the big one-five

when we come down from our christmas high and the calender turns to january, it means that it is time to celebrate spencer's birthday. so last saturday morning we did just that! i love it when a birthday falls on the weekend, it's so much fun to wake up to celebrating and have a relaxed yummy breakfast and presents.

spencer's birthday wish was to play xbox with friends for the entire day. seriously? normally, the amount of gaming time is pretty restricted, so the idea of a gaming marathon makes the teenage boys at my house all giddy with excitement.  it also makes all my "you're a bad parent" alarms go haywire. however, when it's your birthday wish, rich and i tend to loosen the "meanest parents EVER" title a bit, and so a gaming marathon birthday party it was.  on the up side,  it ended up being the easiest birthday party i've ever thrown. i had to order pizza, and then, wait... that's it. in fact, it must have been a little too easy because i found time to clean and organize a couple of unruly closets and forgot to take any pictures of the rare gaming event. lame. 

sunday evening we did more celebrating with friends and grandparents, don't forget the spaghetti and strawberry cupcakes - spencer's choice every year. we all have our favorite things i guess,  he knows what he likes and that's cool.

i know i must say this with every kid at every age, but i just cannot believe that my "other" baby is fifteen. spencer was the baby for a long time before ethan came along, and that's still sort of how i feel about him. baby is kind of funny label for him i guess since he's taller and stronger than everyone else in the family now, well, as tall as rich, but i'm sure that's (for rich), sadly temporary.

now for the sappy part. i am just so lucky to be his mom. spencer has been such a blessing in my life because i can relate so personally to his challenges.  i have learned so much about myself while parenting him, and i have been required to push myself to grow and learn so that i could be a better teacher and advocate for him. i am still learning of course, it's all a process, but i am grateful for the opportunity. i just adore the nerdy tall black nike socks off this boy.

happy happy birthday spencer.

jumping back in

it seems kind of strange to be posting.
but good to be getting it down at the same time.
there are a few good reasons that i fell off of the blogging map...

at the beginning of september, i set a few personal goals to achieve more balance in my life.

the first was to make my down time less idle. for me, this meant not even turning the computer on in the mornings which was hard, and as a result, i didn't blog, but i got more crossed off the daily tasks list, spent more time being creative without photoshop, and it gave me more time for my second goal....

i read the book of mormon. (if you don't know what this is, you can click on the title and read all about it) lately, scripture study has felt a little overwhelming, and when that happens i tend to avoid it. so, i gave myself permission to just read it. you know, like a book. imagine that! no highlighter, no study guide, no pen, no journal, no notes in the margins, just reading. it was marvelous, i highly recommend it, and really, i don't know why i didn't think of it before. i finished yesterday and was excited this morning to start it all over again.  i could, and probably will at some point, do a whole post on why i love this book so much. but today, just know that i do, that i know it's true, and that we are richly blessed when we are obedient to God's commandments.

third, rich and i resolved to spend more time together, especially after we put the kids to bed. we have teenagers with a big work load and full schedules themselves, so this usually means that the one, precious, "golden hour" cannot be spent with the computer on. it's been totally and completely worth it. its been the best couple of months of our whole marriage, truly.

lastly, i've been kind of sick. at the beginning of september, i started having a difficult time swallowing and digesting food and it just sort of seemed to get harder from there. a lot of doctor visits, tests, and blood work later, haven't given us a ton of answers to these problems and that was a little discouraging. in general i just haven't felt great and as a result my energy level has been a little low. even though my symptoms seem to be stinking around, i'm definitely feeling better by managing my diet very carefully.

so that's it. its been a very full several months since fell off the blogging map, and i don't even pretend to think that i can catch up documenting it all, so i think i'll just jump in with today.  lately i have been feeling really strongly that blogging is something that i need to make time for once again, and since i'm trying to be a better listener to that voice, this is me, jumping back in.

wish me luck...