For my love

Happy Birthday. I will forever be greatful for the day you were born. :)

A fun Sunday

This is after church. Miaya and I stayed home because Miaya is sick. Dustin is teaching her to twirl. He was being much more free before I got the camera out. But still lovely, nonetheless.

Then last night we had a nice fire in our backyard. The air was crispy, but not too cold.

We made lots of silly faces.

We started the fire inside a huge willow stump we have. We are trying to get rid of it. It's more than half gone now.

This picture makes me laugh lots. The flash caught her off guard, and this squint ensued. hahahahahahaha. So good.

White on Rice

White on Rice

This looks cute to me! It was filmed here. Good times. It premiered here this past weekend, and it'll only be around for a few days. What a shame it's not longer.

Here is the white on rice website too. :)

Another new favorite thing.

I don't spend nearly enough time on lds.org. It's so good though! AND my new favorite thing is their MormonMessages. Have you heard of it? Here is a link to one of my favorites. :D I love it. Check it out if you could use a lift today.

And here is one more. So good, so good.

How cool is this?

Look what I made. I love it.

Should you want to try it, check out Rollip. I found it on cjane. I love finding such fun things. Easy peasy too.

A conversation with Miaya

Miaya was chattering away to someone in the tent we made out of blankets and chairs.

Me: Miaya, who are you talking to?

Miaya: Jojo.

Me: Who's Jojo?

Miaya: He's right here.

Me: Where?

Miaya: Right here. (She was inside her blanket tent)

Me: Where? (As I crawl into the makeshift tent with her.)

Miaya: Right here.

She is pointing to a space right in front of her, where there is nothing. I assumed that she had made an imaginary friend. I was wrong. It turns out there on the floor where she is pointing, there is in fact a tiny little ant. This is Jojo. And yes, I have ants in my house. How gross. But such a fun moment for me. :D

Another first

Miaya's first dance class was today. My main motivation in doing this at such a young age is so when she is famous due to dancing she can say "I have been in dance classes since I was three!" Ha! Not really. I just figured she needed some interaction with random strangers in a safe environment. I think she and I have too much time together. She loves me, but she sure does get sick of me sometimes. Thank goodness for family, neighbors, friends, and now dance class. AND starting tomorrow: story time. What? Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking, but when I signed up for it, it seemed like a good idea. Apparently I was feeling ambitious. We shall see. I think this will be a good thing. :D I didn't even get a pic of Miaya, though! I brought the camera, but failed to put the memory card back in. So I took pics at home after the fact. I'm okay with it. Mostly.

So fun. I use this phrase a lot.

Oh, and remember to vote if you can. :) Today! I wish I could. ::sigh:: Maybe soon.

On Saturday a couple of weeks ago, (already?) we met Payson for the first time. She is Dustin's cousin's little baby and she is tiny! Four pounds! But she already has more hair than Miaya! hahahaha. She's beautiful.

Woot woot.

Okay, I am really really excited. If you haven't already noticed, I may even be obsessed. With THIS.

A little freaked out

So I am not sure why, but for some reason, my counter at the bottom of my page has jumped several thousand. What the heck? It was nine hundred something the last time I checked and now it's close to twelve thousand? Strange.

Miaya's Birthday Week

So this week turned out to be a celebration of Miaya's birthday. Almost every day we did something fun for Miaya. :)

On Monday, Mamma got here at about 12 o'clock. :) After Miaya had her nap, we headed to Utah county so Mamma could visit her friend. While she was visiting, we went to Discovery Park, in Pleasant Grove. It was so much fun. For some reason, though, I completely forgot that it was also Labor day. The park was jam packed with lots of kids, but we still had fun. Tons of it. :D

On Tuesday, we went over to Dustin's aunt's house and they had a little birthday party for her there. Rhea (Miaya's grandma), Sue (Dustin's aunt), Marlene (Miaya's great grandma), and I all worked on a cute magnet board thing. Again, great fun.

Wednesday was the actual birthday. We woke her up early to show her the present we got her. We got her SAND! hahahahaha. That's right. A sandpit. Not spectacular, I'm sure. We, however, were super excited about it, and Miaya loved it too! She insists on going out and playing in it every day! Yay for being outside. We also went to Rhea's house and made relish. It was a first for me and Rhea was gracious enough to show me how to do everything, and to let us use her house. Miaya loves going to grandma's house. And later that night, we roasted marshmallows. It was lovely.

It was such a fun week, too, because Mamma was here for a visit. I love having family come and visit. I felt bad, because my days are usually quite void of activity, but this week we were doing something everyday. It was tiring. I hope Mamma had fun, though. :) She's already on her way back to Calgary, if she isn't there already. So fun.

The pics up top are all out of order, but hopefully you can kind of see what we were doing in them. We also took Mamma to Jordan River Temple on Wednesday. It was one big photo op for Miaya. hahahaha.

Blessed.

First off, this is very personal. I am sharing it. I just hope you don't mind reading it. :)

It's interesting, the way we think about different things in our lives, at different times of our lives. Today my mind is on my daughter, Miaya, and her possible siblings. :)

When Dustin and I were first married, we both wanted kids right away, and fully expected to have a kid right away. Two and a half years later we finally, finally got Miaya. It felt like forever. She was so worth the wait. People always say having a child changes everything, and it really does in so many ways. What an amazing miracle and blessing she is in our lives. I am really so grateful for her. I found something I was really good at too: being a Mom. An unexpected surprise for me. I was always awkward around kids before, even though kids have always seemed to like me.

I remember when she was almost one, Dustin and Miaya and I were sitting in stake conference, and I was amazed to realize I was ready for another child! I remember leaning over to Dustin in the middle of conference and telling him that. We both were sort of weepy. hahaha. We're such saps. Anyway, again, I was fully expecting another child anytime. :) Me and my plans. I grew up, and most of you know, the second oldest of seven kids. I loved it. I want a big family too. I totally expected to have my kids 2 years apart, give or take, just like most of my siblings were. And I wanted to be finished having all my kids by the time I was 30. I thought it was a good plan. It was.

I have learned many, many times that just because you plan things a certain way, it doesn't mean things will go as planned. At the end of February last year, I found out I was pregnant. We were so excited. And yet, for some reason, we were reluctant to share our news with anyone. We told each of our families, and were so excited for Miaya to be a big sister. Sadly, I ended up losing the baby. I remember thinking there must have been something I did wrong, there must have been more I could have done. I know now that's not the case. Heavenly Father knows what he's doing. I felt fine, I thought I was fine. I didn't want people to ask me about it. I didn't want people to pity me. I didn't want to be a topic of conversation. I am so grateful for wonderful family and friends.

It's odd, but there were several women whom I knew who all miscarried at the same time I did. I felt contagious. Weird, right? But anyway, I didn't really have too much trouble with any of if for a long time. But a few months later, I realized all was not well in me. I was depressed. Really, really depressed. Some days all I could do was make sure Miaya was fed and clean and clothed and taken care of. I still have days like that. It's hard. I have decided that even though you have worked through things, sometimes you might still cry about them. Right? On Sunday, I cried a lot. I was feeling sorry for myself a lot. I do that sometimes. :)

I am glad to have lived through this. I always thought before this happened that I couldn't live through a miscarriage. I thought it would kill me. Thank goodness for our guardian angels, the ones we can and can't see. I read this blog entry at c jane enjoy it and it reminded me again, as I am often reminded, how blessed I am. Miaya is so energetic, charismatic, so loving, beautiful, good, smart. She's constantly teaching me about life. About what it is to love, and live. I have no idea if Dustin and I will have anymore children. We sure hope so. If not, we are okay with that. We are just so blessed to even be able to have any children. :)

Thank goodness for Dustin. He is such a rock for me. I love that he has seen all the good in me, but also all the bad, and he loves me. He's my best friend, and I am glad for that. I am blessed. So very blessed.

My life hasn't gone as I planned for it to go. It has turned out marvelously, though, hasn't it? I found and married a sweet and funny and delicious man from West Valley City, Utah. Who knew that would happen? We've been married for, hmmm...let's see, about 6 and a half years! It sounds like such a long time, but it hasn't felt that long. Miaya will be three next week. We have Moose the dog. We have our little green and brown house, which I adore. I'm 26, I'm healthy, I have wonderful family and friends. We live in a ward that although is sometimes too much, we at least know they love and care for us.

Now that I have rambled on for too long, I am done.