sprucing things up

We have had a very busy few weeks, getting things cleaned up and fixed up around here. I have a list of plans a mile long and I have no idea where to start. Forest keeps telling me "one at a time..." but I don't have any clue of which one to do first!

We have made great progress with our landscaping. We built a pathway from our gate to our deck, planted two square foot gardens and have a lovely flower bed along the house with great lighting for when we entertain outside. Our front yard needs a bit of work, we're going to lay out a new flower bed in the front. My pansies are still looking great from the winter, at least the ones that have survived the torrential downpours and hail storms. I think it's finally time to install gutters. I think we will end up doing them ourselves, unless anyone in DFW knows of a great company that can do them for us!

In other news, we celebrated our 5th anniversary last Friday. It's hard to believe that it's been 5 years already! We have had good times and sad, thankfully more good times than not. Forest surprised me with a gorgeous ring. My wedding ring is wonderful and I love it, but it's not practical for work. It also has an interlocking band, so I wasn't able to just wear the band either. I let him know what I wanted and we found one together. It's just perfect, like my dear husband :)

march madness

I'm not a basketball fan, I will admit, but I do hear a lot about March Madness while working at the Dendy's (Dallas is a huge sports fan). The March Madness I am referring to is the crazy weather we are having again. It was gorgeous for almost the entire month and I was longing for when the pool would open. We packed away the winter clothes and blankets. Yesterday the temperature dropped dramatically, back into the 30's. Warm weather, come back to us!

If you can believe it, my toe is still recovering from my plate drop. I'm convinced I put a crack in the bone and it's just taking it's time to heal. It doesn't bother me much, but if I put any pressure on the top of my toe, it hurts like the day I injured it. I have two new injuries at the moment. My arm started to ache last week and it feels like I pulled a muscle in my elbow. This causes some issues with carrying Grace, but since she can walk with assistance I usually make her walk everywhere and I'm sure she doesn't mind! Yesterday Forest and I were walking out of Wal-Mart and my neck just started to ache like I had slept on it weird. It's still feeling really sore, but I'm not sure what I could have done that would have made it feel so bad so fast. It comes and goes too, but if I stay pretty still it doesn't hurt at all. I think it's weather related, the drop in temperature does weird things to me.

Forest and I planning a trip up north this summer. We're planning on driving through St. Louis to see the Arch and then of course up to Michigan. On the way home we are going to see Nauvoo again. We were there 4 years ago but we didn't have our Temple Recommends so I am so excited to be able to go do a session at the Temple. We'll also be able to go see the Pageant, as we'll be going sometime in July. We haven't been to Michigan in a while and it's also been a long while since we've seen some of my friends and family, so it'll be a nice visit.

Not much is going on with us for now. We're re-landscaping our backyard and I will post pictures when we get it all done. It should look really nice. Hope everyone is doing well!

I'm Getting Bad At This...

I need to post more often. I have been entirely too busy lately. Right now I am getting a bit irritated with the weather around here. It was gorgeous on Thursday at 87 degrees. Right now it's in the 30's. The dramatic drop in temperature has reeked havoc on my body, I feel stiff as a board right now. I did something stupid yesterday, I dropped a plate on my toes. You wouldn't think that would hurt all too bad but it hit me in exactly the right spot and it is seriously painful. It didn't bruise, which was strange, but it hurts if I touch it. Thankfully I was able to move it this afternoon. It seemed like every time I walked passed Grace she would throw a book at me and it would land right on my foot. She has some sort of pain radar and hurls things toward it.

I still cannot believe it, but I was recently called as our Ward's Activities Chair. This is the biggest calling I've had and I'm pretty excited about it. We both have been on the committee for a little while but after our Chair was released they apparently thought it was a great idea to have me replace her (I know, what are they thinking, right?). Our first activity is next Saturday, so for all of those in the TC Ward, please come and remember to bring your favorite soup, a pretty good prize is on the line here!

Right now I'm sitting in my dining room which seems to be the most freezing room in the entire house. We finally got a new dining room table after not having one for the last 9 months. We moved some things around in here and it looks good. I will have to post some pictures in the next few days once I get my decor all straightened out finally. I'm having a book club meeting at my house in 9 or so days, I hope everything is done by then! Wish me luck!

I'm going to go cuddle with my husband and get warm. I know it's February, it should be cold, but I wish the weather would make up it's mind! Maybe March will be better...

It will be fine...

Something dawned on me a few months ago. Forest and I got married when I was almost 21 years old. My Mom was also 21 when she married my Dad. She was 23 when she had my sister, Crystal, and was just about to turn 26 years old when she had me. That means when she was 25, in the fall after her birthday, my parents decided to have another baby. If I were running on that same time line, I would already be pregnant with my second child. My parents planned us out pretty well, we are all 3 years apart, nearly to the day. Part of me wishes that it were that easy for me.

It is not a secret that Forest and I are having a hard time having a baby. If you are reading this and didn't know that, I'm actually quite shocked! I would be lying if I said it didn't bother me, but not in the way you might think. I have suffered miscarriages and so many false alarms. There are times I get so discouraged and curse my body for being so uncooperative. For the most part though, I am actually okay dealing with all of this. From a very young age, I have always known that I was going to be a mother. I wanted to get married young, have a few children and live happily ever after. I did get married fairly young and I know that I was ready to. In school it seemed we were constantly writing papers about where wanted to be in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, etc. I'm sure all of those papers included owning a house, being married, having children, etc. I had a teacher named Ms. Maul, she was my Allied Health teacher and also my absolute favorite. She always told us that none of us could have kids (or get married for that matter) until we were 25. When she found out I got married she still told me to wait until I was 25 to start having kids. I would blame this all on her, but I'm 25 and still nothing!

A few weeks ago I started having really bad food aversions, night-time nausea and other tell-tale pregnancy signs. We got our hopes up really high actually. We have been on this spiritual high for the past two months, we felt that this really could be it, that us getting Sealed was going to finally bring us this miracle. It didn't. Dealing with this is something that I have to do, talking about it and knowing that it's really alright. There is so much of me that wants to hold our first tiny little thing in my arms. I think there is more that we need to accomplish first.

The true purpose of this is to let all of my friends and family know that it is alright to talk about this. There are so many of my friends who have had problems having kids in the past and as much as it pains me that you are having to deal with this too, having you there helps me know that anything is possible. I will always be sad when it doesn't happen, but I will continue to be sad if I can't let it out and let everyone help me get through.

I can tell you who probably helps me the most and doesn't even know it is Gracie. She has taught me so much about patience in the last 18 months. I'm sure she has learned to be patient with me sometimes too. No matter what mistakes I might make with her though, I know that she has unconditional love for everyone in her life. She sees the things in me that I can't see in myself.

I feel like my life has been put on hold slightly, like we are just standing around waiting for this big change. We have made a lot of progress this last year though, we have made several huge leaps forward so it seems completely unfitting for me to feel this way! I guess that is a big thing I need to work on, knowing that we need to move on with our lives and enjoy being in it with each other and the people we have surrounding us. We are so blessed to have what we have, our friends, our family and our home. Thank you for your patience, whoever took the time to read this, those are my true friends and you know who you are!

Our Sealing

Today I went to my friend Christi's baby shower, which was very cute! She is having her first boy after 4 girls, so we stocked her up on all sorts of very blue things. I just got home from that and I normally don't come home until 6 on Saturdays, so I have a little bit of extra time. Time to finally sit down and write about our Sealing, even though it was almost a month ago now (I can't believe it either!).

I woke up to a down pouring of rain. I was so sad that it was pouring down rain because I thought for sure we'd never get any good pictures. Here in Roanoke it stopped raining just before we left. I took my parents with me and Forest took Heidi, Mark to my sister-in-law Laura's so she could watch the kids. We were on 635 in Dallas and we realized we were driving right in the storm. My knuckles were bright white because I was driving so nervously. We passed the aftermath of two accidents and I didn't want that to be us! Thankfully we got to the Temple in one piece and it had stopped raining! Forest was a little late, but that was okay. We both got dressed and when you are Sealed, you are able to use the Bride's Room. There were several weddings going on that day, so it was a bit crammed. I was completely fine getting dressed in the changing area, but the matrons wanted me to be able to use it on my special day. We had a chance to sit in the Celestial Room for a few minutes before they called us in to the Sealing room and that was wonderful. We have only been there when there are several people there with us and we were completely by ourselves. We were called into the Sealing room and the first three people I was able to see were Christi, Meredith and Valentyna. As soon as I saw them smiling at me, I was starting to lose it!

The ceremony was quicker than I thought it would have been, but it was very to the point and wonderful. I can't wait until I can hear those words again. I was so focused on Forest and how much I loved him that I'm not sure I heard everything! I also completely forgot to look in the mirrors, I was just looking at my husband the entire time. Afterward we headed outside and took some fantastic pictures with our friends and family.





After this, we got dressed back into our street clothes and it was time to leave. It was already over, I couldn't believe it! Forest took Heidi to go get Laura and the kids so due to room constraints, Mark came with us. It was a good thing too because my car started acting funny while we were coming up Preston back to 635. It dawned on me that we were running out of gas and just a few hundred feet from the entrance ramp (and a Shell station) it finally puttered out. Mark and my Dad pushed the car into the gas station and I filled up my tank. Needless to say I quite embarrassed. In my defense, I was driving Forest's car and it doesn't have a gas light!

Despite the tiny inconveniences, it was a very nice day. I thank everyone who was able to come support us and for those that were there with us in spirit! I have some more pictures from the Sealing, but I haven't uploaded them yet. I will let everyone know when I finally do.

20 days in...

So far I am liking 2009. Today I got to see our new President sworn in, that was neat. Regardless of everything good or bad, I am glad to see change in our nation. Hopefully the changes will continue and be for the best!

Right now I have some weird illness. I thought I had strep but I don't believe that I do. My throat was killing me but this morning I was showering and coughed...I will skip the icky details...and now it's fine. Strep doesn't clear up THAT fast. Yesterday I was SO cold I was shivering violently. I couldn't get warm even with 4 blankets over me. I slept like that all night and when I woke up I was so unbelievably hot! Now I'm cold again, but at least I don't feel like I want to die. I missed work today and I miss Gracie already! I am going back tomorrow afternoon, I hope...

I was going to post this long thing about our Sealing, but I haven't gotten around to it. It needs my full attention and emotion. It was such an emotional day! We are on such a spiritual high right now, we've been going to the Temple every month on Ward Temple night. I went with the youth to do baptisms two weeks ago, we went last Saturday to do a session and we are going on Friday to do Sealings. I am so thankful we have a Temple so close and the means to get there. As much as I want children, part of me is loving being able to do things like this without worrying about them. I know when the time comes, we'll be blessed with a little one in one way or another!

I was just called as our Ward's Activities Chairperson. I look forward to serving our Ward, I had a really great experience planning our Christmas Party. I've already started planning next years. Imagine how great it'll be then ;)

I need to go eat dinner, at almost 10pm. I need to change my eating habits...but I'm sick, cut me some slack!

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

and also the busiest....

The last two months have flown by in a whirl. It's hard to believe that in just a few hours we will be saying goodbye to 2008 already. 2008, despite it's flaws, was a very good year for Forest and I. Here are a few of the reasons I haven't updated this blog in a while:

Ward Christmas Party: Our Ward's Christmas Party was Dec 12th. I was asked to plan for it about 4 weeks before that. Even though I had a short time to do everything, it turned out pretty amazing in the end. It was quite the experience and I would do it again. I might even have to, next year.

Family, Family, Everywhere: On Dec 21st my parents came into town safe and sound. The day before they came, it was in the 70's and very nice. The day after they landed we took them to a drive-in movie theater (my Dad worked at one when he was in college so we thought it would be nostalgic for him to go). It was in the 30's! Even though we were kind of cold, we did have fun eating to keep warm and the movies were pretty good. We had a great Christmas Eve with the Wrights and the Myerhoffs. The day after Christmas we gained 5 more family members when Forest's sister Heidi, her husband and three kids came to stay. We had a very full house!

Sealing: On Dec 27th, Forest and I were finally sealed in the Dallas Temple! It was a really amazing day. I will post about that later, it really does deserve it's own entry!

New Years: Our family is all gone (*sniff*) and we are gearing up for a big party at the Dendy's tonight! I am working a whopping 11 hours today and hopefully not more than that because Gracie needs to sleep before midnight. I can just imagine how cranky she will be if she stays up until then.

I am sad to see this year go (because it means I'm really starting to get older) but I am excited to see what is in store for next year. Happy New Year!