our weekend bourne-a-thon...

Last weekend, we were home bound due to Ruby's indisposition, therefore decided now was as good a time as any to begin our adventures with Jason Bourne. We had been dying to see the Bourne Ultimatum, the newest and latest, but had never even made it to the second one, and it's been years since we'd seen the first. Within the first few minutes of starting The Identity, John realized that nothing was even remotely familiar about it...come to think of it, that's right, we hadn't even met (or had just barley met) when that movie came out. I remember seeing it with Rania (remember Ra, I fell asleep in the last three minutes?)- had John really never seen any of these movies? We watched both the 1st and 2nd on Saturday night - back to back...and indulged our movie treat cravings with individual bags of greasy, buttery pop corn. It reminded me of the days (the pre-Ruby days), when it wasn't uncommon for us to actually go to the movies, and see two, (one time even three) movies back to back...
We finally saw the 3rd - The Ultimatum, on Tuesday night with our friends Mike and Steph. I had a surge of adrenaline pumping through my system the whole night...and maybe even an urge to go out and thrust a blow into something.
Love those movies. Love that Jason Bourne.

the "mom of the year" award goes to...

The other day I opened some mail from Scholastic, and found this lovely certificate, awarded to John, in honor and recognition of the wonderful mother that he is to Ruby! We got a good laugh over that one. I mean, c'mon scholastic, how many mothers do you know with a name like John?
Even though this was an obvious mistake on their part, and provided us with some great laughs, in all reality and seriousness, it rings true in a lot of ways. John is just an amazing individual. He is loving, and nurturing, gentle, and kind. He cooks, and cleans, and shops, and does laundry...all of those "mom" chores, (I guess you could call them).
This past week, Ruby came down with a scary case of the croup, in which her breathing became almost completely obstructed. After a thorough check-up, the doctor sent me to pick up a few prescriptions, and also ordered a nebulizer to be delivered to our house. John has seriously been so cute and affectionate while caretaking and nurturing our sick little one...every morning volunteering to be the one to hold her while she gets her breathing treatment.
Last night he made dinner for us, and afterwards, was the first to jump up and start cleaning, sending me away to go play with Ruby. I'm sure there was nothing more he wanted, then to be able to play with his daughter, but he selflessly allowed me the opportunity...while he cleaned and took care of the dishes.
These things really are everyday occurrences. (I just don't document them often enough...but really should). John truly is an affectionate, comforting, devoted, gentle, loving, nurturing, protective, selfless, sympathetic, tender, and warm individual (don't those sound like motherly qualities?)...thus making him a very deserving recipient of this award...albeit a great mother award!

happy, happy day...

This afternoon, I received a phone call from Carol, one of my dearest friends from Nordstrom. She announced that she and her husband, John, are now proud parents of a brand new baby boy! This announcement, however, was different than most, because Carol was not even pregnant! In fact, after years of hoping and trying for children, she was finally told by the medical professionals, that this dream, would never become a reality. My heart has ached over the years for my friend. How could this be right? But It's so not fair. I can't think of anyone who wants to be a mother more than Carol does. I can't think of anyone who would be a better mother to her children. There are thousands of women having children, who don't even want them...and then there's Carol, whose desire above all is to be a mother, and she has just been told that she will never be? It just didn't seem right.
So, I'm sure you can imagine my elation, my exultant gladness, upon hearing that she had finally become a mother. The story is beautiful, I've been crying (tears of joy) all day. The story goes something like this - The time is around 1:00. Carol is at work. She receives a phone call. A social worker from LDS services - "Carol, we have a situation. We have a new baby that needs to be adopted by 6:00 tonight! Are you and your husband interested?" Could you even imagine having a question like that presented to you, and then having to supply your answer within just minutes? Well, needless to say, they said "yes", Carol left work, declaring a family emergency, and just hours later, was holding her son in her arms. Poor John, was out of the country on business, and won't be able to see him until tonight. I'll bet he's a ball of nerves on that flight home! So anyway, my dear friends have joined the ranks of parenthood. They have been blessed by the Lord in great measure...and I myself, can't think of many, more deserving of such a blessing. It truly is a happy, happy day!


Little baby Mark
Born Monday, August 20, @ 7:55 pm
6 lbs. 15 oz.
19 inches tall


I think baby Mark is going to be a big U2 fan...if his mom has anything to say about it!

oh so sweet...

My sister Kim sent me these pictures in the mail...taken when they were in town. I just thought they were too cute not to post. Ruby with her little cousin, Lincoln. Judging by the photos, I'd say she's ready for a sibling...wouldn't you? Now please, don't get the wrong idea here, I am not imparting any kind of announcement, just making a simple observation is all...

i fell in love...

John and I were at Barnes & Noble Friday night, and I found this children's book by Nancy Tillman entitled The Night You Were Born. I can't even express the feelings of tenderness that came over me as I opened the cover...and began to skim the pages. Upon reading the first page, my eyes filled with tears, and my heart swelled with love and endearment for my precious little Ruby girl.



On the night you were born,
the moon smiled with such wonder
that the stars peeked in to see you
and the night wind whispered,
"Life will never be the same."

Because there had never been anyone like you...
ever in the world.

So enchanted with you were the wind and the rain
that they whispered the sound of your wonderful name.

It sailed through the farmland
high on the breeze...

Over the ocean...

And through the trees...

Until everyone heard it
and everyone knew
of the one and only ever you.

Not once had there been such eyes,
such a nose,
such silly, wiggly, wonderful toes.

When the polar bears heard,
they danced until dawn.

From faraway places,
the geese flew home.

The moon stayed up until
morning next day.

And none of the ladybugs flew away.

So whenever you doubt just how special you are
and you wonder who loves you, how much and how far,
listen for the geese honking high in the sky.
(They're singing a song to remember you by.)

Or notice the bears asleep at the zoo.
(It's because they've been dancing all night for you!)

Or drift off to sleep to the sound of the wind.
(Listen closely...it's whispering your name again!)

If the moon stays up until morning one day,
or a ladybug lands and decides to stay,
or a little bird sits at your window awhile,
it's because they're all hoping to see you smile...

For never before in story or rhyme
(not even once upon a time)
has the world ever known a you, my friend,
and it never will, not ever again...

Heaven blew every trumpet
and played every horn
on the wonderful, marvelous
night you were born.

I am grateful for what this book did for me that night. Not only did I feel a renewed sense of love for my little one, but I found myself loving everyone. People I knew. People I didn't. Those whom I felt a deep rooted love for. Those I had difficulty loving. I thought about the worth of every soul...and of our divine heritage as children of a king. My meager words cannot express the feelings of love that I felt in that moment, as I stood in Barnes & Noble, gripping the pages of this most magical book...

chuggin' the brewski...

No. We do not drink beer. But even if we did, we would not be offering it to our baby girl - that's for sure. It's a vanilla cream soda, and it's delicious, and as you can see, Ruby is also quite fond of it...

bittersweet...

My sister and her husband each were given a few days off from their jobs. It's a very rare thing that their schedules ever coordinate like that; and that they would both get that many consecutive days off. So anyway, they wanted to do something fun together in their free time; and to our delight, they decided to come pay us a visit. The timing of it couldn't have been more perfect for me, as I was still trying to recover from the departure of my dad, Lynell, and my two youngest sisters - the week before. The problem is that Kim and Christian have since come and gone; and I find myself, once again, feeling empty and lonely. I can't sulk in my sorrows too much, especially since my sweet mother-in-law is in town. Really it's quite impossible to feel too badly when in her presence. I imagine though, that once she leaves...I'll go into a deep dark depression...unless, does anyone else want to come and stay with us? Please.
So yeah, we had a wonderful time with Kim, Christian, and their sweet little Lincoln. Because Kim works for Nordstrom, she wanted to see what the Last Chance hype was all about. Last Chance is the place that all the Nordstrom stores, company wide, send their damaged merchandise, customer returns, etc. It's just a huge, glorified Deseret Industries. It's pretty hit and miss though, and you usually have to do a lot of digging and sorting to find anything truly worthwhile. Fortunately, for us, it was a "hit" day as we all walked out of there with some treasures...

Tuesday we did something kind of fun. John and I live about 10 minutes from the Salt River, and we've noticed, from time to time, billboards that advertise "floating the Salt River". We've always been curious, and have talked about doing it for some time now. Kim and Christian thought it sounded like fun, so we decided to check it out. We got a babysitter for the little ones, and headed to the river. We stopped at the depot where they distribute the tubes for rent, and then got on a bus that took us to the particular point on the river that we were to embark our journey. The river float lasted about 2 1/2 hours; and apart from a couple of patches of small white capped rapids, it was comparable to a lazy river float at a water park. (Which is always my most favorite part about a water park. If it doesn't have a lazy river, I'm not interested!) It was relaxing, and fun to hold on to each other's tubes, sip our favorite sodies, take pictures, engage in conservation, observe strange behavior demonstrated by other river floaters, bask in the sun (but hope to not fry), enjoy the surroundings, feel the sea weed brush our legs (and get caught in our fingers), occasionally feel the pain of our rear ends connecting with the rocks (yes, at times it was that shallow), and laugh, and laugh, and laugh...
Probably the most thrilling part of the whole experience was the bus ride. I am not kidding when I say that I saw my life flash before my eyes on that ride. The driver was a crazy thrill seeker, probably expecting a great tip (which we chose not to provide her with), by going over bumps, curves, and hills at ridiculously high speeds, which literally caused the entire bus to catch air a couple of times. A few of the passengers were hooting and hollering. I was not one of those. My sister and I were gripping the seats til our knuckles turned white...










That night we went to the Dimandbacks game. We picked up some tickets from a scalper, and got really great seats for only 5 bucks a person!







Ruby was so cute with her little cousin. She was always very gentle towards him, with her hugs, kisses, and loves. It was the cutest thing to witness...



Apart from making me feel a little homesick, I had a wonderful time with them, and am so happy they chose to spend their time off - here...with us.

I guess we wouldn't really be able to truly love and appreciate all of life's sweet and wonderful moments, without feeling some of that sorrow and disappointment from time to time. We have to take the bitter with the sweet. The reunion...the sweet hello. Followed by the parting...the bitter goodbye.

love these girls...

We took the Young Women to a Diamondbacks game for mutual on Wednesday night. It was the very first time for some of them. I just can't get over how special and how beautiful these girls are...
The more I get to know them, the more I love them...

my snuggle buddy...

I took Ruby to get her 1 year shots over a week ago, and she has just not been the same ever since. The nurse warned me that her little arms would be tender for a day or two, and that she would probably have a slight fever...but this? I never thought it would last this long. She's thrown up, she's had diarrhea, she's had a slight fever on and off, and just plain hasn't been herself. She even has these rock hard knots on one of her arms that are super tender and painful. Who knows, maybe it's just a crazy coincidence, maybe she picked up a little bug that's going around, and I'm just blaming it on her immunizations? (Oh, except for the huge knots...those, I can most definitely attribute to the shots!) I don't know, but if this continues, I'm going to have to take her back in for sure. Last night her fever escalated so I brought her to bed with us. Poor girl, we could just tell that she felt miserable. On the plus side though, she was in a very cuddly mood, so I got to snuggle with her all night long...and into the morning. We didn't even get up until after 10:00! I took a few pictures of her laying on the pillow next to me...isn't she just so precious?

my house...

also known as the fiery inferno, has been pretty much unfit for habitation these past three days. You remember how I talked about the ac repairman coming to the rescue the other night, and pretty much becoming my new favorite person?...yeah well, I just took him down from my wall of heroes. Just kidding. I have nothing against this guy...just think he should look for a new day job. No, not really, he has been so good to come out every night, but it just baffles my mind that we can't get to the bottom of this problem with our air. Every night he comes out and "fixes it", and every morning, when we wake up (swimming in sweat), our house is back up to at least 85 degrees! Such a vicious cycle! We've been finding ways to deal with it though. I took my friend Melanie's advice, to just get out of the house. Yesterday we went and hung out at different friends' houses, went to McDonald's for a two hour lunch, and then went to Lori's house until it was time to head over to mutual at 7:00. The hard part about being on the go all day, was that Ruby did not get her naps, and was pretty grumpy because of it. She spent most the morning today, catching up, and slept for hours. I don't know how she did it in this heat. She must have been exhausted because it was like 92 degrees at that point! When she woke up, we went out to the Chandler mall for almost 4 hours! Kaitlyn, a darling YW from the ward has been asking me for a while now if I would take her school shopping, and give her some ideas of how to coordinate her outfits. She told me that she wants to dress exactly how I do...which I found very flattering. So yeah, we went and had a blast shopping our little hearts out. I love any opportunity I get to be able to bond with the young women. I remember how close I became with some of my leaders, and how to this day, we still remain good friends. I was dreading having to come home, and the minute we walked in the door, Ruby and I changed into wet t-shirts. We also keep a squirt bottle within reach...which helps, especially with the fans blowing on us. Yeah, it's hot air blowing on us...but at least it's air. And when your wearing wet clothing, I guess even the hot air can cool you off a bit. The guy just got here (for the third time), and although I know this is no fault of his, I have to admit, I'm not quite as excited to see him tonight as I was two nights ago! It's one of those times when you find yourself saying I'll believe it when I see it, or in our case I'm thinking hey man, my faith in you will be restored when I wake up tomorrow...cool, dry, comfortable, and finally able to breathe! I'm keeping my fingers crossed.