March Recap

Easter Egg Hunts, Spencer's 9th Birthday, Bullriding and the Pinewood Derby were the highlights of our month.

Gratitude Weekly - Relief

It is so easy to say what I am grateful for this week. After 14 weeks of pain and swelling in my legs from something called Erythema Nodosum I am almost pain free. I have suffered horribly during this time and the relief and gratitude is overwhelming. I had two doctor appointments this week and they gave me a couple of medicines to see if they would work and they sure haven't hurt. I don't know if I truly give the meds credit for my recovery though. I would say that prayer is probably more the cure, but I will take the relief in any form and be thankful for it.

Gratitude Weekly - Clean House

Today is Easter and as such there are many deep and thoughtful things that I am thankful for. I am going to express my gratitude however for something less deep or meaningful, yet something I am so overwhelmingly grateful for I must share. My house is cleaner than it has been in several months.
We had the wonderful pleasure of company this weekend. Five adults and seven children shared our small house for the Easter weekend. We celebrated birthdays and Easter and just hung out. It was a great time. Before the company came, we had a major crisis cleaning. The children pitched in and from 6:30-9:00 in the evening we worked as hard as we could to get the house in good shape for company. Now our good shape would probably be considered unacceptable to many, but it was the best we could manage at this point in time.
Now I know that you are thinking to yourselves, she had 12 people in her house all weekend, it was probably trashed by the end of the weekend. You would be wrong. I have the greatest friends, before they left they made sure that the house was in a place that when everyone, including Jay, had gone, I could sit down and put my feet up instead of sit down and cry. I have clean towels, clean floors and a straight house. For me that equals happiness.

Tagged

5 Things I Was Doing 10 Years Ago
1. We were living in Raleigh.
2. I was taking Art History at Peace and hating every minute of it.
3. I suffered from depression severely during this year, which prompted me to drop the above Art History Class.
4. Alex was almost 2 and adorable.
5. I was massaging Lauren's super swollen feet.

5 Things On My To-Do List
1. Buy Easter stuff
2. Balance Checkbook
3. Finish the boys' laundry
4. Grocery shop
5. Vacuum

5 Snacks I Enjoy
1. Cupcakes from Cake Ladies, Inc.
2. Cupcakes from The Sugar Tree Bakery
3. Peanut Butter Passion Ice Cream from Schwans
4. Cereal
5. Cinnamon and Raisin English Muffins

5 Places I've Lived
1. Yorktown, VA - 23 years
2. Provo, UT - 2 years
3. Raleigh, NC - 4.5 years
4. Charleston, SC - 1 year
5. Portsmouth, RI - 2 years

What I Would Do if I Became a Billionaire
1. Be debt free
2. Have a slightly larger home
3. Make sure all my family had a dependable car
4. Travel
5. Have a housekeeper, nanny and cook. Not really, but it is fun to think of having all of those for a week or so, make that a month.

5 Bad Habits
1. Eating Sugar
2. Not exercising
3. Worrying about things that I can't control.
4. Not picking up after myself.
5. Not following up on things that I need to do.

5 Jobs I've Had
1. Making cotton candy, drinks and snow cones at Water Country USA
2. Dancer in Kiddie show at Water Country USA
3. Selling dresses
4. Grocery Checkout Girl at Harris Teeter
5. Cashier at the BYU Bookstore

Some things people don't know about me ...
1. I love to take hour long bathes with the water up to the rim of the tub.
2. I read myself to sleep almost every night.
3. I have a totally irrational fear of ticks.
4. I am afraid to go outside in the dark. I do it, but I have to talk myself up to do it even as an adult.
5. I love state fairs, rodeos, bull riding and all the things my husband considers to be redneck.
6. Jay and I are tax fanatics. (Emily, that's for you)

Spring

I am so grateful that Spring is on it way. The official first day of Spring is coming up this week on Thursday, March 20th. Spring is my favorite season. It was the season that I fell in love with my husband and every year when I start to see and smell the beginnings of the season I am overcome with the same feelings that I felt when I first got to know my love.


My favorite tree is the Bradford Pear and right now they are in their glory all around.




My favorite spring flower is the Hyacinth. It's fragrance is what Spring smells like to me.

For those of you not experiencing the wonders of Spring, please don't hate me because I am, just come visit.

Domestic Goddess

Today, I was plunging the toilet, (isn't that a great way to start a blog) when Sarah comes in the bathroom and stops to watch me work. She is making faces and I thought that was bad, but then she started to express her views. Here they are.

*THAT is the most disgusting thing I have every seen.
*I am never doing THAT when I grow up.
*When I grow up my husband is going to do THAT so that I don't ever have to.
*If my husband is at work THAT is the only time I would ever do THAT.
*I am going to marry one of those husbands who works at home so that if THAT ever happens I don't have to do IT because IT is disgusting.

I am doing something wrong?

New Starts

I know that I am a week behind on sharing my thoughts about what I am grateful for, but it really seemed to defeat the point of looking for my blessings when I say that I am grateful that this week is over. That could go for this past week or the week before. I have been sick or someone else has been sick or all of us have been sick for so long that I can't remember what life used to be like. Throw a bunch of personal crisis in for each of my children and it seems like I live in a tornado. But when I thought about the fact that it is Sunday night and the last week is over and a new one has begun I thought about why Sunday feels like such a relief, and this is what I came up with.
I love having a new start or a clean slate. This feeling comes from taking the Sacrament each week. I apply the new start feeling to other areas of my life, but the main one is, on Sunday when I go to church and renew my covenants with Heavenly Father by partaking of the Sacrament then I know that as I go out into my week I can go forward into a better week. I can do my best to forget the mistakes of last week and try again in the week to come. It helps me to focus my goals back to my ultimate goal which is to live my life for Heavenly Father and put forth my best effort in the places that matter most.
So today, Sunday night, after a great day at church I would say that I am grateful for the new start. Ultimately I am grateful for the Atonement of Christ.

Valerie Has A Blog

This week I am greatful that my dear friend Valerie now has a blog. We met Valerie and Cannon in Charleston, SC while Cannon and Jay were going through Neclear Power School together. Valerie has twin boys who are two months older than our Sarah. Now she has four children and is expecting her fifth. We saw their family while traveling through Utah this summer and it was so great catching up. Please go check out Valerie's blog. You can even wish her a Happy Birthday as she turns 8 (she may only be 7, but Jay says 8) tomorrow on February 29th.
http://neslen.blogspot.com/

I'm Happy

That's what I am grateful for. I'm Happy. I love my life. I am trying very hard to live in the moment and not look to the future for my happiness and what do you know. . . I am happy in my present. There is a song out by Trace Adkins right now called, You're Gonna Miss This, and it has really helped me to realize how much I am enjoying my life.

You're gonna miss this
You're gonna want this back
You're gonna wish these days hadn't gone by so fast
These are some good times
So take a good look around
You may not know it now
But you're gonna miss this

I already know that my children are growing up too fast and that though every day is very hard, I love it. Every day there are new and very frustrating things that happen, but I wouldn't miss it for anything.

My Friend Kara

Today I have to say that I am very thankful for my friend Kara. We met in Charleston, but didn't know each other well there. Since she has moved to Virginia it has been great getting to know her better. I teach her daughter Rachel in my Valiant 9 class, she and Spencer get along well. But back to Kara, she is such a generous person who gives until it hurts. Kara is Spencer's Wolf leader and is great with the children. Several times she has substituted for me in my Primary class. This week while her husband was out of town she brought me dinner. It was so nice of her to go out of her way for us and it was the best meal we had all week. The children loved it and we saved leftovers for Jay and we all enjoyed the meal over again. Today Jay texted me at church to let me know he was at home throwing up and needed help with Nathan who was also at home sick. Kara, again, came through for me and taught my class at the last minute. She is a great person and a great friend and I am very grateful for her friendship.

Vitamin C

This week I am thankful for Vitamin C. I have been sick, real sick since Thursday. When I went to the Dr on Friday they said, it sure looks like strep, I guess we will wait until next week when the test comes back and if it comes back positive we will give you some antibiotics. Oh and by the way, go home and look at your throat in the mirror because that is exactly what strep looks like.
Well, without the benefit of an antibiotic I have been attacking my illness with Vitamin C round the clock and I am feeling only half as bad as I did on Friday. I have used Vitamin C many times to help ward off a cold and now I firmly believe it is the only thing keeping me upright.

Alex's Faith in God

Alex after receiving the Arrow of Light award in Webelos. He also received the Religious Knot and an award for completing all 20 achievements in Webelos.


I am thankful tonight that Alex has completed almost all of the requirements for him to receive his Faith in God award in June when he turns 12. He has lost his Faith in God book twice during his four years while working on it. Neither time was it his fault that the book was lost, both times he gave it to an adult and it was not returned. Tonight we sat down and went through a new book and he could recall and tell me about all the different things he had done. He remembered them, and when they happened and most importantly each activity seemed to mean something to him. He has two more activities to do and he needs to finish up his Preparing for the Priesthood section then he will be finished. I am very pleased with him and he is pleased with himself. I am thankful that the Lord blessed me with a child who has such a great understanding of his purpose in life.

Happy Children

This week I am going to have to chose my darling children as my area of gratitude. They are good kids who really are so agreeable. When things don't go their way they are disappointed, but they are also quick to move on and be happy again. I am always surprised at their fast rebound when they have a disappointment or get angry and they find their happiness again. A mother couldn't ask for more.

I'm Grateful for ???

I am stealing this idea from Laurie's (a friend of my friend Emily, who's blog I peek in on regularly)blog. She is writing something she is grateful for every week. So here goes my first week at this, we will see if I stick to it.

I am always grateful when my husband comes home for the weekend. I will try to only let that be my pick this one time, but know that it is every week's main gratitude. I am glad to see him, hear his voice, talk to him about what has happened during the week and talk about nothing. He is the hardest worker I know and he comes home and goes right to work trying to make my life easier in the week to come. It makes the children happy to see him and he always takes the time to do something with just them which makes them feel special and gives me down time.

This week I am especially grateful he came home because I woke up with tons of pain in my back and chest Saturday morning and couldn't do anything for myself. By the time he left tonight, I had the pain under control and the house under control as well. I am very grateful for my sweet husband and his weekly visits. Someday we will hopefully get to live together.

Not so bad after all

I learned today that I am not so bad after all. I had a really rough day and felt the need to self medicate with food, lots of food and the really bad stuff too. I was careful enough to only gorge myself on the snack food that I had bought to try to snack more healthy. I felt really like a failure for having less control and strongly considered not recording what I had eaten today in my Weight Watcher's tracker, but I didn't want to lie to myself anymore. I turns out that I didn't do that badly after all. I was only 2.5 points over my daily allotment and I was well within the points I can use to help me through the week. Yea Me! I also managed to stay away from the bakery. That was the biggest struggle of the day.

Weight Watchers

I have officially given up and I am getting help. I went to weight watchers yesterday. When I weighed in before deciding to join I weighed 1 pound more than I weighed the day Sarah was born. That is an all time high for me. So I gave them my money and promised to come back every week. After that I went for a walk and had a piece of birthday cake. I'm not perfect, but I am trying. Today, I ate salad at lunch and dinner. I ate other things at dinner too, but considering my dislike of salad and most things green, I am trying. For exercise today I took Nathan to gymnastics. That might not seem like exercise to most, but if you saw him trying to do all the climbing and jumping you would see my workout. He is probably over 40 lbs and doesn't jump yet so I am constantly lifting him and helping him jump. My upper body got a great workout.
On a side note, it was 72 degrees here today, if this is global warming sign me up.

Merry, Merry Christmas

We had a very Merry Christmas. Everyone was very grateful for all their gifts. My favorite part was the hugs of gratitude.

Nathan Turns 2

My baby Nathan turned 2 on December 13th. He is such a doll. My days would be completely boring without him around. We have the most fun together. He loves to be outside more than anything. Now Nathan has just started a gymnastics class and is rolling all over the place. His favorite time of day is when his siblings come home.

We saved our celebration until Jay was able to be home with us. Nathan got a new tricycle and he helped his daddy put it together.

Also this weekend we had a birthday celebration for Nathan, my brother Steve and my nephew Sam. Sam and Nathan share a birthday.

Nathan ate cake for the first time this weekend. He had been offered cake before, but just didn't trust it. He was most pleased to have two cakes and thought they were the best part of the party.

Warning: Funny

I have to set this up. I got a forward today from a friend. The forward had the warning on it that it was funny, but lot of them do and I didn't take it seriously enough. I have put my children to bed, but no one is asleep yet. While reading I am hearing, Mommy, what are you doing? Mom, are you okay? Mom are you laughing or crying? Mommy are you snorting? Mommy are you choking? I was trying really hard to be quiet with my laughing, but I think I just made it worse. So here is your warning, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

GIRLS EYES ONLY!! Warning: Hysterically funny! Hair Removal

My night began as any other normal weeknight. Come home, fix dinner,play with the kids. I then had the thought that would ring painfully in my mind for the next few hours: "Maybe I should pull the waxing kit out of the medicine cabinet." So I headed to the site of my demise: the bathroom. It was one of those"cold wax" kits. No melting a clump of hot wax, you just rub the strips together in your hand, they get warm and you peel them apart and press them to your leg (or wherever else) and you pull the hair right off. No muss, no fuss. How hard can it be? I mean, I'm not a genius, but I am mechanically inclined enough to figure this out. (YA THINK!?!) So I pull one of the thin strips out. Its two strips facing each other stuck together. Instead of rubbing them together, my genius kicks in so I get out the hair dryer and heat it to 1000 degrees. ("Cold wax," yeah...right!) I lay the strip across my thigh. Hold the skin around it tight and pull. It works! OK, so it wasn't the best feeling, but it wasn't too bad. I can do this! Hair removal no longer eludes me! I am She-rah, fighter of all wayward body hair and maker of smooth skin extraordinaire. With my next wax strip I move north. After checking on the kids, I sneak back into the bathroom, for the ultimate hair fighting championship. I drop my panties and place one foot on the toilet. Using the same procedure, I apply the wax strip across the right side of my bikini line, covering the right half of my hoo-ha and stretching down to the inside of my butt cheek (it was a long strip). I inhale deeply and brace myself....RRRRIIIPPP!!!! I'm blind!!! Blinded from pain!!!!....OH MY GAWD!!!!!!!!! Vision returning, I notice that I've only managed to pull off half the strip. CRAP! Another deep breath and RIPP! Everything is spinning and spotted. I think I may pass out...must stay conscious...must stay conscious. Do I hear crashing drums??? Breathe, breathe...OK, back to normal. I want to see my trophy - a wax covered strip, the one that has caused me so much pain, with my hairy pelt sticking to it. I want to revel in the glory that is my triumph over body hair. I hold up the strip! There's no hair on it. Where is the hair??? WHERE IS THE WAX??? Slowly I ease my head down, foot still perched on the toilet. I see the hair. The hair that should be on the strip...it's not! I touch... I am touching wax!! I run my fingers over the most sensitive part of my body, which is now covered in cold wax and matted hair. Then I make the next BIG mistake...remember my foot is still propped upon the toilet? I know I need to do something. So I put my foot down. Sealed shut! My butt is sealed shut. Sealed shut! I penguin walk around the bathroom trying to figure out what to do and think to myself "Please don't let me get the urge to poop. My head may pop off!" What can I do to melt the wax? Hot water!! Hot water melts wax!! I'll run the hottest water I can stand into the bathtub, get in, immerse the wax-covered bits and the wax should melt and I can gently wipe it off, right??? *WRONG!!!!!!!* I get in the tub - the water is slightly hotter than that used to torture prisoners of war or sterilize surgical equipment - I sit. Now, the only thing worse than having your nether regions glued together, is having them glued together and then glued to the bottom of the tub...in scalding hot water. Which, by the way, doesn't melt cold wax. So, now I'm stuck to the bottom of the tub as though I had cemented myself to the porcelain!! God bless the man who had convinced me a few months ago to have a phone put in the bathroom!!!!! I call my friend, thinking surely she has waxed before and has some secret of how to get me undone. It's a very good conversation starter"So, my butt and hoo-ha are glued together to the bottom of the tub!" There is a slight pause. She doesn't know any secret tricks for removal but she does try to hide her laughter from me. She wants to know exactly where the wax is located, "Are we talking cheeks or hole or hoo-ha?" She's laughing out loud by now...I can hear her. I give her the rundown and she suggests I call the number on the side of the box. YEAH!!!!! Right!! I should be the joke of someone else's night. While we go through various solutions. I resort to trying to scrape the wax off with a razor. Nothing feels better than to have your girlie goodies covered in hot wax, glued shut, stuck to the tub in super hot water and then dry-shaving the sticky wax off!! By now the brain is not working, dignity has taken a major hike and I'm pretty sure I'm going to need Post-Traumatic Stress counseling for this event. My friend is still talking with me when I finally see my saving grace....the lotion they give you to remove the excess wax. What do I really have to lose at this point? I rub some on and.. OH MY GOSH!!!!!!! The scream probably woke the kids and scared the dickens out of my friend. It's sooo painful, but I really don't care. "IT WORKS!! It works !!" I get a hearty congratulation from my friend and she hangs up. I successfully remove the remainder of the wax and then notice to my grief and despair...THE HAIR IS STILL HERE.......ALL OF IT! So I recklessly shave it off. Heck, I'm numb by now. Nothing hurts. I could have amputated my own leg at this point. Next week I'm going to try hair color.....

Nothing to Blog About

I was trying to keep my blog more current, but I can't find anything to blog about. I feel a little like a hamster in wheel going round and round everyday. I could say that we need more pencils in the house at homework time even though during the rest of the day there are plenty. I could tell you that each of my children would have been great only children with the amount of things each one has to do each day and the way they blossom when given undivided attention. I don't even have the attachment on my camera to add picture to my blog right now. I think my husband took it with him. It was almost 80 degrees here today and my baby wore shorts in December. In two days it will be cold again. Not much to report, but I am reporting it anyway.