Wilde Life

well... apparently...

2012-01-23T21:29:00.000-07:00

apparently I just needed to freak out, get all that freaking out out of my system... and onto... "paper".

Because, now I have just had 4 nights in a row where my girls ate most if not all of their dinner... with little or no freak outs. And Audrey has tried 1 or 2 new foods/ foods that looked different than the last time she ate them.

And both girls have gladly added brushing AND flossing to their nightly routine. So much so that they want to brush AND floss as many times as I will let them in the day. I have told them that they can only floss before going to bed. But that they can brush their teeth whenever they feel like it, basically...

No news on the pting of Thing 2. But we are talking about it. And discussing how things change and people grow and so on and so forth. To try and get both girlies in to being okay with growing up and changes and different foods. Also we have come up with a few rewards for the girls when they respond well to changes.

As a side note I have noticed that Thing 1 gets much more irritable when she hasn't eaten properly... perhaps she might have a bit of sugar issues like her mommy (hypoglycemic). I will keep an eye on that and try to make sure that she eats her meals on time and such.

Anyways I thought I would update the situation and let those who read know that things really are good here. And the situations are improving. And maybe I just needed to get out my frustration on something that won't get hurt... like my keyboard/computer/blog...

Have a great night!

Changes

2012-01-20T11:04:00.000-07:00

I had a moment of clarity in a moment of frustration, this morning.

Let me explain.

I have been hitting my head on a wall for a while now. My girls, well mostly Audrey but Ellie too, are terrified of trying new foods. And I do mean literally terrified. For a while when Audrey was about 2 if we tried to make her eat anything new, or anything that she just decided she wouldn't eat, she would throw up. Make herself gag and throw up. She would and still does put the food in her mouth (because we put it there), say yes it tastes good (without chewing it at all), and then proceed to freak out. And the freak outs include: Crying, screaming, spitting the food out, coughing, gagging, and possible throwing up. With more freaking out, more crying and creaming. And refusal to try the food any more. One bite is usually what I get from her. She says it tastes good and then absolutely refuses any more. All of this results in me getting more and more frustrated and upset.

Since she turned four she realized that she doesn't really like to actually throw up. So she mostly just threatens that now. But she still threatens it. And she still does all of the rest of everything. She has a few foods that she will eat but if I try to vary from the norm at all on what she eats, or how it looks, even if it tastes the same she will have the exact same reaction. I.e. she absolutely loves spaghetti, but if I make my own sauce and say add large pieces of onion to the sauce. That doesn't change the taste in any way to how I normally cook it. Only the look. She will absolutely refuse and throw a massive fit. If we want to try different noodles, like those swirly curly noodles and not spaghetti noodles. There is no way to get her to try the noodles. Try lasagna... it has taken me a very long time to get her to eat lasagna. Ellie loves lasagna... Audrey will eat it now, but it is still a chore. And she will refuse it after the initial dinner...

I did, however, have success with the eating thing last week. I decided that I was going to make tacos for dinner. Now I have tried this in the past. A few different ways. Trying to make it "funner" and therefor more "likely" for the girls to eat it. And Ellie always has eaten some of it. This time I tried crispy tacos (basically, beans, meat and cheese, for the girls). Ellie loved it... Audrey refused to eat it at all. But after sending her to her room and threatening just water and bread for dinner. And after a few times of sending her back to her room after she had come out and said she would actually try it. I got her to actually try it... It took me telling her to actually taste the food with her tongue instead of her eyes. Because her eyes tell her it looks different so it will taste gross... And she did! Amazingly. She continued to eat that whole crispy taco. Even after I had to take Ellie to the potty... (we were attempting to potty train Thing 2, but that is another part of this story). I cheered for her (eating the taco), she got a big sticker, she got ice cream! She said she really liked it! Yay! Could I get her to even eat one more bite the next day... no... back to the same old fight. Sure I think she will eat it if I make it again, she will probably even say it is good, after a little bit of a fight getting her to eat it.

I hate this cycle...

*Potty Training - So if you want to stop here I understand*

Now Ellie... I waited to start potty training her until she was a little older and could understand things a little more. In order to attempt to skip all of the fight and fear and pain that it caused Audrey. Apparently, it is just something that they both have to go through, a right of passage sort of thing. And Ellie is now scared of the potty. She will hold in everything, then tell me she has to go, she will sit down and scream saying it hurts, and then not let anything out... Therefore causing her more grief, because she won't even go in her diapers now. But she does let me know immediately when she needs a diaper change. So I have brought an awareness to those functions of her body.

*Baby steps* right...

Well the night of the tacos, mentioned before. I was feeding Audrey and Ellie... by hand... I know they can feed themselves but there are times when nothing will enter their mouths unless I do it for them... annoying but I can do that. Ellie tells me that she needs to use the potty and that she wanted to sit on the big potty chair. So I set it all up for her. She sits up there and then says she is done and wants to hop down. Well I am not going to let her just do that because it isn't what this is all about. She has to go now. And we sat in the bathroom, with her trying her hardest not to go. And with me sitting with her not letting her get off... for about 45 mins... She screamed at me, and screamed at me. I tried just talking to her... I calmed her down a few times. I tried to talk her out of her fear... But still nothing I could say would calm her down. So after the 45 mins were up and my nerves were completely shot. I let her go watch tv in a pull up. And I went out Visiting Teaching... which I might add helped me calm down and remember how much I love my girls. I just thoroughly dislike pting and trying to get them to eat new foods... ugh...

However, I did try again the next day... with the same results. So Ellie is back in baby diapers until she decides that she wants to be a big girl and use the potty. I keep talking to her about it. And we have rewards set up. She just needs to decide to give up being the baby.

Which brings me back to the changes thing.

Ellie has shown this for a while. She wants to be treated like a big kid and do all the things the big kids do, except that she doesn't want to have the rules and responsibilities of being bigger. She wants to get away with everything. She wants to be the baby. But still do everything else... I have yet to figure out how to explain to her that she is growing and can't go back, delicately... And in a way that she can understand... She is only 2.5 yrs old.

And for that matter Audrey is just about to turn 5... How do I do this? How can I help them to grow and understand that change isn't always bad... Change can be good for you....

I feel like I am pretty good and going with the flow of things and not letting it upset me too much when things change. But I do understand that I have a problem to a degree with this sort of thing. So how do I help them to become healthier in this area?

That is my venting for now...
I love my girls sooo much, I just want to figure out how to help them to learn and grow into healthy, happy, well adjusted, smart women.

Well okay...

2012-01-11T22:45:00.000-07:00

Maybe I shouldn't promise to write again the next night... But a few of the things I was going to post about needed some thinking about and figuring out how to's and such. So I put together a few Collages of some things we did before Christmas, that I sort of glossed over or forgot to mention. Audrey's Dance Recital you saw some videos of before. She did awesome! And I am soooo very proud of her. She was very, very nervous as the day drew nearer and the hours got shorter until she danced. But it was very low key and she got over her jitters incredibly fast. So here are some pics all put together...

These are pics mostly of Audrey. But There are a few pictures in there that include the class. I think there are about 9 girls in the class. Ages 4 to 7... I think.

They all did very well!

These pictures here are from Dec 19th. Silas had his first piano recital! His Great Aunt Bethany is his teacher. And he is her youngest student, at just 7 yrs old. He started taking lessons this last summer and loves it. He does very, very well. So these are pics of the event. He played 1 song. Here is the video Jared took of Silas' first recital. The video I took wasn't as good of quality so I won't put it up. But I think I got some good pics. It was held at one of the Retirement homes in Tooele. And Silas introduced himself and tried to talk to everyone of the elderly that was there. He was a very polite little gentleman. I am a really proud Aunt.

Anywho, that is enough for tonight! I hope you enjoyed that. I will continue to try and catch up at a later time...

Catching up

2012-01-04T22:03:00.000-07:00

So a lot has happened around here... but I suppose a lot is always happening. But here is the run down. At the end of October/ beginning of November I was called to be in the Relief Society presidency. 2nd counselor. I was sad to be leaving my calling as RS teacher. I had really come to like teaching the class. I also was in charge of a cooking class for the RS (sort of a pet project of mine). But I have come to find out that my calling means that I sort of in charge of the activities for the RS. Anyway... Oct/Nov I worked spot lights for My Fair Lady.

Nov. 30th Stu turned 30. And we spent his birthday night at the theatre. He was my double for Christmas Carol. Which set us up for a fairly busy December. I had the RS Christmas Party to organize and pull off... Thanks to my Mom and a few other women in the ward, it happened and went pretty well. Then I had my first lesson as a member of the presidency. Which I must say scared me more than actually being a teacher. As a teacher I had a manual that I could follow. As a member of the presidency they give me a topic and I have to figure out how to get that message to the women. A much more daunting task. I tell you I was more scared to do that than to get the party done. But things ended up well. And all I had to do after that was get my Dec cooking class done and my calling stuff would be done for a little bit... The cooking class went well. I had my Grandpa and my father teach some candy making stuff and I did a little chocolates making demonstration as well. It was fun.

The next thing we had happen was Audrey's first Dance recital which I posted about earlier.

Then we finished up the show and then it was Christmas. And I say I was really happy to be out and relaxing for Christmas... Yeah that didn't really happen. But things were a little more relaxing. We were able to spend a bunch of time with family. Which was really very nice :) The girls loved Christmas, spending all sorts of time with their cousins, and Grandparents and so on.

Anyways here are some pics of Christmas time.

Christmas morning

Waking up the Daddy...

opening the presents!

You can see the sweet remodeling of my old Dollhouse for the girlies in this pic. Thanks Grandma Darby! And Grandpa Steve!!! The girls love it!

Then off to Grandma Jill's for what was left of the morning! And some yummy delicious breakfast from Uncle Jake! And some fun times with the cousins and the whole family!

These pics were all taken from the Grandparents. Some Christmas eve and some Christmas morning. As you can see the girls had way too much fun.

And I shall add more tomorrow. This doesn't nearly cover all that I would like to but there is more to come.

Audrey had a Dance recital

2011-12-17T23:03:00.000-07:00

It was her first :) We are so very proud of her and the other girls in her class. They worked pretty hard, for their age. Her class is from 3 to 6 yr olds. And there are 6 girls in the class. The recital was at the teachers other dance studio. As it has a larger floor and can fit family on chairs with enough room for the girls to dance. We took our video camera and Stu took some video while I took photos. So I put all the parts together here. Enjoy. The video had to be broken up into 2 parts. Which means you will need a chance to just sit down and watch it. Enjoy :)

Part 1... :)

This is part 2....

No I haven't disappeared...

2011-10-07T16:13:00.000-06:00

We just have a lot going on. Here is a fun video of the Girlies :)

Baseball

2011-08-20T09:14:00.000-06:00

Well we took the girls to their first baseball game last night. It was also the first time either Stu or I had seen the Bees play, as well as our first baseball game in like, well lets just say a very long time. It was a blast. Though I think we learned a few things about taking the girlies. Next time we won't show up to the game so freaking early. Even if they did continuously have fun. It was very, very hot.

So not only was it their first baseball game, it was there very first train ride. And they really loved that. Chuggington is a favorite show of the girls.

Anyway I think the rest is best said in pictures so enjoy!

This would be both going to and coming from the game. They absolutely loved the trains!

The game!

Fireworks after the game. They were pretty impressive!

(I finally figured out how to do collages to make the picture heavy posts not so crazy. Now I just need to figure out a few more things to make it just that much better...)

Food Art

2011-08-18T13:52:00.002-06:00

So I have been trying to figure out ways to get Audrey to like trying new foods. At times it seems like she has a huge fear of "new" foods. Sometimes it is just that we haven't had a certain food item in a long time and she had forgotten that she used to eat this. Other times it is a food that she eats regularly but it looks different, such as pizza from Little Ceasar's vs. pizza from Dominoes vs. pizza from the freezer etc. And when she doesn't want to eat a specific food it won't happen. And when she gets into the I'm dead set against it and you try to make her eat it, she WILL throw up. No if's, and's or but's about it. Nothing will stop her from throwing it up.

Lately I have been trying to get around that problem. I will warn her before I start making dinner that I will be making something new. (Mostly this something new is just a different sort of pasta, she seems to think if it isn't Spaghetti noodles or Macaroni and Cheese that it will not work.) She hates new shapes of food. I have tried explaining that noodles are noodles no matter what shape they have, they will taste the same. I have even gotten her to taste different noodles without sauce. She says yum, and then will have no more of it. I have had her help me cook it. And help me put it together so she can see all that goes into it. But no matter what she will not generally try it.

I still offer the "new" foods to her. Just recently I started the, "You must try at least one bite, before I make you other food. But if you don't eat all of this "new" food, you don't get the treat of your choice for dessert." And this worked the other night. I don't know if it will continue to work. Though it did work on getting her to eat some Shells and Cheese that we made the other night. She even asked for it for dinner the following night. Score!

What I would like to talk about next is that I tried letting them paint food yesterday afternoon for lunch. I found 14 different flavors of food that were "paintable". I filled a muffin tin and 2 bowls with the flavors. Some of the flavors were of things they had tried before and some were not. We had peanut butter, applesauce, ketchup, chocolate malt sauce, caramel sauce, whipped cream, powdered sugar, shredded cheese, ranch dressing, grape jam, homemade (hm) strawberry jam, hm raspberry jam, hm peach goo, and reduced sugar strawberry jam. The paint brushes were carrot sticks and the canvas was a flour tortilla shell.

The girls thought this was pretty cool. And I had Audrey promise me before she could start that she would eat whatever she made. I decided that I should join in to get them started and show them what they could do. And the party started.

They were trying new flavors, and eating carrots. They were having fun. Ellie ate a few nibbles of her tortilla. Audrey and Ellie tried the applesauce and ate some of it.

I unfortunately ate a few carrots and had to take a benedryl, so after my 2 tortillas were done I left them to their own devices. And this is where things went wrong. Neither of the girls ate any of their artwork. So I had to put Ellie down for her nap. But before I put her down they figured out a way to get peanut butter on the walls, and applesauce on the door behind them. Oh well it was mostly a success as they did eat something and tried other things. Yay!

Sippy Cups

2011-08-17T23:53:00.000-06:00

So I generally let the girls take drinks down stairs with them to watch tv. And generally I will let them take a snack down to munch on as well. But I will ask them to bring their plates/sippys/other eating paraphernalia. I will generally ask them to do this when I am doing the dishes. And usually they will. But on occasion I will ask them and Thing 1 will say that she doesn't see any or she is too tired or some other excuse. Now, I will generally remember having seen at least one or 2 sippys downstairs. And they are generally in plain sight. So I will go over and let her know that I know that she can see the sippys. And after I coerce her to bring them up, which will usually involve a threat to turn off the tv or just turning off the tv, she will bring up some of the sippys.

Where this takes me is to tonight. When I left to go to a Relief Society get together, the living room was in a slight bit of disarray. And I knew that I should go through it and clean it up but I figured it could go another day, probably. As of late I have been able to get Audrey and Ellie to do some cleaning up.

In fact I was able to get Ellie to do some clean up earlier today. But Audrey would start cleaning and then stop, and with her big sister for an example, Ellie decided to do the same thing. So I turned off the tv. But that didn't encourage Audrey at all this afternoon. In fact she went right on playing what ever game she had come up with, with Ellie. But they did end up cleaning up a little bit, they put away all the crayons and stacked up the dishes that they had seen.

I came home from the aforementioned meeting and found that both girls were still awake and the room was scary messy. Well I put the girls to bed and then forgot about the front room until it was time to feed the cats and put the dog to bed. And I had to walk through that scary-ness. So I figured why not clean it up now and make the next day not so hard on myself.

Well long story short. I ended up bringing a laundry basket full of stuff from the living room (that is supposed to stay in the girls room), the tote of crayons (regathered), 2 bowls, 3 plates, and 8 sippy cups. Yeah you read that right 8 SIPPY CUPS!

I had been wondering where all the sippys were disappearing to. And for this round they went to the living room. Oye. At least all were found and not any of the sippys that go to the living room are milk filled. Go me, I guess. :)

Well that is my ranting for the evening. One silly thing that I have noticed recently with Audrey, is that she is starting to want to clean things herself. So I will find her wiping off items that have been colored on, or are just dirty. So one of the items I found downstairs was a wash cloth, Ellie has found a love of cleaning as well, but she is like her mother and likes wipes. So she will take the baby wipes downstairs and clean things off with those. So there were like 10 wadded up wipes on the floor that needed to be thrown out as well. It is kind of funny the things that make you smile, or proud of. Even if you have to clean up the mess. :)

An odd thing happened yesterday

2011-08-03T10:48:00.002-06:00

So I had an experience yesterday. Figured I should write it down if only to make sure I know what happened and keep my story straight.

My mom came over and so we had the kids upstairs watching tv. Ellie was napping and everything was fairly cool. I had opened the garage door so I could do some cleaning and have fairly easy access to the garbage cans. Our laundry/storage/cat room(kitty litter and food) flooded on Monday so I had put down rice and baking soda to help clean up the mess. Of course it left a mess too so I needed to get that cleaned up. So we had been down there for about an hour. Audrey started to come down and pester us so Mom was trying to get her out of my hair and suggested that they go outside for a treat or something like that. Next thing I know my mom is calling for me and things sound serious. I don't hear any crying so it isn't that someone is hurt. But my mom is calling for me and something in her voice told me she needed me now. So I went upstairs.

And standing in front of my kids and her at my front door is a guy. Something feels off, but I hear him out.

He was on a trip to go to a family reunion in Vegas. And on their way back to Idaho their car was impounded. They have been staying in the homeless shelter, and he has been trying to earn enough money for bus fair back to Idaho. He only needs 25 more dollars to get the tickets tonight. He was wondering if I had any work he could do around my house, like mowing my lawn, pulling weeds or anything like that.

Now keep in mind that my garage door had been open for a good hour previous to this. And at the moment it is half full with the stuff from our basement until we have it painted. And there were definitely things that could have been stolen had my mom not seen him out there before he had a chance.

But since he was willing to work for some money I said I would pay him to mow my front lawn. It was about 2 or so in the afternoon. So pretty hot out and I had been planning on getting the lawn mowed. I also had the feeling that I should give him the whole 25 dollars to do it. Then he wouldn't need to ask for any more and he could just go home.

Also, he couldn't start my lawn mower. I had to show him how to start it. Which was a little weird as well.

I realized that I don't have 25 dollars on me in cash and ask him if he can cash a check. Figuring that he wouldn't be able to. Come to find out that when his car was taken all of his luggage and all of their i.d.'s were locked in the car. And they can't get into the car with out i.d.'s. The impound lot will however let them in to the car if the Idaho driver's division will vouch for them. So his father in law is working with them to try to get them to let him into the car. But they still need to get to Idaho to get this all the way done. Okay. So I talk to my mom and she is okay with me going and getting the cash from the bank.

So I drive away. I am a little nervous. Some stranger is mowing my lawn and I just left my mom there with all the kids. So I pray that everything will be alright. And I pray and I pray the whole time I am driving and such. But I just keep getting a good feeling that everything will be alright. That I am doing the right thing and everything will be okay. That is the answer I get.

When I get home he is done and standing on the side of the driveway with a glass of water and the garage door is closed. Weird I had thought about closing the door when I left but I didn't. So I give him the money and we talk for a bit. He asks me what the fastest way to the college is. I ask him if he is talking about SLCC as that is the nearest college to our house. And he says uh, yeah. So I tell him that it is about 2 or 3 stop lights down the road from us on Redwood Rd. And he can get there pretty easily from the bus stop. And I try to direct him to the nearest bus stop. And I gave him 3 extra dollars for bus fair. Because there was no way on earth I was going to give him a ride.

Every time I tried to direct him east to the bus stops there he would insist on going west to redwood rd. And almost at the end of the conversation he mentioned that he had first gotten here by Trax. And he hinted that he had gotten to the college from trax as well. Well the only trax station near my house is on the other side of the freeway from my house to the east and past my husbands work. Weird. My mom came out in the meantime and she was also trying to direct him to the nearest bus stop but he continued to insist on going west. So we directed him towards redwood rd and watched him cross the street to leave the neighborhood. And this was a bit after 3 when this happened, I think.

Now I have to say that while I was standing outside talking to this man. I saw my neighbor across the street. And I knew that he was watching this guy. Our neighbor is a very good man. He watches out for us and generally helps us out when needed and so on. I also watched him leave. He drove away. Before the guy had left.

My mom and I stayed outside the house and worked a little out there and talked about what just happened. I cleaned my kitty litter outside. (Which I normally do because I can't have the dust of the kitty litter being kicked up inside the house because of the germs that could get Stu sick.) My mom pulled some weeds. I cleaned out some stuff from the garage that needed to be thrown away. We were out there for a good 30 mins. And we watched to make sure that guy didn't come back. Then we went inside and finished up downstairs. Went through some food downstairs to see what needed to be used up. And then I ate and cleaned up my kitchen and started to make some rice crispy treats.

Stu came home at 4:20 and I was surprised. I told him about the guy. And then finished up the treats. The kids ate them and then at about 4:30 the neighbor from across the street rings the doorbell. The first time I had checked the clock it was about 3:50. Time was passing in an odd way yesterday. I couldn't really figure out how I made it to dance only 3 mins late. Because I didn't get Audrey dressed until after we had talked to the neighbor. And my mom was still there, after that she left. But some how I was driving away from the house at 4:45. With both kids in the car and everything that we needed for dance class at 5.

He wanted to know if we had seen anyone suspicious around or if we had noticed anything suspicious. Because between 3 and 3:45 a car was stolen from their driveway. Not his car. But a Red Honda Accord. That his sis in law was driving around. (She had moved in over the weekend.) And this wasn't even her car to begin with. She had been in an accident and this was a friend's car. But there was no broken glass on the ground and she still had her keys. And he felt that the guy was scoping out his house when he was mowing my lawn. So he got a description of the guy and wanted to know what he said. So I told him basically what I just wrote down here.

The guy was about 6', brown hair, scruffy beard (looked like he hadn't shaved in like a week maybe 2), he was wearing a bright blue shirt with print on it, un-tucked, jeans that looked new-ish. He was overweight, (he had a potbelly), and out of shape, (like I think mowing just my front lawn about killed him). He was probably in his 30's. I wanna say he was older than me. I don't remember the color of his eyes but he seemed to have honest eyes.

But my neighbor could only think that he was a "shady character" and had the feeling that he was looking for easy targets in the neighborhood. Now if he was really just looking for "easy targets", my mom had left her windows rolled down in her car, her keys in the car, and her wallet. Out in front of my house. if you are looking for easy targets that is one of the easiest. And he had spent a good deal of time in front of my house that if he was looking for that he would have seen it. Also if he had just wanted to steal my garage was open for an hour before we had seen him. And nothing was missing.

Another odd thing, my neighbor, who isn't afraid to call the authorities, didn't call the police. I never once saw a police car over there. No one but the neighbor asked me about the guy. Which is part of the reason I am writing this down. So I can remember.

A few other odd things happened last night. However, I still feel that I did the right thing, in all that I did. Somehow we were kept safe, by my actions and the actions of my mom.

Just to let you know, if I had been alone at home I would have said no to the guy. But I wasn't the only adult here.

Markers

2011-07-18T08:44:00.000-06:00

For the most part Audrey knows that the markers are not supposed to be out when Ellie is awake. And generally when I put things on the counter Ellie doesn't get into them. But she is getting taller and using things to be taller (chairs) and can reach more and more things on the counter. And while I thought I was good and set that box of markers and colored pencils on the counter before I left the girls with daddy for a little while. And the girls were just going to nicely watch tv.

I was just about headed home when I get a slightly upset call from daddy. Ellie just walked in, covered in marker. Audrey is sitting on her bed until you get home. So get home now. I say I am on my way, I was actually in the car starting it when he called.

As far as I know when I get home Audrey is sitting on her bed getting a nicely deserved time out and Ellie needs a bath. So I stand outside and talk to the neighbor for a little while and then Audrey opens the door and out she comes and Ellie follows.

I soon find out that Audrey had a bloody nose during her time out and needs blankets washed and she herself needs a bath. And Ellie needs to have some pics taken because this is just too funny to let go :) so enjoy!

During the bathing I noticed the skies outside were glowing. So I went out to see this last shot. It was a bit more orange than what I caught but I think this still shows the moment. The cool thing about this kind of sunset is that it makes all the colors outside seem sharper. Greens greener and so on. I wish I could have figured out how to capture that. But my camera skills are lacking and probably so are my camera's.... :)

2 years old

2011-07-14T10:33:00.001-06:00

My sweet Eleanor is now 2 years old. I don't know what to say about this. She is a joy to watch grow. She is constantly learning new words. And her vocabulary is getting bigger and bigger. A friend of mine made an observation the other day about her. She said that she is a small bundle of attitude. And I think that is very true. She is a little bit small for her age, but she always has been I think. Though you can tell that she isn't 1 now. If you look close.

She doesn't let herself be pushed around. She definitely stands up for herself. And she will be found leading the way in making the messes. Though she is now starting to learn what it means to get in trouble. And she definitely doesn't like that.

On the 4th of July we went to watch the fireworks at a park nearby. And while waiting we were listening to a free concert. It was nice and the singer sang songs that everyone would recognize. But the whole time while we were listening the girls decided that having a wrestling match would be fun. So they were running in circles around Stu and I, and tackling each other. Well mostly Ellie was doing the tackling. She almost always ended up on top of the pile. Jumping on Audrey and then me and then Stu. I think they did this for a good hour. But when it got dark and they had turned on the field lights, until it was fireworks time, Ellie looked up and saw bugs flying around in the lights. And this is where something snapped. She looked up, pointed and screamed at the top of her lungs, "BUUUUUG!!!!" And then she curled up in my lap and kept looking around and noticing any tiny thing that could possibly be a bug and cried BUG every time she saw something that might be. So my fearless wrestling girl is terrified of bugs...

She noticed that bugs were scary at Easter time. And sometimes it doesn't bother her at all. Other times they make her lose her cool.

She so desperately wants to be a big kid like her sister and cousins. She knows all of their names and tries to say them all. She loves church. And I found out that she loves the Temple.

My Brother in Law got married a week or so ago. And She and Audrey were flower girls along with their cousins. And I had to talk to Audrey about her not being able to go into the Temple for the ceremony. (She was heart broken, but when the day came she didn't really care.) But in the mean time Ellie had come to understand that the Temple was a special place. Any time it came up in conversation she was asking about it. And anytime we would get in the car to go somewhere she would ask if it was the Temple. So when the day came she was thrilled to be at the Temple. At one point I picked her up and walked her around the foyer of the Temple so she could go inside, the little bit that she could. I told her she had to be quiet and we looked at the flowers and pictures there. Then we walked out and waited for the bride and groom.

Ellie apparently loved it there so much that when we went to leave she ran away from me straight to the Temple doors. She just didn't want to leave the Temple. I have decided that if there is any place that she wants to run from me, I like that it is the Temple that she runs to.

She still asks about the Temple.

Ellie is fairly social too. She likes to play with her friends and loves to be included by the big kids. Though just recently she has found that while she likes to be treated like a big kid, she still wants to be the baby. And she has started demanding to be carried. She wants to be carried down the stairs and up the stairs, and around. She is starting to go through a I need mommy phase again as well. But I think that is because she doesn't like the fact that she is starting to get into more trouble and she isn't used to mommy getting mad at her for breaking the rules.

The hard thing about her getting into trouble is that while she is fairly bossy, in charge, or getting into trouble, she does it all while looking very cute. So it is hard to get mad at her or say no to her being bossy... she is going to be a charmer.

The good thing is that both girls love each other, no matter how many times they fight, they still worry when the other is hurt, sad or not there. Ellie was quite upset that we were leaving Audrey at dance class to run an errand. She kept asking about Audrey as we were driving away. But then everything was cool when we got to where we were going and got back to Audrey.

It has been a bit rainy around here

2011-05-19T17:03:00.002-06:00

We have been going a little bit stir crazy from staying inside due to all of that rain. So it stopped raining for a little bit and we decided it was time for a short walk. We checked out how high the river is behind our house, and had a little bit of fun. I took a bunch of pictures and took this video.

Here the water has started to flood the walkway.

My Mom and the Girlies walking

This is a view of the river from the bridge behind our house.

This is on the other side of the river.

Mom and the Girlies on the bridge

Heading to the grove where we played in the puddles :)

The grove just off of the walkway

Looking at the back of our house from across the pond that hadn't been there before this spring...

We had a first this morning....

2011-05-14T09:39:00.000-06:00

The girls made their first "I can't believe it mess"...

to set the scene... Audrey likes to help out when she can. And sometimes I let her feed the cats. Usually we keep all of the cat stuff in the basement, i.e. food, kitty litter, etc. but right now we have all of that stuff upstairs so we can remodel the basement. (Which is coming along just great I will have to post about that soon.)

Audrey noticed this morning that the cats were without food and was all over asking if she could feed them. I said yes. (and yes that is where my mistake was) Audrey knows the general portions to feed the cats. She gives them just a little more than they are supposed to get. But she gets the idea... Ellie however does not. Ellie thought they were just having fun and giving the kitties "TWEET". Ellie loves to give the dog "tweet", as well and will give her many, many bones if I don't tell her that is enough. But also they began to have fun just digging into the cat food... and this is what I found when I decided to investigate why Audrey was not done feeding the cats as it is only a maybe 3 minute job...

Okay, so it wasn't a horribly horrible mess... but it still made me shake my head in confusion... needless to say this morning is starting out "wonderfully"...

Princess Parades (picture heavy post...)

2011-04-20T18:51:00.000-06:00

So this last Monday I got into a mood of wanting to deep clean some rooms in my house and just after I had finished cleaning up 2 rooms, my daughter, Ellie came up to me carrying a dress that I had put into a drawer for dressing up. She wanted me to put it on her. Well this is the first time either of my girls has wanted to "dress up". I was pretty happy about this. So I decided I could take a break and take some pictures of my girls and have a little fun watching them dress up.

First Ellie was a bit grumpy even though she is the one who wanted to get dressed in the dress... It was nap time when she brought me the dress... but I figured we could have a little fun until she had to go down for her nap. So she was grumpy for a little while and even pulling out the camera she just was grumpy and crying. But I think I still got some cute pics of her. And Audrey! So for your viewing pleasure...

Ellie and QQ the cat...

I just thought this was a fun action :)

What on earth is this stuff covering my hands!?!

Audrey wanted to join in on the fun...

Ellie is still not sure this is fun...

And here she realized that this was an activity she likes to do...

Now smiling for the camera!

Time for the fun to begin!

Audrey got her "Princess" dress on

Parading around the table

Ellie is the Princess Superhero!!!

Some how we tricked her into coming into her bedroom...

And then we ended where we began with tears and nap time...

I love my girls they bring me so much joy :)

And yes I still had plenty of time to clean and I got everything done that I really wanted to get done :)

Michigan Adventures part 3

2011-04-07T13:03:00.000-06:00

This next video is going to be a long one. It is, however, a condensed version of the drive from Aunt Karlene's to Howse's Candy Haus in Harbor Springs. We didn't have any deadlines this day so we meandered around and stopped to see a few things. Thought about genealogy, even tried to do some, though that didn't end up working. We did a little sight seeing, and a lot of reminiscing. I caught Grandpa being a tease from time to time. I suppose you could say this video here is a good view of how the trip went for us in the car. We teased, we chatted, we just watched, and we kept driving... :) (sorry if I seem to be rambling, my head seems to be fuzzy from the allergies I have right at this moment...) I hope you enjoy this next video. :)

Michigan Adventures Part 1 extended...

2011-04-05T22:10:00.003-06:00

Okay so this is the video and most of the pictures I took on the drive before we arrived at Aunt Karlene's before the camera batteries died. So it is an extension of the Part 1 blog post.

It should be pretty self explanatory. Enjoy!

Michigan Adventures part 2

2011-04-04T18:11:00.001-06:00

After a wonderful night's sleep and a fairly good snow storm... I think there was like 6-8 inches on my car in the morning. We decided that we wanted to go walk out on the ice of lake Michigan and look for ice caves. Sounds like a wonderful plan, right? Well at least for us it sounded pretty awesome. And I wasn't about to not take this adventure... I live in Utah, how many chances will I get to walk on the ice of one of the Great Lakes? Besides I have always kind of wanted to do something like this. :)

If Stu can fix the noise of the wind then I will change the video... I suppose you could say it is still in the editing phase. Anyway, I think that video kind of speaks for itself. This next video is from on the way back to the house. In it you can see the woods that they live in and how much snow was dropped by the snowstorm, after we stopped for the night. Also it has quite a bit of background noise as Uncle Denny was fixing his snow blower.

Michigan adventures part 1

2011-04-02T10:50:00.003-06:00

Here is a video of our first day in Michigan this last February... I did tell you more was to come :) During the drive in Michigan down by the Illinois border it started raining. As we drove north the rain started to freeze, the roads progressively got slushier, and finally turned very snowy. It got cold fast and got snowy fast... we only slid, kind of, off the road once thanks to my Grandpa driving. He has much more experience driving in Michigan snow than I do. We counted a total of 10 cars (I believe) off the road a few tipped over and 1 flipped all the way over. All this while the snow melted and then froze to our windshield. We had to pull over a few times and scrape the ice off of the windshield.(When we got to Harbor Springs we were informed that there had been a 50 car pile up on the road we had been driving on, I think it was probably behind us.) In any case we stopped at my Grandpa's Sister's house (Aunt Karlene), and she and her husband were gracious enough to let us stay the night and wait out the storm.

I had never met my Aunt Karlene and I instantly felt comfortable with her. When I first walked in to her house and saw her I felt like I was looking at my Great Grandma (her mom). She told us that she knows that she looks like her mom. So I don't feel to bad saying that. But anyway, I felt like she could have been my Grandma. She and her husband were both very friendly. And it was wonderful to stay in their home. I can't even explain how instantly at ease I felt in their house and how completely comfortable I felt there as well. I can only hope that I can make my own home as comfortable, calm, and inviting as their home was to me. Their house is tucked back into the woods in Northern Michigan and right across the street from their driveway is an entrance to the beach and Lake Michigan. I will leave you here and post more videos later.

4 yrs old

2011-03-25T12:13:00.000-06:00

My Audrey is FOUR! I can't believe it. And now for my bragging. Sorry I really do try not to.

She is into all sorts of things now a days. Her most recent accomplishment is learning that she can jump over things and people. Also she has now figured out that it is fun to jump off of things. Right now she is only jumping off of the armchair and the sofa and such. I think I have also heard her jump off of the stairs. But if she hasn't done that yet it will be happening soon I think.

Audrey is starting to understand and follow rules more now. She understands the basics of being polite (please and thank you). :) She is understanding that if she just demands things of me I am no longer going to just comply. And while she hates that she can't be in charge and get everything her way she is starting to get that she isn't in charge of everything. Although she still tries.

We are working on learning "The Golden Rule". As now she is starting to realize that Ellie hits back. And wants the things that Audrey has too...

She still loves to "help" me clean. And I am trying to let her. She will help out with the dishes. And today she actually helped me vacuum after 10 mins of screaming about me not vacuuming, because her toys weren't all picked up, but she didn't want to do the work to "save" her toys. But sometimes she will clean up all of her toys just to help out. And that makes me very happy. She is learning the rule that if she changes her mind and wants to play with different toys, she needs to clean up the toys that she already has out. As I said she is just learning this rule. It is a hard concept. But I think she understands it, she just doesn't want to do it. So I have to remind her. And for the most part she will keep her toys in their designated areas. And that helps me out with keeping the house clean.

She also loves to help me cook. Which can be really fun. We are finding new things we can do all the time. She is a great fitness coach. Though I don't really appreciate when she bugs me about getting out and exercising. She loves to go for walks to the park. And I am looking forward to getting out more on those nice sunny days :)

She is doing the things that she has told us she would do. As in keeping her promises. She is sometimes trying new foods. We haven't had near the amount of melt downs about trying new foods as we had been having. But I also don't know if that is because we haven't been pushing the issue. But her amount of foods that she likes and will eat is growing!

She loves her sister, and even though they fight on a fairly regular basis. At least they generally get along and love each other.

Audrey's Stitches

2011-03-02T15:25:00.000-07:00

This morning I was playing with Audrey, tickling her and such... And I decided it would be fun if I started a pillow fight. Just fun right... Well, when I pulled out the pillow she went to run away from it and fell right into the corner of my bed post. And let me tell you that corner of my bed is mean... it gives me bruises all the time. Anyway, as soon as I heard the smack I knew that this wasn't going to be good. I just knew that she would be needing to go to the doctor's.

And when I saw the blood forming I knew it would mean stitches. So I called Stu right up to tell him what happened and he headed right home. I then called my mom and she headed over asap as well. I tried to put a towel on it to stop the bleeding, and I tried to get ice on it as well. After a little while she was okay with the ice pack and wanted it.

Stu got home and proceeded to get her into the car and took her to the hospital. I made sure I knew where he was going so that when my mom got to the house I would go over after them. So I got ready to go and talked to my mom a bit and then left her with Ellie and went to the hospital to be with my girl.

They were still in the waiting area when I got there. Stu had calmed her down by letting her play Angry Birds on his phone. She is super scared of doctors, nurses, and their tools... So getting her checked in was fun. she reluctantly let the nurse do everything but check her blood pressure. And she wanted to go home as soon as she was taken into a room.

For the most part she was okay there until a nurse or doctor would walk into the room. Then she would start to panic. If they just talked to her she was okay. But if they wanted to give her anything like medicine or look at her eye she didn't want anything to do with them.

They told us she was lucky and they only needed to stitch it up not put anything underneath it. But they had to put some lidocaine on the area to numb it up a little before giving her the numbing shots and stitches. so we had to hold some gauze with the lidocaine on it to the wound and she didn't like that much at all... but Stu is very smart and figured out a way to get her to let us hold it on with out her freaking out about it. However, they had to put her on the papoose board and strap her down so they could actually do the stitches. And they had to cover up her eye to do the stitches and shots. Well that had her in fits.

It was very very hard for me to be there with her. At first Stu was up trying to get her to calm down. And then she asked for me. So I went up and talked to her. We did get her to stop screaming enough for the doctor to actually suture up the wound. The doctor talked to her and told her a story about his own son. And Audrey said some interesting things while she was freaking out. Apparently the nurses had heard many girls say the same things when they were freaking out about things like this before. She said some of what the doctor was doing was tickling, she said she couldn't calm down. And lots of other things. But the doctor was able to do the job fairly well. It was technically one stitch looped through four times.

The nurses got her a popsicle and a sticker. And she was much better by the time she was out and done. I took her out with my Mom, Ellie and my nephew Gid, for some ice cream and fries. But I don't think she had any fries... just rootbeer and ice cream.

We came home and I put Ellie down for a nap and cleaned up Audrey... And let her watch some tv. And maybe an hour later I walked downstairs and found her asleep on the couch. Needless to say I am going to just let her sleep a bit. She had a rough morning. But I took some pictures. It looks like she has her first official black eye and of course her first stitches.

Asleep on the couch

poor kiddo...

Well....

2011-03-02T15:03:00.000-07:00

A lot has been going on here... I started working a new show. "A Tale of Two Cities" (it's a musical... yeah I know). It is an amazing show and I am glad to be a part of it. During the last night of tech rehearsals I got a phone call from my mom. My Great Grandma had passed away. Peacefully. And Mercifully. She was 88 yrs old, and she had Alzheimer's. I hadn't seen her since I was 10 but I apparently was still very attached to her. I love her and I am glad she can be at peace now.

I found out later that night that my husband could take off some work to watch the girls so that I could go back to Northern Michigan for her funeral. So then my Mom and I began planning our trip back to Michigan. We drove. We took my Grandpa, and my Aunt along with us. We left early Saturday morning...

The ride out was fairly uneventful as far as driving goes... until we hit Michigan. There we ran into a storm that turned from rain to slush to ice and snow very quickly. And we were unable to finish driving all the way to Northern Michigan that day. But we stopped at my Grandpa's sister's house. And lucky for us she and her husband were home and took us in immediately. And wouldn't even think of us not staying the night. I had never met this Great Aunt of mine. And I am so happy that I was given the opportunity to stay with her. She has a lovely little house set back in the woods just off of Lake Michigan. It was beautiful. And she gave us the fun idea to go out and search for ice caves in the morning. Which we did but I will talk about that at another time... and put up some pics. :)

This is a pic of the Lake as we were walking out to it...

This is a pic of a small (I mean really small) ice cave.

After braving the ice of Lake Michigan we continued up to Harbor Springs... with a few turn offs. We tried to find a grave of one of my great great (etc) grandmother. This was a fun adventure...(which I will also talk about later) :) And after a few hours of driving we finally made it to Harbor Springs in the late afternoon Monday.

The funeral was Tuesday morning. And it was nice. It was good to meet family whom I didn't know. And to see family that I hadn't seen in a long time. That afternoon we went to my Great Uncle's house, to have a meal and talk with more of the family. And after we were done there we went to my Grandpa's other sister's house. And I met her for the 1st time as well. After a few hours of chatting with her and her husband, we left and I got some pictures of my Great Grandma's house and I took pictures of Harbor Springs before the sun went down completely. And then we went back to get back together with my Aunts and Uncles (who were all gathered in Harbor for the funeral too)...

The next morning we went to my Uncle's Candy Store before taking off to drive home. And we stayed there for a few hours and Grandpa made a batch of fudge before we left. It was a nice time there... I got lots more pictures, but mostly video of Grandpa making the fudge and talking to my Uncle.

Then we started our trip back. We got lost on the freeways in Illinois and ended up driving almost into downtown Chicago at rush hour... and a few hours after that when we got back onto I80 when I was driving, I got pulled over... mostly for being nervous and going 5 mph over the speed limit. (which at the time I wasn't aware of if it was 65 or 70) Anyway, I got a "slow down young lady" and I was sent on my way. Of course this was after he asked me where I was coming from. My mom said Michigan, and I said "My great Grandma's funeral".... I don't think I will ever live this one down... but hey I got out of a ticket. :) Needless to say I was very aware of the speed limit signs after that and I didn't speed at all. We ran into some fog that night... and we made it to Des Moines and stayed the night there.

Continued in the morning and made it to Nebraska with fairly good weather... but in Nebraska we ran into some more snow and drove past a scary accident that closed I80 eastbound. After that the snow got a little better... and we continued on to Wyoming where we ran into another snowstorm at Cheyenne. We decided that it would be a good thing to stop where we were and wait out the night rather than get stuck on the interstate in the middle of the night. And it was a good thing we stopped when we did because we got off the road before they actually closed it and we got a room before they had to start turning people away. The next morning we got out after they had sanded and cleared the roads and we had pretty clear sailing until we got home, Friday afternoon.

Messy

2011-02-09T20:14:00.000-07:00

Today was a messy day. Just in general. I tried to get myself up for cleaning... But all I wanted to do was curl up in a blanket and watch a movie. (A movie just for me not for the girlies) But unfortunately I had restricted tv use for the day with Audrey. And what does it say when Mommy turns around a turns on the tv. So here I was stuck wanting what I thought I shouldn't have.

Ellie was asleep for her nap. And finally I decided that was it. I was going to take lunch and take Audrey down, curl up in the blankets together and watch Ever After. I thought it would be safe enough to watch that with my girl. (also secretly hoping she would fall asleep... didn't happen) Anyway... Had a good cry and thoroughly enjoyed the show. And Audrey said she loved it too.

I felt sooo good afterward! I felt like I could actually get some cleaning done and get things going!

Then Audrey... who hasn't been feeling very well all day. (She has problems with constipation) She starts freaking out sometimes and her tummy hurts... Well she was using the potty for like the 10th time today and decided that she needed a bath... for the 2nd time today. The first time after like 5 mins she decided she was done, just wasn't feeling good and the bath was not helping. What ever I will give her another bath maybe this time it will help her feel better. Nope... she saw something brown floating in the water (nothing bad I promise) but it made her want to get right out. So I told her if she wanted to get out that she needed to go take a nap.

Oh this was not going to fly. She absolutely hates naps. I mean HATES naps. But she is sooo tired looking and she isn't feeling good. So I insist. Which I know is going to be a problem. But She finally decided to get out of the tub and see what she can get away with. We head to the room and I lay down next to her. We chat a little She screams a little. But finally I get her to just lay there with her blanket covering her head so she is just calm. She doesn't sleep at all even though she tells me she did close her eyes for a while.

All the while Ellie has been eating lunch and then taking her own bath. And I can get a little bit of cleaning done... And I start thinking and hoping and wishing that there was a way I could convince my daughter of the goodness of naps. Oh and hoping that in the future she won't hate me for being a "mean" mom who tries to enforce rules that she doesn't understand right now. And who has to enforce the punishments too... And lots of other thoughts flying through my head... Ugh this day is not going well...

So I decide I need to make some brownies... I talk Audrey out of helping me. I will dance with her once the brownies are in the oven. Yummy brownie batter! I love brownie batter it helps me destressify :)

Got the brownies in the oven by the time Stu got home... Went down and danced... Yay Just Dance 2!!! Get through the dancing and my batteries died in the Wii remote. Find new batteries and go on to the Wii fit stuff... Ellie loves the "ball" games :)

Dinner time...

There are many days that are broken into tiny tiny pieces by dinner time. Girls screaming and fighting me or Stu with what they won't eat. Lucky for me today Audrey wants her usual and I have the left overs to give her for it. Spaghetti and Rolls. But I have a thought... Audrey needs much more fiber in her diet, how do I get her to eat it... Well the one vegetable that she will eat faster than anything, Broccoli. Weird I know. But her friend next door got her to eat it fresh and that is now the only way she will eat it. And she will eat it all. With out ranch dressing or anything like that. And I bought some on the hopes that I could get her to do this. So I ask her, would she like some broccoli? She asks me a few questions about it and then agrees. So spaghetti, rolls, broccoli. Her dinner plate looks nice and colorful. :)

I gave the same thing to Ellie only with smaller pieces of broccoli and no roll. At first Ellie was skeptical and she spit out the broccoli that she had bit into. But as she watched Audrey munching happily on her broccoli, she kept trying it. And decided that she could eat a little of it, in between bites of spaghetti.

Wow! I have 2 girls sitting there eating their broccoli and being happy about it! I could shout, and jump for joy! Oh my goodness! It was a successful dinner! And Audrey earned her brownie dessert!

I got Ellie ready for bed. Let Audrey go downstairs to watch a few shows while I put Ellie down. And expecting a fight about it, I decided that I should just have some cuddle time with my little girl. So I wrapped her up in her blanket and just held her and sang to her. She loved it! And when I was done I sat her in her crib with a book to look at and left her there, just as happy as can be. I later heard her "singing" along to her music. But no screaming!

Now it is time to get Audrey to bed... let us hope that we can have a good rest of the night... :) *Fingers crossed*

Cleaning

2011-02-07T13:37:00.000-07:00

Just a warning to myself and my family.

Some times... I find that a good cleaning of things will calm a stormy life.

Alright, almost always, if I clean up the crap that is just laying around and creating clutter in my house I find that I feel much, much better.

I learned this from my Mom. And I am sooo glad that she did this regularly through out my life. And she has helped me to do the same thing to my own house. Helping me see what is okay to get rid of and what is okay to keep. So while I did get some of the, "I need to save that in case I need that" gene from my Dad. I can get through and see what really is worth saving. Even if that is just my sanity. :)

So yeah I do like to save things just in case. But if I don't need it and it has been sitting for a long time. I can also just get rid of it.

Today is a day where I have felt the energy and desire to just purge my house of a lot of the things that I have just cluttering it. Today I am storing away the stuff that isn't played with, used or anything like that, but that I can see will be wanted, used, or played with in the future. I am tired of cleaning up the toys that they just want to dump on the ground so that they can get to the fun stuff.

I am tired of searching through piles of clothes to find what fits and what I want the girls to wear. So I will be going through the girls clothing and sorting them, after I get them all washed...

Next after that I will go through my own clothes and my husbands clothes.

I need to de-clutter my life. Yes I realize this will probably take more than just today, and I realize that I have been doing this every so often for the past month.... But I hope to continue this until I get my house as organized and de-cluttered as I can. :)

My Things...

2011-01-28T10:26:00.000-07:00

I realize I haven't done much talking about my girls here for a while now. So here is an update.

Thing 1... Audrey.

Audrey will be 4 in a few weeks. She is beautiful, smart, can be a handful, and likes to tell jokes. (not that she understands jokes, and sometimes just says crazy nonsensical stuff) She went to a preschool that my friend had decided to do for me and another friend. She learned how to write her name and figure out how to spell some small words like cat, dog, dan, dad, and some other ones like that. She is also trying to spell other words. She asks me how to spell them and I tell her to sound it out. She does! It is fun to see how much she is growing and learning all the time.

At other times she drives me crazy by doing exactly what her younger sister does. Mostly she does it just to get the same attention that Ellie gets. So I need to work on giving her as much attention and such for the things she does that are age appropriate I suppose. But, we have been talking to her about being a big girl versus being a baby. She wants to be the big girl and not treated like a baby. So I have to remind her about this fairly often.

Audrey's latest obsession is My Little Pony's. She loves them and loves to tell me how many more she wants. But hey at least she is done with her obsession over pretending to be a frog (The Princess and the Frog got her on that one). And for the most part she is done pretending to be a dog. Pound puppies the cartoon, there is a new version out for kids now, same with My Little Pony's. I found a channel that has these show and more... I was soooo excited to have found them! It takes me back to when I was little and loved these same shows! *They also play Fraggle Rock and Strawberry Shortcake!

However, she absolutely loves her sister. She loves that she now has someone to play with. Even though they do fight fairly frequently. She hates it when I separate them, such as when they fight too much. I am sooo thankful that they love each other so much. It makes me happy to see them that way.

Audrey just recently started primary. She is now a Sunbeam. And with her 3rd week in primary she gave her first talk. Well I suppose I gave her first talk for the most part. But by the end she finally did actually say a few words into the microphone. She loves primary, even though she didn't want to give up nursery.

Thing 2... Eleanor

She is almost 19 months now. She just started nursery. She loves it. And had no problems with me leaving her there. It did help, I think, that the nursery leaders let her join in when I was giving lessons in Relief Society. But I think she likes having the freedom to just play with other kids and not having me there to try and keep her quiet and in one place. (i.e. when I had to take her to class with me... soooo glad I don't have to take her to class with me anymore)

She is a very independent, (for the most part), kid. She is also very caring and kind. She likes to try and help others. She loves to play mommy and take care of her baby dolls. She will try to tuck daddy into bed. And will tell you how to do things. (She does a lot of talking but mostly you get what she means by reading her hand gestures) She will try to dress you.

Ellie also loves accessories. She likes to know that she is wearing something cute. And has a fairly developed sense of style for a 19 month old. She has her favorite things to wear of course. She will wear headbands and bows and such with out any fight. And she longs to have long hair like her sister. Unfortunately for her she got my hair, as in she doesn't have much right now, but it is starting to fill in, we can almost put some little clips in it now.

It is amazing, wonderful, and so much more for me to watch these 2 little girls of mine grow. Whenever I put new clothes on them it makes me sooo happy, but then a little sad, to see how much more grown up these clothes make them look. They are both such big, beautiful girls. And I love them sooo much even if they drive me a little crazy. I just have to stop and remember how much I do REALLY love them.

Thanks for letting me have this mommy moment. :)

Panic

2011-01-27T11:42:00.000-07:00

I don't like having panic attacks... I suppose most people don't like having them. But still.

I was having a great morning, playing with the girls while trying to clean up. Just laughing and having fun.

Then when I walked through the basement to feed the cats, I smelled what I think was Natural gas. Oye....

With all the things already going on in my house; finding mold growing in the master bath, finding out that my shelf that holds a lot of glass dishes was barely holding things up. I didn't need to have a gas leak in my house.

Anyway, that sent up my hackles and I walked around a bit to see if I could smell more. I didn't, but now it is there lingering in the back of my mind.

Anxiety is my enemy. It doesn't make me feel good. And it makes me do things that I regret.

So this is it. I am going to beat you anxiety and find ways to soothe my soul when ever I feel you start to creep back in. I have enough to worry about without you making things all that much worse. I can't handle the things I need to when you are around. So hear this, I will not let you stay in my head.

STICU Warning this post will be a bit graphic not for the faint of heart

2011-01-24T18:30:00.001-07:00

Alright it probably isn't that graphic... I don't think I can accurately describe everything here... So it is only a tiny bit graphic and hard to read for me and a few others who actually saw him. As it will bring back the memories.

Okay, so here is where things are a little fuzzy for me. I am not sure in what order things actually happened. I am pretty sure I was the first to see Stu after the operation. But not 100% sure. I may have been second or something. And I don't really remember what happened between talking to the doctor and waiting to see Stu. I seem to remember that it took longer than I would have liked. And we couldn't take any kids in to see him. So Ellie had to stay out with someone in that little "dirty" waiting room. And of course Audrey couldn't go in either.

I say dirty because it wasn't very inviting. But they don't want people to hang out much, I suppose. There were lots of people there. With many, many stories and reasons for being there.

We couldn't have more than 2 people in the room with Stu at a time. And there were many other rules too.

The doctors had done their best to try and tell me what may or may not be seen when Stu came out of the surgery. There was a chance that he would have a breathing tube in. Lucky for me it was not in. He was breathing fine on his own. But there were many, many other things attached to him. And he was very out of things when I first saw him. I don't even know if he opened his eyes when I first saw him. He had to have his arms strapped down to keep him from pulling on any of the wires, or tubes and such.

He had a lot of wires coming out of him. They had to monitor his heart and all sorts of other things like that. It was quite scary to see him like that.

He had an itchy nose and was wanting to scratch it. So I scratched it for him. I just wanted to hold him but you really weren't supposed to do much of anything like that. So mostly I held his hand, and prayed.

He talked a little bit. But it didn't seem like him. He said things about a train, and other odd things. I felt like it wasn't him talking. But I don't know what it actually was. He sounded scared. So I tried to soothe him. But mostly I just sat and listened and prayed.

We spent time going in and out and giving each other breaks. At one point my Mom and Dad came and brought Audrey to see me. We chatted a little. My Bro in law who was watching Ellie out in the waiting room had to come in and get me at one point to go out and nurse Ellie. He left Ellie with a lady who was there waiting for her brother or sister who was in the STICU. And that lady actually got Ellie to take a binky. Which was something we had been trying to get her to take for 2 months. Apparently she just needed someone else to do it. And I like to hope that Ellie helped that lady get just a little peace during her time of trials. But I will be forever grateful that she did that for us.

At some point during the day I went home and took a bath and a nap. It was the first rest I had gotten in about 2 days.

My Mom in law and I and whoever was with Stu at the time were in constant communication practically. There were a few times though that I was the only person in the room with Stu. I seem to recall that those were awful lonely times.

At some point a nurse came in to take an x-ray of Stu's abdomen. I don't recall why. But she had a portable x-ray machine. And just sort of jammed the board under his back, it made me kind of angry to see how she did that. I mean for heaven's sake he has an incision across his whole stomach. But she finally got it and then left and I could be back at my husband's side.

I think Stu was only in the STICU until Monday afternoon. But the time that he was in there feels like it lasted forever. We talked a lot to other people there. And heard many, many stories. And ours was the happiest of all of them, it seemed. Even though things were scary for us. He was doing well, and progressing fast. So we felt as though we didn't really seem to fit there. As I suppose now thinking about it, I don't think anyone really feels like they fit there, except maybe the nurses. :)

No one could stay the night with Stu so I went home. I don't recall if my Mom in law stayed. I think she probably did. By Sunday evening I believe Stu had started to try and stand up, and by Monday morning Stu had walked a lap around the STICU. That is when the doctors and nurses decided it was time to move Stu up to his regular room on the transplant floor. Floor 10.

By that night he was in his own room and he had been unattached to one of the IVs and he had received his PICC line in his arm. Which is a really neat IV that they don't have to change every day or every other day. And they could draw his blood from it so he had fewer pokes every few hours. The PICC line was pretty neat to watch them put in. They did that down in the STICU, but they have to guide it in with an ultrasound machine and it has to be kept as clean as possible because it went I believe close to the heart.

And that began the count down of taking out his attachments.

But this is where I will end today.

Stu's liver... continued from forever ago...

2011-01-19T14:31:00.000-07:00

I hope I can get this right... since it has now been almost a year and a half from this time.

My Mom came home. We told her what was going on, she hugged us and agreed to watching the kids for us. And we drove to the hospital. We don't live far from the hospital, just about 2 miles maybe. But Stu's parents were there waiting for us in the ER waiting area. Because that is where you go to check in after regular office hours. Stu checked in and we were ushered upstairs to the 10th floor where Stu would wait and get ready for everything.

While we were driving there Stu and I discussed things and had decided that we were probably a backup recipient and that someone else might get the liver and we would probably be sent home. As this is what we were told to expect from everyone in the liver support group. So we went in feeling like things weren't probably going to happen.

When we got there we met a really nice nurse who took us to our room. I don't remember her name, but I think I would remember her face. As we did see her a few more times after that. She kept us up to date and was very friendly. We asked her what number we were, and she told us that we were the one and only waiting for this liver. She also let us know where the potential liver was coming from. Which I don't believe she is supposed to let us know.

But anyway, she was very open about what hospital the donor was at. But that was all, she didn't know anything else, which is perfectly good. And she would be being prepping us as if things were going to happen. They would need to run a few tests on him to make sure that he was healthy enough to receive it. And we would have to wait for the proper tests to be run on the liver to make sure that it was healthy enough to be received.

We got to the hospital at somewhere near 9:30, and into our room by about 10 pm. We contacted all the family we could think of to tell them what was going on. And because Stu was at the theatre when he got the call, I was trying to keep everyone there updated as to what was going on as well. We waited in the little room for a few hours. Stu's Aunt and Uncle came over to help us wait, both of his brothers came over as well. Stu's dad, a family friend, and Stu's Uncle gave Stu a blessing. At around 11 or so the nurse came in to tell us that the liver was a match and all was looking more like he was going to be having surgery in a few hours.

We talked to one of the doctor's on call about what was going to be happening in the surgery. What to expect and so on and then Stu had to sign some papers. And they started the preparations to get him going.

Between Midnight and 1 am they wheeled Stu to the elevator. We walked along until they brought us to the surgical waiting room. Where I said my final goodbye to my sweetheart. It was nearly 1am when they pushed his bed away from me down the hall to the surgical room.

The waiting room was empty when we got there. And my brother in laws had gone home. But Stu's Mom and Dad stayed with me through the night. They tried to get some sleep on those uncomfortable chairs. I had vowed not to sleep.

I had a book with me that I was reading and a mountain dew by my side. I was waiting for a phone call. I remember getting a phone call half way through each previous surgery. That needed to happen. I had also asked the nurse if they would let me know when they actually started the surgery. He said they would. And so I waited. And waited. And read.

Part of the way through the night another couple of men came and sat around the corner from us. Their, wife and mom, I believe was in surgery and they were quite worried. But I didn't talk to them. I just overheard, as I am sure they over heard much of what we said. My Mother in law would wake up and chat with me every once in a while. But mostly we were just a bunch of nervous people. See, even when they take them into the operating room they can change their minds and still send them home. So I wasn't still for sure that he was going to have the surgery yet.

The sun came up. I still hadn't heard anything. And by now was a mess... I had finished my book after a few hours. And was at this point trying not to pace... And my sweet mother in law decided we were done waiting for a call. And she decided to call them on their little white phone. And we found out that yes he had been in surgery for a few hours now and that they were sorry but thought that we needed our sleep and didn't want to disturb us.

I could have screamed... what sleep!? Do they really think I could sleep at a time like this!!!

But anyways... my Mom came and brought my sweet 2 month old Ellie to me to nurse a bit. I talked to a few more people to let them know what was going on. And few hours later the doctor came out to talk to us.

Dr. Alonzo. She is a beautiful woman, who was very compassionate. Sat down and talked to us. First to me and then to Stu's Mom and Grandma. She answered a few questions and told us how the surgery went. Things progressed very well... for what should have been an at least 6 hour surgery, Stu's only lasted for 5 total hours. Because he is so young and in such relatively great health things went smoothly. And we should be directed to him in a little while. He was in recovery but we wouldn't be able to see him until he was in the STICU (Shock Trauma ICU). And they would get us when we could see him, finally.

It was Sunday morning. My world had been flipped upside down. And it all felt soo surreal. I had many more phone calls to people we knew and that would want to know. There were several texts sent out and received. Stu made it through the surgery. And then we waited to be told where he was and how we could go see him.

This is were I will stop for now.

Just a little story that happened to me today

2011-01-19T13:58:00.000-07:00

To preface this, I want to remember this lesson I learned from my daughter. Yesterday I went out with my mom, my girls, and my nephew. We went to a pediatric dentist visit for my nephew. I went to check out the dentist because this is were my dentist suggested I take my daughter, for her own checkups. I really like the place, but that is beside the point of my story. They had a little machine that gave out little toys for tokens or quarters. And Audrey just had to have some of those toys. So we gave in and bought a few. Amongst these toys were a miniature dinosaur and a yellow squishy wiggly guy. Before we even made it out of the parking lot Audrey was quite upset that she may have lost this dinosaur. And we were going to have to turn the car inside out in order to find it. Lucky for me, it was still just in her lap under a fold of clothing.

Cut to this afternoon.

Audrey comes to me, she is in tears and can barely tell me what is wrong. Her squishy wiggly guy has lost a leg. And there is no consoling her. He must be fixed! I try to explain to her that it is okay. She has plenty of other toys that she can play with. She won't even remember him. (Okay I know that isn't true... she remembers even the one little pink puppy that she lost at the grocery store months ago. But a mom can hope that she won't remember, right)

She asks if we can tape his leg back to him. I say no that won't work. Can we glue him. No I don't think that will work either. Will tape and glue work. No, hun. Well daddy can fix him, right? No,hun I don't think daddy will be able to fix him.

Then, Jesus can fix him.

How do I tell an almost 4 year old that it isn't that easy. When she really believes that it is. I try to explain to her that if Jesus fixes him we won't be able to play with him any more. But that doesn't sit well with her. No he will come back to me and we can play. I say yes Jesus can fix him. And we talk a little more about this and finally I just let her go and say I will have daddy take a look at him when he gets home.

She leaves contented. But I am left with a lot of different things going through my head. And after a little while of thinking about this conversation with my child. And having several different reactions to it. I had a feeling of calm pass through me and a thought.

Yes he was just one 25 cent toy among the multitude of toys my children have. But he was one that my daughter cares about, and to her it didn't matter that he was only worth 25 cents. And Jesus cares about everyone no matter how much "worth" they have.

And you know what my daughter had the faith, right then, that he could fix this and he would. And yes I believe that he would probably have fixed that toy right then, because my daughter knew that he would. This was a beautiful testimony that my daughter shared with me, and I never want her to lose it. Why would I ever want to take that away from her?

I am so glad that I can learn these things from my girls.

Needless to say, I am really going to try and fix that 25 cent toy now.

1 year

2010-09-04T23:50:00.001-06:00

Wow I can't believe it has been a year. This weekend is the 1 year mark for Stu's new liver. At times I still can't believe everything that has happened... And I am positive I don't remember all of what did happen. But I also know that there are some things I will never forget. And someday I will get the rest of the story up here. But it is kind of hard to write so bear with me please.

A brief update on our family though....

Audrey is amazing me all the time... She is 3 and 1/2 now and going on about 20ish...

Ellie is also amazing me as well. She is on the go always and is starting to want to be like the older kids. I didn't want to make her give up her bottle but she started refusing it about a week ago. And it made me sad... She is growing up too fast and I don't remember much about her first year, everything went by too quickly. She is 1 now too... weird...

We picked up 2 more kitties to add to our family... So the total of animals in the house is 5...

We finally just payed some people to put up our deck... And it is wonderful to be able to go out and grill on the deck!!! We love it!

We will be soon putting in a back yard too... at least that is the plan...

Anyways... I said this would be brief... So now I must go to bed.

It's been a while...

2009-11-09T23:41:00.001-07:00

Things sure have changed around here... for one thing I have a 4 month old little girl. :D
Little baby Eleanor Moleta Wilde was born July 3rd a little bit after noon. She came about 2 and 1/2 weeks early. She weighed 5 lbs 14 oz. No complications. Just a beautiful baby girl.

Audrey loves being a big sister and loves to help out with her. Though she was a bit jealous about the baby being able to sleep in Mommy's room.

Just before Ellie was born, Audrey decided that she wanted to use the potty. And we started trying to potty train... and that lasted for about 3 days. Then I had Ellie and Audrey decided again to use the potty. And that time it lasted for a week or so I think. Daddy went into the hospital a week after we brought Ellie home and Audrey told me that she missed me and wanted me back. And she then decided that telling mommy she needed to use the potty was a good way to get attention. Well she got it and then promptly decided that the potty chair was "scarey".

So we have begun the potty training battles.

2nd new thing happening at this house:

On Sept 5th, Stu was working at the theatre, I was home with the girls. My parents had come over with my 2 nephews whom they were going to be watching for the weekend. So we decided that it would be a good idea to let the kids play together. Audrey loves her cousins. My mom needed to get some groceries, so she left me and my father with all the kids. I received a phone call from Stu, that went something like this:

Me; "Hey, what's up?" Stu; "I just got a call from transplant, they may have a liver for me." Me; "What...." Stu; "They may have a liver for me." Me; "what, but I thought you weren't transplant-able" Stu; "Me too, I asked them and they said my score was 17. And that I need to get to the hospital. I am coming home to get you, we need to find someone to watch the girls." Me; " It's ok my parents are already over here, they can watch the girls, Dad can you watch the girls? Stu is coming home we need to get to the hospital they may have a liver for him."

And the call went on a little bit more... But I can tell you that when he told me that they have a liver for him I just about threw up right then. You see we were told that it would be probably another 2 years before he would be sick enough to really be considered for a liver. But that it could happen any time so no one really knew how long he would wait. I took a few long drinks of water and that seemed to calm me down enough to think about what really needed to be done in preparation for us to leave.

Stu came home and we made some final plans with my dad and he went upstairs and got a kiss and a hug from Audrey. We walked over to our neighbor's to tell them what was happening. And then my mom pulled into the driveway, we talked to her and then left for the hospital.

And it is late so I will finish this story later...

Funny Audrey-ism...

2009-05-26T15:24:00.000-06:00

This morning Audrey found a sucker that had been taken away from her last night. She was soo excited that she found her sucker... It was a tootsie pop. So I let her finish it up. Normally she gets bored with the suckers before she finishes any of them, so I end up having to throw them away. But after about an hour of her eating her sucker, she walks into my room and tells me, in such a happy voice,"Mommy! I eatin a cookie sucker!". So I turn around and look at her to see what she is actually doing. Because I don't know where she got a cookie from, and she is biting into the center of the tootsie pop. I start laughing... silly little girl.

Done with the haircut...

2009-05-26T15:16:00.000-06:00

Audrey was a little squirmy during the whole haircut experience, but there were no tears shed and mostly just giggles coming from her. So all in all it was good. Thank you Brandie for your expert help. :D

Audrey's first haircut

2009-05-26T15:04:00.000-06:00

This is how she looked like before... Her uncle's fiance Brandie is going to be doing the trimming. Audrey is very comfortable with her so we figured that would be a good way to go about this.

And here we are not quite finished....

Graveyards filled with flowers and the livings memories

2009-05-25T13:00:00.000-06:00

We went walking through a couple of Graveyards today. Visiting the graves of loved ones past. Audrey wanted to stop at all of the flowers, play with all the little windmill things, and take all of the little balloons she could see. She was loving it, being out side with Mommy, Daddy, Mama (Grandma), Bapa (Grandpa), Great Mama, and Great Bapa.

While we were visiting a few of the graves I was looking around to see the other names of others loved ones. At my feet I saw a sight that I haven't seen since visiting graveyards when I was younger and with my parents searching for lost relatives gravestones. We went to many a graveyard when I was younger, and many of them were very old and had gravestones that were cracking and that were hard to read and so forth.

This little gravestone that I saw today made me pause and contemplate a few things. It was just a little square, a simple marker. With the name Daniel, I believe. This poor little marker had been shattered and had grass growing up amid the cracks. The name hadn't been chiseled in like most markers. It had been put on there with stickers. Little black stickers. And most of them had come off of the stone. I couldn't make out the last name and the only part of the date on the stone that we could see was 1940 something...

Looking at this little stone made me a little sad, surrounded by all these beautiful flowers on other peoples graves, and here no one was around to take care of this little stone. So I showed it to Stu, who tried to removes some of the grass that was growing up through the stone, which only caused the pieces of the stone to move a bit, and we sat and gave a silent moment to this one person.

I don't know if they care that no one comes to visit them. Or that their stone is in such disrepair. But we thought of you today Daniel, and I hope you are doing well.

Big steps

2009-05-19T07:56:00.001-06:00

Audrey has made a big step in the reasoning department.

She has realized that if she does what we want, as in bargaining, she will get what she wants...

While I used to be able to count on her not doing what I say or at least I could get her to, say, take another bite of food before I gave her what she wanted, mostly because she didn't realize what I was doing. Now I need to follow through with my end of the bargain on the first time she does it.

Last night she wanted spaghetti after she had eaten almost all of her corndog. But we wanted her to finish up all of her corndog. So we let her eat one bite of spaghetti after she ate one bite of corndog. After the corndog was all done we wanted her to eat some more strawberrys, which is one of her favorite fruits right now, so we did the same with the strawberrys until she no longer wanted to eat. It was a very successful meal.

This morning before breakfast she wanted to watch her new favorite show, DragonTales. We told her that she needed to eat breakfast before watching DragonTales. She put up a tiny bit of fuss but then got into her chair and wanted "Circle Yoyos" (translated into Apple Jacks even though she knows they are called Apple Jacks, she likes to call cereal "yoyos") When she only had a little bit left she decided she was done and wanted to watch Dragons. So I said that she needed to have one more bite. She then proceeded to grab her spoon away from me and shove one more bite in her mouth. So I had to let her be done and go watch Dragons...

Normally it would be you need to eat or go to bed. So I could almost always just put her back to bed when she didn't eat her food, thus getting myself a little more time to sleep in the morning. But now she has this all figured out. She is a bit too smart at times, I think.

On a side note...

Last night I got a sliver in my foot and Stu had to take it out. Audrey watched and said that Daddy was "cutting Mommy" and I told her, "No, Daddy isn't cutting mommy he is fixing her booboo." So Audrey wanted daddy to fix her booboo.

This morning however daddy found a splinter in Audrey's hand, while he was going out the door to work. So I had to take care of it. We told her it was like mommy's booboo last night. And she saw my bandaid and then wanted one just like it on her foot. But while daddy was looking at her sliver she said, "A ladybug bite her ouchie". She kept repeating this while I went to get the tweezers and pulled out the sliver, which wasn't in too deep and wasn't too big. Then she proceeded to show me all the little booboos on her hands (i.e. hang nails and the like) calling them all lady bug bites.

It has been an interesting morning so far.

7 years and a few other things running around my mind

2009-05-11T23:21:00.000-06:00

So yesterday was our 7 year anniversary. It seems unreal to me that it has been 7 years already. While the day we got married also seems so long ago. But sooo much has happened in that 7 years that has brought us closer and closer together. There have been things that may have sent other people running away. But things are so good between the two of us now because of or in spite of those hard times.

A few things that have happened to us in the last 7 years.

Stu was diagnosed with UC and PSC. UC is a problem that he has with his large intestine. And he fought with those problems for a good 2-ish years. And then 4 years ago he had his large intestine removed. It was a tough time, and I was scared about that surgery and how everything would turn out. Through all that time Stu continued to go to school. He got off a bunch of drugs that he had been on to help with the UC and then Graduated.

He got a great job, we moved into our own place, and then I got pregnant with our 1st little angel. Shortly after we had her we bought a house and got settled in there. We have been in the house now for almost 2 years. We felt that the timing was good and decided to try for another little babe.

Now, 6 and 1/2 years ago Stu was told that in 10-15 years from then he would need a Liver transplant. We both knew that was a big deal. But, I didn't realize how big of a deal it would come to be.

We found out I was pregnant in November of last year. In December we were told by Stu's GI doc that he needed to get in contact with the Liver Transplant team. Who then did quite a few tests and went over a lot of information with us, and then decided that Stu was a good candidate for a transplant.

About 3 weeks ago Stu was placed on the transplant waiting list for a new liver. When you are put on the transplant list, you and your spouse and other support people need to go to a class to learn what is going to happen. They let you know what the symptoms of a failing liver are, and so on. But, they don't really tell you how to handle these situations. As well as some other things.

Stu doesn't seem all that sick to me. But maybe it is just that I am around him all the time. Or maybe I just try not to think of him as sick. Or something like that. But at about the same time he was put on the list I started to not sleep well at night, and I get these headaches that just linger and linger. I worry about the baby. I worry about Stu.

We went to a support group for transplants that the team has set up. Pre and Post transplant people and there family are welcome. Stu and I were by far the youngest couple there. It was nice to know that these people will be there to talk to about things as they come up. One other spouse came. Her husband has PSC as well, and she offered to be there for me to talk to if I ever needed it. It really helped to know that there are places to go to talk about this stuff. She also offered some advice on were to go to get some good info on PSC. Apparently a lot of the sites on the internet about it are out of date.

Anyway, going to this meeting made me think about it more again. I hope it ends out being a good thing and not just another place I go that makes me have anxiety about all of this again.

Sorry for the ramblings it is late and I should go. Good night.

Spring time at the Wilde's

2009-05-07T14:49:00.000-06:00

This is Audrey waking up on Easter morning. She was pretty excited for something. Though she didn't quite understand what yet. Until she found her Easter basket and all the eggs and candy. Now she understands... about finding candy on Easter. :D

We will work on the real meaning when she is a bit older.

Audrey after we got ready for church on Easter. She loves to dance and she loves to wear her "tu- tu's".

This final pic is me of course. I am 29 weeks along here.

Baby Update!

2009-05-01T12:21:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago we had the ultrasound... And this little child is not a shy one, apparently. With-in about 2 seconds the technician asked if we wanted to know what the baby was. And of course we said yes! We are having another little Girl! And so far as he could tell she looked healthy and, like her sister, is very active.

And this very active little girl has made mommy's uterus agitated. So last night I went into the doc's to see if I had a uti.... but no... tested neg. So they told me to go to Labor and Delivery to get checked to see if I was in preterm labor. Stu and I spent about 5 hours sitting there waiting for test results to come back... and just being monitored for contractions. I did have some that they could see... but the last one I had was about 2 hours before I left. So they gave me a shot of some medicine to relax my muscles and watched me for another hour. Then they sent us home.

All that while I could have nothing but clear liquids. And I hadn't eaten since 2. Not good for someone with Gestational Diabetes. Anyways... I ended up not being in Labor, thank heavens. But now I have to take things a lot easier. Can't pick up the Audrey babe, can't go on strenuous walks, etc. Also I need to rest and lay down if I feel contractions. Fun, huh? Oh well, at least I am not on bed rest yet. :D

My Little girl

2009-03-06T17:12:00.000-07:00

She had another birthday yesterday... and now she is 2. :D
Here are some pics from the party. The pics are all in backwards order from how they happened so you see the party in reverse... oh well I can't think to try and fix it right now...

New Puppy and other news...

2009-01-20T18:33:00.000-07:00

So yeah we got a new puppy... We picked her up last friday... Her mom was Blue Healer Black Lab mix, and they don't know what the dad was. I suppose it was whatever dog got to her the fastest. But anyway they were a bunch of cute little puppies. And we took one home. We named her Impending Doom, or Penny for short. She is a frisky little girl but she seems to learn pretty fast already.

On the Pregnancy side of things. I FINALLY made it to the second trimester. It seemed like it took forever. But I am 14 weeks along now. I have felt the baby move, that little fluttering in my stomach. I am feeling pretty good. But I think having a puppy to watch after and an almost 2 year old is taking atoll on me... I am still pretty darn tired. but the nausea is pretty much gone now. Thank Heavens.

And my sinus infection is almost all the way gone now. Even the teeth that were hurting are only hurting a little now. Thanx for letting me vent last time around...

Sinus Infections

2009-01-09T00:10:00.000-07:00

Wowzers..... I never new that my head could hurt this bad.... I can't sleep and nothing I can take is able to really take the pain away.... I have been taking the antibiotics for 2 days and they haven't seemed to help at all... my teeth and the roof of my mouth are killing me.... my cheekbone.... ooooohhhh my cheekbone.... my head... my teeth... everything.... it just wants to keep me awake... tylenol doesn't help even the prescription tylenol doesn't help.... cloves help for a sec but then the pain is back... heat doesn't help.... nothing is working... what can I do?????

Our future comedian

2009-01-06T18:13:00.000-07:00

So tonight Audrey said her first knock knock joke.... with a little help from daddy. Anyway here is how it went:

Audrey: Knock Knock
Stu: Who's there?
Audrey: Apple
Stu: Apple who?
Audrey: Where???

She has been always calling out "saur!" (dinosaur) while we drive in the car... and when we ask where she responds with "Where!?"

She is a silly girl...

Alphabet

2008-12-27T20:26:00.000-07:00

A — Attached or Single: Attached

B — Best Friend: Stu

C — Cake or Pie: cake instead of a pie unless it is a chocolate pie

D — Day of Choice: Friday

E — Essential Item: Contacts... totally blind without them

F — Favorite Color: yellow

G — Greatest Accomplishment: my kids

H — Hometown: Utah I suppose

I — Indulgences: hot bubble baths

J — January or July: January

K — Kids: 1 almost 2 year old and another on the way... 1 Stu and 2 cats...

L— Life is incomplete without: Jesus

M — Marriage Date: May 10, 2002

N — Number of Siblings: 1 brother, 2 sis in law, 3 bro in law

O — Oranges or Apples: depends on my mood

P — Phobias or fears: falling down ladders or stairs backwards... weird I know

Q — Quotes: Don't worry, Be happy!

R — Reason to Smile: watching my crazy little Audrey

S — Season: Spring

T — Tag 5 Friends: Stu, Emily, Brittney, Gilian, Dad

U — Unknown fact about me: I have problems with certain textures of foods, can't eat them if they bug me... and it is worse through this pregnancy.... good greif

V — Very favorite store: Baby stores.... I love to look at the cute baby things

W — Worst habit: Procrastination

X — X-ray or Ultra Sound: Ultra Sound.... it is fun to see your little baby inside of you

Y — Your favorite food: dessert

Z — Zodiac: Aquarius

"Give me Five"

2008-12-27T20:13:00.000-07:00

Five Things I Was Doing 10 Years Ago:
1. Going to high school
2. Early morning Marching Band
3. Early morning Jazz Band (when not marching)
4. Dating
5. Early morning Concert Band (yes band and boys were my life)

Five Things On My “To-Do” List Today:
1. Clean
2. Play with Audrey
3. Rest
4. Eat
5. Watch the Jazz Game with my sweetheart Stu

Five Favorite Snacks:
1. Penuche Fudge
2. Plain Chocolate Fudge
3. Potato Chips
4. chocolate
5. Anything but what I can eat.... maybe... :D

Five Jobs I Have Had:
1. Paper Girl :D
2. Taco Time - Shift lead....I still love to eat there too :D
3. Telephone Cell phone sales agent... oh dear
4. Blue Beacon cashier/ book keeper
5. Stage Crew/ Spot Operator etc.... still working here off and on... Love it! :D

Five Things I Would Do With a Million Dollars:
1. Pay off the house
2. Get a new car... maybe
3. Pay off the student loans
4. Invest (yeah)
5. Buy clothes for the family and me :D

Five People I Tag to Answer the Same Questions
1. Jessie
2. Gilian
3. Stu
4. Alicia
5. Emily

On another note

2008-11-24T21:21:00.000-07:00

I decided that it was time to start reading the BofM to my sweet Audrey tonight. I have one that is illustrated so I thought that would be neat for her. And I need to read it again as well. She was sooo excited when I got the book out. She just wanted to flip through all the pages. So I had to sit her down and let her scream for a while until she was calm enough for me to read it to her. And as I read to her she calmed down even more. She loved the pictures, and she has always loved it when anyone reads to her.

After a while I decided that we needed to say a prayer before going to bed... And for the very first time, she folded her arms and closed her eyes for prayer. Oh that makes me sooo very happy. I had never tried just saying prayers with her at night time before. We have said prayers around her but never really tried to get her involved before.

Wow, what a night!

Now she is asleep with out making a fuss at all. I have a wonderful girl, who surprises me all of the time with the new things she is learning and doing.

Exciting news!

2008-11-24T21:11:00.000-07:00

So about 1 week ago I was in the doctor's office having my Audrey looked at. (I was afraid that she might have been having an allergic reaction to some drugs...) And while I was there I asked the nurse practitioner, I think that is who we saw but she might be a doctor now, I dunno. Anyways I asked her about a few things for myself as well. And she decided that we could set up a quick appointment for me so that she could test my blood.

And you may have guessed from that little hint... the test was for pregnancy... And I am pregnant! I am not very far along at all... only 6 weeks.

But apparently with my last pregnancy I had things way too easy. This time I am feeling queasy almost all the time. And I try different things to try to help that queasy-ness but what helps one day or one time might not help the next, and that is very frustrating. And also I swear I am much much more tired this time around. Good heavens.

I need to find the energy to clean my house or I will go crazy... from the smells and everything... My nose is also super super sensitive to everything too.

But enough griping.... We are sooo excited to have a second child joining this family. You should hear my husband talk about it... It makes me happy. He says things like how he is excited about the little toes and feet. And that makes me wonderfully excited!

My Prayer

2008-11-05T11:50:00.000-07:00

I am thankful to live in such times as these. This life is grand. It is good to know that there are good people in this world. I am also thankful that I can live in such a place as this where I can let my voice be heard and can maybe make a difference.

This last day has been historic. And I know that phrase has been said a lot. But I feel that it needs to be repeated. Historic. History been made. I believe that it is history being made, and I wonder if we made the correct decision. Oh don't get me wrong I am happy for this. But I can't help but wonder. Do I think it should have gone a different way? I don't know. I am happy today. And will pray that things go right tomorrow. I think that is all we can do anyways.

I feel the same way about the way I raise my daughter. Today I try and do what I think is right for her and for my sanity. And I hope that it will bring forth a beautiful, happy Child of God. So far things seem to be going well. And I hope things stay that way. But I still worry. Have I done the right thing?

And so that is how I go... Have we done the right thing? Who knows...

But today...

I am happy. So let us pray and hope for bright tomorrows.

Pics of the babe in the new bed....

2008-10-26T16:21:00.000-06:00

And I decided to put up a pic of our 2 kitties too... Nicolas Moonboots "the Tyrant" is laying down. And Emmaline Fluffy Whiskers is in the doorway.

Tagged again

2008-10-25T12:29:00.001-06:00

This is the simple deal. One-word answers. How long can it take?

Where is your cell phone? coat pocket
Where is your significant other? car
Your hair color? chestnut with blonde highlights
Your mother? interesting
Your father? fun
Your favorite thing? music
Your dream last night? not sure
Your dream/goal? happy peace
The room you’re in? den
Your hobby? playing
Your fear? loss
Where do you want to be in 6 years? home
Where were you last night? brother's home
What you’re not? dead
One of your wish-list items? puppy
Where you grew up? everywhere
The last thing you did? cleaned
What are you wearing? pink
Your TV? Sesame Street
Your pet? Moonboots
Your computer? loud
Your mood? energeticish
Missing someone? Ja
Your car? camry
Something you’re not wearing? makeup....
Favorite store? Haroons
Your summer? fast
Love someone? yay!
Your favorite color? yellow
When is the last time you laughed? today
Last time you cried? 2 weeks ago

Okay so I can't do one word answers.... but I tried.... I shall tag...

The Hess Clan (Britt), In the Howse (Alicia) and Janene!

And anyone else who wants to try. :D

Second midnight

2008-10-20T21:56:00.000-06:00

Well the second night in a "big kids bed" went fairly good. She did wake up and go to the door and scream at about 4 am again. I got up and took her back to bed. I don't think she fell out of bed but then we did put an old quilt down for her to land on and two pillows. So I may have just not heard her fall. Anyways...

She was wide awake and not really wanting to sleep. But I got her to lay down. Singing wasn't getting her to sleep this time. So I just stayed with her. And finally she fell back to sleep just moments before I fell asleep.

And when she finally woke up this morning we had a visitor. I baby sat the neighbor's little boy. He is about 7 months older than Audrey. But I thought it was nice for them to finally play a little together. Though this may have not been the right time for her. She is just a touch moody with all this change going on around her.

So she threw a bit of a fit after a little while of having fun with him. We called grandma and she talked through her anger with my mom. She calmed down and came back down stairs to play and finish an episode of Dora.

This afternoon she had a very good nap, in her bed!

Then I decided that we needed to rearrange Audrey's room. So that the bigger bed would fit a little better. And she now has her own dresser. (YAY!!! Thank you so much!)

And tonight is the first night, with the new bed, that daddy hasn't put her down to sleep. And shall I say.....

SUCCESS!!!!!

I got her to bed with out much problems. She didn't even fuss when we changed into pj's. We found her binky and got a sippy and her bear. Got kisses from all her puppy dolls... and got tucked in. I said night night and left the room.

She cried a little but now all is quiet. I hope she is actually still in bed I suppose we shall see.

First Midnight...

2008-10-19T10:40:00.001-06:00

Well for the most part the night went well...

At about 4 or 5 in the morning... (I didn't check the time. I was just really tired.) I heard a loud thud and then screaming. So I woke up Stu and went in to get Audrey. She was sitting on the floor just crying.

Unfortunately we had forgotten to put anything on the floor to soften a landing. But she calmed down fairly quickly after daddy found the binky. Daddy also placed some pillows on the ground in case she tried to fall off again. I stayed with her until she was basically asleep and then went back to bed my own self. She talked a little bit after I left but eventually went back to sleep.

When I went in to see her after she had been talking a little bit this morning, she got herself off the bed and seemed pretty okay with it all.

Though we just tried to get her to take a nap on the bed and she just sat there playing with her dolls until she felt it was time to be done. And I was just called in there because of her knocking on the door and asking to be let "Out".

So we shall have to figure out this whole napping thing all over again. But so far she doesn't hate the bed she just wants to use the tools to take it apart now.

The next step...

2008-10-18T22:05:00.000-06:00

So my dad put up the big kid bed tonight for my little Audrey...

And we are sleeping our first night in a bed without bars.... :D A regular twin size bed. It is a big step for my little girl. And it took a bit of crying and saying bye bye to the old bed. And finally daddy to come lay down with her to get her to calm down and finally fall asleep. She had her old friends to sleep with and her regular baby blankets to sleep with... Her regular bed time music is playing. But as for tonight she still thinks she needs to be picked up off the bed to get down and "OUT!".

We shall see how the night goes... some times are better than others for the changing of things. But as for now it seems to be going fairly smooth-ish.

She was pretty hyper for a bit there. And didn't really understand what was going on. Until we took the old bed apart. Then she started to get a little nervous.

Here's to hoping that she sleeps well and likes her new bed. :D

I thought this was fun :D

2008-09-25T13:34:00.001-06:00

You Are Pocahantas!

Free-spirited and wise. You have a strong passionate spirit that touches and changes all who know you. The wisdom and common sense that you have is really what guides you through life. Even so, you also have a very playful side that loves adventure and excitement.

Which Disney Princess Are You?

Doctors sheesh

2008-09-15T09:57:00.001-06:00

Okay so I am "this close" to getting a new doctor for me and Audrey. My doctor's office has a retarded staff. And whomever is redoing their computer system, they are retarded as well. The seem to be redoing their computers every freaking time we go in. I have had appointments lost, and things charged when I had payed them and so on. But today may have been the last straw.

I was looking through my wallet to find a card for Stu's doctor appointment, when I found one for Audrey. This says that she has an appointment scheduled for Mon Sept 8th. Let me see I have to schedule her wellness check ups several months in advance because her/my doctor is a very busy woman. So I don't generally remember when the exact date and time is. Which is why most doctors' offices give you a call before the appointment, right?

Anyways I call them up to see how we can fix this problem. And they tell me first off that I shouldn't expect the call to remind me because it is only a courtesy call and they can't always get the calls out that day. But we can schedule another appointment. Can you hold while we look a time up? Sure why not. She comes back to talk to me and places me on hold a few more times... Hmmm It looks like we are a ways out for an appointment. How does December 4th sound....?

DECEMBER 4TH!!!!! What the crap!!!! I want to scream at her. Do they get shots at the 18 month appointment? Is it going to be a problem that she didn't get her shots around her 18 months??? Can she just come in and get her shots with out a visit? So that she stays on schedule? No, she needs to have a wellness check up to determine if she can even have these shots given....

And this doctor is also my Obgyn. So I know that when they need to you can get a doctors visit the very next day to see her. It happened a bit at the end of my pregnancy. But if it is just a wellness checkup or a physical then you have to wait 4 freaking months just to see her. Oh my good freaking heck.... Needless to say I love this doctor but I think I just might have to make a freaking change. Because this is ridiculous. Not only that but they almost always have some sort of problem with our insurance and billing stuff.... grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....

Anyways there is my first rant for quite a while...

BTW the car was totaled and now we have another car that is almost exactly the same... same color, same year, the only thing different is that it is the upgrade model so it has a sun roof.....

Oh wow....

2008-05-02T07:48:00.000-06:00

So yesterday was an odd type of day. All day long I was feeling just a little bit weird. I went out to lunch with my in laws, we had a great time! I ran an errand and go home. And all of the sudden I feel very very tired. Like I just can't do anything tired. Almost like I have taken a benedryl. And my very full stomach feels very empty even though I know it is full, almost like I just have a hole where my stomach should be.

Odd...

My sweetheart comes home from work and we get ready to go to the theatre. Both me and the hubby are working this show. I am single cast and he is double. We need to drop the babe off at my parents so they can watch her for us, by 6ish. I make dinner, my stomach feels better. And off we go.

On the way to my parents, we see an ambulance heading to the hospital, lights flashing. No biggie, Stu pulls over and lets it by.

At times I have problems with stairs and heights. I am not completely scared by them. I just freeze and I can't move, but usually I can pinpoint the reason for freezing. As I was walking up the stairs, babe in arms, to my parents apartment, I froze. I couldn't move my legs, just for about a half second. Because I wasn't holding on to the railing, (babe in arms) I had to force my self to move or I would fall down. So I made my legs move, but they wouldn't move very fast. And I still had to get to the top floor. I was on like the first floor when this happened.

I wasn't even looking out over the edge or anything.

I finally make it to my parents house and have to sit down for a second and regain my composure. We talk for a second and I head back down. Man, my legs are killing me. And they are shaking like jelly. What is going on?

I get back to the car and we head out for work.

Now Stu doesn't always take the same ways when he drives... he likes to spice things up a bit... ;P And he decided to change his path today. Not doing anything really crazy.

He slows down to stop for a red light, but before he even gets his foot on the brake the light goes green for us. So he puts his foot back on the gas and starts to go straight thru the intersection. And as we enter...

A huge white SUV comes flying thru the intersection from the left of us. Stu hits the brakes and tries to turn the car, but we get hit anyways. Apparently the SUV drives over the front of my car gets some air and starts to spin. It rolls onto its side, and then onto its top. I think this is one of the most terrifying things I have seen, as of yet, in my life.

I call 911 once it dawns on me to do so. People outside of my car are telling someone to do it. So I do. People show up from everywhere checking on everyone. Making sure we are ok, making sure there are no kids involved. Since Stu and I are ok he gets out of the car and asks about the other car. I talk to three people at 911 and by the time I get off the phone I hear the sirens coming.

I try to get out of the car and my door won't open... And I realize I should call my parents. I wasn't thinking very straight, Audrey was with them, she is fine... but oh yeah I should tell them what has happened. Like I said we were only about a block away from them. So my dad comes down almost immediately.

Stu calls work and tells them we will be late if we come in at all. I call them back and ask them to get someone to cover us. I don't think we will be able to work at all. We are just shaken up pretty bad, but I am not thinking we would have concentrated enough for it.

News gets to a few people and my friends from work call to make sure we are ok. (Thanks for calling :D )

There were at least 2 witnesses who stuck around to give statements to the police. She ran the light very red and the policemen had no problems with considering us the "victims".

There was an off duty police officer there with his wife who ran over to help out almost instantly. He got a little cut up trying to help the lady in her car. They had to get the jaws of life to cut her out of her car. And she had some cuts and at least one broken bone. So they took her to the hospital to get her checked out. But we were assured that she was going to be ok.

She was the only person in her vehicle.

I am pretty sure my car will be totaled this time. I will miss that car. It was a very good little car. And I don't know that I will be able to find one as good as it. We are pretty sure the frame was bent, as I couldn't get my door open and we were hit on the drivers side of the car.

Anyways we were incredibly lucky. if we had been going just a little bit faster she would have plowed into Stu and that would have been even scarier. But then again if we had been just a little bit slower, we wouldn't have been hit at all.

All in all, I felt the presence of Angels keeping us safe. And I am sooooo thankful that my baby wasn't in the car.

Update

2008-04-10T15:20:00.000-06:00

Okay so nothing was broken when we re-x-rayed my wrist. Yay! So just a sprain. And let me tell you if this is how much a sprain hurts, I don't want to know what a break feels like.

I went to the dentist yesterday, no cavities! But I do need to have the wisdom teeth removed. Sooner rather than later. But we'll see when that actually happens.

Started a new show at the theatre... and I am single cast wahoo. I hope Audrey doesn't get too mad at me.

Took the babe for a walk this afternoon. And met a boy who seemed to be able to understand what my babe was sayin to him. He told me he thought she was talking to him. And about half way through our time at the park. She turned to him and chewed him out for something, and he just stood there while she glared at him and chattered very seriously at him. She turned around and started walking away and he joined her a little bit behind her and to her side. They then continued to play. I think he was about 5ish. But he would reply to her in the same language that she was talking to him. Odd....

Sorry if this is a little jumbled. I guess I just have a lot on my mind. Now I need to try and clean a bit.

2008-04-01T22:26:00.000-06:00

Okay so these are some funny pics that Stu took of my sweet Audrey tonight. Now I need to tell you a little about these. Stu and I have talked about it but at first we really didn't like what we called the "Squichey face". But now Audrey does it just to get a reaction from us and if we say anything about it she will pull that face. But just recently she started doing it if we make the same face right back at her. And then she just laughs and laughs like it is the greatest thing in the world.

So we took the pics... And now that I look at the pictures I think I should change the name to "The Popeye face"....

And the one in the tunnel I just liked the action shot as she rushed stu and the camera.

Sorry they all seem a bit blurry maybe i will get around to fixing them sometime.

Disco Skating

2008-04-01T07:50:00.000-06:00

I went out with my sweet husband for the first time in a little while this last saturday night. We decided to go disco skating, (Stu used to do this all the time before we got married, but we hadn't been in like 2 or more years.) it sounded like fun. So we got Grandma to agree to a late night of watching the babe.

Stu Heads off and gets there about a half hour before me. He has his own skates but I have to rent. The show ends and I hurry home to change. I get there at about 10:30. And this time I actually succeed in skating around with roller skates on. I only had a handful of troubles balancing on them. I am usually much much better on blades.

We were skating around on what was going to be our 2nd to last song... it very quickly became the last song we were out.

I had been there for about 45 mins. Me and my sweetie were holding hands. Having fun! But..... Something happens... He starts to go down. Holding onto my hand. Next ting I know his foot hits mine and trips me up, crap, down I go.

Ok, so all night I had been grabbing onto him to maintain my balance. So I can understand that he would do the same.

I landed on my right hand and it turned into a ribbon. My back tweaks, I get the wind knocked out of me, and my cheek hits the floor. PAIN!

I sit up and grab my hand. The first thing I do is pop my fingers, I didn't even look at them. I can only imagine that they may have been dislocated. Stu asks me if I am alright and he then helps me off the skating floor.

I sit down and try to regain my breath, then a wave of nausea hits me. And as I am trying not to throw up, Stu takes off my skates. Luckily my regular shoes were just slip ons.

We leave and Stu asks if I think that I can wait till tomorrow to go see the doctor. I decide I don't think I can sleep with this pain. So we pick up the babe and head to the ER.

At 11:30 pm we arrive at the hospital. Audrey won't sleep. I have about 10 xrays taken of my hand and wrist. All taken before I had gotten anything for the pain. Oh man did that hurt. By 1:30 the doc said that they couldn't see any breaks right now. But I will need to have secondary xray done in a week so see if there is any healing going on. So the put on a fiberglass splint to immobilize my wrist and pinky finger and sent me home at 2. The babe finally fell asleep about 5 mins before the check out nurse talked to us.

That was my saturday night.... fun.... Well mostly!

My babe

2008-04-01T07:45:00.000-06:00

I can't believe that my daughter is already 1 yr old. It is just crazy to me, I watch her growing every day. It is just incredible how much she can do for herself already and how much she can understand.

I hear so often how fast time is flying and that soon she will be dating and then she will be married...with kids of her own.

How weird it is to start marking time by how old your kids are....

Tagged again!

2008-03-21T10:48:00.000-06:00

So my Aunt Alicia tagged me....

The rules:
1) Link to the person that tagged you.
2) Post the rules on your blog.
3) Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
4) Tag at least three people at the end of your post and link to their blogs.
5) Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

1- I do get a little crazy when my house is a mess... (even if you think it doesn't bother me it does...)

2- I talk to inanimate objects... but they rarely ever talk back :D

3- I love to play in the dirt... I haven't done that in a while but soon I hope to play more often now that the babe is older.

4- Poor posture while playing an instrument drives me insane... if I see some one playing and they have bad posture I get really, really, I mean seriously annoyed. Even if they are great, they could play sooooo much better if they sat with correct posture. Plus it just isn't nice to look at.

5- I very much dislike the taste of green. And for those of you who don't understand... the taste of green is in the flavor of juiced wheat grass and also in the flavor of guacamole. But mostly you can tell it from the wheat grass... because it is just juiced grass. Yes I know it is good for you. But the after taste cannot be taken away by just one slice of an orange, no matter what you say.

6- When I do clean and organize things... I have to have a specific order to them. I get kinda crazy when things aren't in that order. I don't know where they are otherwise. Plus when I am in one of those cleaning moods I have to get every thing clean even tiny spots will drive me insane.

Ok I tag.... Jessie, Stuart, and Gilian.

Three Loves?

2008-02-02T08:32:00.000-07:00

Well I been tagged too... Let's see... what do I love most that is not my hubby, babe or Mt. Dew? Puzzling.

Well I think hmmmm.

1. I love animals. I love cats, dogs, horses, birds, cows, pigs (they can be really cute), and so on and so forth. I just really love animals. They are very interesting and I think that they know things. And we just can't understand their language. I wish that I could break that barrier and know their language. I also love the original Dr. Doolittle. I wish I could be like him. That is a dream of mine.

2. I love the outdoors. I love playing outside, walking outside, hiking, climbing, running, and just laying outside. Oh I suppose I like to work outside too. :D I just can't stand being cooped up inside. That is the only sad thing about winter. I just can't get outside to play all that much anymore, specially with the babe. She isn't quite really ready to play outside. Though she loves the snow almost as much as I do. Cuz I really love the snow, but I can't find too many people to go out and play in it with me. But I love all the seasons of the year. They are all soo beautiful and have all their own special things about them. Anyways...

3. I love to bake. I love to make any kind of desert. I like to feed people. I like it when they are happy. And of course I want them to like my food to. My favorite thing to bake is cookies. (And I make a mean chocolate chip cookie.) I just love to make food for people it is almost as good as performing a solo in a concert. I guess I just like to make people happy, as the root for this love. It seems to me that I am happy when others are happy. And I feel really good about myself when I can get others to be happy too. I hate being around mopey grumpy people and I do all that I can to help that person become happy. And I guess, also, that I just get sad if I can't help that one person near to me be happy. Who ever that is. Even if it is just an acquaintance.

Anyway, I guess I will be like my hubby and not list who I would tag. But if you feel so inclined you can go ahead and think up the three things you love the most, besides family and soda. I think it was a good thing to try and think over.

Grandma Price

2008-01-08T12:50:00.000-07:00

My dear sweet Great- great grandmother. I haven't thought about you much lately. But last night I saw your picture. It was exactly how I remembered you. I miss you greatly. You are an inspiration to me, I hope to one day be as loved as you. And I hope to live as love and happily as you did.

I suppose technically I don't really remember much. As the last time I saw you alive I was 10. But...

I remember your house, your huge backyard, the stairs, the cool bathroom under the stairs, and the cool old toys. I remember your smile. And how you loved all of the kids. I remember your love. You always seemed to be happy. Everyone was always happy to be around you.

Last night as I looked at your picture I felt you give me a hug. I know you still love me. And that you still come around to check out how your grandchildren are doing. No matter how large the family grows. Thank you sooo much for the hug. I suppose I needed it, though I didn't know.

I love you Grandma.

This is a link to my Grandma's page on my dad's Wiki.

Cute babe!

2007-12-19T08:39:00.001-07:00

Just thought I would put up some cute pics of my babe! Enjoy!

Christmas....

2007-12-19T08:23:00.000-07:00

Well it is Christmas time and this is my gingerbread house... so far we have been having fun... I am working at the theatre again. So I have like no time to do anything else. But I am trying to get everything done. Here is a conversation I had with my mom on Sunday night:

Shilo: ok and I need to get some other stuff done too
Shilo: I don't know if I can do it all...
Mom: what time
Shilo: ummmm I dunno
Mom: ok call
Shilo: I need to dip chocolates tomorrow I figured I would try to do that in the morning hopefully before 10
Shilo: and then I would pick you up and we could go up to the candy store
Mom: k
Shilo: and then hopefully be back here in time for me to run to the store and get some cat food, and litter and make some rock candy all before I go to work at 7
Mom: LOL
Shilo: do you think my hopes are too high
Mom: no
Mom: but you will die like my mom
Shilo: lol do you think I am like her at all?
Mom: absolutely
Shilo: lol
Mom: she would have a bigger list
Shilo: I have a bigger list I just don't think it will happen
Mom: thats why she had 12 kids
Shilo: oh to get everything done?
Mom: yes
Shilo: did that work
Shilo: ?
Mom: with the girls
Shilo: maybe I should shoot for that number
Mom: and some of the boys
Mom: LOL
Shilo: jody
Shilo: and price
Mom: price, dan
Shilo: danny
Shilo: yeah
Mom: and once in a while the others
Shilo: yeah
Mom: so they added up to one
Shilo: timmy does a bit too
Mom: oh yeah
Shilo: lol
Shilo: ok 12 it is
Shilo: I don't know if stu could handle that though
Mom: well
Shilo: hehe
Mom: we'll see
Mom: alot of bunkbeds downstairs
Shilo: hehe yeah lots
Shilo: well we will just have to add on to the house then
Mom: some tents for the boys in the back
Shilo: and you know turn the garage into a room too
Mom: 2 rooms
Shilo: so anyways

Yeah so that was my plan.... and like my Grandma's plans everything went wrong and all I got done on Monday was dipping the chocolates, and going to the store. But even going to the store went wrong I left my wallet at home and had to wait for Stu to bring it to me. Ok so in the morning Stu went out and found out that his car would not start. Crap, mom can you come over and jump the car. Crap it still won't start... In the mean time My brother calls and they have been without power, in married student housing with their 2 boys, since midnight. And he can't get a hold of mom. So I get a hold of her. Ok so our plans for the day are shot by now. Definitely can't go to the candy store. Alrighty then lets do it tomorrow. And get the gingerbread made so we can make the houses... But that's another story. As you can see we got that all done.

Birthdays

2007-11-30T12:43:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday my sweetheart!!!

I love you! I hope that you have a wonderful day! The pics are the most recent ones I had of my Stu. They are Halloween pics from this year.

Well it certainly has been a while....

2007-11-16T11:18:00.001-07:00

1st pic: Audrey eating spaghetti, about 7 and 1/2 months old.
2nd pic: Audrey drinking juice, same day as spaghetti.
3rd pic: Audrey eating a cookie, two days later.
4th pic: Audrey, Halloween, she is a kitty, Grandpa Howse gave her the costume.
5th pic: Audrey eating Zwieback Toast, sometime in Oct.

Things have been crazy around here. And I just forget to put anything up on here.

Well a synopsis of what the past 6 or so months have been like.

Well in May we decided to look for a house to move into. Having a water heater spray hot water into the room that your baby would be moving into, doesn't really make you want to stay in that apartment. So we started looking into the housing market. Scarey... good grief. After about a month of looking into things. We got a call from my husbands parents, they have a friend who needs to sell his house quick. It needs work but this means we may be able to get a deal on the house.

We go look at the house and within 3 weeks we have made an offer and are about to close on the house...

All of the sudden I am having pains in my stomach... I mean put me out of commission pains. I need to go to the hospital I can't sit up pains. So we drop the babe off at grandma's house. And head into the ER which is only like 2 blocks from grandma's. It takes them 5 or 6 hours we need to bring the babe to the hospital she needs to nurse...

An x-ray and ultra sound later...

I have gall stones and the doctors are saying it is best to have surgery to get the gall bladder out. Yikes!! Should I have the surgery... Hmmmm well if I don't then there is a big possibility that I could have the same thing happen during a subsequent pregnancy. Ok, I will have the surgery.

Well the only time I can schedule the surgery for is one month from then. Ok fine I will do that. But I am still having pain right now. 3 days later I am going back to the Er. My skin is very very yellow. Crap I am jaundiced. this time they take me right in and put me on strong pain meds. Can't nurse the babe for at least 3 days after this. They keep me overnight and do an ERCP scope to get the stone that is plugging up my bile duct. Audrey was sooo mad at me after that surgery. She wanted to eat but I couldn't feed her. In fact mostly what I remember from that night is that she cried every time I held her so mom and dad had to take her home and try to figure out how to feed her from the bottle. At that point she really wasn't liking the bottles.

The doctors talk to me and tell me that I am going to be having the surgery that next tuesday. Ok, well lets get ready for this. Still can't nurse Audrey. But she is taking the bottle very easily now. Tuesday comes and I am in the hospital. I can't see anything I don't know anyone and I am waiting for surgery. I don't remember much until I am waking up and my husband and my mom are there with me trying to get me to see the ducks outside of the window. And they kick me out of the room like an hour later. I can barely stand and they send me home.

Anyways... That next friday we are signing on the house. And we need to get things packed up and ready to be out of the apartment by the end of the month which is only 3 weeks away. And we need to get the house into livable conditions. The paint and the carpet were all original from 1981. so we need to repaint, recarpet, and lay down new linoleum. Well at least we can pay some one else to do the tile and carpet. But we have to get the house ready for all of that.

The lawn is weeds, the house is full of junk...

Ok, lets get to work. First, cleaning the house, get the walls ready to be painted. tear out the carpet, the gross toilets, cut down the weeds, trim the tree. Pack the apartment.

But with a lot of help from all of our family we get the house ready to be moved into. Now we need lots of help to move all of our own junk into the house. In one night... or else we need to pay the moving van lots of extra money.

Wahoo! We have wonderful friends and family that helped us get it all done. Wow...

That was all in June and July...

Now we have the house mostly settled in... we need blinds and railings on the stairs but the front lawn has a sprinkler system installed and we laid grass about a month ago.

The baby has 2 teeth and is learning to get around faster crawling and is trying to walk. She loves to eat mommy and daddy's food. And she can be a handful when she wants to. As in right now.. I think she is hungry. I know I am. Anyways here are some pics of her.

hmmm Update???

2007-05-07T17:44:00.000-06:00

Well I realize that it has been forever since my last update... but things have gotten a little hecktic around here...

So I had my baby girl on March 5th 2007. She was born at 10:05 am. 6 lbs and 0 ounces. 19 inches long.

I went in the night before to begin the inducement process. And I started labor at about 3 am. I then asked for an epidural at 3:30ish... My hubby could tell you about the right times... Recieved the epidural at 4:30ish. And promptly fell asleep. At 7am the doctor came in to check on me and be there when they started the pitocin. And she figured that she wouldn't have to be back until the afternoon. So she went to her office across the valley. Two hours later they checked me and I was ready to start pushing the babe out. So they then called the doctor to have her come back. Luckily my drugs worked wonderfully and I was mostly asleep through apparently the hardest part of labor. :D

We had to wait for a while for the doctor to get to the hospital. But once she got there the baby was out within like 20 mins. She did have a little bit of trauma and wasn't breathing when she was born but they fixed that very quickly. I held her for about 3 seconds before they took her into the nursery to get an i.v. put in her little hand. She was beautiful. And I was soooo happy to see her finally.

But the whole thing felt a little weird... I was just happy to be there having my daughter. My husband and the doctor were both a bit surprized at how I acted... I guess I was too calm for them. The doctor asked if I had taken any anti- depressents before delivery. Because my daughter was acting just as calm through all of her stuff she was going thru.

Anyways... now she is 2 months old and doing wonderfully... Most nights she only wakes up once to eat. And lately this past week she has been sleeping 7 hours straight at night. Then in the morning she will wake up, eat and then go back to sleep for another 2-3 hours. I guess I am blessed for all of that.

It is very interesting trying to get used to life with a baby. Trying to take care of her, the house, and my sweet hubby... oh and then trying to take care of myself.

So here are a few pics of her....

Baby blog

2006-12-19T12:44:00.000-07:00

I suppose I should update this....

I am 30 weeks along now... just started into the 2 week appointments with the doctor.
Everything has been going well with the pregnancy. I haven't been really sick at all *knock on wood*. I have just been told by the doctor that I have Gestational Diabetes. I have yet to see the dietitian but I will be speaking with them shortly. And they are going to put me on some drugs to help control my sugar levels. But so far I have been right on track with my weight gain. I have only gained 17 lbs.

The nurse practioner... who I saw today.... said that it looked like I had a "little bit of" diabetes... that made me laugh. How does one only have a "little bit"? She said also that the babies head felt like it was down in the correct position. 2 weeks ago the baby was laying sideways in my tummy. I wouldn't be surprized if she moved a couple more times before she is through with being inside me.

Anyways... I think I am just rambling right now. So...... talk to y'all laters...

Dreams...

2006-10-25T14:13:00.000-06:00

Well the other night, I had a weird dream... I think that right now most of my dreams are very strange, and that this is because I am pregnant. But anyways....

In my dream all I can remember is that I was with another girl friend... and the phone rang, no one was talking on the other end. And we tried to get them to talk whoever it was. But all we could hear from them was some very heavy breathing. Well this creeped us out, so we turned of the cell... But I could still hear the breathing... we were way creeped out. I was so creeped out that I woke up from sleep. When I woke up I could still hear the breathing... ok way creepy right. Well I turned over and realized that it was my husband. :D

He was laying on his back and he doesn't breath very well when he sleeps on his back. At least I can say that I didn't notice if his eyes were open. He does tend to sleep with them open a little. But I didn't look. Anyways I had a nice chuckle about that. But for the life of me I couldn't get back to sleep for a while, when listening to him breathe like that....

The Baby

2006-10-25T14:09:00.000-06:00

Well we had the ultrasound, and they said that it was a very active little child. I know because whenever they put anything on my belly, the baby then proceeds to kick it and move around a lot. But he was able to determine that my little baby will be a girl! I am very excited about that. She is very active. Though at times I think she is hitting places that I can't feel. And I go for a time without feeling her. But that may just be that I am not paying attention. But anyways... Everything seems to be going well with that.

Movie Dreams

2006-09-08T11:03:00.000-06:00

Ok, so you already know that I have weird dreams. So here we go...

First you outta know that some dreams that I have are in such vivid detail that I can't think of any other way to describe them but that they are similar to movies. In the fact that the dream seems very fluid, it has a story line you can follow, and it doesn't jump around in the time line. And it doesn't jump me from place to place. So when I have these dreams I can wake up and remember most everything that happens in them. Also in these movie dreams everything is in color.
Another note about these dreams is that when I wake up in the middle of them I can usually go back to sleep and pick up the dreams right where they left off. Without any change in what was going on. And in them I can choose to follow up on what I saw. And I really did want to follow up on this dream but I just can't seem to go back to sleep today.

Alright we start out in the desert. Lots of sand and fenced off areas. I am with alot of friends and some family. Standing outside of a 2 story building. I look off to the near distance. Where I see a mountain and what appears to be a smokestack. There aren't many people around me at the time that I see things start to happen. Just my husband (I think).

As I am looking at the mountain I see what looks like an explosion, but it is a different sort of explosion. I don't see much smoke but then it did happen behind the mountain. So I don't think to much about the explosion. But shortly after this explosion I see 5 helecopters lift off from around me. Four of the helecopters take off just fine. The fifth one however tries to take with it a semi truck. This helecopter is is just a short distance from us. As it tries to lift the semi I see it drop the truck. And we feel the ground shake from the landing of the truck. Then the chopper tries to fly off again. But this time it tries to take a billboard sign. At that I turned and walked inside. A little confused but there is nothing I can do about what I saw.

The building is a museum of some sort. Though what it had in it I don't recall. As I am looking out one of the windows, towards the desert I hear sounds coming from downstairs and around me. I look around me in the room. I can see footprints on the carpet but no people. When a person appears in front of me.

I tell her that I know who she is. And I saw them land. She then takes out an note pad. And says that she has some questions to ask me. As she does this I can now see all the other personel that was there. I can see past their armor. Kind of like I saw past some sort of veil that they had put to use. And all you needed to do was realize what was happening. They all appear to be wearing orangeish brown uniforms, with copper belts that go over their shoulders as well as around their waists. Also the copper holsters their weapons.

She asks me what I saw. I tell her exactly what I saw and how I came to the conclusion that they were an invading army. Besides the fact that I could see through their armor and now could see the weapons that they were all holding. As she is talking to me the army had subdued everyone around me and were uncloaked to everyone so they could understand what was going on, to the degree that they could. In her interveiw of me she decides that I am someone that is of some importance around here. They were trying to figure out who were the leaders of this people. And were going to take us someplace else.

Everyone else who were not considered a threat were lined up. I saw several friends lined up as well as my brother (or husband I am not quite sure). I didn't like the fact that they lined them up like cattle. But they didn't tell me what was going to happen to them. Before I left, the woman who questioned me turned on her invisibility armor and she chose for the armor to include me in the invisibility. And I was forced to go with them. Though I wasn't terribly scared about this. She walked me passed the line of people and none of them saw me leave. But I could clearly see all of the people around me including the army personel who had turned their cloaks on as well. They had chosen just a few, of the many people who were there, as the ones they thought were the leaders.

I had just a few thoughts about what was going to happen to the people who I had seen in the line. I was worried. I thought that maybe they would become pow's or they may just be shot and killed.

Then I woke up.

Ok Ok

2006-07-17T17:00:00.000-06:00

I guess I need to update this page a little more often or so I have been told.....

But anyways... lots has happened since I last updated here. I guess you knew that Stu graduated... And got a job... We moved out.... I thought about quitting at the theatre... Well I ended up going back to the theatre for a little bit. I am not working it like normal I am only doing 1 show a week unless 1 of my 2 doubles needs the night off... and then I cover for them. But it seems that after this show is up I may end up stopping working there for at least a few months.

Cause you see, I am pregnant! Yes it is true after almost a year of trying I and my cute hubby are going to be parents! We found out the day after Father's Day. And we are both very excited. (Well I may be more than he is right now, he is a little worried about me and the baby being healthy through the whole thing. So he is a little stressed about that.)

Anyways that is what I am going through right now.

I do have the morning sickness, but luckily (knock on wood) so far I haven't thrown up yet. But the heat this summer is really the only thing that is really bothering me...

Well I will try to keep this more updated as the weeks go by.

Graduating

2006-05-06T22:56:00.000-06:00

Well my cutie did it!

He graduated yesterday! He is now completly done with school. And we are on to a new part of life! I hope we are up for it!

Some of his friends who graduated with him are seen here. His mom also graduated yesterday! Congrats to her from me. I am pretty impressed she graduated with the only 4.0 in her college( as in the Paralegal dept. so to speak).

All in all it was a pretty big day yesterday!

Congratulations to my Sweetheart!

I love you hun!

Wow...

2006-04-19T20:48:00.000-06:00

Well I guess it has been a while since I posted on here... But the only ppl who seem to read this already know what is going on in my life. Anyways, for those of you who don't here is a rough sketch of what my life has been for the past 3 months or so.

Well at my day job, we have had lots of rain as well as slow buisness because they closed the truck stop across the street for rebuilding.

At my night job, the theatre, we started the fun show Aida. I ended up being sinlge cast for this show. And man I think that was a mistake. Don't get me wrong I loved the show, the people, and other things. I just got very physically tired.

Ok during tech week I found out that a good friend from High School died. That threw me for a loop. Then the second day of the run a good friend in the crew got caught in the stage. He survived and is doing very well now. He is going back to work and everything. But that was scarey. And I still don't know what to really say about that event.

My aunt had her baby, the next week or so, and we then buried that sweet child the next monday.

Close to a month later on the 31st of March, my husband's sister had a beautiful baby girl. She was 8lbs and 18 inches long. Her name is Breanne Elizabeth Kilger. I got to hold her the next sunday.

Then we started adding matinees on fridays, mondays and thursdays. I ended up working 11 shows in the last week of the show. The last show was on Saturday. And I told my boss and everyone else there that I would not be coming back to work any more shows there. At least for a while. And I said my goodbyes to everyone. As well as assuring everyone there that I would come visit. They all said that they would miss me. And I will miss that part of my life too.

Last thursday my Grandma suffered a massive stroke and heartattack. She went into a coma then. I saw her the next day at the hospital. She gradually got worse. Until on monday, when I went down to see her, my Grandpa, and my mom. I was out playing with my 3 little cousins when my mom came out to tell me that she was gone. The nurse said she wasn't quite gone yet so I said goodbye to her and told my mom that I would get my dad and bring him down. As I was about to leave the room she left us.

Now my Grandma is out of pain, and she is safe from those demons that haunted her. She is with her Grandma, Grandpa and her Father.

Voices

2006-02-07T23:04:00.000-07:00

"Have you been half asleep? Have you heard voices? I've heard them calling my name. Are these the sweet sounds that call the young sailors? I think they're one and the same. I've heard it too many times to ignore it, there's something that I'm supposed to be..."

These words keep repeating in my head... They are to a song that I have known almost my entire life. Kenny Loggins, The Rainbow Connection. I don't know why this song touches such a chord with me. Is there something that I'm supposed to be?

I smell you

2006-01-09T20:36:00.000-07:00

It was an interesting day today. I called in sick to work, for the first time in just about 6 months, I believe. Finished up a series of books, The Alvin Maker series by Orson Scott Card. Called my mom and we drove down south. We visited a friend of hers and then went to visit my Grandpa and Grandma. My Gandma is ill and very much likes us to visit.

Anyways, while down there we stayed longer than we had meant to and my husband ended up calling me twice before I headed home. But before I headed home I needed to eat something and so did my mom.

My Grandpa is an amazing cook. He can throw just about anything into a pot and make it not only edible but he makes it delicious. And he didn't want us to go out and buy some dinner when he had food in the kitchen. So he threw some food together for us. It was a wonderful soup that he put together with homemade noodles, turkey and gravy.

WOW!

I love my Grandpa and all that he does for his large family.

It is an interesting note that even though lots have tried to learn from my Grandpa how to cook, I don't believe anyone in the family can match his cullinary skills. But some have come close.

Anyways about the title. I went out to give the dogs their medicine and my brother in law walked by and said that he could smell me tonight... Odd I thought. But then he said that I smelled like soup.

Well that made my night. I am proud to smell like soup that my Grandpa made! What a great day! Even if there were some worrisome times during the day!

Now

2005-12-07T15:38:00.000-07:00

Well I haven't had much time to update this. We finished Camelot and started tech week for A Christmas Carol. So I couldn't do much in the way of just thinking about stuff. Although I have had much to worry about.

I care so much about my family. All of them. My inlaws, my extended family. It doesn't matter how extened my family gets I think I will always worry about them. It's amazing to me how long my family went before have had trials to go thru. But I think all of them will get thru it just fine. Our Heavenly Father loves us all. And I know that he knows what is in all of our hearts. He knows how to help us if we just ask. I believe that he is with all of my family today. They, we, need it.

Thank you

Guinevere

2005-12-07T15:23:00.000-07:00

Well I read the book. Wow let me tell you I don't think I have ever learned so much while still being sooo very confused.

She and Aurther were real a real King and Queen. Now there is where you start to get confused. They were real! Now where did they live. There is the English place but no one has really proven this. But then there are real places named after this fabled couple up north from present day England. In, I want to say, Scottland.

Guinevere actually has a grave. With beautiful pink gravestones marking the place and telling of her life. And showing joy for her life.

She wasn't really this bad women who was adulterous. She had more meaning to King Aurther's throne than just a pretty face. Although from every account she was the most beautiful women around. She was Aurthers historian. She could write. She had several trials that she went thru. (Of course every person does.)But not only was she the historian but she was also a preistess. One who took care of the soldiers. And helped with everyone's faith. And Lancelot was not her lover but a boy whom she helped raise. And then he was her fighter. For she needed someone whom she trusted completly that would fight for her. And, for some reason, it couldn't be Aurther.

I don't know why?

This is about the summary of what I got from the book... Maybe someone else who has read this book or has studied this woman will know more. And help me to learn more. Because I think this will always be a question in the back of my mind. Who were these people. What did they do? How did they live? Why did they do what they did? And How could they have changed what was said about them?

ok my thoughts on this

2005-11-07T21:16:00.000-07:00

Ok so to just explain... I was having a chat with my mother.

shi says:
well I am taking a bath and just jammin to the radio when this song comes on (see below in Reba post)...
shi says:
I start thinking about it...
shi says:
and what comes to mind...
shi says:
Aurthur...
shi says:
Guinevere... er however you spell that
shi says:
and then.... what comes to mind...
shi says:
Mary Magdeline
mom says:
interesting
shi says:
I got the thought that the whole camelot story came from the story of the life of Jesus
shi says:
does any of that make sense
mom says:
yes but Dad wants to hear it
shi says:
what
shi says:
?
mom says:
tell him more about these thoughtds
shi says:
Well
shi says:
I think about the show... obviously... and I have been thinking about it alot...
shi says:
but the song just sort of brought it all together...
shi says:
have you ever cheated on me,
shi says:
only in my mind.
shi says:
now camelot: Be it sin or not sin they betray me in their hearts and that is far sin enough.
shi says:
and he also says that he never wanted to be king...
shi says:
He just became king...
shi says:
She was lonely... and longing for love... as in my dream...
shi says:
He was out trying to set an example for his kingdom i.e. his flock.
shi says:
and she fell in love... perhaps she even did something wrong.
shi says:
She was found out
shi says:
brought to judgement.
shi says:
He still loves her... what can he do
shi says:
.... do you see the parallel
mom says:
yes. i think you should take this conversation to use your words in another blog
mom says:
you already have the song on there just add to it these other thoughts
shi says:
oh....
shi says:
so just cut and paste these thoughts to my blog
mom says:
check scriptures and the story to see if you notice any more parallels
mom says:
yes
shi says:
ok...
shi says:
But that might take a while
mom says:
all we have is time
mom says:
i have the big book
shi says:
big book?
silly darby says:
La Morte D'Arthur
shi says:
oh really... I had no idea
shi says:
the death of arthur
shi says:
ohhh
shi says:
what is it about...
mom says:
it's the complete unabridged illusrated edition of the Arthur story
mom says:
by sir thomas mallory
shi says:
wow... cool maybe could I borrow it
mom says:
yes but i'd like you to read Guinevere too, i have it
shi says:
two books... different sides of the story?
mom says:
two different perspectives
shi says:
gotcha
mom says:
whether it was Christ and the Magdalene or someone else, it is a parallel in which a person who is a king and queen might find themselves.
mom says:
and since we are to become queens and kings we too might
mom says:
and compassion is required

*Now just remember all of you out there these are just speculations.

It's a Reba night

2005-11-07T20:21:00.000-07:00

Artist/Band: Reba McEntire
Lyrics for Song: Only In My Mind
Lyrics for Album: Greatest Hits

Oh on a park bench in the middle of July
We sat and watched the children play
If it was the heat or the noise
He didn't have too much to say

Then with a move of his eyes
A move that could have made the wind stand still
He took my hand in his and said the words
That I never will forget

He said have you ever cheated on me
Has there been someone else
Is there someone you love more than me
Someone you can't forget
If his memory is opened again
Let it be chased away by time
He said have you ever cheated on me
I said only in my mind

How can I tell him
The time we spent together
Was time between friends
There's just somethings I can talk about with you
That I can't just talk with him
How can I tell you
That somewhere in the cards it was meant for us to be
Why am I blushing in front of you now
Is it you or the heat

He said have you ever cheated on me
Has there been someone else
Is there someone you love more than me
Someone you can't forget
If his memory is opened again
Let it be chased away by time
He said have you ever cheated on me
I said only in my mind

Darling have you ever cheated on me
And I said only in my mind

And this song just seemed to make me think.....

No I have never cheated on you... not even in my mind..

Honey I will love you forever.

Camelot

2005-10-04T22:46:00.000-06:00

We are running this show at my work. ( I work at a live theatre.) And every night I hear the same thing from some of the others that I work with.

"The king is spineless, and he whines..."

And each night that I hear this I want to say,

What is so spineless about a man who forgives his wife and his friend. He forgives their tresspasses. He holds to what he believes. He is trying to be a good man. And he truely loves them. He thinks of their pain. He doesn't just think of himself and how he is hurt. So he lets them go, because he cannot bear to see them die. Is this spineless? Or is this a good man?

It hurts me to see that my coworkers don't see this. They don't see what good he was fighting for. The inner struggle with the best man winning. The actor who plays the part is incredible for showing that part of the king. The part of the King who longs to be good and do good in the world.

I don't know maybe they cut the scenes that would have showed that clearer. But still the message comes thru. Are we just that thick headed that we can't see what is plainly before us?

New Life

2005-09-07T18:37:00.000-06:00

It is a beautiful day! With a new addition to the family!

I have a new little nephew, named Gideon. He is just adorable. 5lbs and a couple of ounces. Just a sweet little spirit who has come to bring joy to this silly world. He is so small and so vulnerable. I look forward to watching him grow as I have watched his older brother grow. And I know he has a strong spirit with lots of stubborn life to him.

I love you so much little Gid.

And my prayers are with you and your family so that you will all grow strong and healthy in no time at all.

The Hurricane

2005-09-03T13:37:00.000-06:00

Ok I know this is what everyone is talking about right now.... (probably)

But last night I had a thought. As I was watching the news I heard a story about a man who swam with his dog to get to safety and found out when he got there that he couldn't take his dog on the evacuation bus. So he was left behind because he wouldn't leave his friend, and probably the only thing he had left. I was touched. And I heard more stories about kids having there dogs taken out of their arms by policemen. I know this is probably necessary. But...
What is anyone doing about the animals that were displaced?

This was the question going through my head.

And then I checked my email today and behold what do I see an email from an animal adoption group, No More Homeless Pets, A Program of Best Friends Animal Society in Utah. I had volunteered there a little while back and since then have been getting updates on volunteer services that they need.

Anyways they are organizing an effort to get some 200 of the adoptable animals from the ruined shelters down there and try to adopt them out in Utah. Because the usable shelters that are down there need the room to put the displaced animals that had homes before the hurricane, so that thier families can pick them up.

They need help transporting them, they need someone to donate empty space to kennel the animals for a short term until the adoption, or people willing to foster the animals for a short time (the animals may need to be quarantined for a short while).

Any way I found that this maybe a way that I can help even though I have not much to give. This is wonderful. And it gives some hope to the animals.

I did that once....

2005-08-17T11:56:00.000-06:00

So I went to watch the University Band that I marched in today. It is band camp week and I like to go watch them rehearse... And hopefully I get to see an old friend, who is still in the band.. But this year I didn't recognize any one.. Except my bro in law and his friends. And if any one there did recognize me, they didn't say anything to me. Only my bro in laws friend said hi. That made me at least a little happy. But I wish I could have seen someone there who I marched with. It just makes me feel even older when even the kids in the university band are all too new to know who I am. And I thought it was bad when there was no one in the High School band who knew me. Goodness....

But it still makes me kinda depressed thinking about how I loved to march and play. And I used to be there. I did that once. I loved it. And I miss the fun, excitment, and sheer joy that it gave me to perform at the games. I am sooo glad I did that, and hope that someday I will be in a band again.

Gifts

2005-08-07T13:00:00.000-06:00

A gift is something from the heart,
I wish to give a gift,
I wish to give them joy,
I wish to give them happieness,
I wish to give them life.

I know they have love,
love from their family,
love from their friends,
And I know they have love from
Our Heavenly Father.

What kind of gift can give strength,
what can give hope,
what can give patience,
what can give freedom?

I wish I new.

The only thing I can do is pray.
I shall send my strength to you, my family,
in the form of prayer.

Dames

2005-08-06T22:15:00.000-06:00

Well we started a new show at the theatre... 42nd Street...

Hmmm this show is interesting... Not much plot but kinda fun anyways.

Lots and lots of tapping. wow. My husband is working there with me. And that is lots of fun, I love having him there and being able to talk to him without a cell phone. Although I am sure the other people on headset don't really enjoy it.. Actually I think I bother him on headset too... Oh well I love him and I don't care if I am annoying people there. Anyways that is about what has been going on in my life for the past little while. ttyl

Being blind

2005-07-26T17:28:00.000-06:00

What I want to know is why nobody ever told me that I was Legally blind without my contacts in...!

It makes me angry I have been like this for most of my life and no one told me.. They have all just said yes she can't see... mutter mutter grumble....

I have thought it for sometime but just sat down and made my husband look it up... and yes I am blind. I always used to joke about it... But I just need to vent about it... It seems that all doctors do this to me... They never tell me exactly what is wrong with me and I don't know why... It seems that they know what is wrong but they just don't want to tell me that this is what is wrong.. They will only tell me how to fix it... like stop drinking caffiene, stop eating so many mints, and stop eating spicy foods, then you will get better. And so on...

They just make me so angry. I just want to know straight out what my problems are so that I can fix them... Goodness. I hate having to find out for myself when others can just tell me. Grrrrrrrrrr

The vet.....

2005-07-22T17:30:00.000-06:00

On monday of this week I was sent to take the cat and one of our dogs to the vet... much to my dismay and to the dismay of my two loving animals, they wouldn't let us in to see the vet. They just sent us away. Even though I know that they take walk ins and I was willing to sit and wait until the vet actually showed up. The lady at the desk refused to even entertain the thought.

So I set up an appointment for this afternoon. And had to round up the dog and the cat once again to get them to the vets after work. So get done with work at 3:30 and have to have the pets to the vet at 4:15...

Get there safely... Cat is freaking out because she get stressed out just leaving the front door. Much less getting put into a box and taken into the car then to that "bad place where they hurt her and scare her..." She gets seen first. She is very healthy, she weighs good and so on, they give her some shots and she is done... Feed her hairball food see if that takes care of her problem... Ok

Now onto the Ging, He says she has no masses, good, hmmmm she has a bit more weight on her than she should but it isn't unhealthy. wow she is going to be 10 yrs old this october. Give her the shots she needs. Now lets weigh her.... ohhh she walks right onto the scale no problems and she weighs in at 83.5 lbs... good girl! She has lost some weight since last time. Now lets give her some pills to see if it will help her get better. ewww she won't eat those, yucky.

Now to pay the bill and get these animals home.

Home safe and cat is out of the box and no where to be seen.

What a day.... And my weekend won't slow down a bit... oye!

movies

2005-07-20T22:59:00.000-06:00

I like to watch movies..

yesterday I sat down and watched 3 movies in a row.

I first watched Gladiator, for the first time. It is a good movie, with quite the story. wow. But not quite what I needed right then. Way too much blood. So I needed to see some sort of comedy.

Off to the library. Next show to watch, my husbands choice... Harold and Maude. Hmmmm an interesting show with some very funny parts and yet it ends very very sad, with kind of a happy twist. Ok get mad at Stu, now on to the third and final movie of the evening...

Barefoot in the Park... a lovely movie with Robert Redford and Jane Fonda. I helped perform in the play version of this movie my senior year in high school (I was the sound coordinator). And I had never seen the movie before and thought that it may be a fun show to watch. And as I had suspected it was done perfectly. I loved the way Jane Fonda played her role. And I just loved the show.

But still I found that I was depressed after watching each of these movies. Goodness what am I to do. I go to bed, ponder these things and fall asleep. I can't remeber the dreams that came from it. Although I am sure that they were pretty weird.

caffiene

2005-07-14T23:05:00.000-06:00

hmmmm I always forget....

Caffiene affects me more now that I don't drink it that often... I only drink it when I am really really tired and I have to drive or work.... machinery(ish). Anyways..... So I am just going to talk about nothing right now. I love my husband. He is a big help when it comes to computer stuffs.

I love my family and want to thank them for all of their support. I know I can be a little crazy and they don't all understand me at times. But hey can't everyone be like that. But seriously thanx for chatting with me mom. And dad I don't talk to just you all that often but I love you Daddio. You don't know how much it means to me to spend time with just you. I like driving you home I get some one on one time with you. Jared your testimony is amazing to me and I love to see how it is growing. And I love to see how you and your wife are getting along thru everything and I can't wait to see how your family gets along. I know that you are a kind and loving husband and father. And I know that your wife is a wonderful caring mother and wife. Thanx for the great role model for my own family. I look up to you guys and I am sooo jealous of the life you have. Mom I am thankful for everything you have taught me and for all that you continue to teach me. And thanx also for listening to me. I love talking to you. Thank you and I love you all.

Stu, I love you lots and I want to say thanx to you for loving me too. I know you are a wonderful guy and I don't know how to say what I feel soooo.... hugs and kisses to my sweetheart.

Sorry to everyone who didn't want to really read that I just thought I would let everyone know how I feel..... Have a great night and wish me luck.... I am going to try and sleep even though I have lots of energy from the caffiene right now.

Saxamaphone

2005-07-12T21:52:00.000-06:00

Well I was able to play in a band yesterday. I was soooo nervous, I didn't know if I could play, if they would be forgiving, or anything of what to expect. But I calmed myself down on the drive out to my mom's town by listening to my favorite band, Sawyer Brown. I like their older stuff because they have saxophones in their band. Plus it is just great fun. And I love to sing along. So that helped me feel better. And thank heavens I practiced a bit before I went. Otherwise my chops would have not lasted nearly as long as they did.

Anyhow... we played for just about 3 hours... goodness... and since we had no drummer we were dragging the songs down alot... And that bugged some of the other players who were band directors... but tough they were not in charge and were not directing us. So what ever. but they played most of the songs kinda slow... I was worried that they would play them a bit faster but I guess that just came from the marching band and pep band experience up at college where we played everything superfast.

But I was able to keep up with the old people who had been playing for years... or decades or something. And so when we finished I was exausted... yet filled with tons of energy still... So I went home to calm down a bit and ended up going for a long walk with my mom. Which I haven't done in forever.

After the walk I headed home to my husband. When I got there I just crashed on my wonderfully comfortable bed (but that's another story). And had a few weird dreams... But after a day at work I have forgotten them... So I am not exactly sure what they were about or anything... So I won't even go there.

Goodnight world.

Candy

2005-07-08T17:50:00.000-06:00

My family is in the business of making candy. Well at least my grandpa is. And I love to sell it for him. As he is away on vacation he has had need of other family members to keep the store open for him. And since my mom doesn't work he begged her to do it.

Today my mom couldn't make it up to the store, so I went. I really do enjoy being up there. Maybe more so when other people or family members are up there. It was quite lonely up there today. So in order to keep my spirits up I turned on some music that I like to sing along with. And played a bit loud but it got people to come down to our side of the mall if only to see where the noise was coming from. But most people enjoyed it or they didn't say anything to me about singing soooo... oh well.

But I was there for about 2 and a half hours... It started out pretty promising with about 4 or 5 sales in a row. Though they were only 1-3 dollar sales. It was better than nothing. But as the hours progressed I only ever did make those 1 dollar or 3 dollar sales and after about 4pm no one wanted to buy it they all just wanted to taste. So I got discouraged and decided to close up the store... Oh well I still like to go up there and try to sell the yummy delicious fudge of my family.

Oye oye oye

2005-07-06T17:38:00.000-06:00

goodness gracious....

I forget how much it takes to play the saxophone....

After not playing for about 6 months... and then picking it up again.... wow!

How tired you get after just a half hour. But then you remember how you feel after playing and the effects of playing just get addicting.

I can breathe a bit better. And oxygen in your lungs can be quite invigorating and even though I am tired I feel like dancing. Or running or just having fun.

Thanx mom for making me get that wonderful thing out to practice. I will have to do that some more though if I want to play in a band again.

I like to cook

2005-07-06T16:37:00.000-06:00

I don't cook very often... as I don't have my own kitchen. But I love to cook.

It doesn't matter what... But my favorite thing to cook would have to be dessert. But honestly as long as I can make something that other people will like to eat. I like to cook it.

Some of my Grandmothers have figured this out. I have one who likes to have family bring over food every once in a while when we get together. And she always askes me to bring a dessert... whether it be cookies or whatever. And I love to do it. Another Grandma is always wanting me to come over and bake with her. She lives across the street so this isn't too difficult. However I can rarely find the time. But this last sunday I did find the time. And I helped her make some cheesecake... we cheat a little we do use the boxed recipes on some things. Such as cheesecake and regualr cakes. But people still love to eat these foods... So why not it is a bit easier.

But as I have gotten older I have found that I like to cook things even without boxed recipes. And I have gathered more and more wonderful recipes from people. I still haven't made them all yet. But I don't have my own kitchen sooo it is a little difficult to make these recipes, especially when then fam (in-laws) don't like to try new things to often.

Anyways Cooking is fun.

laundry

2005-06-27T21:58:00.000-06:00

ok I consider myself to be fairly picky about how I want my laundry done.

But time and again I find that I am not that picky and there are others out there who feel even stronger than me about how they want their laundry done.

Wow I talked to a friend of mine today... and goodness I found out that I was doing my laundry all wrong. I mean how can I live without fabric softener... or without using more expensive detergent... Arm and Hammer.... goodness that is sooooo cheap.

But I am doing a few things right... Like getting my clothes all the way dry.... and using 2 sheets of bounce... Weird

I don't think I have ever had such an in depth conversation about laundry... But I guess however you do your laundry can me a touchey subject... even if it is a silly one... Have a great evening

King Aurthur

2005-06-23T23:18:00.000-06:00

So I had another dream...

This time I started the dream out as a little girl around the age of 10 or so maybe a little younger. I was being raised by a woman who was not my mother. We lived in a large house. Everything there was white (I didn't see much details in the house, I guess that wasn't important).

As time passed and I grew older I seemed to skip years and all of the sudden I was about 16 or 17. Still living in this same large house with this same woman. When our house came under attack. It was an army sent out to kill King Aurthur's wives. Well the woman I was with seemed confused and frightened. But she knew they were going to kill her. For she was King Aurthur's wife and they wanted to start a war with him... So what a better way to do this than kill the women he loved. So she grabbed me and we ran for the back door to escape.

Soon I began to lead the way because we were running down the huge backyard of gardens. As I turned around I knew that we were leaving the castle. King Authur was away on a trip somewhere, you know taking care of his kingdom and such. But the woman his wife became confused and wondered as to why I was so afraid for my life. So as we were running through this huge garden I began to tell her.

"Well you know I am his second wife." I said. She replies, "I am his one and only wife, how can you be his wife?" "Well of course you know, don't you? You were there you said it was okay, you were at the ceremony..." "I never saw anything like that happen..."

Ok I saw that this was going nowhere... and it was usless to argue the fact that she knew that he had more than one wife. You see I had been given to the king as a gift, my father gave me to the king as a young child, in order to one day become the king's wife. So he and his wife raised me as their own child. My name was Guenevere. I had wed the king, but the king did not really love me. He of course loved his first wife the most and truly wanted his family to be with her. I was only there because he needed me to be his wife. So therfore he never truly came to me.

(All of this past history I just knew had happened, it never really played out for me)

When we reached the bottom of the hill I saw a knight, Lancelot. I knew it was him but I didn't see him very clearly. He told us to run further and pointed in another direction. He would stall the army and help us to get further away to safety.

As I ran past him... I knew that I loved him. And he loved me. He truly loved me for the person I was and not the position that I could give him. Unlike my husband, the king, because Aurthur only truly loved his first wife and couldn't find it in him to truly love me in the way that I needed to be loved. And that is why I went to Lancelot. And we just kept running.

This dream was a short dream so it didn't go into much detail with scenery or what things looked like. I had woken up at 7:30 to call my work and they told me to call back at nine. So I fell back to sleep and had this dream... I was woken up by my cat who jumped on the bed to say Wake up you need to call work again... It was nine on the dot when she did that. But it took a few moments for me to realize what had happened. It was a different dream than the previous dreams, because of the lack of background details. But it also had more just known details as if I was actually inside her mind. And I knew what she had gone through in her life.

Weird

Weather

2005-06-21T23:04:00.000-06:00

It's a funny thing the weather.....

What to expect and when to expect it. And yet it always gives us people something to talk about... Whether we talk about it as something good or something bad. Why does it always seem to be a curse or a blessing? A curse if it is too hot or too cold. Too wet or too dry. Personally I like to look for the best in the weather. I love the rain... it is so calming but yet if there is too much rain it can get depressing... so there for I love the sun as well. It can be soooo calming to just sit and relax in the sunlight.

I love to sunbath... especially after a very bad day at work... you know you've had them... The days when everyone seems to think that you are stupid and don't really know what you are doing.... And how do you get them to stop... you don't you just continue to try and smile... hopefully you will have someone stop by and tell you how wonderful you are... and they can really make you smile... But if that doesn't seem to happen I find that it helps a bit to lay in the sun and just breathe the fresh air.

But yet I digress...

My job relies on the weather... you know when you wash vehicles for a living if it rains you have no work.... And that can be a very bad thing. Although most every one seems to think that it will definitly rain tomorrow... And my Aunt is in town.... I would like to visit with her, we always have fun when we visit... Also my bro needs me to help him out with a peice of business tomorrow...

So the question today seems to be.....

Should I pray for rain...? Or should I pray for work...?

Computers

2005-06-15T16:25:00.000-06:00

They are silly things. Sometimes you hate them.... they take too much of your time. Other times you can't pry yourself away from them.

What makes them sooo addictive. I have a feeling that it is the escape from reality that makes you want to be on the computer.

See I play this game... Everquest 2

If you have never heard of it.... Then you are out of things a bit... It is a huge online game. Set in a fantasy world... Where you can be just about anything you want to be... Of course you have to pay for the use of the server... and you have to set up your character and stuff...

Anyways I play a Dark elf Brigand... That is like a rogue but sooo much cooler... And all I do is try to level up my character... Because I have friends who play and they play much more than me so their character is a higher level than me and it is difficult to play with friends that have higher levels. Unless they mentor you but that is a whole nother story. But in this game you can hunt things you can become an artisan, you can be a bard and sing or you can just sell items. It doesn't matter. And you can just have fun with it. I prefer to just hunt things and get money and more levels... As you get higher in levels it becomes more difficult to level up. So it is also very challenging that way. But also there is a huge world to explore and I haven't even explored a 3rd of it. So you can see how addicting this can become.

But the reason this can be bad is because when you get into this world real time disappears and you forget what needs to be done... i.e cleaning the house, eating, or when you have to leave for work... This is not a good thing. So you must learn to control your time on the computer. So arguements don't happen... But eventually they will and then you stop playing for a bit... And then you start up again and the old habits reappear... no good just need to learn to control yourself and everything will be good.

Just clean before getting on the computer and all will be well.

And that is my ranting for the day.

Blogging...

2005-06-14T17:10:00.000-06:00

Well I never thought I would ever set up a blog.

I didn't think I would ever have anything to say that anyone else would like to read. But after much persuading and listening to my family talk about what was going on with their blogs, I decided to give it a try. So for anyone who doesn't know me... Here is a little about myself...

I am 22 yrs old.

Married to a wonderful, goofy husband.

As of right now we live in my inlaws basement.

We have no children, yet.

We have a placostomus fishey that lives with my inlaws turtle.. At least I hope he is still living there I haven't seen him in a bit.

Other than that we don't technically have any pets... Although I love animals... My inlaws however have 3 dogs, a cat, and a turtle. The cat tends to like us best... but she is very tempermental and kinda crazy. And the dogs I just claim because I do.

I work 2 jobs so I may not update this blog as much as I would like to.

My husband goes to school and will be done in a year! With 2 degrees!

So life for me is really just begining...

That is me for right now... don't have much to talk about just yet...

Have an excellent day!