Category Archives: life

sometimes, it’s the little things

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I know my last post was kind of on the down side, but I’m happy to report that we are all doing so much better than we were a few days ago.

This sick little face is finally back to being herself. We had a couple of rough days and nights, but it really wasn’t so bad.

_MG_0029This week, I’ve really been appreciating the small, meaningful moments. Sure, Kaya didn’t feel well, but that just meant that we got to snuggle and watch a million episodes of Baby Einstein. We even had a family slumber party in the living room at 4 am because she didn’t want to be alone (and being propped up instead of lying flat seemed to help her rest better).

Michael and I had a late dinner date to Wendy’s. We ate in the car while Kaya slept, and the radio played all our favorite songs. It was so fun to do something spontaneous together.

Kaya took a super long nap, and I was so grateful after those late nights and early mornings we had. I took full advantage (and as usual, Jax takes any opportunity he gets to be on the bed and smother me. I actually love that he’s so cuddly).

IMG_20131113_144506 I still miss Juni, but Michael lovingly cleaned up all her things so that I didn’t have to. I’m so thankful for him.

My thoughtful visiting teacher left a treat at my front door just to let me know she cares.

If you know me, you’ve probably seen me wearing Christmas socks all year round. I can’t help it- I just love holiday socks! I was so thrilled to find these (on the right, the ones on the left are from Michael’s Arts and Crafts) for $1 at Target today. Bring on the Christmas season! I also bought sprinkles for decorating gingerbread cookies… I want to do it all now, but Michael is making me wait until Thanksgiving is over!

socks2013collage1I’m so thankful for tiny tender mercies, no matter how trivial some of them might seem. God is good.

sometimes, it’s rough

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Let’s face it- on the blog, I mostly write about sunshine, rainbows, and/or unicorns. (Not really, but you get the idea, right?)

Today I’m going to be honest.

Life is hard sometimes.

I know that other people have trials that are so much bigger. So much harder.

But that doesn’t mean that YOUR troubles aren’t significant and sometimes even overwhelming.

We had a crazy weekend. For most of it, I was feeling pretty under the weather. I noticed on Saturday night that my guinea pig, Juni, really wasn’t looking so well. She was still eating, so I kept an eye on her.IMG_1497 [640x480]

When I woke up on Sunday, she was just lying there, barely hanging on to life.

“I think she waited for you”, Michael said.

I agreed.

I spent all morning with her. I stroked her fur, which seemed softer than ever. I told her I loved her. Her breathing became so slow that it was hard to tell exactly when she left us, but I believe it was just before we headed out to church.

This is the first time in almost 8 years I haven’t shared my home with a guinea pig. It’s strange. It feels empty.

We went to church, and suddenly, Kaya started to become lethargic and feverish. She has never been sick before (we have definitely been blessed), so it made me really nervous. We actually left a few minutes early to get her home, take her temperature, and see if she’d nap.

103.4 degrees.

I felt so helpless. She cried and cried and cried. My first instinct is to nurse her, but anytime I’d lay her down, she’d start bawling.

Sometimes (maybe even most of the time), I have no idea what I’m doing as a mom. I’m just making it up as I go along, and sometimes that doesn’t feel good enough.

She was still eating and drinking, so we didn’t take her in to her pediatrician until today. Her doctor said that she has seen a lot of kids lately with fevers that just run for a few days, and that’s all it is. Everything else looks good.

All these events seemed to accumulate into one big avalanche and completely cover me. Add some insomnia and sleep deprivation to our equation… and it made today seem so hard. I’m so thankful for Michael, because without him I would probably be 100 times more irrational and clueless.

I miss Juni. My heart breaks for my sick baby. I’m exhausted. But it’s okay. Life’s meant to be a little rough.

I also burnt our microwave out on Friday. I’m almost laughing at that one now. Almost.

frosty

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We woke up to a 28-degree morning and frost-covered grass.

Feeling the cold air this morning definitely makes me want to jump right into the Christmas season (what? Thanksgiving still comes first? Well, alright, but only because there’s turkey involved…)

Yesterday, we realized that our heater wasn’t working- it was just recirculating cold air! Thankfully, it was fixed this morning within about an hour, and we are cozy and warm again.IMG_20131104_105314

I feel like I’ve been running around town like a chicken with no head this past week, which would explain why I’ve been pretty quiet on the blog. But don’t worry, I have so many fun Halloween festivities to share- Trunk or Treat, trick-or-treating at the mall, and the Halloween party that Lelia and I hosted on Saturday! I should also decide on some official goals for November… seeing as it is already the 4th. Whoops!

We really enjoyed Daylight Saving Time on Sunday… Kaya actually slept the extra hour! It might have just been because of all the excitement and staying up late at the Halloween party on Saturday… but still! We are definitely lucky, because I know a lot of other parents were up at the crack of dawn with their little ones.

Happy warm and cozy Monday 🙂

change

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(drafted Oct 27th)

Tonight we drove by our old apartment. Michael started reminiscing:

“We made snowmen in that field… and played baseball!”

My eyes welled up with a few tears.

Our home was so very tiny. It was adorned with dingy old furniture and even smelled musty no matter how much I’d clean. But it was ours, and we filled that little apartment with so many memories. It was our first home together.

Closing that door for the last time two and a half years ago ended a chapter in our newlywed life. We were finished with our undergraduate studies. There would be no more late nights studying or stressing about tests. That part of our life was over.

We opened another door by moving to a larger place. The extra room became Lelia’s for a semester that passed all too quickly. Another door closed when she graduated and moved away, but it was only a couple weeks later that we learned we’d be adding a baby to our family.

Deciding to have a baby closed the door to more schooling or any kind of career for me. I knew it was important to stay home with my daughter.

Kaya was born and a completely new part of my heart was opened. I can’t remember what it was like not to know this kind of love.

Maggie passed away, but her loss allowed us to adopt Jax.Nothing is as constant as change

All throughout our lives, we are opening and closing these figurative “doors”. It both exhilarates and frightens me. The choices we make each day are shaping our futures- who our friends are, what kind of people we’ll become, where we’ll settle down, and so on.

We’ve been doing it all along, but somehow, I’ve only just realized it. What amazes me the most is that even when one opportunity ended, there was always another just waiting to open up. Our Heavenly Father is always looking out for us. He’s there. He loves us, and He wants us to find joy in the journey of life.

I’m so grateful for today, because it was all the subtle changes of yesterday that got us here. We are stronger, wiser, and a little more thankful than we used to be.

our week in photos

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There isn’t too much to say about this week, so I’m just going to dump my photos here and let them do the talking (for the most part, anyway)!
_MG_6918 _MG_6915 _MG_6930 _MG_6947 She pulled a piece of string out of my blanket… and played with it for probably 10 minutes. Who needs real toys when you’ve got string?_MG_6871 _MG_6867 Those teeth!_MG_6957 She is a yogurt-eating machine (okay, so she doesn’t eat ALL this yogurt in one sitting, but I did buy the whole container for her). This week, she tried and loved blackberry, raspberry, and strawberry-banana._MG_6960 _MG_6966 We don’t play in the kitchen here. We play ON the kitchen._MG_6975 _MG_6938Happy weekend everyone!

weekend learnin’

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Just because you’re out of college and it’s the weekend doesn’t mean you have to be a complete bum. But just in case you were that bum this weekend, I guess I’ll share all my hard-earned knowledge with you so you can feel accomplished, too!

We went to a church barbecue this weekend, and I decided to make a cake, of course! (Bet you could have guessed that one). I saw the “ruffle” design in the May issue of Better Homes & Gardens, and thought I would give it a try. Weekend lesson #1: Better Homes and Gardens makes creating ruffles look a whole lot easier than it actually is. Their cake had “imperfectly perfect” cascading ruffles, and mine… well, mine was imperfectly imperfect. Ah well.

I’ll still call it a success just for my effort and for the fact that we didn’t bring home even one slice- it was devoured! It was actually a “pink lemonade”-flavored cake with my own homemade lemon buttercream. Mmm. Weekend lesson #2: Making up your own lemon buttercream recipe is actually pretty easy! I just used the standard formula for buttercream, plus lemon extract, plus lemon concentrate. So it ended up looking like this:

2 lbs confectioner’s sugar

1 cup butter

1 cup shortening

2 tsp lemon extract

2 TBSP lemon concentrate

Mix shortening and butter until creamy. Add the lemon extract. Add sugar slowly, constantly mixing. Add lemon concentrate and mix until smooth.

Weekend lesson #3 actually has nothing at all to do with this cake, and it almost seems gross to lump it together in the same post… But it is a hard fact of life and someone else out there might be yearning to know a solution to this problem.

One day, you might discover that your running/workout shoes smell.

Now, we ain’t talking about a smell like that nice new “fresh berries” air freshener I put in my living room. We’re talking about the wet-dog-who-rolled-in-a-pile-of-trash-dragging-in-a-dead-squirrel kind of smell.

Not saying that my shoes smelled that bad. I’m just saying that someone’s might.

Anyway, I figured out that pouring some baking soda in them (enough to cover the inside of the shoe, from toe to heel) and then pouring undiluted white vinegar on top of that and letting them sit overnight is MAGIC. In the morning, I threw them in the washer on cold, and they came out pretty much like new!

So there you go. You’re now one blog-post wiser. And if you can relate to that stinky dog smell… it might be time to give your best friend a bath! Just don’t use the same trick you used on your shoes.

three life lessons

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Lately I feel like I’ve been on a roller coaster of emotion and self-discovery. Here are some of the things I’ve learned lately.

1. Preparation really IS key. Whether that pertains to being ready to teach a lesson at church on Sunday, having a savings account or even exercising, everything definitely goes a whole lot smoother when you put in that little bit of time and effort beforehand. I’m so grateful that I have been able to devote some time each day to exercising, because I believe it is making pregnancy a whole lot easier for me than if I hadn’t. That small amount of preparation is keeping my heart and blood pressure healthy, my weight gain low, and will hopefully make for a somewhat easier labor and delivery. Running every day makes me a stronger person physically, so shouldn’t daily “spiritual exercise” strengthen me spiritually? It might seem like one day of prayer and scripture study isn’t all that significant, but add up all the knowledge and spiritual strength you acquire over time, and that really does make a difference.

2. My capacity to love is infinite. I can’t even understand it. Ever since we found out about our little munchkin, I have gradually fallen in love with her. After seeing her sweet face on ultrasound last week, my feelings and care for her have increased a million fold! I could cry pretty much just thinking about her. I love her so much and cannot wait to meet her and hold her. She has really started to develop a little personality in there: she’ll kick and punch my hand when I touch her, she responds to music, and this morning she started kicking as soon as she heard our voices start talking. I could never imagine loving anyone this much and I know that once she’s born, I’ll love her a billion times more than I already do. How much more does our Father in Heaven love us? I’m sure that we cannot even begin to understand how much He really cares.

3. One Sunday at church a few years back, I went home with a little print-out written by Sister Hinckley, titled “Is This What I Was Born to Do?” It talks about women in several different situations, including the story of Esther in the Bible. Esther played a monumental role in saving her people, but she first needed encouragement from her cousin, Mordecai, who said “Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14). The Church has solemnly declared the family to be ordained of God. It is the most important unit of society. As women, we have monumental influence on others, especially our families. Before I decided to become a mom, I honestly wasn’t sure if it was the right path for me. I doubted my abilities to raise and love a baby. I thought that maybe motherhood was for other women, who seemed more sure of themselves and had known that they wanted families since their own childhood. I didn’t think I was “good enough”. But I can testify now that motherhood is the right path. It is “what I was born to do”. I have already grown and changed so much these past few months because of this little person who depends on me. It took an act of faith decide to embark on this journey, but I know it was right, and I can hardly wait for all the learning and loving I’ll be able to experience in the future because of it.

furniture

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As graduation was nearing, we decided that some new furniture would be a good investment. So we went to about a million places, I looked at a zillion websites, and still I couldn't decide on anything!

Finally one day I found something I loved. Of course, I had to think about it for at least a week before we could do anything because I am not an impulse buyer!

I kept going back to this beautiful couch. It was gray in the store but once I knew I could choose another color, I was willing to wait for it. It finally came this month!

I picked out the fabric for the pillows, too!

And since my favorite place to sit has always been our old recliner, we got a new one. Sooo comfy!

Now I just need some things on the walls!

blessed

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This past weekend we went to the temple to see our cousin Shaila get married! We decided that we would go up the night before so that we could spend some time in the temple together, but when we were just about half hour from our destination, we got into a minor car accident. Thankfully, no one was hurt and our car is by no means destroyed. The radiator was cracked and leaked out all its fluid, so the car had to be towed.

Although it was just a small incident, my emotions were very unstable over the next few hours. It was strange to see our car hauled onto the tow truck. We had to ride in the front, which almost seemed fun for a moment, except that I could see our poor car bouncing behind us in the sideview mirror.

I am so thankful for our family and friends who have been so generous to help us make it back home and get to the places we need to. I really don't know where we'd be without them, seeing as our car is currently 4 hours away from us.

I'm grateful that Michael and I are still alive and well. There's really nothing better than being with your best friend.


We managed to stay at the same hotel as Michael's parents, which was great to get some hugs and relax. And we did make it to the temple for the wedding on Saturday morning, where is was such a relief to temporarily leave our wordly cares behind and just feel the Holy Spirit. Marriage really is a sacred covenant between you, your spouse, and God, and I definitely felt that this weekend.