The hardest part...

The hardest part of being a mother of three isn't the lack of time, or sleep, or the expense or the obvious piles of laundry.  But instead - and this one shocks me - it's the feeling that I love so many people with more than I thought was possible.  I spend most days (hopefully this will go away when I start sleeping again) feeling just this side of a full blown anxiety meltdown.  For a controlling person this is my hardest thing.  I now have an actual list of people to take care of, to make sure that they are growing physically, emotionally and intellectually all while doing so in a graceful manner.  I take a lot of deep breaths during the day trying to not spin out of control with the what if's.  In looking at the traits of the adults I encounter on a daily basis I have built an list in my head of the ways in which I want my kids to act, and the ways I don't.  It's daunting most days and makes my heart hurt when I feel like the girls were mean to a bug for no reason, or when they won't except the responsibility when the milk spills.  Truthfully the worst part, is that we are by far the strictest parents we hang out with and in the end who's to say that ours will turn out the best...maybe the family down the street that lets their kids do whatever they want will have the Rhode scholar.  Sigh.  I keep going back to the fact that all of us parents are just treading water trying not to drown, perhaps they all feel just as I do.

Spring is here!

I can't believe it has taken me so long to write out a blog.  And if I can be honest the entire reason that I haven't been blogging is because my phone is out of space so I can't take pictures and generally blogs are at least in part started by a picture that I wanted to share.  But it's been too long so I am going to try and dig up several pictures if I can find them.

We hosted the Buche's, Mills' and Helen for Spring Break, along with some of our friends totaling out 21 people in one house on the side of the Breckenridge slopes.  It was a fantastic time!

If the Buche kids had kept their faces covered up from the sun rather than just from Joe taking pictures...they probably would not have had the awful sunburn that they did.  Ooopps.

As you can tell, Jackson still gets to ride in style still on the Momma Sherpa.

Most people have already seen this one, but look at how stinking cute this little guy is with his mustache.

Our girls tried so hard to stay up and act like big girls while everyone was in town...but at last they failed most nights.

Nate is staying with us now, so we have his bike in the garage...obviously too tempting not to sit on. :-D

Carri and Tadd hosted Easter this year.  From the looks of it my girls must not remember dying eggs in the past.

Joe decided to send me to my early grave and built this monstrosity in our back yard.  That rake leaning up against the tree on the inside is full size...so yes that means my super clumsy children are a good 12-18 feet up in the air.  Grrrr!

And now he is working on each side of it to make it more terrifying than the last.  Here's the siding that the girls have already tried AND FAILED to climb and then slide down.