Crazy Eights

8 things I'm passionate about
1. Marriage
2. Family
3. Religion
4. People
5. Budgeting
6. Goals
7. Reading
8. Improving myself

8 things I want to do before I die
1. Serve missions with Scott
2. See my children find happiness
3. Speak Spanish fluently
4. Write a book
5. Get my masters and PhD
6. Teach at a university
7. Live in a Latin country
8. Retire in Idaho

8 things I say often
1. No Jeff, you'll get hurt
2. Hon (short for honey)
3. Love you
4. What do you want, Jeff?
5. Hey Jeff, Cmeer
6. Daddy's home!!!
7. Uh-oh
8. Hey Sweetheart

8 books I've recently read or currently reading
1. Life of Pi
2. Peacegiver
3. Carpentry (a college textbook)
4. Whirley the Helicopter
5. Princess Diaries
6. The Book of Mormon
7. Midway to Heaven
8. 55 Essentials

8 songs I could listen to over and over
1. You raise me up
2. Oh my Father
3. Come thou Fount
4. Redeemer of Israel
5. Shout for Joy (Primary Song)
6. Somewhere over the rainbow (a guy singing it with a guitar)
7. Secret Prayer (in Spanish)
8. Anything Scott sings


8 things I've learned this past year
1. Raising teenagers is and will be stressful
2. Marriage really is the best thing ever
3. God blesses you even when you may not totally deserve it
4. Being a mother is hard work, but worth it for sure
5. Babysitting is EXPENSIVE on the East coast
6. Talking about the Gospel is fun
7. I don't know enough about the gospel
8. Choosing a good spouse is VERY important

The Delight of Cream Cheese

So, I have always thought that I like bagels and cream cheese. Until yesterday. I didn't have any bagels, and I had a craving for cream cheese. So, I tried it on toast, and I realized, all this time I thought I liked bagels, maybe I just liked the cream cheese. If this is true, I can save some cash because those things cost like $.75 each.

The bottom line is you can't trust your taste buds when you're pregnant. For example, when I was pregnant with Jeff, all I wanted to eat was noodles, cottage cheese, an salt and pepper. Yuck!

So, I guess I will have to wait until June to find out if I really do just like the cream cheese, or if bagels still have a place in my heart.

The Macy's Parade

This is us waiting for the parade. The weather was absolutely beautiful! We didn't even have to use all the blankets I packed.

This is our happy boy, even though he got up at 4:30 a.m. to make it to get our seats.

Here's another happy and sleepy boy.

This is proof that we made it to the parade, and the fact that I am writing this is proof that we made it home too.

We had a crazy day that started at 4:30 a.m. We met up with some friends of ours and headed into the City. We decided to park the cars out of the busy traffic and take a subway downtown. The drivers dropped us all off to hold a spot on the street and took the cars back up to a traffic free area. Once we got our spot, we just sat and waited. We also took lots of food.

There were so many people, I couldn't believe it. A guy who sings with N'Sync... I think... his name was Joey Fachoey or something like that sat across the street from us. He was on the bleachers that are reserved for ticket holders, but you can't buy the tickets. Tricky huh. I guess you have to know someone who knows someone. Anyway, we held our ground against the hordes of parade goers and got to see it up close and personal. One of the balloons (a big cat looking one) almost hit the light post above us. Luckily, the balloon string holders followed their leader guy who did some fancy hand gestures and blew his whistle and saved us.

Jeff loved it and was a gem all day, even though he had to wake up so early. He smiled and played with lots of other parade goers and made some friends. He is a great kid.

It was a fun experience, but all in all, I think you get a better view at home. Plus, you get all the commentary. All the commentary we got was people yelling at the other people to get down in front. Welcome to New York.

Rambling thoughts on children

I was driving through a ritzy neighborhood tonight. It was dark and I could see inside the houses with their big windows. Some had a few lights on and others didn't have any at all. I started to feel sorry for the houses that were quiet with darkness. They seemed so sad to be without voices of family and children calling to each other, playing games, or just getting ready for bed.

In Psalms 127 it says, "children are an heritage of the Lord... Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them"

I love this scripture, but at the same time it seems inadequate to describe the joys that come from being a mother. It doesn't seem to capture the feeling I had this morning when I open my eyes to a big blue-eyed face less than an inch from mine, and the ensuing smile that erupted when he realized I was not asleep anymore.

Or the feeling I got tonight when we had prayer and he folded his chubby little arms across his tummy and bowed his head. Most nights he interrupts the prayer briefly to sneak a kiss from either mom or dad.

I could tell countless stories of all the sweet feelings and experiences that I have had being a mom, but I am just not adequate to perfectly describe how it really feels. I am just so thankful to be a mother and to have my sweet little boy and all the diapers, hand prints, and Cheerio covered carpet that comes with him.

And in the end, maybe the scripture simply says it all. "Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them".

Ice Cream!

You're dramatic and unpredictable, like biting into a scoop of rocky road ice cream. Like rocky road, you can be a little bit nutty (or a little bit marshmallowy) depending on your mood. Your friends never know what they're going to get when they hang out with you – sometimes you're calm and sweet, and sometimes you're enthusiastic and flirty. 8% of the people who took this quiz got the same evaluation.

It looks like I may be a bit unique. Or maybe just crazy enough they can't put a label on me.

Look - A- Like

I just thought these were fun to see. Unfortunately, they are pretty vague about how much the kids look like their parents. I also found that if I used different pictures of Scott and I that I could get a little higher number. As you can see, I spent too much time in front of the computer today.

Scott and Mom and Dad

Brie, Joey, and CJ

David and Bonnie and Gina

Who looks like who?

Surprise!!!

I have been reading this book called "The Essential 55". It is written by Ron Clark, this guy who won some award for being the best teacher in the United States, or something like that. It is a quick read and pretty interesting.

One of the "Essentials" he talks about is surprising someone at least once a month. He uses an example of having a five course meal prepared with flowers on the table and nice music playing in the background in a classroom for the janitor.

This got me thinking about surprises. I think one of the funnest surprises for me was when I was in college and it was my birthday. I had been at my sister's house babysitting her kids and doing my laundry. I got home and my roommates told me I needed to go to the basement. I can't remember the excuse they gave me, but I was completely clueless. As I walked into the basement I was totally confused to notice all these people I knew. Not only that, but they all seemed to be looking at me. It took a while for the light to go on in my head what was happening. We sang, had cake, and all that jazz, but I have to say the initial surprise that others were thinking of me was the best part of the night.

What have been some of your best surprises, and what is your theory of why we (generally) like them? Of course, this is taking into account I am not talking about the surprise of something like, your tire is flat or anything like that. Why do we get all warm an fuzzy with a nice surprise every once in a while?

Hits

I just figured out how to put a hit counter on the blog, and I am pretty excited to see how much it is viewed. It's probably some sort of popularity contest for me. I can see myself asking other people, as casually as I can, "So, how many hits does your blog have? Oh yeah, well as of right now, I've got three!"

I hate to admit it, but I'm pretty competitive. The other night we went over to another family's house to play games. Scott and I were on the same team. We were totally kicking trash and were about to win, but Scott (the diplomatic one) didn't play the winning move. We ended up losing because he wanted to be nice to the people we were playing with. I'll be honest, I was a little mad. I just love to win. Yikes, I hope Jeff turns out more like Scott.

So, long story short. We have a counter now. So tell all your friends to come visit our blog and boost my ego.

Halloween

Where I grew up in rural Idaho, we got about one trick-or-treater a year on average over a 10 year span of time. One year my dad even gave out cough drops, because he didn't have anything else for the lone trick-or-treater. Even if we did get a kid to come to our door, it wasn't until on Halloween night. So you can imagine my surprise when we started getting trick-or-treaters at about 4 p.m. and I still hadn't gone to the store to get candy.

When the first ones came I thought for sure it was my landlord so I answered the door. Sadly I had to tell the posse of trick-or-treaters I didn't have any candy. One of the little girls actually fell on the ground and started crying. I am not sure if it was because she fell on the ground that she started to cry, or if it was because I didn't have sugary substance to drop in her enormous bag. One of the nosey neighbors looked across the yard at me like I had kicked the girl. I wanted to yell something like, "What, you think we should have candy this early in the day." But instead I just picked the girl up and ran back in the house, shut the door as quickly as I could and determinedly decided not to answer the door again.

So I hid back in my living room, avoiding the kitchen at all costs, just in case they could see me thought the window in the door. The next bunch came and knocked on the door, I hunkered down on the living room couch to wait it out. Unfortunately, Jeff loves visitors. He kept yelling. I tried to get him to be quiet, but the kids must have heard him and they started pounding on the door non-stop. So, yet again, I opened the door.

After they left even emptier handed than they came (they gave Jeff some of their candy because they felt bad for him) I grabbed the car keys and sneaked out to the car. This was not going to happen again. I went to the grocery store only to find that most of the candy selection was gone. So, I had to get the cheap stuff. At least it was something.

Once I got home I was prepared and I waited for them to come. I had a huge bowl (okay so it wasn't that big) full of candy ready for the little imps to come pounding on the door. I got one little boy, who just looked at me when I opened the door. He didn't even say "Trick or Treat," he just stared at the candy. I gave him one, and had to fend him off when he tried to dig into my dish of sweets. That was it, it was over. No more for the rest of the night. Word must have gotten out that we were cheap.

So, once Scott got home from work we took Jeff out and loaded up on the good stuff. I'm in heaven today. And Jeff, well, he's just a baby so he gets one candy a day.



He is a pretty cute little Tigger if you ask me.


Some friends went with us and took their little boy too.