Pink, Note, Life and Music

The week I got into my car accident, Baby had taken a liking to strawberry milk mix.

I try to console my ambitious mother nutrition instincts by saying that at least it has vitamins... it's not JUST sugar...

Anyway, she is so obsessed with this stuff that she will stop at nothing to get it. I have put it in the highest cupboard, but she has discovered that kitchen chairs can get a mobile child anywhere.

I've just had to start to embrace her obsession until it is all gone and I can honestly tell her that.

The day after my accident when I was not feeling all that well (the whole hitting a car thing really does cause some pain) and I was trying to find any little thing to smile about. I was glad that, right off that morning, I was able to smile at the smiley face in Baby's strawberry milk... mix... in a bowl...

She had been working on it for a few minutes so I had to take a picture of how cute the "drawing" was:

Sorry if you can't see it... it's sideways sort of. It looks like this (•: and tipped

So as I went about my morning getting the kids ready for school single handedly... literally single handed... I was wearing my splint at the time.

I got the two older ones off and then it was time for Baby to get ready... I should have been paying more attention to her as she had taken her bowl of mixture into the front room and sat on the couch to eat it. At some point, I guess, she accidentally spilled it everywhere and Ranger must have been an innocent bystander because he ended up with a new pink do. I laughed so hard in spite of the sticky mess that was laying in the crevices of the couch and paused to take a picture of how "adorable" Ranger looked. Baby was laughing too... sort of... she knew I wasn't happy about the mess on the couch, but she saw the humor in a pink dog too.

It took a while to shake all the mix out of his hair... he kind of looked and smelled like cotton candy!

After the kids were off to school that day (Friday) I was picked up by our rental car place to go pick out a car for us to utilize while our van was in the shop. I was pretty excited to ride in style in the Mustang convertible that the manager of the place picked me up in!

Vroom! Vroom!

When we got to the rental place there were no full size cars left...

I needed something though...

He told me that the Mustang was available and that I could trade it in on Monday for the family sized car...

He showed me the other option which was a Nissan Versa Note... insert the funny cartoon sound effect there...

Boing! Doink!

My trying to be the level headed mom, opted for the five-passenger gutless wonder of a Note and left the 4-passenger Mustang behind.

Ho hum!

But to make our kids a little happier about missing our van, I took them for a little ride after school in the Note and they smiled. It was kind of like riding in a full-sized roller skate... but, hey, I can't complain, I'm glad that our insurance covered a rental.

Don't worry, we're at a stop light.

It has a great radio...

Let's just say that we were happy on Monday to get a Nissan Altima with a lot more room and a lot more guts... also known as horse power!

On Saturday morning I was in preparation to photograph my newest niece who was going to be born that day. It was a VERY exciting day because we have been waiting for this little girl for a few years and it wasn't without trial that she finally could join my brother's little family.

I cannot express the joy I had being there the moments after this sweet little Keke (her name for my blog) arrived here safe, sound, breathing and living. Trully a joyous moment beyond description, but I want to share a few of the photos that I was able to take.

If you are interested in understanding the significance of this little life you can go to
this post here that talks about my Brother and Sister-in-law's first of 3 losses.

My joy was so big this day!

Seeing my brother and sister-in-law truly and wholly happy again is a feeling that I can't quite describe. It was such surreal experience to be in a room where we had once seen so much sadness now housing complete and utter joy for this life, this tiny, little, perfect life.

After photographing I got home and rushed out on a date with Marc and the high of my night that seemed to sum up how I was feeling was listening to a live band play outside at the Riverwoods in Provo. I honestly don't remember the songs, I just remember my joy in dancing and singing along.

I'm sorry if any of you hate playing catch up with me, but let's just say that getting in a car accident in the middle of fighting an already raging battle on depression just doesn't help a whole lot. So blogging wasn't what I was up for, not to mention that the pain in my wrist didn't subside until 4 or 5 days ago and made typing for more than 2 minutes uninviting. So, this is what I'll be doing for a bit to catch up on my UPs.

There were lots of UPs during these last two weeks, so I want to share them to remind myself and you that even when times are tough there are always things to look UP to.''

Days 239-240 of 365 Days of Up