Our Christmas tree

Here is our tree. It is the first real tree we have had since being married. We had a great time with the kids decorating it. Kids make it so much more fun!!! Love you all. Lori

Happy Birthday David

Hi Everyone,

It is Dad's birthday, so I am sharing a little of our past years. Can you guess who the baby is? Does it look like any of the other babies? I got dad a new chain saw for his birthday.

What a great blessing your dad has been to my life. I am sure you feel the same way. Happy Birthday, David. We love you and hope to have many, many more years and memories with you.

xoxo

Debby

3D Ultrasound

I didn't really know how 3D ultrasounds worked, but I kind of thought they would just use a different ultraound device. That's not how it works. They use the same device as a regular ultrasound, but they had to take the picture and then work with it to get the 3D effect. It was hard and since there isn't that much room, conditions have to be perfect, like a lot of fluid in front of the face. It was hard to get good pictures of Lilia, and the ones I thought were the best didn't make it onto the CD they sent me home with. But here are a couple...you might be able to get some kind of idea what she looks like.

And she got video of her yawning...it's so sweet. You don't think of babies in there yawning while they're breathing fluid, but they do.

Christmas trees

Crystal's post about the real tree made me think of a childhood experience that made a difference in who I am. My parents were amazingly tolerant of my attempts at creativity. They would even encourage me, or at least would humor me by acting impressed with my inovations. This tended to make me a little brazen and presumptive with the things I would do arround the house. I was always taking things apart and putting them back together, often using, and sometimes loosing my dad's tools without permission. I would get into a little trouble for that and I had to learn to take care of the tools. He never minded my using them, he just wanted them put away when I was done.

One year during my early teens, I decided, without consulting anyone, that we should cut our own Christmas tree. So one Saturday morning, I went up into the foothills east of our house with a hand saw and a hatchet. I picked out a nice 6 foot cedar tree, cut it down and dragged it home. I had seen some official flocked trees the year before and thought that was so cool. I decided I could do that myself, so I went to the greenhouse and bought a flocking kit, which consisted of a bunch of ground up white paper stuff which was to be mixed with water and then sprayed onto the tree. I set up a flocking station in the garage, using my mom's old Electrolux vacuum with the hose plugged into the exhaust outlet. It was pretty powerful, and I got more flock on the walls and ceiling than on the tree. I wanted the flocking to be thick so it would look like the tree had heavy snowfall on it. You know how cedar trees are very thick and full- I ran out of flock and had to go buy more to get the job done. My dad, being Frank Frugal, had originally liked the idea of a free tree, but ultimately I probably spent enough in flocking materials to negate that theory. Anyway, I finally got it done and dragged it into the house, getting flocking all over everything. We set it up on a make-shift wood stand my dad had helped me build, and decorated it with lots of those old foil ice sickles, big lights, and balls. I thought it looked pretty good, but my mom and dad were just beside themselves with how beautiful it was, and how great it was that I had done it myself. The mess I had made did not seem to be an issue. We all cleaned it up together. That all made Christmas very special for me that year. In fact, they liked it so much that they let me do it again the next year.

Looking back, I now realize that those cedar trees were pretty mundane and folksy in my mom's beautiful living room. I now have to believe Mom and Dad must have recognized that at the time, but, I never would have known it from their reaction. They just smiled and kept encouraging me, probably subconsciously bracing at the same time for my next crazy project.

I'm not sure I was as good a parent as they were in that regard, but I hope you all will be with your kids. It will give them tremendous levels of self confidence.

We had a great time at thanksgiving. It was so good to spend that time with all of you.
Dad

Moving right along

For as long as I have been a grown-up, I have purchased our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving... this year, for obvious reasons, plans changed. When I went to pick up Valerie (literally after driving from Ohio), she was very concerned about not having a tree. I even considered going with her and buying one in the dark. I knew that Sunday was out for tree-buying.

So today, right after school, despite all the rain, we picked out our gorgeous tree.



I have collected fantastic ornaments since Valerie was a baby and we never have enough room for them all, but this year, with vaulted celings, I bought an enormous tree... all the ornaments fit!

Valerie's Grandma Whitlow gave her 25 presents... one to open each day of December till Christmas, so Valerie could not wait to organize them all as soon as we got the tree up and decorated. It is truly the most-beautiful tree EVER.

I also put up my italian creche and put up the fancy table linens and got out many other things, but I can not find my Partylite stuff.

I love decorating- I even put up lights outside while Matt was "running". I LOVE the holidays! It is just a joy to have a lovely home, pretty things, and to ponder so often on the birth of the Savior.

I wish you all could come and see!

Wasn't it great!

Family, it was so great to be with almost all of you over Thanksgiving. I was sad today after Mom and Dad left because I knew it was back to the grind for me. I am so blessed to be in this family where we all care so much about each other! I felt so lucky that everyone came to our house to be together. You all were so helpful and accomodating and tolerant. I love you all and thanks for making my Thanksgiving so special!! Lori

Thankful

I am shocked no one has posted since the dishwasher post! I suppose Matt and I are the only ones to have been maintaining a sense of normalcy for 2 days now...

I just want to say I am so grateful- so utterly humbled- to be a part of such an amazing family. It has actually been a REALLY hard couple months for me for many, many reasons... suffice it to say that I have been under the gun with the thesis, I have been struggling with working like a dog and seeing no end in sight, I am devastated by my grandfather, and honestly... I am having a really hard time seeing what is happening to Matt and I in the near future. Things seemed all fine and dandy before we were married- the plan was that I would work this year and Matt would start law school next year and hopefully by then, we would have a baby and I would only be working part time...

Well... I got the feeling when thinking about how all of this is not working out how we planned, that God is in control. There are reasons all of this is happening the way it is. I suppose the hard part for me was that I felt like everyone either did not realize the severity of the situation (with the LSAT scores, miscarriage, thesis, etc...) or that everyone was just acting as if all is well, when really and truly- all is not well, but it is manageable.

Also- since being married, I have moved from all my friends and I feel pretty isolated and I do not hear from anyone regularly. I only have a few peoples' phone numbers, I save them to my phone when I am called, and I sometimes feel no interest in me or Valerie, but a lot of serious interest in Abby's boyfriend... you know? So... what I am saying is I am really sorry for being aggravated and feeling sad about all this. It is new to me and I had expectations that I really should not have. I will be trying much harder to be realistic.

I am so impressed by the family and how awesome Matt's syblings (I know I spell it wrong, but I love the word so much more with a "y" than with an "i") and parents are. I plan to write to each of you that I got to spend time with this weekend, my heart is so full of love for all of you. So absolutely full and I want to tell each of you why.

I loved Kirtland so much and it made me so sad to realize how far away from the Gospel the Community of Christ is and how amazing it is to be a part of the true Church with temples where ordinances and veils are a part of enlightenment and salvation. It is mind-boggling the misunderstanding that the current ownership of the temple has. What a blessing to know what happened there...

Our talks went well, we both cried and talked, of course, about the most-incredible answered prayer we have had- to find each other.

I sat there completely in awe of my husband and to think... he chose me...

More later, I need to figure out where to put the ginormous tree.

How to install a dishwasher

Our dishwasher stopped working the beginning of November, when I was gone to see my family. Colin, being the great husband that he is, loaded it all up and turned it on to discover that it wasn't working. As he is so seldom away from the hospital I had to make the calls when I got home to get it repaired or replaced. I called the plumber the day after I got back, Wed. Nov. 7th. They scheduled a time to come on Friday, just two days later. Friday morning, I believe, my landlord called to let me know that it wasn't the plumber that needed to come but their appliance repair guys. She gave me the number and I called them scheduling an appointment for Tuesday, a week from my original call. Tuesday came, mind you I have put off doing the dishes in the dishwasher hoping it would be an easy fix and I could just run it and in the meantime I have been handwashing ALL of our dishes. The guy comes and finds out it is a broken motor and it will cost about $250 to fix. He said he would contact our landlady and let her know, see what she wanted to do, then call me and let me know. I waited two days to hear from the appliance guy or my landlord. Nothing. I called her, left a message, she called me back within the hour and had heard nothing from the appliance repair co. I filled her in and for the cost of fixing the current dishwasher she was just going to buy a new one and have it installed. She called her "handy man" to take care, he called me and said he would deliver it the next morning. Thank goodness!!! I would finally have a dishwasher again. I pulled all the dishes out of the dishwasher thinking I would just load them in and wash them in the new one. He came Friday morning, dropped the dishwasher off, said he called the plumber and left. I could not believe it!!! Isn't a "handy man" supposed to be handy in all things? Ahhhhhhhh !!! Well I called the plumber Friday and scheduled him to come today, Monday, and install the new dishwasher that was now sitting in my kitchen. Another weekend without it. To heck with that!! I would just do it myself and then the plumber could double check it when he came. Well I called my dad, a true handy man, he gave me some advice and I set to work with Jack as my apprentice. Well, more like Dennis the Menace climbing on my back, picking up the tools. I get to the electrical source and it says you have to turn off the electricty because it is hardwired, not just a plug in. I decided to stop there because I have no experience with electricity. I looked at my kitchen and wanted to scream!!! Dishes everywhere, they accumulate fast with 2 kids along with all the ones I took out of the dishwasher. We were having people over the next day for a little get together for Mia's birthday. What was I going to do? I really just wanted to put them all in a box and put them in the garage or the bathtub or something because I didn't want to wash and dry all of them and put them away. I sound completely lazy, I know. So we went out to eat because I couldn't be in there to fix dinner a moment longer. Saturday morning I decided I had to hunker down and wash them. An hour later, it seemed, Colin and I had them done. Ahhhh, my kitchen was clean again. I washed dishes again Sunday and should be washing them again right now because, I STILL HAVE NO FUNCTIONING DISHWASHER EVEN AFTER THE PLUMBER CAME TODAY!~!!!!!!!!!!!! Just kill me now. The plumber came, earlier than scheduled and he had to wait 20 minutes in his car. He smelled greatly of cigarettes then when he was unhooking the line from the disposal he spilled yucky, curdled milk in my cupboard. He wiped it up but gag, it still smelled. He gets the old one out, preps the new one then tells me that the electrical wires are too short. TOO SHORT, SO FIX THEM. He tried but didn't feel like he could do it well, or something. So he called the electrician. I have yet to hear from them. This Thanksgiving, if that dishwasher istn't fixed, so help me, I will be one cranky hostess and you will all be washing your own dinner dishes. So pray, pray hard and pray often so that we don't have to wash a million dishes this weekend. Love you all!!! Lori

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does anyone know how to post a quote?

Hi Family

I am just about ready for bed, but wanted to write tonight. For the record, I love you Crystal, and I love Valerie. There hasn't been a lot of time for us to get to know each other (and I include Valerie here), but it doesn't change the fact that I love both of you. We are so happy that you and Matt found each other. There has not been one second that I have not been grateful to Heavenly Father that you three are a family. We are all sealed together and will be eternally, so you are ours and we are yours. I have been very busy and I am sure not as responsive as I should have been, but please don't ever doubt that I love you and appreciate all of your efforts to make your family better and stronger. We all wanted Matt to find his eternal companion, and feel you are a blessing to our family, as is Valerie. The more personalities the better. You are part of our family, and it may take a while for all of us to get to know each other well, since we are scattered all over the country, but please don't ever doubt that we love you. I realize I may be gushing, but you really are a great blessing in our family. Hopefully this summer we can all get together in a little more relaxed setting, well actually we ALL probably can't get together, but some of us, anyway. OK, I have gone on long enough. I hope you can make it for Thanksgiving, but if you can't, you will be really, really missed. It won't be the same without you. Love, Debby