The Joy of having a Boy

Jeremiah makes me SO happy. I know I say this all the time but, he really does!!!
He is now waddling all around the house and picking things up and carrying them with him wherever he goes. I showed him that he could put things in a little purse that I had so that he could carry that around instead of an arm full of stuff. He loved that idea! But, soon it wasn't enough. He has now found one of my decorative baskets and fills it up to the brim. However, the basket gets too heavy for him to carry around. HA...so he just sits on the ground and stares at it perplexingly.

Jeremiah has also become quite the little climber. He pulls his bumbo seat off of a dining room chair and uses it to climb onto the chair and then uses the chair to climb onto the table. He has tried climbing on top of, into, and out of everything in our home. Yesterday, I heard him screaming and found him stuck in his toy bin. Apparently, he can climb in but can't climb out.

He loves pushing around a toy fire engine that I found him at the DI. The engine has a hole in it for legos but he fills it with everything he can think of and pushes it around. I think he found that this was easier than trying to carry a big basket full of toys. We also know that if there is anything missing in our house it's either in Jeremiah's toy bin or in his fire engine. In a single day I found: my keys, chris's measuring tape, a cup, a cell phone, one of our decorative monkey's from Africa and one of my necklaces inside of his fire engine.

This afternoon, after Chris's career fair, Jeremiah and I walked around and gathered candy from the baby admiring ladies at career booths. On our way home I gave him a sucker with a wrapper on it thinking that he would just play with it. Evidently, he gnawed on the sucker long enough to get the wrapper off. Since he was so clever we just let him have the sucker. :) Lucky Kid!

Happy Days

This past Thursday my husband surprised me with a cute little box and a note for my birthday. Excitedly I opened the box only to find a whole bunch of mud! YES! Just what I wanted :S Actually, it turns out that this was his way of telling me that I was going to run in The Dirty Dash (a 10k race in Midway Utah). I had been wanting to run the race and kept asking about it but it was too expensive to register so late in the game. So, it was a great surprise and a wonderful present!

Today we ran The Dirty Dash.  I couldn't believe how much I enjoyed getting so dirty. What a great memory.

And, to top the day off, I went to the General Relief Society Meeting. I enjoyed all of the talks but the one that really spoke to me was the talk given by Elder Uchtdorf. I adore him! Not only is he the most handsome apostle (in my opinion) but also extremely sweet and funny. I genuinely feel his love for me and for the members of the church. He hit on 5 points that stem from his thoughts on the Forget Me Not flower.

1. Forget Not to be Patient with Yourself

I think it's so important that we don't get down on ourselves for not being perfect. A problem that many of the women of the church have. Why is it that we believe we have to be the perfect mom, wife, cook, pianist, painter, etc? And, what is perfection? Is our vision of what perfection is warped?

2. Forget Not the Difference Between a Good Sacrifice and a Foolish Sacrifice.

Sometimes we focus too much on trying to go the extra mile but the sacrifice we make in order to do so might not be wise.

3. Forget Not to be Happy Now!

We should enjoy the blessings we currently have and life in happiness along our quest for perfection.

4. Forget Not the "Why" of the Gospel.

We often focus on the "What" (what do I have to do now?) and "How" (how the heck am I going to find time to do this?) but, as we remember the "Why" it makes the "What" and "How" so much easier to see and do.

5. Forget Not that the Lord Loves You

:) We are beloved daughters of our Heavenly Father and He LOVES us! We are loved by the most magnificent being in the entire universe.

Wow! It's so wonderful that we have modern day apostles and a prophet who leads our church and speaks on behalf of God. We can hear exactly what Heavenly Father wants us to know.

I am also posting a few pictures of Jeremiah because I know you all enjoy seeing pictures of him more than hearing about our lives. :) I took these over the past 2 days. 

Oh...to sleep like a baby! I swear Jeremiah can sleep  in ANY position.

We all have BYU jerseys so that we can sport them when we watch the games. The picture on the left is Jeremiah in football line position. We thought this was funny.

Thank You

This morning on my way home from driving Chris to his meeting I stopped to let a girl cross the street. The girl happily smiled, waved and mouthed a "thank you" as she crossed. I was so touched by this small gesture of appreciation. I didn't realize that a simple "thank you" could change or set the mood for the day.

In 2003 Elder Oaks gave a talk called "Give Thanks in All Things." In his talk Elder Oaks outlines some of the things that we should be grateful for and why it's important that we give thanks.
As I read this talk I realized that showing gratitude not only lifts the receiver but also blesses the life of the giver. When I give thanks to others and to God I am more positive and see potential/present problems in a brighter light. It's often hard to be grateful for our trials especially while we are in the middle of them. However, Elder Oaks assures us that we will be blessed as we search for things to be thankful for and show our gratitude for those things.

I challenge each of you today to thank at least 5 people ,including God, for something. As you make yourself more aware of the good that you are being blessed with it will become more easy for you to see them each day. You will find that there are so many things to be thankful for that you wont know how to give thanks for all of them. HOW GREAT IS THAT?!?

Some of the things I am grateful for today are: the nice weather, the food in my refrigerator, my husband, my baby boy, dish sponges, my ability to hear and see, work, and the internet.

This morning Jeremiah was crawling around with a flavored stick that he got from the doctor's office. I thought that this picture might make you smile and hopefully make you grateful for children, laughter, humor, smiles, wealth enough to have a device that has internet capabilities and your ability to see this picture that has traveled through space so that you can view it miles and miles away.   :)

I want to tell you all that I am so thankful for you and for all that you do. My life is beautiful because you are a part of it!!!

Elder Oaks "Give Thanks in All Things" 2003

One step at a time

Jeremiah has been eagerly trying to walk for the past two months now. It's been incredible to watch him go from sitting to standing, standing to walking along the couch and finally walking along the couch to walking. I love watching him concentrate on and try new things. He has a curiosity and spunk that I admire. Every day is a new adventure with Jeremiah; every day we learn something new together! I am so glad that I can tag along with such a great boy and experience the world through his incredible eyes.

Here is a video of Jeremiah learning to walk.

The American Idol Experience

Jessica Dixon and I decided that it would be a fun idea to go to Houston this year to try out for American Idol. So, we bought tickets and flew out to Texas without a clue in our minds as to what would happen when we arrived. Since neither one of us is 25 years old yet, to rent a car would cost us an arm and a leg. So, we decided to go with public transit. But, not having traveled very much alone we didn't know the first thing about getting around.

We arrived at the Houston airport and we were greeted by a big warm hug from Mr. Humidity when we walked off the plane. Yuck! But, despite the weather we were determined to make our trip wonderful. With our Carry-on luggage in hand and a smile on our faces we headed outside to the bus station. Unlike other cities I've been in the bus maps in Houston were extremely confusing. Rather than trying to figure out how to get from place to place on our own we just decided to ask people around us for help. We talked to a nice old man who told us what bus to take to get downtown. As we rode the bus we giggled and pointed out the window at the unfamiliar sights around us. When the bus driver directed us off the bus we realized that downtown was a very loose term. Apparently "downtown" was miles and miles and miles big. 3 1/2 hours, 4 bus trips and miles of walking later we had reached the Galleria (a mall that Chris Moyes, my sister-in-law's husband, told us was a cool place to go). As we walked in, we realized that we were extremely underdressed. The Galleria was an upscale shopping center with the Armani story being at the Low end of expensive. But, we were sweaty, tired and very hungry so we ignored the fact that we didn't fit in and just found a place to rest and eat. 
By now, my phone had been dead for about 2 hours and it was 9 pm. Because we didn't know where else to go or what else to do we caught a bus down to Reliant Park where the auditions would be held. We were dropped off on the opposite side of the Reliant Stadium but didn't find it a huge obstacle because how far around could it be to the other side? Right?... NO! We began walking down the dark street with our luggage dragging behind us. When we finally figure out we were heading in the wrong direction we were exhausted and didn't want to walk anymore. We were lost and our excitement about being in Houston was fading quickly. With no way of calling anyone and no way of figuring out where we were, we sat down on the side of the road. As we looked around us to see where we had plopped down we noticed that there was an electric outlet on a TREE! What? Yes! There was one tree that someone hadn't taken Christmas lights off of and there was a plug right there on the tree. We hurried and plugged in our phone and thanked Heavenly Father for such a great tender mercy. 

While we were waiting for our phone to charge Jessica noticed that just a block down there was a grocery cart. What luck!!! When we were rejuvenated enough to get back up and wander some more we put all of our luggage in the grocery cart and began pushing it in the opposite direction we had headed last time. It was only when we began passing a lot of homeless people that we feared we were not in a great part of town. Just as we were beginning to worry we heard a shout from behind a bus that had just stopped. A boy ran across the road to us and knew by the looks of us that we were from out of town. He shouted at us and asked if we were trying out for american idol. We replied in the affirmative and he said that he would like to accompany us to wherever we were going because he too was trying out for american idol. He said, "what the heck are you two girls doing out this late on this side of town? Ya'll are going to get yourselves killed. Let me push your buggy and I'll come with you to wherever you are going." Well...we didn't know where we were going but, we thought it might be a good idea to try and find the other side of the stadium. Eventually, three hours later, we reached the other side of Reliant park. We didn't realize that the place was so big.
When we found the line of anxious talent waiting to register we were so happy!!! Ah...we had made it. As we sat in line there was an awkward silence around us. Jessica and I thought it would be a fun idea to have some entertainment to keep us awake through the next 7 hours so, we brilliantly began asking people to sing their audition pieces for us. We had NO IDEA that once we got people singing they would NEVER stop! Our night was long and filled with music. We met incredible singers and some that were not so incredible. It was so fun to meet people that were so different from us. We loved the black texan accent and enjoyed the weird questions that some of the people asked us. They said things like, "Ya'll are married? How old are you? Ya'll have kids too? Crazy! You're baby daddy still around? My baby daddy not. I'm gonna hunt him down and beat his a**. How long you been married? Wow...and he don't beat you? Ya'll are lucky!"

At 9am we were finally able to register. Now that we endured long enough to get our orange wristbands we were so excited to get to Sugarland so we could sleep at the Smith's home. 

After a few bus rides and people telling us where to go, we reached the sugarland station. But, guess who doesn't have phone battery again??? Yep...so we trail off again on foot. As we were almost about to break out in tears we spotted a taxi at a gas station. Another tender mercy. The man was able to get us to the Smith's house (which we would have NEVER made it to on foot).

The Smith family is so sweet and kind. They had fresh towels and a nice cool bed waiting for us when we arrived. It was so nice to relax and finally get some sleep.We enjoyed being with the Smith girls so much that we hung out with them most of the time we were there. They were a blast to be around; it was like having a 24/7 "girls night".

On Friday morning we arrived at Reliant Park Stadium around 5:30am. We sat like cattle in cages that they shoved everyone into. At 8am they let us into the stadium and we did a lot of filming. When they were done with their filming they instructed us on how the audition process would go. There were 12 booths in the middle of the stadium. A line of 4 people were to approach every booth and the judges would direct them to sing in turn. They then say "yes" or "no". If they say "yes" you get a golden ticket and go to one door and if they say "no" you get your wristband cut off and walk out another door.

When it was our turn we walked up and it appeared as though the two judges were playing rock-paper-scissors. Apparently they were fighting over going to lunch and neither of them wanted to be there. The girl that lost at rock-paper-scissors wasn't very happy. She looked at us with a nasty stare and just told us to sing. I don't think she even listened. She said "no" to the whole line after us until she was able to go to lunch! HAHA...we felt like we did a great job (Jessica sang "angel" spectacularly and I sang "a-tisket a-tasket" better than I expected) and there were people around us who also didn't make it and were incredible!!!!! American Idol makes it look like half of the people who show up are bad or weird but in all truthfulness only about 2 % of the people trying out are jokes, 68 % are average and 30% are amazing! What's silly is that only 1% of all the people who try out actually make it past the first round of judges and half of those are the jokes that aren't even good at singing. But, that's show business! :)
We had such a great experience trying out for American Idol. We didn't come into it expecting anything, we knew that we didn't have great odds. It would have been cool if we got through but, we had a good time just being a part of something so big.

Houston was a BLAST!  We had so many great experiences and met some great people. I am so grateful that Jessica and I were able to have the American Idol experience. We had such a great time bumming around together but we are glad to be home. I've decided that I like my life as a wife and mom way better than partying all night, sleeping all day, being around crowds of people all the time and standing in front of cameras all day. But it was worth it just to be with Jessica and hang out with the Smiths. I actually think the highlight of our trip was playing with the girls in our bedroom and just hanging out.

If you're thinking about trying out for American Idol DO IT! It's a once in a lifetime opportunity that will rock your world. I've never been a part of anything like it and I don't think I'll ever try out again but I am glad I did!