In a lull

My life is in a bit of a lull right now. Things are going fairly well and smoothly. Same old stuff. Matt and I went out to the Firestone Grill last week. It was really yummy. I had this pomegranate chicken on a bed of leeks and pomegranate sauce with goat cheese on the top...it was super yummy. Matt had the rib roast (insert eye roll...such a man). Matt's Mom sent us money for our anniversary and so we decided to go out for dinner with it. I would recommend it to anyone wanting to try something new. I'm a bit of an adventurous eater. I like to try new things and I am not afraid to try anything at least once. There are some things that I've eaten that I wouldn't choose to eat again, but I do like to try new things. Tanner is a little bit the same way. He'll try most things for at least one bite but if he doesn't like it, then that's it. Matt is a mediocre eater. He eats most things but he doesn't like to eat vegetables if there's something better like meat or potatoes. He's not super picky but he's the kind of person that has to be in the mood for certain foods on a particular day. I could eat rice or spaghetti any time, every day for all meals (same with Tanner) but Matt has to be in the mood to eat that. Otherwise he doesn't like to eat it.

Anyways, enough about food.

We are going to the Temple this week. We will be eating in the cafeteria afterwards...mmmmm...soooo yummy. The food in the Temple is like food from Heaven.

Tanner is getting ready for his skating carnival in a few weeks. He's done so well in skating. He was also officially published today. The local paper had a picture of him and a friend riding on GT's behind a quad on Saturday at the fun Elders party. It's a picture of him from the distance but we know it's him because of his coat. It's kind of exciting.

Matt is such a homemaker. He made his first loaf of homemade bread this week. It was much better than any bread I've ever made. Tanner had a bad habit of burrowing the bread when it's warm and it wrecks the bread so we have to be careful not to leave it out on the counter without maximum supervision. He burrowed in one of Matt's loaves and so we told him he couldn't have the "good" bread until he ate the hole-y bread that he made. He was totally fine with that. He continues to bring us much joy and laughter every day.

Well, I guess that's it for now. Life is just chugging along, which is fine by me ; )

The best sleep ever

On Monday night I had the most glorious sleep in all the world. I had been telling Susanne about how I can not sleep for the life of me. My brain does not stop...EVER! I write in a journal, I tell what I think and feel to Matt and my friends but I can not get my brain to just...for lack of a better word...shut up! So she suggested taking Melatonin. I tired it last week, but nothing happened so I upped the amount I took on Monday (I only took 2...I'm not a pill popper, don't worry), and I had the best night ever. I was truly rested in the morning and I felt wonderful and energized. Today, it's another story. I could not sleep at all last night. I have a small head cold and it's affecting my sleep. So, hopefully I'll get over it soon and I'll be able to get into a sleep pattern.

We were in Calgary for the weekend. Tanner had a speech appointment and we decided that we were going to do something fun for our 10 year anniversary (which isn't until the 28th). We normally don't do anything for each other on special days because we always get a yearly gift. But since it is 10 years, we thought it would be nice to do something for fun. We went to the Cheesecake Cafe for dessert and then the next day we took Tanner to the movie 'The Tooth Fairy'. We wanted to see Avatar, but it's still wildly popular and it tends to be sold out still. So we'll see it another time.

It's so crazy to me to think about the fact that Matt and I have been married 10 years! It does not seem that long ago we were getting ready to be married. Time flies by so quickly. It has been such a wonderful journey and I look forward to many more years and challenges that will build our relationship and friendship. I really am so lucky to have such a loving, caring, patient, sensitive husband. I just really love him.

I am really slow going on my scripture study. I am 4 chapters away from Deuteronomy. I am really enjoying the Old Testament but there is so much to learn from it. I feel like I'm only scratching the surface. When I read it again, I'm sure I'll learn lots of new things that I missed this time.

Things are going good and we are enjoying our time together.

random musings

Tonight Matt and I are going on a date with my best friend and her husband. We are going to see the movie about wolverine. I am not a huge x-man/wolverine fan. In fact, they kind of bore me but I really need to go on a date with Matt and I love spending time with my best friend so I am going to go. Who knows, maybe I'll enjoy the movie...lol. It does have Hugh Jackman and he's pleasant on the eyes. I'm excited to go. Matt and I haven't been to a movie since...well let's just say I can't remember the last time we've gone together with each other. I think maybe it was Christmas...I can't remember. Matt got 7 movie passes for his birthday and he's sharing one with me so we can go out together. I sure do love him. I have to admit that I'm a tad bit selfish when it comes to gifts. If I got a movie pass, I would have a hard (although it wouldn't be impossible) time sharing it with Matt. It would be worth the sacrifice though.

Last night I learned to crochet and today, I have a migraine. It's very muscle intensive to do that. I get all tense and then the next day, I pay. I have to learn to relax a bit more. I am making a blanket. A baby blanket...no not for me. I don't know who, but it's blue. So clearly for a boy.

I have some quotes out of the book that I just finished reading that I thought were good and I would like to share.

Bruce C. Hafen: When troubles come, the parties of a contractual marriage seek happiness by walking away. They marry to obtain benefits and will stay only as long as they are receiving what they bargained for. But when troubles come to a covenant marriage, the husband and wife work them through. They marry to give and to grow, bound by covenants to each other, to the community, and to God. Contract companions give 50 percent; covenant companions give 100 percent. Marriage is by nature a covenant, not just a private contract one may cancel at will. Jesus taught about contractual attitudes when he described the "hireling," who preforms his conditional promise of care only when he receives something in return. When the hireling "seeth the wolf coming," he "leaveth the sheep, and fleeth...because he...careth not for the sheep." By contrast, the Savior said, "I am the good shepherd,...and I lay down my life for the sheep" (John 10:12-15). Many people today marry as hirelings. And when the wolf comes, they flee. This idea is wrong. It curses the earth, turning parents' hearts away from their children and from each other (D&C 2)

Bruce R. McConkie: From the moment of birth into mortality to the time we are married in the temple, everything we have in the whole gospel system is to prepare and qualify us to enter that holy order of matrimony which makes us husband and wife in this life and in the world to come.
Then from the moment we are sealed together by the power and authority of the holy priesthood-the power to bind on earth and have it sealed eternally in the heavens-from that moment everything connected with revealed religion is designed to help us keep the terms and conditions of our marriage covenant, so that this covenant will have efficacy, virtue and force in the life to come. Thus celestial marriage is the crowning ordinance of the gospel, the crowning ordinance of the house of the Lord. Thus the family unit is the most important organization in time or in eternity

Those quotes just really stuck out to me. In a world where the family is being torn down all around us, I just feel so strongly about keeping our families from being destroyed by the adversary. We have to have strong foundations in our marriages to have a strong family so I felt the 2 quotes were kind of connected in a way.

On another note, my Mom bought us a clothes line. One of those umbrella ones. I'm so excited to have it. I only have one line across my backyard so I'm limited in the amount of clothes I can put on it. With air drying all our clothes (except towels and underclothing) we have quite a bit of clothes. I usually have 3 loads of clothes to do in addition to the towels/sheets and underclothes. It will be great to have more line to dry clothes. I love doing laundry. I love seeing the clothes blowing in the breeze. I'm kind of a nerd...I know. It is just so satisfying to me to do laundry. I love sorting the clothes and organizing them in the washer so I can fit them all in so one side isn't heavier than the other. I've never dreaded doing laundry. I'm weird, it's okay. I dread other things like cleaning my room, or sweeping. I don't like sweeping. I like mopping, but not sweeping.

We are going to Calgary for the May long weekend and I'm excited. It's the first time since Christmas that Matt will be able to come with us. He is now working at the county of Warner and so he has Fridays off so we'll enjoy a bit of a longer holiday. Seeing as we don't go many places together, it will be a nice treat for us to be together as a family. He won't get 2 weeks vacation since this is just a seasonal job so any extra long weekend together will be awesome. He's been off this week and in the past I would normally dread when he's home for long periods of time, but I've actually quite enjoyed it this time. I usually dread it because it kind of wrecks mine and Tanner's routine. But this time, he has been really helpful and even trimmed the lawn and he's getting Tanner new bike tires today. So it's been great. I guess I feel like I'm in a different place in my life and I am not as easily annoyed at change or difference. I think that's what makes it different this time. I'm trying to just go with the flow and not be uptight about things that really don't matter. I am trying to look at the eternal perspective and choose weather what is going on is worth getting upset or annoyed at. It's change, but I feel good about it.

Well, I think that's it for now. I hope everyone is having a great day and enjoying the weather (it's pretty nice here).

clothe the naked

First off, a little story. When I know we are going to Calgary, I usually pack about 3-4 days in advance. Sometimes it's a week in advance. I know...crazy right??? Anyway, so I packed and got all our outfits together for this weekend including Sunday clothes that I don't pack, I just leave on the hanger. So last night when I was packing the car, I was so proud of myself thinking...I have everything, I haven't forgotten anything this time. WRONG!!! When we were in between Vulcan and Mossleigh I realized that I had forgotten our Church clothes at home in the front closet...(eyes rolling) so we are figuring things out as to where we will borrow clothes because we certainly don't have money to buy anything. Life...

Next, I've been tagged. I was actually tagged a long time ago, I just didn't have the time to sit down and do it so I'm doing it now.

My 3 Joys:

My family
Music
The Church

My 3 Fears:

Being alone in the dark
Losing someone I love, especially Matt and Tanner
That I will not live up to my potential

My 3 Current Obsessions:

Card making
Tanner
Gilmore Girls

My 3 Surprising Facts:

I have been wearing my contacts a lot more lately
I have already volunteered in Tanner's class twice
I just saw that my Mom has the new stampin up fall/winter 2008 catalogue and I'm a little jealous.

Mine and Matt's date night was fabulous! We are learning to dance...jive, waltz, cha cha. It's a weekly thing so I am really looking forward to it because I've always wanted to do it. Matt and I are the youngest couple there by far. How do I know??? Everyone else has all grey hair or has grown kids. It makes me happy to dance and I always wanted to learn to do that kind of stuff. I know how to jive and my family and I took line/country dance classes when my Mom was engaged but then we never got to show off our stuff. So I'm pretty stoked about doing this with Matt. Plus, it free! You can't go wrong there.

Anyways, that's all for now. Happy Thanksgiving.

Slowly going crazy!

This week has been a very steady one and one that I have no complaints about so far...other than a day and a half of feeling sick to my stomach I want to believe is due to some bad food that I ate because if I were pregnant that would literally in all sense of the word be a miracle. Anyways, I feel okay today. Maybe it's close to that time of the month...who knows. This week I had my first IPP meeting with Tanner's teachers. It went so much better than I thought AND he has a new speech therapist that I am so happy about. His teacher had nothing but really great and wonderful things to say about him and she was really happy with him and said he was such a happy, pleasant boy in class. Phew....I've done something right. His life is about to go from 10-95 in 2 weeks.

I had this great opportunity that I wasn't sure about at first. The story: There's a lady here that does musical theatre in her home. When I first heard about it, I thought for sure I'd put Tanner in it and then for some reason I decided not to. Maybe because they did music last year in school I thought they would do the same thing this year but apparently they aren't doing as much of it. So I felt kind of bummed out. Then a couple of weeks ago, Susanne told me that she was putting Shelby in it because she had talked to the lady and there were some openings. So I talked to the lady and she said that it would be fine to bring Tanner to see how he did. I brought him and she said he was fine. So then I committed to it. So that's on Thursday afternoons from 2-3.

BUT then I came to find out that they are starting swimming classes for the PUF kids on Thursday mornings. So not so bad. THEN I am told that they are putting Tanner in this play therapy group 2 times a week and guess what days that falls on????? Yep, Tuesday and Thursday. So his schedule on Thursday looks like this:

9-11:30 School...aka swimming
12:15-1:15 Play therapy group
2-3 Musical theatre class

I am seriously debating not sending him to school for swimming. I think I'll try it for the first couple of weeks and see how it goes but if it's too much for Tanner, then I'll just send him to the play group and musical group. I already talked to his teacher and she said that it would be up to me and she would be fine with whatever Matt and I choose to do. So if he doesn't go to swimming on Thursday morning then I'll do some Phonics work with him. The problem with this routine is that swimming is all year, play group is until February and music theatre is until may. So I have to eliminate one thing if required and swimming is the better choice.

Hopefully he's okay with the routine. If he misses swimming, it's fine. He loves to swim but he needs these other 2 things because they will benefit him in way more ways than swimming.

So what else have I been up to? I made pies at my Aunty Elaines on Monday. It was fun. I don't like that it's so finicky but I know with time, it will be easier. I made an apple pie and a rhubarb pie.

I also really enjoyed the Relief Society broadcast. It is so amazing to me that we are so lucky and privileged to be part of the generation that the Lord has so much faith in to be stronger and more steadfast. Not that the past generation wasn't but when Sister Beck tells us that we need to be stronger and more faithful, it is such an honor to feel like the the Lord trusts us to be obedient to what we are being asked to do. I hope that makes sense. I'm not really sure where we'll watch conference this year. Last year we listened to it over the Internet but we don't have that anymore so I'm not sure what we'll do. We can't take Tanner to the Stake Center because he just runs around. Maybe Matt and I will take turns going. It hard when General Conference comes because at home, we just listen and don't enforce Tanner to sit and listen although he did sometimes sit for 10-15 minutes and listen. But it's harder on kids for conference, I think. If Matt and I are running after him, then it's harder for us to get anything out of it. Maybe I'm a bad Mom for doing that but that's just something that I choose not to fight over with a 4 year old. We talk about the prophet and the things he's told us to do but his comprehension to sit and listen for 2 hours isn't quite there yet. Most of the time he's just in the room playing but we'll see what we end up doing this year.

Matt and I have a date this Friday. We are going dancing! Well, we are going to a class to teach us how to dance. I'm soooo excited. We are going with my Aunty Elaine and Uncle Doug so that should be fun.

So what's everyone doing for Thanksgiving??? We're going up to Calgary and having 2 dinners and then we have to head home on Sunday because I have to be back by 7 for stake choir practice. I am looking forward to singing in the stake choir for stake conference. We are singing The Lord's Prayer. It's such a beautiful song and the chorister is really great.

So I think that's all for today. Until next time...

Movie Review

Last night Matt and I went on a date! Yes, that's right. It's been a very long time because of the money thing but we had a nice dinner and rented 2 really great movies that I would highly recommend. Both are very clean and don't have language.




This one is very relateable for me because of the facial deformity issue. Of course I am pretty sure I'm not the kind of mother that Cathrine O'Hara's character is. But I really loved this one. Plus James McAvoy is in it and I really enjoy him in movies.






This one was pretty funny. I really love Donny Osmond's character. So much fun! Anyways, it is rated G...after all it's Disney that does it, so it was clean. I wonder if all fathers feel this way about their little girls.

So enjoy the movies if you choose to watch them. They are both very good.