Thoughts on Other Things

Introducing Tim Tam's. I don't know how I lived my whole life without knowing about these little babies. If Oreos are milk's favorite cookie, then Tim Tams are definitely hot chocolate's favorite cookie. (And Australia's apparently, if you can read the fine print on the label.) Bite off opposite corners and use your Tim Tam like a straw, or just dunk until soft then taste the melty chocolatey goodness in your mouth over and over again. I'm in love.

In other random news...I've found Adelia naked at least six times today, and I don't know how many times over the past week. I was going to try and take pictures and make a photo collage of all the awkward places she strips down, but Aaron thought that would be, well, awkward. But I managed to get a couple fairly modest ones before he vetoed the idea.

I go check on Adelia every single night before I go to bed...not to see if she's alive, but to make sure she's dressed so she stays alive until morning (as opposed to freezing to death), and because I'm tired of washing her sheets every.single.day. because she pees on them during the night. I would say more often than not, I find her huddled under her little blanket naked as the day she was born, shivering. Aaron and I try to remember to safety pin her jammies shut so she can't get out of them, but sometimes in the hustle and bustle of bedtime we forget (or can't find a safety pin), and therefore we end up having to wake her up and redress her many nights.

Also, I didn't think stripping down while in a car seat was possible because of all the straps, but my darling daughter has proved me wrong again. She thinks it's hilarious. And she doesn't seem to mind being cold. She tried stripping down in the mall today too, but luckily I caught her in time. I've also found her hiding in various places around the house (under the boys' bed, behind the couch, in my closet, etc.) without a stitch of clothing on. I hope she grows out of it soon. My belly is too big to like bending over a zillion times to redress her. Lately I've just resorted to keeping her in her footy pajamas all day long with the safety pin firmly in place. It solves the stripping problem, but I'm not sure how I feel about her being in pajamas all day every day either. I keep threatening to resort to duct tape, but she doesn't seem to care.

Ivan and I have been learning about the letter I in preschool last week and the beginning of this week. I decided on I is for igloo, because I also wanted to incorporate learning about cold climate habitats. The Magic School Bus has a good episode about the arctic, where the kids build an igloo to trap their body heat to warm up the bus. My kids love it.

We also thought we'd try our hands at making our own igloos our of sugar cubes and frosting. This activity was a big success. You can buy sugar cubes really cheap for about $1.50 for 126 cubes at Walmart, located in the baking isle on the top shelf above the sugar. I would also recommend not using butter knifes to spread the frosting...mostly it just frustrated my kids because they pushed too hard with the knife and it would move their cubes around. We found it was a lot more effective just to dip the cubes in the frosting and then place them where they needed to go.

Both boys really got into it, and built some cool igloos. Adelia mostly just licked the frosting off of hers. :) But she was happy about it, so I let her be.

The finished products on display in our kitchen window seal: Lincoln's, Adelia's, Ivan's, Krystal's

We had a really awesome Relief Society Christmas dinner last night. They split all the sisters into small groups of 5 or 6 and had lots of different sisters host a dinner group at their houses. The small groups allowed for us to be more one on one with the sisters in our group and get to know them and remember them a lot better than if we'd met all together. Then we met up as a whole Relief Society afterwards for dessert and a spiritual message. I thought the whole activity was fantastic. I really enjoyed the small dinner setting and felt more comfortable than I would have in a large group. It also gave me a chance to get to know and talk with some ladies in the ward that I might not ever have otherwise. I really love our ward here. I don't feel like I know very many people yet (because almost everyone is new, and more move in every week), but I feel a warmth and a goodness in our ward. And I am excited to get to know people, and for the people that I do know. I am glad we are here and that we get to have our family here, at least for awhile. I love my kids' primary leaders and teachers, and the nursery teachers/leaders/music people. The Sunday School teachers are great. And I love the women who teach in Relief Society.

A couple of weeks ago there was a lesson that has stuck in my mind especially. It was on Elder Eyring's October conference talk titled "Where is the Pavilion?" In the talk, President Eyring says:

"Many of us, in moments of personal anguish, feel that God is far from us. The pavilion that seems to intercept divine aid does not cover God but occasionally covers us. God is never hidden, yet sometimes we are, covered by a pavilion of motivations that draw us away from God and make Him seem distant and inaccessible. Our own desires, rather than a feeling of “Thy will be done,”² create the feeling of a pavilion blocking God. God is not unable to see us or communicate with us, but we may be unwilling to listen or submit to His will and His time."

I have been feeling a little like this lately. I wouldn't say anguish is quite the right word to describe it, but I have been feeling a lot apprehensive about where and how to have this baby. When I first found out I was pregnant, I searched high and low for a doctor. I didn't want to go back to Valley OB, not because I'd had a bad experience there, but because I thought I could have a better experience (and feel more like a human and less like a number) somewhere else. Somewhere in the middle of my searching, we realized that our insurance wouldn't cover us delivering at Utah Valley Hospital. This added majorly to my stress levels, because I have very quick deliveries, and I don't want to spend the majority of my time in labor in the car driving to a hospital. I've had all three of my kids naturally, and after talking to some women in my homeschool group, decided to give the midwife clinic in Orem a try. So I've been going there for all of my appointments. I don't love it there, but I don't hate it either...I'm just feeling really apathetic about it. And I'm a little nervous because I don't feel like child birth is something to be apathetic about. Plus, Orem is 20 minutes from here if traffic is decent, and depending on the time of day, the weather, and if there's construction, it can take a whole lot longer to get there. That stresses me out more than anything else. And, lastly...the majority of times I've been to my appointments, I've met with a midwife who I just don't like. There are a couple that I've seen that I really like, or that I think I could like if I got to work with them more, but I'm always stuck with this one lady. And asking her questions is like banging my head into a brick wall. I feel like the only helpful thing she has to say to me is "do some research on the internet." Gee, thanks.

So, I've been praying and praying, trying to figure out what to do. If  I should stay at the midwife clinic, or if I should look around and find a doctor and deliver at a hospital. Our insurance will cover delivery at Mountain View, which is in Payson, also 20 minutes from here, but the traffic is a lot lighter, and as far as hospitals go, it's the closest one to us (besides UT Valley) by about 10-15 minutes. I'm not getting any answers. It really does kind of feel like there is a pavilion between me and the Lord on this matter. So the lesson we had on this talk in Relief Society really caught my attention and has been turning itself over in my mind for the last several weeks. I don't know what I need to do. Maybe I just need to trust. Heavenly Father has worked everything out practically perfectly for the deliveries of my three other kids, maybe I just need to trust that it will work out this time. It also could be that it doesn't matter. I can stay with the midwives or find a new doctor and it will work out the same either way. I just wish I could feel settled about something. So I'm going to keep working on it, and keep thinking about ways to move the pavilion.

Lincoln brought this picture home from primary this week. I was so excited that I could immediately recognize that it was a temple Sometimes the kids show me their artwork and I'm like great tell me about it, hoping they'll give me some kind of clue to what the picture is supposed to be of without my having to ask. Ever play that game? Lincoln was really excited to tell me about the man on top who blows the trumpet, and that the temple has grass around it just like the church building. :)

Oh, and guess what? I am very, very close to being completely finished with my Christmas shopping. I just need to get some candy and tooth brushes for the stockings, and we need to get Aaron's parents their gift. And Aaron and I need to decide if we are or are not buying chairs for our living room for ourselves. And then I'm finished. And half of it is already wrapped and under the tree. Wah-hoo.