8 Years

My sister-in-law, Natilyn, posted this video on facebook. I haven't seen it in years. It sure takes me back, which is hard, of course. It also leaves me feeling really grateful that I was married to such a wonderful man. Little Bradley is sitting on my lap watching this movie with me and saying over and over "I like this song!" I wish he could have known Brad, but of course, then he wouldn't exist the way he exists. I'm sure he does know him and has seen him more recently than I have.

It is hard to express how I feel, and I especially want to be careful not to diminish the beautiful life that I have now, because I have been very blessed with a wonderful husband, and two very amazing boys. I guess I am just extra blessed that I have had two such amazing men in my life, and two very good and happy marriages. That is more than most get in life. I was blessed to be married to Brad and to know him. I wouldn't be the person I am now without him in my life and without these experiences. And I am very blessed now to be married to Mike, who is so supportive and faithful, and even was the one to suggest naming our firstborn after Brad. What an amazing man he is.

I often think of what my friend Shannon said to me when talking about looking back on a mission. She said, "I miss being a missionary, but I don't want to go back, because I could never give up the life I have now". That is how I feel. I miss Brad, and love him, but I would never give up the life i have now. Again, mostly I am just grateful for the life God has given me, hard stuff and all. I wouldn't give up those two years with Brad and I wouldn't give up now and the rest of my life with my amazing family.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the video. It is a great tribute to each of the men that died 8 years ago today. I know that all of them are still serving God and living on.

Moving to Albuquerque

We finally made it. We are in Albuquerque. It has been really humbling for me. I thought I was good at the moving thing. (At least, I've done it enough, I feel like I SHOULD be). But this move has been hard. It is getting better though and God is trying to teach me, I think. (How well I am learning is a different matter altogether)

We rented a house. It is really open and I love the layout. We also have a nice big yard. The boys love that, as do I. It is also really old, so we've had a few issues. Like bugs. We had an ant attack a couple days after we got here. In Noah's bed. (Luckily Noah was not in his bed at the time). Also, our fridge stopped working. But we got our new one today, and it is beautiful. And all the plugs in our office don't work. So, yeah. just an old house.

But, today has been really good. I think maybe because finally after a week of being here, I took the time to study my scriptures and pray...like, really pray. The kind where I pray before my boys wake up and talk to God uninterrupted. And today has been good. You would think by now I would have learned to do that from day one instead of waiting until I am wallowing in misery at the end of the week. :)

So, here are some pictures of the journey! We sort of took the long way here...we wanted to try a different way, but we got a little lost. Luckily, we had a GPS. But man, talk about the middle of NOWHERE. We didn't see another car for like, a half hour. It was pretty crazy. But our route did take us pretty near 4 corners. So we did stop there. I'm glad that we stopped there on the way down, so that we know better than to make a trip out of it. It's pretty anti-climatic. But I bought a pretty rockin' necklace there!

My mom is in Utah and I am in New Mexico. See, we aren't that far!! Meanwhile, Noah is just wandering around Colorado, no big deal.

The boys handled the trip pretty good though. They did have a hard time sleeping in a hotel. But for some reason, once we put them down for their naps in our new place, we didn't hear a peep! I was amazed. Here are the two of them taking their first naps in our new house.

My mom was so awesome. She drove down with us to help us unpack. She put shelf paper in pretty much every single drawer and cabinet in my kitchen. And I get happy every time I open said cabinets. Mom, you are really the best.

Us standing in front of our new house.

Grandma left on Wednesday. We gave ourselves a sad day. And it was a very sad day. But on Thursday, it was time to pull out of it, so naturally, we had to go get suckers. What else could we do?

This is our shed. As of now, I love sheds. Best idea ever, especially in a land without basements. (as an aside, I found out why they don't typically have basements in Albuquerque. Because when it rains, basements fill with mud. I deduced this from the Bishop thanking everyone who had helped so-and-so dig all the mud out of her basement after the excessive rain they got last weekend.)

This is our patio and yard. By far my favorite part of this house. Minus the fact that the lawn is full of stickers...but that too, will be remedied eventually, I am sure.

Three most handsome boys ever

Our yard

The rest of our yard

The view from our back yard. We almost look like we don't live in a desert. A bit deceiving. :) But we do live on a hill and it does overlook the city with the mountains in the background and it is beautiful.

Anyway, that is about it. Stay tuned. As soon as our house is a tiny bit more put together, I might post pictures. If I'm lucky. :)

Summer

So, due to the fact that I posted at the beginning of the summer, and then pretty much not at all after that, I figure I'll have a summer recap post. (Where did summer go??) This will pretty much be a random conglomeration pictures, events, etc. But, then we can move forward with fall.

So, here we go.

Fathers and Sons. Mike and Bradley had a blast, even though it got cancelled because of the rain. I was proud of my little man for sticking it out in the rain...until 5 am, at which point he woke Mike up and asked to go home.

Girls Camp: Fantastic. It was so much fun being with those girls. I pretty much got to spend a week with some of the most amazing people I know.

These two came to help pack up camp. What good helpers!

My Birthday: Umm, 30. Wow. I am old. I was actually at girls camp on my birthday. We were up at midnight, and we did dance around the fire. Best Birthday Ever. Unfortunately, no pictures of that. But, here are some pictures of my joint birthday party with Jess.

Megan Leaving on Her Mission. (She leaves for Taiwan TOMORROW!! Crazy)

Bradley saying goodbye to his Aunt Mimi. This picture makes me cry every time I see it.

Noah saying goodbye.

Eating at the Brick Oven before MTC. A family tradition.

Me and Meg.

The original 5. Me and my awesome siblings.

Noah's First Haircut

Family Reunion at Bear Lake (my mom's side)

This is me, wake boarding. You have now witnessed a miracle for the day. Mike also got up, on his 2nd try. But we don't have a picture of that, just a movie. :(

Daddy and Bradley on the boat

Love this picture.

Family Reunion (Mike's dad's side)

Antelope Island Moonlight Bike Ride. I will admit that the pictures would be much more impressive if it wasn't dark outside, but what do you do.

Ward Campout, and by ward campout, I mean my parents ward. Noah's first time camping. He did okay, except that he wanted the entire queen size mattress to himself. :)

And, last but not least, Bradley's birthday "party". AKA, family comes over for dinner. Because he's three.

And here are just a few pictures of my kids, because let's just face it, they are pretty darn cute.

I told Bradley to go up and put his underpants on and this is the result. This is a great example of "over zealousness". :)

This kid loves ice cream.

And that was our summer in a nutshell (with a lot of crazy in between :)

Bradley is 3!

Prayer Answered

I had a prayer answered. Today, Bradley somehow realized that pointing his finger and yelling “NO!” at Noah reduced Noah to sobs. (Anyone that knows Noah knows that he is a little dramatic, so these were very sad and dramatic sobs) So, naturally, Bradley continued to do that CONSTANTLY. And the hard thing was, even in timeout, or strapped in the car, he could still do it, even if he wasn’t close enough to touch Noah. So pretty much Bradley spent a good part of an hour in timeout and Noah spent that same part of the hour in hysterical sobs. And I spent that part of the hour in complete dismay and confusion. What do you do? I couldn’t explain to Noah that if he would just ignore Brad, then Brad would get bored and stop. And the more I got mad at Brad, the more he would do it to get the attention. Really, I wanted to leave him at home while Noah and I went to the park together, but obviously, I couldn’t leave my 3 year old home alone.

So finally, when I knew there was literally nothing I could think of to fix this, I announced that we would be saying a prayer. So we all folded our arms, and I prayed that Noah could feel happy and that Bradley could be kind. Then, I took them both out to the car so that we could go run some errands. (Oh how I was dreading the errands with these two boys).

Normally, once I strap them in and they can’t touch each other, everything is fine. But, as previously mentioned, Brad didn’t need to be close to Noah to torment him, and the screaming recommenced. So I cranked up the radio as loud as I could (without damaging any ears) in hopes that I could drown out Bradley screaming “NO!” over and over. Unfortunately, commercials. Change the station, commercials. Every pre-programmed station on my car, commercials. So I hit the CD button, with literally no idea what was even in there. Guess what was in there. Church Music. Yes, that is correct. Church. Music. Some mix of all my favorite most edifying church songs, hymns, efy, etc. And, the screaming stopped. And Bradley said, “Too loud, mommy.” So I turned it down a tiny bit, but left it on.

And I began to drive. As I’m driving, I start to remember the kind of mom that I actually want to be in this situation. You know, that mom that has it all together and is patient and loving even when her children are trying really really hard to convince her that they are actually monsters from another planet. I took a deep breath, and thought, “What would that mom do?” Well, I don’t know what that mom would do because in reality, I’m not her...at least not yet. But I decided that I would bag the errands. So, we turned around, went back to the house, grabbed the stroller, and drove up to 2nd Dam where we went on a little walk and sat beside the water and threw rocks for about an hour. There were ducks, there was a breeze, it was the perfect temperature, and it was beautiful. I was happy. The boys were happy. It was so great.

Then, we went home to grab some lunch. As I pull up, I see Mike’s bike there (meaning he is home, in the middle of the day) He had left his computer cord home, so he came home for lunch to pick it up. I walk in the door, and the kitchen is cleaner and lunch is made and waiting for us on the table. How often does this happen in my life? Close to never. (not because my husband isn’t awesome—because he is—but because like most awesome husbands, he does have a job)

So, basically, what this all comes down to is that I know that God answers prayers. Today he answered mine with music, nature, and my wonderful husband. And I am feeling really, really grateful about it.

Signs of Summer

It's Summer! And nothing says summer quite like...going swimming! Look at that smile...

This is one of Noah's first times swimming. The last time we went he screamed the whole time. It took him a while to show his face this time.

But thanks to persistence,...and 6 inch water...he had a grand old time.

As soon as we walked in the door, Bradley saw the slides and said, Bradley Toy! Bradley Toy! At first I thought, "He's only 2, he probably can't go on the slide. Turns out he could, with Daddy.

He comes up spitting out water and as soon as he is able to talke, he looks up and says, Again! We went two more times. Needless to say, we'll be going swimming again. Next time we'll try Noah...maybe....

It Finally Happened

Noah started to walk! Today he took his official first steps, and his second, third, fourth...okay, let's be honest, once he decided to do it, he was determined to get it right. Over and over he stood up, took a few steps, fell down and did it again. He is definitely persistent and that was a very good thing today!! Here is a short sample of his endeavors. :)