Happy Birthday Mom

Okay, so it's Halloween again which means, Mom's birthday! I just wanted to take a minute to write down some of the things that I love about my mom.

She's a good roommate. Paul and I have had the opportunity to live with them a few times since we've been married, all for relatively short periods of time, and it's been great. First, Keith got to spend so much time with his grandma and they truly have a special relationship. Also, I love that we can be living in her house and mom is so wonderful about NOT getting into our marriage. She really understands that a marriage is between the husband and wife and where our marriage begins, her parenting responsibilities end (to a point, of course) and it's not her job to try to "fix" any problems we're having.

She is super generous, and I'm absolutely sure that if she were rich, we would never need for anything. As it is, sometimes I think she's too generous with us, but fortunately I think it has rubbed off on me as I enjoy being generous and giving to others what I can.

She has a great sense of humor. She has the ability to laugh at herself, and take a joke very well. She's also very good at dishing it out! I love when she gets all goofy and we can't stop giggling about silly, unimportant things.

She is a fantastic adviser. I think there's very little that I haven't asked her opinion about when it comes to the major decisions in my life. She gives such great advice and I always know it's coming from someone who not only wants the best for me, but also from someone who is close to the spirit and doesn't take my questions or problems lightly.

She has taught me the value of giving a marriage everything. She truly gave everything to her first marriage, and although I know, she wasn't perfect and of course it wasn't ALL dad's fault, I know she did everything she could before making the decision to save herself.

She is such a great example. I know it's tough for her to have her family not only have zero interest in the church, but kind of blame the church for some things that have happened in her life, but no matter what she continues to be true to what she knows and never stops hoping that one day they will understand.

She's smart! How many people can go to their parents with computer questions?? Not many in this generation. And though I'm definitely not computer illiterate she knows much more about them than I do, and that's awesome!

She still knows how to have fun. I know life is busy for her, even more so than I was a kid (hard to imagine huh?) but there are times when she can just have fun. Ironically, one of my favorite things to do with her is camp (she doesn't care much for camping.)

She treats me like the adult I am while still making me feel like I'm her child and she'll always do what she can to protect me. It's a fine line to walk, but she has mastered it.

She's a great conversationalist. I love that we have reached a stage of life where we can just talk about things. We share opinions and ideas and we can talk for hours sometimes.

Mostly, she's my mom and has been a great mom over the years and taught me some great stuff, the most important being to really love the gospel. I love her very much and hope this birthday is a good one . . . at least better than it was when I talked to her this morning on the phone! Love you, Mom!!

Reality Has Finally Hit Me, And it Was A Big One!

So I've been saying for weeks how tired I am of being pregnant and how I'm so ready to have this baby out. And I am . . . or I thought I was.

Monday night I started having some very strong contractions and though they were erratic I was starting to wonder if maybe the time had come. And as it did, I started to get scared. Is that weird? Well, it probably is, but I guess it finally hit me, like REALLY hit me. I think part of the fear is the unknown of the labor and delivery part. Will I be able to have a successful VBAC or will I labor uselessly for hours only to have to be cut open again? The other part I think is that I guess I just realized, like really realized, that it will no longer be just me and Keith and Paul. There will be four of us. Last time, by the time I was a week late I was so ready to go that when I had false labor contractions I was excited and grateful to have something--anything!--happening, and I was truly disappointed when they stopped. This time, I was kind of hoping they would. I thought I was ready, but maybe I'm not so much, though at this point it's a little late to be wondering if I'm ready for another one! One other thing that I think helped last time I think was that we had the crib in our room for probably close to a month, and I think that helped me to adjust and prepare.

So, am I crazy or is this normal . . . even a little bit? Cause I feel kind of silly to be getting scared this late in the game.

Am I missing something??

It's still October right? Have Christmas lights suddenly transitioned to Halloween lights? Or did I fall asleep and do a Rip Van Winkle thing? Check this out.

This one is just a few houses down from ours, and though you can't tell very well in this photo, they're the pretty, colorful lights.

Yes, that is three, count them, THREE houses in a row with Christmas lights up. Though, to be fair I've never had a problem with the white lights year round if done tastefully. To me, they're just like sidewalk lights or something. And these are just on the next street over from us. That one on the corner--theirs go all the way around their fence on the side to the left too! Nice, huh?

Pumpkin Carving Fun

So, Monday night we did the pumpking carving thing. Here's some (okay, a whole bunch) of photos from our family fun night, haha.

This is Keith trying to wipe the yucky pumpkin stuff off his hands after putting them inside for the first time.

This is while I was trying to coax him into sticking his hand in again so I could get a picture of it. He's thinking about it . . .

He was totally interested after I gave him the scooper thing, probably cause that wasn't quite as icky (or slimy).

Then, Paul giving him a hand trying to help him gets some of the seeds out. icky.

He decided that little thing wasn't cutting it and went for the BIG spoon!

He liked playing with the seeds though, and that kept him occupied for a little bit.

I didn't get any pictures of Paul working on his pumpkin because mine took like three times as long, so of course I was busy focusing.

Taping on my pattern, which took a ridiculously long time all by itself to get it to sit just right so I didn't mess up any of the words.

This is grainy because Paul took it from the couch . . . which is why it's dark too. Oh well. I was too lazy to fix it right now.

And the finished product(s). I messed up a little cause my pumpkin got too weak and I accidentally knocked off the inside of the "c", but it still looks pretty good. Paul's is the goofy face, of course!

For Lissa

Just to keep you updated, here is a picture of week 2 after laying the seed (We seeded the 11th, this picture is from the 26th). I would just like to say, it looks better and a little fuller in person. =)

Where's My Lasso?

So, I'm standing in the kitchen cleaning, I dunno, the counters or stovetop or something when I look over and see Keith grab my car phone charger. I almost took it away then thought "eh, he probably couldn't hurt that. THEN, a couple minutes later I hear Keith say "My lasso!" And wondering if I possibly heard him right I look over at Keith, and there he is, holding my phone charger and swinging it around like . . . well, like a lasso! Where on earth did he learn that word? I don't know! He just said it, and for the rest of the day he'd put it down somewhere and then a few minutes say "where's my lasso?"

We Got A Piano!

Last night Paul made the comment that we should go to breakfast this morning which was cool with me. So this morning we got up, lounged for a little bit and headed for Denny's. On the way back Paul got into the left turn lane one street too early so I said "where are you going?" He said "there was a sign for an estate sale back there." Uh, okay, whatever. I figured it would give us something to do for a little while and we couldn't figure out what to do anyway today, so why not? Besides, who knows, we could get lucky and find some unbelievably awesome find, right?

Wow, the place was packed. When we drove up the street I said "I'm guessing it's where all the cars are parked." There were an awful lot of cars. The woman who was moving out must've been old cause the house was completely 70's, right down to the green shag carpet. (Yeah, I had flashbacks to my bedroom when I was a kid, haha). Most of the stuff was junk or worth very little, but inside there was a piano! So, I sat down to play. And it turned out to be an awesome piano! The action on it is great and so is the sound quality, and even though the piano is obviously a few decades old, it's in great condition, outside and in! This was truly an answer to my prayers. I'd prayed to find a piano, but I wasn't doing a whole lot to help right now because I didn't want to spend the money. I figured if now was really the best time to buy one, one would sort of fall into my lap . . . and it kind of did. It was a great price too. A little more than I initially planned on spending, but definitely worth the price.

The sale had started only at 9:00 am, and we arrived around 9:40. After I'd bought it and we were waiting for Paul's dad to come with his truck another guy came in and was like "Oh, it's already sold." What kind of awesome luck is that? The hammers and felt inside look almost new. They're obviously not because they have some wear, but I can't help but think the owner has had them replaced at some point, or from the beginning this piano was more for looks than function. All it really needs is a good tuning. I'm so excited to have a piano again!

Look how flat the hammers are still (really shallow indentations from the strings still) and how flat the dampers sit against the strings. Or if you don't really care, you can move on now . . . I'm just super excited, haha.

(PS - If you click on the photo of the piano you can see all the detail in the wood.)