poor henry.

i don't know how many times i've said that in the last 8 months. poor henry. yes, you heard that right - henry is 8 months today. can you believe it?

poor henry.

i was so diligent in posting all of owen's milestones back when i was a mom of one, wasn't trying to run a business and make sure no one dies before dad gets home. but if blogging was all you had to know of henry's sweet little life (which for some of you, it is!), you would think henry was only 4 months old. because that's the last time i did a henry post.

poor henry.

i have had good intentions. i have the pictures, and at one point or another i've composed each of those other 3 month's posts in my head. oh well. you win some, you lose some.

but oh dear henry.

want to see what a love he is these days?

couldn't you just eat him up? though things were certainly a bit less chaotic before he entered our world, i just can't imagine life without that smile.

or those big blue eyes.

henry is anxious to be a big boy like his brother- and as a result the poor guy falls so many times a day i just can't help but say "poor little henry" over and over again. he crawls like a mad man, but would be walking if he had his way. he climbs over and onto everything, pulls himself up onto anything (stable or not -- he has a war wound right now from trying to climb up a little empty trash can by my desk) and is about as determined as they come.

henry is our little bouncer- and this is how i find him every morning and at the end of every nap - bounce, bounce, bouncing away with that big ol' grin on his face.

henry is seriously growing out of 6-12 month clothes. yeah, we grow 'em big around here.

i love this stage. it is one of so much exploration and figuring things out. it is a social stage, and henry is the most social baby i have ever seen. in a room full of adoring people, he is happy as a clam. and though he rarely gets upset, it is usually because he just wants someone to stare at him and smile. oh henry, how i would love to be able to stare at you and smile all day every day!

i mean, wouldn't you!?

my dear henry, you are a gift. i love to imagine all the things you will accomplish in your life and all the joy you will bring to ours. you brighten my day in an instant and help remind me to stop and soak in the world around me. you bring me around to what is most important and you make me so grateful to have the privilege of being a mother. i love you with all that i am.

i survived.

clint made my ice cream sandwich cake. sweet, huh? there were 30 of them...

so, i survived my 30th birthday. and to be honest, 30 feels no different than 29. guess i made a big fuss for no reason. sorry 'bout that.

thank you for all the bday wishes and advice, and i truly was spoiled this year (and am still celebrating actually!)

it was great to spend the weekend with family. festivities for clint's mom's 50th, halloween, and my 30th all in one weekend! squeeze in a little trip to the er in the middle of the night, and the weekend was complete. (owen wasn't breathing... nasty croup scared us half to death, but he was fine after a few hours.) anyhow... all in all, a good time.

the other night as we were lying in bed getting ready to fall asleep, clint cranked up this little tune on his ipod and let me soak it in for a minute:

think I’ll take a moment, celebrate my age
The ending of an era and the turning of a page
Now it’s time to focus in on where I go from here
Lord have mercy on my next thirty years

Hey my next thirty years I’m gonna have some fun
Try to forget about all the crazy things I’ve done
Maybe now I’ve conquered all my adolescent fears
And I’ll do it better in my next thirty years

My next thirty years I’m gonna settle all the scores
Cry a little less, laugh a little more
Find a world of happiness without the hate and fear
Figure out just what I’m doing here
In my next thirty years

Oh my next thirty years, I’m gonna watch my weight
Eat a few more salads and not stay up so late
Drink a little lemonade and not so many (root)beers
Maybe I’ll remember my next thirty years

My next thirty years will be the best years of my life
Raise a little family and hang out with my wife
Spend precious moments with the ones that I hold dear
Make up for lost time here ,In my next thirty years

gotta love timmy mcgraw. got me thinking. what about my next 30 years? i think i have accomplished much and learned a lot in my first 30 years. but what next? i haven't finished my list yet, but i'm working on it.

what about you?

what do you want to do in your next 30 years?

...by this author's husband

My Thirty Loves... (in no particular order)

YOU!!!

your brown eyes, brown skin, and brown guts

your selflessness

your creativity

your efforts to cook, clean and (wo)man the home fort

your christlike love

your ever-enlarging heart

your ever-lasting patience with me

your bravery on our adventure so far

your ability to teach and engage with O and H

your tender mother-ly-ness

your california-ness

your incredible belief in me (crazy)

your concern for our family's health

your mad spelling skills

your intuition

your friendship magnetism

your loyalty

your entrepreneurial savvy-ness

your fashion sense and lack of bumped hair

your opinion

your hyperactive tear ducts

your consistent pursuit to be better

your (our) goal - all the way home

your forever forgiveness

your attempts to like what i like

your common sense

your help in EVERYTHING i do

your taste in husbands

the memory of our day in the sealing room

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

- Love your Loverly

the best thing

by far the best thing i ever did in my twenties (and in all of my 30 years i guess) was this:




and this:




and this:




what an amazing season of life.

the answers.

want to know why sometimes i seem a little insane?

1. how many countries did i visit in my 20's? 8
(england, france, italy, spain, argentina, tahiti, mexico, cayman islands. other fun trips in the good ole' usa - kauai, lake powell, key west, jackson hole)
2. what year did i graduate from byu? 2003
yes, i know that is 6 years after i graduated from high school, but with a mission in the middle and being in no rush to leave, that's the way it worked out.

3. how many roommates did i have? 30 (not including clint and the boys of course)
yes, 30. that includes 7 premish, 13 on the mission, 3 after at byu, and 7 in huntington beach. nuts.

4. how old was i when i got married? 25

5. how many cars did i drive in my 20's? 7
a few of which i wish i'd never laid eyes on. like this and this.

6. what was the longest i was in one place, and where was it? carmel valley
in the last 10 years, the longest i've been in one place was carmel valley. a whopping 15 months. i'm just a regular gypsy i tell you.

7. how many times did i move? 22
seriously. now you might understand why i hate moving so much.

8. how many full time jobs did i have?3
or 5 if you include being a mom and allora (believe me, they are both full time.!)

9. how long did clint and i date? 1 year

10. how many states did i live in?4
california, utah, wyoming, idaho (plus 3 provinces in argentina: mendoza, san juan and san luis)

yes, it's been quite a ride.

there was once a time when walmart was the staff of life.

i once remember a friend in college saying that walmart was the staff of life. i thought she was nuts. having grown up a target kind of girl, you may as well have tried to convince me that the earth was flat rather than try and tell me that walmart could be anything close to the staff of life.
and then, there was argentina.
i served a mission for a year and a half in mendoza, argentina and for the first 9 months of that mission i was in an area where there was a walmart. and that.was.gold. rare commodities such as peanut butter, maple syrup, and even tortillas were only found at walmart and i was lucky enough to not have to go without. though in the 21 years of my life before my mission i had never cared for the place, there was something about those wide open aisles that felt like home.

(can you find me?)

the walmart in mendoza really has nothing to do with anything i experienced or learned in argentina, except for the fact that my desire to venture there weekly illustrates how completely upside down my world was at the time. everything was different, uncomfortable, hard, and new. yet, it was incredible, rewarding, happy, and life-changing. that year and a half in argentina has largely shaped me as a person. it is what i remember most about the first half of my twenties, even though now it seems like a dream. it is there that i learned that with change comes growth, with hardship comes joy, and that success usually lies just outside of your comfort zone. it is there that i learned the kind of wife and mother i want to be, the kind of man i want to marry, and the kind of instrument i want to be in god's hands.
it is there that i learned that walmart is not THAT bad. (don't get me wrong - would choose target over walmart any day of the week!)

did you know i lived in 2 more places that only had a walmart? any guesses?

a quizzle fo shizzle (again)

let's just see how well you know me, or how much of my twenties you were a part of.

take a guess, I dare you:

1. how many countries did i visit in my 20's?

2. what year did i graduate from byu?

3. how many roommates did i have?

4. how old was i when i got married?

5. how many cars did i drive in my 20's?

6. what was the longest i was in one place, and where was it?

7. how many times did i move?

8. how many full time jobs did i have?

9. how long did clint and i date?

10. how many states did i live in?

this may just give you an idea of how crazy the past ten years have been...

real quick.

sorry, no funny anecdote here.

just wanted to make sure that you, my beloved family and friends are in on the action.

would love it to go to you....

i once lived out of my car.

yep. you read that right.

actually, it probably should say "more than once, i've lived out of my car."

aaahhh, the life of a 20 year old college vagabond.

you want the story? well, ok.

i started working as an efy counselor in the summers when i was 18. the summer of my 2oth year i decided that it would be silly to pay rent all summer if i was going to be in the dorms all week. all i needed was somewhere to crash for the weekend. oh, and somewhere to store all of my junk. hence, i lived out of my car.

i usually crashed on brooke's couch (thanks brookie!) or whoever else would take me in, and since efy was 5 days of hyper teenage girls that didn't sleep, i use the term "crash" rather literally. man i used to be able to survive on so little sleep back when i was a spring chick.

so, the living out of the car thing would not have been that bad really, except that i happened to drive what i referred to as "white trash" (an old white jeep cherokee) that may or may not have started every time i wanted it to. which meant that my portable closet/house/ was not so portable. the battery died so often (and yes, i replaced it more than once, and the alternator, and...) that i was on a first name basis with the AAA tow truck guys. once i asked the guy what i should do and his response? classic: "honestly? drive it off a cliff." perfect.

anyhow, being an efy counselor was such an incredibly rewarding experience and so much fun - definitely one of the highlights of my early twenties. living out of my car? not so much. apparently i didn't learn my lesson because i did it not once, but twice. glutton for punishment i suppose. but it makes for a good story, right?

wish i had pics for all these things... who knows where they are.

tune in to find out:

1. how many roommates i had from age 20-29

2. how many times i moved from age 20-29

3. how many cars i drove from age 20-29

and so, so, so much more. (more than you care to know- i guarantee it!)

so long, farewell

(what is it with the sound of music these days?)

soooo... sunday marked the first day of the last week of my twenties.

how's that for dramatic?

don't get me wrong, birthdays are fun and all, but there have been certain milestones that i have not exactly appreciated - you know, when it comes to growing up.

like when i cried at the byu freshman ward halloween dance when they coincidentally played dancing queen (only 17...) because i was just about to turn 18. and i didn't want to be an adult. and like when i stressed out on my 25th birthday when my parents kindly reminded me that at 25, they were already done having kids. and i wasn't even married yet. (ok, i was ALMOST engaged, but still. not words you like to hear when you see your youth slipping through your fingers and you are sure your womb is shriveling by the day.) and so 30?

haven't been too excited about that one either.

sure, by now, i am married, have a degree, have 2 beautiful boys, and an exciting business. but i remember when my mom turned 30. and i remember my dad joking about her being "over the hill." he had to explain what that meant to me, and it made sense at the time. "oh yeah- like her life is half over and it's all down hill from here..." you know. because she was my mom. and because i was 5. and she was 30. but me? no way.

i mean, i haven't even gotten started yet!!

in preparation for this life-altering birthday milestone (did i mention i'm feeling dramatic today?) i thought i would spend this week reminiscing on my twenties. don't say i didn't warn ya.

and to all of you "older and wiser"s - any advice to ward off a mid-life crisis?