Lots of Things to Be Thankful For

It's nothing like Thanksgiving to bring out all the nostalgic feelings in me. This is the year that everyone goes to their in-laws, so it's kind of been nice, less stress for me. With the twins being born and Rich sick, that's a good thing. Rich was in Boston all last week helping Spencer install his new kitchen. Ethan built the cabinets and had them shipped back east. Rich had to do the install because we couldn't take the chance of Ethan missing the birth of the twins. When Rich got home on Saturday night I could tell he wasn't feeling well. By Sunday night he was really sick but hopefully he's on the mend tonight.  I read an article the other day that was "22 things unhappy people do." I wasn't surprised that I do almost all of them. They were stuff like thinking negative thoughts, holding grudges, living in the past, not being able to forgive and looking too far into the future and not living in the moment. Dang, how do you change who you are? How do you stop worrying about your kids and grandkids and wondering when the next trial will come your way? Anyway, I have so much to be thankful for. I just got word they are picking up Gage from the hospital, he was suppose to go home tomorrow but he's doing so well they are kicking him out tonight. Ethan and Jenn will need some extra prayers tonight as they deal with two babies in the night. Tomorrow will be a quiet day with just my parents and Mindi and Candi and their families coming for dinner. Some of the cousins may be coming over for pie later and then we are going out to Ethan's for Regan's birthday. Then it's twenty-seven days until Christmas, EEK!

The Twins Are Born

This has been a hard week with Rich in Boston helping Spencer and me here sleeping alone and worrying about the twins. Last night as I was talking to Jen and Ethan on the phone she was telling me about her day. She had some pretty strong contractions and back labor. She had been to the doctor on Thursday and told her she was ready and that he didn't want her to labor at home because she needed to have two doses of antibiotic for Strep B and since these are her 7th and 8th babies she should go fast. I suggested they just go to the hospital and get checked out to see if she had progressed at all with the pains she had. She got there at around 11:00 p.m. and they decided to keep her. She was at a seven dilation and was having contractions so they started her medication. I think I only got around three or four hours of sleep between my insomnia and worrying all night. Dr. Huish came in this morning and broke her water and she had an epidural and they were born this morning. The first baby was delivered head first but they had a problem with baby b, he was born breech and is having a hard time with his breathing, so he is in the nursery at the hospital while they watch him for a couple of days. We will be saying extra prayers for him until he can go home with his family. Rich is on route as we speak coming home and I'm excited that maybe with him home I'll be able to get the sleep I've been deprived of all week. We are certainly blessed that Jen was able to hold these precious babies in for 37 weeks and they are beautiful, I can't wait to hold baby b. Their names are Rustin Leonard and Gage Richard, and they were 7 lbs. 4 oz. and 8 pounds, and both were 21 inches long. Jen is a real trooper and I'm sure she's glad this is over and they are here safe. Today is my parents 64th wedding anniversary so what a memorable day for their birth.

Jelly Done, Yea!

I just finished the last two batches of jelly from this years harvest of pomegranates. Whew! What a relief until next year, it's such a good feeling. Yesterday was my Moms 85th birthday. We had planned a family ice cream sundae extravaganza for her on Sunday night, but that ended up not happening. My parents live in Scottsdale and because of the Ironman Competition they drove around for forty-five minutes trying to find a way to get across the roads to come to my house. Poor Mom was a nervous wreck wandering around the Reservation trying to get across. So yesterday both my brothers went to see her and my sister and I are taking her to dinner tomorrow night. Sometimes in life things just don't work out the way we think they should. We won't be planning a family party when that's going on again, that's for sure. Who would think you couldn't go anywhere all day because the roads were all blocked off until 6:00 p.m.? And by then she was too upset to come that late. Rich is still in Boston working on Spencer's kitchen. I think it's really going to be beautiful and I hope he appreciates Rich taking a week away from his business to help him. We'll see what kind of problems he will have to deal with next week when he gets home. I've had such a hard time sleeping that finally last night I put some essential oils on and drank some calming herbal tea. It helped a little bit and I slept until 4:00 a.m., so that's better than the last three nights. Jenn was having a few contractions yesterday and goes to the doctor tomorrow, it shouldn't be too much longer, but everyday she keeps them in the better it will be for them. I know she is miserable, I started taking castor oil when I got so miserable I wanted to hurt myself, so I can just imagine how hard it is to have two babies in there. She still looks great and is dealing better than I would. When they get here she is really going to be busy, tired and still miserable.

Still No Babies

This morning I woke up at 5 a.m. and knew I had no chance of going back to sleep. Rich left Friday night late and took a red eye to Boston to help Spencer install his new kitchen. I hate being alone at night, I'm not anxious like I used to be, I just don't ever get into that really deep sleep that makes me feel rested. So by 8:30 this morning I had already washed my sheets, unloaded my dishwasher, fed the dogs and made two batches of jelly. When my Mom called and asked what I was doing, she was so proud of all my accomplishments so early in the morning. Even at 85 she's a "go getter" and can work circles around me still. Yesterday for church we attended the Phoenix Temple Dedication. Dave went in the morning so he could watch Trulie, then Mindi and I took all the rest of the kids in the afternoon. I have to say I think this was one of the best meetings I have been to. The music was beautiful and the talks and prayer were inspiring. Sometimes when I'm down on myself I don't feel worthy to attend the Temple, but these speakers made me realize the importance of the Temples to our happiness. Jenn hasn't had any contractions and hopefully she can survive this pregnancy and delivery of these babies. I'm getting so excited to see what they look like and hold them. Ethan and Dave are running the business while Rich is out of town, so now we have put the "having the babies" on the back burner until the weekend and Rich gets home. Now I need to go take a little nap so I have enough energy to get some more projects done tonight, six more nights of sleeping alone, I can do it.

Spinning My Wheels

Some weeks I just don't feel that productive. I have so much that I want to do and that needs to be done, but sometimes I feel like I'm spinning my wheels. It's been a week already since we juiced all our fruit. I've made four or five batches of jelly and haven't put a dent in my bounteous harvest yet. Yesterday Mindi and I watched Jenn's kids while she went to the doctor. We were hoping she would have these babies by now, but bless her heart she is still hanging in there. As I get older it seems easier to have empathy with people who are struggling because you know where they are. I've never had twins, but I did have an almost ten pound baby and I thought I was going to die. This morning I went to the dermatologist to have two moles cut off my face and arm. I swear if you want to feel young, and beautiful hang out at the dermatologists office because most everyone there was over seventy. I asked the doctor why so many old people have skin issues. He said it was because as we age our immune system gets weaker and that causes lots of skin problems. There's another thing to have to worry about in the next few years. Next week is Mom's 85th birthday so we are all getting together on Sunday night after the Temple Dedication. Then this year everyone is going somewhere else for Thanksgiving so it will just be a few of us getting together to eat. Hopefully we will have the twins here before then but if not the doctor is going to induce her on the Friday after Thanksgiving. So basically we are on baby watch for the next couple of weeks and hoping for a phone call that says they are on their way to the hospital. Until then I guess I'll just keep spinning my wheels.

Juicing Done, Jelly Making Started

Friday morning I was up early trying to get everything ready for our juicing day. It is such a production that I sometimes wonder why I got involved in this tradition. My Aunt Tenna passed this on to us, she had the trees and the juice and taught my Mom and Dad how to do it. This year we were smart. We only picked my friend Sandy's trees and mine. We had a good crew here to help and we were finished by 4:00 in the afternoon. I asked Mindi several times if she was sure that was all the fruit and the answer was always yes. On Friday night when I went out to feed the animals I found a wheel barrow half way full of pomegranates. Dang, that meant I was on my own Saturday morning, where I spent another couple of hours by myself cutting, juicing, straining and cleaning up. It seems like every year it gets harder and harder to do it. My poor parents who at 85 years-old stayed until the very end. They are such an example of hard work and dedication. This was a weird year because none of the younger generation came to help. Usually we have a few of my nieces and daughter-in-laws come and help but Mindi was the only representative of that age group. She is always so good to help her parents and grandparents when the need is there. Trulie played outside for awhile but wanted to go in and watch cartoons. When Mindi went in to check on her, she had poured eight plastic water bottles on the rug in her family room. I don't know if Mindi will live through that girl, she is hard! Now the fun begins as I make jelly from the juice. I'm not making that much this year because when I went in my pantry to pull out all my canning stuff, I found 20 jars of jelly I never gave away from last year. What a waste to throw it away, not only the juice and sugar but also all the time it took me to make it. Oh well, this year I'm going to make sure I give most of it away so it doesn't end up in the garbage.

Voleyball Over, Juicing Begins

It seems like another week when I feel like I'm just spinning my wheels. I have lots to do but not enough energy to get things done. Trisyn's last volleyball game was Tuesday night and they lost, so her season is over. We've picked most of the fruit, except three trees in my backyard I will work on tonight before we start juicing tomorrow. I just got home from exchanging a double stroller for the twins that we bought for the shower. When we got it home we realized that the car seats weren't included, so it took two hours and another $200 to get that straightened out. Then we stopped at the Relief Society pot luck luncheon at Kelli's house which is always fun and yummy. Lately there have been some things that have happened that make me question what's going on in the world. It seems like the older I get the more disenchanted I become by the actions of others around me. I heard once in a Conference talk something to the affect that you can tell the relationship someone has with Christ by the way they treat others. I don't know why that's been running through my mind so much, I guess just because of some of the things I hear and see around me. In a talk in the Priesthood Session by President Uchtdorf he said, "I'm not sure why we are able to diagnose and recommend remedies for other people's ills so well, while we often have difficulty seeing our own." It is hard for us mortals to realize what we do and say affects the self esteem and happiness of those around us. I try and be a good person but there are times that those "not so nice" parts of me come alive, I guess all you can do is just keep trying. Tomorrow we will get together for a juice fest and hopefully we can get them done before dark. It gets harder every year and the older we get the slower we get and the longer it takes for us to get it done. It is fun getting together and doing something hard, we never know when this year will be the last we have the two 85 year-olds with us, so I'm not complaining about this project, not me not ever.

The Best Family Ever

The weekends seem to go by so fast. I wonder how I'm going to get everything done I need to. Friday I finished the quilts for the babies and took some pictures outside on our swing. On Saturday we had a little family shower at Sassy's, a cute little place in Mesa. I took my camera hoping to get some nice pictures but when I went to download them to the computer this morning there was nothing, nada, not one picture. I don't know what happened, hopefully I can figure it out so it doesn't happen again. Jenn got some nice things and the family all pitched in to buy her a twin stroller. I have the best family. This morning I got a call from my dear cousin asking me if Jenn needed more help and if she did to call her. Who does that? Yesterday Rich and I attended the Regional Conference from Salt Lake that all the members in Arizona listened too. I loved the talks and felt they were meant for me. I even took some notes because I wanted to remember what was said. The first talk was about how we need to have an eternal perspective everyday. That is so hard for me when dealing with health and family issues that seem to never end. He gave four simple truths about our lives. They are, (1) We are children of God. (2) Life has an eternal purpose, (3) God has a plan for me, (4) Progression is eternal. When I look back at some of the trials I've had, at times I wasn't thinking about the eternal perspective, that these trials are just a part of life, and they help me learn about me. The speaker said, "Trust in the Lord and his plan for you." It seems like so many things are out of my control that the only thing I can work on controlling is my own thoughts and actions. This week is another busy week  as we are picking and juicing pomegranates. Hopefully the kids can help this year because all of us senior citizens aren't strong enough to carry the heavy loads of fruit. It is a special time though and we have lots of fun when getting together and working. I have the best family.