The Faith of a Child brings a tender mercy for me-Tristen

Last night as I lay in bed, my head began to ache. Slowly, I could feel the pain intensify and so before falling asleep, I took my tylenol caffeine pill to alleviate the oncoming, intense pain. I tossed all night and constantly readjusted my face massager for its knobs to hit just the right pressure point and numb the pain. I'm not sure the pain ever fully subsided. Because of the caffeine and soreness, I was up by 5:45 and to take another couple pills. I made use of the early rise, by reading my scriptures and working a bit on our family 2013 year book. My head has been bussing all morning because of the caffeine-filled drug.

The meds are prescribed to take every 4 hours, but after just 3 my headache was clearly uncomfortable. I didn't want to take the meds before the prescribed time.

It was close to the time I needed to take Tristen to school and I let him know that he needed to be a quick listener because my head was not feeling well. Upon hearing of my struggle, he asked, "Why don't you say a prayer to make it go away?"

He continued by reminding me how just a week ago Kalvin had a bad stomach ache all morning at school. Kalvin had tried going to the bathroom a few times in hopes that passing a bowel movement would help with the ache, but the discomfort continued. Finally, at lunch, Kalvin decided to say a prayer, being faithful that this would solve his problem. Tristen then quoted Kalvin's story, "I said a prayer and then one, two, threee, BOOM! It was gone!" Kalvin has since inspired Tristen to use prayer in his own life as needed and, of course, in mine.

I loved knowing that Tristen's first thought to help his ailing mother, was to pray. I asked him to say a prayer for me, "Please help my mom's head so it can stop hurting," and then it was over.

We soon left to take Tristen to school. As we traveled, I noticed that the cold A/C blowing on my face was relieving for my aching head. By the time I arrived back home, my headache was gone! I don't know of any other time in my life-long history of powerful headaches, that the pain has left so quickly without meds! Usually, for at least the first few days of the frustrating pain, I take my meds every 4 hours, without fail (even through the night). Typically my headaches last for a good week and sometimes up to a month!

I hope it is God's will to relieve me of the ache for good (even after less than 12 hours!), so as to show Tristen that his faithful prayer can be answered quickly and miraculously!

6 hours and counting since my last dose of meds!

March 2013

Woah! I really let the house drama get in the way of keeping up with my blogging! I sure hope that when we move back to AZ I can keep the momentum of documenting our families lives because I could see it being much harder to keep up with, with family so near...!

We had an open house at the beginning of March, and were able to accept an offer! It's been quite a process trying to keep the buyer happy with her many demands (especially after the boiler broke (a $5000 job!). When she put in the initial offer, she gave a list of about 10 things for us to fix or update on the house totallying about $400 and a few days worth of work and she was upset to hear that we didn't want to do every single one of those things after the boiler broke the day after the inspection. (We did everything she asked) On the plus side, with all the projects that were keeping me super busy, I rarely made time to eat so I lost a few pounds (for a month or so). I've since gained those few pounds back...

There were a lot less pictures to go through for the month of March as William flushed my phone down the toilet so I've been functioning off a 7 1/2 year old phone... The phone doesn't even have bluetooth access so I'm not sure how I'm supposed to get the photos off... And then a couple weeks after I reactivated the phone, the memory was full and I couldn't take any more pictures, then I accidentally deleted them all! It's been pretty tough, but we have smart phones in the horizon.

Kalvin has a lot of friends at school. He is very outgoing and it seems he doesn't know that he's supposed to be shy or embarrassed. His teachers rave about what a great kid he is and how much they enjoy him. Here's one note from a friend at school.

The large parking lots have huge piles of snow (up to about 15-17 feet tall). While we waited for Duane, we climbed around on the icey mass.

The boys ultimate favorite thing with dad is wrestling, hands down. If they miss there 10 minutes session upstairs before bed they are NOT happy campers and not very cooperative. William is joining in now!

William likes the snow best when he can just watch it from the steps.

What's a good blanket of snow without a nice snow angel in it?

At the end of last year we finally got a second snow shovel so the boys could help shovel while I also got the "real" shoveling in or so that Kalvin and Tristen shoveled without fighting.

Kalvin and Tristen have grown very close to Sonnet and Sela Ettekal. We will be sad to leave them, but have plans of seeing them next winter (when Albany is too cold and AZ is beautiful). Their only uncle is going to school at ASU.

We were very excited to finish our steam shower upstairs! I thought it'd be fun one night to have the family take a steam shower together (the boys first time).  So, we all put on our swimsuits. They didn't last long as they never sat still. I don't think we even had 5 seconds of quiet while we were in there, but we had fun making faces at the camera.

On special occassions the boys are aloud to sleep upstais on the love sac. It's their favorite!

Every Friday, Kalvin is able to pick out of the treasure box at school. These suit him well!

St. Patricks Day Parade in downtown Albany!

We love this little guy! He's such a wonderful part of our family! We are loving getting to know his sweet personality!

Dieing Easter eggs! We had lots of different colors...

Yeah, even when it's 65 degrees in our house, I can't get my boys to keep their clothes on!

Poor William had to watch from the floor most the time as I was trying to take pictures.

So, Duane left for a follow up interview with Canyon State Anesthesia for several days. I was able to talk him into taking William with him while I worked hard to have the home in pristine condition for our open house the following day. It was a great time for Tristen and I to enjoy time together (it's SOOO much easier to be a mom to one toddler than to 2!). I was very grateful to Duane for this time. And the morning he left for AZ, he put a nice chunk of money in my account with a message to have some fun while he was away.

Well, we did have some fun!

So, I probably could have used the money on better things than eating out, but that's something I really enjoy and the boys didn't protest... (that's probably when I gained all the weight back that I had lost too!)

A few days before Easter a few of us friends, through together an Easter egg hunt. I put together some games for the kids while the moms hid the eggs.

I'm sure going to miss the wonderful friends AND KIDS here!

I laugh looking at these pictures of our messy house that Kalvin took randomly one day...

This is actually what our living room looks like clean. Tristen thinks that putting everything up on the couch or benches counts as cleaning.

The neighbors invited the boys over to die Easter eggs the Friday before Easter. They took the camera to capture the happenings. I stayed at home to work on a few things that needed to be done and picked them up later. What great neighbors we've enjoyed!

Tristen chose to do the project without gloves, of course!

Easter Eve, the boys put together a salad for the bunny

and left it outside for him.

William does not have a basket yet (purchases have been postponed till we move to AZ)

Daune didn't get back from AZ till Easter night so I had to come up with the traditional note from the fictitious character.

The boys were thrilled in the morning!

Looks like an animal found his way to the chocolate pieces inside this plastic egg.

Part of the money Duane gave me went to getting new church clothes for the boys. I'd tried to wait for AZ, but my mom had always purchased Easter outfits for me and each of my sisters (don't think she ever got anything for herself...). It's something I looked forward to every year. Since I don't have any daughters yet :(, I decided to get something for my boys instead. They looked great for Easter Sunday, even if they weren't cooperating that morning for the picture.

It was so fun seeing these boys again. I missed them very much! William just stared for a moment before giving me a smile. Even after a few minutes, he still preferred Duane. Daddy's boy, for sure!

What kid (or person for that matter) is not wishing for more money. As much as I did not want to do this, I didn't object strong enough so the boys took their new gumball machines from the bunny to sell them for a quarter a piece. They didn't get any strangers to come by, but their mom may have bought a few gum pieces. This pleased them enough to take the sign down and go inside.