Schedule? What Schedule?

Throughout my whole entire married life I have been pretty rigid in my daily and weekly schedules.  They kept me on top of things and helped me feel in control and sane.  I did laundry on certain days, vacummed on certain days, bought groceries and ironed and did any number of things on certain days.  One of the small perks of having nearly an empty nest is that I don't really have a schedule for anything anymore.  Doing laundry for only two means that I can go a lot longer between loads.  Nobody messes up the floor anymore so vacumming is whenever I feel like it.  Grocery store trips are much more spaced out and involve a great deal less volume.  Dinner is even kind of a hit and miss affair now.  With only two or three of us around to eat at any given time we many times just eat what we want, when we want it.  This is so not me!  And yet, it is, now.  I actually like it.  If I feel like showering at 3:00 in the afternoon, no one cares, including me.  So here's to one of the very few pluses of growing older and moving on.  I'll take them where I can get them:)

Hide and Seek

This week's new game to introduce to Bubba during Family Night was Hide and Seek.  He loved it!  His father is the biggest doof of all time and had some very interesting hiding places.  It was quite nice to have my Nodie back for a bit.  He's a pretty fun guy.  And there's a reason why these games are timeless.  So fun.

Precious

Nothing sweeter than sleeping babies:)  Love them.

Camp Wildwood Ranch

Wow!  I just got back from seeing the camp that the church bought for our area to have Girls' Camp at.  Holy Cow!  It's gorgeous!  I hate camping but I love this campground.  It's in Ramona.  It has tons of beautiful trees and bridges and rocks and hills.  It has brand new looking houses (they are too nice to be called cabins) an olympic sized swimming pool, 2 sand volleyball pits, a soccer field, a couple of basketball courts, a softball field, a disc golf course and so many other cool things!  The church is looking to put in all the rad stuff that other campgrounds have like an archery range, a firing range, a ropes course, a zip line, a rock climbing wall and loads of other stuff.  It's more of a country club than a campground but in a very natural and beautiful setting.  It made me even more excited to have my new calling of Stake Girls' Camp Director.  I hope I get to stay in this calling until we get to actually go to this gorgeous place.  We are going to Catalina Island this year for stake camp but we might do stake camp again next year just so we can hurry and go to this cool campground.  The first time I was in charge of camp I was pregnant with my baby girl, now it is her last year of camp and I am thrilled to go again with her on the outside of my belly this time:)  I hope she will go next year even though she doesn't have to.  This is my kind of camping:)

Traumatized

I took dinner over to my son and his wife after they brought their new baby home and my sweet Bubba was very intent on dragging me all over the house to see random things and to generally keep me away from the little blob who is taking over his mommy.  When he went into the kitchen to have his daddy make him some food I thought it would be O.K. to hold baby Chloe for a minute.  When he saw me pick her up he yelled "Noooo!"  and burst into tears.  I don't know who was more upset, him or me.  I felt like I had betrayed him and broken his heart.  We have a very special bond and he is one of my most favorite people in the whole world.  To see him react like that just crushed me.  I wanted to give Chloe back and wait until he had had a little more time to adjust to her presence in our lives but everyone insisted that I just keep her since he would have to get used to her anyway.  I still think it was a little too soon but he eventually calmed down.  He wouldn't come into the room while I was holding her but as soon as I gave her up he ran in and sat on my lap.  I love him so much and I want him to know that he will always be my special Bubs. 

"Heart Exercises"

I am feeling so many emotions at the same time that I think I might explode!  All week I have been thinking about my friend and planning a tribute post for her and then on the very day I want to totally think about her and write about her, my granddaughter is born!  This is a joyous occasion mixed with relief that she is perfect and that her mom had a painless and wonderful experience bringing her into the world.  Interspersed with my feelings of love for Chloe and relief for her safety are feelings of concern about my Bubs and his tender feelings and confusion.  He is acting funny and seems a little off kilter.  I know I am one of the few things that hasn't changed in his life in the last 24 hours so I want to shower him with love and attention and keep his life as stable as possible.  Mixed in with all of this is a dull ache that my friend isn't here to share all of this with me.  Too many emotions all trying to occupy my heart at the same time.  I have a pretty big heart because I have a very large amount of people to love but I guess it needs to grow just a little bit more so here's to "heart exercises":)

Baby Steps

So far, Bubs is not thrilled that Chloe is on the outside of Mommy's tummy.  He will hardly look at her and we kind of tricked him into holding her and kissing her for a second.  I know he will come to adore her but for now he is proceeding very cautiously:)