Eve

She gave up paradise to till the ground with her husband. She noticed that God had a plan for her beyond that of a garden- something much bigger. "Glorious mother Eve" had the perspective that I am working to cultivate.

After a particularly hard day, with little bit fighting sleep and struggling with tummy issues, I was at my wits end. I knelt down at my bed. Okay, in all honesty I curled up in a ball in bed with my legs aching for relief after carrying the little man all day long. I didn't know what to say, what to ask for. I simply knew I needed help. In the answer, I also heard my mothers voice- advice from a mother.

"He's not going to die from crying a little bit, and neither will you."

So, not necessarily the answer I wanted. I wanted a pound of chocolate and a never-tired, always energetic body. But, this answer was better. It reminded me that life isn't about being paradise. It's about learning to become like Christ. What would Christ do if a child was crying? He would simply comfort them. He could do it perfectly. I cannot, and that is okay. It gives me one more opportunity to couple with Him in this journey of mortality, marriage, and motherhood. It gives me an opportunity to teach my baby, who already knows perfectly, that Christ  will answer every question- even those of reflux, tummy issues, and constant crying. 

Sometimes that answer is: go see a doctor. 

So, as I get up to face another day with my little boy and my husband, I remember that it's not just about getting through the day. It's also about becoming like Christ. 

Be my valentine

For Valentine's Day, we decided it was time to get away. We traveled down to St. George for a little sun and decided to do what we do best... eat! We started with chips and queso from Don Pedro's. They had great chips- crispy, but a little thick. 

 As we waited for dinner, we walked around downtown St. George and found this horse statue made from different mechanical parts.

 After not getting called in for dinner for about an hour (they had the wrong phone number for us), we were happy to sit down and eat at George's corner. The food was good, but the company was better. I sure do love my valentine!

 We spent actual Valentine's day walking around Cedar city, going to church, and enjoying our leftovers. We even had our bubbly! (Root beer... it's our thing!)

 On our way back to Ogden we stopped by Cove Fort. It is a really amazing structure and reminded us of the refuge that we receive on our long journey here on earth. I am so lucky that marriage is one of those safe havens.

We remembered... we have a blog!

Blogging and journal writing are basically the same thing- we know they're important, but completely space doing the little things!

Anyways, here are all our progression pictures up until now. We can't believe that we are only 9 (ish) weeks from delivery of our little guy! He's so active, especially in the evenings right after dinner. At our last doctor's appointment he was 3 pounds 6 ounces, which is in the 58th percentile. He must get that from his  Daddy's birth weight, because we all know that Mama didn't pack on the pounds.

4 weeks 

6 weeks

8 weeks

10 weeks

17 weeks

19 weeks

24 weeks

29 weeks

Week 19

So we've had a very interesting time here for the last couple of months.  Yes, Daily is 4 and 1/2 months pregnant and the baby is the right size. (Almost the size of an artichoke!).  Daily just isn't showing that much, but she is showing.  She still looks beautiful, and will continue to do so.

The baby is growing

 August 15th- 4 weeks

September 1st- 6 weeks

September 11th- 8 weeks

October 10th- 12 weeks 

3 o'clock in the Afternoon

So Daily and Stuart had a great date today when they decided to write a little short story together. They had some story cubes laying around and decided to roll the dice and write a story from there. We hope you like it!

3 o'clock in the Afternoon

Ellie looked at her phone and realized that her alarm was going off.  She did not know why she had set an alarm to go off at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, but she was determined to go and find out.

            Heading out her back door, she turned the lock and started towards her car. She realized, however, that her keys were still sitting on her dining room table. Luckily, her neighbor had a spare set. Maddie was a young girl, about Ellie’s age, and while they weren’t necessarily “friends” by the normal definition, she was the closest Ellie had come to making friends in the few short months that Ellie had been living in Seattle.

            Ellie entered through the back gate of the small condo, hopping over the large irrigation ditch that separated the two apartment sidewalks.  It wasn’t a big deal to do it; she had seen the neighborhood boys do it plenty of times.  There was a slight problem, she just happened to enter the wrong gate and was completely unaware of where she was.  She heard a yelp of a large dog, who she had surprised.  Ellie’s heart sank, what would the dog do?  Would it run up and bite her?  Or would it maybe just growl at her menacingly?  These thoughts raced through her head when she realized that the dog was looking at her quizzically, and not in a threatening way.  She said, “good boy,” to not make it decide to change it’s mind.  Just them she saw the dog’s owner walk up to their sliding door.

            “Hey, what are you doing?!” yelled the owner. He looked as if he had just gotten out of bed and was a little disgruntled at having been woken up by a girl in his back yard.

            “I was just wondering why my alarm was going off,” came Ellie’s reply. Sometimes honesty is the best policy and other times it makes you seem delirious. This was definitely the latter situation.

            The man cracked a smile. “You’re trying to figure out why you alarm is going off, so you decided to sneak into my back yard and make friends with my dog?” Ellie felt her cheeks get red. It did sound a little ridiculous, but it was the truth.

            “Could I just use your phone? I need to see if my friend can get my spare set of keys to me.” The man turned abruptly and walked back into the house. Ellie took this as an invitation to follow him. As she entered the house, she was intrigued with the wide array of guns and workout equipment that was scattered throughout.

            As the man grabbed his phone, he said, “Don’t look so freaked out. I’m in the Army. I just got back from training yesterday.” He stopped and smiled, “I bet you couldn’t do five pull-ups on the bar over there.”

            Ellie laughed, “You’re probably right. I think I didn’t do much of that in high school. I was more into basketball”

            “Well here you go, try not to get distracted about catching butterflies or something like that princess.” He said amusingly.

            “What did you just call me?” Ellie snapped.  She dropped the phone and marched straight up to him without putting it back on the receiver.  “I’ll have you know that while I don’t have much in upper body strength, I am an excellent runner and I can run five times further than anything you have ever done in the Army!”

            Besides, I could just have Gregory come and compete against you. It had been a few days since her and her friend Gregory had talked. He was living in New York now, working as a business executive. He probably didn’t have time for his old high school pal anymore.

            “Ellie, is that you?” Suddenly, back to reality, Ellie remembered that she had dialed Maddie’s number.

            “Oh, hi Maddie. Yes, it’s me. I was just wondering if you had my spare key?” Ellie twirled the phone cord on her finger, twisting it every which way.

            “ I do,” replied Maddie, “I’ll bring it over to you in just a minute.”

            “Thanks so much. See you soon.” Ellie set down the receiver, strangely aware that the Army man was sitting at the kitchen table listening intently to the conversation.

            “Thank you for letting me use your phone.” Ellie said, gathering her purse.

            “Not a problem. Next time, though, you can come through the front door like everyone else.” The man chuckled, bringing a small wrinkle to the space around the corner of his lips.

            The man held the back door for Ellie, “Hey,” he said nervously, “I’m new to the area and some people from my work are going to go up the canyon and build a fire tonight. I don’t mean to seem weird, but I noticed that you seem to be new to the area too. Would you like to come along? They are really nice people.”

            Inside, Ellie laughed. She really was a large crowd kind of person. But, this young man seemed kind and didn’t make her nervous like most people.

            “If I can figure out why my alarm is going off, I’d love to come.” The man smiled.

            “Well, if you’d like some help with that I’m terribly bored and really don’t want to finish unpacking.”

            “Fine with me,” Ellie said, so they both went out the door into the sunlight.  Ellie decided that the first thing to do was to go home and wait for Maddie to get there with her keys.  They got there soon enough, but the door was locked and Maddie had the keys. Ellie was getting really frustrated; Maddie said that she would be there in a few minutes.

            “What now?” the Army man said. “Is there a spare key somewhere that we can use?  Oh yeah, your friend.  Should we just go by her place?”

            This was a good idea, Maddie was one of those people who forgot what day of the week it was.  So she probably forgot to bring her keys already.  “Yeah let’s go to her place, she’s obviously there since she picked up her phone.” It took a minute for them to walk there, and during that time Ellie found out that the Army man’s name was not Army man, but Jeff.  Jeff had lived out in Virginia for most of his life and had moved here to start a new life being independent.

            So they arrived at Maddie’s house and rang the doorbell.  No one answered.  She rang again, and still nothing.  She knocked again a third time and still nothing.  Finally she knocked on the door and immediately realized that the door was ajar.  “I think someone’s in there, you go in first.”

            Jeff pumped his chest and flexed his muscles and dove inside without another word.  The lights suddenly turned on as if a match was struck.  There was a loud “SURPRISE!!!” and then silence, and then a loud scream.

            Ellie timidly poked her head into the house, and then quickly burst in at the sight of her parents, siblings, co-workers, and, of course, Maddie.

            Oblivious now to the strange stares still coming from the majority of those present, Ellie wrapped her arms around her mother who inquired as to who the “strange young man with the gorilla-like grunt” was.

            “Oh,” said Ellie, returning to the situation-at-hand, “this is Jeff. He was helping me figure out why my alarm was going off. It turns out I was supposed to meet Maddie for lunch. Apparently, she had other ideas.” Turning quickly to face Maddie, Ellie inquired, “How did you know today was my birthday? I haven’t told a soul- well, except for my family.”

            “Well, your mother got ahold of your phone one day and looked through the people you have called and I was at the top of the list for the past few months since you lived here.  And we got things planning from there.” She looked up to Jeff.  “I guess we all know why you’re late now,” she snickered.

            Just you wait!”  Ellie yelled.  “I’ll get you back for this someday!”

Crossing Paths

So we've been talking about how we met and we always have a lot of fun discussing it.  But the thing is, the more we talk, the more we realize that before we met we had crossed paths many times before. We look at each other after we realize that we crossed paths on certain occasions and we just start to laugh out loud. There have been many times, even before we both made it up to Utah State.

1. Nauvoo (2002). We aren't completely sure if we were there at the exact same time, but we were pretty close. Before temples are dedicated, newly constructed temples are open to the public. Daily was 12 and traveled from Georgia with her family to take a tour of the temple. She especially loved the spiral staircase. Stuart was there in April with his family when they went on a huge month long tour of church history and colonial US history.  At the time the temple was not open to the public, so we were a little disappointed.  It would be another month or two when that would happen, when Daily would be there.

2.  Logan Institute (August 2013). This is where we began to cross paths more often, since this is when we were both at Utah State. We once went to the same ward for one sunday in Bishop Jensen's ward, Daily's parents were there as well. This is the ward where I would stay at for the next year, while Daily realized that she belonged to another ward, the ward Stuart had attended in the summer (there are a lot of wards in Utah!). Daily was there for her first Sunday in Logan. First Sundays are more terrifying that the first day of school. There's always that lingering question- Am I going to end up dating anyone in this ward? Yep, turns out she would. 

3. Village Inn (August 2013). Early in the semester, August 16th according to our phones, a big group of people got together and went to Village Inn for pie Wednesday. Daily cannot remember a lot about that night, only that she sat with a group of people and talked about dating and all the stressors that came with it. That was a pretty fun conversation. As for the pie, Daily is sure it was delicious. Pie is now one of Stuart and Daily's favorite treats. Stuart went there as a sort of late birthday dinner with one of his new found friends. Had he known that Daily was somewhere in the crowd, he may have freaked out a bit, but this was a day to get a free slice of pie.  That was exciting too.

Stuart and David at Village Inn

4. Creekside (September 2013). So Stuart had made friends with someone named Ryan, and he was known as someone who threw lots of parties to get people to socialize with each other. Ryan invited him to come to a party in the parking lot of this apartment complex. Stuart really isn't one for parties, but he came anyway and began socializing with a friend of Daily's named Teresa. He got Teresa's number and soon left the party. On that note, when Stuart and Daily were supposed to go on their first date, Daily told Teresa about him and Teresa laughed and said, "He got my number at a party and never called me back." The good news is, that actually eased Daily's fears because she had met guys who were very eager and that was scary- Stuart was just the right balance of eagerness and space. When I went to the party, I didn't really know anyone. It had been announced in one of the church meetings, probably ward prayer. There was a little bit of dancing, which Daily enjoyed but, as usual, being social was not a big thing for her. She left soon after it started. 

That's all we can come up with at the moment, but we swear there are more occasions where we crossed paths.  These four will have to do for now