A long overdue birthday post....(that I forgot to publish)

Tessa informed me in December that she wanted a "snow" birthday party. Sounded doable at the time. Surely there will be snow around January 4, right? Well, as the days got closer to her birthday, January 4 came and went and her party was scheduled for January 7. The ground was a dry mass of grass and sidewalk. Not a spec of precipitation in sight. I geared myself up with snow games for inside including making snowballs out of yarn for a snowball fight and making snowmen out of marshmallows.

Malia (who possesses huge amounts of faith) suggested we pray for snow. I explained that we could pray, but that it would in the end be up to Heavenly Father if snow was sent down to Syracuse, UT on this particular day. Well, going right along with the title of this blog, Tender Mercy...we woke up to snow Saturday morning. My neighbor, Emily, yelled across the street at how lucky we were. Lucky indeed.

Snowman cake...CHECK.

This was the site of a future snowman that I forgot to document. It was stellar.

Snow and a giant, colorful lollipop. These are all this 5-year-old really wished for.

And now, a letter to my Tess.

Dear 5-year-old Tessa,

Wow, oh wow. How can you be 5 already? If I could describe you in one word (and I do often) it would be random. We never know what funny, random thing is going to come out of your mouth. Like, for instance, we'll be sitting down to a nice big plate of spaghetti and you'll randomly, out of no conversation leading up to it, say something like "When I'm 24 I'm going to have a baby and I'm going to name her Lucy."

And speaking of random, here are some random Tessa facts:

--You love broccoli. (yay!)

--You also love treats (boo!), but I guess it goes along with being sweet. ;)

--You love preschool. You love Miss Leah and often reflect on how much you miss Miss Parke (whom you had last year). And you're so excited to go to Syracuse Arts Academy with Malia next year.

--You could Play pet shop toys with Malia for days at a time.

--You ask to go"fun" places like the Treehouse museum or Lagoon or Disneyland just about everyday, as unlikely as it is that we will just randomly get up and go there!

--You love little kids and love playing with them.

--You like to do your chore chart and getting to move the clothespins from "to do" to "done".

--You love to learn things and tell me about it.

--You love to ask meaningful questions like "who is Heavenly Father's father?"

--You love to play with your friends and especially love to go over to Corbin's house. He's also who you say you are planning to marry (before you turn 24, because, you know...at 24 you'll have a baby named Lucy).

--Just as your brother and sister are, you are a snuggler. You'd love nothing more than for me or your dad to just hold you and kiss you all over your face...which I indulge in quite often.

--You can be so SILLY!!

--You love to dance. And do so quite beautifully. We love to watch you in your dance class every Friday.

-- You're so beautifully unique in this big world. I love you to the moon and back 5 million times (which if I told you that right now you would respond that you love me to the moon and back 6 million times).

Love,

Your Mommy (Alicen), which you like to call me just to be funny sometimes.

type it out...

Yes, it's that time again...time to purge all that is festering in my inner being.  Time to get some things out into my virtual memory bank.  I started a full time job about 3 weeks ago.  Darrin needed to change his career path.  We both applied different places and my job happened to be the better of the jobs we both got.  I'm not going to lie.  This has been HARD.  Like weight-of-the-world hard.  Like, I miss my kids so badly I think my insides are puking all over themselves at any given time of the day.  But at the same time, in all this rawness of emotions and turmoil, I have felt a surety that everything is going to be okay.  (And just to document the roller coaster ride of this whole experience, the moment I feel strong and sure of this whole process, is the moment I get a comment from someone that knocks all the confidence I had to the floor and I have to fester up enough energy to pick up the pieces and puff my proverbial chest out again).  And I know these comments are well-intended.  I know they have the best intentions in being concerned for our family.  But, just like anything where I can't control people's reactions to things, I can't control people's reactions to things.  My only hope is that they would trust our process.  Trust that we're working it out...that nobody's turned lazy here.

I have a husband who may be the world's best dad.  Who is rocking this whole SAHD thing.  Putting my former SAHM title to shame.  So, shout out to my babies' daddy who folds a mean basket of clothes and cleans up breakfast like it's nobody's business (which it's not, by the way).  Am I sounding a bit jaded? Because I think I may be.

Anyways....I should get to bed...early morning and all.  In summary...whole experience bringing us closer as a couple, judge not that ye be not judged, and finally my husband is a domestic rock star.  The end.

rolling, rolling, rolling...

For the record, I full-on showed the kids how this was done before this take. I was simply standing by the tree here to stop them from sustaining a serious concussion.

There's really nothing in life that compares to the thrill of having no control as your body plummets down a large uprising of land. One can't help but giggle. Loved this day with my family hanging out on BYU campus. Can you hear the bells in the background? It was lovely.

moments

A while back this video showed up on Facebook. It's haunted me (maybe not the right word...stayed with me?) ever since. So, my new goal is to document a moment here and there. Moments that matter. There are a lot of moments of me pulling my hair out, but you know what? Those moments do NOT matter. "Strength comes not from frantic activity, but being settled on a firm foundation of truth and light."

Frantic activity. Wow. Did President Uchtdorf see a scene of my life when he wrote this talk?

Monday night, Family night. Not gonna lie. I'm pretty sure Satan has it on his calendar to rear his ugly face around 7:00 Monday night in the Bateman home. For some reason it's like pushing an elephant up a mountain to get us all together for what, in my hopes and dreams, would be a family of five stuffing ourselves chalk full of spiritual goodness. I've learned to keep it simple. Planning a big lesson only leads to frustration. Song, prayer, and short story is what we do. After singing Choose the Right, which Jeremiah cried through because he did NOT want to sing a song, Tessa offered a beautiful prayer, which Jeremiah was miraculously quiet through. The prayer included pleadings that Bear would stop freaking out for the rest of family night. (I wish I could report that her prayer was miraculously answered, but we're here to be tested, right?)

Malia shared a story that she really liked out of the Friend. She is so strong. She shared the story and even gave instances where she had made good choices. All the while, her little brother, cried in the other room. She stayed calm and collected. So, here's my moment...

Malia sharing her sweet testimony and example through tense cryings of a little brother. I don't know if I could have done it tonight, yet she stayed strong and carried on. Take that, Satan!! :)

We'll get through this. This 2 1/2 year old Jeremiah is definitely the most exhausting portion of my life thus far. (bless his heart, I love him). Anyone that's been around him for any amount of time, though, will vouch for the amount of energy and VOLUME this kid has.

BUT--redeeming qualities abound! He's so, so, so, so willing to snuggle. Should his "hi-ahs" accidentally hit you in the face, he is instantaneously putting down said weapon and hugging and kissing you profusely. It's almost as if his body is overtaken at times by some sort of intense burst of energy traveling through the atmosphere. Sometimes I just want to take his flailing limbs and just wrap them up like a burrito, forcing the crazies out.

So, anyways, this blog post got longer than I intended. I'll be back with more moments. These, as President Uchtdorf comforts us with, are the moments that matter.

melancholy at 12:50 a.m.

I was going through old video tapes today looking for a blank one to tape my sister's senior night for her basketball team. And my findings led to...who are these children? Where did they go? Is this what it will be like someday as we look back, I wonder? Flashes of what was? The way Malia used to pronounce her R's with a voice seemingly a few octaves higher than it is now. The way Tessa entered her birthing room with her lungs set to mute, while Jeremiah entered that same room with with some sort of sub-woofer attached to him?

I'm not gonna lie. I don't like it. I've tried all day today to burn in my brain the children who currently reside in their little bodies.

Jeremiah...the way he taps the fingers of one hand on the palm of the other when he asks for something...anticipation spilling out his digits.

Malia...the way she loves to tell me stories

that aren't necessarily true, "but if it did happen, wouldn't it be funny, mom?" Her humor is spot on. I love belly laughing with that girl.

Tessa...the way she prefaces so much of what she's about to say with "I just realized"...

How is that you realize so much, Tess? I just saw a video in which you just evacuated my womb. Didn't that evacuation just take place? Wherein you could barely lift your head and just laid there, eyes darting, taking it all in. Did the men in black come and put a spell on me, and here we are? Because I don't remember all this realizing taking place.

I find myself wanting to go back and embrace that 2-year-old Malia. She was my little Campbell's soup girl. I would never trade her for the partially toothless girl I have today. But I would like to just snuggle on her for a few minutes and bask in the way she said her Rs and the chubbiness that inhabited her face and hands.

I guess what's getting me through this emotion and has been bolstering me this whole week are these six little words:

"Grace Shall Be as Your Day."

I recently read an article on the enabling power of Christ. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. (Phillipians 4:13) Including forging into the future and leaving pieces of these perfectly precious "baby" children behind. I know that the people that these little beings are to become cannot be formed without realizing things. I will embrace it all. There is no fear in love. And if there's one thing I know, it's that I love them.

.

California Dreamin' on Such a Winter's Day...

In October we packed up the mini van and headed for the land of sun. I once heard it said that Disneyland makes everything better...or maybe that was a voice in my head, I'm not sure. But in any case, it indeed did not disappoint. The Halloween hoopla was in full swing. Orange was everywhere you looked. But mostly it was smiles on little ones' faces. It's incredibly euphoric to see those sweet little faces light up when they see Buzz or Woody, et cetera, and so forth.

There were so many good times with cousins, aunts, uncles, grandmas, grandpas, and even great-grandma Toni. Poor Grandma Toni rode home with us, earplugs and all. I don't even know if the earplugs helped. Jeremiah has a voice that can shake a mountain. Love him to death, but grateful he'll be one year older the next time we take him anywhere!!!

And in conclusion, it's a small world, ladies and gentlemen. It's a small world after all.

That We May Be One

Any time I have a chance to look at the church news, I open it immediately to the section where it announces new mission presidents. It's something I noticed many years ago. These husbands and wives have a similar look about them. It's not necessarily just how they look (although I find it humorous that many of them do look so much alike) It's in their demeanor. I can't describe it. Just look at them and see if you notice it too.

Sometimes I catch glimpses of this oneness in my marriage. Oftentimes I long to have a better grasp on it. But, for sure it's something that I'm striving for.

There's nothing like the kids saying something that they have no idea how funny it is and looking up to see Darrin looking at me to see if I caught the humor.

I can't imagine making this trek alone. I thank the Lord everyday that even though this is hard and sometimes I'm not at my best and daydream of days of shopping and solitude, this is where my truest joy lies.

And I guess that's what was in my heart today. I'm going to get back into this blogging thing. I kind of miss it.