A Little Bit of This and That

I realized yesterday that I feel slightly disconnected lately - with being sick and having a new church calling and just wondering about my life in general. All is well though.
And even with our being sick, I have managed to accomplish a few things this month. I am singing a song for our upcoming New Beginnings (a special night for the Young Women in our ward - I was called to be the new Beehive advisor (12-13 year old girls - we have 15!)). Anyway the song is by Jenny Phillips and it talks about how Heavenly Father has given us so much good in this world that there isn't room for anything that isn't virtous, lovely, of good report, or praiseworthy. Isn't that the truth?
There is so much in life that I want to do - hence my 65+ goals that I made for this new year. I thought about listing them here and decided against it. But anyway . . . here is a little of what I've been doing beyond the everyday/everyweek tasks.

Sang for the Ann M. Dibb fireside
Bought Mary a new carseat
Gave a lesson to the Beehives
Valentine's Day/Birthday Preparations
We bought a treadmill
Organized some spaces

And here are some photos . . .

Our new treadmill! Tried it out this morning for the first time - works great! Been wanting to order this since last year and we finally did it! It was one of my new year's resolutions to get it ordered. Woo hoo!

My kitchen is pretty small and as I get more stuff it is harder to find a place for everything. But this was a pretty good solution to make more room.

My Jeffie and Mary. Life is good. I have to just say again what I good Daddy Jeff is.


Been wearing my glasses until my conjunctivitus clears up.


I hope this isn't too scandalous . . . Mary loves wearing this "hat" around.

Ready to be healthy again!

I realize this post may be entirely uninteresting to all of you. But if you want to know what has been going on here, then you should know that much of the last month+ has been filled with sickness. I'm kind of embarrassed by it really. I think we are pretty healthy - although I do not get enough vegetables I do know. I guess this is the time of year for it. My Mom always says January is a long month to get through.

Mary - November/December - One minor cold followed by another minor cold. Cough lasted for like 3 weeks before I finally took her in and got medicine for croup and ear infection. 2 weeks after that (January now) - eye infection and ear infection again. This week - reaction to chicken pox vaccine (little rash, loose bowels, irritable, and cold symptoms again). Poor little baby has a raspy voice.

Jeff - Started December 26th - A virus of some kind - body aches and chills, cold symptoms. Cough and other symptoms that continue to linger on . . . (I think he might've had a sinus infection).

Annie - A minor cold surfaced in December (Oh and let's not forget the day that I was throwing up and had to perform in a concert that night). New virus surfaced a week ago - body aches, sore throat (has lasted an entire week - no - not strep), laryngitus, and lots of coughing. Finally starting to go away now. But I did wake up with my own eye goup this morning.

Most of the time it hasn't been bad enough to miss anything or keep me in my pajamas all day. But has definately affected comfort and energy levels.

We are ready to be healthy again!

My baby sister is getting married.

I'm so excited for my baby sister, Catherine. Well, she isn't actually a baby anymore. She's 22 and she's getting married! She got engaged last week to a guy she started teaching piano lessons to. Kinda romantic eh? (To see a pic of Catherine and her fiance, Aaron, just go back one post.)

Anyway, for any of you who might not know, Catherine was born after the first 5 children - 9 years later. So I was 11 when she was born and can remember vividly many of the details of her coming into and being in our lives. One memory I have is going through all of my Mom's shower gifts and organizing and reorganizing all the wonderful baby stuff. It was so great!

I remember the day my Mom had her and we went to go see her in the hospital. When I got to hold her, I saw this cute little heart shaped tongue. She was just so sweet. And we loved her and were fine that she wasn't the boy that we had all hoped for. Sisters are great - even if we don't always get along.

Anyway, so I just thought I'd share some photos . .
This pic is from 1990 - so I was in middle school (I'm on the far left, Catherine is about 2 here, and my older sister Jennifer is on the far right. She was home from college and we all decided to sleep in the day bed.)


This pic is when I was a senior in highschool (right after the Christmas concert). Catherine was 6 I think.

Approximately one year later . . . Catherine was in the middle of chemotherapy. Yep! She's our cancer survivor. Doesn't she look so cute?

Several years ago, Cat and I took a road trip to Idaho for a family reunion. I can't remember if we took this picture because it was the house my mom first lived in as a newly wed - or if it was the house in Napolean Dynamite. I'm pretty sure it's the latter.
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A little recap of New Year's Eve

This obviously happened a bit ago . . . but I thought you might enjoy the pics nonetheless.
My sister Jennifer and her family invited all the Murray's over to enjoy her homemade tamales and games and just fun family time. One thing I love about Jennifer's family is that they are always up for a fun time. They organize lots of outings and such.
There were lots of us there. Besides my sister and her husband and their kids, Scott's dad and grandma came, my folks, my brother Adam and his daughter came, Catherine and Aaron, and of course Jeff, myself, and Mary.

It's no surprise that Mary was the life of the party. My Mom always says the grandkids make Christmas, etc. And with Beckie and her adorable ones out of state now (: (), Mary gets lots of loving attention.

Here are some pics!

Mary sitting with Howard (Scott's Dad) and Helen. They feel like members of our family. This coat and hat were too small to wear, but they went really well with the outfit. Mary never really got to wear it because it wasn't right seasonally. It was from my Mom and was one of my favorite shower gifts. Hopefully I will have another girl someday and she will be able to wear it.

Cute pic of my sister, Jennifer.
Jeff brought a fun new game (Forbidden Island) for us to play and nephew Joe just loved it.
Oh to be young and in love! My sister Catherine and her boyfriend, Aaron.

While we played games (others had left by this time), Mary and Scott rocked out to the Talking Heads.


Clapping

Dancing

Head Banging

More?


Happy New Year!

Barrette

Just a little pic for you . . . .
Mary's getting more and more hair and today I was able to put it in a little barrette.
BTW, her eyes are much better today.

Poor, sick baby.

Mary is sick. Again. We just got off of a round of antibiotics and steriods and now we'll have to go to the doctor again. This crusty eye stuff doesn't look too good. Mary is still pretty cheerful though.

Takes Awhile to Recoup from the Holidays. No?

So I'm fully aware that it has been over a week since my last update. This week has been scattered. We got to have our Christmas with Jeff's side, Jeff's schedule wasn't totally back to normal, and Mary's schedule? I am not sure what happened to it. She didn't nap much at all this week and so I didn't get much done at all. I'm not sure if it is because our new church time wrecked everything, or that she is getting older and transitioning to just one nap now, or maybe it is that new tooth that I discovered while playing the "I'll stick my finger in your mouth and you try to bite it and I'll try to escape before you bite too hard" game. Either which way (as my friend Christina would say), I'm ready to have predictability and a schedule back. Wish me luck. I have so much that I want and need to do in life. My list of new year's resolutions is somewhere around 65. So I'm ready to get to it!

Here are a few random pics for you . . .in Mary's voice.


"I like this game that Momma plays with me. We pretend I'm a baby and she puts me in my Moses basket and rocks me and sings to me and I ask her for more, More, and MORE."



"We finally got enough snow to play in!"
"I like it!"
"A lot!"

"Don't I look so sweet here . . . don't be fooled though, I will let you know if I'm displeased! P.S. Momma noticed all my pants are shirt sleeves were getting too short again. She had to do a little shopping."


"This is another favorite of mine . . . I love to play in the bathroom sink! It's just my size."
"I'm signing 'flower' here because I was just playing with the shell flowers behind me."


"Here I'm at my friend Delaney's birthday party. She has this awesome chair that I loved!"

"Momma's shoes! If I didn't know better, I'd think I was Cinderella"

"I can go down the stairs now very well mostly without Momma's help. The only thing that trips me up are the turns in the staircase."

"Momma came to get me up from my nap and found me sporting this cute look!"

Happy week everyone!