Enjoying It: Part 2

When Samuel was brand new a concerned friend asked if I was even able to enjoy my new baby. I was happy to say I was.

The last thing I wanted was to remember his first few weeks with regret because I was so consumed with everything else and not him.

So I cuddled. I adored. I loved.

Moving with a newborn was less than ideal, but none the less still wonderful to have that newborn.

In the midst of the crazy, he was my calm.

The eye of the storm.

He still is.

Most days.

Anne-ecdotes

One can't help but love this little girl even though she is quite the "menace" as William likes to call her. She's a great big ball of busy that I couldn't live without.

Her latest and greatest:

• Yelling "Wait! Wait!" and following me around the house as I do my day to day tasks.
• Climbing on the bathroom sink and playing in the water. Ask me how cute I think this is. Grrrrr .....
• She has termed "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" as "Kinkle" and requests that I sing it to her at bedtime. Just singing isn't enough though. I must hold her and rock at the same time.
• I also sing "I Love to See the Temple" every night to her. The same rocking is required and she tries to sing along, but usually just manages to catch the last word of each phrase. Darling.

Saying Goodbye

I'm not in the mood to cry, so I won't be writing the text for this post right now, but I wanted to save a spot for it. If your interested, come back later. Sorry to drive you crazy with these cliffhanger posts.

Grandma: My Number One Angel

The Rest of the Story: Continued

One of those moments when I read just the right thing at just the right time was when I read this quote

"To exercise faith is to trust that the Lord knows what He is doing with you and that He can  accomplish it for your eternal good even though you cannot understand how He can possibly do it. We are like infants in our understanding of eternal matters and their impact on us here in mortality.Yet at times we act as if we knew it all. When you pass through trials for His 
purposes, as you trust Him, exercise faith in Him, He will help you.That support will generally come step by step, a portion at a time. While you are passing through each phase, the pain 
and difficulty that comes from being enlarged will continue. If all matters were immediately 
resolved at your first petition, you could not grow. Your Father in Heaven and His Beloved Son love you perfectly. They would not require you to experience a moment more of difficulty 
than is absolutely needed for your personal benefit or for that of those you love."

Elder Richard G. Scott, Trust in the Lord, Ensign, Nov. 1995

My prayers began in a childish and immature way. My thoughts were that if I prayed with enough faith for what I wanted I could get it. Selling our home in the time frame I desired was my purpose and my plan. It wasn't a bad purpose or plan, just not His. My faith was refined and strengthened as I realized how elementary my way of thinking was. I never lost faith in my Heavenly Father or in the fact that He could and would answer my prayers. Where I lost faith was in myself and my testimony. It was in these moments, when I questioned my testimony and my knowledge that angels came into play. Those angels not only helped us make it through each day, but reassured me that I was not alone.

I truly felt his arms around me as the angels in the form of friends, family, neighbors, and leaders stepped into my life. I can't explain it any other way than to say, in all actuality, that I felt lighter. I felt loved. I felt guided. My burden was lifted not because it was taken away, but because it was shared.

I cried as I dropped my children off at friend's home for the day while I packed (and nursed) and packed (and nursed) and packed some more (and nursed some more). The tears were both of frustration that I couldn't mother my children and of gratitude that other wonderful angel moms were there in my stead.

I didn't cook for my family for three weeks after the baby was born. For three weeks our dinners were taken care of by neighbors, friends, and, of course, my mom. Delicious dinners, might I add.

Even something as trivial as having enough boxes was taken care of by wonderful friends.

I know there are more trials ahead of me in my life. I know that one day this will seem little and easy, but without this step in my progression I would not be ready for whatever is ahead.

Celebrating Me!

The birthday for a mother of 4 kids that are 6 years old and younger is far from glamorous. It included cleaning the house, changing diapers, calming fights, nursing, cooking, cleaning up, etc. Somehow, in the meantime, my sweet husband did his best to make me feel special and loved.

When my plans to meet him for lunch at a park were stamped by rain he came home during his lunchtime. We also went out to dinner with some great friends at one of our favorite places to eat, Taste of India, that night.

And a couple of days later (when our schedules finally allowed) we had a delicious dinner that he prepared. I bought pretzel slider buns at Costco the day before and told him that those and a pork roast that was in the freezer were his inspiration. A little googling and he came up with one of the best meals I have ever had. Seriously.

Pulled Pork Sandwich with Ginger Cilantro Mayo and Pickled Vegetables 
The only place he diverged from the recipe was adding lime zest and juice to the mayo. Smart move. We almost skipped the pickled vegetables. Dumb move.

I ate the leftovers for lunch every day for the rest of the week. So good!

For dessert Super Moist Fudge Bundt Cake was the no brainer choice. Easy and delicious.

And for a present? A perfectly fitting gift for my life right now. A vacuum. Woohoo!

Enjoying It

There is more to the "what I learned story" but I have to be in the zone to write those posts. In the meantime, I have a lot of updating just about what has been going on in our little lives besides moving. For example, somehow in the middle of it all we have managed to cherish, adore, and love this sweet little baby boy that has joined our family. He brings such a calm spirit into our home, which is something we have definitely been in need of! I can't get enough of our sweet Samuel.

Pretty much one of my all time favorite pictures ever. Ever. Ever.

Baby Burrito

They kind of like him.

He's so tiny and cute and she's a ham. I adore them both.

The Rest of the Story

When we put our house on the market back in October, I quickly discovered that selling and moving was going to be a definite trial in our lives. As I mentioned here, I wanted to figure out the lesson to be learned, get the trial over with, and move on with our quiet little lives full of the typical challenges of a young family. You know, things like cleaning up vomit in the middle of the night. When November and December came and went I was still hopeful that my earnest and specific prayers that our house would sell and we could move before the baby was born would be answered. When January came and went my hope was crushed. I  held on with faith that felt weak and immature.

Putting into words my feelings and emotions through this time is hard for me. It's hard because I want the reader of this post to get an honest understanding of how I felt and to appreciate what I went through. I realize that I can't do that because this was my trial. This was my challenge. These were my lessons to be learned. Normally when I come to this conclusion I will turn to my hard copy journal, the place that I write my sacred feelings that are only mine to savor, reflect, and remember, a place where they are safe from any judgment. Yet, I feel that need to share this here.

It's not the trials that I need to share. It's the blessings that accompanied them.

Like the moment in January when my discouragement peaked and I stood at my kitchen counter trying to be brave, but not sure where I would find the strength to face the rest of the day. Then my phone chimed that I had a text message from my father, "Your dad loves you and is praying that all goes as it should ... maybe not as planned, but for the best for the family." Moments later I checked my e-mail to find a thoughtful note from a friend offering to help in anyway that I needed it. Then a blog post from another dear friend that reassured me that I am in her thoughts and prayers. In those brief minutes I knew my Father in Heaven was ever present in my life and very aware of the struggles that I was enduring.

Countless times this same reassurance was present in my day. Being led to just the right conference talk during my scripture study, listening to interviews on Mormon Channel that could have been given just for me, dinner from a friend, phone calls, timing of showings.

Mosiah 24:14 "And I will also ease the ^aburdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs ... that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their ^cafflictions."


to be continued ...

The House

When Grandma came out to help after Samuel was born she also did some babysitting so Brandon and I could go house hunting. Luckily, we had spent a lot of time online house shopping and had looked at a few houses previous to going under contract. We knew what we wanted and only had to look at two houses before we knew we had found "the one". We'd had our eyes on it for about a month and half and gratefully it wasn't a disappointment when we looked at it in person.

 Family Room - Plenty of room for the kids to run. Woohoo!

 Southwest facing - One of Brandon's favorite features. The rocks are the kids favorite thing ever.

 A fireplace. I'm so happy to have a fireplace.

 View looking into the Great Room.

 The kitchen ... love.

Celebrating Samuel

We kicked off May with Samuel's blessing day. To complain about the craziness that led up to this event would be redundate. I already mentioned that April was a bit, uh, blurry.

So, let's just focus on how wonderful the day was. I love getting a chance to celebrate each of my new little ones. I love planning the menu and hosting our families. I love showing off my sweet baby. It is a sacred, special, and wonderfully beautiful day. The irony this time around was that we finally have a house big enough to host the crowds we've had for past blessings and it was our smallest group yet. Go figure.

At the luncheon we served pulled pork sandwiches on Hawaiian sweet rolls, spinach artichoke dip (expertly made by my sister Rachel), chili cheese dip, tortilla chips, veggies and ranch, and a fruit pizza bar (put together by my incredible mother). The only thing we had leftovers of was the veggies. We were feeding a very health conscious crowd, huh? I didn't get any pictures of the spread, but it was yummy and beautiful and thoroughly enjoyed by all.

One of my goals of the day was to get a family picture in front of our house. Samuel was hungry. My eyes are nearly closed. It was slightly windy. And I think Marie is in mid jump.  My sister Becca took about a gazillion shots of us. My eyes are nearly closed or closed in every single one. Samuel was hungry in every single one. It was slightly windy in ... well, you get the point. A very real photo.

 Speaking of Becca, she grabbed Samuel in the morning when I was still frantically trying to get myself and other things ready and snuggled with him in the recliner. I think they were both quite happy with the arrangement. He was quite annoyed when I had to claim him back to get him dressed and feed him. I couldn't blame him.

Samuel is named after my great grandfather, Samuel Dent. Grandma Williams (pictured above) was quite proud to hear that we had chosen her father's name. I don't know much about her father. I intend to find out more about him while she can still tell me. I do know that her oldest son is named after him and that is saying something. A lot, actually.

Samuel is a special addition to our family. He is loving and adorable and cuddly and darling and such a blessing. I'm grateful to call him mine and pray that I may always live worthy of the blessing that he is.

March and April

I remember March. I do. Boxes and messy rooms and nursing and sleepless nights and tears and hugs and stress and laughter and sadness and joy and selfless friends and packing tape and markers. Yes, March happened.

But April? I honestly don't remember where April went. Well, I know we moved officially at the beginning of April, but then we were in a cloudy dust of unpacking hell for the next few weeks and none of it is very clear to me.

Thanks to pictures and Facebook statuses (statusi?)I have proof that it happened. In no particular order ....

We celebrated Easter.

Making "Resurrection Rolls" for breakfast. 

Checking out her Easter Bunny spoils.

She could have cared less about the eggs, she was thrilled to be carrying the basket.

He's such a good big brother. We asked him to ear his tennis shoes for the hunt. Fear not, he wore dress shoes to church. 

This little guy's first Easter. So handsome in that sweater!

Pretty, pretty princess.

William lost a tooth. Or two. Or three. Or four.

Apparently Samuel had some diaper rash.
Huh, apparently whatever is in Butt Paste that irritated baby's bum is also in Desitin. Good to know.

I was thinking about furniture for our living room.
I have had a couple of chairs for our living room picked out for a few weeks now. I just can't get the nerve to order them. Online furniture shopping is risky business.

My Baby Bjorn got some good use.
For the record... I'm pretty sure the $35 I spent on my Baby Bjorn were the best $35 I've ever spent.

Jeff came home!

I was sick. Brandon was sick. William was sick. Heck, we were all sick. Multiple times.
I've decided if I have to be sick then pink eye is definitely the way to go. I feel great, I just look terrible.

I ran. Once. (For the record, May has been better in this department. Barely.)
Just finished a two mile run. While running I was overcome with gratitude for the strength and determination required of me to become physically fit. Exercise does a lot more for me besides just help me fit back into my skinny jeans.


I wanted to buy a trampoline. We haven't bought one, yet.
Let's talk trampolines. Where did you get yours? What size is it? Has the enclosure (if you have one) held up? Do your kids love it?

So, April did happen and do you know what ... I guess it wasn't too bad after all.