Don't worry it's just plastic. If only I'd gotten a picture when she had it hanging out of her mouth! Gives me chills just thinking about it!
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Future Memories
- I started getting emails and messages on Facebook about Charity being in the Friend this week. 12-21-10 We of course have not received our January Friend yet, so we were unable to see it. But today we went to the Distribution Center and bought one :) (I'm thinking our subscription is expired or something.... not sure why we didn't get one yet). She, on her own accord, wrote the thing out and filled out the envelope, and picked out a picture. I am really proud of her for even thinking the things she wrote about, but also that she would put forth effort to send it all in. She's so cool. Kelly has sent things in also, and is slightly disappointed that hers hasn't made it in, but we're hoping something shows up in the future :) What fun for kids :) She's on the inside of the front cover of the January 2011 edition. She's so happy about it :)
- One thing I love during the last week of Christmas, is going to the store and smiling at all the grumpy people who hate that they are at the store picking out presents for people in all the crowds.
- I love finding something that my kids like at the store, letting them play with it as we walk through the store, making them put it back, then grabbing it while they're not looking (and still crying of course) and hiding it in my cart to buy and give them for Christmas. Their tears are like tears of future joy :) I can't wait to see Noah when he opens his toy guitar :) he was so sad to have to leave it there.....
- Today was insane!! (12-22-10) Erika woke me up with her vomit. How nice is THAT! I thought it was probably because of the candy the night before (considering there was a starburst wrapper that had come back up), so I fed her a plain pancake, and possibly because of the dryness of it (or because she's really sick, not sure yet) she threw up again. She had diarrhea a lot too, but anyway. She was in need of SO much attention all day. It's been a while since anyone was sick. I really shouldn't even complain about it because we've been so lucky all winter, but it was just so hard to get anything done. Anything besides catching up on all of our Word World, Magic School Bus, Phineas and Ferb, and iCarly episodes (in that order, over and over again) that is. Not exactly how I had planned to spend Christmas break, but whatever. I'm hoping she was just overloaded with sugar or teething. Nobody else has gotten it yet, but we'll see. Hopefully if anyone does it can just go straight through to everyone and we can be done with it before Christmas Day. I can hope right? Anyway- my poor sweet Erika gave me lots of loves and cuddles today and that was the good thing about it all :)
- Also on the 22nd, I received a text from my Dad telling me that he and Pam had gotten married while they were in San Diego! So it's official! Kind of a bummer that we didn't get to see it all, but at the same time- HALLELUJIAH! We didn't have to do all the wedding crap. Don't get me wrong, I love weddings, just not weddings for my parents. It's just not my favorite. Rude huh. Oh well. I'm happy for them! They do seem really happy. Especially in the video of Pam smashing the cake in my Dad's face at her house a few days later. Funny stuff. I don't know if I've ever seen anyone get my Dad first! This should be interesting :)
- I finally mademy our stockings! Just finished them tonight (12-22-10). They look pretty good if I do say so myself :) I am really happy with how they turned out. There are things I would have done differently given more time, but I really like them. Hopefully I'll get a picture of them. I'm giving them to the kids on Christmas Eve. So hopefully!
- I failed again. Ugh. Well, I know I didn't really "fail" I just feel like I did. I let Heavenly Father down I guess. Today is Sunday. I felt prompted to make a comment in RS and never made it. I even got all nervous and my heart started pounding, which is usually what has to happen in order for me to make a comment. And I told Heavenly Father I would make the comment if he would please just help me to calm down. He did. And I didn't. I am not good at opening up in a new ward. But I really wanted to tell the story about us moving back to Utah. There are a lot of faith building experiences involved with that week and a half. It was a huge event. Maybe I'll tell the story again on here to make myself feel better. Anyway. I totally let myself down in RS, got all frustrated with Erika in Sunday School. I have NO idea what is wrong with this little girl. Well, I do have an idea, but "teething" doesn't really cut it for her behavior. She's OUT OF CONTROL!! And I even limitted the sugar intake for the last two days. I need to figure out what to do with her screaming. She's only 1, I've never had to deal with this at such a young age. The vinegar doesn't seem like such a good idea for her, but I might resort to it if I can't think of something else soon. So she drove me to my last nerve and then the screams she let out the first minute of Sacrament meeting just pushed me over the top and we ditched it. I didn't want to go home because..... well, because I like being at church! So we went to the RS room and listened to it in there for a while. Went back into the foyer to get the sacrament then back into the RS room. It was just more than I could handle today for some reason though. Erika could not make up her mind what she wanted. Stand, sit down, put me down, hold me, stand up...... screaming through it all.... I gave up. I totally gave up. There were only 20 minutes left and I just packed up our things and started leading the kids to the door. We stopped in the foyer for a half a minute, just to see if we could stay there for a little while and like I said, it was only a half a minute before I just gave up again. We got out to the car and of course the car battery was dead. Again. I hate that thing. So since nobody was in sight (during Sacrament meeting and all, the last hour of church), we just walked home. It was all snowy and cold, Charity's shoes were not even covering her toes, but I made us all walk home. Left the car there. It was so nuts. I hate that I went home. And then I was grumpy all the rest of the evening. Didn't even cheer up that much for my Mom and Simon when they came for dinner. I feel like a crappy mom and a crappy person. I hate that. So anyway. I just thought it would feel good to get this off my chest and since Nate's still at work.... lucky for him though I guess :) Well, that's all.
Well, actually I think I do want to tell my story about our move back. Maybe that will help me feel better anyway. It was such an awesome thing. So here it is:
We got buddy tickets from my awesome Sister-in-law Sarah. We had only ever felt like they were a miracle. Just dropped into our hands from our father in Heaven. It really couldn't be explained any other way. And we knew we were taking our chances using those, but we didn't worry about it one single bit because we knew that they were a gift and a miracle. We had planned to fly out the week and two days before Christmas. We had shipped most of our stuff beforehand and only had clothing in our 16 pieces of luggage that we were planning on flying with. Our plan was to get back to Utah on the 17th, shop when we got here, so we had nothing for the kids before that. The night before we were supposed to leave, we received a huge suitcase FILLED with gifts for the kids. Someone had doorbell ditched it for us. SO thoughtfully. We cried about that of course, because it really was huge for us. We had money, but not a whole lot. It was really just awesome. Then the Manwarings fed us dinner, the Tuias offered us comfortable clothes since they had found out we were going to wear our Sunday clothes (we were flying standby, it's better to dress nice), gave us a bag of goodies, and the Hickoks and Tuias slipped Nate a wad of money and then they all helped drive us to the airport. We had so much stuff we couldn't do it ourselves. Our one friends, the Manwarings, had consented to letting us leave our minivan with them, while we tried to sell it after we left, so they drove us as well. We were praying so hard for a safe trip. We sat there in the airport, anxiously waiting to hear if we would make it on that flight, or if we would have to wait for a different one to open up. We prayed really hard, but all along I KNEW we would get out of there. I KNEW that Heavenly Father had given us those buddy passes (I forgot to mention how cheap they had been.... $50 a piece, as opposed to the regular $300+ EACH that it normally cost). As the time went, we talked to some of the people at the airport and realized that our chances were almost none. We STILL just KNEW that we were going to make it on the flight, by some miracle. We kept praying. It was intense. And really nerve-racking, especially considering the consequences and what would have to happen next. Well, as I"m sure you know (or might remember) we didn't make it on that flight. Our hearts literally sank when the plane took off. It was so devastating. We loaded up our four little kids and started to try and make a plan. Right then, we saw some people from our ward. They had been really new, but we knew them a little. They had been there to forfeit tickets. They purposely bought tickets for Christmas time knowing that the flights would be SO BOOKED that they would be able to give them up and receive a free hotel stay and restaurant vouchers for giving them up. This is something they had done in years past I guess. So anyway, they GENEROUSLY offered their hotel voucher to us. Totally gave them up to our helpless selves. We really had no where to go (thanks to our crappy landlord who even though we were being charged for the rent still, had gone in and torn the place apart so that we could not go back there). They even drove us to the hotel (since we didn't have our car). This was all at like 3:00 in the morning too mind you. So we stayed the night in a tiny little hotel room, got up and loaded everyone up to give it another try at the airport. I can't believe how hard we had prayed through that all. And to be let down so hard..... it was really difficult to get up the next day and try again. But we still had some hope left. We went to the airport. Found out that they had almost junked our luggage because we had not picked it up the night before (who knew we had to??), then went through all the airport shenanigans a second time. We waited and waited but all the praying the world didn't help. We didn't make it on that flight either. We saw the same friends from the ward though, and they put us up for yet another night in a hotel with their vouchers. It was REALLY hard to go back to that hotel. And I'm not just talking about the emotional part of it. We had ALL of our luggage!!! We had to do a couple of trips. And that meant, taking the luggage to the hotel too. So we spent another night there, at least this time we had more clothes to wear and more toiletries, got up the next day and went for one more round in the punching bag of the airport. Emotionally we were drained! Physically we were completely fatigued. The money was really running out (what a HUGE blessing that money was!!!) and we were starting to wonder if we were EVER going to get out of Alaska. We missed yet another flight. Went back to the airport. This time on our own dollar, and started trying to formulate a plan of how we could drive home, take the ferry home, different options with real tickets (those were SO expensive though) It was just nuts!!! I don't think there are words to describe how Nate and I felt. It was the biggest loneliness I think we have ever felt. We really felt like Heavenly Father had led us astray. And I don't think we were ever mad at him, just mad that we had felt so good about everything up until then. And had never really pictured things going the way that they did. We were totally in this dark hole it felt like. This was about the time that we learned that there weren't even anymore flights out of AK on Delta (ANYWHERE) for the next two days. UGH!! That was really hard to learn. We then received the most amazing phone call from some angels who had put up the money to buy us tickets to fly back to Utah on Christmas Eve. WHAT A MIRACLE!!!! This immediately pulled us out of our hole. We were able to see again. It was so hard to think about not getting back in time to pull Christmas together ourselves, but we knew it was going to be okay and we were just grateful to be getting a second chance. Another miracle. We were very prayerful, and made sure to thank Heavenly Father for that and things felt better. I think we were in the hotel one more night before we got the offer to stay at our friends, the Manwarings' house while they were out of town for the night. They are such saints! I still just don't know what we would have done without the Manwarings. The whole time we lived there, they were our personal Saints. So we hauled all of our crazy luggage and kids up to their house. Slept in their bed even (I was 8 months pregnant with Noah at the time), and used their whole house. It was such a blessing. I dont' know what we would have done without them for that, we were completely broke. All we had was like $100 left on our food stamp card. So this came as a huge blessing. When they returned they offered to let us just stay there until our flight in 4 more days. It was not something I wanted to do. I hate imposing. But we seriously had no other choice. I know they were inspired to offer and that it was a huge sacrifice on their part to share their quiet home with a family of 6 during the last week before Christmas. But they did it. They are Saints. They made us so comfortable. Charity and Nick even let us sleep in their bed while they slept on an air mattress. If I hadn't been pregnant I never would have done that, but that in and of itself saved me as well. I have a hard enough time sleeping in a bed when I'm pregnant. So that was huge. They let us join them in all of their busyings. Made cookies, had dinner together, shared their food, their bathrooms, their Christmas shopping, their love. They even shared their family party with us on the night of the 23rd. We all drove up to Charity's sisters house where everyone in the family treated us like they had known us forever. Made us feel so welcome, shared their games, food, and fun. It was such an amazing experience. I still can't think about this whole thing without being overwhelmed with a sense of reverance. The whole thing was just incredible. It was a miracle. We felt so much love from our friends and so much love from our Father in Heaven, knowing that he had sent us to them. It was an amazing way to spend our Christmastime. The 24th came though, we recieved MORE help getting to the airport (again). Helped us pay for some of our luggage that weighed too much, and gave us their sweet goodbyes. It was a much calmer feeling knowing that we were going to be getting on a plane that night. The nervousness had left and we were simply just sad to be leaving these wonderful people and the beautiful state of Alaska. It did cross my mind several times wondering if moving was really what we wanted to do. But it was of course too late for that :) Our flight back we were actually in the company of a friend from the ward (not a coincidence in my opinion) who helped us a lot with the carry-ons and kids. Sure would have been a lot more awkward without him. That tender little mercy I will always be grateful for. The layover in Seattle as we hit midnight and thus Christmas Day was actually a really special thing. Nate had kept out a birthday gift he had bought for me way before. And surprised me with that there. The room for the kids in that airport was incredible. Another one of those tender mercies I hold dear to my heart. And we made it safely (with Andy's help) back to Utah. Where we were greeted with open arms from all of our family who had been so helpful and supportive of everything we had set out to do. It was incredible. Probably one of my favorite Christmases. And I still haven't even gotten to the part about how the house we had arrnaged to live in had been fully furnished (by family and friends) and all set up, complete with Tree and presents. It was such a sight to walk through the door of what we thought would be a completely empty house and to find a complete home all ready for us. I will never forget the love I felt at that moment. Heavenly Father has blessed us with such amazing family and friends. There were so many miracles that occurred during that week. It's really hard to think that it wasn't supposed to be that way. With all that went "wrong" for it to remain one of my most FAVORITE experiences ever.... Heavenly Father knows us all so well. He knows what we need and when. He knows how we will grow and he knows what will strenthen us. This experience strengthened me. We had NO MONEY, no job, not even a car for the first two days after getting here (and we lived in teh middle of no where too!), but we were so happy!!! I think even that first two months was a huge rollercoaster of moving in, looking for and starting a new job, having a baby, losing my Grandma, having a birthday party, and a baby blessing in one week and living off of nothing but the food storage that had been donated to the cause through all of this, I can't see anything but one big huge miracle that we survived. Heavenly Father blessed us SO MUCH!!!! My faith grew SO MUCH!!! It's incredible to me to think that had everything gone the way it was supposed to, we would have made it back to Utah that first night, bought our presents like we had planned, and it would have been a regular old Christmas that we never thought about again. Those millions of prayers of asking for things to work out would have been answered the way we wanted and we probably would have thought nothing of it. But instead, things went completely different, and instead we witnessed so many services, so many blessings, and so many miracles. Things that we will ALWAYS hold dear to our hearts. Things that we will never forget. And while I would have shortened this IMENSELY to share it with the RS today, this is why I wanted to share it. Because my faith did grow. Heavenly Father knows me and knows my Spirit. He knew that this experience would be one that was cherished. And I look back on it as a testimony of his love and his care. Thanks for reading if you did :) This is probably all written out in a few other places, and some of the details may be off, but either way, it's one of my pearls. And now I feel much better :)
- One thing I love during the last week of Christmas, is going to the store and smiling at all the grumpy people who hate that they are at the store picking out presents for people in all the crowds.
- I love finding something that my kids like at the store, letting them play with it as we walk through the store, making them put it back, then grabbing it while they're not looking (and still crying of course) and hiding it in my cart to buy and give them for Christmas. Their tears are like tears of future joy :) I can't wait to see Noah when he opens his toy guitar :) he was so sad to have to leave it there.....
- Today was insane!! (12-22-10) Erika woke me up with her vomit. How nice is THAT! I thought it was probably because of the candy the night before (considering there was a starburst wrapper that had come back up), so I fed her a plain pancake, and possibly because of the dryness of it (or because she's really sick, not sure yet) she threw up again. She had diarrhea a lot too, but anyway. She was in need of SO much attention all day. It's been a while since anyone was sick. I really shouldn't even complain about it because we've been so lucky all winter, but it was just so hard to get anything done. Anything besides catching up on all of our Word World, Magic School Bus, Phineas and Ferb, and iCarly episodes (in that order, over and over again) that is. Not exactly how I had planned to spend Christmas break, but whatever. I'm hoping she was just overloaded with sugar or teething. Nobody else has gotten it yet, but we'll see. Hopefully if anyone does it can just go straight through to everyone and we can be done with it before Christmas Day. I can hope right? Anyway- my poor sweet Erika gave me lots of loves and cuddles today and that was the good thing about it all :)
- Also on the 22nd, I received a text from my Dad telling me that he and Pam had gotten married while they were in San Diego! So it's official! Kind of a bummer that we didn't get to see it all, but at the same time- HALLELUJIAH! We didn't have to do all the wedding crap. Don't get me wrong, I love weddings, just not weddings for my parents. It's just not my favorite. Rude huh. Oh well. I'm happy for them! They do seem really happy. Especially in the video of Pam smashing the cake in my Dad's face at her house a few days later. Funny stuff. I don't know if I've ever seen anyone get my Dad first! This should be interesting :)
- I finally made
- I failed again. Ugh. Well, I know I didn't really "fail" I just feel like I did. I let Heavenly Father down I guess. Today is Sunday. I felt prompted to make a comment in RS and never made it. I even got all nervous and my heart started pounding, which is usually what has to happen in order for me to make a comment. And I told Heavenly Father I would make the comment if he would please just help me to calm down. He did. And I didn't. I am not good at opening up in a new ward. But I really wanted to tell the story about us moving back to Utah. There are a lot of faith building experiences involved with that week and a half. It was a huge event. Maybe I'll tell the story again on here to make myself feel better. Anyway. I totally let myself down in RS, got all frustrated with Erika in Sunday School. I have NO idea what is wrong with this little girl. Well, I do have an idea, but "teething" doesn't really cut it for her behavior. She's OUT OF CONTROL!! And I even limitted the sugar intake for the last two days. I need to figure out what to do with her screaming. She's only 1, I've never had to deal with this at such a young age. The vinegar doesn't seem like such a good idea for her, but I might resort to it if I can't think of something else soon. So she drove me to my last nerve and then the screams she let out the first minute of Sacrament meeting just pushed me over the top and we ditched it. I didn't want to go home because..... well, because I like being at church! So we went to the RS room and listened to it in there for a while. Went back into the foyer to get the sacrament then back into the RS room. It was just more than I could handle today for some reason though. Erika could not make up her mind what she wanted. Stand, sit down, put me down, hold me, stand up...... screaming through it all.... I gave up. I totally gave up. There were only 20 minutes left and I just packed up our things and started leading the kids to the door. We stopped in the foyer for a half a minute, just to see if we could stay there for a little while and like I said, it was only a half a minute before I just gave up again. We got out to the car and of course the car battery was dead. Again. I hate that thing. So since nobody was in sight (during Sacrament meeting and all, the last hour of church), we just walked home. It was all snowy and cold, Charity's shoes were not even covering her toes, but I made us all walk home. Left the car there. It was so nuts. I hate that I went home. And then I was grumpy all the rest of the evening. Didn't even cheer up that much for my Mom and Simon when they came for dinner. I feel like a crappy mom and a crappy person. I hate that. So anyway. I just thought it would feel good to get this off my chest and since Nate's still at work.... lucky for him though I guess :) Well, that's all.
Well, actually I think I do want to tell my story about our move back. Maybe that will help me feel better anyway. It was such an awesome thing. So here it is:
We got buddy tickets from my awesome Sister-in-law Sarah. We had only ever felt like they were a miracle. Just dropped into our hands from our father in Heaven. It really couldn't be explained any other way. And we knew we were taking our chances using those, but we didn't worry about it one single bit because we knew that they were a gift and a miracle. We had planned to fly out the week and two days before Christmas. We had shipped most of our stuff beforehand and only had clothing in our 16 pieces of luggage that we were planning on flying with. Our plan was to get back to Utah on the 17th, shop when we got here, so we had nothing for the kids before that. The night before we were supposed to leave, we received a huge suitcase FILLED with gifts for the kids. Someone had doorbell ditched it for us. SO thoughtfully. We cried about that of course, because it really was huge for us. We had money, but not a whole lot. It was really just awesome. Then the Manwarings fed us dinner, the Tuias offered us comfortable clothes since they had found out we were going to wear our Sunday clothes (we were flying standby, it's better to dress nice), gave us a bag of goodies, and the Hickoks and Tuias slipped Nate a wad of money and then they all helped drive us to the airport. We had so much stuff we couldn't do it ourselves. Our one friends, the Manwarings, had consented to letting us leave our minivan with them, while we tried to sell it after we left, so they drove us as well. We were praying so hard for a safe trip. We sat there in the airport, anxiously waiting to hear if we would make it on that flight, or if we would have to wait for a different one to open up. We prayed really hard, but all along I KNEW we would get out of there. I KNEW that Heavenly Father had given us those buddy passes (I forgot to mention how cheap they had been.... $50 a piece, as opposed to the regular $300+ EACH that it normally cost). As the time went, we talked to some of the people at the airport and realized that our chances were almost none. We STILL just KNEW that we were going to make it on the flight, by some miracle. We kept praying. It was intense. And really nerve-racking, especially considering the consequences and what would have to happen next. Well, as I"m sure you know (or might remember) we didn't make it on that flight. Our hearts literally sank when the plane took off. It was so devastating. We loaded up our four little kids and started to try and make a plan. Right then, we saw some people from our ward. They had been really new, but we knew them a little. They had been there to forfeit tickets. They purposely bought tickets for Christmas time knowing that the flights would be SO BOOKED that they would be able to give them up and receive a free hotel stay and restaurant vouchers for giving them up. This is something they had done in years past I guess. So anyway, they GENEROUSLY offered their hotel voucher to us. Totally gave them up to our helpless selves. We really had no where to go (thanks to our crappy landlord who even though we were being charged for the rent still, had gone in and torn the place apart so that we could not go back there). They even drove us to the hotel (since we didn't have our car). This was all at like 3:00 in the morning too mind you. So we stayed the night in a tiny little hotel room, got up and loaded everyone up to give it another try at the airport. I can't believe how hard we had prayed through that all. And to be let down so hard..... it was really difficult to get up the next day and try again. But we still had some hope left. We went to the airport. Found out that they had almost junked our luggage because we had not picked it up the night before (who knew we had to??), then went through all the airport shenanigans a second time. We waited and waited but all the praying the world didn't help. We didn't make it on that flight either. We saw the same friends from the ward though, and they put us up for yet another night in a hotel with their vouchers. It was REALLY hard to go back to that hotel. And I'm not just talking about the emotional part of it. We had ALL of our luggage!!! We had to do a couple of trips. And that meant, taking the luggage to the hotel too. So we spent another night there, at least this time we had more clothes to wear and more toiletries, got up the next day and went for one more round in the punching bag of the airport. Emotionally we were drained! Physically we were completely fatigued. The money was really running out (what a HUGE blessing that money was!!!) and we were starting to wonder if we were EVER going to get out of Alaska. We missed yet another flight. Went back to the airport. This time on our own dollar, and started trying to formulate a plan of how we could drive home, take the ferry home, different options with real tickets (those were SO expensive though) It was just nuts!!! I don't think there are words to describe how Nate and I felt. It was the biggest loneliness I think we have ever felt. We really felt like Heavenly Father had led us astray. And I don't think we were ever mad at him, just mad that we had felt so good about everything up until then. And had never really pictured things going the way that they did. We were totally in this dark hole it felt like. This was about the time that we learned that there weren't even anymore flights out of AK on Delta (ANYWHERE) for the next two days. UGH!! That was really hard to learn. We then received the most amazing phone call from some angels who had put up the money to buy us tickets to fly back to Utah on Christmas Eve. WHAT A MIRACLE!!!! This immediately pulled us out of our hole. We were able to see again. It was so hard to think about not getting back in time to pull Christmas together ourselves, but we knew it was going to be okay and we were just grateful to be getting a second chance. Another miracle. We were very prayerful, and made sure to thank Heavenly Father for that and things felt better. I think we were in the hotel one more night before we got the offer to stay at our friends, the Manwarings' house while they were out of town for the night. They are such saints! I still just don't know what we would have done without the Manwarings. The whole time we lived there, they were our personal Saints. So we hauled all of our crazy luggage and kids up to their house. Slept in their bed even (I was 8 months pregnant with Noah at the time), and used their whole house. It was such a blessing. I dont' know what we would have done without them for that, we were completely broke. All we had was like $100 left on our food stamp card. So this came as a huge blessing. When they returned they offered to let us just stay there until our flight in 4 more days. It was not something I wanted to do. I hate imposing. But we seriously had no other choice. I know they were inspired to offer and that it was a huge sacrifice on their part to share their quiet home with a family of 6 during the last week before Christmas. But they did it. They are Saints. They made us so comfortable. Charity and Nick even let us sleep in their bed while they slept on an air mattress. If I hadn't been pregnant I never would have done that, but that in and of itself saved me as well. I have a hard enough time sleeping in a bed when I'm pregnant. So that was huge. They let us join them in all of their busyings. Made cookies, had dinner together, shared their food, their bathrooms, their Christmas shopping, their love. They even shared their family party with us on the night of the 23rd. We all drove up to Charity's sisters house where everyone in the family treated us like they had known us forever. Made us feel so welcome, shared their games, food, and fun. It was such an amazing experience. I still can't think about this whole thing without being overwhelmed with a sense of reverance. The whole thing was just incredible. It was a miracle. We felt so much love from our friends and so much love from our Father in Heaven, knowing that he had sent us to them. It was an amazing way to spend our Christmastime. The 24th came though, we recieved MORE help getting to the airport (again). Helped us pay for some of our luggage that weighed too much, and gave us their sweet goodbyes. It was a much calmer feeling knowing that we were going to be getting on a plane that night. The nervousness had left and we were simply just sad to be leaving these wonderful people and the beautiful state of Alaska. It did cross my mind several times wondering if moving was really what we wanted to do. But it was of course too late for that :) Our flight back we were actually in the company of a friend from the ward (not a coincidence in my opinion) who helped us a lot with the carry-ons and kids. Sure would have been a lot more awkward without him. That tender little mercy I will always be grateful for. The layover in Seattle as we hit midnight and thus Christmas Day was actually a really special thing. Nate had kept out a birthday gift he had bought for me way before. And surprised me with that there. The room for the kids in that airport was incredible. Another one of those tender mercies I hold dear to my heart. And we made it safely (with Andy's help) back to Utah. Where we were greeted with open arms from all of our family who had been so helpful and supportive of everything we had set out to do. It was incredible. Probably one of my favorite Christmases. And I still haven't even gotten to the part about how the house we had arrnaged to live in had been fully furnished (by family and friends) and all set up, complete with Tree and presents. It was such a sight to walk through the door of what we thought would be a completely empty house and to find a complete home all ready for us. I will never forget the love I felt at that moment. Heavenly Father has blessed us with such amazing family and friends. There were so many miracles that occurred during that week. It's really hard to think that it wasn't supposed to be that way. With all that went "wrong" for it to remain one of my most FAVORITE experiences ever.... Heavenly Father knows us all so well. He knows what we need and when. He knows how we will grow and he knows what will strenthen us. This experience strengthened me. We had NO MONEY, no job, not even a car for the first two days after getting here (and we lived in teh middle of no where too!), but we were so happy!!! I think even that first two months was a huge rollercoaster of moving in, looking for and starting a new job, having a baby, losing my Grandma, having a birthday party, and a baby blessing in one week and living off of nothing but the food storage that had been donated to the cause through all of this, I can't see anything but one big huge miracle that we survived. Heavenly Father blessed us SO MUCH!!!! My faith grew SO MUCH!!! It's incredible to me to think that had everything gone the way it was supposed to, we would have made it back to Utah that first night, bought our presents like we had planned, and it would have been a regular old Christmas that we never thought about again. Those millions of prayers of asking for things to work out would have been answered the way we wanted and we probably would have thought nothing of it. But instead, things went completely different, and instead we witnessed so many services, so many blessings, and so many miracles. Things that we will ALWAYS hold dear to our hearts. Things that we will never forget. And while I would have shortened this IMENSELY to share it with the RS today, this is why I wanted to share it. Because my faith did grow. Heavenly Father knows me and knows my Spirit. He knew that this experience would be one that was cherished. And I look back on it as a testimony of his love and his care. Thanks for reading if you did :) This is probably all written out in a few other places, and some of the details may be off, but either way, it's one of my pearls. And now I feel much better :)
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Random Pictures (because I'm too lazy to make separate posts)
I just thought this was a cute shot of my big girl in action. She really is getting so grown up lately! She walks and runs and SPINS so well now! Her shirt really says it all too :) Nah, just kidding. She's a strong-willed little girl who just loves her Mommy :) And when she's not getting my undivided attention she gets cranky, that's all :) She really loves the Christmas tree and all the ornaments. I have been finding them EVERYWHERE! It's fun to have a little one to move all the ornaments up for though :) For some reason. She's so independent lately and so anxious to grow up. She understands so much. I always tell her to go get me a doll or a baby when she needs to be distracted. It's cute that she gets all excited to do me a favor :) She also enjoys helping Noah or Luke emptying the dishwasher.... they're all so funny together when they're doing it though :) It's more entertaining than anything I'm afraid.
She has a lot of fun with her Daddy lately too. They're both big teases. You wouldn't think a 1 year old could understand teasing, but she is a PRO!
Christmas Sing-a-Long
Every year our school does this fun little Sing-a-long. It's on the last day before Winter break, 9:00 in the morning. There isn't a formal invitation, kind of an exclusive event (or the closest we would ever come to one :) HA!), so there are very few parents there. All of the grades prepare a song and get to sing it in front of everyone. I love it because it's short, fun, and Santa always comes at the end. Even my non-schoolers seem to enjoy it enough :) Nate has Fridays off so we got to bring him with us! Charity's class did Up on the Housetop she got to play the ukelele. She's really enjoyed learning that this year and i thought it was really fun to wfinally hear them play. They're actually pretty good! I was impressed. Kelly's class did a cute Cool Santa song. Kelly's been singing it for us for a couple weeks now and she has THE CUTEST actions to it!! They didn't do the actions at the sing-a-long, but I need to get a video of her doing it because she looks so adorable shaking her little hips. Bradley, even though he has afternoon kindergarten, was able to sing with the morning Kindergarten thanks to his awesome teacher. She saw him, offered to let him join them, helped him take off his coat and then scoured the place to see if there were any other afternooners there. She's so amazing! I love it when you can tell that a teacher loves what they do. Makes ya feel more like letting them help you raise your kid. They sang Jingle Bells with a dog verse at the end. Then Santa came and graced us with his presence. Nate informed me that he wasn't the REAL Santa because he doesn't have white gloves. Air Traffic Controllers have some major connections!
I'll have to go on picasa and put some arrows in this one to point out Kelly and Brad. It was hard to get a good picture. Where's my Dad's lens when I need it right?!.....
Nate took these one day when he was outside playing in the snow with Erika. She sure has loved the snow, although I've never been able to get her to walk through it like Nate did this day.
oh my poor little baby!! So sad!!! : (
But of course she got over it and went back to playing in the snow with her cold hands.
She's so pretty.
Touching the snow!!! I love it!! She sure loves to touch everything. It's fun to watch her explore the world. It really is so fascinating to her.
I don't know if this picture was meant for this purpose, but if you look closely you can see all of the quail in the corn stalks. We have had SO MANY birds in our yard. Nate put out bird seed, so they just love being around. Erika has loved it. I love watching her squeal and jump around when she sees them outside. That's one of our favorite things to do lately, sit around and watch the birds outside :) This yard sure has changed my opinion of Winter.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Family Pictures
This might seem like a rerun, since I posted some from this photo shoot a while back, but THESE are from Brent and Sarah. And they have a way better camera and photoshop, so you can bet they are better :) I was happy to get one of our whole family. This one is probably the best, minus the fact that Erika is not looking at the camera. I was going to ask Sarah to swap her face with one from another picture, but she's pretty much crustying in all the others, so maybe this is better for now :) I wish I was skinnier also, but I'm working on that! And hopefully I can just look back on this picture (soon :) ) and say, "I'm so glad I don't look like that anymore." I know I've got the 6 kids excuse, but that just isn't going to cut it too much longer :)
I should probably be throwing in a plug for my favorite photographers! Click HERE to check out their amazing work.
I didn't realize we had gotten one of these that actually passes as okay :) If only we could see Brad's face a little better..... gosh I'm picky!
This is hilarious. Not the fact that Charlie is crying.... just that these two are so funny together. I'm glad Noah was going in for a hug from his sad cousin. I hope they're always good buds.
for some reason I think framing this and hanging it on the wall would be fun :) It's so us.
Future Memories
- Monday 12/14/10, I started my "new me" program today :) (it's not anything official, that's just what I'm calling all my new goals and schedule). I did REALLY well!! I am really happy with how the day went and what I accomplished. And that's saying a lot. It's been a while. I am so thankful to have a husband who holds to Priesthood so that I could receive the blessing I did last night. I really want to make this work so I asked for a blessing to help me pull it off. I'm hoping above all to be able to have His Spirit more strongly in my life.
- The kids worked SO HARD today!! It's the last day before pay day, and the last pay day before Christmas so the kids all wanted to cram in the jobs to earn money for presents. I can't believe how much they got done!! I did jack up the pay a little, just because I know how much fun it is to buy presents for people and I wanted them to have enough money, but they earned a TON!!! Hopefully we can afford it all :) HA! jk. So it was a good evening. Minus all the trips on the stairs. Our stairs do not have carpet on them and they're strange, not normal size, so the kids keep getting hurt on them. I can't get them to slow down. Tonight was especially bad, I think everyone took a turn falling and bruising up their shins. Not good. Does anyone have any ideas how to remedy this??? how to keep my kids from trying to run up them??
- I've been working out now for a week and I already got sick. This always happens when I start working out. I'm not sure if it's because of it, or just to simply make it harder. Either way, I'm not letting it stop me!!
- The kids have all been doing their shopping for their friends' gifts all week. I've been really proud of them with how thoughtful they are. And to use their own money.... it's really fun to watch their generosity. Noah has been getting a little jealous and finally asked if he could get his "Charlie friend" (that's his cousin) a gift. I couldn't say no, so I told him we would look for something for him! Well, from that minute on, EVERYTHING he saw at ANY store, he wanted for Charlie. Or I should say, "Charlie wanted". He needed to get him everything. It was adorable. And at one point I had to drag him out of the guitar store screaming, "CHARLIE WANTS A GUITAR!!!!!" It was hilarious. Needless to say we picked out something at our next stop so that the madness could end :) I'm glad he loves Charlie so much.
- Sunday 12-19-10 the RS lesson was about keeping the Sabbath Day Holy. It really hit me for some reason, and made me analyze how my Sundays are. I really do have a lot of work in this area. It's tough though because overall, we're not doing things to intentionally break the Sabbath. But in this lesson, something she said made me think that it's more about what you DO than about what you don't do. So anyway. Here are a list of some of the things I'm going to work on. 1. Getting things ready on Saturday. This means a clean house, clean, IRONED clothes, and everything found and put in a spot where we can get them quickly- especially shoes. We've done better with this in the past but somehow fallen behind. 9:00 church will help I'm sure. 2. No TV, no movies, no computer. 3. Read, read, read. Scriptures, The Friend, The Ensign, Journals, Scripture Pictures, anything that will help uplift. 4. Write letters, journal, and for the kids, draw pictures. 5. Focus more on what can bring the Spirit, rather than just eliminating the things that don't really. 6. Be happy, relax, possibly take a nap. 7. Easy Dinners. 8. Visit family. Hopefully these things will help me AND my family to enjoy the Sabbath more and enjoy keeping that commandment.
- The kids worked SO HARD today!! It's the last day before pay day, and the last pay day before Christmas so the kids all wanted to cram in the jobs to earn money for presents. I can't believe how much they got done!! I did jack up the pay a little, just because I know how much fun it is to buy presents for people and I wanted them to have enough money, but they earned a TON!!! Hopefully we can afford it all :) HA! jk. So it was a good evening. Minus all the trips on the stairs. Our stairs do not have carpet on them and they're strange, not normal size, so the kids keep getting hurt on them. I can't get them to slow down. Tonight was especially bad, I think everyone took a turn falling and bruising up their shins. Not good. Does anyone have any ideas how to remedy this??? how to keep my kids from trying to run up them??
- I've been working out now for a week and I already got sick. This always happens when I start working out. I'm not sure if it's because of it, or just to simply make it harder. Either way, I'm not letting it stop me!!
- The kids have all been doing their shopping for their friends' gifts all week. I've been really proud of them with how thoughtful they are. And to use their own money.... it's really fun to watch their generosity. Noah has been getting a little jealous and finally asked if he could get his "Charlie friend" (that's his cousin) a gift. I couldn't say no, so I told him we would look for something for him! Well, from that minute on, EVERYTHING he saw at ANY store, he wanted for Charlie. Or I should say, "Charlie wanted". He needed to get him everything. It was adorable. And at one point I had to drag him out of the guitar store screaming, "CHARLIE WANTS A GUITAR!!!!!" It was hilarious. Needless to say we picked out something at our next stop so that the madness could end :) I'm glad he loves Charlie so much.
- Sunday 12-19-10 the RS lesson was about keeping the Sabbath Day Holy. It really hit me for some reason, and made me analyze how my Sundays are. I really do have a lot of work in this area. It's tough though because overall, we're not doing things to intentionally break the Sabbath. But in this lesson, something she said made me think that it's more about what you DO than about what you don't do. So anyway. Here are a list of some of the things I'm going to work on. 1. Getting things ready on Saturday. This means a clean house, clean, IRONED clothes, and everything found and put in a spot where we can get them quickly- especially shoes. We've done better with this in the past but somehow fallen behind. 9:00 church will help I'm sure. 2. No TV, no movies, no computer. 3. Read, read, read. Scriptures, The Friend, The Ensign, Journals, Scripture Pictures, anything that will help uplift. 4. Write letters, journal, and for the kids, draw pictures. 5. Focus more on what can bring the Spirit, rather than just eliminating the things that don't really. 6. Be happy, relax, possibly take a nap. 7. Easy Dinners. 8. Visit family. Hopefully these things will help me AND my family to enjoy the Sabbath more and enjoy keeping that commandment.
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