Valentines Day

Well I hope everyone had an excellent Valentines Day...We had a great day. It first just started with us going out and about together to get clothes for our family pictures...then we made some lunch and started to get ready for our evening. I had planned to make Derek a dinner of whatever type of food he wanted...he chose latin or mexican. So he took Linnea for me and I went shopping. I bought all the groceries then when I went to check out after she had scanned all my groceries I look in my purse and guess what...I forgot my wallet...so they had to suspend my groceries while I waited for Derek to bring our debit card...I kept thinking well what a great start, but we had a good laugh. Anyways, so I finally got home and made him a big dinner...I made grilled steak quesedillas for an appitizer and Spicy Acupulco Chicken Salads for dinner and attempted to have fried Ice cream for dessert, but I read the recipe wrong and they took alot longer than I had thought they did so we didn't have that. Derek told me to rent whatever chick flick I wanted to (how often does that happen) so I rented that new movie Fireproof- I highly recommend it to everyone especially the marrieds...it has a great moral and thought to think about how to improve you marriages. Derek got me another willow figurine...this one is called grateful, he said it's cause he's most grateful for me :) I've been collecting them, the first one he gave me was for our wedding, and he's given them to me for all important events in our marriage. I absolutely love them ALL. He is the greatest. We had an excellent Valentines I hope everyone had the same!

Reflection...

The past few weeks I've been thinking about some things. The past two months since Linnea has been born have been FULL of so many blessings, that I do notice. I feel that I am given everything that I ask for...but it hit me the other day that I am getting blessed, but what are you doing to keep the blessings? I always have the thought in my head like...Ok today I'm going to read my scriptures...but never do...or today is the day Derek and I are going to start our family scripture study again (which has been slacking since Linnea came), but we only just talk about it...or I am going to do a service project for someone every month...but again it's only thought about...the list I found sadly goes on and on. I feel that the Lord knows that I want to do all these things, but for some reason all they ever do is just get talked about. It made me sad that I have been excepting sooooo many wonderful things from the Lord, and I feel like he's just waiting for me to pay it forward by serving him throughout the week other than just Sundays. I think if we all reflect on ourselves, at least I have found its amazing even if I was doing all those things religiously the Lord would still be handing out the blessings ten times more...I feel so grateful right now for all that he has given to me and my family...so last night Derek and I seriously said we were going to start doing the things that we used to do. Since our schedule has changed alot and most of the time we'd like to take our free time to relax or do our homework or something else we feel we also need to take those opportunities to do things that spiritually we know we should. So I have my own goals, but as a family we are going to say morning and night prayers...even if I've just put the baby back down I told Derek to wake me up to pray...which he did and we will begin our scripture reading again. I think the Lord was teaching me a lesson lately. That I need to sacrifice something I enjoy doing...like something dumb like watching a show I really enjoy, and need to show him that He is the important priority in my family. I don't know if this makes sense, but I've just had it on my mind. I hope if you reflect on your own lives you're doing better than I am...but we'll get back on track!!!!! :)

Life....

Well things are wonderful for us right now. Linnea is a wonderful baby, she loves to smile, go on her walks and hang out with mom and dad. She has slept through the night two times already and usually sleeps for about at least five hours a night, it's very nice. Derek is back into school and he says it's getting pretty tough, he is trying really hard at balancing working 50 hours a week being a full time student and being a hubby and new daddy, he is doing a GREAT job and I appreciate him so much he is so willing to help me. I am in my anatomy and physiology class online and sometimes I struggle and finding time to work on it and take my quizes but I am trying. I am already nervous for the final, because it's 50% of my grade, so hopefully I do well because I need to get a B in order to apply for the program.

Well this past week Derek and I headed up north to celebrate our anniversary. We made it to my parents house Thursday night, Linnea did very well in the car I thought and then she slept all night so I was very happy. Friday came and Derek and I headed down to Salt Lake for our over nighter...and my parents watched Linnea. It was sooooo hard to leave her. I've only left her at the most for two hours, so I got a little emotional, but I was ready to have a night with Derek. So we made it to our hotel and just wanted to relax, so the nice husband I have bought Twilight on the T.V. so we could watch it again...he let me watch what I wanted over his movie he wanted cause he is a sweetie pie...then we decided to go to dinner...we asked for recomendations from the front desk, at first we went to the NEW Yorker, but it had a long wait so we went to a place called Christophers. So we should have looked at a menu first because it was very pricey for our budget, but we decided we could splurge for our anniversary. So I ordered my usual chicken alfredo and Derek got a steak. When we got our expensive food I took one bite and thought I bit into a glove of garlic smothered in vinegar!!!! And Derek pretty much was eating charred meat. His french fries were good though so Derek told me to eat up because those french fries were like 10 bucks each :) We are both pretty passive so we said we should've asked for something else, but all we told the server was we didn't like the food....dang we need to stand up more. So after that we went Ice Skating which was really fun...Derek showed me his skating moves :). So the next morning we planned to go to the temple and do an endownment session, but another funny story happened for us...so I hope this isn't too personal for everyone, but I nurse Linnea and obviously I didn't have my baby there to eat so I get filled up alot in the upper body, and I didn't bring enough bottles to pump into so we made it to chapel of the temple before I realize there was niagra falls leaking onto my temple dress so we had to go. We had a lot to laugh about at our first anniversary attempt. The whole reason we wanted to come up for was to go to the temple so we are trying to plan another time to come up so we can do a session...it was an interesting night, but at least we can laugh at ourselves and our unprepardness :) My parents loved having Linnea for the night, thankfully she slept well for them so that was great. On our way home we got to go visit Derek's sister Crystal and her new baby Asher...he is ADORABLE so the cousins got to meet eachother. They are only six weeks apart so hopefully they'll grow up as good buddies. Well that was our weekend and life at the moment. I hope everyone is doing fabuolous....

GRANDMA's

Linnea loves to spend time with her two grandmas...and her Great-Grandma Spjut.


So dramatic :)

She is starting to smile and loves to stare right at Grandma :)

The two red-headed ladies :) So cute

Our Amazing Plan...

So I wanted to share Dereks and mine amazing idea for naming our kids. I don't know if any of you know the story behind why we named Linnea...Linnea-well she's named after my great-grandma who has this awesome story. She was from Sweden, but came over to the US all by herself when she was only 17 because of the persecution they were getting for being members of the church...her family and her saved all there money and only paid tithing so they could get their family over to Utah little by little (they had 13 kids) anyways so thats why we really felt that the name Linnea would be really special. So she was from Sweden as I mentioned, so Derek and I were saying that how cool would it be to name each kid a family name from each country in our background. So we have Sweden covered we still need Scotland, England, Denmark and Ireland. So we would name them family names, so it would cause us to do family history right...now this is the really fun part...after Derek and I make our millions someday we will take each individual kid to that country that there name came from and do this trip and show them stories of that family member...you know how fun would that be!!!! We were laughing and having fun with the idea...I'm sure we are already millionaires...Derek got three emails that said he won the Canadian lottery...all he has to do it give them his credit card and social security number and we're set for life hahaha...anyways that is our brilliant idea, even if we never can make the trips the family history part will be fun to do!

Just stuff...

Well things are great down in St. George...it's been up to like 55 degrees the last few days...it's been great weather. Linnea has been sleeping for big chunks through the night, last night she almost made it to five hours straight I just love it. She does like to stay awake in the day though and not let me do my jobs, so I'm afraid to say my housework is struggling, but she's so much more fun than cleaning the bathroom:). I've decided to eat whatever I want because it didn't seem to help me not eating anything, so that has made me a much more pleasant person to be around :) Derek and I have both started school...he really feels like this semester will be pretty difficult and he has to make some sacrifices from family time because he goes to school two nights a week, then he is studying the other two nights away from home with a classmate, and he is still debating if it is worth it to continue being a plasma donor cause that would take away another night, he says he struggles being away so often because he feels like he misses out...and trust me his girls miss him. I'm only taking one online class...this is the last class I need before applying for the program. It's going to be tough. It's anatomy and physiology combined and I have a harder time when it's online than when a teacher is right in front of me, but we'll make it I need a B to apply so I'm trying. Nothing else is really going on...I've started to really look for apartments up north so we can find a good place to move to in a few months. Linnea and I had to go out to WIC (we are on the program...a great blessing) and I hate to take her in there because there are usually a bunch of kids, and RSV is still out there, but they told me to come early in the morning so I could hopefully avoid a crowd, there were still a bunch of people...I'm proud to say that Linnea was the only baby who didn't cry the whole time...also she has grown two inches since birth and she is one ounce away from 9 lbs...so she is growing which is what we want :) she has an above average head size...so pretty much my daughter has a large brain hahaha. Anyways things are just wonderful, busy, but really good right now. I hope everyone is having a great January also!!!

NEW YEAR

I hope everyone had a good new years...Derek and I obviously had to stay at home and we just watched a movie :) Linnea is doing wonderful...she has been having some little problems it seemed like with gas or reflux, so we called her doctor and kind of explained what she acted like and he thinks it's probably something I'm eating and it causes cramps. I didn't know that if you nurse you still have restrictions on what you eat while the baby is still a newborn, cause the lady in the hospital told me I could eat anything I want, but they mailed me this list of foods that I shouldn't be eating and there are a ton of things... right now I'm trying to take out dairy products because thats what I eat the most and we'll see how if it helps her, but like I can't eat anything with tomato sauce or spices so I'm glad I have spaghetti and lasagna in the freezer, no pepper, no CHOCOLATE!!!! no caffeine, brocolli, peanut butter, beans...blah blah...so it's a long list. I hope it helps her if I change what I eat, but since pretty much all the food I cook is on the list it's been tough figuring out dinners haha.

Derek and I played photographer last night so we could order Linnea's baby announcements...these are some of the pictures...I thought they turned out pretty good and it was much cheaper of course :) Well I hope everyone is having a good time in 2009 and if you made any resolutions lets all stick with them hahaha it'll be a first for me :)