Update Time

No worries, I still exist. I've just been focusing most of my energies on my new blog, twentyfirstcenturymother.blogspot.com. This one is all about our fertility woes and adventures.  As to our none fertility lives, we moved back to Utah in March and are staying at my Mom's while we look for a new place and to help save money while we pay for the fertility treatments. Felipe got a new job in Lehi and while it's a bit overwhelming for him to learn the ropes, he really enjoys it and we plan on being here for a while.  His first trip is already scheduled to Florida in June, with a trip to Ecuador to follow. So here's to life!

Gethsemane

I really like this song and today in Primary the kids started learning it to sing in church on Easter Sunday; they're even learning some sign language to go along with.  That usually fails miserably (at least with Jr. Primary), but it's still super cute.  We're sad we won't be here to see it. We told our class today that next week is our last week teaching them, and out of the three kids who registered it, only one was marginally sad.  But what can you expect from 4 and 5 year olds?  Enjoy the video!

A Very Merry Christmas

Christmas is always great, and this year we had our stockings and presents right by our bed.  It was so fun!  I took some pictures so I can remember this year.  Felipe and I put our stockings together Christmas Eve before we went to bed (and we got the stuff together, so there were no surprises in the stockings) and Christmas morning Felipe woke me up asking if we should dump out our stockings...the ones we had put together just a few hours previously....but we did :)  Mostly we just got candy for each other for Christmas, since we probably don't even have our own apartment.  But it was still great!

Felipe got this great scarf from Keith and Dixie. 

Sewed Baby Blanket #1

Since Katelyn has made her pregnancy known to the Facebook world,  I can put up the baby blanket I made for her Rumpelstiltskin baby. My heart of hearts told me she is going to have a girl so I made a girl one, but I'm going to make a boy one too, just in case my heart of hearts has been misinformed. Now I am hoping she has a boy so I can keep this cute blanket :) I basically just copied the picture of a blanket a former co-worker made for her friend's baby, so I didn't have any measurements to go off of.  I just made an arbitrary decision to have the squares be 15 inches and went from there.

I stuck a little bit of fluff in between each square...

...and then pinned the sides.

After the square was sewn I sewed an X down the middle, which was actually trickier than I thought it would be  with the minky material. 

After enough squares for a row were sewn, then I sewed the squares together to make a row,.

I left a little bit of the edges so I could rag the blanket afterwards.

Finally it was put all together and I was able to rag it. Probably this is not the best picture, but believe me, it's pretty cool.  Hopefully Baby Bo Peep loves it!

My New Favorite Thing

This right here is my new favorite thing and it is so easy.  I really like having a candle lit throughout the day and hated throwing away the empty jars until I thought up a way to re-purpose them. My first try I boiled the mostly empty glass on the stove but it was such a pain to get the wax out of the pot afterwards that I gave that up.  Now I boil some water and then rinse the glass clean with the water by taking it all outside and pouring the boiling water into the glass, then draining the water/wax mixture into the ground.  It only takes a couple pours to have a clean container. Now I have some nice little decorations for our garage living.

Oh, Portland...

I was trying to find tickets to the Moth radio show in Portland and was sad to find that the show coming to Portland has been moved back to February.  While I was looking for Moth dates I ran across the website for Portland Center for Performing Arts.  I've been wanting to go to a play or symphony concert for a while and was looking at the different suggestions when I ran across this gem: "The Most Wonderful Season, performed by Portland Gay Men's Chorus". All I could do was laugh and be reminded of another gem.  Thank you, IT Crowd.

Stockings a la Katelyn

Katelyn posted on her blog the stockings she made for Christmas so of course I had to do it too! It was so fun, quick and easy that I'm sad I can't make millions of them all the time. Turns out there is such a thing as too many Christmas stockings.  But with the extra material I'm going to make some baby stockings for my little Sunbeams.  I love them so much!! (The stockings, all though the Sunbeams are fun too.)  Felipe and I went to Goodwill on Friday and picked out two sweaters that we liked (I wish I had seen his first-but I am loyal to the one I picked) and let me tell you, Goodwill is getting pretty high and mighty.  What I wouldn't give for a little DI right now, with their $3 sweater vests.

Felipe's is on the left and mine is on the right.
 You can't really see it, but his sweater has great buttons!

Turn the sweaters inside out and trace the pattern you want-I loosely followed the little generic stocking.
I didn't turn Felipe's inside out because we wanted to use the buttons, so I just drew the black lines bigger than I would have and cut inside of them so the lines wouldn't show.

After cutting and sewing, we have the final project! I just used some extra  material to make the loops at the top.  Mine has a bit of a Seuss-y look at the bottom but it endears it to me. Loved this quick and fun project!

Sometimes Things Are Hard

Sometimes things are hard, and that's all there is to it. Life is hard. Sometimes I tell Heavenly Father that this is harder than I though it would be when I signed up for a body. But, of course it is worth it. It is always worth it.  I was reading my scriptures yesterday in 3 Nephi 22 and decided to make a cheat sheet of inspirational scriptures because there are some good ones in that chapter.  I rounded it out with some lines from my Patriarchal blessing and will list the scriptures here:

"For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee in" (Let me point out that I feel in no way forsaken, I just loved the idea of being gathered in with great mercies).

"With everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee."

"For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee" (I love that the seemingly impossible may happen, but it would be even more impossible for his kindness to depart.  Much like the scripture about the mother maybe forgetting her sucking child, but God never will forget us).

"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.  Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid" (John 14-this scripture has been on reply in my mind over the last few days because I have so needed the feeling of peace).

"For I do know that whosoever shall put their trust in God shall be supported in their trials, and their troubles, and their afflictions, and shall be lifted up at the last day" (Alma 36).

Spooky Spider Whoopie Pies

I absolutely adore Becky and her kids.  Love them! Before moving to Oregon I'd see them occasionally and think Becky was fun and her kids overwhelming, and then just move on to the next thing, but this time around I've had a lot of downtime and Becky has been really busy getting her little family ready for their move to California (so sad) so I feel like I've been able to get to know them a lot better. Becky asked me to watch her two youngest, Solomon and Elijah, yesterday while she went to lunch with some friends, and when she got back I was having too much fun to go home so we made Spooky Spider Whoopie Pies instead! Elijah was napping but we did get a lot of help from Solomon (albeit a lot of batter ended up on the ground and in his stomach).  I wish I had taken more pictures! But it was hard enough taking the few I did on my phone.

I like the one with the three of us but they're still admittedly not great shots. I asked Becky yesterday what her kids full names were and Solomon's is really long, with two middle names.  I commented to Solomon that he had a really long name and he paused and though about it for a minute and said "Sol-o-mon.  Yeah, that is a really long name!" I guess he hadn't really been paying attention to my conversation with his mom.  He is so cute! I'm really sad to see them go, although I am the one who inadvertently taught Elijah how to climb out of his crib...so maybe the feeling isn't too mutual. Love you guys!

Good Things to Come

I would like to name a son after Elder Jeffrey R. Holland.  He has always been able to touch a personal chord in me, and I think he has that effect with most who hear his messages.  I loved this story the first time I heard it and I loved it when I watched the video again today.  It's nice to spend some time away from the world just uplifting my Spirit. Don't you quit; there is help and happiness ahead. It will be all right in the end.  Trust God, and believe in good things to come.

And The Winner Is...

And the winner is...no one. Obama has been reelected and most people I know are disappointed and disheartened that Romney isn't in the Captain's chair, but the way I see it there isn't much room to move for the President, no matter who is elected. The Senate and the House are in such bipartisan gridlock that I predict the next four years being as stagnant as the last, unless Obama comes up with a way to act without Congress, which is what he's been aiming for the last two years as a result of Republicans blocking his every move.  So we might be seeing an increase in executive orders, but the way I see it, the President is just a figurehead.  The elite of America and Congress are the ones who really call the shots and we're just along for the ride.  I hold firmly to the idea that more power should be given to the states to govern themselves.  There is no possible way that those residing in the District of Columbia can effectively govern such a vast nation.

While I'm at it, I have strong feelings about social programs and what they've grown to stand for (i.e. laziness, deceit, and bitter feelings from those of us missing a big chunk of our paychecks) and if my voice were heard, it would call for the federal government to relinquish control of our social programs and give the power to the states.  It would take giant ratification and a willingness of the federal government to act more like the parent of a child off at college rather than the parent of a toddler but we need a more hands off approach and a better system of checks, balances, and accountability.  And stop the handouts! I have a whole other rant on that.

But on to companies moving their business over-seas. Bottom line, stop crying about it.  When CEOs outsource it decreases jobs in America.  That's unfortunate.  I agree that it's not a very kind thing to do, but the government is not here to enforce kindness.  Not their job.  When talking politics, this is the debate Felipe and I always have.  Yes, the rich should give more to the poor than the rest of us.  Yes, CEOs should keep their companies on our soil and encourage job creation. Yes, they should be kind and moral and patriotic.  But they all aren't, and it is not the government's job to make them act in kind and moral and patriotic ways, at least not in this respect.  Certainly hang the Benedict Arnolds, but to take advantage of cheaper labor is unfortunate for our workforce, but a sound business move (at least in the short term). People should be kind, but not compelled to be kind. Parents of toddlers compel their toddlers to be kind and to clean up after themselves. Parents of 20 year olds have their opinions but step back and let their children live their lives. I think the only recourse that should be taken is that businesses that fire America and hire Asia should be taxed more.  That's it.  Tax them for all the taxes America would have received from citizen employees should they have kept their citizen employees and make it so the CEOs can't reduce their paychecks to foreign employees as a result, then leave them alone.  Moving their company is their choice to make.  Seeking cheaper labor is inconsiderate, but America has long since thrown manners out the window. Rant over.  Now if you REALLY want to know how I feel about social programs, ask me about my year working for a disability law firm. I can't tell you how many times people would ask for my help with getting disability benefits and then admit they weren't disabled, they just wanted money. I was constantly disgusted with Americans.  That experience completely turned me into a cynic about our nation.

In other news, yesterday was the first time in my life I understood the electoral college.  If it doesn't make sense to you, check out this article: http://people.howstuffworks.com/question472.htm. I also now have a better understanding about what happened between Bush and Gore and how upset Gore must have really been.

This election has made me lose faith in our media.  Sure facebook and reddit are always what they're going to be.  But CNN? Fox? NBC? Come on, what happened? I was ok with Fox until I realized they were so incredibly pro-Romney that they were reporting falsely as well.  Two news stations would give two completely polar reports of the same event that I just got disgusted and not a little confused.

And now I'm done.  I'm done with the facebook posts, the NPR reports, the doomsayers claiming Obama is the anti-Christ, and ignorant people trying to convince me that Obama has secret concentration camps and a secret civilian army. I'm also done with people telling me how they don't understand why a Mormon wouldn't want to elect a Mormon. Please.  Do not elect someone just because they have something in common with you.  Yes, Mormons usually practice higher than average standards, but there are plenty of Mormons that I would NOT want in the white house, righteous as they may be.  So bah to them, and bah to it all. 

Activities That Are Better Than Thinking About the Election

What is better than thinking about the election? Moving a chicken coop! Laura decided today that she wanted the chicken coop on the other side of the yard so off we went! We pushed and dragged and grunted our way across the mud and then used the little red wagon to pull it the rest of the way.  We were so proud! You can just barely see the little red wagon under the coop.  I thought the poor thing would buckle but Laura  never doubted.

Finished product! This will hopefully get rid of the fly problem, or at least move the flies away from the house.  The brown chicken has been brooding lately so I researched yesterday how to get her to stop and was surprised (and amused) to find that dunking a brooding hen in a cool bucket of water will usually snap her out of it! Turns out chickens, like humans, experience a rise in temperature when they're ovulating or ready to nest, so a quick dunk in cool water will lower the temperature and switch off the nesting need in their brains.  Maybe we should do this with baby hungry teenagers....

Pleasant Surprise

Dear Friends,

I saw this mormon ad on a friend's blog post today and went into it thinking "Great, another Mormon video specifically designed to manipulate my feelings and make me cry. Fantastic." However, I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn't sappy, it was upbeat and all around a feel good video without the underhanded manipulation. So enjoy!

Dear Friends, I'm back! Katelyn is going the way of all the Earth and it reminded me that I really did enjoy blogging.  I am back again to being (for the most part) unemployed but this time around it's great.  I feel guilty that Felipe is working so much, but I am not bored in the least.  Part of this is due to my new favorite website, coursera.org. Some of the courses I've signed up for haven't started yet (like intro to Astronomy-for which I am MOST excited!!) but the physics class through Udacity.com is taking up a lot of my time and I love it.

Another thing that is keeping me busy right now is this little thing:

We've been acting sort of like foster parents for her for the past two weeks.  Her real owners got her from someone who had found her in the wild, but then they went out of town and couldn't care for her and we've kept her a little longer than originally planned because she was so sick and tiny.  I've really enjoyed having her around!  Our two cats have warmed up to her and they all get along fine, except for when the little baby is trying to eat and one of ours tries to get some food too. She'll growl them away and slap at the food so they can't get anything.  If she hadn't been so feisty, I doubt she would have survived as long as she had so there's something to be said for that.

Another fun new thing I've been doing is requesting patriarchal blessings for direct line ancestors through LDS.org.  Now this has been really fun! I mentioned what I was doing to Violet and now she's on board too.  It's been fun comparing notes and I wish I was going to Utah for Thanksgiving so we could compare notes in    person. I especially loved my Grandpa's Grandpa's blessing, Frederick Granger Williams (b 1853). We're trying to swing a trip to Utah for Christmas and get all of our left behind stuff then but don't know if it'll work out.  We'll see.

Lazy

I feel so lazy, and I hate it! College seems like it was a complete waste of time. I've spent the last 18 years of my life in school--19 if you count preschool. Grad school has always been an idea but now I'm seriously considering it just to have something to do. We even checked out a GRE prep book from the library. Without school, my life just feels so aimless.

To add to this laziness, I was kicked out of my job last Friday. It was a campus job so I was only allowed to work there until two weeks after I graduated. This is only day two of unemployment but I feel a severe case of cabin fever coming my way. Felipe can't work yet because he hasn't gotten his paperwork back yet allowing him to work. At least we are bored and lazy together.

I've always hated lounging about. Even in high school, I hated the feeling of staying in my pajamas all day. So I now dutifully get up and shower and get ready for the day, but then have no where to go and nothing to do. And, my little baby nieces just moved to Chicago so I can't even play with them. But let's be positive. Here's a list of the things we have done to add some productivity to our lives:

1. Last weekend we took my two youngest brothers out for ice cream, visited, and then brought them home to watch a movie.

2. Mother's Day we had a big fun family dinner, candles included (insert Tim's panic here) and then watched a movie at my house with Katelyn and Ian

3. Last weekend we checked out a truck load of books from the library, almost five of which are now read.

4. We started our little seedlings and care for them each day (which doesn't take much time, but at least we can look forward to the day when they can go outside and be a garden and consume hour upon hour)

5. We haven't quite made it to the temple yet but at least we talk about it....

6. Errands left over from the wedding

7. Hours and hours of Ticket to Ride

8. Going on walks--last night we went on a great walk down the provo river trail, and stopped at a park to swing. I haven't done that in a while. I was also asked by somebody if I had a cigarette...

9. Watching our favorite baby boy (aka Sammy)

I hate feeling lazy. But I do love all this time I get to spend with my wonderful husband.

Mmmm Cookies!

I found a recipe for these peanut butter and Reeses cookies on my friend's blog and, wanting to do something domestic yesterday, made them. They are delicious! I had great fun making them because:

1. It made me feel more like a wife

2. They were easy

3. I learned new things

4. I got to use our new hand mixer and

5. They are absolutely delicious

If you want to try them out, here's the recipe:

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/4 cup flour

15 Reeses peanut butter cup miniatures

Makes about 30 cookies (26 for me)

Cream butter, peanut butter, and sugars together with an electric mixer. While mixing add the egg and vanilla. Combine dry ingredients in separate bowl (salt, baking soda, and flour). Add the dry mixture slowly to the other ingredients. Mix until you can not see any of the flour. Cut some Reeses in half (I used about 13 whole ones). Form the dough into 1 inch balls, placing one Reeses half into the middle. Cover the candy completely with the dough. Bake at 375 for 7-9 minutes.

When I was making these I realized that we did not have any vanilla. So I looked on-line as a last ditch effort to see if there were any household substitutions, and I found this great website! I felt so culinary. Also, it is really hard to get half a reeses into a 1 inch ball. So don't sweat it if you can't do it. I tried rolling it in like the recipe said and I also tried placing it on top like a shortbread cookie. I personally like it rolled into the ball of dough.

I was so excited to get to use our mixer. I use to have a thing about hand mixers, thinking they were for the faint of heart who couldn't muscle it with a spoon, but that foolishness has left me. I loved the mixer! It was great fun.

I hope you enjoy!

Ps be forewarned that the cookies spread out quite a bit. They're not runny, they just grow.

Easter!

Probably I do not have a great Easter picture but forgive me. We are just learning that we need to document occasions. Also, my camera is Mr. Sucky McSuck Suck so the pictures wouldn't be worth much anyway. It was great when I got it but is now the ripe ole' age of 7+ years. No bueno.

But Easter was great fun. I felt very mature with it. Constanza and Claude spent the night and we all went to church together in the morning (9 in the AM-boo). After church we visited a bit and Katelyn came over for a while. Eventually everybody left and I was able to get down to some cooking. I made a potato casserole I remembered my Mom making (which was really good), and some salad and chicken rolls too. Felipe and Katelyn and Ian helped a lot. Our table, unbeknown to us, extends to have a leaf in the middle so it was perfect size for our group. Probably one of my favorite parts was putting a large shiny Easter egg as everybody's place setting. It was truly festive! The seven of us (Constanza, Claude, Felipe, me, Katelyn, Ian, and Damon) had a great time laughing and teasing each other and joking about. After dinner Felipe even gave a short little Easter devotional for us all. Constanza and Claude left and the five of us played games and had a blast until Felipe kicked them out at 10 because I was really tired. All in all, entertaining great guests and family is a like. How mature!

Wedding

We did it! Most everyone who reads this was at the wedding and/or reception, so you know how it went. It was beautiful. And wonderful. And amazing. And just so so so happy! It's been over three weeks now since the actual day so I'll quote from my journal so I can remember it better.

I only got 2 or 3 hours of sleep the night before and by the end of the reception was very exhausted. But I was on a high all day. I went to my grandparent's house at 5 that morning for my aunt Violet to do my hair. My cousin Granger, 16, was staying there with his parents and couldn't sleep so he decided to join us in the kitchen and listen to his music. Violet threw a few bobby pins at him every once in a while to get him to get his attention when his music was too loud or when he was whistling or tapping his feet. Who listens to rap at 5 am? Haha. Violet did a fantastic job with my hair.

At 7:15 I picked up Felipe from his apartment and the two of us drove to Manti. The weather was Beautiful! We were so lucky. We were both starving and got a quick bite at McDonald's right before arriving at the temple at 9.

The temple was beautiful. So inviting. One of my favorite things is how loving and kind and sincere all the workers are. They are so helpful. They took me up to the bride's room and and I changed into all my temple clothes with the help of 2 sisters and Felipe's mom. There are still a few things I can't get quite exactly right.

After properly dressed they took Felipe and I to the celestial room to wait for Grandpa to be ready.

I had a few questions from the night before and Felipe felt comfortable discussing things with me there in the celestial room. I had a hard time learning how to distinguish what was appropriate to talk about where and wasn't frustrated really, but was excited to finally be able to talk about everything. I loved that time just sitting there and talking and being so excited and a little bit nervous.

Grandpa came and we (me and Felipe) were taken to sealing room 2. It was beautiful. After a few minutes of talking our friends and family were escorted in. There was such a wonderful spirit. Felipe and I sat together on a little couch, flanked by our mothers, while Grandpa spoke a little to us and the group. I was emotional and holding back tears. When instructed, Felipe took me to the alter and the ordinance was performed. Looking into his eyes during the ordinance was one of my favorite parts of the whole day.

We were afterwards taken to our respected places to change and Mom helped me change into my wedding dress. My next favorite part of the day was going downstairs in the temple to where Felipe was waiting and seeing his face when he saw me for the first time. He told me how very gorgeous I was and the love and awe in his eyes was so touching. I gave him his wedding band and seeing it on his finger makes me so happy.

We were about to leave the temple by the revolving door when all three workers rushed to stop us, knowing the dress would get stuck. We laughed and just weren't thinking. I couldn't stop smiling. I loved being outside with friends and family. I teared up when Katelyn hugged me. Very many pictures were taken for the next hour or so.

Everybody left while we finished pictures and then I changed out of my dress. Felipe met me inside and we were shown the famed spiral staircases, self-supportive.

On our way back we just could not believe we were married. My cheeks had been hurting from smiling so much.

I dozed on the drive back and we were both so exhausted. At 4:45 we went to set up the church. The decorator had done a fantastic job but had forgotten the chinese lanterns, the thing I wanted most. I was very sad about that.

So many people helped at the reception, especially Damon, Morgan, Claude, Katelyn, and Constanza. Katelyn was kind and brought us drinks and food. She and Tavi gave wonderful toasts. Katelyn caught the bouquet and our first dance went on forever. We tried to leave around 8:15 without commotion, but people found out and while Felipe adn I were changing they formed two lines outside our car and blew bubbles.

Our car was a mess! It took an hour and two car washes to get it all off before we could actually leave for salt lake. We went to the house to try and fix teh wiper blad that broke across our windshield and also to pick up some board games we wanted for the weekend. No one was there but Chris and Amy and Warren and Dorothea arrived when we were about to leave and after we left Felipe realized he had left his wedding ring which he took off to wash the wiper blade so we went back. By then most everybody was there. I was embarrassed and stayed in the car. And then the weekend! Which was great.

See you on the other side

Ok last post before all the craziness happens.

The food is bought, family is coming, my dress is ready, everything's set. Now we just wait. I have T-minus four hours before I go through the temple and I have had every panic attack under the sun about that one. But thanks to good friends, family, and Felipe, I've made it through. We pick up my bouquet at three, Felipe's vest and tie, and the rest of the food tomorrow. We'll chop strawberries and thaw crepes tonight. We'll make the photo sign in book and meet the decorators. All my homework due Monday is now done and turned in. My bag is packed. My room is empty. I'm getting married!!!

Got it!

I now have a two year and a living ordinance recommend! And my stake president high fived me a total of three times throughout the interview. I had never met him before haha. But my recommend is sitting in my car, with our marriage license, and will not leave there until we get to the temple next week. We will not forget/lose it!