Mother daughter dates and other stuff

It just so happened that last Saturday Savanna asked to be taken to Kneaders for their french toast in the morning with me, and Fiora had a friend's birthday party that was a mother-daughter party.  They even served dinner at the birthday party, so I had great food that day. After our Kneaders visit Savanna and I came home and organized her clothes. Sav gets pretty overwhelmed at the thought of putting away clothes so most of the time her clothes lie in a pile on the floor, two piles, a clean pile and a dirty pile. Don't ask me why the dirty pile can't make its way to the hamper, I've given up trying to understand it. (Fiora usually has piles of clothes as well, not saying she is any better at putting clothes away, but they are usually shoved into her closet or in the hamper.) When it was all done Savanna said "Wow it hasn't been like this since you organized my room at Christmas!" True.

The friends Fiora has made in her ALL class are awesome girls, and their moms are neat too. Alecia Bales and her daughter Amanda were the hosts and they did a marvelous job, a lot of work went into that party. We had marshmallow shooters (that we got to take home) and played around with those for a while, had a nice dinner with decked out tables, everyone got a rose and we mom's had a chance to visit and get to know each other during the dinner.  Fiora had a blast and was very miffed that I took her away before it was over so I could go on my movie date with Jared to Jesse's theater.

Last Friday Karli Sue my sister turned 24 and her husband surprised her and brought her to Utah (they live in Idaho going to school) for the weekend for her birthday. We all met at Carrabbas on her special day which was fun. Karli Sue is expecting her first child but is handling the discomfort very gracefully and patiently. At least in front of the family ha ha. I remember when Karli Sue was the baby, I was 12 when she was born, she was a beautiful little girl and will have beautiful little babies!  After that Jared took Savanna to a BYU play so she could fill an assignment for school, so Sav got a father-daughter date that weekend as well.

Jared and I are fortunate enough to be able to go to Jerusalem this October for our 15th anniversary, and so we went to the mammoth theater at Thanksgiving point to see the Jerusalem movie. It was awesome, what a truly "holy land." I'm even more excited to going there now to learn more and see it all in real life.

My brother Jesse created a logo for the therapy office I work for, and I'm so proud of it!  My boss and his wife love it too, she has been putting it on everything, she said "I'm a little obsessed with this logo." Jesse has a real talent for graphic design that I didn't realize the extent of until I asked him if he would do it and the first one he came up with the very next day was perfect.  He showed us other variations on it but my boss went with the first.  Jesse is awesome.

Jared I love you

I know the last thing you want to read is how much I love my husband. It makes me uncomfortable when I read posts on facebook about how great so-and-so's partner is and how lucky they are and they are SOOO happy and SOOO in love.  I get it.

Why have I decided to jump to the other side this morning?  Because God selected a great one for me and I want to express my gratitude somewhere where it will stay forever. When I was single and dating around, I was pretty judgmental and selective and had a hard time as people often do dating. One day I made a pledge to Heavenly Father that I was done trying to trust my own judgment, and I decided I was just going to love every guy I dated and I was going to trust Him to pick out the best one for me and make it work. I met Jared the same month, and true to my word I practically threw myself at his feet in an attempt to love whatever boy was put in my path, and Jared took the bait.

God chose better for me than I could have chosen for myself. I would have dismissed Jared as not this and not that, too much this, and lacking here and there, and definitely not who I imagined myself with for eternity, but I went on faith that God had taken me up on my pledge and provided me with what was the best for me. For the first 10 years of our marriage I struggled because of our differences, but I always loved him just like I promised I would. So glad I did.

There is a quote I like from Kung Fu Panda II when Master Shifu says, "Once I learned the problem was not you, but within me, I was able to find inner peace and harness the powers of the universe." When I figured out my issues, which took about 10 years, I was able to find so much more joy in my marriage.  Jared is easy to live with, as long as I am in a good place myself he is the happiest boy in the world, because he is naturally full of gratitude and positive thinking ability, I am the beneficiary of his being loving and protective of me every day. I had to take a moment and be joyful for this great blessing this morning.

Jared, thank you for loving me in my weakest moments, which are frequent. Thank you for letting me "hoodwink" you into going to Jerusalem for our 15th wedding anniversary, and for even acting a little excited about it too.  Thank you for the Cancun trip and the Alaska Trip and the Hawaii trip, for the LASIK, the homes, the many dinner dates.  Thank you for being careful with our finances and providing well for our family. Thank you for being willing to pay for a painting made by my Aunt Linda, and wanting it to symbolize our family. Thank you for giving me Savanna, Fiora, Weston, and Lillian, and for wanting to be with us forever.  Thank you for being careful to spend time with me every day, if for only a few minutes, even during your busiest weeks. Thank you for defending me when a child is tearing me down. Thank you for listening to the Spirit and heeding it when I'm too emotional to understand. Thank you for being righteous, free of addictions, and honoring your priesthood so we have those blessings. Thank you for teaching our children how to work hard and working so hard yourself.  I am immeasurably blessed to be yours.

Love Heather

Office blog spot

The office manager at Successful Therapy where I work started a blog to which I also contribute. I'm going to try to add to it often and give tips and inspirational stories, check it out if your interested.
http://successfultherapy.blogspot.com/

My Life

Blog readers--
I am writing a separate blog about my personal life experiences from childhood to the present taken from journal entries I've written since 1988. I have a lot of journals I've always wanted to condense and compile, and this week I decided to start on it. It's a private blog so you will have to comment and request an invite if you want to read it.
http://heatherbarrettschauersmylife.blogspot.com

Gym meet to AZ

I've really noticed a dearth in the blogosphere this past year from friends and family who used to blog, and thought I would never have that problem because I am by nature a faithful journal-keeper. But I have had a hard time lately drumming up the motivation to blog! I don't know what it is, 2014 I can empathize with those who have dropped out of the blogs because I've been tempted to myself. Anyway, here I am again and here's whats new with us.
Weston and I had ourselves a mother-son date last weekend Feb 22, to sunny Arizona! Boys who work hard get plane rides. We took the flight out of Provo airport to Mesa, which was pretty slick! Friday afternoon we arrived and my good friend Emily Norton, who grew up with Jared in Montana and coincidentally roomed with me at BYU and became a fast friend before I ever met Jared, let us stay with her at her home in Mesa. I was able to meet up with my Aunt Jeanie and Uncle Rick and cousin BrieAnne for dinner that evening, they took us to a pizza place called Flancers, which had really yummy gormet sandwiches, and it was so fun to catch up with them. Saturday morning Weston and I got up early to ride the 30 minutes west to the ASU Sundevil Classic gym meet held at Wild Horse Pass outside Chandler that started at 8:00 AM. What beautiful weather!!! 75 degrees and sunny.  Of course I was inside the big warehouse gym most of the day watching the lengthy meet. Weston did pretty well, choked a little on Pbars but he got his best pommel horse score of the season. Floor 9.7, PH 9.4, Rings 8.7, Vault 9.3, Pbars 8.2, High bar 9.6. We heard that the coaches there were tougher than the Utah coaches we were used to, so I felt like Weston did a little better than usual getting about the same scores with tougher judges, but really we were just happy to be there!  I took him to lunch and then to see Lego Movie after the meet, and while we waited for the movie to start we strolled outside in the beautiful weather. Emily and Enoch took us to dinner that night with their two cute kids, and the next morning at 5:30 am we were up and headed back to the airport to catch our 7:00 am flight home, and I made it back home by 9:30 when choir practice started. I stood up and led my choir with no shower in a jeans and t-shirt, dedication for ya. 

 

 

In other news, Fiora's used to her night time hard contacts now and her eyesight is great. I booked a nice lodge in Heber for our fist ever Barrett Family Reunion we will be holding in August when Krystal gets back from her mission. The whole family has been pitching in $20 a month for about a year now so we can afford a nice place, I'm excited about it. We celebrated Kayden's birthday at Jump On It yesterday and came here for cake and ice cream, and celebrated my brother Justin's 26th birthday today at my parents home, so its fun to have some family time. The kids are plugging away at school, Fiora had a fun field trip to Salt Lake City and saw a planetarium and a symphony. Savanna made a strange and funny film with her friends for a Spanish class Jared is helping her edit, we'll post it when they finish. Savanna decided to bail on her idea to join the track team at school, and she quit her violin lessons this week cuz she didn't really like the teacher, which made me sad, but also less stress for me juggling it all in.  Jared surprised me this week and bought me a lap top for work because my old one bit the dust a while back and I've been using my iPad to do all my casework with.  I'm usually disappointed on holidays and anniversaries but I don't need to worry, Jared always takes care of me eventually-- no anniversary gift last October but a new car at the end of the month, no Christmas gifts but a new washer and dryer that month, no gifts on Valentines day but a lovely gift of a lap top "just because" on Febrary 27th. Ha ha. Jared's still putting in a lot of hours and is very busy, but this week he might be able to slow down a bit, but we did get a date night finally Friday evening dinner and a movie which was a fun time for me.  So besides the big gym meet nothing too exciting, but we are blessed and grateful and enjoying the "little moments" during this time of life.  

Fun February

 I accompanied my friend Allyson Omdahl's daughter while she performed a solo for her orchestra teacher, and we spent some time practicing for it, so Allyson tried to pay me which I refused to accept. So the afternoon after the performance Ella (the violinist) brought me this pretty bouquet of purple flowers. I thought that was nice!

Weston and Jared got tickets to a monster truck rally a couple Friday's ago and said they had a good time watching the motorbike stunts and stuff. I personally can think of 100 things I'd rather be doing. In any case it was a great father and son bonding outing quality time etc etc.

 

 

 We took off Friday last week and headed down to st george to attend weston's 3rd gym meet of the season. We didn't compile a video of his events this time because its starting to all look the same. But if he ever gets a 10.00 or higher score on something we will be sure to share it.  I thought he looked really good on high bar this time so I added some pictures of him doing that. He consistently got 3rd or 4th place on every event at this meet, and usually the 2nd and 1st placers were people on his own team, so he is doing great. We had a parent/coach conference last week and Weston is excelling or meeting standards in every area. Pommel horse continues to be his weakest event.

 We had all the Barretts over for dinner last Sunday and Heidi made everyone jam and chocolate strawberries as a valentine gift, which was very nice of her. As we speak Jared is helping my parents move Grandma Rappleye's furniture from her house to their house. Just in the nick of time too, last week Grandma's plumbing was affected by overgrown tree roots and decay and her basement flooded. They have made a nice new place for grandma at their home and she will have privacy when she needs it and company when she needs it and round the clock supervision, which will be good for her, and easier there for my parents to be her caretaker.

For the past 3 months Fiora's vision has been declining, just like the eye doctor told us last May would happen, she has been complaining that can't see far through her glasses since November so I told her to wait til her birthday and we would go back to the eye doctor. The doctor stated that she still has rapid declining vision, for whatever reason the back of her eye is elongating to try and compensate for the myopia, so he talked me into doing Corneal Refractive Therapy, gas permeable  hard lenses you only wear at night that reshapes the cornea so the back of her eye stops thinking it has to compensate and holds its shape. She wears those at night and nothing in the daytime, its kind of amazing to me, like LASIK for kids. I'm a little nervous about her losing one of those $200 contact lenses someday though. They last for 2 years, if you can keep track of them...

Its the darndest thing, my kids have discovered they can do anything they want by looking up a "how to" video on youtube. Instead of watching TV programs, I catch the kids watching "how to paint your nails for prom" or "how to draw Olaf from Frozen" or "how to make a iPod valentines box." Fiora found this iPod box idea and created it almost all by herself, and so Weston found a minion box online and followed suit. I thought they turned out really cute, and since I'm really not crafty its nice they had initiative to do it themselves.

Fiora turned 11 on February 13th. She wanted chicken alfredo for her birthday breakfast. We always make time for a family breakfast and presents on the morning of someone's birthday around here. That day I checked her out of school so she and I could go to Pizza Pie cafe for lunch.  She mostly got craft items for her birthday, she is super crafty!!! must have gotten it from Grandma Sandy, cuz Jared and I can't claim that status. Fiora often has problems procrastinating her homework because she is working on a yarn covered headband, or crocheting and bow, or working on her rubberband loom, or sewing a beanbag out of old shirts, or making a boondoggle, or making jewelry with beads.  I even had to tell her teacher at parent teacher conference that the crafts have been getting out of hand, her teacher Dr. Welte has this "Welteville" business operation going where people order goods from each other to earn "weltebucks".  Its great for teaching business principles, but not good for motivating Fiora to work on social studies and math homework!  Her birthday party included 2 craft activities, making owls out of felt and valentines doilies, and making earrings and necklaces from materials she pre-ordered on Amazon for her birthday. She and her 8 friends also played a few games, "name that pop-star" and "spoons" and "Baby do you love me?" with lots of giggles and squeals. And she had an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins per her request. (spoiled) What a fun party she had!

Whiney post

January pushed me over my sanity cliff. I often tell my friends to go ahead and vent, it makes you more real, welcome to the human condition, I have those days all the time... but then I don't write about my hard times on the blog myself! I just write the good times, knowing that time will pass and negative days will be forgotten. In the course of a lifetime what does one stressful month matter anyway?  We just keep going, there's no other option. Well its February now and I'm in a better place, so I feel lucid enough to write about January stresses. If you don't want to hear about it you can skip this post.

I set myself up for it, last year January was a very calm stress-free month after a very crazy December, so I kept telling myself, "One of these days I'll just get to kick back and recover because its January!" But that day never happened, so resentment started to build. I felt like a heart beat, only resting in between beats, aka at night while sleeping. FIRSTLY, I hate the cold. Going outside is painful for me and even in the house is uncomfortably cold, and not having much sunshine to fuel my body with vitamin D affects me negatively. Secondly, for whatever reason, (stress cold age?) my monthly cycle was particularly vicious on me, giving me lovely mood swings ranging from anxious, to enraged to depressed to happy throughout the month. Thirdly, my client load almost doubled from December, which I had to keep reminding myself that was a good thing, that I love my job, and I'm here to serve and help, but even if all that is true it is still a time sucker and can be mentally draining. Fourthly, my parents were trying like crazy to get their basement finished for my elderly grandma to move in with them, and so every spare time I could get I would go visit them and clean or work on the basement, which was only 3 half days mind you, but I wanted to contribute to that endeavor and felt like I wasn't able to do anything to help. Fifthly, my husband's brother Chad has been battling cancer and got severe pneumonia and complications to that for 3 weeks, so we were praying fasting stressing and worrying about Chad, and spent a few days helping there which you read about in the last post. Sixthly, gym meet season, Weston only had 2 gym meets but they take almost the entire day to get through and he has had extra classes/clinics this month to attend as well, so more time sucking. Seventhly, sickness. My kids have all had coughs runny noses headaches and congestion all month. Savanna got a cough on new years day and she is still coughing, she told me today that she thinks its even worse than ever. I can't seem to find a spare hour anywhere to take her to the doctor unless I check her out of school, and I've been praying like crazy her body will just fight it off, I'm certain its bronchitis, or was, and Jared and I are both sick and tired of hearing her cough all night. I came down with a sinus infection this past week myself and just kept going to work like nothing was wrong, I hate to take sick days and cancel appointments, but maybe it would have been better than trying to analyze with half functioning brain.  Eighthly, Jared has been abnormally busy at work for a January, this is supposed to be his slow month but he has been working 6 days a week ALL month. Again, that is a good thing, he is doing great business and I don't want to complain about that, but the poor guy only got to attempt ice fishing once the whole month and got skunked, and it was almost too cold to even enjoy the trip. Ninethly, the kids are struggling for some reason to keep up on homework and assignments, probably because helping them with that sort of thing has been the last thing on my priority list lately, so I keep getting little progress report alerts saying Savanna has a D in this class, Weston got a 30% on this assignment, Fiora is missing this, Savanna is missing that, and every time I say "Oh well! Guess they will learn if they fail!" because I have no space to fit in you-are-failing-as-a parent-supporting-your-kids-academics into my already overflowing psyche.  Tenthly, I was called as the ward choir director last week, a calling to which I have already served 4 years in a previous ward and which I have struggled to feel my efforts are really doing much for the greater good of building the kingdom.  I guess the Lord wants me to change that attitude by giving me another go at it. At least I have lots of good ideas from being int he Orem Chorale for 1 year and 1/2.

So I have been tempted to say GOOD RIDDANCE JANUARY, but then I remember that all my problems are "first world problems," are really no big deal, and I get a nice side order of guilt to go with my ungrateful attitude. So I will write a list of 10 things that January blessed us with.
1. No financial stress
2. Our children have no disabilities/chronic illnesses/trauma
3. A healthy marital relationship
4. No addictions to overcome
5. Warm house,
6. Running vehicles,
7. Good food clean water every day
8. A month break from church calling
9. Progress on my parent's basement
10. Chad's recovery from pneumonia