President Hinckley

I loved President Hinckley so much. He was 97 when he passed away Sunday night, but since I'm not in his family I hadn't thought very recently of him being sick or anything so it was such a shock to me.

I was just out driving near my home that night when my mom called and told me. And if I'd had the radio on, I would have found out much sooner. Within minutes I was back home sobbing on my husband's shoulder. Such a shock to me. I never met him personally but I've been to conference before and somehow I just feel like he was my freind anyway. And also that I didn't learn enough from him, I should have paid more attention to him to be more like him (more Christlike, really.)
But after an hour or 2 I calmed down and thought happily of how great he was and how I can read his talks and watch videos of him whenever I want and continue to learn from him. I will miss him alot but life and the gospel will go on and the prophet for when my kids grow up will not be Pres. Hinckley but instead Pres. Monson (presumably).

Mike and I will miss him a lot.

A miracle at home thanks to Rachel

I don't know if my HS friend Rachel has been online, read her comments and come to my blog yet but when she does this will sure be a nice greeting. Something happened at my house yesterday that could have been really really bad but thanks to me getting distracted by Rachel (well, really because Heavenly Father should get the credit for sending promptings my way) it was just a little mess. So thanks to Rachel and to God.


OK so here is the story. In my house I have this kinda big laundry and food storage room, which is also the furnace room. And because of the way it is built it is really freezing cold in there because there is a big vent to the outside to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning. It makes the whole basement and esp. the laundry room almost uninhabitable (I'm talking it's probably 50 degrees max there) from December thru March. I heat the rest of the basement as much as I can, and I just rush in and out and do laundry only when I REALLY have to and as fast as I can with sweaters on in those months. I have been telling Mike for a long time that it is too cold down there to do anything and there must be a way to fix it, but he couldn't think of a way and just didn't believe it was a big problem. Now he believes me.

Yesterday I knew I had to run at least 2-3 loads of laundry. While Linc napped, I sorted clothes and then I looked at Rachel's blog. I had tried a few days ago when I learned of it, and it mysteriously wouldn't load. I am grateful for that now. So I looked at it, browsed through last year's archive quickly, then put some clothes in the machine. I left a comment, then logged off and went upstairs to get Linc up. I had to go to a store soon before it closed, so I got shoes on us while I heard the washer filling with water normally. Then I grabbed my purse and stuff and started wondering,"How far away is Rachel now?" and got distracted. I took out my atlas(which I have never used before) and took a little time mentally planning/fantasizing a summer trip to Cinncinati to visit my aunt, then driving up to Cleavland to see Rachel's baby. And all of a sudden I heard the washer draining-but not normal sounding through the pipes, I could immediately tell it was spraying all over. And I had planned on leaving at least 20 min. earlier! That water was coming out fast, too! It stopped immediately by turning off the machine and I just had a bit of a water mess to clean up. But if I had left as planned,within minutes my laundry room would have flooded, probably would have ruined the majority of the food storage I've painstakingly built up, and then just across the hall is the computer and all my instruments, important papers and photo collections. Not to mention all the clothes (sorted laundry piles) which would have been floating and growing mildew atop the carpet.

Well, there was an ice chunk blockage in the drainage pipe. So NOW Mike believes as urgently as I do we need to fix the furnace room, I'm glad there was no damages. Thanks mostly to God, but Rachel can take some of the credit. Thanks Rach! :)

Yesterday there was that and a bunch more minor problems that seemed like everything was just trying to get us to not be able to go to the temple for a stake temple meeting last night. Satan was trying really hard to keep us away from there I think, but we showed him. We barely made it on time, but we got there. So HA!

I am so grateful I had the Spirit with me enough and I listened enough, or just let myself be guided enough to be at home for a bit more time. I am also grateful I got to go to the temple last night because it was great, I hardly ever get to go and I loved it. That's all for today. Bye!

Flashback Friday Time! Dec. 20 2005

Chris, Mike, Juliet and Lincoln, Carl aka "Boss". I wonder who is Lincoln's favorite?



Sometimes my cousins post up pictures from the past for 'Flashback Fridays'. I'll do it when I have time on Fridays.
So Linc was almost 6 months old here, and we got a picture taken together to give to some people for Christmas that year. Linc's fascination with his uncles was just beginning, as you can see.

Boss

I thought I'd post a funny Linc story here today. His favorite thing is to be with his family members, esp. if they will sing with him or play trains. He loves his uncles very much, my brothers and Mike's too. But this is about just my 2 brothers this time. He lights up when he sees them, laughs and smiles and says "Hi, Chris!" or "Hiya, Boss!". And the reason he calls Carl boss is because Carl just commonly calls some people 'boss' just because. Like instead of saying to a friend "Hey what's up man?" he sometimes says "Hey boss what's going on?". And he unnoticingly said "Hi boss." to Lincoln in greeting enough times that when Linc started to talk to my brothers he called Carl boss. And it's way funny, Linc even points Carl out in pictures and says boss.

Me and Chris and Linc went down to Cedar City Monday to see Carl on his birthday. It turned out as a really fast trip and we just had pizza and cake and sucking the helium out of his baloons for an hour or 2 while Carl was between rehearsals. But it was fun. We all love you Boss.:)

Comparisons

Ok so part of my reluctance to start one of these blogs is because of this. I like taking pictures of Linc with my cell phone, and that's what I usually have with me when he does all his cute things anyways. I don't drag around the camera cuz I'm afraid I'd lose or break it, and because.... well just look at this.

A random old picture I took with my cell phone of Linc's first time eating solids....looks like mashed peas.:)

That is what pictures look like when taken with the cell phone. Mike told me pics from the phone wouldn't post well online with the quality of camera phone I have, and I totally disagree. And this was with my older, lesser quality camera phone! That one I posted of him in the red striped shirt is with my current phone. So there you go. Now look at this picture taken with my camera. They pretty much all turn out this way if my wiggly Lincoln is in them.


This was one of my favorite of the "very bad" graduation photos, Linc's got the common photo syndrome of "2 face" going on.

Um, which is better? That's obvious. So the lesson to learn I guess from that is "Don't just listen to your husband and blindly believe. Esp. if his name is Mike." (Yep that means you Mrs. Haddox! hahaha!)

I swear I have a college degree......

... but it still seems I can't figure out this blogger thing yet. I am actually quite good at grouping things together into cohesive paragraphs. Well, whatever. So Melissa, when I come over Thursday (if that's still ok) we need to leave the boys at the table for just a bit if possible and I'll just need some quick tutorial on this. I just barely figured out why the comments were blocked last time. Still don't get some other things. Ugh whatever. It'll probably just take like 2 min. for you to show me a couple things and then this blog won't be so amateur-looking.


Anyways, Linc did something cute I thought I should post. I was just putting him in the car last night, and he was naming off trains. "Thomas, Emily, Gordon, Percy" and I said, "And what about Lincoln?" And he grinned huge at me and screeched in delight (a couple inches from my ear) because he thought I was telling him he was a train. The boy is totally obsessed these days, and turning into a train would probably be his dream come true!

Today he played on the train table at Jeanine's. And Melissa has one, there's one at the day care center at the gym (further incentive for me to work out, which I really should do anyways), I'm pretty sure there's a few within my ward, and at every Barnes & Noble they have one. So Linc's been doing a whole bunch of train table time lately. We set up a faux one today in the front room he seems to like great. I will add a pic of it later to this post, my computer seems to have slowed down a lot all of a sudden.



Here it is, my cute boy in his favorite activity.

And want to know why this picture looks like that? Well, just read on to the next post my friend....

Post-Christmas slump

(I SWEAR I HAD THIS ALL NICELY TYPED WITH PARAGRAPHS AND I JUST CAN'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO FORMAT IT RIGHT SO THAT SHOWS. SO SORRY THIS LOOKS LIKE ONE HUGE RUN-ON PARAGRAPH.)


This happens a bit to everybody I think, every January. But this year I'm seeming to notice it more, so I'll write about it.


December is always this busy month of so many activities and things to get done, it's like this whirlwind of activity from a few days before Thanksgiving until my brother Chris' birthday (January 1st)and also Jessica H.'s (see, I remembered! Dec. 31st!) and sometimes a day or 2 more. Then everything calms down and you can stay inside and enjoy being less busy and be cozy for a while while it's freezing outside. But this year the 1st full week of January after New Year's it was like "Put away the tree and decorations..... wow, this house is boring now." I've had a bunch to keep me really busy, but I think Linc and I (but mostly him)are already feeling a bit cooped up and want spring to be here very soon! My boy LOVES playing outside with his friends, and last springtime is when he really discovered how much fun he has out in the yard. And then he just wanted to be outside all the time. :)


Like I said, I like January for being warm and cozy indoors and organizing stuff in the house and getting lots of stuff done here. But Linc does not,he is a bit stir crazy already. And we have been having issues lately with him wanting things exactly a certain way; and when he can't say or sign enough words to communicate what he wants he just throws a fit. It's been rough, but I guess it's expected. They don't call it the "teriffic two's", do they? No, obviously not.


So I am just making efforts to take him out a little more. Planning many things for us to do next week because last night I realized me and Linc hadn't been out of the house since Sunday AT ALL. We fixed that immediately, and went out some more today.


Does this post-christmas dropoff happen to you all of a sudden too? I think it's much more noticable this year, with the toddler.


Oh yeah and Melissa or anyone.... if you read this, can I consider myself tagged for that survey game you passed around a while back? Then I already will know what to write about next time on the blog!

Yeah, this is really ASAP....not

Whatever. I started a blog, I may as well post on it. It'll be a new years resolution for me. I have some others, but am I posting them up? NO! Maybe I'll write them down and maybe even do them, but putting them here? Talk about increased accountability! No, don't want that. But this one is in print, on the World Wide Web. "I will make a blog and post stuff about my cute boy on it. And maybe sometimes some other stuff too. As a way to keep in touch with others."

In case you can't tell from the list on the right, I'm doing this cuz of familial peer pressure. Ha ha but in a good way! I just have to find more bloggers I know besides cousins!

Speaking of, my cousin Melissa put pictures up on her blog of Lincoln playing, and he just looks so cute on screen it convinced me I totally need to begin this. Here's the picture for those who don't frequent her blog.



Isn't he great? He needs a carrer where he can be adored onscreen always, in my opinion. Maybe like his Uncle Carl perhaps.... :)Anyways, I'll figure out how to get more pictures onto the computer and post some more cute things but this is the beginning of greatness I tell ya!