Snow!

A couple of weeks ago, before Thanksgiving, we got two huge snowstorms in a row.  Luckily we love the snow!  The kids loved building snowman (Dallin and I built an entire “snow army”) and going sledding.  And since I’m not pregnant any more, Jake and I have a snowboarding trip planned for next week.  Let it snow!

Improv

Last Sunday was our ward’s Primary Program- Dallin’s first one! He was the star of the show (at least to me) totally BELTING out the songs. He was the loudest kid in the program (though not necessarily the most on-key!). I’m so proud of him for completely memorizing his part, D&C 112:10. When it was his turn, he did a little improv. He changed the end from, “and give thee answer to thy prayers”, to “and answer little kids prayers”. So cute!

Moving On

Last Sunday I went back to the hospital to have my blood retested.  As anticipated, my levels were going down, indicating a miscarriage. 

I had to wait till Monday to talk to the nurse about the results and my options.  The whole weekend felt like waiting for a car accident to happen- I just wanted to hear the worst and move on to fixing it. 

On Monday, the nurse confirmed that I had a miscarriage.  So we scheduled the D&C for Wednesday.  Again, waiting.

When I found out Friday there was a problem, I couldn’t face the reality that I’d lose the baby.  I couldn’t give up the idea of a spring “due date”.  I didn’t think I could face trying to get pregnant again, all the while being reminded of my loss.  Monday was another hard day, and though I dreaded telling all our friends and family the sad news and reliving the experience and over and over again, I’m glad I decided to tell everyone.  I had so much love and support, especially from my sweet husband.  More than anything, the love, phone calls, meals people brought, offers to watch the kids, and hugs are what helped me get through this experience.  

Now the surgery is over, and I’m looking forward to moving forward.  I’m looking forward to feeling normal again, and to spending my time with these two blessings:

Loss

I woke up early yesterday because I was so excited. I was going to see my baby!

I found out September 20 that I was pregnant, and I was so excited! I never thought I'd be that excited about having baby #3. Being pregnant with the third was much harder than the first or second, with two very active little kids to take care of. I was nauseous almost all day long, and SOOO tired. As evidenced by the conspicuous lack of blogging since Sept 19th!

Yesterday was my first doctor's visit, at 10 weeks. I went by myself, not having any reason to think anything would be wrong. With the exception of a little over a year of infertility trying to get pregnant with Dallin, I'd never had any complications in pregnancy. So Jake stayed home with the kids, and I was looking forward to reading trashy magazines in the waiting room by myself.

My doctor always does an ultrasound at the first appointment, and it was immediately obvious that something was wrong. I knew my baby was still tiny, but I couldn't see it on the screen. My doctor looked at me and said, "I'm a little worried." Which made me really worried. He spent the next couple of minutes searching for a heartbeat, without success.

My first reaction was disbelief- I knew I couldn't have miscarried. I'd had a positive pregnancy test, no bleeding, no cramping, nothing to make me think this wasn't a normal pregnancy. My mom had 6 kids with no miscarriages, my sister 4 kids without any miscarriages, and I was supposed to be similar to them, right? Why was I the lucky one to have infertility and a miscarriage??

"I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet," my doctor said. He said he saw something at the bottom of the ultrasound that could have been a tiny heartbeat. He had me go to the lab for some blood tests, and I have to go back tomorrow for some more tests to see if there's a change. But I don't feel very optimistic right now.

I never held this baby in my arms, hadn't felt it move yet, and don't even know if it's a boy or a girl. But I'm still very very sad. It's still losing a baby.

I left my love in. . . St Louis?

While in St Louis   we had to visit the famous Arch:

And the zoo, which is FREE!

 

L

Looking for the lions:

 I love Dallin’s reflection!

We also visited a really pretty lake,

where Abbie fell in love and had her first kiss with Stevie! Since I’m now  a fan of arranged marriages, it was a successful trip!

Now the fun!

Now that the "adventure" side of the story has been told, I'd like to share the fun side of our trip to St. Louis.

I know, St. Louis isn't exactly a vacation hot spot, but it was a blast to visit these people:

Jesse and Emily. Jesse is Jake's best friend from way back when, who convinced Jake to go on a mission (thanks again, Jesse!) and Emily is my internet "dating" success story. We met at her wedding, then had an online relationship, blog-stalking and emailing each other for years before "meeting" again in California. A few years more, and more blog-stalking and emailing later, we were excited to spend a vacation together, in person!

Our last day there we went to the City Children's museum.

It was full of industrial mazes, slides and playsets for kids.

There's tons to do in St. Louis, especially for families, and we were busy every day, but all the pictures are taking too long to upload so I'll save them for another post.

Tender Mercies at the airport

Yesterday, I experienced the greatest fear of almost every mother in the world- I lost a child at a huge, busy, public place. As we were coming home from St. Louis, ABBIE DISAPPEARED AT THE DALLAS AIRPORT.

After lunch, Dallin and I headed off to the bathroom, and the fateful event happened: Jake thought Abbie was coming with me, and I thought she was staying with him. So I walked off down the hall, completely oblivious that Abbie was behind me. When Dallin and I got back to Jake, Abbie was gone. I have never been more worried in my life. I sprinted back to the bathrooms, no sign of her. Jake then raced off while I stayed with Dallin, and he checked every stall in the men's bathroom, praying he wouldn't find Abbie in there with some sicko.

A gut-wrenching 10 minutes later, my name was called over the intercom, asking me to go to a terminal. I sprinted in that direction as fast as I could, dragging Dallin along with me. And there was Abbie, safe and sound with a pilot, some flight attendants, and security! She had been found THREE terminals down the hall from us, pushing a doll in her stroller. Luckily the stroller was tagged with my name and flight info, so they were able to call me right away. As we were walking back to Jake, we met the man that had found Abbie and taken her to security. I hugged him immediately- I cannot express how grateful I am that she was found by someone nice!

Ten minutes later Abbie threw a tantrum when I wouldn't let her go the bathroom with Jake. It was the sweetest tantrum I've ever seen.

Family Epidemic

The day after Jake and I got home from Youth Conference, we unpacked/ repacked and headed up to Snowbird for my family reunion. I'm not much of a fan of the "sweltering-in-the-park-smiling-at-people-I-barely-recognize" family reunion, but I REALLY look forward to this family reunion every other year. It's for my mom's side of the family, and all my aunts, uncles and cousins come from literally around the globe. This year promised to be just as fun as years passed. I wish I could write about all the fun we had at Snowbird, and we did have fun,

going to the top of the mountain

riding the tram

and riding the bull

But that's not the whole story. Dallin complained of a stomach ache l late in the afternoon, but I blamed it on a long day in the sun without much lunch, and did what any sensible mother would: I forced him to eat a big dinner. We were in our hotel room later, and he wanted to lay down. He promptly fell asleep, in his clothes, mid-sentence. Luckily, Jake and I are exemplary parents, and DIDN'T leave Dallin asleep alone in his room and go upstairs to my brothers room, with only the monitor under the impression it would work that far. Lucky for us again, Dallin didn't wake up later, sick at both ends, and LEAVE the room since we weren't there! We would never let him wonder the halls with two sympathetic young girl strangers looking for us! Where is my Mother of the Year award??

The good decisions didn't stop there. The following morning Dallin was doing much better, so we decided to stay at the reunion, and try to pass around the germs so everyone could enjoy it. It turned out that at least two people from every family got very sick- including my cousin who was going through the temple for the first time, and my aunt who got sick while getting on the plane to go home and ended up at the hospital hooked up to an IV! You're welcome, everyone. I'm sure it's a reunion we'll NEVER forget!

Girls Camp is Finished!

And I survived! Our camp was aptly named "survivor" because we had to endure torrential rain storms! Things started off fine:

And we had a productive and FUN first day. We broke into "tribes" and made torches to represent the tribes. We also started on crafts and our service project.

Day two we woke up to overcast weather, but I wasn't about to let that ruin my plans. So we had breakfast and went on our hike, with beautiful views.
As we were hiking down the trail, we started getting hit with huge raindrops. By the time we were back to camp we were soaked! I was still optimistic that the rain would be hard and over fast. But the rain didn't stop, it just kept getting harder and harder! We had to hang out at the pavilion or in cars all afternoon! After dinner the stake leaders came up to give a devotional, and they said our area was in a severe thunderstorm warning! It was still raining so loud and hard that we could not hear the devotional. We headed back to our tents and found out some of the girls stuff was wet (some beehives had left the door to their tent OPEN!) and the tents were leaking. Things definitely took a turn for the worst. It was still raining, and a girl (and a leader may or may not have agreed) suggested we go home. The leaders and I said it didn't sound pleasant to pack up in a major rainstorm. So one of the priesthood leaders said we should just drive home and come pack up in the morning! I didn't want to leave. Not because I was disappointed that my camp was ruined (I was disappointed- this was my sweat and tears!), not because I didn't want to pack up in the rain, and NOT because I was determined to make everyone miserable, but because I wanted to show the girls you don't give up when things get a little hard. And it seemed like the rain was going to let up! Another priesthood called the bishop and luckily he agreed with me :) He ended up driving up to our camp at midnight to bring dry tents and sleeping bags.
We did go home a day early, but we survived the worst of the storm! We met back at the church to have our "spiritual" beauty pageant and testimony meeting, and every single girl came back. (I guess they didn't hate me after all. And by that time I was done blaming myself for what I thought was the worst camp ever.) Every single girl bore her testimony, and almost all of them said they were glad they came to camp and that we stayed through the night :)

And now it's all over and I can RELAX! Special thanks to my sis for taking care of my kids, and spending three days going to movies, swimming, and bowling with 6 kids!

How do you relieve STRESS?

I'm the camp director for our Young Women, girls camp is next week, and I'm S-T-R-E-S-S-E-D. I have a lot of help from the YW presidency and my camp committee, but I still have to make all the decisions and make all of the assignments, and I'm having a hard time balancing all I have to do to get ready for camp with the rest of my responsibilities as a mom to busy little kids. I can't stop doing laundry and feeding my kids till camp is over, and I feel like a failure if my floors don't get mopped and my bathrooms cleaned. I feel like I have to ignore my kids to make phone calls, send emails, have meetings, and make list after list for my calling, so add guilt to the list of stressors. Since I can't cut my kids and home out of my life for the next two weeks, I've had to sacrifice "me" time. I haven't been doing all of the normal things to keep myself mentally balanced, like exercise and get enough sleep. I haven't been blogging, taking pictures, or even watching tv! And my sanity is suffering!!

Now that you know how completely neurotic I am, HELP ME! What to you do to relieve stress? How can I relax?

Youth Conference

we were busy, busy, busy the month of June. A week after the Ragnar, Jake and I got to go to Youth Conference as a "ma" and "pa". It wasn't a trek, but we camped for 3 days so the stake decided to break the youth (ages 14-17) up into "families." Honestly, I was a little nervous about this assignment before we got up there. The theme was "Walk with Christ" and it was three days of devotionals and workshops about the life of Jesus Christ. I thought the youth would revolt at too much spiritual time and not enough fun time.

I completely underestimated the young men and young women from our stake. They were split up from their wards and from their friends and put into families of youth from all different wards, and our family didn't ever complain. (Which is surprising, because Jake is NO fun at all!) They spent hours each day hiking around the (beautiful) mountain campground, attending the workshops and never complained! They were helpful, kind to each other, and loved learning about their Savior. For dinner the last night we had a traditional Passover feast, the same feast Christ had before his crucification, and the youth happily tried everything from the dinner, again without complaining. During the testimony meeting that night most of them mentioned the Passover and following devotional as their favorite part of the conference.

This guy takes himself too seriously. Someone needs to tell him to have some fun:

Our family

Our family and "step- family"- the other family in our campsite.

I also underestimated the impact this youth conference would have on me. I figured as an adult leader I'd seen and heard it all before. But this conference strengthened my testimony and increased my faith in the Savior more than anything I've experienced in years. The stake leaders kept thanking all the ma' s and pa's, saying they couldn't have done it without us. But we were the lucky ones.

Run. Drive. Sleep? Repeat.

Sound fun? That's what I did for the Ragnar Wasatch Back last weekend, and it was FUN!

We started the race dark and early Friday morning- 5 am to be exact. Since the race was in Logan and we had to be there an hour early- 4 am to be exact- the six runners in our van spent the night in Logan. Too cheap to get a hotel, we crashed at a friends' townhouse, on the floor! I tossed and turned all night on the old carpet, and it didn't feel like I got much sleep. But once we got to the race, our team started to get pumped up! The team atmosphere was A-ma-ZING for this race! There were over a thousand teams participating, and most teams were made up of 12 runners. Each team had a name- we were a team of 12 woman called "Sweet Spirits" and everyone dressed up and decorated their vans. Here's a pic of our HUGE van:

I was the 6th leg, so I was the last runner for my van (most teams had two vans, so each van would drive for six legs, then switch and the other van would take over for the next 6 legs). I was exhausted from lack of sleep the night before, so I tried to rest in the van. But it was too exciting! The absolute best part of this race was cheering each other on, and I didn't want to miss out! We'd drop off a runner at an exchange point, then drive a little ways ahead and pull over on the side of the road to cheer for our runner. I've never had this kind of support in a race before! Then we'd drive a little further on, stop and cheer again, then finally go on to the next exchange point. Then we'd start all over encouraging our next runner!

I finally ran my first leg about 10:30 Friday morning. It was one of my hardest legs- 7 miles of straight up hill then straight down hill on a dusty road. Luckily I had my team bringing me water and cheering my on the whole way! Then we had a rest while the other van ran their first 6 legs.

And then the repeat part- we did all of this 2 more times! Friday night at about 8 I ran my second leg. It was through the gorgeous city of Morgan, the sun had just gone behind the mountain, and it was beautiful run! Until mile 7- when I hit my first of many steep hills. I was SOOO tired! "Don't stop running," I told myself, "or you'll never start up again." So I pushed through it. At the end of over just 8 miles, I saw the exchange point just around the corner, all lit up, and I admit a gave a little sob of relief!

Rest time again. We went ahead a few exchange points to a high school where they had food and a place to sleep. While we were in line for spaghetti, they ran out! We had to settle for pancakes at 10 pm. The gym was available for sleeping, but it was a hardwood floor and my team hadn't brought mats, so we opted to sleep outside under the stars! Maybe it was the fresh air, the full belly, or maybe the fact that I'd just run over 15 miles, but I slept so well! We had about 4 1/2 hours of sleep before we had to start all over again!

My last leg was only 3.1 miles, through the city of Heber. I don't know where I got the energy, but I flew through that leg! I even had a couple "road kills"- passing someone on the course. And when I was all done- finally a shower!

To describe this experience in one word- unbelievable! Unbelievable how hard it was, how fun it was, and unbelievable that I felt so strong when it was over!

The Sweet Spirits of Van 1 after our first legs:

Xenya, Wonder Woman, Large Marge, Amberlicious, Hot Tamale, Easy V

My husband was wonderful to take care of the kids while I was gone during the race, and when I was training. He was supportive during my crazy running schedule, which was sometimes twice a day, and he never complained!

Finally some fun!

We've had to adjust to Jake's new schedule since his promotion a few months ago, since he's working nights and weekends sometimes. At first it just seemed like he'd be swapping sleep and work times, but it turned out to be more complicated and busier than that. With him gone some nights, we had a hard time fitting everything back in- like time for volleyball, date night, family time, girl's night, callings, etc. I think we're finally getting the hang of it! And since this blog is mainly my family journal, I want to include some of the fun things we've been doing as a family.

Hiking to Donut Falls. Yep, snow.

Every time the path would get a little steep or scary, Abbie would hold tight to Jake's shoulders.

Proof I was there:

Swinging at Copperton Park. You can tell these two hate swinging.

The one for me

Today, I finally had the experience of feeling that a conference talk was meant specifically for me. I realize it's June, and conference was over 2 months ago, but with two active little kids I wasn't able to listen to even one complete talk during conference, and I'm slowly making my way through them in the Ensign.

The talk that touched my heart was this one by Julie B. Beck. My favorite quote from her talk is, "A good woman knows that she does not have enough time, energy, or opportunity to take care of all of the people or do all of the worthy things her heart yearns to do." Amen! Over the past few months I have been doing SIX callings in my ward. Yes, SIX- including choir, visiting teaching and substituting in primary (which I got called to do at least 3 times a month). My old friend guilt kept me saying yes to all of these things, because I felt I wasn't able to say no. I was wearing myself ragged, not able to find time for myself, and my poor husband and children had to put up with my stress. So when I read this talk this morning, I finally felt like I could say no to some things- guilt free! I'm still willing to serve, but I don't have to do EVERYthing, all of the time. Right now I need the time to focus on the most important thing in my life- taking care of my family.

Cheaper than Prozac

I've never considered myself a runner. I like running short distances, but I've never wanted to do a marathon or anything. So when my friend Marisa asked me to join her team for the Ragnar Wasatch Back, a 190-mile relay from Logan to Park City, I didn't say yes right away. Luckily Marisa put me on the team roster anyway, because the spots filled up quick, and once I was on the team I decided it was an opportunity I didn't want to miss. There are twelve women on our team, and we'll have two vans that leap frog each other all day and all night till we finish the race. I've been told it's like an all-night girls night out, and I hope the race lives up to it!

We got our run assignments last week, and I'll be running three legs, totally 18 miles. 15 miles of that is hills, which the race website describes as "knee-jarring descents and difficult uphill roads"! Think I'm crazy yet?

Turns out, the running has actually made me LESS crazy. I can honestly say that I love running! I love being outside, getting a little vitamin D therapy. I love pushing myself to run further and faster. I sleep better at night when I run, and I seem to have more energy during the day. I've been training since February, and ran my longest distance today- 9 miles, with hills! I ran 18 miles this week. The "me" time has been very therapeutic. Not to mention losing a little junk in the trunk! I feel great. So to my running shoes I say thanks for the therapy, and the Wasatch Back better watch out!

Mr D

My Dallin is growing up right before my eyes. I blinked and now he's practically a grown boy! He tried out a couple of sports this winter like hip hop and taekwondo (mostly for my sake, because if Dallin isn't constantly engaged, entertained, or active, he gets nasty. to me. so I figured sports might take the pressure off a little) . He loved taekwondo but it was really costly. So we decided to try out soccer this spring, and Dallin had his first game today. He loved it! He was the tallest kid on the team, and ran full speed the entire game. His team won, 8-3.

Dallin bore his testimony in Sacrament meeting last week for the first time. He told me during the meeting that he wanted to go "up there next day" and when I told him we wouldn't have testimonies again till next month he said, "then I better go up right now!" His testimony made me so proud, and I cried, even though I was the one telling him what to say :)

Dallin has a best friend in the neighborhood, my friend Marisa's son Mason. They're in playgroup together, but these two love to play together and once a week just isn't enough, so they usually ask to have each other over more than twice a week! Sadly, Marisa and her family will probably be moving soon. So I snapped a few pictures just in case.

Birthday Girl!

Abbie turned two last week.

Happy Birthday, darling!

Healthy, Big, Smart

Today the kids had well check- ups at the dr and they're both HEALTHY! I'm so grateful because this is the first dr's visit since last July that Abbie hasn't had ear infections. JULY! She was one bad ear away from getting tubes put in. I'm also grateful they're healthy because I know there are lots of kids/ families out there that aren't so fortunate. A friend has been coordinating fundraisers for the family of a little boy who was diagnosed with cancer recently, and my heart goes out to them.

Both of my kids are also BIG. Dallin is in the 97th percentile for height, and Abbie is in the 95th! Abbie is also in the 90th percentile for weight. I never have to worry about force feeding her calories!

Dallin officially swindled me today. I decided to take the kids to McDonald's to get a hamburger when we left the dr because they were so good. The plan was to go through the drive thru and get them ONE hamburger each then go to the park- I'd packed other snacks. Dallin talked me into going inside to let them eat and play at the restaurant- my first mistake. Then once we were inside he saw the display for the kids meal toys, and a hamburger just wasn't going to cut it. I ended up buying happy meals for both kids! What a sucker.

Ladies Lunch

I'm fortunate to come from a very big family, and to live close to most of my family. Since the week before Dallin was born, the ladies from my family have gotten together to have lunch together, first once a week, then we switched it to twice a month since everyone kept having more kids. It's such a fun tradition! The group includes my mom, my sister, two sisters-in-law, my aunt, my cousin, all of our kids (9 kids and counting) and my grandpa- our honorary member. He started coming as the chauffeur when my grandma was still alive, and now that she's gone we still force him to come :) We take turns hosting and fixing lunch for each other, and today was my turn to host. I was determined to take pictures today, since I don't have a single picture of our lunches and we've been doing this for over 4 years. But, the chaos got the best of me, and feeding 5 adults and 7 kids (not everyone was there!) was so hectic, it was time for Abbie's nap before I'd even thought about getting my camera out. But, I still wanted to document this tradition, and set a goal to take pictures next time!

Miss-chievous

My not-so-little Abigail will be two this week. She decided to start celebrating the terrible-two's early and is into EVERYTHING! I call her mischievous because she is so silent about being naughty. About two weeks ago she got into the flour and baking ingredients TWICE (apparently she's trying to teach me to pay attention to her). One of the times we had just gotten home from grocery shopping and picking Dallin up from playgroup. Dallin had an accident, which is very rare, so I put him in the tub and went back upstairs to get the groceries. Abbie was gone! The garage door was open and since she didn't answer me when I called, of course I assumed she was wondering the neighborhood. I dashed outside in a panic, running up and down the street in my socks calling her name. Still no sign of her. Back into the house to search it again, with no luck. I searched the place top to bottom and was about to head outside again (while Dallin's tub was overflowing) when I noticed the pantry door open a crack. Sure enough, Abbie was inside, silently doing this:

I needed her out of the way to clean up the mess, so I plopped her in the tub with D, which I thought was a safe choice. A few minutes later Dallin called out "Mom, Abbie's doing something naughty." He's a great tattle-tale, and calls it being naughty whenever she does something to annoy him. I was so mad already that I just ignored them- it was a mistake. A few seconds later they were both in tears. Abbie had dumped an entire bottle of shampoo into the water and the shampoo water had gotten into their eyes! I had to drain the tub and start over. Meanwhile, the groceries were still in the car! This day reminds of an eventful day with Dallin when he was almost two.

I tried to salvage some of the flour, and our cookies, pancakes and cakes kept turning out disgusting. Turns out she had mixed the baking soda in with the flour. I had to throw away almost 5 lbs of flour :(