Could You Be An Angel Among Us?

I just read an article on ksl.com about this little girl, Maryn, and had to share. She is 3 years old and has a tumor growing and intertwining itself with her brain stem. Because of the intertwining, they can't operate on it and have given her 9 months to a year to live. They have 60 days to raise as much money as possible to get her a spot at a Texas clinic that can do an experimental operation that may save her life. Ultimately, they need at least $100,000 and they still have a long way to go--they aren't even to $7000 yet. Please check out their website, http://www.marynshope.org/, and donate from there. It just breaks my heart to think what it is like for that mom to go through this. That could be my baby!! Not to mention the sweet little girl who is undergoing daily radiation treatments. I wanted to share in the hopes that some of you (or all of you!) might help them reach their goal. If this was your child, wouldn't you want all the help you could get? Anything from anyone would be appreciated, I'm sure! Go now! Be an angel!

Oh and PS- they are having a benefit concert to raise money for her. It is in Draper, so you live nearby that could be a good way to help out! Here is the info:

Saturday, August 22, 3pm-8pm

The Adventure Church

352 W 12300 S #100 in Draper
Food, Bouncing Fun, Music, and Raffles

Everyone is welcome!

And here are some other links about her:

http://marynshope.blogspot.com/

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=7455559

http://denver.yourhub.com/Littleton/Stories/Fundraising/Story~644031.aspx

A Special Day

As you may have noticed, I have been on a blogging hiatus. I'm not sure if I'm ready to get back into it full-swing. But today is a special day and I wanted to share it with you.

They say strangers are really friends we haven't met yet. Molly is just that sort of a stranger. We don't know each other, but I feel like we could be friends. I came upon her blog last year and was so overcome by what I read. She and her husband, Vic, lost their sweet little girl, Lucy. Today is the one year anniversary of their loss. If ever you needed a reason to hold your kids a little closer, kiss their cheeks more often, and tell them you love them more, you will want to read their blog. http://jacksonparkcity.blogspot.com/ Read their story. Get to know them. Let them bless your lives like they've blessed mine. They are amazing. Really.

Lucia Isabella
June 11, 2006 - May 22, 2008

The Worst Thing Ever

Tomorrow (or I guess today) at eight o'clock in the AM I'm getting . . . *deep breath* . . . a root canal. Yikes! I know. And here I am at 2:30 in the AM posting on my blog! I know I'm a little nuts. I'm partly insomniac and partly ummm . . . a little nervous. Ok, a lot nervous. Not that staying up all night is really helping me out here. It's just that I've been trying not to think about it for the last month, but now that it's here the butterflies in the tummy-blood draining from my head-face turning pale-I'm gonna pass out feeling has finally hit. I hate having dental work done!! I hate the smell of that place--yes just the smell of the dentist office makes me nauseous. Even imagining the smell makes me nauseous. Ugh.
Thank goodness for my wonderful husband who had the inspiration to give me a blessing tonight. It definitely helped calm my nerves. Now if I could just get some sleep! Wish me luck!

Tagged!

I was tagged by Barbara so here I go . . .

1. 8 TV shows I love to watch:
Well, I do find enjoyment in a few shows, but I don't love TV that much! These are the only ones I care to watch on occasion, anything else would be a stretch.
-Seinfeld
-Friends
-The Office
The next two are kind of a stretch:
-The Red Green Show (definitely stupid funny! It's on PBS on Saturday nights, but I usually forget to watch it)
-Are You Being Served? (an old--and I mean really old--British comedy that is also on PBS on Saturday night following the Red Green Show, so again I usually forget to watch it)

2. 8 Favorite Restaurants:
-Does Gandolfo's count? Love that place!
-Zupas!
-Olive Garden
-TGIFridays
-The Old Grist Mill
-Snow Dragon--an Ephraim specialty
-Miller's Bakery--only found in Manti
-Coldstone. . . ok, so it's not really a restaurant, but I love it!

3. 8 Things that happened yesterday:
I actually did stuff yesterday, so this is good! haha
-fed Kamryn (I'm pretty sure that takes care of all eight!)
-called the dr. to fix an insurance billing error (yipee)
-renewed my library books, again
-folded laundry
-made a bunch of phone calls
-rolled Ethan's favorite green wheel back and forth to each other while laughing a lot
-"sweated" some eggplant (then spent the next five hours making some complicated eggplant parmesan casserole)
-made breadsticks from scratch--(significant for reasons I will explain in a later post)

4. 8 Things I'm looking forward to:
-taking a shower
-the weekend!
-picking out a pumpkin with Ethan at a pumpkin patch
-Thanksgiving in St. George with Craig's family and Christmas in West Yellowstone with my family
-the Twilight movie
-our five year anniversary in December and the cruise to celebrate (but not until spring)
-Craig being done with school . . . in three years
-living in a home, hopefully sooner than later
-Seeing my big brother Eric when he finally gets to come home next July--he's in the Air Force and it will have been four years since I've seen him last and the first time he gets to see my kids.

5. 8 Things on my Wish List:
-I wish we could get out of this apartment, not just "to get out of the house", but out permanently--preferably to a home
-I want a good night's sleep for crying out loud!! Is it really too much to ask?
-I could use some no bake cookies right now
-I wish my kids weren't growing up so fast!
-I wish I could wake up already ready for the day--magically showered and made-up without having to go through the getting ready process. . . I really hate it
-I wish I was a little "Suzy Homemaker" but alas I'm not. . . it's something I'm working on
-Along those same lines, I wish I was a fabulous cook! Not that I'm not a good cook, but I wish I had a passion for it and could whip up something yummy out of whatever we had lying around
-I wish cheese wasn't so expensive. . . I have recently come to realize that I love cheese. We eat it alot and we always have a bunch of different kinds--cottage cheese, parmesan cheese, ricotta cheese, cream cheese, cheddar cheese, feta cheese, mozzarella cheese, etc. and I always want to make stuff that requires lots of cheese. It's so delicious and I hate feeling like I have to scrimp and save my cheese and I can't just enjoy it. How weird am I?

6. 8 people I am tagging:
-Katie D
-Kellie H
-Melissa E
-Bridget S
-Kira C
-Krista F
-Katrina M
-Michelle B
(Did anybody else notice how many K names were on that list?)

Have fun!

Rollin' With My Homies

My baby girl rolled over for the first time last night! And it wasn't from tummy to back either! She can roll from her back to her belly, which usually comes after the tummy to back roll. And she's only 2 1/2 months! I am impressed!

The past couple weeks she has been wanting to suck on her hands so bad that she kept rolling onto her side to try to get it in her mouth. She figured out that if she was on her tummy, her hands can't get away from her and are in the perfect spot to enjoy a good fistful. So she has been very focused on getting there.

She starts with her head and turns her face so it is smushed into the carpet and tries to get the rest of her body to follow. It has been so funny to watch! She even does it in her sleep! (Which actually freaks me out a bit) This past weekend we were staying with my family at a condo up Wolf Mountain, and we got some video footage that would make you laugh! (at least it made me and my madre laugh :) and if I could get my computer to download from my videocamera you just might laugh too!) Tonight she was asleep and started doing it again, and if she can't get to her belly then she gets fussy and wakes up so I helped her over (she still gets her one arm stuck under her) and now she is sleeping blissfully on her tummy, and occasionally I can hear her sucking her hand.

This new development definitely has its pros and cons. Of course, I am beaming with pride at how fast she figured it out (as any mom would be, am I right?) But she seems to like it better than her back now, which like I said earlier, freaks me out. I don't want her rolling over in the night and increasing the risk of SIDS, but she does seem to sleep better. Therefore, I get almost zero sleep, since I am constantly hearing her grunting as she tries to roll over or checking just to make sure she's hasn't rolled over. But on her back she is restless and as a result, so am I. Then the dawn breaks, and just when she is sleeping soundly and I am finally beginning to slip into a welcome coma . . . Ethan wakes up. Then it takes me a couple hours to come out of my groggy sleepwalking state and be somewhat productive for the day. Yet, when the night falls, I have a hard time crashing until it's super late. I guess it's back to being an insomniac. . . seriously I have a real problem!

Anyway, this post is getting much longer than I intended, but I wanted to share one other thing--in the last week Kamryn has also started really laughing! It is so fun to hear her precious little giggle as she sticks out her tongue! Aww! I still can't believe my baby is growing so fast!

Reminiscing . . .

Five years ago today, at just about this time of day, I had no idea what was coming. My family had just flown in to Salt Lake from a three-week trip to the East Coast to visit my brother who is in the Air Force. Craig and I had been dating for awhile and had already decided to tie the knot. He was in school at Snow College and drove up to meet us at the airport. Absence had definitely made my heart grow fonder and when I saw him standing there with a dozen roses. . . awww! How sweet! And then. . . he gave them to my mom! ??? Well, ok, I guess that was still sweet.

We all went to Temple Square and Craig and my dad took The Walk to have The Talk, if ya catch my drift. I knew all about this, mostly just a formality and to show respect for my dad. But when they came back, Craig said my family had to take the car to get some maintenance thing taken care of, and he wanted us to walk around Temple Square while we waited for them. So we wandered around for a while before stopping to sit in the grass in front of the reflection pool.

It had gotten dark and we were just talking when a random guy walked up and asked if we could do him a favor. He said he was trying to take a picture of his wife standing in front of the reflection pool and the temple. But she was wearing white and with the temple so bright behind her, he couldn't get his camera to focus on her. So we sat on the edge of the reflection pool with the temple behind us. I sat there like a dork, smiling as if he were taking my picture. Then realizing how stupid I must look, I started looking around me, trying to avoid looking at the camera while wondering, "What is taking so long? Is he done already?" He finally gave us a nod and thanked us. I started to stand up, when simultaneously Craig pulled me back down and the man hesitantly asked if he could do it again. "Ok, sure." I think to myself, "I'm all about helping a stranger out." So I sat back down, completely oblivious to what is going on around me. I'm again trying to avoid looking at the camera when Craig tells me he got me a present. "Oh, really?" I ask, surprised. And kind of feeling weird that he's telling me this in front of some stranger guy and his wife.

He said, "You don't think I'd get your mom something and not have something for you too?"

"Oh, well I wasn't really expecting anything. And I just thought the flowers were a nice gesture." But what could he possibly have gotten me? I hadn't noticed him carrying anything around. As I'm puzzling over this, he tells me to close my eyes and hold out my hand. So I comply. I am totally clueless. Even at the point when he takes off the ring already on my left hand (which had no special meaning or purpose), I am honestly not catching on. Not until he slipped another ring on my finger and told me to open my eyes did I finally realize what was happening! (I know, right now you are all yelling Hello!?!) Duh! He was proposing to me! And I, of course, said yes!

After all the lovey-dovey stuff that usually follows a romantic proposal, I finally realize that the guy with the videocamera is still standing there with his wife. And then I notice my family not far away, crouching behind some flowers. They had watched the whole thing go down. And now it suddenly clicks and I see that the camera man was in on the plot and was recording the whole thing! Turns out they were good family friends from when Craig's family lived in Kaysville. They had all been scheming and I didn't even have a clue! It was such a complete surprise!

When all the congrats were said and the excitement had subsided a bit, it was getting pretty late and I still had to drive back to Idaho with my family and Craig had to drive back to Ephraim. So I walked with Craig to his car, which was now the only car in the parking lot. We were alone so he opened the car door, turned up the volume and played our song, "Until I Wake Up" by Dishwalla and we danced in the empty parking lot. *sigh* A perfect end to a perfect day.

That, my friends, is the story of how Craig proposed to me on this day five years ago. And as they say. . . the rest is history. :)

How About That

It was so good to hear from the Prophet and the leaders of our church this past weekend! Was it just me or did President Monson totally reiterate what I talked about in my last post (well, the end of the last post) when he spoke on Saturday afternoon? He talked about change. Something I always seem to resist, except, of course, when it's something I want! haha :) I can't quote him word-for-word, but he said, "Minute by minute, second by second we've gone from where we were then to where we are now. The differences in the changes in my life and the changes in yours are only in the details. Nothing is as constant as change." So true.

Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin's talk also hit home with how I've been feeling. He said, "Laugh. It will extend your life and the lives of those around us. Instead of groaning, try laughing. Put our trust in the Lord. He wants us to be happy and successful. He will strengthen us in our weakness and fortify us in our distress. Come what may and love it." Amen. I love this guy!

I was in need of some personal guidance and I felt like I got a lot of it this past weekend. I know I've taken conference for granted in the past, but now I realize it's so nice to be able to listen and soak up all the goodness our church leaders have to offer. With all the political unrest and economic upheaval in our country and around the world, this is the one bright beacon of truth we can look to without having to worry if they're just saying what they think we want to hear to win us over, or if they're just catering to some special interest group, and whether any of it is true or not. We can know without a doubt that it's true and that it's what our Heavenly Father wants us to hear right now. Welcome words in these crazy times.

Quarter of a Century

Yesterday was my birthday. The years seem to come and go much quicker than they used to. I cannot believe that I am already twenty-five. A quarter of a century. It is ridiculously crazy to me. Those of you that have already passed this milestone might laugh and say I'm silly for thinking 25 is old. . . (and you can stop reading at this point if you don't care to hear about it) but for me it is! Not that it's old fogey old, but I just don't know how I could have possibly gotten to this point already! I'm just that much closer to 30! Which still isn't old, but it's inching closer and closer to middle-age! Wait, what!?!?! Aaahh!
Case in point: Last Saturday, Craig and I went on a date for my birthday. We went to see my fave artist in concert, Gavin DeGraw (more on this in a later post). It was one of those concerts without seats so everyone is standing and there were just a couple rows of people in front of us. As we were waiting for it to start, I had noticed a woman right in the front who seemed a little older compared to the most of the crowd. So I say to Craig,

Me: "Did you see that lady? She looks like a mom. Kinda funny to see a mom here."

Craig: " Yeah, I know. I've actually noticed quite a few moms here. It's kinda weird."

Then realization hit.

Me: "Um, DUH! What am I talking about?!?! I have two kids! I'm a mom!!"

I know that we were both talking about clearly middle-aged moms that we had seen, but still it was one of those AHA! moments for me. I certainly don't feel that old, but did other people see me and say, "Dude, did you see that mom? What's she doing at a concert like this?" Maybe. Maybe not. But I do know this--time has been flying by way too fast! I still feel like I'm just a nineteen-year-old who wants to play and not have to act all grown-up. Yet I'm well on my way to becoming one of those "moms"! Having these thoughts and feelings reminded me of the First Presidency's Message in the August Ensign, "May We So Live" by President Monson. He says, "How fragile life, how certain death. We do not know when we will be required to leave this mortal existence. And so I ask, 'What are we doing with today?' If we only live for tomorrow, we'll eventually have a lot of empty yesterdays."

I know I'm guilty of living for tomorrow. I find myself looking towards the next thing, saying to myself, when this or that happens, then I'll be content. When we move out of Ogden. When we buy a house. When we are all settled. When I have a garden. When I have peach trees. When I have a personal massuese. When I have a personal chef! Blah blah blah blah blah. The list could go on, and in that case I would never be happy! Sometimes I just need a little reminder to live for right now. To enjoy the moments I have. And to be grateful for all the blessings I've been given, namely my little family. My thoughtful husband. The two adorable kids that made me a "mom." I used to be the one to "stop and smell the roses" and I think it's time I got back to that. A little quote that's a good reminder for me:

I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails.
I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp.
I want to be there with grass stains on my shoes from mowing Sister Schenk's lawn.
I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor's children.
I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden.
I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder.
I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived.

— Marjorie Pay Hinckley

So here's to the next 25 years!

Sweet Blessed Day

Wow! I can't believe it has been almost two months since Kamryn was born. It has gone by unbelievably fast. And she has grown so much already! Don't you wish you could just freeze time? Now I realize it has been just as long since I've updated this--every time I get on with the intention of posting, I get sidetracked reading everyone else's blogs and by the time I'm done (aka my kids wake up from their naps), I don't feel like doing it anymore. I tell myself I'll just do it later, and we all know where that gets me! So congratulate me, please! I'm finally doing it!

Before I get down to business, I want to say thanks to everyone for all the sweet comments and congratulations on our new addition. It's always nice to know you're being thought about. :)

Two Sundays ago, September 7th, was Kamryn's blessing day. Craig gave her a wonderful blessing and our eyes were opened to just how special she is! We weren't able to have all our families come, but we're thankful for those that made it! We know everyone else was there in spirit. Here are some, ok, a lot of pictures from her special day.

First, I have to give a special shout out to my awesome mom--she made my dreams a reality when she made this dress for Kamryn. I knew I wanted her dress to be homemade and I knew what I wanted it to look like. She took my ideas and made it happen. I know it's kind of hard to tell from the pictures, but the whole dress is embroidered and the bottom has more elaborate embroidery with eyelets, a scalloped edge, and a ribbon laced through it. It's so beautiful!

The Barber Family

The Anderson Family

Daddy & Ethan

Mommy & Kamryn

Here are a whole slew of pictures of Kamryn, she was just so darn cute!

She's Here!

Kamryn Paige Anderson arrived at 3:03am on July 26th. She was 20 inches long and weighed 7 lbs 4 oz. We're so happy to have her here!

Proud Daddy

Big Brother Ethan

Kisses!