{14 years}

(photo taken by Avery this morning..she kept chanting, "kiss! kiss! kiss!")

Wow.  Today Wade and I celebrate our 14th anniversary.  Fourteen years we have been married.  Kinda sounds like a long time.  I guess we (I mean Wade) is kinda getting up there in years... ;)

I've done these countdowns a couple times.  Looking back at all our anniversary posts last night it was fun to read through them.  The more years we add, the harder this gets!

14 years

13 minutes we sat together last night trying to come up with something 13.  Then we both said "blah" and gave up on the number.  We thought church callings might have fit here but gave up after counting 10 callings in 5 years...

12 x 14 years = 156 months we've been married!

11 years we've been students. Man that is a LOT!

10 times we've moved (not including a couple monthly rotations during school)

9 different jobs we've had between us.  Some good, some bad, but we learned something from them all

8 different cell phones.  Ha!  We didn't even have a cell phone when we got married.  Or a digital camera.  We are old!

7 years we lived "away from home". Although I might argue this one, because Washington felt like home to me.

6 different vehicles

5 kids (and 5 degrees between us)

4 (long) months that we had to live apart during 4th year med school rotations

3 different states that we've lived in

2 people

1 love

~~

Look at these babies.  

They think they know it all.  And Wade, Wade had AWESOME hair when we got married.

~~~

This past year has been one of our hardest years yet. We've learned, once again, that we can do hard things. As I was reading old blog posts last night I ran across one that basically said, "one year from today Wade will graduate medical school and all be good!"

Haha!  I wish graduating medical school meant we had made it through the hard stuff.  The hard stuff was just beginning.  

Then I thought residency was hard.  Okay. 

It was.  

But life is just tough.  Real life after all that fun schooling is hard stuff.  It's real.  And hard.  But no matter how tough our past couple years have been, I know I couldn't have done it with a better person at my side.  We stick together.  We laugh and cry sometimes.  I let him watch endless sports, he gets me another Diet Coke.  We're a good team.

Life is hard.  But hard things don't always mean bad things. Life is looking up.  This next year is bringing exciting things for our little family.  We are so excited for the next couple months!  

This next year is going to be great.  We are looking forward and not looking back.  Can't wait to see where the next 14 years takes us!

Love you Wade!

happy anniversary

Sunday Photo: 19

Tidbits:

Tomorrow is Memorial Day.  Today after church we took a short drive over to the cemetery and decorated Wade's grandparents and mom's graves.  We even happened to run into our cousin doing the same thing.

We've spent a lot of years away from family.  It's nice to finally live close.  It's nice to say..."hey, let's swing by the cemetery and decorate some graves after church."  It doesn't take much planning or work.  In fact the last couple weeks I've found with the spring weather it's nice to load everyone up early for church and go "visit grandma" for a minute or two.  I know we will be with our Grandma again.  We'll have a candy party and celebrate together.

Lucy stood right up behind Grandma's headstone today and said "cheese!!"  Maybe she's figuring out these little Sunday photos.

~~~

The kids have 4 days left of school.  Not really though since the last day is only an hour and Thursday is field day.  It's been a good year for them and we are all excited for summer.

Tonight Avery and Noah are sleeping  in sleeping bags under a huge fort they built in their bedroom.  They are all super excited to come up with our summer bucket list.

~~~

Wade taught a lesson today at church.  He used this talk, "Bear Up Their Burdens With Ease"  it's a great talk. One of my favorite parts is near the end when Elder  Bednar says, "We will pray for the strength to learn from, change, or accept our circumstances rather than praying relentlessly for God to change our circumstances according to our will. We will become agents who act rather than objects that are acted upon (see 2 Nephi 2:14). We will be blessed with spiritual traction."

What a concept:  praying that we can accept our circumstances rather than playing for god to change them for us.

~~~

We have a busy week a head of us.  I'm not sure life will every slow down.  But I am happy this past week past without a hospital stay.  

May 23, 2012: Noah had a pretty scary prolonged seizure and ended up in the hospital.  It was not a good time.  It wasn't his first seizure, not our first rodeo....but not a good day.  Not a good memory.  He's been really good about taking his medicine every day.  He's a trooper.  I'm mixed about how I feel about taking him off it now that it's been two years

May 23, 2013: Lucy had heart surgery.  We weren't expecting it.  In fact we thought she was getting better, but two days prior at her check up appointment they told us it was pretty bad and almost wouldn't let us take her home.  We scheduled the surgery.  Wade have her a preisthood blessing.  God is real.  Miracles happen.  Her heart was not healed completely, but parts that needed to be fixed two days prior were miraculously better when they went in for the surgery.  

May 23, 2014: We celebrated everyone being hospital free by enjoying pizza and a movie night.  Our traditional low-key-perfect-Friday-night.  I sat back and felt blessed to have 5 healthy crazy kids.

~~~

My sister and her family came over for dinner tonight. We had a lot of yummy food.  She brought this cake and I'm really regretting telling her that she didn't need to leave me any.  I'll have to make this again in the future.

No Bake Chocolate Raspberry Eclair Cake

~~~

happy sunday.

Sunday Photo: 18

We've been enjoying the nice weather this weekend. 

These are my cheater Sunday Photos from Saturday. 

It was a busy, but good in a productive way-day.

 

 

Everyone had a good time running around the backyard playing in water and burning some energy yesterday. The kids got some squirt guns which were fun and terrorizing at the same time.  We also weeded the front yard, planted a few more plants in the garden, BBQed and I made 12 freezer meals.

 

 

Today has been a much needed day of rest. 

We had a very relaxing morning, an uplifting afternoon at church and then enjoyed a good dinner and rubharb cake for deseret.

 

Busyiness with a capital B starts again tomorrow. 

Lots to do.

It's good to be busy. 

Lots of good things happening.

 

Happy Sunday.

 

Sunday Photo: 17

Happy Mother's Day.  

I had a good day today doing the normal everyday stuff. 

mothering.  

cooking.  

cleaning.  

a little bit of cuddling.  

I didn't have to change a single diaper all day long.  And I got the gift that keeps on giving... a new cup with a straw for my diet coke....and today only it was a automatic refilling cup.  Every time Wade saw it got a little low he topped it off.  What a thoughtful guy.

I am so thankful for these five little monkeys who call me mom.  They sat so still and nice for 2 seconds for a deceiving good looking picture.

                                         

Then it was on to their normal shenanigans.

Motherhood and womanhood has been on my mind a lot lately and I wrote down these thoughts yesterday:

I've been thinking about Mother's day for the past couple weeks.  I've been thinking of all the wonderful examples I have in my life.  I have been blessed with the most amazing, selfless, serving mother.  She is one of my best friends. 

My mother in law was one of my favorite people.  She returned to Heavenly Father a little over a year ago but her example I still think of almost daily.

  

(we visited today, but it was cold and windy, this is a picture from a visit last week)

I've also been thinking lately about how Mother's Day is hard for some women; maybe they suffer from infertility, maybe they have not had a good mother influence in their life, whatever the reason.  But I believe we can all celebrate womanhood.  All women have talents and gifts unique to them.  We all can be a "mother" or example or light in some one else's life.  We need to see the good in others and celebrate who we are.  No matter our "motherhood" status, we are all amazing daughters to a Heavenly Father and have a great purpose!  

I love this quote.  We each have something to give.  We each are unique.

Great things are happening!

Happy Mother's Day.

Sunday Photo: 16

Wade just got back from a 4 day trip to Moab.  

He had a great time.

I saw this picture and couldn't help but laugh. 

I know Wade, and this is a dream to him...wide open spaces, and new socks.

I taught the lesson today in Relief Society.  I'm not sure anyone got anything out of it, but me.  I taught about living up to our privilege as woman.  We are amazing and we need to realize who we are and what we can accomplish!  We can accomplish anything with Christ.  I know this is true.

I found this quote online.  I love it  I handed it out.  I want to make a print of it and hang it in Avery and Lucy's room some day.  Dream big, girls.  You can accomplish anything.

At the end of my lesson I showed this short message.  It's one of my favorites.

Let's put our beans away and go join the feast.

~~~

I started a new book this morning.  Your Divine Purpose, by Richard Paul Anderson and only made it to page 3 before I was underlining and marking passages. I have a feeling I am going to love this book.  There is so much truth in this statement.

Each of us have a divine purpose.  

Each of us have a potential and privilege we can live up too.  

Each of us can dream big and accomplish big things with Christ.

{April in the Books}

In April I read 10 books.  I got halfway through the month and felt like I hadn't read anything at all, but looking back, I guess I did alright.  

I read one free book about home organization on my kindle.  It was okay...nothing new, so I'm glad it was free. I almost feel like not even counting it.  I'm loving middle grade reader books right now. I've been reading them with some of the kids at school for my job, and getting recommendations from some of them too.  They are fast and easy.

The One and Only Ivan, Katherine Applegate

I read a couple pages of this book with a girl at school and was pretty interested.  It was a fun story.  Told from the point of view of Ivan, the gorilla living in a cage in a strip mall.  I think this book would be fun to read out loud to my kids at some time.  I think they would love it.

Close to Famous, Joan Bauer

I found this fun book at the library and decided to give it a try.  It was a fun story of Foster McFee, a young girl who aspires to be a cooking show host.  It's full of stories from her life and how she makes it through hard times.  It was a pretty charming read, I would recommend it to preteens or young adult readers.

Stargirl, Jerry Spinelli

I've had so many people tell me that I should read this book and I finally made time to read it.  My friend and I actually read it at the same time...although we still haven't made time to sit and chat about it yet:)  I loved Stargirl, and loved/hated Leo.  Sadly I could see my high school self being way more like Leo than Stargirl.  I think it's a pretty empowering book for girls to read.  It left me with a lot to think about.

Love, Stargirl, Jerry Spinelli

Since I loved Stargirl so much I thought I would go ahead and read the next book, Love, Stargirl.  I wasn't too impressed.  I found myself skimming and skipping around pages.  It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't Stargirl.

Dangerous, Shannon Hale

I think I am a pretty big fan of Shannon Hale. I have really enjoyed a lot of her books.  I was looking forward to this book, but was a little disappointed.  It felt a lot like Stephanie Meyer's book, The Host.  I wasn't a fan of some of the characters.  Without giving everything away, I wasn't  a fan of the boy she ended up with.  I wasn't in love with the end of the book either.  If you like young adult science fiction books you could try this book.

Making it through the Middle, Emily Freeman

I think this could have been my favorite book I read this month.  I've read it a couple times actually. (it's only 50 or so pages, so it's really short and not hard to read in an hour or so)  I heard Emily Freeman speak at Time Out for Women this month and really enjoyed her perspective.  This book is exactly what I needed.  Everyone always talks about what happens at the end of a trial, but what happens in the middle?  How do you get through?  This short little book offers such great ideas and insights on how to make it through.

Bridge to Terabithia, Katherine Paterson

I read this book out loud to the 5th graders I read with at school.  I've seen the movie, but I can't remember if I've read the book or not before.  It is great, we laughed out loud at parts and really enjoyed the book.

It's always a little amazing to me how some kids...disinterested kids, kids that come to class and act out or are bored the whole time act entirely different when you read a book outlook.  It's like magic to them and all of the sudden the love class and love to listen to the story.  I've had that happen with both books I've read to this class.  It makes me so happy to see these kids come alive.

With a Name Like Love,Tess Hilmo

This is another library find this month.  It's a middle grade reader about a girl named Ollie Love and the mystery she runs into in Binder, Arkansas in 1957.  It's a simple story, but has lessons that everyone can learn from.  I found it at the library, but wouldn't mind buying it for my own collection at some time.  I also am looking forward to reading the other book by Tess Hilmo!

Lemon Tart, Josi Kilpack

I've seen these series of books around the library and book stores for years and never really picked them up.  I'm not really big into mystery books, but I decided to try it this month.  I thought it was a good clean mystery and really enjoyed it.  I've already started the next book in the series.  I also am looking forward to trying some of the yummy recipes that are included in each book!

~~

My total for the year is now 37!  Wow!

What have you been reading?