What a Humbling Experience!

I've posted before about my connection and friendship with author, Jason Wright. He's such a great guy and our family has so much fun with him when he's in town, texting, Facebook-ing, etc. Last weekend when the girls and I were at Time Out for Women, there were a couple of times when three or more of us were texting him at the same time! Pretty funny!!

I teach The Seventeen Second Miracle each year in my 9th grade English classes. It's so much fun to see the kids change their perspective and start looking for ways to serve others or recognize ways they have been served in small ways. If you haven't read it, do yourself a favor and curl up with a Diet Coke (Lime, of course) and enjoy!!

Each week, Jason contributes an article to the Deseret News. As usual, they are inspirational, thought-provoking, and they always get me thinking about how to be a better person. (More often than not, they're pretty darn funny, too...) Anyway, today I was reading SSM with my kids and we get to Chapter 17...a personal favorite (you'll see why when you read it... :) ). I wrote on Jason's wall telling him where we were in the reading and that the kids were really enjoying it. He referred me to the email I'd automatically received about his DN article being available. In a quiet moment, I clicked on the link and began reading. HOLY COW WAS I SURPRISED!!! And humbled!!! And SHOCKED!!!!! I'm not gonna lie...it was pretty cool!!

Check it out!

 

WOW!! I can't believe where the time has gone!

I look at blogs every day. I get so sad when they aren't updated frequently so I can "stalk" and see what's going on with other people. How in the world has four months flown by and I haven't taken the time to update our lives? Mallorie told me a long time ago I needed to do it so she'd have something to do when she's feeding Drew in the middle of the night. I. FAILED!! Now he's sleeping almost through the night every night and if he's not, he takes a quick bottle and goes right back to bed. Sorry Mal!! Bad Grandma!!

However, in my defense, the past four months have been

• Amazing
• Wonderful
• Horrible
• Stressful
• Unbelievable
• Exciting
• You name the emotion/experience...we've had it! (Sometimes more than once!!)

There's no way to play catch up with everything and I know no one would want to read it anyway so here are a FEW brief updates:

Drew is four months old and absolutely adorable. Mal brings him to see us often which is FABULOUS!! Everyone told us how great grandkids are...now I completely understand! Here are a few quick little pictures I have on this computer...I have more on others.

 Cute little booger in the Halloween t-shirt and jeans I got him. 

Our little hunter in his Halloween costume. Pictures taken at Busath Photographers. He was the hunter, Mal was Little Red Riding Hood, Tom the wolf. LOVE that grin!!

Baby attacked by an alligator...that's a Florida gator BTW. 

Ya...Grandpa isn't very whooped! Drew fell asleep on him while he was sitting up on the couch the other night. Bob carefully laid down on the floor and they were both out like a light. It was all we could do to get him away from old Gramps so he could go home. So fun!!

Zack, Kenzi, and their little punkin' are progressing right along. The Dr. told them in September he was 90% sure they were having a girl. We were so excited and promptly went out to buy all the pink fabric we could find along with designing all the bedding in the most adorable browns, pinks, greens, etc. Kenzi and I were having a blast working on it and had it about 80% finished. On the Thursday of UEA weekend, Kenzi's mom and I went with them for the "big" ultrasound. As we stood there watching, the tech said, "And there he is...your little boy!" WHAT???????? ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING US??????? Needless to say, we asked her to check, re-check, and check again! YEP...there's absolutely no denying it! Our little Reagan is now WYATT!! (Note: we even asked her to look harder to see if there were two babies in there...) So, the cute pink stuff is boxed up for another time and we went shopping for moose, trees, and outdoorsy stuff. It's cute and we're excited to sew for a boy again. :)

Sam and Maddi keep us entertained! Sam is working at Busath almost full-time and going to Weber about 3/4 time. She keeps us laughing each day with her "Public Transportation Story of the Day" (she rides the bus and FrontRunner to Ogden and Salt Lake each day). It's SOOOO great having her home! Maddi is a hoot and keeps us on our toes with her dating and "boy drama." She's working almost full-time at Zions Bank and LOVES it!! It's so much fun to watch them together again...not so much fun to watch them fight like sisters but, at this point, the good times outweigh the bad. Thank heavens they grow up!! :)

Bob has worked a lot of overtime, went to Detroit for training, went Deer Hunting, and keeps busy working on cars. It's a never ending job but we're so grateful he can do it! 

I'm through the first term of school! HALLELUJAH!! I've never felt so disconnected, unprepared, overwhelmed, you name it! I've talked to other teachers and they all say the same thing! We all think we have different reasons for it but bottom line, this is a TOUGH year!! At this point...all we can say is one down, three more to go! :P

I had sinus surgery number four the middle of September. I finally got officially "sick" (HAHAHA!!) of being sick all the time and went to my favorite ENT. He's been home from serving as Mission President for a year so I decided it was time to go see him again. Of course, he said I should have had it done sooner...the last one was 15+ years ago. At this point, I'm still not so sure I'm glad I had it done. I just can't seem to get over it! They tried to pull the "age card" on me and tell me I'm not as young as I was when it was done before...ya...thanks a lot! They also said it was incredibly extensive and would take quite a while to recover. Ya think? And...now I feel like I've got another sinus infection on top of it all. REALLY? I thought the surgery was supposed to stop that for Pete's sake! Of course, he's out of town for a week and I don't want to start with someone else until he gets back. So...here we go again! :(

There's a LOT more going on...some good...some not so great. But, in the long-run, know we're all happy, healthy, and loving each other!