By divine design

Jill taught Relief Society today (and brought some of the most delicious chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever eaten in my life... holy cow they were AMAZING) on the talk “by divine design.” So many people shared their experiences of things in their life that could be considered coincidences, but were actually very clearly seeing the Lord’s hand guide their lives. I didn’t share any comments because other people were so willing to share theirs and I love hearing from other people, but of the many experiences that came to my mind, one was the clear winner of my thoughts.

I kept thinking about when I was a freshman at BYU. I was rooming with a very nice girl who had very nice friends and I’d enjoyed hanging out with them those few days before school started, but I could tell that they just weren’t my type. They reminded me of my private school friends, spending a lot of money and focused on having nice things, and I knew I would never fully feel comfortable being myself around them. On the first day of class, I was walking up that path from Helaman halls to campus but wasn’t sure if I was headed in the right direction and was feeling hesitant that I would be able to find my way to class (American heritage) since it was on the opposite side of campus. I saw a girl walking confidently in front of me and felt prompted that I should ask her for directions/help. Amazingly, she was going to my exact same class and knew the way (I forget how though!) and so we walked together. Class ended up being in a giant auditorium with at least 300 people. Amazingly too, she was also in my science class that I had right after. We walked and talked and she was so nice. Most amazing of all? She was in my ward! She lived in my building on the floor above me! And she had a great group of friends. She was very down to earth which was a huge blessing to me. Each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, she would come to my dorm room and pick out my clothes (I wore a uniform in high school and had a lot of trouble adjusting to picking out what I should wear each day to class), and we would walked to American heritage together. The next year, we roomed together in Liberty square (a very fun and down to earth apartment complex... not at all the super nice and high end apartment complex the other group of friends lived in and tried to get me to live in with them). Well, that was where I met Chris, which changed my BYU experience (and entire eternity) even more. My roommates were all friends with his roommates and we had SO much fun that semester. Really, the rest is history, but it’s amazing to think back to that first morning walking the path up to campus and acting on a prompting to ask for directions. Because Sarah was put in my path and I know it was not a coincidence. I would have never in a million years guessed how that one tiny little experience could have changed my entire life so dramatically for the better.
And bonus: sarah is just a really great friend to have.

Andrew is 9 months!

andrew is 9 months old!

Abigail actually woke up and came to me this morning to get started on getting ready for school. this is a MIRACLE and happens once in a blue moon and it just was such an amazing surprise and set an awesome tone for the day.  I helped her get ready and she was able to walk to school with the neighbor kids.

Brady is really into money and having money and earning money and spending money and learning about money.  I need to compile a list of things that he can do to earn money but the tricky part is that I want it to actually be helpful to me.  not just a busy job that creates more work for me.  the only job I currently have for him to help with (besides laundry, which he does not get paid for) is unloading the dishwasher.  his job is to put away everything he can reach... the rest of the things, he has to stack and group for me to put away in the up high places.  I love this because it's such a time saver for me and mostly because I don't have to do any bending over (my back has been so annoying lately) to get stuff out of the dishwasher OR to put it away in low places.  we only run our dishwasher every couple of days and Brady is so excited when he can unload it.  he gets 25 cents for a job well done.

a little after nine, I dropped Elizabeth and Brady off for a playdate with this older lady in the ward.  she watches her granddaughter turning the week until 4pm and has started inviting the kids over for playdates so her granddaughter can have more friends.  it's a win win for everyone involved.  hopefully we can return the favor and have Lillien over sometime.

in the elevator heading up for Andrew's 9 month well check, I looked at my watch and saw that we were perfectly a few minutes early for our appointment and it made me feel so accomplished.  someday, I hope to be so punctual that being on time no longer feels like such a huge success.  until then, I'm just going to love my successes whenever I can get them!

we had a great appointment.  we met with a PA that we'd never seen before.  our doctor that we've had since moving here recently relocated to Indiana and I don't love our new doctor.  she was a little too concerned about Andrew's weight at his 6 month appointment and honestly, it got me stressed enough that I thought I would have to quit nursing. so even though the doctor was not at fault, I wasn't super intent on seeing her for this appointment... I just chose the time slot that was most convenient for me.  I liked the PA that we saw.  she was polite and friendly and asked all the important questions about how Andrew is doing and said that Andrew was growing on his own curve and looks to be just fine.  he did a great job and was so content and cooperative.

my guess is that Andrew's weight would have been closer to 13lbs 13ozs if he hadn't refused to eat before the appointment.  he ate at 4:30am but then wouldn't eat after he was awake for the day.  he actually wouldn't eat until after the appointment when we were in the room waiting for the nurse to come with his shots.  the paper doesn't get that specific, but I think I heard the doctor say that he was .03% when we were reviewing his chart.  he's just a real skinny little guy.

also, I was amazed that he got four shots and stopped crying the second I picked him up.  I think that's a record for the fastest time for any of my kids to stop crying after getting shots. and he actually cuddled with me.  it was amazing.

so then we stopped by the library to get a bunch of books on hold (Abigail is doing a little project at school on Helen Keller) and then to Safeway to get milk (but they had a limit of 2 on the sale price... who does that?!) and somehow also walked out with four packages of various kinds of Oreos (it's a bad idea to go shopping when you're hungry) and I'm super excited about all of them.  I got mint, coconut thins, golden, and regular.  I opened mint in the car and they were delightful.

we went straight to get Elizabeth and Brady who were loving life with Gayle and Lillien because they were playing play dough, had balloons, had done a variety of st. Patricks days crafts (including making a necklace of fruit loops) and also got sent home with a pack of skittles aka rainbow seeds.

we went straight to school for Brady's parent teacher conference and it went great.  the teacher actually apologized that she didn't really have anything to tell me.  "he's doing really great and it's not like we had any concerns before or anything..."  ha.  but it's really great that she said he's come a long way in the classroom, socially.  he's much more outgoing with friends and able to resolve conflict whereas before he would have just conceded and walked away.  her one suggestion is that he work on becoming more of a creative open thinker because he's so literal and so by the books.  but I already knew all of that.  ; )

we had lunch, quiet time, Abigail walked home from school, we all watched a 30 minute movie on Helen Keller, and I got ready to go to the temple with friends from relief society.  didn't make it to the gym but it was a successful and fulfilling day.

catching up a bit

sorry for the lack of blogging... Andrew has been such a crappy sleeper for the past several months (especially in Georgia where he was waking up every two (or less!) hours during the night... and every closet and drawer in my house is in complete disarray and my kids are just really time consuming and I've let myself take some time off from blogging.  as much as I absolutely love writing and posting pictures, it can be pretty time consuming.  thank goodness for the journal my dad gave me for Christmas... it's an every day journal and I can just write a few sentences each day and not feel guilty for not writing more.  I honestly don't know what I would do without it now... it has been such a blessing to me since I'm someone that feels stress at not keeping record of things and events.

anyway, life is good.

over the past week, Abigail has been doing better and our relationship has been going a bit better.  today was big in that I emailed her teacher that she'll be walking home from school each day with our neighbors and I talked to a number of medical professionals on the phone this morning and afternoon (our appointment was cancelled last minute by the doctor not being in the office today) about Abigail's medication and we'll be doubling the dose and hoping to see some positive results.  Abigail walked home from school today for the second time and it is honestly the best thing ever to not load the kids in the car to go pick her up.  and I feel like she's in a better mood when she gets here.

Brady, over the past week or two, has gone down hill, as has our relationship.  apparently these things are inversely related?  he's turned pretty moody and angry and sometimes belligerent.  he says it's because he isn't getting enough sleep and hasn't been napping as much as he needs to so we've been trying to make his naps more of a priority but I don't know that it's helping THAT much.  he's still wonderfully independent and all of his regular good qualities... he's just always angry at me.  I asked him about this and he says he always expects me to say no to his requests so he's just already upset even before he starts asking me a question.  it's not horrendous but it does make me pretty sad right now because I feel like I've lost a friend.

Elizabeth is opinionated and headstrong and holy cow, as hilarious as ever.  everything is her FAVORITE.  I don't think she understands that word very well and probably thinks it just means that she likes something.  literally every song she hears, she declares to be her favorite.  on Sunday, our closing song was "come along, come along" and I can't recall ever hearing that song before and, judging by the singing, or lack thereof, I think the rest of the congregation could have said the same thing.  but don't worry, just upon hearing the intro, Elizabeth is enthusiastically proclaiming that "I LIKE THIS SONG!!! IT'S MY FAVORITE SONG!!!"  also, we decided to all go as a family to Abigail's "it's great to be eight" meeting on Sunday night and Elizabeth had a lot of loud gas.  after each loud toot she's all, "I tooted!" and then proceeded to do it again.  she has an excellent sense of humor and is also developing a lot of opinions about books that she likes to read and favorite clothing/pj's/boots that she likes to wear.  right before Christmas, Elizabeth flipped a switch and went from being terrified and hating (like SCREAMING bloody murder through the whole experience) baths and showers, to being obsessed with showers and begging multiple times a day to take a shower.  Chris was cracking up the other day when he came home from work and saw us all and then was all "you've got the shower on while you just sit in bed?!" and I had to tell him that actually Elizabeth was showering.  she's also started requesting again to use the potty.  I had told her before that she for sure had to wait until after the holidays but I'm still going to try holding her off on that til she's closer to three or potty trains herself.  I can hope, right?

Andrew is great.  he's been sick with the worst congestion though... like soooo horrific.  I try to nose suck him as best I can but he still nurses and sounds like he's drowning and gasping for air.  he'll take three sucks and then turn his head to the side and breath like he's catching his breath for a bit and then he'll latch on and suck three times and do it again.  like he's swimming or something.  he's still mostly happy though, thank goodness, and has actually started sleeping longer just in the last three nights.  since he was previously waking around 11:30, 2:30, 4:30, and 7:30, this is a huge improvement to have him wake just once around 4:30 or 5.  we'll see if he's maturing and really starting to sleep longer stretches or if he's just doing this because this sickness is really taking it out of him.  also, I finally broke down and bought a baby scale.  his weight percentile is less than 0.1% and he only gained 5 or 6 ounces between his 4 and 6 month appointments.  I had some huge days of stress about it and was freaking out about my milk supply and was trying to supplement with milk from my freezer (but he either wasn't hungry or didn't want milk from a bottle) and it was just not great... all of that was happening the week before Christmas.  so I took fenugreek to boost my supply and I started nursing him allllll the time.  like at least every hour or two hours throughout the day and night.  I couldn't even tell you how many feedings he was getting in a 24 hour period because I felt like I was just nursing him constantly around the clock.  but I guess it worked because my supply met his needs and I quit taking the fenugreek and he's sleeping longer at night.  I asked his doctors office if I could bring him in for just a weight check to see if my efforts were effective or not and they said there was a copay for that.  I thought that seemed stupid but we have kaiser insurance so a lot of things about it are stupid.  instead of paying the $50 copay, I bought a scale for less than 40.  I'm happy to report that he's broken 13lbs which means that he'd gained over a pound in that month since his 6 month well check... woohoo!  also, I've realized how inaccurate and varying the scale measurements can be with a wiggly baby and I'm wondering how accurate that weight was that was taken at his 6 month appointment.  anyway, he's still less than .1% but he's growing and I know he's eating a lot and peeing a lot so that gives me comfort.  also, he's super vocal and social and happy and is hitting all of his milestones and sitting up and rolling over like a rockstar.  once he gets over this cold, I'm gonna have to get him weaned from the swaddle because he keeps rolling over and getting stuck on his belly.  Abigail did that too at this age but she was a happy beached whale... Andrew is not the happiest when he gets beached.  other random things to note... Andrews cheeks are almost always flushed and he is biting on everything. I'm still in mourning that we lost our Sophie giraffe a week and a half ago when we went to the library one evening.  I've checked their lost and found twice though (they keep a log of everything) and it was never turned in... which makes me worry that maybe it fell out of the car when I made a huge goodwill run on our way to the library but also gives me hope that maybe it's just hiding somewhere in our car even though our car is clean and there's really not anywhere for it to be. ugh.  so I was resorting to Andrew's next favorite toy and that went missing at the gym last week.  we never lose baby toys and now we've lost our favorite two within just a few days of each other!  major fail.  mostly still sad about Sophie though.  for sentimental reasons but also because of that $25 price tag.  let's all pray for a late Christmas miracle that she shows up somewhere.  I have a reward out for her though and told Brady that he'll get the biggest treat ever if he finds that stinking giraffe.  Andrew's gummy little gums neeeeeed it.

man, those quick summaries get longer with each kid.  this is why blogging is so time consuming... I'm too long winded to ever be quick.

anyway...

honey has been doing well... normal work and traveling and more work and travel.  he stays busy but I try for us to at least feel like we get some hang out time every few days.  tonight I felt like we kind of hung out for a good 20 minutes or so while the kids skated in the basement and I made dinner... so that was nice.  it sounds pathetic when I write it out but honestly, we're just kind of at a busy stage of life right now and it is what it is.

I'm hanging in there!  despite the constant mess and disorganization of my house and life in general, my days are happy.  my days are mostly getting Abigail off to school, taking the other three with me to the gym for a bit, doing lunch, quiet time, Abigail's after school stuff (unpacking backpack, homework, etc.), dinner, and bedtime.  it's a good routine we have down.  we've also been trying to make more of an effort to do fun things as a family and this past Saturday was great with going to the wildlife experience, costa vida, the lone tree library, and then watching beauty and the beast as a family.  we all have a good day if we can make a plan and stay focused on our priorities.  also, because that made me think of it... I am sooooo excited about the come follow me curriculum in relief society this year and counsel meetings and whatever other changes they've made that I don't even know the names of.  but for real, so pumped about come follow me and studying conference talks and having more of a discussion during lessons.  it's been so amazing already.