This one is kind of personal.

A year ago I was really struggling with something. I was 7 months pregnant with Holly and really didn't know how that would turn out. I was seeing a specialist every couple of weeks for ultrasounds. They didn't know what was wrong other than she was small and we still didn't know why. At this point I was given a steroid shot because the doctor was pretty sure she would be born premature. I gotta say, I was terrified. The thought that my baby could come at any time combined with the possibility losing her was one of the most difficult things for me to handle so far in my life. I warned you that it was personal.

I went home that evening after considering everything that the doctors had to say and talked with Ian. I felt pretty strong up until this point but in a moment of weakness I broke down. I cried and cried to my husband about what would happen if we lost our baby. My over active imagination took over as I imagined her funeral. My sweet husband was willing and able to give me a priesthood blessing in which he reminded me to remember the atonement of the Savior. The next morning I spent time in my scriptures studying all about the atonement. I wanted to know everything there was toknow so that Heavenly Father could help me through this hard time.

Later that evening, exactly year ago today, I got a call from my at Mom asking me what was wrong with my friend Andre. We had been trying to get ahold of each other for about a week and kept missing each others phone calls so it had been a few days since we talked. I told her I didn't know what she was talking about and she said people were posting all kinds of messages on his Facebook about "rest in peace" and such. I quickly informed her it was probably nothing and that she was overreacting. Denial! As soon as I hung up with her I called my friend. He didn't answer. No big deal. We'd been missing each other all week. He'll call me back.

As soon as I got home I looked into what my Mom was talking about. Sure enough I found in the news that my friend had passed away earlier that afternoon in a car accident. If you had asked me what my reaction would be hypothetically I'm sure I would have told you initially disbelief followed by extreme grief. Instead, thanks to the tender mercies of a loving Heavenly Father, my thoughts fell on the atonement of Jesus Christ.

I know the situation with my daughter was the Lord preparing me for this experience and I felt that in two very real ways. One is the one I've already described in knowing that because of the sacrifice of the Savior my friend would live again and I knew that I would see him again. The second was that my grief was turned into compassion. I had a small window into what it would be like to lose my baby and felt great empathy for my friend's family--especially his Mother. I feel that when I see my beautiful little girl who is now almost 1 year old.

To Mrs. Reyna:
You and your family have been a part of my life since the 4th grade. I always knew you were a blessing to me, but in this past year you have taught me so much more than I ever anticipated. The love that you have for your children is a model to me as a mother. The strength and faith that you have shown is a model to me as a child of God. I know you are still grieving, but please know that I will always remember you and your family for what you haven shown me during this experience. I know Andre loved you. I know he still loves you. He would be pleased to know of all you are doing in his memory.

To Andre:
I miss you my friend. Though I know I tried many times I could never express what a blessing you were and still are in my life. I could not have asked for a better friend. You made it easy for me to follow the unusual standards that I set for myself. You even encouraged me. We were able to have so much good, clean, fun together. I could always tell you anything. Remember that time my Mom got in a car accident and you drove me to the hospital and stayed with us? Remember that huge pirate pinata you sent me after I moved to Rexburg? Remember when you insisted on throwing me a birthday party? Remember how I would come buy a pack of gum at Publix so I could talk to my favorite checker? I have so many memories like that written in my journals. You even had input on helping me name my kids! My daughter Holly is the best reminder I have of you. She is so special to me because of that and I hope someday you two will meet. To my kids you will always be Tio Andre, just like you wanted. Thank you for everything.

No creative title this time!

When I come up against a post of how cute my kids are, I have a hard time writing a cute title. What should it say? My kids rock? Cute babies? Those are just a couple of examples of how bad I am at it! Also, nothing really seems to do it justice. It's like have the most moist, delicious cake and not being able to make a frosting to accompany it. A cake like that would be ruined with bad frosting! Oh well! We'll just have to live without a title.

Now for the cuteness!

My kids like to play together. I like being able to watch them at the same time. This was the perfect photo opportunity! Atley let Holly actually get in his tent!

This is the picture I was trying to get. Holly kept licking Ian's hand while he was trying to study. He didn't love it, but he was patient enough to let her do it while I tried to catch a picture. It only took me about 4 tries!

Every time I snapped a photo she stopped licking in the nick of time. I think her face tells me she was doing it on purpose.

Atley really likes to take toys with him to bed. A lot of toys. I heard him playing instead of sleeping one night and went in to find this madness. On his bed he had a piano, 4 stuffed animals, a car, 2 unmatched slippers, his puppy, the night light cover, his sippy cup, his toothbrush, his hairbrush, and the usual blanket and pillow. Woah, kid! Also, when I put him to bed anything that is in the near vicinity he wants me to kiss--seriously anything! The other day he wanted me to kiss his sticker! So imagine the fun I had this night.

Holly learned to wave and she is a real beauty queen. I just love it when she waves to me!

Also, the blue sidewalk chalk tastes the best. Just F.Y.I.

Rexburg is full of suprises!

Whenever I think Rexburg is predictable something always surprises me. Like the other day, when there was the noisiest unplanned unannounced parade right outside my front door. Or how I was expecting to join in the annual spud race and it was canceled until NEXT YEAR when I won't live in Rexburg. Yeah. Well, sometimes the surprises are nice. We found a new park we love!

It has ducks!

Alright, I might have already known the park was there. And maybe Ian and I had our first date there, but that doesn't mean we go there all the time! Besides, this time we decided to go further into the park than we did on that date. So I guess instead of saying we discovered a new park, I could say we discovered hidden parts of the park. Yeah. That still sounds exciting, right? They have frisbee golf, a picnic area, and as already mentioned, ducks! Atley just wanted to throw rocks at the ducks. I guess we'll have to teach him about being kind to all of God's creatures. We're still working on being nice to Holly though. I see that as kind of a priority.

We decided to go back to the more familiar part of the park (for the ducks sake) and so we could find some rocks for Atley to throw. He quickly ran out of little pebbles so Mommy came to the rescue!

How was the water, you ask? COLD! I almost chickened out, but then I decided it was a small sacrifice that I could make for Atley and (as long as there were pictures) he would remember how much his Mommy loves him. Wanna see a video? No making fun of my rolled up pants!

Apparently I'm a trendsetter too because those kids showed up and wanted to get in the water too. Then they realized how cold it was and changed their minds. Smart kids!

Hm...now where was Holly throughout all this? Well...

She was learning to walk with DADDY!

Okay, so she can't walk on her own, but she loves to hold onto our fingers and walk, walk, walk, all day! She's really short though as you know from our previous post, so it is a little hard on the back. I came over to dry out and watch my little girl become a big person, but I decided to sit down. You'll see in the video, Holly wanted to sit down too. Lazy fraidy girl!

She's still working on the walking and the courage. I think she'll get there soon. For now I'm okay that she just crawls. She's really great at it. Now I just need to attach swiffers to her knees and get some extra cleaning done!

Ian took the GRE

Many of you probably know that already. He's been working on his applications to get into Graduate School for a couple months now. So far, so good. We've had some very positive responses from his teachers when he asks for recommendations. He explains to them his plans and there is a lot of nodding that goes on. They've all given some additional encouraging words or advice on top of that. But, from my point of view, who wouldn't have at least one letter full of nice things to say about Ian. I could right at least 100 letters like that without even breaking a sweat. What can I say? He's so good to me!

Well, we went with Ian to Pocatello where he took the GRE. We waited outside. It seemed like a really long wait. Want to know what we did? First we went to a park. That didn't last too long because I had dirty diapers to take care of.

Then I found this little oasis on the ISU campus!

We went into the student union looking for a bathroom and when I opened the door I saw a little lobby before the bathroom. I thought, 'Good idea!' It's was a lot like a Mother's Lounge you might find in an LDS church building. It had a changing table, place to make a bottle for Holly, power outlets so Atley could watch a movie, and a little desk with chairs so we could eat lunch. In a nutshell, it was the perfect place for us. Here's what Holly thought of it.

Maybe she was supposed to be a twin and God was just being merciful to me. Sorry Holly twin. I wasn't ready for 3 children under 18 months. You can join our family later as a little sister.

After we got tired of being cooped up indoors we decided to take a walk and check out the ISU campus. It was VERY different from BYU-I. In my mind after living in Rexburg for 4 years the only people that smoke are people that are old because they've been smoking all their lives and it's way too hard to quit. Everyone knows it will kill you these days so young people don't smoke anymore, right? WRONG! There were cigarette butts and smoking people EVERYWHERE! Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating, but at least 10 smokers and 2 cigarette butts per smoker littere the ground. Atley picked one up and said "rock?" Of course the ew-no-gross-put-that-down-it's-not-a-rock response wasn't enough so I had to touch it. Yuck. But the grass was pretty at least!

He found other things to throw, too. Nice, normal things--like sticks!

As I mentioned before, ISU was very different from BYU-Idaho. The way people dressed and talked was even different. It didn't bother me. It's not like I think wearing shorts is a sin. It's just different. It did remind me thought that BYU-Idaho is a special place. I was so blessed to be able to study in a place without some of the small distractions like cigarette butts can pull my attention from studying and my family. Moving away from here will be an adjustment. I can already see that. I think I'll miss Rexburg.

I might be a tad behind...

BUT it runs in the family. Holly is now 9 months old; boy time flies! We took her to the doctor a week ago and I'm just now making the post (hence the behind comment). When I say it runs in the family I'm referring to her measurements. Holly only weighs 13.44 lbs and is 25in falling in the 1st percentile for weight and the 4th for height--and that's when you compare her with other preemies! She has almost gained 10 pounds since she was born. Believe it or not she is still wearing 3-6 month clothes. A 9 month old that acts her age and looks half it! If only we were all so blessed! I'm turning 23 this month and I had someone ask me if I was 28 the other day...oi!

Don't believe me that she looks that young? Here's a conversation I had with someone at church.

{Holly is sitting up on the floor and crawling around. She's making noise and doing all the things a typical 9 month old would do}

Girl: Your baby is so beautiful.
Me: Thank you!
Girl: What is she; 6 months old??
Me: {politely} Haha. No she's actually 9.
Girl: Oh...how much did she weigh when she was born?
Me: 3lbs 10 oz.
Girl: Oh, was she a....
Me: ...preemie? Yes.
Girl: Oh.

And of course, I've told this story to just about everyone I know when they ask about Holly. I don't mind that Holly is small. I like to say she's travel size! She's been described by someone else as petite which I prefer because it reminds me it's just the way she is and that I'm not doing anything wrong. But since Atley was small, she was premature, and I love her so much, I don't mind. I just wish she could pass some of that up to me! 28? Really?

Other than that our sweet little girl is getting along just as she should be. She is a crawling machine, she has an adorable laugh, she can pull herself up to standing (which is the weirdest because she is so short) and she LOVES to play with Atley. It makes me happy to know that when I leave them in a room together to play there is generally more laughing than crying.

Oh yeah! Holly is a great snuggler too. Just ask her Grandmas.

In case you were wondering our trip to the Cabin was AMAZING! I think it was everything we were hoping it would be and now all we can think to do it plan another one! Alas, school starts in a week so we will practice patience for now. Besides, next time (if all goes according to plan) there will be a zip line! Sweet! More pictures and (if you're lucky) a video to come!

As for the rest of our family I'm working on keeping the house straight, Ian is STILL studying for the GRE which he takes on Tuesday, and Atley is frustrating and adorable all at once. C'est la vie! What can one expect from and almost-two-year-old. I say frustrating because he is realizing that he doesn't have to do everything I say and adorable because he seems to copy everything I say.

Example: The other day I was trying to coerce him to the changing pad so I could change his diaper. He ran to his room--frustration ensues. He came running back out with his bear in arms, lays the bear down on the pad and says "hold still!" I'm giggling as I write about it! I guess we must say that to him from time to time. My frustration quickly changed to pure joy as I handed him a wipe and watched him try to change Bear's diaper. So cute!

He loves Signing Time! and Brother Bear both of which are teaching him many new words in 3 different languages. He doesn't sign much, but when I sign to him he knows what I mean. I'm thinking that will come in handy in church. French is turning out to be a similar experience. Sometimes he repeats what we say and he definitely understands us. I'm thinking that will come in handy when we live in France ;-) Here are some other great things Atley says:

Padres, Go Cougars!, Football, Skunk, Going Home, A la table, On s'en va, Time Out Corner, Père Celeste, Touchdown, I love you, I need help, More lait, Waterfall, Rocks, Holly crying, Off the table, Shut the door.

As an added note, while I'm writing this post the kids are in bed (the only way to blog!) so I went in to check on them. This is what I found...Atley decided to have a camp-in! I think we may have an Eagle Scout in the making!