Fishy

These last couple weeks, Chan has been in swim lessons. He's never done any lessons or had an outlet like this, and it's been great! I put him straight into a level 2 because I looked at what they learned in level 1, and he could already do everything.


He's done really well and only has a few days left. They've learned to bob 5-10 times in a row, float on their backs, and basics of the front and back crawl. It's pretty cute to see him attempt to do the front crawl. I took these pictures and video this last Monday when he was halfway through the session. I didn't get him doing anything exciting, but it's still cute. There's only 3 kids in his class, and he loves his teacher, Grace.


I'd love to put him in the next level, but I'm still not sure what's going on with clinicals next semester so we will see....
But for now, here is my little fishy!

Holiday Traditions

I saw a contest on a couple blogs that I frequent, sponsored by Sam's Club. It was a video on a holiday traditions, and I decided to enter. Mind you, some of this was recorded at 2am when I got home from work because I was trying to meet the deadline. But it was all worth it in the end.

I entered this:

And won this:

Crafty

I am not crafty. I'd say it's just not in my blood, but I look at my mom the amazing seamstress, my oldest sister who is awesome at crocheting, knitting, and re-doing furniture, or my other sister who has a knack for crafting and decorating.
Obviously it's in the blood, I just am not the artsy/crafty kind. I'm more of a science minded girl obviously from what I majored in for my 4 year degree, and what I'm studying now.
However, I took on a cork board that was 15 years old and became a bit crafty. I'm not saying it was super hard to do, although Marshall helped me do it, but I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.
I've had this cork board since Jr. High. It was on the wall right by my door, went with me to college, and has been in our home ever since. About a month ago, we painted an accent wall to cover up a beautiful permanent marker job Rowan had done on one of our kitchen walls. Marshall suggested we get a new cork board for pictures. I started looking around, and all of the ones that I liked were $30-$40 for cork boards that were half the size of mine. After finding a few patterns, and getting a feel for what I liked, I headed to JoAnn's to get fabric, ribbon, etc. I painted the outside of the frame, and then did the inside with fabric and sheer ribbon. It took Marsh and I about an hour to do, and I only spent $14 out of pocket. Not too bad for a board that is 15 years old. :) (If you don't see your picture on the board, chances are my 2 year old poked your eyes out with a push pin. Sadly, that is the truth. I couldn't justify putting pictures up with holes all over them. All the more reason to send me a Christmas card this year!)

Glow sticks

It's amazing what kind of entertainment 2 glow sticks will provide. And at only $1, it was definitely worth it.

Dealing With Stress

Marsh and I had a pretty good heart to heart talk last night. It was really nice, and refreshing. It seems like we rarely have time to sit and talk, which should be a priority. Mostly about how we both deal with stress. It's not a new revelation to me, but I tend to bottle things up, until I explode, cry, get irritated and lose all motivation to do the things I'm supposed to. You would see that looking around my house today. Yesterday I was feeling it. I was tired, depressed, and laid on the couch for 4 hours in the afternoon while my boys watched movies. There was so much to do around my house, but I just lacked motivation. In talking last night, I'm not sure how things are going to work next semester when I have 24 hours of clinicals a week plus a day of classes, and then the semesters after that when I have 32 hours of clinicals, plus a day of classes. (Mind you, I work 24 hours a week on top of all of this.) Something has got to give. I can't handle never being home, never seeing my family, and constantly feeling the stress. Marsh asked me last night how I do it all. Blog, school, work, family, church calling, Scentsy, home. I thought about it for a minute and realized that I'm not incredibly happy. I love being busy, and I feel like I'm superwoman and can do it all, but it's too much. It just is. I've really struggled on and off with my primary calling the last few months. I find myself getting home at 2 am from work, to have to stay up another hour or two, just to get primary stuff done. Then I put on a happy face on Sunday and act like I'm not stressed, when really all I want to do is sleep and cry.
Like I said before, something has got to give. The way things look right now, I will be working every weekend from January on until I'm out of school. I don't think I can do it. I don't think it's healthy for me, or my relationship with Marshall and the boys. Marsh and I are going to look at things financially come Janaury and see if there isn't a way I can cut back to 1 day a week, or possibly go prn. I would forfeit my tuition reimbursement from IHC if I went below 24 hours a week, but that doesn't really compare to getting to spend time at home.
For now, I'm so glad to have a good husband that will listen and work with me. I'm really a lucky girl.
Just had a lot on my mind. Not sure how much of this made sense and how much I was just babbling to get some things off my chest. Oh well. I feel a tad better now. Maybe.

Family Day

Life doesn't slow down. That's one thing I've learned in my short 27 years. Marshall texted me Thursday night at work and said he missed me. I suggested he take the day off work Friday and we have a "family day." He decided to, which was so nice. The company Marsh works for right now gives him a nice amount of time off. He gets 3 weeks paid vacation right now, which will go up to 4 weeks once he hits his year mark in February, so it's not such a big deal to take a day off here and there.

We decided to head up to Salt Lake to take the boys to the zoo. We stopped by the Gateway first so that we could go to the Mac store. Our computer has been acting funny and needs a new hard drive. We are going to take it elsewhere to have someone else do it for cheaper, but we both realize we shouldn't have let our warranty lapse. We're thinking about fixing the hard drive, selling the computer, and upgrading. It makes more sense to us to keep a newer computer with a warranty so that we don't ever have to have problems. We then got ice cream at Ben & Jerry's while we were there, and let the boys play in the fountains. I know it's October, but it's still in the 80's here, so it was plenty warm for the boys.

Next, we headed off to Hogle Zoo. A little overpriced, yes? Something yearly we need to do with our kids, yes. I will say the highlight was NOT when the gorilla puked and proceeded to eat it. I know that was more info than you wanted to know, but it WAS disgusting.
The tigers were really fun and playful while we were there and the boys had tons of fun running around and seeing all of the animals.

We ended the night with dinner at Cafe Rio. Yum! It was a fabulous day, made me thankful for my little family, and also made me wish we could have days like this more often!