Tag....I'm it

Ok, so I have been tagged. (Thanks Shannon! ha ha) It's been awhile since I have done one of these, and I figured it would at least give me something to blog about other than sick kids! So here goes.


8 Things I am Passionate About

1. My Family - What would I ever do without them!?!

2. Scrapbooking - This may be more of an addiction, I don't
know??

3. Education - I'm not able to do it now, but one day I
really want to get my Masters degree. I think Education
is extremely important, and I actually LIKE taking College
classes!

4. Keric - I know technically he is on my list twice, but he
tends to consume my days, my thoughts, my time, my life,
and I'm fairly sure that would describe a "passion"! ;)

5. Being a good wife - It may take until I'm 60 but I do
to be a little better every day!

6. Being a good Mommy and a better step-mom - it's a process
and sadly NOT something they teach you how to do in a
class somewhere!

7. Living Righteously and "practicing what I preach" - I
have SUCH a long way to go!!

8. All things Chocolate and of course Dr. Pepper! ;)



8 Word and Phrases I use most

1. KERIC! NO! NO!

2. CHOMPIE! GO TO YOUR CRATE!

3. Are you serious

4. Judas Priest

5. Ohhhhh Very Nice

6. I need a 'Cold Drink'

7. OH My

8. Love you!


8 Things I want to do before I die

1. Go back to South Africa

2. Go on another cruise, or two or three... :)

3. Go on a mission with Chris

4. Get my Masters Degree

5. Be skinny again

6. Walk normally and wear all my heels again!

7. Live in my "Dream Home'- whatever that is! It may just be this one with the basement finished who knows!?! (Love you Honey!!)

8. Have another baby or two. ;)

8 Places I want to visit

1. England

2. Cancun

3. Hawaii

4. Greece

5. Germany

6. Paris

7. Spain

8. Jamaica


8 Favorite Restaurants

1. Cafe Rio

2. Flemings

3. Cheesecake Factory

4. Sampan

5. Olive Garden

6. Taco Johns - You just don't understand unless you are
from WY!!!

7. Rumbi

8. Cafe Pierpont


8 Shows I watch

1. Grey's Anatomy

2. Biggest Loser

3. The Amazing Race

4. House

5. The Bachelor/Bachelorette - I don't know why...that show
always makes me SO MAD in the end and I always say I'm
done, and then I get sucked back in!

6. Chuck

7. Fringe

8. Handy Manny - this one is really not by choice however.


8 People I tag:

I'm going to be a cop out on this one and say...if you
haven't done this and want to, then by all means please do!
They are much more fun to read than to type out! :)

A Silver Lining

Most of you are probably sick to death of my complaining about Keric and his Handy Manny obsession, but this post is not so much complaining as it is telling you that I have found a bright spot to Keric's love of Manny!

I am getting a little better about putting my foot down when it comes to his demands of watching Manny episodes all day long and over and over and OVER again. The tantrum that follows after I tell him "No" is getting a little easier to deal with, and a little shorter in duration, but make no mistake, the tantrum still happens! So we are learning to compromise a little bit. If you can compromise with a 21 month old!

The other day I finally found a silver lining to my Handy Manny cloud of despair. I noticed that during the song and the singing parts, Keric was dancing. It wasn't your every day ordinary kind of dancing, he was shaking his hips like nobodys business! I made the mistake of laughing out loud at his little dancing, and so he stopped doing it for a couple of days! (I felt so bad!) Luckily, he has started up again, however I have never been able to get it on video until today! He recognizes the sound that my little camera makes when I turn it on, and he stops when he hears it! ( SO ANNOYING)

Anyway, today I FINALLY got his dance on video thanks to Chris keeping his attention on other things for a minute. So without further delay, for you viewing pleasure, my little man and his "sweet moves"

Valentines Day Weekend

A few weeks ago when Chris brought home my little pocket video camera, he asked me if it was ok if that was my early Valentine's day present. Of course I was completely fine with that, and like a fool, I believed him! One of these days I won't be so gullible.

A few days before Valentine's Day I got a phone call from one of our neighbors asking if we had plans for Valentines Day weekend, still being the naive person that I am, I said no, and told her that we would love to come to their house for dinner and games that Saturday.

So as Valentines day came closer, I thought that our only plans would be going to our Neighbors for dinner, and maybe a card from Chris.

I had decided a long time ago that Chris had gone one too many holidays being "jipped" so even though I had gotten my Valentine's day present early, I was going to buy him something for Valentines day despite his protesting.

He is kind of hard to buy for. I feel like really the only thing he gets excited about is a new knife, however after the whole fiasco we had with Bubby, Chris' pocket knife, a chair and Bubby's thumb, I figured a new knife was kind of out of the question!

Lately Chris has been "stealing" his Mom's Nintendo DS and bringing it home for a few days to play with after work or on his oh so rare down times. I know he loves to play video games, but really doesn't have a lot of time to do it, and really no place TO do it! So since he has some business trips coming up, I came up with what I thought was a brilliant idea! I would get him a new game system to take on the plane, and also to play with at home. I waited until Thursday to go buy anything so that I wouldn't have to hide it for very long. I was so excited about my purchase, and about finding what I thought was the "perfect" gift, but then I went and screwed it up!

I left the bags in the very back of the Santa Fe. I did this on purpose thinking it was a rather "safe" place to hide them. Chris hardly ever drives the Santa Fe, and when he does, there is generally no reason for him to open the very back, so I thought I had "hid" it in a rather clever place. Well wouldn't you know it, that VERY night Mama Anne called and needed him to come up and do some work for her. He grabbed his tools and loaded them up in the Santa Fe, and well...you can figure out the rest of the story. I was so mad at myself and so sad that my surprise had been ruined! It's hard to get much if anything past him!

On Friday he sent me a message saying that we had a date that night but I was not allowed to know where we were going. Uh oh...this usually means he has something big planned, and I thought that I had already gotten my big Valentine's gift!

After we picked up Cameron and Reagan we took all three kids up to Mama Anne's for a fun Friday night of Pizza, Movies, and games. Then Chris and I headed off to SLC.

We went to see the movie Valentines Day, which I actually really liked, and then we went to dinner at Flemings. We hadn't been to Flemings since the night we got engaged. I LOVE that place! It is a real treat to get to go eat there!! The food is amazing!

Our Dinner at Flemings. SO YUMMY!!!

On Saturday we took the kids on a Valentines Date. We took them to the movie "Percy Jackson" which was a lot better than I thought the previews made it look! Bubby was actually not too bad in the movie either. This was the first movie we had taken him to in months and he sat pretty nicely for most of it. He only asked for Manny a couple of times. After the movie we took them to Cold Stone for ice-cream.

That Evening Chris and I went over to dinner at the Hinds' house, and had a good time eating and playing games with a few other couples from our ward for a few hours.

We also did our Valentine presents that night. Bubby got a new puppy...which sadly still has not taken the old puppy's place, but maybe someday. Cameron got a new knife...( I know..he has been warned to keep it far far away from Keric!)and Reagie got a gift certificate to get a manicure at Nails. She has been asking to get her nails done there for as long as I can remember. She wont get the real acrylic nails until she is older obviously, but we thought it might be fun for her to go and get a little hand massage, and get her nails painted one day. I gave Chris his present, which he pretended to be surprised about, and then he gave me mine! I told him I already had mine, but apparently not. He gave me a nice card, flowers, a new pancake griddle, AND a gift certificate for a pedicure!!

My flowers! Duh! Of COURSE they have purple in them!

Sunday we had to have our traditional Valentines Day breakfast made by Chris too. I seriously look forward to this breakfast all year long! So sad huh? Since church is at 9, we had Valentines Day brunch, but Chris broke my new griddle in by making his famous heart shaped chocolate chip pancakes with strawberries.


The Chef hard at work on the new griddle!


Reagie helping with drinks.


Mmmmmmmm! So good!


Putting the final touches on the pancakes.


A Bubby sized plate. :)


Ready to eat!!


Yummy Strawberries!


We all sort of looked like this after we were done, but it looks a little cuter on Bubby!

It truly was a PACKED weekend, and a very fun weekend as well! I'm not entirely sure what it was that I did to deserve someone who is so mindful and sweet to me, not just on Valentines Day, but everyday! I am truly grateful for him and when and if someone does figure out that a mistake has been made, I don't intend on giving him back! haha

Gross, yet not really?

Keric has had what I like to refer to as "a pregnant woman's taste buds" lately! He eats some really odd things! Things I would not expect a kid his age to like!

He has all of the sudden become kind of a picky eater, and a kid who doesn't eat much at all! However this does not seem to slow him down at all! He still has MORE than enough energy! I told Chris I thought maybe he was Solar Powered, and he said he thought he was more Laser powered. Laser Powered?? He thinks that maybe the radiation from watching Manny on T.V. is absorbed into Bubby's cells which in turn creates energy, kind of like the sun does with plants. I don't know? I guess since he watches so much flippin Manny, if this indeed is the case, then this would be why he has so much flippin energy!

Anyway, my point is when he WILL eat, I am more than happy to give him what it is he wants no matter how odd it sounds to me! Lately he has been asking for Pickles, or as Bubby says it "Gickles" a lot! Every time I open the fridge he runs up, swings the door open wider, and yells "Gickle! Gickle!" I think he ate almost an entire jar of Grandma Hopkin's pickles almost all by himself. I will admit that I helped some, but honestly not a lot! He does come by his love of Gickles honestly! I LOVE my Grandma's pickles, and every time I go home I con her out of a jar of two to bring back with me! :) Guess he got the Gickle taste bud from me!

Today for his snack after his nap he asked for "Gickles" and "Shish" (translation, pickles and gold fish) Really!?! Yuck!



After I put it on his tray it just looked so gross! It sounded gross when he asked for it, but yet I have to admit that I too like Gickles and Shish especially if they are my Grandma's Gickles, I just don't know that I would eat them together. Just not so appetizing if you know what I mean! He did however eat every last one of them, so I guess it must have been good?

Who knows what goes through that little head of his! All I know is that he cracks me up more and more every day!

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!