Special Events

This past week we celebrated Koy's birthday on October 10. He turned 6 years old. I can't believe how big he is getting. He is so cute and so loving. He can be the biggest handful at times but he can be the biggest help when he is asked. He always says the BEST prayers when it is his turn. He is always thankful for the little things and he is not afraid to say it. He loves Kayden and they can be best friends and worst enemies all within a matter of minutes. He is doing o.k. in school. He is really good with numbers but he struggles a little with reading and he really struggles with being quiet. I know that I need to be more patient with him and that is one things that I am working on right now. I know that he can't wait until he is older and can read and go to school all day. He has been really excited about Kayden getting baptized. Sometimes I wonder if Koy is more excited than Kayden is. He is so proud of his brother and looks up to him a lot. Lexi's dog, Cally, loves to give Koy kisses and play with him and Koy is very good with her.

Kayden also celebrated his birthday today. He was also baptized today. That is pretty cool to be able to be baptized on your 8th birthday. He is getting so big and is a really good kid. He loves to read and has wonderful handwriting. He is a very joyful kid and sometimes likes to joke around too much. He is very funny and I have loved watching him grow over the past few years. He has been in charge of getting his own feeding bags ready for the past few years and he does a very good job of it. He has a little OCD when it comes to making sure that the correct buttons are pushed and that everything is set up just perfect every night. He doesn't like having to use the pump and I keep telling him that if he starts to eat better then he won't need the pump. Kayden is my hero. He has gone through so much and overcome so many obstacles. He is nothing short of a miracle in my eyes and I look at him in awe. I am so proud of him and his decision to be baptized. He wanted Grandpa to baptize him and of course Grandpa couldn't turn him down. I got him a set of new scriptures yesterday and asked them if he could watch them engrave his name on them. They agreed and let him watch and he thought it was the greatest thing ever. He loves them and is so proud of them. I wonder if it will make him look at the scriptures a little differently after seeing them put his name so carefully on them.

I love my kids so much and I hope to be a good example to them. I hope that the things that I am striving to teach them will make an impression and that they will desire to do what is right. I hope that I can listen to Heavenly Fathers whispering in teaching them the things that he wants them and needs them to know so that when they are old enough to go on a mission that they will be able to have a strong foundation and a testimony of the gospel.

GAG

I am so irritated and bugged right now that I don't even know what to do. So I am asking for advice from anyone who reads this.

I read the First Presidency's message in the October Ensign and I feel that it was precisely directed at me and my family. Not my husband or my children, but my sisters and my brother. I am sure that I will make waves with this post, but I am tired of the back biting and the ill feelings that are going on and feel like something needs to be said and get the stupid elephant out of the dang room.

I have been told by those in my family that we really just need to talk about things and get it out and done with and then move on. I feel like I have done that. I have stated that I do not have hard feelings toward anyone but I feel like I have talked to Nancy and we have worked out our most recent issues. I feel like there are things that need to be worked on with Nicky, but I don't have hard feelings toward her and know that she is working on making her life better. I feel like she knows what things I feel are unacceptable and she knows if she wants to work on those things or not. She needs to make things in her life better for her not for anyone else. As soon as she is happy with herself and her life then she will be able to look at life in a different way and be able to fully give what she is able to give to those around her. I do not hold any hard feelings against my brother in any sort of way but this is where I am not sure and feel like there is a huge elephant in the room. I don't know what more I can do. I feel like there are unobtainable expectations that I will never reach in order to have a relationship with him or his family. I don't know what to do or how to change it.

I feel like no matter what I do I will fail. It will always be the wrong thing no matter. The way that it is looked at will always be from one of "you don't meet my standards" so I will not accept anything that you do or try to do in order to fix a relationship.

Today has really shown me the true intentions of people and how mean and judgmental people can  be simply to be mean. They put forth an image of being so great but yet to others in their family they treat them like crap. I found out that I was an aunt again today. My brother adopted a baby today. The papers were signed today and they wanted to "share" their new with everyone. Well that everyone was everyone on their facebook page, which me and my sisters and my parents are not a part of because my brother's wife does not want to be friends with us. So this great new that should have been a very fun and exciting news was not very fun and exciting when we have to find out from other family members about the occasion and my brother cannot even send me a text or anything to let me know that this happened. I am so happy for him and his family about being able to have another baby that they so desperately want, but I also hurt because of the pissy relationship that he has with us because of judging and other feelings from those around him which in turn effects relationships with his sisters and parents.

I have been supportive and have attended family functions that have not always been comfortable. I know that there are not so kind feelings about my husband. I know that there are not so kind feeling about my family and things that we have been able to accomplish because of struggles that we have been met with. I know this and still I am supportive because he is my brother. He is my only brother. I want my kids to love and care for each other and I don't want them to hate each other when they get older, but I feel like I am not able to have a relationship with my brother. I feel like it is o.k for some but not for others to have a relationship with family members.

I want more than anything to have this feeling go away. I don't want to have these feeling toward my brother, but I am so tired of being judged and looked at in a "greater than thou" type judgement. I feel like my brother should love me and support me in any decision that I make because I do the same for him. I just don't feel like me or my sisters or my parents are ever given a fair share. I think it is time to stand up for myself and my family and say I am not going to put up with this judging anymore. I am taking a stand and I am not going to be judged anymore. I am not going to stoop to their level and act the same way they do. I am going to be the bigger person.

I am going to really take President Uchtdorf's message and try and get things taken care of in my family. I am going to pray for this anger and hate to go away and that my heart will soften and that I will not be so offended and hurt like I am. It will take some time, but as long as I get to where I need to be then they will have to answer for their own actions.

Moving On

Life brings change. Change is good, when we get complacent it means that we are not evolving and learning. Sometimes it makes us see that we really can do things that we never thought that we would be able to do. I was always nervous that we would not be able to afford things in our house if we ever had to do it on our own, but because of circumstances that happened we are now facing that prospect and when we sit down and look at things it seems that everything will work out for us to be able to do just that. I know that because we have been faithful and obedient in paying our tithes and through faith that things will work out for us.

Many times we are faced with things that we may not want to have to face. It is scary and frightening. We think that everyone is looking at us and passing judgement. I know that there are times that when I have to go to work that I feel like people are thinking I'm a bad mom because I am not at home and taking care of my kids. I think that people look at what I am wearing and say to themselves that I am not dressed according to their standards or that I look hideous and fat in certain things and they don't want anything to do with me. But then I sit back and think, do I judge people that way and look at people the way that I look at myself. No, I honestly do not. I do not look at people and say that they are ugly or they are fat or they do not meet my standards because they don't dress the way I do. I don't think that I can't be around them because they are fat or ugly or not dressed to my expectations. I do not want to be that kind of person. I do not want to look at others that way because I do not want others to think of me that way. That is the type of person that I do not want to be around.

Are there some things that people do that make it so that I don't want to be around them. Yes. Sometimes am I around them, Yes. I have many friends who smoke and drink. I will talk with them and there are times when I have my kids with me and we talk to them while they are smoking. Is this bad, No. It is a way for me to teach my kids that people can be good people and make bad decisions. There are times when these bad decisions have consequences that they have no control over. If I choose to not send my kids with someone in a car because the person smokes and will smoke in the car with them then I do have that choice and I am responsible for things that happen to my kids. I don't want to have them live in a bubble, but I can choose what they are exposed to and what they aren't exposed to.

When I was growing up I had an Uncle who made some bad choices. We were told by my parents that we love him because he is a member of our family. We didn't agree with the choices that he has made and we didn't support the choices that he made, but we still loved him and prayed for him.

There are times, however, when our choices affect more than just us. There is a ripple effect that can happen. Yes our choices affect us, but they affect our family members which can affect the people who they associate with and who they work with and so on.

I personally feel like I have to protect my family first and foremost. I have to surround them with people that I feel are good examples for them. I need to teach them how to discern right from wrong, good from bad. I need to teach them that we all make mistakes and that even when we make mistakes we are given the opportunity to repent and be forgiven. Being forgiven doesn't always mean that we will forget everything that happened and how we felt. Sometimes we will still have that pain and that anxiety over things. Those things are there as a warning and a caution sign to proceed with things cautiously until we know that things are o.k.. We need to heed those warning signs and listen to them. If we feel like things are not right then we need to stand up and do something. Sometimes that is the hardest thing to do even when you have others that are telling you differently. There are times when you need to stand strong and stand up for what you know is right.

As I have been writing this I have had two different things come to my mind. I have thought about the talk given in General Conference this past April by President Jeffrey R. Holland called "The Laborers". Read it. Enjoy all that Brother Holland has to say in that. It applies to many different situations.

The second one is the parable of The Prodigal Son in Luke 15:11-32. Jesus teaches about a man who has two sons. One son is given his inheritance and goes and spends it and lives a rebellious life and the other son stays at home with his father and works hard and lives a righteous life. When the younger son comes home and the father throws a big party for him and welcomes him home as if nothing wrong ever happened, the older son gets upset and asks the father why he did this and that it wasn't fair that he lives a righteous life and the younger son who lived a rebellious son gets a party thrown for him. The father tells the older son, I still love you and you will be given all that I have. It is necessary for us to be happy that he is home and that he is alive and not dead. The Lord wants us to find the ONE. The other 99 are already here but we need to find the ONE. Sometimes that ONE is a member of our own family. We have been blessed because of our choices to stay strong and live righteous lives. Others in our family are not so lucky. When someone in our family has strayed and comes back we should be happy and we should rejoice. We should give thanks to our Heavenly Father and if we are one of the 99 that never left we should not be upset or angry. As Elder Holland says "We are not in a race against each other to see who is the wealthiest or the most talented or the most beautiful or even the most blessed." I am going to add we are not in a race to see who is the most righteous either. This is where envy will come in and bite us in the butt along with jealousy, selfishness and pride. We are not any better than the ONE and the Lord does not look at us that way. In fact he looks at us in a completely different way.

Because of recent events I think that there are some things that I do need to be cautious of. There are some choices that others have made that I have not been completely happy with and I do not agree with those choices. As long as they continue to make those choices there are some choices that I have to make for my family that they may not completely agree with and those choices are hard choices for me to make. I hate having to choose. I think also sometimes it is harder for me to choose when it is happening to my immediate family and it isn't as hard for me to choose when it is happening to my husbands family. But I have to remember that it doesn't matter if it is my immediate family or if it is my in-laws they are all my family and it affects my husband (when it is his family) and it affects my kids because of their cousins and aunts and uncles on both sides.

Just know that I do not think that I am not perfect. I make mistakes and I make them often. There are always things that I can improve on and make better in my life. There are relationships that I should improve on but don't know where to start. There are things spiritually in my life that I need to be doing better. I am not perfect. But nobody else is either. If anybody was perfect they wouldn't be here but they would be translated up to heaven. We all have something that we can learn from. We all have judgements on others that we need to stop. We all have family that we can be nicer to. We all have brothers and sisters that need our love no matter what happens. Do our family members make mistakes, HECK YES. Are these mistakes something that we should just forget tomorrow, HECK NO. But we should be able to forgive then and forget them with time. I want my kids to treat each other with love and consideration. I want them to be understanding and supportive of each other. In order for my kids to do that I need to be an example to them. I need to be better at calling my brother or my sisters. I need to show them that I can love my sisters and my brother regardless of what they have done. I don't need to show them how to persecute them and condemn them and say bad things about them. Are there times when sometimes that happens, yes, but I need to be adult enough to show them how to correct the wrong and make things right. I need to show them how to be mature and apologize for any misgivings that I have shown them and hope that the other person is mature enough to recognize what they have done wrong also. Many times the best thing is to not be selfish and think that everything is about me when it isn't about me and when I start to think that it is about me that is when the problem begins.

I have so much going on in my thoughts right now that I have probably rambled on and things don't make any sense. Sorry. To each his own though.

I really need to update

It has been a LONG time. We have been so busy with life and school that I don't get time to update this and when I do have time to sit down I have been doing homework.

In January and February Kayden had pneumonia and Adenovirus. He was hospitalized for the pneumonia and he hated getting the I.V. but he made it through and the bonus was that he was also able to be part of a pneumonia study and got to spend $70 at Walmart for his participation. When he had the Adenovirus he was just running a really high fever for a week. They ran tests on him and something finally was grew on one of them after he was starting to get better but because it was a virus there is nothing that they can do for it.

Koy has been doing so good at school. We were having some problems for a little bit with his behavior and he is doing better in regards to that, but we still have issues with him paying attention and listening. He did get registered for Kindergarten and he is so excited to go to school. He definitely is ready and wanting to learn. He does sit here and tell us some addition facts that he has figured out so I think he might be good with math. He is always busy and wanting to be on the go all the time.

Lexi is growing up so much. She has grown about 4 inches in the last 4 months. She is now taller than me. Her birthday was yesterday and she is now going to be in Young Womens. She is so excited. We got her a Kindle Fire because she loves to read and has been wanting one for a long time. She was so excited when she got it and has already read the book that I put on there. At her doctors appointment the other day the doctor said that she is almost to adult size so that will be a lot easier for us since she won't be growing out of clothes as fast as she has the last few years. Maybe she can wear a pair of pants for more than 2 months.

School is coming to an end this semester and I am looking forward to it. I had my final in my lab class yesterday and I am glad that is done with. I have two more classes that I will be finishing up in over the next few weeks and then we will have a break for a few weeks before summer semester starts. We got passes to Seven Peaks again this year so we are looking forward to spending some time playing and swimming and attending some of the activities that this pass offers over the summer.

Real Life

I have thought lately how us in the LDS world compare ourselves to other people and how we have this perfect picture in our heads as to how we "think" things should be. We then get all depressed when things don't go the way we think they should and then we (o.k. at least me) think that we can't do anything right and we just stop doing it completely because heck why do it if we aren't doing it the way that things should be going in our head.

So as I was thinking this morning about how everyone has this picture perfect idea of how scripture study should go in the morning, or how our chore charts should go and how our house should run. We all hear the stories of perfection, but what about the stories of imperfection or the stories of at least we tried and got a little bit in there.

When I picture family scripture study I imagine everyone sitting around with their scriptures open and everyone reading and participating. The little kids are sitting down and listening to me while I read and everyone and everything is perfect. But this isn't really how it is. This isn't how it has gone the last week at our house. I have found a few places that have given a suggested reading schedule to complete the Book of Mormon in a year. The one I have chosen to follow gave a list of Chapters that needed to by the end of the week. I wrote what needed to be done on the calendar for the whole year. Next I needed to just figure out WHEN to read and how to get it in our schedule in the morning. Here comes the perfection part that I struggle with. With school, work and having to get out of the house early I have struggled with sitting down in the perfect family setting with books open and everyone participating. So I have come up with a plan that works for me. (Again this is the perfect plan and as we go along we will see that plans have to have go wrong.)

Monday and Wednesday mornings I have to be to work at 8:30 and the kids have to be dropped off after 8:10 in order to not have stay outside of the school in the cold and I also have to get Koy to the daycare. So the plan includes this: I get up around 5 in the morning to in the shower before everyone else and allow there to be enough hot water for J at 6 when he gets up to get ready for school. (He REALLY does not like not having hot water so to make our life easier I will get up and then go back to bed until he gets up) He gets ready and is out the door at 6:30 for school at 7. When he gets up to shower I will get up and get my hair and makeup done and then get started on breakfast. I wake Lexi up at 6:30 when he leaves to get in the shower and get ready for school. At around 7 the boys get up and get ready for school and eat breakfast. The goal is to make sure that at 7:45 we will be reading our scriptures.

On the days that I don't have to be to work at 8:30 we will read at the house. I have found that on the church website they have the Book of Mormon videos in their media section (you can link to it here). I have had these playing while we eat breakfast. Then I also turn on the audio on the site for the scriptures themselves and read along with it. On the days that we have to be out of the house at 7:45 we will be listening to the audio in the car. Things haven't been as smooth as what I have planned but at least we are getting it done. Satan isn't completely stopping us from reading since I have ways to get around it now.

I Was Prepared

After we moved into our house the kids, Josh and Nicky attended the ward christmas party. I was unable to attend because I had to work that night. Lexi had a few girls over to spend the night and they went with them to the party. There was a girl in the ward with down syndrome and she attached herself to our little family and loved being with Lexi and the girls. Josh had made the comment that we were going to take her home with us that night and she got really excited. Josh then asked her mom if it was o.k. if she came to our home and spent the night with Lexi and the other girls. Her mom was a little hesitant at first, but then she obliged and let her come over. Lexi is really good with others and she showed this girl the same amount of love as she did her friends that were over here that night. She definitely has a gift when it comes to helping others that have a disability or who have special needs. She doesn't discriminate against anybody and is truly loving to all. This girl was so excited to come and stay over. This was the FIRST time that she had ever been invited to sleep over at another house and she was so excited that she was able to come. Everyone had a great time and I think that this girl was the happiest girl in town that night to be able to stay over at a friends house and to be invited and feel like she was part of the group.

We saw this girl a few weeks later at church and she was so excited to see us and was so happy. The following week at church we received some horrible news. We found out that this girl had passed away that morning. She was only 13 years old and she had passed away. You can read her obituary here.

This girls passing got me thinking about a few things. Lexi is 11 years old and one of her friends has died. Even though she had only met her a few weeks earlier, she was still a friend and she had been in our home and our feelings toward her were feelings of love. We were hoping to be able to spend more time with her and get to know her better. She had a wonderful spirit and she definitely was a special girl. It then took me to thinking about when I was 11 years old and I had a close friend pass away.

Amy had just turned 12 in February and had suffered from juvenile diabetes all her life. She knew how to control it and what she needed to do. She was a vibrant, happy, fun to be around girl. I grew up with her and had a great friendship with her. (o.k. it was a typical 'GIRL' relationship between tween's). In March, after her 12th birthday, she got really sick and was hospitalized and put on life support. She passed away a few days later. It was really hard for my 6th grade class to have a close friend pass away. Our whole class sang at her funeral. But I remember those feelings. I remember how I felt and I remember what happened. I went through the same experience that Lexi is going through. I was prepared as a young girl to help my own daughter many years later who would go through the same experience. I hope that she doesn't have to go through all of the same experiences I went through, but I was prepared as a young girl to help her.

It was also this friend that passed away who her parent donated her organs and where I first learned about organ donation. Amy's mom had given us a book that was a collection of papers, poems, journal entries and so on that had been Amy's. Some of the papers in the book were letters from people who had received Amy's organs. One of them was a lady who had received her kidney. My first introduction to kidney donation. When I was a young girl I had the experience of seeing a family go through the experience of donating their loved ones organs and seeing how difficult that was and then reading the letter from the recipient and see how happy and thankful they were. For the family of the loved one to have that letter meant a lot. It helped them to see how their loved one helped somebody else. Then many years later to experience being the mother of a kidney recipient. To know how thankful that family felt when they received that precious gift and to be able to express those feelings to that donor family. I was prepared.

Many times we go through experiences that we don't understand. We don't like them. We don't want them. We don't understand anything about them. We know that we have to go through them and a lot of times it is not by choice. But we go through them. We can choose our attitude. We can choose if we are happy or we can choose if we want to negative and unhappy. But HOW we go through them is our choice. I didn't understand why as a 11 year old girl I had to experience my friend dying but I am glad that I had the experience so that I could help my own daughter many years later. I do not like the fact that I had to see my son suffer so much and go through so much in his younger years, but I know that there will be a point in my life where I will be able to draw from that and help others and teach others about that experience. It wasn't always fun and it wasn't always easy. It was down right hard at times, but I didn't let it get me down. I don't think I was every bitter or negative. I didn't always like it, but I don't think I ever showed it. I always thought that if I wasn't strong then how could my child be strong. I needed to be HIS example. I needed to show him that no matter what happens I am always there and I am always in his corner and I am not going to let situations get the best of me.

We have a great example to look to. We have the scriptures full of great role models. We have wonderful, strong women to look to in the scriptures who can teach us many things. We have a Savior who can teach us so much if we only TRULY take what he teaches us and apply it to our lives. That is how we prepare. We have parents who teach us. If it wasn't for my mom helping me through that time when I was a young 11 year old girl I would not have known how a mom was suppose to help. I remember her letting me cry on her shoulder. I remember her walking into that classroom, crying and telling us that Amy had passed away and how she was there to comfort us. It wasn't easy for her to have a dear friends daughter pass away and a former student pass away and a daughter's friend pass away. She prepared me.

This post didn't go in the direction that I had wanted it to in the beginning, but it went where it needed to go in the end.

I hope that we will all be prepared for things and that we take those teaching from many different sources in our lives and be prepared. You never know when you are going to be needing those teachings and those lessons in your lives. Don't stop them from happening. They happen for a reason.

Changes and New Year

After I posted in October things got hectic. I decided to to have a round with a kidney stone and was in a lot of pain. I think it is the closest thing to labor. The only good thing about labor is that you have a bit of a break in between contractions and you know that there is an end in sight and a reward. With kidney stones you don't get a break in between pain and there is no reward at the end. It actually ended up being a long month with that stupid kidney stone and I ended up in the ER one more time and then the stone got stuck and had to be removed surgically. I didn't realize how much I actually was affected by it until it was removed and I didn't have that dull pain all the time. I had it removed the day before Thanksgiving and was back to work the next day for Black Friday. Wasn't the smartest thing, but you do what you have to do in order to make things work I guess.


We also had Halloween in there and the kids had a blast. We walked all over the neighborhood and the kids brought in a lot of candy.

Finals were thrown into the loop around the last week of November first part of December. I don't know why the schools can't coordinate with the retail industry and not have finals week the week before Christmas. It makes for some really stressful times in my household.

We also found a house to rent and Nicky moved in with us and is renting the basement and we are renting the upstairs. It helps both of us out. She is back here in the valley and close to her work and isn't alone at night and it helped us get out of cramped quarters and into a bigger place. The yard at the house is huge and we have enjoyed having a bigger place and having Nicky around.

The kids started a new school and they have done really well. They like the new school and they have some really great friends. Lexi tried out for a part in the school play and got one of the leading roles. She was so excited. She has more opportunities here than she did at the other school and I am really excited for her.

We had a great Christmas and enjoyed having family around. I am actually really anxious to get the tree down and get things cleaned up and start the new year. School starts for the kids on January 3 and Lexi is excited to start practicing for the play. I am excited to start again even though I have to take Human Anatomy again but at least I know a little bit already. I am also taking a class online so I have cut back a little on my classes so that I can concentrate on the one that I really need right now. I am also starting in a new position at work next week and I am really looking forward to it. I will be working in personnel and will be getting home a few hours earlier at night which should help me in my studies.

I am excited and looking forward to a new and exciting year.

Mind Reader, I am not

I am many things to many people. I am a mom, a wife, a student, a daughter of Heavenly Father, a sister, a daughter of Garth and Lori, a supervisor to around 50 people on any given day, a friend, a primary leader, to many walmart customers who try and return things that they didn't pay for or who I deny selling them beer or cigarettes I am a bitch. So I can be many things and any given time. One thing I cannot do no matter how hard I try is read minds. I wish I could. It would make my relationship with my husband improve, it would make my life easier with my kids because then I would know why they hit the other person and I would be able to calm the many emotions that a tween has but doesn't dare tell her parents out of embarrassment or fear.

One of the things that I have had to work on is to tell people what my problem is so that they know how to fix it. I have worked on this with my husband a lot. I have had to learn to communicate with him what I need him to get done so that I don't have angry pent up feelings toward him. I have to tell Lexi specifically what she needs to get done because if I tell her things in general terms they don't get done.

In doing that though, I want them to tell me what things they need. If Lexi needs me to do something she needs to tell me and not try to make me guess what it is she needs done. If Josh wants me to rub his back then he needs to tell me to rub his back and not sit over there in pain and hope and try to send subliminal messages to me to have me rub his back. I can't read minds people!

This is why I have learned to just say what you need and want. There are times when it is really hard to let others know what you want from them. It takes a lot of humbling to get to the point where you need to ask others to help you and sometimes it isn't always fun to have to admit that you need something. There are other times when you need to say something so that things do not continue festering and causing problems. There are other times when things are said to get advice. Not out of hurt or anger but simply to understand and to be able to help both parties involved out. There are times when actually saying something can be scary, but sometimes it helps getting it out more than it does staying in.

I long for the day when I can be a mind reader, but for now I can not. I understand that in heaven you can read minds so I may just have to wait until I am exalted or reach that 10 in spirituality. Until then this is what you get, someone who longs to understand and can't read between the lines and needs things to just be said.

Amonia

I decided to take Kayden to the doc yesterday since he was not getting over this cold that he has had. It has worn him down and he is really tired after school. It has also affected him in soccer. When he started he would run the whole game, now he slows down after half time. He is up a lot at night coughing and coughing to the point of gagging. The doctor did a work up and listened to him and it was decided that he has pneumonia. The doctor was surprised that he was playing around and acting like nothing was wrong and decided that it is probably walking pneumonia. He sent us up to get x-rays and then started him on an antibiotic. Now it makes sense with everything that has happened the past week and a half with Kayden coming home and just laying around the house. So just one more thing... at least he isn't in the hospital.

Random Things

You know sometimes it is the stupid little things that count and things that you want to remember later on in life are the things that you thought that you would always remember and then you never do until you go back and read something and then it jogs your memory. I have felt the need lately to just jot things down so that I will remember them later. My Aunt Julie has posted some of the things that wrote in her journal when she was younger and it has me thinking that some of the things that my kids are doing I will more than likely forget with everything that is going on in my head right now. I need and want to remember these things and even if nobody but me reads these little things I will at least know that they are there and that they will help me remember things later on.

The other day at Kayden's soccer game the coach was telling one of the kids to attack the ball. He kept saying it over and over "Brayden attack the ball." One time Kayden said out loud so that everyone could hear, "Yea, Brayden attack the ball." I was so funny and Josh and I just laughed because he did it very humorous just like only Kayden can do.

With the boys in soccer I thought for sure that Koy would be the aggressive one and Kayden would be the shy one. I was wrong. It has ended up completely opposite. Koy is getting better at going after the ball, but Kayden is having a blast. Koy almost made a goal tonight and Kayden made a goal the other day by throwing the ball onto the field and it bounced off one of the other teams players and went into our goal. So he did it indirectly but it was still fun for him. One funny thing about Kayden, he came into my room early in the morning before soccer started just sobbing. He said to me that he didn't want to play soccer because what if his team didn't do very good and they lost. He told me he thinks he feels like he didn't want to play soccer. He is doing great though and it has been fun watching them.

I got Lexi a Primary songbook for the piano and I think that she is really enjoying it. She gets up and plays her songs. One of the things that I am pushing with her is to really learn what the note is and where it is on the music page. I feel she needs to know what a middle C looks like on paper and then know where it is on the piano. I feel like sometimes people know where a note is because of where there hands are placed on the piano or what finger to play it with not because of the actual notes.

Koy is doing great in his school. During the summer he did not like going, but once the kids started back at school he is doing great. He even runs into his classroom and is so excited to be to school. He has a little group of friends that he hangs out with and it is so cute to see him play with kids other than Kayden.

The boys are counting down the days until their birthday. They are so excited. We will have a small party for them since we don't usually invite friends to their parties on odd years and have a friend party on their even years. It is what works for our family.

One of the things that I love while studying is to run the dishwasher. I know it sounds dumb, but I love having the dishwasher on while I am doing my reading an my homework. For some reason it relaxes me.

Can you believe that Koy will be 5 years old next week. My baby will turn FIVE! He is getting so big. I think back to that time and think of so many things that were happening and my thought always go to Kayden and thinking of his transplant. I look at those two boys and see how big they are getting and I start to cry. I NEVER thought that Kayden would get to be this big. I couldn't picture life going on and him growing and doing so well. I look at Lexi and see how big she has gotten compared to that time in our lives. She is growing and developing into a wonderful young woman and I am so proud of her.

I am preparing for the cold to come this week so wish us luck in our soccer endeavors in the cold on Thursday.