Live from Christmas Break

I was getting better at posting, and now I've been slacking. 

But it is because we are busy enjoying the holiday break with family in the Midwest! Some highlights though:

Tim is walking. On his own. Not for long stretches, but now fairly consistently.

Jake and I both got these for Christmas:

They're fantastic. I love it! And I finally jumped on the bandwagon to read:

OH MY GOSH!! I can't believe that no one insisted I read them sooner! For real, I read straight through all three books in two days. They were fantastic. And now I'm super excited for the movie to come out in March!

And Tim has had a grand time chasing after the cats here in Nebraska. Since I can never get my videos to upload into Blogger, I'm trying a new way - uploading to youtube and embedding it here. Hopefully this works out!

Preceptor Assignment

I have a few more tests to take today and a few assignments to finish... Then I will be on to my last semester of nursing school.

Which means I have to complete my Preceptorship (like a capstone, if you are more familiar with that term).

I've been assigned to do night shifts on the Pediatrics unit at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center.

I'm excited about this.

I always thought that I would never want to work with sick babies or children. Then, when Tim was very sick during his first month with us, we spent the better part of 2 weeks in the hospital. Both at Utah Valley and at Children's Hospital in Omaha. We had some nurses who were less than caring. I remember one in particular. I stayed awake all night long because we didn't feel like we could trust the care she would provide. But we also had some AMAZING nurses who were so kind and comforting and made the whole ordeal bearable.

In any unit on a hospital you interact with the patients' families. But on pediatrics they are really like a second patient. You have to pay attention to their needs as well. I really like that you can help and touch so many more people this way.

It also scares the bajinkies out of me.Those parents can be intimidating, second guessing everything you do because it is THEIR baby who is in danger.  But I was that scared, pushy, grumpy mom. I remember sassing nurses who weren't providing the care I thought Tim needed and asking questions that I'm sure exasperated them.

Despite how scary it is, I know this is where I need to be. When we did our pediatrics rotation last summer, it felt so right to be there that my heart almost burst each day I got to go. 

Also, Jake has applied for some jobs here:

And if we move to Memphis, there is another children's hospital within a mile from Saint Jude's. As well as 2-3 other major hospitals nearby. So spending the semester on the pediatrics unit will be some good experience for me.

Christmas Pies and a Goofy Bear

 We went to two Christmas parties on Friday. One for Jake's coworkers from the Inorganic Chemistry Stockroom at BYU and one for our ward.

So I made pies to bring. Christmas pies. 

An apple/Christmas tree pie:

And a raspberry/candy cane pie:

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Tim the goofy bear somehow managed to slip his arm out of his shirt without having it unsnapped.

He thought it was HILARIOUS!

Also... He is into EVERYTHING these days. And LOVES the keyboard on my computer. In fact, he loves it so much that he pulled it down on top of himself and scratched his face up. 

Poor kid!

Not Above a Little Bribery

 I still have a LOT to get done before the end of the semester:

5 Care Plans

2 Finals

2-4 Mock NCLEX Tests

1 NCLEX-PN examination

(And that is only the school stuff... In the next week I have 5 bells performances, one church choir performance, AND a Sunday School lesson!!)

So at the grocery store last night, I bought three bags of these:

The Dove chocolate "Promises". 

The creamiest, richest, most wonderfully delicious chocolate EVER.

The ones with the cute inspirational sayings in them.

Anyways. I bought three bags. And I'm going to use them to  bribe  motivate myself to be productive. 

For every section of a care plan that I write, I get a piece of chocolate.

For every 20 minutes studying, I get a piece of chocolate.

For every online quiz I take, I get a piece of chocolate.

You see how it goes. 

I'm very excited about this system. I know its not healthy and DEFINITELY won't help me lose any of the baby weight. But.... It's finals week. Which means you do what you've gotta do to make it through!

Handbells

This fall, I auditioned for the Utah Valley Handbell Choir. We started rehearsing in August and are in the currently in the middle of our Christmas performances.

It has been so much fun to be performing and involved in music again! Other than ward choir, the last time I've performed was with the BYU Folk Dancers in 2008. 

**Video to be inserted here once the video uploader is working**

They asked me to accompany the bells on the flute for a number. Which I was quite excited about! I didn't get to rehearse the flute part as much as I'm used to, but by this point in the season it is going pretty well. Jake recorded this at our concert last night, but the camera ran out of memory before the song was over. 

A New Look at the Holidays

The Thanksgiving/Christmas Holiday season is all about being grateful for you blessings. You get to spend time with people you love, share gifts, etc, etc, etc. I've always known this and tried to remember this and incorporate it into the festivities. 

But this year was different.

November was one of the most trying months I remember. I totaled our car (in an accident that was in no way my fault), we had to buy a new one (definitely NOT in the budget for two college students with a baby), I lost my job (and was notified about it via text message), two kids I went to high school with were killed in an accident, Tim and I have both been sick, and there are some on-going personal struggles we've been dealing with for a while that just tend to wear on you.

I was getting pretty bogged down by all of it.

A few of the girls at school knew I'd been having a rough time and gave me this book with a little "Hang in there" note from them.

I haven't read all the way through it, but in the second chapter there's a story that made me pause and think about some things. The author was preparing a talk and wanted to look up "Hope" in the Bible Dictionary.

"What do you think I discovered? It wasn't there! Hope is not in the Bible Dictionary. I was amazed! Just to make sure it wasn't only my Bible Dictionary, I asked a friend 'would you please check your Bible and see if hope is in the Bible Dictionary?' It wasn't in hers either. I had to work a little to find stories and verses about hope around which I could construct my talk. Perhaps this little experience is indicative of our lives. We have to look for hope! We have to create it!"

I had been having difficulty recognizing the blessings in my life. This was the first holiday season where I actually felt like it was a stretch to find things to be thankful for. 

I'm not yet grateful for the trials we've been dealing with, but it has been good for me to look harder at my life to see the good. It has made the holidays a little more meaningful, even if sometimes it still seems like the rest of my life is falling apart. :-)

So thank you Devyn, Emily, and Sidne. For the long chat in the abandoned jail house, and all your support and encouragement. Thank you Jake's grandparents for loaning us money for the new car. Thank you Tim for giving me things to smile about every day. Thank you family for loving us. And thanks to Heavenly Father for being patient with me as I get the perspective I need in life. 

Here's to the end of the semester and *hopefully* starting over in January!

Now it's December

 In case you weren't aware, it is December. My last post was on May 2nd. My goodness! So it's about time this blog got moving again. (Thanks, Devyn for reminding me.) 

There is a lot of updating to do. It may or may not happen. But here's a few new facts about this little guy:

Tim is now about nine and a half months old. How did that happen?

He has two teeth (pictured above). We're not in any big rush for him to sprout more. 

He crawls all over the place, pulls himself to a stand on anything he can reach, and walks around on the furniture.

Still a long, skinny kid. Although his legs are starting to beef up thanks to his constant exploring.

He eats all sorts of food now, and won't be shy about mooching off of your plate.

He has a brown blanket and a turtle that he always sleeps with, and loves to snuggle.

He loves to play peek-a-boo and say "LA LA LA LA LA" while sticking his tongue out as far as he can.

Upside down? Awesome.

We spent Thanksgiving with his Gramma and Grampa Herrington, and in another week and a half or so will be trekking out to see the McGrandparents in Nebraska. They're excited to see him.

Wouldn't you be?