ZEST

This is my sister Amanda.

This picture, I feel, typifies her.

She is in Vietnam right now doing a "school / work" thing.

(You will have to go to her blog and check out all her adventures amandamariesmith1.blogspot.com)

I have always admired Amandas zest for life.

This is how she does everything in life

All out

She absolutley excels at everything she does, and its probably because she leaps at life like she is leaping into the water.

I miss her.

I am so proud of her!

Love you

Tender Mercies.

(If you didnt read the last post ... scroll down and read it.... this wont make any sense otherwise)

After I wrote that post yesterday, I went to bed feeling very sorry for myself. I layed down and tried to fall asleep, and then Tala woke up ... so I got her out of bed and took her to the rocking chair to feed her before putting her back down.

As I sat there I saw my i-pod sitting on the dresser next to me, so I reached out and grabbed it. Can I first just mention that I LOVE technology. I mean, on my ipod I have all the scriptures, the hymns, the lesson manuals, the general conferance talks, everything! Its the Gospel Library app, its free and it rocks. Its awesome. ANYWAY, i went to the general conferance talks and "just so happened" to first click on the talk by Julie Beck (love her)

It was like her talk was meant for me specifically.

It may as well have been titled, " Dear Kristine ... listen up"

If you dont remember that talk ... PLEASE go and read it!!!

I am planning on reading it and studying it a few more times over the rest of the week, but so far what I have gotten out of it is this ...

** There arent enough hours in the day for me to do everything I want to do for as long as I want to do it for ... so GET OVER IT.... make it work. Take care of the most important things first and worry about everything else later.

** I NEED revelation. period. These are daughters of God that I am raising. With His help I cant go wrong.

** Even when i try my best and do everything that I can. I am still going to have dissapointments it life , but I dont have to be dissapointed in myself.


** so much more, I am excited to really study this talk out and find more!


Awesome talk ... EXACTLY what I needed to hear, right when I needed to hear it.

No matter how far away I am from home, I am always able to get help from Heaven and I love that.

Good night world, tonight I am going to bed feeling alot better.

ps- Kailey went to bed with out screaming tonight, it was nice to have her back to her old self again. Hopefully she is back to stay.

Balance

I have been the mommy of two girls for over a month now, and Im still struggling to find some balance.
Sure I could blame it on the fact that we moved across the continent 2 weeks ago, or the fact that Kailey was sick all of last week ... but really I just need to admit to myself that I am going to be busier than I am used to.
I was holding on to this illusion that I could keep my same routine and schedule and everything would just fall easily and happily into place. I would still get my nap time in, Kailey and I could still do all the things together that we used to, the house would still be (somewhat) clean. I would feel rested and happy at the end of the day. etc etc etc .. you know .... dreams.....

WHy is it that all of a sudden my 2 year old is screaming NO at me all the time? Why wont she go to bed anymore with out me singing to her and rubbing her back until she falls asleep? Why do they both start crying at the same time? Why does the baby refuse to be put down when I need to get things done?

I would LOVE to have some balance in my life right now. I want to have some alone time with Tala to bond with her and talk to her, I want some alone time with Kailey to do those fun things with her like we used to, I want to get stuff done around the house, I want to have alone time with Davis when I dont feel so tired that all i really want to do is sleep. I want to have time to myself so I can relax. I want to read some scriptures again and get myself back on track spiritually.

I just want to feel balanced and not feel guilty about leaving things (or people) alone so that I can focus on other things (and people)

To moms of more than one kid .... .... how?

Tala's Story

I will post lots of pictures soon, but I just wanted to come on here and write down all the details of Talas birth before I forget!!!!!

All morning saturday I had been feeling pretty good, I had had a couple of painfull contractions but nothing too serious at all. In the afternoon I went for a nice brisk walk followed by a nap, and when i woke up around supper time I could feel some ..... shall we say .... wetness ???? I wasnt sure if it was my water that broke or not, so I kept on going about my evening, I made supper, tidyed up the place a little bit and started feeling very very uncomfortable ... this was all around 5ish.
By 5:30 I was starting to have alot of pain so Davis' sister took Kailey to my Moms house and we headed over to the IWK asap!! We werent in the car more than 10 minutes and I was in full out labour ... like painful contractions every couple of minutes. It didnt help at all that we were in the truck and every bump on the road was like a punch to the stomach. By the time we got to the assesment unit at the IWK I was in so much pain they didnt even bother to check me they got me down to labour and delivery right away and I got me some laughing gas!!! It took the edge off enough to get the IV in and to hold me over to the epidural .... ahhhh sweet relief. Once the epidural was in they checked me and I was 8 cms!!!!! By this time it was probably around 9 oclock maybe?? i dont really remember.
SO with the epidural helping me to relax, I chilled out and watched some of the Princess Bride movie .... they had just made it to the other side of the fire swamp, when they checked me again and said, OK time to start pushing!!! what the heck????
We started pushing at 10:30 and Tala popped right out 15 minutes later!! I was in shock honestly, I could not believe that it went that fast!!!!!

She is 8 pounds and 1 ounce. 21 inches long!!! lots of dark hair and chubby little cheeks!!

We named her Fai'tala Lei, after Davis' grandmother Fai'tala and his aunt Lei. We will call her Tala for short. The jury is still out on the actual meaning of the name, we were told 2 differant things by 2 differant people, but either way i really love the name and we REALLY love this little girl!

After Kaileys 20 hour labour with 2 hours of pushing, this one was a shocker to me! I could not believe that it all happened in less than 6 hours!!!

They were very good to us at the IWK and everyone is healthy and happy!!! But we got out of there as soon as they would let us go. We were discharged monday morning and we are so glad to be home now!

Like I said, I will put up pictures later on, I just had a quick second here and wanted to write down what I can remember of the weekend before i start to forget things!! It may make no sense at all to anyone, but I am too hungry to go back and edit everything and make it sound good .... sorry for the inevidable typos.....

Hippie alert!

I have been reading this book alot latley.

Slow Death by Rubber Duck

Isnt that a friendly title?

This book, and others like it, are going to turn me into some kind of a hippie or hermit or something. It is really scary to think of all the chemicals and known toxins that are pumped into EVERYTHING we use all day long and we have no idea!!

Did you know that companies can put chemicals into whatever they want without having first tested them to make sure they are safe??? Even as this book has pointed out in numerous studies that companies know some chemicals they are using are toxic to human health yet they continue to use them until law suits come up and they are forced to stop..... what the?

It has been a facinating read so far and I am learning alot about the products that we use everyday.

I really really really recommend this book to everyone!

especially if you have kids!

may so far

So yes, I am still pregnant. That is always the question that makes me confused. I think I got asked the question about 15 times on sunday.... "are you still pregnant"? ....

um, yes, clearly I am still pregnant.

Can you tell Im a little cranky? Over a month going on 4 hours or less of sleep a night will do that to a mama.

But on a brighter note!! Davis got to home yesterday!!! He is going to work and sell here until after the baby is born and I am soooo excited to have him around! So if anyone wants a sweet freakin security system he will totally hook you up! Let us know!

In Other news, on May 1st my big brother Aaron got married!!!!

It was a great day and we had so much fun!

Kailey loved getting all dressed up and showing everyone her "pitty dess". She was also pumped about being allowed to go around the temple! We live just down the street from the temple and everytime we see it she gets excited and points it out to us.

" Look Mommy, temple!!!!"

"Jesus house"

Its really cute.

Back to the wedding.

They did a ring ceremony after the temple because Shawna's family werent able to go into the temple. That RS room has never looked so pretty! Below is a picture of their first kiss as a married couple!!!!

They kept everything very intimate and private for the most part. Only immediate family at the ring ceremony and they didnt have a HUGE number of people at the reception either. They had their reception on the Harbour Queen for a 2 hour cruise. It was alot of fun and everything turned out wonderful!

Shawna is a great person and we are all very excited to have her in the family!

random thoughts of the week

So Davis left this week for Ottawa. (he does the whole door to door selling thing during the summer) he is there now, all lonley and stuff :( and Kailey and I are here all lonley and stuff. I am one week away from my due date and far too fat to be alowed on a plane, so here I stay until this kid decides to make an appearence. THEN I can go out to Ottawa for the rest of the summer and be with him.
It is quite upsetting not knowing if I will be here for 1 more week without him or 3 more weeks with out him. Very very upsetting. Should I feel bad praying to go into labour?? Im not sure, but Im doing it anyway.

Cute story for the day.

I was laying awake in bed at 4 am (because thats the cool thing to do) and I heard Kailey wake up down the hall. All I heard her say was her alphabet .... thats it .... and then nothing more. Either she woke up with the desire to repeat all her letters, or she was saying it in her sleep, either way it was hilarious at 4am, and I am glad I was awake to hear that.
Since when is she old enough to do that?