The Story of 2015

The year 2015 shall hereafter be forever known as the year of miracles. We have had many years of miracles, but this one definitely qualifies for that title. We have been so very blessed! I thought I'd sum up the year in one massively long, long, long post to forever have a record of this epic year.

January - we started an amazing treatment that would forever change the life of our Sweetheart. It would, in fact, save her life, and I will never be able to express my gratitude enough. On January 13th (our temple anniversary!) our sweet girl ingested microscopic amounts of peanut in a Kool-Aid solution. We took that same solution home and dosed her twice a day. Then, once a week we'd drive the 1-1/2 to 2 hour drive to the allergist's office, where we would hang out long enough for them to increase her dose and watch to make sure she didn't have any adverse reactions. I wrote about it in more detail here.

February - Miracles exist. I was able to go to a blog conference that totally changed my life with some amazing ladies.

The trips to the allergist continued, and we became very familiar with the long drive, with everyone who worked at the office, with the specialist co-pays (ouch!), and with the idea that feeding our sweet girl poison every day was a good thing. 

 I also graduated from the Instituted for Integrative Nutrition as a health coach, something that I had wanted to do for a long time and was so grateful to have finally done it!

March -

We had more death this year than we are used to. I had an aunt that lived in another state, that I didn't get to see near often enough. Despite the distance and the long times between visits, I have always known this aunt loved me so much, and her presence on this planet is missed.

My grandpa also graduated this life this year, after a long and good life. I still miss him so much even almost a year after his passing, but he definitely lived a life worth celebrating. My girls even were dancing on the day of his funeral between the tears. Goodbye Grandpa, we love you so much!

March was also a month of uncertainty and fear. The whole month we weren't sure where life was going to take us. One day early in March on his way in to work, Marquis tried to log in to his computer to find that he no longer had access. Turns out, his company had lost one of their biggest accounts overnight, and most of the company suddenly didn't have jobs. Thankfully, another blessing, Marquis still had his job. For the moment, anyway. They didn't have anything for him to do, though, and so for nearly an entire month he "worked" from home while waiting to hear if the company he had been with for nearly 10 years would survive. Of course, he was also sending out countless resumes and interviewing for jobs, and by the end of the month he was able to start with a new, more stable company that also happened to be a lot closer to home. The whole month was a great example of how something scary can turn into something even better than you could have imagined with a little trust and faith.

April -

April brought us another miracle, the day of the first peanut. My little peanut ate a real peanut, and she didn't die. That's pretty crazy awesome, and still blows my mind. I won't say more about that because I said an awful lot about it right here in this post, but it was amazing. Miracles, miracles!

Thanksgiving Point adventures.

Strangest medicine ever...

Showing off my geek card, I bought some leggings that are a map of Middle Earth. (And if you don't know what Middle Earth is, I don't think we can be friends anymore.)

May - I love these cute little Mother's Day surveys, but the last line on this one kind of hurt. Mom guilt and all that crap. 

I've been doing medical transcription for many years and it has been a huge blessing because it has allowed me to be home with my babies while still paying the bills. Except that around this time it started not to pay the bills. I don't know if I burned out and lost my focus, if the work was becoming harder, or what, but I found myself working from early in the morning until very late at night just to get in my lines. Any time my girls wanted to play, my answer was not right now, I had work to do. It was pretty crappy, for all of us. 

I have never, ever been good at gardening, but I am slowly getting better. This year we started our seeds inside early, and I was so proud of our little sprouts!

My cuties were able to join me on Good Things Utah to help promote Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution Day. To get more information on that and maybe to see a cute picture of my girls that shows up sometimes, go to this website right here.

In May our Princess also graduated from preschool, which is awesome enough to warrant a trip for some delicious ice cream. 

Summer was great. Even though I worked way too much, we still found time to play a little outside. The magnolia tree in our yard is the perfect climbing tree, and many hours were spent there, and playing in our garden. 

I'm afraid my lack of experience in the garden got the better of me. I had proudly tended all my sprouts from seedlings. My research online said that May 15th was typically the date of the last frost, and so I decided that the Saturday after May 15th was the exact day to transplant all our little seedlings into the garden. I should have also looked at the weather prior to doing this, but I didn't, and so the frost that came in a few days afterward killed our whole garden, and months worth of tending those sweet plants went to complete waste. One week later I replanted our garden, this time with plants from the local hardware store. Oops! Live and learn. 

The end of May our sweet CG came out for a super fast weekend visit. While she was here, we made reservations for her to go through the Payson Temple open house. It was so wonderful to be there together with our family!

June - we were lucky enough to be able to go see the celebration for the Payson Temple dedication. It was outside at a stadium at BYU, and it poured an icy, icy rain. It was thought that they would have to cancel the whole celebration, something that the youth in our church had worked so hard on for months, but at the last minute the clouds parted and the show was able to go on. The kids had been praying for a miracle, and they were able to see one in action that night. It was pretty incredible!

July - With July came graduation day for Sweetheart's peanut allergy treatment. In one sitting she ate the equivalent of 24 peanuts in peanut butter. I'm still in complete awe that this is even possible! We now had freedom from the weekly allergist visits, from early morning dosing, from fear of accidental exposure. She also now can eat peanuts or peanut butter whenever she wants, and we soon introduced her to the beauty that is a peanut butter cup. She still has to have a twice daily dose of peanut butter, but that's a small price to pay for her new ability to be around and to eat peanuts. 

We were so blessed in July to be able to take CG with us to a family reunion in Idaho, a beautiful spot on a lake not far from where Marquis's parents grew up. It was amazing and perfect, and all three girls had so much fun!

August - With August always comes the beginning of the school year, and Sweetheart was beyond excited to start second grade. 

August also brought us some decisions to make. I was working day and night to try to make ends meet, and those darn ends just wouldn't meet. And then, my transcription job cut my hours, making it impossible to earn what we needed. After much discussion, it was finally decided that getting a "regular" job in an office would allow me to be home with my girls when I was home. I applied for and accepted an entry level customer service job for crappy hours and pretty crappy pay. The thought was that I would continue to search for something better, but the instant I accepted my heart sank and my belly twisted in knots. The job was to start two days before my Princess was to start kindergarten (kindergarten starts one week later than the rest of the school), which meant that I would have had to miss dropping her off on her first day of school. As the days went by, the sunken heart and the belly knots turned into crying myself to sleep at night, and I knew I just couldn't do it. I had already given notice at my transcription job, though, and so when I called back and turned down the customer service job, I was then completely unemployed. For the second time in a year our family had one parent unemployed for a month, with no idea what the future held for us. On the plus side, I was able to take this adorable girl to her first day of school ever!

During August our garden also started producing like crazy, which was so fun to watch. What a great experience for our girls to be a part of, too!

Our garden also helped us get through our month of me being jobless, another huge blessing!

And then our beautiful Princess had a birthday, turning 5 whole giant years old! She wanted a bow and arrow for her birthday, just like Merida.

During my month of unemployment, our house became cleaner than it has been in a long time, I got to play with my girls, help them with homework, and unfortunately also binge on Netflix a lot. Sometimes you get a little bummed about being unemployed and scared, and you just need to zone out on Netflix for awhile. Thankfully, I also was able to apply to several jobs a day. I was made a few offers, and finally accepted one. It was an hour commute away from home, but when you live in the middle of nowhere you have to expect that, and the pay made it worth the drive. I accepted and was grateful. 

During that month, I also perfected my eggs Benedict recipe, my favorite breakfast of all time.

And then, a week before the new job was to start, our next miracle came. I was offered another job, this time closer to home. In fact, this job was in the building right next door to the building where Marquis works. They are so close that the buildings are connected by a walkway. And now, each morning Marquis and I drive in to work together, park between our buildings, give each other a kiss and go to work. We eat lunch together almost every day, and we love to take a break in the afternoons for a nice walk. I still hate leaving my babies behind each day, to not be there when they get home from school. I'm so blessed to have a beautiful sister who loves them and takes good care of them for me, but it still hurts a bit that it's not me. However, the job is good, the people I work with are funny and friendly, and I have discovered that God likes to paint the sky between work and home the prettiest right during our drive home each day. I'm so grateful!

And now in the evenings and on the weekends I get to be fully present with my darling babies, which is a huge gift. 

September - 

Our darling Sweetheart decided that she wanted to have her ears pierced for her 8th birthday. She had actually been begging for months and months, and couldn't have been more excited. At least, up until the moment the earring actually went in to her ear. This is the face of, "Oh crap, what have I done?"

October - 

October will be known as the month of the stomach flu. It started off as most stomach flus do, and I figured we would be plagued for a few days at most.

And we were. After a few days, both girls were back to normal, and Marquis and I came away fairly unscathed, with just a night each of a queasy stomach. Everyone was well enough that we spent a day at Thanksgiving Point...

...and then went to meet my brand new baby nephew. (Somehow my teeny baby brother got old enough to find an adorable wife, and together have a little teeny baby, a boy who looks exactly like my brother did when he was little. How does this stuff happen, I ask you?)

A few days later stomach flu #2 hit, and this time we weren't able to keep Princess hydrated. After a week of sickness and lethargy, we found ourselves checked into the hospital so an IV and some good anti-nausea meds could work their (crazy expensive) magic. 

It is worth every penny, though, to see that cute smile! She was able to be discharged the next day, and was on the mend within the next few days. 

She was recovered for about a week before stomach flu #3 hit, getting all of us this time. We kept everyone hydrated, took turns being sick and being the ones taking care of the sick, and pretty soon the month was over. Just in time for Halloween!

Sweetheart isn't sad in this pic, but since Hello Kitty doesn't have a mouth, she was pretending she didn't have a mouth, either (yes, Hello Kitty has a mouth, but not usually in the pictures, so Sweetheart didn't think she had one).

November - Thanksgiving came and CG came back, and we were able to have lots of great snuggle time!

Our girls had become obsessed with the show the Food Truck Race, so while CG was here we braved the cold temps to go try out some food trucks that we knew often parked near our works. CG was able to get a grilled cheese sandwich with 5 types of cheese, and since cheese is pretty much her most favorite thing ever, that made her happy. 

While she was here we put her to work putting up Christmas decorations.

November was also pretty amazing for us because Sweetheart was able to be baptized and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We are so proud of our sweet girl and this choice that she made. The day was amazing and perfect!

One day as we were grocery shopping, Sweetheart picked up a pomegranate. My first instinct was to tell her to put it back, we weren't here for pomegranates, but then why would I tell her to put away fruit? So we brought it home. She immediately drew a portrait of the pomegranate. I figured that was the end of that, until that night. On my way to bed I peeked in at the girls like normal. As I was giving Sweetheart a kiss, I noticed that she was cuddled up next to the pomegranate. I laughed, removed it from her bed, and thought that was the end of it. 

For the next few days she carried that pomegranate around everywhere. She played games with it, slept with it every night, and kept it by her side. She refused to even consider eating, at least until she had named it. Finally, after I could tell that we really had to eat it soon, I suggested a few names. She told me no, until I suggested naming it Emily. She delightfully agreed, so we cut it open and enjoyed it. I'm still not sure if I should be amused or concerned about this part of the story. 

December - My beautiful niece is a talented ballerina, and had the role of Clara in the Nutcracker this year, so of course we had to go and watch. 

I have no idea what is happening here, but I love this picture so much!

Two days before Christmas, we came home to a cold house. I checked the thermometer and it said, "Lo." I was excited because a low battery on the thermostat means a quick, easy fix, and soon new batteries were installed. Unfortunately, the house still didn't warm up, and Marquis's handy googling skills said that the news wasn't good. A visit from the furnace man the next morning confirmed our fears, our furnace was just plain old and while we could put a (rather expensive) band-aid on it by replacing one part, several other expensive parts were getting ready to go, too. For Christmas, instead of getting each other what we really wanted for Christmas, we got a brand new shiny furnace. Bonus, it's energy efficient! Yeah, hooray. Rah. But the blessing? We sent two different text messages and within an hour had six space heaters warming our house right up. We then ran away and spent the next two nights at Marquis's parents' house, where they have a cozy guest bedroom, an awesome tee-pee for the girls to sleep in, and a working furnace. We spent Christmas night at home camped out in the family room with the space heaters, and the next day the new furnace was installed. We have such amazing friends and neighbors who take good care of us.

And of course, with December comes Christmas. This year we really focused on our girls giving gifts to other people, making sure they bought presents for each of their sisters. The results were wonderful!

And, of course, Christmas morning was amazing and awesome. 

Dear 2015,

Thank you, for all the amazingness. This was one crazy pants year, one that we could never have expected. While I'm so grateful to have had miracles after miracle this year, I'm also glad to have you under our belt. Thanks for the ride! 

Love, 

Me

P.S. Can you please tell 2016 to be a little more boring? I would sure appreciate it. Thanks!