Watched Over

I just wanted to quickly share an experience I had over the weekend.  Leland and I were going to a Christmas get-together with his cousins on Saturday night.  My parents were going to be watching Carter for us and we met up with them at my grandparents' house where my mom and dad were putting up the Christmas tree.  The party was a potluck and so we had our crockpot with us and we brought it in to keep it plugged in until it was time to leave for the party.  It ended up getting plugged in on the island and I made a mental note to not let Carter go into the kitchen so that he wouldn't pull on the cord and have a hot crockpot fall on him.

My dad had gone downstairs, we thought with Carter in tow, and the rest of us were sitting and chatting in the front room.  I don't know how else to describe it other than I suddenly knew Carter was not with my dad, but was in the kitchen about to pull the crockpot down on himself.  I jumped up and ran into the kitchen just in time to grab him as he was standing and reaching for the crockpot cord.

My heart was pounding, of course, and I just held him tight because I knew how hurt he would have been if he had pulled that crockpot off the counter.  My mom said something about my "great Spidey-sense" which got me thinking.  That wasn't me; that was a prompting from the Holy Ghost watching over my little family and keeping my little dude safe.

Anyone who knows me won't be surprised when I tell you that I'm crying as I write this.  I am so grateful for the power of the Holy Ghost in my life; I know I am being watched over and that my little family is, as well.

Another year...

A year has gone by since I wrote my last anniversary post.  I just reread it to reminisce and remember what was going through my mind at this point last year.

Last year on our anniversary:

• We were pregnant (hugely pregnant) with exactly one month left to our baby's due date.  Though we didn't know it at the time, we would be in the hospital exactly one month after our anniversary to have labor induced and have our little one join the world.  What a journey it has been since then!  I love being a mom and I know Leland loves being a dad (since I'm writing this alone I will put that in for him).  Carter has blessed our lives and even though struggles have arisen from the stress of parenthood, I'm thankful to know I have a partner I can count on while we raise our son.

• We were getting ready to close on our house.  While reading last year's anniversary post, I saw that I had written we were hoping to close on our house the following week.  Well, that didn't happen.  But we did evenutally close on our house (while in the hospital being induced, sheesh!).  We love our little house and we (and by we, I mean Leland) have put a lot of work into it to make it our own.  It's funny to look back on all the worrying and stress we let bother us last year and to realize how un-stressed we are now that we are settled in our home.

This past year has been more of a discovery for us as we've learned that love is infinite.  I didn't know I could love as much as I do.  My love for my family has grown exponentially since I became a mother.  Every day I love Leland and Carter more than I did the day before.  It's not always the way it is in the movies or in books (sometimes it is) but I climb into bed at the end of every day knowing I have an awesome sweetheart and the coolest kid around who both love me.

Thankful: Post #1

I am thankful for:

• an awesome husband who put up with my crazy over this whole weekend.  He helped me with the heavy lifting and kept our son Friday night and ALL DAY Saturday so I could focus on Ashley's Bridal Shower and Bachelorette Party.  I am thankful for him and I love him SO MUCH!
• everyone who made Ashley's Bridal Shower possible.  I couldn't have done it without:
• Terri and Dave for the letting us invade their beautiful home and throw a big party in their backyard
• Myrna, Tina, D Jo, Lawanna, Angie, Karolann, Nicole, Terri, and Corrinne for help with the food, the food prep, the setting up, the teacup shopping, and everything else
• The Men: Leland, David, Tyler, Dave, and my dad, Scott for picking up/dropping off tables, setting up tables and chairs, and waiting around for me to give them one more thing to do
• My mom, Lisa, and my Aunt Linda for all their help with floral arrangements, because I suck at it, and for doing all the kitchen stuff during the shower so I could play hostess
• my husband, Leland (again) for painting and installing our baseboards after the awesome job he did on our floor (and thanks to everyone else who came and did flooring and painting at our house, it looks amazing and I love it!)
• my parents, brothers, and Aunt Linda who held or kept an eye on Carter on Sunday so I could have a peaceful Sacrament Meeting and eat my lunch at the luncheon after the baby blessing

I think that's a pretty good start to my "thankful" posts.  Three cheers for GRATITUDE!  Hip-hip-hooray!  Hip-hip-hooray!  Hip-hip-hooray!

Up to the challenge?

I've seen a lot of "Challenge" posts recently, all trying to get us to focus on being grateful and whatnot.  Well, I'll admit it, I'm not always so focused on the "gratitude"; unless, of course, I'm pointing out someone else's lack thereof.

So, I'll take your challenge (whoever YOU are).  Let's see if I can manage to get the word "thank" (or any of its siblings) in all of my posts from now on.  I'll attempt to do short daily posts, I hate it when I have to write long ones, 'cause nobody wants to read all that.

Forgot to blog about my birthday...

The other day I hooked up my camera to the computer to upload the latest in Carter cuteness.  And what did I find?  A bunch of pictures of my birthday evening that I forgot to blog about.  Guh!

So here's the skinny:  back in September was my birthday.  It actually fell on a Friday so we went out on the actual day.  And I got dinner AND a movie.  I felt pretty special because we never do both anymore.

We had a great time at Black Angus (I was in the mood for some meat and it's not as if Leland would ever turn down steak.  I mean, really?) and then we went to see a movie (come to think of it, I can't remember what movie it was).  All I can remember at the moment is that I laughed hysterically throughout the entire movie.  I'm talking, side-splitting, cheeks hurting, falling over in your seat laughter.

I've just spent about 10 minutes looking for the name of movies that were still showing in September, but none of them are ringing a bell.  How about we use the comments to guess which movie Leland and I saw on my birthday?  I'm sure I'll recognize it if one of you guesses it.

I asked Leland to take a picture of us, but he didn't want to be in it.  So I asked him to take a picture of me.  And he proceeded to keep hitting the button every 5 seconds while I was trying to get situated.

You've also got to love the leftover food on plates and take out box in the foreground.

Then our server was walking by, so I asked if she'd take one of both of us.  That's what he gets for taking weird pictures of me!

Carter's First Haircut

I know, I know, you're wondering why we would give Carter a haircut, when he's got so few hairs to begin with.  Well, he was starting to get this crazy old man look going on around the ears and the back of his head was all full and normal looking while the rest was just hairless (with the exception of a few crazy long ones that stuck out at odd angles).

So Grandma Lawanna busted out the clippers and we gave him his first buzz cut.  He loved it!  No crying or nervousness whatsoever.  Just a bunch of smiles and giggles!  Yay!

 

Before

Getting situated in the cape.

Wondering why we were holding his head like that.

"Hey, that tickles! Do it again!"

"This is fun, mom!"

"hehehe"

Almost done!

"Thanks, Grandma.  Let's do that again sometime, okay?"

All finished!

Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat!

Halloween is such a fun time of year. I love being able to dress up and feel like a kid again.

This past Wednesday we went to Tyler and Angie's ward party which was pretty fun. Angie also posted some pictures here. Carter was dressed as Charlie Brown and I was wearing my black cat ears.

Then on Friday for work I decided to wear my black cats ears for fun.  A couple of us coordiated and we all wore cat/tiger ears together.  We couldn't quite tell if the chiefs wer amused by our "costumes" but it seemed like they were.

Ashley came into town for Halloween weekend.  Friday night we went to an author interview and book signing at the Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale (we also brought along Uncle Lincoln).  It was "interesting" to say the least.  The author being interviewed was a little (well, a lot) preachy with her leftist, I-thought-abou-boycotting-Arizona, I-heart-Obama ideals.  So we got out of there and finished up the evening with dinner at Charleston's where we all had soup and salad with those yummy croissants.

Ashley brought us costumes (AWESOME!) so we could dress up together for the Trunk-or-Treat party at my parents' church building.  She's got to go home before Halloween night *sad face* but at least we got some fun Halloween stuff in.

Ashley curled my hair for the occasion (cuz I'm kind of clutzy with a curling iron).  We both said it felt like high school again, giggling and doing each others' hair.

Wood Flooring - Part 3 and Painting!

The flooring was finished two weeks ago...Leland got it all done in four days!  Wednesday he started with his dad and got half the living room done.  Then on Thursday Leland and some cousins and brothers finished the living room.  Friday night the majority of the hall was done, but the tricky, angled portion of the hallway started becoming a patience-drainer, so Leland took a break and finished the hall and the laundry closet on Saturday morning with his dad.  Yay!  I love my new wood floors, they are so much cleaner than that nasty old carpet (I'm pretty sure it was original to the 10 year old house).  And Carter's feet aren't black anymore (Can you imagine how dirty carpet would have to be to leave the tops of his feet black from crawling? Yuck!)

The finished hallway - it looks so cool on the angle like that!

And then we finally picked a paint color (Well, I finally picked a paint color) after 4 different samples painted on the wall.  Here's the thing:

Color #1 was a nice creamy color with a smidge of yellow in it.  But in large quantities it would've look white or cream, not yellow like I wanted.

I picked Color #2 thinking it was a smidge more yellow than Sample #1 without being overpowering.  But it looked like a post-it on the wall.

So my mom and I stopped by Lowe's again last Saturday to pick out two samples since this one-at-a-time thing wasn't working out.  I kept looking at the paint chips and I couldn't figure out why Colors # 1 and 2 looked so different on my wall when the paint chips were so close.  So I got another 1/2 pint of Color #2 and a 1/2 pint sample of a third color that was more taupe and not really yellow at all, just to see what it looked like next to the green in my kitchen.  Apparently whoever mixed my first sample of Color #2 did it wrong.  When I got home I opened them both up and the paint in the containers looked so different!  I painted the two new samples on the wall and was able to decide on Color #2, Winter Wheat by Olympic.

Tuesday night Leland painted the kitchen all by himself, I was wrestling our little one and getting him fed and ready for bed.  And there's not a ton of room in the kitchen, it would've been crowded with us both painting in there together.

And last night (Thursday), my dad came over to help us start in on the living room.  The three of us worked for about an hour and a half and got most of the living room done.  I love this new paint color!  It's much better than that ugly light pink the previous owners had throughout almost the entire house.

He's a climber...

Look at him balancing his feet on the bar across the bottom of the high chair. Crazy kid!

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The Great Wood Flooring Project - Part 2

The project picked up on Thursday night where it had left off.  On Wednesday night, Leland and David (his dad) were able to get about half the living room done (like 8 feet of flooring).  Thursday night started with me running to get pizza and beverages for the worker bees that were coming over.  We had Trent, Mikey, Bryan, Tara (Bryan's girlfriend), Ryan (Bryan's friend), and Tyler with Little David and Jeremy.  We had lots of fun chatting and eating pizza from Hungry Howie's.  I was busy doing a little cleaning (because my house is always messy) and taking care of Carter and the other kids so I didn't get any pictures until they were almost finished for the night.


Leland and Tyler started clearing the carpet, padding, and tack strips in the hallway.

 

Here's some of the progress in the living room.

 

Ryan, Bryan, and Tara relaxing.

 

Just about to reach tonight's goal: Flooring into the mouth of the hallway. Yay!

 

Some more carpet removal.

 

Taken this morning, the finished living room.

 

The Great Wood Flooring Project - Part 1

One of the major projects we've been wanting to do in our new house is the flooring.  The carpet, which we believe is original to our ten year old home, is super gross and pulling away from the walls in some places.  We had it professionally cleaned right before we moved in because we were bringing home a new baby and the previous owners had owned two large dogs.  Six months later the stains were showing again and it looked worse than before.

Well we finally have the money to put in new laminate wood (thanks to Leland's employer deciding to cancel everyone's 401k).  We'd already decided on a stain color at Ikea so Leland went today and picked it up.  We had planned on getting the floors prepped over the next couple of days and starting in over the weekend, but my husband, ever the motivated (more like impatient) man decided he wanted to get started tonight.  And my father-in-law (the great man that he is) decided he'd come help Leland out.

So I whipped out my camera and began the arduous task (not really, but I have to be involved somehow) of documenting The Great Wood Flooring Project.

Leland and David begin the tile removal.  Not a fun job.

One of the tiles had been sealed in with Liquid Nail, which made the removal a little bit trickier.

The rest of the the living room before carpet removal.

Finishing up the tile removal, it only took them about 30 minutes to get it all out.

The TV area before.  The TV is covered because bits of tile were flying EVERYWHERE!

The men had to make a quick run the Home Depot for a few more supplies so I captured their progress.

Taken from the back door, you can see where they've removed some of the baseboards and pulled up a little carpet.

Carter was allowed back in after the tile stopped flying.  Then he was locked safely in his high chair.

And one more baby photo for good measure.

Laying the first line of wood.  YAY!

Here's some of tonight's progress but I'm sure they'll get even more done before they call it quits for the night.

What a great start to this project!  I can't wait to see it all done.  Yay for new floors!

That is so AJ!

I don't really have anything to add.  This picture says it all!

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Song of the Week - Huey Lewis

So I really like this song...blame it on my parents I guess, 'cause I love cheesey 80s music.  I had to post this song though, because I've heard it on my drive home everyday for a week and then twice today within a half hour.  It was like the universe was telling me I had to share the song with you.  So enjoy my cheesey 80s guilty pleasure.

General Conference Thoughts...

For those of you who don't know, I work for a local fire district (like a fire department, but not part of a city municipality) and every year in early October we put on a LARGE event (seriously large, note my use of all capital letters) at the Bashas' grocery store to promote the annual Fire Prevention Week message.

Here's the rub...General Conference is almost always on the same weekend as this event.  AND Leland's family almost always goes up to Pinetop for the weekend to enjoy family time and listen to conference on the radio (no tv signal at the cabin).  So for the past 3 years, I've missed the family trip to the cabin in order to work at this event (well, last year the family didn't go to the cabin for conference because everyone was busy moving our entire apartment into a 10x10 storage shed and moving us into David and Lawanna's house in preparation for the purchase of our house and us having the baby...my goodness, this is a really long sidebar)

Anyway, the point is, I've always told myself that I could read the General Conference issue of the Ensign (I attempted that last year and ended up getting sidetracked and not finishing it) or that I'd listen/watch it online but I never do.  Besides that, we have a son now and I don't want to miss out on family trips and memories because of a stupid work thing that doesn't matter in the long run (I mean, really, what's more important here?)

So this year, I told work I wasn't working the event and I went up to Pinetop with my family.  It was kind of strange, I found myself missing it (I thrive on the event planning and organization it takes to put on something like this) but that feeling started fading and I was able to enjoy my weekend with my son, my husband, and my in-laws.  Did I get to listen to all of conference?  Sadly, no.  We had a few technical difficulties (speakers not plugged in and another station playing Elvis over the top of conference) and also it's not incredibly easy to keep a 9 month old happy for that long and actually be able to listen to the whole thing.  But the feelings I had while listening to the portions I did hear were wonderful and have inspired me to listen to the whole of conference online while I'm at work (I have my own office and listen to music and audiobooks quite often, so why not conference?)

As I listen to all the sessions of General Conference I think I'll post some feelings about the talks and speakers who make the biggest impressions on me.  So watch for those coming soon.

So here's my question for the comments: My cousin, Melissa, posted about General Conference traditions on her blog and it got me wondering.  What do you do to prepare yourself and/or your children to hear the words of our prophet and other general authorities?

No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed!

I took this video yesterday morning when I discovered my little dude jumping in bed.  It's nothing too exciting, but it's so stinking cute that it just has to be shared.  Man, I love that little guy so much!

Another Pinetop Weekend

If you read my mother-in-law's blog, Daniel Doings, you'll have already ready her latest blog post about our this past weekend in Pinetop with the David and Lawanna Daniel Family. Check it out if you haven't yet, she posted some great photos (some really cute ones of my little dude, but I digress).



Anywho...We had a wonderful time relaxing on Sunday after all that hard work the men put in over in Snowflake at the other grandparents' house. After a lazy morning in jammies, a few of us played a great game of Phase 10 (Ashley won even though her boyfriend, Nick, is a cheater-cheater-pumpkin-eater...just kidding, Nick, we love you!) And then a short round of Uno while we at chili beans and cornbread. After a last minute walk through the gorgeous meadow it was time to come home. Here are some photos of the beautiful meadow lots across from the cabin and a few of us goofing off, as well.







Eating a drumstick with daddy



Om-nom-nom!

 

Playing with Uncle Tyler



Chillin' in the meadow



Practicing our "angry eyes" with Trent



Madissen off on an exploration

Nap Time - Leland and Tyler