My New Toy

This past Christmas Chris and I got to see Collin and Jen here in SLC during the Christmas Holidays. While we were visiting with them, Collin showed us his new Flip Cam that he had gotten for Christmas. I was so fascinated by this little tiny video camera that could fit in your pocket, that of course I thought I needed to have one!

I am horrible about taking movies of Bubby, and my excuse is always that it's such a pain to go to the pantry, get the camera, take it out of the bag, turn it on, and by the time it's ready to go, whatever he was doing that I thought was worth of taping, is now done.

Anyway...Chris and I batted the idea around for awhile, and then yesterday he came home from work and handed me a Best Buy bag. Inside was a Kodak Z18 pocket video camera! I was so excited!! (Yes, I really do have THAT sweet of a husband!) So of course we have been playing around with it most of the day, and having quite a fun time taping every silly little thing Bubby does. (Poor Bubby!)

I won't bore you with all the video's but this one is pretty cute. He is so funny when he wakes up from his naps. Generally he wakes up happy. I usually just hear him in his room talking to himself, and that's how I know he is awake. So today I video tapped him getting up from his nap. You can actually hear a few of his little words that he says.

Winter Formal

This weekend our Stake decided to put on an Adult Winter Formal. When Chris and I saw the flyer in the church program Chris of course laughed, but I will admit, I was kind of intrigued. I didn't know that I necessarily wanted to go, but it was something to do over the weekend; cheesy as it may have sounded!

Though I love Chris dearly, I do wish he were a little more social. He loves nothing more than a quiet evening at home watching T.V. where as I would like to go out a little more. I love weekends when we actually go out and do something, even if it is just going out to see a movie.

Maybe it's because I am "stuck" at home all day, and I just feel like I need to be somewhere other than here, but I really have started to love going out and doing things. If we can find some friends to do it with, I am just that much happier!

I always feel like we need more friends, where as Chris feels like we already have too many...I mean you know, Matt, Denise, Mama Anne, Jon, who can find time to have any more friends than that! :)

So on Friday my neighbor Deedra came over to visit. She is Keric's nursery leader and has been talking about bringing her girls over to play and maybe making Keric a little more comfortable with her. While she was over the topic of the Adult Winter Formal came up. She told me that she and her husband Chad had gotten talked into going by some other people in the ward and she thought it would be a GREAT idea if we went to.

I told her that if she could talk Chris into going, I would happily go. I have to admit that the thought NEVER crossed my mind that he would actually go!! Well sure enough her husband Chad called Saturday morning and invited us to go have dinner with them and two other couples and then go to the dance. Since he wasn't totally opposed to it, I took them up on the offer and said YES!

I have to say, it was one of the funnest nights I have had in a long time!! Of course we knew everyone that we were hanging out with, but we didn't know them all that well. We sure do now and vice versa! :)

I truly have not laughed that hard in a LONG time! I think we were the noisiest table there and we didn't have one alcoholic drink on our table! :)

After dinner we went to the dance and the fun continued. They had it all decorated just like Prom or something, and even had a professional photographer there to take pictures! So we all got a huge group picture, just like you do in high school! We danced, and laughed, danced and laughed, and then we laughed some more!







I had a great time, and I really hope that we get to hang out with Chad & Deedra, Ben & Malory, Darren & Rochelle, and anyone else who is brave enough to hang with us again SOON! I even think Chris would admit that he had a good time too!

Thanks honey for humoring me, and not being TOO embarrassed by your silly immature wife!

Ask and ye shall receive...!

I don't normally post things so personal, but I feel like if I don't write this down somewhere, I will forget it and forgetting would be extremely un-grateful!

For the past year and a half I have struggled with my hip. Any of you who know me, know a little bit about my struggles and that I have needed to have my hip fixed for quite awhile now.

I have tried rather unsuccessfully to hide my problem, but it has gotten harder and harder to hide my limp and to hide the pain I am in every single day. The pain gets worse every day, and anyone who has ever been in pain for long periods of time knows how it can affect your life and the lives of the other poor people who are around you for any length of time!

I have become so frustrated with not being able to do all the simple mundane tasks a wife and mother should do! Thankfully I have an understanding husband who knows that the house doesn't get vacuumed as often as it should because it just hurts too much to do it, and the grocery shopping gets done a little bit at a time all week long because I can't stand to walk around Wal-Mart for very long periods of time, along with a million other little things that don't get done that should!

After many months of searching, my sweet Mother in law found me a Dr. at the U who could help me. I was so excited and anxious to meet with him! I was to the point where I not only knew I needed surgery...I WANTED it and you know you need surgery when you actually WANT it!

Like many things in my life, meeting with Dr. Peter's was not going to be an easy task. I ran into tons of road blocks! One of which was that Dr. Peters was not a preferred Dr. with my insurance company, even though he is the ONLY Dr. in the entire Mid-west who does the surgery I need!

After many days of talking to people at IHC, talking with other Dr.'s and anyone else who would listen to me, another decision had to be made. If I wanted to pursue this any further, I would need to go through a medical appeals process. Basically I needed to tell my insurance why they were wrong to tell me I couldn't go to Dr. Peters to get my hip fixed and show them why I was right in wanting to go.

I am really not a persuasive person, and I had no idea what to even write, but I went ahead and wrote my letter, and sent it off. I was told point blank that the odds of my appeal going through the first time was VERY low and in fact I should assume that it would be denied on the first time, and prepare to go to the second phase of the appeal.

I was trying to prepare myself for my first rejection and trying to figure out my next plan of attack. I knew, or at least I had been told, that the decision would be made with in 30 days, so sometime in February I would be told what the next step would have to be.

Last night I got a phone call that I wasn't expecting! Sue from IHC called me last night to let me know that my appeal had been approved! I was given the go ahead to make an appointment with Dr. Peters and to schedule my surgery. Not only had it all been approved, it was approved on the first go around, the round that apparently never saw approvals!

As Sue was talking to me and telling me that I could now call Dr. Peters office and set things up, I started to cry. I tried to hold back the tears, but the relief and the weight that was lifted off my shoulders was amazing! I didn't realize how stressed out I was over this whole thing!

I had beat the odds once again! I had had these kinds of conversations before. I had been told that something wasn't worth doing, and that the rate of rejection was very high, but somewhere along the way, I had forgotten that experience.

Four years ago when Chris and I decided to get married, we were told that if we wanted to get married in the temple, we would have to send a letter of "appeal" to the First Presidency asking their permission. Chris needed to be granted a "Temple Divorce" something that we were told many times was very hard to obtain and that hardly anyone ever got! People told us that we should just get married civilly and then get sealed a year later. Our families would have understood, and there was no "shame" in not getting married in the temple considering our "circumstances". That just wasn't what either of us had envisioned, and as long as there was some chance, we were going to take it.

So we went ahead and sent our "appeal" in, "against all odds". Within about 2 weeks, MUCH faster than we ever expected, we were sent a letter that told us we were cleared to be married in the temple. I remember those same feelings of relief and joy when that letter came, and also those same tears!

It truly amazes me the way the Lord works! His hand really is in everything! He cares about each of us and about the trials that we face! I felt so humbled last night thinking of how he had set aside his time to help ME. How he understood, and knew the pain I was in, and how he stepped in and fixed what I couldn't fix. Not only did he do it once, but he did it twice! How was I so lucky to have had him step in like that for me twice? And in true Father fashion, he did it in a way that was specifically for me. He knows me well enough to know how impatient I am. He pushed me to the "end of my rope" and then rewarded me with being able to have an answer quickly!

I am so grateful for a Heavenly Father who loves me, who knows me, and who wants me to be happy in every aspect of my life!

Keric's first Sentence

Keric has been getting much better with his talking abilities. He has been saying a lot more words lately, and he is a little easier to understand. He still does lots of screaming for things he wants, but at least now when I tell him to use his words...he actually can sort of!

Tonight I went to watch our Young Women play basketball. Chris was working in the basement, so I took Keric with me so that he wouldn't be in Chris' way. He does love to be Handy Manny down there which usually means he's downstairs destroying something!

Any of you who know Keric at all know about his love for balls, and anything that may resemble a ball, ie Ornaments, Apples, Oranges, basically anything that is round is considered a ball, and he wants it!

So when we got to the basketball game and he realized there was a ball involved; that was all he wanted was to play with that ball! I had anticipated this before we left, but I thought that he would be content playing with one of the extra balls off the court. I was very wrong! He only wanted the ball all the girls were playing with. Nothing else was good enough!

As we were watching the game, he kept trying to run onto the court to get the ball. He even succeeded a couple times, but he didn't get too far thankfully! During one of these escape episodes, I picked him up and put him in my lap and held him there. He looked up at me with big tears in his eyes and said as clear as day "Mommy....I NEED that ball!"

Of course his first sentence has something to do with a ball! That kid cracks me up!

The New Family Room

Our couches finally came yesterday! I was so excited! :) They looked almost cooler in person than they did in the show room.

When the delivery guys got them in the house, Chris and I were a little concerned about having bought 2 couches vs. 1 couch and a love seat. It looked like the couches didn't "fit" in the room. We talked about returning one and getting a love seat, but honestly after measuring, it really is not that much different.

Anyway...long story short. We kept both couches. Chris worked his magic, and there you have it...my new family room! :)

I also got a new rug, and I replaced the coffee table with the two end tables, and moved the lamp from the piano room into this room. It matched better.

I still want to paint the rest of the walls the brown that we have on the one wall, but other than that...this room is DONE! :)

Hooptie Ride

It wasn't the nicest of days, but it was nice enough that Bubby and I went out for a walk today. You all know how well I "walk" so it didn't last long, and we didn't go far. Bubby rode his "hooptie" on the walk which was perfect because it only goes two miles an hour, so I could totally keep up with him.

He was so funny. He was completely serious the entire time. He still has no idea how to steer, but he gets on and knows to push the pedal and off he goes. He never takes his foot off the pedal! When he's about to crash I have to pull his foot up in order to stop him!

Here is a little video of some of our walk. It isn't very long because as you will see, he is starting to drift over to the curb so I had to hurry and steer him back straight! But do you see how serious he is!? Cracks me up!

Our Trip to WY.

This year we drove up to WY to spend New Years with my family. It's been quite awhile since we have been to my parents house. Last time we were there was at Easter time so we decided to take the last week of vacation and go see my parents.

We had planned to make the long drive on Monday morning the 28th, but poor Reagan got sick the night before. I will spare you the gory details, but sufficed to say the poor girl was up ALL night long, and so were we. Chris got most of the "sick" duty, but I did try to help as much as my weak stomach would allow.

The next day Reagan said she was feeling a lot better and wanted to go to WY, but we decided not to risk things and take a day to make sure no one else got sick, and that she really was feeling better. Taking an extra day proved to be productive however. No one else got sick, Reagie really WAS feeling much better, I got all my Christmas decorations down and put away, and Chris worked down in the basement. So even though we lost a day in WY, we made the most of it here.

Tuesday however, we got up early and hit the road. Well as early as we Wexels get. We were on the road by 10 a.m. which is doing pretty good for us. Chris has the attitude that we get there when we get there, we don't have a set schedule or anything we need to be there for, so relax and enjoy the ride. This has been somewhat of a hard philosophy for me to adapt to since I come from the school of we get up as early as we can, leave an hour after that, make as few stops as possible, and get there ASAP! I am learning that maybe Chris' idea of thinking is a little better way to do things, especially when you have three kids, and a Mommy who hates being in the car forever. Chris may disagree with this, but I think I am "chillin out" a little more on these WY trips.

For those of you who are from WY, you will understand that I just HAVE to stop at least once at Taco Johns for lunch while I am there. No one but me really likes it, they all humor me and go along with it which I appreciate, but stopping at Taco Johns for lunch is about the only thing that keeps me upbeat and motivated for the first half of the trip! :) We stopped in Rock Springs and ate Tacos. Keric even learned to say Tacos, and I do believe he actually liked the Tacos! Maybe he does have a little of his Mommy in him after all?




We got back on the road and made it into Powell at around 7:30 p.m. My mom of course had dinner sitting on the table ready for us and the kids were very excited to see their cousins! Danna and her family got to my Mom's house Sunday Night and Kimball and Eliane arrived on Monday.

One of the things I was really excited about was seeing the little playhouse my Dad built in their backyard. He has always built us kids a playhouse in all the houses we lived in except for one I believe. This time he built it for the grand kids, but I think we parents love it just as much if not more. My mom turned it into a little red school house complete with a bell on the outside and chalkboard inside. It is SO CUTE! Chris and I took Keric out to see the school, but I think it took about 5 minutes for Keric to get himself expelled from school! He and writing utensils do NOT get along! My mom had lots of crayons, colored pencils, and markers out there for the kids to color and draw with. Keric went straight for them, and I could just SEE the pictures he would leave all over the walls! So we didn't let him stay long.





Chris was so sweet and even took the kids for a few hours two days in a row! I was planning on going to lunch with my friend Shelly who I haven't seen in almost 10 years on Wednesday, so Chris took the kids to Cody to go souvenir shopping. We both struck out on that day because Shelly couldn't do lunch, and the little place we usually get souvenirs was closed for the season! So sad.

That night my Mom had a New Years party with my Grandparents, and my Aunt Carrie, Uncle Fred, and my cousins Lauren and Blake. Of course my mom had WAY too much food to eat, and sadly the night was spent doing a lot of eating, and sleeping. Yes, Cameron and I were the only ones who lasted until Midnight. haha






The next day Chris took the kids out to my Grandparents house with Danna and Brady and their kids to see the farm and to go look at the animals. I stayed at my parents house and finally got a chance to see Shelly! It was really fun to see her again and catch up. She totally looks the same, and it seemed like it had only been a few weeks since I had seen her last!










The kids had a great time looking at the miniature horses, pigs, chickens, and other animals. When Keric got home I asked him if he had fun with Grandpa Hopkin and he said "Horsies!" So I guess the horses were his favorite part.

We decided we had better get home for church on Sunday, so we headed home on Saturday. We got home sort of late, we made a couple of un-planned stops. Reagan really wanted a Carmel apple from Park City so we took them to get apples. Keric got chocolate covered oreo's which as you can see he thoroughly enjoyed!




We had a great time and hope we can go back soon! Maybe Collin and Bethany will be able to come too! :)

Thanks Mom and Dad! We love you!