WAHOO!!!

One down, ten million to go on my To Do Before Baby #2 Comes list!! Avery is sleeping in her very own big girl bed (with the 20 stuffed animals [oh, there are more under the covers. lots more.], four blankies, and drink of water that she always sleeps with. She is one quirky girl). In the corner is her brand new (to us) dresser that my parents brought us this weekend. It's covered in stickers (for now) but it's huge and is going to work great with two kids junk in it!! Baby prep is going great!! Now if only I could convince Avery that diapers suck and the potty rules!! No luck so far, but I'm keeping hope alive!

life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans

I love making plans!! It's so fun. Seriously, the only thing that could possibly be more fun than planning something fun is to do that fun something!! Wow, that was a hall of fame sentence, there. Anyway, lately I have been scheming more than usual. I think I have upped the ante on making plans due to this equation:

winter blues + pregnancy hormones + Klayton working 80 hours a week = planningplanningplanningplanning

Here are some of the best laid plans of mice, men and me:

• Planning a two-day trip on K's days off to SLC [as far away as I dare go with my preg ban on travelling (Sorry Portland!!! You are the love of my life and my first choice, but you're too darn far away!!)] to stay in a hotel, swim with Avery, visit friends, and eat breakfast at Paradise Bakery [oatmeal with strawberries and banana!], lunch at Rumbi [brown rice spicy Hawaiian teriyaki with shrimp and extra veggies!], and dinner at... somewhere. I'm open to suggestions here. We're going down in a couple of weeks! Happy late Valentines Day to me!
• Planning a move. I love Idaho but I don't love being cooped up indoors 4 months out of the year. Not cool. I don't know if we're gutsy enough (what would my mother say?), but while it's snowy and miserable (I really shouldn't complain. It's been quite a mild winter.) I am constantly making plans for our move. To the South. I've been chatting with my beautiful friend Meagan about North Carolina and it sounds ah-maz-ing. No, I've never been there, but that only makes it more exciting! We also want to check out Charleston and Savannah and... wherever! I'm not picky. When will we move? Yeah, that's the problem. Probably not for another year or two, but until then I get to keep making plans!! And that includes planning a trip to visit those places to see if we can picture ourselves as Southerners (this step is mostly for Klayton. I am totally destined to be a Southern woman [I am definitely cut out for wearing an apron 24/7, fattening up Grandchildren, and sitting on my porch]).
• Planning on baby #2! Picking a name (no luck yet). Arranging the furniture. Getting out Avery's old clothes. Wondering why on earth I saved so much junk. REarranging the furniture. Reading books to Avery about the joys of being the Big Sister. Putting the furniture back where I had it. Etc.
• Planning Avery's epic 3rd Birthday Party! I am decided on a Yo Gabba Gabba theme and I can't wait. She's going to flip. She has converted all of my siblings (the youngest of which is 18, mind you) to the show (I'm pretty sure my older brother, Adam, has bought the DVDs. He has no children.) and a lot of them are planning on coming up as well as my Grandmas (one from St. George, UT, one from Gilbert, AZ), my little cousin, Jessica, my parents... everyone. It's going to be a party (in my tummy! haha). The stressful part of planning this? The perinatologist says he'll most def be delivering me 2 to 4 weeks early!! That means that all of my planning could go out the door and I could be having baby girl #2 right around that weekend!! Gulp. Avery's 3rd Birthday: May 16th. Baby due date: June 20th. Double Gulp.
• Planning a special Valentines Date this weekend while Klayton is at work. Muahahaha! ...Okay, so it's nothing to evil laugh about, but I still can't wait! My mom just told me that she, my dad and Zach are coming up this weekend with more hand-me-down furniture for us and the baby's room (Yay! Thank you!! More to rearrange!!). So that, along with a movie date Saturday with my fam and my besties, the Chandlers, means that I'm planning on having one heck of a Valentines Day Weekend! Wahoo!
• Planning on getting out of credit card debt before the baby comes! And then getting into a heck of a lot more debt when the baby comes! But still, we have a plan. A good one. Until the hospital bill comes. haha

I have about 1,000 more plans that I'm cooking up for the present, the near-future and beyond! I realize that my obsessive planning is probably indicative of life being sort of grin-and-bear-it sometimes right now, but I'm really okay with that. Klayton and I have always been major planners/dreamers/schemers. I love looking to the future and finding ways to make the most of everything right now!

_________ is a warm gun

My friend Livi just did a giveaway where she asked everyone who entered what makes them happy. Like the big dork that I am, I didn't send her mine in time, but I've been thinking about it this morning and to me happiness is...

-Sitting in the stands at a Major League baseball game. Preferrably a Dodger game, but I'll take what I can get.

-Coming into the living room to dress Av in her PJs and finding this...

She made herself a bed in front of the heater to get warm after her shower. So cute.

-Cuddling on the couch with Klayton and a good movie/TV show/book (our latest TV addiction: White Collar on USA).

-Feeling the baby kick (and punch and pretty much have a dance party in my belly).

-Curling up with a good book that I can't put down. Then passing that book along to friends.

-The Beatles. Muse. Jay-Z [edited]. Prince. Foo Fighters.

-Riding my pink bike.

-Road trips with my family.

-The gospel.

-Making plans with Klayton for our future.

There are a thousand others I am sure, but these are a few of my favorite things. Thanks for brightening my outlook today, Livi!

composing hallelujah

Can't stop thinking about our 5th Sunday lesson with the Bishop a few days ago. He made a sort of analogy about the choices we have in life, saying,
"You can either feel the pain of discipline, or suffer the pain of regret."
So cool. He made a lot of connections between these two kinds of pain and how we study and live the gospel, how we treat our bodies, etc. Am loving this idea as you can apply it in nearly every area of life. It doesn't sound very cheerful (actually sounds like it hurts) at first, but I think that you can even substitute pain for joy in the first half, because disciplining our lives can lead up to lots o' happiness. Think about it.

wipe out

Aaaand this is why we always wear a helmet, even if we are just taking our friend's motorcycle out for a spin in the Bellagio parking garage. Right Klayton?

pam short's broken both her legs, and i wanna dance with you

Saw Avatar last night and am compelled to publicly admit/apologize for my wrongness. It was super awesome. Am I reluctant to be so thoroughly won-over by such a silly idea (an entire movie of CGI? If I wanted to pay $9.50 for animation I'd see a Pixar movie, James Cameron) but it was truly incredible. I was also relieved to find that the green agenda that tons of people and media have applied to the plot of this movie was complete BS. I guess people just see/hear what they want to, but I enjoyed this fun and visually stunning movie, and was glad to be able to do so without worshipping "Mother Earth". Not that I'm not grateful for our beautiful planet, I just choose to worship the God who created it instead of the earth that I believe he intended for our use. Wow, sorry. Now I'm on my soap-box. Hopping off. Anyway, if you are a fan of a good story and a great film, check it out.

gorgeous

This is what a couple of uninterrupted (more like unsupervised) hours of Avery-Daddy time on Saturday morning gets me:

This morning. Me: "Avery, you're so cute!"
Avery: "NO! I NOT CUTE! I GORGEOUS."
Klayton: Laughing so hard he's about to pee his pants.

So clever. Too bad he's not going to be there when some old lady in the supermarket makes the mistake of calling Avery cute. I am. haha. Love this kid. And her funny dad.

dilligent and concerned

Today in Relief Society we had a lesson on Elder Bednar's talk from this last General Conference, More Dilligent and Concerned at Home, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about the ways Elder Bednar suggested we improve our relationships at home and all of the ways that I need to improve since. As Klayton and I raise Avery, we often muse to ourselves about Nature vs. Nurture- or whether what we are is inherent in us our a series of learned behaviors or way of thinking from our upbringing. I think that you cannot completely argue against the fact that so much of who we are comes from our families, even as we must acknowledge that we each were born with certain traits and personalities that are unique to us and unchanged by familial or social influences. It's a pretty circular argument.

Even so, I am constantly surprised at how hard I struggle against certain traits of mine, both learned and inherent, that get in the way of what I want to teach Avery. And as I try to prepare (with as few sleepless nights as possible [not working out too well for me so far]) to bring another child into our family and think about how that will effect all of us, I was so glad to review Elder Bednar's talk today. He gives three suggestions to strengthen our families, and they are well-worth reading and evaluating. Sister Hinckley once said, "Home is where you are loved the most and where you act the worst." I find that too true in my life often times- it is very easy to take advantage of the ones you love the most. But I am determined to do better, to do more to bring the Spirit into my home and show my family how very very very much I love them.

Following this train of thought, I have found it impossible today to not be so grateful for a few (of the many) good things in my life. First of all, the Gospel. Through the teachings of the Gospel I am able to find answers and peace when solutions evade me. I am so grateful to have such wonderful truth in my life that manifests itself every time I bother to fight my lazy impulses and knock at the door of the scriptures, prayer, modern revelation from Prophets, even my hymn book. It's incredible. And, along those same lines, I am so grateful (and extremely lucky) to live in a ward where our bishop and other leaders are such knowledgeable parents and teachers. I learn so much from them every week, and it's not only how many cubits-long Noah's Arc was. I swear every time someone in our bishopric is at the pulpit teaching, it seems like they are doing so just for my benefit. It's a wonderful(ly intimidating) feeling.

I am also grateful for the example of my parents, especially as far as Elder Bednar's first suggestion of expressing love. I couldn't help thinking of all of the ways my parents told my and showed me that they loved me, and continue to do so. Now, at times my family are the poster-children for Sister Hinckley's thing about treating the people that you love the worst. Like I said, it's easy to do. But after hearing so many women raise their hands in RS today and talk about how their dad never told them that he loved them, they just knew he did, I was blown away. My dad not only told me and showed me that he loved me, he showed me how to love and take care of others, especially by fulfilling Church callings. And I'll never forget our Daddy-Daughter dates. Dad took me to tons of concerts (he is the music-loving king of the universe), including a surprise visit to see Sir Paul McCartney (I cried a lot that night. Tears of joy.), which, obviously, was one of the highlights of my life. But the date I remember most was the time when I was 16 or 17 and he took my across town on another mystery date. Now, after seeing a Beatle, I had pretty high hopes. But when we pulled up in front of a well-kept building in a pretty gross part of town, I was not excited. I was actually (I tried to hide it but I'm sure I failed) super annoyed. Why on earth would he think that I would enjoy working at the Bishop's Storehouse (a place where down and out people can come [with a note from their bishop] and get food and supplies for their families)??? What a jerk my dad was. I had never even heard of this place, and now I was restocking shelves like some slave (oh yes, I was/am that spoiled). How embarrassing. Except that by the end of our shift, I was so humbled and glad for that experience. I think that I have always gotten the most joy in my life out of serving others. My dad knew this about me, and that experience is one that I can't wait to repeat with my own kids, along with countless other things my parents taught me. I'm so lucky to have them as my family.

Wow. This post got really long. I doubt anyone is still reading at this point, but I'm just going to chalk this one up to a personal journal entry. A... umm... public personal journal entry. Anyway, this entire experience of mortality is all about families and choices and challenges. I'm so glad to know where I come from and where I want to go and how I can get there. And when I make mistakes (and I make a lot. Seriously. Way more than average. Yes, even more than you.) I know that there is a way back. I'm just trying to figure out how to make knowing all of this and living it the same thing. It's going to be a long road. But, really, who could ask for anything more?