It really works!

My heart is full tonight as I remember a little incident from yesterday.  It may seem silly to you, but the implications are tremendous and the love I feel is great.  This may seem a trivial thing to post on a blog, but it's important to me to record the feelings I have when things like this happen in my life otherwise when I look back I tend to think "oh that was just a coincidence"... That being said, here's my trifle:

I'd had a full, busy day yesterday.  After my baby left to go home, I had to start laundry.  After my fourth load, I realized that my keys (which I usually take with me because it has my laundry key on it and sometimes the laundry room door in our apartment complex is closed and locked) were missing.  Long story short, I had been all over the complex that evening doing several loads of laundry and checking the mail, etc. and there was any number of places my keys could be. 

At about 6:30p.m. when I realized I couldn't find my keys anywhere in the apartment, I was slightly worried but figured "eh, I won't worry too much because they're sure to turn up sometime, I'll just work on my homework and won't think about it"

At 7:30p.m., after I'd sent Scott out to check the laundry room, and the area around the mailbox to rule out me carelessly leaving them somewhere in my exhausted stupor and after doing another round of the apartment I began to think "shoot, I hope I didn't leave them somewhere and someone picked them up and is going to take our car, break into our apartment (the mail key is labled with our number so breaking and entering would have never been easier), stealing our stuff and raping our women and stealing our children, and take our mail (not the bills, of course).  But maybe somebody found them and turned them in to the apartment manager and we can call and ask him tomorrow.  Maybe they're even in the apartment somewhere.  I'll try to get back to my homework and not think about it"  I said a silent prayer in my head to ask for help in finding my keys and I went back to my business. 

We had Family Home Evening, got Dennis ready for bed, and at about 10:00p.m., I did another search of the house.  I was beginning to get frustrated, because my keys also had my little Curves scanner thingy and i couldn't work out the following morning without it.  I searched through the whole house again several times, this time I even went through the garbage.  Twice.  I retraced my steps over and over again and could not think where my keys might be and where I'd left him, because I was so tired I wasn't able to think clearly.  Add that to the fact that I wasn't getting any homework done because I was busy trying to locate my lost keys.  At this point I had accepted the fact that I was going to have to pay to get all of my keys replaced, the locks on our apartment would have to be changed and I was just going to have to deal with it.  I walked out into the living room feeling dejected and Scott asked me "have you prayed yet?"

I answered "of course I have!  I did hours ago!".  But all the same, I went to my room, closed the door, and actually knelt down and said my prayer aloud.  As I said my prayer, I began to feel calmer as the spirit washed over me.  I tried to finish up by saying "in the name of Jesus Christ.." but I didn't get that far, because my mind showed me a particular part of my evening that before was blurry.  I saw where one of the actions I'd made without thinking led to another sequence of events and then I knew where I must've put my keys.  I finished saying my prayer and I went right to the place where my keys actually were, in the most unlikely of places - underneath my bed sheet. 

Now, I would definitely have found my keys later when I went to bed, but the part of this story that is of particular importance to me is that Heavenly Father answered my prayer (when I finally did it right).  He knew I would've have found them eventually, but it meant a lot to me that he helped me while the night was still relatively young so that my mind could be cleared and at ease so that I could concentrate on my homework.  I am so grateful for His love and for this important lesson He taught in prayer and faith.  Although I've had similar experience like this one before, I would just like to say that this reaffirms my assurance that when I pray Heavenly Father hears me and answers me. 

As I knelt down after finding my keys to thank Heavenly Father for his help, I felt a strong spirit of love and peace overwhelm me and I knew that He would always be there for me and I felt a stronger desire to be obedient so that I could be worthy of this great blessing. 

I walked back out to the living room to show Scott that I found them and he said that it was amazing that I had enough faith to just pray and then bam - find my keys.  To Scott I say, my faith wasn't so strong that my actions didn't follow through immediately, but I always knew that Heavenly Father would help me.

Catching Up

Well, since it's been over six months since my last post, I was losing motivation to post again since I felt like I missed out on so much.  But I decided I didn't care any more so I'm just going to jot down what I do remember and then move on.  SooooOOOOoooo....

Scott graduated from Arizona Western College's Radiologic Technology program in May, 2011. 




Heading off to Scott's Graduation Ceremony - May 5, 2011



I decorated the car while I was at the "gym".  I really did work out at the gym that morning, but I decorated it in the parking lot afterwards.  Sweat and all!

The students' friends and family met for celebratory dinner a few days later after finals were over.



We were pleased to have family from all over come and see Scott for this special occassion, including a lot of out of town family like Scott's Aunt Cindy, Scott's grandma from Utah, and my family from Sierra Vista.  Scott was the class speaker for the ceremony and he delivered his speech beautifully.  After that fun stuff was over I was busy busy busy packing up the apartment and getting ready to move to Sierra Vista.  Sometimes while I was busy packing, Dennis got involved in several projects of his own:

Dennis made himself pretty with yellow highlighter!

The other one he did was he WENT TO TOWN with a big ol' black sharpie that I was using to label boxes with on the walls (and not just one wall!), floor, fridge, stove, my purse, and our hallway rug.  So I made him help me clean it up.  And when he was too tired to scrub he stood in the corner.  He alternated between.  I think he finally got the picture that the marker DOESN'T COME OFF!  I don't think he's really had major coloring episodes like that one since that happened.
Anyways, my birthday is on May 20, and since we planning to load up the truck on that day, and then leave town the day after, we decided to celebrate with Scott's family the weekend prior.  They took me out to lunch at the golf course:

Check out the beautiful sugar-free cake made by Kathy.  Yummm!

Eees beeg, yes?

Can I blow out my candles yet?

Dennis with Grandma Kathy.  One of my fav pictures of them!  I put a little wallet-sized one of these pictures in a book that she made for him for Easter that's recorded, so he can always see how much she loved him!  :)

The day of the move, we had several people from our Yuma ward come over and help us load up the truck, and Heather and Phillip (Scott's brother and sister) were big sweeties and came over to help out too.  After the truck was loaded, we went over for dinner at Scott's family (and that was a huge help because I was exhausted) and then we went home and passed out.  We spent the night on blow up air mattresses so that we could be by the truck and it was kind of fun to have a little camp-out together!  :)  The next morning Scott's family brought us breakfast, we had the apartment inspected, and then we said teary "see ya later's" and got on the road.  We had unloaded the truck by about 10p.m. that night and set up our bed at my Mom and Dad's house. 
The next few weeks, I was busily unpacking only the bare necessities into our room (the rest of our stuff went into storage) and Scott was busy studying for his ARRT license.  The day before Scott was to take his test, we went up to Tucson (because the testing center was in Phoenix and he wouldn't have to drive as far) and spent the night at my grandma's house.  Scott of course passed his test with flying colors and my grandparents took us out to Olive Garden to celebrate. 
We then spent the next week and a half house (and dog)-sitting at my grandparents house so they could go up to Canada to help my Uncle Paul move in.  While we were up there we were applying for jobs for Scott like crazy.  On one of our last days up there in Tucson, we got a call from the Sierra Vista hospital for Scott to come in for an interview.  It just happened to be good luck that Scott got a job where we were already living so that we could build up savings and get ourselves in a better position financially. 
    So when we got back you may have heard about a little incident called the Monument Fire, which affected a lot of my friends and I was somehow hysterically worried that it would burn down all of Sierra Vista.  The fire burned on for...I dunno... about 2-3 weeks?  When the monsoon season finally came we were in the clear, though.  For the weekend of July 4, 2011 we had special visitors!  That's right, Scott's family came to visit and we had lots of fun adventures - we went to Tombstone for a day, and we went to the Ward party, we played games, and had lots of fun!

The beautiful Heather Anderson

The equally beautiful Hollie Smith, but ruining a perfectly good picture!  Or does it add to it?  I can't decide..

Uncle Phil teaching how to golf... You can tell Dennis is paying close attention...

Okay, now we're in the zone!

How many Anderson's does it take to do a one-person job?  :-P

*Insert Tim Allen howl here*



The lovely Kathy Anderson.  If I had a better camera, this picture would be FANTASTIC!



She's quick as lightning!

Time to hang out after BBQ!

Here we are in Tombstone!

Here we are again, but this time Hollie has her supermodel stance on

It gets hot being this cute

Yep

Here we go again.  Try to act like you love each other

Grandmas are the best!  :)

A glimpse down Tombstone's main road

Sharing ice cream with someone under 3 means you don't get cooties

Take a HUGE whiff!

That's all well and good, but I told Kathy not to give Phillip any more horse food.

Who will win?

   So anyway, after Scott started working, I kept myself busy by making the meals for everyone on the days when my Mom was at work.  I also signed up to take a Sociology class online.  I was also finally able to get some piano students so that I was able to bring in a little bit of extra money for our family.  Some days I couldn't think of what to do so I got into mischief with my sister:

This says: "So you like to pick locks, huh?"  This is because the night before she picked the lock to our room and poured a big ol' pot of freshly cooked noodles all over my sleeping body.

The other sheet says "Then pick THIS!"

Dennis got into mischief too, with his new little buddy, a miniature schnauzer named Scribble:

Too bad Scribble's too wiggly for this picture!

 Here are some other pictures from while we were living at "Nonnie and Poppi's" house, as Dennis calls them:

Dad was helping me look at something in our car, and Dennis was so cute, following Dad around the car, and looking at the things Dad was looking at.  Well, when Dad popped the hood, Dennis wasn't tall enough to see, so Dad lifted him up.  I was lucky enough to catch this picture!  I think it's so sweet.

Sometimes we just get a little crazy with the stickers.

Sometimes I like to wear diapers on my head because eees nice.

Bowls too, apparently.

"Don't squish me, Nonni!"

Daddy was being naughty so Dennis put him in the corner for a time-out!

His eyes are still squinty!  Maybe we need some bigger ones?

Dennis likes to help make dinner.

My little chef!

Around about the beginning of August, we traded in our little pontiac for a 2006 Kia Sedona so we could have more room, and the monthly payment it lower.  Scott and I celebrated our 4th Anniversary on the 3rd of August, and when we came back from our date, Dennis had developed a fever.  This started out like a normal sickness, except Dennis' tonsils blew up!  They were so enlarged that he couldn't breathe at night.  The next three months were torture for me.  Although his fever and stuff went away, his tonsils never got smaller.  Anytime we thought it was safe for Dennis to run around and play, his tonsils would get so big that he'd stop breathing for periods of time when he was sleeping.  Our life was literally on hold.  We tried several things, vaporizers, antibiotics, we tested him for mono, and nothing was working, so his pediatrician finally referred him to see an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist in Tucson. 
I also forgot that Denny's birthday was at the end of August.  Dennis had been so sick that I was unsure whether we would be able to do anything with him to celebrate.  I didn't want to invite a bunch of people down for his birthday and then have to send them away because Dennis couldn't do anything.  So I made a Tow Mater cake for Dennis and a birthday hat and kind of waited to see when a good day would be to have him celebrate it, and at the spur of the moment, we decided to just have a dinner for him at Peter Piper Pizza on a day when he was doing kind of better.  However, I think I unintentionally hurt people's feelings by doing this, because they thought we had an actual party for him.  Well anyways, I did what I thought was best as his Mommy and hopefully it won't be held against me for too long.  Here are some pictures from his birthday and the video of us singing to him:

Poor little guy - those stylish arm bands are from the blood tests he had earlier that day.

I would poke fun at his face, but I know he's feeling yucky here.

This is how I would play ski ball

I stomp when I miss too

Oh he looks so excited for birthday cake here!

Here's the cake I slaved over!  :)

Yumm!  Cake makes my throat feel good!

Oh wait, those fingers aren't part of the cake

Mommy and Daddy's present for him

Looks comfy, I want to sleep there too!

Well, we went to see the Ear Nose Throat Doc in September, and the ENT told us that Dennis would have to have his tonsils removed and the surgery was then scheduled for October 13, 2011.  I was kind of irritated because as a mother, even though I had a game plan now,  I still had to wait for nearly a month for my Denny to get better!  Around the end of September, Scott and I were finally in a position to be able to move out of Mom and Dad's house, but we were kind of feeling the crunch because of Dennis' surgery coming up, so we moved out October 1, 2011 to a two bed/ two bath apartment.  The apartment's nice, it has vinyl wood floors, and we have plenty of room for our California King bed, unlike our last apartment where we had it shoved into the corner of the room.  Anyway, the next week and a half was a flurry of unpacking for me, so that I would be able to just concentrate on Dennis when it came time for his surgery, and wouldn't have to worry about it during his recovery period. 
The day before Denny's surgery, we went to spend the night in Tucson, at my grandparent's house, since the next day his surgery was scheduled at 7a.m.  They took Dennis to a room to prep for surgery and to wait for our turn:

Denny's stylish gown - waiting for the doctor!

Dennis didn't like his hat...

 
When the anesthesiologist finally came, he told me that I wouldn't be able to say goodbye to Dennis becuase it makes the children hysterical, which I understood, but which left me feeling unresolved.  He said that there was some kind of medicine that kids could take that would make them sleepy, so that they wouldn't be so aware of the actual shot that delivers most of the anesthesia.  I told him I thought that was a good idea, but he had to shoot the medicine up Dennis' nose and the doctor told me after the fact that it really burns.  So the patient-relations lady brought in an i-pad with a little Cars short toon to help distract Denny from the burning sensation while he quickly became a limp noodle in my arms.  Then the anesthesiologist whisked him away from me before Dennis could figure out what was happening and Scott and I were sent out to the waiting room.  We waited for all of 20 minutes, when our ENT came out and told us that the surgery was done, and that he had removed the tonsils and about 50% of the adenoid tissue.  He told us that Dennis was sleeping and that we would have to continue to wait in the waiting room until Dennis woke up, which would take about an hour.  Well, five minutes after the ENT had left, a nurse came to get us, saying that Dennis was awake already and hysterically delirious.  I was immediately anxious (because I wasn't really sure what to expect at this point) and she led us back to his recovery bed.  And there Dennis was, screaming, standing up on his bed, with blood dripping from his mouth, his head thrown back and his eyes were clenched shut.  There had to be at least 6 nurses standing around him trying to get him to settle down so he wouldn't hurt himself when he still wasn't in complete control of his senses.  At this point, I was trying to be strong, but I was quickly losing it as well.  I called out to Dennis, since he was surrounded by nurses, telling him that I was here and that I loved him, and that seemed to help a little bit, but he was still kind of upset.  He calmed down enough to the point where the nurses could untangle his iv cords, etc., and they placed him on my lap so that he could completely relax.  The recovery nurse said it was going to be a few minutes before they brought someone with a wheelchair to transport us across the hospital to the pediatrics wing.  So I held Dennis on my lap until they got there.  I didn't allow myself to cry until Dennis had gone back to sleep, but I felt like a horrible mother.  Even though Dennis was comforted because he knew I was there, the pain was so bad that he'd wake up and cry and throw his head back every 30 seconds or so and I had to calm him down all over again.  So we were finally transported to the pediatric wing of Tucson Medical Center (which I have to say, I was quite impressed with) and we were given a room.  The first room that they had us in wasn't quite big enough, especially since they told us to plan to stay over night.  It had one chair that could recline and the other one was not really helpful for sleeping in.  So essentially, Scott and I had to take turns sleeping that night.  Anyway, that first day was really rough for me.  I had never seen Dennis like this, and I was extremely worried.  They brought him some food, and he did eat that first day...:

Dennis tentatively eats some jello

And then he had a nap

  After the anesthetic wore off (probably by 3p.m. that same day), it was a nightmare for me.  He was fitfully sleeping, he was crying all the time, he wouldn't eat any more.  Long story short, even though the doctor told us to only prepare for one night's stay overnight, we were there for four days (which the nurses said was the standard amount of time for a three-year-old who had his tonsils removed).  So I basically wore the same outfit all three days (because Sierra Vista is an hour and a half away) although I did shower.  And after the first night, the moved us into a bigger room that had two beds and fold down couch for sleeping, which was much better and very much appreciated.  The reason why we had to stay so long is because they didn't want to send us home only to have Dennis come home and get dehydrated because he wasn't drinking.  So the first two-three days we were just letting him heal a little bit.  We took him to the play room...:

I want a kithcen like this!

Scott took him to see a clown that was visiting the children (while I used on of the common computers they had set up there, and took my Sociology test online), we were visited by a german-shephard that they used to go see children with, and we had Gee-gee (my grandmother) come see us every day.  I felt bad that she had to trek across the hospital every day to come see us, but I appreciated her efforts and knew she was showing her love for us.  Since we hadn't anticpated staying that long in the hospital, Scott had to leave to go back to Sierra Vista to go to work Saturday night. 
By this time, the nurses were wondering why I wasn't getting Dennis to drink anything.  I told them that I was trying every trick in the book to get him to drink!  Dennis was doing good if he'd had even one sip of a juice a day!  So the patient-relations lady made me a drinking chart to help encourage Dennis, and I asked the nurse for some medicine cups, and asked her to put different colored tape on the cups and I made a game out of it.  It was really hard for Dennis at first, and it would take us nearly half an hour to get through one drinking game, but I persistently played it with him every hour.  It was then I learned that the 30ml medicine cups are equilavent to one ounce.  The doctor told me Dennis must be drinking at least 22 ounces a day to be able to come home and not be dehydrated.  Every time we played the cup game, we were drinking about 4 ounces.  You can see how this would be taking up most of the day...  Also, the medicine which they gave him, Dennis did not like to take.  Because it was a narcotic, they couldn't put any flavorings or anything in it to make it taste better, so every four hours a new battle commenced.  Sometimes it was just downright painful.  But finally we got to the point where we drinking a day's worth of fluid from medicine cups and he wasn't resisting so hard to get his medicine down, and we were discharged on the evening of our fourth day in the hospital.  I had to keep giving Dennis his medicine every four hours (even in the middle of the night, because if he didn't have it, he'd be reminded of how much it hurt him and he wouldn't drink) and playing the cup game basically all day.  He had to stay in bed for a week after that and I was basically giving him anything he asked for food-wise because I wanted him to eat.  Then we finally got the okay from the ENT near the end of October for him to run around and play and I think we took him to the playground that very night because we were all so relieved it was finally over. 
Now that that yucky part is over, we focused on getting ready for Halloween!  We went to the pumpkin patch to pick out pumpkins,

A Denny-sized pumpkin

  and then we carved them that same night:

Dennis was fascinated by the light inside!  :)

and then I set to work on making his costume:

Even though it has a shape like Tow Mater, it was supposed to be Lightning McQueen...

A few days before Halloween, our Stake held a Fall Family Fun Fair (that's right, say it five times fast!), which was the first major thing that we'd been able to do with Dennis for months, so we were all about this!

They had a little petting zoo here and Dennis wanted to spend a lot of his time here

A goat or something

And Scott had to work the night of Halloween, so I asked Hollie to accompany me to take Dennis trick-or-treating around the neighborhood.  Dennis loved it and I was so happy.  The only thing was, I made the box a little too low around his legs so he could walk up any steps or go up steep driveways by himself.  We only lasted about an hour and a half, but that's probably just the right amount of time for a little guy:

Dennis in the act of trick-or-treating!

Look at all the candy I got!

And after Halloween was over, I just let Dennis play in his costume and he zoomed all around the house and destroyed it.  It's good, it's good.
We went to Yuma for Thanksgiving, and it was very fun to be with everyone and we got to meet Scott's grandmother's new fiance.  We wish we could've stayed for longer, and I wish I'd thought to take more pictures, but here, however is a picture of Dennis playing at a McDonald's on the way back from Yuma:

Look at me, I'm so high

And Dennis with a weird, drive-by Wal-Mart Santa.  Still cute though, I guess

And then my favorite holiday of all!  I was so excited to have my own place back and to have a bigger space to decorate.  We still didn't have very much money this Christmas, but I was actually kind of grateful because it seems like the more money you have to spend the less you think about the real meaning of Christmas.  And so I was able to ponder a lot about that this year and I was especially grateful for God's gift to the world.  We were graced by the presence of Nana and Papa and my cousin Hunter all from Georgia about a week before Christmas.  The Sunday that they were here, we also received several additional surprise visitors.  That's right.  We were a little late to church that day.  We got a text from Kathy saying "Keep an eye out for your presents, they're on their way".  I texted back "Yeah, I mailed yours yesterday too, so they should be there in a few days".  As we parked, I thought to myself "that kinda looks like Heather's Equinox.  That's kinda funny".  And thought nothing of it.  Then we walked in and had to wait for them to finish passing the sacrament and then we walked in scanned the chapel for my family and my eyes passed over Jon's face (that's Heather's boyfriend) and I did a double-take but then kept on looking because I knew that that wasn't him.  We walked in, and that's when I saw three faces all turn and grin at us as we walked in.  It was all we could do to sit ahead and pay attention to the speakers instead of turning around and saying "I can't believe you're here, ya crazies!  :)"  Kathy, Heather, and Jon had come down as a surprise, and boy you can bet that we got a lot of flak for being late to church when they drove all the way up from Yuma, haha.  It was great!  After church we went home and had lunch and visited and then we opened the presents that they'd brought for us and Dennis:

Jon- I don't blame him, it's tiring to get to church on time long-distance!

New toys!

Look at that spaz face!

Oh yes, will it make that big of a difference?  What's 9 more cars when you already have 200?  :-P

Woo-hoo!

Look at Heather's sweet face, I think she loves that kid or something

He was taking a picture of me taking a picture of him!

I don't think I got any pictures of anyone else during Christmas, but I was so generally all-around happy during this time of year that it didn't really matter to me.  Here are some other things we did around Christmas time:

Dennis with Santa at our Ward Christmas party - is he contemplating his escape route?

All right, I think I'll listen to you....

Whatcha got in the bag over there, huh?

All right, I guess we could be friends

Dennis at the light parade

The fire engines kinda scared him

Then the new year came and went.  I didn't make any resolutions this year, because I'd already been working on my goal to be healthier.  I've started weight watchers, and I've been going to Curves at least 3 times a week.  At the beginning of January I started doing childcare for a newborn baby.  It keeps me busy during the day, and then in the evening on Wednesdays and Thursdays I'm teaching piano lessons for about 2 hours, and then after Denny's in bed I spend about 2 -4 hours on homework for my Managerial Accounting class.  Needless to say, even though everything I'm doing is good and it's keeping me busy, I'm having a little trouble adjusting to everything I've heaped onto my plate all of a sudden.  Even though we've encountered some difficulty as far as Scott's job goes, and losing our health insurance, I feel happy because I'm working from home where I need to be, and we just have so many other blessings to be thankful for.

Funny picture time!

Dennis had been begging me to let him hold the baby, (I won't say names to protect the privacy of the baby) so I figured 30 seconds wouldn't hurt.  He was pretty good at it too, he told me he needs a baby brother/sister for real now.  I told him good luck with getting that from Santa. 

So I think that catches us all up now.  I'm going to have a nap.