"experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted." -randy pausch

Thursday, September 24, 2015

letters to Beth {spiders in a tree, being flexible, and sean's out of shaving cream now}

{that skipper though...woo woo!}
...
dear beth,
guten morgen!!!
today was a perfect thursday morning here in the gibson house of chaos.
see, thursday mornings have the potential to be horrendous.
HORRENDOUS.
sean has a 7am meeting,
so i am left to fend for myself with three kids that need to get to school and a breastfeeding dean.
but today, mmm, it was good.
max came in at 6:40, which normally would irritate me,
but i was in the middle of a spider dream,
where there was this tree we were going to put back in our yard {in the dream we had taken a full grown tree out of our yard for i don't know why, and we were going to move it back now because we wanted it back--don't ask me why, it was just what was going on in my crazy dream. apparently i want a tree in my yard that used to be there but really in real life has never really been there}.
so the tree.
it was INFESTED with spiders.
and i kept thinking about should we spray the tree before we move it back to our yard because there were too many to kill on our own,
but then i couldn't make peace with that idea because i was remembering the KSL article i read last week about the home in midvale that's infested with spiders and the pest control people have told them to NOT spray because it will drive the spiders into the house,
and i was worried that if we sprayed the tree it would drive the spiders out of the tree and into the house, even though this FULLY GROWN tree wasn't even planted in our yard anyway,
we were just going to be moving back there.
i remember thinking that i didn't want to spray the tree and have the spiders all come out and make their way to our house or into my car,
which wasn't actually my car.
i was using this old mustang of this kid i went to high school with,
so instead we just moved the rest of our stuff which was now entering our my dream and needed to be moved back into our house.
i finally decided that we would just forget about moving the tree back because i decided it wasn't worth it to risk having all of the spiders come into the house.
BUT THE TREE WAS FULLY GROWN AND REALLY FAR AWAY FROM OUR HOUSE.
like this looked like a couple of thousand of years old tree.
i'm thinking that it was actually a pretty amazing dream though because i real life i have a hard time letting things go when i have my heart set on them,
and in this dream i REALLY had my heart set on having this tree in my yard.
but with the spiders and all it just wasn't working out.
and i think what this dream was trying to tell me was that i'm learning to let things go.
the things that i might have my heart set on sometimes just aren't meant to go the way i always want them to go.
and i'm not even talking about anything in particular here.
no hidden message!
i'm talking about like being flexible.
which is something 4th baby dean has really changed in me.
like sometimes we have to do homework three different times in the night to get it all done,
and in two different places.
like maybe we start in the kitchen,
and then later we take a clipboard out onto the porch.
kind of like,
it's not about finishing things just to finish them and be done,
but more like just being settled in whatever moment we're in,
and not being so focused on getting the job done so we can move to the next.
like one day i will clean one bathroom,
and two days later i will clean two more,
but i don't have to have it all done on the same day all at once anymore.
because that just doesn't work for my life right now.
i'm telling you,
i feel all grown up about this.
and it's amazing.
and i know it's for real maturity because the thought process is crossing over into my dreams.
dreams NEVER lie!
they always tell me the truth about what i'm really feeling.
and why did i get to have this dream you ask?
because baby dean is consistently starting to sleep 10-12 hours every night.
yes my friend IT'S TRUE!!!
which is why i wasn't mad when max woke me up ten minutes before my alarm,
but i had already been asleep for 7 UNINTERRUPTED hours of glorious glorious sleep:)
which is also why i got out of bed happy.
really really happy!
also a little bit because i wasn't dreaming about spiders and spider webs anymore
{i think the spiders were in the dream bc ann marie and i went walking the other night and there was a big black recluse on the cement wall when we walked past it and it haunted me the rest of the walk}.
so then i got max all fed and ready and made brennan's lunch,
praying 
praying 
PRAYING 
with ALL of my heart that dean wouldn't wake up 
until the A-team {brennan and max} got off to school,
{because i knew i wouldn't have time to nurse him 
if he did and the man hadn't eaten since 8:15 the night before},
and then i woke brennan up and got him all fed and ready 
{while miraculously max quietly entertained herself with playing cars in the big room},
and then right on cue chase came down the stairs as i was waving goodbye to max and brennan getting into susie's car for morning carpool,
so i got HIM all dressed and fed and ready,
and then JUST as he walking over to watch cartoons for the half an hour we had left before i needed to drive him to school,
dean woke up, nursed,
and then it was time to take chase to school.
i can't even tell you how amazing this all felt!
my children make me feel smart when they do all of these wonderful things for me on the very same day.
they are geniuses i say!
also, all of my praying helped i'm sure.
now i intend to shower,
do laundry,
and play pretend i only have one baby for the next 45 minutes before i leave to pick them all up from school again.
this is the life of a mother of 4 children and i love it.
i mean, when things go really great it's easy to love.
pray for me on thursdays
because lord knows they can't all go well.
which i guess means that some thursdays i'll have to decide that the spiders in the tree just aren't moving the fully grown tree into our backyard for.
which i think means maybe brennan might take hot lunch on some thursdays,
and maybe we'll have to turn on the tv sometimes too.
but not today.
not today:)
i'm so glad max woke me up from that dream!
{bad news: our plan failed. my kids think that breakfast for dinner 
is ACTUALLY breakfast for dinner. i gave it to them for breakfast too much. 
and now they think it's breakfast for dinner, not dinner for breakfast like we planned. dang it.}
{i gave in and canned salsa. SO GLAD I DID! 
except poor chase rubbed onion juice into his eyes. it was so so so sad.}
{the mini fridge in our bedroom that we put there SOLELY for chase's sippy of milk when dean was a newborn and we just needed chase to go back to sleep. man i think we've got him trained out of that now, so when i went to unplug it and wipe up all the water from the icebox, i found a frozen wonder woman and superman getting frisky together. these kids make me laugh. i wonder how long they've been in there anyway?}
{he peed on me. i took this picture.}
{then chase threw a plastic blue shovel in the air, and the tip landed right on dean's left side of his forehead. it was the saddest thing i've ever seen. so i let him have a few licks of my popsicle.}
{brennan can REALLY REALLY read now. like reading chapter books TO HIMSELF are in our near future. i can't even believe it. have never felt so proud!}


max's story?
chase pulled her into the shower,
covered HER in shaving cream ALL over HER.
i couldn't even get mad b/c i was laughing so hard.
i'm going to text you the video.
i've watched it about 3 thousand times, and i laugh harder and harder every time i watch it.
"ok, so chaser went in the shower, pulled me in, he did it all over me, riiiiight?"
no!
yes!
no!
yeeeees!!!
nooooooo!!!!!!
and that was how it went down.
i mean it's a good thing i wasn't on a full bladder or anything b/c it's really that funny.

how's life back in germany?
how's bear's leg healing?
are the boys back in school yet?
send me pictures of germany in fall please.
i'm lusting for cooler temps, but the weather man says we're in for 90's still this weekend.
i love you!
i miss you!
what are you cooking?

love,
emiline

Monday, September 21, 2015

cake in a mug

cake in a mug.
I REPEAT:
CAKE 
IN 
A
MUG!!!!
go forth and make them.
you're welcome. 
1. make your box of cake mix.
2. spray your mugs with pam.
3. 1/2 cup cake mix in each mug.
4. cook for 1 min. in microwave.
5. add your frosting.
{god bless susie swensen and her genius FHE treats.}
the end.