Month 6 :-)

So hey there!  LONG time no blog!  But you know what?  I have been busy!  Busy having happy moments, busy making happy moments, busy being a mom...isn't that great?!  It is what I wanted the last time I blogged.  I was down and couldn't do the things most moms do for almost a year of my life, so I had the blog to keep me happy and remind me about the good stuff I DID do with my kids during the day.  Now I am out and about with friends and my children all of the time and am hardly on my computer and it is fabulous!  SO, I have decided to do a monthly blog all the way to the end of my first year in Dallas.  It doesn't feel right to just NOT blog anymore, but I will highlight some of the BEST parts of my month so that way I can remember, and if there are some truly phenomenal days I want to remember, well, I will do my best to blog on those days as well!

So here we are almost exactly 6 months to the day (tomorrow) since I moved to Texas!  The first little while was pretty intense, but the past month has been so wonderful!  I have joined a ladie's lunch group that meets once a week at various restaurants around town.  It is on Connor's day off of school and so he comes with me.  He enjoys it so much and love to "wunch with da wadies" as much as I do!

I also belong to a group that meets once a month for "Joy in the Journey" and I have truly made some friends for life there!  I am loving every minute of being in a ward that does many many activities outside of church!  The kids have primary parties, we have adult parties, the lunch group, my joy group, a park group, my preschool, and a recipe club....busy busy!!

Speaking of the recipe club, I had the pleasure of teaching people how to cook a 20+ pound turkey this past month!  I cooked a total of 3 turkeys in November because I was also asked to help cook Thanksgiving Dinner in Louisiana this year.  It was a HUGE success and we all made memories there this year that will last a lifetime!  Life is so much slower in the deep south and there are so many wonderful people that know how to cook really good food....living just 5 hours away is a huge blessing to us!

My mother in law also came out this past month and we enjoyed her visit so much!  We did our first inaugural trip to the Gaylord Texan and enjoyed walking through the carved ice sculputres, the thousands of Christmas lights, hot chocolate (courtesy of GramZ) and dressing up for the cold! (little did we know it would be practice for the future lol.  Yes my Mother in law brought many happy moments to our little family for the week she was here!  She brought so much joy and laughter and play time!  The boys wore her out with sword fights, back yard games, doing an early trip to Target for an PRE Christmas present (because grandparents are always aloud to buy as many toys for their grandkids as they wish!) and going with her favorite daughter in law to all of the fun lunch places around town!

This past week was a week at home and our first encounter with ice.  We had about 5 inches of ice in our backyard and we all settled down for 3 days in our home.  We were extra prepared and it was fun cooking breakfast, lunch, and dinner for my 3 boys every day.  We ventured out one day to try driving on the ice (for those of you who have ever driven in heavy rain it is pretty much like hydroplaning in slow motion).  We went to a field nearby and brought out our California boogie board and went sledding with it!  We had a fun COLD time!  Ginger has been beside herself with all of the available ice to chew!

Well, that is a culmination of a lot of happy moments for the month.  I feel so much better about doing it this way.  I have many little happy moments in my day (like playing hide and seek in our home for an hour with the boys tonight lol).  But I really want to touch on the big ones on here.  I am so grateful as ever for this blog and the opportunity to post joyful moments.  I hope each reader can look back and smile on the previous month and find their favorite moments as well.   LOTS of happy moments to come this next 30 days with many more memories to be made all!

Day 139-141

Well, when RA is kicking your butt each day, it is hard to get on and type lol.  My hands haven't been working so well lately and usually after the boys go to bed I am upstairs and DONE coming down for the evening.  So tonight I made an extra special effort to get back down and hang out and blog!  Because this blog is very precious to me.  It has helped me through so many difficult times!  I can't even believe I have had a broken bone and a surgery during this next 365 days blog lol that totally cracks me up, but hopefully it gives people hope that even in the darkest of times, there are happy moments to be had around every corner!

So Mon-Wed here I go!  I am so thankful for my little family.  We have had some fun and cold days this past week!  It has been so nice to snuggle up with my family and have Family Home Evening for the first time in our upstairs family room.  It was so wonderful to share a lesson and then head over to the bedrooms!  I am SO grateful that David hooked up the TV up there as well so I don't have too far to go on the nights I don't want to go downstairs to watch television!

Tuesday-my friend Lanay asked if I would come hang out with her while she did a laundry day, so I brought over some Starbucks hot chocolates and pumpkin scones and we had a great day of laundry and laughter!  I am beyond grateful for the friendships that I am making out here!  I have barely lived here 5 months but I feel like I have known some of the people out here for years.  It is so wonderful to have friendships with people who are so strong in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and who we can share gospel experiences together! We had pizza instead of Taco Tuesday because I went to an activity at church.  It was so much fun hanging out with the ladies from church and getting to know other people better!  We have so many wonderful and funny gals in our ward!

Wed- I had the opportunity to watch my friend's daughter for most of the day while she attended classes.  We had so much fun together!  I bought her a pretty hair band with a blue flower (because I don't GET to buy pretty hair bands with flowers like....ever! lol)  We had a nice lunch together and played with toys and then went and picked up Connor and then Joel and her brother.  It was fun having kids over and having everyone play!  I made pot roast for dinner (I cannot not even explain how much I love cooking in my kitchen!) and we had buttermilk biscuits to go with it.  Tonight we headed out to Target to get some gloves and mittens for the kids.  It is supposed to be in the high 30s/low 40s in the morning and I want those kids nice and toasty warm!  Especially as Joel walks to school!

Well, there is my 3 days of thankfulness!  I am so thankful for friendships made here in Texas.  I am so grateful for my family and the love we have.  I am really thankful that I will be headed to bed early this evening because I am so tired!  I hope all of you are enjoying this month and what ever weather you are getting where you live!

Day 138

WOW....I am thankful that I have not given up on this blog (even during my most tired days it is always on the back of my mind to remember happy moments to blog when I am able).  It is amazing to me that I am nearing the 5 month mark for living here in Texas!

Today was a great day at church!  My first day as nursery leader was pretty much a success and I had a good deal of help because they called a new person to help me and my friend Mari came in for the last while as well.  Other than one kid eating play-doh and having a complete melt down when I took it away from him, no really big cries or upset kiddos today!

I had a lot of fun participating in singing time with them as well as providing fun snacks and doing the lesson.  I am really looking forward to next week!

We came home and headed up to our movie room to watch a Sunday show.  Before long, my eyes were closing and my Sunday nap happened lol.  When I woke up, we had some chicken noodle soup and corn bread for dinner and then Skyped for the next 2 hours with David's parents and my parents!  It was a really fun time watching the kids be so excited talking with their grandparents.  AND we were able to book a flight to have my mother-in-law come out for a visit at the end of the month!  SO looking forward to all of the GramZ/Mother-in-law fun we will have!

I was able to have the energy to make the kid's lunches for the week...I think some of my energy is starting to come back after Joel's surgery!  It only took me two weeks to recover lol but I am thankful I had the energy to to what I did today!  Now off to bed to begin another week of fun with my precious kiddos.

Post 132-137

So, as you can see it has been a while since the blogging lol.  I think it is because school is in session, my RA is flaring like crazy, and all I want to do at the end of the day is go to sleep!  For those of you with chronic illness, you understand the thought process of just 15 minutes MORE of sleep instead of blogging.  BUT I do want to blog and be thankful!  Especially since November is upon us and lots of people are doing thankful blogs.  So even if I sign on here to write one thing each day that I am thankful for this month...I am going to make an effort to blog each day!

I can't believe we have been here for over 4 months now!  It seems like just yesterday we were moving in without any of our belongings to a state that we didn't know if we had a house or not lol.  Now our home is 90% unpacked, things are looking great, we have a movie theater room, a play room, and a beautiful bedroom.  My family loves playing in the backyard.  Ginger loves running in the grass chasing her ball and Joel loves playing basketball with me on our little court.  We are so blessed!

This week was filled with more sleep.  Like I said, I am flaring pretty badly right now but I am taking Humira (this week was a shot week and I did it all by myself again!) and methotrexate and hopefully my body will respond to the combo of taking those two things soon.  For now I do what I CAN when I CAN and leave the rest alone.

This week was also Joel's school book fair and it was fun to get to work at his school, eat lunch with him, bring him in from class to buy books, and buy his teacher books.  There is something so magical about reading and it is such a happy moment to me to see how much Joel and Connor both love the books we bought to this week!

All of my kiddos got to dress up this week.  Ginger got to go to Doggie Day Care as a Bumblebee and she had a blast and looked SO cute!  Connor dressed up for his school parade and Joel got to do a PJ day at school.  Halloween in Texas was great!  We ordered a pizza and ate and then got the boys dressed and headed out.  We did all of our street and another street.  It was so much fun to meet new neighbors and talk to people on our street!  There are so many wonderful people that live here!  The boys had a great time collecting candy and looking at all of the decorations.  They were so cute in their Knight and Jengo Fett costumes!  They went to bed happy and worn out!

Friday was David's day off of work so he got to take Joel and his "Stinky Cheese Man" pumpkin project to school and do breakfast with dad!  I worked at Joel's book fair one last time and then David and I did lunch at our new favorite Sushi restaurant!  It is SO good!  We left with our tummies smiling!  He needed new shoes so we went to the local outlet mall and found some good ones.  It was such a nice day hanging out with him just the two of us all afternoon!  At night we ate dinner and then headed upstairs to the movie room to watch Harry Potter.  It was SO nice snuggling on our couch and watching a movie!  We really felt like we were at the theaters!  I can see us enjoying that room for years to come and I feel so blessed to live here!

Today is Saturday and is is SO cold!  Joel had an early soccer game and we froze as we watched him play.  It was sure nice to have a piping hot cup of Postum to drink while I watched him play!  My Postum came in the mail earlier this week and I have really enjoyed trying out different ways to drink it!  Tonight for dessert I had postum with eggnog as the dairy creamer...it was DELISH!  We all snuggled on the downstairs couch and watched Beetlegeuse...I think that is how you spell it lol.  It was loads of fun and now bath then bed!  I am flying solo in the nursery tomorrow at church so really hoping it all goes well and that the kiddos enjoy their time with me!

Well, I am thankful I was able to write this blog today.  And like I said, I am going to try to do every day in November for a thankful blog as well as happy moment journal.  Hope all of you are enjoying happy moments where ever you may be!

Day 131

Good evening!

Today was a bit of a lazy day for me.  David and Joel went to Stake Conference while I stayed home with Connor.  Taking a 4 year old to a 2 hour church meeting is not something I have enough energy for...now, or when I am not flaring...pretty much ever lol.

David and Joel had a good time and finally got to meet our Stake President.  I snuggled on the couch with Connor and we watched TV together.

When all the boys were home, I made pumpkin muffins and eggs for a brunch.  We had a nice time sitting at the table talking about the speakers at Stake Conference and different things we are up to.  It is always nice to sit at our table and eat together!

Joel and Connor played really well together this afternoon and this evening and had so much fun running around.  Joel would run away from Connor and Connor would run after Joel and try to kiss him.  They ran all over the house playing hide and seek and would scream with delight when they found one another.  It made my heart so happy to hear them getting on so well!  They are super excited for this week to come...pumpkin carving and Halloween!  Should be fun!

We got to Skype with my parents tonight.  The boys had a fun time talking and then it was off to bed for them.  I did my weekly routine of printing off coupons for grocery shopping.  I have been getting a bit lazy about making the boy's lunches for the whole week in advance....still a bit tired in the evening, but if I go to bed early tonight and wake up early, I should be fine and have enough time to prepare their lunches.  Well, that is all I know for now!  It was a good day today...no naps, but lots of family time.  I am so thankful for my little family and the fun talks we had around our dinner table tonight as well.  Happy Sunday!

Tuesday thru Saturday...better late than never!

So sad I haven't been on here to blog!  The past couple of weeks have been insane, and having your kid have surgery and recover is a lot more work than just me lying around recovering lol.  I have been SO beyond tired as well, but taking it one day at a time to have happy moments...so here is a mish mosh of all of the happy moments of the week, and I promise to try to be better, and  more grateful, AND more awake, next week!

• Having some alone time this week meant that I could catch up on some sleep.  I don't know if it is because I am really flaring badly lately, but sleep is one of my top favorite happy moments of this week!  I tried not to sleep when the kids were home, but sometimes it couldn't be helped!  So I am grateful for catching MANY Zs this week and hopefully will be more productive in the coming week!
• Connor and I did Taco Tuesday while David and Joel had a father/son night.  It was a lot of fun with Connor and we even stopped for hot chocolates at Starbucks for dessert.  I am grateful for the fun times I had with Connor this week.  He recited really cute pumpkin poems, the Pledge of Allegiance, and just said some of the funniest things YET!  I am lucky to get to hang around him and be his mom and listen to all of the funny things he says!
• Joel and I had several really nice walks to school this week because David was home getting ready for work so Connor snuggled and watched TV while Joel and I walked together.  Sometimes Joel is the most talkative in the morning on our walks and it was nice to catch up with him, hear what some of his most recent favorite things are, what he hopes to do at school that day, and other funny things.  He seemed to be feeling much better by the end of the week and I am so grateful that he is on the mend and getting stronger every day!
• This week was a weekend of birthdays!  David's birthday was on Friday and my Dad's was on Saturday.  After both boys got home from school on Friday, we went to our neighbor's home to play and had a great time running around for an hour.  After that, our babysitter came over and David and I went out to celebrate his 33rd year.  It was so nice!  We went to an AMAZING sushi restaurant and had some truly gourmet food!  After our bellies were full and happy, we headed to an imax 3D screening of Gravity.  WOW that movie was good!  It was a really nice birthday day and the boys can't wait to eat some pumpkin pie birthday pie at the end of the weekend!
• Saturday was a day for sleeping in and getting things done around the house.  The boys are both getting so much better at helping us clean up and pick up toys!  I am so thankful both of them are getting good at putting things away and helping out more.  After our house work, we went to Connor's school Fall Fair and it was great fun!  The boys had the best time petting a tiny pink pig in the petting zoo.  They are currently obsessed with the show Peppa Pig and so it was such a treat to get to pet a real pig!  After the fun fair, Joel had his soccer game so we rushed over to that.  Joel did such a great job playing this evening.  The siren went off to let us know that lightening was getting too close so the game ended early....all around happy moments at the game tonight lol.
• We came home and enjoyed a thunder and lightening show for the better part of 3 hours tonight!  I was so nice to snuggle down and watch the house light up and listen to the thunder while we all huddled together.  The boys were so sweet, they even went to sleep together tonight to keep each other safe.  So precious!

Well, and that gets us to Saturday night!  I feel so badly that I didn't get to blog each day this week, but I have just been so tired.  I am so grateful for the opportunity I had this evening to look back at my week and smile at all that has transpired.  It was a really great week and I had lots of fun with my boys!  I am looking forward to more Fall weather and pumpkin dishes for breakfast and dinner tomorrow!  Until then, thanks for sticking around to read this!  Night all!

Days 124 &125

Happy Monday!  Sundays and Mondays tend to blur into one big day for me sometimes.

• Sunday was the boy's primary program at church and they both did a great job singing!  I was also the start of my new calling as nursery leader and although I feel overwhelmed a bit right now, I am so excited to be working with itty bitty kiddos once more!  They are all so cute and I hope I can give them joy and fun while they are away from their parents for two hours
• I got to take a nap yesterday...one of my all time favorite Sunday happy moments
• We skyped with my parents and texted with David's parents.  The boys had a fun time dancing around and even mooned their grandparents at one point LOL such BOYS!  My parents were laughing their heads off!
• It has been pretty cold lately so I ended my evening with a piping hot cup of chamomile almond tea...that cures any cold feet and makes me smile!

Monday- 

I couldn't find my workout shoes to go to the gym this morning, and I had gotten dressed and was all set to go!  So, today at Target I bought a NEW pair (I was in need of a new pair anyways) and I look forward to going on Wednesday to try out the new pair!

• I went grocery shopping at Target...nuff said
• Connor and Joel were so happy to see one another after school today and they spent a lot of time playing and laughing this evening.  They have gotten really interested at building things with their legos and they are just so cute as they have little airplane battles and pirate wars...all boys!
• We went on a walk to our local water area tonight for Family Home Evening.  We talked about who made the earth and all living things in it.  Joel asked some REALLY great gospel centered questions tonight as well!  We brought Ginger with us and she ran all over in the water and mud!  She was SO happy to be playing and running and finding the joy!  So I did get a workout in after all this evening and now my boys are out cold after nice warm baths and showers!
• There are more TV shows recording on my DVR right now and I can't wait to watch some of them tomorrow!

I am so grateful for being able to find the joy and have such a loving family.  We are so blessed every day and I can't believe it has been a whole week since we brought Joel home from the hospital!  What a crazy week it was last week, but this week is looking a lot more joyful.  I am so thankful for my two little boys and the love that they have for each other.  Time to head to sleep and wake up to a new day tomorrow!  

Day 123

Today was another fun day for our family!  We drove out and spent another day at the pumpkin patch in Celina.   Joel really wanted to go and it was so much fun for the whole family!  The pumpkins were even pretty inexpensive and it was fun to have the kids run around, play in the hay maze, ride the tractor, eat hot dogs, and take more fun pictures!  David really enjoyed it as well and I am so glad we all got to have a fun adventure!

This afternoon was time for us to pick up the house a bit.  It was a true happy moment for me to see box after box of stuff be removed from the play room and into the trash!  That room is looking so much better now!

This evening we went and got sandwiches and met up with other ward members at a park for a party.  We have had more ward activities in the past 4 months in our new ward than we did the entire 5 years we lived in our last area!  The people are so wonderful here and the kids played non-stop with their primary friends.  It was great to talk with other people and get to know more things.  David even got his calling at the party this evening!  He is looking forward to making it official tomorrow and I am looking forward to starting my calling tomorrow as well!  Well, that is all for tonight.  I am just SO grateful that it has been one week since Joel went to the hospital.  Tonight we will get to bed by about 10 and not be up until 3 in the morning...how nice it will be to see my two sons in their own beds, happy, healthy, and sleeping.  I feel very blessed that this week went by quickly and that Joel is healing and that we were helped so much by so many this week!  Have a great rest of your Saturday all!

Days 120 121 122

LONG days these past three days have been.  I had a migraine for most of the days, but there were happy moments each day and I don't want to fail and not blog them...having this blog reminds me that there is joy to be found in each day, each week, no matter how difficult the days or weeks may be!

Wednesday was Joel's first day back to school!  I am so proud of him and being able to go.  Connor had a great time at preschool and I got to sit quietly in the dark for most of the day trying to get rid of my raging migraine.  BUT, it was quiet and a nice cold day out, so it was made for snuggling on the couch!

Thursday-Connor went to preschool at his co op for a make up day and all of the kids had so much fun!  I got to meet with my friend Lori for lunch and we had the most delicious hamburgers at a cafe and had a fun time talking.  She brought her one year old daughter and she is SO cute!  It was so nice to get to hang out with a friend and I feel blessed to be making many many friends here!
Connor went to play at a friend's house after preschool and I walked down to pick Joel up.  We found two really cute doggies roaming the streets so we put them in the back yard to keep safe and called the owners on the tags.  While we were doing that, Connor came home and my poor friend couldn't find me! It made for a funny moment.  Her kids came in the house and came and played some more!  The boys absolutely love having friends over!  It made for such a fun afternoon to have friends playing here and I was just so happy to see my kiddos so happy!

Friday-today I dropped Joel off at school and Connor and I went on a fieldtrip with his class to a Pumpkin patch in Celina Texas.  What an amazing place!!  It is so far out in the country and the drive there was so beautiful!  There were so many fun things to see and do there and I had happy moment after happy moment listening to Connor giggle and run all over with delight!  We fed goats, pet Longhorn cows, took a tractor drive, went through a hay maze, and took lots of pictures all over!  They had those really big things of rolled hay and when we first moved here, Connor starting calling them "cow sushi."  Well the name stuck and he was SO excited to get to touch them today!  We have only ever seen them from afar before.
David worked late tonight so the boys and I did Chick-fil-A for dinner.  They love that place and it was fun to get to sit and talk with the boys about their favorite parts of the day.  Joel said he had so much fun at recess playing with different friends.  That makes me happy that he is meeting new people and hanging out!  The boys and I had THE best time tonight running all over our big house in the dark playing hide and go seek.  They would scream if I found them and scream when they found me!  It was a lot of laughter and I am so thankful for the fun playtime with my boys.  Oh, and before that we took a walk around our local lake and there were swarms of mosquitoes and nats and we had fun screaming and yelling from them (I think you had to be there to see that one lol).  So Connor went to bed and Joel snuggled downstairs with me for a bit.

It has been a fun few days and I am so thankful my headache is going away finally!  Here is to it being Friday and to a fun (hopefully productive) weekend of play time and cleaning time!  Have a good night all!

Day 119

Hello hello!  Time for some bullet blogging then bed today!

• I for sure got some serious quality time with all of my boys today.  I got to snuggle with Connor, help Joel out, and take care of David...because they were ALL home with me all day long!
• I did get a nap in today...it was much needed and Joel and Connor spent some time watching TV together and hanging out.  They were nice to one another all day and I am thankful they had some loving brother time
• My friend Alixa brought us dinner this evening.  It was delicious and much needed!  I am so thankful we are having dinners brought in this week...it has been a crazy one!  We feel loved.
• Tonight I let Ginger to go out and potty before bed.  Our male cat is always trying to sneak out of the house.  It is COLD and RAINING tonight and this cat hates water with a special kind of passion.  So as he stepped out tonight to try and escape, he walked on water and it was raining on him.  David and I laughed So hard as we watched him walking and shaking his paws.  Then he jumped up on a window sill to try and escape the water a bit...it was a bit breezy so that didn't work too well either!  He kept shaking his head and his paws and finally gave up and went into the house voluntarily!  That is rare that I don't have to pick him up and bring him back in.  We had a good laugh and smile about his little adventure tonight!
• Well, we are done for the evening and David and I got to watch a couple of TV shows together after we put the boys to bed.  Both of them went down with no problems or trying to stay up a few more minutes tonight so that was a happy moment as well!

Connor goes to school tomorrow, Joel says he is ready to go back to school, and David is feeling better and is going to work tomorrow...happy moment that I get to go to MOPS and be alone after that!  Enjoy your night!

Day 118

Good evening!  Well, today was another LONG day but my little guy is HOME and that is the biggest happy moment of our day!

Today the kids had the day off and I had a fun day planned of going to the mall and looking at a big Disney store and having lunch with my kiddos....well, Connor went on a couple of playdates so I could spend the day at the hospital with Joel and eventually bring him home.

It was a nice day with Joel.  We watched TV together, had lunch together, played some video games together, and I made him laugh.  I am so happy he is doing better!  The doctor came in today and said his white blood cell count is back to normal.  A HUGE happy moment for this momma!

I just feel so blessed as people watched Connor and brought us dinner and came over this evening to visit Joel.  I really felt the love in our new area and I am so grateful that even though our family could not be with us, our Ward Family was here for us and our neighbors are here for us.  We are beyond blessed and I am so happy tonight!

It was a fun happy moment to come home and see Connor and Ginger and see how happy they were to have us home as well...that was pretty great to hear, "Hey MOMMYYY!!!"  Well, the end of our very long weekend is here.  It is supposed to rain tomorrow and Connor has his co op preschool and Joel will be home with me on a rainy morning!  Hot chocolate and lots of snuggling down on the couch in front of the TV await us in the morning!  Have a great night!

Days 115, 116, 117...bit of a blur really

So, I had every intention of coming home yesterday and sharing my happy moments at the Time Out For Women conference in Arlington Texas that I attended.  I attended Friday night and the song was "Be Still My Soul" played by the most talented violinist I have ever heard.  Brad Wilcox could not be there because he was attending his mother's funeral, so they sent John Bytheway to speak to us.  It was all about tribulation and trials and how to have a good attitude knowing our day of rest from trials will come...in this life or the next.  Then something happened....

I got tired, my feet hurt, the chair was uncomfortable, so I went back to my comfy hotel to rest up for the next day's conference...so I missed one speaker that night.  On a fun note, on my way to my room, I was in the elevator with lots of players from TCU and they won their football game on Saturday...really nice guys and all taller than me!  That is what I called a "tall girl happy moment"!

So then Saturday rolls around, and for some reason, I felt very strongly that I needed to NOT go to the conference, but stay in bed, order room service, and rest...sounds weird but I will get there (God gives you tiny pieces of the puzzle and you look back and see the whole picture after the trial I have learned)  Also, as John Bytheway put it, we are like a big cross stitch...God is cross stitching our lives and all we can see is the messed up bottom of the cross stitch, but God can see the masterpiece work of art he is creating from above!  So after I had a lazy morning and felt REALLY rested, I met my family for lunch and then we went to Joel's soccer game.  Joel only played for 15 minutes but he played so well...he told us he didn't feel very well at lunch and then at the game he said he felt worse.  So we came home and he went upstairs to rest.  Last night was rough getting the kids to bed and Joel was moaning that he had a really bad tummy ache.  Something inside me remembered a book I had read a few years back called Heaven is For Real.  About a boy who had appendicitis, but his parents thought it was the flu or food poisoning and brushed it off until his appendix burst and he had emergency surgery, died, and came back to life.  So I told David last night, "If he throws up, I am taking him to the ER because I think he might have appendicitis."  My very logical husband was sure it was just food poisoning or something, but just minutes later, we heard Joel running around and found that he HAD thrown up.  So off we went to an urgent care/ER because we haven't been to a REAL ER here yet and I didn't want to wait for hours and hours if it really just WAS food poisoning.  So Joel got tested with a CT scan, blood work, and doctor visit.....and he was transferred to a hospital, and given an IV with antibiotics, and given a scheduled OR visit for the next morning.  And from about midnight to 3 AM, we sat with him, David left, and I slept in Joel's bed with him to keep him company.  So there it is...for me there is the reason WHY some unexplained voice inside me said, "Don't go to this conference, rest up, get some more sleep and relax."  If I had gone to the conference, it would have been good, but I would have been tired from sitting all day and walking to and from the conference center...remember my RA is NOT in remission and is in full swing right now so stressful moments or long days really wear me out.

Sunday-we woke up and Joel was still in a lot of pain.  We headed down to the surgery place, met with the doctor and OR nurse and anesthesiologist...that's right...I spelled it right the first time w no spell check!  I had told Joel all that would happen...after all...in my previous 365 day blog how many times did I write about my little ritual about what I did, what happens right before they put the mask on, the white goo they inject to make you feel happy before surgery...I knew it all and I tried the best I could to prepare my son for it.  It was a ROUGH morning my readers.  There were many tears shed as I waited in line to purchase my hot chocolate and pumpkin scone at Starbuck's in the local Kroger while Joel was in surgery.  There were many heartfelt talks with David.  We even joked that, "yea, I was right, Joel did have appendicitis." Worst time to be RIGHT ever!  But that my mommy senses worked and that was a good thing because Joel got his appendix out and is hopefully on the mend this evening.  Once again, we found ourselves in a hospital.  But we knew what to do, the nurses told us we were some of the best patients and patient's parents they had ever had (we didn't tell them this was not our first rodeo, but David and I just looked at one another and smiled).  We knew that being kind to the nurses and doctors, being calm and patient, it would all pay off.  Someone said on Facebook how strong and positive I am...read the previous blogs...I wasn't always...I was MADE to be that way...surgery...after surgery...after surgery...what I wouldn't have given to have it been ME on that operating table today.  But I couldn't be, so I did what I could to help my little boy not be scared.

So praying that Joel can come home tomorrow and that he can heal up.  Once again I find myself truly grateful for this blog.  I am able to sit down at the end of a very LONG weekend and find the joy and see the happy moments through my sleepy haze.  Hopefully my trial will help someone else.  That is always my hope that when people experience emotional difficulties, that others can learn from them, not just the person, but others around them.  I feel so amazingly blessed this evening to live where we live and have the friends that we do.  Facebook was lit up with prayers and positive thoughts tonight.  I shared each one with Joel and it was so nice to see his little face smile a bit and find the joy in the love that people shared for him.  I count my blessings tonight and I have many.  Good night all!

Day 114

Good evening!  Another day, another opportunity to share some happy moments!  I am so thankful I am able to do this blog again.  It is so fun to get to sit down at the end of the day (or at the end of two days at times) and reflect on what were some of the highlights of those days.

This morning I walked Joel to school and lots of kids were saying hi to him as we walked by...it made my heart so happy to know that he is making friends and getting to know more kiddos!

Connor and I headed to a mall today and together we ate lunch, rode the carousel, walked around a lot of fun stores, and bought ourselves the Star Wars Lego version of the advent calendar.  I am sure I will get a much more spiritual one as well, but this one looks like fun also!  I had SO much fun playing with Connor and walking through the stores with him.  We went to the play area at this mall and he got to run around and I ran after him, gave him tickles, and helped him climb.  It was SO nice to just have a fun afternoon with my little guy.  This is the last year that he won't be in school everyday and I really enjoyed our hours together!

When Joel came home from school, his friend, brother, and sister came over to play.  The sister is in Connor's preschool co op and they had so much fun playing!  All the kids headed out back to play with the swords and shields for a while.  Then they headed in the house to play in the playroom area.  Finally they settled down and got to watch a movie in our movie theater room.  It was a ton of fun and the boys can't wait to have them all over again!  I am so grateful the kids are making really good friends!  I just adore that family and their kiddos and it was such a fun time for everyone!

Tonight we had pancakes for dinner.  I have been flaring for the past few days and am so tired.  Instead of going out to eat, we stuck to our budget and ate breakfast for dinner!  It was delicious and such an easy clean up!  After that, I took Joel to his soccer practice where I got to talk to other parents and enjoy watching Joel get really good at playing!  I am so proud of him and his team and how hard they work together to get the ball in the goal!

Well, just finished watching The Big Bang Theory with David and we are off to bed.  Grateful to be getting to sleep at a decent hour tonight!  I hope everyone enjoys their Thursday evening!  SO SO SO looking forward to this weekend and a fun filled Friday and Saturday!

Day 113

What a fun filled day!!!
I began the morning by taking the kiddos to school and getting hugs and kisses from each...love my morning hugs!

After doing some yard work, I got dressed and headed to the mall to walk around.  I used to do that a lot in California but haven't done that too much here.  It was SO quiet going alone without my kiddos! It was nice to eat lunch alone and have it be quiet for a bit though AND I was able to get in and out of a few shops and get some Christmas presents for one of the kids so it was quite the productive trip!  I got to go into William Sonoma...one of my all time happy moment stores AND I bought some stuff from there today as well...so going to mall was good times!

I came home and played with Ginger for a bit and texted my friend Lanay.  After I picked the boys up from school, we grabbed a bunch of our swords and shields and headed to a local lake to meet up with Lanay and her sons.  The boys had SO much fun playing around the water, Ginger got to go swimming for a bit, and we had SO much fun walking around looking for crawdads but only found eaten ones this time.  It was a great afternoon!  We came home and I gave Ginger a bath and then she passed out for the next few hours!

We had a nice dinner all together tonight and then I was off to a Zumba class that my friend teaches. On the way there, I was able to talk with my friend Sheila from grad-school.  We haven't talked in a while and it was SO nice to catch up with her!  She is one of the kindest people I have ever met and is SO SO sweet...talking with her on the phone was a great happy moment.  Speaking of joy, I wish I could post a video of my friend while she is teaching the Zumba class.  You know how our family mantra is "Find the Joy."  This girl is SO joyful teaching this class!  And I kept up with her for 50 out of the 58 minutes tonight as well so REALLY happy about that!  We had a nice chat after the class as well.  I am so grateful for wonderful friends!

I came home from the workout and Joel was waiting for me.  We snuggled on the couch and watched "The Middle." That show always makes him laugh.  It is nice spending one on one time with my kiddos.  Connor doesn't have school tomorrow so we will be on an adventure of some kind I think!  Wishing everyone a really happy, joyful, night!  I am so thankful for days like today that are filled with fun, friends, and family.  Even being able to post a bit back and forth on Facebook with some of my dear friends back in California was a joy tonight.  I feel so blessed and happy this evening...could it be we are over the moving hump?  I really hope so!  Blessings all!

Day 111 and 112

Well, blogging every day has become a difficult challenge lol.  Back when I had just a tiny little guy and a kindergartner, it was a lot easier to get them to bed and then blog.  But now with school, still trying to move into our house, and having just one computer, it is hard to get on here and type late at night!  All I want to do lately at the end of the day is go to bed.  We have all had really bad allergies so it has been rough for all of us!  But, I am here and ready to blog the past two days so...

• Monday-was a nice day, David worked late again so it was just me and the boys.  Our good friends from California were in town so they came over to see our home and visit.  Their granddaughter drove them over and brought her puppy.  Ginger was SO excited to have a friend to play with in the backyard!  They wore each other out and we are hoping to get them together again soon!
• I took Connor to school and stayed with him to do chapel time.  It was so cute to see all of the kiddos singing songs and praising God.  I had fun being there and I am glad I got to snuggle with Connor during school!

• Tuesday-it was a busy but productive day!  I was able to finish raking one side of the front yard and I spread mulch around one of our trees!  It feel so good to be getting back to gardening and having a yard to do something to!  I can't wait to plant rose bushes after winter time!  I am also looking forward to planting grass out in the front as well.  I laid down the fertilizer on one side and plan on doing the other side on Wednesday.  There is something so rewarding about seeing things grow and knowing I was a part of it!
• After gardening, I came back in and had an English muffin with some of my molasses cane sugar on it...SO yummy!
• I had a nice time chatting with two different friends before and after Connor's co op preschool.  There are some truly amazing people where we live and I am so lucky to get to call them friend!  I feel really blessed and that we are for sure where we need to be living at this time.
• In the evening, I made my family a meal and also made some more for my first evening at a recipe club with ladies from church!  We had such a great time and I was so excited to get to talk to people from my ward and other people from my preschool co op.  The food was amazing and I left with some new great recipes to try on my family as well as getting to know some fabulous people a little better!  Even bigger happy moment is they want me to teach a lesson on how to cook a turkey next month!  I am so excited to get to share my mad turkey cooking skills with others.  I started cooking turkeys for fun when I was 22 and I LOVE it!  It was a great night and I came home happy and recharged from hanging out with gals...oh that is so nice!  

I feel really grateful for where we live.  There are so many amazing people here and I have barely lived here 4 months but I feel like I have made some friends for life!  I can't wait for this week and the playdate I arranged for Joel, he is going to be so happy!  Time to check in on my sleeping kiddos and see their sweet little faces...one of my favorite happy moments of the day is kissing my little boys on their cheeks while they are dreaming.  Hope you all have a good night!

109 and 110

I could blame my incessant need to play Candy Crush on not being able to blog last night...but that would just be wrong....but really...I was super tired, I played Candy Crush with every intention of blogging and then BOOM! It is almost midnight!  That game is a time sucker!  It is super fun and I enjoy watching other people make it to various levels.  There is even a part where it asks me to give people more lives.  I have an Aunt Lisa who passed away this past summer.  She was a big fan of Candy Crush and it is always asking me to give her extra lives still....makes me smile every time and I totally DO give her more lives!  Maybe she found a way to play in Heaven!

This weekend was General Conference for our church and it was just lovely!  Other than the fact that we have two loud kiddos and actually only got ONE whole session in and have bits and pieces of the other sessions to watch this next week, it was a good weekend!

The boys had soccer games and one was a happy moment and the other I would just like to forget ever happened lol.  Joel played so well and was so focused!  He scored a goal by kicking the ball down the middle of the field and it went ALL the way into the goal!  We were all so proud and he did a great "goal dance." It was really cute and quite the happy moment for us all!

We came home and had a family meal and watched some more conference.  AND we all got to take a nap so that was great as well!
After dinner, Joel helped me prepare our special General Conference Cinnamon Rolls and he was such a great help as these rolls take lots of time and everything kind of has to happen all at once!  So I am thankful I had his help putting in the eggs, measuring out things, helping me stir....it was great!  All the while we were posting on Facebook what we were doing.  I actually had an extra pan of rolls so I posted if someone wanted them to let me know.  My friend Mari spoke up and won the pan!

While the dough to the rolls were rising, David watched the Priesthood Session of General Conference downstairs (the first time they are broadcasting it over the television and I am SO thankful that they are doing that now!) the boys and I headed upstairs to our movie room and watched a Harry Potter movie on our big screen!  It was SO much fun eating popcorn, candy, and feeling like we were in a movie theater room!  I can see us enjoying movies in there for years to come!

Sunday- we slept in and had a marvelous sleep this morning because conference doesn't start until 11 AM here in Texas!  So we got up, I threw the rolls in the oven and began to make the icing.  When they came out, I smothered gooey icing all over my friend Mari's rolls and headed out the door!  They were delivered nice and hot to her and when I came home, David was making the eggs and our rolls were covered in icing.  It was a GREAT morning of cinnamon rolls, eggs, milk, and The Spoken Word!  The Sunday morning session was the one we actually got to watch all the way through and it was so nice!  There were many great talks given and some were really inspiring!
After the morning session, we all headed upstairs to take a nap (again, didn't get to bed until after midnight last night and the boys went to bed pretty late as well!).

The nap was good and when we woke up, we watched part of the Saturday afternoon session and got ready for dinner.  So we still have parts of a lot of other sessions to watch, but I am thankful for what we did get to watch...it is just hard with two crazy boys running around but we did our best!

We had a potato bar for dinner and it was great!  I love that we have sat down together almost every night this past week at our dinner table and enjoyed talking and laughing.  That has been so much fun and I can't wait to do it again this week!  I hope everyone else had a great weekend and I am excited for the coming week and coming happy moments!  Our good friends from California have come out for a visit to their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren, and they are coming to our home tomorrow for a visit...really looking forward to seeing them all!

Wed-Fri 106-108

Argh!  So having BOTH kids in school and getting them ready for bed each night is proving to be a difficult thing.  Not in itself, but trying to get back down the stairs to blog each night is hard because I am SO tired after putting them to bed, I just want to go to sleep as well lol.  We used to have the computer upstairs, and I used to not be continuously flaring with my RA...so that is my excuse and I am sticking to it.  BUT I will not give up on this blog nor the happy moments that are going to roll along in here as well!  So a blogging I will go!

Wed-It was a pretty quiet day.  A lot happened that isn't too HAPPY I would say, but we made it through the day in one piece!  One beautifully happy thing was that in the morning time, as I was doing laundry, my friend Lanay came over and brought me a slice of cake for my "post shot" dessert.  I find myself beyond blessed having people like her in my life and I am so thankful for that yummy cake as well!  It brought so much joy as I shared it with my son who also had a REALLY rough day.  So it was the highlight of our day!  We also got some gardening done and started to dig into the front yard to prepare it for planting grass and mulching.  It was a lot of fun to do that all together.  All of us have some pretty bad allergies, so we all went to bed really early Wed night dreaming of days when our noses were not so runny lol.

Thursday- was just yesterday so

• both kids were at school because Connor was doing a make-up preschool.  So I made it to the couch after the kids went to school and I slept for 2 hours.  I felt a lot better after that!  The allergies have hit this family pretty hard so I am thankful for meds and sleep!
• I got to see my friend Lanay again because she was teaching the kiddos at her home for our preschool co -op.  It was so nice to say hello and thank her for the cake again!   Connor was so happy at preschool and had such a great time at school!
• Joel had a good day at school...happy moment!
• I made a delicious dinner of stuffed pasta shells last night!  The kids and David loved it and I even got a "oh thank you for making this delicious dinner mom!" from Connor...it was really great!

Friday-

Today was a cooler day and more fun and productive than the last two!  I was able to do some laundry, pick up the house, and get READY to clean the house tomorrow!

-I got to talk to my mom for almost an hour today on the phone and while I was talking with her, I headed over to get a pedicure...SO nice!  I have mosquito bites up and down my legs and they did a sugar scrub on my legs....it was a little slice of HEAVEN people!  On my way out, I saw another friend who's kiddo is in Connor's preschool and we had such a nice time talking and getting to know one another more!  She is truly one of the sweetest people I have ever met and it was great to meet her mom who actually doesn't live too far from where we used to live in California!

-I went to the grocery store and got some lunch from the salad bar and came home and saw that my neighbor was picking up large tree branches and shoving them into her trash can.  Well, I just happened to have my work gloves really handy because of the yard work we did on Wednesday, so I threw them on and went out to help her.  She is in her 70s and is so nice.  So we got to have a really nice conversation and she asked me to pray for her friend Joan and her grandson because he was in a really bad motorcycle accident...so sending out a prayer request on my blog.  He had to have another 5 hour surgery today....would be a happy moment to know many people are praying for his recovery.  So I came in and ate lunch happy to help my neighbor out and of course thinking of my grandmother.  Probably for the rest of my life any time I see an older woman, I will think of my Grandma Jo.  How I hope she is watching over me and hangs out with me from time to time when I eat lunch.  Lunch time was OUR time for years and years while I was finishing my bachelor's degree and then getting my master's.  I miss her so much but I am so thankful for all of the many many HAPPY moments I got to have with her!

Well, the boys are in bed and now it is time for TV with the hubby while he scratches my mosquito bites....SO looking forward to that! (Hey, you would too if you have over 20!) Have a good night all!

Days 103-105

Sun, Mon, Tuesday...where does the time go???

It has been a crazy couple of days!  Sunday I was still at the conference for my continuing education in Dallas and I was SO sleepy!  I came home and went right back out to visit teach with my companion for the first time.  We had a fantastic time visiting teaching.  My companion is everything I have ever wanted in a person!  She likes to do lessons, she also does prayers at the end of our visits instead of looking at me like I have two heads when it is suggested we pray together.  Just so grateful for more happy moments on the sabbath!  David even made dinner so I could sleep until it was dinner time!  So it was a good Sunday!

Monday....well, I did get grocery shopping done. Joel came home earlier in the morning not feeling too well and then we picked up Connor from school.  I pretty much took care of my sick kiddo and Connor all day and David came home at 9 pm last night.  So my happy moment was getting the kids in bed and trying to do one thing that I needed to for my Monday.  I just hope Joel feels better soon...no fun being sick!

Today-Tuesday....Joel and Connor were both home with me today.  Joel needed looking after every few hours because I had to apply medicine to his mouth so he couldn't really be in school and Connor's co op preschool got cancelled.  So earlier I took them to see the next Cloudy w a Chance of Meatballs movie.   They really enjoyed it and then we headed to a local park to play.  After the park, we treated ourselves to chocolate milkshakes and headed home.  They really did have a good day together and I am glad we got to spend time as a happy family today.
Tonight we went out and did Taco Tuesday with the neighbors.  That was a lot of fun as well and I got some REALLY yummy tacos tonight!  We had a great time talking with our neighbors and catching up on life.  I am so grateful for those amazing people!  They are so fun to be around and it is nice to hear about their days and what they are up to.

So tonight it was home and to bed.  Hoping Joel will get to go to school tomorrow.  His mouth is looking a whole lot better tonight so hopefully all will be well!
I am so thankful for being able to blog!  David has been on the computer the past couple of nights and Sunday night I was awake just long enough to eat dinner and then back to bed!  Tomorrow my Humira arrives!  Will it be a happy moment to take it?  We shall see!  Praying it isn't as painful as I remember it was...after all, I have had a lot of surgeries since then, so hopefully it won't be too bad and the happy moment of me being in remission will come soon to this blog!  Have a great night!

#ReliefSociety Day 102

I don't know why it made me smile so much, but the Relief Society has a hashtag.  Perhaps it is because Justin Timberlake came out with a funny hashtag skit with Jimmy Fallon this past week and so lots of people know all about hashtags now.  Perhaps it is because it is an organization formed in the early 1800's....and now it has a 21st Century thing going for it lol.  Either way, I love the Relief Society and am so thankful tonight was the General Relief Society broadcast across the world.

I started off my day for 8 hours at a conference learning all about a really interesting topic.  I love my field of work and I am so thankful I get to help other people.  I was really nice to meet other clinicians today and get to talk about job opportunities here in the Dallas area.  Not this year, but next year I might start looking for a job again and at least now I have an area to look.  We had a nice lunch in the hospital cafeteria (I am kind of partial to hospital food and their ice....hospitals have THE best ice...having been in and out of one MANY times in one year you learn a thing or two lol).

So after my day of learning I headed home and got to spend a bit of time with my boys.  Always fun to hang out with them and give them all hugs and kisses.  Ginger even got some one on one mommy time and everyone was happy!  I got dressed and headed to church!

We had a great dinner before the broadcast and I sat with members from my ward and got to talk with them...always fun!  Then I went and visited with friends whose children are in Connor's preschool group.  I also got to meet a new friend tonight!  She sews and is so sweet and I can't wait to get to know her more!  I got to sit with her and my friend Lanay tonight.  I am so blessed to know some truly beautiful people, inside and out, here in my community already.  I felt so loved and I cherished the talks that I heard tonight.  They were a balm to my soul and very uplifting.  I am so grateful for our wonderful Prophet to leads us in these difficult times.  It was such a happy moment to know that I am loved and that God knows me, Jesus knows me, and they both love me for who I am.  We got to sing such beautiful songs tonight and Lanay is an alto and I am a soprano.  Singing next to someone else who sings well makes you want to sing even better!  It is a lot like how friendships should be as well I think, and I am grateful to be beginning some of those friendships with people!  Have a wonderful night all!  I am off again tomorrow to my continuing education class, but I found a beautiful little chapel just off one of the hallways near us so during our break I am going to go in and spend some time reading scriptures.  Looking forward to happy moments on Sunday.

Day 101

The weekend is HERE!  Happy Friday all!  So tomorrow I begin my two day journey of two days of continuing education in Dallas.  I am really looking forward to learning some new things and hoping to meet some other people in my field!  It should be fun!

Today was a busy day but filled with happy moments!

I got to help out my neighbor and pick her up from a car place and bring her back home.  Always fun to help out another person!

I also got my hair done today!  So happy to have shorter hair and have it all looking pretty spiffy!

Ginger had a vet appointment and after that I took her to the dog park for the first time.  That dog had THE best time running around, chasing balls, and drinking water from a cool hose (and having a great time getting WET from the water lol).  It was nice to see her finding the joy in being with just Mommy this afternoon.  The weather was fantastic as well!  It got super overcast and it really cooled down!

David took Connor to soccer practice this evening so Joel and I got to eat dinner just the two of us tonight.  We had a nice time talking and laughing.  I love having one on one time with my boys.  Being able to hear about their day and getting to hear what their favorite part about school is one of the best things in my day!

Well, it is bed time for me!  I have to get up super early and get to my class.  Have a great night all!

Day 100!

Happy 100 Days all!  Thanks for sticking with me this long reading this blog!  WOW!  So I have been a resident of the Dallas area for 100 days now.  It really does go by quickly once the kiddos start school!

Today was Connor's day off of school so we got to hang out together.  We had lots of happy moments playing and tickling and pretending Ginger was a dragon and we had to protect the castle from her.  Ginger enjoyed being our dragon as well.  This morning I got to chat with a few people on the phone and it was so fun!  I really enjoy talking with people and learning more about them.  Girls used to talk on the phone a lot back in the day to their friends.  Now we have facebook and texting, but having the opportunity to take even just 20 minutes to get to know someone better is such a great thing!

Later on in the morning, we got dressed and went out to Panda Express.  Finding the place today was a real happy moment for me because I thought I was losing my mind and that I only imagined seeing the restaurant lol.  My google map placed it at a mall and I KNEW that wasn't right!  I finally found it and got our food and it was off to Joel's school!  We got to sit and eat lunch with Joel and he invited one of his friend's from church to sit and eat with us.  We had the nicest time and it was so fun!  Joel is making some great friends at this school and I am so thankful for that!  Ok, so during the day sometimes, I find some amazing things on Facebook that I watch or words that I see and it makes me happy!  So I have decided to start posting them on to here...they are happy moments for ALL to enjoy and that way my blog is more than just reading, but you can get something GOOD from it as well!  So here is today's happy moment from the internet...enjoy! http://www.upworthy.com/scientists-discover-one-of-the-greatest-contributing-factors-to-happiness-youll-thank-me

When Joel got out of school we worked on his spelling words and his poem he has to recite tomorrow.  I love music...you can do lots of fun things with music, so we turned Joel's poem he had to memorize into a song.  It has been SO much fun singing it for the last two weeks!  Of course I have Joel recite it as well, but he gets such joy out of singing this made up song we did!

Joel had soccer practice tonight and it was fun watching David work with Connor with a soccer ball and Joel practice with his team mates.  We made some more friends tonight and I am really looking forward to going to more practices and talking with people and watching my boys!

Well, I am off to the happy moment of seeing what my DVR has in store for me tonight!  I am so thankful for being able to have made it 100 days.  The first couple of weeks after moving here were SO emotionally rough on all of us.  I am feeling a lot better and so grateful for all of the people I have met and the opportunities to build friendships in the days to come!  Have a happy night!

Day 98 and 99

So we have a laptop downstairs that both David and I use.  For the lsat two nights it has been his turn to do things like go over our family budget and read emails...he doesn't have a smartphone so the computer is how he does it.  If he goes too late, I can't blog.  But hey, we are budgeting people, so it is ALL good and I just will blog for 2 days.  But tomorrow the computer is MINE because it will be day 100 already!  WHOA!

So Tuesday:
Got Connor off to preschool and did some stuff around the house.  I also got to watch some series premiers without the kiddos around.  Sat on the couch, drank some morning chamomile tea, and watched away....it was awesome.

I picked up Connor and brought him home and we hung out and played pirates and with toy animals for a while.  He loves to be tickled and I really enjoy spending quality time with him.  We walked down an got Joel from school and the boys came home and played with each other.  It is so nice when they get along and have fun together!  They played out in the backyard and got pretty soaking wet from a water gun fight.  Then they came in the house and got dried off and sat and watched some TV with me.  Their favorite movie lately has been Hotel Transylvania.  It is pretty funny and I love watching them laugh!

The boys helped me make a Chinese meal for dinner and we sat down and ate all together.  It was really nice to hear about their day and the fun things they did.  I enjoy our family meals because it really is a good time to get my kiddos talking about their favorite things and have them open up about their day.  They don't talk as much if we are at restaurants or playing.  I am glad we have a dinner table to sit down and enjoy conversation.

Today, Wednesday....well, tonight I am covered in about 14 mosquito bites because we walked around our local pond/lake area tonight.  It was SO much fun and the boys had the best time running around.  We found a crayfish and played with it with a stick.  The boys were all giggles watching it dance around.  We stood on the little dock area and watched turtles bob their heads up and down.  We brought Ginger and she met a friend on the other side of the lake and together, those two Golden Retrievers swam like crazy in the lake!  Such an amazing, happy, family time....so basically SO worth the mosquito bites!

This morning after walking Joel to school, there were white strings flying through the air!  ALL morning tons and tons of spider webs slowly floated through the sky and landed on light poles, fences, and everything else!  It was magical!  It turns out there were many spiders trying to take off with web balloons this morning, but there wasn't any wind so over and over again they shot off balloon webs into the air to try to float away with no luck.  But it made for one interesting morning watching them all from the ground as they decorated trees and houses with very store bought looking webs lol.

It has been a bit of a crazy week and my visiting teachers brought us an amazing dinner tonight.  I feel SO SO SO blessed to live in the area in which we live!  We have met so many lovely people and my visiting teachers are just as lovely.  The dinner was so yummy and it was nice to sit down and enjoy one another and get to talk with the boys again about their days.

Well, that is pretty much it for my day!  Ginger got a nice warm shower after swimming in the lake this evening.  She had the best happy moment out of all of us today I think!  I am SO glad she met another friend tonight and I hope she gets to meet up with her new friend again soon!  Oh, and the doggy's mom is from Laguna Beach!  Small world we live in!  Have a wonderful evening all!

Day 96 and 97

So last night we were up making the boys lunches for a lot of the week and going over our budget....so no time to blog yesterday.  So I will combine the two days and add bullets and keep this blog alive!

• I got to Skype with my parents last night and our friends from Utah were visiting them as well so we got to show off the little bunny and talk for a good long while.  We love those guys so much!  It was really nice to talk with my parents and the White family all in the same room!
• I made Taco Salad last night for dinner and we all really enjoyed it!  Yea for having the energy to make a meal and afterward, Joel helped me load the dishwasher!  He is getting to be more responsible and I really love that.
• This morning I dropped the kids off and grocery shopped at Target.  With my coupons, Target coupons, Target Cartwheel, and Target card, I got over 200 dollars worth of groceries for just 92 dollars!  I was so proud of myself I called our neighbor from California....AND she answered the phone (which was a big happy moment) so I got to tell her about my shopping adventures and getting to buy organic food with coupons!
• I got laundry done today and had a really good doctor's appointment with my rheumatologist.  I feel pretty good about getting off the antibiotics I am on to try to stop my flaring and switch to Humira.  I know there can be lots of side effects, but I am hoping it puts my body into remission...what a happy moment that will be!
• So, some sad news today is that our little bunny passed away.  Rodents can get weird diseases, and he was so sweet and cuddled in my hand as he passed.  Our cat had disappeared out of the garage at about the same time, but it was a relief to all of us to find him about 2 hours later.  I will miss our little bunny, but I am so grateful for all of the wonderful happy moments he gave to us.  He was such a fighter and a little survivor!

Well it is the end of the day and I am SO ready to head to bed and get some sleep.  I am looking forward to Taco Tuesday tomorrow and being able to clean the house and do more laundry.  Hopefully being OFF the medication I was taking will help me not feel so ill all of the time and some of my energy will return now!  I hope you all had a wonderful Monday and I look forward to the happy moments for the rest of the week!

Day 95

Happy Saturday!  It was 68 degrees when I woke up this morning.  I opened the windows and doors to my home and cooled it down with the ceiling fans to 70 degrees inside!  HAPPY MOMENT!!!

Well today we got up early only to find out Connor's soccer game had been cancelled, so he got to go to the Primary activity as well as Joel!  They both had so much fun and I am grateful beyond words to the primary leaders for their hard work on what was a really well planned activity!  The boys were glowing and loved showing me their missionary badges!

We got quite a bit done around the house today and after a while I became exhausted so I went upstairs to take a quick nap....well, a couple of hours later I woke up to find out Joel's soccer game had been cancelled as well!

This afternoon we headed down to a restaurant that just opened that was one of our all time favorites in California!  It has some of THE most amazing food and it all tasted exactly the same!  Two brothers own the 3-4 restaurants with the name and they were both there tonight.  We had a lovely time talking with them and telling them how grateful we were that they opened a place so close to us.  One of the brothers bought us dessert and we also got 50% off our bill thanks to a Facebook advertisement on their page.  We left full of REALLY yummy food and oh so happy!  I posted on Facebook how great it was and one of my Facebook friends headed there for dinner tonight as well.  She loved it too!  So glad to spread my happy moments to others!

Little bunny is getting bigger...we think.  It took a nap on me and on Joel today.  It was so cute to see Joel hold it so gently and watch it sleep.  He was all smiles!

Well, tomorrow is technically the beginning of the new week.  Hopefully this coming week I will get some answers about what is going on with the bumps on my head, and start feeling a bit better with the RA medicine...or else back to Humira I go!  Have a wonderful evening all!

Day 94

Happy happy Friday to one and all!  I am so glad the weekend is here!  What an amazing rainy day it was today!  So far, Connor's soccer game is cancelled for tomorrow so both boys will be able to attend a fun Missionary Primary event going on at church tomorrow.  We shall see about Joel's game.

So today I dropped the kiddos off at school....it was a bit of an ordeal since it was raining like crazy, but both kids were happy they got to use their umbrellas.  Today Connor SAID umbrella correctly!  It is the first time ever and I have to admit, I am sorry to see "bra-lella" go, but it is cute how he says it the correct way now as well.

So I did accomplish some house chores today!  YEA! I got to clean the kitchen, do some laundry, and pick up the toys downstairs.  Of course I did most of it while David had taken the boys to Connor's soccer practice after dinner tonight lol.  I basically stayed on the couch, under a blanket (I did get up to make tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch) and I watched TV almost all morning!  I thought about going to workout, but today was the most wonderful, cold, rainy, day here in Texas and I took advantage of the fantastic weather by doing pretty much nothing lol.

After I picked up the boys, we came home and made popcorn, got out some of our movie theater candy, and watched the first Harry Potter movie.  Joel is old enough to appreciate it now and next year we will start reading the books together!  I cannot wait for that!  It was so nice to be snuggled with my boys and give them kisses and tell them how much I enjoyed watching the movie with them.

The little bunny is growing a bit bigger and growing in our hearts a bit more as well.  He is still SO tiny so I don't see us letting him out into the wild any time soon, but hopefully he will start to like to eat some of the clover and grass in our backyard so he gets used to eating out in the wild.  For the most part today, however, he stayed in doors and even got his playtime in the guest bedroom because it was SO wet outside!  LOL I am treating the bunny even more like a helicopter parent than I do my own children!

I am really looking forward to the weekend and the fun we will have!  I hope everyone had a great Friday or is HAVING a great Friday night wherever you may be!  Time for this girl to head to bed!  Blessings to all!

day 93

Good evening...or good night in just a few minutes here!

• Today was my day with Connor because it is the one day a week he is not in school and Joel is.  We had a nice morning of hanging out and watching Disney Jr.  Then it was off to lunch at Einstein Bagel Company and then ToysRUs!  Now, it might sound like we were spending money like crazy, but I have gift cards to the bagel place and both boys had gift cards to use at the toy store AND they are having a special of 20% off your entire purchase right now.  So the boys got two really cool items all paid for by birthday money!
• Connor  missed his brother today!  Only about every 5 seconds did he ask me if we could go pick Joel up from school.  It made my heart happy to see how much he loves Joel and I always make them kiss and hug when Joel gets off school and runs to us.  SO cute!
• This evening I went to a Relief Society activity about Joy in the Journey and we discussed lots of ways to improve your life, find the joy, and feel better as women of God knowing that we are doing what we can in our personal lives and with our family to be good Christians.  It was a wonderful evening and I got to know more ladies in our ward!  I feel so incredibly blessed to be in this ward!  There are some truly beautiful women who have such big hearts and beautiful life stories.  I am so thankful I got to spend a few hours getting to know people on a deeper level!

Well I am home and I came home to find the bunny very much awake and hopping about its basket.  I don't know how much longer we will be able to keep him with us if he keeps getting better and better at hopping.  He is still SO tiny and I worry about him, but he is a wild animal and we ARE going to have to let him go at some point.  I am just so thankful for all of the happy moments we have spent with that cutie pie!  He is so precious and it gave me a deeper love for God's animals being able to take care of him during this time.  Well, off to bed and time to begin another day tomorrow!  Night all!

Day 92

Good evening!  Hope everyone had a good Wednesday...Friday is coming up!

So today I didn't get done a whole lot.  I had hoped to be able to accomplish some things at home, but I woke up with an RA flare and I had to go get the head CT today...that pretty much wiped me out for the rest of the day lol

It was actually not bad being back at a hospital.  They checked me in and gave me a name bracelet...just like old times! They set up an IV and put some liquid into me to make my blood glow!  The guy was so nice and did a great job getting the needle into my arm with hardly any pain...always a happy moment for me when I don't feel too much pain!

So the CT scan came and went and I find out hopefully tomorrow the results.  After that, I went to lunch at this amazing salad place and had a big old salad and soda.  Sometimes eating alone is nice.  It is quiet and I can think and contemplate stuff.  After that I took a trip to our local Nothing Bundt cake and picked up a couple for myself and the kids to enjoy for dessert tonight.

After the kids came home, Joel and I practiced his poem.  SUCH a happy moment for me because he went along with the song I made up for it lol!  I love making up songs, they help me to remember and so we sang the song of the poem together...goofy and fun!

Tonight I went to my first workout class in almost 5 YEARS!  I had wanted to go before, but I had that whole broken arm thing, had to move, broke my toe, got pneumonia...you know excuses excuses!  So I finally went and had an amazing time!  The person leading the workout was a friend from church and she was finding the joy every second leading that class!  It was nice to feed off of her joy and work my tooshie off!  Yes, it was hard, and I sweat like crazy, but it was fun and it made me happy to be able to do it for an hour and not pass out!

Well, home now and time to get done some of the stuff I had planned to do today but just didn't have time or energy for.  Have a great night all!

Day 90-91

Well, I apologize for combining days lately, but lately my husband has been on the computer until the wee hours of the night and I have had to finally give up trying to blog and head to bed.  We are setting up our movie theater room, making a specific home budget, and he also checks emails so all very important things getting done on here!

The last two days have been a bit of a blur.  I can't believe tomorrow is Wednesday already!  Connor has done two days of preschool and Joel has done two days of school.  This is the first week they have both been in school starting on Monday.  I am finding that I can accomplish quite a bit in the home, dishes, laundry, vacuuming, etc while the kids are in school so that has been good!

I have been busy dedicating time to feeding the bunny.  It is still alive and thriving and SO darn adorable!  I am so thankful for baby animals...they melt your heart with how cute they are!

David has been working a bit late each night, so the kids and I have been together more.  It has been fun helping Joel with homework, playing with Connor, and enjoying some down time with the kids.

Today I went to Joel's school for lunch.  Parents can go every day if they wish and sit with their kids for the first 20 minutes of them eating lunch.  Joel got to invite a friend to sit with us and that was a lot of fun.  He asked me if I could do it everyday...well...I can't, but hopefully I can do this maybe once a week and he can invite different friends to sit with us so I get to meet some of the kiddos in his class!

Tonight was Taco Tuesday.  David was at an HOA meeting, our other neighbors had to work late, and my neighbor's husband is away on business, so it was just me and the kids and our other neighbor, Karen.  We had a great time talking and eating and it was nice to get out with a friend!

I gave the kids a bath tonight and I did pretty well!  SUCH a happy moment, not one moment of anger at all because they did what they needed to do to get washed up and get to bed!

Well, looking forward to tomorrow.  I am having a head CT because I have these weird bumps on the back of my head, so please say a prayer for me.  I am hoping for some sort of answer because it is just too weird!  The kids will be in school when I go so that is a happy moment being at a doctor's office WITHOUT children!  Have a good night all!

Day 86-89 Bunny duty!

Hello all!  No I didn't forget to blog....I just didn't have access to my computer much this past weekend and I have been on bunny duty almost every night!  What a week it has been!  I am so thankful today is Sunday so I can begin a new, hopefully MUCH less crazy week!

Ok so on Thursday Connor and I spent the day together because it is the one day a week he does not have school.  It was nice having just the two of us together and we went to McDonalds for lunch and he got to play and we snuggled at home for most of the day.  During the day, we found a baby bunny in the backyard that Ginger had played with.  So it had passed away.  Later on that evening, I was watering the grass in the backyard when something started squealing at me!  Our gardener had been there earlier in the day and had mowed the lawn.  There was a baby bunny...ALIVE and really mad!  So we read up on what to do and just left it in the backyard.

Friday, the mommy bunny did not return and so we started feeding the bunny and put it in a box to keep warm.  It poured rain like crazy Friday evening, but the bunny was safe and warm in our garage!  Connor and Joel both had school on Friday and I had the day to myself to catch up on laundry and I took a nap that morning.  My RA has really been doing a number on me lately, but I have been able to take it slow and take care of myself while the kids are gone so I can take care of them while they are home.

I can't remember what day it was...it was either Thurs or Friday...I was having a very overwhelming day.  There has been a lot going on emotionally lately and there are only so many hours in the day to deal with them.  I went outside to get the mail to take a break from the boys and at the mail box I offered up a prayer for help.  I asked the Lord to have the mommy bunny return (so it must have been Thursday) and I asked for him to send me some happy moments.  I asked for him to send me someone to just help me make it through the rest of the evening.  Well, as I finished my prayer, I felt peaceful and I was happy to know that God loves me.  I was about to head back in the house when someone drove up and honked the horn at me.  It scared me! LOL It was my neighbors from around the corner and they were headed out to get some ice cream and wanted to know if I would like to tag along.  So not 30 seconds after finishing my prayer asking for someone or a happy moment, the Lord answered me.  It doesn't always happen like that, but I am thankful for that precious moment and the fun time I had driving out and eating ice cream with my neighbors!  I felt very blessed!

Yesterday was Saturday and both boys had soccer games.  Both of them did such an amazing job and my greatest happy moments of the day was watching them find the joy as they played and ran.  We had dinner at one of my favorite Italian restaurants after Joel's soccer game, so it was a good day of being together as a family!  Last night David and I watched a movie for the first time in our movie theater room!  We watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.   It was so nice to be able to snuggle and be in a movie theater environment in our own home!

Today was Sunday and a day of church, naps, breakfast for dinner, Skyping with my parents, and feeling very grateful.  We have such a wonderful Ward and I am so thankful for knowing SO many people!  I can't tell you how many hugs were given today or how many wonderful conversations I had with people.  I am just so very happy and grateful for being in a ward FULL of wonderful, NICE, people!

Well, it is time to get my kiddos into bed, feed the bunny, and get my precious little kid's lunches ready for tomorrow.  I hope all of you had a blessed weekend and I am so grateful I have the opportunity to write down my happy moments and be grateful for where I am and what I have!

Day 85

Good evening! What a busy animal-filled day I had today!

I dropped Joel and Connor off at school this morning and then did some laundry and cleaned the house.  While doing that, I let Ginger out (who was BEGGING me to go outside) and a little lizard ran into the house!  I tried to grab it, but it was so tiny and all I got was its tail in my hand!  Then Ginger was in the backyard playing with a dead rabbit...baby bunny (the happy moment to that is coming...you just need part of the back story).

So I went to lunch and did some grocery shopping...all without kiddos!  It is lonely and enjoyable all at the same time!  I miss my boys being with me but it is nice to be able to hear myself think at lunch as well.  I prayed for them to have good days at school!  Connor had fun making new friends and singing songs to the Lord again.  Joel had an interesting day as I got a call from the Asst. Principal saying that he and a friend were in line and they played a game called "vampire" well...a little boy asked if he could bite Joel and Joel said yes LOL!  So the little boy bit him!  I swear...if I had girls I would never get a call like this and if it had been Connor, we ALL agreed HE would have been the bite-ER lol.  So Joel had an interesting day and made a friend in the process!  They are both nice boys and were just being silly!

This evening as I was watering the backyard, I heard squeaking in the grass.  Well, a baby bunny had not only survived being eaten by my dog, but it also survived the lawn mower since our gardener came today!  We said a little prayer and read about what to do.  We really hope the mommy bunny comes back to feed the baby soon!  Such an interesting animal day and I am grateful for that little bunny and its ability to live!

So thankful for this day and all of the fun family time we had.  I am grateful for my children and their kindness towards the baby bunny.  The kids are making friends and have 2 days in a row of play dates starting tomorrow!  Have a great night all and find the joy!

Day 84

Fun day being back on schedule and back to school!

I walked Joel to school today and he held my hand the whole way.  When I asked him if he wanted to walk the rest of the way by himself he told me no and that he wanted to walk with me....these are the moments I will absolutely cherish because in about 5 years I will be the most embarrassing person to him lol

Connor and I spent the morning snuggled on the couch before his carpool picked him up.  Then I had a meeting with some people to install blackout blinds in my room and in Connor's...cannot wait for that!

I went to lunch by myself today, did laundry, and finished a book I had started reading on the plane.  It is happy being alone and knowing my kids are having a fun time at school but also...well...lonely!  It is just so weird starting this new chapter of my life where my kids are in school more than they are home with me (sleeping doesn't count!)  I feel a sense of freedom but also a sense of loss.  I hope I was able to teach my kids how to be respectful and loving while they were with me all of the time.  I worry about them and pray for them to be good and joyful while they are away!  How I hope they continue to find the joy outside of the home!

I picked up Connor from school and took him to get a haircut.  He got his first shampoo in a sink today and the look on his face was priceless!  At first he was nervous it was going to be like the shower where his face gets wet, but when the girl at the salon washed his hair he had such a peaceful look on his face and his eyes were rolling into the back of his head lol!  That is how I feel when I get MY hair washed....he was so happy!

We had a nice night with our neighbors at our Taco Tuesday restaurant tonight.  I am so happy that we are keeping that Summer tradition alive!  It is so nice to not cook on Tuesdays and I LOVE catching up with my beautiful neighbors!  They are so great and the kids love them as well!

Well, time to head up to bed.  I am so thankful that we are back on schedule and that the boys are loving school.  We are making more friends and the boys have 2 play dates scheduled this week as well!  Feeling very blessed to be where we are!

Day 79-83 California visit #2!!

Yes, we went back to California for another family visit.  I feel like I am weening myself off of the state lol.  It was so good to be back and spend time with friends and family!

We flew in Thursday (we each had our OWN row on the plane!  We felt so lucky!) and went straight to one of our all time favorite Mexican restaurants for lunch.  Then we spent the afternoon catching up with people at my dad's work while the kids played.

Friday we ate breakfast with some of our old neighbors and then went back to their house to play all morning.  The boys have missed their friends SO much and they were ecstatic to get to spend time with their "number one buddy" Ryan!  After spending the morning with Ryan, we met up with other friends at Ruby's diner and spent the afternoon hanging out at the mall and playing with other friends.  THEN after that, David and I went on a date night that night to the Cerritos Center to see STOMP.  It was a fun filled day of happy moments for sure!  I am so thankful we got to go back and hang out with so many amazing people on Friday!

On Saturday we woke up and headed to my dad's work where we had a birthday party for my niece.  My family and my sister's friends all gathered over there and we spent hour after hour hanging out eating great food, watching the cousins play, catching up, laughing, and having birthday fun!  It was so fun watching Joel and Connor run around with their cousins and have fun times.  I remember all of the fun I had with my cousins growing up and the boys were having just as much fun.  I am so thankful we were able to fly out and spend some real quality time with our family!

On Sunday, we had an absolute day of rest!  We didn't go to church because it was my parent's Stake Conference, so most of the day we spent snuggled on the couch, sleeping, and hanging out at home.  We went to Crab Cooker in Tustin for dinner and Connor got his fill of crab claws, shrimp, and scallops!  He loves seafood SO SO much it is so cute!  We had a lovely meal in a fun restuarant!  We came home and the boys went to bed and my mom and I sat and watched some television together.  I am really happy we get to stay at their place and hang out with them when we go visit!

So today we went to the airport and had lunch at Ruby's Diner and then got on the plane and flew home!  The flight was pretty pleasant and went by quickly and then it was home for bed time!  The boys both have school in the morning so I need to get going on getting their lunches prepared and getting them ready for the week.  I am so thankful for our fun family times in the past week!  I am looking forward to this week being able to put our home together a bit more and getting into the school routines for the year!  Night all!

Day 78

What a busy day filled with happy moments today!

• David's dad walked Joel to school this morning.  It was SUCH a big help because I needed to get Connor all ready for his first day of preschool and I was able to get a shower, get pictures of Connor, and get everything packed in the car.  We were sad to see David's parents leave this morning, but it was so sweet how the kids missed them this afternoon.  SO SO many happy moments while they were here and I am glad I got to blog about them!
• I got to go to my first MOPS meeting here in Texas!  What a fabulous morning it was and I am so thankful to have met so many lovely ladies at my new table.  I cannot wait for the rest of the year and all of the fun that is yet to be had with them!
• I dropped Connor off at school this morning and when I picked him up, he was SO happy!  He had an amazing first day and he was so excited to tell me about what he did.  He loved the part where he "got to go to God's house and sing songs!" I am so thankful for the preschool and their religious portion of the day for the kids.  Connor was on a preschool high and I can really tell that he enjoys being in that class.  He even took a nap in there today!
• My coffee table for upstairs was delivered about the same time that the Relief Society presidency from my ward came to visit me.  We had SUCH a nice visit and I was able to share with them a bit about my Happy Blog and the reasons behind it.  I am so grateful that others can find the joy from this blog!

I am so grateful to have this blog and to be able to publish so many happy moments from my days that are filled like today.  Today was full of fun and friendship and it is days like today that help me keep moving forward on days that are not so jam packed with happy moments.  I hope all of you have had at least one happy moment today that you can reflect on to get you into your difficult tomorrows.  Have a great evening all!