So outta shape...

We just bought this bike trailer online so that we can go bike riding (nevermind that I don't have a bike...that is next to come hopefully). It is a cheapy, but it does the trick. It was delivered yesterday and I am so excited!

I decided that I was going to give it a test run so I loaded Hallie up, hopped on Devin's bike, and rode to Kmart (for those of you who do not know Provo very well, there is NO Target and NO Wal-Mart, so we get either Shopko or Kmart for our random shopping needs. I chose Kmart because it is closer). Hallie actually climbed right in and sat down, which is huge for her because she hates strollers. She won't sit in one because she thinks she should be doing the pushing, not sitting. So, that provides for some fun times when we want to go somewhere and use the stroller. We have all but given up on that. Same with shopping carts. She feels the need to push them herself, which means that Devin or I have to hold her while she does so. Awkward. We are trying to curb that habit. Anyway...off subject.

Let me just say that I thought riding to Kmart was going to be no big deal. It's only 2 miles away, so not too far. Well, I kid you not, my legs feel like jelly from the ride. To my defense, there is a huge overpass on Unversity Avenue (some of you will know what I am talking about) that I had to pedal up both ways. No biggie. I pretty much almost died. And then nearly hit a homeless man at the top who was walking up the other direction. Lovely. I am sure you can just picture how awesome I looked.

I am going to try to ride the bike more often than drive to places for little errands this summer. Hopefully I will feel healthier and feel like I am being productive with exercising and running errands at the same time. Gotta love that. If you happen to pass me though, just pretend that I am a pro biker, pedaling that bike like its no big deal. I'll thank you later.

As Promised...

Remember how I am not ashamed to post embarrassing pictures of myself? Well, here we go. These just might top the charts as the best yet. Maybe some day I will grow up. Then again, maybe I won't. Only time will tell.

The first annual cheetah sleepover was a huge success, I'd say.

It didn't take long for us to start getting a little hyper. We probably wouldn't have even needed the candy to help. This is Jaime, me, Cassie, and Jessica in the back. Amy must have been taking the picture.

There she is. Cassie and Amy doing something weird with their lips. Don't ask me.
Cassie INSISTED that we play the Babysitter's Club Game (yes I own this thanks to my sister). That was the best 30 seconds of my life, right there.
Then we thought it would be a good idea to take 387 photos of ourselves in this formation. Let me tell you, it wasn't easy. We were like a bunch of 5 year olds.

"I'm not in the picture!"

"Cassie, stop throwing things at me!"

"Hey, where are you going?"

"What are you laughing at?!"

"Get back here!"

"Make a funny face!" (as if requesting that was necessary...)

In the end, we turned up with quite a few gems.

Let's see. Shall we recap?

Pizza? Check.
Candy? Check.
Babysitters Club Game? CHECK.
Billions of random pictures? Check.
Sharing of our deepest, darkest secrets? Check.
Sleepless night? Check.

All of this equals a most fantastic sleepover. I love you, Cheetahs.

And yes, we are all the most highly professional social workers you will ever find. Thanks for asking.

It's That Time Again!

Remember last year's event? Relay for Life last year (our first of many) was honestly one of the best nights of my life. Not only was in fun, family-oriented, and food filled, it was all for a wonderful cause. This year we need to start practicing our walking as I am not sure my brother Mike and his roommates Schwab will be there to walk the whole night again for our team! ha ha ha...

yes we thought kareoke versions of Neil Diamond were a good way to keep ourselves awake and entertained. We were definitely entertained, though I am sure nobody else was!
What an awesome crew.

What better way to celebrate Chris's life than to raise money in awareness of cancer and to support cancer research? I am pretty sure there is none!

Even if cancer has not affected you personally, I am sure almost everyone knows someone who has suffered from the disease. Some have overcome it and for some, the terrible beast has cost them their lives. Relay for Life gives us a way to give back and to work toward a cure for this awful disease. It is my hope and prayer that no one will have to go through the suffering that Chris endured during his trial with his brain tumor. I also hope that no one has to go through what my sister went through as she cared for him month after month. Watching the trial that Jennifer and Chris endured reminded me that I have so much that I can't take for granted. How much do you have to be grateful for?

Do you have a loved one who you can communicate with and who can communicate back?

Do you have a loved one who can feed, dress, and use the restroom themselves?

Do you have a loved one who can help you care for your children, do the dishes, and contribute to the household upkeep?

Do you have a loved one who works to provide for your family?

Do you have a loved one who is healthy and full of life?

Take the time to be grateful. Take the time to help provide a solution for those who are not so blessed.

Chris, pre-cancer the second time on our trip to New York for the Strobel Family Reunion 2007.
Chris, one year later at the Strobel family reunion 2008 in Colorado. On the boat with Tanner, my cousin Shawna's little boy, and Jack, my step-brother (whose mom Gina also lost her life to cancer. She passed away shortly after this trip, a month or so later.)
Chris and Hallie shortly after her birth, late 2008.


This is where YOU come in. If you have any spare change, please click this link and donate to the Relay for Life for our team. 100% of the proceeds go to the American Cancer Society. This is a cause close to my heart and something that is important to me. The minimum donation is $10, so if you can spare that much, please go donate. I know you will be blessed for your efforts. Help make a difference in someone else's life. Thank you & much love!

Hallie's Pictures

My dear friend Jaime took these pictures of Hallie last week. She is just getting started in photography and wanted to "practice" on Hals. I think she did amazing, don't you?! Hallie hammed it up and we had a good time.

Jaime is one of my Cheetah friends and after the photography session, we had a sleepover with the rest of the Cheetahs. Amy and Cassie are going to start their MSW's at Arizona State and Jessica is also starting her master's here at BYU, so we wanted to have one big shin dig before everyone leaves/gets crazy busy again. Yes, I am 24 years old and have a child and I still had a sleepover with my friends. What can I say? They are pretty awesome. Hallie got to come too and though we sort of had a rough night (Hallie got scared sleeping in her pack-n-play in the strange place so the two of us "slept" in a reclining chair...) it was all worth it. I have some pretty awesome pictures from the night, but darn it, I left my camera up at Devin's brother's house Saturday morning when we went to see their new baby. More to come later, I suppose! :)

What a cute girl we have. She also had her 18 month checkup last week and weighs 27.5 lbs and is 32 inches tall. I got the lecture from the doctor for the second time about her weight. (She is a tad bit on the overweight side). I really don't think we feed her that terribly, she is just a big gal! Nothing wrong with that. We'll see if she slims down here in the next little while.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Devin and I are now the teachers of the 4 year olds in Primary instead of the Sunbeams. Moving up in the world! I know it shouldn't be that big of a difference from 3 to 4, but it definitely is. These kids actually understand what we are talking about and contribute to the lesson, which is nice. There is one girl in particular that is hilarious. She is always saying the funniest things. She volunteered to say the opening prayer for us in class on Sunday and this is how it went: "Dear Heavenly Father, Please bless the houses to stay standing. Please bless the flowers to stay pretty. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen." (Should I feel awful quoting her entire prayer here? I don't.) She'll probably never have to worry about that vain repetition thing. Lucky girl. Also, remember how I told you that Hallie is very particular about admitting that she loves me, but she will freely admit that she loves Devin? The proof is below. (To preface... I was asking her about nursery and midway through starting filming, that's why the video starts by talking about Jesus and asking about the other kids and stuff. Also, Hannah and Abby are the neighbor girls that she plays with, just in case you wonder why we are talking about them.)

Honoring Mothers

Happy Mother's Day to all!

Especially in recent years, I have thought about Mother's Day in different terms than I used to, particularly thinking of those who wish to be mothers and are unable to be and those who make the ultimate selfless decision in my book- birth mothers. I hope I don't sound like a broken record on my blog when it comes to these special groups, but they deserve honor as well. My co-worker Lauren posted a beautiful talk she gave in church today on her blog about remembing all types of mothers. If you want to read it, I definitely think it is worth your time. Click here for the link.

The Saturday day before Mother's Day is Birth Mother's Day. Our Provo chapter of Families Supporting Adoption (FSA) has an annual birth mother's walk to celebrate. Adoptive families, birth mothers, and anyone else who wants to come are invited. This year it was bigger than last year and so much fun. We had fire trucks and ambulances for the kids to tour, Cosmo came, and lots of candy and parachute games. There was also some walking around the track, some races, and some donuts and drinks. It is so fun. I just love the adoption community because it is so tight knit. I pretend I am part of it, though I haven't adopted. :)

Hallie had a great time with the other kids and particularly with the candy. However, she HATED Cosmo. See below for photographic evidence. Later, he walked by her and she started freaking out again. I tried to convince her that he is just a large dog (since she likes dogs), but she didn't go for that. Oh well.





Since I am a mother (oh, it wasn't obvious by the amount of info I post about Hallie?) I thought I would also record a few of my thoughts on motherhood.

Hallie came home from nursery today with a little poem that had a picture of her attached and her handprint for me. I can't tell you how much I treasure this little gift. I don't think I will ever need a materialistic gift again if she will continue to print her hand on a piece of paper for me each year.

Motherhood has changed me in a lot of ways. I love this little person in a way I can't describe. Even on days like yesterday that consist of Hallie throwing a full blown fit every two steps while we are at the grocery store and end with me carrying her in one arm while she twists and turns trying to get down and pushing the cart with the other hand, I still have to to pause and laugh and tell myself to enjoy the moment. Its all so worth it. I just don't know how people do it with more than one...

Anyway, this is a journey I am immensely grateful for. I do tend to be a worrier and I often ask myself if I am doing the right things and being a good mom, but I try to not to dwell on these thoughts because I know that they are not productive. I can only do the best that I can and so far in her 18 month life, I don't think I have done any irreversible damage. I definitely don't think I am the best mom ever (I am working on patience), but I am grateful that Hallie is so forgiving of me and my weaknesses.

I hope you all, mothers or otherwise, have had a wonderful day!

Why I am way behind at work...

So I worked a grand total of 7 hours last week. That's good in one sense because I got a break, but in another, its not so good because now I am way behind. And I don't like being behind. Yesterday I at least sat down and made a list of all the things I needed to do and updated all my tracking sheets at work and then I felt MUCH BETTER. Did I actually accomplish any of the work? No. But at least I have an accurate list of what needs to be done. Yes, I am weird like that.

Don't worry, I am actually being really productive right now too. I am listening to a mandatory training online (8 hours worth, yikes) while blogging and doing other things. Multi-tasking. Yes, please.

Anyway, this last week has been really crazy, but fun. My sister was here from Wednesday through Monday. We had a good time with her and Sadie. Chris's sisters Stephanie, Becky, and Cheilah also came on Wednesday and Thursday nights to stay with us as well. The five of us went to Women's Conference on Thursday and Friday at BYU. Devin got to babysit the girls. It was so amazing and so good to have a break and be spiritually fed. I enjoy these ladies so much; we had a wonderful time. I love that they include me despite me not even being related to them! So nice!


It rained on Friday and Steph and Becky used these homemade umbrellas (aka bags) on the long trek from the car to the Marriott Center. They were quite upset when they found out that I have umbrellas at home and that I also have a parking permit that would have allowed us to park a lot closer. Apparently I didn't see the need to think about either of these things. :)

Here we are at the Marriott Center. The speakers included all of the Relief Society General Presidency, the General YW and Primary Presidencies, and Elder and Sister Oaks at the closing sessions. Of course there are tons of sessions in between that you can choose from. We did well picking on Thursday, especially. There were some amazing classes.
Chris's cousins met up with us on the second day. I don't know them as well, but it was still fun to have everyone there.

Saturday we had a big party for my Uncle Lynn's birthday. Of all the places you can possibly eat in Provo/Orem, he chose Golden Corral. I guess he really is getting old! A bunch of family members came and a lot even came from Idaho. Let me just say that there is never a dull moment when Lynn is around.

Grandma decided to celebrate everyone's birthday who was born in May and that includes Hailie and Che'Lyn as well. So each of them got a little cupcake to blow out that Grandma so thoughtfully took from the dessert bar.
Speaking of Lynn, he has been helping us remodel our kitchen. He is a genius when it comes to building anything and everything. He builds sets for a living so it is perfectly handy having him around. We finally installed our new kitchen cabinets that have been sitting in his shop for 6 months. I am sure he is happy to have them gone! Now, we are working on the countertops, installing a new sink, installing a new dishwasher, and the finish work. It will be quite nice when done, or at least a huge improvement from what it was before! I will post before and after pictures when it is all said and done.

What this means though is that we have not had access to our kitchen for a week now. WAHOO! No stove, no kitchen sink. We have been eating everything from the microwave, crockpot, blender, and rice cooker. We have been eating only on paper products, except for major things, like the crock pot, and then those have to be washed in the bathroom. So fun! So while we have had all this company here, we have been improvising. It's kind of fun.

After all the birthday fun at the GC, the family all came over to see the progress in the kitchen and ended up staying for a few hours chatting. It was quite funny to see how many people we shoved into our little house. What can we say? Maybe someday we will have a large house where everyone can have their own seat!



Now, onto catching up on my loads of work. Wish me luck!

18 months

Is she 18 months already? Why, yes she is! Sunday we even took her to nursery for the first time (2 days early, but no one is counting, right?) She barely glanced back before marching on in. Devin went to check on her after Sunday School and he said that she was happily playing with some plastic eggs and ham (should it surprise us that she was playing with food? No, probably not...) I really, really like this age minus the fits. It is so fun to watch her learn about the world around her and to pick up on new things all the time. Here are some things about our Hals:

- She really, really likes food. My sister was here for the last little while and I was surprised at how much more Hallie eats than Sadie. Perhaps I should be worried?

-Her favorite foods are cheese, ice cream, mac-n-cheese, and bananas. Still working on getting her to eat more vegetables. She still doesn't like potatoes. Almost anything else she will eat.

-If she is in a mood where she doesn't want to eat what I have cooked, she just won't. Even if she hasn't tried it. Frustrating! She will drop it off the edge of her high chair one chunk at a time. So defiant.

-She really loves water, despite this picture showing otherwise! She has some great crusty faces, as you can tell. We went swimming while Jennifer was here and she had a hay day. She likes to think she doesn't need my help in the pool, but uh, according to me, she still does! -

-A few of her favorite things: balls, babies, stuffed animals, coloring, drawing, brushing her teeth, dancing, leading music, riding her giraffe bike my mom got her for Christmas, writing on the sidewalks with chalk, playing with the neighbor girls, eating, her blankie, her teddy bears, singing songs, reading books, doing puzzles. Okay she likes a lot of stuff.

-She still likes to walk around and pretend to talk on the cell phone. She has taken to pretending to text too. Uh oh. She also likes to read herself books. I will often find her downstairs just sitting at her shelf of books reading to herself.

-She is sure a cheeser. She LOVES to be the center of attention. She craves attention like no child I have ever seen before. Seriously. It is ridiculous. She knows how to put on a show.

-My favorite thing to have her do is JUMP. She crouches down really low, bends her knees, springs as hard as she can, and doesn't make it off the floor. It's hilarious. Is this considered torturing your kid?

-She is really good at following commands now. I can tell her to take out her diaper and she will. I can tell her to turn on the radio and she will. I will tell her to pick a book and she will. It's lovely.

-She can sing "Old MacDonald" and "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes." Though she prefers the latter since Kylee was here and got her started on that. The video below is of her singing Old MacDonald. Since she doesn't know all the words in between, she just kind of makes them up. She does that when she talks too... she will carry on a long old conversation without even using any words.

-She continues to get into everything that she should not, such as the laptop, cell phones, food, etc. At least she likes to listen to Elder Holland when she gets to the laptop, right?

-She knows a lot of words and will repeat almost anything we tell her to. The mystery is that she will still not say milk or water, instead she says num num for milk and nummy for water. Weird. Some of the words she says a lot are mom, dad, shoe, cheese, please, kitty, teddy, duck, dog, woof woof, up, book, ball, i love you, hallie, baby, sadie, cookie, blankie, nose, no, eye, head, teeth, hi, yeah, uh-oh, nana, oooooh, stinky, poo, and still ewie.

-She is really into nodding her head and shaking her head. She gets really pronounced with the head nods. For example, Jennifer was asking her if she was going to be the ring leader between her and Sadie. She nodded her head up and down really slowly with her eyes wide indicating "you better believe it!" Devin and I will ask her if she loves mom and if she loves dad. Most of the time mom either gets a slight nod or a shake no. Dad pretty much always gets a huge nod. Still playing favorites, it's true. Oh well!

-She is generally a very happy girl and makes life super exciting! We sure love her. What was life like before we had her crazy little spirit? I have no idea...but it must have been boring.

We love our Hallie girl!

National Infertility Awareness Week

Last week was National Infertlity Awareness Week. I know I am a little bit behind, but here is my small effort to raise awareness about infertility. This is something I care a lot about because I know a lot of people who struggle with this. I personally think everyone can be a little bit more sensitive when it comes to others and their ability to bear children. The fact of the matter is, we just don't know what their circumstances are, so asking questions like "when are you going to have a baby?" can be very painful for people who want more than anything in the world to have a child. Did you know? •Number of women ages 15-44 with impaired fecundity (impaired ability to have children): 7.3 million (11.8%) •Number of married women ages 15-44 that are infertile (unable to get pregnant for at least 12 consecutive months): 2.1 million (7.4%) •Number of women ages 15-44 who have ever used infertility services: 7.3 million (From the United States CDC) Myth: Infertility is a women's problem. Fact: This is untrue. It surprises most people to learn that infertility is a female problem in 35% of the cases, a male problem in 35% of the cases, a combined problem of the couple in 20% of cases, and unexplained in 10% of cases. It is essential that both the man and the woman be evaluated during an infertility work-up. Myth: It's all in your head! Why don't you relax or take a vacation. Then you'll get pregnant! Fact: Infertility is a disease or condition of the reproductive system. While relaxing may help you with your overall quality of life, the stress and deep emotions you feel are the result of infertility, not the cause of it. Improved medical techniques have made it easier to diagnose infertility problems. Myth: If you adopt a baby you'll get pregnant! Fact: This is one of the most painful myths for couples to hear. First it suggests that adoption is only a means to an end, not an happy and successful end in itself. Second, it is simply not true. Studies reveal that the rate for achieving pregnancy after adopting is the same as for those who do not adopt. Myth: Perhaps this is God's way of telling you that you two aren't meant to be parents! Fact: It is particularly difficult to hear this when you are struggling with infertility. You know what loving parents you would be, and it is painful to have to explain to others that you have a medical problem Myth: Infertility is nature's way of controlling population. Fact: Zero population growth is a goal pursued in a time of world overpopulation, but it still allows for couples to replace themselves with two children. Individuals or couples can certainly elect the option to be childfree or to raise a single child. Infertility, for those who desire children, denies them the opportunity to choose. (Myths and Facts from Resolve, The National Infertility Association, website http://www.resolve.org/) Below is also one of the most touching videos I have seen about infertility. Enjoy!