Things not to be Forgotten

We visited my parents a couple of weeks ago; Steven and my mom played and sang primary songs, it was very precious to me. It makes me more determined to reteach myself how to play.Christopher seems to be growing and learning new things right before my eyes.

He just learned how to go down the stairs himself. I tried to teach him to slide down on his belly for a month, but then realized he hates his stomach. So I switched to teaching him to slide down on his behind. Totally works. He goes to the edge of the stair, squats down then somehow slides his feet from underneath and sits down. It's quite amusing to watch, and I tried it today, this kid must have thighs of steel!

He can now say, as far as we know he keeps surprising us: mama, dada, nana (banana), appoe (apple), up, dow (down), boops (books), abah (a ball), ah dah (all done), uh oh, anen (amen), bubohs (bubbles), agah (again).

Yes I know his hair is ridiculously long in this picture, he received a haircut shortly after

I am 17 weeks along and am finally out of the morning sickness, better late than never!

Steven likes to insert his own words into existing songs, which I think is cute unless he's changing the words to "I am a Child of God" or other primary songs. The other day he asked me to sing him the pickle pie song. I told him I didn't know that song so he sang it for me, "a pickle pie, a pickle pie, high-ho the dairy-oh, a pickle pie-oh." Pretty good for off the top of his head.

I love conference, and I felt I especially needed it this time around. I can't wait to read and review them all, there were some powerful messages given. With two boys running around though, it's a surprise I got out of it what I did! What did I get out of it today? I can do it, with the Lord's help, I can be a good mom and wife. If I do my part to bring the Spirit into my home (read the scriptures, personal and family, pray as often as needed, seek after good things - 13 article of faith) it might be hard, but I won't totally mess things up. This is a comfort to my soul and a little nudge to do all these better so I can have that promise. I can't wait to see what tomorrow's sessions will bring.

Life is good. Not easy and restful,
but oh so good.

New

There are some new and exciting things going on in our lives, and I wanted to share them with you.

Like I mentioned earlier Jacob got a NEW JOB! We're beyond excited about it and feel quite blessed for him to have this. It's in Lehi, so we are looking into buying a house close by his work sometime around July!
With the new job we felt like we could afford a NEW VAN! We technically got it for my birthday, it's really all I wanted. It's a 2005 Town and Country with only 52,000 miles on it. It has everything we were looking for and more, Steven's favorite is the DVD player. We got a good deal on it and I'm just excited to get out of the house in the middle of the day now.

With that I am officially a Utahan. I got my NEW LICENSE in February, when I looked at the picture I thought, "Why didn't I wear make-up?" Oh ya I did, but I must have cried it all off while I was there. Long story, but I made elaborate plans to go and found out I needed my marriage certificate, which meant more extensive efforts to leave and come back. Don't worry, I won't include the photo.

We are awaiting the arrival of our NEW BABY! I know this really should be at the top, but I thought it would be more fun for you to search for it. I'm due at the beginning of September which puts me at 15 weeks. It was pretty rough there for a while, being nauseous and having a 2 year jump all over you. But we got through it and I'm hopefully on the out end of the morning sickness. We all are very excited and if you ask Steven and sometimes myself, we'll tell you it's a girl. We'll find out hopefully next month.


Christopher is our NEW talker, crawler, stair climber, potty dipping, bath loving, organizer, tantrum thrower (it's really cute though as long as you don't have to hear it all day). He has really grown up this past month or so, and I love the new stage he's moving into.


Steven is our NEW thinker, fire hydrant finder, movie loving, comedian, echo making, crazy energetic toddler. We love watching Steven grow up, our most frequent statement about Steven is, "He's a spookle (Jacob likes to make up words), but he's really a good boy."


There you have it, a lot going on, and we feel so blessed!

Control

I wouldn't call myself a control freak, but I do like planning. I live on making plans and then completing them. Unfortunately when they don't work out, I get frustrated and can't seem to enjoy myself in the "new" plan. I'm working on this though. Have been for quite a number of years, and I'm getting better. One area of my life that I do like to plan is with money. I remember when I applied for a job my sophomore year of college, I was terrified. I cried for a couple hours straight. First let me explain, I'd had plenty of jobs leading up to there, but all of them I was a shoo-in for the job: my family's lawn mowing business, cleaning a neighbor's house, working for my best friend's family owned store; you get the picture. This was the first time my fate was in someone else's hands, I did not like it. But of course through all hard things we grow and I slowly started to get better at this. But this past year was a huge test to see how much I actually learned.

At the beginning of the year, we were preparing for our new little boy and also preparing for business school later in the fall. Both of these would be quite a financial strain on us, but we thought it was well worth it and we planned accordingly. We waited for the money to empty in the bank, so we could call on more money, but it never did. The bank statements showed there would not be enough money, but somehow there was. We recognized this and counted it a HUGE blessing.

April hits and through lots of prayer and pondering; we decide that business school is not necessary. A very hard decision, but we were excited at not going into debt and being able to start making a real living. So Jacob applies for job after job while finishing his masters. July comes and brings the promise of a job. We are excited at the prospect, but feel uneasy. Again after many prayers and long talks, we settle on turning down the job in Salt Lake and stay in Provo. Where there is no job opportunities that we could see. A very scary leap of faith. At the end of August we move across town into a bigger place and hope that something will come from.

Meanwhile my planning self is driven crazy from the inconsistency of our financial situation. Once again, we should be running out of money, but yet there still seems to be enough. The smarter me would have said, "We are so blessed and our Father is taking care of us. I don't need to worry." Instead I thought about how I couldn't control it. I couldn't plan and know there would be enough. It was a hard time for me, until a wise visiting teacher gave me advice. So here's what I did.
I didn't look at our bank statements. Jacob did, but I wouldn't. For me it was giving up my need for control. It's saying to my Father in Heaven, "I know you will provide for our family as long as we are doing what we feel is right. Here is my need for control. Do with our lives what You will."

And let me tell you it's made all the difference. Jacob got an internship with a company in Springville soon after moving, but it still wasn't stable. But we had peace. We knew everything would be okay. We knew we were meant to be here. And you know once I gave up that control, my Father in Heaven started helping me with other problems I've had a hard time with. Because I was giving Him more of my self, he was able to take that and make me a better me. Now, I'm still a LONG ways from where I need to be, but I'm closer.

So why am I writing this novel now? Like I said this past year has been a learning experience for Jacob and I, we've known there was some where we needed to end up but had no clue how to get there. A month ago Jacob saw a job opening in Lehi for a position he thought he was qualified for. He called and 4 days later he was working there. It so happened his new boss and old boss are good friends and his old boss gave him an amazing recommendation; something he's sure that sealed the job for him. What's so great about this job? It's exactly what he wants to do, which for Jacob's narrow interests in mechanical engineering, is amazing. It's the first job he likes. The first job that doesn't make him go out of his mind to think of being there for more than a year, or 6 months. We feel like this is where we need to be. And thinking back to it, we were lead to this job. From connections in graduate school he got the Springville job, which in turn got him this job.

There is no way we could have known this is where we'd be a year ago. I feel so blessed for the guidance of the Holy Ghost this past year, it was oh so hard, but well worth it. I know now more than ever that my little family is known by my God. He not only knows who we are but knows where the best place for us is and will patiently make sure we get there. I have a Savior who also loves me and my family and through His grace we can better ourselves and come closer to who we were meant to be. Oh how blessed I feel to know all of this and more. Knowing this gives me control and stability in this life of inconsistency.