Friends

I am so thankful for my friends.  I have been so blessed over the years to have made some really great friendships.  That's one of the best parts of moving and one of the hardest parts, too.  I've certainly learned about loneliness and that if you want to make friends you have to actually put yourself out there. When we lived in Cedar City, our bishopric came to visit us when we moved in and Bishop Callaway gave us some great advice that has stayed with me ever since.  He said not to be offended or hurt if the person sitting next to us in Relief Society or Sunday School, didn't introduce themselves to us because, chances are, they would be newer than we were.  So, I bravely took his advice and introduced myself to people who were by me and pretty much every time, the person really WAS newer than I was. 
Since then I just always introduce myself to people I'm sitting by at church and I've made some really great, lifelong, friends that way.  Sometimes, Heavenly Father just knows our needs so well and matches us up with "kindred spirits" to visit teach us or for us to visit.  When we lived in Pleasant Grove I was SOOOO lonely.  Just painfully lonely.  So, I decided to pray that I would be able to make a friend.  And that's when I met my awesome friend, Melissa.  I just love Melissa so much!  We actually both needed a friend so it was really great that Heavenly Father just happened to put us right next door to each other.  I also made contact with my friend Shani, who I met in high school, and she introduced me to blogging. I WAS SOOO EXCITED!  I LOVE BLOGGING!!!  I started Facebook then,too.  It has been such a great way to renew contact with friends.  I LOVE my friend, Tara B's blog, it's my favorite! And she is amazing and such a great example and hilarious!  It's been so much fun to get to know her better through blogging.
I haven't made any effort to make friends here.  I just haven't really wanted to until  the last few days. Yesterday, I felt so lonely.  My friend, Anna, from Price, called me and we talked for a long time and it was great!  We used to have girls night out once in a while when I still lived there. I've missed her and it was really fun to catch up with her.  I felt so much happier after we talked.  It just made my day!

Easter clothes, girl's day out, and cute stuff my kids did...

I've been thinking lately about how much I hate to move. Today, though, I have been thinking of all of the different people I have met over the years, in all of the different places we have lived. We have truly been blessed. We have lived in some of the best wards in the whole wide world. Some weren't so great but they have just helped us to realize how wonderful it is to live in great wards. I am so grateful for Facebook and blogs! My wonderful friends are just amazing and I still can have them in my life, even though we've moved away. I have also been so blessed to be able to see Heavenly Father's wisdom in sending my children to me when he did, instead of when I WANTED him too!!! They are wonderful kids and I'm so blessed to be their mother! I know, without a doubt, that if I didn't have my children to care for each day, I would have just stayed in bed when I was in so much pain, instead of getting up and doing what needed to be done.

~I couldn't wait all the way until Easter for my kids to wear their new church clothes! They all look so nice! I don't know why Max's tie is so small, but whatev'. It's really hard to take pictures of 4 kids at the same time! I am so proud of Gracie's dress! I don't think the pictures does it justice. It.is.beautiful! Every bit as lovely and well made as any I have ever had for her from The Children's Place. And can you believe it...I got it from KMART! AND, they had so many pretty dresses to choose from that it was kind of tough to choose which one to get! I got the cute little knit shrug at The Children's Place. It was so much fun buying her pretty little Easter outfit. Gracie and I went to Spanish Fork on Friday night for Steph's daughter's 2nd bday party. The boys all had other things going on. Saturday, we just had a wonderful time. Just the 2 of us. We went to lunch with my parents and then she and I went to the mall and had so much fun buying her little earrings, shrug, and pretty pink bracelet. We needed some girl time! I just love her! Max broke her little bracelet right after church today. I was NOT happy! When I was in the kitchen I heard Gracie say to him, "It's ok buddy! (She got the buddy part from Steph's son, Josh. He's SO cute!) It was an accident. Just say, I sorry, DeeDee." She calls herself DeeDee still sometimes cause that's how she pronounced Gracie for the longest time. When Max said he was sorry, she said, "It's ok buddy." She is THE sweetest little girl! Yes, I'm biased, but she melts my heart.

~Max cracked me up on Friday. I noticed his shirt was on backwards and I told him he needed to spin his shirt around. He said, "I'm wearing it like this because the other side is dirty." I guess he figures that if HE can't see it, NO ONE can. LOL!!! I just love each of my kids so much! I don't know what I would do without them!

Just a little venting... :)

~Well, Christmas is finally over at our house. Brian got tired of waiting for me to have time to take it all down so he decided to do it himself on Friday. We still have our Christmas lights on the house and fence but other than that it's finally all put away. I have mixed feelings about it actually. We got a real tree from Sam's Club this year. It.was.gorgeous! And our decorations looked so pretty on it. After it was decoration free it STILL looked gorgeous! The needles weren't even dried out or anything. Usually they are brittle by now. We had such a lovely Christmas this year! Kind of sad it's over! When Max was 3 years old, we were driving down the road and he asked, "Mom, can we go to Christmas?" I thought it was so cute that he loved Christmas so much!

~Brian's lack of employment is totally freaking me out now! I was cool with it at first because he had the severence package and will receive pay checks through February 1st. Well, in the beginning I was super busy and we had a little time to look for work so I wasn't too upset. Now that he only gets one more paycheck, I'm having a heart attack! One of my favorite parts of my job is that I get to see people I know, all the time. There are so many members of our church where we live that there have to be 11 different sessions in 5 different buildings. Each session called a ward and each ward has a number, so that we can keep track easier. Well, my parents ward was the 8th ward and it has been really fun to see some of the people I love who are in that ward. And the people from our current ward that we just LoVe! I've been able to see some of my friends from high school also. And a friend I made while attending the college here when Matthew was 3 months old and Zack was 3 years old. Her name is Kelly. She is an AMAZING woman! I just love her! I was SOOO thrilled to see her and it made me so happy that she was as happy to see me as I was to see her! I think of her as a "kindred spirit"! I've met a few "kindred spirits" over the years and they continue to bless my life today! The only problem with working at Walmart, and seeing so many people that I know, is that most of them are so awesome and concerned about us that they ask if Brian has found a job yet. He's applied in outher states and for jobs that aren't Accounting related. He just wants ANYTHING! I appreciate the concern and the love they have for us but hearing that all of the time is starting to really weigh me down. I'm already starting to get depressed about it and then to have constant reminders is just really hard. I need to pray harder that we'll be able to have joy in our trial because that has worked for us in the past and I really need that strength if I'm going to make it through this! I know it could be worse. People are mourning loved ones, watching their loved ones suffer through cancer, chemo, and other horrid diseases. Our trial pales in comparison! I just really worry about having to move our kids from school, the town we live in, their friends, our ward. We need to be able to feed, clothe, and provide shelter for our our 4 children. It's just so scary and overwhelming for me that I just can't take it! Not to mention how very much I hate the whole process of moving!!! The packing. The cleaning. the loading. The unloading. The unpacking. The sorting. The collecting boxes. The switching utilities. All of the deposits. The paperwork involved in registering 3 kids at their new school. I know, I'm so lazy, right! But U~G~H!!!!!

~I'll try to be more positive next post! :)  Just needed to vent a little...

Randomness...

~So, Brian and Zack spent the morning moving stuff from our storage unit to our house. It is such a tedious process seeing as how we don't have a truck and have to use the van with the back seats taken out. Well, they put everything on the driveway under the carport thinking we could look through things there and decide whether it needed to be taken in the house or stored in the cellar.  After a while we got sick of sorting and decided to go to Walmart for some much needed supplies. When we got back home we discovered that the STUPID wind had blown over my "special" box of memories from high school, etc.  Most of the contents had blown all over the driveway and across the street into the big open field that is surrounded by a barb wire fence. Luckily Brian was able to carefully lift Matthew over the fence and he collected everything he could find and Brian carefully lifted him back over the fence.  I am SOOOOO incredibly sick and tired of WIND!!!  First it was super cold wind. We have watched most of Zack's baseball games from the van where we wrestle Gracie. I don't want her out in that bitter wind!  Now it's fierce wind that's warm. I don't care what the temperature of the wind is....I...HATE...WIND!!! It reminds me of growing up in Kansas. I loved growing up in Kansas but I don't miss the wind!!! 
~I feel I should offer my condolences to my friend Emily. I hear her super fun, fellow Santaquin resident, Gary Coleman, has passed away. I am sure she'll miss his tirades and all that positive publicity he brought to the community.  ;)  HeHeHe  May he rest in peace...
~I'm wondering if the chick I saw today in town that rats her hair up in the back so that it makes sort of a tiara shaped ratty mound on top of her head, thinks she's a princess.  I think I would rather see her walking around with an actual tiara on her head than that mess. I know I am no beauty queen and certainly no princess but even I know that that looks ridiculous!!  I do think it is an improvement over the ratty, box on the head shaped mess people were doing for a while there, though. 
~There are tons of lizards (or maybe just the same creepy one) in our back yard. The boys are in HEAVEN!! They have had more fun chasing lizards the past few days.  I'm cool with them chasing them, touching them, holding them, whatever, but I about jumped out of my skin the other day when my nephew brought one in the house!!!  And when I took the garbage out and one scurried across the ground in front of me.  Shiver, shiver!!
~Just a little tip for the people at the dentist office...if you have like 12 patients in the building at the same time and there is only one dentist working...you MAY have overbooked.  I'm just sayin an hour and a half to glue Max's crown back on was a bit excessive!!!
~Have I mentioned how much I HATE moving?! We move so much you would think it is our favorite pass time but, no we really, really hate it! It's GLORIOUS to be in our own place again but I can't stand the state of disarray the house is in while we are trying to figure out where to put everything.  All the craziness going on in our lives right now and the every day duties of a mother with 4 kids that are all home for summer vacation keeps me busy enough!  This putting the house together thing feels like it is taking FOREVER!!!  Especially with my kids destroying all progress I seem to make as soon as I make it.  I told Brian the next time we move we better be able to eat out a lot because trying to cook for 6 people and clean up after 6 people with no dishwasher while trying to get a handle on this place is just TOO much!!! 
~June is going to be very interesting around here. It will be fun too but more than a little crazy. Zack is in baseball and has been since April, Matthew is in soccer, and Max is in Tball.  There is one game or another almost every night of the week in June. Sometimes there are 2 games a night. Sometimes both at the same time. I know many of you deal with the same thing.  My sypathies...jk.  It really is fun to see the kids having so much fun and progressing and succeeding at something they love so much. I just hope the weather in June is better than the weather in May has been so the games will be more fun to watch!!  I think May and June are busier than November and December are for us at this point in our lives. Crazy times but oh so fun!!!!  We love it and we LOVE our kids!!!  I'm planning to post some fun pictures on my Word From The Zoo blog soon. If anyone doesn't have an invite to it since it's a private blog feel free to request an invite from me.  Just give me your email address.  I just like to control who sees it so some wierdo from some crazy far off land isn't looking at pictures of my babies.  I once had several of those show up on my feedjit and that made me go private with the blog.  Anyway, I hope everyone is having a fun summer vacation so far. Hopefully soon the weather will actually act like summer so we can all enjoy all the really fun parts of summer!!!