Love Thursday

Here is my post for Love Thursday. Check it out at Shutter Sisters. It's a great site.

This is my daughter M. and her Great-Grandma about 4 years ago. Grandma was in the hospital and M. was being confirmed a member of the L.D.S. church. Grandma wanted to be there for the confirmation but couldn't so we took M. to see her instead.

I'm so grateful that my kids have had the chance to know some of their Great-Grandparents. They truly are great. This particular Grandma will be 97 this month on Valentines Day. I have been so blessed to have her in my life for so long.

Happy Birthday Yesterday G!

I didn't have enough time yesterday to sit down and wish my second son G. a happy birthday. I was busy getting a new ink cartridge so I could print out pictures to make him a poster. Then I went and picked him up from school for our traditional "birthday lunch" (which per usual was spent at McDonald's. I really can't wait for my kids' taste in food to change) . Then, because I procrastinated and had NOTHING in the way of presents for G. I had to venture out into almost white out conditions to get him some toys for his birthday. He's sure lucky I love him. :)

He's a great kid with a wonderful sense of humor that I really enjoy. Sometimes he doesn't take things as seriously as he should but that problem can probably be laid at my feet, because I am the same way. I love his smile and the hugs that he gives to me daily. He came to us 17 months after M. and that was difficult for us but I wouldn't change it for the world. He and M. are fast friends and I hope that continues throughout their lives.

Happy Birthday G. My sunshine.

Gordon B. Hinckley June 23, 1910-January 27, 2008

Yesterday after we had just wrapped up the family party for j. and G. my brother called me to tell me that the Prophet and president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Gordon B. Hinckley had passed away. He was a wonderful man, full of life and love for everyone. His sense of humor will be one of the things that I will miss most. He was a servant of the Lord up to the last. I am grateful to have lived during his time as the leader of the church.

He was a prophet of the Lord. I believe with all my heart that President Hinckley knew Christ and our Father in Heaven and received inspiration from them for our church and for the world. The time of prophets is not past. It is here again and has been since Joseph Smith knelt in prayer in the Sacred Grove. If you wish to find out more about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints just click on the link and it will take you where you want to go.

Good-bye President Hinckley. 'Till we meet again.

(The photo used in this post was from Sariah Says. She has some other fabulous photo's of President Hinckely on her blog. If you want to go and check them out.)

Tagged!

I was tagged by Julie so here goes!

A: The rules of the game are posted at the beginning.
B: Each player answers the questions about themselves.
C: At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.


10 years ago...
M. was 5 months old and a very difficult baby. I was dealing with the baby blues and just struggling in general. It was around this time (or soon there after) that I found the internet and online communities that I could turn to for help. I've been online ever since.

5 things on my to do list today...
1. Go to church
2. Help my primary class do sharing time
3. Make cakes for G. and j.
4. Have family party for G. and j.
5 Make birthday poster for G. to take to school tomorrow


Snacks I enjoy...
I love to snack, what I love to snack on depends on the day. Cookie dough is a favorite though.


What would I do if I were suddenly made a billionaire...
Pay tithing, get money adviser, pay off debt, donate some to charities, add on to the house and travel.

3 of my bad habits...
1. Procrastination. G.'s birthday is tomorrow...do I have any presents bought? Nope and tomorrow we are supposed to get hit with a big ole snow storm so I'll be out in it. Lovely.
2. Eating Junk Food and not getting enough exercise.
3. Watching too much t.v.

5 places I have lived... well I'll just do since we've been married.
1. My hometown, Utah
2. Salt Lake City, Utah
3. South Salt Lake City, Utah
4. My hometown, Utah
5. My hometown, Utah

5 jobs I have had...
1. Babysitter
2. Telephone Surveyor (yes I was one of THOSE people)
3. Fast food worker (Arby's)
4. Housekeeper
5. Cook/Dishwasher in a small restaurant


Things people don't know about me...
I am actually a fairly shy person. I could probably be a hermit if I didn't force myself out of my comfort zone and talk to people.
I have a third nipple (Just kidding...that was for the benefit of Erin)
I have over 40 nieces and nephews...I'm not sure exactly how many, 46 or 47 I think. That's what happens when you have 7 siblings. Oh and I'm a Great Aunt.


I am tagging...
Erin, Ty and Julie took the only other two people who I know well enough to tag!

Happy Birthday!

So today is the birthday of my little j. She is 5 years old...or will be at around 11 p.m. I am not one of those mom's who can tell you the exact time of birth of my children. I can give you an approximation but not an exact time unless I 'm looking at the birth certificate. Is that bad?

Anyway at this time 5 years ago we were patiently waiting for j. to arrive. The day didn't start off with me being so patient though. I had an appt. with my OB and it was a week before my due date. Because my first baby was 9 pounds 8 ounces my doctor was willing to set up an induction date but that wasn't set until the 30th and I was VERY uncomfortable. I had been having contractions on and off all morning so I was hoping that when I went in to my dr's appt. that he would tell me that I could go straight over to the hospital. In a fit of optimism I packed the car with everything and headed to my appt.

Of course I was crushed when the dr. told me that everything looked good but to just go home and wait. I cried the whole way home. I tried to get back into a good mind set but when T. came home at around 5 I broke down again. I cried and cried. And I prayed. I asked that if there was any way that I could have j. as long as it didn't put her at risk, could I PLEASE get on with it. I went into full blown labor about 6:30 p.m. My prayer was answered and we headed over to the hospital.

With my first three children I did not have an epidural. I did have pain meds but not an epidural. Those things scared the heebie jeebies out of me. I was terrified that I would get one of those awful headaches that can sometimes happen when you get one. This time around though I was having some serious back labor and after having back surgery a year earlier I knew I wouldn't be able to do this without an epidural. So when the nurse asked me if I wanted one I said yes. My husband about fainted because I hadn't told him that I was even considering one. The anesthesiologist came in and got me all prepped and gave me the shot. Everything went fine with it but I still cried for about 20 minutes after he gave it to me because of the fear of the headache (which, btw, I never got thank heavens!).

After the epidural everything was great. I was able to drift in and out of sleep and I could administer the stuff to myself by pushing a little button, it was great. My dh actually didn't like this as much because he didn't feel like he was as much a part of it as the other three where he helped me breathe, oh well. Finally just before 11 I felt like I had to push so they got everything ready and I pushed probably 5 to 7 times and she was here. Beautiful and pink and not making a sound. The nurses said that they had never seen a baby that color of pink before who wasn't crying. The doctor handed her to me and she looked at me. The nurses were roughing her up drying her off trying to get her to cry and it ticked me off. She was lovely and pink and why did she need to cry? Well she finally started crying and that made the nurses happy. They took her off to measure and weigh her... I don't remember the length but she was 9 pounds even. Just beautiful.

She is still a pretty quiet kid. She doesn't say much if she doesn't feel like talking and she is pretty reserved in large groups, but if you get her going in a small group of people that she knows it's hard to get her to stop.

I've throughly enjoyed these past five years with here. The last few months have been rough. She's exerted her will and I've tried my best to back off and let her be but we butt heads often. I think we are too much alike, she and I. But I love her and I'm grateful for her influence in my life. I'm looking forward to watching her continue to grow and learn and exert her will, even if it gets hard sometimes. Because as she grows so do I.

Love you j. Happy Birthday.

Self Portrait and Corners

So here I am doing my best to show off my new hair color....dark blonde....although it doesn't look all that blonde to me. Tonight I'm doing highlights.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering, no my husband has not noticed or said anything about my hair and it's been colored for two days now.

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This is an old wooden high chair that my mil bought at a yard sale for our oldest child. It's served us well and just recently I decided to paint it this brilliant green. I love how it looks in my front room in front of the yellow paint. It's a bright spot in the room.

Being more creative

I need to find ways to be creative or at least stretch myself in a more creative way. From some other blogs I visit I've received some inspiration. One is doing a self portrait a day for a year. I like this idea and maybe that will give me a kick in the pants to pick up my camera for things other than my kids' birthdays. I also like the idea of taking pictures of different places/things in my house, as a friend calls it "Corners of my home" so I'm going to give that a shot as well. I've found inspiration on some more popular blogs as well, Alli Edwards, Tara Whitney and Mindy Bartell. I've so enjoyed this blogs so thank you to you who have led me to them!

Okay so first I will start with a self portrait I did yesterday in the car whilst waiting for my sil to get done in the grocery store, or maybe it was in the drive way before I went into the house after getting done at the grocery store. I wish that it had turned out more crisp but ah well....

Cloverfield

So Ty and I went to go and see this movie today. It was very entertaining but it was hard for me to watch. It's filmed from the point of view of a hand held video cam and therefore really shaky most of the time. If you have a tendency to get motion sick then this will be hard to watch. It was bad enough that I had to close my eyes a few times and then about 3/4 of the way through I had to get up and go and get a coke to settle my stomach. Yes, I'm a wuss. It's not too scary and actually has a good amount of humor throughout. I highly identified with Hudson the guy "documenting" things as he is the source of most of the light hearted parts of the movie. I give it three and a half stars if you don't get motion sick, if you do then I give it 2 and 1/2 because I really hate getting motion sickness.

Oh and like a reviewer I heard....he said that the camera was expensive enough that it takes a beating and keeps on going, has a light for night shots and a night vision mode, so why then, does it NOT have image stabilization????? WHY!!!????

So if there is a sequel I really hope that the people who caught stuff on film have image stabilization on their video cam, or I don't know if I'll be able to go. *grin*

One thing leads to another, and another and another....

If only it were good things that were happening instead of trials. Ah well, we learn and grow from them right. Actually I'm doing okay with most of the things that have been going on. T. is working on being okay with them. It's still very frustrating though. Let me explain.

Last Saturday, the fifth, our washer conked out on us. Thankfully we could see what part had broken and we were able to order the part and the manual to help us fix it for around $40.

Monday I had to take the Cavalier in to get a new windshield so that it would pass inspection so we could get the stickers that allow us to drive around without getting pulled over. Thankfully the place I took it to got me a deal and saved me close to a $100.

Wednesday rolls around, and a large amount of snow has fallen so T. drives the Durango in to work in four wheel drive. He gets about three quarters of the way there and he no longer needs to be in four wheel drive so he shifts out of it. All of the sudden he smells this really bad sulphuric smell and loses power. He pulls over to the side of the freeway and smoke is rolling out from under the hood. Lovely. He does make it to his work safely so we don't have to call a tow truck right away. One of the guys he works with is a part time/on the side/hobby mechanic and together they figure out it's the front differential. (Something to do with the four wheel drive). Meanwhile I'm calling all around trying to find a trailer we can borrow so that we can tow it to our mechanics ourselves. We do have tow insurance but they only cover 11 miles and our mechanic is about 35 miles from where T. works. I couldn't find a trailer so we ended up having to call my nephew who works for a towing company to go and pick it up on Thursday. He said that he would give us "the family discount" whatever that is but it was worth it to have him be able to tow it for us. I still don't know what the bill will be. We trust him and he took it to our mechanics for us. Our mechanic called to tell us he was able to find us a used part, thankfully saving us $1200. The Durango was fixed Friday night but T. and I were out on a date so we didn't go and pick it up.

Friday the parts and the manual arrived for the washing machine. Woo! Guess how our Saturday was spent. Well most of it anyway. We had put the machine face down on the floor so as to get to the parts we needed to get to last Saturday and it had remained in that position since then. As we went in to flip it over onto it's back we look in the cabinet below the motor and it is filled with oil and water. Great. T. cleaned that all up and we got it flipped. The actual taking apart and putting together of the washer went pretty smoothly. Other than T. had to deal with oil and grease, which he doesn't do very well but he was a trooper. We get the washer back on it's feet and go to give it a test run.

T. points out the extension cord that it was plugged into, that had been unplugged last Saturday and tells me to hand that to him so he can plug it back in. I look at the cord that has three adapters on it and realize that there is something still plugged into one of those outlets, even though the extension cord itself isn't plugged in. I stopped and stared at it. Crap. The plug that was still in the outlet and yet not plugged in was our freezer. Yep, our freezer. I moved some of the stuff that had been sitting in front of the freezer and saw a lovely dark shaded pool of something or the other on the floor in front of it. Crap. I tell T. and he can't believe it either. So we lost a whole freezer load of food. Much of it deer or elk meat that people had passed on to us. I feel really bad about that. But, on the bright side, my freezer is now defrosted. :) (It's a VERY old freezer given to us by T's grandma.)

So after a long day of fixing the washer and cleaning out the freezer and washing the floor under the freezer I had to iron T's shirt for Sunday. As I was finishing up his shirt I realized the the iron wasn't working as well as it should be. The iron died, gave up the ghost but it did make it through T's shirt so he had one that was ironed for Sunday.

It's one thing and then another and then another. I hope we are at the end of this string of things. I don't think T. can take much more. I don't know if I can take much more. I am trying to look for the positive like how much money we were saved by people working with us and helping us out and our freezer being defrosted.

As Dory says "Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. What do we do we swim!"

Goals

So as a family we sat down on Monday and set some goals. Ones that will hopefully bring more peace into our home and bring our family closer. We are focusing on spending more time together and less time on the computer and away from the t.v.

We talked about Mental, Emotional, Physical, Spiritual and Financial goals. It was a really good Family Home Evening. One of the goals that the kids wanted to do was to write in their journals. So we have set aside from 7:30 to 8:00 p.m. for journal writing time as a whole family. It's been really neat the last couple of days to see the three older ones sitting on the couch writing about their day. And Jilli is really excited about it as well. I probably need to have her dictate to me some things that she wants to put in her journal besides just drawing in it.

There is a different spirit in our home because of these goals, I can feel it. Things are calmer and more peaceful. Even in the face of the washer dying and the Durango needing a big repair there is still peace. I'm grateful for that. Hopefully we will be able to continue on this path that we have set so the kids can get a glimpse of how great it is to accomplish a goal that has been set.

One of my goals for the new year is to get out walking every day (except Sunday's) if I can. I had one day this week where I couldn't because of snow and today I won't get out because of some plans that have come up but that's okay. I'll still get out tomorrow. I need to get walking because our ward is going on a Pioneer Trek, with handcarts and everything, in June and I don't want for them to have to perform and actual funeral and bury me on the trail because I'm so out of shape. I've got a walking buddy, YAY! I think that she will really be good for me because she is so gung ho and very much into physical fitness. She also happens to be exceptionally stylish and an amazing bargain hunter so maybe I can get a few tips from her in those areas as well. I also need to get her recipe for her chicken soup that she was making the other day when I was at her house.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today is my mom's birthday. I have an amazing mom. She is beautiful and kind and loving. If you look up Unconditional Love in the dictionary her picture would be there underneath. She has patience and is very slow to judge. I remember times when I was growing up when she would make a small comment about someone. A comment I didn't think was bad or anything, and she would say "Shut my mouth, I shouldn't be saying anything about them." She has always been kind in her words about everyone. And believe me she's come across some people who I think deserved a bad word or two. But she would always try to be nice and think of the good in people. She is amazing. She's taken care of my dad through umpteen surgeries and hospitalizations. Starting with when she was pregnant with me when he was in a gas explosion at work and his hands and face were badly burnt. She's also been there for her eight children. Helping them through the good and the bad. Another word that her picture is by in the dictionary is service. She taught me the importance of service, not through telling me it was important but through her tireless example. She also taught me the importance of honesty. If someone called who we didn't want to talk to she would not lie for us and tell them that we weren't home. She just wouldn't lie. I love my mom. I live two blocks from my mom in the same small (well not so small now) town that I grew up in and that she and dad have lived in for over 50 years. I see people all the time that know my mom and they tell me how much I look like her. And I thank them every time. I only hope that I can be as much like her on the inside as I am on the out.

Happy Birthday Mom, I love you.