Cheese!

We are enjoying our time in Ohio and enjoyed a side trip to Nashville as well. I realize I never posted about Nathan's 1st birthday...I suppose I will have to do that soon. I didn't ever post pictures of Halloween, either. Oh well. Look for those pics on Facebook, at least I'm better at keeping that relatively updated.

My baby has teeth (or teefers as we call them)!!

My "Bad Mom" Moment

Yesterday I was getting into my costume and Trick-or-Treaters came to the door. David went down to give them candy. I was standing at the top of the stairs; David at the bottom. For those of you who have never seen my house we have a split entry, so there were only 6 steps between us. Somehow I missed Nathan crawling at my feet and he saw David and tried to go to him. He managed to fall face first and tumble down three stairs before David caught him. He was more shook up than hurt but screamed something horrible. While I was comforting him, his Aunt Jessie noticed his nose was bleeding. First I don't see him start to fall right in front of me then I don't see blood on his face while he's literally right in front of my face. I felt horrible...but I hear it can and most likely will get worse with age.

Can't wait.......

Hope Amidst Tragedy

It is just past midnight and I'm sitting on the floor of a hospital room. It is definitely one of the most uncomfortable places I've ever tried to sleep in, but I find it difficult to complain as my complaints are significantly less important than the two whose room I am a guest of. If this morning someone had told me where I would be right now, I would not have believed them; in fact I would have begged Heavenly Father to change it, to somehow make it better.

David and I were walking through Wal-mart when my phone rang. I thought it was my sister, returning a call I had made just minutes earlier. It wasn't. It was David's brother, Job. Job and his wife, Jessie, were just three weeks away from welcoming their first child, a son, into the world. They were just getting to the point of the pregnancy where the doctor's appointments came weekly. Usually they would come and see us on days they saw the doctor, since they had to go past our city to get to their doctor. I was afraid they were calling us because they were at our house and were wondering where we were. I passed the phone to David.

He listened for a moment and said something along the lines of "What's wrong?" At that instant, the dots all connected and I gasped. "Did they lose the baby?" I mouthed to him. He didn't say anything but his eyes told me I had hit the nail on the head. I held back tears. He told them we were on our way and we went straight to their apartment. On the way out of the store I called my mother, crying, asking her what I could say to them. While I have experienced a miscarriage, mine occured at 10 weeks. My hospital admission was due to a freak occurance of complications. I never felt the baby move, I never knew the gender, I never saw him/her. It was just a lot of blood and pain and then there was no baby. I was at a loss with my dear sister-in-law. She left her family in Honduras when she moved here to marry Job, and it was not long after that that her father passed away. She was not able to go back for the funeral, she was nowhere near her mother...and she was reaching out to me. I wanted so desperately to say the right things (I still want that), but I was scared. She was going to have to do things I didn't and hope to never have to. She would have to deal with decisions involving some pretty intense things. Autopsy. Funeral. Cremation. Stillbirth. I was not experienced in this area.

We drove down to Bountiful, and I prayed that the Lord's Spirit would help me know what to say. I hugged her and I told her what came to my mind. I advised her to receive a Priesthood blessing. I bore testimony of my faith in God's plan. I told her I would do whatever she needed. If she wanted me at the hospital I would be there. She looked at me and just said please. So here I am. David and I got here around 10 and he left around 11 to go home and sleep some before work. We left Nathan with Ben and Misty (Thank Heavens for them!!) and I told Jessie I would be here as long as she needed me. Now she and Job are both sleeping and I'm awake, wondering how such wonderful people could be put in such a horrible situation. The doctors, at this point, have no idea what caused that little heart to stop beating. Maybe there will be answers tomorrow, maybe there won't. I don't know. All I know is that my brother-in-law and his sweet wife are some of the stongest people I have ever met. They are so full of faith and hope in God's eternal plan; they can feel his peace as they go through the motions involved with this tragedy. They are both understandably heartbroken, and yet they exude an admirable quiet strength that reminds me that God reserves the most challenging trials for his strongest children. The types of trials that really change someone and stimulate the most growth; those are the ones that can only be handled by a select few. Somehow it doesn't surprise me that He sees Job and Jessie as two of his most worthy warriers.

At this point I can just pray. Pray that these two find the solace they desire, that there are no unforseen complications with the birth, and that I can have the spirit with me to act in the name of my Father to serve in any capacity that may be needed. How strange I feel, though, because while I feel I should be the one comforting them, they are the ones comforting me; reminding me through their humble faith that God is watching over them. Their son is with Him, and he's happy there. Their son may even be with his Grandfather, busy doing the work of the Lord. There is hope all around.

Please keep this amazing couple in your prayers.

Rest in Peace, little nephew. I love you.

Hodge Podge of Craziness

I have been contemplating a variety of different posts in the last few weeks and I have not been able to settle on any of them. You think it'd be easy to just make several little short posts here and there but maybe I'm just too lazy because I never blogged about any of them. So I've decided to just blog today about all the different things that I've been thinking about.

I guess the first thing that is always on my mind is Nathan. He will be 11 months old on Sunday and so I've started thinking about his birthday. I would like to buy him some new toys. He has been so patient with me, playing with the same old toys for pretty much his entire first year of life. I haven't bought him a new toy in a long time. Most of his toys are appropriate for 3 to 6 month-olds so I'd like to get him at least a couple things that are more at his level. It's weird because I had this idea that he would be drowning in all the toys that he would get from us and other people so I have purposely kind of always been on guard for impulse toy buying. As a result, he has an alarmingly small collection of things to occupy his attention every day. I don't think I'll be able to afford too much, though, as his main birthday present will be a toddler car seat. While this isn't exactly the gift I think he really wants...he's 1, so he won't remember anyway. In other news he is cutting four teeth right now, all in the front on the top gum. He has been drooling quite a bit but isn't ridiculously fussy all things considered. Then again, he's always been pretty mild mannered.

The other day I was in his closet and I found a bag of clothes he had gotten for Christmas last year from my grandmother. The clothes consisted of a few outfits that had belonged to my father when he was a baby. I think it is cool to have the clothes, although I am too nervous to actually use them as every day clothing because they are so old and fragile. In fact, one of the buttons snapped in half just because I touched it. It was on this white shirt. Anyway, I wanted to at least get some pictures of Nate in the clothes but I've been waiting for them to fit. They finally do, so I took him out front and took his picture in a couple outfits.

Last week we also bought tickets for a trip to Ohio. I prayed a long time about going to Ohio for Christmas and finally received the answer that I was supposed to be in Utah for Christmas. It was not an easy answer to accept, but I feel it is the right thing. I hope after the holidays are over I will be able to understand more about this answer because right now it's looking pretty hazy. So far all I know beyond the Lord wanting me and Nathan to be here is that David will be working both Christmas Eve and Christmas day from 8am-6pm. Being alone on those days is probably the most depressing thing I can think of. However, the upside is that while David may hate having to work those days, at least his family will be here when he gets home. I'd hate to think how depressing it'd be for him if he had to come home to an empty house. I'm annoyed at the company, though, because I was under the impression he'd have all major holidays off. Guess that doesn't apply at the airport. Bah Humbug. Anyway, after getting my answers about needing to spend the holidays here with David, I started praying about another time I could go to see my family since this is the only time of year I really do get to see them. There was a lot of praying involved in my next decision to visit for Thanksgiving, but this time the Lord gave a different answer. Everything has worked out so that I can take an extended trip with Nathan to see my family in Ohio, and maybe even to see Andy and Heather in Nashville. Work gave me the OK to work from Ohio for a month and I figured out a way to get a second phone line into my grandmother's house without it costing me an arm and a leg. I am very excited to spend those four weeks relaxing and hanging out with my family, and hopefully David will also get to come out for a part of that time and spend Thanksgiving with us. I'm keeping my fingers crossed at this point.

Some other things I was thinking about blogging about recently are some stories I've been reading about in the news. The first story that I came across was about some high school senior girls who were denied entrance to their homecoming dance because the administrators thought their dresses were inappropriate. The video I watched showed the girls in the dresses and also interviewed a few of them and their parents. There were several things that caught my attention about this story. First of all, I am a fairly conservative person. I have strong opinions about modesty that stem a lot from my religious beliefs, and from that perspective, my first thought was to applaud the administrators for taking a stand on what was bound to become a controversial decision. The dresses these girls were wearing were, in my opinion, too short and too revealing. Hearing the prices on some of these dresses made me even more shocked considering the lack of material needed to make them. The girl that was featured on the news story had a dress that reminded me of Tinkerbell. I think that having modesty standards at public school functions is comendable, and had the school been clear and consistant with these standards, I would still be standing by them today in their decision. Unfortunately this was not the case.

According to the story, the school's flyers about the dance did say that attire was to be "modest" but stopped short of explaining the modesty standards they were expecting. Who knows why they wouldn't be clear on this (don't want to upset the kids? Afraid of looking too picky?) but by not clarifying what they meant, they are leaving the kids and their parents' opinions of modesty to be the judges. One father interviewed was upset by what happened because he felt the school was questioning his judgement when it came to his daughter. Unfortunately, there are girls and yes, even parents, who think wearing these Britney Spears-hoochie type outfits is appropriate and acceptable at a public school dance. If the administrators didn't want that, they needed to be clear on their standards long before the night of the dance.

The other thing that made the school look bad is that pictures were taken inside the dance showing even worse dresses that were allowed inside. One picture even showed a girl wearing the exact same Tinkerbell dress that the featured girl was wearing. I'm sorry, but if you're going to turn girls away at the door, there needs to be consistancy. If you or another administrator lets one girl in with a short dress, you have to be fair and let them all in, even if you don't agree with that decision. In the end, I don't blame the administrators for turning the girls away, because I do believe their dresses were inappropriate, however, because the school was not clear from the beginning about these standards, they made a poor decision by not allowing these girls to go to their dance. They were seniors, which means this was their last homecoming, and they may have poor taste in clothing, but they should have been allowed their last chance. The school should have taken that opportunity to learn and improve for next year instead of punishing these girls for being ignorant.

There was another story but I don't remember it right now. If I think if it I will blog later.

Primary Olympics

The Primary Program is coming up very soon in my ward. This whole month, in preparation, we have been competing in the Primary Olympics. This is an idea that I originally got from my brother, Jon, then ran with. I thought I'd share it here. This first picture is my medal board. It is a standard size presentation board. The middle section is two feet wide and each side is one foot wide. The whole thing is three feet tall. The words "Primary Olympics" and the rings were done with my Yudu machine. The word "Events" is wooden letter spray painted with copper spray paint. The events themselves are the songs that we learned for the program. Each song was printed on cardstock and taped together. Each song is velcroed to the board. The reason I did the velcro is so that I can use the board in the future. By making the songs and medals removable, I can then make other "events" and just add the velcro on the back. I designed the flags for each team based on felt that I found on clearance. I made the actual flags first (see below), then made the paper versions afterwards for the medal board.

Here are the original flags. I found the patterns online, then cut them from the felt. The flags are about 11x14. Afterwards I added magnets to the back so that they stick right onto the blackboard. I display the flags during each primary's respective time period.

To make the medals, I used a glass and traced sixty circles onto cardboard. I then cut them out using an X-acto knife and spray painted twenty in each color. The gold and silver medals have a glitter finish and the bronze is a metallic finish, although it is actually copper, not bronze. Close enough, though, right? Each medal also has velcro on the back. There is plenty of space to add more medals to individual "events" should I ever choose to do so with a future use.

In order to earn the medals, the children have to show how well they know the songs. Basically I have them sing through the song and then they are scored by three judges, which are usually a mix of teachers and presidency members. Each judge has three score cards, which I made by spray painting poster board using a stencil I made with more poster board. I simplified to scoring to "bronze" (5), "silver" (7.5) and "gold" (10). Each judge holds up a score card the total score determines the medal they get. To get a gold medal, they have to get perfect 10s, and so forth, although it's designed so that no matter what, there is always at least a bronze medal won. The first week I think the judges just wanted to give gold medals to make the kids feel good. The second week they were much harder on the kids and between junior and senior primary, only ONE gold medal was awarded! Most of the time I find that I agree with my judges, but occasionally I find myself wishing they'd have scored the kids higher or lower than they did. Basically I want the kids to earn gold medals (in fact they have to to make this whole thing work, lol) but I want them to earn them, you know? The program is designed to allow them to improve and I think it's a nice way for me and for them to have a visual of their progress. In the end, we'll go back and work on the events that are bronze or silver until they earn the gold. The trick is doing it in just one more week. We'll see...

The last part of the program are the incentives. The first time each primary won a gold medal, they earned a fun song. After they earn five gold medals they will earn a treat (probably a piece of candy or something), and after they earn all their gold medals, they will each earn a gold medal to wear around their necks and take home. Seeing as I have already half finished these personal gold medals, hence the reason they need to earn gold medals in all their events. I still need to buy ribbon or something to finish the medals also. The plan is that after the program, instead of music time we will have closing ceremonies. I have asked a member of the bishopric to attend and help me "medal" all the kids. I think it will be fun. I told them they earned a "surprise" too...haven't figured out what to do for that yet. I can count the ceremony with the bishopric member the suprise but I know that's kind of lame. Any ideas??? Please share, just keep in mind we're talking about 125 kids, give or take a few. The last picture are the medals. Before you think they're not finished, these are the backs of the medals. The fronts are all finished but I ran out of paint and I don't want to buy a whole new can for so few medals so I'm on the lookout for someone else who will let me have some of their metallic gold spray paint. I'm excited to see how it all plays out and I'm even more excited to be finished with the program! The rest of the year will be spent learned all kinds of classic primary songs like "Army of Helaman" and "Primary Colors". It will be MUCH less stressful!

Changes for Becky

Ah, the prodigal blogger returns! I have been out of commission for a while, it seems, mostly because every time I look at the blog I think "I should post something" but I can't think of one interesting thing to blog about that wouldn't take 40 years to type out. Well, here's something I can share in less than 40,000 words: things are changing for me. Again.

This last week, Nathan and I took a trip to Ohio to visit my family. This was a trip that would not have happened without my amazing brother, Andy, who generously donated the last of his award tickets from the miles he'd saved from JetBlue. Nathan and I flew from Salt Lake City to New York City (JFK) and then on to Pittsburgh. Although Pittsburgh isn't the first choice airport for visiting the family, it's closer than Columbus, which is where we flew into for Christmas (we wouldn't have except that it saved us several hundred dollars). As far as JetBlue goes, I thought they were a great airline. I loved having a personal TV to watch (there is one in every seatback with 25 free channels of DirecTV) and the unlimited snacks and drinks. The seats were comfortable as well and I'm always a fan when an airline has a changing table in those closets they call bathrooms. The main downsides were the airports they use. Pittsburgh is the closest airport to the family that JetBlue flies to, and it's almost 2 hours away. If the price was significantly cheaper I would consider using them in the future, but right now I think I'd only use them to go to other places for vacation besides to visit the family. Oh, and don't even get me started on how much I love JFK......

Anyway, the day I left, my boss called me (well, she was my current superviser, but we just call them coaches) and basically said that my desk was being combined with another desk and therefore all the schedules were being switched around. Somehow I got the short stick with that and they only had about 3 options left, all of which started at 5 or 5:30 pm. I told her that my son doesn't go to bed until 8:30 or 9 so I couldn't take anything that started before then. Her response was that I would have to switch teams and that someone would contact me. I reminded her I was leaving town that evening and she assured me that wasn't a problem, someone would just leave a message or something.

Well, David called me the next day and told me there was a message but it didn't say anything except "call me" and left a phone number. So I called the number (the cell phone of another coach) and got voicemail, so I left a message asking her to call my cell phone as soon as possible. The entire rest of the trip I heard NOTHING. The night I got home I wasn't scheduled to work even on the old schedule and I was too tired anyway, so I just slept. The next day I got a call from a random coach I'd never heard of telling me I had mandatory hours from 4:15 am to 12:15 pm on both Saturday and Sunday. I told her that I could only work until 10 on Sunday because of church, but she didn't give me any information about what desk I was on, so I got on IM and tried to talk to a coach...nothing. So I just didn't work again. When I got on the computer to start work this morning, I found an IM saying I was back on the Info desk. At least I know now.

The Info (Infomercial) desk, ironically, is where I started at this company. Then they dissolved it in favor of these stupid dedicated desks, although they still needed people to work the info desk as backup to the dedicated agents, so the Info desk didn't ever really die...although it did dissolve just long enough to get rid of the $11/hr pay that Info agents used to get, which means that although I'm back on the Info desk, I'm still making $9/hr [Roll Eyes Here]. The good news about being on the Info desk is that I'm back to scheduling my own hours. I don't have a set schedule anymore but I also don't have set days off anymore either. As long as I hit 25 hours a week, I can take any weekday off that I want. Having this flexibility is definitely an advantage, although it is all dependent on what hours are available. I have no guarantee that I will be able to work decent hours, and my nights will probably become a flurry of on and off work and sleep. After David goes to bed, I'll most likely sleep a bit then work most of the morning with some long and some short breaks to sleep until Nathan gets up. This will be better and worse than my old schedule at the same time. One major negative of the Info desk is that you are required to work WAY more mandatory hours on weekends, which means my weekends will suck even worse than before (which, of course, is the only time David doesn't work and could therefore spend time with me....). I also have to attend more training meetings, although these have been getting out of hand lately and if they continue to be out of hand I will probably stop going to all of them. It is a BIG hassle to get to these meetings. Overall, I'm happier on the Info desk, mostly because it is the overflow desk which means I don't take very many calls at all. For instance, I've been on the phone over 2 hours and I've taken about 5 calls. Someday I won't have to work this job and that will be much less stress on me, but for now, it makes us some extra money and I still can be home with Nathan, so I will endure. The Lord has and is continuing to bless our family so much, I don't want to complain.

Guilty

I promised myself years ago that I would never be one of...those mothers. You know who I mean...the ones who naively think that their child is perfect, that no one is better or cuter. To prove this to themselves or others, they enter all kinds of beauty and photo contests. These contests make me want to vomit. I mean, I get that you think your kid is adorable...but do we really have to have CONTESTS about these things? Does one kid have to be cuter than another? How do you even judge something like cuteness?

Anyway...I'm sticking to my guns about baby contests, but just for fun I looked through the entries of a photo contest I stumble upon on the website for one of the parenting magazines that keep showing up at my house...



...and I have a confession.


I really think my son is cuter than all those other kids. I don't need a contest to prove it, but I honestly believe it. Hmmm...do all moms really feel that way? What happens when you have more kids???

Still Alive

Hey Everyone,
We are still here, still alive. I realize I haven't posted in a long time. There are lots to things I could write entire blogs about, but I don't know if I ever will, so here is the short version:

1. Ogden Marathon Relay was a success! I almost died in the process, but I was able to finish my 5K, so I am proud of myself! I may continue running at some point but for now I'm cool with being active in other ways (mostly housework).

2. Our trip to Nauvoo was amazing. We got there, had a blast, and got back safely--just in time for Michael's wedding. I took 365 pictures which are all on my Shutterfly page and a third or so of them are also on Facebook. I could do a VERY long blog about that trip....but in case I don't, just know that Nauvoo is my favorite historical spot. Ever.

3. David got a new job! I don't know if the official announcement was ever made, but David was one of 3 selected from a group of 85 applicants for the Management Training Program at Enterprise. It pays more than O'Currance, has cool things like medical and dental benfits for the whole family at a reasonable price, and even includes some paid vacation, even for first years. So far he seems to really like it and I almost get to be the full-time mom I've always wanted to be.

4. I'm still at O'Currance. Good news is that commissions went up, bad news is that they're still trying to ruin my life and don't always pay me these aforementioned commissions. It's not all that bad but it is something I would drop in a heartbeat if I could. Sleeping at night is a luxury I do not get to experience often.

5. I have a new calling as Primary Chorister. This is the third time I've had this calling, each in a different ward. It is probably my favorite calling of all time, but it still scares the crap out of me. This is the largest primary I've ever taught and Uthans in general seem to be a bit more strict about things here....I'm excited, though, working with kids is the best.

6. Nathan is doing very well. He is 7 months old now and learning fast. He can say "da-da" and other sounds but isn't forming words just yet. He will be crawling soon as well. He can push himself with his legs and scoot all over the floor, just hasn't figured out how to work his arms and legs together to hold himself up. I wouldn't be surprised if he started walking in a few months also. He has pretty strong legs, despite his apparent dislike for the Johnny Jumper. His bottom two front teeth have been visable in his gums for about a week and just broke the surface yesterday. This explains his excessive crankiness the day before. Overall, he is still the best behaved child I have ever seen. He rarely cries or fusses, he sleeps 12-14+ hours every single night and doesn't even cry when he wakes up, just patiently waits for someone to come and get him. He's also getting the hang of his sippy cup and loves watching his Your Baby Can Read videos.

7. Daisy turned 1 on May 25 (we picked her birthday as the previous owner only said "late May"). She is still a terror to my backyard but is a loveable addition to the family. She just needs to learn to not jump up on people. Yesterday I came home and discovered a friend for her in the backyard. This large black lab somehow opened the gate, came in, and closed it behind himself (without letting Daisy out, mind you). Something tells me he might have had help. I called animal control after getting 0 hits on his picture that I posted on Facebook, but they were closed so I will call in the morning. He was whining and barking at the door after we let Daisy in for the night, so I had David put him in the garage. So far he's been quiet. Let me just say that I'm SO glad we had Daisy spayed in December!

Now it's June and I'm looking forward to Father's Day, my sister's visit, and Nathan and my's visit to Ohio in July. Let the good times roll!

Real Quick...

Today is a busy busy day. I have to pack, shop, and clean out the car in preparation for our Nauvoo trip. Also the standard "taking care of the baby" thing as well. I think I'll make use of his new Johnny Jumper today. This evening is the pre-race dinner at Olive Garden and tomorrow I'm running my first 5K as part of the Ogden Marathon Relay. I have to keep telling myself it's not that long.

After the race, it's off to Nauvoo for the 5th anniversary trip I've been planning the last year and a half. YES!

Scripture Reading

So I will admit, reading scriptures is a habit that needs improvement in my life. David and I decided when we were married almost 5 years ago that we would read one chapter of our scriptures together every day. We started with 1 Nephi (The Book of Mormon) on our wedding night and went from there. It took several years but we eventually read through the entire standard works together, including one of my personal goals to read through the entire King James version of the Bible. Some days we would miss but we would always read double the next day or whatever to "catch up." However with our most recent work schedule, finding time to read together is more and more difficult as our days become a blur of work, sleep, food, and baby. I decided we needed some sort of visual reminder to keep us on track. So the scripture schedule chart was born. This is how it turned out. I decided to go with posterboard so it was a large visual, and while shopping I discovered that they make posterboard with a grid already printed on them. After measuring out my month size, I just decided to fill the posterboard and use the size grid that was printed on it. In the end, this chart will last us all of this year as well as the next three. It was very bizarre to think that Nathan would be four by the time the chart was finished. That's so crazy!Here is a close up of the top left corner. You can see the months on the left and the days of the month across the top in red. As we just finished the Book of Mormon (again), we are on to the Doctrine and Covenants followed by the Pearl of Great Price. After reading through the Old Testament once, we've decided that was enough for awhile (anyone ever read the Old Testament all the way through? It's got a few good parts but most of it is terribly dry...Book of Numbers, for example). Therefore, after the Pearl of Great Price (which is basically the good parts of the Old Testment anyway, haha) we will move on to the New Testament before returning to the Book of Mormon.

These last two photos show more detail of the little squares. Say what you will, but I DID take the time to fill in 3.5 years worth of tiny squares with the scripture for that day. In case you are curious, from now until December 2013 if you read one chapter a day, you can read through the standard works twice (not counting the Old Testment, of course) and you can even get 20 or so sections into the Doctrine and Covenants again. It took me a few hours but I think it turned out well. We bought some stickers to finish the look. As we read, we can put a sticker on each daily square. I have to say I was pretty pumped to put the first sticker on this evening.

Hopefully this will help us get up a better habit.

Highly Recommended

For anyone with children who are just getting into solids, you have to see this. I found this in one of my parenting magazines and decided to give it a try. It is offically my new favorite toy. It makes feeding way easier.

This is Squirt by Boon. Here is what booninc.com has to say about it:

"The Squirt baby food dispensing spoon allows for convenient feeding, one bite at a time. The easy-to-fill bulb holds up to 3 ounces of baby food and attaches firmly to the spoon end. Simply squeeze the bulb to dispense just the right amount of food. Squirt comes with a protective cover to seal food in and keep the spoon clean between feedings. By combining the spoon and food container into one product, Squirt makes one-handed feeding a snap."

I bought two at Target.com a few weeks ago. It was on sale, so I only paid about $6 each instead of the $8 it usually retails for. Overall, I am impressed with the genius of the idea and wonder why it took so long for someone to think of it. Nate tends to flail around a lot, especially when eating, and without trying has already come very close to knocking over the bowl of rice cereal onto the carpet. This solves that problem and allows me to feed one handed. The downside is that the spoon is just a bit too deep and so he has trouble getting all the food off the spoon when it's in his mouth. That's really the only thing about it that I don't like.

This would also make a really cool, inexpensive shower gift just in case you ever need one. :)


It is one baby product I support and recommend, 100%.

Eating, Birthdays, Work, and Other Random Updates

I finally got this video to load. Hallelujah!

We fed Nate his first taste of solid foods (if you can call very liquid-y rice cereal "solid") on March 13, 2010. Of course we caught it all on video.

We tried again today and he was less than impressed. Maybe we'll try something new in a few days. Either that or he prefers to eat on a fuller belly (he had a bottle before the first feeding but today we tried to feed this first).

In other news, we celebrated my birthday on March 2 by having lunch with our good friends Skyler, Melissa, Nick, and Chelsea at IHOP. On Thursday, March 11, we went to our annual between-the-birthdays dinner at the Olive Garden and then spent the evening at Disney on Ice: Worlds of Fantasy. I enjoyed the show very much and was glad we spend the extra ten bucks on the better seats. I went last year and sat in the upper deck and it made a HUGE difference. On David's birthday we ended up going to the Military Ball with Skyler and Melissa (Melissa is in the Army National Guard). It was fun to dress up, even though we didn't stay long because we took Nate and he was getting tired.

Pictures from Disney on Ice: Worlds of Fantasy. Cars, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, and Tinkerbell.

Pictures from the Military Ball

I'm still training for the Ogden Marathon Relay for May 15th. I had a minor setback when I sprained my ankle a few weeks ago but David and Nate accompanied me this afternoon when I walked/jogged about 3 miles. I should have jogged more than I did but overall I'm just glad I went. I was supposed to go yesterday too but backed out because of a sore throat.

The thing mostly on my mind is this thing with work. I won't go into the boring details, but basically they changed the commission structures for some products recently but I noticed I was still getting paid the older (less) amount. In checking on these I also found other commissions that were totally missing from my paycheck. I did some math and found just the past two pay periods alone I had been shorted around $200. Needless to say I wrote a very long detailed e-mail to my coach about it and I will continue to follow up, but it really started to bother me and make me think. David has been with the company for over a year (about 14 1/2 months) and I've been with the company for 10 months. During this time we have seen this kind of thing happen a lot but it's never been this much at a time so we always ignored it. The company is constantly adding new products and even went through a period where the T&C (Time & Commission) section was completely revamped so we couldn't even use it. T&C is basically a took that tells us how much we are making. Whenever we have made complaints in the past, at training meetings for example, we've always been told that T&C is incorrect so we shouldn't use it as a basis for our commissions and yet as I'm looking back, all of my paychecks are completely identical to the so-called incorrect T&C numbers. In the past it's been ten dollars here and ten dollars there and so it wasn't a big deal at the time but now looking back, David and I estimate that between the two of us, the company has shorted us close to $2000. WTF?? Also, the few times we have made a stink about missing money, we have had to constantly hound everyone and their mother to get that money. After a month or more it is usually added to our paychecks but the problem isn't solved the this keeps going on. I talked to another employee and she said that she doesn't keep track of every sale because it would drive her insane. She also said she knew someone like us, who did keep track of every call and she had to go through a huge hassle all the time to get money she had earned. This tells me that the company has issues that they are not fixing that are costing the employees thousands of dollars and most employees probably don't even know they're entitled to more than they are receiving because they don't want to bother keeping records and the record the company supposedly keeps (T&C) is inaccurate and the employees know it so they don't pay attention to it. If this problem has been around as long as it probably has, this company has essentially stolen around 2.5 million dollars in the last 10 years. I think that's messed up. I want them to pay me what I earn but I don't think I should have to hassle with them to get it. It should be law for them to have accurate records for employees to view at all times so we can make sure we're being paid fairly. Things change a lot with new products and comission structure changes but these should be taken care of in T&C before the product ever launches or the changes in structure take effect. What is the point of T&C if it's going to be wrong and yet payroll is going to use those numbers? Also, there is one product in particular where they changed the commission structure a while ago (before I started) so agents would be more motivated to offer upsells. They brought the sale commission way down but raised up the upsell commissions. Later on they brought the upsell commissions back down but didn't re-raise the sale commission. This product sells for 229.74 without any upsells and we are supposed to get 1.5% of that for commission. Right now we are getting $0.50 for a 5-pay and $0.85 for a 1-pay. Upsells are all worth less than a dollar as well. Does anyone else see a problem with this? I don't know what to do. Anyone know a good lawyer? I'd love some legal advice on how to get this company to shape up.

They don't have enough teachers for primary (our stake president won't allow any male teachers in primary except ages 8 and up) so they decided to combine the 4 year olds into one class and the 5 year olds into one class. Each class will have 3 teachers which is nice because I only have to teach every 3 weeks, but there are now 21 kids in our class...and about 17 of them are active. AHHHHHH!!

Shutterfly

So I decided to go ahead and get a Shutterfly account. I'm not really sure why I never did this before, but after our desktop computer crashed and we had to reload the operating system I realized I really wanted to back up my important files, but especially the photos. With today's technology all the photos are just files. There are no negatives to make reprints from or anything so I need to digitally back up all my pictures. This is more important than ever now that we have these pictures of Nathan.

I'm not sure if I will make it public or not, but either way I will give access to my family so they can see all the pictures that I don't bother posting on Facebook. I feel better knowing my photos are safe (and stored for free!) but I still need a way to back up the rest of my important documents and files. For example, the last time I had a problem with my computer, I lost both of the books I was writing (very bad day).

So if anyone feels so inclined, I'd love an external drive for my birthday. Or a webcam so I can video chat on Skype with my family. Or a Cleveland Indians hoodie. Oooooh, or a Cavs winter hat. I need some nice gloves too, mostly for running. I need running shoes too but I don't think those will be easy for anyone else to get me. I wish I could see my family for my birthday....I haven't spent a birthday in Ohio for a few years now. I miss it. :( I need headshots of the whole family, too, so I can show Nate his aunt, uncles, grandparents, and great-grandparents. I'm nervous about him being shy around them the next time we get out to Ohio.

Dizzy Kid

First Attempt: Fail

Nathan is usually pretty alert right when he wakes up. We change his diaper first thing and usually end up changing his outfit as well because he sleeps so long he wakes up pretty wet. During these first few minutes every day he has started laughing and smiling a lot, but as I learned while trying to shoot this video, he is somewhat camera shy. As soon as the cameras are rolling he stops smiling and laughing and just looks at the camera. This is true when we are shooting stills or video. Someday we'll catch his giggles on camera. Until then, I have a video of my best attempt. Unfortunately, Blogger won't upload it. :(

Sorry.

Nate Update

Here is a short video of Nate workin' on his smiling. His cheeks are so chubby!!!

Sorry it's sideways. Anybody know if you can flip it once it's in the computer?

Oh yeah, and special thanks to Andy and Heather for the awesome (matching!) Winnie the Pooh bouncer he's in.

More videos will come later....someday. :)

Reverence and Extremes

Yesterday’s theme in Sacrament Meeting (Sunday morning LDS worship services) was reverence. There were three women who spoke, and the first two were your standard, “reverence is important” talks; the kind of talks you listen to and think “yes, this is a good reminder about reverence.” The third talk, however, bothered me and is the cause of this blog entry. To be fair, I probably would have completely let my annoyance slide (this is not the first time I’ve heard a talk like this), but then I saw a comment from a neighbor on Facebook about it and it reminded me how much I really disliked that talk and made me want to blog about it. The comment was basically how awesome the talks were, especially the last one. One of the comments from a fellow ward member actually used the words “truly inspired” to describe this third talk. This really bothered me. I apologize to my non-LDS readers in advance. I will be using quite a bit of LDS terminology and I don’t really want to have to explain it all as I go, so if you don’t understand anything, please feel free to ask me later.

I’m a firm believer that reverence is key to having the spirit present in any situation. In order to have the spirit in our homes, our meetings, and our lives in general, we have to be able to find time to step back, calm down, and invite the spirit to be present. This does not mean that we are not allowed to have fun or be loud. I’ve found this to be a common misconception about the church by non-members. There is nothing wrong with dancing, laughing, lively conversation, etc. All I’m trying to say is that there is a time and place for everything. You wouldn’t yell a greeting to your friend across the room during a funeral, would you? Exactly.

Reverence in the home and reverence in church are the two main examples that come up all the time. I think sometimes, especially among members of the church, people combine the two and think that the rules that govern what is reverent in church are the same rules that govern what is reverent in the home. While this is true up to a certain extent, it can lead to extremes, which is where my annoyance at this woman’s talk comes into play. Many things that are perfectly normal in one’s home, for example, watching TV, walking around in pajamas, having a lively conversation, or talking on a cell phone, are considered inappropriate for church. The reason that these things are not appropriate for church is because they would detract from the spirit of worship at the meeting. In essence, one of the ways we invite the spirit to Sunday meetings is by dressing nicely and sitting quietly. However, I don’t believe that these same activities have the same result when done in the home. On the contrary, I think they could even invite the spirit into my home. If I talk to my dad on my cell phone at church, I would probably be a distraction to those around me and would be taking away from the spirit of worship; however, I could have the exact same conversation at home and it would invite the spirit because I would be taking the time to increase communication with my father, I would be showing love and understanding, and a host of other very good things. Obviously if I’m screaming at him, this example wouldn’t work, but I think you get where I’m coming from with this.

The one extreme that is easy to land in and accuse others of is the extreme of media. Too often today I am hearing comments from members of the church regarding the internet, radio, magazines, iPods, cell phones, and especially television. Everyone is quick to point out how all of this “latest technology” is harmful to today’s society, especially how it is breaking up families. How many times are we seeing “studies” about how much time teens spend on the internet or listening to their iPods or texting on their cell phones? Now don’t misunderstand, I am not in any way suggesting that there isn’t a host of terrible things out there that children, teens, and even adults are dealing with through the media. I am sure there are families that are spending more time listening to their music than each other. There are families who are struggling to stay together because a child or parent is struggling with a pornography addiction or something of the like. There are families who have kids who never put their cell phones down. I am the first to admit that there is a ton of horrible things that are readily available through the media and that the use of media is taking up a lot of everyone’s time. However, I think it is ignorant to believe that anyone who uses media is somehow trapped in this web of evil-ness.

This brings me to the infamous “talk number three.” The woman started by talking about a study she read where children and teens spend over ten hours a day using multimedia, which includes cell phones, iPods, television, and internet. She went on to talk about how excessive that was and how the kids of today are sucked into this world where media is life. She insinuated that anytime a child was using any of these resources they were simply wasting their time, filling their mind with senseless garbage when they could be spending time with their families or other more gospel-oriented activities. She brought up the “evils” of the media I was mentioning earlier and jumped to the standard conclusion that all the problems in the world today are caused by media and everyone’s addictions to it. Then, in order to make her point about reverence, spoke for the next ten minutes about how the only way we can truly have the spirit in our homes is to cut the media out of our lives completely. She used the phrase “Turn It Off,” and even referred to a children’s book in her home with that title. To give her the benefit of the doubt, she may have just poorly worded her thoughts, but the message that came across to me was that media was bad and that if I wanted to be righteous, I needed to stop watching TV and using the internet. While she may have wanted to give a message about spending more time with family, turning our focus to things of eternal importance, and/or being more selective in our media choices, the message I heard was this one extreme is bad, but the other extreme is the ultimate in righteousness.

I disagree on all counts. As I mentioned before, there is a lot of crap in the media today, that’s a given, but there is also lots of really great stuff. The church itself has lots of music, movies, podcasts, internet sites; it even has it’s own TV channel. There is also a ton of really wonderful non-LDS entertainment. Most of the media I consume is not connected to the church at all. This is what bothers me about that media studies. This woman was quick to point fingers at children and teens for all the media they were consuming, but how does anyone know what kind of media they were consuming? I have almost a thousand songs on my iPod, and I can’t think of a single one that I would consider to be inappropriate music. It’s not all church music by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s the kind of music I could listen to in front of my parents without feeling embarrassed by the theme or lyrics. I DVR several shows a week that I follow. Most of them are just “fluff” shows, but they are entertaining. If I was neglecting my duties as a wife and mother just because I didn’t want to miss whatever show, then that would be a problem, but this is not the case. In fact, with my DVR set up the way I have it, I rarely watch live TV at all, which means any TV I do watch I’m watching at a time when other things are not pressing for my attention. I also spend about 30 hours a week on my computer, but I work from my computer. I have lots of time to blog, e-mail, Facebook, but it is fairly rare for me to be on my computer when I’m not working. I wonder if that media usage study determined how much time kids and teens used the internet for homework. Did it notice if they were watching “The Simpsons” or “Jeopardy”? Did it mention if any of that media consumption was done with a family member? David and I have several shows we watch together and we always end up having interesting conversations and discussions together afterwards. Does that make us horrid sinners? I don’t think so.

On the flip side, I don’t think the only way to be obedient and righteous is to shut out the world by getting rid of the media. I happen to prefer television as my relaxation method of choice. I believe if watching an hour of TV calms me enough to not be screaming or complaining to my family, I’m doing more to invite the spirit than I would be by “turning it off.” If David and I cut off phone and internet usage, our relationships with family and friends would suffer, especially with those who don’t live close by. We would also be doing a disservice to my family as both David and I use these forms of media to work and make money to pay bills and provide for our son.

I guess the point I’m trying to make here is that extremes on both sides are not good. It’s not healthy or productive to spend every waking minute obsessed with media outlets. However, the other extreme of not having any media, especially the extreme of no TV, isn’t good either. We, of course, need to make time to read, especially our scriptures, talk to those in our home, clean, cook, play outside, walk the dog, whatever. At least in Utah, no TV would mean not being able to watch General Conference. Cutting media out completely is not the answer, the answer is being more choosy about what we spend time using our media for. Moderation in ALL things, including out media usage. There is nothing in church doctrine about TVs or computers being evil. On the contrary, the church encourages its members to embrace the incredible technology around us; it just warns about the dangers of choosing to watch, listen to, or involve ourselves in inappropriate media.

Why can’t someone teach THAT from the pulpit?

Nauvoo Revisited

I mentioned in an earlier post that we would not be going to Nauvoo as originally planned for our 5th anniversary. We started looking into San Diego and Las Vegas but then came back to the idea of Nauvoo. We figured out a way it could work and prayed about it. Now it is official--We are going to go to Nauvoo for our anniversary! We decided to pack and be ready to go so that we can leave right from the marathon. It should take about 20 hours or so to drive there, and we can stop if we need to. We should arrive sometime on Sunday afternoon. We are spending our first night at the Super 8 in Keokuk, Iowa, which is where we stayed when we were married. After that we are checking into the Woodruff hotel, which is across the street from the temple. Our room has a jetted tub and a temple view! We have reservations at the Woodruff for three nights. We will sitesee all of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I think three days should be sufficient to see all the sites, including the Community of Christ tour and Carthage. We will leave early Thursday morning and get back super early Friday morning, just in time to crash and then go to the temple for Michael's wedding. I am excited because I will be able to be in the temple on the 18th like I wanted. We also have a neighbor lined up to watch Nate and Daisy, so that is all taken care of. I would have enjoyed having him with us, but I'm happy for the time to be alone with David. I am so excited to go back and finally spend time enjoying the sites together!!!

January

I suppose I should blog again. It's been awhile. Nate is doing well. He slept 10 hours straight last night and 9 straight the night before. I can only wish, dream, and hope that such a pattern will continue. I hear it is lucky for kids his age to sleep 4-5 hours straight, which he does regularly. We haven't had to get up with him more than once a night for the last several weeks. I worked on his baby book today. I have several things I want to save that won't fit in the book. I don't want it totally bulging out (I'd like to keep it in its box) and I'm not much of a scrapbooker (I purposefully don't start because I would get addicted and waste a ton of money on supplies then never take the time to use them all). Any neat ideas on how to save them? The only thing I can think is to put them in the time capsule we're making for Nate to open when he turns 18 or 21 or gets married or something. We are going to put lots of "2009" stuff in it. Hopefully we can get that done before he gets too old. Any ideas what we could put in?

Our ward split a couple of weeks ago. It is nice to have a smaller group, but it is still a large ward. We went from around 6oo members to around 400. I received a second calling as a primary teacher. I tag team with a really nice lady named Jamie Moore, whose son is in the class. It is the CTR 5B class. In the past the children would go to class based on the age they were turning that year, but that has changed and now it is based on the age of the child at the beginning of the year, so all of my kids are 5 going on 6. When I was called, Brother Richardson (newly called second counselor to the Bishop; he is from Columbus so we talk OSU all the time) told me not to worry, it was a small class; there were only ten kids. I laughed out loud, reminding him that I'm from Ohio and that ten kids is NOT a small class! The last class I taught had 3 kids in it. Luckily, being from Ohio himself, he understood and corrected himself. (Another interesting fact: Notice I'm teaching 5B, which means another class, just as large, of 5A. That's correct: about 20 5 year olds in primary. Because of the large amounts of kids 5 and younger, senior primary is all kids 6 and up [usually 8 and up is senior primary and 3-7 is junior primary] and junior primary is only ages 3-5. Picture a room of about 60 kids ages 3-5. Primary is fun!) This last Sunday was my first time teaching. It was fun. The class has 7 girls and 3 boys and all but 3 girls were in attendance. I taught about being children of a heavenly father and how we're different and unique but he loves us all and has given us wonderful gifts, like families. We talked about how we used to live with Heavenly Father and how we want to go back and live with him. We also talked about the gift of physical bodies and how our spirits look like our bodies and give our bodies life but we can't see our spirits when we look in the mirror. I used the hand-in-the-glove visual to explain this concept. (For any unfamiliar with this concept: The glove represents the body and the hand represents the spirit. The glove can't move until the hand is in the glove and when we die, our spirit leaves the body, but the spirit continues to live.) I'm really glad I am not teaching alone. It makes it easier to have another adult in there to help out. Also, it means that I only have to teach every other week and there is a built in substitute in case of sickness or whatever.

Grandma Derby gave us a bunch of names to do at the temple. We got all the male initiatories and 1/2 the female initiatories finished this past week. I'm planning to go and finish the other half of the females in a week or so. I am trying to get a group together to help out with the endowments but my hopes aren't very high. It seems everyone is too busy or has a miriad of other excuses. It's not that I was expecting 100% attendance or anything, I just wish people would tell me WHY they aren't coming, so I don't fear the worst. I am pretty flexible with date and location, so I'd hoped people would at least let me know if another time or place would work better. That would at least tell me they cared enough to try and work it out. I feel responsible for the names, and I will get them done, but David and I only go to the temple once a month and we have enough names to last us over a year and a half. I don't want to pawn the names off to others; I just thought it would be nice to have a few extra people go through with us and do some of the names at the same time we were doing them; get 6 or 8 done instead of 2 at a time. Oh well. I guess I will be able to do family names until mid-2011. I'd rather do family than temple names anyway.

David and I are trying to figure out a cool place to go for our anniversary this year. It's our 5 year mark and I really wanted to do something special. The original plan was to spend a week in Nauvoo since we really didn't get to see much of the sites when we were there for our wedding, but I don't know if that will work out. The plan called for us spending our actual anniversary in the temple (which would be a great way to finish a chunk of those temple names!) but now that we can't go during that week I don't know if I want to take the trip at all. I mean, we could go at an other time but then the significance of being there during our anniversary would be gone so I was thinking maybe we could just save that for another year. The reason we can't go the week of our anniversary is two fold: First, I signed up to run the Ogden Marathon Relay on May 15th. Before you all start laughing and wondering what the heck I'm doing that for, I wanted a way to get in shape and it is a fun way for me to do it. I am training and running the marathon with a whole team of neighbors (including my primary team teacher, Jamie, who is actually the captain of my 5 member relay team [the neighborhood has 3 relay teams of 5 members each]). I walk/jog/run 3 times a week. We just started last week, at 1/2 mile each day we train. This week we're upping it. Some days I feel pumped and excited; other days I wonder what the heck I'm doing. However, I made a goal and I intend to stick with it, even if I have to walk my entire leg of the relay (which is 3 miles by the way...)!!! The other reason is that Michael Carey is getting married on Friday, May 21. Michael is a very close friend of David's (Nathan's middle name is Michael after him) and we wouldn't miss his wedding for anything. He flew all the way to Nauvoo from Utah for our wedding, I couldn't possibly feel good about not being at his wedding, especially when it's only as far as Draper. With all that in mind, I didn't think it was worth it to go all the way to Nauvoo on a Sunday and then have to be back by Thursday. We might go somewhere else at a later time...we'll see. Nothing in stone yet. I'd take a cruise if we could afford it.

OK that's the latest and greatest. I better get back to work.