January-mid-March, plus Have You Met My Jori?

Well it's about time for another update, eh? With some pics, eh? So I'll go off the camera. 

First, it's old news...but here's the first pic! I found out I was pregnant with our second child on...um. Some time. Like January 4th or something? I couldn't find this pregnancy test that I had from a while back (you know, buy two in a pack) so I drove to all-a-dollar, since it was the nearest place. So I wasn't positive about it at first but yep, it's real! This one's due September 13th. So as of now, March 12th, I am 13 1/2 weeks along.

Second, our good friends Mark & Halsey and their two kids, KJ and Claire came down and spent a week with us at the beginning of January. At the time, Mark had been considering working for the company Sam was at-now neither of them are and Mark even was all for finding Sam a job at his place! Funny how things flip around eh? haha. (Sam didn't take it, but we'll get to that...)

We spent more time at the beach and Jori acted silly:

Actually, I want to teach you about Jori, with random pictures of her and different aspects of her personality so you can know. In case you don't yet. So. She loves water. Loves to swim, loves bath time. Loved the ocean. But has some idea of danger-half the time she wanted to run into the waves, but the other half they scared her. Which is a good thing, I think.

•  She loves people, loves being with them. Loves nursery (except for a weird couple weeks in January), loves cousins, loves people. Except big (large or just tall) men. They scare her more. Oh, and she loves to make people laugh. I don't know of many her size who enjoy that as much. Of course, she's the one I'm with all day. Just ask her grandparents on either side. This kid has got SPUNK. 

•  Jori also loves animals. She has loved the dogs, cats and horses at Grandma and Grandpa Hatch's house she gets to enjoy, and chases them around all day.

•  Jori has an adventurous spirit-she does like to explore, but would rather do it with someone in tow. Which usually means mommy getting dragged by the finger. Which a lot of the time I enjoy, actually. Oh but though she's adventurous, she's still kind of dainty-not as sturdy as some of her boy cousins, for sure. 

 Jori is super smart, verbally. I didn't even realize it until she started nursery, or is around cousins or other kids her age. But she will try to mimic nearly any sound, and succeeds at a lot of them. She knows a TON of words...I don't really keep track. It was so funny when the nursery workers on Sunday came to us though and said "She knows the word 'snack'!" And we just thought "Yeah...and nap, and blankie, and dog, and grandma, and grandpa, and nice, and calm, and please, and thank you, and sorry (kind of-that one's more abstract), and fork, and bowl, and sun, and snow, and ocean, and horse, and hay...etc. etc." Her Grandma Hatch said something that made me proud, because she mentioned how most kids her age know the word "No," and use it for everything. But Jori knows "No," and "Yes," and uses them appropriately. Which is awesome-we can say "Do you want this?" "No," "Do you want this?" "No," "Do you want this?" "Yeah!" She'll also imitate things I didn't intend, like I said "Hey baaabaaay" to Sam one day, and she kept repeating it that way (all hit-on-you) all day. We laughed a lot that day.

•  Jori is also very determined. This is a positive way of saying stubborn. But when she gets her mind made up, it's hard to convince her otherwise. Obviously this can be exasperating, but I think once she understands consequences more it'll be really helpful. (Like "You really want that ice cream, huh? Well you have to eat so many bites of broccoli, ok?" And she may do it, since her mind is stuck on ice cream...I guess we'll see.) 

• Jori's pretty good about eating what we give her, at least a taste. Unless she ate too recently. She doesn't eat large portions though, which means she grazes a lot. Which I do too, especially now that I'm prego. So it's a good fit.
• Jori really wants to do the right thing. We've taught her to pray before sleeping and eating, and Sam will help her say the prayers too. (It usually goes something like this-Sam: "Thank thee for family" Jori: "Famey"...she's pretty awesome.)

There's so much more to her than that, but those are the first things that popped into my mind! I love my lil sunshine, I just can't imagine filling up my days without her. But now! Back to a regular update:

 We fed the birds, and I got a bit freaked out every time...it's un-like anywhere else I've ever done it! More birds, and they are willing to get SO close! Like, you throw it over your head and they swoop down and snatch it a few feet above you close! Reminded me of the Hitchcock movie The Birds, I couldn't help it...

Jori started potty training. I mean, just basics. I don't have any special supplies yet-we just bought a little "Loo," and she pees in it when we put her on it. Basically. Not all the time or anything. I just taught her how I teach her everything else-example. So brought her into the bathroom and let her watch me pee in there, and now she's doing it like a champ! I mean kind of. I'm not really pushing it yet-it's like once a day, when I remember. I should up my game, I know.

We went to the San Diego Zoo! It was fun. :) 

Sam let his bosses know he was quitting, and gave them the quitting date soon after. It was a relief to know there was light at the end of the tunnel, since the job had become such a difficult aspect of Sam's (and my) life. So when the time came, Darren and Loalee came down to move us in with them (since we have no moolah) and while they were here, we went to the Mormon Battalion cite.

We also went out to eat a couple times, and took Sam's parents to a nearby park that Jori and I visited frequently: 

 This one below is my favorite. Hahaha Jori! What are you looking for down there?

I really love this one tree they had there, so we got a few pics with it: 

Rad. 

After the fun that weekend, we packed up our boxes, scrubbed down our place and drove the 13 hours to Franklin, Idaho from Dana Point, CA. We spread it out three days though, 6 the first day, 4 the second and 2 1/2 the third, so we could stop in Provo and have a brief visit with my family on the second day. I sure do miss being so close to so many of them.

Since arriving in Idaho, Sam has spent most of his time working with his dad or researching different Master's degree programs. Part of the reason we decided to move in with Sam's parents was because we were hoping Sam could make that a main focus, researching different degrees and careers, and find something that he can feel good about for a number of reasons and not just rush into something else from where we just rushed away from. If that makes sense. That's why Sam didn't take the job with his friend Mark, because it would have been a lot of hours right away and he just barely was working a lot of hours in a job he didn't want to remain at (which he wouldn't have with Mark's company, either. It's just spreading fertilizer so not really a lifelong career fit for Sam.) So he has a list of possible careers, and is leaning towards one but I think I need to stop reporting so much about our lives before our minds are made up at the time being, so I'll just leave it at that. Anyway it's been nice he's had the freedom to spend a lot of time researching careers and different degree programs, and also try to arrange to shadow people in the career he's most interested in at present. I think I can say if he pursues his current interest, he'll have to take a fair amount of pre-requisite courses beforehand, so we'd probably be making that the focus for the next year. We'll just have to wait and see. 

Oh yeah! And I'm still in school. I keep forgetting. I feel like I'm at the finish line, but it's actually seven feet above me and I can't reach it. My last classes are all entirely online, and the teach-yourself-by-reading-every-page-out-of-the-book thing is NOT enticing to me in the slightest. Blegh...I'm the worst at reading textbooks. So! I have to pull some motivation out of somewhere, get a last burst of energy to finish and make it happen or...well. Let's not even imagine ors. But right now the goal is for me to graduate in August, right before baby #2 arrives. Oh boy! I can't wait to walk at 8 months pregnant, honestly. It kind of tickles me at the thought. Because everyone's going to be like "What the hey, she's humongous" and little will they know it's actually my second...inside jokes with myself make me giggle, I'm afraid. I'm just that nerdy.

Well! I think this is sufficient. Except you can see a couple I have taken since we've arrived in Idaho: 

 "Jori, smile!"

 This was her trying to open her eyes wide. hahaha

 Sam made Jori this rocking horse. Sweet huh!

 She loves my helmet. This day her outfit was that much cuter with both the helmet AND the tutu.

 We got Jori three new pairs of shoes! She cried when we had to take them off for bed. I swear she isn't always pants-less...and doesn't always look like a raga-muffin with a wet shirt and hair in her eyes...only half the time. :)

I think this was another 'smile!' pose...

 Oh my lands, I'm so in love with this little girl. Look at my sweet pea. I'm so lucky to have her. Loalee was watching American Idol the other day and I had this thought. It was like "millions of people try out for this and want to win it, and even of those it just showed only one will win..." and then I looked at Jori and I had this feeling like, "I already won something better!" I'm so lucky to be her mom. I hope the feelings just multiply with the next one-I'm sure they will, but I've known Jori so much longer it's hard to imagine loving another human being like this.

Tender mercies...and then some somewhat unpleasant news.

Yesterday was kind of an off day for Jori and I. You know how they go-one of us is grumpy (though which one starts it is a chicken-or-the-egg-first argument), so the other one gets grumpy and then it just keeps playing back and forth all day. It wasn't even really all day-she had a really long nap, so I had a nice reprieve then, it just seemed the worst in the afternoon.

So Sam took Jori with him in the backyard where he was barbequing chicken, and I had a chance to try to catch my breath.

And here I'd like to add a snippet from my childhood: my family sang a lot growing up. Not like a crazy amount, but we always sang at FHE and when we got older my parents would have more elaborate arrangements of things to sing...at least for the boys. (I got shafted-there's no room for a girl in barbershop quartets.) Anyway the point is my parents raised me to sing,  when I'm supposed to sing. So I always sang out in church, because that was the example they set. And with such music drifting around in our home, I came to memorize a lot of hymns that I still have memorized to this day. And the Lord really blesses me with this knowledge: often, when something is going on in my life, a hymn will pop into my head that is just perfect for the occasion. Even when I wasn't seeking it! This has been such a wonderful gift for me.

So that's what happened yesterday: a hymn popped into my head. But I'd never thought to apply the hymn I did, to the situation I did. So when I tell (or  remind) you the words to the first verse of this song, think of how frustrated and discouraged I was with my parenting, and feeling like I wasn't able to get through to Jori and calm her down. How exhausted I was from such a long day, and also how guilty I felt for knowing I played a big part in any negativity that day. And then, the words came to me and I began to sing:

Let us all press on in the work of the Lord,
That when life is o'er we may gain a reward.
In the fight for right let us yield a sword,
The mighty sword of truth.
Fear not, though the enemy deride,
Courage! For the Lord is on our side
We will heed not what the wicked may say
But the Lord, alone we will obey.

I'd always thought of that song for things like missionary work, service projects, standing up for the gospel in the face of evil. I'd never applied it to the work of a homemaker. But those words were for me yesterday! The sword of truth: truth, the knowledge that THIS is the Lord's work. Raising up a new generation of His children in love, and teaching them to love the Lord and follow Him. Even if I don't feel like I'm to that point at all yet. And fear not: discouragement will come. But the Lord is on our side. The Lord is on my side!!! I knew this of course, but singing it, reminding  myself of it, brought me to tears. It was such a comfort, to think Heavenly Father doesn't want to scold me, to frown down at me, to make me feel bad about my job as a parent. Of course we have to answer for the wrongs we do to our children, of course repentance is necessary, but He wants more than anything  for us to succeed. He isn't rooting  for our failure-He's doing everything we let Him to, to help us succeed. He is not smug when we're having a bad day-I think when we mess up, He is full of sorrow. Of sympathetic (or empathetic?) sorrow: He knows we're causing ourselves and our children unhappiness when we act selfishly, and He doesn't want either.

I don't know if this makes any sense, but I wanted to share it in case anyone else might need this reminder. Even if it's just me, at a later date. Sometimes the best way to motivate change is through chastising, but sometimes a gentler approach is needed and it was for me yesterday. And I got it. What a tender mercy.

Besides this...I haven't been sharing much about it, but our life is kind of crazy right now. A friend posted on her blog the other day the title "Up in the air" and said, first line "Our life is up in the air again right now." This pretty much sums things up for us again, too. We won't be staying in California after March, we now know, but we also won't be staying with this company. It's a long story...and I shouldn't share it until we've let Sam's boss know and why, but we just don't feel like the pros are outweighing the cons of the company. And we're not being high-maintenance, I swear! It's not enough financially to live on, otherwise we might reconsider. But for the amount of work Sam is doing and the outcomes and the pay...as I said, I should just leave it at that for now. But anyway, right now our plan is to stay here until March, since at the end of March is when we'll need to move out, and then we'll be moving into Sam's parent's basement for a while while we, you know, re-evaluate. Neither of us ever wanted to have to live with our parents, but sometimes you have to swallow your pride. You'd think I'd be used to the taste by now but it's still rotten.

Anyway. The funniest part about it, to me, is that we both felt so strongly that we were supposed to be down here in California, and now we don't know why. I have a few theories-a brother of mine pursued a career that after he was in it, discovered he hated it, and  when he lost his job it ended up being a blessing I think because that just sped up the pursuing-something-else process. I think it might be like that: things with the company are actually worse than they were in Utah down here in California, so maybe Sam needed to experience that to finally push him into leaving. And I bet this will end up being a blessing for us in the long run. It's just getting to that long run that isn't so clear.

So! Our life is up in the air again. Bah. Just please don't blame Sam-he's doing everything he can for our family, and sacrifices so much for our benefit every single day. Some people just have better luck than others-one of my brothers was lucky  enough to have a huge interest of his, also be a field that pays really well and there are a lot of jobs in even with only a bachelor's degree. We, however, have not been one of those families. But that's all right-I've never worried about Sam, because he's a hard worker and does everything one is supposed to do really to be able to provide: does a good job at work, acts selflessly, spends frugally, etc. I know we'll get it figured out, I just hope against hope Sam doesn't have to stay in jobs he hates for the rest of his life.

If you're still reading you get a gold star. :) I miss most everyone who would ever read this thing; it's difficult to be so far from so many people I love. But we're trying to just enjoy our time left in California for now, and consider our possibilities. Graduate school is almost definitely in our future, but we don't want to pursue it until we've made up our minds about a certain degree/career. So! that's it. Ta-ta all. Cross your fingers for us.

September-December, 2012

So, I'm still having a hard time figuring out where the happy medium between pictures and words is, in a blog post. I'll probably continue to experiment, and still have a fair amount of no-picture ones that are just thoughts. But I'm way behind on pictures but don't want to upload them all here! So instead, I think I'll give some of the highlights, and then perhaps link to my picasa account where more photos can be found. Break!

Early September/late August, we travelled up to Cache Valley for our nephew Mark's baptism. This was really neat for me: I hadn't been to a baptism in years! It was a real treat to get to witness. While up there, we also started work on some nightstands, and got to go canoeing with most of my sis-in-law Jamie's family after the baptism.

 Also, my husband is crazy:

We also enjoyed hiking with our friends, Mark and Halsey Holt, to the Y sometime in September. (I forget.) 

We had another trip up to Cache Valley for General Conference, and it gave Sam the opportunity to enjoy a nice fall ride. 

In October, we had fun at a trip to Cornbelly's Corn Maze with my family. They had so much to do there! I was very impressed. Jori had a great time, and it was fun watching the other grand kids enjoy things as well. 

 For Halloween, we had three occasions to dress Jori up in her beautiful little Chinese dress: a friend's birthday party, the ward trunk or treat, and...I forget the other. We didn't actually take her trick or treating, because we didn't think she'd get the point. Maybe that's just silly of us, though. :)

We also did a murder mystery dinner/game with three of Sam's old mission buddies and their wives, the Friday before Halloween. It was such fun, we decided to do another one on the actual night of Halloween with ward friends. We were less involved the 2nd time, not dressing up, but it was still a lot of fun. :)

Early November, we celebrated Sam's 26th birthday by going out to eat a couple of different times. I think on the actual day, we went to Tucanos, but we also went (without Jori) to the Banana Leaf, which serves Sri Lankan food. Yum! We love fun new places to eat, especially Eastern!! (His food arrived wrapped in an actual banana leaf. How fun!)

Also in November, it snowed for the first time this winter season in Provo. I was thrilled because I'd been afraid it wouldn't snow until after we'd moved to Cali. Yay! So we went on the hunt and bought Jori some good snow clothes, then took her sledding. She didn't like it as much this year as last, interestingly.

 We spent Thanksgiving with Sam's parents this year, and that was right after we'd moved out of our last place. I french-braided Jori's hair for the first time, which (silly as it sounds) I'm very proud of. Jori also got to ride a horse with her daddy for the first time, and she absolutely loved it. She loves loves loves Grandma and Grandpa Hatch's horses! 

Early December, we moved down South! It's insanity, I tell you what. On  the way we stopped to see our good friends, James and Jenna Hess, and their two kids. Ella (their 2-year-old) is 8 months older than Jori, and she was so good with her! I was very grateful. 

 I think little Drake's face is priceless here, haha: 

(We also got to see my good friend and old roommate, Sydney Jackson,  but I forgot all about pictures that time.)

In December, we started enjoying the beach: 

 (frizzy haired profile shot! Beautiful beautiful! Sam's got a trophy wife for sure! :P)

Made some new friends (before they had to go back to Oregon): 

Visited the Mission, in San Juan Capistrano:

 (Look at those humongous, awesome colored goldfish!)

...and I scurried like a mad woman to finish my Independent Study class by the deadline, then my normal classes. (I did, phew!)

After we flew back to Utah for the holidays, we enjoyed the snow: 

And family, a lot. A lot a lot!

After Christmas, we had the misfortune that night of waking up to Jori wailing. Poor thing had a bad fever, and continued  to for about three days (in varying extremities). After Jori got over the worst of it, we caught it, which kind of put a damper on our New Years and family time with Sam's family. But we still enjoyed them and what we were able to do. Everyone loved sledding down the driveway (hill, really): 

And Jori had a lot of fun with the dogs at Grandma and Grandpa's house. 

 She also stole my camera and snapped some pics. This one's my favorite. I love that perfect little foot. :D

While there, we also had the Hatch Family Christmas Party (the main event of the season), but unfortunately Jori was really sick for the first half so I missed a lot of it. Still, what I was there for I enjoyed. And Jotham and Jamie (mentioned them earlier-one of their boys got baptized a few months back) had a game night at their new house in Benson. Love game nights! Sam and I also, for the first time since we've been married, went away for the night of our anniversary and stayed at a Bed and Breakfast in Logan called the Anniversary Inn. We stayed in the "Aphrodite's Court" room, which was beautiful. It was so nice to have some alone time. The only thing that would have made it better were if I hadn't started to have the flu symptoms that night. Drat! 

And that was pretty much the last four months of 2012! I consider myself, officially caught-up on my blog! Phew! 

Sometimes, I forget I created this to document our lives...

So, looking over the blog...I've only written about our lives in the past post, at the end of November since like...August! And it wasn't in the normal style I do, either! But knowing me, I'll go WAY overboard if I don't limit myself so I'll try to sum things up with as few words as possible. Here we go:

• September...I can't  really remember very well. ?
• October, we had a lot of fun doing a "Murder Mystery" night, playing one of the How to Host a Murder games. The first one we prepped for for like, 2 weeks, and did it the Friday before  Halloween with old mission friends of Sam's and their wives. The second one we only thought of it 3 days before, and did on actual Halloween night with some ward friends. Both were great. :) I wish we could do one with every different set of friends we could think of: old roommates, old high school friends, family, etc.
• Jori was a little Chinese lady for Halloween. That doesn't sound politically correct but not sure how else to say it. You know just beautiful, decorative Chinese dresses? She just wore one of those we have for her and some shoes that match. It's beautiful, and she was absolutely adorable. 
• I signed up for 9 credits this Fall Semester, which was the most I've taken at one time since Jori was born, with Sam gone most of the time. (Last Spring I was a full-time student, but Sam was home almost all the time.) It ended up being nuts because my religion class (Survey of World Religions) was interesting but (for me) WAY hard. Bah! 
• One of those 3 classes in the 9 credits was an Independent Study class, Writing in the Social Sciences, which means you set your own schedule...but because I had Pell Grants paying for it, I still had to get it done by this past Friday, December 14th. This ended up being a recipe for disaster: I put it off for far too long, and then we moved, so I did...something like 75% of the class, in a week and a half. Phew. Never again. Good thing I have an amazingly supportive husband! 

• Thanksgiving we spent with Sam's parents and his sister, Melanie and her family. It was great, I just didn't enjoy as much of it as I would have if I didn't have the Independent Study class hanging over my head. I was trying to work on it a lot of the time. At least I won't have that dilemma at Christmas.
• We drove down to St. George Nov. 30th, then the rest of the way to Dana Point, CA December 1st. We got to see one of my very favorite old roommates, Sydney Jackson, and spent the night with her; we also got to see one of Sam's very best friends from forever, James Hess, and his wife Jenna and their kids. I also love them a lot so I was thrilled to get to spend some time there. 
• Our place is on a really...well, hoity toity road, you have to have a lot of moolah to live here (unless you have a sweet deal worked out like us), but it's one of the smallest on this whole long road. Thank goodness-it's surreal enough to live in a beach house, but at least it's about the size we're used to (just 2 small bedrooms and a living room and kitchen). It'd be hard to call it home if it was super huge or something-we're just not used to that or ready for it just yet, I think. It's been so cool to be here-Jori loves the ocean. I'm just terrified she's going to drown every time we go down to it, because she runs right for the water and then it comes in and if I didn't grab her she could be swept away so easily. This reminds me of the other one I wanted to say...
• Our neighbors are wonderful. They'll only be here till the end of the month, which makes me sad, but they're this family from Oregon who comes down to California to sell Christmas trees every winter. It's actually an older generation and their two kids, and then their kids' families. So there's one girl that's only 2 months older than me, and she has two kids, the oldest of which is a month younger than Jori. The other woman is older and has six kids, and she's wonderful too. They aren't LDS but I swear they could be-they dress very conservatively, home school their kids, highly prioritize the Bible...it's great! I'm happy to have neighbors with such strong morals that I can relate to, and that there's someone Jori's age. Even though Jori thinks she's older than she is, I swear. She'll steal the older kids' bikes, particularly this one trike, but then cry cause she can't reach the pedals. Silly girl. 
• Our first weekend here, we spent with my uncle Kelly and his wife Marlayna, and their two boys (Seth and Ammon). Seth did something way funny, to me: he told me "You better watch your step, because there's mistletoe hanging in some places!" I told him "Watch out, I might jump out and smooch ya!" Then I left the room. Sam said something like "Careful Seth, she really might kiss ya!" And he smiled and said "That's what I was hoping for." Then I found him "nonchalantly" hanging out under the mistletoe, so I kissed his cheek and he did the 'cha-ching' with the arms sign, you know the one? And let out a huge "YEEEESSSSS!" silly boy.

That's about it for a catch-up. I do hate driving on the freeways down here, just as I suspected, but I have hope I'll get used to it eventually. Oh! And one of my finals? The one for my Independent Study course, actually. I had to have it proctored, so it was shipped to the closest place they had listed in their system...but I had to pay fifty bucks to take the test at this testing center! Fifty!! I thought a five dollar late fee that BYU charges was bad...never again, geeze.