Live Without Regret!

For those of you who are wondering what the "I read nienie" and "c jane" buttons are on the left side of my blog, they are a direct link to the blogs of Stephanie Nielson and her sister Courtney. I went to high school with Stephanie's husband Christian. In August, Christian and Stephanie where in a private airplane crash in northeast Arizona and both sustained serious burns over much of their bodies. Christian has burns on 30% of his body and Stephanie has burns on 83% of her body, including her face. I have been drawn to the blogs as they have kept an update on their recovery and also on their 4 children. Reading their blogs has been an eye opening experience to me and it has given me a chance to think about my own life and evaluate what I can change. I do not consider myself to be a "fence sitter," I just tend to be quiet and keep my inner-most thoughts and feelings from everyone, including my family. In this day and age, I cannot afford to "cautiously share" my testimony or love I have for those around me anymore. The time to share is now!

I don't ever want Jeremy to wonder if or why I love him,

I don't want my boys to grow up not knowing how special they are to me,

nor do I want anyone to doubt, in any way, that I have a testimony of Jesus Christ.

After listening to our Prophet, President Thomas S. Monson's talk at the end of the Sunday morning session of General Conference, about "living for the here and now" and using a popular quote from the movie "The Music Man" that he has said before, "if you use up enough tomorrows, you'll find all you have are empty yesterday's,"

and his comment about "the endless fingerprints that cover everything in the house will soon be gone and you'll miss them when they are."



My plan of action:

• I'm going to embrace being an eternal companion and make sure that I don't miss an opportunity to let Jeremy know how much I love him, and cultivate an everlasting friendship!


• I'm going to embrace my season of being a young mom with little fingerprints on everything and the endless laundry, dishes, etc because my family is a priceless treasure.


• I'm not going to be afraid to be a living testimony and stand as a witness of Christ. I want everyone who comes in contact with me to see the love of Christ in my eyes.

This is my chance to become the person that my Heavenly Father knows that I can be, but only I can make this happen! I know that I am not perfect and that I will have moments of relapse, but thru repentance and prayer my life can be a testiment of what I believe.

Pains of Growing

The last month or so all 3 of our boys have been showing signs that they are growing. They are eating anything and everything they can get their hands on, and have been very tired. But there has been a few things I had forgotten were part of growing too. Clayton has spent many days on the couch groaning because of growing pains in his legs. Then of course the constant clumsiness. They have all been bumping into walls, more than normal, and tripping over their own 2 feet. In fact, in only 3 days Tanner gave himself a black eye, scraped the side of his face, skinned his elbow, skinned his knee, and then skinned his forehead. It was so pathetic, all I could do was give him loves as he hurt himself and laugh inside. It seems as if every few minutes I hear one of the boys complain of another bump, bruise or scrape. It has been entertaining, in a way, because we all end up laughing at the dinner table. As we talk about who did what today, instead of just the normal conversation of "Micheal, Clayton or Tanner learned this today," we have added, "check out this bruise," or "did you see what Tanners did to his face again," or "look what I did when I fell off of my bike." This is all terribly cute as I watch my 3 little boys grow up! I didn't realize how dangerous it would be. I hope they don't grow too much or we'll be in BIG trouble!

Boy will be boys!

This is video that I found from the summer and forgot about. This is what boys do when they are bored and find something to play with. Maybe I'm a bad mom, but I couldn't help getting video of it. It was funny! One week later, we bought a trampoline!

(Tanner was not hurt in the filming of this video.)

Tanners Birthday

Sept. 16th was Tanner's 3rd Birthday! What joy he brings to our family! We love you Tanner!

Potty Training update

Tanner is potty trained! It was so simple and easy too! The first day he had 4 accidents, second day only 2 accidents, third day he had 1, and has been clean and dry ever since! He even stays dry at night. I have to admit that I was skeptical about it taking only 3 days because the last 2 times it took forever, but it has worked for Tanner so far!
I would highly suggest the 3 day potty training technique because it is positive, encouraging, simple, cheap and it helped to teach me how to let him be in control of when he needed to go. We haven't had any power stuggles about potty training and that is such a big difference between my first 2 potty training experiences and with this one. Potty training Tanner has been a great experience and how often to you hear that about the most dreaded thing about parenting! Maybe it worked because he was ready since he was the only one in diapers, and he wanted to be like everyone else, maybe it was his personality, maybe it was because he is about to turn 3 in September, whatever it is, we are done with diapers and I am so glad that I did it! Heads up, she said that the most ideal time to potty train is when they are 22 months old because they are not set in their ways as much as a 3 year old. I wish I would have known that when Tanner was 22 months, I could have saved so much money!
All that I had to buy was the ebook, underwear, 1 stool, 1 package of kandoo wipes, and lots of drink! I opted not to buy a potty chair or seat because I wanted him to get used to going on any toilet, but that is a personal choice. Check out the website (www.3daypottytraining.com) yourself to see if you like it. I think the $24 was well worth it, especially since I won't be buying diapers anymore! YAY!!

Jeremy's Knee Injury

Some of you may know that Jeremy hurt his knee on July 19th. He spent most of last week in a Doctors office, in bed or on the couch. Well, we finally know what is wrong with it. He has a tibea plateau fracture and he also fractured his cartilege on his left knee. No ACL or MCL damage though. He has a stiff brace and will be on crutches for 2weeks, then down to one for next 2 weeks, and then careful walking. Surgery is still a possibility if his cartilege doesn't heal right in the next 6 weeks. He is pretty bummed about the injury because he was planning to run his first marathon (26.2 miles) in the fall, but now he is being advised not to even consider training for a marathon until next spring at the earliest. He also can't drive for 2 reasons, his car is a stick and he hurt his left knee, and he has to remove his brace to drive mine, because the parking brake is in the way, and he would have to bend his knee. So I have become his personal driver, which probably drives him crazy, ha! His boss has been allowing him to work from home since his desk doesn't accomidate his affliction very well. He is hanging in there but he has to take it easy. I wish he would have done that to begin with instead of mowing the lawn immediately after he hurt it. We are very lucky though, it could have been so much worse!

Potty Training Experiment

Ok, I've decided it is time to potty train Tanner and I have been dreading it since the day he was born but I hate changing diapers more. I decided that I am done buying diapers and when I run out, I had to start potty training. Well, I am down to the last 15, and I am determined not to buy anymore diapers. I don't want potty training to last as long as it did with Micheal and Clayton so I have been on a mission to find a new technique. A friend of mine suggested the "3 Day Potty Training" ebook by Lora Jensen. She potty trained her newly adopted 3 year old twins using this method and she highly suggested it. As soon as she said "3 day potty training" I was on board and wanted more information. After checking out her website (http://www.3daypottytraining.com/) I bought Lora Jensen's "3 day potty training guide" ebook (ebook is the only way to get it) for $24. I read thru the download and I am actually excited to get started because I might be finished in
3 days. I can handle potty training if it takes only 3 days! I plan to start potty training Tanner on Monday, July 21st! I bought everything I need and have been rereading her book so I can follow it to a T. I figured that there are so many of us preparing to potty train, or in the midst of it, and that it might be benefitial for me to try it and let you know how it went. So that if it works, I might save not only myself a headache but be able to help some of you too. So I will update you with my experiment by the end of the week. I hope to be able to tell you that it worked and the ebook is worth the money, but if it isn't, I'll tell you that too! Wish me luck!:)