Thursday, January 22, 2009

News?

Did you know every year there is a potato conference? OK so really that's not so crazy since I do live in Idaho, but this was big news tonight. And the real news was that a Prefessor of Nematology (huh?) is very concerned about nematodes in potatoes. You think I'm making up one of my rhymes right? No. Anyway, the good news is that they have a way to combat these nematodes. Thank heavens, I was worried about that one.

The other big news? Red Robin opened. This was acutally the leading story on the news two nights ago. And you might think that we would spend some time talking about our new President, but Obaba made it on the list only after the bit after the guy who sells Dish Network services. I feel so in tune with my community! CNN, you've got nothing on Channel 8 in Idaho Falls!

Friday, January 2, 2009

A Year In Review

January

A Good Month For....10 Years! Yes, on January 3 it was ten years of wedded bliss for us.

A Bad Month For....Vacations. We celebrated our anniversary in November with a trip to Cancun, so January left us sitting in the cold.


February

A Good Month For....Keeping Busy because as I look back at my calendar I can't remember anything that would make February stand out except for the fact that there is not one single day that wasn't filled to the brim with things to do; all good things, like swimming lessons, piano lessons, basketball, church activities and obligations, school things, family get-togethers, it goes on and on because it was truly an active month.

A Bad Month For....Reading a Book, because it was so busy, but then as I look back at the calendar I see that it was the read-a-thon at Jane's school so I'm sure there must have been reading in our home, but I'm not sure much of it was done by me.



March

A Good Month For.... Stolen Identities when my sister-in-law stole my name and bib number and posed as Carrie Athay so she could run the Moab half-marathon. The lengths people will go to for a run! I was a little surprised she didn't go so far as to bleach her hair, but she made up for it with the fabulous shorts she wore. Wow! I would only love to have the confidence and the legs to pull that off!

A Bad Month For....Perspective, as I look back and realize that wonderful trip to Moab was the last trip I would take with my dad.

April

A Good Month For....Perspective, when I realized that the reason we were at Primary Children's Hospital was not so bad in comparison with many others. Mitchell had a couple of seizures, so we had to have him tested with EEGs and EKGs and other tests and it all came out inconclusive, so for now that is good and we were able to get on with our month full of soccer and karate and piano and celebrating LUKE's second birthday! Yes, he made it to two and by this time he no longer slept in a crib because of nose dives onto the floor and he shared a room with his big brother because he will sort of sleep that way and he loves that everyone dotes on him.

A Bad Month For....Oprah. I had to cancel my trip with my gals because of Mitchell's tests and then what did Oprah do? She went and actually canceled on us! But it all worked out because I was able to be at home when my new dishwasher was installed...the third dishwasher in the two years we had lived in that home.


May

A Good Month For....Spending Time With My Family, my brothers and my sisters and my mom. It was good to be together for so many days, even though it was under the saddest of circumstances.

A Bad Month For....Understanding Mortality. My dad died unexpectedly on May 19 of a heart attack after he had ridden his bike to the gym and worked out. Thankfully, they tell us he wasn't aware of anything after he fell. I'm really glad I was able to have such a nice lunch with my sister Cindy and niece Caroline earlier in the day, but I will never forget the moment my mom told me the news, and I wonder if the ache in my heart will ever grow less or if you just get more used to it.

It was also a bad month for William to have a birthday because his birthday fell the day after the funeral in Colorado and internment service at the Air Force Academy. Before we left for Colorado, I told William that his present was going to be a new Garmin GPS for his car and we were going to take him on a camping excursion with his new toy. Needless to say, that didn't happen. Instead I told him to go choose his own GPS and we'd go camping in the summer, which we never did. In fact, the only person who really remembered William's birthday on his birthday was my wonderful sister-in-law Geri who is always mindful of others.



June

A Good Month For....Jane! My Jane turned 8! I can't believe she has grown so old and I was so proud of her that she made the decision to be baptized as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (although that didn't happen until the next month). It was quite a month for Jane. She received the Outstanding Student Award for Ms. Garber's 2nd Grade class. She had a great piano recital and was very relieved to be able to have the summer free of practicing. We vacationed in one of her favorite places, Vail, where the kids kayaked, rock climbed, hiked and lived it up. We celebrated her birthday in style with a "late-over" birthday where all her friends came for fun pillow decorating, pillow fights, pizza and treats, spa-style facials, yoga on the front lawn and, of course, late night movies. She started attending Activity Days. She had a great check-up at the Dentist which meant that she could get her ears pierced, which we did, but that ended badly two weeks later when one stud fell out and it was too traumatizing to get it back in so Jane's ears are no longer pierced. Oh well, she felt pretty special for most of the month.

A Bad Month For....T-ball; not that Mitchell didn't have a great time, he did, it was just too hot to have to be out on those baseball fields in that kind of weather. Who would ever guess that as I'm writing this from the cold Idaho tundra I would actually be complaining about heat! But Mitchell loved the game, nonetheless, and thinks he might have a future as a baseball player.



July

A Good Month For....Being Jane, Again. Really, I think she must have a great life! Jane was baptized on July 5th. And what a great day it was. I was afraid that she might be a little too tired to truly enjoy the day because we didn't get home from the Stadium of Fire and seeing Miley Cyrus in concert the night before until after 1 in the morning and then she had to be up and to the stake center for her baptism fairly early. Fairly early in my book was 9:30 in this case, but Jane assured me she had plenty of sleep and that actually 9:30 is pretty late in day. At any rate, William baptized and confirmed Jane, Jane's Aunt Cindy gave a talk on baptism and her friends from her Primary class sang a special musical number.

Jane also was able to go to a week long art camp at the University of Utah, the class was called "From Monet to Picasso" and the kids had the chance to go into the galleries everyday to view the special exhibit and sketch the art, then they would head to the classroom to learn new styles and techniques and produce various works of art that they exhibited on the last day of class. Like I said, it was a good month to be Jane.

A Bad Month For....Feeding Fish when William and I went snorkeling in the Florida Keys and for whatever reason (I have my theories, like I had influenza in July or really if I'm honest, it could just be that I can't handle being in the ocean, but I don't want that to be the reason because I really want to go on a cruise) I threw up, while in the water, four times. So I guess the fish were fairly happy, but I was pretty miserable. But we saw some great things, like an absolutely enormous ray and the Christ of the Deep and some beautiful fish and then I can't remember many others because I was trying desperately to stay away from everyone....

But the rest of our trip to the Keys was really great, except our last day when my initial plans had changed a bit and William and I didn't communicate very well and we really don't need to remember anything else except it was a great trip!




August

A Good Month For....This and That: My niece Kelly and nephew David returned from their missions, soccer began....again, Jane started the 3rd grade and Mitchell prepared to start Kindergarten.


A Bad Month For....Feeling Old because on August 31st my nephew and his wife had a baby, which makes me a Great Aunt. And my sister-in-law loves the Twilight book series so for her birthday we made "Edward" and "Jacob" cupcakes, gave her a vampire safety kit and stayed up well past midnight so we could go get the new Stephanie Meyer release "Breaking Dawn." And, I knew I was getting quite old when my teeth started falling apart and I had to have my first cavity in over twenty years filled.


September

A Good Month For....Being 5! Mitchell started kindergarten in Mrs. LaBelle's class and he loved it! That could partly have to do with the fact that Mrs. LaBelle loved Mitchell, or because almost all of his buddies had started school the year before or because he just loves to be busy and learn and he really is really a perfectionist so doing well in school really suits him.

A Bad Month For....Receiving Revelation. As I was sitting in Sacrament Meeting one day I was struck by a song we were singing where we are admonished to obey the Lord's will so I thought "OK, what am I missing in Primary?" because I was the Primary President at the time and, of course, all revelation must have to do with that, right? Wrong. A couple of days later William came home and told me that he had been mulling something over for a while and he wasn't sure how I would respond, but what would I think of going with him to Idaho Falls to check out the city while he interviewed for a position as in-house council for a corporation, Melaleuca. I knew right then that Lord was trying to prepare me for this and I also knew, without a doubt, he would get the job. I didn't really want to move to Idaho. But I also knew it was an answer to prayer because William was miserable in a law firm and we were miserable with the hours he was putting in.




October

A Good Month For....Shocking the Neighbors when we put a for sale sign up outside our home. I think there was speculation that I might have kicked out my bum of a husband who was never home and we probably should have run with that and had a fight on the lawn and thrown his clothes out a window, but we didn't. And I think we've convinced them all we're still hanging together as a family.

A Bad Month For....Updating the Fence. Really, I should have finished staining the fence when I did the deck in the spring, but I didn't. And then I should have finished it sometime during the long days of summer, but I didn't. Instead I spent two very frantic weeks trying to make the fence look presentable to hopefully help the sale of our house (which as of this writing has yet to happen). And thanks to my friend Brenda telling me that Shabby Chic is not a good look for a fence, I didn't do bad a job. Also, thanks to Brenda, I thought my heart was going to break everyday because she reminded me I was moving some distance away from our Utopian neighborhood to the quite unknown. And speaking of updating, I think I could use some updating because this was the month I turned 35, quite an un-momentous birthday, it just means you're kind of middle aged. Blah! So I guess it was a good thing we had a quick trip to Yellowstone, Luke could feed the ducks outside everyday, and we had a great Halloween to overshadow things a bit.


November

A Good Month For....OPRAH!!! We finally made it! I went to Chicago with my good friends Megan Jones, Lindsey Samahon and Stephanie Ainsworth and what a time we had! I think I will owe my mom for years to come for watching the kids so I could go on this trip. The girls and I shopped, and ate, and talked, and walked, and went to OPRAH and blushed and laughed because of the subject matter and the mature content rating. How about that? Four Mormon gals sitting in the third row front and center while Oprah talks about a mature subject! Quite an experience and we had tons of fun!

A Bad Month For....Staying in Idaho. We went to Utah three times during the month, I went to Chicago, and we all went to Vancouver, WA for a fabulous Thanksgiving with the Athay clan and a great birthday celebration for Mitchell (though that technically fell on the 1st of December, but we celebrated a couple days early). It had been far too long since a trip to Vancouver and we were so happy to be there. Our trip was filled with lots of family, lots of fun and a little strep throat. The kids are ready to go back next month.



December

A Bad Month For....Staying Warm because the weather in Idaho has turned into winter and the temperatures were sub zero and dropping. It is cold here in the tundra.

A Good Month For....Feeling the Love of Our Savior. Christmas was wonderful. It was good to be with family and to think about Christ and His love for us. This certainly has been a year to reflect on. One filled with many things I will never forget. How grateful I am for my family and for our Savior's tender love and watchful care.

Happy New Year.


Monday, December 29, 2008

A few quick thoughts and images from Christmas 2008

We headed back to Utah for Christmas and since we still own a home there and there are a few more beds than at my mom's house we decided that was place for the holiday festivities. Although, my sister Cindy might not have thought we made such a good decision since the weather kept us at our house throughout Christmas and we didn't make it down to Provo to visit with her until quite late Friday afternoon and I'm sure not all of her lovely Christmas dinner was eaten, but then it just wouldn't be Christmas without leftovers, right? Except that we didn't end up with any leftovers at our house, instead we almost needed to order Chinese because of the lack of food items in that house right now because William decided on several of the trips to Utah to bring my entire food storage to the tiny kitchen in Idaho where we are bursting at the seams, and on Christmas day grocery stores are closed. Luckily, we managed. But that might be jumping ahead just a bit. So back to where we were, we enjoyed the Christmas festivities at our house and how glad we were to have such fun festivities with Uncle Gabe and Aunt Brooke--even though they did miss the fondue and scriptures and stories. (Note to Gabe and Brooke: in our house if we simply say Gabe and Brooke the kids don't have any idea who we are talking about). But they made it over before Santa could be confused about where they would be sleeping that night. And in the morning....our kids slept until 8:15! I thought kids had to keep to code and arise before the sun, but for some reason our kids didn't get the memo this year. Maybe that's because Jane and Mitch were sleeping in the basement and William made them take an oath they wouldn't come upstairs without an adult and I think he must have included some sort of magic sleeping spell in the oath because I was the first person awake in the house!

At any rate, it was a great morning and Luke was thrilled with his Thomas the Train table that is still in Utah because it was too big to fit in the car (I guess Santa didn't really check measurements) and Jane and Mitch got what every other kid seems to have gotten this year: a Wii. I think the elves must have gotten in a groove and really churned those things out. But it's a great toy that really hasn't had a moment of rest since it left the box. Oh and of course there were more legos for Mitch the Builder and Jane thinks she is Julia Child with her new cookbooks, Brooke and Gabe have 101 things they can do with potato, my mom can give her dog a pedicure and William has lots of upcoming adventures. Oh, and William is going to have this fine piece of literature published. What a day!

Here are a few of the scenes:


(Ok, so this wasn't really taken on Christmas, its back in our little temporary condo,but Jane really wanted to include a picture of her new vocation)



Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Christmas Reflections

Christmas 2007


Forgive me for this post...and don't in any way feel obliged to read it. I just really needed to set a few things down in writing as I remember this past year. In fact, the past few days I've had a lot of trouble thinking about anything except the last year. I know, reflections about the year are supposed to wait until New Year's, but this year when I think of Christmas and the birth of our Savior I can't help but remember a year of loss and enormous change. And as I write this, though the tears are streaming down my face, I have a lot of gratitude in my heart. This is our first Christmas without my dad, my dear, dear friend who I love and I miss. The hole in my heart is huge. But I am grateful for the life he led, his example of faith and determination, his life of hard work and great love. He did everything with great fervor and he taught me to live my life fully. Oh, there are days when I know I don't live up to that, but I have to remember all the times he told me he was proud of me and he loves me and then I can maybe begin to try a little harder. And as I reflect I am so grateful for my Savior, because I have needed to lean on him as I have come to terms with mortality. In my life, it's been one thing to feel like I have a testimony of the plan of Salvation and then, this year, as I've really faced things to put that testimony into action and learn to move forward.

A friend of mine who has seen a terribly difficult year included this quote by Jenkins Lloyd Jones in her Christmas card:
Life is like an old-time rail journey--delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders, and jolts interspersed only occasionally with beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed. The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride.
That's what I'm aiming for this year.

Looking back, I also have to admit how grateful I am for the strength of my mom who has in so many ways put aside her grief for a husband of 49 years so she could tend to us, their children, who are devastated by his loss. I think I've probably been a bit selfish in not recognizing her needs enough. We've all probably let her a down a bit in the support category. But I think I'm going to lay the blame fully on her for that because she is too strong! What an amazing woman who had led us all through this with grace and dignity.

Soon it will be Christmas and our home will be filled with the great excitement of my children and the great joy that comes when so many in our family are together. And as we read about our Savior and talk about our Savior, this year in our home we are filled with a greater understanding of His mission and we are grateful for the peace this brings.

May this be a wonderful holiday season. Merry Christmas.


Dave Anderson, a great man. Moab 2008.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

I've recieved an award!!!


Thanks to my good friend Laurie, I have received an award for my blog! I have to admit that this is really quite exciting. In fact, I'm feeling, well, fairly giddy at the moment. Because, as some of you know, I was somewhat coaxed into blogging by my sister-in-law...and I must admit that it has become a great outlet for me. It's an avenue for the inner nerd to truly come out. I'm referring, of course, to my poetry, which is not great but boy when it comes to me I just have to let it out and my kids really appreciate that I don't sing it to them quite as often because now I can BLOG it! So anyway, a big shout out to Laurie who really made my day! And just so you know, she has a fabulous blog found at museummuses.blogspot.com and it is definitely worth a little of your blog stalking time.

But back to the award itself. This is not just any award, no, no, it's an opportunity. An opportunity for me to let you in on a few FABULOUS addictions, five to be exact. So here they are:

1. I love the Potato Museum. I want to be on the board. Or maybe just work there. OK, so really that's probably not going to happen and truly what I love are little, somewhat quirky regional museums. They always have interesting, and sometimes have really weird, objects, but they serve a great purpose and you can always learn something interesting.

2. I love my Ugg boots. They are FABULOUS!!! I never thought I would own a pair because, let's be honest, they're kind of ugly and generally speaking I prefer stilettos. But I live in Idaho and it's beyond freezing and the snow doesn't melt and these boots make my feet feel warm and snugly and, remarkably, I found a very cute pair. They are funky and a little different. Kind of like me, the little bit different part.

3. Jane's fudge. My eight-year old daughter made some great fudge and somehow I seem to be eating most of it, by myself. It's a problem, I know, I should share. Maybe tomorrow I will because I might step on a scale one of these days and I'll know just where my problem started: Jane's fudge.

4. DIET COKE. It's fabulous, in every way. Actually when I stop and think about it, it's really kind of nasty but I love it and I drink it and I don't really know how to feel entirely about this fabulous addiction because my sister who kind of got me hooked has now stopped drinking it and, well I'm at somewhat of a loss. But I'm still addicted and as nasty as it is it still makes me happy.

5. Facebook...some might think its lame, but I have had tons of fun finding all sorts of lost and missing friends and it is my connection to those I've moved far, far away from and it's my lifeline to my new little posse in my new little locale. So truly, it's fabulous.

So now that I've dragged this on and on I get to nominate one or two, OK five really, blogs with the FABULOUS blog award. So here they are and this is why:

eastcoastwalkers.blogspot.com because when Brenda muses about life, I laugh out loud.

I must interject at this point that I would nominate my daughter Jane otherwise known as Jbugalicious, and privately I will, but her blog is just that, private, and unless you're invited you can't read it. So on with the list of nominated blogs you can read.....

gabebrooke.blogspot.com because they gave me my start in the blogosphere, and because they think their blog is the coolest, but I would like to point out to them that I received an award first!

thesewingfriend.blogspot.com because I really want to be a good seamstress and mostly I do shoddy work so I read Gina's blog to see perfect work and secretly wish I could sew like her. And because I thought it was called the sewing "fiend" and I thought that was really cool.

jochim-family.blogspot.com because Jessica has a very active, very cute, very naughty two-year old and adorable not-so good-at-sleeping six-month old twins so anyone who can find time to blog with that is truly FABULOUS in my book.

and......

motherjones08.blogspot.com because Megan has Obama featured prominently on her blog.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!


The following are for the recipients of today's FABULOUS blog award:

The rules of this award are this:
1. You have to pass it on to 5 other fabulous blogs in a post.
2. You have to list 5 of your fabulous addictions in the post.
3. You must copy and paste the rules and the instructions below in the post.

Instructions: On your post of receiving this award, make sure you include the person that gave you the award and link it back to them. When you post your five winners, make sure you link them as well. To add the award to your post, simply right-click, save image, then "add image" it in your post as a picture so your winners can save it as well. To add it to your sidebar, add the "picture" gadget. Also, don't forget to let your winners know they won an award from you by emailing them or leaving a comment on their blog.

The Diaper vs. the Undies: Potty Training Part II

I probably, no definitely more like, should not worry about it so much, but once again today I tried to convince Luke that it was in his best interest to at least try on the underwear and see what they feel like. This was his response:



And because I'm not always the nicest, most flexible mother in the world I decided we should force the issue, gently. Obviously he wasn't game for the experiment:



Maybe its a texture thing because it seems pretty apparent that Luke would rather wear a scratchy diaper than nice cotton Thomas the Train undies.

Yes, that is a diaper. They can call them "training pants" or "pull-ups" or whatever they wish, but really they are simply more expensive diapers....and I'm a sucker. He's my last kid, what can I say. And look at that smile, the little conniver just melts my heart. Potty Training? I don't know what you're taking about.........

Monday, December 15, 2008

Please, Please potty train

This morning Luke did not want his diaper changed. Really, there's nothing new about that. He feels that he is simply too busy following Jane and Mitch around to be bothered with a new diaper. But the problem is that he has a tendency toward terrible diaper rashes if anything sits on his bottom too long. So, as frequently is the case, I had to listen to him yelling that he really does want his bum to hurt and he does want a diaper rash. Of course, he'll change that tune as soon as the rash appears. So, being the good mother that I am and one who is really tired changing a rather large child's diaper I once again tried explaining to him that maybe it's about time that he starts to use the potty. I think this picture might illustrate Luke's response:

He's not about to go anywhere near that thing! And he's laughing his devilish laugh as he taunts me "Mom, I will never go near the toilet!" Maybe he just needs a little space from his dad.