Thursday, December 25, 2014

Merriest Christmas!

Sterling is being amazing and doing dishes right now, so here's a quick recap so you can see our family and our Christmas!
Zoo Miami lights
The zoo had fake 'snow' blowing at several stations. Ruth was enchanted. This time it 'called on my nose!' 
The carousel was cheaper for Zoo lights than it is normally, so we took the kids on a ride, since they always ask--it turned out even better since the lady only made us pay for Sterling!
Ruth wasn't too sure at first, so we started to walk away, but she changed her mind and was really excited because this giraffe was wearing a tutu! Haha. 
Our mini nativity. 
For you, Bridge, his tiger and turtle! He LOVED them!
Sterling was excited to open the finger puppets, haha!
Books! Thanks so much Grandma Cindy! 
Will LOVES the dinosaurs!


Christmas pjs
Her skirt!

I think its safe to say this boy is a little bit excited. 
She's already getting so good at it all by herself!

Sweetest angel baby.

Finger puppets!
Cutest mocassins

Can't wait to see pictures from everyone else! Merry Christmas!


Sunday, November 30, 2014

Best Weekend Ever

Sterling took a BIG test on Wednesday morning. Which meant....drum roll....he had the ENTIRE long weekend to spend with us WITHOUT ANY studying!!!!!! Best. Idea. Ever.

We had Thanksgiving.

 All the couples from our apartment complex (McKenzi and Beth's families---I see them all the time, we spent our days of summer at the pool together and now we do play group and story time and the park and the zoo together all the time.) as well as two families in the ward that both have five kids that I spend a lot of time with, teach them piano, work with in nursery, etc.
Climbing trees!

Not everyone, but the closest thing to a group shot I have.
 We built forts.
Will has a massive mosquito bite on his forehead. 
We washed our van.

We went to the zoo:
Molly slept through most of it. 
King of the zoo. 


Ruthie scaring off a squirrel. 
We went to the temple.

We went to a park while we were in Ft. Lauderdale. 
(it cost a 1.50 to get in, but it was totally worth it--it was amazing!)


We saw Christmas lights and Santa Claus.

Don't mind my weird hair, the wind was blowing like crazy.

And I got to spend time with this man:

We liked it.
(photos courtesy Ruthie and co.)
Today we are just hangin' out. Sterling made us a delicious dinner of lemon salmon and rice and peas and leftover Thanksgiving pie. Ruthie is watching Mickey Mouse Christmas and I'm just sad it's all over so fast. Only three more weeks until Christmas break!!!!!

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Stories of Asael and Ellen

For those of you who may not know, I have spent every Friday and Saturday in the University of Utah Hospital this semester for clinicals. It is the pits, however I have had some awesome experiences.  On November 1st I particularly hated that I had to be in the hospital because I was on a sugar hang over from Halloween and I was exhausted! I noticed one of my patients was from Vernal, Utah.  He was in a lot of pain so in my attempt to distract him I had the following conversation with him:

Me: My Mother spent her summers in Vernal as a teenager and she has fond memories of that area.”
Patient: “Why”
Me: “Her grandparents lived there.”
Patient:  “What is their last name”
Me: “Haws, Ellen and Asael Haws”
Patient: “No kidding?! We lived across the street from them”
Just then the patient’s Son 36 years old, (I asked him later) and Wife walked in
Patient to his family: “Guess who her great grandparents are, Ellen and Asael!”
Wife: “Really? Oh, I loved Ellen so much!
Me: “My mother was pregnant with me when she passed away, my middle name is Ellen”
The spirit was so strong; I could literally feel this woman’s love for my great grandmother.  We both had tears in our eyes when she finally said “Let me tell you a few stories about her.”

Wife:
“When I was pregnant with our third son” she paused and said “or was it our second…” more pausing then “ no, it was our third because for our second son Ellen made him booties that he wore for his baby blessing.”  A smile while she remembered the fond memories. She continued,  “When I was pregnant with our third Ellen was in the advancing stages of Alzheimer’s.  About a week after I had him she walked in through our front door without knocking, she never did this, she had no shoes on.  She looked confused so I directed her to the couch and she just reached her hands out for my newborn son.  I gave him to her and she just held him and looked at him.  After about 15 minutes she stood up and without saying a word she handed me my son and left. 

Patient:
“The Christmas before Ellen died we did the 12 days of Christmas for them.  I remember the Fast and Testimony meeting of the New Year Asael stood up and thanked who ever it was that had done this service for him and his wife.  He talked about how much it brightened up Ellen’s Christmas and he was truly grateful, it was a blessing that our children were able to participate in” the son piped in “I think Asael knew it was us, we weren’t that fast of runners”

Wife:
“That same Christmas, which was just months before she died, she died in January or February I believe, I saw her sitting on the couch in the foyer the Sunday after Christmas.  She rarely talked at this point.  I asked her if she enjoyed her Christmas with her family.  She looked up at me and said “YES I DID” it was the last thing she every said to me.” I could tell that this experience was one that this good woman cherished, as I have thought about it the past week I think it is because even in the end with dementia Ellen still remembered and knew what was important to her, she was at Church, and she loved and cherished time with her family.  I wish I knew which family member had visited her that Christmas so I could hear their stories from their time together.

Patient: “Their home was so beautiful, they had a large pussy willow tree in the back yard and they had a large garden.  They would share their vegetables with us.  Oh, Asael loved his horses.  He was such a strong hard working man.”

Son: “I remember one day we were had put pipe down in a ditch and we were covering it with dirt.  We asked Asael if we could borrow his wheelbarrow to carry the dirt.  Well, he wouldn’t just let us borrow it.  He came over and insisted on being the one to carry the wheelbarrow.  I remember he was so strong.”

Patient: “The day Asael was moving to go live with family after Ellen died all the neighbor kids were sitting around him on his front porch saying their goodbyes.  They were all so upset, they all loved Asael so much.  My daughter was only about 4 at the time and she came home crying that day from saying goodbye”


I really wished I didn’t have to be a student nurse that day, and I could’ve just listened to stories all day long.  But that was all they had time to tell me before I had to go to another patient’s room.  Needless to say I think my plan to distract this patient from his pain was very successful! It was a tender mercy for the patient to forget his pain and trials and also for me to see into the life of the woman I constantly try to emulate.

According to Google this is what a pussy willow tree looks like


Monday, November 10, 2014

Phone Photos

Okay, pretty sure Bridget and mom have seen these three separate places now, but here are some recent photos of us from my phone!
Oh her smiles, I just LOVE them! 
Will's favorite toy at the park. 
Ruthie, in all her 3-yr-old dressing glory.
More smiles.
I honestly don't know what mothers did before strollers. It is the world's best invention, I am sure of it. 
A Miami downpour.
Our thankful tree from FHE. You're on there mom, somewhere! 
My latest cooking accomplishment! Made the rolls and everything!
We are doing really great right now. Sterling just took a test last week and did his best yet-yay! The weather is staying in the mid-70s to mid 80s so that is beautiful. There are less bugs, less mosquitoes, less lizards, and MUCH less humidity--so I am basically loving winters in Miami. We've got a regular play group going on Mondays and that is super fun, albeit quite crazy. I have no idea how working moms do it because I find myself STRETCHED to the limit and doing laundry at crazy times like 11:30 at night just to stay on top of everything. But it is awesome and the kids are so much fun. I wouldn't mind giving Ruth up for some days here and there (oh her TANTRUMS and her boundary-stretching!) but mostly they are so much fun to be with 24/7. 

Our toilet flooded the other day and our landlord still hasn't done anything about it, so what else is new. Will gagged on a milk lid tonight until he threw up (we couldn't get there fast enough), and Ruth just fell off the bed in her sleep with a nice, loud thud that I could hear in our room. Ya know, awesome life things that just keep you hopping all of the time! Haha.

Personally, I've been working really hard on menu-planning and cooking. When you don't have the money (for things like rolls) you start using your flour and milk and realizing how much you have to PLAN for everything, all of the time. It's been mostly good though. I'm actually starting to be impressed with how easy whipping up certain things can be, when you are used to doing it for all three meals. 

Sterling is studying like crazy, of course. He watched the kids on Saturday while I went to a Relief Society conference, and then afterwards he took Ruthie on a date. She came home and you should've seen the look on her face! "I rode on a TRAIN mom!" hahaahaa. Sterling took her on the metro rail, because she is short enough to be free, and oh my gosh! she thought she was the coolest cat. He has pictures and everything, and since the likelihood of him posting them soon is not great, I might have to steal his phone to put them on.

My nursery calling is...rough. It's kind of hard to be around three small babies all week long (plus playgroup and playdates where you have to really work on your patience and holding your tongue) and then spend two more hours with SEVEN more of them. I feel like I'm on repeat all week long. Snacks. Songs. Coloring. Toys. Repeat. See what I mean? But I really love the sister I'm working with, so that's a big bonus. Ruth and two other girls move up to Sunbeams in January and I think that will be a relief. It's just hard to be the parent and the teacher. 

Ummm...that's about all folks!

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Church Callings

A tidbit of our church lives, I just copy&pasted this from my family website where I posted it, so sorry it's so long. Hopefully you guys find it as entertaining as we did!

A couple of weeks ago Sterling was called to teach in Elders Quorum and then set apart the following week. Last week I went to the primary to notify them that there wasn't a nursery leader (yet again) and throughout the next two hours (Sterling and I juggling a nursing babe, a sleeping Will and helping out in nursery) the primary president-in her awesome Jamaican accent-told me that I am the new nursery leader. Sis Hadley (one of my favorite people, she's from Ogden and has five kids, her oldest, 12 yr olds, are twins) muttered under her breath "Well, lets try going through the CORRECT channels." and I had a hard time not laughing out loud. Anyway. They DID go through the correct channels and I was called today. I'm a little sad, just because I won't get a lot of interaction with other people in the ward now, also, I'm already with kids ALL the time. But on the other hand I am glad because their nursery needed some SERIOUS help, and about five people that I knew of didn't even bring their kids because it was so disorganized and inconsistent (welcome to Miami, nobody is consistent or on time). ANYWAY.

So today in Sacrament Meeting Sterling and I were sitting there, the opening song had just finished, which was in English, and we hadn't put on our headsets yet to listen to the Stake guy who was doing some Stake business. Until we decipher Sterling's name in the mix of Spanish. So Sterling stands up, gets sustained, and sits back down. Interesting, we thought, since they don't usually sustain Elders Quorum teachers in Sacrament Meeting, Then they came to nursery and asked me to talk to them (they hadn't extended me the nursery leader call yet) and then noticed Sterling and asked him to come so he could be set apart. But he had already been set apart by the elders quorum the week before. He was confused. But since Ben and Beth had just walked past the nursery and offered to take over, we both headed over to the offices.

They shook our hands, told Sterling he could continue to hold Will through the setting apart since we didn't want to wake him up, and then set Sterling apart---in Spanish. They joked a little bit after about how they should have offered a translator, but we could feel the spirit, right? Right.

Then they started talking to Sterling about how he would receive names from the missionaries and how he would put them into the computer...and Sterling just starts really wondering about things. I didn't hear the conversation after that because they took me out to extend the nursery calling.

About five minutes later Sterling walks into nursery laughing his head off. He'd been called and sustained and set apart as the assistant ward clerk and WE DIDN'T EVEN KNOW!!!!!!!!!! All of it had been done in Spanish, Sterling was obviously confused but they tend to talk really fast and smile a lot to reassure you that they know exactly what they are doing.

I'm still dying laughing over here. It almost makes being in nursery ok. Also, they put me with the bishop's wife (I guess they are REALLY struggling with a nursery leader) and she is AMAZING and I want to be just like her when I grow up (actually Ruth will be the same age as her oldest is when we are in residency, which they are in right now. Can you imagine being in residency and being bishop at the same time? With five kids? Yeah, we might have five kids but I'm saying exnae on the bishop part.)

Monday, October 20, 2014

Fall Fun

Last week started off great with Marlowes birthday on Monday. We got together and had cake and played a game of 7 wonders. It was so Fun! But it did feel very empty without jenny, our poor family parties just keep shrinking in size! 

This past week was the 9 year anniversary of Cade's brother Justin passing away. I took Marlowe on the hike on Tuesday because I couldn't make it to the annual hike that they always do with all Justin's friends and family. It was so beautiful and a lot of fun, Marlowe kicked my butt! I always go with family and at least one overweight person so it's a nice slow pace, this time we hauled!!! It took us 3 hours total when the group went on Saturday they took over 5 hours. Needless to say, I was sore the next day!





The group went on Saturday when I was in Saint George, Cade went. Here are some of his pictures. 
This is Cade and his dad and blade


Kohen got to go out on the log and carve his name 

Cade, kohen( nephew), Joe (father), Travis (brother) and blade in front of Justin's monument 

That hike is up in Alpine, it's called Horsetail falls. With all the colors changing it was really really beautiful this week. 

So, I'm starting to feel like this is my personal blog... You guys all need to post too! If you have a smart phone you can download the blogger app and you can post from your phone and upload pics and everything it's super easy!!

Anyway this week has been my fall break and it has been amazing!! I didn't have clinicals so I had my first weekend off of the semester, so naturally I had to go to Saint George! The weather is so nice down there right now! I went with all the lady's in cade's family, it was a lot of fun. But mostly just great because I didn't have to wake up at 5 on Friday and Saturday! 

This is my mother and sister in law in front of the condo 

This is what my weekend consisted of haha! Nails, makeup, shopping, and games! 

All the ladies that went, these are all just Cade'a aunts and cousins. We played a really fun dice game (I dominated of course!)

I found this at a consignment shop that I went to! Haha I laughed, then cried a little.. I miss her so bad! 

 
Me and Cade's favorite cousin who is my favorite cousin in his family (Chelsey) and our new boyfriend, who needs boys!

Anyway, I love you all! We need to an a weekend sometime when we can go to Saint George! It's a blast, tennis courts, pool, and relaxing! 

Anyway, I am happy to be home, with my love!