Family picture and other thoughts

Last night we had our family picture taken at a place in the mall. I was amazed at how much more difficult it was to get a good picture with just one more person in our family. In each shot it seemed like someone was blinking, looking the other way, putting their hands over their eyes, spitting up (thankfully only Nina did that :) ) or smiling wacky. I was astonished that we ended up with one with us all looking at the camera. Surprisingly Nina was the only member of the family to look at the camera in every shot - go figure... :) Needless to say it was a slightly trying experience. But its over and I'm so glad that we now have a complete family picture to put on our wall and send out in our Christmas cards. That makes me happy.

I'm very excited because tomorrow is Veterans day and Adrian has the day off. Yay!! I love long weekends! Its so funny that I consider that I have a long weekend when Adrian does. It really does make a difference to have him home. I can do so much more. How do single moms do it? I have a lot of respect for them....

Hmmm.... Maybe I'll get to sleep in a little longer tomorrow.... That would be so lovely....so so lovely. I think about sleep all the time.... I understand why sleep deprivation is considered a form of torture. It is probably the hardest part about having a nursing baby for me. But when Nina wakes up in the morning with her big bright smile it makes it all okay :). She always wakes up so happy - bright eyed and bushy tailed. A friend of mine said she read in a book that babies smile as a form of self-defense from abandonment. :) Isn't that hilarious!!! I had never thought of it that way....but I can tell you that Nina's precious little smiles and coos just make me melt. She is just such a sweet sweet baby. Her personality is coming out more and more now. So far she is very laid-back but still loves to be a part of what ever is going on. Her favorite position is sitting up. She'll tell you off if you lean her too far back so that she can't see what's going on. She is also working really hard on grabbing. She can't control those little hands yet but she is trying so hard. She manages to grab my hair constantly though - so maybe there is a little control involved there. :)


Wow, from our family picture and Veterans day to sleep and Nina - I think I covered it all. Hope it wasn't too random, but those were my thoughts for today.

"No beads in nose"

Our "no school day" continues... Okay, so I think this is a case of the squeaky wheel getting the oil, but I have to tell another quick story about our crazy Benjamin. We were just having lunch and he is now down for a nice nap (hopefully :) ) but before that things were a little wilder. The kids had yogurts and also milk with their lunch today and I was in the living room trying to straighten up as they finished up. Sophie came in to inform me that Ben was pouring milk from his cup into the yogurt cup and back and forth. I knew that that meant the kitchen was a milky, yogurty mess (and oh yes.. it was). So I go in there to explain to Ben the error of his ways and clean it up. In the process Ben has a normal 2 1/2 year old meltdown because I took the cups away. During this meltdown which involved snot and drool, a purple bead popped out of Benjamin's nose....Oh my goodness!! He had that bead in his nose for probably the better half of the morning. Isn't that really bad??!! I explained over and over "No beads in nose, Benjamin....No toys in nose..." and had him repeat it back to me again and again. I really hope this sticks, and that it hasn't been a regular occurrence that I just found out about because of his drool and snot meltdown. We'll have to have Sophie make her bead necklaces in a room without Benjamin.

I know my Mom is laughing right now, as she reads this blog because as a child I used to sick peas and beans up my nose because I didn't want to eat them. I would eventually sneeze them all out... I've always thought of it as a funny story from my childhood but now I realize it was actually a pretty horrible thing to do to my Mom - sorry Mom...

Voted

Short blog time... We voted! Adrian and I took turns voting this morning. It felt really good to exercise the right to vote. I am so grateful for the right and am now proudly wearing my little "I Voted" sticker that they gave out. I'm bummed out that I don't live in Houston because you can get a free flu shot if you go out and vote. Isn't that a great idea! (I'm all into getting our flu shots every year.) Anyways now I'm just trying to think up something to do with the kids on this "no school" day - they are already starting to really annoy each other and its not even lunch time. Maybe the library...

Divine Direction

I was impressed by one of the questions posed by the Elders Quorm instructor today. He basically asked people to share experiences when they had felt that Heavenly Father had directed their lives. I like the question because it invites people to share why they believe and how their faith was strengthened. I appreciated hearing others' stories. I thought it would be good to share a story of my own.

As I review my life, I notice that each major step of progression was a result of making a decision but turning the final approval over to God. Going for my undergrad, choosing to pursue Jenni, and making the decision to leave Utah. In each case, I am so amazed at how my life has improved as a result of following personal revelation. I should probably write about each experience, however, I'm going to work on just one for now, but I encourage anyone to followup with me at a later time to encourage me to journal the other two experiences as well.

For anyone that knows me, it may come as a surprise that after I graduated from HS, I had no plans to go to college. Three months after graduating, I found myself not having accomplished anything. I wasn't going anywhere in my life. I felt inspired to find out what Heavenly Father had in mind for me. Academically I was prepared to go to college, most of my friends had started. I think my hang-up was that no one had ever talked to me about whether or not I wanted to go to college. So I thought it out, realizing that the logical choice was to apply to an in-state school. I knelt down and prayed about it. I received a distinct answer to my prayer. I felt the impression of, "Adrian, you should already be in school." In this case, a caring reprimand that was an answer to my prayer. I look back and recognize that where I was in my life that if I had not had my personal devine mandate to apply, that my life would have stagnated.

My experiences at school changed my life. My semester before my mission was the best thing I could have done to prepare myself for my mission. My life has been enriched in many aspects as a result of doing this. I am now doing things professionally, that I would have never imagined myself doing before receiving this answer to my prayer. Through this experience and a few others, I know that God loves me personally and answers my prayers.

Pulpit Fright Follow Up

So I did it!!! Ahhh, it feels so good to be done with my Relief Society lesson. I was so scared when I first got up and kind of had a brain-freeze moment were I didn't know what to say even though it was written right in front of me. I recovered though and it actually went better than I thought it would. And after I had a sister tell me that she thought the lesson was just for her and was just what she needed. That made me feel so good and made it all worth it. Didn't toss my cookies after all :)!

PULPIT FRIGHT...

Okay so real fear is taking over now as I start to prepare for my Relief Society lesson tomorrow. So I'm going to try and talk it through in blog form...I may babble on so you'll have to forgive me :).

I'm doing my lesson on finding balance in our lives. I found some great talks on the internet, I have an object lesson, I'm passing out candy (it goes with the object lesson) and I think I know the gist of what I want to say but....I just don't know. I used to be such a ham, wanting lots of attention when I was little but now public speaking has turned into a big fear for me. Literally like sweating, nauseous, panic attack type fear.

Part of it stems from worrying that I will get tongue-tied and embarrass myself and also that the last time I gave a lesson I got an incredibly hurtful criticism after my lesson and now I'm just scared of that happening again. A sister was offended that I didn't call on her. She tracked me down after the lesson and then again right before I got in the car to go home. I went home in tears thinking I did the worst job of anyone EVER on a lesson. Now you have to realize that I have tunnel vision when I get in front of the Relief Society room. I tend to look down a lot too which is a public speaking no-no. I really didn't see her hand at all and with trying to finish up in enough time I probably was looking down way too much. I felt really bad for offending her. Doesn't everyone just want people to like them, maybe that's the root of it.

What has happened to me - I totally was the oratory person in my high school debate class. I used to love the rush of giving a 10 minute memorized speech, I mean hand gestures and everything. I wasn't a drama person at all but I enjoyed giving speeches. I even gave one at the state capital rotunda when our school was involved in trying to get a bill passed. And before high school when I was little I was all into acting. For heavens sake I was a little pageant girl!! - I shouldn't have stage fright!

Didn't Donny Osmond develop stage fright after being in the public eye for like 20 years. Maybe that's it - I have PULPIT FRIGHT! I'm also worried about getting sick - nauseous type sick - in the middle of my lesson. Wouldn't that be horrible! I threw up on stage, in the ward road-show when I was 7 years old. Horrible, Horrible memory! I shouldn't be thinking of that. I really shouldn't, that is in no way constructive at this time!! But you see it really is associated with church - is that awful to say?! I think its the intimacy of getting up in front of people who you know, have relationships with, and see every Sunday. With the debate thing, I never saw those judges again and I was such a quiet person at my high school I don't think anyone even knew who I was when I gave the speech at the capital.

So I figured it out, I have pulpit fright, so what now? Well I have this calling for a reason, I need to be thankful for this experience and learn... I'll prepare a lot, practice it a couple times, pray... And just cross my fingers that this time tomorrow I'm not writing a blog about how I am the first person to EVER to get SICK while teaching a lesson to a lovely yet overly-attentive group of Relief Society sisters!! Wish me luck!

Our Halloween

So Halloween has come and gone and it was a lot of fun this year... It started off with getting Sophie and Ben to school and preschool. In the morning I also got our traditional chili into the crockpot. I decided to half the amount of cayenne this year - Sophie's not a big spice fan. Then I picked up Ben, we had lunch and we were off again to Sophie's costume parade.It was fun to see all the costumes. I was surprised at how many little girls were dressed up as witches - that's what Sophie was. Last year and years past it was all about princesses. Tons of little Supermen this year too.

I worked a few Nina feedings in somewhere. It was pretty much hurry up, feed Nina, put her in the car seat, and go somewhere else. Little Nina is learning to adapt to all our drop-off and pick-ups but is still not a big fan of being in her car-seat.

When Adrian got home from work we had our chili, hot dogs, zucchini bread (leftover from "the tale of 2 zucchini breads) and apple juice. After that the real fun began...

Trick or treating....Adrian took the kids out trick-or-treating. Nina only lasted for a few houses and then came back to help me pass out candy. :) Everyone who came to the door thought she looked so cute in her pea costume. Ben came back after about a half block of houses but he still made quite a haul. He didn't want to take off his Dash costume at all so he just sat on the couch, ate candy and watched the Charlie Brown Halloween Special in full Incredibles regalia. It was funny. Sophie went to a lot of houses this year. It was a beautiful night, not cold at all, so she and Adrian trick or treated for about an hour. Wow, she has a lot of candy. Its going to take a while to eat it all - even with munchie raids by Mom and Dad. :)

I think I'm in a little denial that Halloween is over. I'm still listening to our Halloween mix CD in the car and I was sad taking the Halloween window clings off our front window. Now its time to start thinking about turkey and stocking stuffers. Fall is just flying by this year.