Personal History

I went to a Relief Society meeting yesterday and they talked about how important it is to make a personal history.  Of course I know that.  I write in my journal every once in a while.  In fact, I read some of the journal stuff.  The problem with writing every day is that most of the stuff I write is details about how it hurt to brush my teeth or it took a long time to walk to school.  Things that aren't really that interesting or important next year.  So I have a goal at this point to write on Sunday evenings about the past week and the cool things that happened.  Then I'll know what is cool to remember as a story.  I hope.

Both of my boys have been baptized now.  Scott got baptized in January.  It was an amazing day.  We had lots of family and friends there.  Our next door neighbor, Pat, came up to me after the baptism and told me, "I love the feeling in this room.  We need to have this feeling in our home."  Of course I was way excited, and intimidated.  But it's 3 months later and she has been reading the Book of Mormon and meeting with the missionaries.  She's got a few doubts about Joseph Smith and modern day prophets.  But she comes to church with us regularly.

This last week Pat was over here telling me about her debating about going back to work.  She was talking about how not going back to work would mean that they wouldn't have enough money to pay the bills.  But going back could be bad for her health, her grandson who lives with her, or other things.  Scott was sitting next to me while we talked because he wasn't finished with his homework.  When she had said most of her stuff, and when he got enough courage up, he said, "Do you need money?  I will give you one of my $20 bills."  I was so proud of him and amazed that he would give 1/4 of all the money he had to support someone else.  He's such a sweet boy.

Well, I'll try to add a few pictures of this last bit of this year and be happy that I wrote this week.

family stories

We have had some really great stuff happening this last while. Just thought I would share with you how cool my kids are. Slade has learned to 'color inside the lines.' He says it looks like Scott is just scribbling. He has no rememberance of last fall when he did the same thing. But he's great. He's growing up.

Scott is also growing up. He has learned how to dial our phone number. He loves to call our house. We let him call us from our phone every once in a while and it goes to the voice mail. He gets really excited. One time I gave him my cell phone and he called from that and I answered on our home phone while I was sitting next to him. He was pretty excited about that.

Yesterday in church sharing time was about the creation of the earth. The kids got the pick pictures off the board and tell if the statement on the back was true or false. One of the questions was that God created the earth on the first day. The answer was false and the teacher asked what God created on the first day. Slade yelled out, "A giraffe!" Don't ask me where he got that one. It was funny. Not correct, but funny.

Sam took me on a hot date the other night. We went to the play "Into the Woods." I love that play. Sooo much. It's a story with all the fairy tales mixed together. It's amazing. And he took me. And we left the kids home. We had a good time.

A couple of days ago Sam and I were cleaning out a few of our things for a yard sale at our neighbors house. The phone started ringing. Sam answered it and no one was there. He hung up. It rang again, just once. No one was there, again. It rang again and no one was there. The person was hanging up after one ring. Sam and I were getting really frustrated. He decided not to answer the next call and he heard giggling coming from our room down the hall. Slade and Scott had found my cell phone and were under our bed covers calling our home and hanging up. They were taking turns. I still laugh thinking about it but we had to be very serious explaing that they couldn't steal cell phones and make calls without talking to us. Still, who knew my kids were so smart. I love them.

Sadie is getting bigger. She eats alot now and right now is starting to cry saying I need to come get here. So I'm off. Perhaps I'll get more stories another day.

and we're back.

It's been awhile. A year. Wow, how time flies. Life has changed in the last while. Sam and I have 2 boys in school and a little baby Sadie. How's that for change. It's been a good year.

So this year we got a Christmas card from Mary and Jason saying that they missed our blog and I started feeling guilty. I don't write in my journal, I don't write in my blog, I just haven't written much at all. But I also got an invite to be part of Facebook. Now, I haven't heard anything about Facebook so I thought I could do that and find a few people that I know. Holy cow that thing is busy. I know I can monitor and drain the stuff that I don't really want to know about. (Good thing because I knew everything these two sisters said to each other on the computer for the first few days.) And I found out when ever anyone I knew got to be friends with anyone else. It was crazy. So I decided to come back to the blog. Here I can write and people can respond if they want to and I don't need to know who did what and who said hi to who else.

Anyway, Sam's parents finished their mission in Salt Lake in August. Sam's mom came out here in September. I was excited because Baby Sadie was born in August and I was trying to deal with a new baby. I think a new baby is a new adventure, but different, every time you go there. And while Grandma was here she visited Jill's new baby also, born in June. I think that the boys also started school while she was here. They are going to preschool. Slade was very anti-school but has just turned 5 (so he can go to kindergarten this year or next) and Scott wanted to go so badly so we put them both in. They love it.

We just finished Christmas with everyone here. All of Sam's family except his 12 year old niece was here. It was great! I do love family gatherings. And his parents spent a lot of time looking for houses. Their house just went on the market and as soon as they sell it they are going to move out here so they can drive me around. (We all know that it's really so they can be by their grand kids and so they can breathe better in the lower elevation.)

And as everyone leaves to start a new year we keep praying that their house will sell and they will come back quick. It's all good though. We will see what happens. I hope I'll get back in the habit of writing a blog so I can read it. So check out my family. Cool, huh.

How Romantic!

So Sam came home from work to take me on our secret outing for our anniversary that he had planning. We went to Augusta and he was telling me what roads to help him find so we could end up at the right place. He hadn't ever been there. So we pulled up to the airport. Weird. I looked at him to make sure he was at the place he wanted to be.

Let me paint the picture a little better. This a small town airport. A small runway, they have personal planes for the rich people there and small planes that they use to teach people to fly with/in. He smiled and said, "We are going on a sunset flight." Wow. How's that idea. He works with a guy whose son and girl went on a sunset flight and the son was very impressed.

We went up in this tiny plane- pilot and co-pilot seats and 2 passenger seats. Our pilot was the only other one in the plane. We went up just as the sky was going pink and orange. We could see the huge golf course where the Master's is played and different parks and such. We flew out and over a lake then flew back. As we were flying there was a thin layer of clouds. We could see through them to the lights in the city below but if we looked out at the clouds it looked like we were in rolling waves. It was so cool. When we came down it was dusk. We could see where the commercial and residential areas. So we landed and went back to the main office. They have a balcony there and there was a basket with cheese, crackers, grapes, and spanking grape juice. It was wonderful. We didn't stay on the balcony long because it was kinda cold but we had so much fun. Happy anniversary.

Ben came over last night and I love it. My boys do too. He is their favorite person right now. I hope he can last. He's changed Scott's underwear 2xs today (there have been 3 accidents) and he still loves to be with the boys. Thank heaven. I hope all stays well.

I'm Back

So it's been awhile since I've written huh. Bad Jodi. Oh well, let's work on an update. Since President Eyring (kinda weird calling his president) talked about writing in a journal and saying things you're thankful for I've been writing somewhere else. But now you all get to hear what's up.

Denise Austin and I have become good friends. I think there has only been one other time I've excercised so faithfully. Unfortually I'm also good friends with Hershey's so things are not as effective as they could be. There is a resolution I can work on. Sam's been in the middle of it too. Slade was excercising with us for awhile but he decided to join Scott on the couch watching. Whatever. They can't play the computer if they don't excercise so our computer isn't used as much as it was before the excercise thing started.

Slade had his first Primary program this year. He did good up there. They say he sings the loudest of anyone but he didn't that day. He may have had a little stage fright. This week the Primary is singing Christmas songs and one of the Primary presidency talked to me in the hall. She wanted Slade to be there because he sings the loudest and is on the front row. I don't know that loudest means in tune or anything like that. But I hope he sings good again.

Slade got potty trained a few whiles ago- maybe in the summer. Scott is potty trained now. Slade has totally regressed. The pooping in his pants, peeing on the floor, it's crazy again. And I didn't realize until I wrote this down that perhaps Scott catching up could be part of the problem. Maybe he feels like he doesn't have an advantage any more. I wonder.

Mom, Dad, Becki, and Cardon came out for Thanksgiving. We had a great time. Scott adores Becki and Slade loves Cardon. Poor Cardon couldn't get away from the boys for the first while. And now if you ask him who loves him best he says "Cardon." Dad hung out with boys as Slade took to his favorite pastime of picking up rocks. I was planning on going out for Thanksgiving dinner but we made it instead and it was wonderful. It was just a good week.

Our ward has a program this year where we can have a copy of the DVD "Joy to the World" if we will give it to a friend or neighbor with some treats or something like a holiday gift. We've been talking about this for a few weeks, supposed to be praying, etc. about it. I had someone in my mind, a lady across the street. About 2 weeks ago she came over having an allergic reaction to a medication that she had taken that morning. It was making her feel intense nervousness and she couldn't be inside. So I was outside with her for awhile. I told her Sam could give her a blessing and it would help. That is a scary thing to testify of when you don't have the missionary badge on. But she let Sam give her the blessing and she calmed down and she was really impressed. I think the intensity of it all has left but she remembers the feeling of the Spirit, the "good" and "calm" feelings. Slade, Scott, and I are going over there as soon as I finish writing. I hope things go good. I think we will be off.

September begins

It's been a while since I last wrote huh. My family had a good enough time this last couple of days that I decided that I would share something.

Sam's parents start their mission in Salt Lake City tomorrow. They will be at the Family History Center for a year. I think it's funny how Sam's mom is so sad to be in a ward/ branch of "old people" and no kids. It's one of their sacrifices. I am excited for them.

Our family went to Charleston for a day or two. We went over one morning and spent the morning at the aquarium and the afternoon in a tour of the city. It was fun. Slade was having a hard time not peeing in his pants. (Let's do a little background. He has gone a little backwards in the last week. He was potty trained good but I think he's wet his pants every day for a week. He hasn't today though.) I was scared that he would wet his pants during our tour but he did good and held it in. We made it back and the people let us use their bathroom.

Then we went to a restaurant called "Bubba Gump." Guess what they are known for. Yep, Forrest Gump. The boys had fun. They had this big pipe that looked like a little stream and they had a few tiny ducks that you could have float down it. Slade and Scott got really excited about this and ran up and down the stream thing for about 1/2 hour. The thing was outside of course. Good thing because Slade was running around so I never saw him do his pee-pee dance. He just said, "I have to pee." So I asked where the restroom was and by the time I turned around he was peeing on the ground. I'm glad they had a hose to spray it off.

The next day we went to the beach. We thought it would be fun to spend the day at the beach but with two little ones it's hard to spend the whole day out there. We made it through the morning and the boys loved it. Scott got toasted. And Slade peed in his car seat on the way home. While he was asleep. It doesn't phase him. He didn't wake up, he didn't notice a thing. Weird. But we had a good time there.

It's been good with the family and with Sam home with me this last while.

My Beautiful Boys- and Man

I suppose you all know that I like "bad-for-me" food. I really like it. The other day I was eating my treats, some Twizzlers, by the computer and Scott asked me if he could have some 'tweets'. I told him no because it was about a half hour before lunch. I had to leave the computer because my friend came and we were talking. Then Sam got on the computer. After about 15 minutes my friend and I ended up at the computer by Sam. I noticed that Scott was in front of Sam's feet by the wires/cords of the computer so I told him to come out. Sam moved over to let him out and he looked up at me and said, "Uh-oh." He had some of my Twizzlers. He had been hiding very carefully. Man, he's started so young.

Slade got to pray in Primary this week. I've been working on it with him since he starts every prayer out with the same thing, "Please bless the food be safe." He was saying the opening prayer and I had to teach Sunday school so I couldn't be in there. We talked each night about the different things you can pray for and that if you aren't eating you don't have to bless the food (it still hasn't changed how he starts out each prayer). On Sunday I asked the Primary president to help him if he wanted because sometimes he will let you and sometimes not. Anyway, I don't know much else except that when I asked him how his prayer was he was very excited when he said, "I didn't bless the food Mommy." I have great kids.

Speaking of great, you should see what Sam does. I would so never work as hard as he does. Well, maybe I would, but I'd complain a lot. He has been working nights since Friday. Tonight he is working and will get home at 7am and we have to leave ~7:30 to go to the doctor- I have no idea how long that will last but I know it's 45 minutes there and 45 min back. Then he will have to sleep a little because he has another appt at 2:45- at least it's in town- and then he has to be up to get ready to go to work again at 4:30. There is no time for sleep there. That's what you get for being a hard worker and for taking care of your wife.

We have had another pool party and are planning 2 more. And the neighbors come and swim, I finally feel like this is worth the time and work. We are having fun with it. And that's good.

I'm coming out to UT for the first week in August. I will be there for Tyler's baptism. I hope all my siblings will be there too. I suppose we will see. I'm excited to see everyone in UT. Later.