graciezilla

I took this picture of Grace while we were at the Grapevine Mills Mall earlier this month. I was tired, so I sat down and she was getting a little restless. I pulled out my new phone (an LG EnV2) and was trying to amuse her with it. She was being cute and I went to snap a picture and got this instead:

I can't believe I captured such a fantastic Gracie moment in a split-second. She makes some of the best facial expressions. We, of course, had to call this picture "Graciezilla".

A few weeks later, I took this picture:

She is balancing so much better and I just want to scream "Gracie, stand up!" because I know if she really really tried she probably could. She was on her knees like that for a few minutes reading that book over and over again. She LOVES books, can't get enough of them. She also loves to destroy them because she loves to throw them, but we are working on that...

A few weeks ago Jennie decided to get bunnies for the girls and ordered them each a cage. She got them in the mail the other day and put one of them together. McKay thought it would be a great idea to stick Gracie in one of them. Thus, Graciezilla was captured!

She seems very happy to be sitting in a cage but the best part is that "Graciezilla" is missing her front teeth (both top and bottom!). She can still pull your hair at lightening fast speeds though, so watch out ;)

Grace started full-time school this year. It's hard to believe she is going to be 6 in just a few weeks. She has grown so much this summer and has surprised us with a few tricks up her sleeve. She is "talking" up a storm, making new noises and even calling her Dad by name. We are still working on Mama...

We've had a nice summer and now we are all looking forward to things cooling down and for fall to come again. Too bad we live and Texas, the temperature might not fall for a while...

a lot to feel

My Uncle Richard (my Dad's second oldest brother) was diagnosed with throat cancer in April 2005. He spent three years battling this relentless disease before passing away on Saturday morning. He was only 61. Depending on how I am feeling about it at the moment, sometimes I feel very good about his passing, glad that he isn't in pain anymore and happy that he is with my Grandparents and our Heavenly Father. Other times I just lose it and completely break down. Every once in a while I can't figure out why my Uncle, who was one of the best men I've ever known, had to endure this terrible fate. I've been comforted a lot this week, armed with the knowledge of everlasting life and eternal families.

I have so many good things to say about my Uncle. He has led a very interesting life and has had so many hardships to deal with but never let them define him. He had such a strong testimony of the gospel. I am going to miss him very much and he will be missed by many many others.

Richard Wilson's Obituary

first post from our new house

Hello everyone, sorry I have been quiet. There have been a lot of things going on around here. Grace is in summer school so for the first part of summer I was working a bit later than usual and Forest was on a different schedule which caused him to work earlier so we were on very different schedules. Grace had two weeks off for the holidays and I had been working up to 50 hours a week! Forest is back on his normal schedule (thank goodness) and Grace starts school back up tomorrow so things should settle down just a bit...we hope.

We are almost moved out of our apartment, we just have two pieces of furniture left and we will be out for good. Things are shaping up here as well, we are slowly replacing things and trying to make things our own. I have a list a mile long of things I want to re-do or re-model but I have to take one thing at a time. Our master bathroom is currently in pieces due to a leak underneath our toilet. The warranty we have for the house paid for the least expensive part of the whole ordeal, but at least it paid for something. We have to have our entire floor replaced and our toilet is not usable until that happens. We want to replace almost the entire bathroom when we do the floor, so we may wait to do that for a little while. I had been feeling very overwhelmed with some of the issues we've found in the house but after spending several weeks here I am feeling much better. At first I kept thinking about the problems instead of the things that were going well. I am 25 years old and I just purchased my first home! I didn't stop to realize how incredibly lucky I am to say that at my age. So, taking one step at a time, we are fixing things and making things better.

I am so thankful to live across the street from the Wrights, without them I would have fallen into a heap of tears and depression 4 weeks ago. They have helped us in so many ways, I don't know if we will ever be able to repay them for their kindness. I may have to feed them for the next month to feel remotely even (and I'm sure they would appreciate that!)

I hope everyone is having a nice summer. Being married without children (especially in Texas), we don't always pay attention to what season it actually is. However, summer does mean more work for me, but my job requirements include swimming, trips to the mall and introducing the girls to the Star Wars Saga. I even have my own garage space. I live a charmed life, indeed.

last apartment bound

Well, we finally got the house today! There are a few issues that we couldn't see because furniture was in the way, but so far nothing major. Mostly just dirty walls that we are going to make sparkle with some magic erasers tomorrow. I am so thankful I have our neighbors Rebecca and John to help because tonight I would have gone nuts without them. We had to re vacuum the whole house because the woman we bought it from had her vacuum die on her earlier today. We had two vacuums going and got it done in no time. One huge bummer is that when Rebecca was vacuuming the master bathroom, she noticed that the front part of our tub was coming off. It smells like there might be some mold down there. It's just concrete underneath there so hopefully we can pull the front off and just replace it. It looks like the front board is what is the problem is. I'm completely freaking out though, as usual. It will all be ok, I just have to keep telling myself that. It will be, I know it.

We went over to Cassi and Bryce's apartment today for dinner, we thank them a million times for that. It got our minds off of the house for a bit and we didn't have to worry about making dinner tonight. It was such a huge help. It's so nice having another couple in our ward that are our age that we can spend time with, it's really fantastic. They are coming over to help us move tomorrow, so we can't thank them enough for helping us out.

It's already 11 and we have to get up early tomorrow. It's a big day, I've got to clean the walls, wait for the cable, electric and water to be turned on and get our washer and dryer installed. Forest has an interview at 11 (I know, perfect timing) and then everyone is coming over at 2 to help move. I am going to be dead tomorrow (I already feel kind of dead right now), I'm glad I have an easy job where I can hang out and relax. I hope Grace sits on my lap all day on Tuesday and laughs and smiles with me. That will make up for the crazy day I am going to have tomorrow!

8 days...

I can't help but feel this overwhelming thought of anxiousness. I am so nervous about moving. It's hard to believe we have owned this house for almost 6 weeks. It's oddly just been in the past few days that I have started to feel this way. A house is such a huge responsibility, one that I think we are more than ready to take on. I paid our first mortgage payment yesterday. By clicking that "submit" button (I love that I can pay my mortgage online!) it felt like I was moving into a completely different direction. What a great and satisfyingly decision it has been for us to purchase a home. Now comes the fun part, moving all of our stuff less than 1,000 feet to the southwest.

We have decided to move all of our big things on Monday the 16th. If anyone who reads this that is in the area can help at all that day (or send their husbands), we would appreciate it so much! We realize that it might interfere with work schedules, but otherwise we'd have to wait two weeks to move on a Saturday and we (or possibly just me) have no desire to wait any longer! As long as we can get those things that won't fit into our cars out of here, we will be happy campers and can possibly have more come on Saturday to help carry smaller less important things down with us. I noticed today that we have so many boxes, more than I thought we had. I am trying to make this as simple as possible for those kind brave souls who are going to come help us and so far, things are going pretty well. I've heard that most people who are moving a short distance tend to think they don't need to box things up, but anything that fits into a box has gone into a box. Our spare bedroom looks like we ripped off a delivery truck full of Dell Computers (Forest got the boxes from work). If anyone needs boxes in the near future, we'll have a ton!

the big move

I only wish I was talking about our big move, but I'm not. Today is the day that the Dendy family finally moved into their beautiful new house. I am so excited for them but today was a LONG day. I actually didn't do any kind of heavy lifting at all, except for maybe carrying Grace around for a bit, but I'm still tired for some reason. The house is still amazing, even though things are completely out of sorts and probably will be for a little while. I know Jennie is glad to finally be done with the apartment life, I know I am!

Forest and I decided to go see Prince Caspian tonight and took McKay and Alexa with us. It was very excellent. I haven't read the book in many many years (and I want to, but my copies of the Chronicles of Narnia are packed away!) but I am pretty sure the movie was almost spot on. There are a few changes, but minor ones. After the slaughtering of my 2nd favorite fiction novels (Harry Potter) it is a refreshing change to see them keep these fantastic books in tact. I think C.S. Lewis would be proud. After we got home, I found out Grace had been dead asleep for a while. She had a very big day too. I think all of this confuses her, she was very crabby part of the day but giddy in other parts.

I am going to get some sleep, we've got another big day ahead of us tomorrow as well!

binding my time...

It feels like the last two weeks have CRAWLED by. We closed on our house on April 30th so we are officially home owners. The only problem is that we still have 4 1/2 weeks until we can move in. I have been going crazy with spending, buying all sorts of things. As pointed out in my previous post, my couches are nested in my living room, but now they are covered with all sorts of new things. I bought a new mattress, which is also sitting in my living room in a box. It's a memory foam mattress so it's pretty tightly wrapped up and "small" but is still taking up room. Our spare bedroom looks like a storage unit and it's actually very organized, for once. We have our washer and dryer ordered and they are being delivered and installed on June 16th. I'm ready to go, so I'll sit here and wait until June 15th...

I have my schedule figured out for this entire year (through May 2009!). It's going to be a busy one too. Grace is going to school full time next year so I had to figure out how to pack in these extra 6 hours a week. I am going to be working insane hours in the summer (in one 15-day span I am working 118 hours!) and then 31 hours a week during the school year. Forest's schedule is changing for 6 weeks in June and July so he'll be back to working Mondays. He's not all that happy about it because he'll be forced to sit in traffic everyday and with these wicked insane gas prices we don't want him wasting any of that precious gas! Thankfully it's only for 6 weeks (or so they say, we'll see). Once school starts in August, I'll come over to the Dendy's at 6:45 am, help Grace get ready and then take the girls to school. I'll pick them up afterwards and work until 8. It's almost the schedule I have now, but slightly earlier. Not a problem though, I need an excuse to get out of bed in the morning or I never will.

For some reason I'm losing weight. I'm not complaining, it's good news for me, but I'd love to know what I'm doing that is causing this. I bought a book about PCOS and a meal plan that I should be eating. I have been reading through the book and am going to jump into this when we move. I'm going to stop eating certain things now and hopefully by the middle of June I'll be prepared to take this step. I am overall pretty healthy for being the size I am, but it's time to deal with this before problems start appearing. It's going to be a really tough road, but I think with the support of Forest and my friends I'll make it through the other end. I had noticed my pants were starting to look huge on me so I weighed myself the other night. I've lost 25 pounds since I looked at the scale which was probably 2 months ago. I was carrying Grace around yesterday and I had my pants nearly fall off! I have jeans that usually feel very tight when you first put them on but then stretch out in a few minutes to the right fit. I put them on today and they were too big. Then they stretched out a bit as well. I had to wear a belt to even keep them on. I am sad because I love these jeans (I have three pairs that are identical) but feel great that I'm actually losing weight! Hopefully I'll be buying new jeans soon!