2 years ago

2 years ago today, I got a call from my mom in the early to mid afternoon saying that my dad was not doing so well. My reply was that I would try to come over. (Can you believe that, what a bone-headed thing to say!) What happened after I said I would "try" to come over was that within 5 minutes I was out the door on my way to my mom's house. The blessing in that was that I didn't bring anything that I would need for an overnight stay, because my brain had turned off. So when I realized that I would be spending the night at my mom's house, I called Jesse and he brought me a little bag, and because of that, my boys got to see their Grandpa one last time. The tender mercy here was that while the boys were here was one of the only times that day that my dad was lucid. Of course, later on that night he slipped into a coma and passed away.
So here it is 2 years later, and at some point I got to the point where I could think about him without crying every time. At some point I figured a few things out about faith, and where mine was. At some point my life started to heal. But the fact is, I still miss him. It still tares me up that my kids won't know him. Nate still talks about him. Just yesterday he said something about not doing something until Grandpa comes back and lives with Grandma again. Graham was just a year when he died, so he will have no memories of him. And any memory of him that Nate has is of when he was sick. I wish that they could know him for the fun loving goofy guy that he was. I hope that one day they can understand what it means to grow up in this stake being the grandson of President White. Right now all of my children have a special connection with him, Nate's middle name is after him, we buried him on Graham's birthday, and Olivia was born on his birthday.
I hope that I can live up to the standard that my father has set for our family. I am incredibly lucky to have such a wonderful family. To have so many siblings who I love so much. To be a part of a group of people who genuinely love to be together, and not have any outcasts. As much as I miss my dad, is how much I'm glad that I still have my mom here. She is a rock to me, and someone I can always look to. All that I know about being a good person, a good mother, a good wife I learned from her.

Weight Loss Wednesday

This week I was down 1.4 lbs for a grand total of 12.4 lbs. I have realized that at the beginning of this whole thing I was really good about not cheating, but lately I have gotten really lazy about it, and that is my whole problem- staying power. So I need to rally and keep going strong. I guess I do have more good days than bad days, but I need to do better about having a lot more good days than bad days. I'll blame it on the holidays, but really, the holidays last too long to have that excuse. Oh well, I'll keep on running to help out, and in all honesty, Thanksgiving is not all that difficult of a time for me, it's when the Christmas treats start to come that I'll have trouble. :)

Weight loss (Thursday)

This week I actually weighed in on Monday, and I was down another 3.8 lbs for a grand total of 11 lbs. That means that I hit my first 5%! I was quite proud of myself. However, the rest of this week the scale and I have not really been friends. It's going to be all that I can do to come out even this next week I have a feeling. I was not all that diligent about things the past week or so, and now I'm paying for it. But today I got back on track, and this week is shaping up to be a good exercise week too, so hopefully that will help to even things out. I'd like to be down 10% by Christmas. I hope I can do it. It's about 7 more pounds. We'll see.

Worried

Today I got worried.
I got worried that this little boy thought that he was going to be allowed to turn 3 in just 2 weeks. I got worried, because if he thought that he was going to be allowed to turn 3, then eventually he might want to turn 4, and if he turns 4, then eventually he will think that he ought to turn 5 and go to school, and if he goes to Kindergarten, then he probably will want to go to college and leave me forever one day.

And then I got even more worried. I worried that now that this one is 5 months old, she thinks that in another month she'll have to be 6 months old. And if she can be 6 months old, she'll probably one day want to be a whole year old. And after that, well, you know what happens after that, one day she gets married and leaves me forever.

And I'm worried about it because this one already has started it. I mean, he already turned 5 months, and then went on to being 6 months. He already turned 3, and then went on to go to Kindergarten. And now he's a giant. He's a million years old, and one day, you guessed it, he's going to leave me forever. And I'm not going to like it. Not one bit. Already, I can't hold him anymore, and he had the nerve to stop acting overjoyed every time I walked into the room. He can feed himself, clothe himself, put his shoes on, make toast. Everything a boy needs to survive. He hardly needs me anymore other than to tell him that the cinnamon won't stick to the toast unless you butter it first. But now I've told him that, so what else am I good for?

Oh kids, would you just stop growing and be my little babies forever?

Please?

An eater

At Olivia's 4 month check up the doctor was not all that impressed with her weight gain. Her height to weight ratio had fallen off the bottom of the chart, so among other things, the doctor wanted her to start on rice cereal. The first time was a success, and she seemed to be getting a little into her stomach, so we have kept on doing it. At times I wish we didn't have to deal with this yet- it's just so messy! But, she needs to grow, and we had to start it eventually, so we just keep on doing it. There is always a lot of bib eating,

and finger sucking,

and even thumb sucking. (In the past month Olivia has become a thumb sucker, which is kind of nice since she rejected the paci, but all the same, Nate is now 5 and I still have not gotten him to quit.)

So grow grow grow little girl, It's OK to be petite, but you gotta get back up on those charts!

Family Pictures

Here are the results from our last family photo shoot.

Pumpkin time!

We went to a bunch of pumpkin patches this year. We probably went 3 weeks in a row to different places. It all started the first Saturday in October, when before General Conference we went and met some friends at Brookfield. Lots of fun was had by all.

Especially at the corn table.

Olivia has been strapped to me for at least half of her life. That is where she ALWAYS is! (Or so it would seem.)

"Milking a cow"

The hay ride out to the pumpkin patch with the Harrisons and Jones.

Our boys always love a good hayride!

Who knows what they're doing right now. Probably dancing or something. Our kids are a little weird!

The vines were still really high, so you can't see it, but there were tons and tons of large pumpkins out there. And it was really hard to walk through.

This fall, the boys loved these little photo ops. They wanted to do every one they saw at all of the pumpkin patches we went to.

So we don't have pictures from all of the places that we went to, but we went to another place with Jesse's family the following week, and the kids got to do a corn maze. Jesse also took Nate to do a night time corn maze one day. Then we went to another local farm the following week and did another corn maze as a family. So lots of fall fun for us this year!

National Book Festival

Back in September we decided to head down to the National Book Festival on the Mall in Washington DC. it was a kind of spur of the moment decision to go, but it turned out to be a fun little adventure. The weather was unseasonably warm (Like, 90*) but the kids were troopers through the whole thing.
The main reason that I wanted to go down was because the Pioneer Woman was there. So we got there just in time to see her speak- Jesse went down to a different tent to see Brad Metzler and Suzanne Collins. Graham went with Jesse. Nate stayed with me. This is how he felt about listening to Ree speak:

But later in the day I had her sign my cookbook.

There was a PBS Kids tent there, and it was super crowded, so we didn't spend much time in the tent, but outside of the tent they had all sorts of characters lined up. We first found them when it was just Nate and I, so we got a quick picture with Curious George- a favorite at our house.

And later a picture with Clifford. At first Graham thought he wanted to see Clifford too, but then at the last minute he got scared, as we suspected. He is terrified of "character people." He did really want to see George, but unfortunately they rotated who was out, and he kept on missing him.

But finally, at the end of the day, we walked by, and THERE HE WAS!!! And Graham actually went up to him, and hugged him, and was not scared of him. I was totally shocked! He's still scared of all of the rest of them though.

The National Art Gallery was having a special exhibit with the works of Guiseppe Archimboldo. Usually I would avoid taking my boys into an art museum as I would avoid the plague, but we thought this may be interesting enough, so we tried it. They actually were pretty well behaved, so that was nice. They thought the pictures were pretty funny.

So it was a pretty fun day for us. We got to ride the Metro, which the boys always love, and we went into the National Air and Space Museum for a little while, which the boys love as well. So all in all, a good adventure!

Weight Loss Wednesday

OK, so this week I was down 2.6 lbs for a total of 7.2 lbs. Yea for me! Week two was a little harder than week one. The first week it was still all new, but the second week I started to miss the snacking. But as you can see, being a beginner, and nursing to boot has helped me out. I'll guarantee you in a week or two these numbers will slow way down! But I'm almost to my 5% goal, so hopefully I can get there before it starts to get too hard. Jesse's birthday is tomorrow, and I see eating out about 3 times in my near future, so I hope I don't totally mess up all that I have been doing!

Weight Loss Wednesday

OK, so I'm stealing my friend Jana's idea and I'm going to to a weight loss post each week. I joined Weight Watchers last week, so this will help to keep me motivated as well. Now, granted that at the first weigh-in, I was not at all trying to be skinny, but this week I was down 4.6 lbs. That will of course, never happen again, but all the same- I am now wearing my skinny pants again! But I have a family reunion this summer, and perhaps a family picture will be taken, and it would be nice to not be so chubby in the picture. I want to do another half marathon in the spring. We joined a gym on Monday since the treadmill needs a new belt, and we're not interested in putting a bunch of money into it right now. I'm drinking a ton more water than I was, and that is helping. Plus, I'm really making an effort to do better with fruits and vegetables.
So sorry I have been MIA for the past month or so. I'll try to get caught up next week- this week is a very busy week for me. I am hosting book club this week, and I need to clean and get ready for that, not to mention read the book. Plus, I am teaching the lesson in RS this week, so I need to get that put together, and then I have a quilt that I am working on- my friend had her baby 3 weeks early, and I need to get on that. So whew! A lot to do, and no time to blog! So hopefully next week, we have been busy, and I do want to document it all!