Our Trip to Kent to see Cousins!

I just discovered some pictures on my camera that I'd forgotten about!  These are definitely worth sharing, even if they're from a month ago.

So, a few weeks ago Aunt Miriam and her girls went to Kent to visit Grandma & Grandpa, so of course we had to go see them.  And since I had told Grandma to get Sidney the same dress I'd got Katy for Easter, we had to get a picture of them together!  Only two year olds aren't always that cooperative...

 Michaela was a willing participant at least!

 I love how at this age smiling is mostly just opening their mouth!  So cute!

 This is what happened when we tried to force Sidney to pose for the picture.  And I've got a lot more just like it.

 Then I went for some action shots since the posing wasn't working.  I got a few where one of them looks nice but the other either is making a weird face or is out of focus.  I do like the sweetness of this picture though!

 Then they went for a walk.  Love it!

I don't remember what it was that I did - or maybe it was one of the boys, it looks like they're looking off to the side, so that's probably it - but it was FUNNY!

I can't decide on my favorite, so you get a few of them.

Those are some big smiles!  A bit crazy big, but far better than the grumpy faces of earlier!

 Sweet girls. :-)

 And then I they continued their walk.  I love these action shots too!

 It's so fun for Katy to have little girl cousins to play with when most of her life is surrounded by boys!

Here's proof that we love the other children, too. :-)

How we celebrated my unemployment

Friday was my last shift at the Safeway gas station, so Saturday was my first day back as an official stay-at-home mom.  It happened to coincide with a pretty good deal at Oaks Park, so I decided to take advantage of the excuse to celebrate!  I'd known my work schedule for a few weeks and the Oaks Park deal probably about as long, so I'd been planning on it for a while!  The forecast was a 30% chance of rain, so we couldn't decide for sure until that morning.  Which also meant we couldn't tell the kids until that morning, which kind of drove me crazy.  Dan will tell you, I'm quite childlike in my excitement about this place, and it was hard to keep it to myself!

I have an odd assortment of pictures thanks to a few reasons.  First of all, my cell phone is quite temperamental (my new one is coming TODAY!), so I missed a few pics while it acted up.  Second, Dan had the camera for a lot of the time and isn't big on taking pictures (he says the phrase "When are we ever going to look at these?" all the time).  And third, Dan was with the big boys a lot while I was with Nathan and Katy, and even Katy and I split up a few times (She actually is a pretty awesome height - over the 42 inches required to do some rides by herself, but short enough to still go on the little rides.  So quite a few times she'd go on the same ride as us, but go alone just because she could.).  So I have mostly pictures of Nathan, because I was almost always with him (and if I wasn't it was because I was going on a ride that he couldn't go on).

 The first pictures I have are of the Ferris wheel (I'd had to reset my phone when I tried to get pictures earlier).  Katy could go alone, so she did. :-)  Nathan was very interested in how we went up...

 ...then down.  It was what he talked about the entire ride.  Then it kind of threw him off at the end when we'd stop to let people on/off.

With all the pictures of Nathan that I took, there are very few where he looks like he's having any fun at all.  I remember the older kids doing that when they were little, too.  I could tell he liked the rides mostly by how sad he was to get off at the end!

 Oaks Park has a skating rink that is included in the bracelet cost, so the little ones and I went in for a little while.  Katy stuck to the training area, and Nathan and I hung out and watched the big boys.  They were in there a while longer than us, and they've gotten pretty good!

 When we first discovered Oaks Park in summer of 2011 these boys were clinging to the sides.  Not so now!  The tie-dyed shirt is Ryan.

And here's David in the grey.

 Poor David.  When we left the skating rink I told the boys that they should try the bouncy boats.  David got in one, Ryan got in another with Nathan, then decided that I should go behind them so Nathan wouldn't be sad.  So David was alone, the other 4 of us were in one.

 I'm pretty sure Katy was grumpy about not getting to go in the pink one or something equally silly.  Which is sad because the rest of us are all having fun!

 See, this is how most pictures of Nathan are.  He cried when I took him out of the car, so I know he liked it, but it sure doesn't look like it!

 Katy, on the other hand, showed her happiness!  This little roller coaster is another one that she could go on by herself for the first time.  I think she likes it. :-)

 Dan was a good sport about tagging along even though he doesn't do rides.  Can you find him?

 Here's a zoomed in shot.  At least he had his phone to pass the time. :-)

 This is Katy all the way across the big boat ride.  Because she could.

 I took so many pictures like this, trying to get a good shot of me with my little man.

 I think this is the best one.  He looks a tiny bit happy.

 Then the ride started, and he was actually happy!  You know, it'll be interesting to see if he is happier when we go back this summer sometime.  Maybe it just took some time to warm up.

 See?  He liked it!

 It's possible Nathan was a little tired by the end.  Poor kiddo missed his nap.  The life of a fourth child.

Yup, Katy is riding the same ride but in a separate...um...car?  What would you call that?

As we were finishing up I let Nathan pick one more ride, and he surprised me by choosing the balloons!  They look like hot air balloons, and just go up and spin around the circle and spin individually as well (does that make sense?).  I guess he liked it!


Well, I'm sad to not have more pictures of the big boys doing the big kid rides, but I'll just have to remember that for next time!  The kids and I really love this place, and will hopefully be back soon!

My Pros and Cons of Working

Yes, I took this with my cell phone in the bathroom.  And then got right back to mopping!

In the next few weeks we will hit my 1 year anniversary with Safeway (and I even got a certificate to prove it!).  With Dan working at a better job, and specifically since that new job's insurance kicks in at the start of April, we are planning on me "retiring" the week of my anniversary.  I've spent a lot of time lately thinking about all the pros and cons of working, and I feel the need to write them down.  So this is more for me than anybody else, but here ya go!

I'll start with the cons so I can end on a happy note.

First and foremost, I have to leave my kids.  I have always wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, even back in Junior High and High School when everyone else had grand ideas of what they wanted to be when they grew up.  It's important to me, at least partly because of my church's teachings on the subject: "Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children."  Especially while Nathan is still so young, I want to be home with my little ones.  But, and this is a con in and of itself, it doesn't phase me as much as it used to.  I used to spend a lot of the time missing them, but I've grown desensitized to it.  I think that's horrible!  I want to be with them, and miss them when I'm gone.  I hope that makes sense.

Probably the second worst thing about working is having to deal with childcare.  Most of the time these days I only work evenings and weekends when Dan is home.  But I had to work days much more last spring and summer, and it caused me so much stress!  I either had to pay somebody (and when I was making $9.24 an hour, I can't pay somebody much without it seriously hurting the point of working!) or rely on the kindness of my friends.  So over those months I sure gave a lot of people the opportunity to provide service!  I hated asking people, feeling like they'd feel like they had to say yes even if they hated it.  So sometimes I'd send out an email to anybody I thought might not be too inconvenienced by having a Morrilling or two around.  It always felt like a puzzle I had to solve, especially when it involved the kids getting home from school.  And not in a good way.

Another really big thing for me is the schedule.  For one thing, I usually find out my schedule on a Thursday or Friday for the following week.  Sometimes we get a few weeks at a time, and I love having that knowledge!  But usually not, it's just how it goes at jobs like this.  So when sign up sheets go around at church, I rarely know my schedule beyond the next week or so.  Today is Sunday, and next week is Spring Break.  I'd like to take the kids to Grandma & Grandpa's house, and left a note requesting at least 2-3 days off in a row, sometime between 3/30 and 4/7.  I know I have this Saturday, 3/30, off, but I don't know if that's part of the 2-3 days (or if I'll even get it, since other people have requested days off as well).  So I may be taking the kids there for Easter.  I may take them later in the week.  I may not take them at all.  And I hate not knowing!

The other thing about the schedule that's difficult is the lack of control.  It's mostly gotten better since the early days, but I still hate that, for example, sometimes I have to leave church early to go to work.  Or a few weeks ago I worked the Sunday day shift and had to miss it altogether (even though a coworker was willing to trade).  I wasn't able to go to the Stake Christmas Devotional - either session - even though Dan was singing a solo (Oh yeah, had to pay our neighbor girl to babysit for that, too.  Luckily we have a nonmember neighbor to babysit on Sundays when needed!).  I had to miss Ryan's class play last year (and was told that "There's always next year" when I expressed my sadness).  After 8 years with nobody telling me my schedule, it's been a hard adjustment.

The rest of my things aren't necessarily in any order.  I hate having to stop what I'm doing at home to leave for work.  I definitely have more energy and motivation in the evening, so working at 6 often means leaving right as I'm getting going on dishes and laundry and whatnot.  So I leave things undone, go spend my energy doing the "chores" at work that I should be doing at home, and come home ready to relax.  Sweeping, mopping, cleaning counters?  I do those at work every day, I don't get around to them at home nearly as often as I should.

I hate that I don't have as much time and energy to do fun things anymore.  I used to feel really good about being the fun mom who took her kids to the park, to the library, to playgroups, swimming, to the OMSI, etc.  I don't do those things very often anymore.

Ooo, here's a good one (I took notes last night while working, and I'm looking at my list).  Dan and I were doing a good job on our diet and exercise before I started working.  I was at the lowest weight I'd been at since puberty, and Dan had made some good progress.  Well, when I have to leave at 5:45, I often either run out of time or decide it isn't worth spending my last minutes at home making dinner, and we do something easy instead.  Easy rarely equals healthy.  And Dan was going to the gym 3-4 times a week after the kids went to bed.  Now I'm not home to watch them, so he can't go.  So we've both gained back quite a bit. :-(

My other complaint sounds kind of silly, but I didn't think so last night!  I have things that I have to do outside, regardless of the heat, cold, rain, etc.  Sometimes that's super miserable!

Okay, now that that's out of my system (still with me?  I'm impressed!), on to the Pros!  The things I'm going to miss!

I love seeing how much more nurturing Dan has become.  He does the bedtime routine without me more often than not, and he does really great!  He can feed the kids without me telling him what to feed them.  He really can handle being the only one with them, which is probably part of the reason I don't feel as bad about leaving the kids anymore (phew, not just me becoming unloving!).  I especially love seeing the relationship that little 2 year old Nathan (Oh yeah, he had a birthday.  Maybe I'll blog about it sometime.) has with his Daddy.  It's hard to describe, because it's not like they love each other more than the other toddlers did.  But he certainly doesn't see Daddy as just the fun guy.  He takes more comfort from his dad than the others ever did.  And the other kids have grown closer to Daddy, too.

After all that about wanting to be home, I have to say, it IS nice to have a break.  It's nice to have a couple hours of nobody whining "Mom!  He hit me!"  I certainly don't get as overwhelmed by them as I used to.  Going to have to find a way to keep that going after I quit.

Oh, and not only do I get a break from the kids, I get a break from being The Homemaker.  When I'm at home I tend to have a feeling that there are thousands of things I should be doing.  I won't actually be "done" unless every drawer, closet, cupboard, etc. of every room is thoroughly organized.  Yes, I spend a fair amount of time goofing off at home, but there's always that nagging feeling, overwhelmed by the amount of things I "should" be doing.  At work, I have a list of things I have to do.  The vast majority of the time I get them done with no stress whatsoever.  I get a few hours where I can't do anything about the house, kids, etc., and the stuff I do need to do is easy.  And since most of it is mindlessly easy, I get some nice quiet time to think.  True, it gets boring, but it's nice to feel like my mind is getting clear.

Friends!  I have friends!  I have some really awesome co-workers, and I really enjoy hanging out with them. That also helps with the clearing of my frazzled brain, getting to chat with an adult outside of the situation.  It's really, really nice.  I think it's probably what I'm going to miss the most.

Not only do I like chatting with my co-workers, I really like interacting with customers.  The majority of people are really nice.  It's nice to have pleasant interactions with people.  And no, not just the ones that compliment me or flirt with me.  Although there is that! :-)  I've been actually asked out a few times and had people be obviously interested other times ("married, huh?").  And many people have told me that they like my smile. It's a rare week that nobody says anything really nice to me.  It feels good!  In fact, I think my confidence is higher than it's ever been.   And of course, people are usually grateful for my help, even though it's my job.  That's another thing I'll miss at home, because rarely do I get thanked for cleaning the toilet or folding the laundry...

Oh, yeah.  Money.  The whole point of working.  That's certainly a pro.  And as a Safeway employee I get 10% off Safeway brand products, which is kind of like getting more money.  Luckily with Dan's new job he's making more money by himself than both of us made last year, but I couldn't list the pros of working without mentioning it!

Okay, since probably nobody is reading anymore and dinner is ready, I'll wrap this up by saying that after a year of working outside the home, I no longer feel like that's all I want to do.  I want to be home while they're really little, but I'm definitely throwing around ideas of what I might do as they get older.  Nursing school is tempting, as is getting my teaching license and becoming an elementary school music teacher, becoming a children's librarian, and a few other things that change from time to time.  It's fun to imagine, it'll be interesting to see where I am a decade or two from now!

Happy Halloween!

This Halloween marks the 9th year of more than one Morrill child, and every year they have had coordinating costumes.  I didn't start off intending to do that.  But little baby Ryan as Winnie the Pooh with almost 2 year old David as Tigger was super cute, and it's just gone from there.  This year Katy said she wanted to do the Wizard of Oz characters, and the boys said that was fine.  Ryan ended up complaining about it a bit, but then he liked how his costume turned out.  Pretty good for $3.77 in supplies, since all I had to buy was the black felt to make the hat, the raffia, and some brown face paint that we forgot to put on his nose last night!  Nathan of course is in the Carter's lion costume that Costco sold and apparently many, many people got.  I got David a grey hoodie and pants (both of which he is wearing again today, despite my efforts to convince him that it looks weird), silver face paint, and covered a dollar store funnel with aluminum foil.  And we got Katy a new white tutu, sparkly red shoes, a actual basket to use for trick or treating, and I made her pinafore (altering a pattern I had to make it shorter and wider so it worked with the tutu).  Oh yes, and I decided in the shower yesterday that I should dress up, too, so I just wore black clothes (yes, the shoes look kind of weird, but I wanted to wear comfortable shoes for all the walking!), bought green face paint, and wore Katy's witch hat from last year (which had a hard time staying on, so perhaps I should've sprung for an adult sized hat...).  

  Daddy took 6 pictures, and Katy is doing some version of that pose in every single one.  Silly girl!

I like how Ryan is holding hands with Nathan in this one. :-)

 Daddy must've felt left out that he didn't get to dress up...

 Yesterday afternoon I decided that I should make cupcakes for the kids to decorate.  Only it took a while to make them (I divided the batter into thirds, dyed one orange and one yellow, then did a layer of orange, then yellow, then white to make them look like candy corn!  They're cute, but I'm not sure it was worth the effort), then we had to drive around to 4 stores to find green face paint, then it was time for dinner and trick or treating.  So after getting home from trick or treating the big kids got to decorate one each (Nathan got to eat one without frosting for mess reasons, and he didn't seem to notice a difference!).  The rest are still waiting for them to get home from school today (well, the rest that I didn't eat last night...)!

 Katy got to wear mascara as Dorothy.  Heaven help us, that girl is going to be a knockout!

 This picture has nothing to do with Halloween.  I just love his sweet little face!

 Trick or treating is thirsty work!  Nathan insisted on doing a lot of walking himself, which is easier on my arms but more stressful!  Luckily we met up with some friends shortly after getting started, so the other grown ups helped wrangle the other kids while Nathan and I tried to keep up!

David and his cupcake.  He actually ate his before I got a picture of it, so he made a duplicate.  It's also waiting for him to get home!

Well, I sat down to upload the picture of us all in our costumes onto facebook, and got busy doing this instead.  I'm glad I did, but now it's 2:00 and I haven't had lunch!  I'm hungry!

David Morrill, Soccer Player

David has been asking to play soccer for a while.  He played on a team 5 years ago, and we hadn't signed him up since then for a variety of reasons (mostly time and money, two of those things you never have enough of).  Last month we decided to go for it, went to sign up, and had to put him on a waiting list.  A spot opened up, we took it, and David was finally on a soccer team again!

Now, David has told me that he plays soccer at recess pretty often over the years.  Apparently he's learned a thing or two, because he's really quite good!  I was worried that being on a team for essentially the first time as a 9 year old would put him at a disadvantage, but he's actually quite a valuable member of the team.  He's a great back (that's what it's called, right?), and has stopped the other team from scoring many times over the 3 games they've played so far!

Nathan had an ear infection on Saturday (I took him to the urgent care after the game.  Dan was busy signing with the Portland Opera, or we would have been able to divide and conquer.), which meant he was extra cuddly.  Which meant I was able to take some pictures rather than chase him around the whole time!

 Here's a good action shot of David running to get that ball going the other direction!

 This is David after making a good play and being cheered for.  This is one of the reasons I'm SO glad we finally signed him up.  Look how good he feels about himself!

 And this is after his team scored a goal.  Think he's excited? :-)

Another good action shot

After a few minutes I remembered that my new camera takes good videos, so I took a few.  I got several where David isn't involved in the play, but here are a two where he gets a good kick in there!

Around this time Nathan changed from just being clingy to being cranky, so I had to stop with the picture/video taking.  David ended up playing all of the first 3 quarters and the middle of the 4th quarter.  They play 6 to a side, and there were 3 or 4 boys sitting out, so he definitely got to play more than his share!

Arrrrr!

First off, I'd like to say that I got a new camera for my birthday (thanks, Mom & Dad!).  I'm going to use it as motivation to start blogging more regularly.  But I'm not going to stress about catching up.  I may throw a few old ones on here, but mostly just go forward as a new bloggin' woman.

Yesterday, for those of you that don't know, was Talk Like a Pirate Day.  And to celebrate, Krispy Kreme was giving out 1 free donut to anyone who talked like a pirate, and a dozen to anyone dressed as one!  OF COURSE I had to take advantage of that!

Four years ago for Halloween we had a pirate in the family (Look at how little they are, especially cute Katy!  She was just shy of 17 months old, so just a bit younger than Nathan is now!).  Between the parts of that costume, some other stuff we had on hand, and some fabric I was given several years ago (and made into a skirt in 20 minutes!), we came up with 2 cute pirates!

This is Katy's pirate pose.  She's holding an imaginary sword.  Obviously.

 So, I went in expecting to get 2 dozen glazed donuts for my 2 pirate kids.  They only gave us 1.  I think that was kind of stinky.  It said "limited to one per guest, per visit."  Hello, they are separate guests!  I didn't make a big deal out of it, though (but I did tell the family that was coming in while we were leaving that they should go in separately if they wanted more than 1 dozen!).  I had assumed we wouldn't get the additional donuts for talking like a pirate since 2 dozen is a good amount (with half a dozen people in our family that's 4 apiece), so we did get those after all, and found out that those weren't limited to glazed!  So we ended up with 1 dozen glazed, 1 maple bar (mine), 1 with sprinkles (Nathan's, and yes, he did say "arrr!"), and 3 "kreme" filled for the other kids.  Pretty good for free!!!

Katy kept trying to stay in character for pictures.  This is one of several of her saying "arrrr!"  I wonder why that hasn't caught on in place of "cheese"...

 We got a real smile out of her!

The last time we went inside a Krispy Kreme was when we told them we were expecting Nathan, so it's been a while.  The kids were really fascinated by watching the donuts being made!  I'd never noticed that you could see all the way from the dough getting dropped onto the conveyor belt, through rising, and of course the cooking and glazing.  Today while eating one Ryan said "It's hard to believe this starts out as just dough."  He also wondered what their secret is.  Don't we all?

 Nathan enjoyed his chocolate with sprinkles!

After several attempts, I got another one of Katy actually smiling, with her partially finished donut in hand.  I'm impressed with how her costume turned out, especially considering the fact that no money was spent and less than half an hour (including cutting, sewing and gathering all the parts).  Hopefully she'll wear the skirt for dress-up sometime too!