THE INVISIBLE MOTHER

It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, 'Can't you see I'm on the phone?' Obviously, not. No one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I'm invisible. The invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this? Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, 'What time is it?' I'm a satellite guide to answer, 'What number is the Disney Channel?' I'm a car to order, 'Right around 5:30, please.' I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated sum a cum laude - but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going; she's going; she is gone! One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England.. Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, 'I brought you this.' It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe. I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription: 'To Charlotte, with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.' In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work: No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names. These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished. They made great sacrifices and expected no credit. The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything . A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, 'Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it.' And the workman replied, 'Because God sees.' I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, 'I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become.' At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride. I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on. The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree. When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, 'My Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table.' That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, 'you're gonna love it there.' As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women. Great Job, MOM!Share this with all the Invisible Moms you know...I just did.Hope this encourages you when the going gets tough as it sometimes does. We never know what our finished products will turn out to be because of our perseverance.

All Jake Wants For Christmas!

All Jake needs for Christmas are two front teeth! He has done it again, he knocked out his final front tooth today, the poor boy! His first one was knocked out about 6 months ago falling on the kiddie table and that one we had to go get removed the rest of the way by a dentist. This time I was sitting right in front of him and he was kneeling on the first step and the other foot was on the floor and he reached to grab the banister and missed and then falling somehow to the floor and catching his tooth on the bottom of the banister, it poppled the whole thing root and all out, I saw it in his mouth but didn't catch it in time and he swallowed it. With Jake's luck the tooth he swallowed will probably get stuck somewhere between his throat and the diaper and will have to be surgically removed, but we can hope not. The other bright side is we didn't have to visit the dentist again, he will probably start wondering if I beat my kids. We used to wish Malorie was more daring and not so uptight about doing things and I think we got our wish but in the wrong child. Poor Jake I am just worried what the next thing will be with him.

I'm Glad Somebody Liked the Snow

All I can say is I'm glad the snow melted fast. I am already missing the days of sitting outside and swimming. Malorie wouldn't stop talking about going outside to play in the snow so we bundled them up, which is at least a 20 minute process and most of that time is trying to get all the fingers in the glove holes. Jake loved it way more than I thought he would and Malorie & McKailey had a great time being pulled on the sled, poor Jason, I guess it was a good workout. I remember being so excited for the snow so I could go skiing but now that lift tickets are $70 a day where I like to go and its not that easy just to take off and go skiing every weekend with kids, I have a hard time getting very excited about winter these days. So its going to be a very long winter.

SANTAQUIN

Friday after school we took the kids down to the Big Red Barn in Santaquin. It was a lot of fun and is going to be our new Halloween tradition. For anyone who hasn't gone I definately recommend it. I think the tractor only runs on Mon, Fri and maybe Sat. but you get on the wagon pulled by a tractor and it takes you on a ride through the fruit fields to the very large pumpkin patch. It drops you off to go pick whatever pumpkin you want, the prices are pretty good it goes from .50 to $7.00 and most of them are around $3-4.00. Then you take the wagon back to the barn. The barn is pretty cool they have jams, all kinds of fresh fruit, ice cream which was awesome, and the best thing we found was the apple juice is made there and its not from concentrate its just pure apple juice, I highly recommend it. After that we ate at the Family Tree a little restaurant on Santaquin main street, it was really good, the food tasted homemade and they actually had real mashed potatoes. While we were eating this older cowboy came out and started singing Karaoke, he was a pretty good singer and Jake just stared at him so that was good entertainment. I guess it was so fun because I grew up in a small town and life just seems so much more laid back and not so chaotic and loud which is something I don't think I appreciated until recently I guess thats what happens when you get old!

STIKA UPDATES!

I almost forgot this greatest picture. At our recent yard sale I brought home some retro games from moms that used to be mine, maybe you all remember some of them. We all decided to play Heartthrob and it was actually pretty hilarious and the guys had that awesome 80's hair and clothes. We were thinking of putting together a game night because I also have Mall Madness the old version and I think Girl Talk might be somewhere also. I know hearthrob provided lots of laughs and entertained us for a good 30 min.

Just a little sample of the hotties we were looking at.


While were were in Heber Saturday we rode to Strawberry fish place to see the fish that are spawning it's really cool because there are just thousands of red fish everywhere and its weird to watch them swimming upstream to get to where they need to be to lay their eggs.

pretty Autumn leaves by Sundance

This my niece Angie's baby, Jazelle Amanda is the newest member of our family she's so cute and has red hair.

We traveled to Omaha in August to my Niece Jennifer's wedding

We got to stop at every tourist attraction in South Dakota on our way home from my sisters in Omaha it was so good to see them all again but after 10 days of being gone I was ready to be home again and I think the kids were tired of the car since it was a 15 hour drive.


Malorie's first day of preschool

at the circus with the Allen's and of course the girls holding there
ridiculously overpriced wands. The clown was a little strange and the first half was not really holding the girls attention, but It was ok and something different to do!

I think the elephants were the girls favorites, and according to them the little one is Dumbo!

Friday we had to pick up Jake from Grandma's and drove through Sundance and over to Cascade Springs, the leaves were beautiful and very bright.

Cascade Springs



Well I know I havn't blogged forever and I need to be better about that since I know everyone is probably really tired of looking at that tattoo picture. So let me think about what has been happening with us, I guess first of all Malorie started preschool. She goes to this awesome preschool just down the street for 3 hours on Mon. & Wed. She loves it, and I must say I am enjoying the break myself because Jake naps for 2 of the 3 hours she is gone so I can actually get things done around the house or I am attempting to sew some curtains for my family room so thats usually what I do. Chelsey has been playing rec soccer and that has been fun to watch Wednesday is her last game. She started dance again and goes about 10 hours a week which I think is a lot but it keeps her occupied which is something she needs since the teenage years are turning out to be a trying time for all of us. Jake is starting to be a lot of fun and we're starting to see a lot of his personality coming out, and best of all he doesn't cry nearly as much as he used to so things are looking up there. As for me and Jason we have taken up golfing lessons at the state park in Midway. It's been lots of fun and its something we both enjoy doing together, If you ever decide to golf I highly recommend lessons because we are amazed at how much of a difference it makes to actually be able to hit the ball straight everytime instead of just getting up there and hoping it does. That's about all thats new with us and I've posted some pics of our latest activities.

Fun Summer Pics

I couldn't leave you all in suspense so I put this one on first. Yep, its true, my mother-in-law got a tattoo for her 64th(I hope thats right)birthday! I bet nobody else can say that about their in-laws!

Doing sparklers with her best friend McKailey on the 24th and yes it was during the day and thanks to the Allens for hanging out with us at seven peaks, I love the rope swing

I can't forget to mention that Jake can walk now, I'm so excited and its so cute, he's still a little wobbly and apparently opening your mouth helps you balance.

Malorie, McKailey & Ellie needed A break after all that cheer camp

We can all thank Krissa for her great cheerleading skills and for teaching us the funky chicken!

One of the many, many swimming pics we have

All I can say is I hate putting on goggles

Aren't these the cutest little bums ever!

I think Chelsey got a little more help than she bargained for!

This is all Jake needs for fun is a little water out of the hose and a bucket

Don't these girls look just beautiful! I think dress up has been one of the favorite things to do the past year and all I can say is aren't we all glad they can finally dress themselves!!!!!

Miss Hollywood! Hailey picked a nice outfit, I love the skirt or dress or whatever she thought it should be it looked especially nice just below her chest.




I think Kennedy enjoyed sitting outside tonight, it doesn't look to bad to me!

So Cute!

We decided this was a perfect picture of Jake since this is how he has looked 75% of his sweet little life

We decided to take a few family pics in front of our huge flowers

I havn't posted forever so I figured it was about time. We havn't been doing very much except the usual weekly seven peaks visits and swimming in the yard. We are getting ready for our 15 hour drive with the kids to my sisters house in Omaha and I think it will be fun but I'm not sure any of the kids will make it back alive, I'm hoping Jake will be better than expected. Since we havn't done much I decided to just put up pictures of recent things we've done it has been a really fun summer thanks to all the neighbors and I am trying not to think about winter coming in only a few months, its gonna be a long one! Speaking of long this is the longest blog of pictures ever and I still have issues with getting the words and pictures where I want them to be so just pretend it looks really nice.

DUKE REUNION

Thursday we went to the Duke reunion in Hanna. Yes, there is a town in Utah called Hanna and it is very very small. It's south of Kamas I believe. Anyway it is a great place to camp because it is in the mountains but there is electricity and showers on the property and if you want they have a bunch of these cute little cabins you can rent or just pitch your tent by the river or in our case we are getting to use my parents camper this year and so they also have trailer spots. The first day on the property they have a pond with paddle boats so we took Malorie out for a ride and she loved it. Then we drove to a dude ranch and the girls got to ride some horses, it was Malorie's first time on a horse and she was surprisingly not scared at all. Chelsey of course wouldn't get on one at all. Friday we floated down part of the river that runs along the camp and after the kids were done with that we left them with our parents and about 10 of us floated down the river a couple miles and lets just say hiking up to where my uncle picked us up was right through what was I think a swamp of maneur, moss, mud and I don't even want to know what else and lets just say it was a race to all the showers when we got back. It was tons of fun though and worth the few disgusting minutes. While we were rafting Malorie had a little bike accident and flipped over her handle bars and got a little road rash and a fat lip. Jake's activity the whole time was pushing either the stroller or his buggy across the grass or banging plastic forks in dirty dishes which entertained him for about 30 minutes. As you can see in the first picture everybody was really tired on the way home, which is partly Jake's fault because he wouldn't sleep in his play pen and cried most the night so finally he ended up sleeping in between me and Jason both nights on what I would say is about a full size bed and that does not make for very good sleep. Overall it was so much fun to hang out with cousins we only see a few times a year and we are excited for next year.