What do you want to be when you grow up?

I asked Aleah, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" After telling her that she probably doesn't really want to be a football player like her friend Trey, she decided that she wants to be a mom. Good thing she decided this so early.

I remember when I realized that I wanted to be a mom too, and sad to say that it wasn't until I already was.

You know when you're growing up, people are always asking you, "what do you want to be when you grow up?". I never really enjoyed the question because I never really knew or had a strong desire to be any one thing. When I was in 4th or 5th grade I wanted to be a chiropractor because one of my friends' dad was and he came and gave a presentation on what he does...so influential at that age. I also remember thinking that I was going to be the first woman in the NBA, well now they have the WNBA, and I honestly have no desire to be a part of that or the NBA for that matter. I can also remember wanting to be a Psychotherapist and a teacher and a clown, okay just kidding about the clown, but it would be fun, maybe.

Anyway, I always felt that I had to do something and be something that people would think was useful and worthy and respected. When people asked, I just said something that I thought they'd want to hear.

Well, years later, here I am doing what I always wanted to, but never knew it. A couple months after I had my first daughter, I had a profound moment and I finally realized that a mom is what I'm meant to be. I do admit, however, there are so many moments that I want to do other things, like go back to school and learn anything and everything, be a photographer, own a business, play the violin, get back into basketball and any other sport, read, read and read, write, play with photoshop, be a chef....seriously the list could go on forever. But when it comes down to it, I know I won't be happy if I didn't give my children everything. Each day I learn more and more of what it takes to be a mom and what sacrifice means. Sacrifice means, giving something up for the better of more. I give up my wants and desires because I know that it's for the better of my children. I know there is a time and a season for all things and that I will be given many opportunities to accomplish all that I want, but right now is the season to be the best mother I can to my children. (Don't get me wrong, I know that we should seek learning and develop our talents, which I do, I just know that the number one priority is to teach and play with my children.)

I can't thank the Lord enough for the family He has blessed me with, the one I come from and the one I've started. I am very happy with my proclaimed profession of being a mother and I really feel that there is no higher calling and that there's nothing better I could be doing right now. It's hard work, according to some, I asked Aleah what mommies do and she said, "put lips(lipstick) on". I'll assure some of you that I try to do more than put my lipstick on.

Mother's day continued...

Okay, well I'm just now getting around to posting something about Matthew's mom. (That last post he did, he's getting to be pretty good at posting.)

I hate to use the title "Mother-in-law" because I think too often it has sort of a negative connotation and I have been greatly blessed to have married into such an awesome family.

The more people I meet, the more I learn that not so many are as fortunate as I. From the first day I met Matthew's mom she has always been a warm, gentle, reassuring person. Of course meeting the parents can be daunting, but Matthew's mom made it pretty comfortable and what can I say, "kick back".

Let me tell you a little about her. She's very intelligent, very patient, very creative, very loving and honest, if I ask her, she'll tell me. She has three children, 5 grandchildren, she teaches Spanish and French to High school kids, she loves to read, garden, walk, play games, and be with family. One of my favorite things about summer is knowing that we get to see Matthew's parents. They always drive out to visit us, whether it's 10 hours away or 3 days away, they always come.

And now for a story about my wonderful Mother-in-law.

This past summer Matthew's parents came out to visit near the end of July. I was pregnant with Kanani, and she was due July 27th. My mom wasn't able to come out to help so Matthew's parents arranged it so they could be here. Well, the past couple of years, Matthew's grandpa (his mom's dad) hadn't being do too well. So before they came out to see us they were at his grandparents house, spending time with her dad and helping her mom any way they could.

Then they came out here, and were here 2 weeks before I finally had the baby, and then about 5 days after. They left around Aug. 4 and a week or 2 later both Matthew's parents had to go back to teaching.

The following month her father passed away.

I am very grateful for the sacrifice that my mother-in-law made to be here in our time of need, even though her need was greater.

Mother's are such a blessing and I am very grateful to have two.

I love you Mommy!

My mom.

Here goes round two at trying to post something for my mom. I know she will appreciate the fact that I had everything typed in and ready to go and I pressed the button to submit and save it and the connection to the internet was bad and I lost everything. So I am starting from scratch and saving it as I go. I am very thankful for the example that my mother has been for me. She has taught me about hard work and dedication and a love for the gospel. I am thankful for all that she has taught me. I remember growing up I have always loved playing baseball. I would go out back and throw a ball against the school wall for hours on end. My mother would take me, my brother and my sister to the playground where she would play with us. She stand up tall on the pitching mound, wind up, and toss the ball to us. It was always fun to go out and play as a family. One day when I was in first or second grade she was pitching to me and I got a hold of one and sent it right back at her. Luckily her cat like reflexes kicked in and she was able to get out of the way as the ball sailed through her legs. Right after that she said it was getting late so it was time to go home. After that she would still go play with us but she would position herself a little further out in the outfield so when the ball got to her it had stopped rolling. She would still go to all of my school activities and sports games. I loved having her there and appreciate the support she gave me, and still continues to give me and my family. It is true that God's greatest gift is mothers, and I have the best one!

Mothers...God's greatest gift!

Someone once coined a phrase that goes something like this, "God can't be everywhere at once, so he gave us mothers." What would we do without mother.

This was my 3rd Mother's day as a mom and it was the best one ever! It wasn't the best because I got some extravagant gift or because I didn't have to do any dishes, it was the best because I realized a few things. You know when you think you know something just because you hear it all the time, but then you realize that you didn't really know it all along. I always thought that Mother's day was a day to honor mothers, which it is, but in an ironic way. Instead of feeling honored by my children, like you would typically think for Mother's day, I felt like it was more of an honor to have them, more of an honor to be a mother. Yes, I did feel honored by my children, they have their ways even though they are so small and innocent, and I felt honored by my husband. But it was a much bigger deal for me to realize that I am a mother. I felt like Mother's day is for me to celebrate the honor of having my children rather than my children having me.

I looked at my girls today and felt that I have everything I could ever want. I felt complete, I felt love and I felt joy. As I was preparing my primary lesson I read a talk from one of our past Prophets, he said, "Happiness comes from living the gospel...". That struck me because I'm human, I worry about paying bills, I worry if we're ever going to be done with school, and I worry about getting a big beautiful house with a basketball hoop in the driveway.When it comes down to it, I realize I don't need those things to be happy. I look at where I came from and where my husband came from. Neither one of us come from a huge mansion (and we both didn't have a basketball hoop in the driveway), but we were taught to live the gospel, and we were and are happy. I looked at my husband and my girls today and I knew what I needed to be happy. I am so grateful to be a mother and I truly feel that it is an honor and the highest calling from God.

Now I also wanted to share a little about each of our mothers:

My mom is an amazing woman!

Let me give you a little background first.

I come from a family of 9 kids. (I'm the 8th) My parents divorced when I was 7, so my mom did what she could to hold our family together. She went back to school to earn her teaching degree, worked 3 jobs, walked and rode the bus everywhere because we didn't have a car and she raised all of us.

I remember this one time in 4th grade I wanted to be in the school band and I really really wanted to play the saxophone. So I talked to my mom about it. We knew there was no way we could afford to buy one, plus probably not the best idea to buy one right off anyway. We found out it would be $35/month to rent one and my mom figured out a way to come up with the money. A couple weeks later we went down to the music store to see if we could rent one. Well, my mom had warned me about there being a chance that they wouldn't let us if her credit wasn't good enough, but hey I was 9 years old and that didn't mean anything to me...well, at least not until we walked away from the music store, me, with a short perspective and tears running down my face and my mom with a heavy heart.

A couple days later, my mom came home from school and came upstairs to my room. She had this small black worn case. It was much too small to be a saxophone. She handed it to me. As I opened it she explained to me that she knew it wasn't what I wanted but that it was all that she could afford and that I would still be able to be in band.

It was a flute. The clasps on the case were broken, some of the pads on the keys stuck when you pushed them down and when I put the flute together the end piece slightly bent.

It didn't matter to me. I could tell that my mom loved me. Some how she found time amoungst her jobs, school and us, to go to pawn shops and find me something that would give me the opportunity I wanted. She gave us everything she could. She found ways to provide for us and she did her best to meet our emotional needs, but most of all she taught us that we are children of God and that He loves us and he sent His son.

She taught us to live the gospel...she taught us to be happy.

Not a day goes by without me wondering how she did it.

I love you mom...I still have the flute.

(This is a picture of my mom with my 5 brothers. I have this perfect picture of me and my mom but it's on our other computer that isn't hooked up right now.)

I know I said that I was going to post something about both our mother's but I have to do the other one tomorrow. It took me too long to find a picture and now it's almost 1am. I love you Wilma, I just gotta go to bed.

Chelsea is our MVP

This is my first attempt at a post on our blog so here goes. Last Wednesday we had a softball game and we were struggling to get enough people there. Luckily we got the needed number to arrive on time so we could start playing. It was a hard fought contest. Going into the last inning we were tied 7-7. We were the home team so we had last at bats. We loaded up the bases with one out and Chelsea came up to the plate. I was standing at second base and I could see the gleam in her eye as she knew what needed to be done. She surveyed the position of the fielders and as in Ruthian lore she pointed her bat to center field. OK, she didn't point her bat but she made a gesture with her eyes that told me she was going to hit it there. They moved the infield in to try to cut the run at the plate but Chelsea was unphased. She got in her stance and kept her eye on the ball and hit a shot to centerfield that was deep enough to score the game winning run!!! It was the best sacrifice fly that I have ever seen! Also she had some very nice plays in the field.

Not only is she an MVP in the field but with raising our two girls she does such a wonderful job. They are learning so much about everything that it's fun to come home each day and hear about their activities of the day.

Girls and the instinct to be over dramatic!!!

We all know that sometimes the female race can be a little dramatic, here's just one example.

First of all, this is not the first time that Aleah has fallen and scraped her knee while playing outside. However, this was the first time that Matthew happened to be outside when she came running over to show us...and good heavens, it was the end of the world! Matthew took her inside the house to try and clean it and she was not going to have that! She was hysterical! She would not stop crying. (Good thing we have mommy to do the dirty work.) After a good while she finally calmed down enough to tell us that she wanted to watch a movie. So, we put her on the couch, because she had to be carried, put a movie on and propped her leg up on a pillow. When it was bed time, we laid her down in bed, again with her leg propped up and she quickly fell asleep.

The next day she walked around limping, whenever she remembered that she hurt her knee, other than that it was a miraculous recovery and she was able to play all day.

Talk about drama! It makes me crazy!!! Just so you know 2 days ago, she fell again outside, came running over to tell me, I asked if she was okay and if she needed me to hold her, she said no and went about her business. I could tell she was in pain, but after showing me, she was fine. But whenever Daddy is around, man, she plays it up.

I wish I could say that I wasn't a drama queen, but I'm a woman and there's no avoiding the drama. Like I said, it's a built in instinct, so I guess I should just learn to love it. (but I can't stand it!!!)

This is daddy trying to calm her down.

Here it is....I could barely get a picture without her freaking out.

(I know, it's a little scratch, that's what I mean over dramatic!)

A GPR or Associate? It's almost time to apply for GPRs.

-A GPR, in this case, stands for General Practice Residency and is self-explanatory.
-To Associate, in this case, is to find a dentist/practice in which Matthew could sign a year or two contract and learn the ropes of dentistry.
These are just simple definitions which lead to unbiased interpretations.
Now here are a few other definitions....
A GPR (according to Chelsea) means: A fun application process that takes time and money and waiting until next February to see if we get accepted to one; we get to move somewhere new for a year, which means we have to move again in just 12 months after that--more money; my husband gets to work in a hospital atmosphere (doing dentistry) and gets to be on call every week to every 3 weeks; hopefully my husband gets to learn implants and I.V.sedation in a lower risk environment; we get paid around $40,000-give or take--that's more than now; we probably get to rent another apartment, although I have his word we look for a house to rent first...which probably means another apartment...which means no washer and dryer...another apartment means either we wait until the GPR is over to have another kid(I don't want to have another newborn in an apartment--no one gets sleep!!!!!) which means there will be a 4 year gap or I suck it up and have another one anyways---sleep is over rated; a GPR means...our job options afterward should be plentiful;

To Associate means: really there's so much it means I quit these definitions.

Let me just tell you how I feel. If it was up to me we would just go find a job in an area we would like to live and get paid 3 times more times more than a GPR and be that much closer to paying off those blasted school loans, continuing our family, and getting a washer and dryer and a place to put it.
Other days it makes perfect sense why Matthew wants to do a GPR and I am excited and supportive. Today... I was all for a GPR until Matthew comments to a friend that maybe he'll go work with him in a year! There you have it. One minute we're doing a GPR, the next, we're out in the real world.
Really, I'll be happy and supportive, whatever my husband decides. How could I not, Matthew is just too good of a man to not be happy with him.
Stay posted to find out what we do. Okay not really because you'll be waiting for probably a year.