So Thankful!

This year we have so much to be thankful for.  I would be ungrateful if I did not take a second to write some of our blessings down.

• my knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ and his atonement for us
• my sweet family
• having another little baby on the way
• my job
• Terence's job that he loves so much
• our home
• the fact that we were able to move so easily under our circumstances
• that everything has been resolved with our old house and we don't have to worry about it
• our health
• our families
• our parents
• the holiday season
• living in such a beautiful place
• having such wonderful friends
• living in a country where we are free
• that 2011 has been a lot smoother then 2010
• all the things we have to look forward to in the new year
• being 33 weeks pregnant today
• turning 30 today (I cannot believe I am 30!)
• Going to Aunt Pam's for dinner today
• all the work that everyone puts in to today to make it great
• Egg nog
• black Friday shopping with my best friends tonight (I must be crazy!)

The list could go on and on.  I am so very blessed.  I have literally everything I could ever want and then some.  I am thankful that we have a day dedicated to being thankful.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

The Love of a Parent

The middle of the night last night I was wide awake in bed and could not sleep.  I was  tossing and turning being frustrated with myself for not being better.  Not being a better mom, better wife, better friend, better member of the church.  For not always doing the things I should.  I was laying there thinking how frustrated with me our Father in Heaven must be.  I have often thought over the last couple of months that he must be close to giving up on me.  How many times can you let someone down before they just say forget it.  Then something happened that gave me somewhat of an epiphany.  Corey (who comes into our room EVERY NIGHT) came into our room.  As I do every time he comes into our room I got up and took him back to his bed.  Anyone who reads this blog or knows me knows that it is very frustrating to me that he does this as it disrupts every one's sleep.  But as I was sitting there rubbing his back trying to get him to fall back to sleep and thinking about things I realized that there is NOTHING that Corey could do that would ever make me give up on him.  That is the love of a parent.  He may frustrate me at times, make me mad, disappoint me but no matter what; I love him, I would give anything for him or any of my children.  That's when I realized our Heavenly Father feels the same way.  I may let him down, I am sure there are things I do that frustrate him or disappoint him but I know that he will never give up on me.  What an amazing thing!  Later as I was lying in bed trying to fall back asleep I was reading President Uchtdorf's talk from the Saturday morning session of general conference and this paragraph really stuck out to me.

"Brothers and sisters, the most powerful Being in the universe is the Father of your spirit. He knows you. He loves you with a perfect love.

God sees you not only as a mortal being on a small planet who lives for a brief season—He sees you as His child. He sees you as the being you are capable and designed to become. He wants you to know that you matter to Him."

I am very grateful for this powerful message that came to me at a time when I really needed it.  It gave me a lot of peace and a better understanding of how our Father in Heaven sees us.

Baby at 32 weeks

When I first found out I was pregnant I had grand plans to blog weekly about what was going on with me and this pregnancy so I would have a record of it when all was said and done.  I have not been good about it.  Again there is some kind of mental block where it's just hard for me to think or talk about.  I am so excited to have another baby and am thrilled that Tyson is on his way but with my miscarriages last year I think I just have my guard up more.  I had my 32 week check up today and everything looks great!  I think total for my entire pregnancy I have only gained 13 pounds (you probably could not tell by looking at me) I am measuring right on where I should be, my blood pressure was good and Tyson's heart beat was 125.  My doctor said anything between 110 and 170 is good with him.  I go back in 2 weeks from today for an ultrasound and am really excited for that!  I am torn between not wanting this pregnancy to be over and dying for it to be over. 

Since it's our last I'm a little sad but at the same time pregnancy is HARD WORK!  My hips fall asleep at night, I can't sleep on my stomach or back, your hungry and tired all the time.  This week my feet have started falling asleep anytime I am sitting down because my blood flow is not so great.  But as I type this Tyson is kicking me and rolling around and for anyone who has been pregnant you know that is one of the coolest feelings ever. 

I know he will be here before we know it so I guess I should just slow down, stop wishing time away and enjoy the last couple of weeks of this pregnancy.

Dog Sitting

Our good friends are in California this week spending their time at all the major theme parks in the area.  While they are gone we are watching their two dogs.  It has been interesting having 4 dogs in the house instead of two but for the most part they are VERY well behaved dogs and it has not been disruptive at all.  Terence absolutely LOVES having a big dog that follows him around and generally just wants to be with him.  Our dogs are not so much like that unless you have food or are petting them they are content to just sleep on the couch.  We have figured out from this experience that our next dog (for sure) will be a lab.

the dogs tend to prefer Terence

this is Hatchet

Surprise Date Night

After I got home from shopping with Terence's Mom Terence asked me if I would like to go on a date that night.  A little confused I told him yes I would love to, why?  Apparently he and two of my best friends has been scheming to take me out on a triple date for my birthday.  They did it early so I would not be expecting it and they were successful, I was very surprised (that is until T spilled the beans).  We ended up heading down to Seattle to the Comedy Underground for a show.  One of my friends husbands in a police officer and that is his beat so he got us some VIP treatment while we were there.  The comics were pretty funny and relatively clean so it turned out to be really fun.  The show got out kind of late and we were all pretty hungry so we headed out to find someplace to eat.  Every place we went was closed so we decided to head over to Burger Master in Bellevue.  One of my favorite parts of the whole night was the six of us piled into the back of my friends van (she had taken the seats out earlier that day) eating our burgers in the freezing cold.  It was really fun and memorable.  I am blessed to have some really great friends.  I definitely felt loved :).

Shopping!

A couple weeks ago my awesome Mother in Law took me shopping for some new clothes for our new baby.  We met up at her house and drove out to North Bend to hit all the outlet stores.  It was an absolutely beautiful fall day and we had such a nice time walking around the mall.  We went a little crazy in Carters but ended up getting some really cute outfits for Tyson.  For some reason I cannot buy anything for this little boy.  I have this crazy mental block where it's impossible for me to pull the trigger.  I am thankful that T's Mom was so sweet to take me shopping and that Tyson will not be naked.  We also got a couple of cute things for my older boys and a pair of jeans for Terence.  I love spending time with my Terence's Mom!  We have already made plans to go Christmas shopping together.

Epic Fail!

I went back to look at my New Years resolutions from this year only to realize that the entire list can be stamped with a giant EPIC FAIL!  Here is the run down.

• Lose weight! I make this resolution every year and I have been pretty good about it the last couple of years. This year I gained a bunch. I chalking it up to being stressed and too busy to work out. I am resolving to make time for myself to do it this year.
• This is the only one that I really have an excuse for, being pregnant makes it pretty hard to lose weight.  Next year for sure! 
• Find a hobby for myself
• I have not found a hobby yet.  I want one!  I am hoping that I can find a hobby that Terence and I can do together starting next year.  Some kind of athletic hobby or something.
• Spend more quality time with my boys- a lot of the time when we get home from work we are tired and just want to sit down and watch some TV or something. I am realizing that my boys are growing up so fast and I don't want to miss it. I am resolving to spend a lot less time watching TV and a lot more time playing cars, or trains, or whatever it takes with my boys.
• I don't feel like I did any better with this one this year.  Now they are a year older and another year gone. That makes me sad.  I'm hoping that being home with them and a new baby will give me some more quality time.
• Continue writing my blog- I have loved the experience of keeping a (almost) daily journal. I have been going back over the last couple of weeks and reading previous blogs and I love it. There are so many little details that I don't remember that I have written down. My goal is another 365 blogs for 2011.
• as you can see from my left hand menu I have not done anywhere near that number this year.  I regret it!  I know there are things that I have missed because I did not write them down. 
• Drink more water- I drink way too much diet coke (wait is there such a thing?)
• I have consumed less diet coke this year but not more water.  The diet coke has been replaced by my current guilty pleasure, Diet Dr. Pepper.
• Get 8 hours of sleep a night/get Corey sleeping in his own bed all night every night.
• Fail and fail!  Corey still sleeps in our bed almost every night and I am not going to bed early enough.  Which makes getting up in the morning equally as difficult.
• Try playing the violin again- maybe that could be my hobby I do for myself.
• I think my violin might still be at my Opa's house.  I still want to do this but I have not done it this year.

Maybe I will do better next year.  Or maybe I will just be less ambitious!

Connor's Birthday Party!

My little boy is 5!  I cannot believe how fast five years has gone.  For his birthday this year we did a construction themed party.  I had intended on having a nice small get together with a couple of close friends and family.  With my family that kind of is impossible.  We ended up have 36 people in our tiny house.  Everyone was pretty good natured about it though and Connor had a blast!  Thank you everyone for coming out and sharing the day with us.

we did a "build" you own sandwich bar

some of the food, including "muddy buddies" and "road cones" aka candy corn

"cups of dirt and worms"

some of the decorations

Connor opening his presents

Connor and Tyler

Connor's awesome cake that my friend Felicia made

Pumpkin Patch 2011

Last Saturday we went to the pumpkin patch with Terence's Mom and Dad for Connor's birthday.  We love going every year and had become a tradition that I look forward to.  This year since we went so close to Halloween it actually was not very busy which was nice.  It was, however, super muddy!  We decided not to do the corn maze and instead opted for the tractor ride which I think ended up being a good choice.  Corey LOVED it, Connor was afraid the tractor would get stuck in the mud.  It's amazing to me how much like Terence he is, both of them are so cautious and careful with things.  After the tractor ride we went and picked out pumpkins.  We made a deal with the boys that they could have any pumpkin they could carry.  I was surprised how big their pumpkins turned out to be.  After the pumpkin patch we went to lunch at Red Robin.  It was a fun way to spend the day.

Near Death Experience

So now looking back on it I guess I am making it sound a little more dramatic then it actually was but it was pretty scary!  As we were driving to Pullman a few weekends back we were going over the pass, it was raining super hard, dark and there was construction so the road was all funky.  We were in the right lane coming up on a semi on our left.  Terence being the careful driver that he is waited until we were on a straight area of the road before passing the truck.  As we were coming right up in it's blind spot a HUGE gush of water hit our windshield.  We both thought it would pass in a second but it just kept coming.  We had a couple of options, speed up, slow down or keep going at the same speed and hope the water stopped.  Terence decided to hit the gas and trust that the road in front of us was still straight since we literally could not see anything.  After what was a pretty scary 4 or 5 seconds that felt like minutes we were through the water and on our way unscathed.  I'm grateful that we were being looked out for that morning and that we were kept safe.  I'm also thankful that Terence was driving because his instincts were exactly right.