Small & Simple

It's amazing, the lessons I have learned from a tiny grey stuffed sheep.

To say that the last several weeks have been a challenge would be slightly understating things. As the due date for the twins' arrival continues to tick down at an alarming rate, my energy level and ability to stick to my usual routine has degraded terribly.

This morning was no exception.
But when you're a mom, some things just need doing regardless of what you're feeling up for.

So we got up, got the kids dressed and ready for the day, packed up in the car and drove Reilly to preschool. As I hurried her out of her booster seat, I noticed that Sheepie had made the journey with us and that Reilly had every intention of bringing her into school. She didn't want to leave her alone in the car, so I introduced a compromise. Reilly could put Sheepie in my purse, and I would keep her safe while she was at school. Knowing that Mommy would take good care of Sheepie, she agreed.

Into the purse went Sheepie.

After Reilly was happily situated in her class, the rest of the day began. A stop at the grocery store. A quick return home to grab some library books that were due today. A stop at the library for storytime and to pick up some new books & videos to keep the kids entertained while I needed to stay off my feet.

As Taylor & I approached the librarian's desk, I reached in my purse to pull out our library card. To my horror, I realized that Sheepie was nowhere to be found. Panicked, I searched the purse again. And again. No Sheepie.

Great, I thought. All this time we've been so careful about Reilly losing Sheepie, and now it's me-- the responsible mom-- that has finally gone and done it.

As we made the drive back to Reilly's school I was near tears. And so I did the only thing I had strength left for.

Please, Heavenly Father... please help me find Sheepie. I feel silly asking for Thy help in locating her yet again, but I simply don't have the energy to retrace all my steps today. Oh please.... with all the upcoming changes in our family that Reilly is trying to deal with, I don't want her little heart to break over the loss of her favorite toy too.

As I went through the school's entryway, the main foyer was packed with students and parents. I maneuvered my way through the crowd to the coat rack, retrieved Reilly's jacket, and with a heavy heart went to pick Reilly up. Walking her back through the now nearly empty hall, I took a deep breath as I tried to think of how best to explain the situation of Sheepie's latest-- and seemingly final-- disappearance. But just as I was about to open my mouth, something caught my eye on the linoleum just a few yards ahead of us. Something small, grey, and infinitely valuable.

Relief flooded my heart.
Reilly ran over to Sheepie and picked her up. She cradled her in her arms and immediately began her ritual of smelling her. I wasn't about to stop her-- even if she had been on the school floor for over two and a half hours.

Over two and a half hours in a crowded school with tons of kids big and small coming and going. And there she was, just waiting for us right in the middle of our path.

Coincidence?
I don't believe in coincidences.

Thanks be for a loving Father in Heaven who knows just how important a silly little stuffed animal is to our family. I stand in awe and with immense gratitude.

Be Mine

Taylor takes his dinosaurs very seriously.
He has become a collector of sorts... possibly even a hoarder.

It has gotten to the point where we cannot enter a bookstore or library without him pleading for "just one more" prehistoric encyclopedia. I think we have about five nearly identical tomes resting comfortably on his bedside table at this very moment. I have learned more about our Cretaceous companions in the past couple of months than I ever thought I would learn in my lifetime. Although I suppose when you're living with a future paleontologist, you're bound to pick up a few new tidbits here and there.

"Hey, Mom! Why does this Velociraptor have feathers and this one doesn't?"
"Hey, Mom! Is this a T-Rex or an Allosaurus? Oh wait... This one has 3 fingers, not 2. Never mind! It's an Allosaurus!"
"Hey, Mom! Did you know the Microraptor has four wings and lives in a tree?"
"Hey, Mom! Do you know what my new favorite species is? Dilophosaurus!"

When I was his age I might have been able to identify a T-Rex. Possibly.

So for Valentine's Day this year, I surprised Taylor by getting him some store-bought holographic dinosaur valentine cards. As expected, they were a huge hit.

Until he realized that the entire point of the valentines was to give them away.

"But, Moooooooommmmm," he loudly objected, "I don't want to give them away! I want to keep them with my other dinosaur things!"

It took a lot of persuasion to get him to relinquish his unyielding hold, but eventually we talked him into a compromise. Since he had more dinosaur valentines than classmates, he would be able to choose which ones he wanted to give away, and which ones he could keep. He decided to keep all the T-Rex cards for himself. (And I have to admit, with the 3-D gnashing of teeth-- they were pretty dang cool.) The day of his class Valentine's party, he happily set off to share with his friends.

When I arrived to pick him up from school, he was beaming. As he skipped out the door with his arms laden with the paper and candy spoils of his party, I asked him how his friends liked the dinosaur valentines.

"They were so cool, Mom! I gave Alex an Allosaurus. And Julio an Ankylosaurus."

"That's great, Taylor!" I encouraged, "I'm glad that you were able to share with your friends."

"And guess what, Mom?" He looked at me with a sly, lopsided grin. "I gave Taylyn a T-Rex valentine."

"Wow, buddy." I suppressed a chuckle as I buckled him in his booster seat. "You must really like her."

Taylor breathed a deep sigh.

"Yeah, Mom. She's my special friend."
Well, imagine that.

There just may be more to life than dinosaurs after all.

Intermission

I just wanted to apologize for the extended break in posting lately...

Apparently contractions when you're 25 1/2 weeks along aren't really a good thing.
I'm doing better, but still dealing with some serious exhaustion and am consequentially trying to buy myself some quality rest time at every opportunity.

I'll be back soon!

A Decade in Retrospective: 2002

2002 brought us the world.

We watched as the Olympic torch was run through campus and marveled as the Games came to Salt Lake City. We didn't study nearly as hard as we should have for sixteen days or so.

But seriously, who am I kidding?
With an upcoming wedding in May, we didn't study nearly as hard as we should have for an entire semester. I can't even tell you what classes we took during that time. I can, however, tell you all about the athletes we saw at the Gateway, or that Katie Couric fell in love with fry sauce while she was here covering the Games. Sad.

We had a perfect spring wedding on a typical blustery day in the Windy City. Being sealed together for time and all eternity was an unparalleled experience that I shall always keep deep in my heart. We enjoyed a day full of family, friends, love and laughter. We danced at our reception. And in seemingly no time at all, we were off on our own for a very memorable wedding night... complete with stowaway tick.
(See Bryson or I for details-- talk about your ice breaker!)

We traveled to St. Augustine for our honeymoon. We learned that anything south of the Ohio River might as well be a foreign country to Bryson. As the accents got thicker and thicker on our road trip, his comprehension level took a steady decline. In Georgia, he carried on an impressive conversation with an elderly black man at a roadside pecan stand. He still has absolutely no clue what that gentleman was talking to him about. In Florida we drank from the fountain of youth (literally) and dined on gator tail (yum). St. Augustine was gorgeous and the perfect honeymoon hideaway for us. On the way back to our new life in Utah as husband and wife we explored Mammoth Cave and attended the Nauvoo Temple open house.

Our first home was a camping trailer set up at an RV park at the base of the Jordanelle Dam, while Bryson worked a construction job at a Church campground in Heber Valley. After my parents decided to leave Illinois and relocate to Cache Valley, we made our second home in their basement when we returned to the university.

Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.
Nothing could have been better.

A Decade in Retrospective: 2001

2001 changed everything.

During this time my relationship with Bryson continued to deepen, and we became practically inseparable. He even took an evening English course with me on Southern women's literature. Yep, that man truly loves me.

In the summer we flew back to Chicago to spend time with my family. We took the train downtown and I showed him a little taste of the city life as we explored together. We took a road trip to Nauvoo with my family and showed him a little taste of the midwestern rural life coupled with a rich experience in Church history. Heading back to Logan, we prepared to start a new semester at Utah State.

Then the events of September 11th occurred.
I can vividly remember my dad calling me as I was in my apartment getting ready for the day, urgently telling me to turn the TV on. Immediately I knew something terrible had happened. I quickly flipped through the channels just in time to see the second plane hit the World Trade Center. That image is still vividly burned in my psyche. We mourned for our nation. We struggled to make sense of a senseless act. Life seemed to stand still for a time.

Eleven days later, Bryson popped the question.
After a restorative day hiking in the mountains and a fantastic dinner at the Coppermill, we headed to the amphitheater on Old Main Hill. Our spot. Perfect for deep conversation, evening picnics, stargazing... or in this case, a most unexpected proposal. Cradled in the shadow of Old Main with the beauty of the Logan Temple and Wellsville Mountains before us, it couldn't have been more perfect.


The outside world may have seemed hostile and uncertain, but together we knew we could make it. We had shelter from the storm around us. We had each other.

A Decade in Retrospective: 2000

2000 was a year of transition.
A few months prior, I made the difficult and slightly crazy decision to leave BYU after three years of completion to pursue a dream of studying culinary arts. Having grown up in a cougar blue household, graduating from the Y had been and always was the end goal of my educational ambitions. Leaving Provo for the unfamiliar was an enormous step out of my comfort zone, and I was deeply conflicted about it. My concern was that I could be walking away from everything I had so carefully planned for myself over the past several years. It's funny how those tentative steps into the dark can turn into unanticipated paths of illumination.

In January 2000 I stepped onto the Utah State campus for the first time as an enrolled student. I discovered that I was a lot stronger than I had previously thought. I had my heart broken, beaten, and shattered-- and lived to tell the tale. New friends entered my life and buoyed me up during my difficult moments. One of those friendships grew into something more.

2000 was about classic college life. Drama, dances, and dinners of communal pots of macaroni and cheese. (From which I ended up catching an awful case of mono... thanks, Brett!) I spent spring break in sunny San Diego with my new girlfriends. The mountains of northern Utah & southern Idaho called out to us during the lazy summer weekends. I fell in love at first sight with the Moab landscape. And realized while we were there that I had also fallen deeply in love with Bryson.



Change can be terrifying. But most of the time I've found if you can just fight through the doubt and heartache...
Change is good.

Massacre!

We interrupt this regularly scheduled blog with a most disturbing breaking news story.

The gruesome remains of several chocolate glazed donuts have been discovered in a local household. The delicious fat-laden pastries were found decapitated and left on horrific display in a public arena for all to behold. It is recommended that no baked goods be left unchaperoned until the suspect is apprehended. Citizens are encouraged to be on the lookout for a white female, approximately 32 pounds and 3 feet tall.