May 28

May 28th is always a bad day. So many horrible haunting memories for all of us in my family. It's been 7 years. It's so crazy to think about. I read through my journal today about when he died, and looked through the pictures I have of him. I remember he always used to say, "Do you know that I love you? Do you know that I'm proud of you?" Sometimes I wonder if he would still be proud at the person I've become. Anyway enough of that. Here are some of my favorite pictures of him.

My very favorite of him in his computer room.

Us as a family down in St. George.

At a Daddy Daughter activity at the church. He looked so natural on the motorcycle. He used to race motorcycles before I was born.On Christmas day at Gayla and Brandon's old house. Look how young we all are.
The whole family, I think this is the last family picture we have with all of us.
Martin was a sweetheart this morning. He left for a little while and came back with these flowers. Tulips are my favoite. He got seven purple tulips for the seven years since Dad died and three white tulips for the three years we've been married.
I took Abbi over to Seth's today before we went to lunch and snapped these two pictures and thought they were really cool. She's in the back seat sticking her head out of the open drivers side window. I have my elbow there to keep her from jumping out.

Family madness

It's been a crazy couple of days. Monika and Kevin were suppose to fly in Saturday night, but missed their flight by three minutes. They had to stay the night in the Denver airport, and catch a flight the next morning. Martin and I got to the airport about 9:00 and met Whitney when she got there about 9:30. Her and Kevin met in Africa while on their missions during the last 6 weeks that Kevin was there, and have been talking for the last 7 months and decided it was time to finally see each other again. She is an awesome girl. SOO much fun, we get along already. Martin and I hope things work out and Kevin and Whitney can kind of repeat what we've already done. It's pretty funny, Monika and her two sisters were from Germany and married men from England/Scottland, and if things work out, the two brothers will have married girls from America. But the line stops there, I don't want my kids to marry someone from, and move to a different country. It was SO good to finally see Monika and Kevin again. It's been almost 3 years.

This is the only picture I got from the airport.

Then we came back to our apartment and introduced them to Abbi. She's so funny around new people she gets so excited. We had dinner at my mom's house, then went to show Monika and Kevin, Seth's basement and how it's changed, then we stopped by the Eisenbarth's where they were having a family party. (Kevin got to know the Eisenbarth's when he and Martin stayed there when Martin and I were dating.) It was good to see them again, and I got to meet the newest family member baby Cannon. So adorable, and little Kylee just melted my heart. I love that girl, and I miss that family so much, I definately need to stop by more often. We then went back home and let the weary travelers rest and we watched a movie. Sleeping arrangements were pretty crazy. I feel like our apartment is so cramped and tiny for just us, let alone three extra bodies. We squished two twin blowup mattresses in the spare bedroom for Monika and Kevin, and poor Whitney slept on the couch.

The next morning we got up and went to the new Narnia: Prince Caspian movie. It was very good and I enjoyed it. Then because it was Memorial Day we had our annual barbeque at Gayla's house. The food was very yummy, and the weather cleared up some so it wasn't too terrible. After we ate Kevin and Whitney took all the kids and played soccer across the street, while Mom, Jason, Gayla, Seth and I went up to the cemetary to my Dad's grave. We laughed a lot. I like that after so long we can laugh and have a good time and not be so serious and sad all the time. I think that's the way my Dad would want it. I love my family so much and how very close we are.

When we got back we sat around and talked for a while, and I handed of my camera to Sammi to take pictures of everyone. She is now my official picture taker, and I'm considering having a kid just so I can have one of my own. She got pictures of nearly everyone. All except Makayla, Allie and Nathan who were off playing. First Doug.

Mom, Gayla and I.

Sara

Harli who was Gayla's picture taker.

Crazy Seth. He's growing his beard because of the Hockey playoffs. It's an awesome year this year. The Redwings and the Penguins are playing which are Seth's two favorite teams. It's a win win situation. I hope it goes to game 7. That would be awesome!

Crazy Jason

Brock and Brandon
Then we decided we needed a group picture of Monika and her boys and their significant others. We sat there forever and had to take a ton of pictures. With both my camera and Gayla's camera. It took forever, but we got some good ones.

Monika and her boys

Whitney and I

The girls
Whitney was REALLY done taking pictures. She's so funny. I was actually very impressed with Whitney because she met so many different people and didn't complain and held herself well and fit right in with my crazy family.

The Grey's Anatomy season finale was IN-credible!! I'm so happy with the way everything ended. No huge huge cliffhangers. I laughed, I cried, I clapped, I swooned into the tv at the kisses. Grey's Anatomy at it's finest! So good I'm watching it again, hooray for DVR's!

Martin's mom and brother are going to be here on Saturday. I'm very excited and slightly nervous to see them again. It's been almost three years since I've seen them. I'm taking the whole time they are here off work so we can get to know each other again. I'm so nervous I spent over four hours cleaning my house today. Mostly the spare bedroom. It was crazy in there, you couldn't even walk in. Now its so nice and orderly.

Sister

My sister finally made her own blog. I'm so excited! Her blog link is here and in my other blogs section. She's so special she's at the top of my list out of alphabetical order. My new blog layout is also thanks to her. Her layout was so cute, I was jealous and had to have my own too. I really like it.

Family Home Evening

As a family we try to get together at least once a month and we rotate who's house we get together at. We've been doing this for at least 8 months, and this is the first time Martin and I have hosted it. I was sooo stressed about fitting 15 people in our small apartment. It actually turned out fine. A little crowded, but very fun.

We had rolls and deli meat and cheese, a fruit tray, chips and three different types of salads.

We also celebrated Allie and Nathan's birthdays that were last week. Allie turned 10 and Nathan turned 8. We don't have any candles or matches at our house, so we had to use a lighter. They weren't as amused as we were.



My favorite thing we did was snowcones. They were very fun.
After food, snowcones and birthday cake we had a Rock Band Marathon. Everyone took turns and played for almost 4 hours.
All the kids got in on the fun too.

They really got into it, and Jason played almost the whole time.

I thought it turned out awesome everyone had tons of fun and stayed until almost 10pm. My neighbors were very patient and didn't complain about the drums and the kids running around.

Picnic Day

When I would watch Sam our favorite thing to do was to take lunch to a park and play there for a while. I haven't been watching Sam on a regular basis for a while, but on the occasion that I would that's what she would want to do, but every time she would come it would be cold, snowing or raining. Since the weather has been getting warmer it's been all she can talk about. "Is it warm today mom?" "Staci's going to take me on a picnic." "What do you want to eat at our picnic, Staci?" On and on and on. So I finally decided that I better take her before she drove her mom crazy.

I should have taken my glasses off. You can see the reflection in them.

I asked Sam if she wanted me to pack a lunch or if she wanted to go to McDonalds, guess what she chose.

She couldn't even finish her food she was so excited to play.

She was saying "Don't picture me" here. I thought it was pretty funny.
This video is hilarious. She was singing songs on the swing, and this is her own version of "I am a Child of God." I was laughing so hard, and had her sing it four or five times.

To the Mothers of the World...

Martin and I started our stained glass class the other night. It was really fun. There is a learning curve to it, and I hope we both catch on quickly and easily. Our homework is to cut out all the glass pieces for our bee project. It makes me wish we had a house, with a garage or somewhere we could actually work on them. It's a little messy and the glass shards can get on the floor.

So with Mother's Day next week I've been thinking about babies lately, and timing it right. Mothers out there is there a "right" time? At first I was adamant about not having my baby born in or close to June or October, because my family has so many birthdays in those months. So I was wanting to have babies in the months of February to May, which means I would need to get pregnant in June to August, but am I really ready to get pregnant in a month? No. But do I want to wait a whole year? No. Should it even matter? Probably not. Plus I plan on having more than one baby someday, so who's to say I can't make the second or third in the months that I want and the first one can be whenever.

Then there's the whole being ready thing. Again mothers, are you ever REALLY ready. I'd like to be in a house, but it's possible to have babies and live in an apartment. Then there's the whole financial aspect of it, can we handle the financial demands of a baby? We are making good money, but can we stop spending, and save for a baby? And lastly are we mature enough to raise a baby, and is our relationship strong enough to be able to put the baby first, and not be so selfish. It's all sooo much. Will I make a good mother, do I want to deal with the sleepless nights and giving myself up completely for another life. I'm a very selfish person. I like things my way, I don't like having a schedule or people telling me what to do or when to do it, can I change?

AND THEN there is the feeling that I'm racing against time. Martin and I are both getting older. What happens if we wait, but then when we decide we want kids, it's too late and we can't. Gayla and Sara's kids are getting older. The youngest cousin of my kids cousins is Sam and she'll be 5 in October. I always wanted my kids close to theirs. My mom is getting older. I can't even fathom the idea of raising my kids without my mom. I'm constantly worrying about that.

Then there's the worry that my kids will turn out damaged. What makes kids turn out the way they do. I see other families and how it seems like all of the kids are a mess. On drugs, in jail, whatever. Then I look at my family, and yeah we've had our problems, but we're all pretty 'normal.' We're also incredibly close, we don't have the drama that some families do. What makes people the way they are. What did my parents do to make us turn out the way we did. Being raised in the church? Having so much emphasis placed on spending time as a family? Are we so incredibly close now because my Dad died? But we were close before too.

There are just so many questions I don't know the answers to, and I hate making decisions.

So am I working myself up over nothing? Did anyone else feel any of these things? What do I do? Just get it over with and have kids and everything else will come and work out ok? Do we wait until we are 100% ready and confident? Does anyone ever get 100% there?