Things around here have been a little crazy lately. The hubby has been working long hours to try to meet deadlines for a launch so their client can start testing the product, so we haven't seen him much around here. The dentist has become our second home. I think our children inherited the hubby's "wonderful" teeth. We had check ups a month or so ago, and there wasn't any good news. Baluga went last Tuesday to have some work done, and did amazing!!!! No crying until after everything was done and she bit her cheek!. Monday Stir Fry went in to have sealant put on his teeth and to fix a couple teeth and did alright for what the poor child has been through at the dentist (cavities and having 3 teeth pulled, two of which were his two year old molars). He cried but it went ok. It's still enough to break a mother's heart. Yesterday (Thursday) Baluga went back for more work to be done and I was hoping it would go as well as last time. When they gave her the shots and she didn't cry, I thought we were in the clear. She did cry though when they were drilling and removing the cavity. But even still what a trooper for just being 3!!! And then today was the last of it Speedy went to the hospital to be put under so they could work on his teeth. The hubby took him in EARLY this morning and I stayed home with the other two, trying to sleep but really just worrying! They fixed his teeth and luckily put some sealant on it, I was wondering how we were going to stop this from happening again if he just has crappy teeth. Things went well I guess and he came home wanting to play but awnry. We have to go back to the dentist in a week or so and have Speedy just looked at to make sure things are ok. Amongst all of this I had an overnight for girls camp this Tuesday to Wednesday. I'm lucky to have a great friend, Jessica, who took my kids that morning until the hubby got home from work, and then took them again the next morning until I got back so I could go! We had a good time. It sprinkled on and off most of the day and poured for a while when we were in our tents trying to sleep. Next week is girls camp so hopefully after next week is over things will calm down. Last night my friend Jessica and I went to a Kelly Clarkson concert. She was suppose to go with her husband, but he had to work. We aren't huge fans but still enjoyed her music and had a good time, even while it rained for a little bit. Jess' husband works at UVU which is where the concert was and they got tickets for free, which is why we went. So I'm counting down the days until my craziness ends and I can breath and relax for a while and hopefully get my house cleaned and organized better. Wish me luck!
8 years ago today, me and the hubby tied the knot for time and all eternity. We have been through quite the ride of ups and downs. I just wanted to wish him a Happy Anniversary. I love you and thank for standing by me through thick and thin and dealing with me. I look forward to spending the rest of our days together. Look at all we have accomplished. What a beautiful family we have together.
I hope you can tell by the title that this isn't a happy post, so if you are looking for one come back another day. I'm a little overwhelmed with life. I'm lacking the patience I would like for my family, which I'm sure affects their attitudes. My kids are going through stages that are new to me, so we are all trying to figure it out, as parents and children. I'm having a hard time being happy and content, which DOESN'T help my eating issues. So then I'm not happy with my health goals. I just want life to be perfect, and it's not close to that. I have no reason not to be content, but I'm not. It's just one of those days. Usually I'd just keep it to myself, but for some reason I thought I'd put some of what I'm feeling here. Hopefully this will help me enjoy the good when it comes. I hope tomorrow is a better day, so I can be a better mother, wife and just a better me. Hopefully I'll have the desire to try better tomorrow.
I know it's been a while, and I feel my passion for blogging has kind of fizzled. I feel my life isn't all that exciting and who wants to hear about my stress? Not me! Life always has a way of mixing things up. Just when you are comfortable with life something has to be thrown in the mix. Right now we are kind of in between to parts of life. And I'm not going to go into detail because that isn't something that we need to share, so don't ask because we won't tell, even those of you who know use well or are family. (and don't be starting rumors that a baby is on the way, unless it's about you). As much as we are stressed right now with life, I'd be ungrateful to mention how blessed we are. Most of you know that 7 years ago the hubby ventured off and started his own business. We've been blessed that we have always had food in our bellies and were able to pay the bills every month, even though it hasn't always been on time. We are still happily married, which is more than we can say for every other couple that has been part of this endeavor (a least 10 marriages have ended over the years, probably more). How lucky are we that even though things were TOUGH and uncertain that was never an option for us and our relationship never got even close to considering that. I love you Jeremy and I'm sorry I haven't always been as supportive as I should be or could be and let life get to me. We have our family and that is what is most important and we love each other. So what does this have to do with cooking, nothing really but I thought of some similarities of life and cooking. Some days you have good days and other days you don't. Some times you decide to try a new recipe and it turns out better than expected, sometimes it worse than you thought it would be. Sometimes you forget to add things and it just doesn't turn out right. Sometimes you make changes to fit you better. I'm sure I could up with more but I'm going to stop there. Cooking is an adventure and so is life. So now to cooking, my sister-in-law started a cooking blog and asked me to contribute on it, so go check it out! One of the things about finding new recipes I have a hard time with is trying to decide if it's worth my time to make because you never know how it will turn. This is place where we are posting our favorites, so you'll know that at least we like them. And once we get enough up there we'll have labels so you can click on a type of food and see what your options are. Go check us out. We are just getting started so make sure you come back often to see what we have come up with. Happy cooking. And just like cooking if things don't turn out don't give up and try again. I'm going to try to apply that more to my life.
Today 6 years ago my not so baby boy made his arrival into our lives. Little did we know how much he would change our lives. (You have to forgive me for no pictures, I'm doing this while the hubby is gone and the pics are on his computer) So here is to you Stir Fry, Happy Birthday!!! Thank you making us so happy. For being the greatest big brother a kids could ask for. For being so welling to share with your brother and sister and looking out for them. For singing to Speedy when he's in bed crying and countless other things you do for them and for us. Since the day you were born you have been a content and happy kid. You love being with people, so much so that often times, when you were younger, people didn't even know you were ours because you could always be found hanging out with your favorite person at the moment. You've touched the lives of many. I hope and pray that you continue to love being with people and so outgoing and use that to influence those for good. I'm so proud of you. You love learning and you are great at it. It surprises me at how well you can memorize things. I love that you enjoy sharing your testimony and knowledge of the gospel and hope you continue to have that desire to bring people to the gospel and the knowledge of how much Heavenly Father and Jesus love us. I'm sure there are great things in store for you in life and have no doubt that you will succeed in whatever you choose. I love you and could not ask for a better son!
So I haven't posted in a while, but I found a comment on my blog that made me want to blog. Don't go looking for it, it's not there any more, sorry! Someone I love dearly has been going through a trial (because I love and respect this person and respect those involved I'm not going to name names or be too specific). I feel Heavenly Father gives us things in our lives to learn and grow and sometimes they are hard to deal with and sometimes we don't understand why we had to go through them and sometimes it's because of choices we make in our lives that lead us to that experience (I'm not sure which of these brought on this learning experience). Anyway there were two parties involved in this situation and both got hurt, but I think because one or both of these people were close to the Lord and wanted to do what was best in their lives that things happened. None of us on the outside of the situation know the whole story, and I think at least for those in my family we are ok with that. I'm not even sure if the two people involved know the whole story, since they only know their side. There were two pretty plain options of what we could do...1)we could express our hate and anger for what has happened and the person who "did" it to our loved one or 2)we can move on. We choose to move on, there was no hate or anger involved, just mistakes that happened and both people would probably agree they could have made better choices. Someone left a comment that questioned the integrity of my loved one. With that said I've debated on making my blog private which I don't want to do, but I'm making so you can't leave anonymous comments anymore and I have one plea... If you don't have anything nice to say don't say it here, I don't want to hear it. There is good in all of us, and we all make mistakes. I hope we can all when faced with the decision of what to do, choose to move on and forgive and see the good in all and realize that only person who really knows the whole story and the person's heart is the Lord. We can't jump to the conclusions of how someone is, based on one story and what someone says in the midst of their hurt and pain. So lets feel the love and if you don't, then just don't come back here.
For Christmas my parents got to come out and visit for a week, which was fun to see them. While they were here my parents, little brother and his family and my family drove up to Rexburg to visit my older brother and his family. It was fun to be around family and hang out and catch up. We had a pretty good Christmas.
Now for the surprise.... For most of you who know me well enough to know my children, my oldest two as babies were really rather mellow and easy going. With Speedy he is the exact opposite, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised because his entrance into the world was very revealing of the type of baby/toddler he has been. He gave me a little less than 2 hours after the first contraction to realize this was the real thing and get to the hospital before he was born. Since then he has been rather content when awake. But eats like there is no tomorrow, acts like he hasn't eaten in days each time he sees food. Didn't sleep well for the first way too long of his life. Is into EVERYTHING. Onto EVERYTHING. And is all boy and then some. He is a handful and is enthusiastic about life. I didn't go into his pregnancy thinking it would be my last, but he has me wondering if I have the capability to mother any more, definitely not at this moment I have my work cut out for me. So this is what he surprised us with.
Yep that's right he broke his arm. You may ask, how does a 16 month old break his arm? The bathroom door was left open and he climbed onto the bathroom counter and the hubby walked in just to see him fall off. He's still as active as normal and doesn't let it slow him down.
So all of us with the start of the new year make goals for ourselves. I thought what better way to be accountable for them and have a better chance at achieving them is to post them here so all of you know about them. I'm only going to list a few of them here. 1) Continue working on my goal of last year to become more healthy and reach a healthy weight. I'm going to continue to use Spark People to track my fitness and become more active in other areas of the site. Go check out my blog over there and if you are looking for something to become more healthy check it out it's great and it's FREE. If you join make sure you add me as a friend my user name is EB_HAPPY1 2) Be a more patient mother 3) Be more affectionate with my husband in public 4) Work on my spirituality What are some of your goals?
Well as some of you know I've been trying to get more healthy. I've been working pretty hard and decided a while back that I would reward myself with a haircut when I got to a certain weight. I got REALLY close (a tenth of a pound away) and my husband decided to reward me anyway for working so hard and being patient. I decided to make a girls day out of it and took Baluga with me, she was excited to get her haircut as long as she didn't get it cut like a boy. So here we are minutes before walking out the door with our somewhat long hair.
She had me go first so she could see what to expect. She did a good job, while she waited for me to get my haircut, since it took awhile. She was so good for being just three. It finally got to be her turn, and this is her getting her hair washed.
Can you say spoiled, going to salon and only being 3, I think she looks like she is liking it too much!
Here she is getting her hair combed before the cut and our friend Amy, who cut our hair. She is married to one of the hubby's work partners, so it was nice to talk to someone who really knows what it is like.
Getting ready for the first cut.
Here is Baluga getting her hair done after it was all cut.
So here is the final product. Between the two of us we got about 18 inches cut off. I think it turned out pretty cute, and I'm glad to get rid of the hair.
Before Speedy was born we knew that there was going to be something special between him and his siblings, because of blessings that our older two children got before he was born. With Speedy and Stir Fry some of those special things are quiet easy to see. Like tonight for example, which is why I'm blogging. We were getting the kids ready for bed and Speedy was getting his drink of water after brushing his teeth and wanted to keep his cup. Well it was time for them to go to bed, everyone was ready. So Speedy went to bed upset and was crying, like there was no end in sight. Then out of no where he stopped and if you listened closely at their door you could hear Stir Fry talking to him. This is a somewhat regular occurrence. If Speedy is crying at bedtime Stir Fry will talk to him or sing to him and it seems to just calm him down like nothing else will. It's times like these that make me grateful for my children for Heavenly Father and glimpses he gives me on how he see my children and how precious they really are.
My sister-in-law is thinking about starting a recipe blog and wants several contributors. I'm going to be joining in on the fun. If any of you guys are interested let me know.
With it being Thanksgiving, I thought I would do a post of some of the things I am thankful for... I am thankful for a wonderful husband who loves and cares for me, who applauds my successes, complements me, supports me when needed, is a good father, honors his priesthood, works hard to support us, I am thankful he can do what he loves and own his own business. I am thankful for Stir Fry who has been a very sensitive kid from the beginning, he looks out for others, is outgoing, and friendly, he makes friends easier, influences other for the good, and is a great helper. I am thankful for Baluga who is my little girl and I am glad she is mine, she always makes us laugh, she is loving, strong willed, loves to be with me, a good helper, is content with just observing and learning, and she makes me happy. I am thankful for Speedy who loves his brother and sister and loves to play with them, enjoys food, being with us, getting into things, sitting on my lap, reading books, and being with everbody. I am thankful for parents who have always loved and supported me, who have taught me about my Heavenly Father and Jesus and their love for me, who have taught me by example, and always call and check up on me. I am thankful for my oldest brother who I became good friends with in high school, who has a wonderful family, and loves to learn. I am thankful for my little brother who I have gotten to know better with him being down here going to school and living with us for a while, I glad we can live near each other now and he has a great family that we get a long with. I am thankful for my baby brother who has become my good friend with him living with us for several month, for giving me a wonderful birthday present and helping me become more healthy, for calling me up just to talk and that we will get to see him. I am grateful that my family has a relationship with our Father in Heaven and are great examples to me. I am thankful for friends who help keep me sane and are a great support to me and my family. I am thankful for a house that we love and is ours and is where my family will grow. I am thankful for the wonderful area in which we live and for great neighbors and a good ward. Most of all I am thankful for my Father in Heaven, my testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for a living Prophet, for the knowledge I have that we can receive personal revelation for our own life, for priesthood blessings, and scriptures, and for the opportunity I have to be with my family together forever through the sealing powers found in the temple. Of course there are many other things I am thankful, but no one wants to read that long. So what are you thankful for?
Do you ever go through phases of loving to eat certain things. Well I do. My phase at the moment granola. I've been going to this hard core cardio kickboxing class at the gym (btw thanks Blake!), and my teacher has been talking about getting enough fiber and this high fiber granola she eats daily as a snack. So I finally got her recipe and made it, it's pretty good, different but good, one that I would rather snack on. I've also made a recipe I make now in then that doesn't have oil and a little more healthy for you and more like traditional granola, one that I like to eat in the morning with milk. So with my love of granola I thought I would share with you my recipes.
High Fiber Granola 2 - 3 c. 6 Grain 1 c. 9 Grain 1 c. Amaranth 2 Tbs. Cinnamon 1 1/2 tsp. Almond Extract 1 can Fat Free Sweetened Condensed Milk 1 c. Grape Nuts 1 c. Pecans 1 - 1 1/2 c. Pecans/Almonds 1/2 - 1 c. Crainsins 1 c. Coconut Mix together put on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 8 to 16 minutes, depending on how dry you like it. (if you live in UT you can buy the grains and Amaranth at Good Earth really cheap, if not find a health food store, and the fat free sweetened condense milk you can find at Walmart)
Low Fat Granola 1 c. Brown Sugar 1 c. Water 4 tsp. Vanilla 1 tsp. Salt 7 c. Rolled Oats 3 - 4 c. other (coconut, almonds, pecans, sunflower seeds, ect.) Put brown sugar and water in a pot and put on stove over medium heat to melt sugar, but don't boil. Add vanila and salt to the sugar water. Pour over the oats and 3 - 4 c. of other ingredients. Mix well. Put on 2 cookie sheets and bake at 275 for 1 hour stirring a couple times during baking, or put on 1 cookie sheet and bake 90 minutes stirring every 30 minutes.
So Speedy has finally decided to start walking. This is more for the grandparents than any one. I have to apologize though since I've never done the video clips online I didn't know I needed to have my camera the other direction. So just turn your head and watch. And when you are done scroll down and see the other blog post I just did.
So this is a big post with a lot of pictures, so have fun! Baluga and Speedy got sick a while back with a cough and congestion. I finally caught it and during that time Speedy decided to throw up for a couple days. He still has the runny nose and cough, which always seems to stick around forever and he's teething so that doesn't help either. So the other day as I was trying to get the kids ready in the morning he sneezed and this is what I turned around too.
The other day we went out to our friends house for a spur of the moment photo shot with our friend Jessica and her kids. These are some of the pictures we ended up with.
And then there are a few of my favorite baby girl, who's not so little anymore, and me.
I know it's been a while since I've posted so often. 2 posts in about 24 hours. I haven't posted this frequently since I started this blog. Well we had something "exciting" happen this morning, and I'm sure grandmas are going to want to see pictures. Baluga and Stir Fry were in the bath tub this morning/afternoon getting ready for church. They were clean and ready to get out, but since they are water babies they stay in and play until we kick them out. It was freezing this morning, so I was laying under my covers while they were in playing in the bath tub in our room. The hubby was in talking to me and all of the sudden we heard a thud and a cry. The hubby went in to see what happened and Baluga fell in the bath tub, aparently they were standing up playing in the bath tub. I stayed in bed until I heard ah oh blood! Never a good sign when it comes to bath tubs. I'm pretty sure one of my brothers fell into the bath tub and cut himself open. Baluga cut herself under her chin! We immediately got her out to look at the damage. The hubby said well if it was Stir Fry I wouldn't worry about it, but with it being Baluga and being his daughter he wasn't sure what to do. It is a pretty short cut and not too deep, one of those where you're not sure if it is enough to get stitches or not. So what do you do? With it being Sunday we couldn't just go to the doctor and have him check her out. If I'm going to take her to a place open on Sunday or the hospital I want to make sure it's necessary. So I called one of my good friends and neighbors, Jessica, to see if her hubby Drew was available for us to use his expertise. While we don't know any doctors or pediatrician personally to call, our friend Drew is the Athletic Trainer for UVU so he's the closest thing we got and is pretty intelligent when it comes to injuries since it is what he does for a job. So he came over and looked at it and brought his bag of things. He said if we were concerned about scaring we could take her in to get a stitch but he wasn't even 100% sure they would stitch it because isn't was short and not too deep, but if it was his kid he would just put butterfly tape on it. So she just laid on my lap and let him clean it and put herself back together. She did a wonderful job and so did he. So thank you Drew and thanks Jess for letting us take your husband away for a little bit before church and not be able to help as much in getting the kids ready. So here are a couple pictures, one with the bloody band aid over the butterfly tape, and then one after we took the band aid off to replace it. So we didn't pull the camera out after she cut herself open to show you what it looked like before. So this is all you are going to get.
Before I get started on updates on our lives, I owe a big thank you to the hubby for the brand new look of my blog. He created it and I think he did a wonderful job. So thank you love! The beginning of September Baluga started preschool. Some ladies in my area are doing a little co-op. We all live within blocks of each other and the girls are all just months apart. They are having a great time together. We each take a week (two times a week), so we have one week at our place then four weeks off. It works out pretty nice. Baluga loves that she get to go to school like Stir Fry.
Excited for the first day of school
All the little girls
A little over a week ago Stirling had to go through a pretty horrible experience. At his last dentist check-up, we found out through his x-rays his mouth isn't big enough for his teeth coming in. Which led us to taking our 5 year old to an orthodontist! I thought that was pretty young, but after talking to my mom (who works at an orthodontist office) she has seen them that young. He is only 5 and already has his 7 year old molars in on the bottom. The top ones had started coming in, but from the x-rays you could see that the 7 year old molars were stuck from coming in, because they were growing into the roots of the 2 year old molars. So they needed to pull his 2 year old molars out on top in order for his other ones to come in. A few weeks before the extractions of his molars he had to go in for a filling and then to have his last bottom front tooth pulled because it was in the way of a permanent tooth underneath. That was a pretty traumatic experience for him and me, so I told the hubby he had to go to the next visit when the molars got taken out. He got a blessing the night before. He was very nervous and scared. Even after knowing what was going to happened he got himself in the car, put his seatbelt on, walked himself into the dentist office, walked back to the room and sat in the chair, which is all the hubby said he could ask for, with him knowing what was going to happen. After that things didn't go so well. They put laughing gas on him to calm him. The dentist came back to numb him and he was holding his dad's hand. He started yelling to stop, and eventually let go of the hubby's hand and grabbed the needle out of the dentist's hand. After that the hubby had to hold one arm down and his body, while some one else did the same to the other side and someone else held his legs. I couldn't have been there! He came home crying which led me to cry. I felt so bad for him! As you can tell from the pictures of his teeth below you can see that part of the roots are missing because his other molars were growing into them.
This boy never ceases to amaze us. He came home and I made him lay down for a while. Not more than an hour and half later his little neighbor friend came to see if he could play. I'm sure he would have been up and about sooner if I would've let him or if his friend came sooner. He wanted to ride his scooter and do his normal activities but I wouldn't let him. I didn't think that was something he should be doing so soon after, after all I just wanted him to lay down and take it easy. So this is what Stir Fry looked like less than 5 hours after having this done.
We decided to go out for a little photo shoot to test the colors of a location, and he did well. You couldn't tell by the way he was acting or this picture that he had some major dental work hours before. This child's faith is so strong and pure, I think that helped with his QUICK healing. He KNEW Heavenly Father was going to help him feel better, there was no question. I don't doubt that because of his faith in his blessing and our Father in Heaven he was up and back to normal in no time. I wish I could be more like that. For an update on Speedy. He is into EVERYTHING! He likes to empty all the drawers he can get into in the kitchen. He is deciding whether he wants to walk or not. He'll take 4-5 steps every once in a while then fall of just sit down and crawl. So I think it will be a matter of a couple weeks and he'll be walking around. There are more pictures to share and other things, but we'll save that for another post, because if you have made it this far, congratulations!
All of us that were old enough, probably remember where we were 7 years ago today when we heard for the first time what had happened in our country. Where were you? Me? I was a college student at BYU. I was up and in a made dash to get to work at the Payroll Office by 8 AM, so I didn't have time to watch any news that morning. I got to work and started working like normal. Helping people who were picking up their paychecks, answering phones, filing things. We had the radio on and were listening, which didn't happen all that often (a couple times month). That's when I first heard, over the radio. I was in SHOCK, disbelief. Trying to keep my emotions together and I did farely well. It wasn't until I got home from work and school in the evening when my husband and I turned on the TV that I lost it! When I just heard it, it was hard for me to visualize it, the horror of it all, so that helped for me to keep my emotions under control. It was COMPLETELY different to see what had happened. I can't believe it was 7 year ago. Anytime I think of it the emotions are still just as strong as first time I saw the footage. I am so grateful for the men and women who have stepped up to protect our families. Many have lost their lives and we'll forever be in debt to them! I'm so proud to call myself an American and how the people of this country have acted and their willing to serve in different areas. So today and everday I am grateful to you, for you lives and service. It's because of you I'm proud to be an American! So yet again, where were you 7 years ago today? And what are you grateful for?
As a stay at home mother of three, I need some way to stay sane and sometimes vent about my frustrations. After reading a friends blog daily, I hesitantly decided to create my own. I don't feel I have anything important or fascinating to say. But I'm not doing this for other people, I'm doing it for me, in the hopes that it can help keep me sane
I'm a stay at home mom to three great kids, 6,4, and 2 (two boys and one girl). I've been married to wonderful husband since 2001. We are enjoying our life in Utah but would love to make the Pacific Northwest our home someday.
