

All my pregnant glory

Just a quick note to all who care about how pregnancy is going. I know I haven't posted any pictures and because most of you who read my blog actually know me, you also know I have no problem expressing myself sometimes very bluntly. Which means you also know I have an oversized chest and have never thought much of it. I don't like pictures. That being said, I have an oversized chest and DO NOT LIKE IT!!! There. My stomach isstartingtocatch up, though. Our little one is an active little gal doing flips constantly and jabbing back at any hand that may be cramping her style at any point in time. I had a doctor's appointment today and at 28 weeks I am officially 6 lbs past the weight that I delivered Jackson and 7 lbs away from my delivery weight with Emma. I'm guessing I'm gonna pass her up, too. I think I said this before, but I am just not worried. Not to say that I don't care about my weight because unfortunately, much of my self esteem comes from my vanity so this tehnically could be leading to quite the issue in a few months. But for now I'm trying to give myself a break and just enjoy this pregnancy. This has been my favorite one so far. I think I was in denial with Emma because I was pregnant so fast after we got married. With Jackson I was terrified of having a little boy because I was scared of penises (Yes I am past that now), and with this one I've just loved cuddling with my glorious tummy and watching her move and knowing that if I drink cold water or just chew ice it makes her active as can be. It's been great. We haven't come up with a name, but we don't put much time into it. We still like Morgan, which is what Emma was called until she came out of the womb, I like Macie, Jack is not a huge fan of anything, but he doesn't come up with any of his own so he just might not get a say in this if he doesn't get working! I am at 158 lbs today, the doctor said I'm looking at gaining around 40 lbs this pregnancy. I gained 55 with Emma and 21 with Jackson. My fabulous news of this appointment, though, is that he told me that if all goes well with this c-section I can go home the day after like vaginal birth! I was complaining about having to stay 4 days because they are so boring and uncomfortable and terrible food and I have a nurse for a mom and a doctor for a husband and they can take my vitals if they are that important and Jack can take out my staples and stitches. I just want to go home and he said okay! Woo-hoo!

Blessings of Motherhood

I've been kicking myself for not writing down the cute and precious stories that happen daily in a home and those tender moments with my kids. So a quick story...we went shopping for birthday decorations and all the food for Jack's birthday on Wednesday and his Birthday wasn't til today. I prepped Emma and talked to her about surprises and secrets on birthdays and how we need to not say anything to dad about the upcoming events. She held tight and did fantastic. So while he worked yesterday, we cleaned and decorated the house and got all ready for when he would get home this morning and we called him to say good night and just before I hand her the phone I reminded her not to mention what we had prepared that day. As you may all understand, her four year old person couldn't take the suspense of a secret anymore and she had to blurt it out. Well, I had told her she could fall asleep cuddling up to a movie with me last night, and well, consequences of making poor choices had to happen and that was to consequence that I chose at that point. I was pretty bumbed cause I put some work in yesterday. Well, first she was mad, then when I laid the guilt on pretty thick and she felt pretty bad about what she had done, she just cried and told me over and over again how sorry she was, but still wanted to watch a movie. Nada. But I absolutely knew she was sincere with her apologies when she told me that she wanted to say prayers with just me and talk with me after I put Jackson down for the night. So I came back in, she said her prayers and then broke down sobbing and told me she was sorry she ruined the surprise and that she didn't want to watch a movie anymore. She was so sweet. So she went to sleep and I got feeling bad about making her feel so badly and letting her go to sleep feeling that way so I tried to wake her up to say sorry, but she was out of it. Anyway, she woke me up in the middle of the night to ask for help going potty and then asked me to cuddle up with her for a minute. At that point, 3 am, I once again told her I was proud of her and loved her and was sorry that i got so mad and dad would still have a fun birthday. She just rolled over and hugged me and says "I'm so sorry. I love you so much."
Today, I was in the kitchen preparing a birthday meal and listening to conference going on in the other room. It was Elder Ballard's talk on mothers and Jack and Emma were watching it together. So he got to the part where he was telling the kids what they could do around the house to really help their moms out like make their beds and help out with the dishes and say thank you when clean clothes are in their drawers, but especially wrap their arms around their mom often. Well, I hear her say "I can do that" and she ran into the kitchen and threw her arms around me and kissed me and said I love you, mom. I tell you, she is a sweet little girl.

31 Things I Love About Jack

Today is Jack's Birthday so in tradition of blogging, I thought I'd tell you a few of the things that I love about my husband.

1. He honors his Priesthood.

2. He's a good kisser. Whoo-hoo! (especially with a clean shaven face)

3. He is very motivated.

4. He 99.9% of the time says he is sorry first.

5. He is such a fun father. Emma and Jackson go crazy excited when I tell them to run outside and meet their dad who got home.

6. He is very persistent. He really chased me when he met me.

7. He's so supportive of me. He drove me to SLC once a week for doctor's appointments the first eight months we were dating. He never complained or made any excuse to not take me. He knew I needed him.

8. He will begin many of our serious conversations with "I was reading this out of the scriptures and it made me think..."

9. He loves the outdoors and when he needs to relax with our family we usually head out of town to some sanctuary and make a memory, which is important to me that my kids remember these memories.

10. Although he is so busy right now, he often recognizes my needs and asks what he can do to make my load at home not quite so heavy.

11. He is so fun. There's a song that I love to sing and think of him that says something like no one can make me laugh, or cry like she (or he) does...I obviously don't know the song well. It's on our iTunes.

12. He's a great cook.

13. He doesn't mind doing laundry and doing MANY household chores.

14. He encourages me to be a better person and helps me come a little closer to that potential that Heavenly Father sees in me.

15. He often looks for ways to suprise me and is getting better at it. He brings home flowers at random times just to say thank you for being his wife.

16. He is the best best friend in the world.

17. He is a Jack of all trades. Our furniture is homemade, he can fix most things on our vehicles, does all of the fixing in our house, sings, cooks, makes me laugh.

18. I laugh the hardest when I watch him laugh. It is the best to get him laughing with his brother where they both have tears streaming down their faces. Or he just has to tell the story of his brother telling a story and I laugh harder at him telling the story than the actual story.

19. He has taken his job as the provider very seriously and worked his tail off to get where he is. I'm so proud of him.

20. Very selfless. He pretty much lets me sleep in every opportunity he can. He always lets me pick where we are going to eat, the activity we are going to do, etc. He puts my needs (and wants) high on his priority list.

21. Always pays his tithing. Always.

22. He doesn't throw away compliments. If he gives a compliment, he really means it.

23. He loves the temple.

24. He is so good at teaching the kids to honor their mother. Emma often thanks me for a wonderful meal at dinner because she has heard her dad say somany times that they should be grateful for the hard work mom puts in.

25. He genuinely puts time into thinking of what he needs to do to become a better person. He watches movies that are clean and tries not to waste his brain power on the trash on TV. And if he begins to complain about situations at work, he will often stop himself so that he is not a complainer. He doesn't get that gift from me, though.

26. I LOVE that he loves "chic movies." I love that shows like Enchanted or Pride and Prejudice are at the tops of his list. I also love that he will watch Lord of the Rings with me for the 20th time and not get annoyed that I have to pause every 10 minutes just to clarify that I get the show.

27. I love that he pushes me to try new things and that he always LOVES to try new things.

28. I love that at karaoke this week he got up and sang "Annie's Song" to me. That was the song he sang to me at our reception. I love how he sings that song.

29. I love that he honestly doesn't care what gift I give him or the kids give him. He just wants to know that I have put my thoughts and heart into what I'm doing and that's what makes it worthwhile.

30. He able and willing to give me or the kids a Priesthood Blessing whenever I ask for it. I like that I trust and love him as I should to know every private detail of my life and that he takes that seriously and still loves me that much more...even with the faults.

31. I love that even though I often feel as though I am failing as a mother and wife that he is the first one to let me cry to him and reassure me that there's no one else who could do a better job with my kids (who, by the way, are pretty incredible kids). I love that he takes this information and ponders it for the next few days and comes back with lists of things that I am doing well or flowers or an idea to get away as a family and do something or to go out and get a pedicure or to put the kids to bed early and give me a massage or go out to lunch with some friends just because he knows I need a break.

I love that I love my husband and feel like I really scored with him. I love you so much, Jack! You really are the best friend I could have ever asked for and my perfect match. Happy birthday from Jaima!