Should I make that post?

I am simply giving up. Simply giving up on the pile on the table and the emails in the inbox that make my head spin. I don't know where to start. I didn't know five hours ago, I don't know now. So...

Should I do it? Should I make that post? Ya know, the one that maybe no one else wants to read but the one that all of a sudden you feel like you should write?

I know this doesn't sound like me, cause most of you don't know me as a shy person lacking something to say, but I am actually a pretty private person. I don't share a lot of things about my feelings, the deep ones. I have this thing about feeling inadequate to express, so I don't do it. I don't even want to start to explain because I feel like I won't even get near what I am actually trying to explain. So I give up. I keep it inside. Kind of like how I feel about my mission, and how I feel about my husband.

The men in my life...

My daddy is up in the mountains right now. He is trying to find his Elk. He's all by himself. Or at least he was for part of it. He's never been a man that is afraid of things, not often anyway. I love my daddy. My daddy is WISE. My daddy is the one that came to save me from the bad guys in my dreams. My daddy is my superhero. My daddy knows a lot. He tells me wise things. He supports me. And he loves my son.

My brother Curt is my idol. I want to be more like Curt. So much more! Curt is happy. Curt is grateful. Curt is founded in righteousness and doesn't cop out when he's up against what he really wants and what God wants. Curt is fun and loving and makes everyone feel like they are the most important person in the world. I love my brother Curt. I can't imagine my life without my best friend Curt.

I am eternally grateful to my father-in-law. You see, without Bret my deepest wish and desire of eternity would not be coming true. Deepest. I won't bare all here. Tim would not be who he is without his father Bret. Bret, along with Joyce, raised my husband. He taught more with example than words. Way more. Bret showed Tim how to love and honor women. My words are dammed up. I feel The world-contrived English language is handicapping. He showed Tim the way to be a Super Man. We gave Trent his name, Reed.

Should I try to write about Trent? Nope. Can't do it.

Tim. Now here's where it gets scary. Should I try to put my feelings into words? I guess I will. Just for a minute.

Tim. A gem. Ya know, the gem you don't always notice, the one you can't always see. Willing to sit in the background while my selfish natural man takes up all the spotlight. The one that absolutely does not fight back even when my stupid self is trying to pick a fight. The man that calls me on the carpet when I am in the wrong, that doesn't let me get away with stupid stuff. A man without guile. A man stripped of selfishness. A man more in control of his natural man than any other person I have ever met. An amazing man. I can't believe he is mine. Since I'm failing in my quest to express, I won't go on.

Ya know, here is this man, this man that loved me from the beginning. I was a confused girl that had just come out of a weird and confusing situation. I was emotionally and mentally out of whack and that was the time Tim came in to my life. Up, down, up, down, around. And Tim waited for me. He made me dinner. He helped me move. He bought me DVDs to save my photos. And I stabilized. And in the end he won...I won. And I think the way he handled my rough situation shows a lot about who he is. He wouldn't get walked on, but he let me stabilize.

It feels so good to be loved, and Tim has always loved me so much. I don't get it! I just don't. I don't know how he survived me. I am thankful for my husband. And this is the part where I stop. I won't tell you about how I think I am absolutely the luckiest woman of everything, everywhere.

Now Tim is going to come home from work and think, "How can you say all those things and go on being so bad at showing them?" Dang I hate my weaknesses. I want to be so much better.

Tim wants to be Timothy. He won't ever really force it, but he does, he wants to be Timothy, not Tim. And since I call him honey and stuff, I don't really get the chance to give him his wish. Maybe ya'll can.

I see people writing their blog posts to their spouses and family members, honoring them and why they love them so much. So this is my attempt to do it a little for the men in my life, even though this isn't really like me. Men's Day in September.

Lest you dare not look on, please do. Pictured below are me and the men in my life, my boys.

Trent Time...Solo

By the way, putting this kid's clothes on should be an Olympic Sport. If I happen to hold his sleeve open at the same time his body twists and he jets his elbow straight and turns at the right angle and it goes in, TEN POINTS FOR ME! Wow.

He's now crawling and he's trying to walk. I don't think Trent has ever thought he was a baby. :)

It's High Time

Okay. It's high time I post these family photos.

My amazing friend Melissa, gone pro, came down from Boise and took them for us. Melissa and I have done some serious cublicle time together, but on the other end of that...Paris! I admire Melissa so much. Her carefree, loving personality and wonderful sense of humor. She is one of those people that makes everyone feel like they are made of gold. I love Melissa. And look at this amazing talent!!

So glad you tapped into your hidden photo talent genes my friend! Can't thank you enough for capturing this precious time in our lives of welcoming Trent into our family. You rock.

Check her out. www.melissaniu.com

Here's a sampler of the family portion of our photo shoot. Surely there will be more to come. Surely.

Welcome Home Welcome Mat!!!

Well now, I just don't think you are gonna believe this.

A story for you:

This story begins three days after moving into our new condo when we lovingly placing our welcome mat at our new home entrance. Now this welcome mat, though it may look simple, actually has special value to Tim and I. You see, we couldn't find a welcome mat that we liked for the longest time after we got married. We searched at every store we passed through. One day, there it was. Classy, sophisticated, bushy for good shoe-scraping, and of course the inviting word thereon: Welcome. We loved our welcome mat. Or should we say, we didn't know how much we loved it until it was gone.

One day, three days after moving in, we walked up to our new door and what? Our welcome mat was gone! Where in the world could it be? I felt so violated! I searched the condo wondering if we had been robbed. Alas, nothing was gone but our dear welcome mat.

This needs its own paragraph:

Who takes a welcome mat? Especially one that says "Welcome"?!?

Violated. Unwelcomed.

That did not mean "You are welcome to take me, oh ye who covets this welcome mat."

This violated, and former welcomer, started to do some investigation. The clues unfold.

#1. Tim had noticed that the kiddie corner condo had had the same welcome mat. The kiddie corner people had moved out earlier that day. Had they seen our welcome mat and thought they dropped it at our door and put it in their moving truck? Perhaps so. We try to give people the benefit of the doubt.

We go with that until clue #2 unfolds.

#2. I knock on our "across the breezeway" neighbors door and ask her if she has any ideas. Did she see our welcome mat?

"Oh yeah. That apartment (the kiddie corner apartment) had both mats at their doorstep stacked one on top of the other. The same doormats, two of them. My husband and I were wondering what they needed two doormats for...Yeah. They took your doormat."

...

ROBBED! Full on robbed. By a former university football player that I know you all know, no less. And his beautiful wife that is actually my little brother's best friend's ex-girlfriend. Ha! I guess they wanted to welcome people into their new home from every point of access, with matching welcome mats, at whatever the cost.

I take action. I asked the new women moving in to the kiddie corner apartment if she could ask the people that just moved out if they ended up with an extra doormat. This she did. EIGHT WEEKS AGO.

Eight weeks pass, and let me tell you, I told Tim, at least on a weekly basis, how much I missed our welcome mat. How my front door aura just wasn't the same without the word "Welcome" anywhere in sight. How I had seen some at Pier 1 that were cute...but they weren't our dear welcome mat we searched out for so long as newlyweds. We had put up our industrial doormat there, and Tim kept telling me we didn't "need" another mat. That maybe I "wanted" one, but we didn't "need" one. (yeah, yeah, yeah, I know already! But I need!)

I had given up hope. Yes I had. And this "non-needer" was trying to get used to the commercial doormat we had substituted that makes our condo look like it is a real estate office.

THEN TODAY!!! Oh today. What a beautiful day. Here she comes. The beautiful ex-BYU football player's wife. The ex-girlfriend of my little brother's former best friend, who married my little's brother's ex-girlfriend of three years, which two people were the only non-immediate family at my brother's setting apart of his mission who ended up marrying each other. Oh the triangle/pentagon/quadrangle of love.

I see her carrying up my blessed welcome mat to her old condo's door! "That's mine!," I silently scream.

Had guilt driven her here to return our proverbial and overmissed material possession?

At just the right moment our pathways intertwined.

I watch her place the mat down and walk away.

I go to my mat. It had been battered and abused, but yes, still there it was. And contemplate on whether I steal it back! Or explain the situation so that I too do not become an alleged thief.

I called to her hesitantly. "Ma'am. Did you just place that mat there?"

I'll spare you the details. But I decided to explain. It was awkward. We laughed it off.

...

I can't believe it. I truly cannot believe it.

Welcome home welcome mat! We have a place for you, right here.

Realizations

Aren't you thankful for those moments, those moments of realizations in your life when you can't keep the tears from coming, and you wonder if you are the only one that tears up at 1:21 pm just because you are looking at your offspring and realizing. Today I spent some valuable hours trying to perfect my cookie baking skills. Thanks to my cousin Emily I am a lot closer than I was yesterday. My iPod was on random. Emily ran to tennis practice and I was on my own with my little one. I did way too many dishes, by hand, and the songs on random kept coming. I danced my heart out for my son to Step Up, sang my soul through to a Kenny Loggins lullaby, cried my way through a song I used to listen to on my mission, and pondered throughout a conference talk. My son, my one man audience, thought I was the best dancer, singer, and mother ever. And then the realization. I have a kitchen. Period. Then a kitchen full of so many gadgets it takes three songs to clean them all. A home. Flour and sugar. MUSIC. And my family. I can dance at will, and it is wonderful. I am truly blessed. And that is something to tear up about.

Just Photos

Our dear friends, Brock and Lindsay, welcoming baby Dane.

Trent with Aunt Miranda.

Sitting up.

My motherly instincts are coming out. I have started to bake!

ONE TALL BOY.
We are constantly receiving comments that Trent is one tall boy. For this week's example:
The boy behind Trent is 14 months. Trent is six.

Life As We Know It

Well apparently, life as we know it has changed. This is what "they" say.

Trent has started scooting.

Why is it that my boy has managed to grow up so much faster than a baby should? He came into this world at the speed of light and wants to grow up that way too? The boy's had four haircuts. He was holding his head up from day one, standing on his feet after a month, is now sitting up, and apparently crawling is just a blink away. Babyproof time! Or childproof time I should say, since maybe he's not a baby anymore? The sand in my baby's hourglass has started to fall, too quickly.

I am thankful for photos to treasure the "small" times I can already barely remember.