Delay is not denial....

Many months ago I blogged about trials. The last few years, I have felt that one of my trials was not being able to become a mother. I wanted that so bad, but finally the end of April I decided to just...be thankful for what I have and not focus on the things I didn't.  Driving home one day from work, I saw a sign that said "Delay is not denial, so keep praying." That sign spoke to me. I felt God was letting me know, children would come, just don't lose hope. That was Monday May 7.  On Saturday I woke up, and took a pregnancy test. I have taken many tests over the five years of my marriage. Many, many, many!!! Always negative. ALWAYS. Until....

Finally!!! After five years of marriage and trying for all those years, we had managed to make a baby!!!! The morning went something like this. I woke up, took the pregnancy test, looked at it, only saw one line (which means negative) and told myself, its ok. We can try again next month. I washed my hands, then decided I would take one last look at the test (the one in the middle in the pic) before I threw it away. There, faintly on the test was the one thing I had NEVER seen on a pregnancy test of mine before.  A SECOND LINE!!!!! My hands started shaking so bad and I ran into the bedroom and woke Jungleboy up, "Do you see what I see?? Do you? DO YOU???"  Jungleboy wiped the sleep from his eyes and peered at the stick. "Um, maybe?" he said. Feeling a tad deflated, but not giving up on the fact that I really truly did see a second line (not like all the other "lines" that I had seen on different tests, the wishful thinking ones) I show it to him again. Being a bit more awake now, Jungleboy agrees that he too sees another line.  I can't even begin to describe the amount of joy I felt that day. I couldn't believe that my dreams of being a mom were finally coming true. Jungleboys sister was getting married that Saturday and as we went to her wedding luncheon, I was on cloud 9. Nothing could bring me down!! Everything seemed a little better.  After the luncheon and before the wedding, we went to Walmart, so we could get a digital test. We found the test that we wanted to get, paid for it and I ran to the bathroom (by this time really needing to pee) only to find that the bathroom was closed. We rush out to the car, drive to the nearest gas station and I run inside, only to find the bathroom in a state of disgustingness. The toilet was filthy, paper towels & toilet paper all over the floor, the floor was wet. It was not where I wanted to take my second test!! So I went out and asked if I could use the employee bathroom. The girl tells me to use the one for customers, but I told her that it was super dirty. Finally I get a key to use the employee bathroom, do my thing and then wait. And wait. And wait. The stupid little hourglass on that test seemed to stay forever. I was so nervous. What if after all this joy, the test says NOT PREGNANT??? Finally the test is complete and I look at it and there it is PREGNANT!!!

So, there I am, officially pregnant. The next couple weeks go by, and life is great. I feel good, things seem to be going well. I continue taking a test a day for awhile, the lines keep getting darker and darker. And then......morning sickness kicked in. I HATE throwing up. I will do everything in my power to not throw up, but alas. I embrace the throwing up. Did I enjoy it? No. Am I glad I am passed that stage now? Heck yes!!! But then at 12 weeks, we went to the doctor and got an ultrasound done and got this pic:

And it was so amazing. Love at first sight sounds so cheesy, but thats exactly what it was. I already loved this little baby, but seeing the baby, made it even more real. At 17 weeks we had another ultrasound. Our doctor checked the sex, called my friend Christy, who baked us a cake with the inside colored either purple for a girl or green for a boy. We cut in to the cake and GREEN!!!!! While little girl stuff is absolutely adorable and I can't wait to have a girl someday, I was/am excited for a boy, as I always wanted an older brother.

At 22 weeks we got an anatomy scan. I was super nervous for this one, where they check everything and look for any abnormalities. Lucky baby Poppy (his nickname while in the womb!) passed with flying colors! At this scan we got this pic:

And even more, I realized, wow. There is a little baby growing inside me! After trying for five years, it still felt surreal to me! I was curious to see if baby was for sure a boy, since sometimes at 17 weeks they can be wrong, but as soon as the ultrasound technician began to look around, there was baby Poppy, legs spread wide, declaring to us "I AM A BOY!!!!"

Today I am 26 weeks (27 on Friday) and I am so thankful for this baby, for my pregnancy, for the support of my family and friends, especially my mom and Jungleboy. I think my mom is almost as excited to be a grandma to baby Poppy as I am to have baby Poppy!! Jungleboy has been so loving and is so good at taking care of me and baby Poppy already. He cooks, he cleans, he works hard and I appreciate it so much!! So just remember, when life is hard, and not seeming to go your way, think of these words:

Delay is not denial, so keep praying!!

Oh PB Wolf!

Some of you may remember this face:

His name is PB Wolf and he used to believe that makeup brushes were the best thing in the whole world. While he still loves to steal those, I have gotten better about keeping him out of the bathroom. Thus, he has chosen a new thing in which he loves to feel between his teeth and that is paper. Any kind of paper. Paper towels, toilet paper, writing paper. He loves it all. He isn't picky in the least. The other day Jungleboy and I had to pay rent. Neither of us have personal checks so we just get a money order in which to pay it. We got our money order on Saturday and forgot to pay it until Sunday. Sunday we got back from a drive and Rafael ran in to get our money order so we could go pay rent. He was in there for a while, but I didn't pay attention to the time, mostly because I was probably too busy analyzing my new hair color in the mirror of our car. Finally, he yells out the window, "I can't find our money order anywhere!"

 OH NO!!!! 

I dash inside and start a mad search of our bedroom. In drawers, under the bed, behind things, in pockets. That money order is nowhere to be found. Luckily we saved the receipt in a different location, we had left the money order out simply so we would remember to take it to the office. We look on the back of the receipt and it explains how to get a claim for a lost or stolen money order, which is good news except you have to mail it in! What??? In this day and age of technology that seems like a bunch of (insert your own bad word here). So, I start having a panic attack because we don't have tons of money just lying around to go get another money order in time. Jungleboy goes out in the living room and miraculously (still not sure how this happened) finds the money order, with ONE bite mark on it. So, PB Wolf had stolen the money order from the desk in the bedroom, made a run for it and then for some unbeknownst reason, dropped it and we some how found it before he decided to give it another try. Lesson learned? Keep the bedroom door shut and the cats out.

http://116york.tumblr.com/post/6152317460/convocation-weekend-pt-2-coco-the-cat

Trials

So, today I was pondering about trials. How we all go through them, how we all handle them differently. I have been through some hard times in my life, and a few of my hardest ones I haven't told very many people about. I have, however, talked about my current trial and that is lack of children. I recently posted this as my status update on Facebook:

I can't wait to have kids, but instead of moping about NOT having kids I have decided to do the following:
1-Be grateful for what I do have.
2- Look forward to the day that I DO have kids.
3- Focus on the perks of not having kids (ie midnight date at Dennys with Jungleboy, no babysitter necessary)!


That is how I feel 95.7% of the time. I really am trying to be positive and not focus on the things I don't have. However, sometimes its very hard to do. Its hard to understand sometimes why things are the way they are. Why some people get pregnant so easily. Why it is so hard for others. This is how I feel about trials: We all have different ones. That doesn't make the trials we are given any easier. We also all have different strengths. My strengths are obviously different than Jungleboys, than the girls I work with, than my family members. But I still have strengths. Trials help to strengthen us. I like to think that for every month that goes by that I don't get pregnant, I will appreciate my babies that much more. We are getting close to 60 months of marriage, so that's a whole lot of appreciation I will have saved up. I also think that we never know whats going on with someone. They may seem like they have everything together on the outside, but on the inside are falling apart. I am trying to work on being more compassionate and remembering that we all have trials and we are all sometimes hurting. Now, I usually don't get too spiritual in these posts, but I was just reminded of a scripture that I once memorized when Jungleboy and I were going through a hard time. We started memorizing scriptures, one every week. I honestly feel that helped my life so much. The scripture is from the Book of Mormon and it is Helaman 5:12. 

 12 And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the^arock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your ^bfoundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty ^cstorm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.

Even now,  remembering the strength it gave me reminds me of how much our Savior loves us. I challenge you all to memorize this scripture (I still have it memorized, its the only one of the 30+ scriptures that I memorized almost 2 years ago that I still have down WORD for WORD!) I am challenging myself to memorize a scripture once a week again. We can't do anything to stop trials, they will always be a part of life, but we can do our best with the tools we have been given. 

One of my favorites by Greg Olsen.

Change and random post!

So, I came to post today only to find out that they had COMPLETELY changed the look of my blog. I HATE when things change. I am not super savvy when it comes to computers and all that jazz, so when I get used to working something, I want it to stay that way, thank you very much. I guess change is inevitable and I shall adjust to the recent changes, but until then..... I shall be a disgruntled blogger....

Anyway, after reading the blogs of fashionable mormon mothers, I felt inspired to write a new post. I wish I was half as fashionable as them and had an adorable child or two to take pictures of, but I am not fashionable nor a mother, however I decided I too have things to talk about. Thus, here is my random post. Enjoy!

Jungleboy hates wasting food. He gets very upset at me when I waste food. I, unfortunately, have many weird....habits? quirks? OCD traits? when it comes to food.  I am not a picky eater, I like most foods, but I am picky in other ways. I am very picky with textures and smells. If food smells weird to me I have a very hard time eating it. Jungleboy on the other hand isn't so picky. Though a few of my favorite foods (peanut butter, barbecue sauce, deviled eggs) he doesn't enjoy. However, today I had a breakthrough. I am notorious at my house for buying salad and letting it go bad.... but today I finished my bag of spinach! And I was super impressed with myself!

I also finished the frozen strawberries, the protein juice and BANANAS!! I am also very bad at letting bananas go to waste seeing as once they aren't at least half green, I can no longer eat them plain. I know I could bake them in some delicious banana bread, but lets be honest. I don't bake very often!

Lately, I have been trying to eat better. Trying being the operative word. I have a weakness for McDonalds. There. Its out. I try to avoid it, but I drive by one either way I go home from work. Also, their ads are all over the radio and I recently found a letter from my grandma (who passed away in 1995) and in it she said how much she enjoyed living close enough to come visit me and take me to McDonalds. Thus, I blame her for my love of the Golden Arches. But for the last couple weeks I have been much better. Here are my faves of the last few weeks.

1: Spinach smoothies: I take a handful of spinach, throw in some bananas (yellow bananas even), a handful of frozen strawberries and a juice protein drink I found next to the rice milk at WalMart. I mix it all up in my blender and its so delicious, healthy and you can't even taste the spinach, which personally I love, but probably mixed with fruit it wouldn't be so good!

My delicious smoothie in my coke glass that I got from, that's right, you guessed it. McDonalds!

2: I have been really in to salad (romaine lettuce only) however, we don't have any salad dressing currently, so I have been making my own. A little bit of mustard, a tiny bit of Mayonaise, the juice from half a lime and a tiny dash of sugar. I mix it in a bowl, then throw my salad in and mix it around so all the pieces have a bit of dressing on them. Voila, deliciousness!!

3: Hard boiled eggs. I recently read (in the newsletter at the daycare I work at) that eggs are the best source of protein.  They are delicious during breakfast, lunch and dinner!

On to another favorite of mine (the title does say RANDOM post!).
Deseret Industries. For those of you not familiar with Deseret Industries (D.I.) it is a thrift store. Now, some people may have an aversion to wearing other peoples clothes. I however, am more than ok with it. I take it home, wash it, and call it new! My favorite part about D.I.? The other day I went and got 3 pairs of pants and 4 shirts and only spent 24 dollars!! It was awesome.

This concludes my random post. I apologize for its complete and utter randomness. And also for  overusing the word random.

Jungleboy and Farmprincess: A love story

Its been awhile  since I blogged, but today it has been 5 years since Jungleboy and I met so I thought I would tell you how it all got started....

Once upon a time, in January of 2007 I was 22 and single. I was feeling a little down about life when one day I felt prompted to look in to online dating. After all, thats how my mom and step dad had met, and it had worked out for them. So, I looked in to some different dating sites and felt good about one called LDSPlanet. So I filled out the information, uploaded some pictures, paid a small fee, and boom. I was in the world of online dating. Here is what I said about me in one of the profile questions:

I have lived in Canada for the last two years after my mom met and married a Canadian after divorcing my dad.  I lived on a farm and that was so much fun because I am a huge huge animal person.  I love to dance and read, I'm kind of shy at first but once you get to know me I can get kind of crazy!  I love little kids and am currently working at a daycare, which is the greatest job because you get paid to play!  It's awesome!


Ha, not much has changed. Still a huge animal person, still love to dance and read, still kind of shy at first and still work at a daycare, though not the same one. I tried to find pictures that I had posted on there, but sadly I couldn't. I did however find the picture of Jungleboy that started it all for me and here it is:

Notice how he is holding a drink?  I can't tell anymore for sure, but when I first saw the picture I assumed the cup to be from McDonalds which their coke is both the love of my life and bane of my existence. Also, his shirt says Ezekiel, which has always been a favorite name of mine, and also, check out his smile. So handsome!  The only thing I really remember from his profile was he stated he was from Brazil, loved soccer and that he was hoping to meet some new friends, and that special someone, if he was to meet her on LDSPlanet.

So, Jungleboy and I started communicating. We sent a few winks and what not. We sent a few messages. He seemed like a cool kid. But he didn't make a move and others did, so I met a few other guys from LDSPlanet (one who was pretty nice, one who turned out to be a jerk). Then in April, Jungleboy happened to send me his cell phone number. Just kind of out of the blue. Turns out I had been talking to his roommate who was also on LDSPlanet(who was/is a great guy) and it had kicked him in to gear about meeting me. So, on a Friday night 5 years ago on April 6, Jungleboy and I were supposed to have our first date. We lived about 45 minutes away from each other and Jungleboy had to go through a very hilly canyon to get to me. About halfway through that hilly canyon, Jungleboys 1995 VW Jetta decided to give up on running. Long story short, Jungleboy called me and explained he was currently waiting for his dad to come pick him up and wouldn't be able to make our date after all. However, he said he would try his hardest to come up on Saturday.

Lo and behold, on Saturday night, after borrowing his parents car, he did manage to come up and see me. We went to a little restaurant called Cabin Fever Cafe (which is no longer in existence, so sad!).  I was so excited to have their Strawberry Lemonade, it was so good. The waiter came up and I ordered it and he said, "Oh, we no longer serve that." WHAT??? That was the main reason I picked that restaurant, it was just that good!
So we spent dinner talking and getting to know one another and then we went and played cosmic mini golf (at yet another place that is now no longer in existence!).  I am pretty sure Jungleboy kicked my butt at mini golfing, although I loved to play I had no actual talent at it.

So, we went to my house, watched a movie and after that, Jungleboy left. And then he came back the next day, and the next and somehow without ever having "the talk" we just became a couple. Jungleboy was coaching soccer that year and we spent a lot of time at his games. One time a little boy asked him, "Is that girl your wife?" And Jungleboy replied, "Not yet." And so on May 23 (after picking out a ring together) Jungleboy took me to a beautiful spot up another one of the canyons close to my house. There was this beautiful waterfall and if you just jumped across a little stream you could be almost in the waterfall. Jungleboy held my hand and I prepared to jump across the little stream, only we hadn't communicated our plan very well. Jungleboy expected me to go one way, I went another way and splash!! We both ended up in the stream.  A few minor scrapes and a change of clothes later, we went to a park in my hometown that had always been very special to me. There Rafael proposed to me (across from the eagles who at one point years later we would see hunt a baby duck, so sad!) I said yes, and the rest as they say, is history. We were married July 28, 2007 in Dawson Creek, BC, Canada and sealed in the Logan Temple on October 15, 2011. We've had our ups and downs, our good times and bad times, our sickness and our health, but Jungleboy is definitely the jelly to my peanut butter. So, to end this love story, here are some pictures of the two of us!

One of our engagement pictures, which we took ourselves!

Our wedding day, the date on the camera is apparently wrong!

Us at the Salt Flats, about a year or 2 into marriage.

Us about a year ago.

                                 

Us after we got sealed.

Us on our photo shoot after our sealing.

http://facebookemoticons123.blogspot.com/2011/08/love-quotes.htm

Regrets of years past....

There is not much in life I regret. I have made mistakes (haven't we all?) but as for regretting things, my list is short. While on YouTube today, I was reminded of one of mine. Here is a bit of a story to prepare you for my regret.

When I was a little girl, I was very shy and quiet. When I was six my moms friend asked my mom if she thought I would be interested in taking dance lessons. My moms friend, Angie, had a friend who taught dance and so my mom asked me if I would like to take dance lessons and I said, "heck yeah mamacita!" Ok, ok. Those were not my exact words. But that was the gist of them.                                And so began my love of dance.

squidoo.com

I took dance from age 6 to 16. This sounds cliche, but when I danced, I was someone else. I wasn't shy and quiet. I loved performing. I loved the crowds. I loved the girls I danced with (most of them anyway!) and I loved the person I was while dancing. My high school had a drill team. When I was a freshman I had the opportunity to try out for the team for my sophomore year. I went to the first part of the tryouts. They went good, I felt like I had the ability to make the team. But for some reason that I cannot at this time remember, I didn't go back to any of the other tryouts. My dance teacher even called me when she found out I wasn't trying out anymore, which further leads me to think I may have been able to make the team. But my decision was firm and I didn't go back. Fast forward to today and while on YouTube, I came across some videos of the Bountiful High School drill team. I am pretty sure most of the videos were from last year, but oh my gosh! They are AMAZING!!! But it made me realize how much I regret not trying out for my high school drill team. The decision was entirely mine, and I really have no memory of why I changed my mind, but I definitely wish I had the chance to do it again, because this time I would definitely try out.

sayingimages.info