Ta Daaaaa! An Entry!

"People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

I hope that the expression of my opinions on this blog help you get to know my character better. :)

I don't think there will be any pictures in this entry, but as this really is for me and not for you, I hope you won't mind.

Saturday was B.U.S.Y. That morning we were cleaning and such because everything seems to get so backed up during the week. Then my parents and younger sister came to visit us. It was the first time they'd been to our place since we moved in, outside of our very first day when boxes were everywhere. It was really great to see them again! I miss being so close!

There were reasons it was so great to have them here, the first being that my mom brought some cookie dough that was kinda like play dough and made some fun cookies with the boys. They had a lot of fun! There were four different colors, and some of the cookies had an almost tie-dye look to them.

The second reason is because my dad was lucky to come at all. I forgot to mention in my last post that he recently gave my whole family a huge scare. A few months ago, he had a checkup at the doctor, and the doctor decided it was time for him to have a colonoscopy. When he had the colonoscopy, they found a mass that they thought might be cancerous, but could be benign. Turns out it was cancer. We found this out just before we moved, and it was like torture, leaving my parents and being so close to move away. I know we're only 2 hours away, but it almost felt like a lifetime to me considering we didn't know how bad the cancer was! About two or three weeks ago, my dad went in for surgery to remove the tumor and some of the surrounding lymph nodes; if the nodes had cancer in them, it meant that the cancer could have spread. My prayers for my dad were very fervent during that time, let me tell you. I kept thinking about how I had two grandparents who had died of cancer before I had been born, and an uncle who had died of cancer as well. Surely my dad wouldn't join those family members, right?

Fortunately, the cancer was completely removed at that time, and the lymph nodes were clear. I am so grateful that his life was spared! He has been healing well, and though he wasn't 100% when he came to visit, I was more happy than usual to see him again, I think.

After their visit, our ward had a trunk-or-treat. I wish I would've taken pictures of the boys, because they were cute! Andrew's costume, a dice, had even won "most original costume" at a Halloween party with a play group the day before. Good thing they get to wear the costumes again on Thursday, because I'll be sure to take pictures of the boy-dice and boy-giraffe we have.

This was Andrew's costume in progress (ok, so I lied. There are pictures on this post!):

It was missing the head and arm holes at this point.

It's based off a pin I have on Pinterest. I wanted the boys to both do it, but Andrew was too big for a box that would be the perfect size for David, and David too small for a perfect-sized box for Andrew. Oh well. Here's the inspiration (pinned HERE):

Cute, right?

And then, after the trunk-or-treat, a friend of ours that we hadn't seen in years came to see us! Elliot was a childhood friend of Jason's older brother, and had been room mates with Jason and his brother at BYU-Idaho. We hadn't seen him since sometime in 2009, we determined, but he was about an hour away from us here in Kentucky doing a rotation for medical school. It was really fun to catch up with him.

Sunday was barely less busy. Jason and I were called a week ago last Thursday to give a talk in church. When he called us, he told us we would speak that next Sunday, only three days later. We were seriously scrambling then, trying to prepare everything in time, but it turned out we shouldn't have worried - they were misinformed, and we were actually supposed to talk the NEXT Sunday, which ended up being yesterday. Our talks went well! We talked about the importance of General Conference, Jason talking about the conference as a whole, and I took a talk from a past conference and showed how taking specific talks and applying them can improve our lives. If you're wanting to read the talk I based mine off of, it was "Come What May, And Love It" by Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin. You can read it HERE, or watch a short video based on the talk HERE. You can even watch the whole talk HERE. I loved Elder Wirthlin's talk, which helps us learn how to better endure our trials, and knew that many people could benefit from learning more from him.

We went to choir after church, where the week before we were two of only three people who showed up. Fortunately, more people came this time!

Jason and I ended up both taking naps yesterday afternoon (one nap on purpose, one on accident), which ended up being a mistake. I mean, the naps were great, but David ended up upending several game boxes with cards in them (like Apples to Apples), and Andrew had gotten into David's candy bag and eaten the entirety of what candy was left in it. That wasn't fun to deal with and clean up. For a while, I felt like their misbehavior was a terrible reflection of my mothering. I had to step back and remember that they are kids and likely to get into trouble without diligent supervision, which they didn't have. And they're boys, which seems to mean to me that they're more prone to look for trouble. Haha.

Heaven help me if the boys are not the death of me!

And then we went home teaching. It started at 7:30, and I wasn't really excited to go - awful, right? - but we all went anyway. We ended up making some really good new friends, and we left at around 10:15 last night! Wow! We really enjoyed ourselves, and we're set to get together to bake desserts and have dessert and generally hang out again on Saturday.

Today was back to the same-old, same-old. Dishes, laundry, cooking, cleaning, you know. Daily life.

I would like your opinions, though. I was thinking of starting a second blog. *gasp* I know! I can barely keep up with this one; why would I want a second blog, right? Well, I had this thought that I could make it an "interests"-type blog, where I update with recipes that I've tried and liked (or didn't like); I could talk about books I read and my opinions on them, and if they were clean; et cetera. Does that sound like a blog you would want to read? Please let me know, and I'll share the link for it if I create it.

Secret: I wish I could get paid to read books without having to go to college to become "better learned in the ways of the English language". Do any of you know how I could do that? Haha!

A New Beginning

"Always carry a notebook. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it's committed to paper you can lose an idea for ever." -Will Self

I've started this new thing where when I pray, I keep a journal nearby so that if I feel like I think of something important or feel like I'm receiving answers to my prayers, I can write it down. I've found that I've received more answers than I thought I had in the past, and it's easier to remember what those answers are.

One thing I felt during one of my prayers is that I need to be better at journal-writing. I used to be really good at writing in my journal, in middle school and part of high school. At that point, I got a Xanga, which is kinda like a blog, and I kept up with it religiously up until a little while before I got married, when I switched to blogger. Then I kept up with this pretty religiously until... a year-ish ago?

Anyway, I've felt bad that I haven't kept up with my life and the lives of my boys. I thought about writing in a paper journal, but I write in there so seldom that I feel like I have to catch up for MONTHS every time I write, and my hand starts to hurt after a while. I much prefer to type, so here we are, on my blog - my new journaling outlet. I'm hoping to get on closer to every day and just talk about what's going on in my life and my family's lives, and talk about my feelings like I would a journal.

I'm not sure that anyone reads this anymore, but if you do, feel free to read along if you feel like it.

For starters, Jason got a job. He works as a kind of over-the-phone health coach for the insurance company Humana. He started his job on my birthday, midway through last month. His job is in Cincinnati, and we moved down to Northern Kentucky the weekend before he started. We found this great 3-bed, 2-bath townhome apartment that's only about 20-25 minutes from downtown Cincinnati in heavy traffic, and the boys are loving having the space. 

We came without a lot of furniture, so we're slowly but surely filling the place. For example, just earlier this week we got a couch. We'd been sitting on the floor before that, and it was starting to get really uncomfortable, so I'm really grateful for the blessing this couch is to us! And there are a couple great things about it - first, it's from IKEA (which is pretty close to us!), so it's really good quality, but relatively cheap. Also, it's kinda like a futon because the pad on the couch is actually a mattress with a slipcover on it, and it can be laid down into a bed. This is perfect because Jason's mom is going to be visiting us toward the end of next month, and I was really stressing about not having a place for her to sleep or for us to sit while she was here. Anyway, next on our list is a real kitchen table and chairs, which we'll also get from IKEA, because right now we're using a card table and folding chairs.

The boys are doing well. Andrew's made friends with some of the neighbor kids, although he hasn't been able to play with them very much since it got cold outside. We end up spending a lot of time inside because we still have just the one vehicle that Jason takes to work, and while there are some places close to us, they're not really a walking-friendly distance.

Andrew keeps asking how much longer until Halloween, until Christmas, and until his birthday. He'll be turning 5 this year a few days after Christmas, and I can't believe that he's getting so old. He is so smart and such a smart-alek that I often have a hard time keeping up with him. We looked into putting him into preschool around here, but the one or two places I've really looked at cost a lot of money. I'll have to do a little more research, because I think Andrew could really benefit from having some structured learning time.

David is getting so big! Almost two weeks ago, we started potty training him, and he's doing really well. He still has accidents every now and then, and he's ever only gone #2 in the toilet once, but he's doing so much better than I could've hoped that I'm really happy with his progress. Also, I just moved him into 4t clothes the other day, and I keep looking at him and wondering how the time has passed so quickly.

As for me, I have a couple things to confess. First is something that I thought about a lot before but didn't want to admit to anyone: I'm pretty sure I have depression. It hasn't been diagnosed or anything, but I often feel down and lack motivation to do anything. I have some anxiety, and have trouble sleeping, and all these things have lasted for a long time. I'm not ashamed to talk about it, and I'm hoping that by putting it out there for others to see, I might feel a little better by being open about it.

On top of that, Jason and I have been trying to get pregnant with child #3 for over a year. So many of my friends have been getting pregnant and having kids, and while I'm happy for them, sometimes I wonder what's wrong with me or if I'm doing something wrong. I know I'm not doing something wrong, but I DO know something's going on with my body. Over the last year, I've had my period maybe 4 times, and even though I saw a doctor right before we moved, nothing has changed. I'm hoping that once we get our medical insurance cards that I'll be able to find an ob/gyn that will be able to help us figure out the root of my body's issues and we'll be able to add to our family again.

If you've stuck through this whole entry and are still with me, congratulations! You've earned yourself some pictures! These were taken by our good friend Vanessa back in June. Enjoy!

Family Picture

Momma and the silly boys

Superhero pose! (Or as Andrew puts it, Brave Pose)

My little hams

This has to be the best picture of me and Jason EVER.

Can a funny family picture get much better than this?

Phew! (And yes, it was raining!)

Cute Andrew

Sweet David

My two cutie-patooties

One more to get you to go, "awwwwww!"

Secret: Things HAVE to hang straight on the wall. If they're crooked, it drives me mad until I fix it. I was like that as a teenager too - the posters on my wall were all hung up nice and tidy and straight, with each corner tacked carefully in so that they wouldn't move when the door opened or closed. I may be just a little OCD about this...