Nostalgia

A few months ago, I reconnected with a long lost roommate from Ricks College (aka BYU Idaho) on Facebook. We have talked for quite some time about getting together and finally found a day to work it out. She invited me to her house for dinner. They live in Layton. It was so good to see her and her cute family. It has been so long. we were trying to figure out when we saw each other last and we think it was at our other roommates funeral. (Our roommate, Christy, died of Cancer about 7 years ago) We don't even live that far from each other but life just gets so busy that sometimes you just have to slow down and make time for things. We had dinner and then had a nice time visiting and talking about old times. I can't believe it has been 20 years since we were roomies at good old Ricks. It was nice to visit. We are talking about doing a little roommate reunion some time this summer if we can get all of us together again. I was really lucky and had such great roommates and it would be a lot of fun to see all of them and their families again. On the way home, I stopped and showed Noah the house I lived in when I was a little. It was off Bennett St. in Layton. Layton has changed so much that I couldn't find it without calling my mom to help me with directions. It was weird seeing that house again and remembering some of the things from when I was really little. We only lived there until I was 7 but I still have a lot of memories of that house. I made Noah get out and I took a picture of him in front of the house. It was dark so the picture isn't that great but it was so strange to think its been 30 years. I couldn't believe how small the house was either. I also showed him the school I went to, Lincoln Elementary. Talk about nostalgia. This is me and my roommates 20 years ago. Yes, I'm blinking in the picture. We had a running joke that I always blinked in the pictures.



Me, Marie and her husband, Mark

Our old house (it still looks the same as I remember it)

Meeting A Jazz Player, Sort Of

During the Jr.Jazz program, the kids get an opportunity to meet a Jazz player. They don't personally meet him but they get to go the the Energy Solutions Arena and listen to the player talk and run drills. This year the player they got to meet was Paul Milsap. Noah was pretty excited. He was really hoping to meet Deron Williams but he was still happy to be able to see Paul Milsap. They called all the 4th grade kids down to the floor at one point and ran some drills. Milsap kept walking right by Noah's group so I got a couple of pictures.

A Very Long Post

I now have a child in double digits. Noah just turned 10. It is so hard to believe. He is such a great kid and really lights up my life. This year, he was with Kent for his actual birthday so on the day before his birthday, I took him to dinner at Red Robin (his choice). At school, for his birthday he wanted me to bring in Little Ceasers pizza for the class. So I bought a few pizzas and took them in. The class loved it. The Friday after his birthday I let him invite a friend to Nickelcade. He invited his friend Juan from school. They had a great time. Not my favorite place to go but of course they loved it. They had pizza and played video games for a while. Sunday we had the family party. Everyone came over for dinner and cake and ice cream. He seemed to have a great birthday. He is growing up so fast and turning in to such a great kid. He's always trying to be silly and make me laugh. He is a pretty well rounded kid. He likes school and really likes to read. He also likes sports and really enjoys watching Jazz games. The rest of this post will probably be pretty boring but I've seen other people put on their blog the story of their child's birth. I realized that I don't have this documented anywhere so I'm going to try and remember the best I can. Feel free to stop reading now. This is mostly for me to have this written down somewhere. I have also included tons of pictures in this post. They are of some of my favorite pictures of Noah growing up. Okay, don't say I didn't warn you.






The night of January 5, 2000, Kent and I went to the hospital (Cottonwood) so that I could be induced. We thought my due date was December 31, 1999 but every time I went in for my checkup, nothing was happening at all. Everyone kept telling us we were going to have a New Year baby or a Y2K baby but that didn't happen. When I arrived at the hospital, they had me get into a gown and then the doctor came in and placed a medication called cervadil (unsure of the spelling) in my uterus to help induce labor. Not long after it was placed, I started having severe stomach cramps that I'm assuming were contractions. I called the nurse for some pain relief and she gave me 2 percocets which didn't do anything so they gave me some morphine which helped. They kept coming in and checking me constantly and at one point had to give me oxygen and a shot in my arm to help the babies heart rate. The next thing I knew, they were placing my epidural and I was going into full labor. I pushed for about 2 hours and was getting so tired. My legs felt like jello from the epidural but that epidural was a wonderful thing. The doctor said if the baby didn't come out soon, I would have to have a c-section. Then a few minutes later and with the help of forceps, Noah was born Januray 6 at 9:29a.m. weighing 7 pounds 12 ounces. It was actually a pretty smooth delivery and I was so happy there weren't any complications. I think I had a harder time postpartum then I did delivering the baby. I had a lot of pain and couldn't sit down without my "donut" for a long time. I also had a catheter (long story for another time) for approximately a month after I had Noah. He was such a good and easy baby. I remember him sleeping through the night at 5 weeks old. He definitely is a cool kid and I'm proud to be his mother.

Newborn photos


1 year old


2 years old


3 years old


4 years old


5 years old


6 years old


7 years old


8 years old



9 years old

Testimony

Today I was asked to bear my testimony in sacrament meeting. I didn't realize that when I said yes that it was ward conference which meant that there were a lot of visitors, making me that much more nervous. As I sat and pondered my testimony and thought of what I might say, I was trying to remember the last time I bore my testimony and I couldn't remember, that's how long it has been. It has been years. In fact, I think the last time I did it was on Noah's blessing day and he is now 10. I don't want to get too personal because maybe this isn't the appropriate place to share such things, but it was a great feeling. All day, I felt that I had the spirit and as nervous as I was, I definitely think its something I need to share more often. I know that we often take our testimony for granted and in order for it to grow it has to be nourished and constantly fed, just like any relationship. I hope that this will just be the beginning of me bearing my testimony and that I can have the courage and spirit to share it more often.

Christmas Day

Noah was with Kent this year until 2 p.m on Christmas day. I just slept in and then waited for him to come home. Of course he had a fun time opening all of his presents. His big gift this year was a PlayStation 3 from Santa. He was very excited about that. He also got some Jazz stuff, movies and books. After he opened his presents here, we headed to my parents house to exchange gifts. Of course my mom spoiled us again. She also made these really cute blankets that fold up into a pillow. She made one for each of the grand kids. Noah's was a BYU one. I got slippers and a Kohl's gift card. Yeah!! Then we just spent the rest of the day hanging out, playing games and eating and more eating. It was a great time.




Each year I let Noah pick out a new ornament. This year, he picked out a Utah Jazz one.

Christmas Eve

Our traditional Christmas eve consists of getting together with all of my siblings and their families and having a nice dinner, talent show, white elephants and of course, the game where everyone fights to open the gift to win the "Christmas Prize". It was so fun this year as always. Everyone was there, including Kent and Noah. This year, Noah was with Kent for Christmas Eve but I invited them to our family party and to my surprise, he came and brought Noah. I thought the night might be awkward or uncomfortable but it actually was fine. Noah even told me how glad he was that they came. This year, we had the party at my parents church so that we could have more room. Everyone seemed to have a great time. We had a nice dinner with ham and turkey. We had some fun games with prizes for the kids. The kids seemed to have a great time. Some of the dads and kids played basketball. We also had a fun talent show. I wish I would have gotten some pictures of that. It was awesome. I definitely have some talented nieces and nephews. Kenny and Melodie won AGAIN (love you guys(:) the hard to open "Christmas Prize", which was a gift card to Applebees.Playing some fun Christmas games




White elephant game with the kids
I love this picture of Kristi and her girls

Christmas Fun

At Christmas time there is always lots of food, parties, activities and fun. Here are some of the fun things we did this year. One night, we drove out to Thanksgiving Point to see their Christmas lights. They were so awesome. It was $6 per car to drive through but definitely well worth it. They have Christmas music playing as your drive around and at the very end they have little signs with pictures telling the nativity story. We also made a gingerbread house. It didn't turn out very good. The frosting wasn't that great but we had fun with it anyway.The finished house with the "Big Cheeser" smile

We also made sugar cookies but I have to admit that I totally cheated this year. I bought the premade cookie dough that already had the shapes cut out. All we had to do was bake them and frost them. Noah didn't seem to mind that we weren't rolling out a bunch of dough so it was fine. That part is always so messy. I won't buy these kind of cookies again though because they were so small. We kept laughing at how small they actually were. I guess the whole point was to have fun so it didn't matter too much.

One other fun thing we did this year was go to the Larry Miller Sing a Long. Aside from the long wait and crowds, it was a fun night. We took Trax down to the Energy Solutions Arena and everyone got a free hot dog and drink. The whole arena was full. We all sang a bunch of Christmas songs. The Jazz bear even made an appearance which Noah was excited about. At the end of the night, each person got a free Jazz ticket, free popcorn at any Larry Miller theater and tickets to a Bees game. The Jazz ticket is for the nose bleeders but Noah still really likes to go. Of course at this time of year, there never seems to be enough time to fit everything in and things feel so rushed but we managed to do some fun things and spend some good quality time together to celebrate the season.