Food for thought

I don't know who people voted for in the recent presidential election, and don't care.  I do know that there are quite a few people that were disappointed by the outcome, for a variety of reasons.  I also know that I am many of my friends are getting worried about raising our children in a world that feels like it is going farther and farther away from  the values we believe in.  Because of this I am reposting what a friend of mine wrote on her blog the morning after the elections.  I am looking at this more from a whole life and world perspective and less of an election won or lost perspective, but it was a nice reminder when it is so easy to get caught up in the ups and downs of life.

This is for all of my wonderful friends who are having a rough day today after last night's kick in the gut. After climbing out of my funk, re-evaluating and re-committing all morning I had a thought. I would like to share it with you all and I hope you will take it to heart.
On Saturdays KBYU used to replay BYU football games from time to time. The great thing about this is that they would ...only replay games where BYU won. This was a fantastic thing because you never had to get upset, never had to yell at the refs, never any heartbreaking final scores. You KNEW who was going to win in the end. It didn’t matter if BYU was down by 2 touchdowns with 3 minutes left in the 4th quarter. There was ALWAYS a comeback. Our team ALWAYS won. You could relax and enjoy the game. Such is life. We are in the 4th quarter. Just got a big kick in the gut. We may feel as if we are behind by a couple of touchdowns. But you know what? The results of this game are already in. It was played in the beginning of time. We KNOW who is going to win. It has been written thousands of years ago by the One who started the game in the first place. God and His righteous followers WILL win at the last day. Those who stand for truth and righteousness will win. The game is not over yet and some people may even switch teams. But the outcome will remain the same. We know the final score so there is no need to yell at the refs, or eat a bottle of TUMS, or curse the opposing side. Regardless of what happens, we know the final score. The righteous will win. “Be still, and know that I am God”. – Psalms 46:10
I say, bring on this 4th quarter. My family is ready. It is easy to fight when you know you’ve already won. PRESS FORWARD SAINTS

 

I am grateful to live in a country where I can vote for my local and national leaders, and while I may complain about policy I don't agree with I will always respect the office they have been elected to and the fact that the people of this nation elected them.  If there is something in the world you don't like or would like to change I like the words of Ghandi "You must be the change you want to see in the world."  If you want to see kindness, be kind.  If you want to see love, be loving.  If you want to see respect for differences, respect those differences.  The list goes on and on.  There just a few words to think about.

 

 

3 Months old

It is hard to believe that just over 3 months ago Caleb wasn't a member of our family.  He is getting bigger everyday, and talking up a storm.  Well I am sure only a mom or a grandma would refer to his cooing and gurgling as talking, but it is fun to hear all the same.  He is such an alert little boy, he loves to sit up so that he can see what is going on.  He frequently spends his evenings in his bouncy chair on the kitchen counter watching mom cook dinner.  He was incredibly patient this last week when mom and dad were both sick with a nasty flu bug.  Needless to say I am completely in love with my little boy and don't know how I got through 37 years of life without him.

2 months already??

I can't believe it was just two months ago that we brought this little guy home from the hospital.  I am still amazed that the nurses let us leave with him. He was 7lbs 9oz and 21 inches long when we brought him home.  Now he is practically rotund weighing in at 10lbs 10oz, but he carries his weight well on his 24 inch long frame.  He hasn't really lost any of his hair so now that he is filling out he is really looking like a little boy, sometimes with a very adorable part in his hair.  

Everyone kept telling me to just enjoy holding my baby and I didn't really believe them until we got home and I had the chance to just sit and hold my little guy.  Suddenly it all made sense, how incredibly  wonderful it is to have the miracle of a baby in your life.  Brad remarked to me one evening as he was holding Caleb, "I didn't think I would enjoy this as much as I do."  I just smiled because I had known that he would.  People ask me all the time what is your favorite part about being a mom.  The best part is watching my husband be a dad.  

It has been 2 months since we brought Caleb home, I go back to work on Monday, I really can not believe it has gone by that quickly.  They say time flies when you are having fun, well if this is any indicator, we are having a blast.

 July 29, 2012. 1 day old, coming home from the hospital

September 28, 2012. 2 months old, getting ready for first Logan High Football game.

Caleb's Arrival

Caleb was due on July 26th,  but I didn't really start having contractions until 2:30am on July 27th, by about 8am I decided it was time to go to the hospital, so we got packed up and ready to go only to have  the contractions slow back down to about 15 minutes apart.  So we spent the day doing laundry, working on projects, watching tv, and having contractions.  By about 5pm things had started to progress so we headed to the hospital.  It was definitely a good idea because I had 2 contractions in the 15 minutes it took to get to the hospital.  My friend Erica called while we were on our way to the hospital,  it was fun hear her reaction when I told her that I would have to get off the phone soon because we were on our way to the hospital.  The following pictures are our documentation of the events of the day.

 Arriving at the hospital still on the phone talking to Erica.  I need to add that the dress I am sporting was purchased way back when I was a student at BYU.  I have kept it all these years in anticipation of being pregnant some day.  The oversized baggy look went out of style years ago but it works great as a maternity dress.  See sometimes you do use those things you hang on to.

I had the sweetest labor and delivery nurses ever.  They were amazingly patient and very kind.  The funniest part about being in the hospital was that every shift of nurses who were assigned to us had one who was pregnant on it.  Let me just say this, nurses who are nice enough to let you sleep when you have been awake for over 24 hours are worth their weight in gold.  

 The nurses kept telling me that I was being entirely too calm about the whole thing.  Needless to say about 3 hours later when the contractions got really intense I did everything I could to prove them wrong in that assessment.

To pass the time we brought the DVD collection of MASH with us.  It actually did a great job of distracting me, funny enough but without a serious plot line that I had to pay attention to.

 Here is our boy getting cleaned up and weighed, needless to say he didn't like that experience too much.  But once they got a diaper on him, calmed right down.  During this whole process Brad was assessing if he looked like a Caleb or Brandon, (those were our boy name choices).  After about 15 minutes he looked over at me and said "He's a Caleb".  It was also at this point that I asked the nurse for the camera because I had to try and capture the look on Brad's face as he held his son for the first time.

 Here we are welcoming our boy to the family, needless to say we decided pretty quickly that we were going to keep him.  In fact I am still pretty amazed that the nurses let us take him home from the hospital.

Waiting......

So I have managed to finally get the quote up on the wall in the baby's room.  So now it would be nice if the contractions would progress enough to make a trip to the hospital worth it.  Brad has also proven to be the nicest husband ever.  He pulled together some extra cash and surprised me with a glider for the nursery.  I guess the baby can arrive now, we are as ready as we will ever be.

Nesting?

I don't know if this would be considered nesting but I am pretty excited about all the stuff we have accomplished in the last few weeks.  Brad got rolling shelves built in the basement, so now our canned goods have a home and get automatically rotated.  So proud of him, especially because he finished them before the cut off date which was the baby being born.

With the shelves finished that allowed me to move some things around in the store room so now it is all organized and tidy, even the floor got swept.

We have the baby's room painted, and I getting some custom vinyl quotes cut this week to finish things off.  So that is on the home stretch.

The biggest accomplishment is I finished the  crib bedding, it is beyond adorable.  I am so glad I stuck with it even when I wanted to throw in the towel.  For any would be crafty people out there, unless you are a seamstress, just stay away from vogue patterns, I spent more time trying to figure out the directions then I did actually sewing.  But as you will see below the end result is super cute.

The teachers quorum in our ward marked on thing off my list, they did a fund raiser and washed windows, so now all I have to do is wash the inside of the windows and we are good to go.

Anyway I don't know if it would be considered nesting but it is nice to get some things done and cleaned around the house so that I know I won't have to worry so much about them when the baby comes.  Next up the Garage... duh duh duh... (maniacal laughter in the background).

We finally got our shutters painted and up on the house, it gives the house a lot more personality.  It breaks up all the blah beige.  It is hard to see it in the picture but we painted the front door the same color. Next up painting the baby's room.  We are just Do It Yourself fools.