The Evolution of Us

Today is our 17th anniversary. Being married that long makes us feel really old. It's amazing how that much time can pass, yet it only seems like a few years. Last Sunday in Young Women the lesson was on Temple Marriage. It was neat for me to be able to reminisce over our dating, wedding, and then years since as I prepared that lesson. I brought a wedding picture to display, and the girls seemed to think it was amusing to see us in our younger days. So I decided that in honor of our anniversary, I would share some pictures that would show an evolution of us.

This is when we had been dating just a couple of weeks.

7 months later - happily married!

1 year after marriage

4 years after marriage - we are a family of 3

10 years after marriage - family of 4

After 12 years - our family is complete!

(I think it's time for a new family picture)

April Highlights

April seemed to be a busy month. Here are some the highlights:

T-ball games started! Noah is on the Giants. So far, he has been loving it. They play a double-header every Saturday, so by the middle of the second game he is ready to be done. I think it is kind of long for 4 & 5 year olds. It's been fun to watch him play.

Megan and I ran in the Race for the Cure. I've never done a 5k before, and I loved it! There was something like 17,000 people in it. It was a great event - so well-organized and set up. It was fun to be able to do it with Megan. She also brought a friend, and I did it with a couple of my friends. I was worried about what kind of shape I was in, but ended up doing much better than I thought I would. I can't wait to do it again next year.

Noah lost his first 2 teeth! I can't believe my baby has already hit this milestone. He's not even 5 yet! Unfortunately, he didn't actually have either tooth to leave for the tooth fairy. We're guessing he must have swallowed them or something. He didn't even know when they were gone, I just noticed it when I was brushing his teeth. He was excited that the tooth fairy still left him with $1 each time. It didn't take him very long to spend it on a Hot Wheels car.

So now we're on to May! Hopefully it will bring more sunshine, and less rain!!

The Easter That Almost Wasn't

I decided it was about time for me to post about our Easter. I've been dragging my feet on doing it because I have been looking at everyone else's blogs telling about the wonderful Easter weekend they had, and to be honest, our's kind of stunk. It was pretty much my fault, or actually my mouth's fault. I went to the dentist last Thursday to have a tooth checked that was kind of bothering me. It turned out to be abscessed. He sent me away with an antibiotic, a pain killer, and an upcoming date for a root canal. It didn't seem like too big of a deal. But by Thursday night, I was in pain. This was a pain that kept me in bed for 2 days. A pain that not even pain killers would help. A pain that kept me awake all night for 3 nights. A pain that was the worst pain I have had in my life, childbirth included. Not only that, but the left side of my face swelled up to where I looked deformed. Fortunately, by Sunday morning it was finally feeling better, other than the swelling. Thankfully I have a great husband and kids who stepped in to get things done. I hadn't gotten my Easter shopping done yet, so Mike went out Saturday morning to pick up the things we needed. Megan hardboiled the eggs, and with Mike's help they dyed them. We got out late Saturday afternoon and did a little Easter egg hunt. We were glad we did it on Saturday because on Sunday it rained most of the day. The Easter Bunny did remember to stop by our house, and the kids were excited about their candy and treats. They all looked so great going to church in their Easter clothes. Because it was raining I had to take pictures of them inside, which never works out very well. I'll have to try again on a Sunday when it is nice outside. Our Easter dinner that night was omelettes. We had actually done our Easter ham dinner the previous Sunday after General Conference. It seemed easier to do that since our church doesn't get out until 5:00. Glad we did it because I don't think I could have prepared or eaten ham on Easter. All was not lost though. For Family Home Evening on Monday we had an awesome lesson on Christ's life (taught by Mike). The kids really paid attention, and I think learned a lot. Mike is a great teacher, and has such a good understanding and knowledge of the gospel. It was a great way to end a not so great weekend.

Back to the Future

This past week, Megan's Young Women's activity was a mother/daughter Back to the Future night. The moms were to come dressed like their daughter would today, and the daughter dressed like the mom would back when they were their daughter's age (confused?). Anyway, Megan took her own liberties in deciding how she thought I would dress since she didn't like any of my suggestions. I even have my Jr. High graduation dress that she could have worn, but she refused. Anyway, this is how we looked:

They also had us bring pictures from when we were both a baby, as well as a picture of our daughter now, and us when we were a teenager. I'm not sure why I am doing this to myself, but please enjoy a good laugh at my expense. 

Me - started out cute

Megan

Me at Megan's age - not cute.

Mike said I look like a tomboy.

Megan was impressed that I was wearing Lacoste, 

although we called it Izod back then.

Megan now.  

Why are kids so much cuter now?

Not fair.

This is the picture I brought to the activity.  

I think I was a junior in high school.  

How about those bangs and shoulder pads?

Spring Break Repeat

The kids were on Spring Break the past week.  We have been dying to get out of town ever Mike got finished with his busy time at work. One of the nice things about living where we do is that there are quite a few places we can drive to in a few hours.  Last year we went to Dallas for Spring Break, and we liked it so much that the kids voted to go there again.  Once again we had a great time. We headed down on Thursday morning.  We got there and checked into our hotel. Then we went to the King Tut exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art. There was a lot of really neat artifacts, and Megan was excited to see some of the stuff since she has learned about Egypt in Social Studies. Sammy and Noah did remarkably well there, even though they didn't have a lot of interest in what we were looking at.  

After the museum we headed to the kids favorite restaurant-Sweet Tomatoes! They loved going there when we lived in Utah, but we don't have one nearby anymore.  

On Friday we headed out to do some serious shopping.  We started at Bass Pro Shop, a place we thought Noah would enjoy.  Then off to the mall.  We pulled off a 7 hour shopping trip, with a break in the middle to go see Monster vs. Aliens.  

What 7 hours of shopping does to a kid!

Then to dinner at a place that Mike and I wanted to go - Pei Wei.  We finished our trip Saturday with a trip to the American Girl store for Sammy.  

There are a couple of other things we would have liked to do, but the weather was quite cold, so we will save it for next time.   

A Little Catch-up

I haven't had anything very interesting to blog about recently, so I thought I could just recap what we have been up to these last few weeks.  Noah finally started tee-ball practice a couple of weeks ago. He has been looking forward to it all winter long.  Unfortunately he was sick the first day of practice, but nothing would stop him from going.  Thank goodness for medicine!

A couple of weekends ago, Megan and I decided to go to the Twilight DVD release party at Borders for our mother/daughter date this month.  It was a kind of a strange scene.   I like Twilight, but I realize that I'm nothing like the die-hards that were there.  I wasn't brave enough to take pictures of them. They had trivia contests, and I can't believe the type of details that people remember from the books and movie.  They also had a scavenger hunt with Twilight questions. We actually did pretty well on that. It was a late night since they couldn't start selling the movie until midnight.  I exercised some poor judgement around 11:15.  There were a lot of people there, and I was thinking that it would take forever to pay for the movie once it was midnight since they don't have many registers.  So I talked Megan into going over to Walmart where they were also have a release party. When we got there, we realized that there were even more people there, the line wrapped around the store, and it would probably take even longer to get through it than it would at the bookstore.  So we got back in the car and headed back to Borders.  Of course during the time we were gone, they had let them line up there, so we were at the end of the line.  It went fast though, and we were home by 12:30. Megan wanted me to stay up and watch the movie when we got home, but I was too tired.  I'm not the night owl I used to be.  I'm getting old I guess.  

The end of the line

Patiently waiting

Finally got it!

12:45 - Ready for bed!

We finally decided to get a Wii Fit.  The kids have been playing on it so much, that Mike and I have hardly been able to try it out.

When did this happen?

After the thousands of dollars we spent at the orthodontist for Megan's teeth, they decided to reward us by giving her a gift certificate to go and have a portrait session done.  The photographers were really great, and it was fun watching her have the pictures taken.  But nothing prepared me for what I saw when we got the pictures back. My first baby, my little girl, she is all grown up!  I wonder when I missed this happening.  I feel like I have been there, watching her every step of the way.  I sometimes wish that I could squish my kids back down to babies again.  The days seem to go by so fast that it often seems like a blur.  Today I went visiting teaching.  The message this month was on Understanding the Divine Roles of Women. I laughed at the title because most days I don't feel like my role is anything close to divine.  I really loved the quote in the message by Julie Beck.  In it she says, "The half of our Father's plan that creates life, that nurtures souls, that promotes growth, that influences everything else was given to us.  We can't delegate it.  We can't pass it off to anyone.  It's ours.  We can refuse it, we can deny it, but it's still our part, and we're accountable for it.  There will come a day when we will all remember what we knew before we were born.  We will remember that we fought in a great conflict for this privilege."  I love that last sentence.  That is the piece of the mothering puzzle that I forget most everyday.  I fought for the privilege to be a mother, so I need to do all I can to be the best mother I can be.  When I look at these pictures of my beautiful Megan, I realize that there's no time to lose.  I have to do my best now because they grow up too quickly, and I don't want to look back and realize it's too late.  I love my kids so much, and I'm so grateful that I get to be their mother.