The Art of friendship

Making friends has never been my strong point. I know many of you are thinking, what? because I am so talkative and loud and seem to be outgoing and confident. But really i am not. I am just loud :) I was the token loner kid all through my school years until College where I finally made some wonderful friends, but those same wonderful friends told me later that when they first met me they thought i was a bit.. um crazy and loud! I know. Really I do. I cant seem to help it, I have tried for 29 years now. I am crazy and loud but fun too! Cory always tells me that I am too overwhelming at first. I am really a great friend if you get to know me, but I cant seem to figure out all the rules of making friends and feel like I am about 15 years too late. I guess everyone else figured this out in junior high and high school while i was reading a book in a corner somewhere. I have found that making a girl friend is much harder than dating was. It seems more complicated and to be honest I was much more comfortable in a room full of men then I am now in relief society with all the women! Women are more complicated for me to read I find and they also will pretend to like you when really they cant stand to be near you. Which makes it really hard to know if someone wants to actually be your friend or if they are just being nice.

So now as a 29 year old stay at home mom in a new state away from all family and friends I find I am lonely and I want a friend or two. And not just the ones you say hi to at church because anyone that knows me knows that I talk to everyone at church. I want the kind of friend that you can call on a Tuesday afternoon and say hey my kids are driving me nuts today want to have a girls night out and make our husbands deal with bedtimes? But how do you get there? Its like dating all over again! Its awkward, you don't know what to say, you worry you are stepping over boundaries... You dont want to annoy them, but you want them to know you like them ( jeez do i sound like i am in the 7th grade?) I am always worried if I ask someone to hang out with me they are going to feel obligated to even if they don't have any desire to do so. And I am like a scared little 16 year old boy that doesn't want to get turned down so i never ask in the first place! Like my dear sister Thora once joked wouldn't it be great if you could just make an ad and people could respond like those dating sites but for friends

29 year old mom to 3 energetic boys who is a night person and loves to workout at the gym even though she is eternally going to be a size 10-12. seeking a friend who likes board games, talking, going to dinner without the kids, scrapbooking, going shopping so we can people watch ( and let me tell you there is some prime people watching at the midland mall!), and if you have kids that would entertain any of my kids bonus!

So what I am wondering is what do you all do in new social circles? Does anyone else have a fear of reaching out? I would love to hear what you do.

Porterisms

" I can only run a half a way" as opposed to the "whole way" which in his mind is a term of measurement i guess.. like a mile. So he can only run a half a way until he gets tired.. this comment was made while cory and I were talking about how you run alot in soccer and maybe Porter would like baseball more since he gets asthmatic when running a lot.



"But do these shoes run fast?" his response to the shoe clerk who told us the shoes ran wide in that brand. He was really concerned with if they could indeed run fast and when he put them on he ran around the store to check. Oh and in case you were wondering we didn't get the shoes, they didn't run fast enough!

We don't need a pet at our house.. have have a baby! Porter picks up a soft toy ball, throws it across the room and tells Baby Arthur "go fetch!" Cory and I couldn't stop laughing! Of course the baby did go fetch and brought the ball back to porter! Wonder if he will teach him to roll over next?

Porter asked me if I knew how to play tennis. I told him I didnt really know how. "Really mom? but i thought you were sporty?" hmmm not sure where he got that idea! I suck at all sports!

While saying a prayer the other night porter wanted me to whisper it in his ear like they do for the little kids in church. I said thank you that none of us are sick Porter said "thank you that none of us are six" Cory and i couldnt keep the giggle in and porter was really mad about it.

Porter is learning about money. He has a piggy bank with about $15 in change. When we were at the store the other day he kept wanting things and I would tell him how much it cost and he would say never mind and put it back. I love it because i just have to ask him to pay me back for it and he decides on his own its not worth it. One really cute thing though is that he asked when we were going to get a house here and i told him we didnt have enough money, he told me that we could use his whole $15! Such a generous little guy!

While at the store with all the boys on my own a woman made a comment to me about all my boys and how cute they are and if we were going to go for a girl ( we get this alot!) Before I could respond Porter pipes up " We cant have more babies because three kids is a lot to deal with " I guess I should be more careful talking around him because he hears everything! Its so weird to hear that phrase out of your 4 year old!

my baby is toddling!

Mom i am posting this just because i know you want to see it! Cory took this with his cell phone, nope still cant find the camera cord... probably in one of those last minute thrown together boxes i havent gone through yet.

The battle of the Baby Bulge

I know i promised pictures of my kiddos... and those are coming as soon as i find my camera cord again, i know i saw one of the kids with it recently. I am sure it will show up in the move next week, so then i can do a picture over load post. in the mean time a post of me rambling whilst the kiddos sleep and Cory studies for the impending final that is in 7 days.. dun dun dun!

*disclaimer: i know this is one of those annoying posts about weight, but really this is my blog so i can post what i want feel free to ignore it!*

For any one that knows me well, you probably already know my intense Gym addictions after I have a baby that never results in much else than me spending many hours in the gym! I always wondered if the problem was i was hitting the gym too soon after my babies, or the fact that i was just working out wrong? So after four babies and four years ( okay well 3-9 months in between pregnancies) of trying to lose weight I decided that I was going to shell out the exuberant cost and hire one of those personal trainers. You know, those annoying ones that they give you one free session with when you join the gym and then they try and pressure sell you into working you out and paying them lots of money? Yep got me one of those!

When January rolled around this year I decided it was time to actively lose the baby fat, Preston was 5 months old and we had decided no babies for at least 2-3 years now so i knew i had a big chunk of time to actually maybe possibly reach my goals. I started out with a month of sugar fast, no eating out or any processed foods, and working out 5 days a week. After the first month i was discouraged to see i had only lost 2 measly pounds.. Cory lost 15!! yep... 15 and all he did was eat healthier because that is what i was cooking! ( he has gained it back now since a 6' guy that's 145lbs is just scary and no one wants to see that many ribs! I put lots of butter on his food and made him take bigger portions... so hard to keep him fat and me not! ) I didn't get much further along my goal when we arrived in Oklahoma in march and I joined the gym here. I was desperate. I was chubby. I was vulnerable to the personal trainer and her sales pitch.

So i payed for 6 weeks of training and she thought that i could lose a pound a week. She went over my food journal and told me that i was doing great, just add some more protein and watch the carbs. Check and Check. I started working out 6 days a week for 2 hours a day. Sometimes I would go three hours because I felt like maybe it would help. I did lots of cardio intervals, weights, elliptical, stairs, spinning, and abs. After 6 weeks i had GAINED 6 pounds. I know, you are all thinking i was eating donuts every day. I wasn't. I ate 1500-1700 calories a day of oatmeal, salads, chicken, almonds, more salads and all the veggies i could think to put in there! ( the calorie amount is adjusted for breastfeeding, i was doing 1200 a day but my milk was decreasing in amount and baby was crying all the time) I followed what the personal trainer said to do to a T and you know what? I couldn't lose the weight. She asked if i was being honest in my food.. yes i was! And she knew when i worked out since they can look up the record at the gym. In the end she didn't know what to tell me. That was a month ago. Ever since that i was discouraged and frustrated and figured what the heck am i killing myself at the gym for?? So I have only gone to the gym 2-3 times a week and I have also ate whatever i wanted including cookies, half an avocado on a plate with just my fork because it sounded good, sweet potato fries, extra bowls of cereal at night when i am on the computer and feeling munchy! So the verdict. I lost the 6 pounds i had gained. LOL. really. So the more i work out and count my calories i gain weight, and when i just throw all caution to the wind i drop down to my original weight. Its all so confusing!

The verdict is unless you have no idea what a lunge, squat, and bicep press are you don't need to pay someone $500 to tell you. Or i guess if you don't know how to eat healthy, but you could just go to the library and look both these up for free. I do take lithium which can cause weight gain so that may be my problem, or the fact that it also affects the thyroid which i am going to get retested since if its sluggish it affects weight as well. Or maybe its the breastfeeding which I still am doing and all night long still. And I would stop but part of me loves it and wants to enjoy every last nurse because what if this is my last baby?? ( he is already 10 months and cruising!)

But hey on the positive side of things i can now honestly say the I tried my hardest to lose weight. And not feel so guilty about being a bit chubby now because even the personal trainer said she cant think of any thing else for me to do that i am not already doing. Plus Cory says he is a big fan of my larger chest which i must say did not exists when i was 120 lbs! So hey some fat is a good thing, right? Oh and i have tons of more muscle from all the workouts. My legs are really cut and i am lovin my new triceps , not to mention i can now carry the laundry basket full of three loads PLUS 20 lb Preston on top of it down three flights of stairs to the laundry mat! So ya, i guess the workouts were good for something?

I am just going to be happy with my body how it is. I will still go to the gym 3 days a week, but I have decided to stop obsessing over losing weight and just go for health and my "me" time to decompress.

So bring on the oreos! I was craving them anyways. And i can always go to the gym tomorrow! :)

FAA accademy

Hey everyone. I have been meaning to write a post for ages but I never get around to uploading pictures so i kept postponing it! I promise to follow this post with one of pictures so you can see what we have been up to and how big Preston is getting!



Cory is 3/4 of the way through school here. Its challenging but he is doing well and has passed all of the tests so far with high marks! He has got to learn all sorts of fun things like the phraseology of ATC and how to spot 50 different planes from the air and know what they are and how much wake turbulence they cause and how heavy they are. He has me practice with him and i get to pretend to be the pilot and rattle of fun things like " Academy Tower, continental 312 heavy over woody" then he tells me a bunch of gibberish about wake turbulence and when and where to land and then i say " continental 312 heavy, roger, runway two-eight right cleared to land" its like a fun little game. I have learned more about air travel than i though i ever would! I have much more respect for it all too!



MOVING again!



So in three weeks we will leave Oklahoma and all the humid sticky windy-ness behind. I will miss some things though, yes that is right Oklahoma has grown on me! I love all the green here. Its so beautiful! We have driven around a lot and there are some quaint neighborhoods i would love to live in with lots of luscious green lawns and big sprawling trees. I just love trees!! Plus housing here is really affordable, which is not the same for midland! ( its an oil town and remember all those 4 doller prices on oil? there are more millionaires per capita in midland than any town!) Right now we are having a thunderstorm. I never saw anything like this in Utah. The whole sky lights up with huge spidery lightning and followed by a rumbling that surrounds you from all directions. This has currently been going on for HOURS and not a drop of rain yet! Its so beautiful and I love to just watch the flashes and listen to the rolling sounds of thunder ripple through.



We went to Midland Texas over Memorial day weekend. Man is that place in the middle of no where! Its a seven and half hour drive.. which is not too bad and we have the DVD player in the car so we thought easy peasy great weekend trip. It started out great and we were enjoying seeing some of Oklahoma's beautiful and lush country side where everything was green and wild flowers grow along the roadside. After two hours of driving I realized we had missed a road and were 2 hours off track of where we should be. I don't think i have ever been so frustrated! So we got back on track and by now the kids are fussy and want to stop when really we have not even started yet!



A few more hours into the drive we stopped to feed the kiddos and hopefully regroup them because we still had a ways to go to the hotel i had already booked and payed for on priceline ( so i couldn't cancel it and i am cheap and was not going to pay for another one closer to where we currently were!!) We stopped at cracker barrel for dinner, which we all enjoyed and wondered why we never went to before! The kids even ate their food which is really the deciding factor in weather or not its a good place to go! Near the end of the meal Theo started patting is bum and frantically telling me poo poo. Let me interrupt my self here to explain that he has decided to potty train him self right now against all my wishes since i know we are in the midst of moving and i would rather just deal with it once we are moved in, so like July. Theo has decided now works for him and has started taking his diaper off and randomly using the little potty chair. So when he started saying he needed to go i took him away to the bathroom because i didn't want him screaming poo poo at the top of his lungs in the crowded dining hall and i knew that is what would happen if i didn't address his need. Sadly we got to the bathroom a little late but i took off the diaper and he finished on the toilet. This is when i realized i didn't have a diaper bag! I threw away the diaper, cleaned Theo up best i could with paper towels and washed all our hands well. I just put his shorts back on and figured he would tell me if he had to go pee and he just went the other so we should be fine the next 10 minutes till we were don't eating and went back to the car.



This is when being a lazy mother does NOT pay off! We go back to the table where my food is now luke warm and i start to eat again. About 2 minutes pass and Theo looks at me alarmed and screams poo! i then look alarmed grab him and RUN to the restroom. Oops. its loose and everywhere down his leg, all over his shorts, in his shoes! I wanted to throw up right there! If i had been at home i would have put him in the shower and hosed him down. But no shower here. I was in the stale and took off his shoes and shorts. i wiped him up best i could than waited till the restroom emptied out. The i put him in the sink nekked from the waist down and washed him with soap and hot water. Then repeated a few times. ( i am so greatful that no one came in while all this was going on!) I dried him off and sat him on the counter to watch as i tried to clean off his shoes.. thankfully he is in love with these stupid cars shoes that are like crocks and easy to clean! then i looked at the shorts... and rolled them up in a paper towel and threw them away! i didn't like them much anyways... and we were in the middle of no where and i didn't want that in my car for the whole weekend stinking it up! It was at this point i realized my two year old had nothing on but a shirt and a pair of red foam sandals. We are at the restroom which is behind the whole general store part of the cracker barrel restaurant where lots of middle aged people are browsing around and i am sure not wanting a nudist streaker! I also did not have my phone with me.. so i couldn't call Cory and just tell him to bring me the diaper bag. I finally picked Theo up so my arms were covering his bum and walked out to my car as fast as i could! I am halfway through getting the diaper on when Cory and the other kids show up at the car. He wanted to know where i had been for so long... i wanted to know why he wasn't at the table with my yummy half eaten but still wanted meatloaf? He thought i was done since i left??? yes that's what i do when i am done with meals. I grab a kid and just go out to the car and wait 30 minutes hoping he gets the hint and joins me. It was a frustrating day. We finally made it to the hotel at 1:30 am.



In the morning we got our first taste of Midland. Its really barren and looks alot like Utah in the sense that all the brush and weeds are that grayish yellowish white color and no green thing exists unless some dedicated person has been watering it. The only trees are the ones that have been planted so the older neighborhoods are nice with shade, but newer parts are pretty sparse. We found an apartment to live in. Its a small 2 bedroom but its a townhouse style so thankfully no neighbors under us to be annoyed at our kids and no one over to bother us! We will be moving june 25th. We went out to the tower where Cory will work at the airport. They gave us all a tour and were really friendly even though our boys were tearing the place apart! We had dinner the next day with one of Cory's new co workers and his wife. They will be in our new ward and were really sweet to feed us and allow our boys to tromp through their place! Then we started the long drive back to Oklahoma and driving away from midland on the dry flat boring roads sprinkled with oil rigs on both sides... i just wanted to cry. this i my new home, for years, maybe for ever?? I little part of me at that moment wished that Cory would not pass his final test here so we could head on home to Salt lake!! SHHHHHHhhhh don't tell him i said that! ( ya he doenst read my blog...) I got over my pitty party though and reminded myself that when we first got to Oklahoma i wondered why anyone would want to live here and now i like it. So i am sure in a few months i will post all the awesome things about midland.... lets all hope anyways!

picture over load from March

My Brother Soren and his new bride Jessica at the Temple right after the ceremony March 13, 2009

Theo likes his new hat and thinks preston should wear it too.

oh my goodness someone caught a smile on camera!!!

Theo conducting the music in his head from the laundry basket.

Theo and his uncle Neal. Couldnt get a real smile out of either of them!

Our little family at my brother Soren and Jessica's wedding.

My sister Thora's hair at said wedding. I wish i had long pretty hair to do cool things with like this! She let me do her hair, isnt she nice? I love to do peoples hair. I am still pining away for a daughter!

At the temple. How to fit three kids on a single stroller... that is porter in the basket and the baby on top in his carrier. We got lots of looks from people who must think we have too many kids or just need to have a bigger stroller!

Traditional sister picture. Amy, Halley, Tali, Mary, Mandie, ME, and Thora. We are missing Catherine and Katy.

my mom took this.. she thought it was funny we were all nursing. You can tell how we feel by Thora's expression... and me all flashing the camera! lol.

Papa loving having some grandkids stay at his house!

Nana doing the same thing!

This is Thora. She is awesome. I was so glad she came into town. She and I talked and talked and talked and i think we almost made up for the past 2 years we hadnt seen each other! That is her daughter Elishava. Her older daughter and husband couldnt come.

Elishava loved crawling on top of Preston. Her sister Lydia always does it to her so it was fun for her to be bigger than someone!

Everone always wants to be in my lap. Here are Theo and Preston asleep.

Porter and Theo sleepin in Papa's lap.