Feelings

Today I'm feeling a little grey.
It's been sunshine and blue skies for a while and it's snowing again and bringing in the cold weather.
I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it. It could be a part of a number of things.
Before I get into them I wanna state, for the record, I'm happy. I have a good life. I know this. I'm blessed beyond maybe what I deserve and know this. I'm grateful and know what I have.

I'm feeling the weight of my calling in church on my heart. The girls love me and I love them. Their love and admiration is something I've treasured. But lately I've felt the weight of their love and trust in me and it's heavy. They trust me with their struggles and I feel their pain and heartache and my heart aches with them.
I wanna lift them and their burden's but I can't and the reality of that lies heavy in my heart. Somehow I have to work it out.
I'm an affectionate person.
I touch, hug, kiss, pat on the back etc. I touch people so they know I care about them. It's who I am and there's no 'inappropriateness' about it in my eyes.
I hug the YW all the time. I tell them I love them, because I do. I feel their pain. I have an open heart that feels. It's why I guard my heart and don't have too many close friends. I can only handle so much feeling until it's overwhelming and takes my strength.
I want the world for these YW and I can't give it to them. I can only give them what I can, and I know it's not enough. But I have to figure out how to be ok with that.
So I cry and plead with Heavenly Father to help ease the pain and open my heart enough to be the person I need to be for them in the short time I'm with them.

I worry about Masaru. I worry that I help him too much and I worry that I don't help him enough or in the right way.
School is something he has to work hard for and between the both of us, we figure it out. His teacher told me last week that Masaru is her most improved student from the beginning of the year. This hit me in some different ways. First of all I feel proud that he's accomplished so much but then it hits me hard that when he started the year, I thought he was doing great and if he's improved this much then he obviously had huge growth to make, and I figured he'd already grown so much in the 5th grade, enough for him to be ready for 6th. I guess that's not true and it worries me.
Even with all of his improvements, I know school is not his favourite and I know it burden's him and doesn't come easy to him.
That breaks my heart and there's nothing I can do about it. Why can't it just be easy? That weighs heavy on my heart too.
With his going to mathnasium and completing all his homework and keeping in constant check with all we need to do, he's managed to improve and organize and somewhat succeed, but at what cost?
I'm always ontop of him, asking him if he's completed his math, reading, geography, piano and spelling.
After he comes home from mathnasium, which he bikes to straight after school, he comes home to an onslaught of homework to do, eats and then goes to bed.
Then if he has sports, we fit that in too. Sometimes he has to stay up late or get up early to finish these things. And while it's 'paying off' I dread what this is taking away from him.
His free time. HIS free time. His time to watch some TV, his time to play lego's, his time to bounce on the tramp, his time to just play with friends. HIS time and that time is so important and is missing so much.
I'm not sure how to balance that. The weight of doing well academically is very heavy. Heavy amongst the teachers and the school system and rightly so. But sometimes I resent it.
I told Dru the other week that I was done overseeing Masaru's homework assignments. He needs to figure it out himself, I'm only enabling him and he needs to figure it out himself. Dru said 'Well you can't just leave him high and dry, he's just a kid and needs direction'
So now I need to figure out how to not be a helicopter parent with him but not to completely abandon him with an onslaught of things that could easily overwhelm him in an instant.
So I worry about him.
I worry about his transition into Jr. High as I've been told it's even more work. How can it be even more work? Masaru has no more time to give?
He tries hard, he doesn't fight it anymore, he does as he's told, but if I leave him to it he wouldn't finish it. So I balance it out and he's had to go in before school and finish assignments, he's had to wake up early to get things done and he's also asked my my help and I've helped him where I see it appropriate.
I'd like my kids to learn to be responsible for themselves and what is expected out of them. To be able to do hard things and push through the pain of that.
I hope that they are learning that, but who can really tell?
Plus I'm totally aware that I don't know what I'm doing as a parent. I have no clue how to handle all of this stuff, how to be the best mother ever and how to figure out these problems and resolve them in the best way possible.
What do I know? I'm just a person who happens to be 39. I'm not qualified to raise another human. I didn't go through rigorous trainings and education to explain to me what is expected from me.
I'm just me, and me is trying to figure this out and hope like hell I don't ruin these people's lives with my unqualified mothering.

I worry about Yuki and her boy crazy mind.
Masaru has never been girl crazy and still isn't. So with him I haven't had to worry in that area.
With Yuki she's is so wonderful in most aspects of her life and is basically worry free for me except in this area.
Her best friend is a boy. She's had secretive conversations about sex and what she thinks it is with friends and other children in her class are telling her things. When I confront her about it she cries and crumbles and apologizes. I hug her and worry.
I need her to be honest with me. Masaru is honest with me, he's not sneaky with important things. Yuki, I fear, could be quite sneaky with her friendships and talks. That makes me worry.
She's a good girl, a really good girl and we are having the sex talk with her to get it all out there on the table so she can talk openly to us about whatever she'd like. I hope this helps.
She's so beautiful though and good at everything. It makes her attractive. So I worry and the weight of the worry brings me down sometimes.

I think as my children grow up, sure I don't have nappies to change and I'm not owned as much because I have my freedom more, but the worry increases as your children spend more and more time away from you and out of your grasp. You worry about how they are and have to let them experience life without you being there sometimes. It's how to make them into capable human's. Life wouldn't be right if your mother was right there, all the time, dictating things. They have to feel pain and defend themselves and get into trouble and make mistakes to learn and it's hard to watch and calculate how to handle that, what my role is and where to go with the teaching that needs to be done with that.

The weight of our finances hangs over my head too. We cut into our savings every month with things that we have to do that go over our budget. I don't know how to better that. So it looms over me as well. I hope that can get better.

Dru is stressed at work and has many, many things to accomplish that I'm aware of. He's doing his best and his best is wonderful. He's a good man and I know he loves me but sometimes we differ in opinion about things and it's always sad for a short while. We resolve things quickly and smoothly but I'm not perfect and neither is he and I have all these things rushing around in my head as I'm sure he does too and we connect most time and help each other out and other times I feel alone for brief moments.

I worry about my body and the 15 pounds that I've gained over my surgery and how to get that off now I'm almost 40 and it's harder to lose. I'm trying but it's not really working out.
My toe is not healing as fast as what I was promised and it turns out it'll be a few more months until it doesn't hurt anymore. That's deflating, but I have to suck it up as I know people are burdened with much more and I'm grateful for how much it's actually healed.

Most days are good. But some days I feel the weight of my worries on my shoulders and today is one of those days. I'm not sure if the grey can be lifted for today but as I plod along with my housework as well as all the other things that have to be done that I'm ignoring right now to write this, I can hope that the sun will come out tomorrow, my spirits will be lifted and I'll feel a little more light in my life, rather that the weight of the grey that pulls me down.

Presidents Day weekend at the Bar M Ranch with the Nakaya family

As always, this weekend we headed out to the Bar M Ranch inbetween Thane and Afton for our annual Nakaya retreat.
It was really great.
We left around 1pm with a whirlwind of things to do and made it to the ranch house at around 6:15pm. Pretty good time I'd say.
We had some soup and talked with everyone.
Everyone arrived that night except Leslie and Graham. Graham had a dance to do to Saturday night and so they decided to stay and come up Sunday which was great of them to make such a short trip.

That night I did some knitting and reading and stayed up way too late talking and such.
The next day the kids went outside most of the day and went snowmobiling together, taking each other on rides, having snowball fights and wandering around digging together.
The cuzzies are on a roll man and are all getting along swimmingly with very little fuss at all. It's so great that they get along so well. It makes everyone happy.

We all have great food and always too much of it and hang around doing our thing.
I knitted and read and did my nails.

Here are my feet looking good.

My hands.



The wii was also a hit and when the kids weren't outside playing in the snow, they were inside racing each other in Mario cart. I think Zeke is the best.

Here's my knitting and my book.

Everyone watched the movie 'Eddie the Eagle' that night but I'd already seen it so decided to read my book instead until it was done.
Once it was done we played card games together, just us adults, while Dru's brother let it rip every minute either out of his mouth or his butt. Seriously man, get some beno bro!!!
Despite that though, it was super fun playing 'up the river, down the river' with his family. It's nice to find a game that everyone is ok with playing.

Everyone slept in our room except Masaru who slept outside in the bunkhouse with Ethan, Luke and the twins. He even got a bed this time!!! Total score.


The next day I worked on Emiko scarf until it was done. I finally got it finished around lunch time and am happy with how it worked out. I just need to block it and then it'll be complete. So cute right?





Hopefully this is something she'll have forever.

Once I was finished with the scarf I started on my valences for the downstairs windows. I'd brought up some material and I knew Brooke was bringing her sewing machine and so decided to try to do those.
With much help from Brooke and Kristin, I got the majority of the valences done and loved the outcome.
I tried them today on the windows, however, and will have to re-vamp them a little. I'm slightly disheartened but I need to suck it up and figure out a time to finish them here so I can have them up in my house. Just add it to the list of things right?  I'm glad to have had the help, though and was set straight with how to do them.

Then we were just hanging out and a huge storm, all of a sudden came in. 
All of the kids were out snowmobiling with each other and we were a little worried with how the kids were.

Takeshi had walked up to meet the kids, saw the storm and tried to run back to the house to beat it and couldn't. He was lost in the white of the storm. He asked Heavenly Father to protect him and made it back to the house. He was scared and crying but was glad he was ok. 
Yuki was on the snowmobile with masaru and masaru couldn't find one of the twins. So they searched and yuki spotted him. 
Masaru dropped yuki off to the gate and told her to book it back to the ranch house then he went back to help his cousin who was stuck. 
Meanwhile Kate and Ella made it back to the house with the other twin and Ella was in hysterics because they'd lost yuki and she didn't want yuki to be lost #cuzzielove 
Chris and Dru decided to go out and look for masaru and Seth. 
Meanwhile masaru had helped Seth out and they were trying to find their way back. They couldn't and so masaru told Seth they needed to follow the bushes beside the fenceline as that would show them the path back #proudofmysensibleson then Chris and Dru found them, while they were digging Seth out a second time and brought them home safe. 
I'm so proud of my children and of the nieces and nephews. They stuck together and looked after each other. What a great bunch of kids. We taught them that that's why it was so important to always stick together. It was total blue skies when they left man. Just goes to show that the weather can change at any time you know. Great experience for all of them and we're glad they're all safe and sound.

We then decided to have some dinner and some birthday fun.

We usually celebrate these guys birthday's while we're up at the ranch house. It's been a great tradition. Luke always wants cinnamon rolls and Masaru wanted Dad's peach cobler and Emiko wanted my ANZAC biscuits. So it was done.

How cute are these guys?



Here's everyone. if you look closely you can see Zeke on both sides of the picture. While I was taking it he ran from one side to the other so got in both sides. Crazy right?





Masaru was very happy as he got cash. He got enough to pay his mountain bike off and then some. So I'm glad we're done with that. Now he has his mtb club to pay for. Growing up is expensive man.

Emiko was very happy with her gifts from everyone. She got cash from Grandma and this cute jacket from her Auntie and some clothes from her other Auntie. So cute right?



Hahahaha love this face.

Then the cuzzies did some wrestling before we got the younger ones in bed and the older ones settled in to watch 'Dr. Strange' which was good and a little odd.









I then stayed up and read my book until it was time to go to bed.

The next day we slowly got up and packed up. I had a headache and so rested a bunch and did as much as I could as well.
Everyone hung out and played outside and in until it was time to head out.
It was nice to be together and I was so proud of how productive I was.
I did everything I wanted to.
It really was a great weekend for me and I'm really happy we went and everyone had so much fun. I love these weekends with Dru's family. they're easy to love.

Random

Here's a video of the kids playing together.
Look what happens when you turn the TV off. There's more fighting with the TV off but it's worth it as they try to figure things out, share, work together, and play with each other. It's pretty cute.


Here's Emiko with her buddy Jojo just hanging out. I dunno what's up with her face, but she swears she's having a good time.


And here's my mother at a Bob Marley concert. I know Bob Marley is dead and so it was a celebration of Bob Marley concert. She said it was really good and the tickets were cheap. Love it.

Good seats as well.

Valentines Day

The night before Valentines we had Family Home Evening. We talked about love, what it is and how we should treat people.
We decided to write what we love about each other on a piece of paper then give them to each other the next day.
It was great and I'll keep mine forever.

I have mixed feelings about Valentines Day man. Sometime I like it and other times I don't. This year I didn't seem to mind it and so figured I'd do something for it.
I woke up a littler earlier than the kids so I could make them this special breakfast. Heart shaped egg in a toast and then nutella with sprinkles on the heart shape left over.
The kids got up and loved it. So that was good.

The kids made these bags to put their Valentines in.  I thought they were cute and am so glad they do them in class and it's not a big deal and made out of a box that the kid stresses over at home. NO THANKS!!!!
They came home happy with their parties etc.

This is what I did this year for the kids in their classes. Stickers with this print off. It was cheap.......$8 for the three classes of kids. So I was happy with that. Trying to stick to a budget is near impossible man. There's always things you have to get that pop up. It's crazy.
The kids liked them, so that's good.

For dinner I made them heart shaped tortilla's with meat, cheese, beans and corn in the middle and then tomatoes, lettuce, sour cream, guacamole etc on top. I was pleased with my efforts and the kids seemed to like it as well.

I got Dru these Toyota cosy pants and a card with my feelings in it.
He gave me a note with cute feelings in it. The best line in the note was this:

I know New Zealand probably doesn't agree with that, but it's all about perspective right?
It's nice to get nice notes from loved ones so you can treasure them with your heart.
I also got my bike wind chime.

He also got me these little tray things you put between the cracks in the front seat so you don't lose things down the side of the seat. I love them.

I wanted to get a picture of the both of us but it wasn't working out. I made this face because I was saying 'We'll never get a decent picture' and then it worked out. So that's good.

Love is a lot of work but worth it.
Dru and I are so different and we clash in our differences sometimes. Once in a while I wonder how we've even made it this far, because of how different we are.
But we love each other so work for each other and forgive and sacrifice and it works.
He's mostly good to me and I'm mostly good to him and we work out the rest the best we can. We're a team and we differ in ways we do things. All people do, because they're not us, no one is, so when you get two people together you have to try to figure things out the best you can.
Dru and I are good at figuring things out together. We'd rather be together working it out than apart despite our differences, and I think that's what's important.
I wouldn't be in this life with anyone else by my side, differences and all. He's the best there is and I'm lucky to call him mine.
Happy Valentines to all and to all a good night!!

Masaru

Masaru has been enjoying his basketball this season. It's the first time he's played and I reckon he's done a good job. I think he'd be ok if he had more play. So we'll see what he wants to do with it I guess.
Here are some pictures of his HUGE calf muscles, as he puts it. He comes up to me and goes "Mum, feel my legs here" I was concerned cause I thought there might be something wrong with him. No, no, turns out he simply wanted me to notice how big his muscles were since playing basket ball. I'm thinking in my head 'bro there's nothing there' but I didn't want to be the bearer of bad news and so left it.
Here's a video of him scoring his only basket in 5 games.



He was pretty happy and so was I. It's about 1:44 in if you wanna skip the rest.
It's over now, for the season and they'll pick the top 12 kids out of 45 children. Masaru seems to think he's got a shot, bless him, but I know he doesn't even have a close shot. Hopefully he'll be ok with it. Nothing seems to get him too down, so I'm sure he'll be sweet with it.
He quit choir. He decided he had too much on his plate and something needed to give, so he chose choir, which was fine by me.
It didn't even look like he enjoyed singing in the first place, so the fact he's lasted this long is a miracle to me. So goodbye choir, who knows if we'll see you again.


You know that little cut on his ankle we went to the clinic for?
Yeah well this is the bill we got. I almost fell over from shock. What a rip off and I can't even believe the joke that medical care is in the country. I'm so sick of all this bullcrap man.
Stupid USA.


Here's my gangsta Masaru.
I love how he does what he wants and doesn't care what people think. It'll make him continue to be great and that's all a mother can ask for.

Yuki's date

It was Yuki's turn for a date with Mum and Dad.
Masaru went to the new Star Wars movie, Emiko went to see Daniel the Tiger and this night we decided to take Yuki out to get frames for her posters she got at Christmas time.

We headed out to Gordman's to see if they had any cheap frames. Turns out they did. For $8 we got some huge frames that fit both her posters in nicely.

We then headed out to Michaels to get her matte to go around the posters in the frames.
We sat there and hummed and haaa'd over what to get and finally decided on a couple of colours.
We then headed out to our mates place, the Jorgensen's, who have a cutter so that Dru could start cutting the matte's for the frames.

Here's Dad working hard while I sit and catch up with my mates.



Here's the grey matte we chose for her Totoro in the rain poster. I think it turned out great.

Then here's both of them finished. I love the orange we chose for the catbus picture as well.
We grabbed Yuki a treat and headed home to the other kids.

We put them up in her room the next day and they look great. I'm glad we had this chance with Yuki and that she got her posters done.
Love Yuki.

More art, basketball, great finds and good kids

Here is Takeshi's latest lego build. It's pretty amazing. I love that he's building lego's. With everything Masaru has going on with homework, sports, piano and tutoring he's had less time to build. I'm glad Takeshi is finding time you know.

This is a sweet shot that Dru took going up to Bogus while him and Masaru were about to snowboard for the second time. Isn't that a beauty?

This is a picture of one of my YW who made it into the Idaho Statesmen paper for her gold award for girl scouts. Good right?
This is also the same girl who gifted me that beautiful bracelet. She's wonderful.



Here's Masaru playing his first basketball game of his life.
He loves being with his friends and says he's enjoying it. So that's great news. His team have won all their games so far and it's actually pretty entertaining to watch. He has another game today and Thursday. His team is getting better and better. I'm glad he's playing. I loved basketball so much. I'll be interested to see if he's gonna stick with it in Jr. High. I'm not sure if he'll be good enough to get into a team, so we'll see.

So since we had a one on one date with Masaru a while back and took him to the new Star Wars movie we told the rest of the kids we'd do a one on one date with them.
Daniel the Tiger was coming to Boise and we knew that that was the date to do with Emiko. So we told her she was having a date with mum and dad and it was a surprise. She was so excited and we were too.
We left Saturday morning together and told her the surprise. It was so awesome.



I mean how cute is this?

We then took her to breakfast afterwards where she played and didn't wanna go home.
Hahahaha We eventually had to take her home, however and get our Saturday chores done.
Pretty cute I'd say.

Then the kids were playing around and made some collars for their toys. I'm glad they play with these toys every now and then cause we only have about 1.2 million stuffed toys that I've dabbled with throwing out.



Look at this guy ^^^ talk about the sweet life.

They all look pretty happy though.

Then I was shopping the other day and found my Valentines gift that Dru got for me hahahaha. I love it and it was only $10 so it was a perfect gift to try to stick with our budget. I've hung it out in the front and am very happy.

Then I finally finished the class art projects for my boys classes. Here is Takeshi's one.  I think it's cute but in comparison to the other class art projects it's a little juvenile. So I'll be surprized if it sells for very much. We'll see. It turned out better than what I first thought it was going to, so that's always good. I'll need to step up the game next year if I'm going to be the art mum again for some classes.

Here is Masaru's class one. The kids did all of it as well except for the lettering.

They wrote their favourite adventure they'd done in their lives. I thought that was a cute idea you know.

Here is what Masaru said "Off roading on the rocks in Moab"
Pretty cute man.
It turned out ok in the end as well.  Hopefully it'll sell.
I wanted the kids to do it you know, but a lot of the art pieces were mostly done by the adult with little kid imput. So I need to assess for next year.


Here's some cute school work Takeshi did with his class the other day. I love his language.




I usually throw all their stuff out but take a picture beforehand, which my kids are ok with. Anything super special I tell them to stick on their bedroom door. Dru is fine with that right now because our doors aren't super nice. It's almost nice cause then we can do more around the house cause he doesn't see our house as super 'nice' right now hahahahaha
The nicer it gets the more restrictive he'll get.

Then also on Saturday while we were taking Emiko out for her date, Yuki was hard at work making it known that she loved us and was serving us.
This girl man.................she's the best.

Organized her fathers wardrobe for him.

Something funny.

Then a picture of us together. So sweet. That picture she drew of Dru looks just like pictures I drew of my father. Did I marry my father? Dru didnt' have a beard when we were dating so................

While Masaru was doing chores he found this heart amongst the chaos and wanted to get a picture of it as well. Pretty cute.

We also went to our mates Jessica and Billy's baby blessing yesterday out in Nampa as well as a Superbowl party with our mountain biking buddies last night. Both were great and I'm grateful for good friends you know.
It was a really nice weekend.

Also in BIG news we totally revamped the basement room. It took all the rest of the day and we still need to sort out the games area but for the most part it's done and I love it.
We got free couches from our mates and a free armour from our other mates and made it all fit in and now it feels cosy and the kids are loving it. What do you think?