Mental Blogger

I have written so many posts lately....in my head! I'll be doing something and think, "when I post, I'll post about this and say this, this, and this". The only problem is that I NEVER get around to posting it! So here I am today trying to remember all I wanted to blog about. sigh....

This month has been a whirlwind!

More so that usual....what with the usual Christmas chaos of getting ready and planning for that, our car's check engine light came on. We took it to a good friend of ours who told us to take it to the dealer so we could get it fixed under the warranty. So we had to make an appointment-several days later-to bring it in. Of course, just like when you go to the dr. and you feel fine that day after you've finally made the appt. our check engine light went OFF. grrr. That same day we dropped the car off, Matt just happened to have a job interview....in LOGAN. Thankfully, we have great family who are always so willing to help out, and lend us their cars. What do you know, that day was also the big snow storm. So we drove up to Logan in the snow for Matt's interview, and we were only 15 min. late! Long and dreadful story short- they offered him the job, but wanted him to take a $10,000 pay cut! On top of that, they told Matt he was being too demanding and that it was more than generous for the Logan area and "his situation as a student" when he told them he couldn't do that-plus he kept having to call them because they would say he would be contacted by a certain time and they didn't...

I'm relieved it didn't work out though, because I think I would have lost my mind trying to get ready for Christmas, Ammon's birthday, finding a place to live and moving all within 3 weeks. Matt was discourage of course, but he deserves to work in a place where he is appreciated and paid at least CLOSE to what he's worth if not exactly. I think a lot of companies that live in a college town just must be used to taking advantage of students. Glad to have moved past that!!!

Our car is finally fixed as well, no thanks to them....ha ha, just kidding. I'm so glad I'm married to someone who is the best "squeaky wheel" you'll ever meet! They kept trying to tell us it was the battery(obviously, the battery is the one thing NOT covered in the warranty.) But we had it tested two separate places and it tested fine. So they finally found the problem and Matt got them to fix it under the warranty AND get us a rental car. What do you know, they got the car back to us within 2 days! Talk about motivation on their part-they covered the cost of the rental car. I love Matt and I'm so grateful we didn't have to deal with expensive car repairs on top of everything else because of his persistence.

This month in primary we are focusing on service and each Sunday people share what service they did the past week. My heart is full of gratitude because of the service several people rendered in my behalf. For those who lent us their cars, or drove me around, or listened to me fall apart on the phone because "I can't handle anymore!", I cannot express enough gratitude. You truly were sent to be a tender mercy of the Lord for us.

December has been good otherwise. We have been able to go to the Festival of the Trees, decorate Christmas cookies, get free hot chocolate and scones from the Winder Farm and enjoy driving around looking at the lights. We found this AMAZING house in Murray whose lights are programmed to a radio station, all I can say to describe it is "WOW!". I found myself in awe the same way I was when I first saw the water show at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. I did a tiny bit of Christmas baking, enough for neighbor and friend gifts and we have enjoyed the sweets of many.

I'm so excited for Christmas this year! I have been reading The Kingdom and the Crown series, and I just started reading the New Testament and so my thoughts have been turned more towards the Savior. It has mad

Last night we went to Matt's parent's and made sock snowmen. Technically it was for the kids, but I ended up doing it and I loved it! It's now my favorite Christmas decoration in our house(out of the what, 3 total?) It made me so happy to make it, thanks Sue and Janelle for the fun idea!

Among Many of the Noble and Great ones....

As a somewhat belated Thanksgiving post I wish to express my gratitude to my Father in Heaven for His "refining fires". I am deeply touched with the knowledge that He knows me and knows what is necessary for me to gain exaltation. I have just finished reading the Work and Glory series and the spirit has whispered repeatedly to me: "what sacrifice am I offering to the Lord?" The early saints made obvious sacrifices in their devotion to the Lord: leaving families, homes, countries, and all in the face of terrible persecution. What am I doing today that will qualify me to stand with Abraham, Moroni, Moses, and Joseph Smith? Frequently the passage where Abraham sees "many of the noble and great ones" comes to my mind.

22 Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the ^aintelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many of the ^bnoble and great ones;

23 And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast ^achosen before thou wast born.(Abr 3:22-23)

Was I among them? Will I be worthy to stand with them in the end?

I have recently come to a greater understanding of all that God requires of me to be His disciple. I have made the choice that if I have been called to experience something seemingly impossible to overcome the Lord can help me to overcome it and that I am willing to do whatever it takes to qualify for exaltation.

I just began reading Fire of the Covenant and the opening quote in the book is one given by Joseph Smith in Lectures on Faith:

"Let us here observe, that a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation....It was through this sacrifice, and this only, that God has ordained that men should enjoy eternal life; and it is though the medium of the sacrifice of all earthly things that men do actually know that they are doing the things that are well pleasing in the sight of God. When a man has offered in sacrifice all that he has for the truth's sake, not even withholding his life, and believing before God God that he has been called to make this sacrifice because he seeks to do his will, he does know, most assuredly, that God does and will accept his sacrifice and offering, and that he has not, nor will not seek his face in vain. Under these circumstances, then, he can obtain the faith necessary for him to lay hold on eternal life"

What more can I add than my witness that I know it is true! How grateful I am for that knowledge and for the peace it gives. Knowing that the Lord is with me always makes me realize that it is possible for me to accomplish all things. For, like Nephi, I know that He "giveth no commandment unto the children of men save He shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which He commandeth them. (1 Ne 3:7)

Crunchy leaves!

Saturday we went over to Matt's parents' for Matt to help put up their Christmas lights while the weather was nice. The kids had fun raking up the leaves and walking through them.
Here's a hilarious video to represent Ammon and Afton's relationship. They have been playing very well together and it's so fun to watch them. I laughed so hard while watching this:

October in a flash!

October sure flew by! I can't believe it's already November! We had a great time last month and I wish I had more pictures, but I found that we were having so much fun I didn't even get the camera!
Sneaky little Ammon...I walked over to find this on the floor and this little guy in the b

The first snow! You can't really tell it's snowy, they went out before it turned into the blizzard. Ammon loved running around outside while the snow fell on his face. How cute!



Our first pumpkin carving as a family. I cut out the pattern and taped it on the pumpkin and Matt was in charge of carving and cleaning it out-I don't like that part. Ammon enjoyed watching Matt scoop out the "pumpkin guts" as Matt described to Ammon. We got him a little pumpkin to paint and he loved it! You can tell he was concetrating because his eyebrows are quite furrowed.




This is at our Ward Halloween party. I always love seeing what people come up with. People can be so creative!
Here's pregnant me as "Super Girl/mom" Thanks Meg for the use of the cape, shirt, and awesome boots:)
Matt as Clark Kent. It was great, I just wish I would have gone to the dollar store for the glasses instead of DI for the glasses. My mom found some awesome ones at the dollar store. Oh well, I know better for next time.

Our cute little super man. It was a great costume, comfortable and big enough to put warm clothes underneath.On Friday the grandkids went to Dave's work to trick or treat and Ammon had a great time. Thanks Dave! Then we headed out to Draper to get some pictures taken of the kids. It's always an adventure trying to get a decent picture of the 4 kids but the freezing cold and wind made it more difficult. I think they ended up getting a decent one and they'll have to swap Ammon's head because he just kept getting off the hay bale and running towards me...
We went to Brian and Malena's party Saturday night and she got pictures of us together, but I never pulled out my camera, so hopefully I can get a copy. It was fun and Malena went all out but we left early because Ammon needed to get to bed and I hadn't been feeling well. It was nice to get some extra sleep though! All in all, it was a terrific Halloween week last week, crazy, but fun and I'm glad we were able to take advantage of lots of fun Halloween activities. Now it's time to really get ready for Christmas-I'm trying to make most of the presents, so wish me luck!

Chiropractor?

Yesterday amidst the loveliness of being out of our home, Matt's great dad willingly drove Matt to work so that I would have the car to drive home once the heater was fixed(we were told for sure by yesterday). On their way they were rear-ended by an 18 year old girl with quite a "colorful" vocabulary. Of course, going 55, they both had some whiplash and resulting pain in the back and neck. Dave and Sue have a chiropractor who is in their ward and he graciously offered to treat them last night after hours to get it taken care of quickly(and, fortunately car insurance covers chiropractic care following a car accident very well). We went last night and he adjusted them and did a little bit of shock therapy, and had them lay on a "roller bed"? I don't remember the name. Anyway, Matt's doing great today and has no pain.(There is a possibility of some latent whiplash pain)

I am grateful for a mother-in-law who is not afraid to speak her mind or make suggestions, because, due to her suggestion I am so much more comfortable now! She said aloud in front of the chiropractor that perhaps he could help me with my restless legs. In my ignorance I said it's probably not good to be adjusted during pregnancy. Humble(the chiropractor) said that he actually has women 9 mos. coming in to him all the time and that restless legs can result from pinched nerves. He also explained that during pregnancy, all of the joints loosen up and so things can get out of wack easily. He said he had 5 minutes and that it was on him. He checked for mobility in my back and discovered that my left hip was much higher than the right one.(I have had some painful sciatic problems off and on since my pregnancy with Ammon). He adjusted that and went on to check my neck. He asked if I had been having headaches.....YES! I cried, "all day everyday!" He adjusted my neck and guess what? no headache today! As I sat up I was surprised by the feeling of sitting on both hips equally! My lower back has been getting more and more sore lately, especially when I would hold Ammon, and today it feels great!

Sometimes you don't realize how uncomfortable or in pain you are until it's fixed! I just figured my discomfort was normal and that there really wasn't anything I could do about it. I was happily proven wrong!

Craziness

I have wanted to post several things lately, but we were out of our apartment for two days! Our heater broke Sunday night and so we spent Monday through yesterday morning over at Matt's parents. Thank goodness for parents and family that live close and who are willing to take us in through all our apartment troubles. Our heater is finally fixed, and we can now get on with regular day to day activities....that is....until something else happens...

Last week

This last Friday we went to Gardner Village again. Ammon was awake this time, yay! It was just a relaxing walk around with some friends from my ward and their cute girls. It was a beautiful sunny day, and our camera does so much better on those days... We got some cute pictures, but Ammon and Sophie had so much to look at that it became quite a challenge to take a picture!
Thanks Wendy and Anna for a great time!Little Poppy in the middle loved Sophie's shirt! I think it made Sophie a little nervous...

Ammon was really nervous of the witch so I tried to face him away from her, hence the reason I look like I'm sitting on her lap...

Saturday was a good, productive Saturday-my favorite kind! I got to go to my ward's Super Saturday. It was my first time ever, and I loved it! I was able to make this cute nativity set, which I can't wait for Christmas to come so I can display it:)
I also was able to knock out 3 maybe 4 Christmas gifts, and got ideas for more! I had a great time visiting with friends and learning how to make new things, I'm definitely going back.

We also were able to find a 71" book shelf on sale to finally help organize more of our house. We spent the night before packing up rubber bins with Ammon's clothes and some camping stuff to store at Matt's parents. I feel a lot less cramped and stressed out having organized and found places for pretty much everything in our house, it makes me happy.

Here are a couple of cute pictures of Ammon. He likes to get in my laundry basket and pretend it's a choo-choo train. I got him his Thomas book and he was quite content for almost 10 minutes in there! What a cutie.

Surprise!!!!! It's A......

A GIRL!!!

Thanks so much to Sharon for telling us about this. And a huge thanks to Alaina for making this beautiful cake. Alaina is a good friend of my family's and did this for her sister last week. She has a cake business and made a generic baby cake. What we did is had the ultrasound dr. call Alaina and tell her the gender of the baby, but not us. She made the cake and frosted the outside so we couldn't tell. We invited mine and Matt's family to join in the surprise and cut the cake(flashback to our wedding reception). The frosting told us whether it was a girl or boy. It was so exciting and I had butterflies while we cut the cake. I'm so glad we did this, it made for a great way to find out and tell people.

Visit THE CAKE GIRL blog on my friends list to see the great work Alaina does. Thanks again!

3 posts today, don't miss them!

Tomorrow is the ultra sound and we are doing something really fun, but I won't say anything specific until tomorrow night. Be ready for a surprise!

A day as a Witch

Today was a day we have been looking forward to for quite some time. Last year we dressed the kids up and went to Gardner Village to look around at all of the witch decorations and knew it needed to become a tradition. This year we expanded on our tradition and decided to have a witch's lunch, decorate witches hats, and cupcakes and then go to Gardner Village. It was so much fun! Meg is great at hosting parties and so creative. We made "witch hat" calzones and made some broomstick pretzel treats. Meg made an awesome wizard's cape for Ammon to decorate since the girls had witch costumes, and he liked decorating it but refused to wear it. He liked his hat though.
Janie loved her cupcake! She dug right in!
Ammon got a donut instead of a cupcake because of his egg allergy. Thank you so much Janelle for being so thoughtful, it means so much.
Afton sure loved the black frosting and afterwards looked like a witch ready for an evening on the town!

Afton flying on her broom, how cute!
We did a scavenger hunt around the village and had to find witches doing certain things: this witch reading a newspaper in the outhouse was one of them.
We didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked because Ammon was sleeping almost the whole time, but it was lots of fun anyway, and at least he did wake up and was able to see some of the decor before we left. We ended the day with some yummy bread and snacks. Hooray for the witches at Gardner Village!

This is a video of the kids in their costumes. I decided it would be funny to get a video because these kids are a riot to try to put together and get a picture. Oh, and parden my rear in most of the view...

Disneyland!

Well I decided to put all the Disneyland/California pictures in a slide show since there are so many. Disneyland was great! These are only some of the pictures, Meg and Sue took a lot with their cameras, but these are from ours. We were at Disneyland two days and it was great. Matt went on Soarin' and Splash, but other than that we got to focus our time on taking Ammon on all the little kid rides. He liked most of them, but since it was all new he just stared wide-eyed throughout the entire ride. My favorites are Soarin', The Jungle Cruise, and Peter Pan...at least those are the ones that come to mind first. Ammon's favorite was the splash park in Bug's Land, and he got soaking wet. It seemed like the trip was over so quickly! I had a hard time leaving the park because it's just so fun!

The beach was great until I was reminded that there were fishing swimming around my feet..... I quickly got out of the water....I don't like fish....

Ammon was a great traveler. He really never cried or whined or fidgeted until the last 30 min-1 hour of the entire trip, it was wonderful. Matt was great to carry a lot and do things I was too tired to do. It was a very exhausting trip but I'm so glad we were able to do it and that we could share it with almost all the Cases, they are expert "Disneyland-ers" and it's fun to go with them.

I can't wait until the next Disneyland trip!

Making habits vs breaking habits

For me life seems to be full of me trying to start good habits and then breaking them....like waking up before Ammon to have personal scripture study, and have a shower. I always break them. I'm very grateful for every Sunday, every temple visit, every General Conference to keep me on track and keep trying. I have rededicated myself to being a diligent follower of Christ, every day. Having a quiet time in the morning to study the scriptures and talk with my Heavenly Father makes all the difference in my day. This time I intend to commit myself to doing these things and stick with it, and this time will be different because I know I can't do it along. I've tried over and over by myself and failed. I need the strength and the companionship of the Spirit if I am to succeed. I believe I can do all these things to bless me with the constant companionship of the Holy Spirit as I have been promised as I keep my covenants with the Lord.

Not-surprisingly, blogging tends to follow the same pattern. If I let myself go too long without writing something down, it will be a while before I do it again. Granted, this break in blogging came because of new carpet, painting, and a disneyland vacation. Good excuses right? I'm good at finding excuses....

Anyway, just a quick post to let you all know I'm still alive and that I have a lot to catch up on.

P.S. The ultrasound is next Tuesday! I can't believe I'm almost 5 mos! I'm starting to show now....so that's always fun. Anyway, I'll post more later and with pictures of Disneyland, woohoo!

Splash Park, and peaches, peaches, peaches!

Yesterday us girls(Meg, Janelle, and I)took the kids to an awesome splash park Meg told us about in Herriman. It's just a regular park, it's free, and it's terrific! The kids had a good time and got a little cold when the sun was hiding, but I think I got some pretty fun pictures.






Sue's peach tree brought a great crop this year! Enough for lots and lots of peaches to eat, 30 jars of frozen peach jam, 4 frozen peach pie fillings, and 26 jars of canned peaches! Yesterday we finished the canning. I'm excited to use all we've done. Next we'll be doing pears, apple pie filling, and applesauce. It's tiring but very rewarding, and I feel great being so "domestic". Thanks Sue for sharing all your delicious peaches!