sadie's mormon.org profile

Hi I'm Sadie

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abe's birthday- part 1

 i wanted a "twelve year old" picture of abe for our mantel, so spontaneously i took him outside and shot a few photos of him.  it was terrible lighting, but we did it anyway.  

are these pictures of dave or abram?  seriously reminds me of dave, way back in the day when i used him for my photo class model in high school.  crazy.

it's hard to believe that abe is twelve!  

dave bought him a suit so he can pass the sacrament this sunday. sadie keeps reminding me that abe will now go to mutual with her.    i need to soak this kid up.  life moves pretty fast.  it doesn't seem like too long ago when he was born and we were living in virginia.  dave was busy with medical school, i got bell's palsy and it was difficult.  i had to tape my eye shut at night and it was painful.  i felt like a freak whenever i went out, but then i would hold abe close and he would snuggle in and put his head against my droopy cheek and he would say, "mmmm, mmmmm, mmmm."  i'm so glad i had him to get me through that difficult phase.  i remember just loving him and being so grateful that he was healthy.  it made the difficult doable, even easier, and worth it.  he is a capable kid, such a peacemaker, kind and not to mention awesome! 

couldn't keep a serious face without breaking a smile.

 

love the look.

dave and i used to practice this look...i'm so glad it got passed down:) 

i really like this kid! 

 i was sick this morning (the last few days every one has been throwing up at our house.  i thought vivian and i refrained, but i started throwing up this morning)  before abe left for school, he brought me breakfast in bed.  a fancy tray with a banana and sprite.  i knew he was caring about me and we connected.

9 months

(hanging out before school)
max once said something about vivian's garments...he meant her onsie and i had to explain a few things to him, but i love this picture of her hanging out in her garments with max.

vivian is nine months old!  

that went way faster than a pregnancy:)  she is a delightful girl.  she is quick to smile and has started really laughing.  she crawls fast, but still not on her knees much.  she can stand up holding onto something, but doesn't do that much.  she still likes to eat and loves real food.  i know she could hold her own bottle, but she doesn't want anything to do with that...she likes me to snuggle her and feed her. her words include:  mom, dad, num (for food), gum (not sure what it means), abe (i think she says this for abe, sadie, kai and max), and often she will say boom boom boom, which might be her trying to sing.  i love it.

 she has four teeth on top and four on bottom.  she points her toe all the time.  at nine months, she is a pretty calm, relatively quiet, petite, content little girl. 

she often sits in her high chair with one foot up...just chillin'

vivian, dave, his mom, and his grandma (4 generations)

anniversary

our anniversary was dec. 17th and it is now the end of january.  that is about how backed up my to do list is, but i still wanted to write about our fun night.

dave made arrangements for us to spend the evening together on our anniversary.  becca watched our kids and we even left vivian.  it was good for me to break away since i was beginning to feel like vivian wouldn't be ok without me... which was not true.  she loved becca and did just fine and it was good for dave and i to go and solely concentrate on each other.  it was a lot of work getting out the door, but once we were there, it was fun and relaxing.  dave planned it and tried to have an element of suprise so it would be exciting.  he took me to the copper onion to eat.  it was a fun atmosphere that is def not child friendly, so it was our first time.  it was quaint and relaxing.  we walked around downtown and saw the christmas candy windows outside city creek and walked through temple square to see the lights.  it was freezing!  reminded me of the day we got married!  we stayed at the armstrong mansion in the exact room where we stayed on our wedding night.  i loved the thought dave put into our outing.  he wanted it to be fun and relaxing and exciting for me.  it was wonderful and way too short.

sister dalton & sadie

sadie and i had the priviledge of meeting sister dalton on wednesday. 

 a gal in our ward was sister dalton's husband's personal secretary and arranged for all the young women, their moms and the leaders in our ward to meet her and have a tour of the relief society/ young women/ primary building. 

 it was an incredible experience! she completely radiated! 

she talked to us so personally for about 45 minutes.  one thing i appreciated was she told about how she received revelation that she needed to concentrate on virtue.  a few months after she was called to be the yw general president, she went to the temple with the question as to what to speak about in general conference.  she went through the whole session and felt nothing.  she sat in the celestial room and felt nothing.  so she thought maybe heavenly father didn't care what she spoke about.  she then got up to leave and when she got to the door the word virtue went through her mind really fast.  and then it happened again.  virtue, right across her mind.  she said she went home and googled it:)  nothing came up.   i really liked to hear about how she received this inspiration, because i have had the holy ghost speak to me the same way a few times and i sometimes wonder if it was inspiration or just my own thought.  it's cool to think that the spirit gave such an important revelation to her for the whole world in the same way that i received revelation that kai should be the oldest in his grade.   she later gave this talk in general conference.  it is inspired!  she let the girls ask questions and sadie, so brave and confident, asked what her high school experience was like and when she felt that her testimony developed.  she answered sadie so perfectly.  a few things that she said really stood out to me.  she said she had no idea that she would be doing this and if she could go back she would spend her time as a preparation for the future, for example she said she would have taken two languages so that when she goes to other countries she could bear her testimony in that language.  she talked about not letting anyone discourage or distract you from the work you have to do.  she told them over and over what an important work they have and that they have been saved for such a time as this...that heavenly father saved the best for last.  she talked about media and how she has to be so careful what she watches or sees and how she hardly ever watches tv and rarely sees movies, because she doesn't want to do anything that would make the spirit leave, because she needs it to help her and inspire her.  i really liked that because i also want to be able to hear the spirit if it needs to tell me something or give me inspiration for my family.  mostly, i loved watching her smile and interact.  

she let all the girls sit in her office chair. 

one of the general board members put this crown on each girl's head and had them say one thing they did daily to prepare for the temple.  sadie said she reads her scriptures and writes in a ponder journal.  she does do this daily and sometimes i read it while she is at school:)  she has great insights and i love reading what she is thinking about and how she applies the scriptures to her life.  

i love the huge painting of ester hanging behind sadie.

sister dalton's office--decorated in gold to represent virtue.

winston churchill sat on her desk, but instead of a v for victory, it says virtue under it.  i am reading her book and she quotes him, "you ask, what is our aim?  i can answer in one word: it is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival" then she goes on to say, "i echo that call for the war in which we are engaged today by paraphrasing the words of winston churchill: you ask, what is our aim? i can answer with one word: virtue.  virtue at all costs, virtue in spite of all opposition, virtue, however long and hard the road to repentance may be; for without virtue, there can be no victory.

standing in the presidents room

it was a neat night....and as we were leaving, this floral arrangement made me laugh.  it is just outside the entrance to the relief society building as you enter from the parking garage:)  

sadie and i enjoyed dinner together, shopping and chatting all the way home.  

max

what a handsome kid!  

max is growing up and is so kind, sensitive, happy and optimistic.  really great talents.  

everyone is throwing up at our house.  dave is, of course, at work.  late last night i was talking on the phone to dave, telling him about the events and i was not feeling great.  max immediately came over and gave me a hug and a kiss and sat by me.  i got off the phone and we read a book together.  he is an amazing kid....a very selfless five year old.  

a few fun things

kai's masterpiece art was chosen to hang outside the office at school.  

when i walked in the house, i could have tripped on this orange cone in the middle of the mudroom.  it was left by abe as an attention getter (since i got home after he was in bed) so i would notice his report card he received that day.  he worked hard to get straight a's and h's and he wanted me to see it.  he had to make a conscious effort to make these grades happen.  i am so happy he made the extra effort to reach his goal--and i LOVED the cone!

sadie, vivian and i went to the cheesecake factory.  just the girls. so good!  vivian loved it.

like father, like son.  i was doing my hair the other day when abe brought this shake he made and set it in front of me:)

max and vivian sitting in dave's office at work.  we went and ate lunch with him just for fun. 

 sadie is determined to make vivian a cinderella fan.  so far, so good!

twelve

and now...
ordained a deacon.

birthday details (hopefully) coming soon.

Abeday

Abe is turning 12 this weekend, so he and I took the day to hang out.  I got off work early, and per Abe's request we went to eat at Braza Grill, a Brazilian churrascaria.  I am pretty sure Abe was able to out-eat me today.  Then up to Alta to "ski after three," which ended up being just the right amount of skiing for our first outing of the year.  We stopped at a nickel arcade, and Abe claims he beat me at every game we played, which is about right.  Then stopped by a ski shop and got him some warmer gear, so that we can last a bit longer the next time we make it up the mountain.  Love hanging out with that kid! Ended the night having dinner at the Haws' house and had dinner with cousins from Colorado.  Just forgot to take photos.

sunday dinner

 no wonder vivian loves uncle pat!

my family gets together on the 2nd sunday of each month and it is so fun to sit and talk with everyone.  

we celebrated abe's and hannah's birthdays.

abe turns 12 on the 20th.  an important birthday.

my blister hurts

thought for the day:

sadie used this in a presentation she had to do at school about a leadership quality.

she talked about being a hard worker. 

what's your favorite excuse?  

i've been reminding myself and my kids this week that
anyone can make excuses.
it's easy.
conscious effort 

makes the difference.

it's something we're working on.

finished!

 in september-ish, our stake president gave us the challenge to read the book of mormon before the beginning of the year.  as a family we decided to continue where we were reading and finish by the end of the year.  we knew we would have to raise the bar big time to actually accomplish this goal.

we had a lot of early mornings that looked like this:

but we also had some amazing discussions.

mostly we read in the morning before school, but closer to the end of the year, we were taking it in the car with us, reading at night by the fire, or at dinner.

we finished on new year's eve, in the car, driving from one party to the next.  i want to remember it forever.  the little boys wanted to read the last verses and we all cheered when they finished.  there was this feeling of accomplishment in the car, mixed with peace and togetherness.  it was worth the effort just for that moment.  we then went around and had everyone say one new thing that was interesting to them.  everyone had really insightful feelings about it. 

i am almost sad that our family goal is finished, because it was awesome working together to accomplish something that was a little bit of a stretch.  it brought us closer together.  

i loved it.

date for no reason

 i invited dave to spend the night in park city with me for no reason.  ok, there was a reason.  my cute niece is having boy drama, so i invited her to escape for a while and stay with our boys while dave and i went away for a night.  she gladly agreed.   we took vivian with us, met my parents at sadie's basketball game in park city.  sadie played a lot and they won!  dave and i (and vivian) then headed to a hotel, got take out, then vivs slept while dave and i watched an old alfred hitchcock movie...creepy!  

in the morning, we ate breakfast at a little cafe next to the ski lift and talked about how much i hate chair lifts.  

we headed back, let vivian stay with my niece, and picked up the boys who were so excited to join us for the rest of our date for no reason.
we cross country skied at soldier hollow.  

we could have spent more time skiing, but needed to pick up vivian and head to mapleton for abe's basketball game.  he played hard, but lost by two points.  we made up for it by eating at my new found favorite restaurant, the awful waffle.  so good!  

it was a fun filled day.  we decided jaicee should have boy trouble more often!

i surrender!!!

we had such a great christmas break.  

it will probably take me ten posts to detail everything i want to remember....so 

i thought i would start by documenting

the 

AFTERSHOCK!!!

i'm pretty sure dave looked for socks for ten whole minutes.

today, i was going to conquer, 

but...

we got in the car to go to school and max threw-up.   

yuck.

(just add it to the pile)

he told me he was fine and probably threw up because he ate too much breakfast:)  

he got to stay home.

i started to feel queasy myself.  

this could have been caused by:

-the smell in the car

-exhaustion from staying up way past midnight too many nights in a row

-eating so much crap the last two weeks

-the thought of the kids going back to school (i really like having them home)

or 

-the fact that when i took sadie to school, it looked like we were living in a black and white photo, which could be pretty, but this morning it mostly felt dreary and cold.  you couldn't tell where the trees ended and the sky began.   all i wanted to do was stay in my new pajamas gifted to me from mimi, and sit by the fire.

needless to say, it was not my most efficient day.

thank goodness for tomorrows!