Memorial Day

Here's an excerpt from a a letter I received from Rick while he was serving in Bosnia in 2002 with the Utah National Guard.  Today, I remember those who not only served to protect our land, but others lands as well.

So, this morning I spoke with some women from an
organization of women who lost family members in
Srebrenica.  In that city, in about a week's time
almost 8,000 men and boys "disappeared".  They have
found what they believe to be about 2,000 bodies
(because of decomposition the bones are all mixed
together, so they have to reconstruct each individual
skeleton).  Only about 400 remains have been
positively identified.  They said that things are
speeding up, so they identify 2-3 new remains each
day.  Babe, it was so sad.  I almost cried when they
said that all they want is a finger or something to
bury, so they can move on.  It killed me.  It makes me
glad somehow that we're here.  A lot of people here
say that if we were to leave anytime soon, people
would start shooting within a week.  It's crazy,
especially considering how calm things seem right now.

Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow

When Aren was a baby I did everything the doctor told me to...solids at four months, fruits and veggies one at a time at six months, no peanut butter, and the bottle is gone at one year - check, check, check, and check! When Lily was born I was little more relaxed, maybe too much. I remember driving to Utah from Arizona and it was the middle of the night and she was screaming and we were no where near a place to buy milk so I grabbed her bottle, threw in some Mountain Dew, gave it to her and she calmed right down! Oh, that magic elixir we call Dew.

I seemed to find a balance with Tania. We started getting rid of her bottle around 15 months, peanut butter was introduced a little too early, but hey, it had been a while since I'd had a kid. The one thing that we couldn't rid her of was The Binky. She loved it. A few months ago I finally got her down to using it only at nap time and bed time, but it was her drug of choice. Every morning she would wake up and walk into our room and I'd say, "Tania, can I have your binky please?" She would go to grab it out of her mouth, but first she would take a few good sucks before giving it up.

Tania's turning three next week so I knew we had to stop this. It was either this or potty training - I know, no brainer. So Friday afternoon, I asked Tania to go find her binkies, we knew of three of them existed, and she knew just where they all were. We put them in a ziploc bag and told her we were taking her to Target and she could bring her binkies with her. Seriously? She looked like a kid in a binky shop. We then told her that she could get anything she wanted from the store, but it would cost her the binkies.

How did it go? Surprisingly it worked like a charm. Rick tried to show her doctor sets and music sets but all Tania wanted was a Snow White princess doll and a princess tea set. Sorry, Rick. She gave the binkies to the cashier, who thought we were freaking insane, and we came home. She cried herself to sleep in my arms that night saying over and over, "Oh binky. Oh binky. I need you!" So horribly sad, right? Oh well. Her slightly buck teeth will be back to normal in no time and she'll thank me after the years of therapy are paid for.

Am I Blue?

Hells yeah! Check out my half finished bathroom project!

More pics to come!

Before

After

Move Over Martha!

Last night I learned a new talent. I can now sew cute lil' bags from nothing more than a place mat and some ribbon. Check it out!

I'm planning on making some more so as soon as I do I'll post the "how to" pics, but until then, go ahead and bask in my glory!

The Gila Valley Temple

Rick and I have never had to travel far to go to a temple. With Rick growing up in Utah and myself growing up in the Washington DC area, temples were never more than a few minutes away. When we moved to Arizona, we discovered our closest temple was around three hours away. I know, cry me a river, but for us, that was hard. Consider it was a three hour drive there, plus at least two hours for the session and it was next to impossible to ask anyone to watch the kids for that long. Crimany, I'm their mother and sometimes asking myself to do that is too much.

We were more than excited when a new temple was announced and it would be in The Gila Valley. Now, understand, this drive is still two hours away, but man is it a beautiful one with no traffic and hiring a babysitter is totally doable.

We took the kids today for the open house and they absolutely loved it. Rick and I had seen it before, as we were asked to be ushers during the open house, but it was still beautiful the third time around. Tatiana didn't even try to jump in the baptistery...yes, we really were scared she would do that, and Aren kept saying, "I just feel so good here, mom." We all did.