Yesterday...

...was a "no" day. Do you ever have "no" days? Where you are just inclined to say no to every dad-gum question your kids ask you, all day? For whatever reason?

"No, you may not have more chocolate in your milk"

"No, you cannot have a snack because we ate breakfast 20 minutes ago and maybe you will learn to eat your breakfast instead of complaining that it got soggy and throw it away"

"We are not playing in the water right now"

"We are not going anywhere today. We are staying home because I need to get some things done."

"No, I don't want you to get all the games out because the pieces get scattered all over the house and it takes forever to pick up"

"You don't get to wear underwear any more today because you already peed 3 times in your other ones"

"no"

"No"

"NO"

"NOOOO"

"N-O SPELLS 'NO'"

"BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO SAY YES BECAUSE I'M JUST ANNOYED AT ALL YOUR QUESTIONS TODAY AND IT NEVER, EVER STOPS AND I'M GOING INSANE WITH ALL YOUR ENDLESS QUESTIONING ABOUT THE PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN. CAN YOU PLEASE NOT ASK ME FOR ANYTHING FOR 5 MINUTES! AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

MAN, was I on a "no" streak yesterday.

And not surprisingly, we were all grumpy pretty much all day long.

And it was a long, miserable day.

And I accidentally let my mouth speak before my mind could catch up again and took away the midday movie privilege on account of bad behavior (which is not much more than self-punishment) which means I got no break. But I was too stubborn to just let them watch a movie and give myself a break.

AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO HAS THESE DAYS? (and I wasn't PMS'ing. I know that's what you were thinking, you didn't have to say it...)

On to the good news...

children. are. patient.

WHAT? Yes, patient. Can they wait 13 seconds for their wants to be met? No, not patiently. But they are patient with me. Did they ever call me on being a total jerk yesterday? Nope. And guess what, they didn't hold a grudge against me today. Today was like yesterday never happened.

This is the good news. That today I got to start over again. And take advantage of this beautiful time of life where I get to start over and do better today and they won't hold it against me. Because I know that won't last forever.

So this morning, I earnestly prayed to do better at this, my struggle of "no".

And it was a COMPLETELY different day.

It was PLEASANT!

And we were happy.

So whatever screw-up happened with your kids today, get over it and fix it tomorrow. Make sure and love them more tomorrow. Try to figure out how to get out of your slumps (or whatever it is that you struggle with) when they happen. Pray for help. It will work! And they will be patient as you learn.

THANK GOODNESS.

To start things off...

Mr.Carter turned 5 this month. 5!! Seriously? Kindergarten next year. I'm having a mini panic-attack just thinking about it. He's gonna be known as the kid who gets nose bleeds because he can't stop picking his nose. Or maybe that's just all kids his age...


This kid loves everything about birthdays. He used to tell me "Happy Birt-day, Mommy!" about 10 times a day and sings the song all the time.

But what's NOT to like about birthdays? Especially when your mom makes you a sa-weet R2D2 cake like this: (I know this looks super-professional but it is NOT a store-bought cake. Merely the result of serious cake-making skills.... I was even asked "what is THAT?" by the B.B.)

*The only problem (a very minor one) with this cake is that it was disgusting and no one ate it. Not even the B.B.)

Carter recently achieved a huge milestone in life.

He stopped picking his nose.

Just kidding, he still does that.

No, he really got a stripe for his karate belt by memorizing some sweet moves and testing for it. He was SO excited and Spencer and I were just bursting our buttons, as you can imagine. So he officially thinks he can kick anyone's butt.

(pictures taken on Star Wars Day. Did you miss it? MAY THE 4TH be with you.....I know, I know...shut up)

And this one...well this one makes me laugh really hard at least once a day. He talks really well for his age and the things that come out of his mouth...he is just hilarious. Watching him try and keep up with Carter is so funny.

We have been working on potty training with him for about...hmm, I'd say 2 months now. It's two steps forward, one back for him. One day we made the mistake of letting him pee outside. Yah, you know what happened next....there's no such thing as a real toilet anymore. If he's outside it's free-game. So I find him like this a lot>

"NOLAN, did you tinkle?"

"Yes, I show you! It's in the grass"

"You tinkle in the potty. Not in the grass."

"Okay. I not doing it again."

(yes, they are holding worms. boys are gross. really)

This has been one of my recent DIY home-improvement project. Seriously, for YEARS I have wondered what our kitchen has been missing. It has just always looked a little, like unfinished. Then the lightbulb went off one day while reading an issue of "This Old House" and within 1 week, I painted and Spencer hung a new chair rail. (and apparently a lot of garbage)



I LOVE IT! And it looks finished now. My only regret is that I didn't do it sooner. (I may have also read that line in the magazine)

We have been picking and munching on mulberries like nobody's business. We have a random mulberry tree that sprung up years ago and heaven knows we tried multiple times to kill this thing but finally we gave up and now it's beautiful and surprised us with berries like 2 years ago. Who woulda known?? I hope they are good for you cuz we've (I've) been pounding them)

All my home-improvement has given Nolan the bug. He loves to "fix" our pocket door, which translates to chipping more and more paint off the part with the missing latch, which in turn makes another project for mom. It's like a never-ending cycle. But he sure looks stinking cute in his goggles and missing sock. Plus he sticks his tools in his diaper/undies/pull-up (whichever he's wearing at the moment- it changes about 15 times a day) like his tool belt. Just like daddy :)

So there's my update. I am still in the midst of painting the house. Thanks to my darling hubby, some help from his family, and our awesome friends Isaiah and Jennica, we got the house done last week (3 non-stop days!) before my brother Wes and his family came to stay with us. We were really up at the crack of dawn every day scraping off old paint (getting it ALL over) and rolling the eaves and walls. It was crazy. And it was hot. And I was sweating. And it's not over. Tomorrow we start the garage!!

Just checking in...

I am alive. I have not fallen off the face of the earth. And apparently I think we are funnier than anyone else thinks we are...not surprising.

Here's a 2 second update on what we've been doing...

Playing

Gardening (my plum tree looks like a weeping willow it is so covered in fruit. I'm excited!)

Painting indoors

Chair-rail-ing (I'll post pics soon!)

Picture-ing

Scraping (the outside of my house for painting...oh, it is just the worst. My back is killing me tonight. But I'll be happy to have it done in 2 months...if I'm lucky)

Exercising

Stressing

Yoga-ing (anyone else do Yoga? It's my new favorite thing. It's hard!)

Baking (we are on the count-down to summer. The season the rest of the country loves and I dread (minus the garden part) which means I won't turn my oven on for about 4 months)

Potty-training (not going so well as of today)

Grass-growing

Cleaning

Traveling

Pruning

And that about sums it up. I have been so busy that when i think "oh, I'll sit down and blog" then something else (or someone else) throws itself into my path and demands my attention. It's insane! And i don't see any calm in the near future. Except Monday's and Friday's at 10am. At Yoga!!

Things went from bad...to worse

what happened when I tried to take a decent pic of us on the couch tonight...(**don't mind the extremely greasy foreheads, cheeks, and noses**)

Dear Friends,

I'm sorry I've been a horrible blogger. Can you forgive me? It's something that is on my list of things to do. But then I think...I think I'll enjoy taking pictures of my kids, or watching Lost with Spencer, or cooking something new. But I really do have good intentions. I think, "Tonight I'll sit down and unload all the pictures of my darling boys and tell all the stories I've been blogging in my head and brag about how cute and fun my little stinkers are." And then somehow it doesn't happen. Blah, blah. Excuses, excuses. Get on with it, Burk.
Well the week before last we were SICK. I mean, something NASTY has been going around and we got it. And felt quite crappy for days. Carter somehow escaped it. But we rarely stay at home all day, every day and during this time, we did. Seriously, 3 days in a row i didn't even shower. It was gross. And I forgot to brush my teeth until about 2pm. So during this time at home I thought I'd double-task and start potty training Nolan. And to spare you all the nasty details he is doing really and only peed his pants...3 times today? But they were all at home. No problem-o at the gym or park. So he gets two thumbs up in my book. And I just cannot get over his legs. They are so cute. I LOVE the baby fat wrinkle that still hasn't smoothed out at the top of them and I LOOOOVE how they bow our from the knee. I also secretly love the excuse of letting him run around in his undies.



Easter couldn't have been a more perfect day. The weather ruled, I loved listening to General Conference, and we got to spend time with family. The EB came and the kids were SOO excited to find their baskets and the eggs outside. Nolan SCREAMED every time he found an egg. We made it inside with 99% of our eggs. We found the last one 3 days later. Eww.









Nolan is hilarious. He picked up this egg and then for some reason decided he didn't like it and put it back down. I tried to get him to put it in his basket and he screamed and ran away.


We whipped out the bubble wands the other evening and as I was taking pictures I was struck with the beauty of the moment, the evening California breeze and the gorgeous sunset and I put my camera away and sat down on my grass to blow bubbles with my kids. And I thought about what a picture-perfect life I have and how I didn't want to take pictures of it right then, but just enjoy it and allow my kids to enjoy ME.




(can you see the intensity in these eyes?? p.s. he's getting freckles and moles. can you see the ones to on the right side of his mouth? (his left) Poor kid takes after his mom.)

I went to register Carter for Kindergarten for the SECOND time today and I still have to go back bc his shot record isn't up to date. But it really got me thinking about not having him around all day next Fall and I had this sinking feeling in my stomach and I miss him already. I know I will get used to it but he is Nolan's best friend and my baking buddy. And I just want my kids to stay little. Please, someone tell me they'll never grow up and leave home?? (or please tell me again that when the time comes I'll be gladly shoving them out of my house!)

We have been working every day in our garden.


Weeding, eating, planting...I love that my kids go in the garden and pick fresh fruits and veges and eat them right there and LOVE them. Strawberry season is upon us and I have to watch them like a hawk or Nolan will got pick all the ones which are hardly pick and down them. And he loves his squirt bottle. He played with that thing for like an hour and a half.

So this is why I've been a bad blogger. Don't hate me. Love that I've been trying harder to enjoy life. It's going oh-so-quickly by.

HOW HAVE YOU ENJOYED LIFE THIS WEEK??

I hate Spring...

but it sure is pretty. Why do I hate Spring, you ask?

Because I sneeze about 248 times a day. Seriously, my allergies are killin' me. It's even too bad for the Neti pot. I've taken Zyrtec and Claritin. And Flonase. Someone out there have a secret weapon? Please???

I am sick today and therefore did not even step one toe outside until this evening, when I went to gather some sanity in my garden. Have I ever told you how much I love my garden?? Yesterday we prepped for planting in a couple weeks. We picked the fruits of my some of my labors from last October. I had no idea if these things would actually pop up but they did and it's awesome to have a spring garden. I'm going to make it a new tradition!


So this is what our garden looks like now. Weedless, (almost) and bare. A fresh start. This year's garden will include sugar snap peas, carrots, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, cantaloup, casaba melon, butternut squash, zucchini, yellow squash, cabbage, strawberries, grapes, cilantro, basil, and hopefully some stuff off of our trees (peach, plum, apricot, pear, pomegranate). Mmmmm...It's almost worth enduring the heat of summer for.


I love having fresh flowers in the house. This was from a couple weeks ago before my allergies went insane and i was able to tolerate them inside. I love how kids simply see a flower as a flower. Whether it's a weed or a blossom, to them there's one simple fact...it looks pretty so lets pick it and take it to Mommy. Here they tore off some of the honeysuckle vines and brought them in for me. So cute.

These bright red Geraniums completely clash with m kitchen. I love them.

And they rest are just boring ol' pictures from the garden. But they are so pretty, no?

What do YOU love/hate about Spring??

Catchup and a Lesson 4

I was gone for 5 days (see here) and spring came.

What the heck! When I left it was cold, blustery, and cloudy. Then I returned to this.

It's SO stinking pretty. This is all in my backyard, too! Plum trees and peach tree, to be exact. Just looking at these pictures makes me have to sneeze. UH. My allergies have been seriously wicked. And I do NOT look cute when I have allergies. I look like a WEIIIRRRDOOO. Plus I sneeze about 500 times a day and people look at me like I'm contagious. But I have been using a little device that has made my life SOOO much better and I have to tell you about it, just in case you suffer like I do. It's called the Neti pot and it looks like this:

http://www.herbspro.com/images/productImg/Neti-Pot-Ceramic-60135.jpg

Yeah, you stick that little nozzle up your nose hole and tip your head to the side and the saline comes out the other side. And it's weird. For probably the first 5 times you use it. Then it's like heroine and you can't go to bed without flushing your nasal cavities. Anyway, I have some generic brand called "Nasal Cleansing Pot" so I don't think it matters which you get. But if you have a cold or allergies, try it! Then let me know how it turned out (you'll be thanking me)

It doesn't get green in Southern California very much but this year we've had a decent amount of rain. So this spring we are enjoying beautiful fields of green where there's normally only tumble-weed dust bowls. Behind my in-law's house there's one of these said fields and I went out to take pictures of my kids/nieces/nephews the other evening. The lighting was gorgeous and they had the best time pretending like they were animals playing in the wilderness and hiding from each other. It reminded me of when I was a kid. And I was a bit melancholy for the days I used to run across the field that divided my house from my best friend's house in bare feet and play until the sun was completely gone and I'd hear my mom calling me in. So I stayed and let them play until it was dark and cold and then we had to come in.
But this leads me to my lesson on the shots most people love and those are sun-flare shots. I have no idea if you can get something similar from a p&s camera. I've never tried. I don't think you can. But shooting into the sun is one of my favorite things to do because you get such varied results. Plus it adds character to your pictures and helps to capture the feel of the moment more. Here are some recent sun flare shots I love:








( I LOVE this shot even though it's not something someone else would look at and think was really great. But because of what was happening. Nolan was trying to get on this big ball and kept falling off. Carter thought it was the funniest thing he had ever seen and was laughing hysterically. You can see Nolan's feet at the bottom there. They are always making each other laugh.)

So here's my best lesson on getting good sunflare shots with your DSLR. Before you start, decide what look you want the picture to look like. Depending on how much flare you want, open or close your aperture. The more closed (higher number, right?), the more it will look like a sunburst, or like a star. The more open and it will look like a blob of sun (like in my pics. I like to shoot wide open). Also if you want more in focus, close it up. If you want more of a background blur, open it.
It is said that you usually get the best flare with a cheap lens, which is a good thing if that's all you have.
Your camera will most likely have a hard time focusing on someone when the sun is blaring through your lens. Use your hand to block out the sun, focus, then remove your hand.
Overexpose. Usually quite a bit.
Move around very slightly and take a lot of pictures. Move so the sun is peeking out from behind the person's head then move a little more so something else is kindof in the way (like a tree branch), then so it's at the top of your frame. Just try a lot of different positions.
Never look at the sun (shut up, I know I'm not your mother)

And there you have it. I have never used a reflector for sun flare shots but I know some people do. Plus I know of one photographer who wears white to her shoots and lets her shirt act as a reflector. I still haven't tried that one.

Finally, practice a lot. It's taken me a while. But I love the look.

Good luck!