Lindsay Update part 1

I am doing very well. The boys and I have had a bad case of cabin fever. We spent everyday last week doing stuff outside, even on the rainy days. I have a lot of projects that I want to get done but instead I have been spending my free time at the end of every day either exercising, vegging on the couch with a favorite show or reading. So basically I turn into a lazy bum at the end of the day (with the exception of working out).

Recently I posted this facebook status and I have had a lot of questions about it.
So I have been a vegetarian off and on for as long as I can remember. It has mainly been in my adult years that I have been off and on. I have always had an aversion to meat so it just makes sense to be vegetarian. What I have decided is that it is so important for me to know where my food comes from (watch Food Inc.). For example, I recently heard about past actions of Chiquita Banana. From what I understand they have a reputation of abusing their employees and not only that, they have a lot of blood on their hands from violence against those who would improve employment conditions. With what I learned, I just didn't feel like I could buy Chiquita's blood bananas anymore.

After learning about the bananas, I started wondering what other things are going on with my food beyond the supermarket. As I did further research I was reminded about the conditions that animals are kept in, I'm not going to go into that. But I will say that what I have learned caused me to cut myself off completely from anything that came from an animal.

Next came my spiritual journey. It is very hard to explain to people, particularly people in the Mormon culture why I have taken on this new diet. I know that God loves all of his creations and I want to honor all that God has created. I just didn't feel like I was doing that when I was buying mass produced milk, cheese, eggs, etc.

At this point in my quest I have decided that I am comfortable eating foods that come from animals if I know where it came from. The best way to accomplish this is buying local and supporting farmers markets. I guess that's what it comes down to, eating what you feel comfortable with.

Ryan Who? update

Ryan Who? is right! This guy has been so studious and busy and gone a lot. The boys and I miss him a lot when he's gone but we try to stay optimistic. I want Ryan to do well so I try not to complain, but who am I kidding, sometimes I do complain. Ryan's busy schedule has had us both on edge and for the first time in our history we had a fight. Yes after 5+ years of marriage we have not had a fight, but I guess with the stress levels rising and finals and moving something had to give. I really wish it hadn't though, I need him and he needs me, especially when things start to get hard. Everything has smoothed over now and I hope that our next fight is NEVER!

More about Ryan. Ryan has an internship in UT for the summer at the Utah County Public Defenders association. He also has a job lined up for Fall semester at Public Defender Services for the District of Columbia. His hard work is paying off as far as finding jobs goes. And I am sure that it will pay off in finals too.

Something else that is note worthy. Ryan, aka Mr. frugal, never spends a penny on himself. He went and splurged a little on new clothes, this was not birthday money or Christmas money or tax refund money. He really needed it, and we all know that we all feel great when we are wearing a new piece of clothes that we picked for ourselves (can you tell I get a lot of hand me downs :). I think it is so great that Ryan did this for himself, because I want him to look and feel confident while he's studying so hard.

Micah Update

Well Micah is such a big boy, he is finally potty trained and has been since about December. If Micah could choose he would never go to bed and stay up all the time playing trains or reading books. It is so nice that he has indoor things that he loves because we have had a lot of cold rainy days. And the poor thing was basically sick all of February and March. Speaking of being sick, he peaked a fever of 104 and I panicked. So I gave him Tylenol and took him to the emergency room. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Poor Micah was sweating bullets and shivering and crying. By the time we got to the ER his fever had gone down. In the end he just had a nasty bug that we had to wait out.

After Micah got over being sick, Sam got sick. Sam was up a lot in the night while he was sick and he kept waking up Micah. Our solution to the problem was to make a bed for Micah in our bedroom. He slept in there my room for about 2 weeks before we moved him back to his room. ever since then we have woken up in the morning with a little three old between us, or we find that same three year old camped out next to our bed with his blankets, pillows, and blue dog.

We have come up with a reward system for Micah to earn cotton balls which we collect in a jar. When the Jar is full he earns a reward. The cotton balls are reward enough for him though. He gets so excited when he can drop a new cotton ball into his jar. This has also made him learn how to help around the house. To be completely honest he doesn't make much of a dent in the house work, we usually clean his room, make his bed, get him dressed, brush his teeth, and unload the dishwasher. Even still I am so grateful that he is learning how rewarding work can be.

Micah loves being a big brother, he loves to make Sam laugh and he loves to help me take care of his baby brother. If he's in a good mood, Micah will play really well with Sam. Of course he's not perfect, when he's not being Brother of the year he is usually sitting on Sam. And if he is really focused on his playing he will snap if Sam starts to crawl over his train tracks.

Micah is starting to become so independent, he wants to do everything for himself. This has taught me to be much more patient and supportive of him.

A quick story about Micah. We have a book called "Judy and the Volcano," when we were reading it one day I had pointed out to him that his aunt Gabrielle's name was written on the inside of the cover. I told him that this was her book, and when we were finished with it we will have to give it back to her (I plan to keep it until she has kids mwahaha). Anyways, about a week later I was talking to him about how we are going to be moving to UT for the summer and we will get to see all of our family and be much closer to them. Do you think he cared? Nope, he was actually very concerned. All he could say was "Will Gabby want Judy and the Volcano back." He was sincerely worried about not getting to keep this book. :)

Sam Update

Sam is the cutest little baby ever. He is always so happy and smiley. He loves People, he is always batting his eyes at strangers and making friends with all kids of people. He loves blankets, he loves to rub his face into them, hide himself under them, loves when I play parachute with them (let a blanket fall on him and cover him up and then lift it again). Throwing things, this includes throwing toys into the toy box, throwing a ball and playing toss and catch, and of course throwing food from his high chair. Oh yeah and food, Sam loves to eat, he will eat anything, even if it's not food.

Sam is so adventurous. He's my climber and he's only 10 months! He has toilet bowl radar, If we leave a bathroom door open, Sam kicks into sneaky, speedy mode and goes strait to the glorious pool of water in the porcelain thrown. It is so nasty, he just likes to splash his little hands in there. At least that's all he puts in there. When we were younger my little brother use to like to stick his head in the toilet bowl and kick his head back and let his hair flop backward. If I remember right he did this to imitate Simba (Lion King).

Recently at a play group I got caught up talking to a friend and while I was chatting Micah ran up to very excitedly and said, "look Mom, Sam climbed the stairs all by himself!" I looked over toward the stair and there was Sam nearing the top of a stair case. To be honest the stair case was only four steps, but still, if he fell it would hurt. Sam was very pleased with himself and thankfully in the time that it took me to run to him he stayed put.

One more little thing about my Sammy. He took his first step today! We were sitting at church and he was walking along a row of chairs, as he was approaching me, he decided to let go and take his final step with out any assistance. I'm so proud of him. I wish he could stay a little baby forever, but I really feel so much Joy as I watch him learn and grow.

Falling back into place

For the longest time I was filling like I didn't have any structure or order in my life. For the first time since... maybe Sam was born, I am starting to feel like things are "normal." It was very hard adjusting to 2 kiddos, then adjusting to living with family, then moving cross country, then our housing falling through, you get the picture. Life was chaos, and I just wanted to go home. I was talking to my freind Adrienne recently who has also moved from Utah to Virginia and she put my feelings into words PERFECTLY. She had said that before her visit back to UT she was "romanticizing Utah". This resonated with me. I love Utah, I miss my family so much, but it wasn't until I went back and realized that everyone lives have gone on, Virginia was home now and I need to move on with the future too. Ever since I have embraced this notion, I have fallen in love with my situation. My marriage has grown stronger, who knew that such a great marriage could be even GREATER. I have really come to appreciate my role as a mother, I have come to know so many wonderful people out here that are both in my situation or have been and I love them all. The community of love out here is incredible! So basically life is good.

There is a lot to catch up on each of us so you can expect to read about each of us in a little more detail very soon. hopefully today if I can squeeze in more computer time. For now here is an old video but a milestone for Sam that I thought my family would like :)

Good or Bad I'll take 'em

Micah has been such a trouble maker lately. I've have learned that though silence can be wonderful and peaceful it is in fact the tell tale sign that something is going on and it isn't good. One of the naughty little things Micah enjoys doing is driving his cars and trains into his food. He is not allowed to have toys while he is eating but just like a lot of trouble makers out there, Micah is sneaky. He always finds a way to hide his car in his milk cup or crash a train into his noodles.

As of late Micah has been going behind my back and opening up boxes of crackers and cereal and dumping the whole thing out and then proceeding to drive his cars in the mess. recently we had a few kids over here to play. They asked for a snack so I sat them down at the table with crackers and cheese, I left for a moment and when I came back all the crackers had been dumped out onto the table, I walked into the kitchen and all the kids were just watching Micah make this "big huge mess." But that is not all I saw, oh no that is not all.... Micah had the honey in his hand and he was squeezing honey on top of all the crackers. I want to know where all the tattle tales in the world were at the time!?

And just today, I was in the kitchen and all of a sudden Micah runs in and shuts the sliding doors that close off the kitchen from the rest of the apartment. I asked Micah what was going on and he started pushing me back into the kitchen and said "stop mommy, go back." Needless to say I was not surprised to find a big pile of crackers all over the floor. I don't know what the fascination is with making these messes but it has got to stop. One more thing, Micah really likes to say "Look Mommy, I'm making a big huge mess." I hate this phrase more than anything right now.

Sam is a little angel right now, he idolizes his big brother. He is currently crawling and getting into EVERYTHING. And he has definitely spoken his first word, ball "ba, ba, ba." I like to play a game with him where I ask where's Daddy? where's Micah? where's Mommy? It's so fun to see him look at each of us on cue. He's such a sweetheart.

Cake anyone?

I think one of my New years resolutions should have been to post more in my blog. As far as resolutions go I have to admit that I have failed in regards to not wasting food. For example, this colorful birthday cake didn't really get eaten at all. Micah had a tiny bit and Ryan and I didn't have any at all, first of all we aren't big cake fans, and second, I have given up desserts for the month of January. (I am planning on giving up something for a whole month all year long, this isn't a resolution just a personal thing I am doing). So why stay up until the wee hours of the night to make a fancy cake that no one is going to eat? I think Micah's face says it all! He LOVES cake and has been saying that all he wants for his Birthday is cake. We planned a rainbow themed party but ended up having to cancel it because both of the boys caught a cold.

As far as other resolution go, I have been doing really great on my photo journal. So I got this idea from my SIL Katie, she did a photo for every day of the year a couple years ago and I loved the idea. We have gotten lots of fun photos so far and it has been really fun for me and Ryan to take a night once a week to go through a weeks worth of pictures and choose the one photo that will represent each day. January has been a blast!!!

Happy New Years 2011

Don't I look so happy!? I don't recommend bringing in the new year with a broken nose. Last night I was giving Micah a bath, when bath time was over, Micah and I were cleaning up the bath toys. I was hunched over the tub and Micah was standing bellow me. He got really excited and jumped straight up right into my face. I can't say for sure that my nose is broken, but I hurt it last night and it is still killing me tonight. From what I know about broken noses (which isn't a lot), there isn't much you can do to fix it. So I am going to wait out the pain and hope that it heals itself.

Happy New Years, I am very excited to start this new year! I have goals, resolutions and expectations for this coming year. I know myself well enough to know that I won't succeed at all the things I want to do this year, but if I don't at least try I am depriving myself of the opportunity to become a better person.

What I plan to do this year
Exercise
Read more
Eat more Fruits and Veggies
Waste less food
Quilt
Sew an outfit for each of my boys
Be less critical
Go to bed at a reasonable hour
Enjoy any free time Ryan and I find together ;-)
Photo journal for each day of the year that will include my family and our adventures.

Bring it on 2011!!!

2010 The year of tears

I have recently started referring to 2010, as "the year of tears" (just to myself). I'm pretty sure I have shed enough tears to fill a reservoir. Mind you, not all my tears have been sad tears. An extreme of any emotion will usually cause me to cry. This year has been very influential and meaningful, with so many blessing and trials coming one after another it's hard not to get weepy.

A highlight of the things that have impacted me this year

Micah
Micah is just so darn funny that sometimes I laugh so hard I cry, seriously! Let's be honest though, Micah is in his TERRIBLE TWO'S, and there have been moments that have been down right terrible with this head strong boy!

Sam joining the Family
I am so grateful to have my little Sam. He is the cuddliest, happiest baby. It's hard not to have tears of Joy when a new baby joins the family. With that said, Sam is a very hard baby. Sam has no interest in sleeping, and for the longest time he was only happy when he was being held. it has been a common occurrence for me to brake down in tears in from feeling uncontrollably tired from the lack of sleep from caring for a new baby. It never lasts for long though, all Samuel has to do is look at me with gummy smile and big brown eyes and I melt.

Moving Cross Country
This is a big one. Moving away has been so HARD! I have missed my family so much. I definitely have a greater appreciation for them and for all the love and help we received so abundantly. We still enjoy these blessings from them, but it has so hard to be away from the physicality of it all.

My Grandma Passing away
For the last couple years I, along with several other members of my family, took part in a wonderful opportunity to take dinner to my grandparents a couple times a month (It added up to them receiving meals almost every single night a week). We did this to help my Grandpa who was constantly caring for my grandmother, she suffered from Alzheimer's and Parkinson disease. It was really hard to see her suffering, so when she was coming close to the end, I was feeling a sense of relief for her. Her passing however was so hard. I love her so much and it was so painful to say my last goodbyes to her. She was bed ridden when we moved and I was firm on coming home when the inevitable happened. It was about a week and a half after arriving in Virginia that I got the sad news that she had passed. My grandmothers condition brought tears to my eyes several times as I saw her and my grandpa endure these tough times. Her passing however was heartbreaking. And when my plans to fly home for her funeral services fell through, I was devastated. I really wanted to surround myself with my family because we were all going through the same thing, I didn't like grieving alone. Thankfully for technology, I was able to view the service via Skype. It didn't exactly make up for being there but it helped. This experience was a good reminder to me that through Jesus Christ, Families can be together forever. This is a beautiful, wonderful promise.

5 Year Wedding Anniversary!
I didn't exactly cry because of anything that has to do with my Anniversary. The fact of the Matter is November 11, 2010 was a hard day. The funny thing is, the day started off so well. My spirits were high because of the occasion at hand. I woke to a beautiful sunny day, I had a fabulous time with my kids at the park and we had a wonderful afternoon at home together. I had even thought to myself earlier that day that there isn't anything in the world that could spoil my day. Then out of nowhere Micah started becoming very weepy and whiny, patiently I tried for several hours to figure out what was wrong. Eventually both boys were crying, it was more than I could handle; I started to cry too. Something was clearly wrong and I couldn't figure out what. My poor boys just wanted to be held. I did the best I could but it was so hard to console them, so from 3:00 pm to 7 or 8:00pm my boys just cried and cried until they fell asleep. We have had a few of these episodes this year and I am not sure what triggers them. They have definitely taught me to be more patient.

I wouldn't have been able to get through the last year with out the support of family and friends. I have been especially grateful for my husband and my Faith in God.

Merry Christmas