Young Love

I remember the first time I saw him. I remember every detail...How he stood, the sound of his voice, exactly what he was wearing and the way he smelled. I remember the way he looked at me and I remember the way I felt.

His Sister took me to go dancing and I lost my wallet that had my ID in it and so instead of going dancing, we went to meet her Brothers and go to dinner with them. We stopped to go see them and when he walked out of his bedroom, my heart skipped and I am pretty sure time stood still in that moment.
I remember being so nervous that-that whole evening I made a fool out of myself (when I am nervous, I am stupid...literally).
He took my ring off before I left and said that it would be an excuse to see him again.
The very next day me and my fiancee broke up and it was a pretty bad break up and somehow my friends Brother ended up finding out and he texted me to ask me out to dinner and I said yes.

I remember when he came to pick me up for dinner...I met him out in the parking lot of the apartment complex I was staying at and there he stood waiting to open the car door for me.

Fate.

I call it fate that him and I ended up together. The way my life happened was surely a preparation to end up with this man. Here we are 3 years later with a 2 year old daughter and a little boy on the way.
We've been sealed in the LDS Brigham City, UT. Temple and he's currently enrolled in school with his major being computer science. We live in Logan, UT in a 3 bedroom 2 1/2 bathroom town home and we have had our fair share of trials but the love we have is so immensely strong.

I was 18 when we met and I was in a very bad spot in my life. He is my hero. Because of him I have grown and become someone I never ever thought I would be. We fit one another so well.
Still to this day, he kisses me every hour. He takes such good care of me and his daughter. He works so hard to make sure we have all we need. Now that we have moved into this new place I have been able to find some happiness that I dont think I had the first year and a half of being a new Mom. I went thru a pretty bad depression and wasn't able to show Him my appreciation very well. Our house was so dark and always messy and our Daughter didn't laugh as much as she does now.
Living here, our home is always clean and I always cook (pregnancy definitely encourages me to cook) but I feel happy and healthy now. Theirs so much open space here and we laugh all the time. We do so many things together as a family and I can see our Daughter blossoming better here.

I owe so much of myself to his Sister. She doesn't realize what she has done for me. Because of her I have all I could dream of. Because of her, I have Him.

Zak makes all my dreams come true. His Family is so amazing and they have helped me understand so much of myself. Zak has brought out so much good in me that I never thought I had.

I am 21 and have all I could ask for. I dream my Daughter marries a Man like her Daddy and that our Son is a man to his Wife like His Daddy is to me. 

How to tell your two year old "No"

This is my sweet 2 year old. She is the funnest, most outgoing and very energetic, little human being I have ever met in my life!



I know, you're probably laughing hysterically at the title of this thinking "theirs no way!" but in reality, their is so a way!

Being the Mom of a two year old who just turned two a week ago, I feel like I am becoming a pro at this! (hahaha NOT)
Every morning around 8:00am I wake up without hesitation to "Mommy, uh oh!" and it seems to turn out that something disastrous has happened within the 10 feet between her room and ours. So as I slowly work my 6 month pregnant fat self out of my high off the floor bed, groggy as can be, sure enough I find someTHING to clean up. Now that right there is how my day starts.

By 10:00am I have fed her and I am usually sitting on the couch drinking a cup of warm tea with honey and I am catching up on my favorite talk show (Ellen) and she is off coloring or playing with her ponies or her new massive mini kitchen she got from her Grandparents (which that is a whole other story right there!) and thats when I hear, "Mommy, HELP!!" and I usually find her stuck in a predicament that I don't think I have or could ever be in, such as stacking toys up to reach the counter and dump out the whole canister of flower and not knowing how to get down, or be standing in the toilet washing off the stuffed animal that is covered in yogurt and not knowing how to get her foot out of the hole where everything goes down into....I slowly am gaining a good gag reflex by the way. And the many times I tell her "Aumari, NOOOO please don't do this again!" sure enough....it will happen about 3 more times before she moves onto the next test of her abilities like climbing onto the washer and dumping out the gigantic (heavy for me to even lift) clothing soap and mixing her sippy cup of water with what is all over her and the top of the washing machine because it makes "BUBBBBBLES!!!!!!!!"

So after the 1 or 2 morning baths that happen, she is finally ready for nap time and SO AM I!
So by 1:00pm we both go to bed for an hour or 2 and I hear her knocking on her bedroom door yelling "Mama! I awake!!" So I get up and open her door to find her nakedness pushing herself past me to break free from her stinky room....Yeah...You read that right....Stinky everywhere! Her poopy diaper is off and she wont have it any other way but off her bottom, so she takes her pants and her diaper off and ever so kindly keeps it in a corner for me to gather up later...Mind you, her diaper isnt rolled up like we as parents do, its wide open and her pants that she took off, are sitting right ONTOP of her diaper...and I whine and wimper loudly "Aumari, why??? please don't do this again!!! Its a NO NO!!" while my eyes are watering from the awful smell...

4:00pm we head off to go run errands and usually its a stop at the store or to pick Daddy up from work...Aumari HATES her car seat with a passion. I assume its from the much traveling we did when she was a baby. So by the time we reach our destination, even if its 5 minutes from the house, she's so ready to make a break for it, which results in a sudden dart away from me in the parking lot and me yelling "No! Please stop! Come back! You're gonna kill us both!!" and she laughs because she thinks its a game....I would carry her into the store but, I am unable to lift her fat (healthy!) toosh up.
 So we get inside the store and I manage to hold her hand and she wants everything colorful in sight! Usually a balloon or sucker or gigantic stuffed panda bear (which her Dad eventually caved in and bought for her even when I protested)
and I say "no, not this time, maybe next time, k?" and BAM! Thats when it happens...the moment you've all been waiting for! THE WORLD IS ENDING!

How do I handle it? well I usually smile and leave and wish for better luck next time and usually walk out of the store till Daddy can come with us.

So now it is Dinner Time 6:30pm....
Have you ever been so proud of a meal thinking "This is it! I know this time my kid will definitely eat it! She will totally love it and hopefully want more!!!"....No? well I do and I seriously will spend a good hour in the kitchen preparing the meal and making it look all fun and I'll totally yell into the next room "Aumari! Mommy made you the best 'nom noms' ever! are you ready?!" and she'll squeel back "Yeah!!!" and come running into the kitchen with the biggest smile ever on her face and start jumping up and down excited! So I sit her up to the table and I get her some juice and sit her plate and silverware down and I excitedly say "looooook!!!! TADA!!!"......and so she shakes her head no and tells me "No" and climbs down from the table.....and the water works from me begin....

Now I don't force feed her or make her something else because if she is hungry enough, she will eat and if not, well she'll make up for it at the next meal/snack time. 

Then comes bed time...My most FAVORITE time of day....Not cause of the sleep itself, though.
So it takes about an hour to actually get her to sleep. She throws a fit, or sometimes just cries or other times goes straight to bed, no fighting or anything. But I think the best thing she does, is asking me to lay down next to her; and when I do, she closes her eyes and just like that...she's asleep.

Its in that moment that I realize that she is worth the craziness. You actually really can't tell your child "No". They're learning...I'm learning, we all are. Asking nicely for them to not do something or explaining to them why they can't, is really the easiest way to teach them. I struggle so much in remembering to not say "no", I mean come on, no parent knows how to do everything perfectly. Even if you're on your 14th kid (like the Duggar Mom) you still are learning the best way to teach them and still having them love you and respect you as their parent. I Wish I could know how to do everything just right but I don't and probably never will. But its so fun in learning how to be with her. How exactly she needs me to be so that she can know the right way to do thing's. I am glad she gets into stuff and makes messes, I am glad that she tries all these new things because it helps her gain experience in life just like I did. I've also learned that asking, rather than telling her...really goes a long way. Asking her to hand me the butter knife rather than telling her to give it to me followed by an explanation as to why she can't have it or touch it, really really does work!!!

I Certainly have my fair share of breakdowns, more so lately and usually right along side with her. But at the end of the day I know that this is me and her making a team effort to understand each other.

"Aumari, please love me still, even after I get so upset with you that you kick me."

Good Luck, Mom's out there! We all rock even when we don't do something the right way. We are all still learning.






Oh and one last thing, about the play kitchen, she LOVES IT!!! So much that I find real food out of my fridge (uncooked bacon in her fake toaster, shredded cheese in her dishes and dry milk in her cups...) all because she was trying to cook. Yeah...Its so fun.

The day my life changed forever

So it all started in December 28th...the day me and my Husband Zak decided we were both going to start school together. Endure the next step in our lives together...we had no clue the challenges that laid ahead of us but we know that we could tackle anything because we felt we had tackled the worst of it all, already.
January 21st was the day we both began. He started at Stevens Henager studying computer science and software development. I started at Maximum Tech School of Cosmetology. (Now The Paul Mitchell)
It started off amazing. A Dream come true to be honest, life was so good that we both were on a lifestyle change ultimate high. He was working his full time job at YESCO and going to school full time and I was going to school full time. Bills were paid and Aumari was taken care of. I was at school from 8:30am-5pm and he was home with her in those hours and when I got home, he left for school at 5:20pm-10pm and that was Tuesday-Saturday for me and school days for him were Monday-Thursday and him working Friday, Saturday and Sunday 4:30pm-6am....Are you confused yet?

Yeah it was crazy....

I got caught up in "school life" that I didn't want to deal with home life because I was just so sad...I was seriously so unhappy with everything around me. I had some personal issues that I hadn't taken care of that I was getting sucked back into my dark place but trying to hide it from everyone.

My Depression started to come back mid February when I got home from school and Zak had told me Aumari cried that whole day for me...From noon till 5 when I walked thru the door and she had been screaming "mama" and he wasn't able to get his homework done and she had snot running down her shirt, her face was red as an apple and she was running a fever....Zak failed his class that module because he was taking care of baby while I was away and couldn't get his work done. Not once did he complain. In fact he was so supportive that he without saying but in actions was showing that he would rather fail for me to succeed....True Love, right?

Now if you know me or my husband or my child, even...you know how happy we are. Even when we are upset, we are so easy to please by just a smile. My Child has never gone an hour without smiling or laughing and when I started school I watched my 1 year old become a stranger. I watched my marriage to my husband crumble...and I myself became someone else.

On February 18th Zak sent me this picture

It came with the caption "I think her lack of sleep is catching up to her"

When I got home my poor baby was so weak and tired I thought to myself "wow she really is tired"

as I put her in her car seat to take her Daddy to work I noticed she was cold so I grabbed a blanket and put it on her. She didn't have socks on, just sandals and the weather wasn't winter but it was sunny with a cold wind that had a bite to it. (if that makes sense)  As I am driving my Husband to work I hear a gurgling sound and I look in my rear view mirror as my baby is limped over in her car seat, with blue lips and her eyes are rolling in the back of her head and she has droll just pouring out of her mouth. My immediate reaction is to yell at Zak that our child is dying and as I am sobbing and screaming and pulling our car over Zak is jumping out of the car before its even stopped and he is pulling her out of her car seat. He tells me she is burning up and to drive to the hospital and I can barely even comprehend whats going on because I am screaming "save my baby. Please Zak just save my baby" I could barely drive and was swerving all over the road that he had to punch me in the arm. I immediately call my father in law who is an ER Dr. and I handed the phone to Zak and he right away knew what was wrong with her. Aumari was suffering a  febrile seizure, also known as a fever fit or febrile convulsion, is a convulsion associated with a significant rise in body temperature. They most commonly occur in children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years of age.

As we are pulling into the Hospital I drop Zak and Aumari off at the emergency room door and go park. I walk into the hospital and the receptionist tells me where to go. As I walk to the back my daughter is having a catheter put in and has an IV in her arm and they're getting ready to perform an X-ray on her...my immediate words out of my mouth are "what the hell are you doing to my baby?!" "please give me my baby back" as I am writing this I am breaking into tears...its hard to replay this in my head because I feel my heart just crushing because well, what parent wants this to happen to their child???

No parent should have to deal with this. No matter how minor or awful the problem, we as parents should not see our children with this many hands on them.

My Daughter Aumari is my whole life, and from the very moment she was born, she has been will power to survive. Seeing her this way was a living nightmare. I felt my insides dying with her.

 

My Mind is going many places as I have this lady asking me about Aumari's health history...my baby is a BABY....the only health "problems" she has had is ear infections and they put tubes in her ears and she has been perfect ever since...I was getting mad and impatient with this lady and told her to "shut up" when I really shouldn't have, but I just wanted my baby to wake up. She had gone unconscious and when they got her back awake she was a zombie...she couldn't even hold her arm up and when I held her, she was just heavy...she couldn't pick her head up and she was just staring at a wall, her eyes had no life in them.

 

When the Dr Came back to tell us what the test's results were it was exactly what my Father in law had said. He also noted that the reason she wasn't breathing was because her air way was getting cut off by her car seat strap... (head limped over with the strap pressed up against her neck) she was choking herself unintentionally.

 

 

About 2 hours later my Husband and his Brother had given Aumari a blessing and that moment when they took their hands off her head my baby was able to sit up and eat gold fish crackers and drink juice....a true Testimony of the Lord before my eyes...

Because Aumari wasn't dressed for the cold weather, the cold spiked her mild fever up to 105 which is the temperature of when it begins to kill your brain...My baby was dying...

She had an upper respiratory infection which I didn't know about because I was so busy with school that I didn't spend enough time taking care of and paying attention to my child. I was more concerned with other things...Zak had no clue she was sick, we both thought she was having separation anxiety...

 

Here we are now, in June. I decided to be a beauty school drop out and be a mommy instead. I have been dealing with some personal health stuff and I would rather just be home with my family instead. School is definitely meant for others, I loved beauty school honestly. I loved putting a smile on my guest's faces when I finished their hair. I loved some of the friendships I made and I absolutely loved my teachers/learning leaders. But in the time I WAS at school, I learned how important my family truly is. I would rather fail for my Husband and Daughter to succeed. I would rather be home and teach my Daughter her ABC's and how to go potty on the big girl toilet. Yes beauty school is only a year but so much can happen in a just one minute.

 

I learned a lot about myself. I went thru numerous trials in such a short amount of time. No no no this isn't a pity party for myself but it is a learning experience. Its a whole bunch of bad times that have evolved into one big good time. The good time I am speaking of is the moment when I learned that my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ accepts me for my worst and still will watch over me and my family even when I make stupid choices...I am so grateful for the time I had at Maximum, I am grateful for the few people who were there to help me out when I struggled. And I am even grateful for the girls I didn't get along with, because of them I learned my strengths and my weaknesses. I wont be going back to school. I'll be home helping Zak go to school.

 

Hurrah for Israel (as my Sister on a mission always says)

Hurrah for Israel, friends!

 

Life really is a learning experience. Yes we do make bad choices and mistakes but should turn them into learning experiences and not dwell on them.

I learned that the Lord is #1. That I should live everyday as if it were the last. I learned my Husband needs me...even when he says he doesn't, he really does. I also learned that socks are important. As silly as that sounds, socks save a life. I actually want to start a sock awareness this winter and get sock donations for low income families. Thoughts?

Anyways, until next time! <3