Pause

I know this is the exact same post as like 2 posts ago...but seriously....I wish I could freeze time and make Emmie stay this age for a long time. Maybe not forever, because that would be crazy, but I am thoroughly enjoying her at this age. I wish I would have enjoyed my other two as much but for some reason I was too uptight. Or maybe I just forgot how they were at this age. She's just so round, and innocent, and sweet. She has the funniest run (hopefully she'll outgrow that one or she might have to endure a bit of teasing later in life, but for now it's adorable.) She loves to give everyone a hug good night. She is usually so content and happy. And it's even cute how she typically looks homeless. I know this age will fly by. I just wish I could slow it down.

Cascade

Last weekend we were invited by Tanner and Danielle (whom we went to Arizona with a couple of years ago) to go to Tanner's parents cabin in Cascade. Not only was the cabin gorgeous...but the weekend was amazing. We were completely secluded. There were no other homes for miles. There were no plans or agendas, just a laid back weekend. There was a ton of snow, and therefore lots of sledding and snowshoeing (a first for our family). My stomach still gets a little knot in it when I think of John and Ains in show shoes halfway across a frozen lake. We played games, talked, ate good food, played outside, and slept. It was amazing. I'm secretly hoping they invite us back often.

(BTW, I can't figure out what is wrong with my picture settings lately, but notice the different looks on Owen and Ainley's faces as they sled down a hill. Priceless. Especially since we have about 20 of Ainley's face looking completely weird going down that hill.)

Family Gathering

A couple of weeks ago we headed down to Salt Lake for a family gathering. The circumstances were sad, John's Grandpa passed away (who we all loved, and I'm still convinced I was his favorite granddaughter in law), but it's always fun to see family. It was nice to see members of John's extended family that we haven't seen forever too. The funeral was very nice. It was a happy funeral. I loved the stories that were told. This is a picture of John's mom and her family.

I have some adorable pictures that I wanted to post but they are in the wrong format. So as soon as John reformats them I'll post them. Just a little heads-up...Steph and Mel, they are of you!

All in a day's work

Actually. Technically in about an hours work.

And now the good news!

Amidst all of our repairs/house falling apart, there have been some good things happening.

First of all.......

We got invited to go on a cruise! And we are super excited. John's parents called a few weeks ago and invited us to go with them on a New England cruise. This was even more exciting for us since we had wanted to go on a cruise this year to celebrate our 10 year anniversary, but the funds for that had been taken away (or rather spent on some sort of repair). And now we get to go on this cruise for free! Which is the best price ever. We start in Boston and go up to Maine and into Canada. I think we end in Quebec City. It sounds amazing. I can't wait! Although, mostly I'm excited to have a week full of meals where I only have to feed myself. That is my favorite part of vacations. Next........

We were presented with a way to afford a car payment (hopefully). This has been weighing on my mind for quite some time. We are slowly out growing our car, and John's car is slowly nearing it's end. We've known the need for a new car was coming and just couldn't come up with a way to take on a car payment. Blessings come when they're least expected. Now we just have to get all our ducks in a row and can really start car shopping. Ahhh, relief.

And finally (just for the heck of it)......

I think Emmie is at one of my favorite stages. She's just so darn cute and fun. Her jibberish has got to be one of the cutest things, and I get to hear her every day. I think I love it most because she's at the point where she thinks she's talking and her sounds are so funny. Her favorite sound is "ow" and it's thrown in her speech often. She always responds when you ask her a question. Usually the answer is "now" (because it ends in ow). She says no a lot but doesn't know what it means. She also says dad, hi, ni ni (night night), and num num (which ironically enough means food).

She follows directions pretty well, for a 1 year old. I love when we tell her to go get something and she rushes off in excitement. She also has her own special way of organizing. She is always sure to put all the plastic bowls on the kitchen chairs (because that's where they go). She hides our shoes in special places. John and Owen were both missing a single shoe for weeks. She's definitely helpful.

And what's greatest about her is she's as spunky and happy as ever!

Update...........

We are still in the middle of repairs.

I'd post pictures but everything looks about the same as before.

There is now a new batch of sickies. This time its me, Ains, and poor Emmie gets to have all illness this year. We all have some weird flu/cold. I'm not sure what it is. But it knocked me out for 4 full days. I'm on day 5 and still wiped out...just not confined to bed today. Ains is still in the middle of it. Hopefully she'll recover more quickly than I have.

We are now waiting on paint, new floors, and texture on our walls.

Our closet is done. So we have that back.

And now instead of washer repairmen, we're dealing with garage door repairmen.

I'm going to keep a tally of how many things break this year. Because if we keep up this pace we'll set some sort of record for sure!

And that's all I have to say about that.

I'm going to take a nap.

On being grateful.

Last week I had several days where I was in a "poor me, my life is so terrible" mood. For good reason, I thought.

And so the LONG story begins....

(FYI, while the story starts out very negative I felt that I had to take you, the reader, on my journey to completely make my point at the end. So bear with my "Negative Nelly" portion of the story.)

Last Thursday at 10:30 in the evening I went in to tuck in the kids before we headed to bed. When I grabbed Emmie's blanket it was wet. I turned on the light and there was puke everywhere. I mean everywhere. I don't know how many times she threw up, but she never cried. I felt terrible that she had been sleeping in her own vomit. She was shaking and cold. John and I both got to work. It was probably about an hour before she and her bed were finally clean and settled. But she was still sick and throwing up. So Emmie and I slept on the couch that night with a bowl and a rag close at hand. She had a long night. The next day, she was done with the throw up part of her illness and moved on to terrible diarrhea. She was sad and miserable. She just wanted held all day. (Which is the only kind of nice part of sick kids.)

Then on Friday, the real fun began. I was doing laundry, and lots of it, when suddenly there was water all over the laundry room floor. I pulled out the washer and dryer to clean it up and try to find the leak. When I noticed something odd. The wall behind the washer was bowed out. After some phone calls and some stress a friend came over and took a look at the wall for us. He confirmed the bad news. Our wall was completely squishy and had to come out. The water had gone through to the area near the heater in the garage and into our closet. There was also mold in our closet. We were very excited about that. We pulled up carpet, started fans, and he called his friend who came over on a Friday night to inspect the situation for us. He cut out part of our wall, removed insulation, took off base boards, and started some serious fans. There was mold all over the wall and base boards.

It's gross. We will have to relay carpet (thankfully not much), replace linoleum (that we just replaced a couple years ago), replace floor boards, base boards, and some wall.

In the midst of all this we were also trying to get the washer repaired and trying to figure out how there was water so high up the wall.

After $75 worth of work on our washer we finally realized the water issue was not with the washer but with the drainage hose off the washer. It was leaking at the top and bottom. Which was discouraging since we had just replaced that hose 2 months ago. It was installed properly, just a crappy hose. Thousands of dollars of damage because of a faulty hose. It stinks.

Our house is torn apart to this day. We had fans going for days. And we're just waiting now for the guy that's going to be doing the repairs to finish another job.

In the midst of this John got Emmie's illness. He was out for the count. I spent time running around town using other people's washer and dryer, getting ready for Ainsley's party, and just trying to keep things up and running. To sum things up, it was possibly one of the worst weeks of my life.

And that explains why I was in a poor me mood.

My list of reasons why people should feel sorry for me got pretty long. I was mostly depressed that more money was flying out the window. I don't know why money is always an issue for us. It seemed like we were finally getting somewhere and had money allocated and accounted for. And then the money was taken away from us, like it always is.

For example.........

****We've been trying to figure out how to afford a new car. We're just not sure how much longer John's car will be with us. In an instant, all the money we had saved for that was gone.

We have also been trying to save to buy ourselves out of our house. The task of saving $70,000 feels pretty daunting. I don't know that it will ever happen. I get a little angry when people tell me that they are stuck in their house too. I don't really care if you're stuck in your house if your family fits in it. It's to the point that if someone gives me a gift or offers me something my first thought is, "Do I have room for it?" If I don't we don't want it. We're here for the long haul. We feel trapped, we are more than squished, and we hate it. What I wouldn't give to be renting right now. I'd love to be renting a house instead of trying to live frugally in an attempt to save a gazillion dollars just to have the option of moving. And yet here I am replacing walls and floors in a house I'm coming to despise.

It's like there's some lesson I need to learn, and until I learn my lesson I'll have to feel strapped financially.

And then, I received my slap in the face.

I was watching part of conference while I was home from church with Emmie. I happened to be to the talk President Monson gave on being grateful. Hello! I couldn't have listened to this at a better time. As I listened to him talk about gratitude, and the general lack thereof, I realized that I needed to get over myself and just learn to be grateful.

I may not live in a spacious 1400 square foot house, and my family might have terrible luck with water being in places in our home where it shouldn't be, and we might drive old cars that our family doesn't really fit in, and I might be so desperate for space that I could scream. But the bottom line is that all these things really aren't that important in the grand scheme of things.

My list of blessings is long. And somehow easily forgotten. I have 3 beautiful children. I live in an amazing community. I have a healthy body. My family is healthy. We have a roof over our heads, a pretty nice roof compared to what most of the world lives in. No one in my family has ever had to go hungry. We have always had our needs met. We have always been blessed with odd jobs that have helped with these unexpected expenses. We both have great families. We have amazing friends. And the list goes on and on.

I am so quick to forget my blessings as I compare myself to others and what they have. And so now, in the midst of my little chaos, I'm trying my best to have a positive attitude. I'm grateful that we caught the leak when we did. The damage could have been so much worse had the leak gone on indefinitely.

Everyone is now healthy again.

Repairs will be made.

And life will go on.

Happily.