Happy Birthday to Jan! Here is Jan's birth story: Based on an early ultrasound, Jan's due date was Dec. 19. But for other reasons, I thought maybe his due date was the beginning of December. It didn't help that I started having contractions and was dilated pretty early. So I got my hopes up, but he ended up being born right before his official due date. I went into labor around 4am that morning, per my usual pattern of the middle of the night. I waited about an hour before I woke Scott up and we left for the hospital after our neighbor came over to stay with David. We lived in Wisconsin in graduate student housing at the time.  At the hospital, I had dilated enough to start pushing and the doctor came in a rush. But it took me about an hour to push him out. He was facing up instead of down so that slowed things down a little. It felt like I was going to break every bone trying to push him out but finally he came at 7:30am. We had not known previously what gender he was be...

  Happy birthday to Garrett! Here is his birth story: Our third child, Garrett, was due almost exactly 2 years after his older brother was born. I was dilated to 5cm for several days before the due date but it came and went with no baby. But early the next morning, I went into labor in the middle of the night at 2:30am. I didn't wait very long before waking Scott up because the previous delivery had gone pretty quickly. We went to St. Mary's Hospital. I asked for some pain medication but it was not very effective and just slowed down my labor.  They broke my water at 6am and it had some meconium so they called in a few extra people in case there was a problem. At 6:15am, I started pushing and there he was! We named him after my father with his middle name being Philip for Scott's mother. I was glad to have another boy to join our first two. He weighed 8 lbs. 2 oz., 20" long. The day we brought him home was Jan's birthday. My mother came out a week later right after...

 I recently read about a new Instagram account called "Why I Stay" by Emily Snyder. Its purpose is to tell real stories from real people about why they stay in their faith communities. Each post is from a different person telling their story about their relationship with God and their faith community, largely LDS, but also other faiths. I want to share my own Why I Stay for my very small blogging audience. My faith helps me come closer to God.  I first remember praying and receiving an answer when I was about 16 years old. Before then, I had just accepted that I needed to keep doing what my parents wanted me to do and what my church leaders told me I should do, without feeling much urgency to get my own answers from God. But when I was 16, I had a question that seemed very important at the time, so I prayed earnestly about it. And I got an answer that helped. This personal relationship with God where I could recognize his voice progressed slowly but I kept praying and readin...

 Scott and I recently took a quick trip to Colorado. We haven't taken a trip with just the two of us since we went to Alaska in the summer of 2019 so we decided it was time. We left early Tuesday morning and flew to Denver. By the time we got our rental car, it was about 11:30. We drove to Fort Collins which is about an hour from Denver and found a little trail near the highway called Arapaho Bend Natural Area.  You get some traffic noise there but it was a nice walk and pleasant weather. We walked about 3 miles. Our main reason to be in Fort Collins was to visit the temple there. It's a newer temple built in 2016 and quite lovely. We had an appointment at 2:45 for an endowment session. It was good to be there. After the temple we found the restaurant where we were meeting a colleague of Scott's and his wife for dinner. Their names were Jake and Sarah Roberts and we enjoyed getting to know them. Scott knew them but I had never met them. After dinner, we drove to Denver and ...

 This week we visited this  exhibit  at BYU. I wasn't really expecting to like it but I did! He creates works of art using ordinary materials. This is the Mona Lisa made out of peanut butter and jam: This is Medusa out of spaghetti and marinara: This is Sigmund Freud out of chocolate sauce: This is Che Guevara (a major figure of the Cuban Revolution) out of black beans: This is a soldier made out of toy soldiers: This is made out of hundreds of little tiny toys: This picture is Frankenstein made out of caviar: Close-up: This is an actual picture of a skyline with a fake-looking cloud created by an airplane sky-writer: This is a copy of a famous picture by Monet (I think) using pieces of magazine pages: It was a fun exhibit!

A couple of weeks ago, I started keeping a gratitude journal each night by writing five things I'm grateful for, usually in reference to my day. I wasn't completely committed to doing it  but then I read this article that really reinforced it:   https://latterdaysaintmag.com/the-astounding-power-of-gratitude-to-create-happiness/ . The article says that by keeping a gratitude journal we can change our happiness "set-point" and she lists a long list of other benefits. It was pretty convincing. So I'm going to try to keep going with this gratitude journal and be a little more mindful of my many blessings. I have many material blessings but here are some of my most precious blessings that I can take with me into the next life: My marriage: My children and grandchildren (missing three): Goodly parents and grandparents: Siblings that I enjoy being with (missing one): The chance to learn more about family history: The opportunity to visit and learn more about the temple:...

Today our newest little grandson was given a blessing by his father at church. He is a sweet little baby and was very calm throughout the blessing as well as church. He was born to excellent parents and great siblings. We're so happy to have him in our family. Welcome, Enzo! On a side note, I think we've been able to be present for all the blessings for the children in David and Stephanie's family. Here are some flashbacks: