Easters
5/10/2013
| Author:
jefferies
In the spirit of catching up:
Here are some Easter pictures from last year. LAST YEAR! (I am NOT pregnant again.) I already mentioned that I'm a year behind.
We hide the Easter candy all over the yard, and the kids hunt for it on Easter morning. It has become our little tradition. We have ways of making sure the kids get equal amounts (or the amount we think they should have).
Easter 2013
Just a few pictures from this year.
Oliver LOVED finding candy, and Milo was adorable! The big brothers were great helpers.
Today I was nursing the baby before his nap, and we both fell asleep. I woke some time later, with a start, with this thought in mind: what is happening with your blog? You need to keep a history. Hmm... I've grown so far behind (I think I'm a year behind!), and I've grown more cautious over that last year about what I share...so that resulted in an unintentional lapse. I'm going to try my best to catch up our history , but it will have to be greatly truncated! No better time to start than with the most recent occurrence:
April 27, 2013
The Canemah Bluff
My heart will always be with this location. It is a park and wilderness area within our little city, and Brent found it shortly after we moved here. We have spent years hiking around this bluff and forest. I have memories here- being pregnant with Elsa, when she was still ALIVE; coming here with the kids shortly after her passing, just trying to keep it together; moving into the lovely house in the neighborhood, where we lived for 1 year; getting our family pictures done; Milo's newborn pictures; and now a spring mama-baby photo shoot. We are going to miss this place after we move away from Oregon.
It was my friend's idea to go and do this photo shoot together. We've been best friends for nearly 6 years, and our recent babies were born 1 day apart. I took pictures of her with her baby, and she took pictures of me with my baby. The Camas Lilies were in bloom, and the pictures turned out lovely:
They are all stunning in black and white too!
Now I have the tough task ahead of deciding which ones to print up!
Oh my heart!
My baby, motherhood, my Tara, my Canemah, my Oregon.
October, 19 2012
With rain in the forecast, we decided that Friday would be our museum day. We had 4 museums on our agenda to see in New York City: The Guggenheim, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met), The Modern Museum of Art (MOMA), and the Nation Museum of Natural History. These four museums were included with our
City Pass, which we purchased for $89 each, and also included the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island, and the Empire State Building Observatory. Totally worth it!
It was a little hard to get up as early as we wanted to Friday morning because it was still 3 hours earlier than our time zone, and we were still pretty tired from our red eye flight...so we got a little later start to the day than we wanted...but I was EXTREMELY excited when we finally made it to the Guggenheim! The Guggenheim Museum has been very first on my list ever since I was a senior in high school and checked out a book of the works at the Guggenheim from the library. I've wanted to go there since I was 18, and finally getting there felt like Disneyland
used to feel like to me when I was a kid.
I found out pretty quickly from a security guard that photography was not allowed inside the art galleries, so that's sad since I really wanted to document this experience. But the building by itself is a work of art. An architectural masterpiece by Frank Lloyd Wright. The building is a giant spiral ramp with the art and galleries off of the ramp. It was amazing, inside and out. I enjoyed seeing the Picasso Matisse, Gauguin, Kandinsky, and all the great artists I learned about in art and humanities classes.
Inside the Guggenheim, looking out the window to the trees in Central Park.
After taking this panoramic picture of some of the building levels from the very top, I was told I better stop taking pictures again! Sorry! You can't see any of the art in any of my pictures!
Leaving the G with my sis.
After the Guggenheim we walked through the edge of Central Park on the way to The Met.
The trees were just starting to turn. The weather the entire time we were there was very warm...in the low 60's. New York City is a beautiful city, with a lot of green park space. The two pictures of the water on the right are the Central Park Reservoir The two bubble pictures on the left were the first time I saw someone "creative panhandling". I never saw anyone just asking for money in NYC. They were always doing a performance or a trick of some kind, and if you wanted to take a picture of it you should give them a dollar.
In Central Park, near the Metropolitan Museum of Art, there is this obelisk called Cleopatra's Needle. It was a gift to the City of New York from Egypt. We sat down and had a breastfeeding and diaper changing session, as the rain had gone away and the weather was very pleasant.
normalizing breastfeeding around NYC!
We walked past this children's park on the way to The Met, and wanted to take a picture of it to show our kids. This is how the children's parks all look in NYC. They are fenced in, and have signs that say no adults or teenagers allowed, unless accompanying a child.
The Met.
The BIGGEST museum I have ever been through. I can imagine the Louvre in France is about the same size, but I wouldn't know since I didn't actually go through the Louvre. I know! What a travesty that I was in France and didn't go to the Louvre! It would take DAYS to see everything in this museum. We really should have left more time to see it. It is A LOT more than just paintings. It is artifacts from all over the world! It was fascinating!!
Here we are, about to go in...with the Met buttons on our collars.
The inside of the Met.
Some of the most interesting things we saw in the Met (we were allowed to take non-flash photography in most of the galleries...all of the galleries except the Bernini sculptures):
A Tiffany stained glass window. They had several Tiffany windows, and I thought they were all stunning!
I loved the expression of this mama and baby!
We spent the most time in the Egypt exhibit. It was INCREDIBLE! These statues, buildings, artifacts, mummies, and panels were all brought from Egypt.
But in retrospect, we should have hurried along so we wouldn't run out of time before seeing China!
My sister and brother-in-law were a big help with Milo! And I think they loved it.
We quickly strolled through the European paintings...and saw lots of lovely ones. The left, on the bottom is Bruegel. I love this painting. He is painting commoners at a time when most paintings were commissioned to paint the elite. I love that. The pics on the top left and just to the right of the big painting are details from the big painting. The other two painting are two Rubens. Brent and I both really liked the one on the right, bottom. It's called the Glorification of the Eucharist. The top right is detail from the painting, in which Jesus is crushing a skeleton and a snake, representing death and sin. It was interesting looking through our pictures afterward. Brent and I both had a camera, and we ended up taking pictures of almost the exact same paintings. Hehe!
The Persian Gallery was perhaps the most interesting because I love the art and I really think it's a time and part of the world that gets skimmed over in History class. The top left statues remind me of the Neverending Story, no? Don't they look like they're about to shoot lasers out of their eyes? And the picture on the top right is cuneiform, one of the earliest known forms of writting.
I LOVED these lions! Favorite!
After spending all day at museums, it was very late, and we were very hungry. We powered through the whole day without eating any meals, just so we could see as much as possible. So we walked around and found a Persian restaurant, which was AHH...SO delicious!! We were trying all kind of foods that we have never tried before, and that was SO fun. The ultimate end of the day was the rose ice cream we ordered for dessert. OK! Seriously SO YUMMY! If you ever get the chance to eat rose ice cream, DO IT!
This is us on the bus, finally on the way home. We were SO tired, and my eyes were hurting me...I think I was starting to get conjunctivitis! Crap! I went home and squirted some breast milk from Milo's bottle in my eyes and went to sleep...and in the morning, ALL BETTER!
It seriously sounds weird, but it works! Just FYI.
*I started this blog post weeks ago, but never had time to finish it...and wasn't really sure I was going to until today. I had been having the desire to lighten up the blog a little, as it's been heavy with my thoughts lately, and I was worried that my friends and family have not been enjoying that. But today as I was trying so hard to get the computer to upload my pictures from day 2 of our New York trip...they just wouldn't upload...they still have not (something is seriously wrong with our internet). So I took that as my nudge to finish this post instead. I know it is what I needed to write today.
NEWSFLASH: I have changed positions since I wrote this blog entry, two years ago: {i need a girl}.
Immediately after we lost Elsa, I
knew we were going to have another girl. I pictured in my mind exactly how beautiful our story would be in the end...mother looses daughter, mother grieves honorably, mother puts all her trust in God, and finally mother gives birth to another healthy, living daughter. Perfect. Everyone in the land rejoices. And they live happily ever after.
Perfect, in my eyes...but as we soon come to learn, that is NOT how the Lord's timetable for our lives will proceed. And I knew it even before Elsa was gone, that we were having another boy. I prayed, I pleaded, and I bargained for another girl first. I promised we WOULD have another baby boy if He wanted us to, if He would send another girl first. I THOUGHT it was what I NEEDED to help me heal.
Before we were pregnant with Oliver, I had this perfect, peaceful feeling that God was sending us a boy and that he was going to be wonderful. We were going to love him so much, and he would be everything that we needed. As the pregnancy commenced and proceeded, I pushed away those feelings and convince myself that of course God would send us another girl.
It took a while after we had Oliver to be happy with him. I'll be honest there, but once I did wonderful love entered into my life. And then I thought "if I start praying now, surely my next baby will be a girl." So I would pray and ask for a girl every morning and every night. And then I would ask if He was going to send me a girl. I always get the answer "yes". But then I would ask if my
next baby would be a girl {because heavens knows I am impatient and have already waited through two pregnancies for a girl when I
thought I was already getting one...I can't wait anymore!}. But my answer always felt like boy next, boy next. I had a hard time accepting that and would push that feeling away and only dwell on the good feeling I got when I prayed about a girl. {Enter Milo, whom we adore. It only took one instant for me to be happy with him-it was the instant I caught him in the birth tub.}
Truly I have wearied the Lord with all of my prayers on this subject. I had heard of other women praying for the gender they wanted, and then getting it...and I thought if it worked for them, it should work for me. But the thing I didn't get was that the Lord knows each of us, sees the big picture and knows exactly what we need. But everywhere I look, the spirit is teaching me to "ask, and ye shall receive." And I believe that with all of my heart. So I continue to pray. I had this experience a couple of months ago where I was asking the Lord if I was going to have a girl, or if we could expect to have all boys...when suddenly I received a different answer than before. The spirit told me that we would have all boys until we get Elsa back. I fought that answer in my heart. NO! How could that be! But then something changed within me: after only a few moments, I
accepted that answer. Ok. We will have another baby and it will be another boy...if that's what we need to do, that's what we'll do. And we
will be happy. For quite a few years I have felt a fraction of what Mary, the mother of Jesus must have felt: I have willingly become a vessel for the children God wants me to have, no matter the cost to my heart. "Be it unto me, according to thy will."
As soon as I accepted that answer, almost immediately I felt a burning in my chest that we
would have another girl, and that previous answer was just a test to see if I could let go of my will and trust the Lord. Wow! So now I feel like I'm setting myself up for a win-win situation on my next baby because if I get a girl, great! But if I get another boy, I know with all of my being that it will be the Lord's will and we WILL love it. Before I went to Oliver's ultrasound, I remember telling someone the line from Elder Wirthin's talk a few years back "come what may, and love it." I said it, but I had no idea that I didn't really mean it. But
now I mean it. I really do.
Just about a few weeks after this experience we watched general conference. There were several amazing talks that caught my attention, which I already wrote about...but one talk I didn't write about was President Henry B. Eyring's "
Where is the Pavilion". This talk was like a follow up message from the Lord to me, about the above experience...reinforcing that yes, I had created a pavilion between the Lord and I by fighting His answers previously. But by accepting them, I was removing the pavilion giving me direct access to God. President Eyring's daughter in law removed the pavilion by finally giving up her desire to have another baby, and leaving it in the Lord's hands. I removed the pavilion by accepting,
truly accepting the baby that God needs us to have.
Then, if that weren't enough, last Sunday a friend on Facebook posted a link to a blog by CJane (which I have never read before) about her
experience with infertility. It was amazing how it corresponded with the experience that I have had. Even though I have never had fertility issues, I could relate to exactly what she was saying. It's like I've had girl fertility and girl loss problems. I don't mean to mock anyone who has gone through fertility problems, because I only gained a glimpse of what that must be like when Elsa died and I had to wait another frustrating year without a baby. But when CJane shared that although she experienced 5 years of infertility, she always knew she would conceive a baby, AND
before she conceived she was finally able to be happy and to accept her life. Wow. I GET that.
Ok, one more thought...I'm sorry if this post is perfectly boring. It is helping me so much to get all my thoughts out. Today I stayed home from church with two sick babies. I wanted to review last month's conference talks during church time, but my toddler just wouldn't have that! He was grouching at me for doing anything that didn't include paying attention to him. So we decided to pick out a living scriptures dvd to watch together instead...cuddled on the couch. That was acceptable to him. First we watched The Lord's Prayer, and the spirit cemented my earlier thought in this post about prayer...that you can never pray too much for something you are asking the Lord for. I won't give up until I die. But the second movie we watched was I think The Signs of the Times, and it was about the last days of the Savior before His sacrifice.
I saw that story in a new way today:
The Jewish people were in bondage to the overbearing Roman Empire. They were hoping for a miracle, a Messiah to deliver them. Even the apostles just a few days before the crucifixion were wondering when He was going to pronounce himself King, and deliver them from the Romans. And
truly that was what they needed!
Truly that was not a wrong thing for them to desire. They believed that He was the Son of God, and the Messiah, and that He could perform miracles. Then the next thing they knew, He allowed Himself to be taken and crucified. It must have felt like a punch in the gut to them. But they could not see the
whole picture. They could not see that IF He threw down the Romans and was not crucified, all mankind would be lost forever. They could not see what a HUGE frustration to the plan of salvation it would have been, if He had given them the temporal deliverance from their earthly bondage.
Likewise, I know that when my prayers were not answered like I thought they were going to be, and when I did not receive the
good things that I so greatly desired and prayed so hard for...I know there is a bigger picture. I MUCH bigger picture, that I cannot fully see. I know that God has a great purpose for me, that I cannot always see. But like the original Apostles, I still believe in Him. I still know He loves me. And little by little that bigger picture is being revealed. But it probably will remain somewhat of a mystery to me until after I die. And that's ok.
The question may come to anyone who reads this (as it has come to my mind, and also to my husband's) of why I want a daughter so badly. Why do I put myself through this? Why do I go to all the trouble to pray and think all of this through? Why go to all of the trouble to write this all out? And the answer is simple: I have ALWAYS felt I was going to have a daughter. Always. Sometimes I ask myself the question: was Elsa
that daughter I always felt? But the spirit tells me, there is another. "Faith in the Lord includes faith in His timing." -Elder Neil A. Maxwell
Yet, I know we will have one AMAZING life if we have all boys. Because if we do, I know the Lord's plan is SO MUCH bigger than mine. So although I would
greatly like another girl, I do NOT need another girl.
8.5.12
We were lucky that Brent's parents were able to come up to Oregon for Milo's baby blessing. Their LDS mission in France was briefly interrupted by a health issue, which required surgery and a few months of recovery. During their recovery time, they traveled the Western states, visiting family. It was good fortune that their visit coincided with the day we had planned to bless Milo at our church. Since we just moved to a new ward congregation and didn't know anyone, and have no other close LDS family up here...it was a good thing they came to be in the very small blessing circle. I'm told it was a wonderful, short blessing! I was trying so hard to keep one of my kids quiet so I could listen to it, that before I knew it, it was over! Ah, the joys... Anyway, here is the day in pictures:
a challenging endeavor to get a picture where everyone is looking!
with Granddad
with Grandma
all of us together!
My self portrait in the mothers room.
I needed documentation of my new outfit and my hair and makeup, which rarely make it past the "just rolled out of bed" look.
