Adia's Baptism

It was beautiful. It went perfectly aside from a few small hiccups or minor annoyances. She had so many loved ones who made an effort to be there. I was thinking as I sat listening to a riveting talk on the Holy Ghost (If you were there you are laughing now:) that we are so lucky to have a truly amazing support system.  I mean, we have some phenomenal people in our lives, and we wouldn't be where we are right now without them. Many people had to sacrifice by driving hours to be there, coming out of their comfort zone, missing important things etc. and still they came to show Adia, how much they love and care about her. Again, it was beautiful.
Of course I forgot to take even one picture. What is happening to me? I did the same thing at Ethan's baptism. Someone else should be in charge of that. Usually I'm that person, so I guess no one ever thinks about it anymore.
So instead of showing you pictures of the day, I am going to overload you with pictures that we took of her in her dress for her invitation. Deal?

After being baptized all of Adia's sins were washed away. I often wish I could experience that feeling again, so I asked her if she felt different. She answered that yes, she did feel a little different. I was a little surprised at her answer, so I asked how so. She said, "Well, I got a little bit of water in my ear that won't come out, and that feels pretty different." Not quite what I was expecting, but...

ch ch ch ch changes...

This picture has nothing to do with anything, but I like to include a picture with my posts, and this is one I took on Christmas morning at my parent's house, and I love it. 

I have been blogging for several years now, and I love it. It's a great way to remember the things that happen to our little family since I'm crappy at journal writing, it's a good way to keep friends and family who live far away updated on our lives, and it had become a way to connect and become friends with people I've never even met. But lately I've had a hard time blogging. I am so busy, but it's busy with work things, and because of confidentiality I can't blog about that. :) And the other stuff that happens in our life don't feel like a big enough deal to blog about. So I just haven't written much for the last few months. I think I got stuck in the mindset that every post needs to be significant with a picture, and several paragraphs, and it needs to be meaningful. I've decided that this isn't necessarily true. For a while anyway, I am just going to post short little blurbs now and then, whenever something funny or exciting or whatever, happens. This means that my posts won't be as meaty as they used to be, and there might not be a picture on every post. I also won't likely be linking every post to Facebook, so if you generally don't check in until you see a link, you might want to change that. :) Anyway, that's what we're trying for now. If you have any other suggestions feel free to let me know. I was also thinking that it might be a good idea to make a list of things to blog about. I know that when I did my 30 list in June I had no problem posting every day. If I can come up with a bunch of questions, I probably wouldn't blog every single day, but if I had a lull I could pull out a question and blog about it. It would be a great plan. The only problem is I'm not super creative, so I'm going to need your help. Give me some suggestions. Ask a question about me. Ask a question about life. Ask a question about anything. Make a comment that I can chime in on. The sky's the limit, just give me some fun ideas.

Adia's day

Some info blurred for security reasons. If you plan to come email me and I'll get you the details.

In our church you have to be 8 to be baptized. I encourage my kids to do that, but ultimately it is their choice. Adia has been waiting for this day for her whole life. She made the choice a long time ago, and has been working to be ready. I'm really proud of the person she is. She has the kindest heart. She thinks of others feelings all the time. She makes friends easily, and could be friends with anyone she wanted, but she takes notice of those who have a harder time making friends and she welcomes them in and makes them feel important. She is also very trustworthy. Even though she is they younger sibling she takes responsibility for Ethan a lot, and I always know that I can count on her to take care of him. The is honest, and thoughtful, and tries to always do what's right. She has a strong relationship with her Heavenly Father, and amazes me with her faith. I have no doubt that she is ready for this step in her life, and that she will make us all proud of the person she becomes. Congratulations sweet girl!

But I have to share a kind of funny story about her. In order to be baptized you have to have an interview with the Bishop. As you get older, you have these fairly often, but Adia has never had one, so she was pretty nervous. I tried to reassure her that he was just going to visit with her and see if she was really ready - no pressure, but she thought of it as a test she had to take to determine whether she knew enough to be allowed to join the church. She's a perfectionist, and couldn't stand not passing the test, so she's been asking a lot of gospel related questions in preparation. She's really been studying for this thing, and kind of stressing a little more than necessary. 

So tonight we went to the interview. We went into the bishop's office and sat down and he said, "Well Adia, why are we here?" Without missing a beat she answered, "It's all part of Heavenly Father's plan..." She talked about the plan of salvation including a hilarious interpretation of the war in Heaven complete with voices for the main characters. She got the facts right, though I'm pretty sure Lucifer didn't say, "Dude, your plan is so lame." and I'm fairly positive Jesus didn't shout "SWEET!" when He was chosen. Though I could be wrong, I don't actually remember. :) (If you want to know more about this go HERE, or feel free to ask me.)

She finally finished, and the Bishop said, " Well, you are right about that, but I actually meant Why did you come to my office tonight?" I guess she had been cramming a little too hard. We all had a good giggle, and she calmed down a little after that. She passed, not that I had any doubts. And after we left the office she gave a big sigh and said, "Whew, I totally need some chocolate!"

The Birthday!

Today is the big birthday at our house. Ethan turned 11 and Adia turned 8. I can't even express how happy their birthday makes me. I know I didn't actually meet either one of them on the day  they were born, but still, this is the day it all started. Every year I get a little weepy with gratitude for the gift of motherhood. I am so grateful they were born, and grateful to a God who has a plan for families, and grateful for a kind birth family who was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice in order for me to be able to love on these kids every single day.
The day has been one big adventure after another. Because it is a school day I made them get ready for the day before they could go down stairs and get started on the celebration. They got ready in record time. I had decorated the living room with balloons, and made each of them a candy bouquet. They were allowed to open two presents each before school but then had to save the rest for the party that evening. Their birthday is the only day that they can choose whatever they want for breakfast and I have no veto power. They both chose birthday cake - nice. I usually go all out for birthday cakes. I make these big elaborate cakes, that take way longer to make than to eat. This year when I asked them what they wanted they both said they wanted a funfetti box cake with store bought frosting and sprinkles and those yucky sugar letters. At first I was a little hurt, I always make their cake from scratch. But then I got smart and realized, I can make one of those cakes in less than an hour! SCORE! So I did.  And they loved it.
They did have to go to school today, which got some complaining, but they got to take treats to their class, so it ended up being alright. I had court until late, but Grandma Helen picked them up from school, and that's way better than me picking them up, so that was kind of like a gift for them as well. When I got home we were surprised by Grandpa Lane coming to take us out to dinner! We went to a restaurant where Adia's choice for dinner was an 18oz t-bone steak. Sure that she wouldn't eat much of it Grandpa decided to just share with her. She surprised us all by eating almost the entire thing! (What can I say, the girl likes the beef) Poor Grandpa was wishing he had ordered his own steak!
We got home and finished opening presents, and went to bed. Pretty good day if you ask me.

Crafty

I used to be really crafty. I crafted all the time. One of the things I really loved was making wreaths for my door. However, the last few years have been a little crazy for me and I don't have a lot of time for crafting anymore. It makes me sad, but there just isn't much I can do about it. However, this Christmas I was out of school, and I had a few weeks where I hardly had to work at all, so I took a little time and made a winter wreath for my door. I saw a similar idea on pinterest, HERE and as I looked around my house I already had the supplies to make my own version of it. This is what I came up with. I love it. The little pop of red against the white is the perfect solution for the "no longer Christmas, but still not Valentines" time of year.

Adia is so lucky!

The other night Adia came up and asked, "Mom, can I give myself a complete makeover?" It's a Friday night, we aren't going anywhere, we have no where to be in the morning, so I with the stipulation that nothing gets permanently changed (hair cuts, clothing "refashioning" etc.) I give my permission.

A few minutes later she calls to me from the bathroom, "Mom can I use your makeup for my complete makeover?" 

She knows the makeup rules - this is not our first "complete makeover" so I give my permission. 

As I hear her in the bathroom opening my compact, experimenting with just the right combinations of shades, exclaiming that "that looks SO FABULOUS!" I think to myself how lucky Adia is that her mom is a Mary Kay consultant. I mean really, how many girls get this opportunity? Yup, she's one lucky girl to be able to experiment with makeup whenever she wants. When she gets older and can actually wear makeup in public she is already going to know what she's doing, and which colors look best on her. No unfortunate jungle green business for her like I had in jr. high. Luck her...

But all of my gloating and praising went right out the window once the "complete makeover" was revealed. Turns out instead of finding a new shade of lip gloss, this makeover consisted of finding a new identity. The identity of "Indiana Jane". (You know, Indiana Jones' sister.) And my makeup was not used to accentuate her cheek bones, instead it was used to create battle scars and trail wear. 

 Just in case you were wondering,
the bloody lips are MK's Downtown Brown
The black eye is Espresso, Raisin and Peacock and Midnight eye colors.
The abrasions are Sienna, Lavender fog, Truffle, and Chocolate Kiss eye colors
The stitches are Deep Brown eyeliner
And the dirt smudges are Chocolate Kiss and Espresso
This picture doesn't do it justice, most of it looked pretty convincing.

 Indiana Jane is ready to fight the bad guys and save the day. She's armed and ready for whatever comes at her.

 She has a had to keep her head cool and her hair out of her face while out on a big adventure, and a knapsack (which is "what Indiana Jane calls her purse") to carry anything she might need.

But it's not all adventure seeking and hard work. Even Indiana Jane has to stop for the occasional drink and chat on the cell phone.

In the end I have decided that Adia is pretty lucky. She's lucky that her mom wears a lot of browns and coppers. This look wouldn't have been quite the same if I was a greens and blues kinda gal. :)

New Year Thoughts

It seems like the last few years I have kind of gotten in a habit of waiting to be happy. I'm always saying "If I can just get through this semester things will get easier." "if I can just make it through this week, I can rest on the weekend." "If I can just write this paper, or pass this final, write this court report, or graduate or get a job or anything else then life will be better." But here's the thing about that: I've done all of those things (well, except for graduating, but that's so close I can taste it) and still life isn't perfect. Funny how that happens, isn't it? Once I make it through one thing there's always something else waiting that challenges me or stretches me, or takes me out of my comfort zone.
Back in August - you know, when we were living in a camper - I was getting kind of down on myself. I kept thinking, if we could just move into our new place, all of our problems would be solved. I was mad that we were in that situation, and feeling like pretty much the worst mom in the world. And when things get hard like that I find myself feeling really selfish, like if I weren't going to school I could have a good job that paid our bills and we could move somewhere permanent and not need to live in an apartment anymore, and my being in school is making my kid's life so hard... you know how it can get sometimes. I was reading a book, The Undaunted by Gerlald Lund (Read it if you haven't already, it's good;) I've read it a few times before, but suddenly a passage that I had never noticed before stood out to me. In the book a group of pioneers are building a road from Cedar City to Bluff, and it's a mess. They have to cut a road out of the rocks, drive wagons down cliffs, and worry about hostile Indians. The trip was hard and it took much longer and required more out of them than they ever expected. In this particular passage two sisters are talking. One of the sisters is saying that they were just living in limbo, not able to settle down, not able to make plans, not able to rest. She said that if they could ever just get to where they were going she could finally start her life. The other sister answered, "Maybe, just for a moment, this IS our life." That really jumped out at me, and I have thought a lot about it ever since. I am right smack in the middle of a really real life. These are days, especially with my kids, that I can never get back. They are growing and changing, and so am I, and life is happening to us whether I choose to recognize it or not. So you know I hate resolutions, but my theme for the year is this: LIVE LIFE NOW! I'm going to start living the life I'm in. I'm going to enjoy the craziness that is happening right now instead of wishing it all away. All too soon this part of our life is going to be over, and it's really likely that this is the time we will remember most, so why not remember with fondness instead of regret? I want my kids to look back and laugh at the time we were "homeless", at the time mom was so busy getting ready for finals that Adia made the dinner - yikes!, at the time the garbage disposal literally broke off of the sink and Ethan and mom ended up laying under the sink in a pile of green sludge fixing it at 2 in the morning, or the way we would all get so stressed about one thing or another until we were like a time bomb ready to blow and Adia would declare "There is entirely too little dancing going on around here!" so we would drop everything have have a dance party, or the way that we all cheer each other on at our successes, like a 4.0 semester, a published paper, a week without detention, learning to do a one handed cartwheel, having an undefeated soccer season or making it all day long without anyone losing their shoe. These are the good times if we let them be. These are the moments that matter, and this year we are going to focus on being happy and living those moments to the fullest.

So, how about you? What are your goals or resolutions?

The Butterfly Circus

I am really lucky in my life right now. I have the opportunity to work at a really amazing place with truly phenomenal people. My job is caring about people! Isn't that cool. We  help others, celebrate the strengths in the people we serve, and encourage our clients to find the beauty that is inside all of them.  I love the work we are doing. I love the person it is helping me become. Anyway, in this job I have the opportunity to attend a lot of conferences and  trainings, and a few weeks ago I was able to watch this movie as part of a training. Since then I haven't been able to get it out of my head. I think of it all the time in reference to myself, and to people around me who are facing some struggles right now. I think there are two things we can do when faced with a challenge. We can let it destroy us or we can let it shape us into something better. But either way we can't stay the same, we change one way or another. I love the message in this movie. It's about 20 minutes long, so it's an investment, but it is totally worth it. I'm not kidding, it is probably the best movie I've seen all year - and you know how many movies I watch. I hope you will take the time to watch it, you won't be sorry. And if you do, I would love to hear your reactions.

Gun control?

What were you doing on Friday, December 14th 2012? Were you taking a walk in the new fallen snow? Were you busily getting ready for Christmas festivities? Were you at school or at work dreaming of being somewhere else? Or were you, like me, glued to your television set with tears rolling down your cheeks as you watched the tragedy at the Sandy Hook school unfold? Although it is a horrible thing, I couldn't stop watching the updates. I wanted to know what was going on. I wanted to know what had caused this. I wanted to hear that it was all a big mistake and somehow they would discover that, in fact, no one had actually been harmed. I wanted to rush to the school and get my "babies" and bring them home where they would be safe. Instead I just sat there, in shock, unbelieving. I felt so horrible for the children and the teacher in the school, both those who didn't make it, and those who will be forever haunted by the things they survived. I felt so much sorrow for the families who had lost their loved ones in this meaningless act. I wondered about the shooter, and what his life must have been like, and I ached for the family that he left behind as well. My heart broke that day. It is still broken.
It has been interesting to me to see the way this has brought policy to the forefront. From what it sounds like in the early reports, the school had a plan in place for if something like this happened. They had done drills, and planned, and they had safety measures in place. And from what it sounds like, every one did what they were supposed to do in the situation. There are stories all over the Internet about heroes who saved the lives of the students. Everyone from teachers to students, to the janitor saved lives, some even giving their own to do it. They had a plan, and acted on it, and surely if they hadn't things would have been much worse, but the fact that it could happen at all means there were flaws in the plan. So now, there is a lot of talk about gun control. If you are on Facebook, no doubt you have been over run with comments, posts, or pictures either for or against gun control. It's all over the news. People are talking about it like crazy. I for one love guns. My family hunts, we own a lot of guns. We have used guns for generations. Some of my favorite memories involve hunting for deer, or shooting prairie dogs, or even just taking my kids out to shoot pop bottles with BB guns. I am responsible when I use those guns, I teach my children to be responsible, to respect the power they hold in their hands each time they pick up a gun. I don't want anyone to take away the right I have to use guns. I cherish that right. At the same time, I do think things could change about the way we buy or sell guns, and ammo. I also think that the kinds of guns we can buy could change.  I think that there needs to be some better rules in place, and more enforcement of those rules. But do I think for a minute that those rules are going to cut down on horrific tragedies like the one in Connecticut? Absolutely not! I don't think that someone who wants to kill people is going to read that doing so is against the law and change their mind about doing it. The fact is, people who do things like this know they aren't "choosing the right", and if we think that making more laws or stricter laws is going to make them not do this we are seriously mistaken. And as my best friend has quoted to me many times over the last several months as we have discussed tragedies like this, " The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." (Wayne LaPierre... and Levi)
I guess what I'm trying to say is that we are going about this all wrong. I don't think that gun control is going to change things. I think the thing that needs to change is the way we look at and deal with mental illness. And I think if we change those things it really can stop tragedies like this from happening. There are rumors floating around all over the place about the about Adam Lanza's mental illnesses. As of the time I am writing this, none of those things have been confirmed, so I don't know what, if any diagnosis he might have. However, a person who would commit an act like this one is no doubt, not thinking realistically of consequences.
One thing that needs to change is our view of mental illness. One thing that bugs me is when people claim to have a mental illness and they don't. For instance, I am always hearing things like "I'm so depressed" or " You're so retarded" or "My OCD is acting up again". I can't stand that. Sometimes people get sad. That is totally different from being depressed. And saying dumb things doesn't make you retarded, nor does enjoying things to be clean make you OCD any more than liking pasta makes you Italian. When we use expressions like this we cheapen what mental illness is. We are telling people who have it that it isn't important and what they are experiencing is no different than any other person. Mental illness is real. Mental illness is not something that you can turn on and off, or something that having a good day will fix. It is something that takes time and effort to control. By using expressions like this we are making it more difficult for people who really do suffer from these things to be taken seriously, or to even seek treatment in the first place.
Another problem with mental health in our country is the way we take care of Our mentally ill. We don't. There are so many laws in place to "protect the rights" of the mentally ill, that they have taken away all hope of actually helping them. With treatment centers and hospitals being all but nonexistent and laws to access treatment so impossible to navigate, the only help for most mentally ill is jail. Even lawyers, doctors and social workers will tell you that the best way to get treatment for your mentally ill loved one is to get them to commit a crime. If they are in the system they are guaranteed treatment, and forced to comply, if they aren't, they will rarely get the help they need, and if they do, they will rarely stay with the program. Most mentally ill people don't realize that they are mentally ill all the time, so getting them to stay on a treatment plan is difficult without help. But that help isn't available to people unless they are in the court system. And let's face it, someone who is depressed, or bipolar, or schizophrenic or autistic, or any other variety of mental illness DOES NOT BELONG IN JAIL! That is not the place that will help them. That is not the kind of discipline that will work with them. There are no conditions in a jail that will benefit a mentally ill person... But, that is the only option. That leaves people who don't make it into the court system running around with no treatment and then we wonder why things like mass shootings happen. Let me say right here, possibly the most important part of this entire post, not all people with a mental illness will turn into murderers. In fact only a slight percentage will ever even be violent. We should NOT fear the mentally ill. But some mental illness, if left untreated, or if self medicated, or if ignored and suppressed for too long, can result in tragedies like the one we just experienced.
And one more problem we face when it comes to mental illness is health care. Treating a mental illness is expensive! In our country today many people can't afford health insurance at all, and many of those don't cover mental health. There have been laws passed in recent years to try to correct that, but as of yet, it hasn't helped at all. The large majority of people in our country must pay for any mental health care out of pocket, and who can afford that? Certainly not the vast majority of those who need it. Unless we address this problem, as well at the others surrounding mental health we will continue to have heart breaking, gut wrenching, life changing moments like the one we experienced last Friday.

If this topic is something you would like to know more about I really liked THIS article. It puts things into perspective a little bit from someone who lives it. And an excellent book that will change t he way you look at the mental health system in America is CRAZY by Pete Early. I recommend them both.

Christmas Cards

Well, it's time once again for Christmas Cards! 

(I have to tell you, I love this season mostly because of the Christmas Cards) 

I know I'm a little behind, but I am trying to get my cards out soon. The problem is, that in the "Big Move" this summer, I somehow lost my address book.

 So... if you want a card, I need your address. 

Don't be shy, I really want to send one to YOU, I just can't. 

So PLEASE, leave your address in the comments section, or email me at eberling2@msn.com Thanks!