Things to be grateful for

I'm not gonna lie, these last few weeks have been a bit blah for me - maybe I'm having some slight seasonal depression or just in a rut, I don't know. Whatever it is, I've just been a bit down. Usually this is my favorite time of the year, but with the stresses of work combined with the fact that we have absolutely no money, it has been kind of hard to enjoy the holidays - they are just becoming more of a stress than anything. Added on to this blahness (if you will), I have gotten caught in the terrible trap of comparing my life to others. Not that my life is really that bad right now, but of course it could always be better - we could have more money, I could be at home being a mom and making more babies, Dave could be done with school, we could have a bigger house to have more babies in, my reproductive system could work properly and allow us to have more babies, etc, etc.

I usually try not to get caught in this comparison trap, because, honestly, I realize that my life is really not that bad and we have some incredible blessings that many people don't have. Let's face it though, I am very human, and once in awhile, I get down about things.

And then of course, just as I am down, I am reminded of how truly lucky I am. While at work the other day, I learned of a patient that Dr. Vincent had read an EEG for. A 22 year-old woman with a 2-year-old, 6-month-old, and expecting her third went to the hospital with a headache. After an evaluation, she was sent home with some pain medications. The next day, her husband came home to find her lying lifeless in their hallway. After calling 911, he began CPR to try and revive her. The ambulance soon arrived and rushed her to their small-town hospital and then transferred her to UVRMC. After arrival at the hospital, it was determined that she had a pulmonary embolism. She remained in a comatose state and had an EEG done to determine her brain activity. Dr. Vincent was the physician reading her EEG and had to report the hospital that, unfortunately, this young wife and mother had no brain activity.

As I heard this story my heart just ached for this woman's husband and for her children. My heart also aches for her, as she will not have the opportunity to raise her children in this life. I could not imagine the pain of leaving this life before I had the chance to raise my sweet daughter and watch her grow.

Hearing that story helped bring me back to reality a bit - to the reality that I am an incredibly lucky woman. I have an amazing husband who loves me more than I could ever ask for and a beautiful daughter that brings me more joy than I ever imagined possible. And I realize that life could change in a brief moment like it did for that young family. But for now, my life is good, and for that, I am grateful.

Fall 2010 Catch Up

It's been awhile since I've posted and a lot of things have gone on, so I figure I better start catching up before I get too behind. Although I pretty much post all of my picture on Facebook, I also want to catch up on my blog mostly for journaling purposes.

I cannot believe that November is over and we are soon approaching Christmas. Autumn is probably my favorite time of the year and I always feel like it goes way too fast. I wish I could hit rewind to add in a few more activities and spend more time enjoying nature and the beautiful leaves. I guess I will just have to look forward to next year and hopefully find time to fit a few more things in the schedule.

Of course Autumn means football season, pumpkin picking, trick-or-treating, and feasting on delicious food - all of which we enjoyed this season.

We took Belle to her first football game together, and then I braved yet another one with her after that with my dad, Britt, and Morgan. Just like anything and everything else, going to a football game with a 15/16 month old is a much different and more exhausting experience than it used to be for me.





Of course another fun autumn activity that we try to participate in is visiting my mission president's farm in Santaquin, Utah and picking our pumpkins for Halloween. We made it a family affair again this year and went with my parents, Brittany, the Cook clan, and Jeff and Aimee. It's always a good time every year we go.


And of course we had such a fun Halloween with dressing Belle up and allowing her to go Trick-or-Treating for the first time. Rather than trick-or-treating around the neighborhood, we decided just to do the ward trunk-or-treat to keep things simple. She loved eating the candy! We decided to dress her up as TinkerBELLE, and she certainly made a cute Tinkerbelle. It turned out to be a nice coincidence that her cousin Courtney was also Tinkerbelle for Halloween. She was soooo cute and she loved dressing up in her costume. I didn't think she'd really care because she is still pretty young, but she is definitely becoming a little girl very fast and loves all things girl - babies, dressing up, wearing shoes, wearing jewelry. It is so fun to watch her grow up and enjoy being a little girl.


And of course, to end our Autumn season, we enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving - two in fact. On Thanksgiving day, we went to my parents house for a movie and dinner. We saw Mega Mind, which was pretty good from what I saw. It was Belle's first movie since she was a baby. And we'll just say that she is not quite ready for movies. She loved the big screen at first and for about 5 minutes sat on the theater stairs just watching and pointing at the screen. She soon got over the excitement and went right back to doing what she does best - running around like a crazy girl. She is such a busy body and cannot sit still for two seconds. So needless to say, it was an adventurous couple of hours at the theater. After the movie, we headed to my parents for dinner and enjoyed some scrumptious food. Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures of the event. :( I need to get better about picture taking.



Then on Saturday, we headed up to Malad, Idaho to have our second Thanksgiving dinner with some of Dave's family. It was fun to have a 2nd dinner and to be able to spend time with both families for the holiday. Belle absolutely loved being at Storm's house and playing with all of their toys. She was entertained all day, and it was probably one of the easiest days I've had with her since she was totally fine ignoring me and just playing.


The only thing that I really wish we would have taken more time to do this autumn is to enjoy nature and the beautiful leaves. I'm hoping we will do better next year and spend a little more time outdoors.


I hope everyone else has had an enjoyable autumn season. It has been for us, and we're looking forward to the winter for more fun.

Oh memories

I was just looking through all the videos on my computer, and I honestly didn't even remember a lot of them. So for a jog down memory lane ... if anyone else is interested.

Note to self: If having a day when you want to kill your dog, just pull up some puppy pictures or videos, and you will fall back in love (slightly).




Porter was the CUTEST puppy ever. I sure do miss him as a puppy.


And of course, some cute videos of our little Belle. Sometimes I forget how small she once was.






...Don't judge me for the large amount of items in the crib with Belle. I know, I know, they are all SIDS risk factors, but when we first moved Belle into her crib, she wouldn't sleep well, because she was so used to her snug little bassinet, so we had to add filling in her crib, until she got a little more used to it. Once she was used to it, we removed all blankets, stuffed animals, etc. ... but that is not the point of this blog. Just enjoy the cute video. :)



And some more. Sorry, for all the videos, but she is so DARN cute, I couldn't leave them out. :)




... and yes, it drives me NUTS that her face is covered by that stupid sun most of the time, but this video was taken by Dave, and I don't think he quite understands the importance of facial expressions in pictures and videos (no offense babe).

Almost Done.




The last one for now.

Goodbye my love

With a great deal of sadness, I must report that it has come time to say good-bye to the one thing that I can always depend on to make me feel better, the thing that keeps me moving through the day, the staple in my diet - my diet coke.

As many of you know, a part of my every-day living is dealing with pelvic pain - some days, I hardly notice it, others it is hard to ignore. Of course, as (also) many of you know, I have endometriosis, which can explain the pain. However, I have certain symptoms that it hasn't been able to explain. And I also tend to have chronic urinary tract infections that have gone unexplained. And of course, there is the issue of my early and constant contractions while I was pregnant, that were attributed to a chronic urinary tract infection and bladder spasms.

Well, today, as I was, again, dealing with this annoying pain that I am beginning to grow sick of, I began talking to the PA at my office and explaining my symptoms. She was already aware of my UTIs as she has been the one to write my prescriptions for the last couple. And so of course, within just minutes of talking to her about it, she suggested that I might have a condition called interstitial cystitis. Why have NONE of my other doctors even brought this up? I do not know. But she brought up a list of symptoms for this condition and as I read through the list, I could check off each one.

The downside to this story that has taken me way too long to tell - I cannot have ANY carbonation. Of course, with just my luck - carbonation only worsens the inflammation in the bladder and makes the symptoms worse. So after some lecturing from the PA and the doctor, I have had to come to accept the fact that I must say adieu to this dear friend of mine.

Craft Day!!!

Kathryn and I decided to have a last minute craft day because we have both been wanting to make wreaths for our doors. We decided to each do an autumn wreath and a Halloween wreath. As we were finishing up with our wreaths, Mom decided she wanted to join in the fun and do some too, so we made a mad dash to the store and grabbed some supplies for her as well and whipped hers out quickly. We also made one for Camille since she wasn't able to join in on the fun. They all turned out super cute and we had fun. We had a fun day!


Our Halloween wreaths! Kathryn's, Mom's, and mine. Mom's turned out way fuller and cuter since Kathryn and I tried to cut on costs for ours and split the feather boa used for the wreath.


Mom's cute wreath hanging on her door.


My autumn wreath.


All the autumn wreaths. Mom's, mine, Camille's, and Kathryn's.

Babysitter poll

Dave and I hired a regular babysitter (a college student) back in March and she just comes when Dave goes to class until either he or I get home - so it averages to be about 3 days per week and anywhere from 2-3 hours per day. I've really struggled to know how much to pay her, because she comes regularly like a nanny would, but doesn't take on any duties of a nanny. She is just here to watch Isabelle - no house duties, no driving, no bathing, etc.

How much would you pay a regular babysitter who comes to your home?

Belle is One!

My last post was supposed to be about my sweet girl who turned one, and then obviously turned out to be something other than that. So I am going to make up for it and do a real post about my cute 1-year old.

On July 18th, our little Belle turned ONE!!!! I honestly cannot believe that she was born over a year ago. Time really does fly and kids really do grow so fast - they grow too fast. For her birthday, we decided to have a small party for her. We invited family and a few friends. Almost all of my family was there, including my grandma and aunts and uncles. And our friends, Mike and Mel came with their little boy Ashton.

It was a small and simple party, but a good one. My sister, Kathryn, helped me with some decorations and frosting some cupcakes. It was a bright, fun, summery party! Belle got all sorts of great presents and even had fun opening them. Overall, it was a good day.

One of my high school friends made the cake, Kathryn and I did the cupcakes, and Kathryn whipped together the cute paper flowers in a matter of minutes! What a talented designer.


When Isabelle first got her cake, she was a bit bashful with it, and just picked a little at the time. But eventually she got the hang of it and dug right in. She loved it! It was so fun to watch her make a mess and enjoy eating her little cake.




It truly is amazing to reflect on the last year and see how much my baby has changed in grown. It is sad to know that she is no longer my tiny baby, but it is so fun to watch her grow and change and develop into the cute person that she is. She has truly brightened our lives even amidst a busy and stressful time.

She is the busiest body I have ever seen - walking everywhere, getting into every cupboard, climbing every stair, and moving as much as she possibly can. She loves to just spend time with her mommy and daddy. She loves to play and laugh for as long as we have energy to do so. She loves to play with the dogs and I think she almost talks to them more than she talks to us. She loves to spin around in circles and be thrown in the air. Again, she just loves to move! Sitting still, lying down, or being strapped in a car seat are definitely not any of her favorite past times. We are lucky to have a good little eater. I swear the girl never stops. She will eat anything we will let her. Although she is a social baby, she likes to pretend she's shy when people try to talk to her. But eventually, she'll give in and give them the smiles and babbles they are looking for.

Although totally and completely exhausting, we cannot get enough of our little Belle. We are truly blessed to have her in our lives.

We love you Miss Isabelle Jane!