Tender Mercies

In the last two days, along with feeling such sorrow and loss- I have felt abundantly blessed. I feel that the Lord is watching over my family and showering us with tender mercies.

I believe I have come to better understand that the Lord’s tender mercies are the very personal and individualized blessings, strength, protection, assurances, guidance, loving-kindnesses, consolation, support, and spiritual gifts which we receive from and because of and through the Lord Jesus Christ. Truly, the Lord suits “his mercies according to the conditions of the children of men” (D&C 46:15). -Elder David A. Bednar

Here are some of the little things I am grateful for in the last couple days:

1. My boys have been playing remarkably well together. Brian has been more patient and kind to Clayton lately.

They loved bouncing together in the bounce house (I got it at a garage sale, of course).
2. My snuggle-bug, Clayton. His dozens of hugs go a long way to cheering me up!
3. My beautiful Dory-girl!

4. My wonderful friends who have graciously volunteered to baby-sit the boys, give me a ride to the airport, and expressed their condolences and love.

So many small things that have brought comfort and peace to me. I'm so grateful.

My Grandmother

My MorMor (my grandma) passed away today. She was the most wonderful grandma ever.
Here are my grandparents with my brother Phil. Sixty-one years of marriage. The two most kind, generous, loving people you could imagine. My grandpa has done an outstanding job of taking care of my MorMor for the last several years, and especially the last two months. It has been a difficult time, but I'm grateful that she went peacefully and painlessly.

I'm going to California this weekend to see my relatives; I've had my ticket for a few weeks. I didn't know if I'd be able to see my grandma or not. But I'm grateful for the chance to see my grandpa and all the rest of my family. They will be able to meet Dory too.

It's hard to explain what an awesome person my grandma was. She is a perfect example of thoughtfulness and compassion. She has sent me (and all of her grandkids, nieces/nephews, siblings, etc etc) cards and phone calls for every possible occasion. She was not just a kindly-yet-distant sort of grandma- she was hilarious and adorable and fun. She would play games with us, watch us swim or play or dance, cheer us on. She was not just my grandma, she was my friend. We both loved Gone With the Wind, and would watch the movie and discuss the book for hours. It was a joy spending time with her.

I remember one evening while I was visiting my grandparents when Brian was just a couple months old. My grandparents showed me their high school yearbooks and talked with me for hours about the fashions and friends they had in the 40's. It was so great. My grandma told me about when she worked at the D.I. (a church-operated thrift store) but got fired for giggling too much.

One more memory that is precious to me: one night when Andrew was gone to OTS for a few months, and I was pregnant with Clayton. It was a Saturday night I think, and I was lonely. I had spent all day with Brian and craved some conversation with an adult. I tried calling my mom, my mother-in-law, my aunt and my friend from college. No one was home. So I gave up and just sat in a rocking chair holding Brian and feeling lonely. About ten minutes later the phone rang, and it was my MorMor. She just said that she'd been thinking of me, and wanted to call and say hi. We talked for awhile, and it felt so good to know that she loved me and had thought of me. My grandma just had a special way of being there when she was needed.

I will miss her so much. By the way, her name is Doris, and Dory is named after her. When we were thinking of baby names, we leaned towards a name starting with 'D', just to keep up our little tradition (Andrew, Brian, Clayton . . .). So I thumbed through baby-name books in the D section. I read "Doris" and thought it would be great, but it would sound a little old-fashioned. Then right below it I saw "Dory"- and that was it. I knew that if we had a girl, that was her name, period. I wish that Dory had been able to get to know her great-grandma. I will make sure my children know what a great woman she was.

It has been a rough day. I can't be with my mom and everyone else today, and Andrew has been gone all day on a flight. So all I have at this moment is my blog friends to read my rambling thoughts. Thank you for being there for me.

Wednesday Weigh-In

I've lost 1.8 lbs this week! I wanted to share a link that I love; it's from "Dotti's Weight Loss Zone". Dotti is a gal who is a Weight Watchers expert, and she created a website with tons of information. THIS link has an extensive list of restaurants/fast food with all the nutritional info and point values (you have to scroll down past several ad's, but it's there). My favorite fast food is Chick-Fil-A's grilled chicken sandwich combo- you can get it with a fruit cup and diet lemonade for only 6.5 points, and it is delicious.

Her site also has amazing stories of people losing lots of weight, recipes, etc. One of her sayings is "One day at a time, no guilt, and move on".

Total lost so far: 14.4 lbs

See you next week!

Lazy Sunday

Clayton was feeling a little under the weather yesterday, so he, Brian, and I stayed home while Lisa took Dory to church - in the hopes of actually getting to sit through an entire meeting, uninterrupted. So with us boys at home, I decided to try a few shots with the camera.

Devil or angel? You decide:


Deep thoughts:


Nothing gets this kid down - not illness, not toy-stealing brothers, not paparazzi parents. Nothing:

It probably helped that Clayton slept in until noon.

What's cookin'?

This is a picture of one of the Pottery Barn Kids kitchens. They may just be the cutest kids' toy on the planet. The different sets run anywhere from $300-$750. I never could have hoped to buy one. Wellllllll, today I found this set (stove and hutch) at a garage sale! For $20. WOO HOO!I'm going to get some fabric and make a little curtain for the hutch. Brian already loves it. I also found a little kid-size kitchen table today- it's from the 50's and soooo cute! I love it.

Dory-Pooh

Here is Dory in her Winnie-the-Pooh outfit from MorMor! We sure miss our families; good thing we can at least show them how cute the lil' gal is. And I had to get a close-up of the shoes. I got them at a garage sale and I love them.

Wednesday Weigh-In

I've lost 2.6 lb this week! Heck yeah!

Best of all, I'm now finally back into non-maternity clothes. There are still several pairs of jeans I'm waiting to fit into, but it'll happen. I'll let you know when I get into my 'skinny jeans'.

"Your goals, minus your doubts, equal your reality." - Ralph Marston

Total so far: 12.6 lbs

Splishin' & Splashin'

We got the pool up and inflated today (by we I mean Andrew. It's so convenient being married to a mechanical genius). We had Merritt over to play, and those three boys had SO much fun. Especially after we put our little orange slide inside the pool. Clayton especially loved it. And I believe that this picture (below) is my new all-time favorite picture of him.


I think this is such a cute picture of Merritt! Very GQ, don't you think?Oh, and yes- I realize that we just blogged about water fun . . . there is a very good reason for us blogging about it again 2 days later. It's because we are BORING. And people, the summer has only just begun . . .

Heavy Rain But . . . No Clouds?

After Lisa's morning yard saleing netted us a nice inflatable wading pool for the boys - and not a day too late for this hot, cloudless, Texas day - it fell upon me to inflate it. No problem I thought, I'll just go grab my air compressor from the garage - "shouldn't take more that 5 minutes," thought I. As I hauled it out back to get the job done, to my dismay I found the plug to be way too big for my tire/beach ball nozzle. This was not going to work. I guess I could have spent 20 minutes huffing and puffing to fill it up, but from previous experience with a certain queen-sized air mattress, I tabled that idea and went back into the garage to search for a solution.

Now we men are supposed to be inventive. As Clint Eastwood's character was fond of saying in one of his manly war flicks, "You adapt. You overcome. You improvise." I had to solve this pool dilemma; I couldn't let Gunny Highway down. So as I was rooting around the garage the solution presented itself . . . a garden sprinkler.

Enjoy the photographic fruits of my victory:

I've got sunshiiiine . . . on a cloudy day . . .

I just can't get enough of this girl. Leah, thank you for the hairbow!!And just so you don't think that Dory gets ALL the camera time, here are some adorable pictures of Clayton; climbing in Dory's car seat, eating mud, yadda yadda. Notice the stained shirt, missing pants and grimy feet. Love ya, buddy!

Wednesday Weigh-In

I've lost 1.8 this week! Some days it is tough to stay with the program, but it's going well. I'm trying to incorporate more exercise. I think one of my biggest challenges is how impatient I am. I hate that weight loss takes so long. But . . . the weeks are going to pass whether I'm gaining or losing weight, so I might as well be losing.

Total so far: 10.0 lb

Happy Easter

Here are some pictures of the kids this morning. Dory's cute dress, sweater and socks are from Grandma & Grandpa Monks. I found the shoes at a garage sale, and my mom made the hairbow! So quite the team effort, but well worth it.

And oh yes, my photogenic boys. Can't forget about them!

As you can see, Dory is obviously excited about the photo shoot. Happy Easter everyone!

Dream of Space, Part 9 - I Put a Spell on You

So, it just might be possible that I played a role in our aforementioned homestead curse. Yes, I may have brought this upon my family because of a star party I attended this weekend. Well OK, more specifically, because I might have kinda missed the Priesthood Session of General Conference on Saturday night to go out and stargaze.

Now in my defense, I will say that it's the first time in my life I've missed Priesthood - and I felt pretty bad about it. It didn't help at all that the session was described by my Dad as "amazing". Great. Cut from the same even-keeled cloth as Dad, I reserve words like "amazing" and "inspiring" for events that most people would describe as indescribable. When Lisa asked how my first flight in the B-1 went, my response was a dead-panned 'fine'. The birth of my first daughter in February rated a 'pretty good'.

And conference was "amazing". Great.

This party is something I committed to months ago before I knew dates and details. The club I belonged to setup up a public outreach gathering to share the skies with people who know little about astronomy (i.e. old people who want to share their life stories, and little boys with greasy, lens-smearing fingers). But it was fun. It was part of the International Year of Astronomy, meant to commemorate the 400th anniversary of man first gazing through a telescope.


So, I'll be reading the Priesthood session next month. unless someone has a bootleg youtube copy they can send me.

Last weekend was actually the third weekend in a row I'd abandoned Lisa with the boys to go out "star partying". Earlier this month was a similar "outreach" event at a big Girl Scout camp (who are not as annoying or greasy).


And the previous weekend was the annual Messier Marathon. Yeah, "marathon". So let me explain. About 200 years ago a French comet-hunter named Charles Messier compiled a catalog of 110 distracting fuzzy objects that weren't comets. Through modern amateur optics, we can see those 110 "distracting objects" as the brightest and most spectacular galaxies, nebula, and star clusters in our night sky; Frequent targets for amateur astronomers. Because of the rotation and orbit of the Earth there are only one or two nights a year when we can observe all 110 objects between dusk and dawn. So that weekend, a few of us hardcore skywatchers set up our scopes and binoculars and hunkered down for the night to log all 110. I got all but the first two that I couldn't pull out of the glaring twilight. I also got a few nice pics in the process:

Star trails to the south:

The bright Hercules star cluster:


And the even bigger and brighter Omega Centauri cluster:

The aptly-named Sombrero Galaxy:


And a pre-dawn portrait of those of us who lasted the whole night:


So that was my pitiful excuse. Hopefully the curse passes. It's such a shame though that Lisa bore the brunt of it - I think she still knows I love her. In spite of my own special way of expressing emotion and excitement, she speaks my language and knows "meh" actually means "yes my loving wife, who brings me daily joy".

Wednesday Weigh-In

I've lost 8.2 lbs! I love the first weigh-in; since I gain a lot of water weight during pregnancy, I also lose a bunch during the first week or two of dieting. It's nice to start off with a bang. If anyone is curious, I'm doing the Weight Watchers Points system. I like it because I can eat whatever I choose, I just have to budget it in. I'm not going to meetings or anything. It's too expensive and inconvenient- plus I have this blog to provide the 'group help'!

Here is my favorite weight-loss inspirational quote:
"Losing weight is hard. Being fat is hard. Maintaining weight loss is hard. You just have to pick your hard".

See you next week!

Um, did one of us disturb an ancient Indian burial ground?

Apparently the Monks' house was cursed this weekend. Don't believe me? Consider the evidence:

*Clayton poured water on our laptop and killed it.

*The laptop was briefly resurrected, and while Andrew was out buying an external hard drive to back everything up, it died again. For good. So EV-ER-Y-THING on our computer is lost. Pretty much every picture we have of the kids, documents, etc.

*Our backyard is flooded from the morons watering the vacant land behind our house. Although, Clayton does not consider this bad news at all, as you will see.

*Our phone was down Sunday night, and it took AT&T two tries and three days to fix it.

*Our microwave- which was only 2 years old- died. We had to buy a new one.

*When AT&T Repair Guy #1 was trying to fix our line, he found a gas leak.

And while I was getting ready to blog this, here is what Brian did with a bowl of cream I'd whipped and set in the fridge. It's all over the inside of the fridge too.

Here is Clayton enjoying our flooded yard. At this point, I figured a muddy kid is the least of our worries.

Okay. Let's end on a good note. Here are some rather cute pictures of the boys.

So, anyone know how to break a curse? If not, I'd settle for any digital pictures you have of my family. We've gleaned what we can from the blog and Facebook . . . if you have others, send 'em my way.

Smile and the world smiles with you

Here is our 200th post, brought to you from our new computer! Although our laptop was temporarily resurrected, it died again yesterday. Oh well. In happier news, here is Dory working on some smiles!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Today is Andrew's 29th Birthday! We love you so much.

Above is Andrew's 5th birthday. Coincidentally, he also spent this birthday flying! He flew his first ride in the B-1! And it was extra-great because it was a flyby on base, and we got to go see it. It was amazing- right over our heads, loud, fast, and super-cool.

Now, you are probably thinking that I should have taken a video of such a momentous occasion- his first flight, on his birthday, etc. Well, I tried. But I turned the camera OFF when I thought I turned it on, so I completely blew it. However I do have some absolutely riveting footage of the pavement, our tailgate and the sound of me explaining to Brian why he can't run around the parking lot. Yeesh.

In other Monks' household news, Clayton is going to live to his third birthday. Allow me to explain. Yesterday he dumped a glass of water on our laptop computer, almost killing it. We could not get it to work at all, and we were horrified. Almost every picture we have of the kids is saved on this computer! So Andrew took it apart and dried it off and put it back together. And it worked! I was pretty impressed. Believe me, seeing water DRIPPING from your hard drive does not inspire hope. But thanks to Andrew, the crisis was averted. Now to do some major backup work . . . lesson learned.

Wednesday Weigh-In

It's time for me to start losing the baby weight! And I've decided that the support of my friends and family (and the public humiliation) will only help me. I'm not going to pretend I'm not embarrassed to post this, but that's the very reason I'm doing it. Motivation!

So every Wednesday I'm going to update my progress and tell you how many pounds I've lost. I will not be telling you my current weight (I don't need THAT much public humiliation, hopefully) and I don't have a goal weight in mind- I just want to start feeling better and be healthier.

Here we go! This is my before picture, taken this morning.Here's to better health, more energy, and a thinner me! See you next week.