Our January

I've been meaning to sit down for awhile and do some blogging, but you know how it goes. Life gets busy, and time flies by. This time, quite a bit has actually been happening in our lives, but I haven't taken too many pictures. Here's the rundown... (stick with me, this might get a little boring, but we really have had a lot going on.)

Both of my sweet boys had birthdays in January. Jarrett turned 2 and Jordan turned 4. I hate to admit that their "parties" were anything but spectacular, if you can even call them parties. I think both nights Josey was coaching late practice, which means he comes home from school at about 5 for dinner and then heads back to practice at approximately 5:15. Both boys got boring presents from their parents (coats), although Jordan did get a computer game, which turns out to be the biggest waste of money ever because it is really DUMB and doesn't teach him anything. (Does anyone have any suggestions for computer games for preschoolers?) At least they both got some fun presents from their grandparents, and next year I will do better, I promise! We want to make a yearly tradition of taking them to a BYU basketball game for their birthdays since they are so soon after Christmas, but we didn't think we'd get to go this year because Josey coaches basketball practically every Saturday. He actually doesn't have a game this weekend, and it just happens to be Family Day at the Marriott Center so we got cheap tickets and we're going. They're playing Wyoming, and it should be fun.

Poor Jarrett didn't even get a cake, just some ice cream with a couple of candles.

Jordan fared a little better; at least he got a cupcake.

Some other big news is that Josey's little sister Arielle has come to live with us. She's a senior in high school and she's going to be staying until the end of the school year. Josey felt inspired to ask her if she wanted to come live with us, and it was a really hard decision for her to make, but it felt right, and she moved in last week. I hope it's a good experience for her. My boys are loving it so far, although I hope they adjust to all the change soon. They got bunk beds and have been waking up at about 5:45 or 6 every morning and going into Arielle's room instead of ours. At least she's already getting up to get ready for seminary, but still, I feel just a little guilty. Plus the lack of sleep is making Jordan a REALLY grumpy little boy come about 6 p.m.

On top of this change, my mom had to have an emergency stomach surgery last week. She is still in the hospital, but when she gets out, I'm hoping I can go over there and help her out for a few days. She's recovering well, and I think she should be getting out of the hospital soon. She'd been complaining to me about her sore stomach for a couple of weeks, and it turns out she had a hole in it, and the pain finally became so excruciating that she could barely move. Poor lady! I've been worried about her, but luckily she didn't get any infection, which was my biggest concern. So for a few days, I felt pretty tired and stressed (because on top of these things, I have also had a mild cold that still won't seem to go away and it's been almost 3 weeks), but life seems to be returning to normal.

We'd been experiencing unusually mild winter weather for Kemmerer until about this past weekend. I've even been enjoying running outside a little bit. Then the snow fell, and now I don't know how long I'll be stuck inside. Running on the treadmill or 140 times around the track at the Rec Center just isn't quite as fun as running outside, and I want the snow to GO AWAY!

Now I have just have a few thoughts to share about a little horrifying experience I had this week. I went to the grocery store with my boys, and as we were walking towards the store, Jordan took off running right behind a truck that was backing up. I took off running after him and slipped on the ice and fell. I think I managed to grab Jordan's arm and pull him back, but I don't know. It's all a blur. The lady never did see Jordan, but maybe she saw me, and another truck saw Jordan and honked at her. It was such a close call. I don't know if I've ever been that scared. I'm sure Jordan didn't understand the enormity of what he had done. I was too scared to do anything to him other than reprimand him for running away from me and not listening to me when I yelled at him to "Stop!". I don't know what I needed to do to teach him to never run away from me like that again. It's time like these when you hear a spanking is in order. Well, in that moment I was just so grateful that my little boy was not hurt that I couldn't spank him.

We went into the store and I was pretty close to tears, shaking and just trying not to cry. Then this old lady comes up to me and starts telling me how she saw what happened, and she was talking to the boys, asking them questions, just trying to be friendly. This made me break down, and I started bawling my head off right there in the store. I finally calmed down and managed to finish my shopping, but the old lady gave me a hug and bought me a chocolate rose. I thought this was a sweet thing to do, especially from a stranger.

That night during Family Home Evening, it was just me and the boys because Josey and Arielle were at basketball practice. We had a lesson on obedience, and the boys were practicing obeying me. It was Jordan's idea to practice running away from me and stopping when I said to stop. I just hope they learned a little lesson there about why it's important to listen to mommy and daddy (because we love them!! and want them to be safe!!). That night as I said my prayers, I made sure to tell Heavenly Father how grateful I was that nothing had happened to Jordan. I love him so much and I can't imagine the pain I would be in now if something had happened to him. Kids are so precious, so make sure you tell them all the time how much you love them! I know we all know this, but it's moments like these that remind us how precious they are.