Call me Slacker...

I guess I shouldn't take such long breaks in between posts, and then I wouldn't have to feel so overwhelmed at the prospect of trying to catch things up!! Because this post will be extremely lengthy in order to detail the events of the past couple of months, I decided to do a photo slide show for those of you who just want to see pics of our adorable Munchkin without all the exhaustive reading!! Hopefully, the captions on the pictures will be enough to figure out what we've been up to! For my own sake, and for those who have the patience to read it, I'll include a more involved run-down after the slides.

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On January 23, 2010 our little Munchkin was able to attend her very first Primary Activity Day. I can't believe she is old enough to be a Sunbeam! The theme was "Tang and Testimonies" and all the kids and teachers got to wear PJ's while the Bishopric made them a pancake breakfast. Abby was kind of hesitant at first, so I hung around for a few minutes until she eventually got caught up in the fun of it!! By the time I came to pick her up, she was having so much fun she didn't want to leave!

We haven't really had a chance to play outside and enjoy the snow this year. Between Abby being sick, there not being much good snow, and sub-zero temperatures on days when we COULD have gone outside.....

We finally had a beautiful clear day on Jan. 29th when we got on our gear and headed outdoors. Unfortunately, the snow was so hard and "crusty" from the constant snow, melt, freeze, snow, melt, freeze cycle this year, that we couldn't do much of anything. We tried having a snowball fight, but it would just crumble in your gloves before you could even make a ball!! Which, of course, also made it pretty tough to try and build a snowman. Even an attempt at snow angels was disappointing, because the snow was so hard that Abby couldn't make any kind of impression in it! She finally resorted to just eating the snow...




Luckily, we got some wonderful, wet, fluffy snow a few days later, and we were able to make a snowman, snow angels, and have that snowball fight!

It wasn't all fun and games in the month of February, however. Thank goodness for my patient and insightful husband who reminded me that the adversary usually works hardest on people when something wonderful is about to happen. I thought that last year was a pretty difficult year, but if this first couple of months is any indication of what 2010 will be like.... well, I'm not sure that I want to think about that! On January 24th, after having a special Stake Conference, we had a surprise visit from the two councilors of our Ward's Bishopric. I wasn't sure what they could have wanted, because Nate and I had only just been put in as the Nursery Leaders a couple months back. Turns out, they were there to give me a new calling as the 1st Counselor in the Primary Presidency!! I REALLY didn't see that one coming, and in truth, I was pretty anxious about it. I haven't had a calling that required that much time and effort for awhile now, and it just seemed to come at one of the busiest times we have ever had!!

I think that the adversary really wanted to try and capitalize on that fear, because the very next day, I discovered that everything in our freezer had thawed out. I was able to get a repairman out to the house the next day, but it wasn't good news. In the end, we decided it would be better to just buy a new fridge. Three days later, we had to take our truck in to the shop to have the brakes looked at, and $430 later, thought we were done with car problems only to be forced to turn around and spend another $400 a week later on fixing the transmission! (We stopped being able to go in reverse!)

One of the first things I got to do as a new Primary counselor was assign Abby to give her first talk on Feb. 7th. The theme for the month was "I know that Jesus is my Savior and Redeemer," so we had her share the scripture from John 3:16, and then talk about how when she is scared at night, she looks at her picture of Jesus and it helps her feel safe and loved. I was a little nervous about how she would do.... normally, Abby loves to be the center the attention, but lately, she has kind of gotten "freaked out" at unfamiliar circumstances. Plus, while practicing with her the night before, she kept improvising instead of just saying the things I was prompting her to say!! Thankfully, she was a real trooper when it came to the actual time to give the talk. She said everything just as we had planned, and she didn't get too crazy with her volume, etc.!! Although, she did enunciate a few of the words a little too much, and it made some of the kids giggle. Like, when she came to the part at the end when I had her say, "I know that Jesus loves me..." She ended up saying Jesus pretty emphatically, and I think everyone in the room had a little chuckle about that one! The saddest thing.... her Daddy was so sick, he didn't get to come listen! :(

In fact, Nate ended up being really sick with some bronchial troubles the whole first week of February, and, unfortunately, Abby caught it too. By my birthday on the 9th, she was so sick that the Dr. was contemplating hospitalizing her! Her oxygen saturation levels were down in the 74% range - normal would be low 90's or better. They gave her a couple of breathing treatments, and sent her home with oxygen. It is really difficult to come home and see your little angel hooked up to an oxygen tank! Happy Birthday to me! :( So, other than the hysterical Barbie doll cake that Brady and Sam brought me for that day, this year's birthday was a bit of a downer!

Abby seemed to improve in behavior and oxygen levels over the next couple of days, but by the 12th, we still hadn't been able to get her fever to break. The Dr. decided we'd better do x-rays to see what was going on, and sure enough, she had pneumonia! I wish we would have done the x-rays sooner, because less than 24 hours after starting the antibiotics, Abby's fever was gone and she was back to her normal hyperactive self!!

Believe it or not, Valentine's Day weekend ended up being a mixture of chaos and relaxation!! We had my youngest brother, Brady, and his wife, Sam, move in with us that Saturday, and then conned them into babysitting Abby overnight while we went and enjoyed massages, dinner, and an evening at the Candlewood Suites! It's been really great to have Sam and Brady with us. We invited them to come live with us in order to help ease the early morning stress of getting Abby to the sitter. (Nate leaves for work by 5:30 am at the latest - sometimes much earlier, and I leave by 5:15 am most mornings.) So, they help get her ready and take her to my sister Kami's house two days a week, and Brady watches her the other two days that we work. Hopefully, it is working out as well for them as for us.

A side effect of having Sam and Brady with us, has been some interesting conversations with Abby over the past couple of weeks! Sam is expecting their first baby, and Abby has been fairly curious about bodies and babies, etc. I'm going to make a separate post to list some of the funny things she has said or asked!! We are excited for Sam and Brady's baby (due in June), but she'll probably have more questions when the baby actually comes.

The weekend of February 19 - 21st brought a fun-filled trip to Utah for Abby, myself, and my Mom. We drove down Friday morning, dropped my mom off at some friends in Riverton, and then continued on down to see Rita, Aaron, Mary Alice, and Kirsten. Aaron was busy with work when we first got there, but he was able to meet up with us at McDonald's for ice cream. That night, the girls went to The Princess and the Frog (which I think Abby really liked), and then after putting the girls to bed, Rita, Aaron, and I stayed up (way too late) playing games and just laughing and talking.

The next morning, I had the wonderful privilege of attending the sealing of my cousin Heather and her husband Greg to their beautiful adopted daughter Ellie. She fussed through the entire ceremony, and it brought back so many great memories of our own sealing day with Abby! The sealing took place at the Mt. Timpanogas temple, which was so convenient because it's just a few short minutes drive from Aaron and Rita's place! After the ceremony, I picked Abby up and we attended a luncheon at the Spencer's house. It was so fun to see my cousin and get to hold her precious little girl! My cousin and I have always seemed to have so many things in common, that it is so neat to be able to share our adoption experiences with each other!

That evening, we went to dinner with the Law's at a fun little Mexican restaurant and spent the rest of the night relaxing and visiting. I'm so thankful to Aaron and Rita for their hospitality and generosity! We love getting to visit them, and hope that we will see them again very soon!

We rounded out the weekend by attending Sacrament with my cousin for the blessing of Ellie, as well as, Heather's brother John's new baby. As if the weekend wasn't eventful enough for the Spencer family, Greg was made the new Bishop of their ward!! It was a huge surprise to everyone! It was so great to see the love, respect, and pride that Heather has for her amazing husband, and equally as wonderful to see Greg's humility but excitement and commitment to his new calling! I'm sure he will be an amazing Bishop! And Heather will be an incredible "mother" to the ward!!

After the meeting, we headed for home, and even though, I had an awesome weekend, it was nice to get home and see my husband! I'll be really glad when his EMT course is finished, and he can actually participate in weekends like that with us again!

While we were gone, Sam and Brady got a new kitten that they named Puck. It has been both fun and a little stressful!! I only say it's been stressful, because Abby is having a REALLY hard time keeping her hands off the kitten, and unfortunately, she's not very gentle sometimes!! Hopefully, the newness and excitement is wearing off now, and we can stop nagging her to "PUT DOWN THAT KITTEN!"

I have been thinking about painting and decorating Abby's room for awhile now, and because things have been pretty crazy with Nate's work and school schedule, etc., we decided she deserved something fun and nice. So, on the 26th, we got everything prepared and went to Home Depot to pick out some paint. We finally settled on Cornhusk Green. It turned out pretty good.... not quite Sage, but not neon green, either! Kind of a bright, yellow-ish green, and it has really livened up her room! I painted her shelves to match the trim, made her a magnet board in brown and pink for one wall, and bought her a little pink bean bag. To finish the room off, I was able to purchase some pink and brown sheets of vinyl from a local craft store and I used my sister-in-law's crickett to cut out different sizes of brown and pink flowers for her wall. I also did her name in brown and pink, and I think it turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself!!

We also rewarded Abby for being so good lately, by taking her to Blastoff on Feb. 27th. Basically, it's an indoor playground with mini-golf, laser-tag, and play structures. It's relatively inexpensive to go, and we've decided we need to start utilizing it as a resource more often until the weather decides to warm up!

We finally got to attend one of Nate's hockey games to cheer him on!! Unfortunately, it was the last game of the season -- the CHAMPIONSHIP! His team played their hearts out, but just couldn't quite pull it off, and ended up taking second place in the league. Nate was awarded the Most Improved Player and he is already looking forward to next year's season!

On March 14, we had our traditional St. Paddy's Day celebration. I have really come to love this holiday. It doesn't really mean much to me because of ancestry or anything.... I just love the corned beef and cabbage!! Seriously.... have you ever tried it! AWESOME! We played Irish music and enjoyed a good meal with Sam, Brady, my Mom, Martin, Sherri, and Sherri's sister and her fiance. I was so happy to have them join us, and it was fun for Abby to get to play with her son, Carter!! I hope we can continue this tradition for a lot of years to come!!

Other than that, we have just been trying to muddle our way through life! We try to have fun with our Munchkin as often as possible. I think we have "guilt" issues because we work such weird and long hours for four days of the week! We have a tendency to spoil Abby on the days that we can be with her! Oh, well! Hopefully, she won't grow up to be a spoiled-rotten nightmare!

I applaud your efforts if you were able to read this entire post, and promise to not wait two months again before updating!!