Well, I thought I'd finally sit down and write something thoughtful.  As I've sat here writing and deleting, I have been angry and cried.  Life is hard.  Marriage is hard.  There's a song I have been listening to about what love feels like.  It talks about how real love is hard, you feel used up and stretched out to your limits, but you're still giving and willing to fight for it.  I feel like that is so true.  At the end of the day I am so tired.  Joshua is always into something, climbing and escaping, and needy for my attention.  I can't multitask with him.  If I'm not watching him, he'll get a marker or crayon out of thin air, or the front door chain will magically be undone for him to run outside.  I literally have to put everything on hold until he sleeps or bad stuff happens.  I get nothing done until night when I'm exhausted and the other kids need my attention.  I suddenly had the bright idea to go to the gym and walk on the treadmill with Maddy and Joshua in the mornings. lol  Yes, half day kindergarten is not long enough.  Ok, I am hopeful for tomorrow now.  I have noticed more sweet moments with Will lately, it's nice.  He helps out a lot and is becoming more empathetic.  I'm going much slower on home projects since I am working out for 1.5 hours 3x and week and that's Joshua's nap right there, so not much time to do stuff the other days.  I need a vacation by myself on a high mountain where no one else is. Sigh...

I just have to vent a little bit.  Dave doing scouts is, frankly, making me angry.  They literally just had a campout the weekend before last and now they have another one tomorrow.  Then I'm told at a church meeting summers are full of campouts.  What the heck… I thought family was supposed to be top priority here and I can only think of my sleepless nights with all the kids and getting more miserable.  If he was getting paid I can see how they could ask that of leaders, but he's not.  And my cousin is in town and I haven't seen Grandma in a few weeks, so I was planning on going over there, but I don't know how I'm going to get over there because Dave has to take the van to the campout.  And even though there's a campout, they are still doing their regular weekly scout meeting tonight!!!  Filled with frustration!!!  Why don't they call older men with older kids to this calling?  The other leader has like 6 kids and just had a baby.  I can only assume she is equally frustrated. :(

So, we are hosting a friend-in-town party for my sister in law on Friday.  She said we should grill for dinner, so we then had to rush out and buy a new grill since our last one got blown to its death in a wind storm.  We needed a new one anyway, but now had the motivation to do it.  Then I decided it would be cool if we could extend our patio, so I got a quote and the guy was available to start right away.  I thought we could have this done by Friday's party, so the guy started yesterday and says he's going to be done by Thursday, which is awesome.  So now I've been envisioning a backyard oasis and got a covered bench swing, looking for a deal on patio table sets, and gonna build a fire pit, all before this party. lol  I wanted to have a brick enclosure for the grill too, but I need to be realistic here and hold off on that part.  The kids have been enjoying playing "mine craft" in the backyard with the dug up sod chunks.

It seems like a lot of people are getting divorced that I know, oh wait, they are… :( Anyway, I have had some major ups and downs in the last few years in my own marriage and I have recently been inspired by this thought: If someone told you right when you got married that you would be divorced in however many years with however many children, would you do anything different to try to prevent it?  I have been thinking about this a lot and my answer is yes.  I would work harder at communicating my feelings, I would compromise more, I would serve my spouse more, I would show affection more, I would be less critical, etc…  This list could go on forever.  The point is, if you are lazy with your marriage, you may as well expect it to end at some point and it shouldn't be a big surprise; and for those who are still in a marriage, you can start today to try to make your marriage stronger by already doing those things.  You get what you give in most marriages and it has really been an eye opener for me that my husband isn't the only one who needs to work on things - I do just as much.  I know some things happen that are out of our control and everyone's circumstances are different, but the majority of failed marriages occur because one or both partners didn't give enough.  It's like that things I see on Facebook, marriage isn't 50-50, it has to be 100-100, both have to give their all to make it work.  I didn't want to put this on fb because I don't know if anyone would find it offensive, but for my own marriage, this has been in some cases what has kept me from giving up.

I was proud of Maddy today.  My friend called me and said that her little 4yr old boy announced at dinner that he showed Maddy his underwear earlier today.  Then she asked him if Maddy showed hers to him and he said no.  When I talked to Maddy about it, she said she told him he was immodest.  Yay!! You train your kids, or at least I do, for these situations and hope they never actually have to be in them, but when they are and they make the right choice…I just feel so proud of her.   I honestly never thought I'd have to worry about it with friends this young, but I guess it's an innocent thing and happens.  I have been pretty miserable sick the past few days.  To the point where I was actually upset at Dave that he got me sick. :/  Silly, I know.  We had a short visit with Kevin last week and he says he's probably coming back up next month.  The kids are signed up for swim lessons next month and from there, summer is super busy. Top pic is the new pic I got for $25.  It will go nicely, if I find a spot for it being so big.  I thought the boys up close to the tv was a cute shot and the one of Maddy is on our girls outing.  The bottom picture has a story.  Will had hurt himself on the stairs and fell back and was crying and then Joshua laid down right by him.  It was so cute it cheered Will up instantly.  Love my kids!

I finally decided to get a kitchen aid.  Kohls sometimes surprises me with their deals because mostly, it's just an okay deal.  The artisan kitchen aid I got came with 3 attachments and a pourer shield.  It was on sale for $350, then I used my 30%off and $150 in free credit card rewards, which brought it down to $110.  Well then there is a $30 rebate and I got $40 in kohl's cash!  If I was thinking clearly, I would have used the two other gift cards I had and forgot about.  Oh well, I still feel like I did good.  We were going to get a wheat grinder and now all I need is the mill attachment. Woot!  On other news, I have been slow with the finishing of the bonus rooms.  I put up some mud on one side, but had a headache all day yesterday and today I am just tired and depressed again.