Gratitude and Motherhood

Someone asked me the other day what my happiest time growing up was. I told them it was probably my junior year in high school when I was 16-17 years old. I was first chair flute in band, I got the lead in the school musical, I made All-State and All-Northwest choir, I had a really fun group of friends and I was dating my first love. I remember thinking at the time, “I am so blessed. I couldn’t be happier than I am now.”

While I do think that was a happy time, now that I’m pushing 30 and am very happily married with two adorable sons I can say that I am more blessed and much happier now than I could have foreseen.

I have felt in my heart for some time now that we should have another baby. However, the rest of my body does not agree with my heart. I’m having all sorts of issues that are making it more difficult to get pregnant this time around. I’ve always wanted a large family and I start to panic when I realize that I’m getting “old” and that if I want a lot of kids I need them NOW. I find myself feeling jealous when people have “surprise” pregnancies or especially if people are disappointed upon finding out they are pregnant. But then I realize that I already AM a mother! I already have been given the greatest gift I could imagine. I know many people who have not, and may never have, this wonderful opportunity. How can I be sad that I don’t have what I already DO have?

The nights can be long and the mornings always come much earlier than I’d like. I sometimes long for a day off that I will never get. But then if I do manage to get out for awhile without the boys I feel like I’m missing some limbs and I can’t wait to see them again. This job has little prestige or thanks but yet I know that my little ones need me more than they need anyone else and the love for me I see in their eyes is all the thanks I need.

We spent Thanksgiving here with all of Matt’s family. It was so fun for everyone to be together and I spent the weekend thinking of all the things I was thankful for. It’s sometimes tough in a large group of people when the kids are unhappy or when you want to just play games and enjoy your time but yet you can’t because you have to attend to their needs first. And even though it’s a bummer sometimes, you find that it makes you just as happy to take care of them. And if you ARE able to do those things it is because of the great sacrifices that other people make so that you can (especially Grandma watching the kids)! My wonderful mother-in-law once said that it is the job of a mother to be inconvenienced and it’s true! But to be inconvenienced by such cute little things is a great blessing.

I have tried to be more thankful. To feel truly grateful for all of the blessings that I have. I have more than I could ever count but motherhood is definitely one of my very greatest blessings and I think I can say that this is the happiest time of my life so far!

The Latest

Finally a quick little update!

• Playing outside
  Matt has been pretty busy this semester but the boys and I took advantage of the nice fall weather while it was here!
                                    

• Corn maze
  We went to a little farm in Colorado about a month ago. The maze was kind of lame because it was the very last day and it had been trampled and stuff but the boys really had fun jumping on hay and seeing the animals.
  

• Halloween
  Brennen had a parade at preschool then we went trick or treating at the children’s clinic and to the trunk or treat at the church. And of course spent some time at Grandma’s where Brennen liked giving candy to trick or treaters. It was a COLD day but my little super heroes just loved collecting candy.
  

• Trains
  I took the boys down to the train depot a couple weeks ago to see model trains and a Lego city. They LOVED it and would’ve stayed all day. We also took a quick tour of the snow train.
  
• Everything else
  Matt is really busy doing projects and writing lesson plans but after this week things are basically done for the semester. He would much rather take tests than do projects so he’s
  ready to be done!
  
  I’m staying very busy taking Brennen to and from preschool, maintaining the house, and teaching piano. I’m also training for a 10K. I don’t have an actual race planned, I’m just pretending I do. Ha!
  
  Brennen loves preschool! I was reading my last post and he is not ill-behaved at all! He is doing great other than the fact that he has to sit away from other kids on the carpet square because he doesn’t do well with personal space… but he’s very polite and his teachers say he’s ahead of almost all the other kids, despite the fact that he’s one of the youngest.
  
  Dean is talking a ton. He can say any word that we say and he understands everything I swear. He cleans up after himself and helps out. He loves doing the same things that Brennen does. He absolutely loves reading stories. I could read to him all day long and he probably wouldn’t get bored.

I have most of my Christmas shopping done which is nice! I’m really excited for Thanksgiving, though. We get to see all of Matt’s family and I just love that time of year.

No Time!

I only have two kids and they are ages 3 and 18 months but I’m still a busy woman!

I drop Brennen off at preschool and then pick him up again 2 1/2 hours later so while he’s gone I try to spend one on one time with Dean and clean up the house. It takes me 10 minutes to drive one way so that’s 40 minutes of driving time in the morning.

Dean naps from 12-2:30ish so we’re kinda stuck in the house and I try to spend time with Brennen.

Soon after Dean wakes up it’s time to go to Matt’s parents house where I spend my afternoons teaching piano lessons.

It’s hard enough for me to find time to keep the house clean and run errands and make meals and spend quality time with my kids, let alone blog.

Dean just turned 18 months and went to the doctor for his check up. He looks great and did really well getting fluoride and one shot. Here are his stats.

Height: 32 1/2 inches (50%)
Weight: 25 lbs. 6 oz. (just under 50%)
Head: 49.8 cm (90%)

He’s starting to talk a lot, too. I’ve been trying to keep a list of what he says and it’s getting long! The most useful thing is that he tells me when he needs a diaper change. “Ginky! Me ginky!” He uses “G” for a lot of things like “gink” for drink and “Gink-on” for the dog Lincoln. He is great at saying please and thank you. And he eats with a fork and spoon almost better than Brennen does! He just kinda learned on his own.

Brennen seems to enjoy preschool but I have a suspicion that he might be a little bit ill behaved there… I get so discouraged and down sometimes because I try so hard to teach him to obey and do good things and sometimes I just don’t know what to do! He does such a great job most of the time but then there are other times…

We went to Lander last weekend for our niece’s baby blessing. It was really fun. My boys loved swimming at the hot springs in Thermopolis and they had fun roaming the hotel. (they did not sleep well at the hotel, though!) We had a good day on Sunday, too. We went to Sinks Canyon before church and then attended a beautiful baby blessing. It was nice to spend some time with family.

Here are some more faces of Brennen.

                                            

The boys roaming the hotel
      

                                            

Baby Jaycie in her blessing dress.

Miscellaneous Entertainment

Laramie

I’ve lived in Laramie for 8 years now. I came here after two unproductive years at Utah State and told myself, “Four years and gone!” Well… :) I love it here. I had amazing roommates when I  was single and then met an amazing man to marry. My testimony grew so much after I came here and I really feel like I became a different person and changed for the better. All of the very best things in my life have happened here, I got my degree, met Matt and gave birth to my two sons. My wonderful in-laws live here and we’re SO thankful to have their help and support. There are really too many reasons to list so I’ll stop. I think I would live here forever if that’s what was best for our family.

Brennen is going to preschool!

I dropped him off about an hour ago. I cried a little last night because I was afraid I had made the wrong choice starting him at a 5 day a week program when he’s so young but when we went this morning my fears melted away. He has two great teachers and is in a program for just 3 year olds so all the kids are as little as he is and it made me feel better. Dean and I will sure have fun. That little boy has gotten very little one on one attention.

Dean says some words

I try and try to get him to say stuff but he usually does it when I don’t push for it. :) Last night I was singing twinkle twinkle little star and pausing at the ends of the phrases and he would finish them! He’s so much smarter than I give him credit for. When the boys and I play candy land (well, mostly me playing for all three of us) I show Dean the card and tell him what color it is and he repeats it. He’s started to be able to identify the colors on his own. He says lots of other random words at random times.

The worldliness of the world

So everyone is talking about the VMA’s. I didn’t watch them and I don’t care to ever watch any videos. If I get caught up in how promiscuous the world is and how skanky so many young women are then I feel depressed. I just have to be confident knowing that I am a virtuous woman and that I am teaching my sons (even though they’re very young) to always treat women with respect and to avoid those nasty things that are in the world. Even though society thinks it’s ok to behave certain ways, my family will never think it is ok.

Scriptures

I’ve never been good about reading every day but I’ve finally made it a habit and I absolutely love the Book of Mormon. I know deep within my heart that it is true. It helps my day go better when I read it and I learn something new every single day. I have a deeper testimony of the Savior because of reading that book and other books of scripture, and also the book Jesus the Christ.

Piano practice

Matt gave me two difficult piano books for Christmas almost two years ago and I am finally on the last two pieces of the first book! There are 36 in the book so really it’s not so bad for it to take so long when I have two kids and teach piano. It was my goal to finish that book by the end of the year and it looks like I will!

That’s all

I know I wanted to post more things but my mind is a blank right now…

 

Summer!

I haven’t posted for awhile so I’ll just put up some fun pictures of our summer.

The boys love playing outside and “helping” Dad in the garden. We have a little colony of rabbits living under our shed. The babies are pretty cute but…. they ate all our carrots.

Outside!

At the end of June I went to see my family without Matt because he had a busy weekend and the boys wanted to see their grandparents. So we went there and went to the zoo in Salt Lake. It was VERY hot but fun!

Then just a couple weeks ago we went again for a whole week while Matt was taking coaching classes in Casper. The boys were GRUMPY (and sickish) and didn’t sleep very well at all. But they still had a good time and it was nice to spend time with my family. They especially loved the parade and Dean was a pro at collecting candy.

And this past weekend we went up to Medicine Lodge for a family reunion (Matt’s mom’s family). It as so nice and relaxing. I’ve had some trouble lately feeling the spirit and getting stressed out too easily and then I get grumpy with Matt and the boys even when they may not deserve it. I really felt the spirit several times this weekend and I can’t even tell you how nice it was to “unplug.” My phone was off and in the car the whole time and I never even knew what time it was. It was just what I needed and it was so great to spend time with so many amazing people.