A good week

This week brought lots of good news. I found out that my good friend Emily will be getting married in September (not so good news to all of Emily's other male admirers). She just graduated with her master's degree in Speech Language Pathology, and I am very excited for her. In other good news, both my brother Sean and his wife Jacky and my good friend and old soccer buddy Andy and her husband Eric announced that they are expecting their first child. That is very exciting! Both couples will be such fun parents.

And, if things couldn't get any better, I have a new niece. Lily Ann Passmore was born to my sister Erin and her husband James last week, and she is a dark haired beauty just like her big sister Grace.

This weekend Mike and I had stake confrence at our Church. The meetings on Saturday night and this morning were very uplifting, and I came away from them wanting to be a better, kinder person.

In not so good news, today I was clipping Olivia's finger nails and I clipped a little to close to the skin on her thumb and made her bleed a little. She screamed, I felt horrible, and it was a little traumatizing for the both of us.

Olivia just looked extra cute today so I have to post some pics:

I love this quote . . .

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
-Nelson Mandela-

Comfy, cozy

Doesn't she look cozy? I was cleaning in our bedroom and bath the other day, so I put Olivia to sleep on a pillow on our bed, where I could keep an eye on her. Kind of makes you wish you had a giant body pillow like that to sleep on.

I just love the cute little white outfit Olivia is wearing, which Cheryl gave to me (thanks Cheryl!). Too bad she's getting too big for it!

"See the End from the Beginning"

I just wrote this long entry on this talk that Mike and I read by an Apostle of our church, only to have the entire post mysteriously deleted when I went to publish it. Ah!

Anyway, I 'll have to give a condensed version of my thoughts now, because it's getting late.

Two quotes that relate to the message given in this talk:

"a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step"

" I approached a large farm gate one day. I lifted the latch and opened the gate. The movement at the hinges was so slight as to be scarcely discernible. But the other end of the gate cut a great arc sixteen feet in radius. Looking at the movement of the hinges alone, one would never dream of the magnified action that came as a result of that tiny movement.
So it is with the decisions in our lives. Some small thought, some small word, some small action can lead to tremendous consequences."

This talk discussed how the the hard, often seemingly mundane tasks we do each day will determine our happiness in the future. There are important things to be done each day: prayer, service, learning, reading, study, kindness, spending time with family, cleaning, work, excercise, etc. These things are important because they will greatly determine where our lives will be in the future; yet, sometimes if we focus to much on the small day-to-day tasks and forget our goal of where we want to end up, these daily tasks can seem mundane and insignificant.

What may seem like difficult and pointless tasks today, will determine our happiness in the future.

This talk was largely geared towards youth. But, it dawned on me that this principle is ALWAYS applicable in our lives, and especially is applicable to my situation today. It is scary and wonderful to consider how much influence I have in the life of my husband and child. I am not saying this arrogantly, every spouse and parent has a tremendous impact. How I act and my attitude and priorities will significantly effect the lives of those close to me. Being the kind of wife and mother I want to be depends on doing lots of small, often mundane, hard tasks daily. For example, cleaning my house. Boring and repitative? Yes. But, I want my home to be a haven that is organized so that we can all function and be more productive in other areas. Monday night, family night. I'd rather relax than plan some lesson, will everything be fine if we skip this? Probably. But, I want to teach my children values, have good relationships, and feel unified with my husband. Not that I'm perfect at doing either of these things, but I'm trying to be better! My point is that if we always keep a vision of where these small daily decisions are leading us, they are no longer pointless or mundane, and we see that these small choices have great purpose and meaning. This motivates me.

"Girl I think that I'm in love with you . . ."

Yup, I am smitten. I just love her personality, her look, her smell, her calm and sweet demeanor, and, of course, her smile. She's got her Dad's more calm, easy-going personality. In short, she is just a nice girl. She will sit in her bouncy chair or car seat and just stare with her wide eyes. Or, if she is in a happy mood, she kicks and shakes her arms like she is dancing and makes funny squeels, which are music to our ears.

I love being a mom every bit as much as I dreamed I would. However, I am looking forward to Olivia being on a more reliable nap routine, so that I can better schedule my days. I can't wait to be on a more consistent schedule, where excercise, naps, prayers, scripture study, and chores happen at a set time each day.

Home, sweet home

Here are some pictures of the home we are building that should, hopefully, be done in September. We are doing the fourth bedroom option. That means no eighteen foot vaulted cielings, but I'm sure we'll survive!

We cannot wait for it to be done and get all moved in. Things in our 860 sq. ft. apartment are getting a bit cramped right now.