THE official Easter Post: Part 2

I have my sister Marci to thank for the Easter pics on this post. She is after all, a photographer (these are unedited of course) and it was so nice to not have to worry about taking pictures during the Easter egg hunt, so thanks Marce! I just got to enjoy watching Taj do his first hunt without running around trying to get him to look at the camera just once. Taj loved the Easter egg hunt and had all of his eggs collected within the first five minutes. The only way we could stop him was to open up the eggs he did find and start feeding him the candy. Holidays are so much fun with little kids. I hope I can make them as magical as my parents did for me and my siblings when I was a kid.

Nearly my entire family was up for the holiday and it was so much fun being together and laughing and goofing around and being crammed all under one roof. It was noisy and fun. I prefer the noise to the silence...of course the only silence I ever hear is when Taj is actually sleeping:) I hope everyone else was able to spend time with their families and loved ones this Easter. It really is family that makes a holiday!

THE official Easter Post: Part 1

This picture cracks me up. I love how my mom's leg is sticking out perpendicular from her body and how my belly is nearly knocking my sister out of the way and how it looks like Macee (the short one next to me) has only one leg and how Marci was the only one able to pull of the whole kick up your leg pose:)

This is the only picture we could get where he was halfway smiling. I wanted a picture of us in our Easter best, but Taj was unwilling to cooperate with anyone except grandpa. My little brother who is not so little anymore. He is 6'1'' at 15 years old and still growing. In fact they had to buy him new jeans again, for the like the second time this year, because he is growing so fast. My question: Why didn't I get tall genes? I definitely got the short end of the stick, literally!

Myself, my mom, and my two sisters in our Easter Sunday best.
Grandpa and Taj. I should note that when grandpa is around, everyone else can go suck an egg for all Taj cares. I think every single one of us got whacked by Taj that weekend EXCEPT grandpa.
Auntie Marci doing some holding therapy.
Out of everything he got for Easter, the Pez dispenser won out. The kid absolutely loves Pez. Sometimes when I have to go to an appointment and I have to take Taj with me, I buy a Pez dispenser and plenty of Pez candy to go with it because I know that as long as the candy keeps popping magically out of the dispenser, that he'll stay mesmerized for at least an hour!

Belated Easter Cheer

I am way behind on my posting, thus the Easter window cling post nearly a week after Easter. I actually bought these clings two weeks before Easter and thought they might be fun for Taj to put on the front room window (which I'm sure Brannon would have loved had they actually stayed on the window...for those of you who don't know Brannon personally, he considers all holiday window clings and giant blow-up decor for the front yard as "tacky." I'm sure our kids will break him of this perspective in a few more years:)) Anyway, the clings didn't last more than 15 minutes before Taj figured out how much more fun it was to rip the clings in half. Sadly, not even the Easter bunny survived and I'm still finding bits of that gel stuck all over the house. Glad they didn't cost much!

(THE official Easter post coming soon...mom)

Sidewalk Chalk

For whatever reason, he didn't feel comfortable driving his car across mom's handiwork, so he pushed the car across it and side stepped around it. And yes, it was pajama day at our house. This day he was sporting some pretty hot Lighting MacQueen jammies.


Check out that handy work, the boy's a genius right? Of all places to draw, he chose the wheels, but he LOVES wheels on anything and I guess he thought they needed some flare;)
Taj tricking out his ride with some hand-drawn flames or worms or whatever it was he drew on his tires. With a two year old, everything is always up for interpretation.

Sidewalk chalk is a new thing for us this summer. I don't know what everyone else does with their kids, but we were getting pretty bored around here and the chalk entertained for at least one day. Technically I think Taj was entertained for about 20 min. tops, but at least I won't be bored while I watch him play outside:)

In Myself I Believe

Taj and I both love this video. He's got Will's moves down to a "T" now. Seriously though, if you are in a bad mood or are having a bad day, listen to this song. This is the best sesame street song ever!

Thankful

A common occurrence: this boy hates wearing pants AND his diaper as well:)
I think every parent has some days, or maybe a lot of days, where it feels like raising kids is the hardest thing ever. I had one of those days yesterday. Taj has been sick this week: running fevers, bad cough, throwing up, etc. I can handle a sick kid and the sleep deprivation, but what I can't handle is when he won't take his medicine voluntarily and I fail at forcing him to take it when he's running a high fever and coughing so much he pukes. It makes me so frustrated! At one point I lost my patience with him after he spit out the medicine down the sides of his face and in his hair for the fourth time in a row and I gave him a little spat on the bum. Keep in mind he has practically no bum and lots of padding from the diaper, so he probably didn't even feel it. What he did feel though, was that I was mad at him and I could tell his feelings were hurt. Then I felt bad for losing my temper with a sick kid. Then I felt like a horrible parent. What kind of a mom gives her sick kid a spank?! In a last ditch effort to give him his medicine, I mixed it into some apple juice for him. One sip however and he was spitting and screaming and crying again. At that point, I was still frustrated with him, so I just left him with the sippy in his room and put him to bed, crying. Then I felt even worse because I knew he wanted to be snuggled, but I couldn't bear to go back in the room yet. So I started reading blogs. Then Brannon called me (he's away on business this week) and asked how things were going and I just started crying. I cried to him for like half an hour (poor guy).I felt a little better after talking to him, but I still felt bad about losing it with Taj and I think I even may have felt a little sorry for myself, seeing as I was alone taking care of a sick kid. Then I started reading some blogs I'd never seen before, about parents who'd had tragedy strike their kids. Then I realized how thankful I was to have Taj, alive and well (well mostly well) in the other room and that I still got to hug him, kiss him, and hold him. I realized I was thankful for the noise, the mess, the chaos, the tantrums, the good days and the bad. I realized that silence would kill me. I realized how ungrateful I'd been and now I'm so glad that I've been reminded of what a great blessing it is to have children and I'm going to do better about being thankful for every moment of parenthood, good and bad.

Last night I thought of an analogy. I kept trying to force Taj to take the medicine because I knew it would help heal him. He didn't know that and refused to take it. The taste alone was enough to scare him off. I realized that this is kind of how we act with Heavenly Father. He never forces us to to do anything, but He knows what's good for us and a lot of times we refuse to follow His path because we think we know better or the path we're prompted to take doesn't look appetizing to us. I realized I need to put more trust in His plan for me, whatever that plan is and wherever it may take me because only He knows what experiences will make me the best me I can be.

If any of you are wondering which blogs I was looking at, here they are: patrickandashley.blogspot.com , dylandshaw.blogspot.com , and zachandtessie.blogspot.com. These are some amazing people and you will find in every blog that the way these great people are able to weather the storm of the tragedy that has struck their lives is through the gospel. I'm so glad I know what I know. It really does make life a lot easier! Grab a box of tissues before you sit down, just warning you!

Big News!

Morse baby #2 is on his or her way, due October 15th! So I now will have two October birthdays, makes it kind of easy to remember for grandparents I think;) The good news is that the doctor I found is willing to induce me a week earlier than my due date, which means I'll have just enough time to throw Taj his big 3 year old birthday bash before I have the baby. Obviously we are hoping for a girl this time around, especially Brannon, but I don't really care if it's a boy or a girl, just as long and he or she is mellow in comparison to Taj:) I am 13 weeks, so I am at the end of my first trimester. I have to say that I really lucked out this time as far as morning sickness. I didn't get sick once. I mostly just felt queasy 24 hours a day. I am so blessed compared to what other women have to go through. I'm sure we'll have an ultrasound in about six weeks to find out what we're having. I'm so excited for that! My goals this pregnancy: to exercise and not gain 60 lbs. like I did last time:( People lie when they tell you the baby weight falls right off afterwards because it doesn't! I started showing at 8 weeks and when I tell Taj there's a baby in mommy's belly, he looks at me he couldn't care less and then uses my belly as a pillow. He actually loves sitting on my lap now and he's fallen asleep twice doing it:)

Life's Lessons

An unexpected, but delightful surprise that happens on rare occasions: Taj falling asleep on his own.
Taj making his fishy lips at the camera. He still doesn't like to have his picture taken, but he was willing to give me the fishy lips. Usually, when I point the camera at him he tells me "No! Don't!" and then grabs on to my pant leg to brace himself while he tries to kick me in the shin. When I say kick, I really mean more like tap. I know I shouldn't, but I always laugh because I think it's so funny that he has to hold on to me to kick me so he doesn't fall over:) I love this boy so much...he really is my world and he doesn't even know it.
This pic is pre-haircut for the month. He gets bird hair. It just sticks straight up when it grow out...it NEVER lays down, so that's why we have to keep it short.

Back when I was in high school, I thought I knew everything I needed to know for the rest of my life. I was pretty sure that I'd been through the refiner's fire and that I was a finely polished stone upon graduation. I couldn't imagine what new things life would have for me to learn since in my teenage mind, I'd pretty much lived life. Then I went to college and I got married and I figured out that I really didn't know anything. A slow and frightening realization began to occur to me, that life had A LOT of things left for me to learn...that just when I thought I had life figured out, something else new would happen and an entirely new, never before thought of experience would change my life yet again. That's when the "milk before meat" concept came to mind. How naive could I have been to think that one would learn all they need to about life at the ripe old age of 18?! I realized that the experiences you have in each phase of your life teach you something new and that I am sure to have countless more unforeseen experiences that will test every part of my being until I really am a polished stone. I've decided that one is never done being polished or refined while here on earth, which is good, which allows us perpetual growth. I figure that is how it's going to be after this life as well...amazing isn't it? That we have the potential to just keep getting better and better? It's kind of hard to imagine since most people imagine perfection as a destination and not as a continual process.

Parenthood and marriage are definitely much needed stations in life for me right now. I don't know how else I would have been able to learn the things I have learned and am still learning not only about myself, but about life in general. You know, nothing's ever come easy for me in life, but I would rather it be that way. Otherwise life would be boring. I crave adventure, spontaneity. The spice of life, one may call it and amazingly, it can be found right in the walls of our own homes. My family is my adventure now and I'm going to try to be grateful every day for it and not question why or why not something is or isn't happening for me. I'm learning to put my FULL trust in the Lord and to enjoy life knowing that if I do my best, He will take care of the rest...and there's nothing else to worry about.