farm, fam, and a little more tan.

For Memorial Day weekend we headed to good ol' Idaho. Every time we go there two things happen:

1. I have really nice hair (thank you dry weather)
2. my skin & lips get really dry (thank you vaseline)

this time, something else happened.

I got allergies! How is it that we live in the grass capitol of the country and I don't get affected by allergies until we go somewhere else? weird...

anyway, besides all that we had a really nice visit. We were able to go see Star Trek 2, enjoy shaved ice in the sun, go 4-wheeling, go to GV and see J's uncle and grammy, and have lots of fun time with meemaw, peepaw, & auntie Cressa at the farm. It was all refreshing...not to mention that wonderful mountain air!

The time we spent in Garden Valley was bittersweet. J's grammy is in her last days and he knew this would probably be the last time he would see her. I'm just grateful that it worked out for us to have had some time with her since this our trip to ID was sort of last minute.

The weather was gorgeous the entire weekend, except one night a storm came in as Jonathan and I were cooking smores in the fire pit. It was kind of odd eating smores in the dark while rain dripped down on us but definitely a good memory :] shoot, smores taste good in any kind of weather...

while we were there we also got news of a brand new niece! J's oldest bro Christopher and his wife (they live in Utah) had a healthy baby girl whom they named Amelia. I have already decided to call her "meely" :] She has awesome chubby cheeks and I can NOT wait to meet her! sadly, that probably won't be until Thanksgiving...unless they bless her in Idaho (fingers crossed!).

On the drive home we came upon some SERIOUS, dead stop traffic. Our gps told us to take an alternate route on the old historic highway through the mountains (the old road into Portland). I debated for a few sec whether or not to obey the holy gps voice or not, because it has been misleading at times. But I am SO glad I did, because the drive was probably the most gorgeous drive ever. We must have passed like 5 major waterfalls; it felt like we were driving through a rainforest. AT one point we joined up again with the highway, sat in traffic for .2 seconds, then turned around back onto the ramp (breaking the law....oops) and continued on the twisty mountain road. Other cars apparently had the same idea. When we got to the top of the mountain, we came across this beautiful view!!! From the top we could still see the cars sitting still in traffic...if we had stayed we probably would have been 2 or more hours delayed. It was the worst traffic I'd ever seen.

if you look closely you can see the line of cars.

this building is called Vista House. apparently tourists come here just for the view. We were just trying to get home! haha

and now onto something a bit more serious. While we were away I did some soul searching. Just a little...because lately I've been feeling like I am so lame compared to my friends. haha..I know that sounds dumb, but it seems that everyone I know is either starting a business or becoming a coach of some company, freshly graduated or going back to school, moving into a house or building one, super fit, or wealthy. I live in Oregon...I get it. There are lots of "privileged" and fitness-minded people in our area. And what can I say...I have ambitious friends. I am so happy for them all but I still feel put down by my own lack of achievements. And what's worse- I am not the slightest bit motivated to make huge changes in my life.

As I thought about this, I came to the conclusion that I do not need to be making BIG changes to feel better about myself. I am making goals each day that I know will make me happy.  They may not be big things but they are still things that I am working on. And I think that's all that I need care about- reaching those goals. Some are short-term, like learning how to make jam this summer. Some are long-term, like paying off our debt by the end of the year. Regardless, I want to feel proud of myself for accomplishing any kind of goal I have. I hope that I can. For now, prayer is such a huge blessing. I know that Heavenly Father doesn't put labels on me and sees my divine potential as a daughter of God. He knows me inside and out and brings me such peace that nothing else can offer. For that I am grateful.

I hope everyone had a good weekend! I sure wish we could escape more often ;]

4 years

This month marks the 4 year anniversary of this blog. I haven't been looking forward to this or anything, but as I was tinkering around on it I realized my first post was in May of 2009. Crazy! It certainly doesn't feel that long...

but, it got me thinking.

When I started this blog, we didn't yet have children nor were we expecting one (but in truth we had just begun trying to get pregnant). We had been married for 5 months and life was so simple...so peaceful. Looking back, I'm glad that I started a blog to glimpse back on our lives as just husband and wife. And frankly, I miss it.

Of course I love my children. Of course I wouldn't take any of it back. The timing of when our darling kiddos came into our lives was perfect and we were ready to be parents. However, I don't think we were ready to stop being newlyweds.

I don't care what anyone says, this is how it was for us. The minute we found out we were having a child our "newlywed" phase began to fade. And when we held that boy in our arms, we went into ultra parenting mode and instead of being one anothers' most important someone- our focus went into this new most important someone. Instead of only making one another happy, we knew from that point that we would do everything in our power to make this tiny little person happy.And that's how it should be, so it's okay.

BUT I'm not going to lie. I do wish sometimes we could have had more time together- just us- before growing our family. I wonder what it would have been like to take trips and go out on dates when we felt like it and sleep in together on Saturdays. I suppose we could still do all those things but they require much, much more effort.

Heck, maybe I would have been able to finish school. Wouldn't it have been nice to have a degree that I could use later down the road instead of an associate's in General Studies...

and no this is not the part where I say-

"but when I look into their eyes, I know that it's worth it"...blah blah blah...

because that goes without saying. Of course they are worth it. Still, I miss being just a WIFE.

Since we don't have a lot of "each other" time anymore, sometimes we feel inclined to get a babysitter and go out (not often enough though).
That's when I really notice how awkward we are without kids around us...usually the conversation goes like this.

me: "Soo...this is nice, isn't it? Just you and me."

J: "Yeah. It's nice. Ummm how was your day?"

me: "Good. I did (such and such) with the kids. They were being (such and such). I wonder how they are doing. Should I call the babysitter?"

or maybe..

"Not good. The kids did (such and such) to me. They were destroying (such and such) and yelling out (such and such) all day long and I'm about to (such and such) I just can't it anymore! I wonder how they are doing. Should I call the babysitter?"

J: "Uhh...we've only been gone 15 minutes. Let's wait."

me: "okay. So...this is nice."

and I know I'm at fault. I shouldn't even bring them into conversation when we're trying to be romantic and all. But I can't help it--they are my life! I hang around them all day and everything I do is based around them. What do I say? How can I be "the wife" and not "the mother"? gah.

I've forgotten how to be a newlywed. I want to be one forever. I love my hott man of a husband and I want him to know it.

yowza. I got wayyy off track here. Anyway. Back to the blog thing.

Several times I have considered deleting this ol' thing. I get easily annoyed with the blogging community at times--the repeating trends and sparkling diy tutorials and room reveals, etc. But every time I bring it up with my husband, he urges me not to because it has been our family journal since we started being a family.

He tells me he is grateful for all I've documented, billions of pictures and all. I've also used this blog to vent (kinda like now...haha...except I'm not upset- just stating the facts). And re-reading those vents is good for me because it reminds me of when I was down and how I overcame it.

And then I look back at all the old posts. I am reminded that I am still very much in love with my sweetheart of 4 years, even if we don't remember how to show one another our love in overly romantic gestures and hearty conversation during dates. I see the pictures him with the kids and feel overwhelmingly happy. As much as I may need him to be my newlywed of a husband, they need him to be their dad. And really, there's no reason why he can't be both.

We do have times that we get to talk about us and real stuff and life and feelings are usually when our kids are tucked in their beds and we are just Jonathan and Lindsey. Not mom and dad. It keeps me going and I'm grateful we have that time.

4 years I've written in this blog. I will always have pieces of our history together because of it. And if there is one good thing from this blog it is that. I can at least look back on our newlywed-dom and realize that we are still just as in love as we were then. Possibly more :]

spring family pictures

I was so excited to get these taken. We haven't had family pictures since I was preggo with C. Since we don't know any professional photographers in the area that wouldn't break the bank, I asked a good friend of mine to take some and I was thrilled that she was willing. And to top it off, she did such an amazing job! Some of them she edited on photoshop and others I did in lightroom (her edited ones are the really pretty, sparkly eyed ones..ha) It was such a blast from beginning to end! Our kids were even happy 2/3 of the time and didn't have any breakdowns throughout the whole session (which was like an hour...I don't think they would have lasted longer than that). At the end we treated the kiddos to playing in the park (during which I took additional pictures with my camera) and ice-cream.

Some kind of funny things about our pictures...

-my feet got really dirty while we were walking around, as well as everyone else's shoes. But you can't really tell...I think. also Charlotte kept taking her shoes off and throwing them.

-at one point when I put C on my shoulders she found my bobby pin and pulled it halfway out, messing up my hair at the same time. It was also super humid (thank you Oregon). I had no idea my hair looked bad after that point and no one pointed it out to me. So in most of these, my hair desperately needs a brush run through it and I am totally oblivious. plus my pants were covered with dirt. haha!
but honestly- after going through the pictures I thought, "how completely appropriate. its how I look naturally!" and I prefer to have pictures that portray what we really look like (sparkly eyes excluded).

-Talmage was terrified of sitting in that tree.

-we felt uber awkward doing the "walking while holding hands" pose. It turned out though, I guess. lol.

-we were shooting pics around construction workers and pooping dogs.

 -the joggers that ran past us must have thought we were really weird for sitting in a clearing and singing "Elmo's world", "Old McDonald", and "Peek-a-boo" as loud as we could.

I have a few many favorites: 

In other news, we'll be headed off to Idaho on Friday for a fun Memorial Day weekend in Parma. I think we need time away from home really bad. It's getting to that point where we feel stuck in our apartment and bored with life. So some time away with family will be good. And when we get back Jonathan will begin his new job! Yay :D He is a bit nervous but mostly excited.

change is GOOD. at least in this case it is. hopefully things won't change again for a while...

have a happy weekend!

mother's day...blah.

I love being a mother. I love my own mother. I love the notion of singling out one day a year to honor mothers. It's a fantastic idea.

However, I do not like Mother's Day...mostly because there are all these expectations that never really come true. Like, kids bringing me breakfast in bed along with handmade gifts, and some incredibly creative or romantic gesture from the hubby. On Mother's Day, the world is supposed to be nice to me and my kids are supposed to be sweet little angels. Except it's never like that. So this year, I had no expectations and I wasn't disappointed. It was great thinking on my part.

And it was like I expected (or didn't expect..) it to be. The kids were terrible all morning long--cranky, snotty, whiney--and when we got to church it only got worse. But I smiled through it. And during Sacrament meeting, the youth speaker (bless her heart) went on and on about what a mother is. "A mother is patient with her children and humble and peaceful and full of love...etc" and I sat there with my head turned down, frowning at the ground. The smile was gone and I realized then I really hated this holiday. Then I went and taught my Primary class a lesson that they didn't really care about and they made sure to tell me how boring it was at the end. HA. I just wanted to laugh, really. I mean- the world was so not in my favor today of all days.

But then, there was one good part of the day. The part where my husband presented me with my late birthday/Mother's day present- a vase that he made for me in the ceramics room at work. And then I remembered that he let me buy an apron for myself about 2 months ago that I said was "going to be my Mother's Day gift so don't worry about doing anything.." (I often do this. Its bad, I know.) And that made me smile- NOT because of the material aspect of it- but the fact that he took time out of his routine to work on this vase, a little each day until it was finished. The fact that he traced a chevron design on it because it was trendy and even glazed it with colors that I liked. And even more, the fact that he gave me a rose each day for 17 days with a little note on each one telling me why he loved me. Mother's Day was great for me because it helped me appreciate my husband, however weird that may sound. He does so much for me..he uplifts me when I'm down and takes me outside of myself to see the big picture. He is my equal partner yet he takes on so much responsibility. I may not see all the reasons why I am a good mom but he does-- and that means everything.

So overall, it was a good Mother's Day...

but I'm glad it only comes once a year. really glad.

 oh, did I mention that Mother's Day also happened to land on Jonathan's birthday this year? crazy. We saved his birthday stuff for Monday, but it was still kinda fun sharing that day together. how I love him!