Perhaps You Know You Live in the Country...

...when your daughter creates a book about sugar beet fields.

Kam. "Mom, I wrote a book!"
Mom. "Cool! What's it about?"
Kam. "Sugar beet fields."
Mom. pause. "Oh...Cool!"
I, for one, thought it was fantastic.

*Some posts don't need words.

Kameryn


Cooper



Landon

Our three little ones.

THIS IS MY SISTER!!!!!!

AAAGH!!! I don't even have big enough words to say how proud I am of her.

proud.
proud.
proud!

I love her so much. Can you believe this talent? I know I can't. I love to just listen to her sing over and over again. Hope she doesn't beat me up for making and posting this video but she needed to be seen and heard and I needed a chance to brag brag brag about my remarkably talented little sis!

I love you KeiLani. You have absolutely no idea how amazing you really are.

Point Dexter

Did you know that a point dexter is a nerd?

by the way... this is Dexter. He belongs to us now. I'm still trying to wrap my feelings around it.

But, in retrospect, I guess this makes me the nerd and him the Dexter.

Pure Bread Bichon Frise
2 months old
Male
Not potty trained
Not kidding

Kameryn wanted to name him Moses. We thought that might possibly be sacrilege and what given our history with small canine animals we figure it best to keep the Lord on our side.

I'm Officially Cooler Now...

..because I know how to get pictures off my cell phone.
Hold your applause. (I can't hear it anyway)

These next three were taken on B's phone. I took them and set them as his screen saver so he could think of me through out the day. I make him happy.

Kameryn said she wanted to take a picture of us making "angry faces" I love these ones!

Lots of pictures get taken in my bed... not sure why.

These next 2 were taken at B's office last year, after my month long stay at the dentist. (If you look close you can see the line on my nose from the gas mask)

Today is a good day.

*My Dad says that (today is a good day) all the time, BTW.

Today 4 amazing things happened.

1. We found my tape measurers!! I was so lost without them. It was like walking around without my cell phone. Possibly almost as bad as walking around with out my contacts. I was getting very desperate and quite honestly depressed. I was carrying around 8.5x11 pieces of paper and using them to judge the size of all the things I needed to measure. It was a sad couple weeks. Which makes today and extra special good day.

2. Today I, Brittany Bowen, ordered my very first, ever in the history of my life, completely authentic Pottery Barn item. Purchased on the ACTUAL Pottery Barn website. Shipped directly from Pottery Barn itself, to my very own home. It's not here yet - naturally. But it will be. giddy.

3. In our lost cause search for my "misplaced" wii fit game we may have, inadvertently, torn apart our entire "media" cabinet. So, guess what I found? A stack of old SD cards (we are talking old like very first SD cards ever made) And, when I was checking them for long lost pictures I actually found some.

WOW.
That happens to be the best ever.

It's like finding long forgotten money in pants pockets (that happened to us once with wedding money. Didn't find it for 2 years. unfortunately it was checks... they wouldn't exactly cash anymore. lame. And yes, they were "lost" in my pants pockets. lame-R. Just one time I want to not be the one who loses things)
ANYway. Want to see what I found? Here goes

It's my baby girl! She is probably just barely over one, seeing that she got those scrubs from her Auntie Alyssa for her first birthday. Look how dark (and bald) she is!

Here is one of her with her daddy (who looks to be about 17 when this picture was taken. What can I say, I was a cougar.)

Now, the camera must have been discovered later in life, because on the same sd card I have these of Cooper (who is probably about 15 months)

and another Kami (at what looks to be 3)

4. Now, if this day couldn't get better... it just did. Also in that stack of SD cards I found a micro sd converter card. What?! Imagine my luck. So, not only did I inherit brand new long lost photos, but I also finally got to download my cell phone pics (which happen to be some of my very fondest photos) I'm not a big cell phone pic taking person (probably because I usually forget my phone takes pictures) but I never knew how to take them off my cell phone. I'm sure there are other ways then moving all my pics to Brandon's micro SD card and then using the converter to move them onto my computer, but hey, this way works for me.
I'm going to include those pics in their own seperate post for 2 reasons: 1 - this post is long already. 2 - I messed up the order in which I did things and blogger doesn't make it easy to "rearrange" pictures and text in a post.

Oh... I just thought of more reasons today is a good day:
-we moved our bunk beds, much better
-my amazing cousin took stunning pictures of my kids and I ordered the prints today.

(I started this post on Wednesday April 21st - 2010. Not that it matters)

Criminal Punishment

Today as I was taking Kameryn to school she couldn't get her seat belt on. She said to me:

"Mom, do the cops spank hard as Daddy or do they spank harder?"

I told her I didn't know.

...I've never been spanked by a cop.

I Love Cute Boys.

Poor Landon had a rough day today with the concrete steps. It ate up both his cheeks, his eyebrow and forehead.

I was trying to get a picture of his road rash and instead got this sweet little number of my two boys.

Gosh, I love boys.


Of course, Cooper needed a picture of his very own as well. Does that smile look familiar? It's totally Kameryn school pic reminiscent.

Child's Play

Remember to take time out of your day to play with your children. You love them so terribly much, and taking the time to actively be around them will remind you just how terribly, terribly much you adore them.
Besides, it makes for a very delightful day (for everyone involved).

Kid's Say the Darndest Things

After finishing a prayer on the food the other day Kami looked up at me and said
"Mom. It's very important we have families, because otherwise..."
Then she stalled and seemed to be having a moment where she couldn't remember what she had wanted to say. Because she had told me just the day before how important it was for us to have families so we wouldn't be alone I filled in the blank for her
"so we don't have to be alone."

"yes." she looked up at me and then said what she had really wanted to say. "Also Mom, it's important we have families because if we didn't then nobody could tell us when our birthday was." very true little girl.


Tuesday afternoon found just Cooper and I in a conversation. Kameryn was at school and Landon was taking a nap. While cleaning I stumbled upon Cooper in the bathroom.
"I'm going potty" he said.
"Good" I said.
All the sudden he got this bewildered expression on his face and said the following:
"I talk really loud."
It was as if the thought just occured to him. Like his own personal "WHOA" moment.

Hmm... you think? A bit of an understatement Cooper son.
I left the bathroom in giggles. You sure do boy.


Landon and I are also having conversations as of late. His communication skills are improving quite nicely... for a two year old. I think the biggest difference is that he is trying to use full blown sentences and actually convey his feelings to the fullest. Two fun ones from him:

Yesterday -
I said "Landon, you need to clean up your banana you left on the floor."
He said "AAGH! AAGH! AAGH! Not my nana! Toopa Tami nana! AAGH!"
Anyway, if you didn't get that, it was a lot of screaming in frustration and a partial temper tantrum whereupon somewhere in there he threw the words, clear as day, "it's not my banana! It's Kami and Cooper's banana!" I was quite proud of him. Although, it was his banana.

Today -
I pulled Landon up on my lap to tell him I love him
Me "How's your day been Landon?"
Him "I wety oo take a na"
Me (incredulously) "Your ready to take a nap?"
Him "yup"
Alrightly then. That was an adorable surprise.

...and the next day, I was better.

Thank you for all your love and concern.
I am doing much better today. (As I was yesterday and the day before)

Thursday was just tough.

No worries though. I made it through it and I'm tougher and better because of it.

That'll Leave A Mark.

Today I ran smack dab, head first, into a very large fist full of things I absolutely do not like about myself.

and it hurt really bad.

and I cried.
and cried.


It still stings something fierce too.

Ever have that feeling where your insides are so angry and disappointed and frustrated and humiliated by yourself that you feel like you literally are going to explode with unpleasant emotions?

Or how about that feeling where your heart feels like it is being crushed inside you and it hurts to breathe, but you don't want to think about it for fear your brain will spin a million miles per hour and leave you shrinking further and further into a big dark hole of hopelessness?

I've got both. I don't know whether I'm going to explode or suffocate.


I get so frustrated at me sometimes I just want to shake myself and yell "SHAPE UP! What is your problem?!"



Gosh, I hate this.

I'm usually pretty open about sharing my shortcomings here on the blog, but today I don't really feel like it. This ones just too personal. The kind of personal like "this is all I've ever wanted to be good at in my entire life" and I'm not being good at it.
That kind of personal.
The kind of personal that I'm too humiliated to admit to myself let alone 10 other blog readers, and definitely not people I would like to like me.


I just can't get this right. I'm just not good at this. And I'd like to say "hard as I try", but I can't and that's just the point. I'm not trying and I can't, for the life of me, figure out why the heck not. If it's all I've ever wanted. If it's all I still want. If I know I could actually be really good at it if I just tried. Than what the heck is wrong with me?
Why am I not doing it?
Why won't I be better?
Why won't I try to be better?

I said my prayers tonight and I asked Heavenly Father to help me. I'm not sure what to do with myself but I know He'll know. And I know while He works on helping me figure it out He'll hold me so I can borrow some peace.

Disclaimer: Sometimes I blog because I need to release all my thoughts and emotions so I can go to sleep.
Sometimes I blog because it cleans out my tears and then I can breathe and be okay.
Sometimes I need a post just for me. I need to write my struggles, for nobody but me.
Consider this one of those times.

I need to be able to do this; to work this out, and writing helps me do that.
Putting it on my blog holds me accountable for what I'm figuring out.
It is, after all, MY blog so I figure it's got to be legal...at least in this state.

It's okay, don't worry, I do love myself very much.
It's just one of those days where I disgust myself. (and that's okay.)