Alivia: Accident or...

Alivia woke up this morning and said,"My bed is wet."

Tony asked,"Did you have an accident?"

She replied,"No."

Tony said,"Then what happened?"

Alivia said,"I think someone was baptized."

She recently went to a baptism. It's great how her little mind works:

This reminded me of another baptism story that my friend wrote for a children's magazine.

I will never forget Josh opening up The Friend that month and saying,"Hey! I remember this!" Now Lauren is off to college!

Alivia: Cows 'n Corn...Oh My!

I was totally sucker punched into doing this. Here's the story:

I did not mention to Alivia that her preschool was going on a field trip to a 'pumpkin patch' for a reason, (It was me, actually, not wanting to go with a bunch of screaming 2-5 year olds to a smelly dairy farm, go figure.) but her teacher decided that this would be the kind of good information that Alivia should have. She told her that they, the class, were going and that Alivia was not coming and that it was "all my fault". Not a happy moment for me...or for her teacher after I spoke with her:

So, in the effort to rededicate myself to my life, I thought I better go make my little daughter happy. Here are the results:

"Finally! I get to drive a tractor!"

Making butter from cream (store bought cream...what the...?)

Lily the Cow

She loved Lily.

Pure joy.

Hayride

It took her a while for her to find her courage to go through the tunnel, but once she did she was hooked!

"Can I keep her Mom?"

"I promise I will feed her!"

"Yummy. Ice Cream!" (store bought! what the...?)

When all was said and done, I was really happy that I took her. And I really did have some good hard laughs watching Alivia run and play, not to mention the following favorite moments:

It actually set the mood for me when Alivia got out of the car and yelled,

"Ewwww! Is that the cow smell?", 

whereupon the parking lot attendant, who was later the butter-making technician, went into a lengthy lecture of why that smell wasn't the cows...it was their feed. (Ummm...ok...really? Because I smell cow-poo.)

There was also the moment when another mother was sneezed on by a sheep. She was covered in black boogers. Bless her heart.

There have been a lot of pumpkin patch visits in my life with my kids and it looks like there will be quite a few more visits with Alivia to see cows, sheep and pumpkins...

Oh my!

Here are a few shots that Alivia took on our way home:

Love the boots!

Did I mention that the pumpkins were store bought too? Umm...what the...?

My personal favorite! Hooray! We're home!

(Oh! there was no corn...what the...?)

Trina: A Rededication:

I find myself, lately, not being as dedicated as I should be.

There are things in my life that I have let...slip (shall we say?).

For several months now I have been very focused on things outside of myself:

A wedding, which went off beautifully I think.

Lots of family staying at our house. I am so grateful for all of them that came and helped.

Driving for a group of ladies who ran 200 miles of Ragnar Relay Race. Um - amazing!

My kids starting school again..a husband in the Bishopric and his PhD classes...things like this and more.

I, also, for that past few months, have been fully engaged to...running.

Yikes!

I have been very reluctant to talk about my running because I just saw 12 women run 200 miles! Holy cow! They are intense and awesome. And I am just Trina Fife, the non-runner, the slowest-one-in-the-pack, the what-the-heck-am-I-doing!? Trina Fife.

There are lots of stories I could tell you about why I have never been a runner. Yes, there is actually a history of it. But I choose today to tell you why I am running now.

I needed a challenge...um, no. I wanted to be with a bunch of women who are natural runners...YES, but no, not really. I wanted to hurt like I've never hurt before in my life...definitely not. The plain honest truth is that my daughter, Eryn, was getting married and I needed to lose weight! I went into panic mode, looked around and low and behold there were some good-looking runners out there...so off I went.

What I didn't know was that running is not a quick fix. In fact, it creates a whole lot of other problems. I won't go into them right now, but let's just say that this HAS become a challenge.  It has taken up a huge chunk of my life that, honestly, there was no room for it to begin with.

Due to this change of focus my house has fallen into a state of uncleanliness, Alivia is behaving like a pre-civilized wild Scottish child and I have no clue to what's going on around me (outside of my running trails).

So, this weekend I went to Time Out for Women in Richmond. I wanted to be energized and feel the Spirit intensely. Although it was a great get-away and there were some really amazing speakers, I just didn't feel it in me. I realized that more and more lately all I've been feeling is BLAH. About everything. I'm not sure what the cause is, but I came home on Saturday evening and decided that it's ok that I didn't have the experience that I thought I would. It's ok that my house is only clean on the surface. And it's ok that I am not on top of everything every second of every day....right now. 

I am doing something for myself and if running is going to take that much focus then I can let other things in my life go. I do have to deal with Alivia pretending to be Tom Sawyer, but that's a lifetime of work! 

I woke up Sunday morning and just decided to rededicate myself to myself. And it's not just going to be conclusive to running. There are some other things in my life I need to refocus myself on:
My spiritual self needs some taking care of. I want an orderly mind that needs an orderly space. Drinking enough water (why is this so hard?), and there are few projects I need to start up again...things like this and more. But not so much more that I lose myself (balance,...right?).

I do have to say how grateful I am for so many wonderful choices in my life. How blessed I am that I actually am choosing not to just focus on my housework! I am just thankful to have a house. And I really do have the most amazing people in my life. My kids are so awesome. They are more than awesome...they are awesomesauce (thanks, Deal's for that expression). And how blessed am I that I have a new son-in-law, Andrew, and his parents in my life. I have some pretty great parents and some pretty great siblings, including all the in-laws. I really do love them all so much. My husband is pretty terrific too. And my friends...WOW! Could I be anymore blessed? 

Ok, maybe a quicker pace would be nice...

Alivia: Do You Know About...

So all day long, every day Alivia asks

"Do you know about..."

I will keep this blog updated from time to time with things that she is asking about because some of them are hilarious.

Sometimes there is an explanation of why she's asking, 

but mostly she just wants to know if I know about things:

Do you know about:

blood?

  stomachs talking?
throw up?
waterfall trees?
a giant rooster that says "Cock-a-doodle-do"? 
But we don't have one.  

At 3am:
Do you know about the sleep number bed?

Do you know about:
walking on your hands?
walking on your feet?


On Columbus Day:
Do you know about the giant book?
It had three ships that sailed, and then the people played with the Indians. And Jesus was happy and so was the whole earth.
Did you know about that, Mom?

Do you know about tornadoes? 
You go in a room with no windows.
Then the tornadoes can't see you.


Do you know about spiders have a round body?
Like a round circle.
And lots of legs.
Ewwww.

Do you know about me being a girl?
...not a boy.