Juggling

I've never been good at juggling......never been able to throw three objects around in the air and make them all work together like they should.  I feel the same way about my life right now.  It's hard trying to juggle all the different things that I need to be doing.  I need to be at home with my older kids...helping them with their homework, playing with them and spending time with them.....I need to be at the hospital with my baby Katea.....I need to find time to spend with Ova......I need to find time to sleep......so many things I have to try and juggle right now.....and, well, I just don't know how to juggle.

Ova and I went to the hospital the other day and not too long after we got there Ova fell asleep.  He was exhausted, worn out and not too long after falling asleep, he started snoring.  I tried several times to wake him up, but he was just so tired.  Not too long after that, I fell asleep too.  I really don't know how long I was sleeping, but I woke up to the nurse getting ready to do baby's cares.  I apologized for sleeping, and she kinda giggled and said that it was ok.  I helped her with the cares and she asked me if we were getting enough sleep.  I kinda tried to giggle it off, but she was serious.  She asked me if we were taking time to take care of ourselves....because if we weren't and we got sick or something, we wouldn't be able to take care of anyone else (meaning our kids)  I thought about it for a minute and told her no, that we probably weren't sleeping as much as we needed because when we're home we're trying to spend time with our kids, and the rest of the time we're at the hospital.  She told me that it was ok to take time for ourselves.  It's ok not to come to the hospital every single day.  We needed to understand that baby Katea is in the most forgiving state right now.  Of course she knows when we're there, but she has no sense of time or days, so she doesn't know how long or how short we've been gone.  She told me to take advantage of that because pretty soon when she's older, awake and more alert, she will need more of our time and attention.  She's great, pretty much all the nurses are and I was grateful for her advice.

Ova woke up and we stayed there for a little bit longer, then we headed home.  On the way home I told him what our nurse had told me.  I really think it was something that we both needed to hear.  We planned the next day to spend the whole day with our kids at home.

First thing we did after Makai got home from school was take them to get some frozen yogurt.  There's this new place that opened up by us called Yogurt Nut, and my mom was so sweet and got us a gift certificate to eat there....so we thought we'd go try it out.  The setup of the place was so awesome, you walk in....grab a cup and there's a whole wall of different flavors of yogurt you can choose from...and at the end of the wall is a whole section with every kind of topping you can think of.  So much variety, so many choices.....we let the kids pick whatever they wanted to eat, but told them that whatever they got they had to finish.  Makai stuck with the fudge and nuts, and Mone....crazy kid.....covered his yogurt with skittles...hahaha.  After we all made ours, Ova and I sat with Lautala on one of the tables and Makai and Mone took theirs into the playhouse they had in the corner to eat.....Lautala didn't last too long sitting by us, within a couple minutes, she ran to the playhouse to hang out with the kids!  The playhouse was such a cute idea, and it even had a ladder that the kids could climb to eat their yogurt on the top level!

After the yogurt, we were going to take them to a pumpkin patch.....but honestly, this year all the ones I found that were around our area were super over-priced, so we just ended up going to Winco and letting them pick any pumpkin they wanted (that turned out even better because they all picked HUGE pumpkins....but they still didn't cost that much since they were only 16 cents a pound) ....they also picked out pumpkins for their little sisters Katea and Cindy!

When we were at Winco getting our pumpkins, we bought a couple of those pumpkin carving books.  Those books have been sort of a tradition for our little family for the past few years....this year was awesome because Makai was old enough to do it himself.  Ova helped them cut the top of the pumpkins out.....Mone was the official pumpkin cleaner....he was the one that scooped and cleaned out all the pumpkins, and Makai carved them all.  They were having such a great time doing them that Ova and I ended up going to the living room, sitting on the couch, and watching them.  I remember not too long ago we were carving pumpkins, just Ova and I......Makai was still a baby, and we put him inside it and took pictures.  Now he's old enough to carve them by himself.....they grow up way too fast!

Lautala was trying to help Daddy cut the tops of the pumpkins off with her scissors...haha

This is the first year for a while that I didn't make my homemade pumpkin pie.  It's a tradition for me to use the meat of our carved pumpkins to make pie from scratch.....didn't have the time or energy to make any this year, so that's something we'll have to pick up for next year!  :)

When we finished everything, it was about 10pm.  I couldn't not go to the hospital.  I just need and want to go there every single day, even if it's for a little while....so we put our kids to sleep and headed to the hospital.  We were only there for a little bit....long enough to talk to her, to tell her how good she's doing and how proud of her we are....to tell her to keep fighting, that we're praying for her....and especially to tell her we love her and we'll see her tomorrow.  Then we came home and slept.  It was a very productive and family-fun-filled day!  I love those kinds of days!