Sunday, April 26, 2009

My babies

My son is not a baby any more. He is totally growing up. I have to say I love his sweet boy personality and he keeps things fun and laid back. He is getting more and more independent. I also love that he is living up to his name. Liam comes from William for those of you who don't know and means, "will, desire and helmet, protection, determined guardian, etc". This guy is so considerate of others and goes to great lengths to keep his little sister safe. I am so proud of his gentle yet unwavering qualities.

Anytime you look for Liam you will find him intently playing with some sort of vehicle. It could be a car, plane, train, or X-wing in this case. The other morning we woke up and a few minutes later heard him wake up and started talking with his cars. He is such a fun person. In fact, tonight he got out every single blanket and laid them all flat and spread out on the floor and built a blanket-fort bed. He basically draped a big blanket over the chair and ottoman and made a little bed underneath. He asked if he could sleep there and sure enough he is fast asleep while I type.

River is growing teeth right now. She has the cutest little gap in her top teeth that makes me giggle inside whenver I see her toothy grin. I love her rosy cheeks. Sometimes they are so rosy it looks like she has been busy smearing jelly on them and we never wipe it off. This girl is also living up to her name, she is a river of life and brings so much joy to so many people. She is really into dancing lately and will do a jig (which looks more like rocking back and forth) if you sing her a song or she hears a song on the radio. She is getting so confident in her abilities and can say some words that may seem unrecognizeable to the untrained ear, but her dad and I understand. It is really fun to watch this girl grow.






Saturday, April 25, 2009

Inspiring People

I wouldn't necessarily call myself a sports enthusiast. I don't like to watch NFL or NBA, I do like baseball, but on some late nights you will find me flipping through the channels of our TV to watch NBC Universal Sports. The programs I find particular interest in are the long-distance races and iron man races. Good grief, the amount of stamina a person has to have to run that fast for such a long period of time. It kills my insides just thinking about it. I recently was watching the 2009 Boston Marathon. This was a truly amazing race. What really drew me in was that there was a girl from Portland, OR running. Apparently, there has not been an American woman in the top 3 finishers of the Boston Marathon since 1993. Ever since then the Kenyans and Ethiopans have dominated with their running abilities. But this girl, Kara Goucher, from Portland, OR stayed at the front of the pack the entire time. I am amazed that there are women out there who can run less than a 6 minute mile pace for 26 miles. At the end of the race in the final miles these girls even kicked it up. She ran fast and hard and finished third, the first American woman to place in the top 3 since 1993! I am inspired by athletes like this. I like to run. I am not fast and I don't plan on running any marathons. But my inspiration this week comes from this girl from Portland, OR who is a total stud....who when I googled her I found out is older than me! It gives me hope, I've still got time to get in shape and start running!

Susan Boyle, You Go Girl!

My wonderful husband showed me this video and it is fabulous! It goes to show that things often are not what they first seem and it is inspiring to see someone who is not afraid to just put themself out there. Maybe you've already seen it, maybe not, but I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Catching up

Lately it seems so easy for weeks or months to go by before posting anything. I guess it's best to just start somewhere. So here we go...

In January I celebrated my 30th Birthday! I have been looking forward to this with excitement and enthusiasm. My life is good for being 30. I have many things to be thankful for. I love the Lord, I have a fabulous husband who gently and humbly leads our family and loves me, I have two beautiful healthy children, I have a college education, I have good health, I have a loving family, I have many friends, and I have so much more. What more could a person want when they turn 30? I am so thoroughly and sincerely happy. God has been good to me.

I took a trip to New York with some friends for my friend, Beth's 40th Birthday recently! And that was without the children. I had been anxious for month's about leaving my 9 month old nursing daughter for 4 days with daddy. I was anxious that things would still be ok if I was gone from the family. The great news is that everyone did fine! I had a wonderful time seeing as much of New York that you could possibly see in 4 days! But this trip deserves a post all of its own, so I will write more another time.

On my drive home from the airport, I got the news that my Grandpa Ray passed away. It was a strange feeling to be coming home from such an exciting trip and reuniting with my family to receive such sad news. Maybe that's why it really didn't hit me until I drove into Trout Lake and realized that there will be no more visits to Grandpa's house when I visit. And while you always count on your grandparents dying at some point because they are old and none of us will live forever, this still came as a shock. My Grandpa was in great health for his age, but a tree fell on his house and they say he died of a heart attack. I will miss many things about him, the gleam in his eye, the contagious laugh, the teasing and the visits. I am so glad that he was able to live a long and full life.

The last bit of news I share with joy. Jeb and I have been working so hard since July of 2007 on paying off my student loans. The great news is that this past week I made my last and final payment on my loan!!! It took 22 months for us to pay off the last $17,000. But we are done! We achieved this goal and it deserves to be celebrated! It was a lot of hard work and we finally made it! It gives me a lot of satisfaction to achieve a goal! Now we are so close to being debt free all thanks to Dave Ramsey and his plans!

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