Has it really been this long?

I can't believe it was August since I last posted and this year is almost over.  Life got a little crazy for our family when I decided to go back to work in September.  My other work at home job was not longer working out for me and I knew and felt like I needed to make a change.  I had heard that O'Currance in Draper was hiring and that you could be a home agent with this company.  I applied and got hired on. I came home and cried, knowing that things would be a lot different for our family.  They only gave me a couple choices in my schedule, and I decided to do the evening shift Saturday-Wednesday 4-10 PM. With the Holidays it has been very busy so we have been required to put in 40 hours a week.  This has also been very difficult for me.  I feel like I'm running around like a crazy person all the time trying to get everything done that I need to do.  It has made me be a bit more "scheduled" though, I actually find that I am getting more done because my time is much more limited.. What I thought would be a couple weeks working in the office has turned into several months.  I kept getting different answers from everyone as to when I could start working from home.  The desk that I am working on wants you to have a 22% conversion rate on the product that we sell the most.  When I finally got to this rate, I got may paper work signed and then had to wait for a phone, and then also had to wait for IT to call and help me set everything up, by the time I had finally gotten everything set-up my conversion rate had dropped so I was still stuck going in to work.  They are however splitting the desk that I'm on and will be solely selling one product instead of 4 different ones, and should be able to stay at home from then on, this will also give me the chance to change my schedule to work days. Hopefully, this change will give us some sort of normalcy again.  Jeff has been a trooper and helping out a lot.  I couldn't do this without him.

On another note, the kids are doing great!  Morgan started kindergarten (the day I got my job).  I thought I would have a hard time sending her off to kindergarten, but I had more anxiety about Ian being in 8th grade.  I'm so glad that he will still be in middle school next year, I am so not ready to have a kid old enough to be in High School...aye aye aye!!!!

We are enjoying the Christmas season and recently adopted an "Elf" from Santa.  Morgan named her Hart.  She has been very mischievous, we have found a snow angel made out of sugar on our kitchen table,  she got herself a glass of milk and ate a cookie, she has played with Morgan's barbies and her My little Ponies and we've found her hanging on the pull for the ceiling fan.  We are sure having fun finding out where she will be next!

Reaching for Goals

For years and years I've struggled with trying to lose weight.  I always start with good intentions and start strong and then get tired of trying and not seeing results as fast as I think I should.  I realized not too long ago that I always set myself up for failure from the beginning of every weight loss intention.  I would tell myself, I'm going to perfect every single day and exercise hard every single day, but when those sweet cravings came along, and when I didn't feel like exercising, I would beat myself up and stop trying, and then all the weight that I lost would be right back on.

So when I joined Weight Watchers in February, I had those same intentions, to be perfect with my eating and exercising every single day, but something switched in my head this time, and it was during one of the weekly meetings that I feel like I finally "got it".  The leader had passed out a sheet of paper with mantras on them and one of those in particular stuck out so strong with me that day, that I knew for certain that this was going to be the time that I would finally reach the goal that I have longed for for so long.  This was THE mantra, now MY mantra:

"If your driving down the road and get a flat tire, do you get out of your car and slash the other three?  No, you fix it and get back on the road"

So, simple but so true,  We are not expected to be perfect in this life, no matter what we are aiming for, we all stumble and fall, but yet we get back up and try again.  I can't tell you how many times I have faltered, but have remembered my mantra, to get back on the road, and I have this time.  The weight loss hasn't been as fast as I would like, and I've realized that it may take me another year to finally reach my goal, but once I reach that goal, I know that it will be my goal to keep the weight off.

When I reached my 10% goal I got a gold key ring, and when I reached my 25 pounds lost I got a little 25 pound weight that I've attached to my key ring.  This is a constant reminder of the goals that I continue to have.  As of today I've reached 30 pounds lost.  Most of my clothes aren't fitting anymore.  I've cleaned out my closet and given my bigger clothes to D.I.  I don't have a lot of clothes to wear, but I'm more than happy to find my clothes way too baggy than way too tight.  Wal-Mart is my source of clothes for the time being, until I reach my final goal, and then I'll be shopping for a new wardrobe in the regular size clothes section of a department store.

Pre-School Graduation

Morgan finished her 2nd year at Leap Ahead Learning Pre-school.  She had the best teacher Ms. Jennae.  It's always sad for me to see a good chapter end and this was one of those times. She has learned so much, overcome some of her shyness, and really blossomed overall.  My baby will be heading to big school in August for Kindergarten.

Hiking the Y

 A couple of Saturday's ago we decided to hike up to the Y in Provo.  This is my first time and the kids first time too.  Jeff had hiked it before when he was a student at BYU.  After our hike we ate at the  creamery on 9th...YUM

The Prophet said to plant a garden...

This year our ward has encouraged all families to plant a garden.  We have planted a garden most years, but haven't been very good about making it a good garden.  We don't prep our soil well, we are not good at weeding, we only plant a couple of things.  This year I decided that for my Mother's day gift that I wanted a garden that was planted properly and tended to on a regular basis.  So, for Family Home Evening  a couple weeks ago we spent the night pulling weeds and turning the soil.  The following Monday for Family Home Evening we spread fertilizer onto the soil and tilled it, and the we planted our seeds. My mother in law said to soak the seeds for a day or 2 before you plant them.  We have corn, zuchinni, cantalope, carrots, tomatoes & pumpkins.  We even made a small area for Morgan to plant her own garden, she says she wants to be a farmer someday.  We are excited to watch our garden grow and have fresh veggies to eat this summer.

Tilling

Raking

Our seeds ready to be planted

Morgan's own garden

Dirty hands

All finished and waiting to grow

My Oh My Look Who Turned 5

Morgan turned 5 last week and had a very fun filled day!  She chose cinnamon rolls for her birthday breakfast and was excited about going to pre-school to share her day with her friends.  After pre-school we went to lunch with her friend to her favorite place "Old McDonalds".  After lunch her friend came home with her to have a play date.  Later that afternoon we ventured to Build A Bear.  When I asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she told me she wanted a puppy.  So, I quickly had to come up with something that would steer her mind away from that much wanted dog.  I mentioned Build A Bear to her and explained to her that she would get to pick out her own bear, watch it get stuffed, give it a bath, pick out new clothes and then name her bear. She was so excited and I never heard the mention of a new puppy again.  Here she is at Build A Bear creating her new bear named "Butterfly"

 On Saturday she had her friend party and chose a "Garden/Fairy" theme.  I made the tissue paper pom poms in the back and Morgan wanted to keep them up for a few days longer, so they are still adorning our nook.

Butterfly Pinata

 

We played a "hot potato" game to open presents.  We played music while passing around her stuffed frog, when the music stopped the person who was holding the frog got to give Morgan their present from the pile.  It was a bit confusing to them, but it all worked out and everyone was happy.

Blowing out her 5 candles on her butterfly cupcake cake

 We LOVE Morgan to death and we couldn't imagine our lives without her. It's hard to imagine that 5 years have flown by so quickly.  As her birthday was approaching we would tell her that she had to stay 4 forever, but she promised us that she would stay 5 forever :)!  There are so many things about Morgan that I LOVE

She is my "girls night out" companion when the boys are camping - oh yea, we are looking forward to a whole week of "girls nights out" in June when the boys will be at scout camp!!! She makes me laugh and appreciate the simple things in life.

Morgans Likes:

Spaghetti

Reading, Reading and Reading - did I mention Reading

Coloring

Creating

swimming

taking baths

being outside & riding her bike

painting her fingers and toes

sleeping in

story time

pre-school

Morgan's Dislikes:

broccoli

Grilled cheese sandwiches & Quesadillas - she said she doesn't like the melty cheese part, but she will still eat pizza.

going to bed

getting up in the morning (sometimes I think she must be 15 not 5)

spiders & bugs

 

This is how much she LOVES her books - they are all over her room most nights when I go to kiss her goodnight on my way to bed.  She has to have a stack of books in her bed with her before I leave the room.

 I Love the broken glasses I caught her wearing a few nights ago.  She is always making me laugh!

A New obsession

My friend Karen introduced me to The Wood Connection back in December when I saw some of the cute crafts she was making for her coworkers. I immediately knew I had to jump on the bandwagon and start doing some serious crafting. Karen and I got together to do our "Winter" craft, I knew after displaying it that I was going to have to do something for every month. So here is what I've done so far:






And I seriously can't wait to start my spring/Easter Crafts, I'm heading to The Wood Connection on Friday!

Jeff and I had a great time celebrating our 17th anniversary together in Manti. I have ALWAYS wanted to go back to Manti, we had talked about it, but never made it much of a priority. I always had felt guilty about never taking the opportunity to go back, and I wondered why we had picked a place that was harder to get to when there were so many other Temples closer. I remember as a little girl looking at pictures of the beautiful Manti Temple, and dreaming about getting married there. Jeff received his endowments in the Manti Temple just before entering the MTC. His great uncle was a temple worker at the time and took him on a short tour of the Temple after his endowment session. He had told Jeff about the spiral staircase that led up to 2 sealing rooms. Jeff had made a decision that day that he wanted to be married in the highest sealing room in the northwest tower.

After Jeff and I began dating and becoming more serious we had talked about where we wanted to get married and to our amazement we both wanted to be married in the Manti Temple. His uncle was still working at that Temple and was a sealer, so we were lucky to have had a family member seal us. Like I said earlier I had always wondered why I had picked a Temple that was a bit more difficult to get to. I had had this feeling over the years and it had bothered me that we had never been back. As our anniversary approached I wasn't about to let another year go by without visiting the Manti temple. I book a room at this cute B&B directly across from the Temple.





We arrived on Friday evening and ate dinner at a local restuarant (which is about the only one in Manti). We drove around to see if we could find a grocery store, because I had forgotten my shampoo and conditioner at home, after wondering around Main street and other side street without any signs of a grocery store, we decided to just stop at a gas station. I asked the cashier if there were any grocery stores and she said that there were, but they closed at 8 pm. WHAT? On a Friday night? That's just crazy, I grew-up in a small town, but the grocery store was open until 10 or 11 pm. Anyway...we bought my shampoo and a few snacks, and headed back to our room. We had a nice romantic night together and the best thing about getting away is having no children waking up at the crack of dawn and asking for breakfast. After sleeping in a bit on Saturday morning we got up and got ready to go to the Temple, ate breakfast and headed to the Temple for the 10:30 session. We I walked into the doors, it was just as I had remembered it. Beautiful, ornate, majestic, etc. etc. I was in awe the whole time. The sessions are still live at this temple, and moving from room to room is a good way to keep you awake and on your toes. The paintings in each room were georgeous. We spent some time in the Celestial room, and contemplated about asking someone if we could climb the stairs to see "our" sealing room. We decided to go back downstairs and ask someone there. Jeff asked one of the men in the hallway, and he had told us that he couldn't give us permission, but he would find someone who could. He had us sit in the marriage waiting room, and after about 5 minutes he came and told us that he could take us up there. We climbed the stairs (I was out of breath and my legs our sore today), to sealing room 7. We he opened the doors, I had an overwhelming emotion take over me. It was just as I had remembered 17 years ago. The worker closed the doors and Jeff and I took a couple of minutes to reminise about that day. I was so grateful to that Temple worker who had taken the time out for us to see "our" sealing room.

Manti Temple at night!

Don't you love our squinty eyes? This was about the 10th picture we tried to take, the sun was SO bright!!

I LOVE getting away with Jeff, even if it is for only 1 night. I'm already looking forward to going again next year. This was one of the best get-aways we've had together.

January 22, 1999 - I became a MOM!!!

I haven't ever written down Ian's birth story, because I'm terrible at journaling, so I'm going to attempt to remember as much as I can about his birth.

Jeff was in his last year of Chiropractic school in California. I was working full-time for National Elevator, as an Office Assistant. We had been discussing starting a family around Christmas time, but I couldn't get Jeff to commit. My thoughts were that we'd get pregnant and have the baby sometime in the fall right after he graduated, but he thought we should wait until he was completely done with school, but in my heart I knew that we should start a family before, no matter what the sacrifice might be. It took me a couple of month to convince him that it was the right time to start our family. We started trying in February and by April, I had become preggers (yep, that was fast). I found out I was pregnant right around Memorial day. I was extremely excited. I could hardly contain myself. I remember peeing on the stick right before work one morning and having to go into work without saying anything was REALLY hard. I called my Dr.'s office and they scheduled me for a blood pregnancy test to confirm. The Dr.'s office wouldn't actually schedule an appointment for me to be seen until I was about 12 weeks. I received my results the next day. We were too excited to wait to tell anyone, so I told the 2 girls that I worked with and then we called our families to tell them too. Waiting those 12 weeks were pure torture. I was lucky that I had very little nausea, especially since having to work full-time. When my 12 week appointment finally came, and were able to hear the heartbeat for the first time, it was pure joy. It all became very really for me at that moment. My due date would be January 11th, 1999.

I had my first ultrasound at 17 weeks. We decided that we were going to let our first baby be a surprise and not find out what the sex would be. Jeff claims he saw a boy part on the monitor, but I think he was just wanting his first to be a son so bad that he was hallucinating :).



The rest of my pregnancy went very routine, with no complications. As my pregnancy came to an end we went to a birthing class together, talked about boy and girl names, but had a hard time agreeing on any of them, we bought a few clothes (unisex), diapers, cradle, stroller and car seat. I loved doing all those things together. Since Jeff was nearing the end of school he was very busy studying for national boards I valued every single moment that we had to spend together. At Christmas time I was having a lot of braxton hicks, but nothing that seemed like labor. I thought for sure I would have this baby early or at least on time. My last day of work was on January 8th, just 3 days before my due date, with still no signs of labor. To celebrate my last day of work and to try to induce labor, we decide to go to this pizza place in Concord that was known for inducing labor with their spicy pizza. All it gave me was really bad heartburn and no baby yet. That following week, I tried to keep my eye off of having a baby by packing up our house for our move to Utah at the end of January. I even drank castro oil with O.J., but it only gave me bad diareah. I took blue cohosh, which is a herbal supplement also known to help induce labor. I went to my Dr.'s appt.'s hoping that there would be any signs, but I wasn't effaced and not even dilated to a 1. 9 days AFTER my due date my Dr.'s office decided to send me to the hospital where I would deliver for a stress test. They hooked me up to the monitor to check for any contractions. I wasn't contracting so they inserted prostiglandin gel, which helps soften the cervix to get things moving along. Shortly after the gel, I was having mild contractions, but nothing that was too painful. After an hour or so being hooked up to the monitor, the nurse told me that I was contracting at a steady enough rate that I could possibly have the baby that night or the next day. She sent me on my way to walk around, and told me to come back if the contractions got closer together. So, Jeff and I walked around and looked at some shops had a bite to eat. My contractions were getting closer and a little harder, but they weren't consistent enough for me to think that I was ready to go lay in a hospital bed quite yet. We both made the decision to drive home and wait and see what happens there. The drive from the hospital to our house was about 45 min., by the time we arrived home my contractions were becoming more and more painful. We decided to call the hospital to let them know that we would be arriving in about an hour. Jeff ran to the store to get some snacks for the night and I made sure everything was packed and ready to go in my hospital bag. We drove back to the hospital counting the minutes between contractions. I was checked into the hospital after finding out I was dilated to a 4, they also said that my bag of water was bulging. We were super excited, our long wait had finally become a reality. My contractions were coming at a pretty steady rate, but Ian's head wasn't engaging, I didn't have any pressure like most women to do push. They had me pushing has hard as I could to get him to engage, but after several hours of pushing, they decided that his head was too big for my pelvis, so they decided that I would need to have a c-section. I was totally bummed, but knew that it was for the best. They wheeled me into the operating room about 6ish in the morning, and shortly after I delivered a whopping 9lb 14oz., baby boy. It was the most amazing moment of my entire existence (even on a very large dosage of morphine). I wasn't able to hold him right after, which was really hard on me, I remember tears streaming down my face as the nurses took him away. I was grateful that Jeff was able to go be with him. It seemed to have taken forever for me to get out of surgery. After surgery they took me to recovery, I was in there for a while before Jeff came in. He reassured me that everything was well with the baby and that I would get to hold him and see him as soon as I was clear to go into my postpartum room. I remember the first time Jeff wheeled him into my room he was all wrapped up into a little burrito and the first words that came out of my mouth were "is he breathing?", he was so still, that it was hard for me to tell, and I was so worried about something going wrong.




Everything else for the entire week after Ian was born was somewhat chaotic. Jeff had accepted a job in Utah as an associate for a Chiropractic office in Layton. He was to start on February 1st. My parents flew in to help us pack and help with me and the baby. I wasn't to drive or lift anything, so I wasn't much help with the move. We left only a week after Ian being born and drove from California to Utah, taking 2 days to travel. We arrived in Salt Lake at my sisters house sometime in the early evening and stayed with her that night. The next morning we drove to our apartment in Clearfield. My dad and mom helped Jeff unload the truck. I was completely exhausted. I felt as thought I hadn't slept in a week, which for the most part was true. It took us along time to get settled into our place because I wasn't to do any lifting for a few weeks.

Ian was a really fussy baby and seemed to just want to nurse all day and all night, he wouldn't take a pacifier and wouldn't sleep more than little cat naps here and there. I had a hard time adjusting to our new life, I felt like I wasn't back to my somewhat normal self for at least 6 months. Going from working full time to being a mommy full time was hard and exhausting, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. When Ian wasn't fussy he was a pure ham. He loved hamming it up for anybody and everybody. Ian has always been very loving and tender hearted. I keep waiting for the day he won't give me hugs anymore, but even at 13 he still does, and I will take those hugs as long as I can get them. I feel so honored an blessed to have been given the opportunity to be his mother.

Happy Birthday Ian, I love you to the moon and back!!!

We loved spending time at the pool in our complex, on most days we'd go twice a day!

Ian turning 2

Kindergarten

Junior High