Learning

I have learned several important things these past few weeks that could be of great worth to many of you so here goes:

1. God gives moms super powers when they just have a baby. For the first month or so after having a baby a mom will get maybe 2 hours of sleep at night and somehow be able function the entire day! Then the kid starts to sleep a little more so the super powers are taken away. But when the child starts to wake up in the middle of the night randomly again, the mom realizes the super powers she once had are gone and are not coming back, and suddenly functioning on 3 hours of sleep makes it so when her husband comes home she can't talk in complete sentences and she goes slightly manic! "Might be" teething babies are only my favorite thing ever.

2. When one has a baby don't save the placenta just to plant in the backyard under a tree. Or don't save it to make these things but you can make an amazing conditioner for your hair. You see I burnt my scalp this summer (ok every summer I do) and the peeling just hasn't stopped. So I went to the store and got some deep conditioning treatment. And well I didn't look at the label very carefully until Spencer started yelling "What in the world! Do you realize what you bought?!"
  That's right placenta deep conditioner. P.S. it works amazing.

3.  
This could be the greatest movie EVER created. In fact it stars Rupert Grint from Harry Potter and Keira Knightley (ok she could just be in one very brief scene but she is in the movie).  Here is the blurb on the back of the case and you'll see this is a must see for all ages:
  Thunderpants is a story of a boy name Peter (PS in the movie his name is really Patrick, but the cover says Peter)...who couldn't stop farting! His only friend, Alan, is a child genius who finds a way to use Peter's flatulence as a force for good. After his special skill takes him on an incredible space adventure, Peter learns that sometimes our unique "gifts" can turn out to be exactly what the world really needs!
 An FHE which changed our lives last night!

4. If you think that a caramel apple kit which has a box that looks like it was created in the 1970's and which has been in your parents basement almost definitely since they moved into their house over 30 years ago is still good...you're wrong...the caramel is for sure not good! (PS that didn't stop Spencer from eating a lot of it before I threw the rest out)

A Defying Moment

Have you read these books? If not I think they are all a must read!
And trust me I don't even like to read.
I have come to a conclusion that after reading these three books this year (yes I know I read 3 books in one year...If you don't know me trust me it's a big deal!) everyone needs to have at least one death defying moment. I'm not quite sure why I'm even writing about this, but after reading these especially the last one Heaven Is Here, it really had me reflect on experiences in my life. I think growing up I should have had several near fatal death incidences in which I probably have permanent brain damage from which includes but is not limited to: falling off a tall cement wall in my back yard not once but three times, falling off the rameumptom (a three story supposed to be a tree house but turned into a giant tower in the back yard), always tripping up the stairs most every day in school, having a seizure while driving on the free way, and countless others which would take too long to explain the dozen boxes of band-aids my mother would have to go through in a week just for for me (and I was not a kid that just liked
band-aids).
But I would have to say that during the winter of 2010 when I was driving to Cedar City from St. George by myself and the words running over and over in my mind; "you might just have a brain tumor" (said of course all nonchalant) really changed my perspective on most everything.  Of course in the end I didn't have a brain tumor (although sometimes I wish I did so things could be a little more dramatic then just having to take a pill twice a day for the rest of my life. Who knows, we all could have gone to Disneyland with the make a wish foundation  if things would have turned out differently).
But in all seriousness months before and the month after those words were said to me, I pleaded with God most days to make sure that he knew me. And that what ever crazy adventure which was going on in my brain every week could be resolved. Most times as I would ask this question to Him, He would send some angel in the form of a great roommate or an amazing child I was taking care of at my job, or a phone call would come just after I said "amen".
On the Sunday before I would find out what my brain was doing I went into the Stake Presidents office to renew my recommend. I hadn't seen this Stake President for years and yet he remembered me, where I had received my mission call and who I had been friends with during that time. He had me meet with his counselor to renew my recommend. As he started asking me the temple recommend questions he just stopped mid sentence and said "I feel very impressed to ask you if you have any questions for me." At that moment I wished I had a question for him. Any deep doctrine question would have been awesome to ask, and yet my mind was blank. As we drove home from the church building that day and I was pondering on why he would have been so impressed to ask me that, the thought came to me "your Father in Heaven knows you more than you know yourself, and will always know you, and will always be with you." I was struck with so much love, compassion and gratefulness. I didn't have to have a question to ask that man, I just needed to know that God was aware of me. And is aware of everyone and even the little things that don't matter when all is said and done.
I really came to realize how short life is, I also came to realize that dying is the least of our worries and we should never be scared of it. It was so apparent to me how we need to live so that if we die tomorrow  we will end up where we want to be. Do I do this every day? No! Even though I wish I did.
So have your own death defying moment it will change you for the better, and it will open your eyes.

Yes we do feed our child Slurpee's

Ok maybe he feeds himself Slurpee's

Recently (another really long post)

The week before school started Spencer realized he didn't have to play with or feed the rats at the school so he thought we could head down to Salt Lake City and do some touristy stuff since he hasn't really done any of that. Well, that weekend turned out to be blazing hot and we decided it probably wasn't such a great idea to take Rhett or my albino skin out in the sun so we didn't get to do all that we planned, but here are are a few things we did do:

 1. We first started out at the Brigham City Temple Open House. It is of course very beautiful inside. It has peach blossoms everywhere and even two pictures of women picking peaches. We had nightmares of Rhett projectile vomiting in the Celestial Room or in the baptismal font. I had pictures in my head all week of his vomit just floating on the water of the font for all to see that day. But luckily he only drooled A LOT on the banister of the baptismal font. The volunteer who points people where to go saw it happen and just started laughing so hard. It took us a little bit to wipe it all up. She said to us afterward "don't worry I'm sure they polish it every night."

2. Spencer had never been downtown to the church history, family history and on top of the church office building so those were our next free things to do stops. Rhett got very sleepy! Hence the "Mad Dog" (a bunch of drunk guys told us the other day when we were on a walk that our baby was mad doggin them) face he is giving you all.

3. One night we "hiked" (can you really call walking up a short trail a hike?) up Ensign Peak. A big thanks to my sister Michele who found this awesome backpack on Craigslist for us.

Right before the hike Rhett didn't know what to think of the backpack but on the way up he giggled and just smiled the whole way. 

I love how this looks like he is taking the picture

The view at the top

4. Two words: Ping Pong! Summer to me is not complete without multiple game after game of some good ping pong. But one amazing thing happened this summer. For once in my life I beat my father! 

5. Popsicles. And lots of them were consumed

6. And of course the one thing we really wanted was to sit in air conditioning. 

Spencer started school when we got back into town. It will be a hard semester. He is taking 18 credits which obviously includes classes but he is also a teachers assistant, a research assistant, and working with Sons of Helaman. So it will be very busy but hopefully by this time next year it will have paid off and he will be starting grad school somewhere. So to kick off the semester we went to the first football game of the season. USU vs. SUU! Which means Spencer v. Nicole football. Sure SUU did terrible but I cheered them on until half time when Rhett decided he wanted some free Aggie Icecream and couldn't stand to watch SUU lose completely.

The sunset was amazing on our walk home!

We went on a walk up the canyon last night, I love it after it rains.

I know I know we take way too many pictures of this monkey

And thanks again Grandma for the awesome new church clothes