a flow of thoughts

flying kites at grandpa's farm // easter sunday

I can’t sleep. Dang it! It so bums me out when this happens. I’m tired, I’m ready for sleep, I want to go to sleep, yet I lay in bed, tossing and turning, and … well, not sleeping. I can count sheep for hours. Do breathing exercise until I’m completely blue in the face. Meditate. Pray. Pretend to sleep. And then look at the clock and reprimand myself for wasting two whole hours only pretending to sleep. I can think about what I’m doing tomorrow, what I did today, what I’m going to make for dinner for the next three weeks and make mental notes of what I need to put on my shopping list. I can mentally balance our checkbook, and answer extremely complicated equations or solve life changing problems. I can even force myself – quite impressively - to go brain-dead and think of absolutely nothing at all. But, no matter how hard I try, I can’t make myself actually fall to sleep. It sucks. I’ve become quite the pro with the non-sleeping thing though (I blame my mother) (love ya, mom), and in all of my non-sleeping nights I’ve learned its best to do something outside of lying there, tossing and turning, trying to force myself to sleep.

So here I am. Not sleeping. What are you up to? Do you have sleep issues too?

This evening was Brynlee’s school art show and auction. She waited in line for over an hour and a half (no joke) to get her caricature drawn. The end product was sort of caricature meets bobble head with really big teeth. It was fun though, and the artist drew her with a hula hoop so that made it automatically cool. But it gave me an idea…

I’ve been so bummed that I didn’t take more pictures of Brynlee on her baptism day. I have maybe five pictures. Three of which are blurry. Parent fail, I suppose. But then tonight, post art show, I decided on having somebody way more talented than I draw a cute custom portrait of Brynlee in her baptismal dress. Something sweet and whimsical. Maybe like this or this. Or maybe this. Fun, right?

And speaking of pictures. I’ve been dreaming of a new camera lately. A real camera. One of the fancy ones with a fancy lens and stuff. I loved my old point-and-shoot camera like something fierce. We were a good match, the two of us. But then it got left at and stolen from Lowes, remember. We replaced it, but I just don’t love my new one. I’ve been getting an itch to learn a thing or two about photography too. Not to take fancy schmancy pictures or anything like that, but to know enough to take decent pictures of my kids. And to know enough to not end up with 3 of 5 baptismal day pictures all blurry and lame. I want to know enough to be able to capture my family living life. Want to teach me?

Spence took me on a date the other night: errands for the Easter Bunny, dinner from Taco Bell’s drive through, and the movie theater for Captain America.  Spence cannot wait for the day that Jace is old enough to watch all manner of superhero movies with him. But until then I’m his superhero movie date. Poor dude. About ten minutes into the show I leaned over and told Spencer that I really wished I would have stayed awake the night before when we watched the first Captain America as a refresher. He laughed and said I made it all of ten minutes! Which was a bold face lie by the way. I made it thirty whole minutes, at least! Maybe forty. And I stayed awake for the entire movie in the theater. So ha, three points for me. Honestly though, I have grown to love me a good superhero movie. Mainly because a) it’s the only kind of movie we ever pay full price to watch at the theater and, b) my boys are superhero fanatics.

Jace lost another tooth. That makes four. Four teeth and the kid is not even in kindergarten yet. He lost the latest one on Easter Sunday. We had gone to church with mom & dad and Jami’s clan and during the middle of sacrament meeting he jumped up, with blood splattered all down his chin, and very enthusiastically hollered to Spencer (who was sitting on the complete opposite side of the pew by the way) that he had lost another tooth.  It was so funny, unexpected and irreverent that none of us could keep from laughing.

Soccer season is in full swing. My tulips are in bloom. Easter weekend was a good one. I have a hair appointment tomorrow. And only four more weeks until schools out! I CAN. NOT. WAIT!

Also, I watched this video and I cried. You will too. I'm gonna read that book. Maybe next time that sleep seems impossible.