My Mormon Bubble

I am encircled about by a very comfortable, cozy, safe, constant thing that I will call my mormon bubble. I live by some of the most amazing, loving families that share our same beliefs, and because of this, I never had to go out and search for friends because with sharing the same beliefs, comes automatic connections and friendships. It is an amazing phenominon and one of the biggest blessings, but one of the things that I love most about our faith, is that even far far away from family, you will always have a family, a church family. But besides just a church family, I live around LDS couples that are around our same ages, going through the same situations with raising young families and having husbands gone all hours of the day for this profession that will allow them to one day be called doctors. For this blessing, I am very grateful and can probably owe most of my sanity these days to these good friends, but due to this phenominon I have never had to streach myself, get out of my comfort zone, and find friends. I guess I can say it has been pretty nice in that way.

My eyes were opened as we went to a party yesterday put on by the Christian Chiro Club from JJ's school. I was a little hesitant to go to this party because everyone in this club knows that JJ is mormon and they have given him anti-mormon literature before. So I was preparing myself early for what they could possibly have in store for us. It was at a member's home who happens to be the leader of the club and I was surprised automatically to find no alcohol of any sort in their home. The decor of the home seemed as though I could have been walking into a home from a member of my church with cute signs that read "God abides in this home" and I could feel a peacefulness in their home. The meal was blessed with a beautiful opening prayer and the conversation was clean, pure, and uplifting. All the people at this party go to different Christian churches with similar but yet different beliefs from one another, and I was surprised that as religion got brought up, there was absolutely no contention. I could tell right away that these people LIVE their religion by truly implementing the teachings of Christ in their lives, not just going to church on Sundays.

I guess this whole experience made me get out of my bubble for a sec and just realize that there are so many good people in this world outside of all of our religions that are truly trying to do whats right and live their lives as God would want them to and that these people are not just in the Mormon church. I am grateful for that simple reminder, but yet more grateful to have the knowledge that I have of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. This experience has made me want to be a better Christian and bridge those gaps and barriers between my faith and the "Christian World."

My, how they grow up way too fast

At first you didn't lift your head; You didn't know to smile.
The time before you knew my voice
Seemed such a long, long while.
I couldn't wait for you to roll,
And then to sit and clap.
And now you're off and crawling,
Not helpless in my lap.Why didn't someone tell me
How fast a baby grows,
That every little baby stage
Soon comes, but sooner goes.
So I'll enjoy the fleeting time
Before you learn to walk.
And treasure every tiny noise
Before you learn to talk.For soon you'll learn to walk,
Then run,
And talk and sing a song,
And never be my babe again.
The babe's forever gone.
Little baby, take your time,
For while you're tiny, you are mine.

Our little Rye bread crawled for the first time on Saturday and now there is no slowing her down. This video was taken a few days before the first crawl but you can see that she was definitely movin'. We are not used to this little baby girl progression because Dominic was barely holding his head up at five months. It seems like just yesterday I was in the worst pain of my life giving birth to her, and now, she's just not a little baby anymore....(tear). I am sad that my little baby is growing up, I guess this means we need to have another one....

What the heck?!?!?

I just really need to vent now, so you don't have to read, but I have been told it is a healthy thing to get out one's frustrations, so here it goes.

So I have been working out for quite some time now to try and work off this excess blubber put on by my lovely little kidlins (and I'll take just a little responsibilty) putting in about two hours four or five days a week at the gym, and adjusting my diet. So any logical person would say okay you have put in your time, you deserve some weight loss, well..the lovely scale did not have that much mercy, in fact, it said that I have gained 5 POUNDS!!!! I just do not see how that computes in this little brain of mine. I know that muscle weighs more than fat, but I do not think that I have put on 5 pounds in one week of muscle, that is just absurd and unheard of. I don't even think the great Arnold Swarchenegger has set that kind of record. So right now I am just a little depressed and I think I might go eat some ice cream...thanks for letting me vent.

Chatter Box

Domi has become quite the chatter bug, still dont quite know what he says half the time, but hay...its a start. JJ was having fun recording him, then afterwards he said that he wanted it put on the blog. So here you go honey, this is for you. Just so others may know that you contribute to our family blog.

Crazy Binky Boy

He'll be taking these to college and sportin' them on his wedding day

A night with the Cards

Today we got a phone call from a sweet family in our church that offered us four tickets to the cardinals game for tonight. Although late notice, we couldn't pass up the offer. They ended up being dug-out seats!! Plus I don't know how we have lived here in St. Louis for over a year and a half without ever going to a Cardinals game! People out here are big into their baseball and hard-core cardinals fans. Since the kids didn't need tickets, we invited a couple that we are friends with and had a blast. It was Dominic's first time ever at a baseball game and he was so excited! He loved all the loud noises, fans screaming and music playing. It was his first time eating cotton candy and at first he wasn't too keen on the texture, then spit it out until he tasted the sugar and then proceeded to pound the whole bucket. The night was very fun, and best of all the cardinals won!!

Another worry-some event

Round three: What happens when Dominic and Mommy's makeup mix....

He wants to be just like his mommy when he grows up....

Zip Line

We went to a barbaque for the Logan students put on by a nice family in the ward and they had an awesome zip line in their backyard that we went down. JJ took Dominic on it, but I lost the footage on my camara. This was the second time that we got on film, but the first time I let go too fast, dragged on the ground, and my pants almost came off. Dominic had a blast and couldn't get enough of it. We ate good barbaque and roasted marshmellows in a firepit in their backyard.

Lets get that perminant marker out and cross off Kentucky

Over the break we had a chance to go down to Kentucky and job shadow some chiropractors that JJ met at a seminar. JJ really hit it off with this one guy, and he told us that if we came down that we could stay in his six bedroom house. Yeah, this guy is not doing too bad out there in Kentucky also driving his Beemer and Escalade. We really didn't want to barge in on him with our two kids and all so we got a nice hotel in the city downtown of Louisville. Well let me tell you, first impression.....NOT A FAN! Two words...run. down. ! The next day we were meeting up with these chiropractors who were going to take us out to breakfast in a more "upscale" part of town. I don't know where the "upscale" was located, but I never saw a bit of that either. JJ really liked the way that this group of chiropractors did business, but I don't know that I'm a small town girl.... at least not that small and especially run down. Well at least we can cross off Kentucky on the list. One down...twenty billion to go!

San Francisco has got nothin' on St. Louis

Last friday, we decided to go to the St. louis zoo with the Davis' because we heard that there were some cool things for kids at the zoo on Fridays. So we get there and we find that all there is is live music. So we thought we would go and check that out before going to see the animals. Boy were we in for a treat.....

I found this she man a little disturbing for my kids to watch, but we sure got some good laughs. She had a sign by her that said that she offers dance lessons too! Her dancing is more like something I would do in my darkest hour, deep in a basement somewhere as a final attempt to bring some kind of joy to get out of a suicide attempt....okay maybe not that extreem, but as you can see it was pretty bad, and absolutely nothing I would ever pay money for. On a lighter note, we finished up our day looking at the animals and having fun hanging out with the Davis'