Go Easy on Yourself

Today in the mail I received something from my mother-in-law. In it was an article called "Go Easy on Yourself, a New Wave of Research Urges" by Tara Parker-Pope (if you would like to read this article click here). My sweet mother-in-law is seriously the best. She and I are A LOT alike in several different aspects and she seems to understand me in a way that most other people don't. We had a great conversation on the phone the other day and this article was a result of that conversation. She knows of some of the struggles that I am going through on a deeper level than just about everyone else because she has been through almost the exact same thing. After reading this article I thought other people should read it. I think EVERYONE does this to themselves, mostly women. We often don't think we are doing enough or doing things well enough - or we could be doing more. Seriously think about how you "talk" to yourself... is it the same as how you would speak to a friend or family member? Probably not - I know for me anyway, it doesn't matter what I do, because I probably could have done it better, or I could have done something more. I feel like this as a wife, mother, daughter, friend, neighbor, ward member - I am always beating myself up about not being good enough - but to who? Who am I not good enough to? Start paying attention to how you talk to yourself during the day - are you going easy on yourself?

One of those days...

Have you ever had a day where everything goes wrong?

Well I had one of those the other day! Just about everything that could go wrong did - we had no food in our fridge since I didn't have time to go to the grocery store, and so for dinner I thought, ok I am just going to get some pizza from Papa Murphy's. Well if you have ever been there you know they have the best bread-sticks ever, so we always get those too. Well I was cooking the bread-sticks and walked past the oven and saw smoke coming out of it...WHAT THE CRAP? So I opened the oven and smoke billows out! I quickly take the bread-sticks out and am trying to figure out what is going on... and the fire alarm starts going off! Apparently the grease from the cheese of the bread-sticks was falling over the edge onto the bottom of our oven and thats what was causing the smoke and everything. I have cooked these a hundred times and this has never happened so I don't know what the deal was that day. So I get everything cleaned up and put the pizza in the oven while Dan set up a table and chairs outside (since our house was filled with smoke) to eat our pizza in the backyard. It was a really nice outside so it actually worked out great. The pizza timer goes off - we are ready to eat - I go to get it out and as I'm taking it out (still not sure how on EARTH this happened) the pizza falls on the floor!!! Not only was there no way to save it - I mean it was a muddled mess all over the floor. I did the obvious thing... dropped to the floor and just laughed my  head off. Dan comes in obviously wondering what on earth could be so funny - sees me on the floor with the mess of a pizza - starts laughing - and we got to work on cleaning everything up. Good thing we had the smoke tasting bread-sticks to eat - it ended up being a really yummy dinner and a great way to end my oh so messed up day!

The Hat

Jaxon's new thing is wearing Dan's Yankee hat ALL THE TIME! We went to the store the other day and he wouldn't let me take it off when we got in the car, even though it meant him having to hold his head in a weird position to keep the hat from coming off since he wont wear it with the brim in the front. Then I tried to take it off before we went in the store - that didn't happen either. Here are a couple of pictures with him and his hat.

*** Keep in mind that he is putting it on and positioning it by himself - when I turn it forward, he gets mad and turns it back LOL

Ignore the mess behind him - my house looks like until he goes to bed haha.

Love his little face!!!

Don't you LOVE his super tight PJ's! 

Rockin out before bed!

It doesn't get much better than this

My sister took this picture on her phone when we were in Utah for Christmas and she just sent it to me.
All I can say is... I love this little boy - and it doesn't get any better!

Jen - Trevor's wedding - my mom

 So for those of you who do not know - my brother Trevor married the love of his life Jordyn on February 18th. I was lucky enough to be able to go to Utah with Jaxon and be there for the wedding. Dan had a lot going on with school so he wasn't able to come and I didn't want to fly alone, so my friend Jen flew to Lubbock on a Wednesday - we hung out and had a great time, and started the 14 1/2 hour drive back to Utah on Sunday - a week before the wedding. Jaxon actually did really well on the car ride there. Then that entire week I got to spend with my family, helping get things ready for the wedding. I was so glad I got to be a part of it. Friday they got married and it was a perfect day! Everything was beautiful and I am so happy for them! Then Sunday my mom and I started the long drive home. We had a lot of interesting experiences on the way - the car did a couple of different and weird things at different times on our drive, but every time something was happening we would say a prayer and everything always fixed itself. It amazes me how much the Lord is in our everyday lives and cares about us and makes sure we are ok! Well we got back to Lubbock late Sunday night and my mom and I hung out until she flew home on Wednesday. It was so much fun having her here. We went shopping and found cute things to help make my house feel more like a home - and Jaxon LOVED having his grandma here. I couldn't have made the drive by myself so I am so thankful for the willingness of Jen and my mom to drive over 14 hours with me! I know its rough! Here are just a few pictures of Trevor and Jordyn's wedding! They are such a cute couple!

I made these pages for people to sign that came to the wedding. I don't really scrapbook so I was really excited about how they turned out. I thought they turned out pretty good.

 This is Simon - Trevor's best man/friend - and my other "brother" Him and his cute wife helped with Jaxon a lot during the reception so I could talk to people - Jaxon had a blast with him.

Wow - I'm bad at keeping up

Well lately I haven't been very good at blogging - and I have been even worse at taking pictures. On of my cute cousins started project 365, which is her taking at least 1 picture every day to try and show something that happened that day. I started yesterday so here is yesterday and today's pictures.

 Jaxon has been obsessed with pickles lately - he will get into the fridge and pull out the pickle jar and then he just  keeps eating them all day. If I didn't know better I would say he was pregnant LOL.

You will notice from the above picture that we cut Jaxon's hair. He is doing this thing now where if he has something in his hands he will rub it in his hair - probably because he see's Dan do that with the gel - but its not so fun for me when I have just given him a bath and he does it with peanut butter and jelly from his sandwich LOL - so I was hoping that with less hair - it will be cleaner longer - we will see how that goes.

Some quick things about Jaxon that I want to jot down for memories sake
-he is OBSESSED with toy story (thank heavens there are 3 so I can switch it up once in a while) and when he wants to watch it he just says BUZZ lol.
-while my mom was here in Lubbock with me (more on this later) we went to walmart and saw toy story P.J.'s so we knew we had to get them. Jaxon held them and.... wait for it... KISSED them over and over for 5 mins straight LOL - not gonna lie it was so funny I was crying! Unfortunately when we went to actually buy them, they had been recalled so we couldn't get them - but next time I find toy story jammies - I will be getting them.
-Jaxon says "I don't know" a lot now. I ask him where something is - he will say I don't know and puts his hands in that I don't know position haha. Its really cute!
-He LOVES taking baths with bubble bath so there are lots of bubbles and he will sit in the tub and say pop every time he pops one!
-he doesn't like to have food on his hands while he is eating so if he gets some on them he will shake them and say sick until it comes off. The best part of that is that when he says sick it sounds like... well a swear word (sh*t) haha.
-if something is hot (which everything that is warm is) he will say hot, put it right on his lips and then he blows on it.
-for a long time now we have only been letting him have his binky when he goes to bed, so when he wakes up in the morning he has to say bye bye to the binki and he will throw them in his bed - yell bye and run out of his room.
-whenever we leave somewhere he loves to say bye and wave to everyone! He will blow kisses to family and friends that we tell him to!
-He loves to give high fives and bones to people.
-he says please and more in sign language, but when he says please he rubs his arm pits and says "sees" instead of his belly/chest while saying please. (even though he knows how to say the P sound)
-when ever anything falls/drops he says - "oh no" and puts his hands over his mouth
-he LOVES doing summer-salts and he learned how to do them all by himself.
-he loves to wrestle and if you are sitting on the ground, you are free game. It isn't afraid of anyone, he wrestles with big kids and adults and just goes at them 100% - he doesn't hold anything back and enjoys every second of it.
-now when he gets hurt - he wants me to kiss it better, and even if I can tell its not hurting anymore, he will sometimes fake cry/whine so I will kiss it again (which I totally don't mind doing)
-anytime he hears or sees a dog - he stops what he's doing and yells WOOF!
-he loves the t-rex dino at the science center here in Lubbock that he used to be so afraid of. Now he loves to wave to him and roar with him when he roars.

I'm sure there are a million other things I'm forgetting but oh well. I'm trying to be better at documenting things so hopefully I will actually do it.