Oh Christmas Tree...Oh Christmas Tree

Christmas is my favorite time of the year. It's one of the reasons I wanted to get married in December. At our wedding we had lots of Christmas trees and winter decorations. We even bought a light that made snowflakes on the walls at our reception.

Parker, it seems, loves Christmas too. Now, granted, this is the first time he's ever been excited about Christmas. However yesterday he hugged our wrapping paper and told me he loved it. All day today he told me that "Christmas coming! Mommy, Christmas coming!"

So, last night Andrew and I decided to put up the Christmas tree to surprise Parker with in the morning. It took us like 2 hours just to put the stupid lights on the tree. The branches kept falling off, which messed up the lights so we had to redo it 3 times! We were about ready to go all ninja on the darn thing!

We finally finished at 4 am, and this was the final product.

I'm pretty sure Parker likes it because he keeps trying to hug the tree...but why don't you tell me what you think?

Proposition 8 and the Rome, Italy temple

I received the following message in my e-mail today. It might be just a faith promoting rumor, but I really liked it and I wanted to post it for you. The Lord knows the end from the begining and he uses many methods to further his work.- Autumn

Many reasons why we follow a prophet....




Jane Parker, who is the late Elder Wirthlin's daughter, told us the

following story today in Relief Society. She went to a talk by a lawyer

for the European Area (each area of the Church has a legal department). The

talk was about the ability to have a temple built in Rome, Italy which was

announced as a done deal in conference recently. He stated that they knew

they needed to have contact with the cardinals of the Catholic Church to see

if they would approve or go along with our desire to have a temple built

there. He heard of a reception at which the cardinals would be present, and

the legal department for the church was also invited. He approached one

cardinal and talked to him about the issue. The cardinal said, "We will

support you in any effort you want because of your support of Proposition 8

in California."



Jane's comment was that she doesn't think the Church people in California

who worked so long and so hard on getting that proposition passed and many

even suffered persecution probably know that they were the instruments in

getting a temple built in Rome, Italy.

The top 10 things on my mind right now...

So, there's a lot going on right now. So much, that I feel like I am barely able to keep up with the things I need to do.

1. School- I know I started up my classes way too soon. I was told I could only take 60 days without it affecting my student loans, but I haven't been able to keep up with my classes because of the new baby and illnesses and other life stressors. Now I know I'm going to fail these classes. I hate failing. I am a really good student. I am very smart and I am very capable. But, stress makes it difficult for me to focus.

I think I am going to take a break from UOP and maybe take a couple units at Folsom this spring while Andrew's gone. (It'll give me an excuse to get out of the house for a few hours a day.) I'd like to take a photography class or two and work on digital photography.

2. Army- This is going to be a completely different lifestyle. I mean COMPLETELY. I thought it would be just a lot of moving a stuff, boy was I wrong. Did you know that when the nightly trumpet sounds that, if I'm driving, I have to pull the car over until it's done? AND if Andrew's in the car with me, he'll have to get out and solute?

I am excited in a lot of ways, but I'm nervous too. Mostly because I don't know exactly what to expect. In our marriage I have always been the planner. I am the researcher. I am the one who takes care of things. With the Army, I have zero control, and I have to trust Andrew to do EVERYTHING. That's really scary for me. I am a total control nut, and I know it. I guess this is the Lord's way of teaching me to follow as well as lead.

I would also just like to throw this out there with regards to this topic. I saw a bumper sticker the other day that read, "Sexually deprived for your freedom." I thought to myself, I'm going to need one of those soon...

3. Baby- Although Lucy is the most AMAZING baby EVER, I am still feeling a little detached from her. I don't know why, but with Parker, I just latched on to him immediately. With Lucy I feel like I am having to work at loving her the way I love Parker. I'm sure I have a little PPD, but the knowledge doesn't make it any easier.

Parker was so dependent on me, and Lucy is so independent. She loves her tummy time and very rarely cries during the day. I don't really feel like she needs me. Does that make sense?

I was also really resentful of nursing. I know this sounds terrible, but I was relieved to quit nursing. I hated feeding her all the time. I felt like every time I put my bra on, I had to take it off. Nursing makes me feel fat, ugly, sweaty and gross.

Don't get me wrong, I love Lucy (tee hee), I just don't feel as close to her yet as I did with Parker. The weird thing about all of this? I can't wait to get pregnant again... WEIRD.

4. Work- I know that I'm going to need to start working again, but I really want to do something out of my house. However, every business needs capitol... which I don't have.

I think we will be getting a pretty nice tax refund next year and I was thinking about doing two different things: buying a new digital camera and start doing weddings and portraits again or buying a vinyl machine and start selling vinyl projects and doing vinyl nights after we move to our new home. (If I choose the latter, I won't start selling projects until I get to our new destination because Christensen Vinyl is here and Sister Christensen is awesome and I would never want to cost her business.)

Both are businesses that I really enjoy doing, but I really don't want to start a business only to have it fail, so I want to be really prepared and have a plan and know what I'm getting myself into. And I don't want to try to do both and stretch myself too thin.

5. Spirituality- I received a new calling in the Relief Society as a teacher. I'll teach the 2nd Sunday lesson. I am really excited. I love teaching. I need to get to the temple though. I hate to admit it, but I haven't been to the temple in almost a year. When I'm pregnant I have to go to the ladies room all the time and it's hard to sit through a session. I want to make some changes to feel closer to the Lord, but it seems like every time I try to pull out my scriptures, I have a crying child or a homework assignment. I need to start making time for the Lord. It sounds stupid, but I am seriously keeping a set of scriptures in the bathroom and the kitchen table to read. Even a few minutes a day is better than a sporadic 30 minutes today 30 minutes next week.

6. Parker- Okay, two words... POTTY TRAIN! I am tired of changing his stinky, poopy diapers! I mean, what do I feed that kid that makes him smell like that? YUCK!

7. Money- It sucks to be broke! The suckiest part? That we don't really need that much money to get ahead of the game... we just need a break. Ya know?

8. Illness- I am sick and tired of being sick and tired! I just want to go a whole month without being sick, having babies, getting infections, or otherwise not being healthy. Imagine all that I could accomplish if I could have just one stinking month!

Oh did I mention that I want my kids and husband to healthy in the same month that I am? Wouldn't that be a change?

9. Friends- Okay, so I'm not very good about making and keeping friends. Every BFF I've ever had has dropped me like a bad habit. No one has ever told me what it is that I do that makes them not want to stay friends with me, but it must be something about me because it seems to happen all the time.

I always tried to make things right, I would apologize for the different things I did or didn't do. Sometimes my friends came back around, sometimes they never did.

Since I got married, I stopped trying to make and keep friends because I felt like "why bother?". So, I've depended a lot more on Andrew to not only be my husband and my best friend, but also my "girlfriend".

With Andrew leaving, I'll need to start really making friends again because I know I won't be able to do everything on my own, and that scares me like you can't even imagine. Of all the relationships I've ever had, I've never been hurt by any man the way I've been hurt by my friends. I guess that's what scares me so much, ya know?

10. Husband- Per number 9, I depend on Andrew a lot for companionship. He's my best friend. The few times we've been apart he's called a couple times a day. When he was working he would almost always call me on his lunch time. We talk about everything. He is my own personal sunshine. It's going to be really hard for me to have him leave for almost 6 months. (And harder when he gets that inevitable call to Afghanistan.) But, I love him with my whole heart, and I trust that the Lord would not lead us astray.

Well, I think that's everything on my mind right now. If you actually read this whole post, I'm giving you a gold star for the day!