Thankful

This Thanksgiving I have been thinking about how blessed I am. One thing that stuck out to me from this past General Conference was the fact that we should be more thankful in our prayers, rather than asking for more blessings. I have been trying very hard to do this. It really isn't hard, considering my sweet little family and happy life. This past year was wonderful because we were given our little baby, Will. I am so grateful for modern medicine that helped him get over the trouble he was having. I am so grateful for the power of prayer. I know that the prayers of our family, friends and ward family helped him get well. Dave and I are so blessed with many kind and generous people in our lives. When Will was in the hospital, Meg was able to stay with my parents the entire time. She had a great time and was happy as can be. I am so grateful for parents who love support me and my little family so much. I also have wonderful in-laws who were constantly calling us and telling us that they knew that Will would be okay...and sure enough, he was. When we would leave the hospital each night, we would turn on our cell phones and we would have so many calls and messages from our sweet friends and neighbors.


I am also grateful for a kind and generous husband. He works so hard to provide for our family. He does a great job too. We are so grateful that things are going well with his new office. He stresses a lot about our well-being, but each month all of our bills are payed. He feels that it is important for me to be able to stay at home with our kids each day and I am so thankful for that. He is such a kind and fun dad to our kids. They both love him so much. I am so thankful that he is such a good friend to me. He has quite the unique sense of humor and is so fun to be around.


Each night I thank my Heavenly Father for my membership in the true church on the earth. The gospel keeps my life healthy and happy and gives me direction. I know that my Heavenly Father loves me and thinks of me. He really does listen to and answer my prayers. I can't imagine my life without the gospel in it.

I really could go on and on. I know this is a long post, but it's always a good idea to document your feeling so you can look back when times get a little hard and remind yourself of how lucky you really are. We truly are so blessed.

One more thing...it's 8:45 p.m., my kids are asleep and I'm grateful for a cozy bed that I will be climbing into as soon as I publish this post. Good night!

Proud Mama

Meg had been potty training for a little over a week when it was time to go to church again. Dave was out of town and I brought the kids by myself. I was SO nervous that she was going to have an accident in nursery. I brought reinforcements: new panties, tights, dress, etc. I was prepared. I tried to get her to go potty right as we got to church and she tried but nothing happened. I took her to nursery and then nervously waited for her teachers to bring her little wet self to me. It never happened. As soon as Relief Society was over her teacher, Brother Jones (she LOVES him) came in the room and said, "She said pee pee." I quickly gave Will to someone else and rushed her to the bathroom. She held it together and made it to the bathroom before she had any accidents. When I got back into the room women were asking, "Did she go?" and "Did she make it?" I felt as proud as I would if she had just become the President or something. I proudly announced that she did go to the bathroom and was all smiles. I have been all smiles ever since. She has been doing AWESOME without a diaper and I am so happy!

The Hardest Days of My Life as a Parent-POTTY TRAINING!

So I was talking to my sister-in law, Sarah on Monday and she told me that she had started to potty train the twins, Nettie and Jo Jo. I felt ashamed because Meg is only a week younger than them. Sarah is an amazing mom and I am sure the twins will be potty trained very soon, but I have been putting this off for so long...and I only have one to deal with. She inspired me and so Tuesday night I finally just made up my mind that we are learning to use the potty and we aren't turning back. I didn't have anything to do on Wednesday and so I thought it would be the perfect time. I didn't realize that my whole day Wednesday would be spent in the bathroom. Wow, what a pain! Meg had seven accidents and four successes that day and I thought that was pretty good. I tried so hard to stay upbeat and not get too frustrated. I prayed many times that day for patience with my little one. Thursday, I was planning on another day like the last, but Meg did so awesome. She only had one accident the entire day. We went to the Utah football game and left her with my cousin and she did great with her too. Today has been really good too so far. I feel pride swelling inside of me for my little girl. I can't believe that she is so big. She is so smart! She has acquired a lot of cars from the movie Cars (I am all about the bribe) and we just went and loaded up on more panties (She chose Cars boys briefs, but that's okay) and things are looking up. I will be so happy to only have one baby's diaper to change. Why didn't I try this earlier? What a week!!!

Snow Day

We woke up to snow Wednesday morning. Meg LOVES the snow...especially eating it. I had decided to crack down and finally potty train Meg that day and so we planned on staying home all day anyways. She outgrew her snow bibs from last year so I didn't really have anything warm for her to wear, but she didn't care. I put some sweats and a coat on her and outside we went. We made a snowman, had a snowball fight (or at least I threw snowballs at her while she laughed hysterically) and I buried her in the snow. She had such a fun time and ate A LOT of snow, which made for many bathroom breaks the rest of the day. My daughter is such a fun loving little girl and is always up for anything. She is my little pal and I am so glad that I get to hang out with her every day.

Fall Fun

Our kids are growing and changing so much every day. Will is getting some fuzzy hair and is getting pretty chubby. He is now rolling all over the place and is very loud. A couple of months ago I was kind of worried because he was just very quiet and was content just hanging around. He has changed so much. He is still our little angel baby and is very happy. He is constantly jabbering and making noises. He has a jumperoo and loves to play in that and jump around. He has two teeth now and loves baby food. The only thing that I have found that he doesn't like are prunes (who really likes prunes anyway?). He is pushing himself up on his arms a lot, but hasn't figured out how to tuck his knees under in order to crawl. He will eventually and then I will be blogging about how crazy my life with him is. Just last night Dave was saying how sad he would be if Will wasn't in our family. He is so happy and smiley and he just makes our home a happy place.




Meg is such a funny little girl. She has gotten pretty skinny in the last little while. Her hair is getting a lot longer and is still pretty curly. She is really into pretty much any Disney movie right now and still loves Curious George. I always wanted her to have an animal or security blanket that she loved and she didn't have anything that she was attached to up until about a four months or so ago. She loves her Monkey (that's his name) and has to have him pretty much all day long. I don't know why I thought security blanket/animals were so cute because if we can't find him, she keeps asking for him until we do...what a pain. Megan loves to sing and sings all day, every day. If I start singing with her and she wants to sing alone she will say, "No, stop it Mom," with her hand out. She has started to play on her own a lot and likes to have her privacy at times. She will sometimes go in her room and shut the door and when you go in there to check on her she will say, "Get out Mom," and shut the door on you. She's not doing anything naughty, either. She just likes to be alone, I guess. She is such a fun girl and we love having her in our family.

Halloween 2008

We had such a fun Halloween this year. I have vowed to make my kids Halloween costumes every year, but I almost caved and bought costumes for them this year. We had the worst cold sickness ever (Dave called it the cold with fangs) and it took me over seven weeks and two doctor appointments to get over it. I just could never feel well enough to make a costume, but when I went looking for costumes to buy I just couldn't bring myself to do it. So, I found a cute costume idea for a cave girl and we decided that our whole family was going to be cave women and cave men. I thought they turned out really cute. We made big teeth out of tinfoil and masking tape. We went to our ward party all dressed up. There aren't very many adults who dress up in our ward and Dave was kind of ashamed that we did, but I was proud not to be a party pooper. Meg had her first taste of chili at the ward Halloween party and loved it. Her costume was a mess after that so it was a good thing it was dark colored fabric. Meg got to wear her costume to her dance class Halloween party and then we dressed Will and Meg up for Halloween night. I took the kids to my parent's, Grandparent's, and aunt and uncle's houses for trick-or-treating and thought we would call it good at that. When we got home Dave wanted to take Meg out to a few houses in our neighborhood. She loved it and they were gone for a very long time. She kept telling Dave, "Another house daddy!" and then they would keep going. She got a ton of candy and when she got home they dumped it out and Dave taught her how to organize and separate it...doesn't every kid do that? I love celebrating the holidays with our kids. It is so fun to see their excitement and how their little eyes sparkle as experience the fun that the holidays bring.

Go Jazz Go!

My parents have season tickets to the Jazz games this year and were out of town for the game a few weeks ago so we rounded up our kids and headed to Salt Lake. Last year Meg went to a few games with Grandma and Grandpa and LOVED them. They bought her a Jazz jersey and a Jazz Bear. Whenever she sees sports on tv she says "Go Jazz Go!" and shakes her fist. We were excited to take her to a game this year. My parents' new tickets are right behind my uncle Tate's tickets now so we were happy to see my cousin Jack at the game too. Meg absolutely loves Jack and wanted to sit with him. He was nice enough to share his popcorn and seat with her. We sat behind them with Will and got to see him stare wide-eyed at all of the bright lights. I can't even remember if the Jazz won or not, but it was a preseason game so it really didn't matter. We had a fun time though. We hope the Jazz have a great season this year.

(Meg and her favorite guy, Jack)

Scarecrow Festival

We had a lot of fun in October. We went to the Scarecrow Festival with Brittney, Jordan, Chayse and McKay. All that I can say is that Jordan was a lifesaver. Meg was bound and determined to get lost. She had to bring her bath duck toys and just wandered around playing with them. We got to the festival right when it opened so we were able to play a bunch of carnival games without waiting in line. Then, we saw that they had those bungee/trampoline things. We waiting in line for those. Meg was such a brave girl and let the guy strap her in (she was stone-faced as he was getting her ready) and away she went. I think I saw a few little smiles from her. It was fun. We waited in line for a little train that took you around the grounds and that took so long and MEg ran away so many times during the wait that once we were done with that activity I decided that we would call it a day. It was a fun time though. Of course Will was a little angel and just liked to be held and look at all of the people. Thanks to Brit and Jordan for their help and friendship!