Someone was knocking on the bathroom door and from the family room I could hear Luke's cute little voice call out, "OCCUPIED!" I was literally rolling on the floor laughing. It was so funny sounding. I realize now that it's not the funniest thing ever, but I crack up every time I think about it so it must be kind of funny. 4-9-15
At DQ Jack grabbed the last of Grandpa's fries and when I asked him how many he got, he said, "AWW" (all), then with a fist full of fries, wagged his little finger at me and said, "no more!" It was adorable :). 4-15-15
There are two videos right now that I go to when I need a little pick me up. The first is a pencil drawn cartoon of a dad taking his kids to the playground while the mom gets the ice cream cones. The kids are falling off the swing and teeter totter and bumping into the dad... it's hard to do it justice on here, but it's HILARIOUS! I laugh every time. The other one is of Olaf holding a football for Christof to kick. He drops it and when he leans forward to grab it Christof comes up and kicks Olaf's head off! His little scream as he goes flying across the scream is so funny. This one cracks me up every time still. So funny. I don't know why I'm putting that on here, but they do make me laugh :). 4-27-15
Jack tossing mini handfuls of cheese up in the air to catch in his mouth and having most of it miss... totally made a huge mess all over the counter and the floor, but it was worth it. 5-5-15
Jack says, "No me die!" with a cheerful look on his face, almost surprised, but definitely relieved... after any and all death defying feats he tackles. Or he'll say it when I look at him with my "Be careful" face, as kind of an excuse for why he should be allowed to continue. Makes me laugh. 5-6-15
Jack says, "medomedomedomedo" whenever he wants to do something :). 5-8-15
Jack was throwing a huge fit on the couch next to me when he was supposed to be falling back to sleep after coming in from the car. I looked at him, put my hand on his little cheek and said, "Are you okay?" I was actually trying to gain some insight into how he was feeling, thinking he might be sick or something... not REALLY looking for an answer. But he didn't know that and responded with the loudest, longest, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!" I've ever heard him yell. It was so naughty, but SOOOOO hilarious!!! I totally busted up. Reminded me of how I feel when people ask me if I'm okay :). 5-12-15
Noah was playing with Jack for a little while after school. Jack was loving it of course because when Noah stood up and said he was going to go to Josh's house, Jack jumped up and screamed, "No! Dosh!" Then he proceeded to block the door, pull on Noah's arm and throw him back onto the living room floor where they were playing, even ran to the back door to stop him from going out that way when someone suggested that idea from downstairs. It was so funny! And kind of sad at the same time. He does this a lot to Erika and Kate too :). He's definitely getting to that age. 5-12-15
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Monday, May 11, 2015
Divine Signatures
This is probably going to make me sound horrible, but I still have to write about this. On Thursday, for my book club, we all spent a little time before cleaning up the house a little. Nate had asked Charity to "help" Erika with the bathroom because we wanted it to be nice if someone needed to use it. They seemed to be working hard in there so I didn't think much of it. Then about 5 minutes before everyone was supposed to come I glanced in the bathroom before heading downstairs and realized that it was not even remotely clean!! I was ticked, went in and tried to do a quick clean up. Wasn't really worth it because it needed more than a quick clean up. (I learned later that Erika had painstakingly cleaned out the toothbrush/toothpaste drawer which had apparently gotten pretty messy, and coated in toothpaste, so I have to hand it to her there- I only wish that hadn't been the focus on this particular cleaning :). She usually does a really great job on the bathroom) So with no time to spare, I quickly said a desperate prayer, "Please don't let anyone have to use the bathroom!!" Seemed like a strange thing to pray for and I knew I'd gotten myself into that mess by not taking care of it earlier in the day, but it was worth a try :). So anyway. We had book club, everything went great, I was surprisingly not embarrassed by my house, and it was really fun. Near the end, Debbie got up and said, "Well, I'm going to go. I need to use the bathroom and I need to...." (I"m not sure what else she had to do) I mostly went into panic mode worrying that she was going to use mine. I didn't even offer it!! I was unsure whether she meant that she was going to go home to use the bathroom or what, but I wasn't about to offer mine to her!! Horrible, I know. But she ended up leaving right then. It was SUCH an answer to my prayer!! I was SO glad and thanked Heavenly Father after everyone left because nobody had needed to use the bathroom. What a blessing. 4-9-15
I had dozed off on the couch the other day and was startled awake at one point. Erika had been at Kate's house and Jack was just watching TV with Nate, but I looked over and saw that Nate was asleep too. This is one of the few times in my life I've felt the Spirit kind of jerk me up and into action. Because I wasn't truly worried enough, I knew Jack would be close. Much to my surprise, he had gone out the front door and was walking back toward our house, from the direction of Kate's house. He was calling for "Gaka" and was pretty sad. I think he had tried to find her. It was so sad! He was really depressed about it for quite a while. I kept asking him where his smile was and he would sadly respond with, "Gaka". He loves her so much!! Anyway, I was so grateful that I'd been jerked off the couch. Who knows what might have happened next. It's not like him to be out in the front alone anyway, much less that far away. Looks like we have a new little boy on our hands. I'm so grateful for the promptings of the Spirit. 4-24-15
I know that we receive all kinds of things as blessings for having so many kids. Maybe this sounds wrong, but I mean well, trust me. We get all kinds of things just handed to us and even cool stuff like tickets to baseball games for free. It's really fun to me that Heavenly Father will bless us with fun things like that and not just the millions of bags of hand-me-downs that are often just left on our porch (priceless, but clothing is not as exciting to some people :) ). I felt Heavenly Father's love at the Bees game when the kids showed up on the jumbotron- He knew how much they wanted that and made it happen. I just feel like we're very privileged. I know it's because of our kids. One more bonus to having "millions of kids". 5-6-15
Friday night, I was starting to second guess the whole Bryce canyon idea. My dad had called and said we didn't need to "feel like we HAD to come" and gave me the go ahead to stay home, and this triggered something in me. I had been happy to support him and wanted to be there, but I was dreading the tiredness I was going to feel. So I started to pray about it. I asked Heavenly Father to let something happen that would give us the excuse to not go. Nothing big, just something bad enough that we would have to stay home. I had totally expected Him to do something to get me out of it. Then as a side note, I decided to say, "OR if you WANT me to go to Bryce canyon, then please help me to change my attitude about it." So this way I knew I wasn't asking for something I shouldn't have. Well, about two minutes later I got a reply text from Steve, telling me that he was there, and that he was going to be there Saturday with us. I immediately smiled (which is saying a lot). It totally lightened my load to know that Steve was going to be there. I'm still not sure why this was such a big deal to me. But it was then that I realized, we really needed to go. I had no idea why (Still don't), but for whatever reason- Heavenly Father wanted us to. So I changed my attitude, and we were able to make it through the whole trip. What a blessing that was. It helped me out so much the whole time to know that this was what Heavenly Father had wanted for us. Faith can carry me pretty far. 5-8-13
I had dozed off on the couch the other day and was startled awake at one point. Erika had been at Kate's house and Jack was just watching TV with Nate, but I looked over and saw that Nate was asleep too. This is one of the few times in my life I've felt the Spirit kind of jerk me up and into action. Because I wasn't truly worried enough, I knew Jack would be close. Much to my surprise, he had gone out the front door and was walking back toward our house, from the direction of Kate's house. He was calling for "Gaka" and was pretty sad. I think he had tried to find her. It was so sad! He was really depressed about it for quite a while. I kept asking him where his smile was and he would sadly respond with, "Gaka". He loves her so much!! Anyway, I was so grateful that I'd been jerked off the couch. Who knows what might have happened next. It's not like him to be out in the front alone anyway, much less that far away. Looks like we have a new little boy on our hands. I'm so grateful for the promptings of the Spirit. 4-24-15
I know that we receive all kinds of things as blessings for having so many kids. Maybe this sounds wrong, but I mean well, trust me. We get all kinds of things just handed to us and even cool stuff like tickets to baseball games for free. It's really fun to me that Heavenly Father will bless us with fun things like that and not just the millions of bags of hand-me-downs that are often just left on our porch (priceless, but clothing is not as exciting to some people :) ). I felt Heavenly Father's love at the Bees game when the kids showed up on the jumbotron- He knew how much they wanted that and made it happen. I just feel like we're very privileged. I know it's because of our kids. One more bonus to having "millions of kids". 5-6-15
Friday night, I was starting to second guess the whole Bryce canyon idea. My dad had called and said we didn't need to "feel like we HAD to come" and gave me the go ahead to stay home, and this triggered something in me. I had been happy to support him and wanted to be there, but I was dreading the tiredness I was going to feel. So I started to pray about it. I asked Heavenly Father to let something happen that would give us the excuse to not go. Nothing big, just something bad enough that we would have to stay home. I had totally expected Him to do something to get me out of it. Then as a side note, I decided to say, "OR if you WANT me to go to Bryce canyon, then please help me to change my attitude about it." So this way I knew I wasn't asking for something I shouldn't have. Well, about two minutes later I got a reply text from Steve, telling me that he was there, and that he was going to be there Saturday with us. I immediately smiled (which is saying a lot). It totally lightened my load to know that Steve was going to be there. I'm still not sure why this was such a big deal to me. But it was then that I realized, we really needed to go. I had no idea why (Still don't), but for whatever reason- Heavenly Father wanted us to. So I changed my attitude, and we were able to make it through the whole trip. What a blessing that was. It helped me out so much the whole time to know that this was what Heavenly Father had wanted for us. Faith can carry me pretty far. 5-8-13
Things to Remember 5-3-15
BEES GAME FHE
We got free vouchers to a Bees game when we went to our Jazz game a couple weeks ago. So we finally cashed those in. We made a mad dash for SL after eating dinner. Found a really shady parking place, deep in an alley, with a gigantic puddle/swimming pool... we weren't really sure we would see our car again, but it was only $3, so we were willing to risk it ;). We were just to the left of home plate, on the middle level. Our cute boys had their little mitts on the whole time, poised and ready to catch a ball. Coincidentally, the two seats I booked last week (before I knew how the tickets worked and stopped to wait til I could call the box office- long story), had a ball come directly to them!!! Kind of funny. We didn't get lucky enough to catch a ball, but we did win free Subway gift cards for being on row 3 when six players struck out! Wahoo for us! Course I still haven't checked to see if they're even worth anything. They're probably just blank gift cards. It was really a fun evening though. Nate and I kept saying how nice and relaxing it was. We were still able to talk with each other, but enjoyed the game too. It's just such a great family atmosphere. I loved it. I love baseball, I loved sitting there talking with Bradley about it all, watching Jack toss popcorn into his mouth (or into the air and then onto the ground rather), looking over and seeing Luke checking the scoreboard again, for the millionth time, hearing Noah boo when the ref made bad calls, getting a picture with Erika and the bumblebee, and of course, who can forget watching the girls dance their little hearts out til they appeared on the jumbotron- TWICE! Such fun memories.
5-4-15
LONG NIGHT
So I know I shouldn't even bring this up, it's been so rare an occasion in our house lately, but maybe that's why I feel the need to document it. Jack had some serious issues last night. I'm still not 100% sure what was going on, but he was definitely not all the way awake or asleep for a good portion of the early hours of the night (from about 11:00-3:00). He just kept moaning and groaning and tossing and turning. He ended up in our bed, much to Nate's dismay (Nate seriously kept trying to help him for a couple hours it was some really choppy sleep). Jack kept talking about his shoes (which he of course wasn't wearing) and something hurting. It was so sad. We tried rubbing his feet, that didn't work. After a little while I started to think about how Nate needed his sleep since he was going to be working the mid the next night, so I offered to let Jack watch a show. This was the first time he seemed really awake. He agreed, so we came downstairs to let Nate sleep. He still wasn't all the way awake though, I think, because he was crying about his diaper, which was totally dry, then for some reason asked me to wipe his feet (calling them his shoes still) with the wipes. He insisted that I scrub them down... so strange! So I did. He even looked at me a little funny when we finished, kind of like, "why did we just do that?" But he was perfectly content to watch his little shows all night. And he did for a good two hours before finally dozing off. I was too tired to fight sleep so I indexed, but as soon as he was asleep I laid down too. It was about 5:30 by then. So hard for me!! I'm not big on complaining about staying up late, or having to get up in the night with my kids since I always say, at least I have kids to wake up to, but this was so hard! I was sick the whole time and the dumb graham crackers weren't cutting it. So that didn't help, but anyway. I finally dragged myself off the couch around 7:00 am. And of course (as has been the pattern) I was sick for a good 3 or 4 hours all morning because I slept in. This is how it goes. Kind of stinks. I totally expected that since I had been eating and didn't have an empty stomach that it would be okay to sleep in, but it didn't work. So anyway. Luckily Jack took a nice long nap this morning, to make up for the lost sleep. That was a relief. And Erika let me sleep a little while she watched TV in the midday as well. So all was well. I'll live anyway :). 5-5-15
VIRTUE
I finished the Book of Mormon!!! Feels like I just finished it, which makes me feel really good. I have been doing really good at reading it regularly everyday. It's helping me so much. I was so close to the end last night, a few pages, and could barely keep my eyes open, but I just had to keep reading! I wanted to read that last chapter of Moroni! I love that chapter! I couldn't help but notice how much the word HOPE stood out to me during chapter 7 as well. I love that word. I want to make a little word sign to hang up by my bedroom that says, "hope". I'm contemplating that as a first or at least middle name for our baby too... maybe Nate will concur. Anyway- I love how my testimony of the Book of Mormon has grown and I no longer feel the need to ask if it is true, I believe it is true! I have seen the impact reading it regularly has had on my life and I have felt the power of the words. I am trying to think of a new way to study, something new to focus on or a new way to gain deeper insights... still haven't come up with anything. HOPEfully soon :). I loved reading the beginning this morning, with Joseph Smith's testimony. It's interesting how many times it says, "by the gift and power of God" when talking about how the book was translated and came about. Nate pointed that out to me the other day. I'll have to do some research on that. Anyway- now I have passed off Virtue in my Personal Progress :). Yay for me. 5-6-15
IT'S OFFICIAL!
I'm officially on top of the laundry!!! WAHOO! I had to scramble to find enough clothes to fit in the last load I put in to justify washing a load. It's an incredible feeling- I don't want to stop though, I need to stay on top of it all for at least the next 4 months! That way we won't be backed up by the time the baby gets here. 5-6-15
CLOTHES, CLOTHES, and MORE CLOTHES
I did it! I went through all the clothes today! I have been needing to get the summer clothes out (put away the winter) and decided this would be a good time to sort through some of the baby girl clothes as well. I went through SO MANY CLOTHES! Holy moly! I had two big totes of girl clothes that I organized in sizes. This was my favorite part. Erika's too- I wish I'd taken video of her looking through them all- she was so adorable! Getting so excited for her baby sister. I can't help but wish she could stay home one more year to be with her baby sister and get a little bonding in before she grows up. It's hard for me that there are going to be almost six years between the two of them... but I digress. She oooohed and aaaaahhed over all the clothes, picked out her favorite ones, held them up to her in awe that she once fit in them :). I hope her baby sister can wear them, most of the 0-3 month ones are winterish... so we'll see how it goes :). I don't hate buying baby clothes though, so I'm sure we'll survive if we need to get some more :). Erika is getting anxious to make her a blanket too, maybe we'll do that next week. So after the baby girl clothes, I went through everyone else's clothes, about 10 boxes/bags of things, took me all morning. I packed up 3 huge bags of D I stuff and moved the rest around. Thankfully Nate was all for helping me carry them up and down to the storage room. Lifting is not comfortable already. This is always such a big job. I wish I could make it an easier one, but at least it's done. I have them all organized in boxes with season and year for all the kids to fit in. Hopefully it wasn't a mistake to mingle the baby girl clothes in with some of the later years. We'll see how she grows :). Feels good to be done. 5-7-15
We got free vouchers to a Bees game when we went to our Jazz game a couple weeks ago. So we finally cashed those in. We made a mad dash for SL after eating dinner. Found a really shady parking place, deep in an alley, with a gigantic puddle/swimming pool... we weren't really sure we would see our car again, but it was only $3, so we were willing to risk it ;). We were just to the left of home plate, on the middle level. Our cute boys had their little mitts on the whole time, poised and ready to catch a ball. Coincidentally, the two seats I booked last week (before I knew how the tickets worked and stopped to wait til I could call the box office- long story), had a ball come directly to them!!! Kind of funny. We didn't get lucky enough to catch a ball, but we did win free Subway gift cards for being on row 3 when six players struck out! Wahoo for us! Course I still haven't checked to see if they're even worth anything. They're probably just blank gift cards. It was really a fun evening though. Nate and I kept saying how nice and relaxing it was. We were still able to talk with each other, but enjoyed the game too. It's just such a great family atmosphere. I loved it. I love baseball, I loved sitting there talking with Bradley about it all, watching Jack toss popcorn into his mouth (or into the air and then onto the ground rather), looking over and seeing Luke checking the scoreboard again, for the millionth time, hearing Noah boo when the ref made bad calls, getting a picture with Erika and the bumblebee, and of course, who can forget watching the girls dance their little hearts out til they appeared on the jumbotron- TWICE! Such fun memories.
LONG NIGHT
So I know I shouldn't even bring this up, it's been so rare an occasion in our house lately, but maybe that's why I feel the need to document it. Jack had some serious issues last night. I'm still not 100% sure what was going on, but he was definitely not all the way awake or asleep for a good portion of the early hours of the night (from about 11:00-3:00). He just kept moaning and groaning and tossing and turning. He ended up in our bed, much to Nate's dismay (Nate seriously kept trying to help him for a couple hours it was some really choppy sleep). Jack kept talking about his shoes (which he of course wasn't wearing) and something hurting. It was so sad. We tried rubbing his feet, that didn't work. After a little while I started to think about how Nate needed his sleep since he was going to be working the mid the next night, so I offered to let Jack watch a show. This was the first time he seemed really awake. He agreed, so we came downstairs to let Nate sleep. He still wasn't all the way awake though, I think, because he was crying about his diaper, which was totally dry, then for some reason asked me to wipe his feet (calling them his shoes still) with the wipes. He insisted that I scrub them down... so strange! So I did. He even looked at me a little funny when we finished, kind of like, "why did we just do that?" But he was perfectly content to watch his little shows all night. And he did for a good two hours before finally dozing off. I was too tired to fight sleep so I indexed, but as soon as he was asleep I laid down too. It was about 5:30 by then. So hard for me!! I'm not big on complaining about staying up late, or having to get up in the night with my kids since I always say, at least I have kids to wake up to, but this was so hard! I was sick the whole time and the dumb graham crackers weren't cutting it. So that didn't help, but anyway. I finally dragged myself off the couch around 7:00 am. And of course (as has been the pattern) I was sick for a good 3 or 4 hours all morning because I slept in. This is how it goes. Kind of stinks. I totally expected that since I had been eating and didn't have an empty stomach that it would be okay to sleep in, but it didn't work. So anyway. Luckily Jack took a nice long nap this morning, to make up for the lost sleep. That was a relief. And Erika let me sleep a little while she watched TV in the midday as well. So all was well. I'll live anyway :). 5-5-15
VIRTUE
I finished the Book of Mormon!!! Feels like I just finished it, which makes me feel really good. I have been doing really good at reading it regularly everyday. It's helping me so much. I was so close to the end last night, a few pages, and could barely keep my eyes open, but I just had to keep reading! I wanted to read that last chapter of Moroni! I love that chapter! I couldn't help but notice how much the word HOPE stood out to me during chapter 7 as well. I love that word. I want to make a little word sign to hang up by my bedroom that says, "hope". I'm contemplating that as a first or at least middle name for our baby too... maybe Nate will concur. Anyway- I love how my testimony of the Book of Mormon has grown and I no longer feel the need to ask if it is true, I believe it is true! I have seen the impact reading it regularly has had on my life and I have felt the power of the words. I am trying to think of a new way to study, something new to focus on or a new way to gain deeper insights... still haven't come up with anything. HOPEfully soon :). I loved reading the beginning this morning, with Joseph Smith's testimony. It's interesting how many times it says, "by the gift and power of God" when talking about how the book was translated and came about. Nate pointed that out to me the other day. I'll have to do some research on that. Anyway- now I have passed off Virtue in my Personal Progress :). Yay for me. 5-6-15
IT'S OFFICIAL!
I'm officially on top of the laundry!!! WAHOO! I had to scramble to find enough clothes to fit in the last load I put in to justify washing a load. It's an incredible feeling- I don't want to stop though, I need to stay on top of it all for at least the next 4 months! That way we won't be backed up by the time the baby gets here. 5-6-15
CLOTHES, CLOTHES, and MORE CLOTHES
I did it! I went through all the clothes today! I have been needing to get the summer clothes out (put away the winter) and decided this would be a good time to sort through some of the baby girl clothes as well. I went through SO MANY CLOTHES! Holy moly! I had two big totes of girl clothes that I organized in sizes. This was my favorite part. Erika's too- I wish I'd taken video of her looking through them all- she was so adorable! Getting so excited for her baby sister. I can't help but wish she could stay home one more year to be with her baby sister and get a little bonding in before she grows up. It's hard for me that there are going to be almost six years between the two of them... but I digress. She oooohed and aaaaahhed over all the clothes, picked out her favorite ones, held them up to her in awe that she once fit in them :). I hope her baby sister can wear them, most of the 0-3 month ones are winterish... so we'll see how it goes :). I don't hate buying baby clothes though, so I'm sure we'll survive if we need to get some more :). Erika is getting anxious to make her a blanket too, maybe we'll do that next week. So after the baby girl clothes, I went through everyone else's clothes, about 10 boxes/bags of things, took me all morning. I packed up 3 huge bags of D I stuff and moved the rest around. Thankfully Nate was all for helping me carry them up and down to the storage room. Lifting is not comfortable already. This is always such a big job. I wish I could make it an easier one, but at least it's done. I have them all organized in boxes with season and year for all the kids to fit in. Hopefully it wasn't a mistake to mingle the baby girl clothes in with some of the later years. We'll see how she grows :). Feels good to be done. 5-7-15
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
She's Still a She :)
This ultrasound was a lot of fun! I mean they're always fun, but this one was especially fascinating for some reason. Nate and I were both asking lots of questions and learned all kinds of new stuff. The computer wasn't working great and wouldn't make the DVD for some reason, so we don't get the video of it all :(, but the up side to what we did get is I can post the pictures on the blog :). So that's kind of good :) This top one is the side view of her face, you can see her two arms in front of her face.
Then this next one is a cross section of her mid section, of her heart- this was really cool! I've never seen so much of the heart before... all four chambers were very visible and it was so cool to watch it beat! I loved it! That's my baby girl's "great heart"!
This one was really cool- it's a front view of her face, but her arms are up in front of her face, so you can only see her mouth and part of her nose. She looked like she was hiding from the paparazzi :). Nate said she was thinking, "I'm not dressed yet!"
I was so relieved to see all of her organs measuring correctly and well... just existing meant a lot to me :). They measured my cervix, then looked at my ovaries, then looked at the placenta which is still on the back of my uterus- definite PLUS!- less chance of me dying. Then she measured her head, no sign of Down's, great central fissure, then onto her heart which as I said was just so incredible! And "great" according to the u/s tech! Then we saw her stomach, bladder, kidneys, and measured her femur bone. They said that she was measuring at 22 weeks and 2 days which is just a couple days off, so the due date is now more like the 10th, which is weird to think about, but Dr. Thackeray reassured me that if we wanted to do it around the 1st he'd be more than happy to accommodate that. He knows how horrible the last weeks are apparently. SO Everything looked great! Such a relief. Why I worry so much about this stuff is beyond me. I am going to say it's so that I will be more grateful for my healthy babies.
After the ultrasound we had a nice visit with Dr. Thackeray. He's so good at not making me feel like a burden even though I ask dumb questions and tell him about pain that's obviously just from all the "wear and tear" on my uterus. Everything is just kind of worn out in there I guess. I need to come to grips with this reality. Hopefully it all lasts 4 more months and that our baby girl is comfortable enough to stick the whole time out.
Nate and I talked more about her name on the way home. I think it's settled. Not that we're going to tell anyone :). It's more fun to wait to announce her name when she's actually present to make it look even better :). Still working on a middle name though... we'll see about that. Anyway- fun afternoon focusing on our little girl. I can't wait to meet her!! I don't care what anyone says, just because we've done this 7 times before doesn't make it any less exciting! It's just so exciting!
Saturday, May 2, 2015
Things to Remember 4-26-15
LACROSSE
Charity, Kelly, Bradley and I finally went to watch some of our YW play lacrosse. It was the last home game of the season. They got killed, but it was still a lot of fun to watch! I think Kelly and Charity are getting the bug- I think they want to start doing the clinics that the girls were talking about. That would be cool. I sat on dog poop so that stunk. But it was a nice two hours of Lacrosse watching. I need to learn all the rules. 4-27-15
BOWLING
We postponed FHE this week (because of the Lacrosse games and I was supposed to pick up my Dad from the airport), to Tuesday, so that we could carry out Erika's activity that she's been dying to do for the past eight weeks. She thought of "the best idea for an activity" and has been wanting us to go bowling. We finally went. It was SO MUCH FUN!! Our kids love bowling, and this time everyone was so fun to each other! I couldn't believe the cheers and compliments and constant high fives! It was like a dream. I'm not kidding. There was NO fighting, no whining, no complaining! Pure heaven (in a disgusting, run down, outdated bowling alley)! It was funny to watch all the little ones' scores go up while all us older kids kept struggling to raise our numbers. I played my first frame and felt a little more pain than usual in my uterus and decided maybe it wasn't the best idea. Kind of a bummer and frustrating for me to admit that it wasn't a good idea- I like to pretend like I can do anything while I"m pregnant- but Jack filled in for me and all was well. I think he got a better score than I would have. He pulled off the first strike which was pretty fun :). We played two games. These were our scores for the two games: Erika-101/ 86; Noah- 81/74; Luke 101/98; Bradley- 78/92; Kelly- 69/64; Charity- 60/66; Jack- 80/111; Nate- 100/113. It's always funny when the younger people win. I still can't get over how much fun we all had. Jack was doing his ninja bowl. Erika even played without the ramp for a lot of the time. Noah had his socks pulled up to his knees with his basketball shorts. Luke got WAY into it and was probably the biggest cheerer, constantly building everyone up. Bradley was fascinated with the speed of his ball and tried to break his record- 14 mph, pretty good! Kelly giggled through her whole turn, balls flying all over the place, miraculously making their way down the lane :). Charity tried to remain positive even though some of those pins seemed to have been against her! I sat in my spot and didn't move even though Jack insisted that it was his spot :). Nate's goal was to get a strike on every frame the second game... he only accomplished a tenth of that. But his ego is still intact, thankfully :). So much fun.
4-28-15
HOBO ZOO WITH NOAH
He changed the name for funness :). So this week I got to go to Hogle Zoo with Noah and the first grade! That was a lot of fun! I have always loved the zoo field trip. I've been with everyone except Charity- she didn't get hers since Eagle Valley did it in First grade and Holbrook did it in Kindergarten, she missed it on both ends. But Noah and I had a great time! It was especially fun because it's been so long since we both had been there! There were some new things to see as well. My favorite part was the lion! We got to see them training him! He was sitting, lying down, putting his paws up to the fence, even stood up on his hind legs against the fence! and ROARED for us!!! All within about five feet of us!! It was really incredible! I like what they've done for the cats there. The old dungeon was so sad. This was really cool. I think Noah liked the lion too. He mentioned the sea otters and the seals though too. And how small they seemed. I love that he enjoyed it so much. He was really into all the animals. The other boys in his group seemed more focused on when we were going to eat and then when we were going to go home. Not interested in the animals at all because they'd "been there a million times". Sad. They were obnoxious, sorry, but I have to say it. I was glad to have Noah and his enthusiasm there- I think he helped them a little. We did go to the lighthouse eventually and go on the slide- that was so thrilling too :). We got quite a few pictures, I will need to get those off my phone. It was a lot of fun though- I'm glad I got to go. 4-29-15
AGRICULTURE FIELD TRIP WITH LUKE
For my second field trip this week, on Thursday, I got to go with Luke to the field across from the Botanical Gardens to learn about agriculture! We got to pet baby animals, learned about dairy, farming, beef, how clothing is made, and lots of other stuff :). Luke got a wheat seed, some string cheese (this was his favorite part), and had fun putting bunny ears on everyone on the walk home. I spent most of the time chatting with Emily Linton (forgot her married name). She was one of my best friends in High School. I wish I could remember what happened between us to make us lose contact the way we did, but we had a lot of fun talking together. It was a really fun field trip. I was glad that Luke let me tag along. And I was glad that he talked Mrs. Beckstead out of giving us Dax in our group again :). HAHAHA.... still makes me laugh. Luke takes such good care of me :). 4-30-15
TEMPLE SEALINGS
We finally made it to do sealings this week! When I heard that the Elder's Quorum Presidency wasn't going to be making their usual visits, I had to schedule a temple trip with Heidi and John :). We met up at the Bountiful temple and were able to do the name that Charity found on Family search. That was pretty special. Then we did a bunch of other names another couple had brought. It was a nice time. I enjoy the peace of doing sealings. I love being away from life and all it's cares. We went to Five Guys for some burgers and fries afterwards. That was nice too. It was fun to have Heidi and John talking about Nate's smoking business with him and getting him all excited about it again. He's been working on his logo ever since :). 4-30-15
CLEAN GARAGE!!
Nate and I spent a good part of our Friday cleaning out the garage together. That was a big job! It was nice to see it all done and every time we pull into the garage we can pretend like we are neat and tidy people for a few minutes (before walking into our messy house). We took a huge load of stuff to the DI, a lot of it still left over from the yard sale, if you can believe that. Most of all we just threw away a bunch of junk and put away all the coats, hats, gloves, etc. So anyway- looks fantastic!
5-1-15
KELLY
Kelly's been doing all kinds of big girl things ;) lately. It's been weird, but I think I'm doing better at it than I did with Charity. Sorry, Charity. It is so much easier to let Kelly do things that I let Charity do than it was to let Charity do completely new things! One of the benefits of being the second child I guess. Charity should have thought of that when they were dibs-ing family placement order. Kelly and her friends went to Station Park earlier in the week, and then headed off to DARE Boondocks day on Friday. She seemed to have a lot of fun. And she's especially good with her money, it's nice to know she didn't spend it all :). It was really cute to hear about their trip into Johnny Rockets to get some cheese fries. They "even tipped the waiter"! Sounds all grown up right!? I can't believe this is the pattern all my kids are going to follow. They are ALL going to grow up! Not one of them- I assume- is going to grow down. Kind of sad. But it's also cool to see them doing new fun things and having friends to go out in the world with. Scary, at times, but very cool. I'm glad I've had the YW to coach me through some of this and help me realize that these are normal milestones to be passing at this age :). Kelly is definitely mature enough and has proven to be trustworthy. I appreciate that. 5-1-15
HOT DOGS AND MARSHMALLOWS WITH GRANDPA RUSS AND GRANDMA RUTHIE
Nate has been wanting to tell his parents our exciting baby news but didn't want to do it over the phone, so we've been trying to get together with them to tell them in person! We finally scheduled a quick little fire pit dinner down by the creek. They came all the way up here and we were going to have Nate's mom do the puzzle with the kids, but instead, she had caught a glimpse of the white board and our baby girl countdown!! DARN IT!! She was very excited, but I felt so bad that Nate didn't get to see her first reaction (he was down by the creek starting the fire), or be the one to tell her! He's been wanting to for so long. So it was out :). They were very excited for us and had some fun name ideas and talked about her with us- that was a lot of fun. It's not everyday you find someone who's excited to talk about baby number eight with you :). But of course they are! This will be their 47th grand child! WOW! I don't know that they'll make it to 50 :). But anyway. They ate hotdogs and s'mores with us and then cheered along at Noah's game. Brad and Luke's game was at the same time, so we had to split up, but it was a fun evening with them. 5-1-15
KIDS SAFETY FAIR
We saw a sign on Friday advertising the safety fair and remembered how much fun that had been last year, so we made our way out to the Davis County Fairgrounds on Saturday. The kids got their little BINGO cards to fill out along the way and had fun spinning every spinner and throwing things through all imaginable targets. They love the free stuff. It's cute. Doesn't really even matter what it is, just as long as it's free :). Kinda cute. They got candy, flexible magnetic chalk boards, bananas, 2 free weeks of karate, free passes to Cherry Hill things, pencils, pens that look like syringes (those are my favorite), teddy bears, rulers, coloring books galore! cool water bottles that look like bags.... I could go on. Noah even one a cool felt pizza toy thing in the big drawing! It was a lot of fun! I love doing those things because they're so much fun and so free! The kids LOVE it, they are learning about health and safety, and we are spending time as a family. Good times. I think the favorite thing was seeing how high they could jump at the sportsplex booth. That was fun. I loved watching Jack run with high knees through the relay. Cute little guy. He's growing up so much though! It was a nice hot day- couldn't believe how hot it was! Even left with some sunburns. We made a trip to Chick-fil-A to use our newly acquired coupons for free kids meals. Good times. 5-2-15
22 WEEKS!
SO there have been a lot of times this week I've felt like I was going to die. Not sure if this is really scar tissue problems like the doc said, but it is exTREMEly painful!! And at the weirdest times! I've encountered some more of the horrible back pain I had with Erika's pregnancy. See it was even memorable which, with this memory of mine, is saying a lot! I hope I can get it under control, I can't afford to do physical therapy again. Money or time. My feet are bigger- the Sunday shoes gave that away... who woulda thought I'd grow another size with just one pregnancy! I didn't even have a problem with growing feet until Jack! Kinda weird. But whatever. I needed new shoes anyway. The burning ab muscle pain is back already- which is surprising as well. I'm having so many symptoms so much sooner than I would have thought. Maybe I need to review some of my old journals or something, but I seriously feel gigantic already and I never have this soon before. Kind of hard to wrap my head around I guess. To think that I'm going to just keep getting bigger and more uncomfortable. I am sleeping OKAY. It's not horrible yet. I have a little trouble going to sleep at night (not during the day, mind you, that just takes sitting down apparently), and then around 2 or 3:00 I wake up to use the bathroom and can't get back to sleep for a good hour. Stinks. I know this is just preparation for when the baby comes, but seriously, it's a TOTALLY different thing waking up for a cute, sweet, cuddly, little newborn!! Not the same AT ALL!! And plus, can you really prepare for no sleep?? I'm not sure you can. Either way, this is how it is. I'll live. You might be wondering why all the complaining. Well, it's because I need to get it all out! I feel better knowing that someone will know how I feel right now :). I don't want to complain to people. I don't want these complaints to fill every conversation I have and I don't want them taking over my mind and taking me to that negative place I found myself in last pregnancy. That wasn't good. So I'm doing my best to keep the complaints to a minimum and just be happy and positive. It's just better that way. Nobody really wants to hear about it anyway. This was my choice, I even PRAYED for this! So it's my deal. I can do it without complaining. I do get frustrated with people thinking that this is easy for me though, so I think that's what triggers the complaints usually. Just the other day someone was relating a story of "another woman who has easy pregnancies who had ___ number of kids". Kinda irked me. But who cares. It's not like anyone knows what anyone's pregnancies are like anyway. Sort of depends on each individual's level of pain tolerance too I think!
On another note, with all the talk about stillborn babies and people losing children (there's been a lot lately), I'm developing a new level of worry about this. Even in the temple I had the thought, don't hang on to those moments in the hospital too tightly. That's always been the thing I hang onto throughout the pregnancy, knowing that I will have those special first moments with this baby eventually and knowing that this will all be for something wonderful and worthwhilte. Those are my light at the end of the tunnel. I keep feeling like I shouldn't do that this time though. I'm not sure why. Maybe I just need to savor this pregnancy more. It is probably my last. Maybe I don't get to have those moments with this baby? Maybe something will happen to take that away? I don't know. Heavenly Father knows and I know that He will help me. It's stressing me out in the meantime. I need to show more faith in His plan and be willing to adjust mine to fit with His. That has never been easy for me. So far everything has gone my way though. I've always had the healthy baby with very few complications. So maybe I've just used up too many of my good odds... who knows. Maybe I'm just crazy and there's really nothing to worry about... who knows. I will just keep praying for this baby to be happy, healthy, full-term, and complicationless... will you too please??
Charity, Kelly, Bradley and I finally went to watch some of our YW play lacrosse. It was the last home game of the season. They got killed, but it was still a lot of fun to watch! I think Kelly and Charity are getting the bug- I think they want to start doing the clinics that the girls were talking about. That would be cool. I sat on dog poop so that stunk. But it was a nice two hours of Lacrosse watching. I need to learn all the rules. 4-27-15
BOWLING
We postponed FHE this week (because of the Lacrosse games and I was supposed to pick up my Dad from the airport), to Tuesday, so that we could carry out Erika's activity that she's been dying to do for the past eight weeks. She thought of "the best idea for an activity" and has been wanting us to go bowling. We finally went. It was SO MUCH FUN!! Our kids love bowling, and this time everyone was so fun to each other! I couldn't believe the cheers and compliments and constant high fives! It was like a dream. I'm not kidding. There was NO fighting, no whining, no complaining! Pure heaven (in a disgusting, run down, outdated bowling alley)! It was funny to watch all the little ones' scores go up while all us older kids kept struggling to raise our numbers. I played my first frame and felt a little more pain than usual in my uterus and decided maybe it wasn't the best idea. Kind of a bummer and frustrating for me to admit that it wasn't a good idea- I like to pretend like I can do anything while I"m pregnant- but Jack filled in for me and all was well. I think he got a better score than I would have. He pulled off the first strike which was pretty fun :). We played two games. These were our scores for the two games: Erika-101/ 86; Noah- 81/74; Luke 101/98; Bradley- 78/92; Kelly- 69/64; Charity- 60/66; Jack- 80/111; Nate- 100/113. It's always funny when the younger people win. I still can't get over how much fun we all had. Jack was doing his ninja bowl. Erika even played without the ramp for a lot of the time. Noah had his socks pulled up to his knees with his basketball shorts. Luke got WAY into it and was probably the biggest cheerer, constantly building everyone up. Bradley was fascinated with the speed of his ball and tried to break his record- 14 mph, pretty good! Kelly giggled through her whole turn, balls flying all over the place, miraculously making their way down the lane :). Charity tried to remain positive even though some of those pins seemed to have been against her! I sat in my spot and didn't move even though Jack insisted that it was his spot :). Nate's goal was to get a strike on every frame the second game... he only accomplished a tenth of that. But his ego is still intact, thankfully :). So much fun.
HOBO ZOO WITH NOAH
He changed the name for funness :). So this week I got to go to Hogle Zoo with Noah and the first grade! That was a lot of fun! I have always loved the zoo field trip. I've been with everyone except Charity- she didn't get hers since Eagle Valley did it in First grade and Holbrook did it in Kindergarten, she missed it on both ends. But Noah and I had a great time! It was especially fun because it's been so long since we both had been there! There were some new things to see as well. My favorite part was the lion! We got to see them training him! He was sitting, lying down, putting his paws up to the fence, even stood up on his hind legs against the fence! and ROARED for us!!! All within about five feet of us!! It was really incredible! I like what they've done for the cats there. The old dungeon was so sad. This was really cool. I think Noah liked the lion too. He mentioned the sea otters and the seals though too. And how small they seemed. I love that he enjoyed it so much. He was really into all the animals. The other boys in his group seemed more focused on when we were going to eat and then when we were going to go home. Not interested in the animals at all because they'd "been there a million times". Sad. They were obnoxious, sorry, but I have to say it. I was glad to have Noah and his enthusiasm there- I think he helped them a little. We did go to the lighthouse eventually and go on the slide- that was so thrilling too :). We got quite a few pictures, I will need to get those off my phone. It was a lot of fun though- I'm glad I got to go. 4-29-15
AGRICULTURE FIELD TRIP WITH LUKE
For my second field trip this week, on Thursday, I got to go with Luke to the field across from the Botanical Gardens to learn about agriculture! We got to pet baby animals, learned about dairy, farming, beef, how clothing is made, and lots of other stuff :). Luke got a wheat seed, some string cheese (this was his favorite part), and had fun putting bunny ears on everyone on the walk home. I spent most of the time chatting with Emily Linton (forgot her married name). She was one of my best friends in High School. I wish I could remember what happened between us to make us lose contact the way we did, but we had a lot of fun talking together. It was a really fun field trip. I was glad that Luke let me tag along. And I was glad that he talked Mrs. Beckstead out of giving us Dax in our group again :). HAHAHA.... still makes me laugh. Luke takes such good care of me :). 4-30-15
TEMPLE SEALINGS
We finally made it to do sealings this week! When I heard that the Elder's Quorum Presidency wasn't going to be making their usual visits, I had to schedule a temple trip with Heidi and John :). We met up at the Bountiful temple and were able to do the name that Charity found on Family search. That was pretty special. Then we did a bunch of other names another couple had brought. It was a nice time. I enjoy the peace of doing sealings. I love being away from life and all it's cares. We went to Five Guys for some burgers and fries afterwards. That was nice too. It was fun to have Heidi and John talking about Nate's smoking business with him and getting him all excited about it again. He's been working on his logo ever since :). 4-30-15
CLEAN GARAGE!!
Nate and I spent a good part of our Friday cleaning out the garage together. That was a big job! It was nice to see it all done and every time we pull into the garage we can pretend like we are neat and tidy people for a few minutes (before walking into our messy house). We took a huge load of stuff to the DI, a lot of it still left over from the yard sale, if you can believe that. Most of all we just threw away a bunch of junk and put away all the coats, hats, gloves, etc. So anyway- looks fantastic!
KELLY
Kelly's been doing all kinds of big girl things ;) lately. It's been weird, but I think I'm doing better at it than I did with Charity. Sorry, Charity. It is so much easier to let Kelly do things that I let Charity do than it was to let Charity do completely new things! One of the benefits of being the second child I guess. Charity should have thought of that when they were dibs-ing family placement order. Kelly and her friends went to Station Park earlier in the week, and then headed off to DARE Boondocks day on Friday. She seemed to have a lot of fun. And she's especially good with her money, it's nice to know she didn't spend it all :). It was really cute to hear about their trip into Johnny Rockets to get some cheese fries. They "even tipped the waiter"! Sounds all grown up right!? I can't believe this is the pattern all my kids are going to follow. They are ALL going to grow up! Not one of them- I assume- is going to grow down. Kind of sad. But it's also cool to see them doing new fun things and having friends to go out in the world with. Scary, at times, but very cool. I'm glad I've had the YW to coach me through some of this and help me realize that these are normal milestones to be passing at this age :). Kelly is definitely mature enough and has proven to be trustworthy. I appreciate that. 5-1-15
HOT DOGS AND MARSHMALLOWS WITH GRANDPA RUSS AND GRANDMA RUTHIE
Nate has been wanting to tell his parents our exciting baby news but didn't want to do it over the phone, so we've been trying to get together with them to tell them in person! We finally scheduled a quick little fire pit dinner down by the creek. They came all the way up here and we were going to have Nate's mom do the puzzle with the kids, but instead, she had caught a glimpse of the white board and our baby girl countdown!! DARN IT!! She was very excited, but I felt so bad that Nate didn't get to see her first reaction (he was down by the creek starting the fire), or be the one to tell her! He's been wanting to for so long. So it was out :). They were very excited for us and had some fun name ideas and talked about her with us- that was a lot of fun. It's not everyday you find someone who's excited to talk about baby number eight with you :). But of course they are! This will be their 47th grand child! WOW! I don't know that they'll make it to 50 :). But anyway. They ate hotdogs and s'mores with us and then cheered along at Noah's game. Brad and Luke's game was at the same time, so we had to split up, but it was a fun evening with them. 5-1-15
KIDS SAFETY FAIR
We saw a sign on Friday advertising the safety fair and remembered how much fun that had been last year, so we made our way out to the Davis County Fairgrounds on Saturday. The kids got their little BINGO cards to fill out along the way and had fun spinning every spinner and throwing things through all imaginable targets. They love the free stuff. It's cute. Doesn't really even matter what it is, just as long as it's free :). Kinda cute. They got candy, flexible magnetic chalk boards, bananas, 2 free weeks of karate, free passes to Cherry Hill things, pencils, pens that look like syringes (those are my favorite), teddy bears, rulers, coloring books galore! cool water bottles that look like bags.... I could go on. Noah even one a cool felt pizza toy thing in the big drawing! It was a lot of fun! I love doing those things because they're so much fun and so free! The kids LOVE it, they are learning about health and safety, and we are spending time as a family. Good times. I think the favorite thing was seeing how high they could jump at the sportsplex booth. That was fun. I loved watching Jack run with high knees through the relay. Cute little guy. He's growing up so much though! It was a nice hot day- couldn't believe how hot it was! Even left with some sunburns. We made a trip to Chick-fil-A to use our newly acquired coupons for free kids meals. Good times. 5-2-15
22 WEEKS!
SO there have been a lot of times this week I've felt like I was going to die. Not sure if this is really scar tissue problems like the doc said, but it is exTREMEly painful!! And at the weirdest times! I've encountered some more of the horrible back pain I had with Erika's pregnancy. See it was even memorable which, with this memory of mine, is saying a lot! I hope I can get it under control, I can't afford to do physical therapy again. Money or time. My feet are bigger- the Sunday shoes gave that away... who woulda thought I'd grow another size with just one pregnancy! I didn't even have a problem with growing feet until Jack! Kinda weird. But whatever. I needed new shoes anyway. The burning ab muscle pain is back already- which is surprising as well. I'm having so many symptoms so much sooner than I would have thought. Maybe I need to review some of my old journals or something, but I seriously feel gigantic already and I never have this soon before. Kind of hard to wrap my head around I guess. To think that I'm going to just keep getting bigger and more uncomfortable. I am sleeping OKAY. It's not horrible yet. I have a little trouble going to sleep at night (not during the day, mind you, that just takes sitting down apparently), and then around 2 or 3:00 I wake up to use the bathroom and can't get back to sleep for a good hour. Stinks. I know this is just preparation for when the baby comes, but seriously, it's a TOTALLY different thing waking up for a cute, sweet, cuddly, little newborn!! Not the same AT ALL!! And plus, can you really prepare for no sleep?? I'm not sure you can. Either way, this is how it is. I'll live. You might be wondering why all the complaining. Well, it's because I need to get it all out! I feel better knowing that someone will know how I feel right now :). I don't want to complain to people. I don't want these complaints to fill every conversation I have and I don't want them taking over my mind and taking me to that negative place I found myself in last pregnancy. That wasn't good. So I'm doing my best to keep the complaints to a minimum and just be happy and positive. It's just better that way. Nobody really wants to hear about it anyway. This was my choice, I even PRAYED for this! So it's my deal. I can do it without complaining. I do get frustrated with people thinking that this is easy for me though, so I think that's what triggers the complaints usually. Just the other day someone was relating a story of "another woman who has easy pregnancies who had ___ number of kids". Kinda irked me. But who cares. It's not like anyone knows what anyone's pregnancies are like anyway. Sort of depends on each individual's level of pain tolerance too I think!
On another note, with all the talk about stillborn babies and people losing children (there's been a lot lately), I'm developing a new level of worry about this. Even in the temple I had the thought, don't hang on to those moments in the hospital too tightly. That's always been the thing I hang onto throughout the pregnancy, knowing that I will have those special first moments with this baby eventually and knowing that this will all be for something wonderful and worthwhilte. Those are my light at the end of the tunnel. I keep feeling like I shouldn't do that this time though. I'm not sure why. Maybe I just need to savor this pregnancy more. It is probably my last. Maybe I don't get to have those moments with this baby? Maybe something will happen to take that away? I don't know. Heavenly Father knows and I know that He will help me. It's stressing me out in the meantime. I need to show more faith in His plan and be willing to adjust mine to fit with His. That has never been easy for me. So far everything has gone my way though. I've always had the healthy baby with very few complications. So maybe I've just used up too many of my good odds... who knows. Maybe I'm just crazy and there's really nothing to worry about... who knows. I will just keep praying for this baby to be happy, healthy, full-term, and complicationless... will you too please??
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)