23 minutes

After my mom was diagnosed with cancer she bought a little saying that was carved out of wood, and put it in the windowsill above the kitchen sink so she would be sure to see it often. It said, "Every Day Matters." It was, and still is so true. But now I appreciate even more that sometimes Every Minute Matters.

Due to some crazy mis-communications, we finally got Lydia's death certificate today. (I told Dan if we have to go through something like this again, it's his turn in figuring out the death certificate - it was not fun.) It is such a final document - the paper it came on is almost twice her size. As I looked it over and read the details, I was sad when it asked for her age. If she was still alive the answer would be 8 months and 9 days. But there was no year. There was no month. There was no day. There was no hour. Only 23 minutes. She was a fighter, my little one - all the doctors and nurses said so, and you can see it in her face. But God had a plan for her. A plan that involved only 23 minutes in her fragile, little body. And I love her all the more for fighting for those 23 minutes, as reflecting on them has taught me more than a life-time of study ever could.

As we celebrate Easter, let us for a moment on Sunday, put aside the candy, the colored eggs, and the bunny, and truly remember what makes that Sunday so wonderful. Let us offer up a little prayer of gratitude to the God who gives us the blessing of life, the minutes in our days, and the ability to be with our families forever.

1 lawyer + 5 law students + ME!

While Dan and I were dating, we took advantage of the summer and made a few road trips. From Utah, we went to Veil, Colorado; Newport, Washington; Cape Lookout, Oregon; and then I drove with Dan when he first moved to St. Louis. In a matter of 2 months time, we counted 11 states and 4,373 miles on the road together. Anyone that can make it through 4,373 miles of travel (without a gps, mind you) and without wanting to kill each other, should definitely get married. So we did. :)

Obviously, we are fans of road trips, so when the opportunity came for a road trip to Washington DC, we were all over it. The J. Reuben Clark Law Society (basically a group for LDS lawyers) was having its national conference, so a bunch of other law people from the ward decided they should all go, and since they were staying with my aunt and uncle in Virginia, I got to come along as well. Lucky!

Somehow it didn't dawn on me until we were on the road that I was going to be stuck in the car with FIVE law students and one lawyer. That's SIX law people. In the same van. In no particular order, the conversations during the first leg of the trip were: law, politics, public eduction, law, politics, action movies, law, politics . . . I think you get the idea. Dan says the second he starts to talk law, my eyes glaze over in a look of complete stupor. He's right. I was never one for politics (poor husband). But even amidst all the intellectual talk, we had a GREAT time. Here's some pics to prove it.

Do we look crazy here? We should. It was 2 something in the morning, we were in the middle of Maryland at a complete stand-still for over 30 minutes. Some of the boys had to run to some bushes to "take care of business." (Apparently a car was on fire.)

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Oh heEy!

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Dan's most-quoted line since we got married, "You didn't marry be because I'm smooth." This was taken not too long after he killed a rabbit (poor little guy) and right after he knocked our food box on this very dirty gas station floor. Since I'm a klutz as well, our kids are in for it.

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On the metro (after only a few hours of sleep). I learned that lawyers are generally not map people. Yours truly took care of all the navigating.

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Dan and Coulter and some judge dude. This is where I left them for their conference so I could have fun!!!

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Proof that I did something patriotic. My 3rd time to D.C. and I figured it was time I went to the National Archives. Very cool.

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One of the trip highlights was hanging out with my Tina! (Does my face always look this awkward?) Yay for old roommates who live in cool places! Don't worry, her kindergarteners pay more in private school tuition than I made in my entire 1st year of teaching.

Somehow we left without getting a picture of the best hosts ever! Pretty sure the boys are still drooling over uncle Brian's man-cave (it really is that cool) and Ann wins extra bonus points for putting us up only 3 weeks after having her knee replaced. (And I must give a shout-out to cousin Shelly!) I have the best.family.ever. Amen.

And I couldn't end this post without saying HAPPY 28TH BIRTHDAY tomorrow to my Linz.
Sigh.
Sigh again.
Love you like crazy and miss you even more - thanks for taking care of Mom & Lydia. :)

The Boring One

It is a well-known fact that most families have a "fun" parent, and a boring - I mean "practical" -  parent. Tragically, I am the practical one. Someone has to be practical, right? Someone also to have the sleeping habits of an 87-year-old grandma, and I win on that one as well (no offense to the 87-year-old grandma's out there). This makes a bad combination for any sort of late-night fun.

Sometimes Dan gets to stay up late studying - I'm the practical/grandma wife who doesn't stay up with him. So the other night when husband came in at 12:30 in the am from studying and announced that it was snowing, he was lucky that I cracked open one eye in acknowledgement. Usually I just roll over and go back to sleep, but we got chatting about something and before I knew it husband was BEGGING me to go play in the snow with him. Wasn't.Even.Tempted. He did get me to take a peek out the window at the "beautiful" snow. To my dismay he was right - it was gorgeous. But still not enough of a draw to get me out into the cold - especially because we both had to be at church at 7 am for meetings. But he kept begging and his persistence paid off and before I knew it I was pulling out the snow clothes and getting bundled up.

It was beautiful and SO peaceful. I've never seen more than a dusting of snow out here, so getting 4-5 inches was a big deal. And it was so quiet - usually we can almost always hear some sort of police/fire siren going off, or some gangstah driving by with loud music playing, but not this night. It was the quietest St. Louie has ever been and I loved it! Of course we had to make a snowman. Guess what? Missouri snow is WAY better than Utah snow for snowman building. Very wet and packable, unlike the dry powder back at home. Stu the snowman was created in just a few minutes - isn't he cute?

 See . . . pretty!

 Dan and Stu

 How Embarrassing

Even though we didn't get back in bed til after 2 am, it was well worth the good times. Maybe I'm not so boring after all. :)

Remembering Lydia

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving here in St. Louis (thanks for asking). Husband literally begged me to make a pie. I wasn't in charge of the pies, but he wanted left-overs for "Friday Morning Pie Extravaganza" (aka, eat left-over pie for breakfast the day after Thanksgiving). I finally gave in. But one pie was not enough because there must be "choices" on F.M.P.E. Sigh. Good thing I'm the best wife ever. I made a pie and an almost-pie (apple crisp - I didn't want to worry about a crust). So here we are on F.M.P.E. enjoying pie (a tradition I am grateful we have - so fun and so delish and making a banana cream pie from scratch is SUPER easy.)

The rest of F.M.P.E. was spent putting up Christmas while husband studied. You can't tell from the picture, but our FREE pre-lit Christmas tree smells like a combination of an old lady, cigarettes, and wet cat. Thanks to an entire can of Febreeze and our scentsy we don't even notice it anymore. :)

If you look close you can see the butterfly ornaments - of course for Lydia. Love them.

While I absolutely love this time of year, it does not come without some sadness. Most of my Christmas decorations were either given to me by my Mom, or inherited after she died. Each has a memory and a sense of longing for things that are no more. Oh how I wanted to place Lydia under the sparkling Christmas tree so she could enjoy staring at the lights. But amidst the tears that I allowed to flow freely on that day, I could not deny the feelings of Peace, Joy, and Love that came from decorating for the CHRISTmas season. What a wonderful Gift we have been given in the gift of the Savior's birth and life.

Thanks to a good friend who helped inspire this idea, we have come up with a way to help remember Lydia at Christmas.  For each act of service we give during the month of December,we add a hershey Kiss to her stocking. (Yes, doing the dishes counts as an act of service in my book - I figure the more kisses the better.) I might not be able to kiss my baby now, but I can honor her and love her in other ways. I can't wait until Lydia has younger siblings who can help us fill the stocking - I think it will be a great way for them to connect with their big sis.

We're heading back home in 11 days. SO EXCITED! Can't wait to stuff my face all week long, spend time with family, and visit Lydia's grave. It will be a wonderful week. Merry Christmas one and all!

Provident Living

I remember all growing up, my dad used to walk around the house saying "Provident living." As a naive little girl who believed everything her parents told her, here is what I thought it meant to live providently:

• The lights in the house stay off at (almost) all costs. Walking through dark hallways in the basement is normal and necessary as turning on the lights will increase the utility bill.
• Shoes are worn until they have holes in them. And if you're my dad, you wear your shoes until they get holes, use duct tape to patch the holes, and then wear the duct tape through. Repeat this process several times until your wife forces you to buy a new pair of shoes.
• Sponges that are used to clean the bathrooms are used until they start falling apart. Only then should they be replaced.
• Powdered milk. Back before Morning Moo's came out, it wasn't too bad - except for the after taste. I learned to leave one bite of mush at the end of breakfast - I would gulp down the last of my milk and quickly shove in the last bit of mush to dull the powdered milk after-taste.
• Windshield wipers are only used during torrential downpours, and even then you leave them on the lowest setting. It makes perfect sense, because the more you use the windshield wipers the sooner they will go out.

As I grew into the mature adult that I am, I realized that I don't have to be quite as provident as I thought. No, we don't drink powdered milk, and Dan hasn't duct taped any of his shoes (however if he has the windshield wipers going when it's not raining I simply MUST reach over and turn them off - it's still a pet peeve of mine). But in light of the school loans that blaw school is requiring, I have become a nerdy couponer. I promise I'm not crazy and I don't hoard, but I've been amazed at how much I'm able to save. And I can't believe I used to waste so much money paying full price for everything. I've even got Dan into it. This picture is from a couponing date night (after the temple of course). Thanks to triple-couponing week, we scored $70 worth of groceries for $24. Yay for coupons and husbands who will come with me sometimes. :)

How are you REALLY doing?

I get that question a lot lately, and since many of you are dear friends who I can't catch-up with over lunch at Zupa's, I thought I'd give an update.

Physically I am doing really well. I don't nap like a 2-year-old anymore (which is good since I'm working full-time again) and I'm actually back at the gym (shock!) I thought it would be a good idea to start doing some crunches as my baby belly pooch is definitely still in the way. However, my first attempt at a sit-up brought back some extremely painful memories and I had flashbacks to the hospital days. I almost screamed, but there was a guy with a creepster mustache next to me and I didn't want to draw any attention to myself. :)  So we'll wait awhile before trying those again.

Emotionally, we are doing better than we thought we would be. Honestly, Dan and I have had several conversations about how well we are doing, and how we know it stems from so many prayers. We are happy, we are surviving, and our marriage is stronger than ever. I picked up Lydia's birth certificate a few weeks ago - for some reason knowing she lived even for a short time brings comfort as it means that her spirit and her body were united on this earth. That being said, there are still many heart-wrenching moments as well as days of general sadness. As one who is accustomed to grief, I know this is normal and those days and moments will never fully go away. I miss my baby more than my heart can stand sometimes, and seeing little babies every where I go doesn't help, but time and the atonement heal many wounds. There have also been very tender moments where I have felt her next to me, cheering me on. Sometimes I can almost hear her saying, "Come on Mom, you can do it!" I cherish those moments.

Lydia's headstone was placed a couple of weeks ago, and while I haven't seen it in person, but the family sent pictures for me. Here you can see Lydia's headstone, the bench for my mom, and my sister's headstone. They say death comes in three's, so hopefully this means my family is done for a while. A long while.

A story about the butterfly: while we were in the hospital, Dan and I quickly noticed there was a small butterfuly hanging on the wall just outside our door, but not on any other patient's doors. We realized the hospital staff used it as a symbol so they would know to be sensitive to the fact that our baby had died. Now whenever we see a butterfuly we are reminded of Lydia, and the love we have for her. It's amazing how many butterflies I have seen in the last 3 months. A friend suggested we have some sort of symbol to represent Lydia in future family pictures, so of course we decided on the butterfly. In coming years when you see our family pictures, know that somewhere in the shot is a butterfly. A moment in our arms, forever in our hearts.

And just in case you missed the Saturday morning session of General Conference, you have got to listen to this talk by Elder Bowen. He gives voice to any parent who has ever lost a child - his description of the emotions that parents feel is very accurate, and this was obviously my favorite talk.

Sometimes, we have fun.

A few weekends ago we jumped on the "highway" and headed to Nashville. Our good friends Emily and Mike braved it with us (they're the bestest!)
Some of the highlights:

• The bloody hotel (vomit)
• Our waiter . . . or was it our waitress? (gender issues)
• The tunes on main street (hello awesome blues band and dueling pianos)
• The coupon book that saved us roughly $73 dollars
•  The pool - or lack thereof
• Opryland Hotel. Seriously, so cool.
• Randomly stopping for gas in Metropolis, Illinois - hometown of Superman.

And I had to remind myself that I still know photoshop. Lucky you!