Updates

*Sterling just got a new phone. He loves it. Now I might not have a nervous breakdown when I can't get a hold of him because he NEVER gets service! Not in Morgan, not in Logan, not in the computer labs, not in the institute building....etc, etc. SO MUCH HAPPIER! It's Tmobile, so all of you that call me for free can now call him for free as well!!!

*I made the BEST Sunday dinner, and it was delicious, and I was very happy. Italian chicken w/ rice, cauliflower w/cheese, apples w/ caramel. Then icecream with homemade chocolate sauce and some couple friends! Yay!

*Sterling says "boughten" is not a word, when making reference to something that isn't "homemade". I grew up saying it. I'll decide. And its a word.

*Accompanied a flute solo on Sunday and it was INCREDIBLE, gave me chills so I almost couldn't play the last page.

*Sterling was in charge of sharing time AND singing time for the first time and he did a FABULOUS job! I think the 9 Sunbeams on the front row were a little challenging, but he did a great job. I love my hubby.

*Sterling is loving classes, and I have found that I have a lot more going on then I thought I would. I thought I'd have to fill up my time and so I thought of all these projects I wanted to accomplish...but now I'm trying to find the time to do them! (like catching up my scrapbook)

*We went to a Haws Family Dinner and I talked to Aunt Deanne all night...Sterling's father's sister....and she was awesome and she told us all these sweet pioneering stories about the family, and even gave us a number so we could call and get the Haws Family History Book from Albert Alonzo Haws who came from Scotland to Utah (or I think it was him) and there was a wife somewhere in the book, Nancy, and she was the Utah county dentist!!!! I thought it was awesome. It reminded me of my family, he had 8 Haws brothers who settled in Utah, and now there are ALL these Haws in Utah that we are probably related to, but there's such big Mormon families that we only know so many families. Haahaa. So much fun. It was a great dinner.

Thats all folks!

2 new babies

Saturday was a crazy day. Megan called at 6am and said that her kids had been home alone since 2am, and could we please go babysit? I had to work at 8am, so I sent my wonderful, happy, amazing husband to babysit the 5 kiddos by himself. He did a fabulous job, as I knew he would. I got a ride...only Megan was so worried about me not getting a ride she texted me about it, and I told her not to worry, to just have her baby....and she did! Within minutes! (well, she had had it before I texted her, but still...she's crazy).

I got off work at 3:30, so Sterling followed Jared and the kids to the hospital, then came and picked me up from work, I dropped him off at work...in the meantime Lindsay Ann had her baby! So I stopped by McKay Dee to see him, then headed to Davis to pick up Megan's kids from the hospital, and took them home to babysit until that night when Jared got home. Crazy, crazy, crazy day. But so much fun. Officially their names are Jack Lloyd Rasmussen and Devinee Marcielle Barney. Exciting! It was fun to watch Sterling hold little Jack on Sunday at the hospital, he'd laugh really hard every time Jack squeeked...which he does a lot. He purrs like a cat, it is really quite hilarious.

Fun times. That makes numbers 30 and 31.

The Day of Tears

I spilled a whole tupperware bucket of white sugar all over our floor today. I spilled it into the kitchen, and it went from the tile and well into the carpet. Sigh. I was already running late, so Sterling, very kindly, told me he would drop me off at work and come back and clean it up. I love that man.

Work went really well, so I thought it was a really good day. I came home and Sterling had done all the laundry. Another great part of the day. He had also laid a pair of scrub pants to dry on the piano bench (I don't dry my scrubs, they tend to shrink on me. But if I buy them to fit just a bit big, they never shrink. Irony.). I picked them up, and looked in horror at the piano bench. Now I have been taught very severely all my life how to treat the wood of the piano. With the utmost care and attention. Mom was very particular about this. It had never occurred to me to share this wisdom with Sterling. Ingrained in the piano bench's wood was a perfectly WHITE area shaped exactly like a pair of pants. My piano is not white. Nor is the bench. I started sobbing instantly. Sterling tried to mollify me by saying he'd buy another bench, he'd put another slab of wood over it, etc. But I've been on ksl and I know how expensive a bench by itself is, and that we couldn't afford it. I also know that you could never get another piece of wood to go overtop and look as beautiful as the rest of the piano. Let alone matching either a new bench or a piece of wood to the rest of the piano. I was not mollified. I sobbed harder. I tried rubbing it off with a rag and wood cleaner to no avail. I called mom and tried to keep from sobbing while I explained the situation, and she had no helpful hints, except that there was a tiny chance it might go away as the wood dried out. Sterling had to leave on an errand, and I continued to cry and wipe the rag over my bench. Then I had the idea that if drying it would work, then maybe I could speed up the process with a hair dryer. I didn't use heat, just air. It worked!!!! I was so happy! And Sterling was much relieved to come home and see that the bench looked normal---even if I do think I might've scrubbed some of the finish off!!!

Then I sat down at the computer and had Sterling watch the facebook video of soldiers 'suprise' homecomings to their families. I bawled. I thought I wouldn't cry as hard since I had already seen it once. Nope. Just as bad the second time.

Then Sterling said I shouldn't buy him a birthday present because we're going to Idaho that weekend to visit his brother ( and hopefully sister) whom I never met, and we need the money for the trip. I think by then it was just habit. I started crying. I have been planning so carefully what I would get for him!

I came home after dropping Sterling off at work, and even though I had lots to do, I figured I'll have all evening alone, with Sterling at work again tomorrow, so it doesn't really have to be finished tonight. So I ran the tub and read a book. And finished it. And one of the main characters died at the end. And I was crying all over again. Also, my feet got so pruny it hurt to walk on them when I finally got out. I've never experienced that before.

Now though, I feel like I have gotten it all out of my system...haahaa! You'd think so!!!......and now I can go pick Sterling up from work and go to sleep and enjoy all morning with him! Yay for a day off even if he does have to go in to work later.

Oh PS, I got a blessing from Sterling on sunday when he was giving all his little siblings back-to-school blessings, and he said "many" spirits were waiting to come down to me. Just curious as to what the exact definition of "many" might be????!?!?!?!?!

I wish...

I read a post today of a friend that listed all these things she wished for (they were legit wishes too, like ending the recession, poptarts being healthy...haha!) and about FIFTY people left comments, and all of them also started with 'I wish'...

It made me start to think of all the things Sterling and I wish for, and the castles in the clouds we build when, ten years down the road and post-med school, we have money and a family.

But then I really started thinking, and in the last week...

* I have a landed a job after four months of cleaning toilets with a bachelors degree (and almost two more...we'll see what happens, they are both one-day-a-week hygiene jobs to go with the three day assisting/hygiene job I just took and all five days are the five separate days of the work week so I could work them all if it all worked out!) and was able to quit my dreaded hotel job

*I spent the entire week with my ENTIRE family (minus one sister who currently lives in Switzerland) and even though they mocked me like crazy, and came up with the new mandate that child number 8 cannot talk at will, it was enormously fun

* my husband has a job that he loves, was just able to train for a better position and got a pay raise

* my husband will be able to start school in a week and because we tuned up my old bike for $50 we can continue to make it on one vehicle

* we had our six month anniversary and my hubby took me out to sushi...to try and convince me that I liked it. It was pretty good after all

* my mother made a QUADRUPLE batch of fudge for all the family that was there!!!!!!

* on two separate nights we had the most delectably amazing corn on the cob, red potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, and green beans out of my parents garden and it was incredible

* I gave a talk in church on Sunday and feel like I was able to make a respectably decent first impression on our new ward, and that makes me feel more settled and happy

* we didn't move to AZ, so I now get to continue enjoying living in the best first-ever-for-our-family apartment that I love so very, very much

* I have a sister and a sister-in-law that are due ANY DAY now, and I am SO SO SO SO SO excited to have new babies around!!!

The point of my bulletations is that, I feel incredibly blessed right now. And even though I dream up castles on clouds with my husband for someday in our future, I am so happy and I am so blessed and grateful for SO MANY things, and so for now, I'll hold off on my wishes until I'm a lot more desperate, and send them on to the families who really need them right now.

My Dress

Andrea said I had no good pictures of my wedding dress on my blog...so I searched for some beautiful pictures. Unfortunately, for some reason whenever I try to load anything onto my blog it says "bad error" and won't upload the photos. So. Even though I had several fabulous pictures to post, you only get one. Maybe another day I'll post all the other ones I thought were so pretty, and actually have heads.

Duck bill

Sterling is very particular about his hair. He's done it one way for a long time and thats the only way he likes it. I like his hair lying flat against his forehead, but he hates that. He spikes it up in front, and smooths it down behind. I always try to mess it up. I also like to make the gel less gel-like, and he doesn't like that either. He also doesn't like facial hair---but I've convinced him to grow a goatee until the end of August, because he loves me. Anyway, one day I told Sterling that his hair style looks like a duck bill, and it was all stuck up in one place, so he needed to muss it up a little. He told me no, and that was the end of the conversation. Today, days later, he was getting ready in the bathroom and I told him he should do his hair lying down, and he looks at me and goes "I really don't understand your phraseology. A duckbill???? How does my hair look like a duckbill?" Which was really hilarious, because we hadn't had that conversation for days. So I said "Well, it sticks straight up off your head!" "How is that in any way like a duckbill?" "Well....if a duck's head was laying flat, then their bill would be straight up." and then he said "I contend, that that is a ridiculous analogy. My hair, in no way, looks like a duck bill."

I laughed my head off, and told him I was just glad he didn't shave this morning.

Mom's (in-laws)

This picture has nothing at all to do with being at my in-laws yesterday, but everything to do with the fact that I HAVE A PIANO!!!!! AND IT IS SO INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL!!!! (And yes, I know that middle picture is crooked, and I fix it all the time, but it moves every time you shut our front door, so it really can't be helped). I've played it quite a bit...but have actually been gone a lot lately, so hopefully I will be able to enjoy it much, MUCH more in the immediate future!!!! It is an Acrosonic, which is made by Baldwin. And it is oh so beautiful!These are the twins. We took them with us to babysit while we were babysitting my sister's kids today. They found this car...and LOVED it!
This is the back of the twin's head yesterday....which was the basis for my post. I spent the majority of my Sunday at Sterling's mom's (Cindy's) house. And had a blast. I did this to the twin's hair with Jenny's elastics for her braces. Ethan was offended and kept saying they looked like girls. Jaxon and Kaleb, on the other hand, thought it was hilarious and kept poking each other's heads and looking in the mirror. So funny!
This is Brandon, father of the twins, and Sterling's older brother. He was fixing Cindy's internet...which in and of itself is quite hilarious because he complains about it every time he comes over.
Cute pictures of outlandish hairstyles.
This is Jenny dancing with one of the twins. (I always have to ask them to see which one is which, and then I decide what looks different about them that day and hope I get it right from then on). We had a keyboard playing songs and we were dancing around the kitchen with them.
This is Daniel...the purpose for the long Sunday visit. He just came back from Puerto Rico and we were all excited to welcome him back and have everyone together minus Bridget on a mission in the Phillippines!
This is Jenny....being Jenny. And I love her.
I thought this was a really cute picture of Ethan and one of the twins. He's really good with them....some of the time. Some of the time they struggle with finding separate toys. But Ethan's pretty soft-hearted and they are really cute together.
Spazzes!!!! Love that I created that hair.
This is Marlowe studiously ignoring the fact that I was taking a picture of him---haahaaa----playing the guitar. He taught me three chords yesterday - Am, Dm, and C- and we played them in a certain rhythm for two measures and then switched chords. My fingers are still sore. And I never did get Dm.
And that is the end of a happy Sunday afternoon at mom's house. PS the furniture is crazy because they've been painting, and now there is no furniture because they are getting new carpet, yay for Cindy!