Job Description - Baby cuddler...

One of the best things in the world to me is when my boy wakes up from his nap and comes and cuddles with me on the couch. I'm soooo glad that my boy is a cuddler. There is nothing better than a warm little body, fresh from a nap, still a little groggy, coming and squeezing in close on the couch... nothing.

So this picture was taken on a Friday... The boy had just woken up from his nap and came to fulfill his baby duties to cuddle mom on the couch. Love it.

The next day, Saturday, we were visiting our fam... and look what happened after a certain little someones nap...

Yep... she got the memo. She made a beeline for me just after her nap and cuddled with me for a good 30 minutes before getting up and moving on with her baby business. It was great! So I've decided to add this to my list of skills that I am super good at. Baby Cuddler. Even though I guess they aren't really babies anymore, I still consider them my babies. And I will do my duty here for as long as they will let me.

Merry Christmas...

Just wanted to pop in here and wish all of you a wonderful Christmas!

I've decided that I want us to take a family picture every year at Christmas time. It doesn't have to be professional, just a picture with all of our faces in it. Here is our picture for this year...

I just think it will be fun to have a picture every year to look at and see how we've changed and grown. Here are the other ones we have...

2009 (slightly pathetic but it's all we've got!)

2008 in the desert

2007 - Tru's first Christmas. He doesn't look too happy to be taking this picture!

Mopping the floors...

It's interesting how fast I seem to have forgotten how awful it was to go through chemo. Life just goes on and when I think of it, it seems like it was just a bad dream, a distant memory. It wasn't that long ago... but I'm glad that my body and mind seem to have moved on from that awful time.

It's funny though the things that have seemed to stick from that time. The one that I think of the most is mopping the floors. I hate mopping our floors. We have hardwood floors in the living room, kitchen, dinning area and down the hall and in the bathroom. That's a lot of floor that needs to be mopped on a regular basis. That was the first thing to got slid to the back burner when I was going through chemo. But it drove me nuts to have a dirty floor! I hated it! But I was too sick to do anything about it most of the time. You see... I'm a little picky about how the floors get mopped. I feel like they don't get really clean unless you get down on your hands and knees and mop with a bucket and rag.

One day my lovely sister in law came to town and hung out with me for the day. She lives clear across the country and it was so good to see her. She looked darling with her long red hair, blue pin stripped button up shirt with the snake skin skinny belt around it. And her adorable nude flats were so cute. I don't know why her outfit stands out in my mind so much... but the main point of it is that she looked so darling. We had a good day. Tru was gone to Utah with my sister so we went to Cafe Rio and had some yummy food (except for that I couldn't eat the vegetables... ). Then we went shopping, I hadn't been for what seemed like months... probably was. I was beyond exhausted when we got back home. Two outings in one day were pushing the limits for me.

Then came the magic words... "Is there anything that you want me to do while I'm here? Anything at all that I can do for you?" I can't believe that I even said it... but I did. "Could you please mop my floors?"... "Sure, where's your mop?"... "Well, there is a bucket and a rag..."

She got down in her cute pin stripped shirt and fancy jeans... and mopped the whole floor! Mopped the whole thing while I sat there on the couch about half dead. When I think about it now, I can't believe that I even asked her. My usual response to such things were usually, "Oh no... we're fine." But instead I asked her to mop the floors. And I remember laying there feeling funny for doing it, but knowing that I asked because I knew that she would. I knew that she wouldn't care that she was in her fancy jeans.

The reason I share this story is because it's now been almost a year since I've seen her, since she came and mopped my floors. There has not been a time that I have gotten out the old blue bucket and rag since then and have not thought of her. I think of her every time that I mop my floors. That is what I remember from that horrible time. Sarah and her cute snake skin belt... mopping my floors.

I wish that I could mop Sarah's floors for her right now. My cute sister in law is most likely not in the floor mopping mood anymore... she is expecting twin boys that will be born in a month or so. I love you Sarah. Thank you for teaching me such a valuable lesson that day, and engraving in my heart a desire to serve others like you did for me.

Thursday's come and go now I don't think at all about how Thursday was my chemo day. But mopping the floors, wiping down my kitchen cupboards, giving my son a bath, vacuuming out the couch, stripping the bed and washing the sheets have almost become sacred experiences for this mom. Because each are now blessed with a memory of someone who came and did that for me when I couldn't do it for myself.

That is what I remember, about going through chemo...

The Dam Bridge...

We like to go on drives... and one that we like to do every now in then is to check out the Hoover Dam Bridge. We've been watching them build this damn bridge for the last three years (that was lame, but I couldn't resist)!!! It's been pretty cool to see the progress on it, I'm amazed that they can even build something like that... it's a beautiful bridge.

I got this picture off of Google...

Last weekend when my fam was out here we took a little venture out to see the bridge. It opened up about a month ago and I've been wanting to go out and check it out ever since (there isn't a whole lot to do out here if you couldn't tell... or maybe there is, but I haven't figured it out yet).

So here is a picture of what the Hoover Dam looks like from standing on the bridge... beautiful!

And here is what it looks like straight down... super scary my friends, super scary.

They have a little walkway on the bridge. One side is a freeway with cars zooming by, and they other is a rail... and you know, the rail is surprisingly low on the walkway. I'm not a big fan of heights anyway, but if someone wanted to jump off this bridge, it's totally doable. I will not be taking anyone onto this bridge for a little tour if I feel like there are any hard feelings between us, because one little hoist and one would go right over! Sorry if this sounds creepy, but I was pretty creeped out by it. And it's so windy up there... I did not feel super safe on the bridge, and I probably will not go up there again because it really creeped me out... okay, enough about that.

My husband... Trent... is so handsome. I don't take near enough pictures of his cute face and his smile. He doesn't like to get his picture taken, so I have to sneak them every now and then in order to get a real genuine smile. Love you Trent... and no I would never even joke about pushing you off the bridge... with the rail that only goes up to your elbow (FREAKY!!!)...

I asked a stranger to take a picture of all of us on the bridge... she didn't get us all in the picture. But here is most of us! I'm glad that Anthony was protecting my baby on the bridge.

And here is my sister's cute family...

And my favorite little guy in the world...

Visitors...

We had some visitors come down last weekend!!! It was a spur of the moment trip, and I'm so glad that they came! My sister Amy and her family came and they brought along my sister Erinn who has not been down to visit us yet. We had a lot of fun hanging out and the kids loved playing together as always.

We went to a fun park and the boys loved chasing all of the ducks and geese around. I'm pretty sure they could have done this all day...


Tru lovin' on his cousin Kylee. They really are so cute together. I love that even though they are both older than Tru they still love to play with him and they get along so well.


For some reason when I ask Tru to smile he thinks that he needs to hold the corners of his mouth open... so I've been getting a lot of pictures that look like this...



We went to check out the fish at the Bass Pro Shops. I love this one of Tru and his reflection in the glass...



Uncle Scott brought down a present for Tru... SNOW!!! Funny, for a boy who hasn't been around snow a whole lot he sure remembered what to do with it...

Thanksgiving...

Here is how our lovely Thanksgiving dinner went down this year...



Me: Ate a lovely plate of Thanksgivingish food at work.

The boys: Went to a buffet with our Savta Malka and our friends Dale, Mindy and fam. and enjoyed a lovely Thanksgiving buffet.

And yes, my boy is eating a piece of pizza for Thanksgiving dinner. And he looks pretty happy about it.

Trent loved the buffet. He says that if we are still here next year he wants to do it again. He said that the food was so good and no clean up involved. Not a bad idea!

Tru and his little girl friend Jane are so cute together...

Though it was not a typical Thanksgiving for us, it was alright. It was a pretty quiet day at the hospital and it gave me a lot of time to think about the things in my life that I am thankful for...

... I'm grateful for my health. I'm grateful that I feel so much better and can enjoy my family.
... I'm grateful that I went through a really bad spell, because it makes me appreciate the good times in my life so much more.
... I'm grateful for my good friends and family members that are so so so good to us.
... I'm grateful for my smart husband who is doing so well in school, and that he is a much better housewife than I have ever been ;).
... I'm grateful for a little boy who still loves to cuddle with his mom.
... I'm grateful that I have a good job and am well enough to work right now to help my family out.

Tru and Baby Yaya...

We went last week to our favorite little weekend getaway to play with Baby Yaya (that's what Tru calls Amelia). These two are such cute little friends. They get along really well.

The got a little crazy with the markers though... good thing they were washable! No harm done.

Love is really spelled T-I-M-E...

I really, really loved the talk that Elder Uchtdorf gave in conference titled Of Things that Matter Most. It was something that I really needed to hear.

I knew that I was running from one really hard situation to another. There wasn't much recovery time between going through chemo and working full time outside of the home and Trent doing this intense program. Life went from being very stressful to being very stressful. I feel like we are still in survival mode over here, trying to just make it through the day most of the time. I'm starting to get better, but usually on my days off I have a little melt down. I feel bad about it, but I'm having a hard time handling all the stress that I feel in life right now.

I had dreams of the type of mom and wife I wanted to be. I don't feel like I am fulfilling most of those dreams right now. However... I'm doing the best I can. Something that I've been really trying to do in the last few months is weed out all the excess in my life and only focusing on the things that really need my attention. I went through and deleted most of the blogs in my google reader, keeping only those that are good friends and family and others that are really, truly inspiring to me. I've been cleaning out my house of all the excess junk that I really don't want around and that just makes a messier house that I have to spend time cleaning. I've been trying to spend the time that I am home with my boys, and really focusing on them instead of just living in the same house as them but doing my own thing. We are simplifying things over here... in every sense of the word. It feels really good.

Elder Uchtdorf talks about how in times of stress we need to slow down instead of speed up. Times when we are going through a hard time we need to conserve our energy instead of spend it all doing way too much. He talks about focusing on your relationships instead of on things that are not important. I really love this. He says that in family relationships love is really spelled T-I-M-E... and I couldn't agree more. This is something that has been an adjustment for me. To give up the silly things that I like to spend my time doing, and to spend good quality time with my boys. I have to say that even though I have a lot less time with them now, the time is well spent. I know that my boys go to bed each night knowing that I love them, and that they are important to me. Even if I only had 20 minutes to show them that... I'm doing it. That makes me feel really good.

I feel good about the things that I've had to say no to... things that would just cause added stress right now and take more of my time than I'm willing to give. We are still in a time of stress and I just can't fill my life with stuff that I wish I could do if I were in a different situation. Someday... we will have time for more activities but now time is for family.

Birthday...

I had to work all day yesterday on my birthday so it wasn't that fun to be honest ;). I had a great doctor and it was a good day for the most part. I did finally have a situation at work that totally triggered my heart strings and made me so sad... when you are around sick and hurt people all day you get pretty used to it, but we had a patient who was pregnant and threatening miscarriage and her ultrasound showed that she had the same problem that I had with Clayton. When I pulled up her ultrasound to show the doctor I gasped... the doctor just sort of looked at me and said, "You okay?" I just told him that I had been through this with my second child (the doc already knows that I just have one kid so I think he got the message). We left it at that, even though he kept bringing up how sad it was that there was nothing that could be done for this girl, that she would just have to wait and see. So then I had to stand there, right next to this poor girl, clicking away on my computer, while the doctor tried to explain everything that was going on and what her odds were. It was not fun, but I'm glad that I held myself together until I got to the restroom. You just never know when the pain and remembrance of it is going to hit... and I'm always glad that there is a restroom or some privacy nearby when it does.

It was a long day, and I was so shocked and surprised to come home to a house full of balloons and streamers, and a delicious dinner waiting for me! I have the best husband. It made my day that he was so thoughtful.

I wish that this kid would hold still for two seconds so that I could take his picture! He was mostly interested in the cake. He wouldn't eat any of his dinner though so he went to bed without any cake...

Salad, squash, mashed potatoes, and asparagus wrapped in chicken. It was so tasty! I love my husband!

And Sprite with lime... of course. The best drink in the world! He even pulled out our wedding china. It was a nice end to a long day.

My little buddy didn't want his picture taken. I love these men in my life that spoil me.

Camping...

Here are some of my camping pictures from when we went to Cedar Breaks. It was so beautiful up there. We saw a lot of wildlife. I think that it's safe to say that our second annual L family campout was a success!!! We missed you Justin, Sarah, Craig, and Karen...

The best dutch oven dinner ever. Philly Steak Cheese Sandwiches. You go to the store and buy a roast. Then have the butcher cut slice it up for you (they will try to talk you out of it and will try to tell you to buy a different type of meat instead. Tell them no thank you and to just cut the roast already!!!!). Then you stick it in the oven with mushrooms, red and green bell peppers, onion, and Spade L seasoning. When it's all cooked up add cheese on top... so yummy! Serve on rolls.

Tru and his cousins that are his age. So fun having these three little boys...

Can we say monkey's jumping on the bed???

Trent looks so happy in this picture doesn't he?

Proof that I was there. We hiked down to this ice cave... and it was just pretty much frozen mud. Not so cool to look at, but the opening was pretty with all the moss.

Cedar...

went camping this weekend with trent's family.

cedar mountain was beautiful. and wet.

here tru is in time out. mountain style. sitting on a rock.

i made it the whole weekend without a single sip of diet coke.

that's usually unheard of while hanging out with this clan.

did i mention it was wet? it really was.

there were a few dry and semi warm moments in there somewhere.

the food was awesome. the company was awesome.

already thinking about next year.

there may be more camping picture coming soon.

but that entirely depends on how long it takes me

to wash the campfire smell out of our clothes.

Kristin...

I just have to give a little shout out to my awesome sister in law Kristin. She saved my life last week. I stole her for the week so that she could watch Tru while I did the scans that I had to do. I got sick the day after she got here and she ended up just totally taking over things while I laid in bed thinking I was going to die.

How many 15 year old girls do you know that would come and watch your kid all day, clean your house, do dishes, AND NOT COMPLAIN for days on end! This is the third time that Kristin has saved my bacon. She came while I was on bed rest, she came for a week after Clayton was born, and she came last week. I ended up canceling my pet scan because I was so sick, but I'm going to do it today. She really did save me last week... and I am so grateful for her.

I'm going to have to buy Kristin a car, or a house someday to pay her back for all the help she has given me. Or maybe I will just build a little house onto the side of my house so that I can have Kristin all the time!!! That's more like it! Tru loves his Aunt Kristin too, they are good pals. He keeps asking for her this week. Thank you Kristin for all your help! You are a gem.

4th of July Breakfast...

Every year for the 4th of July my Uncle Steve and Aunt Maria do a big breakfast for our extended family. I haven't been to the breakfast in the last five years since we no longer live in Utah, but we were able to make it this year. I tell you what, this breakfast ran like a fine tuned machine... they know what they are doing! Yummy pancakes, french toast, bacon, sausage, eggs, fruit, drinks, all so yummy! Mine and Amy's kiddo's pretty much dominated the swing set for the first part of the morning.

Anthony's totally awesome hairdo...

It was a bit cold... so that is why they all have their arms crossed. Her is Nicole (my brother's eternal girlfriend...), Nate, and Amy.

Now come the games.... This is a tradition that my great grandfather used to do at the 4th of July breakfast. He would bury coins into sand and have the grandkids dig out the coins and they could keep them. My aunt and uncle save their coins through the year and bury them in a huge sand pile for all the kids to dig out! It was surprisingly very clean, no huge sand mess... the kids were very calm and serious as they dug out their money...

Then the kids were able to break open a pinata. They line up by who is the youngest so that all the younger kids get a turn before the bigger kids break it. Tru had fun hitting the bear... I'm glad... once again... that nobody lost an eye!

Tru made out with about $4.00 in coins and a bag full of candy scavenged from the pinata. I think that he was pretty pleased with himself... such a fun party!