Alyssa Jenkins

Tonight I read a very funny blog (http://crappypictures.com) written by a momma of two. She illustrates her blog by drawing crappy pictures. The crappy pictures really make the blog. It has been a tough week and half since my kids have been sick…so funny blog with crappy pictures really lifted my spirits and inspired me to start blogging again. I think I was fighting blogging because I didn’t want it to be a boring record of what I did that day…but then I realized my life is NOT boring. Plus it won’t be so much about me as about the funny/ridiculous/insane things my children do and say. In fact this post is already boring me- not enough funny/ridiculous/insane things my children do and say going on.

So let’s jump right in…

Boy #2 (my 3yr old) was very sure that he was gestating a baby boy while I was gestating a baby girl. Well he ended up being right about me having a girl (we left it a surprise for delivery), but his boy hasn’t shown up yet (our girl made her appearance 2 months ago tomorrow!) So I asked him when he was going to have his boy. He informed me, (while making a sawing motion)“the doctor is going to cut my baby out ‘very softly’-it won’t hurt”(he lowered his voice to a hush for the last part-I should probably mention my babies are born via cesarean birth- which apparently he has a good understanding of- except the softly and not hurting part). Then on a different occasion while I was nursing sweet baby girl he pointed to his nipples and said, “Mine make water for my boy.”

I tried to burst his bubble by explaining things as they are (ie. boys don’t make babies nor do they produce water out of their nipples- mothers are the only ones so blessed with these magical powers-well except it’s milk not water, but you know that), BUT he refuses to believe me, and has dropped the matter…for now.

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I’m going to take let my mom make my post today. I think she gave me some great advice so I thought I would share.

I have been feeling a bit more stressed and it was starting to feel like too much! So I figured who better to ask than my mother? She being a mother of THIRTEEN children, 10 children in-laws, 36 grand kids, and not to mention a widow of 6 years (my father was taken from this earth in an automobile accident 6 years ago). I have always looked up to, loved, adored, and respected my mother. She is a true saint (and I don’t say that lightly). She is a strong, spiritual, beautiful woman with a heart full of love, a mind full of knowledge, and an attitude of gratitude. I, of course, could go on forever, but I think you get the picture. My mom is awesome. So anyway, this morning I text my mom,

“How do you cope with stress?”

and she responds as follows,

“First I had to talk to Heavenly Father about it and tell him I would do my part and trust in him but I NEEDED ANGELS to help me…then I learned to put first things first…to go through the day with a GRATEFUL HEART…looking at the SIMPLE WONDERS of life. Taking things “with a grain of salt”, becoming light hearted, like a child…ENJOYING simple things…doing CRAZY things (like taking the kids to McDonalds at 11:00 at night, driving circles in the backyard, having ice fights, putting a penny in the bottom of the soup bowl (whoever got it got something or got to sleep with me when dad was gone), playing music, singing, NOT WANTING MORE THAN WE HAD, finding joy “in the every day life” USING TIME wisely (no tv, no gossiping, no wasting time), always keeping my home in order, always getting up and GETTING DRESSED and putting on my makeup (most of the time), I should have taken more time for friends, but SERVICE TO OTHERS was also very important to me. Also had to learn my limits and how to say no (hard one), not taking things so seriously, putting things into PERSPECTIVE. I hope this helps you in dealing with stress…they sound simple, but can be great stress relievers…also for me getting the kids dressed up cute and getting out of the house…going on a ride, a friends house, the store, just getting out of “the office” so that you can look at things objectively (sounds silly, but it works)…Wow, that was a mouthful! Last time you’ll ever ask me for advice! Haha…sigh! I love you lyssa lou. ”

My mother has “told” me all these things before through her ACTIONS, but it was great to hear (read) them again. I am grateful for a mother such as mine, what a beautiful example she is to me. I love you Momma (if your reading this) and Happy Mothers Day!

*emphasis added by me

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The Excuse:

So I haven’t been to my blog since my last post…to be honest I got a little blog shy. I read a comment on some one’s(not even a friend of mine) facebook about house wives and their blogs, something to the effect of why do they write them and who cares.

And for some silly reason I let that get to me…I thought,” seriously, who cares?”

So I decided that I would do, what we all did before the Internet and blogs, when I had a silly thought, I’d keep it to myself, when I had a thought remotely worth sharing I’d save it and tell my husband when he got home, and when I had a real whopper of an idea I’d call my sister right that second and share it with her. Who needs blogs, and facebook updates anyway, right!? Both can get pretty annoying if overused…but then again, can be very enjoyable if used just the right amount by just the right person (wink).

So here is my attempt once again to use this tool, just the right amount (hopefully that amount isn’t really only once a month) and be just that right person!

Thanks for reading this little house wife’s blog.

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Why is it that we always get sick when there is so much to do? Well now that I think about it, it’s probably because there is always so much to do! Last weekend we had a great time spending time with my husband’s grandparents that came into town from Oregon and Monday the horrible cold intruded on our home again. I was hoping it would be gone by now, but alas, it is not. This weekend is my husband’s big 3-0! And I was hoping to not be nursing little ones back to health, but we do what we got to do. I was still able to do some of the plans I had for him. My husband is a teacher so last night I went to his classroom and decked it all out. It was a lot of fun, my sweet sister came along and helped a lot. So this morning he got a nice surprise, but then the real surprise came after lunch when we (me and his 6th grade team) got the whole 6th grade together and suprised him with a party. We had lots of cake and ice cream. It was craziness (75 11/12 yr olds) but a lot of fun! And he was totally shocked! I was so excited. I LOVE birthdays and making a huge deal out of them, again, goes back to my mom (who by the way, is the best mom ever) and all she did for us to make us feel special on our birthdays.

So now I’d like to give a little shout out to my darling; I love you sweetie! I am so proud of the man you are and all you have accomplished in your life, you have a beautiful family (if I do say so myself), a carrer you love AND you are great at, and host of friends and family who love and adore you. You are the light of my life. I look forward to 5pm every day when you walk through that door. I have so much fun with you.  You are such a wonderful father to our children and I appreciate all you do for us.

You get better and better every year.

I love you.

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See, this is why I am not allowed to have a blog. I promised you one post a week and I have failed already. Well, I am sure you all made it through all right. And as a V day present to you I will blog today…or maybe it’s a V-day present to myself because really I like to talk so I am probably getting more out of this than you are. I do have a good reason for my absence all my little ones have been sick! And when I say all, I mean ALL FOUR…then me, and then my hubby. We are not all better yet, but better enough. Darn you sickness go away.

Ok so I posted this on my facebook but I wanted to post it here as well because I thought it was so cute. So my two year old is such a handful as you know if you know him. And lately he has added “busy” to his vocab. This morning he climbed up on top of the desk grabbed a pen and proceeded to color on the paper that is in the printer. I told him to get down and he said to me, “I’m busy, I’m busy drawing!” So apparently he was too busy doing the thing I asked him not to do to listen to me tell him not to do it.

Secondly, I LOVE Valentines Day. I know so many people despise it because it’s just a way for card companies and chocolate makers to make more money, blah, blah, blah, blah blah! Well, I don’t care if they make more money because of it, I like it. And I don’t buy the shouldn’t every day of the year be valentines day if you really love someone argument either (as said by my husband). Shouldn’t we be grateful every day of the year, and celebrate Christ every day of the year? Shouldn’t we love our mothers and fathers every day of the year? Should’t we wear green or pinch eachother every day of the year too? YES, yes we should, but there is nothing wrong with setting a special day out of the year to focus a little more on that one thing wither it be mothers or leprechauns. I rest my case. My mom has always made holidays special and I love her so much for that. I always loved v-day! My mom would always do something special for us like making chocolate covered strawberries or bring red heart balloons to school for us. I try to do the same. Every V-day I make treats and bring me them to a few people. I love it. It’s so fun. So I hope you enjoy your Valentines day with someone you love! I know I will!

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It’s a scary thought…that is trying to board the train that is my thought processes. Sometimes I wonder how my mind can link so many things and how impossible it is to trace its origins. I think they call this “ADD”, but let’s not go there right now.

I have so many thoughts. Many of them I would like to share. But the problem is sharing them in a cohesive manner in which someone would like to listen, or read, or listen to someone read. I thought today about what I might share today. And as the day went on and different events occurred many of which I thought just may be blog worthy, by the end of the day I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to write about. I think this leads us back to my indecisiveness we discussed,  I monologued about yesterday. So now here I am writing my blog about thinking about writing my blog. Silliness really. But will someone still read it? Maybe.

So I think I will share pieces of my day. Though, I don’t think I want this blog to be my “journal”. I have one of those, and it is not for the world to read. This blog is meant to be read, and not to some future far off ancestry, it is meant to be read now. Though I have not dedicated this blog to any one particular subject, only because I don’t want to be tied down to just one thing, it should have a purpose. A mission statement if you will. And when I come up with it I will let you know.

Oh yes, my list. Here it is:

1. A little boy drawing on a wall doesn’t always have to be a bad thing. It can be a wonderful example of the innocence of childhood. And I quote; Me (after my 2 year old son walks in holding a marker in one hand and it’s lid in the other): “Alex, what did you color on?” Him: “The wall!!”(he was very excited about this by the way, and one would think he would understand by now, because this is NOT his first time coloring on the wall, that mommy doesn’t like it when he does this). He then precedes to drag me to his room where he has colored all over the inside wall of his closet, and not with just one marker, but several. I hand him a baby wipe and tell him that it is naughty to color on the wall and if he wants to color he may do so on paper. He then takes the baby wipe from me with no expression and wipes the entire wall clean ( I was quite surprised how easily it wiped off). We then got up, went to the office, he sat at his little desk and drew me the most beautiful little picture. We even wrote his name on it together. No yelling. No time out. No spanking. Maybe not the most effect discipline, but I enjoyed the moment nonetheless.

2. It is hard to see the ones you love go through hard things. Sometimes, I honestly think it would be better if it were me. There are several things I am referring to, but that is not the point, the point is, well, that hard things are hard. (Very well said, yes, yes, I know).

3. I made Brinner. If you do not know what brinner is, it is breakfast for dinner. It was a lot of food. And I almost enjoyed making all of it. The children fighting and babies screaming with hunger kind of put a damper on the moment…but even still, a beautiful moment. Especially the part where we all sat down at the dinner table together eating sausage, hash browns, pancakes, cinnamon rolls, eggs, and orange juice at 5:30 in the evening.

4. I watched Julie and Julia tonight and enjoyed it. I related to it, being I just started my blogging adventure yesterday, and I make dinner for my family every night. Though I rarely “cook” like they do and I have a lot of excuses (at least four) not to, but I would like to, at least once a week.

5. Lastly, every child needs his/her mother. Speaking of which…

Thanks for reading.

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I am attempting to join the world of blogging. I created this website several months ago, but could not get myself to commit, so I never started. I didn’t want to start blogging, create a massive following and then disappoint all my fans when I miss a post. I actually don’t follow blog’s religiously (with the exception of my husband’s) so I don’t really know how I can expect people to follow mine; especially since I am not an expert on…well on anything really. I actually never even had “favorites” either. That is until last year I decided that PURPLE was my favorite color (when I look back I can see that it always has been, but I just didn’t pay attention enough to notice, my senior year prom dress- purple, my wedding colors- purple and green, my favorite purse-purple, my first set of towels-purple) For the first time in my life I can actually answer that question on every “Getting to Know You” survey. Woo-hoo! But actually I do think it says a lot. It means I am actually getting to KNOW myself. I think that takes more work than we realize. We are with our selves all the time, but how often do we PAY ATTENTION to ourselves? Do we notice how we speak, our mannerisms, our tone, our reactions to things? These things are important because if we like it or not, these things are what tell the rest of the world WHO we are. It seems that those close to us may actually know more about us than we do. But we are the only one who knows how something makes us feel, or what thought just flashed across our mind. But if we don’t take the time to pay attention to those things ourselves they are lost.

You know how we all have quirks? Right, not you? I knew it, I’m the only one. Well, now that you all know I’m quirky I will share a few examples (this is not a complete list by any means). Exhibit A: I say “but, um” A LOT! So annoying, right? At least I don’t say “like” like every other word anymore, because I’m pretty sure when I was a teenager I did. Exhibit B: I mouth what people are saying. Now, my sister is the one that swears I do this, but no one else has said anything, so I must just do it to her, and I have never noticed myself doing it. How do I know what to mouth as she is saying it? I have no idea! We are close so I must sub-consciously know her thoughts before she tells them to me. But I think that one is pretty creepy.

 Anyway, so be true to yourself and share some of your quirks with me. I’m not the only freaky one out there, I know!

So there you have it WORLD; my first post to YOU! I didn’t know what I was going to write about, but it created itself I guess. Now if you just read this and you are not sure what I wrote about…key words “Getting to Know You”.

What you can expect in the future? I’m not sure. I don’t think I will dedicate this web site to any one thing in particular…that is anything besides me! This is the Alyssa Jenkins website after all.

I may blog everyday (unlikely), every other day or once a week, but I promise at least once a week. So pick a day and check back every week.  If you would like to read more about me so you have a better idea of what to expect go ahead and click on the “about me” tab.

Two questions: What’s your favorite color? What is a quirk you have?

 Thanks for reading.

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