Wednesday, July 30, 2008

In a fog


So sometimes when life is stressful, I just kinda go into a fog. I was like that this morning. I was trying to get the kitchen clean with about a million other to dos on my mind. Totally fogged over. Then this glass tipped over and broke in the sink. That brought me back to the present. Funny how something so simple can make such an impact.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Update on my dad

I have been debating about talking about this on my blog for a while. It is a pretty personal thing, but I also don't want to have to call an update everyone and know that people would like to know. So here is a brief update on my dad. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer during the last test. The surgeon has decided to do the Whipple surgery on Thursday. It is a very long and in depth surgery. He will in be the hospital for a few weeks for recovery.

Monday, July 28, 2008

Nana Kisses

Nothing beats kisses from your nana!

Friday, July 25, 2008

Muddling through

Muddling Along by Janene Wolsey Baadsgaard
Have you ever had one of those days where you wish you’d stayed in bed? I remember a day like that.
The dishwasher had malfunctioned, flooding our house all night as we slept. We didn’t know until one of our sleepy-eyed children came into our bedroom early in the morning and said, “Mom and Dad! It’s raining in the basement!”
The room that was hardest hit was the storage room where we’d recently carefully stacked and dated our pride and joy, a two-year supply of food. In a mad dash to save anything we could, every member of our family hauled each bucket and box out into the back yard to dry out. It took hours.
Just when we finished, we heard a clap of thunder, looked up, and felt several drops splash in our eyes. Then the heavens were opened and the few drops immediately became a downpour. We regrouped and quickly hauled our soggy mess into the garage.
When we finally got every box and bucket into the garage, my son came running to me in tears, informing me his pet rabbit was dead. After finally getting the children off to school, my daughter called from campus saying she couldn’t remember where she’d parked the car at BYU. Then my other first-grader had an accident that required a change of clothing. You get the picture.
“I can’t handle any more,” I said to my husband.
“You don’t have to handle it,” my husband replied. “There’s no rule book somewhere that says you have to go through life handling everything. Just muddle, Jan. I’ve been muddling for years and no one can tell the difference.”
Muddle, I thought. I think I can muddle.
Now every time I’m feeling overwhelmed, I remember my husband’s timely advice. Frankly, I’ve been muddling ever since and so far no one can tell the difference, just like he promised.
I remember a day when I walked into the kitchen to find my young son surrounded by the large white buckets where I stored our flour, sugar, and pasta. He was busy scooping— sugar into the flour—rice into the sugar—pasta into the rice. The whole kitchen looked like a white billowing cloud except for my son’s innocent grin and two large blue eyes staring up at me. “Look, Mom. I’m the bread maker!” my young son said as he looked up at me.
Suddenly it dawned on me that whenever I made bread I pulled out all the white buckets and started scooping. He was trying to be like me.
My feelings of frustration melted into love. I was so proud of him for trying. As we got busy cleaning the kitchen, I realized God loves us like that. No matter how big the mess or mistake we’ve made, God provides us with a Savior to help us clean it up. That is the essence of muddling.
Muddling is not mediocrity. Muddling allows us to stop keeping up appearances or worrying that we’ll never measure up. Muddling is accepting our humanness and inadequacies. Muddling is realizing there are some messes only Christ can clean up. And muddling is seeing our worth through God’s eyes and never giving up hope that things will work out.

I got this on my LDS Living emails. It is just what I need to hear. And lately have needed to hear it often. So I thought I would post it in case anyone else needs to hear this.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Jogging/Wogging

Okay so my friend Amber blogged about wogging (walking and jogging.) And I had too many thoughts on it to leave a short comment. So I decided to write a whole blog about it!

First thought: Thanks! I have been wanting to get back into running since I had Sariah. This morning your blog inspired me to just bite the bullet and take the time to go! So out I went with my jogging stroller. James finally helped me air up the tires (this was one of many excuses I gave myself for not going.) While jogging, I realized that I was WAY more out of shape than I thought. It didn't help that I was pushing about 20 lbs in the stroller and I'm used to running alone. But I managed to run about a mile and walk about a mile.

Second thought: Wearing tight clothes. Okay you asked about why people where tight clothes. I have several thoughts on this. Yes I agree that part of it is to keep your body from jiggling quite so much. Also a lot of the tight clothes that you can get a sports stores are made from fabrics that help to whisk sweat away and keep you cooler and dryer. They are actually much more comfortable to run in if you get some good clothes like that. I also realized that I want to be able to fit back into my tight running clothes! Maybe a few more runs will get me there!!

Third thought: When I got home, I happened to have an email from Itunes in connection with Nike about there 10K human race. It is a big race with several locations and everyone runs together on the same day. Kinda cool! Bummer that the closest locale to us is Chicago. But I did find out about their tracking options. I had heard of this stuff before, but it was too expensive. Now the price has come down and it is reasonable if you are at all serious about running or walking. It is their Nike+ Line. It comes with a little chip that you stick in the shoe and it tracks all sorts of stats about your run. You can either link it to an Ipod nano or by the air band they have. Then you come home and sync it to the computer and it will track how far, how long, how many calories etc and your progress between runs. It will also give you work out plans to reach certain goals. The chip is about $30 and the shoes seem to run $80 ish and up. Which really isn't that bad if you actually buy good shoes. You do have to get the shoes that are compatible, but I think it is pretty cool. I think for me it is worth the investment. You can also link to other people online to compete with each other.

Fourth thought: James and I are planning to run in the Zoo's "Run for the Frogs." http://www.kansascityzoorun.org/

You can do either 4 mile run (starting in Swope park and ending in the zoo) or a 1 mile run/walk (entirely in the zoo). There is a charge and it varies depending on how soon you register, but you do get free entrance into the zoo that day. So you could just have to pay for your spouse and kids (which you get a discount for) and spend the rest of the day at the zoo. If anyone else signs up let me know so we can look for you.

Fifth thought: I would love to join the competition. I'm about the slowest runner ever, but I love it. And I usually have really good endurance. So let me know what the incentives are or if anyone wants to get together to run.

I think those were all of my thoughts!! hehehe

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Aunt Jessie- My Stylist

So Jessie decided to style Sariah's hair the other morning. Here are the results:


Old Title page posts

Okay so I wasn't paying attention and I often put some of my cutest pictures as my header. Unfortunately, when you remove the header the picture is no longer on your blog. So by popular demand here are the past headers. (And from now on I will do a post when I change headers so that the old ones will remain on the blog.)








Caught on tape

Okay so Sariah actually rolled over for the first time on July 14th, but today was the first time I was able to catch it on tape.

It is short, but just so cool to me. Hopefully she will do it when James is around sometime. For now, I guess the video will have to do.

Tagging

Ok so I'm not really into the whole tagging/forwarding thing. So I am going to be a spoil sport and only do part of the request. I will post 6 random things about me, but I'm not going to ask anyone else to do it. Especially since many of my blog friends have already been asked. I hope this is ok!

6 random things about me:

1) I love to sleep in. I can will myself back to sleep in the morning just by laying there a little longer. It is my guilty pleasure. (I don't get to do it as much with Sariah here now- but I do nap with her)

2) I am a super good packer. I can fit a lot of things in a suitcase. I never really have to pack lite because I'm so good at packing things in. (Hence why 2 of our suitcases were over the weight limit coming back from CA.)

3) I make glass beads and enjoy that there is a little danger involved in this hobby! :)

4) I am slowly painting my living room. Right now one wall is done! :)

5) My mom says I'm a great manipulator. I guess being the youngest I learned what did and didn't work, and figured out how to get my way without arguing.

6) I want to run a marathon. Anyone interested in doing it with me? I have run a half marathon, but want to be able to say that I did a full one!

Thursday, July 17, 2008

It's been a while

Well after getting back from vacation I had ever intention of posting blogs for each day with what we did and pictures, but when I got back it was back to life in fast forward. I still plan to post about my vacation, but for now I'm just wanting to get something posted!!

So here are a few things that have been going on in my world:

James has started a new job. He loves it! I love it! Especially the hours! He is now off work by five and we actually get to spend some time together at night!

I survived Youth Conference. I did pictures for youth conf last year when they did the handcart trek. Mind you I was in early pregnancy and sick for a lot of it, but I managed and really enjoyed it. So they asked me to do them again this year. So Sariah and I got to experience much of youth conference again! If you are curious about it, I did a separately blog with the pictures this year it is at www.plattecityyouthconference.blogspot.com.

Sariah's teeth are really showing now. I will try to get a picture up soon. She has had her 2 bottom teeth for a while now and now they are showing when she smiles really big.

Sariah has ROLLED OVER!! Okay it has only happened once, but yes she has officially gone from her stomach to her back!!

James' sister Jessie has moved in with us. She was living with her boyfriend and they have finally called it quits. She also took over James' position with his old company and plans to go to NY with them. So in the mean time she is living with us.

Well that's a glimpse into life for me.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

We are in Cali

So we have arrived without a hitch. We left KCI at 11:30 yesterday. We got in and had a little trouble figuring out where to go for our rental car. We ended up having to call them and ask what pickup shuttle we were supposed to get on. We really didn’t mind though, because it was just GORGEOUS outside. So we just enjoyed waiting. We finally got to our rental car and then grabbed a bite to each. Then we made the drive to Camarillo. This is where James’ grandma lives. She is just the sweetest lady!! We just sat and talked for the evening- catching up, looking at pictures, and relaxing. James’ Aunt Susan stopped by and brought a play yard for us to borrow for Sariah. She lives really close (within walking distance if you don’t mind jumping a fence apparently.) We also got to visit with his Aunt Carin, who lives with his grandma. She and Grandma shared stories about his Grandpa. Telling us how inventive he was. That he was a great mechanic. That when he was 12 he took a car apart and rebuilt it. They have started his personal history story, but it isn’t quite done. They have promised to show it to us though.
Sariah did pretty good. She slept most of the flight and most of the ride to the house. Last night was rough for her. Normally, she is in her own room with no disturbances. Last night we had the porta crib in our room and she woke up when we came in to go to bed (despite our best efforts to be quiet.) So it took a while to get her to go back down. Then she woke up really early this morning. At that point, I just let her stay in bed with me and sleep. Thankfully James was a good sport and took her out this morning so I could snooze in a little longer. I think tonight we will try to put her in a different room. Hopefully that will let her sleep a little better.
So we are getting ready for breakfast with Grandma this morning. Sariah is back down for a nap. We are still planning out our week, but I think we will be going to Santa Barbara today.

So we decided to stop by the Camarillo Premium Outlets. Grandma and Aunt Susan had told us they were a hotspot to visit. James forgot his sunglasses so we decided we would stop by really quick and see what was so nice about it and pick a pair up and then head off to Santa Barbara. This was just after lunch. So about 7:30 PM we finally decide we have done enough shopping to require that we get more luggage to take everything home and that we should really go. It was SO fun! I don’t think James and I have ever shopped that much before. They just had so many stores. And unfortunately I have turned James to the dark side. He is now a bigger clothes hog than me!! So we got clothes and shoes at such good deals!! We just couldn’t resist. James is still talking me into going back and getting a coach bag. I want one but they are expensive. But the coach outlet has them for 40% off so I think I will give in and get one. (I know, I know- twist my arm and make me buy a new cute purse!! Hehehe) One great thing is that James never minds me shopping. Of course he normally sees it as an opportunity for him to justify buying something he wants.

Here is a picture of Sariah with her Great Grandma Ransom: